Author: Lance Hemenway

If you are in the business of Internet marketing, as an advertiser or publisher, and you are using a blog; this article is aimed at you. Why do you have a blog? I hope you aren’t answering this question with: “Well every company has one now, it’s something you have to do … ” or something similar. No. That is not a reason to have a blog. A blog is there to inform, yes, but it is a key weapon in your marketing arsenal and you should be using it as such. Are you getting the most out of your blog? Let’s look at ways you should be getting the most out of it.

The Number One Thing Your Blog Should Do
The main job of your blog is to capture email addresses for your mailing list. If you are not using your blog to capture email addresses you are squandering a one of the best tools and opportunities you can have for doing so. Using a blog to build an email list to send a regular email newsletter from your business does several things:

1. Gives you a captive (opt-in) audience to pitch sales to that wants your communication.
2. Those on your email list are much more likely to read your posts than those who aren’t.
3. 75% of users over 45 years of age prefer sharing by email rather than by social media.
4. 60% of readers under 45 years of age prefer sharing through email rather than by social media.
5. Those on your list will be your most loyal and most engaged audience. It’s a lot easier to convert this “low hanging fruit” to sales than it is to convert brand new leads.

Important Note: A new study states that 61% of email is now being read on mobile devices. You need to make both your email newsletter and your blog mobile friendly / optimized.

Other Key Purposes of a Blog
In general for a marketer, your blog’s foremost duty is assist you with bringing in leads. Period. Building an email mailing list is the cornerstone in converting those leads into sales. Additionally, your blog should be focused on doing the following:

1. Using previews of high-quality, high-demand content that entice people to visit your blog for the full article. Once there, they are enticed to signup to your email list to get the in-depth article, free report, whitepaper, guide or whatever it may be.
2. Using articles to answer questions in advance or address issues that your leads and/or customers are likely to be concerned with. This could mean everything from showing customers how to best use your products, to what to do when there is a problem.
3. Bringing in organic search traffic through high-quality, informative and original articles.
4. Building a following and creating a positive community around your brand. Your newsletter can encourage customers “join the conversation” or “comment” on your blog. This facilitates a community atmosphere.
5. Connecting your social media presence to your blog posts. The idea here would be using social media to drive people to your blog.

Key Takeaway
Although social media is great, it’s not the end all. You want people on your site to make the sales. Use social media to drive people to your blog. At your blog, your focus should be creating quality content that people want and are willing to sign up to your email list to get premium content or free offers. Your email list is your strongest selling weapon. Your blog is one of your best tools for building your email list.

Meet Me At Affiliate Summit!

Howdy Partner! Are you feeling Google-ly eyed from racking your brain trying to figure out what to do about getting Google-ized by all the recent algorithm changes? Are you wondering if link building even still matters? Will it get your site penalized? Let’s take a deeper look …

This Town Is Big Enough For Both of Us
Google’s Sheriff (I pun), Matt Cutts has stated in an interview that “link building is not illegal.” So your site isn’t going to end up in the pokey. However, Cutts also states that “there is a way to do it right.” Their philosophy is that you create something compelling and the audience will create those links as a result. The bad guys (Black Hats) do it backwards. That is, create the links first, before the audience is there doing so. Build black hat links and you’ll end up on Google’s “Not Wanted” poster, meaning that your site will be deeply buried in the search results and rendered invisible.

Being “Wanted” is a Good Thing on the Web
It’s about creating things that appeal to people. Creating social connections. If you build a good web site that people love and spread the word about, the link building comes naturally. In other words, real quality makes you relevant. It doesn’t take a massive amount of links; it takes the right ones.

Some Other Things You Can Do
– Get authority figures to do guest posts on your site or blog. Not only do you gain from their audience and the linking therein, but these authors are likely to reference or promote their post on your site, and that sends traffic and an audience to your site.
– Clean up your site’s broken links. If you have broken links on your site, assign a redirect to send those links to a new page. That way, you do not lose any value that those links may have attained in the past, by keeping them active
– If applicable, do regular interviews with people related to your industry or business. This almost always creates high value content for your audience, as well as, expands your audience.
– Creating content on YouTube, slideshare and Pinterest (+ more). You can associate this content with long-tail keywords and promote them through social media and other off-site methods.- Work it on Google+. It helps to play with the home team. Having your posts shared within Google’s network is likely to give those links high value. So blog on Google+ and build your followers there. Longer posts (for now) seem to have increased value. Build relationships by reading and linking to other’s posts.

Moseying Along
Google seems to be keeping an eye on links that are “the cart before the horse,” that is, those links built before the real audience is there. Like you hear repeatedly these days it’s: “Quality Content and Value.” If you deliver those two things, they will foster natural content sharing and organic link building. That is White Hat link building. It’s still legal.

For a limited time, AdStation is offering a 50% bonus for brand new publishers on their first 2k of earned revenue. So, basically, if you’re a new AdStation publisher, and you earn two thousand dollars in your first 30 days, AdStation will pay you an extra thousand dollars! And once you see how much more you earn with AdStation , you won’t need to work with anybody else.

While you prepare to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas, here are 12 holiday marketing mistakes to avoid. Remember the holiday, or the Christmas shopping season is defined as November and December. Also don’t neglect these special shopping days for 2013: Black Friday (November 29), Small Business Saturday (November 30), and Cyber Monday (December 2).

Mistake 1: No plan – Plan to fail.
Your marketing plan should have started about the same time you put away the summer suntan lotion. If it’s not too late, try to do something. You can use this list as a guide.

Mistake 2: Ho-hum campaigns.
While we can drag out the same decorations around our homes every year-after-year, you can’t do the same in your marketing. Last year’s campaign will be as stale as last year’s fruitcake. Bake up some fresh ideas.

Mistake 3: Not sending customers holiday greetings
If you want your customers to remember you, first remember them. Although it may be more expensive than email, sending greeting cards through standard mail adds more of a personal touch. Especially if you send email regularly, the extra effort will be noticed. There are plenty of services for doing this. You can even included discount coupons.

Mistake 4: No holiday offers
Just because people are involved in gift giving around the holidays is no guarantee your sales will increase. Why not use the holidays as a reason to kick out your biggest sale of the year? Give away promotional items free with purchases. Take advantage of the fact that people are in a buying frame of mind and give them a deal too good to pass up.

Mistake 5: Forgetting about last minute buyers
As legendary New York Yankees Manager, Yoggi Berra, famously said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over …” and that includes December 25th. More than ever before, buyers are looking for and expecting “after holiday” sales and offers. Use this to your advantage by making offers or discounts from December 26th until January 2nd.

Mistake 6: Not updating your web site with a holiday theme
Adding a holiday flavor show many things about your company: it stays current and active, it reflects the mood of its customers, it is professional, your web site is always up to date, it has spirit, and more. Have fun and be creative. Topical, holiday-themed blog posts can also drive more traffic.

Mistake 7: Not tailoring offers to different buying segments
Rather than focus your marketing efforts on the largest group of buyers, why not create holiday offers for different segments?

Mistake 8: Forgetting about Mobile Shoppers
Mobile markets are expect to grow significantly this year according to adobe.
A 68 percent increase is predicted for mobile sales in Europe for 2013. What does that mean for your business? It means if your promotions, emails and web site are not mobile optimized, you could be losing sales.

Mistake 9: Focusing only on Christmas as the Holiday
Don’t forget Chanukah and Kwanzaa. There is celebrating (and spending) there too. It’s likely that your customers and clients are diverse and your marketing should match.

Mistake 10: Not asking for feedback
Want to know one easy way to make changes for next year that will matter? Ask your customers. Using the holidays as a contact point, it’s an excellent time to ask customers for their feedback. In return, offer them something of genuine value for their time.

Mistake 11: Putting too much emphasis on discounts
While not creating holiday offers has already been pointed out as a mistake; it is equally a mistake to put too much emphasis on it. You can seriously hurt your year round sales if customers expect that your deals will be so fantastic that this is the only time to buy. The key is too find a balance of pricing. Other offers, such as free items given with purchases, can often be equally as incentivizing as steep price slashing.

Mistake 12: Not Making Connections
The holidays give you a perfect reason to contact and touch base with associates, partners, customers, clients or prospects.

Like all other social media platforms, Twitter started out as just another online time suck with the curious draw of forcing people to “conversate” in 140 characters or less.  Oh, and the hashtag thing was cute, too. Remember #Winning?

