Darren Contardo

Blogger vs. Typepad

2006-10-28T20:01:00.000-05:00

What's better? Blogger or Typepad? I use both and I prefer Typepad, but Blogger is free. Comments?

Darren's New Blog

2005-11-12T09:30:00.000-05:00

I moved my blog over to another location. If you want the latest, you know where to go.

2005-10-29T11:53:00.000-05:00

new

CMA: Digital Marketing Conference 2005

2005-10-22T22:24:00.000-05:00

This past week I was at the annual CMA Digital Marketing Conference here in Toronto. This conference showcases some of the best in the business under one roof. One notable mention was Bryan Eisenberg from FutureNow Inc. His discussion focused on persuasion marketing and how to optimize your website for increased conversion.

Basic takeaways from his speech were:

1. Develop personas around scenario design
2. Leave a SCENT
3. Close the sale

His example of SCENT is so simple, but so true. Basically, we look for information and click to website to website looking for specific information that might give us what we want. We use search engines to help us, but all they do is take advertisers money who aren't that good on capitalizing on the SCENT. But, sometimes we find what we're looking for on the "landing page" and that's about it...sometimes though, we're lucky enough to find a collection of webpages that guide us through the process that is totally applicable to us, hence a strong SCENT until we find exaclty what we're looking for and then we CONVERT! Aka, we buy, sign up, etc.

Do a search for Web Analytics Consulting just as Bryan used as an example and see how easy it is to find exactly just that on the first page of the Google.com.

Web Analytics for free?

2005-10-08T20:46:00.000-05:00

Understanding consumer behavior is critical to any business. The more you understand it and use it to enhance your "message" to your target customer, the better. Some companies can afford to take part in full-blown CRM initiatives to learn more and target each segment, but most, will need to use their web analytics program and some standard opt-in forms to do their information gathering and analysis. There are some industry leading web analytics programs out there like Omniture, Core Metrics, HitBox, WebTrends, and Urchin. But if you want the basics such as page views, visitors, referrers, keywords, geographic regions and more with $0 cost than StatCounter is your answer. Thanks to my friend Peter Lynn for recommending this tool to me the other day.

With StatCounter, get up to 9,000 page views a month for free! So, if you're just starting out or you don't have much traffic, then I suggest using this tool to learn more about your customers, optimize your site as a result, and increase your profit so you can afford the bigger web analytics programs out there later on. The big WA platforms will allow you to drill-down deeper into your metrics.

Keep in mind, don't get overwhelmed by your metrics, just keep your eye on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This will allow you to see trends and record only ACTION STANDARD data (meaning data that will result in action that you can take to rectify problems).

Go to futurenow.com and get a free KPI template in Excel that you can update weekly.

MSN Adcenter

2005-10-03T20:31:00.000-05:00

MSN is releasing a BETA of its new MSN Adcenter format for trial purposes. I'm going to test it out and let you know how it is. My thinking is that it will be similar to Yahoo! and Google's format, otherwise it will be too difficult to take user's away from the old Vets. There's always that pesky cost of defection with usability isn't there?

If you'd like to hear more about MSN's Adcenter then they ask to you join their mailing list. Heck, it might be worth it.

Is there money in blogs?

2005-09-25T15:45:00.000-05:00

Jason Calacanis makes gets over 4 million page views a month with his blog empire. 120 bloggers, 90 blogs, and a ton of Google Adsense ads that generate revenue along with some blue chip ads. This guy has approached blogs a business and has it paying off. Think you can make some big bucks from just one blog? Probably not...sorry, but it can be part of your media mix.

2005-09-13T12:57:00.000-05:00

Email got you bogged down?

Here's a couple things I've done:

1. Unsubscribed from about 75% of my industry newsletters and opted for RSS feeds if available. Now I get the info when I want it.

2. Told my colleagues that if it's important, pick up the phone and call.

3. For my immediate team, all emails that require attention are to have an A, B, or C priority associated to them.4. Spend the first 10-15 minutes every day cleaning out the junk if any made it through. The rest gets thrown in either a document retention folder or an A,B,C inbox.

A = 1 day reply
B = 2-3 day reply
C = 3 days or more reply

This little system has worked wonders! Give it a try.

Say GoodBye to Radiation Waves

2005-09-05T22:19:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of ElectroPollution? Well, me neither, but I have heard my friends and family talking about the concern about radiation from cell phones and computers (EMF). Have you ever had your cell phone ring by your computer? The screen moves around...Very strange???

Well, now there's a company that has developed a technology to counteract the ElectroPollution or EMFs. Biopro Technology developed some ground-breaking products to protect and enhance cellular level.

The products work on three core principles, which are all above my head, but nonetheless, they are:

Check out how the BioPro technology actually affects Cell Phone EMF - Human Energy Levels and Stress Response.

I myself have always been a bit skeptical about EMF and am happy to see a company like this taking research and development to a new level to address this worldwide health concern.

2005-09-05T22:13:00.000-05:00

Want to save a ton of money on your marketing promotions? I imagine you do, so here's the simple magic pill....

It's called "Benchmark". That's right, companies have saved themselves a lot of heartache and headaches by just duplicating the pattern for success that others have built already. This goes for business models, websites, marketing strategies, even products (the Japanese are call this "reverse-engineering" where they take apart products to see how they work, then make them better). I don't recommend robbing and duplicating from other inguinity, but benchmarking can have some benefits, especially if you don't have a good budget or creative mind to work with. Just be careful who you're trying to emulate...what works for one industry may not work for another. But at least it's something to think about.

If you can't measure it, don't do it.

2005-08-29T18:18:00.000-05:00

Don't be a fool and try to do it all yourself based on hunches and emotional ties. Use a good analytics system or at least take advantage of Google's or Yahoo! Search Marketing's free conversion tools. You may be spending up to 10x what you want to aquire a customer. Here's some nice standard calculations to keep your "ad spending" in check.

Standard Calculations

CPA (Cost per Acquisition)
Cost per Acquisition is a calculation of how much it cost to acquire one new customer or in this case one
new conversion. CPA is calculated by taking the total cost of your online marketing activities and
dividing that number by your total conversions.

CPA = Total Cost/Conversions

For example, if an advertiser spends $1000 on an online marketing campaign and this campaign generates
100 conversions or sales, the CPA would be:
CPA = $1000/100 = $10 per acquisition

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
Return on Ad Spend is a calculation of the effectiveness of your online marketing. ROAS is calculated by
taking the total revenue generated by your online marketing activities, subtracting the total cost of the
online marketing activities, and dividing this by the cost of the online marketing activities.

ROAS = Revenue/Cost

For example, if an advertiser spends $1000 on an online marketing campaign and this campaign generates
$2500 in revenue or sales, the ROAS would be:
ROAS = $2500/$1000 = 250%

Dollar Margin
This is the most common calculation to estimate value of a conversion/sale.

Dollar Margin = Sales Price – Cost of Product/Service

For example, an advertiser sells its product for $100 and the cost of the product is $40.

Dollar Margin = $100 - $40 = $60
Dollar Margin % = Dollar Margin = $60 = 60%
Sales Price $100

Target Cost Per Lead
This calculation will help you gauge how much you can spend per marketing driven lead.

Target cost per lead = Marketing Budget/Required Leads

Required Leads = Target Conversions/Target Conversion Rate

For example, if an advertiser has a marketing budget of $5000 and wants to make 150 sales with a target
conversion rate of 4%, the following calculation will help the advertiser calculate their target cost per
lead:

Required Leads = 150/.04 = 3750 leads

Target cost per lead = $5000/3750 = $1.33 per lead

This previous example assumes the lifetime of these customers is limited to the lifetime of the campaign.
If the lifetime value of these customers is a longer time span than the campaign and is a higher LTV, then
the target cost per lead will also be higher to reflect this.

