Twitter Just Went Mainstream in NZ

Your turn, Twitter. You know a website, Web application or Web service has gone mainstream when it appears on TV current affairs shows.

Tweeting on Twitter just became mainstream or early mainstream. No idea what that means? You’ll learn.

Twitter is particularly big in the UK. Lily Allen just started tweeting. Stephen Fry is tweeting to the point that people following him think he may be addicted. Jonathan Ross is constantly referring to it on his resurrected BBC Radio2 show… Econsultancy.com is currently running an experiment with a Twitter feed on their homepage…

But it is a worldwide phenomenon with NZ a little behind the times.

From Early Adopters & Online Marketing “Gurus” to Early Evening Viewers

It’s the talk of online marketing circles, after being in the mix but not overly prominent for a couple of years. Many businesses are tweeting. And even crusty corporates have got in on it, presumably persuaded by their online marketing advisers.

But you know it has really gone mainstream when TV news catches on and profiles a site. So it was very interesting to see one of NZ’s two 7.00pm current affairs shows on the main networks allocating 6 or 7 minutes to Twitter tomorrow night.

Honeymooning on Mainstream Media

Facebook, the last social media phenomenon du jour, got the positive introduction a couple of years back. Now it’s more likely to get coverage related to privacy and copyright concerns.

Twitter, founded in March 2006,  is still in the “cool new thing”/”honeymoon” mainstream media phase despite the fact that it informed guesses put the number of users at 3.5-4.5 million users as long as last September.

Should you be Tweeting?

Short answer: not necessarily.

Not every business needs to be on Twitter. Offering regular insights into what is going on might not be a good fit for your business. And there is absolutely no point if your target market is likely to think a tweet is something that occurs in close proximity to the bird feeder hanging from the old oak at the bottom of the garden.

If your market is Web savvy, young, addicted/connected to their mobile phones… And if offering regular insight into what you do will build brand awareness/loyalty. If your brand is closely associated with a particular person… Consider it. It’s good enough for Richard Branson, Nasa, Jet Blue & Barack Obama; to name just a few celebs, politicians and brands tweeting…

Golden rule: as with all journal-type social media initiatives, do it regularly or not at all.

Update: after writing this yesterday I checked out RadioNZ… first topic on interview I listened to with US correspondent: Twitter and mundanities US senators were sharing via their Twitter accounts…

But, as I say, “early mainstream”: interviewer embarassed herself, while touting the fact that her show has a Twitter account, repeatedly saying Tweets were up to 140 words (rather than 140 characters) before her correspondent corrected her.

Not All Doom And Gloom

How refreshing to talk to two clients this week who are seeing a positive side in all the economic doom and gloom.

Living in a resort town where the local economy runs on a combination of tourism and construction you wouldn’t be surprised if all was doom and gloom here. But there is light amongst all the darkness. So I thought I’d do my little bit to turning the tide of sentiment…

You see the recession hitting elsewhere in the world — we’ve been feeling it for longer than most countries — has joined with other factors to force our dollar to a more reasonable level after historic highs. Good news for an export reliant economy. And good news for people, like my clients, in tourism.

It seems New Zealand is a good option for those who don’t want to give up on their travel plans but want to be a bit careful about the cost of their travel. So both clients have very good bookings for the coming winter’s ski season…

NZ is a good option for Australian skiers because it is often cheaper and better than their local ski holiday options. And it becomes an even better option when the regular visit to Japan or North America seemed inprudent… Businesses around town report things are looking good for the winter.

And NZ is always a popular option for UK travellers taking time out from study or career. An option with less opportunity cost when jobs are scarce and costing less with our exchange rate to the pound as it is…

So I have clients with growing traffic that converts… Not all doom and gloom for them.

And not all doom and gloom for me with a Tourism NZ conference stressing the need for businesses to have effective websites.

Anyway. Just wanted to put some of the bright side out there because I, like many people, have tired of the dark side as the media’s vulture-like surveillance of the economy dominates the news.

Don’t Forget Email Marketing: Stats, ROI… It “Stacks Up”

Don’t let all the buzz surrounding social media distract you from the power of email marketing. Sure feeds are great and social media participation is a powerful way to demonstrate the value your business offers. But email reading is still the thing most people do most online…

It may be old-fashioned but it’s low cost and it works: email marketing should be an important part of your online marketing mix.

