Evolved CMS Auto Upgrades itself…
This is a huge one for everyone here at Evolved Websites, finally our Evolved CMS can auto-update itself to the latest version, with just 1 click.
We made a little video to celebrate:
From v9.6 upwards.
Video manuals for eNewsletters
Our eNewsletters area of the online manual for Evolved CMS has had an overhaul, we’ve added 5 new video tutorials on Creating, Editing, Sending and Reports for eNewsletters, view here (or click on the image below):
Testing your website in all major browsers
We believe in testing all our clients websites in the major browsers in use today, as of Jan 2012 our list includes:
- Windows: Internet Explorer 7 to 9, Firefox 4 to 9, Safari 4 & 5, Chrome 17+
- Mac: Safari 4 & 5, Firefox 4 to 9, Chrome 17+
- Mobile: iPhone, iPad (iOS 3+)
To speed up testing and development, we use a number of online browser testing services we thought we’d share, in order of brilliance.
Litmus
These guys do an awesome job of email and website previews (even if they are limited to static images of each website so you can’t scroll around or test Javascript like slideshows etc).
We have been using this UK based outfit for years and heartily recommend them:
You can also share any results with clients, such as this sample of a new Home page and slideshow for Brookfarm:
https://evolvedwebsites.litmus.com/pub/e38bf7e
View their full offerings at http://litmus.com
Browserstack
We’ve only just discovered this service which lets you browse any website using actual browsers, not emulators, so far so good, and we’ll likely signup for their professional account at $19 per month (unlimited testing).
IE Netrenderer
An older service which lets you take a screenshot using just one IE browser at a time, since using Litmus I have to admit we don’t use this anymore. It can be quite slow, but is free and still useful if you can’t afford to pay for a one-off testing session:
Facebook integration with Evolved CMS v9
Seems like everyone is on Facebook these days, so we’ve decided to make it so much easier to share your website updates on your Facebook Page.
If, like us, you have a Website, a Facebook Page and a Twitter account it can be a nightmare to keep all three updated, with our new ‘Share on Facebook / Twitter’ feature its a simple 3 step process:
1. Add new information on your website:
2. ‘Share on Facebook’
3. Review what’s about to be shared (above)
..and edit as you please, then press Save, and its instantly sent to your Facebook Page:
A lovely new feature, give us a shout if you want to upgrade…
Next up, Twitter integration in a week or so.
(available for CMS v9)
New Feature: Top Weekly Searches
Not only can you now see what your customers are searching for, right in the CMS Admin and on the public website as Top Weekly Searches, these searches also become new, highly focussed pages in Google and other search engines for the search terms.
E.g. a search on Ask A Naturopath for ‘tea tree‘ shows a range of treatments for blackheads, candida and others.
Here’s a little video we made explaining how it work:
Email usage update: iOS devices take 2nd spot
Looking over some of our client eNewsletter stats we were surprised to find iOS (iPhone, iPad etc) now easily is the 2nd most used email platform for our clients:
Luckily iOS devices are easy to design for, and seem to replicate much of Apple Mail’s features so eNewsletter still end up looking great.
Now would be a good time to start thinking about designing more fluid, mobile friendly eNewsletters that take full advantage of the iPad and iPhone interface. Or even a mobile-specific enewsletter layout, which is sent at the same time (using CSS code) as the full-version.
Benefits of using email marketing
We offer all of our clients access to world-class eNewsletter software, if you are wondering why you should be using eNewsletters in the first place, here are some great reasons.
Benefits of using email marketing include:
It works - Based on research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing is predicted to return an incredible $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009, more than 6 times the return from print catalogs.- It’s cost effective - There are no printing costs and you can get your message delivered for several cents per recipient. Once a template is setup you can use it again and again with new copy, without extra design costs.
- It’s immediate - Email generates an immediate response, the majority of your recipients will see your message in the first 24-48 hours (see sample graph below).
- It’s relevant - Email makes it easy to segment your subscribers using a variety of criteria like demographics and past campaign behaviour (such as clicking a certain link). Ensure your message goes to the individuals most likely to be interested in your offer.
- It’s completely measureable - More than any other form of marketing, email can provide actionable data on the results it generates. Keep track of who opened your email and when, what topics they were interested in, who forwarded it on to a friend, how many sales were generated and much more.
New Feature: Revamped Media Area
We’ve completed a radical overhaul of the Media Area in Evolved CMS v8, something long overdue and we are very happy with the results.
Just some of the benefits of our Media Area are:
- drag n drop uploading saves oodles of time, right from your desktop or even iPhoto
- you don’t have to resize any images before uploading (as long as they are under 5Mb they will be fine), as we resize all uploaded images
- you can delete images from The Media Library and they will still show on the website
- better organisation by categorising images into folders
And a few technical, but important, additions:
- PNG, BMP and TIFF files are converted to JPG to make them smaller and web-safe
- CMRK print-ready images are converted to JPG making them web-safe
- 300dpi images (or anything bigger than 72dpi) will be converted to smaller, faster 72dpi images
We are thrilled with this update, and are sure you will be too.
Available now in CMS v6, v7 & v8.
Yari McGauley
eNewsletter Updates
This month we are all about eNewsletters, not only do we have a swag of new features for you to try out, also more and more of our 75+ clients are finding out how cost-effective using eNewsletters are.
New eNewsletter Features
Worldview
Shows each and every subscriber on a world map as they open your eNewsletters, complete with name, email and if they opened, clicked or shared via Facebook or Twitter.
Social sharing to your email subscribe forms
Rally your people to spread the word about your site launch or product by integrating social media ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ in your eNewsletterts. Ask us how.
New Templates
You can now also choose from 37 pre-designed email templates, which we then customise with your logo and content (text & images), or have us custom-design your own email template.
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All this is instantly available, just login to your eNewsletters as normal at http://mailout.evolvedwebsites.com.au
New eNewsletter Editor
We’ve undergone a huge upgrade to the eNewsletter editor, here’s a short video showing some of the highlights.
This changes lots of small things when editing your eNewsletters, such as live preview as you type, no more annoying popup box when pasting text, more images per template and lots more.
Login and create a draft eNewsletter to have a play with the new changes.
New eNewsletter Monthly Pricing
We now offer 2 ways to pay for eNewsletters:
- Pay per mailout
- NEW Pay per month, for unlimited sending
Send more than one eNewsletter a month? Unlimited mailouts, billed monthly based on number of subscribers.
Did you know we have an online eNewsletter Manual?
In case you didn’t know, or haven’t been there recently our online manual has plenty of advice and guides on creating eNewsletters, sending, reports and subscribers:
Get in touch with us if you would like help with any of the things discussed here today.
New Features: Customer & Order Stats
New in CMS v6 & v8, for websites with eCommerce we now show some really insightful stats:
- Top Selling products
- Most valuable customer
- On each order, the customers purchase history and value
- On each customer profile, the full order history, customer value over the years & most bought products
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- Customer Stats in Profile area
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- Customer Value shown on each Order
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- Order Stats summary
