As we near the end of the working year, it's always good to look back at what has worked for us.
One thing we've done a little more of this year is qualitative research - that is we've measured the quality over and above the quantity. And we've identified what sort of quality clients we've wanted to attract (and keep), rather than just get as many as possible.
Our interpreting qualitative data then impacts on our strategic marketing decisions and has long term benefits. You see, we're not keen to take on clients who give us the cashflow but very little profit. And our core group of clients understand the need for us to be profitable to move forward and continue to provide them with high quality service.
Keeping Up To Date
A big part of my job is keeping up-to-date with the latest and greatest in the industry so we can appropriately advise clients. And in such a fast-paced environment like the web, that takes a couple of hours reading each day.
Back on December 21 I posted a blog talking about the power of 1 guy who knows what he is doing and how they can very negatively impact on someone's online reputation.
I see the RIAA is suing Russian music filesharing company AllofMP3.com (they sell songs for download for 10 cents) for $1.35 trillion. More here.
Mmmmm, filing a lawsuit against a company that legally operates in Russia. Not sure that will work!
I liked AllofMP3.com's response:
"AllofMP3 understands that several U.S. record label companies filed a lawsuit against Media Services in New York.
This suit is unjustified as AllofMP3 does not operate in New York. Certainly the labels are free to file any suit they wish, despite knowing full well that AllofMP3 operates legally in Russia.
In the mean time, AllofMP3 plans to continue to operate legally and comply with all Russian laws."
In other words, "Go jump, Bozo!"
I File A $4 Lotzillion Suit Against Santa
I've just had a thought: I hereby file a lawsuit against Santa Claus for not giving me a Christmas gift ever since I've been a kid. My suit is for $4 Lotzillion US.
I think my chances of getting paid are more than the RIAAs.
C'mon Fat Man - cough up! ;o)
Digital Rights Management Is A Mess
All this RIAA law suit highlights is that digital rights management is a mess. It's an issue that's been ongoing for a few years now and there is no effective protection for either side in the debate.
I wonder if the Easter Bunny has ever had a law suit filed against him?
"Not everyone participated in the media revolution. Gosh, many people I spoke with had never heard of a blog."
Well, duh.
People Don't Know Or Care
The classic mistake I see in marketing is people in whatever industry think that everyone knows and acts how they do. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The vast, vast majority of people would have no clue what a blog is.
I see people in the web industry each and every day assume that others know what the hell we're talking about.
They Have No Bloody Clue!
I'm here to tell you they have no bloody clue! No clue at all.
And that's okay. They don't need to. That's what we are here for (by "we" I mean industry professionals).
But what that means is that sometimes we're stretched to provide the best value we can, because often/usually our clients have no concept of the value we can provide.
And if we ask for decent money to provide the value, the client thinks we're charging too much.
Expert Internet Marketers Are Getting Harder To Find
After a while, Internet people with some knowledge and experience (like us) are harder to find. And we're harder to find for 1 main reason:
We can make more money doing this stuff for ourselves
Sure, there is still money to be made in web development. After all, it's a massive industry and some people understand the value of a $20,000 site rather than a $300 web site.
And you can still find decent search engine optimization experts whose business model hasn't yet changed.
But it's getting harder.
Remember, most people don't know enough about the web industry to be able to identify the best value. Which means they have difficulty in understanding the real value of what you might offer.
Which makes your job - if you're in the web industry - just that little bit harder.
I've often disclosed my goals to family and friends because I've always wanted/needed them knowing what I was aiming for as an incentive to keep going at my goal. It works for me.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out what my goals should be for 2007. I tend to break them down to: Community
Why we buy what we buy is rarely about what we think it is.
Let's take a restaurant meal for example.
On Thursday I went and had a meal at a restaurant directly across the road from the office. I've been there 3 times in the past 3 weeks. My wife has been 5 or more.
Under New Management
The restaurant is under new management and the new guy has made some changes. It's a Thai restaurant and he has spent a few hundred dollars getting the place looking a little more authentically Thai.
