Want to get better at email marketing? Learn how to really reach your retail customers, corporate shareholders, stakeholders, and B2B clients with this half day, hands-on session aimed at improving (or launching!) your email marketing and newsletter strategy.

In an intensive afternoon “How To” workshop session, we’ll cover:

• Why you should love your newsletter
• How to build a list of happy and engaged recipients
• The art of crafting content that pops
• Clever campaign checklists and best practices
• Gauging success with statistics and metrics
• Spam reduction and popular 3rd party tools
• Legal compliance and the law

We’ll also work hands-on with participant newsletters, focusing on what drives openings, generates clicks and delivers successful email campaigns. At the end of the day, you should have a very practical strategy for planning, building and delivering effective email content and campaigns for your audience.

CORK: Wed, 12 September, 1 – 5 PM at the Lancaster Lodge, Western Road
DUBLIN: Fri, 14 September, 1 – 5 PM at the Temple Bar Hotel, Fleet Street

Register

Note: You can pay for this class by credit card without a PayPal account. Simply complete the payment form on the next page; no signup is required.

Photo Credit: Tom Page

Clickcase is one of many sites that have gone live in the last year that I have not had time to blog or add to my portfolio, but it’s one of my two favourites so I thought I’d portfolio it up. Plus, they are selling awesome accessories for iPads and iPhones right here in Ireland, and you may want to bundle some under your yule tree!

I’ll be honest and say that this project was hard going. The client brief was pretty liquid, and we started from scratch in terms of name, logo and design. That can end in one of two ways: creative bliss or Shakespearean tragedy. Luckily, after 15 years of doing this, I have a pretty high batting average and get it right first go more than 98% of the time. But the first design we did for the site just didn’t come together in a way you could really hang a brand on, so Katherine and I threw it out and started over. And by “threw it out” I mean threw out the whole thing – logo, design and build. The whole thing.

Happily, it’s a bit like childbirth in that it can feel like it will never end when you’re going through it, but then it’s all over, you’re mightily pleased with the results, and it all seems worth it. Both Katherine and I and the client love the site, which features all the usual ecommerce suspects plus agile product tagging, snazzy product images, inline product question forms and lots of really nice features all over. WordPress is silently integrated to provide more robust content management for non-product pages than our cart offers out of the box. There’s also a swanky Facebook page to go with.

In an interesting sidenote, after choosing and registering the clickcase.ie domain, we were able to score the already-owned clickcase.com domain for an unprecedented $60. I have picked up aftermarket domains for clients from $250 – $750 (I won’t spend more) but getting your .com for $60 has to be the bargain of the century.

Finally, after 30 years of rejecting Apple products, I have been seduced by the kitchen potential of the Speck Handyshell and would dearly like one for Christmas. And an iPad to go with it…

(PS: Yes, yes they do have Dodo Cases. You Apple people are so pervy.)

Last month, I travelled up to Dublin to present a talk called “If You Build It, They Won’t Come” at the Dot Conf. Except in the days before the conference, I became obsessed with a meme I first encountered on MetaFilter. So, in a last minute change to the lineup, I spent 25 minutes at an industry conference for web and marketing professionals talking about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Presentation starts at 2:22 because I didn’t edit this video — here’s a direct link:

This presentation is subtitled “The evolving relationship between brands and consumers” and whips through candy bars, Harry Potter, and Jedis before diving into the unexpected online fan base the new My Little Pony franchise found on 4Chan.

As per usual, while I am always happy to share my slides, they’re pretty much useless as I don’t read off them and they contain virtually no text to provide stand-alone narrative. But all of the links for all of the sources and stories for these slides are listed in the first comment there, so feel free to peruse at your leisure.

This presentation went over really well with the 300-strong audience, who were great – responsive and fun – and who made #pony trend on Twitter in Ireland. (Which pretty much made my day, so thanks for that!) Many thanks to Emma Henderson and NCI, who hosted this event in excellent style and were happy to roll with it when I changed what I wanted to speak about at the very last minute.

Although I am neither an 8 year old girl nor a 22 year old straight white male, I am a genuine My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan. All 26 episodes are available as full-length uploads on YouTube, and I’ve watched them all. If you just want to dive in, I would suggest Ep 16, Sonic Rainboom.

Due to time constraints, the Dot Conf audience was spared from the planned sing-a-long, but you should feel free to rock out at home to the Equestria Girls video that premiered on Equestria Daily:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And as a special bonus round for all you secret MLP FIM fans: Equestria Girls Over-Extended 1 Hour Loop!

