My Favorite songs

by Raj | May 19, 2021 | rajbgm

Have you ever selflessly loved someone so much that just their smile can brighten up your day?

News Letter

by Raj | Mar 29, 2021 | rajbgm

A newsletter is a regularly distributed publication generally about one main topic that is of interest to its subscribers. Newspapers and leaflets are types of newsletters. Additionally, newsletters delivered electronically via email (e-Newsletters) have gained rapid acceptance for the same reasons email in general has gained popularity over printed correspondence. Shortened form of newspaper and informational letter.  Generally used to describe a periodic publication distributed by e-mail to an opt-in list of subscribers. Newsletters are normally used by organizations or owners of a Web site to communicate with their readers. Some companies may sell targeted ads within their newsletters. Also called e-newsletter, eNewsletter, E-mail newsletter, or eBulletin. In order to get the most out of your firm’s newsletter you first need to know what is a newsletter and how to write a newsletter? Once you have these two points engraved in your mind, creating a newsletter will be as easy as ABC!

What is the purpose of  a newsletter?
A newsletter is used as a publication (periodical, pamphlet etc) that gets circulated out to its subscribers after a regular time interval. The publication, by and large, pertains to a focal point that the subscribers are interested to find out more about. And keeping in line with that concept, you want to ensure that more than 90 percent of the periodical is filled with information to be delivered with the remaining 5 percent or less talking about you. If utilized and executed properly, a newsletter – regardless of whether it’s an email newsletter or a printed newsletter format – can do wonders for your marketing endeavors.

What makes the newsletter such an effective marketing tool for businesses?
What makes a newsletter such a strong tool is that it helps establish brand equity & strengthen your bond with the consumers. Not only will it ensure that people stay updated with developments at your end but it also opens venues for e-marketing since you can develop a web-based shopping portal and place its link on the newsletter. This would allow people to choose either to shop at your physical facility or simply place online orders to get whatever they want. In addition to that, you can establish your repute as an authority in the industry by keeping customers posted. In many ways, it will (possibly) lead them to becoming lifelong customers of yours.

Designing a Newsletter
Design specifications: As general practice, it’s best to design your newsletter with a fixed width instead of a fluid/liquid layout. This will prevent horizontal scroll bars as the result of not using the full width of the screen. Design your newsletter with a width of around 600-700px and make sure the important information is within the top 300-500px of height as this is the size of an average preview pane.

Design tools: Best design tool used is, Photoshop, always give a start to your design with Photoshop. Open up Photoshop and create a new document with a width of 800px and a height of 1000px with a resolution of 72dpi .

Web version: Newsletter always needs to be created with multiple versions – htlml version, pdf version, word version and plain text version which can be used for emailing purpose. HTML version can also be used as email newsletter as well plain text version also.

What should needs to be displayed on Newsletter?
This is the most important part of the newsletter, as we all know newsletters are released by some companies either for internal purpose or for customers.

For internal newsletter the main things would be

1. CEO/CFO/Directors Message Section – through which a message can be passed from management to its employees
2. Company progress information – This keeps employees updated about companies recent acquirements, projects etc.
3. Company activities – Team activities done by different Teams of the Company
4. B ‘days and Celebrations – wish the b ‘day boys and girls!!!!
5. New joinee’s information – welcome the new members of the company.

For Customers Newsletter should contain

1. Information highlighting your nonprofit’s recent accomplishments.
2. An overview of upcoming events or workshops.
3. Additions to your Web site.
4. A tip of the month, week, or quarter.
5. Announcements about new grants, programs, or staff.
6. A promotion of an upcoming program or publication.
7. Information about upcoming legislation and how it might affect your services or those you serve.
8. Place time-sensitive items or calls to action near the beginning of the newsletter.
9. Consider providing a table of contents.
10. Include URL s in your newsletter that link directly to additional information. (Be sure you include “http://” as part of the address; many email programs turn these addresses into clickable links.)
11. Keep your newsletter as short as possible. Remember that you can always link to your Web site for more in-depth information.

Publishing the Newsletter

Creating a Publication Schedule
Treat your newsletter as a real publication. That means it follow a regular publication schedule, whether that’s once a month, once a week, fortnightly, or once a quarter. Once you set your schedule (the second Tuesday of the month, for instance), follow it. If you don’t treat your newsletter as a reliable, regular source of information, your users won’t regard it that way either.

