Tygerhawks mentioned to me that a puppet business advice blog would be useful, and I thought "yeah, it would!" Nobody does it, and I'm not inclined to hold myself out as an expert, but I thought it would be useful if people could post their own suggestions here if they think of them.

I'll start the ball rolling:

Tip for making videos of a product... Don't spend 90% of the video showing an animation, you talking in front of a camera, or whatever else. Yes, showing behind-the-scenes is all cool and stuff... but limit it to a short amount or make a whole new video with the footage. People want to see the product or service in use, so they can see the quality for themselves. Show off your product/service in the best light possible. Show what people can do with it, show other people (testers, customers, audience, whoever) enjoying your product/service.

(This tip inspired by videos of computer games for sale. There's *so* many that don't actually show the game being played, but instead invent cartoons and 'tell a story' rather than show off the product. As a consumer that puts me off because how can I know if I'll enjoy the gameplay if it's not actually shown)

Going to throw a tip out there that should be known but is good to remember:

Ask for help/comments/suggestions throughout the process.  The idea is your baby and you will be looking at it through a biased lens.  Have others that you trust to look at the idea and give honest feedback.  It may not be feedback you want to hear, but it can help you out in the long run.

Going to throw a tip out there that should be known but is good to remember:

Ask for help/comments/suggestions throughout the process.  The idea is your baby and you will be looking at it through a biased lens.  Have others that you trust to look at the idea and give honest feedback.  It may not be feedback you want to hear, but it can help you out in the long run.

I'd follow up on this to say: re-visit your plans on a regular basis, get feedback on a regular basis, and change strategy if necessary. Try to avoid setting a plan in place and then not bothering to check if you're on the right track after some time. This is especially handy for marketing because over time your materials will become stale and need refreshing in terms of style, layout, colour scheme, improvement of graphics, etc. Good opportunity not only to reflect, but to update your photos, update the look and content of your site/media releases/etc, and to look at re-editing any content that is out-of-date or simply no longer true. (Ie. newspaper articles on the web get archived or deleted, old links don't work, videos get taken down, etc)

I'm going to leave this here... simply because I just worked it out and maybe it's relevant to Australian businesses.

If you buy an .au domain name, the Australian registry overseeing organisation (auDA), doesn't require you to publicly list your contact info other than a name and an email address.

If you buy a .com (or any of the American domains), the American registry overseeing organisation (ICANN) does require you to provide full contact info. Luckily, .coms etc come with privacy settings from good registrars and you should use them.

This is really handy to know because I didn't know there was a difference between policies and have been paying for a PO box just so I could put the info on my domain name stuff. It turns out that I don't need it; Aus. domains publish no contact info and American ones hide it.

I'm both pleased and annoyed to have figured this out

I am going to put in a plug here for the registrar I use since they are affordable and do not charge extra for "hiding" your info.  http://shop.whois.com/  Some companies do charge extra for it.

I am going to put in a plug here for the registrar I use since they are affordable and do not charge extra for "hiding" your info.  http://shop.whois.com/  Some companies do charge extra for it.

Those companies are usually the disreputable ones I've found. The ones that are good don't charge extra.
Also, I've found that the Australian registrars are almost always just as cheap as the American ones. If you know which ones to avoid that is; the one I've seen that's very popular (god knows why) charges about $80 or often more for a domain that would cost you $12-24 elsewhere. :P

Ah yes cost... I would say there is not need to pay more then around what Na mentions. Currently I am paying just around $10.00 a year for registry. Also if you have the cash go ahead and buy more then just one year. For one you can sometimes get a break in cost and two it can give your site a bit of a reputation boost. Domains that are registered for longer terms are less likely to be seen as fly by night or spam sights by electronic eyes. Oh and by electronic eyes I mean things like search engines and mail programs.

Speaking of mailing programs.  Be very careful about how you send out emails to clients. Make sure you research and adhere to the guidelines for bulk mailings.  Do not buy email list or add people to emails list without their consent.  Be respectful of their email address and help them protect it.  I even get a bit irritated at my friends who blast out an email to their personal list and don't us BCC to hide who they are sending to. I don't know who else is on their list and may not want them to know my email address.

If you happen to have a really large mailing list you may consider using a service to send out emails instead of sending them through your own domain.  Mass mailing can take up server resources and could get you in trouble with your hosting company if not handled right. Heck even my hosting company uses a serviced instead of sending them out themselves. Now if you don't do it that often or don't have a really large list then you should be ok with some of the standard methods out there.  For example the forum software we use here has a way I can send out emails to the membership.  I very rarely do but on occasion I have to let folks know about an important change in things.  That as a rule is ok just make sure the software sends out in small batches or limit the amount sent out yourself.

Ah yes cost... I would say there is not need to pay more then around what Na mentions. Currently I am paying just around $10.00 a year for registry. Also if you have the cash go ahead and buy more then just one year. For one you can sometimes get a break in cost and two it can give your site a bit of a reputation boost. Domains that are registered for longer terms are less likely to be seen as fly by night or spam sights by electronic eyes. Oh and by electronic eyes I mean things like search engines and mail programs.

This is true up to a point. For instance, other countries have different requirements. A .com.au can only be owned by an australian business (and they do ask for relevant info about it) and can only be leased in 2 year blocks. The price is usually around $25. So you also have to be aware if the requirements if you want to buy a different domain ending.

Speaking of mailing programs.  Be very careful about how you send out emails to clients. Make sure you research and adhere to the guidelines for bulk mailings.  Do not buy email list or add people to emails list without their consent.  Be respectful of their email address and help them protect it.  I even get a bit irritated at my friends who blast out an email to their personal list and don't us BCC to hide who they are sending to. I don't know who else is on their list and may not want them to know my email address.

Agreed, but again it depends on the country. I am pretty sure here you are not allowed to buy mailing lists, and our spam requirements are far more stringent (it's why most of my spam ends up coming  from overseas) and this is even more true for spam snail mail too. Most of the legal requirements of these things should be easily found on any government regulatory website. I have also found that the people who tend to not use bcc are the technologically ignorant - explain it once or twice and they usually change.

One thing to add is that it is illegal in Aus to not have an unsubscribe option at the bottom of every email when sending to a mailing list.

Of course, the easiest way around a mailing list is to create a blog and have people sign up for it. A service like feedburner allows you to create a mailing list and also updates via feedreaders. It means less work because the user can add/remove themselves at any time and you don't have to manually maintain the list or make any mail outs. Just write your post and press publish.

Mailchimp is pretty great for mailing lists and used by a lot of people. Emails sent through their service should conform to most (if not all) countries' regulations for bulk mailing (it's always a good idea to double-check the specific rules for your country like Na has though!).

Mailchimp is pretty great for mailing lists and used by a lot of people. Emails sent through their service should conform to most (if not all) countries' regulations for bulk mailing (it's always a good idea to double-check the specific rules for your country like Na has though!).

Yeah, I have heard a lot of people recommending Mailchimp. Is it a paid service? I've never looked into it myself.