At about the same time, Dano over at Sales Partners NY was thinking that he has a great product, staff and sales capability, but thought he’d like to improve his company’s market reach. He remembered meeting me and was thinking of getting together to talk about his Internet Marketing needs.

As we sat down to talk about helping each other, it dawned on us that we are not that different from our customers. We’re really good at our core business and need help in other areas. Our strengths are Sales, Marketing and Business Building. Who doesn’t need that? So, we decided to join forces and share our strengths with our peers.

We’ve created an action-packed, motivational 2 hour workshop to help you grow your business faster and more consistently than you’ve ever imagined. And, we’re making it free. There is a catch: You have to come to the workshop in mid-town Manhattan. Yes, this is a live event with real people in a room and a great opportunity to learn.

In the workshop you will learn:

• The six critical elements needed to run a successful business
• Ten tips for Online success in 2010
• How to sell more in any economy
• How to get more customers
• The six necessary steps to every effective sales process
• How to hire the Internet to work for you.

Workshops will start at 9:00am and end at 11:00am and will include some networking. The coffee’s on us. Sign up today.

No related posts.

Since so much of what we do in Internet Marketing revolves around email marketing, we wanted to start out by making a special mention of the email marketing system we use for our own newsletters and for many of the clients that we manage. The Emma system is simple, elegant and easy to use and it’s flexible enough that you can set up either simple reusable email templates, or do fully customized HTML email blasts. The company has a focus on marketing done the right way, and done responsibly, which makes us happy. And because they keep a more careful eye on the businesses that they work with than some of the bigger systems out there, there’s a better chance that your email won’t be seen as spam. Fun bonus: they plant 5 trees for every new customer they get!

Some of our favorite features:

• Gloriously simple & easy UI – just revamped and updated recently to make it even simpler.
• Clear, complete reporting
• Easy-to-set-up email triggers, allowing you to integrate your website signups with your email list
• A genuinely cheerful and helpful customer service staff

So check them out, if you’re wondering how you’re going to get started with email marketing for your company. And if you want help setting up or designing your email newsletters, get in touch with us.

No related posts.

Your photos don’t actually float around in cyberspace as commonly thought. They’re stored in a central database in a warehouse (or “server farm”) so you can access them anytime you want via your favorite photo-sharing site like Flickr, Picasa or Facebook.

A recent video from CNN – which is available after the jump – explains cloud computing in layman’s terms. With illustrations of a dog named Frank. Honestly, we couldn’t break it down any easier than these tech gurus. The video details just how and why your photos are kept safe so your memories can last a lifetime – even if your own computer (where most of your photos are stored these days) doesn’t.

Take a look.

No related posts.

People seem to be passing this around, along with comments along the lines of “amen!” and “send someone to this the next time they make a know-it-all-comment about putting something above the fold on your site design!” As someone who talks about designing around the fold a fair deal, I had kind of a squinty-eyed suspicious sort of reaction to these comments, but I also started thinking about it.

The fold (for those who may only be new initiates into the world of web design and to whom this is all a bit arcane) is the line below which your average web viewer will not be able to see the contents of a page without scrolling down. What the creator of the amusing site linked to above is apparently  getting at is that this concept is complete nonsense – scrolling should be thought of by designers as a natural part of every web user’s experience. The web scrolls, get used to it.

I think there’s a few important lessons to to take away here. First: it’s a dangerous folly for a designer to assume that they know how a user is going to view their site. Scroll about five years back, and nobody would have thought that so many users would be viewing the web on their mobile devices. Scroll five years ahead, and who knows how people will be looking at your site. Your fold is not necessarily their fold, so unless you have the budget to redesign your site every time the technology trends a little, design with flexibility and accessibility standards in mind now, and start learning to deal with the great truth of web design – you can never really control how people view your site.

However, point the second: if your business depends on your website, then you need to design for how people do view the web, not how they could. If you’ve ever looked at a heat map of user interaction on your site (we like to use clickdensity for this) then you’ve almost certainly seen how much more attention the top of your site gets, and how much less less people notice content they have to scroll to. And if you’ve taken a look at your own bounce rates, then you’re probably aware of how many web viewers probably check out your site and browse away without ever taking the time to scroll. There is real data out there, and when your business is depending on it, it’s hard to justify not going where the current trends are pointing.

