Sometime last year I became a “StumbleUpon” user and for awhile I used it regularly each day, particularly enjoying the fantastic photography I would stumble upon. But I realized today I had not stumbled upon anything in a long time. Why? Because I generally use Firefox for my browsing and I have StumbleUpon set up with Internet Explorer.
This morning, at the Guelph-Wellington Business Enterprise Centre’s monthly networking breakfast, I heard an interesting presentation by Shelley Reed of Reed’s Writing Block on how to create a successful email campaign to market your small business.
She gave some great advice and tidbits about maintaining your brand image, who to target, how often to target them and how to avoid your emails ending in the recycle bin or spam box. I thought I would share with you some of what I learnt during Shelley’s presentation.
When I started my business, I purchased a brand new computer system with a Quad processor, 4 GB of RAM and 500 GB of storage as well as a wide screen Crystal Brite monitor. I wanted, to put it bluntly, a kick-ass operating system that would allow me to work with multiple design applications without losing speed, memory or crashing from over-exertion.
I also paid what I thought were considerable dollars for graphic design, web design and layout software as well as the latest full version of Microsoft Office. Now, bear in mind this was January 2008 and at that time, Windows Vista was the latest Windows operating system and I detested it vehemently, so I requested my computer be installed with XP Professional. The system also came pre-installed with anti-virus software. Great I thought. I was all set.
However, towards the end of last year, my “kick-ass computer” was already showing signs of not performing as well as I had hoped. Then early this year, shortly after my anti-virus software was renewed, I started experiencing numerous other issues, which I won’t go into here. The biggest annoyance that I endured for several weeks though was an issue with Microsoft Outlook 2007…
Emails with large attachments (around 2 MB) were getting stuck in my Outbox but were repeatedly being sent to the recipient.
Try changing Outlook’s Server Timeout Settings.
Don’t know how?
Can’t find the answer when you search Outlook’s help menu?
It’s strange but for some reason, when you search Outlook’s help menu for “Server Timeout Settings”, these instructions are nowhere to be found.
Thank goodness for the internet. I found some instructions online and was able to change my settings.
Here’s how:
Today, I received a great offer. A free Ericsson T18 Laptop. All I had to do was forward the email to 8 people and I would receive the laptop. As long as I cc’d the original sender. AND, if I forwarded the email to 20 people, my free laptop would be upgraded to an Ericsson R320.
Wow, I thought. I wouldn’t mind receiving a new laptop. Who do I know who would also benefit from this great offer? So, I immediately hit the forward button (something I don’t usually do) and started adding contacts.
I got as far as the third name and then realization hit me… how old was this email and how do they keep track? There must be a catch… I couldn’t be that lucky! They surely couldn’t make money from giving away so many laptops. Clearly this was an offer too good to be true!
