Insparenting

When we work at home, it means that there won’t be any IT supports to help us in case there are any problems with our computers. So, to make our work (and our life) easier, our computers need to have these basic criteria. Firstly, notebooks are better than PCs, especially if they are thin and light, since we might want to take it to meetings or any other business purposes. Secondly, although notebooks are preferred, if we can get ones with widescreen then it is better; believe me that it is hard for our eyes to work everyday with those small notebooks. Thirdly, the systems need to provide easy-to-use and easy-to-manage security, connectivity and other features critical to working in today’s networked world.

As far as I know, the model that fits those criteria is one from Lenovo Thinkpad. If we read the features and demo, they have several models that have perfect specification. Any other idea?

Well, I am only computer users. I don’t understand much about how system actually works or how to install any hardwares. However, I know that when my computer starts to work too slowly, then it is probably that my computer memory is full and need to be upgraded.

Since I know nothing about installation of RAM upgrade, the best way is to find computer memory in the internet. We can see that some stores provide choices of memory with different capacity as well as the installation services. Now, all we need to do is to choose one that will suit my computer and give them a call. Just make it simple!

Nowadays, people who work at home are one way or another in online business. It is either they have online stores, or have websites to promote their products, have community websites, online content sites, and so many more. And mostly, the strength of their business actually lies in their database of their members or customers or subscribers.

For us who have our own online communities, the best way to manage our members and customers and subscribers is by email marketing tool. Email marketing, that includes surveying, autoresponder, and blogging tool, allows small businesses, non-profits, and associations to easily communicate online with their customers, prospects, and members.

Actually, for us who want to send out email newsletter, getting one of these email marketing services is not very costly. One example is this iContact Email Marketing that has great inbox deliverability, an extremely easy to use interface, and great prices that start at $9.95 per month. The application allows us to track the opens and clickthroughs on our emails, add a sign-up form to our web site, segment our list, and manage our subscribers.

With this email marketing tool, we can maximize the potential of our online communities.

Do you have your own small business?

I do have a small chocolate business. We offer from cakes, chocolate truffles, cookies, to drinks. The problem is that we don’t know where to promote the business, like where to send the brochures, what is the right target market, where the best market area is, and so on. What we need is an accurate and reliable marketing list.

Actually, there are two types of marketing list: business marketing lists and consumer marketing lists. If we target corporate market, like we usually do on special occasions like for Christmas gift baskets, Valentine gift baskets, and any other gift baskets, then we’ll need those business marketing lists. But, I think we’ll need more to focus on consumer market, considering our business scale. Thus, what we need is the consumer marketing lists.

What we just know is that actually list brokers out there. We usually just collect and compile our marketing list randomly, according to our shop area, our relatives’ area, and so on. The data is not so reliable, since we don’t have the resources and expertise in data collection. With marketing lists from the list brokers, I hope that we can get the more reliable and focus market for effective marketing and promotion. Wish us luck!