Give it Up for Love....Wish Upon a Wedding Orlando Launch

Giving it up all for Love.. I am honored to be on board as marketing chair for his heart warming charity- Wish Upon a Wedding, The world's first non-profit organization granting wedding wishes to couples faced with terminal illness regardless of sexual orientation. 

Upon delivery of a terminal diagnosis, relationships are always put to the test, but true love conquers all, and backing this charity is near and dear to me, as providing these sacred memories through a beautiful wedding seals a vow to love and take care of one another for all the days of their lives that remain or hope to come.

I am a bit sentimental, with our launch event arriving, we welcome our local community to come out support, celebrate, mingle, enjoy and give back to the charity.

Hope to see you there on May 27th...

 Designed by our crew at Chevere Creative

Sponsorship opportunities available contact me at beatcreative@gmail.com for more info.


You are cordially invited to attend the Wish Upon A Wedding Launch Event which is aptly titled as "Give It Up For Love!"

This premier event is being held on Thursday, May 27th, 2010 at 6pm.  Florida's finest wedding and event professionals will be in attendance as well Orlando's business elite!   You're welcome to join us too - the more the merrier!   We want to get the word out about this fabulous organization and share information about how everyone can get involved to locally! 

Wish Upon a Wedding anticipates granting dozens of wishes per year with the possibility of that number reaching into the hundreds.  Currently there are 18 Chapters across the US and the organization's goal is to offer Wedding Wishes in every major city across the country.
This VIP event is taking place at Tavern tavern=""> on the Lake - located at 6996 Piazza Grande Avenue - Orlando FL, 32835 (Metrowest area)

For all the latest information, visit the Wish wish=""> Upon A Wedding - Orlando Facebook page!
**Sponsorship opportunities are available

Wish Upon a Wedding Foundation - Association of Bridal Consultants Community Support

As of Friday, April 30, 2010, ABC is pleased to announce a partnership with the world's first "wedding wish granting organization", California based Wish Upon a Wedding.  Founded by ABC member Ms. Liz Guthrie and ABC celebrity wedding designer and WUW President Ms. Sasha Souza, WUW's goal is to design and donate special weddings to couples where one has a terminal diagnosis of less than 36 months.

By relying on the generosity of wedding and hospitality vendors, known as Wish Granters, Wish Upon a Wedding is able to provide all the goods and services needed to produce these memorable occasions.

Keeping Track of Who's Who...

Contact management organization tips, tricks and a plan to get you started on the road to rolodex sanity.

You have collected 1,000 upon 1,000 business cards at networking events, have clients and prospects emailing you everyday either for quotes or inquiries, The million dollar question is, How are you organizing this data? You been putting this task off for days, months, or years, but who has time to create a master contact list?

Whether you have been in business for years or just started, those contacts can definitely accumulate, but if you are just letting them just accumulate you are really missing out on many potential new sales opportunities!

How are you Communicating?


Top of mind awareness is key, do your clients know you now offer new services or products? Do they know you just moved or hired 2 new staff members? How are you communicating your company's latest news? Facebook, Twitter and all the social media out there is not enough!

Email marketing is the answer for effective external communications and you are interested in getting started right away, but problem is, your contacts are all over the place!

Your solution starts off with a little hard work but trust me it gets easier in time. Here are your 1st three crucial steps to get you started:

Organization Overhaul

it is an ugly job and a lot of work, but somebody's got to do it. Yes, you let your emails pile up, your mailing lists accumulate but it is now time for some Spring cleaning and organization! Start exporting your contacts from your Outlook into a text file and then copying everything into a master excel list. Also keep a master excel list! If you are so beyond being organized and don't have all your contacts saved in your mail program, you are going to have to do it manual style, start with A, and work yourself down to Z, and copying all your contacts on to that excel file.

For those of you with different industry segments, or different sets of clientele, be sure to seperate your contact lists into groups by way that you sell to them. This way you can create custom email mailers, instead of blanketing them with information they have no interest in.

Periodic Updates


Once you complete your organization overhaul, set yourself on a schedule, set reminders in your calender to pop up at the end or beginning of each week, so you can input new contacts whether met in person or via email into your mailing/contact list. This way you can avoid major & time consuming organization overhauls every 6 - 8 months. This reminder system can help you from falling behind in your mailing list efforts.

