Archive for category Wake Up Call!
If I had to Start Over from Scratch
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 on February 24th, 2010
Simpler words have not been written. Here is the blueprint on becoming successful on the internet. Period!
Please take some time to read this over, ponder it, and then give me a call if you want to work together. In this internet game, it is a support oriented concerted effort. . .and all get successful together!
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Hunters and Farmers
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on February 3rd, 2010
Good Gawd, this is seth godin at his absolute best!
10,000 years ago, civilization forked. Farming was invented and the way many people spent their time was changed forever.
Clearly, farming is a very different activity from hunting. Farmers spend time sweating the details, worrying about the weather, making smart choices about seeds and breeding and working hard to avoid a bad crop. Hunters, on the other hand, have long periods of distracted noticing interrupted by brief moments of frenzied panic.
It’s not crazy to imagine that some people are better at one activity than another. There might even be a gulf between people who are good at each of the two skills. Thom Hartmann has written extensively on this. He points out that medicating kids who might be better at hunting so that they can sit quietly in a school designed to teach farming doesn’t make a lot of sense.
A kid who has innate hunting skills is easily distracted, because noticing small movements in the brush is exactly what you’d need to do if you were hunting. Scan and scan and pounce. That same kid is able to drop everything and focus like a laser–for a while–if it’s urgent. The farming kid, on the other hand, is particularly good at tilling the fields of endless homework problems, each a bit like the other. Just don’t ask him to change gears instantly.
Marketers confuse the two groups. Are you selling a product that helps farmers… and hoping that hunters will buy it? How do you expect that people will discover your product, or believe that it will help them? The woman who reads each issue of Vogue, hurrying through the pages then clicking over to Zappos to overnight order the latest styles–she’s hunting. Contrast this to the CTO who spends six months issuing RFPs to buy a PBX that was last updated three years ago… she’s farming.
Both groups are worthy, both groups are profitable. But each group is very different from the other, and I think we need to consider teaching, hiring and marketing to these groups in completely different ways. I’m not sure if there’s a genetic component or if this is merely a convenient grouping of people’s personas. All I know is that it often explains a lot about behavior (including mine).
Some ways to think about this:
- George Clooney (in Up in the Air) and James Bond are both fictional hunters. Give them a desk job and they freak out.
- Farmers don’t dislike technology. They dislike failure. Technology that works is a boon.
- Hunters are in sync with Google, a hunting site, farmers like Facebook.
- When you promote a first-rate hunting salesperson to internal sales management, be prepared for failure.
- Farmers prefer productive meetings, hunters want to simply try stuff and see what happens.
- Warren Buffet is a farmer. So is Bill Gates. Mark Cuban is a hunter.
- Hunters want a high-stakes mission, farmers want to avoid epic failure.
- Trade shows are designed to entrance hunters, yet all too often, the booths are staffed with farmers.
- The last hundred years of our economy favored smart farmers. It seems as though the next hundred are going to belong to the persistent hunters able to stick with it for the long haul.
- A hunter will often buy something merely because it is difficult to acquire.
- One of the paradoxes of venture capital is that it takes a hunter to get the investment and a farmer to patiently make the business work.
- A farmer often relies on other farmers in her peer group to be sure a purchase is riskless.
Who are you hiring? Competing against? Teaching?
Quieting the lizard brain
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on January 28th, 2010
Profound words, by Seth Godin
How can I explain the never-ending irrationality of human behavior?
We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us.
The contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradiction, we’re amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can’t help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we’re going to do?
The lizard brain.
Or as Stephen Pressfield describes it, the resistance. The resistance is the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The resistance is writer’s block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn’t stay on the same page long off to get something out the door.
The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That’s because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.
The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.
Want to know why so many companies can’t keep up with Apple? It’s because they compromise, have meetings, work to fit in, fear the critics and generally work to appease the lizard. Meetings are just one symptom of an organization run by the lizard brain. Late launches, middle of the road products and the rationalization that goes with them are others.
The amygdala isn’t going away. Your lizard brain is here to stay, and your job is to figure out how to quiet it and ignore it. This is so important, I wanted to put it on the cover of my new book. We realized, though, that the lizard brain is freaked out by a picture of itself, and if you want to sell books to someone struggling with the resistance (that would be all of us) best to keep it a little more on the down low.
Now you’ve seen the icon and you know its name. What are you going to do about it?
We Are the Future. . . .
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on January 19th, 2010
The Future is US. . . . .
The Future is NOW!
Well, Why Dontcha Come Join the Tribe Called K2, over here on Facebook?
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on January 8th, 2010
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Hey y’all, To become a full and contributing member of the Tribe Called K2, you gotta tell us how to serve you, you gotta participate. the best way to to do that is to join the K2 Tribe on Facebook. 1. Become A FanOne of the many inspirations to maintain the K2 fan page on Facebook was to provide our customers who are friends, who are family members with a really easy way to communicate with us, our Instructor staff, our Customer Experience Goddesses, our numerous writers o’ the blog, and the folks who decide the vision of K2, including myself. . . . and to share with you some limited exclusive stuff that’s not published on the blog. The fan page was made for you! It’s updated on a regular basis and this is where we frequently share the beach dives, stuff going on with other family members, exclusive stuff that doesn’t necessarily make the email list. Boat Dive deals as well as wickedly discounted trips abroad. Also, if you DON’T live in Southern California, here is where you can tell us you are coming into town, and see if we dont wrap a BBQ around you! That being said, by becoming a Tribe Member o’ K2 on Facebook you’re actually helping us to grow. Becoming a fan is really easy. Once you’re logged into Facebook, go to facebook.com/k2scuba. As soon as you arrive, click on the “Become a Fan” button at the top of the page. Let me quickly introduce some of the stuff we post on our fan page:
We also have a groups page, this is where we announce our events such as beach dives, boat dives, demo days by manufacturers, etc. . . Click this dang link: http://www.facebook.com/K2Scuba Hardcore Beach Diving and Drinking carbonated beverages while eating hot dogs Groups page:
2. Suggest K2 to FriendsLike any new and exciting product, it’s only fun if you have someone to share it with; and our fan page is no different. As soon as you are a fan, you have the opportunity to recommend K2 to your friends. Click on the “Suggest to Friends” link and select everyone you’d like to share with and click “Send Invitations“.
This is really one of the best way you can help to us! 3. Once you’re a fanNow that you’ve joined the fan page, you’ll be kept well informed because our wall posts will appear on your Home page. In a glance, you’ll conveniently view the posts that were all the rave the day before — Yesterday’s Best; and what’s coming up the following day — Sneak Peek; as well as everything else we post on our wall. With every post on the Tribal wall, you may:
By “liking” a post and commenting, you’re sharing the love with your friends (they’re more likely to read it if they know that a friend already has) and promoting interaction — which is what the fan page is all about. 4. The Easy Way To Share K2 Articles With Your Facebook FriendsSometimes, an article you enjoyed reading on the K2 Blog and found really useful may not be featured on our fan page (we don’t want to spam our fans with every article) but you can actually share the article with your friends quite easily! At the end of each article here you’ll see a “Share|f” button. It takes only two clicks.
Click on that button and you’ll be forwarded to a special page where you can preview and customize a message for your Facebook friends.
When ready, cllick on “Share” to post the article to your Profile wall. That’s about it! Please don’t be shy to share what you think about the Tribe Called K2 by jotting a comment or two on our wall. We’re applaud suggestions and criticism from our fans. It won’t be any fun if we don’t receive feedback from you guys! We hope to see you on our Facebook fan page and join the other fans who are already enjoying the benefits of following us. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! |
The Folly of Becoming the Cheapest Alternative
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on December 30th, 2009
For most products and services, most of the time, people sign up for the Cheapest Reliable Alternative Plan.
