What are SOPA & PIPA and why should you care? [Learn A LOT More Here]

• Currently the Internet is free and open, a platform for innovation, social change, and economic growth
• It has created millions of jobs in startups large and small, from Eight Eleven to Google
• It has created an entire industry of freelance Internet Workers and Creative Independents
• Congress is going to vote on harmful regulations that will allow US companies under order by the courts to use the same techniques used by China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries that censor the Internet
• If passed, a website like Google, Facebook, or You Tube could be “turned off” for even a single Copyright infraction
• This is important and real

Why is this happening?

• Internet piracy is a problem
• A small number of media, entertainment, and musics companies with a strong lobby to congress are behind SOPA & PIPA
• A regulation called DCMA already addressed this issue, but Hollywood isn’t satisfied so they decided to go nuclear with a completely self-serving approach
• This approach will fundamentally change the how the Internet operates, putting most Internet startups and even the most commonly used sites like Google, Facebook, YouTube and many others in jeopardy
• This is why 7,000+ websites are protesting today including Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit.  Some are blacking out.

Please help by signing this petition today.

Sell or Go Home: Part IV – Strategies for Finding Customers, Winning Their Business and Keeping Them for Life.

Thursday, April 12, 2012
7:15 – 8:30 pm
Terra Arts Building, University of the Arts
211 South Broad St, Room 511-13
Philadelphia, PA

Part IV Focus: TBD, Please Check Back!

Brought to you by: University of the Arts, Corzo Center for the Creative Economy & GoodCompany Ventures

The presentation will be an interactive workshop and all attendees will leave with immediate action items that they can apply to their startup ideas or existing businesses right away.

Presentation / workshop to be led by Eight Eleven’s co-founder, Creative Director & COO, Aaron McLean.

For more information, visit the Corzo Center Website at: http://corzocenter.uarts.edu/

The presentation is for University of Pennsylvania students, alum and faculty only.

Find Aaron at other public speaking engagements via the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy or schedule time to meet with him during his monthly open office hours.

2 – They see things in ways that others don’t and understand the power of thought and faith to offer an entirely fresh and inspiring view of a challenging situation.

3 – They know the true meaning of commitment and persistence to an idea – a love – far bigger than themselves.

4 – They attract and draw into their world new people, experiences and opportunities that make every day of being with them a continual adventure.

5 – Their vision for the world extends to a vision of long-term relationships and family life no less important than their cause, but as equal to and intrinsic to working together to contribute to the betterment of humanity.

6 – They have seen failure and know that it is never what defines a man or a woman.  It is their ability to get back up, with integrity, humility and service to a higher cause that builds the character and loyalty necessary for life-long commitment.

7 – They are passionate souls with tonnes of energy and a great love and lust for life…..and we know how important that is for the more, erm, intimate areas of a relationship…..!

8 – They know the value of partnership in getting things done, the power of teamwork necessary to build something of mutual value.

9 – They know how sometimes you just have to hang in there, work really hard and keep trusting the original love for the vision/person and what drew you to it/them in the first place……and it will turn out with way more blessings than you can imagine.

10 – They are visionaries who understand the power of love over fear.

Reposted from Love-Not-Fear.org

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/svg-with-a-little-help-from-raphael/

Thursday, December 1st
7:15 – 8:30 pm
Terra Arts Building, University of the Arts
211 South Broad St, Room 511-13
Philadelphia, PA

Part III Focus: Market Research
Brought to you by: University of the Arts, Corzo Center for the Creative Economy & GoodCompany Ventures

Learn more about market research, what’s wrong with it, why it is wrong and how we can fix it – and how entrepreneurs can use some smart new market research tactics.

The presentation will be an interactive workshop and all attendees will leave with immediate action items that they can apply to their businesses right away.

Presentation / workshop to be led by Eight Eleven’s co-founder, Creative Director & COO, Aaron McLean.

For more information, visit the Corzo Center Website at: http://corzocenter.uarts.edu/event/sell-or-go-home-0

Some of the most noteworthy new features include:

Real-Time Reporting

Real-Time Reporting shows you what is happening on your website right now! Each page view is reported seconds after it occurs. This feature can help you measure immediate impact of blog and social media posts, through access to immediate web traffic data. It is also useful in determining if tracking methods have been properly implemented before launching a campaign. Real-Time Reporting can be found under the “Home” tab.

Multi-Channel Funnels

Oftentimes multiple marketing channels drive traffic to your website, and therefore it is the combination of these channels that is responsible for conversions or e-commerce transactions. Google Analytics allows you to see which channels initiate, assist and complete conversions, better visualizing conversion path data and helping marketers to understand how their online traffic pieces work together. Multi-Channel Funnels can be found under the “Conversion” tab.

Video on Multi-Channel Funnels

Flow Visualizations

Flow Visualizations are sophisticated tools for graphically depicting how your visitors navigate or flow through your website. There are two types of Flow Visualizations. Visitors Flow is a graphical representation of visitors’ flow through your site by traffic source, which can be found under the “Visitors” tab. Goal Flow is a graphical representation of how visitors flow through goal steps defined by the site owner, and can be found under the “Conversions” tab. More Flow Visualizations will be coming soon.

Video on Goal Flow

Mobile Reporting Improvements

Google Analytics has been providing ways to track mobile traffic to your site, but in the new version of Google Analytics there are some Mobile Reporting enhancements. New Mobile Overview reports show breakdowns between mobile traffic and non-mobile traffic. New Devices reports provide information on the array of mobile devices that drive traffic to your site, including mobile device hardware info (can view images of each device) and mobile device brand info (includes manufacturer and carrier of device). Mobile Reporting can be found under the “Visitors” tab.

Some helpful links:

Google Analytics Blog

Google Analytics Help Center

Google Analytics Help Forum

Some firms believe social media is a time-waster and negatively affects productivity, while other firms simply do not have adequate time to allocate to actively managing social media accounts. Some firms are also hesitant to adopt social media because of the lack of clarity on the existing rules relating to its use, and unfamiliarity with how social media works and what content is acceptable to post. However, once attorneys and law firms become educated in these areas, social media can serve as an excellent marketing tool for them. This article covers the ethics and best practices for the use of social media by attorneys and law firms.

Source: Rocket Lawyer

Lawyers are embracing social media, but so are clients, judges, jurors, witnesses, competitors, opposing counsel, government officials, the media and prospective clients, representing only a portion of the audience that is on social media and that can see what your firm and attorneys are posting. Additionally, attorneys have increasingly been using social networking sites as sources of evidence for use in litigation in the e-discovery process. Therefore, clients’ use of social media must also be managed. These are just a few of many reasons why it is vital that your law firm creates and instates a comprehensive social media policy with guidelines on the acceptable and ethical uses of social media by all employees of your firm. Not only should your firm instate a social media policy, it should train each employee on the proper use of social media to ensure they fully understand it. The legal industry in particular has some very specific rules of professional conduct, and different variations of these rules apply in each state. For a great site on creating social media policies, check out 123socialmedia.com.

When drafting a social media policy, law firms should take into consideration the following:

• American Bar Association (ABA) regulations or recommendations
• Laws/rules in each of the states in which:
  • Your firm has an office
  • Your firm’s attorneys are admitted to practice
  • Your firm is advertising, marketing or seeking clients
• Acceptable and unacceptable uses of each social network
• Who may be “friended” and which connection requests may be accepted – judges, witnesses, journalists, competitors, etc.?
• How social media usage will be monitored, recorded and analyzed

Content of Social Media Posts

Lawyers should assume everything they say or do in social media is public information

Posts Cannot:

• Disclose confidential client information
• Provide legal advice
• Directly solicit business
• Be deceptive, false, misleading or confusing
• Omit necessary facts
• Compare one lawyer or law firm to another
• Contain subjective claims
• Create unjustified expectations
• Create a conflict of interest

Although there is quite a list of things that cannot be included in posts, there are a number of things that law firms can and should post about, including industry-level news and new legislations, as well as company news, achievements, events and webinars. Posting industry-related news can help position your firm as an industry thought leader, however, you must be careful not to include the opinion of your firm or firm’s attorneys with regards to the content of posts. Firms should also avoid posting about any past cases or current cases they are involved with.

