TemplateZone Blog

Thu, 01/14/2010 - 12:53 � admin

WebPlus X4 by Serif now in TZ Partner Store

Hi, readers — it’s me, TemplateZone’s woefully prodigal blogger, inching back into things. No doubt you can relate to day where it feels as if half vanishes between one blink and the next — well, the past week’s been that way, & it’s beginning to make my head spin! For tomorrow, I’ve vowed to stay super-aware during those disappearing hours (for me, it’s 2-5pm that goes POOF! — how about you?).
	But it’s always easy to focus on good news, so this post has Serif to thank! WebPlus X4, web design software that’s ridiculously easy & brimming with neat features, is now available in our Partner Store for $99.99.
	We’re psyched to be partnered with Serif (who, as an aside, might possibly be the most pleasant, easy-going software company on the planet) because we & they share a mission: to provide economical, uncomplicated design programs with which novice users can create incredibly professional content from templates.
	With TemplateZone & Serif products, there’s no need for users to learn HTML — so that means the busy small business professional can devote more time to generating revenue & spreading awareness, & less time screwing around with complicated software that has the same essential function as our much easier, cheaper programs.
	Simply put, WebPlus X4 is an awesome small business productivity tool — & trust me, TemplateZone’s VERY well-versed in this area! It’s in our Partner Store for only $99.99 (MSRP).

Posted in: Building a Small Business, New Products, Partnerships by TemplateZone
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TZ Recommends Ping.fm for Updating Social Media Sites

	HAPPY FRIDAY, folks. It’s been a heck of a week. Hope the weather is as pleasant where you are as it’s been in Cambridge, Mass — isn’t it awesome leaving the office while it’s still light outside? This is just to say that we just started using a really neat social media tool called Ping — it’s FREE, and definitely worth checking out.
Before Ping, I was having a hard time finding a reliable Twitter app for TemplateZone’s Facebook Page. Every app that I’d install would either populate my PERSONAL wall with TZ tweets (not ideal) or was built to post Facebook updates to Twitter, and not the other way around.
Here are a few cool things that I’ve noticed about Ping (so far): There’s a convenient built-in URL shortener (this is one of my favorite TweetDeck features, too). You can create different “Groups” to lump together specific social media sites for simultaneous pinging — I combined Twitter and Facebook and was able to explicitly exclude my personal Facebook account. Handy update dashboard includes message services such as Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, GTalk, Windows Live Messenger and AOL IM — and you can also ping to email and SMS/text message! I can’t take advantage of this, but there’s an iPhone app and it probably works really well, if the super user-friendly and easy-to-navigate website is any indicator.
With Ping, you will spend less time on keeping your social media sites active. So if you’re in the market for something that will coordinate Facebook/Twitter/whatever updates, or even if you’re not, I suggest signing up and poking around the website — www.Ping.fm.

Posted in: Building a Small Business, Reviews by TemplateZone
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Noobpreneur.com Reviews High Impact eMail

TemplateZone would like to thank Ivan Widjaya at Noobpreneur.com for his stellar review of High Impact eMail. Ivan covers a particularly wide range of small business topics on his blog, including small business marketing.

“Other than a Webpreneur, I am also a Web and Graphic Designer. I understand that in order to succeed, small businesses need to brand themselves properly.

One of the most overlooked things in business branding is email communication… newsletters, corporate communications, invitations, announcements, invoices- creating a design/layout template for each purpose is resource-intensive. Outsourcing could be too much for a tight-budget small business, and doing-it-yourself without the help of the right tool can backfire your branding campaign.”

Ivan gets it: you don’t need to let your small business’s branding be handicapped by budget. You can look as professional as the big guys for far less than you think.

Ivan goes on to talk about the user-friendliness of High Impact eMail:

“In my opinion, the best feature of High Impact eMail is the (ultra-)user-friendliness. High Impact eMail features easy and fast, 3-step email communication:

1. Choose a template from over [300] in High Impact eMail 5 Professional and more than [600] in High Impact eMail 5 Platinum

2. Edit your chosen template: the texts, the images, the colors — if you are a regular user of Microsoft Word, editing High Impact eMail templates is a breeze

3. Send the email to your contacts or mailing lists. That’s it!”

Thanks again to Ivan, and check out his blog at Noobpreneur.com.

