Who’s seen such a mix of shoes on a red carpet? Ever! This is the perfect photo to represent what a kooky and friendly party this was.
I had a fun evening shooting at the Real Housewives of Los Lomitas event, a fundraiser for the Las Lomitas Education Foundation. I’ve never shot an event like this with so many nice people.
The album is on our portfolio on Smugmug.
Plus, I got to play with the starburst filter my brother bought me:
Our client, G3 Strategy, asked for a casual, simple logo to represent their video series, Just-a-Minute with John. The logo to be used in-line in e-mails and as the intro of each video.
Thanks for the fun project!
Our client, Halo Blow Dry Bar, has started using these one-time-use, biodegradable towels. They feel really amazing and soak up water better than regular towels.
Here’s John, enjoying his clients’ AdWords reporting on a summer day in the garden. He says this the new expanded text Google AdWords are a really big deal.
Expanded text AdWords ads are the next generation of text ads, designed for a mobile-first world. They benefit users with more information before they click an ad and benefit advertisers by giving additional control over messaging. This can mean higher quality clicks from users with keen interest in the subject while cutting down on lower quality clicks less likely to convert to a sale. They are also better-designed for device responsiveness and display more clearly on devices from smartphone to desktop monitor.
More bang for your AdWords bucks!
This is all fairly new, but early reporting is showing expanded text ads are getting a 20% higher click through rate. This is mostly because they are larger and stand out amongst the older, smaller ads. Right now, we’re suggesting that we upgrade any old-style AdWords campaigns we have running for our clients.
There’s two main updates. The headline (purple text in the graphic below) can be 60 characters, rather than 25. You can be more compelling and precise which leads to better quality clickers. And, the ad display text (black text in the graphic below) has been expanded from two 35 character lines to a consolidated 80 character line.
This graphic shows how an expanded text ad will display on a smartphone vs. a monitor:
Summary – better quality clickers = better quality conversions.
Google AdWords is a specialty of John’s. Contact him at johnp@metapix.us or 408 252-8664 with any questions.
Congratulation to Stacey on the launch of her new company. Thank you from Rachel and John for hiring us for WordPress site customization and for some graphic design work.
Happier By The Minute is about giving us all the support we need – based upon Stacey’s experience and training in the field of positive psychology – to be happier. All in one minute video sessions.
Stacey, and her Chief of Happier Operations, Kathleen, have done an amazing job dealing with all the intricacy of starting a new company.
Check it out at: http://happierbytheminute.com. It’s a minute well spent!
Congratulations to our favorite Hawaiian client! The Hawaiian Public Utilities Commission has voted to reject NextEra’s offer to acquire Hawaiian Electric Industries. They’ve been working hard for a long time to achieve this result.
The Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative is a non-profit cooperative association formed by community and business leaders on Hawaii Island to explore the potential merits of a community-based, cooperative ownership structure for electric utility service on the Big Island. HIEC is also exploring how other energy sectors, such as transportation, can be transformed to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
(Yes, we know this is a photo of a gibbon yawning, not a chimp delivering mail – it’s all we have in our library primate-wise as we have not taken a photo of a postal chimp, although we’d be excited to do so.)
2025 update – we have one client on MailChimp, and can confirm from recent experiences that it remains the worst interface and requires arduous researching through their “help” sections rather than making their process intuitive and in line with the way small businesses work.
This was the situation back in 2016: We use MailChimp for a few clients and we find it to be the most difficult interface and address list management system of the e-mail campaign providers with which we have experience.
ONE – they don’t offer phone support.
TWO – Choosing the address list to whom the e-mail goes at step one instead of at the end of the development process causes problems and is contrary to the way our clients like to work.
THREE – They don’t have seed lists for testing. This is a development issue for us, and does not affect our clients except for a bit of time added to the process, which adds to the cost to the project.
FOUR – The same address on several lists counts multiple times towards your monthly plan, so you can spend far more than is needed for your subscription.