Okay, “old-fashioned” may be overstating things — is online marketing old enough for any tactic to be old-fashioned? But reading as much on online marketing as I do, it’s easy to forget about email, when all the buzz is about blogging and social media.

Bottom line: not everybody online is tweeting, blogging or social networking and RSS feeds, spam free though they may be, aren’t yet a well-subscribed channel. Everyone online uses email from my 73 year old stepfather to my 8 year old second cousin.

Some Email Marketings Stats That Matter:

Why is email marketing front of my mind? Well my RSS feeds [hat tip to irony here] and inbox have been full of good numbers around email marketing in the last day or two.

• According to eMarketer retailers think email is recession ready:
  • Smith Harmon’s “Retail E-Mail Year-End Trends for 2008″ (January 6, 2009) report shows 90% of the top 100 retailers (the ones with the resources to know and implement best practice) sent more email in the Holidays, 15% doubled or more email frequency in December over other months… They didn’t do it for fun they did it because it pays.
  • The U.S. Direct Marketing Association released a study in October showing commercial email returning $43.52 per dollar spent versus $11.74 for direct marketing in general.
• And a little more from eMarketer on“The Powerful Potential of Permission-based E-mail”:
  • An Epsilon and ROI Research October study found 40% of consumers were more likely to purchase more from companies that emailed them after a purchase.
  • And the same report found 49-72% of people willing to “read email from companies they know after days or weeks” or save email for later reference when purchasing.

Be Careful Though: There Are Risks With E-mail

There is a risk in the increasing how frequently you email customers, as the chart shows.

Seven in ten people don’t want more email from your company. And they might just unsubscribe if you flood their inbox with stuff they don’t value.

That’s why I urge clients to make sure they have something worthwhile to offer in any email they send. So it’s important to:

• plan to email people regularly but not at a frequency that leaves you struggling to find something of value to recipients to communicate.
• demonstrate that value early in the email so it is hard to miss in email client preview windows or on a blackberry or phone.

Remember: people will save your email to read later but it needs to pass the initial scan for “what’s in it for me” test first.

If you are finding it hard to prioritise marketing strategies in current hard times, keep the email going out with good strong offers.

And, speaking of current economic woes, how many times have I read that existing customers are your best/first option for improving sales in “get your business through the recession” articles lately. How do you contact them? Well, email isn’t a bad bet…

Bonus link:

Are you a small business owner wondered whether all this corporate email data applies to your business?  “10 Email Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners”, just published by MarketingProfs, offers a useful guide to how email marketing can help your business.

Cheap Internet Marketing Know-How?

Are most internet marketing courses overpriced? My limited experience has been that many courses offering “the secret” to some aspect of e-business are overhyped and, shall we say, interestingly priced.

Copywriting, Internet marketing, usability, conversion, etc…. You can easily spend many thousands of dollars on courses, conferences and coaching promising to let you in on the secrets of “six figure” per annum or better wealth. The question is whether it is money well spent.

Often, but not always, the marketers of these courses, etc. know what they are doing. They definitely have knowledge to share.

And they use that knowledge to do a great job of convincing prospective students of the value of the courses. You know the technique — long copy pages with recognisable sales letter elements: red headings, lots of testimonials from other course/conference/coaching purveyors, lots of “free” extras, and a certain reticence about price.

If I’d had a bit more money to play with over the years I could have spent thousands….

But.

• Being skeptical by nature
• Being careful with my money by nature and need
• Being a voracious reader of everything the people behind these courses put out
• Being the owner of some of their books — sometimes republishing of ideas I have read in email newsletters
• Being the recipient of many pricy ebooks as reward for signing up to said newsletters
• Being high in the outside corner of the analytical* quadrant of the personality types graph…

I haven’t succumbed to the well practiced sales pitches very often.

(*Hey. I once spent so much time assessing industry and customer reviews and comparing prices on a pair of skis I wanted that they had sold out in Australia, where I was living at the time, by the time I went to buy them… Positive spin [for the context of what I do for a living]: as a reluctant purchaser I know how to cater to reticent prospects/customers.)

