“Digital first, print last” is the mantra of John Paton, Journal Register CEO and co-founder of impreMedia. Paton says as long as a print mentality dominates a newsroom, media outlets will never be able to fully embrace the demands of online.

Watch the full video from the INK & Beyond conference.

In this short animation, the BTBuckets team explain, using a day-to-day example, the importance of using Behavioral Targeting and Segmentation on Websites. The conclusion: if you provide your guests (website visitors) with the food (content/design) they like, they will come to your party (become your customers) instead of going to your neighbors’ parties (competitors’ websites).

This is the third and last installment of “Booming the Conversion Rate.” Click here for Part 1 (Gaining Credibility and Trust) and Part 2 (Becoming Authoritative and Trustworthy)“.

Make it look attractive

The importance of clear, legible, and concise writing should never be underestimated, and the same rule applies to your website too. No matter how much money you have spent getting it designed, or how fast and reliable your server database is, you cannot compromise on the visual appeal and content of your website. Make sure you have a clear “Add to Cart” button and a “Checkout” button that really stands out. Make the price look big and put it in bold. Get rid of any clutter, and provide an attractive “Enlarge Image” button that makes the photos of products pop out .

Page load time is becoming increasingly more important

The amount of time your web pages take to load fully is an important consideration in evaluating your website’s appeal. While modern web technologies like Flash, QuickTime, etc., make the website more interactive and appealing, the penalty needs to be paid in terms of increased load times.

You need to keep in mind that not all people have high-speed internet connections, and that many of them have to pay per unit of data transfer. In such situations, a webpage that takes too long to load can be a pet peeve for any visitor. Additionally, some people are viewing your site on their mobile phone.

It’s important that you sit down and plan the various design elements at the very start to factor in the load time of different website pages, images, audio, video, and so forth.  Read more...

This is the second of a three part series “Booming the Conversion Rate.” If you missed our first entry, get caught up here.

Significant improvements in eCommerce trust and authority usually have a huge impact on conversion rates. However, trust and authority doesn’t only mean being a niche leader. It also means  better communication with potential customers using professional, trustworthy communication, delivering the right information on time and communicating with people instead of bombarding prospects with commercial blabber.

In this article you’ll learn how to focus on user’s attention, how to gain and increase authority, and how to communicate better with potential customers.  Read more...

For philanthropic and non-profit organizations, they are struggling. Funding is down and changing communication channels have made them increasingly irrelevant. However, in a recent op/ed in the Jewish Exponent, The Cline Group’s Josh Cline lays out several tips and suggestions for how to remain relevant.

Read the whole article here, but below are some highlights:

There is a crisis in the nonprofit world today as technological change and social media have become mainstream, and the financial crisis has wiped out the wealth of many organizations’ traditional donors.  Read more...

Can your e-mail land you in jail? E-mail is an important component of most company’s marketing mix. One Ohio carpet cleaning company attributed $1 million in sales to their e-mail marketing efforts.

When you are sending out e-mail, you considering factors like timing and frequency of e-mails, subject lines, and even capitalization. Certain trigger words (like “Dear”) are also likely to increase the likelihood of your e-mail going into the spam filter and never being read.

But have you thought about how you collect e-mail addresses and how people join your mailing list? Did you know that your collection mechanism might not only be bad practice and hurt your reputation but also against the law?  Read more...