Read the Noobpreneur’s complete review of High Impact email here, or watch a short video on cheap and user-friendly small business email marketing with High Impact eMail.

Posted in: Building a Small Business, Reviews by TemplateZone
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FirstTeach’s Steve Nachlas on High Impact eMail 5

Once again, we here at TemplateZone have been been lucky enough to get another glowing testimonial for our product, High Impact eMail.

This particular testimonial comes from Steve Nachlas, one of Houston’s top real estate agents and a teacher at FirstTeach:. He definitely knows a thing or two about marketing!

Steve Nachlas

Steve’s Real Estate Site
Steve’s Blog
FirstTeach

I want to commend KMT Software for its High Impact Email product. Not only have I been an HIE user and supporter for about five years, but I also teach productivity technology to real estate agents. One of our popular classes is High Impact Email.

I have found High Impact Email to be one of the best tools for real estate agents to create online listing flyers, Just Listed, Just Sold, newsletters, announcements, calendars and many more.

What agents tell me they like best about this product is that their customers love the HTML format. There are no links to flyers or attachments to open! The flyers are easy and fast to create, and they look extremely professional. Many of my clients love the fact that High Impact Email can create mail merge drip campaigns with Outlook, and it even works with other real estate databases.

When you combine all of these features along with a one-time low price, hundreds of ready-to-use templates and free online image storage (creating very small emails), you have a winning product that can help professionals in ANY industry stand out from the crowd.

We love High Impact Email at our own company, as some of use it to create regular, professional newsletters. Our clients love it as well, and they like the fact that they can try it free for 30 days. Of course, by the end of the free trial, they are usually hooked!

High Impact Email is an innovative and useful product from a great company. Thumbs up, guys. Keep up the great work!

We’re so grateful for such kind words from our customers! And Steve knows all about great testimonials: in the testimonials section for FirstTeach, people have nothing but kind words for Steve and here at TemplateZone, neither do we!

We definitely recommend checking out Steve’s blog, but also have a look at his Real Estate site (there’s a recipe for fajitas!).

Posted in: Building a Small Business, Reviews by TemplateZone
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Why having an employee handbook is important

Just a few thoughts on an interesting article that my boss passed along this morning: Putting a Fair Internet Use Policy in Place by BusinessWeek columnist Karen E. Klein.

With the holidays upon us, many of us might be perusing online stores on company time. Internet shopping is easy, often less expensive and – most importantly – requires one tiny fraction of the time that buying in a store does. Even if you storm in, eyes aimed forward, with exactly what you want in mind, it’s WAY simpler to click around a quiet website and have the product delivered to wherever it should be.

It’s important for business owners — especially small business owners — to keep this in mind, as web-surfing employees are likely risking the security and productivity of your company. By recognizing the need for monitoring internet activity and subsequently implementing a solid fair use internet policy, you can protect yourself against any losses this season incurred by workers using company computers to cross off items on their shopping list.

TemplateZone is well aware that writing thorough business and HR policies (such as those required to define acceptable internet usage) can be a huge pain. It requires research, writing, editing, and approval – and delays in any of these areas could waste more than just your company’s time.

It’s essential to protect your business with a comprehensive employee handbook and e-policy manual so that you can streamline everyday business activity and concentrate on generating revenue.

That’s why we developed our Office Policy Manual software: a collection of polished employee handbooks, e-policies, HR forms and job descriptions guaranteed to cover all of your bases. All documents are fully customizable and authored by industry experts.

In JUST A FEW DAYS, Office Policy Manual 2010will be available for sale on TemplateZone.com for just $99.95 (discounted upgrade price available for users of an earlier version), and we’ll be sure to let you know all about it!

Posted in: Building a Small Business by TemplateZone
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