Archive for the ‘Useful Internet tools’ Category

Just spotted: TinyURL.com’s cool new feature

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Like most Twitter users, I use TinyURL.com to shorten URLs that I post to Twitter in order to help me stay below the 140 character limit. But I was always frustrated by the service because it turned my logical URLs (http://www.16thletter.com/2008/07/24/my-theory-on-twitters-latest-bomb/) into something that no one would be able to recognize (http://tinyurl.com/6a67a3).

But now, TinyURL has a new feature. It allows users to make a custom alias using any letters, numbers or dashes that the user wants to use.

TinyURL new feature

So instead of the really ugly TinyURL that I had before, I now have this one: http://tinyurl.com/twitterbomb.

Two sites where you can get great free images for your blog

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

People ask me all the time where I get the images that I use on my blog. There are two sources - and one tool - that I use to find and manipulate the images.

1. Flickr - This is by far my favorite site for free images because of the wide variety and types of images that are available. The community of users that upload their pictures to Flickr - from all over the world - ensures that there is a vast collection of images of varying quality (some are incredibly good). The trick with using Flickr images, however, is that you need to use images that are governed by the Creative Commons license that fits with what you’re doing.

Attribution licenseHere is a list of Flickr’s Creative Common licensing policies. Basically, the “Attribution License” is the most liberal, and allows you to use anyone’s image, manipulate it how you want to, and do most things that you would want to do with it - as long as you give the author of the image credit. My suggestion if you don’t want to get into the intricacies of Creative Commons licensing is to stick with these images. As of today, there are more than 7.5 million images with this license on Flickr, which is certainly a big pool of images to choose from.

Here’s the link to the images with that license.

Just make sure that whatever you do, you give credit back to the photographer. I use “Photo by photographer” with a link to the Flickr page at the bottom of posts. You can do that attribution any way that you want, however. (Hat tip to Skelliewag.org)

Young photographer
Photo by muha…

2. stock.xchg - This site has a database of very good free images that you can use for your blog. Just type in your search, and look to see what you can find. You will have to register to download images, and make sure that you check the “Availability” of each photo. If it says that “standard restrictions apply,” you can use the image. Sometimes, however, the photographer must be notified or approve the use of the image before you post it. So be careful to check this out.

BONUS- A great cheap tool for screenshots and minor editing of photos

If you have Photoshop or another major image editing tool, use that. But if you don’t have a great image editing tool, consider using SnagIt from TechSmith. There is a free 30-day trial and the tool is only $39.95 for a single-user license. I use this tool ALL THE TIME and it’s been really helpful. The learning curve is short and it can handle all the simple editing tasks that I do on my blog.

Do any of you have any other great free image sites that you use? If so, please post them in the comments.

What SkyMall can teach you about user testing

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

I’m on the plane right now, on the way to Jamaica with Chris, who is going to a conference (I’m tagging along), and we just spent about half an hour looking through SkyMall, the catalog of often-quirky products that they have in the seat-backs on the plane. I love looking through SkyMall, mostly because it makes me laugh the things that people come up with and actually sell. Some of our favorites from this issue:

  • Gravity Defyer shoes (page 13) – Really Alexander the Innovation Wizard that is the best part of these shoes. Chris’ title is “Chief Innovation Officer” so I was trying to get him to change it to “Chief Innovation Wizard” after seeing this picture of Alexander.
    Alexander the Innovation Wizard
  • Spring Flex UX (page 66) – This ad features a man wearing nothing but white - shorts? underpants? - working out at his desk. Ummm…
    SpringFlex UX
  • CD case(page 79) – This case holds 2,262 CDs – they better sell these fast before people stop buying CDs (does anyone own 2,262?) and the music industry implodes!
    2262 CD rack
  • Caddie Cooler (page 80) – “Cleverly disguised as a 3-wood,” I sincerely doubt that my dad or brother will be bringing this out on the course anytime soon.
    Caddie Cooler
  • The Neckpro Traction Device (page 108) – The picture speaks for itself, but there must be a very limited market for this device.
    Neckpro traction device
  • Big Foot the Garden Yeti Sculpture (Page 161) – Definitely not something to welcome the neighbors
    Big foot the garden yeti
  • Basho the Sumo Wrestler table(page 160) – Will go well with any decor, unless you’re sitting behind it…
    Basho sumo wrestler table

And these were just the products that made us laugh the most. Every page of the catalog we were pointing at things and commenting and talking about the good ideas, the bad ideas and how to improve some of the products that had a nugget of a good idea, but executed it poorly.

