I Saw Mommy NOT Kissing Santa Claus, But Her Money Away
By Kristin Tomlinson- Web Success Team
It’s funny how a single day that is only celebrated ONCE can bestow so much stress, anxiety, and financial burden on so many people. Whether you’re celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, the holidays have officially arrived. With the economy in a rut, and money tight, online can help stretch your budget, rather than dent your holiday spirit.
Stores such as Target, Kohls and Best Buy heavy up on online advertising during the holiday season. That’s because people are more likely to look at a catalog online than in print. It’s more cost effective, has a higher rate of return and they can alter the promotions at a moment’s notice. In addition, retailers are using Social Media Marketing to promote products, drive traffic and increase their sales. Some of their business strategies consist of coupons, discounts and special deals that can ONLY be found online for “top-selling” products and this season’s “must-haves.”
This is one of the most important times to search for keywords such as “coupon codes,” “free shipping” and “gift deals.” They will not only save you time, but money as well because most of these products can only be purchased online through their websites. No wonder why these sites have such a high spike in their rate of return, and continued web success during the holiday season. Steal these deals, before overpriced products steal your money.
I’ll Be Online for Christmas
The holidays tend to bring bad weather, freeway congestion, and outrageous increases in airline tickets. Traveling during this time of year is feared by most and dreaded by all. Not only are stores crowded and hectic, but they’re pricey as well. During these economically strenuous times the general population just cannot spare this added expense. Search engines can help find travel alternatives to visiting family and sending costly holiday cards. The use of Skype and online greeting cards are BOTH great ways to social network with family and friend when you can’t be there in person. Saving cash and gas… joy to the world, we don’t have to travel.
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Shopping online is a great way to reduce stress, pressure and anxiety this holiday season. There’s no need to create financial burdens when there are options to help you give generously or thoughtfully without breaking the bank. Bringing joy and goodwill doesn’t necessarily have a price tag!
What a success! The workshop hosted by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and VPE Public Relations was packed with eager non profits and companies wanting to learn more about social media marketing and how to implement it for their organizations. The Web Success Team was fully represented with Team colleague and featured speaker, Marci Rosenblum.
1. Knowledge Is Power:
Social Media is a driving force in this new age of media marketing. Some eye-popping statistics: 300 million active Facebook users; 14 million Twitter users; 100 million YouTube viewers per month; 346 million blog readers. And it’s growing exponentially.
2. Your Competition:
Whether you are a non-profit, solopreneur, or small, medium, or large business, your competitors and customers are using social media. You can’t afford not to jump on board, but being a passive player doesn’t cut it. You must be active, aggressive and committed. The good news is that it’s not too late to “catch-up,” grab the opportunity and profit.
3. Benefits of Social Media:
Let’s be candid. You want the opportunity to grow your business. Social Media will help you achieve web success by connecting with people in target market, building relationships, advertising your brand, promoting your products and services, and going viral. You will increase your reach and turn contacts into “friends” and have them evangelize your brand.
4. Time, Management and ROI:
Perception — “We don’t have the resources to actively manage our social media profiles;” “It takes too much time to do social media.” “Where do we begin and how long does it take to see results.” “What is the Return on Investment.”
Reality — There is no instant gratification or magic bullet with social media. The best and most productive way to short cut time management and get results is to hire an authority on social media and have them develop a strategy to be implemented and to train your employees how to effectively manage and promote your brand online through social media marketing.
5. Get Social – A Turnkey Solution:
The Web Success Team can tailor a social media strategy for your business, implement it and train your employees how to effectively manage your social media campaigns. You will save time, money and valuable resources while maximizing your online effectiveness. Contact the Team today for a social media marketing consultation. The time is now to “Get Social!”
In spite of the many advances in online marketing over the past several years, e-mail remains a remarkably powerful and effective tool. For starters, it continues to offer quick results and it is ideally suited for your online marketing efforts.
Impacting Your Bottom Line
Some of the major pitfalls that you have to be on guard against however are making errors in any part of the e-mail, and adopting faulty HTML code that can cause your e-mails to be classified as spam and/or filtered out by certain e-mail programs. As you can imagine, such errors can have a severely detrimental effect on your ROI.
In order to help ensure the fast and effective delivery of your e-mail marketing to your potential customers, here are some tips that you may find handy. Keep in mind that this is only a partial listing of all the factors you will have to consider with regard to e-mail marketing, although they can certainly get you some pretty good results, and should be effective starting points for a successful e-mail marketing campaign.
