The majority of the listed tools are online services but I’ve also included a few offline gadgets and resources that, now that I’ve used them, I couldn’t live without.

You can click on the linked headings for more information about the tool and/or service.

Domain Names

I now own over 350 domain names. And each one is registered with Domain-Blaster.com. Why? Low price and awesome 24/7 support. They also offer web hosting and many other services. (More info).

Business Website Templates

When I need to get a website up fast, a pre-designed and coded Web site template makes it really easy. (More info).

Media Temple Hosting

Before moving our sites to our own server, we used hosting services from Media Temple. They’re decently priced (meaning they’re a bit higher priced than most other hosting providers) but they also provide better service. Essentially you’re getting what you pay for. And that’s a really good thing. (More info).

LayeredTech Dedicated Servers

Once we decided we need more resources and control over our website hosting, moving to LayeredTech was pretty much a no-brainer. (More info).

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

From Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) to hosting apps in the cloud, our bases are covered and our site run smooth as butter! In fact, all the heavy lifting for this site is handled by AWS. (More info).

E-junkie Shopping Cart

If you sell digital, down-loadable products like eBooks, e-junkie provides a great shopping cart service to make the process and cart integration (which is included) pretty darn quick. (More info).

AWeber Email List Management

Have you signed up for our email newsletter? Well, the sha-bang is handled through AWeber. (More info).

Freshbooks Invoicing

Freshbooks truly is painless billing. A great interface, seamless merchant account integration, account tracking — the works. Can’t begin to tell you how much time I’ve saved using this invoicing service and many of our clients have told us they like it too. Two thumbs up. (More info).

Setster Appointment Scheduling

See that big red button over there on the left? That’s Setser — our new appointment scheduling service. Although the user interface could be a bit more user-friendly, it’s a really smart idea and has streamline scheduling consulting appointments. (More info).

WuFoo for Easy Website Forms

With very few exceptions, every form on our site was built and integrated using WuFoo forms. No programming knowledge is required to create a form and submissions are tracked with some great reporting features. The service now also offers seamless integration with PayPal and Freshbooks. (More info).

DropBox File Backups

If you need to sync files across computers, easily share file with others (no matter where they are) DropBox is a snap to use. Their free account gives you 2 GB storage and you can upgrade to a paid account when you need more space (An invaluable service when working with developers). (More info).

YouSendIt File Delivery

A great way to send files to anyone. Couple big benefits; files are uploaded to the YouSendIt server so you don’t have to worry about clogging up your recipients email software and the service tracks when files are accessed and downloaded. It’s like having a return receipt. You can use the service for free or get a paid account. (More info).

TweetMiner

A great Twitter based tool for quickly finding and tweeting news and articles found through keyword based RSS feeds. A real time-saver! (More info).

Brand Monitoring with TweetReports

The best Advanced Twitter Search, Brand Monitoring, Sentiment Analysis and Reporting tools around. A must-have for any business concerned about reputation management. (More info).

PPC Keyword Research Tool

Like the name says, it does keyword research for PPC campaigns. Too many cool features to list here, I’d recommend clicking the link and reading about it. (More info).

Teaching Sells

Knowledge is power and the TeachingSells training course shows you how you can build your own membership site using what you know. Everything is covered from start to finish. A great course for anyone looking to make some money by teaching others what they know. (More info).

Freelance Copywriting Course

Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Lucrative Freelance Writing Business with Social Media Marketing. (More info).

ScanSnap S300M

Going paperless has never been easier. This little scanner has a small footprint and zips through paper scanning in a flash. Everything from documents to sales receipts, ScanSnap scans it into a nice PDF I can then tag and organize. The two software apps I use with this are YEP and Paperless to organize, archive and track expenses. It’s a beautiful trio you will love. (More info).

Apple Computers

Don’t be fooled that being this far down on the list devalues the importance my Mac Pro Tower and Mac Pro laptop, a second Apple laptop and iPhone play into a successful work-flow because this site wouldn’t have been created without them. Sure, I could have used a PC, but that would have meant tripling the time to get anything done. Not to mention the extra lost time dealing with system crashes. But that’s just been my experience. Your mileage may differ. (More info).

I’ve been participating in a social media advertising program called SponsoredTweets. This is a system where advertisers pay Twitter users a specified amount (generally based on the number of followers you have) to post an advertising message for their product or service. Being that my professional background is in advertising, I was curious to see how the system would work and play out over time. So I decided to give SponsoredTweets a test run.

As my @kristofcreative account currently has a little over 2300 followers, I receive a whopping $5 each time I accept and tweet a message for an advertiser through the SponsoredTweets service.

My guidelines for accepting and tweeting such messages are as follows;

1. The product or service needs to fit in line with the content I already talk about.
2. The product or service needs be something I would actually use myself.

To-date, I’ve accepted and tweeted a total of 6 messages for total earnings of $30 which are earmarked for a local food bank.

