Go digital
Archive for October, 2010
Advertise Me Business Card
Oct 27th
In one of our previous posts we gave our readers some pointers about company business cards – read the post here. Today, we’ve decided to show you our current business card design. Keep in mind we’ve been through about 3-4 revisions and it’s still not perfect.
- advertise me Business Card Front
- Advertise Me Business Card Back
As you can see, our design is professional and clean. On the back you’ll notice a QR code – if your phone supports it scan it and see where it will take you.
The only thing that we’ll probably change next time round, is the black text on the back. When printed, you can hardly read the black text because of the blue background.
Attached Files:
advertise me business card frontadvertise me business card front
- advertise me business card back
Comparing Top Online Accounting Software Packages
Oct 25th
Accounting and bookkeeping are two important aspects of running any type of business, whether its a small retail store or a large corporation. Any business owner knows that these tasks can become a painful experience and if not managed correctly the tax man may end up knocking on your door.
We recently were advised by our accountant that we should invest in an accounting software tool so we can better track our expenses and project future financial growth of the company. There are many off the shelf accounting software products on the market. If you walk down to Office Works or search online, you will find software packages that could either be affordable or just too expensive. Some are easy to use whilst others are just too complex but to be honest with you, there isn’t a perfect product out there that does exactly what you want. Every user and business has different processes so a one size fits all approach to accounting software cannot be used here, but what I can say is that if you have basic accounting requirements then you may be in luck. What I’ve done is compared and detailed some of these software packages so we could make a suitable decision of which product we should be using and hopefully at the same time we can also help our readers find a solution that meets their needs. We decided that using a SaaS (Software as a Service) online package would be the most cost effective solution since you are not required to pay extra for software upgrades – everything is done online. Here’s our list, it’s not the most comprehensive but it’s a start (keep in mind we compared product versions that had similar benefits and costed roughly the same):
| Software Package | 
|
|
|
|
Zoho Invoicing (premium) |
|
| Price | AU$25 per month (includes GST) +11c for each bank transaction over 100 | US$29 | AU$25 per month (min 3 months) 12 months gets 1 month free | US$29.95 per month | US$25 per month | US$20 per month |
| Number of accounts | Unlimited | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Number of users | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | N/A – 1 for each additional account | 3 + US$5 per additional users | Unlimited |
| Contacts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Number of Invoices and expenses | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 500 | Unlimited |
| Link Bank accounts | Yes – unlimited | 20 reconciled bank statements per month | Yes – beta test | Don’t think so | No | No |
| Support | Yes – unlimited | Yes – unlimited | Email only | Customer Support Mon-Fri / 9am-6pm ET | Yes | Yes – unlimited |
| Backup | Yes – data is safe and backed up | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Trial | Yes – 30 days | Yes – lets you raise a maximum of five new invoices and reconcile 50 bank statement lines. The trial is also limited to a maximum period of 180 days. | Yes – 20 Transactions per month | No – 30 day money back guarantee | Yes – 5 invoices per month, 2 users | Yes – 30 days |
| Mobile access | Not sure | iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile | Not sure | Yes, iphone | Not sure | No |
| Payroll | No | No | 25 employees | No | No | No |
| Other Features | accept credit card payment, invoice workflow status, resend invoices, API support, multi-currency | multi-currency, point of sale hardware + software, items and inventory, connectors, CRM/Activities, time based timesheet, inventory, ebay connector | access online payments, Timesheets, Document Sharing, Support Ticketing | Remove Zoho logo from outgoing emails | UK Based company (not ideal for Australia), timesheet, |
| Number of accounts | Unlimited |
Now based on the above comparison we decided to trial the SaaSu (pro) package.
Attached Files:
Advertise Me Shirts – advertising on the go
Oct 23rd
One of the best and most affordable ways to promote and advertise your business whilst in public areas is to wear a company business shirt. No matter where you go, you will be exposing your business so why not do it.
What’s interesting is that one guy in the US is making a living just by wearing other people’s t-shirts and promoting their business – in fact he makes roughly US$84,000. That’s a pretty good figure. For our company, we have a blue polo shirt that has our company logo at the front and back (the back being bigger). We are also looking at using shirts with small screens for digital advertising but for now here is a photo of our current company shirt:
Attached Files:
Australian Dollar Hits Parity – great time to import goods
Oct 16th
Yes it’s true, the Australian dollar hit parity overnight and it is the first time to do so since 1983. What does this mean for businesses? We’ll it’s a great time to import your products from overseas – this includes the Asian countries that use the US dollar. Importing goods when the AU dollar is high basically means more profit for your business unless you pass the savings to your client.
There are predictions that the Australia dollar might even go higher than the US but there is some speculation this will impact on our export industry especially since the cost of the import goods are a lot cheaper.
For us, we’re looking at stocking more digital signage equipment from overseas – the only downside is whether there’s the demand. How are you taking advantage of this situation? Let us know.
Attached Files:
- australian money
australian money
Free ways to advertise your iphone app
Oct 11th
If you’re a business and just got someone to develop your iphone application then how do you go about advertising your new app considering there is almost a quarter of a million applications available on itunes?
