E-MAILS WORKING FOR OUR CLIENTS

Stardate: December 28, 2015 by - Client Support, Online Marketing

E-mail Campaign Design

There are many ways to approach e-mail campaign development and production. We’ve narrowed it down to three options to cover all our clients’ budgets and all the devices out there.

We also include enhancements to our e-mail campaign services that our competitors skip. We usually do all the graphics and copy writing. For each campaign, we also produce a web page version which our clients use as landing pages for online ads or social media posts. A week after launch, we provide a free report on the campaign’s success.

And finally, because we don’t like to just do a one-off campaign with a short lifespan of value, we add the web page version to our client’s site on a news archive page so all that work put into making the e-mail campaign continues to pay off as a boost to site search engine optimization and additional information for site visitors to enjoy. Here are a couple of news archive pages we maintain using our e-mail campaigns: http://www.gleimjewelers.com/gleim_jewelry_news.shtml and http://www.palacecafe.net/about-us-newsletter-archive.html.

Reporting shows that around 55% of all our clients’ e-mail campaigns are being viewed on smartphones. This is a higher percentage for retail businesses and a lower percentage for B2B and service businesses. Because of this, the non-responsive e-mail campaign designs we were doing just a few years ago were dropped – a business’ e-mail must be readable and actionable on a smartphone.

Here’s what is working for our clients right now:

Mobile-friendly campaigns render cleanly, but not responsively, on all devices from smartphone (landscape and portrait) to desktop computer. Mobile-friendly is a term we made up to go with the code we developed. These are the lowest priced options since they do not need complex responsive code or an e-mail campaign platform’s design interface.

They work well on all devices and on a smartphone do not require pinching or side-scrolling.

Here’s a mobile friendly e-mail campaign.

Mobile Friendly E-mail Campaign

Responsive e-mail campaigns render the same code/design on any device. For these, we use a template provided by an e-mail campaign service provider, but prevent them from looking “from a box” with custom graphics.

Different e-mail campaign providers vary in quality and services. We like Vertical Response the best for its same-time-zone customer support and list management features, which we find to be the most adaptable to split-list campaigns and the way our clients wish to manage lists. However we have been recently surprised and pleased with how Constant Contact has improved – no more phone-tree nightmares when calling for support and great reporting. Of the main providers, MailChimp is our least favorite as the list management is non-flexible and there’s no phone support.

Here’s a sample of one of our responsive e-mail campaigns, produced through Constant Contact.

Responsive E-mail Design

Custom, responsive e-mail campaigns require a lot of work. Two versions of each campaign are produced: a desktop version and a smartphone version. These are the best looking and performing types of e-mails as the design is specific to the device.

Our company campaigns are coded in this way.

Custom Responsive E-mail Design

We work closely with our clients to make sure we are providing the best fit for their needs, and their budgets.

Our e-mail campaign portfolio.

YOU TUBE CHANNELS AND VIDEO

Stardate: December 17, 2015 by - Client Support, Getting It Done, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Youtube Header Graphic Design

YouTube is the second largest search engine. Make sure you have a channel — optimized and hosting your optimized videos. We’ve set up a few: Halo Blow Dry Bar Channel and Palace Cafe and Catering Channel.

But keep in mind that you have to either create your own videos or have copyright permission from the owner of the video to post to your channel.

We recently came across videos hosted within Vimeo and embedded on a client’s site. But we recommend YouTube over this.  Vimeo puts a link to their site in the footer of the video, so you could potentially lose a visitor to the Vimeo playlist.  Plus, with YouTube being the second largest search engine in the world, going with Vimeo does not seem to make sense.

The specs for the header graphic (see above) can be tricky as it needs to render from smartphone to desktop to TV and all devices in-between.

blog-you-tube-channels

And even better for search engine optimization and for visitor engagement, be sure you add any video to your site, as we have done with this Palace Cafe & Catering video of wine pairings, appetizers, and setting the perfect event. Once you have created and posted your own videos to your YouTube channel they can be embedded on your website which saves you money — no need for custom coding — since you can generate the code to embed right from your YouTube channel.

Video on your web site

RESPONSIVE E-MAIL CAMPAIGN

Stardate: November 10, 2015 by - Client Support, Online Marketing

Jewelery Responsive E-mail CampaignWe’ve just finished our first e-mail campaign for Gleim the Jeweler.  They have had a long-time account with Constant Contact – a platform we have not used for years.  We’d mainly dropped CC due to their terrible customer service and horrible phone system.  But they have dramatically turned that around.  The interface as also the best we’ve worked with – if you are not doing custom html e-mail campaigns, this would be a good option.

Our client has traced sales back to their store and their online store from this campaign, so hopefully we’ll be doing many more of these campaigns in the future.

