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February 2007 - Your Personal copy
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Please make sure you’re receiving emails from Aplus.Net. Add us to
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The Aplus.Net Directory: Are You In?
As you read this, more than 700 Aplus.Net customers are
networking with each other on the Aplus.Net Directory. Are you?
Remember, the Aplus.Net Directory is set up to provide you, our
valued customers, with a convenient, easy, and FREE way to get
the message out about your websites. It’s there
for your use: Network with other Aplus.Net customers, trade
business tips and advice, and get more attention to your business.
It’s free for Aplus.Net customers. If you haven’t
listed your website yet, you just might be missing out
on a big opportunity. Visit http://directory.aplus.net to
check it out today!
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Product News
Upgrades, Enhancements, Improvements
We’re happy to announce the latest upgrades and enhancements to the
family of Aplus.Net services:
Spam-protected guest book:
Our new, updated guest book function now comes complete with its own
administrative interface and lots of great new features.
Updated public versions of the following integrated tools:
- Image Gallery
- Coppermine Image Gallery
- Joomla
- Advanced Forum
- Advanced Blog
Enhanced File Manager Functions
The Aplus.Net File Manager now supports archive handling (i.e., the
ability to extract .zip/.tar files, and create .zip files).
Check out the Aplus.Net website for new products and services…
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| Expert
Opinion
Email Marketing: The Smart Way, and the Wrong Way
When it comes to reaching your customers (or potential customers)
via email messaging, it’s essential to realize that with the
wrong approach, you’re more likely to anger and alienate people
than win their business. Email marketing seems like a simple concept,
but, like all effective marketing, there’s an art to doing
it right. BtoBonline.com recently ran a great article outlining all
the common mistakes to look out for, and we run down the details
for you in this month’s Expert Opinion article.
Read full Expert Opinion article...
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| Company News Coverage and Awards
Aplus.Net Makes HostReview’s Top 10 List for Best Web
Hosting Company and Best Dedicated Server Provider for 2006! We’re
pleased to announce that HostReview has named Aplus.Net as among
the industry's ten best companies in two categories: Best Web Hosting
Company, and Best Dedicated Server Package. HostReview bases their
awards on a company's overall performance, including "plans,
prices, uptime, guarantee and customer support, as well as the
web hosting reviews and online presence of the companies." Read
more here.
The San Diego Business Journal covers the story
of Aplus.Net’s move to Kansas City, and the recent announcement
of changes to the executive management team. Read it here.
Newswire and many other news sources are also
carrying the latest news about Aplus.Net’s recent announcements.
Check it out here,
and here.
Learn more
about our awards here…
Learn more about our news coverage here…
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| Customer of the Month
Imolio.com; Vintage-Prints.com
 “Back in 1999, Aplus.Net was my first choice for web hosts.
I now take full advantage of all of Aplus.Net’s great offerings,
including MIVA and osCommerce with UNIX, PHP and mySQL.”
– Mr. Gregory Chase, Founder of www.Imolio.com and www.Vintage-Prints.com.
Mr. Chase founded www.Vintage-Prints.com — soon
to be wholly transitioned into www.Imolio.com — with the
help of Aplus.Net in 1999, after years of conducting his online
business transactions via eBay.
“At first, my business was mainly selling original fine art
prints, paintings, lithographs and posters,” Mr. Chase recently
told Aplus.Net. “Over time, I started receiving a greater amount
of requests for copies of the more expensive prints and lithographs
that I had, and my business shifted from sales of original items to
sales of reproductions. Now about 95 percent of my business is the
sale of reproduction prints, and I have more than 25,000 digital images.”
“Just as on my first site, Vintage-Prints.com, my new site
Imolio.com is designed to let consumers purchase reproduction prints.
The difference is that fine art galleries, custom framing shops and
home decorators can also buy and download the images. Imolio.com has
also branched out, joining up with art museums and galleries worldwide.
So, we now offer digital images of art from all these institutions
and galleries, giving everybody the chance to enjoy fine art prints
at a fraction of the cost.
Our long-term goal is to make Imolio.com a databank of digital
images of all the worlds’ fine art — it’s already
the place to get reproductions of art that are rarely ever displayed
or seen by the public.”
Growing with Aplus.Net
“When things started growing, I knew my next move was to upgrade
to one of Aplus.Net’s dedicated servers. And eventually, I wanted
to branch out even further, so I worked with the Aplus.Net sales department
to design an 18-Terabyte Storage Server. One of the greatest things
about Aplus.Net is the ability to start domains without any further
cost. I now have 19 different domain names. I even started up websites
for my two sons. It helps to give them the tools they’ll need
for college and, eventually, the job market. And it’s made my
6-year-old the most popular kid at the skateboard park!”
Visit: www.Imolio.com
www.Vintage-Prints.com
Think you should be Aplus.Net’s next customer of the month?
We’d like to hear about your success story. Send details to .
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| Small Business Center
Power Blogging 101
Okay, we realize that for the past few years, the word “blogging” hasn’t
exactly been underused. We understand if you’re sick of the
word and all the attention attached to it. However, that attention
is well-deserved: Like it or not, blogging is one of the most revolutionary
communications devices of recent years—if you’ve been
ignoring it, it’s time to reconsider.
Consider this: Blogs have swung the door to easy communications
between consumers and businesses wide open. They’re
simply the best tool for giving your consumers a forum to speak
out. And you can monitor this forum, as opposed to having your
customers vent about you at some unknown website, where you don’t
get to listen in. With a blog, you can set the topic, and help
to promote your message, inviting comments and feedback accordingly.
