Author: Dave J.

Punch it up

Interesting article in BtoB Magazine (but not on their website) about improving trade advertising for industrial trade journals. The magazine’s popular “Copy Chasers” critique advertisements regularly, but this article gives general advice to punch it up. They are aligning with two other influencers in my current thoughts: Seth Godin’s ‘Purple Cow’ and Emeril Lagasse’s ‘Kick it up a notch’.

The Chasers’ point is to focus on one item and message, don’t cram the page, and make it look attractive (including using people). The implied thought is that you should give them enough information to be interested to click over to your website. If the ad is compelling, they will!

You mess with Google, you lose!

I’ve probably complained here before about a certain competitor who was “spamdexing” Google, and hogging every single #1 spot of the keywords I track. As of today, their site no longer exists in Google. He now has to rely on a one-page site under a different URL, plus his AdWords ads to generate traffic. Yay!

My kind of discussion

I currently run on business.com, as well, so I am interested in others opinions.

Business.com…..a pro or con? – Free Search Engine Forums

Doing AdWords better

I’m just one step ahead of my competitors, by actually using AdWords. But I’ve judged it successful enough to not mess with it. The following article has some good advice on how I can try to boost its effectiveness. Then, when they join the game, I’ll still be able to beat them.

Google AdWords: Best Practices

Messenger Spam

We run NT at work. When we get our new CRM software, we are looking at new PCs for everyone. Our sysops want Win2000 because they don’t trust WinXP. Get over it, I say!

But, running XP at home, I find a potential problem. Even with the internal firewall on, an outside user (ie spammer) can essentially create a pop-up ad on my screen at will using a little used “Messenger” service. I’d hate to have 10 guys on my back about how to stop this spam, which would be the case if we had the XP machines already. Here’s the straight dope:

TechTV-how to turn Messenger off

A personal favorite

My wife and I have been hooked on OwlCam for a couple years. The eggs are due to hatch next week. You can still catch up on what’s been happening with Ward and June before the owlets arrive.

Owlcam for April 24, 2003

Paradigm shift

This article in my email from CyberAtlas leads off: “Professionals Prefer Typing To Talking”. They didn’t post this to their website yet and the source requires registration. The article tells it all, though. Think about what this means to your business (to me it affects how I will evaluate CRM software).

Hang up the phone and stop scheduling meetings — 80 percent of businesspeople prefer e-mail communication, according to a survey by META Group, Inc.

“These findings reveal a major tipping point in the evolution of communications,” said Matt Cain, META Group senior vice president and an expert on e-mail and collaboration strategies. “While we had suspected that e-mail was becoming more popular than the phone, we were surprised by the magnitude of the ratio of those choosing e-mail over the phone. Clearly, e-mail best suits a changing business climate characterized by geographically distributed workgroups, extreme mobility, the need for rapid information dissemination, and a desire for reusable business records.”

Conducted online among 387 organizations, the survey also found that nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of respondents believe being without e-mail would present more of a hardship than being without phone service.

Reasons For Preferring E-mail Over Phone for Business:

Response flexibility 84%

Can communicate with multiple parties easily 83%

Paper trail is created 78%

Can communicate more quickly 40%

More productive 29%

Easier for global communications 25%

Proper context 24%

More targeted, less socializing 22%

Marketing measurement

I will defend small-time marketers like myself and our lack of measurement and ROI because we don’t have the time or resources. Here is an online seminar that tries to attack the trend to be like me. This program is targeted at “technology marketers” which I think means the IT industry.

Centra Web Event Great lead off paragraph: Who has the time to measure the results of marketing programs when execution itself is resource constrained? But without further measurement, budgets could be further reduced. . .

Comparing CRM

Here is a down-to-earth comparison of Goldmine and SalesLogix. Its even up-to-date. Just another small clue in my decision process, but at least this covers much of the finer technical information.

For example: I found out I can add custom data tables in SalesLogix, but can only add custom fields in Goldmine. Good or bad, I don’t know, but at least I understand more what I am buying.

A neutral CRM comparison table

Don’t forget DMOZ

When I moved this blog, I forgot DMOZ (click if you don’t remember). Getting your website in DMOZ is a major boost in the ranking Google gives you, because Google is interested in how others perceive your site. They remind you of that in their help for webmasters.

My problem is that my previous site location is listed in DMOZ, causing that URL to still come up under certain searches, while my current location is buried. I’m not sure who to fix the old URL, so I just submitted the new one again. Perhaps I did this once already, but didn’t get listed. DMOZ listing is not reliable, which can be frustrating, too.