Black Friday

Cyber Monday 

Free Shipping Day (NOTE: Free Shipping Day 2010 is Friday, December 17)

Have you figured out your strategies for these upcoming events?

I have been busy doing the Holiday Season planning for a group of my niche websites.

NOTE – NONE of my online business streams are related to selling either needlework or quilting products in any way! Let me repeat that…

I WON'T BE SELLING NEEDLEWORK OR QUILTING ONLINE!!!!!

Anyway, I have my planning notebook, my Planner Pad, and my colored pens and highlighters, planning for the upcoming Holiday Season. (What can I say, I am visual person and I like shuffling paper LOL)

Three of the events I am focusing on are:

Black Friday

Cyber Monday

Free Shipping Day (NOTE: Free Shipping Day 2010 is Friday, December 17)

While my business are online only, these events are equally, if not more, important for brick and mortar.

(REMINDER – NONE of my online business streams are related to selling either needlework or quilting products in any way!)

In the case of Brick and Mortar, it is of the utmost importance that you start figuring out ways that you can make these dates work for your OFFline business.

If you have any sort of online presence, whether you have a business card site or run a full fledged online retail site with shopping cart or something in between, you should be planning… NOW!

Don't wait until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving…  at that point you are already 2 months behind

I am still in the tentative stages of my planning, but already I am thinking that I will start my promotions by Oct 1 — not necessarily blatantly, mind you, but I DO want to make the most of the lead time…

Some of my ideas are -

Create a Gift Basket of the week idea and promote it with a post on the site (note, all of my sites are built with WordPress and I primarily create Posts rather than Pages) and with Tweets (I will have a Twitter acct for each site) and on my email list (I will have at least one email list for each site)

Figure out a way to have an appealing (not annoying) Holiday CountDown. It would need to start BEFORE Black Friday, so maybe start it on Nov 1? Can I figure out a creative way to talk the Holiday Countdown up starting in Oct — maybe with something posted weekly?

Some thoughts related to retailers — ideas which are not appropriate for my business model –

Plan and promote WishLists for customers (Promote offline, and online with website, Twitter, Facebook if appropriate, and on your email list(s))

Offer incentives to get customers to visit your Brick And mortar location on Cyber Monday

Offer incentives and/or activities for Black Friday — for AFTER they have shopped elsewhere for everybody else. Think about offering rewards for surviving shoppping elswhere.

Create a Twitter Hashtag Campaign for these events – either individually or as a group

Tink Note – You SHOULD already be Tweeting and you SHOULD already have a Twitter Hashtag Campaign going where you send out Tweet Announcements as new products are put on the shelves

Check out Twitter for Offline Businesses

The important takeaways with all of this:

• You should be planning all of this now, not on the day before Thanksgiving
• You can't just go into ostrich mode about all of this… make a preemptive strike!

Sharing the Road to Success,
Tink
 

She expects to be home from work, she works at a nearby college, for the rest of the week. This got me thinking about Small Businesses and how they are affected by the local (geographical) weather.

Does YOUR small business have a WEATHER POLICY?

• Is it CLEARLY stated on your website?
   
• Can it be easily found? In other words, is there a clearly marked, direct link somewhere on all of the major pages of the site?
   
• If it is tied to a local policy, such as that you close if the local school system closes, have you provided a LINK to an online resource that would provide that information — such as the local school system website or the weather emergency listing for a local TV station?
   
• Have you CLEARLY identified WHAT School System you are referring to? Remember, with the internet you need to think GLOBALLY. Can an out of town visitor, trapped in your area because the airports are closed, easily figure out whether you will be open or closed?

I know that in my niche of Needlework, stitchers crawl out of the woodwork in bad weather to get to my local needlework shop, for fear that they will be trapped without a stitching project to work on.

I can easily imagine a stitcher in a local hotel, waiting for airport traffic to resume, making the effort to get to Meredith's (my LNS) to buy a new project, because she didn't bring one with her OR she finished it OR she can work on it for some reason.

I am sure that many small offline businesses might have similar scenarios…

So, does YOUR small business have a WEATHER POLICY? Even if you aren't in an area that has snow, I am sure that you are affected by the weather or other events in some way, and having a policy in place is just good planning!

