Volume 13 | 1485 subscribers | 98 different countries | 6 February 2006 | Tell a Friend Welcome to the 183 people who subscribed to 'Up-Starts' over the past month! If you would like to read this newsletter online please click here.
Contents
Part 1 - Welcome! Part 2 - Products / Special Offers Part 3 - Featured Entrepreneur Part 4 - Business Quote of the Month Part 5 - Feature Article Part 6 - About the 'Up-Starts' Newsletter
Part 1 - Welcome! Dear <$firstname$>,
Welcome to the first edition of Up-Starts for 2006. I hope your business year is off to a flyer!
When I initially created the Up-Starts newsletter 12 months ago, I wanted to start sharing some of my business ideas and inspiration with entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs all over the world.
Since launching my coaching practice, I have found that the people that actually seek me out for business coaching tend to be fellow coaches and other service based professionals.
Because of this, I have decided to make the Up-Starts newsletter more specific and relevant towards this target market. I have changed the Up-Starts newsletter strap line from 'for the entrepreneurial mind' to 'for the entrepreneurial service professional' to reflect this change in focus.
In the coming months my feature articles will also focus upon issues confronting this target market.
Up-Starts Survey
To ensure that the Up-Starts newsletter is relevant to the needs of the entrepreneurial service professional, I have created an online survey. If you could take a few moments of your time to share your feedback, I would be incredibly grateful.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=21151746604
Thank you once again for your continued support.
Take a chance 2day!
Damien Senn Creating Compelling Futures
Senn-Sational Limited
Ph: +44 (0)793 906 4338
Email: support@senn-sational.com
Part 2 - Products / Special Offers
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Part 3 - Featured Entrepreneur - Alex Bellinger
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Alex Bellinger is one of the UK’s most experienced practitioners in the field of SME, financial services and business-to-business public relations. He has headed up small business PR for some of the the UK’s largest financial institutions including RBS, HSBC and Alliance & Leicester. He has also worked in lobbying, marketing and PR roles in the food industry. Alex
also founded SmallBizPod, the UK's first podcast dedicated to small
business, start-ups and entrepreneurs and is an avid blogger. |
Part 4 - Business Quote of the Month
"As marketers, we know the old stuff isn't working. And we know why: because as consumers, we're too busy to pay attention to advertising, but we're desperate to find good stuff that solves our problems."
Seth Godin, Author of Purple Cow.
Part 5 - Featured Article - 4 Steps to a Magnetic Web Presence!
If you're a self employed service professional or entrepreneur, one of the most important investments that you can make is in your own online presence. The medium is without doubt the least expensive and most powerful way to promote your business today.
But how do you actually make this medium start working for you more effectively? Here are some ideas worth considering…
(1) Define the strategic purpose of your website.
When you begin to plan or review your online presence, the first thing you need to do is become fully aware of the ‘strategic purpose’ of your website.
If you do not understand the purpose of your website you have absolutely no chance of critically evaluating whether it has been effective or not.
Some possible strategic purposes of your website include
- to build relationships with your target market
- to sell a specific product or service
- to generate subscribers
- to generate advertising income
- to funnel traffic to other websites
(2) Design a user friendly website
Once you understand your websites strategic purpose, it is now time to start considering how design can actually support you in achieving this purpose.
The best starting place is to do some research in your market place by analysing three notable competitor websites. Make notes of what you like about each of them and start thinking about how you could combine your favourite elements to create your own site.
The second thing you need to do is to actually give some thought to the colours that you would like to use on your site. Your choice of colour will have a dramatic impact on the users experience of your site. I'd recommend using a colour wheel to ensure the combinations you select are complimentary. Click the following link to try out the free tool that I use.
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme/index-en.html
Once you have chosen your colours, type ‘colour psychology’ into Google to find out the meanings behind the colours you've just selected. It may just surprise you!
Once you have an understanding of the design you like and chosen your colour scheme, you will be in a strong position to create a brief that explains exactly what you want to a web designer. Alternatively, if you have the skills you can build the site yourself.
(3) Generating web traffic
Many people think that all you need is well designed website and then bang you’ll have a money making machine. This is definitely not the case! With so many websites vying for the attention of your potential customers and clients, you really need to have to a firm grasp on how to attract people to your website and how to keep them coming back!
Strategies worth exploring further include;
- Newsletter creation
- Search engine optimisation
- Article writing
- Link exchanges
- Public Relations Campaigns (including radio, tv, & print media)
- Pay per click campaigns
(4) Convert your traffic
Now there is no point having a high traffic web site if you have no strategy in place to actually convert some of that traffic into subscribers, customers and clients.
Most people will only ever go to small business website once. Your challenge is to actually develop ways to get people to express their interest in your business (generally by getting them to subscribe to a newsletter) and then building that relationship with your subscribers over time.
Magnetise Yourself!
So there you have it, four simple steps to increase your level of magnetism on the web!
One of the biggest challenges facing most small business owners, particularly service professionals, is trying to do too much. We all have limited time available to us and more often than not, our time is best focused upon doing the things that we know best.
If any of this is confusing you should definitely enlist the help of both a skilled web designer and an online marketing coach to help guide you on your journey. You’ll be very glad that you did!
To post a comment on this article to the Senn-Sational Blog or to read what other people have said click here
featured link.
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Part 6 - About the 'Up-Starts' Newsletter
Copyright © Senn-Sational Limited 2007. All rights reserved.
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