business-catalyst-blog

Pretty Pollution to present at Adobe MAX Unconference

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 06:18:00 GMT

We're going to Los Angeles...

Don't wait up!

On Thursday Brett and Matt will be leaving for USA to give a presentation at the Adobe MAX Unconference. We'll be stopping in at Adobe Business Catalyst head offices in San Francisco for a few meetings and to catch up with the Business Catalyst guys before flying out to Los Angeles for the 5 day conference that will attract over 5000 people.

If you're attending ADOBE MAX then stop by to see us. We'll be giving away Free Gifts.

These are the topics we'll be discussing:

Adobe Business Catalyst best practices, trends and secret tips :

Intro to Pretty Pollution.
E-Commerce customisations that make the difference.
SEO techniques you SHOULD use in ALL your websites.
Online Marketing. Getting the right leads, converting the leads into sales, How-To guide.
Sometimes its acceptable to use Templates. But still have a custom website.
Get DNS right! Incorrect DNS setup can drastically affect your clients Google ranking.
SIte Setup. All the tricks of the trade that make the difference.
Facebook Apps. Where they fit in with Business Catalyst.
Using overlays for a better website User Experience.
Extended Customer Database Fields, yes we love them. We tell you why.
Our bread and butter work. Learn how to get cashed up $$$.
Questions and Answers.

If you're attending Adobe Max or still thinking about it. This session will be 50 minutes of giving away all the tips that we've learned in Business Catalyst since we started using it 7 years ago. It'll be a session not to miss. And at very least, you'll leave with cool gifts.

If you'd like to say hi at Adobe MAX or just have a personal One on One chat about your Business and get some advice. I'm happy to do that. Just leave a comment below and I'll make sure to track you down

If there's anything in particular you'd like us to cover? Leave a comment and I'll work it into my presentation.

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Update: A recording of our presentation is now available online:
Best Practices With Business Catalyst + Q&A by Pretty Pollution

Custom Database Fields in Business Catalyst

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:53:00 GMT

NEW FEATURE in
Business Catalyst is GOLD!!!

It's been a while since I blogged, but I had to comment on this!!!

For about 3 years now I've been bugging anyone at ADOBE who would listen to my rants about further development of Custom Database fields in Business Catalyst. Well my greatest Business Catalyst Wish List Pray has now been answered.

The funny thing is: This enhancement seems to have been lost in the long list of fancy updates that Adobe Business Catalyst have released recently. However I think we need to stop and applaud this one.

Lets think about this update for a brief minute.

As a Business Catalyst Partner we are now able to:

Create Extended CRM database fields
Import data into these fields using the advance import spreadsheet
Edit and update these fields through a webform
Get API access to these fields

So big deal right? No fool.... This new functionality opens a lot of doors. I'll give you one example:

A client of Pretty Pollution is a car dealership that Services and Sells cars across multiple dealership through Australia.

Every month a report is run from the main national CRM system and an excel file is produced that includes the customers Name, Email Address, Whether they purchased a car or had their car serviced, what sort of car it was, who the sales person or service person was etc etc.

This data is then imported into the Business Catalyst Extended Database fields and an EDM List also.

An Email Marketing Campaign is run on the list inviting the customer to participate in a survey. The customer clicks through to a webform at this stage.

When the customer enters their email address into the webform, custom AJAX code is triggered to query the New Custom Extended Database fields and retrieves all the requested information back into the webform. The webform now reads something like this:

Dear {customer_name}

Thankyou for your recent decision to have your {car_make_model} serviced on {service_date} by our qualified technician {technician_name}.

We're always striving to improve the service we offer our clients therefore would appreciate if you could answer the following 6 multiple choice questions.

The six questions go here:

Now what happens next:

The answers to the question will dictate whether a Workflow is triggered to management of not (flagging an issue). There are two variables. If someone has done an outstanding job, or if someone has done a less than satisfactory job. If so a workflow is triggered to management.

A monthly report is also generated and printed to PDF through Business Catalyst Reports and high achievers are rewarded and issues are addressed where customers weren't satisfied.

