Magic Logix

Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Magic Logix is a leading global digital marketing agency that drives client business growth by merging creativity, technology and online marketing.

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How CEOs Stay So Productive

Since the early 1970s, productivity—the amount of output per hour worked—has been steadily rising in America. Between 1973 and 2011, the productivity of the American worker has grown an astonishing 80 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Since 2000 alone, the productivity of average Americans has risen 23 percent. How are we achieving this extraordinary rise in productivity? In large part, it’s because we’re finding new tools and techniques to increase our focus and efficiency.

Below, some of the most productive people—from successful investors to “always-on” executives—share their secrets on how to be your most productive self, despite the overflowing in-boxes, the constant buzz of the phone and the never-ending ping of meeting alerts.

Clear Your Mind, Define Your Focus

“I send an email to my team each Monday morning with the top five things I will be focused on for the week. This really keeps me on track and gives me the focus I need.”

- Wendy Lea, CEO of Get Satisfaction, principal at The Chatham Group, investor, advisor, mentor.

Cut Back On Meetings

Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB), said he keeps productive by being diligent about meetings—sticking to the allotted time and only scheduling in-person meetings when it’s absolutely necessary.

All About Evernote

Dylan Tweney, the executive editor at VentureBeat, said Evernote, the popular note-taking and archiving service, is his go-to productivity tool. “I use Evernote to collect everything I might possibly need to save for later, with the exception of emails—Gmail is fine for that. I store all of my important documents—from notes to interviews—in Evernote.

I also use Evernote tags as a kind of to-do list: I have a set of tags that I can use to prioritize things that need to happen immediately or that I’m waiting for someone else to finish: (“1-next,” “2-soon,” “3-later,” “4-someday,” and “5-waiting”).”

Get Tunnel Vision

“Most people tend to focus on the 100 things they should do, which can be overwhelming and result in the failure to actually accomplishing anything of importance. I try to focus on the three to five things I absolutely have to do. I don’t get distracted by those ninety-seven other unimportant things that don’t ultimately contribute to my success or the success of my company.”

- Kevin O’Connor, the serial entrepreneur who founded both DoubleClick and more recentlyFindTheBest.

Get Physical 

“I love to run in the morning before I get into work. Running clears my mind, gets the blood flowing and ultimately makes me much more focused and productive. During my morning runs, I try to come up with solutions to any unresolved problems at work, brainstorm new ideas, and really prioritize my work in terms of the top things I want to accomplish that day. By the time I get into work, I already have a set of focused priorities, and I also have the energy to make them happen.”

- Patrick Dolan, the EVP and COO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Police Your Own Internet Habits: Notifications Are Evil

 “I also have a tendency to begin earnestly researching something online with the very best of intentions and then get lost viewing irrelevant content and wasting way too much time. To limit this, I turn on a browser extension to Chrome called StayFocusd where I maintain a list of sites I can get lost on for hours—the New York Times and Facebook are my top two. StayFocusd alerts me after ten minutes have passed and then blocks the offending sites to help me resist temptation and stay focused on the task at hand.”

- Fred Bateman, the CEO and Founder of Bateman Group.

Put Email In Its Place

 “More generally, email puts you in response mode, where you are doing what other people want you to do, rather than send mode, where you are deciding what you want to do and taking action.”

- Anne-Marie Slaugher, an author and professor of politics and international relations at Princeton University.

What are your productivity tips? How will you be more productive today?

Want more? Check out our entire issue on productivity.

[Image: Flickr user Massimo Regonati]

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Digital marketing, despite its innovation-focused name, can become monotonous. It’s easy for companies to fall into a rut: They recycle the same marketing strategies, simply for the sake of being able to do something easy and guaranteed to create an impact. This is great for quick launches, but what does it do for the growth of these companies?

Why It Matters

Digital marketing, at its essence, is a field driven by innovation. Technology itself forces us all to stay ahead of the curve, but the task of marketing to a modern audience also asks us to change with the times. If we ignore the necessity of crafting new approaches to our markets, we’ll find ourselves growing stagnant. It won’t simply be us feeling lifeless; the numbers will look pretty dead, too.

What many companies’ digital marketing specialists do is wait to see what the next big movement is, and then jump on board. Yes, that ensures you’re not behind the times, but what about getting ahead of the times? The problem is that we’re all following these trends. People who are focusing on these trends exclusively need to reevaluate. The fact is, most of your clients have seen someone else doing what you’re doing, and doing it better. To get ahead, you must break the mold and create something new.

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Start with as clean and clear a database as possible. Your CRM should incude valuable data only. Merge, purge and filter out duplicates, old dead leads and unproductive data before beginning, or else the system will be flooded with wasteful information.

Establish a consistent lead scoring methodology to rank leads. You should define a method internally to rank prospects against a scale that represents the perceived value each lead represents to your company.

Establish strong communication between the marketing department and sales department. In order to achieve best results,  sales and marketing must communicate regularly so they can collaborate on key events and campaigns.

Evaluate your current sales process flows. How many different sales process flows are there when a visitor views your company’s site? What are the steps of each sales process flow? Which steps make sense to automate and which steps do not? The who, what, where and when of the sale come into play in developing logical, usable, sensible sales flows.

