Like a lot of you I’m sure, when I finished school, I wound up taking a job that required me to commute a long distance. Getting up early, I had just enough time to get a slice of toast and cup of tea before doing the hour-long subway-bus-bus connection to my teaching job way out past my city's boundary. 

Sounds mundane, right? Well, not quite. It was actually okay, and for one particular reason: I could read a lot. We were kids of that "Nintendo" and cable TV generation. I was still feeling that school had let me down and was feeling kind of, well, uneducated. Picking up books from the library, book shops, and often out of people’s recycling boxes, I started reading things I probably should have when I was younger
but never did. Sophocles, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Pinter, Behan, Callaghan...the list was endless. I read and enjoyed a truckload of books, and I kept every single volume. Now I have a nice personal library in the sitting room of my apartment and can take a book off the wall whenever I want to get ideas for an article, check a fact, or even just pass a Sunday afternoon.

Keeping a library is important, and not just for your own enjoyment. As an information marketer, you should keep a library or archive, too. In fact, keep a few of them. It sounds odd, but as a colleague pointed out , you never know when you'll need the extra information -- the world is STARVING for it. And it will be helpful in the end. 

Here are some ideas for archive creations every information marketer should keep:

Archive your old newsletters: You are probably sending out your information newsletter on a scheduled basis via e-mail, no? Always keep a copy of it for yourself; do NOT discard it. The benefit of this is twofold: you can go back to old newsletters to get new ideas and, if a customer sends you a query over a specific concern that you have already written about, you can send them a copy of your old newsletter for their information. This will please them to no end.

Archive your client names and personal information: This is invaluable. Keeping your client lists and their personal information up-to-date will allow you to get in contact with them quickly. As well, if you see what clients are buying from your business, you can direct new, specialized products to a specific client at that given time. They will appreciate you thinking of them individually and will be more apt to purchase the specific services you are providing.

Archive your financial records: I do not want to make the suggestion that the "Men in Black" are lurking around every corner and will show up to your doorstep with an audit notice. But part of being good in business is keeping your business organized. Every receipt, tax bill, or transaction related to your business should be kept in your personal records so you can refer to them at a moment's notice or at tax time. It is better to be safe than sorry on this issue, believe me.

Archive your product statuses: Once you start seeing the results of the sales of your products, tabulate your results. Keep all of these records. Make note of the good products, but, as time goes on, revisit the old ones. Auto Cap Lining Machine Looking at figures might make you think of new ways to redo and reissue a product that didn't do well initially. 

Use archiving software: Take advantage of your computer software for the aforementioned archiving tasks. Most computers these days come with "Microsoft Excel." There is no better or easier program to use if you want to create a spreadsheet of collected information. Archiving techniques are great skills to have as an information marketer. Not only do they include the organizational skills necessary to be a successful information marketer, but they can also show to the world a body of work of someone who has the highest commitment for what they do. It can only be beneficial.

For more information on archiving and building a library, visit us at: /index.html