2005-08-25T22:11:00.000-05:00

Motivation is always difficult. Brainstorming is a great way to get yourself motivated again.

I was reading a book today that was discussing the idea of brainstorming, more specifically "self-brainstorming". The author suggested that you "the business owner" write down the top 20 ideas you have; good, bad, average...it doesn't matter. Then give them a try and some will often translate into some cash. I like to do a similar thing, but what I do is throw ideas into a folder I have whenever I think of it. Then every month or so I open the folder and look at the ideas with a fresh pair of eyes and a new mind set...what happens next is almost magical. New ideas branch off from it, much like snowflake or idea tree and I find myself almost overwhelmed with excitement! Voila! Motivation. Keep in mind that motivation is temporary and lasts about 72 hours, so it's important to act on the motivation to turn it into "Inspiration", which is perpetual.

So don't worry if you feel like you're at a roadblock, figure you can't market your business, or just plain old don't feel creative...as long as you have an Idea you're one step ahead of everyone else. This reminds me of my favorite quote:

"Small minds talk about other people,
Average minds talk about events,
Brilliant minds talk about ideas"
- Albert Einstein

Track your blog

2005-08-11T13:59:00.000-05:00

Have a blog of your own? Track it for free with mybloglog.com, where you can see how many visits you get and what links people are clicking on. The only catch? They pitch an affiliate program your way, but alas it's up to you.

Brand building: Print VS Web

2005-08-09T19:20:00.000-05:00

So you have a new brand and you want to build it? What to do? Well, we all know that web is cheaper, but print looks cooler. What's better? The answer? Both...

A recent study in Australia suggests that Print Advertising has better brand recall than Web does, however, Web content goes deeper and still has significant brand recall. The important thing that the study notes is that the tactics (rules) aren't the same. Large hi-res images, flashy graphics, and repetitive brand names won't work online. In fact, they will probably annoy your prospect, especially if they're waiting for a page to download. More importantly, the web is best used for utilitarian type functions. Translation: task-oriented...Get what you want and leave.

"Memory for Advertising and Information Content: Comparing the Printed Page to the Computer Screen" (Psychology & Marketing, August 2005).

A recent article on MarketingProfs by Gerry McGovern breaks down the study quite nicely.

One critical thing to remember is that Search will compliment your print ad for brand building and your web site for information gathering, since your prospect won't feel the need to remember the exact URL since Search will help them find what they're looking for. This leaves a great opportunity to use PPC to ensure you get your prospects to your Site and convert them.

So in summary, you can see that both Print and Web are good ways to build your brand. One's very creative and traditional where the "old" right-brain rules apply and the other is very tactical and (my personal favorite) measurable way where the "new" left-brain rules apply...RIGHT-BRAIN MEET LEFT-BRAIN.

Landing Pages

2005-07-31T13:55:00.000-05:00

I just recently read the landing page handbook by Marketing Sherpa. Basically, a landing page is the extension of your Search Engine Marketing Ad. So, if you were to look at it as buckets, you may have a sales bucket, category bucket, brand bucket, and lead generation bucket. Buckets are what you how you group you keywords. Therefore, you'd have 4 buckets in this case, with creative revolved around each bucket. So it would look as such:

SEM Sales Ad >> Sales Landing Page
SEM Category Ad >> Category Landing Page
SEM Brand Ad >> Brand Landing Page
SEM Lead Generation Ad >> Lead Landing Page

Each landing page would have creative that is highly relevant to the ad, plus it would limit the navigation of a typical webpage on your site to make sure the visitor take the action that you want. Whether it's to buy the product, sign up for an email, or dive deep into the brand information.

A simple rule of thumb is to limit a visitors options and clicks to a desired goal to increase conversion. If your conversion rate is 1% and you increase it to 2% by doing the above, you've just doubled your revenue and profit!

Some elements to consider on your landing page:
1. price
2. size/attributes
3. photos
4. ad copy
5. strong call to action
6. a limited time offer if you can swing it

Give these a try with your PPC ads and let me know how it works.

Confessing With Girls: Money, Lies, Sex & Insensitive Men

2005-07-25T23:04:00.000-05:00

I know nothing on that topic, but a good friend of mine apparently does. A true literary genius, Charles Harry nails it right on the head with this one. I've talked to women who read the book and they simply said "I couldn't put it down". Do yourself a favor and check it out. Especially for all you women out there who want a peek inside a man's mind.

Know Your Copyrights

2005-07-24T17:15:00.000-05:00

I found a great little article from Workz on copyrights. Take a peek, it's worth the time. On a side note; if you have a great idea and can't afford a trademark on your design or name I have a quick and cheap solution. Ready? Here it is: mail it to yourself via registered mail. If someone claims to be the orginator of your idea (but really isn't) your little envelope will hold up in the court of law. Oh, keep your letter sealed too, otherwise it won't be worth a "lick".

Fail your way to success

2005-07-18T17:01:00.000-05:00

I've tried to live by that motto ever since I can remember. As a child when I got cut from the high school junior basketball team I practiced for a year (even during the winter) to improve my game. Every day for hours I shot basket, after basket with the driving force of overcoming failure. The next year I was a starter...

I failed at my first business venture; a discount travel multi-level marketing scheme known as Club Atlanta Travel. I was 18 and took a cash advance for $800 off my credit card, which I never saw again. All I had was some tapes and books to show for it (plus the experience of course)...

My next business venture was Quixtar, which to some is known as Amway's younger brother. Quixtar was by far the most educating and rewarding experience I've had to date. I learned more about people, live, and business than I did during my five years of business school. The people involved were excited, enthusiastic, and full of promise. I had 21 people in my organization and found myself running ragged because they wanted me to do all the work for them...subsequently, after 3 years and a move to Toronto, Canada, I let the business dissolve. Again, more books and tapes to my name...

During my time in Thunder Bay, Canada before my move to Toronto, I joined the upper management of a company called EBVerify Inc. The company consisted of several University and College grads of computer science and business. It was an exciting time and I worked as a shareholder and Director of Industrial Relations for almost 6 months (for no wage). At the time it was a very exciting position to be in, we were the first company of our kind in NorthWestern Ontario and we had some backing from Industry Canada, the Chamber of Commerce, Confederation College, and Lakehead University. We tried to get $250 MM in VC money, grant money, but to no avail. The lenders just didn't believe in our President and Vice-President at the time...now in hindsite, I should have seen it too! I lost tens of thousands of dollars in wages and had to fork out the money for the entire computer lab from my personal account. Subsequently, the business failed, but I learned more about business, legislation, and how to get government money from Ministers than I did being in University and College...

After I moved to Toronto, I started working in the Internet Marketing field full-time (I was working in the field before full-time, but at least this time I was getting paid for it). The full-time thing is good, steady, and predictable, but my passion is self-rewarding entrepreneurism. Hence, I joined a couple MLM's such as PureTec and Retire Quickly. I left both in less than a year because they weren't my passion.

Now, here I am, blogging, entering into other business ventures that align with my passion. Organics and the Internet. Over the next little while, I'll be focusing my efforts on creating a new era in Internet Marketing and Organics...this time I'm armed with years of experience, new knowledge, professionl certifications in marketing and Internet Marketing, and a desire to succeed. Plus I have the law of numbers behind me; 9 out of 10 businesses fail, just ask any successful multi-millionaire, they've all failed to get where they are...I'll keep you posted.

