Legacy Marketing Services

If you have a business web site on a content management system (CMS) like Joomla or WordPress, chances are that you have extended the platform with some sort of email functionality.    Or maybe you are also operating a CRM or ecommerce site and have a feature to send notices to customers and clients.

If so and you are also using a WYSIWYG editor to create content on your site, you may run into a problem.

WYSIWYG stands for “what you see is what you get.”  Rather than having to code in HTML to create the content for your web pages,  a WYSIWYG editor displays formatting icons to make formatting web content just as easy as if you were typing in Microsoft Word.  The majority of web platforms today either come with or have extensions to add a WYSIWYG editor for users.

However, WYSIWYG’s will also manipulate your text, such as cleaning up improperly formatted HTML elements (helpful,) stripping style elements (not always so helpful,) and setting the paths for inserted images and links. 

Most editors can be configured to set either absolute or relative paths for images and urls. 

An absolute url is one where the entire url is included, for example http://legacymarketingservices.com/file/images/cutepic.png.  The problem with this method is that it make your content very easy to be scraped and republished on other web sites, resulting not only in the theft  of your content, but the bandwidth as well.

Because of this, many webmasters use relative url’s in the content in which the base domain is left out (for example /file/images/cutepic.png.)  If an article and it’s corresponding images were republished on another web site, the images would not display since obviously they are not stored on the copycat’s server.

HTML Emails and WYSIWYG Editors

Relative urls and WYSIWYG’s are great for web content, the problem comes in with the HTML email.

If you want to create a pretty HTML email with images and links, those pictures must be uploaded and stored on your server and then the images must be linked to with absolute urls where most editors are configured to convert them to relative.

Are you beginning to see the dilemma?

You are probably saying to yourself, “Well I can just enter the absolute urls manually.”  The problem is that the editor will automatically convert them anyway. 

For example, let’s say I want to put a link in an HTML email to my events page at http://legacymarketingservices.com/events.  The editor would strip that down to /events.  Again, not a problem in a web page; however, if it is put in an email without the base domain included the reader would end up with a “page not found error.”

So how do you get around this issue without giving up the convenience of an editor

The Email Solution

Here is the fix.  The editor is configured to work with the base domain of your site configuration.  Any time it sees a link that includes that exact domain, it will parse the url.

If your configuration is set to http://www.yourdomain.com, then manually enter the link as http://yourdomain.com (no www.)  If your configuration is set to http://yourdomain.com, do the opposite and manually enter the link at http://www.yourdomain.com. 

The links will still resolve to the same page, but the editor will view it as a difference domain and will leave it as is.

Over the past few days, I have seen a huge surge in traffic from people searching for marketing ideas for the 4th of July.  They found the post I wrote last year on marketing at 4th of July events.

If you are still looking for marketing ideas just a few days before the 4th, I thought you might need a little help.  This video gives a few fast ideas for putting something together to promote your business.

Marketing Handouts

Obviously you are not going to have enough time to get something professionally printed.  Hopefully you are stocked up on business cards, Yes?  Other ideas are flyers and postcards.

FedEx Kinko’s is your friend for last minute printing.  While they do allow you to upload your file and pick up the printed pieces later, if you need a really fast turnaround, take it in and run the copies yourself. Office Depot and Office Max are other good resources for last minute printing.

If you want something a little sturdier, one option is to set-up a 4″ x 6″ postcard design, save it has a high resolution image (at least 600 dpi) and send it to a one hour photo place like Walmart, Walgreens, or CVS.  If you are running several hundred of the same photo, they might not be able to do a one hour turnaround, but it will still be faster than most anything else.

4th of July Themed Handouts

Run to the store and stock up on some 4th of July fun:

• Sparklers
• Snap Pops
• Ice Pops
• Balloons
• Glow Sticks
• Water Bottles

Self adhesive labels are a procrastinator’s best friend.  Go pick up a pack of Avery labels in a size that will fit the item you are handing out. Labels come in a wide range of sizes from mini return address labels to full 8 1/2″ x 11.  Whatever you are planning on handing out, you can find a label the right size to slap on it.

MS Publisher has preset templates for almost every label size out there.  Load a template, add clipart and your company information and print the label sheets.

Promotional Candy Items

If you can’t think of something creative to pass out, candy is always favorite.  Once again, self adhesive labels can save the day by creating a fast and easy promotional wrap around a candy bar, either full size or mini.

