If you’re in business today, you have a website. In fact, there’s an excellent chance you have multiple websites, or at least multiple domain names pointing to your website. Choosing those domain names must be done with care.

You can use different domain names as tracking devices to test your various advertising and promotion campaigns. The different names might point to the same site but they let you see where the traffic is coming from. Or you might set up sites for special campaigns or specific products, and those sites will need their own names. You might also want to own (whether you use or not) domain names that are variations of your company’s name to prevent competitors or detractors from using them.

Use these tips to choose domain names that are effective and will work for you:

• Use simple words that are easy to remember and spell. Don’t make people have to work too hard to find your website, because they won’t.

• Keep it short. The longer the name, the greater the risk of a mistake when it’s typed into a browser. Shorter URLs are easier to write when you are filling out a form by hand (that still happens!). They’re also easier to remember. And there’s less chance of a shorter URL breaking across a line in text when it’s published in a newspaper or magazine article.

• Make it something that’s easy to say out loud. Even if you expect that most of your traffic will be coming from links, you still should be able to say, “Visit our website at ‘our company dot com’ to sign up for our newsletter,” and be clearly understood the first time.

• Avoid hyphens and underscores. First, these make it awkward to say the domain name out loud; second, they increase the chances people will make a mistake when typing the URL.

• Be cautious when using numbers. You don’t have to exclude numbers from your domain name, but consider that they can cause confusion. For example, if your domain name is CompanyOne.com and you are saying it, listeners may not know if they should type “companyone.com” or “company1.com”.

Once you choose your primary domain name and secure it with one extension, consider purchasing that name with other extensions. For example, if you have the .com version, you may also want to get the .org, .cc, .biz, .mobi, and others, and have those URLs point to your primary website.

Finally, consider what common typos or misspellings people are likely to use when trying to get to your site, purchase those domains and point them to your primary site.

___________________________

Jacquelyn Lynn is a business writer, ghostwriter, and editor of Flashpoints.

If you’re in business, you need to know your market. Many business owners tend to think of their market primarily as prospective customers, but your market also includes your existing customers, and you need to know everything you can find out about them.

When you know your customers, you can better evaluate how well your marketing plan is working. How closely do the people who are actually buying from you resemble the prospective customer your marketing efforts are targeting? If there’s a match, your marketing plan is working. If you see a significant difference between your target market and the customers you actually have, you need to figure out what’s wrong with your marketing strategy. Why are your marketing efforts working on a group you’re not targeting? Why are the customers you have buying from you? And what do you need to change — your strategy or your target market?

Your customers can be a tremendous resource for information as you plan expansions, new products, or even new operational approaches. They’ll be happy to tell you what you’re doing right and where you can improve. They’ll also be happy to tell you what you can do to increase the amount of business they’re doing with you. That’s important because it’s always easier to increase the revenue you’re getting from a cstuomer who already knows, likes, and trusts you than it is to acquire a completely new customer.

Another very important reason to know your customers is this: How happy are you with them? Business is a two-way street. Not all customers are created equal — and not all of them are worth having and keeping. Do you want more customers like the ones you have? Or would you rather have customers with different characteristics — those who will buy more, not be so price-sensitive, or that will be easier to serve? You have to know who your customers are before you can decide whether to seek more customers who are similar or to put together a plan to go after a different customer group.

Don’t have people buying from you if you don’t know who they are and why they’re your customers.

________________________________________________________________________

JK Harris is the founder of Flashpoints Consulting, LLC and of JK Harris & Company, the nation’s largest tax resolution firm. He is the author of Flashpoint: Seven Core Strategies for Rapid-Fire Business Growth; Sales Flashpoint: Fifteen Strategies for Rapid-Fire Sales Growth; and IRS Tax Secrets: The Individual and Small Business Owner’s Guide to Solving IRS and State Tax Problems, all published by Entrepreneur Press. Harris is also a popular and respected speaker, as well as a successful business consultant advising mid to large-sized businesses around the world.