Show Your Artistic Side

2005-07-13T15:53:00.000-05:00

Being artistic is a gift. Being creative is something we all are, but don't like to admit is sometimes due to the fact that we've been beaten down over the years with reality to be "normal". Anyway, I'm not going to go off on that topic, but what I thought needed some attention is Artists.

Why Artists? Well, my girlfriend is an Artist and I've been hard at work figuring out what best suite of tools will be best suited to her needs. You know, show off the porfolio, simple to navigate, generate interest in her work, lead generation, commerce enabled, SEO friendly, easy to manage for content, etc. Sound famaliar?

Well, I test drove a number of solutions and discovered that if you want the best, sometimes you have to pay for it. Check out the Site that was built with the porfolio tool: CrystalKoskinen.com.

It's also a great tool for photographers too!

Blog Directories - Get Your Blog Listed for Exposure

2005-07-04T20:40:00.000-05:00

Here's the best list of blog directories and search engines north of border. Enjoy!

Popdex - analyzes blogs to identify what pages bloggers are linking to and gives trend analysis
Technorati - shows bloggers who is linking to them, has a Top 100 list of most popular blogs, breaking news, hot links
Yahoo blog directory
Zeal blog directory

Looksmart’s directory of blogs

Bloogz -
Daypop -
Blogarama -

Blogdex - analyzes new posts and blogs and gives a window on trends
Blo.gs - a major directory of blogs and posts
Weblogs.com - blog directory
Daypop - racks what weblogs are linking to, highlights most frequently used words in new posts
Blog Search Engine -

Blog Pulse

2005-07-03T22:08:00.000-05:00

If you ever wondered what is going on in the blog universe, just turn to Intelliseek's new tool known as BlogPulse. From the makers of BrandPulse 360, this tool will let you know who's having a conversation about your brand, category, you, or even your blog!!! This will be a fantastic tool for discovering those WOMers I mentioned earlier. Plus, watch for this tool to make the next Presidential election all about blogs.

2005-07-01T16:04:00.000-05:00

Happy Canada Day!

To celebrate, here's a link to the hottest artist on the net; Crystal Koskinen! Check out here Art Gallery...nice to see artists embracing technology.

2005-06-27T21:48:00.000-05:00

SME domain name registration and branding.

Looking to come up with a URL for your company, but can't figure it out? According to Al and his wife Laura Reis, they recommend some rules for the creation. Here they are in summary:

Laws of the Proper Name

1. Name should be short. The shorter the better and easy to spell.
2. The name should be simple.
3. The name should consider the category without falling into the"generic trap".
4. The name should be unique.
5. The name should be alliterative. This means it is spelled the way it sounds.
6. The name should be speakable. This means, easy to say andpass-along to your friends.
7. The name should be shocking. This allows the power of emotion to go to work.
8. The name should be personalized. When possible, consider naming thesite after an individual.

One thing they left out is that having the category name in your domain is a key SEO tactic that will generate significant website traffic and ultimately "brand awareness" and "purchase". Look like the rules are always up for interpretation.

2005-06-26T12:45:00.000-05:00

Get VC Advice for FREE

I found this blog when I was checking out the top 50 websites from Time.com. Allen Morgan is a Venture Capitalist who has some good perspectives on how to approach VC's for financing. Speaking from experience, be up front, persuasive, book a meeting from a meeting, and know your market inside and out!

To go from Small to Big is hard. Proven sales, a branding strategy, personal commitments, and an exit strategy are all elements of what VC's are looking for. Oh, and they also like controlling interest ;)

2005-06-24T13:34:00.000-05:00

PR is Web's best friend.

Many people don't know this, but according to some studies from Shop.org PR is the second best driver of web traffic after word-of-mouth (WOM). Knowing this can be a powerful tool in your marketing aresenal because most PR is free!

Want proof? Check out MSN's latest searches

Top 5 Search Movers

Obviously, the items in the news generates discussion, so people look to the web to learn more information. Don't you want to see what the buzz is all about? Even if you are a small player, you can use this tactic to your advantage. Afterall, there are local papers and local searches at your disposal. Good luck!

2005-06-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

Google Sitemap Generator BETA version

Get your site indexed quickly, efficiently, and effectively with an XML Site Generator. Yes, Google is at it again, but this time it will help your bottom line significantly and you don't have to spend the next three months figuring out the alogorithms.

2005-06-13T22:58:00.000-05:00

Bubble Gum wrappers going for over $300 on Ebay. What is the world coming to? Well, it's not the wrapper, it's the story and people will pay for authentic stories.

2005-06-13T20:56:00.000-05:00

Google is back at it again

Yahoo!, MSN, and now Google. Portal anybody? Why not? $125 at IPO and now at a share price of $300, they're on track to reach $80 Billion in revenue. Oh, and by the way, your search results should be all messed up these days because Google has just been working on the "bourbon update". Just wait until they turn on all their datacenters and once again you might just end up at the drawing board trying to figure out the new alogorithms.

2005-06-10T15:56:00.000-05:00

If you don't know a thing about how to do marketing then just become a good storyteller...

Did you ever have an uncle or maybe your Grandfather who was just the best storyteller? You know, the guy that got everyone's attention at the family gatherings...all the kids could hardly wait to hear what Uncle Jim had to say about his experiences on his camping trip with his old buddies. Well, guess what? Your customers are those kids who are waiting to hear a good story to be told....by you know who! Customers want and NEED a reason to believe in what you're selling. Whether it's a product or service, tell them the origin of the business, the product, the service, how it came to be, who's idea it was, why it will help them, and how passionate you are that this is the greatest thing ever. If it's a fabricated story, forget it. If it's not geniune, forget it. If it's boring, forget it. Be yourself, be fun, have fun, and tell a damn good story. Oh, and be different too, nobody wants to hear the same old shit. Next blog I'll share my story...

Think Big

2005-06-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

Never underestimate the Power of the Point of Sale!

Yes, there is something to be said about the effect POS has on overall sales. A recent study says that 85% of all loyalty is created at the point of sale and after (well how else can they be loyal?). I thought I should rant on this for a second because I just got side-swiped at the POS.

I went into my local electronics store (actually it was a big box store) and I did my research online first about a new MP3 I wanted to purchase (you can see multi-channel retailing coming into play here). I had my eye on the Rio Forge 512 MB player that had a price tag of $179 CAN. My rationale was I could use the expandable SDRAM slot to add more memory if I wanted later on. Howeve, when I went to the store, I found myself actually having the player in my hand, when a sales associated asked my if needed any help. Well, I didn't really need any help at all, I already made up my mind, I did my research, it was a done deal! Was it?

Out of the corner of my eye I say the sexy and sleek looking Creative Zen 5GB player
and then of course I told the clerk my story of how I liked the Forge and but was also a bit partial to the Zen. That was it, next thing I knew I was paying for the Creative Zen 5GB for over $300. Now I'm trying to rationalize the purchase like everyone else who bought something they shouldn't have. Post-purchase dissonance or buyer remorse; call it what you will, but we all lie to ourselves after we pay for something so we don't feel as bad.

So the moral of the story is, get them into your store and upsell/cross-sell them before they knew what hit them...they have time to think about that the way home and will lie to themselves so they don't feel as bad.

2005-06-03T18:27:00.000-05:00

Lifestage Marketing?

Ever have a major life event that seems to consume your every thought? Maybe it was when you got married or were looking to purchase your first home? Well, it looks like most people who are going through major life events rely heavily on the Internet to "educate" themselves on the event. According to Comscore, people are hitting website that tailor to these events in a significant way. Maybe an opporunity here for you? Check out the article at Comscore.