The rules regarding social media, which fall under the Rules of Professional Conduct for advertising, may vary by state, so be sure to fully understand and comply with the rules for all states in which your firm has an office or is admitted to practice, and is seeking clients through marketing and advertising. For example, some states prohibit the use of testimonials in advertising, such as LinkedIn recommendations, unless a disclaimer is used, as can be seen under rule 7.1 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct.
Additionally, although most states consider websites a form of advertising, many states do not categorize law blogs as advertising. However, if an attorney at a law firm starts their own blog, and it is not tied to the law firm, they should clearly indicate that the blog does not reflect the views of the firm. You must also be careful when adding areas of specialty to your social media pages. LinkedIn profiles, for example, have a field for “specialties.” Unless you are certified as a specialist by a state bar accredited authority in your jurisdiction, do not indicate any specialties, since most state rules prohibit lawyers from doing so without the proper accreditation.

Don’t rush into using social media. Take the time to learn all of the rules specific to your jurisdiction, become familiar with social media and create a social media policy before leveraging social media to promote your law firm.

Best Practices

• Create a Social Media Policy for your law firm and require all employees to understand and comply with it
• Stay up to date on all the rules that affect your firm and its communications, in all states applicable
• Include disclaimers with the language required by each state where your firm conducts or seeks business – Include the same disclaimers in social media as you do on your website
• State clearly on social media profiles that information you post is “void where prohibited”
• Establish a system for maintaining copies of your communications
• Monitor, record and analyze your social media efforts
• If any post content or information tied to a social media account sounds false or misleading, then assume it is and do not post!
• If you would not make a statement in person, do not make it online either!
• Be proactive, not reactive with regards to managing your social media presence

This news comes as a surprise because the policies of other social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are fully accepting of the promotional activities of brands, and as a result, many brands regularly run promotions directly on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Google also states in their Additional Terms of Service that “repeated violations of Google+ Pages Terms, may cause your Google+ account to be suspended or your entire Google account to be terminated, depending on the seriousness of the violation.”

MouseandaMousetrap

Here’s the skinny:

Facebook claims to have over 200 million active mobile users, all of which have the potential to check in from their mobile devices, like Foursquare. They have not provided any details on active number of users per DMA / geo market.

There are four types of deals. Individual, Loyalty, Friend (group) and Charity. These deals are detailed on pages 3 and 4 of the attached PDF.

Facebook Deals for Business BETA [Download PDF]

• UI / UX testing
• Web application task testing
• Featureset assumption testing
• Featureset functional validation
• Brand preference testing
• Price point testing
• Perceived value testing
• Lots of other stuff…

Ask Your Target Market

http://aytm.com

When coaching young companies and/or with the startup companies that I mentor, I always hammer down some core thoughts:

1. Minimum viable product.

Build it, take it out to market quietly in a small, controlled test. Get invaluable customer feedback. Fix the problems. Add new features that customers demand. Take it back out to market in a slightly larger controlled BETA. Get invaluable customer feedback. Fix problems and add new features. Rinse. Repeat. Iterate. Scale intelligently.

I’ve seen companies spend hundreds of thousands building sophisticated products that are all over-engineered from day 1 and fail to meet even basic customer requirements — as the business owners spend all their time thinking about what they presume the customer will want.

2. Spread risk.

This is common sense for an entrepreneur but can sometimes get lost in the weeds during engineering. By spending too much time focusing on one “problem to solve”, entrepreneurs can end up putting all their eggs in to one basket. If that basket breaks, it can be enough to take down the entire company. By building a product that offers many features – any one of which has the potential for being the one that carries it to stardom, this affords other features of the product to fail, without jeopardizing the “whole basket”.

So, tying back to #1 above, the idea would be to build minimum viable components of a product’s overall architecture. By spreading the risk of failure across a more complex system, you’re effectively building a more stable system.

3. Stop making assumptions.

Entrepreneurs often assume that they know exactly what customers will want in a new product and that if they build a product exactly the way they envision it functioning, of course, customers will love it. Wrong. Stop making assumptions about what a customer may want and start building product that customers are already asking for.

How does this work? Back to #1 again. Build the minimum viable product and get it in the hands of customers. If they love it and you can’t move it out the door fast enough, you’re on to something. If they are confused by it, or aren’t sure what to do with it, or don’t understand the value, kill it and move on to something else. Save your investments for building products that will fly off the shelf.

*^*^

Aaron H. McLean
COO
Eight Eleven Inc.

The theory of color has been studied for hundreds of years. Studies have concluded that there are universal emotions, feeling, or meanings associated with most colors. However, past experiences and culture can also contribute to the way each person interprets and reacts to a certain color. For example, avocado, a light green color that was popular in the 60s and 70s, may remind certain people of those eras. If you are a sports fan, color schemes similar to those of your favorite sports team may be appealing to you, consciously or subconsciously.

Colors can also cause physical reactions in people. Blue can calm and relax, while red has been known to cause perspiration and raise blood pressure. In fact, studies have shown that people tend to gamble more and make riskier bets under red neon lights, as compared to blue neon lights.¹ Studies have also found that certain colors affect shopping behavior. Impulse buyers tend to respond to black, blue and red-orange, while people who typically stick to budgets tend to respond to teal, light blue, navy and pink.² Therefore, when creating an e-commerce website, you may want to consider incorporating some of these colors to potentially affect behavior, or increase the likelihood of impulse buying.

Source: Silver Scope Web Design

Color Associations:

Blue: calming, professionalism, power, intelligence, trust, sadness, sky and sea

Red: heat, love, action, danger, violence, excitement

Black: power, strength, mystery, darkness, evil

White: purity, innocence, simplicity, neutrality

Green: earth, nature, life, natural, money, jealousy

Yellow: sunshine, warmth, cheerfulness, curiosity, optimism

Orange: fun, comfort, youth, creativity, health, Autumn (Halloween and pumpkins)

Pink: calming, romance, femininity, sweetness

Purple: royalty, faith, luxury, fantasy, justice, nostalgia (lavender)

Brown: home, earth, stability, wholesomeness

Sometimes the same color can evoke contrasting emotions or feelings. For example, the color red can evoke feelings of love and passion to one person, and can evoke feelings of violence and war to another. This could be based on past experiences and associations created by individuals, or by the mood of the individual at the time they are experiencing a color or color scheme. There are various shades of each color, which may also result in contrasting reactions. Royal blue may evoke exhilaration, while baby blue may evoke a more soothing, calming feeling, so be sure to keep in mind the various reactions users can have to the same color.

The type of website in which you are creating may dictate which colors you choose. If you are creating a website for a bank, you may want to strategically incorporate blues to evoke feelings of trustworthiness and professionalism, or greens to evoke associations with wealth and money. Decisions such as these should ideally be made internally by strategic leaders in your company, because if web designers are outsourced, they may not fully understand the objectives of your company, as thus be less likely to recommend such tactics.

There are other ways in which a website color scheme may be determined. If your company has an existing logo with determined colors, you may want to incorporate these logo colors into the design of the website, making your job a lot easier. Color choice will also naturally be determined by the way colors compliment and work well with one another. If you strategically choose two colors to begin, the additional colors could be selected on the basis of how well they compliment the colors you have already chosen. Font color must be carefully chosen as well, in order to make the text stand out from the background shades.