If everything appears to be the same, then of course they’re going to pick the cheapest one that’s good enough.
In the face of this understandable strategy, you have a few choices:
You can be cheapest (difficult to sustain).
You can be more reliable (great if you can figure this out).
You can be redefine the playing the field to be the only one (most preferred).
Buying a new microphone or lights for your DJ business doesn’t do any of these three to your competitive status, it merely makes you feel good. Same with re-organizing your office, painting the parking spaces or buying a new laptop. They merely keep you where you were.
The scalable, profitable strategy is to change the game, not to become the most average.
Seth Godin
Just a Paltry 1,000. . . A Sethism!
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on December 24th, 2009
First, organize 1,000
Kevin Kelly really changed our thinking with his post about 1,000 true fans.
But what if you’re not an artist or a musician? Is there a business case for this?
I think the ability to find and organize 1,000 people is a breakthrough opportunity. One thousand people coordinating their actions is enough to change your world (and make a living.)
1,000 people each spending $1,000 on a special interest cruise equals a million dollars.
1,000 people willing to spend $250 to attend a day-long seminar gives you the leverage to invite just about anyone you can imagine to fly in and speak.
1,000 people voting as a bloc can change local politics forever.
1,000 people willing to try a new restaurant you find for them gives you the ability to make an entrepreneur successful and change the landscape of your town.
Even better, coordinating the learning and connections of this tribe of 1,000 is not just profitable, it’s rewarding. If you can take them where they want to go, you become indispensable (and respected).
What’s difficult? What’s difficult is changing your attitude. Instead of speed dating your way to interruption, instead of yelling at strangers all day trying to make a living, coordinating a tribe of 1,000 requires patience, consistency and a focus on long-term relationships and life time value. You don’t find customers for your products. You find products for your customers.
Seth Godin
You don’t have the Power
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on December 20th, 2009
Prepare to be sethificated by the soothsayer. . .
A friend is building a skating rink. Unfortunately, he started with uneven ground and the water keeps ending up on one side of the rink. Water’s like that, and you need a lot of time and power and money if you want to change it. One person, working as hard as he can, has little chance of persuading water to change.
Consider this quote from a high-ranking book publisher who should know better, "We must do everything in our power to uphold the value of our content against the downward pressures exerted by the marketplace and the perception that ‘digital’ means ‘cheap.’ …"
Hello?
You don’t have the power. Maybe if every person who has ever published a book or is ever considering publishing a book got together and made a pact, then they’d have enough power to fight the market. But solo? Exhort all you want, it’s not going to do anything but make you hoarse.
Movie execs thought they had the power to fight TV. Record execs thought they had the power to fight iTunes. Magazine execs thought they had the power to fight the web. Newspaper execs thought they had the power to fight Craigslist.
Here’s a way to think about it, inspired by Merlin Mann: Imagine that next year your company is going to make 10 million dollars instead of a hundred million dollars in profit. What would you do knowing that your profits were going to be far less than they are today? Because that’s exactly what the upstart with nothing to lose is going to do. Ten million in profit is a lot to someone starting with zero and trying to gain share. They don’t care that you made a hundred million last year from the old model.
If I’m an upstart publisher or a little-known author, you can bet I’m happy to sell my work at $5 and earn seventy cents a copy if I can sell a million.
Smart businesspeople focus on the things they have the power to change, not whining about the things they don’t.
Existing publishers have the power to change the form of what they do, increase the value, increase the speed, segment the audience, create communities, lead tribes, generate breakthroughs that make us gasp. They don’t have the power to demand that we pay more for the same stuff that others will sell for much less.
And if you think this is a post about the publishing business, I hope you’ll re-read it and think about how digital will change your industry too.
Competition and the market are like water. They go where they want.
Seth Godin
Traffic Getting Manifesto-Jeff Johnson (Brilliant)
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on December 19th, 2009
Traffic Getting Jumpstart
This is where I will list my step-by-step traffic-getting strategies for getting more traffic to your websites and blogs.
I call it my Traffic-Getting Jumpstart™ Master Plan.
I’ll start by adding a general outline and then I’ll come back and keep updating it with links to new videos and tutorials as I produce them… the videos and tutorials will that walk you through my “traffic getting” strategies one-by-one .
Not all of them will be posted on my blog.
Some will only be sent out via email so make sure you keep checking your inbox for my new and exclusive Traffic-Getting Tutorials.
Once again: This is the general process that I personally go through to ramp up traffic on a new blog.
Some, but not all of the techniques will also apply to static sites, social networking profile pages, or non-blog websites of any kind.
Each of the steps will be listed but not all of them will have tutorials… at least not for now.
But if you guys see one particular step that you’d like me to jump-forward to and “just create the damn tutorial now”… just leave a comment telling me so and I’ll see what I can do.
Here are the basic “Traffic-Getting Jumpstart™ Master Plan” steps that you should follow.
Remember, it’s knowing how to scale this out and leverage both technology and people to scale this out but everything can be done by just one person if you choose to… just don’t expect an avalanche of traffic for two hours worth of work on a site with only 10 pages in a market that no one cares about!
Always learn how to scale things out by leveraging technology and people… and pick highly competitive markets that people are actively searching for.
DO NOT USE THESE TECHNIQUES FOR SPAMMING THE SEARCH ENGINES!
There’s a fine line between using this technology and techniques to increase your traffic… and using it to spam the hell out of the engines… don’t cross that line.
We are simply trying to increase awareness of, and increase traffic to, our sites leveraging the viral nature of blogs and web 2.0 sites and technologies.
That having been said:
Here’s my quick “2 hours or less”:
Traffic-Getting Jumpstart Master Plan
3. Install the Free SEO Blog Software
5. Install the banner ads, affiliate program ads, etc
6. Set up the email capture and first few follow up emails
7. Add content to blog
a. Run a social bookmarking campaign on blog with one group of bookmarking accounts logins and at different times and days.
b. Create supporting micro-sites mini-network (social profile pages at squidoo, hubpages, bumpzee, and small static hand built sites).
c. Run a social bookmarking campaign on your micro-sites mini-network with a different set of bookmarking logins and at different times and days.
8. Submit site to SEO friendly directories sites using directory submission services.
9. Create video
a. Distribute video with video sharing software
b. Run a social bookmarking campaign on the videos sharing pages.
Steps 1 – 9 are enough to jumpstart the traffic to your new blog, static website, ecommerce website… and it only takes an hour or two.
If this is a site or market that you know is worth spending additional time on then you can follow these additional steps.
The following steps don’t take that much additional time but should, and can easily be, outsourced.
10. Every month (or sooner) go back and run the social bookmarking campaign again using new social bookmarking logins at different times and days.
11. Every month (or sooner) go back and create a new micro-site or social profile page to support your micro-sites mini-network.
12. Add posts to the blog that link/pingback to other authority blogs in the market.
13. Pick specific posts on your blog that you’d like to rank higher.
a. Social bookmark those posts with random bookmarking login accounts
b. Create a videos specific to those posts and load to youtube
c. Blast that video out to video sharing sites
d. Social bookmark the videos on the video sharing sites with random bookmarking logins and at different times and days.
e. Find other authority blogs in the market and post content-rich comments on their blog with links heading back to the post you are trying to rank higher.
You can do the following steps yourself but I would strongly recommend you simply outsource them.