By the way, Banks are famous for using CRM apps in their lifestage marketing promotions too. First there is the bank account, credit card, car loan or personal line of credit, 401K or RRSP, Mortgage, refinancing loan, etc. See the stages?

2005-05-31T18:07:00.001-05:00

What the heck is everyone looking at on my Site?

Well that depends on your structure your Site, but the Poynter Institute can tell you how people look at your Site. This study of new age consumer behavior yields some great insight on how to organize your images, copy, and yes, that right...your call to action.

http://www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/viewing.htm

2005-05-31T18:07:00.000-05:00

This is the priority of the way people view your information on a web page. From EyeTrack III.

2005-05-31T18:06:00.000-05:00

Eye movement on a web page?

2005-05-23T13:53:00.000-05:00

Home Page Design

When figuring out how to design your homepage, usability and convention should dominate. According to Jakob Nielson (usability Guru), here are some things to look for:

1. Search Box on the top right side
2. Your company's logo on the top left side
3. Global navigation on the top of your banner or table (organized by content groups)
4. Local navigation on the left side (organized alpha-numerically)
5. Main feature or focus on the middle-left side of the page (people read in a Z formation online)
6. Major content groups on the home page in the middle to bottom right of the page (end of the Z formation), this acts as your storefront/brochure
7. Change your homepage as much as possible. Well, just change the content, not the template

Here a couple of things that I'd recommend as well:

1. Use HTML links to other sections of your website that are keyword based to help your page rank and organic search rankings
2. Don't make the homepage a heavy download. If it takes more than 3 seconds to download the page you've just lost a lot of your audience. They don't have the attention span for much more.
3. Look at your internal search reports to see what people are searching for. That will yield some insight as to what to include on your home page so people don't have to search for it.

2005-05-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

Search Engine Strategies and Keyword Density?

OK, everyone knows now that you need to optimize your website for search, but how? Well, first figure out what you want to accomplish:

1. Lead Generation (B2B)
2. Brand Awareness (new product/service launch)
3. Product Sales
4. Content Syndication/Generation
5. Event Promotion
the list goes on.

Now that you have that figured out, what keywords are you going to focus on? Not sure? Well, here's a trick to figure it out:

1. List all the keywords or phrases that relate to your business (this could be 10 or 10,000)
2. Narrow the list down to the top 25 that you feel best represent your company/product/service
3. Now run those top 25 through the following tools: overture keyword suggestion tool, Google Adwords suggestion tool, and WordTracker.
4. Now that you have the rankings of your keywords, list the top 5 in popularity.

Those are now your TOP 5 KEYWORDS to focus your Search Engine Optimization strategy on.

So now what? How do I optimize? Well, the best way to do it is to increase your keyword density. Try this free keyword analysis tool that enables you to test your body copy relative to your keyword.

In addition to optimizating your body copy, do the following:

1. Have the keyword in your title tag...the closer to the beginning the better
2. Include the keyword in the H1 tag
3. Have the keyword close to the beginning of the body copy and dense throughout it (have inbound links to it as well to increase your Page Rank)
4. Include the keyword in your META description tag

If you have flash or a dynamic Site, the best thing to do is mirror the pages with static content and create a site map for the search robot to spider (search spiders get lost in endless loops of dynamic pages).

If all else fails, try WebPositionGold 3.0 and use it religiously.

2005-05-04T18:26:00.000-05:00

Is Content King?

If you want a website that will generate traffic and keep people interested, then you have to go for content. Even online stores need content to persuade their visitors to convert to buyers. Basic buying behavior suggests that a person does the following:

1. Problem Recognition
2. Awareness of "your" solution (sees an ad of yours or word of mouth)
3. Interest (digs for information at this point)
4. Evaluation of alternatives (look for like products/services) to see if anything is better
5. Purchase decision
6. Post-purchase satisfaction/remorse (this will dictate if they buy again or go to the competition)

As you can see, the "interest" step is critical to nail on the head in order to persuade your visitor to take action! If you don't answer their question, they'll go somewhere else to find it. Remember, your competitor is just a click away (or search query).

2005-04-26T06:51:00.000-05:00

I found a great quote the other day that I felt embodied what entrepreneurship is really all about. We're all scared that we're going to fail; questions of uncertainty haunt us; should we really risk it all? Well, as they say "fail your way to success". Here's the quote:

"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior."
- Henry C. Link

2005-04-20T20:38:00.000-05:00

Organic or PPC Search?

So you want to focus on search to gain some web traffic? What do you go with? Do you focus your efforts on an Organic Search strategy or do you focus on a solid PPC campaign?

The answer? That depends, but I'll tell you what's best.

80% of all search traffic is from Organic Search and of course 20% is on PPC. Since PPC is a variable expense and can ramp up to thousands a month, I'd say to develop an Organic Search strategy that focuses on a good link strategy, great body copy, relevant H1 tags, and title tags. Then top off your search performance with the same keywords your trying to get with Organic Search in Overture and Google Adwords. Hint, Overture ends up being cheaper in the long run. Another good PPC vendor that is cheaper then the two above is Adsonar.

2005-04-13T21:18:00.000-05:00

Customer Motivation Online

Designing an online store is really all about focusing on customer goals. Usability, scnenario analysis, conversion, etc. These are all terms used for the science of getting a customer to the ultimate goal of purchasing your product or service. So let's define the customer experience online and how to make it a bit more structured:

The customer experience is the sum of the tasks and objectives carried out on the site. The motivation is temporary (usually 72 hours) and really compels the customer to carry out the tasks to reach their objective or goal.

Let's take a look at an example:
Customer has a specific motivation (i.e. to become more attractive)

Task 1: Search for cool shirts
Task 2: Sort by customer rating
Goal 1: Find popular product

Task 3: Read review and compare prices
Goal 2: Buy the most flattering shirt for them

Buy understanding customer goals with your website, you can prioritize, organize, and truely identify content that will help your customers achieve their goals and satisfy their motivation.

If you want a good example of a Site that does exact thing, go to futureshop.ca (Canadian electronics retailer).

2005-04-05T17:57:00.000-05:00

Response to Comment....100 Homepages

Well Richard, what you're doing makes sense. The USP or call to action is the focus of the page or ad, but if you could have highly relevant pages based on content and the referral link, then we're talking.

Let's use ICE.com as the example again. Say we placed a banner ad on Brides.com and linked to ICE.com, the best thing to do is to have a direct landing page such as ice.com/brides?referrer=brides or something like that. That way, when looking at your weblogs or webreports (your web analytics system will dictate your referral reporting strings) you'll know where the traffic is coming from and if they are responsible for a lead generation or purchase. Google also offers lead generation reporting and page view counts on their Google Adwords now as well. Not to mention leads to sales cross-channel reports. Additionally, having images and body copy relative to the Brides.com audience will make a big difference in their likelihood to act on your call to action or USP. In this case a big ring with a bride wearing it...etc.

Hopefully, this gives you a bit more insight on how to track and convert your audience. The more you target your ads, the more likely you're to convert visitors to buyers.

2005-03-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

Drive Your Online Sales with Landing Pages...

You've probably heard somewhere that PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is great at driving revenue...you've probably also heard that banner ads aren't that affective, but good for awareness. Quite honestly that's true, but only half-true. What's the other half? Landing Pages!

Landing pages are the web pages your prospect lands on from the ad they just clicked on.

