Business Blogs: Trends, tips, and real-life anecdotes from industry experts.

If you’ve been following StartupNation for years, not just months or weeks, you know that we were one of the pioneers that popularized the “Elevator Pitch”, your chance-of-a-lifetime opportunity to pitch your dream investor in a blazing 60 seconds. It was always one of the most popular segments in our nationally syndicated radio show and [...]

I read an article this morning about the importance of integrating email into lead generation programs. As a long time lead gen specialist, it seems obvious to me to use email as an integral driver in direct marketing and not just for customer newsletters. In fact, since email marketing is among the least expensive media [...]

Independent inventor Irene Bray wanted her dogs to strut their stuff in style AND comfort … and she enlisted the help of Invention Home to assist her in finding marketing/licensing opportunities for her invention, “Dog Hats”.
In keeping with some of the recent dog-related inventions I’ve been highlighting, you might get a kick out of this one.
If [...]

On Tuesday, we talked to Cathy Kerns, KernsAble Enterprises, Inc. President and creator of Style Stick Fashion Accessories for Gently Assisted Walking. Here is the remainder of that interview and more great tips from Cathy:�
What marketing activities worked best for you to increase sales?
We discovered very early on that our customers were going to be our best [...]

Without a doubt, one of the hottest things in social media networking these days is Twitter.  The social media and micro-blogging platform was listed as the fastest growing social media application by Neilson’s Media Service in October 2008 as its popularity grew by 343% last year.�
The site also received tremendous press last year with [...]

You should continually strive to improve your small business website in order to maximize the value of the site to your business. But where to start??
To that end, here are three relatively simple steps that you can take to make improvements to your website today:
1. Review Your Analytics
Have you checked your web analytics recently? Analytics [...]

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Cathy Kerns found that there was a need for fashionable walking canes and started KernsAble Enterprises, Inc.
Today, Cathy is a successful business owner who turned a negative into a positive. Read her inspiring interview below:
Tell us how you got the idea to start your business and why you felt [...]

What’s Average?
One of the most common questions in email marketing is  “what’s an average response?”, or what’s a “good” open, click, bounce rate? Everyone wants to compare their results to the average and validate if their campaign results are “good”.  There are benchmark metrics for all email stats, but they vary widely by industry, list [...]

Thought I’d share some internal information about StartupNation and its performance as derived from Google Analytics over the year gone by. I figured, you, our coveted members and new visitors, deserve complete transparency. So here goes, in the form of a 2008 vs. 2007 comparison:
2008 vs. 2007, and % change
    1) Number of Visits: 2,292,027 vs. 1,663,118, [...]

What is an NDA? An NDA is a Non-Disclosure Agreement, also known as a Confidentiality Agreement. It is a contract between individuals and/or companies who are considering doing business together and need to share information about each other’s businesses in order to work together. The NDA creates a protective shield of confidentiality [...]