Update: This post was linked by Equestria Daily, generating a ton of traffic and a ton of comments over there. Thanks to the MLP community for being gracious and kind about this presentation and my errors.

The IBA Belfast Photowalk organised by Davy McDonald kicks off at noon and is a great way to tour Belfast while meeting new people and taking your camera for a spin. Don’t be inimidated – you can shoot using anything from your in-pocket iPhone to your huge DSLR!
Saturday, 19 March, 11:45 am – Belfast City Hall
Info | Signup

Walter Higgens is organising a pre-event meal called Blog Awards Bites with an open table booked for 12 at paul Rankin’s Cayenne. Meal price is £18.50 and you can sign up online; everyone’s welcome!
Saturday, 19 March, 5 pm – Cayenne Restaurant
Info | Signup

The ever-fabulous Ladies Tea Party (where by “tea” we mean “wine, and lots of it”) is all set to go and includes food, drink, dessert and swanky swag bags at £20 per head. Its open to all bloggers, wanna be bloggers and dedicated blog readers and draws a friendly, welcoming crowd!
Saturday, 19 March, 5 pm – Harlem Cafe
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What: The BAGglitz Ladies Tea Party
When: Saturday, 19 March 2011, 5 – 8 PM
Where: The Harlem Cafe, 34 Bedford Street, BT2 7FF
Where: The Piano Bar, Europa Hotel, Belfast
Who: You! A pre-Blog-Awards mixer for Ireland’s women bloggers
Tickets: Now available; limited to 40.

This event is now in its fourth year so I figured it was time to give it a dedicated website. I also figured that the ability to brand an event site for a sponsor would make it easier to attract one, and that it was going to be harder for me to do that this year since I’m not well-networked with any businesses in the north.

In the end, it turned out that I had the perfect client for this party: the recently launched BAGglitz.com is an Irish online retailer of handbag hangers, purse clips and charms with free international shipping so you can send swanky, snazzy, glitzy gifts to your girlfriends anywhere. It’s a great match and now I’m really looking forward to the gift bags! Many thanks to BAGglitz for sponsoring – sponsors make this event happen every year for a fabulous collection of women bloggers.

The Irish Blog Awards are my favourite event on the Irish Internet social calendar, partly because they’re huge fun and partly because the Ladies Tea Party beforehand is always such a friendly, fun warm-up for them. (One bottle of wine per person does tend to do that…) I’m really excited and looking forward to catching up with everyone from last year and meeting loads of new people this year. TEA PARTY YAY!

Note: In previous years, organisation, ticketing and question-answering for this event has taken place here on my blog. This year, please post comments, woots, yays and oh my God what do I wear? over at the Ladies’ Tea Party website. Thank you!

The complete and dramatic overhaul of the site for BCO.ie was, more than anything, a labor of love for Katherine Nolan and me. Last year was professionally rewarding but sometimes those project with a great outcome are actually soul-crushing to complete; the client turns out to secretly be useless, or you drown in spec bloat, or you spend a week battling for things like, you know, navigation.

The site for Blackrock Castle Observatory was the antidote to all of that. Their existing website, frankly, sucked. And when I went out to visit them, I was blown out of the water by what an amazing national treasure this place is, the phenomenal exhibits and activities, and the absolute heap of incredibly cool activities and events they stage each month. It was love at first site, and the feeling was mutual.

I have spent the last three months it took to build this site telling everyone I know “Go to Blackrock Castle!” And now they have a website that I sincerely hope will make you, too want to to go to BCO. It is built entirely on WordPress (on a customised theme – suck it, haters…) and features the world’s most brilliant custom events plugin by Katherine Nolan.

This client, by the way, was a dream. They accepted the design with no iterations, put content where I told them it should go, took No for an answer without issue, bought me multiple lunches, are entirely delighted and have already paid their bill. Also, their newsletter is gorgeous – you should go sign up to get the first issue and you might win space ice cream!

I had no idea what a handbag hanger was when Mark Renwick called me about doing a site for his range of handbag hangers and charms, but as soon as a package of chic, sparkly, girly goodness arrived at my door, all became clear. Slightly more complicated than understanding what would go on the site was naming it; we went through what felt like 97 brands (and I even appealed to Twitter for help!) before landing on BAGglitz.com.

