Recently I won my very first iPad by providing the winning suggestion in a product detail page review for AspDotNetStorefront and it arrived today!  The contest involved reviewing a product detail page for a current AspDotNetStorefront customer and my suggestion involved modifying the color drop down box to display different images, based on the color selected (manual instructions here).  The customer explained that they “chose your comments over all others because you were brief, to the point and pointed us to a feature of ASPDNSF that we were not utilizing. We appreciate the time you took to share your comments with us.”

Thanks to the folks at http://www.safetylightsandsignals.com for selecting me and my buddies at Vortx for sponsoring the contest!

What should I do first??

There are many form validations available to use and each has their own unique features. If you have ever needed to validate checkbox or radio button sets this jQuery validation plugin can do just that. For instance, it can verify that at least two checkboxes must be checked.

This jQuery plugin goes beyond that option with more features and is easy to implement. See the demos and option to download the plugin here.

How to adapt without compromising the soul or your business.

Effective business plans depend on an established value proposition by your organization and within your customer base. This is the belief that the customer value will be experienced as promised by the brand. Value is defined as benefits minus the cost. The visual identity of your brand should become synonymous with this perception of value in the eyes of your target market. Your visual identity is very deeply rooted with your logo as well as the brand colors, type, type stylings, and visual marketing methods. These things must maintain enough constancy so that the market recognizes these things as being uniquely you, but must also adapt to the changing needs of your business.

Change is important! Since the market is always in a constant state of flux and growth, it is vital for your brand to grow with and adapt to this ever changing market. If you haven’t updated your brand since your business began, it is most likely in need of a refresh. Even if there isn’t a need a full rebrand, it is vital to be constantly evaluating your assists and your position in the market in order to assess the direction and growth potential of your business. At the same time, you have a strong history of brand value that is deeply rooted in hard work, great service, or reliable and valuable products in the market. Do everything within your power not to leverage against the established equity you have in your brand while being flexible and growing enough to stay relevant and profitable within the market.

Leveraging your existing brand strengths throughout a rebrand is vital for staying true to your existing customers and making the most of everything you have built. Not only this, but staying true to your essence maintains the perception of honesty and the integrity of your brand. A perception of wholesome values can be a great asset in a degraded marketing economy with “buy one get one free” and “special one time offer”marketing schemes exist at every turn. Flex to take advantage or sales and growth potential, but maintain a honest core at the same time.

When delving into the rebranding process, take this opportunity to do as much research into your market and client base as possible. This is a great time for you to seriously consider the potential growth for your company. After all, a new visual identity system for your company should be one that you can grow into and embraces what you want to become as well as what you are. Think big and collect data from every source possible. Utilize social media as well as more direct communication and research opportunities. Remember, that what people say is not necessarily what people actually do. Don not trust everything you are told when you talk to resources about your organization. There is much more merit in the actions of people and the actions of the market, this should override less quantitative data.

Embrace your competition, cross market, and network. You can utilize connections to benefit from the successful market trends in other industries. Don’t just focus on what you do well, also focus on what others are doing well and how it can tie in what you are doing. This way, you rethink your customer base and learn how to expand, while still staying true to the core of your business by continuing to do what you do well.

To maximize the effectiveness of the rebrand, a plan should be in place to help your organization make the switch over to the new identity system. Employee email signatures, printed collateral, and all digital media assets including the website have to be adjusted to incorporate the new brand, ideally at the same time. That is why considering to tackle a rebrand when you are already planning to rebuild your website and digital collateral can cut back on the cost and time by streamlining the process. Putting out an internal guideline can help everyone make the switch over smoothly and in a timely fashion to increase the effectiveness of the rebrand and to eliminate potential confusion for the customer and to also minimize drawing attention to the change so that it seems more seamless in the eyes of the market.

I personally believe that honesty, handwork and a healthy dose of creativity are the most valuable assets to maintaining a healthy brand. Hiring creative experts to assist your through your rebranding process can breathe life into your business and your ideas and help your business thrive.

We have released a redesigned WordPress AND AspDotNetStorefront site in one at www.sternrecovery.com. The “base” public site is administered in WordPress, but when the visitor clicks on “Make a Payment”, they are transferred to a secure AspDotNetStorefront site, where they can submit payments online for their claim. The site design is a huge improvement/modernization over the old design and the AspDotNetStorefront functionality required some careful customization to meet the client’s unique environment.