When I have I haven’t been hugely impressed with the results. A webinar series from a guy who has some great perspectives on selling and web success padded out just one of those ideas. An online/virtual conference that didn’t go beyond ideas that speakers had covered elsewhere — other participants seemed to think the event was great value but they hadn’t been reading the speakers’ newsletters for as long as I had… maybe.

So, in short: I am skeptical about much of the information being marketing by information marketers.

Interesting then to read a post script on a recent Bob Bly newsletter offering advice to information marketers/copywriters on what to sell in straightened times:

“In this market, e-books can far outsell all other information products. Reason: in a recession, customers who can’t afford your $1,000 coaching or $249 CD set can still come up with twenty, thirty, or even forty bucks to pay you for the same content in e-book format” [My emphasis]

“…the same content…” Two very different prices. Hmmm… I’m sure he doesn’t mean the exact same content.

Think before you buy even the ebook that will turn you into a master of copy. Think hard before you pay thousands of dollars for that online course. What is the cost of the packaged information? Is it less than the cost of your time to do a search on your favourite search engine and trawl through its’ authors’ back catalogue of freely available internet marketing know-how? It could be.

Then again: today’s $39 interview transcript is tomorrow’s free giveaway you get when you sign up for a newsletter.

“Unique” Article Content?

Arghhhh: another from the junk Web content and article marketing related naivete file… A thread from Sitepoint.com’s busy forums starts off with a question about whether a rewritten article is “unique” — well, um no — and highlights a disturbing phenomenon in article marketing. An all too common scenario if you look at jobs appearing on freelance work sites.

There is always useful discussion about website content, optimisation and online marketing going on somewhere. So from now on I’ll be choosing a thread to highlight here every week… This week a thread from Sitepoint.com’s Content Writing forum caught my eye because it points to a regrettable attitude toward creating content.

The thread starts with a question about the uniqueness of rewritten content. Little context is given but I’m guessing the scenario goes something like:

“I need content for my site. Hmmm… Writing’s hard. Wonder if there is a shortcut? Maybe I could just rework some other people’s content in my own words…”

I might be wrong and I’m not suggesting an attempt to deceive. The issue here is more about naivete.

Naivete that is all over sites like Guru.com and Elance.com. It’s based on two key misconceptions:

1. Search engines like content and as long as it is keyword rich the quality doesn’t matter too much.
2. Good content can be aquired cheaply — about $3 to $4 per 500 word article will do it — or copied, if you are clever.

Wrong! Search engines are well beyond keyword richness in terms of assessing content’s value. You can’t get a chunk of good content for $3. And rewriting others’ content is not ok as long as you change a lot of the words.

Rewriting others’ content and presenting it as your own is categorically wrong. It’s theft if you don’t acknowledge the source of your ideas or insight or, indeed, words.

But wouldn’t there be reasons you might rewrite content?

Well, yes. Freelance writing gurus/teachers/courses often talk about getting maximum value out of an idea or experience by offering different angles on that idea or experience for different markets/contexts. But the key thing is that they are your experiences/ideas and the pieces of writing are completely different.

All too often I see people after someone to rewrite some articles for their website for a few dollars a pop. Cheap content! No thought. Just reword and publish. Easy….

Argh! It is not a question of changing the words enough to pass some copyright infringement software test. Rewriting others’ ideas is not unique and presenting them as your own is reprehensible.

I remain depressed by the number of people that fail to understand the value of good — compelling, unique to your site, written by/for your site, showcasing your expertise and an interesting point of view — content.

Um… Ah… Building Links, Link Bait & Interview Podcasts

Um.. Ah… Building links can be all about demonstrating expertise in link bait on your site but… Um… But an interview I did yesterday for a podcast illustrates why you should be prepared when demonstrating expertise on other sites.

I am not a big fan of the traditional link request way of building links. The Web is all about links but they should occur organically… How do you get links then? You offer link bait and you engage with relevant websites. And, ideally, you do so in a way that builds your brand…

Do an interview with a journalist running a site offering podcasts about making money online? Of course.

Perfect: demonstrate my expertise to the site’s audience and build a link.

Lesson learnt: remember your tendency to “um” and “ah” when forming your thoughts; ask for questions first and get those thoughts half way formed before the interview. Listen and see what I mean.

Boring as it is to repeat the tired phrase, content is king in the link building realm too. Good content on your site will attract links. Good content you provide on other sites will drive traffic (assuming you think about it enough for it to be “brand enhancing”).

