Hinchtown Mobile helps fans get even closer to talented IZOD IndyCar Series rookie

INDIANAPOLIS, Tuesday, July 5, 2011 – Rising IZOD IndyCar Series star James Hinchcliffe launched a cutting-edge, unique driver mobile application July 5, allowing fans to interact with the popular “Hinch” even when their busy lives reach top speed.

Hinchtown Mobile is free and available for download at the Apple App Store and Android Market. It’s believed to be the first driver app in major motorsports.

2010 Firestone Indy Lights series runner-up Hinchcliffe drives for Newman/Haas Racing in his rookie season in the IZOD IndyCar Series, North America’s top open-wheel racing series. He is the second-highest rookie in the standings entering the Honda Indy Toronto, Sunday, July 10 on the streets of his hometown.

“I’m really excited about Hinchtown Mobile,” Hinchcliffe said. “I’ve gone all out to use the Web and social media to connect with fans for the last few years, which is really important to me. That’s been a big success, so the launch of my mobile app is taking my relationship with the fans to an all-new level of interaction.”

Hinchcliffe is one of the most innovative, creative drivers in the use of digital and social media. He is the “mayor of this little Internet civilization known as Hinchtown” at his unique website, www.hinchtown.com.

The site features features complete integration with Hinchcliffe’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter feed, all of which he updates regularly to provide entertaining content to fans and sponsors.

Hinchtown Mobile will include links to all of Hinchcliffe’s existing virtual content and channels. But the interactive app also offers exclusive elements. For example, fans attending the race this weekend in Toronto can download a “Key to the City” and get free admission to the Hinchtown After Party.

Hinchcliffe helped to develop the mobile app with sports marketing and consulting specialists GRand Solutions LLC and digital marketing agency Boost Media Entertainment, both based in Indianapolis. GRand Solutions has managed the marketing and activation efforts for Hinchcliffe since March.

“It’s not surprising that Hinch is the first driver to launch a mobile app,” said Ruthie Forbes, co-founder of GRand Solutions. “He’s always thinking one step ahead when it comes to connecting with fans and sponsors in digital media. I’ve never seen a driver more plugged into the power of virtual solutions.”

While Hinchtown Mobile is their first driver app, GRand and Boost teamed up to create and launch an Android app for Texas Motor Speedway in June 2011. It was one of the first apps for a major racing facility.

GRand formed a partnership with Boost Media Entertainment in February to represent Boost’s innovative mobile products in the motorsports marketplace.

“Hinchtown Mobile is a great example of how GRand’s partnership with Boost Media can help keep our clients on the leading edge by offering unique, nimble and efficient solutions through online and mobile technology,” said Gene Cottingham, co-founder of GRand Solutions. “This technology works for everyone in motorsports – drivers, teams, event and track promoters and sponsors.”

###

About GRand Solutions LLC

GRand Solutions is a sports management and consulting company based in Indianapolis, featuring the complementary skills and more than 25 years of combined industry experience of former Champ Car CFO Cottingham and former INDYCAR marketing executive Forbes.

The GRand team is committed to exceeding client expectations in the traditional areas of sponsor and event activation, public relations, guest services and consumer marketing – as well as financial and operational consulting, risk management and business process improvement. The “dynamic duo” is dedicated to providing innovative, affordable and effective business solutions to the global sports community and beyond.

About Boost Media Entertainment

Boost Media Entertainment is a digital marketing agency, based in Indianapolis, specializing in web development, video production and mobile apps. Boost offers a full range of creative abilities to provide all the services of an ad agency or PR firm, with the technical capabilities to see the project through in-house. Delivering the client’s complete and cohesive message through multiple channels-with zero dilution-is Boost’s true expertise.

Each week, marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation about trends and best practices in the interactive marketing industry.  They call it the Nexus Café.

On Thursday, March 17th we will join ExactTarget for a live Twitter Chat about the topic Customer Retention Campaigns.  Follow #nexuscafe and #CustomerRetention

#NexusCafe is a conversation on Twitter, hosted by @ETNexus, featuring the latest topics in the digital marketing industry. You can follow and participate in the conversation on Twitter with the #NexusCafe hashtag.