Finding Subscribers

• Place a notice in all of your printed newsletters about your email publication and how readers can subscribe.
• Include information about your email newsletter on your Web site.
• Post an announcement about the email newsletter to appropriate online discussion groups. You can search for Internet discussion groups relating to your organization and mission at:
  • Topica.com
  • Tile.net
  • Yahoo! Groups
  • Google Groups
  • Send an email to everyone in your database announcing your new publication. (Make sure to put all addresses in the BCC line of your email to protect users’ privacy.) Because you are sending an unsolicited email, include a line at the top of the email explaining why you’re sending it out and how you got the recipient’s email address. (“This message is being sent to everyone who has contributed to our organization in the last two years.”)
  • Never automatically subscribe someone to an email update. Receiving a regular email from your organization should always be an “opt-in” choice.

Sending Your Newsletter
One way to send your newsletter is manually, meaning that you would export email addresses from a subscriber database into the BCC line of your email. This system can be quite labor intensive, however, and requires that someone input the addresses of new subscribers into the database on a regular basis. A better way to send out your newsletter is to use list mail software, such as ListProc, ListServ , Majordomo, and many others. Check with your Internet Service Provider (ISP), too; it may offer a mailing service (and you may be already paying for it). There are also a number of free mailing services that will include a short advertisement at the top or the bottom of your email in exchange for their services. To learn more about all of these options, visit the Virtual Volunteering Project’s ‘s Web site. Mail services work by sending your email to a single email address that automatically forwards your message to everyone on your subscription list. If someone wants to subscribe or unsubscribe, they can do it themselves automatically.

Measuring Success
Some ways you can gauge the impact of your email newsletter:

• When people call or email to request information from your nonprofit, ask how they found out about you. How many come from your email newsletter? Were they already subscribers, or was it forwarded to them?
• When people sign in to any event, always ask how they heard about it.
• How many new subscribers are you getting each month? How many people are unsubscribing?
• Survey subscribers once a year about your organization’s work as well as the newsletter itself. Are they getting what they want out of it?
• Track the responses that result from your posts, just as you would track responses to your advertising campaigns. It will help you plan more strategically for future posts and online activities.

Lead Generation

by Raj | Mar 29, 2021 | rajbgm

What is a Lead?
A Lead is person who is interested in company’s product or service. Online, a lead is traditionally defined as a person who completes a landing page. A landing page is a webpage with a form through which a person supplies contact and business information in exchange for free information provided by a company, such as an e-book, webinar, product consultation, or product demonstration. 

Its very common that people do leave their email on contact forms but the email alone sometimes doesn’t convert them into a lead, there are many chances that person leave their email id’s for various purposes, not with object of making them as company’s lead contact. That’s why its always good consider a email as a contact rather a lead. And same needs to be taken as challenge to convert that email id as a LEAD.

How much information is Sufficient?
Information always comes from most landing pages with forms on it, the challenging thing on these landing pages is, what information needs to be put so that visitors provide their information in respect. The more information is asked, such as age, phone number,  the lower the likelihood that a prospect will complete and submit your form. Its good and effective to for a couple of pieces of information such as name, address and phone number. the problem with this is that too little information can burden your sales process and make it difficult for sales and marketing team members to prioritize leads. Thus, the solution to this problem involves compromising. When planning or updating your lead generation strategy, talk with your sales team. Ask them what information they NEED about leads in order to have a smooth and productive sales process. If certain information isn’t actively being used by either sales or marketing, then don’t ask for it. This simple compromise can ensure that you get the landing page conversion rates you want and the information that your sales team needs to close deals.

Inbound Leads: Inbound leads to rock information. Instead of cold calling or other forms of sales prospecting, generating leads through inbound marketing makes your sales team’s job way easier and perfect to generate leads.  If a person is an inbound lead, it means that they have visited the website because that is where they submitted their contact information.

This means that they should have some idea about your business and your product or service. this also saves your sales team a ton of time and allows them to establish credibility and trustworthiness earlier in the communication process. Not only do better educated customers make a salesperson’s life easier, but they can also be happier customers in the long-term because expectations were properly set prior to their purchase.
When driving leads online, a business needs to have a few key elements in place. From a tactical perspective, a marketer needs three crucial things to make inbound lead generation happen.

Lead Generation Mechanisms:
Landing Pages: Landing is the most important page of any service you offer on the website, its important to have a lead form on your service landing pages. These pages are always searched by people and are visited most, so your landing pages needs to designed carefully so that it should have a proper lead form along with service information offered.

Offer:  An offer, in the context of lead generation, is some sort of content or product that is of enough value for a person to provide contact information in exchange for access to it. traditional lead generation offers include: eBooks, whitepapers, webinars, free consultations, and product demonstrations.

