I’ve built a lot of membership websites in WordPress, and perhaps the most frustrating part is getting the video right. Video is one of the key components to communicating with your members. In fact, video should be used throughout the membership process, including:

• Landing page for optin conversion
• Sales page to increase sales conversions
• As member content to increase retention and effectiveness

With the advent of mobile devices, like Apple’s products, more and more people want to consume their content on the go. That can mean that many of the more traditional ways to deliver video content just don’t work. There are already many services that will offer to get your video up and running in HTML5, but none of them are easy, so I created two plugins for WordPress that accommodate two spcific uses of HTML5 Video. Here’s a video that shows you how they work.

One thing I didn’t mention in the video, is how my HTML5 landing pages ROCK THE WORLD in terms of optin rate. I created special landing pages for two JVs that wanted to offer the optincrusher to their subscribers and clients. When I got around to checking what the optin rate was, I almost couldn’t believe it. Especially because some of those unique impressions are me checking the page occasionally. Here’s a snapshot from my aweber account:

That’s 42.6% optin rate for one site and 81.0% for the other. How does that compare to your optin rate? You can even see my blog optin rate sitting at 5.9%, which still isn’t that bad for general traffic.

Here are the takeaway points (as I see them). I want to make sure targeted traffic sent to a landing page has the following experience:

• They can see the video (yes, especially on mobile devices)
• There’s a clear call to action
• There aren’t any distractions

It turns out that my HTML5 landing page does all three very well! At the moment I don’t have a timeline to publicly release my HTML5 video plugins for WordPress, but if you think you’ve got a site that would really benefit from them, leave a comment below or shoot me an email. I would love to hear what you think and where you would use them.

UPDATE [9/1/2011]: This plugin is now available for download. Get details and training at http://mobilevideoforwordpress.com/

I recently developed a tool to increase the optin rate on my websites (and for my clients). During development I got to work with nearly all of the major email service providers. While many of them are very strong and offer some clever tools to make marketers more successful, iContact stood out with a special 2-for-1 offering of a combined email and survey service. Let me explain why this is such a powerful combination and then I’ll show you a tool that can make it even better.

Utility

Email services are what I like to call a utility service for marketers. It’s like gas and electricity for a home. You can’t go without them and really have a decent quality of life, and when they flake out, the pain is felt almost immediately. The good news is that nearly all the email services have a rock solid platform that’s fast and reliable.

As I integrated each of these services, there were some features that started to jump out to me as being extremely useful. One of the services that I think did the best job with this was iContact, and to understand why I say that, it’s important to review the advice I got as a beginner to email marketing.

I heard from Jeff Walker, Ed Dale, John Reese, Frank Kern, Eben Pagan and just about everyone else that you have to do these two things with your list:

• Ask them what they want
• Build a relationship

That’s why most of these marketers use surveys in various ways to accomplish both of these tasks. But they use a combination of two separate services to get it done. That means their email list and communication are in a database independent from survey results and respondents. As it turns out, that can present a big challenge when processing survey results and conducting follow up.

2-for-1 email and surveys

The first thing I noticed about iContact is that they put those two services in one integrated package. I can only imagine how much easier it becomes for new marketers to survey and interact with their lists, not to mention the efficiency gains that more experienced marketers get. I should know since I’ve spent time working through the details of not having an integrated email and survey service.

The integration is great and opens many possibilities, however it’s also important to know that each service can be used independently. That means you can publish a survey and link to it from your website without an email, or include it in an email broadcast or an autoresponder sequence. It’s very flexible.

Leverage the combination

Since this was the only truly integrated provider I found (some parent companies offer both as separate labels so they can charge more, but they don’t integrate like iContact) I decided to publish a customized version of the optincrusher software. I called it ioptinboost.

The reason I decided to create a separate piece of software is that I could integrate the survey function in directly. So with ioptinboost you can run a survey on your site, the same way you would an optin form. It will get your visitors attention and tell you loads about the traffic you’re getting to your site.

If you structure your survey correctly, you can even provide an incentive and get them onto an autoresponder. If you’ve followed Eben Pagan for a while, that’s very similar to what he did with the Psychic Sales Letter. There’s some very powerful psychology at play here, and as a smart marketer, you can leverage it like never before.