Up until today, I thought the service was pretty straightforward and had a clearly defined (and successful) business model; post a message (once) and get paid by the system.

Apparently, SponsoredTweets decided to change their business model from a simple post/pay system into some sort of high-bred Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model called ClickWatch. So it’s no longer a simple post one Twitter message and get paid. It’s now a system that follows a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) model. That’s to say that if the link posted in your message does not receive a certain amount of clicks, it costs the advertiser more. On the flip-side, the more clicks a link receives, the less it costs the advertiser.

This CPC business model for selling advertising isn’t bad in and of itself — it’s the same model Google uses. The problem is that SponsoredTweets isn’t Google. SponsoredTweets is a program in which advertisers pay Twitter user’s to post an advertising message on their behalf. This is no different than a company paying to place an advertisement or link on your website or blog, But SponsoredTweets ClickWatch business model changes that.

With ClickWatch, if a link in a posted message does not receive enough click-through to achieve a $1.50 CPC, SponsoredTweets requires the user to repost the message up to two more times (a total of three times). This does nothing more than boost the benefits to the advertiser (they pay less per posted message) while reducing the income for the person posting the message.

In my specific circumstance, my potential earnings of $5 per tweeted message is reduced to $1.66 per message. But the earnings reduction is, by far, not the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is that the people following you on Twitter aren’t doing so to read advertising messages. So the more advertising messages you post the more likely they are to stop following you (no one like’s to follow a spammy Twitter account).

The outcome is that you can quickly find yourself with a social media channel that’s anti-social. Plus, if you’re even remotely considered using advertising in your Twitter messages as a monetization method you’ll find that the less followers you have is directly proportional to the amount of money you can earn.

Less followers = less money.

From an initial viewpoint I can perhaps understand SponsoredTweets thinking — they’re trying to create a more viable and cost efficient program for advertisers. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to come to the conclusion that the cheaper they can offer advertising the more clients they can bring into their service. That’s all well and good until you consider that in doing so, you’re slowly destroying the only advertising vehicle you have — Twitter users. Because without them, you have nothing.

So my question to SponsoredTweets is, “Why are you integrating an advertising model that is systematically executing the people you need to succeed?” Seriously, what are you thinking?

The simple fact is that every person who has decided to follow me on Twitter has entrusted to me to not fill their stream with spam. And I value that trust — a whole lot more than helping you make more money.

So go ahead shoot yourself in the foot one more time SponsoredTweets by revoking your user’s ClickWatch status for 60-days for choosing not to Retweet a message that the advertiser approved and the Twitter user already tweeted. Because punishing people for bad choices made by the company doing the advertising is always a smart move.

And quite frankly, if your advertiser’s don’t like the CPC results they’re receiving by using your system they should either A) do more research into the people they’re making an offer to or B) Move to a PPC campaign.

I’d like to hear your thoughts about social media advertising. Do you like or hate it? Does it have a place in the Twitterverse? And if you’re using SponsoredTweets, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Time for a little WordPress maintenance to update the copyright notice on your site.

For a lot of site owners, this means manually updating the year in your footer.php template. Not necessarily a hard or time-consuming task but you have to remember to actually do it. And if you manage more than one WordPress site, it can be quite tiresome.

So here’s a quick and painless way to have WordPress automatically update the copyright year for you. And it doesn’t require a plugin which is a nice bonus.

Just add this code (generally to your footer.php file).

Copyright <?php echo date('Y'); ?> by <a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>/"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a> All rights reserved.

The first code snippet “echo date(‘Y’)” will automatically display the current year.

The second part will display your blog name (linked to your home page). If you don’t need the name linked, simply remove the href links.

That’s it!

No matter what industry you’re in, it’s important to keep yourself educated on trends and information. Through our many hours of research and reading on social media marketing, we’ve found the following articles helpful for those who are just beginning to dip their toes into the waters of social networking and for those with even more experience.

Since information and marketing techniques tend to change quite often, we’ll do our best to keep this list updated as well.

Recommended Social Networking &
Social Media Marketing Articles

Social Media

• Why Small Businesses Shouldn’t Take Social Media for Granted
• Wax On, Wax Off: Social Media Lessons from Mr. Miyagi
• How to Boost Your Personal Brand With Social Media
• Social Media Demystified
• 40 Most Useful Social Media Posts of Q1, 2010
• Scaling Social Media
• The Corporate Social Networking Manifesto
• You’re Using Social Media. But Just Who’s Overseeing It All?
• Overcoming the 7 Biggest Corporate Phobias to Using Social Media
• Why Social Media Is Vital to Corporate Social Responsibility
• 20 Questions To Start a Social Media Discussion
• Who Are Your Customer Evangelists?
• New Harvard Study: 30 Key Findings on How The CEO Engages With Social Media
• Securing Brand Loyalty Through Relationship Marketing
• Max Your Brand With 4 Social Media Optimization Tips

