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Choosing An Email Marketing Platform

Email marketing has become a powerful tool for businesses to connect with customers. In fact, according to MarketingSherpa, email marketing generates $17.4 billion in annual revenue for US marketers alone.

There are literally hundreds of email marketing services out there that each promise to deliver something different from the other.

When choosing a platform for collecting subscribers, organizing addresses and sending emails, it can feel like there are a million options. In order to clear through the haze, SCXN suggests a frame of reference for selecting the perfect place for keeping vital contacts in an orderly manner and nailing very sharp looking email campaigns.

For over a decade now two names dominate the email campaign space: Mail Chimp and Constant Contact. MailChimp is a free email marketing service that offers powerful automation features. You can create beautiful emails with templates, track "opens" and "clicks", send bulk campaigns, and much more. Constant Contact, on the other hand, is a paid email marketing service that offers great tools for building your lists and sending personalized emails. Their campaign builder makes it easy to automate your entire workflow, and they offer rich Newsletter editing tools.

Two well-loved alternatives to MailChimp or Constant Contact are Sendgrid and Campaign Monitor. Sendgrid is a cloud-based email service provider that offers unlimited free accounts to send emails. You can use their platform to create campaigns, track opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes. Their platform is simple to use and they have a great API that makes it easy to integrate with third party applications. Campaign Monitor is a web-based marketing automation tool that helps businesses manage their email marketing campaigns. It’s a complete solution that includes landing pages, autoresponders, social media management, analytics, and more. It’s perfect if you want to automate your entire marketing funnel. These are just two second runners-up.

In choosing one of these companies to handle your email marketing, it may not feel helpful that the list of competitors in the email campaign/social media content management field is growing by factors of ten every day.

Ultimately, what is the SCXN Choice Platform for email marketing?:

At the time of writing this, MailerLite, a company which has operated out of Lithuania since 2010, offers a service-product that combines the best functionality and aesthetic of the top two names mentioned earlier, MailChimp or Constant Contact. What really sold SCXN on MailerLite was its crisp out-of-the-way UI similar to MailChimp and very stripped-back features with email campaigns at the heart. Plus in addition to its premium subscription plans which are excellent for enterprise-level heavy-lifting, MailerLite also offers a cost-free entry-tier that their customers can scale-up later.

What’s right for you?

After you have a shortlist of potential platforms and it seems like they're all the same at that point, be confident in letting your gut and cultural preferences guide you. For instance, SCXN is a modern and straight-forward brand. In the end, it was decided that MailerLite, with its clean, action-oriented layout was a perfect match. In a sense, it could be said that SCXN just "went with it" based on feel. And that's OK. Remember, if implemented properly, these services can be changed at anytime by simply backing up ones own records and reuploading them somewhere else. There's always an open door, so feel free. Anything can be changed. Rather than pacing back-and-forth on this decision, it's better to forge ahead and channel that kinetic energy into publishing good content.

In conclusion, with so many platforms to choose from, some characteristics stand-out while others don’t necessarily. SCXN offers a methodical yet common-sense approach to deciding what’s best for your business and personal needs. Consider starting with a framework for evaluating the various tools that are out there and then narrowing down to the right course. Remember there are alternatives to the big names. Some services offer unique widgets or add-ons that the others might not.

For SCXN, simplicity of the UI was essential.

We wanted sitting down to publish periodical emails to be something very very very pain-free, and dare we suggest, pleasurable if at all possible! With that criteria in mind, SCXN came to the conclusion that MailerLite fit the bill. But again, take some time to assess your goals and then let the features speak for themselves.

Best wishes,

Key Takeaways:

A handful of brands stand out in the ever-growing field of email campaign management

Evaluate your your goal in order to assess the tools you require

Anything can be changed so forge ahead

#News #Email Marketing #Email Marketing Campaigns #MailChimp #Constant Contact #mailerLite

Heroku To Scrap Free Plans

Did you know Heroku’s reformatting their plans in the coming months?

Bob Wise, Heroku’s general manager and the EVP at Salesforce, laid it out on the 25th of August ‘22 in his post to Heroku’s blog entitled “Heroku’s Next Chapter.”