The colors you choose will not solely determine the success of your website. However, they can give your website a strategic edge, or guide your initial color choice decisions. They can create desired associations and positive feelings surrounding your company or brand, and even contribute to affecting consumer behavior.

For a great color scheme generator, check out kuler

All of the AmLaw 100 firms have Twitter accounts.³ If your law firm is not engaging in social media, you risk sending the message that your firm lacks innovation and a willingness to engage consumers. By not engaging in social media, your firm will also miss out on the opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and create new relationships.

A single Facebook Fan or Twitter Follower can be worth thousands of dollars to your law firm. Many Fans and Followers of company accounts have hundreds or even thousands of their own social media connections, who are also potential customers of the company, and the same is true for your law firm. Friends, Fans and Followers of your firm’s connections are notified when your firm’s connections engage with your Facebook or Twitter accounts. These connections of your firm’s connections are more likely than the average user to Like or Follow your firm’s accounts, after seeing a friend’s endorsement of your accounts.

There is much more to social media than simply launching a Facebook and Twitter page. Law firms should have clear objectives, strategies, guidelines and tracking capabilities for their social media efforts – and most importantly, they should be proactively managing their social media accounts; not creating an account and letting it sit like so many law firms are doing.

Law firms can leverage social media to:

• Generate leads and grow their business

• Strategically locate and connect with their target audience – individuals that are in need of legal advice in their firm’s area of expertise

• Position their firm as an industry thought leader, establish expertise and trust, and stay relevant by posting relevant industry-level information and blog articles

• Strengthen relationships with existing clients and prospects by sharing information and engaging in dialogue

• Evaluate their competitors to determine what their firm is doing right and wrong

• Promote their firm’s news, achievements, events, webinars and so on

Approaches firms are taking with Social Media:

There are a number of approaches that law firms are taking in their use of Facebook and Twitter. Some very large or global firms are creating a single company-wide Facebook and Twitter account, from which they are posting company content, from all firm locations. The problem with this approach is that certain posts are only relevant to a single firm location. However, for smaller firms, this approach is more manageable, and ideal.

Other firms are creating separate social media accounts for each industry or area in which they practice. However, this approach takes more time and resources to muster up a substantial amount of content to post.

Individual attorneys at law firms are also creating their own accounts that are geared towards their area of practice, and are spending a given amount of time each week updating their account. These accounts can be branded with the firm’s logo, or include the firm’s name in the bio section, linking the account to the firm. This approach to using social media is a way to showcase some of the talented and experienced attorneys at a firm, but requires firms to train attorneys on how to use social media and educate them on all of the legal and ethical issues that come along with its use.

There is no one right or wrong approach to using Facebook and Twitter, but firms should determine which approach they believe will work best, according to the size and structure of the firm, as well as their social media objectives.

Blogs are another social media tool that law firms are taking advantage of. They are a way for firms to position themselves as an industry thought leader, establish expertise and stay relevant. Sharing a blog article written by your firms is also a way to connect with clients and prospects, strengthen your relationships with them and remind them of your firm’s offerings and expertise. Blogs can sometimes lead to speaking or guest writing opportunities. Tailor blog posts to your target audience and use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and your firm’s website to promote your blog – good content will be passed along!

Law firm’s are also establishing a presence on LinkedIn mainly to gain exposure for their firm and its services, and to build relationships with business contacts and potential customers through participating in LinkedIn groups that are relevant to their areas of expertise.

Whatever approach to social media that your firm chooses to take, it is best practice to create a social media plan, instate a social media usage policy and give employees who engage in social media some guidance on how to use it. Your firm should have clear objectives, strategies and tracking capabilities for social media, and should be proactively managing your accounts to take advantage of all the benefits social media can offer your firm.

Sources:

*^*^

I often am asked which CMS a client should use, and while I’m not a developer I know plenty of developers and somehow have been given the status of “objective recommender.” This morning I woke to find just such an email request:

Paul, If you woke up this morning and you Boss said lets blow up the website, start over will all things new and I want it done in 2 months, besides the panic, which CMS would you choose? WordPress versus Drupal verus Joomla versus EE? Or something else for a 2000 Page site…

Values placed on the selection:

• Common development the ability to use what others have done
• Flexible
• Easy for admins/editors to edit
• SEO friendly
• Local developers
• Manageable site of 2000+ pages

CMS Comparisons

The decisions as to which CMS are difficult. However the most important part of the CMS puzzle is your developers. All of these are written in PHP and can have plugins/modules written for it, however some are friendlier to developers than others. The reason it’s about your developers: None of these will work off the shelf and with existing plugins. All will have to be customized up front and tweaked as you make changes.

WordPress (aka WP)

• Developers: Developers don’t love this as much as Drupal, but the ease of use for the user and the common use of this cms has attracted a lot of developers.
• Quantity of local developers: Far and away the clear winner in this space. Just about every developer has experience with WP.
• Editor/admin Usability: Bar none the most user friendly CMS in this list
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes easily – its not just a blog anymore
• Common Development – plugins: tons, a lot of bad ones, but there are tons of plugins out there.
• Common Development – themes: tons, costs are in the $100 range, buy one, modify it, life is good.
• Flexible: Very flexible, i’ve seen WordPress do pretty crazy things, but yet at it’s core it’s a loop based blogging cms so not the best in this list for flexibility
• Out of the box SEO: Best in this list. It’s baked into the base code
• Plugin SEO: Even better. – tons of options
• Typical Dev needs: Heavy upfront, very little after launch most of the tweaks can happen by a junior level developer
• Sites using WP

Joomla

• Developers: Typically they struggle. I have not found a really, really good developer who develops for Joomla (they can and will, but they curse while doing it)
• Quantity of local developers: Joomla Users Groups are mostly end users trying to figure out how to use it – this ranks 3rd.
• Editor/admin Usability: the worst on this list
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes but it’d be really complicated on the admin to find them all.
• Common Development – plugins: out there. not great, not a huge selection — typically devs roll their own
• Common Development – themes: some, not great.
• Flexible: least in this list. combine the limited plugins, limited developers, with the frustration for devs and the limited functions out of the box — its pretty limited.
• Out of the box SEO: Good luck
• Plugin SEO: only comes half way to where it needs to be
• Typical Dev needs: Steady
• Sites using Joomla

Drupal

• Developers: They love this CMS, I don’t know why yet, but I know really good developers who Drupal out all day. — the learning curve is higher than in WordPress, but makes sense after learning
• Quantity of local developers: More than I would expect. 2nd place behind WordPress
• Editor/admin Usability: not the best, but it’s fair/good probably tied with EE
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes easily
• Common Development – plugins: yes, and growing more each day.
• Common Development – themes: yes and growing more each day
• Flexible: Probably the most flexible on this list.
• Out of the box SEO: #2, right behind WordPress
• Plugin SEO: makes it neck and neck with WordPress
• Typical Dev needs: Heavy upfront, weekly/monthly after
• Sites using Drupal

Expression Engine (aka EE)

• Developers: Those who do EE do it well, but there is a huge barrier to entry. I do know smart developers on the EE platform — also the company who makes it is available to support/develop on EE. Probably one of the only CMSs in this list that can say that
• Quantity of Local Developers: One of the top Experts on EE is local, but overall this CMS has the lowest quantity available in this list
• Editor/admin Usability: Again tied with Drupal
• Can it handle 2000 pages: yes easily
• Common Development – plugins: the lowest quantity on this list – but best quality. However if you want to display twitter feed in a specific way (for example), since there are only 2 plugins, you’ll typically have to roll your own
• Common Development – themes: the lowest quantity on this list – but typically beautiful sites!
• Flexible: Limited but not by much, it’s neck and neck with WordPress for 2nd/3rd place
• Out of the box SEO: ok, though most EE sites don’t take SEO into consideration
• Plugin SEO: makes it better, but still in 3rd position
• Typical Dev needs: Heavy upfront, weekly/monthly after
• Sites using EE

Winning CMS in Each Category:

• Developers: Drupal
• Quantity of Local Developers: WordPress
• Editor/admin Usability: WordPress
• Can it handle 2000 pages: Drupal WordPress and EE tied at this level… at 10K pages it’sDrupal left standing, no other CMS (in this list) comes close to that robustness.
• Common Development – plugins: WordPress
• Common Development – themes: WordPress
• Flexible: Drupal
• Out of the box SEO: WordPress
• Plugin SEO: Drupal and WordPress tied
• Typical Dev needs: WordPress

Which CMS is right for you?

