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Category: Technology

Ways VoIP Can Troubleshoot Lead Generation Issues

Dealing with “VoIP” is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle that can scare the living daylights out of businessmen leading them to land up in a state of confusion. Smooth integration of VOIP technology with business processes is not that easy and often gripped with troubles pertaining to gaining quality VOIP leads.

Understanding this complex piece of technology is one of the hardest parts for businesses. However, constant online evolution has created immense possibilities to gain knowledge on how VOIP deployment can be simplified and multiple channels to access huge pool of business clients, customers.

Well, the main effort lies at filtering VOIP leads that are worth considering i.e. the potential business clients, customers – and the ones which may likely lead to dead ends.

Identifying Potential Customers and Pain Points

Initiating a call with questions that boasts about your company’s products and services may drop-down the chances of gaining a quality lead. Instead, sales representatives must ask prospects questions that helps to judge whether lead would make a good fit and the one which is worth considering.

Live chat solutions can escalate the sales number tremendously and decreases the contact center costs by reducing average interaction expenses. Sales representative capabilities increases as they can simultaneously handle multiple chats.

Integrating live chat feature in website helps to gain a competitive edge over other websites and provides an easy way to connect with customers which in turn leads to double-glazing sales number.

An important finding by E-Marketer strongly supports this fact which says that almost two in 10 live chat respondents did more than 75% of their holiday shopping online as compared with 14% of those who did not chat.

There are loads of options available when it comes to live chat software, so, we must pick the program that provides best interface and allows to easily integrate it into your website. Live chat solutions such as bold chat, Kayako helps businesses to improve conversions and enhance customer experience.

And if you are looking specifically to manage emails, tickets, live chats and offer remote support then Kayako is the ultimate solution to it.

Mobile Solutions For Sales Team

Use of mobile devices, mobile apps is no longer confined to big brand business space. Businesses of all types have started to administer mobility solutions to ensure smooth functioning of its operations.

Mobility has brought significant changes in the way out-of-office personnel or sales representatives handle customers and connects with in-house employees. Implementing mobile solutions is one-stop solution to streamline communication process that usually rotates around juggling with disconnected tools, devices and applications.

Joining the mobile app bandwagon offers businesses a robust platform with not just faster issue resolution capabilities. Studies show that 76% of businesses who make use of mobile devices reported enhanced employee responsiveness and speedy decision-making process.

Continuously evolving mobile technologies have simplified much of the business tasks significantly. Talking specifically about retail sector, Mobile POS apps is one such revolution that facilitates better customer service solutions.

The POS platform easily integrates with sales tracking software, existing inventory, that allows employees to access to up-to-date information on prices, delivery status and prices. One of the best all-in-one POS system, Vend comes with amazing feature to run your business smoothly and lift up the sales number in less time.

The phone system can integrate with your customer database and automatically show where all the caller’s orders are, in real time, giving your both your employees and callers access to real-time information.

Integrating business phone systems and even any mobile device with CRM adds up another layer of simplified communication channel. It helps to get 360 degree view of customers and as potential customer calls up, employees have entire information on screen regarding which company they are associated with, city and timezone of their location.

Integration with customer database automatically tracks the caller’s entire information, in real-time that allows to customize marketing efforts instantly.

Automating the Call Process

Automating the outbound calling processes and monitoring the status of salespeople becomes easy with amazing capabilities of predictive dialer. Predictive dialer not only offers manual dialing option but also, several other modes for auto-dialing are available that increases call rate to 25 calls per hour with autodialing.

It is an all-in-one solution for contact centers that offers efficient lead management and improves call connectivity ratio.

Dial multiple lines and supply callers only the calls that can be answered by live person. This makes cold calling a lot more easier and empowers agents to speed up response times.

Predictive dialing is extremely beneficial for designing robust and comprehensive marketing campaigns which ensures it sure shot success.

Optimize campaign performance, get sleek call scripting, real-time monitoring, call recording, seamless CRM integration and all that you need to create double-glazing sales number.

An efficient outbound call center can be set up with predictive dialer and makes it easier to engage customers in a smarter way to turn it into a profit making center.

Final Takeaway

It’s not just the right questions or boasting about your company can help you make a sale but, beyond this a controlled way to handle sales call flow can make a big difference to improvement in sales number.