Stern Recovery Old Site

Stern Recovery New Site 

Great work Team!

When putting a template together or marking up a web page, I persistently save, change to my browser, refresh–and evaluate the last few edits, and then swap back to my editor.  It would be really (really!) nice if the browser just updated automatically, and I just needed to glance at a monitor as development progressed.  (Especially with a multi-monitor workstation.)

Well, I found a script that does just that written by Martin Kool.  When embedded in the head of a document, Live.js  will update a page’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on the fly. I’ve tested that it even recognizes when the script itself has been removed from the file and will discontinue running.  It is important to remove this script after development and testing so that you don’t end up seeing a flood of HTTP requests live in production:

And here’s the one-liner to make use of it:

<script src="http://livejs.com/live.js" type="text/javascript" ></script>

You’d be surprised that you have been looking at your search queries in Google Webmaster Tools and not been aware that many of the queries were for image search instead of the web.

In the past, I’ve gone to Webmaster Tools to check out the recent search queries. Often, I wondered where Google Webmaster Tools was getting its information because most search queries I saw listed were not the same ones I saw in the Google search rankings.

At first glance, it appears that the queries are generating a lot of impressions and hence traffic.

Not until Google integrated Webmaster Tools into Google Analytics did the smoke clear.

To get a better picture of the queries leading visitors to your site in Google Analytics, you will need to take an extra step in Queries under Search Engine Optimization.

Underneath the Secondary dimension, click on Visitors and then click on Google Property.

Look! In this example, most of the top queries are for Image search and not Web!

Unless you are checking out the secondary dimension Google Property underneath Visitors, your Search Engine Optimization Queries within Google Analytics may not be as clean as they should be.

I was fortunate enough to attend the 2012 Bronto Summit in Chapel Hill with Rick Boccard, one of Beacon’s Account Executives. Bronto is an innovative email service provider that I have worked with since 2008. Although I am familiar with the company, there are so many amazing new features and capabilities added each year that my time at the summit was well worth it. In addition to their cutting edge product, Bronto is full of wonderfully friendly and fun-loving people. I had a blast!

Bronto stampede at Bronto headquarters

I attended a handful of seminars on email marketing and wish I could have gone to every last one. I’d like to share just a little of the great information I took back with me and plan to utilize. If you’d like more details, here is a link to all the wonderful Bronto Presentations.

10 Ways to Boost Revenue Through Email Marketing
• Season Specific Sales
• One Day/Flash Sales
• Friends & Family Discounts
• Lapsed Purchaser Messages
• Post Purchase Bounceback
• Birthday Coupons
• Shopping Cart Abandonment
• Transactional Messages
• Welcome Message/Series

Testing – Keynote Speech given by Anne Holland from Which Test Won?
• A/B Test your opt-in form for email
• Test overlays (light boxes) or try using them if you haven’t
• Take advatage of short attention spans by testing shorter content in emails, one focus per email, and timing.
• Reoptimize your email templates
• Try social proof for products
• Always test landing pages
• Start using mobile and start testing what works with your customers
• iPad Optimization
• Always track beyond the click in your emails (sales, order value, leads, email captures, revenue, etc.)

The summit was full of inflatable brontosauruses, some twice as large as myself!

Bronto Love!

I saw this article on Forbes.com about new ways to manage. I agree with each and have used several of these metrics. To read the full article, use the link provided. My comments on each metric are included below. While it is a catchy title, I don’t think managers need to know these to be successful. You can adapt one or more for your own use easily and look for ways to subtly employ each of the strategies described. These metrics won’t drastically change management styles, but they do provide ways to improve your management ability and help drive your team to be successful.

Metric 1 – Flow State Percentage

Basically indicates that people need more think/soak time. When you have time to concentrate (i.e. – no interruptions), you are more productive. Getting to, and staying in, the zone more often makes you a better performer.

Metric 2 – The Anxiety-Boredom Continuum

Keep a balance here. Not too easy, not too hard. Stay engaged and tune the level needed as it suites your team.

