It’s been a year since the initial launch of the iPad and a month since the launch of the iPad 2. The tablet revolution is here and it’s here to stay.

If your website uses Flash (for video, messaging, eye candy) then I hope you’ve thought about what your iPad users are seeing in lieu of Flash. Steve Jobs does not mince his words when he tells us that Adobe’s Flash application will not be integrated with iPad.

Do you care about iPad users?
Who are tablet users? Techies, moms, college kids, toddlers in the back seat? In my opinion, tablet users are a passive audience who are casually observing the web. They are most likely: watching videos on YouTube; checking in on Facebook; reading the day’s news.

Who is the audience for your website? What are the chances that they are dialing up your site from a tablet? If you think even 10% of your site’s audience is coming to your site from a tablet, you should be seriously thinking about WHAT they see when they get there!

Does your site need Flash?
What purpose does Flash serve on your site?

• Eye candy for animated billboards
  MicroArts is a big proponent of using “billboards” to convey a brand’s messaging. Why not use jQuery to achieve a similar effect.
• Video
  Adobe claims that 75% of video on the web is in Flash. If you can, why not embed a YouTube player?
• Really cool sh*t
  When MicroArts is challenged to develop cutting edge technology, sometimes Flash is the only answer. However, be sure to google around for some jQuery techniques that may do the trick!

I often tell people that one of the best parts of my job is that it is constantly evolving. New technologies bring new challenges. Make sure that your brand evolves, too!

Those in the know, have often heard that “email is the most cost-effective marketing tool.” That can be true, but only if you know how to effectively leverage email marketing.

Your email campaign is only as strong as your database
Who are you sending to? How did you get their information?
Email marketing stats are directly tied to how your database receives your email. Can you depend on them to open your email? Better yet, are you willing to bet that they won’t consider it spam?
Make sure that your database WANTS to hear from you. When a user fills out a form on your website and “opts in” to receive more information, send them an email thanking them for signing up and remind them to look for more correspondence from you in the future. Provide clear expectations as to how often you will be connecting with your contacts.
Finally, provide a clear way for your contacts to unsubscribe. Respect their privacy. If a contact no longer wants to hear your messaging, make saying good-bye painless. Don’t waste time and money broadcasting your message to people who “just aren’t that into you.”

Reporting is the key to success
Set goals, meet the goals, repeat.
Make sure you set a benchmark for open rates, click-through rates and conversions. Use tools like A/B Testing to ensure that you eke out the best return on your marketing investment.

Which type of message gets better open rates?
Which button design (graphic or ASCCI) gets clicked the most?
Which message gets forwarded the most?
Which type of message gets the most opt-outs?

Use all of the tools at your disposal
The tools are there, just learn how to use them!
Test a subject line on 5% of your database, then choose the subject line that garners the best open rate to your remaining 95%. Companies like Blue Sky Factory are at the cutting edge of email marketing strategies like this.

Another no-brainer? Include social media links (post this on Facebook, tweet this on Twitter) within your email campaign. Let your audience become your evangelists.

Email marketing is not dead – it is just evolving. Make sure that your brand has not given up on email marketing.

A brand strategy plan is a simple concept really. It’s the intense alignment of a laser-focused plan.

A brand strategy plan articulates:

• The feeling.
  Specifically, what you want people to experience and feel about that experience when they interact with any aspect of your brand.
• The goal.
  When you have a goal. We’ll know when we’ve arrived, and it’s time to celebrate the brand’s market share growth.
• The difference.
  The discovery of the unique selling proposition that is strong enough to move the masses to purchase your brand over competitive brands.
• The formula.
  The product formula – the actual vehicle that is responsible for delivering the unique promise of superior value to your customer.
• The vision.
  Beyond next year’s goals, how the brand extends its value, its reach, its demographic viability, relevance and most importantly, its dominance.
• The tactics.
  The marketing communications plan and supporting programs crafted to entice the customer into discovering the brand, believing the brand and ultimately enticing trial, purchase and of course loyalty.
• The channel.
  The plan for the development and opening of new sales channels determines when the brand and supporting operations are ready for this expansion (specifically which elements need to be in place and how to know they’re ready).
• The elixir.
  The big idea that unifies all of the above (the feeling, the goal, the difference, the formula, the vision) and communicates them in a unifying manner across all tactics that drive brand trial.
• The metrics.
  Determine the intermediate success milestones in route to the overall goal for the brand strategy, and assign a timeline to the milestones. Revisit and revise as required.
• The spirit.
  Recruit a team of individual specialists with a common spirit and commitment toward achieving the brand strategy goals. It’s the alignment of this spirit that puts this commitment tantamount to any individual’s personal goals, achievements or recognition.

In the end, this plan yields clarity surrounding the brand for all stakeholders, shareholders, vendors and team members. And upon its proper execution, the brand strategy yields brand value clarity for the most important person in your brand’s life. The consumer.

Today I was motivated to share my brand strategy plan outline because I’m investing the next 100+ hours populating this outline into a 2010 brand strategy and supporting marketing communication plan for a very important client and killer brand building opportunity. So fun!

Anyhow, I hope you find this outline helpful, it’s been a great starting point for me for a very long time.

We’d love to help superpower your brand strategy planning- connect with us today to get started!

To enable tracking of revenue sources in netsuite with a WSDK site you must do the following:

Google Analytics must be configured to ignore multiple subdomains so that revenue source information can be tracked through to checkout. In addition to the standard netsuite google analytics setup in order to track revenue source information this is something that ALL WSDK stores *must* do.

NOTE- these instructions assume the user is using the OLD google analytics tracking code- I do not have instructions for the new code but I imagine they don’t differ too much beyond the syntax of the functions and whatnot

To track visitors across multiple domains with multiple subdomains you must do the following:

2. Modify the tracking code on each sub domain and primary domain so that it will not include the sub domain in the tracking cookie.
3. Modify the tracking cookie on each sub domain and primary domain to not associate the tracking cookie with a single domain, allowing the tracking cookie to be tracked across multiple domains.
4. Modify links and forms that send the visitor across the different domain names to use __utmLinker or __utmLinkPost in order for the cookie to be successfully sent across multiple domains, as described in this article: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=74957 – NOTE the google analytics tracking script must appear ABOVE any calls to __utmLinker or __utmLinkPost

To do this you MUST modify the tracking code on each site to look like the following:




_uacct must be set to match the _uacct number given to you by google

_uhash must be set to “off” on every domain you want to enable cross tracking on in order for the cookie to be transferred successfully

_udn must be set to the domain name belonging to the site you are placing the tracking code on (so on netsuite it’d be set to netsuite.com NOT checkout.nestuite.com or shopping.netsuite.com – it MUST be the domain name only- do not include the subdomain!! – on youwebsite.com it’s be set to youwebsite.com , NOT www.youwebsite.com)

_ulink must be set to 1 in order to enable the __utmLinker and __utmLinkPost functions to work.

Finally, once these changes are in place on all the tracking codes and all the forms and links that cross domains, ONLY then will Google Analytics will begin to track revenue source information in ecommerce transactions in Netsuite that come from WSDK sites.

Hope this helps!

What Google, and other search engines, want you to do is to approach the situation as if search engines didn’t exist. For example, if you have a partner who has a website who wants to link to you, then you should first ask yourself a few questions. Think about your answers from a strategic perspective and remember a true link should add value to the user experience on both sides of the click.

• Does your partner’s site complement your site?

• What reasons do people have to visit my partner’s site?

• Would those people, as part of their experience on that site, be likely to follow a link back to my own site?

• Does the link relate to your site? This can be categorically, horizontally or vertically as long as an intuitive connection exists.

• Can you identify a piece of content or place on the site that your link could exist as part of it and make sense/add value to the user experience?

