• Know your goals
• Talk to your customers & employees
• Create a “seed list”
• Inventory assets
• Keep moving forward

Know Your Goals

Why are you embarking on a web site redesign? What do you hope to accomplish? While these questions may sound obvious, many companies fail to establish effective goals for their web site redesign. “Increase Sales” is not as useful a goal as “Increase sales leads by 20% by increasing the visibility and traffic to our web site.” Other examples might include: sell your products/services right on the website, reduce administrative tasks, re-brand your company, pre-qualify prospects, recruit employees – the things a website can do for your company are virtually limitless, but you need to have clear goals. To start, figure out what you want the benefits of your website to be. Forget about the bells and whistles required to make it happen; that’s your web developers job. Sit down with all the internal stake holders and develop a list of what you want your website to do for your business. Detailed goals keep the project team focused on achieving success.

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Talk to Your Customers & Employees

You’re probably well aware of many of the problems on your current website, but without talking with your customers and employees you may not know about the biggest problems. Or just as importantly, what customers would like to see on your new web site. We’re talking about Needs Assessment and Requirements Gathering. It’s highly recommended that you have a third party collect this information, especially in talking with your customers to get non-biased and honest feedback. We provide this service and have found it to be crucial in developing a successful web site.

Create a “Seed List”

There is an old Kevin Costner baseball movie that has an analogy that is so clichéd I simply cannot bring myself to repeat it. In the realm of baseball and the afterlife it may be true, but in the world of the web, it’s not. When a new website is built, it is an island – not a ballpark; and a deserted one at that. Your customers don’t know about it and neither do the search engines. You need to tell both of them. You need to market your website. Getting your website noticed by the right people is key and this is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes into play.  You need to create a list of words and phrases that you would use to search for your business online.  This is the “seed list” that your web developer will use to grow golden fruit.   And just as importantly, you also need to consider e-newsletters, email campaigns, and social networking (please see other eMediaMinute articles covering these topics).

Inventory Assets

Your existing website may have assets you’ve built up over time that you’ll want to keep.  You need to find out what those assets are so you can incorporate them into the redesign.  Assets might include links to pages your customers have saved in their browser “favorites” to quickly navigate to your web site; search words or phrases that prospects and customers use to find your site; or content like a Q&A that can turn prospects into customers.  The point is, you need to talk with all the stake holders (internal and external) to find out what assets you have, so you  can assess their value and worthiness in carrying forward into your new web site.

Keep Moving Forward

A lot of web design projects never see the light of day because they get mired down in perpetual planning or hit the morass of committee decision making.  There comes a time when you need to act. You won’t get it perfect the first time out (or ever), but you’ve got to move forward.  And if every decision is made by committee, you’re in for a long and bumpy ride.  Appoint one person to manage the project and work with your web development company.  If you aim, re-aim and re-aim forever, you’ll never actually get off a shot.  However if you aim – shoot –check your target – and shoot again, you are guaranteed to hit the bulls-eye.

The same can be said about the video production business. Digital video cameras and non-linear computer based editing systems are now within financial reach of most consumers. So why spend more money to have a video produced when you can do it yourself? If you’ve tried producing your own video project, you no-doubt already know the answer.

A good video consists of many things including:

• A good plan
• a strong script
• on-camera and voice-over talent
• effective lighting
• quality microphones
• royalty free music
• motion design & graphics
• visual storytelling skills
• proper editing
• and more!

The fact remains that a good video is only ‘good’ if it’s effective. If it ‘works’. If it sells product, raises funds, trains staff, recruits employees, motivates volunteers, moves an audience, and so on.

When a good video is finished, your audience will not say “that was a good video”. Instead they’ll say “I want to buy your product”, or “I want to join your team”, or “Now I understand”.  Advanced Media approaches every video project with the end-result in mind. This guide is designed to help you get started in thinking through the process of producing an effective video.

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It boils down to answering seven questions…

#1: Why Are We Producing A Video?

There are many reasons to produce a video. Videos are effective for sales, marketing, training, education, recruitment, entertainment, reinforcing messages, conveying a consistent message to people located in different place, and more. Keep in mind, however, that one video cannot do ALL these things.

Before writing your script, choose the single most important purpose for your video. You can also determine one or two secondary purposes…but remember to remain focused on your main reason throughout the  production process.

#2: Who is our Audience?

This is important to consider on several levels. First, you must determine how familiar your audience is with your organization or your product. If your audience consists of employees, for instance, you can use industry slang or acronyms more freely than if the audience doesn’t know anything about you or your products.

Secondly, it is helpful to know the demographics of your audience so you know what type of production will be most appealing to them. You don’t want to use hip hop music in a video that targets senior citizens. The style of writing, shooting, narration, graphics and editing are all impacted by the demographics of your target audience.

#3: How Do We Want Our Target Audience to React?

