Email Marketing with Constant Contact

This month our guest presenter will be Steve Robinson, Regional Development Director for Constant Contact. Constant Contact is an effective, affordable and easy to use online email marketing tool designed to enhance a businesses image and its communication with customers and prospects.

Steve relies on his 18 years of experience in business development, sales, and fund-raising to help businesses, nonprofits, and associations learn how to build lasting relationships through permission-based email marketing.

We will learn more about how email marketing with Constant Contact can help a business to grow. Steve will address how to create professional looking emails with Constant Contact’s permission-based email marketing program.

Topics covered during this overview of email marketing include:

• What is permission-based email marketing?
• List building and segmenting lists
• Setting objectives and determining formats
• Tips on tracking results are included as well!!

There will be time for Q & A and interaction with Steve following his presentation. We typically end by 8:30 PM, but attendees are free to come and go as needed.

We look forward to seeing you at Nightstand 6!

Please RSVP!

Confirmed Attenders:
Steve Tanner - Kidology

Each attendee was given time to introduce themselves, and to describe their particular job and organization. Their website was projected and showcased for everyone to view, and some organic discussion ensued around each site. Many great questions were asked with everyone participating by contributing their perspectives or suggestions.

We also spent a fair amount of time discussing and brainstorming other topics to be covered in future Nightstand events. These topics include:

• Web 2.0 Features
• Web 2.0 - What Is It?
• How to Market with Web 2.0
• Content Management System Options - WordPress Demo
• Pimp Your CMS - How to customize and personalize a CMS website
• Web Databases: What are they and how do they work?
• API’s: What are they and how do they work?
• Social Networking platforms compared and contrasted
• Flash Basics

Randy talked about a few special guest Nightstand events he is working on. We will have a guest from Constant Contact in May to talk about their email platform and services. He is working on getting a guest speaker from McDonald’s, and a group from an agency in Holland, Michigan.

A few other topic ideas included:

• Web Graphics Basics: formats, tools, how to
• Alternative revenue strategies for non-profits
• How to make $ with websites: affiliate marketing and other revenue models
• How to market and promote yourself on the web
• The web and the “long tail”

Even after the event was “over” several more discussions in smaller groups evolved around specific challenges that attendees were facing in their organizations. These included Web 2.0 feature integration and related database integration and migration.

Click on the Flickr badge to the right to view more pictures from Nightstand 5. If you have other topics you would like to discuss at an upcoming Nightstand event, please leave suggestions as comments.

Not only was the company and the weather great, the Cub won, 3 to 2 over the Pittsburgh Pirates. As you can see below, we had great seats right down the first base line next to the yellow foul ball pole!

Thanks Don!

Reilly service offerings consist of:

• Corporate Performance Assessment
• International Expansion
• Structural Recommendations and Implementation

Headstand Media has been engaged to help The Reilly Company website to perform better in lead generation and new business acquisition through our Search Engine Optimization Services. The site will be reorganized and redesigned following our keyword research phase.

Build Your Own Nightstand

Sometimes it is just good to sit and talk with friends about ideas, trends, developments and experiences related to our lives with: emerging technology, Web 2.0, online communities and social networking, new media and communication in our changing world.

Headstand Media will guide us in an open-ended discussion and conversation on new things we’ve seen, questions that have come up, experiences we’d like to share, developments on the horizon - encouraging all of our guests to participate and contribute.

So, we invite you to bring along your ideas, thoughts, experiences, issues, questions or news to contribute. We’ve got plenty of white-board space, and a laptop and projector to view websites or resources online that will help our discussion.

We have a speaker and topic lined up for May, but we’ll also spend some time brainstorming on future topics and presentation resources that you’d like to see covered in the months ahead.

We encourage you to invite friends and associates who may be interested in this topic. We only ask that you RSVP!

We’d love to see you there!

Confirmed Attendees:
Randal Birkey - Headstand Media
Benjamin Nelson - Headstand Media
Kyle Williams - Headstand Media
Steve Tanner - Kidology
Scott Ruth - Breakthrough Urban Ministries
Chris Arndt - Moody Bible Institute
Richard Ellison - Cultivest
Branden Stuck - Kidology, Sony
Kent Thompson
Tim Schwaar

Invite a Friend!

“Cremation urns don’t have to be trinkets or oddities that someday you may wonder what to do with. An urn can be something beautiful and resonate, something that gathers and enfolds memories and personal loss, carrying them forward into the larger human prayer and struggle.” - designer/sculptor David Orth

Headstand Media not only created the user interface for Different Cremation Urn website, but also created a custom Order Request Process that allows a user to select the unique specifications they’d like for their urn, and then submit that request to David Orth. Lastly, Headstand Media provided valuable Search Engine Optimization services and web marketing expertise on this project. Please visit www.differentcremationurn.com today!

Also integrated into the new site was an updated and more contemporary Sunshine brand logo and tagline; “Seeking the Renewal of the City.” Headstand Media is also preparing multiple print materials using the new logo design and web design format, so that the ministry presents itself visually in a consistent and coordinated manner. The new print materials include: business cards, letterhead, envelopes, ministry logos, brochures, forms and other newsletters.

The site features multiple videos explaining various aspects of the ministry from mission and vision to program descriptions and the racial reconciliation philosophy. The videos were shot and edited by LifeFocus Productions, and converted into Flash Video format for integration on the website. Also included is a full site search tool, commenting, RSS feeds, event calendar and animated Flash photos.

Sunshine Gospel also uses eTapestry for its donor record and communication software and databases. Headstand Media worked with eTapestry to integrate several secure web forms that allow site visitors to set up online donations, or payments for classes or other event registrations.

The new website positions Sunshine Gospel Ministries with a new contemporary image and will enable it to perform much better in the search engines, as it connects with the community it serves, the surrounding Chicago area supporting churches, and a growing college student audience interested in their Bridge Builders urban ministry training program.

Have a great Easter holiday and spring break, and we’ll see you in April!

Randy, Benjamin and Kyle.

Headstand Media has been able to welcome a number of new customers including:

• Christianity Today International
• Southport Grocery & Cafe
• The Presbytery of Chicago
• Superior Wine, Inc.
• Circle Urban Ministries

We are providing various services for each customer ranging from search engine optimization (SEO) research, new website design, and content management system (CMS) implementations, to network infrastructure consulting and upgrade planning, website maintenance and feature upgrades.

It is very exciting to be growing a new business with customers like these. We feel very privileged to be working with such great people and look forward to building strong, long-lasting relationships.