Start on your Christmas function

At Chilli Chocolate Marketing we're all about relationships. About letting your clients know you love them. And when it comes to showing the love, the most important event on any company's calendar is the Client Christmas Function. It's where you say thanks; where you show off to your clients what great clients you have; and where you provide an environment for business networking. And Christmas is just around the corner. No, seriously. It is.

If you can only afford to host one client function a year, make it a Christmas Function - but you need to get in early. Like, now. If you leave it too much longer you will find that your preferred venues or days are already booked out, leaving you with alternatives that may not convey the "thanks" to your customers appropriately. You do not want your business to be the one left standing when all venues and entertainment are booked out in December.

Christmas functions do not need to be extravagant; it's your attention to detail that guests remember. Things such as:

• the timing and style of the invitations
• the quality of the food
• the wine selection (always important in South Australia!)
• the thoughtfulness of any gifts
• attention to decorations and overall ambiance

If this all sounds like too much, give us a call - we can help.

Be master of your domain

In the course of our daily activities we see a lot of email addresses. And we are continually surprised at the number of people still using ISP-provided addresses (like "alice@bigpond.com") or free webmail addresses (like "bob@hotmail.com" or "carol@yahoo.com.au") for business communications. Your email is for promoting your business, not Bigpond or Hotmail or Yahoo!

Relying on an ISP or webmail address for your business can be bad for a number of other reasons.

Free webmail addresses are well-known sources of unsolicited commercial email - spam - often containing computer viruses. as a result, many reputable businesses filter or block email originating from sources such as hotmail and yahoo. if you’re using an address like that for your business communications, your email may not be getting through to your intended recipient - and you’ll never know it.

If you're relying on an ISP-provided email address for your company, ask yourself this: what happens if that ISP changes its name or is sold? What happens to your email?

Small businesses often fall victim to these problems because noone on staff is technically savvy enough to acquire a unique "domain name", or they think the process is difficult or costly. It's not as hard or expensive as you may think - give us a call today to discuss your requirements.

--Simon