Social Media Best Practices

• Corporate Social Media Policies: The Good, The Mediocre and The Ugly
• 10 Things to Avoid In Social Media
• 16 social media guidelines used by real companies
• Best Practices For Social Media: The Basics of Program Planning
• 5 Social Media Lessons Learned From Whole Foods

Social Media ROI

• Measuring Social Media Marketing
• 3 Most Common Mistakes Companies Make Attempting To Measure Social Media ROI
• What’s your Twitter ROI? How to measure social media payoff
• Half of Social Media Users Connect With Brands
• Defining Social Media R.O.I. Once And For All: It’s all about the Benjamins

Social Media Certification

• Thanks, but no thanks: Enough with the nonsense already.
• Let’s get constructive about the future of Social Media Certifications

Twitter Articles

• 5 Unique Ways to Use Twitter for Business
• 6 Benefits of Using Twitter for Nonprofit
• 5 Ways to Use Twitter to Avoid a Backchannel Disaster
• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
• 15 Business Reasons to Use Twitter
• Twitter users share early adopters symptoms
• Twitter Really Works: Makes $6.5 Million in Sales for Dell
• 6 Ways Zappos Uses Twitter To Increase Sales
• 7 Secrets to Tweeting Your Corporate Culture
• The Art of the Social Landing Page
• 5 Small Businesses Successfully Using Social Media
• How To manage an enterprise Twitter presence: Avatars, account structure and response methodology

Facebook

• Designing A Facebook Fan Page: Showcases, Tutorials, Resources
• The Formula for Effective Facebook Ads
• 5 Quick Ways To Improve Your Facebook SEO
• Mashable’s Guide to Facebook
• How To Create Brand Awareness On Facebook
• 40% of People “Friend” Brands on Facebook
• 5 Tips For Getting More from Facebook
• How to Manage Facebook Privacy Options
• Facebook Engagement Rate

Facebook Fan Page Tips

• 5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page
• 16 Facebook Applications to Boost Popularity of Facebook Fan Page
• 5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From
• How to Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business
• How To Create the Perfect Facebook Fan Page

LinkedIn Tips

• How to Use LinkedIn for Business (PDF)
• 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Surpasses 50 Million Users
• 8 Tips for Managing a LinkedIn Group
• 5 Tips for Getting More from LinkedIn

Customer Service Articles

• How Customer Support Organizations Must Evolve
• Customer Service Has a New Name and It’s Twitter
• Best Buy Goes All Twitter Crazy With @Twelpforce

Brand Monitoring & Reputation Management

• United Airlines Lose $180 Million due to YouTube Video!
• Why Twitter Should Matter To You 102: UHaul Edition
• A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media
• For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess
• Nine Essential Tactics For Reputation Management In Social Media
• Monitoring your brand online is very important as part of a crisis communications company plan

Brand Monitoring Tools

• Search.Twitter.com
• Google Alerts
• TweetReports.com

Please feel free to suggest an article, report or experts in the field you think we may have missed.

So grab a cup of coffee, a pen, a piece of paper and watch this video about how entrepreneurs change the world. Then write down your ideas. But don’t stop there. Because now is the time to ACT upon them.

Be inspired. Be innovative. Be original. And do the impossible.

Entrepreneurs Can Change the World

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MhAwQ64c0

Credits:
Original Music: Carly Comando
Writer & Producer: Sonja Jacob
Design: Ben White.

1. You can manually choose colors from the photo
2. You can use an online tool to upload you photos
3. Or you can use this quick and easy method

Using the following process in Photoshop, you can quickly create a color palette and add them to your swatches for your projects.

Create Color Palette From Photo

Drop any questions or comments below. Thanks.

The Sultans Elephant

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXr15K2uSc

On the morning of Sunday 7th May the little girl giant woke up at Horseguards Parade in London, took a shower from the time-traveling elephant and wandered off to play in the park…

Music: “Decollage” by Les Balayeurs du Désert

Another great example of what can be achieved through Creativity. Technology. Collaboration.™

We Heart Logo

Found Logo

I’ll have to check, but don’t think Kristi is offering dry cleaning services these days. And if she did, I’m sure she’d create a much, much, much nicer logo design for the hanger. That said, I do know the sentiment is right on; she’s passionate about what she does and loves her customers.

If you happen to stumble across a (replicated) logo being displayed in a strange or unofficial place, drop a comment below. Thanks.

To get an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s the first example;

Official Adobe Acrobat Logo

Found Logo

Yep, I discovered the Acrobat logo replicated as stitching in a bed mattress?

Okay, “acrobat/mattress” I see the correlation, but still…

So this is either a case of Life imitating Art, Art imitating Life, or perhaps it’s Art imitating Art. You choose.

More examples to come. If you happen to stumble across a logo replicated in a strange or unofficial place, drop me a line and I’ll post it. Thanks.

There’s no doubt about it, the Internet has adopted social media and social networking in a very big way. From MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, everyone is communicating in new and exciting ways.

