Webidiotz Blog

Webidiotz continuing its campaign for Wildlife Control Supplies

2010-01-27T08:49:00.001-06:00

Wildlife Control Supplies joins Manitoba 1000 – our community website for both businesses and consumers across Manitoba. Manitoba1000 is a great portal offering its clients the place to groom their business. Wildlife Control Supplies is excited to join Manitoba 1000 and looking forward to take their business to new heights. You can check their blog, pictures, videos and latest offers here. Manitoba 1000 is the only local community website that you can decorate as you want.

But before selling anything to customers, any website needs to be professionally designed to give users an ultimate surfing experience. Here comes the role of Webidiotz.com. Webidiotz we will handle every aspect of online marketing for Wildlife Control Supplies. We will cover various aspects of marketing for WCS including online supports, un-parallel SEO tactics, Social Media Optimization tactics and interactive ecommerce website.

With its SMO tactics and interactive ecommerce website, Webidiotz ensures to give WCS a new opportunity to advance on their business.

Webidiotz Welcomes JBA Consulting & Life Coaching Centre

2010-01-27T08:36:00.003-06:00

Hi All,

Today we are excited to announce our new business member JBA Consulting & Life Coaching Centre who has joined Manitoba1000. JBA Consulting & Life Coaching Centre has recently joined Manitoba 1000 and Webidiotz are looking forward to working with JBA Consulting by designing a brand new and innovative website. Operating since 1997 in Winnipeg, MB, JBA Consulting provides Interpersonal Wellness Solutions to their clients. For more information on JBA Consulting & Life Coaching Centre, click here.

JBA partnered Webidiotz in order to increase their internet presence through various SEO and SMO strategies. We will start by building a solid foundation which means a website which will cover all aspects of multi media. From there we will actively market traffic into the website as a means to compete in the very competitive industry of life coaching and management training.

Slic Chics Joins Manitoba1000

2009-10-10T03:05:00.000-05:00

Webidiotz are proud to announce another Winnipeg business has joined Manitoba1000. We all love our business but how many have a large tattoo on their back of their business logo. Yes, Debra’s back is adorned with her business logo as a fantastic tattoo. The tattoo is real and so is Debra’s eagerness to make sure her business takes advantage of the Internet.

With the launch of her online store days away. Slic Chics has the exciting Vintage Bling Fashion Show Friday, September 25, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. Slic Chics is utilizing the Fashion Show to feature the launch of their new ecommerce website! That’s right – Slic Chics direct to your door! Not only that but as a member of Manitoba1000 – you will be able to join Slic Chics on facebook, twitter, myspace, subscribe to their e-newsletters and read blogs about the latest consignment fashion finds available online!

As a member of our exclusive club – Manitoba1000 – Slic Chics is provided with a service that is simply unbeatable – an unmatched value offering guaranteed results.

MANITOBA1000 Provides:

* A Custom Built, Professionally Designed, Web Portal For Your Company.
* Personal Website Support, Assisting You With Your Every Online Need.
* Unmatched Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
* Our Personal Guarantee That Your Business Will Grow.
* Built in SMO optimization and widgets.
* 120 Blog posts per year.
* An expert project manager attending monthly meetings to agree sales goals and objectives.
* Create a video to promote your business on video platforms like YouTube and My Space.
* Virtual Store in www.manitoba1000.com.
* Monthly e-news designed and sent to your clients.
* Access the largest email database in Manitoba to create sales or brand messages.
* Unlimited business email accounts hosted and support provided.
* Host your email and website.
* A marketing campaign message delivered to 90% of Manitoban’s through Radio, BillBoards and TV.

Listen out for our radio spots on CJOB and PowerFM and if you want to grow your sales then don’t miss out – Manitoba1000 is exclusive and places are going quickly!

Neil Patel – Webidiotz – Winnipeg

Neil Patel was WOW!

2009-10-10T03:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Webidiotz,

When we first decided that we weren’t happy with our website the management team here at Narrows West Lodge did extensive research to find that flavor, feel and overall warmth that a Wilderness lodge web page should resonate. We spoke with many companies and then we called Webidiotz of Winnipeg.

My first impression after speaking with Neil Patel was WOW this guy knows his business his confidence and professionalism sold me this was the company that Narrows West Lodge wanted to deal with.

The process began I can’t tell you how many phone calls and emails I had with Nina I’m sure I drove her insane but she always came through and impressed me every time. Without ever been to our establishment she put together everything I expected and a lot more her sense of knowing what fit was incredible. We are still touching the site up here and there but in the end I know it will be perfect and exactly as we here at the lodge and our customers all expected.

Thank you very much to all at Webidiotz and I know that any project in the future that involves the internet/web marketing Neil Patel and Nina Patel Of Webidiotz Winnipeg my first call.

Lee Poworoznik

Neil Patel tells us Manitoba 1000 keeps growing!

2009-10-10T03:01:00.000-05:00

I would like to welcome Sirius Technologies, The Medical Batteries Corporation and Absolute AutoGuard Inc to Manitoba1000. It is our job to increase sales through the Internet. Chris and Bernie have established businesses that are successful and both see the Internet as a marketing platform in order to continue growing and to secure their market position in the future. Manitoba1000 will position them on the first page of search engines for all chosen keywords. We will optimize their business and make sure that 362,000 Manitobans who are registered users on Facebook will see their business. (340,000 are from Winnipeg – that’s half the population.) In addition, we will create 360 blogs, send out monthly e-newsletters, manage abd create three new online stores, create videos and much more………… We are going to create ecommerce websites for all three businesses – the goal is simple – to increase sales. By joining Manitoba1000 they now have a team of Internet marketing experts to deliver sales objectives – a dedicated online marketing department. We will be creating a tailored marketing plan to ensure their online presence is highly visible on the Internet .

‘Search engines not responsible for content published on third-party sites.’

2009-07-30T00:11:00.000-05:00

Google is not liable for any purported defamation in its search results, the high court in London has just ruled, according to a news report by leading UK publication The Guardian. The Internet giant has won a landmark high court libel that makes crucial observations regarding forum comment in search results.

It is not liable for any comments appearing in news articles, forums and blogs displayed in its search results, a high court judge concluded in a significant ruling for UK defamation law. London’s Metropolitan International Schools (MIS) had brought the case against Google's UK and US operations. It launched legal action over comments, which appeared in Google search results through a website forum.

The company claimed Google as a publisher was liable. The latter responded it had no responsibility for of defamatory comments. Mr Justice Eady ruled in the high court that Google was not a 'publisher' of the content, but merely a 'facilitator'.

"When a snippet is thrown up on one's screen in response to a search, it points one in the direction of an entry on the web that corresponds - to a greater or lesser extent - to the search terms one has typed in," the judge said. "It's for him or (her) to access or not, as he (or she) chooses. And [Google] has merely, played the role of a facilitator, by the provision of its search service."

However, the judge did state that it has a responsibility of blocking or taking down content if it’s notified with a legitimate complaint about any libelous material. A lawyer at Pinsent Masons, Struan Robertson, remarked that this was probably the first judicial analysis of a search engine's liability for defamation under UK law. "It is a brilliant result for Google as well as other search engines," Robertson added.

"We're pleased with this result. It reinforces the principle that search engines are not responsible for content published on third-party websites," stated a spokesperson for Google.

An online business directory with ‘how to’ videos

2009-07-29T00:07:00.000-05:00

Yell.com, the leading online business directory, has just inked a deal with Videojug. The arrangement is for providing tens of thousands of 'how to' guide videos. It is in the process of setting up a vast network of over 100 blogs with an idea of turning the ubiquitous Yellow Pages service into a multimedia content venture.

The leading directory site's deal with the creator of close to 50,000 'Ask the Experts' and 'how to' video clips is an important development. This will now provide online films, which suitably match the various business services for which users are searching online.

Yell.com was re-launched in April and is undergoing what the firm terms the major 'root & branch' overhaul of its strong Web presence. It has already announced its decision to stop competing for advertising with Google and had opted to sign up as an 'authorized re-seller' for its AdWords.

Yell.com is now seeking to build a blogging network to offer information and advice on crucial business areas. The service launch along with blogs will include popular topics comprising home security, plumbing and heating, hair and beauty, motoring and car maintenance. A special team will build and manage the first wave of new Yell.com blogs.

The aim is to ultimately form a network of over 100 bloggers who will ‘inform as well as inspire consumers’ with effective ideas and advice covering not less than 1,400 business classifications that Yell.com currently offers. It claims to have 217,000 advertisers on its online directory.

Yell.com's head of content, Nick Haworth, said, "The PC has become a TV. Video has a key place in our future through the huge opportunities it has for us to enhance users' experiences on the website."

Record Web traffic surge after reporting the King of Pop's death

2009-07-28T00:04:00.003-05:00

Breaking the news of star singer Michael Jackson's sudden death resulted in a huge surge in traffic to TMZ.com. The number of people visiting the celebrity gossip site went up by almost a quarter.

TMZ.com was the first site that broke the heartbreaking news. Late last month it was the first to report that the King of Pop has suffered heart attack and reported his death. The BREAKING NEWS saw a 24 percent increase to 11.7 million unique users.

The figures, released by comScore Media Metrix, mark a record for the popular Hollywood gossip site. It also witnessed an impressive 10% month-on-month rise in page views to 279m.

The news report read: "We have just learned that Michael Jackson has died. He suffered a cardiac arrest at his Holmby Hills home earlier this afternoon. Paramedics were unable to revive him. We are told Jackson had no pulse when paramedics arrived and they never got a pulse back.

"A source informs us that he was dead when they arrived. The hospital staff tried to resuscitate him. But he was completely unresponsive. A hospital source told us there was ‘absolute chaos.' 'You've got to save him! You've got to save him!" people with the singer were screaming."

TMZ.com is a joint venture between Telepictures Productions and AOL. The website has been founded by the managing, editor Harvey Levin. TMZ regularly comes up with exclusive stories in the world of entertainment like DUI arrest of celebrity Mel Gibson and the subsequent encounter he had with law enforcement.

Its mobile site as well as iPhone application also registered new record traffic numbers with well over 11m page views by users on the day of Michael Jackson's death, as his shocked fans frantically searched for updates on unfolding events.

What does the future hold for digital marketing campaigns?

2009-07-26T02:10:00.000-05:00

Though Internet will garner larger chunk of the advertising budgets in the coming years, the scenario remains challenging. The fact remains that some high-flying Internet business ventures such as MySpace, which is owned by News Corp., have been affected to a great extent by the global recession.

With overall advertising spend in decline, and showing no signs of early revival, the leading social networking service has recently announced a 30 percent staff cut. Many other top Web 2.0 businesses, like the Google owned, YouTube, are also trying to work out how to 'monetize' the huge traffic that they generate.

Digital marketing campaigns tend be far more labor-intensive to develop (if not to visualize) than ads placed in traditional media, experts suggest. What this means is obviously higher fees.

Innovative advertisers or at least those who can still manage to spend - have also seen some benefits in the confluence of the current cyclical economic downturn. They have tackled it with a subtle structural shift toward free advertising avenues on the Internet.

New technology will only bolster the advertising abilities of traditional media such as TV, backers say. However, none of these things are expected to exist in isolation in the future. Advertising executives have indeed been referring to ‘integration’ of their campaigns for last few years, albeit with mixed results. Now the challenging economic conditions are forcing them to do so.

The Publicis Worldwide’s chief operating officer, Richard Pinder, said in an in interview. "We are going back to the original meaning of the term advertising. It’s spreading brand awareness and making people interested to know more about it."

Advertising gradually gravitates to Web 2.0

2009-07-25T02:09:00.000-05:00

Newspaper ads and television commercials, as it has been established, are now a shrinking and less prominent area of the overall marketing strategy. What takes place elsewhere, to be specific mostly on the Web, is what matters more to advertisers.

It is not that advertisers have suddenly woken up to the potential of the Internet. They have been gradually shifting increasing portions of their tight budgets online for last few years. The growing popularity of social networking and other innovative Web 2.0 phenomena has only hastened the process of transition.

Their increasing dominance is actually helping the advertisers use the reach and power of tech-savvy users to spread the word. Smart customers are inadvertently doing the job for them, and at a much lower cost. This is allowing them to bring down the attention and thrust on paid advertising.

While more movie studios publishers and music companies, among others, are clearly trying to figure out the various ways to get potential consumers to pay for their content hosted online, advertising is apparently shifting in the other direction. It is not surprising at all that forecasts from PriceWaterhouse- Coopers are not exactly encouraging for newspapers and television media.

The research firm expects that both the print and TV media will suffer from ad spending declines in the range of 11 percent to 16 percent this year. Though even Internet advertising is expected to fall a bit, by about 2 percent, the fall is not so pronounced. Also, it continues to be seen as the future of advertising, the report points out.

Tips for minimizing network and data security threats

2009-07-24T07:36:00.000-05:00

Small businesses these days must contend with the same potent Internet security threats as most other larger firms do. The threats have become more pronounced in recent years. On the other hand, they have become even more discreet.

If you are running a smaller business and budget is tight, you can develop your own security policy, but that can expose your business to some risks. Of course, as your business starts growing in size, you are better off leaving security of network and data in the hands of experts.

It involves considerable effort and discipline when it comes to changing passwords on a regular basis, performing periodic backups, and checking for software updates. The inputs and intervention of independent security organizations can help minimize the risk.

There are how-to guides on offer that can provide you with clues. For instance, the Internet Security Alliance has its ‘Guide to Cyber Security’ specifically aimed at small businesses. It is available to registered users as a free download. You can check some of its material in the SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security (SANS) Institute's ‘Network Security & the SMB’ essay.

The checklists with instructions probably worth repeating are as follows:

• Protect user accounts with peculiar and uncommon passwords
• Change the passwords on a regular basis.
• Scrutinize carefully all e-mail attachments and other links.
• Install and update antivirus antispyware software on a regular basis.
• Keep all your operating system as well as applications, current and patched.
• Set up and make use of a firewall.

URL shrinking services extremely handy for social networking

2009-07-23T08:07:00.000-05:00

Social networking is resulting in the number of services, which help users convert long URLs into small Web links. URL shrinking services are useful on sites like Twitter, limiting tweets to 140 characters.

There are several URL shortening services that are available today. However, few online communities have made it easier for people to tell where the shortened links will take them. Also, the lack of a standardized or built-in approach to URL shortening services - within individual social networking websites - only adds to the complexity.

For instance, many Twitter users opt to shorten long Web links with bit.ly, but some Twitter users are also likely to see Tweets with links shortened by the services at tr.im and ow.ly. While bit.ly offers a Firefox add-on, which lets users of that browser view a portion of the longer URL at least, there is no other easy way of viewing the long version of links at either tr.im or ow.ly.

Many URL shortening services allow their own users to preview shortened links, whereas a few others don't offer that option. There are several websites you can use to view a long URL just by cutting and pasting a shortened link like longurl.org.
TinyURL is among the longest-running services for URL shortening.

It lets users preview all shortened URLs. For those browsing the Web with Firefox, an add-on called Long URL Please is recommended. It also works in other browsers like Internet Explorer. Expandmyurl.com is another approach, which works well across browsers.

What does hold key to website traffic generation?

2009-07-22T07:36:00.000-05:00

User base created and sustained through a search engine thrust is the core of your site traffic. Studies have shown that popular search engines like Yahoo and Google provide as good as most other techniques of web advertising and cost effective as well…

You can attract sizable traffic through SEO. There are several ways in which your website can be made search engine friendly and enhance its capacity to generate traffic by means of the free advertising a top listing in leading search engines can provide you with. You need to get your web pages optimized.

High position for your domain specific keywords on the search engines greatly helps. There was a time when website owners were advised to stick to keyword density (kd) between 1% and 3%. What it means is that the keyword your web page is structured around should feature at least one to three times prominently in every hundred words. It may not sound a lot.

However, if you have a Web page with roughly thousand words, it would have about 30 incidences of the keyword. This is not a wise idea as Google might even penalize your site by giving it a very poor listing. You can now replace keywords with terms, which make the topic clear by employing statistical analysis of the content on your Web page.

Last but not the least, establish a blog. It is one of the top traffic generation methods.

A new computational knowledge search engine comes with unconventional capabilities

2009-07-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

At its simplest, the new Wolfram Alpha function like a calculator, albeit one that understands things such as quantum mechanics.

Do you wish to know what size shoe to purchase in Japan, to exactly match your British size 11s? Google will help you find conversion tables but Wolfram Alpha will do the job for you. It is probably most handy as a 'homework engine' focused on science, mathematics and engineering, rather than the arts and humanities topics.

The shoe size conversion is just one of the dozens of example queries, which it provides. It is excellent at comparing different stock prices. It can also convert some currencies. Studying such examples will save you considerable time in the long run, because the more accurate your question, the more likely you’re to get a relevant answer.

Wolfram Alpha looks to occupy a space somewhere between Wikipedia and Google. The site's slogan states it's a ‘computational knowledge engine’. The search box carries an 'equals' sign at the end. Its concept originates from Mathematica software by Stephen Wolfram that has been around for over two decades. It's a computational tool, which enables you to manipulate, analyze and visualize data: its wide capabilities range from creating real-time 3D graphics to solving equations.

Wolfram Research has added data from fields like geography, sociology, finance, music, medicine, education and sport. Currently, it's short of material in several areas. This is largely because it doesn't search. It only employs data tested and uploaded by its own engineers.

Wolfram states that when computing began, 50 years ago, people felt they ‘would be able to ask a machine any factual question, and let it compute the answer. It didn't really work out that way’. It's now becoming possible, he asserts, thanks to the loads of data on the web, and Wolfram Research's Mathematica plus NKS (A New Kind of Science).

Web 2.0 traffic generation and other modes of building a user base

2009-07-20T07:32:00.000-05:00

One proven way of ensuring web traffic generation is article marketing. It will bring targeted traffic to your website. Consult experts who will implement the proper plan for sustained and focused traffic generation.

Another assured method is search engine optimization (SEO). Quality, affordable services play an important role in securing the site traffic. In order to make your online business venture successful, you need expert help to attain the specific type of audience base.

Web 2.0 traffic generation takes optimum advantage of popular social networking sites. This helps spread the word subtly about your products or services. The strategy needs expert inputs understandably because resources available in house do have their limitations. Obviously they can take up a considerable amount of money, time and obviously to build an effective strategy.

Social media is very much in spotlight and there are contrasting opinions on its effectiveness. To check how useful an AdSense placement is you can open your AdSense journal, analyze the statistics and know exactly how much they have benefitted you. The point is that effectiveness of social media just cannot be judged in this fashion.

Though their impact in terms of online visibility is pronounced, it can be tedious as well as demanding to spend hours on popular social networks such as Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, etc in an effort to build a credible and sustained presence in order to attract people to your website. So you need outside help since it is not an easy task to do in house.

Evaluating the various components of new digital marketing programs

2009-07-19T07:23:00.003-05:00

In a recent survey almost three fourth of respondents said they have included at least one new media/ social media resource in their marketing program. However, they also seemed a bit apprehensive about the ability of these campaigns to deliver.

For example, when asked specifically which component of their current digital marketing programs is not giving the tangible performance and delivering desired results, a large majority of them named social networking, which was followed by mobile advertising.

So what are perceived to be the most effective components of a digital marketing program? Asked to judge the various ingredients of their new media plan, 11 percent named social networking as the best performing component, with around 33 percent referring to search. On the other hand, 23 percent indicated email. Just about 14 percent responded digital advertising.

Just like new media/ social media platforms, the mobile phone is gradually emerging as a powerful and integral component of campaigns. Today’s tech-savvy marketers are relying on it to spread the word around. That being said, when asked regarding a digital channel they can best track in real-time, not many of them answered mobile.

It can be inferred that mobile as a component of the digital marketing programs is still not delivering the desired results, but it’s just a matter of time. Social media and mobile does present a huge opportunity to budding businesses but they need to employ it with thought and a great deal of planning.

Use sophisticated software to secure your website and customer data

2009-07-18T10:35:00.000-05:00

Today probably more than ever, enhanced network security has become vital to your business online irrespective of is size and domain. Previously, you had a hacker or virus that would crash your computers to worry about. Now you may not even come to know that your network has been invaded until real damage has already been done. For example, your ‘virtual’ pool of data may get lost or seized.

You, and/or your customers online can be victims of identity theft; or your systems may be used for distributing spam or malware. Smart cybercriminals are equipped nowadays with sophisticated software, which easily ‘automates’ the job of tracing vulnerabilities and weak spots in your e-commerce structure. This poses threat not only to large enterprises but also small-scale business entities whose websites can prove to be a soft target.

Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs fail to initiate good security steps. They think it is an expensive and complicated task. However, security measures these days are not as difficult to implement as they used to be previously. Cutting-edge technologies are widely available to protect precious data.

For example, a sophisticated security router can guard it from prying eyes. It can ward off malware, manage spam. It can empower your employees to function remotely and securely.

All these advanced features are now packed in routers at costs most organizations should easily be able to afford. Consumer routers provide some of these necessary protections, you need not spend a lot of money even for business-class alternatives. These routers offer more-robust defenses.

A new avenue for talented artists and artisans to showcase work

2009-07-16T05:56:00.003-05:00

It is something Beyond the Ordinary, Beyond Borders and simply Beyond your Expectations. Literally, that’s the case at the buzzing Beyond Show & Sale. It is a juried show beyond the expected.

Beyond the Ordinary leads to a dazzling discovery of Handmade Art and Crafts, whereas Beyond Borders is a pure celebration of diversity. On the other hand, Beyond your Expectations offers an ultimate experience between the Artisan and Shopper.

It is a vibrant venue for you the artist or artisan to market your work to the world. Patti and Carol has conceptualized and set up this amazing Artisan Marketplace. Their idea is to bring a new, inclusive, juried collection to the Calgary art and crafts enthusiast. It offers an exciting venue for talented artists and artisans to showcase their wonderful work.

Ensuring an enhanced experience and interaction between the artisan and the eclectic shopper is their top priority. With this in mind, they are keen on providing the best exhibition facilities that can be enjoyed over a relaxed open market ambience with an open and airy layout. This fully integrated collective is committed to harness the natural talents of artists and artisans and bring it directly to the discerning buyer and enthusiast.

Beyond An Artisan Marketplace is a new, inclusive concept that showcases Canadian talent and goes beyond our borders to support artists and artisans from around the world. In other words, the priority is to showcase captivating Canadian talent, apart from offering wholehearted support to artists and artisans from across the globe.

The schedule of the Beyond Show & Sale at The Blackfoot Inn 5940 Blackfoot Trail S.E., Calgary, Alberta, are as follows: Friday, November 6 (4pm - 9pm); Saturday, November 7 (10am - 6pm); Sunday, November 8 (10am - 5pm). Situated in a convenient location in the city, BEYOND An Artisan Marketplace provides free parking as well. The venue is carpeted; there is an ATM on site and a restaurant.

