Here is a very good method to plan your corporate video:
1) Write down a list of words that best describe your business. Brainstorm with your staff or somebody else, either he knows what you are talking about or not (that’s the brainstorming, baby). Every business is unique. Ask also yourself how your customers perceive your business and how you would prefer they perceive it.
2) Choose the music. Be particular at this stage. It’s good to find something not too repetitive, but a music that suggest you images in your head.
3) Write down those images. Those photos, footage or animation are your storyboard: they should tell a story by themselves.
4) And now put the information. With the emotional core of your corporate video that you have built with the previous steps your message is now ready to be delivered in the most effective way.
5) Finally, put it all together, and watch it back. Show your brand new corporate video to other people – staff, customers, strangers – and see what they say. Sometimes they won’t be able to tell you exactly if something is wrong, but they will help you identify the weak spots.
Keep at it, until you’re happy with what you have and you are sure that you have captured the tone of your business. And once you have, then show it to the world.
This checklist is a very useful tool to avoid that your corporate video would be one of the usual dull and boring corporate videos that you have already seen.
Email Marketing has come a long way since its introduction in the late nineties. Once the effectiveness of emailing customers was as disputed as social media marketing is now – but today, practically every major business and most other types of organisations engage in some form of email marketing.
Just because it’s become well established though, that doesn’t mean that its instantly understandable. If you’re launching your first email marketing campaign, here are some basic tips:
Reach your audience: Your email marketing, whether its a regular newsletter or sporadic promotional messages are only worth doing if its going to interest your audience. You may be writing about important developments at your company – but do customers really care about them? If you feel you have to include news and information that doesn’t have a direct affect on the customer experience, then make it the minor message rather than the main feature.
By the same token, you need to make sure you stand out from competing messages in a customer inbox. After all, you’re unlikely to be the only person trying to reach someone by email – and this includes personal mail, not just marketing. Your work doesn’t stand in a vacuum. Make your messages more than just routine bulletins – find a hook to draw the customer in.
Know what type of marketing email you’re sending: There are two major types of these kind of email messages, which have different inherent objectives. The first is the brand email, which doesn’t aim to affect immediate behaviour but to build brand awareness, loyalty and goodwill among your customers. Broadly speaking, this includes regular newsletters, even if their main subject is a new product or service; you’re making people aware of your goods for the future, not actively attempting to get them to visit right away. Of course there’s no harm if they do – but its not the main purpose.
Then there’s the direct marketing method which is closer to straightforward advertising, seeking to drive people to ‘click through’ to a product or service in the case of a single instance. This can be a promotional offer or just plain advertising but they shouldn’t be sent at regular intervals and they should always contain new information. Saturation may work for TV marketing but in email, its seen as an unwanted intrusion.
Remember the reason people signed up: One final tip – many people who receive email marketing messages become exasperated when they sign up for an email service related to one service, then start receiving dozens trying to promote your other products. For example someone signs up for a recipe newsletter – then starts receiving emails about cutlery. Maintaining a clear relationship between the reason people signed up and the messages they receive is crucial for maintaining good relations and reaching your audience.
If you’re a real estate agent today, you need a website. Not a company website with your name mentioned somewhere, but your very own website. Without it, your marketing efforts are restricted to trying to tell your value story to prospects one at a time, as you meet them.
That could be difficult, since over 80% of all buyers search on the Internet before they ever contact an agent. That’s why your website needs to clearly show that it is yours, and present the value you bring to the relationship when you sign a buyer agency agreement or list a home.
That part is important – if the website merely says “I’m here, use me,” it will do you no more good than your name listed on a company site.
Once you have a website, the question becomes one of driving traffic to it. Simple search engine optimization isn’t enough when you’re competing with mega-sites like Realtor.com and all the directory sites. They have so many links from authority sites that trying to catch up would be a full-time profession.
So what can you do? Tweet, for one thing. Use Facebook and LinkedIn, and Active Rain. These sites are all viewed by consumers, and all offer you the opportunity to invite prospects to your site to take advantage of a special report or join a conversation on your personal blog. Mouse House Tours also offers a mini-site for agents and individual web sites with virtual tours for each of your listings.
