eBusiness Wales

BBC - South West Wales - Walk through time

2006-08-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

BBC - South West Wales - Walk through time

Entrepreneur.com

2006-07-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

Entrepreneur.com: "Marketing campaigns can be time consuming and costly. So how can you boost your chances of a positive ROI? Add e-mail marketing to the mix.
Think about how you acquire new customers and attract new business. Do you purchase newspaper, Yellow Pages, or other print advertising? Participate in pay-per-click or search engine marketing? Attend trade shows or business networking events? However you choose to reach new customers, your ultimate goal is to engage prospects and convince them to do business with you.
Sometimes you can convince a prospect to buy right away, but it often takes multiple contacts to bring in a new customer. E-mail marketing allows you to reconnect with those prospects immediately while leads are still hot. E-mail marketing also works within the whole spectrum of the sales cycle--letting you follow up with customers who make immediate purchases and develop relationships with prospects still in consideration mode.
How to Integrate E-Mail Into Other Marketing Activities
Most customer-acquisition marketing campaigns have a call to action that generates leads. It may be a media ad or direct-mail offer for a free consultation, an online invitation to download a free white paper, or an ad campaign asking consumers to contact your business for more information and a free quote. When the campaign is over, you look at the results and ask yourself, 'Was it worth the cost?' E-mail marketing helps businesses maximize their marketing ROI by targeting leads and cultivating profitable and lasting customer relationships.
Here are three basic steps to start integrating e-mail marketing into any marketing campaign:
1. Capture their e-mail addresses. Make sure that at your initial point of interaction, in addition to collecting prospects' names and phone numbers"

Mobile phone uses

2004-12-23T02:48:00.000-08:00

A message from Michael C. Pousti
Chairman and CEO, SMS.ac, Inc.

December 2004

Isn't it interesting how our mobile phones are evolving? Just a couple of years ago, handsets were used exclusively for voice communications. Now, we are seeing the latest mobile phones also utilized as digital cameras, as personal music players and even as personal computers. What's next? Get ready, because your mobile phone is now morphing to become your personal banking system.

Imagine, in the foreseeable future, there will be no need to carry a wallet or purse. Every transaction you make will incorporate your mobile handset. When you purchase groceries at the local market, you will simply input a few dedicated numbers into your mobile keypad (called a short code) and the applicable charges will either appear on your monthly service statement, or they will be immediately debited to your pre-paid phone card.

When your favorite musical artist is performing in town, you'll buy concert tickets and CD-quality music using your phone. And as for your personal banking needs, you will be able to manage everything directly from your mobile phone! All of this and more is possible because mobile operators are positioning themselves as being the banking institutions of the future. Mobile operators have always been master micro-billers and as they are able to extend their expertise to include higher tariffs, they will become non-expendable as an extension of what was once your wallet or purse.

I am making a rather bold prediction that the use of mobile phones as a payment mechanism for consumers will render the traditional credit card obsolete within 10 years. In the meantime, you will see more and more purchasing opportunities arise, using your handset.

Stay tuned, as SMS.ac continues to change the way the world communicates. Perhaps you saw the news that International Data Corporation (IDC), one of the world's premier market intelligence and advisory firms covering the information technology and telecommunications industries, recently named SMS.ac, Inc. (www.sms.ac/corporate) to its prestigious "10 Emerging Wireless Players to Watch" list for 2005. Here is a look at that announcement on Yahoo!: http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/041025/66144.html

SMS.ac (www.sms.ac) will continue to travel around the world, representing you as host to the largest community of mobile phone users on the planet. We will be addressing attendees as a speaker and sponsor at the largest wireless conference in the world, the 3GSM World Congress, in Cannes, France: (http://www.3gsmworldcongress.com/2005/default.asp)

Online Success Tactics for your Small Business

2004-12-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

Online Success Tactics for your Small Business

from Butt Camp - Tom Antion

2004-12-16T05:22:00.000-08:00

Watch out for electronic artists

Also, I want you to be prepared because many of your web designers and technical people driving old Ford Pintos will argue with you and try to talk you out of doing some of the things mentioned in this book. Always remember, this book came about because people making extremely large amounts of money taught me how to do it and I'm making extremely large amounts of money with the same techniques. Exactly how much money are your web designer and techie friends making actually selling things on the Internet?

You need to make sure that you don't get stuck in the typical trap of paying for a beautiful design of a website that nobody comes to . . . and more importantly, you need to make sure your web visitors stay and buy your products and services. The "Pretty Website Syndrome" is the most common problem I see. Everybody and their brothers and sisters are website designers because it is so easy. However, very few people know the marketing techniques I'm going to cover in this book.

