The Savvy Networker

Plaxo e-cards: No Longer Useful

Well here's a marketing wiz wonder.  If you have a marketing niche that sets you apart from all the other companies that do the same kind of thing as you do ... do you maintain that advantage or do you give it up?

Plaxo used to have ecards that were sent directly to the recipient.  Actually, they were the ONLY service that did this.  All the other services would send a link to the card and your client or friend or family member would then have to click on the link or navigate to their site and then put in a code to pick up the card.  But Plaxo was different.  You could create a beautiful card and then click on send and the card went directly to your recipient.  Just that simple. 

But no longer.  Some braniac over at Plaxo decided it would be waaaaay better for the Plaxo site if people had to actually go to Plaxo to pick up the card.  Someone decided that it would increase their site traffic if all the recipients were forced to go to the Plaxo site.  Things that make you go "hmmmm?"  or maybe event "What?"

For the past 2 years, I have been telling everyone that they should get a Plaxo account so that they could use the ecard service.  Sadly, I can no longer recommend Plaxo e-cards as a way to follow up with your clients or as a way to stay in touch with your associates. 

I do hope that someone, somewhere will realize that there is a huge market out there waiting for this service to be available again.

I've googled in search of direct delivery e-cards and came up with no leads.  If someone out there knows of a service that provides direct to inbox graphical e-cards (no link, no access codes) please let me know.

Until then, handwritten cards are the way to go.

Making time for online networking

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date. I have no time, hello, goodbye...

Who among us does NOT feel this way?  And, yet, we must make time to say hello, goodbye and quite a lot in between, if we are to grow our network.

Professional organizers will share with you that it's all about systems and strategies.  You'll need to put systems in place to get yourself organized and then you need to have strategies in place to actually USE the systems that you've created.

Today, I want to share with you a concept that you can build a system and strategy around.  The system is one for follow up and for building relationships.

Take a moment to sit down and do a year end inventory of your most important relationships.  And for the sake of direction ... let's list out 10 of your current, primary, relative and important relationships.  You should know instinctively and without much prodding who these 10 important relationships/contacts are.  Go ahead and write them down.

Now, in looking over that list, take an inventory of your "staying in contact strategies" with each one.  When was the last time you talked to each person on your list?  When was the last time you sent them a card, an article, a referral?  When was the last time you visited their blog or website?  When was the last time you commented on their blog or website?  Do they have a social media presence?  Have you left them a testimonial or a comment?

With just these two simple exercises, you will have identified the people who are important to you and you will have identified the ways you are (or aren't) staying in contact with them.

What do you need to change?  What do you need to add?  What can you do to strengthen the ties between you and these 10? 

When you answer these questions, you will be refining your goals and then you can put systems in place to map out your strategy toward achieving those goals.

Tune in again soon for a follow up post that will showcase one way to tie this all together!