After much deliberation, you have decided you need a website for your business. Unfortunately, you do not know a thing about design, color schemes, fonts, graphics, or content. Well, luckily I can help you.  Let me tell you a something about website design and the trends that are making a splash across the World Wide Web.

Does Color Matter?

The look of your website conveys a strong message to visitors before they read a single word of content. If you have a creative and appealing website it tells visitors you are someone who has all the bases covered. You and I know you are allowed one opportunity to make a first impression.  If you are going to spend money on creating an online presence for your business, you better get it right the first time. Very often people are either turned on or turned off by certain colors.  Have you noticed most business websites stay clear of color, opting for plain whites, muted blacks, and safe grays? Although, these colors are generally accepted as representations of a serious business, they can say BLAND and NON-CREATIVE! How about demonstrating that you can think outside of the box with these colors:  Dark Citron, Slate Gray, Vibrant Terracotta, Palace Blue, or Lucite Green?

Vertical or Horizontal

Now that you have all of your colors selected, do you know how you want information on your website to be viewed? What do I mean? How about you take a look at these websites, www.fedex.com or www.pepsi.com? What is different about these two websites? If you guessed the horizontal navigation, you are correct! Once again, this simply shows your costumers you have given thought to the smallest details and you care about their experience on your website.  Honestly, how often are you surprised by the navigation features on a website? Unfortunately, I imagine not too often.

Call to Action Button

A few words can make all the difference: Download Now, Trial Offer, Free, And Click Here! Now more than ever before, a call to action must be direct, visible, easy to understand, and complete.  If you want your customers or potential customers to take certain action, remember these rules for your call to action button: the color should stand out from the rest (contrast), it should be conveniently located (above the fold), the language should be short and to the point, it should stand alone, and it should be slightly larger than the rest in size.

Forms Make Them Simple!

Have you ever filled out an online form with pointless questions? We all have! Now, when most people think of website design, they certainly do not think about their forms. But, did you know the fewer fields on a form, the higher the conversion rate?   Think about it, the form field is a call to action for clients and perspective clients and it is also a “customer engagement page.” This being said, your form page should do the following: highlight benefits to clients, keep it simple, clarify privacy policy, provide context, clarify fields, allow feedback, provide progress indicators, and provide strong calls to action. Most people think of the landing page as the most important, that is not wrong, but it is not entirely right. As I just mentioned, a form page requires patience, private information, and persistence from visitors – make it easy and interesting.  The importance of forms will be a main focus for the rest of this year and years to come.

*Did You Know – in 2008, more than half a million people chose Iris Blue as the color for their website design?

Online studies show website content is worth studying.  Why?  It is valuable.

Clients already know content writing is a viable tool for improving website traffic, but is it their best way to convert traffic into profit? In order for this to work, you will need articles that inform people about what you are marketing, and quality writing which asks your users to participate; because with more traffic, you should have higher sales and increased advertising revenue.  You will find good content is not only worth reading – it is priceless.

One key benefit of quality content is the potential to improve a websites search engine ranking.  Engaging and well researched articles attract links from authoritative websites. Good writing also leads to conversions.  It can do so by directly targeting visitors with sales-driven copywriting, or by using interesting articles which encourage people to spend more time at a website, browse through its pages, and even recommend the site to others.

Content must be done right, to be effective.

If you are intending to implement the right on page technique for your website, you have to accept a complete change of focus for the copy.  Rather than “we” and “us” the copy should be directed toward the visitor while still communicating important benefits about buying from the company.

Organic searchers who click your pages are highly qualified visitors to your site.  They are more likely to make a purchase than some other  visitors you receive.

All other things being equal, pages where query terms appear in important places, such as the page title, tend to rank higher than pages where the terms are buried at the page bottom of the page.  Pages that feature query words in titles and initial paragraphs are said to have high keyword prominence, because the keywords appear in more prominent places than on other pages.

