Facebook Page update

Some may remember the post I did awhile ago on custom facebook pages and how it is possible to bend it to your will, to a certain degree that is.

This is a quick reminder that if you have gotten you facebook page built buy us or if you have done it yourself (clever aren't you) facebook is changing the way facebook pages work. Some of you may have already been given the opportunity to try out the new facebook page but if you haven't soon you won't have a choice.

The problem lies with the width of the canvas area or main content area. It's become even thinner then before and your preset widths will now need to change.

Contact us so we can fix your facebook page up before the change over.

Common Rookie Mistakes

Although email newsletters seem simple enough, for them work properly you need to have some knowledge of what not to do. 

Just some of the common mistakes:

  • Not having permission
  • Confusing transactional emails with email marketing
  • Assuming people will remember who you are
  • Writing like a used-car sales man
  • Ignoring campaign reports
  • Sending with a personal reply-to email address

I would like to point out quickly that if you are sending out an email newsletter already but you don't have reports/statistics of your success rate then you really need to rethink what you are using to send them. Reports & statistics are what matters, how can you improve if you don't know what works and what doesn't.

If all else fails, or this seems just to hard, let us handle it for you. We know tons of little tips to make sure you newsletter gets opened.

Growing your mailing list

Email newsletters are still one of the best ways to keep in constant contact with your customers. The fact is some of them might not have embraced social media just yet and email newsletters serve as a great personal way of communication.

Some of you will have already got yourself setup and maybe wondering how to grow your list. So direct from the people that should know (MailChimp the email newsletter service we use a recommend) here are some of their tips.

  • Place your email newsletter signup form on your home page (MailChimp gives you free signup boxes that you can customize and copy-paste to your website).
  • Link to your signup form from every page of your website (you might add a link to your footer, or side navigation).
  • Place a link to your email signup form in your email signature (ask everyone in your company to do it too)
  • Add the link to your signup form in all the invoices your company sends
  • Offer free giveaways to one lucky subscriber (it can be a company t-shirt, or something kooky, like a 20 pound box of banana candy).
  • Post free whitepapers or helpful articles on your site. They'll get downloaded like crazy, if you just offer them for free, and with no registration. Inside your whitepaper, place your own "full page ad" to your newsletter.
  • Send out personal, one-to-one emails to all your clients, and ask them to please signup to your newsletter.
  • In your "Contact Us" form on your website, add a checkbox to "signup for our newsletter"
  • Add an "opt-in for our newsletter" checkbox in your e-commerce checkout page.

So there are just some quick tips for growing your opt-in email newsletter list.

What and Who is Twitter?

Twitter stormed onto the Internet awhile ago now and most of us thought that it would be something of a passing fad. Turns out that it is one of the most visited social networking sites on the Internet at them moment.

The appeal of posting a status update (tweets) of 140 characters which is around the same amount as an SMS has reached some of the most unlikely candidates, but that is for another time. Twitter is a major player nowadays and companies need to be on it. 

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