Mike Moran and commenters covered the request vs build links issues succinctly in a Search Engine Guide piece and resulting discussion

As I tell clients, building links is very similar to offline networking where you seek out relevant people and build a relationship. Online links represent that relationship. People will link with you if you offer them something of value to their business or site.

And the value should go beyond the value of a link — “Hi I wondered whether you would like to link to our site because we [insert tenuous association]? We’ll link to you too!” just doesn’t cut it. As Brian Clarke of Copyblogger suggested recently in an excellent post offering five value-based link building strategies:

“The days of flat out link begging are fading…”

Requesting links will work in some cases. But as Mike Moran suggested in a Search Engine Guide piece and commenters, generally, agreed an earned link is preferrable to a requested one.

Building links should be all about offering value on your site and on other people’s sites and demonstrating your expertise as you do it. But do it in a considered way and know your weaknesses… No more interviews for podcasts without some prior knowledge of questions for me!

Website Optimisation, Internet Marketers & Your Website’s Role

This website is not optimised. No website is but this one really isn’t optimised. There are all sorts of changes I should be making. And it nags at me. But my sub-optimal site doesn’t stop me getting clients…

Your website is not the panacea for all marketing woes some would have you believe it is.

E-business - A Crowded Playing Field: Level Maybe But Muddy With Many Players Embedded in the Mud

My challenge with this website is that I am a new player on a crowded online marketing playing field. The valued positions have been taken. Taken by people who are, understandably, reluctant to relinquish those positions.

Search engines take notice of what results get clicked on and, again understandably, top results get more clicks. So — even factoring in customisation of search results pages, which means that different people will see different results — it will be difficult to achieve natural search visibility for the more popular search terms.

And larger players have much deeper pockets with respect to paying for clicks associated with those same terms.

Don’t think I’m fishing for, “you poor marketing David amongst those search visibility hogging Goliaths”, sympathy. I’m not.

Website Optimisation Isn’t Enough To Win Website Optimisers Clients

The issue here is that, although I am committed to maintaining this site as a useful resource and introduction to my services, I don’t have huge expectations with respect to lead generation from it. At least, short term I don’t. Experience tells me building a site’s traffic is a long term project. And it takes time to build up content that demonstrates one’s expertise.

The website is an important part of my marketing strategy. But it is not the sole element. I have been involved in marketing web marketing services for long enough to know that other lead generation techniques often play a bigger part in the process. Referrals are key. And getting out and meeting prospects is essential.

I’m not the world’s most accomplished networker/smoozer. Indeed, I’d be happier if promoting my business was down to offering a best practice web site. It’s not though.

Happily, the Web does provide for those of us who are comfortable with off-line networking. Forums, online social networks and blogs provide opportunities to engage with your target market without having to cross a crowed room with a shaking hand extended.

“Why Are so Many Internet Marketing Consultant’s Websites Terrible?”

Larry Chase, founder and publisher of Web Digest for Marketers, recently asked “Why Are so Many Internet Marketing Consultant’s Websites Terrible?” He wondered how people presenting themselves as experts on everything from email marketing to search engine optimisation and internet marketing could fail to follow even basics of best practice for their specialty.

Good question. “Walk the talk,” and all that. I know I have been embarassed on more than one occassion when a client has wondered why the site of my organisation doesn’t do what I am suggesting they do. I have used the “do as I say not as I do” line in this blog more than once…

Even Website Optimisers and Internet Marketers Can’t Rely on a Website Alone

In an ideal world an online marketer’s site would be a bastion of best practice. Trouble is other priorities — crucially, billable hours helping clients achieve best practive — often get in the way. And then there is all the networking, traditional marketing, etc.

Focusing on providing an optimised website is a part of my marketing strategy. But one that could eat up all my marketing time if I let it. I know there is more to be done… There always will be but I can’t fixate on that at the expense of other parts of my strategy.

As a useful reply to Chase’s question suggested internet marketers’ site might be terrible because they are not where their work comes from. Alternatively, commenter Michael Lineham pointed out, professionals with neglected websites may have so much work that they have let their site slip.

Not a good look. And not advisable… Letting your marketing slide because you are too busy leads to plenty of time for marketing when the busy period ends. If an internet marketer or website optimiser’s site is truly terrible then I would start to question the value of their services.

