Archive for September, 2006

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Buying an LCD Projector?

Saturday, September 23rd, 2006

We needed an LCD projector for flyte. We’re planning on using it during staff meetings, training sessions and "lunch and learns" once we get into our new offices.

Since I knew absolutely nothing about buying a projector I did a little bit of research on the Web. There was no better article than this one I found at About.com called Before You Buy an LCD Projector.

It quickly breaks down what features you need to consider and gave me all the information I needed to compare brands.

The outcome? I ended up buying a refurbished an InFocus X3 for about $800 that I’m happy with, but so far I’ve only used it to show The Incredibles on the side of a tent at our annual block party.

Once I get some business experience I’ll let you know how it works out.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business | No Comments »


What Does a Small Business Need to Succeed Online?

Thursday, September 21st, 2006

If you’re running a small business or startup, and have been wondering what you need to get going and be successful online, turn on your TV. (First, though, move to Maine.)

Tonight I’ll be talking about Web sites and Web marketing for small businesses on Maine’s NBC affiliate WCSH Channel 6′s evening news program 207.

We’ll talk (briefly!) about search engine optimization, email marketing, blogs, podcasts and more. Watch me try and cram 8 hours of seminars into 5 minutes without my head exploding!

The show begins at 7pm tonight, 9/21/06.

If you need more than five minutes of information, be sure to check out the continuing ed course I’ll be teaching over at the University of Southern Maine: Web Marketing for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses. It’s offered over 4 Wednesdays, 10/18 – 11/8, 6:30pm – 8:30pm.

Again, it might be easier if you first move to Maine. Here are a couple of options of people to talk to about that.

Rich Brooks
The Way Life Should Be

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news, Search Engine Marketing, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Three Rules to Guarantee People Will Read Your Article

Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

Whenever I’m talking to clients about creating compelling email bait I always recommend writing an article that includes three things:

  • A number. People are way too busy and suffering from information overload to learn everything about search engine marketing, automotive maintenance or how to keep their garden green. However, a number implies that you’ve boiled it down to just a few salient points that will get them through the day and give them something they can walk away with.
  • A negative. Evidence shows (don’t ask me to show it, just trust me on this one), that people are more driven to avoid pain than gain pleasure. Don’t believe me? Which is a more compelling headline: "The Importance of Healthy School Lunches" or "School Lunches: Are They Killing Your Children?"
  • A point of interest. Obviously this negative list of attributes needs to be targeted to your best prospects and customers.

What made me think of posting this? The list of articles in this week’s MarketingProfs:

  • Five Real-World Ways Businesses Are Marketing to Their Communities
  • The 10 Biggest Mistakes Marketers Make—Number 1: Merely Handing Off Leads to Sales
  • Strong Brands Always Have More Brand Credits Than Debits: A Starbucks Lesson
  • How to Promote Your Book to the Top of the NY Times Best Sellers List
  • The 10 Cs of Branding
  • Satisfying the 10 Cravings of a New Generation of Consumers (Part 2 of 2)
  • Marketing Challenge: Three Ways to Score With Downloadable Products

Even the two without numbers reference numbers: more credits than debits, the top of the best seller list.

‘Nuff said.

Rich Brooks
Let Me Count The Ways…

Posted in Web Copywriting, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »


That Fax from the Internet Optimization Bureau? It’s a Scam

Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

Do you think the folks at the Internet Optimization Bureau are working overtime? Just look at all these searches:

Internetoptimization

Here’s the original post. Feel free to link to it and help get the word out.

Rich Brooks
If It Wasn’t a Scam, They Wouldn’t Make It Look Like a Bill

Posted in Ignore It! | No Comments »


PayPal: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

This month’s issue of flyte log arrives two weeks late, but is still chock full of good information.

