The Chamber's New Web Based Services

We are excited to let you know about some great new features on the Chamber website that will help you promote your business and conveniently access information. Here’s an overview of our new features:

Online Coupons
As a Chamber Member, you can now promote your business’ special offers through our website. You can offer up to 3 different types of coupons: Member-to-Member Discounts, Military Discounts, General Public Discounts. All you need to do is go to the “Members Only” section of our website. Your login information is as follows:
Once you are in this section, click on the “Coupons” link on the left hand side. Then click on the button that says “New Coupon”. Choose the type of coupon you want to offer (Military, Member-to-Member, or General Public). Complete the form with the information you want to include and then save it. You need to go through this process for each type of coupon you want to offer.

Member News Stories
Let the world know what’s going on with your business. Send us your press releases or news stories along with a relevant photo, and we’ll include the information in our “Member News” section of our website. These items should be emailed to scott@oceansidechamber.com.

Community Events CalendarAre you holding an event related to your business? Are you putting on an educational workshop? You can promote those events at no charge on our Community Calendar. Just complete our online submission form, and we’ll add your event within 2 business days.

Other New Features
We have also added some convenient features that allow you to access your member information 24 hours a day. When you logon to our “Members Only” section, you can now...

Update Your Contact Information – if any changes are needed to your listing, you can submit them online and they will be updated on the website.

Pay Open Invoices – you can securely pay chamber invoices online with any major credit card.

Register for Events – By registering for Chamber events through the “Members Only” section, the fields will pre-populate with your contact information, making your registration process quicker.

Referral Report – Click on the “Referral Report” link, select the start and end date you want and then click the “refresh” button. Your information will display below, showing what type of website referrals have occurred for your business. Please note: this is a new feature and will not show a full report of any activity prior to February 1, 2009.

If you have any questions regarding the updates to our website, please feel free to contact me by phone at 760-722-1534 ext. 16 or email at scott@oceansidechamber.com.

We appreciate your support of the Chamber!

Sincerely,

Scott Ashton, Director of Sales & Marketing
Oceanside Chamber of Commerce

Free Military Family Event!

Woohoo for our military families!

What might I be talking about? I am referring to the upcoming 8th Annual Operation Appreciation on Saturday May 16th at the Oceanside Pier Amphitheater.

Operation Appreciation is Oceanside's way of saying THANK YOU to all of our military and their dependents.

I would like to invite all active duty military and their families to come down to the Oceanside Pier Amphitheater for a free lunch (we are talking delicious tri-tip sandwiches and the works), free carnival rides, face painting, kids activities, meeting your favorite San Diego Characters like Baby Shamu and the Pad Squad, running around on the beach with super cool military displays, and chowing down while watching entertainment on stage. Oh, did I mention all the fabulous sponsors who will be giving away free goodies and letting the military know about wonderful opportunities they have for them?

The festivities begin at 11 am, with food service going from 11:30 am - 2:30 pm. The children's area is open from 11 am - 5:00 pm.

What do you need to bring? Just an active duty military ID and you are set for a day of free fun down at the beach.

Can the public come too? Why yes of course! If you want to come down and show your support, their will be food available for purchase and you can purchase a wristband for unlimited rides for your kiddies too.

Need more info? Go to http://www.oceansideoperationappreciation.com/ for all event details!

See you at the Beach at Operation Appreciation!

Learning About Social Networking for Business

There is so much to learn when it comes to opportunities for promoting your business through social networking sites. The Chamber just recently started using these marketing mediums during the promotion of our recent North County Business Showcase. Thanks to the gracious support of Chamber members, Mark Baldwin of Aerlinks and Don Reedy of Prudential California Realty, the Chamber started a blog for our North County Business Showcase.

This not only allowed the Chamber to market the event, but also provided an avenue for our exhibitors to promote themselves before and after the Showcase.

The Chamber also has begun to use LinkedIn, Myspace, SDBackyard.com and others to promote our upcoming activities.

Are you interested in learning more about using online social networking sites to promote your business? On April 15th, the Chamber's LINK Luncheon will feature a presentation by Rhonda Sher, author of The Two Minute Networker. Rhonda's Presentation is titled “Get Linkedin or Left Out” Learn How to Use Linkedin.com to Effortlessly Attract More Customers, Clients and Referrals. Rhonda will share several of her best strategies to grow your business using offline person to person networking combined with the social networking of Linkedin.

More info is available at http://www.linkluncheon.com/.

Golf with a Hero Set for June 5th

The Oceanside Chamber's Annual "Golf with a Hero" event has been set for Friday, June 5th at the Marine Memorial Golf Course on Camp Pendleton.

This event provides an opportunity for local business and community leaders to treat a young Marine or Sailor to a round of golf while enjoying their company for a day.

This year, a portion of the event proceeds will benefit two local military charities, Camp Pendleton Armed Services YMCA and PatriotricHearts.org. More information is available on our website at www.GolfwithaHero.com.