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Email Newsletters

Not as annoying as you think


I can not tell you how many clients I’ve had that have requested an email sign up on their website, collected email addresses, and went on to send out – nothing. Email newsletters are an excellent way to keep in touch with prospective clients, buyers and readers.

Once upon a time email newsletters were flying around and filling up people’s inboxes like noones business. These days it’s a more select and discerning audience out there, only signing up when they really want to, and only allowing a select few into their sacred inbox (not a euphemism).  When people are browsing around the internet there is an absolute deluge of content out there. In their email inbox are mostly things that they’ve actually OPTED to read. So all in all it’s pretty ace when someone actually signs up for your content. Go you!

How do you get people to sign up you may ask?

First you’ll need to sign up for an email marketing program, to help you manage your reader lists and create your emails. I personally like Mailchimp – it’s easy to use and even a little bit fun. It’s free till you grow your reader list to 2000. You can also look into Campaign Monitor.

Next you’ll need to put a sign up form on your site. If you you’re on a wordpress site, you’ll need to install the Mailchimp plugin on your site (if that’s who you’re going with) and create a form.

Where should I stick that form?

There are a few places that work well and fit within usual website conventions. Don’t get too in your users’ face – but you can still definitely have more than one!

  • The very top of the website (what we like to call the utility section, where you might sometimes find a login or search function)
  • The main menu
  • The sidebar of your blog (if you have one!)
  • A checkbox in your contact or checkout form (you might need to look into plugins that integrate your contact form or ecommerce plugin)
  • At the bottom of your posts
  • In your footer (or footer widgets)
  • As a pop up – this would require a pop up plugin – something like PopupAlly

I added forms and no one signed up. Now I’m sad.

If you have good, useful content, then people should hopefully be inclined to sign up. Make sure you have some compelling content with your sign up form – “stay up to date with our articles”, “get our articles delivered to your inbox” etc.

If it’s slow going, they might need a little incentive. Here are some ideas:

  • A giveaway
  • Offer a discount code for your store
  • Offer exclusive content
  • Tell them they’ll be the first to know about new sales before the public

You get the idea.

I’ve got subscribers! Now what?

You need to think about what kind of content your users would like to receive. It depends on your website, if you’re a shop maybe you want to tell people about sales and new products. If you’re a blog you’ll want to get in touch with your readers and update them on new content.  Make sure you think about what your users will actually WANT to read, not just what you want to tell them. Get too salesy and they’ll hit that unsubscribe button and break up with you.

Once you’ve sorted out that content, you’ll need to go into your chosen email marketing service and start putting it into a template. This is where a lot of people come unglued. I’m telling you, it’s not as difficult as you think, JUST DO IT! Get in there and have a go. Mailchimp has lots of templates that you can use as a base. Then add your logo, choose your fonts and colours and start putting in your content. A bit of playing around and I’m sure you can make it work.

If you really do hit a wall or just want it to be absolutely pixel perfect – you can definitely get in touch with me, I can make you a template specifically for your brand and needs as well as recommend content. But I do recommend that if you have the time, you give it a go.

Good luck – and happy sending!

May 9, 2017 / Categories: Resources
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To do:

A little reminder.

It’s been a wee bit stressful here at Idyllic – so I made myself a little reminder to remain calm.

(For my international readers: this is an Australian saying – meaning to calm down).

April 10, 2017 / Categories: Life
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Pattern Play

Getting Brushy

April 7, 2017 / Categories: Graphic Design
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Managed WordPress

Why it can be a very good idea.

I’ve spoken before about why backups are a necessity. If you don’t backup and you are hacked or have some sort of technical issue that’s difficult to repair – you’ll need a backup to restore your site to it’s previous state. In addition it’s important to keep your wordpress core (and your plugins, and themes) updated – that’s also a good way to keep the hackers out!

If that sounds annoying, or too technical, managed wordpress hosting might be for you. Personally I like to use Flywheel* but I’ve also heard good things about WPEngine.

What’s good about Flywheel’s Managed WordPress Hosting

  • They back up your site daily
  • You can restore a backed up version of your site VERY easily
  • They’re wordpress experts, so when there is an issue you can rely on them to help you out. Believe me that this is not the case with all hosts, some of whom are a touch clueless.
  • When you want to make big changes to your site you can set up a staging site environment, make the changes there (away from the prying eyes of the public) and then when you’re happy, make them live.
  • They run wordpress updates for you! (not plugins and themes though – keep on that!)
  • They’re more focused on WordPress security than a regular host – help keep the hackers out
  • They’re pretty darn fast

What’s not good about Flywheel’s Managed WordPress Hosting

  • They won’t host your email. You’d need to set up your email with a separate host – or with Google’s GSuite

So, if you’re creating a new site – I HIGHLY recommend doing a bit of research on managed wordpress, and if you don’t like your current host – you should think about it too. Plus FlyWheel migrate your site for free. Yay!

*(You should know that that is an affiliate link, but I would have written this post and recommended FlyWheel, even without it).

April 2, 2017 / Categories: Websites
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So much to do.

Here’s to a busy week ahead.

Eye Of The Tiger - Idyllic Creative

March 3, 2017 / Categories: Life
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Back Up. Update. Relax.

It’s a relatively small, simple task – and it helps protect your WordPress website. Please back up and update your WordPress sites!

