Email Tips Archives - Design Theory

Why Your HOA Needs Its Own Domain Name

Let’s face it, we all live in a digital world. Some more than others, but still we all are faced with having to learn or navigate this online space for daily needs. Home Owners Associations (HOAs) are not exempt from the necessity of carving out their own space in the digital world. A dedicated domain name, like “myneighborhoodhoa.com,” is more than just an address on the internet; it’s a powerful tool that can enhance communication, streamline operations, and foster a sense of community. Let me explain the many advantages of an HOA registering and using its own domain name.

Enhanced Communication and Community Engagement

Imagine having a centralized platform where community residents can stay up-to-date with neighborhood news, upcoming events, and important updates. An informational website under your HOA’s domain can serve as this hub, ensuring that all residents have access to timely and accurate information. This not only improves transparency within the community but also fosters a stronger sense of belonging among residents. Most HOA’s have neighborhood documents, rules and guideline packets, and even the convenience to pay dues online.

Use Case: Community Event Planning

An HOA plans to organize a summer barbecue and wishes to gauge interest, collect RSVPs, and disseminate event details. How long do you think it would take to canvas a whole neighborhood, house by house, to attain even 75% of the residents feedback? By utilizing their website, they can easily share this information, update it in real-time, and even create an interactive platform for residents to volunteer or ask questions.

Professionalism and Security in Communications

Custom email addresses (e.g., president@myneighborhoodhoa.com) not only add a layer of professionalism but also ensure security and privacy in communications. When board members communicate with service providers, third-party businesses, and residents using their official HOA email, it elevates the association’s credibility and establishes trust. We’ve seen it in some cases where personal email accounts are being used by governing Board Members (Hunk1975@hotmail.com) and you can imagine how off-putting seeing that address in your inbox may be. Or imagine an outgoing Board Member having to comb through a year or two of sent and received emails to forward them to the next Board Member taking their place? Or worse the new Board Member never getting access to any previous dialog that happened and having to start from scratch with no prior discord knowledge.

Use Case: Contract Negotiation

When negotiating contracts with service providers, an email sent from a custom domain (myneighborhoodhoa.com) carries more weight and professionalism than a generic one at Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, or Hotmail. This can lead to better service terms and reinforces the seriousness of the HOA in upholding community standards.

Seamless Transition and Data Sharing

HOAs often face the challenge of transitioning duties and information from outgoing board members to newcomers. A domain with integrated cloud storage solutions can simplify this process, ensuring continuous access to essential documents, contacts, and historical data. This digital continuity is crucial for maintaining the integrity and smooth operation of the HOA.

Additional Benefits

Increased Visibility: A well-designed HOA website improves the community’s visibility online, attracting potential homebuyers and elevating property values.
Online Payment Portals: Simplify dues collection and financial management with integrated payment solutions on your domain.
Feedback Mechanism: Implement forms and surveys on the website to collect resident feedback, making them feel heard and valued.

I hope this short article helps explain the many advantages of an HOA having their own custom domain name. If you have questions about how to get one set up, get custom email accounts, and maybe even setup a website, click here to contact us and we’d be happy to listen to your use case and provide you a solution that will certainly make you feel at ease and be the hero for your neighborhood or organization!

Email Marketing Tips and Strategies for Success

Email Tips, Marketing

These are the slides from a recent presentation on Email Marketing. A video of the presentation will be available later, but in the meantime the slides are available for you to view and download below.

If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur and you’re looking to learn some ways to grow your email list and also learn marketing tips to help reach and grow your audience, this is the presentation for you. Now it’s nothing too technical or hard to follow. It’s mainly concepts and best practices along with some statistics to help you design, engage, and even automate your email marketing efforts. This presentation is high level and so anyone from any industry can take from this and put aspects of it into practice immediately. If you’re looking for a custom solution or strategy for your email marketing efforts, please be sure to contact us so that we can help.

Increase Your Open Rates With Your Email Marketing [VIDEO]

Business Strategy, Email Tips, Uncategorized

This is a quick two minute tip on how to increase your email open rates for your newsletters. When it comes to managing your business, there’s a bunch of outbound marketing efforts that you have to plan for. Email is still a great medium of transmitting information. The key though is to curate valuable content that your readers will come to expect and be able to take action on. The challenge that many businesses face with email though is that, people may be used to getting a lot of emails and not really paying attention to most of them.

You’ve gotta put yourself in the seat of an email subscriber, and imagine what their perspective is on their email inbox. Typically, when getting a bunch of emails from different sources, we tend to identify the senders that we know provide the best emails. Whether it’s because we anticipate some sales or deals, free stuff, exclusive information, data, whatever. And so because of that, we’ll usually skim through all our recent emails and go directly to those that we know and are familiar with to have value. This is how you have to position your email newsletters.

Using the 80/20 Rule, you’ll want to send out great content that is readily useful to your audience 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time is where you can promote your products and services. People know that you’re trying to sell to them, and they’re used to that. The key is to be more of a transparent source of information in a bite size or easy to consume way for your readers that are interested in your industry or products. Take a look at the video below and if you have any questions please feel free to contact us for a Strategy Session.