This made me wonder if the SkyMall people do user testing. Do they have consumers come to the SkyMall offices, give them the most recent copies of the catalog, and watch them interact with it? It is impossible to watch every person read and use their product, but how much testing do they do, and how much do they use the data they collect to make changes and to help them pick what will be included in the catalog in the future?

There is a really good correlation to the Web here. Any business that has a Web site (and every business should have a Web site) should also have some kind of analytics tool running on their site. I use Google Analytics on my Web sites, but I have used Omnitureand others in the past as well – any of them work (but I whole-heartedly recommend Google Analytics - it is free and very easy to set up).

Once you have analytics set up on your site, you should be able to do some user testing – you will be able to check out, among many other things, what pages people visit on your Web site, their navigation path, what pages they linger on, what are the most and least popular sections of the site. And if you sell things on your Web site, you can easily evaluate how appealing various products are to your market.

Along with this day-to-day evaluation, it is also a good idea to occasionally do user experience testing. It is incredibly illuminating to be able to watch your users interact with your Web site. When we ran such tests at Ziff Davis Media, we used software called Morae, which worked well. When we ran the tests, we had two computers set up; one in the user testing area, the other in a viewing area where everyone else could watch the users go through a set of tasks. (Our stations were actually set up in two different states.) The users are taken through a series of tasks by a tester (a guide of sorts) who asks questions and gives the users various tasks to complete. The users are instructed to talk out loud about what they’re thinking when they are navigating the site, and the software on the testing computer records all the various motions that the user makes, their facial expressions and their voices. The viewing computer has a split screen, which allows the observers to watch both the users’ faces (which are recorded via a Webcam) and the users’ desktop displays at the same time. It’s amazing the things that you can learn in just a few short viewing sessions.

Do you do any user testing on your Web site? If not, start somewhere. Make sure that you have an analytics system installed, and begin checking it and learning what all the numbers mean. It won’t be long until you can make simple changes that will lead to vast improvements to your site.

How to keep tabs on your company and personal brand using Google Alerts

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

Google Alerts LogoHow big is the World Wide Web in 2007? The answer to that question is hard to pin down, to say the least. I can find little reliable data since a report published by Berkeley in 2003 (at that time the Web had 170 terabytes of information, 17x the size of the Library of Congress), and an analysis done by Antonio Guilli in 2005 placing the number at 11.5 billion Web pages. The most recent data that I could find was an article from Pandia from February 2007 indicating that the size of the World Wide Web is somewhere between 15 and 30 billion pages, probably closer to 30 billion.

My point? The Web is big. Huge. And the best way that I know how to keep up with the new information that is being produced about my brands on a daily basis is to use Google Alerts.

This is a simple tool to use, and in my opinion, every professional up and down an organization should be using it. To set it up, take the following steps:

  1. Go to the Google news home page.
  2. Click the icon in the left-hand column that says “News alerts.”
  3. Enter the search terms that you want to track. I recommend tracking your company name and your personal name at the very minimum.
  4. In the “type” field, select “comprehensive” - this will track the Web, news, blogs, groups and all the information that Google has indexed.
  5. How often depends on your needs. I recommend once-per-day, but if you are really a stickler for finding out information more quickly, you could select “as it happens.” The only warning about that setting is that you’ll be getting multiple notifications per day and it could quickly overwhelm your inbox depending on how many alerts you set up.
  6. Click “create alert.”
  7. In the past I needed to confirm my alerts - I no longer need to do that, but I’m not sure if that is because I am using a Gmail account, because I have set up so many news alerts in the past, or because Google has done away with the confirmation step. So just be aware that you may have to confirm your subscriptions (or you may not).

That’s it! You’ll now start getting notifications to your inbox. You can remove subscriptions by following the links that are in each email, and Google has created a page to manage alerts that will let you see all your notifications in one place and add and remove them easily.

That covers the how, but a quick word on the why you should do this. The primary reason to set up alerts is obvious - if you are the owner or an executive of a company or work in the PR department, it is your responsibility to monitor your brands. This is the easiest, least-intensive way to make sure that you are up-to-date on what people are saying about your company. But there are some other benefits that you might not realize:

- You will know what is going on with your company. If you’re an executive, you are likely privy to information before the rest of the employees, so this might not apply to you as much as to the non-executive who isn’t kept up-to-speed. It’s possible that by monitoring your company’s alerts, you’ll find out about acquisitions, financials, layoffs and even scandals before the rest of your colleagues. This happened famously at New York Times Digital where employees found out about layoffs before they were announced because of an article that was published in the New York Times.

