In last week’s Pronto Insider, we announced important updates about your blog content. If you haven’t done so already, we want to remind you to update your subscription preferences. This will only take a few moments of your time and ensure that you have the blog content that really works for your unique business.

Questions? Read: How to Update Your Subscription Preferences

The next super important thing you can do to ensure that the content Pronto delivers to your blog each week is right on target, is to join the discussion in the Pronto IT Services & MSP Content & Blog Discussion forums.

Pronto’s Managing Editor, Barb Levisay and I are actively involved with clients in sharing and developing ideas for new blog articles. You can shape the content on your website with your active participation in these forums.

More White Papers in 2012

In the Pronto IT Services & MSP Content & Blog Discussion forums, you’ll see: Forum White Paper & Copy Ideas & Discussion. We have a few open discussions on new white paper topics including Cloud Services, BDR and Business Continuity Planning. We’d love to have your feedback so we can deliver new white papers you can really use.

Don’t wait – update your preferences and join in the fun by visiting these forums. Let’s make 2012 the best year ever for the content on your website.

As our business has grown, our client base has become a more diverse group – across service and product offerings, business models, geography and more. Plus, many of our clients’ businesses have become more complex due to changing technology, the impact of cloud services and the evolution of the marketplace.

To address these changes we’ve built a new blog engine from the ground up, giving us the ability to scale our content generation in order to deliver more targeted content to client blogs. That means you now have the power to tailor your blog feeds to more precisely match your business and your clients.

There are several key benefits to Pronto’s new blog system:

• Better Aligned to Your Clients & Business – Choose from over 40 different topics to create a blog that really reflects your unique business and client base.
• More Focused Content – We can now provide blog content for narrower categories and specific products. If we get a few requests for the same topic, we’ll start writing on that topic. If the interest is limited, perhaps we’d write quarterly or monthly; but there would be some content available. The more subscribers to a topic, the more articles we’ll create.
• Increased Client Differentiation – With so many topic choices available, there will be a natural randomization of content going to client blogs. That means less chance of similar blog and newsletter content from client to client. Additionally, we will continue to write multiple versions of most blog articles to increase the diversity of content.
• Targeted Extension Site Blog Content – We already offer valuable Extension Sites for products and services such as Office 365, Google Apps and Cloud services. We can now provide targeted blog feeds for these sites that align with your Extension Site’s content and audience.

Have ideas for content within topics or want to request new topics?

We have revamped our discussion forms for content.  Please visit and let your voice be heard! We write up most of the requests we get, and our new blog system will further simplify this process for our writers. Because we won’t always have to think about making wide generalities to ensure content fits clients universally, we’ll be able to focus on providing more specific content.

Make blog article suggestions at: IT Services & MSP Content & Blog Discussion

ACTION REQUIRED

Take advantage of our newest service right now! This is very simple and will only take a moment of your time (you can find screen-shots on the bottom of this email).

1. Login to your WordPress Dashboard by typing /wp-login after your domain.

2. Click Dashboard, then click My Subscriptions.

3. Check the boxes of the topics you want to subscribe to.

That’s all there is to it!

If you have any questions just reply to this email; it will open a support ticket and we’ll help you out.

Thanks,

Derek

We’re happy to announce that the Pronto Marketing White Label Service is up and running, it’s working great and we’re taking on more and more non-IT services and MSP clients. Here are a few examples:

• agileDSS Inc.
• Westwood Office Park
• Greycliff Advisors
• PeopleServe Asia Ltd.
• EB Color Consultants
• T&F Drugs, Inc.
• Nut Software

The Pronto White Label program is a way for our IT Services and MSP clients to resell Pronto’s website services to their own clients. We do all the work for you via a helpdesk branded as your company. You get the same Pronto service, but under your name and brand. Pronto bills you, you bill your client.

There are four core elements to the Pronto White Label program:

• Webpage – for example: JTECH Networks Webpage
• Signup forms – you’re welcome to complete the sign-up process on the above website, just be sure to put “Test” so we know that you’re not a real signup
• Help Desk – for example: JTECH Networks Help Desk
• Marketing Support – in addition to the webpage we’ll provide you with a home page banner and email marketing at no extra charge. Once your website and help desk are live, Kelsey (our Partner Marketing Manager) will contact you.

Next Steps

• Partner: Review the client sign-up and billing process and the Pronto White Label Partner Program forum for more information. You must be logged into your Pronto support desk account to access this form.
• Partner: Open a new ticket with Pronto and let us know what price you want to charge your clients. We will put this price on your web page. The default price is $247, Pronto’s standard price for all clients. Your cost is $200 per month.
• Pronto: Your ticket will kick-off our internal process, we’ll get things going and ready for your approval. The process will take about one week.

If you have any questions, you can find answers by visiting our Pronto White Label Partner Program Q&A Forum. Please post your question if it is not already answered.

We look forward to this next step in our partnership with you.

Regards,
Derek

Pronto for Everybody is Launching Today

We are ready to go with Pronto for Everybody we announced last month, our services for non-IT small businesses of all kinds. We’ll be doing lots of updates the next week or so to our website and other supporting marketing and communication so this is just the starting point. You can find information at our Pronto for Everybody landing page.

As I mentioned in our last Pronto Insider for this first phase we’re going to go with a simple referral fee for each client you send to us. I’ve had discussions with some clients about deeper partnerships and will continue to reach out and see if we can build a program.

As a 90 day kick-off we’re going to offer $200 for each referral, paid when the client’s website goes live.  We’ll make the 90 days starting today, ending November 11.

The referral could be an existing client of yours, another IT service provider or any business you send our way. As an extra kick-off bonus if you get to 10 referral sign-ups within the 90 days we’ll make that $300 per referral, retroactive for all 10 referrals, assuming they go live. In other words a free year of your Pronto service!  We do expect this referral structure will change over time based on our experience but this gives us a good starting off point. And gives you a fabulous opportunity to turn your professional network into money!

Next week we will roll-out client facing marketing materials if you want them. If you’d like us to email information on the websites to your newsletter list we can do that. There’s no charge for this and would include a landing page on your site. This could be on your menu, or just a landing page on its own. If you are interested or have questions, just let us know.

Once again, you can begin directing your friends and clients to the Pronto for Everybody page. We’ll be sure to track the referals and get going Pronto!

Updated Billing System

On another topic we’re right in the middle of a migration from our current PayPal & FreshBooks billing system to an integrated subscription platform from a company called Zuora. It’s a very powerful and flexible subscription management platform that is a big step forward in terms of improving your billing and subscription experience with Pronto.

During this time there might be a few bumps in the road. If anything is amiss in your billing, please let us know. But at least you’ll understand that this transition is probably the reason.

As always, thanks!

Thanks for everything and let’s get going on Pronto for Everybody!

Derek