Mailing List Integration


Once you have your master list compiled, choose a email marketing service to integrate your contacts into. I highly recommend MailChimp, very hip and user friendly, plus if your contact list is 500 persons or less, it is FREE!!! Another cool feature with MailChimp it has a widget that you can incorporate into your website's homepage where you can have interested clients sign up for your email updates. These new interested clients that sign up for your emails do not just get emailed to you, but sent directly into your list on their site, this way you don't have to manually enter them in everytime you get a new person on your list.

These are just some tips to get you started on the road to contact management sanity. And don't worry, never be too proud to ask for help. But be sure to ask someone you trust to help you with a project like this, as your contacts are very sensitive and exteremely valuable information. Not only does your help need to be trustworthy, but a good speller and have a great attention to detail! Good Luck and if you need any help or a great referral, let me know!

Happy Organizing!

Are You Optimized?

"If you built it, they will come." No, your website is not the Field of Dreams, and that is not the case nowadays.

Yes the Internet in itself can be an overwhelming world and whether you just put up a brand new website or you are content with your existing website, you now want to know why you are not getting hits to your site or calls coming in from prospective clients.

You even Google yourself and your business on a weekly basis and are baffled as to why your business doesn't pop up on the first or second page when you search your core business competency.

Switch On Your Optimization.

The answer to getting search engine results under specific keywords lies within Optimization. Optimization is not just writing the content on your site to be relevant to how you would like to be searched, but there is a back end programming factor also involved. A so called "switch" has to be turned on, and the keywords you want to be searched under needs to be inputted, correct descriptive page titles need to be added and most importantly spelled right!

How to Develop the Right Keywords.

I advise all my clients, you have to think like your customers, how are they searching for your services? Or how would you search if you had the need for your product or service. A great trick to understand how many searches on a particular keyword is to check out this Google keyword traffic tool. This is a really awesome gem of information! Google Keyword Tool.

Content is Truly King.

Constant updating is definitely required as this yields better search results for your company to stay within the first couple of pages. This is exactly why Blogs and Content Management based websites are so popular. Blogs are a very important tool to keep the updates to your website and feeding the search engines new information and keywords to pick up. The other great thing about Blogs is they are extremely user friendly and you can do these updates yourself! So if you don't have a blog incorporated into your site, its time to get one! When writing new content for your site it is also important to remember to add links to other information or tips, link sharing also increases search engine visibility.

These are just some initial ideas to incorporate when optimizing your website. Another more intensive resource for SEO tips is this amazing quick tips article from The Search Engine Journal- 55 Quick SEO Tips Even your Mother Would Love.

Optimize or get Lost! Really! You need to be on top of this now more than ever with thick competition out there!

Tracking it Down... Your Voyeurs, Prospects & Customers, who's visiting?

Where is your web traffic really coming from? Who and how many people are viewing your site? To really find out if being on Facebook, blogging or tweeting is really worth your time and effort, you first need to prove the who, what, where and how by measurement through Analytics.

Don't be intimated by Analytics, it does seem a bit scary at first, but it is as simple as a copy and paste exercise. BTW, Analytics is FREE and don't think you need to hire a programmer or web expert to install it. Whether you want to install analytics on your blog or website, the only thing you do need to know, is how to access the backend or dashboard of your site. After that it is simple as 1-2-3.

Google Analytics
The top source for free analytics. They make it very easy and comprehensive to install your analytics. CLICK HERE for the easy rundown on how to do it. Google analytics gives you the breakdown on where your traffic is coming from and how many people are viewing your site on a daily basis. This way you know for sure if your Facebook/Twitter/Linkedin promotions are really paying off.





Facebook Insights

Believe or not, Facebook too has a FREE tracking analytics tool. Although this tool is only available for Fan pages and Social Ads. Facebook Insights specifically measures user exposure, actions, and behavior relating to your Social Ads and Facebook Page. So if you been thinking about creating a Fan page, go for it!

Only Page admins can view the all the activity data, and it is displayed in the left column of the Page. To view comprehensive Insights, CLICK HERE and "See All" in the left column.

With these tools you can better understand where your traffic is coming from and where to invest more time to in promoting your business.

Look out for the next blog installment where we will be talking about how to drive more traffic to your site through everyday passed up social media websites. Till next time...

Firing Clients? Come Again?!

You're Fired!

Now who fires clients in a down economy? Does every penny really count? But the true question is how much is your time worth? My business partner and I have this debate on a weekly basis, but the true fact of the matter is your time is EXTREMELY valuable!

So if a client starts eating away at your time (non-billable hours, to be specific) where do you draw the line between maintaining the relationship and ensuring above and beyond customer service or simply letting the client go. Because at the end of the day, they are costing you too much money and the total cost of their job doesn't add up to the amount of extra hours put in.

