So you’ve got a blog and twitter feed… Why don’t you have an iPhone app? Motherapp

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 30th, 2009 | Comments

Chris Brogan recently announced his new iPhone app that features content from his website and info from his twitter feed.  He used a service called MotherApp to accomplish this, and it’s definitely a cool service.

MotherApp allows you to create your own custom app based on the content from your website that works on the most popular mobile phone platforms.

Free (ad-supported) or $99 per year

One of the coolest things about Motherapp is you can get your own iPhone app that is ad-supported and they will split the ad revenue with you.  This is great for bloggers looking to supplement the ad-revenue generated on their site.

Of course you can also pay the modest fee of $99 per year to have the ads removed.

It takes about 3 weeks for the app to be available, so you should be able to download the Tribeswell iPhone app in about 3 weeks

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10 Ways to make your Sidebar a conversion monster.

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 29th, 2009 | Comments

One of the drawbacks to using Wordpress is that it can often be a bit costly and/or time consuming to have different sidebar content for different areas of your website (by sidebar, I mean the slim content area to the right or left of your main page content on most of the pages on your website).

Sure, some themes are set up in advance to have additional sidebar functionality and it’s not terribly difficult to create new page templates with static sidebars, but this really limits the ease with which you can make easy sidebar edits.

For these reasons, it is often logical to have the same sidebar content for most of the pages on your blog and website… And this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

1. Email Newsletter Signup – this is a conversion point that makes sense for every page on your website.  Here’s a tip… send each subscriber a personal email thanking them for their interest (unless you’re getting an unmanageable number of subscribers, which is a good problem to have).
2. Search Widget - Let’s face it, Google has spoiled us.  Most visitors don’t have time to hunt and peck all over your site to find what they are looking for.  If you don’t make searching easy, there’s a good chance visitors will abandon your site altogether.
3. Sign up for… – what do you have that people could sign up for that you could use to gather people’s information?  Do you do webinars?  Do you give free trials?
4. Download… - what could you allow people to download as a way to capture their information?  Whitepapers?  Brochures?  Samples?  This is a great way to generate qualified prospects with your website.
5. RSS Feed – Hopefully you have a blog that you update regularly.  It’s a good idea to post your most recent or most popular entries via RSS in the sidebar of the pages of your website.  It encourages visitors to interact with you on a personal level and shows that you care about the people visiting your site.
6. Facebook fan page widget – Facebook gives you an embedable widget that you can put anywhere on the web.  Your sidebar is a great place to put it.  Sure you can just spam all your friends to get more ‘fans’, but isn’t it better to gather them naturally?  People who are actually interested in what you do?
7. Video – Do you have a cool video that tells about your company and what you do?  If you put it in your sidebar, it’s almost guaranteed that people will watch it.  One word of caution… It’s a good idea to put up a new video every 1-2 months.
8. “follow me” widget – For my site I built a widget using simple html table code that links to my profile on several different social networks.  This is a good way to let people see what you’re up to and connect in a variety of ways.
9. Twitter Widget - if you have a company Twitter feed, it can be cool to post the last few ‘tweets’ in your sidebar.   It’s a good way to get twitter followers and to add a human element to your site.
10. Don’t press the BIG RED BUTTON – Never underestimate the power of a giant ‘call to action’ button that says ‘buy now!’  Not too subtle, but often very effective.

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Merry Christmas from Tribeswell – Free Christmas Music Download

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 24th, 2009 | Comments

I’ve wanted to do this for a few years now.  I thought it would be great to record a few Christmas songs and give them away to friends and family for Christmas.

This year I thought I would take it a step further.  I decided to not only give away cd’s to friends and family, but to make them available for all my friends, followers, and colleagues online for free download.

