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You Just Can’t Beat Email Marketing

One of my clients had a great story this week about email marketing.Two young women sitting in cafe and talking

She met a woman at a luncheon. They exchanged business cards and had a good talk. My client put the woman on her email list.

20 years went by!! TWENTY!

The woman signed up for an event my client was hosting last week. She said, “I’ve always read your newsletters but never had a need for your services until now. But I certainly knew who I was going to call for help! The expert!”

​Keeping the woman on the email list for 20 years had a zero cost. My client has over 30
00 emails on her list. So there was no cost. No special effort. ​ But the woman came to the event with a friend and both are planning purchases!

Review your office procedures to be sure you are gathering every email possible. Add them to your lists. Make your content valuable so people will stay on the list. Watch your traffic reports to be sure the content is working with your audience. Build long term relationships!

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Don’t Buy a Mac

I’m trying to do a new website for a MAC user. She’s not super computer literate so everything she tries to share with me takes her twice as long. Her Pages and Numbers files don’t convert to Word or Excel cleanly. What she thinks is a graphic file, isn’t.

There are 4 times more Windows users than MAC users. So chances are REALLY good that MAC users are going to need to share files with a Windows person.

Why make your computer life harder? Unless you are working in a graphics related industry and the only people you share files with are other MAC users, stay away from MACs.

Sure you get free support from the Apple store. How much time do you have for standing in line during regular business hours? But don’t try googling a question for a quick answer because chances are slim you’ll find the answer. Have a Windows question? There are hundreds of answers in blog sites, YouTube videos and forums.

Want some training on the software? There are hundreds of YouTube videos and articles about Windows. Not so much on the iOS.

So unless your goal is to be a full time computer whiz who can rock all those graphics programs, don’t buy a MAC.

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Writing Your Elevator Speech

The American Family Business Accelerator program had an excellent presentation on writing your elevator speech. Even if you have an elevator speech I suggest working through this tool to see if it spotlights any fine-tuning you need to do.

In a nutshell:
     F  –  Find their pain point
     A  – Answer their problem
     R  – Reasons why you’re different
     M – Make them want more

In theory, it’s easy to tell someone what you do. You’re asked that question all the time. But in reality, it’s hard! And it is so important!  You want to wordsmith your answer so that it can be stated in 30 seconds. The words have to be clear and concise to give a total stranger the picture of what you do. It’s that pivotal “first impression.”

Beyond answering “What do you do?” your elevator speech plays a major part in your entire marketing plan. It is the first step, the foundation of the whole plan.

  • When you create a company brochure, you would start with the elevator speech and expand to share examples and details to support the speech.
  • When you are writing content for your web site, each page should support and expand upon that basic elevator speech.
  • If you participate in any review sites such as Angie’s List, Yelp or Kudzu, your elevator speech would be the content you fill in for their format.
  • The elevator speech would be the starting point for your Summary section on your LinkedIn profile.

Take the time to write a good elevator speech. Use this excellent tool. Call Your Computer Lady for help if you need it. We’ll brainstorm with you and help edit the speech until it’s just what you need!

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10 tips for an awesome and SEO-friendly blog post

“Writing blog posts requires skill. To keep readers interested, you should think about the structure of your content and keep it enjoyable. If people like and understand your post, they’re much more likely to share it with others, which will increase your rankings. So, if you want to improve your writing skills and rankings, start with these tips on writing an SEO-friendly blog post!

It might sound like writing for SEO and writing to attract and engage your audience are two conflicting goals. But that’s not true. To write an SEO-friendly post, you should feature the words you want to be found in a prominent place. However, over-using keywords severely damages the readability of your text. A high keyphrase density can even signal to Google that you might be stuffing keywords in your text, which can negatively affect your rankings.”

Click here to continiue reading.

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Got Your Back!

Over the past 28 years, Your Computer Lady has developed a system for working with clients that we call the “Got Your Back” process. Our goal has always been long term clients who come back to YCL over and over with a variety of projects. We want to reduce your frustration and headaches by stepping in to do projects so you are able to focus on what you do best – your real business. How do we do this?

  • One point of contact – Though YCL has a network of experts for graphic design, web site programming, database creation, etc. you only deal with one person. This allows us to learn your business. We can pick up faster on a project. We learn details, special industry terms and personal preferences.
  • Wide range of services – Our network gives us the means to have an amazing range of services to offer you. If we don’t do a particular job, we know who does!
  • Online support – Within 15 seconds, we can set up an online meeting to look right at your computer. We can teach you how to use a software feature. We can fix a problem for you.
  • Back ups – Your Computer Lady keeps extensive back up files. If you can’t find that brochure file from two years ago so it can be updated, we can!
  • Large or small projects – We don’t care if it’s a big project with lots of hours or a small question that can be handled with an online training session.
 
We estimate that the “Got Your Back” process can save you on average 20% over doing a project yourself.  Not sure?  Give Pamela a call today and discuss the project you need finished.

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Why Use Portable Document Format (PDF)?

