How to increase sales via TXT!

Do you find that your clients often don't have the time to talk to you on the phone and your emails get lost amongst the thousands of other emails they receive every day? Most clients own and use a mobile phone and keep it on them 24/7. Using a tool such as MySMS can save you time and increase your sales simply by sending a text message.

Modules such as MySMS allow you to send text messages from your computer to your client's mobile phones. There can be multiple recipients and TXT's can be scheduled for particular dates. This is useful for reminding clients about meetings, events, billing or sales promotions. Templates can also be set up to save you time when you need to send regular TXT's for the same purpose.

Improving your digital strategy

Many businesses want a website with all the bells and whistles so that customers will want to buy from them. However, what they really need is a digital strategy. For a website design company to create a website that is going to reel in customers they need to know about your business. A simple one hour Website Success Guide (WSG) meeting will improve your digital strategy by allowing you to:

• Clearly and strategically describe your business to staff, suppliers and website visitors which will improve your ranking in search engines and improve your communication with customers.
• Create profiles of your customers and identify what's important to them to increase your referrals, sales and customer satisfaction.
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Tips and tricks for updating your website

One way to ensure your clients keep returning to your website is make sure you update it on a regular basis. Changing your website once a month is enough to intrigue your clients without frustrating them with too many changes. When making changes it is important to retain the essence of your brand and what your business is about. Updating your website also lets search engines know that your website is active.

Why use e-Newsletters instead of regular email?

Not only do e-Newsletters look more impressive than a regular email, but using an e-Newsletter module you can send thousands of newsletters at the same time. Using regular email, many servers only allow you to send to up to 25 recipients at a time. This means that for organisations with a client base larger than 25, you will be wasting a lot of time sending emails out and making sure you haven't missed anyone on your list.

What does your company's prospective client look like?

Would your employees be able to identify what your prospective client would look like? This is a good question to ask. If the answer is no, set up a meeting right now to discuss it!

Any company can benefit from creating a profile of their ideal client. What are their ideal demographics? What kind of products or services are they looking for? Why do they need you? By creating a profile, your company can then work from this "ideal client" to find new ways of marketing to them, find new innovations that will suit their needs, and target services to exceed their expectations.

Copyright and intellectual property in the digital age

Copyright has only been around for about 300 years starting with England's Statute of Anne (1709). However it wasn't until the invention of the Printing Press which allowed for authors to reproduce their works cheaply and in copious amounts before it really flourished. How does this relate to copyright in modern times?

First we need to address the idea of ownership. Is that really what copyright is for? Do we really own something we create? All of the ideas that we used to create have come from previous people and if we're writing a book we might even directly quote them. Even with software many of the components have actually been developed by other people. When Microsoft released Windows 3.11 which was an Internet capable version o...

The power of news

`The very construction of the news is designed to create the largest possible audience ...you're filling up the blank spaces between the commercials.' (Parenti, 1993)

Having worked for television news I can understand the above quote very well. A decade ago news wasn't so much about news but ratings. At one point TVNZ fired most of it's news staff and replaced them with better sets and created a more family styled news program - Mum and Dad read the news, Uncle Jim told us about the weather and our cousin the pretty Maori girl told us what was happening in sport. It hasn't changed much really. News was very commercially driven. Though that is still the case there are other factors influencing news now. Reporters are no longer our s...

Is anything real?

How many times have parents complained that their children spend too much time on the Internet or in games? The statement is probably true because there needs to be a balance between our physical and digital worlds but first let's investigate what is happening in those digital worlds.

What is the Internet?

When most people think of the Internet they're actually thinking about the World Wide Web. The Internet has always been far more than that. At one time, before it began, it was called the Intergalactic Network which indicates that it was destined to be the communications medium not just for our planet but our Galaxy.

"The technology we are concerned with is the transformation of information into digital form, where it can be manipulated by computers and transmitted by networks. The ...

The Internet Generation

There's a a common presumption that the effects of the Internet such as globalisation and global marketing is creating an homogeneous youth culture. Examples of this might be Youth gangs in Auckland mimicking gangs in the United States or even the global marketing of Miley Cyrus. However, as shown by a recent United Nations study, this may not be the case:

The study, World Youth Report, 2005: Young People today, and in 2015, reveals the many ways that modern technology empowers ...

We are Cyborgs

In this blog I was going to posit what the future of the Internet is by comparing it to previous technological revolutions. No surprise really. Media History is my favourite topic because I like to find the syncronicities between old and new media. I'd even written drought versions of the next eight blogs that would investigate Internet and New Media development in even more depth. However, last night there was a re-run of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine (1993) and whilst watching it I thought "Most people think that a Cyborg is something like the Terminator. Wouldn't it be interesting to show that we're actually the Cyborgs?" This would be a good foundation for understanding the importance of the Internet but it might even challeng...

Is the Internet Safe?

