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

I wanted to share a recent email I got from a SurviveAndConquerCoaching member:

Subject: just took lesson 1 for Strategies for Online Retail Success!

I signed up for your basic level membership when you first talked about this on the quiltdesigners list… then it was ‘later’, ‘I dont have time right now’, etc.  I really wish I had MADE the time from the beginning.

You have really opened my eyes, just in the first lesson!  I just wanted to thank you for starting this up!  As soon as I have the funds available I’ll be upgrading.

Thanks Tink!!

Angela R McIntyre

Laughing Cat Designs Etc.!

**************************

NOW! On to what’s new this week at SurviveAndConquerCoaching.com:

Tactic # 7 has been added to the series on List Building called List Building Tactics and Tactic # 6 has been removed from the BASIC Level Membership. There are 24 Tactics in this series.

This week’s Cheat Sheet is *Why Blog?* It will be available to BASIC members for just a week.

A NEW Video Tutorial has been added to the BASIC-Video Vault. It explains *How to Create a PDF file Using Free Software*. It will be available to BASIC Level members for about a  week.

Don’t forget to download the October 2008 WordPress Plugin Report, while it is available.

If you haven’t downloaded the newest Short Report – The Offline Business Owner’s Guide to Making the MOST of Local Portals & Directories! — grab it now! It is 11 pages with 10 question you should be asking about your Portal and Directory opportunities. There are more and more of these coming online, and they represent excellent marketing opportunities… IF you know the right questions to ask.

Just a reminder, 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.

http://surviveandconquercoaching.com

Sharing the Road to Success

Tink

When I wanted some quiet time before going to sleep, I spent it looking thru a 2 year old Log Homes magazine (I don’t remember which one, exactly) that I found on the bed side table.

I got intrigued by all of the URLs (web site addresses such as www.yoursite.com) in the magazine ads, articles, and editorials. What I found interesting was how many there were (easily one for every page in the magazine) and how hard to read the majority of them were.

This was especially true in the ads, and I know many of the ads were created by advertising professionals… YEESH!

So, Offline Business Owners… here is a valuable TIP:

The letters between the dots in a domain (www dot THESE LETTERS dot com / www.THESELETTERS.com) are NOT case sensitive. This means that you can make them either lower case OR upper case and they will still, happily, point folks to your web site.

OK… now for the good part… Use capitalization to make your domain/web address EASY TO READ and REMEMBER (Yes, I AM yelling… this is an important detail that can put you ahead of the competition!)

For instance, this domain is www.tinkboorddill.com

Is it hard to read? You betcha!

Could I make it easier to read?

Yep, I can:

www.TinkBoordDill.com

OR (I’m getting silly here to make the point ;-) )

www.tinkBOORDdill.com

OR

www.TINKboordDILL.com

If folks can read it easily, they are more likely to

• use it to visit
• type it accurately and actually get to your site ;-)
• remember it

All of these are important to YOUR business survival, cost NO money, and are easy to implement… and your competition is probably NOT doing it! LOL

Get into the habit for writing out your web site address in an easily readable format, put it on your business cards this way, and on all the promotional materials you use!

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink

So, what IS a FavIcon? A FavIcon is the little picture you see in the browser’s URL/address bar and next to that site’s name in a long list of bookmarks. For this web site, it is an itty bitty version of the colorful gear image on the blog header. Can you see it? Not all browsers show the FavIcon, but a lot of them do. I am sure that eventually all of them will do so.

I have been using FavIcon for many years now… in fact I NEVER put a site up without a FavIcon. Part of it is my lamentable *I am a Designer and everything has to be perfect* mentality… but, truth be told. I also honestly believe that it can give a web site an effective marketing edge.

I am online about 12-18 hours a day, barring the t’storms when I turn off and unplug the ‘puter (a 100 year old house and funky wiring, ya know! LOL). As a result, I have a terrifyingly long list of bookmark folders, each of which holds another long list of bookmarked web sites. Does a FavIcon make it easy for me to find a given web site in those long and endless lists?

You bet it does! ;-)

In addition, online, among the myriad of web sites which can be your site’s direct and indirect competition, a FavIcon can help build that all important marketing element — the *Online Brand*.

I have added a Cheat Sheet about FavIcons over at SurviveAndConquerOnline.com as well as a brief, FREE Tutorial in the Academy there.

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink

In the course of the show, I was asked many questions about doing business on the internet… in my classes, in the aisles, and at my booth. Often the questions are regarding how business is set up within common internet industry business models.

A common example is that most web designers handle all of the details regarding the web sites they design/develop, including registering the domain and providing the hosting. From the designer/developer’s point of view, this business model is very attractive and a good money producer.

However, from the point of view of a small business owner, this scenario can be fraught with many hidden dangers!

So… what do I do as a business consultant? Do I go with the flow and offer advice based on the common business models?

I always answer every question by first asking myself *What would I tell Lisa?*.

Lisa is my BF/Cousin. She is a single mom with 2 daughters in college and no financial help other than from her own business.

Lisa was the inspiration for my Disaster-Proof Your Online Business Survival Guide and Workbook.

She called me at midnight (my time) to say that she didn’t have access to her web site to change the registration for an offline workshop. Her workshops are the financial backbone of her business, so this was a MAJOR business crisis!

As it turned out, we were able to get the issues resolved… after several nail-biting hours! Lisa’s web developer had sent Lisa the important info when she changed web hosts, so SHE had acted responsibly. Lisa had carefully kept the email that was sent, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what it all meant, so SHE had acted responsibly.

The problems had arisen because Lisa had not realized the importance of being the person controlling the information, decision-making, and action-taking concerning her web site.

Many times, the standard internet industry business practices are helpful to time stressed business owners, but they can sometimes result in catastrophic problems further down the road. As I spend more and more time answering questions in my consulting and coaching business — I find myself returning to the criteria– *What Would I Tell Lisa*.

I try always to answer the questions by explaining what industry standards may be, and what the long term implications are. If I feel that such an action might put a small business’s Internet interests at risk, I explain in detail why I think that, and offer practical suggestions for minimizing the risk.

Alway, in the back of my mind, I hear Lisa’s voice quavering on the phone, *Tink, I think I have a problem…* and I answer accordingly!

Sharing the Road to Success!

Tink