Small business emails

Email addresses and websites are now just like phones and answering services: everyone has them but not everyone uses them well.

So many small businesses I come into contact with still have their internet service providers (you know, Yahoo) as their email addresses. To me, it smacks of a couple of things:

a) They haven't realised that this looks pretty amateurish when they communicate with their customers (or they don't care)

b) They're not taking their email and internet strategy seriously (or they don't have one)

However, in our search engine seeking world, you just can't afford not to be leveraging the power of your brand.

The Australian Government's e-business guide suggests you ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does the domain name support the branding of your organisation?

2. Would your target audience guess the domain name and email address?

3. Do the domain name and email address stand on their own and make sense?

4. Is the domain name or email address too long, awkward to type or repeat verbally to people?

5. Can the name be confused with an existing popular domain name?

Even if you've had your domain name for a while, that doesn't mean you can't revisit your strategy.

Think it through today.

Margie

Small business risk alert

Torrential rain and trojan viruses: there's a lesson for us all in a couple of small business calamities I encountered on holidays.

Scenario #1: the local tennis pro, whose business is built around the fun and frivolity of outdoor activity, cops the most brutal rain since Noah launched his ark. Okay, the former stopped after 24 hours (Noah's lasted longer), but it was enough to seriously stifle the roll-up for a three-day tennis clinic.

Scenario #2: a business consultant downloads photos from a friend's USB onto his laptop and ... wham! His computer is the new home of a violent trojan virus. Even a panicked check of his virus scan updates can't save all the data on his computer from the malicious infection. 

While the tennis pro took the rain in her stride (she hastily organised some indoor activities for a shortenend session), and the business consultant was able to retrieve the essentials for an impending presentation from his email, both scenarios reinforce why we should all mitigate our business risks.

How? Firstly, planning is crucial. Ask yourself: what are the biggest risks to my business? Is it your health, technology, weather, production or staff hiccups? Some of these are within your control, while others aren't. But that doesn't mean you can't plan for what you'll do if they ever crop up.

Secondly, put systems for your record keeping and information back-ups in place so that your business can weather any storm.

Regular attention to these details will help you sleep at night.

Margie