So, I’ve put together a collection of four Christmas songs…

1. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – I’ve always loved this tune and I never understood why they always play it at the sad parts of Christmas movies.  But anyway, this is my take on it… and sorry if it sounds a bit like my song ‘dream girl’, the arrangement is quite similar.
2. Bob Dylan Sings 12 Days of Christmas – I really wanted to record this song in a humorous fashion, and each I got to the part that goes ‘five gold rings!” it sounded like I was singing in a Bob Dylan, so I decided that I would just do the whole song in that style.  I hope Mr. Dylan isn’t too offended.
3. My Favorite Time of Year – This is a song that I wrote a few years ago about my favorite Christmas memories when I was growing up.  It always makes my mom cry.  I hope it makes your holiday merry.
4. Silent Night – One of my favorite Christmas songs.  This track also gave me an excuse to make prodigious use of my new mandolin.

Listen to Songs

1 – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

2 – Bob Dylan Sings 12 Days of Xmas

3 – Favorite Time of Year

4 – Silent Night

Download all 4 Songs

All for tracks are bundled in a .zip file.  Double click on the file and it will open up a folder with the four tracks in it.  You can then burn them to CD or add them to iTunes or whichever music software you use.

Email Marketing from Tribeswell and Delivra

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 17th, 2009 | Comments

I was having coffee today with Randy DeVaney earlier today.  Randy works for Delivra, which is one of the premier email marketing software providers in the midwest.  We had a great conversation about all the ins and outs of email marketing and where the market for email is heading.  Here’s a brief summary.

1. It pays to use a higher end email marketing software system. iContact and Constant Contact are fine when you’re first starting out, but their templates and functionality leave a bit to be desired.  There’s a whole world of email out there beyond these basic programs.  Use them.
2. Newsletters are boring. Let’s face it, most companies don’t have that much actual news to report in a given month, so a newsletter doesn’t make that much sense.  It’s much more effective to do some actual marketing with your emails.  If you need help with this, contact me.  I’d be happy to point you in the right direction.
3. Drip campaigns are rarely done well. One of the things that Randy was telling me about Delivra is that they can design custom software solutions that make your drip campaigns really tick.  Probably worth it in 9 out of 10 scenarios.
4. Use landing pages. Don’t just send people to your website randomly.  Make sure they know why they’re there with a custom landing page.  If you have a descent CMS (like wordpress) this is pretty simple.
5. Know your subscribers. Most email software will tell you which of your subscribers are the most engaged in your emails.  Go the extra mile and segment these people and reap the rewards.

Building Equity in your URL, and in yourself

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 16th, 2009 | Comments

This post is a bit of an unofficial announcement as well as some good advice for those of you who are in it for the long haul when it comes to your online branding.

I’m doing an experiment in increasing the value of the ‘tribeswell’ domain name.  I’ve added a subdomain http://colinclark.tribeswell.com that I’m going to be using as my personal blog.

What do I hope to accomplish by doing this?

1. It’s important to me that I rank #1 in Google for my name.  This is tough to do for a couple of reasons.  Both of the reasons are named Colin Clark.  One is a professional soccer player who plays for the Colorado Rapids and is always in the news.  The other is an English economist who is famous for inventing Gross National Product (GNP).
2. I wanted to start a personal blog anyway, and was considering hosting it at wordpress.com or blogger, but by doing that I’d be adding content and value to those domains.  If I post this additional content on a subdomain of tribeswell, then I’m adding content and value to something that I already own.  So that’s cool.

Using Google Apps Standard (free) Edition

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 15th, 2009 | Comments

Hhere were a few people on twitter (@bcimages and @choosingchange) who had a few questions about yesterday’s post, particularly about Google Apps Standard Edition.

Here are the basic differences between Premier Edition and Standard Edition.

email@yourdomain.com

I think the most important issue is that if you have an email that ends in @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @sbcglobal.net, @att.com, or anything else besides your website domain, there is a free alternative in Google Apps Standard Edition.  This is a huge cost saver for small, new businesses who need to have a professional look.

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My Desert Island top 10 list of the best FREE apps on the web.

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 14th, 2009 | Comments

I paid under $50 to start my business.  I tell people this and I generally have to scrape their chins off the floor.  How can this be?  How can a business be run for so little money?

The answer is free apps, and this is my desert island top 10 list.

