New York City fashion designer Patricia Ordonez of PattyO Designs “recycles” old worn-out jeans and other second-hand clothes to create unique, stylish bags, aprons, and apparel for children and adults. Most recently she had the idea to convert leftover clothes into doggy blankets, beds, catnip toys, and so forth and donating the proceeds to Bidawee, ASPCA, and local animal shelters.

answerYES Interactive teamed up with NY-based marketing firm Moss Appeal to revamp the PattyO website, adding ecommerce, a blog, and social media. At the same time, we helped plan a short PR strategy for the new year to promote Patricia’s popular These are my Ex’s jeans tote bags.

It was already October when the owners of Greenwich Pool Service approached us with the idea to sell kiln dried firewood strictly through the Web as a means to offset their Summer business. Fortunately, it has been a warm start to autumn and because their target market for firewood was the same as for pool services, coming late to the game had little or no impact. Still, we had to design a logo and build an ecommerce website in record time (we opted to use Google Checkout for the ecommerce). Within two weeks Fire It Up Firewood was online and open for business!

To help spread the word, we did an email and a direct mail invitation to the company’s existing customers as well as an ongoing Google AdWords Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign that has already yielded high conversion rates. In addition, our smart approach to organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has placed Fire It Up Firewood at the top of search engine results pages for highly coveted key phrases like kiln dried firewood and firewood delivery within a week of launch. Needless to say, we hit this one out of the park and our client was pretty impressed. We aim to impress.

We helped Bridgeport-based apparel company Cricket Hosiery take their wholesale graphic socks business online to make it easier for retailers to order products as well as raise awareness among potential new clients of the company’s flagship brand Tic Tac Toe. Given the need to handle multiple “stores” and securely integrate with an existing inventory system, we went with a customized Magento ecommerce solution.

The Center for Addiction Studies and Research launches its new ecommerce website to provide distance learning courses for those seeking certification and recertification in the chemical dependency field.

Norwalk-based meal-prep and delivery service Cookin’ Dinners is the first of its kind in the Northeast, preceding its big West Coast cousins Super Suppers and Dream Dinners.

answerYES Interactive got involved with the start-up franchise six months ago when founder and gourmet chef George Gardone approach us to build the ecommerce website, mailer, and web-based reservation system and menu management.

answerYES worked with George closely to design the right look and feel for the online presence as well as how the back-end application should function, including support for multiple stores under multiple owners. The entire site was built from scratch using the the latest ASP.Net C# framework and Microsoft SQL Database optimized for fast order processing.

The Care Center (TCC) has been selling home medical equipment — everything from scooters and wheelchairs to cold packs and toilet seats — for over 20 years in Old Greenwich, CT. When it came time to take the business online, the owners turned to answerYES to build an ecommerce site. We actually did a little more than that, answerYES helped TCC with print ads, store signage, and establishing an 800 number with a messaging system. We also provided on-site training to TCC’s sales staff on how to effectively manage products under their new customized osCommerce platform. And if they ever needed additional support, we were just an email or phone call away.

I recently launched the ecommerce site for start-up cookie company StaceyLu Confections based out of Weston, CT. They specialize in custom-made cookies for corporate and private events. I was hired to do logo design, website design and development (used osCommerce as the ecommerce platform), and to design a newsletter template for Constant Contact.

In addition to the server-side stats I also enabled Google Analytics (you can never have too many metrics when it comes to tracking your return on investment). Along with this came server-side search engine optimization (SEO) which includes something relatively new, submitting XML sitemaps to Google (and others). I used the free sitemap generator XML-Sitemaps.com for StaceyLu (for small shops the free version is more than adequate). The site has been live for a few weeks now so go buy a cookie already.

Aside: when asked to do the newsletter design I decided to take the plunge and learn the special Constant Contact mark-up language for creating email templates. Already familiar with XML I didn’t have any problem getting up to speed and creating the first newsletter using my new StaceyLu template. Ahh, but here’s the rub, Constant Contact does NOT allow you to keep your custom template on their server so it would be available the next time around. To do this, you have to pay them $600! Given I did all the work, this felt like a crude bait and switch. A workaround is to upload the template code each time you compose a newsletter but this is not a practical thing to ask a client to do (who was taking over the task). Needless to say, I was a bit peeved. I ended up redoing the newsletter using one of Constant Contact’s built-in templates (not nearly as chic). Going to use MailChimp next time!

{Ed. Note 12/19/06: I was interviewed by The Hour (Norwalk, CT) about my viral marketing campaigns and the StaceyLu website was pictured along with the article. Free publicity for StaceyLu but honestly not sure why the paper grabbed that picture, it has nothing to do with viral marketing. }

{Ed. Note 3/30/10: StaceyLu is no longer a cookie company. The site is being converted into a blog about “personal growth” or something like that. It has been many years, often are the whims of start-up entrepreneurs. Still, it was interesting work at the time. }

Pro-Formance Industries is an innovative bio-mechanical manufacturer of healthcare products located in Southern New Hampshire. For over 30 years, Pro-Formance’s goal has been to enhance the lives of people by producing ergonomically designed products that provide comfort and support. Pro-Formance does this by designing products with experts and seeking the highest quality components to produce the most durable, comfort-enhancing products on the market.

Today, we officially launch the website for new product line of Ergo-Step Insoles. We were given only two weeks to design and develop an ecommerce solution (using ColdFusion) but we’re pretty proud of the end results. Moreover, so is the client.

“Our goal was to provide Ergo-Step insoles to the medical community at a discounted, volume rate. We wanted to make it as easy and cost effective as possible so our marketing research pointed toward an integrated online solution,” said Deb Johnson, President of Pro-Formance Industries. “We also needed the solution to be scalable and we needed it quickly. Within two weeks, answerYES and our marketing department were able to build a list of robust requirements and create an informative dynamic website where both healthcare professionals and patients can order online. Most importantly, we know we’ll be expanding our business and answerYES has designed a scalable solution poised to expand and integrate with our back-end processes.”