What's your email address?

How many small business owners do you come across who don't have proper email addresses?

By not proper email addresses, I mean ones that don't use the company's domain name (assuming the company has a domain name) - yahoo.com, hotmail.com, aol.com etc.

Don't these people realize the messages they're sending out? "Not a proper business". "Doing things on the cheap". It's the internet equivalent of only giving out a mobile phone number. Or the guy who knocks on your door to ask if you want your trees lopped, hands you a business card and then asks for it back when you tell him to **** off. It's simply not professional.

A proper email address, and a domain name, cost peanuts. There's no excuse for any business not to have one even if they don't have a website. There's even less of an excuse if they do have a website!

So, if you've got a hotmail, or similar, address go out and get yourself a proper one today and ditch that hotmail address. It's making you look like Dell Boy.

123-reg.co.uk is a great place to start, you can set yourself up a domain name and email address for a few pounds, or call any website developer who should be able to set you up for only a few pounds more.

Mike Brogan

Marketing your Business and Advertising

"I've written books on advertising - checkbooks!"

That is a well known quote from Alan Sugar on the Apprentice TV programme and I, for one, can testify to the truth of it. Over the years I have tried many ways to advertise my business; Yellow Pages, telemarketing, mailshots, email campaigns, ads in directories and journals, editorials and even radio. For my business, they've all proved to be a waste of money.

The only responses I've had to ads in directories and journals are from people asking me to put an ad in their directory or journal. I've had some success with telemarketing but it's hard work, although I have had reports from other web developers who've had better success than me. It's probably down to the company you use to do the telemarketing. Similarly, I've had some response from Yellow Pages but not enough to justify the expense (isn't it strange how you always seem to be situated on the boundary of 2 or 3 Yellow Pages areas which bumps up the price if you want decent coverage?).

The only thing that seem to work for me is networking. Get out there, spread the word and meet people. Networking groups like BNI, 4Networking, BRX and Chambers of Commerce are the places to go. Most organize breakfast meetings where you can meet like minded people.

BNI worked the best for me but the format is not to everyones' taste. It's very formal and rigid. But if you can find a good chapter, you will get business. 4Networking is good because you can pay for, what they call, a passport membership which allows you to attend any of the meetings around the country. It's great for a business who's client base is spread around a wide area. Chambers of Commerce have worked the least for me and I've been a member of three different chambers over the years. I think they work for some types of business but not so well for mine, I've found.

Last but not least, of course, is the internet. Whatever your business, you should have a website. When you meet people in your travels you can hand them your business card with your website address on it. People tend to look online these days rather than using Yellow Pages. You can get a small website set up for less than a year's subscription to Yellow Pages so, for any business, getting a website should be a no-brainer.

Even if you can't live without a Yellow Pages ad, set up a website, reduce the size of the Yellow Pages ad and point people to the website from there. It will be a lot more cost effective.

So there you have it. Find out about your local networking groups, get out of bed and get out there and network. You'll not only find it gets you business but you'll find it lots of fun and you'll meet some interesting people.

Mike Brogan

Two things to ask your web developer

So you've decided to get a website for your business and you've found a company locally who'll develop it for you. What are the most important things you're going to ask them to provide on your site? The layout? The colours? The fancy flash header similar to one you saw on a website your recently came across?

Well you can ask for all those things and I'm sure your local web developer will be pleased to oblige, and charge for! But all these things are missing the point.

A good, professional design for a website is a given. You don't want to pay money and have it look like it was designed by a 5-year old. But the key things it must do are:

• Attract visitors. That usually means being visible on search engines where people are going to find it.
• Convert those visitors to customers or customer enquiries.

If the site can't achieve either of these things then it's a complete waste of time and money. Sadly many web developers don't consider these aspects when developing a site and are more concerned about showing off their design skills.

Don't be a victim of the designers pretending to be web developers. Always ask these key questions:

• What will you do to get my site listed on search engines?
• What will you be designing into my site to persuade people to do business with me?

If they don't have convincing answers to either of these questions then, bet your life, all you'll be getting is a website that looks pretty but is pretty useless.

Mike Brogan