- You will make sure that a bad image of you isn’t being leaked to the public. By keeping tabs on your personal brand (ie, your name) you will make sure that you know what people are saying about you and how you are being portrayed on the Web. Think that your MySpace page won’t show up in a Google search? Think again. By monitoring my alerts with my maiden name (Melissa Reyen), I found out that I am among the record holders for Harvard softball for most times grounded into a double play. Slightly embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as this.

- You will look smart. If you set up alerts to monitor not only your company, but also your competitors and the product or service that your company produces, you will be able to stay on the cutting-edge of the news for your industry. When you find out a particularly juicy tidbit, you can email your colleagues, who will think that you are super-smart and insightful for knowing this information, even though it was sent directly to you from Google.

- You can be proactive. If you find out that some unfortunate information is being spread about your company, you can work to to avert the problem and end up looking like a hero. When I worked at Ziff Davis, we were often accused of spamming people - anyone who works at a publishing company knows that this is a fairly regular occurrence, not because we were spamming, but because there are humans involved in the unsubscribe process and things occasionally go wrong. This happened, and my colleague Mary Hart was on the case quickly to respond to a blogger who was ranting. Her actions immediately turned the rant into praise for the exemplary customer service that she provided.

Bottom line: If you don’t have Google Alerts set up, do it today. The small amount of effort will be well worth it.

How to embed a YouTube video into your WordPress blog

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

This may seem like a beginner tip to many of you long-time WordPress bloggers, but the first time that I tried to embed a YouTube video into my WordPress blog, I couldn’t figure it out. (If you don’t want the back story, just skip to the end of this post for the how to.)

Here’s what I did. I am sure that many first-time video posters can relate. I went to YouTube, found the video that I wanted to include, pulled the code from the “embed” area, switched to “code” from “visual” mode in the WordPress editor, and pasted the code. This didn’t work. It displayed an empty box where the video should be, with the broken link x. Broken image

I then proceeded to search through the WordPress manual and help forums for about an hour and still had no luck. I finally found this site, which provided me with the answer.

HOW TO EMBED A YOUTUBE VIDEO INTO YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG:

  1. Click on the “Users” link in the Admin area of your WordPress blog.
  2. If you have multiple users, click “edit” next to your profile.
  3. Turn off the “Use the visual rich editor when writing” feature.
  4. Write your post. You’ll see that the options for “visual” and “code” are gone. You can now paste the YouTube embed code into the post and it will display perfectly.

One word of caution - you can’t switch back to using the visual rich editor after you paste the YouTube code or you’ll have the same problem. You need to publish your post before switching back to the visual editor.

Just for fun, here’s a video about blogging that I found thanks to Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog.

 

How to hire a Web designer using eLance

Wednesday, November 7th, 2007

eLance LogoI have hired a lot of Web designers for various projects over the years. I am not a Web designer, nor a graphic designer, nor any kind of designer. But I know how to use eLance.

eLance is one of the best tools on the Internet for hiring contractors to do one-off tasks, such as creating a Web design, or a logo or content for a Web site. I love eLance. I use it all the time. In fact, I love eLance more than I love CustomInk, which is saying quite a bit.

eLance was founded in 1999, and when I started using the service - I posted my first project on 10/4/2002 - I was still an early user of the online marketplace. Since that time, millions of projects have been completed using eLance, and it now is used by many of the biggest companies around the world.

Here’s how eLance works if you are buying services. (If you are a freelancer and want to sign up to provide services via eLance, try the Find Work section of eLance for more information.)

Sign up for an account.
This process is easy and self-explanatory. You will need to have a credit card or a bank account from which your payments can be made. When you are picking your username, choose a name that can be associated with you and your business, as that name shows up everywhere when you are posting projects. For example, my username is PureIncubation, which is my company name, and works great.

