10 Ways to Energise Your Email Marketing

Extract . . . 

“Email marketing has grown tremendously over the years and it can benefit your business substantially. As with any type of marketing, email marketing takes a great deal of time and effort to insure it is working effectively.

There are many types of email marketing such as sending out periodical newsletters/ezines, sending out promotional emails and product updates, tutorials, etc.

Regardless of which type of email marketing you utilise, one important thing you must do is continually evaluate the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign. Do not let your email marketing go stale. You need to keep it alive, fresh and energised.”

Link
http://www.businesssolutionsmag.co.uk/featuredarticles/10-ways-to-energize-your-email-marketing

Head in the cloud

Extract . . . 

“The term ‘Cloud Computing’ originated from flow charts that demonstrated the use of the Internet. The word ‘Cloud’ is used as a metaphor for the way the Internet was viewed within these diagrams as a kind of cloud that concealed an infrastructure of software and programmes.

To help demystify the concept of how Cloud Computing can help your business, it is basically a way of avoiding huge capital expenditure on IT costs when your business is starting up. If you cannot afford to employ your own IT department as of yet, and setting up and maintaining your own server would take too much time and money, then why not get one of the many providers out there on the Internet and via mobile Android technology to do it for you?”

Link
http://www.sybmagazine.com/featureheadinthecloud.html

Scheme to 'pull electricity from the air' sparks debate

Extract . . . 

“Tiny charges gathered directly from humid air could be harnessed to generate electricity, researchers say.

Dr Francesco Galembeck told the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston that the technique exploited a little-known atmospheric effect. Tests had shown that metals could be used to gather the charges, he said, opening up a potential energy source in humid climates.”
 

Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11100528

Barclays: Big and bad, or great and good?

Extract . . .

“George Osborne's Banking Commission - set up to review whether big UK banks should be broken up - could, I suppose, have been called the Barclays Commission. Because probably the biggest dilemma for that commission will be to determine whether Barclays epitomises the dangers or the benefits of combining retail banking and investment banking.”

Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/08/barclays_big_and_bad_or_great.html

House price inflation easing off

Extract . . .

“House price inflation in England and Wales is running out of steam, according to the latest figures from the Land Registry. Although prices rose by 0.4% in July, the annual rate of increase fell back from 8.5% to 6.7%.”

Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11108699

The truth about family businesses

Extract . . .

“The heavily publicised picture of family businesses being strong on ethics, quality, filial love and long-term principles is, sadly, very rare. Believe me, I would know.
 
There are several downsides to family businesses – and I seem to have fallen into most of the traps over the years. This includes allowing my then-aging mother to assist (actually, totally hamper) a startup business, being married to my business partner (ending in divorce) and doing business with my sister (best for me not to comment on that at all!).  

Finally, both of my children have worked for me at different times. Both brought enormous knowledge to the business, having been surrounded by it from the age of nought. Both genuinely cared for the business – but they also felt they had a right to it.”

Link
http://realbusiness.co.uk/jan_cavelle/the_truth_about_family_businesses

Entrepreneurs struggling in 'wobbly' recovery

Extract . . .

“After-effects of recession suggest more insolvencies on the way. British businesses have failed to return to pre-credit crunch levels according to new research, raising new questions over the UK’s economic recovery and concerns over the prospect of a new insolvency epidemic. 

RSM Tenon’s Business Barometer found that 76% of entrepreneurs are still waiting for their businesses to return to the levels seen before the credit-crunch hit in 2007. 

Three years on and one in ten entrepreneurs believe it will take another three years for their businesses to return to ‘normal’ levels. 27% predict it will take one to two years and 20% think two to three years is a more realistic timeframe for business levels to be restored.”

Link
http://www.businessmag.co.uk/News/Finance/South--Entrepreneurs-struggling-in--wobbly--recove.aspx