I recently completed building the San Diego CVB corporate blog at connect.sandiego.org. This blog serves as a news portal for the San Diego hospitality and tourism community. The blog was based on the News Press template and modified extensively to fit the organization’s needs. Check it out at connect.sandiego.org
Personal News
Though my blog is updated very infrequently and I strive to keep the content related to my professional career, I want to share some exciting personal news. My wife gave birth to our first child four weeks ago on April 26th. Fatherhood so far has been an incredible, indescribable, positively life changing experience. We’re very blessed to have a healthy and happy boy.
The problem with email marketing
A few weeks ago I bought a computer from Dell. I had been a subscriber to their email offers for quite some time, because they had great offers so I waited patiently for the right one. Dell’s email offers arrived in my inbox pretty frequently but I found them tolerable. After my purchase I thought to myself they can now stop sending me emails. But they didn’t. Which was ok, because maybe I wanted to buy some accessories, or software or even a TV. After all, I’m a loyal consumer, right? Apparently they’re not aware.
I chuckled to myself for the past few weeks as I received promotional emails for more computers. I gave them the benefit of the doubt – maybe I’m an IT professional who buys several computers. Today, I received an email for a deal on the exact same computer I bought which hit the head on the nail that Dell, as great as a computer company they are, does not know email marketing.
Considering I had to login to their cart to make my purchase, and considering I used the same email they message to as my login, shouldn’t they make the connection that I just bought a computer and I will likely not buy another one tomorrow? If it were a sandwich shop or a dry cleaner, I might want to make another purchase tomorrow, but I might not buy a new computer for a couple years.
I’m not saying they should stop sending me emails. There’s a huge opportunity for them to send me more emails promoting the things I am interested in. They know which product I bought, so why not send me an email with a deal on accessories, or software or peripherals? I received nothing and I do need to purchase some accessories for my new machine. Coincidentally, my cart on competitive sites is full of those accessories.
The problem with email marketing, is that for some reason companies refuse to learn to do it right. Email marketing has been around for several years now. The email marketing tools available are extremely sophisticated and email marketing is still a very viable method to reach your customers. So why don’t companies, especially large companies, do it better? I’ve noticed that some companies do it well and have been for quite some time. The rest of you sleeping giants need to wake up.
New Resume
I’ve posted an updated resume. A PDF of the document can be downloaded here.
Back to blogging
I’m going to make another attempt at posting to the blog regularly. I will primarily be posting items related to marketing, online marketing or technology – all items of great interest to me. Though I currently have three other new blog projects in the works, the variety in content strategy is definitely helping boost my expertise in developing effective online content. Lets see how this goes.
Not another wordpress template…
These days I seem to be changing the template on this site as often as I change the oil in my car – about every three months. Though I have the capability of creating my own template, I prefer to find others I like and tweak them for my own needs.
Today I’ve installed the SimpleX theme and modified it with the following:
- Changed the CSS link colors and behaviors.
- Modified header nav bar to omit the home link since I’m using a static page for the home.
- Modified the main page template to omit the title (The home page title was “Home” – tacky
I’ve got a few more modifications to make to the CSS, which will make it an ongoing project but I think I’m at a good place so far.
I admit, I’m a wordpress addict.
It’s obvious this site is produced using a hosted installation of WordPress. After all, I’ve left the template credit at the bottom of the template I’m using. So am I a WordPress addict? Well sort of. Perhaps more of an addict in planning and installing blogs than a blog writer – as apparent by the lack of posts in this blog. But this love affair with WordPress has lead to vast improvements in some of my technical skills including:
- Using CSS for more than text decorations.
- Building templates with div tags.
- Learning a few extra, yet basic, PHP tricks
- Hosting and the associated database administration – though minimal with WordPress.
There are a million resources on the web for setting up your own WordPress blog. The reality is that it’s not that hard to do. The hard part is using it to build a sustainable communication vehicle which takes a lot of planning and ongoing management (I’ll get into that later).
Although I have several pet projects in the works that use Worpress, you can view a real life example of my work at http://blog.sandiego.org, the official blog for the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Creative Work
A page featuring some of my past creative and graphic design projects has been added.
San Diego Blog
I recently had the opportunity to create a blog for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. I decided to use WordPress since I had about a half dozen installations under my belt already. This was a complete project which included authoring the organization’s blog strategy, acquiring hosting, installing the application, designing the framework, creating an original custom template and finally developing the guidelines to which the authors would follow.
Check out the results at http://blog.sandiego.org
Photo Gallery is Back
I’ve restored the photo gallery. Though I may be tweaking the display over time.