The title of your page is the most important part of the Web page to a search engine.  The title is what displays in the search results page, and it is shown in the window title for the browser.  You can think of a Web page‘s title as similar to the title of a magazine article.  Therefore most search engines give more weight to terms found in bold headings, and to italicized or colored text,assuming these are more important occurrences of the terms. Headings are most similar to bold section headings inside a magazine article that break up the running text and indicate what the paragraphs below are about.

Body text includes all the words that appear on the page, but body text that appears closer to the top of the page is considered more important than text found in the middle or at the bottom of the page.  Pictures on the page also contain alternate text that search engines use to “learn” about each picture.

Web pages generally contain a summary some; search engines still show under the title in the search results.  Most search engines, however, no longer show the description nor give it any more weight than body text.

According to Mountainline — The art of writing good and compelling content can be split into seven categories.  If you take all of these things into account then your chance of conversions will be much higher.  Below is the list:

1. Communication

One of the biggest things that people forget is the art of communication.  It is important your message is clear and communicated in a way people can understand.  If you fail to make it clear then people will not stop to figure it out and you will likely lose them.

2. Audience

Think about whom you are pitching to and target them.  Think about what you like, you like websites that openly sell to you.  We mean pushing the sale down your throat so you cannot avoid it.  Most people do not like this and so you need to think about what your audience will want.  This can mean doing a profile of the type of people you are targeting and what they would like to see.

3. Focus

Many websites will fill their pages with lots of irrelevant information.  It might be interesting to you but do your visitors really want to go through all this to find out what you are offering?  The answer to this is probably no.  It is important to focus the attention of your visitors on the message you are trying to get across.  This means you need to keep everything clear and concise.

4. Language

Remember the language you use will say a lot about you.  You should try and include words that will appeal to your audience.  For example if your audience is the under 25 demographic the language you use will be completely different to a target audience of the older than 65.  Think about how your target audience would speak and write your content in that way.

5. Performance

This is all about how your content is delivered.  You need to put a show on to appeal to your audience.  Whether this is through the addition of images, video, colours, bolding, or anything else you need to think about how it is appearing.

6. Personality

The most important rule of sales is people buy people and so you need to get your personality across.  This will help you to make a connection with your audience and increase your chance of conversions.  It is important your audience know who you are and what you do.

7. Psychology

People do not want to be sold to and actually prefer to buy.  This seems a bit cryptic but basically they want to buy something they want.  The best way to do this is to tap into their psyche and make them want your products or services.  This will help people to buy from you much more easily.

*Did You Know – there are 86,400 seconds in a day.  On average, it takes 1-5 seconds to say a word (if you know how to pronounce it correctly and/or if it is a short or long word).  If someone went from the beginning of the day to the end saying completely different words (probably using the dictionary), they would say 17,280-86,400 words.

For those of you who are not familiar with Firefox, let me explain. Firefox is a free web browser just like Internet Explorer. As of March 29, 2009 22.05% of Internet users use Firefox. What exactly does this mean? It means that Firefox is second only to Internet Explorer and that is quickly changing!

As I mentioned, Firefox is the preferred web browser for many Internet users these days, but why? Most often, the main reason that is cited for Firefox usage is security. With growing concerns about hackers, spyware and malicious websites, security is a top priority for Firefox users. “According to Wikipedia, “Firefox uses a sandbox security model, and limits scripts from accessing data from other websites based on the same origin policy.” Furthermore, “it uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers implementing strong cryptography when using the https protocol. Lastly, support for the use of smartcards for authentication purposes is also provided. As if all of this were not enough, The Modzilla Foundation offers a “bug bounty” to researchers who discover strong security holes in Firefox. Compared to Internet Explorer, Firefox has less security vulnerabilities.