By Jonathan Bernstein

Think you’re ready to preserve your reputation online? Take this self-exam honestly and you’ll know the answer.

1. Do you have a very Internet and social media-savvy staff member or consultant on your crisis management team? If not, the rest of these questions are moot, your car is heading for a brick wall at high speed, and you aren’t wearing a seatbelt.

2. Are your spokespersons trained in the differences between online and off-line communications?

3. How closely does your organization monitor the Internet for current or potential reputation threats?

4. How closely does your organization monitor the Internet for early reports of crises/disasters-in-progress, or of incidents that can become crises/disasters? Often Twitter is the first place such incidents are reported.

5. [If you're publicly held] How closely does your organization monitor the Internet for potential reputational threats to your organization’s stock value? There is usually a lot of Twitter chatter about public stocks, and similar conversations via most forms of social media.

6. Does your organization currently have a system for rapid/concurrent distribution of information to prominent social media points of presence (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)?

7. Has your organization considered the use of a virtual (online) incident command system to allow crisis team members to gather, exchange and disseminate information from a single online location, regardless of their own physical location?

8. Does your organization currently have a disaster-related “dark site” (website or blog that only gets “turned on” during a crisis) set up to facilitate both outbound and inbound communication from external stakeholders?

9. Does your organization currently have a system for using Internet-centered communications to reach all of your important stakeholder groups, internal and external, in the event of disasters or other crises?

10. Does your organization know the capability of its primary website/server to handle a hundredfold, or thousandfold increase in traffic that could result from a disaster – i.e., would that increase “crash” the site, leaving those seeking information frustrated/angry and likely to lash out?

____________________________

Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international consultancy, editor of the free Crisis Manager newsletter, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay: Media Training.

I was expecting something very basic and even geeky, like: Day 1, create a Facebook account; Day 2, create a LinkedIn account; and so on. But this is more than a book on social media. Martin doesn’t get into that until you’re more than a week into her program because, she says, to make social media work for you, you need to integrate it into your overall marketing plan. So she starts out with forcing you to think about and, if necessary, work on your marketing plan. Martin clearly understands business and marketing, and she knows how to integrate social media into an overall business plan.

Before you can develop and launch an effective social media plan, you need to make sure all your marketing materials project a consistent identity. Martin calls this finding your real story and true voice. She also creates realistic expectations about what you can expect from social media. She points out: “Despite the buzz that seems to be everywhere about social media, the truth is that social media is not single-handedly likely to turn your company around, make you a millionaire, or send your sales skyrocketing. Social media is a tool, in the same way public relations, events, radio ads, and direct mail are marketing tools.”

That’s why you need to recognize social media’s place in your sales and marketing plan. Martin writes: “Business owners often forget that the purchase cycle is driven by the customers’ need more than it is by sales and specials. … When a customer moves from shopper to buyer, the company that has made the most marketing touches is first in line to get his or her business. … Social media offers a conversational, low-pressure way to remain in the forefront of a prospect’s awareness with ‘touches’ on a subject where there’s interest but no trigger for an immediate purchase.”

Once you understand the big picture, Martin gets into the nitty-gritty of social media: the various sites, both well-known and obscure, and how to use them. Each chapter ends with exercises designed to reinforce the lessons and drive you to actually use what she’s explaining.

Regardless of your level of social media expertise, you can benefit from reading 30 Days to Social Media Success. It won’t turn you into a millionaire in a month, but it will deliver valuable information to keep you competitive in today’s challenging business environment.

A. Welcome to my world! I’m an introvert. I’m happy spending long hours alone in my office, crunching numbers and doing strategic planning. When I’m not working, I’d much rather be at home reading a book by myself than at a party with a lot of people. But networking is an essential part of being in business today.

Even while I recognize the importance of networking, I question the value of events that more closely resemble speed-dating cocktail parties than opportunities for real business interactions. I recommend joining the civic and business groups your prospective customers belong to. Attend meetings and take your time getting to know people. Join your major industry association and attend its events so that you know what’s going on in your industry and among your competitors and suppliers. You can also network online, using social media outlets such as Facebook and LinkedIn—these are perfect networking vehicles for introverts.

