This is the last part of a three part series looking at using PDF files to get new subscribers to your accounting website newsletter. Part one looked at using PDF files and part two creating the PDF. This last part looks at linking to the PDF file in your Email Marketing System welcome message.

Uploading the PDF. There is a great video tutorial on how to upload the PDF document to your website. You need to do this before you are able to link to it from your accounting website newsletter welcome message.

Linking to the PDF. The key to linking to the file you created is to use the full URL. The help directions are for adding a file link to your website page. The newsletter is different so the link needs to be a full link. For example, the tutorial has the path as being “/images/NameOfFile.pdf” and you need to change that to “http://www.yourwebsite.com/images/NameOfFile.pdf”

Changing the Welcome Message. All that remains is to view the help section on changing your newsletter welcome message. You are going to add the link to the PDF file within the message. You also want to add some text that talks a bit about what is included within the PDF. For example, “Thanks for subscribing to our newsletter! Here is the link to the free PDF packed with information on such and such and such and such.”

Future PDF Content. Over time the information you gathered for your free PDF may need to be updated. There are always more articles to pick from making the overall process easy to duplicate. Just keep an eye out on the article websites.

That is the end of this newsletter series. If you have any questions about any part of the series please email support@cpasitesolutions.com or call 800-896-4500.

Do you have other sources of free online content? Share in comments below.

You know about using newsletters to help bring potential clients to your accounting website and, ultimately to your firm. You know that having PDF files is a great way to entice people to subscribe to your accounting website newsletter. If you have read the first part of this series then you have ways to get free online content for those PDF files. Once you have the content, here is how to create the PDF files.

PDF Software. In order to easily create PDF files you are going to need some software. Before you reach for your credit card, here is a free online resource that creates PDF documents without the cost.

The software is called doPDF. Once you install it then set it as your default printer. You then are able to print, from any software you have, as a PDF file. There are other software options to search for on Cnet website.

Creating the PDF. Remember the article found on Ezinearticles about questions to ask before hiring a CPA? That is going to be the example here. Copy and paste that in to Microsoft Word or some other text editor.

Adding Your Own Spin. Once you have the article in Word then it is time to add your own spin. Remember this part is important to making any potential client call your accounting firm after they are done reading. It is also important to making this content unique to your accounting website.

What to Add. You don’t have to add much, a paragraph or two at most. Make sure that what you have to add is to the point. Consider content the author hasn’t written about. Expand with more direct and personal examples from one of the points the author has introduced.

This is a springboard for leveraging the free content. Your wanting potential readers to understand the ideas presented. You then want them to see your accounting firm as the local expert to use.

End Result. The end result should be content that you have gathered together to use for your PDF files. These files are then offered to potential clients after they sign up for your newsletter on your accounting website. The final post in this series, coming soon, looks at how to change your Email Marketing System welcome letter to link to your PDF.

Do you already use PDF files to increase subscribers the newsletter on your CPA website? How has it worked out for you? Comment with the form below.

Although the Internet is an ever changing medium, having a newsletter is still key to running your CPA firm. In the series looking at creating custom campaigns for your Email Marketing System, PDF documents were used to attract subscribers.

This is another series looking at what to use for the PDF, creating the PDF, and uploading and linking to your PDF within the Welcome letter. Here is part one with what content to use for your PDF files to get newsletter subscribers.

Content Made Easy. A number of CPAs and other tax professionals really don’t want or have time to write their own content. So how do you create content for your PDF to attract subscribers? You use content freely available online.

There are many sources of good quality and informative articles available online for free. Although it won’t directly be your content, you are compiling the information for your subscribers so that they benefit. As long as you don’t change what is in the article, you are free to use it.

Where To Go. There are a number of websites with free articles for your CPA newsletter. In order to get you started here are a couple of great sources:

Articlecity—Best way to find something is through a keyword search. Example, searching for taxes brought up an interesting article on taxes when selling a home. The only drawback is that each time you do a search you have to prove your human by typing in barely readable text.

Ezinearticles—Again the best way to find an article is a keyword search but you won’t have to prove your human as with Article City. Taxes keyword search brought up an interesting article on questions to ask before hiring a CPA.

There are many more sources to choose from online. Just make sure that you read the terms of use and follow it before using it for your CPA newsletter.

Make It Your Own. You don’t need to violate the terms of use to make these articles unique to your firm. All you need is some personal commentary upon the articles you use. You then leverage the article ideas and give them your CPA firm’s perspective. The potential clients who read these then come to you for follow-up not the person who wrote the article.

