How to Choose the Right Family Office Database

As I have discussed in other articles there are many different Family Office list resources to choose from. Many are quite worthless, some are very good, and a few are outstanding. I trust the following will provide you with some guidance on how to tell which family office database resources are worth your investment, if you are looking to use them to compliment your efforts to raise capital, or perhaps enhance your marketing activities, within your company.

Here are some basic criteria to watch out for when choosing a Family Office database resource:

Reject web-only resources. If you cannot export to a common spreadsheet format such as Excel or even basic CSV it will cause you a load of additional grief to be able to exploit the data. With web-only resources you lose the ability to upload the data to your customer relationship management (CRM) system. For this you will commonly need XLS(X) or CSV. Also, depending upon how solid the company is that you purchase the service from, if it is web-only you risk losing access to the data altogether in the event the vendor goes belly up without warning, or if you miss a subscription payment you will most likely find your account suspended and your access to the data is denied. For my money, why even risk it? Go with a company that provides the data for download in a common format.

Avoid companies that insist on sending you a CD or a DVD with a code that locks the use of it to one computer. Seriously, where do we find these people? This is so archaic that it should not rate a mention but I have come across a few dinosaurs like this. Information must flow freely, and frequently. CD’s & DVD’s are neither and typically anything that wants to lock use to one system can be a costly technical nightmare when you realise that this is impractical.

Always work with an organisation that displays their team publicly on their website with biographies of all of the team members; or at least the key team members. Also expect to see phone numbers, possibly email addresses, and most certainly a professional looking website. Bottom line, ask yourself whether they look like they are a real business; more specifically do they look like they are a real business that has the skills and ability to develop, maintain and update a Family Office database resource seriously?

Always consider the refund policy of each company you are evaluating. You might not expect it but the terms and conditions of refund can differ dramatically from one vendor to another.

Be quite particular and consider carefully the future update process. How will you ensure the Family Office directory you purchase today is kept up-to-date into the future? Obviously you and your team could update the list internally, but if you have chosen the right vendor, it will be much more cost effective to subscribe semi-annually, annually or bi-annually for automatic updates. Check whether your Family Office resource provider offers this service and subscribe. In reality, it isn't that you are not able to maintain and update the Family Office list yourself. It is simply that the vendor is probably better positioned to do it and if, as said, you have chosen wisely they will be expert at updating and maintaining Family Office lists. A subscription could save you and your team hundreds of hours.

I trust that you will ultimately connect with a vendor of a higher quality for your Family Office database, and when you do, and start to use it, I wish you the very best of luck in your fundraising activities.

Kind regards,

Paul

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul J. Lange is a business mentor and business performance coach who helps small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs to apply big business, enterprise disciplines and solutions to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits. 

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping corporate leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Paul’s support will help you to develop strategic direction, implement it, execute and make more money. He will have you starting to work on your business, instead of in your business, right from day one; and if you have already started down this path, he will help you to complete the transition to business owner from business manager.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

How to Make Hotel Investments

Emerging markets such as India and China are augmenting an otherwise lack lustre global travel industry. The reality is that the upswing in recent years in the hotel industry is due mainly to travellers from these too massive regions. It should therefore not come as a surprise that hotel investment experts are excited about the trend and the potential growth it can bring with hotel owners, hotel operators and industry investors all being prompt to pounce on new acquisitions.

At the same time though, investment in the hotel industry is still plagued with all of the normal complications and commercial risk. There is always very large amount of capital at stake, and this requires meticulous planning and considerable expertise by and of the investor. Investors should upon expert opinion, and often do, before finalising a decision for an intended investment. Several points that should be considered, and indeed re-considered, prior to outlaying any investment funds in a hotel are outlined below.

Always Inspect, or Have the Property Inspected

The property may be useless for the purpose you intended upon completion of the deal; this can occur, and does occur often, despite the hotel displaying all of its best attributes during the negotiation and paper due diligence process. The most common reasons are often:

• underground environment pollution
• interior mould infestation, and
• structural damage from termites and rodents.

