Yesterday, I came across an article in Ad Age by Traci Alford, president & CEO of Effie Worldwide, that said this: "Our data clearly show that campaigns whose approach to testing the boundaries is a little tepid perform considerably less-well than those aggressively pushing the envelope. If you want to stand out with consumers today, you simply can't skimp on bravery."

"Do business owners value the power of storytelling?" I asked Dan Grech, founder and lead instructor of BizHack Academy, last year.

"I think emotion is underrated in any kind of marketing, particularly with websites," Rick Wilkes, OPIS director of marketing, told us last year at SIPA Annual 2018 during a session titled Transforming Your Website into a New Prospect Magnet. "On the new OPIS site [and still today] you see a refinery at sunset, and that's the best a refinery is ever going to look. You'd be amazed in stock photography how many fuel places are within sunsets. It's very soothing. So it's a big bold image [and the words,] 'Buy & sell oil & gas products with CONFIDENCE'—and the confidence is the emotional hook there."

Two weeks ago, I wrote a Motown-inspired best-of from SIPA Annual 2018 and a gentle push for the wonders to come at SIPA Annual 2019, June 3-5 at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C. But apparently I missed some obvious song titles!

At a SIPA Annual 2018 session last June on Creating a High-Performance Culture Across Your Company, Brian Crotty, CEO of OPIS, spoke about identifying star potential in your employees.

"We're incorporating a lot of video on the site [opisnet.com] now because people are visual," said Rick Wilkes, director of marketing for OPIS, in his session at SIPA Annual 2018 titled Transforming Your Website into a New Prospect Magnet.

There was so much good information in a session from SIPA Annual 2018 that I just re-listened to—titled Transforming Your Website into a New Prospect Magnet—that I don't know where to start. Fortunately, that's one problem that Ashlee Bovello, SEO and website marketing manager for OPIS by IHS Markit, addressed.