Once you have your articles the next step is to prepare it as a PDF file for your CPA newsletter. This isn’t hard. There are tools online to use if you don’t have any desktop software for the job. This is the subject of the next post of this series.

Do you already use PDF files to gain subscribers? How has it worked out for you? Comment below.

Your have set up your Email Marketing System with your CPA website. You have created custom campaigns specific to your CPA firm. Now you just need some subscribers.

In part three of this three-part series, we’ll take a look at how to get subscribers, what they want, and what you have to offer.

Subscribers. There is an art to getting people to give you their email address. You can read about many different methods on the Internet. Here are just a couple that have stood the test of time. Remember, anyone who subscribes to the newsletter on your CPA website is a potential client.

What Your Subscribers Want. Most people want something in return for their time. When you promise to give them what they want, they subscribe easily. You know they have come to your CPA website for tax-related information. You are going to give them that information just not directly.

A potential client wants a reason to trust you. You can gain that trust by giving them valuable, free information they might not get elsewhere.

What You Offer. You offer a trade: in exchange for their subscription, they get a free PDF download with helpful information. This one method has worked over time despite the people who may unsubscribe after getting the download.

The PDF you create doesn’t have to be long. It should just contain a couple of elements. When you craft the PDF, try to hint at what else they could get if they consult with you.

Additional Offer. In addition to the PDF, mention that there are discounts that come only via the newsletter. Subscribers that are somewhat interested get another reason to stay for more.

More helpful tips about the Email Marketing System are coming. We’ll explore how to craft that PDF you want to give away, how to keep alive the relationship with your subscribers, and more.

Have some questions about what you read in the series? Send a comment below or email support@cpasitesolutions.com.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Your CPA website has an Email Marketing System. This tool creates an ongoing relationship with current and potential clients. There are a number of different steps to ensure that you get the most out of the Email Marketing System that comes with your CPA website.

This is part one of a three-part series that looks at implementing those steps for your CPA website. By the time you are done with the series, you should have a solid grasp of the Email tools and what you should automatically set up, as well as some suggestions on getting new subscribers.

Newsletter Schedule. Every month, a professionally written newsletter shows up on your CPA website. Your Email Marketing System emails an update to all those who subscribe. In this update is an overview of the current issue with links to the actual newsletter page on your CPA website.

Make the Most of It. Make the most of the system by editing the email that goes out. You don’t have to write much. Try adding an update that is specific to your CPA firm. A bit of personalization will keep your firm in their minds. See the help section for a quick tutorial on how to modify your newsletter email.

Leading to Subscribe. Your CPA website homepage leads people to subscribe with this text: “You also get the latest breaking tax saving strategies in our monthly newsletter.” Stronger wording about specific benefits helps you get new subscribers. You do this by modifying the text on your homepage.

For example, you might write, “Need more information on child tax deductions? Want some easy QuickBooks tips, or tips on how to prevent Identity Theft? Subscribe to our newsletter for these details and more.” By leading with specific answers to be found within the newsletter, you peak a potential clients interest.

Look for part 3 of the series that delves more into helping you get subscribers.

Taking some time to learn about your Email Marketing System pays off when you get new subscribers. Gain those new subscribers’ trust and watch it pay off when they become a regular client.

Stay tuned for the rest of the series. Can’t wait? Check out the Email Marketing System help section.

Have you worked with other Email Marketing Systems? Are there features you wish this one had? Share in the comments below.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

I woke up on Saturday morning ready to update your newsletter to the June edition only to find that the server that holds this month’s newsletter was inaccessible.

We understand the importance of your newsletter, so saying I was concerned would be a bit of an understatement. The newsletter is a cornerstone of our websites for accountants .

While checking why this server was down I found that the datacenter where the server is located had a major disaster.

One of their high power transformers exploded and blew out three of the walls in their electrical room. So many wires were damaged that the backup generators wouldn’t work either.

The bad news is they don’t have power. And datacenters use a lot of power for the servers and the A/C cooling systems.

The good news is that none of the servers were damaged.

The Datacenter owned by ThePlanet and located in Houston Texas has been working around the clock to repair the datacenter bring the over 9,000 servers back online.

Last night they were able to bring up the 6,000 servers located on the second floor of their facility. I spent all day and night yesterday calling, IMing and posting tickets trying to find out if our server was one of the lucky ones located on the second floor.

