Consultants' Corner

Testimonials

"The VMD program allows us to work with an experienced marketing consultant who understands how to go-to-market with Microsoft products and can help us tap into all of the available Microsoft marketing tools and resources. The program allows us access to marketing expertise that we just couldn't find anywhere else."

Jim Sheehan, COO
PowerObjects

The Consultants' Corner: Tips & Tricks

  • What About "Tweako"?
    You know about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube but what about "Tweako", "Merchant Circle", "Mixx" or "Small Business Brief"? If some of these terms are new (I'll be the first to admit - there were some I had never heard of), then check out the article, Social Media Web Sites to Boost Your Business for a quick tutorial on social networking websites. With this cheat sheet, you'll have the basics of what each site does, who the target audience is and how users participate.
  • Use Microsoft's LET to Help You Connect Locally
    One of the goals of the Microsoft Local Engagement Team (LET) is to bring together Microsoft partners, influencers and value-added providers to better meet the needs of local small and mid-sized businesses (which will help you fill your pipeline). For example, the LET manager is helping one of my clients get connected with the SBA office as well as the SBDC (Small Business Development Council) to sponsor events, speak at events, conduct Microsoft Dynamics overview sessions for members and network with the local business owners.
    Find your assigned LET person today and get involved locally!
  • Link Popularity
    Do you know how many in-bound links you have coming into your website? Link Popularity will give you a free evaluation of the total number of websites that link to your site. In-bound links are an important factor in increasing your page ranking with search engines. In addition, you can also request a monthly report that will be emailed to you. What are you waiting for? Find out how popular you are!
  • Privacy Policy
    Do you have a privacy policy on your website? If not, you should. Privacy policies will help to build trust with clients and prospects in addition to your company complying with legal requirements. If you need help writing a privacy policy, visit the Direct Marketing Association. Check your own website today to make sure you have one posted!
  • What File Format Should I Use?
    As we all know graphics come in many flavors, but not all file formats are suitable for all purposes. How do you know which is best? In general, there are graphics formats suitable for printing and those for on-screen viewing or online publishing. Here is a simple chart that outlines the best use for graphics in several common formats.
    Format Designed For: Top Choice For:
    BMP Screen display under Windows Windows Wallpaper
    EPS Printing to PostScript printers/Imagesetters High resolution printing of illustrations
    GIF Screen display, especially the Web Online publishing of graphic images
    JPEG, JPG Screen display, especially the Web Online publishing of photographic images
    TIFF, TIF Printing to PostScript printers High resolution printing of images
    WMF Screen display under Windows or printing to non-PostScript printer Transfer vector images via the clipboard
  • Makeover Your Newsletter
    An E-Newsletter has a lot of moving parts. You have to manage your "opt-in" list, setup links, layout the images, and determine content each month. After all the work you put into a newsletter every month, you want subscribers to open it and be interested in your content. Download our keys to a successful newsletter here.
  • "Quick Hit" Business Information
    As a marketing or sales professional, ever wish you could get a quick look at a prospect's business information before you picked up the phone? You can - for free! Manta collects information on businesses and with a few mouse clicks, you can gather the basics on almost any small to midsize business. With a paid subscription, you can access more details, but when you need a "quick hit", this is a good solution. Test it by typing in your own company and see what's been gathered on you. I dare you! (If it's incorrect, there's an option to enter the correct data.)
  • 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
    Chances are a lot of you have created a profile on LinkedIn, but do you feel that you are getting the most out of your profile and all that LinkedIn has to offer? We have found a great website that has shown us a lot of what Linkedin has to offer. Check out the Linked Intelligence website and learn 100+ smart ways to use LinkedIn!
  • Subject Line Spam Filters
    As we all know, using email is a great way to market to a larger audience and is fairly inexpensive. One of the things that can stop us from achieving the best possible results with our email blasts is spam filters. One of the first areas to get caught will be your subject line. While the list is large, here are a few of the worst spam filter triggers: $$$, Free, Increase Your Sales, Opportunity, Save $, Affordable, Email Marketing, Compare Rates.

    There are a number of websites that have been designed to help you conquer these spam issues by reviewing and scoring the emails before you send them out. Before sending out your next email visit http://www.swiftpage.com/support/spamcheck.htm or http://spamcheck.sitesell.com and have your email scored. We did!
  • Mailing Lists
    Check out the Mailing List Search Tool. You can enter your keywords (such as "QuickBooks users") and the tool will serve up the lists most appropriate to the type of prospect you're looking for!
  • 14 Ways to Speed Up Your Outlook
    We are all driven by our Outlook inbox each and every day. The faster our system is, the faster and more efficient we can be. We have found some great tips for you to help you improve the speed of your Microsoft Outlook 2007. Visit http://www.pctipsbox.com/14-tips-to-speed-up-microsoft-outlook-2007 to find 14 ways that may speed up Outlook for you!
  • Gather Valuable Customer Satisfaction Data and Input...almost for free!
    GetSatisfaction.com is a fabulous website dedicated to supporting strong customer-company communications. Their offerings, according to their site, create "a direct connection between people and companies that fosters problem-solving, promotes sharing, and builds up relationships." In other words, being well connected to your customers helps you retain your customer base, deliver products and services that will help them, and increases your up-sell/cross-sell opportunities. You can start simply by participating on the Get Satisfaction site. Or you can go all the way--download the code to put the "Get Satisfaction" experience on your own site and keep your customer dialog contained. Have a look at www.getsatisfaction.com
  • Converting a PDF into a Word Document
    Do you ever have problems getting the content you need from a PDF without losing the formatting? Look no further, go to http://convertpdftoword.net and you can convert a pdf into a Word document. It is not a program you install—it's a website—you simply navigate to your pdf file and click the "convert" button. You can also perform the opposite function and convert a Word document to a PDF.

Click here for more tips from 2008