1. Live Audits: You know them as some of the leading voices in the online marketing industry, but for a brief period of time, they are reserving their thoughts and advice for you.  Stop by booth #646 to get live audits of your growth opportunity by Exclusive Concepts top experts: Nik Rajpal, Dan Theirl and Scott Smigler – for free.
2. iPod Touch: Someone will walk away with a free iPod Touch by simply handing us a business card.  Make sure to stop by booth #646 and catapult yourself into the running for the prize!
3. Bullion Bars: It doesn’t get more enticing than that.  Stop by booth #646 and grab a gold bar squeeze toy with a secret URL on it to get free offers for IRCE attendees from Exclusive Concepts.  Consider it your entrance fee to squeeze into a world of new opportunities.
4. OneTwoPunch: Scott Smigler (President, Exclusive Concepts) and Eric Yonge (President, EY Studios) will be joining up in giving presentations to highly qualified website owners in a live variation of the popular OneTwoPunch webinar series.  Are you prepared for the hot seat?

When: June 8-11, 2010

Where: Exclusive Booth #646, McCormick Place West, Chicago, IL

More Info: http://irce.internetretailer.com/2010/

We are pleased to extend an invitation to our local blog followers to join us on Wednesday, March 31^st 2010 at 4 p.m. at the Wellesley Country Club for presentations by Scott Smigler and Dan Theirl about the future of web marketing.

1. President Scott Smigler will be speaking about the future of Search Engine Optimization and how businesses can use search to increase their revenues efficiently and effectively.
2. V.P. Dan Theirl will be talking about multivariate testing as a way to boost your website’s conversion rate.

The two talks will be sure to give you concrete ideas as to how to generate more revenue for your website in 2010.

The presentation and question and answer portion of the event will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. and will be followed by a complimentary cocktail reception from 5 – 6:30 p.m. If you are in the New England area and would like to attend, please reach out to James Arredondo at jarredondo@exclusiveconcepts.com to register today!   Alternately, you can sign up easily at futureofmarketing.eventbrite.com. We look forward to your attendance!

What: Local Seminar and Networking Event
When: Wednesday, March 31^st 2010 at 4 p.m.
Where: Wellesley Country Club – 300 Wellesley Ave, Wellesley, Massachusetts 02481 – directions

Exclusive Concepts earns a prized spot on the Inc. 5000 list, proving that persistence and a strong, results-driven strategy can reap success.

Boston, Mass. – Feb. 17, 2010 – Exclusive Concepts Inc., an internet marketing company with a focus in e-commerce located just outside of Boston, debuted on The 2009 Inc. 5000: Fastest Growing Companies in the United States as the #1 fastest-growing advertising and marketing company in Massachusetts, proving that growth is possible despite an economic downturn.

In the past few years, public relations and marketing have experienced a transition.  The traditional platform of print media has slowly been eclipsed with cost-effective online marketing tactics because many businesses are working within the boundaries of smaller advertising budgets.

Exclusive Concepts employs a holistic method to achieve results for their clients.  This model, termed the “Perpetual Growth Strategy,” features services designed to attract, convert and retain clients’ customers.

“Within this framework, we focus on building visibility amongst a well defined audience, creating clear arguments that compel our audience to become customers and then retaining them by exceeding their expectations when it comes to results and quality of service,” said Nikhil Rajpal, the Director of Client Services at Exclusive Concepts.  “Our growth has been an affirming reflection of the approach we employ for our clients,” said Rajpal.

Of the 202 Massachusetts businesses landing a spot on the Inc. 5000 list, only fourteen Advertising and Marketing companies made the cut.

“With this one approach, we have helped build our clients’ presence as leaders in their industries and have ourselves become the #1 fastest growing advertising and marketing firm in MA.  My prediction: one day, top business schools across the globe will teach our Perpetual Growth Strategy,” said Rajpal.

About Exclusive Concepts, Inc

Founded in 1997, Exclusive Concepts, Inc. has spent the past decade perfecting cost-effective methods that enable e-commerce businesses to maximize sales.   Their innovative practices, strong code of ethics and dedication to clients have built the company an award-winning reputation for excellence.  Exclusive Concepts’ mission is encapsulated in the statement, “The Leading Resource for Growing Stores Seeking to Convert Online Shoppers into Loyal Buyers.”

For more information about Exclusive Concepts, visit www.ExclusiveConcepts.com.

——————-

Media Contact:
Ché Knight
CKnight@ExclusiveConcepts.com
Phone: (781) 810-9116

This week, Exclusive Concepts will attend the 2010 Internet Retailer Web Design and Usability Conference.