And in the midst of new search engine launches such as Wolfram Alpha, Microsoft’s Bing, and Google’s newly extended search options of Google Squared, Rich Snippets, Google SkyMap, and Wonder Wheel (someone really needs to help them with product naming), and TweetReports.com (coming soon), Google has also announced Google Wave. Here’s a guide and embedded video below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

Mashable has also posted two great articles about Google Wave; A “first look” review “Testing Google Wave” and a follow article “Top 6 Game-Changing Features of Google Wave“. If you want to learn some more in-depth information about this service, these are both “must reads”.

The “New” Social Media?

From reading the article and watching the video, I can see why Google was interested in buying Twitter—it’s a natural fit into the bigger picture of this new communication platform. The wave is also a natural progression of how people can and should interact.

Not that I’m advocating that Google Wave is going to be the end-all, be-all social media platform, only that with so many different (and separated) Internet based applications currently available, Google has created one way that brings them all together under one roof; integrated chat, video, audio, pictures and, not to mention, incorporating all current Google applications such as Google Docs, etc.

Pretty amazing stuff.

So, what could make this just that more appealing? Open source and access to Google Wave API. Now that was smart thinking.

This means that not only can developers created new “extensions” (small applications that can be integrated into the Wave) but almost anyone with a website can embedded a Wave into their site. The possibilities are already running rampant through my head.

How this effects you.

For one, bringing multiple social media type services under one roof makes it faster, if not easier, to communicate and a lot more easier to manage with needing only one username and password.

Services like Google Wave makes web development faster for web designers such as myself because we don’t have to recreate the wheel every time we need to incorporate a specific site feature.

With the ease of embedding a Wave, it brings accessibility down a notch to non-programmers. This follows the same path as YouTube allowing users to embed video’s into a website simply by placing a small snippet of code.

And, of course, the three items listed below accumulates into a cost savings for business owners. But even with the money you’ll save, I still highly recommend hiring an experienced designer, programmer, and social media consultant. Good one’s are worth their weight in gold for the long-term benefits they will provide your business.

What do you think?

What are your thoughts on Google Wave and how it plays into social networking?

Do you think it will reign supreme and dwarf other networking sites such as Twitter? Or do you think Google has a greater master plan in place to dominate the Internet? If you know what it is, please do share.

The biggest culprit to killing the effectiveness of your e-mail campaign is Spam filters.

As you know, Spam is a horrible reality businesses have to do deal with everyday. It fills your in-box with offers for products and services you don’t want nor need and keeps you from effectively communicating with people you actually need to correspond with.

Because of this, e-mail software such as Outlook, Eudora, Apple Mail etc. have pretty strict Spam filters in-place. Additionally, online services such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! and Web hosting services have also implemented strict Spam filters.

To take this one step further, if you’re using an email management system like AWeber (which I highly recommend) they will also analyze your emails prior to sending so you will have a better idea if the email will actually make it to your recipients.

One such popular Spam filtering tool called SpamAssassin™ is used to check your message and display any key areas that are being caught by the filter.

Essentially, any score under 3 is okay. 3-5 not so good. And anything over a 5… well, don’t expect anyone to receive your message.

The thing to note is that the scores are used to determine if your message “appears” to be Spam, not that it actually is. But if it “thinks” it is, chances are pretty good your message will go directly to the Spam box.

Tips for reducing your email newsletter Spam score

In order to have any chance of having an effective e-mail campaign, your e-mails need to have a pretty low Spam filter score.

Tips To Reduce Email Newsletter Spam Score

Here are three quick tips to help reduce your email Spam score. In fact, if you follow these tips you may get your Spam score down to zero.

1. Don’t Use Initial Caps In The Subject Line

Even worse, never use ALL CAPS. This immediately flags Spam filters and your intended recipients will see your message as some sort of business related email — and not in a good way. By the way, using all caps is also poor email etiquette.

You see, using initial caps is generally used for business correspondence because it’s more formal. This is why so many promotional email subject lines written this way. It’s also the reason why you’re more inclined to immediately trash the message without even reading it.

A better way to write your email subject lines is in all lowercase because this is how friends write to each other. As grammatically incorrect this might be, friends don’t bother with formality. Not only do Spam filters understand this, you inherently do too, and are more likely to open an email written in this manner.

For example. Which email would you be more likely to open?

Email Subject Line A:
Special Discount – Get 10% OFF Your Next Purchase At WidgetDepot

Email Subject Line B:?
check out this cool deal on widgetdepot

2. Remove High Score Spam Words

There are specific words and characters that, if used in an email subject line, will immediately increase your email Spam score. These include words like “free”, “call now” and characters such as the dollar sign “$”. All of which will trigger Spam filters.

To see more email stop words, you can download this PDF. You can also Google “list of Spam filter trigger words” to see more stop words as I’m sure more and more are being added everyday.

3. Don’t Use Full URLs as Anchor Text

Pay close attention to this tip because it’s very important.