Naturally everyone is going to react to your video differently, however having specific goals in mind is very helpful. Perhaps you want the audience to cry or to laugh. Maybe you want them to learn 3 new things about your  organization. Or maybe you want them to write you a check or sign up as a volunteer. Determine how you want them to react in advance, and write/shoot and edit your project with that goal in mind.

#4: How Will the Video be Distributed?

A while ago, most video projects we produced ended up on VHS tape. Today there are many more choices. 90% of the projects we do today end up in multiple formats, making the video projects more cost effective than  ever. Almost every American household has a DVD player, and most have internet access. Therefore, the majority of video projects end up on DVD and in a web-ready format such as Windows Media Player,  AVI, MPEG, or Quicktime.

Other videos are distributed via broadcast or cable TV, satellite, videotape, CD, iPod, or On-Demand. We even do video for Digital Signage, such as kiosks, and flat screen monitors. And there is an increasing demand for  video presentations to be used at conventions, trade shows or other gatherings using large projectors and screens.

#5: What Are Our Resources? What Are Our Limitations?

If we shot a video for a Fortune 500 company who had their own studio, cameras and lighting. Obviously, they have more resources than a small non-profit organization. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the non-profit is going to have a poorer video production. The non-profit also has its strengths and resources,  and by being creative and wise we can often produce a video that looks like it cost way more than the actual budget.

Larger budgets allow for more equipment, paid talent, more time to develop graphics and motion, original music, and so on. Before you start shooting, identify your budget, your resources, and your limitations…and then  plan accordingly. With a little creativity, you will be surprised at what can be produced. But don’t expect special effects and Hollywood production qualities on a shoe string.

#6: Who Will be Our Staff Producer / Decision Maker?

It is very important for you to identify someone on your staff to become the leader of the video project. This person will work with the video production company on decisions, creative and technical. At the very least, they  will be the point of contact on behalf of your organization and they will have the final say on issues such as script approval, selection of talent, and change orders. Making creative decisions with a ‘committee’ is a kiss of death  for your project and your budget.

#7: How Will We Measure the Success of Our Video?

Someone once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?” Before you begin your video project, ask yourself how you will know if it is effective or not. Set benchmarks based on  your goals such as number of phone calls received,  amount of donations made, or better qualified candidates submitting applications…all based on how you answered Question #3. This will help you make educated  decisions during the production phase of your video project.

This list is not all inclusive. Producing a video is a little bit science and a little bit art.  Advanced Media can help walk you through the entire process, from script to screen, to produce a video that works for you!

Adobe (better known for their PDF format) have launched Flex, which promises to revolutionize the way websites are built. This is a bit of a techy article, so buckle up!

What is Adobe Flex?

Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems.

Flex allows us developers to build and create intuitive, interactive, visual applications for the web and desktop. Exciting applications in Flex give the end user a more satisfying experience while browsing the site and also the owner of the site hopefully more profit.

Applications built with Flex run using Adobe Flash Player and can also be built to run on the desktop using Adobe AIR. This allows Flex applications to run consistently in all the major browsers and operating systems. With 98% of internet connected computers having Flash Player 9 installed, this creates a massive audience for these applications to be run.

What are RIAs?

Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are applications built for the web that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. Users can sometimes get overwhelmed and confused when websites do not perform in the same way as the desktop applications they are so used to. RIAs allow users to use sites in this way, a more intuitive way that they are already used to.

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Benefits of using RIAs and Flex

Works in all Browsers

Cross browser compatibility is one of the main benefits of using Flex. It means that the application will look the same in all major browsers without the hassle of making small changes that hinder the functionality and appeal of the site just to suit a certain browser (no names mentioned IE6!).

Data Intensive Application

It is capable of handling the most demanding, data-intensive applications while performing at desktop application speeds. So no more pages hanging leaving to you wonder if the order you placed has gone through!

Small Footprint

The installation footprint is smaller.

Transparent Updates and Upgrading

Updates/upgrades to new versions can be automatic or transparent to the end user.

Consistent Experience on any OS

Most RIA technologies allow the user experience to be consistent, regardless of what operating system the client uses.

All You Need is a Internet Connection

Users can use the application from any computer with an internet connection.

More User Interaction

The applications are richer allowing things like drag and drop functionality and sliders to update search options.

Good for Small to Large Applications

The range of functionality is great. From small components such as stylish and impressive image viewers that can be plugged into existing websites to full-scale e-commerce sites solely built in Flex.

Easier to Manage

More sophisticated and well designed RIAs will maintain the same look and feel as desktop applications which the user is already used to.

AJAX Style Interaction

Asynchronous communication. The client engine can interact with the server without waiting for the user to perform an interface action such as clicking on a button or link. This allows the user to view and interact with the page asynchronously from the client engine’s communication with the server. This option allows RIA designers to move data between the client and the server without making the user wait. Perhaps the most common application of this is pre-fetching data, in which an application anticipates a future need for certain data and downloads it to the client before the user requests it, thereby speeding up a subsequent response. Google maps uses this technique to load adjacent map segments to the client before the user scrolls them into view.