I firmly believe that Twitter is one of those online marketing opportunities that you NEED to make time for! While creating and running a Twitter marketing plan does take thought and effort, there are many tools and methods available to make it easier to accomplish your Twitter tasks… and as it stands now, Twitter has the potential to become an extremely important part of YOUR online marketing puzzle.

Why Twitter? you may ask. Because of the way Twitter works — people CHOOSE to follow you — TWITTER is 100% Permission Marketing!

Now, often when I explain all of this to busy offline business owners, like yourself, they look at me with bafflement and ask

    *Don't these people have LIVES?*

    *Why would anybody want to do this?*
   
    *I don't have time for this!*, they wail!

My answer is simple… *You are not your customer!*

WHY do you market?

The point of MARKETING is to reach your targeted audience with your message.

Twitter provides a powerful method to accomplish this effectively AND efficiently.

For a plethora of OFFLINE Twitter marketing techniques, check out my new Survival Guide – Twitter for Offline Businesses.

http://surviveandconqueronline.com/TwitterForOfflineBusinesses.htm

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink

For retailers, this is true on several different levels. One of the most powerful of these is the fact that many of your customers have secret fantasies about owning a *cute little shop*. Do they want to know the brutal realities involved? No! And you know what… that's OK…

The mere fact that they occasionally flirt with the idea offers you an incredibly effective, versatile, and subtle marketing strategy.

This is just one of the topics that will be discussed — in depth — in the upcoming webinar – How to Wow!

Even more exciting, the webinar format offers you the opportunity to participate by typing in your questions!

Here are more details on the How to Wow! Webinar.

Sharing the road to success!

Tink
 

When you look at them as part of a puzzle affecting YOUR Internet business, they become even more SIGNIFICANT!

Amazingly enough, even though they are vital topics in any context, there is very little information available about them, either online or offline! There are an number of factors contributing to this:

• Search Engines and their guiding algorithms (searching methods and criteria) are closely guided secrets
• Search Engines and their algorithms (especially Google) are changed often
• Online Search is an ongoing battleground  between the Search Engine companies and online cheaters (called Black Hats) who are attempting to profit by twisting the system
• Interpreting Statistics is an extremely complicated and, dare I say , esoteric endeavor (My Dad worked in Statistics his entire career and used to say that a good statistician could make data say whatever he wanted it to say… pretty scary, huh?)
• The web changes quickly, with little warning and NO oversight!
• No one knows your business better than YOU do

For instance, a good accountant could look at your company’s financial records and attempt to interpret them… but unless that person knows that there was a broken water main in front of your building and all traffic was blocked for two weeks, a dramatic sales drop could be EASILY mis-interpreted

Deciphering your web site statistics demands the same need for detailed and intimate knowledge. Recently revamped site navigation may be reflected in your web site statistics and traffic patterns, but only be apparent to someone who knew exactly when it happened

There are NO clear cut RIGHT answers! Understanding Online Search, Internet Search Engines, and Web Site Statistics is a combination of number crunching, careful tracking, creative interpretation, detailed inside knowledge, and a bit of magic! *VeryBigGrin*

Take a moment to consider your Offline Business…

Please answer the following questions:

• How many customers visited your Offline business last week?
• How did they find out about your business?
• How long did they stay?
• Were they returning customers?
• What model of vehicle did they arrive in?

Now, believe it or not, Online Search, Internet Search Engines, and Web Site Statistics, ALL working together, will answer those questions, and more, about your Online visitors. Just substitute *Operating System* and *Web Browser* for the car questions! *smile*

This is WHY it is important that YOU — the business owner — learn and track your company’s Web Site Statistics and keep up to date with the Search Engines and their antics. 

Fortunately, there are a couple of options, if you want to learn more about Web Site Statistics…    even if you don't even know WHERE to look at them! <grin>

If you have the time, I will be presenting a Webinar on Search, Search Engines, and Web Site Statistics on September 17, 2009. 

I have also written a Survival Guide on the subject of Web Site Statistics.      

