Japan, the Quake and Nuclear Issues

I've spent just over a week on various websites, hoping against hope that this is all going to spin out OK. And in the meantime, I have been studying for my nuclear physicist degree via Google and online fora, inc the live Reuters blog, which has shown how a media organisation can truly surpass itself.

It no longer looks like it will all be good news from now on. But I will keep being optimistic, and believing in my new found friends in Japan, whose culture continues to amaze me. And no, that is not because they don't loot in emergencies. WTF? Where, really, is the Western media and culture if that is all that matters? If we are going to follow that: can I have a really cheap Nissan Patrol, however radioactive to replace the last one? (Yeah, yeah, three now.) This is not meant as a throw away comment, but to support Japanese industry. If the Yanks won't buy them, I will. Best 4x4 ever built.

I am so impressed by the people I have met through Twitter etc this last week. I just wish we could help more. I feel horrendously helpless, as do people in Japan, as we watch people suffer for want of water etc; for some of my new friends, those suffering are mere miles away, but there is no chance to get through. We can't help that, let alone the loss of loved ones, who none of us can ever replace.

But, so you know, the Reuters site, the Tepco webcam, Kyodo, NISA, IAEA, and several other sites have been the constant fodder for my browsers. Computer crash? Re-open 8 specific windows to keep up. NHK has been on full audio and video all the way through via NicoNico after the previous livestream via Ustream was trashed by spammers.

(I have to admit that even with the spammers the Ustream feed at least allowed English speakers to add to the links and info we all needed). Nico Nico gives me a boringly repetitive stream of squares, not even symbols - Kangu? Not had time to do more than hit "Translate" in Chrome, which has proved useless.

I have learnt about micro and milli sieverts, grays, bananas as a source of radioactivity, and a million and one important items about radioactivity and nuclear generation. Which, considering where I live in relation to Windscale, Seascale or Sellafield, can only be useful.

I learnt about Edano, the government spokesman, watched him over and over on NHK, and followed the hashtag "edano_nero" which means Edano _Sleep. The poor sod has been knackered for days. No-one would begrudge him 12 hours off, especially when the CEO of TEPCO is nowhere in sight for a week. In fact, it is beginning to seem that if he doesn't hit the sack soon, someone will hit him for it. (If you know what I mean!)

I have learnt now when to react, and when not, to sensationalist headlines. (Or just report them to the new Name and Shame Wall for journalistic failure)

Meanwhile, millions of people are supporting these people in Japan.


Please, let this end well, for all. I've never expected to know so many people in Japan, but Twitter, photos, social and crucial media has brought so many people into my sphere this last week that it has hard not to care *so* much for these folk now.

Read more!

Breaking the silence - Postcard from the Bit Mine

Dear All, Hope u r well, soz not in touch 4 a while. We r in a bit mine, location secret. 1s n 0s in ample supply, scarcity model will break foreva if motherlode continues like this. Broadband /NGA means nothing w/o bits n we found em!! Come n mine wiv us, good pay, no recession here, world class connection n World Cup/budget network demand means nowt. 1s n 0s r future-proofed xx

Read more!

Breaking the scams

I am fed up with watching people scam innocent companies/individuals and take hard earned cash for pointless, valueless internet marketing content and strategies that can be acquired for free. Do not part with your cash, please!

So, today, soandso is going to deliver their apparently unique content for free for the very last time. This is it. Pay now. Or forever lose the chance to benefit from this [supposed] internet marketing millionaire's fabled words.

Or cough, miss the chance, keep your money, learn the same old tosh tomorrow?

I'll let you into a secret. But it requires a little background first.

I was one of the very first people who got involved in this internet marketing world. When I started there were very few websites you could find without remembering a complex series of numbers (an IP address). Domain names were unheard of, email addresses needed 3 toilet rolls to write them down on, IRC and bulletin boards were the only place to be, and your phone bill was HUGE.

So, bearing in mind that I can almost guarantee YOU don't remember that world, let me share the secret.

Oh, and it's for free, but if you want I could put a big Paypal button here so you can part with your hard-earned money...No?!

In 16 years surfing the Net, I will honestly, hands on heart tell you that ****VERY LITTLE HAS CHANGED**. Just because someone is closing down some fabbo sounding opportunity [for you to part with your money] it does NOT mean that the info they are intending to share with you cannot a) be found elsewhere and b) won't be found again and be equally as relevant in 10 years time.

You may want help with your website, you may know you need to promote it but be struggling to understand how, you may be baffled by this interweb thingy, but you do NOT need to part with money before you know what you are doing.

Pay NO-ONE! The information you require is online. And for free.

Want help with your site? I have been helping people for free for 16 years

* in designing a website for their business - We'll get you online to better business wasn't a tagline borne of nothing!
* connecting their company to the outside world and even local communities, with wireless broadband and wifi, FiWi, satellite, and now fibre and FTTH
* helping companies to reach new and different audiences through books, blogs, audio, video, events, tweets, status updates, text/SMS, brochures, guerrilla marketing, you name it

There are very few ethical internet marketing companies. We all know each other. Looking for a recommendation for a company or SEO agency? Ask. Need advice on a proposal or pitch? Ask. Want to waste money? Go somewhere else.

I can't think of anything worse than watching a company burn money on a website design company who don't understand why keywords matter (and you surely don't or you would not have chosen that company) or spending money on PPC bids that could be easily dealt with using a little SEO.

If you want help with your website, please ask. Don't run around 5 different agencies until you know the questions to ask them.

Personally, I don't want your business as we are busy into 2011 so why not ask your questions here knowing we are unlikely to pitch for the job? There's no sales pitch here because, as the recession continues, it is amazing how many companies are throwing money at SEO and internet marketing. We are ***busy***.

Are you? Do you want to be? Do you want your website to deliver results for your company? Don't know where to start asking questions? All I can offer is the chance to ask, for free, an SEO and holistic marketing professional for an answer to your question. And then for you to benefit from other internet marketers viewpoints about your best choices and solutions - that's up to them to get involved!

It's free, you have nothing to lose, what SEO, PPC, internet marketing question would you most like an answer to?

Read more!

Saving unedited copy and domains

One of the problems that bugs anyone that writes is saving your copy as you edit and re-write it. On paper, this is not an issue...you just work through all the scrunched up paper on the floor until you find the perfect paragraph that you discarded hours ago!

However, when writing digital documents, quite often you will write something, then delete it, then realise some time later, that it was right after all. And it's gone.

I think I have found a way to solve this and am now trialling a free tool called j.otdown.com. You can save each iteration as you work, simply by saving to your bookmarks. Then, when you have finished, you can delete the lot and stare admiringly at your finished article, book, website copy, blog post etc with all those carefully guarded jewels of inspiration within.

If nothing else, j.otdown and another tool by the same developer, David LeMieux, have made me realise another nugget that hadn't really occurred to me, and also reminded me of a path my mind took one long night years ago. Can't find the domain name you really want? Register the domain name minus the first letter. e.g. otdown.com, then set up j as a subdirectory on your server. Easy peasy. You just got your URL. And it stands out because people will notice the dot and think about it.

Years ago, when there were all sorts of rules about who could register which TLD eg .org or .net, there was also a bit of a kickback as UK companies quite often wanted .com domains but the assumption in some people's eyes was that .com was a US thang. A discussion about having .co.us as a TLD started one of those bizarre discussions.

If you could register a .co.us domain, what would it be and why?

I remember: cous.co.us as a Morrocan recipe site. Vis.co.us for a site about mud wrestline. Rau.co.us was a thrash metal site. This then moved onto various other TLDs and how you could use those to come up with weird and wonderful websites. Luckily, much of the discussion is lost and not recorded on j.otdown!!

Read more!

I quite like Flock but....

Flock is a new browser aimed at those who are more interested in using social media than the more traditional uses of the Web.



I have a few doubts about it.

The first is the implication - as I am from a farming community - that I am a sheep. Word association. Nothing more, I'm sure! But it still bothers me.

On top of that, Chrome and Flock seem to have an issue. Currently, I am keeping them apart and using them on different compootas whilst I have work to do. Come the weekend, I may allow them to duel and see what the result is, but it's only the first day of the working week.....

Finally, I am not a one woman horse. Or whatever the saying is. I need to view docs, deepscan PDFs, watch videos, follow multiple alerts on Twitter, delicious etc, check my emails etc. I am never just tied into 'social media' alone. This is why my smartphone died. Plugging the 28" monitor in, I think, killed it.