Reduced Bandwidth

Bandwidth can be reduced a great deal as these applications are more intelligent than standard websites. This means that requests by the user can be sped up creating a slicker and more productive web experience.

Integration with Adobe Air for Offline Applications

The Adobe Air client allows rich internet applications to be run on your desktop, in the same way that applications like Microsoft Word and Excel do. This creates more opportunity for creating exciting and useful offline or online applications.

Imagine having a personalised website editor specific to your website where you can resize and crop images for your site or edit content for its pages whilst on the train on your laptop on the way to work. Then once you get to work and have the laptop hooked up to the net, you can submit the changes and the website will be updated.

Will it take off?

I think that this technology is the way the internet should move. I can already see sites built in Flex cropping up all over the place. They are often the sites that I step back and think ’this is a really great site’ and where you find yourself staying on the site for an extended period just to see certain functionality occur. What will it do next if I do this? What happens if I drag this here? Things like that. They encourage you to try things out that you expect to happen on desktop applications but not websites.

The benefits to using these RIAs are massive and can easily increase user experience and profit for the owner if implemented in the right way.

It is an area that I am personally taking time to learn as I believe it can prove useful to many of 9XB’s current and future clients.

Sites and Example Applications Built in Flex:

http://millionclouds.com/ – One of my favourite sites, very visually impressive, while being really simple and intuitive to use.

http://examples.adobe.com/flex2/inproduct/sdk/flexstore/flexstore.html – An example from Adobe to showcase the possiblilites of Flex. If you go to Products at the top and then start using the filter on the left the phones will start moving around the place. The compare functionality is a useful tool too.

http://examples.adobe.com/flex3/devnet/configurator/Configurator.html#app=76d2&38ae-selectedIndex=0 – Another example from Adobe to show how you can use Flex to allow users to personalise and preview products online.

http://examples.adobe.com/flex3/devnet/dashboard/main.html – This is an example of how data can be laid out and displayed. Dragging the windows around and minimising/maximising them just as in a desktop application. All of the charts and graphs used are inbuilt components available in Flex.

http://www.wiiinston.com/ – A site I built for a friend, shows simple but effective transitions available in Flex.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking service that lets users post and read other peoples updates. These are known as “tweets.” Sometimes called “micro-blogging,” tweets are limited to 140 characters in length and are posted on the users profile page. People can follow your posts by your Twitter profile page, RSS feed or even SMS.

Sounds simple? It is simple.

Your company has a website, email accounts, and a blog, but what about those important little notes you want to share with your customers and clients that may require too much work for an email campaign or to blog. Example: “Check out our new screen cast on XYZ. You have to see this!” or “New Software update will be coming out next week. Here is a link to the new features.”

Enter Twitter.

6 Rules of a good Marketing Twitizen:

1. No selling
2. Get Involved
3. Add Value
4. Respond
5. Watch your mouth
6. Patient and Persistence

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1. No selling

Twitter is like any other social site, it is about communication and community. The individuals here don’t want to be sold to. It is like spam and people label you as one.

2. Get Involved

The point of Twitter is to give information as well as receive it. Tweeting useful information about your brand or expertise will end up getting you a host of followers that depend on what you have to say and broadcast it to others following them.

3. Add Value

If only close friends follow your Twitter, you might feel ok talking about your drive into work this morning. But if a company did that, it would be a little weird. When you post a tweet, make it informative and useful to your business. People follow companies that tweet about things they are interested in. So make sure your tweets are up to date and relevant.

4. Respond

There is an etiquette tweeters need to follow. When people follow you it is because they are interested in what you have to say. When they re-tweet what you said, it is because they have found the information valuable enough to share. So when someone takes the time to comment on what you have said, it is polite to respond, even if you don’t agree with what they said.

This is where the real opportunity for customer engagement lies. There are tools out there that alert you by email whenever someone mentions your company, product or any keyword in their tweet. Whether the conversation is negative or positive, you can use this as a tool to reach people on a real personal level. However, do not try to stifle the conversation. Allowing people to have their say is what Twitter is based on.

5. Watch your mouth

Be careful about what you tweet, sometimes this can spark negative response. Here is an example of an agency heading to FedEx Global headquarters for a meeting. After flying into Memphis he tweeted:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say: I would die if I had to live here.”

In summery FedEx was not happy. Here is the whole story:

http://tinyurl.com/aewosc

6. Patient and Persistence

Building your social circle takes time and commitment and the response is not always instant. By adding value to the community, you will see your followers grow. What you can’t do is neglect your followers once you start, they will get board and stop following you. Over time, not only will more and more people listening and responding to what you have to say, but give you insight into how the industry is moving.

