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Music on Your Web Page?…is it hurting more than helping?
By
Bob DeLong, AMS Manager Technical Services
Have you been surfing the
internet and stumbled upon a website that automatically started playing
music? Has that music started blaring un-announced at a decibel level that
was sure to wake the neighbors? Have you been able to curtail it before
your co-workers asked “What are you looking at!” …That wasn’t your
B&B’s site, was it?
Recent trends have shown
us that one of the things that has a high annoyance level to those viewing
web pages is a task that starts by itself without any interaction from
the viewer. This is exactly why so many Virus & Spam fighting programs
are now “eliminating those annoying pop-up ads.” Background music on your
site is rapidly falling into this “annoying” category.
Consider that the piece of
background music you have chosen for your site may be well loved by you,
however, synthesized classical music may not be for everyone and a in fact
a deterrent for some. If viewers immediately dislike what they hear, or
the volume, or pitch isn’t what they prefer, the next step will be a quick
exit from your site, without even viewing the site details.
And consider the thousands
of potential guests viewing the web in public libraries. Will music add
to their experience or distract? What about those surfing the web while
the rest of their families are asleep. Will sound enhance these viewing
experiences? Think of the many employees that view websites while at work?
Will loud music book that room? Don’t assume that your viewer knows how
to turn down the sound. They may have never been to the “Control Panel”
of their computer or have a “Volume” icon on their tool bar. Design your
site for the commonplace, not the techno-geek.
And…If you still feel that
music will enhance the viewing experience of your site, you may consider
giving the viewer a link to click on to choose whether or not they would
like to hear the music or not. A choice is welcomed by any viewer.
-end-
Email
101
By
Bob DeLong, AMS Manager Technical Services
Understanding email and the
capabilities of your email client (program) can streamline your duties
as an innkeeper and save you time as well. In the next few issues we’ll
take a look at the different components of email. We'll begin with
the absolute basics for those of you who may just be getting started, and
by the end of the series will be teaching even the seasoned veterans some
valuable and time saving tricks.
Headers:
To start out, we should understand
that email, like a written letter has distinct sections: the header, the
body, and the footer (or in the case of email…the signature). This week
we will focus on the header.
The email header has several
purposes and often looks like this:
To:
From:
Subject:
CC:
BCC:
Attached:
This is what these do:
To: This is where you type
the email address to whom you are sending the message.
From: This is your email
address. Your program sometimes automatically fills it in.
Subject: This is what your
message is about. It gives the reader an idea of the content. Always fill
this in. Although you can send email without a subject, recipients often
scan the subject line to determine if the email is spam (junk email).
CC: Carbon Copy. You can
send a copy the message to more than one person by placing their addresses
here. Everyone that receives the email will see exactly who else received
the message.
BCC: Blind Carbon Copy. You
can send a copy the message to more than one person by placing their address
here, however the email address will not be seen by the other recipients.
Attached: You can email someone
a file that resides on your computer by attaching it to a message.
You can create an address
book with most email programs and place your friends and important email
addresses in it. Each address can be assigned a nickname, and you can type
that nickname into the header instead of trying to remember the exact email
address. The program will automatically expand the nickname to the full
address entered into the address book.
Some programs give you the
option of inserting a sender’s email address automatically into you address
book. Although this can be a time saving feature, make sure you choose
the option to chose which names to insert. Otherwise, you will quickly
find that your address book is composed of 1000’s of email addresses from
people that have sent you junk mail.
Your task for this week: start
setting up your email address book or clean out bad addresses if you already
have one, then send a message to someone and carbon copy yourself to see
how it looks. Send one bcc, too. Until next week…
Body:
Understanding email and the
capabilities of your email client (program) can streamline your duties
as an innkeeper and save you time as well. In the next few issues we’ll
take a look at the different components of email. Last week we covered
the “header.” This week we will focus on the “Body”.
The “Body” is the area of
an email where you type your message. Your email program may give you many
options to control the look of the message or “text”
Font: a font is the style
in which your text is written. Each mail client has a “default” font. That
is a font that is used when one is not specifically chosen. If you do not
like your default font, you can change it in your program settings. Make
sure the font is easy to read. A “script” font is usually not a good choice
when sending email because script fonts are often difficult to read. The
font used should allow the reader to quickly skim over your message, not
work at having to decipher each word. You can enlarge the font, make it
bold, italic, underline or color it.
Format: You can format an
email message similar to any word processing document. Center the text,
left justify, right justify, indent, bulleted list, and more.
Stationery: If you send the
same message over and over again, you can create email stationery to save
yourself from typing the same thing multiple times. Regular inquiries and
reservation confirmations can benefit by the use of email stationery. More
on stationery in upcoming issues…
Images: You can insert an
image into your email message. This is known as “embedding an image”. Or,
you can attach an image file to your message. More on attachments in upcoming
issues…
Links: you can add hyperlinks
to your email message so that someone can click on the link and be automatically
directed to a particular website.
HTML: Many email clients
allow messages to be composed using HTML or hypertext markup language.
This is one of the styles that define webpage elements on the World Wide
Web. The use of HTML allows for a broad spectrum of creativity, but not
all email clients allow the reader to view html-formatted messages unless
that option is turned on. It is extremely important to have anti-virus
software installed on your computer if you are viewing email messages in
html format. This newsletter is created as an HTML message.
Your task for this week: send
an email message using some different styles and color in the text, then
try to embed an image into your message or send a hyperlink following your
email client’s instructions. Until next week…
Footer:
Understanding email and the
capabilities of your email client (program) can streamline your duties
as an innkeeper and save you time as well. In the next few issues we’ll
take a look at the different components of email. Last week we covered
the “Body.” This week we will focus on the “Footer”.
The “Footer” is the area
of an email where you type your Complimentary Close and your email client
often refers to it as the “Signature” or “Signature File”. Your email program
may give you several options to control the look and the ability to add
several versions of your signature file. You should not overlook this important
feature as an additional tool in marketing your inn utilizing email correspondence.
The email signature enables
you to sign an email messages with the same information each time without
retyping it. Your signature should contain more than your name if you want
to take advantage of its use, however you may decide to set up several
different signatures for different situations. You may have one signature
for personal use, one signature for family use, one signature for business
use, or whatever occasions you choose.
Typically, a signature is
a text file, however a signature file may be set up using html or have
html code embedded in it. This code may enable the viewer to link directly
to your web site. Your signature should contain your basic contact information
and may contain a small marketing message in a sentence or two. Any lengthy
signature marketing message may be overlooked and considered Spam itself.
A basic signature may look
like this:
John & Jane Doe, Innkeepers
The Inn Name Here
The Street address here
City, State, Zip code
http://www.yourinnswebsitegoeshere.com
mailto: youremailaddress@yourwebaddress.com
“Voted best for Corporate
Travelers, Arrington’s BnB Journal 2002” (your short marketing message)
It is important to use “http://”
and “mailto:” as they are html directives allowing viewers to link directly
to you if their email client allows html messages. Creative use of the
signature file will save you time and peak the interest of viewer, so start
now and take advantage of marketing your inn with every message.
Your task for this week:
Read your email client’s help file to learn how to compose a signature
file. Develop a signature file and send a test message to yourself including
the signature file. If all is well, begin sending all email message utilizing
your signature file(s). Until next week…
-end-
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