Avoiding Pitfalls, Potholes and Poor Performances
Before we get started, it is important to remember that for all its apparent simplicity, HTML can be quite tricky and temperamental, particularly when used in e-mail marketing. E-mails are quite different from websites in that they will be delivered to a lot more different recipients, many of which will have different means of deciphering and categorizing your e-mails. You may be surprised to find that certain e-mail client servers can have radically different ways of classifying content of your e-mail. In order to reduce the chances of miscommunications between e-mail client servers, here are some basic guidelines to adopt:
Make sure that your email conforms to both HTML and CSS requirements
Familiarize yourself with the different rules and regulations with regard to spam. Spamming and phishing.
It may be helpful to have a suitably qualified expert at your email lists company to consult with regarding technical questions that you may have about sending out your email campaign.
Get to know what techniques and practices can get you blacklisted and what the best ways around these pitfalls are.
Make sure to specify which redirects are needed for appropriate e-mails.
Now on to the Top Ten Tips!
1) Make sure to implement the basic HTML tags in your code. This would include (<HTML>, <BODY>, <HEAD>, <TITLE>), among others, all of which will ensure that the entire e-mail is encoded as a single webpage. This will allow you to create more compelling and attention grabbing e-mail messages that have a much better chance of attracting and retaining readership interest than plain text e-mails.
2) Make sure that your e-mail complies with the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C standards of HTML. Keep in mind that HTML typically implements a validator, the purpose of which is to detect invalid HTML code. This can cause a number of delivery issues with your e-mail, and even cause your message to be rejected outright.
3) Try to keep your HTML code self-contained (all links should be live links). This will prevent or at least greatly reduce the chances of your e-mail being received as plain text, or worse, as HTML code that is scattered sporadically throughout the message. In the same token, you should always make sure that any links are always live and up-to-date.
4)CSS is best implemented for styling your e-mail as opposed to positioning your e-mail’s design. This will allow you to reduce their risk of broken layouts that can render your message virtually unreadable. Avoid sending out an external stylesheet with your e-mail, since many e-mail clients typically strip out this information. You would be better off using HTML tables for putting together your design. The fact that many e-mail servers commonly use only HTML tables increases your chances of a successful delivery.
5) Try to maintain a width of 500 to 650 pixels for all of your e-mails. Going over this width may require horizontal scrolling on certain browsers, and many readers will simply not bother reading such e-mail messages.
6) Keep in mind that certain e-mail programs will block images while retaining only the e-mail content. This is an important factor to consider when adding images, and you should make sure that all of them are tagged appropriately.
7) You may also want to consider placing the most important information in your e-mails in the top left corner. Quite a few e-mail clients have begun to adopt horizontal and/or vertical preview panes that enable the reader to view just a portion of the e-mail message without actually having to open it. In addition, certain e-mail clients now include a “block images” feature that keeps images from being downloaded unless the recipient specifically downloads them. Keeping your essential information in the top left corner will then greatly increase the chances of the most important parts of your e-mail being read.
When sending out a multipart e-mail, make sure that you focus primarily on the text version. Failure to do so may cause your e-mail message to be classified as spam.
9) It may be best to stay away from using JavaScript. A large number of e-mail users simply turn off JavaScript by default, considering it as a security hazard or a potential spam attempt. Relying in large part on JavaScript may cause you to miss out on a large number of these potential customers.
10) Avoid embedding images within an e-mail whenever possible. Many ISPs simply filter out e-mails that have embedded images, since they can cause the file size to become overly bloated. In order to avoid a potential bottleneck, many ISPs will simply block these e-mails outright.
The Promise
This may all seem like a lot to remember but trust us: it will get a lot easier with constant practice and application. Use these steps as a starting point for a more e-mail client-friendly marketing campaign, and you will eventually have the full power of e-mail marketing at your disposal.
SPECIAL: Solopreneur Package – Jump Start Your Business
The Web Success Team’s Solopreneur Package includes a 5-page custom direct response website fully branded and optimized for Search Engines with 6-months of online marketing, social networking, blogging, article marketing and much more. Lock in your special pricing now before the rate goes up! Contact the Web Success Team at 818-222-5643 or email bob@websuccessteam.com. To your web success!
The Web Success Team has scored a touchdown (and a few extra points) in helping promote a premiere event during Super Bowl Week, called Taste of the Game. Our clients, Entertainment & Sports Plus (ESP) and Sports Entertainment Team (SET) are hosting five exclusive events that will benefit charitable causes and educational institutes, as well as entertaining prominent business, sports and celebrity and VIP attendees.
To date, corporate sponsors include: Bacardi, CRN Digital Talk Networks, WealthTV and boingo.
