Friday, April 29  

Online Sales Growing Every Minute

Online Sales Growing Every Minute

Here's a few indicators that Web Sites are becoming an essential part of doing business.


Online Sales

With Australia's online sales set to almost double this year to $10 billion (up from $6 billion last year) it looks a good year for online retailers.

Click here for full story.


Online Advertising

Yahoo!'s first-quarter profits doubled in the first quarter, jumping to $205 million from $101 million a year ago, as revenue zoomed 55% to $1.17 billion.

Google's revenue doubled to $1.26 billion, and profit jumped to $369 million from $64 million a year ago.

Lots of people are advertising because lots of people are buying online.

Click here for more.


EBay

EBay Australia and New Zealand managing director, Simon Smith, recently told Australian IT that the Australian version of the online auction site jumped 75 per cent during 2004 over 2003 in subscribers.

Cheers

Brendon

Thursday, April 28  

What To Do When You Win An Award

What To Do When You Win An Award

I went to a lunch yesterday where the guest speaker was a guy called Pat McCarthy from a business called The Perfume Connection. The business had recently won our city's top business award and Pat spoke at length about how he and his wife (Penel) had built the business from day one.

The Perfume Connection has built to almost 50 stores and $50 million pa in revenues in 12 years.

Pat finished off his speech by commenting what the win meant to him and his team. He then went on to say something pretty insightful about Award wins - and I'll paraphrase here

Use The Award

"If you win an Award and get a trophy and put it in your boardroom, that's great. But if you win a major business Award it can be so much more. Use that Award to:

• attract more customers,
• reassure customers as to the quality of your business,
• become an employer of choice and attract the right people,
• increase your business' recognition,
• motivate your staff, &
• recognise your team's valuable contribution."

As Pat said, an Award can do a whole lot of good once you've won it. Use it to its full potential.

When I Won The Nobel Prize for Literature

I know that when my book won the Nobel Prize for Literature that the appearances on the Dave Letterman Show, the interview with Parkinson and the 4-page spread in Time Magazine was quite beneficial to the company.

(I may have made that last bit up.)

Cheers

Brendon

Wednesday, April 27  

The # 1 Reason You Need A Marketing Expert (Like Us!)

The # 1 Reason You Need A Marketing Expert (Like Us!)

This is an easy one. The # 1 reason you need a marketing expert for your business is simply because we know what works.

You get a professional marketer for a fraction of the cost of hiring one yourself.

You know it makes sense!

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, April 26  

When You Should Bribe Potential Customers

When You Should Bribe Potential Customers

In the last few days I've received 3 requests to complete surveys. 2 requests were from Government departments, 1 from a business.

I took a quick look at the surveys and decided not to complete them.

The reason was basically this:

There was nothing in it for me.

All the surveys would have taken about 7 minutes of my time.
Completing the survey would have helped the various organisations.

But I didn't complete the surveys

And the reason was simple. There was no benefit in it for me.

And that's exactly how all potential customers think when weighing up your offer: "What's in it for me?"

If you ask others to do a survey your response rate will go through the roof if you offer a gift/prize for completing it. Make it something the target wants/likes/needs and they'll be clamouring to do it.

When you're doing your marketing it's important to ask this one simple question: Why should this person do business with me?

The answer is simple: because he gets a benefit from it.

That's marketing.

Cheers

Brendon

Monday, April 25  

Online Advertising Continues To Boom

Online Advertising Continues To Boom

If there was ever an example that online e-commerce is growing then you need to look no further than online advertising.

Both Yahoo! and Google announced profits at more than double that of the previous year.

Google AdWords continues to be a place where we are seeing some terrific results and should be considered by all people with a web site. The visitor numbers AdWords can bring is enormous.

Regards

Brendon

Saturday, April 23  

PageRank of 6

PageRank of 6

This web site now has what's called a PageRank of 6. A PageRank is basically a rating by Google of the site out of 10.

The higher the PageRank the higher the web rankings of the site will be (doesn't exactly work like that, but that a pretty simple explanation of what it means).

2 reasons for me writing this:

1. Thanks if you link to this site (links to the site increase it's PageRank)
2. Many people haven't heard of PageRank - here's how you can see what a sites' PageRank is:

a) Download the Google Toolbar - http://toolbar.google.com/
b) You'll see a green bar about half way along the bar under "PageRank"

The toolbar also puts a small Google search field on your browser - very handy for searching.

Cheers and thanks

Brendon

Friday, April 22  

What Marketing Really Is

What Marketing Really Is

============
Hello

My name is Brendon Sinclair and I have a business that develops web sites. We also market them.

You can find us at 1136 Gold Coast Highway, Palm Beach, Queensland, Australia. Our phone number is 07 5598 4898 (+61 7 5598 4898 if calling from overseas).

If you need a web site we'd be delighted to help. Please call us.

Thanks

Brendon
===============

The above is (almost) perfect marketing.

A client asked me the other day what I see as marketing: it's simply this:

Marketing is telling your target market (potential customers) about the services you offer (that they are interested in) and making your business (and location) known.

Because until that happens you won't sell a thing.

Are you consistently approaching new target markets and telling them what you do?

Cheers

Brendon

Thursday, April 21  

What To Do When You Get Rejected

What To Do When You Get Rejected

Hello

I made a pitch for some business last week and have just found out the company decided to go with someone else. Here's what we always do when we get rejected:

Say "Thank You"

We do that because it's nice and polite. And we appreciate the opportunity to make the pitch.

