Marketing

Constant Contact is a top-ranked email marketing service, which has a comprehensive feature list and a great template designer area.  It has top notch help center and its tutorials and helpful document creation wizards made creating a new campaign a snap.

With Constant Contact you can create your bulk emails through their service and even import your email marketing campaigns from an HTML page.

Comprehensive Feature Set

To build your email contact list you will first create a category and then populate it with your email list, which can be either manually input or imported using Excel, Outlook, Outlook Express or a comma delineated (.csv) file.  You can even customize your demographics by filtering your contacts according to various attributes.

Constant Contact also has the ability to build aliases to show who the message is coming from.  If you want to present the message as from the President of the company, you can place their name in the “from” field.

Constant Contact also helps you stay out of trouble and legal by managing your bounced emails and unsubscribe information and keep your customers happy with permission based campaigning.

Easy to Use

Setting up your emailing list and other features is very simple to do. The design of Constant Contact is set so that navigation is at the top of the screen and consists of seven different tabs.  Just click on the appropriate tab and the program will walk you through the process. There are also some quick links so you can create your email campaign.

Email Campaigns

You can efficiently create an email using one of the templates or use your own HTML source.

Constant Contact includes a large range of professional looking templates that would suit most businesses and a very simple template editor.  All the parts of the template are clearly labeled and easily modified using the “edit” button. You can import your own images and they can be moved around easily with a drag and drop feature for each section of your message.

Ample Campaign Reporting

Constant Contact provides all the basic requirements to create a comprehensive report including bounces, bounced percent, complaints, opt-outs, click-throughs, click-through percent and forwards.

Unsurpassed Help and Support:

Constant Contact includes a comprehensive support center that includes an extensive, searchable knowledgebase; a learning center with tutorials, live demos and scheduled webinars.  They also have knowledgeable and helpful people if you chose to email or phone.

Summary:

You can’t go wrong with Constant Contact, the email designer is a simple, the creation process is smooth via the wizards and if you need help there are the online resources and the contact center.

Visit them online at www.constantcontact.com for more info.

Call us today to begin your e-mail marketing campaign!  (204) 415-6711

“Above the fold” was originally used to describe the part of newspapers that was presented on the front of a newspaper that is visible before being opened.  This usually involved an important news story or a visually design photograph.

This term has been adopted by graphic designers to describe the part of any media that is  prominently displayed or of the highest priority.  Since this space  is the first to be seen by consumers, it is preferred by advertisers as well, since it is the most prominent and visible.

This term has been extended and used in web development to refer the part of a web page that is first visible when a page loads.  This is also known as “Above the scroll.”  With recent developments this has become inaccurate, since screen sizes and display resolutions vary enormously.  Also, in the age of mobile devices this term is beginning to develop some ambiguity.

~Chris Randall

What are some things to think about when marketing your product or service’s benefits?

• Who do you offer benefits too?
• What are the primary benefits?
• What are the secondary benefits?
• Who is your target market?
• Does your target market care about the benefits you are marketing?
• What problems do you solve for your target market?
• What is your business about?
• Why would your target market come to you over your competition?
• What are the most important benefits to your target market?
• What competitors offer the same benefits that you do?
• How do competitors offer these benefits better than you?
• What can you do or do you already do to offer these benefits better than you competition?
• What must you do to increase value to make your benefits unique?

Remember you are not selling a drill bit, you are selling the hole.

By: Chris Randall, Technical Director

Many times in marketing we make the mistake of confusing features with benefits.  Features may or may not provide benefits to any particular consumer, so the terms cannot be used synonymously.  We need to concentrate our marketing and products on the benefits, since that is what will satisfy the customer and drive sales. While a feature may provide a benefit to the consumer, it may not provide the same benefit to the next consumer.

A feature is simply a factual statement about a product or service.  It’s not the reason customers buy.

A benefit is what adds value to the customer and is the reason customers will buy.