So, is there a page fold? If you’re involved in web marketing, then the answer is definitely, at least for now. But the web grows by people breaking rules, not by people following them – I absolutely encourage people to push the limits of how people interact with the web, and to make scrolling a bigger part of the user experience. Yes, plenty of experimental designs end up coming off simply as a pain in the ass for the user, but that’s no reason not to keep innovating. Someone along the line is going to get very popular (and perhaps very rich) starting the next big trend in user interaction. The constantly changing landscape of the web is what keeps web designers in demand, and in business.

No related posts.

In that post, we mentioned a study by TargetCast tcm that Marketing Charts featured, the results of which suggested that men are more likely to ditch traditional media in favor of digital. According to the consumer trend study, “men are more likely than women to say that the Internet has replaced their need to read printed newspapers and magazines, and also more likely to be willing to pay for a subscription to an online newspaper or for a service to watch online TV with limited ads.”

Perhaps it’s this study that Hulu’s banking on to keep its business model alive when it goes green (as in pay-per-view) next year. But we digress.

The study goes on to detail how engagement in both traditional and digital media differs by gender as well. “Overall, men generally are more willing than women to adapt their usage habits to incorporate more digital and online platforms as replacements for traditional media,” claims the article on MarketingCharts.com. “In addition to increased willingness to trade in traditional newspapers, magazines and TV for digital, 34% of men – compared with just 23% of women – say radio is not as relevant to them today because there are so many other sources for music.”

The difference, however, is not limited to gender. There’s an age gap also – specifically between ages 18 to 34 and 35 and older. The study reveals that:

• Adults ages 18-34 are more likely to have replaced newspapers and magazines with internet content, while adults older than 25 are more likely to consider magazines and newspapers as valuable sources of information.
• Adults ages 18-24 are more likely to say radio is not as relevant and that they prefer reading magazines online. This age group also indicates they don’t mind watching ads when watching TV programs online.
• Adults aged 18-34 are more likely than other consumer groups to consider advertising on the internet influential in their purchase decisions.

See both charts after the jump.

The study surveyed 895 adults between ages 18 and 64 in September of this year. The goal was to observe current and projected consumer attitudes, perceptions and usage of mass media relative to reported past and future behavior.

What do you think? Do you agree with the TargetCast tcm survey? Do you feel like men are more likely to move from traditional media to digital media faster than women? Or do you think that we’re all changing our media consumption habits at the same rate? And what does the future hold for traditional media – is it on its way out all together? Let us know what you think below.

No related posts.

According to the site, founded by former Google employees, “When you want trusted information — product recommendations, travel suggestions, local tips, or career advice — a real conversation with a friend (or friend-of-friend) can be much more helpful than searching the web.

“Aardvark is easy: just send Aardvark a question in plain English, like you do when talking to a friend. Aardvark figures out who might be able to answer, and asks on your behalf — Aardvark is the hub.” But until recently, Aardvark was a below-the-radar search service that gave its beta users just one invitation per month. Ready to emerge from is secretive shroud, however, the service is now giving users an unlimited amount of invites.

This is great news for those of you out there who thrive on useless knowledge – and subsequently want to stake your claim as the knower of all things inane. In the past few months, Aardark has been covered extensively (even if you haven’t heard of it until now) by TechCrunch, The New York Times, Wired and The Associated Press.

If you’re a Facebook user (and, really, who isn’t by now?), you can sign up quickly and easily by connecting to Aardvark via a Facebook application on the Aardvark homepage. In doing so, it will extract important pedigree info and connect you to those of your friends who are already using the search service. Once signed up, you can ask and answer questions through your favorite IM-capable applications (AIM, G-Chat, MSN and Yahoo!), connect to Twitter, and link to your e-mail.

Check it out, and let us know either way if you love or loathe Aardvark after you’ve tried it.

No related posts.

Whereas Twitter dominated the tech headlines in 2009 – a rise to prominence that we’ve document here, here and here – Cashmore presents the case that Foursquare is making all the right moves to make itself a mainstream hit.

The first – and perhaps most important thing it has on its side – is that it has many Twitter connections that are sure to help it gain a foothold across the social media landscape. Cashmore writes:

“The parallels with Twitter are numerous. As technology early adopter and popular blogger Robert Scoble wrote in September: ‘Go back three years ago. Twitter was being used by the same crowd that is playing with Foursquare today.’

“The similarities don’t stop there: Twitter first took hold at Austin’s South By Southwest festival in 2007; Foursquare made its debut at SXSW 2009. Members of both founding teams have previously built successful social startups; both those startups were sold to Google.