The hallmark of BEYOND is high quality handmade work. Go BEYOND your creative limits. Thoroughly enjoy an artsy, light-hearted, fun-filled, contemporary and sheer sophisticated shopping experience as the discriminating Calgary shopper. If you represent global artisans, you need to verify that the work is handmade, that the artisans are offered good working conditions and fair wages.

Non-for-profit organizations (NGOs) with quality handmade work are also welcome. There will be more shows in the future, tentatively three every year. An extensive advertising citywide campaign will ensure that the show is widely publicized.

Confirm your booking by September 1st and you can make attractive savings so apply today!

Innovative Google Suggest features help users make searches faster

2009-07-14T11:25:00.000-05:00

Google Suggest saves precious time by giving valid suggestions as a user is typing out search items. And faster is better, believes the search engine giant. It has recently introduced features to help users make searches faster.

One of the changes is suggestions appearing on the results page. Previously, Google Suggest only displayed those based on original search input. Now, when one does a search from a ubiquitous results page, suggestions relating to the current results page are provided.

For example, if the previous search happened to be roller coasters, once you launch a new query the early few suggestions will still be related to roller coasters. This will help a user refine his or her search queries to find what one wants quickly.
Another noteworthy aspect is personalized suggestions.

According to Google Suggest estimates, nearly 25 percent of all signed-in searches happen to be repeats from the previous month. If one is signed in with one’s Google account and with Web History enabled, it may display some of the relevant recent searches as one keys in.

The personalized suggestions feature makes it faster and easier to repeat searches worked before. If a user needs to abort a search task abruptly, personalized suggestions help him or her continue with search tasks later.

Navigational suggestions make the task simpler. If your first few keystrokes indicate you may be looking to directly navigate to a specific website, Google Suggest will list it to take you straight there if you just click on it.

Sometimes the most relevant completion for something a user is typing is actually an ad. When it is shown, it is marked it with the clear text sign ‘Sponsored Link’ as well as a colored background, just as on the results page.

Building brand loyalty and customer commitment through social media

2009-07-13T10:00:00.001-05:00

The definition of social media is rather a vague thing. At its narrowest, it depicts one way in which marketers and publishers can effectively put their messages across to encourage strong customer connections and firm loyalty. At its broadest, it signifies a form of publishing and the exchange of ideas within a community.

Someone who successfully employs social media doesn’t merely create content. The person or the institution manages to create conversations. And these two-way conversations lead to close-knit communities.

Even bloggers who write a post, want their readers to take part in the debate by leaving some comments at the end of the post. Their participation can take the discussion in an entirely new direction and add a new perspective to the debate. This sums up the ‘social’ aspect of social media.

What it essentially means is that publishing is more about participation. Just create a group on a website such as Facebook and you won’t be required to produce all of the content – textual or visual. Other group members will upload their photographs and tell stories.

That’s indeed the real beauty and power of social media! While it may well or may not be the ultimate goal, the result of social media action can inevitably be strong connections between the users or readers who choose to participate. Once these connections are firmly established around your domain-specific business, the end result can be the sort of solid brand loyalty and customer commitment sales professionals have always been dreaming about since the advent of direct marketing.

Understanding the factors that drive social media

2009-07-12T23:18:00.000-05:00

Social media can mean all sorts of different platforms. The prime aspect that distinguishes it from other online avenues is interactivity.

The best description of social media in this context is content created solely by its audience. For example, Facebook is not a hardcore publishing company. It does not produce any content on its own. It neither creates articles or posts in house nor uploads videos or images for visitors to view and enjoy.

What it does is let its users do all of these things on its behalf. It’s like a production house telling the whole world that all creative minds are welcome to shoot their own programs and allow them to broadcast them on its networks without charging anything.

If that were to actually happen, you would still have to inform people what channel they could watch your program. You would still need to produce content other people might like to enjoy. Inevitably, those who adopted the most professional approach towards what they were doing would be the most successful. This is because they would be able to connect with their target audiences.

This also is the key feature of social media – the ability to connect with your audiences. But there is one basic difference. Active user intervention in the process of content creation instead of passive participation forms a vital element of social media.

Keeping this interactive aspect in mind, the outlay for social media advertising can be conceptualized in various innovative ways.

The Webidiotz Portland Oregon Grand Opening

2009-07-10T16:13:00.003-05:00

Nestled in the heart of the beautiful Pearl District of Portland Oregon, Webidiotz has opened its doors and is ready for business! Businesses all over Oregon are waking up to the fact that a website is no longer a “nice-to-have”, but a “need-to-have” for their business. A comprehensive, online marketing campaign that includes web site design, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), domain hosting, site hosting and all the bells and whistles that come along with it is simply a necessity in this business environment.

This year, thousands of Oregon businesses will ask themselves “What is the lowest cost way to improve my sales?” Most will turn to their marketing campaigns, and some might look at print, radio and television spots to generate revenue. Some will look at last year’s campaigns to try to determine how much they impacted their bottom line. But wouldn’t it be nice to know? That’s the beauty of Internet marketing done right – you can track your campaigns’ performance, and know what your ROI is at a very granular level.

Let’s be frank for a moment. Comprehensive Internet marketing campaigns are not being done well or even at all for many businesses. Some businesses understand the need, but don’t understand the process. Some businesses understand that %80 of people who are looking for a product or service start their search with a web search engine like Google. That’s where SEO comes in. One of the critical factors in an Internet marketing campaign is making sure you’re beautiful new website gets found by people looking for your services.

Another critical factor is making sure your site has a professional look and feel, suited to your brand and your business. The content needs to be well thought out, well organized, and contain everything a customer is looking for. Users only spend seconds on a homepage making a decision about your company.

The final critical factor is your measuring success. How does your site perform? How does it hold up against competitors? Is it easy, cost-effective to maintain and update? Is the hosting solution for the domain and site hosting good enough? At Webidiotz we provide businesses the tools needed to measure these things for themselves. Having your internet marketing company tell you that your campaign is successful without providing the tools to check for yourself is like having an investment advisor tell you you’re making money without providing income statements. At Webidiotz, we would never accept that, and neither should you. Take the tools, measure your success, and engage us to improve it.

The big hold up with many businesses getting online has been price. At Webidiotz we’ve tailored the process to give our clients award winning sites with superb marketing strategies and tools at an affordable price. Don’t believe me? Call today for a free consultation at 1-888-211-8133 and if you think our prices and work is ahead of the competition, I will come and take you out for a beer personally (assuming you’re over the legal age!)

Teg Ryan
CTO, Webidiotz

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Experts try to devise innovative ways for enhancing people's interaction with the Web

2009-07-09T01:26:00.002-05:00

There's no shortage of uses for the loads of data available online. Advertisers always look to mine the photos and status updates that you post on networking sites to better sell their wares. The problem is figuring out really how to organize and put the data in an informative way, instead of forcing users to sift through unending heaps of mind-numbing spreadsheets. When are pie charts and bar graphs enough to break down a set of numbers? Which is the best way to display cellphone call logs or something like senators' voting records?

These were some of the questions debated by researchers, corporate financial analysts and computer science professors at the annual symposium workshops of the Human-Computer Interaction La, University of Maryland. A research manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Mave Houston, stated: "We are trying to understand data and then make sense of it visually. But there is no way of evaluating how effective these visuals really are."

Linking information, devising user-friendly technology devices and coming up with various innovative ways for improving people's interaction with the Web has been part of the Lab's mission since it was founded in 1983 by Ben Shneiderman. Since then, it has been credited with generating hyperlinks - highlighted words in a document, which direct surfers to another site - even down to their peculiar light blue color.

Shneiderman also developed a tool 'treemaps' that display information as blocks of color to indicate hierarchal relationships. "It's satisfying to notice what was once considered esoteric research becoming mainstream computer science, which has revolutionized industries," Shneiderman stated. "Just think, YouTube works simply because designers made it easier to search for videos effectively. Now we’ve high schoolchildren creating videos that register 5 million views."

Evolution of the Web from a mere publishing medium to a great programming platform

2009-07-08T01:32:00.000-05:00

An insightful essay in the prestigious publication ‘The Observer’ tracks the evolution of Web technology. The tech expert John Naughton starts off, noting, “Once upon a time, web pages were mere text, written in something called HTML (Hypertext Mark-Up Language). This is a code, which uses angle brackets, quotation marks and forward slashes. When your computer sought a web page from a site, it sent back the text file; your web browser program rendered it for displaying on your screen.”

Such was the state of the technology just about 15 years ago. In 1994, a programmer working for Netscape, the first browser firm, thought of the new idea of embedding mini-programs (termed scripts) in a web page that a browser could run even as it was rendering the page. This idea by Brendan Eich would let the creator of the page incorporate all kinds of useful functionality. His scripting language was first known as Mocha and later LiveScript, but wound up being termed JavaScript.

The ability to run JavaScript was implemented in Version 2 of the Netscape browser for the first time in December 1995. It was an innovation, which transformed the Web. Virtually every web page is now loaded with JavaScript. If you are keen on checking how far this has actually gone, download and install a clever plug-in program termed NoScript for the Firefox browser.

NoScript monitors every page and then alerts you to all those scripts embedded into it. You can opt to allow or forbid your browser to run them. What this indicates is the extent to which the Web has evolved from a mere publishing medium to a great programming platform.

‘Twitter Power’ helps develop a holistic social networking strategy

2009-07-07T01:30:00.002-05:00

Over the last couple of years, many forward-thinking global companies such as Apple, Whole Foods and JetBlue have discovered the immense monetary and goodwill gains of leveraging the emerging social media phenomenon. It has helped them directly reach prospective and existing consumers, build a strong brand identity, and boost sales. Of course, this is just the beginning!

Twitter is right at top of the highly vibrant social media movement, letting members connect with each other in real time via 'tweets' (short text messages). These messages can be received either by e-mail or via the Twitter site, cell phone, or instant messenger.

Many companies worldwide have begun building specialized teams within their organizational set-up, dedicated solely for the purpose of immediately responding to tweets from aware consumers about their services, products and brand experience.

'Twitter Power - How to Dominate Your Market - One Tweet at a Time' (Hardcover, 272 pages, Publishers: Wiley List Price: $24.95), an engaging book by Joel Comm along with Anthony Robbins (foreword by) and Ken Burge, tries to project itself as a complete guide for personal as well as professional Twitter usage. The book presents a glimpse of companies that are leading the Twitter movement.

This new documentation analyzes the whole phenomenon and shows how to successfully integrate Twitter into conventional marketing strategies. The aim of the exercise is to help establish a solid base on the Twitter platform. It provides tips on increasing awareness for your services or products, and even handling negative publicity from angry consumers.

Can Bing be a game-changer in search advertising?

2009-07-06T01:29:00.000-05:00

Since Bing’s release, the debate over the quality of its search results vis-à-vis Google goes on. There are reports that the new and improved search product from Microsoft has taken over the number two spot from Yahoo Search, albeit temporarily.

Another set of data from user experience research company User Centric concludes that Bing's cosmetic changes could well bring major gains for search advertisers. The company invited a group of searchers, providing them with four specific queries so that same results on both Google and Bing could be obtained.

It was found that Bing searchers were much more likely to view the search ads placed on the right side of the page. On average, 42% of them viewed those sponsored links, whereas only 25% did on Google. The difference did not extend to ads, which showed up above the organic results. It also did not reflect in clicks, as ad click-through rates on both engines were about the same.

The sample size was rather small. User Centric study covered just about two dozen searchers. Managing director Gavin Lew stated the smaller size ensured a better qualitative analysis that backed up the findings. It needs to be noted that a novelty factor might have contributed to the users' willingness to view at the Bing ads.

Lew commented it could also be suggestive of a more ad-friendly design.
However, the inconclusive eye-tracking data and design theories cannot make up for the fact that Bing results aren't as comprehensive as Google's currently.

If Microsoft can ensure faster indexing of sites as well as greater relevance, Bing could prove to be a game-changer in terms of online search advertising. User Centric will carry the study again a few months later to establish the trend.

A more personal and social computing experience with Opera Unite

2009-07-05T01:34:00.001-05:00

It's something anyone can use! With Opera Unite, even non-technical users can choose to serve and share content and services from their own computers in the form of intuitive applications.

Opera Unite promises to enable a whole new gamut of social software on the Web - applications that benefit from presence of several users online at the same time. With Opera Unite, they can directly connect bypassing third-party server control.

A product analyst for Opera Unite, Lawrence Eng, mentions in a blog post on the site that the technology is a radical first step towards addressing what he calls the 'Internet's unfulfilled promise'. Sharing his thoughts and vision, he elaborates that it’s about our ability to connect with each other and also participate meaningfully online -without losing control of our data, on our own terms.

"It will redefine what's possible with Web applications, and we invite users to join us in moving beyond stale ideas and (self-imposed) limitations. With Opera Unite, we can start moving in a different direction leading to a more personal and social computing experience, which actually begins to deliver on the promise of the Internet bringing together people in meaningful ways," the technical expert adds.

Opera Unite offers the platform for you to come up with the applications driven by
your imagination. It offers an opportunity to creative developers and entrepreneurs to envision new ways for people to interact online, so that computing gets truly interpersonal.

Opera Unite is currently in its technical preview phase.

Could a fall in their fortune mean obscurity for MySpace and Bebo?

2009-07-04T01:24:00.001-05:00

Have MySpace and Bebo started to fall behind in the competitive world of social networking. This is the question posed by Jemima Kiss and Charles Arthur of The Guardian. The tech experts try to examine the apparent decline of 'once industry darlings' and the simultaneous rise of their rivals.

Going back into the past, the article notes Rupert Murdoch's buyout of Intermix Media and its MySpace site was arguably the moment the whole world started taking social networking seriously. This was in July 2005.The acquisition in spite of the astonishment of his old media rivals at the $580m price tag was vindicated by a deal with Google in October 2006 that guaranteed News Corp a whopping $900m in ad revenue over the next three and a half years, providing set traffic targets were met.

The Google deal will be over at the end of June 2010, and with it about half of MySpace's revenue! The search engine giant has already informed it isn't really benefiting from the deal, though Owen van Natta, MySpace's new chief executive, tried to play down the importance of the agreement, stating enhancing user experience was the priority.

The latest data from web metrics firms is not too encouraging. They all suggest that MySpace is in decline - whether it's in terms of number of page views, or time spent on the site per user. The same holds true for the British-devised Bebo, purchased by AOL in March 2008 for nearly $850m.Its numbers are also getting worse.

"For both, such a reverse could well herald a decline towards obscurity – similar to that suffered by another British social networking website, Friends Reunited bought by ITV for £120m in December 2005, recently valued at only £20m," the tech writers caution.

Some valuable inputs on corporate social networking

2009-06-29T02:49:00.002-05:00

Ambitious entrepreneurs, who want to boost their personal and professional image, cannot afford to ignore social networking. It is the best means of creating goodwill among your potential customers.

Building social capital requires a systematic approach. In order to build strong business relationships, you must understand how to handle this crucial aspect of business growth and continuity. From this perspective, you must gain a deeper knowledge of social networks, including a clear understanding of how they function.

This is necessary to be able to harness their inherent power and reach. Expert inputs can help you evolve an effective corporate social networking strategy.
Today’s tech-savvy corporations are keen to invest in social network technologies. Entrepreneurs who successfully employ networking typically look at it as a long-term commitment. They essentially perceive this as a relationship cultivation process.

The best strategy for employing social networks is not to treat them merely as a money making tool, but as a medium to build brand awareness. Here are some useful ideas to make it a meaningful exercise:

• Explore the key attributes of successful social networking sites.
• Decide which approach to take while creating your social network.
• Use social networks in your own organization for in house and customer-facing applications.

Last but not the least, consider incorporating innovative value-added features and services.

Critical design and content aspects that make your site foolproof

2009-06-22T05:09:00.000-05:00

Before launching the site after a round of thorough test run, there are still a few critical checks to be done. We list them below:
1. Are the design, structure and navigation foolproof?
2. Are all images and pages uploaded properly on the hosting server?
3. Is there an index.html (or index.htm) in each and every folder?
4. Are all the pages correctly cross-linked?
5. Are any under construction pages left behind? Leave them for the next round of your website update. The ‘under construction’ label tells only one thing to the users: the site is not professional!

The checks should preferably be made from several different destinations and computers. They should be done not in local (c:///mysite) mode but on the Internet (http://www.mysite.com).

However, the whole exercise at times can prove to be extremely time-consuming and costly. This is why you should look for services that are willing to offer web site designs with the basic features and technology needed for improved placement on search engines and internet directories. The goal of a reliable website design and development company is essentially to provide truly affordable services to small and middle size businesses.

Of course, once your site is tested and made live, the critical task is to keep it dynamic. Regular visitors of a website will know it inside out almost as much as its webmaster. If the site is not regularly updated, and fails to provide fresh content, the visitors wouldn't have a reason to come back. They would slowly lose their interest.

Another step in the evolution of Google News and Wikipedia

2009-06-21T05:07:00.000-05:00

Google News is now trying to experiment with Wikipedia links attaching them to certain stories. Essentially the idea is to give those entries the stamp of approval for online readers who are searching for more information on the article's subject.
It's up for debate as to whether that is a negative or positive thing for readers. Many who form part of the search community have been rather critical about the way that Wikipedia entries tend to often dominate the top search results. The open criticism may or may not be valid because the readers have become used to the resource and instinctively look for it.

Google's stance has been that the entries' content, carefully selected keywords and loyal repeat traffic are the ingredients that result in their high rankings. The reaction is quite similar to the response that it recently gave in the backdrop of media firms complaining about rankings.

Since Wikipedia entries are invariably crowd-sourced, and constantly changing, their nature raises the question of how accurate or precise the info they provide will be once a user clicks through. According to analysts, there is also the issue of whether users will click a Wikipedia link instead of reading the story. This will obviously mean less traffic for the original news source.

On the other hand, Nieman Journalism Lab writer Zachary Seward sees the links’ idea in a much more favorable light by arguing that it effectively serves as a small, albeit ‘potentially crucial’ step in the evolution of news presentation. This will make a single Web page thoroughly informative.

Be careful while reposing your trust in cloud computing

2009-06-20T04:55:00.002-05:00

Among the most talked about and hyped IT concepts in the recent past is cloud computing. Also termed software as a service (Saas), cloud computing is all about running software over the Internet and accessing it via a browser. A prime example of this is the salesforce.com customer management software. So is Google Docs!
Cloud computing, in a way, is the modern version of the 1960s timesharing model that diminished owing to the rise of the personal computer. The old model arose since computers were very expensive and tough to maintain. Modern computers and networks are cheaper, and relatively easier to maintain.

Cloud computing may indeed stand for the future of computing, as many believe. However, you still need to be cautious about who is looking after your data. You need to be concerned about the security aspect? IT security is more about trust. In the end, users have no choice but to trust the security of the IT service providers they access. Saas looks to move the trust boundary out a step further – you now have to trust your software service vendors as well.

You can protect a computer within your network with other security systems like firewalls and IDSs. You can construct a resilient system, which works even if those vendors may not be absolutely trustworthy. On the other hand, with any outsourcing model, including cloud computing, you have to trust the outsourcer's security, reliability, availability, and business continuity.

There are two basic types of cloud computing customers. The first pays a nominal fee for the services – and makes use of them for free in exchange for ads: for example, Gmail and Facebook. They would have no leverage with their outsourcers. The second type of customer pays a considerable amount of money for the services: to MessageLabs, salesforce.com, managed network firms, and so on. They have more leverage.

So what is the advice to these customers? Bruce Schneier, BT's chief security technology officer, notes in an article: “Be careful who you trust, be careful what you trust them with, and be careful how much you trust them. Outsourcing is the future of computing. Eventually we'll get this right, but you don't want to be a casualty along the way.”

Some valuable inputs on corporate social networking

2009-06-19T04:54:00.000-05:00

Ambitious entrepreneurs, who want to boost their personal and professional image, cannot afford to ignore social networking. It is the best means of creating goodwill among your potential customers.

Building social capital requires a systematic approach. In order to build strong business relationships, you must understand how to handle this crucial aspect of business growth and continuity. From this perspective, you must gain a deeper knowledge of social networks, including a clear understanding of how they function. This is necessary to be able to harness their inherent power and reach. Expert inputs can help you evolve an effective corporate social networking strategy.

Today’s tech-savvy corporations are keen to invest in social network technologies. Entrepreneurs who successfully employ networking typically look at it as a long-term commitment. They essentially perceive this as a relationship cultivation process. The best strategy for employing social networks is not to treat them merely as a money making tool, but as a medium to build brand awareness. Here are some useful ideas to make it a meaningful exercise

• Explore the key attributes of successful social networking sites.
• Decide which approach to take while creating your social network.
• Use social networks in your own organization for in house and customer-facing applications. Consider incorporating innovative value-added features and services.

‘Twitter-exclusive’ @DellOutlet has gained quite a significant following

2009-06-17T08:06:00.000-05:00

@DellOutlet has been one of the major success stories amongst big brands using social media. It’s a Twitter account owned by Dell, which tweets out major discounts for their computers and allied products. All of the deals available on @DellOutlet are ‘Twitter-exclusive’.

@DellOutlet has gained quite a significant following and has acted as an effective online outlet that sold a lot of computers. The progress made in terms of volumes and sales figures has been truly impressive. And @DellOutlet continues its rapid rise.

@DellOutlet was started in June 2007. The concept was initiated by Dell’s Richard Binhammer. Making a rather modest beginning, it soon started catching fancy of buyers. The idea fast spread among customers who got hooked to it.

The ‘Twitter-exclusive’ project created immense buzz, resulting retweets, and a rapid rise in followers. Enthused by the success of @DellOutlet, the company has since chosen to embrace social media on multiple accounts. As one of the top brands to successfully employ Twitter as a business platform, Dell clearly has been a trendsetter for other brand building exercises like @Zappos and @JetBlue on Twitter.
@DellOutlet is a proof of the fact that platforms like Twitter can indeed be lucrative for companies – big and small - looking to leverage the reach and power of the Internet. It’s a win-win scenario for both the companies (that can indulge in brand building and earn significant revenues) as well as the consumers (who can get a great deal online).

Android operating system will contribute to the netbook sales, feels Acer

2009-06-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

Acer plans to incorporate Android in the Aspire One. This will give Acer a significant marketing edge, whereas users will get more choice in the form of Google's mobile phone operating system on their netbooks apart from Microsoft's operating system. They may select their preferred option of operating system.

Acer feels that the Android operating system will significantly contribute to the worldwide netbook market growth. At the recent Computex trade show in Taiwan, the company stated it planned to ship most versions of its new Aspire One netbook with a version of Linux-based Android operating system, employed on mobile phones like the G-1. Shipping both Android and Windows on a majority of Aspire One netbooks will cut down the cost of having separate stock-keeping units for Windows and Linux.

"The Android operating system will allow Acer netbook users faster Internet connectivity, enhancing efficiency on-the-go," claimed the company. It remains to be seen how many users of Aspire One actually employ Android because, in Q3, the company will presumably begin shipping netbooks running Windows 7.

