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30% discount for B Corporations and organizational democracies

Posted on April 16, 2011

Inspired by Tina Rosenberg’s NY Times article “Ethical Businesses with a Better Bottom Line” which describes how Salesforce.com provides up to an 80% discount to B Corporations, Product Perks will provide a 30% discount for B Corporations.

Product Perks will also provide the 30% discount to organizational democracies (including government agencies, NGO’s, nonprofit corporations, and for-profits).
The definition of organizational democracy is in process (Product Perks’ Alex Linsker blogs about it here, and there are many articles, books and websites here), and we are open to suggestions. However:

Any company with active self-organizing teams will receive the 30% discount.
We’ll define “active” as two or more self-organizing teams currently doing work, with those or other self-organizing teams’ work having grown the company’s revenue and/or bottom-line profits by 5% or more per year in the past 12 months.

Any company with term limits for all executives and managers (or representatives) will receive the 30% discount.

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“Click to…”

Posted on April 12, 2011

When clicking through Product Perks, 96% of customers or viewers get to the last screen, the screen that shows the products (with photo) or contacts (with contact information). And then, many people don’t click the product or contact (to go to the product page or contact person’s web page).

Which is fine. Analytics show that clicking through Product Perks increases sales on product sites. Many of our sites have a navigation menu on the screen that lists categories, products, or search boxes. Once customers know what they want to buy (by clicking through that site’s Product Perks), the customer can click on the navigation menu or search box to get to the product page. Or they copy and paste the contact person’s phone number, or write an email… no need to go directly to the webpage.

But a few words will increase the click-through rate. And those words are “Click to”. And then, the action, which can be any of these phrases: “Click to play”, “Click to view”, “Click to website”, “Click to buy”. The more specific the call to action/click to action, the better.

All things being equal, people are more likely to do what you ask them to do.

Even TED Talks have a “click to” action. Look at the TED Talk screen below: there is a Play button (the Play arrow) but the screen also says “(click to play)”:

This TED Talk by Dave Meslin is about seven different kinds of calls to action for community organizers. Click to play.

0 Comments - Posted in Performance, Usage

“Things That Grow”

Posted on March 20, 2011

“I like things with roots that know the earth,
Trees whose feet, nimble and brown,
Wander around in the house of their birth
Until they learn, by growing down,
To build with branches in the air;
Ivy-vines that have known the loam
And over trellis and rustic stair,
Or old grey houses, love to roam;
And flowers pushing vehement heads,
Like flames from a fire’s hidden glow,
Through the seething soil in garden-beds.
Yet I, who am forbidden to know
The feel of earth, once thought to make
Singing out of a heart’s old cry!
Untaught by earth how could I wake
The shining interest of the sky?”

by Hazel Hall (1886-1924)

0 Comments - Posted in Related Art

Troubleshooting computers, networks, and websites

Posted on March 9, 2011

Q: I’m seeing an error message when I try to load a webpage. The error message says:

“This webpage is not available. The webpage at… might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.”

Is the issue with my computer or network, or with the website?

A: You can run a few tests to figure it out.

For starters, click the “Refresh” button in your web browser. If the page loads, then something was temporarily down.

Q: How do I see if it’s my network?

A: If you can’t load a regular page at that moment such as http://Yahoo.com, then it’s definitely your network. If you click “Begin Test” at http://www.pingtest.net/index.php and it gives you a low grade while pages are slow to load, then it’s your network.

But even if Yahoo loads and PingTest says the network is fine at that moment, it might still be your network connection. Networks can go “over capacity”, or go down for seconds, minutes, or even longer.

Go to http://internetsupervision.com/scripts/urlcheck/check.aspx and type in the name of the website you want to check. It tells you how many seconds it takes for computers in LA, Chicago, and other cities to access that site right now. If the times are fine, then it’s most likely your computer or network.

Q: How do I see if it’s my computer?

A: If other programs (such as Microsoft Word) take awhile to respond on your computer, or if you have many programs running or many browser screens open to different websites, it might be your computer. You can do a diagnosis with these apps.

Q: Product Perks has access to view minute-by-minute reports of my site’s uptime and loadtime, and you receive real-time email updates. Can I have that access too?

A: You can. Product Perks clients have access to view reports of minute-by-minute checks on their websites. Monthly reports are provided in your Analytics. We can also set you up to receive email updates in real-time as we do, or give you login access to view how many milliseconds or seconds it takes to load your site, checked each minute on computers around the world.

Product Perks guarantees the industry standard of 99.9% uptime, and we average better than 99.99% uptime, which is excellent.

If you do notice anything and have questions or comments, please email info@ProductPerks.com

0 Comments - Posted in Performance

Secure checkout, login, and content management system

Posted on March 9, 2011

Product Perks is committed to building and maintaining secure, high-performing websites.

Q: What is the green padlock or colored bar that appears in my browser address bar, to the left of the website address on pages such as https://ProductPerks.com/login/ ?

A: The “SSL certificate” on ProductPerks.com’s Content Management System and Buy pages means that those pages transmit secure information with “https”.

Click on the green padlock or the colored bar that appears on the secure https pages and you’ll see this message: “Verified by GlobalSign… Connection Encrypted: High-grade Encryption (AES-256 256 bit). The page you are viewing was encrypted before being transmitted over the Internet.”

In addition to being used by Product Perks, SSL is used on websites for banks, most email providers, and other secure websites. SSL pages are encrypted with the same security level approved by the U.S. government and the NSA for top secret information. It is the ultimate in secure data transmission.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard#cite_note-7:

“The design and strength of all key lengths of the AES algorithm (i.e., 128, 192 and 256) are sufficient to protect classified information up to the SECRET level. TOP SECRET information will require use of either the 192 or 256 key lengths. The implementation of AES in products intended to protect national security systems and/or information must be reviewed and certified by NSA prior to their acquisition and use.”

We have other security systems in place also.

0 Comments - Posted in Security

Statistics from Product Perks Analytics

Posted on February 19, 2011

General statistics about Product Perks:

  • 96% of all visitors who click the first question click all the way to a destination product, contact, or page.
  • Visitors view an average of two destination screens per visit.
  • More questions leads to more clicks and more loyalty from customers, for up to as many as ten questions.

With Product Perks Analytics, we see the questions that work to get visitors where they want to go.

0 Comments - Posted in Analytics

Launch of the new Product Perks website

Posted on February 19, 2011

Today the new sales website and blog launched for Product Perks.

The first Product Perks sales site launched in October 2009. We’ve come a long way since then.

While working with clients, we’ve added new features, many of which are mentioned on our Services pages.

This blog will be a place for updates, conversations, frequently asked questions, descriptions, links, and more. We’ll also occasionally update this overall site.

We like comments, questions, suggestions and referrals. Please comment on this blog and follow us on Twitter @productperks

0 Comments - Posted in News

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