- PPC Ad (i.e. Google Adword) >>> Landing Page >>> Your Website
- Banner Ad >>> Landing Page >>> Your Website

So why Landing Pages? Simply put, they're relevant, they continue the communication, and they are trackable. Landing pages also work for email marketing, direct mail to web, you name it! Anything that has a unique message or offer can leverage landing pages. I recently sat in on a Digital Marketing Conference and had the privelege of hearing the owner of ICE.com talk about his 100 different home pages he has running simultaneously. 100?! My thought initially was 'this guy likes to create work for himself', but after he explained his rationale it started to make sense. Basically, he said that PPC and his links from other websites are so critical to the success of his business that what the customer sees arriving on the homepage from a search term better be there to drive the sale or else they're gone!

So, if you want to increase your conversion rates on your PPC, Banner Ads, and links from other websites, spend most of your energy on your landing page...it will be well worth it. For more information on landing pages, check out grokdotcom (they're conversion experts).

2005-03-21T21:46:00.000-05:00

Target your brand at the Early Adopters and let the Tipping Point take over...those Early Adopters will influence the Followers and Late Adopters, while your brand cashes in.

2005-03-20T16:48:00.000-05:00

Internet Retaling. Is Price the Bottom Line?

OK, you've decided to set-up an online store. You've selected your product or service, you have a fulfillment center ready, your merchant account is approved, and you're design is solid. But wait?!?! What about your brand? Are you going to compete on price or focus your efforts on building your brand?

Let's look at Dell and Apple. Both are computer giants, both have hundreds of millions in revenue each year, but both do not follow the same strategy. Which one has more staying power? Well, personally I believe Apple does. Why? They've built a community, whereas Dell has herded a bunch of price sensitive consumers their way. You see, price sensitive shoppers aren't loyal. I'd say that most of Dell's customers are Late Adopters and Laggards who are holding out for a good buy on a PC (heck, my parents just got their first computer and it was a Dell).

In fact, Dell customers are brand promiscuous...which means they'd easily buy from their local computer shop if they provided the same level of service as Dell does. Service and expediency is Dell's core competency. The only way they can offer lower prices and great service is due to their Just In Time (JIT) inventory management philosophy.

Just take a look at every Dell piece of advertising. Free CDRW, Free upgrade on RAM, $500 off. Every week they have a new offer related to price! All this does is target the late adopters or the first time buyers who are very price senstive. Good strategy, but not for long-term growth. Why? Because competition can always compete on price...always. This my friend is what MBA's refer to as a low barrier to entry in the marketplace. Dell basically is leaving the gates wide open. Do you want to do that with your online business?

Anyway, I'm getting off in a rant here. Let's look at Apple for a second...

Apple focuses on "fostering" the brand. Everything is consistent, clean, builds community, and targets the Early Adopters and Mavens. You see, people who pride themselves on being computer savvy or "want" to be computer geeks will buy an Apple computer. They use Apple computers as an identity to their own geekdom (if that's even a word).

Do you ever see Apple have a sale? Do you see them competing on price with PCs? NOPE. They put their marketing dollars towards building their brand equity. Every ad is consistent, true to their positioning, and a result they can charge a premium. That is a competitive advantage that has a high barrier to entry.

So, what's my point? Internet Retailing is a numbers game most of the time. Dell, eBay, Amazon, and others compete on price more or less. And, until other businesses can figure out how to create operational efficiences to drive costs down, they will do just fine. But it's temporary. What you should be thinking about is driving your margin up, not down, building your brand, not your list of SKUs, and gearing up for long-term sustainable competitive advantage, not a quick buck.

Word to the wise. Competing on price invites competition. Don't compete; LEAD.

2005-03-13T17:45:00.000-05:00

Positioning Your Business for Success

So you have the idea of what you want your business to be, but you're not exactly sure how you're going to break through the clutter? Did you know that the average person is exposed to over 3000 advertising messages a day? Guess what? You have to compete with that! Somehow, you have to get your message across to your "target" consumer amongst that clutter!?!?! Well, here's a simple way to do it...POSITIONING. Jack Trout and Al Reis wrote a book many moons ago that will be your saviour!

Basically, think of your customer before you begin your business, position your business directly to benefit your customer and you'll have an easy time at getting your message across. I'll talk about how to break through the clutter more later. But, more importantly, always be consistent with that message otherwise your BRAND will become bogus (no longer trustworthy) and you don't want that to happen. Here's another great resource to help you out with positioning...it's Al's book the 22 Immutable Laws of Branding...good read, take a look.

2005-03-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

Podcasting?

If you don't have an iPod, then you're probably a laggard by now! They are the cool MP3 players to have and everyone who's an early adoptor has one. And of course, since they're so "cool" why not marry them with another "cool" technology such as RSS feeds? Combine the two and what you get is PodCasting.

PodCasting is like an RSS feed for your iPod; you get to listen to "intros" of syndicated material and so on. As you can imagine, if you're a radio show this could be huge! I think Howard Stern is even taking advantage of this?

If you have an iPod and want to try this out go to Audio Weblogs and give it a whirl! In the world of "too busy" and "trial" before purchase, this new technology just may be what the doctor ordered!

2005-03-01T21:39:00.000-05:00

Thinking about using a product feed?

Some of the best ways to sell your goods are through online store directories like Bizrate.com (now ShopZilla), Shopping.com, Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber.com, and Froogle.com. They're PPC (pay-per-click) models that only charge you pennies per click for a qualified shopper. Basically, if a shopper goes to these sites, finds your product, and clicks on it, they are very, very interested in your product. So much so, they are beyond the "consideration" and "evaluation" of alternatives stages; they are HOT!

Some of these sites are very effective at driving traffic and some seem to take a bit more effort. But if you're really not sure if this is for you, what I would suggest is opening up a Google Adwords account and try some TEXT PPC. Once you've done that, you qualify for Froogle for FREE! That's right, kind of a two for one! From there I would suggest Bizrate, Yahoo! Shopping, Shopping.com, and PriceGrabber.com in that order. That's the least expensive to most expensive (from my experience anyway, but that would depend on your category).

Now go get some hot leads and have fun bidding!

DC

2005-02-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

EBay bound...

So your store is a specialized shop that caters to a specific niche. Your business plan is good, your location is prime, and the merchandise is outstanding. So what's the problem? Why are you struggling to pay the bills? One answer.... traffic.

Let's put it this way, if your store caters to a specific market it probably needs some targeted advertising to reach your clients. But that's expensive and often doesn't work because it's hard to breakthrough the clutter. The word takes awhile to spread, so how do you do it? Simple, eBay! eBay generates about 42 million visitors a day! Imagine that! If you get even 0.1% of that traffic at your store that's 42,000 visitors at your store. Say you managed to sell only 5% of those visitors on your merchandise....that's 2,100 customers a day. So let's day each item costs $50. $50 x 2,100 is a whopping $105,000 a day in revenue. See the power of eBay now? This example is purely for demonstration purposes only, but you get the idea.

Don't have a product? Try dropshippers or wholesalers to find product. They'll white label and ship out the product for you. No hassel, just profit. You just need to focus on the promotions. Now isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

If you really want to make a go of it, you can open up your own storefront on eBay and try it out for free for 30 days. You don't need any technical knowledge, just a desire to succeed and sell your product/services to millions of people worlwide.

If this sounds intimidating and you're still not sure what to do, eBay offers eBay University.

Now you can reach more buyers, which = more $$$. You can pay the bills and then take a vacation. Oh and by the way, you can manage your store anywhere in the world...

