Tag: web

My poetry site has been making me proud

Carl Setzer

I created this site a couple of years ago to be a focus for my poetry.

I didn’t think too much of it at the time. Just was following the advice to focus your content. My writings scatter across many interests, so I broke apart my stuff into more focused sites.

Well, A Poet’s Journey has done quite nicely. 1266 subscribers, and the most stable/solid stats (sessions, pageview, etc).

Funny that another experiment, Not Just Seattle, has taken up most of my vanity SEO. The Carl Setzer who opened a brewery in Beijing, getting featured by Fortune magazine, amongst others, has the lion share of SEO for my name. But my Keller Williams Realty page, and Not Just Seattle are on page 1 as well.

As of today, my namesake page, CarlSetzer.com, is on page 3. Crazy that an experiment took over the whole thing! And the site that’s getting the most action is down on page 3.

 

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!

Auto-Play Emails: My Bane On The Web

Carl Setzer

Reading “With Autoplay On, Turkey Assassination Video Shocks Twitter” reminded me of one of the things I’ve hated on the web for ages: auto-play email.

Now, what I’ve long loathed is the simple nuisance of the videos blaring audio. What’s even better is when a site has multiple-autoplay videos on their site (like a news article and an ad). The noise and caucaphony drives me bats.

Now, though, here’s another, more powerful reason to end this practice. You’re scrolling through your Facebook or Twitter feed and your hit with a murder. There’s nothing more crass or brutal to just stumble upon.

If good taste nor good, thoughtful design won’t get the powers-that-be to end this practice, perhaps getting dinged with PTSD suits will.

End auto-play videos: it’s good for us all.