On Thursday, June 6th IRCE officially came to a close for exhibitors and the main exhibit hall. Even though speakers and presentations lasted through Friday, Beacon had a full day at McCormick Place before shutting down the booth and heading home. After a great breakfast in downtown Chicago and packing up our suitcases we took our last shuttle trip to the convention center to talk Beacon’s SMART Web Solutions. The morning went by incredibly fast and we had wonderful opportunities to speak to some of our clients and partners who attended the event before we went our separate ways.

The Beacon team had a chance to catch up with our partners at 4Tell, Aspdotnetstorefront and Nextopia and even has a meeting with our client’s Total Wine. As the day wore on we had a chance to give away some great Google prizes and a Jambox to attendees who came by during the week and spoke with us. As the day winded down and the closing hours approached the Beacon Team began to break up as we all had our separate flights to catch back home and snap back to reality.

This year’s IRCE was a great success and we showed up with a brand new booth, a brand new look and with experience from last year’s event to draw on. We were able to hear from some of the best thought leaders in the business, talk to some our wonderful clients and partners and get to know brand new people who are interested in growing alongside of us. Thank you once again for everyone we met, spoke to and saw at this year’s conference and have a successful 2013!

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Day 2 at IRCE was extremely busy and full of breakout sessions from notable guests like Al Gore and Beacon clients/partners Bronto & Delta Apparel. The exhibit hall opened at 9:00 a.m. and after a quick breakfast Beacon team members manned the booth and started meeting attendees and giving away prizes. Our team member Annette, was helping out at our partners booth, AspDotNetStorefront, to talk about how Beacon and Aspdotnetstorefront can help businesses succeed through e-commerce.

As the day wore on, we gave away our first set of Google giveaways with some Google backpacks and laptop sleeves. Our last team member arrived in the morning as Brad Henry showed up to talk digital strategy with IRCE attendees. Around lunch time all the exhibitors begin to hit the wall and the food court starts beckoning from afar. But at Beacon, we say “When in Rome…Do As The Romans Do.” So we ordered some wonderful Lou Malnati’s pizza for some excellent local deep dish taste of Chicago. It was huge and wonderful and kept the crew moving all afternoon. Coincidentally, later on that afternoon an attendee from Lou Malnati’s picked up another great Google prize.

Beacon had wonderful opportunities to hang out with some of our wonderful vendors at IRCE. Nextopia members were able to stop by to say hello, along with our wonderful clients Delta Apparel, Superior Play, Burton & Burton and Annette was holding down the Aspdotnetstorefront booth most the day. Our Sales Director, Rick Boccard, had the wonderful opportunity to sit in on a breakout session by Delta Apparel and Bronto that helped give insights into holiday email marketing for eCommerce.

As the day winded down, Beacon was able to award our grand prize of the day, a brand new JAMBOX to our lucky winner, Tabi. After the social hours at the end of the day the Beacon team headed back to the hotel and down to dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant just a short walk away that helped cap off a wonderful day at IRCE. Thursday is the last day of IRCE for us before we head back home to Greensboro.

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IRCE is a huge event. When I say huge, I mean HUGE. Walking into the conference you have to do a double take to make sure this is where you should be. Massive RV’s, cars, three-story booths and awesome lights are a great welcome to Chicago and McCormick Place. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself…we haven’t arrived yet.

Beacon started off from Greensboro, went through Charlotte and then onto Chicago on Tuesday morning. After a smooth ride and great shuttle service to the hotel, the Beacon team (Rick, Emily & Jordan) picked up the booth and supplies and took the complimentary shuttle to McCormick Place (America’s largest convention center…think airport size). After setting up everything, Beacon was able to unveil the new look of our brand, at booth 545, and approach through SMART Web Solutions with brand new materials and a backdrop to set the booth off.

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The exhibit hall opened at 4:00 p.m. and Beacon started off meeting the huge 9,500-attendee crowd. Shortly after the event kicked off we were welcomed by the rest of our team, Annette and Mark! Beacon is giving away some great prizes over the three-day conference and exhibit and started the contest to see who will take home some Google bags, lava lamps and a Jawbone JAWBOX. We even ran into one of our partners, Nextopia, who are right next to the our booth. The event shut down at 7:00 but the party continued as Beacon took part in a conference kickoff event with great food and entertainment.

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Later on that evening, Beacon took to downtown, a short walk from the hotel, to go watch the Chicago Blackhawks play downtown and enjoy some good food and catch up after a very long day of travel and work. Stay tuned for a recap of day 2 and 3 at the conference and see some of the winners of the contest and meet some of our great partners who are at the event!