Or so I think.
And my wife does too.
And her friends who go to the restaurant.
New signage, a few different pictures, different placemats and done! The restaurant feels more Thai.
And the food tastes so much better.
But The There Are The Facts
But I've never actually been to Tahiland, so what whould I know about the place feeling "more Thai"?
And I found out yesterday that the chef hasn't changed under the new management.
It's even the exact same menu.
So nothing has changed - except for the pictures and my view that it's a better restaurant.
2-3 years ago we had a client for whom we developed a fantastic web site. The client's daughter was going to manage the business but decided not to, and then the client hooked up with a Business Manager who wanted to manage the site.
We were squeezed out of having anything to do with the site. As part of our initial strategy I had the client register the .com version of his domain name. We managed to get the domain name for, from memory, $1,500 US.
That was a bargain. It's a brilliant domain name.
I had a look at the site today - it's been abandoned, but is still online.
Domain Would Be Worth At Least $25,000
The .com name has been allowed to expire and it has been registered by another company who have popped up just a page full of links. They would have got the domain for $10.
I would guess the domain would have been worth $25,000 US by now (maybe even $100,000).
Our old client would have recouped his development money if he, or his business manager, understood the web and knew that all they needed to do was pay a $10 renewal fee and then put the .com name up for sale.
So nice in fact that I was thinking today could be the day all my Christmas' came at once - we were at # 3 for a major keyword and when I checked today I was hoping for # 1. Then I would have been one very happy man.
Hmmmm, not sure why. Need to work on that one today.......
Or I can just ask Santa for a boost in the rankings. After all, if you look closely at this photo to the left you might notice some resemblance to yours truly.
And that impacts negatively on the Dadamobile brand. And you'd think that will cost them money.
That's the power - and the importance - of managing your online reputation in the digital age. Because one individual - like Dave - can show the not so nice side of you.
What comes up when you search for yourself or your business?
I was reading the always beautifully written blog of RiverGirl - a Cancun web designer.
She talks about an idea to put links to stuff you're writing about at the end of blog posts or articles so as not to interrupt the flow of the reader.
My thinking has always been to add links in the middle of the sentence where they are relevant - but I kind of like her idea. I like it a lot.
This is so simple and makes so much sense to me. What do you think?
Brendon
P.S: That's Jack above, my wonderful 14 year old boy finishing off the 10km run leg of the 2006 Noosa Triathlon we did together. Just thought a running photo might be relevant :o)
More People Using Web Sites For Pre-Purchase Product Research
More People Using Web Sites For Pre-Purchase Product Research
Just reading the excellent Marketing Pilgrim blog and Andy Beal (the rather famous blogger) pointed me in the direction of an interesting study recently completed by Vertis Communications that found: "Gen Y men’s answer to the question “When you are ready to make a purchase, which media do you turn to first to help you with your decision?” 38% said the Internet was their first choice to help them make a purchasing decision."
Whilst you can pretty much make stats say whatever you want (that's a nice way of saying "support any crackpot theory you might have"), and I've ignored some key findings from the research, the point I'd like to hammer home is this:
People go online more and more to research the big ticket items they buy.
(The other point is that green is bloody awful to use like that!)
I had a real estate agent as a client who has sold quite a few houses solely from his firm's Internet listing - the buyer didn't even set foot in the house. That amazes me, but he said it happens more and more.
Although (surprisingly) Santa doesn't sell last minute Christmas gifts - I just wonder how long before he opens up an e-commerce store - he does have an excellent blog.
The Secret To Christmas Sales When You've Run Out Of Stock
The Secret To Christmas Sales When You've Run Out Of Stock
I've had a few people ask me why, after this post, I'd continue to promote this ugg boot affiliate site when they'd run out of some stock. Having sold out lines obviously makes a big dent in my sites' ability to make a sale.
But there is a way around that. And a way to generate more sales when Christmas is just days away and the items might not reach the buyer in time.
