The world came to the aid of Haiti almost instantly. The generosity of people, both in time and money, was incredible. While traditional relief efforts were under way, a new technology was helping people from all parts of the world to do their part to assist.

The Rise Of Mobile Donations

Smart phones are on the rise. iPhones, Blackberries and Droids are everywhere. Being “constantly connected” has opened up a new avenue for fundraisers to tap human generosity – Mobile donations.

Using mobile donation tools such as mGive, the earthquake relief effort was able to raise an astounding 37 million dollars using mobile phones to collect small donations through the users phone bill.

Collect Contributions While The Issue Is Fresh On The Donors Mind

The reason that mobile donations will become a major source of cash flow for many charitable organizations and political campaigns in the future is because of speed and convenience.

Imagine at every speaking event your organization or campaign attends, you are able to ask the attendants to pull the mobile phone from their pockets make a small contribution to your cause. No checks to write – No paperwork – No address to remember or write down in order to mail a contribution – No standing in line to swipe a credit card.

In sales training, people are taught to “close the deal” while the customer is emotionally involved. This is another reason that mobile fundraising will explode in the coming years. After you’ve delivered your message, your audience is more emotionally connected than ever and they are ready to give a mobile donation.

Mobile fundraising is currently limited to small dollar amounts, and can only used by non-profit campaigns and charities. Your goal with with any mobile donation campaign is to reach as many people as possible. These small contributions certainly add up and will provide a great supplement to your other fundraising efforts.

We are currently conducting research on several mobile donation providers and if you would like to discuss adding this service to your campaign or charity, please give us a call.

With all the excitement surrounding the shift to online marketing, especially in social media, there are a lot of people that will promise you the moon and exaggerate the results that social media marketing can provide. Here are three “un-truths” that I have heard recently in client meetings.

By using social media, every business will be a success.

Social media is only as powerful as the user.

If someone dropped the greatest nail gun and power saw into my lap and told me that they didn’t cost a penny, I still couldn’t build you a house, even if my life depended on it. These tools, just like social media, require a skilled user to squeeze out their utmost potential.

Just because you have a blog and facebook account, it doesn’t always mean that you are an interesting writer. Just because you have a YouTube account, it doesn’t mean that you have the charisma and creativity to make appealing videos. This is not a bad thing. You just need to recognize where your strengths lie, and partner up with people that can help in the areas where you could use assistance.

Be flexible. Be teachable. Constantly work on your communication skills and always be on the look out for other skilled marketers that can help you get your message across.

If I’m good at social media, nothing else will matter.

Good social media marketing has the potential to put your product or service in front of thousands of potential customers, but the great marketing in the world can’t replace a bad product or service. Do amazing work and social media will spread the word like wildfire. Do mediocre work and you get the same result.

I’ll just delete comments from unhappy customers and no one will ever know.

Put on another pot of coffee – Your customer service department is going to be working overtime. Ignoring or avoiding customer service issues will come back to bite you. Treat every customer’s complaint as an opportunity to shine. Be transparent and honest and you will come off as a hero, try to dodge them and someone might make a music video on YouTube about how bad your service was.

Be passionate about what you do. Constantly work on improving your communication online, and be open to hire help when the need arises. Social media is biggest thing since this industrial revolution, but the rules are being defined by the users, not by Madison Avenue executives or corporate CEOs. Learn to play by the rules and social media can become your most powerful marketing tool.

(photo by Katie Tegtmeyer)

I’m talking about the size of your ONLINE footprint. Are you a small fish in a big pond, or are you sasquatch stomping through a puddle, with an active blog with thousands of readers, a nice plump Facebook account loaded with “friends”, a Twitter profile that grows by the minute, and a full page of results when someone searches your name on Google?

There are many schools of thought when it comes to the amount of information you should publish online. While researching for this article I came across a few sources that argue that you should be erasing as much online content that you can, and even close out your online social media accounts when you are job hunting. Fears of “drunken party photos” surfacing just before the big interview can certainly encourage someone to start “erasing”, but let’s get serious – We do have to use some common sense. It’s no secret that photos and video that make it to the Internet are there forever, and that anyone can save and distribute this content.

Recently I spoke in Washington DC to a group of elected officials about online reputation management. Another professional that was speaking on a related topic suggested that elected officials should avoid using social media since it could backfire against them and negative information could be spread.

I’d like to offer an alternative viewpoint.

Stomp All Over The Competition

If you will not create an “online footprint” for yourself, someone else will. If you are in business or politics, there will eventually be information published about you online. There is no avoiding this.

If you have avoided having a website, or publishing press releases, or using social media, or marketing online in any fashion and someone decides to publish a negative article about you on the Internet – This will be your new online footprint. Decide if you are going to let a stranger publish all of the information about you, or if you’d like to balance out that equation with your own voice. Tell the world who you are and what you’re about.

Job hunters should view their online footprint as an extension of their resume. Of course their new employer may “Google” their name to see what comes up, but embrace that new form of communication to show yourself in the best light.

Elected officials should be publishing their own content on a regular basis – Writing press releases, displaying video on their YouTube channel, and actively engaging their constituents through social media. Don’t fake it. Be transparent and approachable. The online community demands it. You may have opposition that will publish something in an effort to make you look bad, but if you’ve already written 10 articles on the topic and 4 videos are already going viral showing your viewpoint, then you are the one in control and you will continue to have a voice on the Internet.

When you are actively engaged with your customers and constituents online, you are creating a “reputation shield”. If an unhappy customer voices concern, you have tools at your disposal to communicate and resolve the issue before it grows. If you are fortunate to have a loyal social media following, they may even defend you and solve conflicts without you even knowing. This is always the best scenario.

Publish Great Content

Publish great content and people will want to read/view it. Embrace the transparency and communication that the online community demands. If you follow this path you will be happy to have your employer, customers or constituents look you up online.

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.

Geva Premium Coffee is a leading provider of specialty coffees and teas, as well as equipment, complimentary products, and technical support for trouble-free specialty coffee and beverage service. Since 1974, Geva has served restaurants, coffee shops, office buildings and plants in the greater Houston area via route delivery service. Today, Geva premium coffees can be found in restaurants and homes, worldwide.

Geva contacted Apache Advertising and Design to create a new marketing image that reflects their product’s amazing freshness and quality, as well as their social ethics and the relationships they have formed by working directly with the coffee growers of Honduras.

After several consultations with Geva’s management determining the direction and time frame we were working with, we started by shooting dozens of product photos, developing a new e-commerce website, brochures, trade show displays and vehicle wraps. After the website was launched, Geva saw a 250% increase in web traffic in the first two weeks.

If your company could use a marketing make-over, be sure to give us a call. Our initial consultation won’t cost you a thing, and after meeting with you, out team will craft a proposal outlining everything you’ll need to tune up your marketing efforts.

These examples show product photography that was done for Geva Premium Coffee. Geva sells not only coffee, but a variety of complimentary products such as tea, syrups and condiments like shown above.

When shooting small products we commonly place them in a semi-transparent, tent-like structure that allows us to shine our lights and flashes through a soft material, casting softer light onto your products and eliminating harsh shadows and reflections.