Keeping Up With Integration

Keeping up with integration of new technology can be frustrating, especially when it seems some marketers can jump on this stuff in a split second and make it part of their business model while you barely have time to blink. How can they do that?

I mean, it’s like one minute someone invents the smart phone, and the next, mobile marketing strategies are being taught all over the place while most of us are still sitting there trying to figure out how to plug phone numbers into it.

And wasn’t it just yesterday we were being told eBooks were a thing of the past?

Yet now people are claiming to make hundreds of thousands of dollars selling eBooks through Amazon’s Kindle technology.

It’s really amazing how a little technological innovation can make things change so fast in the online marketing world.

Of course we can’t all be the great innovators. Most of us don’t have the resources to put into the research and development, after all.

But do you sometime get the feeling you’re success is contingent on integration of all these new breakthroughs?

Do you really need to jump on every innovative bandwagon that comes along?

And do you need to do so immediately?

If you ask me, there are many great avenues opening up all the time that, if it suits your business model, could be integrated. Some of them could be useful now, while others might come in handy later on.

Keeping up with integration doesn’t mean you have to do it right away, or do all of it for that matter.

However, part of the reason why some marketers are able to capitalize on new technology is because they have a knack for getting you to believe if you’re not keeping up with integration of their ideas, you’re going to lose.

They get you to buy into their concepts, and thus have the money to sink into the next technological breakthrough before anyone else can.

You can’t really blame them. It’s how marketing works.

And you can’t blame yourself for being intrigued either.

Yet in reality, the best way of keeping up with integration is to focus on your business model first and foremost, and only if a new concept fits it should you consider integrating it.

After all, you’re much better off to risk missing out on something new, than sticking every new idea into your business model and befuddling the path you’re already on, right?

And you know, any new technology, as well as any way to capitalize on it needs time to percolate anyway. So give it time, and don’t worry half as much about keeping up with integration as you do building the business model you began with, and you’ll find reasonable integration won’t seem all that hard to do.

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Consistent Marketing

Which do you think is better, persistent or consistent marketing? They almost sound like the same thing at first glance, but they’re not. So what’s the difference?

Well, from a receiver’s standpoint, both are about what one would come to expect.

However, from a marketing position, one is definitely better than the other.

Now you might think consistent marketing might have something to do with being “constant,” which would lead you to think consistent is the same as persistent, because persistent is definitely constant.

And you’d be correct. Consistent marketing does have something to do with being constant.

The difference between persistent and consistent marketing however, is what you’re constant about.

You see, consistency has more to do with form, while being persistent just means without let up.

So you could market persistently, as some do, sending out promotions for just about anything, day in and day out, regardless of what it is or how often.

But with consistent marketing, there has to be a method to your madness.

Meaning you’d want your customer base to come to expect a certain form, or type of promotion from you.

I guess the simplest example of not being consistent might be, if you’ve developed the reputation of promoting only high quality products, and then you suddenly start promoting some sneaky loophole tactic.

I might be tempting because you’re funds may be low and some people are making a lot of money from it, but it wouldn’t be consistent with what people expect from you.

In this regard, you’d be throwing consistency out the window, and the trust of your customer base along with it.

And this would also be true of the type of advice you give out, the level of intelligence you broach any topic with, and of course, the helpfulness of your message.

So yes, it’s fine to be persistent with your consistent marketing, providing good quality has something to do with it.

Keep plugging away, by all means.

But in this case, it’s not how often or how much you release to the public. Rather it’s what you share, and how true to your reputation and form, or what people have come to expect from you it is.

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New Google Algorithm Is Not Origami

No, the new Google algorithm is not origami, but it does have something to do with folds. In this case its about what shows up above the fold on your website.

I don’t have to explain what origami is, do I?

It’s the Japanese art of folding paper to create beautiful 3D models. “Ori” means folding, “gami” means paper.

But just about everyone knows that, right?

Just as most people are aware that Google is very much into advertising.

Yet even though Google makes a lot of money with it . . . that’s advertising, not origami . . . their primary function is content delivery through search.