I have a client with a great horse bits product. Every now and then I'll check his rankings on Google - I've been pushing, pushing, pushing for him to do the required work to get high rankings and wanted to see what he'd done.
What's happened there is the advertiser - doversaddlery.com - has bid on the term "horse bits" and wrote an ad with the headline in a special way so that if the searcher typed in "horse bits" then the headline of the ad shows up as "Horse Bits".
If the searched for term is more than 25 characters long - the maximum for the headline - then the ad reverts to the default term. In this case that's the term "Horse Bits".
The thinking with that is that if you see the headline is the same as the words you're searching for, then you're more likely to click on the ad (and Google bolds the words within an ad that were searched for).
What's Happened Here By The Looks
What seems to have happened with doversaddlery.com's ad is they added an s - we use the code {Keyword: Default Term} By making it Keywords it seems to have broken the workings.
So if you search for "horse stuff" and we bid on that term, then our ad shows up with the headline "Horse Stuff".
If you search for "horse information for bay horses" and we bid on a term within that, then because the searched for term is longer than 25 characters, the Google ad shows the default heading.
Does Having The Headline Display The Searched For Term Help
But does having your headline show the searched for term actually increase the number of people who click on your ad?
Good question. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Now sure, that's a crap answer. But it's the truth.
You see, when we measure this stuff we see it work form some products/industries but not others.
I do a bit of charity/community stuff. Part of this is me being the Vice President of the Gold Coast Media Club - we hold 4 charity lunches during the year and raise quite a bit of money for our chosen charity (this year it was a volunteer helicopter rescue service).
Okay, so we had our Christmas lunch yesterday. During the lunch it was my role to sell memberships to the Club - $25 gets you membership and helps with the admin costs of running the club.
As an incentive to join, if you joined at the lunch you received a couple of movie tickets and went in the draw for a weekend for 2 at The Palace on Magnolia - a magnificent luxury resort located an hour from my home.
So plenty of people signed up, the forms we're placed in a bucket, the MC pulls out the winner, "And the winner is.......Brendon Sinclair."
Mmmmmmm. What do I do? What could I do? I had 200 people giving me a death stare!
I said "Guys, I''ll donate it back. Redraw it."
It was redrawn and someone else will be enjoying the luxury.
Now Here's The Advice
After the lunch a few of us kicked on at a nearby bar. My wife called in at 6 pm to pick me up - we were going out to dinner with friends.
When you get into the car don't say "Oh, honey! I won the big raffle - a trip for 2 to a new luxury resort at Byron Bay for a couple of nights. Oh, and I donated it back."
Trust me. 200 death stares from people at the lunch is nothing compared to 1 death stare from my wife.
I have a site that is an affiliate site for boots (ugg boots) - this morning I received the newsletter of the company whose products I promote. Part of it reads:
"The UGG® Classic Tall in chestnut is our most popular selling model."
I was just about to pop that message and a picture on the home page when I checked out the product on the site. I checked the colors too.
The image on the left is what I got.
See the *
That means the product is out of stock!
So it would be a waste of my time promoting a product that's out of stock.
And it would just annoy my visitors and waste their time. I don't want to do that.
I See The Same Thing With AdWords
I see the same thing with AdWords every now and then. I had a holiday resort manager come to me for help with his Google AdWords that didn't seem to be converting into bookings.
I tried to book on this guy's site - he was booked out for 3 months in advance.
Considering that the people who book online with resorts have a lead in time (time between booking and staying) on average of 21 days it was a waste of time generating visitors to the web site via Pay Per Click ads - because they couldn't buy anyway!
Stopped His Wasteful Advertising
We turned off the ads, he saved a heap.
He allocated the saved money to a search engine optimization campaign (that took 3 months to increase his rankings) - and now he gets hundreds of 'free' visitors each month and saves a heap by not needing Pay Per Click.
Sometimes it's just a little bit of research that makes all the difference.
Last Sunday I got dressed up as Santa for the Palm Beach Scouts Christmas Party. The ages of the kids ranged from 2-16.
