By writing and sending a newsletter regularly you have the opportunity to keep in touch with clients and prospects.

This last weekend at the BT Small Business Show where I was providing advice at the business clinic about branding and marketing your business, the subject of how to start your ezine kept coming up.

What many entrepreneurs don’t realise is that it’s much easier than you might think – in fact for one businessleader, we developed a publishing calendar so that now they have the core content ideas for the ezine for the next 12 months.

In fact, I’ve encouraged some of my smart and savvy clients to repurpose their ezine articles to create chapters of their book or other information product.

I am  therefore delighted to have as my guest on Biz Growth Live, denise cox (that’s not a typing error, it’s how she writes her name) of Newsweaver, Europe’s leading email newsletter specialist, providing businesses with the software to create email newsletters.

Newsweavers clients include Shell, BP, 3M, Irish Rugby, Ernst and Young and the Intercontinental Hotels Group to name but a few global brands that they work with. And we’ll have the opportunity to discuss with denice tips and tricks for ezine marketing that these multibillion dollar businesses have access to.

Here are the detils of the Masterclass on ezines and email newsletters:

DATE OF THE EZINE MASTERCLASS: Monday 19 May 2008

TIME OF  THE EZINE MASTERCLASS: 6pm Dublin and London/ 1pm ET/10am PT

INVESTMENT: FREE

REGISTER: Register at Biz Growth Live if you don’t already receive a copy of our newsletter which as all the details for the programme in it.

If you have questions for denise and I you can ask them by posting them here or on our live questions page.

Here are some of the areas I’ll be discussing with denise:

• Best practice in ezine marketing content
• What we should look for when selecting an ezine service
• An overview of the legislation we need to be aware of in the field of ezine marketing
• How to encourage people to register for your ezine
• The best day of the week to distribute your newsletter
• Best practice in formatting your ezine
• Whether with the increase in business blogging and connecting to customers using social media, the ezine is a marketing tool of the past.

If you don’t receive a copy of my newsletter Biz Growth Express which provides the details of how to join me on this call, you can register today.

Don’t forget to join me for this Biz Growth Live call as what we will be discussing is a strategy that you can get started with straight away to market your business and attract more lead, more clients and more profit.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

You can access a series of six articles I wrote about how to build your brand through writing and distributing an ezine or email newsletter here:

Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6.

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The recent announcement by the company I was on the board of before establishing my own brand engagement and social media practice about the impending significant organisational change they are about to go through made me think back to my time as HR Director where I also had responsibility for internal communications.

At a time of significant change, one of the key challenges was always to ensure that we had pathways for communication open. We were always keen to understand how effectively our line managers had been in translating and engaging their people in the key messages and making sure the communication was relevant for their teams.

We also wanted to respond quickly and effectively to questions raised from our employees as a result of the organisation announcements. No matter how our extensive lists of frequently asked questions were that we created to support all major communications, you could be sure that some questions were never addressed so we needed to respond to these queries quickly.

If only I had had at my disposal the social media platforms now easily available which would have enabled us to add additional platforms that we could have used to support our communications plan.

But where can you turn if you are a leader with responsibility for Internal Communications and employee engagement and want to learn about what your peers are implementing and current best practice?

A conference I will be attending which will showcase some leading case studies in intenal communications in the next few weeks is the International Employee Communications Summit co-hosted by Ragan and Simply Communicate.

Some of the company’s presenting include IBM, Ebay, BT and Microsoft. The agenda for the International Employee Communications Summit includes:

• Building your brand and values through collaboration and content
• Social media inside the enterprise
• Video Podcasting: How to stream key messages to a mobile audience
• How to beat the policymakers, lawyers and IT to get your social media channel up and running 
• How to use social media to energise and motivate the work force.

You can book online to attend the conference which is taking place on the 5 and 6 June 2008 in London (there is also a pre conference workshop).

I’ll be attending with my notebook and recorder in hand and hope that I’ll get the chance to capture some great insights to share with you. and if you are considering attending, let me know as it will be great to connect with you at the International Employee Communications Summit.

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Earlier this year, insurers Hiscox published the Hiscox Wealth Review for 2008 and identified that some 10% of the UK population, nearly 2.5 million households can now be  identified as wealthy.The report states that:

An average ‘Working Wealthy’ household in Britain earns £88,000 (close to triple the average household income of £33,000), takes two foreign holidays a year and has over £20,000 worth of disposable annual income.  Despite this over 90% of them do not consider themselves at all wealthy. 