We can make many statements about our products that prospects and customers care nothing about:

• One-click buying
• In business since 1933
• Award-winning
• Made with 100% recycled product
• Easy access
• Quick answers
• Reliability
• Operators available 24 hours a day

The newest features don’t mean anything unless they are translated into a tangible benefit like lower cost or faster delivery.

Furthermore, benefits will be different for each market.  Sports car enthusiasts don’t care about the 100,000 mile/10 year warranty.  Frugal car buyers may not care about the sporty colors available.

Start thinking to yourself, “What am I really selling?”

• Eyeglasses = vision & improved sight
• Drill bit = a hole (or many holes)
• Apple pie = childhood memories
• Doctors services = feel better

We have to be able to translate our features into benefits for our target market.  Benefits answer, “What’s in it for me?”  The most effective benefits center on emotional and financial return, by making the customer feel better or saving the customer money.

To make sure you are marketing a benefit over a feature, ask yourself, “Will this one thing improve the life, cost, health or well being of my customer?”  If you can answer yes, then you have a marketable benefit.  Put yourself in your customers place and think, “What is in it for me?”  Once you have you benefits clearly defined market them.

By: Chris Randall, Technical Director

So you have your prospect’s attention, what now?  The average prospect requires five exposures to your products and services before they will buy.  What do you do to keep their attention and get them to come back for more.  Here I have listed some specific calls to action you can employ:

• Get your customer to send off for information
• Get them to call you (Even better if it is a toll-free 80 number)
• Have them sign up for your newsletter
• Get your customer to place an order (This is why we are in business right.  Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale)
• Encourage them to visit your website
• Try to get their contact information
• Have them visit your showroom or store
• Get them to refer a friend
• Have them enter a contest
• Have them sign up for a seminar or webinar

By: Chris Randall, Technical Director

1.  Establish yourself as the expert in what you offer and how you satsify your customers needs.

2.  Do you have exclusivity in your area with your business model?  If you are the only one providing a service then you have a niche.  You have to make sure that your niche is large enough to sustain your business.

3.  Do you do things quicker, offer more convience than your competition?  Do things which eliminate hassles and provide more convienece for you customers.

4.  Focus on customer satisfaction.  Provide the best techincal support, guarantees, and product to make sure your customers are delighted to do business with you.  Customer satisfaction can be a niche in itself.

5.  Are your customers loyal?  Provide a specific reason or benefit for your customers to return to you.

By: Chris Randall, Technical Director

In a nutshell Google Adsense is way to make passive income from your website.  For many it is their only source of income and for others, it is just part of the mix.  The Google Adsense program has two sections: Google Adsense for content and Google Adsense for Search.  Google Adsense content displays relevant articles on your site based on your website content.  Google Adsense for Search provides Google search capability to your website and the Adsense Ads will be displayed in the search results pages.

Income Generation

Google will deliver the Adsense ads that are best match the content of your web page, which will improve the chances of someone clicking on an advertisement.  When a user clicks on a Google Adsense ad, you are credited and Google will share a portion of the profit it gets from its advertisers with you.  Google provides you with the ads and deals with the advertisers, so your job is to provide high quality content and input the Adsense code.

Getting Started

You need to have your website running before you can setup your before you apply for a Google Adsense account.  Google does inspect your website, and will reject your application if it is not running. It takes a up to two days for the Adsense team to approve a new application.  Once your application is approved, you can quickly set up the Google Adsense Ad on your website. All you have to do is cut and paste a designated block of html code into the source code for your site.

Account Terms

Read the terms and conditions of Google Adsense program carefully.  If you violate them, Google will ban you and they will never allow you to advertise for them again.   Never try to manipulate your income by clicking on Adsense ads on your website or having someone else do it, since it is unethical and if Google suspects click fraud they will terminate your Adsense account immediately.

By: Chris Randall, Technical Director

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Anyone who has ever spent days deliberating over a business name choice will understand that this seemingly simple activity can be one of the most challenging aspects of starting a new business.

