Excelleweb November 2009: Maximizing Your Contact Form's Effectiveness

One of my frustrations is finding contact forms that do not work very well on web sites. I've recounted one story many times over the years to illustrate the point of ineffective contact forms. Years ago, I was helping a local construction company with a web site redesign. We were in the process of building a proposal and I needed to get in touch with them to ask a few questions. I misplaced the person's business card, so I thought I'd quickly go to their current web site to get their number. On their web site, they had a little icon in the right upper corner with a picture of a telephone and a 'contact us' label beneath it. Nice! How much easier could they make it for people to call them? When I clicked on the icon link, it took me to a generic form asking for my name, phone number, and a text box where I could type my question. No address for the company, no phone, no fax, no email listed at all. This was the worst example of a contact form I had ever seen. If you're going to build a great contact form, list every possible way for your web site visitors to contact you. The web visitor can then choose which method of communication that they prefer. Also, link to it on every page of your web site. This way you'll never frustrate or anger any of your partners, prospects, or clients. Rifes Autobody Launches New Web Site Excelleweb is pleased to announce the recent launch of a new web site for Rife's Autobody. They've gone through a rebranding process and the web site is playing a key role in presenting the new brand identity. You may click on the screen shot below to visit the new site. It is the oldest family owned and operated collision repair shop in the Columbus area. You may contact Don Rife, Jr. or Jon McKnight at 614-488-6106 to learn more about them. Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

November 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "It is only through change we grow, gain experience and live. Yet it is how we choose to REACT to change that makes a difference" -- Unknown Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter

Excelleweb October 2009: Is Email Dead...Really?

Is Email Dead...Really? Recently an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal. I read the online version and in the title bar of my browser the article was titled, "The End of the Email Era". I know catchy titles are supposed to get my attention as the reader, but I do not necessarily agree with that statement. If I did I wouldn't be publishing email newsletters monthly, right? In the article (you can read it in its entirety here) it states that the use of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook is increasing so much more than email users. It really isn't a fair comparison, though, when you think about it. Email has been around so much longer, it's not exactly 'hip' any more. Your friends don't come up to you and say, "Hey, John, I just got an email account! Now you can send me messages." But they do announce when they are on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. That's because it's still in the early stages of adoption. It's new, fresh, and cutting-edge. While email may be taking a back seat to all the various social media outlets right now, I do not think it will go away. It's just a tool among many to help you communicate with others. Do you appreciate technology or shake your fists at the sky when it does not work for you? If you want to see a funny video on how many of us act with all of the technology at our fingertips today, you've got to watch this video here. It is hilarious! Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

October 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "In life and business, there are two cardinal sins.. The first is to act precipitously without thought and the second is to not act at all." -- Carl Icahn Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter

Protect Your Twitter Account

Protect Your Twitter Account Twice in the last few days I've received twitter posts from friends of mine with the latest links to 'get rich quick' schemes. When I got the first one I thought that my friend had gone over to the dark side, or at least the 'gullible side'. The next day when I received a second posting from friend #2, it was apparent that twitter spammers had found their way into their accounts. I was actually a bit relieved to know that these were junk postings instead of my friends really believing in this kind of stuff. We all should take steps to change our passwords to our social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn frequently. You should also ensure that you use 'hard to guess' passwords. Using your last name with a '1' after it isn't going to cut it. If any of you do receive unusual postings from those you know, don't be too quick to judge. They might have had their account compromised. Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

September 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed." -- Theodore Roosevelt If this email does not display properly, please visit my blog to view the text version. Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter

Are You Building or Destroying Your Brand?

Are You Building or Destroying Your Brand? Last month my newsletter focused on what others might be saying about you online and how you might be able to track that information so you know whether your reputation is held in high regard or not. This month I want to write briefly about building and destroying brands online. Since social media is in front of most of us on a daily basis, it's a great example to us all on how to build our own personal brand. If you're not careful, though, you can easily offend, alienate, or lose business because you haven't thought about the identity you are presenting to the rest of the world using tools like Facebook. Facebook is a fun environment where you can connect with friends, family, and if you use it like I do, to your customers. But...if you include customers or people in your target audience for your business, it's a really bad idea to go overboard acting unprofessional. Posting pictures of yourself in bars, drunk at tailgate parties, etc. could really be damaging to your business. Unless you are a bar owner, party planner who is targeting other party animals in their demographic. Here's a quick example. Two people that I like very much both use Facebook all the time. Both provide insights into their personal lives online, nothing wrong with that. Except that one presents themselves in a more favorable light than the other one. I've erased the identities from their postings so they are protected. You can only guess which one is which here. The first posting mentions spending time with their kids at Vacation Bible Schools and the second posting speaks for itself. You might think I'm being overly critical here, Facebook is supposed to be fun, right? You can be informal, just create private groups for your friends and keep your customers/business associates in a separate group. By lumping everyone together online using tools like Facebook you run the risk of offending people you never intended to offend. You also could lose business, miss out on job opportunities, etc. by not being careful about your brand identity. Remember the ad slogan 'Think before you drink?' How about 'Think before you post?' Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

August 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere" -- Albert Einstein If this email does not display properly, please visit my blog to view the text version. Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter

Tracking What Others Are Saying About You...

