57 Internet Possibilities to Investigate

The future is now. Sometimes, we don’t look outside our little angle of it, and that means we miss some possibilities. Other times, we realize something’s out there and we have part of the puzzle, but we’ll catch a different view that gives us even more. I’ve compiled a list of 100 possibilities and things happening out there on the Internet that might be of interest to you. You may have even more to add. Please do.

57 Internet Possbilities to Investigate, go read Chris's post

And hey, if you like this post, please subscribe for free to get more information daily (if not more).

Ask Your Customers To Promote You

Want to know the #1 reason your customers don't recommend you to their friends? It isn't because they don't like your product, or because they don't care or are too busy. The real reason is either because you don't ask them to, or you don't make it easy for them to do it. If you ask them in the right way, however, the word of mouth referrals and additional business you can get from the experience will easily be more powerful that just about any other advertising or marketing you could do. Here are a few ideas for getting your customers to promote you to their family, friends and social networks in a way that won't make it appear as if you're paying them to like you:

1. Share the credit.
2. Let them be a fan.
3. Encourage online reviews.
4. Refer a friend.
5. Pass along an offer.
6. Offer useful content.

This is from Influential Marketing, and written by Rohit. Read the rest of the post gor some great examples and explanations.

My Space Is Your Space To Sell Your Ideas (Not Your Products Or Services)

From Mitch Joel, go to his post got the entire article, this one is special.

What do you want out of the comment section on a Blog? Someone's marvellous insights or someone telling you how they sell a product or service around the topic of the Blog posting?

One of the main things that Marketers still fail to really grasp about the online social channels is that they are not a breeding grounds for desperate sales pitches or humanized press releases.

Their ideas spread.

"Always Be Closing."

It's not about closing. It's about opening. That's what makes this space so special and amazing.

Here are six ways to create a smart idea:

So, here's the big question: when you are creating content (either for yourself or on someone else's space), are selling your products or services or are you selling big ideas?

Learn how to blog!

Free Blogging for Business Marketing Kit

Blogs are no longer just online personal journals - they are now key business tools. Blogs allow you to engage in a conversation with your customers while improving your website's search engine rank. Don't know where to start? Download this kit to learn key tactics for business blogging and engaging in the blogosphere to grow your business.

Technorati Tags: Hubspot,Blogging,How to

Featured user on Business Week

Shameless self promotion: but this weekend I am the featured author on Business Week's home page http://www.businessweek.com

If you would like to review a few of my other published articles check out this recent blog post:

Watch out Guy Kawasaki!

Technorati Tags: Business Week,Business Exchange,Duct Tape Marketing,Business901

The Making Of Personality Not Included

From Rohit Bhargava "rbhargava"'s Amazon Blog

One of the things I talk about in PNI is the idea of having a backstory for your organization and using it to give people a reason to believe in your brand and relate to your business. Taking my own advice, I created a visual presentation that takes you inside the process I went through in writing, selling, marketing and distributing Personality not Included. Enjoy!

The Making Of Personality Not Included

View another presentation on why you should read this book.

My Advertising Alternative for Feb 1

From Chris Brogan and when you think about is this where advertising is going, Advertise on a Blog, read the rest of the story.

The Superbowl is coming up on February 1st. I just read a whole bunch of articles where people are voting against spending the $3 Million USD to place an ad during the event. (My favorite story is this one. With the economy where it is, and with people worried about how they’re going to pay for everything, I offer you this alternative:

Advertise on a Blog

 

Simplify

 

Good content from Duct Tape Marketing 

Simplify  There is a somewhat famous Albert Einstein quote that goes: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Yourcore message should be simple, clear, consistent, and buzzable.

Yourprocess should be simple, clear, consistent and visual.

Read the entire post it is pretty simple to do:  Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing, and written by John Jantsch.

I also recommend Bill Jensen's "The Simplicity Survival Handbook"

Sales and Marketing Excellence????

Michael Webb said this in an article I ran  across the other day on the web:

"Ask production managers how their business is going, and they’ll be able to provide projections based on carefully defined measurements of facts. They’ll be able to translate their figures from operational into financial terms in the blink of an eye. And their answers will turn out to be mostly correct in the end.

Ask sales and marketing managers how things are going, and they’ll typically say “Great!” If they’re lucky, they’ll be able to point to a big customer order that recently landed and to say “We’re ahead of plan!” However, their projections usually don’t turn out to be correct in the end."

Michael has some great material and I encourage you to read his book Salesa and Marketing the Six Sigma Way. It is on my bookshelf and one of the books I recommend.

