A Presumption of Guilt

While British and American Jurisprudence is based on a presumption of innocence there are a number of systems which are not.

If you have an internet presence in which you market your services or products, you should consider your website to be presumed to be difficult to use until proven otherwise.

Stoney deGeyter wrote an article entitled "Are You Guilty of Crimes Against Usability? Let the Jury Decide"

Even Pepsi gets it wrong

The medium must be allowed to shape the message.

A radio ad is different from a newspaper ad which is different from a TV ad.

The market must shape the message.

An ad to B2B is different from an ad to B2c and selling to a single person consultant is different than selling to a Fortune 500 company.

Pepsi apparently forgot this.

The social media is a bottom up, not a top down media. Recently Pepsi sent cans of Pepsi to what they were told were the 25 most influential social media bloggers.

This was a mistake.

One of the recipients of the free Pepsi was Mack Collier. He wrote an article entitled "Are Companies Targeting the Wrong 'Influencers' With Social Media?"

Just Like Hang Gliding

Hang Gliders are not focused on a directional agenda. Successful hang gliding is dependent upon being willing to let the wind decide which direction you go next.

This does not mean that people who hang glide don't need to learn what to do to be even more successful at achieving an enjoyable experience. Rather successful hang gliding is about handling the little details of the moment and not about long term destinations.

The experience is the destination.

Successfully marketing a product or service is like hang gliding. The focus needs to be on knowing how to "catch the wind" and how to "glide with the wind."

The wind is the market and these days the market is holding a discussion about each business and each product in ways never seen previously.

Dr. Jeff Cornwall used the metaphor of dancing and wrote a very good article entitled "Follow the Lead of the Market"

The Proof is in the Stats

Sometimes trying to convince a business owner that thousands of one time visitors are not nearly as valuable as hundreds of repeat visitors feels like trying to convince a dog to avoid chicken bones. (For those of you that are not dog owners, poultry bones are fragile and the "splinters" can hurt a dog.)

Many business owners are smart enough to look honestly at statistics. With this in mind, today's recommendation is an article entitled "Repeat Site Visits - A Critical Goal for a Successful Website" by Ayo Ijidakinro

Hopefully the charts and statistics will convince you to focus less on the first time visitor and more on the second and third time visitor.

What worked Five Years Ago, Won't Work Today

In half of a decade, Marketing as really changed.

Both Chrysler and Pepsi messed up big time recently and if it had not been for the quick intervention of a new hire Ford's legal department came close to committing marketing suicide.

The times, they are a changing.

Ardath Albee wrote "Marketing Priorities - Easy vs. Tough."

Was it something that they said?

What you say doesn't mean nearly as much as what your consumer's say!

More and more consumers are turning to the internet to either express their frustrations or to magnify their favorites when it comes to products and businesses.

Where they express their feelings can impact your business success.

Believe it or not - providing a platform upon which your clients can vent or praise publicly can be beneficial to your business, especially if you are quick to resolve any problems to the client's satisfaction.

Because they will find a venue in which to vent! But if it is not on your site, it may be weeks or months before you find it and by then your reputation is damaged. If clients complain on your site then you know right away and can respond in order to make your reputation for customer service sparkle.

Karon Thackston wrote "The Incredible Persuasive Power of Online Consumer Reviews."

Sales Roadblocks

In traditional sales, the seller attempts to discover the mental reservations in the buyers mind and answer those objections.

But in the audience driven Internet marketplace, quite frequently the seller never even meets the buyer. If you don't meet the buyer you can not ask probing questions to determine if there are any objections.

Does that mean that the seller is off the hook? Not if the seller has any competitors!

In the Internet world, the seller who outperforms his competition is the one who figures out what makes it difficult for the buyer to buy and removes the obstacles and smooths out the process.

For example, if a website is difficult to use, that is a roadblock to sales.

Karon Thackston wrote "Combat Resistance Factors and Increase Conversions."

When something is better than Nothing

If you had a target and you had to choose between being blindfolded and wearing glasses which blurred your vision, which would you choose.

Sometimes its better to go with what you have, than try to function without any information at all.

Ardath Albee wrote "Just Do IT! Use the marketing data you have now."

(Fewer than normal entrepreneurial articles were written in December, the frequency of this column is being reduced to three times a week, MWF, for awhile.)