Metric 3 – Meeting Promoter Score

I have used this to great effect. If you rate the meetings, you get instant feedback on what works, what does not and what people are interested in. I found that once you have a consistent score, you don’t need to track it and your team knows what to expect and is engaged. Bonus – if you end meetings early, expect your score to increase.

Metric 4 – Compound Weekly Learning Rate

My Father-in-Law, always said “Every day you learn”. You do if you are motivated to do so. Even if you just did this for yourself, measuring your progress would change your priorities and how you spend your time in the office.

Metric 5 – Positive Feedback Ratio

Catch your team doing things right. Even the mundane tasks. The author mentions the payback is realized that when you have legitimate criticism, your reports will listen.

These strategies are easy to implement. You can try one or more with your team and tune them as needed. We should always be looking for ways to improve management skills. Who knows — you may influence your peers and your boss by doing this.

Good luck and let me know what your metrics look like over time.

Now that we have been practicing for some time, we are aware of good (and, bad) ways to employ social media. Opinions will vary about the “best of the best”. That is the beauty of the web, it always changes. From a book summary I read on social media, here are some of the best practices according to the author at this point in time. This is not an exhaustive, all inclusive list. The basics are covered and should align with your current techniques for using social media effectively.

There are multiple platforms* available for your content and they should be used relative to the target audience. Having likeable content is a fundamental criteria for success. Get your customer to listen to you and then….

1. Listen first, and never stop listening - You want to know what customers think. Ask and they will tell you. Next, the most important thing to do is listen. Closing the loop by acting on what your customers tell you will prove that you not only listened, but that you understand and can do something about it.
2. Define your target audience better than ever – There are many tools that allow you to focus on your true demographics for your product/service(s). Define them and determine what will make them “like” your content.
3. Think – and act – like your consumer - Remember, it’s about them, not you. Don’t sell them; instead, provide content that is of interest to them. Get them talking about topics of interest and find ways to integrate your wares into their lifestyle.
4. Invite your customers to be your first fans - Word of mouth (WOM) is key here. The more likes you get, the better your credibility. Be clear about your value proposition and define what is in it for them. Remember, there is no value-add if only your employees are interacting with your content.
5. Create true dialogue with, and between, your customers - Related to listening and being genuine. Get them talking about you to leverage the WOM effect. When your customers share tips and tricks with others, it proves they are engaged. It also saves you from providing customer support directly. Help guide the discussion by acknowledging comments – and, correct where needed.
6. Be Authentic - Get connected by demonstrating an interest in your customers. Personalize it by including your name.
7. Be honest and transparent - You can spot a phony a mile away. Your customers can too.
8. Integrate social media into the entire customer experience - Another fundamental for success and cannot be stressed enough. Make sure everyone who interacts with your customers has the same message and is aware of promotions and specials. Regardless of how they find you, it should be a consistent message. The last thing you want is a disconnect among channels and mismanaged expectations from your customers. If they are online, they can tell their network about you – the good and the bad.
9. Don’t sell! Just make it easy and compelling for customers to buy - They already found your content and are engaged. Don’t insult them with a bland sales pitch. State the (relative) value proposition clearly and make it easy to “Add to Cart”.

Having a dialogue with your customers is easy using a social media platform. I would add that you keep in mind how you want to be treated. After all, we all are consumers in the end.

*Platforms range from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare, LinkedIn, Google+, Blogs, and specialized networks (e.g. flickr, yelp, etc.)

A short time ago, YouTube urged us to “Broadcast Yourself”. Well, they don’t have to tell us anymore. Consider that 4 Billion videos are viewed every day.* With all that content being uploaded and viewed, our video habits on YouTube provide interesting ways to get visible. More importantly, it also defines how to stay visible. I recently read an article that indicates we are at a transitional time for broadcast media. Part of that change, some argue, is that YouTube has become an online-studio system.

The five (5) maxims are:

1. Make a lot of content. A lot
2. Target a niche
3. Connect with your fans
4. Collaborate
5. Optimize for the algorithms

An example — Since 2007, just shy of 79K people have watched the Chocolate Rain video by Tay Zonday. He now has his own money-making YouTube Channel.

The complete article is available here on Wired.com.

*A complete list of YouTube statistics is posted on their site.

Now you know how to get viral and stay visible.