SEO-Specialist-Online.com

Your brand positioning has been agreed on, your target customer has been identified, your message has been refined to reach that audience, you have a new logo and tagline, a new email marketing template and your website has a new design. All of this really captures who you are and where you want to go.

So, your work is done. Right?

Wrong.

Good start, but you’ve only scratched the surface. Your smart positioning, new site, new template and new logo will only get you so far. Now, the real challenge: delivering on your brand experience.

Experience can make or break a brand. Say you’ve premised your entire brand on exceptional service (á la Nordstrom), but your frontline employees don’t deliver. At all. What stays with your audience is not that winning tagline about service, but the abrasive rep who rubbed them the wrong way. And at that point, no amount of appealing logos or clever messages can salvage your brand.

Retailers provide an example of how to think about your brand experience. In fact, the emphasis on brand experience in retail has inspired a whole cottage industry. Perfumers develop special scents for specialty shops. Of-the-moment DJs craft brand-inspired soundtracks for store stereos. But before you write this off as a trend for retailers only, think again. While you might not need to rush out for that perfect fragrance for your office headquarters, the lesson is this: Take a hard look at your brand experience.

Getting your brand experience right requires a top-to-bottom sweep of your touch points. So, do yourself this favor. Get your team in a room and start mapping out all the possible ways your audience might interact with your organization. In other words, audit your brand experience.

As a warm-up, start with the obvious conveyers of brand: your emails, your website, your ads. But then get into the not-so-obvious: how your staff interacts with your audiences, the atmosphere in your lobby, how you answer the phone, the music playing when a caller goes on hold, the tone in your email marketing messages.

Also, think hard about whether your processes actually reinforce your brand promise—and identify the gaps. For example, are you promising “easy” but making customers take a dozen steps to complete an order? Do you want to target young families but aren’t actually offering family-friendly policies for your employees? Do you want to be known for hospitality but have a less-than-welcoming presence at the front door? All of these details add up to an impression of your brand—good or bad.

So, get beyond the big picture and think through all those details that make up the experience. Then, make some changes, start actively managing the experience and watch your brand take off. Written By: Anna Adlard, Director of Account Planning at capstrat

Choosing Search Engine Optimization Services

If you decide to use our search engine promotion services, be sure to find out what is included in these services. SEO Specialist Online can help you through every step of the process: researching keywords, writing the content, even updating the optimization periodically.

This is the type of service you want so that you can sit back and put your web site’s future on the search engines in the hands of trusted, experienced professionals who will generate the results you want.

Not being where your customer is looking could be costing you their business! Let SEO Specialist Online do a free website evaluation.

Just like cleaning up your house, prepping the garden, or washing all the pollen off your car, with spring comes another set of tasks you should follow to get the most out of your email marketing; Email Spring Cleaning. Each spring you should take the time to make sure your campaigns are following best practices, to update your templates, to take advantage of any new features iContact is recommending, to review the basics, and to make sure your email marketing has as much impact as possible. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your email marketing.

    * Clearly identify who your email is from - Be sure to set up your Campaign in iContact with an email address your recipients will recognize. Using your company name as the sender name is always our recommendation. Once you choose the “from name,” be consistent with it so your customers will always recognize emails from your business. As an example, we could use emailmarketing@seo-specialist-online.com

    * Set your sending schedule - Pick a day and time for your emails (whether they are weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc.) and stick to it. Add it to your calendar and set a reminder. If you can’t log in during that time, use our Schedule Delivery feature to have your email sent at the date and time you want. Be sure to let your subscribers know on your sign-up form and in the newsletter what the schedule is.

    * Make it easy for others to reach you or your company - In the body of your email, show your email recipients multiple ways to get in touch with your company. This can include an email address, a phone number, and a postal address. Having a physical address can assure your list members that your company has a real-world presence. Be sure your campaign settings are up-to-date.

    * Make navigation easier - If your emails tend to be longer, use a table of contents. List out each story/article and link it to the item within the email. Your recipients can then navigate directly to the items that interest them. If you find your current template makes this difficult, consider switching to a new template as part of your spring-cleaning. With more than 500 beautiful templates to choose from, MessageBuilderTM can solve your navigation issues, and give your emails a fresh look.

