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Budget-Friendly, But Amazing Print Option

Heather — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:34:59 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but as things go this post has been pushed back and pushed back – but now here it is. The best business card (and other print) solution I’ve come across. Its called MOO.

MOO created Printfinity – a special printing process that allows you to print a different design on the back of every business card in your set. That may not sound like much at first – but think about the possibilities and it gets really exciting. If you’ve ever ordered business cards before you know that the good ones are far from cheap. If you have more than one product, or even more than one business, expenses for business cards for each can stack up fast.

But lets get even more creative. MOO is probably most popular for photographers – who can effectively create a portfolio of their work on the back of business cards and easily fan them out and show off their work. Apply this concept to any business with a product to sell and you’ve got a powerful and impressive way of showing off your wares.

You can purchase as few at 50 cards for $21.99 – or even get a free 10 pack to try out the product (MOO even pays the shipping for you).

We’re designing a set of 10 sample cards for an industrial insulation client – can’t wait to show you all what we come up with and how they’ll be used.

Flying Monkeys & Bad First Impressions

Heather — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:33:08 +0000

We’re gearing a client up for a tradeshow so I’ve been thinking and reading quite a bit about them lately. I keep coming back to a memory of one particular company I met at Dreamforce 2 years ago as the prime example of what not to do on the expo floor.

I had my vendor list all planned out and I knew I needed to visit two of the eSignature companies booths. I’d done some research on both companies but still had some very specific questions I needed answered. I visited eSignature company 1 and got great information and just really enjoyed the booth staff. They were friendly, knowledgable, and seemed genuinely happy to be there. Plus they could do everything I needed – and more.

I wondered around and found eSignature company 2.

Let me start by saying this particular company had the cutest screaming flying monkey tchotchkes. We picked some up from them the year before and they turned out to be the hit of the office so I wanted to grab one for my daughter during this trip.

Their booth was dead quiet, no expo attendees in their 10×10 space – sweet I can get both reps undivided attention, this should be great. I walked up and both the man and woman working the booth had arms folded across their chests and just stared at me. I stood there and stared back for a few awkward moments and finally said “Hi, I’m Heather – can you guys answer some questions for me?” and I kid you not the man nodded towards his rack of marketing material and said “You can grab some of those and if you still have questions you can come back.” Woah. Woah. Did that really just happen? Oh, but it gets better. I grabbed their single sheet of material which was just a brief regurgitation of the website. Disappointed I told him I’d read all this already and had some specific questions about his product. His reaction was a long sigh so I told him forget it – I’m going with eSignature company 1.

But I still had to get my monkey. I ended up sending my colleague over to grab one for me because I couldn’t stand to talk to those people again – and they were just as rude to her.

All of this happened over 2 years ago – with employees who likely don’t even work for the company anymore, but that experience still sums up the way I feel about that company. I’ve avoided them as a solution for my clients and probably always will. eSignature company 1 is a little more expensive – but its a price I’m willing to pay to be treated well and to know my clients always will be as well.

What a slacker…

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:47:50 +0000

Yep. I’m a slacker. I start a new job and stop posting. I’m just a no good, lazy person. You should totally unsubscribe and start reading someone that actually posts content or something.

So, here’s a little teaser about something that will most likely be done this month. A while back, before all this new job stuff got going, I had the chance to interview a writer for Career Builder. One of the guys that gets posted to the front page of MSN quite a bit. I wanted to take a peek into their SEO training and level of knowledge. Its pretty interesting stuff, combining journalism with the Web. I think there are some pretty common ideas out there that to do good SEO you have to sacrifice good content, but we all know that’s just not true, right? So, look for that in the next week or so.

Also, I’m doing a total revamp of the Website at the new job, so I’ll be tracking some of my wins and losses with that for you guys.

In the mean time, don’t delete me, please! I promise I’ll be back in full force before ya know it!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-12

Heather — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Thanks Vertical Response, I didn’t feel like sending my emails today anyway. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-05

Heather — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:34:00 +0000

I’m back, settling into my new gig, lots of work lined up for me here! #
anyone know of a quick way to de-dup all Salesforce leads? #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-29

Heather — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Started the new job on Monday, its going to be a while before I can start up the twittering again, so busy! #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-03-22

Heather — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:34:00 +0000

hah, SuperNews Twouble with Twits http://tinyurl.com/dxny4y #
Hi @vonster, your icon scares me so much I had to follow you! #
New blog stuffs: Holy Feed Readers Batman! http://tinyurl.com/dbqufr #
Stop chopping the top of my head off, Twitter! #
http://twitpic.com/29x2l – Finally, I took a picture in my awesome Sitemasher shirt! #
Oh now that is so much better #

Holy Feed Readers Batman!

Heather — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:27:56 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Wow, so I always assumed I had just a small little handful of readers out there, feeling lucky when I got a few legit comments here and there. I never really kept up with how many folks subscribed to my blog through RSS feed. I know, I know, bad me. I just didn’t really care too much about how many people were reading what I write at this point. I write for me, its good practice and I enjoy it. I don’t write for popularity.

