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Time Management and Keeping Things on Track

I’ve been thinking about the multi-tasking post on this blog and how I handle (or not) working on multiple projects. Quite often I’ll find myself dreaming about some new project to work on and before you know it I’ve either started researching or implementing something. Then I sort of wake up and realise I’m wasting my time since I’m not working on my main money earning projects.

One of the biggest problems I find with beginning to research things is that curiosity gets the better of me so that I keep coming back to the same distractions again and again, ending up with more and more reasons to divert from my main projects.

One of the biggest time-wasters I indulge in is SEO. Trying to build links can often turn into a big pit of wasted time. Going onto  forums to get a few more sig links can end up wasting hours if I’m not careful. I’ve never been good at managing the time I spend doing SEO.

Being human, I realise that I can’t concentrate on a single thing all the time. However, maybe I need to think about non-software related items when I’m bored so that at least I won’t end up with too many projects in progress.

So, my belated New Year’s resolutions:-

  1. Spend less time working, so I’m less likely to be bored/ jaded when trying to knuckle down
  2. Waste less time working on speculative projects
  3. When I do research, confine myself to things related to those projects that already earn me money
2010 03 04 MikeL Motivation + Multi tasking Comments (1) Permalink

How do you multi task with multiple project?

Yep, I’ve added a new category to this blog, Motivation + Multi Tasking.

At the moment I’ve got tonnes of work I want to do and not enough time to do it in, although my deadlines are fairly flexible, I still want to get stuff done as soon as possible due to profitability.

Last week I couldn’t do that much I was on child care duty with the school mid term break. At the weekend I was reading a marketing book, which I only got half read. During the week I’m reading a software development book on a new language, for me.

I’ve also got a couple of projects which are about 90% complete where I need to regroup and plan out how to finish them.

I had been reading the development book solidly for over a week before the break and I was worried I’d forget stuff after a week, but I didn’t. I’m thinking I might continue with the marketing book today. But I’d rather be doing the development book.

I do a little work in the evenings but I like to spend time with my family, I guess I could sit up late, but I’m always so tired. If only there were more hours in the day and I could use them

by JM

2010 02 23 Dipsy Motivation + Multi tasking Comments (1) Permalink

Spam, spam and more spam

Not sure what’s going on in the last few weeks but the number of submissions on all of my sites has dropped. The drop isn’t drastic, but what’s more worrying is that the percentage of spam submissions has increased dramatically. I now end up rejecting 40 to 50% of submissions.

There seem to be a large number of sites/ blogs using free dvd converter packages for submission purposes. There are also an increasing number of other software download sites using similar programs to make submissions. Also, I’ve noticed a raft of new download sites being created with random names, like s666.info. This happened some years ago in the general web directory arena and resulted in the whole sector being devalued. I hope software download sites aren’t going the same way. Even if you aren’t worried too much about dubious submissions – content is content after all – since the majority of the submissions use very nearly the same text, it doesn’t take long to rack up a hundred or more pages with virtually identical content.

2010 02 21 MikeL Tech Talk Comments (5) Permalink

Useful customer data

Since I’ve been looking at newsletters and customer engagement, its become apparent that I need to know more about my customers and potential customers.

I was just considering one of my projects however, it makes sense to consider other projects which might benefit.

About a year ago Blue convinced me that I should ask potential customers for their email addresses, I didn’t do this via my website, but I asked people at the start of my software.

Then as now, I don’t believe people would create an account on my website, just to download my software.

I was just about to say, I don’t see how to move forward and to build on and improve my website, without analysing customer trends etc. But of course thats what analytics is for, I can look at the features provided and make decisions from there.

This still leaves me with questions to answer, about what information will be useful. Unlike a lot of online businesses I have two marketing venues, my site and my software.

I guess I can leave my site to analytics, maybe get some help to understand whats actually going on from the stats.

For my software, I guess I need to collect the same information or at least try and figure out what will be useful and what I can engage the customer with to help conversion. But nonetheless the same type of information that analytics collects.

by JM

2010 02 20 Dipsy Marketing Comments (4) Permalink

Development of a customer engagment system part 4

Program Design

If you’ve been following me on twitter you’ll know I’ve been researching newsletters. Obviously a lot of the information out there is very generalised and its taken me a little time to reflect and digest.

For a number of years I’ve been collecting uninstall information, basic data which hasn’t really helped me at all. When I first started collecting, I guess I must have heard mention of others collecting. But I’ve never joined the dot, yeah I’ve seen some patterns but not looked at the data from an individual perspective.

Anyways, during my research I’ve found that sending newsletters needs to fine tuned so that you maximize the relevance and get to know your customers or potential customers.

So if I link the newsletter subscription with the uninstall data I could contact the potential customer and turn it into a sale. I’ll have some information, maybe they couldn’t install the program, maybe they couldn’t print etc.

During my research I began to think that the setup of my setup was flawed as it was developed to send interval emails, not news. But I can do both depending on the circumstance.

I dont think it will be possible to produce glossy html emails with nice photos at this stage, but I should be able to produce relevant content which seems to be key. Also several different type of emails depending on data.

by JM

2010 02 20 Dipsy Marketing Comments (0) Permalink

Campaign vs Monthly Newsletters

I haven’t actually worked directly on my customer engagement system today. Although I have done a lot of research into the actual newsletters and what I could include, I mean the ideas not actual content.

I’ve found a lot of good advice.

However, I haven’t read anything about campaign newsletters. I haven’t searched for that, I searched on newsletters and didn’t see any mention of campaign newsletters.

This has surprised me, I didn’t consider sending monthly emails.

When I say campaign newsletters I mean, newsletters sent out at intervals since the person subscribed. I intended the full campaign to be a long sales pitch.

