Putting Personality into Your Website
People visit your website for the content. So, ideally, you're giving them content that's timely, relevant, and useful (and sometimes even entertaining). Deliver and present that content to readers in a professional manner and you have yourself a winning newsletter. Well, almost. Most of you have competitors. There's no reason why they can't publish valuable content, too. In fact, it takes considerable skill, innovation, and effort to stand out through content alone (just ask those who've managed it). Injecting personality into your publication is one way to give yourself a little edge in the battle for the hearts and minds of the market. You're probably using your newsletter to "build long-term relationships and a better rapport with customers or prospects.” Valuable content is the foundation on which this is based. Personality is the icing on the content cake. A little dose of personality helps build that reader rapport and adds uniqueness to your publication; it's something competitors can't copy so easily.The right personality can also complement the image of your brand, products, services, or company, essentially reinforcing whatever impression or message you're trying to communicate. This is all well and good, but what is this personality? No doubt there are various dictionary definitions, but I prefer to think of it like this: If content is what you say, then personality is how you say it. It's the sum of all the distinctive characteristics that makes your website’s voice and writing unique: your style, tone, humor, emotion, vocabulary, attitude and more.So how do you give your website the right dose of the right personality? Think of your website as a one-on-one conversation. Just imagine sitting in a coffee shop talking informally with a customer. That's the starting point for your approach—a more personable and appropriate "human" voice will come naturally. When you picture the coffee shop scenario, you quickly see how inappropriate (not to say ridiculous) some of the more traditional styles of customer communication can sound on a website. Drop the jargon, drop the sales pitch, be as honest as you can, and talk like a human being. Refreshing idea, isn't it?The personality of the writing itself needs to gel with the other elements of the

Healthcare Branding & Marketing: Do Blogs Fit In?
Health care marketing and strategic positioning are not an activities that manipulate the intrinsic properties of a product or service. Instead, positioning is a process by which you influence a consumer’s opinion of the value of a product or service relative to its competition. The main goal of strategic positioning is to differentiate an organization from other similar organizations within the market. Then the organization must monopolize on those differences to gain a competitive advantage over others.Deciding on a positioning strategy for a health care organization requires that administration:examine the strengths and weaknesses of the competition, communicate and listen to clinical staff regarding perceived internal strengths and weaknesses listen to customers desires, needs and wants.From there, we can begin to understand the possibilities for changing customer perceptions of an organization in order to improve customer loyalty and probability that a customer will utilize an organization’s services.Corporate branding is a method health care organizations can use to differentiate themselves from competitors. The branding process is more that selecting corporate names, logos or advertising tag lines. Instead, it is structured business process that is planned, strategically focused and integrated throughout the organization.At its very heart, the branding process is designed to create an emotional, rational and community image of an organization within the mind of the consumer that allows him or her to rank the value of an organization and their services against those of competitors.We know that insurance contracts are important to a healthcare organization, but ultimately it is the patient that must be convinced to choose a service provider. What is important to them? A provider that cares and who well versed in the “Art of Medicine”. Also they want to be cared for by organizations/people who practice the best, research supported, cutting-edge medicine.While the informal and personal tone of the blogosphere, to date, has been identified as a risk of a healthcare organization starting a blog, there is the very real possibility that these very traits of blogs could play well into

Credit Card Payments Increasing? Advice for Consolidating Debt with an Equity Loan & Second Mortgage
Over the past few years, low minimum payback rates of between 2 and 2.5% have encouraged Americans to rack up an average credit card debt of close to $10,000 per household. "People are now in a revolving debt cycle that they'll never escape," says Adam Brauer, a debtor advocate and in-house counsel for Debt Settlement USA in Scottsdale, Arizona. "So the government nudged credit card companies into saying, 'This isn't working.'"Regulators with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency began pressuring card issuers to raise minimum monthly payments. On top of that, the newly enacted Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 now requires credit card companies to post a warning on monthly statements that notifies consumers about how long they'll be in debt if they make only minimum payments. The new law for minimum payments went into effect at the end of 2005, and several credit card companies have already doubled their minimum monthly payments from 2% to 4%.While the new law is designed to get people out of debt faster, some people whose finances are already stretched thin find the rate hikes to be too much to bear. "If you're living paycheck to paycheck and your minimum payment goes from $200 to $275, spread over five cards, that's an extra $375 a month," says Brauer. "A lot of families can't come up with that." Faced with higher interest rates and tougher bankruptcy laws, consumers are wondering what their equity loan options are.If you now have bad credit due to the new law, you could go through a debt-counseling program, but that will damage your credit further. If you are a homeowner, you may want to consider a debt consolidation loan through a mortgage refinance or home equity loan (second mortgage) because it will not only reduce your debt, but you also may get a 100% tax deduction on the interest you pay on your loan. With interest rates rising, it is probably best to secure mortgage refinancing with a fixed interest rate or, if the rate on your existing mortgage is low, get a second mortgage to consolidate your credit card debt. The rates will be much lower than those of your credit cards and other loans, and you'll enjoy the piece of mind of having your debts under control with a simple interest loan.