14. Outsource someone to spin articles for you and submit them to directories
15. Outsource someone to create new social bookmarking login accounts
16. Outsource someone to subscribe to your RSS feed and have them social bookmark your new posts (the RSS feed notifies them when there is a new post so they simply head over.
17. Outsource someone to post high-quality, relevant comments on other people’s blogs and forums (DO NOT COMMENT SPAM). Concentrate on ones that do not use the “no follow” attribute.
18. Rinse and Repeat steps 7 – 18+ for sites that are worth the effort.
How do you know if the site is worth the effort?
I can’t answer that for you… only you can answer that question since it is your time and money involved… what is “worth it” to you may not be worth it to the next person and vice-versa.
Ask yourself this question… “does this site (sites) add money and/or value to my business versus the time and effort it takes to rinse and repeat Jeff Johnson’s Traffic-Getting Jumpstart Master Plan?”
If the answer is “yes” then continue to “rinse and repeat” steps 7 through 18 and beyond.
And do yourself a favor and reinvest your earnings into your business by outsourcing the work that takes up the most time so you can concentrate on finding new markets and making money from the traffic you have.
I’ll keep emailing you new tutorials down the road so be sure to check your inbox for updates,
Jeff Johnson
UndergroundTrainingLab.com
Paying It Forward, Seth Godin’s "What Matters Now" Ebook for FREE!
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on December 14th, 2009
Seth Godin is a gift to us all. He is a soothsayer and visionary of Web 1.1-3.0
He has just released a book, and at last measure the servers are on meltdown, so Im tickled to offer it to you here.
click: www.tevisverrett.com/blog/library/what-matters-now-1.pdf
Here is the original article:
What Matters Now: get the free ebook
Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.
Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you’ll find it worth it the effort. (Download here).
Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.
Here’s the deal: it’s free. Download it here. Or from any of the many sites around the web that are posting it with insightful commentary. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site. I think it might be fun to make up your own riff and post it on your blog or online profile as well. It’s a good exercise. Can we get this in the hands of 5 million people? You can find an easy to use version on Scribd as well and from wepapers. Please share.
Have fun. Here’s to a year with ideas even bigger than these.
Here’s a lens with all the links plus an astonishing array of books by our authors.
Protected: Jeff Johnson’s Traffic Underground Banner Intel
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on December 13th, 2009
Easy and Hassle Free Gift Ideas for the Scuba Diver from K2!
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on December 11th, 2009
Lead with your glass jaw
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on December 9th, 2009
Here’s one way businesses can profit from a social media presence:
Make it easy to get hurt.
If you’re in a low trust industry (like car sales), a social media presence dramatically increases the opportunity people have to call you out, beat you up, tattle on you and flame you in public. If you have a Facebook page and people can YELL at you there, for all to see, it makes you vulnerable. Do you really think that a Chris or a Guy or Gary is going to risk ripping you off for consulting or wine? No way. Too easy for someone to post a comeback for all to see.
When your staff sees how much power you’ve given random consumers, they’ll freak. And then, magically, they’ll start treating customers differently, because maybe, just maybe, this customer is the one who’s going to use the power. Suddenly, the answer to, “do you know who I am!!” is, “yes sire, forgive me.”
It might not be comfortable, but you can bet it will build trust.
Fallback for the 2%
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 on December 8th, 2009
If you ask one hundred people to do a task (particularly one that involves following instructions or using a computer or both), figure that two of them will mess it up.
It doesn’t matter if you use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. It doesn’t matter if your instructions are crystal clear. It doesn’t matter if you ask them to sign a release. Two percent will mess it up. And it won’t always be the same two percent either, so the idea of kicking the clueless out won’t work.
Which means you only have two choices:
- Design systems that have the good sense and gracefulness to permit the 2% to proceed, or
- Annoy, demonize or lose these people
Technologists hate this choice, but it’s true. We have to plan for human failure and part of our job is to have the resources and back up to allow these people to remain in our tribe even though they’re unable to follow a simple instruction.
Dell Rides Twitter to $6.5 Million in Sales
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 on December 8th, 2009
Dell continues to be one of the more visible corporate behemoths actively using social media, and today they’re out with new numbers to demonstrate some of the success they are having.
The company tells us that they’ve now generated a total of $6.5 million in revenue from their Twitter presence, where they have nearly 1.5 million followers on their @DellOutlet account (and 3 million “connections” across all social sites).
Although a tiny percentage of the company’s total sales (Dell generated more than $60 billion in revenue last year), it does represent significant growth in revenue via social media in the past year. Dell says its sales from Twitter have actually tripled, which is consistent with previous reports about their performance.
With real revenue now being generated via companies on Twitter, the question everyone is asking how Twitter will monetize it. The answer still isn’t clear, though the company continues to suggest that premium accounts for corporate users are in the works soon.
[img credit: pinksherbet]
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: dell, social media, twitter
How to protect your ideas in the digital age
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on December 7th, 2009
If we’re in the idea business, how to protect those ideas?
One way is to misuse trademark law. With the help of search engines, greedy lawyers who charge by the letter are busy sending claim letters to anyone who even comes close to using a word or phrase they believe their client ‘owns’. News flash: trademark law is designed to make it clear who makes a good or a service. It’s a mark we put on something we create to indicate the source of the thing, not the inventor of a word or even a symbol. They didn’t invent trademark law to prevent me from putting a picture of your cricket team’s logo on my blog. They invented it to make it clear who was selling you something (a mark for trade = trademark).
I’m now officially trademarking thank-you™. From now on, whenever you use this word, please be sure to send me a royalty check.
Another way to protect your ideas is to (mis)use copyright law. You might think that this is a federal law designed to allow you to sue people who steal your ideas. It’s not. Ideas are free. Anyone can use them. Copyright protects the expression of ideas, the particular arrangement of words or sounds or images. Bob Marley’s estate can’t sue anyone who records a reggae song… only the people who use his precise expression of words or music. Sure, get very good at expressing yourself (like Dylan or Sarah Jones) and then no one can copy your expression. But your ideas? They’re up for grabs, and its a good thing too.
The challenge for people who create content isn’t to spend all the time looking for pirates. It’s to build a platform for commerce, a way and a place to get paid for what they create. Without that, you’ve got no revenue stream and pirates are irrelevant anyway. Newspapers aren’t in trouble because people are copying the news. They’re in trouble because they forgot to build a scalable, profitable online model for commerce.
Patents are an option except they’re really expensive and do nothing but give you the right to sue. And they’re best when used to protect a particular physical manifestation of an idea. It’s a real crapshoot to spend tens of thousands of dollars to patent an idea you thought up in the shower one day.
So, how to protect your ideas in a world where ideas spread?
Don’t.
Instead, spread them. Build a reputation as someone who creates great ideas, sometimes on demand. Or as someone who can manipulate or build on your ideas better than a copycat can. Or use your ideas to earn a permission asset so you can build a relationship with people who are interested. Focus on being the best tailor with the sharpest scissors, not the litigant who sues any tailor who deigns to use a pair of scissors.
8% of Internet Users Account for 85% of all Clicks
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on November 5th, 2009
The unclicking 84% A Sethism!
Mark points us to this great set of stats.
Basically, all of the clicks for all the ads online come from only 16% of the surfers, and most of them come from just 4% of all internet users.
So, if you optimize your ads for clicks, it means you’re ignoring a huge population.
If your business is built around the kind of person who clicks, you win. If it isn’t, you either need to not buy ads online or buy ads optimized for attention and familiarity, not clicks.
