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General FAQ Who are you guys? Where did you come from? Connected Sound was founded by a team in the Los Angeles area that is passionate about Barbershop music in general and Sweet Adelines in particular. There is clearly a great need in this community for affordable websites and related marketing materials. Harnessing some great technology, we have put together a comprehensive system that is fabulously easy, and super-affordable. With low setup fees, free domain, and low monthly hosting, how do you guys make money? Truthfully, our main goal is to see Barbershop as an art-form thrive, and in this digital age there is no better place to "get yourself out there" than online. If we can make enough to expand and be of continuing service to this great community, we will consider it an enormous success. Which costs are recurring, and which costs are one-time setup fees? All costs for our features and services are one-time setup fees, with the exception of monthly hosting ($19.99 per month) and E-Newsletter ($5 per month). Is there a yearly contract involved? Hosting is paid monthly, so you are not locked into a year-long contract. Please see our Terms and Conditions for more information. Is there a version of Connected Sound for the guys? We currently are offering a "beta" program for BHS chapters and quartets. Please contact us for details. If we don't order a business card or a newsletter or any other feature at the time of purchase, can we order later? Yes, every feature that we offer can be purchased at any time. However, because it is much easier for us to install those features at startup time, we offer steep discounts if you order those features with your website. What exactly does your "Search Engine Booster" service for $19 do? We compile an index of your pages, called a Site Map, and submit it to all of the major search engines. We will also post a guide in your management area for you to use as a reference on how to continue to promote your site and improve your search rankings. Having excellent search placement is an ongoing process, but it yields great benefits. We recommend this service highly. Are there employment opportunities at Connected Sound? If you feel you may have something to offer, please feel free to contact us and tell us what your skills are. As we expand, we may be calling on you! Frequently Asked Questions about Websites Designs Can we request changes to the color scheme? Yes. A comment box is provided at the last step of the selection process, where you may request color changes to background, foreground, and text colors. Can we request changes to the structure? We cannot make structural changes to the design, including the positioning of the header and sidebar, as it would require changes to the code that renders the layout in web browsers. All of our designs are coded in advance to streamline the installation process. However, within the structure of the site -- such as the contents of the header, and color scheme throughout -- we are open to your creative input! We have a logo for our website. Can that be worked into our design? Yes. Choose your design first, and then send us a high-resolution copy of your logo, ideally in .psd format on a transparent background. If at some point we want to change the picture that appears in our header, can we do that? Yes. We offer a "Swap our Header Picture" service wherein you may request changes to your header - such as replacing a photo, changing your name, changing your slogan, etc. The first swap is FREE, while subsequent swaps cost $10. If at some later point we decide we want to change our web design, can we do that? Yes you can. Starting sometime in early 2010 we will offer, for a small fee, the ability to swap designs and leave untouched all the content that you have developed on your site. If, for example, your chorus significantly changes colors at some point in the future, you will be able to change the color scheme of your website to reflect your new colors. We have our own design that we like. Can we give you that design and still use your system? All of our designs are tightly integrated into our editing system. This is what makes our system so easy and so affordable, and it also means that we can only offer our own designs. However, as you look through the Design Gallery, you will find that all designs offered by Connected Sound are of the highest quality, and will give you a completely professional and unique look. Will you be adding more designs? Yes we expand our design gallery continously. Editing and Managing Content 
How much space do we get? We have a flexible limit of about 1 GB of storage space per website. To conserve space on your site, we recommend that you upload most video files to a video storage website like YouTube. You can still embed the video in your web pages, while the file is saved elsewhere. How do we get our initial content onto our site? We will get you started with a ready-made menu and set of relevant pages populated with sample text and pictures, which you can rewrite to suit your needs. Your site will have an Under Construction message on the home page until you are ready to officially launch your site. This gives you a chance to shape the content of each page to your satisfaction without the public seeing your unfinished work. Can we add and remove pages? Absolutely. We give you a Page Management tool that makes adding, deleting, moving, publishing, and unpublishing of pages all point-and-click easy. You have complete control over which pages are visible or hidden from public view, you can add as many pages as you wish, and you can rearrange the order of links in your menu all from your Page Manager. Editing content on a website sounds difficult and scary. Can we get assistance? First of all, editing the content on your website is as easy as editing the content of any word processing document. If you can type, and click save, then you can edit your site! But just to be sure, when you login to your website, you will find a wealth of a easy tutorials, video tutorials, and other material that will help you with most issues. Of course, if you have any difficulties that you are unable to sort out after consulting the help material, you can absolutely e-mail us, and we will respond to your issue usually same day. Frequently Asked Questions about Business Cards Can we get reprints of our business cards and when our first batch runs out? Absolutely. We keep your business card design on file as long as you remain with us, and at any time can send you another batch at a discounted price. See our pricing page for details. Can we get different business cards for multiple members of our group? At this time we only offer one card design per group. We find that this is more than adequate, as groups generally tend to want to have a single point of contact anyway. If we hear from the community that multiple business cards per group would be helpful, we may at some point offer that service. Can I use your designs and print them myself? We have a very streamlined and integrated system that enables us to give you a very affordable business card that also looks great. We do not at this time offer access to the raw design files. Do you use a good printer? While developing the service we sent the same business card to a number of the top online printers available. We found one print shop, which turned out to be very local to us, who beat everybody on turnaround time and quality of final product. They're not just good, they are excellent. What if we're not happy with the print? Before your card is sent to the printer we will get a proof to you for final approval of the text. In the extremely unlikely event that upon receipt there is anything amiss with your cards, we will of course rush a replacement set to you free of charge. Frequently Asked Questions about E-Newsletter  How does your newsletter service compare to the big guys, like Constant Contact and MyEmma?
