Hi everyone
Earlier it was announced that Congress had rejected the Wall St Bailout. And sharemarkets around the world crashed. The Nasdaq was down just over 9% in a few hours.
What does it all mean for us?
First, money will be very tight so make sure you have access to enough cash to see you through in the next 12 months. Have a few options up your sleeve just in case your banker gets a little nervous and decides to no longer provide you with the funding you need. Talk to other banks and have a store of ready cash handy.
It will get worse before it gets better so don’t even think about riding out the storm. It will be a long wait and you just might drown.
Think twice about any major expenditure right now. Access to cash is going to be critical. The banks will certainly be getting very careful about the loans they make in the coming months.
I agree with many commentators who suggest that the system in Australia is better controlled but it will not save us from the economic fallout. It will probably be less than what the Americans experience but it will be felt.
China is still predicting about 8% growth and that will certainly help our economy. But I wonder about the state of their banking system. It is relatively new and was established in the boom times. Do they have the rigorous regulation in place to ensure the soundness of their banking system? I’ve not read much about that and there is a little warning bell in the back of my mind. Then again, perhaps I’m too cynical.
For now, batten down the hatches, don’t be too adventurous and take your bank manager out to a very nice lunch.
Cheers
Hi
I’m doing lots of work on fine tuning our metrics for online marketing.
What I really love about online marketing is that you can measure everything. But the trouble is you need to sort out what the key measures are to help work out what makes money and wha doesn’t.
So we’ve come from not being able to get the metrics we want to being overloaded with numbers that don’t make a lot of sense.
And the next job is to put together a simple report that doesn’t take forever to compile and tells the story at a glance. It’s a huge balancing act.
I’ve come across lots of resources, so that’s good. Now to reduce the complexity to simplicity. That’s hard.
And then working out the benchmarks is the next step. What is a good open rate? What should be the target for bounce rates? How many unique visitors should I aim for?
I know that there are lots of variables to consider in answering these questions. The trouble with online is that it’s all very new and most people are still sorting their way through the maze of numbers.
We are constantly improving out metrics and you should be doing that as well. The better you measure the better the results from your campaigns.
I’ll keep you posted on how we progress. I’d love to hear how you are managing your metrics.
Gail Geronimos
Hi everyone
I was in Europe for 7 weeks, longest holiday since I started my business. It was great. It went from the sublimely relaxing to extreme mountain stuff. The Austrians call it walking but it went far beyond that in my book. We were in the Alps between Austria and Italy. I’ve climbed mountains in this region a few years ago but this was harder!
When we climbed we were roped up so if I fell I’d be OK. On this so called ‘walk’ over the mountains there was no rope and it got veeeery dangerous. I can tell you from first hand experience that fear does overcome exhaustion! It was 12 hours a day, up and down the mountains (max altitude was 2,450 metres) mostly above the tree line, sleeping in the huts (they are great) and then on our way early next morning.
But the scenary was just magnificant - from the high peaks, to alpine meadows, to dense forests and the wildflowers were endless in colour and variety. So the rewards were there.
Now to the economy…
The ‘relaxing part’ was spent in Sperl Cafe (Vienna) reading the papers and eating too much of that freshly baked Austrian cake.
The papers are full of doom and gloom, much more so than in Australia. The Georgia situation has re-ignited very negative feelings about Russia. That hasn’t helped. Perhaps the mood is best summed up by a comment from an equity investor that I met, ‘I’m advising my clients and colleagues to buy gold. Not the shares but actual gold. Even though prices may go down I still think that they’d be better off in the longer term.’
With a US election in November and the uncertainty in Europe we all need to monitor the implications for the Australian economy. This will impact on both business and personal financial positions. My advice, read the Financial Review and the more reputable commentators in the next 6 months. You might just save some money.
Cheers
Last month I got a renewal notice for our security certificate for our website, and I thought ok, we are up for another $15, no problems right? Wrong. It’s now $85 to renew! At no time during that initial sign up process did they mention that 1 year fee is significantly less than subsequent year fees. I mean imagine if they had credit cards where you have a significantly smaller interest rate the first period than subsequent periods? Or imagine if they had printers where the ink costs more than the whole printer.. oh wait. That actually happens…
Anyway after letting that experience digest, I went to renew a domain name today, and again the price to renew is more than the initial price. What is worse is that they tried to get me to buy another domain name in the 4 pages of upselling before I was allowed to press “submit” and the price to buy the new domain was half the price of my renewal order.More and more I felt ripped off for renewal for such a high price.
So, the lesson for today - check to see what the renewal fees for SSL and domain names before you order. If you can’t find any information about it, then contact them and don’t order until you know for sure. Chances are the reason the information is not readily available is because it will be a lot higher than the initial fee.