Oh, I knew it. I'm already being too negative. You want some positives. OK.

Actually, I don't think I can struggle to recommend Flock. Yet. (Can you tell I have a cold and it still isn't Spring here yet?! I will endeavour to switch off the -vety!)

If my day was purely made up of diving in and out of Twitter, Facebook, Digg etc (which despite all appearances to the contrary, it isn't), then Flock is a classy little number. A black dress, almost.

I like MyWorld. It's easily manageable and configurable. I wasn't hit with that "Ooo-er, it's a third party app wanting my password" shiver down the spine moment at all on setting it up. In actual fact, it reminded me of several dormant accounts which I have now enlivened, purely to run them through Flock, which I haven't really had time to monitor for ages *cough* years *cough*. There are times when being an early adopter and hyperactive on the Net has its disadvantages....

I lurv the different sidebars. People, apps, media etc. Aw, c'mon on, they iz funky! I like being shown exactly what I might be missing on the page, though I am beginning to really get the feeling now that most of us on flat screen monitors are going to have to size up by a factor of at least two just to see any screen estate.

What with all the different tool bars in each browser, being left with 3" of webpage to view is getting tiresome. Whether it's a PDF (not in Flock thanks), a video, stream, etc (Yes, in Flock), screen estate seems to be getting as valuable as some Knightsbridge Mews and about as small.

But Flock does overcome that if you use it for what it is excellent at. As a tie-in to Tweetdeck etc, it shows you exactly what is available on the link you just clicked in the way of multi-media. It shows you what you might miss - RSS feeds, a podcast, a chunk of unmissable video, photos etc, without you searcing the page for the link. I **DO** like that. Lots.

Co-ordinate your multimedia actions through Flock and it frees up Chrome (which has definite JS issues), FF (which seems to throw me out for having 300 multimedia tabs open at a time - PAH!), Safari and Opera. In one hit.

I'm new to Flock, but I may well put all my multimedia work through it from now on, and leave the other browsers to do the work of the grunts. You and I know that our paying clients can't always relate to 'experiments', even when the tool turns out to be the Vileda super mop of the internet marketing world! But if Flock stops all my other browsers crashing for a while, I may be a very happy Easter bunny!

Read more!

A social media strategy is so yesterday

Just getting round to adding a social media strategy to your marketing mix? It's time to rethink. Even if a social media marketing strategy was new to you last week, you need to play catch up...and fast.

I've been online for just over 15 years. In that time, many internet marketing 'fads' have been and gone. Some have evolved into more exciting things. Others have just melded into 'the way we all work or exist online'.

Social media, previously known as Web 2.0, is one of the latter.

Social media isn't a separate entity, waiting for you to focus on it and develop the relevant strategy or portfolio of identities on different social networks, bookmark sites, micro blogging platforms or any other.

The world has changed, moved on, particularly where marketing is concerned. The last 15 years have seen some enormous changes in marketing, and many, many people, businesses and agencies have failed to keep up with or grasp the significance of the changes.

Marketing stopped being about you years ago. For a long time now, all marketers have had to adjust to a world where commerce had less power than it realised and much less than it hoped. The consumer voice has been getting increasingly loud over time, and the Internet has given it several hundred decibels more than any corporate can ever dream of. (Except maybe Google who seem absolute experts in what they are doing, although the naysayers are never far away, even from the big G.)

Consumers have a secret you may not know - they know how to find others of like-mind.

So, if you could come up with the single most important strategy you should be adopting in 2010, what would it be? Tweeting? Creating a Facebook page? Adding your links to every social bookmark site? Joining multiple forums and perfecting your sig file? Uh-uh. Nope. None of the above....try again.

Setting aside budget and human resources to deploy your social media strategy? Well, you'd be getting closer but it's not entirely about spending money and people's time either.

What you need to do is deal with every single one of your potential customers as a human bean. And to do that, **you**, yes **you** need to become more human, less corporate. Less about targets and more about interaction, conversation, establishing relationships, developing dialogues.

Think marcomms and then drop the bit that is 'marring' your communications!

It doesn't matter which so-called 'social media tool' you use. Get it right in one place and word will get around. There's nothing you can do to stop that. Which is nice ;o) People will use the tools which suit them to find the info they are seeking. They will ask their peer group, friends, colleagues, random strangers through any one of multiple sites. Can you really afford to be on all of those sites, monitoring and watching for a keyword or opportunity to post a reply? Waiting on the off-chance that someone may happen past and find you?

No. You wouldn't do that in the real world, would you?

Just as any good host or hostess will tell you, you need to work the room. You can pick 10 rooms to work as a business, or just one. Whichever you choose, you need to work it/them very well.

Whilst you may, for instance, choose Twitter as your 'room', it is highly likely that your audience will come from far and wide. You will be retweeted (RT) by people who have automated all their feeds into one - so you may be found on Facebook, Digg, Stumblupon, Delicious, an RSS reader, blogs, in forums etc just from a single RT. You don't need to be in all those rooms though to benefit from the original RT.

What you need to be doing is listening to your audience, communicating with them, responding to the emails, tweets, phone calls, orders. You need to direct people to you, for sure, with information that others share, and then listen, respond, help, talk, deal with complaints, offer advice, a shoulder to cry on,

It has to be about 'getting personal'. You can have 10, 100, 1000 loyal followers. 100s of thousands if you are a celeb. But if you do not treat each one as special, you will lose them.

Know them by name. Remember the last hiccup, celebration, or trauma in their life. Follow up with after-sales questions and advice and help. Make it personal. It's got nothing to do with social media and EVERYTHING to do with treating people as people.

If you are a business of 1, remember that you can really only cope with 150 'friends'. (You are a primate - I presume - and therefore this is a known fact). Choose your friends carefully and nurture them. If you are a business of 3 people, 5 people, 10 people, then look after 150 potential loyal followers, subscribers, customers etc * your staff numbers committed to being online.

Remember though that one bad apple can sour the whole cart so watch out for those people. Deal with them. Not harshly, but gently. Redirect them to somewhere more suited to their needs. Don't banish them and ignore them.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

An irate complainant can do huge amounts of damage to your online reputation. Nip malcontent in the bud. Woo your difficult customers, don't just ignore them as they can go on a crusade to destroy you and you will be hard-pushed with your resources to look after the good guys in your network. Deal with them as you would an unwanted or belligerent ex-friend. And always remember to protect your loyal friends first and foremost. Help them. Advise them. Don't hard sell them. Introduce them to each other, knowing that for that contact, you may be remembered forever - even if it seems to have cut you out of the loop.

And if you think this isn't marketing - think again.

Why do you do exhibitions, attend breakfast meetings, join the Chamber of Trade, or even place an advert? It is to attract like-minded individuals to you. People you can network with, talk to, share contacts, ideas, sell your amazing product to.

Think out of the business box. Why do you go out with friends? Down the pub? To a restaurant, concert, the theatre, or to see a film? Is it to sit in a wholly isolated bubble all evening? Of course not. It's all about INTERACTION. With friends, strangers, even the lady selling popcorn, the barman, the waitress in the restaurant.

Many things you could do at home, if you didn't want to 'get out for a bit'. You aren't a hermit in your personal life, so don't be one in business.

Read more!

Family friendly concentration test

Test your concentration levels here today... nice, family friendly fun.


Watch this film

Concentrate now!

How many times do the white team pass the ball between each other? Count carefully....


OK? Got your answer?

Now, watch again.































































Did you spot the gorilla?

Read more!

Google is building the *biggest* database

Every which way you look at the moment, Google is pulling hard data about you. This may be contact details, your IP address, your browsing habits and so on.

In a world full of media hype stories about identity theft and so on, you'd think you would see the odd concern about this.

Of course, you do see blog posts, never-ending forum discussions, etc amongst marketers or corporates but the reality is that, I think, we are all far too trusting of the G word. It's almost a blind spot, it seems to me, on our horizons.

I am writing a book at present on PPC. Part of it is about Google innovations, up and coming apps, new extensions and so on. The more I look into it, the more I am beginning to wonder what exactly Google is gathering all this data **FOR**.

Contact forms in PPC ads that go through Google. Request to calls that go via a Google number that you set up as a merchant. Local search that has your mobile phone nailed down with a few meters of your current position.

It is without a doubt - purely commercial. With a database full of mobile numbers, email addresses, home and business contact details, GPS positions etc, Google has a head start on anyone, any business, anywhere in the world, whatever business sector it decided to dabble its toes in.