Strategy Before Tactics

(This is the last article this week.)

Such a simple rule and yet so often violated.

Before you get in your car, don't you usually know where you want to go and what route you plan to take?

When marketing before you start buying collateral and hiring consultants - you need to know where you want to go and approximately what route you want to take.

However, sometimes new interstates open up and sometimes road work requires detours - so you may need to be ready to make course adjustments.

Corte Swearingen wrote "Building a Marketing Strategy Outline."

Ranking Magic

(Next Week. there will only be two articles.)

Actually, there is really nothing magical about it - but sometimes you have to perform a transformation "trick."

You have to cease to be a business marketer and transform into Internet Publishing Man (or woman.)

Able to leap across the continent in a single click. Faster than a dialing cell phone. Able to provide research information as if by mind reading. Okay, the algorithms on the Search Engine had a little to do with that last one.

Sarah Worsham wrote "Think Like A Publisher, not a marketer."

The first sight of an email from You

How do the recipients of your marketing e-mails first react when they see your name in their letter queue?

Would it help if you improved the internal effectiveness of your e-mail campaign?

Jay Lipe wrote: "3 Tips to Improve Your Email Marketing."

P.S. Schopenhauer died almost a century and a half ago, so I don't need Creative Commons to make a derivative from his words. (For the word "derivative" read "mangling".)

Seeking Dear John

So your beloved reader

has gone and left you

and do you

know the reason

Why?

---

Getting feedback from those readers who decide to unsubscribe from your web feed is valuable marketing information.

Susan Abbott wrote: "Unsubscribe - or what readers do in their spare time"

Traditional Branding Is Dead

When a mainstream marketing source says that traditional brand management is obsolete, its time to lay the corpse to rest.

Martin Lindstrom author of Brand Child and Brand Sense recently wrote on The Blake Project blog that the days of Corporate management of marketing brands is over and that now the customers will control the brand.

Read his article: "Preparing for the Brand Power Shift."

Describe Your Perfect Fashion Widget Accessory

Say What?

I did not quite get that. Could you reword it, please?

Oh, wait a minute, I am not talking to a person I am reading your website and I have no idea what you just said. Worse than that, you have just asked me a question that must be answered or else the sale can not proceed.

But I don't understand the question.....so I can not give you the answer.

Oh, well, maybe my friendly search engine will direct me to your competitor's website which is much more friendly to novices.

Karon Thackston wrote: "How Poor Usability Can Kill Your Copy and Conversions."

Can You Pass This Exam?

If your businesses main marketing focus is primarily offline and you aren't really wanting to change that focus, then this exam is not extremely vital to your marketing success.

But if you want to succeed in the Internet Marketing world, then you have to adapt to the new user-centric web.

On the web, the audience drives the discussion. This is very difficult for many business owners to grasp. Quite frequently, business owners think that using new internet technology is all that it takes to participate. But as long as you are focused on telling, instead of responding - you can't play effectively in this game.

Ed Cotton asks some very basic questions, which if answered honestly can help you to determine whether you are really ready to participate in the audience driven social internet.

Phrasing the Point

Prose or Poetry.

Austin or Bronte.

Tactful or Suave.

Sometimes it's all in the WAY that you say it.

This is also true in writing copy that succeeds in marketing your message.

James Chartrand wrote "Seven Tricks for Magical Copy."

Sure, I remember your company

A car is a Car, right?

Then why does GM have more than one brand? When did you last see a Fortune 500 CEO driving a "luxury Chevrolet?" Even the phrase "luxury Chevrolet" phrase sounds like a contradiction in terms.

But, brands are more than intra-mural. Do the words Cadillac and Mercedes generate the same impression in the corporate world?

The difference between brand identity and brand is the difference between the name and the mental impression which is generated by the name.

Creating a brand identity is relatively easy compared with managing the development of your brand. If your company is in business for any length of time, it is impossible to avoid creating a brand - but it may be a very unfortunate brand if you don't manage the development. Some brands are like lead weights, they drag the business down.

Peter Da Vanzo provides some elementary advice to manage brand building on the internet with the article: "Brand Building Tips (On A Budget)."

Surviving in the Virtual Village

Movies have provided entertainment based on the humor of watching an urban suit try to adjust to a rural community or a real cattle drive. There have been other movies that focused on small town visitors to the big city.