And so, while they have no problem with you advertising and making money, especially when they can make money from you making money, they put content first above everything else.

Which is why the new Google algorithm is cracking down on sites that are built primary to advertise with.

So in a somewhat elementary problem solving way, Google decided that sites with a lot of advertising above the fold must be focused on selling stuff, and not content based.

After all, if you went to a site and were blasted with flashing advertisements across the top and all along both sides of the page, what would you think the site was for?

It does make sense.

Thus the latest new Google algorithm is designed to devalue sites with a lot of advertising above the fold to “encourage” you to put content first, just like they do.

Of course, this doesn’t really help the “ad blindness” problem most sites suffer with.

But is does make for more appreciative visitors who may be more inclined to buy something from a site that’s better designed to educate, enlighten, or entertain them.

So from a problematic standpoint, the new Google algorithm is kind of a wash if you ask me.

But what do you think?

Apart from those who use WordPress themes with a lot of ad space built in at the top, and who may not know how to tweak it, or those who aren’t too good in the content department, the new Google algorithm doesn’t seem all that troublesome.

It’s pretty much what sites like this one have been doing right along anyway.

Let me know how you feel about the new Google algorithm and what it’ll means to your site, profit margin, or whatever?

To me, it seems logical and not nearly as difficult as origami to work around.

The Sobering Side of SOPA and PIPA

It appears online marketing may be on the verge of dodging a bullet for now, but then there’s another, sobering side of SOPA and PIPA that we who rely on the Internet for our livelihood should consider carefully.

Now let me make it perfectly clear, I’m totally against SOPA and PIPA for three very good reasons:

1. Putting a policy in place like the OPEN Act to stop real piracy is one thing, but over all censorship of the web will only hurt honest businesses who can’t possibly control the flow of links coming into their websites.

All it’ll take is to have one unscrupulous site linking to yours somewhere in the background, and you could be subject to investigation, site blocking, and legal prosecution resulting in fines.

2. Implementing what would amount to government censorship through SOPA, will only place the bill in the lap of the taxpayer, and tie everything up for years in red tape as this sort of thing usually does.

3. SOPA and PIPA simply won’t work. Real pirate sites will merely change their address and carry on, while those of us who’ve worked hard to build legitimate sites will live in constant fear of being linked to by bad sites.

In fact, government watchdogs have about as much chance of shutting down pirate sites for good as they’ve had success preventing knock off Gucci handbags and phoney Rolex watches from being sold on any given street corner.

Which leaves you and I to be the sitting ducks, being monitored and scrutinized for running honest businesses.

The Sobering Part

Yet there’s also that nagging statement, “if you’re not part of the cure, you’re part of the problem.”

Let’s face it, there are definitely real crooks on the Internet, and you may have even been subject to product theft yourself through warez, bit torrent sites, or even someone creating a cheap knock off of one of your best products.

But while this sort of unscrupulous activity is surely the worst of the worst, and no doubt the main reason for SOPA and PIPA and their drastic wording, could we also be partly responsible for creating an atmosphere of dishonesty that compounds this?

Now I’m not saying those who’ve proposed these bills have any idea what they’re doing, but it does appear Internet marketing has been lumped into the “ne’er do well” group who they feel need to be monitored.

So while it’s good SOPA and PIPA are now losing some support in Congress, we should ask ourselves what sort of appearance online marketers may be presenting that would attract the attention of those wanting to crack down on bad behavior.

Naturally there will always be shady marketers and snake oil salesman amongst us. Yet if we want to remain free to conduct business as we’re accustomed to in a self monitoring way, perhaps we need to start speaking out more against those who give us a bad reputation.

It’s, no doubt, just a matter of time before some version of SOPA and PIPA passes through Congress. And all we may be able to do about it is lend our voices in protest.

Yet if we want to conduct business in a way that remains open to innovation and productivity, then we should take responsibility for maintaining the integrity of our profession.