Post your project.
After you have registered, you will be able to post projects to get bids. This involves filling out a form with the details of the project, including:

  • Posting Title: Make sure to use the keyword for the project in the title - such as “One-page Web design of a technology site.” The providers are alerted to new projects based on keywords, so you want to include the type of project that you are hiring for (Web design) somewhere in the title.
  • Category: For a Web design project, select “Website development”
  • Subcategory: Select “Web Design”
  • Work Description: Include a description of the project. Concentrate on making this as descriptive as possible without overwhelming the providers who are bidding. This will not be your last time to talk to the people you will consider hiring, but you need to be descriptive enough to interest them in the project and to get an accurate bid. I typically include a short description of what the project is (how many pages, what I want designed, if I have a logo or need one, if I know the general layout of the site, etc.), and I ask for a timeline and samples of relevant work. I also try to throw in something specific in the bid that the providers will need to respond to, just so that I can be sure they are reading the description of my project and aren’t just bidding indiscriminately. For example, I’ll write “Please include a link to another technology site that you have designed in your bid.”
  • Work Type: For a Web design project, I pick “Fixed fee” because I do not want to go over the budget that I have set.
  • Budget Range: This depends. If I know the budget, I sometimes pick a range from the list. But most often I select “prefer not to disclose” because I don’t want to influence the provider higher with their bid. Many times I have gotten a project completed at a lower cost than I anticipated because of the competitive nature of the eLance bidding system, and I don’t want to foil that process.
  • Response Deadline: This depends on how much of a hurry you are in. Most of your bids will come in during the first three days, but the longer your bidding is open, the more bids you’ll get. You can always extend this deadline later if need-be, as well.
  • Sealed Bidding: This allows you to be the only one to see the bids. Since this feature was instituted, I have found a much greater range in the bids that I receive because providers are independently bidding. I usually leave this checked but I’m honestly not sure if it makes a difference.
  • Work Location: I always select “work can be done anywhere”
  • Escrow: This just depends on how you want to pay. If you choose this option, you will use the eLance Escrow service and pay for everything up front - only releasing the funds when you approve various phases of the project. I personally don’t select this feature, but I am happy to use it if a provider requests this type of payment option.

Review the bids.
This part of the process is the key to making sure that you have a successful experience with eLance. You’ll likely receive quite a few bids (I typically get from 15-20 per project) and you need to review each bid from each provider to find the one that will be best for you. This is how I manage the process:

  • Read the bids: By reading the bids that are made, you’ll be able to see if the eLancer is a good communicator, if they have answered your specific questions and if they posted any relevant information for your project. It is a red flag at this point if the provider either does not answer the questions that you posed in the description of the project or has spotty communication skills - you will want to proceed very carefully with hiring anyone who fits into either of those categories. Eliminate any providers that you don’t think will work.
  • View all the portfolios: This is the most important part of the process. I look at every single portfolio, specifically, I am looking for sites the provider has designed in the past that are similar to the one that they will do for me. Sometimes providers are excellent at designing a Web site for an ecommerce company, for example, but terrible at designing a site for an elegant restaurant, or vice versa. I also look for overall style and if I “like” the designs that the provider has produced in the past. This is subjective, but design is subjective, and this site will represent you and your business, so it’s important to be picky. Eliminate any provider who doesn’t fit your requirements.
  • Review the bid amounts: At this stage, I look at all the providers who are left and see how much money they bid. You may be able to narrow your shortlist down further.
  • Look at history: eLance allows you to review the feedback and earnings history for all their eLance providers. You’ll quickly see that some providers have been using eLance for years and make gobs of money using the site, and others only occassionally dabble with projects that they find via the marketplace. What I am looking for at this point is any red flags - providers that score low or have consistantly bad comments. It is not unusual for a provider to occassionally have some negative feedback. If this happens, look to see if the provider had responded to that feedback, how they handled the complaint, and if the buyer has a history of dissatisfaction with providers. There are a lot of bad clients out there and a random bad comment should not elimate a provider from your selection process. But if you find any pattern of bad feedback, beware!
  • Ask some questions: You are likely down to a shortlist of vendors, and at this point I always ask each provider on that list a question via the Private Message Board (PMB). I don’t always have a question, but I always come up with something to ask because at this point I’m trying to assess if the provider is quick to respond and if they have good communication skills. If a provider doesn’t respond, or doesn’t respond well, do not hire them even if you love their designs. It will not be worth it in the long run.

Select your provider.
Once you have made your choice, select the provider with the “choose bid” button. You’ll then go through a process of reviewing the business terms. Some providers require you to pay a percentage of the work upfront, this doesn’t bother me, but if you don’t want to work that way, you may want to choose the escrow option, or negotiate the terms.

Fill out the requirements document.
Once you have selected your provider, it is likely that they will ask you to fill out a requirements document to help direct the project. These are usually guides to the design process and help you and the provider figure out exactly what you want so that the designer can better fulfill your needs. Fill out these forms! Take as long on them as you need and be thorough- they will greatly help with getting you to the finished project that you want.