No doubt it’s the one that you have a good relationship with multiple developers on. I’s love for you to choose WordPress. But I bet that since the impression that “WP is just a blogging cms and cannot handle a robust site” they’ll shake out in this order:

1. Drupal
2. WordPress
3. EE
4. Joomla

Source: http://paulkortman.com/2011/01/26/wordpress-vs-drupal-vs-joomla-vs-expression-engine/

The new company is the product of a 20-year relationship Sielox has had with Excel Security Corp. All the services Excel used to provide for Sielox as its technology partner will now be handled by Sielox24Seven.

“Our former business partner has been using the Sielox product for the last 20 years for access control in a managed environment. They’ve been managing access control for over a thousand customers in the New York metro area. They’ve also been doing hosted video for a similar time frame. That company does a host of services—they’re a guard services company, a cleaning company, a company that sells and installs access control. The managed division has been separated and has now become Sielox24Seven,” Sielox president and CEO Karen Evans said at a press conference at ASIS. “We will be offering the Sielox24Seven managed, monitored and hosted services to our entire channel throughout the U.S. and abroad. Only current and future Sielox business partners will be able to utilize this service and offer this solution to their customers.”

According to a Sielox release, the managed services company will allow business partners to market Sielox24Seven services to their end users “without the development, investment, implementation and maintenance of a remote managed access control system for either business partner or the customer.” Such savings on time and capital investment can lead to improved RMR, according to the release. Services provide by Sielox24Seven include access control, video, remote doorman, time and attendance, key control, visitor management, credentials/card management, background checks and detailed reporting and billing.

Republished from Security Systems News

For more information, visit: www.sielox24seven.com

The issue: When viewing a Web page with an embedded YouTube video, using YouTube’s new iFrame embed code, the video did not display properly, or play (a yellow hazard / error graphic was displayed).

The solution: YouTube still allows for users to select the “old” version of their embed code, an “Object” embed. When reverting the embed code used in the Web page from the iFrame to the old Object embed code, the video displayed and played properly on the Android device.

Jenkins engaged Eight Eleven to completely redesign and re-architect the library’s Website, with the primary goals of:

1. Enhanced search and browsing
2. Ease of use
3. Improved overall user experience
4. Intuitive user interface and navigation
5. Streamlined information architecture
6. Increased customer conversion

The all-new Jenkins Website is built on Drupal 6.0 and features an array of customized modules,  customized eCommerce, custom user management, custom front-end user interactivity (JQuery) and much more.

About our client:

Jenkins … where the past embraces the future.

Founded in 1802 in a small room in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA, the Law Library Company of the City of Philadelphia was formed by a group of lawyers who set out to provide legal information for the growing law community in the City. Philadelphia’s law library holds the prestigious position as America’s first and oldest law library.

PHILADELPHIA, PA, June 21, 2011 – Eight Eleven Inc. is pleased to announce that it has leased a new office space in Center City Philadelphia. The new office is located in The Philadelphia Building at 1315 Walnut Street, Suite 700, Philadelphia, PA 19107. The Company decided to make the move to accommodate internal expansion of staff and services in support of its growing client base.

“This move represents an important milestone for Eight Eleven,” said Glenda Laudisio, President & CEO. “My business partner, Aaron McLean and I started the business on a high note early in 2007. We as well as other businesses were hit with a downturn in the economy in 2008. We were forced to look at our business and make adjustments to sustain the business. While remaining cost-conscious, we are designing the new space to create an inviting atmosphere for our employees and clients alike.”

Eight Eleven’s previous office was located in Camden, NJ at the ACIN Waterfront Technology Center for Entrepreneurship, a full-service technology accelerator program where the Company first started its business in 2007. The Company extends a special thank you to the leadership team at ACIN for its generous support through troubling financial times.

“We are thrilled to move in to an open, creative space – one that embodies the vision and collaborative nature of our team and our business,” said Aaron McLean, Creative Director & COO. “This move ushers in a new era for our growing company and will soon carry us through our 5^th year in business, an achievement we are all proud to reach.”

About Eight Eleven Inc.

Eight Eleven Inc. is an integrated marketing agency specializing in B2B and B2C communications. With a combined 50+ years experience in business strategy, marketing and Web technologies, the Company has expertise in the following core competencies: Advertising; Marketing Consultation; Brand Communications & Logo Design; Public Relations; Search Engine Optimization (SEO); Social Media; and Web/Interactive (UX) & Content Management.

The Company serves a range of clients from publicly traded companies to startups and not-for-profit organizations in a variety of industries including banking/investment capital, construction/development, consumer/media/retail, education, insurance, IT, legal, marketing, technology, and transit and tourism.

More information on the Company’s services may be found at:

http://www.eight-eleven.com

Contact:

Glenda Laudisio, President & CEO, 215-875-8590

Check it out at: www.eastriverferry.com

Eight Eleven has also designed and launched Social Media sites for the East River Ferry at:

www.facebook.com/eastriverferry

www.twitter.com/eastriverferry

www.youtube.com/eastriverferry

www.flickr.com/photos/eastriverferry

www.foursquare.com/eastriverferry

When will we reach like overload?

Technology News has some thoughts: Click Here

The next clinic will run on March 16 from 6pm to 8pm. The clinics are free. Space is limited. Early registration ensures your seat.

For more information, visit: http://corzocenter.uarts.edu/announcement/marketing-clinics

But, it is real? For the purposes of this article, I say, no.

The aforementioned tools can theoretically be used to locate “influencers”. However, there is significant debate about their effectiveness. None of these services have a truly accurate algorithm and their sample data sets are incomplete (they can sample social media only – they cannot sample actual media). These services also can and have been easily manipulated.

Here is a good example.

PeerIndex gives users a number – XX out of 100. My score is 10. I don’t know if that’s good or not. Out of 100, 10 sounds low to me… kind of like a “failing” grade.

A prominent angel investor and mentor in the Philly community (who’s name I will not mention as I needn’t call out their low clout score — someone every entrepreneur in the area knows – or at least knows of) is listed with a score of 6/100. This is not accurate. They have more influence than a 6/100.

Also, Sequoia Capital, arguably the most successful Venture Capital firm in US history and by far one of the most influential firms ever to exist (if not the most), has a score of 18/100. Sequoia’s “influence” should easily be 99/100. They are massively influential.

These services also rely on Twitter – which is a very young and fast growing social network. Because this technology is still in adolescence, I’m not sure how much weight we can give to technologies that leverage Twitter’s data to make real world assumptions. My general feeling is that it’s just too early.

http://www.labnol.org/internet/switch-from-blogger-to-wordpress/9707/

On December 31^st 2010 Sielox LLC, one of Eight Eleven’s technology clients, was acquired from the parent company, Sielox Inc.  Sielox LLC has been a leading provider of access control solutions since 1979. The Company was acquired through a management buyout with additional funding secured from a group of seasoned private investors, HGW Acquisition Company, LLC. Sielox LLC will become a private company under the new management structure. Karen Evans, the former President of Sielox, LLC, is a member of the investor group. Ms. Evans will become the President & CEO of the acquired entity.