Presumably, even the Starter version (that no longer has the potential limit of only being able to run 3 apps at once) looks markedly better than Android. But it still might give Acer a selling point against other rival netbooks that don't incorporate something similar.

Android is open source so suppliers can customize it. One of the main reasons Linux failed on netbooks was that the top suppliers offered their own versions instead of opting to unite behind a common platform. It now remains to be seen whether the netbook market will have different versions of Android.

Smart mini-search engines are trying to carve out a new niche

2009-06-15T07:58:00.000-05:00

Many smart, albeit ‘small-scale’ search engines are trying to carve out a new niche for themselves. Realizing that it is futile to take on Google and other top search engines, entities like Kosmix and Powerset are treading off-beat paths.
Kosmix smartly combines results thrown by other search engines. Its computers in response to a topic search create a page full of information automatically pulled from websites like YouTube and Wikipedia, as well as blogs, Twitter feeds and more sources.

According to Kosmix’s co-founder Venky Harinarayan, their computers comb through over 10,000 websites and applications. For instance, if you want to research a trip to Hawaii, it can find you various opinions and ideas from Twitter, a guide on Mahalo and also the latest images from Flickr, all of which is then displayed on one page ordered by relevance and importance.

These are all new mini-search engines that still form a very tiny part of the global search market. They are estimated to draw less than mere 2% of total search traffic worldwide. However, their relevance is underlined by a recent report from Web traffic monitor Hitwise. According to their estimates, these mini-search engines are growing rapidly. Kosmix has witnessed its market-share increase by 730% year-over-year, whereas traffic is almost double on Microsoft owned Powerset from that of a year ago.

Your website acts as a platform to serve the vast customer base worldwide

2009-06-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

If you are looking for a comprehensive website package that provides a clear, simple and user-friendly structure, you have arrived at the right resource.

The services offered by Webidiotz meet and surpass each client’s expectations. Appreciating the contribution made by Neil Patel to the website for www.amandamydesigns.com, Mandy Yakubovich mentions: “He carefully listened to my ideas and didn't hesitate to point out when something I wanted wouldn't work out for the best. He offered expert advice and a new way of doing things.”

Describing Webidiotz as an innovative company, which places great emphasis on complete customer satisfaction, Mandy Yakubovich adds, “I am thrilled with my website. When a friend commented that it really showed my passion for my work, I realized that Webidiotz had helped me capture the true essence of what I do!

Mandy Yakubovich has been drawing and painting since ‘I was old enough to hold a pencil or a paintbrush’, as the artist puts it: “Even as a small child I always knew that I wanted to be an artist. And I have never deviated from that path. I feel so fortunate to be living my dream.” In between school carpools, swimming lessons and dance classes, the avid artist has managed to take on some fascinating art projects. The work forms part of many prestigious private collections throughout Canada and the US.

“I believe that we can find art in almost everything from the simplest objects of day-today life to the elaborate works hung on gallery walls,” the artist quips. Webidiotz has tried to ensure that the website www.amandamydesigns.com reflects the artist’s style and philosophy. It acts as the artist’s window to the vast art community online, and showcases the select works. You can either pick something you like or the artist will be happy to create a custom piece for you.

As with www.amandamydesigns.com, Webidiotz promises to provide a result-oriented site that plays a major role in acquainting your potential customers with the brand/ business/ service offerings from you. It increases your sales and vastly enhances your brand reach.

Breaking the Google hold is easier said than done, its competitors discover!

2009-06-13T09:05:00.003-05:00

The major issue with the highly competitive search engine business is that its future may almost have nothing to do with increased accuracy of search results. Google's information is more than adequate for the majority of people who look to find information online.

Currently, search seems to be facing the same peculiar problem as the chip business. Intel and AMD make so powerful semiconductors that very few PC buyers can employ all of their available computational power. A lot of what these chips can actually do is wasted. And upgrading to a more power-packed processor does not really mean much to users who fail to grasp the difference.

Under the circumstances, building a new search engine is a risk since it's expensive to build and market one. It is not easy to make it stand and survive in the mass market. To make the proposition even tougher, not only do users prefer Google to other options, but also most of them are not able to tell whether a new search product is markedly better.

Aside from the top search engines that comprise Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, there are several smaller companies jostling for users' attention. Microsoft claims that if its search engine fetches more relevant results than Yahoo! or Google, people will ultimately turn to the ‘best’ product. However, Google has become a habit for over two-thirds of the people who make use of search engines in the US. And breaking the Google hold is easier said than done!

YouTube XL offers a more enhanced user experience

2009-06-12T08:32:00.002-05:00

YouTube has launched its newest service as part of a concerted strategy to move its content from the screen into the living room, the social heartland of its users. The new feature, YouTube XL, was launched after introduction of Hulu Desktop just a few days ago.

Soon users may be clicking the remote from their most comfortable chair in order to see YouTube videos on high resolution TV screen.

YouTube XL is a major enhancement to the YouTube for TV beta, an earlier launch, Google released in January. Product manager of YouTube XL, Kuan Yong, was quoted as saying that nothing about YouTube itself has really changed—except for the framework, which holds all that video content.

So users will think of YouTube, but with a vastly different UI, or user experience. All you need to do is just visit YouTube.com/XL, and you are set to enjoy the experience. It's all in the browser. There is no need for any software or plug-in to be downloaded and installed. You are just required to log in to YouTube from any browser and use the XL feature that enlarges the video image to match the size of the screen, which you are using.

YouTube's XL dedicated development team has worked hard to ensure it runs smoothly on most devices – over 140 of them at last count, Yong informed to add: "It looks really good, particularly in full-screen mode."

The latest version of OpenX 2.8 is doing reasonably well

2009-06-07T07:54:00.000-05:00

Formerly known by a succession of different names, including Openads, OpenX has developed its ad server essentially through the open-source developer community over a time span of nine years. It has raised almost $20.5 million in two rounds of funding thus far.

The company stated it had witnessed rapid growth in spite of the sudden slowdown experienced in online advertising market largely owing to the ongoing recession. The latest version of OpenX 2.8, its free ad serving software, has already attracted over 3,000 active users and also a monthly run rate of over 10 billion impressions in just six weeks since its launch. But with close to 300 billion impressions running through OpenX software, it clearly has room to expand further and become profitable

OpenX stated it would be using the additional funds for the purpose of expanding its suite of technology products and services and accelerating the growth of its recently launched OpenX Market. Some of the features of OpenX's new platform include ability to staging real-time auctions for online ad spots and allowing publishers to get the benefits of higher bids until the very last second.

The company’s community of over 38,000 publishers powers well over 150,000 sites. OpenX products are used in over 100 countries. They have been translated into different languages by community contributors.

OpenX’s main rival is Google's DoubleClick ad server. Google took over the company for roughly $3.1 billion two years ago, as part of a multi-billion-dollar wave of ad-server firm acquisitions, which included Microsoft and AOL purchasing aQuantive and Adtech, respectively. OpenX is demonstrating that combining a widely adopted open-source product with a unique business model can provide the basis for a company of significant scale.

Xerox is taking the route of video marketing for brand awareness

2009-06-06T07:56:00.000-05:00

Xerox is making an effort to spread awareness about its product range with new media, interactive platforms.

What they are trying to do is get a user interested in some of their new launches competing for office space. This includes products such as their Extensible Interface Platform, a software platform upon which developers can utilize standard web-based tools for creating server-based applications. These applications can well be configured for the multi-function printer (MFP) touch-screen user interface. Xerox MFP has all sorts of functionalities built into it to let you perform the tasks like being able to store important documents or send them somewhere automatically.

Xerox's services expertise and diversity is unmatched. It includes helping new-age businesses establish online document archives, analyzing how employees can share documents and knowledge efficiently, , and building Web-based processes to personalize direct mail, brochures, invoices and more.

The company is employing platforms like YouTube to let people know about its new product launches. It is cleverly using viral videos to build brand awareness. What it goes to show that online video marketing is emerging as a viable solution and a cost-effective approach to unveil creative marketing campaigns, which probably won’t work in other formats like TV and radio. Media experts are curious to see how the campaign doe in terms of traffic numbers or sales numbers.

Will Microsoft’s Bing be able to beat Google?

2009-06-05T07:53:00.000-05:00

Microsoft claims that its new search engine Bing offers users a far more refined search experience than any rival search engine. It is quite capable of answering queries more quickly and more efficiently, the company asserts.

The service currently has a strong American tilt, with a UK version ‘soft-launching’ taking place as a Beta test version. A London-based team is working towards improving the localization of specific search results for the UK. A full launch should happen in around six months. Microsoft's UK Consumer Vice President, Ashley Highfield, is in charge of the UK project.

"There’s a huge opportunity existing in the search market," he quipped, "given that it is dominated by one player, and also that research shows a rather high level of dissatisfaction evident among a high level of the user base.” He claims that just around a quarter of people actually get what they are really looking for on the first search. The success of Bing will depend on how many of them decide to do away with the Google habit – something Microsoft is well aware of: its US launch is going to be accompanied by a big-bang $100m advertising campaign.

Google is the brand very much in their sights. The world's leading search engine had net income of $4.34bn in the last financial year, on revenue of $22.12bn. This was largely from paid ads associated with search keywords. The challenge that Microsoft faces is to making a demonstrably superior search engine that breaks users' Google habit.

"We’ve what we think are a series of ‘Google-beating’ features," Mr Highfield asserts. "The world has moved on, but search absolutely hasn’t. Google is essentially the same as it was a decade ago." The key features in Microsoft's new search engine include its ability to ‘guess’ what the respective user is looking for, and then give suggestions based on that guess.

Employ social media to create quality inbound links relevant to search engines

2009-06-04T08:16:00.000-05:00

A great online marketing opportunity is available in form of social media, which definitely needs to be tapped. In fact, many online businesses are now looking to use it to promote their products and services in a cost-effective way.

One of the biggest benefits of including social media in your traditional marketing mix is the generation of high-value, on-target inbound links, which can greatly help improve visibility in the leading search engines. This will improve the search engine rankings of your online business.

Of course, the key lies in effective and optimum use of social media to boost your search engine results. This needs advice and guidance of experts who exactly know how to leverage the reach and power of social media.

Remember, apart from the sheer number of inbound links created through social marketing, their value is equally critical from the search engines’ perspective. To be valued by them, inbound links must originate from relevant and quality web sites. In this context, it is pertinent to note that search engines attach great value to social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

They are highly visible to top search engines, and are taking updates from users on a constant basis. Links tend to be shared depending on subject matter, which means the search engines would consider them relevant and on-target.

How does natural link building create visibility and build online presence?

2009-06-03T08:13:00.000-05:00

Creating visibility and building online presence for your business venture and your budding brand is really important. You invariably need to be focusing on online visibility and branding while employing social media for the purpose of building links.

When other users see your links or read your content, they share that piece of information with their own individual network of contacts. This is how the power and reach of social media is realized. Just adding a bunch of links to your social profiles, however, is not going to be enough. You need to possess a strong track record that users trust and thus feel comfortable while sharing your content with other users within their network.

Brand recognition will typically lead to natural link building anyway. This means your inbound links will primarily end up coming from customers, bloggers, colleagues, and other people online who are exposed to your links and think them useful enough so as to share with their own network of contacts.

To be successful, an e-commerce site should be able to reach its potential customers, communicate with them, keep customer mindshare, and find new leads. An ability to instantly strike a chord with customers holds key to success of the Internet marketing.

A fine blend of social media and SEO strategies boosts your brand

2009-06-02T07:19:00.000-05:00

Experience shows that specialized websites are most likely to benefit from sustained online promotion. If you think that having a functional website up and running is the end of the matter, you are wrong. The site and business itself still need to carve out an identity.

The e-commerce website needs to assert itself and stand out from the clutter around. It should be able to convey your competitive advantage. This is easier said than done! New developments continue to take place in the dynamic domain of search engine, which smaller businesses cannot easily track and grasp. Top search engines often change their algorithms so as to improve search results for users. This can make it even more challenging for online ecommerce entities to be able to keep pace with the new search engine marketing norms.

Often, the desire is there, but expertise and direction is lacking. For example, though many firms plan viral marketing campaigns, not all manage to execute them successfully. Only the truly creative, the truly captivating and the truly entertaining ones are able to make a mark and get noticed amidst incessant clutter of the Internet.

By properly leveraging a deft balance of social media and SEO strategies, smart marketers are able to gain competitive edge through meaningful customer engagements and social interactions within the vast online marketplace.

Here’s an example of how e-commerce can do wonders for your business

2009-05-30T07:43:00.001-05:00

For both established and emerging businesses there are multifold advantages of using e-commerce. One of the biggest benefits is that online commerce exposes your products and services to a wider audience. It facilitates business expansion in a cost-effective manner.

A case in point is an online venture betterbodiesnutrition.com. Located in Calgary, Canada, it has been shipping high quality nutritional products globally for the past 15 years. Owing to its loyal customers cultivated through both offline and online means, Better Bodies Nutrition has been able to upscale its business. Coupled with effective marketing, it has also been increasing its selection and variety since it first opened in 1995.

Better Bodies essentially works with several elite athletes to help it determine the best possible supplements available on its site. The site is comprehensive in itself with shopping cart and quick search functionality that locates the product you are looking for by using specific keywords. There is an advance search facility made available with specific product categories and detailed manufacturer listing all under simple dropdown bars. All brands have been listed separately.

Mark Peckham, its President, appreciating the role played by Webidiotz mentions: “After numerous disappointments with other web developers Neil Patel and the Webidiotz team delivered a top-notch e-commerce site well beyond our expectations. From start to finish the development process was a pleasure!” His reaction says it all…

To know how e-commerce can do wonders for your business, check the website http://www.betterbodiesnutrition.com/

A ‘real-time’ search engine to index social media postings

2009-05-30T07:39:00.002-05:00

Google has been dominating search engine market for eternity. The world’s top search engine player continues to maintain its ascendancy and supremacy. Of course, many new players still enter the fray to try their luck and gain from the expanding scope of search engine market. The world’s latest ‘real-time’ search engine, termed Scoopler, points to this trend.

Scoopler may just add a much needed, specialized search functionality. It is aimed at providing a tool to locate new content on social media websites other search engines fail to find and collate in a timely fashion. The new ‘real-time’ search engine is now available, albeit in experimental mode.

When making use of standard search engines, the indexing platforms often cannot bring up ‘real-time’ content. It takes a while for them to index social media postings. On the other hand, Scoopler will focus solely on indexing fresh content from popular social media sites. As a result, live updates from Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Digg, and others will get updated in Scoopler’s indexing algorithms on a regular basis. It will even provide links, photos and videos from the social media sites.

Scoopler will focus on up-to-the-minute content that is added to social networking sites, providing a comprehensive and updated search on a particular theme or subject. Scoopler is currently in a beta version.

Is there life beyond Google?

2009-05-28T03:41:00.002-05:00

Tech-savvy entrepreneurs and astute venture capitalists are striving for the next ‘small hit’ in search engine domain. The question to be asked whether there is life beyond Google. Though a number of search alternatives are popping up, they are wary of taking the search giant head-on.

With almost three-quarters of all search traffic, Google’s position is almost unassailable. However, potential competitors are keen on developing new ways to find information. They are busy hunting down the investors to support them. More than 50 new search firms have raised almost $330 million in venture financing.

So how are these budding search engines moving ahead? Mostly, by not opting to follow the example of Cuil.com, pronounced ‘cool’! Cuil means ‘knowledge’ in Gaelic; it might as well denote ‘cautionary tale’. The company was formed by former Google executives. It made a big splash on its debut by bragging of a search index that was nearly three times the size of Google's. Cuil received the early impetus, but traffic cooled off rather quickly as people turned to Google again.

However better Cuil might have been than the search giant, it wasn't perhaps better enough to get loyal users to make the permanent switch. So has the lesson been learnt? The right approach, investors believe, is the sort of niche-oriented and targeted search. But whether it will work remains to be seen.

Effective link building strategies to help your site climb up the search engine ladder fast

2009-05-28T03:26:00.000-05:00

As web technology continually evolves, it also opens up new opportunities for aspiring business owners to fine tune their SEO strategies. It is pertinent to note that expert inputs will help you boost your website rankings.

Social media (popular websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Technorati, Twitter, Digg, etc.) offer an excellent platform for online businesses to not only promote their services and products on the Web, but also to make significant gains in the search engine results.

One of the most vital criteria to judge the effectiveness of any SEO strategy is the number of quality inbound links and link popularity that a website is able to build. This is essential for improved search engine rankings.

Although there are several effective link building strategies available to online businesses in form of directory submissions, article syndication, and press releases, social media can greatly help generate additional high-value, on-target inbound links, which are essential for top placements in the leading search engines.

For instance, each time you make use of Twitter to publish a link to new content hosted on your website, that link will get ‘planted’ on the Twitter page of each individual following you. This link has the inherent potential to spread further as your followers are bound to share that piece of information with their own network of contacts.

Warm welcome to the enterprising world of Webidiotz in Portland USA!

2009-05-21T22:13:00.003-05:00

I thoroughly understand your keenness to benefit from the reach and power of the Internet.

The Internet is indeed a great marketing medium, and it is understandable you aspire to use the Internet for expanding your business online. But what is it currently stopping you from riding the surging Web World wave? Why your business is cut off from the far reaching Web, and where things are going wrong, you must be wondering…

Obviously you have been trying quite a few options, but have been greatly disappointed by the BS offered by one of those unreliable and undeserving Internet marketing firms, not equipped at all to match your expectations. You must be feeling let down, not knowing the way out. Thankfully, there is no need to worry anymore.

Let me take this opportunity to introduce our new service facility in Portland USA. Our new office will draw its strength from high standards in customer service set by WEBIDIOTZ in Winnipeg, Canada. Our specialization, experience and innovation sure will allow you to turn online dreams into reality.

To put it succinctly, having a website for an aspiring business is a must, and no one, I bet, can do better than Webidiotz. Me and my team members are extremely pleased to be part of a new productive journey that we are starting together in a quest to search success online.
I am certain you will hugely benefit from the innovative approach, which is the hallmark of Webidiotz. Our effort is to help you achieve success by either creating a new website or revamping the existing one, which may not be dynamic enough.

We provide dedicated services on helping out start ups or those untouched by the surging wave of online marketing. We work in a concerted manner by setting up specific goals – weekly, fortnightly and monthly - in order to grow your business online.

To put it humbly, I have sizable experience – almost close to a decade – when it comes to managing the explosive, stunning and mesmerizing growth of IT- intensive trading companies. During this course, which has set new precedents, I have played diverse roles, including those of a web application developer, database administrator, network administrator. After wearing many hats, I ended up being the IT manager for a global trading firm. The logical culmination of the personal journey has been with joining Webidiotz.

Opening the USA office for Webidiotz in Portland will be a major challenge for me something that I really relish. Working along side the charismatic personality like Neil Patel to carry the Webidiotz brand into a host of other online services, our effort is to emerge as a dominant player in the industry.

I have immense experience building out colocation spaces, server rooms and small data centers. Before moving to Chicago I worked as an independent consultant building corporate websites and web applications for clients across Canada. Going beyond my work profile, I am an avid snowboarder. I share a keen interest in capital markets, and enjoy my spare time with my family, my wife and friends, and, of course our English bulldog, Winston.

What I promise is a very basic, very simple, albeit significant proposition. We shall work together; we shall work with a cause in mind; we shall work in a focused manner with a determination to grow your business and take it to new heights. On behalf of my team, I promise to deliver holistic online marketing solutions including a fantastic, - affordable and effective website that guarantees a gushing flow of unique visitors. In keeping with the customer-friendly approach Webidiotz is renowned for, you will find our new facility a great pleasure to work with.

You will find that my knowledgeable and creative team is quick to understand, and serve your needs. Webidiotz facility in Portland USA will strive to fulfill your expectations; stay true to your faith in us and reaffirm your belief that you have arrived at the right place. Our sincere effort is to ensure you get all the support for your business to perform exceptionally well.
Webidiotz team members are committed to your business success and will be with you at every step in the future. Let us make a start with a website that boosts your sales and profit margins.

Recession is a perfect opportunity for innovation, believes the Google CEO

2009-05-21T06:03:00.000-05:00

"You cannot plan innovation or inspiration. But you can be ready for it, and when you see it you can jump on it and you sure can make a difference." This was the inspiring message from Eric Schmid, the Google CEO and Chairman, during the Commencement Address at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Schmidt’s talk focused on the past, present and future of technology and trends, how profoundly and quickly cultural habits change and how vital it is to live in the future! He stated: “We then had phone booths, but has anybody here seen one? We had VCRs. You’ve YouTube. We had Pong. You’ve Wii. We got our news from newspapers, whereas your generation gets it from blogs and tweets. For those of you who don’t know, that’s not what you hear in zoos.”

A gathering of 3,400 curious undergraduate and graduate students at Gesling Stadium for Carnegie Mellon's 112th commencement ceremony listened to him rapt in attention, as he urged them to exploit ‘the opportunity to be the greatest generation’ in spite of the worst recession in decades. He pointed out: "You’ve tools that we never had. Take care of them."

He added, "You say 'look at the economy,' but consider some of the things, which emerged out of the Great Depression. I know they are true because I looked it up on Google - Rice Krispies, Twinkies and beer cans...good things (can) happen in recession. Take advantage of opportunities, and make your own luck! You can just try to be in the right place and try to take advantage. Life is like that! Opportunities happen while you are busy making other plans.”

You will find today is the best chance you have to start, he remarked. Mr. Schmidt is a former Carnegie Mellon trustee. He asked the students to be open to ‘unexpected chances; to avoid being solitary; to remember their humanity; and not to fear mistakes because mistakes let you learn and try our new things.’

‘Turn off your computer’: Why and when did Eric Schmidt say so?

2009-05-20T06:01:00.000-05:00

Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt in his address to some 6,000 graduates during the commencement ceremony of the University of Pennsylvania made a rather unexpected statement. He proclaimed: “Turn off your computer.”

“You are actually going to have to turn off your phone, and discover all that is human around us," Eric Schmidt stated while delivering his speech. He added: "Nothing really beats holding the hand of your grandchild as he (or she) walks first steps."

During the ceremony he received an honorary doctor of science degree. Amy Gutmann, the University’s President, underlined his ‘manifold contributions to putting the world at humanity's fingertips’. He quipped: "You’ve devoted your entire career to heralding a new age of learning empowered by new-age technology."

On his part, Schmidt acknowledged Penn’s significant role in developing one of the first electronic computers ever constructed, in 1946. "Literally everything you see - every computer, every mobile phone, every other device - descends from the principles invented right here," he remarked.

Just a day before his visit to Penn, the Google CEO-Chairman received an honorary degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He delivered a similar off-beat speech there. He joked at the differences between his generation and the one referred to as the ‘Google & Facebook generation. The dynamic techie acknowledged the tough economic times now surrounding the Class of 2009. Interestingly, he argued that recession could provide a perfect opportunity for innovation.

