How strong is your website’s immediate appeal? According to a Carleton University study published earlier this year in the academic journal Behaviour & Information Technology, web designers have only 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression.

In less than the blink of an eye, your internet users have already formed an opinion about your website and by extension, your company. Participants in three studies were first asked to rate a series of web pages according to their aesthetic appeal after viewing them for 50 milliseconds, and were then asked to examine each site more carefully and provide a new rating. Confirming the old saying that a first impression is often a lasting one, the researchers found no significant difference between the two ratings. This means that in that first 50 milliseconds, your audience has already sussed you out.

One of the key elements in building relationships with clients (and prospective clients) is constant contact. But as plain a concept as it is, simply keeping in touch can be a tricky feat. By now, surely every modern business has at least a basic understanding of the potential impact of electronic communication, but how effectively do they use it? This article outlines a few of the foundational elements of building a successful email newsletter campaign.

In a rich media environment, audiences are in an increasingly constant state of distraction. We’re all busy, and there is a lot going on in our lives – our attention is valuable and limited. Unfortunately for businesses, this means that in order to cut through the clutter, they have to constantly repeat themselves and draw their audience’s attention back to important items, refocusing them over and over again. It’s a frustrating dance for both partners. The business may ask “how can I get this person’s attention?”, while the audience is left wondering “what’s this person trying to tell me? and why should I care?”