With proper technologies in place, businesses can streamline the lead qualification process and filter the sales-ready VoIP leads efficiently without letting sales people struggle much and weed out the less serious prospects.

Author Bio:

Kirti is a Digital Marketer and content writer who contributes to The Real PBX. She is tech-savvy, gadget-freak and has the strong passion for writing about the big technological innovations, cloud computing, business communications and VoIP technology which will shape the future.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kirti_Khanna20

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July 18, 2016
Collaboration Perks of Video Conferencing for You and Your Remote Teams

Collaboration at the workplace is evolving. One thing that seems to affect its growth in leaps and bounds is video conferencing technology. If you’re still sitting on the fence and wondering how it can improve collaboration efforts among your offsite employees, read on.

Bridge Distances

Video conferencing is fast becoming a popular tool for plenty of small to midsize businesses, says Channel Life.

That’s no surprise, given the advantages it brings to the table. One of the greatest benefits happens to be its ability to connect offsite teams. It used to be hard for companies to manage remote staff.

However, conferencing tools are making it easy for business to track their employees and monitor productivity. It has effectively bridged the gap, allowing teams across the country and the world to toss geographical barriers aside. Now, management teams across the world are finding it easier to reach out to their offsite employees, wherever they are.

Faster Information Sharing

Email, chat, or international calls used to be the territory of offsite teams. Not anymore. With video solutions that have come into play, plenty of teams are finding it easy to share information.

Need to update your team regarding urgent revisions for a project? Easy. Want a general assembly to address company issues and lay employee worries to rest?

Done.

Conferencing technologies have made communication instant.

Face-to-Face Interaction

A unique aspect of video, one that sets it apart from chat, email, or call, is that participants can enjoy some face to face contact. For offsite staff, this can prove invaluable.

Regular face to face meetings can drive employee engagement higher. Low engagement is a productivity killer in the workplace.

By using technology to cross the distance, companies are able to encourage and develop camaraderie and teamwork in offsite employees, leading to greater employee satisfaction and engagement, both of which improve collaboration efforts.

Fewer Misunderstandings

Another great feature of web conferencing systems is HD quality. Companies like Blue Jeans offer HD video conference for IT platforms, allowing for crystal clear images. That brings the experience to an entirely different level.

The fine clarity makes it seem like your team is sitting just right next to you, in the same room. It’s a revolutionary tool, one that really makes a difference in an organization that manages offsite employees.

This also reduces the amount of misunderstandings at work, due perhaps to the inherent limitations set by common communication channels. For instance, someone can come across as curt or rude, when the exact opposite is true, when they send an email that’s less than chatty. Others could be seen as disrespectful or glib when all they are is casual.

There are a lot of context cues lost when you send over a text. Unless you put in emojis to function as a mood barometer, it can get pretty sticky, especially if some of your people take umbrage at an a seemingly intended offense—when there’s none at all.

That doesn’t just damage collaboration efforts among your employees. After all, they’re hardly likely to work together well if they have ill feelings toward each other. It’s going to affect your business as well.

Anything that hurts employee productivity hurts your bottom line.

Efficient Processes

Since exchanges often happen more slowly when done via email or chat, it often delays important decisions, putting your production team behind schedule. This is because you would often have to wait for your contact to reply an hour or two after you’ve sent a message.

That’s where video comes in. You can easily arrange a video meet and run through any adjustments to the process, making the process quick and convenient.

That makes for a shorter production cycle.

With better technologies available, you can improve your processes and target faster production cycles.

Flexible Schedules

Stress affects employee performance in a negative way. If someone on your team is stressed, then that means they aren’t performing at 100 percent capacity. If your employees are collaborating on a project, that stress could result in a drop in quality.

One way to keep employee stress at bay is to figure out and deal with workplace stressors, says In the Black.

One possible source of employee stress is the daily commute and travel. Imagine having to squeeze yourself into sardine city every day just to get to work. Imagine driving through an hour or two of traffic before you even step into the office.

Less than stellar tempers have been known to explode at the sight of unruly pedestrians and jaywalking tourists. It’s enough to drain anyone’s energy.

With online meetings making it possible for employees to work from home, though, your team has less commuting stress to deal with and more time to spend at home, potentially resulting in greater work-life balance.

Conclusion

All these things improve collaboration efforts among your remote teams to a greater or lesser degree.