Direct financial “ROI” might not be apparent, but by being a long term contributor to Twitter, you can be doing your brand a world of good.

Critics

Some may say, “That is all good, but I don’t think we will get anything out of it. If I can’t get the direct return on investment, you can’t justify the investment.”

Given the amount of money that is spent on traditional marketing, where accountability is difficult and sometimes impossible to measure. Twitter, can monitor how many people are following you and set up alerts to tell you when your brand is mentioned.

You can tweet links to news articles and blogs that can be tracked by your site analytics and is some cases your followers can re-tweet what you say which adds to your overall SEO popularity.

Being part of the Twitter community is about communication, engagement, value and trust. As long as you remember this when stepping into this medium, you can soon start to see the benefits of this rapidly growing network.

That’s it, you can return to your mobile devices now. People are wondering what you’re doing.

Supplemental Information on Twitter:

• Twitter – Join Twitter and see for yourself
• The Big Juicy Twitter Guide – An in-depth look at Twitter
• Twictionary – A dictionary for Twitter
• The Twitter Blog – Follow their official blog
• TweetWheel – Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or streaming, a podcast is distinguished from other digital-media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added.

Why Should My Business Care About Podcasting?

There are many valid reasons why corporations may want to embrace and leverage podcasting. Corporations and businesses (both large and small) have an opportunity to create a loyal listener audience that can extend their brand and communicate to the target audience. Businesses can also use this technology both externally & internally as a communication medium to keep local and world wide groups of clients or employees informed. This could be used for sales meetings to keep employees in worldwide locations up to speed on a new product or service. It’s also an effective medium for distance learning, helping to get the entire audience trained on any specific topic.

Example

Use podcasting to convey success stories or create brief programs to explore business trends and become a trusted advisor and source of valuable information. This can produce additional clients, increase your reputation within a specific community, and extend your valuable brand perception with customers and prospects.

Top 6 reasons your business should be podcasting:

1. Increase your marketing reach and online visibility
2. Improve your sales & conversion rates
3. Regular line of communication with subscribed listeners
4. Value added content increases loyalty
5. Industry news and trends sets you apart from the competition
6. Interviews with leaders in your particular niche will establish your business as a respected leader in your niche or industry.

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So exactly how does marketing with podcasts work?

Most businesses need to be made aware of the increased online visibility that podcasting can provide. Your podcast could be in front of 40 million iTunes listeners if you have made an iTunes compatible RSS podcast feed; additionally, the search engines will look at the RSS podcasting feed and spider the show notes that are tied to your podcast as well.

Think of podcasting as a communication tool for your business. How do you currently use marketing tools such as: your website, newsletter and email marketing? You probably use these mediums to communicate messaging to your target audience. But there are some problems with trying to market through these communication channels.

People don’t always get your email due to overly aggressive Spam filters. They don’t come back and visit your website, or read your newsletter. People actually have to make an effort to read your content. If you have a podcast, they can actually stream the audio and let it play while they are doing other tasks at their computer. People tend to multitask in order to be more efficient with the use of their time. Additionally, most users tend to prefer value added audio content that is specific to their areas of interest. Your quality audio podcast content also tends to have a higher perceived value by your target market.

Providing value added content is what your business should be focusing on. Podcasting is only a communication tool, and your podcast is only as good as the content that you provide to your audience. Make sure that you produce relevant content and not just a rambling piece of audio.

Creating the actual podcast is only a very small part of the success equation. If you need more information about how you can design and execute a proper and fully leveraged podcasting strategy please feel free to contact the Advanced Media Services team. We have experience in this media format from a technology, best practices, strategy planning, marketing, and execution perspective.

Supplemental Information on Podcasts:

• How Podcasting Works
• Corporate Podcasting Strategies for 2007
• Business Podcast Marketing Case Study Proves Results
• Business Marketing Podcast Tips Interviews and News

Web analytics are key to understanding who your customers are, where your web traffic is coming from and what kind of traffic is converting and increasing sales of your products and services. Without web analytics, you risk wasting your high value marketing dollars on blind pursuits attempting to increase traffic to your web site.

Benefits of Web Analytics

1. Allows you to precisely monitor web traffic
2. Helps you optimize your web site
3. Enables you to formulate a precise marketing and sales plan Monitor

Monitor

Using web analytics, you could know how long a visitor stayed on your web site or a particular page, who they are and where they came from. You would be able to know their clickstreams (how they navigate your site), the keywords they used, and how they came to be in your web site (referrer pages, search engines, etc). You would be able to determine how many times a user or a visitor returned to your web site and which pages were given preference.

In fact, a web analytics tool could detail your web site usage down to the minute. It would tell you about your visitor’s nationality and language. It can even pinpoint the city of origin. Of course, it will tell you the IP addresses and the host used for access. Further analysis would reveal if your visitors were there to actually check out your site or if they were accidental visitors. Most certainly, you will know how many visitors you get daily.

