The typical corporate email user sends and receives about 105 email messages per day. So, today we’re going to give a great tip to help organize your inbox: categorize by color-coding!

 

Categorizing your inbox may take a few different forms, depending on the email provider you use. We’ll focus on Microsoft Outlook since that is the most popular email provider for the corporate user but we’ve provided some links at the end of this post to help organize your inbox if you use Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo!.

 

Assigning a color category to your email messages will allow you to easily identify and organize emails. Additionally, the color categories you create are available for other items in Outlook such as notes, contacts and appointments. To define your categories, click on the ‘Categories’ button next to ‘Forward’ and then click on ‘All Categories’. From here you can name the category associated with the colors you wish to use. 

 

Once your color-coded categories are defined, you are ready to assign categories to your Outlook items. Just right-click on the email message, task or calendar item and then click on ‘Categorize’ and select a category. You’ll see small colored-box show up on the message or task and the item will completely change colors in the calendar.

 

One of the great features is that you can sort items by category. So, if you want to see the emails just related to wholesaling, it’s just a few clicks away. Additionally, items in your Outlook may be assigned to more than one category. For example, an email message may be assigned to the categories Supplies, Wholesale and Marketing.

 

Once you begin color-coding your emails, you’ll wonder how you lived without this great tip! If you have other tips and ideas for organizing emails, please share them in the comments below!

 

Looking to organize emails in Hotmail, Yahoo! or Gmail? Check out these links!

 

A few weeks ago we shared tips for incorporating fall flavors into your mix. One of the most-loved fall flavors is pumpkin. This week our tip is to think outside of the box for incorporating this flavor. Actually, we want you to think inside the box, or pumpkin in this case, and use pumpkin seeds in your product mix.

 

We know there are lots of ways to incorporate pumpkin seeds but here are just a few to get your creative juices flowing:

·         Top your chocolate bark with pumpkin seeds. For the sweet and salty flavor we all love, first salt your seeds before putting them on the bark.

·         Create a trail mix using pumpkin seeds, dried fruit and chocolate chips.

·         Mix pumpkin seeds into your brittle for an added crunch. (This idea was shared at a recent Candy Clinic idea-sharing session. RCI members may watch Candy Clinic videos on the member side of the RCI website under ‘Past Education Sessions’.)

·         Candied pumpkin seeds add just enough sweetness to not overwhelm the great flavor of the seeds. You can find a variety of candied pumpkin recipes by doing a quick internet search.

 

If you have other great ideas for incorporating pumpkin seeds into your product mix, we’d love to hear it! 

All business owners could use extra time in their day, right? To help you be more efficient and save time while on the computer, we’ve compiled a list of commonly used keyboard shortcuts for you. Keyboard shortcuts are simply keyboard combinations that perform a specific command. For example, instead of going to click File, then clicking Save, you can press both the CTRL and S keys to perform the command.

Function	Shortcut
Save	CTRL + S
Open	CTRL + O
Print	CTRL + P
Copy	CTRL + C
Cut	CTRL + X
Paste	CTRL + V
Undo	CTRL + Z
Find	CTRL + F
Bold	CTRL + B
Italic	CTRL + I
Underline	CTRL + U
Zoom In	CTRL + +
Zoom Out	CTRL + -
Select all items in current window	CTRL + A
Delete an item immediately without placing it in the Recycle Bin	SHIFT + DELETE
Switch to another running program (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window)	ALT + TAB
Minimize all open windows and display the desktop	Windows Logo + D
Find files or folders	Windows Logo + F
Open Control Panel	Windows Logo + C

Has one of your Facebook strategies for your business been to grow sales? If so, we hope these tips help you meet that goal!

 

For holidays or even just fun days, post specials with fun keywords that fans can redeem in your store. For example, for Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19, promote sales by creating a special they’ll receive in store if they use the words “Arrrrgh” or “Ahoy” in a sentence. Then, only promote this special on Facebook to draw your fans into your store. Be sure to specify any limits, etc. associated with the special.

How many Facebook likes do you have? If you’re aiming for a certain goal number, let your fans know and encourage them to invite their friends to like your Facebook page. You could even provide a coupon prize for the xx^th like along with the person who invited them to like your page. By increasing your likes you will be expanding your reach and with the coupon you will be drawing them into your store.

As chocolate and candy makers, you have a great opportunity to entice appetites for your treats by using images. Research has confirmed that food images can stimulate the “crave” part of the brain which could entice them to visit your store (in person or online) to purchase your products. Take advantage of this by posting beautiful pictures of your products to remind your fans why they should visit your store. Pay attention to the quality of your photos before posting them – if you don’t think they look beautiful and enticing, your potential customers probably won’t think so either and won’t be encouraged to pay your store a visit.   If you need high quality photos, consider asking your suppliers if they have product photos you can use to promote sales in your store. 

 

If you have more tips to increase sales, please share them with our blog community and post them below!

Research has shown that customers typically subscribe to business emails for coupons and specials. While those are great things to provide to recipients of your emails, Constant Contact, an email marketing service, shared at our Spring Regional Institute this past April that your emails should actually contain 80% content and 20% promotions to be the most effective.

 

If your customers believe that every email they open from you will contain a bunch of promotional material, they’ll likely just delete the email without even opening it, especially if they know they won’t be purchasing your products at this time. However, if you are consistently providing valuable content within your emails, they are more likely to open your email and read it. What good does that do you, you ask? As they become regular readers of your emails, when they decide to go buy candy and chocolates, guess who they’ll think of first?

 

So, how does a candy store provide valuable content? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

 

You work so hard to get your emails opened, so be sure you work just as hard at the content within your emails so they keep opening them and get inspired to visit your store!