Burlington, Mass. – February 11, 2010 – As a leader in managed conversion testing services, Exclusive Concepts Inc. will travel to the 2010 Internet Retailer Web Design and Usability Conference in Orlando, Florida from February 15-17.  The team will expose their comprehensive, cutting-edge multivariate testing service, Conversion Booster ^SM ,  to a coveted list of attendees, many of whom could greatly benefit from this unique e-commerce approach to conversion management.

Internet Retailer claims that the conference is the only one focused solely on web design and usability, and features three days of seminars, consultations and exhibits designed to provide revenue-generating advice.  The conference features 43 expert speakers, including presidents, vice presidents and managers from top companies like AmericanEagle.com, BestBuy.com, Peapod and more.

“We’re looking forward to the usability conference in Orlando,” said Nik Rajpal, the Director of Client Services at Exclusive Concepts.  “The type of conversion-based testing utilized in Conversion Booster ^SM is one of the newest concepts that will be represented at the conference,” said Rajpal.

Exclusive Concepts will remain in close contact with its audience through plentiful Twitter posts and updates on the newly launched blog: The Source.  A tenet of the company is to be a virtual partner to its clients, and therefore team members plan to follow suit by educating clients and audience members throughout the conference.

“[Conversion Booster ‘s ^SM ] unique blend of science and art is guaranteed to turn heads and help take some attendees to the next level of site performance,” said Rajpal.

About Exclusive Concepts, Inc

Founded in 1997, Exclusive Concepts, Inc. has spent the past decade perfecting cost-effective methods that enable e-commerce businesses to maximize sales.   Their innovative practices, strong code of ethics and dedication to clients have built the company an award-winning reputation for excellence.  Exclusive Concepts’ mission is encapsulated in the statement, “The Leading Resource for Growing Stores Seeking to Convert Online Shoppers into Loyal Buyers.”

———————————

Media Contact:
Ché Knight
CKnight@ExclusiveConcepts.com
Phone: (781) 810-9116

The Wall Street Journal is offering bad advice to millions of small business readers by recommending an “on the cheap,” “don’t bother to think it through” approach to the 64% of small businesses (businesses under 100 employees) that don’t yet have a website. I find it ironic that while the WSJ continues to tout the fact that the web is changing the world, the author, Vauhini Vara, would have you think that your company can capitalize on this by launching a cheap website that is nothing more than a hope and a prayer. After reading the article it is clear to me that “objective” experts informed very little of the information provided. In fact, the first thing I did when I finished the article was to see if it was labeled as an advertising supplement.

Below I have analyzed the sections of the article and have added my own commentary.

1 – Buy a Web Address

The suggestion is to buy a domain from low-cost providers such as Go Daddy, Tucows, or Register.com.

My take: It is in this section that my suspicions about the article being a glorified advertising supplement were raised. Sure, the idea of registering a domain on the cheap makes a lot of sense, and GoDaddy surely lets you do that for less than $10 per year. The article does list two other sources of domain registrations beyond GoDaddy.com (Register.com and Tucows); however it is a bit disingenuous. First, Register.com sells domain names for $35 per year, and anyone that compared Register.com to GoDaddy.com would see very clearly that GoDaddy is the cheaper of the two. If the article was well-researched, another provider like Yahoo! Small Business would have been listed instead because they, along with many other providers, sell very inexpensive domain names. How about their recommendation of Tucows? Just try going to Tucows.com. Domains are not even sold through that website! Rather than list true competitors to GoDaddy, the article instead lists shills: one source that doesn’t compete on price (the objective of the article), and another source that doesn’t sell domains directly through its main website.

2 – Find a Home

Vauhini’s suggestion for finding a web hosting company: Find a provider that will host you for free in exchange for placing ads on your website.

My take: I think any business owner with some sense recognizes that it is not a best-practice to advertise the services of other companies, especially your competitors (which is the likely scenario), on your own website. There are inexpensive web hosting companies that offer decent service; if your business can’t afford $10 per month in web hosting fees then your priorities are in the wrong place.

3 – Build Your Site

The feedback here is that you can use templates and “wizards” to construct your website, although Vauhini acknowledges that this might make the website generic. Additionally, Vauhini advises that in addition to an “about us” and a “contact page,” a restaurant may want to have a “menu” tab, and an online retailer might want to have a “store” tab.

My take: So much of the most important information is missing!

First, yes it is very true that these wizards produce websites that appear to have been constructed by templates. As the number of scam websites increase online, and as competitors proliferate, the credibility and panache that comes from a well-designed website becomes more and more important.

