Platonik blog

The settings you need to blog from your iPhone are:

UserName : the email address you use to log in to the Admin section of your Adobe Business Catalyst website

Password : the password you use to log in to the Admin section of your Adobe Business Catalyst website

URL/XMLRPC: http://www.yourwebsiteaddress.com/MetaWeBlogAPI.ashx (replace http://www.yourwebsiteaddress.com with your website address)

This is a 24 step by step PDF outlining how to use Adobe Business Catalyst to send personalised email to your Hotmail contacts.

If you have other contacts stored in Outlook or Thunderbird or your phone or anywhere else, the same process literally applies; you just need to detect the source of your stored contacts.

Sorry it's a big file (25MB). But it's worth it.

Using Adobe Business Catalyst to email your Hotmail contacts

As someone who runs a business or works in sales or marketing, you undoubtedly need people to enquire about or buy your services and products.

There are very few businesses today that don't rely on the internet as a channel to generate new business.

And yet (almost) everyone is doing it wrong. So before I tell you what works, I'd like to clear up 5 myths I believe are floating around that harm a business owner's chance of success online.

I'll do it myself
Buying a cheap template, one of those blog hosted social sites, getting your IT manager or your nephew to do it won't work for your business.
Neither will an offer from a company offering an "affordable" 1 or 4 page website. (If you want to find out what affordable is costing you, read this » )

Great Design
Great design doesn't sell. It can help but it doesn't sell your company or product. Think of great design as being a well dressed salesman with a briefcase and brand new company car parked in the office car park. He hasn't called or met any sales leads yet. 

Perfect Code
Perfect code is like a great engine underneath a car. The engine sounds great, the car looks great but it's ultimate purpose is to get you from where you are now to your destination.

Social Media
Social Media is really easy to adopt. That's why those with a very limited business skill set are attracted to it. Anyone with an internet connection, who can type and hit a follow button are the qualifications for social media expertise.

If you are a business offering people the chance to win an iPad, you'll attract the wrong people, not those who have a problem needing solved.

Social Media is like the wild west; it's still in its infancy with very few tested, proven and measurable business results.

Migrating the status quo online
Let's say you are some kind of professional services firm, simply building a website about who you are and what you do isn't going to work long term or scale very well.. The market is too cluttered and your competitors have a 10 year head start on you. 

Plus, clever software developers have figured out how to sell your traditional service online globally for a fraction of the price as a service as a software solution. 

So, what kinda works ?

The reason I say "kinda" is that there are no guarantees but there are things you can do to give yourself the best possible chance of success.

1. Remarkably solves a problem
You need to find or come up with a product that solves a problem for a whole bunch of people. And it's gotta be remarkable. When I say remarkable I mean in the eyes of prospect customers. Take RiderScan. This guy invented a blind spot safety mirror for bikers. 

The product never existed before. Every biker knew of the problem but a solution never existed. Since day one, RiderScan has been selling in all parts of the world.

Take my friends at Kiyuco. They sell a monthly subscription for web designers who want further education and training on a web platform that only came into existence 5 years ago. 

2. The Market Size and Market Competition
Did you know that 14,800 people in the UK every month search online for a "lost driving licence ?" Whilst 2400 search for a "lost driving license ?"  The only difference being the spelling of the last word with a "c" and an "s".

There are virtually no searches for these terms in January however July and August tend to be peak months ? I wonder why ? People going on holiday ?

Here's my point : you don't know your market or your prospect customers until you've done some actual research. Whilst you may strike it lucky and come up with a ground breaking idea like RiderScan (who inevitably will need to be positioned in front of people looking for motor bike mirrors or bike blind spot) you need to get under the skin of Google and figure out what's going on with people. 

By doing this kind of research you can find high volume niche markets and stick your web pages in front of these people (profitably).

3. Overcoming the Dip
The Dip is that part where you give up when it gets too difficult. 

The Dip is when a business owner has a website built and they don't see the business results straight away; they give up and move on to something else. And yet it's when they don't give up and keep at it, through hard times, is when their business success begins to pay off.

4. You
You're the only one who is going to make the web work for your business. You don't need to actually do it all yourself. But you need to do stuff. You need an end game, a monthly goal, a plan to get from a to b, and a means of measuring what works and what doesn't. You need to be prepared to fail, get back up on the horse and try again. (yes, I've failed more times than I've succeeded)

You need a team, in person or virtual. You need to ignore what everyone else is doing and do your thing, concentrating on your product, your prospects and customers.

This is the way things have always been in the real world; hard work, determination and a purpose.

We've just completed both mobile and desktop websites for the launch of Chartered Accountants in London, Wagner Accountants.

The company have an existing Glasgow and Edinburgh base and this division shall focus on clients in the south.

The website is powered by Business Catalyst, naturally, and is the first mobile version of a website we've been asked to undertake. (there are still some tweaks on the mobile detection due to BC's hosting plans)

The purpose of the site is to communicate their expertise and key services but also to generate them business enquiries.

The site makes significant use of the categorised announcement modules and social media; with the blog set up to accept Facebook commenting and sharing on other networks.

The mobile version of the site compliments the main site design and our brief was "so we can show clients our site over dinner or in meetings"

Thanks to my guys for the great work and to Wagner's business success. The site is located at www.wagneraccountants.co.uk

The mobile site's home page

The mobile site's enquiry page

That's how many business leads we (I) generated for clients online in 2011 from the websites we built.

Is this average, good or great ? I've no idea as no one else shares this kind of business honesty (whilst ensuring client confidentiality)

This doesn't include those clients who do their own marketing.

And it's fair to say these leads are a result of organic as opposed to paid internet marketing activity.

And it doesn't include the telephone enquiries as a result of their internet presence.

I know this information because I put measurement and tracking for each client in place.

Yes, we do websites with business in mind.

As I've previously said, you would be better off financially firing one of your under performing sales people and diverting the funds over here.

So if you want a piece of me, you know where I am.

This PDF document is our website build completion checklist. If gives business owners and clients the piece of mind that their website has been built correctly. It's written in plain English even someone new to commissioning a website will understand.

From a business perspective, it gives clients the best possible opportunity of their pages and website being found by Google. 

Click the link below and the document will either open automatically in your browser or prompt you to save and download.

Website Build Completion Checklist

• Costs £200 - £500.
• Has between 1 to 4 pages on it.
• Never gets updated.
• Has never had any proper research done into what people are actually searching for online.
• Doesn't have an online monthly plan of action to support the business owners commercial objectives.

Read more about the Difference between the Price and Cost of a website

My monthly online marketing mix consists of the following :

1. Blog posts
2. Search engine optimisation
3. Monthly newsletter to existing customers
4. Newsletter to non converted prospects

The blog posts consist of client work, case studies, how to videos, observations and generally acting in an authoritative manner about building and making websites work for business.

The blog posts are synchronised with LinkedIn and Twitter.

The SEO is back linking work focused on three search phrases.

The client and prospect email newsletter are designed to sell but in a helpful way. A blend of persuasion and content.

All the production and development of this activity is done by myself.

In a very cluttered and competitive marketplace it's my way of being an authority and driving in bound enquiries.

Here is a small PDF booklet which we created for car service and mot garage owners outlining how we built websites that work for their business. 

The third video talks in this search engine optimisation series is about links or off page optimisation. Why one website is number one and the other one is number 10. Links are the lifeblood of your website's commercial success. I'll show you a couple of examples of links.

To watch part 1, click here»
To watch part 2, click here »