Innovative online marketing techniques can boost your business

2009-05-15T09:09:00.004-05:00

In today’s challenging times, many businesses instinctively think of slashing their marketing expenses to save money. This is not a wise idea. When economy is in a downward spiral, it is imprudent to become low profile. If you remain invisible, your prospective clients will forget you, and may not return to you once things start looking up.

Approaching viral marketing strategists allows you to explore new powerful avenues of marketing. Timely inputs from them help you spread your online marketing outlay in the most effective manner. You can draw more out of your marketing spend by exploiting technology. The aim is to leverage the reach and power of the Web in form of e-newsletters, or videos. Getting the word out really fast and the most economical way is one of the greatest advantages that online marketing techniques offer to both aspiring and established business owners even in today’s troubled economic environment.

There are various innovative online marketing techniques that will boost sales and revenue, without greatly increasing your marketing budget. Importantly, with the Web, you can reach out to your customers directly. Of course, you need to be careful in your approach. Going overboard in desperation to ‘push your product’ is not going to help your cause.

Many hastily done online marketing campaigns fail to click because they are specifically designed to merely generate leads. A better marketing plan tries to amp up the entertainment quotient. For instance, an online video with nice audio-visual elements with your logo and brand message subtly appearing in it will do the trick for you. The production costs of the video can easily be offset by its potential reach on the Web.

Now is the time to turn to online marketing and propel your business into a new orbit of success

Are you asking yourself the right question?

2009-03-18T07:20:00.003-05:00

After a few weeks of being immersed in new clients and some very exciting projects, it wasn’t until Saturday when I was eating Burger King with my family that I got some inspiration to write my next article.

I watched the last 20 minutes of a BBC Radio 4 program on channel 510 Bell TV. The presenter was interviewing three heads of major companies: Martin Sorrell of WPP, the chairman of the largest marketing & advertising agency in the world, the CEO of Vodafone UK, and the CEO of Euro Star-- the fast train from UK to Paris or the other way around.

The topic was about business and the economy and I was pleased to listen to their positive attitudes throughout the interview.

For me, the key points were another reminder of what is to come in the next few years for the small business and the Internet. All three shared similar views that the Internet now plays a critical role for any business.

Martin, who you have to consider the most powerful man in marketing, said that almost 20% of our time is spent online and that number will rise to 30%. WPP digital revenues are 25% of their total advertising revenue worldwide. WPP is Google’s largest customer when it comes to buying keywords--when I say big I am referring to the fact that they spent $4 billion just read the interview notes. WPP has spent a billion dollars buying Internet marketing companies around the world.

What does that mean? Well, consumers will spend more money online-- it’s a trend that has been growing at an alarming rate for the past 10 years, and if you apply common sense, it tells you that this will only continue to grow.

We already spend 10% - 12% of our household income online. So if you have not got an online store or even a professional website you are missing out on 12% of new business. Another fact is that 50% of our buying influences are now made on the Internet.

The CEO of Vodafone said the days of business owners not being connected to the Internet are over. He went on to say that one third of new customers who call or email a business and do not get a response in 2 hours will not buy from that business or call back.

None of this comes as a surprise to me as in the past few weeks more and more of our customers have requested that their entire store be put online. If you sell chocolates, gifts, furniture, shoes, clothes, gadgets, jewelery, or anything that can be sent by post or courier, then you need to have an online store.

If you have 10 or 10,000 items to sell and you want to grow your business, then $2,000 will get your store online with hosting, email accounts, domain, online payment system, website, and training. $2,000 to grow your business is not a big investment when you can increase your sales by at least 10%.

Even if you turnover $100,000, a 10% sales growth is $10,000!

The question is not whether or not you want an online store, the question is: do you want to grow your business?

If your answer is yes, then call us now toll-free at 1-888-211- 8133 or click here and fill in this simple form to get three custom online store designs and consultation for free.

CLICK HERE to take advantage of this opportunity NOW

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

The recession challenge!

2009-02-25T14:16:00.002-06:00

It’s Monday; one more week and it will be March. I hope the weather will get better, remember that I am in Winnipeg and -30 C is the average. I need some warm weather....

Last week someone asked me to help them with growing their business through the web (put up or shut up, to quote them directly). They have heard over and over again that the web will help them grow their sales, but so far they had not seen the benefit even with a website they had done a few years ago (NOT Webidiotz, I add).

With that request in mind, this week I will put up and help ten businesses grow their online sales by personally guiding their growth in the next 12 months.

My challenge

There are many stages of an economic recession. The first is overconfidence: "We're busy as bees. There can't be a slowdown." Then comes denial: "Nah, things are fine here" (this is also known as bending the truth, especially popular among entrepreneurs who are strung out on credit).

Next is the blame phase: "We wouldn't even be having this recession if it weren't for (pick two: the wars, banks, the government, or anyone else you can blame )."

Right now I think we're in the fourth phase where everyone asks everyone else, "What are you hearing? What are you seeing?" This is the "What the hell is going on?" phase, in which people tire of listening to the learned economists. They try to divine the future by consulting other business owners, which is only partly effective, since they're all bending the truth anyway.

The Chinese proverb "May you live in interesting times" must have been coined in a business climate similar that of today. The credit crunch and its reverberations are being widely felt, nowhere moreso than in smaller organizations that have fewer marketing resources than the big boys.

Businesses need help to navigate these tricky economic waters while staying focused on profitable expansion rather than contraction. If you can grow in these times, you will emerge on the other side of the economic crisis ahead of the competition.

Here are five of my ideas on how to grow your business during the next twelve months:

1. Create a weekly newsletter updating your old and new customers about you; what you are up to? What’s the latest topic in your industry? How you are helping the community?
2. Blog once a week and deep link your blog to 5 social conversations on the net every week.
3. Create a Facebook/Twitter business page and get friends and family to help promote your business.
4. Ask your customers what they love and hate about you.
5. Make your website perform sales 24 hours a day.
6. Extra one: for my next 10 clients.

Ok, yes, it’s easier said than done but it’s better than waiting for the economy to change or feeling lost because you just don’t know what to do next.

So here is my challenge: the next 10 clients that order their website from Webidiotz will get my services free of charge for one year. For the next 12 months, I will offer coaching and mentorship that will support the implementation of the above strategies and I will personally oversee the challenge of growing your business.

What I promise is simple: together we will grow your business without fail. We will use all the resources that we have available and set up weekly and monthly goals in order to grow your business all for the cost of a new website.

CALL 1-888-211-8133 NOW to reserve your place and challenge me to grow your business.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

How much does a website cost?

2009-02-20T13:11:00.001-06:00

My answer is always how much is your business worth? Lets be honest: there is a thin line between success and failure and we are all facing a tricky time with the recession.

Running a small or large business is hard work, and for most of it there are more downs than ups, but we love our business and we should give it every chance to survive. This means making a profit.

More and more families are turning on their computers to find better deals or just doing their homework before they make a commitment to spend their hard earned money wisely.

An effective website not just a pretty one could cost you your business, your next new customer, and even the difference between making and losing money.

Websites come in all shapes and sizes and the cost ranges from nothing to millions, but a website should at all times deliver dollars to your business.

Webidotz takes care of all the risk. We are confident that you should only buy something that fits. You wouldn't buy a pair of shoes that don't fit! We will design your website at no cost and we will deliver the perfect website that makes you happy. We have a simple cost structure that includes everything you need to have an effective website.

We deliver websites from $1000 to online shopping sites at $2000. In fact we guarantee that if you do not get a 1000 unique visitors to your website in the first 12 months, you get every cent back.

Building a new website or updating your current site is the most cost effective way to spend your hard earned dollars.

Its a measurable cost and one that over time will deliver exceptional results. A good website is a 24 hours sales person which is the least expensive cost on your balance sheet.

Its also one of many items on a list you need to survive in business but a website comes up pretty high on the agenda when you can see the impact it can make to your business.

Yellow Pages V Your website

2009-02-20T13:03:00.003-06:00

It's interesting how many times in the past few weeks I have heard business owners say, "We decided to spend our money on the Yellow Pages and not a website."

Every dollar you spend has to be measurable, and with the recession likely to get worse before it gets better, we need make our marketing budgets work hard for our sales and profits.

Read this article and then visit Yellow Pages website and type in what your business does (e.g. florist), and the location.

What you will get is a list of businesses (if you're lucky yours might show up on the top). Roughly 85 percent of people going to the Yellow Pages online will search this way. Are you with me still? Now look at the list of businesses that are on the list and you will notice a link to the business website. Many do not have links to a company website. Did you know that almost every person that comes to use the Yellow Pages online ONLY clicks on the companies that have a website. If you have not got a website you just lost your new customer to your competitor.

Let's put it another way: when someone visits a dating site you are more likely to look at a profile of a person with a picture than one without. The facts are that 85 percent of visitors on dating sites only visit profiles with photos. The same can be said for people using the Yellow Pages: they will research your website then if they like what they see they will contact you.

Not having a website is like having no picture on a dating site. Few will visit you or buy from you.

Example below

The Yellow Pages will never deliver the results of a business with it's own website. The facts speak for themselves.

Read why the Yellow Pages paid a very big price for just a domain name.

YellowPages Paid $3.85 Million In Cash For YP.com

A month for love!

2009-02-20T13:01:00.001-06:00

Okay, I admit it. It's been a crazy couple of months...for everybody. For most small business owners, December is chaotic because you're trying to finish out the year strong. January isn't any better. After all, you've got to start the New Year on the right foot.

But by February, things seem a little more under control. And since February is the month of love, it's a good time to remember how much you love your business. As small business owners, if you don't take the time to remember the positive things about your company, you'll continue to feel the chaos and pressure of those busier months.

So let me lead by example for a moment. Why do I love Webidiotz? Because we have awesome employees. We have a mission to support the business community in achieving positive results through the Internet. We work with incredible entrepreneurs and small business owners who are making a real difference in the world.

You know, I truly love small business. Small business owners are the ones who are going to turn the economy around and I love listening to the ways our customers are growing their businesses, families, and communities.

I hope you take the time to remember how much you love your business, customers, and seeing your revenue ijavascript:void(0)ncrease!

Get online or go home!

2009-02-14T11:03:00.001-06:00

I really don't need a website or your business

When a business owner claims that they don't need a website, what they are really saying is, "I don't want to communicate with my customer or generate new sales. I want potential customers to give their money to my competition."

Despite living in the midst of the electronic age, some executives are still reluctant to accept that every business today needs a website and a company email address instead of a personal hotmail account. The truth of the matter is that there has never been a more crucial time to have a polished and professional online presence.

Think about the evolution of technology, its role in information sharing, and the exponential rate at which it's been growing. It took the radio 38 years to grow its audience to 50 million. Television came along, and it only took 13 years to grow an audience of 50 million. It took the Internet only four years, the Ipod three years, and Facebook two years.

One in eight American couples that were married last year met online. There are more than 200 million registered MySpace users; if it were a country, it would be the fifth largest in the world. The number of text messages sent and received daily exceeds the total population of the planet.

Technology is evolving and businesses need to evolve and adapt with it in order to survive. Today's market is extremely fractured, yet niche audiences have never been more accessible. Communities are built overnight and word of mouth can literally spread in the time that it takes to push a button.

Small and large business owners alike should not fear or be intimidated by the thought of starting a website; we specialize in customizing websites for any business out there. Are you ready for more business?

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Queen launches new-look website

2009-02-14T09:53:00.002-06:00

The Queen has relaunched her website at a Buckingham Palace reception in the company of the world wide web's inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The royal site, which started in 1997, now includes more video material as well as historical documents.

Queen Victoria's journal in which she describes trying out Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the telephone, is to be among the new features.

About 250,000 people around the world visit the site each week.

The Queen stood in front of a bank of nine screens and clicked a remote control to re-launch the site.

The Monarchy site's homepage appeared showing a range of simple menus and tabs which it is hoped will make it easier to navigate.

In a speech, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said the website "celebrates a really important part of the British cultural tradition - the monarchy - and is a great resource for the people within Britain, so it deepens that culture.

Tim Berners-Lee: "The number of things people do on the web is amazing"
"But at the same time it's there for anybody to see it from other countries, where they really don't understand how the monarchy works - what it does do, what it doesn't do - so now they can go and look."

When the site was first launched, the Queen spoke of how some parents and grandparents found the internet "a bit of a mystery".

BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said while the site should be more user-friendly, the Queen is only going so far into cyberspace.

"We can't e-mail her and there's little prospect of the Queen blogging, conducting a webchat or indeed twittering," our correspondent added.

The Duke of Edinburgh appearing in an advert for the Playing Fields Association, 1951
The site was visited more than 100 million times in its first year, making it one of the most popular locations on the internet at the time. And in the week of Princess Diana's funeral, some 35 million visits were recorded.

Royal.gov.uk is not the only presence the Queen has on the internet. In 2007, she launched her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.

The Royal Channel features her Christmas Day message, and recent and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

You Need To See This Video (1981 TV Report On Birth Of Internet News)

2009-01-29T13:22:00.000-06:00

Pope launches Vatican on YouTube

2009-01-26T16:52:00.001-06:00

The Pope is said to be fond of new technologies

Pope Benedict XVI has launched his own dedicated channel on the popular video sharing website, YouTube.

Video and audio footage of his speeches as well as news of the Holy See will be posted on the site, the Vatican says.

Although the Vatican has its own website, the YouTube venture represents its biggest reach into cyberspace, Vatican officials say it is aimed at everyone from devout Catholics to the casual web user.

But there is a debate within the Catholic Church about the value of the internet as a missionary tool.

The 81-year-old Pope's first YouTube message spoke of a new way to spread hope around the world.

"You must find ways to spread - in a new manner - voices and pictures of hope, through the internet, which wraps all of our planet in an increasingly close-knitted way," he said in Italian.
Working in collaboration with YouTube's owners, Google, the Vatican is to supply a variety of material for its new channel, which was launched on the Church's World Day of Communications.

Featuring text, audio and video initially in English, German, Spanish and Italian, the channel marks the Vatican's latest foray into new media. The Vatican's own website (www.vatican.va) was launched in 1995.

The Catholic Church will retain full control of the content.

The aim of the deal was to "secure the Pope's presence on the web", said the Vatican's Osservatore Romano newspaper. It added that Pope Benedict had always been "fond of new technologies".

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Vatican's communications department, told the newspaper the Pope hoped to reach out to "the digital generation".

Google & Apple set a new record!

2009-01-23T13:35:00.002-06:00

It is no surprise to Webidiotz that Google has announced total revenue was $5.7bn - up 18% compared with the same quarter the previous year. Apple, the technology giant, made a record net profit of $1.61bn (£1.15bn) and posted record revenue of $10.7bn for the final quarter.

What does this mean?

The answer is simple - more and more consumers are turning to the Internet to find better deals and also a better shopping experience. It is not any coincidence that Google & Apple are bucking a trend while many businesses in Q4 2008 suffered negative growth.

If you are a business and unsure of when you should get a website and present your business to the World Wide Web, then wake up! And take a look around you.

To survive the credit crunch and to make sure you come out the other end healthily you need to make those important steps of embracing the Internet. Your customers already have and the message is clear you need to have a website that delivers a good shopping experience and makes you stand out from the crowd.

Don’t be arrogant or foolish to think the last 10 years have been great or that I have done well till now without a website or a website that does not perform for your business that maybe your friend or family member did for you. A website is the most important tool for your business so treat it as such.

Every day millions of new Internet suffers are joining the worldwide web and millions more are buying or researching what they will buy next.

Don’t be left behind and miss out even more - don’t be one of those business owners saying I wish I had got a website, it might have been the difference that helped your business to survive.

It’s a small margin when it comes to failing and being successful and the Internet could just be that margin.

Top 10 for Online Marketing Success in 2009

2009-01-22T15:12:00.000-06:00

Still uncertain how to start your online-marketing efforts this year? Here's some practical guidance that will soon have you on your way to success.

10. Borrow and Share

Share your content, borrow others'. This is a really simple concept, but due to decades of a winner-take-all, competitive scarcity-model mentality, it's a hard philosophy for most marketers to embrace.

All of us have some content that's worth getting out, so we should share it with anyone willing to post it on their site. In the same vein, we should borrow content from others who have supporting information that will enhance the experience of our Web-site customers.

Even those whose business is information—publishers—can't cover all things at all times and need to share. If The New York Times is willing to aggregate and share content from other publications, then it should be possible for the rest of us to do the same.

Recommendation: Find the top two or three publishers/bloggers/reporters who cover your industry and grab an RSS feed. Insert it in your news section of your Web site. This may not produce any results, but it will help you get used to—and begin to understand the value of—the shared-content concept.

9. User-Generated Content as a Strategy

With folks out of work and looking for ways to engage, what better time to encourage participation? You might be surprised to find how many of your customers are more than happy to give insight on their experience with a product, service, or solution that you offer. So why not encourage them to share?

Amazon, TripAdvisor, Yelp, and many more sites have become brand leaders over much more established brands simply by embracing a user-generated-content strategy. Now, it's your turn.

Recommendation: Pick a product, service, or area of interest on your site and, with the help of a 30-day trial from one of the many ratings/reviews software vendors, start getting content from your customers. With no additional tech support or manpower hours on your end, you will have expanded your online offerings.

8. Cost-Conscious Search

Recently I heard the folks at Hitwise, a company that monitors online trends, including search (like Nielsen for TV), mention how search patterns predicted the downturn in our economy: low-cost keyword search phrases had a huge spike starting in August.

With Americans looking for savings above all else, your site can tap into budget-conscious searches by inserting low-cost phrases like "best deal," "highly discounted," or "lowest price available." Apply this both to your paid search ads and to your search engine optimization efforts in the copy on your site, and the cost-conscious shopper will find you on the major search engines. Everyone is looking for a deal, so give it to them.

Recommendation: Take your top 15 keyword phrases and build a 30-day mini-campaign for your paid search program around low-cost descriptors. At the end of that 30-day period, evaluate what your CTR is compared with what it was without those low-cost phrases.

7. Email With Purpose

Stop the e-newsletter and start serving the customer. So many of us send our monthly e-newsletter with the fierce discipline of an Olympic athlete. We are dead set on getting that email out at 10 AM on the second Tuesday of every month, and will drop everything to make sure it gets out. But are our customers really waiting with baited breath for this generic e-newsletter to hit their inboxes? Are there going to be a flood of calls to customer service if at 10:01 AM the email has not arrived? Of course not. So why is it such a priority?

Instead of clinging to the e-newsletter habit, what about launching a timely, well-segmented email campaign that has relevant information that will be of the most interest to your customer base?

The day that an e-newsletter becomes the most important tool in your arsenal is the day you become a publisher. Stop spending your time on that low-impact e-newsletter and start spending it on relevancy and segmentation.

Recommendation: In your next e-newsletter, ask your customers what they are interested in, what they'd like to hear more about, and how often... then segment audiences and build campaigns around this information.

6. Analytics for Real

We all have Web analytic tools to measure what is happening on our Web site. And though many of us need to purchase a better software system for more relevant analysis, all of us need to improve what, how, and why we measure what we measure. Therefore, there is no better time than now to improve how we measure online success as it relates to company sales, cost savings, and ROI. And the great thing is that the hard costs are negligible: it's the soft cost of your time that is the real issue, making the analytics conversation a much easier one to have with the powers that be.

Retrench, re-evaluate and read best-practices to build a key performance indicator plan that will help you determine metrics of value to your business and eliminate those that are have little to no value.

Recommendation: Reflect on the major company and departmental goals for the year, then ask yourself, "How can I use my Web metrics to show how our site is improving those goals for the organization?"

5. Plunge Head-First Into Social Networking

Too many of us are still merely dipping our toes into the world of social networking. This time last year, about the same topic I wrote that there is no time for you to wait. This year, the need to jump in is even more pronounced.

Interest groups are being formed, new brand leaders are being established, and thought leaders are constantly emerging in these new social communities. If you are not out there making mistakes, learning the protocol, and getting a feel for how your brand and personal connection play in the bigger business cycle, you will quickly find yourself isolated and on the outside looking in.

How are you going to use Facebook, LinkedIn, and other essential social media to establish brand credibility and your place in that new marketplace?

Recommendation: Build a group in LinkedIn and Facebook and start the invitation process. And if you don't have profile set up in either, start there and begin to get a feel for the what it's like to be a participant in the community.

4. Stop Twittering, Start Working

Twitter has some very useful applications, but 90% of the information on the site has little to no importance to any of us. Unless you have a plan to monetize, stop wasting your time and start doing something productive. Just because you have 2,000 followers, does not mean anyone really cares what you are doing at 7AM Saturday morning!

Recommendation: Stop for 30 days and see if the sky comes crashing down.

3. Budget for Customers

One of the most compelling opportunities during times of economic uncertainty is to question all costs, practices, and budgeting processes. Now more than ever is a great time to get your peers to take a hard look at where your customers are spending their time and money, and then working to align your budgets accordingly. Are they reading the newspaper, are they reading magazines, are they listening to the radio?

Figure it out, and start spending where they are. Chances are, many more of your customers than you realize are online. Do you have the presence necessary to meet them there?

Recommendation: Do some quick research on Forrester, Pew Internet Research Project, or any of the other major research companies that study human behavior on this topic, then take that research to your next budget meeting and ask how this should affect your spend for 2009.

2. Education Is Always the Key

Ask anyone who has spent their life fighting the major epidemics of the world—AIDS, poverty, etc.—and they'll tell you that the key to solving the problem is education. Education on safe sex, education on malnutrition... education is always the first and most important step.

Today, with the enormous shift toward online communication, education of your stakeholders, coworkers, and superiors about the online space is essential to enabling solutions for years to come.

Going to their office and asking for additional resources (again!) for this year's online efforts won't do the trick. Educate yourself to educate them, and it will be smooth sailing for years to come.

Recommendation: Sign up yourself or a key stakeholder for a good webinar, conference, or certification program, or buy a great book on online media, and really get serious about starting the education process.

1. No Fear

Now is not the time to cower in your shell and hope this whole recession thing passes. If you fear the economic change that is upon us, the consequence will be poor results, bad decisions, and, for many, job loss.

On the other hand, if you embrace change, build a plan to capitalize on it, and approach your team with the attitude of becoming stronger as a result, you will find that the bumpy ride ahead can be more enjoyable with the positive focus and aggressive approach to tackling the challenge.

Recommendation: Build a plan that proactively tackles the issues versus reactively "kicks the can" of despair. So, what does "No Fear" actually translate into?

It's a matter of attitude: "We have an opportunity to kick our competition's butt because we are going to do XYZ to gain market share while they scramble."
It's functional: "We need to start doing more with less, which means making the existing programs that we keep better, and getting rid of those that we cannot measure."
It's proactive and goal-driven: "If we can cut marketing cost 20% and increase lead generation 10%, then we'll open up more budget and the marketing team will be bonused."

Is Your Web Site as Good as Your Favorite Bistro? A Post-Holiday Recipe for Online Success

2009-01-22T15:09:00.000-06:00

Just before the New Year, I was having lunch with my good friend, a restaurateur; I'll call him Chef M. We were eating at one of Chef M's two highly regarded, very successful neighborhood bistros in Portland, OR. My rockfish was a gorgeous plate of buttery, flaky goodness. Across the table, his duck confit looked scary delicious.