The serious theme behind these comedies is that survival in one environment does not necessarily provide you with the skills which are necessary to survive in a foreign environment.

The social web is like a foreign culture to those executives whose primary focus in marketing is offline. The rules which produce marketing success offline, do not produce the same results within the social web's Virtual Village.

Within the social web, relationships are vital to marketing success! The anonymity of the metropolitan environment allows for impersonal marketing offline. But online, you can irritate your potential audience and alienate your past clients by failing to focus on relationship development.

Ardath Albee wrote "Build Relationships ONE Step at a Time."

Can you speak "Buyer?"

When a company writes me a letter that is all about them, it really irritates me. Also when a company sends me email that is completely irrelevant to who I am, it irritates me.

You probably have experienced the same reaction to a promotional mailing.

So what makes you think that your audience is different from you and I?

You think that you already know all this? Then why did that last mailer you sent out irritate more than half of the people who received it.

Maybe you don't know your audience's language after all.

Oh, you think that you do? Did you ask them?

How do you feel when someone ASSUMES something about you?

What is the best way to avoid making a wrong assumption? That's right! ASK, already.

Karon Thackston writes "Understanding & Communicating with Your Customers."

After the QB says "Hike"

If you are not a fan of American football, you may not be familiar with the metaphor that I am using - but football fans should have no problem following this discussion.

Our team's General Manager sends scouts to watch the opposition. They may even watch videos of the opposition's Offensive team in action.

Our team's defensive Coach has created a bunch of killer plays. For a week or two, the defensive team practices play after play geared to take advantage of all the information which has been gathered about the opposition's QB and his style.

Then comes game day and our Defense is ready for the opposition's first play.

The opposition's QB says "Hike."

But the play that the opposition runs is one that has never been seen before - and our team's defense is completely unprepared.

Many companies are caught completely off guard when the market does something unexpected. Can you dance with the market?

Jeff Cornwall wrote "The Risk of Assuming the Market wants 'A', when it Really wants 'B'."

Why I threw your Newsletter away

So anyway I opened up that newsletter which you sent me today and after looking through it for a couple of minutes, I threw it away.

Do you want to know why I threw it away? Does it matter to you that I threw it away?

Well, to be quite honest with you. It was too much puffery. What wasn't about how great you are and how great your product was - tended to all be stuff that I have heard a million times before.

If you really want me to retain the newsletters that you send me - if you really want me to spend time focusing on your message - there's one big secret to getting my attention. And here it is, listen closely now: Tel me something of substance that I can use. If the information in your newsletter is Practical and Valuable, then I will focus on what you are writing. Otherwise, we are both just wasting our time.

Ryan Allis wrote an article on five approaches to writing a newsletter which will be valued by the readers. However, I disagree with Ryan's first point. Benchmarking and Statistics are useful but only when they are objective. I don't care that much about how well your company is doing. I care about how well your company is treating me and how good my experiences have been with the product you sold me last year.

Borrow a page from the wise Politician

Politicians who stay in office for a long career learn the same lesson. Their constituency's voting patterns are not based on the strident special interest group demonstrators.

Sometimes to survive a primary, a politician will focus on pleasing special interest groups, but when it comes to the general election - the wise politician realizes that the independent vote is often the deciding factor. He also realizes that the size of a market segment is not based on the volume of the vociferous few.

As a business, to discover how to please your customer base, you need to discover how large the silent majority is and what the gripes of the silent majority are.

Seth Godin wrote "Listening to the Loud People."

Speaking Ancient Greek to the construction worker

Monday Morning and Tuesday Afternoon, I wrote about business stupidity and delusions. In this article I would like to talk about communicating with the prospect.

Can you describe the prospect to me? How old is he or she? Is he married, single or divorced? Does he/she have children? Are they young or old? What is distracting him or her from listening to you?

Does your prospect know how to speak technobabble? If you are in the financial industry, can the prospect speak like Barrons, WSJ and an HBS faculty PHD?

There are two major problems that occur when many entrepreneurs attempt to speak to their prospects. First they don't know who their prospect is and Second, they try to speak as if their prospect is an industry insider.

Oh and just to make it more complicated, their target market is not homogenous. (That's technobabble for say that there is a lot of diversity among their prospects.)