With Beacon’s customer base spanning the U.S into 40+ states, into 30+ universities and now, into the Virgin Islands and the U.K., credit must go to Beacon’s Sales Team.

Rick Boccard, Beacon’s Director of Sales, joined the company a couple of years ago after working as a territory sales executive for Bronto Software. He has quietly and effectively changed the direction in establishing new sales and marketing tactics within Beacon under his leadership. Of course, there’s a great technical team assembled behind the front line that delivers quality products and services. The growth in sales has not only been cause to hire new development and digital marketing employees, but also for expansion into additional office space.

Three (3) new members were added to the Sales team recently…

• Justin Terrell: Account Manager
• Emily Ledbetter: Account Executive
• Ryan Bowles: Account Executive (starts June 1).

Beacon continues to grow an impressive list of clients with recent signings by:

• University of the Virgin Islands (37 companies competed for this project)
• Emory Healthcare (GA)
• Syracuse University (NY)
• Harvard University (MA)
• Bassett – HGTV (VA)
• 17 Bassett Store Locations
• Lees-McRae College (NC)
• Southern Illinois University (IL)
• eVacuum Store (MA)

…while signing new major projects for existing clients like:

• Bassett Furniture (VA)
• Burton+Burton (GA)
• NewBridge Bank (NC)
• Princeton Review (MA)
• Business Supply (NC)
• Honey-Baked Ham (OH)
• Basin Electric Power (ND)
• Robert Ham (NC)
• NC Technology Association (NC)

…while hitting an expanded trade show circuit (recent & upcoming)

• HighEdWeb – New England (Mar 18) – Silver Sponsor
• HighEdWeb – Florida (Apr 22-23) – Silver Sponsor
• NCTA State of Technology (Apr 25) – Gold
• Piedmont Triad Business Showcase (May 16)
• HighEdWeb – Michigan (May 20-21) – Silver Sponsor
• NCTA Emerging Technology & Trends (May 23) – Series Sponsor
• HighEdWeb – West in Orange CA (Jun 2-3) – Silver Sponsor
• Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition – Chicago (Jun 4-7)
• Lots more events – See our Events Schedule for the rest of 2013.

Hope to see you at one of the upcoming events. Let us know how we can help with any of your web initiatives whether its web development, website design, digital marketing or web hosting. Even if you want to bounce a question off us or need confirmation about a particular strategy, we would be glad to help.

On Saturday, April 13, 2013, students and corporate teams from all across the triad will take over Downtown Greensboro to compete in the Biscuitville Bowl 7 Campus Scramble. Our Beacon team will attempt to take home a Golden Rolling Pin, by sprinting through downtown and scrambling through four off-the-wall biscuit-themed obstacles. The course is set for Center City Park as competitors will run/jump/slide through Downtown Greensboro’s Cultural District. Obstacles are placed throughout the race route and runners will take on breakfast ingredients including:

• Sweet Tea Tumble: Scale a 12 foot tall ramp with a lemon in your mouth and tumble down 14 feet into a pool of Southern Sweet Tea!
• Grit-Iron Tires: High knee through 8 sets of tires filled with wet grits. Lace up your shoes tightly to get through this Southern-style quick sand!
• Buttermilk Slip n’ Slide: A running leap into a 27 foot long river of buttermilk and slide to the final leg of the race.
• Jelly Belly: Army crawl on your elbows under flags through a low 20 foot long plane of strawberry jelly. Then race around the last stretch to the finish line!
• Finale Bonus Obstacle – Flour Shower: Get dusted in flour as you sprint through the course! Prepare to hold your breath as you’re breaded.

Beacon is confident with its gritty 4-person team that it can take home the Golden Rolling Pin and bread & cook our competition, including our client, Ryan Scott Displays. This year’s team includes CEO, Mark Dirks; Keana Lynch, Web Developer; Rick Boccard, Director of Sales; and Gus Kroustalis, Digital Marketing Analyst.

All proceeds from the 7 Campus Scramble and leftover biscuits will be donated to the Greensboro Urban Ministry.

Competitors can compete relay style in a team of four or compete individually. It is not too late to join in on some fun! For more information on participating or volunteering, please click here. View last year’s photos online now.

*UPDATE*

View this years photos on Facebook

If the 2013 version of March Madness has taught us anything, it’s that the best ‘team’ usually wins. It’s not necessarily the best individual players that get the glory, but the five most talented guys that work together that get to cut down the nets. As an Account Manager at Beacon, I’m lucky enough to be a part of a collaborative effort instead of an ‘every person for their self’ mantra.

