The e-commerce Main Street is littered with deserted shopping carts and unsent online forms, travel itineraries and service applications.

According to Marketing Sherpa, consumers abandon nearly 60 percent of all online transactions before they hit the “submit” button. Each incomplete transaction reduces revenue, increases acquisition costs and represents a lost opportunity to win long-term customer loyalty.

There are many reasons customers leave a site before they finish a transaction. Some still feel uncomfortable with providing personal information online. Some feel they need more information to make a final purchase decision. Others, especially when it comes to expensive or complex purchases, feel more comfortable taking the leap when they have human assistance.

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Local interactive design and marketing agency to grow sales of state’s potatoes

The Wisconsin Potato & Vegetable Growers Association (WPVGA) has partnered with Thomas Marks & Associates and Peritus Design (TMA+Peritus) to increase awareness of the Wisconsin Potato and Healthy Grown® potato brand among consumers and retailers nationwide.

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If you remember only one thing from this column, it should be the title, because therein lies perhaps the single most important key to success for a company wanting to incorporate blogging into their marketing mix.

Successful blogging for business is blogging continued…week in and week out. Even when it seems like you’ve got twenty things more important to do. A few weeks back I said that a blog is like a pet. You have to commit to feeding it regularly or it will die. The good news is you don’t have to feed it every day, like a dog or cat. Try for a minimum of two posts a week. If you can manage three or more, all the better. But remember that the idea is to keep people coming back because they have confidence that you’ll show up, too. (more…)

So you’ve launched your Web site, you’re taking advantage of all the web 2.0 tools available that will result in interaction, you have capitalized on search engine optimization strategies, and someone is making certain the content on your site is swapped-out on a regular basis.  Everything’s cool.  Well, not exactly.

There are plenty of other ways to get your content to appear on other Internet media outlets – and when your content moves through the viral digital landscape, then you’re maximizing your link-bait, not only increasing the number of content viewers, but also increasing the inbound links to your Web site. (more…)

‘Tis the season of sustainability — and that’s a good thing. After all, as Wikipedia users define it, sustainability is “the capacity to endure.” It’s about responsibly using assets for long-term maintenance and well-being in a manner that doesn’t compromise our future.

Clients interested in sharing their sustainable stories are often hesitant. Showing the small steps a company is taking toward a larger sustainable future makes them feel vulnerable to criticism —after all, they feel, if I show how much I’ve cut my use of fossil fuels or my woodstream waste or my carbon footprint, I’m also showing the public how “bad” it was before. They’re hesitant to be transparent. But today’s consumers want the information they need to make more responsible choices — and they use the Internet to get that information. When it comes to sustainability — we’re all learning, we’re all improving and we’re all starting from a not-so-good ground zero.
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Getting a Grip on Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media from a Real, Live Geek

Presented by: Jim Carlson, Director of Internet Strategies for TMA+Peritus

Wednesday, September 9, 2009, 7:30 a.m. at the Portage County Business Council office
5501 Vern Holmes Drive, Stevens Point
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Madison, WI — The Wisconsin State Capitol will be bathed in blue on Monday, August 3, and will stay that color for seven days, all to raise awareness for the prevention of child abuse and neglect. The Exchange Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse, a non-profit organization committed to child abuse prevention in Dane County, recently launched a yearlong awareness and fundraising initiative — Paint the Town Blue – to raise community awareness and funds to prevent physical child abuse and neglect, and also to honor, in part, The Exchange Center’s 25 years of service in Dane County.
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Legendary adman Fairfax Cone said, “Advertising is something you do when you can’t go see someone.”  Fair enough Fairfax.  But with the economy still in the stinkpot, many of us can’t go see our clients – particularly if they’re spread out across the country.

Thankfully we have the Internet; yet I’m continuously amazed at how few companies actually know how to write web text.  It’s both art and science, demanding and rewarding – and brace yourself – has the potential to be profitable or unprofitable.  For this, I have enlisted two of our associates; Michelle Rothmeyer, not simply a gifted writer and the former Director of Publications for Northwestern University, but she’s also an accomplished web text writer. And Jim Carlson, our SEO, SEM and SMO guy who speaks a language I am unfamiliar with.  Here’s their advice to you on how to write engaging web text that also gets you coveted Google love.
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A great live event can generate a lot of excitement and buzz, but you only have a short timeframe to make that happen. In today’s marketplace, a live event is a real risk.  Production is expensive and you can’t predict participation. Virtual events — hosted on your Web site or on a micro site developed specifically for the event — reaches younger customers who spend more time online than in stores and business customers with no time and tight travel budgets.  Here are a few things to remember in making the most of hosting that online event:

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