No matter what SOPA and PIPA winds up being in the end, if we speak out against bad practices within as much as we decry government intervention, then we’ll at least be doing our part to help keep online business on the up and up.

Nobody likes being regulated from an outside authority, so it’s important we show some authoritative initiative on the inside if we want to stay free.

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Things You Should Know About Self Publishing

Self Publishing is all the rage these days. Since Kindle, Nook and iTunes opened their doors to do-it-yourself publishing, would-be authors have been flocking to grab their piece of fame and fortune. Seems like a great opportunity, doesn’t it?

But before you go charging after it like a bull in a china shop, there are things you should know about self publishing first.

First of all, it’s important to note, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple don’t need you half as much as you need them.

They have plenty of real publishing companies submitting eBook versions from notable authors. So at best, opening their doors to self publishing should be seen as an honor system experiment.

However, judging by the number of people, telling other people like you that it’s possible and even advantageous to publish as many documents as you can, regardless of quality or value, it seems the experiment could be in jeopardy.

Already we’re hearing warnings from Amazon that they won’t tolerate junk for much longer. Apparently they have the means to remove any eBooks they deem insufficient and cancel author accounts for those abusing their system.

And you thought Google Slaps were bad, eh?

So here’s the scoop . . .

The only difference between having your books published by a reputable publishing company and self publishing is where the responsibility lies.

When you decide to go the self publishing route, you’re basically agreeing to do everything any major publishing company would do to assure quality and content validity, which includes editing, proofreading, formatting and the like.

You’re also responsible to insure your document is free of any copyright infringement and has valid permissions for any reference text and/or images taken from others.

Self publishing does not give you the freedom to submit inferior products just to make a buck. It doesn’t just give you a cheap loophole to bypass the expense of legitimate publishing, or a way to cut corners to get your name out there.

In fact, self publishing doesn’t even guarantee you author status, because in reality, to truly be an author means others see you as one. You can be a writer, certainly, but only once your work is appreciated can you claim authorship in the truest sense.

So if you’re not taking publishing your own work seriously, and Amazon or the rest don’t get you first, don’t expect to get very far with that fame and fortune idea.

Do good work, self publish responsibly like you work in a high rise New York publishing office, and you’ll reap the rewards deserving of a legitimate author of note.

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Maintaining Your Message Relevancy

Your message relevancy isn’t about keywords, SEO, or any of that. In fact, you’d be better off if your content did get lost in some obscure sandbox somewhere, than if it was visibly spouting off impertinent, outdated or overstated material.

Your message is your power.

It’s what turns you, an ordinary person into a thought leader, your visitors into followers, and readers into students.

Your message tells the world what sort of force you are in your market, and whether or not they should take heed of what you’re saying.

So it all sound rather important, doesn’t it?

Actually, your message is THE most important part of running an online business.

But message relevancy isn’t so much about telling people what you know, you know?

Because when you think about it, knowledge comes from the past.

Knowledge is something you’ve learned either from someone else or from your own experiences. It’s based on things that have gone by you already.

And while it may be true, what you know from past experience or training might not be in your reader’s arsenal of knowledge yet. Should your messaging rely solely on the remote chance you’ll come across people who don’t know what you know?

How many people would that be?

The power behind message relevancy comes from the application of knowledge into real time usability. It’s about connecting the past to the immediate now.

So for example, if you’re writing about getting traffic to a web site, or how to use Twitter for the best results, you’d want to present fresh, new ideas based on how things are trending at the moment, rather than spouting off the same old knowledge about it.

Can you really consider new content of old concepts fresh or relevant, after all?

Your message relevancy then, requires you to have your finger on the pulse of your market at all times, so you can conceptualize new approaches as things change.

Now it’s understood this might seem problematic for those who see content freshness purely from a search engine perspective. Yet in reality, the endgame of keyword relevancy is to get your message in front of readers, isn’t it?

And if that’s the goal, wouldn’t it be important that your message relevancy take precedence over the frequency of your posting?

Your power comes from your message, not from your wordiness or your ability to write reams of content.