Imagine that only left-handed people clicked on ads (it’s about the same percent). What are you going to do if you make a product for the right-handed portion of the population?
It’s okay to make an ad that isn’t easy to measure. If it works, that’s enough.
by Jack Loechner, Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 8:15 AM
The results of an update to the comScore highly publicized "Natural Born Clickers" research, conducted two years ago with Starcom USA and Tacoda, indicate that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8% of the Internet user base) accounting for 85% of all clicks.
Presented by comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni and Kim McCarthy, manager, Research & Analytics at Starcom, at the iMedia Brand Summit in San Diego on September 14, 2009, the original research showed that 32% of Internet users clicked on at least one display ad during the month. These clickers were segmented into Heavy, Moderate and Light Clicking segments based on the group of users (heavy), middle 30% (moderate), and bottom 20% (light).
In 2007, comScore, Starcom and Tacoda found that Heavy clickers, representing 6% of U.S. Internet users, accounted for the top 50% of clicks, Moderate users, 10% of Internet users, accounted for 30% of the clicks, and Light clickers, 20% of users, accounted for 16% of the clicks. By March 2009, those numbers had dropped substantially:
- 4% of Internet users are Heavy clickers
- 4% of users are Moderate clickers
- 8% are Light clickers
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Heavy, Moderate, and Light Display Ad Clicker Analysis (Total US Home, Work and University Locations) |
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Share of All Internet Users |
Share of All Click-Throughs |
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July ‘07 |
March 09 |
July ‘07 |
March ‘09 |
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Total clickers |
32% |
16% |
100% |
100% |
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Heavy clickers |
6 |
4 |
50 |
67 |
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Moderate clickers |
10 |
4 |
30 |
18 |
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Light clickers |
16 |
8 |
20 |
15 |
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Non clickers |
68 |
84 |
0 |
0 |
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Source: comScore, September 2009 |
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Linda Anderson, comScore VP of marketing solutions and author of the study, concludes that "… marketers who attempt to optimize their advertising campaigns solely around the click are assigning no value to the 84% of Internet users who don’t click on an ad… "
The results underscore the notion that, for most display ad campaigns, the click-through is not the most appropriate metric for evaluating campaign performance. Rather, advertisers should consider evaluating campaigns based on their view-through impact, says the report.
Despite the precipitous decline in clicks, says the report, comScore is advocating looking beyond the click because other comScore research has shown that online display ads generate significant lift in trademark search, online and offline sales, and brand-site visitation across all verticals, among those internet users who were exposed to the online ad campaigns – whether they clicked on the ad or not. These results, compiled in comScore’s influential "Whither the Click?" white paper, were reported in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Advertising Research.
|
Display Ad Lift (Site Reach Weeks 1-4 After First Exposure) |
|||
|
Vertical |
Control |
Test |
% Lift |
|
Average all |
4.5% |
6.6% |
46% |
|
Automotive |
0.9 |
1.9 |
114 |
|
Finance |
1.3 |
2.3 |
86 |
|
CPG & restaurant |
0.6 |
1.1 |
77 |
|
Retail & apparel |
9.1 |
13.8 |
52 |
|
Media & entertainment |
7.0 |
10.0 |
42 |
|
Electronics & software |
5.8 |
7.2 |
25 |
|
Travel |
4.8 |
5.8 |
21 |
|
Source: comScore, June 2009 |
|||
John Lowell, Starcom USA SVP/Director, Research & Analytics, notes that "a click earns no revenue and creates no brand equity… online advertising (is) certainly not to generate clicks… (but) to visit website, seek more information, purchase a product, become a lead, keep brand top of mind… "
For additional information, please visit the SMV Group here.
Responsibility Shirking. . .to Success!
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on November 2nd, 2009
Help your customers avoid taking responsibility
It’s interesting to see that people are much better at putting up with things that happen to them than they are at living with the consequences of a bad choice.
When you can blame someone else (or the gods of spite, chance and bad luck) it’s emotionally safer than it is to acknowledge you made a lousy choice.
If the weather is freakishly bad on your vacation, you can embrace pity from your friends, and spend your angst cursing the storms.
On the other hand, if you book a trip in the middle of hurricane season, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.
This is a great opportunity for marketers and others that want to engage with the public. If you can figure out how to communicate, "it’s not your fault," then people will be grateful, and they’ll return. It might not be right, it might not be mature and it might not be the behavior society wants to advance, but it works.
Even better, figure out how to teach your customers to enjoy taking responsibility. It’s the long term solution that builds a healthy relationship between customer and vendor… you coach them on good choices and they embrace what happens after they make them.
Hop in, I’ll Drive, A Sethism
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on October 1st, 2009
"Hop in, I’ll drive."
Just because someone offers you a lift, doesn’t mean you have to take it.
In a joint venture or possible business arrangement, it’s reassuring when the other person offers to drive. "Leave it to me," they might say, or, "I’m socializing this through the organization… be patient, I’ve done this before and we need to do it this way."
Often, this is true. It’s the honest appraisal of a generous insider, someone who wants both of you to succeed.
But, just as you should never get in a car with a drunk driver, understand that the minute you let the other person drive, you’ve bought into their process. Spending three months or three years following someone off a cliff is nuts.
I’d rather disappoint you today and refuse your offer of a lift than end up with both of us having wasted hours and hours of time somewhere further down the road. No, you can’t pitch this to your husband, that’s my job. No, I won’t stand by and watch you mangle this before the board. No, we’re not going to interact with customers your way merely because it’s the only way you know.
Thanks, but I’ll drive this time.
Friction! Sage Words from the Guru, Seth Godin
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0 on September 16th, 2009
Friction
Stamps (remember those?) make direct mail work. Because it costs money to send a piece of junk mail, you’ll think two or three times before you mail something to a million people.
Email, of course, is free.
Except it’s not. The friction that slows down sending email to everyone all the time is the cost of all the people you’ll lose. You might lose them because they unsubscribe, or more likely, you’ll train them to ignore you. Worse still, you might just make them annoyed enough to badmouth you.
Drugstore.com made two mistakes with their relationship with me. First, they bought the lie that opt out is a productive strategy. They unilaterally decided that I’d be delighted to get regular emails from them, merely because I bought some shaving cream.
The second mistake? They didn’t bother to be selective about what they sent.
I’ve never purchased diapers online, since my diaper purchases predate online diaper shopping. And my hope is that I won’t be buying Depends for another fifty years or so. Drugstore.com should know this. And yet, because it’s apparently free to email me, some lame brand manager says, "sure, do it!"
Except then I unsubscribe and an asset that is worth ten or a hundred or a thousand dollars disappears, probably forever.
Find friction and embrace it, don’t ignore it.
When tactics drown out strategy
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on August 7th, 2009
This is a profound Sethism
From the Master, Seth Godin
New media creates a blizzard of tactical opportunities for marketers, and many of them cost nothing but time, which means you don’t need as much approval and support to launch them. As a result, marketers are like kids at Rita’s candy shoppe, gazing at all the pretty opportunities.
Most of us are afraid of strategy, because we don’t feel confident outlining one unless we’re sure it’s going to work. And the ‘work’ part is all tactical, so we focus on that. (Tactics are easy to outline, because we say, "I’m going to post this."
If we post it, we succeed. Strategy is scary to outline, because we describe results, not actions, and that means opportunity for failure.) "Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time" is a strategy.
Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics.
In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy… and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place.
The next time you find yourself spending 8 hours on tactics and five minutes refining your strategy, you’ll understand what’s going on.
The Law of Big Numbers: Quantity first, then Quality!