Think Big,

DC

2005-02-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

Notice how they just ask for the email only. Not too intrusive and quite friendly. Once you fill it in, you are directed to a page where you can fill more information in and subscribe. Brilliant!

2005-02-19T11:03:00.000-05:00

Up Your Email Acquisition by 30% in a few simple steps!

So you've decided to use email marketing as way to communicate with your customers and gather some demographics or other consumer insights. Well, if you're following best practices, you're most likely having a double opt-in approach. But I propose another simple solution:

To be compliant with CAN SPAM you only need to practice single opt-in which is still express consent. Acquiring people this way, will increase your subscription rate signficantly...but what about that 30% increase I was talking about? Here's the easy, simple trick...don't hide the subscription, have it on all pages and make it simple. Take a look at how SharperImage does it...

Once you implement this simple change on your website, I'm sure you're going to increase your subscription rate by 30% or so. Let me know how it works for you.

Think Big!

DC

2005-02-06T17:06:00.000-05:00

MSN challenges Google?

MSN is taking on Google in the Search Engine market.

Visit CIO to learn more.

Google owns about 52% of the market
Overture about 32% (feeds Yahoo and MSN)

You need to keep up-to-date on this if you practice search engine marketing.

2005-01-26T22:54:00.000-05:00

Email Marketing: The basics?

Well, some believe that email marketing is the best thing since sliced bread, but I believe it is more like a whole loaf. Sure it's very efficient and effective, but it is costly dependant on volume and it can cause some confusion. However, it is using the principle of permission marketing that is extremely effective in gaining the confidence of your customers. Something to remember though...are you willing to generate the valuable content and provide a solid value proposition for your subscribers? In using permission marketing you need to respect your subscriber's wishes.

1. Give them the content they ask for.
If they say they are interested in home gardening, stock tips, and self help books...by all means don't push your latest AS SEEN ON TV garbage product at them, they'll unsubscribe and tell others about the "ethical spam" that your company partakes in.

2. Respect their time.
If you have the option of selecting weekly, monthy, or quarterly newsletters on your website, but decide to blast emails off to your list every time you have a new product or an idea, they'll backlash so bad and unsubscribe faster than you can blink! DON'T DO IT, PERIOD!

3. Give them exclusive stuff.
They have you their information because they are interested in your business. Give them something back! A coupon, a special article, at least something of a perceived value. This is what we refer to as a "value exchange"; Tit for tat. Trust me, they'll love you for it and probably forward it to some friends, which is viral and we all love that!

4. Don't go for their throat!
Build the relationship. Trust is critical on the Net. If someone subscribes to your email list, don't fire off a catalogue at them right away (unless this is your core business), have a conversation with them, give them a little bit of info and ask for feedback every chance you get. The more involved a consumer is with your business, the higher the likelihood that they'll be more receptive to an offer and come back for more (loyalty).

5. Make it easy to subscribe and unsubscribe.
Don't make your customer jump through hoops to get on your list. Ask for the bare minimum of information from them to get subscribed (tip, use email and first name only if you can). Remember the trust issue?75% of people will give false information when asked of too personal questions.

Every email sent should have an unsubscribe link. If you can, please make it a one-click unsubcribe, where they just have to verify if they want to unsubscribe. Trust me, their respect is worth it. This is referred to as express consent.

6. Be compliant with email.
Compliant? Yes, compliant! Email marketing is now seen as a priviledge and an advertising medium that can infringe on people's basic privacy. Follow the CAN SPAM guidelines and save yourself some headaches.

7. Choose your email provider wisely. Don't do it yourself.
This is simple. Email marketing is complex, ISPs, blacklists, spam, bounces, etc. Use a professional service to help make your efforts successful. VerticalResponse is a good choice for Small companies that need a good system at a low cost.

There's way more to discuss on email, but I'll touch on it later. We'll get into how to measure it effectively.

Think Big!

DC

2005-01-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

Top-notch eCommerce Site for Low Cost?

Here's a good article on how to get up and running right away on your own online store: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,309001,00.html

There's usually more to getting up and running online, but the article is very easy to understand.

DC

2005-01-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

So you want to have a website?

Guess what? It's easier than you think, but a word of advice..."don't do it yourself". Unless of course, you're a big fan of reading everything you can about usability, hosting, search engine marketing, email marketing, and so on...

So what do you do when you decide you want a website? What are the first steps?....Here's a checklist for you to get going:

1. Figure out what you want to call it.

If you're selling books for example and your name is Joe, how about joesbooks.com? Something that will help your search engine marketing is having your category or item for sale in your domain name. Just a trick that works well. Of course, keep the name to something people can remember. If you're more concerned about your brand, then stay with that name and maybe add a category to it. For example: ReaderWorldBooks.com, where the brand name is Reader World. Again, this will pay off in the long run.

2. Register your domain at a domain reseller.

I personally use Godaddy.com because they are the cheapest and one of the main sellers of domains in N.A.. But that's entirely up to you. Go to ICANN for a complete list of domain sellers.

3. Figure out your budget for hosting and marketing.

Your budget will dictate if you can have a E-Commerce Site or just a brochure Site. Plus, it will dictate how much you can spend on marketing your Site. For example, the most effective marketing tactics are Search Engine and Email Marketing. SE marketing is more for acquisition and awareness, while EM is more for retention and up-selling. Keep that in mind. There's many other ways to market your site, but more often those are the top two tactics people use.

4. Choose your hosting company.

Be very careful here. If you want to have many features on your site like database applications, interactive programs, shopping carts, email collection, payment methods, etc. You have to ensure your host can support your needs. Here's a good directory for hosting companies that should help you decide what you need: http://www.findmyhosting.com/index.asp

5. Design and Development.

Here you have a few options. 1) Have your hosting company build it for you. 2) Hire an indepedent design firm that specializes in web design. 3) Do it yourself with templates and web development programs.

I'd recommend spending the money and getting it done professionally. If done correctly (they build your site to attract customer and not engineers) it will pay off much faster than if you did it yourself. Besides, it's a business expense.

6. Marketing.

I'm going to discuss this later because we can really get into some nitty gritty...keep your eyes out for it.

Think Big!

DC

2005-01-08T13:17:00.000-05:00

What Type of Business Do You Set Up?

Sole-Proprietorship? Corporation? Partnership? What works best? The answer: it depends.

If you're concerned on what type of business to set-up, let me give you some advice: figure out your goals...why do you want a business? What does the end look like in your minds eye? Once you figure that out, the selection of what legal business entity will get clearer.

Here are some good resources to get your head around the different types of business models:

1. Small Business Advisory: SBA.gov (US)
2. Strategis: Strategis.ig.gc.ca (Canada)

These sites are quite comprehensive and will make a world of difference. But here are some tips I'll share with you that some Accountants have with me:

1. If you're only planning on making less than $30,000 a year from your business...don't register it. Just invoice customers with your name as the business. That way you won't have to have a Small Businesss Number. This way is strictly for Sole Proprietors though (same legal entity).

2. If you want to protect your and your families financial state, then by all means incorporate. Keep in mind, incorporation costs can run you about $1,500 or so, plus articles of incorporation and shareholder documents can get tricky. Not to mention, a complete set of different financial statements that you'll have to keep track of. But if you're planning on making the big bucks, then this is the best way to go. Additionally, if you're going to work with other people in your business, this model will protect you like no other (that's a good thing). I'll share my story about my experiences with corporations as a former shareholder and Director of a .com start-up at a later date.