When including a link in your e-mail, make sure the linked text is not the full website address of the actual URL. It should not look like this.

<a href=”http://www.kristofcreative.com”>http://www.kristofcreative.com</a>

The reason for this is because if you’re using an online e-mail service like AWeber to manage your e-mail campaigns, they will convert the URL into an internal URL they can track it. Your link then looks something like this;

<a href=”http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=GFb00&m=1pZ6gaC.QiZdsn&b=AlM.h0rlkZdPp9kingCAZQ”>http://www.kristofcreative.com</a>

So what the Spam filters now see is a URL that doesn’t match the linked text URL.

This significantly increases your Spam score.

To get around this, simply don’t include the full URL as the text link. Instead, change the text something more meaning full that isn’t a URL.

<a href=”http://www.kristofcreative.com”>go to our website</a>

Now, that the linked text isn’t a URL, there’s no more matching issues to contend with and your Spam score will be lower.

What You Can Expect To See

Although there are many additional items that can trigger Spam filters (such as including attachments) the above three tips are the quickest and easiest to implement. And I guarantee you, they do work. I was able to reduce 98% of my emails to a ZERO Spam score. The other 2% had a Spam score of 0.2. Of course, your results may vary, but at least they will be better than they were.

As I’ve mentioned above, the object is to decrease (or completely eliminate) your email newsletters Spam score. Because the lower your email Spam score, the greater chance your e-mail has of making through to your email list — and the more effective your email campaign will become.

Best of luck with your email campaign. And if you have any email tips you’d like to share, please post them below.

Apparently Motrin hasn’t.

Motrin Babywearing Commercial

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmykFKjNpdY

As a new TV commercial for Motrin has hit the airwaves, their target market of baby-wearing moms hit the social networking scene, specifically twittermoms on twitter.com.

If your not familiar with twitter, it’s a social networking platform allowing people and groups to interact with each other — constrained to 140 characters are less.

Why is this important?

Because the strategy behind Motrin’s “baby wearing” TV commercial looks to capture a slim audience of moms who are more focused on the importance of fashion than the importance of childcare.

This can be more apparent than in the following two lines in the commercial; “Supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience.” and “It’s for my kid.”

And this is where the voices and opinions of Motrin’s real target audience spread across social networking sites yesterday.

From Twitter, Facebook, blog articles and YouTube video’s, the topic of Motrin’s TV commercial and “twittermoms” could be heard throughout the Internet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhR-y1N6R8Q

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFcKhv5O4zM

This is important for two reasons.

First and foremost, it demonstrates the importance of not only locking down your strategy but making sure — really sure — you know who your target audience is. More-so that you understand them.

Do you understand their wants, there needs, their desires, and exactly how they can use your product based on specific scenarios?

Obviously the ad agency who handles the Motrin account missed the boat.

In concept, they took an interesting premise of targeting baby wearing mom’s and then presented the TV idea to Motion for approval.

Motrin, being in the pain relief business shouldn’t be expected to understand every nuance of baby wearing moms. And the same goes for any company.

The question then becomes, didn’t anyone think to actually talk to the target audience? Maybe even run the commercial past a focus group for feedback from real baby wearing moms?

Maybe they did, I don’t know.

What I do know is that there’s a very large and vocal group of baby-wearing moms who have been voicing their dissenting opinion of Motrin’s new TV commercial.

Which brings me to my second point

The power of social networks. In this specific case, Twitter.

To those who have heard of twitter.com but who haven’t actually taken time to join in the conversation generally tend to see it is either another fad chat room or an easy way to market their business and products for a quick buck.

The latter, generally ends up as lame twitter marketing. Using spam tactics and worst practices and techniques for pimping their wares. These are the same twitters who quickly get blocked because no one wants to listen to their lame pitches.

If Motrin hasn’t heard about this already, they will today.

Social networking is a powerful force. And when combined with a vocal and dominating group such as baby-wearing wearing moms (#twittermoms) it’s a force that can easily make or break a company.

And to borrow a quote from a Spiderman movie, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Not to those who are wielding the power, but to the companies who should be listening to them.

Like with any other large or small company, Motrin had, and still has, the opportunity to listen to their target audience.

They are not afraid to voice their opinions. And from my perspective, you can learn the most from negative opinions. Because it’s the negative feedback that will tell you exactly what is wrong with your product. And if you know what’s wrong with your product, you can take steps to fix it.

It looks like Motrin has some fixing to do.

That is, if they’re listening.

I remember watching the Lone Ranger on TV. In addition to the “Hi-Ho Silver, away!”, I also remember Tonto and his loyalty to the Lone Ranger.

In many ways, Tonto could be compared to a PR agency,

Tonto was always by his side and watching his back. He kept his eyes and ears open, and advised the Lone Ranger of opportunities and potential problems.

You see, Tonto also had the ability to put his ear to railroad tracks and hear the train coming from miles away.