How can you choose a good business name? What should you consider when making your selection? These are just a few things you’ll need to consider. You will want a name that can grow as your business grows. A name that has a decent ‘.com’ or alternative Internet name available. A name that does not violate the intellectual property rights of another business or organization with the name you choose, which could put your ability to use the name in jeopardy.

CanadaOne wasn’t my first business venture – and it surely won’t be my last. Through the process of building several businesses, I’ve learned a thing or two about choosing a business name. This article outlines some of the things I take into account when naming a company.

Think big
When you are starting your business, you have great plans, but may be thinking more about the details you face today than the possibilities of tomorrow. My recommendation: think about tomorrow when choosing your business name, and think big!

If you are successful with your new business, your choice will be with you for a long time. Not only that, but it could also influence the growth of your business.

For example, someone starting a specialty fast-food restaurant in Moose Jaw, Sask., might have a good reason to choose a name that reflects the local nature – or owner – of the business. However, if they someday find they’re in the position to sell franchises, the name Mike’s Prairie Diner might not have the same appeal as The Prairie Dog Café.

A business name automatically contains a marketing element; your job is to choose a name that will help your marketing efforts. The name The Prairie Dog Café tells prospective customers a story about the origins of the business, while hinting at its uniqueness. The name Mike’s Prairie Diner implies a completely different type and scope of business.

These two names also imply different visual identities. The Prairie Dog Café name could easily be associated with a western motif and an overall stylish corporate identify. Mike’s Prairie Diner would seem better suited to a 1950s style with a small, owner-run image.

Don’t pigeon-hole your business
Including a descriptive term, such as paralegal, in your business name can be useful when marketing your products and services, as the nature of the business is expressed in the name. In some provinces, such as British Columbia, a descriptive element is a requirement, rather than a choice.

However, a descriptive term may also work against your business as it grows. Businesses are organic entities that evolve around the customer rather than a business plan. In many industries, especially rapidly evolving sectors such as the Internet and information technologies, the core terminology or the services in demand can change rapidly. This can wreak havoc on a business that finds that it has a descriptive phrase in its name that is either out-of-date or inaccurate due to evolution of the business.

My partner and I encountered this problem with our first business, nVision Multimedia. It wasn’t long after we started nVision that the majority of our clients were interested in Internet rather than multimedia services. Having the word ‘multimedia’ in our name confused customers who were coming to us for web work. Because of this and other factors we eventually closed down nVision Multimedia, replacing it with Biz-Zone Internet Group (now Biz-Zone Internet Group, Inc.).

The bottom line: including a descriptive component in your name can help customers understand the nature of your business. However, avoid including descriptive elements that could quickly become out of date or inaccurate.

The sound & spell test
The last thing you’ll want to hear from people after you’ve selected, registered and imprinted your business name on everything from business cards to signage is, “Huh? How do you spell that?” That’s where our sound and spell test comes in. Here’s how it works.

Scenario 1: Your business is a booming success. You’ve just booked 30-second radio spots on stations across the country. Your marketing team is working on a series of ads that will drive traffic to your businessname.com.

The test: If someone were to say your business name over the radio, would people be able to remember it? Spell it correctly? Easily translate it into a properly spelled dotcom address for surfing at another time during the day? A good name is something that can be mentioned on the radio or over the phone, without a lot of explanation. A great name does this and is memorable.

Check out your dotcom options
As the Internet reaches a critical mass, owning a good .com domain name has a tremendous value. If you believe the Internet will play an important role in the future of your business, you’ll want to factor the availability of dotcom names into your name choice.

It’s easy to find out what domain names are available, and which ones are taken. Here are two free online resources that we regularly use to determine the availability of a particular name. To use each service, simply type in the domain name you want to lookup, such as “yourname.com” (without quotes), and hit the enter key or click on the appropriate button.

CheckDomain
E-Soft’s World-Wide Whois Gateway

SmartTip: If you have difficulties finding a .com domain, you may want to look at other options such as a .ca or .prov.ca (where prov is the abbreviation for the province where your business is located).