You should only ever finalise a deal once you have completed a thorough physical investigation of the property yourself or by your trusted advisors and professional service providers. Remember though in the case of the latter they too can ‘get it wrong’ and their contracts with you will indemnify them if they do, so you are still left holding the bag. That said you should certainly engage an engineer to check for the conditions mentioned above and authenticate that the property does not present any of these problems. Such authentication will usually be something you can rely on at law and is necessary for you to be sure that the investment property complies with all building codes.

Familiarise Yourself with Your Hotel Management Company

If you are contemplating engaging a specialised hotel management firm to oversee the operations of your hotel business, reassure yourself of that company’s capabilities via several sources. Look into and consider its operational performance, and also run some cross-checks with other properties that it has under management. Look closely at and analyse its track record with regard to maximising revenues and managing expenses responsibly.

Analyse Where Your Visitors Come From

The hotel should have a good mix of visitors across various market segments including commercial, group travel, business travellers, and leisure or vacation travellers. If the hotel depends on a single segment, unless you have a very specific and focused niche you should reconsider your investment as such properties rarely do well throughout the entire year. Properties that attract visitors from across several or all segments of travellers are able to bridge slow periods in one segment with increased traffic in another.

DO NOT Depend Upon a Single Business for Your Hotel

Amazing as it seems this happens a lot. Hotels cater to a single client and when that client takes a dive, so too does the hotel. If your hotel exists to service visitors from one company, you are relying on that company’s ability to perform and grow. Frankly you would be better putting your money into the S&P500 or similar. Properties that depend upon obtaining visitors from an airport, another company, a business park, or an amusement park, can go crazy when these businesses cease to generate the income they once did, or worse they shut the doors completely.

For example, with airports, when less people travel by air and the airlines are hurting; your business will suffer the knock on. In regional areas an airport might be relocated or a new larger regional airport may be created elsewhere. Either way if your hotel is relying on traffic from the airport you will feel the pinch very quickly. Similarly if the business on which you are relying for your visitors decides to change its headquarters, or the business park starts to lose clients, or the amusement park is hit with heavy competition from a better, your business will fall. It is important that you look at your revenue sources so that if one segment hits on hard times, it does not impact you to the point of distinction and you can progress through the tough times keeping the hotel fires burning.

When is the Hotel In-Season?

Your new hotel should have an in-season of at least eight months of every year. If it doesn’t then, unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances, it simply is not an option worth your consideration. If the in-season is shorter than eight months your hotel will need to have premium rate occupancy during the in-season to cope up with annual operational costs. The in-season months should also be consecutive lest you will most likely experience lower than potential revenue.

Some Obstacles You May Face

Some markets already have extensive land allocations that are zoned for hotel development and acquiring land in these markets can be relatively simple. Subsequently, when requirements for obtaining finance are made easier through pre-zoning and pre-development approval, these markets will experience overcrowding with a large amount of competition going up around your hotel. If a market has barriers that make entry for the hospitality trade difficult, the possibility of over-population and/or overcrowding of other hotels is less likely.

In general, it will more often be preferable to invest in a market where the barriers of entry are higher than average. A word of caution though, do approach this carefully. You do not want to be the trail-blazer who did all of the hard yards at exorbitant expense to enable a market to be opened for your competitors to flock to and reap the reward of your hard labour.

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid ... ‘it’ in this case are the Terms

Every investment should have an exit strategy. Hotels are no different. Always consider the eventuality that you will sell the hotel at some point in the future. Your hotel acquisition should be planned with this or some other exit strategy in mind. The Management Contract and Franchise Agreement should be designed with clauses that permit termination without having to jump through hoops. There are a number of ways you can maintain a more dynamic and flexible capability with your hotel investment. For example, assign or prepay the mortgage, buy out existing partners and use a good industry experienced chartered accountant to assist you to minimise your tax exposure.

