Years ago the term Road Warrior was coined to describe a high tech, always on the road – always connected – business person.

These days that term could probably be used to describe almost any small business owner who uses a smartphone or other device to keep a finger on the pulse of their business, no matter where he or she happens to be.

The big difference between then and now of course is the the cost of staying in touch – fierce competition has driven mobile phone, mobile broadband and mobile data rates downwards – and a plethora of newer, more affordable devices now occupy the market place which was once the sole province of high end PDA’s and palmtop computers.

Among those cheap devices, none comes cheaper than the ZTE F102 a tiny mobile phone offering from the THREE network – now priced at a staggering £19.99 and available from SAVERS chemist stores all over the country!

Yes you did read that last sentence correctly, a sub £20 smartphone available from your local chemist! Talk about something for the weekend!

Having seen a poster for this phone in my local chemist window, it was clear that I needed one! [for need, read want] A ten pound credit voucher tops the phone up for three months on the three network – so having parted with the princely sum of thirty quid I took it home and tried to break it!

I figured that  right  out of the box you wouldn’t get much for the money, after all £30 hardly buys a decent lunch these days! But I must say the performance of this little black Mars bar has impressed me.

I’m a great advocate of two communication tools Gmail and Skype and this little baby handles both applications in its stride.

Loading up the gmail application produced the familiar mobile email interface, together with all my contacts – all my emails available in my hand in a device that weighs in at an anorexic 80 grams!

And here’s a bonus, by scrolling to the contacts window I could not only view contacts but could click their phone numbers and call them direct from the phone – effectively giving the user  a single address book, usable from any location – the road warriors dream!

Calling via the phone of course meant eating into that £10 credit, so Skype was the next application to go on!

Skype works really well on this device, calling Skype to Skype was as clear as a bell and an international call made to a mobile phone in America was crystal clear too.

Skype to Skype calls are of course FREE, and the international call cost just 1.4p per minute using my Skype credit.

My only reservation with the device would be its small size, the screen is pretty clear – but the small keys produced a bit of fumbling about for my sausage sized fingers – that apart, this device is a great low cost way to use Gmail on the move with the added bonus of Skype for long distance calling.

Oh and did I mention you can even view Word Documents sent as attachments in the email interface?

Oh I forgot to mention, you can also use the f102 as a broadband modem, it connects to your laptop via the usb cable – perfect for every emergency!

This little device offers a ton of functionality for a few pounds of cost!

As I become more familiar with the features and settings of Googlemail [or gmail as it should now be known in the UK], I begin to realise just what an advance it represents over traditional email clients like Outlook – especially for the small business user.

Business owners have changed their dependencies drastically in the last few years – in the past folks relied heavily on paper filing systems, a telephone and a diary or Filofax system – these days if you were to ask a business owner ‘what are the most important business tools you use daily?’ he or she would probably say, Email and Mobile Phone!

When it comes to email, we’re all used to using the trail of sent and received messages on our computers as a source of easy reference, and the email address book is taken for granted – it’s the first place we look to find a contact. But what happens when your hard disk drive fails?

Notice I use the phrase ‘WHEN’ your hard disk fails, it isn’t ever a case of ‘if ever’ – its always when! Hard drives are mechanical and as such they will all fail eventually – despite having great reliability rates – Don’t forget that your most critical information is stored on a 3.5 inch wide, metal box that’s  full of whirring bits and pieces!

Gmail solves this issue – and many more – all your emails and all your contacts are safely stored on the Google servers, with fully redundant back up servers – not only can you take your email with you wherever you go, you never have to worry about backing up your messages or your address book again.

Gmail is available as apersonal email account for single users or as part of the Google Apps package for business users:
One point that is often overlooked, and is the only downside to Gmail as far as I can see – there is no simple way to upgrade from a personal Gmail account to a Google Apps account – Imports and Transfers can be done but they are time consuming and rely on a fair amount of human intervention.
Life is much easier if you decide which system suits you from the outset!

