Why You Should Not Have Music on Your Website

Designing a website for your business is a lot of fun and we understand that it can be tempting to personalize your website with your favorite music, however there are some serious reasons that you should keep your website silent. 

As a general Rule of thumb, unless music is a part of your business, you do not need music on your website. As a DJ or Videographer, you may benefit from having music on your site so that your potential clients can get a feel for your style & taste, but it is still helpful to take note of the following:
Speed - Streaming a song as your website's background music can require a significant amount of bandwidth. This causes slower loading times, and unhappy visitors. Discontinuity - With most music players, the music will start and stop each time another page is clicked on or whenever the page is refreshed.  

Taste - Everyone has different tastes in music.  If your website visitor does not like your style of music, they will automatically get a negative impression of you if music is blasted at them as soon as they go to your website.  We may like to listen to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" all day & night, but we know not everyone shares our unique enthusiasm.

Dueling Banjos - Many people browse the web while already listening to music through Spotify, iTunes, or Pandora.  Even if your visitors like the music on your page, they are unlikely to enjoy 2 songs played on top of each other.

Public Spaces - There's not much more annoying than using a computer in a quiet office, coffee shop,  library, etc and all of a sudden being serenaded by the unexpected loud music from a website you are visiting.  This will result in your site being exited in seconds, especially if the visitor cannot find where to turn the music off.

Browser Compatibility - Different browsers behave differently, not every browser is capable of playing every type of audio file.  Old or out of date browsers may have a tendency to lock up when attempting to play music. 


A Few Alternatives:

Storing Audio on SpanPlan- Music can be uploaded to the Audio section of the SpanPlan Resource Library.  These Audio Files can be embedded into your website by selecting the button that looks like headphones in the website rich editor.  These will not play automatically.  Your visitors can click the play button and control the audio on the site.
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Using a Playlist that does not AutoPlay - If you must have a music playlist on your website, we recommend using SoundCloud.  This allows you to create a playlist & has the option to not Autoplay when the page is opened.  Each playlist can be embedded into your SpanPlan website using the "Embed Media" button.   
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Photo Credit: JD Hancock

Make your Smartphone Even Smarter

We've worked incredibly hard to create the most Efficient & Effective way for Event Professionals to manage their entire business.  Thanks to SpanPlan, it is now possible to collect your leads & event information, Create Contracts, Manage Employees, Send Invoices, Receive Payments, and Track Your Finances with one easy-to-use program.

The SpanPlan team understands that your business is always on the go, and to properly manage your business, you need a truly mobile solution.  To manage your events on the go, you can use the SpanPlan Mobile App for Android or iPhone.  

The SpanPlan App is free to download & is available with any SpanPlan Account at no extra charge.  Information within the app is updated in Real Time.  There is no need to sync or upload data separately   When you make a change on your phone, it is automatically updated within your SpanPlan account.  

With the SpanPlan App, you can you can do the following from anywhere:

- Add Leads

- View Upcoming Events

- Send Payment Reminders

- Create Expenses

- View your upcoming activities

- Add New Contacts

- Write Notes

- View Address Book

- Much More!

SpanPlan is Moving to a New Office!

The Historic Citizen's Building from Main Street

It's official, Span Enterprises is moving to downtown Rock Hill.  After working closely with Bryan Barwick of Barwick & Associates, LLC we have made the decision to move to the Citizen's Building in Old Town Rock Hill, SC.  Our growing team will be occupying the entire 2nd floor and the mezzanine level of the Historic Citizen's Bank Building on Main Street.  

After months of searching, Span Enterprises Co-founder & CEO: Agie Sundaram met with Bryan Barwick and made the deal for Span Enterprises to move in within the next few months.  The entire 2nd Floor will serve as our Marketing, Sales, & Customer Support Center for all of our products; while the mezzanine level will be used as "Span Studios" for the recording & production of our products' help videos.

This will be the 2nd move for Span Enterprises.  We outgrew our first office in Shiland Villages in 2010.  By early 2011 we moved to our current location on the 1st floor of Shiland Villages.  After continuously outgrowing our office spaces, we are greatly looking forward to having an entire floor to ourselves.  

Built in 1925, The Citizen Building is a Historic Rock Hill landmark and we are thrilled to bring our software development company to such a unique and well maintained space.  We are planning the overall design of our new office now & will be posting our progress.  

We are proud to be a part of Rock Hill's downtown revitalization.  As a tech company, we are glad to be located in the same building as several other forward thinking organizations such as The Hive - a workforce / small business development program, and the upcoming Clemson University technology incubator.  