With the technology still rapidly changing, though, it should be interesting to see what else video conferencing will have in store for businesses in the years ahead.

June 23, 2016
Reasons Why You Would Want a Wide-Format Printer vs. Normal Size

Is your printing business loaded with huge printing needs? If so, then you would need a machine that can cope with such a huge demand. If you are involved in a business that creates posters or other graphic products, a normal sized printer will simply not suffice.

To cope with your huge printing needs, a wide-format printer is the right choice.

Sure, a normal-sized printer may let you accomplish basic printing jobs. However, relying on this kind of printer limits the capacity of your printing business and may even turn off potential customers who are looking for bigger and higher quality printouts.

If you have a huge demand for posters, banners, or other jobs, a wide format printer is designed with graphics needs in mind. For your printing needs, these types of printers can deliver the best results. It can greatly reduce your need to outsource your printing requirements.

Whether your business is large or small, the wide format printer may be the right equipment for your business needs. Here are several benefits of using a wide format printer.

Crisp detail

One of the major benefits of using a wide format printer is something called droplet technology system. With this technology, every pixel per square inch will be hard to distinguish.

Whether you are creating a high speed project or using normal or enhanced mode, you can look forward to sharp and fine results that will definitely be appealing to you.

A wide format printer delivers fine and detailed graphics like a photograph. It gives you the confidence to use pictures and company logos with the knowledge that they will appear clean, polished, and professional looking.

Clarity in various text sizes

Another advantage of using wide format printer is that you can clearly see the distinction between graphics and text. The text in the document can be easily read, and every line of text on the document can be easily distinguished and understood. Even if you print small text, you can easily read it.

While some printers produce text that can be easily read on photographs, they do not have the ability to capture text in its detailed form. A wide format printer can capture every detail of your text as well as graphics. You can look forward to professional looking documents all the time.

Stunning colors

Designed for printing banners, presentation handouts, pamphlets, and other graphics, today’s wide format printers boast of having the most advanced and updated technology in color. With full, digital color printouts, wide format printers can provide your business with an opportunity to drastically increase your marketing visibility.

Moreover, using this type of color printing can give your company a competitive edge. The high quality and vibrant color of the outputs is truly eye-catching. It is one of the major benefits of wide format printing that you should fully take advantage of.

Time and money well spent

Another reason for wanting a wide format printer over a normal-sized printer is its efficiency in using your resources. Without this type of machine, there is a huge chance that you will outsource the work to another printing company.

However, a wide format printer will give you the ability to do printing projects in-house. This will help you save some money as you do not have to pay for the work of another printing company.

With a wide format printer, you do not have to outsource your printing job to other printers. Thus, you can get enough savings as you do not have to pay for manpower and labor. Yes, the cost of materials may be high but the amount of output that it can produce compared to normal-sized printers can be a huge money saver.

It can also help you save time as you do not have to wait for a few days for the output to arrive. If the work was not satisfying, it will cost you a few more days to wait for the revised work to be completed. By having a wide format printer in your own company, you can save time.

Speed

If you are targeting a certain number of outputs per day, you will need a printer that can produce several printouts in a jiffy. With four print heads and bi-directional printing control, wide format printers will allow you to meet your desired output at a significantly shorter amount of time.

A wide format printer can produce hundreds of feet of high-quality, full-color output in a span of a few hours. Most modern wide format printers can produce 15 full-color posters in a single hour!

If part of your daily task is to print graphics regularly, having a wide format printer can save you lots of headaches and considerable time so you can accomplish your printing jobs right away.

Fast turnaround

Need your printouts in 2 to 3 days? That timeline may sound impossible for an analog printer. On the other hand, a wide format printer can deliver the output in a much quicker fashion.

Some people outsource their work in order to meet the huge demands of their client. Given the speed that wide format printers have, you need not worry about not meeting the demands of your clients.

Convenience

Compared to analog printing used in the past, digital printing offers more convenience. Wide format printers utilize screen printing technology that makes producing printed materials hassle-free. By making the switch from analog to digital printing, you can save on time and energy.

With an assurance of high quality, you can look forward to customer satisfaction. Wide format printers can give you a guarantee that the print job is done right. Fewer mistakes translate to less waste and more savings for your business.

In a nutshell, having a wide format printer can provide your business with a wide range of benefits. Whether large or small, a wide format printer can help you meet the demands of your most demanding customers.