Gmail for an indivdual user is a fantastic step up from traditional email clients – but Google apps offers many more features to the business user – including the ability to send all your mail via your own domain name in the style of me@mydomain.com

If you’re seriously looking at Gmail and are in business at any level, I suggest taking the Google Apps option right from the start, it’s not expensive and will repay the inital investment many times over. it’s  somewhat trickier to get set up,  but is full of potential for the future – with new add ons and applications being developed every day. Accounting, CRM and project management modules are available that integrate seamlessly with the dat already stored in your Google account and there are thousands of new applications being developed.

When it comes to choosing which software tools to use for the day to day running of a small business – the choices are bewildering. My advice is keep it simple and keep it cheap!

Provided the system you go for today  can export it’s data into another format later on – you can always change / upgrade later on.

And if you’re already thinking cheap – how about thinking FREE?

Many small businesses want the convenience of sophisticated software but can’t justify the expense for a firm that may have only one or two employees or limited amounts of data to manage.

Thats where Google comes into it’s own  – With a vengeance!

Once you have become used to using Googlemail for receiving, storing, archiving and sending your emails – you’ll want to use this add on for the Firefox browser to boost your productivity and make you feel good about yourself!

The addon is called integratedgmail and it provides a great ’single page view’ of your email – your diary – your task list and any other google apps and gadgets you use every day.

It meets my 2 criteria perfectly: It’s simple and it’s free! But best of all, it works like a dream – you’ll be amazed at how a simple thing like having all your stuff in one place can increase your efficiency! Really!

I gave up using the task list and the calendar in Google, because I was always having to open and close more tabs and windows than you could point a stick at it was just too laborious.

With everything in one place, daily stuff is a breeze – I use it all the time and just love the clean interface and simplicity of use!

Downsides: Well you do need to be using Firefox as your default browser but that’s no problem – also I’ve noticed that when working on a slow connection such as a mobile broadband dongle, things can be slowed down a little – but not enough to outweigh the massive advantages gained by using this wonderful add on!

Get it here: http://integratedgmail.com/

Integrated GMail

This is an amazingly useful FREE plugin for the Firefox browser – allowing  ‘one page access’  to all your google apps.

This means you can have your calendar, task list and email clients all open on the same page simultaneously – a real time and energy saver.

I hate all that swapping from page to page and opening new tabs – this free software makes that a thing of the past!

Highly Recommended

What Is Integrated Gmail?

A Firefox Addon that allows you to make the Inbox Collapsible and load your choice of Google Calendar, Reader, Notebook, Groups, Maps, Picasa, Sites, News and Portfolio seamlessly into the gmail interface with the inbox (rather than a separate tab or in the sidebar) using a collapsible box.

It even supports custom URLs (with navigation buttons) and Google Gadgets (including Remember the Milk.) If your are inbox minimalist, you can enable minimalist mode to clean up the inbox even more. Works with Google App Accounts and Gmail Themes.

What people are saying about Integrated Gmail?

• “I love this add-on! It saves me tons of time when I can add info from an email to my calendar without switching tabs, or look up a phone number in google voice to send to a friend in a wave. Freakin’ awesome!”
• “Probably the best add-on for Gmail. Saves me from always having the calendar open on another tab and now I read my blogs! Support is great…had a problem, Michael emailed immediately and voila…all is good again!!!”
• “This is a fantastic add-on that saves me tons of time every day. Our corporate e-mail is hosted on Google Apps and I can’t imagine having to work without this plugin. On top of that, the developer is incredibly helpful and responsive. This is definitely a “must-have” add-on for Gmail users.”

http://integratedgmail.com/

Key Numbers

To build and maintain a successful restaurant company, you need to constantly keep your thumb on its pulse and know how fast its heart is beating. You need to be checking the crucial numbers.

Obviously, your cash registers and your accounting program will provide you with some very important info. That’s the good news. The bad news is, knowing how you did last week or last month may not be a really great indicator of where your restaurant sales will be following week or next month.

Any type of financial data that you can get from the accounting program is known as “lagging” indicators. These indicators tell you what happened. They won’t tell you much about what is about to happen. Nevertheless, they’re still essential.