    * Check on your list-building activities - Review the different methods you are using to build your email list. If you have not added a sign-up form to your website, it is very easy to add one using our Sign-Up Form Creator. Be sure there is a form available on every page of your website. If you own a retail store, add a form at the register. While at conferences and events, bring a form or computer to allow potential customers to sign up on the spot.

    * Combine Email Marketing with Social Media – If you have not already taken advantage of iContact’s Social Tools, now is the time. With Social Tools you can easily take advantage of the social networks of your subscribers. Using Facebook and Twitter allows you to reach a wider audience than with email marketing alone. Our social media integrations take all the guess work out, and allow you to leverage the power of email marketing with social media today.

These are just a few of the best practices we recommend to make your email marketing as successful as possible. To see more, and to read about how to build strong relationships with your customers and prospects, check out our Email Marketing Guide. It is full of information on how you can become an email marketing expert.

Choosing Search Engine Optimization Services

If you decide to use our search engine promotion services, be sure to find out what is included in these services. SEO Specialist Online can help you through every step of the process: researching keywords, writing the content, even updating the optimization periodically.

This is the type of service you want so that you can sit back and put your web site's future on the search engines in the hands of trusted, experienced professionals who will generate the results you want. 

Not being where your customer is looking could be costing you their business! Let SEO Specialist Online do a free website evaluation.

Question: Occasionally I waste a few minutes (or more) playing solitaire on my XP PC. I've tried the same game on my Vista machine, but dislike it. Is there anyway to include the XP version on my Vista machine?

Answer: This is a great question! After a little bit of digging, I found that it is possible to put the XP version of solitaire on a Vista machine.

Here's how:

First, I should start this tutorial by explaining something. I'm sure I will get questions about this, so I'll just answer now. This tutorial will show you how to get the solitaire files off of an XP computer and put them on a Vista computer. I cannot just get the files and offer them as a download to you. Because XP solitaire is owned and liscenced by Microsoft, it would cause major trouble for SEO Specialist Online if I just gave you my copy. On the other hand, if you have XP, you are welcome to do whatever you want with your own copy of XP solitaire. This is why I will show you how to move the XP version to Vista, so you can do it with a clear conscience.

OK, now we can continue. In order to do this tutorial, you will need two things. 1: A flash drive with at least 500kb of free space (should be no big deal). 2: A working Windows XP computer.

Step 1: Turn on the XP computer and plug in your flash drive.

Step 2: Find out the drive letter of your flash drive. To do this go to Start>My Computer. You will see it listed there with a drive letter next to it.

Step 3: Go to Start>Search and open the search box.

Step 4: A box will open asking you "What do you want to search for?". Click the one that reads "All Files and Folders".

Step 5: In the box labeled "All or part of the file name", type sol.exe

Step 6: Click on "More Advanced Options" and make sure there is a check mark next to "Search system folders", "Search hidden files and folders" and "search subfolders".

Step 7: Click "Search" and wait for windows to find the file. It should only find one.

Step 8: Right click on "sol.exe" and go to "Send to>(Your flash drive letter)". This will copy sol.exe to your flash drive.

Step 9: Repeat steps 3 through 8, but instead of searching for sol.exe, search for cards.dll.

OK. Now you should have two files on your flash drive: cards.dll and sol.exe. Now you can power up your Vista computer and plug in the flash drive.

Once the Vista computer starts up, you will want to make a folder on the desktop called Solitaire. (or anything you want to call it, really). Next, go to the flash drive by going to Start>Computer. Double click on the flash drive and you should see your two files called sol.exe and cards.dll. Drag them from the flash drive to the folder that you created on the desktop.

You are done! Now open the folder on the desktop and double click on sol.exe. Good ol' Windows XP solitaire should appear on your screen!

NOTE: You can move the Solitaire folder any place you would like. It doesn't have to remain on the desktop. Also, if you leave the files on the flash drive, you can also play XP solitaire on any system you plug the drive into!

Enjoy!

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