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 on August 3rd, 2009
This is WHY you endeavor to grow your friends/followers/fans on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, [fill in the blank]. . . .
Ever Wondered How to do an XML Sitemap?
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on August 2nd, 2009
A Brilliant Treatise on AdWord Initial Bidding
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on July 31st, 2009
The quality score is a really complex black box algorithm, there are many things that it takes into account. Here is for example something that is very far from being intuitive or obvious: If you just added a keyword and you bid a very low amount (seems to be correlated with what…
Don’t be a miser with AdWords, or at least don’t show it – http://www.ppchacking.com
Microsoft and Yahoo Team Up To Challenge Google
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on July 29th, 2009
It’s official!
Microsoft announced today that they have struck a deal to power Yahoo’s search, while at the same time Yahoo will be powering paid ads on Bing.com (Microsoft’s new search platform…formerly known as MSN).
You can get all the details here:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29release.mspx
…and here:
http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx
So why is this good news for marketers?
It’s simple. With Yahoo and Microsoft now a team, Google finally has some competition in the search market. This means:
- Ad costs may go down, and…
- Google may stop being such enormous jerks to their advertisers (which could mean less “Google Slaps”)
Obviously this is just my speculation, and the deal doesn’t go final until 2010 so don’t expect anything to change overnight, but competition is (almost) always a good thing for consumers, so for now, at least, I’m chearing this deal.
Comment below and let me know what you think… Woot!
-Ryan
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this was seeded from http://drivingtraffic.com/microsoft-and-yahoo-challenge-google/ so Ryan Deiss gets the props and the scoop!
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Banner Ads Work, You Hafta Know What Ur Doing!
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on July 25th, 2009
Sweet, Frikkin’ Schweet!
You Tube Tweak: How to destroy the ClickBack/LinkBack
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on July 19th, 2009
A Grateful Thanks to Ket-Sang Tai for this very slick tweak:
The Tao of the Little Shovel
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on July 18th, 2009
The law of the little shovel
. . .another Sethism! Gawd, I love this man!
If you want to dig a big hole, you need to stay in one place.
If you walk around town with a little shovel, you’ll just end up digging thousands of little holes, not one big one.
Call on one person ten times and you might make the sale. Call on ten people once each and you will likely get ten rejections.
The important thing to remember is that separate events are often separate. If you use the same ineffective approach on one thousand people, it’s not going to start working better just because you use it more often.
Connected events, on the other hand, often benefit from frequency and trust.
Which leads to two viable strategies:
1. If you can stay still, stay still. Earn the trust, earn the sale by repeatedly demonstrating value and authority.
2. If you can’t stay still, get a bigger shovel. Your marketing and your sales pitch has to be so refined and focused that it works the first time, because you don’t get a second time.
. . . . go on, tell that lie!
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on July 16th, 2009
. . .another Sethism:
Gotcha!
A few weeks ago, my tooth fell out (on a cross country flight no less). I managed to get home and then eagerly put some Anbesol ("for oral pain relief, dentist strong so the pain is gone!") on the hole. Yes, that was my screaming you heard all the way from here.
The next morning, my dentist explained that not only doesn’t Anbesol work on exposed nerves, it makes them worse.
You can read the label all day long and you won’t see that mentioned. But hey, they made a sale (one sale).
Or consider this item on Amazon. How big do you think these "mixing bowls" are? The reviews point out that the smallest one is not big enough to hold an egg. Does that change your perception of the item?
Why not tell the truth? Why not call them "mini bowls"? Why not change the label from "toothache relief"? (Technically, it’s not a toothache if you have no tooth, okay, thank you Mr. Lawyer, that’s exactly the sort of weaseling I’m talking about.)
There are lots of things you can do to make the sale. They often are precisely the opposite of what you should do to generate word of mouth. I know, you can’t have word of mouth unless you have a sale, but a sale that leads to pain is hardly worth it.
My rule of thumb is this: every person you turn away because your product or service isn’t right for them turns into three great customers down the road. Every bad sale costs you five.
How Will YOU Make the Quantum Leap?
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on July 14th, 2009
Taking the leap
More Sethisms from the Master!
The best businesses and the best projects are a quantum leap above the competition. This gulf represents competitive insulation, because others can’t figure out how to get up there with you.
Amazon, for example, has a leap between it and other online retailers. Sure, you might be able to mimic part of what they’ve got, but the gulf is so huge, it’s hard to imagine displacing them any time soon.
Nike has spent billions on advertising, sponsorship, manufacturing, technology and distribution. It’s a quantum leap between them and some start-up that wants to compete.
I think going for the leap is essential for creating a business for the ages, and I want to speculate that there are three ways to make it:
- BUY IT–you can raise a lot of money or spend a lot of the company’s R&D or marketing money and just buy yourself a huge head start and this provides insulation. (This is my least favorite, because spending like a drunken sailor often leads to other drunken behaviors, including remorse the next day).
- SNEAK UP THE CURVE–you can quietly develop your business fairly cheaply and then, by the time the competition notices you, it’s too late. Build a Bear Workshop is a great example of this. One store at a time they built a brand, a cash flow and a nationwide footprint that makes it awfully difficult for others to compete. McDonald’s did the same thing.
- THE NETWORK EFFECT–some markets are ready for one (and usually only one) intermediary to show up and be the default winner. Twitter and Comdex and Alexander Graham Bell are great examples of this.
There are probably some others (like make a genius innovation in your basement and then patent it) but these three are good ones to start with.
Facts Always Win, Right?
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on July 14th, 2009
Facts always win, right?
Sage and salient word from Seth Godin. . .
If you’re selling a business to business service and you can prove that it’s better, that it delivers more value, that it’s cheaper or more durable or more efficient, shouldn’t that mean you will close every sale?
Even hard-headed business people end up buying the thing they want, not the thing they necessarily need.
The real danger of relying on facts to make your sale, though, is that when the facts are no longer on your side, you’re toast. The low-cost supplier gets hooked on the easy sales that come from acting like a commodity, and if that changes, you’ve got little room to maneuver.
Great brands and projects are built on real value and a real advantage, but great marketers use this as a supporting column, not the entire foundation. Instead, they build a story on top of their head start. They focus on relationships and worldviews and interactions, and use the boost from their initial head start to build competitive insulation.
Seth Godin’s The Art & Skill of Working for the “Man”
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on July 11th, 2009
The art and skill of working with bureaucrats
Have you noticed that most airports feature the same restaurants? It’s not an accident. The people who run these chains have organized themselves to be good at dealing with municipal organizations. Same thing goes for design firms, creative firms, accountants etc. that deal with large corporations.
In my experience, 40% of the fee goes for the work and 60% goes to pay for the do-overs, staffing, project management and hassle that comes from working from big organizations and committees. A lot of small businesses get burned when they charge just the 40% and the client expects that the other 60% comes for free. It doesn’t. If you want to be good at this capability, you can. You can buy it and learn it and then turn around and sell your skill. But it’s unlikely you will randomly back into it.
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Good Freekin’ Boogly Woogly! Let this wash over you, and read it again. . .and again. . .and again!
Raise your hand if you HAVENT gotten burned by a bureaucracy!
This blog is for you. So comment and tell me what you most want to see here. Im listening!
Tevis
Web 3.0, the Future in just under 5 minutes!
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 on July 4th, 2009
This is a powerful video done back in 2007. We are the arbiters of Web 3.0, are you innovating or will you get left behind.