In addition, you can post your listings on sites like Craigslist, with a link back to the (hopefully) extensive virtual tour you’ve created on your site.
Finally, you can promote your website via your e-mail address and your business cards.
Becoming a top agent in your marketplace requires active marketing in a variety of ways, but the first step after having your business cards printed is to create a quality website, complete with a sales message that shows visitors why you are the agent to choose.
Marte Cliff is a Freelance Copywriter who specializes in writing for real estate and related industries.
She’ll help you with one letter, or an entire marketing plan. For Real Estate agents and brokers who are ready to get full value from their websites, she’ll be happy to put together an entire package – from the web copy to the lead generation packages that make an agent’s phone ring.
A basic computer system comes with a computer, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. There are also tons of accessories and peripherals that can be added. Let’s take a look at how they all work together.
If you were to make an analogy to the human body, the computer would be like the brain, the monitor – the mouth, the keyboard and mouse – eyes and ears…. The computer controls all the functionality in the system. The other devices are there to give the computer inputs and to provide it with outputs.
Let’s run through an example, let’s say the user presses a keyboard key – ESC. The keyboard passes that input on to the computer (the brain). The computer then decides on what to do with this signal – which depends on what the computer is currently doing. Say the computer decided that ESC means that it should exit out of whatever application it is currently in. It exits the application and sends a signal to the monitor (output) to show a new picture, one where that application is closed.
There are tons of other devices that can be plugged in to the computer, some of them are input devices, some output devices, and some are both. An all in one printer/scanner can be both an input and an output device, print(output) and scan(input).
Sometimes the separation of devices isn’t all that clear, like in a laptop. The computer, monitor, and keyboard are all in the same box. But the separation of components still exists, even if they don’t have space between them. Inside the laptop, the computer is still separate from the keyboard and from the monitor, and it still considers them to be input/output devices that it can communicate with.
This help is provided by professional firms that have settled the arrears of various types of customers. So, it is their responsibility to reduce the arrears as much as possible. You should strive to sign up a firm that has achieved profound success in the past. Such firms have helped numerous customers as many have chosen to reduce their arrears owing to the bad financial times.
Debt reduction help is good only if a legitimate company offers it. It is possible to come across multiple scam companies as the demand for arrears reduction has triggered the establishment of such firms. It is better to be careful and adopt methods for separating scams for good firms. It is only then can you be rest assured about quality debt reduction help.
If you visit illegitimate companies, they may charge you an unreasonable fee or offer poor quality service. As it is easy to find legitimate companies, there is no need to visit or get in touch with companies that you cannot trust. It is only when you use the expertise of a good company you will come to know how convenient arrears reduction is. Otherwise, you will face issues and the whole process will sound complex and tough. It is also not worth spending so much effort and time with a company which is not going to do a good job.
Even those who have used arrears reduction services will advice you to bear interest rates of credit cards in mind while using them. Even if it is not possible to stop using a credit card, the customer can reduce the number of times he uses the card. This is a preventive measure and also a measure adopted for keeping arrears to a minimal amount.
Legitimate companies have served so many customers and the success rate is high taken the potential of the firms into consideration. Creditors too support arrears reduction as they can be sure that the arrears will be settled. Customers too do not want to file bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is not a good solution for arrears related problems. Liabilities should be handled effectively instead of filing bankruptcy.
Anyone who is into any scale of business can’t over emphasize the importance of social networking. Business gets proliferated if you can reach out to a larger market; cater to everyone who might benefit from your services. For this to happen, you need to adopt a communications strategy which is avant-garde as well as deeply rooted in the human laws of hospitality and fraternal feelings. A careful balance of the public and private spheres can help you forge such contacts, which can just take help you destructively make your way to the top of The Forbes’ list.
But connect with people, conveying a genuine interest in them. Don’t let your private gains come in the way of these essential moments of relationship building. Do a bit of research on any person you are going to meet. The company they keep, the interests they endow, the food or drink or TV program they love to “consume.” When you strike up a conversation with anyone in a social gathering like a business party, you need to have a game plan in mind.
Let’s discuss that game plan.
Knowing the Right People and their Weakness.