Map your content (or develop a plan to do so). How is/should content be mapped, or developed to be mapped? Does your site include content that leads the visitor to the action they would like to pursue that is appropriate to the stage of the sales cycle from which they come? Does the content inform? Does the content address a common question? Does the content invoke a reader to desire to act and make a contact or fill out a form? Sales process flows each need multiple kinds of content and each flow usually requires both unique and shared content relative to other flows.

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The following tutorial will show you how to enable your web application for Open ID to let your users log in without having to remember yet another password.

1. Get your Open ID

The first step is to have an Open ID to use to test your sign-on. If you already have an Open ID or are signed up for a site that gives you one, then you are all set. Otherwise, sign up at a provider such aswww.myopenid.com and get your own Open ID URL.

2. Download the PHP class

We will use a PHP class in order to simplify the process of communicating with the Open ID provider. The class we are going to use is the Simple Open ID Class that is available fromwww.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3290.html. The version of the class we have used is available in the code sample, however, if you are going to use this in a live application, check the site for any updates to it. In the zip that you have downloaded, the file you will need is class.openid.v2.php. Save this into your site, naming it anything you like.

3. Create a form

In a new PHP file, add a form; all we need is a field for the user to enter their Open ID URL and a Submit button. Set the form to post back to itself for this example. We’ve also added a link to myopenid.com so the user can go and get an Open ID if they don’t have one yet.

<form action=”index.php” method=”post”>

<h1>Login with your openID</h1>

<div>

<div><label for=”openid”>Your OpenID</label><input

ype=”text” name=”openid_url” id=”openid” class=”text” />

<input type=”submit” name=”login” value=”Login” class=”btn”

/></div>

<p><a href=”http://www.myopenid.com/”>Get an OpenID</a></p>

</div>

</form>

4. Posting the form

We now need to deal with what happens when the user posts the form containing their Open ID. At the very top of this script inside PHP tags, include the class we downloaded earlier and create a new instance of that class.

require(‘class.openid.v2.php’);

if ($_POST) {

$openid = new OpenIDService();

5. Set up the request

In addition to checking whether the user is valid, we can ask the Open ID server to send us back some information about the user, such as their email address, full name and gender. The user needs to have already entered this information into their profile and agree to send it to you when they get to the Open ID site. The following lines of code set the user’s identity (this is the URL they entered into the text box), the site that is asking to be authorised, some required fields that we need and some optional fields.

$openid->SetIdentity($_POST[‘Open ID_url’]);

$openid->SetTrustRoot(‘http://’ . $_SERVER[“HTTP_HOST”]);

$openid->SetRequiredFields(array(‘email’,’fullname’));

$openid->SetOptionalFields(array(‘dob’,’gender’,’country’));

6. Redirect to the Open ID provider

We redirect out to the provider setting, the URL that we want the user to be brought back to after completing their sign-on process. In our case, that is this same script we are posting out from but you might also have a different script to handle logins in a full application. If anything goes wrong at this stage, just write out the error information to variables so we can see what happens.

if ($Open ID->GetOpenIDServer()){

$openid->SetApprovedURL(‘http://’ . $_SERVER[“HTTP_

HOST”] . $_SERVER[“PATH_INFO”]);

$openid->Redirect();

}else{

$error = $openid->GetError();

$error_code = $error[‘code’] ;

$error_string = $error[‘description’];

}

}

7. Testing the redirect

You should now be able to enter your Open ID into your form and be taken to the Open ID server to perform the login. After logging in, the server will let you decide whether to authorise this site once, always or cancel the request. We can also choose what information we send back to this site.

8. After login

If you allow the authorisation on the Open ID server, you should find yourself back at your script. In the address, there will be a query string containing information sent back from the Open ID server. This information will inform us whether the login was successful and if it gives us some information about the user.

9. Checking for successful authentication

The below code goes after the closing bracket of the if statement, checking to see if we have a Post. It runs when the user is redirected back from the Open ID server. If we have the parameter openid_mode in our Get, then we check to see if it has a value of id_res. This means that we have an authentication. The first thing to do is to create a new instance of the Open ID object to check that this really is a valid user and not just someone forming a correct query string to try and log into our site. We do this using the ValidateWithServer method, which will return true or false. Put that value into a variable to check.

elseif($_GET[‘openid_mode’] == ‘id_res’){

$showform = false;

$openid = new OpenIDService();

$openid->SetIdentity($_GET[‘openid_identity’]);

$openid_validation_result = $openid->ValidateWithServer();

10. A valid login

If our variable $openid_validation_result is equal to true, then we have a valid login – hooray! Now we can do whatever we want to do with the information we get back from the server. In our case, we are just going to get the details from the Get and write them out into variables. If you were integrating Open ID into your site authentication, you would now insert this information into your database and continue exactly as if you had authorised using a username and password on your own site – except that you don’t need to worry about storing passwords. We are setting a variable named ‘status’ to VALID so that we can check this later on our page when we display the result of the authentication.

if ($openid_validation_result == true) {

//get the users details from the GET

$country = $_GET[openid_sreg_country];

