For the budget conscious entrepreneur, here are some free online tools that are quite powerful and useful. They can be used for email broadcast, communication/marketing, file storage, document creation (word processing, spreadsheet), social media.

1. Prezi – www.prezi.com – an alternative to Powerpoint presentation software. Free. A zooming presentation editing software. Great way to create stunning presentation.

2. Mailchimp – www.mailchimp.com – send up to 3,000 emails a month to as many as 500 subscribers for free. There is a tutorial that explains how to use the software. Choose from several ready made templates.

3. LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com – LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of 2010 , LinkedIn had more than 65 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Registration is free.

4. Dropbox – www.dropbox.com – Dropbox is an easy way to store, sync, and, share files online. Simply drop your file to an internet folder, which can be accessed by other computers. you can invite people to view private files in a public folder accessible by anyone who knows the address. Great for working and transferring files with clients.

5. Open Office – www.openoffice.org – an alternative to Google Docs or Microsoft Office. You can download free software that you can use for word processing and spreadsheet. Easy to install.

6. Hootsuite – www.hootsuite.com – Using one dashboard, the user can measure, monitor and post to social media including Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. Great for marketing communications and customer engagement.

7. Ping.fm – www.ping.fm – Ping.fm is a free social networking and micro-blogging web service that enables users to post to multiple social networks simultaneously. Making an update on Ping.fm pushes the update to a number of different social websites at once. This allows individuals using multiple social networks to update their status only once, without having to update it in all their social media individually. Ping.fm groups services into three categories – status updates, blogs, and micro-blogs – and updates can be sent to each group separately.

8. Google Docs – www.docs-google.com – a free web-based word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and form application software by Google.com. Free storage of up to 1 gB of data. Documents can be shared, opened and edited by multiple users at the same time.

I came across this anonymous example of marketing that has been circulating around by email.  So here it is:

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and say, “I am very rich. Marry me!”
That’s Direct Marketing

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends  and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her & pointing at you says, “He’s very rich. Marry him.”
That’s Advertising.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and get her telephone number.
The next day you call and say,”Hi,I’m very rich. Marry me.”
That’s Telemarketing.

You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl.
She walks up to you and says, “You are very rich, I want to marry you.”
That’s Brand Recognition.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party.
You go up to her and say, “I’m rich. Marry me”
She gives you a nice hard slap on your face.
That’s Customer Feedback.

Over 300,000 do-it-yourself email marketers of all shapes and sizes, from all over the globe, use MailChimp for their email campaigns.

MailChimp automatically takes care of  sign-ups, un-subscribes, and bounce-back cleaning.    It tracks opens, clicks, bounces and forwarded campaigns.   Built in reports makes management of email campaigns.

Pepsi has decided to pull out of Super Bowl ads beginning 2010 , and will instead start a $20 million cause marketing campaign named “Pepsi Refresh Project”.  Under this program, Pepsi will be awarding grant money for community projects proposed and selected by consumers such as helping high school students publish books to develop their writing skills.

Cause marketing or cause-related marketing refers to a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a “for profit” business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. The term is sometimes used more broadly and generally to refer to any type of marketing effort for social and other charitable causes, including in-house marketing efforts by non-profit organizations. Cause marketing differs from corporate giving (philanthropy) as the latter generally involves a specific donation that is tax deductible, while cause marketing is a marketing relationship generally not based on a donation.

One of the first examples of “cause related marketing” occurred t in 1976 when Marriott Corporation partnered with March of Dimes for its fundraising project.   Marriott’s objective was to create publicity and media coverage for the opening of its 200 acre entertainment center in Santa Clara, California.  March of Dimes’ objective was to increase its fundraising.  The result was enormously successful.

Other examples include American Express 1983 sponsorship campaign for the “Statue of Liberty Restoration Project”.  Studies showed an increase of 17% in new users and 28% increase in card usage as a result of this sponsorship.

OnPhilantrophy’ website reports a dramatic rise in recent years for cause related marketing, from 1.11 billion in 2005 to  1.34 billion in 2006, 1.44 billion in 2007 and 1.52 billion in 2008.

According to the Cone Millenial Cause Study in 2006, 89% of Americans aged 13 to 25 will switch from one brand to another brand of a comparable product for a “good cause”.  Most would prefer working for a company that is “socially responsible”.

1.  What is the magic about you?

2.  If I go to three different companies, are they all the same?

3.  Who are you?  What are your values?

We all want to fit in and appeal to everyone.  At the same time, we also want to be totally unique and special, embrace our quirks and our niche.  Note that you can not be both.  You can be the same as everybody else or you can be totally unique.

FIND THE MAGIC IN YOU!
As a business, you need to find out your personal values and align them with your corporate objectives.  Find what is your core business, core products or services and do it really well.

Find the magic in you and let it stand out!  That is the only way to compete in this business jungle.

Just look at the Starbucks,  a cup of coffee is more than just that, it is telling a story about ethical beans, about treating yourself to premium coffee.

Bald Media is a company founded by a Canadian in Toronto, Ronnie Lebow, an award-winning art director and copywriter who has been working in the ad industry since 1994.   According to Ronnie:  “Guerrilla marketing is huge right now, everyone is straying away from television, and print is on the decline because of the web, so anything you can do to get into people’s faces right now just seems to work.”

The advertising message is printed on the bald heads using a combination of airbrush latex paints and temporary tattoos  that can be washed off in a shower.  Bald Media hires bald actors, and there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of bald heads.   The owner of Bald Media hopes that this concept can eventully be franchised.

Here is a video that shows how the process is done.

Users register by creating a profile and sign in to connect with other members in the same business, same locale, or similar businesses in a different locale.    Users can also engage in different discussions on the site’s forum and share experiences.

Sprouter is currently funded by angel investors and its current priority is to build the site’s user base.  It has yet to determine the business model for generating revenues and will be looking to partnerships with small business associations as potential source of revenues.

So, to all the entrepreneurs with a time-deficit, this is another chance to network from the comfort of your chair.

Many of the funemployed are previously corporate workers with high earnings.  Recently laid off during the recession, they have unemployment benefits, severance packages or savings that allow them to stay funemployed.   This phenomenon is happening all across North America and the globe.  In fact, there are over 10 million millionaires all across the globe.  People who do not have to work and have time to travel.

So, as an entrepreneur, do not ignore this group of target market.  Be sure to include them in your market research and marketing strategy.

This car tells me the following:

1.  That the owner is creative, innovative, fun and has a sense of humour.

2.  That the owner wants my business and is willing to take risk.

3.  That this owner has a positive attitude and is on his way to success.

An effective vehicle sign works as advertising 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  It provides a conversation topic and you can be sure people cannot stop talking about it.