eBay said that Marc Andreessen will join the online auctioneer’s board of directors.
The move, which is effectively immediately, brings some additional brainpower to eBay, which is trying to fend off rivals such as Amazon and Google. For instance, Amazon’s fixed price model has been attracting merchants to its network. To counter, eBay moved to add […]
RealNetworks announced Tuesday that its RealDVD software, which allows you to rip and burn DVDs easily, officially launched and minutes a lawsuit followed.
In a statement (Techmeme), RealNetworks billed RealDVD as a “watershed” product. The software, which goes for $29.99 on sale, allows you to rip, burn and organize your DVD collection, which usually is armed […]
Socialtext, a company looking to take social networking to the enterprise, has launched its Socialtext 3.0, a suite of social networking applications complete with a wiki and dashboard to manage relationships.
Technically, Socialtext 3.0 consists of People, the social networking app; Workspace, the wiki; and Dashboard, which has custom home pages that let each worker filter […]
by Jennifer Laycock
Just when you think something can’t get any better, something sneaks in to surprise you. Back in April when we hosted our first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed (SBMU) conference, we were astonished at how great the response was. The show was small, but the attendees ranted and raved about the quality of the speakers, the content and the networking.
We took those things to heart when we started planning our second show. While we knew it would be tough to top the environment of the first show, (you can’t hardly beat a wooded forest retreat and a full scale replica of the Alamo) we were confident we could iron out the minor kinks, bring on a few more speakers and radically expand our list of workshops.
Bringing it Home
We hosted our first show in Houston, partly because it’s Robert’s home town. When it came time to decide on a fall location, it was only natural to suggest Columbus…the city Rachel and I call home. I’ve been wanting to show off my home town for ages, especially to those in the industry who lovingly refer to it as “Ohi-owa” and ask me if it’s one of those “middle states.” Yes, we’re deep in fly-over country, but that’s only because folks have no idea what they’re missing.
Of course one of the top reasons to host the show locally was because we knew the perfect spot to kick off our Sunday night Charity Networking Event.
It’s Pronounced Koh-Sye, not Koh-see or Cah-see
I must have said that phrase at least a dozen times on Sunday night. I also got to remind quite a few people that our own COSI (Center of Science and Industry) was around long before the popular COSI restaurant chain. No matter how you pronounce it, COSI was clearly the one and only perfect place in town for our show kickoff.
We rented out the Gadgets exhibit and offered up a picnic style dinner of burgers and brats to set the mood for nearly 100 local marketers, small business types and social media mavens to bump shoulders with each other and an inflatable kangaroo. During and after dinner, attendees chatted it up while playing with everything from a giant erector set to a giant ball launcher to a “prove your strength” style contraption that taught the value of the pulley system.
Halfway through the night, we shifted course and gathered everyone together for our second SBMU speed networking event. Even the most shy among us ended up telling me what a great time they had and how many wonderful connections they made. After all, with just 3 minutes to chat, almost everyone can come up with something to say.
We capped off the night with another hour or two of play and a frantic bidding war to win the silent auction items we all had our eyes on. When it was all said and done, everyone walked away happy and COSI’s community access fund finished the night about $2250 richer.
Monday
Despite the last busses leaving COSI to head home at 11pm, we had a packed house Monday morning. Even better, everyone was awake and ready to go! Matt McGee, Stoney deGeyter and Matt Bailey kicked things off with a little perspective in their “Common Sense Approach to Online Marketing” session that morning. The goal here was to remind attendees of the basic building blocks of online marketing and to help them understand the need to balance good marketing techniques with the reality of the time and budget constraints faced by small business owners.
Day one was broken up into two tracks; one focused on search engine marketing and one focused on more general online marketing. Our dynamic blogging team of David Wallace and Diane Aull was cranking out recaps like mad. If you missed them, here’s a second shot.
