The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Reaching out for high tech advice

Wendy Meyeroff from WM Medical Communications, Inc. was sparked by one of my recent blog posts to ask a few questions.  She's a print writer with lots of experience who also writes web content.  She claims she's not a "techie," and says she only first heard the terms SEO and keywords in the beginning of this year.  She's wondering about two things:

1. I could spend a fortune signing up for classes and investing in books, and also spend hours reading.  But I'm a hands-on type of person.  If I had a tutor, maybe a more techno-savvy "partner" I could probably figure out Google rankings and Twitter (totally confuses me) in a few hours.  Trying to do it alone, I'm just thoroughly confused.  Does anyone know a place where I could barter:  the techie who'd train me in exchange for some really nifty articles they could backlink to enhance their visibility?  (Or maybe something else?)

2. I started a blog in Blogger, but stopped 'cause someone told me any ads I might glean would enrich Google, not me.  In another place they said you must use Wordpress...but they added you need a techie to help you get started or it would take forever.  It looks like you're using Typepad.  I just wanted to ask your attendees to give me an opinion.  Which one is worth either the money or time to invest in?  (Again, maybe I could set up a bartering arrangement.)

Any ideas or advice we can share?

A new tool for worry-free email "vacations"

As email continues threatening to bury us all, more and more people are coming up with creative ways of dealing with it when we've got to knuckle down and get real stuff done.

The "only-check-twice-daily" method is great, except for those few emails you're always worried about in the back of your mind. You know--the emergency emails that really are an emergency.

AwayFind deals with just that problem. The freshly-launched web app acts like a filter, shielding you from email onslaught while letting the people who really, truly need to get through to you via text message. You sign up for an account (free or pro), create a special autoresponder that goes out to anyone who emails you and go about your business as usual. 

To celebrate the launch, AwayFind is offering a really great ebook on how to control your email flow along with any free subscription you sign up for by November 21. After that, the ebook will only come bundled with the pro version of the account, which also gives you features like the ability to brand your messages, access to support, etc. (And it really is a great ebook—I previewed it, and I'm picky as hell.)

AwayFind is the brainchild of an enterprising chap, Jared Goralnick, whom I first met back in May at SOBCon in Chicago. He is obscenely young to be so accomplished, but I forgive him that because he not only comes up with great stuff, but is the good, nice kind of networker: proactive, friendly and always looking for ways to be helpful. His excellent productivity blog--one of very few in my Google Reader--is here.

See also:

• A great page of uses for AwayFind that may not be immediately obvious
• A great write-up with screenshots by Lifehacker editor Gina Trapani