To successfully market to your prospects, you need to identify (and I don't mean Guess) the different categories of prospects you have, you need to identify (and I don't mean guess) what their lifestyles (or if you are B2B, what their company is like on the inside) and then you have to learn their language.

Mike Moran wrote a nice article entitled "Do We Really Understand Personas?"

Stay in Touch, No Really - STAY in touch

There are no short cuts to doing things right!

The internet has made so many things possible and less expensive, but many of the things that can be done less expensively should have been done even when it cost postage!

But I don't have the time, you say? You can't afford not to!!!!!

One of the things that every successful business needs is the attitude that every customer is our only client - and that means keeping the relationship alive.

Don't be like the boyfriend who never calls or sends a gift but only shows up when he wants a date!

Be like the Romeo who sweeps the girl off her feet because he never lets her forget that he cares.

Bernadette Doyle wrote "Are You Making This Marketing Mistake?"

Would you like to start an E-mail newsletter?

One of the most important facts about successful newsletter publishing is that the wants of the reader are more important than the wants of the publisher. If more than 20% of your newsletter is about something you want to say, then you are NOT going to have a successful newsletter!

Focus on providing your readers with the things that they are interested in - and they are not nearly as interested in you or your company as you seem to think that they are - TRUST ME on this one. (You'll thank me later.)

Corte Swearingen wrote Ten Ezine Startup Tips

P.S. Tape the first two sentences in Tip#1 to the monitor of the screen you use to create your newsletter and re-read it once an hour !!!!!!!!!!

With your clients: There's a time to talk and a time to be silent

When do your clients want to hear from you?

When do they really wish you would SHUT up, already?

When do they feel neglected?

When do they feel inundated by too many messages?

When do they really wish you would use a different method of communication?

If you can answer all these without guessing or "making it up" out of thin air, then you don't need to read today's recommendation.

Deborah Garry wrote: "Communication is key with your customers."

Need Website Sales?

Frequently when I look at print magazine which focus on start ups or small businesses, I am disappointed in the inadequacy of much of what is written in many magazine articles.

However, once in awhile an article will really be golden. Today's recommendation is just such an article.

From the Entrepreneur magazine website, here is Derek Gehl's "3 Secrets to a Site that Sells."

Slow and Steady Wins The Race

Many sales and marketing people could learn a lot from the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. There marketing comes across like a jack rabbit, both by trying to cram too much into each communication and by the sporadic nature of their communication.

A much more effective method of communication is audience development and nurturing.

Another metaphor for this same idea is "watering a cactus."

If you provide just a little marketing, on a consistent basis to people who have given you permission to communicate with them, you will build an audience of clients and allies who will recommend you to others.

But if you "flood" your prospects, you will kill your cactus.

Ardath Albee wrote a great article on lead nurturing.

Understanding Online Community Development

Developing alliances and community on the internet, is not the same as networking offline. There are factors to consider in order to develop a strategy which accomplishes that which you desire.

Crystal Williams provides a very nice introduction to virtual communities in "Online Communities 101."

Lower Your Google Bounce Rate

One of the smart technologies which Google now incorporates into its search engines measures how dissatisfied your website visitor is when he or she first lands on your web page. (If you are unfamiliar with this topic, see Google's Bounce Rate explanation.)

Michael Fleischner wrote an article detailing Seven Tactics for improving the amount of time that visitors spend on your web site.

Four Out Of Five is not Bad

There are many mistakes which website owners make. I have frequently done indepth evaluations of websites which have included many mistakes.

However, some mistakes are more visible and obvious to the casual visitor than others.

Corte Swearingen wrote an article entitled: "Five Prominent Website Mistakes." However, I recommend only the first four of Corte's tip.

The fifth tip is good for personal websites and for some websites which already have a well developed audience base. But it can adversely affect the load time and bandwidth of a website which is still seeking growth.

I'll Give You A Daisy A Day, Dear.

Apparently, one of the hardest tasks for most small business in house marketing is, looking at your content from the perspective of the outside world.

In order for your internet marketing efforts to be successful, you have to avoid the head on approach to promoting yourself.

Winning a prospect has some similarities to courting a sweetheart.