Free Softare

Just like the optincrusher, I’m releasing ioptinboost for free (as of right now anyway). That won’t last forever, but today you can download it here:

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If this article has piqued your interest, you can try the icontact service for free. They have great live support, so it’s very easy to get your first survey or campaign up and running quick. Of course I created HD videos showing you how to do everything you need to do on http://ioptinboost.com/

Leave a comment about your experience with iContact and how you use their service to improve your marketing.

The reason I wanted to post it here is that it turned out to be a good tutorial about using a fantastic free tool (Inkscape) to create graphics for your website. I actually show you how to use Photoshop too.

You can download the HD version below the video. If you watch it on the page, click the full screen button so that you get all the details.

Download in HD

While that’s true, there are some pretty great things that we seem to get for free, especially here in America.  For example, we have a magnificent freeway system that allows me to travel from one state to another, uninterrupted and at very high speeds.  What a marvel!  The best part is that I’ve never pulled a dollar out of my pocket to pay for those roads.

Now someone will be sure to come back and say: “Hey Buddy, didn’t you know that your taxes paid for those roads?”  Well, you’re right.  Tax money does pay for the roads, but the meager existence I survive on made a meager contribution to those wonderful roads.  Let me ask you something: have you heard of the 80/20 rule?  If not you can find plenty of books about it, like this one.  The substance is that a small portion of the population makes the biggest contribution while the rest of the population makes the remaining small contribution.

That’s how it is with taxes and roads.  A small percentage of the tax paying base contributes the large majority of the taxes while the rest of us pick up the peanuts and popcorn.  I could extend this analogy and discuss private roads and other niche modes of travel, but I think you get the point so far.  Right?

Yeah, but what’s that got to do with open source software?

I’m glad you were wondering, and (not surprisingly) I think they go together quite well.  You see, the best open source software typically wasn’t made by an altruistic genius living off his parents unending generosity.  Nope, there really isn’t some guy whose sole interest in life is to make the world a better place by providing his expertise for free.  Sorry if that bursts a few bubbles (both developers and consumers).  The fact is that those guys that write open source software in their basement might be coding geniuses, but that doesn’t mean they have deep understanding of the problems they’re trying to solve.

That last sentence is really important to understand.  Software is meant to solve problems, but it can only create worthwhile solutions to the extent that the developer understands the true problem.  The scope of its usefulness will be determined in part by how many other people have that same problem.

The most useful open source software

So you probably still don’t believe that I’m talking about open source software.  Let me get to the point.

The most useful open source software projects are the result of a collaboration.  Usually this collaboration occurs between two very different but complimentary skill sets.  The first of these in importance has to be someone that understands a problem very well.  Notice that you generally don’t start with a programmer!  That’s really important.  The crucial element in coming up with a good piece of software is a thorough understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve.

After you have a good understanding of what you want to accomplish, then you need a good programmer.  But before I tell you about the programmer, you tell me how many really good doctors or lawyers (or any other professional for that matter) you know that work for FREE.  Go ahead, I’m waiting….  What?  You can’t think of any?  In fact, if they’re really good, do they generally make more or less than their counterparts?  I can already see the comments coming in with this exception or that, but keep in mind what were after here is the rule, not the exception.

So, if you have a really good understanding of the problem, then you need a really good developer to be able to translate that into a worthwhile solution. Let’s go back to our analogy for a minute. Imagine having a really good understanding of the problem of interstate commerce.  You know that large trucks weighing many tons are going to be speeding from one place to another and that the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the medicine we need and on and on will all depend on the solution.  Just imagine what would happen if you chose a crappy company, a “basement programmer” of sorts to build those roads.

If you don’t have a high quality contribution from both the problem expert and the developer then you aren’t likely to end up with a quality solution to your problem.

The 80/20 rule of open source software

Remember the 80/20 rule?  It’s not that far off to say that 80% of open source software is either too narrowly focused to be useful to anyone or it’s garbage.  Another unsurprising outcome is that the best open source software usually resulted from a funded project, paid for by a company or consortium that had a very good understanding of a general problem.  Some of the best open source software started it’s life as a closed source product and had almost strictly commercial aspirations.  Somewhere along the line the project either lost funding or it was discovered that it didn’t have a commercial base that justified further development and so it was released to the public.

Another common occurrence is found in academia.  Many wonderful contributions to the current open source buffet were the product of research which was funded by grants from companies or agencies interested in a specific problem that the software would solve.  Again you see that the project is funded and involves collaboration between  a problem expert and an expert programmer.