Here are the most important numbers you have to monitor:

* Weekly sales, total per week/day and also by the hour (you are able to then create a easy Excel chart and see weekly and daily peaks and valley and also be able to identify over-staffing & capacity issues)
* Weekly profit (Many restaurant owners mistaken “gross” for “net” and assume that the more gross you have the more money you make. Well, as the song goes, “it ain’t necessarily so.”)
* Weekly payroll
* Product group contributions (the percentages of your total sales attributed to drinks, entrees, appetizers, and desserts)

If you manage your restaurant company by relying just on the lagging indicators, you could be looking for trouble. It’s akin to driving a car by looking in the rear mirror all the time.

If you want to have a way of predicting how your restaurant company is going to do in the near future, you have to implement and track a few “leading” indicators.

* The total number of VIP Club members
* The number of new VIP Club members added to the list over the last period
* The number of Birthday Club members on the list
* The number of catering sales calls made (if you do catering)

Some of the leading indicators are much harder to measure. They tend to be “soft” and qualitative, rather than “hard” and quantitative like the lagging indicators. After all, how do you measure the morale of your staff and how much they enjoy working at your restaurant? How can you confidently know that this week they were greeting guests more cheerfully than a week ago?

Well, these are certainly harder but not impossible to measure:

* You are able to use comment cards and evaluation forms that customers fill out at the request of your staff.
* You are able to hire a mystery shopping company or — better yet — turn you best customers into mystery shoppers.
* You can talk to the staff regularly and fill out a easy form at the end of the day, and then tabulate the results

There you have it.

Now, let’s get to work and start keeping track of the important things in your business.

Using Googlemail as a real time Anti-Spam Filter is the simple and free solution for companies, organizations and individuals who want to get rid of spam without buying and maintaining their own anti spam server or anti-spam software.

How it works
Lack of spam is one of top reasons for Gmail popularity. Obviously, someone processing millions of emails each day should know how to handle SPAM. Use the Google Anti-Spam technology for your own email server. You get a service that is at least as good as SPAMfighter, MessageLabs or Postini (a Google owned company) – for free!

How to use GoogleMail as hosted spam filter

1. Create a GoogleMail account

This account will be the filter between your email server and your local email client.

2. Let GMail process your email

You need to get the email from your email server somehow to GMail. There are two options for this:
(a) Use the Gmail POP3 feature and let Gmail collect your email by polling your email server every few minutes.
b) Collect your cleaned mail using POP3 via Outlook etc..  on your local machine!
c) Check the googlemail interface from time to time to clean out the spam folder and check for any false positives that have slipped through.

Big Bonus Point 1
You can use the POP3 setting in Google to leave behind a copy of any messages you download – When you enable this feature you have an effective and powerful way to back up every email you ever receive For Free.

Big Bonus Point 2
You can access all your email from any computer that has internet access – right in the Googlemail interface – no syncing problems as eveerything is live

Surely everyone realises the  importance of a great website in today’s business climate?

Using Wordpress  to create the framework of that site is a first step to getting seen in Google and getting visitors to call by.  But a good framework is not everything – content is vital too!

Your home page is the entry point to your website, similar to the reception area of an office or the entry point of a store. However, there is no receptionist or assistant to direct your prospects to their area of interest on a website. If you want prospective clients/shoppers to linger, your home page must be appealing easy to use and contain information relevant to the surfers requirements.

If it is not, they will leave.

You have just 7 seconds to get your viewers attention or lose them (according to several independent research surveys)

Customers appreciate an attractive layout with relevant content, consisting of useful information and quick loading images, they will also want to see an easy way to communicate with you.

Your home page should be completely marketing focused: Informing  prospective customers of the benefits of the products and services you offer – as well as a bit about your company’s background.

Include small logos of organizations of which you are a member, as well as brief details any relevant awards that your company, your employees, or you have received.

Testimonials are very important too

Special sales or promotions should be prominently displayed.

You HAVE to give visitors to your site a reason to stay and do business with you.

Links to all important pages should be located on your home page to enable visitors to easily navigate your website.  Nothing will cause a visitor to leave your site quicker than difficulty in using the site. As you can see, a well-constructed home page is vital to a great website which. Make certain that your home page is all that it can be

Whether you are starting out with a brand new design or are upgrading or remodelling an existing site – you should consider using Wordpress as the basic Software platform to publish your site because:

SEO:

WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are a few tweaks you need to make, but there are many seo benefits that WordPress provides for free. In fact Google’s own Matt Cutts says WordPress is “made to do SEO well”

Content:

It is easy to update content on your website without knowing HTML. Do you hate the idea of having to learn to use a complex HTML editor tool like Dreamweaver? Do you have to “ask” your webmaster every time you want to make a small change to your website? Well no longer – once WordPress is set up for you, you can easily create new pages or edit existing pages using a simple rich text editor.