As you consider the people who will staff your company, be sure to bring extroverts on board—people who will enjoy getting out there and doing the networking you don’t like to do. When it’s appropriate, make it part of their jobs descriptions and reimburse them for association memberships and other costs.

Do you have a question for JK Harris? Visit www.askJKHarris.com to submit your question, or send it to info@theflashpoints.com. If we use your question in a future newsletter, you’ll receive a free autographed copy of Flashpoint: Seven Core Strategies for Rapid-Fire Business Growth.

You have to know every player in your industry. By every player, I mean your competitors, of course. In addition, you need to know the raw material and equipment suppliers, the manufacturers, the information and service resources, the regulators, the media—literally anyone who might at any point have some impact on your company. If someone is playing in your sandbox, even if it’s just a very small corner of it, you need to know who they are, exactly what they do, and how they can affect you. When you know that, you’ll also know how you can leverage yourself from their positions.

For example, you need to know who your suppliers and potential suppliers are—and you need to know your competitors’ suppliers as well. If one of your competitors’ suppliers went out of business or drastically dropped or raised prices, how would that impact your operation? Would your suppliers see an influx of business that might make it difficult for them to meet your needs?

Speaking of competitors, you also need to be aware of companies that are not currently direct competitors but that might move into that position at some point. For example, is there a company serving a different geographical market that might move into your area? Or a company with a related product that might expand its product line to duplicate what you do? You don’t have to spend as much time researching and monitoring these businesses as you do on existing competition, but you need to know who they are and have them in your line of sight in case you need to react to something they do.

Consider the transportation companies you depend on, whether it’s to move freight or people or both. Are they financially healthy? Reliable? How would it affect you if one merged with another company?

Are any labor unions on your playing field? Many Southern states have what’s known as right to work laws, which essentially means that labor union membership cannot be a condition of employment. But just because you’re in a right to work state doesn’t mean you can ignore labor unions. What if a labor union representing the employees of one of your major customers or suppliers goes on strike? How will that affect your business? By the way, if your company is not unionized and you want to keep it that way, the easiest way to do it is to treat your employees so well that they see union dues as a needless expense. Any union organizer will tell you that they can’t get a toehold into companies that treat their employees well.

Take a look at the long-range development plans for the areas in which you operate and consider what that might mean to you. Every city or county is covered by a comprehensive master plan that, among other things, describes future land-use plans based on the anticipated growth of the area. If the zoning of the land you occupy or land near you changes, what will that mean to you? Or if a street is going to be widened, a new highway put in, or access to your facility changed? The plan is a virtual player on your field and the people who control the plan are real players—get to know all of them.

As you study the other players, also think about everything that could affect them: man-made and natural disasters, labor disputes, regulatory issues, material availability, energy prices, and more. Add some players to your field that will serve as backups to your support team if you need them.

______________________

JK Harris is the founder of Flashpoints Consulting, LLC and of JK Harris & Company, the nation’s largest tax resolution firm. He is the author of Flashpoint: Seven Core Strategies for Rapid-Fire Business Growth, a popular and respected speaker, as well as a successful business consultant advising mid to large-sized businesses around the world.

Submitted by: Jacquelyn Lynn

No one needs to tell you about the value of information in today’s world–particularly the value of information that could help grow your practice. But has it occurred to you that you probably have more information in your head and your existing files that you realize? Tap into this gold mine of data to develop a powerful and effective marketing plan that will pull clients in the door and push your profitability up.

It’s called data mining, and it’s the process of using your existing client data and demographics to highlight trends, make predictions and plan strategies.

In other words, do what other kinds of businesses have been doing for years: Analyze your clients by industry and size of business, the type and volume of services used, the amount billed, how quickly they pay and how profitable their business is to you. With this information, you’ll be able to spot trends and put together a powerful marketing plan.