• Is the site professional and would you like to be associated with it?
• Is the site credible and doesn’t practice any black-hat or malicious SEO strategies and tactics?

If you have a hard time answering any of these questions, you may want to re-consider and possibly avoid getting linked with the site in question.

If, on the other hand, the answers lead in a positive direction, make sure your partner uses a descriptive hyperlink–something more than “click here”–and make sure the link is to a relevant portion of the site. (It might make sense for to link directly to a product page, for example.) If you do get linked, and think you should link back, you should perform the same exercise. Don’t link back to someone just because they linked to you! Only link if it adds value.

Our approach

MicroArts has had proven success following these guidelines with our own network of partners. As a company specializing in aligning brand design, positioning and development and seeding it online as part of our clients’ websites, it is not uncommon for site visitors to ask themselves, “Who made this?” So oftentimes, our clients will include a single hyperlink to our website with a label along the lines of “Website Design by MicroArts Creative Agency” or “Brand Design by MicroArts.” This example of a descriptive hyperlink sends curious and interested visitors in an intuitive and linear manner to our website. This has three primary benefits:

• We get a relevant traffic flow of potential prospects, who have already seen our work and are interested to learn more.

• Search engines naturally recognize these links and assign us higher ranking on results pages

• We can ask our partners to change terms and tweak terms within each descriptive link as we evolve, our work evolves and search engines evolve. This flexibility provides a great way to test certain relevant link descriptions within different spaces to see what works best.

To find out how we can develop and deliver value adding SEO strategies and tactics to boost your online presence and drive traffic to your site, please call 603.430.1110 to learn more.

Since SEO is only a part of good communications techniques we never apply it solely for the sake of ranking higher in the search engines’ organic listings. This is especially true if it’s at the expense of good writing and communication. Why not? Well, let’s say for argument sake that “your widgets are the best widgets anyone in the widget market could hope for in a widget.” And let’s say that sheer repetition gets you the recognition you want from people searching for “widgets.” The fact remains that your message is weak and you’re not going to compel anyone to buy widgets from you. Besides, trying to game the system like that just doesn’t work.

Google and other search engines dedicate large portions of their budget to make their engines behave and classify information more and more like a person would every day. Therefore, trying to trick the system would require Google-eqsue budgets and constant vigilance as the algorithms change. So it’s a risky and expensive move at best to try to play that game.

Further, Google’s own guidelines for SEO say to do what you would if search engines did not exist. They say that if you are effectively communicating with your users then you are effectively communicating with search engines and this is the best way to increase your search engine results page rankings.

What are effective communications on the web?

To truly communicate effectively online, you need to reach all users-regardless of their technical savvy, practices, and equipment. That means you have to accommodate all types of browsers and all types of user abilities. It means graphics and flash have appropriate text-based representations backing them up. And it means you always connect with the lowest denominator of technology while reaching for the highest. Some examples of how to do so include:

• Make sure everything is labeled
  
• Complete all labels in a way that is most relevant to the user-telling them where they are and where they can go.
  
• Act like a newspaper; put the most important things at the top of the page and make the most important information on the page stand out with larger text.

If you do all that, and create great content to boot, then you are on the path to great success. The next step is to tell the world about your website, which we’ll cover in a future blog post.

In conclusion, concentrate on your story rather than search engine spiders. Reach out to your audience and engage your users. Make sure you are clearly communicating with all types and all technologies. At MicroArts Creative Agency, we know how to develop websites that effectively tell your brand story and enhance your brand experience. And as it turns out, that’s the way to draw users in and achieve a higher ranking.

Give us a call. And let’s get started!

Team MicroArts, thank you for being in my foxhole throughout the creation of this website. I appreciate the spirit and dedication. This site took 850 hours to create and certainly the vast majority of this time happened on Saturdays and Sundays, at night or before sunrise. Taylor, Walter, thank you for your way over the top dedication surrounding the creation of www.microarts.com.