Panel: Marketing Strategies for Small Business

Marketing Your Home-Based Business
Rick Holton, Freelance Writer

Factors For Successful Web Projects
Miles Fawcett, President, iapps

How To Get Your Company Web Site Noticed
Nancy Kramer, New Media Consultant

Speakers: Rick Holton will talk about the challenges of running a small business in a competitive environment. He will describe how to identify and reach your target market and the value of various marketing media. In addition, he will outline the “7 Must-Haves of Service Marketing," using his own experiences to illustrate many of his points.

Rick provides writing and training services to businesses and nonprofits. He writes annual reports, business plans, sales proposals, grant proposals, marketing materials, Web content, articles, conference papers, reports, and more. His clients include Alliance for the Polyurethanes Industry, Spray Polyurethane Foam Alliance, Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco, Martin/Williams Advertising, Minnesota Environmental Quality Board, Spokane Tribe of Indians, Twin Cities Public Television, and National Braille Press.

Rick Holton was formerly a bank lending officer and a management consultant. He has also taught at the graduate business schools of New York University and the University of St. Thomas.

For more information about Rick Holton and his services, visit his Web site at http://www.holton.cc.

Based on 12 years of experience running iapps, the leading Web firm serving the foundation sector, Miles Fawcett will discuss the factors for success in working with a programmer and/or graphic designer to create your Web site. He will touch on the pros and cons of working with different types of vendors and how to manage the risk that may be associated with each.

Miles will walk through the key elements of a Request for Proposal (RFP) to help you organize your project and select the right vendor.

Miles Fawcett founded iapps in 1994 with the goal of creating an organization that is rewarding for employees and helps its clients use Internet technology to effect social change. With more than 18 years of experience in communications technologies, Miles' vision led the development of iapps' services and continues to play an integral role in the creative innovation that is core to the success of iapps projects.

While now primarily involved in iapps' management and strategy, Miles' expertise in IT systems, human factors engineering, visual art direction, and resource/project management often involves him in various aspects of client projects. Miles is also an active painter, photographer, and documentary filmmaker. He has produced a number of films, including one on a unique subculture of retirees who travel the United States in Airstream Travel Trailers. Many of his paintings are exhibited at the iapps Washington, DC, office.

Miles graduated from the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College and served 2 years on the faculty of the American University Graduate School of Communications. He currently serves on the board of Men Can Stop Rape (http://www.mencanstoprape.com) and is a judge in the Nonprofit and Government category for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards (http://www.cwheroes.org).

iapps is a full-service Internet consulting firm specializing in online solutions for the philanthropic sector. The company is focused on the design, development, and implementation of Internet solutions that advance the work of social enterprises. iapps is driven by the passion and ideals of its team of developers, designers, and strategists who are committed to helping our clients integrate new technology into their work for social change. Clients include some of the world's largest and most renowned grantmaking foundations, as well as nonprofits of all sizes working on the front lines for social and economic justice.

Nancy Kramer will tell us the four things we can do to get our business Web sites noticed. She will define each of these points and tell us how we can accomplish them, either ourselves or via contract services. In addition, she will point out potential pitfalls, to ensure our efforts will get the desired results without wasted time and money.

Nancy Kramer is in the new media business. She is knowledgeable about Web search and Web site promotion and has several Web sites in the top five positions for their targeted key words on Google and other major search engines. She also has a patent pending personal Web search technology. Her Web content properties serve more than 1.8 million page views per month, resulting in more than 6 million ad impressions for ad networks including Google Ad Sense, Burst Media, Tribal Fusion, Casale Media, and ValueClick. Serving Internet ads since 1999, Nancy's Web sites continue to produce significant income. In addition, Rod and Custom named her site americandreamcars.com "One of the 10 Best Places To Buy or Sell a Collector Car on the Web." 

With more than 25 years of experience in information technology, Nancy Kramer has extensive experience in system integration, management of software development efforts, full system life cycle, and the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) capability maturity model (CMM). In addition, she is knowledgeable in database design, structured query language (SQL), and object-oriented design. As a search engine optimization consultant, Nancy Kramer helps small businesses get found in Google and other major search engines. 

Metrorail: Bethesda Station on the Red Line (just 1 block from meeting site)

Parking: Garage in building (free on Saturdays)

Free and open to all 

Return to the home page of CPCUG's Entrepreneurs and Consultants SIG.