Announcing MatterKit an open source WordPress theme framework
Hannah, our lead web developer, spoke at WordCamp Sunshine Coast - May 6th-8th 2016 about the WordPress theme framework we've been building for almost a year.
She talked about the major decisions we made along the way including the decision to build it upon the massively popular Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin.
I, Ben, spoke at WordCamp Sunshine Coast - May 6th-8th 2016 about how I grew from being a one-man-band to a digital marketing agency.
I talked about some of the fundamental things that I learned and the mistakes I've made along the way. I put a basic framework for and explained what to look for, e.g. see-sawing between Sales and Working.
I'll put up a link to the video when it is published. There were some good questions so I'm interested to watch it back.
Ben's presentation about working with and getting the most out of your life building websites for clients.
Looking at his experiences, some good, some bad, working through tasks for clients and trying to keep focused on the goals, i.e. a great website for the client.
Once WordCamp TV process the video etc we'll post a link etc.
If you have any questions feel free to post below and if you found it useful, please do share on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Hooray! It’s almost time for WordCamp Brisbane – a weekend of networking, web fun and seriously cool speakers covering every WordPress topic you could possibly imagine! For the weekend of May 30th-31st, we’re super excited to sink our teeth into some WordPress goodness, but even more than that, Matter Solutions are delighted to announce that we are sponsoring the event.
WordCamp Brisbane 2015 is being held at QUT Garden’s Point campus in their beautiful facility The Cube. It’s really going to be a special event, and we’re proud to be a part of it.
Because we just can’t get enough of WordCamp good times, our CEO and Director Ben Maden has been helping out (where he can) as an assistant organiser. He’s also speaking on Saturday afternoon about finding the best, most productive and least painful ways to work with clients. He’s going to focus on how to make a plan – actionable points to solve your client woes!
Ben will also be tweeting all weekend to keep you up to date with what’s going on at #WCBNE15, so follow @MatterSolutions for all the juicy gossip.
Are you ready for an action-packed year of conferences? We are! Whether you're an online marketing veteran or you're testing the water, conferences are a great place to learn, connect and perhaps get thrown in the deep end (in a good way). There's nothing quite like walking into a buzzing room of bright minds and people who share your passion and interests. Below you'll find tips from this years speakers and organisers as well as an A-Z list of global digital marketing events.
Expert Conference Tips
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List of Conferences
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You've got your preparation tips, you've got the super list of events, now all you need to do is choose which ones to go to. A big thank you to all our generous contributors - if you see them around don't be afraid to strike up a conversation!
Like Aerosmith, I don't want to miss a thing, so if I haven't included your online marketing event please let me know and I'll fit you in.
If you regularly use specific websites or web based programs, you’ll probably find you’re opening the same sites everyday.
What if there was a quick and easy way of opening all those regular sites as part of your morning routine?
Well… hurrah! There is!
Here’s how…
1. Create a folder in your Bookmarks bar by right clicking in the bar and then clicking ADD FOLDER. (If your bookmarks bar isn’t visible, you’ll be able to activate it through bookmark settings).
2. Give your folder a relevant name (I call mine ‘DAILY’)
3. If you have all your sites saved as existing shortcuts, simply drag them into the new folder If you don't have existing shortcuts, simply open the site you want and drag from the very left of the address bar (it will look like a document icon or padlock if secure)
4. When you're ready to launch the tabs, simply right-click the folder and select "Open all bookmarks."
Voila! You’re set to go!
Do you have any tips or tricks that you use to make work easier? Share your ideas in the comments below.
Has the man in your life had a health check-up lately? Whether it’s husband, partner, brother, dad or granddad – we all have a man in our lives that we deeply care about. The latest PA Research Foundation campaign is all about making sure they stay on top of their health. In a fun way.
While women are generally more comfortable talking about their health, men find it more difficult to broach the topic. The Mandate Health Pass campaign is designed to give them a little more incentive to get checked out by a GP.
How does it work? Well, for $10 (all proceeds are given to Men’s Health Research) you can have a Mandate Leave Pass or Passes posted to you. Giving a pass to the man/men in your life encourages them to go see a GP for a checkup and take the rest of the day off to do whatever he likes with his mates. These passes are available for anyone - whether it’s an individual or a business.
The average life expectancy of men (79.5) is significantly younger than women (84). Although there are a number of complex reasons for this, it is believed that lack of awareness, attitude and men’s reluctance to talk about health are contributing factors.
To put it into perspective, here are some stats from the team at Movember:
Each hour, preventable conditions kill more than 4 men in Australia.
1 in 2 Australian men will be diagnosed with cancer by the time they turn 85 (compared to 1 in 3 women).
More men have diabetes than women.
On average more men smoke than women.
The number of male deaths are higher in all age groups.
There was approximately 19,438 new prostate cancer diognoses in Australia in 2009.
Awareness, education and research are key to improving these statistics and that’s exactly what the Mandate Pass campaign aims to do. It gets the community involved in improving the health of Australian men by encouraging conversation and action.