You have to make sure your designer or web person knows how to do these things. If they don't, you need to educate them or get somebody else. It's that simple. I know you bleeding hearts out there are thinking, "Oh, but my web designer is so nice and the site looks so pretty, I couldn't possibly find someone else as nice."

I hate to be the one to tell you . . . nice is important, but nice ain't going to make you any money in this specific aspect of your electronic marketing efforts. I can virtually guarantee that your web designer doesn't know what is in this book. OK . . . maybe 2 percent at most might know some of what's here. Hey, maybe a tiny fraction of them know more. So what are the odds that one of these few select people is currently working as your web designer?

It's relatively easy to design your web site, but putting in the appropriate marketing elements is not so easy. If you fall into the "Pretty Website Trap," it's going to cost you a lot of money. If you want to stick with your current designer, this book will educate him or her so that it pays off for you.

Here's a funny thing that happens all the time. I get into discussions with many of these designers who claim to know what they are doing. A certain marketing point will come up and, after they've seen my materials, they say, "Oh, I knew that." Funny thing is that when I review the sites they have designed, the element we were discussing is nowhere to be found. If they actually knew it, why didn't they bother to implement the idea for their client???

Designers that haven't come to my Butt Camp generally don't like me, because I expose them for what they are . . . electronic artists. Designers that come to my Butt Camp usually end up loving me before they leave because I have just put them into that tiny, tiny, percentage of people who can both design and market a website properly. That makes them VERY valuable to themselves and more importantly . . . to you.

MarketingPathway.com | Home |

2004-12-11T14:22:00.000-08:00

MarketingPathway.com | Home |: "The straight truth is: good marketing requires
effort"

Bulk html email -tips

2004-12-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Emailcenter UK – Permission based email marketing solutions
http://www.emailcenteruk.com

1
An Emailcenter briefing:
Can your customers read your email newsletters?
An overview of designing HTML emails for Hotmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Lotus Notes and AOL
November, 2004
www.emailcenteruk.com
Emailcenter research has shown that around half of the emails received from leading consumerfacing
organisations in the UK will not display as intended in the majority of customers inboxes. This occurs, as
the sender does not take into account the limitations of their recipients email clients in rendering HTML.
This has a considerable impact on the sender including:
· Negative perceptions of the senders brand from recipients
· An increase in the churn rate of the newsletter list with increased numbers choosing to unsubscribe
· A higher risk of being reported as SPAM from disillusioned customers who cannot read the email
· Lost revenue
This briefing explains the limitations of email clients in rendering HTML messages including:
· A general overview of best practice
· Specific information on the main email clients including Hotmail, Yahoo, Lotus Notes and AOL
· Available design workarounds to ensure your message is displayed correctly without losing the desired
look and feel of the email message
· Four suggestions to help you overcome these limitations
Who is this briefing for?
This briefing is of a relative technical nature. Many of the issues are technical HTML issues that can only be
answered with a technical answer. Therefore this briefing will be suitable for:
1) Marketers who want to learn about the potential issues they have with their HTML templates and
the limitations of email clients
2) Web designers who have a requirement to design HTML email templates
3) Marketers who need to brief a designer on their requirements or are building a specification
document for their HTML template
About Emailcenter UK
Emailcenter UK provides permission based email marketing services, software and solutions. Please visit
us at www.emailcenteruk.com.
Introduction
Designing a HTML email is far more complicated than a web page. Often marketers and designers will see
several hours of effort in designing a message ruined when a particular email client mangles the code to
display something like the email received to our email account below:
The reason for this is most email clients have limited HTML rendering capabilities. After all they have been
designed as an email messaging system and not as an Internet browser.
The following sections of this briefing discuss the specific limitations of email clients in rendering HTML.
General rules
These are the design rules that every email should observe.
Scripts and Dynamic HTML
Virtually all of the main email clients cannot process scripting languages such as JavaScript. Indeed many
ISP’s seek out JavaScript in an email and strip it out as they view it as a security threat. We have also seen
whole emails being quarantined and blocked because they contained JavaScript.
Here are some of the other technologies that should be avoided in HTML email designs:
· ActiveX
· Audio
· External Style Sheets
· Frames and IFrames
· Java
· Meta Refresh
· JavaScript, VBScript, Perl etc
MIME Format
Research into Emailcenter clients email lists has shown that around 5% cannot read HTML email and can
only accept plain text emails. Around 99% of the recipients on a list use a MIME compatable email client.
MIME format is where both a HTML message and plain text message is delivered to the recipients server
where it is determined which is most suitable to place into the recipients inbox.
Frames
Frames cannot be used in constructing a HTML email message.

