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Email Marketing: What to Avoid
We get asked a lot of questions about email marketing these days. Everyone wants to know first, "should I do email marketing?" The answer for most of our clients is "Yes." If you want an opportunity to "push" things to people rather than passively wait for them to visit your website, the answer is always YES. How to do that and what messages to send to people are sometimes a longer conversation.
Whatever you do, remember you main objective is to drive people back to your website, so you need to peak their interest and then redirect them back to take advantage of the features of your website (whether that is being able to take keep up on the latest through your blog or your easy-to-make-a-donation donation form or the opportunity to sign up for classes.
Sometimes cost will keep people away (though nonprofits have a few free and/or low cost options -- though often you get what you pay for in terms of interface, time spent, and service). We have a system that we have chosen to use for our clients that costs a little, but has great features with reporting, subscriber management, and template management (and you can always contact us if you are interested).
But you're really reading this because you want to know what mistakes to avoid in this world of internet marketing, and I recently read an article that sums up our position on this issue pretty well. The points are mainly this:
- Use a good service and don't spam people (it's the law)
- Know who you're sending to
- Don't overdo the images
- Be sure to provide "unsubscribe" option (it's the law)
- Do it the right way to avoid ending up in junk folders.
What Goes into an App?
Thanks to Apple's brilliant marketing, we all know, with just about anything you can think of, 'there's an app for that.' And it does seem to be the wave of the future that we will all increasingly have information delivered to us via apps on a variety of mobile devices that are becoming more and more common.
For those interested in bringing information to your clients or patrons via the world of apps, what do you need to know or think about? Working on our first iPhone app creation for the Utah Arts Festival, we walked through the process to conceptualize, plan, design, and complete an app.
- First, what will your app do? What information would your clients find convenient and useful in the shape of an app? (This is definitely technological opportunity that is different from your full-scale website.)
- Second, how will your app acquire its information? How will you make information from your website update to your app so that you are not maintaining two separate areas for the same information? (The key to all of this technology is to make the maintenance of it easy and scalable.)
- Third, what will your app look like? How will it mesh with your current marketing plan? How will it be an effective extension of your brand strategy? (Design is key!)
Just like any good website, the app will only be as good as the information it houses and as user-friendly as the navigation that has been well thought out and executed.
Blogging for Content
With the ease of Twitter and Facebook, there has been an obvious increase in "micro-blogging" within those social networking platforms. While this has its benefits to cultivate a core audience of your fans and friends who may operate in those venues, be sure not to overlook the value of real blogging to create content for your website.
Lisa Barone provides "10 Reasons Not to Ignore Your Blog for Facebook" at Small Business Trends. While she points out that users migrate from platform to platform and the issue that Facebook has created concern by users with security settings, the main points I like about her article have to do with content. If you spend all your social networking time with Facebook, you are probably not spending your time building content and authority for your own website.
We have a couple of clients who are blogging well these days that we'd like to share:
These clients are doing a good job at creating content to highlight their programs and engage their constituents. While they also have Facebook accounts, they are building their brand and authority by maintaining and building good and timely content for their websites.
Sifting through SEO
As web developers, we get dozens of questions about SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization. SEO experts and consultants have nearly become their own service profession on their own and certainly many SEO experts can deliver results, but typically, results come at a price.
Everybody wants to be #1 on a Google search, but there is a set of complex reasons--some that can be controlled and some that can't be--for how and why people end up in that enviable #1 position.
The truth of 'optimization' is that it's important for your site to be indexed, searchable, and found by your audience. The truth that often overlooked, however, is the basic principles of what it means to be indexed, searchable, and found by your audience.
When we advise clients on this front, we start with a couple of princples in mind:
- Design is function. If your design inhibits your site to be indexed and searched properly, it is poorly designed.
- Content is key. If your site doesn't say what you do in concrete terms and with language that reflects what people search for when trying to find you, you haven't used your text effectively.
- Marketing is still required. If you have no marketing strategy but to be #1 on Google, you don't have a good marketing strategy.
For a sensible article that echoes many of our opinions here at Third Sun Productions, read the full article on Entrepreneur.com.
Facebook Tips and Tricks
Over the past few weeks, I've been running across some interesting Tips and Tricks for Facebook, especially as it pertains to business and nonprofit organization fan pages.
Building a custom Facebook landing page
This article explains how to use HTML to create a customized landing page for organization, rather then the default Wall posts. Read more here
How to Import a Blog Feed unto your Facebook fan page
You can automitically have your blog posts feed to your Facebook page. Nifty. Read about it here.
Scheduling Facebook and Twitter posts
Control your message timing by using third-party applications to schedule and post messages to Facebook and Twitter. A few to look at include HootSuite, PingFM and Sendible. These services will also let you post to multiple accounts or networks at once, saving you all kinds of time and steps.
Putting a Facebook Module on your Joomla site
A nice module exists to show a Facebook Fan module on your site, but it can be somewhat complicated to set up. Facebook requires an API key to make it work. To get a key, go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/ click on "Set Up New Application," give it a name, select your page, and save. You don't need to set anything else up with it, just grab the key. Of course, Third Sun clients can ask for help getting this on their site.
Other site interactions with Facebook and Twitter
Contact Third Sun if you want to discuss other options for intergrating your website and social networks.
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