If you are going to win someone's heart, then you have to convince that person that he or she will benefit from dealing with you. But you also have to convince the person that you hope to win, that he or she is special. If you come off sounding to your prospects as if anyone will do, they may seek someone who will make them feel as if they are the most important people in the whole wide world.

But you also can not come across as if you will wait for your prospect forever, or your prospect may take you for granted.

Ardath Albee wrote an article about "Back Story."

Reframe it as a Narrative

Today's recommendation is unusual for this column. The author of the article is not writing for a business audience.

However, any business owner who will read this article with the attitude - "How will this information help me to connect better with my internet audience?" - will benefit greatly from reading this article.

Narrative is one of the most powerful tools in connecting to your audience and it is also rarely used effectively by small business owners.

I strongly recommend reading the Scientific American article, "The Secrets of Storytelling" by Jeremy Hsu

Don't Reason With Your Visitor

It is rare to find a "Did It In House" website that does not attempt to present logical evidence for using the company's product or service.

The right approach is to focus on the Wants, Dreams and Pains of your prospect.

If a guy wants to buy a diamond for a gal - Which do you think is foremost in his mind: Logic or Emotion?

Well, believe it or not, many purchases of services and products are based on Alleviating Pains, Fulfilling Dreams and Acquiring Wants.

Jennifer Horowitz wrote "Add Emotional Impact To Your Content."

Have You Tied Your Hands Behind Your Back?

Getting into Internet Marketing involves choices some of which are more expensive than others, but even among the expensive choices there are often low cost alternatives.

Some of the questions to ask about websites are these:
Is it scalable?
Can I edit or add pages?
Can I easily change hosting companies?
Does the website help to build a brand identity?
Am I using content disseminating technology to build traffic?
Does my content create conversions?

Dawud Miracle discussed one of the problems inherent in some low cost choices in his article, "Do You Own Your Website?"

How is a Stopwatch like crude SEO

I love this quote from today's article.

What gets measured, gets done.

And guess what, when the thing that you measure does not improve your ROI, wonders of wonders those things which get done are also not the things that improve your ROI.

Listen Up - If you measure conversions, your profits go up. If you measure only site arrivals, your profits go down.

Bill Hogg wrote "Avis And Their Three Minute Promise."

If you don't understand why Avis is making a mistake, please read the article. And if you do understand why Avis is making a mistake, then why are you just measuring SE clicks?

Avis And Their Three Minute Promise.

Quit Marketing Your Product (or Your Service)

One of the biggest mental roadblocks in dealing with small business owners is that they try to cut corners when it comes to textual content. Instead of paying a professional writer of business copy to write their marketing text, they attempt to do it in house.

Now this would not be so bad, if it were not for the fact that many of them proceed to write copy which focuses on telling how good their product is, how great their services are and what a great company they run.

This is the wrong approach to marketing.

Your task as a marketer is to provide a solution to a problem. You need to focus on identifying the client's biggest headache and then show them how you can remove that headache.

Ben Jones wrote: "Small Business Marketing: The Secret Revealed!"

P.S. Ben also recommends another article on this topic as well.

Creating category tags for your Clients

In the internet world, keywords and tagging is used as ways of searching by categorization.

When it comes to your clients, not all of them have the same relationship with your business. At least that is the point that Corte Swearingen expounds upon in "Marketing To Your Customer Types."

Why Are You Trying To Be an "Ugly Duckling?"

Another title for this post could have been: "No One can hear you WHERE everyone is yelling."

Too many marketing efforts fail because a Small Business Owner or an Independent Agent thinks that they have to market in the same way and in the same venues in which everyone else is marketing.

Nothing Could Be Farther From The Truth.

Several Years ago, on a different blog, I wrote an article entitled "The BratWurst Rule of Marketing." (Google returns over 37 Thousand page results for a query using the three words Bratwurst Rule Marketing as the search query. The first entry, in August 2008, is my article from 2005.)

The best thing that a Small Business person can do is find a marketing venue that is profitable and that is not being fully exploited and market there. For example, Real Estate Agents are really dropping the ball when it comes to Web Feed marketing and Internet Alliance marketing.

But trying to talk the average Small Business person into embracing the fact that he is a SWAN and not a Duck - is like trying to convince a flat earther that Copernicus was wrong and Galileo was right.

Mike Moran wrote an article entitled "Why Web Marketing Favors Small Business."

