In this podcast I talk about email marketing  – and we are back to an audio version for episode 10 – I enjoyed doing the last podcast with video but I did not want to wait too long to post another.

I had a great day today reconnecting with Constant Contact. That’s a major long-time vendor for email marketing services, and I was one of their very first dealers back in 2003. In fact it was not even called Constant Contact back then – it was called Roving Software.   It has been interesting to see this company steadily grow.  They make email marketing pretty easy for users on many levels.

If you can only do wizard driven templates with the art work built in – they do that. If you are a slick HTML person you can customize your campaigns to a very fine detail.  It is easy to manipulate your database into multiple categories. And since my company, IMS Strategic Internet Marketing Services is again an active dealer I can throw in a free trial…

Re-establishing my dealer account took some doing.

In about 2005  I was elected to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of Pinnacle Wireless LLC, DBA Atrius.  At that time I converted my existing dealer agreement with Constant Contact  for use by Pinnacle/Atrius  which included an extensive personal contact database.  During my tenure, most Pinnacle/Atrius  Customers were added to this master database.  I have long since left Pinnacle/Atrius  and recently launched IMS Internet Marketing Services. So here is the problem – there is no practical way for me to distinguish between my original personal contact list, and names added later for use by Pinnacle/Atrius.

There were almost 5000 names in there that may or may not want to do business with me… and although most of them were probably dial up customers and have no need for an Internet Marketing company like IMS – if only 10% did hold some interest … well that would be more customers than I could handle at the current size of the company. Not a bad problem to have.

The other problem is that my company provides high level email marketing consulting and one of the cardinal rules is:

“It’s Not The Technology – It’s The Relationship”.

So yes technically, I could  send out 5000 emails tonight shamelessly asking former Atrius clients for business – but not only is that by definition “SPAM” – it would really tick off a lot of people – not the least of whom are the other owners of that company.

I solved it by changing the dealer account status into a  Confirmed Opt-in (a.k.a. double opt-in) which is the most rigorous method of obtaining permission to send email communications. It requires the contact (email address owner) to affirmatively respond to an email confirmation request in order to be added to an email list. If the contact does not affirmatively respond, he or she will not receive any further email communications from you.

I give a little more back ground and some pointers in this, the tenth episode of the Web Strategies Podcast.

I am also featuring our new theme song- Westward Leaning – enjoy!

The Web Strategies Podcast is a program dedicated to the technology and techniques of marketing your business on the internet. I think it’s pretty clear that the technology now must include a video element.

In this first Video version of the Web Strategies Podcast  we are only talking about how this first video was produced. I used a sort of “poor man’s green screen” process to create the video for several reasons. First, and most obviously the video was produced in my home studio. In the video we discuss how problematic it would be to move my entire setup to my business offices.  In all likelihood this particular office will be temporary as my marketing company is starting to gain momentum. (IMS Strategic Internet Marketing)  I can see a time very soon when additional employees will require additional office space.

The second reason for the inexpensive green-screen set up was to demonstrate that this type of video can be produced in-house.  I do an insert of video recorded simultaneously on a Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks Pro webcam on top of the video recorded with my Sony DCR-VX2100 Digital Handycam® Camcorder.  While you would definitely see a huge difference on a TV monitor, on a computer screen – even a good one – the difference is surprisingly hard to spot.

I have also included two versions of the video here, and an option to view the HD version on YouTube.  Since YouTube now limits videos to ten minutes this version was edited to conform to YouTube limitations. Most of the last few minutes features the song “Leaning Westward”, new original music I composed to be used as the theme of the program. You may download or listen to the full version on my music site – The Open Source Music Project.

The version below is  technically posted as the media of the podcast is configured for iTunes and is intended to be a continuation for subscribers of my previously produced audio-only podcasts.

As always I welcome your comments and will give my best effort to answering any questions.

I want to Thank Cathy Lewis and her staff for giving me permission to rebroadcast the program as part of the Web Strategies Podcast.

