Tag: digital

Spam Job “Opportunity” of the Day

Carl Setzer1 Comment
young woman in front of the entrance to the building

Fandango, a fellow WordPress blogger I follow, regularly posts “Spam Comments of the Week” (his most recent as of this post is here). I was reminded of that by this job “offer”:

My first thought was “do people STILL do this”? Does any company want the liability considering how people have been shot going to the wrong house? I mean, look at this list (3 of 495,000,000 results from Google).

So, no…NO I’m not going door-knocking…even here in Seattle. Even forgoing the tales of violence, I’m an introvert. The thought of knocking on stranger’s doors is pretty close to my vision of the deepest pits of hell.

Stepping back a bit, I also wonder about the efficacy of this as a marketing strategy. What sort of conversion rate do you see with this work? I doubt it’s out of the single digits. Perhaps it’s not actually “sales” but political doorbelling (tis the season, after all). But that should be clearly disclosed.

Anyway, I’m lucky that all I need to do in this situation is spend a few minutes puzzling, then move along. I’m OPEN to new opportunities, but do not NEED a new job at the moment. And, with that, it’s time for me to move along.

The Web and the Future

Carl Setzer
black laptop computer turned on showing computer codes

Ah, web dev! The path of the future! Well, that’s been my thought for the past few years. I believe that web interfaces are a key part of most every software system we’ll be dealing with over the next few years (not sure what I mean by few…but, you know).

With that focus on the future, I want to consider what the future of the web looks like. I’ve explored web 3.0 a little bit, but there’s quite a bit more to wrap my head around. The key parts seem straightforward: immersive experiences and dispersed architecture. How much of that is the “metaverse”? What’s the role that blockchain will play? That is quite hard to glean right now.

As with any frontier, there’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of risk. And, let’s be fair, a lot of fraud/snake-oil/charlatans. But there’s also great opportunity. Discerning between the two is the challenge. And those that get that figured out the earliest will reap the greatest rewards.

Valuable Coding and IT Tools

Carl Setzer
Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

As an Information System student, there are a handful of tools recommended to me by my instructors that have been critical. Every one of the tools below is free. Anyway, here’s my list:

  • Notepad ++: a richly powerful text editor. It’s what I’ve done most of my HTML and CSS in, and what I’ve done a lot of my JavaScript. I have shifted, though, back to Visual Studio, at least for now. I used Visual Studio for my Visual Basic class, so I’m pretty familiar with it.
  • 7 Zip is a great Zip file tool.
  • Agent Ransack, which boosts your PC’s search utility.
  • Winmerge: a great tool for comparing files. It has helped me a few times to find that one damn character I was missing.

Anyway, what tools do you use? That you find indispensable?

 

Featured Image by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

New To Zoom? Check Out This Great Intro Video

Carl Setzer

With coronavirus forcing us to transform education and interpersonal communication, the folks at Zoom now find their tool becoming the defacto standard, education and beyond. Plenty of organizations (churches, businesses, non-profits) are utilizing Zoom (why Zoom and not Google Hangouts? Skype? I’m not entirely sure at this point, but think it was because the reached out first…I should explore this at some point).

I’ve been a fan of Steve Dotto for years, and highly recommend his videos for guidance about things tech. Steve created this video (below) as a tutorial for many of the basic features. So, if you haven’t used Zoom, or haven’t used it extensively, I highly recommend Steve’s video. My wife (a teacher), who’s used Zoom quite a bit the past few weeks picked up some great tips. It’s highly worth your time.

 

 

Wow, the most annoying email marketing fail I’ve received…and I’ve seen a few

Carl Setzer

With 7 years working in Real Estate, I’m on tons of email lists. I don’t mind this much, as I get to see what’s going on out in the market. Today, though, got one that violates all my marketing skills, understanding and wisdom.

  1. It was a jpg dropped into an email. I’m not a fan (mea culpa: I’ve done that in the past, mainly out of time, or, sadly, that’s all I had to work with).
  2. In the jpg were several urls. Note: I don’t say “links”. The links were NOT CLICKABLE! Simply text in the jpg.
  3. As I was interested in the property in question, I manually typed the links into a browser. Nope! No worky. Not even the bit.ly one. Not a single link worked.
  4. I saw the project name in the email addresses in the “contact us” section. That was the right URL.
  5. The creme de la creme, the piece de resistance (insert cliche of your choice here): there was no address. No city. Not even a state, region…nothing. When I finally made a url work, I could see that it was on the Washington Coast. Please note: this was for a new real estate development. “Location, Location, Location”?

It seemed like the creator of this campaign worked really hard to ensure I not only didn’t connect, but actually ended up annoyed with them. Amazing how well it violated every tenet I have for effective email communication.

So, do:

  1. Location. Events: have a date, location (address, venue…at least a city), and times. Drives me nuts to get an email for a property that looks interesting, or an event that looks really cool and, well, sorry, it’s it Atlanta. And it’s not until I’m in the registration section that I find that out? Geez!
  2. If you can at all help it, don’t just email jpgs. FYI, spam filters hate them.
  3. Links. Oh. My. Gawd! Making me TYPE your link…from an email?
  4. Links, part ii: Links MUST WORK. Test them! Most people won’t do anywhere near what I did. I was curious at that point and choose to dig. They may have got a click, but they didn’t get a sale.
  5. Segment your market and sell accordingly. I’m not working the Washington Coast market. It’s hours of driving away!
  6. Your main call to action cannot fail. If clicking on the link takes you to a Google page saying “sorry, sparky, no frickin idea what website you’re trying to find”, every erg of energy expended was wasted. Your goal is sales, right? Customers gotta get to your page. Gotta!

Keep your eyes on the prize, folks. Sales pitches to the right people, in the right way, is a splendid thing. Spam? Yeah, no.

Go forth and do great things!