Have you ever gone camping and didn’t have the necessary gear? Next thing you know it’s raining and your kids are wet, you’re sleeping in puddles and everyone is miserable. This is very similar to running a marketing campaign without the necessary tools to measure your success. Just like for anything outdoors, there are are a lot of tools out there that are designed to make your marketing campaign a success and many of them are free or at the minimum very affordable. With every hosting account we offer, we include Web site statistics software that’ll allow you to measure your results. Statistic are key. Be sure to set a goal and that’s measurable and then use your Web site stats to determine how well you’ve done.

You also have to make sure that your tools are the right ones. Are you looking to send a large mass e-mail? If so, I recommend checking with your mail provider to ensure that they allow mass messages to be sent through their servers. It is quite common event that newsletters sent to large lists get shut off due to spam concerns. I suggest going to a company like Constant Contact who specializes in sending marketing newsletters. They have great newsletter templates and provide all the spam protection tools needed to ensure that your message gets delivered promptly.

That’s it for today. I’m off to plan for this summer’s excursion. My wife is coming along so I better plan well or it’ll be my last camping trip for quite a while.

Happy planning everyone

Eric