Hi, my name is Lisa Tullai and my company is Annapolis Interiors. As a volunteer on the Annapolis Design District (ADD) Board of Directors, I’ve been compiling content for the ADD monthly e-Newsletter for the past two years to share important communication with our Members and non-Members. Our e-Newsletter is distributed to over 480 recipients. Obtaining written content hasn’t been an easy task, as we’re all so busy, but a very important endeavor for a variety of reasons that I’ll share further down (read on!).
In the past, we featured a Business Spotlight in each issue that was posted in the e-Newsletter blast and on the ADD’s website Blog. Questions were developed for the featured business to answer serving two purposes – the questions extracted information about the company compelling interest in potential customers or clients and the Blog article content was written to contain search words making the ADD website more optimized. The search words would include the spotlighted company’s name along with such words as “interior design,” “construction,” “renovation,” “kitchen,” etc. For instance, if a potential client performed a Google search similar to “renovation Annapolis best interior designer,” the ADD website would be listed leading them to our website Directory and potentially YOU (well…hopefully me!).
We’ve shared through email blasts and verbal mentions at ADD events that the ADD website was redesigned to better benefit our Members as a resource; to automate the renewal/payment process; and to be a marketing tool to attract potential customers or clients to find us. The Member Directory lists all current Members and contains pertinent visuals and information about our companies IF the information is loaded, which each Member has the ability to do by logging in and loading their information. Please take a moment to review the Member Directory. (Which Member profiles would you migrate towards if you were a potential client or customer?)
Back to the subject of the Member Spotlight articles. Prior to this year, only the Premier Members received the benefit of being Spotlighted as part of their membership for which they paid extra (at the time, the Premier Members paid $400 more than the Design Members). The Design Members shared that they were unhappy that they weren’t offered the benefit of being featured in the newsletters and also didn’t receive additional print or online marketing opportunities. For this reason and a few others that we’ll review at the Member Business Luncheon, the Board identified a need to collapse the membership tiers so all Premier and Design Members were eligible for the same benefits. The new category of Business Member was born.
Fast forward to right now. The reason this lengthy article (thank you to those who are still reading!) is the Editor’s Pick for this issue is because a Business Member didn’t purchase the January Business Member Spotlight. You might be asking, “Purchase a Spotlight?!?” Well, in the same emails mentioned above, we let Business Members know that they could purchase “Add-On Benefits”. So far, only two Members have purchased the Home page carousel and the Spotlight e-Newsletter feature and Blog article.
I hope this article better explains the Business Member Add-On Benefits and you decide to help market your company and the ADD by boosting our on-line presence as THE go-to design and build professionals in the Annapolis area.
And, lastly, if you found this article to be of no interest but managed to read to the end, please feel free to send suggestions or information for future newsletter content. I look forward to hearing from you! Questions regarding renewals, the Member Business Luncheon, purchasing Add-On Benefits, or suggestions for future e-Newsletter content, can be sent to .
Thank you –
Lisa Tullai
Serving as President
Annapolis Design District (ADD)