Another option are bags of candy with a promotional topper.  Craft bags can be found at stores like Hobby Lobby or Michaels, 2″ x 3″ or 3″ x 4″ are good sizes to go with.  Put a few pieces of candy in the bag and staple your business card to the top.

Tips for Next Year

The 4th of July, like the hurricane season (if you live in the Gulf Coast,) comes every year . . . so be prepared!  Plan ahead of time what events you want to promote your business at and have your promotional items on hand.

I will be release a marketing course called the “Exhibitor’s Edge” covering every thing you need to know to market your business at trade shows and community events, as well as how to turn the contacts made into long term customers.  Sign up for my newsletter for more details.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve used a quite a few different email newsletter and list services over the past several years.  Aweber is the email service I am setting up the majority of my new lists on.

I originally started with Aweber because of how easy it is to set up sequential emails or news lists, otherwise known as autoresponders.   What I love is how detailed and granular their statistics are.  Seriously, their stats are on steriods.

When I logged in today to set up a new list, I saw that they have expanded their broadcast notification system.  The option has been available to notify Twitter for awhile, now you can post a notification on your Facebook profile as well.

This allows Aweber users to notify three sets of contacts with the publication of one email blast: email subscribers, Twitter followers and Facebook fans.

Update September 23, 2010

When I originally posted about this feature, aWeber only provided an option to post to your personal profile.  However, they just announced an update that will allow you to select a Facebook fan page to post the notification to.

So if you’ve been on the fence about which email service you should go with, take advantage of their $1 for the first month offer and give aWeber a try.

Our Web Site to Web Sales seminar earlier this month had a very active discussion.  As a result, we didn’t get to cover the last part of the information.  Below is a video covering the information for seminar attendees.  If you attended the seminar and didn’t receive a password, please contact me.

If you missed the seminar and would like to catch the recap, an online version of the seminar will be available in May.  Subscribe to our newsletter for updates.

I’ve had an account on Merchant Circle for Legacy Marketing for awhile but other than filling out my company details, I haven’t focused much on promoting it.  However I got a very nice review from a client, wanted to show it off, and I started to research the ways to integrate the Merchant Circle accounts with other web 2.0 sites.

Although there is a “Facebook Connect” option for Merchant Circle, it appears that it is just for personal profiles.  Either that or it didn’t sync with my Merchant Circle account because my Merchant Circle business account is tied to a business email address and my Facebook account is tied to my personal email address.

Since I want the Merchant Circle reviews and coupons to post to my Legacy Marketing business fan page and not my personal account wall, I scrapped that option.

I started to look for an alternate Merchant Circle application, when the light bulb went off . . .

RSS!

Sure enough, my MC business page had it’s own RSS feed.  From there, it was a snap. (Are you wondering what is RSS?  Read this article on what RSS is and how to use it.)

Adding Merchant Circle Reviews to Facebook

I’ve used several different Facebook applications to post RSS feeds to my wall and/or fan page such as Networked Blogs and Blog RSS Feed Reader; however, they can be a little tricky to configure to post only to your fan page wall or to both your personal and fan page wall.  I found a newer application called RSS Graffiti that has a much easier interface to have granular control over your RSS feed’s postings.

After installing the RSS Grafitti application, you can set whether you want to give the application permission to your personal page and fan pages on an individual basis.  Multiple feeds can be added and you can add prefixes or unique titles to the feed postings.  You can also track the url clicks through your bit.ly account, which I think is a really cool feature.

As I already had the application installed on my fan page, it took a total of 3 minutes add the review feed.

Adding Merchant Circle Reviews to Twitter

Twitter integration is becoming de rigueur for social networking sites and I’m a little surprised that it isn’t a default feature for a Merchant Account business profile.  Even so, there are other tools that make it easy to add to Twitter using the RSS feed.

There are several services out there which will post an RSS feed to twitter; however, my favorite is Twitterfeed.  Every new review or post on your RSS feed can be displayed on your Twitter account within minutes with just a few simple steps.

1. Sign up for an account at Twitterfeed
2. Click “create a new feed.”
3. Name the RSS feed and enter your feed url, click test.
4. Click “Continue to Step 2.”
5. Click “Twitter” under the services option.
6. Click “Authenticate Twitter Account.”
7. After you have allowed Twitterfeed to access your Twitter account, the integration is complete.