Both of these resources are useful for newbies — because I explain things in plain English…

They are also suitable for more experienced web folks, because I share actual statistics from one of my web sites!     

I hope that you will take advantage of these valuable resources.

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink                    
 

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TINK’S TIPS

I have been working on a couple of Email related projects over the last couple of days… so this tip is an email tip

Always use a accurate Subject Line, and whatever you do… DON’T FORGET TO HAVE A SUBJECT LINE!

I receive 1000-1500 spam emails to my main email addy — PER DAY! more and more of them have blank subject lines. I automatically figure a blank subject line = SPAM… I do try to remember to check the sender info, but I don’t always!

If you forget a subject line when you send me an email, you have upped the odds of having me delete it as SPAM!

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NEW THIS WEEK

CHEAT SHEET -

We have a new Cheat Sheet, the LAST part in a 5 part series – *How Web Sites are Found*. Be sure and download it now because it will be available to BASIC Level members ONLY for this week!

NOTE – This Resource is provided as a ZIP file, containing a PDF file. It is NOT content on a web page. You will need to download it, unzip it and then open the PDF file in order to read it. You WILL be able to print out a copy, if you wish!

Here is the LINK -

http://surviveandconquercoaching.com/supreme/downloads.php

HOW TO ACCESS IT:

Log in to SurviveAndConquerCoaching.com

Look in the Left Vertical Navigation bar

Click on the one titled Your Downloads
(It will be near the top!)

On the Download Page, there will be a long list of available Downloads listed by Category.
(The Categories are listed in Alphabetical order. The Downloads within the Category are not Alphabetized.)

Click on the underlined Link in the upper left corner of each Download listing box.

All PREMIER Level members will have more than one page of Downloads, and can navigate to the other Download pages using navigation options at the bottom of the list.

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VIDEO TUTORIAL -

This week’s BASIC Video is *How to Hide Files on Your Computer.

Note – It was created for PC users, not Mac users… Sorry!

Here is the Link:

http://surviveandconquercoaching.com/supreme/p/?/Basic-Video.html

HOW TO ACCESS IT:

You can also access the video tutorial by going to the Left Vertical Navigation bar (once you are Logged in!)

Click on the 6th link – BASIC- Video Vault

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All of these great resources can be found at:

http://surviveandconquercoaching.com

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink

I had several sites hacked… repeatedly.

I had to have one of my computer's reformatted and a new Operating System installed.

I had the databases for a couple of sites crash (who knows why!).

I am still waiting to see the final outcome with one of my problem sites.

While living thru the whole process I have learned a LOT and I am in the midst of implementing changes based on those lessons.

Here are some of my hard earned but valuable lessons…

I am VERY happy with the advice and help from my computer support guys. An enthusiastic shoutout here to Freddie and Maria at Kentucky Trade!

I am happy with the timely help and respectful communication from my hosting company. HostGator Rocks! Thanks, guys!!!!

It is much less stressful to face potential disaster while saying *Gee, I am glad I…* rather than saying *Oops! I am sorry I didn't…*

After spending so much time and effort writing my Survival Course, *Disaster-proof Your Online Business*

, I am happy to be able to say, *Do as I DO*.

One of my dearest online friends took the time to help me evaluate the process and my actions and grade my strategies. I was pretty happy with the results.

The bottom line is… bad things will happen to your online business.

Do the best you can to prepare for them, and accept
that you can't anticipate everything.

Having the various elements of my sites backed up on a regular basis was a god-send. It is much less stressful to contact the Support Desk at your hosting and be able to tell them that you have full backups available if they need them.

I am happy to say that the fates were with me and my backups were not necessary, BUT the important thing is… I had them available in a worst case scenario.

Do keep your information available in multiple media formats, when applicable.

I talk about this in depth in *Disaster-Proof* and I provide both text file templates and spreadsheet templates. Over the last 4 weeks, there were many times when I found myself using BOTH formats.

Since the people who know me best sometimes accuse me of being overprepared, I will admit to wondering a couple of times if I was going overboard. ..

I am now happy to say… No, I wasn't! LOL As I said at the beginning, I am still evaluating the process, so look for one or two more posts sharing my experiences.