Motrin could learn a lot from Tonto.

Motrin, there’s a train coming. Can you hear it?

If you’re interested in joining the conversation on twitter, you can follow me @kristofcreative.

I look forward to tweeting with you.

Update

A Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman responds with statement sent to Forbes.com;

I am the Vice President of Marketing for McNeil Consumer Healthcare. I have responsibility for the Motrin Brand, and am responding to concerns about recent advertising on our website. I am, myself, a mom of 3 daughters.

We certainly did not mean to offend moms through our advertising. Instead, we had intended to demonstrate genuine sympathy and appreciation for all that parents do for their babies. We believe deeply that moms know best and we sincerely apologize for disappointing you. Please know that we take your feedback seriously and will take swift action with regard to this ad. We are in process of removing it from our website. It will take longer, unfortunately, for it to be removed from magazine print as it is currently on newsstands and in distribution.

I realize almost every business owner knows they should have a strategy but, unfortunately, it’s too easy to skip important parts that can have a serious impact on the final direction you follow.

In helping you with your strategy, I was fortunate enough to snag a 34-minute phone interview with marketing guru, Jay Kerness.

A quick background about Jay.

Jay is a veteran marketing and advertising executive. He is also President and co-founder of J Street Consulting, a leading strategic consulting firm in Washington, DC.

Jay received his MBA from Harvard University and has over 20 years experience marketing national brands like General Motors, Keebler, MCI, Lockheed Martin, and many others. His agency background includes Leo Burnett Advertising, Arnold Communications and Rainmaker Interactive.

So without further adieu, here’s the interview (embedded flash video).

Olympic Marketing Series
Part 1: Strategy to Success

I look forward to hearing your feedback and any questions you may have.

Also, if you subscribe to our free email newsletter, you can download Part 1 in all associated media formats including; m4v, flv, mp3, 3g, and a PDF transcript of the entire interview.

Just as we’re five minutes from launching the Olympic Marketing Series, good ‘ol Murphy decides to come for a visit.

You know Murphy, as in Murphy’s law? We’ll we got a heapful of love from him today.

Seems WordPress 2.6 has a bit of a bug in it — changes your permalink structure so none of your pages (except the home page) show up.

A big, fat, 404 error.

For those of you running into the same issue, here’s how to fix your WordPres 2.6 upgrade 404 issues.

Thanks for your patience, we’ll be launching the OMS shortly.

Athletes from all over the world having been training for a minimum of fours year — some their whole life — for a chance to prove their mettle and bring home the Gold.

It’s truly going to be an exciting time.

I’m a huge fan and support the Olympics. Not as an official sponsor but as a citizen of the world who respects the perseverance, dedication, and sacrifice it takes to achieve a goal.

Although I have come to terms that I will never pole vault 18 feet, I have dedicated the last 16 years to learning the art, strategy and marketing of the advertising and design world. And it is within these realms I am proud to announce we will be launching the Olympic Marketing Series on Thursday, August 7 (after I’ve watched the open ceremonies).

The Olympic Marketing Series

The Olympic Marketing Series promises to be a powerful sequence of marketing and advertising information and creative tips to help YOUR business.

Currently, this is looking to be a 10 part series presented in a variety of formats; text, PDF, audio, and video.

We will be providing inside information covering a range of topics from strategy, domain names, and branding to email marketing, business marketing materials, websites, business blogs, traffic generation and much more.

Preliminary Series Outline

• Part I: Strategy to Success
• Part II: Domain Name Enlightenment
• Part III: Working Your Location
• Part IV: The ID, The Ego, and the Super Logo
• Part V: Calling All Cards
• Part VI: Creating Killer Marketing Materials
• Part VII: Spinning Your Own Web
• Part VIII: Pinging Your Business
• Part IX: Relationship Marketing
• Part X: Essential Offline Advertising Tips

A Special Surprise

With the launch of the Olympic Marketing Series, I have a special surprise.

A leading strategy and marketing consultant has agreed to kick off the series with an interview. I’m really excited to have this person on-board as the interview promises to be filled with great information.

The interview will be posted here in streaming audio format. It’s a definite “don’t miss”.

And, if you’re a subscriber to our email newsletter, you will also get access to download a free (PDF) transcript of the entire interview plus the mp3 recording.

If you haven’t subscribed to our newsletter, you can do so here. It’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Thanks.

Earth Hour is about taking a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced — global warming.

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With the simple act of turning off your lights for one hour on March 29, 2008, you can take part in an event that is sweeping the globe.

And just how much of an impact can turning off your lights for a mere 60 minutes have? Consider this;

Earth Hour: March 31 2007. For one hour, Sydney, Australia made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming — coal-fired electricity — by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city.

In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. And as of this writing, over 206,000 people and 15,000 businesses have also signed on to do their part.

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There are many ways to get involved, from spreading the word or holding your own Earth Hour event, to making Earth Hour part of your everyday life at home and at work.

