When an entrepreneur builds a new website, starts using social media or creates a blog, the same question always comes up: “What should I talk about?”

Creating good content is a challenge for many entrepreneurs who aren’t used to talking about their business or industry in a public forum. So what is content marketing and how do you do it?

It’s all about creating great content as a highly effective way to find new customers and retain the ones you have. Entertaining email newsletters, insightful blog posts, how-to videos, and other online content help you to build an audience and position yourself as an expert in your field.

People filtering out traditional ads

That’s especially important at a time when consumers are becoming increasingly adept at tuning out advertising messages both in the traditional media and online.

And that brings us back to the question of what you should talk about in your content.

A good place to start is to think about the challenges your customers ask you about every day. What are the questions you hear again and again? How do you respond? This can be the basis for a series of blog posts, how-to videos or a short eBook.

Pull back the curtain on your business

You can also pull back the curtain and talk about what’s happening inside your business. Talk about your wins but also be honest about the issues you’re grappling with and how you’re striving to improve for the benefit of your customers. You can also promote the charities you and your staff are supporting in your community.

You might also want to zoom out and discuss some of the big challenges that your industry is facing. It’s all grist for your content mill.

Let’s face it—we collectively have very short attention spans when it comes to the Internet. So you don’t always have to generate a high-production video or an 800-word article to get the job done. Often, a photo with a caption, a quick hit on your blog, a tweet or Facebook update will do.

Knowing your audience and their habits will help you to create the right content.

Reduce, re-use, recycle

There is a huge amount of content being created on the Internet every day. Some of it relates to your business, so why not tap into it?

Sharing good content from others can be just as powerful as creating your own. So if you find a good LinkedIn post, share it and add it to other relevant social media pages.

You should also go through your archives looking for material you can use. Is there an article you wrote for the local paper or a video you made for a presentation? You can reuse these online.

Make a content calendar

Still having trouble scheduling content creation into your day?

A content calendar can help. Pick regular dates on your calendar when you will be adding certain types of content and stick to it. It will help you and your team determine how often you should be posting content and keep you disciplined in doing the work.

Another frequently asked question is: Should I post on a regular schedule, such as once a week, or should I post as often as possible?

It’s important to be consistent

Well, there is no one answer to that. But certainly being consistent trumps communicating too often, (or more likely) too infrequently. It’s important to make sure you stay active in your channels. Don’t suddenly abandon your audience simply because you get busy or, worse, bored.

No one can create stellar content all the time. You may get out of the blocks fast and create a lot of messages over a short period of time. But remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint and you will get tired.

With a little bit of organization and imagination, you’ll find content marketing is well worth your time and effort.

Follow these tips to gain additional insights about your customers

Are your customers satisfied with your products or services? Do you know what they like about your business? More importantly, do you know how you could improve what you do?

Customer surveys can provide answers to these questions as well as unique insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Unfortunately, a lot of smaller businesses think they can’t do a customer survey properly.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot of online survey tools—inexpensive and sometimes even free—that make customer surveys doable for all businesses, with templates, sample questions and more.

Here are a few tips for business owners who want to get started with customer surveys or for those who want to improve what they are already doing.

1. Set clear objectives

To conduct a successful customer survey, you have to know from the get-go what kind of information you want to collect.

Start by talking to your employees, especially anyone who works directly with customers. They’ll have good insights into the kinds of people you serve, what they need or expect, and if they’ve noted any “early warning signs” of dissatisfaction that you should know about.

For example, if sales are declining in a certain area of your business, your survey could help you find out why that is. You can build your survey to see if something has changed for your customers that makes your product or service less relevant—maybe it’s a feature they no longer need or a new competitor with a better offer.

Consider having a set of core questions you ask every time you conduct a survey, with other questions that can be changed annually or semi-annually depending on specific things you want to find out.

2. Ask about overall satisfaction, then get to the details

Most customer surveys start by asking about overall satisfaction and then drill down to get to the details.

You want to get a spontaneous response off the top. Do they like you or don’t they? If you start with a lot of detailed questions, people lose that spontaneity. And if you leave questions about overall satisfaction to the end, when people just want to be done with the survey, you probably won’t get the rating you deserve.

Spontaneous responses are highly valuable because they tell you what people really think about your company.

3. Keep it short and simple

Write your survey using clear, simple words people will understand. People multitask when completing online or telephone surveys and are easily distracted. You want to make it easy for them to follow along and answer accurately.

It’s also critical to keep your survey short—it should take no longer than seven minutes to complete. Anything beyond seven minutes and you’ll see a lot of people quitting the survey before they finish.

4. Limit the number of open-ended questions

An open-ended question is any question that requires the respondent to fill in a box with free form text. An example might be, “What do you most want from your shopping experience?”

Research shows that people tend to write everything they have to say in response to the first open-ended question in a survey. Asking many open-ended questions could give you many blank fields or repetitive answers.

Open-ended questions often give you the nuggets, the actionable things you want to work on immediately. You may only need one or two to get that gold from customers.

