Latest posts from Danny Brown

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How the 2014 BDC Young Entrepreneur Award is Helping Canadian Business

This is a sponsored post on behalf of the Business Development Bank of Canada – however, opinions are my own.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right. – Henry Ford.

They say that if you’re aiming to run your own business, you need to have at least the equivalent of a year’s salary to keep you tided over while you’re building your customer or client base.

For me, even this may not be enough.

It’s tough to be build something sustainable and successful while not bringing in regular income. It’s one of the reasons I’d make for a lousy entrepreneur (at least, nowadays). I’m married with two young kids and a mortgage – I don’t have the luxury of being able to settle for infrequent income while chasing a dream to be my own boss.

If I were younger, and it was just me and my wife, then sure, I could live with the uncertainty factor of wondering where the next meal would come from as I built on my goals.

And perhaps because of that, entrepreneurship is suited to a younger mindset (though there are great examples of new business ventures in later life). Which makes the 2014 Young Entrepreneur Award from the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) such an excellent venture.

The Pivotal Moments of Business Growth

For any new business, longevity is tough. There are so many hurdles to overcome – finding customers, competing with competitors, positioning of your product/service, etc – that lasting any length of time is a victory.

Especially when looking at “failure” statistics around Canadian business:

30% of all new businesses will be closed within 5 years;
64% of businesses with revenue of less than $30,000 closed within 5 years;
Almost one-third of businesses with less than 5 employees will close within 5 years.

Given that the term “small business” in Canada means 1-99 employees, and the failure rate equates to a lot of people out of work.

Much of the failure can be attributed to mismanagement. This can be weak management in general, poor management of finances, or weaknesses when it comes to marketing the business. In fact, almost half of Canadian business failures is due to internal weakness.

A lot of this weakness happens at key pivotal moments in a fledgling business’s journey:

Expansion;
New products;
Manpower and resources;
External advertising channels.

If the wrong decision is made at these key moments, it can mean the difference between a business continuing and one that closes its doors for the final time.

The BDC Young Entrepreneur Award is looking to help a business at that key juncture.

100,000 Reasons to Enter the 2014 BDC Young Entrepreneur Award

Where many new businesses struggle to get things right is in deciding how they should grow as the customer base grows.

Do they add staff?
Do they take advantage with more marketing?
Do they ramp up production?
Do they expand territories?
Do they open more storefronts?

As these decisions come to the fore, actions more often than not can skew the results. Expanding without research can doom a business to failure, while more marketing dollars without extra production capacity can see overselling and under-providing.

This is where the BDC and the Young Entrepreneur Award helps.

Offering a grand prize of $100,000, with a second prize of $25,000 in consulting, the BDC aims to help one lucky business make the right decision, and focus on one key area for sustained growth.

This focus will allow the business to concentrate on where it needs to be now to get where it wants to go tomorrow, as opposed to spreading itself too thin and not even being here tomorrow.

In the words of Michel Bergeron, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Public Affairs at BDC, this type of focused approach and partnership with the winner is key.

The contest aims to showcase the vibrancy of Canada?s young entrepreneur community and its importance to the prosperity of our economy. It is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to raise the profile of their business and tap into networks that will ultimately help them keep ahead of competitors and take their business to the next level.

When looking at the percentages of failed businesses due to poor management decisions, this kind of partnership – not to mention a major cash injection of $100,000 – sees the BDC Young Entrepreneur Award as an amazing opportunity for young Canadian entrepreneurs across the country.

People like Joel Pinel, who won the 2013 award.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Joel’s company, WOW Factor Media, is a print media design and marketing company with offices across Canada. His entry was based around his “Equipment Edge” project, that would see WOW manufacturing directional and custom-built signage for new high-rise buildings.

Winning the award allowed Joel to bring that signage manufacturing in-house, and expand operations to offer more services for his clients, existing and potential.

Since winning the 2013 award, WOW has increased its customer base, expanded into new markets, and is ready to grow the workforce, allowing WOW to give back to the community that supported it.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/hPTnLoIbovM[/youtube]

Now It’s Your Turn

While this is a sponsored post on behalf of BDC, I would have happily written about this project anyway. The fact that an organization like the BDC is helping young Canadians succeed is one of the reasons I love this adopted country I call home.

The fact they’re doing it properly, and as a trusted partner for the winner, is simply the icing on the cake. So how do you sign up to be in with a chance of winning the 2014 BDC Young Entrepreneur Award?

Be between 18-35 years old;
Be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident;
Responsible for the day-to-day management of the business for at least two years;
Hold at least 20% of the capital stock.

The business itself needs to be registered in Canada, have its head office in Canada, been in operation for at least two years, and be in good financial health.

Non-profits can also enter, as long as their commercial activities are carried out in Canada, and Government support and donations do not exceed 40% of their income.

Entering itself is easy (as long as you meet the criteria above). Simply submit a video pitch along with the application form (which can be found on the BDC Young Entrepreneur Award website) and away you go – hopefully the first step to the next stage in your business’s growth and success.

Even if you don’t win the main prize(s), you’ll connect with great mentors and peers along the way, and receive invaluable advice from those that have traveled the same path you’re on now.

