By: Lynette Chandler
What usually comes to mind when we talk about backups is backing up the computer and possibly your emails. As small business owners, we have many more things to consider than just those basics. Here are some things to backup that you probably haven't even thought of.
Backup your mailing list.
What would you do if you lost all the leads and prospects you have worked so hard and paid good money to backup? Many marketers agree, a mailing list is invaluable; So, treat it as such. Save a copy of it every day.
Affiliate list.
I shouldn't need to tell you just how important this is. Affiliates help you make money. Don't lose them. No matter what system you use to manage your affiliates, get a backup list of them now.
Autoresponder emails.
You spend a lot of time and energy creating emails that capture your subscribers attention and read your message. Once lost, you'll never quite get it right again. Make sure you keep a 2nd copy of those emails.
Sales data.
This is another thing few remember, especially when you use a web-based order management system and all your sales data is kept online, available to your instantly 24/7. Download your reports at least once a month if not every day. There's a lot you can learn from your sales data.
Websites.
You may be wondering why you should bother to back up your web site especially since your web host keeps a back up.It's simple: bad things can and do happen to good hosts. Recently I've seen a popular host lose quite a few customersbecause their once reliable service and uptime sudden became unreliable. I've also seen hosts who appear to be reliable go out of business with little warning.
If this happens, you need your site back online as quickly as possible. If you have a backup, you could order new web hosting, upload and transfer your site quickly.
Website databases.
This one is often overlooked by inexperienced web masters. If your site is dynamic, has a blog, forum or anything like that, chances are you're using a database. Copying just the files of the blog application or the forum itself is useless because all your posts and messages are kept inside the database. If you're unsure, download the database backup anyway. You can never be too safe.
Purchased software.
This one should be part of your regular hard drive backup. Some companies will let you download purchased software all over again, some do not and will only allow you a small window to download after which, you're pretty much on your own. Don't forget to save copies of the registration emails with the license keys. I usually keep a paper copy in addition to electronic backups.
Likely you already have the majority of these things backed up and stored away safely in case of trouble, if so good for you! If there are things on this list that you may have overlooked then don't wait, get them backed up or hire someone who can do it for you. It's not too late to get everything properly backed up now, while everything is still good, and avoid big headaches if and when something goes wrong. |