Often you want to save your files so they cannot be modified, but you want to be able to share and print them. Examples include resumes, legal documents, newsletters, and files intended to be read and printed. PDF formats can help. By using an add-in, which is an extra function you download, you can convert a file, from your Microsoft Office programs, into a PDF format

Portable Document Format (PDF) preserves document formatting and enables file sharing. When the PDF format file is viewed online or printed, it retains the format that you intended. Data in the file cannot be easily changed. The PDF format is also useful for documents that will be reproduced by using commercial printing methods.

There are a lot of PDF Writers that you can purchase or download for free from the Internet. Please research and choose the one you feel will work best for your company’s needs.

My fav?  PDF995.com

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Forwarding is the New Networking

OK. The title is a teaser and a mis-statement. Forwarding has been going since the first printing press. But social media is changing the way we forward information and the types of information we share. Read this article for some clarification about networking by sharing info and some tips.

Full article from Harvard Business Review by Tom Davenport

Forwarding (sharing) pamphlets is credited with being a strong influence in the American Revolution. Printing presses were more common and therefore the cost to print was lower. Benjamin Franklin and many others published pamphlets explaining why the 13 colonies needed to be independent. The pamphlets were passed hand to hand to reach more people. Their writing educated and motivated people to take a stand.

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How To Sell Ad Space on Your Web Site

When you build up the traffic on your web site, it’s time to consider selling ads to related companies. Here’s a good article explaining the basics.

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Email Deliverability: Why it Matters & How to Improve It

“Learn how to send emails that make it to your contact’s inboxes.

Deliverability measures how many of your contacts receive your emails, and it’s 1 of the most important factors for email marketing success.

For your strategy to work, people must first receive your emails. There’s no point in crafting perfect content otherwise. Although deliverability involves more than building an audience and pressing send, it doesn’t have to be complicated.”

Click here to continue reading.

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Social Media – It’s Only Networking

Micro View
If I attend a professional association dinner, I’m going to introduce myself as Your Computer Lady but I’m going to talk sports, make a joke about the rubber chicken, ask about Ron’s daughters or listen to the horror story about the building project in Tucson that one of my architect friends is working on. If someone asks me a computer question, I’ll give them an answer. Hopefully the person sitting beside them will listen in and think, “Oh, that’s a good answer. Pamela’s knows a thing or two about computers.”  Down the road when either of those people have a computer project, they’ll think of me and give me a call.

Macro View
I set up a LinkedIn account. I introduce myself as Your Computer Lady but I’m going to talk about sports, make a joke about the rubber chicken, ask about Ron’s daughters, … …

Clear away the hype and fear of doing something new and social media is just plain old networking. You’re doing it on a grander scale (8 people at the dinner table vs 58 LinkedIn direct connections or 252,600+ with 3 levels of connection) but it is still networking.

Just like networking at an organization, networking online takes a little time. Joining a new organization means you’re seeing more new faces. You’re taking time to build the relationships. You’re gathering business cards and inputting them into your contact management system. But after those basics are done, maintaining the relationships is relatively easy and doesn’t require a lot of time. But you have to be consistent. If you only show up every six months, you’re always at square one. Once you’ve set up your online account and filled out your profile, started connecting with friends, you can switch to maintenance mode too. Show up once a week and respond to invitations, send some messages, add some info.

You want to use social media for the same reasons you network at a meeting. Get your name out there! Be viewed as an expert! We live in a big, high technology, information-explosion world. We want to – need to – connect with people. Social media gives your company the ability to do that. You can humanize your company. You can reach out person-to-person.

As Jennifer Maggiore of Maggiore Consulting pointed out, “There’s no penalty for being early to the game. But there is a big penalty for being late!”  eMarketer reports that there was an 11% increase in the use of social media in 2008. 41% of all Internet users visited a social media site at least monthly. They predict that 79 million people (40% of all Internet users) will put content at least once a month on a social media site in 2009.

Your firm can start small. Encourage your employees to participate. All of the Fortune 500 firms have social media activities. 499 of them have vice president level and above participants. But any employee can assist the cause. Whole Foods has tweeters from several stores in addition to their central page. Build your presence. There are firms like Maggiore’s that specialize in social media. If you need to get to more in depth, locate your target audience or increase your presence quickly – you want to contact a specialist. This is an emerging technology. A guide can get you to the destination faster.

If you’re early to the game though, you can take your time.
1. Choose one, maybe 2, networks to join and build.
2. Get that network to the maintenance stage before you take on another one.
3. Tie your networks together. A post on my blog shows up on my LinkedIn page. A Twitter message shows on my Facebook wall.
4. Measure your activity and success. There are tools like TwitterGrader that help you measure what you’re accomplishing.

My recommendation is to start with LinkedIn. It’s a pure business site that is simple to use. You can make good connections. Then add Twitter. Those little 140 character messages have potential. Check out twitter.com/JetBlue, /Whole Foods or /ScottsdalePD to see some business results. Yes, you can follow John McCain now too. Then expand into Facebook, Yelp or some of the other sites.

The Arizona Small Business Association is doing a series of social media classes in April and May. Check their web site for details.

Connect with me:
 www.LinkedIn.com/in/YourComputerLady
 @PamelaBir at Twitter
 Pamela Bir on Facebook

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