Either way, for young entrepreneurs in Canada, it’s one heck of an opportunity. Good luck!

You can learn more about the BDC on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of the Business Development Bank of Canada – however, opinions are my own.

Can We Say Goodbye to These Social Media Buzzwords in 2014?

When it comes to social media, 2013 was a pretty watershed year for brands and platforms alike.

Oreo won widespread praise for the way it took advantage of the power outage at the Super Bowl with its?“You can still dunk in the dark” tweet; Google’s nascent Google+ platform?broke the 500 million user barrier; and social channels continued to play key roles in political uprisings, as?witnessed in Brazil this past summer.

However, with all the positive steps of a maturing social media comes an inevitable byproduct: overhyped buzzwords. From prefixing (and suffixing) the word?marketing, to feel-good soundbites that had little real-business benefits behind them, 2013 will be remembered as the year that social media became home to some of the most annoying and overhyped buzzwords online.

Here are the top five as crowdsourced from across the Web.

1. ‘Lessons Learned From’ Blog Posts

Whenever there’s a crisis on social media channels?or an offline crisis that’s amplified via social media?you can pretty much guarantee that within 24 hours there will be a batch of blog posts published with titles such as, “What Crisis X Can Teach Us About Business” or “Lessons Learned from the Brand X Social Media Crisis.”

While some of these posts may offer value, many are simply jumping on the bandwagon to drive traffic to their blogs, without actually offering any deep or insightful lessons. This has led to a strong feeling of apathy and sarcasm directed toward the authors of these posts.

“Everything is not a lesson, especially natural disasters, terrorist threats, and anything that happens to a bunch of people at once. Stop exploiting tragedy for profit.”?Tinu Abayomi-Paul, chief visibility officer at?Leveraged Promotion

2. Everything Is Dead!

You’ve probably heard the conversations online: SEO is dead. Print is dead. Advertising is dead. PR is dead. Email is dead. And so on. It’s almost impossible to browse your Twitter feed or Google+ stream and not come across a blog post or update with one of these statements being made.

And yet, here we are. SEO is still here; print still has its audience; advertising continues to profit; PR is still a core part of any brand’s strategy; and email continues to lead the way as the preferred communication channel for business. Despite the naysayers?or perhaps, in spite of them?it would appear the demise they write of hasn’t quite happened.

“We need to stop implying that a certain practice is dead. Nothing really dies, it either adapts or recycles. The adoption curve goes from innovators to laggards and all need something at different stages.” ?Ann Marie van den Hurk, principal at?Mind the Gap PR

3. Go Viral

Perhaps it’s no surprise that brands want a viral hit, whether that’s a YouTube video that gets millions of views, or a piece of content that gets shared across every channel. After all, if you can come up with the next Old Spice Guy sensation, everyone can retire.

The problem is, the allure of viral?mass uptake by your target audience and those not yet aware of your brand?is the very thing that’s made viral overhyped, and hurts your chances for success.

“The allure of going viral is ultimately a distraction for brands because it focuses on marketing to the crowd. When you chase an elusive crowd you have no connection to in the hope of going viral, you’re setting your business up for failure. Viral campaigns tend to be one-offs with limited shelf life, and quickly fizzle out.” ?Allyson Kapin, founding partner at?RAD Campaign

4. Social Business

One of the most overhyped and overused social media buzzwords in 2013 was the term “social business.” A complete industry seemed to appear overnight, with agencies and consultants offering multiple definitions?a business that places equal value on employees as it does stakeholders; the culture, connections and participation of a brand; and being part of a “collaborative economy.”

However, this merely diluted the definition of?what it means to be a true social business?one that is created and designed to address a societal problem, and is a non-dividend company where profits are reinvested in the business or used to start another one with the aim of increasing social impact. That’s a far cry from the corporate definition being touted in 2013.

“A hijacked phrase, and nobody can agree on the definition of the new version.” ?Doug Haslam, senior account director at Scratch Marketing

5. Brand Storytelling

People like stories. From early cavemen sitting around a fire to the likes of Hans Christian Andersen, stories have the power to captivate audiences and keep them lost in that moment. It’s into this arena that brands have started to promote their own history and goals through the medium of storytelling. At least that’s their attempted goal.

The problem is, storytelling needs that emotional impact to truly connect. And many brands who are now telling their stories miss that key tenet, and instead of captivating an audience, drive it away through clearly forced and weak attempts to connect.

“Storytelling is a true art, an essence that’s hard to capture. You can’t expect others to see it or feel it unless you deliver it properly. When we try to market through storytelling, I don’t think many know what that really means?storytelling is not interchangeable with copywriting.” ??Julie Pippert, founder and director at?Artful Media Group

Saturation Before Maturation?

When polling for this article, there were many other popular phrases that people consider overhyped: Web 3.0, content marketing, influence marketing?pretty much anything marketing that wasn’t simply marketing?big data and more.

While social media matures as a business solution as well as a societal one, it continues to go through growing pains. Overcoming overhyped buzzwords is clearly going to be one of those pains.

How about you – what buzzwords got your gander in 2013? Share them below!