Communicate effectively.
At this point in the project, the only thing left is for you to communicate effectively throughout the process. Respond promptly to questions from the provider and ask them any questions that you have. Keep an open line of communication.

Pay and provide feedback.
After the project is complete, make sure to pay the providers promptly and give your feedback about their work on the project. When you are leaving comments remember that future providers will be reading what you say and will bid on projects that you post to a large degree based on what kind of a buyer you are. At the same time, make sure that you are providing accurate feedback to help other buyers in the future.

That’s it! If you go through all the steps, you will likely have a great, completed design. Of course, once you have the design you’ll need to have your Web developer implement it (or hire someone from eLance to do it for you) but that’s for another post.

Just a couple of other points to mention:

Negotiation - It is possible to negotiate with the providers on eLance. However, keep in mind that many of them are making the lowest bids possible already because the marketplace keeps prices down. But if you find a provider that you really want to use, and their fee is just slightly above what you are willing to spend, you may be able to ask them if they will drop their bid. Sometimes they will not - so be prepared for them to say no. Also, this typically works better if you are working on a second or third project with a provider that you have worked with in the past.

International outsourcing - If you have been wanting to jump into the international outsourcing market, this might be the best place to get your feet wet. Many of the eLance providers are not U.S.-based, and by using eLance you will have the opportunity to work with various people from around the world. Also remember that English is a second language for many of the people who use this service, so keep that in mind when you are conversing and negotiating. Err on the side of politeness.

If you have any problems - I have never had a single problem with an eLance provider, but I know that it happens. If you run into any issues, eLance offers assistance, including mediation and the ability to report any violations.

If you don’t find a provider - It is possible that you will go through the selection process and not find the provider that you are looking for. This has happened to me in the past. Never pick a vendor just for the sake of picking a vendor. Usually, this is a case of a project being posted incorrectly. You may need to change the category or subcategory under which the project is posted. Or you may need to change the description or scope of the project. Sometimes you may have an unrealistic budget that needs to be amended. Typically if you re-post the project again with some changes, you will find a provider. There is also the option with eLance to search through the providers that are part of the site and specifically invite select ones to bid on your project - this is another great way to get excellent providers bidding on your projects.

So if you need to be in the market for a new Web design, consider eLance as an option.

Halloween and the Internet

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

For some reason, people love Halloween. I’m not sure if it’s just that creative people like Halloween because they can let their inspiration flow, or if it’s something else, but I know a lot of people who LOVE LOVE LOVE the holiday. It’s not my favorite, personally. But my sister-in-law Michele loves it. And she and my brother Matt throw the best Halloween party every year. I dressed up this year as Princess Fiona, the wife of Shrek. I picked the costume purposely because I have a Halloween day event that a lot of little kids will be at, and I wanted them to be able to recognize who I was and not run away. I’m not sure if I will be successful because I scared Matt and Cara with my green makeup – Matt kept looking at me and saying that I was freaking him out because I didn’t look like myself.

Anyway, I didn’t really know exactly what Fiona looked like before I dressed up, so I found pictures on the Internet to model my costume after. A good way to find image of the person or thing that you’re dressing up as is to use Google image search. That’s how I found my model. But there are a lot of other tools that you can use if you’re looking to create a last-minute Halloween costume. This post from Lifehacker gives a list of places that you can go to print your own mask. If you have the clothes that your character would wear, but just can’t make yourself look like that person, it’s an easy (and low-cost) way to “disguise” yourself. There are also a number of sites that help with inspiration if yours is lacking – two that I came across are Costumzee and Costume Idea Zone, which also provides some handy idea for the reluctant party-goer.

This is the best font directory I’ve ever used

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

Idiot font
Hands down, dafont.com is the most fun, cool, and (as far as I can tell at first glance) free font directory I’ve ever used. I honestly can’t believe that I never came across it until today. The font I used for this rendition of 16thLetter is “idiot.” Go figure.

How to become an Internet advertiser for $5.05 (but why you should spend more!)

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007


Google AdWordsThanks to Google AdWords, it is possible to become an Internet advertiser for the incredibly low cost of $5.05 – provided you have a Web site, that is. All you have to do is to sign up for a Google AdWords account 
(there is an initial registration fee of $5.00). After you select your keywords, set the minimum spend per click to $0.05. You’ll serve your first ad – and get your first click – for a grand total of $5.05. Voila! You’re an Internet advertiser.