Call to Action: Landing pages and offers are useless if no one sees them. to send people to a landing page, you need a call-to-action. often abbreviated as ctA, a call-to-action is text, an image or button that links directly to a landing page.

Networking groups: Many business people go to networking functions for trade associations, chambers of commerce and other organizations on a regular basis. Most of them view these events as a boring hassle and do everything to avoid them. However, networking events are an excellent lead generation strategy for businesses, because the other business people that attend them are consumers too and need products and services just like the rest of us.

So, instead of standing in the corner and counting down the minutes until you can leave, walk around and start up conversations. You can even ask the people you meet for permission to add them to your database of contacts. It is also a good idea to follow up with the people you have met after the event with a quick phone call or email to build the relationship.

 Alliances: Building alliances with other businesses that target a market similar to yours is a great way to generate new leads for your business. Choose a reputable business that treats its customers well, engages in proactive marketing strategies and is open to trying new things. Once you have built a relationship with this business and have come to an agreement, you can start targeting their clients with your own marketing. A great strategy is to write articles on topics you are knowledgeable about and have them placed in the newsletter of your alliance. You could also write an ebook on your area of expertise and give it your alliance to give away as a gift to their clients. Another great strategy to implement with your alliances is a joint event. You can share the organizational time and cost, and then invite clients from both businesses so you both have the chance to generate new leads.

Brochures:  Brochures are an effective lead generation tool for businesses because they give prospects initial information on the product or business and encourage them to take the next step in the sales process. An eye-catching brochure that is designed well, conveys the benefits of what you offer, has a powerful call-to-action and is distributed in appropriate locations will attract many potential customers to your business.
Brochures are a great strategy for businesses because they are relatively inexpensive to produce and can be distributed in several ways. They can be sent directly to prospects in a direct mail campaign, handed out at trade shows and events and displayed at your business and with your alliances.

Trade shows:  Trade shows are an excellent way to promote your business and generate leads. If you choose the right trade shows, many of the people there will be prospects that you can engage with and turn into customers. Some types of trade shows that are a great place to find leads include:

• Local business expos
• Chamber of commerce shows
• School business expos

Industry trade shows To generate leads at trade shows you will need to be really prepared and have thought a lot about your techniques. You will need to have experts on your stand that know your products and have excellent communication skills. You also need to have a way of qualifying leads so you don’t waste time and money chasing leads that only visited your booth for your freebies

Referrals: Referrals, or word of mouth, is the number one most successful lead generation strategy. And best of all, it’s completely free. If your business has great products and services and a great team, your clients are bound to rave about you to people they know. It’s a well known business fact that if a person hears about a business from someone they know and trust, they are more likely to become customers than if they just saw an advertisement for the business.

So, you need to be proactively seeking referrals from your clients. Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals – if you are a good business and you ask politely, the majority of your customers won’t hesitate to give you referrals. Remember to reward clients that give you referrals with a small gift, a thank you note or a discount.

Adoption of various methods to generate leads might increase sales teams cost, to be effective, Generate leads online using inbound marketing methodologies that has the power to transform your current sales and marketing processes. Using landing pages, calls-to- action and offers to can help reduce your cost-per-lead while also delivering leads with a higher level of initial education to your sales team.

So that is why it is said “The basics are just the beginning.” So one needs to stick to the basics and get on to it, things will start working and doing wonders for business activities.

25 things you should know at your 25

by Raj | Mar 29, 2021 | rajbgm

I found it useful in one the blogs i read sharing same with you read and let me know your comments.

1. Take rejection with poise.
By now you should’ve faced some sort of professional rejection. My favorite was having my résumé handed back to me after a job interview.

2. Do your own bitch work.
Empathy is an important trait for all managers. Knowing what it’s like to do the grunt work makes you appreciate those who have to do it after you. Assuming that you are not above anything will help you soar in your career.

3. Craft an appropriate LinkedIn connection invite request.
I don’t mind getting LinkedIn connection requests from random people, but it irritates me when they don’t have a tailored message and instead use the standard LinkedIn invite line. Here’s an idea for something that could work: “Hi Jenny, I noticed we both work in the Chicago marketing scene and wanted to connect with you. Maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee/tea in the near future to learn more about what you do?”

4. Ask for a raise. 
When you’re worth more than you earn, you need to know how to ask for more. After being out of school for three years, learn how to broach the topic. Not sure how to do that?

