I’m preparing to teach a group of authors, both newly published, and veterans, about the importance of effective online marketing. As I’ve mapped out some of the different topics I’ll be covering, the one that continues to come to mind is about the importance of defining WHO you’re marketing to. Having worked with lots of internet start-ups, I’ve realized that defining your target audience is probably the hardest and most overlooked aspect of online marketing. [...]
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11 Questions That Will Define Your Target Audience
May 22 2011 -
Google Adwords Will Be Removing Position Preference
Apr 21 2011Google Adwords will be removing position preference. The feature has already been disabled. But for those that would be grandfathered in, they are removing this option entirely come May 2011. This announcement came via a message within the Adwords. Announcement: Retiring the position preference setting In early May, we’ll be removing the option to set position preferences. Learn more about what this means for your campaigns. Position preference gave advertisers the ability to tell Google [...]
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When Is It OK to Say No to a Prospective Client?
Apr 19 2011Have you ever had this problem? In your head you’re saying “No, No, No!!!” But then you say “Yes” anyway? Me too, me too… I’ve been self-employed now for almost six full months. I’ve found some “Golden Clients”, and I’ve dealt with some that have come close to making we want to go back to “Corporate America” (not really). I’ve come to the conclusion that some clients are just not worth it. Sure, they may [...]
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How to Find New Clients that Are Golden
Jan 18 2011I’ve talked to clients a lot in the past about one key question: What have you done TODAY to make a sale? I’m going to take it a step further today and ask another simple question: What have you done TODAY to find a new client? Some might ask at this point, “Isn’t making a sale and finding a new client the same thing?” In the past, my answer was yeah, sure. However, as I’ve [...]
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Getting Quality Backlinks with Press Releases
Jul 31 2009My approach to press releases is different than traditional PR. Most of the press releases I write are less about getting press coverage for my news, and more about getting quality backlinks to my site. However, it is possible to do both. It starts with a good story and added to that, online distribution. Many people believe its enough to blog about their news. For some high traffic blogs (thought leaders) this might be true. [...]
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Finding the right marketing angle for your business
Feb 06 2009Many of you have probably read the book “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell, but for those of you who haven’t… the book is based on the premise that there is always a tipping point (aka significant momentum shift) in the life cycle of a message that becomies a wide spread epidemic, and that the “tipping point” can always be traced back to small numbers of people who start behaving differently. I really found the [...]
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5 steps to receiving killer testimonials
Feb 02 2009I have been pretty impressed at the sheer quality of the testimonials generated by the retail arm of DSM over the last few weeks. So, I decided to write a blog post encapsulating 5 steps any business can take to receive killer testimonials. Step 1 – It all starts with a great product or service. Obviously. So the real question is: what can you do to improve your products or services? Here are a few [...]
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The Free Shipping Dilemma – the 2008 Holiday Shopping Results
Jan 12 2009Free shipping has been the most popular promotional offer among online shoppers. According to 2007 Forrester Research, 61% of online shoppers preferred to shop with a retailer that offered free shipping than one that didn’t. High demand encouraged most online retailers to win customers’ hearts by offering free shipping – either on minimum purchase or without conditions. Because of the fast approaching economic crisis and rising gas prices (and hence increasing shipping rates), some experts [...]
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Just Say When, Not If. Making It Happen When Selling.
Jan 08 2009Tuesday morning I had the opportunity to meet with a company regarding providing search engine optimization services to them. This is a company that is on the verge of being an Inc. 500 company and I was meeting with the CEO, VP of Marketing, and VP of Development. About 45 min. into the meeting the CEO said, “So how do we get this going?” and my reply to him was something along the lines of, [...]
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What Making Users Click 9 Times To Find Pricing Will Do For You
Dec 31 2008I had an interesting chat with a family member about something the company they works for had recently done with a website redesign. First of all – I was blown away when I was told what they paid for the site (over 100k). My designers could have build a much better site for 1/3 of what they paid, but that is not the issue here. They created a site without talking to any marketers, or [...]
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