Shameless Self-Promotion

Written by Janice D. Byer, MVA


Hi! My name is Janice Byer and I amrepparttar owner of Docu-Type Administrative & Web Design Services (http://www.docutype.net). I amrepparttar 106178 winner of several prestigious awards (information is on our website) and have a slew of happy customers, asrepparttar 106179 testimonials on our site will attest to. My services are professional, creative and in demand.

Now, wasn’t that easy? In one small paragraph, I have shamelessly self-promoted my business and it’s success.

I’ll admit it, I am addicted to shameless self-promotion, and why not? Who better to promote myself and my business than me? And,repparttar 106180 opportunity to talk about your business should berepparttar 106181 root behind every marketing effort you undertake.

Networking utilizes shameless self-promotion almost constantly. After all, when you visit a networking event, why are you there? To promote your business of course! And, when you are at a designated networking event, it is notrepparttar 106182 time when you should hold back. Be shameless yet professional, and also be considerate of your fellow networkers. They are there forrepparttar 106183 same reason you are. So, give themrepparttar 106184 opportunity to shamelessly self-promote themselves.

Networking isrepparttar 106185 “right time” to shamelessly self-promote. But, there are times when it is not appropriate. There is a time and a place for everything, including promoting your business.

For instance, if you are a member of a news or discussion group, there are generally rules against promoting your business, unless that is whatrepparttar 106186 list is for. So, don’t take advantage ofrepparttar 106187 captive audience or breakrepparttar 106188 rules. That can actually be bad for business.

However, some lists have designated days ofrepparttar 106189 week or month when you can shamelessly tellrepparttar 106190 world about what you do and what you have to offer. This isrepparttar 106191 time to show them what you’ve got.

Opportunities arise at various times when it is good to promote yourself and your business. For instance, I was with my daughter atrepparttar 106192 library yesterday andrepparttar 106193 woman there asked if I was excited about my daughter going into grade one andrepparttar 106194 fact that she will be in school all day. This wasrepparttar 106195 perfect opportunity to tell her that I run my own home-based business and what I do.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Website

Written by Scott Buresh


Althoughrepparttar number of business-related websites continues to grow at a fast rate, many companies don't realize any noticeable return on their website investment. Often, this is simply becauserepparttar 106177 website does not addressrepparttar 106178 offline goals ofrepparttar 106179 business and because there is no reliable mechanism in place to measure its success. When trying to gauge how effective your website is in helping you to meet your organizational goals,repparttar 106180 following three basic questions can help.

What isrepparttar 106181 goal ofrepparttar 106182 site? Many companies have ineffective websites because there were no predefined goals in place whenrepparttar 106183 site was made. What do you wantrepparttar 106184 site to do? Sometimesrepparttar 106185 goal is easy to define. If your site sells items online, you most likely want your visitors to make a purchase. For many other companies that sell services (or high end products that can't reasonably be sold online),repparttar 106186 goal is to haverepparttar 106187 visitor initiate a contact so thatrepparttar 106188 sales staff can attempt to convert them into a customer. The important point is that your website should be more than a static billboard that proclaims that your company is open for business- it should be designed to help achieve predefined goals (and unlessrepparttar 106189 site is strictly informational, this usually means encouragingrepparttar 106190 visitor to take a desired action). Simply "having a website" does nothing to help your business or your customers.

How many people are coming torepparttar 106191 site? Most site owners have access to traffic statistics, usually provided by their web host. This data is an important part of determiningrepparttar 106192 effectiveness of a site. Without knowing how many visitors your site receives over a given time period, you cannot determine whether your site is meetingrepparttar 106193 stated goals (more on this to follow). Benchmark data over at least a month is recommended to ensure that you have a representative sample. Ideally, this sample will not be drawn from a period in whichrepparttar 106194 company was doing an unusual amount of offline marketing and promotion, since this number would not be indicative of website traffic for an average month.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use