So focus more on your message relevancy and its thought provoking capacity, and watch how you’ll transform yourself and your business into a market leader.

Knowledge is past, current application is now. Conceptualization is harder than regurgitating old news, but if you want to maintain your message relevancy so your search engine placements reap rewards, it’s definite worth the extra effort!

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Writing Responsible Content

OK, well maybe this is tweaking the definition of what writing responsible content means, but if you take “responsible” as being “answerable,” it seems it can be taken two very different, yet valid ways.

Naturally, you’re responsible for any content you write, in that if you steer people wrong or deceive with it, you’ll be called to answer for it in one way or another.

That’s a given!

Writing responsible content in this regard would mean it was truthful, accurate, understandable, and a whole range of other positives that basically mean, you own your words and would be willing to back them up and be liable for them.

And you’re probably already in the habit of writing responsibly in this way, right?

Right?!?

So there’s no need for me to go ranting on about the value of writing responsible content with long soliloquies and cautionary warnings about how bad content will ruin your reputation and credibility then.

You already know better than to spew trash along the side of your road to success.

But now, if we were to just take the word “responsible” at its root and break it down, we might come up with “response-able,” or “able to respond to.”

I told you it was a tweak.

Yet tweaked as it may be, it’s still a valid point in that writing responsible content could also mean writing in such a way that would make it open to a response.

Or as they say in the biz, interactive!

Now there’s many ways of writing content to induce responses, such as adding a bit of controversy into your message, or coming right out and asking questions.

(See also “Creating Interactive Content“)

Personally, I find coming up with an angle on a topic nobody’s thought of often generates some great responses.

But whatever method you choose, it’s important to note, your success rate in getting responses will be directly tied to how you’re writing responsible content in its truest sense.

In other words, if you can be answerable for, and be able to stand by what you write, you’ll have a better chance of getting others to comment on it.

Besides, to truly make your content interactive, you’ll need to be able to respond to the comments you get. So if you’re not writing responsible content in the first place, how would you do that?

Like was said at the beginning, having “answerable” content has two distinct meanings.

But at the same time, they’re also linked and dependent.

So we might say, if you’re “liable” for the content you write, then you’re “liable” to get answers to it!

Never Disappoint a Customer

The first rule of business is to never disappoint a customer, yet why is customer service one of the last things thought about for many in business?

Whenever a business starts up, it takes on a weighty responsibility to provide products or services suitable to the needs and desires of the public.

It wouldn’t be a business if it didn’t, right?

I mean, can you think of one business that doesn’t need customers to function and succeed?

I can’t.

It’s always a give and take situation where a business makes something available, and in turn this requires someone to take advantage.

If no one does take advantage, then the business fails.

So it would seem reasonable that any business wanting to succeed would strive to never disappoint a customer, wouldn’t it?

However, it’s not just the money that passes from customer to business that brings success.

There’s a legitimacy involved, because . . .

• A corner shop isn’t truly in business until the first customer enters.
• A piece of software isn’t a product until someone buys and uses it.
• And a document only becomes a tutorial after someone reads and learns from it.

In fact, without a customer, a business is just an idea waiting for validity.

And each new customer adds to that validity providing they remain satisfied.

On the other hand, every customer who walks away dissatisfied reduces the validity and legitimacy of a business, and if the balance goes too far in the negative, the business goes bust.

So how much is one customer worth to you?

I suppose this depends on whether the amount of satisfied customers you have is more important to you than the amount money in your bank account.

But if you measure success by legitimacy rather than profit margin, then it would seem a logical conclusion you’d never disappoint a customer, because you’d understand that every single one of them is necessary for your success.

So treat each customer like they’re your first. Do everything you can to render the service each needs to stay happy, and you won’t ever have to worry about your bank account.

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Marketing Yourself

Whether you own a company, you’re a freelancer, an author, or you’re any other type of public entity, marketing yourself should always take precedence over anything else. And now there’s an even more valid reason for it to be your priority.

What if someone did a search for your name?