Track One
Site Architecture
Creating Great Content
Link Building
Pay Per Click Marketing
Universal Search
Track Two
Building a Community
Social Media Conversations
Blogging for Business
Big Impact Branding for Small Business
Understanding Analytics
While I didn’t manage to make it into as many sessions this time around as I did at our spring show, I spent a lot of time listening in doorways. I managed to catch a fascinating conversation in Christina Kerley’s Branding session that revolved around the challenges of a company that sells supplements for both people and animals.
I passed by the same room later that day to hear Matt Bailey saying “Ok, if you’re an HP laptop user, I want you up here, if you’re a Mac user, sit over in this row. Now I need Dell users in the back on the left.” I laughed to myself as I realized he was practicing “audience segmentation” before continuing down the hall to listen to Michael Stebbins’ brand new session on Universal Search.
While I don’t think I made it through a full session (apart from my own) I heard quite a bit of chatter both in the hallways and while talking to attendees at dinner. Pretty much everyone was thrilled with what they’d learned.
On Monday evening, conference attendees strolled across the way to one of my favorite Columbus restaurants, The Polaris Grill. There they were treated to a fantastic sit down dinner, some sumptuous desserts and a variety of games and networking by Will Scott and the great team at Search Influence.
The weather was a sunny 70 degrees, which worked out great for us. Our crew had the grill’s beautiful patio all to ourselves. After dining on yummy options like prime rib and grilled salmon, Rachel pulled some teams out of the crowd and let them challenge each other to “giant Jenga.”
Tuesday
Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends opened up Tuesday morning with the SBMU keynote presentation. Since Anita is one of the foremost experts on small businesses and how they “do their thing,” we thought she’d have some great insight into balancing the need to market with the need to run your business.
As a self-proclaimed “one woman publishing empire,” Anita knows how to balance. She offered up ten great bits of advice for pushing your business online. You’ll find them recapped in Diane Aull’s coverage of “How to Drive Business Without Driving Yourself Crazy.”
Once Anita had wrapped things up, it was time to switch gears and open up the doors to more classrooms. On day two, we like to get down and dirty with our SBMU attendees and their marketing plans. That means offering up four different workshops at a time to help walk them through the process of building and find tuning their marketing plans.
Diane and David, our fearless bloggers were joined by attendees and Search Engine Guide bloggers Scott Allen and Jackie Baker to turn in coverage for most of the day’s classes.
Session One
Local Search
Viral Marketing Workshop
Session Two
On Page SEO Workshop
Copywriting Workshop
Email Marketing
Connecting the Dots with Online Brand Management
Session Three
Blogging Workshop
Usability and Conversion Workshop
Session Four
Podcasting and Videocasting Workshop
Free and Low Cost Tools to Get the Job Done
We’d originally planned on ending the conference with a group Q&A that put all the speakers up on stage while the attendees fired questions at them, but the group was so relaxed and engrossed in conversation over their ice cream, we took a unanimous vote to continue with the mingling instead.
Overall, that’s kind of how the conference went. We practiced what my father calls “rigid flexibility.” When some Internet access issues caused morning delays, our speakers in the second time slot all agreed to give their audience the chance to go snag lunch and bring it back to the room to keep going.
In fact, I was astonished to see Michael Stebbins’ entire email marketing class pause long enough to go pick up a plate of lunch before returning to the room and hunkering down for a session that ultimately lasted almost two hours. After the session I listened as Wayne Small said that session alone was worth the trip from Australia for the conference.
When Mack Collier and Christina Kerley couldn’t do as many live blog reviews as they’d planned, they scheduled post-show phone consultations with attendees to make sure they still had time to get as much information as possible to attendees. Of course CK had already bribed her class by passing out chocolate, so she’d already built up brownie points.
Add in the fact that I practically had to pull Debra Mastaler and her class out the door so we could start the workshop after hers and it felt like a pretty successful show.
