If you’ve ever needed to get someone’s cell phone number, you’ve been out of luck. The only directory assistance is hoping that you have a mutual friend who has her number.
Privacy is obviously a top concern for cell phone users and for WDN. If someone’s number is listed as "privacy protected", then as the caller making the DA request, you will
be given the option, for an additional charge, to send the privacy
protected subscriber a ComNote®. Like a Facebook or LinkedIn request, it can be responded to or ignored.
So I recently upgraded my Microsoft Office to the most recent version as the previous version of Entourage (the Mac version of Outlook) was consistently crashing.
The layout was slightly different, defaulting to the three column approach that many of you are probably so used to by now. One interesting feature I noticed was that images weren’t downloaded automatically, even after I had "approved" previous issues of a given newsletter.
Why is this important?
Email service providers, like Constant Contact, provide statistics on how your email campaigns perform, including the all-important how many "opens" you have. The way they measure opens–the number of people who supposedly view your email newsletter after it’s been delivered–is by counting the requests for a given one-pixel image that’s included in the email.
However, if Entourage or Outlook doesn’t download that image, Constant Contact–or your email service provider of choice–doesn’t know that the emails been opened.
I had heard for a while–and my own experience backs this up–that as time goes on and your subscriber base grows, your open rate goes down. This has been attributed to subscriber burnout or, if you’re using email bait, the chance that some people were interested in the bait, but not your ongoing newsletter.
However, a 3rd variable is the growing sophistication of email programs in blocking images from emails, especially in the default state. Most people don’t realize they can change the way a program behaves, or are just not interested in doing so. As a developer, I often leave a program in its default state for a time so I can understand what other people are experiencing.
So, if you’ve noticed your open rates are going down, don’t despair. Some of it may be people upgrading to slightly more functional versions of Microsoft Office.
A blog is a great way to promote an ebook or other deliverable for a service professional, like Shane. The blog increases his search engine visibility, establishes his expertise and credibility, and generates leads in his industry.
I read his ebook as a matter of course while working on the project…it’s a great resource. Although I’m not a title professional, there was a lot of great marketing advice on how to differentiate yourself, how to find the right kind of client, and how to avoid or even fire the wrong type of client! It’s exactly the kind of marketing advice I give my clients when working with them to develop their Web marketing campaigns. There was also a ton of industry specific advice for title companies.
We used TypePad to build the blog and to create a specialized landing page to sell the ebook. The landing page works like a direct sales letter…a very effective technique even on the Web. There’s no navigation on that page, so there’s less chance visitors will click away. This landing page also has an incoming link from the blog, plus Shane could run pay-per-click campaigns (or other ad campaigns) that deliver targeted leads to this page for conversion.
Recently we launched a blog for Be a Girl Today, a t-shirt company celebrating girls playing sports. As a proud father of two girls (that’s Sophie with her game face on,) I love their empowering, slightly subversive, message.
The client was very happy with their blog. However, their original Web site that was handling the e-commerce was not very user-friendly, and didn’t have the attitude that their slogans offer.
We talked about revamping the Web site, but instead we decided to add e-commerce to their new blog.
We used TypePad’s pages feature to develop traditional Web pages which we could populate with a shopping cart solution. For e-commerce we used PayPal, which covered the client’s need for a gateway processor, secure server, and security certificate, while making it unnecessary for them to have a merchant account, at least for online purchases.
E-junkie is a "fat-free shopping cart" that integrates nicely with PayPal, Google Checkout and Authorize.net. It offers a slick, integrated shopping cart into any Web site or blog. It’s also perfect for digital products as well. I plan on revamping our digital products and selling them through the PayPal/e-junkie combination.
There’s a couple of ad campaigns I’ve seen lately while watching my Red Sox and Patriots beat up on the competition, both of which knock Google w/o mentioning the competition. I think they’re both pretty effective.
The first is for Ask.com, that other search engine. The basic premise is "Can your search engine do this?" with the not-so-subtle hint that "your" search engine is Google and that 10 blue text results are so last year. For those of you who haven’t seen the campaign, here it is.
Maybe effective isn’t the right word, as a week later I still haven’t used Ask.com, but it gets me thinking at least. It also effectively compares what it’s offering–a seemingly more robust search–at the same price as Google…free.
The second ad is for WebMD, which seems to be spending a lot of money on a traditional advertising blitz right now. (Couldn’t find it at YouTube or anywhere else after a quick search. Hmmm…maybe I should try Ask.com. Nope, nothing there either.)
What I liked about this ad was the line, "I don’t need a million answers, I just need one good one." I’m paraphrasing. That seemed to be to be a direct attack on Google, that provides way too much information when you’re scrambling to find information on asthma, diabetes, or childhood allergies. It’s good positioning: you don’t need to worry about all the kooks out there on the Web with a Web site or blog; we’ve culled the information down to something manageable. We’ve even had professionals review it so you can rest assure it’s right.
When you’re concerned–and who visiting WebMD.com isn’t going there for a concern–you don’t want conflicting advice, or having to vet opposing opinions. You just want answers.
