So how can you leverage email? One amazing tool that I’ve come to love is MailChimp. MailChimp allows you to collect email address with some really simple to setup and use forms to make signing up super quick and easy – notice the one on the left. MailChimp allows you customize the form to your liking, which is perfect so that you can match it to your site.

The real power of MailChimp comes into play with it’s ability to design beautiful looking emails and it’s metrics. MailChimp offers a ton of HTML email templates for your email marketing campaigns. They’ve been tested to render properly in all the major email programs, like Outlook 2007, Lotus Notes, Gmail, and more. Looking beautiful is one thing, and as a designer I couldn’t agree more, but knowing how many people opened you email, what they clicked on inside your email, and benchmarks to help you compare how your doing in “apples to apples” comparison with others in your industry.

There are a ton of more advanced features too like A/B testing, email list segmentation, and even sending surveys in HTML emails. It can even connect our email campaigns to your social media presence (Facebook and Twitter for example. ) MailChimp allows you to use as much or as little as your need or want without making it too difficult.

If your a small business (or any size actually), I really recommend taking a serious look at MailChimp. Before you head on over, sign up for our Specials email list.

First off, let’s get the operation definitions out of the way so we are all on the same page.  A domain name is the name of a person’s or organization’s website on the Internet.  A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web.  A web designer is a person or business that designs and prepares content for the World Wide Web, including text, images, site architecture and multimedia.  A content management system (CMS) separates the management of content from that of its presentation.  A CMS is an amazing tool for organizing and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other content, especially for a website.  All together, I call this things your website architecture, they form the foundation for everything you’ll need to get your small business or non-profit on the web.

The biggest myth I’d like to dispel is that you need one provider for all of these services.  While I understand that it makes it simpler to have everything in one location, I’m going to make the argument that simplicity isn’t always the best option.  Being nimble in todays world is a good thing, why wouldn’t you apply that same philosophy to your web site architecture.  Having the pieces of your web site architecture with different providers gives you ability to choose the best one based on their expertise and service record.  If a problem occurs with a certain provider, you can, with relative ease, move to another provider.  Additionally, having a CMS allows you to be in control of your content, you an you alone are the gatekeepers of the content.  When content needs to be updated, it’s done by you, you don’t have to call your designer back to make content edits.  Your designer only creates the presentation of your content.

For some people in the web industry, my last few statements may come as a form of blasphemy.  Being a turnkey provider (all of your services are self-contained to one company) is something many web service providers strive to achieve with their customers.  I’m not saying that there aren’t certain circumstances that it doesn’t make sense to have all of your services with one provider makes sense, many larger companies either outsource the whole thing or host it all in one place.  For the rest of the world though, it is not a requirement.  From my perspective, having control over yourwebsite architecture (domain name, web hosting service, web design/designer) is the key thing here.  As a non-profit/small business, you should own and control access to all of these things.  What happens if you’ve contracted with another company for all of your web services and then decide within a year or two that not have a relationship with them? Even worse, what if that company is not on the up and up, how do you regain control over your website architecture?

While learning some of the technicals may seem daunting, there are tons of online tutorials to help you through the process.  Really, there are four main steps:

1. Setting up your domain name
   • Domain Name Registrars:
     • GoDaddy.com
     • Network Solutions
     • Register.com
2. Find a host – a paid one, preferably (you get what you pay for with free ones)
   • Web Hosting Services
     • FatCow.com
     • GoDaddy.com
3. Point your domain to your host
   • Useful how-to’s
     • GoDaddy’s guide to Setting Nameservers for Your Domains
     • FatCow – Domain Registration and Services KB Article
4. Find a designer to build your site using a CMS
   • CMS Resources
     • So, what is a CMS? by Step Two Designs
     • 11 Reasons Why a Web CMS Will Make Your Life Easier and Your Wallet Fatter by Cromatic, Inc.

A designer is an important piece here too.  Saving money is important, setting up and owning your web services is also important, but just as important is having a good site design and structure, one that understand how users interact with web-sites, how they think and what are the basic patterns of users’ behavior are.  All I’m saying is don’t skimp here, hiring your friend’s son because he knows Facebook doesn’t qualify him as a web designer.  You really need a designer who specialized in your chosen CMS.

One of the caveats to this though process is that many turnkey provider it can be more economical to bundle it all with one provider, you have to weigh the options and be thorough in your research.  With some good research, you could find all of your services at decent pricing on each of the services you’ll need.  In the end, it’s a bit more work, but so is running your own business.