So, what else is great about Firefox? The second reason why Firefox is quickly becoming the preferred web browser is because of a customizable toolbar. Allow me to elaborate, while Firefox does not immediately offer some of the features, of Internet Explorer or other web browsers, it does give you options. Firefox relies on the extension system; this allows users to customize their web browser according to their needs.   At first, it may feel like you are missing out on something simply because many of us are used to the jam packed Internet Explorer toolbar. But, let us be honest here, how many of us actually use or even know how to use half of the things on the Internet Explorer toolbar? So, if you do not use it why should you be stuck with it? Instead, you can prioritize your Firefox toolbar to display only those features you want!

Another characteristic many users find important is spell-check.  Now, I know many of you are thinking why do I need spell-check when browsing the Internet? Well, the truth is you may or may not use this attribute, but it is nice to have it. The built in spell-checker allows Internet users to verify the spelling of text entered into Web forms without opening up a separate program. Another feature that may or may not be useful to Internet users is the zoom facet. Easily accessible from the view menu, this zoom feature allows site visitors to zoom in and out of entire pages. Furthermore, site visitors can adjust the appearance of images and scale the page layout. Best of all, Firefox remembers these settings and displays them whenever you visit the specific site.

All of the aforementioned Firefox features have to do with users’ interaction, but what else does Firefox offer? For designers, Firefox is a great tool, according to an online article, “the web developer add-on is likely one of the most powerful tools for web developers, and it is a must have for an effective 2.0 marketing strategy. It is a great gizmo for search engine marketers and optimizers who are interested in legitimate ways to make money online because of the ability to dissect a page and understand how it is seen from a search engine perspective.”

What else can Firefox do to help you get the best out of your website? Rank Checker has a simple interface and allows you to get important information on search engine ranking for your given key words and domains. This is a very useful tool if you want to ensure your website ranks highly across a multitude of search engines.

As we have mentioned, Firefox covers a multitude of extensions that allow you to customize your search engine experience. What about your webmasters? “Firefox can in fact become the web developer’s best friend. For instance, Firebug – allows you to edit, debug, and monitors CSS HTML and JavaScript live in any webpage. Fireshot – allows you to have multiple screen shots of a web page. HTML Validator – allows you to validate your HTML and CSS to work according to standards. Yslow - analyzes web pages and figures out why they are working slowly based on Yahoo rules for high performance web sites. Lastly, but certainly not least, IE View – allows you to check your website on Firefox and Internet Explorer easily and quickly.

By no means does this article begin to cover the many benefits of Firefox that is up to you to explore. We all know, an informed consumer is a smart consumer, so get out there and explore your options!

*Did You Know  - the energy spent in sending and deleting spam is equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes in the United States?

We have all heard the phrase, “rules are meant to be broken,” right? Well, in some cases, rules really are meant to be broken. In the previous two newsletters, we gave you some rules that are generally applied to email marketing. But, are there any exceptions to those rules? When is it a good idea to follow your own instincts? As a client, it is extremely important t you know what you want for your website, email marketing campaign, or newsletter. Remember, a service provider is there to bring your ideas to life and give you sound advice on how to proceed. If you know what you want, you are more likely to get it!

Here are some familiar names that are doing email marketing by their own set of rules.

Costco, we have all heard of this company, right? Well, Costco has bypassed the all important rule that says you do not want to saturate your preview pane with too much information. Instead, Costco offers quite a bit of detailed information in this area. Why does this work for Costco? Maybe because we all recognize this brand and the services offered. Many of us will take the extra step, click on a link, and scroll up to the next column to see what Costco has to offer.

Who else is blazing their own trail? Nordstrom is following a different set of rules when it has to do with subject lines. Subject lines typically contain 35- 45 characters. However, the subject line for Nordstrom’s email marketing reads, “GET FREE Shipping with Any Shoe Purchase.” This immediately sets up the viewer for an offer for free shipping, but instead “sets up the subscriber for the sight of great shoes.” While the content and intent of the email is not exactly clear, the shorter subject line and enticing header is something that gets a reaction from people.