A Website Sporting Good Causes
In collaboration with The Heart Truth®/Red Dress campaign, a portion of the proceeds from The Red Heart Gala and Taste of the Tropics events will benefit Athletes for Life and WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.
In collaboration with our clients, the Web Success Team helped developed the event logo and website to give it a flavor of Miami and give the potential attendees a taste for the game’s activities. Branded to reflect the Super Bowl Miami location with a football themed logo, the site is geared to reflect the 5 exclusive events: Business of Sports Summit, VIP Welcome Reception, Red Heart Charitable Gala, Taste of the Tropics, and End Zone 44 wrap up party.
The site is constructed for ease of use and navigation with events clearly presented with its own page descriptors, sponsorship opportunities with downloadable pdf package, the standard about us and contact us pages, along with celebrity hosts and prominent celebrities and VIP Guests, including actresses Vivica Fox and Kym Whitley, former and current NFL players Willie Gault, DeShaun Foster and Michael Boley.
A Brite Way to Promote Ticket Sales
The lifeblood of any event is ticket sales and the Web Success Team set-up the Eventbrite site to help manage, promote and sell-out the event. The Team branded Taste of the Game on the Eventbrite engine so those going to purchase tickets to the various events will experience the continuity of the branding and event descriptions while making their decision/purchases.
Since Social Media is now an important component in any online marketing plan, Taste of the Game is no exception. The home page has all the social media networking icons so visitors can connect with the clients and spread the word about this exciting star-studded event.
TeamWork Brings Web Success
The Web Success Team can help develop, manage and promote your event through the power of online marketing and social media marketing. Our experience and knowledge can be a valuable resource in this new economy to get the most traction out of your business or event and achieve web success. Contact our Team to learn how we can get you wired into your target markets and make an impact on your bottom line.
The Web Success Team has scored a touchdown (and a few extra points) in helping promote a premiere event during Super Bowl Week, called Taste of the Game. Our clients, Entertainment & Sports Plus (ESP) and Sports Entertainment Team (SET) are hosting five exclusive events that will benefit charitable causes and educational institutes, as well as entertaining prominent business, sports and celebrity and VIP attendees.
To date, corporate sponsors include: Bacardi, CRN Digital Talk Networks, WealthTV and boingo.
A Website Sporting Good Causes
In collaboration with The Heart Truth®/Red Dress campaign, a portion of the proceeds from The Red Heart Gala and Taste of the Tropics events will benefit Athletes for Life and WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.
In collaboration with our clients, the Web Success Team helped developed the event logo and website to give it a flavor of Miami and give the potential attendees a taste for the game’s activities. Branded to reflect the Super Bowl Miami location with a football themed logo, the site is geared to reflect the 5 exclusive events: Business of Sports Summit, VIP Welcome Reception, Red Heart Charitable Gala, Taste of the Tropics, and End Zone 44 wrap up party.
The site is constructed for ease of use and navigation with events clearly presented with its own page descriptors, sponsorship opportunities with downloadable pdf package, the standard about us and contact us pages, along with celebrity hosts and prominent celebrities and VIP Guests, including actresses Vivica Fox and Kym Whitley, former and current NFL players Willie Gault, DeShaun Foster and Michael Boley.
A Brite Way to Promote Ticket Sales
The lifeblood of any event is ticket sales and the Web Success Team set-up the Eventbrite site to help manage, promote and sell-out the event. The Team branded Taste of the Game on the Eventbrite engine so those going to purchase tickets to the various events will experience the continuity of the branding and event descriptions while making their decision/purchases.
Since Social Media is now an important component in any online marketing plan, Taste of the Game is no exception. The home page has all the social media networking icons so visitors can connect with the clients and spread the word about this exciting star-studded event.
TeamWork Brings Web Success
The Web Success Team can help develop, manage and promote your event through the power of online marketing and social media marketing. Our experience and knowledge can be a valuable resource in this new economy to get the most traction out of your business or event and achieve web success. Contact our Team to learn how we can get you wired into your target markets and make an impact on your bottom line.
Join the Web Success Team for a FREE social media workshop hosted by the L.A. Chamber of Commerce. The workshop is called Latinos and Social Media Strategies for Nonprofits and is on Wednesday, December 16th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m at Bank of America Room A, B & C on 350 S. Bixel St., Los Angeles 90017. The sponsor is the California Wellness Foundation. The workshop is promoted by VPE, a Hispanic Public Relations firm, whose social media practice area, commUNITY®, is geared to bringing online opportunities to Latinos.
