Archive for September, 2009

This was originally distributed to the e-marketing newsletter subscriber members.  Please join that mailing list to be sure of receiving the hints and tips in these emails first!

Firstly a thank you for agreeing to receive these emails, I’m sure that you will find them useful and hopefully you will pick up some ideas to help promote your business using the internet.

These emails will also be available on the Zedoary website and you will also be able to comment and discuss the article there.

The Power of the Internet

There are many ways of using the Internet to help promote your business.

In future emails we will be looking at how you can:

• Get instant information about prospects, customers and competitors.
• Create demonstration videos, audios, email campaigns, digital newsletters and e-books.
• Expand social and business networks to like-minded groups.
• Have conversations on blogs, forums and wikis.
• Educate prospects and clients using podcasts and webinars.
• Stay connected with customers by putting communications on auto-pilot.
• Track and measure marketing efforts.
• Create and deliver your professional message in minutes.
• Read and answer emails over mobile phones, PDAs and mobile devices.

The Internet is here – you need to use it.

E-marketing

The best e-marketing does not happen by mistake but needs to be deliberately planned.

The e-marketing will also amaze with unique “wows”, offer value of content and involve the prospects and customers and encourage them to engage in the experience.

To help you think about your current situation I have created a little survey. You can fill it in by going to http://www.formspring.com/forms/?712797-aRfbdefrh5.  It will hopefully give you some food for thought as we develop the ideas through these emails.

The responses will be sent to me as well, don’t worry – it’s not for nefarious reasons, just to help me help you with these emails.

Next time…

In the next email we will look at the e-marketing mistakes that you might be making right now.

If you are a talented graphic designer with a mix of development skills we’d love to hear from you.

Take a look at the jobs page for further details.

If you are a client of Zedoary there is now a better way of contacting us for support – a support ticket.

Rather than relying on emails our new system keeps communications together and allows the swift response to you requests or problems.

Just go to http://zedoarydesign.co.uk/contact/support-ticket/ and complete the form to open a new ticket.  You will receive an email that will contain a link to follow the thread, read and post responses.

Please use this form to report any problems, request features and other communications.

Thanks!

Here at Zedoary we like to take part in regular Networking activities.

To help you make the most this great opportunity to network and find new contacts and opportunities we’ve put together these points as a helpful guide:

1. Preparation
   • Make sure you have prepared what you are going to say.
   • Check you have business cards and flyers.
   • Listen to other people when they make their pitch – make of note of those you would like to follow up with a 1-2-1.
   • Understand that every new person you speak to could be up to 20 new potential contacts.
2. Practice
   
   • Have an opening line – “Hi, I’m Chris from Zedoary, who are you representing this morning?”
   • Ask open questions – who, what, where, why and how.
3. Business Cards
   • Don’t hand them out like confetti.
   • Collect those you want to follow up.
4. Follow Up
   
   • Don’t let potential contacts drift away – arrange a follow up meeting.
   • Let them decide if your services may be of use to them – don’t push for a sale, try to understand their business.
5. Listening
   • The greatest skill of all – listen.
   • Understanding what the other person is saying and their needs.

If you are looking to network there are loads of choices.

We can recommend:

• 4Networking
• BNI
• FSB

But as the adverts always say, “other networking groups are available”

It’s well known that every website blog should somewhere have a post telling people how to use Twitter, the social media phenomenon (they all use that phrase as well).

Well, we obviously didn’t want to feel left out so we thought we’d better share our insight…

Twitter has 3 main uses:

• It allows you to share information quickly and widely.
• It can drive traffic to your website.
• You can monitor topics of interest to you and indeed monitor your own brand.

To make the most of it you obviously need to do something, we suggest:

• Create a Twitter account for your company (like @Zedoary for example!)
• Link to it from your website so people know it’s genuine.
• Put the link in your email signature so people can find you easily.
• Make sure you post your blog/news articles to Twitter (this can be automated)

Now that’s just a teaser – and we’re going to expand on all this e-media and e-marketing stuff in our upcoming newsletter, so if you would like to know more be sure to sign up.

As “The Shamen” once sang, E’s are good.

However in this case we are not talking about methylenedioxymethamphetamine but the technological E’s.

Over the next few months Zedoary are going to be running a series of e-mails explaining how to make the most of you e-media and e-marketing.  If you would like to sign up for this completely free set of emails just go to this page and complete the form.

Follow this link to sign up for the e-mails