How about Pandora? According to best practices, “Pandora’s copy is long, and the message is not direct (it doesn’t steer subscribers back to the website). Because Pandora is a free service that does not need to upsell to already-engaged subscribers, the company uses its welcome message to highlight its human face and to introduce its accessible customer service.” In other words, Pandora does not need to re-sell services to those already receiving their email marketing. Instead, Pandora reinforces the importance of customer service human interaction.

Lastly, we take a look at Backcountry. This company basically spoofs itself and the whole idea of “call to action” by being irreverent, “light it up.” Yes, normally any call to action would be highlighted and right at the top, where the subscriber can clearly see what is being asked of him or her. However, there are times when a more lighthearted approach does the trick. Backcountry is the perfect example of this approach.

So, what does all of this mean to you and your business? It means not every rule will apply to you or to the type of business you are promoting. How you promote your business depends greatly on the audience you are trying to reach, the services you are providing, and branding. The best way to conduct any email marketing campaign is to discuss your goals with a savvy email marketing provider. A good provider will not only listen – they will also offer you sound advice on how to reach your target audience.

*Did You Know – email ad spending will increase to $677 million in 2011, from $492 million in 2008?

Now, we all know what an email marketing list is right? If you still do not grasp the entire concept of an email list, here you have it — “An electronic mailing list (sometimes written as elist or e-list) is a special usage of e-mail that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list – a list of names and addresses, as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to its members or customers — but typically refers to four things: a list of e-mail addresses, the people (“subscribers”) receiving mail at those addresses, the publications (e-mail messages) sent to those addresses, and a reflector, which is a single e-mail address that, when designated as the recipient of a message, will send a copy of that message to all of the subscribers.”

The aforementioned can be of great importance in your company’s attempt to disseminate information to new and existing clients. But, what happens when your list is either too long or you do not have the time to manage this on your own? Simply stated, you look to a company that can handle this seemingly daunting task for you. But what things should you know before handing over your email list?

First, you should inquire about a confidentiality agreement.  What exactly is a confidentiality agreement and how does it protect you? A confidentiality agreement is a legally binding contract between two entities that outlines confidential information and its intended use. By offering you a confidentiality agreement, this company is in fact stating they will not use your email list in any way other than the terms of which you have agreed. In other words, they cannot sell your list to a third party or use it for their own benefit.

Secondly, you should ensure that every single email sent out on your behalf will include an Opt-out option. What does this mean? This means every recipient will easily be able to discontinue receipt of your emails at any time. This step is not only important – it is also mandated by law.

Thirdly, you should ensure this company is antispam compliant. Antispam complaint means the information you are sending out to recipients has been requested. If at any point, someone on the list opts out or worse yet, someone who never requested your information receives it, you are then spamming.

Lastly, you should ensure the company you select can provide response handling and email tracking capability. What does this mean? Ideally, you want every email opened and every email to reach the intended email address. Realistically this does not happen — people change email addresses, forget to add you to their safe email list, or simply lose interest. No matter the reason, you want to know how many emails were opened, bounced, never opened, and returned. Bottom line, your email marketing provider should be able to give you an extensive report about your email marketing campaign. 

In closing, I will say selecting an email marketing provider is not something you do on a whim or based on a gut feeling. There are important criteria that should be met by the company you trust with your customers. If a company cannot provide you with what we have discussed today, they are not the company for you.

*Did You Know – S.P.A.M. stands for Stop Pornography and Abusive Marketing.

In Part I, we discussed the reasons why some newsletters are successful and others fail miserably. We talked about the importance of personalizing each newsletter and drawing in your audience, with simple and direct writing. However, there is more to making your audience feel your newsletter is a must read. As a matter of fact, some of the things we will discuss today will seem like common sense, yet this common sense has the power to take your email blast all the way to the top of any search engine.

So, let us begin with HTML vs. Plain Text. There are several advantages to either one of these options. If at all possible, the best thing to do is to give your customers the opportunity to choose how they would like to view your newsletter. HTML is believed to have twice the click through rate than that of plain text emails. The effectiveness of your email offerings can easily be tracked by using link tracking codes. These codes also can be used in plain text; however they make the URL too long to display in a text newsletter.

