Tell us about your business.

FutureDash is a technology startup focused on an energy management solution called EnergyBuddy, www.energy-buddy.com. It gives homeowners and small businesses awareness of their energy usage, helping them to save energy, money and the environment.

Although there are a few other home-energy, monitoring products available, we feel that EnergyBuddy is the lowest cost, most complete, most flexible solution, including all necessary hardware, software, mobile apps, and optional SmartPlugs for individual device and appliance monitoring and control.

We are self-funded up to this point, and decided to try crowdfunding for funding the working capital and other expenses for our first volume production order, by means of customer pre-orders.

Why did you decide to use IndieGoGo over other, crowd-sourced fundraising sites?

Our first choice was actually Kickstarter, which is much better known than Indiegogo, especially for technology projects, and already has a large built-in audience of technology enthusiasts and early adopters. Unfortunately, Kickstarter declined our project for unknown reasons so IndieGoGo was the obvious choice and appears to be number two amongst crowdfunding sites at this time.

What were the benefits of using IndieGoGo?

It provides an easy way to organize and advertise our pre-ordering campaign, a great way to raise working capital for our first production order and engage real, early-adopter customers.

Plus, the questions and feedback we have received from some of the customers that are pre-ordering are invaluable for helping us improve our product collateral, such as documentation, website, FAQ etc. (before we deploy to a broader audience), prioritize new product features on our product roadmap, and discover new ideas for product features and ways that customers would like to use our product.

Indiegogo also has no approval process, and it’s easy to get answers to questions by email from a real person!

What were the risks involved?

IndieGoGo gives you the choice of Fixed or Flexible funding. Flexible allows you to keep all the funds raised minus fees. With Fixed, you have to reach your goal in order to get the funds raised (all or nothing). Since we need to meet a minimum order quantity with our manufacturing supplier, and hence need a minimum amount of funding, we chose to use Fixed. Hence, the major risk was that we do not meet the goal.

With IndieGoGo, since there is no large built-in audience of technology enthusiasts, there is a big risk of not being able to drive enough traffic to the campaign in order to convert enough visitors to contribute funds. Marketing of the campaign is largely left entirely to us, and as a small startup with limited resources internally and for any major PR campaign, this has been the most difficult aspect.

What tips do you have for other entrepreneurs looking to use crowdfunding?

Our campaign ends on August 19^th, so we are still waiting for the final results. But I would recommend that others using crowdfunding should be very prepared:

• Study successful projects similar to yours to guide you in putting together your project.

• Have a great video for promoting the project.
  
• Crunch your spreadsheets to know as accurately as possible how much money you will need, and include all the costs you will need to cover to deliver on your project, from soup to nuts.
  
• Make sure you have a solid, operational plan for executing the project and delivering to your funders in the timeframe you promise.

• Be prepared to put in significant effort on marketing and PR to advertise your campaign, especially, if you need to raise a significant amount and can’t rely just on your own network for all the funding.

Thanks for your insights on crowdfunding, Kevin!

If you’d like more information on increasing awareness for your business, please write to me below or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

But there is no need to worry. If you follow a few simple rules that I’ve mentioned previously, you’ll be o.k., and your target market will continue to find you online.

The key is to provide value to your customers. And to do this, ask yourself a few questions:

• Is your copy just about your SEO keywords?

You need to include your SEO keywords throughout your copy… just don’t overdue it. If you use too many keywords, you’ll actually have a negative reaction with site visitors and the search engines.

• Is your copy easy to read?

When you read your copy aloud, how does it sound? Do you find that you are repeating your keywords, stumbling over sentences and having a difficult time staying engaged?

If your copy is difficult to read, re-write it and focus on your key messaging rather than your top, SEO keywords.

• Are you talking to your customers?

When you’re writing, think about your target-market first. You want to provide them with engaging information and talk about all of the benefits they will receive from using your products and services. If you write for the search engines, you may lose site of what your customers want.

• Do you have a call-to-action?

When site visitors finish reading the copy on your site, do they know what they are supposed to do next? Don’t leave them hanging! Guide them through your copy and send them to another link on your site to fill out an order form, get more information or take another action.

Make it easy for site visitors to purchase your products and services and get to know your organization. Then, track what they click on to see what’s working and change what’s not.

No need to where a tuxedo.

When it comes to Google’s Penguin update, there is no need to “dress up” your Website with extra, SEO keywords just to impress the search engines. Instead, focus on providing valuable and engaging information to your target audience. Add the appropriate SEO keywords without overdoing it and guide your customers through your site.

