No..this isn’t a political post, I’m just using the the successfull Obama campaing as a mini-case study for how you can use the web to improve your business. 

One of the thing that is frequently talked about in the press, was the Obama campaign’s use of the web to interact with  his supporters– To Summarize, he had the designer of the Facebook social network design his campaign website. His site allowed him to accomplish the following goals

1. Present his Platform (Product Information)
2. Collect Money (E-Commerce Sales)
3. Inform Supporters of Events (Promotions/Advertising)
4. Communicate with Supporters (Advertising)
5. Obtain Feedback from Supporters (Market Research/Customer Service)

If you are running a small business you hould want your web presence to accoplish as many of these goals as is possible.

Ok, you say “now that you have told me what I already know, how am I going to do it ?”

Below is a list of tools and hints and resources to help you:

1. Pick the right domain name. This link is to a Video blog about how to pick a good domain name by Bob Parsons at GoDaddy.com. You can also register you domain name at goDaddy.com‡. I have my Domains registered at with GoDaddy, as well as my web hosting and some of my email accounts.

2. Create a website with interactive features. Once you have a domain– Google has a great free tool called Google Sites, that allows you to create a website withn many features  (like announcements, Calendars) and other information and, it does not require any programming. Google Forms lets you collect data and information from site visitors and store them in a google Spreadsheet.

4. Ceate a blog. Blogs are a great way to ceate  personal interaction with you customers. I recommend you get blogging platform created for businesses. If you have some technical savvy you can use use the ‘quick install apps from goDaddy’s Hosting Connecton‡ (This blog is setup that way with a blogging program called WordPress), or you can have your blog hosted by WordPress.com for a reasonable prices.

5. Send an email newsletter. Newsletters are a great way to communicate with your customers. Make sure that you have valuable and informative content as well as promotional  information. A tool that comes well recommented for this purpose is  Aweber‡. They lots of tools to help you leverage your email list.

6. Setup a web store. You can use goDaddy’s Quick Shopping Cart‡ (I have used it, and found it to be pretty good) or one of the many other ecommece sites out there. Don’t forget to setup a payments, PayPal and Google Checkout are good options for a basic store.

Not more than a day after I posted my review of Jott, they sent me an email stating that they are out of Beta. They now offer three tiers of service– Jott Basic for Free, Jott for $3.95/month and Jott Pro for $12.95/month. Unfortunately they took away emailing, and Google calendar from the basic (free) service, but you still get 15 second notes with the free plan.  The Jott ($3.95/month) plan  is pretty much the same as the free Beta service I reviewed in my earlier post. I would have hoped they left some emailing on the free plan since I think that was Jott’s best selling point, but beggars can’t be choosers. If you need to do  emailing on the run, from a non-email enabled cell phone, the $3.95 a month plan may be worth it to you. I am still planning to use the notes feature myself since I forget stuff frequently, and its faster than writing.

Microsoft Office is known as the premier Office Suite application, it has hundreds of really cool features–that you will never use. So, why pay for Mercedes when all you need is Chevy? Below are three applications that may meet your needs, and best of all, they are all free.

OpenOffice. Open Office is a full featured office suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation application, database, and drawing application. I terms of features its nearly on par with Microsoft’s offerings. Its about 80% compatible with Microsoft Office so you can read and create documents that can be shared. Open office is pretty easy to learn if you are familiar with Office 2003. I use Open Office and I have yet to come across a situation where I couldn’t read document from a Microsoft app or save a compatible one.

I live and die by my email. I check it constantly when I’m on the computer, and I can check it on demand on my Blackberry. Frequently I find that I need be reminded of repeating tasks, and other special activities. While most calendaring tools offer pop up windows to remind you of a task, I tend to close them a to get them out of the way, and then forget all about them. On the other hand a reminder email is there until I delete it, nagging me until I get the task done.

One tool, that I use,  that offers automated reminder emails is backpack www.backpackit.con from 37Signals. You can setup one-time and repeating reminders. However its real purpose is to be a basic todo list. If you currently use a legal pad (I used to) to keep you todo’s, this tool is an easy transition to a web based list. You can list your todo’s, and categorize them in sections. You can also add note elements to the page. The todo list doesn’t have the advanced features of some lists like due dates, categories, filters, and sorting, but  if you don’t use them there’s no point in having them. (Any time I get a more advanced system I spend a lot of time setting it and then ignore most of the features–a big waste of time.)

The free version includes the todo list, notes , and reminders. There are various paid version as well that include the addition of file storage, and message boards, and a calendar.  All the versions support multiple users so you can share lists/and notes for group projects. If you dig into this application, you will see that it has a lot of cool features beyond the limited description I have given here, and and a quick look may be well worth your time.

Available at: http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?assetID=XT102474421033&Origin=HH102504361033&CTT=5&CTT=5
Cost: Free
Runs on: Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows XP 

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008 is starter version of Microsoft’s new small business accounting program. The purpose of this version of the application is to get you used to the product, upgrade to Microsoft Office Accounting Professional, promote other complementary Microsoft products like Microsoft Office, and advertise Microsoft products and services.