To data mine effectively, your marketing department needs access to client demographics and financial information. Your accounting department needs to provide numbers on the services billed, discounts given, the amounts actually collected, and receivables aging statistics. You may identify a specific service being utilized to a greater than average degree by a particular industry group, revealing a market segment worth pursuing. Or you may find an industry group that represents a significant portion of your billed revenue, but the business is only marginally profitable because of write-offs and discounts. In this case, you may want to shift your marketing focus.

You should also look at client revenues and profitability by the age of the clients. If your percentage of new clients is high, it could mean you’re not retaining a sufficient number of existing clients. If you see too few new clients, you may be in for problems when natural client attrition is not balanced by new client acquisition.

The first step in effective data mining is to get everyone in the firm using the same information system. This allows everyone in the office who needs the names and addresses of the firm’s clients and contacts to have access to that data. Require everyone to record notes on conversations and meetings in the system. Of course, the system should also accommodate information that users don’t want to share, such as client’s private numbers or the user’s personal contacts. This way, everyone can utilize the system for everything, which makes them more likely to use it completely.

Your information system can be either contact information or customer relationship management software (a variety of packages are on the market) or you can have a system custom designed. When considering software to facilitate data mining, look at three key factors:

1. Ease of use. If the program isn’t easy to use, it won’t get used, and will end up being just a waste of time and money.

2. Accessibility. The system must allow for data to be accessible from anywhere, including laptops, hand-held devices, from the internet or cell phones. The data should also be accessible from a variety of applications so it can be used by everyone in the office all the time, regardless of where they are.

3. Sharability. Everyone needs to be able to access the information, but you also need privacy and editing rights so you can assign or restrict what various users can see and input.

Don’t overlook the issue of information security. Beyond allowing people the ability to code certain entries as private, keep in mind that anyone with access to the system as the ability to either steal information or sabotage your operation. Talk to your software vendor about various security measures but don’t let too much security make the system unusable. Protect yourself contractually with noncompete and nondisclosure agreements and be sure to back up your data regularly.

Finally, expect some staffers to resist when you ask them to change from the system they’ve been using. You may have to sell them on the benefits outweighing the pain of making a change and learning the new system–which means you need to be totally sold on it yourself. The managing partner, or the leader of the firm, needs to be driving this initiative for it to succeed. When it does succeed, you’ll be able to focus your marketing dollars and efforts in the most profitable areas with the least expense, with a tremendous positive impact on the bottom line.

I have always admired FedEx. It’s a company that has reached the Flashpoint again and again. In fact, I used FedEx and its founder, Fred Smith, to illustrate some critical points in Flashpoint: Seven Core Strategies for Rapid-Fire Business Growth.

One thing FedEx has learned to do well is use social media to stay close to its customers. Check out 5 Things FedEx Has Learned about Managing Relationships through Social Media – it’s worth reading, and I’m sure you’ll be able to use some of the strategies FedEx does.

Though we often say “salesandmarketing” as though it were one word, sales and marketing are actually separate functions that need to be fully integrated to produce the results you want. Marketing is what you do to reach potential customers with your message so that they’ll be receptive to your sales efforts. The sales process is the interpersonal interaction that closes the sale. Sales and marketing must be in concert to be effective.

Cultivate a cooperative relationship between these two efforts and the people involved. Remind them regularly that they are all on the same team, working for the same company, and have the same goals. Encourage idea sharing and communication so that neither side of the process is ever surprised by what the other does. And make sure everybody gets credit when credit is due.

I have joined a women’s networking organization, WOAMTEC. While the acronym sounds like it might be a cross between a critter and a computer, it stands for Women on a Mission to Earn Commission. It’s a national organization with more than 25 chapters and 750 members, and it’s growing daily.

This is a great group of professional women who are serious about business. If you are a woman business owner, manager, or salesperson, I encourage you to check this group out. And I hope to see you at a meeting soon!

Jacquelyn Lynn