So, why should you care? Well, if you’re competing against a larger competitor (which could include a company or public ignorance), you need to show how you’re different. Sure, some people may want simple blue text links or millions of results for "bipolar disorder", but many people would prefer the alternative.
If you’ve got the alternative, make sure that it’s in your message, whether that’s your elevator pitch, your slogan, or your advertising.
I’ll be on two panels for the BlogWorld and New Media Expo, November 8-9, 2007, and the Executive & Entrepreneur Conference which precedes it on November 7th. It’s all happening in Las Vegas.
The first is Going Global with New Media with my co-presenter Des Walsh on November 7th. I knew this was going to be a timely topic while I was talking to a partner who’s currently in Orono, Maine, to give him instructions to his employees in Bosnia for a job we’re doing for a New York client. In the middle of the conversation, Des skyped me from his home in Australia before he left to speak in China so we could discuss our upcoming presentation on Going Global with New Media in Las Vegas.
The second is Blog Design: Branding and Usability, with co-presenters Denise Wakeman, John T. Unger, and Nate. I’m not sure what Nate’s last name is–assuming he has one–but I’m looking forward to finding out. That will be on Friday the 9th at 10:15. I’ll be talking about the importance of branding in blog design.
One of the benefits of speaking at the event is a full free pass to all the workshops and conferences. I just went through the registration and my only frustration is that I could only choose one workshop to attend at a time! (Damn space/time continuum!)
Do I choose Maximizing the Benefits of Small Business Blogs over Making Money with Affiliate Programming? And what’s more appropriate for me: Leveraging Social Media for Your Company or Creating a Coherent Social Media Strategy? Do I choose Andy Wibbels over Toby Bloomberg, both of whom I blogged with over at Business Blog Consulting back in the day?
(Most of you are probably rolling your eyes right now, thinking I need to get a life. However, this is my life and these people are my heroes!)
In any case, if you weren’t rolling your eyes, and you can make it out to Vegas for November 7 – 9th, I hope to see you there. I especially hope you make it to one or both of my (shared) presentations.
Today we have a special edition of flytecast, our podcast.
What? You didn’t know we had a podcast? No worries. Our podcast has been running on fumes lately, as each episode is basically a dramatic reading of our email newsletter, flyte log. On top of that, I think I’m an episode or two behind on even that half-assed endeavor.
In any case, I’ve been rethinking flytecast, and how to make more relevant for small business owners and more interesting for me. (Sorry, but I do figure into the equation.) To that end, I’m thinking about doing regular interviews with small business owners who have some sort of success story to tell.
During the time we worked with them, Annie was telling me about her street teams: loyal customers who market for her on her behalf. She created a loyalty program and rewards them for doing what they were doing anyway.
I thought this idea could benefit lots of other small business owners, so I asked her to be interviewed on our podcast. I’m still learning the ins and outs of the software, so I accidentally erased the opening piece where we talk about her upcoming cooking segment on 207, scheduled for Wednesday, October 17, 2007. (Sorry, Annie!)
If you have something interesting to share with other small business owners, and you’d like to be interviewed on the flytecast, please contact me today.
It’s National Boss Day today, October 16th. I know what you’re thinking…it’s a lot like National Children’s Day or Un-Birthdays. Isn’t it celebrated every day?
Talk about your Hallmark holidays. In fact, the number one return for "National Boss Day" on Google this morning was from Hallmark.
Still, perhaps we can come up with some ways to celebrate National Boss Day:
Help him exercise; park in their spot. You know, the one between the front door and the handicapped spot.
Send her an e-card; nothing says "I care" like hitting send.
Help him connect with Gen Y employees; set them up with a MySpace page and use that picture from last year’s Christmas party. You know the one.
Take them out to lunch; just make sure you use the company card.
Help her win back the staff’s adoration; hijack her email and send out a company-wide memo about an open bar at O’Reilly’s starting at 4pm. (Pocket the company card from lunch.)
Help him network; log into his LinkedIn account and give recommendations to random contacts always ending with "in the bedroom."
Give her some time off; outsource her job to India.
The new buzz word in search engine optimization is universal search; it’s the idea that search engines will return not just Web pages, but also images, audio and video as part of a search engine results page. This is already happening at Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.
For businesses both large and small, that means your search engine rankings might be at risk. As new media appears in the search results, your Web pages may get pushed down or even off the first page. All this upheaval may prove beneficial for other companies, however, who are putting up content to photo and video sharing Web sites, such as Flickr and YouTube respectively.
There’s a great new article by Lee Odden titled Small Business Guide to Optimizing Universal Search, which goes into more depth about the changes at the major search engines as well as giving some first steps small businesses can take to optimize their content for the new universal search. (Thanks to Carolyn who forwarded me the article.)
Will Universal Search hurt or help your business?
It all depends whether you choose to embrace change, or hope this is just a fad. Smart companies will be looking at ways to leverage their content, by creating how-to or product demo videos and uploading that content to a site like YouTube or a competitor.
It’s a brave new world people…are you ready for your closeup?
Dr. Bock’s plastic surgery blog is dedicated to helping people understand more about cosmetic surgery and what choices they have. Recent posts include:
However, I’ve never been a fan of PayPal’s shopping cart. Luckily, I recently read 
