In this interview, Alex Melen, Co-founder and CEO of SmartSites, discusses the importance of automation and data-driven decisions

TDE: Thank you so much for taking our questions! Tell us a little about your business and its history?

Alex Melen: SmartSites is a full service digital agency helping small businesses with website design and digital marketing. I started the company with my younger brother at the start of 2011. Since then we’ve grown to over 85 employees in 6 offices worldwide.

TDE: What are your thoughts on the current pace of digital transformation in your industry? Do you feel overwhelmed with the prospect of introducing technology solutions to manage & streamline parts of your business?

Alex Melen: The digital space is very interesting in the way it is always growing at a rapid pace. Fortunately, that has helped our business as more and more clients need help traversing the digital landscape. We typically become the trusted digital partner to help them succeed in the ever-changing digital world.

TDE: What is the one technology trend within your industry that cannot be ignored?

Alex Melen: In a macro-scale, the big trend over the last few years has been based on the importance of digital and the bigger role it plays in our lives. People no longer pull out the yellow pages or call their uncle to find a trusted service provider. Instead, they turn to the internet, getting access to an unprecedented amount of information about service providers, their reviews and more.

Leaky pipe? Car check engine light? Hungry for dinner? Our first reaction is to whip out our cell phones.

TDE: What has been the most significant technology integration/implementation so far, at your organization? Why? (could have impacted your employee efficiency, customer satisfaction, profit margins etc.)

Alex Melen: Pursuing data aggregation and automation has been the most significant technological implementation in our company. We have become a much more efficient company by automating both menial tasks and those that would have never been possible with just manual labor. Additionally, with the amounts of data in the digital space, we have been able to source and combine data and generate meaningful insights for both ourselves and our clients.

TDE: Do you have a dedicated in-house IT team? What are some of the challenges your IT team and employees faced before, during and after bringing in this solution? How did you resolve them?

Alex Melen: Being a digital agency, our entire company is more or less an IT team. We have in-house capabilities in both the development services we sell as well as our own IT, computer systems and more.

TDE: What’s the internal technology challenge your organization aims to resolve in the immediate future? (could be internal workflow/workforce automation or having internal operations such as CRM, HR, Inventory powered by front end mobile apps) 

Alex Melen: Our near-term challenge is to continue the implementation of automation and to polish our internal processes. By automating many tasks, it frees up our employees to spend their time on more value-driven tasks and making decisions from data instead of spending all day gathering it.

TDE: From an external viewpoint are you considering using mobility solutions/mobile apps to promote/sell your products online, or to promote/sell your products to your dealers and allow them to order online?

Alex Melen: Although we don’t use mobile apps to promote or sell our products, we spend a big bulk of our advertising budget on digital media (Google Ads, etc..), often focusing on mobile devices or traffic.

TDE: How do you keep yourself updated? What are some of the websites or magazines or apps that you subscribe to or read regularly?  

Alex Melen: I keep myself updated by reading a variety of sources. Instead of relying on a single media source, I use a combination of Google News (personalized/aggregated news) as well as LinkedIn updates from people in my network.

TDE: What’s your favorite social network – Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?

Alex Melen: My favorites are Twitter and LinkedIn. Those are also the platforms I tend to get the most engagement on and where I spend most of my time. However, on a personal level, I do still enjoy Facebook and Instagram. They are great platforms, as long as you realize that the time spent on them is recreational in nature and not really for learning.

For more DX insights, follow Alex Melen on LinkedIn and Twitter

 

Original Source:

https://www.thedigitalenterprise.com/interviews/digital-marketing-interview-with-alex-melen-co-founder-and-ceo-of-smartsites/

Once again, Ethereum (ETH) has reclaimed its position as the cryptocurrency with the second highest market cap. We know that in the later months of 2018, we had seen the struggle for the second spot play out between Ethereum and Ripple. After Ripple had toppled Ethereum from its long-standing position initially, Ethereum did attempt brief comebacks.

You May Also Read: Top 10 Cryptocurrencies for 2019

Is this rise also just a temporary comeback? Although of course there is no way to be sure, experts feel that it may not be just that. Instead, it seems to be coming at a time when the market seems stable and well-positioned for a bullish upswing.

As Alex Melen wrote on Twitter on the 10th of February:

“#cryptocurrency Saturday positivity. #Bitcoin, and the entire #crypto market officially broke the falling wedge to the upside. Welcome to the bull market.”

Although Ethereum has successfully taken the second spot from Ripple, Ripple is tailing it quite closely behind. While Ethereum’s market cap is currenty 12.72 billion dollars, Ripple is trailing behind with 12.53 billion dollars. At the time of writing, with data being sourced from Coinmarketcap, Ethereum has also registered a surge in its price. A rise by 1.78 per cent has placed its price in a decent position and it currently stands at $121.41. Given it has a recorded supply of 104.81 million and a volume of 3.18 billion dollars, it is no wonder that its market cap has breached the 12.5 billion dollar market cap and then some.

Over the same period, at the time of writing, Ripple has registered a fall in its price. It fell by 1.69 per cent. Its price currently stands at $0.304236. The market supply of Ripple, which had been the subject of a major controversy recently.

This cryptocurrency, that cannot be mined, has a supply that is controlled by a certain extent of centralization. Last month, Messari, an analytics firm accused the Ripple Foundation of taking advantage of its centralized control and falsely inflating the market supply. Although that is an accusation has been vehemently denied by Ripple, we wonder if we have truly seen the end of this controversy.

Currently, Ripple’s market capitalization is 12.53 billion with 41.17 B being the supply. Clearly, it does owe its market cap to its extremely high market supply. While that is not unlikely for a pre-mined coin like Ripple, Messari’s allegation is still something to be mindful about.

 

Original Source:

https://www.btcwires.com/c-buzz/ethereum-topples-ripple-to-become-crypto-with-the-second-highest-market-cap/

Alex Melen, the co-Founder and Co-CEO of SmartSites, grew his company’s revenue from $1.7m in 2014 to $3.5m in 2017, a 110% increase, and now they are on track to hit $5m this year.

SmartSites is a full service digital agency that provides website design and development, SEO, and PPC.

In this interview with Eversprint’s Malcolm Lui, Alex shares how he and his team accelerated their high value sales by:

Focusing on their clients and providing a five star experience while helping small businesses get into the digital world.
Keeping their employees happy so that they’d be excited to come to work and provide results for clients.
Maintaining their culture as they add more staff. When combined with the above, this allows them to provide quality service to customers and maintain their reputation.
Spending $40K-$45K a month on PPC ads to generate new leads for themselves. Currently every dollar they spend on PPC returns around $4.50 of lifetime client revenue.
Offering clients a full suite of services, which in turn allows for higher revenue per client.

Original Source:

https://player.fm/series/high-value-sales-show-by-eversprintcom/from-100-to-300-recurring-clients-in-4-years-alex-melen-of-smartsites

Although we have been in a bear rend during the last year, there are several traders and analysts that are expecting Bitcoin (BTC) to start growing once again.

According to the entrepreneur and CEO of T35Hosting and SmartSitesNJ, Alex Melen, the last time the 50 and 200 average crossed on the 4 day chart was at the bottom of the last bear market.

 

For more details, please visit the original source.

Original Source:

https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/cryptocurrency-community-collection-of-traders-remain-bullish-about-bitcoin-and-its-future-price/