When marketing is too aggressive

Cancellations are a valuable sales lead.
Apparently, that’s the message in the AOL Retention manual:

If you stop and think about it, every Member that calls in to cancel their account is a hot lead. Most other sales jobs require you to create your own leads, but in the Retention Queue the leads come to you! Be […]

SEO help on new blog

As a SEO, it’s all too easy to turn a general business blog into a “SEO blog + some other stuff”.
I’m constantly tempted to write SEO news and commentaries here, but try to hold off so as not to make it too specialised.
Anyway, I figure the best solution is to try and focus on general […]

Having fun with MySpace

Finally joined MySpace last night, and already spent the day addicted to signing up new friends.
Started with zero, found about 6 from my forums who were already members, and then spent the day chasing up keywords and sending friend requests.
So far got around 43 friends. :)
There are a number of addictive elements - firstly, in […]

Frustrations of finding tracking solutions

It’s really becoming a looming concern that where commerce sites have any kind of marketing campaign - whether PPC, SEO, or other forms of advertising, individually, or in concert - then some form of statistical tracking is required to determine your costs against profits - Return on Investment (ROI).
However, actually selecting a useful tracking solution […]

Don’t run a mediocre forum

I know. I love forums. I think they have a more real sense of community than blogs anyday.
And in terms of marketing, offer far better potential.
But…the same principles of marketing apply to forums.
Creating Passionate Users runs an article called Don’t Give in To Feature Demands.
Although it’s aimed generically in terms of products/services, read the […]

Word of Mouth: the Marketing Figures

Church of the Customer highlights some interesting stats about Word of Mouth as an engine for business growth.
The figures come from a study by the London School of Economics:

* A 7% increase in positive word of mouth unlocks 1% additional company growth
* A 2% reduction in negative […]

How to kill a sale quickly with your website

So I’m looking at a major ecommerce site redevelopment - it’s probably too big for me, so I ask for recommendations.
I call Rand in Seattle, and mentions a couple of people.
I check out one in London.
It’s a webdesign and development company. Only they’ve got some kind of spyware-esque link ads running all through their […]

Google targeting of link networks

Jagger - revisited
The Jagger update in October 2005 was a major event - it had far reaching consequences that affected a lot of webmasters and SEO’s.
When the fall-out finally settled, it was observed that “authority” sites had better positioning, and that link exchanges appeared to be devalued.
I’m now coming to the speculative conclusion that what […]

Communities as the future of the internet

Ever since I set up my first attempt at an online community in 2001, I’ve seen online communities - focussed on forums - as a key to internet development.
I’ve repeatedly recommend that clients set up forums - either just for support, or else as a marketing tool in itself.
Why?
Firstly, it helps increase visibility.
If you […]

submityourarticlesnow.com

Wow, these guys are really going for it with the forum spamming: submityourarticlesnow.com.
What’s even more impressive is that they sign-up multiple user accounts on each forum, all just effectively posting the same message - that submitting articles is a great way to drive traffic and rankings and to use the services of submityourarticlesnow.com.
Anyway, submityourarticlesnow.com - […]

Quick lesson in viral marketing

Threadwatch reports on the attempts of MSN to make it’s AdCenter go viral…
The lesson is, when product=free, the opportunity for viral marketing is greatest.
When people are told it will cost them money, the viral lure takes far more effort to hook users.

Ad:Tech - desperate to spam?

Paul Sinclair, European Sales Manager for DMG World Media cold-called a couple of weeks back to sell me a spot as an Exhibitor at Ad:Tech.
No thanks, I’m not doing that this year. Though he’s never heard of me or my company before, he offered instead to consider putting me on the speaker panel if […]

40 Best Web Directories

Bob Mutch has turned himself into something of a directory specialist, and has been developing evaluated lists of directories for some time now.
He’s just changed his system of appraisal.
Rather than use figures such as PageRank and link volume to determine quality, he’s now set up a list of directories valued according to basic “trust” factors […]

The Power of DMOZ?

I’ve submited various sites to DMOZ in the past.
I found that commercial ones were unlikely to be listed unless I submitted to the regional sections for their category.
I stopped submiting precisely because it was so difficult to get sites listed in major sections that properly reflected their content, in addition to the use of often […]

Big business still clueless about identity theft

Telephone call:
Hello - I’m a total stranger - what’s your home address, post code and date of birth?
Ask what the phone call is about:

I’m sorry, we can’t give that information out.

Yes, this is the way that some businesses contact their customers.
I first got these from my old friend, British Telecom.
If you don’t pay […]

Wannabe viral marketers still getting it wrong

We covered it in Old Marketing vs New Marketing - the internet is a community of people and their websites are their nodes of communication.
Therefore marketing now needs to be able to access this community in clear niches that reflect a client’s marketing base.
And therefore directly connect products and services with the user market […]

When marketing gets aggressive

So I get sales calls to my business line.
My business line is for clients or potential clients to contact me. That’s why I have it.
I don;t have it simply so that other businesses can keep calling me to sell me their products/services - especially when most of them don’t even know my name.
If I’m […]

Passive information as a marketing tool

I nearly stepped into another potential libel issue recently - critical comments I posted about the Transcendental Meditation movement over 2 years ago on the comparative religion forums were revived and called out as slander by a member.
Having already learned my lesson on dealings with Platinax, I removed the original comment and set out a […]

Legal action as amarketing tool

There’s discussion on the chronicles network about the Dan Brown lawsuit over plagiarism claims.
The simple basis is that the authors of a book - Holy Blood, Holy Grail, published by Random House - are taking Dan Brown to court over his book - the Da Vinci Code, published by Random House.
They claim that he stole […]

Internet Marketing 101

Rand points me to Ian McAnerin’s post on Internet Marketing 101 - and it makes for meaty reading:

1. Step Away from the Computer
2. Identify the Target Goal
3. Identify Your Message
4. Identify the Target Audience
5. Identify Traffic Vectors
6. […]