What a great time as a guest on HearSay with Cathy Lewis yesterday!  The other guest – Ed Sykes of The Sykes Group, and Malcolm Venable of the Virginian-Pilot. Both great guys, and very well informed on various aspects of social media – or as Cathy likes to call it “The Facebook”

One of the topics we discussed was the public and private side of social networking – Cathy accepted my Friend Request – but instead of posting to her personal Facebook account I added a comment to the HearSay with Cathy Lewis fan area. If you listen to the show you’ll get the perspective – but essentially we were saying that sometimes the personal and the professional get unintentionally intermingled.

Success On The Web Is Driven By Passion

This podcast is a little odd in that it brings me full circle. Martin Joseph is our guest and it’s actually the second time we’ve recorded the same show. The last one was several months back – and well… the recording was just not up to my standards. I was experimenting with a sony digital audio recorder and thought the sound was going to be better. This is actually a much better interview.
This conversation is about two things – the Virtual Business Martin started and the strategy that took him from brick and mortar to the World Wide Web.  Some of the links we talked about in the podcast include It’s Off Site Dot Com – http://www.itsoffsite.com/index.php – Secure computer backup online for businesses.
As always thank you for listening and your comments are welcomed.

After a fairly long hiatus, the Web Strategies Podcast to about to return. Like so many other podcast creators I knew this was the right thing to do – I have working knowledge of Web Strategies for business and the best way to widely share this knowledge is through podcasting. Getting the time to create the actual podcast while holding down a rather intense day job however, is problematic. For example – while I am making this post my lunch is cooking in the office microwave.

The content level here is about to improve – if nothing else by default… I have been asked to be a guest speaker on a radio talk program – and my recording of that interview will serve as the next new Web Strategies Podcast. See OMG

Hope you like the new look and feel of the site too – I use WordPress and just updated all the plug-ins too. Enjoy

Tom Walker is the return guest and we talk about a dynamic digital catalog project that creates PDF documents and images personalized to the user’s needs. This is a good illustration of how running a business has changed in the digital age.

We also discuss the ups and downs of tying together a line of business software or other third party application to your company website. What happens when some function on your web site is not doing what you think it should? How to cut though finger pointing and just get the darn thing fixed.

In our Extra section I show you the inside numbers for traffic to this companion website. Click here if you don’t see the Tags and Tags Extra.

This fifth episode of The Web Strategies Podcast happened to be recorded a few days after four tornados ripped through an area about 15 miles from the studio. That prompted a discussion on Disaster Planning – Data Recovery and Hardware Restoration. This is important stuff for everybody. In the studio with me is Tom Walker, president of Web Teks and an expert on the strategic Internet.

Podcast Extra:

Today’s Podcast Extra is about something called “Add-ons” for the Firefox web browser. Add-ons are mini programs that let you personalize your browsing experience – and if you are not using them, not only are you missing out – you may be drifting behind your competitors. There are all kinds of add-ons, the most popular are tools to help you block ads or download files.

The most useful (at least to me) are add-ons like web developer, which adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Perhaps it is a little to geek side, but it has been downloaded over six and a half million times. Not just web developers, but us plain folks are using this tool bar to see how web pages are made.

Another Add-on category you should be aware of is SEO tools. There are probably a dozen good tools out of about a hundred or so available as of this posting. I use KGen (Keyword Generator) which is an add-on that allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web page. For my own blog pages it lets me see which words will most likely be indexed, and it is useful in figuring out which words to use for social sharing. My hot list if Firefox add-ons can be found here: http://del.icio.us/tomanthonydotcom/addon

We will discuss social sharing and tags in an upcoming episode.

Next week we talk about the Big Catalog Project, and Marrying Integrators…Not that kind of wedding … tying together a line of business software to a website.

I am very excited about our new open and close bumpers.