Anyway, it launched last week in it’s all its swanky glory, and is a very nice shopping spot when you’re looking for gifts for your girlfriends. They offer completely free shipping anywhere in the world, which makes it a great one to stick in your bookmarks for those last minute gifts sent straight to the recipient.

This site features ecommece with Realex integration and complete product, order and inventory management. Design, branding and logo by me; life-saving support provided by Katherine Nolan.

When indulging nostalgia for the old fashioned Christmas of velvet-clad children, candle-decked trees and sumptuous festive feasts, it is very easy from a 21st Century perspective to forget that all of this was produced without modern amenities like oh, say, running water. Spare a thought for the labours of scullery maids, cooks and mammies of old – and the snow-bound Ireland of today.

Here at home in 2010, we’re on Day 4 of pipes frozen solid and no running water. My husband equates these conditions to living in a Gulag, but I prefer to stand over the kitchen sink with a kettle and bucket and ponder the household efforts of my fore mothers. Obviously, households were managed with far fewer conveniences for hundreds of years, so it certainly is possible once you get a system going.

For two people, we go through about 15 litres of conservatively hoarded and recycled water a day, meaning a schedule that looks like this:

• Decant water into kettle, boil
• Stack dishes, pots, pans in washing-up bowl. (Note: If you do not actually own a washing-up bowl, you can substitute that very nice large salad bowl you received as a wedding gift.)
• Soak dishes in bowl of boiling water with small amount of dishwashing soap
• Scrub dishes in still-hot water and whine about boiling water being quite hot
• Remove sudsy dishes, decant salad bowl water into waiting bucket, and learn exactly why these pourings are called greywater
• Refill kettle, boil, cool
• Rinse dishes by holding them over bowl and pouring kettle water over each
• Decant collected water into bucket
• Use bucket of greywater to flush loo

This system (and this amount of water), while sufficient to wash dishes, flush toilets, cook dinner and generally keep us in tea and coffees, doesn’t take into account the fact that all of the water we use has to be carried in here from somewhere. Since all of our neighbours are also in the same boat, this is generally from the few local businesses that still have flowing pipes. It also doesn’t account for luxuries like laundry or, you know, bathing.

This year for Christmas my parents got us a room at the nearby Lancaster Lodge, where on Tuesday night we took the longest, hottest, most luxurious and expensive showers in the history of running water. Yesterday I worked out a deal with the local gym for a day-pass rate, which was great except for the fact they’re now closed until the 26th. Which is, as it happens, the very earliest we are expecting a thaw and maybe, maybe the return of running water.

Most problematic really is cooking and particularly baking. Traditionally we make our Christmas gifts, with homemade cookies, candies, and chocolate all swishily packaged up and delivered on Christmas Day. This year, I don’t have the water for filling double boilers, washing up food processors and mix masters, or melting off delicious chocolate, so Christmas presents are just going to have to wait for the occasion of New Year’s Day.

When I have eight people coming for dinner. And hopefully, a flushing toilet.

Dear Santa:

I have been a very good girl this year. Please cancel previous request for pony. All I want for Christmas this year is a thaw.

Love,
Sabrina

If you take a basic skill like learning to knit, traditionally you were taught across generations by your close family circle. The world doesn’t so much work that way any more, and there are tons of things I want to know how to do you may be able to teach me, from container gardening to makeup application to driving. I like the ability to list and market lessons to make money, but mostly I like the idea of learning from my neighbours and meeting new people this way.

Site is a mashup of off-the-shelf directory software plus WordPress and BuddyPress. Soft launched a few weeks ago, it was long-listed for the Irish Web Awards in Best New Web App and was already covered in the Irish Times!

YAY! BarCamp Cork is back, and it looks like Webworks will be hosting a lineup with some great speakers starting at 10 am. I had a blast at last year’s camp, and am very excited for a Saturday spent meeting great people at a fun and informal (un)conference, even if it means I have to be somewhere at the inhuman hour of 10am. (I hope to God Cafe Gusto is bringing the coffee…)

It really is a great event, and dogs, kids, and partners are always welcome.

This year I’ll be doing a Bootcamp Blitz session, which is basically a rapid fire 10 minute Bootcamp of your online business or startup. Everyone who attends the session is a potential victim volunteer, and we’ll try to do 3 sites in a 30-minute session. No idea where it will be in the schedule but if it tickles your fancy, please feel free to come – time will be up on the scheduling board.

And yes, Eimear the Wonderdog will be there :)