All posts in Business

New Changes To Our Billing System

By admin on July 22, 2010 in Business with No Comments

It’s not every day that we endorse a product or service, but I have nothing but good things to say about Freshbooks.

Freshbooks is a web based invoicing service that helps you stay organized, track invoices, record billable time, and collect payments from your customers. The more we use it, the more we like it. Being completely web based means that we don’t have worry about a computer virus killing our billing system and database – It’s all protected off site on the Freshbooks servers. This is a big plus to anyone that has had to deal with hardware crashes.

Over the next few weeks we will be transitioning all of our clients over to this system, and for most it will be completely seamless, but some may notice a few nice changes.

Paperless Billing

We are moving toward complete paperless billing. Your invoice will arrive via email to speed up delivery, reduce any post office mishaps, and to save a few trees. Most of our customers are already receiving their invoices in this manner and it is working very well. This means less clutter on your desk and we’ll be able to track who has read their invoice and who has not. It should really help speed up the whole process and help keep our cash flow more consistent.

Due Dates

Until now, we have never printed a due date on our invoices, or felt that we had to enforce any set terms, but as our client list (and overhead) grows, it becomes a strain on your business when a several clients get 30 to 60+ days behind on payment. Our new invoices will be due net 15 in order to alleviate these problems.

Online Bill Pay

We are currently setting up the online bill pay feature of Freshbooks. On your future invoices you’ll have the option to paying your invoice immediately with a credit or debit card. We feel that these changes will not only provide more convenience to our clients, but also help maintain our cash flow so that our business can grow and provide better services for you.

We are also considering implementing recurring monthly billing via credit/debit card for our clients that are a flat rate monthly retainer or website hosting fees. Stay tuned for more updates.

Is Social Media Just A Fad? Or Is It The Biggest Shift Since The Industrial Revolution?

By admin on May 4, 2010 in Business, Marketing with 1 Comment

Still think social media is just a fad? The following video might help put things into perspective.

Businesses are jumping on the social media bandwagon in droves, but are they doing it correctly? The corporate world has used broadcast media to get their message out for decades, but treating social media like broadcast is the biggest mistake many businesses will make with thier SMM (social media marketing) campaigns.

Today’s social media audience doesn’t care about your sales and product announcements. They want to interact – They want useful information – And they want to know that they are communicating with a real HUMAN.

Tone down the sales pitch and start asking questions and interacting. Show that you are interested in what other people have to offer, and consider giving away some useful information for free in return. Social media marketing is not a spectator sport – You have to dive in and contribute to the information superhighway if you want anyone to notice you.

What does your social media campaign contribute?

Rice University Study: Small Business Rewarded by Having Facebook Fans

By admin on February 20, 2010 in Business, Marketing with 1 Comment

Small-business owners who are skeptical about Facebook as a marketing tool might want to check out a forthcoming case study from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Last year, professors from the school teamed with a local restaurant chain to see whether having a presence on the social network would have any practical impact on business. The results strongly suggest that it did, though only with a select group of people.

The school’s partner in the experiment was Dessert Gallery, a bakery and café chain in Houston that had no previous social media presence. Before launching the store’s Facebook page, the school surveyed nearly 700 of the chain’s regular customers. Those same customers were invited to become fans of Dessert Gallery on Facebook once the page was created. Seventy-five of those respondents accepted.

Dessert Gallery wasn’t shy about using its fan page once it was launched. The store updated the page several times a week with everything from pictures of its baked goods to contests to playful promotions.

After three months, the school once again surveyed the respondents. It turned out that Facebook did have an appreciable impact on their behavior. Dessert Gallery’s Facebook fans visited the stores 20 percent more often than non-fans and spent 33 percent more overall. They didn’t spend more money per visit than non-fans, but they did spend 45 percent more of their dining-out budgets at Dessert Gallery.

The fan page seemed to yield intangible benefits, too. Dessert Gallery fans reported a greater emotional attachment to the brand: 3.4 on a four-point scale, compared with 3.0 for non-fans.

Read the rest of these amazing social media marketing results written by Douglas Quenqua over on ClickZ….

The Dynamic Marketing Duo of Kingwood Texas, Apache and Marketects, Team Up To Produce SalesXpress USA’s Web Presence

By admin on January 7, 2010 in Business, Marketing, Website Development with No Comments

SalesXpress USA, by Marketectsinc.com

I love working with local marketing talent right here in Kingwood. The amazing Kerry O’Malley, El Presidente of Marketects Incorporated, called me in to assist on the development of a website for SalesXpress.

SalesXpress is a specialized manufacturers’ sales representative group, based in Texas and primarily servicing Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mexico. They have years of experience in the plastics industry and a wealth of knowledge in technical product procurement, material recommendations, and the latest product technology.

Kerry is an expert in industrial marketing, both online and off, and it was a joy working with her on this project. We were able to produce a clean, professional, and accessible corporate website (including a content management system that allows the client to perform their own updates) in only 2 weeks.

