It’s that time of year again where, if you haven’t already begun your 2011 sales & marketing goal setting & planning (I have, have you?) it’s about time to get on that. I’m as much a fan of huge, complex marketing audit projects as anyone, but in lieu of that, and to get things started off on the right foot, I have a simple exercise that I use to do a quick diagnosis of what I did last year, what I’m thinking of doing next year, and determining whether or not those tactics are aligned with my overall marketing strategy.
You’ve all seen the exercises where the instructions are simply to “draw a line down a sheet of paper and put this on in one column and that in another.” That simple tool is recommended for everything from deciding which job to take, to how to communicate with your spouse to determining untold numbers of other major decisions in life. So, it must be good enough for marketers, right?
Here’s what I recommend doing to start of your 2011 marketing planning. Let’s pull out a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. Personally, I’m a “paper guy”, so I’d be writing this out offline, but do whatever works for you.
Label the left-hand column “TACTICS” and the right-hand column “STRATEGY” In the left-hand column, list all of the marketing tactics, campaigns, themes and programs that you used this past year. If you need something to kickstart your brain, perhaps you could also look at something like the Channel Consideration Review Worksheet, which contacts a laundry list of marketing tactics. You might also consider putting in parenthesis what kind of results you received in the form of leads, sales, walk-ins, traffic, etc. Once you’ve listed out all of the tactics, now it’s time to head over to the column on the right and map those tactics to strategy. In the right-hand column, next to each tactic listed, now list out the “way in which that tactic supported your overall marketing/go-to-market strategy”. If you’re having trouble drawing some connections between the tactics and and your overall marketing strategy (you do have one, don’t you?) you’re not alone.
This is a quick exercise to help you catalog what you’ve done, what’s worked, how well it’s aligned with strategy, and to draw out those areas that need improvement or, what often happens, is that you figure out you’ve done a lot of tactical things that didn’t exactly mesh with your overall strategy. Now’s a great time to think about fixing those issues and setting yourself up for marketing success in 2011!
If you have been looking for Google web hosting, you are probably running around in circles! It used to be called Google Pages, and now it is called Google Sites. With Google Sites you get Google web hosting by default and there are many different levels of storage requirements. Let’s talk about what you really get with Google Sites and see if this is really the solution your are looking for, odds are if you are looking for a web host, this is not for you. Let’s talk about the basics here, like how you create a site, understand how you modify your website and what types of storage is available for free.
Creating your site using Google Sites is simple and if you have a Gmail account already, you can simply Google the term and it will take you to the homepage where you can sign up for free. This website is based on web templates which are pre-build pages with design, structure, and content for a specific purpose. There is a gallery available with many themes to choose from. You will also pick a URL that you will send people to your website with. Now that your site is using Google Sites and your template is chosen, it is time to fill it up with content and build pages using the user interface.
The user interface is a really simple, point and click type of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) type of editor. You add pages and content with a standard word processing feel, so it is a familiar experience even if building your first website. Add pages, images, text and more elements by just clicking on the icons and setting parameters. My personal experience with this is that you still need some HTML chops to modify the code to really get your pages looking right, but if you are an amatuer and not looking to make an award winning website, this is an easy and fun way to build a website.
As you add pages and pictures, you will be using up your free Google web hosting storage available to you. The site quota for these type of free sites is 100 megabytes of storage and the maximum attachment size is 20 megabytes. This is a lot of space for a simple, basic website. Not the right solution if you need something more serious like FTP, more space, databases, etc. I would recommend this method to my Grandma for making a website about her book club, other than that, I would recommend something more robust than Google web hosting.
The best web hosting is the primary hosting plan most businessmen look for. The hosting plan that could provide people with proper operation of their business is the most in demand and popular. How do people look for the finest web hosting services? What do they consider in searching?
In general, an Internet access plan is often provided by a web hosting company. There are some free and are paid providers that offer hosting services. These services differ depending on the packages that the hosting providers are offering.
The customers should have knowledge in evaluating the required needs applied in choosing a hosting plan to use. With the help of studies, surveys and researches there are some suggested possibilities you can consider in choosing web host providers. For these customers are only in search of true hosting service providers that could sustain all there needs.
Here are some services that a best web hosting has to be:
1. Safety of the information should be secured by the hosting company. The storage place, web address being hosted. E-mail accounts (forwarding and auto responder), URL and the file transfer protocol accounts and database should be available with totally no limitations.
2. Allows you to host Internet sites that have international URL. The application of the 3 different webmail solutions, CGI-BIN and the cPAnnel should include front page extensions for the languages programmed to the computer.
3. It is not complicated to use. The host should provide a simple way of usage. This way, you can keep the flow of traffic. It should provide them with an easy way for the machine user to do computing tasks. It will help if the host could assure enough customer satisfaction for the service.
4. The company should be easily contacted. It is also a plus if the hosting company can be easily gotten in touch with over the phone or through e-mail. Appreciate if there is a reaction with the service which the hosting company renders. Have friendly representatives handle the clients and be able to assist the clients’ reaction both local and overseas.
5. Provide more hi- tech site instruments as compared to the competitors. Amazing range of high tech services for the site will be a great offer. With a sing, the customer will appreciate the Internet site builder more.
6. The company has everything required for transferring file protocol. Allows the customer to have an unlimited account for file transfer protocol. File transfer protocol access is countless. Maintenance on.htaccess is available.
7. Easy access on the Internet hosting service. Providing an SE coupon allows the customer to create newsletters that can result to the improvement of the web hosting company.
Being keen in choosing can be time consuming as it may take a longer time for you to finally get the best web hosting provider. Through these suggestions, web hosting services can help you a lot in order for your business to run appropriately. In addition, it will also help you to carefully search through web directories or search engines. Just have a lot of patience as this is the key to your success.