If you’ve been wondering about your e-commerce options or whether PayPal might work for you, be sure to check out PayPal: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Rich Brooks
I Put the "Pal" in PayPal

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news, Web Design & Development | 6 Comments »


How to Handle Negative Comments on Your Blog

Monday, September 18th, 2006

There are three types of comments that might get left at your blog: good, bad and spam.

For those of you new to blogging, you may not realize that spam is not just for email and sandwiches anymore.

Spam can cover anything that changes the signal to noise variable. In other words, spam is garbage content that reduces the value of communication by filling our media with unnecessary noise, making it more difficult to receive the signal.

Spam commentary is often obvious: it has nothing to do with the topic and goes on to create links (and often PageRank) to sites promoting Viagra, low-cost mortgages and Texas Hold ‘Em.

Often, it’s a little more difficult to discern. Is someone who just leaves a message of "Great post!" giving honest feedback or are they just creating another link to their own Web site or blog? There’s no hard and fast way to know, and often whether or not I delete comments like that depends on the mood I’m in and how many cups of coffee I’ve downed.

If you determine that a comment (or trackback) is spam, it’s your duty as a blogger to delete that comment. Not deleting comment spam is the sign of a bad neighbor.

Negative comments are a stickier wicket, however. Part of what makes blogs so interesting is the fact that it’s a truly interactive medium. Visitors to your blog can give you immediate feedback on what you’ve written. If you are blogging about soon to be released products or services, you can pick the brains of your readers for feedback.

However, it can be painful when someone has negative things to say about you or your company. Furthermore, if you’re talking about a client and THEY get bad mouthed the situation can get even trickier.

I don’t write about too many controversial topics, but I have received a few negative comments since I started blogging.

My recommendation is to keep them up, for a few reasons.

  1. Deleting [non-spam] comments can come across as censorship. If you, your company or your blog is well known enough, it’s likely that someone will discover you’re deleting negative comments and will start blogging about that. Nothing is ever as bad as the cover up that’s supposed to hide it.
  2. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Getting negative comments means people are reading your blog and feeling engaged (or enraged) by it. You’re probably doing your job.
  3. You learn more from negative comments than positive ones. Negative commentary can be much more effective in showing you where you or your company falls short so that you can address the issue.
  4. Better to have negative comments on your own blog than someone else’s. If people feel that their negative comments will be quickly whitewashed, they’ll post their negative comments somewhere else…somewhere you have no control. If you can get angry customers to vent at your blog you can also address the issues they bring up. Plus, people who have posted negative comments will often come back and publicly thank you when things go right.

Rich Brooks
Negatively Yours

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »


Wanted: Talented Account Manager with Passion and Experience

Monday, September 18th, 2006

We’re an energetic, successful Web design and Internet marketing firm located in Portland, ME, looking for an account manager to help our clients succeed.

You are enthusiastic, organized, responsible and detail-oriented to a fault. If you say you’ll get it done, it’s done. You have positive memories of your previous experience in customer service, account management and/or sales.

You manage incoming requests from clients quickly, professionally and with a smile. You look forward to calling clients when there’s an opportunity for them to grow their business online.

You are responsible to allocate resources, schedule and track multiple projects through completion, assign tasks to employees and contractors, update clients on progress, and keep projects on time and on budget.

You report directly to the president…and to all of our clients. You love what you do, you know you make a difference and you look forward to coming into work each day.

If you also know HTML and have worked in a Web design firm you are our ideal applicant! (How come you haven’t knocked on our door already?!?)

If you are up for a challenge, if you want to make an impact, if you want to leverage your talent and creativity, if you want to be recognized for your efforts, flyte new media is the right place for you.

For salary and benefit information please visit our jobs page, where you can also submit your resume and cover letter.

No phone calls, please.

Rich Brooks
Web Design – Portland, Maine

Posted in flyte news | No Comments »


Thinking Outside the Couch

Thursday, September 14th, 2006

Thinking Outside the Couch
Last week, while I was on vacation, flyte launched a new Web site for Dr. Larry Kutner called Thinking Outside the Couch: Smart Income Strategies for Mental Health Professionals.