Tread lightly on trademark & other legal issues
Just because you’ve found a name and it appears to be available, it does not mean that you are free to use it for your business. If your name conflicts with an existing trademark, tradename or someone’s intellectual property, you could find yourself facing a lawsuit and the possible loss of your business name.

If you will be incorporating your business, a Newly Upgraded Automated Name Search (NUANS) – should identify possible conflicts. However, since each report costs $40 to $80, finding out if the name conflicts exist before you order a report can save you time and money.

When searching the database, try different spacing and word combinations to find all possible matches. For example, try ‘Prairie Dog’, ‘PrairieDog’, ‘PrairieDog.Com’, and ‘Prairie Dog Café’.

Since trademarks are based on what we hear, rather than what we see, you should also include different spelling variations for your search. For example, look for both Cray and Kray if you are looking to register the name ‘Krayton’. Go here to directly search the Canadian Trade-marks Database.

Once you know that your name has no trademark conflicts, you can get a rough indication of other businesses that are using a name similar to your preferred choice if you assume that most incorporated businesses have a business line, and therefore are listed in Canada411 under their business name. Searching this database will help you identify potential name conflicts, and will indicate businesses that use a name similar to your name of choice. Since Canada411 does not cover Alberta and Saskatchewan, you should also look-up the name in the Yellow.Ca database.

Finally, to find out what other businesses are using the same, or similar names, to yours, do a search in one of the major search engines such as Google.ca or Fast: Search.

Finding a name isn’t always easy, but if you invest the time and effort, you should be able to come up with a great name for your new business. In the long run, this effort can add considerable value to your business – and the bottom line.

By Julie King (Julie King is the co-founder and publisher of CanadaOne.com)

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Why you need a Blog

Blogs. Certainly you have heard of a blog, but many people still don’t know what they are and why they are useful. In this article, I am going to explain what a blog is, why you need one, and how they can make you and your company a lot more money. Almost for free.

 Wikipedia gives this definition:

A Blog (web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

Like all online tools and applications, blogs started out as a tool and a toy for geeks. If you look at email, forums, html, and now blogs, they were all used by geeks for some time before businesses found a way to monetize them. Blogs have fairly recently become the next online tool to become indispensable to businesses.

Blogs started as VERY simple online applications for posting online diaries. Those diaries were used as personal diaries, political activists, amateur news reporters, and for anyone that needed a soapbox. Today, that has all changed, and with this article I’ll show you some of the reasons why blogs need to be a necessary part of your online marketing.

Blogs are different from forums
A blog is not a forum. This is a bit of a pet peve of mine, because I constantly hear people calling forums “blogs” all the time. When you post on a forum, you are not necessarily a “blogger” either. Forums are discussion web sites for discussing topics with a group of people. Forums are better than email listserves because the discussions are searchable, and they persist much longer than discussions in an email list. The main difference between a blog and a forum is that the main content in a blogs is written by an individual, small group, or company, and in the case of a forum, content is written from visitors to the forum. Since posts to a blog generally start from the inside of the group, the content is always relevant to the subject matter of the blog web site. Forums, on the other hand, allow posting from generally anyone that signs up and participates. This makes forums a real challenge to moderate and maintain, because people can discuss anything they want to. When you are trying to create a massive community around a demographic, then you want a forum. When you want to market the expertise of your company or small group, then you want a blog.
Benefits of a Blog

• Increased sales
• You become known as an expert in your field
• They get more traffic from search engines
• They get traffic from next-generation social networking search engines (like technorati.com)
• News agencies are more likely to do a story on your business
• Real-life stories and tips warm up your web presence
• Educating customers on how to be a better customer helps your business run better
• You can update your blog on your own without your webmaster’s help
• Helps build communication between departments that are posting to the blog

Blogs are rewarded handsomely by search engines

Search engines recognize blogs in several ways. At the most basic level, they naturally crawl them like any other web site, indexing the content n them. In this way, a blog provides your company with a second web site, which can cross-link to your main web site. If your company has only one web site, this can help. But blog software tends to be very optimized for search engines out of the box. As long as you are entering meaningful articles that contain your keywords, text links, and categories, then you should get most of these benefits automatically. Blog software typically generates nice page titles, text link titles, and search engine safe URLs. All of these Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tricks make your blog get noticed by search engines.