Optimize

Once you have carefully studied the actions of your visitors or web users, you would be able to act accordingly in order to optimize your web site. You would also have an idea about the things that need changing and the aspects of your web site that may appeal more to your market. You would know which pages are most viewed and which are basically ignored. You would be able to adjust certain aspects of your web site that need improvement or changes. You could then fix any technical problems; or you could also improve, streamline or reshape site navigation to better assist your site users or visitors.

Formulate

Web analytics will be able to assist you in preparing for an e-marketing plan and course of action. This is highly effective because your plan can be based on actual facts and not mere probabilities. You would be able to really know what your market wants. By tracking the items which were highly viewed, you would learn which products/services received the highest response. You would also be able to enhance other programs that you have already employed like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. You would be able to get more clients, as well as monitor and keep your clients interested.

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What Web Metrics Should You Start Measuring Today and Why?

Visitors:
What is the average number of visits to your web site?

Conversions:
Conversion can mean many different things depending on your business. A Free trial download, the sale of a product, and the completion of a contact form are all types of conversions that have value to your business. You should know the average number of conversions and the number of conversions per visitor to your site.
FORMULA: # of Conversions/ # of Visitors = Conversion rate%

Most popular pages on your site:
What content on your web site is attracting the most views? How has this changed over time?

Top referring sites/mediums:
How are visitors coming to your web site? Which search engines, forums, articles, paid ads, or email are driving visits and conversions to your site?

Top keywords:
What keywords are visitors using to find your site? What keywords do visitors use that convert into sales/ leads/ contacts? What keywords don’t you see? Sometimes the most telling keywords are the ones that you don’t see. If you sell air filters for Chevy trucks and you have zero visits to your site for the keywords “Chevy air filters”, you have some serious keyword and Pay-Per-Click optimization to do!

Average visit time and average number of pages per visit (engagement):
When someone arrives at your web site, how engaging is the content? Do they stick around and visit multiple pages? This can vary greatly by referrer and keywords visitors use to arrive at the site as well, so make sure that you keep a close eye on your primary keywords and referrers. Also keep an eye out for new sources of traffic that have a higher engagement level than your site average.

Bounce rate:
The opposite of engagement – this is a measurement of the visitors that left the site as soon as the page loaded. This is going to happen, so don’t get too discouraged by the numbers. Depending on your industry your bounce rate should stay under 50%. Anything higher than that may mean that your site is either optimized for the wrong keywords or you are targeting the wrong markets.

Geographic and language settings:
Where in the world is all of this traffic coming from? Of course, if your product or industry has international appeal you would want to know which countries and what languages your visitors speak, but even local business should be looking at this information. For example, when we started looking at the traffic from regions where a local contractor actually serviced, we noticed that 75% of those visitors had their language setting set to Spanish, but the web site was only in English. Obviously, it became a high priority for that contractor to offer a Spanish version of his site.

For each of these metrics, you should know if the numbers are increasing or decreasing. Is this a seasonal trend or is this a part of some other market force?

How often should you check / report on your web metrics?

It can be very addicting to check these metrics constantly and you have to be careful not to spend all of your time poring over the different variables. So, the question often asked is how often should you check your web metrics? Daily, weekly, monthly? The typical answer is as often as you can take action based on the results. If you started a new Pay-Per-Click campaign, you probably want to watch the results on a daily basis at first to make sure that it is performing properly. If you spot any anomalies, you can catch them right away and take corrective actions.

Tools You Can Use

Check out this great list of a variety of tools designed to help you track traffic on your web site: http://mashable.com/2007/06/25/analytics-toolbox/

One of the most commonly used analytics packages is Google Analytics.
Click here if you’d like to watch a demo

Supplemental Information on eNewsletters:

• The Basics of Web Analytics
• Gaining Success from the Benefits of Web Analytics
• Web Analytics Dead? No, Just Maturing

Email newsletters create an atmosphere to…

Make you an expert.
By allowing readers to learn about the latest trends in the industry, your customers can enjoy keeping up to date with emerging technologies. You can write up a brief summary or report about a particular news item for delivery each week or month and it’s a great way to position your company as a market leader or industry expert – even a guru.

Teach your customers how to do something new.
How-to articles are well received when they can provide helpful information to your customers about your products and services.

Spend less money on marketing.
No matter what your marketing budget may be, email newsletters are a simple and low-cost way to create an immediate impact. Many email newsletter programs are also equipped with tracking services that let you see how many newsletters were opened and which links were clicked.

Promote your brand.
The more consistently you deliver your newsletter, the easier it will be to promote your brand and raise brand awareness. Your logo, colors, and theme can be incorporated into almost all email newsletter templates and encourages the mind-connection with your customers.

