Simple, powerful, and affordable email marketing utility
Every small business needs to communicate with their clients and customers and email newsletters are one of the most effective ways to communicate your message and keep your company products and services on the top of your client’s mind.
If you are looking for a simple and powerful email marketing utility, make sure you check out Mad Mimi. It uses web-based technology to create branded, well-designed newsletters and promotions and offers multiple pricing options (VERY affordable) depending on how many email contacts you upload (free for up to 100 contacts).
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Free Guide to Learning How to Create Web Videos
Online video has exploded in the last year and more and more small businesses turn to video as a means to more effectively communicate with their customers.
There is a lot of information online about creating videos and it can certainly be overwhelming for a newbie to get started. Jim Kukral, video blogger and veteran Internet marketer, has prepared a one stop free guide that will tell you everything you need to do to make high-quality web videos.
So far Jim has covered the following topics:
- Choosing a Camera
- Buying Lights
- Sets & Lighting
- Natural Lighting Tips
- What To Wear?
- Shooting Outside & in the Shade
- Tripod
- Video Editing
- Sound
Go to http://www.onlinevideotoolkit.com/ to learn how to create great looking videos for your site.
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Rules for Naming Your Startup
A good company name can impact how easily people remember you. That instant identification and recognition with your company name comes easier as your company develops a branding presence both online and offline. But as a startup, you can help build the instant branding connection by coming up with a great name that people can say, remember, and spell.
At Webgrrls, we made a naming mistake. Back in 1995 when we were trying to come up with a name that reflected the fun personality behind the company, we came up with webgrrls.com (web women was too boring and webgirls sounded too young). Coming up with a fun name was not the mistake…it was not buying the webgirls.com domain that forced us to come up with creative means of building our brand. When we mention Webgrrls to vendors and clients we always say it with personality and emphasize the GRRL part of it and sometimes even point out that GRR stands for empowerment.
So how can one come up with a name that is meaningful and fun and also helps build brand awareness? Evan Paull of GigaOM suggests a two-part rule:
Look at many of the most successful brands and you’ll notice they’re often compound names, consistently made up of two components:
- a word that relates to the company product in a direct, literal sense, establishing a clear association between the brand and what the company does.
- a word not literally related to the product, but rather a metaphorical adjective to evoke a differentiating characteristic or “feeling” about the company’s product.
Our minds are built to make connections, mostly at a subconscious level. When a metaphor is detected, it triggers a process in our brains that associates the metaphor with the next object or reference. This naming system forces the mind to take the cognitive step of associating the metaphor to the product it represents, thus forming a positive association to the brand. And once your brain has woven the connection, it sticks, so there’s a great chance your company name won’t be forgotten.
Having a good company name will help you tremendously in your grass roots marketing efforts. If people can’t remember the name of your company or remember how to spell it, it going to be hard for them to recommend you to their friends and for their friends to find you once they hear about you.
Evan also points out that “of course there are startups that get so far out in front of their competitive fields, or whose products are so exemplary, that names which ought to have been tricky are nevertheless well received”.
For more resources on finding a perfect name for your company, check out Guy Kawasaki’s guidelines about naming a company or product and an archive of how some successful company names originated.
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Webgrrls’ Finds: Tips, tricks to work faster, smarter & with style
There are so many great articles that can really teach you a thing or two - but unfortunately they seem to be lost amongst numerous other “less-meaty” ones. Here are 5 recent postings that may help you do your job or run your business more effectively.
How to Kill CSS Bugs
Have you ever been frustrated because your CSS layouts are rendering differently between browsers? Or are you still trying to figure out how to achieve a certain look with CSS? This Noupe article covers more than 20 fixes for issues relating to fixing IE bug, positioning block elements, creating columns & tables, working with floats and more.
A Free Alternative to Visio
If you’re looking for a robust flow chart and diagram tool, you’ve most likely already looked at Microsoft Visio. But if you’re not ready to shell out the bucks for the program, a great alternative is the free, open source application, Dia.
SEO: What Not to Do
Life is a never-ending joust for the folks working in Search Engine Marketing. Just when you think you’ve figured the search engines out, they change their algorithms. This article from SEOmoz shares some tips on targeting multiple terms and phrases on a single page and also highlights the “tricks” to avoid.
The Best $100 You Ever Spent
If you are running a website for a small to mid-size company you should jump on this tool (if you haven’t already). Google has re-launched its Custom Search Business Edition service as Google Site Search. Starting at $100 per year (or free if you don’t mind Google ads on your site), this site search application will index your entire website and help users to find what they are looking for. New features allow you to input synonyms, boost the page ranking of newer content and determine which search terms are not returning results.
Free Project Management Tool for Startups
Running a startup is never easy but thankfully there are companies out there that want to give you a break. Fog Creek Software is one such company. It provides its FogBugz on Demand project management tool free of charge for 2 users to students and startups. And not only is it an excellent project management application, it also has tremendous bug tracking abilities. If you don’t qualify for the free version, it can be purchased for $199 or less or as a hosted solution for $25/month.
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Copywriting Tools that Work For You (& Your Business)
You’re running (or working for) a business and want to get the word out, but you don’t have the time or writing skills to get your point across.
What to do? Here are three things you may want to consider:
• SEO (search engine optimization): Writing with specific keywords in mind is a key to search engine success. Search engines pick up on the words you designate crucial to your business, to help place you at the top when a potential client is searching for you or the kinds or services or products you offer. Don’t be afraid to blog or write multiple articles centering on similar topics – this will only boost your business in the search engines.
• Ghostwriting: Having a professional writer is like having a partner in business you never knew you had. Ghostwriters will work closely with you to successfully market your product. Whether it be for a website, press kit, marketing materials or other services, a good ghostwriter will learn the ins and outs of your business and will be able to get your point across more effectively (and free you up to do what you do best).
• ePress Kits: It’s safe to say that e-mailing has become a mainstay of communication, and not just for sending pictures. Building an electronic (”e”) press kit offers a complete PR kit for your business in an easy-to-send file (usually a pdf). Press releases, press clippings, interviews, your bio and other components are compiled in one convenient file. You won’t have to struggle to get the word out about your business - a click of the mouse is all it will take!
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