$dob = $_GET[openid_sreg_dob];

$email = $_GET[openid_sreg_email];

$fullname = $_GET[openid_sreg_fullname];

$gender = $_GET[openid_sreg_gender];

$identity = $openid->GetIdentity();

$error_code = ‘’;

$error_string = ‘’;

$status = ‘VALID’;

}

11. Dealing with errors

We need to deal with any errors that might occur, such as an invalid authorisation or some error generated by the server. If we write these to variables, we can find out what happened. In a live site, you need to make sure your user knows what to do if the error is caused by an incorrect login. You might also want to log errors to a database table or text file so you can see if anything is happening often. If the error has been caught by the object, then it can be retrieved with the GetError() method that returns an array.

elseif($openid->IsError() == true){

$error = $openid->GetError();

$error_code = $error[‘code’];

$error_string = $error[‘description’];

$status = ‘ERROR’;

}else{

$error_code = ‘’;

$error_string = ‘INVALID AUTHORIZATION’;

$status = ‘INVALID’;

}

12. User cancelled request

If you deny the authorisation on the Open ID server, then the value of openid_mode will be ‘cancel’. In this situation, the user has cancelled the request and so you cannot then log in. You would need to give the user some information in this situation, perhaps giving them contact details if they have concerns about the information that you want to access.

else if ($_GET[‘openid_mode’] == ‘cancel’){

$showform = false;

$error_string = ‘USER CANCELLED REQUEST’;

$error_code = ‘’;

$status = ‘CANCELLED’;

}

13. Showing the information

For the purposes of this article, we will just display the information that has been returned – or the error message generated – so you can see that the login has worked. At the top of your script (just below the include of the class), add $showform = true;. Then wrap the form in your page with an if statement checking for $showform.

<?php

if($showform) {

?>

<form action=”index.php” method=”post”>

<h1>Login with your Openid</h1>

<div>

<div><label for=”openid”>Your OpenID</label><input

type=”text” name=”openid_url” id=”openid” class=”text” />

<input type=”submit” name=”login” value=”Login” class=”btn” /></div>

<p><a href=”http://www.myopenid.com/”>Get an OpenID</a></p>

</div>

</form>

<?php

}

?>

14. Display the returned information

If our status variable is set to Valid, then we have the user details. Echo them out to the page as proof of the successful authentication.

15. Error display

The following code will print out the error messages that have been received. These messages are more for debug purposes, so don’t forget to display more friendly and helpful error messages to your users, in case they are having problems logging in.

elseif ($status == ‘INVALID’) {

echo ‘<h1>Sorry, we could not log you in</h1>’;

echo ‘<p>’. $error_code .’: ‘.$error_string .’</p>’;

} elseif ($status == ‘CANCELLED’) {

echo ‘<h1>Sorry, we could not log you in</h1>’;

echo ‘<p>’.$error_string .’</p>’;

}

}

Click here to download the tutorial files

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Overcomplicating processes which have been proven to already work make B2B lead nurturing far less desirable than intended. By simple planning before execution, businesses who’ve already formulated sales funnels, landing pages and every bell-and-whistle in between could enjoy much more simplistic processes of taking leads, dripping campaigns or offering companion products or services to customers hesitantly approaching your high dollar offerings.  To make B2B lead nurture campaigns much more effective, pump synergy into your campaigns through careful research of tactics that effectively win relationships with businesses instead of fretting over one-off customers.  To help streamline your lead nurturing process is Magic Logix, your team player in all things business. Read more: http://www.techsling.com/2012/12/growing-b2b-lead-nurturing-programs-through-magic-logix/#ixzz2FLOskRGy

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5 Tools and Strategies to Build Relationships, and Not Just Links

To paraphrase a well know parable, “Build a link and the content will be shared, and your traffic might spike for a day. Build a real relationship and your content will be shared and linked to for a lifetime.”

People can see your true motives and if you’re just after a link it’s often transparent. Take the time to build a real relationship, instead of just links. I personally would rather have a resource or friend in the industry than just a link anyway.

Here are 5 tools and strategies I’ve learned that can assist in building relationships:

1. Social Media: This might be obvious, but not enough people utilize it. If you want to connect with someone the first step should be to connect with them on social media. Make sure and hit all the big ones: Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn. I would attempt twitter first because it’s the easiest way to approach someone and it is not creepy. I would not suggest befriending a person on Facebook or LinkedIn that you have not established a rapport with because many people would just consider that spam. All of these social media tools can be used to learn a little more about that person and help you establish common ground. Now you have the ammo needed to begin conversations on social media and start to build a foundation. Remember, it never hurts to share someone’s content either. This is a good opening to let the writer know you respect their work, and everyone knows that sharing is caring.

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Tips for Mobile SEO

Establishing a mobile SEO strategy should not be overlooked, but since many website designers and owners began with the desktop-friendly approach, it can be difficult to adopt a new philosophy.

Describing mobile as a new SEO philosophy may sound intimidating, but is not extremely difficult to implement. Overcoming this challenge is worth the time and money because of the long-term advantages that will be enjoyed.