Home Insurance - Getting Better Coverage Without Paying More
There are few things in this life that are really more important than your home. However, statistics have it that over 60% of homes in the US are really under-insured. I really don't think that your home insurance is the place to cut corners. But we also know that money is an issue here. Therefore, I'll show you how you can get better coverage without paying a cent more than you're already doing.First, this will require about 30 minutes of your time. However, you could save hundreds of dollars. Now, what I'm going to show you is really nothing new but it's the way you go about it that's really different...You've heard of home insurance quotes and comparison sites. Yes, we'll make use of them in this process. You know that all you do is fill a short form and then they'll return quotes from about five insurance companies. Now that's the problem!Are there only five insurance companies that provide insurance services to your state? So what about the others? How do you know what they offer? What if you have not received quotes from insurers that truly offer you the best price value?So here's the remedy: Visit as many home insurance quotes and comparison sites. The companies that are omitted by site A will likely be covered by sites B, C, D or E.If you do this well. That is, making sure you input exactly the same information in each of these home insurance quotes sites, you'll have many more quotes from a wider range of insurance companies.That way, you'd have increased dramatically your chances of getting more massive savings. Try this for a superior coverage and you'll be surprised that you'll find an insurance company that requires less for such coverage.

Questions You Should Be Asking Of Your Potential LMS Vendors - But Likely Are Not
What’s missing from your LMS RFP? If you have been involved in sourcing or researching Learning Management System vendors in the past few years, you may have noticed that your functionality spreadsheets and RFI responses all look the same. If you think about it, this makes sense. Now that the number of vendors in this space has gotten closer to reaching earthly proportions, you would expect all vendors to meet the common requirements. Your task at this point, to narrow the field or identify a clear leader becomes quite difficult. It’s your responsibility to not only spend your company’s money wisely but also to put the right software behind the objectives.Here are some tough questions that are not asked often enough of vendors. Some of them may make your salesperson squirm, but in the end will help you be more confident in your decision and avoid all-to-common pitfalls. This list should not be used verbatim nor is it intended to be complete. Pick the questions that are important to you and add them as you see fit. Most of all, keep a sharp eye out for candid responses. The vendors who are forthcoming with this information are one’s that deserve serious consideration.What Post Implementation Costs Will We Potentially Incur? Some vendors report as much as 65% of annual revenue from professional services. Why should this alarm you? Because you don’t want to more than double your initial investment to get the system to work the way you want it to. Find out what aspects of the system you have control over and what you will have to rely on (or pay) the vendor to do. Will you pay a fee to upload content? What will you have to pay if you choose to create a sub-portal to serve a unique user base? You’re responsible for your project budget, don’t let hidden costs derail your efforts to serve your organization.Describe your 3rd Party Partner Relationships There will always be a valid debate between best of breed vs. software suites. I could provide a compelling argument for either. Instead I will offer this insight: If your chosen platform includes 3rd party components, what does that mean to your support? Do you have a direct line of communication with those vendors? Do the 3rd party vendor’s produ

Exercising Stock Options And Taxes - How Do Taxes Work With Stock Options?
Are you confused as to the question of how to deal with your incentive stock options? Or are you worried about owing a large amount of tax on options that you have not even exercised and do not have the cash to pay for it? Well, luckily, if you manage your affairs well and take on board some simple advice, you will be able to avoid owing too much tax on your stock options, and also postpone paying it until you have the cash to do so. Sounds complicated? Not necessarily so. In most cases, if you have a large amount of money tied up in stock options, then you should probably get some professional advice. Financial advisors can help you put together a strategy that maximizes the value of your options. This article is only intended to give you an idea of the steps that can be taken when tax planning with stock options.First of all, you do not have to pay any tax owed immediately, if you do exercise your stock options. This is the case so long as you do not sell the stock you receive. If you exercise an option to buy some shares, then so long as you do not sell that stock, you do not have to pay any tax at that time.The second piece of good news is that you can end up only paying 15 percent tax on the options when you do sell. This will apply if you hold on to the stocks for long enough to qualify for a long-term capital gain.So things are starting to sound a lot better on stock options taxation. By postponing the tax owed until you sell the shares, you can avoid the hardship of having a tax fall due without any money coming in to pay for it. It is similar to the cases in the past where people received valuable paintings or other works of art in a will, and then immediately had to sell the painting in order to pay the tax that was owed on the inheritance. Also, 15 percent is quite a low rate of tax and it should also be remembered that this is the highest rate that can be payable on a long-term capital gain.For more information, consult a qualified financial advisor. Financial advisors can help you better understand tax basics and tricks, and the withholding, reporting and filing rules governing your incentive tax options.