“The two companies share investors, too: Union Square Ventures is a backer, while Twitter inventor Jack Dorsey made an angel investment in Foursquare. Other notable investors include the founders of Digg and Delicious, and famed angel investor Ron Conway. Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson observed that Foursquare’s first round financing was ‘among the most competitive early round financings I’ve seen in a long time.’”

Of course, Foursquare can’t survive on similarities alone. And it’s not like the service doesn’t have its own competition. Services such as Gowalla, Loopt (read what we wrote about Loopt here), Brightkite and Google Latitude are all built on the same general concept of being able to share your location with other users within your network.

But where Loopt, Latitude and the others leave off, Foursquare picks up.

As Cashmore puts it, “Foursquare ventures beyond utility, however: It’s a virtual game in which participants earn badges for checking in at various locations; those that check in most become a venue’s ‘mayor.’ By all accounts, this mechanism is as addictive as Twitter, Facebook or checking your e-mail on a BlackBerry.”

While the addictive nature of Foursquare is simply Cashmore’s opinion, we agree that the service is taking great strides to set itself apart from like-minded competitors. And he makes a solid point about Foursquare’s strategy, saying, “Foursquare debuted the singular piece that launched Twitter into the stratosphere: an API. This application programming interface allows third-party developers to build anything they desire on top of Foursquare’s location-based social network. It’s been shown time and again that once these ecosystems gain momentum, potential competitors face an arduous task. From Flickr to Google Maps to Twitter and beyond, it’s clear that early critical mass — having enough users and applications to make a service invaluable — sets the stage for a landslide victory. Google’s Android, entering the mobile platform wars long after the iPhone App Store had served up a veritable smorgasbord of apps to its army of users, is evidence of the chicken-and-egg problem that arises for new competitors: What’s the incentive for users and developers to switch to a smaller, less visible platform once a leader has emerged?”

All true. But as we’ve seen time and again, just because you build it, doesn’t mean they’ll come.

Nonetheless, we want to know what you think. Have you used Foursquare? Have you compared it to the other location-based services? What are your thoughts? Will Foursquare be 2010′s Twitter? Or will it fizzle and fade into obscurity before the countdown to the new year begins? Let us know.

No related posts.

The Los Angeles Times

The quarterly Consumer Internet Barometer showed that nearly 25% of households in the United States now view TV programs online – up a staggering 20% over last year.

Most online viewers, or 43%, are watching new shows, while 35% are catching the sitcoms, comedies and dramas they missed on traditional TV. Less than 20% viewed reality programs, and another 18% got their adrenaline fix via sports programs online.

These statistics are congruent with data released by the Jack Myers Media Business Report, courtesy of eMarketer, that suggests that online ad spending will surpass print ad spending in 2012 to claim 13.6% of the total U.S. ad-spending pie.

Still, there’s a long way to go to regain traction. Overall U.S. ad spending is expected to drop 13.3% this year.

Find the full chart after the jump.

Related posts:

1. The Theory of Social Media Marketing Evolution
2. An Expert Assessment of Social Media Marketing
3. Online Video Advertising Killed the Television Commercial Star

In a recent study, which eMarketer neatly compiled below, open rates varied among users of the top e-mail services, from a low of just over 20% for e-mails sent to AOL users to a high over nearly 31% among Gmail users. The click rate on e-mails sent to Gmail accounts was more than 7.4%, compared with rates between 4% and 5% for Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail users.

The study also shows that Gmail accounts had the lowest hard bounce rate, but that may be due to Gmail’s way serious spam protection.

And believe it or not, Gmail is not – probably contrary to popular belief – the most popular means of e-mailing. The Google-owned service ranks third among U.S. Internet users, with Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Hotmail claiming the number 1 and 2 spots respectively.

Gmail showed the highest growth rate among the top three, however, increasing unique visitors by 46% between July 2008 and July 2009.

No related posts.

It’s not your imagination, there IS something different about Google.com!

It actually took me two days to notice that the face of Google Search was different; I blame that on my browser’s super-convenient Google search bar, personally. In any case, it’s a subtle shift, but one that draws the eye. The buttons, the search box, and the suggestions text are all bigger, supposedly to make Googling even easier than before. And what does Google have to say about the change?

Google has always been first and foremost about search, and we’re committed to building and powering the best search on the web — now available through a supersized search box.

Read more at the official google blog.

Related posts:

1. Coffee Break: Internet Advertising Privacy, Web Video, Computer Injuries
2. 8 Advantages and Disadvantages of being a YouTube Partner
3. How to get searchers to click on your site