5. Delegate work.
Delegating responsibility is underrated. By 25, you should know when it’s appropriate to delegate and how to do it. For example, if someone asks me to perform a task that is within my power, but I don’t have the time for it, I look for the colleague it makes most sense to perform that task regularly, and ask him or her to do it.

6. Pick your battles.
Not every battle is worth fighting; you should know which are worth your time and energy. Getting upset with the way someone sends incessant emails takes a backseat to someone who fails to communicate important pieces of information.

7. Unplug.
Once you answer that work email at 11 p.m., you set a precedent that you’re available 24/7. Unless it’s an emergency, try not to check your work email (or mark it unread and deal with it when you get to the office).

8. Put in your two-weeks’ notice.
If you’re lucky enough to have loved your first job out of college and are still there by 25, bravo! But you should know how to tactfully put in your two weeks’ notice, if you make a career move. This requires a written resignation. Here’s a great guide on doing the dirty deed.

9. Tactfully give your business card at a networking event.
No one likes the business card ninja who swoops in, throws his or her card at you, and leaves you stunned. First, have a conversation with someone. Find out stuff you have in common. Then offer your card as a way to stay in touch.

10. Avoid getting sloppy at a networking event.
An open bar doesn’t give you permission to act like you did at college frat parties. Have a few drinks to loosen up, but keep it professional.

11. Prioritize your time.
For example, tackle your bigger work issues toward the beginning of the day and save your smaller, less important tasks for the end of the day when you’re winding down. Remember: There’s always tomorrow.

12. Set professional goals.
You want accomplishments on your résumé, not just finished tasks. Setting annual professional goals will set you on track to advance your career. Meeting mentors in your industry through networking events and LinkedIn will help you realize what goals you need to prioritize.

13. Send an SOS.
Chances are you’ve felt overwhelmed by your workload at least once in your career. Knowing when and how to send a help signal to your manager and or co-workers is essential to preventing burnout.

14. Conduct an interview.
Knowing how to interview someone is an important skill. Not only does it teach you how to ask the right questions, but also it teaches you what skill set and personality you value in yourself and your potential co-workers.

15. Communicate.
Communication, when done well, sets you apart from other young professionals. Good communication is a strong asset, so learn it while you’re in the beginning stages of your career. For example, when emailing project specs, I copy as many people I think will benefit from the discussion. Bringing someone in during the later stages of development could mean painful—and unnecessary—back-peddling.

16. Handle being caught venting about co-workers.
It happens to the best of us. Your co-worker commits a major faux pas, and you need to vent about it to another co-worker. Then you get caught. Knowing how to turn it into a dialogue with constructive criticism—or knowing how to avoid it all together—is important.

17. Not sweat the small stuff (you’re not curing cancer).
Unless, of course, you are curing cancer. Then disregard. Ask yourself, “Will this matter a year from now?” If not, don’t sweat it. Acknowledge your mistake and learn from it.

18. Invest in your 401(k)—or at least think about it.
The numbers don’t lie. Someone who starts saving before the age of 25 accrues more interest than someone who starts saving at 30. Not sure how much to invest? This is a great guide.

19. Be a team player.
No one likes a selfish co-worker. Learn this healthy habit early in your career to get ahead of those who didn’t. You can operate under the “CYA” (cover your ass) mentality, just make sure it doesn’t turn into a “TUB” (throw under the bus) one.

20. Talk to the CEO of your company.
Get sweaty palms talking to authority figures? Nix those nerves now.

21. Lead a meeting.
You’ll need to learn how eventually, why not get it out of the way before you turn 25? Have a meeting agenda, and make sure you open it for discussion as often as you can so you’re not the only one talking. Also, you can take it one step further by following up with action items and decisions made during the meeting.

22. Ask for time off without feeling guilty.
You earn your time off, so it’s important to take it with a clean conscience. If you’re planning on having a “Treat yo self” day, look into local brewery tours, daytime trapeze classes, or some simple retail therapy.

23. Put together a visual report.
Putting information into a strong visual report speaks volumes more than just throwing the numbers onto a spreadsheet and clicking send. About 60 percent of people are visual learners, so it’s important to make your information pop with charts and graphs.

24. Give your elevator pitch.
Since I work for a small company, the question I get asked the most is, “What’s Ragan?” It took some practice, but I finally got my company’s elevator pitch down a few months after joining the team. Not sure what yours is? Listen to what your co-workers say.

25. Be a mentor.
By the time you’re three years out of college, you will have had at least one younger person ask you for career advice. Understanding the impact you have as a mentor is powerful, and the relationships you have with mentees can be some of the most rewarding ones you’ll have in your mid-20s.