Raleighwood Media Group + Raleighwood Event Group
Traditional & Digital Marketing + Commercial Event Planning Based in Downtown Raleigh
If you just can’t make the switch to a smart phone, but you hate being disconnected from email (or you suck at checking your email – be honest!), this might be a good choice for you with no long-term service contracts.
From Simply Stated – Technology: Email and Nothing Else
I’m way too much of a techy (and have umpteen email addresses), so this wouldn’t work for me… but it might for quite a few others I know!
I received this directly in my email inbox today… looks like a good series after reading up on the summary from the Oct. 3 ERM Roundtable with Jim Traut of Heinz.
Register Online
SPEAKER
Drew Zavatsky
Office of Financial Management
State of Washington
Olympia, Washington
DATE & TIME
Friday, November 7, 2008
Our event begins at 8:00 a.m., with coffee and pastries available at 7:30 a.m.
LOCATION
Wachovia IMAX Building at Marbles Kids Museum, Raleigh, NC
Register for this event
Click here to read a summary of the October 3rd ERM Roundtable!
If you have any problems with the link above, please visit www.ermevents.com to register.
If you have any questions please e-mail us.
Both Peggy and I constantly preach about the necessity of a branded email address and yet still… some folks are missing the boat. Check out her blog post from today that covers another reason to brand your email address: because AOL, BellSouth, and Yahoo aren’t paying you for the free exposure you’re offering up!
While we’re at it, if you engage in any sort of email promotion or marketing, please take 30 seconds to familiarize yourself with the guiding principles that are the CAN-SPAM Act. (No one wants to be fined up to $11,000 by the FTC.)
Prime Example: Since activating my NC real estate license, I have received numerous unsolicited emails about property listings that not only don’t include opt-out methods, but when I’ve contacted the actual sales team, they can’t come up with a concrete answer for how they actually received my email address (although they swear the TMLS didn’t sell it to them… I am a bit doubtful and will be making a few calls today).
What kills me is that they are for properties that are available for sale in areas that not only am I not any sort of interested in, but neither are any of my clients. Having your email address marked as “spam” by Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Bellsouth, and Road Runner personal email users will get you automatically sent to the spam folder very quickly. (And let’s not even mention the black-hole that is emails that are automatically blocked by these ISP before the ever even get to the spam folder…)
I shared this on my personal blog today, and thought it is incredibly relevant for business travelers, too!
How cool is it that you don’t have to get on the super slow internet on your phone (or worse – no internet at all) or listen to the ads on “Free 411” (1-800-373-3411) anymore.
Once again, thank you Google for making life just that much easier.
…you merge with Sprint, we forgo amazing customer support, AND our new phones still take 2 years to come along?!
Absolutely can’t wait for this new Blackberry to make it on to the Nextel network. I will have a full keyboard for emailing/texting (although not so PC for business) from the boat, the bar, or … eek… while in the car and not from this modified keyboard on a brick!
Naturally, my Nextel partner-in-crime sent me a email the other day with only this info:
https://www.sprintenterprise.com/newphones/curve.html
From the tech world – they must have been thinking about me exactly when they wrote this:
I have also dearly missed the built-in camera feature for those random times when my digital camera is nowhere near:
10/5/08 Update: Video preview!! Please, please, please let this be here before Christmas so I can get one in my stocking!
I was lucky enough to attend quite a few of these past seminars during undergrad (featuring CEOs from Gregory Poole, Progress Energy, etc.) and I’m going to do my best to make it to this fall’s 2008 events… especially Coca-Cola CEO J. Frank Harrison’s event (one of the country’s strongest brands).
Monday, October 13, 2008
J. Frank Harrison, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Coco-Cola Bottling Company
Monday, November 10, 2008
Ursula M. Burns, President
Xerox
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
William J. Amelio, Chief Executive Officer & President
Lenovo
I believe it was Mandy Becker from Swagger Gifts who forwarded me a copy of Marcia Yudkin‘s “Marketing Minute” that got me interested enough to subscribe to her weekly email series for marketers and business-owners. (Of course, since it’s a free service, it’s not too in-depth and always precedes a pitch about her marketing consulting services, but I see absolutely no problem with that.)
My favorite thing about the weekly eNewsletter is that it literally only takes about a minute to read but definitely makes me think a little more “outside the box” when it comes to marketing and, more often than not, spurs some thought and creativity about an area of marketing that I had not previously thought too much about. The topics are almost always translatable to any industry, too.
To subscribe, just visit her website here.
To give you a taste, today’s topic was about answering or responding to any concerns your customers may have, before they even arise. If you put yourself in your target audience’s shoes and provide any support you may need ahead of time, you gain some great credibility by calming those concerns in advance and showing that you clearly understand their role as well as yours in the business-customer relationship. Check it out in more detail on her “This Week’s Issue” page. (Note: It doesn’t seem to be updated from last week at the moment, but I can’t imagine it’ll be too long before she updates it.)
I keep finding more and more that the real estate industry isn’t very green… but it’s very slacking of effort if you ask me. The simple utilization of Adobe Professional (for completing forms and applying signatures) could cut down on well… how many trees we’re cutting down.
Here are some simple, but easily forgettable if we don’t remind ourselves, tips of how to go even just a little green on a limited small business budget from Expert Business Source – check ’em out!
As I noted in the comments on the EBS article, here are a few more simple additions that I’ve implemented myself: a great scanner and Adobe Pro (so you can complete forms, sign them, and email them right back) to cut down on the paper trail, ink, printer power, etc.
Quick Tip: Be sure that any email communication you’re sending render as expected in Outlook 2007.
I recently upgraded to Office 2007 (which definitely slowed me down by at least a week with all the freakin’ changes to the appearance) with the purchase of a new laptop and in the last month have unsubscribed from at least 30 email subscriptions that I use to at least skim if nothing else.
Luckily (as I see it), they were all random big corporation ones, so I’m not really missing out, but for any of you small business folks out there… be sure you’re getting what you expect (or pay for, if you’re using Constant Contact, etc.). Many of the online services have taken action to try and make their templates compatible… but one I used today happened to not be… so always just double check – especially if you’re paying for a service.
If you want to test yours before sending them out, I’ll be glad to review it for you – just email me: Lisa.Jeffries@gmail.com.
I won’t even try to be a definitive source on what makes an email Outlook 2007-proof… but here’s a good place to start: CampaignMonitor.
Man I’d love to go to this… not sure about the $85 ticket price though 🙁
