Email is quick, casual and convenient–and a potential minefield. An email gaffe can be amusing, embarrassing or even career-ending. Use these guidelines for proper email etiquette to make sure your electronic messages don’t come back to haunt you: Remember that readers cannot hear your tone of voice or see your facial expressions and gestures. [...]
To create an effective marketing campaign that will drive growth in your company, you have to know your customer -- and that sounds a lot easier than it is. There are two angles to the issue of knowing your customer. 1. Have a clear picture of your prospective customers. 2. Have a clear picture of [...]
You can’t make it through a day—or even a few hours—without hearing something about social media. A social media policy for your employees is essential. A social media strategy for your company is equally—if not more—important. Do you have one? Keep these issues in mind when developing your social media strategy: • Begin with [...]
Do you know who is receiving your text messages? Early this morning, I received a text from a client wishing me a happy Mother's Day. Yes, that's odd from a number of perspectives, but this is a quirky client and I appreciated the thought. Before I could respond, I heard another text come in. It [...]
Last November, I went to small claims court and sued a lawyer for non-payment. After some wrangling, we settled with both of us feeling ripped off. In retrospect, we could have avoided all the ugliness – and perhaps even still be working together – if we had written and both signed a contract that [...]
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. You probably learned this rhyme as a child and maybe chanted it to a playmate who was teasing you. It would be nice if it were true, but it's not. Words can hurt. They can also help. However words are used, they're [...]
If you use the "social media shares" feature of Constant Contact, here's a tip: Edit the announcement that will go out on your social media channels. The basic default message promotes Constant Contact (example: with a hash tag for Twitter and "check out my latest Constant Contact campaign" for Facebook). You can edit that language [...]
A while back I posted a blog about "camel mail," which is a direct mail technique of making your piece lumpy so recipients are curious enough to open it and find out what's in it. Recently I received a piece that took a slightly different spin on that concept: The "envelope" was a brown paper [...]
Recently a friend asked me to review her resume before she sent it to a prospective employer. As part of her contact information, she included the url for her blog and her LinkedIn profile. A good idea -- but one that could be taken a step further. Consider these two job hunting tips before you send [...]
Ever had a customer whose nuisance value exceeded his profit potential? Or who demanded champagne service at beer prices? The fact is that some customers just aren't worth it -- but how do you deal with such a situation? The first step is recognizing that the relationship needs to end. Some of the signs [...]