Extensions:

There is a thriving ecosystem of developers creating themes and plug-ins – imagine the ability to extend your website with polls, contact forms, ratings or hundreds of other cool features.

Long Life:

Wordpress websites can be easily updated and modernised without having to redo all the original website coding.

Effectiveness:

Pound for pound Wordpress sites deliver more functionality and a better surfing experience – that in turn leads to more leads and ultimately more customers!

For the first time in at least 6 years, I opened my copy of the local yellow pages last week.  I needed a number, we had an internet issue andd I’d left my phone in the office – Otherwise I would have just Googled my enquiry as usual!

I know it’s that long  since I used them because this particular volume  travelled with us from our old home when we moved in 2003/4!

Two things struck me immeduiately! – firstly that the thing was still wrapped in it’s polythene packaging, pristine as the day it arrived, so clearly I wasn’t the onl;y person in the house who had not needed of it for that length of time, and secondly I was amazed at the size of it – it seemed to be much slimmer than I remembered it!

It doesn’t seem that long ago that tearing up telephone directories was sport for the more aggressive types amongst us, these days I reckon almost anyone could get into it!

And here’s another thought – even though that book is a lot slimmer than it used to be, it doesn’t cost any less to get an entry in it – in fact paper directory charges continue to rise whilst their usage declines – how does that work?

So – if people don’t use these directories to either promote themselves, or find goods and services they need – why do business  phones keep  ringing?

My theory is that pretty much everyone in business, and a huge percentage of consumers too, will  use Google as their yellow pages substitute.

I also think that whilst a percentage of  surfers will email or fill in a form from websites that interest them,  it’s pretty likely a larger number of them will simply pick up the phone and call the company concerned – I know I do.

If Google is becoming the new Yellow Pages, it’s important that your site has contact details on every single page – and that must include your phone number – miss that out and you could be missing out on the lions share of the available business.

If you’ve moved from paper Yellow pages to an online directory such as Yell.com you may be in for a nasty shock when you check out your website analytics – in amost all cases where I have clients using Yell or other web based directories, they contribute only a tiny number of visitors – I believe this is because the directory lists your competitors next to you, and lets face it 0  it’s just too easy to click and visit them too!

Need more help or advice

use the contact form or call me 07950 232926

Lead Acquisition Cost can be  a painful topic to many business owners for one of 2 reasons. Firstly they may not know, or secondly, they may be all too aware of the expense involved,  just getting the phone to ring!

It’s pretty easy to do some ‘quick and dirty’ maths that will either cheer you up – or make you take a long hard look at the ‘front end’ performance of your business.

Try this simple exercise for yourself.

Add up all the annual costs associated with your advertising and sales, divide by 12, then divide that number  by the number of enquiries you get in a month.  The figure differs wildly from one business sector to another of course, and is only a rough measure of performance – but it’s still probably higher than you imagined.

That’s the first part of the problem, figuring out roughly how much it costs to get the phone to ring!

Logically the next stage of the process should aim to figure out how many of those expensive leads get converted into paying customers,  So take the monthly cost figure from above and divide it by the number of customers coverted from the leads – Now thats going to produce a much larger figure, because unless we’re selling tenners for nine quid,  we are not going to convert every incoming lead!

These are the ‘Vital Statistics’ of any business that relies on sales – and that means pretty much every business!

Armed with these numbers, Lead Acqusition Cost and Customer Acquisition Cost , we can make informed decisions about how to change, improve or cancel the various strategies that make up our business plans.

Recently I’ve dealt with two business owners, in completely different service sectors, in different parts of the country – both were deeply shocked at the results produced by the simple maths exercise above. Each of them had Lead Acqusition Costs well in excess of £200. For whatever reason, this cost analysis had either eluded them, or gotten out of hand over the years. The simple fact was that every time the phone rang with a potential new client – it cost over £200. Once things are explained in that simple, matter-of-fact way, it’s easy to explain the benefits of new technology to people!

