Colorado-based Professional Services Firm Attending Interbike 2010 to Showcase Mobile Development for the 'Paperless' Workflow

September 20, 2010, Colorado Springs, CO— Ideavise, a creative and professional services agency with locations in Colorado and California, is excited to announce their attendance of the 2010 Interbike trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 22nd and 23rd. Ideavise will be utilizing their time at Interbike to seek out new client relationships and demonstrate their latest project, a browser-based web-application built around the integration of a 'paperless' workflow into existing corporate software suites and databases, as well as enterprise software integration using cutting-edge tablet devices such as Apple's iPad and various Android devices anticipated later this year. According to Ideavise, the most obvious application of this technology is within the wholesale and distributor channels. A 'paperless' workflow has the potential to offer a direct, digital information connection to sales reps, field marketing agents, and other company assets. This system facilitates streamlined communication, order placement, fulfillment and tracking from 3G and wireless enabled devices. Here are just a few of the intrinsic advantages of the 'paperless' workflow:

• Minimizes the spread of sensitive, proprietary information
• Reduces the operational costs associated with the acquisition of office supplies as well as the time spent faxing and photocopying
• Takes a crucial step in reducing or eliminating the 4,000,000 tons (8 billion pounds!!!) of office paper which are annually discarded in the United States [1]

In addition to their 'paperless' demos, Ideavise will be promoting their abilities in the fields of print and web design, broad-based marketing, ecommerce implementations, brand identity consulting, and more!

"We're excited to bring this technology to Interbike, " says Ideavise partner, Brian DeLong. "Mobile technology has been touted as the next big thing for several years now, and we are proud to be able to serve our clients with an environmentally significant 'paperless' application which can be integrated into a variety of enterprise platforms." Ideavise Partner and Creative Director, Jason Lombard, is equally enthused; "The outdoor industry is a unique niche market, and our clients benefit directly from our two decades of combined experience in this market." He continued, "Instead of spending valuable client dollars getting up to speed on history and trends within the industry, we're able to hit the ground running, adding tangible value to client projects quickly and cost-effectively."

According to the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) [2], over 95% of business information is stored on paper. Additionally, the manufacture of paper is the 3rd largest consumer of fossil fuels worldwide [3]. Ideavise is committed to the development of cutting-edge technologies that will improve the efficiency of the production and communications cycle of any business as well as reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and the dependence of the United States on foreign sources of these fossil fuels.

About the Company

Ideavise draws on a rich history of expertise within the outdoor recreation community—spanning almost 20 years. During their employment at cutting-edge brands like Santa Cruz Bicycles, Light & Motion, Carmichael Training Systems and Fox Racing, company founders Jason Lombard and Brian DeLong noticed a void in the market. They noticed that large-scale agencies existed to satisfy the needs of the larger corporations, while smaller companies went largely unserved. As a response to this need, Ideavise was born in 2008 as a full-service creative and professional services agency specializing in design, marketing, brand positioning and technology solutions for small businesses. With offices in Colorado and California, the Ideavise team boasts an impressive client list from the outdoor industry and beyond, including: the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Somnio Running Shoes, Rotor Bicycle Components, Alison Dunlap Adventure Camps, Giving Every Child Knowledge of the Outdoors (GECKO) and many others!

###

Contact
Jason Lombard
(831) 915-1919
jason@ideavise.com

[1] American Forest & Paper Association, 2004
[2] International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Discussion Paper (IIED, London, September 1996)
[3] American Forest and Paper Association, (Garner, J.W. - Energy Conservation Practices Offer Environmental and Cost Benefits. Pulp & Paper, Oct. 2002).

Social Media Working Better for Retention Than Acquisition - eMarketer

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Campaigns to acquire new customers have not taken off

Social media marketing has been around for several years, and as marketers begin to converge on best practices and use the channel in more uniform ways, it is emerging that their top goals are brand awareness and cultivating customer loyalty. Conversely, customer acquisition through social media is less important.

A July 2010 survey of US marketers by the Direct Marketing Assocation and COLLOQUY found that brand awareness was the most popular objective of social media efforts, followed by customer growth and loyalty.

A July eROI study similarly showed brand awareness was the top goal of US marketers using social media, and business-to-business (B2B) marketers reported the same to BtoB magazine and Business.com. In April, search marketers surveyed by MarketingSherpa cited increasing brand awareness and improving brand reputation as the two objectives for which social media marketing was most effective.

