Unbounce – The DIY Landing Page Platform

Today I received the coolest email from Constant Contact letting me know that they are now providing their customers with a FREE text to email sign up service.

Now I can have my customers sign up to our email newsletter view text message.

Try it free for 60 days.

If you have any input to make it better, please leave some comments below.

Now, the question was: “Would they allow me to use this coupon even though is not printed on paper?”

When my waiter came by, I timidly showed him the coupon and asked if we would be able to use it.  He said, “sure!”  This changed everything.

Because of this flexibility, we decided to have full entrees instead of appetizers.  Additionally, even though the discount did not included alcohol, we decided to get some beers to wash down the full meals.  At the end, Friday’s came up on top.  instead of spending $15 on appetizers and soft drinks, we spent $31 on entrees and beers – a difference of $16!

Some of you might think that this is minuscule, however, that’s a 106% difference in what were going to spend and what we actually spent!

Want another example of the impact something like this can have on Friday’s bottom line?  Multiply what we actually spent times Friday’s Facabook friends (520,594), then multiply what we had planned to spend times Friday’s Facabook friends; now subtract the total amount from the first operation as seen below:

(31 * 520,594) – (15 * 520,594) = X

(16,138,414) – (7,808,910) = $8,329,504 <– This is the WOW Factor!

This shows that digital marketing campaigns can only be as effective as the company personnel that will be interacting with customers that show up with coupons, not in their pockets, but in their phones.  If my waiter had said, “sorry but I need you to kill some trees and waste some of that expensive ink and bring me a printed coupon,” we would had stay on course, order appetizers and soft drinks; but the biggest lost for Friday’s would had been that this would change my perception of Friday’s as a relaxed and fun place to have a meal.  This experience has actually enforced it and I will be back.

I went to Chili’s the other day and decided to try their brownie after dinner.  I didnt like it and twitted about it.  My friend retweeted the message to Chili’s, which in turn began following both of us and sent me a message stating the following”

@elektroshirts @3cmediallc Please follow us so we can send you a direct message to make this right!

So I did.

Chili’s then sent me the this message:

Please e-mail chilis.socialmedia@brinker.com with the details, experience and some form of contact info so we can make it right!

I then sent this message to chilis.socialmedia@brinker.com:

Hi,

I mentioned to my friend on twitter that the brownie at Chili’s was awful.  I then received a message from the chili’s twitter telling me to email about my experience.

Well, the issue had nothing to do with service but all to do with the quality of the brownie.  It was hard on top and not tasty at all.  A brownie is supposed to be moist and serve hot – specially when a huge scoop of ice cream is set on top of it, but this brownie was room temperature.

The store where this happened, I believe is located in Little Falls NJ.

Take care and thank you for “listening”.

Chili’s responded:

Hi,

I am truly sorry regarding the quality of your brownie the other night at Chili’s. We do our best to ensure great times and great food and I’m sorry we let you down.

We will work to continue consistency in the quality of our food, and in the future, please feel free to let the manager know there is a problem so it can be fixed for future guests.

Thanks so much!

What?!  You want me to contact the manager?  Then what was the point of emailing chili’s in the first place?  I thought that by doing that Chili’s would “make it right?”

I have to say that this response has left a worst taste in my mouth than the brownie did.  It would have been better for Chili’s just to let it go and I might have forgotten about the whole situation.  Now I am super annoyed since they make me waste my time  for nothing.  Not going to Chili’s anymore.  Chevy’s or Friday’s will do.

Chili’s: “Dont speak unless you can improve silence.” – Spanish Proverb

PS: By the way, this whole issue could had been averted if Chili’s would had left my favorite dessert in the menu -  the Chocolate Chip Molten Chocolate Cake in the menu.  They removed it and replaced it with some crappy White Chocolate Molten Cake.  That lasted about 2 months.  Now they have the Peanut Butter Molten, which I expect will last as much as IHOP’s corn cakes fiasco.

“After the recent Apple conference, Mac fans were elated. One person was quoted as saying “I’ve had a Macintosh now for a total of 35 days, and I’m really excited to be part of the Mac community.”

Yes! part of the Mac community. (sidenote: for all you youngins out there that do not understand why it was called the Mac community and not the Apple community is because long ago Apple only made computer and they were called Macintosh).

This has been true from Apple’s early days. Apple placed themselves as the alternative renegades fighting big brother. Remember this commercial from 1984:

This strategy of “Us vs. Them” has worked for Apple for many years.  It was established by the big dog himself based on the concept the “Whole Banana.”  Which meant that Apple designed and built all their equipment; consequently,  consequently avoiding competition of products within their company and creating that sense of community; and the idea that you must protect this community from foreigners that just didnt get the “Mac Lifestyle.”

If you want proof, just ask any “Mac girl or Mac guy” (you know who they are), about their Mac equipment and they will talk for hours on how special the Apple stuff really is.  Want to get them pissed off? Tell them that the EVO is better than the iPhone.

