Skimming through my email inbox, I realized that those emails from unknown addresses that I am most unlikely to open are the ones where the address is one using gmail, hotmail, aol, sbcglobal, etc.

Even if the subject line looks interesting, I usually do not open these emails.

Why?

Because I do not trust someone for business purposes who has not made the small effort to get a professional email address.

Now I am not saying that the person must have a website that accompanies this email address. For example, my husband has a professional email address for his legal practice without an accompanying website. (He does, though, have an educational website with an accompanying email address.)

I am saying that a business person should have a professional email. And it is even more helpful if the email address provides a clue to the person’s business. (My husband’s legal practice email does this.)

And if you have a website for your business and do not use an email associated with that website, you are hindering your professional image plus losing out on free marketing.

When I get a professional email from someone I do not know, I often go to the domain name of that email to check out the person’s website. In other words, that professional email was free advertising for the person’s website URL.

If you are a business person without a professional email – and without a website whose domain name you could use for a professional email – consider getting a professional email immediately.

You can obtain this through those online companies that sell domain names.

Do, though, give some thought to the domain name you get for your professional email.

You want it to be connected to your business, not difficult to spell (do you know how many different ways people spell my first name of Phyllis?), and one that, if you do not currently have a website. will be appropriate for your business website in the future.

If you do get a professional email after reading this blog post, send me a message at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com using it.

I’d like to see what you have chosen to get.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which is now WBENC certified.

Visit Phyllis’ Google Plus profile.

Check out Phyllis’ books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

I recently wrote the blog post “7 Ways Moving Is Like Online Marketing” and I’m sitting at my computer contemplating a sequel to that post.

In the sequel I would like to include more insights I have learned over the intervening time between the two posts.

Yet what I most want to write about is how, no matter how much planning you do, you cannot always control what happens.

I have spent hours trying to donate an office desk and matching credenza to a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles. It appears that I am unlikely to be successful in this endeavor. This means I will have to pay GotJunk.com to remove the items even though someone could use these.

Now I’m faced with the decision of whether to keep plugging (translation: spend more of my time) trying to find a nonprofit to take the office furniture. Or do I admit this project is not the most productive use of my time and pay for someone to solve the issue for me?

The same decision-making process is required when determining which online marketing projects are worth the time, effort and frustration to be done by you or instead by someone you hire to do these projects for you.

I spoke to a prospective social media client who told me he had to run a business and, therefore, could not take the few minutes a couple of times a day to participate on Twitter.

I repeated that I was only talking about a few minutes a day – maybe a couple of times when he took a short break for coffee or whatever.

This second time he actually heard what I said and began to understand I was not suggesting a commitment of two hours a day.

It is at least worth his taking the time to further explore this topic of Twitter participation before making a decision because Twitter used strategically can help him promote his business.

On the other hand, perhaps I should spend the money to have the office furniture picked up by GotJunk.com rather than spend more of my time trying to find a nonprofit organization who wants the furniture.

Oh, well, I’ll go accept more invites on LinkedIn or find some great links to retweet on Twitter while I ponder “to do or not to do — that is the question.”

© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which helps clients effectively use social media and other online marketing strategies and has just received WBENC certification.

Visit Phyllis’ Google Plus profile.

Check out Phyllis’ books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

Children’s book author Susan Chodakiewitz got an email from the iTunes Store that announced in part:

The latest version of iBooks is now available. iBooks 2 has the following new features:

• Multi-Touch books and textbooks designed for iPad, with interactive features, diagrams, photos, and videos.

• Images with interactive captions, rotating 3D objects, swipe-through image galleries, full-screen videos, and more.

• Study Cards to help you memorize important highlights, notes, and glossary terms.

• Glossary terms to see definitions of key topics and concepts without leaving the page.

iBooks Author

Now anyone can create stunning textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad. All you need is an idea and a Mac.
Start with one of the Apple-designed templates that feature a wide variety of page layouts. Add your own text and images with drag-and-drop ease. Use Multi-Touch widgets to include interactive photo galleries, movies, Keynote presentations, 3D objects, and more. Preview your book on your iPad at any time.

Then submit your finished work to the iBookstore with a few simple steps, and before you know it, you’re a published author.

Wow! More opportunities as well as more confusion for book authors.

And whether you find this an opportunity or a headache, Apple’s iBooks Author does change the world of book publishing once again.

