As a reader, next time you receive a Constant Contact e-newsletter, look for the Social Share bar towards the top – it’s as easy as clicking a button!

If you’re the one sending the e-newsletter, make sure to turn on the Social Share bar. It’s located in the Header Options block. Constant Contact’s email reports will display the number of shares your emails get, and even note where your messages were shared (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).

Yikes – enough already!

Even if you do not or cannot build your own website, it doesn’t mean that your head has to be in the sand. You can still be empowered to some degree in your website project, which will help to minimize the fallout if your web person disappears off the face of the earth for one reason or another, and it seems like your website is hostage to the situation. The number of options available to you when you face problems with your web designer is proportional to the extent of your involvement at the initial stages of the creation of your site. While it would be best for you to personally register your domain and set up your hosting account, that might not be feasible. However, here are some suggestions that should be helpful if things go off course and you need to rescue your website…

• Ensure that you are the registered owner of the domain name.
• Know which company is the registrar of your domain name, and the account login and password.
• Ensure that the host server account is in your name.
• Know which company is hosting your website, and the account login and password.
• Keep a backup copy of website content in a Word file(s).
• Maintain a folder of the images uploaded to your website.
• If you’re using WordPress, ensure that you have been set up in an Administrator role and given the account login and password.

As a general practice, always keep account login and password information secure, and do not give them to anyone.

Following the aforementioned suggestions should provide some peace of mind when contracting with a developer, as well as leave you in good stead in case you do encounter an unprofessional website professional.

But, let’s face it, the look can eventually get stale. Constant Contact offers more than 400 HTML email templates to choose from – why not freshen up the look of your next e-newsletter with a different template?

Capture the attention of your clients, members, volunteers, and donors using Constant Contact’s email templates for newsletters, invitations, coupons, promotions, and more. Change any email template easily to match your organization’s identity. Customize your content with featured articles, sponsors, event photos, and more. Each template even offers suggestions for creating powerful, effective content, and many include stock images you can change out!

When you browse through Constant Contact’s email newsletter templates, I know you will find the right one for your small business or nonprofit. Contact me if you need help to freshen up the look of your e-newsletter.

Join us Tuesday, March 12, 2013 in Sedona from 1:30 – 4:30 PM for the Constant Contact e-Holiday Spring Party Adventure free event hosted by Joyce S. Kaye, The Computer Spirit with Websites and Coffee.

We’ll create a customized e-message using an existing template, and show you how to send it out to your loved ones, colleagues, community, and others. And, we’ll have fun while we’re at it. We’ll share cookies, treats, and tips, and help each other as we go.

And, it’s free!

• There is no fee to attend the gathering
• The Constant Contact 60-day trial account* is free
• I’ll help you set up the account for free.

The e-Holiday Spring Party Adventure is the perfect way to get started with publishing your own e-newsletter.

Space is limited, so even though this is a free event, registration is still required. To do so, and to learn more, visit our sister site, Websites and Coffee.

If you are unable to attend, please contact me to set up your trial account, and arrange for a free one-hour of coaching so that you too can take advantage of fun, inexpensive, and efficient greetings to connect with friends, family, and colleagues.

* If you’ve never had a Constant Contact account; up to 100 contacts and 5 images.

Dear Human:

You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.

- Courtney A. Walsh

My passion is relationship building, be it social or business. Now, when it comes to business (but really how can you separate social from business in today’s world of the Internet and social media?), the way I see it, your website is the hub for everything. It’s like a wheel with spokes, or Home, where all paths lead to, where your heart is.

And the spokes or the paths include email marketing (newsletters), brochures, business cards, Facebook and other social media, and on and on it goes.

My point is that all your collateral should point the reader to your website, and that is where all your information resides. Details, stories that reveal your experiences, values, images, etc. That’s where people learn more about you, connect with you, see what’s unique to you and why they’d choose working with you or simply moving the relationship forward rather than someone else.

Your website is your home online. Make it comfy, cozy, welcoming – like a guest would never want to leave it. And, in so doing, over time your relationships will blossom, and your life and business will truly be enriched in more ways than one.

In these days of increasingly more emails in one’s Inbox, competition for them being read is at an all-time high.

You can have the greatest, most relevant content in your emails, but if no one opens them, then it all goes to waste.

Here are five ways to ensure that your emails will be opened and read by your customers:

1. Segment your mailing list and send more targeted emails.
Larger lists tend to have lower open rates because it becomes difficult to please everybody, and those who aren’t interested just won’t open your messages. Think about ways you can break your mailing list up into smaller, more targeted lists. You know that when you get an email about something you are truly interested in and that is relevant to you, you are more likely to open it.

2. Improve your subject lines.
A good subject line will get an email opened. Lead with a benefit that lets the receiver know what’s in it for them. Make it interesting, and try to pique the reader’s curiosity. You want the reader to feel compelled to find out more.

3. Test your sending times.
Look at when people who do open your emails are doing so. Is it in the morning, midday, or at night? Try splitting your list in half. Send to half the people at your normal time, and to the other half on a different day or at a different time of day to see if one results in a higher open rate.

4. Check your “from” name.
Most emails that are quickly ignored or deleted are those with an unrecognizable “from” name or address. Use a name that your receivers are most familiar with in your “from” line.

5. Evaluate how often (and what) you send.
Sometimes the reason why people don’t open emails is because they simply get too many of them. On the other hand, it could be you’re not sending them often enough and recipients are losing interest in between the times when they do hear from you. Consider asking those on your mailing list how often they want to hear from you.

I have learned a lot from the WordPress workshops but the one-to-one coaching was really focused on specific questions I needed answers to. We fixed a lot in the time we spent together. Excellent!

Thanks Joyce!!

Sincerely,

Bill Murphy
Author of “Driving With The Brakes On”
www.highmesallc.com

Clouds by Susan Barrington, Heron House Productions

ALWAYS, always warmed in heart and spirit when i receive your e-newsletters – thoughtful words full of appreciation and attention. your continuing journey is indeed rippling out into the world (you know this of course but its always encouraging to be reminded, i hope) – your words change my trajectory that tiny bit that may, at the end of the day, make all the difference.

i’m especially appreciative of the video links in your December 2012 e-news, as i am about to start a TED: Creativity series and i’m seeing some links between these projects and our study of inspired living.

also, the Muslim prayer is deeply on target. am always on an interfaith quest to collect words and thinking that somehow perfectly reflect what my own heart knows, and this prayer is exactly that. had never crossed paths with it before. another hearty thank you!

happy new year to the Verde Valley!

- Susan Barrington,
Creative Director of Heron House Productions.