If you didn't already know how to promote your business using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, Intuit incentively recruits newcomers by offering a $25,000 small business grant each month.
How it works:
A business owner nominates their business (based on company name and location) through Intuit's sign-up page (if the company name doesn't appear, e.g., if you're not registered with your city with an active business license or lack a D&B DUNS number, you can still nominate your business by filling in the appropriate information where prompted. Manual nominations will not show up on the locations map, but do count as valid votes).
If you are concerned about spam and privacy when posting your contact information; say, you have a home-based business. Sign up with Google Voice using your existing mobile or landline telephone number and get an Internet number assigned to it. That way you can collect legitimate business inquiries via Google Voice voicemail. Get a PO Box from your local post office, or a 3rd party mailbox service. If you happen to pair the PO Box with your home address, it will really confuse data processors for direct (junk) mail. But, make sure that Intuit is able to contact you, regardless. Banks and clearing houses use the POB method for marketing campaign targeting, you could too.
Local fans of the business can vote for you. Each vote counts as a raffle ticket. If you look at the previous months' results, Mid-Michigan Kennels won with only 1341 votes.
Deadline for submitting nominations/votes: September 30, 2011