Take Care to Choose the Brand for Your Hotel Wisely

Like with any business, how you brand your hotel will have major implications on the type of visitors you attract. In the hotel industry most people don’t invent new brands but reach an agreement with an existing brand subject to a variety of pre-conditions, quality and other control parameters. The established brands are generally safer than newer brands seeking to establish an identity and a footprint in the market. However newer brands may be more dynamic, and easier to deal with than the more established brands. Irrespective of whether you choose an established brand or one of the new kids on the block, look to the visitor demographic attracts.

• Are the visitors to your hotel more likely to be travelling for business or leisure?
• Is the brand better known as a business hotel or vacation lodging?
• How does the brand fit in the area where you are considering your hotel investment?

These are just a few of the questions you should consider.

In Conclusion

The above is simply a guide to assist and is by no means a complete plan on how to ensure your hotel investment is a successful one. I do suggest that if you consider the above and take action on at least these areas before any funds change hands, you will certainly be better positioned to expect a better outcome and realise dividends from your investment.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul J. Lange is a business mentor and business performance coach who helps small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs to apply big business, enterprise disciplines and solutions to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits.

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Paul’s support will help you to develop strategic direction, implement it, execute and make more money. He will have you starting to work on your business, instead of in your business, right from day one; and if you have already started down this path, he will help you to complete the transition to business owner from business manager.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

How to Value a Family Office Database Resource - What to look for before you buy

I’ve discussed these elements before in other articles but a recent stream of questions from people in my network has prompted me to reiterate these points in a more summarised way and all in one place ... eh ... blog.  I trust this blog will help you to establish a value for a Family Office database resource you are considering purchasing, and also hope that as you explore family office databases you will quickly learn what makes them worth acquiring or not. More specifically I hope to provide in this summary basic insights into how to value specific Family Office lists and database resources.

Here are some of the components that make a Family Office database worth the asking price. Ask yourself and/or the vendor these questions:

How often is the Family Office database updated? It should be at least semi-annually. If not what is the reason behind it and does the reason make sense to you?

Is the vendor active in the industry? e.g. does the vendor have a consulting business for Family Offices, or do they operate a Family Office association, an online or offline Family Office social network or networking group? If not, what qualifies them to create, maintain, and update a Family Office list?

Does the vendor offer a refund and what is their refund policy in respect of the Family Office list resource you are considering? At the very least there should be an accommodation for bad data. The best firms in the Family Office industry will gladly offer between a double and quadruple pro-rated refund for bad date in the Family Office resource. This keeps them honest and on top of their game.

What level of work and effort went into the creation of the Family Office list? Okay, so this is tricky ground. How can you determine that? Well, use a couple of basic pointers to the level of seriousness both of the company and the information they offer about the database resource.

• What does their website look like?
• How detailed is their FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section?
• What level of statistics do they give you in respect of the list?
• What do they say about their methodologies for creating, maintaining, and updating the Family Office database?

This next one is crucial to your productivity. Even if everything else is great this one can cause more frustration than it is worth.

In what format does the vendor supply the Family Office database to you? Here’s the thing. If the list is web-only, i.e. you can only access it via the web then you could lose access, for example, if the company goes belly up or if your subscription payment does not go through. How often does it happen that a credit card is nearing its limit because the accounts department hasn’t processed the expense reports? Or even more basic, the expiry date lapses, you forget to update it in the system, and the vendor doesn’t have an early warning system to remind you. 

Make sure that you have a resource that can be downloaded (i.e. avoid CD & DVD based resources if you can) and where the format in which it is supplied is at least Microsoft Excel (.XLSX), or Comma Separated Value (.CSV) These formats are the most flexible and allow you to quickly and easily integrate the new data into your customer relationship management (CRM) system, for example Salesforce.com.