Of course, I’m simplifying things.

 You could technically be an Internet advertiser for that cost, but the real benefits of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising come with scale and conversion. If the # of clicks x cost-per-click = less than $ earned from conversion – you’re laughing all the way to the bank. In non-math terms, the more individuals you can get to click on your ad, at the lowest cost per click, who you then convert into customers… the more money you’re making.

The recently released IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report analyzes the Internet advertising market for the first six months of 2007 and shows that approximately 50% of second-quarter revenues were priced on a performance basis, up from 47% reported for the second quarter of 2006. Companies are increasing spend on PPC (and other forms of performance-based) advertising programs because they are measurable.

So, while Google AdWords (and its PPC sibling Yahoo Search Marketing) are a low-cost way to enter the Internet advertising market, the companies that are making a serious impact – and significant profits – from PPC advertising are those that are willing to scale and that are able to convert their visitors to customers.

(By the way, if you are looking for a play-by-play of how to set up a Google AdWords account, there is a good post at the Tech Savvy Marketer.)

~ Red Burst ~ 

How to generate customer devotion

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

I read a blog post today that caught my eye because of the title: “Turn your customers into raving fans.”

CustomInk logoI am a raving fan, and CustomInk.com is the object of my affection. I recently used their services to make t-shirts for a charity walk that I organized. Going into it, I had a few issues to overcome with the t-shirts:

1)      I had a deadline of less than 2 weeks to get the t-shirts printed and delivered

2)      I am not a designer and had to design the t-shirts

3)      I was trying to create something that would appeal to men, women and children

4)      I wanted to be able to get input from someone else on my team to help me make the final decision, but we don’t live in the same city

I did a search on Google for “t-shirt design” and customink.com was the first listing. (Another testimony to the power and importance of SEO, but I’ll save that discussion for another blog post.)

t-shirt frontSo there are a lot of reasons that I love this company. The first thing I discovered is that they are able to rush-deliver an order in less than 7 days. Perfect! Second, their online tool is really user-friendly and fun to use. You pick the item to design (they have shirts, pants, hats, etc.) and the color. Then you head to the “design online lab.” The tool starts you off with a blank t-shirt and then lets you add text, graphics (you can upload your own or choose from their clip art library), change colors, layouts, put effects on the text…there are wide range of options. Then, to top it all off, you can save the design, email it to people to get their opinions and then start again with t-shirt backa new design if you aren’t totally satisfied. This tool managed to help me overcome all four of the issues that I was having with designing these t-shirts. That was enough to make me love the service.

But there was more. I placed my order, got my final proofs, talked to someone at the company to answer a few questions that they had about tricky parts of the design. Great. Everyone was pleasant, I felt a high degree of confidence that my t-shirts would be done on-time and that they would look great. Then came the kicker. I got the following email:

Hi Melissa,I noticed that you have designed shirts that could possibly be for a charity event. If that’s the case, CustomInk would love to donate to your team or to the charity itself on your behalf! Please let me know if your order is for one of these events. If you  would like us to pitch in and support your cause, please include information about your charity event, a link if you have one or the organization’s name if there is no link to a team web page.Warmest Regards,
Lori Mayfield
CustomInk.com

I immediately sent them a note back with the instructions about how to donate with a comment like “wow, I really love you” or something hero-worshipping like that. To which, Lori, my personal, human contact, sends me this delightful note back:

Thank you for the information, the link worked perfectly!

We try to donate to every charity event that our customers hold close to their hearts, so we are delighted to help with this event. Of course, we wish we could offer a large sponsorship, but because we do so many, I’m limited to small donations ($30). I just want to make sure you know that, even though we know every bit counts.

This is outstanding customer service and a fantastic policy for retention. Plus, it’s just really smart. I spent more than $500 with this company. The likelihood of me doing so again is high. I ordered 33 t-shirts – this means that I will tell all 33 of the people who are getting the t-shirts the story about this company (and I did!) because the company donated to our common cause. And finally, they know that they are reaching someone who has influence – the person who is in charge of the t-shirt ordering is likely someone who is making decisions for a large group of people and probably has other areas of responsibility and influence. This is really smart business. This article from Dosh Dosh talks about 9 great ways to dominate your niche, such as focusing on your reputation and developing retention equity, and CustomInk.com is doing all of these things.

See? I have become a raving fan.

 

~Today’s view:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/13799608@N08/1471632095/