Skype® for Dummies®

Chapter 16. (Almost) Ten Ways to Promote Your Business Using Skype

Here are ten cost-free ways to hypercharge your business and make it both global and personal at the same time. Promoting your business is not limited to an ad in the paper.

Notify Your Customers of Important News

Businesses can easily spend between 5 to 30 percent of their budget on advertising. For a small business, advertising is a make-or-break expenditure. For a large business, the choice is to spend the money or don't be large anymore. Skype has a sweet little utility that can grab the attention of customers at the cost of, well, nothing. Called Mood Messages, these are comments that you can post beside your Skype Name in a Contact list. They were originally designed to indicate your mood to the world ("I'm on top of the world"; "I'm in the zone today"; "The world is my oyster") so that your contacts would know your state of mind before calling.

For businesses, this feature is like having a PA system broadcasting to the world. A business can use these messages to announce events, special sales, and press releases, and the announcement appears in the Contacts window of every person on your Contacts list. A subtle benefit is that your customers feel more closely connected to your company even when you don't have the time and bandwidth to reach everyone personally.

Here are some ideas for Mood Messages to promote your business:

• Fifty percent off sale starts today!

• Earnings and profits tripled over the last year!

• A shipment ...