Build web traffic.
Direct links to articles, blog posts, or just your website can be included in each email newsletter and make it easy for readers to simply click to your site. Google loves this type of activity and it will have a positive impact on your Search Engine visibility.

eNewsletter Tips:

• Write out its purpose
• Use the same layout and features each issue
• Use compelling subject lines
• Serve your readers
• Show some personality
• Publish like clockwork

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So, you understand and appreciate the benefits of an eNewsletter; the next step is planning and developing one that is well executed to ensure those benefits are realized! The following are some general guidelines to help you put together a highly effective email newsletter.

Get the relationship off to a good start
Do privacy and unsubscribe right by respecting the eNewsletter audience member with a documented “no sharing of email addresses” privacy policy and readily available unsubscribe capability.

Get their attention
Pay attention to production values with a great looking email newsletter which uses well-designed graphics, an appropriate layout and plenty of images or photos. Offer a high-impact, sophisticated eNewsletter in the same league as large competitors.

Keep their attention
It’s likely your audience will open the first one or two eNewsletters out of curiosity alone. Now it’s imperative to have great content that will keep them engaged. Think like a publisher as much as a marketer and build a community of interest.

Respond appropriately
If someone has shown a deep interest in a particular product, send him or her more information; if she or he would like to schedule a sales appointment, give the prospect a call.

Keep their attention for the long-term
Measure not only open rates and purchase transactions, but also content popularity (what are they reading, how long are they spending reading it?). Use that analysis to tune the content over successive email newsletter editions to hang on to your audience. An auto dealership discovered that its eNewsletter readers are more interested in what they could do with their cars – movie or restaurant reviews that would help them plan excursions – than in tips about automotive maintenance.

Segment your audience
Consider providing separate eNewsletter variations based on clusters of content popularity. For example, offer a product line specific eNewsletter to subscribers who have shown a more focused interest.

Lower the threshold to viral marketing
Sure you should invite the audience to “tell a friend” about the email newsletter, but consider lowering the barrier to vial marketing by making it easy for a recipient to forward just an article from the eNewsletter.

Sustain and supplement the content with audience contributions
Invite email responses to eNewsletter content, use and report on surveys in the email newsletter and consider using a moderated blog with audience posting as a source of eNewsletter content.

Plan for and play with the future
Try inserting a podcast in your email newsletter and see how it pulls. Consider offering your eNewsletter content as an RSS feed, particularly if you have a techno-savvy audience.

Supplemental Information on eNewsletters:

• 10 Guidelines for Writing Effective eNewsletters
• Email Newsletter Subject Lines: Little Tricks That Increase Your Open Rate
• Online Newsletters: Building Trust
• How You Can Capitalize On eNewsletter Statistics

eLearning is the general term to describe the fields of online learning, web-based training, and technology-delivered instruction.

How can my business benefit from eLearning?

The popularity of eLearning continues to grow as businesses look for ways to meet diverse and complex training needs, reduce training costs, meet customer service demands and increase efficiency. Leveraging the Internet allows companies large and small to successfully address these challenges.

Scenrio One:

Your company needs to hire and train several new employees that will be working from locations across the country. You have a limited budget to spend and need to get everyone up to speed quickly.

Solution:

Developing a simple eLearning program to be deployed via the internet would allow your company to save travel costs, time, and it would ensure consistent, efficient use of training resources.

Scenrio Two:

Your customers often call in trying to get more information about how to set-up or use one of your more complex products. This creates a lot of wasted time internally and customers are frustrated at not being able to successfully implement the product independently.

Solution:

An eLearning solution like the use of online tutorials with video instruction would allow customers 24/7 access to easy-to-understand, self-paced videos that take advantage of multiple senses in demonstrating the solution.

Positive Reasons to Consider eLearning:

• Get your customers & employees up to speed quickly
• Vastly improve your customer service
• Offer Continuing Education
• Prevent high value employees from answering the same questions
• Provide a consistent high quality training program 24/7

eLearning can help businesses cost-effectively train their employees. When compared with traditional instructor-led programs, training times can be reduced by anywhere from 20 to 75 percent. It also allows companies to educate customers and minimize customer support issues by providing self-serve solutions. Studies have shown that companies using eLearning to aid in the use of complex machinery or instruments, detailed procedures, production processes and safety are producing more productive and efficient employees. Also, when similar learning tools are extended to customers or end-users, businesses find consumer satisfaction and retention is significantly improved.

Check out an example of a very basic, affordable and customizable eLearning tool we have created to demonstrate the ability to use registration processes, multimedia content, and evaluation / feedback all within an easily accessible and simple format: eLearning Demo

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Additional Benefits of eLearning

Increases training effectiveness

• Training is delivered in a standardized, consistent and objective instructional format.
• Personalized interactivity increases content retention.
• Flexible navigation provides individualized, self-paced instruction.
• Interactive exercises provide unlimited practice.
• Well designed computer-based training is easily updated.

