11 Ways To Drive Traffic Away From Your Website
Why Web-Users Are So Impatient
While watching a Toronto Raptor basketball game I saw T.J. Ford, one of the fastest players in the league, rush down the court like a man possessed and proceed to throw the ball behind his back to a trailing Andrea Bargnani. The trouble was the ball sailed over the head of the seven-foot Bargnani into the second row of seats. Ford, himself, ended up with a beer and popcorn facial after landing in the lap of a front row patron. So what does this have to do with...
136 Words That Will Reinvigorate Your Website
Defining the Problem
It is not surprising that many CEOs, marketing managers and business owners are frustrated by the ineffectiveness of their websites. Everyone in business understands the power of the Web and we are all tantalized by its potential. But rarely does that potential get fulfilled. So whose fault is it? Well there is certainly enough blame to go around: website designers who don't understand business; IT departments that superimpose technical solutions on marketing problems;...
Brand Positioning Using Web-video
As Web-video presentations increase in popularity as a means of delivering marketing messages over the Internet, there will be the inevitable major successes and unfortunate failures. It is only a matter of time before Web-video becomes the dominating vehicle for businesses that are serious about marketing communication.
The businesses that will be successful will learn how to use the medium beyond its technical implementation, focusing instead on the psychological elements that communicate...
Brand-Personality Self-Analysis: Finding Your Brand's Emotional Aftertaste
Marketing is difficult because it is unlike any other business discipline. Most of our business day is filled with left-brain tasks that may be complex but are for the most part logical and procedural in nature whereas marketing and branding are right-brain activities governed by that hated enemy of rational business thinking, psychology.
Most businesses advertise; a rather common practice designed to get the word out about your company, product, or service. A lot of companies despair at the...
Designing Websites That Appeal To The Senses
Taking Advantage of The Experience Factor
We read the newspaper, we watch television, and we listen to the radio, but we experience the Web; this is what makes 'The Website' one of the most powerful marketing tools available to today's marketing executives. Unfortunately conventional wisdom has stifled the 'experience factor' on most website presentations.
Traditional circulation based advertising biases and pitch-mandated direct mail practices from metric-minded agencies have limited...
Every Brand Needs A Message And A Messenger
I don't drink, although after a hard day it seems like it might be worth starting, but since I can't stand the taste of the stuff, I generally just settle for drowning my troubles in a stiff diet soda. However if I were going to take up the evil spirits, I would start with Reyka Vodka, not because it's better or worse than any other vodka, but because they have an extraordinary marketing campaign and an equally clever integrated website (http://www.reykavodka.com) with an enchanting if...
How To Create A Video Campaign Concept
Have you ever had a good idea, maybe a great idea, only to find that someone else already ready did it? Frustrating. You want to be a success and who doesn't? It's why you do what you do, why you put-up with what you put-up with? But it all gets so frustrating.
As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, there just aren't any secret methods, special potions, or motivational DVDs that are going to make you a success in thirty days, but there are things you can do that will help. Sure working...
How To Create Profits Using Viral Marketing Techniques
The Difference Among Viral, Buzz, and Word-of-Mouth
There are certain words, jargon that stands in for theory, that starts with marketing industry insiders and before you know it becomes the 'in' subject of books, blogs, articles, and MBA dissertations. But as jargon filters down to the less sophisticated, the meaning and ideas behind these words becomes lost. Such is the case with the current state of thinking on Buzz, Viral, and Word-of-Mouth marketing.
These terms are often used...
How To Make Boring Businesses Exciting
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone got as excited about your company as you are? Unfortunately some businesses just aren't very sexy; in fact, some businesses are downright boring. As a consequence, companies that sell commodity products and routine services tend to rely on presentations that load-up on features, specifications, and statistics that may be relevant to anal-retentive types, but hardly compelling to the vast majority of your audience.
There is no reason why every company can't...
How To Make Web-advertising Worth Watching
It has become an article of faith that the Web is all about content; content is King on the Web as opposed to television where commercials are king. It seems that television networks just can't wrap their heads around the Internet and fit it into their standard commercial box. The traditional media's tactic of last resort, buying-up the competition and imposing its commercial will, just won't work with the Internet.
Businesses that want to succeed on the Web must learn how to turn their...