How to start a Business Newsletter

This posting is not going to contain a whole-hearted endorsement of an article. However, the article which I am going to recommend that you read, does contain many good ideas.

I will provide a link to the article at the bottom of this posting, but the article is "Starting An Ezine" by Corte Swearingen. Tips 2 and 3 are very good. The other three are good, but ....

Regarding Tip #1: If you do not plan to publish your ezine as a downloadable or as an e-mail attachment, then I agree with Corte's tip #1. However, if your audience agrees to receive your newsletter as an attachment, then a PDF is greatly superior to HTML e-mails.

Regarding Tip #4: Let your audience community "drive" your content. Too many business newsletters focus on "telling" the audience some viewpoint or philosophy which the business wants to promote, instead of focusing on what your audience wants to hear.

Regarding Tip #5: PREselling is like salt in a cooking recipe. Too much salt will ruin a recipe, too little salt makes some foods taste bland. I strongly recommend that you keep your PREselling content to less than 20% and that you treat it as delicately as great copywriters treat the inserting of keywords into copy. In other words, keep it to a minimum.

Corte Swearingen wrote: "Starting An Ezine."

Why you need to understand heterogeneity

Your average client is
A certain age
A certain education level
A certain income level
A certain marital status

So is that sufficient information to really know your optimal audience?

No, it is not.

There is still the matter of heterogeneity.

Wendy MacQueen wrote "Know Your Customer - It’s Not Just About Demographics Anymore"

By The Way - she does not use the word "heterogeneity" but she does discuss it.

And You're Telling Me this because ... ?

About four weeks ago, I wrote about the need for a business to have a purpose for existing.

In this posting, I would like to focus on content's need to have a mission.

Your website's visitor is not Sergeant Friday and presumably you have something which you hope to accomplish by having a web site.

So the textual content (the copy) of your website needs to further the mission which you are hoping to accomplish.

But some website copy seems to be self-destructive when it comes to accomplishing the apparent purpose of the website.

Ardath Albee wrote "Content Without A Goal Is Unemployed."

Improving The Effectiveness of your Homepage

What happens when someone sees your website address on your business card?

Well, let's hope for the sake of discussion that they visit your website's home page.

Now what happens?

Well that depends on how effective your website's home page is.

Edward Chan shows five ways to improve the effectiveness of your website's homepage in "Does Your Homepage Engage Visitors?"

Does the textual content of your website swing?

Some websites are written as if they were corporate reports.

Well, as Duke Ellington said, "It Don't Mean A Thing, If It Ain't Got That Swing."

Sonia Simone wrote "The Duke Ellington Guide To Copy That Swings."

Web Copy That Sells

What is the difference between an effective marketing website and an ineffective one?

Content.

Content that Persuades versus content that just sits there and Bores the visitor to Sleep.

Clayton Makepeace tells us the "Seven Characteristics of Great Sales Copy."

Make It Easy on Your Visitor

If your website could benefit your business in one way and one way only, what would you want it to be?

To create frustration in your Visitors.

No?

Then why is your website so fancy and so cool but absolutely a labyrinth for the visitor to use?

Angie McKaig wrote: "Why Your Website needs to be Simplified."

Real and Yet Professional

One of the ways in which Internet Publishing differs from writing white papers is that successful blogging usually requires that the authors personality can be seen in what is written, while in writing white papers there is a need for more objectivity.

However, sometimes an internet writer lets his hair down too much. The article resembles a stereotypical photo from the 1970s. (I graduated from High School in the 70s, so I am allowed.)

How does an Internet writer show his audience his or her real self while also maintaining a degree of professionalism necessary to developing a good brand?

Chris Brogan wrote "If You Intend to Blog Seriously."

Boiling Marketing Down to Five Ingredients

Do you ever wish that an Author, would just "bottom-line" his thesis?

Seth Godin explains what marketing is - in "Five Easy Pieces."

(And he does not include, Price, Place and Promotion.)

If you Want Commitment, Then You Have To Give Commitment

Many companies have what are called "loyalty programs." But what they tend to be is bribery and commoditization programs. If you really want your clients to be loyal to you, you might want to start by first being loyal to them.

If you want love, you got to give love. If you want good branding, then you better give customer service and satisfaction bountifully. If I am your customer, I don't want your discounts and your rebates - I want to know that I can trust you and that when I have a complaint that I will have my problem resolved as if I were your absolute best friend.