That being said, it’s not always so easy to get your blog
up and running. So what are the secrets to making your blog appealing
to customers, and getting it to work to your advantage? This month,
we look at what some of the Internet’s experts have said
on the subject.
About.com: Why Blogging Matters to Business.
About.com’s Susan M. Heathfield understands the secret
of why blogs have caught on so well: “What sets blogs apart
from other online writing … is their dynamic nature (as
opposed to static Web pages) and their voice (style).” This
article argues that “the voice of the writer (or writers)
of the blog, in a successful blog, is unique to that blog.” It
goes on to outline four key issues that make blogs essential to
your business:
- “A business blog is an informal, easily maintained
method for regularly communicating with your customers. A
business blog offers a more approachable, informal information-providing
approach in which customers find enjoyment, get to know your
company, and learn about your products, achievements, and
innovations.”
- “A business blog is an informal, easily maintained
method for regularly communicating with your employees … The
blog differs from email in that a permanent record of posts
is maintained by category. The second advantage is that
all employees receive the same information at the same time.”
- “A business blog can provide a ‘voice’ for
your company that educates and informs your website visitors;
it is more easily updated than traditional web pages.”
- “Your employees may also be blogging. You want to
ensure their blogs do not give away company confidential
or proprietary information, or trade secrets.”
The article goes on to list good examples of companies that
have effective blogs, such as Google Blog and GM's FastLane Blog.
Read the whole article here.
CNN Money: Blogging for Dollars
“Blogs today benefit from what might be termed uneconomies
of scale: They are so cheap to create and operate that a lone
blogger or a small team can, with the ever-expanding reach of
the Internet, amass vast audiences and generate levels of profit
on a per-employee basis that traditional media companies can only
fantasize about.”
“At the same time, advertisers—shunning old-line
media in favor of the Web—are discovering the unique power
of blogs. Blogs offer a personal touch in the mediascape; small
sites have become our guides to a content-saturated world. As
such, their recommendations are highly valued by readers — which
naturally has made advertisers take notice. In recent months,
big-name companies like Banana Republic and Coca-Cola (Charts)
have for the first time run campaigns on blogs, in the belief
that blog communities often consist of concentrated numbers of
the passionate and influential people all marketers want to reach.
Intel bought its first blog ad in March; now all its ads run on
blogs as well as traditional outlets. Says Thom Campbell, head
of media strategy for Intel (Charts), ‘The audience on blogs
is the cream of the crop.’”
Click
here to read this article in its entirety.
BusinessWeek: Six Tips for Corporate Bloggers
BusinessWeek tempers their enthusiasm for the power of the
blog with some well-advised pointers to make sure your business
blogging efforts don’t backfire:
- Train Your Bloggers: “Who's on your communications
team? It used to be a small group, but now everyone who blogs
at the company is spreading the message. And it's important
that these people be trained.”
- Be Careful with Fake Blogs: “… pseudo-blogs
are risky because many of the most passionate bloggers view
them as an affront to their community, and each one stands
out like a billboard in Yosemite. When the blogosphere gets
hold of a fake, it can turn it into a public roasting of
the company.”
- Track Blogs: “Why is it important to do different
kinds of tracking? Postings even from small-time bloggers
can get picked up by a search engine, amplified by a top
blogger, and eventually break into the mainstream. Last
summer, blogs picked up an anonymous post in an online discussion
forum from someone who boasted he could break Kryptonite
bike locks with a Bic pen. Within a week the story had bubbled
up to The New York Times, and Kryptonite recalled the locks.”
- PR Truly Means Public Relations: “Blogs knock down
the barriers between a company and its customers. Businesses
need to take that into account and adapt.”
- Be Transparent: “Being open about the kind of marketing
you're doing is critical.”
- Rethink Your Corporate Secrets: “What's the value
of a locked up secret? In the world of blogs, you may find
more value in sharing what you used to think of as secrets.
Blogs are certain to make you rethink what should be squirreled
away, because companies are increasingly sharing such information
to win new partners and harvest fresh ideas. This doesn't
mean they don't keep secrets or that you shouldn't — only
that you should reevaluate whether you can get more out
of sharing information or keeping a lock on it.”
Click
here for the original article in its entirety.
Sources:
1. Heathfield, S.M. Why Blogging Matters to Business. About.com. Retrieved February 5, 2007 from http://humanresources.about.com/od/businessblogs/a/business_blogs.htm
2. Kaihla, P; Sloan, P. (2006, October 2) Blogging for Dollars. CNNMoney.com. Retrieved February 5, 2007 from http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/09/01/8384325/
3. Baker, S.; Green, H. (2005, May 2) Online Extra: Six Tips
for Corporate Bloggers. BusinessWeek Online. Retrieved February
6, 2007 from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b39310
07_mz001.htm
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| Help Links
At
Aplus.Net, we are committed to providing you with great customer
support, 24x7x365.
Knowledge Base -- http://www.apluskb.com/
Technical Support -- http://www.aplus.net/support.html
Control Panel -- https://cp.aplus.net
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Keep It Current!
Keeping your address current is more important than you realize,
and the success of your website just might depend on it. For example: “Marty” was
a happy and hard-working customer who failed to notify Aplus.Net
when his email address changed. Marty didn’t realize that
he was missing important emails notifying him that his domain name
was about to expire. Because of this simple mistake, Marty lost
not only his domain name to a competitor, he also lost countless
hours of hard work and months of progress. Don’t make Marty’s
mistake—Keep your information current!
Update your new e-mail information in our system online. We've made it easy! Here's how to do it …
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| Refer a Friend
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| Feedback
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us any of your feedback regarding the newsletter at .
We’re always looking to improve, and we’re always happy to hear
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