Technology | Michael Reynolds

March 26, 2010 By Michael Reynolds 2 Comments

Associations: Is it time to eliminate the newsletter?

As we all know, paper is getting less relevant. Many associations are scrambling to “go green” with their newsletters in an effort to reduce costs and make use of electronic means of delivery. Kudos for this!

However, what most associations are doing is simply emailing out a PDF version of the newsletter they used to print. While this does save money and takes advantage of modern electronic tools, there is a problem with this approach: it assumes that members want to consume information the same way they always have.

We need to abandon our old thinking of just “going green” with our newsletters because all this does is keeps us clinging to the idea that our communication needs to come out on an infrequent, scheduled basis as one big chunk of content called a “newsletter”.

Ask anyone today if they read newspapers or newsletters anymore and chances are they will acknowledge that they don’t have the time or the interest in reading a large publication full of content that they have to filter and digest.

Today’s association members consume information differently. While they typically will not read a multi-page newsletter (paper or electronic), they will notice bite-sized chunks of communication that can be consumed in 2 minutes or less. Examples of communication like this include: articles posted to the association website, a single-article email, blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter posts, LinkedIn discussions, SMS, YouTube videos, RSS, and community comments. Today’s association websites must replace the newsletter by truly becoming information hubs that also encourage social commenting.

Associations must offer choices, as well. There are so many ways to consume information today that in order to reach as many people as possible, we need to create a system that includes many different tools and touch points.

In order to evolve, associations must acknowledge this shift in information consumption and abandon the old idea of the “newsletter”. It takes a new kind of communications strategy to reach members today.

Isn’t it time to eliminate the newsletter?

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: associations, blog, blogging, email, facebook, linkedin, Marketing, social media, twitter, website

March 19, 2010 By Michael Reynolds 3 Comments

Don’t send me “e-news”

I see a lot of email newsletters. They vary in their degrees of design quality, content, and general appeal. However, over 90% of them (made-up statistic for CJ McClanahan) fall into the trap of being simply “e-news”. Some of the titles are even things like “March E-news”, “E-news from Company XYZ”, or “March Newsletter”.

These are boring subject lines but the content of the newsletter makes it even worse. These newsletter are typically packed full of little advertising boxes that shout at the reader or ramble on and on about things going on at the company, specials and promotions, and every other marketing message that can possibly be crammed into it. This results in information overload, a hard-sell vibe, and will probably result in a high number of unsubscribes.

Why? Because this type of newsletter has no value to its recipients.

Rather than take this approach, try slimming down and focusing your message. First, take out all the extra advertising fluff and shouting and design your newsletter to consist of one main content area that contains a single message. It’s ok to leave a couple of subtle ancillary boxes but the bulk of your newsletter layout should be centered around one article.

Next, make that article focused on the recipient. Don’t paste in your latest press release, monthly special, or ad campaign. Write an educational article that gives something of value to the reader. Teach your readers something new, give them new ideas, or give them a unique insight into something that will help them in their businesses. Make sure it is well-written. If your organization does not have someone who writes well, outsource the writing.

Finally, customize your subject line to reflect the content of the article. Instead of just “March E-news”, include the actual title of the article. When your readers are scanning their inboxes, a specific and descriptive subject line will stand out among all the other “e-news” messages in the list.

If your subject line is specific and descriptive, your readers are more likely to open it. If your message is simple and direct, your readers are more likely to pay attention to it. If your message is valuable, your readers are more likely to share it with others and stay on your mailing list. If you do this consistently, your readers are more likely to buy from you, donate to your non-profit, or recommend you to others.

Don’t fall into the “e-news” trap. Make your message simple, focused, and valuable to your readers.

Filed Under: Design, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: Design, email, Marketing, usability

March 6, 2010 By Michael Reynolds Leave a Comment

Stop making excuses and start blogging

Blogging is hard. I get that. It’s not easy to consistently create new content and make the time to tweak and publish it. However, blogging is one of the best ways to build deeper relationships with your constituents and reach deeper into their networks as well.

Often when I talk about blogging with others, I hear all sorts of excuses:

I’m not a good writer
I don’t have time
I don’t like to write
I don’t know what to write about
I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it
No one would read what I wrote

The list goes on and on. However, like most difficult-but-worthwhile things, a process and a system can make it easier.

