The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and Changes to COBRA

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I have been working with many clients recently in order to strategically plan, budget for and roll-out marketing initiatives that are focused on helping them maintain (or even grow) in this challenging economy.

In doing so, I am also seeing the toll the tightened market has had on staffing, and that many small business owners do not have the resources internally to advise them or those they may have had to let go.

On Feb. 17, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was signed into federal law. This legislation includes a subsidy for certain qualified individuals who are entitled to COBRA continuation of coverage as a result of an involuntary termination of employment that occurred, or will occur, between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009.

For those of my readers who maintain their own company health plans and have unfortunately had to (or plan to) lay off, you may want to consider seeking legal counsel to determine your compliance obligations.

It may also help you educate those you may have had to let go.

So why not just use BCC when blast emailing?

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To BCC or not to BCC, that is the question
To BCC or not to BCC, that is the question

A lot of companies get started with email marketing by sending out “blast” emails and newsletters via an email client such as Outlook.

While Outlook is a fine solution for one-to-one email, it was not specifically designed for sending high volume email. Now I’m not saying you can’t “get away” with it sometimes, but for the purpose of this post, I would like to look at the dangers of using Outlook as your mass email marketing tool.

Following are eight of the pitfalls with the “Art of BCC” :

  1. Your emails may just look terrible.  Outlook sends HTML email in such a way that it often only renders properly for other people using Outlook.  Sorry, not everyone uses Outlook.
  2. One simple mistake and you may accidentally put your email list in the TO: or CC: field.  Aside from everyone being angry with you for sharing their email addresses like a bad chain email,  if just one person hits “reply-to-all” then you’ve got a communication nightmare.
  3. There is a very good chance you will end up in your recipients spam folder.  If you send attachments with your email (and you should never send attachments with mass emails) you may even have bigger issues with being automatically marked as spam or junk mail.
  4. You may bog down your outgoing email server and be penalized by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) as you will effect anyone else using the same server.
  5. If you send too many emails from your own computer, your ISP may think you’re a spammer and will most likely eventually block (blacklist) you.[…]Read More

A must see for those who ask “what’s Twitter?”

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Lately I have been really wrapped up with trying to aid clients in finding, and committing to, a “balance” in their marketing plans.

One that allows them to optimize what they should be doing in what today would be considered “traditional” web marketing, while educating (and motivating) them regarding the “newer”  venues available.

If you have been seeing what I have, most clients have no idea of their options in the social network marketing world, and when they begin to see it they get intimidated very quickly.

What may seem new now to many quickly becomes the norm, and it’s so important to make an educated decision as to where resources should be dedicated so you don’t “miss the party”.

Twitter cannot be ignored in it’s ability to network and its overall reach.  We are starting to see it everywhere and you now hear it referenced on TV and radio essentially replacing the “call-ins” hosts once received.

This video is a “must see”.

At the end of the day marketing should be fun!

For those who do it, and those who “get it” :)


Is .tel the new seamless contact venue it appears to be?

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The Phonebook of the Future
The Phonebook of the Future?

We may be in the middle of a recession (I refuse to use the “D” word), but we are also in the middle of an exciting  “land rush” for a new, and unique, domain extension.

.tel provides a new internet standard for users  to control contact information “on-the-fly” directly at the DNS (Domain Name System) level regardless of them having a website.

The interesting twist here is in the way .tel is approaching the market  as a TLD (Top Level Domain like .com, .info, .org, etc.) that uses the DNS to actually host and display the contact information of a company or individual rather than the traditional usage of DNS to direct users to a website IP address.

[…]Read More

Marketing the “Essentials” to Buyers May Prove More Profitable in 2009

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In today’s economic landscape, I think we can expect many business purchases to focus on what is needed to cost effectively  grow the buyers business and continue to generate profits. 2009 is likely to reflect very conservative spending and efforts to maintain existing systems with few companies moving to overhaul or upgrade systems and procedures.

Business-to-business marketing strategies may yield better results if the focus is placed primarily on marketing the essentials to customers while preparing for the inevitable opportunities to market desirable products and services once the market gains confidence again.  Now is the time to look carefully at your offerings and determine what motivation your prospective buyers have to purchase.  You may find a slight shift in marketing your wares a worthwhile exercise.

History has shown us that every market crash eventually yields a new market with even greater strength. Be realistic about the present, but remain optimistic about the future of the new market that I expect will emerge even stronger than the old (albeit different).

US markets have proven to be resilient die-hards that know how to take a blow and come back with a vengeance. Act on what is happening now, but continue to prepare for the opportunities that lie ahead.