Good People Day
So Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibrary is at it again, enthusiastically making up holidays as he fancies. He’s come up with April 3rd as Good People Day, a day to thank those that help you, inspire you, etc. He explains it better than I, so here:
So I’m left to wondering who I should thank. I guess there’s several peeps out there that inspire me. Here we go, in no particular order.
- Anne Casanova, my manager. She’s awesome!
- Sam Harrelson. A great blogger, generally nice and helpful guy.
- All the people I follow on twitter for constant entertainment.
- All the people who read my blog. Y’all rock and give me a good motivation to keep talking.
- The GeekCast crew for making me laugh hysterically once a week, so big ups to Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, Shawn Collins, and Sam Harrelson once again.
- My best friends ever for always being there for me, Katie Shaw, Lorenza Martinez, Rachel Nuckols, and Jennifer Morrill. None of them are big interwebbers, so no links!
- Karen Garcia is a great for random questions via Twitter. So is Deborah Loxly!
A Thorn in My Side
By all accounts, I was certain that moving my blog over to WordPress and onto my own domain was the right thing to do. Many (if not all) online marketers lately are preaching the personal branding… so what better than to move it over, right?
I’ve noticed since the move that my RSS subscriber numbers have dramatically dropped. At first I thought that this was just FeedBurner asleep at the wheel again, but now I’m not so sure. Google Analytics shows a pretty significant drop in visitors as well, but I see today that it’s actually picking back up a bit. My Entrecard point price for an ad has gone from in the 50s range down to 18 today.
In the words of Grant Wilson, what the frig? I’m still writing the same content, if not better with the random addition of videos. Is this just a curve that will pick back up again once people get acclimated to the new site? I can’t imagine that the design is affecting subscribers since they never have to see the design, or visitors since they don’t see the design until they get here. The average time visitors spend on the site is slowing moving up, so I don’t think the design is a factor.
Am I missing the obvious? I’ve received good feedback from some people in the industry that I really respect. I respect their opinions based on my interactions with them via social media and also based on their reputations and the collection of work they’ve amassed in the blogosphere and online marketing. So what gives?
Read MoreMake Your Business Bloom with PsPrint
Lots of good sales going on this month at PsPrint. The sales are in full swing for spring and it’s time to get the word out about your business. Over the last few months I’ve been reposting some great articles from the PsPrint website about using print marketing to your advantage, so these sales are an awesome time to take advantage of that advise.
- 20% off Brochures
- Brochures are the fastest way for your clients to look up information about your business in a convenient matter without the aid of your website.
- Brochure Printing Made Easy
- Branding with a Shoestring Budget
- 50 4″ x 6″ Postcards for just $14.95
- With prices like these, even the smallest business can promote their products or services. Postcards are also great inexpensive alternatives to party or event invitations. With such a low price for such a small quantity, any mother can send postcards for a proud graduation party.
- Top Six Mistakes to Avoid in Any Postcard Marketing Campaign
- Ninja Marketing Tactics – Postcards
- 5 Proven Tips for Powerful Postcard Marketing
- 15% off Rack Cards
- Rack Cards provide travelers not familiar with the area with highlights of local sights and attractions in hotel lobbies around the country. Rack Cards can effectively advertise restaurants and shops as well to an audience wide open to suggestion.
Effective Email Case Study – Expedia
Checking my email last night I noticed some ingenious, personalized email marketing campaigns that I think more businesses should consider (including my own). I felt the need to share these as case studies. There’s a lot to cover, so I’ll split them up. Hopefully I can continue to do these case studies to give props to what works in marketing and why.
The Company: Expedia.com: I’ve always had great service and luck with Expedia
, so they’re my go-to travel site when referencing flight prices, hotels, etc.
The User History: a few days ago I booked a cruise vacation with some friends out of Port Canaveral, 60 minutes or so outside of Orlando. The trip isn’t for almost a full year, so I wanted to just get an idea of flight prices from Oakland to Orlando. I headed over to Expedia to just check out the price ranges and get a feel for how much I’ll have to put aside for a flight. Since the trip is next February, I don’t plan on actually making this purchase until sometime this summer or next fall.
The Subject Line: Find your flight to Orlando backed by our Best Price Guarantee.
The E-Mail:
The Effectiveness: It’s directing a sale that they’re already running to me, a person who has already shown that they are interested in this particular destination. The email contains just enough text to show that it’s paid attention to my user habits and is offering it’s help without trying to make a super hard sale. The links are targeted and there’s not much in the email that’s off topic (see the Seattle to San Francisco rates in the yellow box – unrelated but I don’t blame them for throwing it out there). I do acknowledge that this may be a total coincidence that I happened to be in the market for a flight to Orlando and this routine email may just be perfectly timed, but at least it shows that they do know their audience.
The Result: I honestly think that I may be a bit more likely to make this purchase sooner than I had anticipated because of this email. I am a little bummed that the sale advertised doestn’t lower the price any more than I’d already found on the website (which was probably a sale price in the first place). I will definitely keep an eye out in regards to their Best Price Guarantee, a service that I never realized they offered until receiving the email.
So in conclusion, email marketing can be effective, even when sending to other marketers. It’s always a great learning experience to pay attention to the emails you get and think to yourself, “What can I learn from this?” and apply what you’ve learned to your own job. It’ll improve your performance and you’ll be better off.
Read MoreLink Glossary: Citation
Citation:
- A citation is a reference to an entity. Citation: quote, mention, reference. Citation in the context of the web usually means a HREF link to a location. A Citation count is the count of references to a page on the internet.
I use a lot of citations on my websites, and the reason is really two-fold. There are some theories that this does help your page rank, so I do it. But the MAIN reason I link is just because I want to make references that are easy for my readers to see where I got my information and go straight to the source if they want more information than I provide. It’s just some extra validation to what I throw out there.
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Glossary Definition From The Definitive Guide to Link Buying by Patrick Gavin
Link Glossary: One Way Links
One Way Links:
- Links that are not reciprocated by your website. Incoming links to your site that are not returned. These are the best links to have from a search engine optimization point of view.
As they say, there are many ways to skin a cat. You can go out there and comment on blogs or you can add your link to a lot of directories. Most directories require a small fee to give you a one way link but in the end it’s worth it for building your website’s page rank.
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Glossary Definition From The Definitive Guide to Link Buying by Patrick Gavin