However, I feel an opportunity would be lost if I didn’t talk about features and improvements in new versions / releases. Having said that when I do regularly release new versions, they wouldn’t be monthly.

So I guess I’ve answered my own question.

by JM

2010 02 18 Dipsy Marketing Comments (0) Permalink

Development of a customer engagment system part 3

Well there hasn’t been much effort put into this third part of the development. I’ve added my smtp class and I’ve found my previous html email source files, which contains smtp header information.

I’ve sent some test emails and have proven that I can send html emails.

Also I’ve created a new folder for email template files which will correspond to the names of the files in the database.

Only really taken me an hour over the course of the day, the most time consuming part was finding the code (used previously) and the html email source file.

So I’ve kind of done all the development, I think. Oh with the exception of logging emails sent.

Later in the development, I’ll be discussing how not to get your emails tagged as spam.

So I’ve done all the fun stuff, I now need to decide what emails I’ll send to people and at what interval. I guess this is going to a learning process and the content, interval and how many emails I send will change with my experience.

At the moment theres going to be two types of emails I’ll send, A) to newsletter subscribers and B) customers who’ve just bought the program.

I suppose it would be a good idea to try and establish my aims for sending the emails and the basic points I want to get across.

A) Newsletter

– I want to encourage people to buy my software.
– I’ll need to portray quality and confidence in the product and in my company.
– Sell them the benefits of the program.
– Tell them that they get a free pack
– I guess I want to have purpose in why I’ve sent them another email.

I’m not sure how I would split this up into a number of emails and if I’d change the message I’m trying to get across in each ?

B) New customers

– I don’t get a lot of emails, but this is the most common response I have to make, that they can get a free jungle pack, that they have to send me their serial number and where to find the serial number etc.
– I guess I want to welcome them as a customer and thank them for their purchase, from what I’ve read in the past this is much appreciated by customers.
– I want to put a personal touch into the email.
– I also want to sell them more mask packs, maybe an email for each ?
– Tell them about features they haven’t already seen.
– Let them know how they can get help and what they should do if they have a problem. I guess that should be part of the first email. I want to encourage them to contact me and get help, rather than charge back to their credit card.
– So I guess getting past a period where they could get a refund is important.
– After this period, maybe sooner, I guess I can ask for feedback and comments.

I’ve no idea how I would split those up?

Any suggestions about further content ?

by JM

2010 02 17 Dipsy Marketing Comments (2) Permalink

Why I think Experts Exchange is well worth the money

I had a discussion with Blue several months ago and he was shocked, he’d paid for a year upfront and found he wasn’t using it very much and had difficulty getting some money back, if he got any money back at all.

EE is like RentACoder its all about knowing how things work and asking the right questions. Most importantly, where possible ask the question and make the subject of the posting as simple as possible. The subject is all experts or coder will see in most cases before they decide whether to look further.

Again mentioning Blue, his boss(es) at work encourage him to keep up with, what start out as, technical hobbies. EE experts do the same, they love to show their technical muscles and improve their knowledge. Who knows their bosses may encourage them too.

Apart from the knowledge they obtain through looking at problems and building their knowledge everyday, there’s also a leader board. The expert with the best score gets sage rating, I think that the top rating, I maybe be wrong.

I pay monthly, back in 2008 or maybe 2007, I cancelled my membership and since then have been quiet months. I think it works out as about £7 a month.

In the last few days I must have received answers for 5 or6 questions and its helped my productivity no end.

Normally on EE I think the approved approach is to get guidance and advice where your given an answer and the expert doesn’t do the work for you. Some experts work to this rule and believe that you need to do your own work. I kind of see their point, I guess that’s what RentACoder is for.

However, I tend to start out asking for sample code, sometimes in my posting subject. Therefore experts know what I’m expecting.

In almost all cases I get an answer within an hour. As I say keep your subject simple where possible.

Another important point, is to try and show that you’ve done some work to find the answer. I find posting my code helps. Experts see that you’ve genuinely tried to find a solution and it boosts their egos further that they can push your code aside and show they are the experts 🙂 Well perhaps 😉

If you find yourself not developing your projects then’s the time to pause your membership. But you need to pay monthly to do this.

by JM

2010 02 17 Dipsy Tech Talk Comments (1) Permalink

Development of a customer engagment system part 2

I’ve spent a few hours today, with kids TV blaring in the background, designing a database and writing the data access functions.

The key to a simple database, which uses two tables, is a date field which I call “Do Not Email Before” which signifies the earliest date when an email can be sent, I added this to my customers table. This allows for now sending email everyday.

And in my email templates table, I have a field which holds a value for the interval in days before sending the next email.

Quite a simple design and only a few fields to acheive this, which I’m quite proud of.

Next, to minimise the need for a log of emails sent, I’m going to see if its possible to create html email content from vb.net and have the email created within outlook and added to the sent items folder. I’m hoping this can be done with mapi and in the background.

by JM

2010 02 16 Dipsy Marketing Comments (3) Permalink

Development of a customer engagment system part 1

Well with it being the school half term holiday I’ve not been able to do anything too complicated or be at my desktop. However, I have managed to spend some time on my laptop.

I’ve developed some vba functions for outlook which run in-conjunction with outlook rules.

So I now have all my K program newsletter subscription emails in a database and any new subscriptions will also get added. Also, my K program sales confirmation emails.

In the next part I intend to write a small VB.Net application which will use some email data files, in a specific folder.

I’ll have some records saying at what interval these emails should be sent. The program will get called by system agent at a set time of day. I guess I need to plan this a little first.

Thoughts ?

By JM

2010 02 16 Dipsy Marketing Comments (2) Permalink