I Am Not A Number! Are You?

Written by Mike Banks Valentine


How often do you give your email address to clients and business prospects? Is it memorable? Is it meaningful? Does it say some- thing about you or your business? Does it suggest your role inrepparttar company? Does it project meaninglessness or generic empti- ness? Is it playful, respectful, descriptive or bland beyond words? You may believe it is none of these, but you are wrong if you think nobody cares. Your email address speaks volumes.

In 1979, CompuServe becamerepparttar 109688 first service to offer electronic mail capabilities to personal computer users. Most early adopter types were computer geeks already and were not offended byrepparttar 109689 odd numeric email addresses, nor did they mind being represented digitally by a string of digits. Hence, odd looking email ID's such as cs10457882.32@compuserve.com were common for years.

Now that email is becoming an expected and necessary element of business communications, be aware how often it is seen and used by clients and customers andrepparttar 109690 impression it makes on them each time they see that address showing up in their in-box. Few ofrepparttar 109691 old Compuserve members with numbers for email addresses remain. Numbers were assigned to those early members to identify compuserve accounts and served to efficiently turn those people into bits of data forrepparttar 109692 old, slow computer systems of just a few years ago.

Unfortunately, we seem to be headed back in that direction as more users than available names exist at service provider email accounts. If you attempt to sign up with an email account at America Online, Hotmail, Yahoo or other national internet service providers, you are likely to find thatrepparttar 109693 name you choose is not available. They'll offer you odd variations with strings of numbers attached to differentiate you from hundreds of others who've chosen that name. So JohnDoe654298475@aol.com might be offered instead when a John Doe gets a new AOL screen name today. The same is true of Yahoo and Hotmail addresses.

Most of us operating businesses online are aware that it is possible to have almost any name we can dream up attached to our own domain name and that we can have nearly any email address we like, but few use that ability to choose an online identity creatively or with much business sense. So it is quite common to see bland generic names such as info@yourcompany.com or even some web-based email accounts at generic hosts such as Hotmail or Yahoo just becauserepparttar 109694 small business owner is not aware that they can now have an email address that reflects their own domain name to further brand their business.

It's not unusual that small businesses use YourCompany@Yahoo.com or even something as strange and unacceptable for business as HotMamma@YooHoo.com for their professional communications when they could have a more appropriate CEO@YourCompany.com or evenrepparttar 109695 more common First.Last@YourCompany.com to identify them. This isrepparttar 109696 bland end ofrepparttar 109697 spectrum but serves as a bare minimum of business email identity for your professional email communications. If you don't know how to set up your email account at your domain name, FIND OUT! It is inappropriate to conduct business with free email accounts or even AOL names.

Are You Overlooking the Gold In Your Email Folders?

Written by Marty Foley


If you've been usingrepparttar Internet for some time, most likelyrepparttar 109687 folders of your email program have become crammed with copies of different types of email messages you've sent and received in days gone by.

Perhaps to conserve hard drive space or to reduce clutter and confusion, you've saved few copies of past messages. Or maybe you've saved many inrepparttar 109688 past but have later been tempted to delete them.

Let me suggest that those old email messages may contain more value than you've ever imagined. I'm going to share some ideas in this article that may help you look at them in a new light and to gain more value from them.

1) FAQ Page Creation and Updating.

As you look through archived email messages, are there certain questions that prospects have often asked about your products or services? Remember that for every prospect who takesrepparttar 109689 time to email you a question about one of your products or services, there likely have been several more with similar questions who haven't.

In order to save time for yourself and your prospects inrepparttar 109690 future - and to close more sales - you may be wise to compile answers to common questions into a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) web page or autoresponder. Atrepparttar 109691 very least, you may at least be able to reuse your replies to previous questions to answer future ones, instead of creating them from scratch each time.

2) Ad Copy Improvements.

The same idea applies to your ad copy. The more questions, concerns or sales objections you leave unanswered or unaddressed,repparttar 109692 more potential obstacles stand inrepparttar 109693 way of a prospect's buying decision. Your email archives likely hold valuable clues for ways to better address those issues by updating and improving your ad copy.

3) Ideas for Additional Income Streams.

Past email correspondence with prospects and customers can reveal additional related challenges, problems and goals of those in your target market. Hidden within may lierepparttar 109694 spark of ideas for additional products and services that would appeal to them.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
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