The DMA and COLLOQUY also looked at average marketer spending in various areas of social media marketing and how it changed over time. While marketers started out in 2008 spending similar amounts on branding, customer loyalty and customer acquisition, by 2009 customer acquisition budgets had failed to grow as quickly as the others. Customer acquisition budgets more than doubled twice between 2008 and 2010, but they still lagged behind the even more dramatic growth of spending in other areas.

The report noted that customer acquisition is a more important goal for smaller companies, which often use social media as an inexpensive marketing channel. Those companies are devoting budget to gaining new customers through social media, but by definition their budgets are small. They are overshadowed by large companies who have chosen social media primarily as a venue for cultivating customer loyalty and spend more heavily in that area.

Infographic :: The Most Powerful Colors in the World

So it would appear that Ideavise is somewhere between LinkedIn, Skype and Twitter on the color scale. That's company I can live with.

via colourlovers.com

 

Are Twitter Followers Better Than Facebook Fans? - eMarketer

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Whatever Happened to Labor?

An excerpt from Seth's Godin's blog:

In a world where labor does exactly what it's told to do, it will be devalued. Obedience is easily replaced, and thus one worker is as good as another. And devalued labor will be replaced by machines or cheaper alternatives. We say we want insightful and brilliant teachers, but then we insist they do their labor precisely according to a manual invented by a committee...

Companies that race to the bottom in terms of the skill or cost of their labor end up with nothing but low margins. The few companies that are able to race to the top, that can challenge workers to bring their whole selves--their human selves--to work, on the other hand, can earn stability and growth and margins. Improvisation still matters if you set out to solve interesting problems.

As a business, we face this on a regular basis. Just yesterday I stumbled onto an ad offering business websites for $125. I had to admit that I was curious to see what a $125 website looked like, so I clicked through. Turns out that one $125 website looks quite a bit like the next $125 website. No attention to detail, no optimization for SEO, not even a unique look and feel appropriate to the brand or company. Immediately the Warren Buffett quote popped into my head; "Price is what you pay, value is what you get." Yes, these folks paid a low price for their websites, but none of them added any value to the business. Each of these businesses missed an opportunity to share their story—to tell their customers why they're here and why they're different.

I've had people ask if this "race to the bottom" in the fields of design and web development bothers me. If I'm honest, the answer is that, yes, it does—but probably not as much as you'd think. The reason that it doesn't bother me that much is because of our team. They do great work, and great work is worth talking about. As Seth quips in the excerpt above, the Ideavise team shows up every day looking for interesting problems to throw their entire selves at. We're blessed that we have clients who have trusted us with their interesting problems.

So I'll make you this promise: We may not always be the cheapest option (though we won't be anywhere NEAR the most expensive, either), but I guarantee that when you hire us you will get an entire team of people who are hard-wired to throw their entire selves at the project. Our goal is not only that you come out of the project with something tangible (a website, brochure, email newsletter, etc.) but also that that you come out of it with a solution—that we've addressed a problem or issue and that your business is better for us having served you. My business partner, Brian, likes to use this phrase; "Show Up. Add Value. Be Findable. Repeat."

If you find yourself needing some creative insight into something, well, creative. We'd love to be considered. Give us a call at (719) 355-3579 or (831) 887-0111.

Thanks for reading,

—Jason @ Ideavise

The Small Business Owner's Daily Mantra: People Pay for Outcomes and Value

Yes, this probably isn't the first time that you've read the advice below, but it's a great reminder for all of us to check ourselves on a daily basis....

Remember that people pay for outcomes and value.  Fall back and focus on what you do for people and how it makes their lives better.  Focus on how you’ve helped people in the past.  Make a list of the ways you’ve added value, and keep it in front of you.  Remind yourself you have something worth paying for.

Don’t focus on you, and your image, and what people might think of you.  Instead, broadcast your results, and let that do the selling.

An excerpt from the article How to Stop Feeding the Fears that Paralyze Your Business.

