Going green at the office doesn’t have to be difficult, small and simple changes can actually make a huge impact on the environment.  Most people, when they think about going green, start at home. This is a great first step, but in reality we spend a lot of time at work.  We have outlined three simple and effective ways to start making your workplace more environmentally friendly.

#1 Swap this for that

Thinking like, “I need to buy green, all or nothing,” just doesn’t work.  Instead, try and swap out products for a more environmentally friendly versions when it is time to make a purchase and it is available. Switching to recyclyed paper, recycled legal pads, and even recycled furniture also isn’t as expensive as you would think. If you need more help, Shoplet.com has a neat “green your cart” feature that will actually show you if an item in your shopping cart has a green alternative.

#2 Double down and Double Side

Many times in the office we let supplies just go to waste. Not only are we harming the environment, but also our bottom lines. That is because every time we waste supplies we need to buy more; and more supplies means less money to spend on real business. One quick trick is to simply refill empty ink cartridges rather than tossing them aside. Also, when at the printer, try printing double sided; you’ll cut your paper usage (and paper budget) in half.

#3 The break-room, not the waste room

Coffee in the break room is sacred, but re-buying cups again and again is wasteful and harmful to the environment. Instead, consider providing employees with mugs with a company logo on them, which are not only better for the environment, but also great for team spirit and company branding.

If you need help going green at your office, visit Shoplet.com to receive 10% off your order. Shoplet.com has over 20,000 environmentally friendly products to choose from and over 400,000 total office and business supplies.

Box Image: Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Free Webinar – How to Create a Social Media Program

Are you ready to start a social media program for your business? Or have you started using social media but you are not satisfied with the results? Social media provides tools that can transform your small business but what is the secret? In this power packed webinar, you will learn:

• How to harness the power of social media to achieve your business goals
• The building blocks of a successful social media program for any size business
• How social media is different from traditional marketing
• Guidelines for choosing the best social media sites for your business
• Where to find hidden conversations about your business or products online
• Why you need a social media management plan and what goes into it
• How to measure your social media success in meaningful ways

When:  Thursday, May 17 –  5:00 p.m. PT / 8:00 p.m. ET

Where:  Register for free at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/343331942

Presented by John Lawson, an ecommerce business CEO, keynote speaker, award-winning social media strategist, and an American Express “Featured Business.” With over 51,000 followers on Twitter, more than 250,000 views of his videos on YouTube and more than 10,000 monthly visitors to his website, John knows social media.

TopRatedSellerWebinars.com is a FREE monthly webinar series that provides educational information for eBay and e-commerce sellers.  The webinar series is underwritten by Stamps.com, PageMage, Outright, eBay Radio and Terapeak.

Stamps.com recently held a webinar on email marketing for small business owners that was presented by email marketing leader Silverpop.  If you missed the webinar, watch the recording below:

During the webinar, we had many questions regarding how business owners can start an email marketing program as well as questions on building lists, dealing with CAN-SPAM laws and other great topics.  We’ve answered some of the top questions below:

Question from Mendoza: Does your email tracking system use the “Show Pictures” in order to determine if the email was read?
Answer: Yes, the loading of images inside an email is the default method that all email service providers use to determine if the email was opened.  We also look at clicks on links inside the email (it’s possible to have clicks on an email that did not have the images load).

Question from Mikhail: Can I buy email data from a third party to add to my existing email list?
Answer: Using email best practices, we would highly encourage all businesses NOT to purchase email lists from any third party sources.  Buying data from other vendors could be in violation of CAN-SPAM laws if the vendor’s privacy policy did not alert the customer their data was going to be shared and/or sold.  Also, you’ll have no idea if the purchased email addresses are good, quality data.  If the list contains a lot of bad email addresses that bounce (known as a “hard bounce”), the data could cause massive deliverability and reputation problems for your entire email program.  Overall, you are much better to build your own email list up organically.

Question from Edward: If I change email service providers, would my email addresses that are on my current provider’s list come with me?  Or must I start over again with another firm to grow my email addresses?
Answer: For most email service providers, your email lists and mailing templates are your property and should only be used by your company.  You should be able to easily export your list and then bring it to any email service provider you use.