Dr. Kutner is himself a mental health professional who over the past 20 years has helped a wide range of mental health and public health professionals develop new ways to use their skills to become more financial secure and independent.

Thinking Outside The Couch is the product that Dr. Kutner distilled from his 20 years of experience helping others in his profession.

Flyte enabled e-commerce on the site by using KickStartCart.com, a hosted shopping solution. Through the site, visitors can listen to audio excerpts, download workbook samples or purchase the 10 CD set with included workbook.

If you’re a mental health or public health professional who is looking for a change in the way your run your career or business, check out Thinking Outside the Couch for more information.

Rich Brooks
E-Commerce Web Developer

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Posted in Web Site Launches | No Comments »


No Capes! Is The Client Always Right?

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006

Edna
One of my favorite scenes from The Incredibles was when Mr. Incredible was describing his perfect super suit to Edna Mode, "like Dynaguy. Oh, he had a great look! Oh, the cape and the boots…"

"No capes!"

She had her reasons.

Do you remember Thunderhead? Tall, storm powers? Nice man, good with kids. November 15th of ’58! All was well, another day saved, when? his cape snagged on a missile fin! Stratogale! April 23rd, ’57! Cape caught in a jet turbine! Metaman, express elevator! Dynaguy, snag on takeoff! Splashdown, sucked into a vortex! No capes!

So why would I be talking about Edna? As a thinly veiled excuse to show off her intriguing beauty? No.

Because we’ve all been told that the client is always right. Except, when they’re not. As a small business owner I try and be open when a client has an opposing opinion from my own. After all, if I learn something new every day, that means I still have tens of thousands of things to learn. I’m wrong every day. (Please, don’t let my wife see this post.)

Recently, when listening to a podcast on Internet marketing by Bastion Internet, the speaker said that he had a responsibility to making sure his clients looked good, as if they were going on a first date. It’s a good metaphor.

Ultimately, the client is paying the money and they shouldn’t have something forced upon them. However, don’t we owe them something more than our skills or our craftsmanship? Don’t we owe them our experience and our expertise? If they want to use our kite string for a bungee cord, don’t we owe them our expertise to tell them it’s not the right tool for the job?

Recently a couple of jobs haven’t gone as smoothly as they could have because we let clients dictate the terms on how they would work with us, taking us out of our game. Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I could go back to the old me and say, "convince them to lean on our expertise in this matter. They’ll get a better product for a lower price and be happier at the end of the day. If they don’t want to do it that way, consider whether it’s worth pursuing the relationship with them."

Is this a fancy way of saying "my way or the highway?" I don’t think so. It’s more like saying, "no capes!"

Rich Brooks
Capeless

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Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business | 4 Comments »


Email Marketing and the Inc 500

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006

Inc500_1
Sorry I’ve been remiss in posting, but I just got back from vacation and I only had one post queued up.

While I was away I caught up on a lot of magazine reading. In my stack was the Inc. 500 list. At least three Email Service Providers (ESPs) made the top 500, including ExactTarget, VerticalResponse and flyte’s own ESP, Constant Contact.

I say "at least three" because the first two were listed under Advertising & Marketing, and the third was under Business Services. Not sure why, or if another ESP might have ended up under Construction or Security.

It seems like there’s a lot of action in this area, and that makes sense. Email marketing still offers incredible return on investment…assuming that you can get past the spam filters at the ISP level and your subscriber’s email level, as well as getting them to open your emails and click on the links….

When asked how companies were marketing their products and services 58% of the companies were using email marketing. Only "word of mouth or viral marketing" did better, at an astounding 82%. I wish they had separated those two items, as I think they’re very different.

If you’re looking for inspiration for growing your small business, be sure to pick up this month’s copy of Inc.

Rich Brooks
Small Business Owner

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Posted in Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Marketing | No Comments »

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