How to be a packager
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Uncategorized, Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0 on July 3rd, 2009
This is sage words from Seth Godin. Mad props to the mentor and you can find his blog and other musings here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/how-to-be-a-book-packager.html
K2 is a packager. I package scuba equipment. Dont confuse me with a scuba retailer or a dive shoppe. If you have a product that we can drive to market, ping me at 818 982 2652.
Now, please enjoy the article!
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For fifteen years, I was a book packager. It has nothing to do with packaging and a bit more to do with books, but it’s a great gig and there are useful lessons, because there are dozens of industries just waiting for you to do something like this. Let me explain:
A book packager is like a movie producer, but for books. You invent an idea, find the content and the authors, find the publisher and manage the process. Book packagers make almanacs, illustrated books, series books for kids and the goofy one-off books you find at the cash register. I did everything from a line of almanacs to a book on spot and stain removal. It was terrific fun, and in a good year, a fine business. Along the way, I worked with just about every major publisher and created more than a hundred books. I packaged (with various levels of success) video games, college professors, Julia Robert’s astrologer, an award-winning children’s novelist, the Weekly World News, Kinko’s and (almost) Craftsmen Tools.
I think there are real advantages to this model (and not just for books). Star Wars toys, for example, were created by a packager, and so are most big budget movies. Duncan Hines licensed his name to Roy Park, perhaps the most successful food packager of all time. Roy died of old age with more than half a billion dollars to his name thanks to all that cake mix.
First, the world needs packagers. Packagers that can find isolated assets and connect them in a way that creates value, at the same time that they put in the effort to actually ship the product out of the door. Kaplan might never have gotten into the test prep book business if we hadn’t done all the hard work of persuading them to enter the market (it took several years) and creating the books that launched their line. One series of books generated tens of thousands of new customers for them.
Second, in many industries there are ‘publishers’ who need more products to sell. Any website with a lot of traffic and a shopping cart can benefit from someone who can assemble products that they can profitably sell. Apple uses the iPhone store to publish apps. It’s not a perfect analogy, because they’re not taking any financial risk, but the web is now creating a new sort of middleman who can cheaply sell a product to the end user. We also see this with Bed, Bath and Beyond commissioning products for their stores, or Trader Joe’s doing it with food items.
Any time you can successfully bring together people who have a reputation or skill with people who sell things, you’re creating value. If you find an appropriate scale, it can become a sustainable, profitable business.
The skills you bring to the table are vision, taste and a knack for seeing what’s missing. You also have to be a project manager, a salesperson and the voice of reason, the person who brings the entire thing together and to market without it falling apart. Like so many of the businesses that are working now, it doesn’t take much cash, it merely takes persistence and drive.
Here are some basic rules of thumb that I learned the hard way:
- It’s much easier to sell to an industry that’s used to buying. Books were a great place for me to start because book publishers are organized to buy projects from outsiders. It’s hard enough to make the sale, way too hard to persuade the person that they should even consider entering the market. (PS stay away from the toy business).
- Earning the trust of the industry is critical. The tenth sale is a thousand times easier than the second one (the first one doesn’t count… beginner’s luck).
- Developing expertise or assets that are not easily copied is essential, otherwise you’re just a middleman.
- Patience in earning the confidence of your suppliers (writers, brands, factories, freelancers) pays off.
- Don’t overlook obvious connections. It may be obvious to you that Eddie Bauer should license its name and look to a car company, but it might not be to them.
- Get it in writing. Before you package up an idea for sale to a company that can bring it to market, make sure that all the parties you’re representing acknowledge your role on paper.
- As the agent of change, you deserve the lion’s share of the revenue, because you’re doing most of the work and taking all of the risk. Agenting is a good gig, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
- Stick with it. There’s a Dip and it’s huge. Lots of people start doing things like this, and most of them give up fairly quickly. It might take three or five years before the industry starts to rely on you.
- Work your way up. Don’t start by trying to license the Transformers or Fergie. They won’t trust a newbie and you wouldn’t either.
Rest On Laurels. . . and Die!
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on June 23rd, 2009
seeded from Seth Godin’s blog!
Learning from Singer
At one point, the Singer Corporation had more than 12,000 people working in a single plant. They were selling more than a million sewing machines a year and had hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. By any measure, it was one of the most important manufacturers in America. It was fun while it lasted.
Back then, it was easy to believe that Singer represented everything that was right with our economy, and that our future was intrinsically attached to the company’s.
When as the last time you even thought about Singer (or a sewing machine for that matter)?
The cycles are far shorter now than they were during the century that Singer was a shining light for corporate success. More now than ever, success today is no guarantee of success tomorrow.
Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending the old thing, instead of working to take advantage of the new thing. I bet you can list a dozen "critical" industries that will be as relevant to life in 2020 as Singer is to our world today.
The key difference is that be then, managers and shareholders could stall and fumble and wait out the transition until after they retired. Now, it’s almost an annual event. Hiding isn’t working, and neither is whining. The best marketing strategy is to destroy your industry before your competition does.
How to Get Visitors In the Door & Phones Ringing – A Great Call-to-Action
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 on June 6th, 2009
this Article was so hard hitting, to the point Poignant, and spot on, I SCRAPED it in its entirety for you your review.
Mad Props goes to the peeps at VerticalResponse Marketing at: http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/2009/05/how-to-get-the-phones-ringing-a-great-calltoaction.html
Mad Praise goes to them. Read on and learn!
If you build will they come? Not automatically. If your phone isn’t ringing or people aren’t coming to your store or site, then maybe you need to have a closer look at your call-to-action. What is a call-to-action you might ask? In simple terms it’s what you want people who get your emails, visit your site or see your ads, to do.
Your call-to-action can be as simple as a "buy now" graphic on a web page or in an email, or a "Visit our website to get your 20% discount at www …" in a direct mail piece, or "Call 800…for your free…". Any way you display it, it needs to drive people to act, and act now!
Here are things you might want to use with your own calls-to-action for your marketing campaigns.
Deadlines - Giving a deadline for your offer to expire will undoubtedly move your readers to do something sooner rather than later especially if it’s truly a great offer. Make sure you outline what they’ll be saving or getting by ordering before the deadline and remind them up to the last day that they can tap this offer.
While Supplies Last – If you’ve got inventory that will go away, promoting that this offer will end with the end of the supply is a great idea. You may even want to set "limits" on the number of products that can be purchased.
The Bobble Head – If you’ve got a free gift to give to your customers if they buy now, then promote it! The baseball parks get FULL when they give away gifts to the first 1000 people that come to the stadium. It gets people to the stadium early and gets them buying things.
Free Consultation/Free Trial – Why not offer a number of hours of your services free to get newbies in the door. If free doesn’t rock your boat, then offer a deeply discounted rate for them to feel comfortable. Once they see the value, they’re sure to come back for more.
Not Available in Stores – Wineries do a great job at offering their wines direct-only. And they focus their messaging on that fact that you can only get the wines from the winery. Some have such limited production that they have people on waiting lists to get on the winery list.
Risk-FREE – If your recipients won’t have to pay or put down a credit card and they can walk away with no questions asked, then make sure this is largely displayed.
Free Accessories with Purchase - Under the deadline, why not try promoting an accessory with the product you’re offering. The accessory could even turn into another purchase down the road. For instance, if you sell face cream, you might want to add in a free sample of eye cream. If you sell jewelry, you might want to add a bit of jewelry cleaner.
One more thing, the presentation of your call-to-action is important. You’ll often find bursts and buttons in red, orange and yellow because those are colors that command attention, yet used too much can be distracting.
Make sure you have your call-to-action in more than one place. If it’s on your website, don’t only display it at the end of the page, make sure you include your call-to-action within your text as well as graphics. As always, test a variety of placements and see what works for your business.