And we know now that Google will go anywhere. And good. I love the shake up of the mobile and telecoms infrastructure sector that follows a Google announcement of free wi-fi or universal FTTH. Google's involvement in that particular game is world changing. As long as it's strategic. If Google owned and ran every network in the world, and therefore controlled all that data, I have to admit I would be nervous, and concerned.

But, in the meantime, with amazingly in-depth info about what each of the individuals and corporates search upon or buy on your ENGINE ...well, pick your target!

Is it more than that? Well, I have to admit, as a writer, that if you wanted to rewrite 1984, then we currently have a company who are accessing phenomenal amounts of personal data from people who are unbelievably trusting just because Google has become a household word.

I'm not saying it's wrong or right - just....shouldn't we question how much personal data Google has on each of us? Do we know anything about Google's network and data security? We all know that most virii (viruses) have been aimed at those browsers or Operating systems with the most users, so surely Google is a prime and absolute target?

If all of the emails, documents and dates you currently have on the free version of Gmail, Google docs, Google calendar were suddenly exposed, would that be an issue to you?

And what if that data became available for sale, as your credit card details may already be, to people who are not as seemingly trustworthy as Google? What if they were leaked? After all, Google is an American company. Is it a high priority target for 'attacks'?

Look how the world has been since the banks went pear shaped.

What would happen if someone took down Google?

Economically? Even a blip on Wordpress last week cost a fortune in lost e-commerce. Imagine if Adwords went down.....? The waves from that type of failure would be global and affect every business with a PPC campaign. Just a thought.

Most people haven't a clue how to find anything on the Net - hey, I've been in the internet marketing field for 15 years....I know! If their browser isn't set up to find a search engine, the majority of people are stuffed. 10+ years I have been watching dogpile.com, google.com, yahoo.com etc list in the top search engine terms for the month. If you know the URL, you don't need to search, folks!! It's called a location bar....type it in there. Nope? OK

Would you know, instantly, in a Family Fortunes type quiz show, 5 other search engines today in 2010?

Socially, many people probably would be reliant on properties which are now owned by Google. Youtube, for one. Do you know another place to post your 'must be shared right now' 30sec video? Ever heard of metacafe.com, dropshots, flickr etc? Nope, probably not. Do you have an iPhone app for any alternatives? Do you know what to search for to find one on a search engine other than Google?

I am just wondering whether we have all become too reliant on Google. And too trusting. After all, sadly, it seems to be human nature that we will support the underdog until they become successful and then we try to destroy them. Or is that just celeb culture and the Brits? I don't think so.

I believe we need many flowers to bloom to make the most of the amazing tech we have available to us. Yet, we seem to be manufacturing a world where only one can survive. I'm not sure this is right. For all the reasons above, and more.

And just to finish, I'd like to wish Nikki Pilkington congrats on her new sproglet. We've known each other quite a long time, had our differences over the years, and when she's back, I would hope she will have something to add.

Read more!

Digital Britain unconferences

The state of the broadband nation here in the UK is now approaching dire. Despite the spin and advertising millions, the reality on the ground is that many suffer impoverished braodband connections, and there is little chance of the telcos providing broadband appropriate for the 21st century (FTTH) before the 2012 Olympics to anyone other than a handful of foreign athletes and journalists.

Britain is getting left behind in the broadband race. We seem unable to force private companies to act for the common good in providing broadband to the masses, or even acknowledge the problem, and swathes of the country, especially rural areas, are still unable to get anything close to what other nations would call broadband, even in 2009.

FTTH is being sidelined for yet another interim technology, fibre to the copper/cabinet or FTTC, which will no more provide suitable communications infrastructure for this nation than the asymmetrical connectivity provided to date, (ADSL) and labelled (mistakenly) and (mis)sold as "broadband".

The Carter Report on Digital Britain has been through public review after the recent publication of the interim report, the Digital Britain Summit has been held to inform and enlighten the lucky few who got a seat in the British Library or who could access the online video stream of current thinking, whilst awaiting the publication of the full Digital Britain Report in May.

The problem is though that Joe Public is fed up with reports and summits, policy and regulation, pilots and trials, all of which generally cost a fortune to us the taxpayers and frequently achieve nothing except backwards movement down the FTTH or true broadband path.

The Digital Britain Twitter backchannel during the Summit was alive with pain, frustration, exasperation as well as innovative ideas, positivity for community action, broadband expertise, FTTH and telco knowledge, and much more.

For the latter half of the Digital Britain conference, there was at least a factor of 10 higher attendees on the Twitter #digitalbritain channel than in the venue. And probably far more due to Stephen Fry's attendance and involvement.

In response to that, it was inevitable that the Digital Britain unconference would be organised by people who are far more digitally aware than many at policy and decision making level. Those people will ignore the Digital Britain unconferences at their peril, be they in government, the civil service or telcos.

There are far too many people for whom this issue can be life or death:

* personally, because of the lack of telemedicine
* to their businesses, because they are unable to communicate with or participate in the global economy and in too many cases with the local economy
* to their communities, who are becoming increasingly cut off and isolated from the internet-driven world because of the lack of broadband
* to their familes as arguments and suffering occur due to lack of access for schooling, leisure, work opportunities
* to the environment as we continue to be unable to fully implement teleworking or reduce enviro-impact through the adoption of green technologies or reduced energy consumption which FTTH brings

The Digital Britain unconference idea is a natural reaction to the situation which is being foced on the consumers, citizens and businesses of the UK. It highlights what many of us are saying that BROADBAND IS VITAL.

Wherever you are in Britain, please attend one of the broadband unconferences, either in person or online through the Digital Britain Unconference Twitter channel, and promote these events as widely as possible.

Read more!

Leyland tiger vintage bus in the Lake District on BBC breakfast news

Click here for Cumbria Classic Coaches website

Nothing wakes you up quite so much as seeing one of the companies you have been involved in on BBC breakfast news. After all, there aren't that many companies in the UK who hire out vintage and classic buses, nor who have a 1949 Leyland Tiger, better known as the Kendal Klipper.

All jokes about "Will's on the bus" should be put on hold, whilst we promote this family run bus company based in Cumbria, with one of their fleet currently loitering around Glenridding and equally beautiful places, full of people suffering from the effects of the current economic climate. From people who had moved to their dream retirement in Spain and who have been forced to come home and rent a house in Carlisle, through to other hard working folk who have seen their savings and wages decrease to little or nothing.

Nice juxtaposition of a 1940s bus with current economic issues, and the Lakes make an ideal setting for all of this news story. We await the next installment tomorrow with interest, and of course, a personal delight at seeing Cumbria Classic Coaches on mainstream TV. The double decker is in Birmingham at the NEC and is apparently the star of that show.

However, from a promotional point of view, there is of course a salutory story behind all of this blog post. A job, whether for the BBC Breakfast news team, a wedding or private hire, is always also potentially an opportunity to market your business online. CCC should have had a headline story or a landing page up designed to capture those who are looking on the search engines for an old bus or classic coach to hire for weddings, parties or to enjoy a trip through the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District on one of the heritage routes.

You are bound to get casual visitors following up news stories and so on, so you don't necessarily want to inundate your usual website and home page with people who just want an authentic bus ticket, so a landing page is perfect. Set it up to capture anyone coming in from the particular TV or radio station, news article etc and give them all the info that they may be seeking to ensure you weed out the serious business enquiries from those just interested because you have a great product that has caught their fancy this fine morning.

Add all the keywords and phrases to your landing page that will hit the search engines, and Digg it, add it to Facebook and social network sites, and submit to the channel or publication showing/publishing your details for a great roundabout marketing mechanism.

And then of course, contact all of your fan club and get them to post a link. Like this blog post!!! Here is the link to BBC Breakfast News and hopefully shortly there will be a video clip or similar showing Cumbria Classic Coaches.

Aside: Was Pete Blezzard really asleep in that last clip?!!

UPDATE:Just over one hour after posting this, I checked Google for some long tail terms to see how we were doing.
#1: bbc breakfast old bus lakes
#1:BBC breakfast vintage bus
#1: pete blezard bus
#3: bbc news old bus cumbria
#3: pete blezzard
#6: bbc news bus lake district
#7: bbc news lake district bus
#9: bbc news bus cumbria (#10 Cumbria classic coaches!!)
#11: bbc breakfast bus

Thinking about what people might search on has brought up terms such as credit crisis, economic situation, economy and much more about the actual story, but I wasn't taking much notice of the financial and economic reasons for the bus being used on TV!!