We’re grateful to all our clients, of course, but Rachel especially enjoys working with Gleim so she can see the photos of beautiful jewelry.

INSTAGRAM ANIMATION

Stardate: November 5, 2015 by - Online Marketing

Instagram Animation

This graphic is just an animated gif, but you can’t post a gif to Instagram.  If you need an animation for Instagram, you need to render a video and post that.  To see this one, you’ll need to visit our client’s feed, for which we produce content, run contests, and keep maintained, at instagram.com/haloblowdrybars.  It’s pretty easy to do – this one took only a few minutes once the five photos were selected and prepped.

LAW FIRM WEBSITE LAUNCHED

Stardate: September 23, 2015 by - Getting It Done, Online Marketing

Law Firm Website LaunchedWe recently finished this simple website for Marsten & Mosher An Association of Attorneys.  Check it out at: mmfamilylaw.com.

They elected to do a simple site with a separate mobile version.  Their goals for this site where simple: allow clients to easily find their offices for meetings and provide a resource for those looking for the lawyers’ biographies.

They do so well from word-of-mouth marketing that they asked for only basic SEO work.

Thank you for the project, Mia and Michelle!

THERE’S NO DIAL TONE ON THAT COMPUTER!

Stardate: September 6, 2015 by - Client Support, Online Marketing

mousesThis – 408 252-8664 – is underlined, so it must be a phone number, right? We know, it’s irresistible to click it, and those of us with something to sell, hope you do click it. But unless the device you are holding is a smartphone, it won’t lead to a phone call.

The advantage of responsive web page and e-mail campaign design is also one of the disadvantages – the same code renders to all devices – from desktop, laptop, tablet to smartphone. Sure, these devices now offer many of the same features, but a computer is not a phone and you cannot make a phone call from it, even if you see an underlined phone number!

Fess up, how many of you have clicked on a phone number linked while on a device other than a phone? You open a dead, blank browser window or a page with a warning on it, right?

As a way to prevent a desktop, laptop or tablet user from clicking on a phone link and getting a dead page making your site look bad, we’ve come up with an intermediary page which guides the user of any device through to a successful phone connection. Here’s a sample we use in e-mail campaigns for our client, Halo Blow Dry Bar.

Pro: people who don’t understand they can’t call from a computer – they never see a dead page.  (Tech-savvy enough to know a dead page equates to a bad web site, but not tech-savvy enough to know their computer is not a phone!)

Con: it can be irritating for people who click from their phone to have to read a secondary page and click again.

We’ve learned from our clients that even in tech-savvy Silicon Valley users continue to click a phone link from a non-phone device and then complain about it. Many of our clients have opted to use an intermediary page feeling that it’s better to have people deal with two clicks to call, rather than risk a user seeing a dead web page.

YOU’RE GOING TO NEED TO KNOW THIS TO UNDERSTAND NEW DOMAIN NAME STRUCTURES

Stardate: August 29, 2015 by - Client Support, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Available domain extensions are no longer just .com, .net, .us, .org, etc. Some recently made available include: .movie, .coupons, .soccer, .catering, .fyi, .ski, .men, .miami — more each day. 

As an internet user, don’t be confused if you see a website address written with a full–word after the dot. That familiar three–letter extension or two–letter country code extension will prevail, but websites are no longer limited to just these. For example, our client Palace Cafe & Catering just registered palace.catering. Depending upon the user’s device, it will to forward to their main website or their mobile website at palacecafe.net. 

As a business owner, you have some choices to make. This is the time to review all available domains and extensions and be aware of what will soon become available so you can grab your perfect extension. 

At this time, extensions do not play a role in major search engine ranking algorithms.Google says that in the future, they doubt extensions will play a role in their search engine result lists. But we think that over time extensions will play a role in search engine optimization (SEO) as they will help guide users to the information they are seeking which is what search engines are all about. 

Some reasons to consider specific extensions are to: 

• help with print marketing — easier to remember, more specific website addresses, 

• prevent your competition or other businesses from owning it (yes, they are doing it to you), 

• show you are current with the times, and 

• own your business’ perfect domain in case search engines change their algorithms in the future. 

Having more than one registered domain can benefit your SEO if they forward to one, main website with a 301 redirect. It is very important that you do not have any duplicated content on these redirected web pages or incorrect redirect code. This will damage your SEO. 

If you wish to find out what domains extensions are soon becoming available, do a search engine search for “new domain watcher” and to find out what extensions are already available, do a search engine search for “domain availability”. There are many tools out there to help. 

Let John know if you’d like us to work on a domain plan for you. We’d review all your currently registered domains and give recommendations on what to keep and what to let lapse. We’d make sure that the correct redirection was put on your domains so you are not hurting your SEO. And we’d work on a plan for a getting a new domain extension(s) which will best suit your business and goals.