However, this population described as the ‘Working Wealthy’ say they would need to earn around £150,000 per household, have paid off their mortgage, own more than one property or a holiday home and send their children to private school before saying they are well off. 

The report uncovers that:

• Four in ten go on more than one foreign holiday a year (38%)
• Almost a third own a luxury home entertainment system (29%)
• Almost a quarter have savings of more than £25,000 (23%)
• 15% own a piece of art work
• 14% own more than one property.

Here are the persona’s for the ‘Working Wealthy’ as defined in the report:

The Home County Happies

• A wealthy mature professional couple in their 40s and 50s, living in a 4-bedroom house in the Home Counties
• They are likely to have more than two cars, go on more than two foreign holidays a year, and are interested in golf, arts and charity
• Often with a second home, their children will have expensive possessions, such as laptops, and they spend a lot on private education
• Women likely to shop in Waitrose; men most likely to own an Audi  

The Shire Squires

• A wealthy professional living in a small village with his/her partner but commuting into a city for work
• Likely to be over 45, they live in a detached four-bedroom home in a small village, with two or more cars to help them with their hobbies of antiques, arts and nature
• They may have benefited from dramatic rises in the property market of the 90s
•  They spend their money on home entertainment, household appliances, restaurants, hotels and clothes, in that order
• They lead a comfortable lifestyle

The Urbanite Professionals

• Often categorised as the ‘late to start a family’ earner, the young professional has a high income but won’t necessarily think so, as they compare themselves to higher ‘city-esque’ earners
• Regularly drinking lattés, they can afford to indulge in expensive disposables, from fashion, wine, electronics to art
• They may also have benefited from an inheritance of antiques, art or jewellery, and are likely to go on annual ski-ing and/or diving holidays abroad
• Women shop in Whistles; men shop in Reiss

So if you are considering your target market for your products and services, consider how you might want to include the information from the Working Wealthy report to support you developing the persona’s for your core clients, customers and patients - does it give you a better understanding of what motivates them to spend and what their priorities are?

Tags: Working Weathly Report, Hiscox Wealth Review, persona\'s, target market

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However if you can not wait that long to connect with colleagues about social media in a virtual world, then head on over to the website for 3Dcamp, a non-conference focusing on virtual worlds (Second Life, the Metaverse), mirror worlds (Google Earth and Virtual Earth), mapping mashups, GPS, Location based Services (LBSs), haptics (eg. Wiimote hacks), 3D modelling (Blender, Sketchup) and all things 3D.

And if you don’t understand what all these terms are (I certainly don’t), then it’s a good reason to attend 3Dcamp!

Here are the details:

DATE: Saturday 24th May 2008

VENUE: Engineering Research Building, University of Limerick

TIME: 10am start, 5pm finish

SPEAKERS: Go here for the curriculum and line up of speakers

REGISTER: Register to attend 3Dcamp online

What’s interesting about the registration process too is that 3Dcamp are integrating social media into their registration page asking for the following information:

• Your Twitter username: For notices and discussion on 3Dcamp
• Your Jaiku username: For notices and discussion on 3Dcamp

In addition, you’ll be asked where you are travelling from so that they can calculate the carbon-offset calculation and plan carpooling.

So if you are interested in learning more about virtual worlds, 3D modelling, mirror worlds and mashups and what benefit they can bring your business, head on down to Limerick for 3Dcamp later this month.

Remember, like all non-conferences, it’s FREE to attend.

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E-books continue to be a popular marketing tool to attract more leads and more clients as the investment you need to create them is minimal - you can use Word or PowerPoint (or the equivalent if you are using a Mac) to create the document and then use a PDF creator to create the copy you make available on your website or business blog.

Many people decide to create their e-book themselves without employing a designer to format the final version and create a professional layout and that’s not a problem.

 However if you are going to layout and format your ebook yourself here are five keys to remember to ensure that your e-book will look professional and be on-brand:

1. Colourful Pages - use colour sparingly when formatting your e-book. Absolutely make sure that the colours you use connect with your corporate brand so that it looks consistent.However your readers will not thank you when you have lots of colour in your e-book, and even worse if whole of the background of your ebook in a solid colour. Many people print e-books and they don’t like the expense or time that it takes to print a document in colour.
2. Let Your Copy Breath - as we continue to be bombarded with information, increasingly as readers and consumers of information we scan information.