Here's the BC link if you want to read more

Thanks Business Catalyst, we're looking forward to using Extended Customer Database Fields more and more. And we're reaching out to current clients to enhance what they already have.

If you think Extended Customer Database Fields could be utilised more effectively in your website. Contact me on Live Chat to discuss your options.

RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS should be firmly on your radar

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 03:26:00 GMT

"RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS"

Why kind human brands will thrive in a connected economy

According to TrendWatching.com, RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS (R.A.K.) should be firmly on your radar in the coming months.

Trendwatching.com is a great source to stay up to date with current and predicted trends.

The theory is that consumers are long used to (and annoyed by) distant, inflexible and self-serving corporations, any acts of kindness by brands will be gratefully received. Makes sense!

For brands, increasingly open communications both with and between consumers (especially online), means that it's never been easier to surprise and delight audiences with R.A.K.: whether sending gifts, responding to publicly expressed moods or just showing that they care. Just to be absolutely clear: R.A.K. are not about rewarding customers for tweeting / liking your product, and not about giving away lots of free samples (that would be FREE LOVE), but about selected, random acts of kindness (hence the name ;-)

Now is the ideal moment to engage in some R.A.K:
1. HUMAN TOUCH | Consumers increasingly wanting to see the human side of brands (or if indeed a brand has a human side at all ;-), making R.A.K. more welcome than ever.

2. PUTTING IT OUT THERE | Audiences publically disclosing more and more personal information on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, about their lives, moods and whereabouts, both current and intended, enabling R.A.K. to be more relevant.

3. PASS IT ON | More consumers than ever are now sharing their experiences with their friends and wider audiences on social networks, meaning R.A.K. can spread far beyond the original recipients.

R.A.K examples:

Washington based eco-conscious restaurant chain Sweetgreen employs a street team to perform ‘Random Acts of Sweetness’ for its customers. Previous acts include covering people’s bike seats when it rains, or leaving gift certificates for drivers who've received parking tickets.

In October 2010, flower delivery service Interflora launched a social media campaign in the UK designed to brighten up the lives of Twitter users by sending them flowers. Interflora monitored Twitter looking for users that needed cheering up. Once found, the users were contacted and sent a bouquet of flowers as a surprise.

In February 2011, Spanish travel agency Atrapalo helped Lucas Jatobá, a Brazilian creative who spent three years living in Barcelona, thank the city for his great time there. Attaching theater tickets to balloons, he released them over the city hoping that they would find their way to random people. The video has now been watched over 350,000 times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEpo4gExLT8&feature=player_embedded

What will your R.A.K be?

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR BUSINESS CATALYST SITE OWNERS- ACTION NEEDED!

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 02:36:00 GMT

Business Catalyst is about to begin the process of migrating all BC sites on the Sydney datacenter to their brand new datacenter.

The migration will start 7:00 AM Sunday 20 February 2011 Australian (EDT) time and is expected to be completed within a 6 hour window frame. During this time some sites may be unavailable.

Customers Impact: After the migration ALL customers will be required to update their DNS redelegation to BC's new name servers. Customers MUST ACT ON THIS!

For a full detailed overview on what's happening visit the Business Catalyst Status site blog.

Pretty Pollution's expert Adobe Business Catalyst Developers will be available to provide support to anyone needing assistance with the migration. Contact Brett on +61 2 9954 4477 or brett@prettypollution.com.au for more information.

2011 Color of the Year...

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:38:00 GMT

Pantone has selected the bold, reddish-pink Honeysuckle as its 2011 Colour of the Year, calling it

"a brave new colour for a brave new world."

According to Pantone Colour Guru Leatrice (Lee) Eiseman. It's a hue that's meant to scream, Recession be damned! We will prevail!

"It's a positive, strong, affirmative colour, and I think that's what hopefully everyone's attitude is going into 2011."

Business Catalyst Migration Update

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:22:00 GMT

Business Catalyst Migration Update:

The engineering team has been working on improving the migration process this week to make it less disruptive to Partners and Site Owners.