Second, putting aesthetics aside for a second, the organization of a website and the thought that goes into the content is of critical importance as well. Don’t let your web design software dictate your marketing strategy! Sure, you can throw up a quick website, but if the marketing messages and the organization don’t quickly answer the questions “what can you do for me,” “why should I care,” and “how do I contact you,” you’re at an extreme disadvantage. This requires human thought, and this human thought should come before the site begins construction.

Third, I wonder if Vauhini is aware that small businesses, the apparent focus of her article, do billions of dollars each year in online sales. Exclusive Concepts works with hundreds of successful e-commerce companies and I can share that simply listing products under a “store” tab, as is suggested, is not a good approach. If the focus of the website is to sell many products, the site should be organized into categories, and there should be one tab for each main category. If the site only sells one or several products a different approach may be utilized, but I can’t think of any scenario in which a “store” tab would be optimal.

4 – Get Paid

This section talks about adding functions to your site that allow visitors to check out and make a purchase. The recommendation is to use a service like PayPal. Vauhini says, “this basic service isn’t fancy – if you want a full-blown retail site, you’ll probably want to buy special e-commerce software.”

My Take: PayPal itself is a wonderful tool and many shoppers trust it, however as Vauhini’ seems to indicate, PayPal itself as the only means of accepting payment through a website is not very scalable. The alternative to PayPal, however, it not simply “buying special e-commerce software,” which sounds both complicated and expensive. We work with a lot of stores that utilize Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, which is a hosted platform (no software to buy, only a monthly fee) that allows you to manage your website easily, that is search engine friendly, and that integrates a lot of tools like order management, shipping management, etc. There are other solutions as well. Yes, PayPal fills an initial need, but it really is not a long-term solution in and of itself, and the characterization that “buying software” is the alternative isn’t accurate.

5 – Get Sponsors

The advice here is that you can integrate your site with programs like Google AdSense to display ads on your website and generate revenue when people click those ads.

My Take: I assume the advice here is meant more for writers, consultants, and people that plan on offering lots of free articles and content to build websites and blogs that generate enough traffic to actually bring serious clicks, and thus serious revenue. Only a very small percentage of professionals actually make more than $100/month from such sponsorships, and this is an utter distraction for most small business owners. I don’t see why this advice is included in this article. Ignore it completely.

6 – Get Known

The implicit feedback was to use search engine optimization, and to follow a multi-step process of selecting keywords that are relevant to your business, incorporating those keywords into your site, and taking advantage of localized websites like CitySearch.com.

My Take: The author interviewed Bruce Clay who certainly knows his stuff, and who is a resource even for other advanced SEOs. The feedback included in the article is “high level” although it does get into some specifics. Largely speaking the feedback is good although it leaves out an exploration of the critical concept of link building, without which most small businesses will have trouble getting ranked in search engines. I assume the reason that so much was left out was that there simply was not enough space to cover all of the relevant topics.

Summary:

As a small business owner you have a choice. You can “throw up a website,” or you can try to harness the power of the Internet to grow your company. The first approach has a very low chance of success and relies on “luck.” Personally, I don’t like to rely on chance, and my advice to small business owners is that you don’t have to. Look at the Internet strategically and turn it into a competitive advantage for your business. Research your competitors and the market for your goods and services online, and create a web presence that distinguishes your business from the swath of other players that are online. To do this you will want to find partners in the design and online marketing arena who are eager to coach you so that you can make decisions that will serve as the foundation of your Internet strategy. Using the Internet I’ve seen very small businesses turn into profitable, million-dollar companies, but if the online channel is not approached as a serious matter that is worthy of great thought and deliberation, the odds of success will be diminished.

To provide some background information, the Greater Boston Food Bank’s mission is to help end hunger in the eastern section of Massachusetts.  Based in South Boston, the Greater Boston Food Bank annually feeds more than 320,000 people by providing important food for soup kitchens, residential shelters, food pantries, senior centers and more for the hungry.  This association is the largest hunger-relief organization in New England and one of the largest in the United States.  (www.gbfb.org)

I was excited to be a part of this event, and showed up promptly at 5pm on Wednesday, the 23rd .  There I met up with various BYPA members and volunteers from other organizations to help feed the hungry.  Our mission that night was to use teamwork to create as many food packages as possible in a 3 hour span.  My primary role was titled “Loader,” and my secondary function was to assist in food sorting.  I was the first member in an assembly line that would unload, sort, organize and repackage food units to be sent out to the needy.  Boxes unloaded by me were pushed to the first line of sorters.  First Line Sorters then removed and threw out “bad items” such as broken jelly jars, open cereal bags and expired juice boxes.  Items that could be salvaged, such as unopened pasta packages, cans with only minor dents and untouched water bottles were moved to the Second Sorters and Quality Control Team.  Here the items were organized appropriately into boxes based on food type and double checked for any damages or issues.  Juice and water items were kept together, meat products kept separate, soup cans moved into another group, etc.  After organization and QA, boxes were finally closed, weighed, labeled and loaded to be shipped out.