But a little neglect isn’t necessarily an indication of ignorance.

So is this post an attempt to assuage my guilt/embarrassment about my own site’s failings? Honestly? Partly.

There is a message I’m leading up to though.

Bottom line:
Even for internet marketing professionals, a website can’t do all the marketing work. In some cases it is a small element in their marketing mix. And I worry that some internet marketers, so busy keeping up and promoting the wonders of internet marketing opportunities, can’t stand back enough to see whether the latest tactic or strategy is actually an opportunity for clients’ businesses.

I make a point of building a detailed understanding of clients’ businesses whenever I start working them. For me its the only way to be sure that you are recommending the right strategies.

If I ever came across a prospect or client who shouldn’t be allocating too much budget to optimizing their website, I’d tell them so.

Article Marketing: A Question of Value

The dynamics of the article marketing content market are a classic example of the failure of simple supply and demand to create a value-based outcome. The Web offers writers easy access but low-pay opportunities but they should be withholding supply to this cheapskate demand. The Web would be a better place for it: less junk, more worthwhile content.

Aspiring freelance writers, the supply side of the market, as Jennifer Williamson of Catalystblogger asserts, need to understand that they can say no to poor pay for article marketing copy.

Trouble is the Web, which makes it so much easier to sell writing, provides a medium for putting people who don’t understand the value of good content together. It also provides a medium for getting the “don’t sell yourself short short-term in hope of long term gain” message out to writers and freelancers in general. But the noise of the supply and demand curves meeting in a chorus of low-bids drowns out the voice of reason…

It Goes Beyond Low-Value Content

The noise drowns out the good sense. Hmmm… How like the web. How like modern media. How like modern life… [At which point I am going to stop before I start my essay on the ills of our information saturated time... Others, better qualified, can deal with that. Back to the issue: Article marketing...]

But the Ugly Article Marketing Picture is the Matter at Hand

It’s an ugly picture. Poorly… No… Abysmally paid writers producing articles of dubious value that offer minor link profile value and make it harder for people to find valuable information. The web is flooded with hundreds of articles making it harder for people and search engines to find useful information.

And I don’t think I captured the whole picture when I bemoaned the article marketing generated junk website content phenomenon a while back.

• I was naive to think that the bulk of bids for $5 article writing would come from the less prosperous countries of the world.
• I forgot that there is a large supply pool of people for whom earning money from stringing words together — even at a fraction of a cent per word in the string — is a “major life goal”. (Silly; I was involved with a site for aspiring writers on a daily basis for six years.) And then there’’s the whole “build up your portfolio” temptation.
• And, because of my first two errors, I neglected to address the supply side of the market equation properly.

Value Your Writing to Enhance the Value of Writing Work

In a compelling argument for ignoring those fraction-of-a-cent-per-word writing “opportunities”, Williamson of encourages people to ask for more. As she said, the low value article writing market prices writers time at well below minimum wage.

Who’d work for less than minimum wage? Well, it seems, lots of people — $3, $4 and $5 per 500 word article projects on Elance.com, Guru.com and the like are seldom short of bidders.

What to do then?

Williamson’s blog earned a comment from, master copywriter and freelance writing information seller extraordinaire, Bob Bly about sites like Elance turning article writing into a commodity market. He urged people to concentrate on copy more directly linked to revenue to get/demand a premium price.

Value Shouldn’t Only Be Associated with Obvious ROI

All makes sense:

• If writers start ignoring the $5 article opportunities the price starts to rise. So, its important for writers to value their time and their writing.
• It is much easier to demonstrate the value in a landing page or email newsletter content that asks for a sale.

But the message I’d prefer to get through the low-pay article market noise is the first. The second message — pragmatic in it’s “accept of the way things are and work around them” approach — could contribute to the continued devaluing of all article marketing.

Demonstrating expertise and building trust through article marketing can be an important part of achieving sales and ROI online. But low-pay, low-value articles make it harder to stand out…

Bottom line:

The situation is a classic case of the dark side of the Web. The web facilitates a market, bringing people who need content together with people who can provide it. But it’s too easy for both parties. Neither party understand the potential value of that content because they can get together without doing the groundwork that might have been required to join a less accessible market. The content traded is devalued.

