Today is Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Random Thoughts

Interview gone wrong…

June 5th, 2008 • georgelane • 1 comment • Related • Filed Under

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Well, the teleseminar today wasn’t meant to go this way but it did…

The plan was for Doug to interview me about my background etc… but that only lasted about 15 minutes!

The rest of the call turned into pure content which we didn’t plan to give away… Any way, we covered all kinds of stuff (it’s a bit disjointed) including adwords strategy, positioning, the psychology of keywords, amongst other things… like drainage.

Have a listen and let me know your thoughts:

You can also download it here:

>> Download MP3

A trip to the cinema, and why I may need help…

April 7th, 2008 • georgelane • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

Last Sunday me and Andrea decided to spend a Sunday afternoon at the cinema. (We saw ‘Bank Job’ – highly recommend it)

As I was waiting for the film to begin, there was the usual slide show of local business adverts with the piped music playing in the background.

Over the last few months, we’ve been going to the same cinema quite regularly and I’ve noticed the same ads have been displayed every time. This got me thinking…

Is this form of advertising working for these businesses and how do they know?

And this is where I may need help…

There I was – on my day off – critiquing these local business ads and wondering how they could be improved. It was then I realised I truly was a marketing geek – completely beyond help. Beyond seeing ads like ‘normal’ people would ever again…

Anyway, after this realisation, I started thinking about how I’d advertise for a client in the cinema… Here’s my rough trail of thought:

- When you’re waiting for a film to start, most people are bored and fidgety.

- The majority of the audience have a mobile phone.

- They are conscious of their phone because they’re

o Playing with it because they’re bored, or

o They’re been reminded to switch it off before the film starts.

- The audience isn’t in buying mode and they’ll forget about your ad a few seconds into the film (at best).

- So the ideal ad would incorporate:

o Instant response using they’re mobile phone (short code text)

o Gathering information in that text for the advertiser to follow up with (email, text or phone)

o An irresistible offer to get them to get their phone out and take action now. (This could be anything from a gift, heavy discount, buyers guide, something fun, the list is endless!)

Now, the benefit of getting the audience to text their response is twofold for the advertiser:

You capture the respondents contact information to follow up with,
It’s very easy to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and your return on investment, because every text response is logged.

Out of all the ads I saw last Sunday, how many of them had either a text response system or an irresistible, compelling offer?

Not one. Not a sausage.

I was absolutely astonished. There’s money on the table waiting to be claimed.

If you’re thinking of advertising in your local cinema, at least try this strategy. I think it’ll pay off handsomely.

If it doesn’t, the popcorn’s on me…

A Change of Marketing Mindset for the Internet Age

March 6th, 2008 • georgelane • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

Back in the day, everybody had an advertising budget.

Even if you were a sole trader, you had a rough idea of what you would spend on marketing/advertising/promoting your business in a year - even if it was just a made up figure to keep the local Yellow Pages rep happy!

For the majority of business (especially in the UK) this was - and still is - the norm.

But what I’m going to suggest to you today could change how you think about spending on advertising and marketing forever.

I’m going to suggest you disregard the concept of ‘budget’ in the old sense of the word.

Why am I saying this? Well, the way the internet is moving – and has been moving since around 2002 – the concept of an annual marketing budget is getting harder and harder to apply.

Never before has a business of any size been able to test and track their marketing efforts to the penny so accurately. And never before has competition been so fierce in all markets. Businesses and consumers are rapidly turning away from traditional media and focusing on the internet.

People are favoring news websites over newspapers – Youtube over TV – blogs over magazines…Of course; businesses are catching on and want to get in front of these ‘eye balls’ – but beware. The old advertising model won’t work here. Neither will the old ‘advertising budget’ concept.

Rather than paying for these ‘eye balls’ by the thousand and hoping for the best, we need to adopt a whole new approach. Not an entirely new approach – in fact the basis of this thinking is almost 100 years old, but rings so true today it’s scary.

This new advertising space is being sold in a totally different way and I believe this new way could filter down into more traditional media as time passes.

So what is this model?

If you’ve ever advertised on Google, you’ve already experienced it. Some call it pay per click, but the more generic term for the whole concept is Cost Per Action. That is, you only pay the advertiser when a prospective customer does something. That ‘something’ is generally clicking on your ad, but in some instances, it’s filling out a form or completing a sale.

Is this a bad thing?

Not at all! It’s bloody marvelous!

Think about it – you only pay for your advertising when someone actually DOES SOMETHING.

Cost per action advertising, along with proper testing and tracking of your ads, puts an end to shooting in the dark forever. As a business owner, you are now able to fairly easily work out how much it costs you to get a lead, and get a sale. With time and testing, you can reduce the cost of an action, and therefore increase your profits at the same time.

So if you know exactly how much it costs to get a customer, why on earth would you need an advertising budget?

Surely once you’ve established your cost of acquiring a customer is lower than your profit, the last thing you want is an advertising budget!

Think of it like this – if it costs you £20 in advertising to get a customer that makes you £50, why would you limit it with a budget? You’d simply scale up the advertising as fast as infrastructure and cash-flow allows – right?

Here’s the rough method behind the cost per action advertising process:

1. Test your ad & sales process on a small scale,
2. Measure the results,
3. Modify the ad,
4. Test it again,
5. Compare it to the previous one(s),
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you’ve found the cheapest possible cost per action,
7. Scale up the successful ad as quick as you can,
8. Count your money.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to it than that (this is when people like me come in handy!), but overall process is pretty simple.

Hopefully next time you hear someone talking about advertising budget, you’ll think about this post and begin to change your thinking around to cost per action instead!

Richard Branson Video Interview

January 2nd, 2008 • georgelane • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

Slightly off the topic of internet marketing and more on the subject of entrepreneurship… here’s an interesting interview with Richard Branson.

He discusses his family, his successes, failures and motivations.

If you haven’t read his autobiography this is an excellent summary of his life’s work.

If you get time, take a look at it below or view it on YouTube here.

New Marketing Audio Seminar - Free Download

December 20th, 2007 • georgelane • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

Remember I sent an email out a couple of weeks ago asking you for your
questions?

Well, the response has been fantastic - and if you did send in your
questions, thanks very much for your contribution.

I’ve just finished recording the audio and it’s now available to download here. (Right click and choose “save as”)

In the seminar I cover:

How to make your business stand out from the competition,
Viral and interactive elements on your website,
Getting ranked highly on the natural search engine listings,
How to approach joint venture partners and set up deals,
How to position yourself if you’re in a service business,
Top Google Adwords tips and a free tool,
How to improve visitor conversions,
How to find your customers needs and create good website content quickly,
My opinion on internet marketing “get rich” schemes,
How to find out if your new product or service has the makings of success with very little risk,
How to set up an email marketing campaign, why the 80/20 principle is important when sending emails.