Right now, we're busy working on a targeted e-mail newsletter campaign for Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico. We focus quite a bit on the world of art, previously we managed a fine art gallery in downtown Santa Fe. So we have had great success developing websites for galleries, artists, studios, and other businesses in that local area.

The plan is to create a landing page specifically for the e-mail newsletter campaign recipients, which should help us with analytics and allow us to deliver a very targeted message that regular Circa79 Design website visitors won't accidentally come across.

After the campaign is released, we will share with you all the e-mail newsletter, and you can see for youself the end result.

Quick aside: where has summer gone? It passed by so quickly!

How would you feel if after a hard day's work you threw yourself down on the couch with your television remote in hand, ready for some relaxation and interesting programming, and every single channel was showing the same thing? Not exactly what you were looking for or expecting, right?

This is why we here at Circa79 Design preach the idea of keeping the information in your various Social Media networks (Facebook, Twitter, your blog, etc.) unique and interesting. Many people try to short cut the process by using services and apps that instantly update Twitter with what they say on Facebook, or vice versa. This is an easy way to lose followers and people's interest. Imagine that you are someone out there on the internet looking at your business' social media channels. Do they want to see the exact same thing, said in the exact same words, everywhere they come across your brand or identity? Absolutely not!

Click to read more ...

You may have noticed that the "News" section is gone from the navigation bar at the top of this site, but don't worry! It has simply become the home page. That way all the latest Circa79 Design news is available as easy as can be as soon as you get to the website. We've also added a Twitter sidebar that features the latest posts from our professional Twitter account @circa79design, and also Alex's personal Twitter account, @aignacio. Follow us on Twitter, ask us your website and social media questions, and we'll respond ASAP.

So what becomes of the gap in the navigation bar? Glad you asked! We will be adding an "Articles" section, with in-depth articles about website and social media related topics discussed in a clear and easy to understand fashion. Some of the first articles will talk about the process of getting your own website, to dipping your toes into social media (like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.), to becoming a full fledged internet black belt. We hope that our current clients, as well as potential clients, will find the information useful as a resource for getting their businesses rocking online.

Update on July 18, 2010 at 10:20 AM by Alex Ignacio

After some internal discussions, as well as consulting with current clients, we decided in lieu of an "articles" section, we will create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. We feel that this will help potential clients out more with understanding the process. At that point they can contact us for more in-depth delicious information about how to make their websites incredible!

ETA on the "FAQ" page is a matter of days...we're just sooo busy - in the good kind of way!

We are currently in the gorgeous American Southwest visiting Hope's parents. It has been a wonderful time of fun filled activities, but we've also been networking, meeting and greeting, and rustling up some leads. One of our premier clients, The Essential Guide, recently published their annual catalog and it's the best one yet. Hope and I have been going around Santa Fe and Taos doing our best to introduce ourselves to the Essential Guide's advertising clients and offering them our services for their own website, social media, and online needs.

So far we have picked up three new clients, and have met many, many wonderful people. Santa Fe feels active and vibrant, and the community here feels cautiously optimisitc about the upcoming busy season. We hope that the local economy rebounds and we've been talking to people about how now could be the perfect time to make the investment in a new website or to launch a concerted social media strategy. The extra attention and effort will help through these rough times, and also make sure you are in the perfect position for when the economy does roar back to life.

The early part of this month has been very exciting here at Circa79 Design. We've had two potential clients request proposals for websites and so we've been working hard to put together very clear, concise, and professional packages. The very first proposal was sent out earlier today, reviewed shortly thereafter by the client and instantly accepted. The client said in their reply email:

"It looks incredibly simple, complete and fair."

One of the things we like to do here at Circa79 Design is give credit and cheers to things that help make our jobs easier. And we are definitely fans of a great web application called Proposable. Proposable makes creating professional client proposals incredibly easy and offers features that help with client communications and closing the deal. For example, Proposable will send out an alert by email and/or SMS as soon as the client views the emailed proposal. This will help you follow up with the client or prevent you from contacting them too early if they haven't had the chance to review the proposal.

So far we're batting a thousand for the month, we'll see how the second proposal is received shortly!