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Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Public Speaking: Electronic Infrastructure

In past issues ( http://www.antion.com/ezinebackissues.htm )
I have given you lots of ways to market yourself, your
products, and your services electronically. To do this
efficiently requires some basic infrastructure in the form
of computer hardware and software and a connection to the
Internet.

You probably have the hardware already. A basic computer with
a modem and scanner pretty much does the trick. If you want
to make your work a little easier, these additions might help.

=> A bigger monitor will make the time you spend in front
of the computer easier on the eyes.
=> Buy all the RAM you can afford.
=> A wheel mouse will save some strain on your mouse finger.
=> A small network of several computers could be more
efficient if you have several people working at the same time.

SOFTWARE
For software, spending some money can give you some real time
savings AND also give you critical information that you may not
even know you needed. For instance, I spent about $400.00 on a
sophisticated, but easy to use bulk email program. This program
does in seconds what used to take me hours to complete. So my
dollar investment allows me to do email marketing that would have
been too cumbersome to do with regular email programs.

Being able to update and / or create your own website is the best
single investment in time and money I ever made in my career. I
use Front Page 2000 to create and maintain my website which would
have cost me nearly $50,000.00 had I paid for all the work and
updates. Front Page costs less than $150.00 and I spent about a
$1000.00 for advanced training spread out over two years. It took
me about a month and a half part time getting competent with the
program. I would say the time spent was really worth it. I can
have an idea and six minutes later have it in front of a world
market PLUS the frustration I saved from avoiding dealing with
webdesigners was worth at least a million bucks.

STATISTICS
Getting statistics on your website is critical. The statistics
will tell you how much traffic you are getting, how long they
are staying and where they are coming from. This information
is necessary to make your site pay off. Too many speakers have a
beautiful website that no one visits or buys from. I use
"WebTrends" as my statistics package which is provided to me by
my Internet Service Provider. Check with your provider to see if
they include a statistics package with your hosting fee. If not,
get one. Ask your host for a recommendation and learn how to use
and interpret your results.

There are other software programs you can get like "Web Position
Gold" that will tell you where the search engines are placing
you and teach you how to maximize your pages to get high
rankings.

Once you get all these systems in place and learn how to use
them you are in a position to really skyrocket your electronic
marketing.

Learn to market yourself on the Internet!





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