The Solution to this conundrum according to one of my marketing sources -Part ways from the overbearing client and shift focus to your best clients. By choosing to focus your company's efforts on your best customers, you can improve productivity, enhance service and find reward in additional business.

According to Business Author, Marketing Profs contributor and co-founder of the Value Added Institute- Scott McKain, there are more reasons to consider firing a "bad" customer. Even in a downturn—when many of us count each client as a blessing—some of them might actually be hurting your business.

So, whom do you cut? you may consider severing ties with:

The Bottom & Unprofitable

Customers who drain your resources without making substantial purchases. "Cut loose those who take time from your efforts but aren't delivering in terms of sales," he advises.

The Unprofitable are customers who close deals but take too much staff time, ask for unreasonable concessions and demand expensive expedited delivery. "Remember, the goal for your business isn't volume, it's profit," he notes.

The Obsolete.

"If you have only limited resources, don't spend inordinate time and money on customers from declining industries," he suggests.

Sometimes it's best to just let them go. It might sound counter intuitive, but firing a client or two could make your business more recession-resistant.

What's Hot in Web Design

The latest design trends for 2010 in Web Design and functionality. Get inspired with these websites. Great ideas and tips to consider for your new or next website.

Big Headlines

I love big headlines, and they are now all the rage! Forget that tiny hard to see copy! Big Headlines attract attention and draw your eye to the message. The right copy and messaging can be very effective in showcasing your new site.





Introductions

Introducing yourself immediately on your site is a HOT new trend. It really takes the guessing out of what you do, highlights your purpose, capabilities and what you bring to the table. This is a really powerful approach when implemented on your homepage - if your site is Search Engine Optimized- BAM! you will then be immediately picked up on top organic results on Google...

Hello! My name is Michelle and I am a Event Industry Marketing Consultant, strategist and creative branding advocate...

One -page Scrolling Sites

One-page sites are cool in functionality and show off a clean design look along with a touch movement and depth of design. This new form of web programming is called JQUERY and not many programmers have experience with this new technique. Our team does, BTW. Moving horizontally or vertically, scrolling sites give an added element of animation to your website navigation Nowadays, with everyone on Facebook and Twitter all you need is a simple website with your social networks integrated to have an effective web presence.

Danny Blackman

The Great Bearded Reef

Guillaume Pacheco

Incognito Inc

Content Sliders

Now the industry standard in interactive design for 2009- 2010. Very clean, visually dynamic, impactful and attractive way to present your information and images in a limited space.

Tips for the Best Email Campaigns

I firmly believe email marketing works. It keeps your clients and prospects in the know on what your company is up to and maintains top of mind awareness. But used wrongly in content, approach and just sending eblasts out without purpose can land you on the opt out list. Here are some very important tips on how to stay on top with your email marketing efforts:

REDUCE CONTENT

LESS is MORE! Big appealing headlines are in, create a headline that attracts along with an intro sentence that eludes into important information that is of interest to your clients. This way they will want to read more and in turn will drive more click throughs to your website.

FRESHEN YOUR DESIGN LAYOUT

Avoid amateur design, which will reflect poorly on your company. Make your message more visually heavy rather than copy heavy. Hire a graphic designer to set up a branded email newsletter/promotional card layout that can be easily updated. Or if your budget is tight use the most simple layouts available with your email marketing provider service. Be sure to use your company colors, fonts and always include pictures in your emails.

INCREASE FREQUENCY

I recommend sending emails once to twice a month, but again your content is important! You have to limit your message to 3 - 4 blurbs that include important facts/trends that are relevant to your business or important for your client to know. Set a schedule for your messages, whether you do a newsletter with info once a month and then a trend alert message as your 2nd email for the month and then alternate a promotional offering every other month in place of your trend alert.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUBJECT LINES

Do NOT use your "Company's February Newsletter" as the subject line, instead your subject line should be relevant to the major story inside like for example, the name of this post- "Tips for the Best E-Newsletters". Subject lines are a major element to entice a user to open the e-mail. If the subject line is not catchy and repeats itself each issue, no one will pay any attention to your offering.

Some examples of email campaigns with fresh design, good content and branding- great inspiration for your next eblast!

With the simple above changes you will most definitely see results and higher click through rates. Although with any email campaign you are sending out, if your purpose is to drive customers to your website, your website does also need to have up to date and relevant information, as all marketing has to work in tandem for best results.

Next week it will be all about the latest trends in website design.. Stay tuned...