Sielox LLC’s new investors include Richard Hoel and a group of established security technology investors with a deep understanding of business management, growth strategies and the access control marketplace. Sielox LLC’s customer base, strong business partner channel and technology pipeline were cited as deciding factors in the acquisition, as well as the existence of valuable synergies between Sielox LLC and the existing portfolio of companies.

Congratulations and best wishes to Sielox President Karen Evans and the entire Sielox LLC team on this momentous event!

For more info: www.sielox.com

Eight Eleven redesigned PM College’s Website architecture and user interface. All of the HTML/CSS was built out in house and was then converted in to a Drupal 6.0 theme, again all in house. Eight Eleven installed Drupal, along with a series of Drupal modules and developed some custom Drupal functionality to meet with all of PM College’s user requirements.

The new Website features a customized Google Translator, a Course Finder using Drupal Views, embedded video and lots more. Check it out!

About our client:

PM College works directly with heads of organizations, business units, and PMOs to identify organizational learning objectives, deliver relevant training content, and achieve measurable behavior changes that lead to improved performance. As a division of a project management consultancy PM Solutions, PM College is recognized as a Charter Global Registered Education Provider (REP®) by theProject Management Institute (PMI®).

The Corzo Center for the Creative Economy
At the University of the Arts
With Good Company Ventures
Presents

How to Sell the Brooklyn Bridge

Artists & Entrepreneurs
Sell or Go Home
Strategies for Finding Customers, Winning Their Business, and Keeping Them for Life

Thursday, December 2
7 – 9 PM

Room 511-13, Terra Hall
211 S Broad St
University of the Arts

Free for UArts students, alumni, and the general public.
RSVP at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170915342932911 or corzocenter@uarts.edu

Aaron McLean is Creative Director & Executive VP of Eight Eleven Inc. (www.eight-eleven.com), an agency specializing in B2B and consumer marketing, branding, web, digital media and public relations.

He will talk about the sales process – how to keep customers engaged, how to make them into first time buyers and then keep them buying for life.

Highly interactive, the program will help those attending sharpen their messages and tactics.

For more information:

http://corzocenter.uarts.edu

Co-sponsored with
Good Company Ventures
www.goodcompanyventures.org

Corzo Center for the Creative Economy
University of the Arts
corzocenter.uarts.edu

Embedded YouTube videos do not show up (appear as white boxes) or display as a black box with no video player controls.

Many of us have seen this happen. The event does not seem to be specific to any one browser, any one desktop operating system or any one Web server operating system.

This is a common issue that has been affecting Website users since 2008. Google or Bing searches for the error will show thousands of results, stating similar issues.

The Solution:

Recommendations from the Web world point to a number of potential solutions. All solutions are end-user based. That is to say, no change is required to:

1. The Website with the YouTube embed
2. The YouTube embed code
3. The Website content management system
4. The Web server

Instead, all potential solutions point to processes which a user should deploy on their local computer. Our research has turned up the following recommendations (which have shown success):

1. Turn off AdBlock (if applicable)
2. Update Java
3. Update to the latest Flash player (YouTube uses Flash to play video files)
4. Update the Web browser to the latest version
5. Clear browser cache and temporary internet files
6. Troubleshoot anti-virus software, which implement security procedures to a Web browser and cause Website functionality to stop working

The Discussions:

There have been a number of lengthy discussions on this topic online. Below is a short set of some of these threads, which show user discussion before, during and after the troubleshooting process:

YouTube Embed Error Thread #1

YouTube Embed Error Thread #2

YouTube Embed Error Thread #3

YouTube Embed Error Thread #4

As there are many Social Media Websites and applications, monitoring social activities can be complex. A number of companies have emerged that offer powerful tools to companies that want to monitor and manage their Social Media activities.

Our Social Media experts are saying that these are some of the best:

http://www.radian6.com/

(Touted by our Social Media experts as “the best of the best”)

Key Features:

• Monitor hundreds of millions of public Websites
• Social Media metrics
• Data filtering and segmentation
• Workflow management
• Social CRM and Web analytics integration
• Automated sentiment
• Historical data tracking
• Enterprise scalability

http://www.trackur.com/

Key Features:

• Keyword tracking
• Web trend tracking
• Brand reach monitoring
• Easy alert setup (RSS, email, Facebook)
• White-label ready

http://www.lithium.com/what-we-offer/social-customer-suite/social-media-monitoring

Key Features:

• Social searching
• Customer quotes
• Collaboration and assignment of Social Media tasks
• Buzz tracking
• PDF reports
• Automated sentiment
• Word frequency analysis
• Email alerts

http://www.listenlogic.com/

Key Solution (RESONATE™ Social Analytics): No further features/tools noted on their Website – they are a local Philadelphia-area company.

Eight Eleven also built the new Baer Crossey Website, now live at www.baercrossey.com.

Congratulations to thew new Baer Crossey Managing Members, Andrew Baer and Michael Crossey, on the birth of their new firm!

Primary drivers during redesign were information architecture, usability and ease of content management. The new NetData Website was built on eFlex CMS.

Eight Eleven also worked with NetData IT on a small brand and logo refresh.

Congratulations to the NetData team on their new Website and Philadelphia 100 Award!

This resource provides credit card numbers, which can be used in test environments to run transactions through PayPay, Authorize.Net and others, without actually pinging a live credit card. Good stuff!

https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/vhelp/paypalmanager_help/credit_card_numbers.htm

Clickthrough on top three PAID Ad Word results: 2-3%
Clickthrough on PAID Ad Word positions 4-7 and below: 0-2%

Clickthrough on ORGANIC Google results, position 1: 41-45%
Clickthrough on ORGANIC Google results, position 2: 11-18%
Clickthrough on ORGANIC Google results, position 3: 7-15%
Clickthrough on ORGANIC Google results, positions 4-9: 2%
Clickthrough on ORGANIC Google results, position 10 (end of page 1): 3-4% (You may think this is odd – but it is not. The eye weighs in heavily at the top of the page and then again at the bottom of the page)

The charts below show it all:

Eye tracking results showing concentration on organic results and “ad blindness” of Ad Words:

Organic VS paid results showing performance of organic Website ranking over paid:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

Apex offers its clients technology solutions that meet business objectives and solve real world challenges. They stay on top of the ever evolving world of technology to provide with consistent results.

“What is the difference? How can we know which is going to be most effective for our company or product?”

Simple question. Very complex answer. We’ll try to make it short and sweet.

Search Engine Optimization -
What it is and how it works:

Here’s a typical client conversation. It sheds some light on what SEO is and what it is not:

Client: “When I type [this series of words] in to Google, our Website does not come up on the first page of the free/organic search results (not including any keyword advertisements we may be running). Our competition does. Why?”

Eight Eleven: “Your competition has thousands, or tens of thousands of links on other Websites, that link back to their Website. These links are embedded on other Websites within targeted keywords (key search terms) and link back to your competitor’s Website, to their homepage and also to other specific keyword rich content pages where the actual name of the Web page, on the server, contains the targeted keyword, the H1 tag on the page contains the keyword, the page title contains the keyword and the content written on the page, also contains the keyword.”

Client: “So, it sounds like links coming in to our Website, which include targeted key search terms are critical. And also having our Website optimized to be using those key search terms, is also essential.”

Eight Eleven: “Yes, absolutely.”

Client: “What if I can get a thousand Websites to link to me and then put links out to those thousand Websites, on my Website. So, we’re all linking back and forth to one another. Will this work?”

