Getting The Most Out Of Your IT
- 1. bbGetting the most out of ITBy Eamon Gallagher
- 2. Quick Facts83% of small & medium-sized firms in Ireland have their own website.28% of these sell their goods or services online.Over 25% of business in Ireland use social networking to promote their business.Might seem high but plenty of opportunity to lead by example.
- 3. Social NetworkingTwitter – Have you Tweeted?Facebook – More traffic than Google.Blogging – Share your expertise.LinkedIn – Online Business Networking.Forums – Join industry-related forums.Advice- Engage your customers. - Pick one to begin with and use it properly.- Don’t do all at once. Feature Creep.
- 4. E-Mail MarketingHow much of a captive audience could you have at your disposal today if you had collected email addresses from day 1?Creates an awareness of new products and services. Special offers and newsworthy items.“Didn’t know you did Web Design too?”Leaves the channel open for customers you may not see from one end of the year to the next.
- 7. Google – Organic ResultsNumber 1 on Google = 40% of the entire search volume for that term. You should be aiming for the Top 3 spots. People are lazy and rarely move off the first page.
- 8. No point in having a great website if no one can find it.Simple things you can do to increase website hits.Add your business to free website directories. Google Business Centre. Its Free!Irish Hosting & .ie versus .comSocial Networking, Blogging, Youtube + Forums, etc.Yahoo! Answers, Google Groups, Local Chambers, etcFlash. Looks great. Not Google friendly.Talk to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) consultant.Add Content to your website regularly. Content is King!
- 10. Google AdWords
- 11. Google AdWordsOnline sales for 123.ie boosted by 159pc in less than 12 months.BordGais (Electricity Switch) 30,000 switched in less than 30 days. That’s 1000 new customers per day.PCtechnix – Between 2-5 new business customers per month.No big outlay. Start from as little as €50Change budget to meet your ability to fulfill new business.
- 12. Online BackupData is paramount to every business. Backups are fairly pointless if they’re never tested.No business can afford to lose its critical data.60% of those companies which have lost data will close down within 6 months of their loss.Backup is cheap but recovery is expensive!
- 13. Why choose Online Backup?1. It's automated – No changing tapes.2. It's offsite – Fire/Flood or Theft, etc.3. Fully managed - Professional monitoring and automated job reports.4. Accessible anywhere – Restore anywhere. 5. Reliable – ISO Accreditation friendly.6. Infinite Lifecycle - No need to purchase or upgrade any hardware and no consumable media to worry about.
- 14. PricingPricing model is very straightforward. We offer:Prices exclude VAT at 21%
- 15. Payment terms are monthly direct debit.Online Backup - ConclusionDon’t learn from your own mistakes, learn from others. Make sure you have an up to date backup of all yourimportant data at all times. Remember if you cannot afford a proper backup system, you certainly won’t survive the recovery process.
- 16. SkypeIt’s free for Skype to Skype calls.
- 18. Save on travel costs.
- 20. Simple to use.
- 21. Secure.
- 22. Quick & easy setup.
- 23. Available on mobile handsets, laptops, iPads, etc
- 24. Skype on TV coming soon.
- 25. Also looks like they’re lining up a partnership with Facebook. Likely to change social networking forever.Save on PrintingSerious potential savings
- 26. Toner efficiency
- 27. Two-side printing. Save on paper.
- 28. Reduce waste with printer mailboxes
- 30. Scan, Print, Fax & Photocopy
- 31. Secure Printint.
- 32. Centralised maintenance and more transparency on costs.
- 33. Use a photocopier/printer rather than a personal desk printer whenever possible.Questions?Most of this content & more is freely available on our website & blog.
Editor's Notes
- #2: Before I start, I’d just like to point out that none of the items we’re about to discuss are particularly difficult or new and I hope that it’s the simple suggestions that may have the biggest impact for you here today.
- #3: Just some quick facts to get us started. Which brings me to the next slide. Will I assume that most people here today know what Social Networking is? Offline versus Online.
- #4: Twitter is like the text messaging except you are texting to the outside world and potentially thousands and in some case millions of people. It’s also a great way of trending specific keywords. For example you could trend the words “negative equity” which would certainly keep you very busy. Bust you could also trend words like “Sandyford rent” to prospect for potential property for rental in the Sandyford area.With Facebook, you can target particular demographics and it is the most popular form of social networking adopted by business at present with Twitter of course, circling the wagons.Blogging – I’ve been blogging for roughly 2 years now and the blog part of the website has now surpassed the main website in terms of visitor traffic.LinkedIn and Forums..
- #5: Newsletters work and have been very successful for PCtechnix. Feedback has been very positive and IT Sales for example, have more than doubled in the 12 months since we began sending them out. This has been mainly due to the awareness od special offers.
- #6: Practice what you preach. We sent out this newsletter in June and you’ll notice it has a mix of News items, Special Offers and General Advice to our customers.
- #7: Septembers newsletter was nothing short of a blatant attempt to sell off some special offers we were running.
- #8: Website Directories are a good way to inbound links to your website. Google loves them.The Google business Centre. I’ll show you this on the next slide.There is some eveidence that hosting your website in Ireland is advantageous. If your business is only in Ireland than .ie is the way to go. It’s regulated and you must be an actual business to setup a .ie. Anyone with a credit card can setup a .com.
- #9: The only cost to setting this up is time. And only 15 minutes at that.
- #10: This is Google Adwords. Anyone here using it? This is basically on-demand advertising and this example show’s how we target particular area’s for specific keywords.