| |
 |
| CAN-SPAM Act and
what it means to you
In January Congress passed an anti-spam bill called the CAN-SPAM
Act, overriding legislation already adopted by 37 states. The law
applies to all business-to-customer e-mail except "transactional"
messages such as account status or recall/warranty information.
Commercial e-mail is defined as "an Electronic Mail Message
the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or
promotion of a commercial product or service."
Here are highlights of the new law:
• Requires the inclusion of a full valid physical postal address
in every e-mail
• Requires accurate Subject lines
• Bans misleading "From" addresses—use your
brand/company name
• Requires a functioning "reply" address
• Bans the harvesting of e-mail addresses through automatic
means, or purchasing e-mail addresses harvested automatically by
someone else
• Bans the release, sale, or lease of an e-mail address after
receipt of an opt-out request
• Requires an opt-out mechanism in every commercial e-mail,
and gives you 10 days to remove a person from your list after they've
issued an opt-out request. In addition, no one else in your company
may contact that person. That means you will need to maintain a
suppression list prohibiting messages going to people who have opted-out.
Reviews so far of the law indicate it has done little to curb spam,
but it at least gives legitimate marketers a benchmark for e-mail
communications. Get
more info on the law or consult your attorney.
Get started with pay-per-click
As reported in the last Sparks,
pay-per-click (PPC) advertising spending more than tripled in one
year, indicating its arrival as a legitimate advertising channel
with significant return on investment. A recent issue of SiteProNews
included a PPC
Guide for Dummies that spells out the policies and costs of
Google AdWords Select, Overture, and LookSmart, the three top PPC
engines. In addition, SearchEngineGuide.com's Smart
Campaign Tips helps you define how much you can afford to invest
in your campaign and how to track results.
Want more info on PPC? See the Pay-Per-Click section of our Web
Smarts Resource Page.
|
|
|
 |
 |
| First United Church
First United Church is a progressive Christian church in Bloomington
with roots reaching back to 1825. In 2001 the church began a process
of re-invigorating its presence within the community, hiring a new
pastor and investing in building expansions.
As part of this ongoing process, First United Church hired us to
create a Web presence for them. Rather than compete with other liberal
churches in the area, First United Church seeks to find people who
are a good match for their congregation.
We began by defining the target market: IU students and Bloomington
residents in their 20s to 40s who share a progessive approach to
their faith. We created a site designed to appeal to this demographic
while communicating the warmth and openness of First United Church.
Working with the amazingly organized Ralph Winstanly and Rev. Thom
Son, we selected photos for the home page which reflect the inclusive
nature of the church. We developed material specifically for IU
students and "church seekers," creating tailored landing
pages to communicate directly with these visitors. We also made
extensive use of testimonials and photos of church members in order
to give visitors a sense of what the community is like.
Warm colors, rounded corners, and large type create a friendly and
welcoming feel. Frequent calls to action invite the visitor to contact
the church or attend Sunday worship. A sermon archive, events calendar,
and full description of various church ministries also give potential
visitors a sense of what they'll find at First United Church.
Most church Web sites are amateur productions, poorly designed and
rarely updated. Our design for First United Church immediately makes
it stand out from the crowd, both locally and nationally. We also
created it so it can easily be maintained and updated by church
staff. The result is a well-crafted site which connects First United
Church with its target market and communicates its progressive approach.
View the
site created by Cairril.com Design
|
| |
|