After I finish working with a client I give them a set of instructions detailing how to keep their site updated and how to back it up from time to time. This sort of housekeeping seems to be much like actual housekeeping – no one ever wants to do it!

So i’m here to tell you it’s easy, it’s simple – and it’s really worthwhile. A properly updated site helps keep hackers out and your site functioning smoothly. Having a back up version of your site means that if someone does hack you, you break your site somehow or something else awful happens to your site – you have the ability to replace it.

Backing Up

Most web hosts will back up your site as part of their own safekeeping, so you’re most likely already covered. I have found that sometimes things go wrong with host backups, additionally hosts only back up your site for a limited amount of time so if you haven’t checked your site in a while and then find that it has been hacked – there might not be a good copy of it to restore – eek!

That’s why I manually back up  my site and recommend that others do too.

For smaller sites I use BackupBuddy. It’s a premium plugin that you install on your site. It will run regular backups and automatically upload them to a online storage service like Dropbox – or you can just download your backups and keep them safe on your computer. Make sure you read all the instructions, particularly around setting a password and downloading an importbuddy.php file – you need that if you ever need to restore your site.

If your site is large or busy (or you just want it to be all taken care of for you) – I would recommend using a service that will do all the work for you. I have used Vaultpress and their price is reasonable, their service has been good – and thus far, no complaints!

There are lots of other free and paid services to use to back up your site, I’m sure you can find one to fit your needs.

Update

To keep your site safe from hackers, it’s best to update any plugins or the WordPress core when the updates become available. You’ll see a little notice bar at the top of the WordPress dashboard that lets you know when you need to do an update.

Wordpress-Updates

Click on that and it will take you to the updates page. There are three categories of updates:

  1. WordPress Core Update: this updates the overall wordpress software, it’s usually a good idea to do this before any other updates
  2. Plugin Updates: these update whichever plugins you have on your site
  3. Theme updates: These update your theme (make sure you’re using a child theme or it will overwrite all your theme changes!)

It’s important to note that some updates can break a theme, meaning when you run the update your site goes wonky (or sometimes completely breaks). I have found this to be very unusual though. This is why I recommend that before you update you have backed up, you have access to your FTP so you can remove a faulty plugin (or you have your web developer / host on speed dial).

If any of this seems way too hard, perhaps you should switch to a managed WordPress host like Flywheel or WPEngine, I’ve started recommending these hosts to my clients who want all the tech stuff managed for them.

Relax

Go on – go get your housekeeping done, you’ll feel much better afterwards, and then you can relax.

Good luck!

February 16, 2017 / Categories: Websites
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It’s OK

It's OK - Idyllic Creative
I hope you’re having a lovely start to the week. You might not be though, you might have too much work on. You might have no work on. Your kids might be sick, you might be sick. Maybe you spilt your coffee two minutes after buying it.Whatever happens, sometimes you just want to hear that it’s ok. And I’m sure that it will be. It almost always is.

Lots of love,
Lish x

September 29, 2016 / Categories: Life
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Stock Photography for your blog

Get Good Stock Photos - Idyllic Creative blog

Did you know every time you steal a photo to use on your blog a baby panda cries? Well, probably not but still, don’t steal. I know you need photos to adorn your blog posts, or use in your design but there’s really no need to take them from others.

Did you know that even if you credit to the original photographer / source, it’s still not ok? Even if you edit the photo to make it your own? Additionally, if you think “ok, I’ll just take the photo down if they ask”, it won’t cut the mustard, you may still legally owe the photographer for previous unauthorised use of their photos.

The only photos you can safely use on your blog are:

  • Photos you have taken yourself.
  • Ones you’ve paid for.
  • Creative Common Images. If the copyright owner has licensed the picture free for use by others you can use it. Always check the fine print though, licences can be specific about allowed use and sometimes you will still need to credit the image.
  • Public Domain Images. Images where the copyright has expired or the owner has made it available to the public free of charge.

Look, I’m no copyright expert, and most definitely not a lawyer so I won’t yet into the nitty-gritty about copyright and fair use. What I can tell you is where you can get great inexpensive + free stock photos to use on your blog that will keep your karma intact.

  • Death To The Stock Photo
    I really love this service. Once you sign up they’ll send you a batch of new (and beautiful) photos that are free for use in commercial projects and on your blog. In addition you can go premium for extra photos each month and access to their entire catalogue.
  • Free Images
    This is a service owned by Getty Images, a directory of thousands of photos and illustrations with images that are free to use (although some require attribution, check your licence carefully). There’s a broad range of images, they do vary in quality though, but still – free!
  • Photo Pin
    A website that allows you to search through Flickr for images that are Creative Commons licensed and you can specify if you’re using them for commercial projects.
  • Creative Market
    I am really enjoying using this new platform for creatives to sell their creative digital wares. Their new photo directory is quite comprehensive and there are a lot of great photos in there. They’re not free but they are usually only a few dollars per photo, and you’ll be supporting independent creatives – always great.

That’s just where I like to get my images, there are a lot of other places you can get great photos, without having to steal! So no more trawling through Google Images and just plucking out anything you want – it’s really not cool.

 

September 18, 2016 / Categories: Resources
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Web & Graphic Design in The Blue Mountains, Australia