When I blog, I don’t usually just sit down and pick a topic out of thin air. Instead, I continuously capture ideas and keep them in a list. Often, blog ideas come from conversations I have, articles I read, or problems I’m solving. When this happens, I capture the idea either by placing it on my list of blog ideas or use Jott if I’m on the go. Then, when I do have some downtime or I’m in a creative mood, I can go to my list and pull out blog topics to write about. By separating the conceptualizing from the execution, I’ve made it much easier to produce content.

Blogging is a great marketing tool for your business because it strengthens your authority in the market. People want to do business with people they like and trust, and they can get to know you and trust you by reading your blog.

Don’t blog like a commercial. Blog with sincerity. Blog about things you know a lot about. Blog about your opinions about your profession. Blog about controversial topics. Blog to teach others something that will help them. Blog about your passions.

Schedule time to blog. Capture ideas throughout the week but maybe you block off an hour every Friday morning to choose a topic and write.

If you want to automate the writing part of it, hire a ghost blogger to take your ideas and turn them into polished articles. This will cost a little bit of money but will be well worth the investment.

Distribute your blogs on social networks. Respond to comments. Use your best blog articles in your email newsletter.

Blogging is a great way to cut through the noise of traditional marketing and give your constituents something of value. They will respect your transparency. They will learn to trust you. They will be much more likely to become your customer. Blogging builds relationships.

Capture your ideas and start blogging. No more excuses.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: blog, blogging, email, facebook, linkedin, Marketing, networking, social media, twitter, website

February 19, 2010 By Michael Reynolds Leave a Comment

Don’t use consumer email for business

I frequently attend networking events during which I meet a variety of business owners. Often we exchange business cards and I continue to notice a trend which disturbs me: the use of consumer email as a business email address.

I often see email addresses using the domain “sbcglobal.net”, “yahoo.com”, or (shudder) “aol.com” listed on a business card. This really makes me cringe. It’s poor branding, and says to the world that your business has not invested in a proper email system. It’s also risky to operate your business on a free system or a system that is designed for consumer email due to the lack of support and functionality.

When you are using a proper email system for business, your email address will match the address of your website. For example, my email address is michael@spinweb.net, which matches my company’s website address: www.spinweb.net.

There are many options for excellent business email. At SpinWeb, we provide Google Apps for Business for our clients, which gives them a complete email, calendaring, documents, and collaboration system. Other companies may want to consider using Microsoft Exchange, which is a great business communications system. Scott Sells at ZingTech provides an excellent Exchange solution.

Let’s get rid of the consumer email addresses on business cards. Brand your business properly and use a system you can rely on.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: branding, email, networking, spinweb

February 14, 2010 By Michael Reynolds Leave a Comment

How does building websites change the world?

At SpinWeb, we create professional websites and online marketing initiatives. We’ve been doing it since 1996 and have gotten very good at it. We’ve gotten so good at it that it amazes me how fast and how well we deploy new websites on time, on budget, and with amazing design quality.

Sometimes, however, I think we get so caught up in the mechanics of our systems and processes at the “runway” level that we can lose sight of why we are doing what we do. How does our work make a difference? How does it change the world? How does it change lives?

I think it’s important to stay focused on these questions and the answers that go with them. So what does our work really mean?

One very exciting part of our work is seeing how a beautiful new website can inspire confidence, pride, and brand strength in the organizations that we work with. Often, we work with businesses that are looking for that extra push to help take them to the next level and reach new markets and when we create a website that helps them look like an industry leader, it has direct application to business growth and especially company morale.

We also love to empower individuals within the organization to do their jobs well. When we help the marketing director launch her online campaigns in a fraction of the time it used to take, she now has more time to work on other activities or spend time with her family. This improves her quality of life.

It brings a smile to my face when we can help a non-profit modernize the online donation, fund raising, and volunteer recruiting process so that they are able to help more people in need and bring positive change to the world.

When we can provide online tools that help event planners promote and manage successful conferences, we are helping bring together professionals who learn from each other and grow in their professions.

When we provide businesses with a website that helps them reach their customers and deliver solutions in a more efficient way, we are giving them the ability to grow faster and create jobs.