A version of this post originally appeared on OPENForum.

How You Can Use Native Advertising to Complement Content Marketing

For many business owners, online advertising has traditionally meant banner ads and Pay Per Click campaigns with the likes of Google and Yahoo. While the online space was in its infancy for marketers, this approach was successful.

However, in recent years, consumers have become more discerning about how they’re marketed to, and this has resulted in banner ads and PPC campaigns taking a revenue hit. According to?a recent article at Smart Insights, global clickthrough rates continue to show unimpressive interaction, with “banner blindness” a key factor in consumers ignoring straight-up advertising.

Instead, social ads and content marketing have started to drive bigger engagement, with?consumers increasingly acting upon ads within the likes of Twitter and Facebook, as well as sponsored blog posts from bloggers promoting a certain brand or product.

Yet even these methods of advertising are beginning to be less effective, with reports showing consumers tiring of constant blatant promotion by bloggers, and?confusion around disclosure of a paid/sponsored promotion?via these channels.

With consumers looking for a better brand experience that doesn’t necessitate a barrage of ads, one area that’s set to break out in 2014 is that of native advertising.

What Is Native Advertising?

The problem with advertising is it can often seem out of place to the recipient. Mass advertising in particular?print ads or TV ads?is sent out based on attachment to a popular TV show or the reach of a newspaper or magazine. This leads to less relevance for the audience.

Online ads allowed marketers to become more focused, and begin to isolate target audiences based on age, demographic, browsing habits and more. However, this could still lead to irrelevant ads, with ads showing up based on a Web user’s browsing history, versus the ad matching the content being viewed.

This is where native advertising comes into play.

By matching advertorial to content, the hope is the increased relevance to the viewer results in the desired action for that ad. For example, let’s say you’re a fan of Ford vehicles. You visit a site like Jalopnik and, while reading about the new Ford F-150, you see an accompanying ad for tonneau covers, or tire pressure monitoring hardware.

By providing complementary ads to an audience on a relevant site, and providing context for the purchase, the chances of the ad being more successful are higher than an ad for toothpaste, for example.

It’s this contextual relevance that’s making native advertising so attractive to marketers, advertisers and business owners of all sizes. So how can your business benefit?

Native Ads As Content Marketing

As consumer behaviour shifts from making a purchase after seeing a brand ad to researching and validating through reading blogs and trusted online media sources, businesses need to think about how they can be a part of that shift.

A particularly effective approach is to partner with bloggers in your industry or niche, and provide relevant advertising opportunities for them where they can also benefit. There are multiple benefits to this method:

Both the blogger and his or her audience are relevant to your products or services, offering a warmer lead opportunity.

The blogger is respected by their audience and, as such, offers a higher potential for actions taken (downloads, demos, inquiries, etc.).

By partnering with a blogger, your business can bypass ineffective ad partners and provide fresh, relevant content direct to the source (blogger and audience).

To help you identify which bloggers are the most relevant to your brand, as opposed to those with a larger audience but less relevance, you can use tools like?InkyBee?and?InNetwork?to help you filter out the best matches.

These companies also offer excellent support in ensuring the bloggers who are the best fit for you are the ones identified by their technology.

Once you identify the bloggers, take the time to review their blogs and how they traditionally partner with third-parties like your brand. Some may display relevant ads next to an editorial, while some may offer sponsored content.

See which works best for the blogger you’re looking to connect with and then reach out with your proposal, identifying your budget and goals to ensure the blogger is the right fit from a financial standpoint.

Native Ads And Mobile

As desktop browsing continues to make way for mobile browsing as the preferred source of content consumption, so marketers and businesses need to adapt their tactics to meet this diversifying audience.

Indeed,?ComScore predicts that mobile browsing will overtake desktop browsing?in the next year.

This opens up a host of different opportunities for businesses to connect with their customers on their chosen mobile platform.

Facebook reports that mobile ads have contributed more than $1.5 billion in revenue, with much of that coming from targeted, native ads in a Facebook user’s stream.

Social networks Instagram and Tumblr are enjoying profitable brand partnerships through?in-line native ads?that are part of the user experience.

For businesses already using social media as part of their marketing outreach, the mobile-readiness of these networks make it easy to create in-line ads that will go directly to a targeted customer base (Facebook Ads offer the option to be placed in both desktop and mobile feeds).

Additionally, there are dedicated solutions to help you create a mobile native ad. One such company is?Namo Media, which provides a seamless way for you to include in-line ads on mobile apps. Nano Media’s templates adapt to your brand’s design, keeping ads unobtrusive and a natural part of your customer’s experience.

If your business doesn’t have the scale to build apps, solutions like?Conduit Mobile?enable you to create inexpensive apps with multiple features and promotional solutions.

Whether you’re looking to partner with bloggers and media for native ads through content marketing, or offering a dedicated mobile experience either through existing social networks or a dedicated app, it’s clear that native advertising is growing in popularity and effectiveness for marketers and businesses of all sizes.

With?budgets increasingly being allocated to native advertising, now might be a good time to start considering how you can use it for your business, before your competitors leave you behind.

image: Maureen Flynn-Burhoe