Now that we know the advantages of HTML, let us discuss Plain Text. With plain text emails you are offering universal readability. What does that mean – simply put, you cannot go wrong with plain text, and everyone will be able to read it. With plain text you can be assured your newsletter will look exactly as you intended, when it is opened by your customers. Many companies strip out HTML due to possible viruses and downloading time. Since HTML can often be misconstrued as spam, plain text seems to have a higher deliverability rate. Therefore, you can choose to send out your newsletter in “multi-part MIME” instead of just HTML.

According to Web Marketing Today, your best bet when dealing with images in your newsletter is to “optimize every image for the smallest possible file size. Your designer should do this routinely, but many neglect this. Here is a good rule of thumb: If the graphic is a photograph, use a .JPEG image type with a low-to-medium image quality. If the graphic is clipart or primarily fonts with few gradients, use a .GIF or .PNG image type. GIF images can display up to 256 colors, but the file size will be larger. Reduce the number of colors in the image as far as you can without noticeably degrading the image quality. You can aim for 16-to-32 colors if possible. It makes for fast-loading graphics.” Always keep in mind that not all of your customers will have a broadband connection, others will have a slow DSL or dial up connection, and this will make downloading the graphics that accompany your newsletter an annoyance for your clients.

Web Marketing Today also suggests always staying away from clutter. As tempting as it will seem to load your newsletter with graphics and information, you should steer clear of it all cost, it will hurt readability. Avoid navigation buttons above your content if they are not absolutely necessary. The best advice we can offer you is to keep it attractive, simple, and informative. If you provide interesting content and an easily navigable newsletter, they will read it.

*Did You Know – ID fraud increased 22% in 2008 from the year before?

Why do you open certain newsletters, is it brand familiarity, eye-catching subject lines or attractive design? Whatever the reason, you do admit to clicking and opening certain newsletters, while ignoring others, right? Do not be afraid to admit it, I do the same thing. Why? I am going to take you through some explanations of what not to do, for the next newsletter you send out. If you are guilty of any of these “no no’s” STOP!

First and foremost is the SUBJECT LINE, while this isn’t exactly formatting, this is the single most important line in your entire newsletter. If your subject line is uninteresting or altogether irrelevant to your targeted audience they will not open it. The subject line MUST ALWAYS show your audience that the information contained within is invaluable to them.  Better yet, if you offer this priceless information with a personalized subject line (i.e. customer’s name), your chances of getting your newsletter opened increase dramatically.

Secondly, ALWAYS IDENTIFY who is sending the newsletter. If sender information is not immediately visible, your chances of getting your newsletter opened greatly diminish. Customers only have a few moments to sift through emails and sort them out.  Do not make the mistake of not identifying yourself, this will make you look like a novice or a spammer, either way your newsletter will be junked or deleted.

Now that your newsletter has been opened, how do you present your information?  According to Web Marketing Today, “studies have found the maximum length of a line of text should be 50 to 55 characters. Shorter lines are okay, but longer lines will hurt readability.” In other words, keep it simple and get to the point! AVOID putting imperative information on side columns, people read from top to bottom. Few of us will scroll back up to the top to read a second column. If you want it to be read, keep it in a linear format. The only exception to this rule should be newsletters presenting multiple products.

This next rule cannot be overemphasized, ALWAYS have your text on a solid white or very light background. Never, ever use a patterned background; this will be an annoyance to your customers and a detriment for your newsletter.  BE FLEXIBLE, today more than ever before, we are encouraged to do more than one task at a time. Chances are while reading your newsletter your customers will have more than one window open. Therefore, it is important your newsletter can be easily minimized or reduced in size without distorting information. What does this mean? Maybe, just maybe, you want to rethink the banner logo extending all the way across the top of your newsletter.