An integral part of networking is about knows the right people to talk with. In a party, there are is equal proportion to good to worthless people. Don’t waste your time on someone whose vision is so short sighted that he or she might detract you form the path of success. You might be wondering that if you try to grab the attention of the bigwigs, you might come across as a wannabe. It doesn’t exactly work that way.
Maintain Amiable Relations with Everyone
Not everyone needs to know about your business. Interact with them on an informal basis. They will find that approach a lot friendlier than your useful proposal presentation techniques. Make the connection matter, by checking on these people from time to time. Pay attention to their needs and requirements and fulfill these to your best possible means.
The First Impression Makes all the Difference
Dress for the occasion. Your attitude gets reflected in your fashion sense, whether you are laid back in your approach, flamboyant in your business moves, sober at your moments of personal victories, everything can be perceived by your unconscious wardrobe choices. Casuals are a strict no-no since they give off an impression of lack of seriousness. Be washed up and look refreshed. Don’t let those dark circles show that you have been burning the midnight oil to make your enterprise stand on its feet. Hide those imperfections beneath a veil of meticulously acquired sophistication. Have your witty anecdotes and relevant quips up your sleeves. If there is any particular opposite gender business executive you wish to impress, don’t come across as a flirt. Stay updated with the current business trends, you might need to make a value judgment. Be informed and diplomatic in your statements. You are going there to make friends, not increase your competition.
As I continue to ramp up in 2010 (yes, I am a bit of a slow starter this year), I have found yet another great tool that will save you time and won’t cost you a cent!!!
If you are managing a number of blogs, sites and Facebook pages like I am, one of the hardest things to keep up with, especially if you are on the road a lot, is getting posts out on a timely basis. Well, I have been testing several different applications to resolve this problem and “by George”, “I think I’ve got it”!!
On Facebook there are several RSS feeders and apps that are great for pulling from Facebook but who wants to use 12 different apps to stay in contact with all their people…..not I and hopefully not you either!
I personally recommend the RSS Graffetti over all the others because it will pull from as many RSS feeds as you program it to and post them to all or none of your pages and profiles. The setup is super easy and doesn’t require any particular technical knowledge.
Before you start using this application, I strongly encourage that you activate “selective tweets” application for each of your fan pages if you have not already because then not only will you be posting your blog entries to your Facebook people but it will also be broadcast to your followers on twitter!!!
Note: This is one of the few times that you will hear me rave about using automation to do business. As many of you know I am not much of a fan of business automation when it comes to interact with people but this is one exception because you are still doing the number one thing….PROVIDING VALUE!
So let’s get started.
Step 1: From your main profile on Facebook, you are going to want to launch the RSS Graffetti application and be sure to authorize it through all the steps for each profile & fan page that you would like to use the app on. Don’t worry, you will be able to isolate which feeds go to which page in the next step but all of them will need authorization.
Step 2: You should now see RSS Graffetti in your application listings in the lower left-hand corner of your screen and when you click on it, you will be brought to the edit screen.
On the left of the edit screen, you should see a list of all the profiles and associated fan pages. If the little circle next to it is not green, then the app has not been activated for that profile so you will want to click on that profile and go through the activations steps. It only takes a couple seconds and then come back to this screen.
Step 3: To setup the feeds, you will want to set them up by individual profile. So just click on the fan page, group or profile that you want to work with:
1. Click “add feed”
2. Paste the feed from the blog you want to post from (whether it is yours or someone’s blog that you enjoy and value)
3. Click the “preview” link and you should see the latest post show up in the box.
4. Very important that you fill-in the “Source” box, this not only lets you keep track of where each post is pulling from but also gives you an advertising plug!
5. Click “save” and you are up and running!!!!
6. Repeat the same action for as many feeds and profiles as you think is appropriate for your readers!
Now every time a new post is made on any of the feeds, it will be posted to Facebook and Twitter and you won’t have to give it a second thought except for maybe making it part of your weekly site maintenance just to make sure all the feeds are working correctly!
With technology improving at a rapid rate, it was just a matter of time for engineers to come out with a laptop that was both light and compact – as if the ones we already had were not “compact” enough. Well these new mini laptops pack a punch for what they are. Some of them are as little as 10 inches and still have some decent computing power. In the rest of the article, I will be discussing some of the reasons that more and more students are switching to mini laptops.
