A whole bunch of breadbaskets of course!

Andrew Hellman from Teroforma is pictured here contemplating and admiring his latest children on their first photoshoot. In addition to creating product shots, and PR photos… we’re also designing the packaging. And eating the props.

While microstock can be a cost effective option to personify your business/brand/cause… proceed at your own peril.

Keep an eye out for for a new video featuring the John Barrett styling team at the Dennis Basso Spring 2010 show at Bryant Park. Pictured here: Charles and Nicholas set up during rehearsal.

1. Google Analytics: Your website is the best place to track the effectiveness of any campaign. This free tool from Google is one of the easiest to use and customize. It helps you know who is coming, what keyword they searched for, what SEM campaign they clicked on, what email they responded to and what they did on your site. Analytics is an absolute must for any business with a website.

2. Campaign Monitor: Email is the lowest cost tool for engaging prospects and customers. Campaign Monitor is one of the best email marketing tools that we have found. It’s easy to use (really), it integrates with Google Analytics, does the testing for you and is much less expensive than Constant Contact, Emma or Vertical Response.

3. WordPress: Forget what you heard about WordPress being a blog engine… it’s a free, robust, Content Management Application and it’s awesome! Thousands of fanatics around the world support this application through it’s open source community. It separates content from presentation and functionality and has more plugins than we could explore in a lifetime. What’s more, WordPress is super search engine friendly right out of the box. We use it to power a number of our small and medium sized business websites.

4. Press Release Point and PR Newswire: Outside of getting to know the staff at the local papers, there are two great press tools that are available online. Press Release Point is a great way to do an online press release for $20. Not only does it get your message out there, it also creates hundreds of pages that link back to your website (increasing your search engine ranking). PR Newswire is a more traditional approach and is surprisingly affordable. It’s important to use these tools in the correct order… few reporters will be interested in your story is plastered all over the internet.

5. Adwords: For most, Search Engine Marketing is a mystery. The best approach is to go slow. We love Adwords as a starting point because it integrates with Analytics (for tracking) and has some great targeting ability. The best approach for getting started is to start small and targeted. Set a budget of $50 per month, focus on your state and pick the fewest, most targeted keywords (and pay more than anyone else for each click). At the start, you will get everyone that is looking for you or a solution that is very close to the one you offer… that’s a good place to begin.

6. Google Docs and Basecamp: Working collaboratively with teams in different locations can be a grind. Whether your sharing content with your agency or working with a colleague down the hall, Basecamp and Google Docs make it easier. Basecamp is best for organizing a lot of documents and notes. Google Docs is best for working within documents.

7. Volusion: Setting up an online store can be painful… especially if you are trying to create something from scratch. Sure, you can plug in 2Checkout or PayPal but that looks budget. Volusion is an eCommerce Software-as-a-Service provider. Basically, they maintain a great application that can be easily customized and offer it up for reasonable monthly rates (hosting and support included). Volusion has some great marketing features, including CRM, Affiliate Marketing and Quickbooks integration.

8. Share a Sale: Affiliate Marketing is a great way to increase the visibility of products in your online store. Share a Sale is a great, low-cost way to begin an affiliate marketing program and invite sites and bloggers to participate. You define your commission structure and have full control of who’s in your program.

9. Sugar CRM, Pipeline Deals, Highrise (Relationship Marketing): The Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) marketplace has changed dramatically in the past few years. It used to be that you had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for an application to automate marketing messages. Now, a new company appears every day… offering lower costs and more features. Sugar CRM, Pipeline Deals and Highrise are a few that we have played with.

10. Protoshare (Website Prototyping): Imagine if Visio was easy to use, remembered your template and was online so colleagues could help you out. Protoshare helps you build a website prototype so everyone can test drive it before it goes to code. This is a new one for us. We signed up for an account recently and are happy with the results so far.

Be sure to add a comment if you have one to add to the list!

» Check out Matt’s Video Presentation

You may be saying… “but I am not a blogger, I am a business”. Well WordPress is essentially a content management tool. It can power a blog or a small business website.

Here are a few of the key benefits of using WordPress for small and medium sized businesses.

1. The application can be installed and a site can be created with a click (check out MediaTemple for reliable and affordable WordPress hosting)
2. It takes less effort to create a custom template than it does to hard code an entire site
3. Adding pages or news items is easy
4. There are thousands of plugins available and a huge open-source community that contributes to it’s future development
5. Content is separated from presentation and function… so, redesigns can be fairly easy.
6. Google likes it and people can find it.

Indigo6 sat down with author & speaker Frank Schipani. This short video piece documents some of Frank’s influences and lessons learned from his decades in the fashion industry.