David Freund says, “I absolutely despise email.Perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic here, but the truth is that for most of us, this obligatory form of communication is a necessary evil for survival in business. But there’s too much of it — more 205 billion (that’s with a capital B) emails are sent per day — and it’s too easy to lose track of communication, notes, attachments, and reminders. Mastering email is an art form. But lucky for us, there are an endless number of tips and tools that we can use to avoid mishaps and unnecessary headaches that can come with... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “According to researchers at Stanford, highly targeted ads may not be all they’re cracked up to be.Based on a mathematical model they built based on game theory, the researchers instead suggest that advertisers “prefer to remain in a state of partial willful ignorance so as to preserve communication credibility.”Eilene Zimmerman explains…In this case, the researchers were looking at cheap talk in retail, for example, an ad promising ‘Lowest Prices in Town’.That can be credible when it’s used to draw in appropriate customers;... [...]

Julie Ask says, “Google took a few big steps forward at Google I/O 2016 to fill in its portfolio to win, serve and retain customers in their mobile moments. Three new product announcements should propel Google forward. They include:1. Google Home. Google Home looks like an incredibly promising (and necessary) entry into the home virtual assistant or agent hardware market. Like Amazon, Google led with a story of entertainment and media followed by that of virtual assistance. Google claims the combination of natural language processing, artificial intelligence and years of experience with... [...]

Sonia Simone says, “If you want to build a software business, there are a lot of advantages to the world of WordPress plugins.To begin with, you have a built-in audience of committed users. That audience is massive — around a quarter of the planet’s websites use WordPress. And that number is growing every day.But we all know that “Build it and they will come” is a myth — for software or any other business.There are tens of thousands of plugins with just a few downloads, and a few successful standouts.Here’s how to put your awesome plugin in the second category.”.7 Keys... [...]

Miriam Ellis says, “Right now, a customer is trying to find your local business. How quickly are you delivering the NAP, directions and other details he needs, on the go?Volumes of excellent free advice have been written for small businesses about creating quality, optimized local landing pages, but today, I’d like to talk about a topic that has received much less attention: helping customers discover locations when you’ve got a ton of them. This article is for the medium-to-large business with 20, 100, 500 physical locations and a pressing goal to have each one be found by the customers... [...]

Eddie Shleyner says, “In Chicago, there’s a famous restaurant called Alinea. It’s one of only a handful of restaurants in America that have earned the coveted 3-star Michelin rating, making it one of the best restaurants in the world. But if you ask people who’ve dined there what makes it unique, most will tell you that, somehow, it’s not just the food.Alinea is an experience. The food, artistic and delicious as it is, wouldn’t garner its full effect if each course (there are about 20 in all) didn’t arrive just in time, perfectly ordered, with each dish complementing the one... [...]

Jayson Demers says, “Talk to professional online marketers, and they’ll likely tell you about the raw power of social media marketing. Talk to business owners from an older generation, and they’re likely to tell you how social media marketing is a useless fad.Obviously, the former group has an incentive to tell you how great social media marketing is, and the latter group has a negative bias toward communications technologies. Does the truth lie somewhere in the middle? Kind of. With proper planning and successful execution, social media marketing can be effective for practically any... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Small and medium-sized businesses have more free ways to present their stories to customers, with Adobe’s recent announcement of its Spark suite of tools.They are intended for the creation of visually based marketing material for the Web and social networks, provided as four applications. Three of them are rebranded, existing iOS apps, and one is new.In addition to web pages and social posts, the tools enable the creation of company event announcements, newsletters, lessons, flyers, brochures, small catalogs and explainer videos”.Adobe unveils Spark tool suite... [...]

Ben Davis says, “Android Instant Apps allows Android apps to run instantly, without requiring installation. Users will simply tap on a URL.Developers will need to ensure their apps are ‘modularized’ and then will be able to offer this service to users on Jelly Bean OS or later.Many have hailed this announcement from Google’s recent I/O event as the most exciting. So what are the implications?A game changer for NFC?The whole debate around customer experience with iBeacons comes down to the app. Marketers can only target those with their app installed and the challenge... [...]

Matt Byrom says, “Video has fast become a highly popular tool for many businesses to increase brand awareness, inform consumers about their product or service, and bring in more sales.Which is great news. So long as people can find your video of course.Now although search engines do like video content, they aren’t very good at the whole watching and understanding what that video content is all about.So you kinda have to spell it out for them, and there are a few tricks that you can do to ensure that your video can be easily found.Check out these four ways that’ll help you... [...]