Value is a tricky thing and like beauty it is in the eye of the beholder. If you use the above suggestions to assess for yourself the value of the resource I hope you will make some good decisions. Ultimately the proof will be in the quality of the relationships you are able to build with the Family Offices listed in the database resource that you purchase. Until you have the list though you need to use your gut, some good common sense, and the above tips to figure out whether or not your money to purchase the list is about to be invested wisely or simply spent.

 

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul J. Lange is a business mentor and business performance coach who helps small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs to apply big business, enterprise disciplines and solutions to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits. 

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Paul’s support will help you to develop strategic direction, implement it, execute and make more money. He will have you starting to work on your business, instead of in your business, right from day one; and if you have already started down this path, he will help you to complete the transition to business owner from business manager.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Positioning Your Start-up Using Blue Ocean Strategy - Part 1

By using Blue Ocean Strategy innovative start-ups can identify market spaces that have no competition, and in doing so render their traditional industry competition irrelevant.

The basic premise of Blue Ocean Strategy is that every market can be segregated into both a red ocean and a blue ocean.

Red oceans are consensus driven; more specifically a consensus that defines a default customer, the vendors and their expected behaviours and characteristics, and the type of product the market has to offer. You end up with a situation where everyone is doing the same thing with the same stuff, selling it to the same people; the result, commercial carnage with massive competition and paper thin profit margins.

Uncontested Market Space - the New Frontier

Blue Ocean Strategy is about breaking free from the bonds of traditional market thinking and realising new vast blue oceans of untapped resources. The first realisation of understanding Blue Ocean Strategy is like standing inside a large box leaning against the wall and suddenly there are no walls. You realise there is no box. Blue Ocean Strategy focuses entrepreneurs and business leaders in the direction of a new uncontested market space for their industry. They create a market niche where the venture is so uniquely positioned that competition is rendered irrelevant.

How does that work? How can one recognise these new market niches?

The answer: Value Innovation

Identifying market niches requires a thing called "Value Innovation". Value innovation involves seeing the values and desires behind peoples’ spending decisions. When you witness these patterns you can take a decision yourself to restructure your business resources to provide an alternative that is significantly better and which remains consistent with the values you have witnessed. 

Let’s look again at Cirque Du Soleil. It seems to be the one that everyone quotes from the book Blue Ocean Strategy and it is an example I myself have referred to before in articles, blogs, and speeches. When Cirque du Soleil began the circus industry was on its tail. It had stagnated itself into virtual oblivion. Not exactly an industry one would imagine entering if profit had anything to do with the equation. Rather than creating yet another big top, or little top, circus, the founders of Cirque du Soleil looked at the overall value system of circus goers and the live entertainment industry more broadly so that they might understand what the people, who went out for the evening of entertainment, were looking for.

What motivates or persuades people to go to the theatre or the cinema, instead of going to the circus?

What they found was that the circus was viewed generally as low-brow, juvenile, even crude level of entertainment. The founders of Cirque Du Soleil found that the concept of the traditional three ring circus distracting, annoying, and off-putting to the majority of the public.

Also, public opinion was swaying away from the use of animals in circus. This was pretty dramatic as animals have always been a centrepiece of the circus experience. Driving this was the sensitivity to the possible abuse of the animals behind scenes.

Take Out the Trash: Remove That Which People Don’t Value

The result is Cirque Du Soleil, an experience that is world renowned for being very different to anything else that is out there; indeed since Cirque du Soleil start nothing has even come close to knocking them off their number one spot. The recipe was simple for the founders. They eliminated the three rings; they presented the entertainment more theatrically, more sophisticated and in the form of a narrative; and they removed the animals from the equation – which probably saved them a bundle as well.

By combining the popular and most valued fundamental elements of what people sought from live entertainment, more specifically from both the theatre and circus perspectives, and removing everything that was seen by the public as a negative of both, the founders of Cirque Du Soleil were able to create an alternative far superior to the original; an alternative that neither other circuses nor the theatre industry can contend with directly.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul J. Lange is a business mentor and business performance coach who helps small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs to apply big business, enterprise disciplines and solutions to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits. 