5. Contact different customers each time

Surveys can be done on a regular basis, even once a week, but it is important not to survey any one customer more than once or twice a year. Otherwise, they get tired and possibly annoyed.

Research shows that if you survey the same customers too often, you start to get higher quit rates, as well as clients who ask to be removed from your survey list, and these are lost forever.

Look beyond your customer base

Customer surveys are just one type of market research that specifically targets your existing clientele.

Broader market research is normally done when moving into a new market or launching a new product. In those cases, you are surveying a sample of people from your target market, and only some of them may have done business with you before.

This broader type of customer survey can be expensive and often requires expert help to objectively study what you need to know.

Surveys provide valuable information about consumers and employees. Traditionally, they were conducted by phone, by mail or in person. Recently, however, online surveys have become a fast, cost-effective alternative.

What makes online survey tools useful?

• learn about your current and potential clients, as well as their purchasing habits
• detect and resolve unexpressed problems
• generate contacts
• test ideas for new products and services
• strengthen your reputation as an informed leader by sharing your discoveries
• know people’s opinion about your products and services
• measure employee satisfaction and commitment
• compile employee performance evaluations

How do online survey tools work?

The process is easy. Simply open an online account, use an existing survey template or create your own, decide what type of questions you want to ask and integrate them into the survey. Once complete, you can post it online or email it to multiple recipients. Some providers even allow you to post your survey on social networking sites like Facebook.

Online surveys allow you to automate certain tasks and calculations, thereby facilitating and accelerating response gathering and analysis, while reducing errors and omissions.

Free and inexpensive survey tools

Depending on your objectives, you could use online survey tools on their own or in combination with more traditional methods. Several providers offer free versions of their services (see options below). These versions are more limited than pay versions, for which, however, there are inexpensive plans. For the purposes of this review, we determined that a French version is offered only if the solution’s interface is in French. The majority of the solutions presented support the creation of surveys in French and several other languages, in particular when opting for a pay version.

1. Google Surveys
2. Interceptum
3. Jitsutech
4. LimeSurevy
5. ProProfs Survey Maker
6. QuestionPro
7. QuickTapSurvey
8. SimpleSurvey
9. SurveyGizmo
10. SurevyMonkey

This table lists applications alphabetically and isn’t exhaustive. Hyperlinks to external sites do not constitute an endorsement by Aaron Wealth Management of those websites or any information, opinions, products or services expressed or described on them.

Furthermore, the list is only a starting point and excludes applications that do not let you set up and manage an online survey either in English or in French, or that are neither low cost nor free. When assessing online survey tools for your organization, you will probably consider many other factors.

Use this tool to improve your strategic planning

An analysis of your company’s strengths and weaknesses should be a key component of your strategic planning process. This easy-to-use tool also identifies your company’s opportunities and any threats it faces (hence the term “SWOT”).

This analysis helps you see how you stand out in the marketplace; how you can grow as a business; and where you are vulnerable. The process takes into account both internal and external factors your company must navigate.

Address issues in your planning

Don’t make the mistake of preparing a SWOT analysis and then ignoring it as you develop your strategic plan. Instead, your plan should include concrete steps to harness your company’s strengths in order to target the opportunities identified in your analysis. The plan should also include specific measures to address the weaknesses and threats you face.

Here are more details on the four elements in a SWOT analysis.

1. Strengths

Make a list of your company’s internal strengths. These are any competitive advantage, skill, proficiency, experience, talent or other internal factors that improve your company’s position in the marketplace and can’t be easily copied.

Examples include solid financing, a superior brand, valuable intellectual property, superior technology, modern equipment and/or machinery, a well-trained sales team, low staff turnover, management expertise, operational efficiency, high customer retention, good supplier relationships, etc.

2. Weaknesses

These are the factors that reduce your company’s ability to achieve its objectives. Examples include unreliable suppliers, outdated equipment and/or machinery, insufficient marketing efforts, lack of financing, management weaknesses, gaps in expertise, etc.

Be as honest as you can when identifying these deficiencies. Ignoring weaknesses means you can’t make decisions that will strengthen your company.

3. Opportunities

Opportunities are external factors that allow your business to grow and be more profitable. Examples would include new potential markets; innovations; technological advances; consumer trends; support from governments, the community or business partners; etc.

One way to identify your opportunities is to closely analyze your competitors’ weaknesses.

4. Threats

Threats are external obstacles your business must overcome. Threats may include a declining economy, a consumer shift to other products, technological change, a labour shortage, community opposition, legal or regulatory changes, etc.

It’s often useful to take a close look at your competitors’ strengths to identify external threats to your company. Again, be as honest as possible.

A SWOT analysis doesn’t have to be a long, complex document. Two or three pages of point-form notes are usually sufficient. Free templates for a SWOT analysis are easy to find on the Internet.

You can put your SWOT analysis findings in the table provided below:

It’s worth revisiting your SWOT analysis at least on an annual basis, particularly when you review your strategic plan.

Use these strategies to build up your credit and gain the trust of lenders

Your personal and business credit scores are important factors a banker will consider when you apply for a business loan.