Both these owners have now reduced their dependence on conventional advertising, have simple, measurable  systems in place to measure where leads come from. Most importantly, they’ve increased the number of leads they get, whilst at the same time reducing the Lead Acquisition Cost by a factor of 5.

It’s easy to get sucked into the delusional world of Yellow Pages, Colour Pages, Directory adverts and other ‘Brand’ advertising’ – it’s a profitable game, for the ad companies.  I’m also pretty sure that some of their salesmen prey on the insecurities of business owners, making them fear that if they aren’t in ‘it’ , then their competitors will make off with all the trade.

But wait a minute! They’re probably telling the same tale to your competitors too!

All I’m suggesting is that you make up your own mind and base your decisions on FACTS, not FEAR.

If you want to reduce your ‘vital statistics’ give me a call or email me using the form below.

If you’re like most small business owners, you want to maximise referrals and repeat business – so that you don’t have to spend your time chasing down leads, then convincing folks that they should do business with you. But building this type of business takes constant contact with your customers.

Here’s the problem, as the months go by, your past customers just aren’t thinking about you anymore. That’s the cold, hard truth. And no matter how great your service was, your customers are busy living their lives–odds are, they simply won’t remember you. And they definitely won’t mention your name at the next family picnic when Uncle Jack starts talking about the pains your product or service fixes.

Am I saying that good service won’t help you get a referral here and there? Of course not!

What I am saying is that if you want a strong customer base that is the backbone of your business, you must actively, systematically and methodically BUILD YOUR CUSTOMER BASE.

That’s where Secret #5 comes in: You Must Have A Living, Breathing Customer Database.

So, what do I mean when I say you need a “living, breathing customer database?”

Well, you need to actively build your customer database—every day, every week, every month! All of your contact, prospect and customer data, order & billing info… everything needs to be entered and stored in the database. You need these people organized into meaningful groups. And you need the flexibility to sort through the database so that on a moment’s notice you can pull up prospects or customers that might bring you more business.

And when you combine a solid customer database with the power of sequential follow-up campaigns (as I told you in previous messages), you have the ability to land lots of new business in a short period of time. You can effortlessly run a customer loyalty campaign that keeps your name in front of customers… and keeps repeat business and referrals coming your way.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can easily begin to build a customer database for your business, give me a call or send me an email. I’ll tell you about the options out there and explain the pros and cons of each.

Every time you run a marketing campaign, the leads you get can be divided into three categories:

* Leads that are ready NOW (Hot);
* Leads that aren’t ready now but will be ready soon (Warm–these leads are
critical to your success); and
* Leads that may never be ready (Cold or Bad Leads).

The problem is, when you first receive them, you don’t know which is which!!!

So, you or your staff call every lead once or twice and then you spend the time with the leads that look like they’re going to close. Every smart sales person that works on
commissions does this–they go for the low hanging fruit!

That’s right. They basically cherry pick! Cherry picking is the natural result here because:

1. Sales reps are paid high commissions for a sale;
2. You can’t tell the difference between warm leads and bad leads until you reach them;
3. If you DO reach the lead and the timing isn’t right, you don’t have the time or patience to constantly follow up.

There’s nothing wrong with spending your time with hot leads. The problem of cherry picking comes when you neglect all those warm leads!

Instead of doing the tedious follow-up grunt work, sales reps usually wait for a new batch of leads to come in. In the meantime, the warm leads from the last batch get cold and you forget about them. Simply put, they slip through the cracks.

You know you need a system to follow up with these leads. You need something or someone to do your follow-up like clockwork, whether you’re on the phone, in a meeting or on the golf course.

Over the years, you’ve probably tried a number of different schemes to follow up or “re-market” to your leads. And if you’re “successful,” chances are you’re finding an occasional needle in the haystack. But… YOU CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER!

Your follow up doesn’t have to be hit and miss. There’s a new way to manage this whole process for you. And you can be sure that it will help you get more out of your leads than you’re getting right now. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a couple more closed deals (or more!) from your leads each month?

Find out how to do just that. Call me or contact me via the contact forms on the site. I can help!