We were meeting to discuss some Web site/blog/social media ideas for his soon-to-be-launched third restaurant, scheduled to open this spring. (Yes, notwithstanding the end of capitalism as we know it, he is opening a third restaurant.)

The food was delicious, but the lessons were even better. The choreography of the dining room staff—all alert anticipation—coupled with Chef M's insights into how successful restaurants work, provided invaluable lessons that I thought were applicable elsewhere. The whole vibe was thought-provoking and terrific.

If the walls could talk, they would have said, "We like what we're doing here, we do it well and we like sharing it with our customers."

As I listened to Chef M talk, I became convinced that the fragile nature of the restaurant business has more than a few things in common with the fragile nature of doing business on the Web.

What Is the Menu Telling You?

A restaurant is either clean and bright... or it's not, yes? It is either tastefully laid out, welcoming and warm, or is too slick and clever for its own good or perhaps it's dumpy and stuck in a time warp. It serves fresh food or not. Maybe it serves processed, poorly prepared dreck. Through menu, wine list, service, décor, and value, a restaurant reflects a keen understanding (and respect) of its core customers. Or, it does not.

I'm sure that each of us, from personal experience, can point to any number of examples all along the good-experience/bad-experience continuum in dining. What comes to mind for me is a long-ago disaster in Albuquerque that involved an uncooked cheeseburger. If only I could forget.

One of the morsels of insight from Chef M that day was that any restaurant—most especially those not run by world-famous chefs—has to maximize every possible opportunity to win people over and to persuade them to return. The Gordon Ramsays, Mario Batalis, and Thomas Kellers of the world can afford to make a few mistakes (although they make far fewer than most) because their brand is so strong and they're so widely known. The margin of error for them is just a bit wider.

But that place in your neighborhood? They can't afford mistakes. While they might have less-discerning customers than the big dogs, they still have to treat every customer like gold, because the brand and reputation they own is less powerful and thus more fragile. They are much more dependent on a collection of positive individual experiences, good restaurant reviews... and word-of-mouth: "Hey, have you been to River Bistro? You have to go, it's fabulous."

Your Homepage: An Appealing Appetizer of Possibility

So let's consider the moment when someone lands on your Web site. Just as in the restaurant, your Web site is either clean or cluttered. It is welcoming or not, packed with everything you can think to throw up there... or laid out with just the right information—an appealing appetizer of possibility.

The visitor feels understood and knows what to do because the design and the copy help her understand all of that and more. And, just like a well-regarded, high-functioning restaurant, the site reflects a keen understanding of, and respect for, its core customers. Visitors enjoy their stay and they come back often. They tell their friends. All that is true of course only if your site treats each visitor like gold—as if your entire business depends on each visit... because, in a way, it does.

Restaurant goers and Web site visitors are trying to accomplish something: They want to feel good about their decision, and they want value. Most people don't want to be intimidated. They want to be informed and educated in an informal and respectful way. Who can blame them?

Good restaurants and good Web sites do one thing well—they present clear, organized, and attractive choices. They don't overwhelm you.

A Good Restaurant Is About More Than the Food

One of the more interesting things I learned at lunch that day was that, as a general rule, service trumps food.

The food is important, no question, but the best food in the world is going to have a heck of a time overcoming poor service, poor presentation, and a disorganized dining room. Conversely, decent presentation, good service, and an organized dining room will take at least some of the sting out of sitting down to a mediocre meal. Context is everything.

So how does this translate to your online business?

Good Writing on the Web Is About More Than the Words

In my work as a copywriter, one of the biggest challenges I face with clients has to do with the idea of thinking only about the words. Or maybe it's more precise to say that words and copy are seen in isolation: Too often, the perception of the problem is very narrowly focused—"If we can just get the words right, if we can nail down the language, everything will be good."

That would be great if it were true, but it isn't.

That's the same sort of thinking that says, "If our food is beyond reproach, then all will be well." Well, sure: If you have a restaurant, you have to nail down the food. But can you get the dish to the table hot? Can your staff pair the dish with the right wine? Can you handle complaints? Can you deliver your core product quickly and efficiently again and again, day in and day out? Can you deliver what your client wants even before your client knows what he wants?

When an online business simply focuses on one thing (the words) to the exclusion of all else (design, functionality, layout, and presentation)—it's a recipe for failure.

My Meat-and-Potatoes Advice for 2009

In the same way that good food cannot survive crummy service, the best copy out there cannot survive a poorly designed Web site. Good copy cannot survive poor delivery, lack of styling, low functionality, and lousy execution and presentation. It is a totality of experience that people are craving. Mark my words. Give your customers a full meal and they'll keep coming back for more.

Written by Richard Pelletier

Surge in Chinese internet users

2009-01-14T09:54:00.002-06:00

China's online population, already the world's largest, has expanded to 298 million. This marks a 41.9% increase on the previous year and is still growing fast, said the government-linked China Internet Network Information Centre.

The study also showed huge increases in the number of people in China accessing the internet through mobile phones.

The report by Cinic also noted that internet use in the countryside was increasing faster than in the cities.

At the end of 2008, the number of net users in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion, was almost the same as the entire population of the United States.

Users in the countryside surged by 60.8% year-on-year to 84.6 million, compared with much more modest growth of 35.6% in the urban areas, the report said.

The Cinic report said 117.6 million people accessed the internet using their mobile phones last year, up 133% from 2007.

Students are the main strength of mobile internet users, the study said: 43.5% of them use their mobile phones to read online news, download music, check email and perform a variety of other tasks.

3G boom

China, with 633.8 million mobile phone users, last week issued long-awaited licences for third-generation (3G) mobile phones to China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

CHINA'S INTERNET USE

Total users: 298 million
Year-on-year increase: 41.9%
Mobile net users: 117.6 million
Internet penetration: 22.6%

"With the coming of the 3G era, wireless internet will have exponential growth," Cinic said in a statement accompanying the release of its report.

3G phones enable faster data transmission and services such as watching TV, playing online games, wide-area wireless calls and web surfing.

By 2011, the three operators expect to start 3G services all over China, a move which analysts predict will spur further massive growth in mobile internet use.

As the categories of mobile internet services increase, charges have also been dropping fast.
China's internet penetration is still low at just 22.6%, leaving more room for rapid growth, Cinic said.

Constraints

The study said 234 million people surfed the internet to read or watch news by the end of 2008, a much higher estimate than recently made by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In 2007, 155 million Chinese internet users relied on the web to read news, accounting for 73.6% of the total internet population, according to Cinic.

It also said the number of Chinese bloggers hit 162 million by the end of 2008. China's booming internet use comes despite the government's tight grip on the web.

Certain websites deemed politically sensitive are blocked; these include the BBC's Chinese language news site, Reporters Without Borders and some Hong Kong and Taiwan sites.

Access to sites offering diverse political opinions remains highly restricted, even as Chinese intellectuals and activists regularly brave the constraints to post new statements.

The government is also targeting what it calls unhealthy content on the internet. Earlier this month, it launched a campaign to get rid of vulgar and pornographic content, targeting 19 websites and search engines it said had failed to remove unsuitable material.

Authorities in Beijing, meanwhile, actively use the internet to sway opinion, put across actions and ideas, and promote top leaders.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Online Retail Booming

2009-01-14T09:50:00.001-06:00

Two sets of figures out today confirmed what I'd expected - that amidst all the economic gloom, online retailing continued to boom at Christmas.

One set of statistics came from Nielsen Online, which puts web traffic under the microscope. Its report says that traffic to the top ten UK retail websites was up by 37% in the last quarter of 2008 compared to the previous year. Ready to buy

No surprise that Amazon is at the top of the list with a monthly audience of 15.6 million. But that was a rise of just 18% on the previous year, whereas the figures for some traditional retailers were far more spectacular. Argos saw its audience rise by 32%, Marks and Spencer had a 46% rise and Littlewoods' audience was up 66%.

Earlier the British Retail Consortium had issued its survey for December, and it was packed with gloom and doom. "Worst December in Survey's History," was the headline on the press release, and it's obvious that the high street had a pretty miserable Christmas. But right at the end was this line: "Non-food non-store sales in December were 30.0% higher than a year ago." That means online retailing to you and me, and it's a far better performance than was predicted, even by the online retailing industry.

In the past the BRC, which in the main speaks for the big high street retailers, has been sceptical about the share of total retail sales enjoyed by the online sector. It puts it at under 4%, while the IMRG, which describes itself as "the voice of e-tail", claims it is much higher at around 15%. Whatever the true figure, two things are clear - online spending is growing rapidly, while high street spending is shrinking.

Back in the late 90s the dotcom evangelists told us that online start-ups would crush the dinosaurs of retailing and leave the shopping malls and high streets deserted. That didn't happen - but a decade later the online retail revolution is finally happening. And funnily enough, the dinosaurs are now leading the charge.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

“Write a blog” he says, “it’s easy”.

2009-01-08T16:35:00.001-06:00

Well, okay cyber-readers, here’s my first attempt.

SWITCHING GEARS

Staring down your 40th birthday makes you want to jump off a bridge or make some drastic changes in your life. Well, its affecting me like that. And obviously, I’ve opted for the “drastic change” or I wouldn’t be blogging.

Egads, what have I done?

I’ve left my secure, comfy job and joined WEBIDIOTZ. An idiotz-type maneuver? I think not. From a gal who knew 10% of her cell phone’s potential to selling websites, the transition has been anything but easy. I’m learning every day and can’t thank Neil Patel (Founder of Webidiotz) enough for his guidance, patience and most of all – his contagious enthusiasm.

It is so easy to sell something that you believe in. And the more I learn about the digital marketing age, the more I think - Wahoo! We are on to something here.

VERNON WOMEN IN BUSINESS (VWIB)

Wanting to network and get the WEBIDIOTZ name circulating, I volunteered to make a 3 minute presentation at the VWIB Christmas Luncheon. And were they serious about 3 minutes. They had an egg timer from ToastMasters which was total overkill. I barely know 3 minutes of information. However, the timing of my presentation couldn’t have been better orchestrated.

That day, the feature presenter was, Dr. Annamma Joy, Professor of the Department of Marketing for the University of British Columbia. Dr. Joy’s research interests include: culture, consumption, and marketing – among other things. She has lots of letters behind her name – I think that means she’s pretty smart. She has been published in numerous journals and magazines and is the author of “Ethnicity in Canada”.

Dr. Joy spoke of consumer culture, the Internet, and luxury brands. What stood out was her view on corporate identity – having a corporate identity that was “rebellious” has far more impact. She also confirmed my earlier suspicions……..and that is: In order to remain relevant in the modern consumer world and relate to the younger generation – you must be online.

DIGITAL TRIVIA

In my pursuit of computer knowledge, I have found out some interesting tidbits for you cyber fans. We are living in exponential times. It is estimated that Google, in 1 month, has 31 billion searches. This number in 2006, was 2.7 billion. Crazy! If “My Space” were a country, it would be 5th largest in the world with 200 million + users. (Source: Karl Fisch)

Despite this “economic recession” that we are in – Hewlett Packard reported a 10% increase in the sale of personal computers! (Source: The National Post, November 24, 2008)

Lastly, in case you are wondering (because I was kinda curious)– the Top 5 Most Trafficked Websites are……….

1) Google
2) Yahoo
3) MSN Windows
4) Microsoft
5) AOL Media Network

(Source: Forbes.com)

GOODBYE PRINT MEDIA – YOU ARE SOOOOOOOO 2001

Did you know?

Stunning Corporate America and all us other peeps, the Tribune Company – the biggest print media company in the United States, owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune newspapers, filed for bankruptcy due to loss of revenues to ON-LINE advertising. See the full story click here

And, despite the economic recession – the Internet is growing 15 – 20% every year!

YEAH, BUT WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

Your business must have a website. And guess what? You are at the right place to buy one!

Thank you for your time in reading my first EVA blog.
Out.
For now……..

Wendy

10 Steps to Measuring Web Site Success

2008-12-29T11:37:00.001-06:00

Is your Web site working? How would you know? Clients constantly ask me what they should be measuring, and my answer is always, “It depends.”

So for all of you who have wondered the same thing, here is the handy-dandy Sterne How-To Guide for measuring the success of your Web site.

1. Identify Key Stakeholders

Who cares? Inside your company, I mean.

Ensuring the success of the company Web site is not something that belongs exclusively to one job function or title. It's not something that can be forced on somebody. If you want your site to be successful and you want to measure that success, then you'll have to round up the people who are vitally interested.

Perhaps they have an agenda and see the Web as a way to help. Perhaps they are techno-geeks and just love to mess around with whatever is on the leading edge. Maybe they like the distinction of being an Internet person. The people in your company who care about your site enough to complain about it should also be asked to join the team willing to take some responsibility for it.

2. Identify Key Stakeholders' Primary Goals

With the stakeholders listed, cataloged, alphabetized and (with any luck) in the same room, find out what they want. This is a multi-tiered question that involves finding out what they want out of the Web site on behalf of the company, on behalf of their departments and as individuals. Sometimes these conversations even get down to how individuals are compensated.

You'll need to get the comprehensive list of objectives, goals and aspirations for everybody who has a strong enough opinion about the site to come to a steering committee meeting.

But before you start prioritizing those desired outcomes, it's time to shift your attention outward. There's another batch of people whose opinions about your site matter: site visitors.

3. Identify the Most Important Site Visitors

I've had dozens of conversations with corporate executives about who comes to their Web site and which among them are the most important. The answers are all over the map. They talk about the type of visitor that

* Shows up the most often
* Stays the longest
* Looks at the most pages
* Buys the most stuff
* Buys the most frequently
* Spends the most money

Generally, people tend to agree that the most important type of visitor is the type that's the most profitable over some period of time. But your mileage may vary.

4. Identify the Most Important Visitors' Primary Goals

This is really pretty simple: ease of use, speed, selection, price. It's all about the user experience. Can they quickly and easily get want they want?

5. Prioritize Everybody's Goals

Now, you finally have all the cards on the table. You know what everybody wants and can start horse-trading. A great many goals will synchronize, but you'll also find that some people have strong opinions about whether raising revenue is more important than lowering costs, or if improving customer satisfaction is job one.

This is a political ball game. The person who feels the strongest may or may not be sidelined by the person with the most seniority. The person with the biggest budget may or may not be outflanked by the person with the closest ties to executive management. This is the part that always reminds me of why I don't work in a corporate environment and why such places need outside consultants every now and then.

At the end of the scrimmage, you'll end up with a list of priorities that may or may not be the very best, but at least they are identified, discussed and prioritized by one and all in the room. Many of those people will not have their way, but at least they were present during the process and understand why the spinning logo is deemed more important than revenues at the moment.

6. Determine Critical Metrics

Which metrics signal whether you are moving closer to your goals or further away? If the main goal is More Visitors, then a clear definition of how visitors are counted is necessary (cookies? logins? javascript?). If the main goal is revenue, then you'll need to identify the factors that make up the process of getting from awareness to interest to sale. If customer satisfaction is in the mix, then one and all must agree on the methods used to gather satisfaction data and how to weight it.

Again, the accord among the players is more important than the result.

7. Identify the Necessary Technology

With clear goals and metrics in mind, the selection of a Web analytics vendor becomes vastly simpler. You are no longer choosing between an enormous variety of esoteric technologies, but merely asking whether specific data can be captured, collated, correlated and reported—at what cost—and with what flexibility. Flexibility accounts for the fact that you will change your mind in the future about what else you wish to measure.

8. Check References

A robust set of data gathering technologies, a solid financial foundation and a really nice users' group are all well and good, but how does your prospective Web analytics vendor treat their clients? Talk to their references and ask them for the names of other users your vendor might have been reluctant to reveal. Keep asking questions.

9. Distribute Only the Data That Drives Business Decisions

Do not fall back into the briar patch of circulating reports for the sake of spreading the data around. Dole out those reports only to those who need them to make business decisions. Too much data becomes overwhelming and therefore useless.

10. Accountability, Responsibility, Visibility

Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité may have fueled the French Revolution, but the more mundane accountability, responsibility and integrity will determine whether your Web analytics efforts are going to pay off.

Once you have decided what's important and how to measure it, you have to decide what you're going to do about the results, how often you're going to do it and who is going to be responsible.

When the numbers are periodically published, whose work product gets reviewed? When the numbers are going south, who gets the bamboo shoots under the fingernails? When the numbers improve, who gets the Employee of the Month parking space?

Don't go through all this effort just so you can say, “Yes, we do Web analytics and we have the reports right here to prove it!” Instead, make sure those reports are an integral part of a process of constant improvement. Then you'll know whether your Web site is working or not.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Web Site Content—It's All About the Why

2008-12-29T11:28:00.001-06:00

Every week I'm asked to look at business Web sites and tell the owners why they're not getting the results they want.

Some of these sites are straightforward brochures, others are e-commerce catalogs, and some are those direct-mail-style pitches reminiscent of old mail-order magazine subscription schemes. Some have incorporated do-it-yourself audio and video, and some even have such media professionally produced... but, still, the results stink. Why?

'The Close' Is Always Found in 'The Why'

Certainly part of the problem stems from a very narrow definition of what a Web site is: by casting your site in terms of a brochure, catalog, e-commerce-site, blog, or portal, you are falling into the trap of concentrating on "The What" rather than "The Why."

This focus on "The What" is exacerbated by some search engine optimization techniques intended to drive traffic rather than to brand product, sell services, or convert traffic into customers. Traffic is important, but converting that traffic into paying customers is more important. Even the best and brightest search engine optimizers will tell you that their job is to deliver traffic, not orders—closing the deal is your job, and anybody who tells you that closing can be done by means of some automatic never-touched-by-human-hands method is just plain nuts.

What you want to be careful of is search-engine tactics and second-rate media that actually get in the way of effectively delivering your marketing message—of telling your business story, creating a memorable brand image, and above all generating profitable business clients.

Web Video Is a Presentation-Marketing Strategy

If you pay any attention to what's going on, you must be aware of the shift in Web thinking and the acceptance of Web video as a fundamental Web-marketing tool. But like most things, there is a right way and a whole bunch of wrong ways to do it.

Web video is a presentation-marketing strategy, and its strength and power come from its ability to overcome the Web's natural sterile, isolationist environment by incorporating verbal and non-verbal human elements that effectively deliver bold, well-crafted memorable messages.

Can a Web-video campaign cure everything that's wrong with your company, or even your sales department's deficiencies? Of course not. But the right message based on "The Why" using appropriate, cost-effective presentation techniques can position your business, brand your product, and generate sales leads.

Don't fool yourself: You and your sales staff have to close the sale. Do not expect to sit back and count your profits while your Web site runs your business by default. Automatic pilot may work for sites that sell commodity items and nationally branded merchandise backed by millions of dollars of advertising, but unless you fall into that category, it's time to get real.

A New Web Paradigm

Here's a new way of looking at your Web site; and if you "get it," you will be able to refashion your site and reinvent your business in a way that gets you remembered and initiates action by your target market:

Start thinking of your Web site as a stage and all the content on it as players you direct in order to deliver your message and tell your story in a memorable manner to a relevant audience.

So let's break down this Web-presentation model and analyze how it meets your marketing needs.

Your Web site is a stage

Businesses that want to use their Web sites as a marketing vehicle have to get past thinking of them in terms of merely digital print media.

Just as damaging is the overreliance on search optimization or IT technical solutions that have little or no relationship to marketing's primary goal of delivering a memorable message that initiates action on the part of the audience.

Knowing the age, sex, and hat size of the last ten thousand visitors to your site may impress some, but having reams of statistical information on your visitors doesn't necessarily mean you know what that data means or how to use it effectively. In the same vein, tons of traffic generated by the latest SEO manipulation doesn't necessarily translate into business.

Start thinking of your Web site as a stage—a presentation and performance platform that allows your company to present your message to your audience in an entertaining, informative, and memorable manner.

Tell your story in a memorable manner

There are many ways to present what you do and why your audience should care, but the most effective way is to deliver that information in a story format. When people come to your Web site, they are putting you on trial and judging everything that you present, in order to see whether it is relevant and convincing, and whether it resonates with their needs.

In their article "Evidence Evaluation in Complex Decision Making" (in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology), Pennington and Hastie explain that when prosecutors tell their version of events to a jury in story format, they are able to achieve a 78% conviction rate, whereas those who do not use a story format have only a 31% conviction rate.

When visitors come to your Web site, they are putting you on trial for your Web-business life.

Memorable communication is all about the performance

Effective communication begins with the campaign concept. If you don't have a well-defined, focused concept that deals with the "why anybody should care factor," your communication will be muddy and irrelevant. Far too many marketing campaigns try to do too much, and in an effort to get your money's worth say everything and anything that comes to mind. Unfortunately, all you're really doing is confusing people—and your core message never gets heard, let alone understood or remembered.

You need professional presenters who know how to use both verbal and non-verbal performance to get your message across, and of course you've got to give the presenters a script that is well written, entertaining, and informative.

Professional actors and voiceover talent bring infinite subtlety, nuance, and meaning to cleverly written scripts. Add sound effects, signature music, and a few post-production enhancements... and you have a memorable presentation.

What you don't need is complicated sets, props, and locations that increase the cost of production. The Web is not television, and there is no need to absorb inflated expenses based on ad agency cost-plus-pricing fees that bear little relation to effectiveness.

Expensive movie-style productions are just not necessary and lose their impact when delivered in relatively small, Web-friendly formats that need to be easily integrated with additional collateral material that can be used to present more details and to answer frequently asked questions.

Last but Not Least

We can learn a lot from children, including from their relentless quest for the answer to "The Why" of things. We often forget that this is the central issue in our lives, and it is only after we've been told by parents, teachers, bosses, and numerous other authority figures to shut up and do what we've told that we sublimate this need and replace it with the far less meaningful and convincing "What."

But if we as marketers can put our faith in delivering "The Why" using the most people-friendly techniques of verbal and non-verbal digital communication, then we will have learned how to achieve a convincing and memorable Web-marketing presentation.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Don't Settle for Web Site Mediocrity

2008-11-30T08:42:00.002-06:00

A recent marketing study by ServiceXRG found that most online shoppers (74.5 percent) use a company Web site to find needed information about products and services. However, less than half (44 percent) said the information provided met their needs and expectations.

Other studies, including by the Nielsen Norman Group show, that only 50 percent of Web visitors scroll down the screen to see what lies below the visible part on their PC monitor. That info highlights the importance of catching and holding the attention of your online consumer with that crucial first impression.

The Two Major Elements of Web Site Success

A Web site has to accomplish only two basic things to deliver success for your business—and, also basic, those two things are mission-critical. A successful Web site must be built from the ground up to attract and capture:

The attention of your target audience
The attention of the major search engines

If you can accomplish these two great things, your Web site business will have excellent prospects for success. If you design a great-looking, user-friendly site with well-written market copy, but your site is not constructed on search-engine-friendly design principles, no one will get the chance to experience your work of art.