This way, you can say goodbye to the chill and have your customers, and the search engines, feel warm and fuzzy about your site!

For additional help with your SEO copywriting, please write to me below or visit www.rembrandtwrites.com for more information.

I hear this all the time, and it breaks my heart. As a fellow entrepreneur, I know how important it is to get value out of all the services you purchase.

How about you? Have you paid a large amount to be at the top of the search engines only to lose thousands of dollars with zero results?

Well, I know it’s time-consuming to pursue search engine optimization efforts, and it’s easy just to hand it over to a specialist. But before you do, here are…

The Top 10 Things to Ask When Starting Your SEO Activities

1.    Do I really need an optimization program, or are there other ways to reach my business goals?

2.    Am I just looking at this because everyone else is using it, or am I really missing out on an opportunity to bring in new customers?

3.    Do I know what SEO is and what I really need, or should I do some research?

4.    What is this search engine optimization service promising me, and is it too good to be true?

5.    What exactly are they going to do for me?

6.    What kind of monthly reports are they going to show me about our activities?

7.    What kind of results has this SEO service had in the past?

8.    How much am I paying and exactly what am I paying for?

9.    Am I stuck in a contract if I don’t see results?

10.    Do I feel comfortable working with this team?

Take some time before starting SEO efforts.

I know you are busy and just want to outsource your optimization activities to a specialist and be done with the matter. But before you do, think about this. If you don’t choose the right firm and get ripped off, how much is it going to cost you in money, time and effort?

With this in mind, take some time to speak to various, SEO specialists. Have them explain the SEO process and answer your questions. Do your due diligence. This way, you’ll both know what the expectations are and avoid costly surprises. Plus, you’ll feel confident in your SEO activities and be more likely to get the results you are looking for!

Do you need more information about this? Please write to me here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

1.  The essence of an API is that it makes it easy for two types of programs to talk to each other.

2.  So when you are selecting an email marketing vendor or an accounting vendor, you want to ask them if they have an API.

3.  Next, you should consider if there are already integrations in place.  If there are, then you don’t even need an API.  For example, if your email provider is already integrated with Salesforce.com, a popular CRM application, then you know the two applications can talk to each other automatically without you having to hire a coder to make them talk to each other.

4.  Now, if any application does not have an API, then consider that it will be significantly harder to get it to talk to other applications.  Just keep that in mind then you are in decision-making mode.

As examples, many vendors have free APIs already available to anyone.  For example, Twitter and Facebook have a variety of APIs that allow you to push your content directly to the social media platforms or let your users log in to your website directly with their Facebook or Twitter information.  Many of your key solutions also integrate with your website.  For example, your email marketing platform will communicate with your website and automatically update your mailing list when new users register.  This automated approach saves you time and eliminates error.

Overall, APIs simplify your business processes by making your solutions work together seamlessly.  They are easy to integrate so all you need to do is take advantage of their benefits!

1. You want a system from a trusted company with many satisfied users. Salesforce has the largest market share of users in the CRM space.  There are many satisfied customers and a wealth of user forums for your reference. Salesforce is a trusted company with many satisfied clients.

2.  You want a reliable, hosted CRM solution. You may be realizing that its time to move to the Web. Salesforce is a hosted solution and with it come all of the benefits of utilizing a system in the cloud.  You won’t have to worry about hardware or hardware upgrades, data backup and releasing new software versions to your company.  All you need to access your Salesforce system is Internet access. It is also accessible through mobile apps.

3. You expect your CRM solution to expand and grow over time. With Salesforce you can start out small and even customize the solution for your company early on and then have it grow over time by moving to a more advanced edition (there are 5 Editions).

4. You want the flexibility of wide and varied customizations. Salesforce has multiple custom modules to choose from depending on your business needs. The number of customizations and custom functionality grows daily, and you are sure to find the customizations out there without having to write the code yourself.

5. You want access to consultants to aid you in your implementation. There are many independent Salesforce consultants out there ready to help with analyzing your needs and determining your solution. In addition, they will consult on customization tasks and implementing your solution. These consultants can also aid you in growing your system over time.

If most, or all of these statements ring true for you, consider yourself clued in that you should investigate Salesforce for your CRM needs.  And if these statements are way beyond your needs, then check out many of the simpler, cheaper solutions out here: http://www.comparz.com/reviews/crm.

Perhaps, you spent hours writing the copy yourself?

Or maybe you hired a big, Web company to design a site with all the bells and whistles?

Either way, you are not finished…. unless, you did this one, key step…

Did you have outsiders give you their opinions of the site?