Publicity for The One Page Business Plan Company - Money Magazine

Most of you know that follow my blog that I am a big fan of the One Page Business Plan and Jim Horan. Recently, they have been mention in "O", Oprah magazine twice and now...

We wanted you to know… Money Magazine is recommending One Page Business Plans!

They have a free would be entrepreneur's handbook that you can review on the site. More details on my Business901 blog.

Technorati Tags: One Page Business Plan,Money Magazine,Oprah Winfrey,Oprah,One,Page,Business.plan

Get Them To Stick Around - Six Ways To Build Consistent Traffic

 From Mitch Joel @ Twist Image, read the entire post.

The problem is that It's hard to get people to stick around.

1. Be unique.
2. Make it easy for them to find you.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Open up the dialogue.
5. Promote the thought.
6. Publish less.

What are some of the things you do to get people coming back and to build your own credibility?

Tips for Presentations of a (Second)Lifetime

Presenting via a webinar is tough to do. Presenting in a virtual world as an avatar will surely have nuances that are new for me.

It’llbe easy to incorporate most of the tips needed for a remote presenter, but I’ve added a few that are specific to Second Life just in case you find your avatar presenting an island any time soon. These tips are brought to you by Gary Barber.

Tips for Second Life Presentations:

This is from slide:ology, and written by Nancy Duarte. Read the entire post

Aligning Social Media Within Companies

Chris Brogan had a post that may cause you to re-think or better re-question some of your strategies>

Blogging’s awesome. Twitter’s so cool. Yeah, man. Let’s all get the company on Facebook.

 

Where do the various social media tools belong in a company?

How Social Media Aligns Within Companies

This post is 100% variable. You could argue every point and be right. The main point of writing it is for us to think about it.

Go read the entire post...

Is blogging marketing or PR?

Twitter:Where Should It Go?

Videoand Podcasting.

Photo credit AMagill

Business901 launches new Small Business Podcast Website and Itunes Store

Fort Wayne, IN - Business901 has just launched a small business and nonprofit podcast website. An ITunes store was also created to facilitate subscription by Itunes user. The site offers visitors the opportunity to listen to current small business and nonprofit topics such as discussions on Social Media and Lean Marketing. The podcast site is Business901.podbean.com and the Itunes store is named Business901.

Why a podcast website Dager was asked; “The Connecting You Passion TV Show needed a forum other than video to reach the public. There are some great stories that have been told on the show and with just a little modification we were able to post them to the podcast. We also had a collection of articles and blog posts that we have been developing into e-books and realize that they could be easily converted to audio. The format worked perfectly and brings a new dimension to our company.”

The Connecting Your Passion TV Show is a bi-monthly program hosed on the Fort Wayne Public Access station. It is aired every other Tuesday at 9:00 AM. The The program that is hosted on the Fort Wayne Public Access station. It is an interview type format and focuses on the participating “Nonprofit’s Story.” The shows guest have included nonprofit organizations: Big Brothers, Big sisters, Reach for Your, Huntington Youth Service Bureau, SCORE, TQM Network, Childrens Hope Hospital. There has also been shows done on Social Media and Why do people volunteer. Joe Dager of Business901 is the host of the show.

About Business901
Business901, http://www.business901.com uses proven methodologies to enable its customers to build applications in a very short amount of time. Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as target marketing and organized referral marketing. As a certified coach of the Duct Tape Marketing Consulting organization, Joe provides practical, information-rich, immediately applicable direction that profoundly impacts the success of small and mid-sized businesses. His experience includes numerous start-ups, several turnarounds in variety of industries to include manufacturing, retail, and professional services to include marketing.

Technorati Tags: Lean Marketing,Lean Six Sigma Marketing,Nonprofit Marketing,Duct Tape Marketing,Manufacturer Marketing,Marketing with Lean,SCORE,TQM

Google Alerts, An Essential Part of Social Media Strategy

From Hot Ideas & Hot Air by Adrianne Machina

Image via CrunchBase

You’re using Google Alerts, aren’t you? No?

Well then, sit right down and listen up, because Google Alerts will save you from countless hours of web surfing, and is an essential tool in your marketing strategy.

Acton the alerts by:

• Commenton a blog a day.
• Send a letter of congratulations! (Did someone get a new job, an award or a promotion?)
• Trackwhich bloggers and journalists cover your industry.
• Write a blog post.
• Checkout the competition.
• Create a new product or service that addresses the concerns you’re hearing.

Once you start using Google Alerts, you’ll wonder how you managed to live without them all this time.

Do you use Google Alerts? In what innovative ways do you use them to help your business?