How to Create Compelling Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines

Note from Jason @ Ideavise: We get asked about SEO a lot. It seems now that virtually every client is at least aware of the concept; even the smallest of small businesses. However, very few people have the time for an in-depth discussion on the in's and out's of what could be termed "SEO best practices". It's been my intention to write a quick primer for the terms and theory behind SEO for a while now. But recently while I was doing some reading, I stumbled onto a PDF from Brian Clark, founder of the popular Copyblogger blog. After reading it through (only takes 20-25 min.), I realized that while I could spend some time writing a similar piece, it's highly unlikely to be better than this one. So if the concept of creating effictive, potentially game-changing copy is of interest to you, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read this PDF.

Think negative comments/reviews online hurt your company? Guess again.

I've had several conversations over the last few months from companies who have been somewhat retisent to enable online reviews on their ecommerce sites. Some excellent points are made in the article below, I've taken the liberty of bolding several sentences that I found exceptionally valuable:

Relationships in Business: Self-Service vs. Customer Service

My business partner Brian sent me a link the other day. The basic premise of the article on this tech site referred to a piece in Harvard Business Review called Why Your Customers Don't Want to Talk to You. Given that this concept flies in the face of what I talk about a lot—the importance of relationships in business—I felt that it was worth mentioning.

It turns out that the staff at Harvard Business Review have researched this topic extensively. They've found that corporations drastically overstate the extent that their customers want to talk with them. To quote the HBR article: "...companies tend to think their customers value live service more than twice as much as they value self service. But our data show that customers today are statistically indifferent about this — they value self-service just as much as using the phone. And guess what? By and large, this indifference holds regardless of their age, demographic, issue type, or urgency."

Ironically, I've recently come face to face with this very issue while shopping for a (somewhat esoteric) part for my car online. I spent about 45 minutes researching the part number, pricing and stock levels all from my laptop rather than driving 1/4 mile to the auto parts store. Why?

The writers in Brian's link proposed that there are three main reasons:

Convenience - Why stand in line to talk to the teller when the ATM is 10 feet away? Why would you wait for the checker when there's a self-service checkout area at the grocery store?

Repeatability & Speed - Let's be honest, if there is a task that you regularly undertake— buying a gallon of milk via the self-service line at the grocery store for example— you get pretty darn proficient at memorizing what comes next. "Enter your Club Car…thank you" "Scan your first ite…" Beep! "$5.99" "Enter your pay…thank you". I can buy a gallon of milk from the self-service line in less than 30 seconds. The checker is easily at least double or triple that.

Error, Embarrassment and the Human Factor - Fact: People don't like making mistakes in front of other people. If I can use a machine to get an answer without having to feel stupid for asking the question, will I use the machine? You'd better believe it. See the previous discussion about the auto parts store. I research parts to buy them online, BUT should I need to visit the auto parts store, I'll know exactly what I'm asking for and can thus (hopefully) avoid looking like I don't know what I'm talking about.

This system, however, is not without flaws. It breaks down when you have a problem. When I have an issue with a company, I want to talk with a live person. I want them to fix the issue and I don't want to fight my way through an automated system. Referring back to the link that Brian sent to me, one sentence stood out;

"If you want to build relationships with your customers, remember why they're there. [Hint:]They're not there to interact with you. They're there to get the service or product you're selling them. If interacting with you isn't helping them in some way, it doesn't matter how friendly you are: it's still a negative experience. Building relationships needs to be largely a byproduct of doing a good job, not the end goal in itself."

A ha! There's the kicker: Relationships ARE important. They're built as a result of setting and fulfilling a customer's expectation—regardless of whether it was accomplished via a machine or human interaction.

What do you think? Given the choice to use a self-service option to accomplish a fairly routine task, are you going to use it? Or do you willingly stand in line to receive "personalized" attention? Is there an instance where the service that you've received from an automated system has improved your overall experience and perception of a company? Drop me a line in the comments area below.

Thanks for reading.

—Jason @ Ideavise

Trend Shows Steady Gains in Blogging for Marketing Purposes - eMarketer

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Blogging is an extremely effective way for companies to spread the word about news, products and events. But it also has a second advantage; it's a way for a person or company to create a dialogue with its target demographic.

We're staunch advocates of blogging (even though some weeks we struggle to find the time to pen a quick post). We use a platform called Posterous, which is incredibly versatile and easily "skinned" to match the look and feel of most websites. It's a hosted solution, so it requires no investment in internal architecture—just a quick change to your company's DNS record.

If you have questions about how to begin effectively blogging on behalf of your business, drop us a line using the contact information at the top of the page. We'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thanks for reading.

—Jason @ Ideavise