Inside Jobs, January 30, 2008

Master Your Online Spend

Online advertising: We all know it’s an important and ever growing component of our marketing strategy. Whether your business allocates 1% or 100% of it’s marketing spend on online advertising, you know that getting the most bang for your buck can be a complex and aggravating experience. It doesn’t have to be that way.

You can learn to master your online advertising capabilities a just a few short steps.

With online advertising spend becoming an increasingly important component of any business’s marketing plan, it’s time to get smarter about the game. Google (Adwords), Yahoo! (Search Marketing), and MSN (AdCenter) are by far the largest search marketing providers today. They will all gladly take your money – whether you know what you’re doing or not. Google, for example, rode the wave of pay-per-click advertising straight into the Fortune 500 with 2006 revenues of $10.6 Billion. Before you spend any more of your hard earned money, you should get smarter about how to play the online advertising game.

To help you with that process, we’re providing you with a free eBook called Google Adwords Made Easy by Brad Callen. Although the eBook focuses on Google, the lessons that you will learn can be easily applied to Yahoo!, MSN, and other online marketing solutions. Go ahead, master you online spend. You don’t have to go broke using Google Adwords anymore.

Download Adwords Made Easy Now.

Inside Jobs, January 24, 2008

Become a ClearBrick Affiliate!

January 23, 2008. Kansas City, Missouri, USA. ClearBrick LLC announced today the launch of its affiliate marketing program. The program, which is managed by ClickBank, pays $148.75 for every sale of ClearBrick’s Customer Experience Solution Kit that is referred by an affiliate member.

The affiliate program is being managed by ClickBank. ClickBank (http://www.clickbank.com), the Internet’s largest digital marketplace, sells thousands of the web’s most popular products every day. Signing up to become a ClickBank member is free, fast, and provides an affiliate with access to over 10,000 products. Affiliates can begin making money as a ClearBrick affiliate immediately. Here’s how:



Step 1: Sign up for a free affiliate account at ClickBank.com.

Set Up A ClickBank Account Now.

Each new account is assigned a unique nickname that is used to track affiliate sales and activities.



Step 2: Create an affiliate link (called a hopLink).

The affiliate link will consist of the unique affiliate nickname (created in step 1), and is used to direct customers to ClearBrick’s affiliate product page.

ClickBank pays you 25% when a customer referred by the affiliate buys ClearBrick’s Customer Experience Solution Kit. To refer a customer, send them to this domain name (after replacing nickname with your unique ClickBank nickname):

http://nickname.clearbrick.hop.clickbank.net/

Cut and paste the following hoplink into your web page (replace nickname with your own):

<a href="http://nickname.clearbrick.hop.clickbank.net/" target="_top">Get the Customer Experience Solution Kit!</a>



Step 3: Sit back and earn cash!

Anyone who follows your hoplink and purchases ClearBrick’s Customer Experience Solution Kit will not only get a great product, they’ll make you a cool $148.75!

To learn more about ClickBank, visit them online at http://www.clickbank.com.
If you have questions about ClearBrick’s affiliate program, contact ClearBrick at info@clearbrick.com.

You can also view ClearBrick’s Affiliate Product page at http://www.clearbrick.com/customerexperiencesolution.aspx.

Welcome to the club!

Search Engine Optimization How-To Guide

If you have your own web site or have ever searched for anything on the Internet, then you probably already know the importance of search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of tuning a web page so that it appears at the top of the results generated by a search engine (i.e., Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.).

Search Engine Optimization is critical for both customers and businesses. Customers searching the Internet for any information, product, or solution wants to quickly find the right answer. Often, if they can’t find what they’re looking for in the top 10 results, they’ll move on.

For businesses, Search Engine Optimization is even more critical. Businesses spend a tremendous amount of time, money, and resources designing, building, testing, and maintaining their web page. But if it is not optimized, even the most beautiful or innovative web site will languish if it is not properly optimized.

Learning how to optimize your web site doesn’t have to be rocket science. There are several good resources on the Internet (go figure) that can help you navigate the intricacies of Search Engine Optimization. Resources include do-it-yourself SEO guides, software solutions, and complete SEO consulting services.

One resource that we at ClearBrick have found to be very informative and useful is ‘SEO Made Easy’ by Brad Callen. Mr. Callen explains the fundamentals of search engine optimization in simple and straightforward terms. In addition, simple examples will help you to formulate your own optimization strategy.

