Did you know you can reclaim hours of your time by just short-cutting or automating even the simplest actions you repeat every day, week, month or year? A while back, I invested in a small software that helps me type, launches programs and create simple macros. I didn’t use it to its full potential, most of the time I used it to help me auto-type HTML code, PHP code snippets, WordPress code, repetitive emails, email addresses, website URLs, my bio etc. One day, I was setting up new texts and realized the software had a little calculator. It told me…

While writing a post about ePub which is digital book format recently, I wondered how my peers like their eBooks. In online marketing, eBooks and eReports have existed for the longest time and they are almost always delivered in PDF format. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. PDF adoption rate is very high so it only makes sense to use a format most people will be able to read – or face a customer service nightmare. But in the more recent years with the proliferation of e-readers like the Kindle, Nook and now iPad, how many read their PDF’s…

A brand by its nature has to be strong and stable. Owners of the brand have to be ever diligent to ensure its authenticity. Stake holders have an enormous impact on this stability. Stresses from the marketplace place a hefty strain on it. Lets have a look at some of the cracks that can form that if left unaddressed can result in brand collapse. The Inconsistency Crack: Take a look at all of your collateral materials. Are they consistent in brand image and message? Are all of the brand logos the same? Are all the colors part of your overall…

At a web conference today, someone asked me that very question. It is such an excellent question because years ago when the Internet was young, it wasn’t all that easy to change your design without some technical skills. These days, changing a design is as simple as uploading and selecting the theme. Yes, you may still need a little bit of tech work to tweak it but it’s much easier. As a result, I’ve seen people change web site design like they change clothes. To me, that is a problem and here’s why. [caption id=”attachment_2664″ align=”alignright” width=”205″ caption=”Chameleon by Ross…

See this barcode looking image? That is a QR code. If you have a mobile phone with a QR reader app installed, focus the camera on the screen, it should take you to a special web page 🙂 Don’t have a QR reader app? You can get them free. I’m sure there are plenty of options for all kinds of devices. The one I use comes from i-nigma. What’s the big deal? QR codes are big in Japan. Apparently, these are everywhere in the cities there. In the U.S., not so much although I have seen it sparingly. The idea…

If you’re like a lot of companies, you may think great brands can be intentionally made. No matter how hard you may try – you come up with an idea and try to control how the public uses that idea – ultimately your brand will be determined by that audience, NOT YOU. All you can do is deliver or not on the promise of why that idea exists. How well you deliver, influences your brand. That authenticity is what you have control over. How it is perceived is what the public controls, and that perception is YOUR BRAND, like it…

“This is pretty cool”, I thought as we went through this mile long document filled with legalese together with the representative on the phone. Oh, make no mistake. Legal documents do not make my heart skip a beat – not unless some long lost relative bequeaths me a fortune (tough). But what I did find interesting was the system the law firm used to obtain our signatures digitally to seal the deal quickly. We often have a need to sign NDA’s, Joint Venture agreements and Independent Contractor agreements. This sometimes is a pain because many freelancers don’t have faxes and…

Here’s an interesting issue. James is an affiliate who sends a company leads to a page where the prospect shall complete a form requesting for – something free. Once the prospect does that and is considered a ‘good’ lead, James gets paid his commission. This is a pretty classic cost-per-action campaign or pay-per-lead affiliate program. Nothing wrong with it right? But what if… The lead is ‘rejected’ by the company. Maybe because the form wasn’t complete or the prospect did not complete all the required steps because they changed their minds. The prospect doesn’t receive his freebie and James doesn’t…

How many people do you know who long to be in their own business? They have lots of great ideas and yearn to “be my own boss.” They put a lot of energy in dreaming and wondering if this will be their ticket to financial freedom. I had the opportunity (I use this word lightly) to meet one of these dreamers the other day. They had that great idea that was going to do it for them. We shared a conversation over coffee. Essentially it was a web-based business, lots of coding etc. I said I’d investigate and can back…

Everything that touches your brand affects it. How you market it, is the voice of your brand. Positioning is the stand you take. Community involvement is the heart of your brand. Brand perception is reality to your audience. How stake holders describe and talk about you has some impact on your brand standing and the perception factor. With all these influencers (and more that I haven’t mentioned) there are any number of barriers that affect your brand’s success. Your job ( and a mighty big one) is to minimize any negative impact these influencers may have. Some of these are…