What this means is that sites will be fully functional after the migration without any intervention from you regardless of whether you update the DNS settings or not. Customers will be able to browse the sites and Site Owners will be able to login to the Admin Console.

However you will still need to make changes to the DNS settings to keep sites running in the medium-term.

For more information read the Business Catalyst Blog.
http://www.businesscatalyst.com/_blog/bc_blog

Business Catalyst Introduces Podcast

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:28:00 GMT

Adobe Business Catalyst are excited to have recently released their debut Podcast episode.

Each month Adobe Business Catalyst will post a new podcast episode keeping listeners up to date with the latest BC product news, introducing members of the team behind BC, plus tips and tricks for building and selling the solution.

The best part of podcasts is that listeners can pick and choose the topics you want to listen to. Not to mention listen on your iPod on the way to work!

http://businesscatalyst.com/_blog/BC_Blog/post/Listen_Debut_Episode_of_the_BC_Podcast/

SEO with Adobe Business Catalyst

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 23:21:00 GMT

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns are important for all business, big or small.

Research increasingly suggests that consumers rely heavily on search engine results to direct them to product and service purchase decisions. Chances are if you are not ranked on the first few search engine pages you will not be considered in their purchase decision and miss out on valuable business. Therefore all businesses big or small should have a campaign in place.

SEO and SEM are complex processes, which makes it very hard for businesses that have no online marketing experience and limited time and staff. The good news is that Adobe Business Catalyst simplifies the process by providing tools inbuilt into the Central Management System that automatically implements SEO management for websites. For anyone that hasn't heard about Adobe Business Catalyst it is quickly becoming the leading global choice for businesses wanting to build and manage websites. The Adobe Business Catalyst CMS is based around providing businesses with an easy to use system that has high functionality.

Pretty Pollution is the leading expert in Adobe Business Catalyst and also specialise in SEO management. What can Pretty Pollution do to help your business with SEO?

Design and Implementation Adobe Business Catalyst websites

Provide one on one training and support for websites and SEO

Provide SEM strategy assistance, including implementing blogging and social media platforms. ** this includes strategy, content, design and implementation.

Pretty Pollution’s tips for SEO and SEM:

Carefully choose the words you want to rank for and make sure there is content on the website with these keywords

Make sure you don’t flood your website content with your chosen keywords, it will attract penalties from Google when they visit your site for SEO placements. Ask a Pretty Pollution expert to find out more about this.

Create as many paths to your website as possible eg a cheap way to do this is to advertise your company on many business directories, TrueLocal etc.

Get into blogging- it is a highly valuable tool for SEO, ask a Pretty Pollution expert for more information

For an additional boost in search engine ranking use Google Analytics (a free tool) along with the inbuilt SEO treatment that is provided by Adobe Business Catalyst

Speak to one of our Adobe Business Catalyst experts about how we can make search engines work for you.

info@prettypollution.com.au
or call us on (02) 9954 4477

Live Chat now at Pretty Pollution

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:42:00 GMT

Live Chat is now available at Pretty Pollution.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to chat through queries with a dedicated consultant from Pretty Pollution. Live Chat is very easy to use and similar to chat programs such as MSN, simply click on the Live Chat button and start your conversation!

Additionally, if you’re interested in implementing Live Chat to your own website and want to know the benefits then have a chat with us. We can also help you set it up.

New “slightly different” website!

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:34:00 GMT

Pretty Pollution designed and implemented an out of the ordinary website for Lola Vs Harper, a high street young ladies fashion label. The brand is shaped around the personality and journey of Lola a young, courageous yet heartbroken girl. How did Lola get her heartbroken? Harper.

The website is slightly different than most, with the blog page acting as the homepage. The reason for this being that the website appears as a scrapbook of Lola’s dreams and ambitions, about who she is and follows her through a journey.

Pretty Pollution was really excited to work with such a creative brand. Our end goal was to create a site where users interact with the site- not just look at it. What do you think??

