Welcome to week 7! This week I’ve decided to juggle the programme a little for a few reasons.
Firstly, I had databases & e-newsletters as two separate weeks on the original 12 week course outline, however they compliment each other quite well and are becoming quite integrated now (in general as well as in my own social media strategy), so I thought it best we tackle them together.
Secondly, just last week, a fantastic new social media program was launched for Queensland business, called the “Get Up To Speed Program”. Click on the link below for more information, well worth checking out:
Finally I have a huge amount going on in my life “behind the scenes” at the moment so just need to take a week off this course to deal with that.
So onto this week’s lesson, please click below for the lesson plan.
Here is some additional information and links for each.
Databases
Do you have a database? Does it work effectively for you? I’ve actually been on an unsuccessful database search for a long time now. I started with – and have gone back to Microsoft Excel. I am a small (micro) business at the moment and Excel suits my needs. Here are some others I’ve looked into which you might want to consider – each is suitable for different sizes and budgets. If you’d like to discuss the pros and cons of these or share your own experiences, please come over to the Zestee Concepts Facebook page.
Another name you will hear used is CRM or Customer Relationship Management system. You can read the Wikipedia entry on CRM here.
- Microsoft ACCESS (part of the Microsoft Office Suite but does take some experience to use)
- Microsoft Dynamics (mainly aimed at larger corporations)
- Zoho (this is free for one user and is a fairly good CRM for small business – takes some time to learn but offers a lot more features to manage client relationships than Microsoft Excel for example).
E-newsletters
I recently wrote an article for the Cairns Parenting Companion on Enewsletters. You can read the online version of the Autumn edition of Cairns Parenting Companion here. See page 74 for my article and recommendations on enewsletters for your business.
After a lot of research these are the two enewsletter programs I decided on are below (both of these are affiliate links – they do have free versions but if you sign up for a paid version via one of these links below, I receive a small credit on my own account – if you are recommending these sites to others I’d also recommend you look into using affiliate links).
What I have ended up doing personally which works for me (a very small/micro business) is using a combination of Microsoft Excel and my Mad Mimi & Mail Chimp accounts to manage my database. I would recommend linking your enewsletter with your social media where possible (for example, I have a Mail Chimp sign up on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/professionalparents). This is an app you can set up (which isn’t too difficult) and automates sign ups for anyone interested (i.e. those who sign up via my Facebook tab are entered into the enewsletter list – which is essentially my database). I then download a copy of this into Excel every month or two as a back up.
Ultimately, like most things in business, it comes down to how much time and money you are willing to spend. If you’re able to, you may wish to employ someone to handle your database and enewsletter – this could range from a virtual assistant (e.g. writing content or data entry) to a webmaster (doing all the integration into your website & social media) to a copywriter (who may write your whole enewsletter and even optimise this with SEO).
If you are doing it all yourself, experiment with different systems…my experience is there is no perfect system, but trying several out and asking questions about others experiences will lead you to something that works for you.
For an example of enewsletters you can visit http://motherbabyhub.wordpress.com/enewsletter/
This is where I work part time…I use Mad Mimi for these newsletters and you can see I’ve put a link to all the previous ones on our website, as well as a link for people to sign up.
Love you to share your thoughts, feedback and links below.
Renee
Zestee 
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