Read more!

Domain Renewal group warning

Been a while since I have been hit with this particular scam. Offical looking letter, lots of small print, sent at a time when a domain is up for renewal. But, it certainly isn't due up for renewal with these guys.

Small businesses often fall victim to this type of scam which is asking for a mere £20 payment for a 1 year renewal of what could potentially be a vital domain name. £65 for 5 years.

Last time I got hit for it was on a .eu domain that I had purposely registered for 1 year as I knew that was the timescale/lifespan of a particular set of keywords we were using. The letters got increasingly unpleasant, and I got bored of scanning (OCR) Flemish and french legalese to realise it was easier to hit 'shred' not scan.

All that is actually being requested with this particular letter is that you switch your DOMAIN REGISTRAR to this particualr company. And as I am perfectly happy with my domain registrar, who send timely reminders, allow me a fantastically useful dashboard to edit all my accounts, cancel domains, renew them, set up web and email forwarding (for the purposes of impartiality, they shall remain nameless - you can find out in about 30secs!), this is yet another letter that is going in the bin.

This cross-marketing of web to post is now becoming as tedious as many of the other idiocies of our daily lives where someone seeks to make a quick buck out of our information overload.

Make a note of where you have registered your domains, make sure that it is easy to find if your secretary leaves, and never, ever, respond to anything like this. As they seem to be targetting .com domains due to expire in the next few months, I look forward to many more. Not.

Update: Oh, and I know it is petty but writing, "No bloody chance" and sticking it back in their envelope with a 1p stamp on doesn't half feel good for the soul!

Read more!

Never assume everyone knows what you do

Today's lesson is about writing down what you know to share, or showing someone else because you have no idea how much you have learnt over the years that could be useful to those around you.

This lesson came about today when twin 1 came to the town centre with me, and I threw her out of the car to buy the parking ticket for the car park. At 15, I wasn't really expecting her to wail, "How do I use this machine? And which machine is it?" I pointed out that one of the items in question was actually a litter bin....but I was quite surprised, but on reflection, why should she know how to buy a parking ticket? She doesn't drive.

She said, as she climbed back in the car and clutching her prized acquisition, "Cool. They should teach us that sort of stuff in school." Good point actually, you mean they don't?!

The lesson continued after we had arrived back home and twin 2, declaring mass hunger, decided she would make a spam sandwich. But how to open the tin? Just before she mullered the key in riving it off the bottom of the tin, I decided that it would be worth showing her the technique before it was too late. OK, she refused to listen once I had got it started (she is a teenager after all!), but she did finally get into the tin. And repeated, almost word for word, what her sister had said earlier, "They should teach us this sort of stuff in school." (Well, they are twins!)

End result for me - win, win. Twin 1 can buy the parking tickets at future, twin 2 can no longer say she doesn't know how to open a tin of spam/sardines etc, and best of all, I got a sandwich made for me!

So, moral of the story is don't assume everyone knows how to do the things you have learnt to do over the years, and by sharing what you do know with others, you can often find mutual benefits.

Read more!

Promote your blog

The guys at Bloggeries are avid users of Twitter and understand the need to get the word out there about your blog or RSS feed. Use their service today to get traffic to your blog and ensure that your 2009 marketing strategy starts as you mean it to go on.

Read more!

"We had a funeral for his snowman"

"We had a funeral for his snowman" is the sort of headline most copywriters wish they could write. In fact, most copywriters would chew their own leg off to come up with something that powerful!

This poignant, short resume of the life, and death, of a child's snowman begins with those 7 words which make you just want to read the rest. And once read, those few paragraphs will probably stick in your head for a very long time, if not forever. After all, not many of us have mourned a snowman as this child did. Nor related this sort of experience to our every day life as those in the comments did.

Internet marketers have been experimenting with writing catchy subject lines and headlines for their emails recently, but have generally failed to have the success this one did. Surprisingly, the emails from the supposed IM gurus are easy to find in my inbox as they are all unread. With subject lines such as "flying panda curse" and "over inflated clam", I guess it is hardly surprising when compared to "We had a funeral for his snowman".

Writing to capture the attention of your readers is one thing, but writing with passion is what will actually really hold them, and stick in their minds. Not every email or blog post or tweet needs to be attempting to flog your audience a product. Most people can see through that. Amy's name will stick in many people's minds when they think, "I need a good copywriter or blogger" because in this simple post she has proven she knows her trade/art, call it what you will. And that is a more effective sales pitch than any.

So, when you need to write copy for your site, don't think SEO, or keywords, or sales pitch - think passion and emotion.

Read more!

Wot economic recession?

I don't really do Christmas or shopping. But I am watching what is happening with the economy for my clients and my own business in 2009. So, I was more than a little surprised to see the queues, lack of bargains and spending mania going on today in Kendal. Not what I had heard on the BBC news....

Retailers in small market towns, such as Kendal, seem to have it made. It was blatantly obvious today that the ONLY companies with bargains, sales, reductions etc were the national companies who are reacting on a national policy basis. "The following items are to be marked down, the following signs need to go on the windows etc" And Woolworths, who of course have their very own problems with administration etc.

The local companies are retailing at full bore with very few reductions being offered. After all, they already have a good brand reputation locally or they wouldn't still be on the high street. Their customers will continue coming in through the door - sales signs or not.

Boots, Morrisons, Comet etc all had sale signs up. Yet, those were the sales staff who were quick to say, "The Boxing Day sales start in just 3 days. If it's not a present for Xmas Day, you might want to consider waiting because the price on that will come down."

I thought this was really interesting. Here in Cumbria, only one local company I know of has gone to the wall recently with the loss of 30+ jobs, but the local rumour mill has it that it is unrelated to any recession.

But no-one else seems to be really suffering yet. The drop in mortgage rates has helped those who have low average earnings, which is typical for rural areas such as ours, not hindered them. So, spending is rife not restricted. The poultry sale the other night at the auction mart saw fresh 6kg turkeys being sold between £32 and £40+, and geese anywhere up to £60. No going to Asda, for a packed crowd who jostled for the birds even though they were anywhere up to 5 times or so what the supermarkets have been knocking them out at.

Was it just down to quality and the knowledge they were well bred, locally? I think so. I also think there is an innate understanding of the blue pound in rural economies. (Oh, and ignore Wikipedia, which whilst coming up first on Google for the term "blue pound", is way off the mark).

Blue pound refers to a theory that if a pound coin were stained blue and its progress was observed, we would see how much of our money spent 'locally' was actually benefiting the local economy. If the paint comes off on each person's hands as they touch it within the local spending community, how many people will have their hands dyed blue before this pound coin leaves the community for a national or international corporate? For the vitality and ressurection of communities, this phenomenon is SO important. If all your money is going out of the local economy, it is called the leaky bucket syndrome. If it is staying within the economy, it is creating local jobs, giving local people money to spend, and it invigorates local communities.

Let me put this really simply: it keeps alive the place where you live, keeps your neighbours and yourself in work, it ensures the future of your community. Think about where your blue pound goes every single time you open your purse or wallet. Is that pound leaving where you live and going into the coffers of a large corporate who will not be spending their profits on your doorstep? Then, to be honest, you are helping to destroy your community.

So, to return to the main point of this post, where is the business and marketing lesson in this? It has to be:
if you have a good relationship with your customers because you provide a good product, at a good price, all year round, and great customer service, you can survive a recession. Especially if you don't follow the rest of the sheep and cut prices to attract more sales. Either your product is great and worth the money, or you have your pricing structure wrong!

We are likely to see a large number of retail redundancies and bankruptcies during 2009 in the High street according to many financial analysts.

This could well to prove to be a good thing for those looking to re-establish the High Street as their domain, and to take Britain's high streets from being the 'same shops everywhere, homogenous' crap that we have seen developing and endured in some towns.

IF some of the larger names start vanishing from the High Street, there is a fantastic opportunity for local companies and smaller chains to move in and deliver the goods where there is maximum footfall. Obviously, as an Internet marketer, I have to apply what I know from there to this process so here's my thoughts for 2009 on how to maximise on the potential changes in every High Street in Britain.

