From Soup to Nuts: Bella Offers One-Stop Shopping Web Design

When Desiree Scales, CEO of Bella Web Design, first learned about the Internet in 1996, "it was like the Wild West," she says. The youngest member of Delta Airlines corporate communications team, Desiree was sent to school by Delta to learn web design—and she got hooked. Within two years, she had left the airline to start her own business, Bella Web Design, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Bella, with a staff of eight, builds websites for hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses nationwide. They offer logo development, web and blog design, web hosting, copywriting, and search engine optimization, among other services. "We take people through [the process] soup to nuts and answer any questions they may have," she says. Desiree's goal is to help clients grow their businesses through the power of the Internet—which, she says, "all starts with having a good website."

Challenge: Finding Time and Good Design

When Desiree launched Bella 10 years ago, she understood the importance of email marketing as a way of staying in touch with her customers and drawing new business.
Yet finding time for email marketing was a huge challenge for Desiree, a sole proprietor running her own business.

She tried creating an HTML e-newsletter using Outlook, but found it cumbersome to produce and distribute. "I couldn't send to more than 25 addresses at a time and I was really struggling with that," Desiree says. "I started thinking ‘there has got to be a better way.'"

Solution: Finding a Better Way through Email Marketing

That better way turned out to be email marketing with Constant Contact. Its ease of use appealed to Desiree—she could create and send an email campaign to all of her contacts in minutes. She signed up for the service in 2006 and became a Constant Contact customer and business partner at the same time. Today, Bella Web Design uses Constant Contact to send out monthly newsletters and announcements and also helps customers develop their own email marketing programs by offering them a Constant Contact account.

Every time I hit the send button, it saves me 42 cents times the 249 emails on my list. Having an attractive, easy-to-read publication is very important to Desiree, especially in the visual world of web design. "We live in a visual society where aesthetics are everything," she explains.

Desiree's emails don't just look great; they also have great content, including information about the latest technologies, web tips, introductions of Bella's new clients, and industry trends. Desiree recently sent a survey to her newsletter subscribers and was amazed at how much her customers valued her newsletter. "They love the web tips and news about what's going on in the industry," she says. "They trust me to tell them."

Desiree builds on that trust to alert clients to urgent issues as well. She uses Constant Contact to send out virus or phishing scam notices—information that can save her customers time, money, and headaches. "They don't have time to research these issues. With Constant Contact, I can quickly provide them with valuable information," Desiree says.

Results: Strong Customer Relationships and Referrals

Desiree believes her e-newsletter has generated a great deal of interest in Bella Web Design. "We've gotten more calls for web design than we ever have before," she says. And it saves her money: "Every time I hit the send button, it saves me 41 cents times the 249 emails on my list."

She finds the immediacy of email marketing very effective. "If I had to send a letter every time there was a virus or phishing scam, think how many dangerous emails my customers would have opened before they got my letter," she points out.

Desiree's email marketing efforts provide important added value to her customers—value that builds credibility and inspires her customers to tell others about Bella. "My clients hear from me all the time and they forward my emails to their friends and colleagues. We really know our stuff and our customers trust that they don't have to keep up on all the latest trends. Our newsletter does the work for them," she says.