   Format your e-book so that it is easy on the eye with lots of white space, perhaps using ‘call outs’ to focus your e-book readers on key points you want to make or quotes and use bulleted lists to help your copy breath.

3. Add Page Numbers - as your e-book streams off the printer, it’s easy for the pages to get muddled up.

   An often forgotten tip is the adding of page numbers to the header or footer of your e-book, making it easy for your reader to put them back in order when they drop the pages of your e-book.

4. Check Your Links - one of the benefits of writing an ebook versus a traditional book is that you can easily create active links to web pages in your e-book.Many e-book authors use this as an opportunity to include links to pages on their website or business blog for more information or even to affiliate programmes they participate in that provide resources and products or programmes the readers of their ebook will find of benefit.

   If you do decide to create links in your e-book, before you publish it online, be sure to check that the links still work to maximise the opportunity of people being able to click through to your links and eliminate the customer service emails you will receive from readers of your e-book advising you that your links in your e-book do not work.

5. Promote Your Brand - if your e-book is printed and then people come back to review it in several months or even years time, are you confident that they will know how to find you if they want to connect with you the ebook author for more information, advice or tips?

   Don’t forget to add your web address to the footer of your e-book and in the back pages of your e-book, use the opportunity to provide people with information on how to find our more about your programmes, products or services.

Apply these tips and your e-book will look professional and on-brand. Of course the copy in your e-book needs to be top class, expressing your expertise and thought leadership in your field. But remember that people often judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t let your e-book, special report or white paper readers be put off reading the quality content due to poor formatting of your e-book.

What tips do you have for others for formating e-books so they are professional and on-brand?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

If you are an e-book author or an author of a traditional book, don’t forget to check out the details of the forthcoming workshop taking place in Dublin on the 7 June 2008, hosted by Font Literary Agency about Online Marketing, Publicity and Promotion for your book or e-book. Readers of Biz Growth News and my Biz Growth Community can register to access a discount - you can find all the details here.

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Yes, I know I bring you lots of tips, articles and podcasts about social media marketing and communications, but I thought it would be interesting to have Peggy and Chris share their experiences with you.

This is an ideal seminar if you are a solopreneur and want to discover how to best use social media in your business to build your brand online and attract more clients

DATE OF SALES MASTERCLASS: Monday 12 May 2008

TIME OF SALES MASTERCLASS: 6pm Dublin and London/ 1pm ET/10am PT

INVESTMENT: FREE

REGISTER: Register at Biz Growth Live if you don’t already receive a copy of our newsletter which as all the details for the programme in it

If you have questions for Peggy or Chris, you can post your question here on the blog or over at our live questions page.

Some of the areas we will be covering are:

• What Web 2.0 really means
• Why social media is a relevant business development strategy for you as a solopreneur
• Key areas of social media for solopreneurs and what the key platforms are
• The biggest mistake people make when looking to include social media in solopreneur marketing plan
• Tips for making sure we’re effective with our time in implementing social media
• Social media optimisation – What it is and why is it important

And if you are interested in learning more about social media and Web 2.0 you can access your own copy of Peggy and Chris’s report ‘29 Tips to Get Started With Web 2.0′ here.

So I hope you will join me if you’ve questions about social media for solopreneurs and how it can help you cost effectively attract more clients to your business.

Technorati Profile

Tags: Chris Muccio, Peggy Murrah, imarket2.0, social media, web 2.0,, Biz Growth Live, social media for solopreneurs

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This is a Dublin Blogger and Twitter meetup organised by Bernie Goldbach.

Hope to see you there.

And even if you have not started blogging yourself or have yet to step in the virtual world of online social networks or social media, do come along and meet some of the people behind the blogs.

Tags: Dublin Blogger and Twittter meetup, blogging, Twitter, microblog, social media, social networks

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Like many people you might be using Wikipedia, however despite their coverage of many terms and definitions, and their editing and approval policy, many people are concerned about how robust the definitions are.

On the other hand the Encylopaedia Britiannica has a reputation spanning back to 1768 when it was first published in Scotland - back then in three separate volumes. You might even recall growing up if you a a Gen X’er or Baby Boomer some friends who were lucky enough to have a set of Encylopaedia Britannica in their home study.

Well if you are a web publisher or a blogger, you can now apply for complementary access to their programme called WebShare, where you can link from your articles on line to the definition on Encyclopaedia Britannica.

