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Down The Tubes With Tubely Both Viral And Vile
My wife received an email from her sister. She thought it was an invitation to access some online photos her sister was posting. So she clicked the green accept button to view them. After all, the email did come from her sister who is active on Facebook and other online social media networks. Moments later, she realized she was duped, taken in by a Tubely generated email which had not been sent by her sister at all, her sisters address book had been hijacked. Continue reading
Posted in business, Customer Service, emerging business
Tagged Astute Software India, Tubely, Tubely CAN-SPAM, Tubely Scam, Tubely Spam, Tubely Vile, Tubely Viral
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Search Engine Optimization and Long Tail Keywords
Over the past year our company embarked upon an SEO experiment. We tested several techniques using numerous keyword phrases to determine how fast we could rise in the organic search engine results (the non advertisement results listed in a Google, Yahoo or Bing search). One of our primary target markets is insurance agencies, so we selected a dozen long-tail keyword phrases germane to this market. When we began this experiment, we were ranked very low, in some cases as low as page 10 on Google, in other cases we were simply unranked. Our goal was to rapidly reach page one on Google search results. Continue reading
Should Smaller Companies Focus on Marketing Plans or Lead Generation Plans?
Is there a difference for small companies when it comes to a marketing plan vs. a lead gen plan? How much should a small company invest in marketing vs. lead generation, and which is more effective? Does your company allocate a percentage of revenues to determine marketing spend each year? Do you have a formal budget or no budget at all? Do you create a formal marketing plan with measurable goals, and if so, what aspect of this plan is allocated toward lead generation? Or are you of the philosophy that it’s the salespersons’ job to dig up leads, after all, that’s why you pay them commission in the first place. Continue reading
Web Selling & Social Media Marketing Are Here to Stay: Your Virtual Success
Over the last seven years I’ve seen many millions of dollars exchange hands, rarely shaking someone’s hand in person. All prospecting, qualifying, presentation and closing has been done virtually with progressively more functional and extremely cost effective cloud computing tools. New innovations have been fast and furious, with social networking and social media marketing one of the most important, recent innovations. Continue reading
My Dog is a Marketing Genius
My dog Betsy is a West Highland white terrier, commonly known as Westie, and she is a marketing genius. Betsy is 14 years old and employs the best possible marketing techniques which we all can and should use. Betsy the Westie has clearly identified her target market. She has opted for a broad horizontal, cross demographic strategy, but after careful analysis has excluded infants and very young toddlers. Her target market is now 6 years and older. This was determined after multiple test campaigns with a variety of segments, identifying this younger group as never having food or treats. Further, Betsy found this group to have other issues, like stepping on her paws and tugging on her hair. Continue reading
If Someone Hands You a Scalpel, It Doesn’t Make You a Surgeon – You Should Think of Web Marketing in the Same Way
There are many powerful marketing tools now available, everything from eMarketing engines and Search Engine Optimization Tools to ePublishing and Web Seminar Software. Any of these tools can be very helpful to your business, but placed in the wrong hands, they can be extremely dangerous. Continue reading
Webinar Tomorrow: Blogging, Social Media and SEO for Lead Generation & Growth
A brief, complimentary web seminar on Blogging, Social Media and SEO – New Marketing Tools for Lead Generation & Growth is open to registrants. We will review the new rules which apply to marketing and why sooner is better when it comes to social media marketing. Topics include SEO, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, ePublishing, Blogging and social media marketing – live presentation of the Ezine dashboard and content centric approach to marketing. Continue reading
Office Buildings Are Obsolete and Offshore Drilling is the Result
These days, office buildings simply seem like an outdated concept, a horse drawn carriage in the age of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet, a stereo turntable in an iPod era. Of course towering skyscrapers and massive office buildings composed of brick and mortar, conference rooms and cubicles made sense at one time, but with the advent of pervasive internet connectivity and virtual meeting tools, these office buildings are rapidly becoming obsolete, resulting in unfortunate collateral damage like massive oil and gas consumption, unnecessary expense and wasted productivity. Office buildings, though seemingly innocuous, are one of the key catalysts causing us to use 350 million gallons of gas per day, and waste millions of hours of valuable time and productivity. My days are now comprised of a handful of Skype calls, several web meetings, eMarketing, SEO (search engine optimization), website makeovers, blogging and Social Media Marketing and Networking, all done in the internet cloud. Continue reading
Best Buy versus Amazon – and the Winner Is?
It all started in a seemingly unrelated manner; we needed to refinish our 23 year old living room floor. Time, children, parties, and our West Highland white terrier had taken their toll on the poor old floor; it was worn and tired, ready for rejuvenation. As with any project like this, there always seems to be unexpected collateral damage, though in this case, it was a surprising issue, revolving around a six year old Denon receiver that did not support the new HDI video connection necessary for Blu-ray DVD player, a recent birthday gift from my family. Continue reading
The Prospect Scorecard – A Simple Way for Salespeople and Businesses to Improve Close Ratios, Forecasting and Communication
With limited sales capacity and a limited budget, you must spend your time talking with prospects who can buy. If you are working on a prospect and they score 3 out of 10 on your scorecard, you better have a truly unique reason to be spending time with them. They are a suspect, not a prospect. But if they score 7 or better, you will have a much higher probability of closing them as you move forward in the sales process. By using a qualifier like BUD or BUNT, you can easily determine if your “in profile” prospect is also a likely buyer. Using these simple tools helps change subjective and often optimistic feelings into pragmatic and objective perspectives. Continue reading