Sharing the road to success,

Tink

On the other hand, I do have posts where images would be appropriate, such as when I write about my vintage cookbooks.  It’s now very easy to add an image of the cookbook cover.  What would be even nicer, would be to be able to pretty up those images.  However, there hasn’t been an easy way to do that, until now…

Thomas is one of my favorite online friends. Part of it is the fact the he has a graphic design degree AND a programming degree… which make for an unlikely, but powerful combination.

His most recent project is a handy dandy little program the makes it VERY easy to dress up web graphics.

Called Tiger Web Graphics, this program allows you to import a web ready image and — in just a few mouse clicks — give it rounded corners, or make it look like a film strip, or a polaroid, or give it the serrated edge of a postage stamp.

It will also manipulate the image to give it perspective, add a reflection, or give it a drop shadow…

I use CorelDraw and CorelPhotoPaint for most of my work, simply because I need the powerful options that these programs offer, but, truth be told, I have only taken the time to learn what I need to do for the technical drawing and other applications I need.  I know that they will do many other wonderful things… but I simply can’t justify the time needed to learn how to do those things.

But now I don’t need to learn to do a lot of them!  Thomas has done the work for me!

One of the other reasons I like Thomas so much is because he understands the importance of providing good reference materials.  Tiger Web Graphics comes with an excellent 45 page PDF help file, explaining what you need to know to get started immediately.

Here is a link to check out the sales page.  Amazingly enough, this wonderful program is only $14.95!

Tiger Web Graphics

Let me be clear… this software is NOT designed to be photo editing software.  You need to start with an image that is already the proper size and has been prepared for the Web.  However, if you have that, you can add these wonderful effects in seconds.

If you look below, I took screenshots showing the three steps needed to access the help file. I played a little bit and added a different effect to each of the three images.

Tiger Web Graphics is a very powerful tool at a very small price!  I think you owe it to yourself to check out.

Thomas was kind enough to offer a 100% affiliate program for this software.  That means if you use my affiliate link, I get the money! This means that the PayPal payment is made directly to me, so don’t be confused when you see my name on the payment screen!

My affiliate link

I do realize that there are people online who prefer not to use affiliate links, but this program is so wonderful I don’t want to leave them out of the loop, so here is a a non-affiliate link.

Non-affiliate link

Which ever link you use, I think you will find this a very handy program.

Here are the images showing how to access the Help File:

Step 1 - Open the program and click on the Graphic Icon

Step 2 - Double click on the Miscellaneous Tab

Step 3 - Doubleclick on the Help Icon and the Help Manual PDF will open

Let me take a moment to add that Tiger Web Graphics would work great for Business Bloggers, (it’s not just for hobby bloggers)  and the images can actually be used on any web site. In fact, I plan to use them to add interest to the images in my next Survival Guide!

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink

http://surviveandconquercoaching.com

Check out the December Special Offers page. I am offering a Monthly Special for December 2008. It is Disaster-proof your Online Business and is heavily discounted. Start the New Year right, by taking charge and protecting your Online Business!

In addition to the Monthly Special, I am offering a different Special each week. This week it is  Survival Guide to Email Marketing the RIGHT Way! I consider this one of the most important issues facing offline Businesses, as well as one of the least understood. NOTE: Do NOT buy this if you are taking the class at TNNA in January!

This week’s Cheat Sheet is a new CORE Cheat Sheet:*What are Local Search and Local SEO? – PART 1*

If you haven’t already done so, check out the latest Short Report: Are You Maximizing Your Web Shop’s Search Options? While its focus is on online Shops, if you have a wholesale site or showcase site, this WILL apply to your site!

And, last but not least… Tactic # 10 has been added to the series on List Building called List Building Tactics and Tactic #9 has been removed from the BASIC Level Membership. There are 24 Tactics in this series.

If you are using WordPress for ANY type of site, the new Survival Course – Create an Effective Web Site YOU can Operate Yourself (even if you know NOTHING about the Internet) is a worthwhile read. It is available in Web Page format as part of Academy – Basic or as a PDF download.

All of these great resources can be found at:

http://surviveandconquercoaching.com

Sharing the Road to Success

Tink