Successful Web Design and Internet Marketing Strategies from Desiree Scales, CEO--Bella Web Design, Inc.

Constant Contact Article about Bella Web Design, Inc.

We received some great "press" today from our friends at Constant Contact. They featured us in their monthly "Hints and Tips" newsletter as a Success Story. Please click here to read the article. We're very proud! 

We have been a Business Affiliate with Constant Contact for a few years and we recommend them for all of our client's email marketing needs. (We're also going to be featured in their Connect Up! forum as a featured business. Link coming soon!)

Why Your Email Address is a Powerful Marketing Tool

"A new study finds that electronic resumes linked to job candidates with quirky and “unprofessional” e-mail names are rated lower by potential employers than those with professional names."  --article here.

Did you know the same thing applies for your business email as well? Let's see, would you put more trust in a business who's CEO has an @gmail, @yahoo or @aol address or one with @acmecompany.com address? On the other hand, would you sincerely open an email from an address like rockinceo@acmecompany.com? I highly doubt it.

In this age of technology and spam, people are judging you based on your email address every time you send an email. Your email address and your domain name say a lot about your company and how its run. Cutting corners with a freebie email address isn't a way to impress future customers. It also isn't a way to get people to your site. (Did you know that most people who receive an email from a company they haven't heard of or aren't very familiar with will go to that company's website based on the address in the email? For good sakes people, FREE ADVERTISING!)

We recommend to all of our customers they use their company email address for correspondence and not to just forward their email to their Yahoo or AOL account. They forget that when they forward their email and then hit reply. The return email will have the @aol.com address and not the company address.

If you have company website addresses, USE THEM! Learn how to set them up in Outlook, Outlook Express or your web hosting company webmail program. After all, people are judging you and your company every time you write an email.

By the way, you can always email me here at desiree@bellawebdesign.com  Ahhhh, see how nice that sounds? Now go check out my website!

Top 10 Reasons you need an Email Marketing Service

Here is a great article I just downloaded from my business partner module with Constant Contact. You can download the full PDF at the end of this entry to get the full copy.

1. You follow professional mailing practices automatically. The most common mistake people make is to send to everyone on their list in the CC line. Your list is then exposed which can be a very embarrassing mistake.
2. You can send bulk emails. Most ISPs won't let you send more than 25 emails at a time.
3. You have your email list hosted in one place and all archived emails with no risk of running out of space.
4. Its easy to create a campaign. No technical skills required--just fill in the blanks!
5. Its much less expensive to send emails than regular bulk mail.
6. Your emails are in the correct format every time and not broken up into multi-part format. Your HTML emails will remain exactly as you designed them.
7. This will enable your emails to look much better than text emails. Your email can reflect the design of your website thereby supporting your branding efforts.
8. Get higher deliverability on your campaigns. We ensure your emails are delivered as Constant Contact has a great relationship with most ISPs.
9. Measure your results with reports that show clickthroughs, emails that were opened and exactly what email address opened them and which emails bounced. This is great in that you can see who is really interested in the services you talked about in your email.
10. You never have to update your email software. Its done for you automatically.

Here's a bonus--most email marketing companies make you send an approval email to your clients first. You don't have to do that with our system. You quickly load your list and send to everyone at one time. You let the people receiving the emails decide if they want to unsubscribe. You don't have to wait for a list to get approved like some other companies make you do. It all works from the very first email you send.

I think if you try the system, you'll be very impressed. I can walk anyone through a quick demo, just let me know if you're interested by calling me at 770 509 8797. I look forward to hearing from you.

Click here for the full PDF.

Bella Web Design Partners with Constant Contact

I announced to our clients today that we've partnered with Constant Contact to help our clients market their goods and services via email. Here are some of the reasons we chose Constant Contact:

Loyal customers buy more, cost less and tell their friends!

Ongoing email communications are a great way to keep in touch with your visitors and customers. Keep your business in front of them with timely newsletters, special offers and event announcements. With Constant Contact it's easy and affordable.

• List Hosting and Management
• More than 100 customizable templates
• High email deliverability - 97%!
• Real-time reporting
• Very inexpensive way to communicate versus regular mail rates

Email Marketing helps build your prospect list:

 Constant Contact makes email marketing easy and affordable:

• Builds your email list automatically, or easily imports your own email addresses
• Automatically creates HTML and text versions
• Delivers your email in the right format every time
• Hosts and manages your list
• Tracks and reports your results

We're allowing anyone to use Constant Contact FREE for 60 days with your list of up to 100 addresses. Send as many campaigns as you like.

Another thing I've been impressed with is the customer service. My calls and emails are returned within minutes, not hours. If you want to try Constant Contact, please click here or email me at desiree@bellawebdesign.com to learn more about the program.

Keep your eyes on this blog as we'll be announcing seminars for our clients and friends on this topic very soon.