What would they find in the results?

We’ve talked about how personalization now plays a role in search engine algorithms before, but as of yesterday, Google has taken it to an entirely new level with their “Google Search Plus Your World” feature.

If you haven’t read up on it, you can do so here on the official Google Blog.

It’s quite an interesting read, and will give you the fundamental insight on why you should be thinking about marketing yourself more than ever.

Basically what it does is, it ties your content to your Google+ profile and displays it in search.

So say, someone wants to know what you’ve written, they can do a search for your name and your content shows up along with your Google+ profile picture and anything else you’re connected to like your location, your social pages links, etc. for easier identification.

This is also the case if someone does a search for a keyword you rank high on, allowing that searcher a quick and simple way of adding you to their Google+ circles.

In other words, search is now more connected to you, the author of your content and how well you’re marketing yourself over all.

Which can be a really good thing if you’re putting the focus on marketing yourself and your brand, and paying attention to what you’re connecting to you as far as content or what you promote goes.

Now your able to funnel everything you’re doing into one focal point, namely you and/or your business while having some assurance that all your content is also connecting together under your brand.

Of course, it’s also a pretty good way for Google to get you to join and set up a profile on Google+, but if you look beyond that and see the golden opportunity you’re being afforded in all of this, it’s clear you’ll want to take advantage of the “marketing yourself” aspects of it.

The only people this isn’t good for are those who care nothing of their own integrity and reputation and have filled the web with bad content or shady promotions.

But if you’re concentrating on marketing yourself as your primary focus, and integrity matters to you, then consider this as a thinning of the herd, because most of those not paying attention will be falling to the wayside and giving you prominence in your markets.

So my suggestion to you is, learn all you can about “Google Search Plus Your World” and leverage it to work for you.

It’s really a great development in search over all!

The Forgotten Purpose Of Marketing

Ultimately, the reason why you’re into marketing is to make money, but only by fully understanding the purpose of marketing will all the pieces fall into place so you can be in the position to profit from it.

And let me tell you, except for a few, the real purpose of marketing has been largely forgotten.

Think back to, or if you’re not old enough, do some historical research on the early days of modern marketing and salesmanship, and you should discover there was a single, yet fundamentally irresistible pitch line used by every successful sales model.

It had nothing to do with a product being new, inexpensive, or popular. Nor did it have anything to do with flashy brochures, the amount of exposure a product got, or the finesse and appearance of the salesman.

No, the real purpose of marketing, back then as it should be now, was to demonstrate how a product would benefit the customer and bring better results than what they were used to.

But you might be thinking, “that’s just the ‘what’s in it for me‘ thing that everyone is going by. How has it been forgotten if it’s still being used?”

Well, to put it bluntly, the difference between benefits and results back in the day and now is, back then the benefits and results were real.

• Products being promoted were truly better than what came before them, and the facts could be demonstrated.
• “New and Improved” meant the benefits of using the product were enhanced, not the tactic of selling it.
• And “easy” went to the buyer, not the salesman.

Of course we still see this happening today.

Some products come along now and again that truly revolutionize technology and delight customers world wide. Their benefits are obvious through a simple demonstration, so selling people on the idea of buying them is a snap.

Which is also proof that having real and legitimate benefits of a product to show customers should be the only the purpose of marketing them in the first place.

On the other hand, this also means the legitimate purpose of marketing can only be realized when there’s a truly beneficial, revolutionary product to promote behind it that’ll bring real results to the user.

Anything else would just be hype.

So where does this leave you, the marketer?

Well, it leaves you with the burden of proof for one thing, and it also places you in a position where wiser decisions have to be made before you promote a product, because if you can’t show real benefits and results in what you’re selling, then you’re just contributing to the “hype-fest.”

However, when you realize the true purpose of marketing and only promote and/or create those special products that bring real and obvious benefits, then you won’t be wasting your time and advertising money.

In either case, the Age of Junk is quickly fading away, so if you’re accustomed to promoting everything and anything, it’s probably a good idea to rethink this.

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