Hello [fname],

Custom website development is usually too complicated and costly in the long run.

I often work with clients who are rethinking their current websites. Some are simply outdated, while others need a fresh design to optimize responses and increase traffic. But the ones that cause the biggest headaches – both for my team and the customer – are those built in a complex code language.

Let me give you an example.

A new client of mine, which sold diet and weight loss foods, was getting plenty of traffic to his website, but wasn't converting visitors to customers. We did a website analysis which revealed some reasons why: the homepage didn't immediately communicate that it was a product-driven, e-commerce site (versus informational); the most popular products weren't featured prominently; the navigation was ineffective; and the checkout process was cumbersome and confusing. Overall it didn't provide a very intuitive or user-friendly experience.

From a marketing perspective, those issues are easy enough to fix. The bigger issue lurked in the site's back-end programming. Because of the code language this site was built on, it would cost the client thousands of dollars to correct these otherwise straightforward problems.

Learn how to avoid this problem when building your website >>

Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercial broke the mold.

Watching Super Bowl commercials has become as entertaining as watching the game. And each year there are great new commercial that debut during the game (and plenty of duds as well). But Apple's first ever TV commercial titled "Big Brother" which aired during the 1984 Super Bowl, is still regarded as the most effective use of the advertising medium.

Consistent with the Apple brand, it broke many of the time-tested rules regarding advertising: it was long – one full minute; it only aired once (during the Super Bowl). And yet this ad is still talked about today as a masterpiece of advertising. It is one of the greatest marketing/concept ideas in terms of how to launch a product – s and do it in such a way that it has a tremendous amount of impact.

And because the commercial – which announced the launch of Apple's Macintosh personal computer – had such inherently strong PR value, people and the news media were talking about it for days. It made the Mac's launch a tremendous success.

Read more, and watch Apple's breakthrough commercial >>

"We retained InSight Marketing because we felt they could provide us with some fresh thinking, especially in the area of direct marketing and the Internet. InSight Marketing also helped us integrate our marketing efforts with a coordinated brand identity that will support our growth efforts."

– Mark Warshaw, VP of Sales and Marketing, Bel-Aqua Pool Supply, Inc.