Editor's letter,

Chanuka Sameach! Chanuka is well on its way, and hopefully you're enjoying the fresh fried tastes of latkes/levivot and donuts/sufganiot. Well, hopefully you're not enjoying it too much...

You know the saying "The shoemaker is barefoot?" Well, we at illuminea manage a number of e-newsletter campaigns for clients, and promote this medium strongly as a low-cost and effective way to retain and win clients. And yet, embarassingly, until now we haven't practiced what we preach! We are now repenting and would like to welcome you to the first edition of illuminea news!

illuminea news will focus on news and information that is useful to your business in general, and business in Israel in particular. We will look at free tools, and publish articles on business management, marketing, development, and more!

We hope you enjoy, and we would love to get feedback from you - what you liked, didn't like, and what you would like us to write about. In the meantime, thanks for reading and enjoy!

Miriam Schwab

illuminea's blogging!

On Nov. 23, 2006, at precisely 9:48 am, we started our corporate blog, illuminea blog. The blog discusses issues related to small businesses in general, and in Israel in particular. We have a regular "Cool Tool" feature that reviews online, generally free tools that can help you in your business. In addition, we discuss tips and tricks that can help you increase sales, retain clients, and provide motivation.

Why did we start a blog? Many bloggers claim that maintaining a blog can contribute to the success of your company in the following ways:

• Increase web traffic to your site
• Present you as an expert in your field
• Provide a good networking tool

So far, it seems that these bloggers are correct. This is an experiment in progress, and I hope to keep you updated as we go along.

In the meantime, I'm having a great time writing, and I really hope you're enjoying. You can subscribe to the blog via RSS or our email updates to keep up-to-date on the latest posts. Feel free to drop us a line or submit a comment!
Go to illuminea blog...

Most popular blog posts

illuminea blog is based on the Wordpress blogging platform, and thanks to a very useful plugin, we can monitor which posts are the most popular among our readers. Here are the most popular posts of the past two weeks:

• Using an e-newsletter to grow your business, part 1, part 2, and part 3
  E-newsletters are a low-cost and effective way to retain clients, and even win new ones. In this three-part series, we discuss the benefits of a regular e-newsletter campaign, what you should write about, and provide 5 steps to creating an effective e-newsletter campaign. Read more...
• Cool Tool: Zoho Planner - Every to do has its place
  Managers have so many things to keep track of, that sometimes things can spiral out of control. Zoho Planner is a really useful task manager that allows you to categorize and filter your to dos into useful lists and pages. And it's free too! Read more...

Useful links

• If you run an email marketing campaign, you may be aware that your subject line plays in important role in affecting the click-through rate of your readers. A recent study by ReturnPath found that shorter subject lines are more effective. Click-through rates for subject lines with 49 or fewer characters were 75 percent higher than for those with 50 or more.
• 101 Fabulous Freebies - this is a great list of 100 free tools put together by PC World.
• The Psychology of Free - we all like to get free things, but did you ever think about the fact that giving away free things is also worthwhile? Learn why giving away freebies is a good investment in the future of your business.

illuminea provides English content services to Israeli businesses for marketing and development purposes. Our services include content for web sites, brochures, newsletters, presentations, and more.

illuminea also maintains a blog dedicated to the challenges and satisfactions of running a small business in general, and in Israel in particular. Take a look at illuminea blog here.