Tracking Social Media Social media. It's everywhere now. You cannot go through an entire day anymore without someone mentioning Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Business owners know they need to learn more about these social media tools. But they question whether it even makes sense for them to use any of these mediums for their businesses. The most frequent question I am asked is, "How can I track social media tools to determine any kind of ROI?" Good question. One way to gauge social media is to find out what others are saying about you. With so many different outlets on the web, you might think this would be extremely difficult. The more outlets that you use to post messages, the more chances there are to create buzz and engaging your customers in dialogue. One way to see results is to sign up for a complimentary account at Techrigy (http://www.techrigy.com). Here you can set up a profile for your company and then run searches for your company name, name of the President/CEO, or other related keywords for your business. The results will be compiled to show what others are saying on blogs, web sites, online forums, facebook, twitter, etc. about you and/or your company. Don't make the searches too broad or you'll pull too many results not related directly to you or your business. I'm sure there are other tracking tools out there, but this is one that I've found to do a nice job or summarizing results. It also has some since video tutorials to help you get started. Happy hunting! Using Twitter To Communicate Last week iContact was attacked by hackers intent on bringing their web site down, which it did for a short time. I needed to deploy a survey during that same timeframe and was concerned about what was really happening with iContact's site. iContact did a great job, using Twitter, to communicate the problem to the masses. They informed everyone as to status updates on resolving the issue, and steps being taken to address the issue. I commend them for using Twitter for crisis communications. It also increased their number of followers, which I found interesting. What I didn't like about the situation last week was that one of their competitors took the opportunity to pounce and contact many of us offering their services while iContact was down. It came across as 'sleazy' sales tactics to me. I didn't appreciate it, and am probably more loyal to iContact now than before because of it. Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

July 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "It's the job that's never started that takes the longest to finish." -- J.R.R. Tolkien If this email does not display properly, please visit my blog to view the text version. Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter

Creating a Favorable First Impression...

Creating a Favorable First Impression I know, you've been saying to yourself all month, "when is Tom publishing his June Newsletter?" It's been very hectic all month with lots of good stuff going on. But don't think I will ever forget my 'monthly' newsletter being published. This month I want to write about leaving good first impressions. Often times web sites will be the first impression someone receives from your business. How do others perceive your business by visiting your web site? I cringe when I hear people say that they purposely do not tell others their web address because they're embarrassed about their web site. If they really feel that way, they should take it down altogether. It's worse having a bad web site than not having one at all. Let me share with you a very positive experience I had this month, even though it was not through a web site. Central Ohio Golf Outing Held On June 19th I was in charge of organizing a golf outing for other business people that I network with regularly. I'd had a bit of experience helping on committees before, but was never the person in charge. I chose Chapel Hill golf course in Mount Vernon, Ohio for this year's outing. I've always liked the course and they offer some nice outing packages. Brian and Anthony at Chapel Hill could not have been any more helpful in organizing the outing for us. Everything from registration to food to planning assignments to scoring and waiting out a rain delay went extremely well. They were flexible to meet our needs and made the whole experience fun for everyone. The point is this. When building a brand for your business, your web site can create an experience for your visitors. Do they find it enjoyable to use or frustrating to find information? You can also create a positive experience for your customers by being customer-focused just like Brian and Anthony are at Chapel Hill Golf Course. A bad web site can hurt you, but so can not being accommodating to your customers. Imagine how successful you could be if your customer service and your web site both left positive first impressions? Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

June 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "Change before you have to." -- Jack Welch If this email does not display properly, please visit my blog to view the text version. Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter

What's Your Story? Everyone has a story to tell. At least they should. When you meet someone at a networking event and they ask, 'What do you do?', how do you respond? Storytelling is about the absolute best thing you can do to connect with your target audiences. Your web site should be no different. How often have you visited a web site filled with jargon and 'industry-speak' that talks of 'leveraging opportunities' and creating 'win-win situations' and 'going to the next level'? Wouldn't it be more effective to reference a few success stories you've had with other clients and speak in layman's terms? Web site visitors need to know that you can offer them help to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity. If they see themselves in the context of others you have helped, they will feel compelled to interact with you. If they're lost in trying to translate all your technical terms, they'll most likely leave your site not knowing whether you could help them or not. Keep your stories brief and highlight the results. That will be the magic formula to bring more prospects to your doorstep asking you to help them. Elmer's Products Releases Earth Day Newsletter Excelleweb works with Elmer's Products to create and execute their email newsletters on an ongoing basis. They have developed a program to help teachers and students learn the importance of recycling products called the 'Glue Crew'. You can learn more about this program by going to the Glue Crew web site. To view the Earth Day Newsletter, click here. Tom Anderson is the President/CEO of Excelleweb, LLC and can be reached at 614-679-0912 or by email at tom.anderson@excelleweb.com.

April 2009 Tom Anderson President/CEO Excelleweb Quote of the Month: "It is better to fall short of a high mark than to reach a low one." -- H.C. Payne If this email does not display properly, please visit my blog to view the text version. Invest in your own personal development, visit the AmSpirit Development Forum on Mondays (7:30am) at Scrambler's Restaurant at Cleveland Avenue and I-270. Learn more at www.amspiritdevforum.com... Tom Anderson profile on Follow me on Twitter