* Build your loyal customer base online
* Have a great website, lots of content and product choice
* Keep up to date with your customers - email newsletters, autoresponders, competitions and so on
* Deliver the BEST customer service that you possibly can - use live chat, VoIP, and CRM to track what your customers are saying and doing and thinking, AND buying from you!
* Make the most of opportunities to take those online customers with you into your locality eg through bricks and mortar shops, which should start coming up for rent
* BUT ONLY if you can't make as much of the opportunity online as offline ie do you need local trade to grow? (eg a butcher) If not, consider bricks and mortar very carefully. A website may be the better choice for you.
* Build an exit strategy for bricks and mortar - 2-3 years or so because many of those behind the big names will be back and may well take you on. Be ready to get out before you end up like Woolies.
* Combine all your offline marketing and customer loyalty schemes tightly through your online presence
* Automate everything you can - from backend processes through to PPC reporting. For instance, do not spend precious time walking from one end of a building to another when you could put a wireless network and a Netbook at the other end (for about £2-300) and save time. (I can give 20 case studies off the top of my head right now on this sort of stuff that businesses do without thinking about the savings they could make if they just used technology!)

If you run a small to medium sized business, or are in a rural area, or are confused or worried about how you can make the most of 2009, why not post here and we'll help you out? Many minds make light work.

Read more!

Finding blogs with decent PR

I have been marketing a client's site recently by posting to blogs and forums on their behalf. Finding blogs on topic is not so difficult if you use Blogsearch from googlebut finding blogs with a reasonable PR to pass link juice on has not been easy until now.
Last week, I did a trawl around to see if there was any software that would make finding high PR blogs any easier and came across the free version of FastBlogFinder. This only allows you to see 50 blogs for any search term, so I have decided to upgrade to the Gold version. It is definitely worth trying the free version - download it today.

Read more!

SEO Lies

I'm just working my way through an ebook called SEO Lies, which cost a mere $1 and makes quite interesting reading.

Although it isn't the best written ebook around, (hery, who's complaining? It cost a dollar!) there is some valuable content which is at least written this year. Many of the internet marketing ebooks doing the rounds are seriously out of date and add to the misinformation out there for those looking to learn SEO and internet marketing techniques to create their website promotion strategy.

I appreciate the myth busting intro. It has been said for far too long that SEO is rocket science. It so isn't! Also, the fact that SEO takes forever to work needs to be dispelled, as does the myth that you need reams and reams of content for Google to notice you exist - also untrue. And you can't use duplicate content. OK, for sure, unique content is bound to help but that doesn't mean you can't put an article on your website and submit it to some of the article marketing sites too. I don't fully agree with the nofollow section, but introducing nofollow as one of the myths is useful and should provoke more research for those who don't know enough about nofollow links and process.

There is a good basic intro to SEO, explaining what you need where and why. There's a fairly clear section on keyword research, followed by how to create a search engine optimised landing page that will also catch the attention of your target market.

And the last section is dedicated to a process that the author, Justin Brooke, calls "The Boat". Basically, this is an outline of his marketing strategy and where he promotes his sites. This would make a nice template for a newbie to follow if they are short on inspiration of where to get links to their site.

All in all, well worth a dollar, so whilst it is still a dollar, why not go grab your copy of SEO Lies and see what you think.

Read more!

Small Business 'fearful' of Internet marketing

Microsoft have recently conducted a survey of small businesses Internet Marketing behaviour. It seems that the majority of the small businesses interviewed are totally ignoring Internet marketing. Not because they don't realise it is important to their marketing strategy, but mainly, it seems, because of fear.

In fact, they are so fearful of IM, that 70% of those surveyed would rather do their taxes than try to start a paid search marketing campaign. Although the majority of small businesses do set up an online presence eg a website, they don't then use internet marketing to capitalise on that presence. Interestingly though, 86% of these businesses felt they might just be missing out on opportunities and benefits that IM could bring to their business.

59% of the respondents who had a website do not use paid search eg PPC, and 90% of those had never even tried it. And yet 3/4 of them believed that their potential customers could well be searching online for their products and services.

Those who were using paid search advertising were more than satisfied - 72% reported an increase in sales enquiries, and 68% consider their paid search campaigns successful.

"Among the participants' chief concerns, most cited the common
misconceptions of cost, time and complexity as major hurdles to conducting
search marketing campaigns for their businesses. Other key insights included
the following:
-- Nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) feared keywords may become too
expensive.
-- Eighty-one percent questioned if paid search marketing is the best use
of their marketing budgets.
-- One quarter of respondents believe paid search marketing is too
complex.
-- Twenty-one percent thought it would be too time-consuming.
-- Thirty-five percent felt they would need an agency to help set up a
search marketing campaign."

So, fear - of wasting money, time or become mired with complex systems and failing to understand how to get best value from the process - were the main reasons given for not doing search marketing.

How sad. PPC is not rocket science. It seems though that your average small business, whose marketing budget may only be £500-£2000 per year, is failing to spend even a proportion of that on what is a proven quality traffic strategy.

There is a great free guide on how to set up a successful PPC campaign which you can download here. If all you did as one of your New Year's resolutions is pick 5 keywords that sum up your business and run a trial PPC campaign, you will haver gained by doing so. And managed to break the cycle of fear that PPC is difficult, costly and time-consuming.

In fact, why not enter this PPC competition and see how you do? What have you got to lose by giving it a go? And you may find that the benefits it brings to your business are several fold. Which during an economic downturn can only be good!!

Read more!

Simpleology Blog Course

Mark Joyner has been around for years in the Internet marketing world and he is currently trying an interesting new experiment in linking strategies worth thinking about.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Read more!

Do we still love Google?

As the search engines become more greedy for dollars, there seems to be an inexorable rise in the number of 'products' being introduced which would seem to be trying to un-level the playing field for small businesses, home based businesses, mom and pop type enterprises etc. Not only that but adding dross to the results, and seemingly making it ever harder for searchers to actually find what they are looking for.


Google have now admitted that search results will be manipulated by staff in future. This seems to be dependent on what is the flavour of the month eg through the public opinion voiced on SearchWiki rather than any other particularly scientific criteria. Additionally, they have announced that the previously exclusiveAdsense for domains is now open to everyone, so that search results will now throw up inactive (and therefore empty) websites in order to generate revenue from the ads shown, and clicked upon.

Personally, I would have thought that cleaning all those domains which generate 404 errors, have not been updated since last century, and those that only have adverts on would have been more appropriate in attaining the raison d'etre behind Google's mantra about generating the relevant results for the most beneficial user experience.

If the results are to be manipulated by Google staff, then it would seem that it is going to get increasingly hard to get a listing by, for instance, providing quality content that is caught in organic searches. It may be that SEOs have to rely ever more on PPC to actually ensure that potential customers find their websites. This obviously financially benefits those who are providing PPC eg Google, Yahoo et al, and will surely undermine the trust in the supposed impartiality of the search engines in delivering the best results for the users.

Read more!

Clicky vs Google Analytics

Although Google Analytics is pretty good compared to many of the old school web stats tools, there are new kids on the block well worth taking a look at, especially if you want real time stats.
Clicky Web Statistics definitely offers more in the way of functionality than Google Analytics, and is of particular interest to those who are hyperactive on the Web, and want to see how actions influence vistors in real time. For bloggers, people posting to forums (for various reasons such as brand awareness raising, or to promote a particular product or during a campaign, the real time stats are awesome.

And there is huge detail about what each visitor is doing on your site, as well as new additions such as adding your Twitter followers, which seems hugely popular with all.

I am particularly taken with their Pro plans and the opportunity to get a white label version of the product at a pretty reasonable cost ie just over £20 for 20 sites per month, which for an extra £1+/month to your clients has got to be worth investigating if you are doing SEO or Web PR for a few sites. And there's an API for your devs to get their teeth into to integrate it all with other funky stuff as well.

I'm going to play more with this over the coming days on a couple of other sites and probably post some more, but if you think Google Analytics was good, then you really, really need to try Clicky!

Read more!

Quintura and visual search

I like Quintura - it generates keywords and results into a cloud that other methods fail to so I have installed an example cloud at the bottom of this blog to play with.

Just scroll down to the end of the page to see Quintura's search clouds in action.

Many SEOs have been blogging about using Quintura for keyword searches and it does seem pretty useful for that. I also like the kids version though it is heavily Americanised.

Additionally, in the visual search space, I have fallen over Kartoo, Ujiko, Grokker, and Clusty.

Well worth a play for both clients and your own internet marketing.....

Read more!

