Oxford House of Louisiana was a website for local area Oxford Houses, a drug and alcohol free housing program. Last month, their site expanded to include all Oxford housing in the state of Louisiana. We upgraded the site wording and allowed easy searching of houses in various areas AND expanded their Administration Area so that Oxford House can update their housing on the fly.
Learn more at: http://www.ohola.org
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Incredible Special Offer: Free Review of Your Plan
Send your 2009 goals, objectives, business plans, … whatever you have done … to us for a review and email suggestions back from Brockwell. Please allow 2-3 weeks for review and reply.
Want more? Schedule a one hour conference call with Brockwell to review your plan by phone.
Call (225) 302-8032 before 2/28/2009 and mention this article to schedule a one hour conference call for $25 (a 50% discount)!
Want even more? Send your plan or plan components, along with your marketing initiatives to Bone Marketing and schedule a Complete Marketing Analysis. This Analysis allows us to spend an entire day learning about your business, review your marketing materials (ads, business cards, brochures) and sending you, not only recommendations, but a usable Marketing Action Plan that breaks down step-by-step what we would do to market your business further. (Incredible Price Expires 2/28/2009)
Find Out Why This Is A Good Idea <
Want more? Schedule a one hour conference call with Brockwell to review your plan by phone.
Call (225) 302-8032 before 2/28/2009 and mention this article to schedule a one hour conference call for $25 (a 50% discount)!
Want even more? Send your plan or plan components, along with your marketing initiatives to Bone Marketing and schedule a Complete Marketing Analysis. This Analysis allows us to spend an entire day learning about your business, review your marketing materials (ads, business cards, brochures) and sending you, not only recommendations, but a usable Marketing Action Plan that breaks down step-by-step what we would do to market your business further. (Incredible Price Expires 2/28/2009)
Find Out Why This Is A Good Idea <
Saturday, February 14, 2009
From the Keyboard of Brockwell (Feb 2009 Newsletter)
Last month, I wrote about planning for 2009 and to break down even the largest, wow-can-I-really-do-that goal down into quarterly goals, monthly objectives, and daily tasks.
Did you stop and make a plan? Without a plan, how will you know how to get to your destination (success)? I recommend stopping right now and jotting down where you want your company to be at the end of the year. Now, write what must happen each quarter to meet each goal. For example, if your goal is to increase sales by $40,000, your quarterly goal is to earn $10,000 more than you did that quarter in the previous year. Take it a step further and write that each month you must sell $3,400 more than you did a year before. How will you meet that goal? Get new clients? How many? Up-sell current clients? How? Congratulations, you now have a plan.
Are you following your plan? After writing a plan, you must revisit it (sometimes each day, but for realistic sake) each week. Did you meet your goal for that week? What do you have to do next week to keep with your goal for the month? Did you exceed your goal that week? If so, stop and celebrate – take your wife to dinner, take the salesman that met the goal for a drink.
Are you tweaking your plan? Things change therefore your plan should be a living document. Each month, your goals may change, products may be launched, services discontinued. Tweak your plan as your business changes.
Did you stop and make a plan? Without a plan, how will you know how to get to your destination (success)? I recommend stopping right now and jotting down where you want your company to be at the end of the year. Now, write what must happen each quarter to meet each goal. For example, if your goal is to increase sales by $40,000, your quarterly goal is to earn $10,000 more than you did that quarter in the previous year. Take it a step further and write that each month you must sell $3,400 more than you did a year before. How will you meet that goal? Get new clients? How many? Up-sell current clients? How? Congratulations, you now have a plan.
Are you following your plan? After writing a plan, you must revisit it (sometimes each day, but for realistic sake) each week. Did you meet your goal for that week? What do you have to do next week to keep with your goal for the month? Did you exceed your goal that week? If so, stop and celebrate – take your wife to dinner, take the salesman that met the goal for a drink.
Are you tweaking your plan? Things change therefore your plan should be a living document. Each month, your goals may change, products may be launched, services discontinued. Tweak your plan as your business changes.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Quote of the Month: Consistency
Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
- Plutarch, Roman Historian
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Bone Marketing Promotes the Daigle Cottage House Plans
Bone Marketing joined with Studieux Design of Louisiana, LLC to promote the Daigle Cottage house plan. While we did not design their website, Studieux Design approached us to assist with internet marketing.
About the Daigle Cottage: The designing architect made sure the Daigle Cottage offers all the amenities characteristic of larger homes in a manageable footprint ideal for smaller lots. The free flowing modern kitchen/dining/living room space combines with plenty of natural light from front and side windows to contribute to an open feel that overflows onto the covered back porch.
(More information at http://www.daiglecottagehouseplans.com/)
We tweaked some behind the scenes stuff like META tags, and continued on our mission by submitting the site (http://www.daiglecottagehouseplans.com/) to over 90 search engines requesting that it be cataloged.
Aside from that, we employed other internet marketing efforts to draw attention to the site (it's a trade secret or I would list them here -wink!).
We are monitoring the sites ranks on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com to ensure that we are properly marketing the site and increase visibility on these search engines. Since taking over the internet marketing of the site, we have gaining positions on the search engines.
About the Daigle Cottage: The designing architect made sure the Daigle Cottage offers all the amenities characteristic of larger homes in a manageable footprint ideal for smaller lots. The free flowing modern kitchen/dining/living room space combines with plenty of natural light from front and side windows to contribute to an open feel that overflows onto the covered back porch.
(More information at http://www.daiglecottagehouseplans.com/)
We tweaked some behind the scenes stuff like META tags, and continued on our mission by submitting the site (http://www.daiglecottagehouseplans.com/) to over 90 search engines requesting that it be cataloged.
Aside from that, we employed other internet marketing efforts to draw attention to the site (it's a trade secret or I would list them here -wink!).
We are monitoring the sites ranks on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com to ensure that we are properly marketing the site and increase visibility on these search engines. Since taking over the internet marketing of the site, we have gaining positions on the search engines.
Email Deliverability Tips
by Tom Kulzer, AWeber Email Management System
Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.
Permission
Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.
Subscriber Addresses
When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.
List Maintenance
Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.
Message Format
Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.
Content
Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.
Website URL:
Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.
Words/phrases:
Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.
Images:
Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.
Attachments:
With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.
CAN-SPAM Compliance
The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.
Reputation
Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:
http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
http://www.bondedsender.com
http://www.habeas.com
Relationships & Whitelisting
Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.
Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.
------------------------------
Are you using email communications to boost your business?
Check out the AWeber system
Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.
Permission
Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.
Subscriber Addresses
When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.
List Maintenance
Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.
Message Format
Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.
Content
Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.
Website URL:
Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.
Words/phrases:
Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.
Images:
Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.
Attachments:
With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.
CAN-SPAM Compliance
The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.
Reputation
Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:
http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
http://www.bondedsender.com
http://www.habeas.com
Relationships & Whitelisting
Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.
Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.
------------------------------
Are you using email communications to boost your business?
Check out the AWeber system
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