1. Wordpress and plugins – Quite simply, I doubt I would have a business without the incredible power and versatility wordpress brings to web design.  Oh and then there are about 10 trillion plugins that make your website kick butt.
2. Tweetdeck – I’m picking Tweetdeck in lieu of putting either Facebook or Twitter on this list.  It is the killer app that makes Twitter and Facebook truly useful for business.
3. Picnik – This is an online app that allows you to edit images from an easy-to-use dashboard.  I use it literally every day.
4. Mail Chimp – Great email marketing app that is free for lists under 500 which should keep you going for quite a while while you build your list.  Love it.
5. LinkedIn – Between MailChimp and LinkedIn, I find that I don’t really need a CRM.  It might not be the most exciting app on this list, but you’ve got to admit that it’s useful.
6. Friendfeed – I use Friendfeed to syndicate everything I do on the web with Facebook and Twitter.  It’s a huge time saver.  I don’t use it much for social networking, but it is definitely a handy hub for all your online accounts.
7. Google Analytics - There are better analytics tools out there, but not any that are free.  It feeds me essential data about how my online activities are affecting the performance of my website.
8. Inkscape – Inkscape is an open sourced app that you can download for free.  It’s kind of like Adobe Illustrator, but stripped down.  I use it all the time to create graphics, make logos, and edit photos.
9. Google Apps - Free email, free docs, free calendar, and it integrates with my phone.  Tons of people have tried to convince me that a hosted exchange server is better, but I just don’t see it.  Free up to 50 users, so that covers most businesses.
10. Open Office – Google docs is great, but it seems like eventually I’ll need to use Microsoft Office functionality (but why pay for it).  Open Office is arguably just as good if not better, and it’s free.

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Who’s using Mail Chimp?

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 11th, 2009 | Comments

One of the things that inspired me to start Tribeswell was the incredible amount of free and cheap resources available for promoting your business online.  Mail Chimp is the total embodiment of this philosophy.

I discovered Mail Chimp a while back from their banner ads on Mashable and Smashing Magazine.  It was out of pure curiosity that I clicked the ad to see what they were all about.  Apparently they are really into powerful and inexpensive email marketing.

I signed up for a free account.  Free email marketing is nothing new, but Mail Chimp is ‘forever free’.  That means you can have up to 500 names and send 3000 emails a month and never pay a dime… ever.  Above that it’s still really affordable.

On top of all that, Mail Chimp has one of the best user interfaces I’ve ever seen.  I used it today to manage an email campaign for a new client that I’m working with, and I don’t ever see myself using anything else.

Great stuff!

Why I love my Netbook

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 9th, 2009 | Comments

In late July I decided that it was time for a new laptop.  I didn’t want to drop big bucks, so I decided to go with an HP Netbook.  I figured that it would at least be a good backup PC that could go anywhere.

I had no idea that I would love it so much.  Here’s why…

1. It get’s people’s attention. Everyone who sees me working at the coffee shop takes notice.
2. It fits almost anywhere. I see people lugging around 17 inch laptops and I absolutely cringe.
3. Small screen forces me to complete 1 task at a time. I’m getting more and more convinced that I’m ADD.  I find the netbook to be a great productivity tool.
4. It doesn’t do everything. This sounds like a negative, but it’s actually a good thing.  If I need to run photoshop, I have to wait until it’s convenient to hop on my desktop (netbooks aren’t quite robust enough for big programs).  This forces me to be organized with my time.
5. It lends itself to web-based apps. Let’s face it, web-based apps are the wave of the future.  I think we’ve only seen the beginning of the popularity of netbooks.

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Living Life’s Purpose – Breaking Through

Posted by Colin Clark on Dec 8th, 2009 | Comments

I felt compelled to share an experience.  This past week and weekend, I went through a program called Breaking Through, presented by Jim Zarvos of Zarvos Coaching.

The program is centered around living a more happy and fulfilled life.  I found it very effective at helping me discover my true purpose in this world.

As a small business owner, life can be hectic at times, so it was extremely helpful to take some time to define who I am,  why I do the things that i do, and how that effects all the other areas of my life.

I recommend this program to anyone who wants to get more out of life.