What it Does

•      Track Expenses and revenue
•      Track multiple bank accounts
•      Comes with charts of accounts for many common businesses that can be modified
•      Prints plain paper quotes, invoices, and statements
•      Prints checks on check stock (that you can buy from Microsoft)
•      Manages Payroll through ADP (for a fee)
•      Accepts Credit Card Payment through Chase or PayPal (for a fee)
•      Uploads Payment Data from PayPal (Manually from a file)
•      Has some easy to customize basic reports like a Profit and Loss, and Customer Sales
•      Downloads transactions from bank accounts
•      Uploads customer and vendor and transaction data from Excel

What it doesn’t do

• Print Po’s and Track Inventory (Available on the Pro version)
• Email Invoices if you don’t have Microsoft Word

My Review

The software comes up all Microsoft. The home page is a Microsoft ‘resource’ link (Changeable in the Pro version) When you star the program you will get prompted to upgrade to the pro version, and there are ads on most of the home pages. Like Quickbooks Simple Start, it has graphical depictions of business processes to make navigating easier, but they are grouped into different categories like customers, vendors, etc. The software also follows a strict accounting process so you can’t delete transactions, only void them. If you have Microsoft Word, you can customize invoices and create create letters. If you have Microsoft Outlook you can integrate with the Outlook address book. I was a bit disappointed that you couldn’t email invoices without a copy of Microsoft Word installed. It uses a lot of computer horsepower, so it was a bit slow, but acceptable, with my 1GB, 1.2Mhz Celeron System.

Recommendation

If you are running Microsoft Office this is a good product and it has a similar look-and-feel.  You will have to spend more time with it, then Quicken Simple Start, to figure out how it works, but if want to download transactions from the bank this may be the choice for you. If your want to work fast, make sure you have a newer more powerful computer system.

Read my review of  QuickBooks Simple Start 2008 for Windows

Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word,  and Microsoft Outlook  Accounting Express are trademarks of Microsoft, Inc.
QuickBooks Simple Start is a trademark of Intuit, Inc.

Available at: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/free-accounting-software.jhtml
Cost: Free
Runs on: Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows XP 

QuickBooks Simple Start is a limited functionality starter version of the every popular QuickBooks program from Intuit (the makers of Quicken Software). The purpose of this version of the application is to get you used to the product and convince you to upgrade to the more functional and much more expensive ( $199.00) QuickBooks Pro.  

What it Does

•      Track Expenses and revenue
•      Track multiple bank accounts
•      Comes with a basic chart of accounts that can be modified and expanded
•      Prints plain paper Estimates, Invoices,and Sales Receipts
•      Prints checks on check stock (that you can buy from QuickBooks)
•      Connects to the QuickBooks Payroll Service
•      Connects to the QuickBooks Merchant Service (Credit Card Processing)
•      Has some easy to customize basic reports like a Profit and Loss, and Cusomer Sales
•      Uploads customer and vendor data from Excel

What it doesn’t do

•      Convert transactions from other financial software (Available on the Pro version)
•      Print PO’s and Track Inventory (Available on the Pro version)
•      Download transactions from the bank and credit card (Available on the Pro version)

My Review

It has a nice graphical interface that follows the business process, and makes it easy to find basic daily functions without looking through menus. Most of the basic setup is self explanatory,but they do have quite a bit of help available, too. I had two issues with the software, first it was very difficult to find the checkbook reconciliation function (it was hidden under ‘For your Accountant’ on the Company menu). It also took me quite a bit of time to figure out how to setup a second bank account (you do it from the chart of accounts setup).

Recommendation

If your current financial software doesn’t handle  business processes or you don’t have any software, and you run a service based business QuickBooks Simple Start should do the job. Creating invoices, estimates, and sales receipts can make your business look very professional. You won’t be able to create PO’s and you will have to enter you own bank transitions, but the price certainly is right, and it will successfully manage your business finances.

Next Free Accounting Software to be reviewed:  Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2008

QuickBooks, QuickBooks Simple Start, QuickBooks Pro and Quicken are trademarks of Intuit, Inc.
Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office Accounting Express are trademarks of Microsoft, Inc.

I use Google mail (gmail) as my primary mail client, as well as for my personal emails. While I see many advantages to using gmail, its certainly not a slam dunk as a choice.

The Good: Its free (but most other email clients are too), It accessible from anywhere with an internet connection (like on vacation — is that good ??) Since your email is not stored locally on your PC, if your PC fails you still have your email. There is over 6 gigabytes  of email storage which is a lot. It integrates with Google maps so you can get a map to an address directly from an email. There are various clients for smart phones/PDA’s that allow you to check your  email separately from your main email and access your gmail address book (for email addresses only)-I use the Blackberry version. You can pull up to 5 other email accounts into your gmail client so you can consolidate your email

The Bad: Since it’s online, you need an internet connection to read your saved emails.  You don’t have the ability to create folders and sub-folders (It uses labels to organize, but its only one level).  Reading through emails tends to be a bit slower than with a PC based email client.

The Ugly:  Google reads all of your emails and generates all advertising based on  their content. Since the free service is free, Google can change the terms of service at will. Google will update the web client from time to time and you will need to get used to a new client.

Full Disclosure: I receive advertising revenue from Google, Inc, but I am not being paid or encouraged to promote this product.

Google is a trademark of Google, Inc. Blackberry is a trademark of Research In Motion, Inc.