December 2009

In this issue:

From the Editor:

In this issue, I discuss the similarities between Christmas shopping and running a business. You might be surprised how comparable the two are, and hopefully it will inspire you to do some early planning!

Wishing you and your families Happy Holidays!

- Michelle

As a special thank you The Web Diva is offering some Christmas Specials to you!

Order a site makeover or a new new site by 1/10 and receive one year of free web hosting!

Purchase a maintence block of time by 1/10 and receive:

• 1/2 extra hour on a 5 hour block
• 1 extra hour on a 10 hour block
• 2 extra hours on a 20 hour block

“All my life, I always wanted to be somebody.  Now I see that I should have been more specific.  ~ Jane Wagner, The Search For Intelligent Life In The Universe, performed by Lily Tomlin”

"Are you a planner or a procrastinator? "

What do Christmas shopping and running a business have in common? More than you may think!

Recently we celebrated Thanksgiving which is followed by the busiest retail shopping day of the year: Black Friday. Retailers slash prices and customers wait in long lines for hours trying to buy Christmas gifts at big discounts.

One of my friends was one of those shoppers this year... but for items other than Christmas presents. She finished shopping for Christmas a few months ago. She shops for Christmas and birthday gifts all year long. She's so organized she has a spreadsheet listing everyone she shops for, along with a budget and gift ideas, that are marked off when complete. She went shopping on Black Friday for birthdays next year.

Many Christmas shoppers wait until Black Friday to do all their shopping. Others delay even longer, often until the week before Christmas to shop. You might think Black Friday shoppers score the best deals, but that's not always true. Retailers only have a limited quantity of the best deals in stock, and many items are barely discounted at all. Then think about how much is your time worth? And how much thought can you put into a last minute gift?

Last minute shoppers often miss out on that perfect gift and then top it off by paying exorbitant shipping fees to get that gift there on time.

So which type of Christmas shopper are you -- the planner or the procrastinator?

OK, so how how do your Christmas shopping habits relate to how you run your web business. Well, just like Christmas, many events and activities in our business are very predictable. For example, Christmas IS on the same day every year, yet still we often procrastinate until the last possible moment.

I am a natural procrastinator. If left to my own accord, I will wait until the last possible second before starting on a project. When it's just me involved, that works. I can just lock myself in a room and work until it's done. But when other people are involved it's unreasonable to wait until the last minute and expect everything to work smoothly.

That's why in an ecommerce business or any online business it makes sense to plan your marketing for the coming year well in advance. Write a simple marketing plan and list the dates for each campaign; state what each special will be, what date you need to start working on the graphics and copy, and so on. Then all year long you simply have to look at the calendar to see when the next sale is scheduled for the web site, or when the next email marketing campaign was due to go out.

Planning in advance will really help uncomplicate your life - and your web designers. Instead of frantically trying to throw together something for your site content and promotions are already planned!

This Christmas season might have snuck up on you, but you still have time to be ready for 2010. Take time now to plan your marketing efforts, site content, and any other big events or expenditures for next year. You'll be glad you did!

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Tips and Tricks

Keys for entering Web addresses in your browser

Ctrl+Enter: There's no need to enter the www and .com parts of a Web address. Instead, just type in your browser's address bar the domain name only, such as bracewellwebworks - Press Ctrl+Enter to add the prefix and suffix automatically. (Pressing Shift+Enter adds the .net top-level domain, and Ctrl+Shift+Enter appends .org)

The next time you want to open Google, for example, just type google in the browser's address bar, followed by Ctrl+Enter, and you're there.

Just for Fun or Useful Links

FINDHOW

Want to learn something like how to cut your own bangs between haircuts and not looked hacked up? Or how to change your car's oil? Go check out FindHow.com to learn just about anything!

The information is from reputable companies, colleges and universities.

findhow.com

Fix-it Club

These days more of us are looking for ways to repair rather than replace our things. Fixitclub.com shows you how to do ordinary household and other kinds of repairs. You'll find hundreds of free online guides for fixing everything you can imagine!

fixitclub.com

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