How many of you are on a Realtor’s distribution list and get notices about new listings, or market conditions every couple weeks?  Do you get email specials from retailers, such as Best Buy, or Mace’s?  Do you ever look at them?  Most of us don’t.  Why?  The information in them is rarely of interest to us.

I learned a long time ago that if you email people about information they don’t care about, they won’t get the email they do care about.  I worked in an environment with over 300 clients.  They were on an email list for updates to changes in financial reporting, planning, and forecasting databases.  Most of the team had a specialty, and cared little about the majority of emails that were sent.  Since 70% of the emails were irrelevant to them, they just started ignoring all the emails we sent, defeating the purpose of sending the emails in the first place.  After this was discovered, we instituted segmented distribution lists.  Each person could identify their specialty, or area of interests.  When emails were sent, they were sent to only those who requested to be notified about the topic in question.  The level of our communication significantly increased after we put this methodology in place.

This example is related to client support, but the same phenomenon occurs on the sales side as well.  If your organization is using email for marketing campaigns, it is critical to segment your distribution lists to boost ROI.  If you don’t, your emails will fall on deaf ears.  They will be a point of contact to generate sales, but will it be a positive one? 

It is extremely easy to segment email distribution.  Goodfriend Solutions has a cost effective process to that will improve your ROI and inspire your customers to action!

The second component of the term hosting, is the website component.  This is what most people think of when they think of hosting a website.  The basic premise of this function is having your website, which is a series of files for viewing and creating action, available for people to see.  It is important to select a hosting company that provides a reliable service.  Many people will “guarantee” uptime.  Uptime is simply the site being available.  Goodfriend Solutions doesn’t market this uptime percentage for two reasons.  One, what does guarantee mean?  Does it mean 99.9% of every hour, every day, over a month, or over a year?  Also, what happens if the 99.9% is not met?  Are you compensated?  Do you get a refund?  Before you select a provider, ask these questions and have them explain exactly what the guarantee is.  Most providers market a guarantee, but can’t explain what it is or how you will be compensated if it is not met.

Hosting is not JUST having your website available.  There are a plethora of other options that are bundled with a service agreement.  Just as with the marketing strategies of the email service, many providers will boast about all the great features you get with your service.   Technical terms are used so you think you are getting the best of the best.  You might hear of things like FTP, dedicated IP, cPanel, and sub domains.  You will hear of ASP, SSI, Cron, Frontpage, and Perl. 

These “features” fall into one of two categories.  One, it is a tool you will never use.  The second category are things every provider gives you because they are the basis for the website functioning.  These are the equivalent of shopping for a car and hearing that the car will have paint, tires, seats, a steering wheel, mirrors, and an engine.  Don’t make a decision on your hosting provider just because they include a bunch of extras that will never be used or boast about services that are required to host a website, like the tires on a car.

Goodfriend Solutions has an uptime percentage of greater than 99.9% over the life of our service.  If you use our hosting solutions, your website will be located in 3 places.  It is on one primary server.  There is a second server in the same facility that has the exact same website.  If the primary server fails, the second server is used.  We also have your website on a server in another part of the country.  If a natural disaster occurs, it is unlikely that it will occur in two parts of the country.  The probability that something would cause all 3 services to fail at the same time is extremely unlikely. 

Goodfriend Solutions provides all the tools and offerings for you to effectively manage your website, most of which are far better than our competition.  We are dedicated to giving our customer the lowest cost of website ownership in the industry.

If you have worked with me or read my previous comments, I focus on ROI and using the right tool for the situation when designing.  I get requests from new clients all the time to create a sleek flash animation intro for their site.  Let’s assume that the work involved in creating that "really cool" intro is $1,000.  How much revenue do you expect to gain because of that awesome intro?  Before you answer that, send an email to 20 of your friends and family and ask them what they do when go to a website and see an intro with a really cool loading animation and a "Skip Intro" option?  Research suggests that more than 98% of all people won’t see the $1,000 investment you made.

Flash does have a very important place in website design.  Animation draws in a viewer’s attention and adds a level of professionalism.   It is very effective in communicating your vision, or showing off your product.  Drawing attention to a call to action is another fantastic use of flash. 

If you are looking to design a flash intro, you might want to reevaluate how you are investing into your site.  It is a much better use of your money to add flash objects here and there to grab the viewer's attention and generate an action that mirrors your business strategy.