Working as part of a web marketing team, I've had the chance to work with two e-newsletter solutions and I have become strongly opinionated as to what makes an excellent e-newsletter service and why one service is clearly better than another.
Of course I'm talking about iContact vs. Constant Contact. For years Constant Contact has been the industry leader until iContact came onto the scene. And for a long time I didn't understand why anyone would want to compete with Constant Contact--it had such a big reputation. Then I tried using it. It goes to show you that if you have a business idea that already exists in the marketplace -who is to say that you can't do it better?
And iContact does e-newsletters better than Constant Contact.
We often get this question in our webinars and from clients:
Why can't I send e-newsletters from my regular email address?
If you're broadcasting your e-newsletters through a simple email address you're decreasing the effectiveness of your newsletter campaign. Here are 6 reasons an E-newsletter service is more effective than your email client:
- Regular email sent to a large group of people can and will be targeted as spam and may not reach your whole audience. E-newsletter services have mechanisms in place to make sure your newsletter gets to your audience.
- E-newsletter services have tracking tools to allow you to see who opens your newsletter and how they respond to it. Do they click the links? Do they forward it to their friends? This information is key if you want to learn how your audience behaves and what content excites them the most.
- E-newsletter services offer you opportunities to customize your email to match your current website and branding. A good E-newsletter service gives you a bunch of newsletter templates to choose from and the ability to edit them to match your branding. The best services allow you to edit your template and your newsletters in both HTML and with a WYSIWYG editor.
- E-newsletter services can provide archiving opportunities that make your newsletter more searchable on the web. Check out iContact's archiving capabilities.
- E-newsletter services integrate your e-newsletter seamlessly into your web site. The best e-newsletter services have e-newsletter signups that do not take them off your your website. All sign up details live on your website. (Constant Contact forces you to go to their site, which is confusing - iContact's integrated sign up form is better)
- E-newsletter services help you gather more data about your members. some services allow you to also set up surveys for your list members.
- E-newsletter services manage your contact list. Members can simply subscribe or unsubscribe without any additional work on your end.
You may have noticed that we have a special love for
iContact . They are our preferred e-newsletter solution. Stay tuned for our next post Why We Love iContact.
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One of my duties as the Project Manager is also to answer the phone. I've had a lot of jobs that revolved around providing phone-based customer service, but I find working with web design clients very rewarding.
One aspect I enjoy is listening to the problems of potential clients who are unhappy with their current web design team. It's not so much that I enjoy hearing that they're unhappy as much as I enjoy knowing that we can fix their problems. It's in these conversations that I've discovered what people are looking for in a top notch web design team.
Here are some of the complaints I hear from unhappy web customers:
The idea of building a web site can be daunting for small business owners. It can seem expensive and distracting from your main business. However, most people get their information about services and products from the Internet and it is important for every business to have a web presence. If you spend some time really thinking through your goals, your message(s) and your audience, and you partner up with the right web development team, your web site can increase your business substantially.
When considering or making a new web site, keep these essential things in mind:
1. Keep it Simple
Most small businesses don't need bells and whistles. Let your experience, products and services speak for themselves. Flash "splash pages" are distracting for most web visitors who already know what they're looking for. Save yourself the money and save your visitors time and don't bother.
Ok, so you've gotten comfortable with the idea of blogging. How can you do it so that you interest an ever growing amount of readers?
Aside from being Archer Web Solutions' Content Coordinator I am also the editor of Knit Luck , a knitting news blog. I've blogged on different sites for the last four years and I've noticed a few things in my travels. What content works, what readers want and how to get people to find your content.
1) Give your readers value.
By now most people have heard of blogs, and many people are convinced that blogging will help them bring in more business, gain more traffic and increase their credibility. But even when people are convinced as to the "why blog"question, we still get a lot of questions from clients about "how to blog"--not onlyt how to get started but how to improve what they're doing once they've been doing it awhile.
So we've been collecting a treasure trove of resources around blogging, from intros for newbies to places that consistently offer up good, meaty information and resources for bloggers everywhere. Here are an admittedly idiosyncratic sampling of some of our favorite resources--feel free to drop any additional ideas in the comments and if we like them we'll edit this post to include them:
The Wordpress tutorial. Information from blog software leaders.
The BlogBasics Tutorial. As the name indicates, this web site specializes in information for the blogging newbie.
One of our big goals here at Archer Web Solutions is to be ecologically sustainable. For us, going green is a growing process. We're recycling, bringing our own grocery bags to the store, shopping locally, supporting local environmental organizations and being mindful of our consumption. However, there's always more that can be done.
One thing that crushes me during the holiday season is the use of wrapping paper. I love the opening of presents, the excitement of gifts, but then I get depressed at the sight of the huge pile of wrapping paper and packaging that cannot be recycled. Then I imagine the same pile of crap multiplied by the millions of families around the Western world.
So this year I decided to do something about it. I started wrapping presents in fabric.
Hello There!
This is Angela and I'm the project coordinator at Archer Web Solutions. Project Coordinator is only my latest title. In my tenure at AWS I've been Joomla Queen, Child Wrangler, Quickbooks Scouter, Task Cheerleader, Marketing Guru, Business Evangelist, Customer Service Handler, Meeting Scheduler, you name it. Unfortunately, these things don't all fit cleanly on one business card so we had to go with a broader title that encompasses my many responsibilities.
Today I'm wearing two hats: Blog Writer and Adwords Junkie!
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