Google’s Wonder Wheel!
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call! on June 2nd, 2009
An amazing new tool to ferret out elusive keywords and topics. . .
What will they think of next?
Web Tyrant – Wonder Wheel from Simon Hedley on Vimeo.
Traffic, Traffic, Traffic, “Come to my website, and git in my belly!”
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on June 2nd, 2009
Good Boogly woogly, it is the lament of every website entrepreneur. How to get targeted traffic to your website, and have them buy your stuff? (the Austin Powers vibe-we gotta get paid) No bullcrap, here is the answer: Writing Articles. . . is Your Secret to Free Traffic!
Let me share with you how to do it:
Do you own a website that is receiving so-so traffic or receiving no traffic at all?
Would you like significantly more website visitors without spending any money?
Duh, of course the answer is yes. . . What you need to institute right now is the web 2.0 method that has been kept secret by knowledgeable SEO and SEM experts, and marketers as a top website traffic generator — writing articles!
The idea behind writing articles to drive traffic is simple. You write as many quality (targeted to your potential customer base), interesting, and original articles as you can crank out, and then submit each article to as many article directories as possible.
Article directories is as follows:
- Wordpress
- Digg
- Technorati
- PR Web
- Hub Pages
- Squidoo
- TypePad
- Blogger
- Microsoft Live
- BlogSpot
- Blog Catalog
- You Tube
- Vimeo
- eZine
- eZineArticles
- TweetDeck
- . . .and a bazillion more that I can think of, click here. . .
Didja notice that I put You Tube and Vimeo in there also? yes, video is the new web 3.0 way of communicating with your constituency. . . Please see the iJustine article within this blog for more information. . .
These article directories in turn will drive traffic to your site.
Note that when writing your articles, you must deliver content that is helpful, informative and non-promotional in nature. Moreover, your article content must focus specifically on the
service or industry your website is targeted for.
After you have written your articles, spell-check and proof read each and every one of them (again duh. . .put your best foot forward).
You will not get any website traffic with a poorly written article, nor an article that has been scraped from another bloggers website. Google penalizes for duplicate content. . .to the extent of de-listing you from the index.
Futher, what about shameless promotion? Arent we all here to sell our crap? yes and no! First in the push versus pull marketing game, we have to seduce our potential customer to listen to us.. . . how? By creating value and offering it in advance.
Let me be perfectly clear, out of 10 articles you have written, provide value for your customer, fixt their problem, make their lives easier, make them feel prettier. . .and then in ONE article promote your product.
the ratio, 90% value, 10% promotion. . .
Now that you have your salient, and original and value added articles in hand, what next?
Submit your articles to as many free-content, free-for-reprint article directories as will accept your articles. There are also some niche article directories that will cater to your industry and you should also submit your articles to these.
So where does this so-called traffic come from, Tev?
Well digglily dog glad you asked, hold on to your pants, here is the most important doggonit on this BLOG post. . .
An article directory will typically allow you to place a link back to your website in a section about the author. Readers who like your articles will be able to click on that link and visit your site.
Write one article and submit them to 1,000 article directories and you have obtained 1,000 inbound links free of charge.
by way of social viral marketing, several ezines might just pick up your article (entertaining, informative, written with personality and your voice) for redistribution, then your article can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of people via the ezines’ mailing lists. Now, think of this as a marathon, rather than a sprint. . . If you wrote 100 of such articles and repeated the process for each one of these, can you imagine the volume of web traffic you will eventually be receiving?
go on, type “Xcel Bamboo” or “Oceanic OC1 computer” into Google. . . and see the magic. . .
Writing articles clearly gives you a free, zero capital method to increasing your website traffic. . . .
Well, go on. . .start writing!
Tevis
Having Trouble Coming up with an Article for your Blog?
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on June 1st, 2009
. . ugh, it is Monday morning, you are waking up from a hangover of schnapps and chocolate binge. . . you are kind of nauseous and not feeling very insightful, nor very smart for pouring the schnapps into the the M&Ms to speed up the process. . . Welp, here I am, Tevis Verrett, to the rescue:
Google Wave Obliterates Everything
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on May 30th, 2009
Good Boogly Woogly! Want to know what Web 3.0 looks like? Ready to get your mind BLOWN?
Email, instant messaging, wikis, forums, blogs, mobile, SMS… Google Wave completely obliterates business models and entire verticals of companies left and right. You must watch this right now. At least the first 40 minutes.
Wii Fit underwear girl is YouTube sensation 2M Times
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on May 25th, 2009
Footage of an attractive young woman gyrating in her underwear to Nintendo’s Wii Fit video game has become a YouTube sensation.
By Matthew Moore
The clip, which was filmed by the woman’s boyfriend and posted on the internet without her knowledge, has been viewed two million times.
Titled "Why every guy should buy their girlfriend a Wii Fit", it shows 25-year-old Lauren Bernat doing increasingly fast hula hoop motions dressed only in her pants and a T-shirt.
A video clip showing an attractive blonde in her underwear gyrating along to Nintendo’s Wii Fit game has been watched nearly TWO MILLION times.
The woman, Lauren Bernat, 25, was unaware she was being filmed secretly by her marketing executive boyfriend on his mobile phone.
He then posted it on video website YouTube without her knowledge.
Giovanny Gutierrez, 30, says he filmed Bernat gyrating her hips as she tries to keep virtual hula hoops swinging on Nintendo’s Wii Fit game, to show the world how attractive his girlfriend is.
It is not known whether this is a brilliant marketing ploy by Nintendo or a goof by two young adults.
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The takehome message, “buzz” is the new web 2.0 marketing strategy.
Bravo!
Tevis
The Latest iPhone App I’ve Purchased: IOrganiz
Posted by admin in Wake Up Call!, Web 3.0 on May 25th, 2009
This slickedy cool App is the sweetest personal informational organizer that i have found for keeping my hurried and frazzeled life more organized. I currently use Calender, Mail, TalkMailPro, Evernote, and Outlook on my puter as my electronic brain. . . now look ma, more opportunities!
Brought you with only a half cup of coffee and still sleepy,
Tevis
Baddass! Grow Sum Balls, Stop Whining and Just DO IT!
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on May 24th, 2009
This advice is pointed at me, just as much as you. So the economy sucks, so what, so consumers are demanding more from you. . .suck it up and get out of your own way. Its hard. . . so what! Stop being a whiny gurl and cowboy the fuck up!. . .this market aint for the weak knee’d nor the lilly livered. . . and if you are a fat couch potato, drink in this video, and again. . . get off your lazy ass, eat right, and cowboy the fuck up!
. . and if you are being downsized, lateralized, middlicated. . . this is war, so cowboy on!
Vitalize Your Scuba Business
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on May 18th, 2009
Does the scuba diving industry lack vitality?
Recently, an advertising agency hired to advise the scuba diving industry said: “The inward focus is highly evident, not only in the industry’s lack of innovation and its stunted growth, but in its ability to attract significant mainstream newcomers to the sport. The diving industry exists to satisfy the needs of the consumer. And only when the industry realizes this will it move forward and prosper… it has lost its appeal and its vitality.”
Well, many of you will disagree with that, I’m sure, but let us suppose for a moment that this is an accurate assessment. What does a business have to do to not fall into that trap? Or, better yet: What to do to get out of it if you are already in it?
This is really a question you have to answer for yourself, nobody knows your business like you do.
