Here are a few reasons why I like postcard marketing:

• Postcards are less disruptive and intrusive than e-mail, since many consider email spamming as an inconvenient way to get unsolicited information. Postcards also enjoy less competition.
• It’s easier to read a postcard at a glance than to open an envelope.
• Unlike e-mail, postcards can take on any size, color, gloss or graphic and is even more personal and tangible than email communication.
• Another good and practical reason for resorting to postcards is that you can create, print and mail postcards without a big investment and are practical. This is practically so because you can use both sides of the postcard, although not every inch. You may use side like a poster or a picture display and the other for a few details. Or simply put an advertisement on one side and a personal message on the other, whichever suits you best.
• They are simple. This is so because it does not have a lot to it. Messages are timely, ideas straight to the point and messages brief and concise.
• Postcards are multi- faceted since it can double as a gift certificate, coupon and event ticket, among others. Recipients can then present the card to claim an offer or avail of a good discount as well as a good tool to measure effectiveness.

It is important to remember that although it is good to send out your postcards to the most number of people as possible, the effectivity of your mailing list will also determine the captured market you may end up with as you move on with your postcard marketing campaign.

Hope this helps!

Amber

I was blown away when Dave shared these statistics with me:

- Most people lose 28% or more of their work day to interruptions and the recovery time from interruptions

- Most people can only work 11 minutes until being interrupted

- Most people report being stressed out and too busy, IN SPITE OF  the technology that was intended to give them more time

I wanted to let you know Dave is offering a FREE webinar this week and you can bet I’ll be on it!  I am continually amazed at how much FREE and useful content Dave always gives away.

Check it out! I’ve already saved my seat!

While I’m not sure about all of the url shorteners available right now, I can share with you the ones I use on a daily basis.

In the past, I always used tinyurl.com. They were the “original url shortener” and came around in 2002. They were for a while, the most known and widely used.  I personally do not use tinyurl anymore because  some of the other shorteners have come out with some great additional features – such as shorter urls (the whole point of a tiny url is that it is tiny!) and at the time of this post, they do not currently have a way to track your links for you. Tinyurl.com does provide a 301 redirect which is good. With a 301 redirect it tells the search engine that the url you requested to shorten has “permanently” moved to the original url – giving credit to the original url – not the shortened url.

As far which shortener I use for he majority of my clients? Well that would bit.ly.com and snipurl.com.  Both provide shorter characters in the urls created, offer tracking, support Tweetdeck, Twhirl and Twitterfeed and allow sharing.

I also prefer to use the custom options and actually give my shortened url a real name at the end – instead of allowing the program to create a random one for me. ie – www.bit.ly.com/amber compared to www.bit.ly.com/X23df. But that is just my preference. I think it looks nicer in emails

Is there another shortener that you just love? Share it with me here, I’d love to know!

To Your Delegating Success!

Amber Miller

1) Customer support via telephone. Are you required to only use a help desk or email to get support? For me personally, I like to pick up the phone and talk to someone who can assist me.

2) CPanel – do they have CPanel or another user friendly control panel interface? This can be helpful especially for those who are not very technical.

3) Fantastico – or the ability to easily install wordpress and other ecommerce and blog applications.

4) Backups. Do they backup your server? If so, how often do they back it up, how long is the data retained by them and is there a fee for them to restore.

and newly added #5 – drumroll please….

5) Email distribution limitations…what are they? You may not have a large list now, but hopefully soon you will and then will your growth be at their mercy? (learned the hard way with this one )

To Your Online Success!

Amber

Elizabeth was looking for something that would allow us to actually set the time she was available – opposed to the times she was not available. Let me tell you, not too easy to do with some of the other online schedulers out there. Remembering Sarah’s suggestion a few months back, I decided to give Time Driver a try.