There are so many ways that online marketing and technology can improve the quality of life for those who embrace it. I love being a part of it and creating the solutions and tools that change lives.

No matter what you do, make sure you understand why you are doing it and how it makes a difference, no matter how small. At SpinWeb, we create professional websites and online marketing initiatives that change lives.

Filed Under: Design, Lifestyle, Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: Design, indianapolis, Marketing, spinweb, website

February 9, 2010 By Michael Reynolds Leave a Comment

Is your website an information hub or a brochure?

I’m sure we’ve all heard the term “brochure website” before. For a while, it was used as a legitimate way to label certain types of websites and was accepted as a normal way to do business. Organizations would simply take their brochures, turn them into static websites that regurgitated brochure content, and called it a day. We all thought this was ok.

Then, we evolved beyond this and realized that websites were more than just a digital brochure. We started to add things like fresh content, Flash promos, and changing photos. This let our audience know that things were happening and that whenever new content was available, we would publish it in real time on the web. This was a good next step.

Today, the modern corporate or non-profit website is much more. It must truly be an information hub. Though some organizations still don’t understand this, we are way beyond the brochure website. We are also evolving beyond the “changing content” websites that followed. We are now in an era in which our constituents demand extensive access to online tools and information that creates a two-way dialog. Your constituents expect to be able to engage with your website to actually do things that help them get their work done and be productive. Things like:

Register and pay online for events in 2 minutes or less
Download your latest product documentation
Ask a question and get an answer
Find a real person with a name and title to start a conversation with
Subscribe to an email newsletter that teaches something (not just promotes)
Comment on your blog
Subscribe to your Podcast
Share your educational content with their social networks
Make an online donation to your non-profit in 2 minutes or less using a credit card
Fill out your volunteer application form online (not on paper or in a Word document)

Whether you like it or not, your prospective customers (or donors, or volunteers) are making snap judgments about your organization as they research you and your competition online. Having a beautiful website is the absolute bare minimum to be taken seriously. Having an information hub makes you a competitor.

Filed Under: Design, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: Design, Marketing, social media, usability, website

February 8, 2010 By Michael Reynolds 1 Comment

How to make your website socially aware

Social media is everywhere. It’s new and shiny and everyone is trying to figure out how to use it, talk about it, and make money from it. However, once we put aside the hype, it becomes clear that social media is simply an evolution in how we communicate. It does not replace traditional marketing and communication, but rather augments it and breathes new life into what we do.

One great way to blend social media into your existing framework is to extend your website and make it more “socially aware”. Your company website is your information hub and should be a high-quality, interactive source for constituent engagement. However, many websites need to be upgraded to extend the organization’s reach into the social space, as well.

Here are some ways your next website can utilize connections to social media:

1. Include a company blog on your website. Your company blog should be integrated into your website, not hosted somewhere else or worse, on a free blogging service. It needs to be hosted under your domain name to maximize your search engine visibility and needs to follow your organization’s branding. A blog also gives you a platform of content to publish on other networks. Publish high-value articles that educate and position your company as an industry leader.

2. Add a Twitter feed to your home page. By placing your Twitter activity on your website, you are allowing others to see real-time updates on your events, news, and announcements that you can update externally from other sources, like your mobile device. This also allows visitors to subscribe to your communication channel via Twitter.

3. Use Ping.fm to distribute content. By connecting your website content to Ping.fm, you can automatically push out news, events, blogs, and other content to social networks. This ensures that your content comes from a single, central location and is then distributed across many networks.

4. Include RSS options for all dynamic content. Make sure that your blog, events, news, and other dynamic content can be syndicated via RSS to make it easy for visitors to stay in your communication channel or publish your content on other sites.

5. Show the faces of real people in your organization. Many corporate websites shy away from displaying information about employees. However, today’s customers are interested in real people. Create a directory of key employees and provide links to email addresses, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook profiles, and Twitter accounts. Make it easy for customers and prospects to engage in conversations with your team. This builds trust.

6. Make sure your blogs, articles, and other landing pages publish correctly on social networks. This means that your code should be structured so that the proper image or logo appears when the content is shared on Facebook, and the right content blurb appears so that the preview is informative. This may involve an upgrade to your website structure.