After all, you are probably too close to it… and you’ve spent so much time and effort (and maybe money)
preparing it, that you may miss some important errors.

With this in mind, have some outsiders and potential customers answer these questions (and your Mom or spouse doesn’t count)!:

1.       What is the first thing you look at when you open the site?

2.       What does this business offer?

3.       Does the site provide a solution to your problem?

4.       What are you supposed to do when you visit the site? What is the call-to-action?

5.       If you want to purchase something, do you know what you are supposed to do?

6.       Is it easy to find what you need on the site?

7.       Does the site have too much going on, or is it easy to get the information you need?

8.       What did you like most about the site?

9.       What did you like least about the site?

10.    What suggestions do you have to add value this site?

Once you have a good collection of responses, review them carefully.

Are you surprised at the answers?

You may discover blatant mistakes and key data that you overlooked. And while you may be disappointed, it’s great that you have this information.

Now, you can use this “insider” insight to help you create a site for your customers that works. Once you make the changes and update your site, run this test again.

Did your updates work?

If you receive the responses you are looking for, move forward with a big launch for your site. But if information is still missing and potential customers are not getting the value and data they are looking for, your site still needs changes.

Take the time and effort to review what your customers want on a regular basis. Then, provide the appropriate information they are looking for. After all, you may think you have a great site, but if it doesn’t meet the needs of your target market, you don’t!

Yes, this may be time consuming. But think what will happen if you don’t take action. Your site will not be the best it can be, and sales and site visitors will go to the competition.

Do you need help with a site review and search engine optimization to boost awareness, visitors and sales?Please let me know here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

Addoway: An online marketplace for fashion, collectibles and more that integrates with Facebook’s social graph to recommend merchants your friends have bought from, know personally or have identified as having great deals they want to share with their friends. Addoway rewards shoppers for sharing deals they like on social networks with a virtual currency called “Addo Bucks” that shoppers can cash in for discounts on Addoway purchases, free gift cards from popular retailers like Starbucks and Best Buy or access to limited-entry giveaways of popular products like an Apple iPad or Nintendo Wii. Addoway offers a free online storefront for merchants with easy importing and inventory management that syncs with eBay and its recommendation engine and social sharing platform provides merchants with an easy way to spread their products virally.

BigCommerce: Robust online selling solution that provides merchants with a handful of tools, including drag and drop design, simple distribution to eBay and shopping comparison sites, automated email marketing and mobile commerce features. On the social side, BigCommerce provides subscribers with a way to distribute their inventory into a shop on their Facebook fan page. When shoppers visit the fan page and click an item they like, they are redirected to the merchant’s BigCommerce store off Facebook to complete the purchase.

Payvment: Shopping cart solution tailored to selling on Facebook. Payvment’s system allows merchants to set up a free online shop on Facebook. Payvment’s Facebook stores are searchable, allowing shoppers to search all Payvment stores from within one seller’s fan page at once. Unlike a lot of other Facebook store applications, Payvment allows shoppers to purchase right on Facebook without having to redirect to a third-party website to checkout. Payvment uses PayPal to process payments.

Sellit: An embeddable “mini-shop” that can be distributed across the web and on social networks. Sellit’s social turns stores from online marketplaces into a pretty cool flash mini-shop with a sample of that store’s best products. The mini-shop can be displayed directly on blogs, social networks and more. Sellit offers “Ad Paks” that enable merchants to have their mini-shop distributed to thousands of locations on the web as an advertisement for the store. Sellit has established partnerships with some of the most popular online marketplaces like Etsy and Cafepress.

Wildfire: Promotion builder for social networks. For quite a while Wildfire has been providing small and large businesses with promotional tools for social networks, and recently launched a self-service platform to enable merchants to run their own “Group Buying” promotions from within their Facebook pages. The deals work similar to Groupon. Merchants can set up a special promotion (i.e. $20 for $40 worth of merchandise from their store) and then require that a certain number of people buy the deal in order for everyone to get it (which encourages buyers to share the deal with their friends). Wildfire charges a fee per campaign and per day that it is run.

Have comments on one of these tools or any others? Tell us in the comments below.

(Disclosure: I am a partner and advisor to Addoway)

About the Author: Corey Kossack is a Managing Partner at Game Change Ventures, focusing on partnering and consulting with startups in the areas of social media, consumer Internet and e-commerce. Corey is also an Operating Partner at Game Change Ventures’ first Internet startup, Addoway, a social marketplace that helps you buy and sell with your friends and the people they know. Formerly Corey was one of the world’s largest retailers on eBay, built a $1M company from scratch at age 23, has led multiple startups and received numerous awards for his entrepreneurial achievements.

This one’s called Google Rocketship and it’s the most simple, easy-to-follow, supremely affordable advice we could assemble to ensure that your website is positioned to make it to the top of search results on Google.

What does ranking high on Google searches do for you? If it’s not obvious, it sends you free, pre-qualified traffic to your website and what you sell. With an effective “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) strategy for your website, you stand an infinitely better chance of having lots of traffic - the kind you want - coming to your site. The tricks of the trade for a layman is exactly what Google Rocketship teaches you.

It’s a three-part series, but you can just sharp shoot and download one at a time or just get a single ebook in the series if you want. For members at StartupNation (which is totally free), we’ve discounted the series price to 60% of the list price. A huge discount, in other words.

To motivate you a little more, listen to my recent podcast with Jonathan Smith (”From Zero to $100 million”) who optimized his website with the very principles we recommend in Google Rocketship and reeled in a $100 million dollar purchase order… UNSOLICITED! They found him at the top of Google and gave him a call!

Download Google Rocketship and get your website rockin’ with qualified traffic and new customers! By the end of one weekend, your website could be transformed!

My feelings about this were confirmed and further fueled at a recent networking event in Phoenix where Clate Mask, CEO of Infusionsoft, presented his thoughts on the way to make following up work for you.

Because entrepreneurs like me are among the most passionate people on earth, and we love pitching to prospective customers, we often forget the importance of following up with prospects and even current customers to get more cha-ching! into our cash registers. Add to this the especially difficult market environment, which has would-be customers more reluctant than ever to pull money out of their wallets, and practicing the art of follow up becomes even more important.

The key precept of following up effectively with customers to win more business is understanding that people don’t buy when you’re ready. They buy when they’re ready. So it’s imperative to be “in front of them,” ready to do business, at exactly that moment.

Here are some recommended ways to master the art of follow up:

Build Trust. Do special and thoughtful things after coming in contact with a possible customer. As simple as it sounds, mailing a hand-written note goes a long way these days. Also be sure to be prompt. If you set an expectation, always meet or exceed it. Promptness is a simple way to build confidence and trust.

Use a Variety of Mediums. To each his own, as the saying goes. This holds true in the world of business, particularly how and where people prefer to receive their marketing messages. Is email marketing viable? Perhaps. Others may respond better to direct mail postcards, though. Yet others may be Talk Radio faithfuls. And there’s always the option of just placing a call or meeting up in person.

Be a Thought-Leader. Instead of constantly trying to sell, figure out how to position yourself as a provider of very interesting, valuable information related—or unrelated—to what you offer. This will give you lots of excuses to stay top of mind and be poised to make a sale when the potential purchaser decides they’re ready. This also builds trust, as previously mentioned.

Automate It. Because we’re all busy and often gravitate to the more shoot-from-the-hip evangelism role, you might consider leveraging new technology to automate your follow-up process. Companies like Infusionsoft come to mind. They offer a simple software-based approach that makes the art of follow up into somewhat of a science. The data we’ve looked at from Infustionsoft and other such solutions is very compelling.

Check out this resource from one of our sponsors, Infusionsoft: 9 Secrets to Accelerating Your Success

Are you guilty of these three Web site sins?

1. Visitors can’t get the information they need.

This is pretty obvious, but often overlooked. It can be enticing to use fancy videos, too many keywords, big graphics, pop-up ads, and more to have an interesting site.

But don’t forget that the whole purpose of having an online presence is to provide information to visitors! Let your visitors know that they have arrived at a site that will give them what they need without having to wait for graphic downloads and video fluff.

2. Your site is hard to use.

Can visitors find solutions to their problems quickly and easily? If potential customers need to dig through your site to find information, you’ll lose them to the competition. Make your navigation and content easy to follow.

3. There is no value.

In addition to key benefits, go that extra step and provide your customers with valuable information they weren’t expecting. This may include tips, expert insights, links to pertinent resources, articles, free reports, and more.

After all, customers don’t necessarily want to hear about your extensive, business success and the specific features of your products and services. They want to know what’s in it for them and how they will benefit from what you have to offer.

Keep it Simple.

Web sites are a great way to bring in new customers, and it can be easy to fall into the trap of offering a lot “bells and whistles” on your site. But you don’t need them.

Just provide valuable information for your customers that is easy to find and read. Solve their problems with fantastic customer service, and your sales, and word-of-mouth, will increase dramatically.

Do you need help optimizing your site for the search engines and bringing in new customers? Please send me a note here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com. I’m here to help!