It would be ultimately time consuming to explain to you what everyone at Beacon does on a day to day basis, so let’s utilize the March Madness theme to try and breakdown what our clients get when they choose Beacon as their web services solution:

Beacon Team Breakdown:

Head Coach—The Client; without our clients direction and goal setting, we’d just be a bunch of Digital gurus sitting around playing on Google+.

Assistant Coaches—When you sign on with Beacon, you get a Senior Level Member of each of our Departments (Digital Marketing, Software Development, and Sales) assigned to your account, ensuring that the goals laid out by our Head Coach are being achieved.

Players– Executing the game plan and ensuring victory is left in the hands of our more than capable ‘players’  They range from Digital Marketing Specialists, to Account Managers, to Desktop Administrators, Web Developers, and SEO experts. While they could all be the ‘Most Outstanding Player’ in their niche, we’ve combined all this talent into a powerhouse Web Solutions team.

Fans— Customers. The most important part of March Madness, and your website, are the fans. Without customers, businesses don’t exist, so they make up the most important part of this whole equation. Our ‘players’ know that our job is to help your business get the most information to, and get the most out of, your fans.

Like any good team, we enjoy getting feedback from our ‘fans.’ Recently we got the following feedback from our client, HRD Strategies:

“We have always received consistent and white-gloved service from everyone at Beacon.  William Nichols, Caleb Pruitt, Stephanie Baubie, Rick Boccard, and Justin Klingman have all been responsive and provided exactly what needed, when we need it.  William is “a Saint” and has been indispensable to us over the years; particularly with the nightmares we’ve put him through!” -Nina Lovett, President, SPHR, HRD Strategies.

For more information on our team, or to give your feedback of our team, please visit our company Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ accounts.

In the web solutions business, vendor partnerships are inevitable.  Good ones are essential.  And when you find good ones that provide great products or services, coupled with great support and a competitive price, you stick with them.  But there’s always one more element that I consider as well – “fit”.  By this, I mean, do they fit with your company’s personality or culture?  It’s important because you will be teaming with them on behalf of your customers.

I can wholeheartedly say that one of my favorite partnerships is with Nextopia.  From day one, they have been friendly, helpful, customer-focused and seemingly always available.  We see them regularly at trade shows and truly feel like they are an extension of the Beacon Team.  Oh – and of course, they are keenly focused on delivering a best-in-class site search product.

Recently, I chatted with Sanjay Arora from Nextopia, somewhat “interview-style”, and here’s a recap.

MD:  Tell me a little about Nextopia, the company.

SA:  Nextopia was founded in 1999 in Toronto, Canada. Our core focus was, and always has been, search.  Whether you’re a small entrepreneur selling out of your basement or a multinational conglomerate, you need an intelligent search engine.  Since 1999, the company has continued to adapt to the ever-changing needs of both the e-tailer and the online shopper.  Our commitment to our goal shows in our customers, our work and our great employees.

 MD:  What are the main reasons that your customers use or like your product so much?

SA:  There are MANY reasons to use Nextopia, but if we had to pick, we’d have to divide this list into two:

1. Developers love us because of the ease of implementation. Due to the fact that there are so many different platforms and so many different developer styles, a solution needs to be very flexible and very easy to customize.  Our product integrates very easy with all platforms so all developers are able to work with it.
2. Website owners love us because of our results!  Nextopia makes it easy for their customers to find and buy their products.  Best of all, our tool is very affordable for any size of business.  We have over 1,500 customers who understand how an intelligent search leads to a positive ROI.

MD:  What do you see as the most important feature(s) of a site search product? 

SA:  Relevant results!  You can add many bells and whistles to a search results page, in terms of filters, sort options, quick views, compare features, etc, but if you’re not delivering relevant results, you’re not best serving the customer.  The key is to understand shoppers and their shopping habits.  In the Nextopia Control Panel, the merchant can customize results to meet the specific needs of their shoppers and target certain demographics.  Knowing your customers and catering to their needs increases repeat business, which accounts for 42% of all online business.

MD:  Anything you want to share about the Beacon-Nextopia partnership?

SA:  Nextopia and Beacon have been working together on various site search and navigation projects over the last 2 years.  It’s a natural fit because of Beacon’s expertise in the eCommerce world, and Nextopia’s expertise in the site search industry. When a Beacon customer is looking for an upgraded search solution, they are able to integrate Nextopia quickly and easily.  Plus we really like the people at Beacon, they’re very creative and a fun group to work with and we think our clients will enjoy working with them as well.

MD:  What’s on the horizon for site search?

SA:  Search will always evolve because consumers are always evolving.  They’re getting smarter, more efficient, and less patient.  If they can’t instantly find what they’re looking for, they’re simply going to move on…and we don’t blame them.  So speed and relevancy is always on the forefront.