And what is the single most important rule for newsletters? If you want to give your clients a special offer, coupon or bonus, KEEP IT TEXT! While the idea of seeing your 10% discount coupon pop up on the screen may appeal to you, chances are this will never be seen. According to Web Marketing Today, “a large percentage of emails are opened by web mail users where graphics are automatically blocked by default.”

*Did You Know – you are required by law to give readers an easy way to OPT-OUT of your newsletter?

Search engine optimization, I do not need to remind you what this is, right?  Well, for those of you who need a refresher course, here we go, according to Webopedia, an online encyclopedia dedicated to computer technology, SEO is “the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a website by ranking high in the search results of a search engine.  The higher a website ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that site will be visited by a user.”  Now, that we have gotten this out of the way; let us discuss recent news in the world of SEO.  According to small business trends, “All companies are recognizing the need for and value of having dedicated staff to recommend and implement SEO strategies.”  Simply put, SEO is no longer relegated to the tech-savvy; more companies are educating in-house employees on the importance of SEO.

Small Business Trends also tells us personalized search results are basically turning ranking reports into useless tidbits of information, “In other words, it’s no longer about whether your business is ranking for a certain search term at, say #2 in Google.  Traffic and conversions are what you should be tracking, not what number you rank at for a specified term.”

As I continued my search for the latest information on SEO, I could not ignore the obvious – YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and similar sites.  If you do not believe in the importance of making your presence known on these social sites, read the following.  According to Search Insider, “this fall, comScore and Ad Age reported that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second-largest search engine; within days, YouTube announced its new search advertising platform.  What is more, MySpace (563 million U.S. queries in October 2008, according to comScore) is a bigger search engine than AOL (424 million) and Ask.com (362 million).  Queries on eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon combined (980 million) nearly rival MSN.com (1.04 billion).”  Having read this, I can only surmise these websites are an important part of any strategic SEO marketing initiative.

According to WebPro News,”In the organic listings field, there are four major search engines and about six minor ones.  Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves are considered the Big 4, as they each have their own unique spiders and ranking algorithms.  Following the Big 4 are, AOL, Lycos, Netscape, AltaVista, FAST, and Excite.”  What does this tell us, if you want to get your business noticed, you better cover your basics, in other words, these search engines.   For those of you who are truly interested in finding out which search engines have the highest amount of search engine affiliations, this may be helpful to you, Search Engine Relationship Chart (SERC) – http://www.ihelpyou.com/search-engine-chart.html

Although navigating this chart can be slightly confusing, it is certainly worth the effort.

* Did You Know – you are ONE of 1,463,632,361 internet users in the world?

We hope you had a fantastic Holiday Season and wish you the best in 2009.

We thank you for your business, continued support, and loyalty. During the past year, we have enthusiastically worked toward improving existing services, keeping you abreast of the latest technological advancements, and bringing you new services.

As we begin yet another year together, Prestige Technologies is enthusiastic about the promise of automating solution and marketing. In a time of resolutions and promises, Prestige Technologies resolve is simple: to give you the trust, education, and tools you need to become better businesses.

Prestige Technologies has experienced many great moments during the past year and we realize the importance of reflecting upon our accomplishments, none of which could have accomplished without you, and sharing our future goals. Below are just a few of the highlights that made 2008 a wonderful year in which to serve your technology needs.We focused on three key areas:

Deeper insight: We have heard you loud and clear – our billing system was too cumbersome and confusing. Our support system needed a separate login to access tickets. Repeat invoices were being sent and were not clearly defined. Where was the ability to manage domains? We updated our billing, support, and Domain Management system so they are all tied into one easy to access location. The email addresses you use to receive your messages will be your login, to the new system. Here you will see your billing history; as well as have the ability to recreate any invoice, check the status on an open ticket, check the history of closed tickets, register new domains, transfer domains, and be reminded of when these domains are up for renewal – 30 days in advance. Automating solutions is our goal.