Search Engine Optimization is one of the most critical aspects of marketing your business on the Internet. Don't get left behind. Learn how to improve your search engine placement the easy way with this free report:

Search Engine Optimization Made Easy - Free Report

Be aware, however, that effective Search Engine Optimization takes patience, diligence, and a fair amount of ongoing nurturing. Your search engine results won’t jump overnight. The effects of tuning your web page often take time to take hold. However, once they do, the benefits can be substantial. Web sites that rank at the top of their respective categories often get more organic customer traffic and experience higher customer conversion rates than their lower ranked competitors. So go get optimized before your competition does!

Inside Jobs, January 17, 2008

ClearBrick Goes Global

ClearBrick is excited to announce the introduction of global transaction support on our web site at http://www.clearbrick.com. Enhancements were made earlier this week so that ClearBrick.com can accept credit card transactions from international locations. As the United States economy showing signs of slowing, opening up business opportunities globally just made sound business sense.

Since ClearBrick.com’s inception, we had been receiving inquires from international sources. Unfortunately, the payment engine that we were using did not support international transactions. Although our primary marketing efforts were focused on the United States, we just couldn’t ignore the international audience anymore.

Fortunately, we were able to identify a fairly straightforward answer; we had to transition to a more robust payment engine. We decided to utilize Authorize.Net as our new payment engine, taking advantage of its robust features and international transaction support.

We took advantage of this opportunity to also streamline the shopping cart checkout process. We streamlined the checkout process by combining a few screens thus making it easier to enter billing and payment information. We hope you find the new features an improvement over our prior process.

The most important feature of our latest enhancements is the support of global transactions. With this new feature, ClearBrick.com will be able to effectively serve customers in any country where Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover cards are issued. If you have business colleagues or contacts overseas, let them know that help is on the way! Now, I guess I’ll need to brush up on my language skills. Tot volgende tijd. Tot ziens.

Multichannel and On-Line Retailers Top the Customer Experience Survey

The National Retail Federation (NRF) announced this week at the NRF convention in NYC the results of their 2008 NRF Customer Experience Survey. This year, on-Line retailers dominate the top spots with LL. Bean, Zappos.com, Amazon.com, and Overstock.com taking the top 4 spots respectively. Multi-channel retailers (those with both on-line and physical store locations) also did well, with Blair (#5), Lands’ End (#6), Coldwater Creek (#7), Nordstrom (#8), and Lane Bryant (#9) taking spots in the top 10.

L.L. Bean Number One in Customer Service, According to NRF Foundation /American Express Survey

Increasingly in a multichannel world, customer experience is the differentiator. The problem is, however, that operating across multiple channels is increasingly difficult to serve the customer in a consistent manner... Regardless, this year's survey results demonstrate that it IS possible and that leading companies are doing well in customer service despite the increased complexity of the evolving multichannel retail operating model.

ClearBrick Gets Registered!

What a Christmas present! On December 25, 2007, ClearBrick was officially registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

We couldn’t be more proud.

As we launched ClearBrick, we knew right away that we had a great brand and we wanted to protect it. Registering with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was the most logical and legally enforceable way to protect our brand name. The registration process does take time and effort, but the benefits can be significant:

1. Recognition: That tiny little ® next to your company, brand, or product name can provide instant credibility in the marketplace. It lets potential customers know that your brand is legitimate and that your company has the sole rights to utilize the mark.
2. Protection: Registering with the USPTO provides official notice that your trademark is already taken and can decrease the likelihood that others will infringe on your trademark.
3. Globalization: Registering with the USPTO can also help you to better position your trademark globally. A registered trademark provided to customs can stop the importation of goods with an infringing mark. Furthermore, a USPTO registration can provide the foundation for filing trademark applications in foreign countries.

As you might expect, we decided to do-it-ourselves. Rather than hiring an outside attorney, we filed the registration paperwork ourselves using the Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) that is provided by the USPTO. Our entire registration was handled electronically through this system, eliminating the need for cumbersome and costly manhandling of physical paperwork.

Like a fine wine, however, the process takes time. We started the registration process nearly a year ago; our initial application was filed in January 2007. We waited patiently for approximately four months before we began to see some activity by the USPTO attorney assigned to our application. We corrected some minor wording in June and our application was published for opposition in September. Without any opposition, our application became finalized and we received our very special trademark registration on December 25, 2007.

Having successfully gone through the registration process, we would recommend it for any business that is serious about protecting and promoting its unique brand or trademark. That little ® can give you the recognition and protection that you need for your unique brand, product, or service. The process does take time and effort, but the benefits can be significant.

You can learn more about trademark registration by visiting the United States Patent and Trademark Office online at http://www.uspto.gov.

Inside Jobs, January 10, 2008