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Paul’s support will help you to develop strategic direction, implement it, execute and make more money. He will have you starting to work on your business, instead of in your business, right from day one; and if you have already started down this path, he will help you to complete the transition to business owner from business manager.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Some Basic Tips on How Not to Use a Family Office List

Many people make some very basic mistakes when interacting with Family Offices and lists of Family Offices that they acquire. It is as if by simply having these lists they feel connected, empowered, and invulnerable, and end up making some often irreparable mistakes. The reality is that you should conduct yourself with the same level of decency and integrity as you would with any other human being.

Hopefully the following will provide you with some basic tips on what not to do with a Family Office list, so that you can avoid making common mistakes often made by people seeking to raise capital via a Family Office. Obviously the best way to raise capital via a Family Office or individual Ultra High-Net Worth (UNHW) person is through personal relationships founded on trust and confidence. If you, like most others, are in the situation that you have to start out by buying a list as a first step, strive to achieve such a relationship over the long term and if your enterprises are good you may one day join their ranks.

Here are IMHO the top five Family Office list mistakes you should avoid:

1. After you buy a family office list you cannot simply send an unsolicited email or snail mail to them with your offer to them. This is still considered spam, and you are not permitted to spam, even after buying the list. This is not like a double opt-in list of people interested in blue widgets. You must first develop relationships with each group on the list and they must opt-in to receive communications from you; double opt-in if by email.
2. Don’t delude yourself that you have unearthed the Holy Grail and that henceforth capital-raising is going to be a walk in the park because you have bought THE list. Certainly, by obtaining a resource such as a Family Office List will make your capital raising efforts and processes more efficient. If used correctly it will save you an immense amount of time. But how effective you are will rely on other criteria. Capital-raising is essentially a challenge at the best of times. It can be a wonderful challenge that people such as myself thrive on, we love the process and every step in it. Realise that you have increased your chances by obtaining a Family Office list and accept that it will require real work and genuine effort. There is simply too much money at stake and too much competition for the investment dollars for the process to be a cakewalk. 
3. Once you purchase a Family Office list, do not assume that you will receive a lifetime of free updates. These lists are expensive to update, maintain, and they take considerable time and patience to complete. Ask your list provider to see if they are included or not within your package.
4. Snatching up the first offer of a Family Office directory that you come across, just because it looks good enough is not really a good strategy. Be sure that you source the list from a legitimate company that has a phone number you can call and talk to real people. You know the ones. They have a pair of lips and a voice connected to a brain that gives real responses. Unless you have come across someone with terminal cancer and 30 days to live, do not believe people who tell you they have a boutique private list that they have worked with for the last 40 years or more. Such people exist, but unless the last item on their bucket list is to donate the list to some lucky schmuck you will not gain access to them. Go through a company that is reputable and has a real website. Before you buy anything do whatever you need to do to gain sufficient confidence that what you are buying is something of value.
5. Don't think you are smarter than the rest and use their list to create and sell your own Family Office list product. Apart from illegal (check the terms and conditions of your purchase) it is morally wrong and UHNW individuals have a way of smelling bullshit in the proximity. If you only have half a brain and do decide to take someone else’s list(s) to create your own, unless you are going for a smash and grab type of sale, how on earth will you ever maintain it? Be respectful, be ethical and use the list as the seller intended; hopefully to launch some great (new) product or service that will benefit many people and (at least by extension) society as a whole.

Hopefully these tips will help you know what not do once you have obtained your database or Family Office list. I am sure you will realise that this is all pretty common sense, but as the saying goes, there is nothing common about common sense.

About Paul J. Lange:

Paul J. Lange is a business mentor and business performance coach who helps small to medium enterprise and entrepreneurs to apply big business, enterprise disciplines and solutions to gain a competitive advantage and increase profits. 