Investing on a wide format printer can be the best decision you can make for your business.

Author bio

John Arkin is a seasoned freelance writer and author contributor. He loves writing about technology. His favorite subjects include 3D Printing, EPSON printer cartridges and ink cartridges, office equipment technologies such as printers, copiers and mobile phone apps. He has also written about printer ink cartridges and edible printing. He loves driving his drones and using his calligraphy tools. His friends call him Jarkin.

May 25, 2016
How RFID Became Good for Business

Though consumers may be more familiar with near-field communication (NFC) technology, which is now commonly incorporated into smart gadgets like phones and watches, most businesses are entranced by a different way to locate and communicate with objects: radio frequency identification (RFID).

RFID is far from a new technology, but its functions remain relevant today, stretching across industries to provide a number of cost-saving benefits. Here’s what you need to know about RFID and its applications in the business sector.

A brief history of RFID

Though a number of early 20th-century technologies may have contributed to the development of RFID, such has the IFF transponder which identified friendly and enemy aircraft in World War II, the first real ancestor to modern RFID was created in 1973 – though its true inventor is a matter of debate.

In New York, Mario Cardullo claims to have filed the first RFID patent, though the term RFID would not be used for another decade. The patent describes a passive device that receives power from a probing signal and features 16-bit memory.

Cardullo predicted that the device would primarily be useful in transportation, banking, security, and medicine.

Meanwhile, in California, Charles Walton received a patent for a passive transponder used as the first keyless entry. A door containing a reader would scan for a correct identification number within a RFID tag–carrying card, and upon detecting one, unlock.

A number of national and regional lock makers licensed the technology, and Walton went on to invent the term RFID with another patent in the ’80s.

Throughout the ‘70s, the U.S. government was interested in the possibility of tracking technologies – particularly for nuclear materials. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, scientists experimented with placing transponders in trucks and embedding readers in gates of certain facilities to relay information about drivers and cargo.

Eventually, the scientists who worked on this project went commercial, developing RFID for automated toll payment systems on roads, bridges, and tunnels around the world.

Applications in business

Unlike a smartphone, RFID technology lacks inherent value. However, as an enabling technology, it is infinitely useful to businesses willing to develop applications that make use of its capabilities.

The most significant advantage of RFID is its ability to function without human intervention. Readers can scan tags and send information to computers in real time, which has dozens of uses in business.

Asset tracking is perhaps the most obvious application, as it is one of the primary reasons the tech was created. Businesses can secure RFID tags to goods and equipment to ensure better management of property.

Lost or stolen items affixed with tags are more likely to be found; storage centers that make use of tags are easier to navigate. Plus, being aware of the location of a shipment of merchandise allows businesses to better manage its finances as well; if a certain shipment is detected as arriving late, a business might work around the potential delay to payments with the help of a factoring company.

RFID allows a company to remain on top of all facets of their organization.

Manufacturers also make good use of RFID by using tags to monitor production, especially of different versions of the same product – like different classes of cars. RFID tends to reduce the number of human errors in assembly of complex goods.

Major retailers, such as Target, Best Buy, and Walmart, have wholly adopted RFID tech into their stores. Tags help improve supply chain efficiency by reducing shipping errors, and RFID can help in managing inventories.

Some retailers are eager to test RFID’s capability in automating check-out – rather than a cashier scanning individual items, a tunnel reader will pick up the tag of every item in a cart at once – but such advanced scanning has yet to be developed.

Finally, businesses might look into using RFID as a means of security. Keyless, contactless locks are much more durable than their traditional counterparts, so employing RFID in employee badges is a way to control access and diminish maintenance costs.

Additionally, combining RFID tags and motion sensors can prevent theft, as items that are moved without authorization could trigger alarms.

The future of RFID

The primary RFID tech in use today comes from the federal research at Los Alamos. Common RFID tags operate at 915 mega-hertz and use 12 bits of memory. However, many RFID manufacturers are interested in updating the tech to provide even more applications in the increasingly digital world.

Here are a few of the most promising developments in RFID tech in recent years:

RAIN RFID – invented by the RAIN RFID Alliance – employs ultra–high frequency (UHF) that is readable in greater quantities and over greater distances than traditional high frequency (HF) RFID. Thus, RAIN RFID is extremely effective in retail spaces for inventory maintenance.

