Donna M. Baxter - The Soul Sis Speaks

My business is a community website that promotes what’s happening in the African-American community in Pittsburgh. It’s called www.thesoulpitt.com.  I often have the opportunity to be a media sponsor for events or have a booth at events in my area. I came up with something we call “Soul Bags” and they are filled with special offers, flyers, business cards, announcements, samples and more from various businesses that visit The Soul Pitt website.

We put a call out to the 7,000 people on our list that tells them we are going to be at a particular event and we will have a booth or we will be handing out our bags at the door. We tell folks that we will be handing out a certain number of bags (we usually do between 100 to 500). We tell them to get their stuff in the bag for only $20 and we will hand it out to event attendees. Click here for a sample of the email blast that was sent to round up people for the bag. http://tinyurl.com/qwrnhx

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so if you’re at work all day, how are you able to check your email if your job doesn’t allow you to use the work computer for personal internet usage?  Well, you invest in a good smartphone! 

A smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities beyond a typical mobile phone.  You will be able to check your emails, send twitters, view webpages, update facebook (of course all done on your breaks or lunch hour) 

I am on a mission to trade in my T-Mobile Dash smartphone that I currently use for the new T-Mobile G1 phone with Google that you see pictured because of it’s nice web surfing capabilities.  If you don’t have T-Mobile, you can get this phone for under $100 at the link I have provided.  Otherwise, if you are a current customer, you’ll have to shell out over $300!  Read the rest of this entry »

So you have an online business that is doing so-so, but not good enough that you can quit your day job.  Furthermore, for some of us, quitting our job is not an option or it is not something that we want to do right now. This could be for various reasons like health insurance, money, timing, etc. So in the meantime, you have to learn what it takes to manage both – without breaking company rules. It takes a lot more than just being organized – you also need a good plan and the right tools! These are just a few things I recommend you do or invest in to successfully manage having to go to a 9 to 5 job every day and running a business online without going insane. Read the rest of this entry »

My story to how I became a Webpreneur amazes me, as I never planned to become one  (I’ll go into detail on that in a later post that tells my story).  Once I saw that I could make money online on the side, I decided to really focus on increasing that income.   Read the rest of this entry »

I am surprised that you don’t see more catchy promotions online or off for Friday 13th.  It’s a day that the superstitious dread (The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia), but it may be a good day to reach out to your customers in a creative way.  Also, if you miss one Friday 13th, such as today’s (Feb 13th, 2009) there is another opportunity on March 13th, 2009.  What catching marketing/promotional ideas can you come up with to target customers & clients on a Friday the 13th?  I would love to see what you come up with!

If You’re Most Famous for Something Bad, How do You Make it All Good? Here is a photo of me in my hometown Johnstown PA, standing in front of city hall. Unfortunately, Johnstown is most famous for its three floods. I am pointing up above my head at one of 3 High water makers that shows just how high the water level got to during the 1977 Johnstown flood. Click pic for larger view.

Today, the stories of that tragedy, told in-depth by the Johnstown Flood National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood Museum, still are the “hooks” that draw visitors to Johnstown, a town of 24,000 that’s about 90 minutes southeast of Pittsburgh.

Part of Johnstown’s comeback — after the floods that earned it the moniker of “The Flood City” and its other major disaster, which was the closing of the Bethlehem Steel mills — is based on tourism. Read the rest of this entry »