Eight Eleven: “Not anymore. This is called reciprocal link placement. Just recently, Google’s algorithm (which determines a Websites pagerank and organic search results), started ignoring how many reciprocal links a Website has. Essentially, reciprocal links cancel one another out.”

Client: “OK. So, how did our competition get thousands of other Websites to link to their Website? How did they get all of those links to include key search terms? How did they get all of the pages on their Website to have the page name, H1 tags, page title and content to all use those key search terms?”

Eight Eleven: “This is Search Engine Optimization. Your competition has spent hundreds or thousands of hours working to create links in to their Website, optimize content and tags on their Website and compete, on a daily basis (ongoing) for their organic rank (position) in Google. They most likely outsourced this effort to a company that does SEO work – and does it very well.”

Client: “This sounds like a lot of work.”

Eight Eleven: “It certainly is a lot of work. This is why SEO generally requires a healthy budget. It takes a lot of people a lot of time to build all of these links and to optimize a Website for all of the key search terms. It’s also an ongoing effort – one that requires daily maintenance.”

Client: “What about social media? If we use Twitter and Facebook to generate thousands of links in to our Website (using these key search terms, of course) and can get others to repost our Facebook messages and retweet our Twitter messages, thousands of times, will this boost our SEO? If we write an article and this article is picked up and republished by hundreds of blogs and other Websites, and within the article, we use key search terms, which all link back to our Website, will this boost our SEO?”

Eight Eleven: “Yes! Social media is a great way to generate links to your Website. Of course, in order to be effective with social media, you’re going to need a large audience of “followers” and “evangelists” that will redistribute your content on your behalf. Generating this loyal following is one of the most difficult and time consuming efforts involved in social media. Once you have a loyal following of evangelists, if 1) you post (to Facebook, a blog or Twitter) one small article (which contains a couple embedded links to your Websites) and 2) your content is timely and relevant to your audience, then 3) your follows may repost this a hundred times – creating a hundred new links in to your Website. This is SEO gold!”

Client: “What happens if we do SEO and get our Website on the first page of Google, then stop the SEO campaign. Will our Website stay on the first page of Google? If yes, for how long?”

Eight Eleven: “Yes, you will stay on the first page of Google. However, for how long – this cannot be predicted. It depends heavily on what your competition is doing. If you are competing for placement on the first page of Google, using highly sought after and competitive key search terms, and are competing against other Websites that are continually optimizing for those key search terms on a daily basis, you may stay on the first page of Google for a month, for a week, or even for a day. Within a couple days, you could drop off of the first page. It depends on how persistent your competition is – and how effective their SEO programs are.”

Client: “It sounds like, if we want to stay on the first page of Google, we need to continue our SEO programs on a monthly basis.”

Eight Eleven: “Yes, this is correct. We cannot guarantee that we can keep you on the first page of Google unless we continue our SEO efforts on a weekly/daily basis.”

Client: “Will paying for keyword advertising or Web advertising have any effect on SEO? Will having various keyword advertising campaigns running in Google and having hundreds of other Websites running ads that link back to my Website, improve my organic pagerank and placement on the first page in Google?”

Eight Eleven: “No – these efforts will have no influence whatsoever. Google does not count advertising as a link in it’s organic pagerank algorithms.”

Client: “Let’s say we start an SEO campaign today. How soon will we be on the first page of Google?”

Eight Eleven: “This typically takes 60-90 days, and depending on the competitive nature of the key search terms, can even take up to 120 days of daily SEO efforts.”

Client: “That seems like a long time. What if I want to be on the first page of Google today?”

Eight Eleven: “This is search engine marketing (SEM), also known as pay per click marketing or keyword advertising. Google’s service is called Adwords. Yahoo! and Bing have their own advertising platforms. We can bid against other Websites and essentially pay to be a “featured sponsor” or “advertiser link” on top of Google. Depending on the competitive nature of some key search terms, pay per click rates for highly sought after keyword strings may run anywhere from $1.00 per click, up to $25.00 per click and higher. In a Wall Street Journal article, CPC (cost per click) rates for the search term “DUI Attorney Phoenix” was noted as running $65.00 PER CLICK! Google does not charge you to set up  a campaign. They also do not charge you to display an ad. The only charge you when someone clicks on your ad to come to your Website.”

Client: “So, should we be doing SEO, SEM or some combination of both?”

Eight Eleven: “This really depends on how valuable a “click” is to you – and how well you can convert a click in to a sales lead or active customer. It should be noted – organic search engine results (achieved through SEO) tend to receive 8x more click throughs than paid search engine marketing (pay per click: PPC) campaigns. Often, it is not possible for a company to pay for SEO to optimize their Website for all required key search terms. As such, our most common recommendation is one of a blended effort: SEO for key search terms that can be obtained cost effectively and SEM for key search terms that would require a budget with an ROI that doesn’t quite add up.”

*^*^

Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Marketing. Web advertising. How can we know which is going to be most effective for our company or product?

The answer comes down to a few variables:

1. What is your average cost of customer acquisition?
2. What is the lifetime value of your average customer?
3. How does the value and profitability of this customer change over time?
4. What is your customer retention rate?

Of course, the answers to these questions are different for each and every client. Therefore, it is impossible to provide a blanket response. The best strategy is usually a blend between all efforts. At Eight Eleven, we consult with our clients to explore each opportunity, assign opportunity cost and make recommendations for the best blend of online marketing campaigns.

Here we see how to have two GA accounts both set as the primary account on one domain. Both accounts are pulling analytics data as if they were the primary. We had to do a little custom tweaking to GA’s Asynchronous Tracking code.

Google provided a little help:

http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/asyncUsageGuide.html

The resulting code:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(
['_setAccount', 'UA-1966692-10'],
['_trackPageview'],
['b._setAccount', 'UA-16375401-1'],
['b._trackPageview']
);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

</script>

Motive8Now helps Real Estate agents automatically generate fresh sales leads – year round. Their engaging service features a number of benefits over competitors. Learn more at: www.Motive8Now.com or see how their system works by clicking here.

Motive8Now is built on custom BV Commerce eCommerce software and uses jquery, Ajax, Flash and other technologies to deliver the full user experience.

Pros:

• Google’s service is free.
• Easy to implement.
• Relatively easy to customize.

Cons:

• Google cannot translate content inside of a Flash animation or within an image file – such as a navigation tab, an advertisement graphic, an image used with a piece of jquery or Ajax functionality or an embedded photo caption (which means, only HTML text content on the page can be translated – you’re not getting a true/full localization of content).
• Google cannot redesign a page’s elements to compensate for the extra space, or reduced space, caused by shifting text (number of characters increasing or decreasing) – this can sometimes cause a page’s layout to be compromised.
• Google does not understand context – it only understands words, often causing a thought or concept to be misconstrued during translation.
• By default, Google will attempt to translate all words on the page – this means that if you have your brand name written in HTML text on the page, it will translate your brand name from English in to the target language. For this reason, an exception list must be created – this being a list of words and phrases that we want Google to ignore during it’s translation process. This list needs to be custom coded in to Google’s functionality. The list should include brand names, product names, trademarked phrases, specific marketing language that only works when constructed properly, key words and phrases that are proprietary to your brand, etc.

The full Website is being launched by Ansell in phases. Phase I Website launch includes content for their primary sales territory, Asia Pacific. To view the Website (active pages with content and functionality – as of May 4, 2010), select the Asia Pacific region from the homepage and select any profession.

Here is the full report – click to download.

~Aaron Haydn McLean
Creative Director/Executive Vice President

With tens of thousands of visitors a month, NY Waterway saw an opportunity to convert more of its Website traffic in to sales for their distinct lines of business: New York City commuter traffic, New York City sightseeing tours, partner combination value packages and charters. The redesigned Website creates more opportunities to sell and includes features to better convert traffic in to sales.