So, I was shocked when I checked out my RSS stats today and found out that just since last month I have about 250 subscribers! I didn’t know you were all out there, reading, anxiously awaiting my next post, refreshing your Google reader over and over…

What’s that? You weren’t really all that interested in what I post and when? Ok, fine. But I’m going to pretend you were, cause maybe I do want to be just a little bit popular in this whole social media world.

Anyway, thanks so much for subscribing and reading, I’d love to get more comments and conversations out of you all now that I know you’re here, but I won’t ask for a miracle.

New Theme, Whatcha Think?

admin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:01:59 +0000

Playing around with the look and feel here, and the main site is next to see an update. What do you all think of the new theme? Its courtesy of Lyndi at http://nice2all.com/

Check out their site, they have some awesome themes!

Thanks DemandGen Report and Genius!

admin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:03:15 +0000

: DemandGen Report Sales & Marketing Alignment Awards

I just wanted to say a quick “Thanks!” to DemandGen Report for naming ADX Fast Track Winner and Genius for nominating us! The article is below, but thank you so much!

Fast Track Winner: ADX Integrating Around New EDI Service Offering

Written by Industry Analyst

Wednesday, 25 February 2009 16:31

www.adx.com

Founded: 1992

Headquarters: Fremont, California

Core Business: E-Commerce Management

Target Industries: Thousands
of businesses of all sizes connect with their trading partners using
ADX, including a heavy concentration in life sciences, retail and
industrial markets.

Growth Curve: Has expanded
beyond EDI and Business Integration services to offer a full suite of
commerce management, highlighted by the recent successful launch of the
CommerceMail service.

Specializing in supply chain integration and e-commerce management, a key service Advanced Data Exchange
(ADX) provides to its clients is Business Integration services.
Therefore, the company’s management team realized having an integrated
approach to sales & marketing would be critical— as it prepared to
launch a new service designed to open up EDI to millions of buyers and
suppliers still relying on faxes and the post office for supply chain
management.

For the introduction of its CommerceMail service in late October 2008, ADX decided to deploy the Genius
platform for real-time marketing and sales analytics and the results
have been fast and dramatic—enabling ADX to capture 60 qualified leads
for their new service in the first 90 days.

“When we implemented
Genius, we made the commitment to working together as a team, keeping
checks and balances on each other, and jumping in to help each other
when necessary,” says Heather Steele, senior marketing specialist at
ADX.

ADX utilized the MarketingGenius product
to send out a series of four automated and personalized emails to
prospects. Depending on their response (if they asked to see a demo),
the ADX sales team received an instant alert via the Genius Tracker.
As part of the alert, the sales reps also received immediate insight
into their interest and could then immediately reach out to the
prospect.

“Genius has had a huge impact on the sales and
marketing efforts at ADX. In addition to ramping up our email marketing
efforts, it has allowed us to make the impact of a very large sales
organization with only a small sales group,” Steele says. “The tool is
very efficient and makes the most out of sales’ time. It also allows
to quickly measure ROI and campaign effectiveness on
various different lead sources and marketing efforts, which in turn
allows us to makes more informed decisions with regards to marketing
strategy.”

The company has integrated the Genius tools with its
Salesforce CRM platform, which has also furthered the organization’s
alignment to track and measure results within the funnel. “We use our
integration with Salesforce CRM to set and monitor our common goals,
which is makes a significant difference in how closely we all stick to
those goals,” Steele adds. “We’ve found that transparency is absolutely
mandatory to stay accountable and realistic about our common and
individual goals. At any time, any one of us can check in on others and
offer encouragement or help when goals aren’t being reached.”

Peter Grace, vice president of sales at ADX also notes the big impact of Genius. “It has allowed us to systemize our email marketing efforts and develop a very efficient and cost effective
lead generation program. Although we have a small sales team, this tool
makes the most out of our prospecting time and has generated a strong
pipeline.”

In addition to Genius and Salesforce, ADX has recently utilized the VistorTrack
application from NetFactor to capture information on web visitors.
Steele says VisitorTrack and Genius both help to quickly identify a
lead’s exact needs and interests and approach them with the most
appropriate solution, which greatly reduces the sales cycle and
increases win rates for new deals.

Ultimately, Steele attributes
much of the success of the CommerceMail rollout to the sales and
marketing automation tools they deployed and she anticipates it will
have a long-term impact on their corporate approach. “In the past our
sales and marketing teams did not work closely together. As a result
plans, schedules, campaigns, and goals were rarely in line,” says
Steele. “The launch of our new service, CommerceMail, definitely helped
establish a common goal for sales and marketing.
We were all able to rally around the new service, get excited about it,
and work together to spread the word and sell CommerceMail.”

Grace
notes the impact resulting from better collaboration with sales &
marketing. “When we implemented Genius it gave both teams instant visibility into what messages were resonating
with customers and what messages need to be modified,” he says.
“Through this collaboration we have become much better at reaching our
target audience and creating meaningful dialogues.”