I guess the next question is... Where will Lola’s Journey take her ?? All I can say is keep an eye out!

http://www.lolavsharper.com.au/

Pretty Pollution is currently Beta Testing a new Email solution for Business Catalyst. Let us know if you wish to participate.

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 22:20:00 GMT

Enhanced Email Hosting with Business Catalyst

There are some things that are mandatory for ANY business operating online. EMAIL for instance!

No matter who you speak to, or what the businesses is, everyone will tell you that without reliable email their business shuts down. We’ve just come to rely on email as a primary source of communication, especially in business.

So it’s important to get it right. I’m sure you’ll agree.

Adobe has been working hard during 2010 to make Business Catalyst more reliable and more functionality and feature packed. As a result you’re about to be treated to a new and enhance solution for email.

Introducing OpenSRS Email for Business Catalyst and some of the benefits:

2 gig of disk space, the old email solution only offered 100 meg
POP3, IMAP, WAP (mobile) and webmail access.
AJAX-enabled, desktop-style webmail interface with 'drag and drop'
Outlook-style message preview pane
Plain or rich-text (HTML) message composition with a WYSIWYG editor
Multiple language support including: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish
Full-featured contact manager
Complete spam management tools including a spam folder, white- and blacklisting, and one-button spam reporting
File Storage including public sharing
Integrated calendar application
Built in RSS feed reader
Multimedia support including photo attachment slideshows and an integrated MP3 audio player*

OpenSRS is a much needed enhancement to the Business Catalyst offering. OpenSRS will add features, functionality and stability that most users need, and will help cement the Adobe Business Catalyst CMS as a first choice for most online businesses.
If you're interested in helping Pretty Pollution and Business Catalyst by participating in the Beta Testing Contact Me to discuss. Otherwise we're excited to see this rolled out system-wide in February 2011.

Christmas Email Campaigns

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 05:05:00 GMT

Christmas is often the most profitable time of year for businesses, why not make the most of it and push your brand with a festive inspired email campaign?

Wish your clients & suppliers Merry Christmas and thank them for their support in 2010 with a gift and e-card. Surprise potential clients with a clever reminder of why they should work with you in 2011. Delight your staff with an inspired treat to reward their efforts this year or even organise your shut down roster & advertise the dates.

There are so many reasons why Xmas email campaigns can work in your favour. The only problem is, you need to make sure you make the most of it. These are my hinters.

Execution

Christmas email campaigns can serve to achieve many different goals. The best way to achieve these goals is by thinking simple, what is the one thing that you want your email blast to achieve, is it sales increases, is it building a stronger relationship with your clients & suppliers or is it a technique to track your clients buying habits? Whatever your goals may be, it is crucial to make a strategy and have a clear final destination in mind.

Design

Being creative is CRUCIAL, and I’m not just saying that because we are a design agency... Christmas gives everyone the opportunity to be creative with their emails so try and stand out, make the most of it.

Subject line

Short and directed! Enough said.

Target your emails

Jupiter Research published findings that showed targeted email campaigns can produce a 500% increase in revenue, so get the most out of your Christmas campaign by segmenting customers into groups and tailoring email content to suit. Test & retest the segments till you find your perfect mix.

Seasonal Offers

Everyone looks out for discounts during the holiday season! Make the offers appropriate to the season and your brand. Keep in mind that you don’t want a holiday sales push to decrease the quality perception of your brand. Another great perk of the festive season is to create numerous offers and test through your email campaign the buying behaviour of your clients.

Don’t stop at email

Once you find your target and send out your email blast, make sure you reinforce your message across appropriate mediums. It is important to tastefully remind your targets of your Christmas message.

Timing

No one likes to walk into Department stores in September and hear Christmas music, same goes for email campaigns. Do NOT send out a Christmas email campaign before mid November, it's annoying.

Feel free to contact Pretty Pollution (02) 9954 4477 if you want any advice on email campaigns. Get in quick Christmas is just around the corner!