Read the entire post.

Tuned In Leaders Outlook for 2009

 Many of you that follow my blogs realize that I am a fan of Pragmatic Marketing and Phil Myers. Here is an excerpt from a recent blog:

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." -- Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption

2009 is here and it's time to make good on all of the resolutions we usually make. The question now is, how should we best approach the coming year?

Never before have we entered a year with so much built-in uncertainty. The typical yearly planning process has always tried to define the most likely scenarios in which we can control the outcomes to ensure victory. In tough years, we add a hunker down mentality to make sure that the plans we're attempting to execute are things that we've done well in the past. Some leading analysts are suggesting that in this market we should go a step further and resort to a trench warfare mentality to win new business. All of these perspectives have value but the Tuned In Leader will take a simpler approach:

Focus each day on the things that matter most!

1. Finding a down economy resonator --
2. Embracing the new buying environment--
3. Making their company easier to do business with --
4. Developing a strong, passionate community --

Tuned In Leaders aren't focused on the scoreboard, they're aligning to the activities that will have meaningful impact on the ultimate measurement of their business. The benefit of this approach is a simple one ... all of them will force you to remain focused on 'outside-in' objectives vs. 'inside-out' ones that tend to dominate in tough times.

This is from Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs., and written by Phil Myers.

Owning "You"

 From Mitch Joel at Twist Image:

One of the major pieces of advice musicians and bands must know is that if they are promoting themselves on all of their marketing and communications materials as www.myspace.com/BandX, they are really just marketing MySpace and don't "own" or "control" their own destiny. It's a mistake that Marketers are making more and more everyday.

There has been tons of online chatter about how some of the more prominent Bloggers have abandoned their own spaces in lieu of spending time on places like Twitter and FriendFeed. The debate still rages on. Some take the position that they miss the more in-depth thought leadership of these Bloggers, while others simply see these new micro-blogging platforms as a total and complete time suck.

It's actually a little of both and something else...

A Blog, a Podcast is your own. You own it. It's your media channel. It's your publishing platform. Some of the other spaces (like Facebook, MySpace and the aforementioned Twitter and FriendFeed) are not your own. Yes, you can use it. Yes, you can build up your own community, but at the end of the day, you are driving people away from you to some place else where you are hoping they can connect to you.

Read the entire post.

Technorati Tags: blog blogger communications facebook facebook fan page friendfeed marketer marketing media channel micro-blogging myspace online community podcast publishing snackable content thought leadership twitter

Lose Control of your Marketing! New free ebook

Please download my new ebook Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure.

Do you market like the Grateful Dead? Or like Led Zeppelin?
(Findout in the ebook).

Here are some other things you'll find inside:

Please download my new ebook Lose Control of your Marketing! Why marketing ROI measures lead to failure. And please share!

This is syndicated from Web Ink Now, and written by David Meerman Scott.

From a Elan MArkeitng perspective the headline just rubs me wrong, but...you read it first.

Technorati Tags: David Meerman Scott,Web Ink Now,Markeitng ROI,Marketing Measures,Lean Marketing

How to Create a Presentation for Someone Else

The kind folks at ragan.com interviewed me for an article on their site. They have plenty of great content for communicators. I’ve pasted our article below:

How to create a presentation for your speaker

By Christine Kent

Stream line the process of creating slides for your speaker

Not all of us who work in communications are blessed with a strong design sense—we’re usually good with words, and we leave the design and image creation to the experts. But communications people are eventually called on to create smart, informative and eye-catching slides for an executive presentation—usually under some insanely tight deadline.

For those times when you are pressed into the “slide jockey” role, Nancy Duarte, presentation design maven, offers some advice. Duarte says the task of creating a presentation for someone else is made tougher by the fact that executives believe they are defined by their presentation style.

She uses a modified version of the DiSC assessment profiles, and offers suggestions on how to draft slides that match your speaker’s presentation needs:

Direct and driven:

Influencing and inspirational:

Supportive and steady:

Conscientious and careful:

Hereare Duarte’s other ideas for smoothing out the bumps in the slide creation process:

Artists in the room:

The20,000-foot view: “

Present the whole picture: “

Get creative during review: “

Bean active listener:

This is excerpt from slide:ology, and written by Nancy Duarte.

Deliver Value

 From Mitch Joel, go to his blog to read more than the headlines.

What may seem like value to you may well be spam to the person you're sending it to. This is the curse of traditional companies fumbling their way through the social channels.

Even the best of the best in advertising and communications don't get 50% success rates on any of their campaigns (targeted or mass). This means that the majority of the people you are targeting are simply not all that interested in what you have to say.