1. Sign up for Earth Hour 2008
2. Get involved and create a bigger, better Earth Hour
3. Reduce your impact on climate change
4. Learn how to organize Earth Hour in your town or local community. Download the PDF
5. Buy an Earth Hour T-shirt to show your support

Even more importantly, using proper email etiquette and best practices will save your business (and your recipients) both time and money.

65% of U.S. employees spend 1-3 hours reading email on an average workday. And another 12% spend more than three hours.

According to an August 2006 report by Information Mapping, Inc., 65% of U.S. employees spend 1-3 hours reading email on an average workday. One to three hours! And another 12% spend more than three hours. That’s huge. Like up to half of their day huge. I can’t even imagine what that equals in actual dollars paid by employers.

Email Etiquette: Top ten essential email practices employees should follow on a daily basis.

1. DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS
This is the equivalent of screaming at someone. If you need to emphasize something, keep capitalization to ONLY the word you need emphasize. Other than that, it’s just plain rude.

2. Don’t mark all emails as High Priority (!!)
This option is meant to be used ONLY when something is really, really, really important. If you mark all your email as high priority, it’s essentially the same as crying wolf and pretty soon, even emails that really are important will be dismissed entirely. Also, if your correspondence is so important that it necessitates an high priority designation, then by all means, just pick up the phone and call the person.

3. Unless requested, don’t send attachments
They’re large. They’re annoying. And I really don’t need to have my system crashed from some renegade virus. If you really think your recipient should see something, simply send them a link. That way, they can decide if they want to see it and when.

Special tip about sending large files and presentations.

Even with a fast Internet connection, large attachments can bog down your email software. You have to wait for the file to download, it fills up disc space (albeit hard drive space is cheap), and every time you need to refer back to the email , you again have to wait for the file to load — very annoying. Why not make life easier for everyone instead by using a free file transfer service like YouSendIt.com?

It’s fast, reliable, and free. And best of all, instead of sending the actual file, your recipients receive a link to download the file at their convenience.

YouSendIt offers a free Internet based service that allows you to send files up to 2MG. And with the paid version, you can send files up to 2GB. The service is reliable and really easy to use. Simply add an email address and attached your file. YouSendIt will then send your intended recipient(s) an email with link to download the file—and holds the file for up to 7 days (more with the paid service).

4. Don’t reply to an email to simply say “Thank you”
Yes, it’s nice to thank someone for something they did, but reading email already takes up way too much of our time and we don’t need to waste even more by having to read 50 emails that say “thanks”. A simple solution is to wait until your next correspondence with the person and let them know of your appreciation then.

5. Don’t forward jokes
Similar to #3, don’t forward jokes or other humorous material unless they either A) requested them, or B) You verified from your intended that they actually want to receive them. Personally, I find this almost more annoying than anything else.

6. Take full advantage of the Subject line
If your email to, or response of, is going to be really short (e.g. 1 p.m. meeting canceled till next Tuesday) then simply put that message in the Subject line followed by “// EOM” (End of Message) and leave the actual email body blank. This is the fastest way to communicate short messages while saving everyone’s time from not having to open and close the email.

On the same subject, if you don’t need the recipient to respond or reply to your email, end your subject line with, “// NRR” (No Reply Required).

Note: “EOM” and “NRR” are two standard email practices we created which has saved our company huge amounts of time and energy.

7. Spell check your email
Poor grammar and typographical simply make you look unprofessional. And if you’re sending business information, this could kill any chances of getting a raise or promotion.

8. Keep messages short and to the point
As mentioned in #6, it’s important to keep your correspondence focused. Avoid going off on a tangent or moving onto a different subject. After you’ve written your email, go back and re-read it. As you do so, delete any and all words that don’t add to value or help clarify your point. As a general rule of thumb, we found that most people can completely delete the first full sentence. Remember, you’re not writing a novel so don’t feel inclined to “build up” to your point.

9. Double check the email address in the “To” field
Last thing you want, is to send information to the wrong person. This happens even more frequently when the person your sending an email to has the same first or last name of another person. Check the name twice, hit send once.

10. Refrain from the “Reply to All” syndrome
Think about your message and who it really effects. You don’t need to unnecessarily include everyone and their brother as a recipient. I know it might be easier and faster to hit “Reply to All” instead of adding individual email addresses, but it’s just plain lazy and people hate getting email about business projects they’re either not involved in, or the message simply doesn’t apply to them.

Bottom line; think twice, even three or four time’s, about what you’re sending, how you’re saying it, and who’s going to see it before you hit the “end” button. Email etiquette is more than just being nice, it’s about being considerate of other people and their time. And by following the above listed email practices, you should start to see a dramatic increase in productivity.

Additional Reading

6 Mistakes to Avoid on Email Subject Lines

The problem comes when the writer either spends too much time tweaking the headline or simply gets too close to the story to read their shortened headlines with a truly fresh and unbiased perspective. And these final, edited headlines can create some unexpected results.