The other thing I always do is ask why we weren't selected - only then can we improve and make our business better.

There are lots of ways to make your business better. Try that one.

Brendon

Wednesday, April 20  

Corruption Scandal Hits DMOZ

Corruption Scandal Hits DMOZ

Hello

DMOZ is a web site of particular value when you are trying to achieve a high ranking for a web site. If you manage to get your site listed in DMOZ then your site rankings on most other major search engines will go increase very significantly.

Now DMOZ is administered by volunteer staff who do not get paid. Apparently.

But a blog has been set up that puts all that into question: http://www.corruptdmozeditor.com (please note: On Monday 25 April, the site appears down).

This has wide ranging ramifications for DMOZ and those sites listed and how DMOZ listings will be treated in the future by the other search engines.

I'll be interested to see if the writer can prove their association with DMOZ or whether they're just a disgruntled customer.

Brendon

Tuesday, April 19  

How To Lose Focus In One Easy Step

How To Lose Focus In One Easy Step

A big part of the reason my business has grown is because our customer service and appreciation is better than most.

At the moment, we're exceptionally busy. And what tends to happen then is our customer service levels drop as we try and take care of our clients.

• Clients come to us because of our high quality service.
• Because of that we get busy.
• Because we get busy our customer service drops.

To grow a business you need more customers. The most important thing to do in a business is take care of your customers (because they'll buy again and again, and refer others to you).

Cheers

Brendon

Friday, April 15  

Top 5 Things To Test With Direct Mail

Top 5 Things To Test With Direct Mail

We do a fair bit of direct mail and one thing we always do is test various elements of each mailing.

Here's my list of the top 5 things to test:

Heading
Price of the product
Length of Letter
List (who you send it to)
means of ordering

There are others, of course, but the top 5 is a good start.

What testing does is very important. You see, it gets you to measure things. And that makes your direct mail attempts more accountable.

I'd guess 80% of businesses don't measure the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. If you measure such aspects as the above you'll know exactly how your campaign is doing.

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, April 12  

Why Knowing Nothing Is Great For Business

Why Knowing Nothing Is Great For Business

A few years back we were asked to develop a web site for a client who manages a resort. Now, we'd never developed a resort web site and I started by looking at other resort web sites and seeing what they did.

That was okay, but with any benchmarking there can be a risk of becoming the same.

But then my wife stepped in

Then my wife stepped in with this:

"Why don't you sit behind me and see what I do when I book a resort holiday."

That was a great idea. Because I didn't know what a resort web site needed what better way to see how a customer acts than by watching one in action.

So I followed what Mel (my wife) did and learnt from that. She did the exact same thing a larger group of people we studied did a few months later.

1. Used a search engine to find a potential site
2. Looked for the rates
3. Left if the rates weren't very quickly found
4. Looked at the 'Accommodation' and then the 'Location' page
5. Sent in an enquiry
6. Booked only if a response was forthcoming very quickly (within an hour)

It didn't matter.....

It didn't matter that I didn't know what to put on a resort web site. Because all I had to do to find out is what all marketing is about - find out what your customer wants and give it to them.

Nowadays we have a lot of resort clients. And we still research the target market to ensure that we only put on the site what the customer wants.

And that's why knowing nothing (and knowing you know nothing!) is good for business.

Cheers

Brendon

Monday, April 11  

Thick-Skin Saves Time

Thick-Skin Saves Time

Having a thick-skin saves a lot of time in business.

I received an email last week from a guy who berated me for the very poor quality of a web site he'd visited - he made comment about the design and the usability mostly. At the bottom of the web page he saw the "Site by Tailored" link and thought he'd email me a piece of his mind.

So poor old me is sitting here when I get this rather abusive email about the site. I clicked through to have a look at the site he mentioned.

We did do the site......

Yes, we did do the site he mentioned................... but 5 years ago. Since then the design had changed completely. The functionality had changed completely. There was very little left of our original work - except the "Site by Tailored" link was still there!

I was going to email this guy back.....

I was going to email this guy back and explain what had happened but I thought better of it.

1. He was rude so didn't really deserve a response.
2. An email would take me 5 minutes to write.
3. He'd email back (another couple of minutes to read it).

And all for nothing

I guess I could say that I need to protect my online reputation and that by not setting this guy straight I was risking a bit of that. But I think most people are smart enough to get a sense of a person from direct interaction rather than hearsay.

(And I could have also written an email back that told this guy exactly what I thought - That he should get his facts right before email me his abuse and that I suggest he "go away"! But then that just wastes more time.)

As businesspeople we have to make the most of each day. And cut out the wasteful stuff. I'm far, far better off checking our clients are okay than answering abusive emails.

Cheers

Brendon

Wednesday, April 6  

Make The Most Of What You Have

Make The Most Of What You Have

Making the most of what you have is a critical part of marketing a business.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I spoke with a client about his web site and how it was working for him. You see, his web site wasn't working for him.

The Reason Was Clear

The reason was clear - he didn't promote his web site and it didn't get results for him. Because it didn't get results for him he didn't promote it.

And that's often the thing. With things like web sites, people don't fully understand the power and influence they can have. They don't fully appreciate the benefits they can provide. So they don't use them to their fullest extent.

Which I find really disappointing, because a web site can and should be one of a company's biggest assets (although I'm a bit biased of course).

Regards

Brendon