Every single one of the older kids (who, for some crazy reason, doubted the authenticity of Santa) had to make it known to Santa that they knew his real identity.
Even my own sons had to say to Santa - "I know it's you Dad."
I guess at that age your tyring to find your way in the world and need to show adults that you know stuff about the adult world.
We all like to show off our knowledge. Some of even have blogs ;o)
Start A Newsletter - 4,000 Reasons Why
I have a client who started a monthly newsletter 3 months ago. He has a web site selling a $50 product. We sent his newsletter out on Tuesday morning (one of the best days and time to send a newsletter).
Anyway, his newsletter gets his business and product top of mind. He tells a few stories and makes a few offers.
By Wednesday lunchtime he'd generated $4,000 in sales from the newsletter.
About 30% of the sales were for the special offer. The rest were for regular products at the regular price.
It's just reminding your customers that you're about that gets them to buy. Can you start a newsletter - here's the newsletter solution he uses.
One of my clients has started up a helicopter service on the Gold Coast (were I live) flying large promotional flags and banners (15 x 15 metres) along the sky for an hour or so.
I saw one on the weekend and was pretty impressed - he's the first one in my city who has done it and it seems to be very effective.
After all, he has that big advantage of being first. Being first makes you the leader. And it keeps you there for a while even when competition enter the market.
Being first is a huge advantage. As is being different.
Are you doing anything to be the leader in your industry?
Why I Thought I Could Beat One Of The World's Best Sprinters
On Saturday morning I did a 45km charity bike ride in aid of the Amy Gillet Foundation. It was a fairly gentle ride along the boulevard of Surfers Paradise out into the hills and back again.
We, the 200 or so cyclists, finished on the Esplanade of Surfers Paradise.
Along the way I was chatty to a charming fellow who seemed to be pretty comfortable on his bike at the pace we were going. As it happened, as we got to within about 200 metres of the finishing line, he was beside me.
I was in the lead group at this stage - remembering it was meant to be a gentle ride - and, boys being boys, as soon as we saw the finish line the pace went up a little. And then a bit more. And a bit more. And then we were really flying.
With about 100 metres to go we were all waiting for someone to start the sprint - so I went!
Whoooshhh! As fast as I go (which isn't that fast) I sprinted to the front with a cry to my new friend of "Can you catch me mate?!"
The answer to that was a resounding "Errrr, yes. Easily."
The fellow I was chatting with a little earlier blew past me like I was in reverse. I've never see someone go as fast on the flat on a bike like this guy did. It was amazing. Awesome.
We stopped a bit down the road after the line and wandered back. That was when I found out I'd just challenged one of the world's best sprint cyclists to a sprint finish!
He'd Held The Yellow Jersey, I Usually Wear A Smelly T-Shirt
He held the leader's Yellow Jersey at the Tour De France earlier this year. I turned 40.
He's a brilliantly conditioned athlete at the top of his game. I drink beer.
But The Reason I Thought I Could Beat Him..........
But the reason why I thought I could beat him was the same reason why I thought I could write a successful book.
Because I didn't have limitations.
Because I didn't know how hard it was going to be.
Because I had no idea how difficult the competition would be.
Sometimes it's good to be ignorant and not realise how truly crap you are at something. Because then you might do something, do okay at it and achieve something.
The Other Embarrassing Thing I Did.....
But that wasn't the only embarrassing thing I did on the ride.
I was chatting with a nice young lady along the way, who was up the front.
Turned out she lives in the same city as me, rides a bike, etc so we had a bit in common.
But don't just take my word for it - online video guru Ken McCarthy says "..... the picture is excellent. (A broadcasting engineer might dispute this, but it looks pretty good to me.)
What I love about it is its size and ease of use. I'm not a fan of products that require manuals before you can use them. This camera is dead simple. On/off. Start record/stop record. Playback. Delete. Scroll. That's it."
The story is that "Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups which are benefitting from revenue which is originated by Google advertisers" (source: Search Engine Journal).