FIVE – MC does not offer “pay-as-you-go” as an option – monthly subscription only. You pay, even if you don’t send any e-mails.
SIX – Customization of address sign-up forms can only be done with a higher-priced account.
SEVEN – Sign-up forms that can be coded to recognize list segmentation can be done only on pop-up pages, but not for embedded forms (which is pretty much the only way people do e-mail list sign-up forms now.)
EIGHT – The biggie – they don’t allow a campaign to be sent to more than one list. The best practice for managing lists in MailChimp is to have one list, which is divided into groups and segments. Our clients find it confusing (actually we find it confusing at times), as well as cumbersome, non-intuitive, and time-wasting.
If you are interested, there’s more below on MC’s address list management. But we don’t want to simply focus upon the negative and what we don’t recommend. We do recommend using Constant Contact (although it’s far from perfect). The phone response is good – customer support reps who know the product and are helpful. And the list management is far simpler. You can have as many lists as you want and get to select the ones you want each campaign to launch to. Unsubscribes and bounces are well-managed at the account level, rather than the list level, which protects you from higher prices and grumpy customers and keeps you compliant with spam laws.
So, back to MC’s list management issues caused by not allowing a campaign be sent to more than one list:
We know this is confusing. Send us a line with questions, or call 408 252-8664.
We’ve had a great experience working with Susan Graf and her brand designer, Marianne Mitten, on a new website for Susan Graf Limited.
John coded it to be device responsive, so the code will render to it’s best depending upon the device – from smartphone to desktop monitor – the visitor is using. The navigation changes from full screen sized to hamburger on a smartphone. The font changes to be most readable depending upon the device.
The best part – this is not a WordPress or other template site so the client is not boxed in and there’s no monthly security and maintenance fee.
We were also hired to do the copy writing and to photograph both locations.
Besides the fabulous mens’ and womens’ departments and charming staff, Susan Graf Limited offers styling, techno pants, and DRESS CODE by SUSAN GRAF. There’s a location on the plaza in Healdsburg and one in downtown Palo Alto.
Thank you, very much, Susan, for this project. We’re looking forward to working with you (and of course, visiting both boutiques.)
Unless agreed otherwise, on a project by project or client by client basis, all copy provided to us should be publish-ready. Publish-ready means that all grammar, spelling, phrasing is ready to “go to press”. By sending us the copy, the client is saying, the copy is final and they are ready for it to be published to the world.
We do run spell-checks on all items we work upon which can call out errors in English common usage. Depending upon the client and the situation we will either use the spell-checker correction or ask the client if an edit is approved.
Industry-specific words, non-English words, names, words with multiple spellings (Hanukkah vs Chanukah or Chanukkah or crostino vs crostini), and client-unique spellings (“house made” vs “housemade” or “skin care” vs “skincare”) are the responsibility of the client.
If we note something which does not appear to be correct, we alert the client.
We go through an approvals process so that a client can review a draft before the content is placed into final versions that may require more time-consuming editing.
Approval by the client means that they are satisfied with all aspects of the piece, including the spelling – of even common usage English words.
It is difficult, we know, to get to “publish-ready” copy. We can help. If the client feels they need to see copy in place, in an item, before making edits, we can produce that. We can and do copy editing for many clients, for which we need guidelines provided by the client for industry-specific words, non-English words, names, words with multiple spellings, or client-unique spellings.
All work we do is approved by the client before we “go to press.” If a word is mis-spelled, we feel badly, and sorry, but the final responsibility is with the client.
Frustrating news – sorry! A businesses e-mail address list will degrade by about 20% each year. Here’s some ideas on how you can continue to grow your mail list. The idea – gain addresses faster than losing.
SIGN UP FORMS – PHYSICAL AND ONLINE
WAYS TO GET YOUR SIGN-UP FORM UNDER THEIR NOSES!