Blogs are Free

You can create a blog in minutes online for free using sites like Blogger.com. This has eliminated all barriers to creating blogs online. As you can see, this blog you are reading is not a blog on Blogger.com I don’t choose to use Blogger because It is a hosted application, and I can’t extend it like I can Wordpress. Wordpress is also free, but you will need a host for your blog. Naturally, Delaware.Net hosts blogs, so you can contact us about that. But the point of this article is not to sell you blog hosting. The purpose is to educate you so that you can realize the benefits of blogging for your business.
Blog content density is better than your web site’s
Since blogs are typically written by real people sharing tips, they are full of content that search engines can consume. In contrast, a corporate site might have lots of forms and other necessary pages that tend to water-down the overall content value of your site. Having a bloated site makes it harder for your web pages to come up in search engines without creating specific content that exists just for search engines, like putting big paragraphs of keywords on your site. People tend to get turned off when they see that garbage content, and they don’t trust the sites that have it in them. Blogs don’t need to resort to this, as long as they have enough articles in them.

Web standards help blogs
There is a lot of talk about using web standards in the web design industry, and blog software today uses many of these standards. For example, blogs can be skinned with new graphics very easily because they use CSS heavily.
Sample uses for your company’s blog

* Create a how-to section – these tend to get attention from search engines
* As a replacement for a static news article on your company home page
* Warn customers of possible problems that they could have with products/services in your industry
* Use the blog as an ask the expert section of your web site
* Tell customers about new products and services
* Link to related articles and web content from your blog

Who SHOULD have a a blog

* Anyone that is a trusted advisor to their clients
* Anyone that has written articles or tips that are designed to educate their clients
* Anyone that gets privileged access to services or products
* A person that is in support, or who fixes problems for a living
* Employees that believe in (and are allowed to) be open about their methods
* Any professional that has extensive training and/or experience on a subject
* Companies that need a way to share their victories and tell stories about their projects
* A senior professional that is willing to share lessons that they have learned

Who SHOULD NOT have a blog

* Unenthusiastic employees
* A CEO that does not wish to share
* A worker that punches the clock and who doesn’t care about community
* Someone that has terrible grammar and can’t write
* Someone that sees blogging as a chore

Blogs represent a part of the next-generation of search engines because they are a part of the user-driven, user cataloged part of the Internet known commonly as Web 2.0

Folksonomy – its probably not a word that you have heard before, but this simple concept helps to unlock the theories of social networking, social bookmarking, and it also explains how blogs are changing the way people search the Internet for content. If a taxonomy is the formal process of categorizing and naming things, a folksonomy is the democratic categorizing and naming of Internet content that is done by people when they categorize photos in Flickr, and when they categorize their blog posts, and when the describe links that they post onto Digg.com, etc. This social behavior change in how people categorize and rank internet content is essentially building a NEW SEARCH ENGINE that adds a piece to the puzzle that Google really doesn’t provide.

Folksonomies help drive Web 2.0
Every time someone posts a video to YouTube, others can comment on it. They can rank it. They can help make it more popular because the number of times a video is watched is also tracked. Below is a great video that explains how this is affecting the way people use the Internet to get and publish data, and how that interaction is being harnessed to allow people to collaborate.

Blogs can also be modified to take advantage of social bookmarking. By implementing plugins that take advantage of social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, Del.icio.us, furl, reddit, and other sites, it is possible to spread the word about our new blog posts quickly, but you have to start the ball rolling on you own. This can make things a little more time consuming, but it is worth it.

By: Chris Randall, Technical Director

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