There's no value to me, there's no value to the agency and there's no value to the client.

That's the shift towards delivering value.

It may sound pedestrian, but seriously think about the last time you really focused on delivering value first and then spreading the message far and wide.

Tags: advertising blog blogger outreach branding communications marketing mass media media relations press release public relations social media spam value

There Is A Cost To Free

Read the entire post from Mitch Joel

Whether you are creating any form of content online (text, audio, images or video) or are simply consuming it, there is a huge cost to all of this free goodness. On December 23rd, 2008 I posted a Blog entry titled, Breaking News On The Internet, where the question came up:

"Who is going to pay for all of this content that we are all now consuming online?"

That question could well be the crux of the problem most Marketers have with trying to figure out either how to monetize the Social Media channels or how to connect with consumers within it. The business behind most content has always been:

1. Advertising supported to make the content free.
2. Advertising supported to subsidize the cost.
3. Advertising-free with a cost.

Anybody can Blog, doesn't mean anybody should Blog.

Yes, the best part of these tools is that they are free and easy to use, but we all know the saying, "just because you can, does not mean that you should." On the personal or hobby side of things, Blog away, post away, tweet away. From a professional perspective, you need to have the content creators and a semi-well thought out plan in place if you really want to use these channels and tools to create a viable media property surrounding your brand, products and services. It's not as simple as freelancing the video out and it's way harder than hiring a writer to be your in-house Blogger.

What do you think: is content really free?

Tags: advertising blog business model business strategy consumer behaviour content digital marketing marketing monetization online community podcast publishing social media

The Makings Of A Perfect Lean Market

Beyond Lean: The Perfect Lean Market: While 80% of manufacturers have lean initiatives, less than 1% have lean practices in place. This article was written by Pamela Lopker, president and chairman of QAD Inc. She went on to say, "The Makings Of A Perfect Lean Market - There are three primary attributes to a perfect lean market. Clarity is one: The second attribute of a perfect lean market is agility, responsiveness to changes in the marketplace. But lean practices won't get information to the right place at the right time. That's where technology can introduce agility, through systems that can receive and process information quickly, even instantly, through automation. Unity is the third attribute of a perfect lean market. Getting information to the right place at the right time can fuel that kind of unity."

She was talking about the waste in supply change management practices. But when I read it, the correlation to Lean Marketing is very apparent.

1. Clarity: How many times have you looked at a marketing piece and questioned the meaning, the reason for it or maybe you just tossed it. We encourage  marketing pieces to be educational or a call to action that ultimately has a benefit for the customer as a result of a response.

2. Agility: I do not mean responding to the marketing idea of the week but having a process in place that allows you to have active content. This can be easily done with a company blog and with joint participation the excuse of a time factor is completely removed. The only factor that matters now is the accountability factor.

3. Unity: This is the most neglected attribute. Your marketing to be effective is not a one-way street anymore. It is about communication. Building platforms that your organization can increase the communication with your customer is the actions we take by monitoring news about our customers, building social sites that allow our customers to post, blog and add videos on their own. Being transparent and mixing it up in front of your customers is maybe the largest selling feature you can have.

Takend form a recent post on Business901.

Technorati Tags: Lean Market,Lean Marketing,Lean Six Sigma,Manufacturer Marketing,Industry Week,QAD

Should I choose the annual payment plan for my newspaper?

Delivered from "ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom dedicated to Marketing, Advertising and the Creative Process" -

Insiders Forecast the Newspaper Business

Can anything be done to save the industry?

Dismal Newspaper Future in the Forecast
The outlook for newspaper ad revenue in 2009 is "terrible," according to a forecast released recently by Kubas Consultants, based on their survey of 400 newspaper executives.
This is not surprising, but the forecast was still striking for its alarming language: the "very negative outlook" is due partly to the "next disaster area," employment classifieds, which are suffering a sharp downturn like real estate did two years ago. Indeed, the Kubas report ventures that "the severity of expected declines is remarkable."

Overall, executives surveyed by Kubas expect overall revenues to fall 9.1 percent in 2009, making it the fourth consecutive year to see revenues decline. According to the Newspaper Association of America, total ad revenues (including print and online) slipped 0.3 percent in 2006 and 7.9 percent in 2007. In the first three quarters of 2008, they are down 15.5 percent compared to the same period in 2007, falling from $32.8 billion to $27.8 billion.
If Kubas' predictions for 2009 come to pass, by the end of next year, newspapers will have lost about 30 percent of their total revenues in four years.