Wowzer! This system was a piece of cake!!! Love it. It allowed me to quickly and easily set up a specific group of times for Elizabeth that she is available for coaching – and then assigns a url for us to use in sending out to her clients for them to schedule. And, they offer a 90-day trial and does not require a credit card. Who does that anymore? Not 30 but 90 days…nice! And, get this. If you like it, after 90 days the cost is only $29.95 for an entire year!

The only thing I found a bit confusing at first was that Time Driver tries to be “smart” and uses the timezone that is set in your computer settings. So for me, as a VA, I wanted to set these times up for Elizabeth as Eastern, but I am in the pacific time zone. Once I figured out how it worked, I simply adjusted the times I entered to be pacific – and made a note to her clients that the times shown on the calendar were specific to those set up in their own computer system.

So far so good. I will continue to use it during the 90 day trial and continue to evaluate. If you use this, I would love to hear your comments and reviews!

To Your Online Success,
Amber

The Thesis Theme has the most customizations I have seen in a wordpress theme. And what I love about it most – is that you can customize each site using the Thesis theme and not one of them will look the same…love that! I love that you can take a blog theme and make it look different than another blog that is using the Thesis theme.

Thesis also contains additional options that allow you to fine-tune each page of your blog site. The days of worrying about your SEO are over!

I have already suggested 2 of my other fabulous clients make the switch

Happy Friday!
Amber Miller
The Delegation Diva

Now…you can select the days and times that autoresponders go out – therefore avoiding days such as Saturday or Friday night. I love that!!!

Keep it up aWeber…

Amber Miller
The Delegation Diva

There are several ways that you can use an autoresponder to your advantage, resulting in big money and more time for your business so you tend to other things or simply sit back and spend more time with your family.

Here are a few other ways you can make your autoresponders work for you

1. If you lack the room on your site to add your testimonials to your ad copy, you can add them to your autoresponder.  If you choose to add them to your responder you should always be sure to include all of them.  It will look more professional, and let others know more about your products.
2. You can also choose to use your entire website in autoresponder format.  Although this may sound silly to some, it’s actually an innovative idea that really works.  Not all visitors will have the time to read your website; often times having to leave before they can really read what you have to offer.  If you put your website in autoresponder format, you can email bits and pieces from your site to potential customers so they can continue to read when they have time.
3. Another innovative way to use your autoresponder is by including your terms and conditions.  Often times, potential customers and clients simply don’t have enough time to read through your terms and conditions.  The terms and conditions are very important, which is why it never hurts to include them with an email.  Your terms and conditions that you email could include the exact copy from your website, or detailed information about your return policies, purchases, refunds, and anything else you think a potential customer would like to know.

There are many other ways that you can use your autoresponder.  All you need to do is put a little bit of creativity and thought into it, and you’ll probably find yourself amazed with all the things you can do with autoresponders.  They are very popular with Internet marketing and online businesses these days, and for good reason.  If you’ve grown tired of having to manage every aspect of your online business – now is the time to invest in an autoresponder.  They are user friendly and very affordable – making them something that no business should ever be without.

To Your Online Success!

Amber

But now is! I love this cool email feature it has. You can email wrike with your email (including attachments) and it will create a task for you. I love that! Many of my tasks come in from emails from my clients and now – I can simply forward them to wrike and it will add it. LOVE that!

Anyone else using Wrike.com?

Now, I have been doing this for several clients using aMember with a blog, but I have to tell you – Wishlist is AMAZING! I love it. The setup proceed does take a few hours – but actually much faster than aMember.

Here are a few features I really liked:

• IP Address limit: How cool, you can limit the unique number of IP addresses that attempt to login with the same user login. This prevents those from passing around their login details.
• There is a login widgit you can use on the homepage of your blog. Very cool.
• Integrates with 1shopping Cart – wohoooo! Anyone wanna try it? Contact me…:)
• Also will allow you to integrate with aWeber.
• A feature inside the blog post that allows you to say whether it is a protected post or not.
• Much more!

Are you using Wishlist? I’d love to know your thoughts!