If I have a choice and the service is available from all three, and my choices are Comcast, at&t, and Earthlink. All things being otherwise relatively equal, I am going to go with Earthlink. Why?

Because even though Earthlink does not offer me six months at half price or a hundred dollar rebate, Earthlink has always (at least as far as my memory remembers) made me happy when I had a problem. And if it can be resolved, they resolve the problem with very little hassle.

I can not say the same thing about Comcast and at&t.

Steve Yastrow wrote an article (on Walt Goshert's blog) entitled "Turning Customer Loyalty Upside Down."

Successful Lead Conversion

What is the most effective way to get your traffic to give you their contact information and their permission to allow you to send them marketing materials?

Giving them something for Nothing!

But not just anything. It has to be Desirable, Valuable and Irresistable.

But first you have to figure out what they want. They don't care about what you want to say. They care about their own desires.

Ivana Taylor sets down a Four Step Process for learning what premium gifts will be successful in inducing your audience to co-operate with your marketing program.

HIgh Ranking Persuasion

The purpose of web copy is to persuade humans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ranking is not the purpose, ranking is a tactic. Copy which makes ranking the main priority is self-defeating.

But there is a way to do SEO correctly. But it takes a writer who can write persuasive copy. Many SEO people couldn't persuade a child to eat candy!

Karon Thackston wrote an excellent article showing the difference between good web copy and SEO garbage. It is entitled "Stop the Slaughter of Innocent Copy."

You're Website is Up To Bat. Did it Get A Hit?

SEO thinks that the goal of SEM is getting a click.

It isn't. The Goal of SEM is satisfying the Visitor when he first arrives.

When a Search Engine user clicks a link on the Search Engine page for your webpage, its time for your website to step up to the plate. Will the batter, your website get a hit? Will it be a base hit or a triple or a home run? Or will your website STRIKE OUT?

If the visitor from the search engine looks at the link's landing page on your site and decides that this is NOT what he was looking for, then your website, STRUCK OUT! If the visitor decides to click on a link, that is a base hit.

What makes the difference between a STRIKE OUT and a Base Hit?

Content!!!!!!!

Copy which is Keyword loaded is probably going to STRIKE OUT! Copy which is focused on persuading the user may get a hit.

Maki wrote an article on how to reduce the number of visitors who leave your landing page without looking at any other content.

Developing a successful Local website

Business Owners whose market is geographically limited often think that only SEO can get them the exposure in local search that is necessary to be found. However, just as with any other website ranking in Search Engines is not limited to the artificial sounding copy which many SEO firms produce.

(In an upcoming post on this website, I will present an article from a copy writer whose use of keywords is so deft and subtle that it does not interfere with the reader. I once had to read a paragraph twice that she had written to find the second occurrence of the key phrase that she was embedding!)

John Jantsch wrote an article in which he shows a real life case study of a company whose Search Engine ranking was achieved by concentrating on Content, Links and HTML coding.

Quit Trying To Dazzle and Start Selling

Wow! That was brilliant!

Place an Order?

We'll get back to you on that, we want to consider our options.

Have you ever gone to a website and had to wait until the most fantastic and gorgeous multimedia presentation that you have ever seen L - o - a - d - e - d and then spent 1 to 2 minutes running before finally showing you the website?

Recently I tried to read an article and was shown an advertisement which was supposed to go away in ten seconds, it had a countdown feature, but when the countdown reached 3 seconds it resetted itself and started over, the first time it happened, I ignored it but when it happened again I started thinking about it. It took a few seconds but quickly dawned on me that the site assumed that all of its visitors would have their cookie settings set to "accept all." That is just as stupid as the company that places downloadables on its site in a format which is not "universal."

(Universal refers to formats such as HTML, PDF, JPEG, SWF, etc which are accessible on Windows, Mac OS Classic, Mac OS X and Unix/Linux without purchasing a proprietary application.)

Many small business website owners get talked into using audio, video, or flash as a means of impressing their visitors. Do not misunderstand, I am not talking about using audio samples to sell music or recorded materials, nor am I talking about using video to build a social media community, nor am I talking about using flash in a widget or to present a 300 by 100 sidebar graphic. I am talking about full-screen splash intros on a investment advisors website and background music on a mortgage brokers website. The use of "stuff" which does not actually SELL your service or product but is only for the purpose of Impressing or Dazzling or Entertaining is a marketing mistake.