Hyrbid RFID systems are those that can track regular RFID and RAIN RFID simultaneously. This is useful for manufacturers or retailers who have varied inventories of high-value and low-cost items.

Memory enhancements allow RFID tags to contain information beyond simple numbers and codes. Businesses can store production data, maintenance records, and other item-specific information on individual equipment or merchandise using this reliable technology.

April 21, 2016
The Benefits of Electronic Billing (and How to Get It for Your Business)

To the dismay of pencil manufacturers, the world is going paperless. At your place of business, your copy and fax machines have probably developed a layer of dust, as most of your employees work entirely from the comfort of their desktops.

Nearly every business stores files, sends communications, creates content, and tracks sales digitally ? but for some reason, many businesses just can’t kick the habit of sending clients traditional bills.

Like everything else made from trees, paper bills are disappearing slowly but surely. Here are a few reasons you should follow the e-billing trend, as well as some tips for setting up your own digital billing service.

The advantages of the paperless bill

Imagine, if you will, a 40-foot-tall tree. Most likely, it is a softwood tree, like a spruce or pine, so you might picture the evergreen needles and smell the sweet, spicy aroma of its new growth.

When one customer opts for electronic billing, he or she effectively saves about 50 of such trees from being chopped down and ground into wood pulp. By offering paperless options, your business could preserve entire forests of trees, fostering a greener, cleaner way of life.

Of course, a diminished carbon footprint isn’t the only benefit of paperless billing. Customers are granted the option with nearly all EBPP solutions to view their bills online anywhere, anytime.

This is immediately advantageous to businesses: Customers who have continuous access to their bills are more likely to pay them in-full and on-time, even while they are away from home.

Moreover, bill history is usually compiled online as well, giving both customers and businesses the ability to review previous statements for spending trends.

Finally, electronic billing is substantially cheaper than paper invoices. For most businesses, paper and other office supplies (like ink cartridges, stamps, and envelopes) take up a sizeable portion of the budget.

Moreover, paper appliances like copiers and fax machines require regular maintenance and updates, which is not a minor cost. By going paperless, that chunk of change can be reinvested in other areas of the business, helping your company to grow.

The disadvantages of billing electronically

If e-billing seems too good to be true, it isn’t. However, as with any business service, paperless billing does have a few weaknesses that may be off-putting at first.

For example, any online service that collects payment information must be secure from cyber-criminals, which means you and your customers will need to craft and remember increasingly complex passwords.

Some customers who are fed-up with memorizing incomprehensible strings of letters and numbers may opt out of e-billing simply because they have no room to store another password.

Additionally, as technology changes, EBPP services need to adapt to new machines. Businesses may need to expend effort updating software and websites to ensure that their billing portals remain secure and up-to-date.

Neglecting to perform regular maintenance could expose private customer information to a data breach, which is always bad for business.

Still, a dedicated IT professional will find such simple updates easily within the realm of his or her responsibilities, and it is unlikely that an update will ever seriously derail a business’s ability to collect payments.

How to get the bills of the future

Most commonly, businesses contract experienced e-billing professionals to create web payment portals that integrate into existing websites.

Ideally, a customer does not need to leave your business’s site to pay his or her bill; leaving a trusted, secure website for a third-party payment collector can cause doubt and discomfort about the e-billing process, making it less likely that you will receive your money online.

In working with a professional, you will have more control over how your e-bills look and behave, ensuring they conform to your business’s brand identity.

Another option is directing customers to an established third-party payment collector. Sites like PayPal and Google Wallet have been facilitating online transactions for well over a decade and most Web users trust them with precious financial information.

Yet, these services often skim money from your payments, slashing your profits while impacting your brand. Though third parties are easy to use, they should be a short-term e-billing solution while you develop an on-site payment collection.

April 20, 2016
Growing Your Business? Here’s How to Keep Your People Far and Wide Connected

One of the best aspects of technology’s evolution in the lives of most 21st-century businesses is the ability to connect employees, partners, vendors, and clients with one another, regardless of location.

From the ubiquity of cellphones to the understated power of messaging software, being in the same space at the same time is no longer a requirement for doing business at all, let alone doing it well.

That being said, there are a myriad of ways you could go about keeping your team and the people you’re working with connected, and some of them are more helpful than others.

