Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

10/05/15

I recently wrote a post about the importance of having a mobile-friendly website.  I have created a dashboard in Google Analytics to see how your mobile traffic stacks up against your desktop traffic.  If your mobile traffic doesn’t fare well against your desktop traffic, you might need to look at making the website more responsive. To download the GA dashoboard,

09/18/15

According to a recent study, mobile device usage is significantly higher than desktop usage, with people viewing 51% of the content on mobile versus only 42% on desktop/laptop.   (Five years ago, it was 12.5% mobile vs. 75% desktop/laptop). Which means that many of your website’s visitors will be viewing your site from their mobile phones and you need to make

08/24/15

Google’s new Project Sunroof uses its expansive data in mapping and computing resources to help calculate the best solar plan for you.  Project Sunroof looks up your home in Google Maps and combines that information with other databases to create your personalized roof analysis. Project Sunroof recommends an installation size to generate close to 100% of your electricity use, based

08/13/15

Google Analytics is one of the best ways to help you understand ways to reach your audience through digital marketing and drive traffic to your website.  And best of all, it is a free tool offered by Google and relatively easy to incorporate into just about any website. There is a tremendous amount of information that you can get from

05/06/15

With over 50 food vendors, 60 musical acts, Headliner Ben Folds, dozens of art exhibits and booths, things to do for the kids, a Tech park, and even a Zip line, South Bend’s birthday celebration over the Memorial Day weekend in downtown South Bend will be one of the biggest and most exciting community events ever held. How do you

03/03/15

March 3 marks the day that President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional act making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States, but that might not have happened if Francis Scott Key hadn’t practiced certain social media marketing principles that helped increase the song’s popularity. Francis Scott Key’s Social Media Tips… Find a way to be an ongoing

01/30/15

Is your favorite Pet’s name also your password? How about your street name-or your favorite sports team? Are you using password as your password? And here’s a good one: 123456….Yikes! Danger, Danger, Will Robinson. Get ready to be hacked!!! SplashData.com has announced its annual list of the 25 most common passwords found on the Internet – thus making them the

11/19/14

5 Google AdWords Tips That I Learned from Pheasant Hunting Instead of writing my work blog post last weekend, I decided to drive out to South Dakota to go on my annual pheasant hunting trip with some friends.  Luckily, while traipsing through the cornfields of America’s Heartland, I was able to find a number of similarities between search engine marketing

11/11/14

Blog for Tuesday, November 11 – Veteran’s Day – 2014 The 100th anniversary of the ending of WWI is widely celebrated and recognized today. Marketing for various charity organizations’ coffers, the United Kingdom had a giant 900,000-strong ceramic poppy sale and display, for the climactic day of remembrance. NPR (and a few Brit Facebook friends) informed me about this amazing

04/09/14

I listened to an interesting NPR piece about the brain’s preference for repeating music themes earlier this week. ‘Play It Again And Again, Sam’ by Alix Spiegel, mentioned the “mere exposure effect.” Then I saw “mere exposure effect” again in a blog ‘The Popcorn Effect: When Do Brand Ads Fail?’, thanks to my neuroscience marketing friend, blogger Roger Dooley. People

10/24/13

As a creative agency we are always investigating new ways of doing things and because we deal regularly with “bleeding edge” technology in those creative endeavors, it is more important than ever to stay one step ahead. One of these new ideas is the use of “style tiles” in the web design process. You start with the most important step

09/03/13

I was fortunate enough to spend my long Labor Day weekend in Camden Maine with one of my best friends from college. We did some sailing, shopping and of course we checked out the local restaurants! My friend and I are both foodies so we asked some locals for a recommendation of a great seafood or Italian restaurant. We were