A cost-free developers’ platform service similar to what’s offered at Digitalocean, like what Heroku offers right now, is not reported to be available after the switch at the end of November 2022.

This change will suss-out who’s willing to pay the $7/mo subscription to start with Heroku’s basic tier, or look at other options.

SCXN is already updating clients whose projects are hosted on Heroku. For some, it makes sense to stay since the bump in cost is relatively negligible for most enterprises, but it’s hard to beat ‘free’ especially for a small start-up always trying to shave overhead.

Right now, the freest course would be one of Digitalocean’s plans mixed with capRover.

#developers #Heroku #web dev #devs

Solution 1-7

Have you tried building a website, blog or online magazine before? Would you like to try again?

If you answered “yes” to yourself but in an inner-voice any less than your most enthusiastic tone, then rest assured this article is for you. I hope to encourage even the most blog-worn enterprise to get back in the saddle with more momentum than ever—once and for all!

The Internet has grown to dramatically define our relationship with media over the past twenty years. Nowadays, it seems completely normal to live with twenty-four-hour data, whether it’s through online stores, social media apps or streaming games.

There are several methods for designing websites these days, but some basic principles should always apply.

Businesses can no longer afford to ignore the power of the web. It has become crucial at every turn. Whether it’s GPS directions, reading the news, or discovering a dynamite place to dine, we rely heavily on the internet to unpack a world of options, to whittle away at the contemporary to-do list.

But in reality, arranging a beautiful web layout is as easy as your willingness to sit down and plan. In this article, I will point to seven key principles you might consider when crafting a gorgeous site.

"[The number of social media sites or blogs that link back to a page] was the factor that had the highest correlation to rankings in Google."—Brian Dean*

⁕Brian Dean, "Search Engine Ranking", Backlinko, April 28, 2020, https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking, Accessed August 26 2022

SCXN Solution 1-7

Contemporary Web Publishing Principles for 2022

1.) Engaging

Beyond flirting with colors, shapes and wording — a reputation for being up-to-date and accurate encourages revisits.

Eventually, people stop returning to boring or uninformative sources. In the extreme, this can be a case with a brand's own website.

SCXN websites are always up-to-date. Accuracy is a cinch since SCXN website owners can easily make revisions from anywhere with internet connection, from the smart phone already in the palm of their hand.

94% of a website user’s first impressions are design-related*

⁕Harry Bartlett, "Stats That Prove Your Website Needs Updating", Bartlett Interactive, February 13, 2015, https://www.bartlettinteractive.com/blog/stats-prove-website-needs-updating, Accessed August 26 2022

2.) Responsive

Respond appropriately when confronted by any view-port — look elegant regardless of the user's device.

As unbelievable as it sounds, it is really possible to respond appropriately to every situation. Responding appropriately should be considered normal, but with today's variety of devices all with varying view-port aspect-ratios, the potential for an awkward situation is greater today than ever before in human history.

Situations love SCXN websites because without interruption, SCXN websites respond to any situation, any view-port including the dreaded square, ultra-slim, super-widescreen, flip phones, and over-sized displays. No matter the format, SCXN websites display decisively on any device.

Google reports prioritizing mobile-friendly websites in their search results*

⁕Google, "Choose A Mobile Configuration", Google Developers Newsletter: Google Search Central, April 20, 2022, https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/, Accessed August 26 2022

3.) Dynamic

Automatically publish pertinent data to your website like reviews, calendars, visitor comments, and social media posts.

Content creators can't keep up with how much content people consume in 2022. For example, Many of the popular newsrooms today write with the aid of AI to keep up with demand. More and more, visitors expect new content each and every time they visit a website. Less and less people keep their own personal records and rather opt to defer to cloud-sources. This behavior is observed at every level from high-end surveillance system services to bookmarking a company's contact page rather than entering their number into a local phone book—or just writing it down.