Here is a closer look at a handful of ways you can keep your business humming across time and distance that should also be able to help your business grow.

Google Docs

With the advent of the cloud, data storage and whole IT departments have effectively left the building and taken up residence in the 0s and 1s that make up the world’s virtual ether.

For businesses looking to collaborate with partners near and far, documents and spreadsheets have done the same. Google has a suite of products — all hosted in the cloud — that allow for real-time collaboration between people and teams so long as everyone has an Internet connection.

So, when a freelancer in Amarillo makes a change to a document that’s in progress, your VP of marketing can literally watch it happen in Fargo.

Regardless of whether you’re working with accounting spreadsheets, presentations, or annual reports, Google’s software in the cloud will keep your team on the same page, no matter where anybody is located.

Telepresence

While not necessary for every business and work application that takes place across distance, telepresence is the crème de la crème of working and interacting together when far apart.

Effectively a set of technologies that allows people to feel as though they and others are actually present in time and space to one another, telepresence incorporates everything from telerobotics and videoconferencing to experiences with a presenter or speaker that can seem like they’re aspiring to mimic the abilities and features of the “Star Trek” universe’s holodeck.

If your business requires collaboration and communication on a level that really allows for the subtleties inherent in being present to one another, look for a Cisco distributor and see how your needs can be met via telepresence applications.

Group Messaging

Not too long ago, if you wanted to talk with a vendor or someone on your team who wasn’t in the room with you, you would have just picked up the phone and dialed.

Not too long before that, you might have gotten into a company car or a cab and driven across the county or state for a meeting.

Before that, a telegram or even a letter would have been required for people in different places to stay abreast of work that wasn’t happening at their worksite.

Today, group messaging software allows anyone to immediately reach out to a vendor, employee, or co-worker regardless of where the person being reached out to is. All you need is login information and an Internet connection — or in some cases, an app on a smartphone or tablet.

From simple services like Google’s IM to more elaborate cloud-based software like HipChat that allows users to send group messages, video chat, file share, and create searchable team chat rooms, group messaging has gotten intensely complex and amazingly helpful.

Being apart no longer requires a phone, a manila envelope, or a recording device — you can have all that and more inside a robust group messaging application.

Project Management

Because of the plethora of ways you can stay in touch with workers, vendors, and contractors in today’s technologically laden world, it can come as something of a shock when all that staying in touch about work doesn’t yield solid project management.

Except: Just talking, sharing, chatting, and working on work isn’t the same as ensuring that the work you’re doing is going in the right direction and at the speed in which it needs to.

Thankfully, project management software can keep you and your people in the loop regarding what needs to get done and when. From predictive scheduling to better resource management, project management can keep your entire workforce on the same page even when you’re all in different time zones.

And for you to not fully depend on these applications, you must also have a great understanding about project management. You can get a project management diploma online for you to be able to learn the concepts and manage processes on your own.

Stay connected with everyone involved with your business no matter where they are. Thanks to cloud-based project management software, chat, and telepresence, the Earth isn’t too big a place from which to run a company.

April 2, 2016
3 Tips to Boost your Newsletter Open-Rate

Despite being regarded as a drab and unimaginative form of online marketing, email marketing remains one of the most important channels of communication with customers and is an effective way of boosting sales. Although many of us instantly breeze through mail from companies, the click-through rate of those that do read these emails is remarkably high. There are enough of the latter for most companies to judge email marketing worth pursuing.

Additionally, new software and tools were released in 2015 that allowed marketing departments to be both more creative with their newsletters, and enabled them to analyze the reception to these emails more thoroughly. SumoMe, for example, can be incorporated into sites with a decent amount of webspace, such as those hosted by www.1and1.com.

This offers webmasters a variety of tricks and gadgets to crank up the tempo on an email marketing campaign.

Here then, for those that are prepared to give email marketing another chance, are three tips to help increase your email open rate:

1. Long Subject Lines are Attractive

A report from Get Response found that emails which had subject lines containing over 61 characters, actually had a higher open rate than those with less than 61 characters.

Of course, this provokes the question: how long is too long? Well, by using A/B/C tester emails you will be able to send newsletters out with subject lines of varying length, say 60, 100, and 140. Subsequently you will be able to view the open rate of each to see which was the most successful.

