If you know how to 1) craft a clear and short benefit message to your ideal 1000 customers (read Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans, the only marketing article you’ll ever need to read), 2) secure and highlight testimonials and case studies, 3) offer a simple trial option to big enterprises (but charge them – no free rides or they won’t value it), and 4) offer awesome customer service to the customers who matter (not becoming consumed by squeaky wheels with more free time than budget) just use the skills you have and view social media, primarily Twitter and Facebook, as communication channels.

Regardless of whether or not you use Twitter, there are two important points to take away from this – especially if others are talking about your product or service on Twitter:

1. Twitter results display above your website (aka. #1 position).
2. The only control you have over what is being said is to make sure you put your customers first.

Every year, Oregon Independent College Foundation (OICF) raises and distributes well over $1.4 million dollars to students at Oregon’s top ten private colleges and universities. However, as donations dip and costs for “luxuries” such as printed catalogs rise, OICF recognized a need to develop a stronger web presence.

These printed catalogs posed two problems for OICF: Print costs were close to $20,000 each year, and they quickly became inaccurate as colleges changed information, statistics, and news (often times just after they went to print). With the new website, they can make these changes in real-time with a website that can be updated anytime through a content management system.

The Old OICF Website:

The previous website went through the hands of multiple interns who helped keep the website up-to-date as best as possible. OICF used Dreamweaver to manage the site’s content, but doing so presented some challenges.

See, Dreamweaver is intended to help businesses design and publish websites – not necessarily update content. As such, the OICF website’s navigation and look was inconsistent from page to page. This makes it difficult for the website visitor to find the information they want.

Keeping the OICF website up-to-date is critical to their mission and success, so we made it easy for them to do so.

The New OICF Website:

There were three key elements OICF desired from their new website:

1. The ability to communicate effectively to three groups of people:
   1. Students
   2. Donors
   3. Board Members
2. Maintain a consistent and professional website with updated content.
3. Make use of social media

1. Effective Communication

At the heart of any website is the ability to communicate a message clearly and effectively so that people can make decisions. After all, the website is where people mentally make the decision to buy the product or service. Recognizing this fact, OICF moved forward to create a site that:

1. Gave students up-to-date access to the information they need about the participating schools.
2. Showed donors and potential donors the value OICF provides to Oregon’s future business and civic leaders.
3. Enabled board members to communicate with one another through a private (password protected) intranet website.

2. Maintain a Professional Website

The website was designed by Cindy Classen (of Classen Design) who designs most of the print material for OICF. The homepage of her design brings with it the large beautiful photographs of the ten schools OICF works with. Internally though, the website focuses on delivering valuable content.

And this is really the heart of this project – to make it easy to maintain the vast amount of information, easily; and without worrying about creating inconsistent pages. The content management system (CMS) separates the content from the design – so OICF staff can log in and make changes as needed to the content and not have to worry about ruining the look of the site.

3. Make Use of Social Media

Businesses and organizations that make use of social media are seeing many benefits. OICF knew their target audience was online and wanted to take advantage of using these tools to raise awareness. We did this through adding a blog to the website and highlighting the pre-existing Facebook Fan Page. Now, anytime a new blog post is added to the OICF website, it is automatically added to the OICF Facebook Fan Page as well.

Why add the same content to two locations? Simple, visitors aren’t just using the “corporate website” as the go to place for information – they use many other “hubs” such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. By cross-posting this information, the visitor can find and connect with the business how they want.

Visit the Oregon Independent College Foundation website.

If you were to ask me why I do what I do, it is because of the satisfaction I get when I can help my clients achieve great things like this. Here’s the screenshot:

Just 7 days ago Exodus Pest Control in Hillsboro ranked #198. Today it ranks #2.

Exodus Pest Control Ranks #1 for Every Service Offered

As I am writing this post, I decided to see how Exodus ranked for other keywords. They rank #1 for every service they offer:

• Wasp Control Hillsboro – #1
• House Ants Hillsboro – #1
• Odorous House Ants Hillsboro – #1
• Carpenter Ants – #1
• Yellow Jackets Hillsboro – #1
• Yellow Jacket Control OR Removal Hillsboro – #1
• Honeybee Removal Hillsboro – #1
• Carpenter Bees Hillsboro – #1
• Bumble Bess Hillsboro – #1

What Threadless Media Did for Exodus Pest Control

Exodus Pest Control hosted and built their previous site at Vista Print, but asked me to improve and optimize the site because they could not be found in the search results. Bottom line: If you want to see positive results from your website, you will not get any if you use Vista Print or any other similar service. If you want positive results, you need to build your website right.

I worked with Exodus to build the new website from scratch using new content for each of the services and images. I launched the new website on 9/22 – 7 days later, they are at the #2 position for “Pest Control Hillsboro.”

What Threadless Media Can Do for You

I’m not going to make any grand promises to you. What I will promise is that if you call me, I will treat you, your business, and your website with the same time and dedication I provided for Exodus Pest Control. Call me at 541-601-5026 or head over to my contact page.

Have a great day!

Ok, still looking at catarafts. Someone responded to my last quest for knowledge that Sotar makes good rafts. Anybody have/recommend/not recommend the SL Sotar 14 foot cataraft?
Thanks for any information
Lee

This is a golden opportunity to not only connect with Lee, but everyone who reads that forum (and make a sale). If I were the owner of Sotar, I’d post a response to Lee in the forum saying something like:

Hi Lee,
I’m the owner of Sotar and saw you are considering the SL cataraft. We think it’s a great raft because of X, Y, and Z (list benefits) and would like to give you the opportunity see it in person and take it out for the day. Go ahead and email me and I’ll put you in contact with your nearest distributor. If you are passing through Southern Oregon, stop by and I’ll personally take you out in one.
Best regards,
Glenn

I bet Lee would email Glenn and take him up on his offer to try out a cataraft in a heart beat. Even if Lee didn’t, the three minutes it takes you to write this would show the rest of people in that forum that you are listening to them. Doing so makes your company innovative, personal, unique, and authentic. You’ll also make more sales in the process too.

