november 2007

Is your website ready for the holiday rush? With Black Friday over, it’s interesting to see how this year is stacking up over last year.

According to Comscore Black Friday sees $531 million in online retail spending, which is up 22 percent over the same time period last year.

Cyber Monday was expected to surpass the $700 million  mark in online spending, making it the heaviest spending day on record.

People are out there buying. Are you ready for them?

It’s the holidays. Why not use them to help promote your business.

Driving around this weekend, I heard a wonderful promotion on one of the local radio stations. What is the one thing people just don’t have time for during this busy time of the year? Decorating the outside of their home with decorations and lights. So the radio station will handle it for you through a special contest.

With the help of a local decorator, they are giving away the chance to win your home being decorated for the holidays. And during the process, the decorator is getting A LOT of free publicity. How did they do it?

They simply contacted the radio station promoters a few weeks before the holidays. They worked to create a contest that is of interest to the radio listeners - and one that doesn’t cost the radio station anything. Of course the decorator gets a “little” publicity, but it adds to the fun of the holidays, and puts a little spirit into the listeners. What could be better?

Think about your business - how can you promte your business - and offer something of value to the media? Don’t worry if you don’t get your first (or second) connection. Just keep trying.

And let me know what you accomplish.

Lori

I was out surfing today, and ran across a very interesting PDF file on a blog. Usually PDF’s are used as text only files - a way of “freezing” informatin in a document to allow people to look at it exactly how you designed it. And you can have ways of creating an ebook, and password protecting it for security.

I’ve used PDF’s for years, but I never considered adding sound. Now you can. 

Visit http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials/pdfsound/ to read how to imbed sound in your PDF’s.

Lori

For the third time in under a week, I’ve found another forum that once was for free turning into a pay only forum, or one only open to its members?

Why?

It seems that more people are creating quality content that members pay for. But when you have a forum where people can openly ask questions and share information, they end up sharing much of the pay information on the site - where anyone can read about it. Why pay when you can have it for free?

Is this how the Internet will work in the future? I’m betting on yes.

The Internet is full of information. In fact, its easy to get quickly overwhelmed.

If you can find someone that has worked through all of the information and found the quality stuff, and is willing to share it, paying is a great thing. It can cut years off of your learning curve.

I would love to hear from you. Do you think more sites will turn into pay only? Is it good to pay for content? Are you paying for content now?

Lori