How not to do SMS marketing

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This just arrived on my phone from a number not in my address book - so it just came up as a number rather than a person or company name:

Hi! It's as good as it gets SALE! Our mighty $AUD has power slammed Uncle Sam - prices crashed on all new stock. So so low! This SAT 10-4 be early. SMS NO 2stop.

Boy, they sure crammed a lot of information into that small message. Except for the company name, what they sell, and where they're located. Nice work, unknown marketers!

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Don't let those newsletter dates slip

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Whenever we sit down with a client to plan a customer-contact campaign like an email newsletter to the client's database our campaigns are based around contact at three-monthly intervals. That frequency isn't chosen at random: 90 days is the magic number, and this is something backed up by decades of marketing research across a range of industries.

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Taking care of business - online bookkeeping with Xero

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This financial year I decided to take a more proactive role in the management of Chilli Chocolate Marketing’s accounts. My bookkeeper suggested that I purchase and install MYOB myself to accomplish this, but for a number of reasons I was reluctant to purchase and rely on a standalone software package installed on one particular computer.

So I asked around and conducted quite a bit of research into online accounting systems and the name that kept coming up was Xero.

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Late payments getting even later for small businesses

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The recovery might be well and truly underway, but new figures from credit agency Dun & Bradstreet have highlighted the need for companies to continue to closely watch cashflow.

D&B's latest analysis of payment terms shows it now takes an average of 53.2 days for a business to get its invoices paid, up from 52.1 days this time last year.

As usual, it's smaller companies getting hit hardest.

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