Things to consider:
1. You alone cannot change your entire industry;
2. If you are a dive shop, most of your market is local, not worldwide;
3. If you are a resort, most of your market is worldwide, but you operate locally;
4. You want your own business to prosper, regardless of the industry.
So, how do you avoid the inward “navel gazing?”
Answer: Do a SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, as they apply to your industry, your market and especially your own business. Lock yourself and your partners into a Boardroom with lots of coffee, juice, and sandwiches and analyze: your Strengths; your Opportunities; your Weaknesses, and figure out answers to those weaknesses; and Threats to your business, and answers to those threats.
You should do a SWOT analysis at least annually, or more frequently if your industry is changing quickly.
Find out what your customers want.
Faith Popcorn in her book, “The Popcorn Report”, identifies Ten Trends (Cocooning, Fantasy Adventure, Small Indulgences, Ergonomics, Cashing Out, Down-Aging, Staying Alive, The Vigilante Consumer, 99 Lives, and Save Our Society). She states, that any idea or product that satisfies one trend in a major way, and at least three others in at least a minor way, are most likely winners. May I suggest that scuba diving satisfies the need for Fantasy Adventure in a big way, and Small Indulgences, Cocooning (insulation and aviodance), Down-Aging (we feel and act younger than our chronological years), and Save Our Society (marine conservation, etc) in a smaller way. If you haven’t yet read the book, may I recommend it.
While on the subject of books, an excellent down-to-earth, practical book on entrepreneurship is Dan Kennedy’s “The Ultimate, No BS, No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners, and Make Tons of Money Business Success Book”. (Unfortunately out of print, you may find it at your local library or secondhand book store.) Though every chapter is valuable, of particular interest is the one about How to Build Your Own Mini-Conglomerate – in other words, form strategic alliances with complementary businesses, to expand your own business. You are probably already working with a travel agent, for example, and arranging vacation diving tours. Why not join up with a publisher, and publish a How-To book all about diving and underwater photography, complete with beautiful, full color pictures of places you have been. In return you could offer lessons, discounts on equipment for your strategic partners, maybe share admin staff or office space, or a lease on a copier, or trade services; whatever.
What about new customers? Find people that already enjoy water sports, ie. windsurfers, etc. and suggest that they add diving to their list of pursuits. How to reach them? Where they already live, and by using traditional means as well as the internet – local newspapers, direct mail, list brokers, a referral program, a Special Offer Learn to Dive 2 Free Lessons, Get your Card, or similar. If you use direct mail, perhaps get one or several of your strategic partners to chip in – they can advertise too, in your mailer, and reduce your cost. Its a Win-Win.
What about lessons to be learned from the Ski Industry? Beginners’ slopes, warm comfy chalets, apres-ski parties, attentive instructors, Skiing-for-Kids, and more. What about a Singles Night – a Meet-New-People concept? Can these be applied to your situation? And, what do skiers do in the summer? Could they be potential new clients, perhaps?
Fact remains, though, that in stagnant industries, price chopping is regrettably the norm. Look at what happened to the courier business who saw their fee of $20 for an overnight envelope drop to $10 – exactly half. That had a huge impact on their profitability, and the industry had to make changes and adapt in order to keep their market share. Or the Post Office, who provided shabby service and lengthy delivery times, until the overnight courier people came along and ate their lunch. One really needs to reduce costs and settle for smaller margins, which in turn means doing higher volumes to remain viable, and sell the value-added services to improve those profits.
Copyright © 2007 ScubaSuperPower.com
Doing Something Different In A Down Economy
Posted by admin in Slap In the Face!, Wake Up Call! on May 15th, 2009
This was spidered from davidbullock.com David is both a dear friend and mentor. His blog is both a must read, must subscribe.
He is the author of barak 2.0 a primer of the successful online campain of the POTUS, and a how-to grow your business in the social mileau.
This is such a wonderful time to be in business. The economy has laid bare business models that are outdated and don’t work anymore.
Just yesterday, I scheduled a meeting at a restaurant, and what did we find? The business was closed. So we jumped in the car to go to the next place. It was closed, too. Then I looked back at the mall that was behind me. The parking lot was deserted. Could these businesses have used all of the channels available to them to get people to want to interact with them? At least they could have tried and gone down swinging.
I was on a call today listening to business owners talk about how bad the economy is locally. When I asked them if they were doing business internationally and what they are doing differently to handle the downturn, the call went silent. Why? Because they are doing the same things now that worked in the past, hoping to get a result.
If it is not working, stop doing it. You can find a better way to use your time, effort and resources.
It might be a good idea to get some better information so that you can get better results.
Read a book. Go to a seminar. Ask someone. Do something. Riding it out may not be a good option for you, your family and your business.
Doing nothing is not a strategy. And hoping is not going to get you very far.
This is the best time to do and try something new. You have nothing to lose and experience to gain.
What is happening to the landscape of business?
- Are there less people? No.
- Are there less wants and needs in the world? No.
- Are people just not buying stuff anymore? No.
It is none of those things. My theory is that that old models for message distribution and product fulfillment have changed and the typical business owner has not caught up, or is just not paying attention.
With the move online of major celebrities, the market has shifted.
Check it out here: http://twitterholic.com/
Look at the numbers. If you think for one moment that your customers are not online and looking for goods and services, then you are going to miss the boat.
It is not just having a web presence. Having a website is only the beginning. It is:
- Having a well SEOed website.
- Using PPC to augment your efforts.
- Participating in Social Media.
- Using audio and video to carry your message to the masses.
- Using the affiliate model.
- Using PR.
- Using Traditional Media.
Marketing is all of it. That is how you keep ahead of the competition. It is working hard (sorry), learning and doing until you find out what works for your business.
Over the last few weeks, I have been very quietly promoting the SEORainmaker Conference. No big push. No super launch sequence. Why? Because this is how Jerry and I actually work our “real businesses” on a day to day basis.
We walk our talk to make sure that our businesses remain stable and moving forward. What we teach and show you is not hand waving. What we show is not taped to be shown later. No BS.
What we show is what and how we are moving in and around the marketplace. Anyway, I am working on local promotion of the event. Why? Because I see the fear and the concern in my own hometown. And I think I can help… I am looking to fill the event in short order with local business owners.
Why do I expect that?
My “doing things different” for this year was because I wanted to build a local identity within the business community. So I went to work on this idea in October 2008 and boy what has happened has been great. Doing something diffferent yields different results. Less travel. More time with family. Less stress. That was the goal and local work looked to be the solution. These are some of the local events that I have been a part of…
- May 21 2009 – The Nashville Technology Council (Nashville, TN)
http://www.technologycouncil.com/2009/03/20/david-bullock/ - May 12 2009 – Tech Strategies Seminar, Brentwood Cool Springs Chamber of Commerce (Brentwood, TN)
http://www.brentwood.org/PROGRAMS%5F%26%5FEVENTS/Tech%5FStrategies%5FSeminar/ - Feb 25 2009 – Nashville Chamber Of Commerce (Nashville, TN)
http://nashvilletncoc.weblinkconnect.com/cwt/External/WCPages/WCEvents/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=346 - Dec 9 2008 The Original Nashville Entrepreneur Group (Nashville, TN)
http://www.meetup.com/nashvilleentrepreneurs/calendar/9140864/
And I can tell you that doing something different will yield different results.
This year is critical for many businesses. This the make or break year. If you can get past this year, then you will have a stronger business. So dig in. Hustle. Work smarter. Get better information. Change your thinking. Change your business. Change your life. The SEORainmaker Conference should be still available for the next few weeks.
So if you have any questions. let us know. Whatever you do, do something different and you will see different results.
Take care,
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