10 Excuses for Not Getting Testimonials
It's time to help others help you help you. It's time to get your brand evangelists to tes-ti-fy! It's time to bring testimonials to the forefront of your marketing objectives and let your good work be shared by those who appreciate your efforts. Testimonials build...
Email Marketing Built to Survive Inbox Bankruptcy
Inbox bankruptcy refers to a recent phenomenon whereby people finally decide to purge all their unread email messages due to a feeling of being overwhelmed by how far behind they are in acting on these messages. This means eliminating any cause of clutter and stress....
Create A Brand Story For Profitability Ever After
I recently attended a seminar held by Melvin D. Nelson, co-author of Business Model Innovation. In his speech, Mel (yeah, we're on a first name basis now) talked about the importance of business models, making sure the idea of the business made sense and it generates...
5ives: Bad Sending Habits for Email Marketing
We've already established that people are starting to hit the reset button on email. It's probably for the best because I think we all receive notifications about companies we don't care about or have lost their luster. Personally, email marketing is amazing - when...
Design for Success
Working with a designer isn't as hard as you might think. Really. I've been in the design game for a while now and have learned a few things about what makes a successful project. To me, the best way to make the process painless is through collaboration between the...
Quantum Leap: Business to Business Copywriting
Writing copy for business-to-business communications is like living an episode of Quantum Leap. You wake up in the body of a salesman working in an industry you don't really know and have to complete certain objectives before you get to go home. It's thrilling. It's...
5ives: Ways to Save Money on Graphic Design Costs
Balancing creative impact with media exposure has been a battle in every shop since the dawn of modern advertising. In our industry, we've even picked teams - suits versus creatives. It's no secret that high-end graphic design adds professionalism and polish to any...
Manually Install php on WampServer
In my last blog post, I said that I like having a development environment on my computer (running Windows 7). I use WampServer to do this. I especially like that WampServer allows you to have multiple versions of php (and MySQL and Apache) installed. You can switch...
Making SQL Server 2008 and php Play Nice
I like having a local development environment when I'm working on new or existing projects. This means that if I blow something up, it's just on my local machine and not on either the staging server or (God forbid) the live server. It's an added level of sanity for me...