Sez Sarah

2004-11-30T05:45:00.000-08:00

Overall sales from transactional websites rose to £39.5bn in 2003, more than doubling the 2002 figure of £19bn, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) e-commerce survey, published this week.
Other key findings from the survey included; sales over non-Internet ICTs, such as Electronic Data Interchange, e-mail, PC based fax and automated telephone entry, also rose - from £170.8 billion to £195.6 billion (15 per cent), representing £83 of every £100 sold over all kinds of ICTs; internet sales as a proportion of all ICT sales rose from £10 per £100 in 2002 to £17 per £100 in 2003; and for every £100 worth of sales over the Internet, £67 was spent on physical products; for every £100 worth of purchases over the Internet, £78 was spent on physical products.

Phishing growing exponentially - ZDNet UK News

2004-11-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

Phishing growing exponentially - ZDNet UK News: "Phishing growing exponentially

Munir Kotadia
ZDNet Australia
October 12, 2004, 10:45 GMT

Tell us your opinion

Online phishers are taking consumers hook, line and sinker with new e-commerce and social engineering scams

The number of phishing Web sites is increasing by 50 percent every month and fraudsters are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to fool Internet users into revealing personal information, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group's (APWG) latest figures.
Phishing sites are usually doctored versions of an organisation's legitimate Web site. Victims are often lured to the sites using sophisticated socially engineered emails and many are fooled into disclosing online passwords, user names and other personal information.
However, according to research by the APWG throughout July, there has been an increase in the number of generic e-commerce Web sites where victims believe they are ordering products or services from an 'independent' reseller.
The APWG found that the most common fraud-based sites seen during July were fake loan scams, mortgage frauds, online pharmacy frauds, and fake online banking institutions.
'As phishing sites continue to grow exponentially, this newer breed of advanced fraud-based websites is also proliferating, raising the stakes of Internet scams,' the report said.
Rob Forsyth, managing director of anti-virus firm Sophos in Australia and New Zealand, said that phishers are modifying their methods to extract as much information -- and cash -- as possible.
Forsyth said a prime example was during the Olympic Games in Athens when a fraudulent Web site was asking for donations to help disabled athletes participate in the Paralympic games."

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Rise of the anoraks

2004-11-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Rise of the anoraks: "Rise of the anoraks

Obsessives could be an asset to society
Anoraks, geeks, nerds - there's no shortage of insults for enthusiasts who take their interests just a bit too far. But a new report suggests these fanatics are a growing force in society.
Seb Potter is a hidden cog in the feverish global economic engine. The 27-year-old regularly gives large chunks of his leisure time to building 'open source' software.
One of the projects he contributes to has helped power websites for the likes of Nasa and the Strategic Rail Authority. Yet he's not received a penny for his work.
Mr Potter is one of a growing army of serious enthusiasts whose dedication to a pastime is making a significant contribution to society, according to a new report.
Typically called hobbyists, nerds, anoraks or geeks - the commitment of such people should be harnessed rather than derided, according to the report by think-tank Demos.
Calling them 'Pro-Ams' - amateurs who pursue a hobby to a professional standard - it suggests such people should receive government funding to 'promote community cohesion'.
Growing affluence and the trickle-down of specialist technology has allowed people to practise hobbies such as astronomy and photography to a standard that previously would only have been achievable by professionals.
It's like giving something back to your community, albeit that it's a global community rather than a local one

Seb Potter
'The internet has brought disparate groups of like-minded people together to discuss their hobbies and share ideas,' says Paul Miller, a co-author of the report.
'Access to information is one of the main reasons Pro-Ams are becoming more important. The internet also provides a forum for them to compare "

BBC NEWS | Business | BT sells Eutelsat satellite stake

2004-11-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

BBC NEWS | Business | BT sells Eutelsat satellite stake: "BT sells Eutelsat satellite stake

Eutelsat has 24 satellites
BT Group has sold its stake in the satellite operator Eutelsat as part of a growing focus on its core business.
The sale marks BT's exit from the satellite business and ends a 25-year-old tie with the operator which it helped co-found in the late 1970s.
The 15.8% stake in the Paris-based firm was sold for �368m ($675m) to GS Capital Partners 2000.
During the past year, BT has sold its stakes in satellite operators Intelsat, Inmarsat and New Skies Satellites.
Eutelsat has 24 satellites which enable broadcasters to reach viewers in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
The dishes are also used by the defence industry. "

Bagle bites back

2004-11-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

Three new variants of the troublesome Bagle worm have been discovered
by a number of anti-virus companies. Most have released software updates to protect users against infection, and some have labelled the threat posed > by one variant, Bagle.BC, as high. The worm spreads through infected e-mail attachments. It wreaked havoc when it was launched back in January, and has spawned close to 50 variants since then.

Test Blog

2004-11-29T08:05:00.000-08:00

Testing