Small Office, Home Office Information

More and more small businesses are using email as a way of marketing their products and services to past customers and some future customers too. But there’s always a potential risk of being labelled as a spammer when you use email.

Many countries these days have strict anti-spam laws in place that clearly identify what constitutes spam and what penalties those who break the anti-spam laws will face. Because the anti-spam laws in each country are different I would encourage you to read those laws for yourself.

Here in Australia there are three key requirements set down by our anti-spam laws. Those three requirements are:

1. Consent - you must have the consent of the recipient and you must be able to prove that you have received that consent.

2. Your emails to past clients and potential clients must clearly identify you and your business as the authorised sender.

3. Your emails must contain a functioning unsubscribe link
(you can read more about the Australian anti-spam laws here)

Now if your laws are similar then there is an important factor for every small business in that first point. You must have the consent … and prove you have the consent of the recipient … before you can start sending them emails. That means that you just can’t go round harvesting email addresses wherever you might find them and adding them to your email list. There’s simply no consent in doing that.

I know that’s what a lot of small businesses do to build their email lists but if you want to stay on the right side of the law then the only way you can build your email list is with the consent of of the people you want to send those emails out to.

If you’re trying to build up an email list of potential customers then the only way to do it to stay within the law is via an opt-in option … nothing less will do.

If you are looking for some tips on writing for your small business - whether it’s for your website, blog or even a press release - you might find the tips that you will find at 9 + 1 Things Every /Reader Wants from a Writer to be of great assistance.

I’ve always understood the power of the word ‘you’ - right from back in my days in uniform when a:

” Oi … come here you!”

bellowed from somewhere down around my diaphram would stop just about anyone in their tracks and change their course for them to bring them to stand in front of me looking nervous (if only they knew that behind that uniform I was just as nervous as what they were).

But I’ve never really understood the power of the word ‘because’ until now. However, thanks to Brian Clark, I now do understand the power of the word ‘because’.

And now you should click here to learn about the power of those two words because once you do understand that power you will be able to use it in your business.

And you will want to use those words in your small business because they will bring results.

Yes I know that podcasting is all the rage and there are those who claim that it will overtake normal written communications but will it really? Do you really need to gear your small business or home office up to present what your message via podcasting?

According to Forrester Research there is a good chance that most podcasts won’t be listened to. In fact their latest research suggest that currently only 1% of households in North America regularly download and listen to podcasts.

Of course figures like that have brought howls of protest from those who think that podcasting is the best thing since sliced bread and who instantly question the methodology employed by the researchers. But the fact remains that podcasting is not going to have the same reach - or the same benefits to your small business - as does a website or a blog.

So if you have been stressing about how to get into podcasting to get your small business message out there I would suggest that you stop stressing and shelve the project. Small businesses and home office people don’t need to get into podcasting just yet and perhaps the time will never come when they do.

There has been a lot of hype over the last year or so about blogging. On one level blogging has been seen as the preserve of those who want to share their thoughts and dreams with the world.

On another level blogs have been seen as a chance for affiliate marketers to push their sponsors and, while there are some good affiliate marketing blogs out there, unfortunately there is also a huge amount of stinking garbage out there too.

There is also a third level where blogs are seen as being useful and that’s as a marketing tool for small business.

But despite all the hype, or perhaps because of all the hype, you may wonder just how effective blogs really are.

Well here is something that surprised even me. In a matter of hours on Friday a Tropical Cyclone developed off the coast of Queensland and by Saturday it was obvious that it was going to reach land. At that time it could have gone west and missed us completely or turned south-west and hit us.

So I made a post about it on Saturday in a local news blog that I run. Sunday morning I happened to be looking at the stats for the blog and found that in less than 24 hours Google had picked up that post and it was sending people to the story on my blog.

Through Sunday and yesterday I continued posting about it as it drew closer and developed into a Category 5 monster. By yesterday afternoon the number of people who were coming to my blog for the latest on the cyclone was incredible.

That’s how powerful and immediate blogs can be. You can build a website and Google won’t list it for 12 months or more. Build a blog and post relevant comments on it and Google will love you within 24 hours. MSN and Yahoo will do the same.

If you have an important message to get out about your small business then start blogging because people will begin to hear you.