Our volunteer shift ended at 8:00pm, and we all gathered to shake one another’s hands and reward ourselves with cold drinks of water.  We were a small group of only about 15, but were pleased to discover, as a team, that we helped unload, sort and reload 5,060 lbs of food.  Our efforts supplied 3,120 meals to the hungry!  I was happy and gratified to know I had assisted the community of Boston and Massachusetts.  Volunteering for the Greater Boston Food Bank was a rewarding experience, where I not only helped feed the hungry, but also met great people and learned the true value of teamwork.

New Grant Program Ignites Entrepreneurial Spirit in Women Offering Smart Solutions to Life’s Challenges – Yahoo! and Former Star of “The Apprentice,” Carolyn Kepcher, Choose Three Grant Recipients from 5,500 Applicants

View the official site here.

Scott Smigler of Exclusive Concepts will be participating as a mentor for one of the three finalists, Dana Rubinstein of Dapple. Stay-tuned for updates!

It all started several months ago. Scott, Dan, Dave, Sheila and Herb were in the conference room and I overheard them talking about something called One Two Punch. And no – I wasn’t eavesdropping – my office just happens to be located near the conference room.

Anyway, Scott seemed pretty excited and that made me curious. Is a team-building exercise on the horizon? No – it couldn’t be. I couldn’t imagine 20 cerebral search engine marketers dropping their keyboards for boxing gloves… talk about viral link bait!

In the weeks and months that followed the chatter about One Two Punch continued… but no one will spill the beans. I asked Lauren if she had any idea what One Two Punch was and she surmised it to be a new sugary drink for kids, and then she asked for a glass! I asked Jared and he responded, “The first rule of One Two Punch is that you do not talk about One Two Punch.” No help there.

I continued my sleuthing without much luck and then this morning, out of the blue, I received an email from “anonymous@anonymous.com.” The following graphic was attached with no note or subject line. DOES ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW WHAT ONE TWO PUNCH IS?

Exclusive Concepts, an authorized Yahoo! Small Business Partner, has designed and marketed hundreds of Yahoo! Store sites and has helped retail clients achieve millions in sales revenue through their online storefronts. Now, the firm is building on that experience with the addition of specialized Yahoo! programmers led by Herb Osher, Vice President of Web Development and a 20-year marketing veteran, combined with Exclusive Concepts’ seasoned eCommerce marketing team.

“Our new Yahoo! Store development services distinguish us from the competition in three ways: highly responsive customer service, fast turnaround, and sales results – online stores that attract qualified traffic and convert that traffic into sales,” said Scott Smigler, president and founder of Exclusive Concepts. “We combine the art of storefront design with the science of multivariate testing and other critical site optimization concepts.”

“Yahoo! Merchant Solutions is best-in-class among online storefronts for many organizations, but it is a proprietary platform that is best leveraged by those with specialized programming expertise. By creating a dedicated technical team focused on this platform, coupled with our deep expertise in improving usability, increasing conversion rates, and achieving prime search engine rankings, we have a winning combination to help clients become successful online merchants,” he added.

From an Exclusive Concepts client:

“$1.4 million – that’s how much our sales went up after one year of working with Exclusive Concepts. Critical to this success is the search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, and email newsletter services Exclusive Concepts provides,” said Steven Styles, president, SkyGeek.com. “All of the work they do is custom. I never feel like I’m receiving pre-packaged strategies.”

Exclusive Concepts offers a range of services built on the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions platform, including StoreBooster™, an advanced, fully managed, step-by-step solution for optimizing eCommerce sites, increasing traffic, improving sales, and retaining customers. Exclusive Concepts has also created two new, attractively priced, maintenance plans for the Yahoo! Store market.

For more information, please contact Dave Clemen, Vice President of Sales, at (781) 810-9107.

About Exclusive Concepts
Based in Waltham, Mass., Exclusive Concepts specializes in generating cost-effective online sales for business executives and entrepreneurs. Through expert online marketing services, Exclusive Concepts maximizes the Web’s potential to meet and exceed clients’ strategic marketing objectives. For more information, visit www.exclusiveconcepts.com.