I posted the slideshow below, along with bullet points for easy reference. Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom.

Thanks!
Bob

Strategy

• To listen to what people are saying about…
• To do market research.
• To keep others updated in your industry (news).
• To find out how you can serve your customers better.
• To provide customer service.
• To meet new people.
• To support current customers.
• To reach out to new prospects.

Key to Success
ENGAGE your followers no matter what your strategy is.

What to Tweet About

• Spam
• Self-promotion
• Babble
• News
• Pass along value
• Conversational

URl Shortners

URL shorteners allow you to take really long website urls and shorten them so you can share sites on Twitter (without using your 140 characters just for the link).

Examples include:

• www.bit.ly – Tracks how many clicks your link received.
• www.cli.gs – Tracks how many clicks your link received.
• www.tinyurl.com

Start by Listening

• search.twitter.com
• search.twitter.com/advanced
• backtweets.com
• collecta.com
• twitterfall.com
• tweetmeme.com
• tweetvolume.com

What should you search for?

• Your name
• Business name
• Product
• Service
• Competition
• Interests

Ways to Make Listening Easy

• www.tweetbeep.com
• iGoogle
• My Yahoo!

Choose a Name

• Use your real name/business name.
• Case doesn’t matter.
• Short is good.
• Avoid numbers and underscores.

Finding People to Follow

• twellow.com/twellowhood
• exectweets.com
• mrtweet.com
• twestival.com
• search.twitter.com

How to determine whether you should follow someone back

1. View their profile.
2. View their tweets.
3. Followers vs. Following ratio.
4. What industry are they in?

Tips on Starting Out

• Look for meaningful people to connect to & follow them.
• Don’t follow too many people at one time.
• When someone follows you back, thank them.
• Look for ways to connect (that’s what networking is about).

First, here is what I saw in my email:

Second, these folks aren’t trying to sell anything so they probably aren’t concerned about open rates as much, but they gave us an example of how not to write an email newsletter.

Below is a table with a complaint, why it’s a complaint, and how many points they lose for their mistake. Shall we get started?

These guys lost 10 points. Ouch! If you follow these simple considerations, you’ll be good to go.

Btw. My point system is based entirely on my preferences. I gave them a -3 for the PHP List thing because I’m heavily biased toward Mail Chimp. Speaking of which, have you signed up for my newsletter?

1. It goes with me where ever I am, regardless of what computer I’m on.
2. It integrates with Gmail and syncs my contacts.
3. It integrates with the worlds best email newsletter service – MailChimp.
4. It integrates with the worlds best billing software – Freshbooks.
5. They have a page for new customers to learn how to get the most out of their service.
6. They have webinars to learn how to use their product every other Thursday.
7. Pamela followed up with me:

Hi Bob,

Pamela O’Hara, owner of BatchBlue Software here. You recently signed up for a BatchBook contact management system account.
Just checking in to see if you have had a chance to try it out and how things are going.

A reminder on your account info:
Your account: http://…
Username: bob…
(if you have forgotten your password, use the “Forgot your password?” link at the bottom of the page)

We’ve just posted some great info in the Customer On-Boarding Guide on our site in case you missed anything when setting up the account.

Customer On-Boarding Guide:
http://www.batchblue.com/new-customers.html

Part 1: Adding Contacts & Communications

1. Importing
2. Adding new contacts
3. Setting up Outlook

Part 2: Customizing Your Contact Data

1. Categorizing contacts
2. Adding custom fields
3. Affiliating contacts

Part 3: Viewing Contact Data

1. Lists
2. Reports
3. Mailing labels
4. Mailing lists

Also, for the latest and greatest on BatchBook features as they roll out,
check in on the Product Updates section of our blog at http://blog.batchblue.com/?cat=40

Please let me know if you have any questions, feedback or interesting BatchBook stories. We especially like the stories!

Keep in touch,

Pamela
—–
Pamela O’Hara
President, BatchBlue Software
http://BatchBlue.com

Organize Your Business. Live Your Life.

Ok, so those are 7 great features, but here is why Batchbook gets it:

1. They made it dead simple to do the most important task of any business/business owner – KEEP IN TOUCH WITH MY CONTACTS!
2. But they took it a step further and made it dead simple to utilize other awesome applications I use everyday/week/month.
3. They do not leave me in the dark. Too often I sign up for a service and I just don’t “get it” or have the time to dig in like I want to. MAKE IT EASY FOR US!
4. Pamela followed up with me. I know it is most likely an auto responder, but it is from her personal business email account. She made herself accessible.
5. Bonus: They’re everywhere – blog, twitter, web videos, etc. Again, they are accessible.

To companies offering a service or product, here is my advice. Do these five steps and you’ll be my hero.

But Lee’s story is different. He is passionate about his job.

Lee’s been focused and dedicated on building communities for nine years and he loves it. To me though, it was him being inquisitive enough and experimental enough to blend two passions together (online communities and video) to make something extraordinary.

Mind you, this came seven years after he started building online communities.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, “do we have what it takes to stick with it for seven years before something happens?”

1. Will a link to this site directly benefit my customers?
2. Do I trust them enough to refer my loyal customers to their business?

If the answer is no on either one, don’t put a link on your site.