Just a quick update in the middle of this very pleasant Australia Day. Here is another small business that has it’s own blog - English Cut.

Now for someone who spends most his working day in nothing but a pair of shorts a blog like English Cut is like a foreign languange but just look at the comments. There are people who want to converse with the business, they are customers and they want to join in the conversation.

A couple of days ago I wrote Let Your Small Business Have a Say and suggested that maybe your small business could really benefit from having a blog.

If you read that you could easily be wondering what on earth your business would do with a blog. Who would want to read it?

Well you might be surprised at who would ready what you and your small business had to say and here is an example.

One of the more unusual small business blogs that I have ever come across is Signs Never Sleep a blog by the Lincoln Sign Company. The blog is “a running commentary on what the company does, day-to-day, to create terrific signs for your business or home.”

And you might be surprised to know that it makes for some very interesting reading. But does it work for them?

To answer that perhaps you should read an interview that Dave Taylor did with them on his Intuitive Life Business Blog. That interview also makes for some very interesting reading and you can find it at Q&A with the Lincoln Sign Company: Does Your Blog Work

I hope it will certainly give you something to think about.

And now I’m off to enjoy a public holiday. It’s Australia Day - the day we come together to celebrate all the great things there are about being Australia and we do typically Australian things - like having a BBQ, drinking beer, watching cricket and all those other things that most other countries just don’t understand

If you have just arrived on this site for the first time then let me welcome you to what is commonly referred to as a blog.

The Wikipedia gives this definition for what a blog really is:

A blog is a website in which journal entries are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”.

The Wikipedia definition also goes on to say that “blogging has quickly emerged as a popular and important means of communication”.

These days lots of people and lots of businesses both big and small blog. Even newspapers blog but there are still a few who think that only the hip people should blog.

Razor is a journalist here in Australia who writes and blogs for the The Age (one of Australia’s major newspapers). In response to something he blogged about one reader had this to say:

I don’t even consider this a blog really. It is really just the corporate world hijaking yet another product of the underground and trying to get in on what the ‘cool’ kids are doing. Media blogs began as an alternative form of media, to have media blogs owned by the same media is kind of pointless. I don’t really understand what you are trying to achieve here as if I have no doubt that you are simply pushing the agendas of your copporate paymasters.

It’s sad to see comments like that because Razor regularly makes some very valid points in his posts but whether he does or not the comments were totally wrong.

Sure blogging was started by ordinary people. It was and is a conversation carried on by people all over the world and it should be a conversation that anyone can join in.

Even your small business has a valid place in that conversation so don’t be shy about having your say and starting a blog for your small business.

But don’t forget one vital point - sometimes when people open their mouth all they do is show the world that they really have nothing to say. Some corporations who have tried blogging have revealed a lot more about themselves than they realise.

My ex wife once told me that when I talked to people I was blunt and she inferred that I was blunt almost to the point of rudeness. And I guess she was right - I do speak plainly, I don’t dance around the subject, I tend to call a spade a spade.

So a post entitled “How not to speak like a business idiot” was always guaranteed to grab my attention. I would recommend that anyone in business spend a few moments to read what Garr Reynolds has to say because he makes some very valid points.

And his points are related to this book:

Some years ago in Webmaster circles my nickname was becoming well known for being contentious and rather abrasive. That wasn’t really a persona - I didn’t set out to make a name for myself by being abusive and nasty.

However I was, and still am, rather blunt and tend to call a spade a spade and I don’t handle fools very well.

And I’m telling you that because I’m really not trying to stir up trouble when I ask the question - how much help are small business boards really?

I’m asking it as an introduction to a series of posts I will be making over this week and I want you to think seriously about the question.

Are they any help to you really?

I have to say that most of the small business boards I have seen have been very light in genuine help for serious problems and rather heavy in people who want to troll the boards for business … or to scam. Undoubtedly part of that problem arises from the fact that most people who hang out on those boards are fairly new.

But there are others who want to be seen as legends - they have an opinion about everything and quite often their opinion is not based on their own experience but on what they have read somewhere.

So are boards like that much help is there some other way to get the help and support you need to get your business going?

I would be really interested to hear your experiences and feel free to mention any board that you find gives you genuine advice and support and isn’t just a bunch of people saying hello to every newcomer that arrives.