Do you think I am wrong?

Don't take my word for it. Read what Clayton Makepiece wrote about worthless movie-style TV ads in the Major Corporation market.

A different form of integrity

When it comes to Character development, one of the most important keys to developing personal integrity is learning how to be consistent.

Well .....

When it comes to Brand Development one of the most important keys to developing marketing recognition is .... (drum roll, please) ..... learning to be consistent!

Ed Roach wrote "5 Tips to Branding A Powerful Presence." One Guess as to the prime directive.

SEM Expert Argues Against SEO Control

Anyone who hangs around me long enough, learns that I don't put much stock in traditional SEO. Ironically, when people first hear that my internet focus is on helping Businesses 1. Acquire Traffic; 2.Convert to Leads; 3. Repeat Visits; 4. Build Alliances and Community; - they ASSUME that I do SEO.

I don't do SEO. Now don't misunderstand. I am not saying that there is no place for a moderate amount of SEO when initially setting up a site (and maybe once a year) but SEO is not nearly as important to the effectiveness of your business website as many people think that it is.

Mike Moran specializes in (and is a recognized expert) Search Engine Marketing. He recently wrote an article about people who obsess over trying to control their rankings. He argues that a company needs to avoid seeking to control the Search Engine ranking and focus on PLEASING THEIR INTERNET AUDIENCE.

Exactly! Well said.

Here are links to my previous recommendation editorials which stress Content over SEO. Tactics Killed The Goose; Site Design is more important than Ranking; What Are You Doing Here? Additionally if you read through my Rainmakerwebsites.com website you will find me arguing against focusing your attention primarily on SEO.

Three Marketing Strategies

What is more effective than improving Quality or Lowering Price? If you are seeking to affect your client, should your client be affecting you? How do you get past the prospect's skepticism?

These questions are answered by an article by Corte Swearingen.

Feelings - Emotional Perceptions

Reality and Facts - Bah! Humbug!

Your website visitors are not from the planet Vulcan, so why does your content read like a dictionary or a thesis paper?

Content is more important to marketing than SEO or Ranking. Content makes the difference between a 10 second visit and a 10 minute conversion.

So how do you get the visitor to stick around?

Feelings, nothing more than Feelings.

If your content appeals to the emotions of the visitor and creates the illusion that you are the answer to their hopes and dreams, they will stick around. (I am not suggesting that you be dishonest, because credibility is a major factor in marketing longevity.)

Sonia Simone wrote an article (on June 13th) about thirteen emotional marketing ploys.

Most Business Websites Are "Worthless"

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that having a business website is the same as marketing on the internet. They are not the same. Some websites are the equivalent of an encyclopaedia article about the business, while others are noting but glorified business cards. Ron McDaniel wrote about the difference between Internet Marketing and having a website.

Playing Nice

Community and Alliances are key to long term internet marketing.

But you need to know how to build community and what to do to avoid destroying your relationship with your community.

Jason Drohn offers advice on how to be successful in Social Media marketing. (For the record, Point 5 in his tips should always trump point 9 whenever a question arises over suitability of a new venue.)

How You Say It

Different Media and Different Audiences call for a different style of communication.

The above rule is very difficult for some business owners to grasp. If you have ever seen a Presentation chart crammed with as much info as could be written on a letter size sheet of paper, you know that it is ineffective.

McDonalds usually runs several different campaigns for one new menu item, because they know that what motivates a mother of three does not motivate a teenager.

Susan Getgood wrote an article on the need to know the difference between a Press/News release and an announcement to your userbase.

Clients Decide Your Optimal Price Point

How much should I charge for my services? This is a common question with startups.

The real answer is based on how much your prospects think that your service or product is worth. Therefore, a better question is: "How can I increase the perceived value of my product or service?"

Ryan Allis wrote two articles to answer that question. (First Article, Second Article).

Marketing Advice from Google Guy

When a Google sales executive offers advice on marketing, the smart entrepreneur pays attention.

Chris Brown reports on ten marketing points made at a recent American Marketing association convention by Google guy, Ted Souder. Read It.