The main reason that college students are switching to mini laptops is that they are small, or at least that’s what I think. They are light and can fit into basically any back pack. They are great for taking to class because most teachers these days will allow students to use their laptops to take notes. This is a great idea people – How many of you out there can type faster than you can write? I know that I can. Also, many people don’t think about the impact that you would be having on the environment. By typing your notes and filing them on your computer you will be saving trees to a certain extent. Hey, anything helps.
Most of the mini laptops do not have a great deal of hard drive or memory that a regular laptop has, but now more companies are adding the option of whether or not you want to upgrade your net book or mini laptop. Hp has a really nice model that can be upgraded to 160GB or 250GB. As I stated earlier, technology is improving these little units and they are becoming more and more popular.
This is the question that is bothering many online business owners; how to transfer a domain name [Shifting] from one registrar company to another? I have also heard many people asking if they can shift their expired [Invalid] ones before they renew them. My answer is a big No.
So, here are the tips. The first thing to do before starting the shifting procedure is to apply for a transfer to the registrar company you intend to shift it to. This is to inform it to grant you permission of shifting it to them.
It is your obligation to give your new company contacts of your previous company. These contacts were supplied to you during registration. Your new company will use these contacts to contact the administrator of your previous domain company. Make sure to give the correct information regarding these contacts or else the shifting may not take place.
Note that companies will not permit shift of any invalid names. If it is already invalid, you need to renew it before you shift it. The shift of your name will not affect your website relevant email or either the DNS which stand for domain name system.
The company you intend to shift your name to, will have a form on their website labeled ‘transfer domain’ that you will need to select in order to action a successful shift.
Your new registrar will then contact your current registrar through email, informing it to transfer your name to them. If the administrator accepts the shift, then your name is successfully shifted to the new registrar company.
It will take some days for it to be completely shifted. The complete transfer period differs from one company to another. Some registrars will take few days and some will take a longer period. So, don’t panic if you don’t see immediate results.
If the administrator of your previous registrar company does not grant permission of transfer within the stipulated period, then know that the shift has been rejected.
Your registrar will deny you the transfer of your domain under the following reasons; order by court, if there are outstanding balances you have not cleared, express written objection of transfer by interested party, if it was engaged in any fraud manner and if it does not qualify any transfer requirements.
Domain Name Transfer Qualifications;
* You should have an authorization code from your registrar company.
* It should be valid not expired.
* Make sure it’s unlocked.
* It should be at least 60 days old with your current registrar before transferring it.
* It should not be under disputes, court case or illegal judges.
* Contacts of your registrar Company.
You will be charged a fee for shifting it. The amount of fees charged is not uniform in all registrar companies. It differs from one company to another.You may be lucky to transfer your name for free if only you accept a condition that your new registrar company demands from you.
When you have shifted your domain from your current company to a new company, the new registrar will be responsible for maintaining it. The new registrar will keep all your registration records and also be responsible in managing your renewals.
It’s very annoying to receive prank calls. They often come when you’re resting eating or simply enjoying the day. This can also be true for telemarketers and they are often annoying because of their insistence to talk to anyone without any consideration.
Fortunately, there’s a way to make these disturbing calls go away online. Called reverse number lookup, this type of service is used to get the detailed information of the caller using only the caller’s numbers. Because the service is online, the results can be obtained in an instant.
There are two online methods in reverse search: the free and the paid method.
The free reverse lookup versions are offered in websites that holds public records of phone numbers. It’s basically an online phone directory. Although the site is free, the information they hold is very limited. As a virtual reverse telephone directory, the information is only limited to landlines.
Many are shying away from paid reverse lookup services because it’s not free. But choosing this option is imperative to those who seek detailed information of the caller. The pranks today come from mobile gadgets and tracking them using the free method is almost impossible. However, these pranksters can be easily traced with the help of paid mobile phone number lookup online. The information provided by reverse cell phone lookup is also very detailed because users can ask for previous addresses and even the names of their neighbors.
These online services are not just useful to prevent and identify prank callers. Others can use this site to determine the actual identity of the caller or simply to identify an unknown number on registered on the phone. Even law enforcement officers use this service in order to trace people who have made threatening calls. This is a must have service for those who value their security and privacy.