While your business’s financial strength is important, a bank will also look at your personal credit score when deciding whether or not to give you a loan.

If you think your personal credit score could be a problem in obtaining a business loan, don’t despair. There are strategies you can use to improve your credit rating.

1. Pay your bills on time

Consistently paying your bills on time isn’t only a good way to avoid interest and penalties, it’s also the best way to build your credit history, improve your credit score and show your banker you are a reliable business partner.

Your payment history is the most important aspect of your credit score. Even a slight delay in your bill payment could have an impact.

2. Have the right credit mix

The credit rating bureaus look at what types of debt you have when determining your credit score. Having too many credit cards, for example, could negatively affect your score, especially if you are using one card to repay money you’ve borrowed on another.

Similarly, opening multiple credit accounts at the same time will have an impact on your credit score. The same goes for making too many credit inquiries with the credit bureaus.

To avoid negatively affecting your credit rating, make sure you only apply for the credit you need and believe you will be approved for. And don’t apply for multiple credit products at the same time.

3. Keep your credit utilization rate low

The amount of credit you use is considered a predictor of default risk and will have a direct impact on your credit score. In general, the rule on credit usage is that a low utilization is better. Less than 10% is preferred.

In general, the rule on credit usage is that a low utilization is better. Less than 10% is preferred. Always pay back credit cards and unsecured lines of credit as soon as possible.

4. Separate your business credit from your personal credit

Your business credit score is separate from your personal score and includes reports from firms that do business with your company, such as suppliers and financial institutions.

You should separate your business credit from your personal credit as much as possible. Use business loans, your business line of credit and business credit cards to finance investments, purchase supplies and top up working capital.

5. Check your credit report regularly

Credit reports aren’t perfect. Names may be misspelled, other people’s information can end up on your file and debt that you’ve paid can still be listed.

It is good practice to check your credit report regularly. This will ensure the report is up to date, that all the information is correct and that you have not been the victim of fraud.

Your personal credit report can be easily obtained from either of two service providers in Canada—Equifax Canada or TransUnion. Visit their websites to learn how. For your business’s credit bureau report, there are three options—Equifax Canada, TransUnion and Dun & Bradstreet. Because agencies don’t share information, it’s a good idea to review your credit history from all the credit agencies.

6. Avoid debt collection and bankruptcy

Leaving bills unpaid to the point where your debt is referred to collection agencies, your assets are seized or you have to file for bankruptcy will obviously hurt your credit score.

Always avoid getting into a situation where a creditor will go after your assets publicly. Collection and bankruptcy are very negative for your credit score. Avoiding that would be critical for having good creditworthiness.

7. Be patient

It’s difficult to estimate how long it can take before someone’s credit improves significantly. He advises entrepreneurs to start building their credit history early on.

Start with personal and business credit cards and keep utilization low. That will generate the type of history that will be good for both your personal and business credit scores.”

When does it make (cents) to pay early?

Businesses often offer discounts to customers who pay their bills early. Does it make financial sense to take advantage of these discounts?

The answer is usually yes. They can actually be very lucrative for your business and justify using your extra cash or borrowing to take advantage of them.

But they’re not good for all businesses. Whether they are a good idea for your company depends on a few factors, such as your return on investment, financing costs and cash flow.

Here’s how to figure out whether it’s worth taking a discount for early payment—and whether it makes sense for you to offer one to your own customers.

37% annualized return

Let’s say your supplier offers a 2% discount for paying an invoice in 10 days. Otherwise, the full amount is due in 30 days. This common discount is known as 2/10 net 30.

If you pay in 10 days, it means you’re giving up the use of your money for 20 days in exchange for 2% off. A 2% return over 20 days turns out to be pretty impressive. It works out to a 37% return when annualized.

Even a 1%/10 net 30 discount works out to an 18% return when annualized.

Right for your business?

But the discounts aren’t always worth taking. You have to weigh them against your return on investment, cost of financing and cash flow.

If you earn less than 37% from an investment in your business or pay less to service your debt, you’re best off taking a 2%/10 net 30 discount.

But if your investment return is above 37% (which can be the case especially for some start-ups), then taking the discount doesn’t make financial sense. You could earn more putting the money to work in your business.

Similarly, in the unlikely event that your cost of financing is above 37%, taking the discount isn’t a good idea. You’re better off paying down your debt.

Cash flow is another important consideration. If cash on hand is tight, you should take a pass, even if your financing cost or investment return is above 37%.

When to offer a discount

What about offering early-payment discounts to your own customers? The math works in reverse and that means offering them is very costly.

Your own return on investment or financing cost would have to be above 37% for it to make sense to offer a 2%/10 net 30 discount on an invoice. It would have to be above 18% for it to make sense to offer a 1%/10 net 30 discount.

Thus, unless your business is experiencing cash flow problems or the return on investment of the business is very high, it’s probably not a good idea to offer a discount for early payment.

Probably not worth it

If your customer is paying you within 30 days, it most likely doesn’t make sense from a financial point of view. If you decide to stop giving discounts, it might encourage your customers to start paying late.