Saves time and money

• Reduces training costs.
• Is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Reduces need for dedicated training facility.

Tracks learner progress

• Training can be designed to supply the learner with immediate feedback about his/her performance.
• Automated record keeping and reports provide accurate and timely information to managers.

Implimenting a Successful Program – The Basic Rules

Start with the end in mind:
Yes, you’ve heard this one before. But it is a very important first step. It can’t be emphasized enough how important it is, not only to be very clear in defining the problem that needs to be solved, but also to be sure that a training solution will be a valuable contribution.

Don’t skimp on the creative design:
The creative design is also called the front-end development. The front end is what the learner sees on the computer screen as they navigate through the course. It is very important to capture the attention of the learners as quickly as possible and to engage them to a level that makes them forget for a bit that they are taking a course on a computer. eLearning, by nature, is interactive, and multimedia gives this form of learning a great advantage over other media.

Use the right tools:
We always have the choice to use the “Right tool for the job.” When video is necessary to model human behavior, provide it. When an animation is the best way to demonstrate a concept, use it. Music, sound effects, voice and photographs can be effectively used to support text on the screen. Program designers should use every media available to capture attention and maintain a high degree of engagement throughout a course.

The best instructional design will fail if learners can’t engage with it and they won’t take or complete a course. And conversely, the most engaging experience money can buy will not deliver training if it isn’t there to be delivered.

Don’t forget the back end:
Programmers provide the engineering that makes the whole eLearning experience work. It is this back-end engineering that provides a lot of the value that eLearning provides over other forms of learning. The back-end development provides all of the functionality we don’t necessarily see on the screen. The most common functions are registration, bookmarking, scoring and reporting.

The back end can be a full-blown Learning Management System (LMS) designed to accommodate many students, departments and courses, or the back end can be a simple administrative program integrated into a single course. Besides the common features listed above, the back-end programs can provide much more support.

Supplemental Information on eLearning:

• Your Benefits in using e-Learning
• The Rapid E-Learning Blog
• Benefits of E-Learning
• E-Learning 101: Tips to make e-learning stick
• ROI and metrics in eLearning

Nearly every internet user finds new web sites using a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN. You go to their site, type in what you are looking for and usually find it in the top three or four results. What goes on behind the scenes of every internet search involves complex software intelligent enough to figure out which pages are the most relevant to your search.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” search results for targeted keywords. This process involves two parts, researching good keywords and effectively adding those keywords to your site in a manner that the search engines can catalog.

Why Should I Optimize My Company’s Website?

If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search – people who want what you have visiting your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users.

Where Do I Start?

For the sake of being simple, start with 25 keywords. These are the words you think people are typing into Google when they’re looking for what you sell. Once you’ve got 25 keywords or keyword combinations, pick the 5 you think are the most valuable. Then pick the 1 keyword or keyword combo you think will bring you the most money. *

* Figuring out what keywords to target is a tricky process and there are a lot of tools and theories to do this effectively. If you need help, give us a call to do proper keyword analysis and determine exactly which phrases are the best to target.

Keywords … Then What?

The second part of the search engine optimization process is crafting and developing your site to be near the top of the search results for the keywords you chose. This can be very difficult and patient process, as the World Wide Web is full of competing web sites that would like to be higher on the list.

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Five simple tricks to jumpstart SEO:

• Incorporate your keywords into the pages unique title tag
• Get rid of “intro pages” or “splash pages”
• Wordsmith your keywords into the content of the HTML
• Entice others to link to you
• Measure your results

Incorporate your keywords into the pages unique title tag

Title tags are critical because they’re given a lot of weight with every search engine. Whatever keyword phrases you’ve written your copy around should also be used in your title tag. Remember that the information you place in this tag is what will show up as the clickable link to your site at the search engines. Make sure that it accurately reflects the content of the page it’s on, while also using the keyword phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your stuff.

Get rid of “intro pages” or “splash pages”

Some sites have an intro page or splash page with a logo or animation that require you to either wait through or click on an “enter” link to get to the real homepage. It has been proven that these types of pages increase your “Bounce Rate” or the percentage of people that “Bounce” from your site without visiting any sub pages. These pages virtually ruin your search engine results and you should remove them.

Wordsmith your keywords into the content of the HTML

Traditional marketers and copywriters frequently criticize search engine optimization companies for focusing so intently upon the keyword research and placement within the text that they sacrifice the art of truly engaging content. Granted, it can be delicate balance at times, but the ultimate goal with every written page is to entertain, inform, and entice the reader.

All the top search engine rankings in the world cannot make up for a page so hideous that no one stops to read or continue visiting the site. Basic copywriting classes and workshops are excellent places to get tips on how to keep the reader as the center of your focus and your writing. If copywriting doesn’t come naturally to you and outsourcing isn’t an option, visit CopyBlogger on the Web for copywriting tips or enroll in a local copywriting class or workshop (check your local community colleges and writer’s guilds).