In other words, there is no comparison. Most newsletter services such as Constant Contact and MyEmma charge $30 per month. How can you charge only $5 per month? Constant Contact and other services like it have a nice profit margin. And because you are already a monthly web hosting client, we can fold some of the costs associated with bandwidth usage for newsletters into the web host fee, passing on to you a great overall discount. If we already have a mailing list, can we import that into our Connected Sound newsletter system? Absolutely. And to help you along, if you purchase the newsletter system with your website, you can send us a spreadsheet of your email addresses, and we will import it for you. There is also an "import addresses" function within your newletter management system so you can import lists yourself at any time. Can we have a Members newsletter as well as a Public newsletter? Yes. You have the ability to create more than one mailing list and send newsletters to any one of them exclusively. So, you can have a Public mailing list for supporters and a Members Only mailing list for chorus members. You choose which mailing list the newsletter goes to before pressing the SEND button. We will also put two sign-up forms on your site, one on the Public side of the site that automatically adds subscribers to your Public list, and the other in the Members Only section so members can sign up to your private newsletter. Can we manage subscribers, view bounced mail, and start new mailing lists easily with your system? Yes. All of your newsletter management takes place within your site, as opposed to an email application on your computer. Adding, deleting, and moving addresses from one list to another is easy. To manage your “subscribers” and work on newsletters, you (or your webmaster... or whoever writes the newsletters) would log into the admin area of your website and enter the Newsletter management screen. That’s where all the action takes place. We have an excellent video demonstrating how the newsletter feature works: Click here to see the video. Frequently Asked Questions about CafePress Store What is CafePress? CafePress.com is an online marketplace that offers sellers complete e-commerce services to independently create and sell a wide variety of products. When you order a CafePress store, Connected Sound sets up your account, creates the artwork to be printed on your merchandise, and builds the interactive catalog into the Store page of your website. Actual transactions, printing, and shipping are handled by CafePress. Learn more at www.cafepress.com. When you say that we can sell CafePress products "from a page on our site," how does that work exactly? Our storefront programming finds your catalog at CafePress.com and channels the items into the Store page on your website. Users can browse your products without ever leaving your site. Only when they are ready to purchase, will they be taken to CafePress.com to finish the transaction. How does pricing of products work? CafePress has set base prices for all their products. You can set the price of any given product to any amount greater than that base price. So for example, if there is a T-shirt that has a base price of $11, and you set the price to be $25, you will make $14 on every sale of that product. How do we get our money? Periodically CafePress will send you a check with the proceeds from the sales of products. Because they offer a full 30-day money back guarantee for their customers, you will typically receive a payment for an item about 45 days after it was sold. Are you saying that without doing anything, we could be raising money for our group? Well, you do need to attract visitors to your website, and encourage your family, friends, and fans to buy products. But yes, this has the potential to be a phenomenal fundraiser for your quartet or chorus. If we already have a CafePress store, may we use that? Absolutely. When you sign up for the service, we will give you an option to send us your store URL. The setup cost remains the same, as we still need to integrate your catalog into your site. If you set up our store, will we have access to it? Not only will you have access to it, but you will own it, and be able to log in to CafePress.com and manage it in any way you wish. Do we manage our products from our Connected Sound website? All management of your store takes place at CafePress.com. Your actual store web address will be www.cafepress.com/YourStoreName. To manage your products, you will go that address, login (we will send you your username and password), and use their management tools to get your products just right. Can we upload our own images to add to the ones you've created? Yes. CafePress offers a reasonably easy interface to upload as many images as you would like and place them on any product you wish. Do you have any tutorials on how to manage products in our CafePress store? Yes we do. When you order the Connected Sound store package, we will provide our own online resources and tips to help you understand how to manage your store. Will product changes that we make on our store be reflected automatically on our website? Yes, any product additions are subtractions, new images that you may upload, or any price or description changes, will be automatically reflected on the CafePress page on your site. Contact Information Mailing Address Connected Sound Phone Numbers Technical Support 1-818-501-5333 Legal Notice
Connected Sound is a service of Earthrise Multimedia. |
