AA Blog

I had one of my clients contact me the other day asking me to help him create, launch and track a targeted marketing campaign for his online t-shirt business in preparation for the upcoming holidays.  He had recently tried a campaign that was not very productive, so we decided to use the past failure as a learning experience.  The first thing we looked at was the target audience he had originally selected, and we soon found out that the biggest fault was in that area.

Knowing this, we knew the first thing we had to do was start with retargeting the audience we wanted to reach.  We reached out to a number of retargeting companies and were able to gain a very comprehensive understanding of the services they provide as well as what we could expect from their services.  This was crucial in understanding the reality of what we were facing and critical in forming our expectations.

The biggest thing we learned from this exercise was understanding how much return every dollar spent on retargeting advertising would potentially yield.  This was like the missing piece in our formula.  We developed a number of methods to track and report on this figure and were able to intelligently come up with a budget that was realistic and measurable.

My buddy has decided to propose to his long time girlfriend this coming Thanksgiving.  This gives us only about 3 days to look for diamond engagement rings and buy the one that he will use to propose.  We do not have much time, but thankfully we are close to the jewelry district where we can go and have a look at a slue of rings.

My friend had heard about a place where you can design your own engagement rings and wanted to put his creativity to use to ensure his girlfriend would receive a one of a king engagement ring.  We spent a full two days shopping for an engagement ring and must have seen a million designs with varrying quality and prices.  I never realized how much supply there was out there in the market.  It seemed that there were too many choices, but I guess it is better to have more choices than less choices.

After all the time we spent, looking for the right ring, my buddy narrowed down his choices to diamond eternity rings and finally chose one that he could afford and one that will hopefully be to the liking of his girlfriend.  All that is left now is to have him give it to her on Thanksgiving.  I am sure this will be the thanksgiving holiday that they will never forget.

I am really enjoying this online trading account I have.  It allows me to do my research on my own time and make the trades and purchases of the the stocks I want and like as opposed to having to rely on someone else and their opinions.  This has made me more aware of what is going on in the world and how it relates to the monetary fluctuations and world economy.

I have always had a traditional portfolio of financial investments, but I never really had full control of it.  Being my own online broker has allowed me to trade stocks and more importantly control my mutual funds and IRA accounts.  I now have the flexibility to trade on my own terms and really put my knowledge and intuitions to work for me.  I have always been active in the financial industry and having this ability just provides that much more insight on how the market works and where I can maximize my investments.

I am in front of a computer all day long.  And, having the ability to execute my own brokerage transactions when I want to makes it so much more convenient.  If any breaking news is published that I think could possibly effect the market in any way, I have the ability to make a trade as soon as the news is broken.  Now, that is the true personification of “knowledge is power”.

With winter coming on strong, I need to get away to play golf for a full weekend before the onset of the back to back holidays.  I had some time to spend looking for a place to stay in Myrtle Beach so I went online at http://avistaresort.com to do some research and find good deals at the last minute.

During my last trip I stayed at an amazing Myrtle Beach hotel, and I am hoping that I can find the same, or better, accommodations this time around because I know exactly what I am looking for, which is golf, relaxation and even more golf.  I need this mini vacation quickly but I also need it to be very relaxing as the day to day hassles of every day work are beginning to wear thin.  In short I need to recharge my batteries and I am confident that the answer will be found in resorts in Myrtle Beach.

I have this little trip all planned out.  I will be taking Thursday and Friday off from work.  I will fly down on Wednesday night and return on Sunday night.  That will give me 3 full days of the rest and relaxation I need.

I think one of the easiest things to do to get out of debt, or even to try to control the debt you have is to make a single payment for your outstanding debts.  In other words, look into debt consolidation services to help you get out of debt.  The concept is quite simple and makes sense.  You will have one bill to pay per month until your debts are closed.  This will allow you to have a good understanding of your income and expenses and will hopefully allow you to control your spending and finances.

The first thing you should do is seek credit counseling where professionals will be able to help you better understand the credit business model which in turn will open your eyes to how much extra interest you will pay over an extended period for something as minor as a one hundred dollar purchase.  By the time you pay off the debt conventionally, you may actually end up paying as much as 2 or 3 times the amount you borrowed.  SO that $100 purchase could actually end up costing you close to $300.

Debt consolidation is no magic wand.  You still need to exercise your good judgment and make sound financial decisions.  However, doing this will allow you to understand your financial position and what you need to spend.

Now that my brother has finally moved over to a Mac I have become his personal IT department.  He is not a power user, but knows what he wants to do on his computer.  And, home entertainment is his biggest use.  He was very adept at using his Windows PC to rip dvd ‘s and convert video files and such, but since he is a newbie to the Mac world, he keeps calling me for advice on a DVD Ripper for Mac.  I have shown him several products and he seems to be on his way to profeciency on the Mac.

Getting the DVD Ripper set up on his PC was easy and in no time he was able to start converting his DVD’s and home movies to a number of different formats suitable for the differing devices he has.  The Video Converter mac he installed allows him to convert a dvd to mpeg and it even allows him to do some editing on the video file itself.

I have a good feeling that by the year’s end, he will become self sufficient in his video converting and editing abilities and will be making some good holiday home videos that I am sure he will send to me.

Ever since my wife picked up cooking as her new hobby, we as a family have been eating very very well.  however, on the flip side, we found that we ended up spending a lot more for our eating expenses.  We needed to address this and we think we have found a good way to go about it.

We have become great fans of wasserstrom restaurant supplies to purchase any and all of the supplies we need.  This is the same place that professional chefs go to to purchase their professional cookware.  So we figured if it is good enough for them, it will certainly be good enough for us as well.  We are now purchasing restaurant supply type goods for our own use in our home.  We are big believers in the fact that the end product of anything, heavily relies on the equipment and ingredients used to create it.  Cooking is no different, and in this case you will actually be able to taste the difference.

Now that we have our spending under control for this new hobby, the food is even tasting better knowing that we are eating more health and more delicious and spending the same amount we did when we were not.