ClickBrain

We Won! Marketing Sherpa Email Summit Awards

Brad — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:48:04 +0000

Vince Marottoli and I were just notified today, that we are being honored by Marketing Sherpa as a Gold, Silver, or Honorable Mention award recipient for best email campaign of the year. It is quite the honor to get an Honorable Mention, but they won’t tell us what we won until the awards ceremony. Any award is fantastic, since we did all the creative, concept, and landing page work.

The campaign is called 7 Things.

Click here to view the summary PDF we submitted to the judges.

Stop Asking Me to Provide Credit Card Details For A Free Trial

Brad — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:05:23 +0000

UPDATE: Oops – Just got a note from Freckle – They have a free personal option with no credit card required. Still doesn’t take away the fact that they require the card for their other full featured accounts.

Dear Freckle Team,

My 2 cents:

I am not going to try your cool time tracking web service, despite it looking like something I would like and could use, because you demand a credit card to get a free trial.

Setup your free trial so I don’t have to give you my credit card. Its really silly that I have to remember to cancel and you have to worry about chargebacks, which will harm your rating with your merchant account provider. If I like your product I will buy it, but I am not going through a credit card process to see if I like it. It’s just the wrong philosophy in the web world and its an all around bad strategy. Why make me work to get me signed up?

Thanks,
Brad Nickel

Retargeting; DIY PR Tool? » Adotas

Brad — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:52:25 +0000

For example, retargeting is one of the most valuable marketing tools for the Direct Marketer, but did you know that it can also serve as a tool for the company looking to build it’s brand and market awareness? Here are some examples we’ve seen some companies employ that are looking to build their brand in either a B2B or B2C capacity through retargeting:

via adotas.com

Posted via web from Brad’s posterous

Using the Posterous Bookmarklet – Posterous Help

Brad — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:57:58 +0000

via posterous.com

Posted via web from Brad’s posterous

Startup2Startup

Brad — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:52:57 +0000

Blank began by describing how the product development process used by most entrepreneurs is ill-conceived. Instead of continually reassessing their product designs in light of customer feedback, companies tend to follow a linear development path that takes them through four main stages: 1 conceptualization, 2 product development, 3 beta testing, and 4 launching.

Ries argued that this strategy only makes sense when both the problem and the solution to that problem are fully understood. Most startups, however, cannot readily conceive a good solution to the problem they’ve identified. And many others don’t even have a clear idea of the problem they are trying to solve. Particularly in the latter case, startups must continually reevaluate both the problem and the solution by consulting their potential customers and developing a thorough understanding of those customers’ needs and behaviors. And this reevaluation leads to lots of product iteration that turns the development process into more of an ongoing cycle.

via Startup2Startup.

Seth’s Blog: Pick anything–the calculus of change

Brad — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:38:27 +0000

WordPerfect was the default word processor in every law firm, big company and organization in the land. If you had the DOS operating system, it was likely you were using WordPerfect. And, if the operating system in the office hadn’t changed to Windows, it’s likely you’d still be using it now.

What happened was that the change in operating system created a moment when people had to pick. They had to either switch to Word or wait for a new version of WordPerfect. In that moment, “do nothing” was not an option.

via Seth’s Blog: Pick anything–the calculus of change.

Dear Newsletters, you have 1 shot to prove your worth!

Brad — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:01:36 +0000

I’ve had it. I am over my email filled with dozens of newsletters I would like to read, but that I don’t. So, I am unsubscribing like a madman. If your information in this week’s newsletter does not provide me with fast, easily digestable, and incredibly valuable data, then you are gone. Bye bye. Adios!

It sure feels good!

Sincerely,
Brad Nickel

WordPress 2.7 – Wow!

Brad — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 03:32:56 +0000

Well, I just did an upgrade of WordPress and am already blown away by the feature set. I will report more on it as things

progress, but the folks creating this platform do fantastic work and they are incredibly user friendly.

This post is coming from the “QuickPress” form in the dashboard. An excellent idea.

The dashboard is highly customizable as is the entire interface. I am more convinced than ever, that WP is the right platform for my web marketing tools and services concept.

: Screen capture snippet of the WordPress Version 2.7 dashboard

MY EYES! mY EYeS!! – Screen Space Shortage At The Daily Dish

Brad — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:48:15 +0000

I am a progressive politically, but one of my favorite true to his convictions conservatives is Andrew Sullivan and I visit his site very often. Last night The Atlantic, the parent site to his blog launched a new design. I like the style, but from a usability perspective it is severely lacking.

Here’s my email to Andrew:

Andrew,

The new design looks nice, but works for nada in terms of being an interface to an application, which it is. I realize it may work for the ad, but if I don’t stay on the page(I not being me I refresh obsessively) because I can’t see any content, then whats the point?

1. Cut the masthead down to about a 10th of what it is. “The Atlantic” does nothing for me as a visitor to your site.
2. Kill the all caps navigation and the java script sub nav. Bad interface design. Not intuitive and not easy. It keeps me from
visiting the rest of the site. All CAPS is bad on the eyes too and expresses urgency, yet those links are not urgent.
3. Why the tiny search box? Move it to left below “The Dish” masthead.
4. Do you really need a “Dish” masthead/banner? At least one that big?
5. Mixed fonts everywhere. MY EYES! mY EYeS!!

Love your writing and love your point of view. I don’t always agree, but I enjoy myself when I visit.

The main point here is that when you visit his blog, you can’t get to actual content without scrolling way down.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

The Worldwide What? Only 41% of small business owners have websites

Brad — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:12:42 +0000

This news validates everything we are doing with our new company, because we are offering a powerful integrated web platform with CMS, Marketing, Email, CRM, Shopping Cart, and much more with outsourced marketing services, management services, and sales and support. Clients can choose what they want from beginning to end.

Warrillow | Weekly News

In this day and age, everyone who owns a company has a website, right? Surprisingly, less than half of small business owners have an independent website representing their business, according to a recent Warrillow study. Amidst all the discussion and appeal of social networks and iPhones, it’s easy to miss the fact that most business owners have not yet established a basic presence on the internet.

Hiring a 5th employee appears to be the tipping point for a small business owner creating a website; website ownership for businesses with 5-99 employees approaches 70%. Small businesses with one to four employees are evenly split on the factor, while only one-third of sole proprietors have a website for their business.