There will also be a push for better data. We want to work closely with our customers, developers, and the industry as a whole, and teach them how to correctly collect data so it can be optimized in a way that makes it so easy for any consumer to find and purchase any product.  The websites with good attribute data, which allow customers to refine their search to the precise item(s) they’re looking for, will win out over sites with poor data every time.

Nextopia’s biggest initiatives over the next year will be focusing on conversion optimization.  For an internet retailer there is no bigger statistic than visitor to buyer ratio, so we’re designing even more tools to make the merchandiser’s job easier and more profitable.  Bottom line is that an intelligent search engine can alter a website into a tool that provides highly measurable returns.

MD:  I like where site search is going – conversion optimization, analytics and insights – which are also at the heart of Beacon’s digital marketing services.  So I’m sure there will be much more for us to talk about going forward.  Keep up the good work and see you at IRCE!

The Sales Team at Beacon, along with more than 100 volunteers, helped make Downtown Greensboro a little greener this Arbor Day.  On March 22, 2013, 45 trees were planted to honor the 45^th anniversary of Greensboro Beautiful.  A variety of trees were planted including: Chinese Pistache, Crape Myrtle, Holly and Littleleaf Linded.  Not only are we improving the tree canopy for downtown Greensboro, but the trees also help improve the environment. Each tree was tagged to show the positive financial impact it has on the environment over the next 15 years.    In addition, the event helped Greensboro, NC maintain its designation as a Tree City USA   for the 22^nd consecutive year.

Greensboro Mayor, Robbie Perkins, delivered the Arbor Day Proclamation during the post tree planting celebration held at Hamburger Square.  A big Thank You goes out to Action Greensboro for including Beacon Technologies in this project. “Beacon is committed to being an active part of the Greensboro community.  We saw this as a great chance to get outdoors and help encourage environmental awareness” said Rick Boccard, Director of Sales at Beacon.

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To View More Photos of the Event Click Here

Last weekend, two Beacon Technologies employees represented the team very well in one of the toughest runs out there. Nicole Tolbert, Lead Strategist & Manager of Digital Marketing Services, and Andrea Cole, Lead Digital Marketing Strategist, participated in the Bi-Lo Myrtle Beach Marathon in Myrtle Beach, SC. Between the marathon, half marathon, 5K, Fun Run and Bike Ride, there were over 10,000 participants in the weekend’s events.

Both Andrea and Nicole finished with chip-times under 4 hours and 56 minutes, which is a great time for their first race of the season and Andrea’s first-ever marathon. Beacon Technologies is committed to a healthy workplace and our employees staying active and healthy. Nicole and Andrea help set a great positive example and work just as hard on the race course as they do with their clients. Feel free to give a shout out to both these women on our Facebook page! Congratulations, to both Andrea and Nicole for your accomplishment!

NCTA Outlook For IT

Even though it seems as if 2013 is barely underway, Beacon is already several events into its event schedule. Beacon got things kicked off at NCTA’s 2013 Outlook for IT Annual Meeting & Tech Expo in Charlotte, NC. Beacon was lucky to represent itself with a booth at this years event and be a Gold Sponsor. Once setup at the event, we ran into Marc Montoro, Sr. Director of Programs & Communications for NCTA and gave us a warm welcome.

twitpic.com/c02bxj thanks @beacontec, we are very excited to kickoff our website redesign. Check out their booth at #OutlookForIT.

— NC Technology Assn (@NCTA) February 1, 2013

After meeting many of the other exhibitors, Beacon participated in a luncheon and saw several presentations from Michael Smith, VP of Research for Gartner, Michael Manos, CTO of AOL Services and Tom Becker, Vice President, Recruiting at Experis.

We would like to thank NCTA for the amazing time at Outlook for IT this year! From the big crowds, to the amazing speakers and information, this is an event we are surely looking forward to participate in again next year.

Coming Up Next: IRWD

Coming up on Monday, February 11-13 is the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference in sunny Orlando, Fl. The stage is set at the Omni Orlando Resort for over 50 exhibitors, 53 expert speakers and 34 conference sessions over the three day event. IRWD will draw a diverse crowd of top e-commerce executives, web designers and developers, and marketers from web-only merchants to e-commerce operations of the top chains. This conference is geared to people who want to roll up their sleeves and engage with pros and peers to learn how to enhance the design and functionality of their web sites to better serve their best customers and shopping prospects.

You can follow the happenings of the conference by following Beacon Technologies and Internet Retailer on Twitter. Check back frequently on both Twitter and Facebook to see photos, giveaways and updates from the event. You can tweet with #IRWD2013 or tweet at either one of us with @beacontec and @IR_Conferences. Connect with both accounts below.

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