3. Partnerships are good if you really know the person so well it hurts. Even then it could totally backfire and you'll be on the hook for the money. I've heard horror stories about brothers going into business together; one works his butt off, while the other rips the company off blind then skips town. Who pays? The hard-working (responsible) one! My recommendation, don't do it. The cost of incorporating outways the easy-start-up attractiveness of Partnerships. However, sometimes a LLC makes sense.

4. LLC's are Limited Liability Corporations. LLC's are probably the best for things like leveraged real estate deals. Basically, they way it works is you find a person with a lot of capital. They invest the money, you invest the effort and you draw up a contract with limited liability. This way, you work together (effort & money), and both know who is responsible for what. LLC's are like a hybrid Partnership and Corporation if you will. If you really want to know more about these business models, I recommend Garrett Sutton's book "Own Your Own Corporation".

Here's something that I'm sure you'll find very helpful as well. A corporate checklist to help you decide which corporate structure is right for you: CORPORATE CHECKLIST.

So, now you have an idea (if you didn't already) on what type of business is best for your goals. And if you still don't I have a dream sheet exercise you will find extremely helpful. This eCourse from the FINANCIAL FREEDOM SOCIETY will help you get financially free, prioritize your efforts, get debt free, get focused, and most of all...be successful in life. Enjoy - eCourse.

Think Big!

DC

2005-01-04T21:53:00.000-05:00

Want to add this to your RSS feed?

Just add this link to your feed:
http://darrencontardo.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Think Big!

2005-01-04T21:38:00.000-05:00

Increase the ROI, not the budget!

So how do you increase your ROI by not increasing your online traffic to your E-commerce store?

Simple: don't spend any more money on marketing. Let the WOMers and loyal followers generate the revenue. Spending money on traffic in the attempts you'll convert a measly 2% of customers really doesn't make sense does it? Well, maybe if you have at least 1% ROI, but really, how effective is that?

Try it....try not spending any of your hard earned cash on the marketing...see the difference for yourself after 3 months. I bet you that the swing will be in the thousands of ROI.

Think Big!

2004-12-17T20:34:00.000-05:00

The 5 phases of Customer Valuation.

No, this isn't a Peppers and Rogers blog on CRM, but I wanted to point out something that just makes sense. Customer modeling works...not necessarily segmentation for the purposes of targeting communication, but modeling.

Check out this article by Jeff Jarvis. I got this reading Seth's blog. Jeff describes how the presidential campaign was designed by consumer models. Brilliant!

Just to let you know what consumer models are, here's the lowdown:

Phase 1. Analysis and OLAP (online analytics) - measures past behavior such as revenue per customer
Phase 2. RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) - more of a predictive model
Phase 3.Consumer modeling - used for targeting customers
Phase 4. Segmentation - segment like users in groups for marketing research or product development (this is what Bush did)
Phase 5. Sophisticated Consumer Valuation such as Lifetime Value, etc

Wow, it's amazing that the presidential campaign crew did this. Imagine if the managed to consolidate all the government data on each individual? That would be the most sophisticated valuation model ever?!?! They would probably know your likelihood of having medical attention, Employee Insurance claims, and more...they would probably know who's in your family, your economic contribution per household, propensity to buy any product or service imaginable! Scary isn't it?

Let's hope they continue to champion privacy otherwise we're in for it!

Think Big!

2004-12-17T19:53:00.000-05:00

Martha Stewart making a TV show?

What the heck? This women isn't even out of jail yet and she is working harder than most people do that their full-time careers! Not to mention she's also sold about $8MM worth of shares today of her stock that got her in crap in the first place.

This women understands the value of time over money. She acts like everyday is her last and is battling like hell to make the most of it. I for one think she's an incredibly smart business woman and a smart woman! Let me put it to you this way...

...as I was remembering from a seminar years ago I attended (flashback) that the speaker said that we all have $86,400 dollars put into our bank account everyday. The catch is that we have to spend it all in that day in order to get another $86,400 the next day. The process is perpetual as long as you spend the money. Tell me this...how would you spend that kind of money? What would you do? With who? When? Where?...exciting isn't it?

Well, here's the deal. Everyone of us gets 86,400 seconds a day to spend which ever way we want. No refunds, no returns, no exchanges...all sales final! How do you spend your time today? What do you do? With who? When? Where?...is it exciting?

What did you do with your 86,400 seconds today? Martha made over $8,000,000 while in jail. What's your excuse?

Sorry for beating you up, but who else is going to do it?

Think Big!...

2004-12-17T19:50:00.000-05:00

Increase your ROI

Here's a simple challenge for you to figure out. How do you increase your ROI by not increasing your online traffic to your E-commerce store? I'll post the answer January 3rd, but I'm open to some comments on this...ideas?

2004-12-08T20:25:00.000-05:00

Hypergrowth!

OK, there was a request on the topic of hypergrowth. Well, it took me some time to really understand what exactly hypergrowth is, but in lamens terms all it is about is growing your business very, very quickly to the point of utter market explosion!!!

This is easy...I'll try to be short and sweet on this one. The key to making your business grow faster than ever has to do with two key elements:

1. Focus your marketing efforts on a very clearly defined niche.
2. All your efforts should be as fostering the discussion of your brand within that niche...they'll spill over to the mainstream.

You might be asking yourself now..."those are quite broad answers, I thought this was simple". Well, it is. Think about it. Don't try to be the answer for everyone. Just be the really, really good answer for a unique group of individuals who have a community to create the "buzz" about your brand. Secondly, make your brand name easy to remember so they can tell each other about it. A big mistake many company's make is that they call themselves something like "FealGuud Footwear" or "Dan's Corner Truck Stop and Diner". How the hell is that going to be something that get people excited or easy to tell their buddies about? Why not try something like "Euphoria Feet" or "The 18-wheeler"...this is more exciting, appeals to your market, creates a powerful brand, and more importantly is easy to spread via word of mouth.

See? It's simple. Don't over complicate things. Be focused. Be simple. Be a customer.

Cheers,

DC

2004-11-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

The Power of the Virus

Ealier I talked about Word-of-Mouth (WOM) marketing and how effective it is. Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) groups build entire buisnesses based on WOM. Why? Because of one key business advantage...Leverage!

In this blog, I'm going to talk about two key concepts: 1: Promiscuous vs Powerful WOMers (also known as Sneezers made famous by Seth Godin), and 2: Leverage, more particularily Other People's Efforts (OPE) and Other People's Money (OPM).

1. Promiscuous VS Powerful WOMers

So you know that WOM is the most cost-effective form of advertising. It generates the most revenue! But how do you initiate it? How do you control it? And how to you track it back to ROI (measure)?...Let me give you some insight on how to exactly that:

1. Pay-for-Performance, Lead Generation, Referral Marketing, Refer-a-Friend program, Independent Marketing Representative, Affiliate Marketing, you name it...it all is based on Promiscuous WOMers! You are paying people/businesses to get you customers! This seems great; you only pay them when they refer a customer who buys from you, but it's not all a bed of roses. Why you ask?...because they aren't that loyal! They want money, rewards, free stuff, etc. Plus, people can see through their hidden agenda rather quickly. They'll refer only to the higest bidder. Nonetheless, they're still a beautiful acquistion tool to get "like" customers buying from your business.

So what about these Powerful WOMers? These guys/girls are authorites or experts in their field and cannot be bought, but rather like your product and service and recommend or talk about it at length. Look at Oprah for example, as Seth Godin points out, she puts her "thumbs up" on a book and sales sky rocket! So how do you get these people to talk about your product/service? Give it to them for free, send them information, offer trials, anything you can do to get in front of them...do it! They don't want your cash, they want to maintian they're social esteem or market position as an authority! Again, they are harder to find, but way more persuasive and effective for your business.

