The Triple Dog Interview
Last week I was interviewed by the legendary Tom Myers - ‘Top Dog’ at the Triple Dog Media company. We discussed word of mouth marketing, lead generation and other cool concepts.
If you’d like to listen to the recording of this show or you’d like to download it, click on the following link:
Enjoy!
Is Your Website a Beautiful ‘Hotel Nowhere’ … Lost in The Internet Wilderness?
Lately it seems I’ve been explaining to more and more people about Internet Marketing. You see, for some reason folks think that IM (Internet Marketing) is really all about putting up a great looking website. It’s not – it’s so much more than that.
In fact, although a website is a crucial piece in the online marketing puzzle, you can still beat the best-looking website with great online marketing. And what still surprises me is after all the education, al the articles, all the proof, people still think, “If you build it (better) they will come!”
Sorry to disappoint folks – but that’s a dangerous assumption.
Do You Think This 147 Year Old System Still Works Today?
In 1860, bowing to continued pressure from various businesses, the government initiated the first education system with the following mandate: ‘Create Literate Employees…’
Why? Because the businesses of the time were finding it progressively harder to find employees who could read and write. And like the modern army where we train people to become soldiers, the education system was created to create “factory workers”.
This was 147 years ago and nothing much has changed since then. In fact the regular education system is still producing “literate employees” - not free thinking, creative types, but human ‘worker bees’ or drones.
5 Newspaper Advertising Myths Revealed
What I’m about to reveal are myths that most people think are ‘true.’
They seem set in stone yet they are deadly to the advertiser.
I’m certain you’ll be surprised. Certainly you may even doubt what I reveal to you. But I’ve discovered that these myths must *NEVER* be followed - unless of course you like throwing your hard earned money down the drain!
There are essentially five common ‘Newspaper And Magazine Advertising Myths’…
Before I go any further I have a proviso to what I’m about to reveal to you about advertising. Here it is…
Is Your Web Designer Unknowingly Harming Your Business?
Why? How? Because they’re involved in software development. And before you start wondering what I’m talking about, I’d like to remind you that your web site (although cool) is nothing more than a software program running on a computer. And ever since people started writing software there have been very well defined roles and skill sets.
Now don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with roles and skills definitions for software development, however I am going to make it easy for you to figure out the type of web resources you may have at your disposal and whether they are helping your business - or unknowingly harming it (just in case you were wondering.)
An analogy that will help:
You’re Not A ‘Blue Chip’ Company, So Stop Copying Their Advertising & Marketing Strategy!
‘Blue Chip’ or not, success isn’t necessarily tied to how good they are, but rather to repetitive advertising. Mega corporations of this world advertise to build distribution and brand awareness. They do ‘image advertising’ which melds certain emotional responses with their product, so you feel the same way too when you buy from them…
Soul For Sale
These large blue chip companies spend literally billions ‘buying’ your purchasing decision. GM spent over $3 billion just a few years back to make you hum “like a rock!” - And it worked. Brand marketing and institutional marketing works, but here’s the catch: you have to have a fortune to pull it off successfully. If you spent $3 billion on making people aware of your company, do you think you’d have issues with sales?
BS Alert!
It’s a fact most advertising is almost all fluff, puffery and unbelievable platitudes and generalities: cheapest, greatest, professionalism, quality, speedy, best and so on. You hear overused phrases like “We’re number one!” Oh yeah? These overworked phrases do nothing to impart anything unique about what you do and why your customer should patronize your business.
The Big Question…
Why would anyone want to waste marketing dollars hardly saying anything to anyone?
18 Style Tips To Write Gooder
- Remember to never split an infinitive.
- The passive voice should never be used.
- Do not put statements in the negative form.
- Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
- Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
- If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
- A writer must not shift your point of view. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
- Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.
- Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
- Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
- Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
- If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
- Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
- Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
- Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
- Always pick on the correct idiom.
- The adverb always follows the verb.
- Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.
This very clever list is attributed to William Safire. Thanks Bill, cool list this is!!
Today’s Free Teleseminar
You can now listen in to the whole teleseminar simply by pressing the play [>] button over on the BlogTalkRadio bar.
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A quick reminder that I’m interviewing Tom St.Louis later today. It should be an interesting and enlightening show. I hope you can make it when we are live because we will be opening the lines to take some questions.
Also, if you can’t make it - never fear technology’s here … and the whole show is recorded to MP3 and will be available shortly after the show has gone off the air. Simply visit my BTR host page, or click the play button under the BTR button on the right.
- (Q) How do I listen to your show?
(A) Simply visit my host page and click on the ‘Click To Listen’ button. You’ll be able to enjoy the show directly through Windows Media Player. There is a version for Mac users too.
- (Q) Can I call in and harass you and call you names?
(A) I’d prefer you keep it helpful and on topic, but hey… this is FREE speech. Just remember, the whole session is recorded, so anything “actionable” goes straight to my lawyer *grin* and you’re only a mouse click away from oblivion… so play nice.
- (Q) OK, Can I call into a your show without having to dial the U.S. telephone number?
(A) Yes. There is a feature on the show page which allows you to select the “Click to Talk” button during my live show and, through a microphone connected to your computer, join the show as a caller. This service is free - no phone required. By the way, the “Click to Talk” feature only works in Microsoft Internet Explorer, version 6.x or higher. So if you are a Firefox user (like I am) you’ll need to use IE this one time (I know… but you’ll get over it.)
- (Q) What’s the call in phone number?
(A) (718) 664-9789
- (Q) And the time?
(A) 1pm Eastern.
Canada Blows… IT
A recent news story announced “Canada drops in global E-readiness: Touted as one of the pioneering countries in online adoption, Canada descended seven spots in a recent global e-readiness list…”
There’s even a backlash with folks saying “Canada might want to consider itself lucky for coming in at No. 13 on the Economist Intelligence Unit/IBM 2007 global e-readiness ranking.”
Coming in 13th! … “Oh Canada!” … Oh that’s just peachy 
Other metrics abound within the report. Apparently we Canadian’s are without vision because we scored very poorly in innovation. But take heart, at least we did really well on the social and environmental rankings. We can be all happy and sing camp songs together around that tree we saved while our business platform erodes slowly beneath our feet.
But there is an upside…
Search Purity: Holy Grail or Hucksterism…
Universal search, local search, mobile search. Seriously folks, WTF! A day doesn’t pass without reports of some new panacea curing all search ills, some new silver bullet that drops the hairy beast haunting the annals of SEO and SEM.
Web Dreams
And last Friday was notable for the fact that news of Google’s newest web dream (yes that was a ‘b’ not a ‘t’) is Universal Search. As Google executives describe it, the results will include news stories, blogs, videos, maps and several other content sources. Now when you ask a question you will no longer be presented with the ten best URL’s - Google will offer you the ‘ten best answers!’
Mind Reading
Google is forging fearlessly towards giving you what you want, NOT what you asked for. In fact, this brings me nicely to a wee rant I’ve been meaning to share for a while now - it’s called my “Purity of Search” argument.