On a simpler note, many people think that an image looks better than text for headings and menus. Yes, an image can make your site look more distinctive but in terms of SEO images for headings and menus are a big mistake because heading tags and menu links are important SEO items. Remember, search engine spiders do not read graphics.

A good way to see what a spider sees is by visiting:

http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php

Entice others to link to you

It’s a well known fact that quality links to your Web site are one of the most influential factors in determining search engine rank. The search engine knows to rank any of your pages as extremely important if many authoritative pages externally (and within your site) link to it.

As mentioned above, quality content affects both the quality and amount of inbound links. With the rise of social media sites including Digg, Reddit, De.licio.us, and Ma.gnolia, your site content is more important than ever. Your readers have the power to submit excerpts of your copy to these sites with links back to your page for all to see.

This is especially powerful for companies with the foresight to regularly produce articles, blogs, and press releases. This fresh content not only contributes to the optimization of your site, it also provides opportunities for exposure to (potentially) millions of readers on various social media sites. Some companies plan entire campaigns around the bursts of traffic received from social media links.

Measure your results

In and of itself this won’t do a thing for your search engine rankings. But it will cause you to do things that will. It can become quite addicting, and you’ll find yourself having too much fun doing it once you get the basics.

Here is a brief list of tools we recommend to help you keep track of your SEO results:

• Multi site rank checker
• SEO site Analyzer
• Strongest Sub-pages Tool
• Google Analytics
• Google Web Master Tools

Supplemental information on Search Engine Optimization:

• Google Ranking Factors
• Godfather of SEO, Bruce Clay
• Free SEO tools
• SEOmoz article on ranking factors

Engage Your Audience

A professionally produced video is the ultimate sales tool working 24/7 for you. Envision your top sales person really connecting with customers, hitting all the key points about your product or service, and doing it consistently every day of the week! Add to this evocative video footage, motion graphics, music and you’ll have marketing tool that will get results!

Educate Your Customers

A study by the Wharton School of Business found that video enhances comprehension by 50%! It makes total sense. If you want to learn more about a product or service and had a choice of reading the manual or having an expert walk you through it, which one would you choose? That’s why video is so powerful as a learning tool. It can get your customers up to speed quickly and with confidence.

Web Video Advantages:

• Show how your company is different from the competition
• Illustrate how your product or service is useful to the customer
• Add personality and a human connection to your website
• Share large amounts of information in a quick, entertaining manor
• Leave viewers with something they will remember
• Utilize visuals that couldn’t be shown in print or explained in text
• Enjoy maximum exposure and viewership resulting from the
  novelty of video

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Video Tips from the Experts at Advanced Media:

• Video for marketing purposes should not exceed 3 minutes.
• If possible, place video on the home page or provide an
  attention grabbing link to it.
• Make sure the video is encoded in a format accessible to
  most computer users.
• Keep the physical screen size small and the picture quality
  as high as possible.
• Do not set the video to auto-start, always provide
  play/pause/mute buttons.

Question & Answer

Now let us address some frequently asked questions regarding film & video production.

Question: How much does it cost to produce a program?

It depends on a lot of factors such as the complexity and length of the program. You could think of it as asking an architect how much do buildings cost to make. Like us, he would probably ask a lot of questions before he could answer you (i.e. how large?, how many floors?, etc..)

Items that determine the cost of a video program include:

• Creative development time (i.e. scriptwriting, storyboards)
• The number of shooting days
• Shooting at your location or a lighting stage
• Travel expenses
• Actor fees
• Motion graphics and the amount of editing

Question: How long does it take to produce a program?

A full production from creative development to final editing generally takes four to six weeks to produce. However we are used to working tight deadlines and burning the midnight oil for our clients. So just let us know what your deadline is and we do our best to meet it.

Question: Can we use employees from our company in the program?

Yes. We regularly use company people in our programs. It saves on talent fees and usually makes for a fun and interesting event for the participants. However, if the program requires an on-camera host or acting talents, then we always recommend hiring professional talent.

Question: Our sales executive knows the product better than anyone, he has a great personality, and he’s great with presentations. Can he be the on-camera host for our program?

Sometimes an employee can do a good job as a host and we have used them successfully in the past. However, it is important to bear in mind that changes in roles or workforce turnover can quickly outdate and even retire what was your best sales or educational tool.

Question: Can we use exiting video footage from one of our earlier video programs?

Sure.It’s best to supply us with the original source video footage. If the prior program was done professionally the source footage should seamlessly incorporate into your new program.

Supplemental information on web video:

• Why Video Marketing is Hot for Your Online Business
• Where is Video Marketing Effective?
• Internet Video Marketing – Show Don’t Tell With Video Marketing