Each week, ExactTarget will feature a guest and marketing topic relevant to the Nexus Partner Ecosystem. The audience features ExactTarget customers, partners, and employees. All you have to do to participate is tweet during the event using the hashtag #NexusCafe in your tweet so that it gets pulled into the conversation.

The best contributor, chosen by the featured guest, will win a Starbucks card*!

Remember that 80% of sales come from 20% of current customers and clients? With these statistics I am wondering why most marketing and sales campaigns are designed for the new customer.

Successful customer retention starts with the first contact an organisation has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship.   At Boost Media, we have a special promotional product to assist with this.  It’s called TalkToCustomers.

TalktoCustomers.com implements successful promotions where customers willingly trade key demographic data for discounts, chances to win, and other incentives.  This strategy achieves two important results: The collection of valuable consumer information – essential for both tactical and strategic marketing efforts. The creation of a growing audience who “opt in” for periodic communications and promotions by email, text and other electronic communication, keeping the conversation going between you and your customers (customer retention).

Our TalkToCustomers product launch was similar to many.  An accidental discovery.  We were contacted by a potential client who had a particular problem.  In this case, it was Mikes Express Carwash and they wanted to use email marketing to sell their coupon books (buy four get one free) in order to maximize customer retention.  The problem, was that they didn’t have a customer email database yet.  Boost Media suggested that we put a unique code on each sales receipt and invite customers to visit a URL to fill out a short survey, while rewarding them with a free carwash.  We ran the promotion for 14 days and the results were amazing.  Of all the surveys that were completed, 54% of respondents opted in for future messages.  Bingo.  Our idea (TalkToCustomers) was born.

Since the Mikes Success story, we have launched our promotion in many retailers producing opt-in results as high as 90%, 95%,and even 98% in one case (customer retention).

To learn more about our customer retention strategies using TalkToCustomers, please check out the live Twitter chat with ExactTarget this Thursday at 11:00.

Float clearing can be frustrating for any new front-end developer. If you don’t develop with floated elements, you should–they’re incredibly intuitive and aren’t really that complex. Here’s a great article about the float theory.

That being said, there are several ways you can clear a floated element. Most use some sort of clearfix — but here’s a better way:

Markup:

<div id="wrapper">
	<div id="content">
		<p>Content.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="sub-content">
		<p>Content.</p>
	</div>
</div>

CSS:

#wrapper{
	width:960px;
	overflow:hidden;
}
#content{
	width:65%;
	float:left;
}
#sub-content{
	width:30%;
	float:right;
}

That’s all there is to it. The trick here is pretty simple. It uses the width and overflow declarations on the wrapper DIV element–the resolves the issue and the wrapper now stretches around both contained DIV elements.

While an Intern at Smithville, their developers turn me on to a wonderful Mac web editor I think every front-end developer should use. It’s called Coda, developed by Panic. It’s smooth, one-window approach is incredible–it’s a text editor and file transferer, packed with terminal, live preview, and a full-featured (up-to-date!) css-editor. But, that’s just the start. It has the power of Transmit, built in the space of a sidebar. Also, it has the best web preview I’ve ever seen thanks to Apple’s WebKit.

Most importantly, is it’s seemless integration with its “Sites” feature — both remotely and locally. You can make an edit to a file, and it will save both the remote file and local file–so you always have an up-date backup of your websites.

The only draw back? It’s a Mac-only program. Check it out for free!

One of our favorite sources for inspiration and information is Smashing Magazine. Earlier this week Matt showed me an article of theirs that listed some great merchant sites. Among the list, I felt like there was one stand out, Chicago L-Shirts. I love how they use a dominant background image to anchor the design of the site. It’s not flash, and despite the size and sharpness of the background photography, the pages load quickly.

Our first response was, who could we do something like this for? It’s a realistic and undeniably cool web solution for the right client.

Local company rapidly expanding, taking on new clients despite poor economy

In a time when many companies face economic uncertainty and many downsize as a result, one Indianapolis-based company is defying these familiar circumstances.

Over the last three years, Boost Media & Entertainment has experienced an average growth of 35% a year. To accommodate the continuing expansion, the company recently moved into a new 4,000 square foot space at 107 S. Pennsylvania St. in downtown Indianapolis.

