Setting up an email marketing campaign in Business Contact Manager 2007

How do I set up an email marketing campaign using Business Contact Manager?

Once you have opened Business Contact Manager here are the instructions to set up a marketing campaign:

1. Open your contacts database
2. Click on View on the menu bar at the top
3. Current View
4. Customize Current View
5. Click Filter and under the More Choices tab click on how you want to filter to leave just those you want to send the emarketing campaign to eg categories and select the category you require
6. Edit
7. Select All the contacts (Ctrl A)
8. Right click over those selected
9. Click on Create, New Marketing Campaigns Business (Contacts)
10. Complete the details eg Title, Start Date
11. Add in an email subject
12. Click on Create to enter in your email text and attach any documents
13. After you have finished click on Save and Close
14. Launch
15. The emails will be sent to your outbox and emailed out

Help for Heroes

What a day, we started unloading the cakes at 08:15 on a gloriously sunny morning on Saturday 13th March 2010.

We had cakes donated from The Upper Crust in Coleshill as well as the Acutec team. Richard from Coleshill Social Club donated a handmade Mothers' Day Cake and a Help for Heroes Cake which we raffled and raised just for those alone £160.

Pastries were donated from Somerfield in Coleshill.

Asda in Minworth generiously donated all the ingredients for 20 cakes to be made by Carole Doyle who was leading the event!

Carole and her team strategically positioned themselves by the bus stop in Coleshill at the entrance of The Croft where dear James (who we lost in Afghanistan in October 2008) and the rest of the boys would play till their hearts content after school and during their holidays.

PHOTO: Carole Doyle, Darilyn Buck (one of the boy's mums), Sue Witts and son Adam (who made some of the cakes ) and Keith Doyle.

It was the perfect location - next to a busy bus stop. So much so that as people came and went on the bus they bought CAKE and more CAKE, by 11:45am we had completely and I mean completely sold out!

WE RAISED an amazing £523.67 for Help for Heroes.

The Colossal Cake Sale will be an annual event and next year it will be bigger and better still.

Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day which is the international day of blogging to celebrate women in technology and science.

The idea is to write a blog post today about a woman that you admire in technology or science.

The Ada Lovelace website says that she wrote the world's first description of a computer and software, wrote the world's first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine.

To find out more about Ada Lovelace and the Ada Lovelace day, visit http://findingada.com

If you do write a blog post please do share the link to your post with us!

Automatic Resizing Windows in Windows 7

To enable automatic resizing of Windows in Windows 7 you will need to change some settings in the Control Panel.

Click Start.

Choose Control Panel.

Click on the Ease of Access Center.

Then select Make the mouse easier to use.

Make sure the 'Prevent Windows from being automatically arranged when moved' to the edge of the screen is not ticked.

Click on OK

Now when you open a window you can drag it. Click on the toolbar of the window, hold down the left mouse button and drag the window to the edge of the screen. Release and it will resize to cover just half of the screen. Really useful if you are working with two documents at the same time.

The State of Spam and Phishing Report

The State of Spam and Phishing Report by Symantec dated March 2010 shows a 16% rise in phishing attacks in February compared to the previous month.

The report also highlights that many phishing attacks happen when tragic events happen. Be wary of clicking on email messages claiming to be from charities. Do not complete forms, give out passwords or provide financial details.

http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/other_resources/b-state_of_spam_and_phishing_report_03-2010.en-us.pdf

Privacy Policies and Trust

A survey of 1,000 internet users shows that half do not trust the privacy policies on websites.

Internet users surveyed were between 18 and 82 and the survey also included unsolicited phone calls, unsolicited emails and privacy invasion.

Many are worried about identity theft.

The press release can be viewed at http://www.isg.rhul.ac.uk/node/366

E-mail is making you stupid

Joe Robinson, has written an article entitled "E-mail is Making You Stupid" and that constant e-mail interruptions could make you less productive and it could change the way our brains work. This is due to interruptions all the time and information overload.

In an article on www.entrepreneur.com, Basex, an IT research and consulting firm claims "the average information worker loses 2.1 hours or productivity every day from interruptions and distractions".

See the full article here http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2010/march/204980.htmljavascript:void(0)

IT Security Professionals are "recession-proof"

A new survey shows that IT security professionals are 'recession-proof'.

The global survey of 3,000 IT security professionals by ISC2.org (2010 Career Impact Survey) shows that more 52.8% received a salary increase in 2009 and 4.8% lost their jobs.

13% said they would be hiring 3 or more new permanent or contact employees in 2010. Many that took part in the survey and were hiring said it was difficult to find candidates with the right skills and level of experience.

The press release can be found at http://www.isc2.org/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?id=6102