World Class Horses Unveils A Brand New Online Image

By admin on January 7, 2010 in Business, Design, Marketing, Website Development with No Comments

World Class Horses - David M Riddle

Exciting things are happening at World Class Horses in Tomball Texas. A massive 32 stall mare management and foaling facility was recently raised. A fully equipped in-house lab which includes the most innovative equipment in the equestrian breeding industry has been expanded. Computer systems you’ll only find at veterinary universities are being used in their new laboratory to provide the most successful equestrian breeding results possible, and they’ve hired Apache Advertising and Design as their marketing consultant.

At the core of this operation is David M. Riddle. Mr Riddle specializes in stallion reproduction with a focus in cooling and freezing semen for all horse breeds.  A true horseman; David has in his past earned the title of High Point in the Nation overall in 1996, and has achieved 14 World Championships.

The image shown above is a sneak peek at the new World Class Horses website, which is the first project undertaken by Apache. Magazine advertising, e-mail marketing and print collateral are all on the drawing board at this very moment. Look for these items to appear in our portfolio early this year.

Hoffpauir Visits DC And Speaks To the National Foundation For Women Legislators About Online Reputation Management

By admin on December 15, 2009 in Business, Marketing with 4 Comments

I was honored to be invited to speak in Washington DC to the National Foundation for Women Legislators in October. The NFWL was holding their Women’s Congressional Broadband Summit, sponsored by AT&T, which brought women throughout the telecommunications industry together to address broadband technology and how it changes the playing field for women and their families. The elected women discussed how technology touches every aspect of their lives including health care, energy, social networking and elections.

The Broadband Summit was an excellent opportunity for me to speak about the importance of online reputation management, and to unveil a proposal I wrote that would offer affordable website, email marketing / fundraising, and online reputation management services to every member of the NFWL.

What is online reputation management?

Anything that you publish online, or someone else publishes about you online, becomes your online reputation.

With all of the wonderful conveniences the Internet has brought us, it also has a dark side.

It used to be that the only media was print, television and radio, and the great majority of those outlets were professional. These media outlets researched their stories and made sure the facts were straight before publishing their news

We live an a time where anyone can pull out a camera phone, record you, publish the video online out of context and damage your online reputation in minutes, and it doesn’t even have to be true.

With the advent of faster paced social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, which allow users to spread information almost instantaneously, false allegations and rumours can now travel at a speed never before seen. I’ve heard it described as “word of mouth on steroids”, and that sounds about right to me.

How can online reputation management help?

Online reputation management involves monitoring all online content that is published about you, evaluating if that content is positive or negative, and then deciding if any response or strategy is needed in order to remove or push negative results down in the search engine results. Many of the same skills used for search engine optimization can be utilized to help control your online reputation.

Online reputation management will become more important in the coming years for elected officials and businesses alike. For more information on how Apache Advertising and Design can help elected officials and businesses control their online reputation, please give us a call at 832.971.4905 for a free consultation.

- Matt Hoffpauir

Kingwood Texas Web Design and Marketing Communications

By admin on December 15, 2009 in Business, Design, Marketing, SEO, Website Development with No Comments

Since moving my family and business to Kingwood Texas earlier this year we’ve enjoyed a great sense of community and support from our fellow residents and businesses.

Kingwood is a 14,000 acre community located in northeast Houston, Texas. The majority of the community is located in Harris County with a small portion in Montgomery County. Known as the “Livable Forest,” it is the largest master-planned community in Harris County and second-largest within the 10-county Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area.

With it’s vibrant online community and local businesses, we feel right at home. Although we continue to serve the web design and marketing communications needs of businesses nationwide, we have already made several great businesses relationships right here in our local community.

If you are a resident of the the Kingwood Texas area and are interested in working with a local business for your print and Internet design, email marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, and other marketing communications, please give us a call.

Online Media Daily – Recession Fuels Use Of Internet and Electronic Media

By admin on July 16, 2009 in Business, Marketing with No Comments

Recessions may be bad for the media economy, but they appear to be improving the health of the media ecology. Faced with tough economic times, consumers are consuming more media, not less of it, especially electronic media like the Internet and TV. In fact, the recession is actually fueling Internet usage among people looking for advice and information to deal with troubling economic times, according to results of new research released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The study finds that nearly a third (31%) of online users are utilizing the Internet more often to get information about the economy in the past year vs. only 10% who said they are going online less often….

Read the rest of this article on Online Media Daily >>

Finding Small Business Success in a Tough Economy

By admin on May 14, 2009 in Blog Articles, Business, Marketing, SEO with No Comments

Tarah Cranford, owner of Tarah Photography, was featured on Fox News recently to share her inspiring story. Cranford found herself out of work due to the tough economy and instead of continuing to look for a job in the same field, she took matters into her own hands and was able to turn her passion for photography into a successful new career.

When asked about the first steps that she took to market her new business, her answer was very interesting. Did she take out a yellow page ad? Did she purchase magazine ads, or perhaps a billboard? No. The very first step taken was to revise her web site and to invest in search engine optimization (SEO).



Her online marketing efforts show that the most cost effective and successful means of marketing a business is still online. Whether you are starting a new career like Tarah, or if you are looking to grow your existing business, investing in your online presence is vital to your success.

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