Paul's 'Business DIET'© system has helped countless entrepreneurs and business owners around the world to launch start-ups, expand existing operations, and greatly improve bottom lines.

Paul is also one of Australia’s most connected management consultants, and leading business strategists, with a passion for helping entrepreneurs and business owners who are committed to achieving outstanding results.

Paul’s support will help you to develop strategic direction, implement it, execute and make more money. He will have you starting to work on your business, instead of in your business, right from day one; and if you have already started down this path, he will help you to complete the transition to business owner from business manager.

Web: http://www.paullange.com.au

Twitter: http://twitter.com/pauljlange

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pauljlange

Ecademy: http://http://www.ecademy.com/user/paullange

Klout: http://www.klout.com/pauljlange

Peerindex: http://www.peerindex.net/pauljlange

Empire Avenue: http://www.empireavenue.com/pauljlange

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

The BDSM of Business – Part 1: Introduction

The BDSM of business for most people is Business Development Sales & Marketing. This is at least what most people would have guessed. However my exposure to the Adult industry through some unique clients has opened up other discussions as to whether there is another BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sado, Masochism) that is relevant to business, and how the principles of this might be applied.

After all there is the S&M of wealth and happiness from Your Money Mistress, Larissa Zed Zimmerman (www.yourmoneymistress.com). As ‘Your Money Mistress’ Larissa discusses openly the strategies and path to how to have sizzling sex and more money. This is not some fly by night get rich quick book attempt. It is actually solid stuff that every … well … secondary student (at least) should learn.

Larissa’s methodologies and processes are based on years of developing her own courses and coaching under a vanilla brand.  These vanilla courses and her coaching have been delivered in both the corporate world and through the Australian government into public departments and schools et al. Larissa is now in the process of white labelling her courses for some of the larger financial services players.

Think of BDSM as an alternative SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). These map directly 1-to-1. In part two, I’ll discuss the BDSM/SWOT Analysis model and how to use it in your business for achieving greater focus and realising better results.

Be outstanding!!

Paul

-- 

PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER

ASSURING YOUR SUCCESS THROUGH VALUE INNOVATION AND FOCUSED ACTION

paulj@paullange.com.au | GSM: +61 414 317579 | URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Most Connected Management Consultant in Australia on LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljlange

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Posted via email from Blue Oceans

HOWTO: Test Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Have you ever sent an email marketing campaign only to discover it looks like crap when it lands in the recipients inbox?

Would it surprise you to learn that the greater majority of companies (from small to very very large) that send email marketing campaigns perform very little or even NO TESTING before they send?

I've seen it happen, time and time again.

What to do! There are many good subscription based systems out there you can use to test deliver-ability and appearance. Some of the better email marketing services include some level of inbox delivery and appearance testing.

Certainly always use tools provided as a first line of defence, however the most successful way I and my team have found to work consistently well over the last 16+ years of email marketing is to do real-life testing. Testing on real email accounts on real email services.

But do you know what to look for? Here are some handy tips for testing your email campaigns in order to improve the deliver-ability and appearance of delivered emails.

Before you send your HTML email campaign to your entire subscriber list, you should do some testing. All good email marketing systems will let you send tests to yourself.

• Don't just rely on preview functions. These are at best a rough estimate of how your email would look in an ideal world. You need to actually deliver your email campaign to real email accounts to see how it works "in the real world."
• Setup email accounts with as many email services as possible. There are many free ones out there. Use the most common services, like MSN, Hotmail, Live, Yahoo!, and Gmail. You might also setup an account with AOL.
• Leave the default settings for those accounts as they are. Don't add yourself to the address book, or anything that would change the default configuration. You'll want to test whether or not your email campaigns are being filtered as spam to a typical setup configuration for the most common email services.
• Setup a "test list" in your email marketing service. Some services will allow you to replicate your "real" list and import the test addresses.
• Recruit co-workers, friends, or family to become testers for you. You need people you can rely on and trust. We use a team of Virtual Assistants (VA) that we have trained over several years. VA's are a very cost effective way for you to leverage resources. Ask me if you would like a contact to a reliable and cost effective VA service provider.
  