The Year’s 15 Best Actual News Headlines

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

War Dims Hope for Peace

If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

And the winner is…

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

The above headline examples are leads for some very serious stories, yet the importance is not only lost, but resulted in some very funny headlines — a consequence I’m sure that neither the writer or newspaper editor intended.

One of the best ways to avoid having your story turned into something other than intended — outside paying a professional proofreader — is to have an objective third party review your copy and then give you their “unprofessional” opinion.

I can tell you from personal experience that this tip alone has saved me from turning in work I thought was really great — only to find out that it was only “really great” in my own head. I was simply too close to the project to be objective. And when the receptionist looks up at you with a truly confused look in their eyes, you know it’s time to rethink what you’re writing.

The day is now.

A time for every person to take a moment out of their busy day and think about the world in which we live — and what we can all do to help improve our environment.

Interestingly enough, if you’re reading this, you’re already helping.

The Internet is not only the hub of the digital information age but is also a clean, renewable energy source. And not in a way most people consider an energy source because, let’s face it, the Internet isn’t going to propel your car, light your bedroom, or cook your diner. But it will supply you with a never-ending supply of information and inspiration that can fuel your creativity.

Creativity that inspires change. Actions that create hope.

As a business owner, you hope to succeed. In fact, it’s your primary goal or else you wouldn’t have started it in the first place. You work the long hours, you pay your dues, and you market your products and/or services to your prospective customers. But if customers don’t know you exist, your business won’t either. And this is where the Internet can not only help you succeed by keeping more green in your pocket, it helps keep our environment green too.

I received a phone call his morning from a potential client who asked if I could send them some printed brochure design samples. Not an unusual request, I get hundreds of these every year. And my answer, hundreds of times a year, is the same. Which generally prompts a conversation that goes something like this.

Kristof Creative: “I’m sorry. I can’t. We don’t have any.”

Potential Client: “Oh, when do you think you’ll have some more?”

KC: “Never.”

PC: “Huh?”

KC: “We don’t print additional samples of our work because it’s environmentally unfriendly.”

PC: “Really? How so?”

KC: “Trees have to be clear cut. Trees have to be transported to the paper mill. Paper mill has waste by-product (as do almost all industries). Paper needs to be shipped to printer. Printer uses inks and chemicals and produces waste from trimmed brochures and printing blankets. Brochures have to be mailed (sometimes in envelopes, sometimes not). Brochure sare read and then, the majority of time, are thrown away.

PC: “Okay. So how can I get some samples of your work for the Board to review?”

KC: “I’d be more than happy to send you a PDF file customized to your exact requirements.”

And that pretty much ends that conversation. Potential client is happy and I just saved a few bucks and helped save a tree — okay, maybe just a big branch.

Just to be clear, I have nothing against paper, paper makers, or any business or industry that uses paper because I use paper all the time — only that I try to be smart about how and when I use them. Which is my recommendation to every entrepreneur, business owner, and marketing director; Think before you print.

Ask yourself; do you really need to mail a printed brochure, product catalog or sales sheet to your customer? Or would a color PDF meet their needs?

Yes, you need to promote your business.

Yes, you need to communicate information about your products and services.

No, you don’t always have to design and print a 4-panel, 11 x 17 full bleed sales brochure to do it.

Instead, use the Internet to your advantage. Your designer should be more than capable of creating a beautiful non-bleed brochure that can be exported to PDF and emailed or printed in-house on an as-needed basis.

The other beautiful thing about PDFs (brochures or any other marketing materials) is that you can customize each one specifically for the person you’re sending it to. Additionally, if you need to thrown away an older version, you won’t be adding to the local landfill.

The same goes for your business letterhead. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a ream of printed letterhead, have your stationary converted into a digital template. It will look the same, you’ll still be able to print color versions in-house as needed, and you’ll be able to create PDFs on the fly that can them be emailed to your customers.

As for your business cards, go ahead and print zillions of them. And don’t be afraid to spend some extra cash on the design, paper, and printing to make them really great. Business cards are an invaluable and highly underrated sales tool.

Here’s a few other simple ways you can also use the Internet to help save the environment.

• Do some research online before buying a book. You might not only find the information you were looking for without having to buy a book, you might find a review that leads you to buy a different book than the one you started out to get.
• Whenever possible, try to create and email PDFs instead of mailing printed business letters.
• Adjust your computer monitor energy settings down so it “goes to sleep” or automatically turns off after a set amount of time (I set mine to five minutes).
• Subscribe to the Observing Polarity newsletter so you can automatically received marketing tips via email.

Thanks for stopping by. Would love to hear your thoughts on saving energy and resources in the workplace.

And change is what will happen on Blog Action Day.

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment.

Blog Action Day Promotional Video

There is nothing more powerful than collaboration — individuals working together toward a common goal. And together, we will change the world.

Please join us.