My previous blogs on the Internet have been optimistic, historical and even philosophical but we also need to challenge where this technology is leading us and how safe it is. Science Fiction writers are like our modern day oracles and reveal examples of how things could go wrong such as humans becoming Borg (Star Trek: The Next Generation) or being usurped by our machines (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine) but I think it's more likely our abstract machines such as Corporations and Laws that don't benefit the community that could be of more threat to us. However, before I get into that I must first address the physical aspect of the Internet. Can the Internet die?

At it's present state, the answer is Yes. The Internet addressing system...

What is New Media?

Remember when we used to tape songs off the radio? Where high-tech was something like a mirror ball and anyone with two phones in their house was rich? It's bizarre to see how much the World has changed in the last couple of decades so I thought I'd write about what I've experienced. This blog is based on a presentation I did at my New Media course at Massey University a few weeks ago.

First of all, before we can understand how media technology is influencing us we need to see what it's done in the past. I won't get into it in too much depth but I will give you a taste of what Media History teaches us:

Paradigm shifts
A quick look at how new technology in media has helped changed the World

Living and working with New Media
My personal view of ho...

Virtual Communities

In my last two blogs I've shown you how we became Cyborgs by inventing machines to extend our capabilities and how our most advanced machine, the Internet, is almost evolving into it's own intelligent entity - note the word almost. It's more simple like a single cell organism at the moment.

In the next few blogs I want to examine how we're presently using the Internet and what new modes of communication have been created that are changing the World as we know it. What this will do is give a background to the more In Real Life (IRL) human aspects of the Internet and I'm hoping that what I discover by writing it will spurn multiple new blog subjects that I can think about for 2011.

How I learn stuff

Most businesses know the 80/20 rule which states that 80% your income comes from 20% of your clients. However did you know that this rule can also be applied to learning? 20% of the students will get the most benefit from the class. Your success or failure could be due to a number of factors such as:

1. The teacher understanding adult learning styles
2. Your interest in a course
3. The amount of time you have
4. How well you structure your time
5. Or even how much stress you're under.

Why don't I need a Microsoft Exchange Server?

Having your own mail server isn't such a great idea for a small office. Unfortunately maintaining servers for small businesses is how many Microsoft computer support businesses survive but the truth is you don't need the server. We've come across this issue so many times that we've actually written an outline of the problem to help you make a more informed decision. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

brynn :-)

What's the problem?

Many of our clients have their own servers that may handle their emails, shared files and shared calendaring. In the old days this used to be the way to do things because that was the only way you could have those types of service but these days its actually a hindrance and here's why:

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Efficient Email Folder Structure

When archiving email it's important that you know exactly where everything should be and not where your email program wants to hide it. This blog describes how I archive my emails which may help you archive yours. I have over 10 years worth of emails so are happy to share the folder structure that works for me and my team

In my email program my folders look like this:

Inbox [Lots of messages come in daily and get replied to and moved into the folders below if they are important. Ideally the Inbox should have no more than 20 emails in it or you will lose track of things. Takes around 30 minutes to deal with 20 - 40 emails each morning and the rest at downtimes during the day such as after smoko or between set tasks]

Personal [My personal em...

Free software is better for business

This blog describes how Spinning Planet Limited migrated from proprietary software like Microsoft to free software like Linux. The funny thing is I didn't think anything of it until I was chatting with a friend who said it was quite an achievement and many businesses could benefit from our story

As a web design and hosting company we need lots of advanced software for creating great looking web pages, multimedia content and running our business. I went through our proprietary software archives last week and was shocked at the amount of software we used to use. Here's an example but it's less than a quarter of the complete list:

Operating Systems

• Windows 98SE
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP

Office Software

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Strategic Planning Workshop

I just completed the Vision Manawatu, NZ Trade and Enterprise "Strategic Planning" workshop presented by Lyn McCurdy from Third Bearing Limited.

I've done this type of development several times before and I have a 5 year plan but it's always good to refresh your plan and listen to someone else's perspective. Lyn's presentation was very logical and easy to follow so I thought I'd highlight the bits that caught my attention in my blog.

Why are we in business?
When asked the above question we all noted many reasons and some of mine included:

- It's exciting
- Fun
- Challenging
- profitable
- Supports my lifestyle
- Provides more opportunities
- Provides satisfactions
- Helps others
- Etc

All of the above reasons and more are valid but the underlying reaso...

2 day marketing boot camp

Last weekend I attended a two day marketing boot camp run by The Marketing Company and I thought I'd share the experience with you. Our goal was to learn how to create a scheduled 12 month marketing plan in two days. We covered many topics including what marketing is, how much you should spend, and measuring your marketing to ensure success. The course was intense but we all succeeded and I'm quite sure that I'll double my sales over the next 12 months.

There was way too much information to include in this blog but I thought I'd give you some of the highlights:

First, you need to write what you are doing in the following marketing areas:

- Marketing strategy
- Marketing planning
- SWOT analysis
- Competitor analysis
- Direct marketing
- Indirect ...