SEO Tools

I'm not normally one for buying suites of tools that claim to do all your SEO work for you, but I do spend an awful lot of time testing the freebies and trials to judge for myself whether anyone is close yet to what I would define as the ultimate toolkit.


This week's trial is for Web CEO which I have seen around for a while


First impressions are that this is a fairly impressive toolkit for those who don't have in-house tools already, and would seem to suit a small business who is looking to do internet marketing and seo but hasn't necessarily the technical expertise to develop the required software and tools.

I would never use automated submission software anyway, so that part isn't necessarily of interest to me, but I am interested in testing the validity of the potential link sites it has thrown up, as well as some of the more in-depth features this suite appears to have.

Even on first glance, the features list is pretty impressive, and once you start playing around, it seems to get better rather than worse!

This is just day 2 of playing with it for one of my clients, so I will report more later on in the trial, but it's free, so what have you got to lose? Download it and try it yourself and let's compare notes!

Read more!

Lombard Rally book - Tales of the Lombardiers

The "Lombard Rally Book - Tales of the Lombardiers" is now published and available to buy online....the ideal Christmas present for rally enthusiasts. Buy it today! Wrriten by Lindsey Annison, with a foreword by Tony Mason - Lombard Rally navigator and commentator.



145 pages, full colour photos by Andy Manston of M & H Photography, stories from many of the crews, a timeline of the introduction of Endurance Rallying by Philip Young, 2004 - 2007 Lombard Revival results.....and more! Check it out right now.

Read more!

Get a clear brief from your client

One of those days where you read a client brief and think, "What? Whaaaaaaat? And what they need is, um,......what exactly? Why would they want to do that?" So, you re-approach them for clarification and the conversation goes from bad to worse.....

But then I found this and realised my clients are not that bad.....

Read more!

At long last! A vocal forum

I've been waiting for this for years. I can see this taking off big style and it's uses for internet marketing are phenomenal! If you haven't already heard about it, go and check out Internet Shout

If you start thinking about how this could be used to promote a business, or to have testimonials from real customers, or any of the other many uses - verbal press releases for instance - you start to see how allowing people to interact verbally can have huge results. After all, this is why the telephone moved away so rapidly from its original use (dial a disc type, one way applications) to becoming the communications tool that it is today.

I absolutely love this app and am going to use it for podcasts, Web PR for my clients, sharing opinions / rants, general conversation and much more! Brilliant, good luck to Chris and everyone behind Internet Shout.

Read more!

Finding freelancers

I've been very interested in the global knowledge economy for some time, and particularly recently when the economy has been going tits up. My task has been how and where to find competent developers, coders, website designers, SEO experts and so on, from outside of the UK to extend the team. And also to ensure that whatever the economy does, there is still a consistent revenue stream into the business, even if it means working for far less than normal for a while to establish a reputation on a new site.



The reason for investigating Odesk, amongst other sites, is that it is a well-established business that gets mentioned frequently on forums and in blogs. Having looked into it, I am particularly impressed by the software which each provider and buyer uses in order to log time spent on a particular project. We use something similar here (EasyTimeTracker) to manage project time for clients, but odesk provide a far more comprehensive version, complete with screenshots and webcam images.

It takes a little getting used to, but there is a very neat test you need to take before being hired or hiring a provider which ensures you are up to speed with the most important functions of the software.

All of this follows on from using Mechanical Turk for a variety of reasons for the last couple of years.

So, whether you are looking to get a job done fast and for a reasonable rate, or just feel like filling in some spare time and earning a little extra cash, both of these sites bear investigating.

Read more!

Synonyms, Google and tildes

When you are optimising your website, and seeking good keywords to use, do not forget synonyms. Those are the related words to your keywords and phrases, and Google et al use them to suss out the overall relevance of your page for your top keywords and phrases.

How to find the synonyms? Well, you can use a thesaurus - there are online ones, or most Word Processing packages include them. Or you can get onto Google and type the keyword that you want synonyms for preceded by a tilde. That's one of these things ~ like they put over an 'n' in Spanish to make an enya.

that's one of these - ñ !

So, if for instance, you want synonyms for "cheap flights" (yes, I really do need a holiday!) you type "~cheap flights" into Google, without the speech marks. And bingo! All the synonyms that Google likes are highlighted in bold ready for you to pluck out and use on your own site.

And that's today's handy little search engine optimisation and keyword discovery tip.

Read more!

Is your software legal?

The Government has given Trading Standards the power and duty to enforce copyright laws on businesses' software, and a pilot has started in Cardiff where TS can enter business premises and check the licences of all software being used.

Whilst the majority of businesses will be unaffected by this type of law, there are bound to be some who are unknowingly or unwittingly breaking the law using downloaded copies, borrowed versions of software etc. The pilot in Cardiff may lead the way to a national scheme, so FAST have produced information to help businesses ensure that all the software they are using is correctly licensed.

Whether this is a good spend of £5million to protect software companies rights, rather than protecting consumers and businesses from dodgy software can only be debated, but at least the program is designed to prosecute only when software copyright infringement is deemed to have been done intentionally.

Read more!

Checking your newsletter links

Many businesses resort to email newsletters to keep their potential customer base informed about new products, services, news etc.

It can be a cheap and efficient method to communicate, offering special deals to subscribers, testing marketing messages and more. The newsletter can also drive trackable traffic to the website, which gives great metrics on what products are du jour, and what messages work.

However, recently, there seems to have been a slew of newsletters (and not all issued by small companies) where the links to stories of interest lead to 404s (Page not found). This can mean that the whole newsletter fails in its purpose because your average consumer does not have time, cannot be bothered, or does not know how to reformat the link so that it is correct. Or, because your site is insufficiently optimised and spidered regularly by the search engines, they cannot find any link to the product/story/etc that they are interested in when they resort to the search engines to find a link.

A broken link can be as simple as missing out the www (tell your hosting company to reconfig their servers so it isn't even required!), typing the URL incorrectly, or when using a third party forwarding software which doesn't put in the correct link (this is usually a human typing / cut and paste error though!)

A newsletter with one bad link can be overlooked, although not if that link goes to your hot must-have product, but newsletters where multiple links are wrong will mean you have just wasted the money on sending it, and will have placed indelibly into your subscribers' minds the fact that "Oh, last time, nothing in this worked, I can't be bothered to try again".

The search engine optimisation strategy employed by your company should be ongoing. Your site needs to be regularly updated, with current news, new products, blog posts etc and you need to make sure that the search engine spiders are visiting regularly. Check your traffic stats to make sure they are!

In times of economic difficulties, every penny you spend must work for you. Sending out a test newsletter and paying an employee for a few minutes time to check every link, or do it yourself, can mean the difference between achieving the results you expected from your newsletter eg sales, eyeballs on your website, long term loyalty from customers, or throwing money down the drain, and not just in the short-term.

Check your links work! Check your site works before sending the newsletter. Optimise your site properly. And test, test and test again!

Read more!

And this week's spam is....

We are obviously all under-educated in't Western world, so this last month has seen an inundation of education opportunities - buy your degree, missing out on the job you deserve, earn more when qualified etc.

Other than that, this week has seen the spam innovation (yawn) of the subject line being the surname of the sender. Unfortunately, the spammers' imaginations are on holiday and there are no more vaguely interesting names such as 'Unmerrily Thompson' or 'Doublechoc Vinszcaya' so tis all a wee bit boring this week. But, like I said, always worth reporting!

What have you had in your spam sandwich this week?

Read more!

Reminder to self

Now here's a canny idea. Your business has targets to meet, but sometimes it can be hard with so much to do to remember those targets and check progress over time.
Why not send a letter to yourself at a set point in the future to check you are still on track achieving your targets? You can now send letters to a future you for any purpose at all, but using this service to keep yourself on target has got to be a good one for keeping your goals in sight and ensuring you are doing what you set out to.

If you just want an every day reminder service though, why not use Backpack?

Read more!

Why giving is good

I have previously posted about giving away information for free. Let's go one step further and see what else you can do which will bring in enquiries, sales and profits.

A recent discussion about contacting Richard Branson about a business proposal for a community a group of us have led to talks about whether he (or Bill Gates, Dragons' Den players etc) would rip us off if we took such an idea to him/them. After all, this idea would benefit potentially thousands of people if done in a certain way, but would also yield money. What would be to stop them nicking the idea, converting it into a purely profit-making exercise, and destroying the underlying purpose?

