The Digital Wax crew has been lucky enough to work with the Internet Week New York team for the past three years. We've watched the event grow from a small celebration of New York's digital community to a festival with 45,000 attendees and 250+ events. This year, we are honored (and pretty darn excited) to be named the official Interactive Partner of IWNY.  In collaboration with Yext and the IWNY team, we developed a custom Google map displaying the week's happenings. The goal of the map was to allow on-the-go attendees to easily find events nearby. To incorporate...

Wait, you guys are growing? Brett, Eli and myself have been incredibly fortunate these past few years. Having worked in marketing agencies, we saw firsthand how growth can be a tricky thing to manage. Our goal when we launched Digital Wax Works was to remain very small and very focused on all things digital. This growth strategy was painful at times (very long days as we bootstrapped the business) but it has afforded us the opportunity to move and pursue areas at our own pace with the right kind of clients. We held off hiring, as we were really picky...

Last week we spent a lot of time scouring the aisles of Kmart, Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot. No, we weren’t looking for a cheap DIY project; we were seeking inspiration around how customers transition from an in-store to an online experience. What we found proved interesting. Most established, older companies chose to sidestep even mentioning a digital platform, while younger companies dove right in. However, not all that jumped were graceful. Here are the highlights of our afternoon outing – the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.   The Good 1. Hamburger Helper Touching on consumer emotions,...

As an effective marketer, you constantly keep an eye on up-and-coming trends and are involved with the newest innovations and technology. But wait! What’s that hanging onto your shirttails as you are trying to run with the social media and online boom? It’s your boss – slowing down your efforts and backtracking your every step. To ease your frustration, here’s a look at Search Engine Optimization from a management perspective, helping you explain (like a boss) why your boss should finally jump aboard the digital train.   WHAT IS IT AND WHO CARES? SEO...

One of our core beliefs here at Digital Wax Works is you should live where you want. Happier people tend to do better work and are easier to get along with. Given the nature of the services we provide, geography is not a constraint. For Brett, Eli and myself we all chose Montana and knew the challenges that come with trying to build a global portfolio from a rural place. But we also knew what it's like to ski virgin powder on a random Tuesday. Or have a 360' view of stunning scenery on your daily trail run at lunch....

How to use email marketing with a Facebook fan page  After we posted about the drop in Facebook Likes on fan pages, we set about looking for some examples of brands that are doing it right. (It's easy to find plenty of ones that are doing it wrong.) We do a lot of work in the daily email marketing world and one of the heavy hitters is Tasting Table. With a huge email list of rabid foodies, the brand does a nice job of letting you opt-in to particular areas of interest. Things like "Chef's Recipes...

The always interesting digital marketing and tech rag, Mashable, had an interesting article on the slowing of Facebook “Likes” for brand pages.  Ah, it appears the easy days of throwing up a Facebook fan page and getting tons of instant likes are over. Now the hard work begins around having to provide a remarkable experience for interacting with a brand on the platform. The chart below shows a remarkable downturn for the top 50 brands. By the end of last year the growth was hovering around 2%. (Source: Ignite Social Media) Have we all grown blase of the complete...

  This past December we finished out the year in San Francisco for the sold-out An Event Apart web design conference. If you've read any of their articles on A List Apart, you know this is a community passionate about making websites. If you ever get a chance to take in a conference – do it. Fantastic speakers and surprisingly great food make for an engaging and enjoyable way to spend a few days. A couple key themes emerged across the presentations. Mobile will continue to shape a web developer's life. (Current research shows 3.3 smartphones are sold for...

Seriously, take it from IDEO - you need to play more. Learn how from two of IDEO’s toy designers. Overview From time to time we do some guest-blogging over at the 99% around creativity, careers, and pushing boundaries. I often find that at the end of writing an article there are scraps that for whatever reason don’t quite fit into the flow of the piece. It’s a shame because there can be some good stuff still wiggling around on the editing floor, so we thought we’d go ahead and publish those here on...

Word of mouth endorsement is still the holy grail of marketing. We trust our friends and with the explosion of social networks it's now easier than ever to reach out and ask our trusted circle what works and what doesn't. For a marketer, cracking into this inner circle and getting a positive endorsement is a serious challenge though. So we set out to tackle this challenge with one of the most proven marketing channels, email. Overview Over the past six months we've been building and testing a Tell-A-Friend (TAF) feature on several clients' websites across industries like...