Based on research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing is predicted to return an incredible $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009. To put this in perspective, that’s more than double the average return for other forms of online marketing and more than 6 times the return from print catalogues.

4 Reasons Why Email Marketing Works

1. Cost Effectiveness:  Setting up your email campaign requires time and planning, but once set up it’s good to go. Your message can then be delivered with a click of the mouse to thousands of recipients at once, with no postage fees and no printing fees.
2. Relevancy: A good professional email client will give you the ability to segment your subscribers. You can ensure your message is sent to those individuals and businesses who will be interested in what you have to offer and therefore your response rate will have a higher rate of success.
3. Immediate Action: Rather than wait for a subscriber to visit your site to find out your latest and greatest news  or offer, you can send that information directly to their online mailbox at the time it counts. The majority of your recipients will see your messsage in the first 24 – 48 hours.
4. Measurable: More than any other form of marketing, email markating can provide actionable data on the results it generates. Keep track of who opened your email and when, what topics they were interested in, who forwarded it on to a friend, how many sales were generated and much more. You can’t say that about newspaper ads, TV, direct mail, or radio advertising or any other form of marketing.

Email marketing requires some preparation, of course. Like anything else, the foundation is imperative to success.  Once in place though, email marketing will produce great results for your business. Ensure that your subscribers have given you permission to email them; send them relevant information, and looks professional when it arrives into their email account.

You’re about to start a home business and you’ll be marketing online, right?   You’ll need to know whether your present equipment (computer etc) is up for the task, and if not, what to do about it.

You’ll want to ensure that you can use all the tools available to you right now, (video, audio and graphic capabilities) to get your home business off to a great start.

Firstly, check to see what your present system properties are by clicking on Start, Control Panel, System.

You need at least:

Intel(R) Core (TM) 2 CPU

Pentium 4 will suffice for now, but it won’t be long before you’ll need to upgrade.  The upgrades have been, in this order, Dual Core, Quad Core, i3 Core, i5 Core, with i7 the Ferrari of the CPU’s at the present time.

1.67 GHz  – (3GHz recommended) – this is your processor speed.

The media (video etc) capabilities we have today require more speed to run, and everyone is using video in their marketing efforts (or soon will be). You can’t increase your processor’s speed but what you can do is add more RAM to your computer.  RAM gives your processor more room to work with.  Large programmes take up a lot of RAM which slows down your processing speed.

1 GB of RAM (2 GB recommended) – this is your computer’s “memory”.

The easiest way to get more memory space is to add more RAM.

Everything is working fine, then you add photo-editing software, surf to a graphically intense Web site, install a game, and suddenly your computer can’t keep up. One sign that your computer is under stress is when the drive light flickers like mad (that’s the red light on the front of your computer).

As you’re getting your equipment into good shape for your home business, and you’ll be using video conferencing, video streaming, or video in some shape of form (won’t you?) you’ll be wanting to to ensure your computer is up to the job now, rather than having to upgrade too soon down the track.

The amount of RAM you need depends on the operating system you are using. For systems running Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP, you will need the minimum recommended amount, but more is often better, depending on your needs. If you just use your PC for surfing the Internet and writing letters, you need 512 MB to 1 GB. For more RAM-intensive programs, such as games or photo editing, or if you like to use a lot of applications at the same time, such as desktop publishing and video rendering, more than 1 GB is recommended. Each program should come with system requirements that show both the minimum RAM needed to run the program, and the amount of RAM needed for its best performance.

RAM modules can be purchased in a variety of sizes.

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited his neighbours to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realised what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quietened down.

A few shovels later, the farmer finally looked down the well.  He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.  He would shake it off and take a step up.

Life is going to shovel dirt on you; all kinds of dirt.  The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of your troubles is a stepping-stone. We can get out of the deepest of wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

Whether you’re using a free video chatting service such as Skype,or a professional video conferencing service, such as Comf5, you’ll need to ensure your “system”, (your computer and your internet connection) is up to it.  Video conferencing or chatting needs a little more “grunt”. Afterall, you wouldn’t expect  to pull your yacht with a shopping trolley now, would you?

Many people think that all they need to do is to sign up for the software, plug the camera in, and they’ll be good-to-go.. When the video freezes, the lips don’t sync with the voice, and the video constantly buffers, they don’t know why. Often these problems are caused by low bandwidth. (And by the way, you won’t get the speed you need using wireless. You must be WIRED).

