I believe it’s true that exercising your brain keeps your mind sharp. Nintendo has released a handful of excellent games for its Gameboy DS that attract the Baby Boomers. Thanks to games like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy, my mom who never got into video games, asked for a Gameboy DS! Poor Mom, Nintendo … Read more
Pareto’s principle states that 80 percent of a company’s business comes from 20 percent of its customers. Therefore, businesses invest time and money into building and maintaining customer loyalty. Loyalty Myths says that organizations focused on traditional loyalty programs won’t succeed and explains why the 53 customer loyalty beliefs are myths. Businesses that work to … Read more
Businesses especially small businesses expect employees to do more than their main job and this often includes sales and marketing. Book Yourself Solid contains activities that business people most likely already know. However, Michael Port brings these activities together and organizes them using lists and questions to help the reader find the answers. The author … Read more
Thanks to Web sites and email newsletters, white papers have become a great way to market a product or service. A visitor can get a free white paper in exchange for signing up for an email newsletter or basic information. People can’t resist a free offer and white papers — when done right — can … Read more
Recently, a client who supported Web standards worked to design her newsletters to use cascading style sheets (CSS) for layouts instead of tables. Designers cheered. Readers jeered. One problem with this approach: email clients. Outlook may dominate, but how many of us have second or third email accounts with Web-based email clients like Yahoo!, Hotmail, … Read more
It’s no surprise that blogs are catching on with B2Bs (business-to-business). BtoBOnline confirms it by referencing a Knowledgestorm and Universal McCann survey. “Blogs are the perfect forum for business and IT professionals — readers want to hear about a company or a product from ‘someone like them,’” says Matt Lohman, director of market research, KnowledgeStorm. … Read more
Blurbs, testimonials, and quotes are a great way to promote yourself or your book as you let the clients and readers do the talking. No worries about sounding like a braggart. But there are good, bad, and tricky testimonials. “This is a great book!” “Joe did an excellent job on the project!” Do these tell … Read more
Yesterday, I received an email from a company looking to do work for me. Items in quotes are directly from the email. Non-quoted items are my comments. I apologize for intruding into your busy schedule. Please allow me to introduce ourselves. Polite, but already off to a negative start. Says he is intruding. It might … Read more
Making Online and Offline Connections looks at how the virtual world changed how we connect to others. In it, I state that the online world made it possible for me to become a full-time freelancer. It got me thinking how I met people in this virtual world. I met a few through blogs, especially in … Read more
One of the bigger themes of Web 2.0 is interactivity. Putting the control in the user’s hands. A past email newsletter I managed lets users choose what content they want to receive. Help Potential Customers Remember You Email newsletters offer an easy way to build relationships with clients and prospects while keeping your business in … Read more