Doing it All Again
I’m not sure about Robert and Rachel and Vickie, but I’m personally finding our SBMU shows to be a bit addicting. We’ve got one of the best speaking teams on the conference circuit and every last speaker has commented on the innovative ideas and the fantastic conversation sparked by the crowd we draw. That means we’re already in the planning stages for our next show.
For those of you who want to join us the next time around, look for April dates in Houston to be announced in the next month or so. We’ll see you at the Alamo!
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
by Jennifer Laycock
Just when you think something can’t get any better, something sneaks in to surprise you. Back in April when we hosted our first ever Small Business Marketing Unleashed (SBMU) conference, we were astonished at how great the response was. The show was small, but the attendees ranted and raved about the quality of the speakers, the content and the networking.
We took those things to heart when we started planning our second show. While we knew it would be tough to top the environment of the first show, (you can’t hardly beat a wooded forest retreat and a full scale replica of the Alamo) we were confident we could iron out the minor kinks, bring on a few more speakers and radically expand our list of workshops.
Bringing it Home
We hosted our first show in Houston, partly because it’s Robert’s home town. When it came time to decide on a fall location, it was only natural to suggest Columbus…the city Rachel and I call home. I’ve been wanting to show off my home town for ages, especially to those in the industry who lovingly refer to it as “Ohi-owa” and ask me if it’s one of those “middle states.” Yes, we’re deep in fly-over country, but that’s only because folks have no idea what they’re missing.
Of course one of the top reasons to host the show locally was because we knew the perfect spot to kick off our Sunday night Charity Networking Event.
It’s Pronounced Koh-Sye, not Koh-see or Cah-see
I must have said that phrase at least a dozen times on Sunday night. I also got to remind quite a few people that our own COSI (Center of Science and Industry) was around long before the popular COSI restaurant chain. No matter how you pronounce it, COSI was clearly the one and only perfect place in town for our show kickoff.
We rented out the Gadgets exhibit and offered up a picnic style dinner of burgers and brats to set the mood for nearly 100 local marketers, small business types and social media mavens to bump shoulders with each other and an inflatable kangaroo. During and after dinner, attendees chatted it up while playing with everything from a giant erector set to a giant ball launcher to a “prove your strength” style contraption that taught the value of the pulley system.
Halfway through the night, we shifted course and gathered everyone together for our second SBMU speed networking event. Even the most shy among us ended up telling me what a great time they had and how many wonderful connections they made. After all, with just 3 minutes to chat, almost everyone can come up with something to say.
We capped off the night with another hour or two of play and a frantic bidding war to win the silent auction items we all had our eyes on. When it was all said and done, everyone walked away happy and COSI’s community access fund finished the night about $2250 richer.
Monday
Despite the last busses leaving COSI to head home at 11pm, we had a packed house Monday morning. Even better, everyone was awake and ready to go! Matt McGee, Stoney deGeyter and Matt Bailey kicked things off with a little perspective in their “Common Sense Approach to Online Marketing” session that morning. The goal here was to remind attendees of the basic building blocks of online marketing and to help them understand the need to balance good marketing techniques with the reality of the time and budget constraints faced by small business owners.
Day one was broken up into two tracks; one focused on search engine marketing and one focused on more general online marketing. Our dynamic blogging team of David Wallace and Diane Aull was cranking out recaps like mad. If you missed them, here’s a second shot.
Track One
Site Architecture
Creating Great Content
Link Building
Pay Per Click Marketing
Universal Search
Track Two
Building a Community
Social Media Conversations
Blogging for Business
Big Impact Branding for Small Business
Understanding Analytics
While I didn’t manage to make it into as many sessions this time around as I did at our spring show, I spent a lot of time listening in doorways. I managed to catch a fascinating conversation in Christina Kerley’s Branding session that revolved around the challenges of a company that sells supplements for both people and animals.