Now every time a customer posts a review or you post a coupon or a blog, it will be displayed on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.  The caveat to this method is that you must be committed to excellent customer service.  If you repeatedly get customer complaints and have unhappy customers, you may want to think twice before setting this up.

If you’re thinking, “That sounds great, but all this tech stuff makes my eyes cross,” don’t worry!  That’s what we’re here for.  Contact us regarding our social media promotion options.

If after reading this you are inspired to take your site or business promotion to new heights with RSS, Sean Donahoe (an RSS marketing fiend) just came out with a online seminar called “RSS Master Class.”  It is a limited offering and I haven’t checked the availability lately, but if it is still open, I would jump on it.

As a web site developer, I make a habit of trying out different CMS and ecommerce platforms so I can counsel clients on the best option for their business.  But my favorite standby’s are Joomla and WordPress.

Many people are familiar with the standard self-hosted version of WordPress (available for download at WordPress.org) and the hosted version at WordPress.com. However, not as many people are familiar with WordPress Multi User (commonly referred to as WordPress MU or WPMU,) which is a shame because it blasts the possibilities open for publishing multiple and collaborative sites.

What is WordPress MU

Again and again on various forums I read common misconceptions about the WordPress MU platform.  Many people believe that it can only be used for sites that provide users blogs on a subdomain such as WordPress.com does (username.wordpress.com.)

It can do that, but that is not the only way it can be used.  It can also be used to run separate sites on their own domain.  For example, let’s say you have a thing about scrapbooking and you want to create several sites for the different forms of scrapbooking.  So you buy the domains creative-scrapbooking.com, digital-scrapbooking.com, and wedding-scrapbooks.com.

(This is just an example and I’m just throwing them out there.  I have no idea if they are available or how competitive or how good the keywords are.)

Next, you go to your hosting account and install WordPress MU using one of the domains for the base install.  You then go to the WPMU administration panel to add the second and third sites.  You now have three separate sites with unique domain names on one installation of WPMU.

• http://creative-scrapbooking.com
• http://digital-scrapbooking.com
• http://wedding-scrapbooks.com

Each site will have it’s own administration area that can be accessed by going to http://domain.com/wp-admin/.  Each site can have it’s own unique theme, different plugins can be used on each, and additional users can be added to one or all of the sites.

Now let’s say your friend Mary is a wedding photographer and wants to blog about wedding photos and creating a photo list for shots that will work well in scrapbooks.  You can create a subdomain on the wedding-scrapbooks.com site, photos.wedding-scrapbook.com, and add her as a user to that blog.  Mary will have access to her own admin panel for photos.wedding-scrapbooks.com but not to the main site, wedding-scrapbooks.com or either of the other two domains that are on that WordPress MU platform.  Pretty cool isn’t it?

So now you have three sites with a total of four “blogs.”

• http://creative-scrapbooking.com
• http://digital-scrapbook.com
• http://wedding-scrapbooks.com
• http://photos.wedding-scrapbooks.com

WordPress MU can be used for multiple sites and multiple subdomains with blogs at the same time.

Why Use WordPress MU?

So why use WPMU rather than multiple installations of the standard version of WordPress?

The main reason is that it makes updates extremely easy.  If you have three, thirty or three hundred sites on individual WordPress installs, even though WordPress is very easy to keep updated, it still takes time to go through all the installations to update the platform and the plugins.  With WPMU, you only have one platform and one set of plugins to update.

It also saves a huge amount of time when setting up your site.   There are a number of programs out there that automate WordPress installations, but with WordPress MU, after redirecting your new domain, it is a three minute process to add a new site.   Also, you don’t have to install plugins again.  They are already installed and just have to be activated for that particular site.

The same is true of themes.  Multiple themes can be available on the WPMU installation and you can specify which themes are available to each blog.  When installing themes on a WPMU installation, remember that one theme may be used on a number of different sites.  So it is better to go with themes that have a theme administration panel for features that need to be unique to a particular site rather than having them hard coded in the theme itself.

Is WPMU for Me?

If you are planning on having more than one web site on WordPress MU, I think that it makes sense.  However, in the next major update of the WordPress platform, 3.0, the WordPress and WPMU projects will be merged and every installation of WordPress will have multi site and multi user capabilities.

If you are just now starting out with online publishing, I would frame your site and content strategy based on a multi site portal.