The From Line

Ping Pong (aka table tennis) has become all the rage here at Gold Lasso. Without fail, every day around 11:30, you’ll hear the swift pounce of the ping pong ball back and forth and back and forth. This has been coined the “pre-lunch game.” It functions as a warm up, because AFTER lunch is when the those competitive juices start flowing. We thought it would be a great idea to bring a ping pong table into our “common area” so we could hit the ball back and forth during our informal strategy sessions and water-cooler debates. It has turned into a mega tournament with 3 of our own (Dilpreet Singh, Yotam Derfler and John McLean) battling it out for first place. Stay tuned next month and we’ll let you know who is crowned Gold Lasso Ping Pong King of 2014!!

The first email ever sent from space was in 1991 using Applelink software on a Macintosh Portable. Astronauts Shannon Lucid and James C. Adamson sent the message to Marcia Ivins, a shuttle communicator at Johnson Space Center.

Dear ,
Thank you for signing up for our {city name} Newsletter! We are pleased to provide you with the latest news from {county name}, {state} and beyond.
Best,
~{county name } news team

Look familiar? We’ve all been there. You’ve signed up for a new service, newsletter, or daily deal. Anxiously awaiting your first message, you are sadly disappointed when something similar to the above abomination lands in your inbox. If only the designers of that message knew what we know. Even if your subscriber skimps on the info they provide in their signup form, you can still send them relevant and more importantly, professional, content. It’s as simple as throwing a few default slugs into your message by way of dynamic content. So instead of “Dear (blank),” you can greet your new subscriber as “Dear Friend,”. And rather than confusing them with unfulfilled data fields, you can populate actual content in its place. So, your message would look more like this:

Dear Friend,
Thank you for signing up for our Newsletter! We are pleased to provide you with the latest news from your city, the surrounding area, and beyond.
Best,
~your city news team

It doesn’t end there. The same can be applied to images. Because let's be serious, there’s not much worse than a message that’s clearly missing its main attention grabbing image. Why bother reading that, right? I know I don’t have time for that. So if your message depends on a data field to populate a specific image, we’ve got you covered. With dynamic content you can rest assured that your subscribers will never pass over your message because of an MIA image. Simply choose a default based on whatever criteria you desire, and send away, knowing that every single message that’s sent is complete, even if the information your subscribers have provided is not.

It’s that time of year again…Movember.

The guys here at GL are growing those ‘staches to change the face of men’s health. On “Movember” 1st they began growing just a moustache (no beards, no goatees) for the month of November. Movember is more than just an excuse to grow a fine piece of moustachery, it’s about creating conversations while raising funds and awareness for men’s health. It’s about having fun and doing good.
http://us.movember.com/donate

About Movember: 

The Movember Foundation is the leading global organization committed to changing the face of men’s health. They achieve this by challenging men to grow moustaches during Movember (the month formerly known as November) to spark conversation and raise funds for prostate cancer, testicular cancer and mental health problems.

The moustache maketh the man, and today it is a symbol to spark conversations about important health issues.

We are passionate about this cause because too many men are dying unnecessarily from testicular cancer, the most common cancer in young men. Current treatments for testicular cancer are pretty good, but pretty good is just not good enough.

The Movember Foundation is working around the clock and around the world to improve the lives of men and their families affected by testicular cancer. Find out more about why you should join Movember by taking a look at the men’s health causes we are fighting for:

http://us.movember.com/programs

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Mo Bro or a Mo Sista, we’d love to have you on our team. Guys, sign up to grow a moustache, or ladies, sign up to support the men in your life. It’s going to be a great journey.

http://moteam.co/the-motown-phillies

Thanks for joining us to help change the face of men's health.

-The GL Movember Men
http://mobro.co/themotownphillies

The power of conversion lies in several factors such as the overall look of your site, the content, and the user-friendliness for your visitors. Here are some conversion tips that you may find useful.

Take a walk in their shoes: Pretend you are a customer on your own website. How will you navigate the site and will you know where to go to? Can you easily find what you are looking for? Think like a customer and try it on your website. This can help improve the overall user rating for your website and convert visitors to buyers. If customers feel comfortable with their user experience, they are likely to engage deeper and return after their initial visit.

Content is king: Conversions have a lot to do with quality content on your website. Your articles must be engaging. It you have to make it controversial or funny to attract attention, then by all means do so. There should also be a call-to-action button on your website so that visitors can become customers.

Check out your competition: Keep your competition close by checking them out. Sometimes, you can pick up a lesson or two from them and incorporate it into your website. It does not hurt to research the competition. You have to be on top of your game and keeping an eye out for changes in the competition is a normal thing to do. Check out the strategies they are using and devise your own plan to implement changes accordingly.

Honesty is the best policy: Do not be shady when it comes to your terms and agreement. If you are mining data from your visitors, make sure that it is clearly stated in your Privacy Policy. Once threatened, your visitors will lose faith and likely not return. So it is best to be completely transparent.