Murphy’s Law prevails… and it turns out that our server is one of the unlucky ones located on the first floor where the damage is the worst.

ThePlanet tells us that they’ll have temporary power to the servers on the first floor tonight.

What’s Affected?

We don’t keep all our eggs in one basket. We utilize 4 separate datacenters to securely host our 10 servers. That way if one server goes down you still have some functionality.

Each server has its own function. Some handle your website, some handle email, some handle Secure File Exchange, while others handle DNS and other important services.

This strategy worked very well in this disaster. Many of the other companies who have servers in the Houston datacenter have full outages… Meaning their customers are totally without their website and email.

The only server that is affected by this disaster is the Email Marketing System server. That server holds your list of subscribers and the online newsletters.

Your data is safe… just not accessible until tomorrow morning.

What This Means

This means that your June newsletter won’t be updated on your site until Tuesday June 3rd. It also means that you can’t change your emailed newsletter subscription list today.

What We’ve Learned

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from this is that no matter how well a datacenter is built… no matter how many redundancies they have in place… disasters still happen.

I’m calling in a server disaster recovery expert to review our current plans and make recommendations on what we can do to prevent or at least minimize the downtime if this happens in one of our other datacenters.

When it comes to making changes to servers, I’ve found that it’s wise to thoroughly evaluate the implications of the changes. Then thoroughly test the new plan before making it live.

That means it takes time. Over the next few months I will keep you informed on our new and improved disaster recovery plans.

Update – Monday June 2nd at 5:00 PM EST

Ok, I have a bunch of good news…

First, I found a backup of the June 2008 Newsletter, so I installed it on your website. The cross server backup was there all along. I had simply forgotten about it. My brain doesn’t work too well on 2 hours of sleep.

Second, ThePlanet just got their servers back online, so the Email Marketing System is up and running again. ThePlanet did an outstanding job recovering from this disaster. I am happy that this recovery went so smoothly.

The fact of the matter is… “Disasters Happen”. That’s why we have contingency plans. It’s just gives me a happy warm fuzzy feeling when our disaster recovery plans work.

Update – Tuesday June 3rd at 1:00 PM EST

ThePlanet’s Woes Continue…

When it rains… it pours! The temporary fix ThePlanet put into place yesterday failed today. They installed a gigawatt generator to power the A/C and servers for the 3,000 servers located on the first floor of the datacenter.

This huge generator broke down today. So the datacenter is out of power again. That means the Email Marketing System is offline now.

It seems to me that we need to move our server out of this ailing datacenter, so we’ve put that in motion. We’ve hired someone physically pickup our server and drive it to another datacenter just 3 miles away.

The Email Marketing System will be back online once the server is hooked up and the necessary programming changes are made. We are working on the programming now so that won’t hold us up once the server is ready.

The ETA on the Email Marketing System being back online is sometime tonight. I wish I could be more specific but there are too many variables at play. Please come back to this blog post as I will keep it updated on our progress.

Update – Wednesday June 4th at 9:00 AM EST

Our server has been moved to the new datacenter and it’s in queue to get connected and powered up. Unfortunately there are 500 servers that joined us in the move. The datacenter can not tell us where we are in the list, but they are working as hard as they can to get our server online. We expect it will be up sometime today.

The good news is once the server is connected we will not have any more datacenter problems. If we kept the server in the wounded datacenter who knows what other issues would arise.

Update – Thursday June 5th at 5:00 PM EST

ThePlanet datacenter is having more problems. They promised to move our server to a new datacenter on Tuesday. We called them Tuesday night and asked when our server would be up and they said tomorrow morning.

When we called on Wednesday morning they said they weren’t sure but it was likely that our server was sitting in the new datacenter. They also said that they have a lot of servers to install and we would have to wait.

This morning when we called we got a totally different answer. They said that they haven’t moved our server because they have the power on now and they are in the process of booting it up.

This really pissed me off because we spend hours modifying our programs to adjust for the server being located on another IP.

So we waited for our server to come up. But it never did. We called them every hour today asking them when the server would be up. And each time they told us it should be soon.

My frustration level is at its max. And I’m not the only one. There are thousands of other business that have been severely affected by this outage. I’m sure the people at ThePlanet are doing the best they can, but I wish they would just tell us the truth.

I hope this is all fixed in the morning…

Update – Thursday June 13th at 7:00 PM EST

Well the Email Marketing System is up and running again, and the June Newsletter was only a day late. It seems to have gone off pretty much without a hitch.

I am terribly sorry for the complications with this months send