Classified revenues will be "hit particularly hard" in 2009, says Kubas, compounding previous losses. Kubas has real-estate classified revenues down 13.9 percent, automotive down 15.5 percent and employment down 16 percent. Thus, employment is expected to pass real estate and the loss leader in this category, reflecting the steady contraction of the labor market, which is expected to continue well into 2009. National and retail ad revenues will bring no relief, however, with the former expected to fall 10.8 percent and the latter 7.5 percent next year.

Kubas also noted the troubling slowdown in the growth of online ad revenues, clouding the sole bright spot on newspapers' ledgers. In fact, the report points out, online revenues actually contracted in the third quarter of 2008; the NAA has them contracting in both the second and third quarters.

Newspapers hobbled their prospects for future growth by tying online ad revenues to upsells from print classifieds. As print listings collapse, there are fewer opportunities for these upsells.
In fairness, online was never much of a bright spot; it's "still a small percentage of total newspaper ad revenue. The pennies gained in online will not replace the dollars lost in print."
(Source: Media Daily News)

Ok, Should I choose a quarterly payment plan?

How To Use Copywriting To Boost Your Online Business

Entireweb Newsletter   *   January 1, 2009   *   ISSUE #506
If you can't see images, click here to view this newsletter online 

Copywriting, which is the most fundamental skill in any online business, is an important part of Internet advertising. It is the art of writing sales and marketing materials, which can promote your business on the Web. Being able to learn and master this art can help your business stand out from all the other online businesses of the same type.

The Effect Of Copywriting On Your Online Business which is the most fundamental skill in any online business, is an important part of Internet advertising.

Effective Copywriting For Your Web Site in online marketing because the words or phrases that you use to entice your targeted audience can be placed on any web site and can be viewed by potential online customers, anywhere, anytime and all the time, as long as they are placed on proper portals that will attract possible customers for a specific product or service.

Keep You could have the best product or service in the world, but if you cannot make your audience feel that their life would be better if they owned what you are selling, then, it is of no use. Pull the visitor into the copy, so you can present your product and make your offer.

Use paragraphs that are friendly by using short sentences and simple words. It is highly suggestible to itemize the benefits of the product, so you can give your visitors a better view of what they are getting.

Aside from the extras, you can also focus on your product or service for enticing your visitors by building-up your product, telling them that the price of the product or service is a good value.

Powerful Copywriting And Search Engines Since there are over billions of individual pages on the Internet, getting your potential customer to find you in cyberspace is not easy; but with the help of search engines, they are provided a means of doing just that.

Effective and concise search engine copywriting can dramatically increase your web site's targeted traffic, and you can do this by optimizing its use.

Remember that having the best product in the market is not enough since you also need to learn how to motivate your audience to buy it.

About the Author: Jeremy Gislason - Want to launch, reinvent & grow your online biz dramatically? Discover a breakthrough membership site considered as the #1 source of supply for most hot-selling digital information products on the web. Go to http://www.surefirewealth.com and skyrocket your profits now.

Getting on Board the Social Network

The E-Myth Insider Newsletter printed this about John Jantsch and social media. More information on E-myth Worldwide,

Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. There's been a lot of buzz the past several years about how social networks are changing the world. But social networks aren't just for kids; businesses are getting in on them too. In a recent E-Myth survey of more than 1800 small business owners, 74 percent have used LinkedIn, 48 percent have used Facebook and 32 percent have used a social networking site for business connections. What about you?

In our blog, Getting on Board the Social Network we discuss how these social networks can help you promote your business and make connections with your customers in a whole new way. We also provide a link to a free e-book by our friend John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, that breaks the concept of social media down into easy to understand pieces.

Read all the questions and our answers on Getting on Board the Social Network. And, as always we invite you to share your comments, experiences and advice.

On the Website

Listen to a podcast conversation between E-Myth’s President Wendy Vinson and Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch. They provide real-world examples of business owners who are applying the E-Myth principle of working on it, not in it in their discussion about how the E-Myth Point of View has evolved over time and the importance of building a business that serves your life.

©2008 E-Myth Worldwide

Change your pricing

An excerpt from Seth Godin today, good post on pricing. Should you experiment this year?

When a restaurant goes from a la carte to either a buffet or a prix fixe meal, it is able to find a new class of customers.

Netflix went from charging by the rental to charging by the month.

We use tolls to charge people who drive over bridges more than other folks. We don't hesitate to charge people ordering steak more than people ordering pasta in a restaurant. Could the library charge frequent readers more? What about insurance companies charging more to young families (more likely to have a baby).

Changing your pricing changes your story.