Recently, I flew in and out of the Minneapolis airport (MSP). It's been a while since I was there and it was rather eerie to not see a single Northwest Airlines logo. Over the years I flew hundreds of thousands of miles with Northwest and many of those trips included a connection in MSP. Now, it's … [Read more...]
Social Media Doesn't Work
Nor do cell phones, the internet, email or billboards for that mater. No, really none of it works without a message to communicate. It all comes down to communication. So, if you don't know what to say and when to say it, what's the easiest thing to do? Blame the medium. Stop complaining and start … [Read more...]
Business grown with content marketing
Have you ever wondered why there has been an explosion in the number of blogs over the last five or six years? Content marketing, that's why. Blogging, whether by intention or accident, is a powerful form of content marketing. Here's what content marketing looks like to me: Share your intellectual … [Read more...]
Affiliate Marketing: I'm done being bashful about it
This post and tomorrow's "Use affiliate links, but please use them honestly" by Shelby Sapusek are part of our ongoing "She said, He said" series. Hello, my name is Jim and I'm an affiliate marketer. There, step one is out of the way. Eleven more to go. What is affiliate marketing? First, in case … [Read more...]
How Premise by CopyBlogger helps build great landing pages
This is the first co-authored post by Jim Raffel and Shelby Sapusek. Together, we'll give you some insight on why we chose the WordPress plugin Premise (affiliate link)from Copyblogger to design the ColorMetrix User Group Meeting landing page, what we liked about it and some advice from our … [Read more...]
Four online business tools I love and use most
There are several online business tools I use as a blogger and business person that make my life both easier and more successful. I've written about all these business tools before so you may wonder why I'm utilizing this post to do so again. There are a couple reasons: As time passes, I have come … [Read more...]
Creating ambassadors and agents of you
Last year, with the exception of software development for our company, I pretty much did it all myself. To some extent, the economic times dictated that's how it had to be for awhile. As the recession eased and our market began to invest in color verification tools again, I was ready. It was time to … [Read more...]
Why communities like Third Tribe Marketing are worth the cost
Recently, a partner and I were trying to decide which screen casting product to purchase for a community we are building. We both knew of ScreenFlow and Camtasia, but needed to decide which to review and ultimately purchase. I remembered a conversation thread in Third Tribe Marketing (affiliate … [Read more...]
Why Strategy Matters
Strategy is the third of my three words for 2011. Previously, I've written in greater depth about both customers and content. Strategy is developed by listening to customers and understanding where the pain points are in their business. Then, we create solutions that fix or remove altogether those … [Read more...]
Why Content Matters
My first post of the year revealed my three words for the year: customers, content and strategy. A couple of weeks back, I shared my thoughts about customers and, today, I'm going to drill down into content. Content is at the heart of what ColorMetrix and Jim Raffel do. Content is the glue that … [Read more...]