• Trusted testers can tell you how your email looks across the many different email clients programs. If you have the resources, setup a testing computer in the office with multiple operating systems and email programs. Or set up a virtual computer online to do the same thing.
  
• Do you give subscribers to your list the option to receive plain-text or a mobile version of your emails? If you do, you will need to subscribe one of your test email accounts to receive plain-text only emails and one to receive the mobile version of your campaigns.
• Send as many emails as you can to your test addresses.
• Did your email campaign end up in the junk folder or spam filter of any of the test email accounts?
• Most email clients and online services (web mail) leave images turned off by default (i.e. you are required to click a link or button to display images). How does your email look with images turned off? That's the first impression people will have. If it looks crap, so do you.
  
• Do you have "ALT-text" coded for your images, to persuade recipients to click the "show images" button? (ALT-text is the "alternative text" that is displayed when an image can't be seen in a web browser or email program)? By "persuade" I don't mean you should resort to sending spam-like, over-bearing sales text such as, "CHECK THIS OUT!" A really descriptive ALT-text is persuasive enough e.g. "Screenshot of our new gizmo"
• Just in case people don't want to show your images (yes some people have legitimate reasons and others are simply über paranoid about everything), do you have a link at the top of your email, allowing them to view your message online, in their browser?
• When you click "show images" for your email, do all the images work? Do they download and appear fast enough/in a reasonable time (a few micro-seconds would be nice but a few seconds is more realistic), or do you need to go back and optimise them?
• Click on as many links as possible (yes, this is mind-numbing, but necessary). Do they all work? Are there any broken links?
• Does your email marketing service provide click or open tracking? If so, enable this functionality, and then click and open some of your emails. Then log in to your email marketing service and check your campaign statistics. Is everything working properly? If yes, send!

Happy and successful email marketing

Paul

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PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER

ASSURING YOUR SUCCESS THROUGH VALUE INNOVATION AND FOCUSED ACTION

paulj@paullange.com.au | GSM: +61 414 317579 | URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au 

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Google can't keep it up!

Google! Analyse this!

It is understandable that new services will fall over from time to time. They may even disappear completely. Google are after all the kings of the beta release, and as we know beta software is unstable. After all of these years Gmail is still in 'beta' or have Google perhaps trademarked the term?

For the last several weeks when logging into Google Analytics the system first asks me to sign up for Google Analytics again. Crazy! What's even more crazy is that nine times out of ten if I sign up again the old accounts are still there, I just have a new account in addition. Once in a while the system collapses completely and returns an error.

From what I can see on the Net there are many people suffering but nothing substantive from Google on the matter. Seriously with all of the resources and technology you have at your disposal, you have the ability to scan peoples WiFi connections and grab their usernames and passwords as your street view car drives around our neighbourhoods, you can handle billions of web searches a second, but you can't fix an access issue and worse you lack the customer service and relationship maturity to communicate with your user base.

I love Google, I really do but this sort of crap just pisses me off.

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PAUL J. LANGE – BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIST & RAINMAKER

ASSURING YOUR SUCCESS THROUGH VALUE INNOVATION AND FOCUSED ACTION

URL: http://www.paullange.com.au

Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.paullange.com.au 

Posted via email from Blue Oceans

Victor Mauro iPhone 4 App Trailer

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Tedtalks : Simon Sinek (2009 Tedx) Audio by Ted  
Download now or listen on posterous

SimonSinek_2009X.mp3 (11084 KB)

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers -- and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.

To watch the video of the attached audio, visit http://bit.ly/bUzzFU

About Simon Sinek
In 2009, Simon Sinek released the book "Start With Why" -- a synopsis of the theory he has begun using to teach others how to become effective leaders and inspire change.

Posted via email from Blue Oceans