We have launched the eCommerce store for iShopFairTrade.com located in the Fremont area of Seattle, WA.  Take a look and enjoy!  We used the Genus online business solution to reduce overall cost and production time as well as to easily integrate email newsletters and wholesale pricing for resellers.

The Genus online business system has initiated a massive improvement over it’s “Sitewalk” feature.  In Sitewalk the user can edit the website without going in to the back end WYSIWYG editor; essentially editing the site from the front end.

Utilizing Abobe’s InContext editing, the process is much more intuitive and robust.  There are no more pop up windows for text fields.  You are actually editing the content directly into the website!  Sitewalk will be phased out in 12 weeks after the current beta trial is completed.  Give it a go on your own by logging in to your site and going to Website–> InContext Edting.

If you don’t have a Genus site you can always try a no obligation free trial and see for yourself here.

We are proud to announce that Humerlis.com is now powered by Genus.  Our Online business solution is powering the website along with user forums and CRM trackable contact pages.  Humerlis Inc offers convenient office space and meeting locations for Issaquah, Sammaamish and I-90 corridor businesses along with consulting and business support services.

I just read a great article at Smashing Magazine that is a must read for anyone thinking about a new website.  We build 95 percent of our websites with a content management system that allows the client to update and edit their content with ease.  The article helps explain the capabilities of content management systems and the basic principles behind  them.

Click Here to read the article!

We have updated http://TryGenus.com to make the information more organized into more intuitive content sliders. We have also added an “Examples” page to help you get a better idea of what a genus site looks like.  The answer turns out to be that it looks like any other site on the web.  The only difference is that it’s powered by one of the most powerful backends on the market today!

We are very excited about the launch of http://bbsdistribution.com !  BBS is a skate company based in San Diego, CA with some really great designs.  This is another successful Genus integration! The site has a full store with credit card processing and UPS integration.  Click Here and take a look.

We are always asked by clients about what applications we recommend to use for email marketing and sending bulk newsletters.  We broke down our three favorites and discussed some of the pros and cons.  Overall, Genus is the most affordable, comprehensive and feature rich application because it is fully integrated with your website.  So here is the Comparison of Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact vs. Genus:

MailChimp [http://mailchimp.com]

Pros:
Subscriber based system allows for unlimited emails to be sent.
Free account: limits 100 subscribers, 6 mail-outs each month, branded with MailChimp badge.
Good for high volume/frequency marketing campaigns.

Cons:
Subscriber based system ultimately limits target specific marketing capabilities.  In reality, you will not be sending marketing campaigns to all of your subscribers each month.  You will be conducting a much more targeted campaign that will utilize only a portion of your total subscribers.
More work to integrate customer database into marketing campaign.  With Genus, you are able to easily segment your customers by creating reports based on products purchased, total purchase amount, etc. Otherwise, you will have to export all of your order information, segment it manually via Excel and then import into MailChimp.
Customers must Opt-In which requires customers to re-subscribe to a newsletter they have already subscribed to.  This is especially important when importing existing databases.

Summary:
MailChimp is a superior marketing service if the client needs more than 10,000 emails each month; however, this service can get quite expensive depending on the number of new subscribers each month.  Unlimited emails is appealing but for smaller companies who do not require high volume marketing campaigns Genus is a much more cost effective service that will cover the majority of their marketing needs: templates, database segmentation, reports, etc.  The integration with existing and new customer database and the ability to segment that information based on specific customer interactions makes Genus a much more viable marketing service.

Constant Contact [http://constantcontact.com]

Pros:
Unlimited emails to a selected number of subscribers.
Online survey functionality for an additional fee.
The same overall features as Genus

Cons:
Not integrated with your website like genus is.
Expensive.
You will have re- import your subscriber list from your website into constant contact and vice versa.

Summary:
Constant Contact is recommended for clients who wish to distribute surveys and receive in depth analytics regarding the results.  The email marketing service offered by Mailchimp is better; if not the same as Constant Contact.  With genus, the email marketing is included in your package as long as you have under 10,000 emails a month.

Genus [http://TryGenus.com]

Pros:
Unlimited Subscribers.
Fully Integrated with your Website.
No opt in required for your primary list upload.
10,000 emails a month FREE.
Setup loyalty campaigns ex. Send birthday messages with coupons etc.
Create email lists based on your eCommerce sales. ex: A list of all people who spent x amount of money or bought x product.

Cons:
Additional fee for over 10,000 emails per month ($0.01/email, charged in 1,000 increments)— This is unlikely for most businesses.

Summary:
Genus is ideal for the business who is looking for a fully integrated solution.  With Genus you wont have to navigate through multiple websites and applications to send newsletters or campaigns.  There are over 200 templates that you can customize with your logo, company name and color scheme.  Once you are setup there is no migrating between different programs.  Everything you need to manage your online business is inside Genus.  Each of the 6 aspects of Genus are able to communicate with each other and read information from the other.  No other email marketing system can create a list based on customer actions such as store sales or specific product purchases without the knowledge of code.

We have created an example store with admin access to show you just how powerful and easy The Genus online business solution is to use!   Go take a look at http://yourstore.trygenus.com From there you can log in as a user and access the admin to discover just how easy it is to manage your online business, ad products, edit your site and keep track of your customers.  What are you waiting for? Go take a look!