But the community that has been so tightly knit together is starting to crumble.  Just like Apple announced that 1984 will not be 1984; well you should mark 2011, which is 10 years after we were supposed to be flying trough space and talking to our pal Hal based on the film “2001: A Space Odyssey“, as the year the Mac community started to fall.

Why is that you may ask?

The answer is simple: Competition amongst iPhone users.

I was having lunch with a friend that happens to be a Mac Girl.  During our lunch conversation, out of nowhere, she started talking about her “at&t” iPhone and telling me how much the “Verizon” version sucked!  She informed me that the Verizon iPhone is actually the at&t iPhone 1 dressed like the at&t iPhone 4. I was like “shutup!”  She continued letting me know that the at&t iPhone was better!

I ask you noble people of the internet: when have you heard a Mac person ever utter such words that anything is better than their Apple products? Worlds are colliding!

This has not happened before.  And the discourse is all over forums and the comment sections of blogs where Mac people are attacking each other mercilessly.  Just read the comment sections in the reviews by Wired Mag or Popular Science.

The community is falling apart and it is just a matter of time before they all open their eyes, stop drinking the Apple Kool-Aid,  and realize that there actually better products being out in the market place than what Apple has to offer.

The great pancake company IHOP, which by the way about 4 years ago removed the delicious Country Griddle Cakes from their menu and replaced them with corn cakes!  Can you believe it?!  who the heck would eat corn panacakes?  Nobody.  Which is the reason why they only lasted about 4 months on the menu.  Sorry about my rant, but I love Country Griddle Cakes and I will never forgive IHOP for this.  Never.  Ok, lets get back to how awful IHOP is at using QR codes.  They are so bad that they dont even use a QR code.  Please take a look at exhibit A below:

Exhibit A: IHOP misses a great opportunity to use QR codes.

This poster was hanging in the tiny waiting area of an IHOP restaurant located in Fair Lawn NJ. First, the one thing they got right was that they created a mobile version specifically for the mobile part of this campaign.  On the other hand, as you can see, the only way they are directing traffic to their mobile site is via the written URL http://ihop.com/mobilejoin.    Now, many of us are aware that feature phones still make up more than 65% of all mobile phones in the US.  Of course their numbers are declining quickly and Android, Blackberry and iPhones continue to grow.  So why not add QR Code to the mix and keep the URL as well?  Beats me.  Maybe the same befuddle genius that was behind the removal of the Country Griddle Cakes from the menu is responsible for this digital marketing blunder.  Maybe some of you can reach out to the IHOP marketing team and let them know that they should start using QR codes… and to bring back Country Griddle Cakes

Unlike IHOP, Johnny Walker actually uses QR Codes heavily – specially in their Conquista La Noche promotions.  In exhibit B, the marketing pieces used by Johnny Walker (collected at a promotional event in NJ) both have QR codes – the larger one is links to their facebook page and the smaller on the right side is given to you once you take a pic with two models on their red carpet and it links to their flickr account.  Both of these links are not mobile friendly.

This is the other way to use QR codes incorrectly. Print them on your collateral and link them to every social networking site available, but not to a branded mobile site that can be use as a landing page where all visitors can learn about the product/service; maybe sign up for a newsletter; and guide them social networking sites.

Exhibit B: Johnny Walker Conquista la Noche campaign uses QR codes heavily

I am going to keep my eyes open for other ways marketers are using QR codes and let you know what I think of their strategy.

So I put them on and less than 2 minutes I get hit with the message “Looking for Something Fun to do?”  then pay $6 to watch DirectTV.  See below:

So much for free!

A few months ago I wrote about WordPress Security. Now, armed only with the words “free WordPress themes,” builtBackwards’ Theme Authenticity Checker Plugin and Donncha O Caoimh’s Exploit Scanner, I’m going to take a look through the first page of Google to see just how safe pages ranking for “Free WordPress Themes” are.Note: I am not uploading any of these themes onto my server. Instead I have installed xampp and am running WordPress locally on my computer. I don’t advise uploading themes from random websites directly onto your server – you never know what you could catch! There are some nasty diseases out there…

via Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else – WordPress, Multisite and BuddyPress plugins, themes, news and help – WPMU.org.

For developers the following 3 constants are important and should exist in every wp-config.php of a development system. Please use it with precaution on a live system!

Add define(‘WP_DEBUG’, true); to wp-config.php to enable

the reporting of notices during development.

Add define(‘WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY’, false); to wp-config.php to

disable the display of errors.

Add define(‘WP_DEBUG_LOG’, true); to wp-config.php to log

eerrors to debug.log in the wp-content directory.

Sets PHP error handling and handles WordPress debug mode.

A small syntax with huge impact. I recommend this to everyone who is developing with WordPress, especially with Xdebug a fantastic help.

via WordPress Developer Hint – WordPress, EALL, define’WPDEBUGLOG’, define’WPDEBUGDISPLAY’, define’WPDEBUG’, Xdebug – WP Engineer.