If your site is well-built and well optimized, yet the design is boring and amateurish, then your well-placed Web site will drive customers away and just might as well not exist. Every potential customer who either bounces out of your site or can't even find it is another sale for your competitors.

Practical Information for Building a Powerful Presence

Web site success boils down to being easily found in the first pages of the search engine listings and, once found, grabbing and holding the fickle focus of internet shoppers. The Web site design elements and principles that make these two major goals happen are many and are based on industry best-practices and practical marketing principles.

Following are a few key points to keep in mind as you embark on your journey to Web site dominance:

Research your market and build with your customer in mind

Get a very clear picture before starting your Web site project of who your ideal customer really is. Web site preferences of look and feel vary according to gender, age, culture, and interests and this information will be incredibly valuable when you design your site.

A Few Tips on Color to Get You Started...

Women prefer red and yellow, whereas men like blue and orange. Women also can sense a much greater range of shade variations.
Older people tend to like sites that are more conservative, with blue, brown, and gray tones. Young adults and teens are often excited by vibrant colors, contrast, and movement.
Colors evoke different feelings in different people. When targeting a market audience in other countries, be sure to research the cultural color beliefs of that group. In the US and Western Europe, the color white signifies purity and blessing. However, in China and Japan, white is bad luck and red is the traditional color of brides.
Make sure to use a good contrast between background color and text color. The best choice is a white background with black text. Gray with black text or black with bright text color are also good choices.

These are just a few Web site fundamentals to consider closely when planning your Web site. Keep the customer always at the forefront of your thoughts when designing your site, with the search engines firmly in mind. Find a well-respected Web design agency to build a custom Web site created with your unique goals and market in mind from the very beginning. Remember that you do get what you pay for and that value and quality, not the lowest bid, should be your focus when planning for long-term Web site success.

Measuring Social Marketing and Media

2008-11-30T08:40:00.002-06:00

Hardly a week goes by when you don't read or hear about social marketing or social media. Those terms are frequently used, so it's probably a good idea to first define them.

Social marketing was "born" as a discipline in the 1970s. Philip Kotler & Gerald Zaltman of Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, in 1971 used the term to describe the application of commercial marketing principles to health, social, and quality-of-life issues.

Social marketing was defined as "seeking to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society." It leverages the value that consumers/customers have in sharing between themselves and with the brand/manufacturer. It delivers a two-way communication link between the consumer/customer and the brand.

While social marketing was originally developed from the desire that companies had to capitalize on commercial marketing techniques, it has evolved into a more integrative and comprehensive discipline that draws on a wide array of technology, from the traditional media to new media, referred to as "social media."

These social media comprise primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information, such as viral videos, blogs, and online reviews, to help the company build its business.

Whereas your Web site provides customers and visitors with information about your company and its products—and you use the Internet to enhance your reach through things such as pay-per-click, webinars, and search—social media is about leveraging relationships and networks. It complements other online and offline marketing initiatives.

As more and more companies invest resources into social media and marketing, it's natural to ask the value of this investment is to be measured. Social media and marketing doesn't replace other media, just as radio didn't replace newspaper and television didn't replace radio. Rather, social media are another part of your multichannel-marketing efforts.

The same principles that you apply to determine how much you are going to invest in other media apply to online social media. The first principle is to select your target market. Second, develop consistent relevant messaging and content. Just as with any online effort, content is king when it comes to social media.

Today's challenge with social media and marketing is the same challenge affecting all forms of media: People's attention spans are short and they are easily and quickly distracted. Therefore, just like any other effort, a single strike may not be enough. When you decide to leverage social media you need to deploy it consistently over time.

As with any initiative, you can measure the impact of a social media effort only after you've determined the business outcome it supports and established performance-based objectives. For example, possible objectives could include increasing customer trial, improving brand advocacy/customer loyalty, or increasing share of preference. Each of these objectives should be tied to a business outcome. For example, increasing customer trial or share of preference may be tied to business outcomes around acquiring new customers or accelerating the rate of customer acquisition in order to impact revenue and market share.

The metrics you choose for your social media will be determined after you've established what business outcome needs to be achieved and how the social media supports your marketing objective. However, just as with any communication channel, you will want to have some way to create a measurement framework.

One possible approach is to measure your social media similar to how you measure public relations (PR) using outputs, outcomes, and business results as the basis of your framework. Why choose a framework similar to one used for PR? If you review the purpose of each—PR and social media—you can see that they are kissing cousins.

Public relations is about attempting to favorably influence the impressions and attitudes of a target audience primarily through endorsements (published articles, reports, reviews, etc.) by trusted, credible, objective third parties. Social media isn't very far afield from this idea when you consider that it is designed to have an impact on both engagement and influence through the participation and interaction of third-party networks and communities. They both rely on perceived trusted and credible third parties over which you have very little direct control.

How do you use the outputs, outcomes, and business results framework? First, let's define each category, because each category measures something different:

Outputs measure effectiveness and efficiency, such as... whether the campaign cost-effective, in terms of the number of positive reviews produced by community influencers, or the number of people engaged in a blog discussion on a topic related to your category that includes positive mentions of your company and its product.

Outcomes measure changes, preferably behavioral, resulting from the program/campaign/activity. For example, this could be the quantifiable change in the number of positive reviews for your company's recently launched new product.

Business results measure how the program, campaign, or activity helped the organization achieve a specific business objective. For example, the rate of adoption for your company's new product—that is, the incremental lift in sales for the product as a result of the social media.

The more quantitatively you can measure your social media, the better. The closer those measurements are to business outcomes, even better. How rapidly people in the network engage with you and respond to your "call to action," such as write a review, participate in the blog discussion, or forward something to a colleague.. can all be measured.

What you want to know is whether the social media efforts are having any incremental impact, and if so how much, so you can assess return on investment. Remember to keep the business outcome in mind, such as seeing an increase in the number of people "trialing" your product in order to increase the number of qualified leads in the pipeline and ultimately increase the number of "buyers."

So, even if the social media is producing a good return in terms of its specific metric, if it isn't moving the needle on the business outcome then more than likely you need to revisit your effort.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Effective Online Marketing in a Recession

2008-11-30T08:37:00.001-06:00

The Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times," must have been coined in a business climate similar today's. The credit crunch and its reverberations are being widely felt, nowhere more so than in smaller organizations that have fewer marketing resources than the big boys.

Marketers need help to navigate these tricky economic waters while staying focused on profitable expansion rather than contraction. If you can grow, even in these times, you will emerge on the other side of the economic crisis ahead of the competition.

Creativity, combined with on-demand marketing tools, will help. When budgets are tight is the best time to try new and less-costly techniques leveraging Web 2.0 technologies.

What Is the Right Marketing Mix?

Web 2.0 technologies offer new ways for you to reach your audience for little to no cost. Customers have become inoculated to tired methods like email and even pay-per-click. Waiting for them to visit your Web site is simply insufficient to drive growth. Instead, the new generation of marketing tools includes things like social communities, Web site syndication tools, gadgets, and RSS feeds because they are online ("on-demand"), scaling to any size of audience. The best part is that most Web 2.0 technologies are easy to use and are, often, free.

So which Web 2.0 marketing tools can best help you promote your Web site, content, and applications? Remember that before using any of these you must first work out what specific strategic marketing goals you are trying to achieve. Then, see how some, or all of these options, can work together to achieve your goals.

Social networking platforms are extremely popular now. Create a page on Facebook or MySpace for your company or product. Or you can create your own social network at Ning. Populate your page with gadgets and fresh content. Start a group or a fan page so prospective and current customers can stay in touch.

Web site syndication tools put your Web site on the move. For example, if you put the best elements of your Web site on a community toolbar that sits in the browser, then your company goes everywhere on the Internet that your customer does.

Any content or application can be made into a gadget/widget, which is a simple distribution mechanism because it can be hosted on any Web site, and is easy to install into a browser, social-networking site, personalized start page, or toolbar. Check out Widgetbox, where you can easily make your own widgets.

Syndicate your blog or your Web site with an RSS Feed. Don't wait for people to come to read it. Make it available as an RSS feed, which will be sent to them whenever you update the blog. Most blog tools include an RSS creation tool. These feeds can also be hosted on social community page, community toolbar, and personalized start pages.

There are also some great sharing tools, like ShareThis, which can make it easy for you to syndicate product announcements, press releases, blog updates, media coverage—any content you want—to your various networks simultaneously. It's a better delivery mechanism than simple email because it delivers your content to myriad places, like email lists, your Facebook page, etc. with only a few clicks. Moreover, it can track and measure the entire life of the information.

Analyze It: Is It Working?

The most successful Web 2.0 marketers establish measurable goals and then consistently track the results. Set your specific campaign objectives and establish performance goals for each deployment method.

These goals should be aligned to business needs: for example, conversions to membership or purchase; increased site traffic if you are ad revenue based; and conversions from social networks to your Web site.

Gadgets/widgets can help you measure return traffic to your site and repeat purchases. A tell-a-friend or sharing tool can help you capture the power of your word-of-mouth campaigns and measure conversions from social media.

Most importantly, and unlike email analytics, all these tools and their analytics provide instant feedback so that you can react in real time to campaigns that are working (and those that are not).

Optimize It: Make Adjustments Where Needed

Use your analytics to determine what is working best, and then invest there. Tweaking your program based on analysis should allow you to quickly see results. Success begets success. For example, when you update new content on your Web site and your customers are immediately drawn to it time and time again, you want to be able to syndicate this positive experience with other users.

In some cases, the results will surprise you, but trust the data. Just as importantly, if it doesn't work, stop wasting your time. Ignore emotional attachments to popular campaigns if they don't prove their worth.

Anecdotal feedback from prospective and current customers is just as important. Give your visitors and community ample opportunity to provide feedback about your site, campaigns, and products, and make adjustments accordingly. For example, online surveys are easy to deploy and can centralize the results for comparison.

Web 2.0 technologies are easy to adjust and refresh so that you can react more quickly and tweak your campaigns on the fly.

In Perspective

Waiting for the larger economic picture to improve is not going to make the path ahead any easier. Proceeding with targeted and cost-effective marketing campaigns could mean the difference between success and failure during the downturn. It is worth noting that 16 of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average started in downturns. Will your business be number 17?

Going Green: Moving Printed Newsletters, Statements, and Promotions to Email

2008-11-12T15:52:00.002-06:00

In this day and age, one could say "Green is the new Black." More than ever, consumers are engaged in environmentally sound practices. And companies can easily leverage this "Green" trend to not only show their customers their concern with the global environment but also reduce the continually increasing cost of the direct mail process.

There will always be a place for direct mail. However, if you look closely at the type and frequency of your printed pieces that you are sending, organizations can easily identify those items that would be a good fit in the email realm.

Many large travel, banking, and other service providers were the first to jump on the email bandwagon for regularly scheduled statements, newsletters, and other already-existing direct mail advertisements.

Properly executed, consumers find many advantages in receiving these types of communications via email.

Advantages for Consumers

Review, retrieve, and save electronic pieces for easy reference and reduced clutter.
Immediately respond to offers or call-to-actions with clicks, not postage.
Share information electronically by forwarding to a friend.

Advantages for Advertisers

Reduce cost associated with direct mail pieces.
Shorten the amount of time and reduce the resources needed from "concept to distribution."
Customize electronic pieces with more personalized content to increase relevancy for each recipient.
Decrease the amount of time to provide customers with information that they have requested by using "triggered" or "recurring" messages to send electronic collateral or links.
Track success of email campaigns through electronic reporting within minutes/hours, not days/weeks.
Collect other customer information that can be used to tailor unique and customized campaigns based on subscription-collection pages as well as by tracking user activity via visited links.

Identifying the Opportunities and Making the Move

But moving direct mail pieces to an electronic format doesn't happen overnight. Also, not all direct mail pieces are a perfect fit for the email world.

Email-design constraints, along with best practices, need to be fully fleshed out to ensure that you are providing a message that is visually pleasing and relevant, and renders properly in the email inbox.

Steps and Considerations for Print-to-Email Shift

One of the biggest obstacles when moving from a printed direct mail piece to email is not having an email address, or having an email address that is not opted-in to receive your messages.

Direct mail itself has an integral role in converting direct mail customers to email customers:

Include a subscription link/address for individuals who are receiving printed pieces via your direct mail campaigns.
Provide a review of the benefits of "Going Green" as it relates to the environment, direct costs back to the consumer, as well as other perceived advantages for your customer.
If you plan to phase out a particular printed piece, be sure to clearly call out any dates that the customer will need to "enroll by" to ensure that they don't miss future communications.
Offer incentive for the customer to start receiving your message electronically: a discount on a future purchase, points or miles in a loyalty program, enhanced area for VIP access within your Web site, early announcement of discounts, or special or unique offers tailored exclusively for you email-recipient customers.
If enrollment incentives are non-transferable (unique to those whom you are specifically collecting email addresses for), create your registration page to require your customer to provide his/her "Customer ID" or "Membership ID." Additional database work on your end is needed to ensure that those you have intended to receive the offer are the ones who qualify.
Collect email information the correct way: Use two email fields that require the customer to enter his/her email address, and verify that both fields entered match. Use a double-opt-in email communication plan that will generate a message confirming the email subscription selections to further ensure a correct email address.
Ensure that your Web site has an "Sign Up Today" link on every page to capture new customers
If you require a "Customer ID" or other type of "Membership ID" to access your Web site, create reminders that ask for their email and subscription authorization.
Promote your "Green Initiative" on your Web site as well as your current printed direct mail materials.

Taking the steps today to create a road map to a "greener" marketing program can result in significant cost savings in the direct mail channel; doing so will also show your customers that you are a responsible marketer, playing in an ever-growing field with businesses that are trying to make the world just a little better.

The ability to track ROI and campaign success with email can also help drive sales and provide for a more unique and customized user experience that will help strengthen your brand.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

The Internet As A Force In Politics: “Obama Would Not Have Won Without The Internet”

2008-11-09T14:28:00.001-06:00

The Internet played a disruptive role in the 2008 election in the same way television played a disruptive role in the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy to president. Neither medium was new in the respective elections, but both “came of age” and swung the election towards the winning candidate. Kennedy, in particular, used television ads extensively in his campaign to reach the American voters directly, and embraced simple things like makeup.

The televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon was probably the most decisive event for the election of 1960. The growth of TV as a new medium, and declined use of radio marked a significant change in how campaigns are ran today. For the TV appearence, Nixon refused to wear make-up and therefore appeared unshaven, tired and sweaty under the lights. Kennedy, however, did wear the make-up and so appeared cooler and more composed than Nixon. Kennedy, before the debate, returned tan and attractive from vacation. Not only did Kennedy appear to be better groomed, and handsome, his suit was navy popping off the grey back drop. Nixon’s suit was grey, blending in to the curtain behind him. With these factors combined, Among TV viewers agreed, Kennedy won the debate. Richard Nixon’s deep, strong, radio appealing voice won over all radio listeners, they agreed Nixon won the debate. Nixon entered the race ahead of Kennedy. Television as a new medium changed presidential elections from this point on, marking the election of 1960 significant. Radio voice failed to prevail over now “candidate centered” television campaigns.

If it wasn’t for the Internet, Obama would not be president. Obama’s YouTube spots gathered an aggregate of 14.5 million viewing hours. The Internet was used by candidates previously, Obama really leveraged the internet fully with online video, blogging, social networking and fundraising.

If the internet is as powerful as electing the first black American President then what can the internet do for your business. Very few businesses use the all the benefits available today online from blogging to social media like facebook and twitter these are just a few I could talk about.

The internet is changing the world forever so make sure you are using all the tools available to change the direction of your business.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Do i need a website?

2008-10-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

Q: My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can't be sold online. Do I really need a website?

A: That's a good question. In fact, it's one of the most important and most frequently asked questions of the digital business age.
So should your business have a website, even if your business is small and sells products or services you don't think can be sold online? My answer in 1998 is the same as my answer today: Yes, if you have a business, you should have a website. Period. No question. Without a doubt.
Also, don't be so quick to dismiss your product as one that can't be sold online. Nowadays, there's very little that can't be sold over the internet. More than 20 million shoppers are now online, purchasing everything from books to computers to cars to real estate to jet airplanes to natural gas to you name it. If you can imagine it, someone will figure out how to sell it online.
Let me clarify one point: I'm not saying you should put all your efforts into selling your wares over the internet, though if your product lends itself to easy online sales, you should certainly be considering it. The point to be made here is that you should at the very least have a presence on the web so that customers, potential employees, business partners and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer.
That said, it's not enough that you just have a website. You must have a professional-looking site if you want to be taken seriously. Since many consumers now search for information online prior to making a purchase at a brick-and-mortar store, your site may be the first chance you have at making a good impression on a potential buyer. If your site looks like it was designed by a barrel of colorblind monkeys, your chance at making a good first impression will be lost.
One of the great things about the internet is that it has leveled the playing field when it comes to competing with the big boys. As mentioned, you have one shot at making a good first impression. With a well-designed site, your little operation can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company. The inverse is also true. I've seen many big company websites that were so badly designed and hard to navigate that they completely lacked professionalism and credibility. Good for you, too bad for them.
You may have a small operation, but when it comes to benefiting from a website, size does not matter. I don't care if you're a one-man show or a 10,000-employee corporate giant; if you don't have a website, you're losing business to other companies that do.
Here's the exception to my rule: It's actually better to have no website at all than to have one that makes your business look bad. Your site speaks volumes about your business. It either says, "Hey, look, we take our business so seriously that we have created this wonderful site for our customers!" or it screams, "Hey, look, I let my 10-year-old nephew design my site. Good luck finding anything!"
Your website is an important part of your business. Make sure you treat it as such.

Seven Steps to a Successful Marketing Blog - by Connie Reece

2008-10-23T17:05:00.002-05:00

How do you start from scratch yet create a top-ranked marketing blog in less than a year?

If I had anything close to a foolproof formula, I'd be making an infomercial right now rather than writing this article. Nevertheless, I can share some tips from my own experience to help you achieve success with your marketing blog.

1. Read

Before you draw up a plan for your blog, do your homework. Find and read the top marketing bloggers (see Mack Collier's Top 25 list). Don't overlook new voices, however; they may have valuable ideas and a fresh perspective.

It's important to listen before jumping into a conversation—and that's what blogging is all about. Often the back-and-forth discussion that takes place in the comments is the most valuable part of a blog post.

2. Comment

I did nothing but read blogs and bookmark them for about a month before I moved on to Step 2, which is to join the conversation by leaving comments on the blogs that you read.

Rather than a bland "nice post" type of comment, write something that adds to the conversation. Why was the subject important to you? How can you use the information?

Now, when you leave your comment, here's where marketing magic begins. Most blogs have three boxes for personal information to identify the commenter:

First, your name. Unless you are widely known by a nickname or pseudonym, always use your real name.
The second piece of information requested is your email address; it will not be visible to readers but lets the author know that you're a real person, not a bot or spammer.
The third blank to fill out is the URL of your Web site or blog, if you have one. When you add a URL in this space, it creates a hyperlink to your site, and when a reader mouses over your name, your blog title is displayed.

Because you've automatically generated a way for readers to find you, it's considered poor etiquette to use the comment space of someone else's blog for self-promotion. So resist the urge to hijack the comments; make your point, and use no more than one hyperlink. Most blog filters are defaulted to flag as spam any comment with two or more hyperlinks.

3. Write

When you first start writing a blog, it takes a while to find your voice. The best advice I can give you? Don't try to be Mack Collier or Drew McLellan or John Moore—or anybody else.

It's good to quote from industry leaders, but take time to formulate your opinions and express them in your own words. And don't write a lengthy essay that draws final conclusions, which has the effect of shutting off dialogue.

Learn to ask for comments in your post, and phrase them in a way that invites response.

4. Respond

When visitors comment on your blog, follow up with an appropriate response in the comment section. There's a fine line between dominating the conversation and keeping it going, so let several comments accumulate before you address them in the same reply.

Remember that commenters may not revisit your blog to see your reply, although this has been made much easier with new tools that allow RSS or email feeds for individual comments. Toby Bloomberg taught me an early lesson about responding to new commenters: She sent a short email thanking me for the comment and introducing herself. What a nice surprise for this brand-new blogger to get a personal email from the Diva! It started a conversation that has continued to this day.

5. Converse

A blog is not your only venue for interaction with readers and thought leaders. Take the conversation to another forum—a microblogging tool like Twitter, for example, or Facebook. More than 900 people follow me on Twitter, which provides many opportunities for interesting or helpful conversations. When I send a "tweet" with a link to a blog post, I always see a spike in traffic.

I do not treat Twitter, however, as just another marketing channel. Users who send only links and never engage with others will not find Twitter valuable.

6. Connect

Look for ways to extend the conversation to face-to-face meetings with other bloggers: Attend conferences, for example, or invite a local blogger to coffee. These connections will invigorate you and help you become better known in the marketing blogger community. When you visit the blog of a personal connection, it's like catching up with an old friend.

7. Rinse & Repeat

Don't rest on your laurels. Blogging is a long-term commitment, and you need to be aware of that—and prepared for it—going in. A writing schedule, or even an editorial calendar, can be a helpful tool to keep you producing fresh content on a timely basis. Set aside time each day to read and comment on other blogs.

Happy Blogging

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

How New Media Helped a Rural UK Mail Order Company Go Nationwide, Global

2008-10-23T16:32:00.003-05:00

Company: Wiggly Wigglers
Contact: Heather Gorringe, Managing Director at Wiggly Wigglers
Location: Blakemere, Herefordshire, UK
Industry: Home and Garden, B2C
Annual revenue: Confidential
Number of employees: 17

Quick Read:

Wiggly Wigglers is a natural-gardening retail company descended from a farm in the countryside between England and Wales. Its products are not high-tech, but its marketing certainly is.

In fact, largely due to Wiggly Wigglers' use of new media to build a stable and successful business, it was recognized by Dell as the No. 1 small business in the United Kingdom in this year's Small Business Excellence Awards—and has made it to the finals of the global award.

Staring in 2005, Wiggly Wigglers Managing Director Heather Gorringe all but abandoned traditional marketing and instead took up a podcast, a blog, a wiki catalog, an e-newsletter, and social media outlets such as Facebook and YouTube.

The company has since reduced its annual marketing costs from over £100,000 to less than £3,000, all the while expanding its customer base and building international brand recognition.

Challenge:

Wiggly Wigglers specializes in natural gardening products such as composting kits, meal worms, English flowers, and native hedges.

"We sell products that gardeners may not know that they want," said Gorringe. "No one is going to wake up in the morning and think, 'Ah-ha, I really do need to be composting my kitchen waste using worms.'"

The company's early challenge lay not only in generating demand for such products but also in building a customer base beyond its immediate area, since it resides in a village of just over 60 people in England's rural West Midlands.

To that end, in 1995 it became one of the first mail order companies in the United Kingdom to incorporate e-commerce. "It's essential that we embrace new technology," Gorringe said. "If we didn't do that, we simply wouldn't have any customers."

