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Posts Tagged ‘Maximize’

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No matter what industry you're in or what economic conditions you are facing, you can still build a phenomenally successful business. Bestselling business authority Mark Thompson and international success expert Brian Tracy have joined forces on a revolutionary book whose ideas are as inspiring and thought-provoking as they are accessible, practical and proven to deliver results. Now, Build a Great Business! reveals a series of seven powerful principles that will change your business for the better. This fast-moving and engaging book explains how to: Become a great leader - get superior results from everyone around you Attract and keep great people - build peak-performing teams Develop a great business plan - structure your business to maximize every resource Offer a great product or service - identify exactly whatyour market needs Deliver superior customer service - make service your key competitive advantage Create a great marketing plan - position your business as the preeminent provider Perfect your sales process - motivate customers to buy again and again Complete with examples of businesses of all kinds that are applying these methods to achieve remarkable profits in today's economy, Now, Build a Great Business! shows that when you do what the most successful companies do, you too can get extraordinary results. Read the rest of this entry »

January 28, 2009 — Tips for getting your permission-based marketing emails into the inbox and the actual design of the email are closely linked. Here you will find useful information on getting into the inbox, email design tips, and the nexus between the two.

If you are just getting back into email marketing after a break, are new to it, or are sending to an old list, make sure to ramp up your sending. This does not take long. If you have a large list, do not send to your whole list all at once but ramp up incrementally to maximize email marketing deliverability.

It is very important to keep a clean list. Too many hard bounces (email addresses that do not exist any more) can hurt your reputation with the ISPs. Pay close attention to keeping a clean list and purge as many bad addresses off the list as you can before you even send through a new Email Service Provider (ESP). You want to get off on the right foot with good delivery.

Keep in mind that the worst thing you can do to build your email list is to harvest emails off of Web sites, as this a flagrant violation of the CAN-SPAM act.

In addition, do not buy a list from some guy on the Internet who promises you the subscribers have all opted-in. They may have opted-in to hear from someone, but not from you. For you, they are likely to hit the spam complaint button along with the many others to whom this guy has sold the list. Sending to this sort of list will hurt your ability to reach your best customers or prospects.

No matter which ESP you choose, they will assign you an IP address – either shared or private. This IP address, not your email address, is the “Caller ID” of every email that goes out, whether a personal message or email marketing. Make sure you setup a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record that matches the IP your ESP assigned you with the sending domain (yourcompany.com). If you do this, you will be in the elite of email marketers who are following this optimal practice and will have an advantage. If you need help, ask your ESP. If you are a techie or know one, setting up an SPF record in your Domain Name Service (DNS) records does not take long. With many ESPs, you can determine the IP (shared or private) by looking in the settings of the account; with some ESPs you may have to ask them what IP address your emails are coming from.

Here are some additional tips on getting your emails through the spam filters.

Email Marketing Design: The Coin of The Realm

Good email design is not only more appealing to recipients and better for click throughs, but it also makes the spam filters look more kindly on your emails. This matters greatly when it comes to reaching the inbox, but do not forget that people like well designed emails better than something that is hard on the eyes. Your success with achieving your email marketing goals — including click-through-rates (CTR) and conversions — will be greatly enhanced by aesthetically pleasing email design.

One of the top guidelines for email marketing design is not to send out an email that is too heavy graphics or, much worse, one giant graphic. The guiding principle is 60 percent text, 40 percent graphic. Many email recipients view emails in a preview pane, so the top left corner is an ideal location for brand placement and a good enticing lead. Also, keep in mind that many email clients have graphics turned off by default so you have to entice people to click the button that turns graphics back on. The best way to do that is to leverage strong content, a well-designed email, and a good balance between text and graphics. It is always a very bad idea to send out an email that is one large graphic because not only will it lessen the chances that people will read it, but also because spam filters hate one large graphic emails.