Twitter Etiquette

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:52:00 GMT

Individuals and businesses are connecting every day to Twitter. The sale of a product or the announcement of a service is not uncommon across the daily Twitterers. So if you’re just like me and have only just jumped onto the bandwagon, then maybe you should take on some Twitter Etiquette advice and hedge yourself from making publically posted mistakes.

First of all, I thought I would point out that all this time we haven’t been on Twitter we have been missing out! Nielsen reported that in a 12 month period from February 2008 to 2009 Twitter grew their unique visitors by 1,382%. There are 7 million people out there that you can be prospecting to. Hello, thats AWESOME!

Let's talk about etiquette – and be prepared. If you do not follow proper etiquette, you could very well offend and lose prospects.

Be willing to share knowledge in your area of expertise. You do this by providing valuable information on Twitter, and also importantly make sure you consistently spread your knowledge. One off is no good!

Show your personality. People in the Twitterverse like to interact with real people. But beware of the tight line between Tweets that are engaging and personalised and Tweets that are filled with fluff and nonsense. Tweets that are seen as having no value will most likely turn followers off your business’s perception of being a solution provider.

Don't just be about plugging your products and services. You will find that followers will find this annoying and, as a result, unfollow you quickly. No one likes a bragger!

There are no secrets on Twitter. It will always be there, so use common sense when tweeting and realize that what you say can always be found!

No repeats! Don't post the same message multiple times. Annoying!

Social media is about interaction. It's not just a vehicle for self promotion and plugs but, rather, it's a place that you can interact with customers, colleagues, and prospects.

Shilla website is TOP WEBSITE of the month - as voted by Business Catalyst

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 23:18:00 GMT

Pretty Pollution's latest website "Shilla" was voted TOP WEBSITE OF THE MONTH and featured in the latest Business Catalyst newsletter blast.

It's great to hear back feedback on our designs. We put a lot effort into ensuring our websites not only look exceptional, but also work hard for the client. How do we do this? Simple. We spend the time ensuring that what we put online meets and achieves the goals of the business.

To be featured in the Business Catalyst newsletter not only does the website need to look HOT. It also needs to be functionality packed.

Thanks for the feedback BC. Check out Shilla online now www.shilla.com.au

New Business Catalyst DNS Tools are good for SEO

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:01:00 GMT

For some time now Pretty Pollution has been requesting enhancements to the Business Catalyst DNS tools. Our problem was that we were unable to set the www.prettypollution.com.au domain to be the {default} domain, and we were unable to redirect the "prettypollution.com.au" to "www.prettypollution.com.au". As a result we were forced to host our DNS external to Business Catalyst.

An important component in Search Engine Optimization (one of many) is to ensure that all domains redirect (properly) to the default domain that you want the search engines to rank you on. In Pretty Pollution's case, we have several URLs for our website and we also have some important incoming links to our website that don't include the www.

However thanks to the Business Catalyst team and the recent enhancements we're now able to centralize our DNS setup back into Business Catalyst and take advantage of the new features and as a result will rank better in the search engines.

**I should take this time to point out - With Business Catalyst all system updates are included FREE of charge, and without tedious and troublesome client-side upgrade paths. Business Catalyst take care of the upkeep of the CMS. And they continue to add new and enhanced features.***

What does this mean for our clients?

If your website is using the Business Catalyst CMS, then you should review your DNS setup. The appropriate default domain should be selected and and other domains should be redirected to the default. We'll be gradually reviewing our client websites and making the changes as required.

If you're unsure about DNS, Search Engine Optimisation, or Business Catalyst then you have a couple of options:

Read the blog article on the Business Catalyst website
Contact Pretty Pollution and we'll do a quick review of your settings and advise if you can benefit from the new features.

Technical reasons why this release is so important - if you care read on

When you enable the Search Engine Optimization feature in your Business Catalyst website a sitemap.xml file is created which allows the search to recognize your website. If you add ../sitemap.xml to the end of your website you'll see this file. With the new Business Catalyst update, you can properly control how your website is presented to Google and the other search engines.