Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Recently Entrecard released the Entrecard toolbar. It’s especially helpful for people like me that have more than one blog, although any Entrecard user would find it helpful. On the far left is a pulldown menu that allows users to switch the Entrecard account they’re dropping with on the fly. The next menu, from the left side, shows you how many credits you have in the Entrecard account you’re logged into and how many drops you’ve made that day. The next menu after that will take you to your favorites and all of the categories. The last menu on the far right allows you to choose what types of sites you want to drop or advertise on. The little green arrows allow you to navigate to the next site and the next ten sites. The Entrecard toolbar is free and works on Firefox 2 and 3.

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Many of you have either heard of Entrecard, know what Entrecard is or use Entrecard. Well, the gang at Entrecard is at it again. Earlier this week Entrecard announced some big news. Entrecard users are now able to buy Entrecard credits directly from Entrecard from a link in the dashboard. There’s more. Bloggers will now earn Entrecard credits every time they publish a post on their blog. Bloggers are eligible to receive 25 credits each time they write a post. The only catch is that this is limited to receiving credits every three days. Lastly, you can earn Entrecard credits by writing on the Entrecard blog. The number of credits a blogger receives depends on the topic, value and quality of the post he/she writes. That’s it for now! Happy dropping!

• Entrecard Comment Rush
• Computer Chit Chat May Entrecard giveaway
• Entrecard toolbar

I’m giving away 250 Entrecard credits. To enter just drop your Entrecard on my widget AND leave a comment on this contest announcement. Contest ends Saturday 05/31/08 at 11:59 pm est and the winner will be selected using random.org and announced on 06/01/08. Ready? Set? Go!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS OVER.

• May Entrecard giveaway winner
• Entrecard Credits News
• Chick Wordpress theme giveaway

Entrecard has upgraded once again! This time around they’ve added something many people including myself have been looking forward to - multiple blogs. That’s right, Entrecard users can now have more than one blog on one account. Until now, if you wanted to place Entrecard on several of your blogs you had to set up separate accounts. It’s easy to link blogs under one account, but if you aren’t sure how, you’ll really like hearing this. Entrecard has released an official ebook. The Entrecard e-book contains all of the info you want to know about Entrecard including what it is, how to use it, where to place it, tips and strategies.

• Entrecard Credits News
• Computer Chit Chat May Entrecard giveaway
• Entrecard toolbar

I have most of my domains registered with Godaddy. I’m very happy with their prices. I like their interface for domain registration and management. I log in, do what I need to do, and log out. I don’t have anything on auto-pay, I don’t like that. I get reminder emails when things are due and I take care of them. About four to six times a year I get a telephone call from Godaddy. I can always tell because when I get home and check the caller id it shows a call from the 480 area code, and I don’t know anyone else there. Sure enough, I check my voicemail and find a message from some happy, young sounding account rep (always a male, so far) that’s just checking in. Well Godaddy, here’s my answer to your voicemail. And I doubt I’m the only one that thinks this way. If you really want me to call you back, get a toll free number. If you really want to help me, don’t ask me to spend my hard earned money calling you. Because as long as you want me to pay to call you at that 480 number, I won’t be calling. So. Do any of you call Godaddy back?

• How to change nameservers for Godaddy domains
• How to push a Godaddy domain
• How to transfer a domain from Yahoo to Godaddy

Who doesn’t like free things? Who wouldn’t like some free postcards to help market their business? Would you like to get 25 free magnets? Continue reading and I’ll tell you where you can get them and what you need to do to get them.

Vistaprint is an online service that offers terrific deals on great quality products. This is where you can get the free magnets. Vistaprint is so confident in their stuff they’ll let you have some of it for free. I have personally tried their large postcards, large calendar magnets, business cards and address stickers. I have always been pleased with their products. Their site is easy to use, they have a huge selection and their products are easy to customize to best suit your own needs.

Here’s what you need to do to get them. Go to the Vistaprint site. Check out the small magnets. While you’re on the site be sure to check out their other products and special offers. (I signed up for their exclusive offers a couple of years ago and love it when they email me specials every month.) Decide which postcards you’d like, put them in your basket. When you check out just use coupon code “Blog25FreeMag” to get 25 Free small magnets. Finish checking out and that’s it. Let me know how you like your stuff when you receive it. Happy browsing!

• Any small business owners out there?
• Need some free photo prints?
• Places to find free pictures to use on your blog

Have you ever bought a mailing list? Have you ever thought about where business mailing lists come from? It isn’t something many people think about until they either need one or have to get one. I have actually built mailing lists, on a small scale. What a job it was! One of the lists I built was for a local small business that wanted to do some targeted marketing. The woman really wanted to have the list cover the entire state, but in the end we settled on including three counties.

I built the list myself manually, obtaining the contacts from the internet and phone books. The business owner and I both knew that list wouldn’t be perfect. After all, I could only include people I could find in the list. My list was a creation of one person using limited resources in an extremely limited geographical area. I had no capabilities to create a list of the original area she wanted. The process took a long time, many days consisting of many man hours, but I was very proud of the finished results. In retrospect, I didn’t make money on the project. I’d undercharged and out in so many man hours that I ended up making less than minimum wage. Much less. She inquired about doing another larger scale project with me but I declined. I knew I was not able to deliver the results she wanted and needed and stay within the budget she had.

A couple of years have gone by now and I now know for sure there are more efficient and affordable ways to get a mailing list. Now a person can pick from different types of mailing lists - consumer and business. Within those are more highly specialized lists - mortgage, business specialty and consumer response. A business can now specify exactly who they want to reach and how broad or narrow of an area they would like the targets in.

Guaranteed Lists is a company that specializes specifically in mailing lists. That’s all they do so they know what they’re doing. They have a consumer database of more than 280 million. They also boast the largest business database currently available, containing over 13 million companies in the US and 57 million worldwide. They guarantee the accuracy of their information, which is updated quarterly and comes from credit bureaus, private databases, listing houses and data compilers. If you need a company with the marketing expertise to reach your target, Guaranteed should be on your list to check out.

• Any small business owners out there?
• 25 free magnets
• Customized Visa gift cards

In my area, like everywhere else, there are a lot of people with small businesses. I myself am involved with one. I fell in love with VistaPrint years ago, and have gotten many free boxes of business cards from them. A year or so ago when I wanted to do some direct marketing I looked into a number of methods including postcards. I started researching and getting prices and I was pleasantly surprised when I found out VistaPrint offers cheap postcards.

Before I went to the site I was thinking they couldn’t possibly have that many selections. Boy was I wrong. They have postcards to match most of their other products. I actually ended up ordering three different kinds and used them for three different mailing campaigns. (I ordered different styles to help me try and distinguish which postcards gained better response.)

The quality of the VistaPrint postcards was better than I even expected. The picture side came exactly as I’d designed it, the print was crisp and clean and the pictures were nice and glossy. Definite attention getters. I was extremely pleased with my order. In fact, if anyone would like to see one please leave me a comment and I’ll put up a picture. As soon as you see the postcards you’ll understand why I was so pleased. I recommend the VistaPrint postcards to anyone wanting to get postcards made on a tight budget.

• 25 free magnets
• Let’s chat about mailing lists
• Customized Visa gift cards