Modern cloud-people love SCXN websites because they're complete information hubs pulling in lots of important details about your business automatically. Everything else is easily updated that people online are looking for like

"A survey of 1,013 US-based respondents between the ages of 18-60 reveals 81% think less of a brand if its website is not updated." —Matt G. Southern* ⁕Matt G. Southern, "81% of People Think Less of a Business if its Website is Outdated", Search Engine Journal, January 29, 2019, https://www.searchenginejournal.com/81-of-people-think-less-of-a-business-if-its-website-is-outdated/290283/, Accessed August 26 2022

4.) Semantic

Be confident your website reaches the widest user-base possible including those with user-assistive devices, exotic accessibility preferences like AI text-to-speech events, and variable screen color and contrast configuration.

User assistive devices should be able to parse the human-readable information to broaden the base of website access to include those persons with accessibility challenges. In the web design sphere, this is referred to as semantics or semantic design.

SCXN websites adhere to the most conventional modern and stable semantic code specifications making it very easy for the broadest base possible to digest the greatest amount of information published to your website.

"Human language thrives when using the same term to mean somewhat different things, but automation does not: Imagine that I hire a clown messenger service to deliver balloons to my customers on their birthdays. Unfortunately, the service transfers the addresses from my database to its database, not knowing that the "addresses" in mine are where bills are sent and that many of them are post office boxes. My hired clowns end up entertaining a number of postal workers—not necessarily a bad thing but certainly not the intended effect." —Berners-Lee, Hendler, Lassila*

⁕Tim Berners-lee, James Hendler, and Ora Lassila, "The Semantic Web", Scientific American, May 2001, https://www-sop.inria.fr/acacia/cours/essi2006/Scientific%20American_%20Feature%20Article_%20The%20Semantic%20Web_%20May%202001.pdf, Accessed August 26 2022

5.) Searchable

Satiate starving search engines by feeding their algorithms exactly what they're craving in order to show-up on page-one of their search results.

Search engines are the business listings of today with 31% of Americans reported to be online constantly and over 70% of Americans going online for everyday retail purchases. Some sources estimate these percentages to be higher. Search engine algorithms prioritize websites that: a.) are updated frequently, and: b.) have lots of links pointing back to the website (usually by visitor's sharing links to social media).

With a straight-forward strategy to rank your website on page #1 of popular search engines, it's understandable why search engine algorithms love SCXN websites. Owners can update them anytime from virtually anywhere, keeping their content fresh. And opportunities for visitors to share content are plentiful which distributes pointers back to your website.

Companies who blog are 97% more likely to receive backlinks aka internet word-of-mouth*

⁕Pamela Bump, "31 Business Blogging Stata You Need To Know in 2021", Hubspot, May 11, 2020,https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/business-blogging-in-2015, Accessed August 26 2022

6.) Shareable

Make it obvious when to share something. And reward sharers with beautiful content previews that will entice their followers to click-through to you.

You know when someone sends you a link to something of interest, and when the link comes through, either by email, text or social media dashboard, the content preview doesn't seem appropriate? But then there are other times when the preview images and text are totally in sync. In the twenty-first century, word of mouth happens in a virtual plaza. With a reputation for content that shares beautifully, visitor's are more likely to reference your website in their posts.

Visitor's are likely to share content from an SCXN website because: a.) the opportunity to share is obvious and attractive, and: b.) SCXN websites are in-sync with social media, only previewing what's relevant to the conversation.

"[The number of social media sites or blogs that link back to a page] was the factor that had the highest correlation to rankings in Google."—Brian Dean*

⁕Brian Dean, "Search Engine Ranking", Backlinko, April 28, 2020, https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking, Accessed August 26 2022

7.) Easy

Effortlessly make significant updates to your website from virtually any blogging platform using the smart phone that's likely in your pocket.

Are you familiar with your website under the hood? As the owner of a website, you become an author. You don't necessarily need to be prolific to be successful, but your statement should be clear and decisive. And it's hard to make a clear statement if you can't actually manage to get in there to sate anything. What's the point. Things are rarely set-it-and-forget-it! There will be wording you'll want to massage, images you'll want to replace, and so on.

Website owners love SCXN because our websites are easy to manage. From almost any social media site or popular blogging platform that you're likely already familiar with, SCXN allows you to update your homepage as easily as posting your status.