As an email best practice and to comply with CAN-SPAM laws, you should always record the time and date (called timestamp) each customer signed up for your list, the method of which they signed up (contest, newsletter, etc.) and the IP address they signed up from.

When switching ESPs, most likely the new vendor will ask you some questions regarding how the emails were obtained, if they were opt-in as well as other questions regarding the data.

Question from Scott: Is there anyway I could get a print out of your slides that were shown today?
Answer: Yes, Dave has published the slides on the Silverpop SlideShare page.   Also, you can watch the webinar video at the Stamps.com YouTube page.

Question from Rex: Can you elaborate on how to generate a new email list for small business owners who are just starting?  Is that part of your services at Silverpop?
Answer: There are many different ways for you to start building your email list.  The process can take some time, so don’t get worried if your list is smaller when you first start out.  The goal is to have a targeted list that is very interested in the product or services you sell. And that can take some time to build.

Some ideas to help build a list are:

• Providing a white paper or guide on an industry topic
• Offering a newsletter with special deals
• Making a purchase on your site (using an opt-in box for permission)
• Offering a contest or prize
• Offering tips and tricks to be more efficient in your industry

Silverpop also has a ton of educational materials listed in the “Resource” section of their site to help give you ideas on how to create and manage an automated email program.

Question from Daniel: We see the benefits for retail sales. However, we are a law firm. Can you elaborate how Silverpop and email marketing in general will help attorneys reach out to new prospective clients?
Answer: Lead generation and lead nurturing are concepts many service industries are using with great success. Whether it is offering a white paper on a specific legal topic or providing expert legal advice on a hot subject, each contact you have with a potential customer is a method for you to prove you are an expert in the field.  You can read much more on these topics in our Resources section at Silverpop.com.  Air New Zealand is a great example of a service company having great success using Silverpop for their email campaigns.

Question from Brian: We sell products that people only need to buy once (CD’s and DVD’s) so it’s been difficult to come up with ideas to regularly contact our customers and convert them to repeat buyers. Besides New Releases of music or movies, we don’t have a lot to talk about. We want to use email marketing but we are concerned that our emails will be the same “10% Off that CD you already bought” – not  a good pitch!
Answer: Your best strategy might be to recommend new content based on what someone has previously purchased. This would require a little bit of database work and some categorization of content (you often see these examples when checking out on an Amazon purchase). For the music lovers, you might be able to include local concert dates, blog posts or other information on the artist.

Question from Gene: We want to market to our customers who have paid for items with Paypal. Can those email addresses be added to our email list?
Answer: This would all depend on if PayPal included an opt-in box to receive other “marketing emails” on their form.  As far as I can remember, a PayPal purchase would be a transactional email and you would not have the necessary opt-in permission to email them.  (Note:  Transactional emails have different rules when it comes to CAN-SPAM laws – get advice from an attorney that specializes in email marketing before sending any email.)   If your company is aggressive, you might send an email (called a “permission pass” to that audience asking for a one-time opt-in to receive marketing messages from your brand.  But certainly best practices would suggest you do not add them to your list without first getting the customer to opt-in to your list.

Question from Hector: Do you have any case studies from Insurance Agencies (home, auto and life) to increase or drive more sales?
Answer: Click here to see case studies from many different companies and categories in the Silverpop Case Study library.

Example of Facebook Company Page Web.com built for Sabrina's Flowers of Jacksonville, FL

Facebook started out as a social network for connecting students at college and has grown into a network for  connecting everybody for anything. Many people have a personal profile on Facebook, and they use it to keep up with friends and family through photos and status updates. Over time, businesses have found it to be a great place to connect with prospects and customers.

You’ve most likely seen big companies like Starbucks and Best Buy advertise their Facebook page and maybe you have even “liked” some of these company pages. As a small business owner, you’ve probably thought that you don’t have the resources to have a Facebook page, but you really can’t afford not to be on Facebook.

