Voila! The New Acacia Lifestyle Site

We are excited to unveil Acorn Media’s brand new Acacia Lifestyle site!  The most media rich site we’ve designed, acacialifestyle.com is loaded with all the fun, glitz and glamor that you would expect from Acacia.   It includes beautiful Feature Series pages with premier teachers Shiva Rea, Hemalayaa as well as many others.  Also, be sure to check out the Daily Workout feature for a quick and easy way to ring out that office tension or find the best workout for you with Acacia’s new Workout Selector.

Behind the scenes, Acacia’s new site is completely self managed by the Acacia team utilizing the new hosted NamasteCMS.  Namaste’s Content Management Solution provides the Acacia team with a hosted management tool that offers everything they require to deliver the most content rich and sophisticated online experience possible.  So, get inspired, get fit and get into the Acacia Lifestyle!

Yahoo Mail Feature Makes Add-to-Sender-List A Priority

Sender list campaigns are becoming a more important component of ensuring high email program deliverability.  Yahoo Mail has recently added a new feature that makes it more important than ever that your subscribers add your email address to their sender lists.   We found an informative article from Click Z which highlights the new “View From” feature and provides us all with some valuable best practices for sender-list campaigns.  Check it out here.

Twitter in Plain English

There’s a lot of buzz about Twitter.  No question it’s a fun, effective and sort of addictive medium for staying connected.  If you’ve yet to take the plunge into tweeting, we thought you’d appreciate this video.  “Plain English” videos are fun, informative and provide a non intimidating snapshot of everything from blogging to social media.

By the way, if you’ve already found your way to Twitter, be sure to follow Namaste founder, Chris Roy.   You’ll receive an insider peek at some of what we’re cooking up at Namaste HQ — and (who knows?) maybe even some handy tips to help guide your passions online!

The Truth About Google Adwords

Many of you have asked us if we recommend using Google Adwords as a way to increase site traffic and sales.   From our experience, AdWords can be an effective medium for learning and helping to increase site traffic.  From that perspective , we do recommend it but with a clear understanding of what outcome you’re wanting to achieve.  AdWords should not be your primary method for generating sales or increasing traffic to your site.  First, it’s too expensive. With competitive keywords it can cost up to $5 per click.  Considering that it takes about 200 AdWords visitors to get a conversion, you can begin to see how much you may end paying per a sale.  Also, there are more effective ways to generate targeted traffic to your site and achieve better outcomes.  For instance, we work closely with our clients on growing their opt-in email list and enhancing communications strategy.

Here are a few quick tips for helping to economically grow traffic and increase sales:

(1) Get good at growing your email database.  These are people who want to hear from you and tend to make purchases at a much higher rate than AdWords visitors.  Shameless plug opportunity; ask us about our new email program, NamasteLight!

(2) Utilize Social Media by building your Facebook fan page.  Many lifestyle companies are finding Facebook as a fun way to stay connected to their fans, generate traffic and stay relevant.

(3) Start Twittering.  There are people who want to know what your doing right now and what’s new with your company.  Twitter is a great way to keep them connected to you to as life happens.

Here’s an insightful video on Google AdWords from Sparkah.com.

Namaste Launches New Site for Austin’s Favorite Daily Juice!

When deciding to make Austin our new headquarters last year, we experienced all the apprehension and uncertainty that comes with moving to a new city.   Though our intuition was telling us this was going to be the right home, it wasn’t until our first trip to Daily Juice that we began to confirm it.  This wonderful and sort of quirky oasis of superfoods, fresh juices and live food was just the kind of experience that helped to comfort our souls and nourish the spirit of the transition.

When our friend Kipp Stroden of Essential Living Foods introduced us to the great people at Daily Juice and the opportunity to redesign their web presence, we knew synchronicty was alive and well.   There couldn’t have been a more exciting way to break ground in Austin than helping Daily Juice to conceive their new site and online experience.  It’s loaded with great content, fun media and nutritional insights.  See the new Daily Juice site here and be sure to visit one of their locations soon…your spirit will thank you!

A Peaceful Projection

A Peaceful Projection

Our LA tribe contacted us last week to share a vision for an inspiring concept… world peace in 5 years.  P5Y.org, a global collaboration to create world peace in five years, launches on Februay 14, 2009 and has set the deadline for world peace five years later to the date, February 14, 2014.

This great picture was taken today at Town Lake here in Austin, TX.  We were amazed at how many people jumped in and joined us once they saw the banner.  Love those Austinites!  Demonstrations for peace in 5 years are coming in from all over the country and world.  Thank you Town Lake friends and the weather gods for making this possible!

Seth Godin’s New Book, Tribes: Free Download

Before the Thanksgiving holiday, I stumbled upon a free audio download of Seth Godin’s new book called Tribes from one of my favorite blogs, Presentation Zen.  For those of you who do not know, Seth is one of the pioneers of web marketing and someone we have been following for some time now.  With that said, Tribes is a must-read. Or, if you prefer, a must-listen.  I took Tribes to my I-Pod and listened to a good portion of it during my Thanksgiving flights and layovers and was honestly blown away with the value of the content.

In Tribes, Godin shares how smart innovators find or assemble a movement of like minded individuals and inspire these “tribes” with a new product, service or message, often via the Internet (consider, for example, the popularity of the Obama campaign, Facebook or Twitter). Tribes, Godin says, can be within or outside a corporation, and almost everyone can be a leader.  And, since Namaste clients are the kind of innovators Godin refers to in Tribes, I know you will all give yourselves the gift of a day away from the office with this incredible audio book!

Get your free audio download here. You can also watch the presentation of tribes from a great site called Mixergy (Just know it’s not the highest quality recording but worth the watch).

MC Yogi Rap’s the Vote

A new demo is emerging to influence this year’s election – yogis!  From Spiritual Leaders for Obama to MC Yogi, the yoga community is uniting for change.  Check out this fresh video from MC Yogi…

The Huffington Post is an Oasis

Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the progressive Huffington Post, is introducing something new at this year’s Democratic National Convention – The Huffington Post Oasis!  Here, journalists, delegates, attendees and bloggers can unplug and recharge, taking advantage of yoga sessions, massages, delicious and healthy natural foods, Thai massage and an eco-friendly, comfortable design.  Does this mean that conscious living is reaching the political arena?  Well, everyone from Katie Kouric to Will.I.Am are chillin in the Oasis! See it here…

Elevision Gets Selfcentered

Check out this fun Elevision interview with Namaste client and friend Max Simon. Elevision is becoming the “go-to” for progressive interviews online and Max’s get selfcentered Movement is making meditation cool!