Wired for Sound (and Video)

Before all this new technology was available, all we were concerned about was “download speed”, because in “those days” we merely downloaded attachments, documents, and images.  What a lot of people dont realise, is that now they must consider their “upload speed” as well.  Let’s check yours right now.

Check  both download and upload speeds at one of these links :  http://www.speedtest.net USA: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest

Bandwidth speeds required for video conferencing are:

Even for video chatting using one of the free software programmes, you need an upload speed of at least 256 kbps. I recommend no less than 384 kbps. Anything less, and the video and call quality will vary greatly.

Call your internet provider and tell them you need a faster upload speed. They may be able to change your service to provide it at no extra cost. Alternatively, either upgrade, or shop around for a more competitive price.

My guess is that it suits the computer retailers if we remain ignorant. That way when our computer slows down and doesn’t seem to work as well anymore, we may believe we need a new one, right? We all know we have to change the oil in our car, have it “tuned” periodically,  ensure it has water and gas and is “road worthy” don’t we? But when we buy a computer, no-one explains that we need to maintain it to keep it good running order.So let’s wise up!

Those of you wanting to start your own home business and/or those already operating a home business will want your business tools and equipment to be up to scratch and keep them that way so let’s what we can do with what we’ve got.

To enable us to use the rapidly evolving technology available to us (videos, audio, graphics etc) we need to have certain specifics on our computers, and I’ve covered those in another post. The following tips are for everyone, regardless of what you use your computer for.

Does your computer have enough spare memory?

Your computer needs 40 GB of spare memory space on your hard drive, in order to be able to use video streaming tools, and as video streaming is the now, and next, big marketing tool, I’m writing this post with video streaming technology in mind.

How to Check Your Memory

Check to see how much memory your computer has by clicking on Start, Computer, and right click on Local Disc (C:) and then Properties.  Here you’ll see how much free space your (C:) drive has. If you’ve got 40 GB or more, you’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll. (While you’re there, you may as well do a “disc cleanup” by clicking on “disc cleanup“).

Now for your Regular Housekeeping Chores

In Windows, you have at your fingertips, free tools which will keep your computer in shape (if you use them!)

Every couple of days: Clear Recent History. Firefox gives a very clear explanation on what this means and why you should do it.  Internet Explorer users click on Tools (top right hand of the Task Bar), Internet Options, Delete, and choose Temporary Internet Files, Cookies, History and then Delete.

Two weekly:  Disc Cleanup. I know you just did one, but you’ll want to repeat this weekly because poorly written programmes, computer crashes, hanging programmes, and improper shut-downs will always leave unneeded temporary fiiles on your hard drive. These files pile up and start eating up hard disc space and impairing computer performance.
Access this by clicking on Start. All programmes, Accessories, System Tools, Disc Cleaner.  The cleanup will remove temporary files, downloaded programme files, files in the recycle bin, offline webpages, hibernation files, and thumbnail images from your hard drive.

Monthly: Disc Defragmenter. Accessing this in the same way: Start, All Programmes, Accessories, System Tools , Disc Defragmenter. This utility can arrange the files on your hard drive so that they are accessed in a faster and more efficient manner.

Remove any Unwanted Startup Programmes

Do you have a whole bunch of little icons in your task tray? (that’s the grey area right at the bottom of your screen). All of these icons represent a programme or feature which starts up every time you boot up your computer (consequently slowing down the bootup process and taking up memory). To get rid of those that you don’t need, do the following:

1. Start menu, all programmes, startup. Delete the programmes in this folder that you don’t wish to automatically start up with windows.
2. Start menu, run, type in “msconfig.exe” without the quotation marks, and click “enter”. Click the Start up tab and uncheck those programmes you donl’t wish to start up.

Note: If you’re not sure what the programme is, leave it and do a Google search on it.

Remove unwanted applications

You will have installed programmes, which will themselves have installed other programmes that you don’t know about. Unwanted programmes waste memory, and should be removed. Do the following to remove them:

Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programmes (if you are using Windows XP), Uninstall a Programme ( if you are using Windows 7 or Windows Vista)

You can check each programme, see when you used it last, and remove any of them that you don’t want.
Once again, if you’re not sure, do a google search to see what they are

If you’ve gotten this far with your reading, it’s probably timely information for you. Those who know all of this, will have stopped reading way back. I know that if I’d known these things when I got started,  I would have been saved much time and frustration. I hope this information has helped you too.

Leave a comment and let me know if I’ve been of help to you, and let me know of any challenges you may be having.  Let’s get your online business cracking along!