2009 July | flyte blog: small business web marketing blog

Archive for July, 2009

Maine Quality Counts: Powered by Joomla CMS & flyte

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Today flyte launched a Web site for Maine Quality Counts: Measurably Improving Health & Healthcare in Maine.

Maine is one of 16 communities across the United States selected to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative.

As part of this effort, Quality Counts works directly with
consumers to help them choose healthcare based on quality and take a
more active role in managing their own care. There are many tools and
trainings that consumers can use to learn more on the Web site.

MQC wanted a Web site that they could manage themselves. They also wanted one where they could provide password-protected, member only content, and feature members prominently on the home page. Most importantly, they wanted a Web site that would grow with them.

The site also allows them to easily promote important events, like the upcoming Maine Healthcare Forum.

Flyte designed and developed the Web site on Joomla, an open-source content management system (CMS) that's powerful, but easy to use. Just the kind of online publishing platform MQC needed so they could focus on their core mission, and not spend unnecessary time and money updating their site.

Rich Brooks
Joomla Web Design & Development

Posted in Web Site Launches | 8 Comments »

Save the Date: Social Media Marketing Conference: 9/23/09

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Social media is seemingly everywhere these days.

Twitter was the cover story of Time magazine last month. Seniors are joining Facebook by the busload to see their grandkids' photos. Blogs are replacing press releases as a communications tool. Companies are using YouTube to reach new audiences at a fraction of the cost of TV ads.

But you still have questions:

Does my company really need a Facebook page?
Will social media really drive new leads to my Web site?
Can I use Twitter to sell?
Why do I need a blog if I already have a Web site?
Is this just a passing phase?
How do I get started?

Well, now it's time for answers.

Over the past few months, Chrystie Corns, Jaica Kinsman and I have been scheming. We've been putting together a conference on social media marketing. We've got some of the most talented marketers to talk about:

blogging & podcasting
Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn
using video to drive traffic to your Web site
how social media improves search engine optimization
and a lot more.

We've just launched the site for The Social Media FTW Fall Conference. This half-day conference will take place on Wednesday, 9/23/2009 from 1pm – 5pm with a 1 – 2 hour networking event to follow. (And the first round's on us…no joke!)

Kiosks, Have We Got Kiosks!

In addition to great speakers and presenters, we want to make this a hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves event. We'll be having computer kiosks where volunteers will help you setup profiles for yourself and your business at Twitter, Facebook and other popular social media sites.

Already have a Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn profile setup? We'll give you quick, on-the-spot evaluations and tips on how to improve your profiles and get more bang for your buck.

It's only $79–which is a steal for all this great material. But wait, there's more! Through Friday, 7/24 we're offering an early bird special of $59! That's less than $10/hr (if you stick around the networking event for 2 hours.)

Since this is the first FTW conference, we're offering only a limited number of tickets. Tickets started selling within 30 minutes of the announcement of the new site, so please…don't miss out!

Register for the Social Media FTW Fall Conference

Learn more about the Social Media FTW Fall Conference

What the heck does FTW stand for, anyway?

Hope to see you there.

Rich Brooks
I Love the Smell of Social Media in the Morning

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

Yacht.com – Social Network Site for Boaters

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Earlier this year flyte had the privilege of working on Yacht.com, a social networking and resource site for people passionate about yachting.

The people behind Yacht.com are boaters themselves, and they had a good idea of what boaters were looking for in a social media site:

ONE place to digitally and securely store all of my boats documents and manuals.
ONE simple way to connect to: my dealer, a vendor, my manufacturer, other boaters.
ONE site to store all of my images and stories from my boating life… and share them with friends.
ONE complete digest of news articles and listings – so I can browse or search.
ONE custom page where all of my boating interests appear neatly organized.
ONE community to find valued opinions of what my boat is worth and how to enhance my boating lifestyle.

To do that, Yacht.com developed a powerful news aggregation service specific to marine interests. Users can save custom searches and have custom news delivered to their individual "home port." Once members enter their preferences, Yacht.com's back-end learns more about the boater as they use the site. Then the content delivered is being constantly refined to specific interests.

Pretty slick, no?

Yacht.com also offers a growing database of over 500 manufacturers and model information, with more coming soon including a refined search function.

Flyte designed the user interface of the Web site and blog, as well as consulting on social media strategies that would engage their targeted audience.

While Yacht.com has just rolled out a few of the features they'll be promoting over the coming months, it's already a powerful, social-media-enhanced site for anyone who owns a boat…or is looking to hit the high seas soon.

Rich Brooks
Social Media Marketing for Business

Posted in Social Media, Web Site Launches | 2 Comments »

How to Set Up Recurring Billing in PayPal

Friday, July 17th, 2009

If your business has products or services that require regular billing, you might want to look to PayPal to automate the billing process.

In this short video on How to Set Up Recurring Billing in PayPal, I'll show you step-by-step how to automate recurring billing, whether you want to bill once a month or twice a week, and whether you want to bill for six months, a year or forever.

Once you've set up the recurring billing PayPal will generate code you can add to a Web site, blog, or even put into an email.

Rich Brooks
Helping Small Businesses Do Stuff

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, How-To Web Marketing Videos, Web Design & Development | 4 Comments »

Should You Charge for Your Webinars?

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

At flyte, we put on monthly Web marketing Webinars that cover everything from search engine optimization to Google Analytics to promoting a business blog. We actually put them on twice.