All of which makes it harder for writers to get a return on their writing effort that reflects the effort put in and harder for valuable content to stand out. Eventually people find voices of reason like Williamson and Bly but the ease of access means the supply of people willing to offer super-cheap writing services won’t dry up any time soon.

Later:

Here is a classic case in point. This Tennessee based business owner doesn’t attach much value to the time of the “Freelance Article Writers” he/she asks to submit proposals…

“Project Description:I am looking to hire a freelance writer that is willing to write three (3) articles a day for $1.00 per article for one (1) week. After a relationship has been established and I get to know your work, we can talk about future business involving more articles at a slightly higher rate[...]

Project Category:Article

Document Length:450 words

But there is also the issue of the quality of the articles in question. If he/she finds someone willing to do the job, are they likely to produce work that you’d want associated with your business? [sigh]

The Often Neglected Part of Blogging… Caution!

Blogging should be about interaction not just shouting into the void from your virtual step ladder.

Which means? Which means commenting on other blogs and generally interacting with relevant parts of the blogosphere. But be careful what you say and how you say it.

Well. You might be thinking: often neglected=posting, in my case. True in many other cases too…

Get the Word Out With Comments on Other Blogs

But while I haven’t been posting much lately the never ending quest to keep on top of what works online continues and I have felt compelled to offer an opinion or two as I worked my way through my feeds.

A comment here, a bit of related experience here, a bit of unsolicited advice on a landing page in that forum… It’s all about sharing your experience with others facing the same online marketing challenges. Or sharing your take on whatever challenges you might be blogging about.

Picture a man walking briskly across London’s Hyde Park towards Speaker’s Corner*. He has a two step ladder, a resigned look on his face and a sign that reads “I know better!”

At his destination, a crowd is gathered around a man with a shiny new 6 step ladder. A buzz of heated conversation emanates from the crowd. People excitedly offer the man who stands above them opinions and words of praise.

Our hero ignores the excitement. He sets up his ladder and climbs up the two steps. He takes a deep breath and begins to talk loudly. But not loudly enough for the crowd to take notice…

Introduce Yourself to the Relevant Blogosphere Community

Checking my analytics I was pleased to see that my opinion made enough sense to prompt a few people to check out who this Hamish guy was by clicking through to my site… We might not be talking about lots of traffic but we are talking about essential engagement with a relevant online community. If you don’t venture beyond your own blog you may find blogging a lonely experience…

• People find blogs via other blogs — commenting on other blogs is a way to proactively introduce your blog to people with relevant interests.
• There is no point in demonstrating your expertise and exploring your opinions if nobody is listening — if you blog and nobody reads your blog you don’t make a noise.
• The beauty of the blogosphere is the ongoing conversation that helps build people’s understanding of the subject at hand — comment threads concentrate this learning rather than it being distributed across blogs commenting on other blogs.
• But try to contribute meaningfully rather than just giving the blogger a virtual pat on the back — the odd “well done sir/madam” comment is ok but the real value in commenting comes when you have something to add the discussion around a blog entry.

But Join the Blogosphere Conversation with a Little Care

Be sure to join the conversation at the blogs that gather crowds in your part of the blogosphere as well as referencing them in your own posts.

But exercise caution: Being a bit of a word guy, I know the difference between “there” and “their”. Well, duh… Thing is I have a habit of typing the later when I mean the former when typing at speed. So here I was rushing to share my recent experience with evaluating security logos^ and their impact on conversion on a recent Get Elastic blog and my regular typo demon strikes…

Who is going to hire a Web content specialist that doesn’t know the difference between “there” and “their”? Be careful out there!

Bottom line:
If you are blogging, you should be spending some of your blogging time commenting on relevant blogs, joining the conversation and demonstrating your expertise. But make sure you read your comments twice before submitting them.

* Stretching for a location people will recognize and failing to find a US or more local example.
^ Now there’s an idea for a blog…

Think Your Website is Optimised?

Just quickly: If your website satisfies the 400 requirements in “The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period” then you should be patting yourself on the back. Or, maybe, giving yourself a stern talking to for being so complacent.

Put together by Search Engine Guide columnist Stoney deGeyter , the list is a comprehensive reminder that your website is never really optimised. There will always be something you should be doing…

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