Biz Tips Blog: Internet Marketing Tips

Are you forgetful? Jott your notes.

Have you ever been in the grocery store or stuck in traffic or on the treadmill and you get a brilliant idea for a blog post or an article or a new product?  It happens to me frequently (not that my ideas are brilliant, but they do come at odd times). What do you do if you're not at your computer or don't have a piece of paper and pen? Me? I forget the great idea by the time I get back to my computer.

The last couple of weeks a reminder service called Jott has been brought to my attention.  I heard about it awhile ago, then a client who is a productivity consultant wrote about Jott and then someone mentioned it on a teleclass this week. So I finally checked it out.

Jott is a free reminder service. You create a free account and then you connect your account with your cell phone. There are a couple of simple steps you go through to confirm your phone number.

Then, when you call  the toll-free number (this is for U.S. and Canada only right now), you leave a message with your brilliant idea and it's immediately transcribed and sent to you via email.

Create a Wow: Free Virtual Conference Starts on Tuesday

Are you struggling to make a splash online? Need some fresh ideas or expert advice? If so, you won't want to miss the Create A WOW Virtual Conference at www.CreateAWOW.com. Patsi and I are presenters at the conference and hope you’ll listen to our class about blogging as a marketing tool.

The free virtual conference will be held online from January 8 - 11, 2008 and will be a collection of audios and videos  you can listen/view at your convenience. Each presentation is about 20 minutes so you get lots of actionable-value in bite-size chunks.

We're honored to be included alongside this highly talented group of professionals who will be sharing their knowledge and expertise with you -- giving you tons of quality information for creating your own WOW online. There's no charge for this online event which includes the following classes:

How to Get The Most out of the Create a Wow Conference - Learn how to implement what you learn!
Presented by Rory Cohen, President

Flip Video is a Hit at BlogWorld Expo

Last week at BlogWorld Expo Patsi and I did video interviews with some of the bloggers we met.

I use a Flip Video camera and I have to say, it was a hit with everyone we talked to. Everyone wanted to know how it worked and how much it cost. The original one (at left) that I own is $119 at Amazon.com and the new Flip Ultra is $149 and comes in a variety of colors: black, white, pink and orange.

Technical Details

• Simple to use, pocket-sized camcorder with one-touch recording and digital zoom
• Holds 60 minutes of full VGA-quality video on 2GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required
• Convenient USB arm plugs directly into your computer for easy viewing and sharing
• Built-in software lets you easily e-mail videos, upload to YouTube and AOL, and capture still photos from video
• Watch videos instantly on TV with included cable

This is a VERY SIMPLE camera to use: turn it on, press the red record button to start, press the red button again to stop and you've got a video.

Plug the camera into your computer with the USB arm, the software which resides in the camera automatically starts. You can do simple edits and easily save the video to your computer, upload it to your YouTube account or email to friends.

For a small investment every blogger can become a video blogger. At this point I would recommend getting the Flip Ultra because the new version has a tripod mount so you don't have to hold it out in front of you if you're filming yourself. For $14.99, definitely get the tripod. I may have to upgrade my Flip just so I can have this valuable feature.

Now there really is no excuse not to add video to your websites and blogs. It's just so easy and it give your readers/visitors/prospects another format in which they can get your message.

Open Source Software is Worth Checking Out

Following on my post yesterday about how important I believe it is to be able to create your own web pages, today's post is about how to get free or low cost software to create your web pages.

A few weeks ago on Blogging and Beyond, we interviewed James Gaskin about open source software. He shared info about a site called theopencd.org that distributes free software that can replace the expensive software you're probably familiar with. Me being me, an active experimenter, I immediately went to the site and purchased a cd with 33 software programs on it. The cost was $10.

NOTE: theopencd.org is no longer a functioning site. The OpenCD is available here instead.

There's a lot on this disc that I will never use, however, a couple of things caught my eye:

Call to Action: Recommended Reading

Yesterday, in our monthly Blogging and Beyond Mentor program teleseminar, we covered "Call to Action." We promised our Mentees a list of the books we read and refer to on a regular basis so I decided to share that list here with you as well.

Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing

Hot Button Marketing: Push the Emotional Buttons That Get People to Buy

The Elements of Persuasion: Use Storytelling to Pitch Better, Sell Faster & Win More Business

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly

Call to Action is about getting your readers and visitors to interact with you.

It's not necessarily about making a sale; it could be you want them to subscribe to your newsletter, download a free report, register for a teleclass, comment on your blog, give you feedback, and of course buy your products and services.

Related Posts
Branding Books

Domain Registration Fees to Go Up in October

Somehow I missed the announcement in April: ICANN and Verisign announced that the domain name registration and renewal fees would increase by 7% and 10% on October 14, 2007 for .com and .net domains.

Between us, Patsi and I own 130 domains, all of which are .com and a couple of .net and .biz. You can bet we're going to be doing a very careful review of our domain library to see what we can cut out and what we must keep.  It's not unusual for us to buy a number of domains every time we create a new product or have a new idea. It's the best way to protect your idea and capture the domain for eventual use.

We register our domains at All in One Biz Tools for $8.75 per domain, a very good fee for registration when you compare it to Network Solutions or Register.com at $35 per domain.

Imagine this: if we renew all our domains for 1 year at All in One Biz Tools, it will cost us $1,163.50. If we were to use Network Solutions, it would cost us a whopping $4,550! It pays to shop around. You can usually save more if you register your domain for multiple years and in this case you'll be locking in your lower rates for a longer period.

Ticker Tape Eye Candy

Here's a fun site called Dluxwebcandy that creates ticker tape you can add to your sites: www.dluxwebcandy.com.

You can use your imagination to create a message. It's free.

Get Code | Create Your Own!

Free Press Release Builder

It's a privilege to be able to share with you a little solo entrepreneur internet marketing wisdom while Denise is off teaching and vacationing! I'll dive right in with a great new resource I just found out about.

A few years ago, Solo-E.com mounted a 6-month press release campaign. Although we spent a lot of time writing what we thought were solid, non-promotional press releases, they just never achieved the results that made it worth the effort, and so we dropped it as a strategy.

But I know that properly written and promoted press releases can definitely  work -- and maybe if we'd had access to this hot new press release writing tool, we'd have done a better job and gotten the press attention we wanted!

This astounding press releasing-writing resource from EvanCarmichael.com is the most comprehensive I've seen -- and it's easy to read and understand, too. Best yet -- it's free! It features a five step process, with dozens of topic ideas to get you started and a template where you fill in the blanks and it builds your press release for you. Plus direct links to lists of media outlets and scores of additional resources. A definite recommended resource:

Free Press Release Builder

Speaking Skills: Free resources for becoming confident

If you're interested in improving your presentation skills or overcoming the fear of public speaking, our colleague Dr. Larina Kase has some free resources on confident speaking for you.

1) Here are 3 articles on public speaking anxiety.

2) Here is a charisma quiz and some more articles on storytelling and speaking for business opportunities at.

3) The Blog Squad conducted a 30-minute interview with Larina and you can listen to it here (get more great tips on blogging while you're there too!)

To access more great resources to improve your presentation skills, visit Larina's blog at www.themindsetofsuccess.com.  And of course, we recommend the book, The Confident Speaker by Larina and her co-author Harrison Monarth.

Related Posts:
Tom Antion's Advice to The Blog Squad
Presentation Challenges: How do you handle unexpected challenges?

Google Alerts Help You Manage Your Online Identity

Yesterday Patsi and I interviewed personal branding guru, William Arruda. We had a great conversation about why it's so important to manage and control what others see about you online. Arruda had excellent tips and stats about why and how you must pay attention to your online identity.  Listen to the show on Blogging and Beyond.

We talked about using Google Alerts to monitor what's being written about you online. We wrote about this subject in this week's Savvy eBiz Tips so I decided to reprint the article here.

Do you know who's talking about you on the Web?

On the Internet, your reputation is important and because online news travels fast, being able to respond quickly is crucial. You need to know right away when you or your company is mentioned on the Web.

The best way to monitor your online reputation is with Google Alerts, a free service. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and sign up.