I passed by the same room later that day to hear Matt Bailey saying “Ok, if you’re an HP laptop user, I want you up here, if you’re a Mac user, sit over in this row. Now I need Dell users in the back on the left.” I laughed to myself as I realized he was practicing “audience segmentation” before continuing down the hall to listen to Michael Stebbins’ brand new session on Universal Search.
While I don’t think I made it through a full session (apart from my own) I heard quite a bit of chatter both in the hallways and while talking to attendees at dinner. Pretty much everyone was thrilled with what they’d learned.
On Monday evening, conference attendees strolled across the way to one of my favorite Columbus restaurants, The Polaris Grill. There they were treated to a fantastic sit down dinner, some sumptuous desserts and a variety of games and networking by Will Scott and the great team at Search Influence.
The weather was a sunny 70 degrees, which worked out great for us. Our crew had the grill’s beautiful patio all to ourselves. After dining on yummy options like prime rib and grilled salmon, Rachel pulled some teams out of the crowd and let them challenge each other to “giant Jenga.”
Tuesday
Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends opened up Tuesday morning with the SBMU keynote presentation. Since Anita is one of the foremost experts on small businesses and how they “do their thing,” we thought she’d have some great insight into balancing the need to market with the need to run your business.
As a self-proclaimed “one woman publishing empire,” Anita knows how to balance. She offered up ten great bits of advice for pushing your business online. You’ll find them recapped in Diane Aull’s coverage of “How to Drive Business Without Driving Yourself Crazy.”
Once Anita had wrapped things up, it was time to switch gears and open up the doors to more classrooms. On day two, we like to get down and dirty with our SBMU attendees and their marketing plans. That means offering up four different workshops at a time to help walk them through the process of building and find tuning their marketing plans.
Diane and David, our fearless bloggers were joined by attendees and Search Engine Guide bloggers Scott Allen and Jackie Baker to turn in coverage for most of the day’s classes.
Session One
Local Search
Viral Marketing Workshop
Session Two
On Page SEO Workshop
Copywriting Workshop
Email Marketing
Connecting the Dots with Online Brand Management
Session Three
Blogging Workshop
Usability and Conversion Workshop
Session Four
Podcasting and Videocasting Workshop
Free and Low Cost Tools to Get the Job Done
We’d originally planned on ending the conference with a group Q&A that put all the speakers up on stage while the attendees fired questions at them, but the group was so relaxed and engrossed in conversation over their ice cream, we took a unanimous vote to continue with the mingling instead.
Overall, that’s kind of how the conference went. We practiced what my father calls “rigid flexibility.” When some Internet access issues caused morning delays, our speakers in the second time slot all agreed to give their audience the chance to go snag lunch and bring it back to the room to keep going.
In fact, I was astonished to see Michael Stebbins’ entire email marketing class pause long enough to go pick up a plate of lunch before returning to the room and hunkering down for a session that ultimately lasted almost two hours. After the session I listened as Wayne Small said that session alone was worth the trip from Australia for the conference.
When Mack Collier and Christina Kerley couldn’t do as many live blog reviews as they’d planned, they scheduled post-show phone consultations with attendees to make sure they still had time to get as much information as possible to attendees. Of course CK had already bribed her class by passing out chocolate, so she’d already built up brownie points.
Add in the fact that I practically had to pull Debra Mastaler and her class out the door so we could start the workshop after hers and it felt like a pretty successful show.
Doing it All Again
I’m not sure about Robert and Rachel and Vickie, but I’m personally finding our SBMU shows to be a bit addicting. We’ve got one of the best speaking teams on the conference circuit and every last speaker has commented on the innovative ideas and the fantastic conversation sparked by the crowd we draw. That means we’re already in the planning stages for our next show.
For those of you who want to join us the next time around, look for April dates in Houston to be announced in the next month or so. We’ll see you at the Alamo!
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
by Mike Moran
Ever see a billboard on the side of a bus for a new movie? “Wow” or “Amazing” is a typical quote. But you’ve heard the occasional story that the full reviewer’s quote was actually “Wow, this is the worst musical I’ve seen in 20 years.” or “It’s amazing that a studio even released this movie.” The people reading our marketing claims often treat them like detective stories, trying to figure out what’s really going behind the florid prose. Does that sound like your company?
If so, you might be in for a rude awakening. (No one ever seems to be in for sweet awakening.) Your customers, especially your younger customers, are far more distrusting of media messages than ever before. Sometimes it takes only one breach of trust for them to write you off.
Let me give you an example. Most of you know that my family has had a rough few weeks lately, as my father-in-law first grew very sick and then died. It started when my mother-in-law asked if I could cancel their cruise reservations with Prime Time Travel, because he was too sick to go. It was easy to work with them on the phone and I felt like I was helping, but that was just the beginning. Soon, I was taking frequent train rides to Long Island. I got to know the Long Island railroad quite well, and I recall looking out at Jamaica station at everyone having a normal day and feeling nothing was normal at all. My family ended up changing our vacation plans and spending the time on Long Island. We returned again and again over the next few weeks, doing all sorts of things—one day we spent the day with Aunt Grace at her nursing home in Freeport, Long Island, because we realized that in the confusion, no one had visited her to even tell her Dad was sick. Then, all too quickly, he died. And we were spending our time in funeral homes and thanking people for flower arrangements. Since Dad died, we’ve been continuing to visit Mom to help her adjust to her “new normal.” Not exactly your typical vacation, right?
But how could we spin this into a wonderful customer testimonial through the miracle of copywriting?
Mike M. says, “Having never been on a cruise, I had no idea what to expect for our island vacation. But Prime Time Travel was so wonderful in helping me with the arrangements. I vividly recall passing through Jamaica, but I think the memory that will always stick with me was the day we spent in Freeport. The people there were so nice and life just seemed to go at a slower pace, which is just what we needed. At the end, there were flowers everywhere—it was so beautiful that you can see why some people are dying to be there. We’d never had a vacation like this one, but now we keep returning again and again.”
OK, that was a bit over the top. But if your customer testimonials are exaggerated and slightly sneaky, you might fool your customers briefly but eventually they’ll see the truth and make you pay for it in lost business and lost reputation.
So, does your marketing material turn your customers into detectives? Do your copy writers spend most of their time shading what they say to paint everything in the best possible light?
It’s counterproductive.
Your customers want the truth. They want to know what is good and bad about what you do. They’re smart, you know, and they will eventually figure it out. It’s better for you to target the customers that will be thrilled to be working with you and be up front with those who might not be. You’ll have better customer relationships and real testimonials that don’t need to go through the copy editing sausage maker to sound positive.
Don’t turn your customers into detectives and they won’t need to investigate everything you say. That’s the basis of a real relationship—one that people would really miss when it’s gone.
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
ZDNet correspondent Sumi Das talks to editor in chief Larry Dignan and senior editor Sam Diaz about the financial health of enterprise giants Microsoft, Intel, and SAP. Dignan and Diaz share their views on the success of Microsoft’s new ad campaign, Intel chip sales for the new Netbook, and whether SAP will have a positive […]
by Stoney deGeyter
This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.
What this is about: This list covers issues related primarily to on-site site maps but can also be relevant for xml site maps.
Why this is important: Site maps provide a one-click path to any destination within the site and a way for the search engines to quickly find and index all site pages. Ensuring that your site maps function properly is an important part in ensuring your visitors can find what they want quickly and all site pages get properly indexed.
What to look for:
Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below.
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.
by Stoney deGeyter
This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.
What this is about: This list covers issues regarding site pages that outline your privacy and security policies as they relevant to the site visitor’s needs.
Why this is important: While most visitors won’t read Privacy and Security pages, they do provide necessary assurances that visitors look for in terms of being able to trust you. However, when visitors do click into these pages need certain information needs to be presented to them to ensure their needs are met.
What to look for:
Did I miss anything? Add to this list with your comments below.
Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.