Wonder what the big deal is with Twitter? Not sure how you would use it to marketing your business? Really not sure what you would even tweet about?

Below are 12 simple ideas of things you can tweet about at any time.

1. Your free report or white paper with a link
2. Articles you’ve posted online or on your blog
3. Events you’re hosting, speaking at, or going to
4. Newsworthy items
5. Inspiring or humorous quotes ( you can even quote yourself)
6. Thoughts on the latest ad, marketing, product or business you’ve seen
7. The latest good book you’ve read or movie you’ve seen
8. Links to other people’s articles, audios or videos that you enjoyed or found helpful
9. Your own questions, whether business-related or general interest
10. Quick and helpful tips
11. Whatever you’re thinking at the moment (it’s better to tweet about what you’re thinking than what you’re doing—though that’s okay too)
12. Retweet other people’s useful, interesting or humorous tweets

If you’re not using email marketing to grow your list and stay in touch with clients and prospects, you’re missing out on one of the best, most affordable ways to grow your business. But good e-marketing starts with the right tool

The most important tool for effective e-marketing is the autoresponder.

What, you might ask, is an autoresponder?

Good question. :-)

Basically, an autoresponder is an automatable, Internet-based email service.

Autoresponders provide you with an inexpensive system for collecting names and emails, sending out email broadcasts to your list, and setting up preset email sequences. And because they distribute your emails through their service, you don’t have to worry about getting your site blacklisted for spamming.

The best part about autoresponders systems is they allow you to automate and implement a whole bunch of highly-effective, low-cost marketing strategies.

You can purchase a basic autoresponder subscription for around $20 a month. Most shopping carts also come with autoresponders. So if you are already doing ecommerce, don’t purchase a stand alone autoresponder without checking to see if you already have access to one.

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Nine reasons to have an autoresponder
*****

1) When it comes to creating a successful business (Internet or otherwise), the money is in the list. Because the people on your contact list already know you and what you offer. So they are much more likely to buy from you in the future. Autoresponders give you a sign-up form to add to your site so you can collect contact information and create your own list.

2) Autoresponders make sure you are compliant with anti-spam laws and regulation. They automatically include all the required information, provide you with a double-opt-in system, and add a link to unsubscribe in every email.

3) Once someone is on your list, you can stay in contact with them by emailing them information and offers that might be of interest with their permission. And you can easily implement multi-part email marketing campaigns so you can stay in contact on a regular basis.

4) Autoresponders are just that…Automatic. Once you set them up, they just do their thing in the background without you having to lift a finger. You can pre-write your emails or newsletters, set them to broadcast on specific dates, then go on vacation.

5) Because autoresponders are Web-based you can use them from anywhere. That means you can do a promotion to sell your latest product from the beach, bookstore or backyard. They are a must-have for any who has—or wants to have—a mobile business.

6) The easiest way to publish a regular e-zine is by using an autoresponder service. Most accommodate both HTML (graphics) and text only formats. I’ve used getresponse.com in the past and heard good things about constantcontact.com as well.

7) If you are doing any kind of e-commerce, having an autoresponder linked to your shopping cart is a must. Use them to communicate order status, or follow up with other items that may be of interest at a later date.

8) Autoresponders make it easy to be sure every lead and customer gets the right sequence of follow up emails. This is especially helpful if you are teaching a class online or via teleseminar, or if you have a series of items new clients or prospects should receive after contacting you.

9) You can use your autoresponder to send out f*ree reports, or multi-day e-courses. These giveaways are a terrific way to add incentive for signing up for a newsletter, and they let you increase your credibility while providing valuable info to your prospects.

If all this autoresponder stuff sounds like gibberish to you, I highly recommend you experience it first-hand by buying something from Amazon.com.

They have one of the best e-commerce systems I’ve seen, with all kinds of add-on sales and upsells on their site. They also keep in touch with customers via email to let them the status of their order. And they email past customers regularly about promotions or other items that may be of interest.

It’s like going to e-commerce/autoresponder school for the cost of a book. You can’t beat that with a stick. :-)

Over my many years of attending conferences, I’ve learned two simple tricks that make it much easier to keep both your own business cards organized, and all those ones you collect while you’re there.

1) Always have cards on hand. At a conference you never know where you might strike up a conversation with someone great…The bathroom, the hallway, the coffee stand, the elevator are all possibilities and you might not have your bag with you. So keep a few of your own cards tucked in that little plastic name badge pouch they always give you.  That way you always have one handy.

2) Make notes. If you’ve been to a conference you’ve surely had the experience of getting back to your office, sorting through everyone’s business cards, and realizing you can’t remember exactly who half the people are. This does not help you do great follow-up! So anytime you get someone’s business card, as soon as possible make a few notes on the back to remind yourself of exactly who they were.

My next door neighbor is always talking about leaving her job. She’s very artsy craftsy, and had been making all kinds of different knit, sewn and stitched items—from hats to little beaded bags, to funky zipper pulls.

Each time she starts work on a new type of creation, she says “This is gonna be the one that lets me quit my job.”

Here’s the thing though…

I asked her how long it took to make one, 4” x 4” beaded bag. She said probably 20 hours. When I asked what she thought she could charge, she said maybe $25, and that there was a company selling something similar out of Asia for $9.