7. Link back to your website from all other social profiles. This should be obvious but it is often overlooked. Be sure that your website link appears everywhere you have a social presence so that all traffic is driven back to your information hub. Also, make sure your social profiles are designed to match the branding on your website.

When creating your next website, be sure to make it socially aware so that you extend your points of capture into social networks and maximize your permission-based followers.

Filed Under: Design, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: facebook, linkedin, Marketing, social media, spinweb, twitter, website

February 6, 2010 By Michael Reynolds Leave a Comment

Your call to action should be a click

I get a lot of email promotions. Some are newsletters I have asked for, while some are spam from Indy Chamber members who have decided to subscribe me to their mailing lists against my will. In any case, one thing I notice about many of these email campaigns is that no matter how well-designed or appealing they are, they frequently miss the boat on the call to action.

For example, I often get an email inviting me to an event. Let’s say I want to go – what do I have to do? Much of the time, the campaign invites me to call a number to register, fill out a paper form, or reply to the email. If it’s a paid event, sometimes I’m told that I should bring a check or cash to pay at the door. Really? All I should have to do is click a link and register online. Anything more complicated than that is guaranteed to encourage people to ignore your message.

What about a spa offering 20% off selected services this week? The email should contain a prominent link that allows the recipient to book services online immediately.

Here’s the thing. When people are scanning emails, they are in a certain context. That context is clicking on things and getting information as a result of that clicking. Trying to make the user change contexts to make a call or print a form is working against the momentum that is already in place. The path of least resistance to the user is to remain in that context of clicking and processing. This is why you should allow your customers to get what they need or perform a transaction with a few clicks.

Don’t make it difficult for your customers to do business with you. Make sure your call to action is a click.

Filed Under: Design, Marketing, Technology Tagged With: Design, Marketing, website

January 21, 2010 By Michael Reynolds 3 Comments

Stop shouting from behind your logo

It seems like more and more businesses are starting to use online tools to market and communicate their messages. Social media is new and shiny and companies are eager to find more ways to broadcast commercials using Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. However, it frustrates me to see that so many businesses are still applying marketing 1.0 tactics to web 2.0 tools.

Traditional marketing utilizes techniques that broadcast a message to the masses. Make a commercial, buy some airtime, and shout at your viewers for 30 seconds in hopes that the message sticks. Buy a billboard, paint it with your logo, and capture as many eyeballs as possible. Now that social media has opened up new channels of communication, business owners and marketers are eagerly applying the same tactics to new mediums and then wondering why it’s not working.

Facebook? Sure… let’s put a company logo in place of the profile photo, insert the company name, and splatter commercials all over the news feed. No one really knows who works there. Twitter? Great… let’s just use a single Twitter account for the company and shove all communication through it without letting anyone get to know the employees.

What businesses are consistently failing to understand is that people are craving contact with actual people. Social media is a space for humans to communicate, not faceless logos. Rather than hiding behind your logo and keeping your employees a secret, empower everyone to exist online as a person. The CEO should be blogging and signing his name to his postings. The marketing director should actively talk to people on Twitter as a real person. Employees should be encouraged to connect with clients and associates on Facebook as themselves. Your team should be empowered to manage their own LinkedIn profiles as people.

Setting up a company Twitter account with your logo on it is a good thing. However, the messages distributed through this account should be redistributed through personal accounts because this is where real conversations happen. A Facebook fan page for the company is the right anchor point for publishing information. However, it’s the personal profiles that should share the content with their networks. This is where conversation happens.

This is an age of personal contact and human stories. Successful companies need to embrace the shift in customer expectations and blend corporate branding with personal branding. If asked what their most valuable assets are, most companies would quickly respond with “our people!” If that’s true, let them show their faces to the world and to your customers. If you are creating a positive environment and hiring the right people, your employees should be proud to represent your organization.

Remember, people want to do business with people they like and trust. Let your people show their faces. Stop shouting from behind your logo and instead have a real conversation with your customers.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: blog, blogging, branding, facebook, Marketing, social media, twitter

Don’t send me “e-news”

Don’t use consumer email for business

How does building websites change the world?

Your call to action should be a click

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