“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Winston Churchill (1942)
For many businesses a new website going live is something to be celebrated. The temptation is to tick that project off the list, sit back and watch the sales come in. The trouble is, it rarely works this way. [Read more →]
An article in BRW magazine last year (Dec 1-7 p35 “Start spreading the newsletter”) highlighted some research out of the US indicating that, for every $1 a company spends on marketing emails, the return is $40.56, “better than almost any other form of marketing”. [Read more →]
…after reviewing some advice we gave three years ago, and deciding it is still current today (with some additions).
Back in 2008 we wrote a short article and filmed a 15 minute podcast and video presentation on ‘The Website Sales Funnel‘. Reviewing this in 2011, again all the basics are absolutely spot on, however there is still a degree of confusion out there about how marketing and business works online. [Read more →]
Online technology and marketing techniques are progressing at a ridiculous pace. Here are 5 of the most popular trends we’ve seen this year. [Read more →]
Advances in technology usually bring about changes in our business models, but often reluctantly. Take the music industry, for example, when it switched from vinyl to CDs in the 80s and then to mp3’s a decade later. The record companies were slow to change and lost control of their royalties as music was shared freely over the Internet.
Instead of embracing change they fought it and LOST! The innovators and market disruptors such as Napster and iTunes stepped in and the rest is history. The game changed and left the dinosaurs in court fighting over the scraps.
The marketing industry is right in the middle of a similar shift.
Our software OurDisk has been enjoying considerable growth recently and we have been gaining sizeable interest from the accounting and bookkeeping industry in particular. This prompted us to launch an exciting new strategy, here’s the story… [Read more →]
Almost every business we have spoken to this year wants to know how to use Social Media to market their business. It’s a powerful marketing tool, but while businesses are scrambling to get on Facebook, almost 25,000 personal users opted out on Monday due to Facebook’s seemingly casual approach to privacy. (See http://www.quitfacebookday.com) [Read more →]
My wife says I don’t communicate. Well, I beg to differ. Today my email program upgraded and migrated 29,540 email messages. You can’t really say I don’t communicate with those sort of numbers.
I am going to print this out and stick it on the fridge.
As a rough calculation, KND send and receive about 80,000 emails per year. 70,000 of that figure are managed by only four people. Based on our server stats, that only accounts for 15% of all our mail. It actually handles almost half a million emails a year. The other 85% is spam. That’s 453,333 spam messages per year!! That’s a lot of viagra!
These numbers sound big, but they would reflect most small businesses with a team of more than five. It also explains the steady decline in e-newsletters and increase in social networking. [Read more →]
Which would you prefer: a blind date or a night out with an old flame? Chances are the old flame will be more fun because you can relax with the familiarity you share. First dates can be tedious as each person tries to assess the other person’s knowledge of axe wielding or fluffy toys (both equally as scary). Breaking the ice is difficult. If it were easy it would be called ‘breathing the air’ or ‘cutting the cheese’.
Doing business is the same. Sifting through a prospect’s ego to find their true nature can be time consuming and costly, especially if you get it wrong. It works the other way, too. Try putting yourself in your prospect’s shoes. They are about to spend their hard-earned money on your services and want to know that you can deliver. They need to trust you, but they can’t until they like you, and they can’t like you until they know you. [Read more →]
I remember when, a regime could wipe out half a country and kill literally thousands of people without the rest of the world even knowing. They could create a media blackout by shutting down the television and newspapers, which the regime usually already owns anyway, and no news would escape the country’s tight lips. Unfortunately (for them), things have changed. [Read more →]
Discover the secrets to building a successful website strategy.
eBusiness marketing is no different from marketing a bricks and mortar business, except you have more accurate numbers to work with through every stage of the sales process. My advice at this stage is to just find out some numbers relating to each of those funnel stages as it relates to your e-Business.
Corporate blogging is no longer the new kid on the block: it has become a very relevant part of running any business. Corporate blogging is an important part of marketing, PR, sales, HR, and customer service. Surprisingly, blogs are still seen largely as the domain of Generation Y — an online forum to write about the latest game, hairstyle or why it’s reasonable to earn six figures immediately after graduating. But this is not the case. Blogging has become a cost-effective way to sell your business and keep customers happy.
Below is a quick Vodcast to quickly outline how to list in the Top 10 in Google organic listings by using a simple approach to keyword placement. Some simple strategies related to keyword placement will really help. Thanks to Martin from Brisbane Car Brokers for allowing us to use his site for the demo.
What’s in a name? There are more theories on this topic than the origin of Tom Cruise’s kids. Unfortunately, Tom dedicated more time to naming his kids than most people do to their domain name. (‘Suri’ is a South American Alpaca and in Swahili it means ‘my dad’s a nut-bag cult follower’.) What seems like a good idea at the time can, and most probably will backfire.
Exhibit A: the ‘Speed of Art’ web site www.speedofart.com (Well, you could always blame the budgie you were smuggling.) [Read more →]
(Re-printed from the Courier Mail)
Businesses of every stripe are learning to live with – and love the world’s largest online search engine.
But make no mistake about Google: it’s cutthroat.
You may have paid for a sponsored link to your company website or you may be trying to manoeuvre your way up the “natural” search results list.
But there’s only one thing that matters when a potential customer types in their chosen search term and clicks “enter”. Too few small businesses know how to make the most of search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimisation (SEO).