2. Leverage: OPE & OPM

MLM'ers know the power of leverage and talk about it to no ends. It makes sense though...for example, say you can only work 20 hours a week at your part-time business and you get $xx return. You can make more by working more, but eventually you'll be tapped out and your loved-one will forget your name. Or, you can leverage yourself by duplication. Basically, you recruit people like yourself you are eager to make some money at something they like or are interested in; this is key for referral/MLM marketing. Now you try to teach them to work 20 hours per week promoting your business for their benefit and yours! Let's look at this example:

You work 20 hrs per week = $1000 Revenue
You recruit 5 people to work 20 hrs per week (5x20 = 100 hrs)
100 hrs per week x $1000 Revenue = $100,000 Revenue

Of course you have to pay them for their efforts, so let's take away some margin

$100,000 Revenue x 15% margin = $15,000 in referral fees
Total Revenue minus referral fees = $85,000
Cost of Goods Sold (i.e. 50% margin) = $50,000
Incremental Profit = $35,000
ROI (incremental profit - incremental costs/incremental costs) = 133%

Looks like a good idea doesn't it? That's why referral, MLM, affiliate, WOM, or whatever you wanna call it is effective, it works!

The key to this whole leverage aspect is that the entire time your pay-per-performance sales team is at work for you, they're using THEIR OWN MONEY, and THEIR OWN EFFORTS to help MAKE YOU MORE MONEY and of course to make themselves some money too! Hence the term OPE and OPM. Remember, you don't have to spend money to make money...you can have other people do that for you!!!

Hope you can start thinking about how you can leverage your talents, products/services, and business model to take advantage of OPE/OPM, and people's powerful influence on your bottom line!

Cheers,

DC

2004-11-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

CRM and Loyalty Marketing - A Saviour or Just Another Fad?

I'm sure we're all familiar with Mass Marketing. Mass marketing tries to hit prospects with a message that is supposed to resonate with them and have them take action (i.e. buy your stuff). Mass Marketing is massly expensive, is massly unfocused, and massly unaffective. Sorry, I think I just made up the word massly. Anyway, marketers around the world are now shifting their focus to 1-to-1 marketing; made famous by Rogers and Peppers. 1-to-1 marketing is the antithesis of mass marketing. In order for 1-to-1 marketing to work, you're going to need something called CRM (Customer Relationship Management). CRM basically consolidates all your customer information into one central database.

Here's the typical strategy of CRM:

Identify your customer
Segment your customer base based on profitibility
Interact with your customer base through different channels and measure campaign performance
Refine your message and channel and drill down to customer ROI

Basically, all you're doing is segmenting customers into 10 deciles, 1 = most profitable and 10 = unprofitable. Decile 1 on most cases accounts for 60% or more of the revenue of the company. Here's where you want to concentrate. Deciles 2-4 probably account for another 3o% or so, and the other remaining deciles 5-10 account for maybe 10% of the business revenue.

So Who's this #1 Decile Group? The Money-Makers!

So how do companies figure out who is in that #1 decile?.. Segmentation modeling. They gather information based on demographics, behaviour, psychographics, and sometimes third-party credit data. They use different independent and dependent variables (all of course attached to revenue per customer) and figure out trends in "like" customers who spend a lot of money. From there they will group those "like" customers into the top decile and send similiar messages to all of those "like" customers.

What About Me? I'm Loyal Too!

But what about those lonely guys at the bottom deciles? Don't they get any attention? Not really. Just because they don't spend money like the big boys in decile 1, the company just tends to ignore them. Why? Would you want to spend money on somebody who didn't buy barely any of your product/service? I didn't think so. But maybe those customers can't afford anymore? Maybe their not in the lifestage to afford it? Maybe they will be in a few years? But if you don't pay attention to them now, you may be losing them forever! So how do you figure out their lifestage? Ask them!

Numbers Don't Lie Right?

Why crunch the numbers like a geeky statistician (we all have deep inside us) when you can just ask your customers key questions to help understand them and service them today and in the future? Are we scared to hear the truth? Do we want to feel like we've won an epic battle because we've figured out who are profitable customers are through some sort of logistical regression analysis? Or are we so focused on LTV (Lifetime Value) that we forget customers are human and want to be heard?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of CRM and loyalty marketing. I think it's far more effective than Mass Marketing, but it's not perfect. Customers always expect more, want more points, are sensitive about privacy, and know how to manipulate even your best loyalty progam. Just be careful and know it's not your saviour. Just ask your customer, he'll tell you.

2004-10-24T13:04:00.000-05:00

Why isn't anybody coming to our shows?

Last night I went to my girlfriend's improv show. Her troop has a spot at a local bar here in Toronto every month or so. The show runs for about 2 hours and has great entertainment value (very similar to Whose Line is it Anyway?). One problem though.....they can't get many people to come! Why? Because flyers don't work! Ads don't work! Well then, what the on earth can you do to get people to your product or service? Let's talk about some ideas...

First thing is first, ask yourself the question: Who cares?
The reality is, nobody is going to buy your product or use your service (in this case a improv show) if they have no idea what to expect, primarily based on one aspect "interest".

Second thing to ask yourself: How can we get people talking?
There's no doubt that awareness is the first stage of customer acquistion, but your ads won't get people talking. What will? Other people! In this case, focus on viral marketing. Viral marketing is another fancy term for Word-of-Mouth (WOM). One key element to WOM though that's worth considering: people need something worth talking about! If your product or service is just like everyone else's that's boring...who cares. People will only talk about things that are different, remarkable, or controversial, or shocking. So rather than focusing on your marketing efforts to acquire customers, make your product/service the selling feature. Once you do that customer will tell other prospects faster than you would every imagine.

There's a little term known as 6 degrees of separation. Basically, the term describes if you know at least 6 people and all of them know 6 and so on and so on, that you have reach to everyone in the world today. That's 6 Billion people! Question? Can you afford to market to 6 Billion people on your budget? Didn't think so.

Third question to ask: What can I do to facilitate the virus (WOM)?
This is back to marketing now. What can you do to make more money with these influencers/sneezers who are going to spread the virus that is your product/service idea? Many, many things. Here's a few:

Email marketing - forward to friend
Contests to get more people and offer extra entries for people who spread the word (Bell and Air Canada have done this recently)
Limited access to services/products until your tell more people

For some good examples, just look at hotmail. They got 50 Million people using their product within 1 year! Watch Gmail (google's email) beat that today!

Hope these ideas are useful. Cheers!

2003-01-28T23:19:00.000-05:00

So I finally decided to start blogging. Yeah, that's right...finally! Go figure, I've been working in the Internet Marketing world for over 5 years now (I guess this classifies me as a veteran by some standards) and I've yet to blog. Why now? Well, there's no doubt that this tool is extremely powerful. So powerful in fact, it will change the world of marketing and the consumer relationship to brands.

With that said, my focus of this blog space to give some insight into the new-age marketing era that looks at it's old and weathered relative (mass marketing) and grins with satisfaction! Why? He knows something mass doesn't... "the customer is in power now".

In the blogs to come I'll talk about the changing world of business and what people can do to get through the clutter. In the meantime, please feel free to read some of my favorite sources of "new age common sense thought":

Purple Cow - Seth Godin (learn how to be remarkable)
RichDad Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki (learn how to think rich)
Loopholes of the Rich - Diane Kennedy (stop the taxman from stealing your dreams)
Ideavirus - Seth Godin (turn your idea into cash through other customer's big mouths)