2. Keep them keen … but don’t cry wolf

However long your subject line is, it is important to generate curiosity. You want to give a taste of the goodies that your email contains. For example: ‘Try the Top Tool for Generating Great Content in 2016.’ For the subscriber to find out what this tool is, they have to open your email. Now, the important thing here is to ensure that you can provide the goods when the email is opened.

Click-bait has had its day, and brands are getting punished severely for using misleading titles to lure people in, only for them to be greeted with flat and uninspiring content. BuzzFeed are an example of a brand that provokes curiosity well, without being disingenuous. The Independent newspaper on Twitter, is an example of a brand getting it very wrong. If you cry wolf superfluously, no one will come when there really is something to shout about.

3. Don’t just think ‘How Many?’, but also ‘When?’

Many people say that the key with email marketing is to not send too many emails, just sporadically send a few really good ones. This is true to an extent, you do not want to irritate your recipients, and you do want to ensure each email contains worthwhile content.

However, there are times when it is worth upping the ante. It’s more common that recipients are most likely to open newsletters in the first week after subscribing. Make use of this, by sending a handful of top quality posts their way. It will also help them remember who you are.

February 6, 2016
Create Your Personal Health Record and Take Charge of Your Health

It’s not always easy to manage your own healthcare or that of a loved one. Between doctors’ appointments, lab and test results, and keeping track of prescription medications new and old, caring for your own health or that of a loved one can become overwhelming. But, just as technology is making all other aspects of our modern lives easier, it’s making this aspect of our lives easier too.

EHealth software can make juggling your healthcare responsibilities easier by helping you establish and maintain a personal health record (PHR). With the help of software or an app, you can create a detailed record of your own or a loved one’s health information that will allow you, and others involved in yours or your loved one’s care, to access the information they need when they need it, quickly and easily. Your PHR can become a valuable tool to help you maintain control over your own healthcare decisions, or those of a loved one who depends on you.

Simplify Your Medical Records

The biggest advantage of establishing a PHR is that it puts all of your medical records and crucial information in one place and in one easily navigable format. Instead of flipping through pages and pages of medical information written out the old-fashioned way, you’ll be able to quickly search through your medical history to find the information you need. Your PHR will serve as a complement to the medical records your providers are already maintaining about you. It will let you easily share your medical information with family members and caregivers who need it.

EHealth apps and software platforms often make things simpler and easier to manage by automatically backing up information to a secure cloud-based storage system, so that you don’t have to worry about losing your information. With one of these cloud-based systems, you or a designated advocate will be able to retrieve your information from any device.

Build Your PHR

Some people choose to maintain a PHR in an Excel spreadsheet or Word document that can be digitally stored and shared on a USB drive. However, these documents can become unwieldy, especially as your medical information becomes more expansive. A better option is to choose one of the many home healthcare software options available. A software program or app designed to help you create a PHR may allow you to compile information that you may want your healthcare providers to have access to, such as data about your sleep patterns or exercise habits, use of vitamins or over-the-counter medications, or family medical history.

These software platforms typically include tools to help you enter and update health information, monitor use of medications, and even track test results, insurance payments, and more. Many programs and apps include a Web portal that could allow you to contact your doctor with questions, schedule appointments, or refill prescriptions.

Help a Loved One

If you’re caring for a loved one, a PHR can be invaluable for helping you keep track of that person’s needs. It’s hard enough staying on top of your own care needs sometimes, not to mention keeping another person’s allergies, medication schedules, emergency contact information, and medical history straight.

A PHR allows you to keep track of an elderly parent’s or child’s medical information so that you can make sure he or she gets the medication he or she needs at the right times, makes it to his or her doctors’ appointments, and avoids potentially deadly allergens and other hazards. Some other common features might allow you to track blood pressure or blood glucose levels, access immunization records, and provide identifying information to make sure that home caregivers or emergency personnel who need to use the PHR are accessing the right information for the person they’re treating.

Whether you’re looking for a way to better manage your own healthcare, or need help balancing a loved one’s care, a PHR could be the answer. A PHR provides an electronic record of a person’s health history, medications, allergies, and other important data that you build and maintain yourself; it works alongside a physician’s electronic health record (EHR) to make sure that all caregivers and emergency personnel are on the same page. The information you collect in your PHR — or that of a loved one in your care — could make all the difference when it comes to yours or their health outcome, so take it seriously and make sure it is complete and up to date.

January 22, 2016