And then, something changed. Smart people, those entrepreneurial types, realized the marketing power that those 140 characters and those targeted hashtags could wield. Not surprisingly, people have figured out how to make money on Twitter. And you can, too, by following these 8 strategies, tips, and pieces of advice designed to take you from Twit status to Tweet status.

1. No time? Steer clear. Twitter is about conversation and communication. If you don’t have time to socialize, don’t bother joining.
2. Find the Balance Point. If you join Twitter for the sole purpose of pushing offers and nothing else, you won’t gain much ground. Your content should be a good mix of promotions and relevant content. .
3. Mind Your Manners. When someone “follows” you or retweets a post, be sure to thank them via direct message. Better yet, thank them and offer them a freebie such as a download from your web site. Twitter has all sorts of other user etiquette rules. Be sure to read up on them before you dive in.
4. Use Your Face. Business logos are nice, but they are impersonal. Use a photo of yourself for your profile. It helps Tweeters (read: potential leads) put a face to a name, and it goes miles in terms of getting people to trust you and your offers.
5. Don’t Be a Hashtag Hag. Hashtags are awesome for targeting customers and finding new leads, but they must be relevant and used appropriately. If your offer is for shoes and you type #TaylorSwift, thinking you’ll get more hits, that’s not ok. Unless Taylor Swift’s face is on the shoe. In that case, the hashtag would be relevant. More than likely, using hashtags that have nothing to do with your promotions will hurt your Tweet cred.
6. Don’t Hog the Feed. There are mornings I open my Twitter feed to find that every single tweet is from the same person. It’s called mass tweeting, and I find it super annoying, and so will your followers. In fact, I usually end up “unfollowing” people who clog up my feed. Use common sense when you post. Don’t go overboard. The best advice is to post throughout the day so your message hits a wider audience.
7. Avoid overautomating. If you have a large following on Twitter, you’ll want to automate some of your processes, such as sending thank yous and scheduling posts. It makes life easy and convenient. But take care not to automate more than you have to. Personal messages still get the best results.
8. Get creative. Grab attention with unique lead ins to your tweets. Your goal is to get people to click, read, and act. Additionally, when you retweet something, include a meaningful comment. Go beyond, “Good article” or “Check this out” or “I liked this.” Offer a thought or opinion, which of course you can only do if you actually read what you are retweeting.

So there you have it. A few ideas to get you started down the path to making money via Twitter. Like anything else, you have to do what works for you. Test drive a few of these strategies and research some others. Trial and error, baby. Happy Tweeting!

Data collection and analysis permeates your life every day. From plugging your daily food intake into your fitness app, to the number of Facebook friends you have, to the choices you make about where eat, on some level data spurs your decision making.  Hopefully, it plays an even larger role when you sit down to chart the future of your sales and marketing campaign. Not only does your data serve as a road map, it should be in the driver’s seat. But if you aren’t mindful of your collection and analysis methods, your data could take you in the wrong direction. Avoid these common mistakes to make sure your data keeps you on the right side of the road and on the path the greener pastures.

Wearing Big-Picture Blinders. There’s no doubt that you have data pouring in from all sides. If you’re not an expert in data analysis, this can be pretty overwhelming. It might be tempting to pinpoint a few metrics for analysis. Resist that urge. Instead, take an integrated approach and consider the impact of all metrics to your bottom line. Think about how each metric interacts with the others. If you keep a narrow focus, there’s a good chance you will misinterpret your data, which could send you in the wrong direction.

Failure to Keep An Open Mind. It’s normal to have preconceived notions about what you will find when you begin to explore your data. The danger is in trying to force the data to support these notions. If you have to work hard to make your numbers jive with your thinking, you need to take a step back and expand your thinking. You should be able to get the same results using different analysis tools. If one method gives you a different result, don’t discount it. Study it closer. A different result is telling you something. Yes, it’s frustrating when the data doesn’t line up. But it can also be exciting because unexpected results can drive us in a new direction full of untapped markets that we might not have considered otherwise.

Ignoring Your Gut. John Naisbitt, a well-known global trends expert, said, “Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.” In other words, even if you have the world’s best data analysis tools, you still need to ask yourself if the results make sense. You know your business better than anyone, and you know if something feels “off.” Listen to your gut. Dig deeper if you think something isn’t quite right. You may be wrong, but you may be right.