When I pointed out that the hours to dollars ratio didn’t look so good, she said “Oh, well I don’t care how much time it takes me.” I, of course, suggested that if she really wanted to leave her job, she might want to think more carefully about the value of her time (I suspect she needs to make more than $1/hour to survive).

On top of that, she is constantly making all this different stuff without ever finding out if anyone would even buy it. Because flea market tables are too expensive and she hasn’t been able to take good pictures of her wares to post on the Web.

I mentioned that she could attend a local networking breakfast or two with no-cost marketing tables—that way she could put out her stuff and see if anyone is interested. But she hasn’t done it and I suspect she never will.

So she continues to set her hopes on one of these accessories being her path to self-employment. Yet she has no idea whether any of her products are viable or how she might sell them. Let alone whether or not she can use them to create a business that pays her bills.

This is not a recipe for success.

—-
Is your business viable?
—-

If you don’t know the answer to the question, don’t feel bad. Most entrepreneurs I run into are like my neighbor—they have absolutely no idea.

How do I know this? Because most entrepreneurs I’ve met haven’t taken even the basic steps towards figuring out what their business costs might be or how much of their products or services they need to sell to make a good living.

If you haven’t answered the following questions, you may run into severe cash flow problems. In other words, your business—as it is today—may not be viable. It may just be an expensive and time consuming hobby.

So take a few minutes to go through these and see how you’re doing…

1)    What are the overhead and miscellaneous costs of running your business (this is rent, utilities, employees, office supplies, bookkeeping, etc.)?

2)    What is your salary (If you don’t take a salary yet, figure out what you need to make to cover your personal expenses and use that number)?

3)    What are the manufacturing costs (or time costs if you deliver a service) associated with the business?

4)    How much do you anticipate each client or customer will spend with you per purchase and per year?

5)    Based on number four, how many customers do you need to cover all of your expenses?

Once you know the answers to these questions, if your business still looks viable you’re in good shape. If not, don’t despair. You may just need to rethink what you are doing, how you’re doing it, what you’re offering and what you’re charging. Then retool your business until it’s making the kind of money you want, need and deserve.

Are you on Twitter? If so, hopefully you’ve discovered the power of hashtags (basically a pound sign # and some letters). Or maybe you’ve
seen hashtags and wondered what the heck they were.

Well, basically they are a way for you to track what others are saying about you, your event, your product or whatever you’ve created
a hashtag for. The most common use is to let you track when someone  tweets about your upcoming event. You just create a hashtag (keep it
short since tweets are limited in size) then let people know to use  it when they tweet about your event. And be sure to use it in your
own tweets so it gets attached to retweets.

Then you can track usage on Twitter or using a service like  SocialOomph and see who’s talking about you.

Going to conferences is expensive. And time consuming. Of this there is no doubt. It is also one of the best ways a know to give you and your business a big shot in the arm!

That’s why I’m on my way to not one, but two awesome major conferences this week. First I’m off to Anaheim for Nancy Marmolejo’s I Heart My Biz event. Then, after a few days visiting family in So Cal I head down to La Jolla for Lisa Sasevich’s Speak to Sell Bootcamp.

Now to some it might seem a bit crazy taking 10 days to travel and attend a couple of national conferences (And it wouldn’t be the first time someone accused me of being crazy). But I know it’s going to be worth it for a whole bunch of reasons. And if you’ve thought about going to conferences but didn’t think you had the time or money, read these reasons and think again…

1) Get new ideas. A good conference—especially one outside of your specific industry— is a great place to get inspired by other people and their business systems, products or services.

2) Get energized. Nothing like being in a room full of like minded entrepreneur—at least a few of whom have achieved serious success—to get you excited and motivated to work on your own business with renewed energy.

3) Get connected. Social Networking is great and all, but nothing beats the power of meeting someone face to face. Whether you’re looking for clients, partners or opportunities for Joint Ventures you can find them all at national conferences.

4) Get updated on the latest trends. Most conferences worth their salt are going to give you a peek into what’s new, what’s hot, what’s working and what’s not.

5) Get respect. Your prospects and peers are going to think more of you because you make it a point to invest in furthering your education—and your business—by attending conferences.

6) Get a break. While a conference can be exhausting in it’s own right, it’s still a nice break from your day-to-day routing. And that’s never a bad thing.

7) Get the heck out of your home office. This one is especially valuable when you’re a solo-entrepreneur. You just need to get out of there and get around your peers to maintain balance and perspective.

Look, you can’t continue to build a thriving business in a vacuum. And that’s exactly what you’re trying to do unless you get out, go to conferences and see what other people have going on. So make a commitment now to attend at least one conference this year and get ready to watch your business grow.

And if you’re going to be at either Lisa’s or Nancy’s events please do get in touch. I’d love to connect with you there!

Sometimes it’s a bad idea to flaunt the rules of proper grammar and punctuation. But the online world is changing that in some ways. One way is that anytime you put your Website URL in an email or online, you should leave off any punctuation that might follow.

So if your sentence ends with a link or URL skip the period at the end. And don’t put commas or anything else after your link either. Otherwise you risk the computer thinking your punctuation is part of the link or URL and then it won’t work.