The voice belongs to easily one of the most recognizable voices in America, Joe Cipriano. You may not know his name, but you hear Joe Cipriano every day on Radio, TV and in Movie Theaters. He is the signature voice of the Fox Television Network comedies, the CBS Network comedies and is the in-show announcer for Deal or No Deal.

Pretty darn cool. Joe and I have had a close association for over a decade, since my days as the Production Director of a local Norfolk Virginia radio station called the point. It is really too bad I cannot put my hands on some of the audio I produced with Joe, it was (if I say so myself) really, really good. Thanks Joe – in at least the first and last moments of the show, the Web Strategies Podcast sounds like a Million Bucks.

Our guest

for the main segment this time out is Tony Scarola, one of our Web Strategies Podcast subscribers, a friend to the program, and a person who we trust as an expert network engineer and security expert. This time we talk about the age-old confrontation between the technicians and your staff.

WSP04 Podcast Extra Technology Audits

As a business owner you have either have money to burn, or a handle on your business technology infrastructure. If it is not practical to have a full time network engineer on staff, your company really needs an annual technology audit. Find a reputable integrator and hire them to send an experienced network engineer to your office. Make sure they physically inspect the network hardware in place, and inventory all routers, hubs, firewalls, servers and workstations in your system. Ask the company to chart out every machine on your network, how they are connected, and identify what services each is offering. This document should be easy to read and easy to understand. Here is a graphic representing the sample Network Map in Microsoft Visio.

Most of the time shortcomings in outdated hardware or software carry hidden costs. Most business owners simply cannot guess how much lost productivity is the result of a staff asked to make do with old dull tools. What you do not know can indeed hurt you when it comes to network security. If security were not your area of expertise, you would have no way to know how serious a risk your business faces every day.

Has your company experienced data loss due to hardware malfunctions, viruses, or other unexpected circumstances? One of the most common threats to business is the unintentional access to sensitive files by well meaning employees. The other more obvious threat is the deliberate destruction of data by disenfranchised workers. Both are preventable if someone in the know warns you ahead of time. All that said, what happens to your business if before work one morning an electrical fire takes out the bookkeepers office. How long would that take to recover without a working plan based on your current real world network? Makes you want to reach for Alka-Seltzer right now doesn’t it?

In this program number three, we talk to Management consultant and author Lanny Goodman about The relationship between technology and business strategy. Lanny is the founder and CEO of Management Technologies Inc. in Albuquerque NM.

Lanny holds a BA in Fine Arts and an MBA in Financial Management, which gives him grounding in the tools and mechanics of business. His book The End of Management is scheduled for release later this year.

If You’re Not Committed… Don’t Go All The Way.

Just one week passed between show one and two and the first show has been downloaded 72 times. I am just astounded and very, very grateful. Thank you for your interest! We had very positive feedback from the first podcast; with guest was Tom Walker, President of Web Teks. We brought Tom back for this show and hope to feature him often. Tom Walker is a very smart guy when it comes to understanding business and the role of technology.

This week Tom discusses how to begin a web initiative, or perhaps more importantly how not to.

WSP 02 Podcast Extra

In our Web Strategy Podcast Extra we talk about a Web 2.0 social bookmarking site called Delicious. Actually it’s a clever URL that spells the word Delicious – like this http://del.icio.us. Now I love it, but I have to admit it’s a web site I used for many weeks before I actually had the ahh-haa moment.

After tracking 186 bookmarked web pages I found myself giving a link out to a particular tag. Oh – a TAG is a single word description of what the content relates to. Sort of like a keyword. That tag happened be web 2.0 – when I looked at the whole list it allowed me to view the subject in a much more organized way. Please take a few minutes to visit my Delicious page, where you’ll see tags relating to Marketing, Technology, and Pod Casting among others. The particular link I refer to in WSP 02 is http://del.icio.us/tomanthonydotcom/web2.0.

If you have questions or comments they are welcomed and will be responded to. Thanks for your interest!