Indianapolis-based Rare Bird, Inc. has been honored with four 2012 WebAwards by the Web Marketing Association. Now in its 16th year, the WebAward program is the longest running annual website award competition dedicated to naming the best Web sites in 96 industries while setting the standard of excellence for all website development. With thousands of […]
Author: Jim Cota
As much as I dislike words like ‘takeaway’, it seems the easiest way to describe something worth, uh… taking away from the event. So here, in no particular order (and without implying any synergistic connection or claims of empowerment), are the primary things I learned in Indianapolis this week. I learned, from a company much […]
A few months ago, in April 2012, a stunning thing happened on the way to communicating with your customers: For the first time ever, more of them opened your emails on their smartphones than any other platform*. On the surface, this seems like a very big deal. In fact, it’s even bigger than that. For […]
So you’ve registered for Connections 2012, made your hotel reservations and booked your travel. You’re amped up to join 4,000 other marketers in Indianapolis to find out what’s working for other people, hear Michael J. Fox’s keynote address, catch The Fray in concert, and see what David Blaine is going to make vanish. That’s quite […]
William Lever, who started the notable soap company Lever Brothers, famously said, “I know half of my advertising isn’t working, I just don’t know which half.” Thankfully, we no longer live in a time where we have to guess what’s working and what isn’t. In fact, in some ways, the bigger problem today is wading […]
I received a disturbing email from a client this morning. He had received an official-looking email that appeared to have come from an address at Rare Bird. The message said: Subj: Please update your information at [clientdomain].com Dear [clientdomain].com, Rare Bird Inc is hereby announcing a new upgrade for Content management system. We’ve upgraded our […]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had just about all of the spin and rhetoric I can stand. Television news outlets can’t seem to resist the temptation to include their own analysis, newspapers seem unable to simply report the facts, and radio talk show personalities — on both sides of the political spectrum — […]
An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is a short summary intended to quickly and simply define a product, service, or organization and its value proposition. The name reflects the idea that it should be possible to deliver the summary in the time span of an elevator ride. Most people suggest that your elevator pitch lasts […]
As someone who makes a living helping people sell things, I get asked a lot of questions about strategy and implementation. As someone who has been dealing with emerging Internet trends for 18 years (18?!? I’m stunned, too…), I get asked a lot of questions about the latest shiny object. Sometimes these questions collide. An […]
This morning, I opened my email client to find 10 emails. This is significant for a couple of reasons. First, until about a week ago, I would normally have about 100. Second, I didn’t really do anything to affect this change. The real workhorse is a service called SaneBox. But before you can fully understand […]
I’ve got a friend that knows wine. Todd reads magazines like Wine Spectator, seems to always know which wineries are crafting the best product, and has a knack for recognizing great value. He’s a very handy guy to have around. The problem, of course, is that he’s not always around. Not only that, while he […]
“Atlas Shrugged, Quo Vadis?, The Fountainhead, The Robe, and The Godfather.” My friend John was ticking off his list of “Best Books Ever Written”. “Including The Godfather will likely raise some eyebrows,” he said, “but it deserves to be there.” Almost immediately, the debate began. This is what friends do: we share likes and dislikes, […]