There are three factors that influence the profitability of any marketing effort. The smartest marketers on the planet have sifted these factors down to this simple, but powerful formula:

The Right Message… To The Right Person… At The Right Time!

Most businesses miss one, two or all three of these factors, and end up with very ineffective marketing and advertising results. Also, most businesses compound these problems by spending an awful lot of money on ‘image’ or brand  advertising, without using any direct response offers

To make the most of a limited marketing budget:

1. Never waste money on image advertising – keep it to a minimum.

2. Test simple, inexpensive direct response marketing methods.
Offer FREE reports, samples, coupons, or other response devices filled with emotionally
compelling copy to find the messages that match the interests of YOUR target markets!

3. Concentrate on your most successful direct response offers, and follow up to maximise results.

It is VITAL that you follow up with your leads repeatedly, incorporating a variety of media such as mail, phone, fax, and e-mail messages.

If you don’t have a computerized system in place to methodically, repetitively and consistently follow up with your leads, you’re either wasting a lot of leads or you’re wasting a lot of time doing tedious, manual follow up.

Give me a call and I’ll tell you how you can use computerised systems to generate successful marketing campaigns.

Here are six simple tips to help you either get started or get ahead with E-marketing:  Our recent in-house survey shows that of  the 9,222 registered businesses in East Yorkshire and  North Humberside that employ less than 50 people – only 32% have a web presence that allows contact by e-mail.

On the other side of the coin, around 80% of UK adults will use the web for research or to make a purchase this year.Are you missing a huge opportunity?

1. Use your Company Database
Do you have an up to date list of your customers, leads and prospects? If you do, what percentage of your contacts have an e-mail address? Building your e-mail list from people you know or have dealt with adds value to your marketing. Updating your database should be your first priority.

2. Start Website Data Collection
How hard is your website working for you? do you have a mechanism in place to collect e-mail addresses from visitors or do you simply allow them to browse and click away?

3. Use E-Brochures and Catalogues
Do you have an electronic version of your brochure or other sales material? With an e-brochure you can kill two marketing birds with one stone! Firstly you can ask for an e-mail address when an enquiry is received and then you can deliver that information virtually instantly as an e-mail attachment.

4. Install and use Auto Responders
Everyone has heard of them but how many companies are actually using them? Autoresponders allow you to reply automatically to e-mail requests and can even deliver your brochure or catalogue automatically as an attachment. They can be programmed to send just one message (single autoresponder), or a series of pre-written messages in a dated sequence (sequential autoresponder)

5. Start a Newsletter
A regular newsletter provides a great opportunity to keep your name in front of customers, prospects and leads. It doesn’t have to be complex or particularly large. The secret of success is to give your readers some content of value that relates to your product or service offering. It can be managed in house or outsourced and can even be pre-written and inserted into an auto responder series so that you never forget to send it out on time!

6. Learn to read your Website Statistics
Statistics on the web have always been a source of confusion, many web designer even use them to confuse their customers! Stats are important, especially if you’ve invested time and money in marketing online. You want to know how well your strategy has performed and in particular what the return has been. This is where E-marketing scores heavily over conventional techniques. It can be measured in real-time and altered ‘on the fly’.

Email marketing: the features
Our email marketing service contains a full set of features designed to help you manage every aspect of your  email marketing outreach.  Here’s a quick overview of some of these noteworthy features:

There are 3 main sections built into the system Audience, Campaigns and Response

Audience
The audiences feature helps you import, store, manage and grow your permission lists. You’ll be able to:

•    Create unlimited audience groups for organization and targeting
•    Search & segment your  audience based on demographic, response data and more
•    Customize your database using standard fields and wildcards you create from scratch
•    Create personalised signup screens and confirmation emails to help grow your list
•    Import large lists easily and automatically clean them for duplicates and errors
•    Easily move members  and reorganize audience groups as you go
•    Export your audience lists and data at any time

Campaigns
Our campaign features  help you create stylish email campaigns and send them using our sophisticated delivery network. You’ll be able to:

•    Create stylish html campaigns without using html, or upload your own freestyle campaigns
•    Personalise your emails with first names and more
•    Prepare html and text versions, and deliver the right one automatically
•    Rate your campaign for problematic content before you send
•    Include our send-to-afriend feature with every email
•    Control your own ‘from’ names and addresses
•    Let recipients manage their preferences at any time
•    Send your campaigns at any time, or schedule a future delivery

Response
Our response section gives you easy access to your results, in real time. You’ll be able to:

•    See real-time totals for emails received, opened, clicked, forwarded, signed up and more (and details
•    for who did what, and when)
•    View response details for entire campaigns and for individual recipients
•    Have bounces (hard and soft) and opt-out requests handled for you automatically
•    Store your past campaigns and results in your online archive, and easily link to past campaigns from your website
•    Create an instant, side – by- side comparison of multiple campaigns and their results
•    Get assistance on delivery-related matters whenever you need it

More on the way
We add new features (and refine the ones we’ve got) every month. So the above list continues to grow to meet your evolving email marketing needs.

Email marketing: an introduction:
Email has become a critical part of any firm’s communications and marketing plan. It can help retain customers, keep members informed, increase sales, fill seats, raise brand visibility and help you grow your business. Email is faster and more affordable than traditional print mail, and, by some measures, it offers the best return on investment of any marketing medium*.
It’s possible email might even wax your car or take the dog for a walk. It wouldn’t surprise us. But to work, email has to be done well. Content needs to be clear and compelling. Graphics need to be visually appealing. Campaigns need to be personalized and relevant. Delivery needs to be timely and accurate. And results need to be thoroughly tracked and applied to future mailings.

And that’s where we come in: We make it easy for you to …

Manage your audience lists…
You can easily organize your recipients into groups, or use our advanced search-and-segment feature to find (and send to) people based on their interests, their geography, their past response and more. Your customizable signup screens let new people sign up from any spot on your website, and your customizable database lets you collect and store as much information as you like.
Utilize industry best practices…
Whether it’s following the rules of permission marketing, handling opt-out requests quickly, interpreting bounces or making sure you’re sending a well constructed email every time, our service can help make sure you’re on board with the latest industry trends and best practices that will increase your delivery rates and improve your results.
Create and send stylish email campaigns…
Create stylish email campaigns using our intuitive click-and-build screens, or upload your finished html campaigns. Either way, we’ll help you prepare and preview your campaigns, proof them for problematic content, and send quickly and accurately every time. And your past campaigns are stored for easy access and linking later.
Deliver with success every time…
Our world-class delivery network ensures high delivery rates through our personalized sendoff, ISP relationships, and delivery policies that can be fine-tuned down to the individual mailing if necessary. Our engine handles every aspect of delivery for you, and our industry know-how helps ensure the highest delivery rates possible, every time.
Track your results in real time…
You’ll see who opened your campaign, clicked on every link, forwarded your campaign to friends or signed up to get your future emails. You’ll find out who bounced (definitely didn’t get your email) and be able to follow up with them. This is just part of our real-time response tracking that lets you know just about everything that happens to your campaign, as it happens. And because we store your results over time, you’ll be able to learn from past efforts to make your future emails enjoy even greater success.
________________________________________________
*Direct Marketing Association Response Rate Study, October 2003

As you are no doubt aware, I offer to install and set up both Google Apps and MyOffice.net:

Both offer Internet bbased email and file sharing facilities for work groups.

Both software options seem at first sight to offer remarkably similar functions, but is that really the case?

Actually each suite has distinct advantages for particular groups of users, and that’s where the differences lie – not so much in the packages themselves so much as the way that people use them on a day to day basis

It’s not about one particular set of utilites having more or less functionality than the other – it’s more to do with the way you work, either as an individual or a team. Personally I find Google Apps works well for me – I like the email interface and the ability to share documents and spreadsheets, rather than just email attachments – A Google Apps strong point!

But that’s just me, I work pretty much alone and the collaboration features are adequate for my needs.

If however you are working in a sales based environment, and need access to CRM style facilities, then MyOffice offers far more flexibility, sharing the contacts and the contact history is a valuable feature in that sort of environment.

In terms of cost – there’s no difference worth mentioning – Google apps is around $50 per annum per user and MyOffice works out at £52 per user – miniscule sums when compared to the big price tags associated with heavyweight  CRM applications like the newer version of ACT and Salesforce.