"Companies often approve a budget for building a new website and then have no budget for managing it...There is nothing worse than a website with the latest content published 2 years ago." —Maciej Lukianski*

⁕Maciej Lukianski, "14 Reasons Why Corporate Websites Fail", Droptica, January 31, 2020, https://www.droptica.com/blog/14-reasons-why-corporate-websites-fail/, Accessed August 26, 2022

Key Takeaways:

Having a beautiful and useful website is attainable

Broadcast to the widest user-base possible

Update frequently, but more importantly, update meaningfully

How To Cast A Vortex

How do you create a vortex with your media—your website, your wording, imagery, theme-music and so on—to pull the user in?

Is it enough to schedule rapid-fire words and pictures, posts hurling at users according to an algorithm's statistics?

Or are there unseen forces that must be grappled with—beasts lurking wild which when tamed, produce results?

There are three forces that capture people from escaping your grasp: Curiosity, entertainment, and an interest in learning something fresh or picking something up, figuratively-speaking (to put in their back-pocket for later). It's likely that without implementing these forces, the user may totally tune out. And we don't want to lose anybody.

Writing great content isn't enough anymore. If you want to keep the valuable attention of the user, we will need to add some extra elements to our posts. These techniques can help you increase traffic and boost engagement.

1.) Curiosity

This is the first force for drawing users in and getting them interested in what you have expressed. Once they are curious about what you have shown, they will go out of their way to find out more about it. Curiosity is a powerful beast in the world of marketing. Users will do almost anything to satisfy their curiosity. If they cannot have their curiosity piqued from time to time, then they might not bother returning. So ensure you tickle the user regularly with friendly curves.

2.) Entertainment

You should write articles that entertain, above all, the user—as opposed to being interesting to you personally necessarily. You want to give the user a good time by presenting media that’s relevant for today’s everyday user. This doesn’t mean being “cookie cutter” or “people-pleasey”, but when the user reads something that makes sense and is fun in a contemporary context, he is much more likely to continue zoning-in than if he were not spoken to in a tone that is sympathetic to him.

Harness this force by doing your homework, aka practicing good marketing hygiene by setting aside a few minutes everyday (like 15-mins minimum, but no need to overdo it) to find out what’s really on-trend.

3.) Tokens

Leave a little token lying there for the user to pick up and gaze into. The final force that inspires people to pay attention is the interest in learning something unusual, gaining an understanding of some inside-scoop—something a bit exclusive and esoteric even. If you like people to remain engaged in what you’re expressing, you need to teach them something along the way. By providing interesting information in this manner, with entertaining content, you’ll enable users to sink deeper and deeper.

In conclusion

For sure: Sheer volume, troll-farms and click-through agencies will draw people to you via the search engines' math (for a little while) but in the long game, a reputation for meaningless words would begin to ferment. Embracing your own personal voice. People are sticking around for you.

Exploring these forces—casting curiosity, being entertaining, and letting the user in on insider info—we find it straightforward keeping users interested in our efforts. You can use these three forces to draw users nearer to your message. These concepts might seem obvious, but they're often overlooked. Resist following the main school of thought despite following a tried and true course of action. This is especially true when contemporary fashions may not resonate with your voice. Following your own drummer in the end ultimately, even if it comes along with some menagerie of perceived occult trappings, will keep your users riveted.

#News #Unseen forces #Occult trappings #Vortex theory #Tokens #Entertainment #Curiosity

If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.

Katherine Hepburn

#awardsquote

Never complain. Never explain.

Katharine Hepburn

#techniquesquote

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

Lily Tomlin

#servicesquote

goodwoodwould

Good wood - stunning architecture and an even more impressive location make ‘The Bridge House’ in Huntsville, Canada, a sight to behold.

scxn-blog

Just when you're thinking "a cabin in the woods sounds old fashioned and cozy, you encountered this off-world inspired assemblage.

#feature

pre-party

scxn-blog

Inspiration often comes from unexpected places.

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atraversso

scxn-blog

When you feel at home wherever you roam the whole world is like a vacation home. But no matter how far and wide I journey, I will always return to my heart's origin.