Blogs, E-mail, and BBQ

I recently attended a user conference for a software package my office uses to run our web site. It was a really good conference so I thought I would include a couple of blog entries (I have at least one more entry “planned”) about some of the knowledge I gained while at this conference.

Blogging Tips:

  • Limit each blog post to 600-700 words. Anything longer will lose readers.
  • Update frequently. People won’t visit the blog if new entries are never posted.
  • Links to relative information.
  • Be authentic. Blogs are definable by the way they are written. In other words, they should not be written like a press release. Our English teachers always told us we have our own writing style.
  • Comments: to allow/disallow. By allowing users to comment, a dialog can develop between the blogger and the readers. It is easier to just turn comments off if the blogger doesn’t want to deal with spam, criticism, etc. A good compromise is to allow comments for a short time, then close the comments. Troublesome users can always be banned from
  • Images. I believe having some images in or throughout a blog post can break up the longer posts and keep the reader’s attention.

E-mail marketing:

  • The first 33/44 characters of the e-mail is what is included in the e-mail preview.example:
  • Friendly “From” — People instead of organizations is recommended.
  • Opt in newsletters should include links to examples of newsletters that are on-line. These examples should be current or not more than a few months or a year old.
  • Opt in newsletters should also include a link to the Privacy Policy close the submit and close to the “opt in” link in the e-mail itself.
  • The width of an e-mail should be a maximum of 600 pixels wide. Even with bigger monitors, the preview is determined by the e-mail client, and most default to around this width.
  • The first 420 vertical pixels take up the first part of the preview pain in an e-mail client, so they are the most important.
  • Absolute URL’s (including the http://www.whatever.com/images.jpg) and including text in the ALT/Title tags is very important. If the absolute path is not included, the images will not show up in the client’s e-mail. Even if the image is linked correctly, the default for many clients has the images turned off. The ALT or Title tags will display the text in place of the graphic. So a ALT tag that says, “Newsletter Header Graphic” will give the user and idea of what graphic should really be appearing in that space.
  • Message size: 40k is good size, 100k is getting too large.
  • Mobile Messages: 60% of decision makers in business use mobile e-mail
    • link above banner to on-line version
    • 18% use mobile device —  to clean out box (just something to remember)

BBQ (the important stuff):

The conference was in Kansas City, MO. — Yes I ate good BBQ the whole time I was there, including Author Bryant’s and Gates BBQ.–  This was my second trip to the KC area, so I had already eaten Author Bryant’s once and Jack Stacks once. Jack Stacks is a higher end BBQ place, and while good, it was not my favorite. I  having eaten Author Bryant’s and Gates twice, I would say,  I am leaning towards Gates as being the better BBQ along with their service.

When I got home I was not only filled up with web tips and way to many PowerPoints (which is for a different post), but also lots of BBQ.

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