In addition to implementing sales solutions, Eight Eleven’s other primary focus was commuter traffic usability. The new Website makes it much easier for day-to-day commuters to find their routes, get alerts and click through to the online ticketing system.

The new NYWaterway.com was built on eFlex CMS and includes custom alert/advisory management and route/terminal management modules, developed by Eight Eleven specifically for NY Waterway and eFlex CMS.

Eight Eleven also redesigned all of NY Waterway’s Ferry and Bus route / terminal maps, which are available on the route schedule pages and bus pages.

Step 1: Click Post > Add New.

Step 2: Enter a title & and content. Then check “Events”.

Step 3: Scroll down the page to the “Custom Fields” section. From the select box, choose “event_date”.

Step 4: Enter in the date of the event using the format YYYY-MM-DD (include the dashes).

Step 5: Scroll back up and click Publish

After the event’s date passes, it will automatically be removed from the list, but will still exist as a post within WordPress.

Question:

I’m sure many of you are using Google Analytics for your Websites, or Websites that you build. We use it for most all Website we build. Great tool. Here’s a question we’ve been asked and are having trouble answering. We’ve contacted “the experts” on this, and even they are unsure.

On an ecommerce site, we have a page that gets personalized to the user. This page creates a unique URL (sort of like a PURL, but without any human readable personalization). Google Analytics tracks each and every one of these personalized pages, as if it were a unique page. This is precisely what we wanted Google to go. On some of these personalized pages, Google is showing Average Time on Page = 0.00 seconds, with others varying anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes.

We asked the experts, does Average Time on Page = 0.00 seconds mean that the user has abandoned the page (closed the window, navigated to another site, whatever) BEFORE the page had finished loading? That is, if they were waiting for their personalized page to appear and got tired of waiting and closed the window, would Google record this as 0.00 seconds on page?

Their response was, “No, not necessarily. It could (potentially) mean that the user spent some time on that page poking around, then abandoned it later.”

And so my questions is, does anyone really know for sure?… If Google records 0.00 seconds on a page, does that mean the user abandoned the page before it fully loaded?… or could it mean that they spent time on that page (some indeterminate amount) and then abandoned the site?

Answer:

Zero seconds can also mean that they spent a bunch of time on that one page, but there was no second page visit.  GA needs at least 2 visits to calculate time on site, so they can do a date diff of the timestamps.  See more detail here: http://www.onlinemarketingperformance.com/analytics-time_on_site-bounce/

Thanks again to Jake for this helpful tip!

Domain propagation is the process of your registrar handing off the changes of your domain to root DNS servers, ISPs acquire records from the root servers, ISPs to other ISPs and so on until you see the changes reflect on your computer with your internet service provider. Some service providers update their records more often than others and receive changes faster. As a result of this, often you will not be able to get to your website by its’ domain name, while a friend can. Once the changes propagate to your ISP, your new Website will be available to you (and other users of your ISP).

Reposting technical description of domain propagation from: http://www.ultrawebsitehosting.com/glossary/what-is-domain-propagation.php

To make sure your emails don’t get flagged as spam — and deleted before they even get to your subscribers — avoid using words such as ‘Free’, ‘$$$’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’, etc in both the subject line and the content of your email.

2. Maximizing Click-Thru Rates
Both web pages and emails can contain a lot of text and graphics, and this sometimes makes it harder to get your subscribers to perform a certain task, such as clicking on a link to see your special offers.

Numerous research papers tell us that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link — such as this — as opposed to a banner or button. So, if you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they are bold, blue and underlined. This will mean that more subscribers click through, meaning more conversions/sales for you.

3. The Power of Personalization
If you were standing in a crowded mall, which of these would get your attention: “HEY, YOU!” or “HEY JOHN” (assuming your name is John). The power of personalization can and should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the boring “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? Put simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

4. One-Click Unsubscription
If you want to grow your mailing list, then there are 2 things that you absolutely must have: a double opt-in process, and a quick way to unsubscribe. In some countries, it’s actually mandatory by law that every email has an unsubscribe link in it. The unsubscribe link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed — courteously — from your mailing list.

5. Signup Confirmation
Don’t get accused of spamming — always, and I mean always use a double opt-in confirmation process. Double opt-in means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send them a “confirmation” email. This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.

6. Tuesday / Wednesday = Increased Response
Studies conducted by online research analysts have shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend. On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend. We’ve actually experimented with this, and received the best results by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday.

7. Repeat Email Communication
An auto responder is an email that is scheduled to be sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your mailing list. Auto responders are a great way to automatically follow up with your subscribers or provide them with more information on your products/services.

For example, if you provide a free newsletter, you could setup 3 auto responders for new subscribers: the first is sent 1 hour after they subscribe. It contains a thank you message and a link to get 10% off your newly released eBook.

The second is sent 24 hours after they subscribe, telling them about your community message boards, and the third is sent 72 hours after they subscribe, in which you can offer them a special deal on becoming a paid member of your site.

Auto responders help your subscribers build trust in both your company and your brand, and this can help make it easier when trying to close sales in the future.

8. Consistency is the Key
If you’re running a newsletter or frequent email publication, make sure you keep the look and feel consistent from issue to issue. By keeping the look and feel consistent, you help to maintain and strengthen your brand and your image to your subscribers, which again will make it easier to close sales when you need to.

Create a template for your newsletter and whenever you need to create a new issue, use that template as the basis for each issue.

9. On Time, Every Time
When sending a regular email to your subscribers, always make sure that it’s sent on the same day, at the same time. For example, every Wednesday at 3pm. Your subscribers will come to “expect” your email to arrive in their inbox on the same day at the same time every week, meaning that they want to read your content and are generally more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.

10. The Half-a-Second Subject Line
When your email arrives in your subscriber’s inbox, you generally have about half a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete your email or ignore it. In your subject line, try and specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email. For example, instead of using ‘OurSite Newsletter Issue #1′, use ‘OurSite Newsletter: 10 Tips for Financial Freedom’.

11. The Free Bonus Hook-In
Free is overused these days, especially on the Internet. However, if you’re looking to grow your subscriber list, then create or source a product of value to your visitors (such as an eBook or discount coupon) and offer it to them for free when they signup for your newsletter.

To make sure they don’t simply type any email address into your subscription form, setup an auto responder to send them the free bonus 1 hour after they subscribe to your newsletter.

12. The Preview Pane
Popular email clients such as MS Outlook show a preview of an email when it’s selected in your inbox. Always have some interesting content at the very top of your email, as this is the part that will show in the preview window of your subscribers email program. If it’s interesting enough, then your subscriber will open your email and continue on reading.

13. Link-Click Testing
When creating marketing emails, try using different text for both content and links. Also try re-positioning images such as logos and buttons. After sending about 3 different emails, compare the click-thru stats and see which one worked best. Now, when you need to send marketing emails in the future, you know that you will be sending the right mix of content and images that will attract the most click-thrus, and ultimately the most sales.

14. Email-Based Learning
Add value to your website, build trust in your visitors, establish your credibility and collect more subscriptions to your mailing list by setting up an email-based learning course. To do this, simply create a series of auto responders (for example, 5) containing unique content. Then, schedule the first one to be sent after 24 hours, the second after 48 hours, etc.

15. Always Sign on the Dotted Line
Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it’s one of the easiest ways to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an unsubscribe link. You can use your signature to link back to your website, and even to other products. Here’s a sample signature:

Regards,
John Doe.
President – Company XYZ.
Visit our website at http://www.companyxyz.com
Unsubscribe from this newsletter at http://www.companyxyz.com/unsubscribe…

This article is a repost from: http://www.interspire.com/content/articles/2/1/15-Email%252dMarketing-Best-Practices

For NetMark, Eight Eleven designed the entire Web to Print system (various custom Web applications and software), including system process flow, database architecture, eCommerce architecture, user flows (use-cases), product design and user experience.