The conclusion we came to is that although many of these players may well be in it for the money, they are also in it for a deeper reason. People attract money, are successful in business, or are canny entrepreneurs by being 'themselves' generally. And that personality is not generally 'nasty'. How many nasty successful business people can you think of?

Gates is well-known for his philanthropic activities, and Branson has become known for taking on the big boys on behalf of the consumers. Yes, it is good for profits and branding, and it buys loyalty too, but it also has a 'feelgood factor' to it. And that, potentially, for the individual able to do so, is worth more than the money generated as a side effect of doing good, or giving.

The Body Shop, run by the late Anita Roddick, built a huge amount of loyalty through its activities to protect those making the products, to reduce environmental impact etc. This was because Anita Roddick cared a great deal about doing business ethically, and giving to those individuals and communities who she felt were suffering at the hands of unethical activities by governments, large corporates etc. She felt she could make a difference to people she dealt with, and she did.

This a common thread amongst successful entrepreneurs. Giving to get.

And every business needs to look at how they can treat their customers well, go the extra mile, not try to make money from every single thing they do. To do it for the well-being of their customers. To help them overcome hurdles which might be preventing them succeeding.

For instance, Cybersavvy UK has given huge amounts of free information over the years. Not just to establish that we know what we are on about with internet marketing and small business advice, but also because we want to help people.

It is so frustrating finding people day in, day out, who just do not know where to turn to for help, who cannot justify spending consultancy fees for specialist advice, or who just don't know what they don't know.

This blog is currently the replacement for a website in rebuild that has over 600 pages of free advice on it. (It will shortly be returning to your screens so watch this space!)

The lengthy discussions about how to monetise that website have led to a decision to make 90% of the Web PR advice available for free. Why? Because at the end of the day, we want to help people 'get online to better business' - which has been our strapline for 12 years now. The side benefit is that more business is generated by helping people to get beyond the basics of SEO and Internet Marketing etc for free than by attempting to charge them for that service. Ditto in the other worlds we are involved with eg broadband and IT skills and training. We earn more by helping people to get connected, or to use their computer with some degree of competence, because then they want to be able to do more, and can see the benefits (economic and otherwise) that the free advice has brought them.

Let's pick any business and see how adopting this approach could benefit you. This approach benefits any business at all, but let's try a couple of different ones to see what we can come up with...

Let's say you are a picture framer. When a customer comes to you for a frame, what could you offer them for free?

How about advice on how to best light the picture they are going to frame? Show them examples of lights that can be used, and how placement of the light will improve the picture. Does it cost you anything? Well, maybe a few moments of your time, and you may need to get hold of a lighting company's catalogue, but that will cost pennies.

How about advice on positioning a picture in a room for best effect? Height of the picture, placement etc all make a difference to the impact a picture will have. Which pictures complement each other to create a theme in a room, or business premises? Are there other similar artists you could recommend they look out for?

Or let's say you sell carpets... Why not offer every customer a free sign that says, "Shoes off please" or a free doormat so that their carpet stays clean? Offer them practical, free advice on looking after their new carpet. Give them stain remover advice, especially natural products they may have anyway around the home so they do not need to spend big money on specialist shampoos etc.

Perhaps you teach people computer skills.....a free email newsletter once a week or month that helps them to achieve a new skill, use a new Internet tool, or provides advice about backing up their important files and documents. Why not set up a free remote back up service? Space on a server is bordering on free now, so it needn't cost you very much to provide and it is a great extra service.

Everything you do need not be about making money. Nor need there be a hidden agenda in doing things for your customers. Look at where they need help, and provide it. For free. Firstly, you will feel good about helping people, secondly, they will undoubtedly come back for more, and thirdly, there is nothing like word of mouth or word of mouse recommendations for building your business.

Give it a go today. Give a little!

Read more!

Credit crunch - collect your debts

Another in our series about how to prevent the credit crunch eating your business. This week - managing your debts
One of the biggest problems any business has is ensuring cash flow runs smoothly, and making sure that outstanding debts don't go unpaid for too long. In 1998, the government in the UK introduced legislation which gave all businesses a legal means to collect debts, and in 2002 this was amended to help businesses recover certain expenses accrued in the collection of debts as well as interest.

However, surprisingly, many businesses fail to use this legislation to ensure that debts don't remain unpaid. However, in these times of economic uncertainty, it is ever more important to ensure that the money owing to you is in your bank account and helping your cash flow management rather than in your debtors' bank account.

Firstly, including a single sentence on every invoice sent out can make it clear to your business customers that you are fully aware of the legislation and will enforce it should they fail to pay on time.

We understand and will exercise our statutory right to claim interest and compensation for debt recovery costs under the late payment legislation if we are not paid according to agreed credit terms.

The interest rate you can charge is 8% over base rate so that is at the time of writing (June 2008) 13% interest on the debt calculated from the day it is incurred.

There is clear information about how to apply the legislation, claim interest and collect debts on the Pay on Time website

Secondly, ensure that your terms and conditions are understood by your business customers before entering into a relationship with them.

Thirdly, once a debt is unpaid, you need to apply interest from the day the debt becomes due. We have had one instance where despite regularly contacting the client, frequently sending them the amended invoices showing how the debt was increasing because of interest, we still ended up taking them to Small Claims Court. By the time the debt was finally paid, the interest was more than the original debt. We did not like having to resort to Small Claims but this particular client had made every excuse in the book to try to convince us that 'any day now' the cheque would be in the post. The amount owing was fairly trivial but had we had five clients doing the same, our cashflow would have been impacted, causing us our own set of problems.

And finally, you should always know how much money is owed, by you or to you. It is surprising how many small businesses are unaware of their current level of debt or credit, nor how this affects relationships with customers and suppliers. Not only should you ensure that your customers pay you on time, but you should also adopt an 'on time' payment strategy for your suppliers.

Should you be facing economic or cash flow difficulties during this time of the so-called credit crunch, then you need to assess what actions you could take to change that situation. This can include prioritising payment of bills so you pay those with the highest interest rate first eg bank loans, credit cards etc, and make sure that any delays in paying your suppliers are agreed with them, or you will weaken the relationships with your suppliers and they may amend your payment terms to make things harder in the future for you.

So, to sum up:

* Check "What is the late payment legislation"? See the Payontime website
* Implement the late payment law on all your invoices and in your terms and conditions and contracts
* Follow up on late payments with interest and reimbursement of debt collection fees, according to that allowed by law. If the worst comes to the worst, take bad debtors to the Small Claims Court - after all, it is your money!
* Pay your own bills promptly, and prioritise bills when you are having problems to keep your own interest payments at a minimum

Read more!

Sell promotional products

If you are looking for a great way to sell products promoting your brand, company, or just to make extra income, why not check out CafePress?
One of the sprogs just started her own shop selling her clothing range featuring the deadBEAR Collection, Tony the Mushroom and other original designs. So, firstly support my kids so they can start saving for University, but once you have done that (!) why not think about what this type of activity could bring to your business too?

Read more!

And this week's spam is.....

I thought I'd keep a note of what the latest mass spam is. I can't imagine the reason but I thought it might be interesting over time!
Only ever see the subject lines so this week it is "Best of ...." and then three brand names in the fashion industry eg Burberry, Gucci, Armani, Dior, Chloe, Versace etc.

Read more!

A licence to print money?

Every which way you look at the moment, Internet marketers are building communities. And charging their members a fortune to join, whilst creating whole new product ranges and future incomes for themselves.
For years, internet marketers have been raking in the cash. Some, not all. (Some of us aren't quite so captivated by the need for cash and just love our job and helping business people get online to better business. Although being paid in flapjack this week won't necessarily prove the way to dealing with the economic crisis, but it was delicious and worth it when I earned the recipe too!)

Internet marketers, IMHO, are usually a couple of steps behind, and probably a zero or two, the porn site owners. If you want a new strategy, technique or idea for promoting your business and making money, who better to look to than the successful people doing it?

So, one of the latest trends appears to be building communities of people (read: wannabes) and using them as a resource, whilst charging them for the privilege. The porn sites have been doing this for years with Reader's Wives etc, or so I am reliably informed.

OK, OK, I can hear the shouting from the wings already - by no means do I mean everyone. I'm generalising alright? Poetic licence and all that!

I'm also not saying that those members of a community are not getting their money's worth because I believe some of the sites are offering quality content, help, advice, networking opportunities, products etc. But let's face it, much of the value is being part of an active community.