Business owner’s perspective on this new frontier

From a business owner’s perspective, it is now even easier to produce an ebook if you have access to a Mac. But there is a downside to this ease of publishing.

How can you convince your prospective clients or customers that your self-published book about your expertise is valuable when anyone else could create a similar book?

One way to make your ebook stands out is to make sure that there are as few spelling errors and typos as possible. This means for most people hiring a professional editor to catch these problems.

Then you can demonstrate the value of your ebook by offering a free chapter (hopefully with no errors) that showcases your information and the accessibility of your writing style.

Keeping up with the changes in ebooks and publishing

The site ebookfriendly.com features a one-stop page to get news from leading ebook sites. Visit this page now if you want to read more about ebook news.

And then consider where you want to be in this new frontier of ebook publishing.

© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which helps clients effectively use social media and other online marketing strategies.

Visit Phyllis’ Google Plus profile.

Check out Phyllis’ books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

I spoke to yet another prospective book author who thought her idea for a book could be very successful. At the same time she explained that, in order to save money, she had built her professional website from a template and had only hosted blogs.

Now the truth is that an author can get effective marketing online for free — if that author is willing to put in the time and effort learning as much as possible about effective websites, blogging and social media sites.

Here is part of the email I wrote to this prospective book author:

I was going to start off this email by saying that today anyone who wants a book published — whether traditionally or self-published — has to be truly committed to the success of the project — there’s no way to dip only one toe into the process.

Then on Twitter, BookBuzzr.com just retweeted the link to a blog post I wrote for that site — http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/book-authors-need-a-dedicated-website-for-their-books/ — and this is a good post for you to read rather than my explaining this to you now.

The same “truth” holds true for any business owner using online marketing to promote his or her products and services. You must be truly committed – dipping only one toe into the world of online marketing is not a realistic test.

Recently at a Los Angeles networking event, a publicist told me she was pleased to meet someone who worked with book authors. She said book authors often called her about publicity campaigns although they usually did not want to spend any money on those campaigns.

While it is true that there are many things you can get for nothing, you often get nothing without the investment of money and time into projects in which you believe. (Remember the cautionary saying “you get what you pay for”?)

The question remains for everyone standing on the brink of utilizing online marketing tools to promote products and services:

Are you truly committed to taking the plunge, learning as much as possible, putting in the effort, and staying with strategic online marketing over the long haul?

© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which helps clients effectively use social media and other online marketing strategies.

Visit Phyllis’ Google Plus profile.

Check out Phyllis’ books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

The January 9th issue of The New Yorker has an ad from the Columbia University School of Continuing Education that begins:

Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine

The care of the sick unfolds in stories. The effective practice of healthcare requires the narrative competence to recognize, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and experiences of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence is a model for humane and effective healthcare.

The word “narrative” in the headline is what got me to read the ad. At first the whole idea of such a graduate program surprised me, and then on second thought this made sense.

A couple of years ago I faithfully watched the TV show “House.” On this TV drama a main plot point of each episode was that the patient, either purposely or accidentally, did not tell the doctors the one piece of information needed to solve the patient’s medical problem. The narrative of each episode dealt with the doctors discovering that one vital piece of information.

(And I know the true story of a resident (the grandson of friends) who saved a patient from major unneeded surgery. The day before the surgery the resident had a conversation with the patient about non-medical changes in his life in the past year. The resident learned that the patient had given up his bedroom to his aging mother and moved into the attic. The resident realized that the patient was very allergic to something in the attic and did not need the planned surgery.)

Why am I going on and on about narrative stories?

Because all of us business owners have stories to tell about our products and services – true stories that help prospective customers and clients connect to us.

Often we do not share these stories with our prospective customers and clients because the stories are so familiar to us. Yet these stories are not familiar to our target audiences.

Perhaps business owners need to take a course in narrative storytelling for business. We could learn how to convey via our websites, blogs and social media participation what our businesses are about and how our products and services help the people who need these.

Now that’s an idea. My business partner, Yael K. Miller, who majored in English at the University of Pennsylvania, says she spent four years studying story.

Let us know if you would be interested in a webinar on “Telling the Story of Your Business.”

Email me at pzmiller@millermosaicllc.com

© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which helps clients effectively use social media and other online marketing strategies.

Visit Phyllis’ Google Plus profile.

Check out Phyllis’ books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com