During this one-day workshop, you will learn how to utilize the latest web technology for your organization’s advantage. Presenters will share outreach strategies and how to manage an online presence for your organization in support of your mission. You will get key insights and recommendations to harness the power of new media to maximize your dollars.
Marci Rosenblum – Featured Speaker
Throughout the day there will be guest speakers on a variety of social media topics. Kicking off the morning is Marci Rosenblum, co-founder of the Web Success Team, who will be talking about “Effective Branding in a Social Media World.” Marci will discuss the pros for carrying your brand forward in social networks; and the benefits that it creates for spreading your message to the right demographics.
Other topics include successful social media campaigns. You will learn from nonprofit organizations using social media. This session will focus on successful strategies and challenges in launching social media campaigns including online fundraising, community organizing and civic engagement. The afternoon session will delve into developing social media strategies. You will learn what steps to take before launching a social media effort and strategies to use to engage with your online community.
Take-Aways…
There will be a host of tips, techniques and strategies you will gleam from this one-day workshop. The focus may be on non-profits, but anyone can benefit from the content presented by these social media marketing experts. Some of the workshop take-aways include:
Learning about the most useful web tools for nonprofits.
Discovering the latest trends on how to use Social Media to communicate with constituents.
Conversing with experts on how to develop strategies and manage online presence.
Discussing with organizations that have successfully used social media for promotion, advocacy and fund raising.
Sign-up and join the team for this FREE.
For more information and a schedule of workshop activities and speakers, go to the link: Latinos and Social Media Strategies for Nonprofits. Join the Web Success Team for a day of learning and networking.
TeamWork Builds Web Success
The Web Success Team specializes in building and marketing direct response websites that take full advantage of the latest developments on the Internet. The Team has an arsenal of effective web strategies, online tools and proven techniques to promote your products and services. And we’ll show you ways to increase the amount of qualified traffic to your site through the expanding social media and online marketing strategies.
For more tips, tools and articles of interest, become a fan of the WebSuccessTeam Facebook Page and learn more about online marketing, SEO and social media.
Contact the Team today for a complimentary consultation to your web success!
Today I got a disturbing call from Bank of America’s Fraud Department concerning a payment to “Web Success” that their customer “didn’t” make. During our discussion, I realized the payment was made to Web Success NOT to Web Success Team. Hence the problem.
Speak Honestly and React Quickly
Obviously there was identity theft of their customer’s credit card and some entity used part of our name for fraudulent purposes. When I asked the bank representative how they got our telephone number, she replied, “I Googled your company.” Well at least our SEO efforts are effective as we are ranked #1 on the search engines. The amount was small ($79) but significant, as crooks often use small amounts to keep under the radar.
I am glad the banks are checking fraudulent charges to try to contain or catch the perpetrators. But as a legitimate company who has a reputation to protect, it is paramount for us to be on top of any incident, no matter how seemingly small. Because these things can take on a life of their own, protecting your reputation, no matter how fraudulent the claims, is critical. We have spent years building a significant online presence and efforts as an honest, customer oriented company. We will not tolerate our hard earned reputation or name of being tarnished (or even a part of it, as web success is one of our keywords).
The Best Defense Is an Offense!
Be advised that people can post anything negative on the Internet, with impunity. So what can you do to manage your reputation? You should attack it head on and minimize the incident. I spent time talking to the bank representative until she was satisfied. We are then writing this blog to further document what happened. If ones online reputation has been besmirched then more aggressive tactics need to be implemented.
However, it can take 2-3 months to eliminate the unwarranted bad press. If you or your company needs reputation management, the Web Success Team has a program designed to help you monitor, combat and prevent negative posts on search engines. Identity theft or negative press can happen to anyone, and usually does. Contact the Team today to find out how we can help you repair the damage and protect your reputation and your bottom line.
Please Stay Tuned…
The Web Success Team will be blogging a series of other web related issues that can directly effect your business and your ability to do business online.
Cyber Monday is a term coined by retailers to capitalize on the shopping season and traditionally know as the strongest day for online retail sales and web success. Point of fact, it is also generating more sales than in store purchases, making it bigger than Black Friday.
Cyber Monday is the traditional “kick-off” to the online shopping season. This year sales could exceed $900 million, making this the biggest day for online retailers according to the Dow Jones and Com Score. Sales rose 14% this year over last year’s haul and bought 30% more items per order as well.
When sending out a multipart e-mail, make sure that you focus primarily on the text version. Failure to do so may cause your e-mail message to be classified as spam.
The Web Success Team has scored a touchdown (and a few extra points) in helping promote a premiere event during Super Bowl Week, called Taste of the Game. Our clients, 