How To Manipulate Website Visitors
Everyone Has An Agenda
When we watch our favorite television programs like 'CSI' or 'House', we knowingly and even gladly allow ourselves to be manipulated. When we watch the evening news we are also being manipulated, knowingly or not, by the selection and presentation of stories that have been filtered through a series of network agendas ranging from the benign time constraints of a thirty-minute broadcast to the more suspicious dictates of network and sponsor interests.
Websites are...
Ten Stories That Can Sell Anything
Advertising is all about telling your marketing story: a story that your audience can relate to, so that it builds confidence and credibility in your ability to deliver your product or service.
A well-crafted business story invites your audience to open a dialogue with you, a line of communication that will ultimately lead to a customer and sale for you, and a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment for your new client.
Effective marketing stories are about universal truths and primal...
The 120 Second Solution
Like it or not, the Web is turning into an environment that will be dominated by audio and video presentations. And as we have already seen, the democratic nature of the Web has allowed the best and worst to stand side-by-side.
On one side, you have the whacky viral videos that serve little commercial purpose other than to enhance the reputations of their creators; and on the other side, you have deadly boring corporate videos that lack any of the qualities that make Web-video the best sales...
The Campaign Killers: 12 People You Need To Fire
Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing to do in business is to get things done: so little time, so many obstacles. And when it comes to marketing it gets even worse, after all there are all those administrative details that need to be dealt with, emails, inquiries, suppliers, and on and on. Finding the time to devote to creating a sustained, focused marketing effort seems like it's near impossible. But the biggest obstacles of all are some of your trusted colleagues and advisors; you know...
The Role Of Memory In Website Content And Advertising
The primary goal of all advertising, including website content is to be remembered. No matter what other marketing goal you want to achieve, if your audience doesn't remember your presentation, it is a wasted effort and lost opportunity. All the money spent on attracting people to your website goes right down the drain if your content is instantly forgettable. With that in mind it is hard to believe how little thought is put into creating content that people will remember.
In order to create...
The Sound Of Business Part 1
BREAKING THE LIQUID CRYSTAL BARRIER
The Web is an emotionally remote hinterland delivered to us through an impenetrable liquid crystal barrier. How then, can you as a business owner, entrepreneur, or marketing executive connect to a target audience that requires emotional reassurance in order to do business?
Willy Loman is Dead
Gone are the days when we sent out phalanxes of sales representatives pounding the pavement, beating the bushes, and generally getting in the face of prospects. Too...
The Sound Of Business Part 3
HOW TO GIVE GOOD SONIC PERSONALITY©
We live in an age of metrics. Traditional and new media advertising agencies often substitute metrics for understanding. Mathematical models create the appearance of scientific analysis, when in fact they are often manipulated to support a preselected agenda. We all know data can be massaged to conform to almost any conclusion. Besides, most small owner-managed companies can't afford the expense of these agency-driven number crunching solutions. The real...
The Sound Of Business Part 4
STEPS TO CREATING YOUR SONIC PERSONALITY©
1. List all the human attributes inherent in your business personality. An accounting firm may want to project stability, reliability, and a conventional outlook - think the avuncular voice of Walter Cronkite. An advertising agency might want to deliver a hip, cutting edge, in your face creative personality - think the edgy delivery of Chris Rock or Dennis Leary. Now before you get all excited and start shouting, 'how I am I going to afford these...
Web-Content Conundrum
The Web consumes content like a teenager at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Lots and lots of content makes you more search engine friendly, helps establish your knowledge and expertise, explains in detail what you offer, and justifies that offer with all the explanations, statistics, and rationale you can muster. The problem is nobody reads it.
Well that's not exactly true: some people read every scrap of information on your site; they just happen to be the tire-kickers, the people looking for...
What Your S.E.O. Strategist Won't Tell You
Maybe you own your own business, or perhaps you're a critical cog in the corporate machinery responsible for marketing your company, brand, product or service. If that describes you, here's eighteen things you need to know about Web-marketing but were afraid to believe.
1. Time To Be Heard Your mother told you 'children should be seen and not heard,' but you're not a kid anymore. So why are you listening to all those guys telling you not to use audio on your website. If you want to deliver a...
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