A third model is what has come to be called professional (or commercial) open source.  In this model, companies offer a tiered set of service plans that accompany the open source software and accommodate different business needs.  The initial tier is open source and free to use.  Elevated tiers address risk, guaranteed service levels and advanced business functions.  Elevated levels come with a cost.

Shouldn’t all software be FREE?

There may be some purists out there that will suggest professional open source isn’t true open source.  There area  lot of people that think all software should be free and communal.  I’m not just talking about patents (that’s another can of worms).  I’m talking about the people who think that since there’s no reproduction cost for the download (no discs or manuals) that they shouldn’t have to pay for it, or at most they should have to pay only for bandwidth to download it.

News Flash.  If you’re a business owner and your livelihood depends on the solutions that software provides, then you might want to consider the ‘source’ of your open source software.

When I said at the beginning that you get what you pay for, it’s very true.  I’ve found time and time again that often the real cost of open source software must be measured in a number of parameters.  Here’s what I think you really need to ask:

• How well does this software address my specific problem?
• How mature is the software and what are the nature of it’s recent changes?
• Is there commercial support available?
• Is there an upgrade path (either commercial or open source)?
• How many of my own hours am I going to spend trying to make it work?
• How many hours will I spend evaluating the alternatives?
• What was the motivation of the developer in producing the software for free?

What are my hours worth?

I’ve contributed to open source software on many occasions.  I’ve even released some of my own software developments to the open source community.  It might sound strange that as I get more serious about my business, I tend to look for paid, commercial solutions to meet my needs.  Even though I’m a programmer and could conceivably make any changes/fixes that I wanted, I find that the value of an hour of my time and the number of hours required to make the contribution back to the “community” is often more than if I just paid someone else to use their service.

I’ll be following up with a series on specific problems that open source software solves and how the open source offerings stack up against the commercial offerings.  Take a minute right now and leave a comment telling me what problems you’re trying to solve right now so I can build a list of possible solutions.

If you would like me to work with you to identify the right software for your company and web based projects, use the button below to contact me.

What a lead in for a screen ruler… Bu the fact is that I often use a screen ruler to figure out exactly how many pixels something is. An aside would be my complaint that something like the dimensions of a file that contains images, like a video file, should contain meta data that tells you the width and height. Anyhoo, I use a screen ruler a lot.

The first screen ruler I got was probably emailed to me by someone and I didn’t realize until years later that it was commercial software. It was made by a company called microfox and when I realized that it was commercial software I went to purchase it. Much to my disappointment they were charging $24.95. I just couldn’t justify paying that for it. Even though I liked it, that was too steep. If it had been $10 I probably would have purchased a license (might still purchase at that price), but I didn’t buy it because $24.95 for a screen ruler was just too much.

Like any red blooded American programmer, I immediately went looking for an open source (read cheap/free) alternative for my screen ruler needs. I found two right off (thanks Google for relevant results) that would fit my needs, and despite perhaps being less powerful than the commercial version, ended up doing everything I needed.

The first scree ruler is made by Spadix. From a functional perspective this did exactly the same thing the commercial option did, except that it cost 100% less. Thank you Spadix.

However, true to my American “I need options” nature, I clicked on the next link down and found the this screen ruler. I was turned off by the wood grain and the bulky look, but right before I bounced off the site, I noticed the embedded youtube video. Usually these are pretty boring (and so was this one), but I clicked on it just to see what the ruler could do. It actually turned out to have a lot of worthwhile features. Because of the video I downloaded and tried his ruler. Here’s the video the guy put on his site:

In the end I went with the Spadix ruler because it updates all the time showing on the ruler exactly how many pixels to the side I am of the ruler end. I’m not sure that’s better, but it’s what i’m used to and that ruler does it’s job just fine.

Wouldn’t this be a boring post it all I talked about was a comparison between screen rulers? The reason for writing this up on my site is to point out that an informative, easy to watch video might make the difference between someone bouncing off your site and staying a minute longer to dig a little deeper. In the case of this second ruler, they guy probably spent 20 minutes recording, tweaking and then uploading this video to youtube. Since he used youtube he has not hosting, no players, no bandwidth or anything else. I’m not sure what he used to make the video, but it was probably CamStudio, so he didn’t even have any overhead costs.

If you haven’t done it yet, why don’t you make a video to showcase some of the reasons why someone should stay on your site for a few minutes more. Then check your bounce rate in a few days and see if you succeeded in capturing a few of the more lazy folk that might have previously written you off. Then come back here and post a link to your page so can watch your video.