Stability: One of our major projects this year was building a stronger foundation for you. We had some downtime during the past year, and we appreciate your patience. We built a more redundant backbone and replication of all data. We added eight ISP providers in case one line goes down. What does this mean? With our stronger foundation you can count on being up 99.9%-to-100% of the time. Keeping you running 24/7 is our goal.

More Tools: As the internet grows, so does your competition on the internet. We heard your requests to add more tools. We went a step further – the tools we added are FREE. Here is a list of some we added:

The aforementioned are all auto install packages, which can be installed directly from your Secure Hosting Panel under the tools menu. https://admin.prestigetechnologies.com  We didn’t stop at just these 3 areas though!

WHAT ELSE DID WE DO?

More, More, More Support: We added increased support so we will be available to you 24/7.

• With our new support system you will get a response within five minutes that your query is in queue. Depending on the level of difficulty the ticket will have a resolution within four hours. Tickets will be completely resolved within 72 hrs.
• We have added FREE email support.
• We have added LIVE CHAT which can be located on the homepage of all our websites.
• We have added Enterprise Level support for our Partners to contact us directly anytime – day or night.

Partner Programs: Many of you have asked how you can partner with us and provide our solutions to your clients. We have added an affiliate program directly tied to our support system. All you need is your email address to login. You can start earning right away. Everything is tracked in your panel and can be paid out using the withdrawal feature. Contact your Account Manager to get signed up today and start earning 25% recurring income, for the life of the account.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN 2009?

Now, you may be asking yourselves, what is next?  The answer to that question is simple, Automation!   We have set our sights on meeting and surpassing the past year’s accomplishments.  We are very excited about the future and the many services we will be able to offer you in 2009.

Emercury.net V4
February will mark the launch of the New Emercury Panel. In 2009, Emercury will have the ability to handle 1.5 million emails an hour! With our new engine we will be able to provide 99% deliverability along with this speed. In addition, we will be able to lower your soft bounce rate and further reduce your hard bounces. We also addressed your complaints about how difficult the panel is for Emercury. So, we have updated the panel to make it easier to navigate. Our current UI team worked on the Yahoo mail system and we have brought that ease-of-use to Emercury.

Email Marketing
Some of our subscribers may have noticed an increase in the amount of education they are receiving, in their inboxes from Prestige Technologies and Emercury. We have added a full time content writer who has been providing you with updates, about the latest technology. We practice what we preach. Since we have implemented this change we have noticed site visits increased 300%. Email marketing works when you are doing it right. In fact, for every dollar you spend on Email Marketing you will see a return of $46.80.

What are we going to do for you during these tough times? We are selecting several of our existing customers and providing email marketing for them for free to show you it works. We will be posting the results on our site. Stay tuned. Interested in trying? Contact us at   sales@prestigetechnologies.com

MS Exchange Email Hosting
What is Exchange hosting? This will give you the ability to synchronize your calendars in real time and have a complete synchronization of your inbox, outbox, or any folders you may create under your account. Yes that is right, if you update your mobile device it will be simultaneously updated with your Outlook on your desktop, in your office. This will launch during our first quarter of 2009. If you are interested in becoming a beta tester for free please contact us at sales@prestigetechnologies.com.

Lead Generation
Part of our plan is to develop websites that will generate leads for your company. This year we will be focusing on one of our major partner areas and creating a Lead Generation site for them. The site will send leads for web design and web development. Are you a web designer and interested in beta test? Please contact sales@prestigetechnologies.com to find out more.

In addition, each site will have S.E.O. built in to drive traffic through the major search engines. After building the lead generation site for our partners, we will then be offering this solution for your businesses. Product Improvement
Prestige Technologies will continue to improve our existing products and post all our new products, on our product page.