Still, e-commerce wasn't enough. The company was spending more than £100,000 a year in marketing with direct mail, print advertising, and its catalog, but sales weren't adding up. The company accountant even suggested that it might be time to give up.

But Gorringe was confident in the company's product offerings and felt she simply needed to connect with people and share her enthusiasm. In 2005, she set out on a new campaign to engage people in a bold attempt to both increase leads and decrease marketing spend.

Campaign:

To generate awareness, Web traffic, and community, Wiggly Wigglers launched the following, all of which linked to the company's Web site:

A podcast: Every Thursday morning, Gorringe records a program covering an array of gardening- and farm-related topics, with frequent references to the company Web site. Gorringe shares her passion, provides detailed information with all the crucial points intact (which, she noted, were often edited out when she had submitted to media interviews), and address many overlooked topics that listeners may not be able to hear about elsewhere.

The podcasts are available on iTunes and the Wiggly Wigglers Web site (where they are also archived); feed addresses are also made available for users to cut and paste into podcatcher (feed aggregator) software.

To help generate additional interest in the podcasts, Gorringe has included celebrity interviews, and she often asks for user reviews on iTunes.

A blog: Blog posts are written several times weekly by a Wiggly Wigglers staff member. The blog plays off of the podcast and includes tips, seasonal commentary, and industry and company news. Readers have the option of forwarding a post to a friend and clicking through to the podcast, company Web site, and online retail shop.

Readers and other bloggers are urged to comment and contribute to the blog, and their comments are often included in the podcast. Staff members also visit and comment on other blogs.

A wiki: The company initiated a wiki to create its latest catalog, encouraging bloggers and others to contribute to the product-selection process. The wiki been effective in generating exposure, since bloggers often relay to their own readers their experiences with the wiki or the products they reviewed or selected.
A Facebook group: A group was established on the social-networking site for users to ask questions, join in forums, and post photos.
A YouTube channel: The channel includes videos from the podcast, how-to demonstrations, ads, and other videos about the company.
An e-newsletter: The Wiggl-e-news is sent out twice a month and reminds readers to revisit the company Web site.

For advertising, the company now spends around £2,000 annually on Google AdWords and less than £1,000 on Facebook ads and other media.

It also conducts a good amount of traditional PR work to encourage journalists to write about the company; it has contributed content to select media and has made two podcasts in partnership with major UK magazines.

Results:

An estimated 50,000 Web site visitors and close to 700,000 pageviews per month
An average of 40,000 regular podcast listeners, and up to 100,000 listens each month for the company's top 15 podcasts combined.
More than 60 reviews on iTunes, 99% of which are 5 stars
849 members in the Wiggly Wigglers Facebook group
Over 10,000 video views on the Wiggly Wigglers YouTube channel
43,000 e-newsletter subscribers
A 97%+ reduction in advertising costs
Higher Google rankings due to blog and podcast content
Increased online sales that now account for 50% of the company's total sales

The online campaign has also helped Wiggly Wigglers establish broader, even global reach. The company now has more than 90,000 customers, including some in the US and New Zealand.

Gorringe's podcasts have also been noted by media outlets such as The San Francisco Chronicle, and she has received speaking invitations from India and New York.

Lessons Learned:

Instead of money, Gorringe says, she is "spending time, effort, ingenuity and having genuine conversations with people," and this has resulted in a campaign that is not only low-cost but also more long-term.

The podcast has been particularly effective. "It's not only the short-term gain; people still go right back to podcast number one and work their way through. The longevity of this form of marketing, in my opinion, is unique," she said.

Among the steps that Wiggly Wigglers took to make its new media initiatives, such as the podcast, successful:

Establishing credibility: Although the Wiggly Wigglers name is lighthearted in nature, the company aim has always been "to ensure that our Web site was not a joke and always delivered lots of useful information," said Gorringe. This was also carried through to the podcast and other media. For example, Gorringe was able to build a strong reputation for her podcast by addressing rarely covered but important issues, interviewing celebrities, generating press coverage and working in connection with major UK magazines, and earning 5-star reviews on iTunes.
Creating community: Particularly through the podcast, blog, and Facebook group, Wiggly Wigglers has built a following of people with similar interests and provided them an outlet to interact with the company as well as each other. "This enables us to keep that conversation going with people who can then help us learn what they need, and what they want, to keep their gardens going," Gorringe said.
Further fostering participation: Gorringe doesn't wait for users to rate her podcast, comment on the company blog, or contribute to the wiki catalogue; she asks them directly, and thanks them when they do, by reading the comments and reviews over the podcast. She and other staff also make the effort to visit and comment on other blogs so that those bloggers are more likely to respond in kind.

Related Links:

Note: In 2007, Wiggly Wigglers' turnover was £2.6 million.

Neil Patel, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

How Your Business Can Benefit From Using Twitter: Four Proven Strategies

2008-10-23T16:03:00.000-05:00

In 2006 it was MySpace, last year it was Facebook, and it seems this year Twitter is what everyone buzzing about.

While people are flocking to the site (Twitter claims that its user-base has increased sixfold in the last year), many marketers still aren't sure how to leverage Twitter as a tool to grow their business. This article will walk you through strategies that you can use on Twitter to reach your customers and grow your business.

First, before you develop your Twitter business strategy, you should become familiar with three Twitter search tools:

Twitter Search: Formerly known as Summize, this tool was recently acquired by Twitter and integrated as its search platform. This is like your standard search engine, but it searches only Twitter. So you can search for your business, your employees, and industry-specific terms.
TwitterLocal: You specify a location, and TwitterLocal will show you the tweets from people who have included in their profile that they are in that location. For example, you can get results from all Twitter users who say they live in New York City. TwitterLocal will also create a feed that you can subscribe to so that you can get updates as new tweets come in.
Twellow: Twellow is a search engine that lets you search for people based on several dozen categories. For example, you can search for people in Social Media, Accounting, Environmentalist, and many other categories. It's a good way to find people who might be interested in a certain subject or industry.

Now, here are four ways you can use Twitter to grow your business.

1. Twitter as a customer service tool

Frank Eliason has become a bit of a social-media superhero this year; he has leveraged his ComcastCares account on Twitter to provide live, real-time customer service for Comcast customers.

Frank and his team monitor Twitter to find people who mention that they are having a problem with their Comcast service or who ask a Comcast-related question; the ComcastCares team swoops in to reply and either help solve their problem or put them in touch with someone who can address their concerns.

This has two big benefits for Comcast. First, it helps solve more problems as they happen for Comcast customers. But a big ancillary benefit is that it improves Comcast's image as the rest of us see how proactive it is about addressing problems and concerns from its customers. That greatly improves Comcast's image and reputation, especially among that early adopters and influentials who use Twitter.

It also makes us wonder why Comcast's competitors aren't doing the same thing that Frank and his team are...

Key action point: Start monitoring Twitter using the above search tools to find out what your customers are saying about your business on Twitter. If you find that they are having customer-service issues, respond to and address their problems as quickly as possible. Also, consider adding an account to Twitter that's devoted to customer service for your company. After you begin spending time on Twitter, customers will begin replying directly to you with their customer service issues, which makes providing support easier.

2. Twitter as a tool to build brand awareness

As you use Twitter, you will see that your number of followers will likely increase. As you develop a network of connections on Twitter, you can then build awareness for your brand or business by making your followers aware of it.

Melanie Notkin did just that by keeping her followers up to date on the progress of her community site for aunts, Savvy Auntie. And as she made friends and connections on Twitter, her network of friends had a vested interest in helping her get the word out about her site.

"When you connect with others on Twitter in an authentic way, reciprocal trust is natural." Notkin explains. "@johndoe Follows @janesmith. I trust him, so I'll trust her. And from those connections comes genuine word-of-mouth support, both within the Twitterverse and out. But if you are inauthentic, and you do more Tweeting than Listening, chances are, no one is listening to you either. That's spam, not community.

I am not "using" Twitter to boost my brand. I am engaged in a reciprocal, supportive community of super smart and helpful people who genuinely want to see me and my company succeed. As I truly do theirs."

Key action point: As you use Twitter to connect with and grow your network, that network will naturally want to promote you and your business. You can create natural WOM for your business, if you are honest and consistent in how you use Twitter.

3. Twitter as a promotional tool

Most Twitter users do not like it if a company uses its Twitter presence as a direct promotional tool. However, if your business already has multiple Twitter accounts set up for real people, it might be a good idea to set aside an account that alerts customers to specials or deals that you are running.

This is what Dell did in setting up an account for Dell Outlet. The beauty of this is that it's completely opt-in, you have to follow Dell Outlet on Twitter in order to hear about Dell's offerings. So if you don't want to be advertised to, simply don't follow that account on Twitter.

Dell opened a Twitter account for Dell Outlet in June 2007 and claims that the account has led to over $500,000 in sales so far. And as of September 2008, the account had over 1,800 followers.

Key action point: Consider offering a separate Twitter account that promotes your products and services exclusively. This way, you allow your employees that are active on Twitter to communicate with your customers, and provide customer service. And as your employees encounter someone on Twitter that's interested in your products, you can point them to your Twitter account where you promote your products and services. This is a very 'hands-off' way to use Twitter as a tool to promote yourself, and it's done in a way that respects how Twitter members use the site.

4. Twitter as a tool to cover live events/breaking news

A great way to use Twitter is to cover live events and relay breaking news to your followers. Partly due to its 140-character limit, Twitter has become a wonderful way to quickly get breaking and live news out to a large audience. In fact, many recent major news stories have been talked about on Twitter hours before mainstream media reported on those stories.

A favorite way that Twitter users use the site is to relay breaking news from conferences or media events. If a company has a major announcement at a conference or press event, it is reported on almost instantly via Twitter. In fact, recent events such as Apple CEO Steve Jobs's announcement of new Apple products has resulted in surges of traffic to Twitter that have all but brought the site to its knees.

Companies are also using Twitter in times of crisis to relay information to their followers. Recently, during Hurricane Gustav, The Home Depot used its Twitter account to get information to followers on how they can protect their home and personal belongings from storm damage. This is a great example of providing information to people on Twitter that they can find value in, but which can also indirectly promote your business.

Key action point: If your company is holding a live event, or a press conference, or if there is any breaking news that you want to report, consider using Twitter as a channel to do so. This is an instance where direct promotion of your business is fine, because breaking news holds inherent value, and people will want to hear about it before others do.

For example, if your company is unveiling its 2009 lineup of products, announce that on Twitter, and also inform your followers where they can get more information about these products. This will also help generate excitement and interest among Twitter users, and likely increase your number of followers.

Above all else, spend some time investigating how Twitter users are using the site, and then begin using the site as others are. Take at a look, for example, at MarketingProfs on Twitter. After becoming used to how the site functions and how users communicate with each other, you will have a better idea of the capabilities of the format, which will help make your efforts more successful.

As with other forms of social media, when you use Twitter always consider whether you are creating value for your customers. Doing so is a wonderful way to ensure that your Twitter strategy has every chance of being a success!

Six Free Tools for Online Reputation Management

2008-10-15T09:03:00.001-05:00

Online reputation management consists of tracking your brand and reacting when necessary.
Though sometimes tedious, brand monitoring can save you from a potential disaster when someone cites your name in an article that misrepresents you. Aside from protection, it can help you proactively join conversations around your topic area, helping to get your brand name out there.

It's almost 2009... and if you aren't active online you are missing valuable opportunities to advertise your value to the world—through articles, blog entries, social-network profiles, comments, videos and more.

As both a content producer and consumer, your name is being spread throughout each of these circuits by people you might not even know. In fact, research firm IDC finds that there is more content being created about you than you create yourself.

Part of your brand is in the hands of others, so it's critical that you monitor it before a flame becomes a forest fire.

Do you know what people are saying about you?

If you want to know how to track your presence and monitor your brand, then you are in luck. Below are the top 6 tools for your online reputation management program. They can be used for product and corporate brands in addition to your personal brand. Use each to search, locate and respond when necessary.

Also, they can be leveraged as part of your marketing strategy, to discover your audience and market to them directly.

1. Google—Google.com/alerts

* Definition: Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your choice of query or topic. You can subscribe to each alert through email and RSS.

* Application: Many people use their RSS readers to view these alerts, and PR agencies use alerts to track their campaigns. You can monitor a news story, keep current with your industry and competitors, and see who is writing about you, all at the same time.

* Marketing strategy: Set a comprehensive alert, notifying you of stories, as they happen, for your name, your topic, and even your company. As your feed reader fills up with articles that match your query, you should start a database of bloggers and journalists so that you can market to them directly and form better relationships.

2. Blog posts—Technorati.com

* Definition: If you have a blog, then you have to be on Technorati, which is the largest blog search engine in the world. When you register with it, Technorati tracks "blog reactions," or blogs that link to yours.

* Application: Search for your name on Technorati, and subscribe to RSS alerts so that when someone blogs about you, you find out.

* Marketing strategy: Use Technorati to log every blog that is linking to your own. Keep track of these blogs, and when you write your next post link to them. Doing so will give recognition to those who have recognized yours.

3. Blog comments—backtype.com

* Definition: Recently, a new service came out to solve the problem of monitoring blog comments. Think about it, someone can comment on you on a series of blogs, but if you only track posts you'll really miss out. BackType is a service that lets you find, follow, and share comments from across the Web. Whenever you write a comment with a link to your Web site, BackType attributes it to you.

* Application: Use backtype.com to remind yourself where you commented, discover influencers who are commenting on blogs that you should be reading, and continue conversations that you started previously.

* Marketing strategy: Establish a list of key influencers in your topic area. Then follow their comments from blog to blog and leave your own comment after theirs. This will help build your brand by association.

4. Discussion boards—boardtracker.com

* Definition: Along with blogs and traditional news stories, discussion boards are another channel where people can gather in a community and talk about you. Most people disregard discussion boards until they see other sites commenting on information viewed on them.

* Application: Use boardtracker.com to get instant alerts from threads citing your name.

* Marketing strategy: Find all boards that are related to your subject matter and join the top 2-5, based on the amount of conversations and the volume of registered users. Join the communities by starting threads, while leaving your name and URL at the end of each post.

5. Twitter—search.twitter.com

* Definition: Twitter is a microblogging service, hosting over three million people. Twitter messages (tweets) move at the speed of light, and if you don't catch them they will spread like a virus.

* Application: Using Twitter search, you can locate any instances of your name and tweet back (or remain silent).

* Marketing strategy: As you see tweets with your name attached to them, you should use the "@" sign and the tweeter's account name (e.g., @danschawbel) to respond accordingly. As you respond, you start to build brand recognition and your audience feels that you care and are actively listening.

6. FriendFeed—friendfeed.com/search

* Definition: FriendFeed is a social aggregator. You have the ability to take all of your social accounts, such as YouTube, Delicious, Twitter, blog, and Flickr, and pull them together into a single (Friend) feed.

* Application: You can conduct searches on your brand throughout all social networks at once using this search engine. Aside from learning about the latest video or tweet related to your topic, you can analyze comments that people make under them.

* Marketing strategy: Grab a FriendFeed widget (friendfeed.com/embed/widget) and display it on your Web site or blog, so people get a sense of your social media activity. Also, as you search and locate people who are talking about your brand on FriendFeed, respond to them through comments.

All six of these free tools can be used to monitor and market your company's brand name as well.

If you aren't taking care of your online reputation, others will. It's time to find out what people are saying—and do something about it. Marketing to your audience becomes seamless after you've done your homework using these tools.

Why Google's New Web Browser Chrome Matters to You

2008-10-08T13:16:00.001-05:00

Why Google's New Web Browser Chrome Matters to You

Last week Google released Chrome, its new standards-compliant Web browser. But what does that mean to you, the business person? Though Google offers a great comic book that explains the big changes, it is a bit jargon-heavy and, frankly, long at 32 (comic) pages.

So I offer you an introduction of Google Chrome for the layman. We will look briefly at the improvements in the user interface, performance, and technology advancements so that you can more easily decipher why Google Chrome matters to you.

The Big (Browser) Picture

The browsers of yore (if you can call 15 years ago "yore") were built on the assumption that a Web browser was your gateway to the Information Superhighway. Meaning—it was required for entry onto the big road, and any improvement to the browser was by definition an improvement to your Web experience.
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Over time, more and more features were added to the browsers in an effort to help you. The problem is that these features usually ended up hurting more than helping.

* Making up their own stuff. Some sites worked in some browsers, while others did not. This is a well known issue in Web development and often the cause of many Web users' frustrations.
* Increase their "silicon footprint." Browsers have evolved into notorious memory hogs. This means a Web experience with continually worsening rush-hour traffic.
* Crashing your entire system. Browsers tend toward "memory leaks." So if you leave a browser open for a couple of hours, or worse, overnight, you usually wake up a sluggish beast that can only be slain with a computer system reboot.

You've probably heard the phrases Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 (the latter usually stated with sarcasm by many). These terms are also a neat and tidy way to think about Google Chrome.

Chrome aims to revolutionize the browser marketplace by introducing a browser that takes a back seat to your Web surfing. Chrome does the bare minimum of what a Web browser should do, but in the safest, fastest way possible. Google states that it seeks to have the Web visitor "ignore the browser."

In essence, Google is trying to do for the browser what it did for search—revolutionize. Let's first look at the changes in the browser user interface.

Google Chrome's Welcomed Changes to the User Interface

Chrome's interface is absolutely minimalist. Instead of the typical bloated browser interface, you have a few non-distracting options:

* Window tabs
* Navigation buttons (back, forward, refresh)
* URL entry field (called the One Box)
* Options and customization menu

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That's it, really. You don't even have a print button (the reasoning being most Web pages offer better print-versions online. But don't worry, you can still access a print option from the Options menu).

It's a bit disconcerting when you first open up Chrome—you ask "where is all the stuff?" But then you quickly realize you can happily do without all of it.

The biggest change to the browser user interface is the introduction of placing the tabs at the very top of the browser application window. This places the attention on what matters during an online visit—the online content. These tabs can easily be selected and dragged outside the main browser window to open a new browser window. When you open a new tab, it gives you a visual history of your nine most recent visited Web pages and most used search engines and bookmarks. That's one helpful, simple start-up page.

Helpful, Non-Distracting Features

Chrome has some non-intrusive "features" you are likely to find helpful. For example, the browser adds destination suggestions as you type (a feature in Firefox 3.0). It also darkens the main URL of a Web site for improved readability.

My favorite is the downloads feature. When you download a file, the browser provides a very informative animation as to where you can access the downloaded file. Chrome even gives you an option to view your entire download history with a descriptive download history page stating when and what was downloaded.

Another feature is how one can easily and quickly create a link to your favorite Web application (like Gmail) by simply dragging and dropping the bookmark onto your desktop. This type of feature is indicative of the industry's growing awareness that the future is not in applications (or "apps") you install on your computer, but rather apps you access online.

Already, you probably notice that a lot of the applications and tools you use are online (Web mail, online banking, social networking). These type of apps, called "Webapps" will continue to proliferate. Google Chrome hopes to be the browser of choice for Webapps.

Chrome's Technological Advancements

Chrome is based on Webkit, the open source browser engine that powers Apple's Safari for Mac and PC. This is important, because Chrome's "browser base" is already solid (despite the typical memory hogging issues that plague all browsers). Interestingly, Chrome currently runs only in Windows.

Chrome further improves on Webkit, the biggest improvement being how Chrome handles memory.

Rather than having a single process ("thread") store all your browsing sessions, every Webpage is separated into its own process; that is, it's "multi-threaded." This concept isn't new—most operating systems do this to increase system stability. Yet Chrome is the first browser to accomplish this technical feat.

Chrome even has its own Task Manager similar to Window's Task Manager so you can "kill" or cancel processes that are hogging resources, just as in Windows. This is a really, really big evolution in browser development, so let's have a moment of silence to respect it.

Chrome's next big advancement is the JavaScript engine. JavaScript is a powerful scripting language that powers most modern Web applications. The problems are that JavaScript tends to have memory leaks, which in turn hogs memory on your computer. This tends to occur more frequently than in, say, the Flash plug-in. But not anymore. Chrome completely reinvents the javascript wheel with its V8 engine (were car buffs working on Chrome?). Without going into developer-speak details, just understand this: Chrome's processing of JavaScript is fast and powerful. Really fast and powerful.

There is also the matter of performance testing to consider. One of the problems with current browsers is that performance testing was limited to actual user (people) testing. Google added a level of automated testing by leveraging its amazing processing power infrastructure. Instead of waiting for a person to report a bug, it can run thousands of scenarios on many different popular Web sites to ensure full operability. The end result—fewer bugs upon release (and, hopefully, fewer releases).

Finally, if you're concerned about security, there are some great other features to Chrome that you will enjoy, such as Incognito mode. In this mode, your entire Web session will not appear in your browser and search history, and it leaves no traces such as cookies. Simply close your browser and your trail is erased completely. This is a great feature for public computers everywhere.

Getting Started with Google Chrome

Go to Google to download and install Chrome. Within three clicks and one minute, you will be ready to start surfing with Chrome. The default settings are to import your bookmarks from your other browsers, so if you don't want this, click on "Customize Options."

Interestingly, the default settings are not to set Chrome as the default browser. Internet Explorer could learn a lesson on that one.

Try it for a week. If you don't like it, go back to Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari. Or uninstall Chrome altogether. There is absolutely no risk.

Closing Thoughts

Will Chrome eat away at Microsoft's already eroding market share? As a Web developer who has seen the rise and fall of Netscape, the monopoly of Internet Explorer, and the meteoric rise of Firefox, my hope is yes.

Because it's nice to see progress in the browser market after Internet Explorer 6's seven years of silent reign.

Welcome back innovation, we missed you.

Email Marketing Disobedience: Six laws of proper e-Newsletter creation, and why you should ignore every one of them

2008-10-06T14:18:00.002-05:00

Nobody loves email marketing more than I do. But even I admit that within the grand taxonomy of consumer touchpoints, e-newsletters hold a sorry position.

They're the longwinded busybodies who never get invited to the cool parties. Porcelain-skinned print campaigns turn up their perky, sans-serif noses at e-newsletters' frumpy templates and canned copy. Super Bowl spots kick sand in e-newsletters' bespectacled faces.

Yet, these boxy embodiments of mediocrity move product and build loyalty. Marketing people are aware of this—they've proven it with charts and everything. You need an e-newsletter and you know it.

Before rolling up your sleeves, cranking up the REO Speedwagon, and cooking up some long-form creation-wizard-based love, please review the following six bromides from a recent how-to article phoned in by a reigning email-marketing magnate.

After each, I'll explain how to do the exact opposite so that you can avoid polluting the e-cosystem with mediocre e-newsletters.

1. Share expertise

Wrong—share ignorance. Consider the old Zen adage "the more I know, the less I know." It means the more expertise we have, the more we're dazzled by just how little we currently understand.