The first one is free, and available only to our clients as a value-added service/thank you for doing business with us. The second is a paid one available to anyone (with an Internet connection, a phone line and the cost of entry.)

I've definitely heard some good arguments for not charging for Webinars; however, whether you should charge or not should be based on what your goals are.

When You Should Give Your Webinars Away For Free:

You have a product or service that can be enjoyed by the masses. Think Ben & Jerry's vs. Red's (which sells ice cream in South Portland, Maine, and is only open when the weather is good.)
You have the bandwidth to distribute your product or services to the masses. For example, if you're a solopreneur photographer, you're not going to be able to do the amount of business that Sears Portrait Studio can, regardless of how much better your product may be.
Your goal is to build up your business. If you don't have a following already, and if you don't have a proven track record, it's difficult to get people to pay for your Webinar when there is so much free information out there.
You are rewarding behavior. As in, we give our clients free Webinars because we want to thank them for choosing and sticking with flyte.
You want to get an important message out. If you're not a for-profit business, or if you have an important cause and want to get your message out as far and wide as possible, a free Webinar is (probably) the way to go.

When You Should Charge for Your Webinars:

When you want to qualify your audience. I found this when I first started giving presentations: when you don't charge for them you often get a room full of tire-kickers, people who don't have anywhere better to be, and people who don't appreciate the value of what you're providing.
When you want people to show up. Another lesson I learned from presentations: when a seminar or webinar is free, something more urgent invariably comes up. Case in point: our most recent free webinar had 14 people sign up, but only 4 got on the call. The paid webinar also had 14 people sign up, and approximately 16 got on the call. Hmmm…will have to look into that.
When you don't have the bandwidth to work with everyone. One of issues with being a small botique Web design and Internet marketing company is that you can't work with everyone. I like the fact that through our webinars we can help a lot more small businesses and entrepreneurs than I could ever work with.
When you want to establish your value. Whether real or not, a paid event is perceived as having more value. Even if people can't attend (whether due to time or money), your value and the value of your material goes up in their eyes.
When you want to make money. It's nice to get paid for your hard work and your expertise. If you're providing value that helps another person accomplish their goals or helps another business grow and expand, there's nothing wrong with getting paid for it.

So, before you decide whether or not to charge for your next Webinar (or seminar), review your personal and business goals…and then set your price.

Rich Brooks
That Webinar is How Much?!

Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Marketing | 3 Comments »

Dear AT&T, What’s the Real Cost of a $699 iPhone?

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

The other day I jumped into the pool, fully clothed, to save my daughter who had gotten in over her head. Unfortunately, I hadn't removed my iPhone from my pocket before doing so.

I don't tell this story to brag–everyone reading this would have done the exact same thing. I only mention this because I want to make it clear that this wasn't one of those situations where someone drops their iPhone in the toilet while they're drunk at a party.

The good news is that I had Apple Care for my iPhone 3G. The bad news is that getting it wet–no matter how noble your purpose–isn't covered. The best Apple could offer me was to repair my iPhone for $200.

Next, I called up AT&T. I had only bought the iPhone about 6 months ago, so I didn't qualify for any kind of upgrade. I said I was more than willing to add two years to my contract to get the discounted 3GS price, but they wouldn't do it. They would, however, be happy to sell me the iPhone 3GS at the non-discounted price of $699.

So, if you're scoring at home, AT&T could have kept me happy by locking me into their service for an additional two years of profit to them! Instead, I'm in the market for a used iPhone and counting the days until my contract with AT&T is up. If the iPhone/Verizon rumors are true AT&T has convinced me that they're not interested in keeping my business.

There must be some convoluted bean-counter logic to all this, but I can't find it. Instead, I'll be patiently waiting until I can get onto a network where I can get more than one bar at my house.

Rich Brooks
Frustrated AT&T Customer

Happy Ending: Me–being me–had tweeted my iPhone's demise, and the cause behind it. At the same time, the company behind SimplyTweet, a Twitter iPhone app, was running a contest on Twitter. The grand prize? A $200 iPhone gift card.

I only heard about this because Tyler Strange (aka @attractiveideas) entered me in the contest, and I was selected!

Although I still couldn't upgrade to the 3GS I was able to trade in my wet 3G for a dry one thanks to Tyler and SimplyTweet. You can follow SimplyTweet on Twitter, as well.

Posted in Business Philosophy, Off Topic | 12 Comments »

National Form Awareness Day: Are You In Compliance?

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Today is National Form Awareness Day and the government is requesting that you check your Web site forms.

OK, I just made that up.

However, it makes sense to regularly check the forms on your Web site. Why?

When someone completes a form on your site they're often taken to what's called a landing page. This page isn't part of your regular navigation, nor is it a page you see every day. Often, it contains information that's no longer relevant or even completely wrong. By filling out your own forms you'll see what your prospects see.
Depending on the type of form you have set up on your site, visitors may also receive an autoresponder email. Again, you don't see these emails, but they're delivered to your prospects' email inboxes with your name on it. Do you even remember what your autoresponder says?
Occasionally, for no good reason, a form can "go off the tracks." Maybe there was a database error, maybe you ran out of room on the server, maybe it was a random bug. Unfortunately, these problems don't always fix themselves. If you find that you've stopped getting contact form emails you should test the form immediately and let your Web developer know if you find a problem.

Also, if you are receiving a lot of junk through your contact form it's probably time to upgrade to a form that does a better job filtering out that junk. If you have any questions on that please let us know.

Rich Brooks
Web Designer

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »