Our latest web design project to be released is for commercial HVAC and mechanical contractor Corporate Mechanical of Minnesota.  Serving the heating, cooling and mechanical needs of the Minneapolis area, Corporate Mechanical asked Five to heat up their web presence with a cool new web design and improvements to other areas online.

For the project we took up the creative task of a new web design and flash element to the home page.  Corporate’s old website was all in Flash and while they liked some of the effect, they disliked the lack of search engine traffic and the inability to update the site.  In building out the new web design on the SMC, they now have full control of their website.

The redesign also gave them a chance to add and strengthen their content on HVAC services, Equipment leasing program and take online service requests.

Some of the web design project highlights:

• Custom web design
• Flash design element
• Built on our CMS, the SMC
• Drop down navigation
• On-page search engine optimization (SEO)
• Email marketing design & set-up

We’re proud to have Corporate Mechanical as one of our clients.  If your not exactly comfortable in your office as you read this, you might want to give the Corporate Mechanical crew a call!

View the new website: http://www.corporatemechanical.com

On Tuesday, January 20th I had the opportunity to present a 3 hour Internet Marketing seminar on Search Engine Optimization and Email Marketing to a great group of attendees in Buffalo, Minnesota. Here is a short summary video with some of the slides (77 slides in total!), photos from the event and a video clip.

Internet Marketing Seminar – Five Technology from Five Technology on Vimeo.

The majority of the seminar was focused on the basics of SEO and the concept of building trust within your website and it’s content/pages. We covered a lot of ground, answered many questions and even reviewed some of the attendee’s websites to offer up suggestions.

I personally had a blast with everyone and learned a lot in preparing a 3 hour seminar and presenting it. I think that everyone there walked away with some great takeaways and tips no matter their level of understanding coming in. I met a lot of really cool people too. Thanks everyone!

Five Technology is very excited to announce an Internet marketing seminar to teach and discuss the basics of search engine optimization and email marketing. The seminar is on January 20th, 2009 from 9:00am to Noon in Buffalo, Minnesota. You can get the full details, schedule and register online by clicking here.

Why Are We Doing A Seminar?
Our philosophy is and has been to share what we know. It’s not about secret recipes, but about the partnership and experience our firm brings when serving our clients. A seminar on Internet marketing is a great way for us to teach, share and help where we can with helping business owners and marketers understand what they can accomplish online.

While many small businesses have a website, very few understand the increased need to utilize the rest of the Internet and it’s tools to drive traffic to their own website.

Our seminar is open to anyone, not just Five clients, to learn the basics and understand how to market online.

What Will You Learn?
Attendees of this seminar will have a solid grasp of how today’s search engines work and what they can do to improve their trust and rank with Google, Yahoo and MSN. We’ll do this with very little “tech talk” and a lot of common sense elements and strategies within search engine optimization (SEO). We’ll also outline the features and benefits to email marketing, addressing the why, the how and the little tips that can make it a big factor in your business.

What Are You Waiting For?
Head over and register online for this 3 hour seminar for just $45.00 per person. We know you’ll be amazed at the amount of information and action items you walk away with. You’ll see search engine optimization and email marketing as a key to driving your businesses success.

We look forward to seeing you on the 20th of January!

The holidays, no matter what the economy is doing still represents a time of gift giving. While the money spent may be less, the act of buying gifts on e-commerce websites and giving them will still take place.

If your business is getting ready to send out your holiday targeted email marketing campaign, consider these 3 tips for a successful email campaign. They are basic, but often overlooked.

1. Keep It Simple. If you feature specific products, make sure you do a small amount. Blasting out and email with 20 products will cause them all to loose focus with your recipient. Make sure your product feature links right to the page to buy it, not just your home page!

2. Give Ideas. Most people struggle to figure out the perfect gifts for the people on their list. If you can point out how an item is perfect for a mom who likes to travel, or a friend who is into sports, you have made their shopping easier. The power of suggestion!

3. Outline The Deadlines. Make sure that your email states when visitors/shoppers can order and still receive their items on time. Seems simple, but it’s often over looked.

Make sure these 3 easy tips are covered for your email marketing campaign this holiday season and you’ll find success converting recipients into buyers. The feedback from some of our clients on their holiday email campaigns this past week has been very favorable.

Want to see what someone else gets for open rates and click thru’s on their email marketing? OK, I’ll share with you what we’ve experienced this summer with our small start to email marketing for our web design and Internet marketing services.

Five Technology’s Email Marketing Facts:

• With Five Technology as a new brand/company to start 2008 we inherited a small list from our parent company Intrcomm.
• Our first e-letter went out to 149 contacts, over 80% we’re existing clients that had received an announcement letter of Five’s launch about a month earlier.
• We have increased our email list to 195 contacts in just by verbally asking or telling potential / new clients we will add them as a way to keep in touch with them.
• We are experimenting with content, value and calls to action. The whole point is to research, refine, report and review.
• We send out a monthly e-letter on a Tuesday morning (10am or so), mid month.

I’ve talked before about the value of email marketing. The ability to get “inbox time” with a client or prospect is the top benefit. The secondary benefit of email marketing for me is the tracking and reporting. You can actually see what your audience does with your message and apply measurement to it.

+ Open Rate: How Many People Are Opening Your E-letter
You can see that we have had a consistent open rate with 36%, 38% and 41% range on our campaigns after a low of 29% to start. Not a surprise that our first broadcast had a lower number, it was unexpected by our audience to a certain degree. We’re encouraged by our recent high of 41% on our last campaign. We hope to hit a 50% open rate in the next two months.

Keys To A Successful Open Rate:

1. A subject title that is concise and states the value or benefit clearly.

2. Picking a content/subject that has value and relevance to your audience.

3. Feature great content. To get improvement on your opens, you must get those who do open to find it valuable (that’s value for a third time). This builds a following of openers and allows your “newbies” to help increase your open rate.

+ Click-Thrus: Getting Your Readers To Take Action
After you get your audience to open your e-letter, your next goal should be to get them to take action. For some, just getting their name or message to a reader is fine, but a truly good email marketing campaign has goals to be achieved. Clicking a link to buy, fill out a request form, set-up a meeting or get a free report are all examples of a goal for an email campaign. We have had both success and failure with our click-thrus, but we have learned a lot.

Keys To Successful Click-Thrus

• Clearly state, show and offer a call to action
• Test and learn what your audience responds to:
  • Money saving offers
  • Free reports
  • Urgency or time sensitive offers
  • Limited quantity offers

Here is our best campaign for click-thrus. It was where our call to action combined a money saving offer and limited availability. Offering half priced video production to only 3 customers was a success. We generated interest beyond the offer.

+ Success Past One Open & One Week
A great thing we have noticed is how our recipients go back and open our e-letters multiple times, even weeks or months after getting it. While we have yet to make any determinations on why we can only speculate that they found the content/information of value and revisited it to review, get a link or grab our contact info. Having some “shelf-life” to our email communication is great and we look forward to building upon this as well. It caused you to think about your message and how to make it one that has longevity past one read or click.

Summary Of Our Email Marketing Campaign
So as you can see, we have had some successes and some challenges lie ahead. Each time we have sent out our monthly e-letter it has generated opens, clicks, contact forms and phone calls. That’s the goal and we love watching it happen (and tracking it).

We also have some challenges ahead in continuing to deliver valuable content to a growing list. I hope that the next blog post on our email marketing program covers how we have implemented and succeeded at list building and nudged our open rate over the 50% mark.

If you have anything to offer or would even share a few of your email marketing numbers or findings, we’d love a comment from you or your business.