You can apply for a free pass - be aware that this is a manual process as all applications will be approved and it took 5 working days for my account to be approved.

This is tremendous value as you can purchase the 32 volume Britannica, which has 65,000 articles and 44 million words, for US$1,400 or you can access it on the web for US$70 per year - and if you apply through the Webshare programme you can have FREE access for 12 months.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica Webshare programme has been supported by Shel Holtz who has been guiding the Encylopaedia Britannica team about how best to connect to bloggers about the programme. Encyclopaedia Britannica has even set up a Twitter account.

Not everyone has been complementary about the launch of the programme, however I do think it is worth considering if you are a web publisher or blogger.

Some suggestions I would have for Enclyclopaedia Britannica to further enhance the programme:

• Advise people at the time of registration that it may take a week for the account to be approved - in todays high speed world, that seemed so long to wait I had forgotten I had applied for access
• Review your website structure - it takes a while for the pages on Encyclopaedia Britannica to load and the frames for scrolling are definately not user friendly for those of us used to quick and easy access to information online
• Update your definitions especially relating to Web 2.0 - you have made the service available to bloggers and many of us may be writing articles about Web 2. I could not find definitions online authored by Encyclopaedia Britannica relating to word searches for social media, podcasting, widget - to name but a few. It seems to me that it would have been an astute online editor that would have ensured that definitions were available for these - and perhaps they might have collaborated with Wikipedia to come up with these terms.

However in summary a great programme to have access to and definatley one worth applying for registration if you are a web publisher or blogger.

And to support users, Encylopaedia Britannica has created a video about how to link your article online to the definition on Webshare. You can view it here:

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One of the things that we all receive as a wonderful gift when getting married is the gift of parents in law and brothers and sisters in law. But how often have you thought that you chose your loved one but not their family.

So how would it be if your mother in law were your friend? In fact your mother in law may already be your friend. But if you are not enjoying the best of relatonships, I’ve got the answer for you.

Today is the book launch of  ‘The Daughter-in-Law Rules:101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends with) Your Mother-in-Law!’.

Talented Jazz Musician and Composer Sally Shields is author of a new book called ‘The Daughter In Law Rules’.

To celebrate the book launch today, 6 May 2008, if you purchase the book at Amazon you can also access a number of gifts at no cost from friends of Sally. 101 to be exact - the same number of tips as are in her book.

And for my male readers - this is NOT the book to buy your wife as a present for Mothers Day in the US next week - you have been warned. I am not saying it’s not a great book, just that the mother to your children may not appreciate it in the spirit it was given! A wonderful bunch of flowers, a dinner in fancy restaurant or a day without the kids bickering would be much more welcome (just in case my husband is reading this).

Purchase your copy of ‘The Daughter in Law Rules’ TODAY ONLY (6 May 2008) and you can have access to the 101 gifts from relationship advice experts and success coaches from around the world, as well as 1-800-Flowers.com with a unique promotional code created specifically for this book.

In addition, 15% of the proceeds of this book go to the charity ‘Much Love’.

I definitely recommend you visit Sally’s website - it’s a very engaging design. And take a look here  at how she is using the social media platform of YouTube.com to share her video with tips from The DIL Rules book - and yes she composed and plays the background music herself - how’s that for talent!

And don’t forget that if you would like to know more about how you can create, promote and market your book online with social media, you can join me at the forthcoming workshop in Dublin for authors - check details here for how you can avail of a special discount as a reader of Biz Growth News.

UPDATE AS AT 11 MAY 2008

Please note that the comments on this post are closed due to some disputes relating to this book and I do not plan to engage in any email or online conversation about the publishing of this book or it’s contents.

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It’s a great community of women and a few men who support each other with tips about starting and growing their business - many of them work at home moms (WAHM’s).

I was fortunate to be a key note speaker at the first ever Irish Business Women conference back in 2006 and since then their membership has steadily increased to almost 2000 members.

They have recently announced the 2008 conference details which will be taking place on the 29 May 2008 at the Mullingar Park Hotel. 

The theme for this years Conference is “Inspiring Women” and speakers include Sue Stockdale, author of“Secrets of Successful Women Entrepreneurs”,  Senator Mary White, co-founder of Lir Chocolates, Newstalk’s Karen Coleman and Celebrity Chef Jenny Bristow.

Unfortunately I’ve a prior commitment so won’t be able to attend. But if you are thinking of attending, register soon, as I am sure it will be a sell out.

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