Data analytics can be tough stuff, and fortunately, there are numerous tools designed to help you quickly and accurately make sense of the wealth of data you collect. But you have to be an active participant in the process. If you become a backseat driver, you might find your data driving you down a dark path.

 You may not have known this, but America’s obsession with mobile calling goes all the way back to the 1930.   Landline telephone users could be connected via radio to oceanic passenger liners at sea at the low, low cost of about $7 per minute which is the equivalent of just under $100 per minute in today’s dollars.  

Today’s society would come to a screeching halt without mobile devices.  In fact, as of this summer, there were over 327 million mobile phones in the United States alone compared to our population of 310 million people.  That means there are more cellphones in the US than there are people!  We use our mobile phones for everything from phone calls, texting, social media, gaming, banking, to navigation and everything else between.

A Mobile Timeline:

 1930:  Wealthy seafarers may call home while crossing the Atlantic to tell loved ones how utterly boring sea travel really is.
1946:  The first mobile telephone call is placed in St. Louis, Missouri from an automobile after 10 years of work by Bell Labs scientists.  The chatty driver nearly kills three pedestrians and a cat.
1947:  AT&T launches Mobile Telephone Service.  Only 3 people could call at the same time in any given city. *100% true.
1965:  AT&T launches Improved Mobile Telephone Service.  Up to 12 callers at a time per city.  The average wait time for NYC was 30 minutes to make a call.
1973:  Motorola makes the first truly mobile phone call with a prototype the Motorola Dyna-TAC.  The phone weighed 2.5 pounds.
1980’s:  “Bag Phones” decrease in size and become popular “car phones” for those who could afford the roughly $1 per minute rate plans.
1990’s:  Bag Phones are still popular; however Motorola is successful in reducing the size of the mobile handset to roughly the same size as a WW2 handheld radio.
1997:  Sprint launches the first all-digital nationwide network, making CDMA a household name.  (That’s code division multiple access for the tech geeks out there.)
2002:  Research In Motion launches the Blackberry 5810, in my opinion, the first successful smartphone.  For the next 5 years, Blackberry would enjoy status as the King of Smartphones.
2004:  The Motorola V3 Razr hits the market.  While not being a smartphone, it was the phone to have.  By 2007 three out of every four handsets was a V3 Razr.
2007:  AT&T and Apple launch the iPhone in an exclusive agreement (that would last until 2011).  The iPhone was the first multi-touch interfaced device and completely changed the mobile world as we knew it.
2008:  T-mobile launches the G1, the first OS phone and the birth of Android begins.
2010:  Sprint launches the HTC Evo; the first phone capable of reaching 4G speeds.  Android, by Google, being an open source OS, becomes available for all carriers and thus becomes the only real competition for the iPhone.

 

 Mobile phone technology has been progressing at a breakneck speed for the past 30 years and there is no indication of it slowing down.  It is predicted that by 2015 mobile internet usage will more than triple that of fixed usage (laptop, desktop, & tablets).

 

 How relevant are you?  Quiz yourself- How many of these mobile marketing techniques are you familiar with?

• SMS:  (short message service) Also known as texting. Limited to 160 characters, you can send short marketing messages.

• MMS: (multi-media message service) Includes images, video, and sound.

• Mobile Applications:  Ads are hosted within the application design and are everywhere from widgets, games, to email platforms and browsers.  This has, by far, become the most prevalent form of mobile marketing to date.

• QR Codes:  (quick response barcodes) is a form of barcode that modern smartphones can scan via their camera and learn more about a product, business, or service.

• Pay-Per-Call:  Ads can include a clickable link that initiates a billable phone call.

• Mobile Marketing Banners:  These are just like your full-size website banners but adjusted to fit on mobile websites and optimized to load quickly on mobile networks. 

How does this affect marketing? 

Take a look around you.   Are people staring at billboards?  How about the sides of buses?

They’re on their cell phone.

 In the United States, every day, 35% of mobile users access Social Media, 40% use email, 60% take pictures, and 75% send text messages (including picture mail).  With mobile internet use projected to triple fixed usage, marketers need to understand how people use their devices, discover the value of this platform, and learn to reach that mobile audience.

 

Mobile is the future and it’s not going to change.  Fully one third of the people reading this are doing so on a tablet or smartphone.   

 Where are your marketing efforts focused?