The team at Matter Solutions love this Mandate Pass idea and we have been working pro bono with the PA Research Foundation to give their initiative a little extra kick. Our role in the campaign is to run their Adwords account. They already have access to Google Funds to run their campaign, so we are helping them optimise it for their fundraising targets.
We wish the PA Research Foundation all the best with the intiative and would like to thank them for the opportunity to be involved in such a great cause. To get involved or find out more information visit the Mandate Health Pass website.
For years people have been heralding the death of the Yellow Pages. Yet, here we are once again in 2014 tripping over the all too familiar books on our door steps.
What was once a useful advertising platform and directory is now a huge waste of paper and marketing budget for businesses of all sizes. It’s well and truly time to say NO to the Yellow Pages.
When was the last time you or someone you knew used the Yellow Pages? In a country where 83% of households have access to the internet and over 30 million mobile phones are in use, the value of a print directory is shaky at best.
Continuing to distribute print directories to every home and business across Australia in this day and age is like flogging a dead horse. Well, 40,000 dead horses if you consider how many tonnes of paper* Yellow Pages use each year (based on the fact that an average sized horse weighs 500kg and 1 tonne=1000kg).
* Sourced from https://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/download/document/sustainability-report-2013-environmental-impact.pdf - No longer online (2024)
As it stands, the Yellow Pages currently deliver over 20,000 tonnes of paper to homes and businesses across Australia. Although Sensis openly say 67% of the paper used in their print directories is made from recycled paper, they also report that 98% of the directories are recycled. That means 19 thousand tonnes of those unused directories each year are being processed through recycling plants, producing chemical waste from the de-inking process, using water to break the paper down, and energy throughout the pulping process. All for a product that only a small proportion of the country ever even unwraps from its plastic.
So what’s the point? Well, according to Sensis every year 'nearly all Australian households and businesses’ use their directories to connect with businesses, services, government departments, individuals and local information. But who are these people and why do we constantly see piles and piles of unused yellow pages sitting stagnant on the street?
Significantly fewer businesses are investing in print directory advertising to promote their products and services, leading to a 25.6% drop in Yellow Pages’ print revenues in 2013.
The wider community data supports this decline. In a very small vox pop of Matter Solutions’ staff social networks we came up with one person who actually used the paper directory, a handful of people who searched online occasionally. The vast majority had already used the opt-out system available at directoryselect.com.au to stop their Yellow and White Pages being delivered to their home. A quick Google search reveals dozens of other marketers, business people and media outlets predicting the imminent demise of this antiquated marketing tactic.
Don’t get me wrong, there was a time when the Yellow Pages were a great print directory and advertising platform for businesses. But let’s face it - it’s looking less and less like that time is the present.
Our own business development manager, Pat, has worked in other advertising industries including television and radio.
“I would hear it all the time from business owners ‘Yellow pages, doesn’t work, I’m cutting my spend this year.’ But when I asked them why they didn’t cut their Yellow spend altogether the response would invariably be ‘I’m too afraid not to have something in there… I don’t want to let my competitors have a free hit.’'
Hmmm… Fear and paranoia. The foundation of every good marketing decision.
Some people he spoke to were cutting their spend from $50-60k down to $20-30k. If you’re not getting a result for $50k in advertising costs… there’s something wrong with that medium.
Imagine spending even $20-30k on some kind of other marketing that actually got a result?
A solid call to action campaign in primetime media (radio, TV)
Shop or showroom facelift
We’re not saying the Yellow Pages is all bad. In fact, the online Yellow Pages directory may even help your small business with Google rankings through a free listing that points to your website. Yellow Pages online also generates exposure - in 2012, 110 million people visited the website. There’s a good chance that at some point in the year one of those visitors will be searching for a product or service that you offer.
It’s just a shame that the persistent existence of their print directories casts a shadow over their somewhat useful, and more environmentally responsible online services.
So how about it - is it a #yellno from you? If you were to stop advertising in the Yellow Pages Directories this year, where else could you direct those marketing dollars?
Want to put the Yellow Pages out of their misery? Share your thoughts and creative re-uses for paper directories on Facebook, Google+,or #yellno on your chosen social network.
I'm the latest addition to the Matter Solutions team, as of one day, two snicker bars and 6 hours ago. I came to Matter Solutions as a Journalism graduate looking to get some experience in copy writing and was welcomed on board as an intern this week.
With a background in article writing for arts publications and not a huge amount of experience with digital strategies, I have a lot to learn about digital marketing and effective, quality copywriting. Luckily for me I have come to the right place.
An event called 'Maximising Your Return on Digital Content', presented by Interactive Minds, happened to be on the first day of my internship and was a great insight into social media use, digital content strategies and effective business management of these channels.
After this event Nige, the General Manager, introduced me to the Matter Solutions Team. I have to say, the glowing Darth Vader mask on the wall of the 'coding cave' is an absolutely fantastic touch.
I've been enjoying adapting to a new writing style and learning about digital marketing from Ben, Matter Solutions' web consultant. I am also very grateful that the team takes the time to explain unfamiliar terms and concepts to me when they are met with a blank expression, reminiscent of a deer in headlights.
Articles about Announcing MatterKit an open source WordPress theme framework
I, Ben, spoke at 