It is crucial to remember to include ALT text for any images you include in your emails. The reason is that anything you are trying to communicate through images will be lost until many users turn on the graphics, which usually can be accomplished with a quick click. Entice them with descriptive ALT text that describes the graphic. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then give your recipients a reason to view those images.

Tables are back – which may seem counterintuitive to those of you who have been involved in a Web design project. Tables are an important element of email marketing design. You can use CSS but it must be inline CSS if you want it to work. Consider tables in your email design and play close attention to using table attributes.

Be aware of the inherent limitations of email programs as compared to Web browsers. Consider that the optimal email width is recommended at 600 pixels wide to accommodate for various browsers and mobile devices. Try to hit this range to avoid wide and unwieldy emails that few will want to read through. You probably want to avoid very long emails as well.

Again, keep in mind that while Web browsers are developed to handle javascript, flash, etc., many emails programs simply cannot handle the fancy stuff.

In addition, make sure to have a link in your email that enables your recipients to view the email as a Web page. Most ESPs provide a very easy way to accomplish this task. Some people will just prefer to view your email as a Web page.

If you combine good design for email with an awareness of both the spam filters and an aesthetically pleasing email for your audience, then you have a recipe for success. Email marketing can be hard work but when done well it yields the highest ROI of any other marketing tactic, which, according to the Direct Marketing Association is nearly $57 for every dollar invested.

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Since June 15, 2009, the United States Small Business Administration has been processing deferred payment small business loans of as much as $35,000 to be given out to 10,000 small businesses. This is covered by the SBA’s America’s Recovery Capital (ARC) Loan Program.

To qualify, companies should be private enterprises that are for-profit. They should have up to five hundred employees only and should be at least two years old. Furthermore, they should be able to prove financial need with a twenty percent decrease in sales, revenue or working capital. On the other hand, they should be able to prove that one of their two years in business has been profitable, and that with the infusion of cash they will be able to meet their existing and future debt obligations. This means positive cash flow projections. The ARC small business loans are intended to be used to pay outstanding debt such as payables to vendors.

For this batch of small business loans, there are no fees or costs involved, except if the borrower defaults on the loan later. In that case the SBA-approved lender can charge costs for securing and liquidating collateral.

The ARC small business loans also do not charge interest. Actually, the SBA pays the interest for the borrowers. Disbursement of the loan can take as much as six months but payment of the principal is also deferred for the next 12 months. After that, the borrower has five years to repay the loan principal.

Each small business can only avail of one ARC loan. SBA-approved lenders will offer the loans until September 30, 2010 or until available funds run out, whichever comes first.

There are, however, an estimated 30 million small businesses in the United States and only 10,000 of them can avail of the government’s small business loans. What if you do not happen to be among the 10,000 lucky recipients? How will your small business survive?

There are even doubts being raised on whether as much as 10,000 businesses can indeed avail of the ARC loans. There are fears that there may not be enough lenders willing or able to participate in the program. Lenders will have to advance the full amount of the loan, will not receive payment on principal for a full year, and will not be able to charge any fees, thereby absorbing all administrative costs. This may be too steep for many lenders. They may not be able to afford to participate at all.

This is where you as a small business owner can and should maximize your credit card services. We are not talking about your personal credit card services here. Instead, we are referring to the merchant services that enable your small business to receive credit card  and debit card payments. Surely, any business these days avails of these types of credit card services. After all, more people pay by credit card or debit card rather than cash.

Most credit card services offer small business cash advances that can be as substantial as small business loans. These small business loans do not require any collateral because they are secured by your company’s future credit card receivables. This is even more convenient for your business because repayment is also built into those receivables. Credit card services automatically deduct a percentage from your income to go toward loan repayment. For as long as you have incoming sales, you can support your loan. Interest rates are often quite affordable considering how the loan can help your business.

Small businesses should therefore look into maximizing these credit card services for small business loans. The survival of your business could hinge on this.