And there are plenty of those out there, have been for years, which don't charge a bean to join, and offer cracking content, help, advice etc (in some cases better than the paid versions).

But what these marketers are doing seems to follow certain fairly good ground rules for making money. And I think the ground rules are valid for any business.

I remember being told years ago, when I worked for a niche publisher, that the reason their books were so expensive (ie 10 times the price of a paperback novel....for a paperback) was that you would never get a Rolex in a cereal packet. Rolex know the value of their product and price it accordingly. So did this publisher, and by putting a high value on it, they were viewed, rightly, as a quality product.

So, ground rule 1: VALUE YOUR PRODUCT HIGHLY and price it accordingly

BUT, completely opposed to that view, these guys (the IM crew) are also offering ridiculously cheap products (as OTOs, or even freebies) that seem like real value for money. And that I suspect hits that psychological trigger in so many people, a human trait perhaps, that just LURVS a bargain. Go into any supermarket and you will see 2 for 1 offers, tempting bargains by the door or till etc. And the Tescos and Walmarts of this world know ALL the tricks, don't they?!

Ground rule 2: FREE or nearly FREE wins customers every time. They just can't help themselves.

Then there is the involvement factor. People love to be asked their opinion, view of the world or a specific topic, and to get interactive in discussions, heated arguments etc etc. And most importantly, in a world where people are increasingly isolated from their real world neighbours that need to belong, to be part of a community. many businesses fail to ask their customers to get involved, or make it very difficult.

Ground rule 3: Don't just listen to your customers. Actively involve them. Use their ideas, and get them talking to each other as well as to you.

And that last sentence contains a critical factor that I suspect most of us don't fully make the most of.

Use their ideas. The new IM communities are asking people what they want to know about, and then creating infoproducts, videos etc to meet those needs. And those new ebooks, videos etc become part of the product range - either loss leaders to bring in more paying subscribers, part of the monthly content required to keep members engaged and paying, or new pay for products. Who needs R&D teams when you get all the new ideas you want for nowt?

Ground rule 4: Talk to, listen to and plagiarise from your customers. And not just the happy ones. It may be that Mr Angry has got a valid complaint, the solution to which could be just what your company needs.

I've got more to come, but that'll do for now. Sweltering in an abnormally warm Cumbrian night and enough is enough!!

Read more!

What the font....?

What the font is a cute little website that allows you to discover what font is being used in a particular image. Useful if you see a font that you want to use for your business - logos, fliers, to create a specific image, to fit with a theme etc.

Click on the headline to go to the What the Font website....

Read more!

Market Research - A User's Perspective

For some time now, I have been looking at ways in which companies conduct market research online, and persuade people to share feedback, opinions, thoughts about their brand, products etc. In particular, surveys.

There are many companies offering to get your surveys in front of targeted potential customers and users of your products. These range from the YouGov type - high-end, occasionally political, surveys through to the very many consumer market research surveys, from the likes of LightSpeed, Nielsen, Ciao, and others.

Those searching for participants for their market research offer either cash rewards or points, which can be redeemed for prizes with participating stores. Some companies offer a combination of paid / prize surveys and loyalty shopping to their merry band of consumers.

There are several noticeable ways to fail to engage the users and therefore fail to get quality results.

Firstly, those who demand huge quantities of personal information, despite disclaimers saying that all results will be anonymous - big put off.

Secondly, those who offer a prize in return for the survey and in the small print require the user to send emails to x number of friends, and for those friends to partake in a number of similar draws etc before they qualify for the prize - enormous put off, asking far too much in return.

Thirdly, those who only offer the points, prize or cash once you qualify or complete the survey. Invariably, despite having completed a large number of fields as part of the survey and given an amount of personal or useful data to the survey owner, a screen pops up saying you don't qualify.

(There is one particular company who never seem to pay out ever, but who must have gathered incredible amounts of data before the user gets wise, according to the forums on several consumer sites such as MoneySavingExpert.com etc).

Then there are those who gather feedback on new products by sending out samples. One would assume that the drop out rate, and the difficulty in obtaining feedback from customers who were just in it for the free lunch, might prove to make this a non-profitable exercise. But from a consumer point of view tasters and freebies are always popular.

And lastly, those who take the email address of the consumer and then bombard them with messages from highly unrelated companies. Agreeing to this is of course in the Terms and Conditions but there is often no indication of how far or how widely the email address is going to be shared.

Note to consumers: always use an unimportant email address to sign up to any of this type of websites.
Note to marketers: think about the quality of the email addresses you are harvesting, or if you buy lists from this type of company.

Certain companies seem to have managed to acquire a solid reputation in this field, such as YouGov, both with consumers and those for whom they conduct surveys, whereas others must really be struggling in the face of the very negative publicity they receive from consumers.

There are additionally companies gathering user data through the installation of software, not just on PCs but also now on mobile and smart phones. These also offer a variety of reimbursement for the data gathered, which is generally anonymised but may not be. This would allow a company to hold rather too much information on your surfing or mobile habits if the consumer does not take care and understand exactly what the software is capable of.

For those who you wish to engage in market research, and in order to yield workable and usable results, it would seem necessary to offer cash, or points which can be redeemed for a wide variety of prizes from a choice of retailers or online stores.

Cash would seem to be the easiest option in some ways, and has the biggest pull for the consumer, even if only a small amount per survey such as 50p. However, you would need to only send cheques out once a certain amount has been reached eg £20 or £50, and this would require a large number of survey completions in order to do so. This may not be possible for a single company, and may require a group to join together to attain the required number of surveys eg a Chamber of Commerce, or Trade Organisation.

If you are a small business looking to run some market research, why not consider setting up a survey with SurveyMonkey? Or you could set up an Opinion Poll on your website that gathers useful market data from your site visitors.... Both of those options can be free, rather than paying a market research company to upset your potential customers with some of their unpleasant or underhand tactics (as detailed above)!!

Read more!

Investing in the youf generation

Not that long ago, no teen even had a mobile phone, and those adults who did were ridiculed for carrying around a small power generator and a technological brick. Now the age at which our children 'demand' a mobile, (as some sort of right, like clean air or pocket money) is plummeting fast.

Now, we see the internet marketing world afire with ways to personalise mobile content, market to the text generation etc, and considerable investment in ways to capture that immature market share.

However, this 'immature' market is a whole new generation with a different take on what is worth spending money on and what isn't, and I wonder just how deeply into those heads and that culture the marketers etc have gone.

Although there has always been considerable surprise expressed at how people will pay for a snippet of a song eg a ringtone where they will not necessarily be willing to pay to download music eg the whole song, it would seem that the age of information etc on the Internet being free may have spawned a generation who believe everything should be free.

Ask most teens whether they will pay to download a ringtone now, and they will look at you askance and ask,"Why pay? You can get them for free." Ditto if you replace 'ringtone' with 'music'.

No matter to them whether there is law breaking going on with copyright infractions etc, these teens are of course outside of the law usually because of their age, but also seem to be almost entirely unaware that bluetoothing to a friend a song that you downloaded last night over a torrent is illegal. To a teen, there is no visible crime, not understanding, as of course they don't, how the copyright, DRM, royalties etc world operates.

"Why is it illegal? It's just a song she wants that I have."

And with word of mouth and mouse being rife amongst that generation through their use of MSN, Skype etc, it doesn't take long for a new source of freebies to go viral amongst their peers. The playground jungle drums have always been effective in transmitting new trends but with the use of online chats etc, viral amongst that age group can be almost instant.

And the big pull is FREE. Anything free attracts tight-fisted teenagers by the bucket load. So, to me, for any business seeking to get market share in the youth market, the first thing to do is brand the product line as FREE and work out how you can capture these greedy little monsters for their lifetime, build them into loyal cutomers (never minding that for some time they are going to be unpaying customers) and run loss leaders until their credit cards start to work online and the need/desire/want turns into a capitalisable asset.

Building email lists with their addresses won't always work because many of them change email addies as frequently as they swap their SIM cards. Most of them lie like hairy eggs about their real address as this is what their parents advise them to do to prevent stalking etc. So, picking them off at Facebook, MySpace and building loyalty through Second Life and other virtual worlds, social networking sites etc may prove to be the only way forward.

And that means mastering the existing hot sites, and keeping up to date with the new ones. Without becoming predatory, or breaking netiquette.

I wish you luck! Having two of these mercenary little buggers myself, I advise my clients to come up with products for the other end of the maturity scale - the silver surfers with high disposable income!

Read more!