Pick something you're marvelously clueless about and confess the fact to your readers. They won't fault you for it—but they just might love you for it. As long as the topic you're "ignorant" about is something they didn't even know they were ignorant about until reading your enlightening e-newsletter.

2. Tell a success story

Wrong—tell a failure story. It humanizes your company and demonstrates your high standards. Example: a legendary 1960s ad for the Volkswagen Beetle showed just the car, with "Lemon" in bold type. The copy explained, "The chrome strip on the glove compartment was blemished and needs to be replaced."

While other car companies waxed self-congratulatory about success, Volkswagen cornered the market talking about failure. You can do the same with your e-newsletters—simply master the art of strategic self-criticism. It never fails.

3. Conduct a relevant interview

Wrong—conduct a gloriously irrelevant interview. Approaching a topic head-on can be a headache—especially if it's been done to death. Try a sideways approach. What can your design firm glean from interviewing a homeless man? How might a chat with a priest spice up your women's fashion newsletter? Why would a software developer pick a farmer's brain about emptying grain bins into semi trailers?

4. Take an in-depth look at a product or service you offer

Wrong—take an in-depth look at a product or service you refuse to offer. As the visionaries of 37signals say in Getting Real (sort of a Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the digital generation), "do less than your competitors in order to beat them."

Embrace l'esprit du moment by poking satirical fun at the superfluous features common to your industry. Waving the simplicity banner while it's still in vogue is smart—and your next e-newsletter is a smart place to wave it.

5. Springboard off of current events

Wrong—springboard off of that which is timeless. Your readers are suffering from information overload—spare them the latest trope on gas prices, politics and Paris Hilton. Realize that the guys reading your scrap metal e-newsletter probably don't give a rat's ass that it's Halloween.

And while you're at it, throw away the springboard. Relying on convoluted conversation-starters is a milquetoast way to win friends and influence people—both in life and in e-newsletters.

6. Ask your readers

Wrong—listen to readers. In the words of Louis Armstrong, "if you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." Same wisdom applies to knowing the hearts of your readers. Get in sync with customers' needs by observing their riffs in natural online habitats built around your company. Replace pre-fab surveys with improvised forums. The intuition you gain will free you up to follow the inspiration of the moment and hit the high notes needed to create authentic brand loyalty.

Rebelling against clichés will keep your customers reading, and it'll keep you writing—without falling asleep. This matters. Readers can sense when you're just going through the motions. That can't be good for your brand, regardless of what the stats say.

So ask yourself: Am I excited about my e-newsletter? Does it express my voice and vision? Did I have fun creating it? If you have to ignore an army of email experts' advice (including mine) to get to where you can answer "yes" to those questions, so be it. That's called employing the virtues of e-newsletter disobedience.

Adopting a Web 2.0 Mindset: Walk Before You Wiki

2008-10-01T16:39:00.001-05:00

Since Tim O'Reilly coined the phrase "Web 2.0" back in 2004 at a new media conference, companies have been scrambling to figure out how to deploy Web. 2.0 applications... but for all the wrong reasons.

I've observed CEOs pointing to competitors' sites, insisting, "They've got user-generated content so we need to do it," or, "A blog will help with our PR efforts during this downturn."

But where is the customer in the equation?

For all the buzz about blogs, wikis, widgets, and other forms of user-driven Web interactions, the question that's rarely asked is, "Is this what our customers want?"

Recently, when I helped a client pose that question to its Web site users, only 1 out of 10 users asked for social applications. The majority wanted the company to improve its site's core navigation and search functionality.

Essentially, they were asking my client to "walk before you wiki" by enhancing core functionality they use every time they visit the site.

Given the exposure of social applications in the media and in the boardroom, now's the time for Web business owners to make the case for building engaging online interactions with customers.

First, you need to recognize that customers will engage with site features they need and want. Simply put, you can design the most useful, elegant application, but if your customers don't need it—it will eventually languish on your site as another "distraction."

By listening to your customers, you'll understand what they value and need on your site and be able to prioritize new projects based on this information along with business and technical considerations.

Learn to Listen

How can you learn what customers and prospects need from your site? Based on your budget and target audience, there are several ways to effectively glean information. Ideally, you should use a mix of tools and information to get a holistic view of your users to understand what they want from your site, their preferences, behavior, and Web savviness.

Third-party research

To get started and obtain broad insights into your target audience's online needs, consider leveraging third-party research. Research conducted via a consumer panel should provide you with statistically significant data that, when coupled with primary research (see below), can help you make a business case.

If you have a well-defined and narrow target audience (e.g., male, married, age 35-54, high education and income levels, etc.), you can leverage third-party research from firms like Forrester Research (www.forrester.com) that survey consumers and report out on specific online activities they engage in, like banking, shopping, participation on social sites, etc.

Primary research

If your user base straddles age brackets, income levels, geographies, etc., or your online offering doesn't fit neatly into a typical retail or services category, then you should conduct your own research. There are some very effective—and inexpensive—methods you can use depending on your objectives:

* Web analytics: Tap into your analytics data to understand how your site's visitors behave. Are they exiting certain pages at a high rate? Do they tend to search for the same products while ignoring or missing others? Analytics will surface those trends but won't reveal user intent. So while you might not be able to pinpoint what is causing visitors to leave certain pages at a high rate, or search for certain products, you can tee up those issues as scenarios to test in a usability setting.

* Surveys: There are a variety of inexpensive survey tools, including Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com), Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com), and Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com) that you can use to quickly build and launch customer surveys either on-site or via email. Surveys generate quantitative data about why users visit your site and how they perceived their experience, but, again, they won't reveal user intent.

* Usability testing: Once you've identified a list of user needs and potential issues—based on your analytics and survey data—you can run any problem scenarios through a usability test. Are users telling you they primarily come to your site to find product information but give your site a low rating on its search and browse functionality? Run these kinds of scenarios through usability testing to uncover specific problem areas that you can then work to fix.

Walk Before You Wiki

Before you launch a blog, or enable user-generated content on your site, make sure you can answer the basic question, "Do I know what my visitors need and am I delivering it to them?"

Tackling the 'Too Hard to' Pile of Marketing Accountability

2008-09-30T15:27:00.001-05:00

If you're like us, you probably have one of those piles on your desk that keeps being moved from one corner to another. You know, that pile you need to get to but avoid because it will take some real effort to tackle? For many marketing professionals, marketing accountability, analytics, and ROI are in this pile.

Not too long ago at a marketing conference where Laura was speaking, the organizers had set up round tables with specific topics for discussion over breakfast. Laura was sitting at the measuring marketing ROI table (of course, where else would I be sitting?), strategically located right next to the buffet line.

While she was sitting there waiting for people to join her, she kept hearing people say, "Oh, measuring marketing, that's just too hard." Hundreds of marketers were attending this conference, and about two dozen tables of 10 were set to accommodate the early risers. Yet only four other brave souls joined her.

We marketers must stop avoiding this topic and tackle the pile.

As Sylvia Reynolds, CMO of Wells Fargo, has said, "Marketing must be a driver of tangible business results...we must start with the goal in mind and a clear way to measure that goal."

ROI is important for accountability—besides being able to justify spending and enable us to run the marketing organization more effectively and efficiently, knowing what is and isn't working helps marketing achieve greater influence and serve in a more strategic role.

Various surveys suggest that over one-third, and as much as 42%, of marketing budgets are not adequate enough to achieve the outcomes and impact expected. Perhaps your organization like many others is in the thick of budget planning. A key part of budget planning is to establish and validate the money you plan to spend. The more aligned Marketing is with the outcomes of the organization and the more the plan includes performance targets and metrics, the more likely you will be allocated the budget you need to achieve the expected results.

So what does it take to tackle this Marketing Accountability pile? Here are six affordable steps that any marketing organization can take to start whittling away at the marketing accountability and measurement pile.

Focus

Nothing of importance miraculously gets done on its own. Effectively tackling the marketing measurement pile will take all of Covey's seven habits—from taking a proactive approach and beginning with the end in mind (that is, the outcomes you are expected to impact), to keeping the effort a priority when other things present themselves as urgencies, to making marketing measurement a win/win for you, your team, and the rest of the organization.

More than likely, you are going to need a cross-functional team to tackle this pile—people from Finance, Sales, IT, Operations, etc.—working collaboratively to define the metrics and hunt down and organize the data.

Plan an attack

You know that age-old question, "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer: "One bite at a time." That approach is valid for the marketing accountability and ROI question.

If this is a new effort for you, you need to break it into manageable pieces. Quantify your objectives, decide how you will measure them, collect the data that you need to meet the objectives, establish a baseline, gain commitment to the measurement plan, and, finally, measure.

Get data

"Data is the new creative," declares Stephan Chase of Marriott Rewards. Establishing metrics, determining effectiveness, understanding efficiencies... all take data. Without data you cannot monitor and measure results.

And don't assume that you have the data that you need to measure your objectives. For example, if you want to measure how many new customers you interest in a new product, you may find that you need first to determine what a "new" customer is. This may require different views of your customer records or new strategies for evaluating.

Analyze

Once you have the data, the challenge is to generate insights that facilitate fact-based decision-making.

One of the most valuable applications of data and analytics is in leveraging your metrics. The metrics are what enable continuous improvement as you strive to achieve and set new performance standards.

Just looking at numbers doesn't tell you as much as evaluating trends or creating statistical models that help you identify an optimized approach to your marketing efforts. Consider looking at your measurements for what isn't immediately obvious, such as what might have happened if that campaign had gone to the three bottom deciles of customers.

Use a systemized process

You may need to set up systems and processes that enable you to capture and track results on an ongoing basis. Many organizations put a substantial amount of energy into initiating these programs and then let them fizzle as other priorities surface. It takes both process and discipline to sustain a measurement effort.

Systems help you automate a process so that the process can become a manageable part of your day-to-day operations. Today, every marketing organization is moving at a breathless pace. Implementing a test-and-control environment can keep you from having a fatal, head-on collision.

Train

Many marketers are unaccustomed to living in a metrics-based environment. You may need to invest in measurement, analytics, as well as data training and skills development.

Start by taking a skills inventory. Find out who in the organization has data management, analytics, and measurement skills. Decide what skills they need to perform at your expected levels. Develop training that fills the skill gaps.

Doing this in-house allows you to tailor to your needs, but consider courses from universities, associations, and external consultants to fill out your requirements.

Moving marketing performance metrics from the "too hard to" pile to the "we can do it" pile can reap rewards for the entire organization.

Top Tip Today

2008-09-26T10:10:00.003-05:00

Three Ways to Improve Your Lead-Nurturing Strategy.

by Kathy Rizzo

Although more than 80% of high-tech marketers say they have a lead-nurturing strategy, 64% say their strategy needs improvement, according to a February 2008 survey by TeleNet Marketing Solutions.

As for which areas of overall lead-generation strategy tech marketers would like to improve in the next year, nurturing of long-term leads was the No. 1 response.

Nurturing shortens the sales cycle and improves return on investment from lead-generation activities, so it is important to reconsider your nurturing strategy frequently. Consider the following three recommendations to enhance your strategy.

1. Add or enhance human-touch strategies

When developing a lasting business relationship, it is critical to engage in verbal communication not only to exchange information but also to build trust. Legitimate relationships are an important part of business—critically important when selling a service or solution. If you rely solely on electronic-based communication to nurture prospects, you are missing a vital element.

Consider the definition of lead nurturing: In a complex sales cycle, nurturing is a relationship-building approach utilizing multiple media to provide relevant information to prospects and engage in an ongoing dialog until qualified prospects are deemed "sales ready."

Another way of looking at the value of human touch is to consider the opportunities missed simply because the prospect is too busy to search the Internet for your company's content or download a whitepaper or respond to your email.

However, if you personally reach out to prospects via well-timed phone calls, you make it easier for your prospect to focus on the problem and take action. This is especially true when the telephone calls are relevant and focused, providing value to the prospect.

Here are three items to consider when you add or enhance a telemarketing (human-touch) nurturing approach.

A. Contact prospects at the opportune time:

Always look for direction from your prospect (e.g., "Please call me back in two weeks").
When appropriate, recommend the next phone call based on the buying stage of the prospect. These intervals can be predetermined for each buying stage, making it easy to recommend the next phone call ("C" rated leads are contacted in 30 day intervals, "D" rated leads are contacted in 60 days intervals, etc.).
Consider the receptiveness of prospects. If they are receptive to new information and frequent communication, shorten the intervals between phone calls. Do not try to force all prospects into the same contact strategy.
Look for triggering events. Newsworthy events such as a major acquisition may serve as an opportune time to contact a prospect.

B. Train your team on the four goals of each telemarketing contact:

Only provide prospects information that is deemed valuable and relevant.
Expand prospects' profile by learning more about their current situation and environment. Get them talking!
Continue to learn about changing business priorities and critical issues that will affect purchase plans.
Determine whether a prospect is "sales ready."

C. Be strategic and think before dialing:

Think about the extent of the prospect's previous interaction with your company.
Consider details of prior nurturing practices—conversations, e-communications, content downloaded, events, etc.
What do you already know about the prospect's situation?
What else does your sales representative need to know in order to successfully engage in the sales process with this prospect?
How can you be valuable to the prospect?

A nurturing telemarketing call is very different from a tele-qualification phone call. When integrating telemarketing into a nurturing strategy, pay special attention to the required skill level of your agents. Because calls are not scripted, the agents must be trained on your solution, understand buyer challenges, and have adequate content to convey value to the prospects.

Most importantly, agents should have excellent communication skills; if they do, prospects will view your company as a credible source and viable solution for their business situation.

2. Get back to the basics with your email strategy

Email is an important part of any nurturing strategy. While you can integrate graphic-rich emails into the strategy, it is worthwhile to also include periodic text emails that appear as personalized communication to your prospect.

Develop plain-text email templates that are perceived as relevant and individualized and do not come across as mass advertising.

Create templates that are easily customized by your nurturing team. Messages can be emailed to strategic groups of contacts (e.g., prospects in a specific industry) or sent on a case-by-case basis.

As you create the email templates...

Keep the text short and limit the information. Many people do a quick scan of their messages in the preview window before opening them, so make the message brief. Be mindful about the amount of information you provide. If you offer all possible information up front, there is little reason for prospects to speak with you. The key is to give just enough relevant information to pique their interest and desire to continue a dialogue with your company.
Tie your message into a common business issue. Personalize your message to your prospect's industry or job function by stating a unique business issue that they likely face. For instance, "Being in a services industry presents unique challenges such as..." This shows prospects that you understand their situation and are talking directly to them.
Reference past contact. Whether following up with a prospect because they downloaded a whitepaper or because of a previous conversation, the email should reference the last contact (including the date, if available). This catches the attention of the prospect and acts as a reminder of their previous interest. Examples: "Based on our conversation on March 16" or "Last week you downloaded our special whitepaper titled..."
Build on your human touch. It is important to have emails come from the persons providing human-touch telemarketing. This tactic helps build the relationship and allows your prospects to identify with a real person within your company. Prospects do not develop relationships with companies, they develop relationships with individuals in those companies.

3. Develop a scorecard to measure effort and ensure the appropriate focus

Every touch is not created equal. Many companies develop scorecards to assess sales-readiness (budget, authority, need, timeframe). While that's an effective use of scoring, it's also recommended that you develop a "nurturing touch" scoring system, whereby a numeric value is assigned to each type of touch (conversation, strategic voicemail, email, mailed fulfillment, etc.).

When creating the scoring system, consider the following:

Expense of the touch. For instance, a one-on-one conversation is typically the most expensive, so it receives the highest score. Conversely, a text email is less expensive and receives a lower score.
Impact of the touch. A one-on-one conversation provides the most impact, as information is given and received simultaneously. On the other hand, text emails are read only 40-60% of the time, with a small number resulting in immediate two-way communication.

In this example, the scoring system may give a numeric value of "4" to every conversation and "2" to every email, which accounts for the difference in both the expense and the impact of the two types of touches. By placing a simple score on each touch, you can start to monitor the average score (or effort) required to nurture a "sales-ready" lead.

Prospects should not be engaged in the nurturing process indefinitely. By creating a scoring system, you can evaluate when a prospect reaches a point of diminishing returns. For instance, you may determine that the average score to create a sales-ready lead is 35 points. Use this intelligence to review prospects that are in your nurturing system; those with a very high score can either be removed from the nurturing system or flagged to receive only lower-cost communication.

Keep nurturing activities focused on the most suitable prospects to ensure the success of your program.

Kathy Rizzo is vice-president of marketing for TeleNet Marketing Solutions (www.telenetmarketing.com), which she cofounded in 1999.

Top Tip Today

2008-09-25T11:04:00.002-05:00

Microconnecting With Your Customers via Microblogging: Q&A With Connie Reece

There's a new kid on the social media block that's starting to garner a lot of attention from companies.

Microblogging sites, such as Twitter, are increasingly becoming a companion to an existing blog—or a standalone strategy for businesses that are using social media to connect with their customers.

But many companies aren't sure what the microblogging "rules of the road" are. This is where Connie Reece comes in.

Connie was an early adopter of Twitter and is considered a true microblogging authority. She will be moderating Best Practices in Microblogging session at Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, and she was kind enough to give us a preview of that session, as well as a primer for companies that want to learn more about Twitter and other microblogging sites.
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Q: Microblogging seems to be the hot area of social media recently. What exactly is a microblogging site, and what makes it different from a blog?

A: "Microblogging" is a misleading term, in my opinion. "Micro" is accurate, because the popular services like Twitter strictly limit content to 140 characters, about the length of the average text message. It's the "blogging" aspect of the term that is fuzzy. Even though you can pack a lot of information into 140 characters, the content and format are much less structured than a blog.

Sometimes you'll see these sites referred to as "presence" applications; in other words, they are a quick and easy way of being "present" with friends who are far away. This phenomenon was aptly termed "ambient awareness" in an excellent article by Clive Thompson for the New York Times: "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy."

Each little update—each individual bit of social information—is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating.

Q: A lot of companies seem to be creating presences on Twitter. What are some of the ways that companies can utilize Twitter?

A: Twitter is yet another way to put a personal face on an impersonal entity: the corporation. Most companies are initially attracted to Twitter because they perceive it as an additional marketing channel. If that's all they use it for, they will not succeed.

However, if they use Twitter to actively engage with people, then a couple of things will happen. One, they will be able to use Twitter as a means of promotion, by occasionally sharing links to their online content. But most likely they will wind up using Twitter for the sheer enjoyment of interacting with customers.

As far as particular uses are concerned, Twitter is especially suited to promoting an online contest. It can also be used as an additional sales channel: Dell's Twitter account DellOutlet has generated around $500,000 in sales by offering special discounts to Twitter users. And many Twitter users enjoy subscribing to their favorite news channels on Twitter.

Marketing Profs Digital Mixer conference attendees will get to hear from Bryan Person how he looks forward to ESPN tweets' popping up in his timeline. And I will share how our local newspaper, the Austin American Statesman, not only uses Twitter effectively on a daily basis but provided superb coverage of Hurricane Ike through a special account, TrackingIke.

Another panelist, Frank Eliason, who tweets as ComcastCares, provided an immediate answer to someone who lost Internet service during the hurricane, explaining that Comcast could not restore cable service until the power company gave them clearance. (As we're conducting this interview, some 1.5 million homes in the Houston area are still without power, one week after Ike.)
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Q: While many companies are beginning to explore using Twitter, some companies are finding that their brands are being "hijacked" by people that are posing as employees of a company, but really aren't. How can a company guard against this?

A: Companies need to reserve their name space now, even if they are not ready to use Twitter—and the same applies for other sites. When they do start to use Twitter, the company should add a link from its Web site to its Twitter account, so the public will know the account is genuine.

Of course, companies should be monitoring Twitter to follow chatter about them, and if they find their brand has been hijacked they should contact Twitter to have the unauthorized user account shut down.

Q: Twitter seems to be the microblogging site that most people have heard of, but are there other microblogging sites that companies should be aware of?

A: My favorite, as you know, is Plurk because of its threaded conversations. I love the informal "plurkshops" we have, which are online discussions around a particular topic. (They are archived at plurkshops.com.) I have not seen business adoption of Plurk yet, and it is unlikely until the API is released and it becomes easier to use.

One of the reasons we know that microblogging is here to stay is the rapid uptick in enterprise adoption. Several applications intended for behind-the-firewall use have been launched recently, including Yammer, which is a domain-specific application with many similarities to Twitter.

Q: Moving forward, do you think that companies will begin to use a microblogging strategy in place of a company blog, or in conjunction with an existing blog? Which approach do you think is more effective?

A: Some companies might start with Twitter as their entry-level implementation of social networking, but it will be more effective long-term in conjunction with a blog. The Twitter-blog combination will provide synergy, with Twitter being used to drive traffic to the blog and vice-versa.

Some limitations are inherent in the 140-character format of Twitter: It's difficult to retrieve tweets, for example, if you have more than a few favorites; the lifespan of a tweet can be less than a minute if you follow many people. And some things, like this interview, simply need a longer format.

Tip of the day!

2008-09-19T11:14:00.001-05:00

Make Your Viral Dreams Come True

As it becomes easier than ever to produce and distribute online videos, you probably see how the medium can serve as a key marketing tool. And in a guest post at HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, Eric Guerin explains how to give your DIY efforts the competitive edge:

Start with a plan. Don't approach the project haphazardly—treat it like a traditional marketing campaign, and remember to track your video's effectiveness with tools like TubeMogul.

Hit 'em with your best shot. Says Guerin, "A sales video without a hook … will be watched once and forgotten but a video with a hook that captures the viewers' emotions can get passed on endlessly."

You only get three minutes. The longer your video lasts, the less viral it becomes. Guerin recommends a target length of between one and three minutes for maximum effectiveness. "If you have a ton of ideas," he says, "make a series of short videos instead of one long one."

Strut your stuff. A catchy title and description will encourage numerous views, as will accurate "tags"—the keywords viewers and search engines use to find content.

Toot your own horn. Plug your video in blog posts, online campaigns and even in your email signature. Also, establish a presence in online communities. "Blogs, social networking sites and video sharing sites are where consumers spend a majority of their time online," notes Guerin, "and where the greatest opportunity for online engagement exists."

The Po!nt: There's no such thing as a perfect formula for viral success—but following advice like this can greatly increase your chances.

About WebIdiotz - We are open for business

2008-09-19T10:40:00.001-05:00

The last decade has seen the world wide web evolve and change how business works. It’s safe to say that every business whether retail, restaurant or a respected builder - needs a website and email address. A business without a productive website is like a car on the drive without an engine under the hood or walking to work with a suit on but no shoes – it just doesn’t make sense!.

At WEBIDIOTZ we have taken all the questions and concerns about your online business and come up with a simple answer. Let’s make it affordable to set up your business with all the tools to have an effective online business to compliment your offline business. From your logo, to your personalized web design, to your email accounts and even hosting.

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We're not afraid to innovate. Interactive websites, social networks, blogs, viral, online PR, creative promotions and word of mouth marketing are all tools which we regularly use.

We promise to deliver award winning websites at affordable prices making more dreams reality on the web.