Our team is also excited to be so close to so many great restaurants.  Being on the same block as Jimmy Johns, McHale's, Millstone, & Erin's Restaurant is definitely an exciting change.  With such great dining options within steps of our building, our team may end up spending their days & nights in "Old Town" Rock Hill.  

Tracking Campaigns in SpanPlan

If you are running various Marketing Campaigns for your business such as advertisements or email marketing, you can track their effectiveness with SpanPlan.  From the Marketing tab, you can select Campaigns to add.  For example, if you are running Google Ads, you can enter "Google Ads" as a campaign name and select a time period that the ad will be running.

Once a Campaign has been added, that option will be added to your Event Request Form.  Now, your leads can select this marketing campaign as how they found you.  If your client does not add this on their own, you can enter it for them in the Overview section of their account.  

At the end of the year, you can download a report to view all the events that were booked thanks to your specific Marketing Campaigns.  this can be seen under Home >> Reports >> Events.

To Get Started Planning Your Success, you can start your Free Trial Today at www.SpanPlan.com

The SpanPlan Dashboard

The SpanPlan Dashboard serves as the central Hub of your business information in SpanPlan.   On this page, you can view your upcoming appointments, Payment Reminders, Notifications, Invoices to send, new leads, and of course - Upcoming Events.

Each of these widgets can be customized with a different color and they can also be moved about on the page.  To see more information about these items, you can also click on them to view all the detailed information for each item on the dashboard.  

Also on the SpanPlan Dashboard is a list of comprehensive charts for your business.  The Quick Glance chart displays a breakdown of your contacts as incoming leads, active leads, booked events, past events, inactive leads, and cancelled events.

You can also see a breakdown of your events by type and even by milestones.  

Just like the reports on the Dashboard, you can also click on anything here to view all of the information for that particular section...  For Example: if you would like to see all your weddings that have completed the milestone: "Event Booked" you can view all of them in just one click. 

Create Email Templates & Send Emails with SpanPlan

With SpanPlan, you can create email templates to be saved & sent to multiple recipients.  

This can be done by creating an email template & sending it through the email marketing section of SpanPlan.  

To begin, you can go to Marketing, & select Email Templates

Here you can view the default email templates that we have already added to your account for things like contract emails, Invoice emails, & more... To create a new email template that you would like to send, you will need to select “Create Email Template”

Now, you can create a Template Name (this is just for your records) & a Template Subject (this will be the subject line of the email).  You can select a category & even add an attachment if you prefer.  

Once this is entered, you can begin composing the email itself in the Template Body section.  this allows you to customize the email with nearly anything.  You can add photos, links, customize the text, and the best part of all is that you can personalize these emails for the person you are sending it to.  For example, if you are sending this email to someone named Mary, you can begin the email “Dear Mary” by using our Custom Field options.  

On the right, you will see your custom fields, this includes Recipient Information as well as your information.  To use these custom fields, all you need to do is click one of them in order to add things like the recipients First Name, Last Name, or Email address.  

When you are finished, you can preview your email by using the button at the bottom or you can save it or save it and add another.  You can also click cancel if you do not want to save your work.

To actually send the email, you can go to Email Marketing.  Here you can view previous emails that have been sent, and to send a new one, you can select “Create Email Marketing.”  

On the Create Email Marketing Page, you can select a name for your email campaign (for your records only) and also select an email from name.  In the “Choose Template” section, you can select whether you would like to use a template that you have already created or click “Write Now” to simply write an email to be sent directly.  NOTE: A Write Now Template will not be saved to be used in the future.

After selecting a Template Category & the name, you can select when to send the email.  It can be sent now or it can be scheduled for any time in the future.  Finally, to actually send it, you can select who to send it to.  NOTE: the recipient must be a contact, lead, client, or vendor within your SpanPlan Account

New SpanPlan Webinars Scheduled for May 2013

The SpanPlan Team has recently scheduled several training webinars over the next few weeks.  These Live presentations will show how you can organize your business & Save Time with our state-of-the-art features.

On our Webinars Page you can view all of our upcoming webinars & register for them online.  Sign Up Now before these special events are full.  


Reminder: These are all Free to attend!  You have nothing to lose & a lot to gain by joining these terrific training opportunities from the SpanPlan Team!

These Webinars will cover the following topics within SpanPlan:

• Adding Leads
• Using the SpanPlan Exclusive KYE Form
• Creating Contracts Online
• Accepting Online Payments
• Manage Your Employees Schedule & Payroll
• And Much More...

If you cannot attend a webinar, you can always use our Training Videos on YouTube  We've got a video guide for every single feature in SpanPlan, so check it out if you need some quick help.