In 2010, more than 1.5 million local businesses had active pages on Facebook and more than 20 million people became fans of pages each day.* It’s crucial to have your business on Facebook because that’s where people are talking about the businesses they use and recommending them. There’s not a lot of mystery to having a Company Page, but like anything else you do for your business, you have to be committed to it.

#1 Include Important Design Features on Your Page
Your page should quickly tell a visitor what your business is about with a photo, business name, your logo, and a custom designed welcome page. With the new Timeline design that Facebook rolled out in March to Facebook Company Pages, a strong photo, also known as a cover photo, is even more important. This image should be visually appealing and powerful, capturing the essence of your business.

Also with the new updates Facebook made in March, the personalized tabs on a Facebook Company Page are now turned into applications that are located below your cover photo. This area is the prime real estate where your customized pages will live and where you set your business apart to your visitors. Photos and Likes will always take up two of these application spots, and you can have a total of 12 applications personalized for your business.

The Timeline feature lays out your posts and conversations in a chronological order by month and year. If you have a status update that that you would like to feature, you can now “pin” it. By pinning a post, it will remain on the top of your Timeline for up to 7 days.

#2 Build Your Network
Just like with your personal page, you want people to connect with your Facebook Company Page. Once your page is developed and ready to be seen, start advertising it. There are lots of ways to do this:

• Add “Like us on Facebook” to your invoices.
• Create a small sign reminding customers to “Like us on Facebook” and put it in high-traffic areas including near your service counter or on your front door.
• Add a link to your Facebook Company Page in your email signature.
• Link your website and Facebook Company Page.
• If your Company Page is connected to your personal Facebook profile, post a message on your personal page asking your friends to like your Company Page.

You can also entice your customers or prospects to like your Company Page by offering an incentive such as a coupon, discount, or free item.

#3 Engage with Your Customers
One of the values of a Facebook Company Page is that it offers you a channel to communicate with your customers. While it’s important for you to keep the content fresh with photos, events and new product postings, you don’t want the conversation to be one way. Talk with your customers and encourage them to post on your wall and to tag photos of themselves using your product or service. You have to enable these capabilities in your Facebook privacy settings.

You should also provide resources for your customers such as related blogs, links, or videos that they would be interested in based on their interest in your company. Interacting with your customers will create a closer relationship with them and keep them coming back to your page and your business. You may even get ideas for changing or improving your business as well.

A Company Page on Facebook is like most other things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. You can’t expect your customers to “like” your page and visit it frequently if you don’t maintain it. Once you get into the practice of making regular posts, you’ll find it easier to do and worth the small amount of time it takes to have this valuable communication channel with your customers.

If you need help setting up a professional Facebook Company Page for your business, Web.com can help!  Just give us a call at 1-866-888-6305.

*Source: Website-Monitoring.com, 3/16/2010.

Instant ROI: Using Email Marketing to Stay in Touch and Drive More Business

Join Stamps.com and email technology leader Silverpop for a webinar on how using email can improve your business results. We’re not talking personal messages from your own Outlook or Gmail, but using an Email Service Provider like Silverpop to help manage all kinds of customer communications – from monthly newsletters to behavior-driven messages like signup confirmations.

What: Free Webinar – Email Marketing for Small Business

When: Wednesday, April 25 at 11:00 a.m. PT/2:00 p.m. ET

Where: Register for FREE at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/290490266

Topics Covered:

– Why Use an Email Service Provider
– Email Strategy
– Email Creative
– Driving More Email Newsletter Subscriptions
– Adding More Customers to Your Email List

Dave Walters, Product Evangelist, Silverpop

About the presenter:
Dave Walters is a 20-year digital marketing veteran with a career split almost equally among Fortune 50 corporations, Top 5 interactive agencies and, most recently, the technology start-up world. As the final businessperson before IT, he typically sits at the intersection of business need and technical build—most often with a marketing-driven view of the world. As a product evangelist, Dave works hands-on with Silverpop customers to sharpen their marketing strategies and architect technology solutions that solve business problems. He most often works with cross-functional stakeholders to bridge the organizational gaps between marketing, IT, operations and executive management.