We’ve done some research and below is a list of ways to advertise your iphone app for free:
- Get your family, friends, colleagues to try out the application. Get feedback from them and get them to recommend the app to their friends
- Announce it to the world through social networking – use facebook or twitter to promote your app, even get your friends to share your link on their status. Create a fan page on facebook and a twitter account.
- Join various forums and announce the availability of your app. The biggest iphone forum is http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/
- Make sure you develop a cut down version of your app and give it out for free. Most iphone users will not buy your app straight away unless they trial it. That way you have a chance to up-sell your app if they like it.
- Update your email and forum signatures with a link to your free app.
- Get companies to review your app, e.g gizmodo, cnet, appdictions, whatsoniphone.com, iphoneapppreviews, etc. If they like it then they will definately review it for free.
- If you have guts then create a forum dedicated for your app so you can get others to provide positive and negative feedback.
- Think of an innovative idea to generate PR with companies e.g free advertising on your application
- Get on the News…
Good luck and if there’s any other ideas on ways to advertise your iphone app for free let us know.
Attached Files:
- iphone4
iphone4
Advertise Me turns 5 on the 10/10/10
Oct 10th
- Image credit to ba1969
Happy Birthday advertise me!!!! What’s so special about this year is that on the 10/10/10 Advertise Me turns 5.
Attached Files:
- Birthday Cake
http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ba1969
DHL freight company for importing from overseas
Oct 9th
I was really impressed with the DHL service when importing several parcels from Taiwan to Australia. The express door to door service was timely – it only took approx 3 days and DHL took care of all the importing and custom clearance paperwork. We have also used other freight companies in the past but DHL stood out because of the cost and service factor. Once you open up an account with DHL all you have to do is include the account number in the DHL pickup and then everything else is taken care for you. What’s most impressive is the tracking – you can basically receive email or SMS alerts at different stages of the delivery. Great work DHL, we’ll use you again.
Attached Files:
- DHL website
DHL website
Product Review: 1Gbps switch from TP-LINK
Oct 8th
Today, we purchased the TP-LINK TL-SG1016 1Gbps switch. The switch is unmanaged which means you cannot configure any settings in it and this can be a great thing for non-technical network engineers. We needed this switch to allow multiple digital signage players to be connected to the network – when I mean multiple I mean more than 10 at the same time. This particular model has 16 ports but if you need more then they have a 24 port switch which can cost about $100.00 extra. We decided 16 is enough for us.
It comes with rack ears so you can mount it in your rack and takes up about 1RU. The unit is very quiet and doesn’t have any fans spinning. Most TP-LINK products come with 3 years warranty which is great. The only thing that I would change on this unit is the red coloured Power Status LED. I initially thought there was an issue. Besides that it’s affordable and a great little product.
Attached Files:
- TP-LINK TL-SG1016 network switch
TP-LINK TL-SG1016 network switch
- TP-LINK TL-SG1016 network switch 1
TP-LINK TL-SG1016 network switch
Business Tips: Advertise Me advertises in a Magazine
Oct 7th
We recently decided to place an advertisement in a digital signage magazine and we decided to share what we’ve learnt from this experience with our readers. There are quite a number of advertising mediums (radio, television, newspaper, magazine, flyers, and digital out of home) available for most businesses but it all comes down to your marketing budget before you can decide which medium to use. Rule of thumb is that the more user reach the more expensive it get’s. Generally, advertising on TV is the most expensive and hence a reason why you don’t see every single business rushing in to advertise on TV – they are generally large retail businesses or corporations that have the advertising dollars.
Now, with any type of advertising you need to develop a marketing plan. This involves sitting down with your team and come up with a strategy on what you’re aim of the advertisement is? Is it to announce a sale, promote a service or the company? Depending on the company’s goals, the messages will be different.
For our advertisement, we wanted to send a message to the readers that we provide free quotes and free digital signage trials. This message was located at the top of the advertisement and it’s one of the first areas most people will read and notice. Now I’m not an expert in this area but by having the word FREE does it make the company look cheap?
At the bottom there’s the call to action which is to “Call Us”. Also, if you look at the image on the screen closely, you’ll notice there’s an example of an advertisement to “List a sale at squeak.com.au” – that’s our sister company. We call this the “double ads” strategy whereby you’re advertising within an advertisement.
Generally, in advertisements you only have a few seconds to capture the attention of the readers hence the reason why the messages should be short i.e “Simple & Affordable Digital Signage Advertisements”.
To conclude there are several points to consider that will influence the cost of the ad when advertising in a magazine and these are:
1. who is your target audience? Is that the right magazine your advertising in?
2. what is the volume of the magazine distribution? The larger the distribution the more it will cost.
3. what is the size of your advertisement – the bigger the ad the more it will cost.
4. location of your advertisement in the magazine – the front of the magazine will cost more than the back.
Is there anything that we’ve left out?
We’ll update everyone on how successful this advertisement was in the magazine.
Attached Files:
- advertiseme advertisement in magazine
advertiseme advertisement in magazine
Facebook website is down?
Oct 6th
We just tried accessing facebook.com and it appears to be down. Is anyone else having the same problem. We just get a problem loading page connection reset.
Update: Looks like the website is actually down. Oh dear. Social networking is now at a standstill.