The inference then being that Google pays these Adsense accounts (people who have web sites that display Google AdWords ads and Google shares the revenue generated from the pay-per-click ads) and thus funds terrorism.
Google is no more funding terrorism than the guy who buys a cup of coffee at the corner store in Anytown, USA which is run by a guy who sends a donation to a charity where the money then gets diverted to the baddies.
The only thing I'm seeing here is this Jim guy being an idiot.
Is it time you looked at online video for your site?
The Latest James Bond Movie - Reviewed Right Here!
The Latest James Bond Movie - Reviewed Right Here!
You can't say I don't cover all the topics here.
Anthony and I snuck out of the office when Mel wasn't looking ("We have an important client meeting to attend.") and got along to see Casino Royale.
The verdict: Best Bond ever. Best Bond movie ever.
It's a lot tougher, more realistic than any other Bond movies. And better for it.
Worst part of the movie: The Omega product placement. They got various watches in up close, but there was some bloody dreadful and obvious dialogue to get the Omega name mentioned.
Whoever thought that line up needs to stand in the corner with their head bowed in shame!
Anyway, here's a pic of Bond, James Bond relaxing in Venice............................... or is it???
"It revealed that many men believe that 'Bond-esque' phones with gadgets including video cameras and mp3 players will make them more desirable to females.
Furthermore, the research which also included focus groups and questionnaire surveys found that in social situations men actively display their phones and its capabilities in a bid to look important and popular. The research suggests that this is done primarily to attract females but also used to show off and gain status with other men in their peer group."
Smaller Is Better For British Men
A phone is one of the few things with guys where they think smaller is better.
I've just noticed that it's British men the study reviewed.
Some Search Words Sell More Than Others - A Case Study
Some Search Words Sell More Than Others - A Case Study
In this post here I talked about how to find the 'right' keywords for your site.
Specifically, how to find the keywords that get searched for the most.
I used the example of the searches done on the Australian ugg boots page here. And then compared those keywords to a keyword tracking tool.
The conclusion was that to get as many visitors as possible I should optimise my site for different keywords. And that was a fair enough conclusion.
But Wait................ There's More!
My data analysis tells me that people who search for "australian ugg boots" (like they do to find this page about the humble Australian ugg boot) are far more likely to buy than people who search for the terms "ugg boots".
How much more likely to buy Brendon, you handsome and charming man? I hear you ask.......
6 times more likely!
Not to confuse you, but it's not just about finding the keywords that get searched for the most - and then getting a high ranking for whatever that term is.
It's about finding the keyword that gets searched for AND is more likely to end up in a purchase.
Just chatting with an old client - he's been a client for close on 10 years. He asked us to do another web site for him - this is about the 4th one I think, from memory.
He said, "Register the domain, organise hosting, etc."
His offsider, his numbers man, said "But if we register the name ourselves we'll save $50."
"I don't care. It's easy money for Brendon, it gets done quick and we don't have to worry about it," my client said.
That's The Client You Want
That's the sort of client you want.
One that makes sure you make easy money for simple administrative things sometimes. I don't care about us making $50 on the domain.
It's just nice that the client knows we're here to make a profit. He understands that. And man, I tell you, there are a surprising number that don't realise that ;o)
For the one of pieces of audio I do on this site I simply record them (using a headset mic I got from the local store) using brilliant free software called Audacity.
I save as a wav file, then as an mp3 file (much smaller), insert into the little Flash player button you see below and upload.
But I didn't think of telling him that because I assumed a guy so involved in the tech industry would know a hell of a lot more than me and be aware of that solution.
Turns out he's not as smart as me (!) - someone else turned him onto it and he's using it now.
I love The Wiggles - not so much for their wiggly fun (I do confess I used to watch them with my kids years ago), but for the way they've developed themselves as a brilliant business. And they always seem to have so much fun doing it.
I remember one of the Wiggles being asked a lewd kind of question on a chat show once and his reply was "I can't answer that. I'm a Wiggle!"
Good on him.
Anyway......Greg, the yellow Wiggle, recently had to step down from the band due to an illness.
