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Virtual Assistant Angel - Raleigh NC

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Free Websites are good and consider starting with a good web presence for a Small Business first!

Free websites have true value for someone just wanting to have some content on the web for people to read but not as useful for being found on the web. Starting with a web presence and using a URL redirect from a domain name may be better. Then take your time to build a quality website in WordPress. For example if you see the value in a Facebook business page you may build it first for your business, then buy a domain name that is easy for people to type in, like BrossmanOnFB.com and give that out first as a way to connect with you. Creating a keyword driven Facebook page with outstanding content and clear ways to reach you may be a better low cost way to start. Go ahead click on BrossmanOnFB.com and see where it goes. You can use URL forwarding (buy domain name and point it to some web link) with a free website as well. The key is if you do this for something like your Facebook business page or your Linkedin page than after you build a real site (like a hosted wordpress site) you can just add the Facebook page to your site and you now have two web presences that are driving business.

Free and paid Template-based websites:

If you want to just have some fun and start with a free website here are a few ones I have tested:

http://www.wix.com/

http://www.weebly.com/

http://www.yola.com/

A few paid Template-based websites:

http://websitebuilder.intuit.com/

http://VeryAffordableWebsites.com

You can also start with a free WordPress site and make more of a community service site sponsored by your company by using WordPress.com

Learn more come to one of my classes or contact your local Small Business Center at your community college to schedule one of my classes. If you do make sure to bring business friends to the class!

http://www.ncsmallbusinesstraining.com

email marketing

A few resources for learning about email marketing. Remember with email marketing you still have to earn the right to stay in your customers attention or your email will not be opened. The content needs to be relevant to your customer, clear what they are reading from the first line, clear who it is from and provide value worth their time. What is important to your customer beyond what you sell? Why should they take the time to ready your email if they already are overwhelmed by email? Value, Relevance and a personal tone is important but not sloppy. Look as how your email look if you remove all the graphics for many email services do that and how it look on a smart phone. People don’t want more emails but they do want useful information that is relevant to them.

A number of email marketing sites:

Constant Contact – 1st choice for small business users for ease of use and integration of social media for business.

Mail Chimp – Lets you have 1000 contacts and send out up to 6,000 emails per month FREE and work with Eventbrite. Very good for micro-businesses and groups with a very limited budget.

awebber – a professional high capacity email program used for high volume ‘list building’ by many top email marketers.

iContact – A competitor to Constant Contact with equal features, just not as much support resources.

Swiftpage – It’s big plus is it fully integrates with ACT contact manager.  Reliable with a number of useful features but very challenging to use. See these Swiftpage demos for more info.

These are two GREAT resources for email marketing tips and tricks.

http://www.theemailguide.com/

http://ducttapemarketing.com/

The Constant Contact Learning Center is second to none and the user community is huge.

http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/index.jsp

http://www.constantcontact.com/community/index.jsp

Useful on-line posts about email marketing:
Top 7 Email Marketing Trends – Tips for 2011

8 Email Marketing Tips – from CRM.com

How To Avoid Getting Your Campaigns Accidentally Junked – from MailChimp.com

Increase your Open Rate -Opt-in Marketing

A number of posts on email-marketing-report.com about the best time to send emails

Examples:

Restaurant email marketing example

Natural Skincare email

Business trainer announcing an event

How do you use e-mail marketing and what resources do you find useful?

Compiled by Martin Brossman and Brian Walker who offers eMail Marketing Magement.
See Martin’s class on the topic: Marketing Your Business Through E-mail