Eight Eleven also branded NetMark’s company and created all of the brand’s visual components (logos, illustrations, Web graphics, etc.).

I don’t see what the big deal is here. Anyone could have created this type of functionality. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has already created a FireFox plugin that does just this. Perhaps not.

You have to have the sidewiki downloaded, installed and plugged in for this to work. So, unless users opt to use it, they won’t see anything.

Honestly, I think this is great. For companies that have sub-par products and services, poor customer service or just overall deliver a bad brand experience to their consumers – I think the consumer has every right to speak up. Before, they could do so on Twitter. Now they can do the same thing in-line with the brand.

What this does is forces the brand to step up its game, provide better products and/or services and provide better customer service. If a company is failing in these areas, perhaps this will serve the brand right. I say, down go the brands with a poor experience – let’s get them out of the way to make more room in the market for successful brands.

Interestingly, if you #bestbuy or @bestbuy on Twitter with some feedback, there is a good chance you’ll get a response from a Best Buy customer service representative. Very cool.

Business is going social. We need to all jump on board.

There are some good points raised here around defamatory remarks (hurting a brand) and dilution and unfair competition (confusing a consumer with suggestions of affiliation, partnership, sponsorship, endorsement, etc.), however, these are not new concerns. The same goes on social networks where users opt-in. Facebook Website users can easily opt-in and become “friends” or “fans of” Brand X. At this point, they could just as easily leave remarks on the pages of Brand X that read, “While Brand X is OK, I prefer Brand Y or Brand Z.” It is up to the brand to maintain their relationship with the consumer.

Now, this does raise the question of choice. A brand may choose to have a Twitter account and follow its customers. A brand may choose to have a Facebook page and allow its customers to become “Friends” or “Fans.” However, with the Google Sidewiki, brands do not have this choice. This, however, does not change the fact that Twitter and Facebook are open platforms that allow consumers to discuss things openly, publicly. If a brand is concerned that social Web users’ voices may be detrimental, chances are, the brand will have to start monitoring the Web. It will likely be too cumbersome for government to regulate free speech on the Web.

Aaron McLean

Executive VP

It is official from Google: Keywords are out.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

On my latest trip home, I found an old timetable for the Metro line from 1984. If you happen to need any timetables, I know where you can get them dating all the way back to 1916. Seriously. What struck me was on the front of the timetable, was a message about how “green” Metro was.

The recent upturn in being environmentally conscious is itself, recycled. My friend’s mother for years cleaned out plastic butter containers and was called frugal and thrifty long before they became virtues rather than character flaws. I remember tying up the newspapers in the mid-1970s to put out for the recycling truck to pick up and stomping on aluminum cans in the late-1980s in order to fit more cans in the bin.

As a designer, I have noticed that each time there is renewed interest in the environmental movement, the first industry hit is printing. All that paper for catalogs and magazines and direct mail is such a waste. We must go digital and only send out emails and have a Website. And as much as I recycle (I even started the recycling program at work and own several grocery totes to minimize the plastic bags I use), I see a disconnect in the notion that print be an environmental hazard when it was made out of a natural substance.

Paper can be made from cotton, bark and most recently I discovered a paper made out of stone. Electronic gadgets (computers, phones, laptops, etc.) are made of a polymer substance derived from oil. In “Titan”, a biography about John D. Rockefeller, Sr., a point is made that from oil, we not only can make petroleum jelly, gasoline, and other fuel, but plastics that can form CDs, computer covers and even car parts. All of these eco-unfriendly items take a toll on the environment and the global population. In the remote regions of China, families spend their days extracting the copper from the wires and other circuitry from discarded televisions and computers. As their area has become a high-tech dumping ground, the local water supply is contaminated.

Many reputable paper manufacturers actually plant more trees than will be harvested for their factories. Instead of traditional inks, soy inks have been developed and improved over the years. Digital printing has vastly improved to the point where you can now print-on-demand. Marketing efforts can be acutely focused allowing you to segment your collateral to the intended audience and print in smaller quantities. If you want to hone in on soccer moms, print the brochure using images that relate to them. For the single man on the go, poof – change the image, but not the copy.

For one of our international clients, I found printers in each of their global locations to cut down on the emissions that would result from shipping all of the collateral from the United States. It just made better sense to spread out the print work to five printers rather than flood one and have skyrocketing shipping costs. While I am not sure the exact magnitude, I know that reduced our carbon footprint and provided work around the globe as well.

With paper, you have a tangible item to hold and read and connect with. In the goal to reduce emissions and carbon footprints and anything else that can be done to reduce global warming, we cannot devalue one industry in favor of another. With 1-1 printing, you can customize your print to the individual recipient. Once they are engaged, you add in the electronic conversation to keep a connection with them, provided your information is relevant and intriguing to them.

What is most important in marketing is to use the best vehicle for the best return possible. My 14 year-old niece hasn’t used email in over two years. My 83 year-old Aunt emails me weekly. Generalized demographics are not going to get your message across. Cross-marketing efforts will.

Don’t hesitate to include printing in your marketing efforts. The impact of something to hold and refer to is something that a computer screen can never match. We can print on paper and we can convert it into a planter and continue the green cycle and save our planet.

Susan DeAngelus
Art Director

For a creative person, we take the answers and begin to construct either a logo or a brochure based off of that discussion. It is our duty in our profession to stay ahead of trends and not only learn about composition and layout, but history and concepts as well. Personally, I avoid being a “trendy” designer, as trends come and go and no one should have a logo or trademark that is definitive of any one decade. Many times the appropriate solution is conceptual and requires that “Ah ha” moment of the viewer. Other times, the best solution is quick and straight to the point.

After days or weeks of creative work, tweaking and adjusting, working and massaging the copy to have the most impact for the reader about the company or product, there is the next meeting to reveal the creative work. Most of the time, it goes well and all are happy and the project proceeds to the next phase.

But once in a while there is that innocent phrase that is uttered – “I don’t like it”.

It’s a quick phrase and is clear for the person saying. For the creative, there is confusion as to what exactly don’t you like. The font? The color? The positioning? The images used? There are so many factors in play that we need to have explained more definitively in order to get right to the heart of the matter.

That phrase can lead to increased costs on the project due to the creative team needing to pinpoint the “problem” if they do not receive the constructive criticism that is required. Constructive criticism is not meant to offend anyone. It puts the focus solely on the work and what needs to be fixed or modified in order to bring out the intent or concept of the piece better. In some instances, I’ve found that a simple change of color is all that is needed to change the opinion of the client. One client in particular just didn’t like the color green.

We in the creative field are trained to remove our egos from projects and always keep the client’s needs and goals at the forefront. Tell us exactly what is not appealing to you and don’t worry about offending us. It would be offensive to us to put out creative that you don’t like. We just ask for the details.

Susan DeAngelus Art Director

http://usingmac.com/2009/7/8/mac-free-system-tools

A number of clients have requested additional information on SEO and SEM in the past. Instead of piecing these together one at a time, I thought, probably best to aggregate for our readers and clients:

SEO:

http://www.clickz.com/3624560

http://searchengineland.com/best-seo-practices-during-a-website-redesign-14947

http://searchenginewatch.com/3624568

http://reviews.cnet.com/seo/9602-12576_7-0.html?messageID=2509815&kw=seo

http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-blog/14-modern-seo-best-practices-for-2009.html

SEM:

http://www.clickz.com/3302321

http://www.webmarketcentral.com/SEM_Best_Practices.htm

http://www.aimclearblog.com/2009/03/26/8-best-practices-for-serious-marketing-plans/