Says Boost CEO Jason Zickler, “With our growth, and the need for additional staff to handle a move into mobile app development for clients such as WTTS, Colt’s Blue Crew, KOOL 105 out of Denver, Rib America and others…we’d simply outgrown our old space.”

Concert consulting company Live 360 Group is moving into the space as well. Dave Lucas, former North American CEO of Clear Channel Entertainment and developer of the Deer Creek Music Center (now Verizon Wireless Center), is one of Boost’s initial investment partners.

“We’re excited about some new business partnerships between Boost and Live 360 Group,” says Lucas. “Moving in together is a way to continue coordinating our efforts, and ultimately provide greater services to our shared clients.”

Zickler Associates, a local commercial real estate firm, will soon move into the space as well. The firm has partnered with Boost on a number of projects, including Abodie, a real estate search app, and Talk to Customers, a measured marketing software platform.

The new offices are also seeing new features added, such as a brand new, state-of-the-art HD video edit bay, built to handle the growing online video business for clients such as Conexus Indiana (40+ videos with Boost), Palermo’s Pizza (20+ videos) and Aprimo (30+ videos).

About Boost Media & Entertainment

Boost Media & Entertainment is a digital marketing agency specializing in web design and development, video production and mobile apps. Boost offers a full range of creative abilities to provide all the services of an ad agency or PR firm, with the technical capabilities to see the project through in-house. Delivering the client’s complete and cohesive message through multiple channels – with zero dilution – is Boost’s true expertise.

When the graphics card melted down, I thought that would be it for the old girl. (I’m speaking of course, about my trusty 2005 era Macbook Pro) But, with a motherboard transplant and some software upgrades, we had almost another year together. All told, I estimate I’ve cut over 300 separate video projects on this machine, not bad for a piece of technology you can carry in a backpack. But now, it gives me great pleasure to say,

“That’ll do pig.”

The heavy lifting of Boost’s video department will now be capably bore by a brand new Quad-Core Mac Pro. This gleaming slab of creative-class hardware has the software,* processing power, and raw, rough-hewn good looks to handle the 100+ per year video output we’re expecting in the foreseeable future. To house this beast, Boost has been nice enough to build us a new edit bay in the new building. We like that.

As for Lappy, well, she’s enjoying her retirement with a light load of emailing and scriptwriting, often at her favorite coffee shop, Hubbard & Cravens. (They have plenty of outlets to support her rapidly aging battery) The only video to tax her graphics card now is on Youtube.

*Final Cut Pro 7, with Studio.  Delicious.

You've earned your rest

The new guy

Accent on Indianapolis is a destination management company that brings Indianapolis to life through customized, creative events and programs. Resourcefulness, unsurpassed knowledge of Indianapolis, and decades of experience equip us to provide unique, imaginative solutions that consistently exceed expectations.

This month we launch a new website for our friends at Accent on Indianapolis. They now have an updated site that accentuates their brand, allows users to view galleries of events, insider info about Indianapolis and gives them the ability to get there message out quickly through an easy to use editor. If you are planning an event this is the eccentric group you want to be working with.

Check out the site at www.accentindy.com

Okay, right off the bat I will admit that this is a cheap and easy excuse for actual content this week. But think about it – a blog about blogging. It’s rather brilliant.
Do you blog? If yes, do you wonder who (if anyone) actually reads it? What if no one reads it? What if no one is reading this blog?
It’s still worth doing. Very worth doing.
Watch this.

Financially and also in terms of marketing, branding, and communication, online customer satisfaction surveys pay for themselves. Companies that fail to leverage the power of online survey technology often pay a price that can be catastrophic. For example, launching an expensive branding campaign or marketing a product to appeal to a particular customer demo can reap huge rewards. But if you miss the mark because you lack an understanding of your potential audience, it can waste time and money.

With a simple online survey, (bundle your survey with an incentive such as a discount coupon) you can track those who respond to the survey by capturing valuable email addresses. Or compare changes in customer survey responses across a time-line or in relationship to multiple retail locations.

We have recently launched a new survey product TalkToCustomers.com.  Stop by and check it out.