• Email marketing – Emercury
• Continuing Education System – PT.EDU
• Registration System – PT.REG
• Ecommerce Systems – PT.CART
• CMS (Content Management) Systems – PT.CMS
• Real Estate Manager – REMXchange
• Livery Systems – Livery Express

PT.VOIP
We are in beta testing with our own voice over IP solution for small businesses. Existing companies make you purchase equipment and the cost is extremely high. Our new system will allow you to have one phone or as many as you need. All you will be doing is adding a new plan. What is the cost? Our expected cost per seat will be $24.95 a month. If you are interested in beta testing, please contact us at sales@prestigetechnologies.com. We are expected to launch by the third quarter, of 2009.

PT.ENERGY
We have great news. We have just signed a partnership with Glacial Energy to provide you with lower energy costs – up to 20%. If you are consuming energy then you cannot pass up this offer. Interested in knowing more? Please email us at sales@prestigetechnologies.com

WHAT IS IN OUR VISION FOR 2010?

We here at Prestige Technologies are not just concerned with the immediate future, we want you to know, you can rely on us for the long haul.  So, what are some of the things we are planning for 2010?

Our ultimate goal is to keep you running 24/7 and automating your solutions. The result will be increased sales with less work and more organization. Doesn’t that sound great?

Here is our plan:

We want to provide a Turn-Key solution with all the applications we have created for you.

All our solutions will tie into each other. We will be creating an enterprise edition where you can purchase single products or a whole solution for your business.

Our solution keep your company running 24/7, so you can concentrate on what you do best.

Prestige Technologies will be hitting the “refresh button” in 2009 and we would love to hear from you! Please email requests@prestigetechnologies.com, and share your fresh ideas about what you would like to see, and how we can make things easier for you.

*Did You Know – Simply unplugging your unused electronics will reduce your environmental footprint and energy bill. Please take the quiz and calculate your footprint — http://www.myfootprint.org/.

Is It Really The Next Best Thing?

Back to work already?  Yes, the holidays are over, still many of us are dragging ourselves around as if we are expecting another day off.  Sorry, but it is back to business as usual.  So, take a seat in front of your computer read this article and take a look at what 2009 has in store for you.

If you are one of those people who like to keep in step with the latest developments in technology, you will be rewarded by this article, and if not, it will keep your mind off of the post holiday blues for a minute or two.

Let us take a look at mobile phones.  What new features will be offered to us this year?  According to Lyris, HQ, “Email marketing on mobile phones has been hovering like either fate or opportunity, depending on how you view it.”

Yes, email marketing on those little gadgets we call mobile phones will be a standard feature in many of our mobile plans.  According to the Pew Internet Project, “58% of adult Americans have used a cell phone or personal digital assistant to do at least one of ten mobile non-voice data activities, such as texting, emailing, taking a picture, looking for maps or directions, or recording video.”  What exactly does this mean?

Simply put, more than half of Americans are using their cell phones for purposes other than talking.  Email marketing seems to be the next logical step, or is it?  Along, with new advancement come new rules and restrictions.  So what will be some of the limitations of mobile email marketing?

Well, the first limitation should be obvious for anyone with a cell phone and a computer — SCREEN SIZE.  The viewing pane will be much smaller and therefore, your messages will need to be more precise with less data.  What does this mean — less words, less pictures, less URL’s – you get the idea.

Secondly, you will need to be brief, because messages in excess of a certain size, something as small as 12KB, may be cut off.  Again, you will be faced with a decision to shorten or entirely cut out information potential customers may find of interest.

Lastly, you should ask yourselves this question, do you need your audience to visit your website directly after viewing the email marketing message you sent?  If so, you may be disappointed.  According to Lyris, HQ, “If you have to send readers to your site to get the most value from your email marketing, better make sure it will also render on their devices.”

In short, mobile email marketing presents a wonderful opportunity to — you guessed it — remain mobile.  If you are concerned that your targeted audience is always on the go and will not receive your email marketing messages, this may be of interest to you. Otherwise, if your targeted audience is stationary, stick to conventional email marketing, the window of opportunity is much larger!

*Did You Know - you can check if your website is mobile friendly at: http://mtld.mobi/emulator.php.