No matter what system you plump for – you should be basing your decision around  the way you work, rather than the shiny bells and whistles  offered by various new packages. If a system doesn’t fit in with the way you work, it may not be universally adaopted – and that could mean a wasted software investment.

No Matter what business you are in,  you’ll almost certainly be relying on computers to a greater or lesser degree. Whether you ‘live on the Internet’ and generate all your income via e-commerce or you have a local shop and use email to place orders with suppliers – you need it! and you sure miss it when it goes down!

What’s more, if the unthinkable happens – and your PC fries it’s hard drive (the major cause of all serious data losses) -  how the hell will you retrieve all the email history that you’ve come to rely on? Here’s where Google Apps comes to the rescue! For ‘low or no cost’ per month you can have a robust, secure email solution that’s pretty much bomb proof . AND you get the benefits of the other great online software tools too!

Read what they have to say about Google Apps  in the excerpt below and view the videos.

Guess what? I can help  implement Google Apps into your business – So give me a call if you want to sleep a little easier at nights!

Software-as-a-service for business email, information sharing and security

Whether your business is moving everything to the cloud, just wants an affordable email solution or struggles to give employees access to critical information, Google Apps will help you stretch resources and work smarter.

Messaging
Google Mail and Google Calendar keep employees connected and save your company time and money. Estimate your savings.

Collaboration
Google Docs, Google Video and Google Sites complement traditional office software to make teamwork easier. Companies or departments can use these apps on their own to be more productive.

Video – Click here to see how Googlemail compares to other Email Clients

Get in touch for a chat and some free advice!

To prevent spam, please use the form below or call me on 07950 232926

[wpcf]

Using the combination of a spreadsheet and forms published on the Internet proves to be a  ‘killer application’  for me in Google Docs!

I use this combination wherever I can  – it saves endless time, headaches and hassle.

For Example
I  regularly organise the meeting for a charity concern – the potential 100 or so attendees are spread all across the North East of England. Trying to get an RSVP or any kind of  response to a phone call or email enquiry is like drawing teeth! Doing things the old-fashioned way just takes so long and is tedium personified!

These days I set up a new spreadsheet for each event,  create a form using the tools in Google Docs and then take the code provided to embed into an easy to remember web page. I then circulate the URL via the email newsletter and wait for responses. I issue reminders at relevant times and gradually the sheet starts filling itself in!

One day before the event I export the data into Excel and use it to print attendance badges – Bingo!

No need for folks to even register or sign in at the event, they just collect their badge and walk straight in.

Think about using the same system for all kinds of tasks where you have a ‘one to many’ relationship and need to gather information from the ‘many’ – quickly, easily and accurately.

How about timesheets for remote workers or requisition of parts or consumables from out of town locations?

Signing up for courses and events is an obvious fit for this application, and the video on this page gives a great demo of how easy it is!

Want to know more? Do you have an IT problem I can help you with?

Get in touch today for friendly help and advice.
To prevent spam, please use the form below or call me on 07950 232926

[wpcf]

This Excerpt from the Google Apps website explains the advantages of using Gmail for your business.
If you want to know more about how Google Apps could help your business or you need advice or help implementing Google Apps – contact me today!
Click the article title above to view a video presentation:

Why businesses use Google Mail for professional email accounts

1. Get control of spam – Advanced filters keep spam from your inbox so you can focus on messages that matter.
2. Keep all your important email – 25 GB of storage per user lets you keep just about anything you think may be important down the road.
3. Unified communications – Email, instant message and make high-quality voice and video communication without launching a separate application.
   Voice and video chat from your inbox
   IM from your inbox
4. Find old messages instantly – Google search technology is built in, so you can find emails and instant message conversations quickly.
   Find emails fast
5. Prevent data leaks – Create custom inbound and outbound policies to keep sensitive information safe with Email Security.
6. Interoperability – Sync your Microsoft Outlook email and contacts with Google Mail

Today August 10th, made a start on the redesign of my own website, about time too! The old version was very dated and hadn’t been updated for a couple of years at least. This new design is Wordpress blog based and uses the Thesis Theme which many online marketers are raving about – Well we’ll see.

Steve