If you look through any of the online news sources, such as Google News, you will notice that there are few business stories that have surfaced in the last 24 - 48 hours. That is not surprising in some ways, after all we have just been through the weekend. The problem is that today's news pages need filling.

Any journalist working on a Sunday, producing news pages for a Monday edition, knows the problem only too well. There is little material to choose from - and all of your contacts are out of the office. There are very few people you can call to help you fill the space; plus no-one seems to send out press releases over the weekend.

Some PR companies and businesses are switched on to this problem, though. They produce "Sundays for Mondays" - stories that are only provided during Sunday so that they can make the Monday editions. There's a good example in this morning's Times newspaper. The Priory clinic is launching a service for stressed lawyers. That information could have been released any time last week, or even today. But with it being available over the weekend, the clinic has probably achieved more publicity than it might have done if the story had been released on a weekday when there is more competition for space.

Journalists who work at the weekend are crying out for good stories to cover. There is clearly a gap here you can fill. Your online business is likely to get more publicity if you issue news items on a Sunday, rather than any other day of the week.

Labels: internet, internet marketing

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

The Internet is largely North American. Around seven out of every ten people in North America use the Internet; yet in Africa it's only three people in every 100. Even in Europe only four out of every ten people are regular Internet users. Of the world as a whole, only one in seven people use the Internet in any way at all. World Internet Usage statistics make interesting reading, but combined with a new report from the EU they show that major change is on the way.

The EU report claims that the rising availability and reduced costs of broadband are beginning to make the Internet available to all - including poverty struck places of the world such as Africa. In Europe broadband access costs just 1% of income, yet even in Africa it is only 10% of income. Prices inevitably fall in commodity marketplaces like broadband access, so even that 10% is going to come down.

In the past six years Internet usage in Africa has soared by 700% yet it has only grown in North America by 115%. The rest of the world is fast catching up on the USA and with it will come changes, unpredictable but probably significant changes that will affect Internet users around the world. For instance, the way of doing business in Africa and Asia is markedly different to the way business is done in North America or Europe. When the bulk of Internet users are African and Asian - in the not too distant future - that will affect anyone who has an online business. Plus those changes will filter down into offline businesses and our societies in general.

Clearly we can never be sure what the future will hold; but you can make a safe bet that the rapid globalisation of Internet usage will make it interesting.

Labels: future, internet

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

The focus of many Internet marketers is to get people to buy their products and services from their online shop. That makes a great deal of sense; your costs are cheaper, delivery can often be instant in the case of digital goods, and prices can be lower as a result.

However, around half the people who "shop" online are never intending to buy - in spite of the fact that they want your stuff. That's because around 50% of people are using the Internet merely for "research" on the products they'd like. Once they have found what they want they go to a traditional bricks and mortar store to buy it.

With much Internet marketing focusing on ebooks, audios and other digital downloads, it seems as though 50% of the potential sales are being wasted. What this means is you also need physical versions of your products sold in real "High Street" stores. If you don't do this you are clearly losing out on potential sales. Guess what my next project is? Getting copies of my latest ebooks printed and distributed physically.

Labels: internet marketing, shopping

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

Social networking using such services as MySpace has grown substantially in the last couple of years. But is it all a "flash in the pan"? Or is this something that Internet marketers really should take notice of? There have been few studies of what happens within online social networks, but new research from Fox Interactive Media (FIM) suggests there is something they call a "momentum effect".

Now FIM is owned by the same group that owns MySpace, so they clearly have a vested interest in telling us that. However, their research does show up something interesting. What appears to happen is that within social networks people discuss brands, products, services and so on. So, if you advertise your business within MySpace, for instance, there's a chance it will be picked up and discussed within the network. The result is that you could be selling stuff a long time after you originally posted or advertised - the so-called "momentum effect".

What happens is your brand or your product gains lots of chatter and referrals, which gradually build up momentum for what you are selling. The research from FIM suggests that what is happening is that people are telling stories to each other about how they use or like particular products and brands. It is this story telling which appears to be fundamental to the passing on of information about what you are selling and building the momentum.

So, what does this new research tell us? Well, nothing new at all really. For years, brands have depended on us talking to each other about them. If you like a particular product or service you tend to talk to your friends and colleagues about it and recommend it. That's all that's happening on social networking sites such as MySpace.

What this actually means if you are involved in Internet marketing is that you are more likely to get increased sales if you can use social networking sites to help generate stories and recommendations.

Labels: internet marketing, social networking

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

Last week I had an email from a customer who simply said they were unable to log in to a new forum I had built for a group of my clients. They couldn't see where to register and gave up. Their email was a desperate plea for help. The same customer had sent a similar email only a few weeks before because they couldn't log on to another site they needed to use and asked me for my help. Now, new psychological research suggests that such individuals may actually have some kind of brain malfunction.

Every day I meet people who say "Oh I can't get on with the Internet, it's so confusing". Or they complain that it's complex, that there is a new "language" to learn. However, each of these people tries to use the Internet, even though they find it frustrating. What appears to happen is that they make a mistake - such as not being able to find the "register or log in" link - but don't learn from their mistake. When they are faced with looking for a "register or log in" link on another site they haven't learned from their attempts on previous web pages.

Research at the University of Minnesota has found that there is electrical activity in the brain of people who make mistakes and then learn from them. But this brain activity is missing in people who simply repeat the errors without ever learning from them.

So, people who get confused by the Internet may not actually be confused at all. They may simply be repeating the errors they make - such as not noticing that the "register or log in" link is almost always at the top left of a forum. In other words, whenever they are faced with a forum they repeat the error of not looking in the right place. According to this new research this could well be because they are missing an essential bit of brain functioning which helps other people learn from their mistakes. It's not the Internet after all that is the problem - it's a bit of biology.

Labels: internet, internet psychology

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

If you are trying to sell your products and services via your web site, you really need to know where the best place in the page is to position things. If you put the link to your sales page in the "wrong" place, for instance, you'll miss out on sales. But where is the "right" place? Well, there's no easy answer to that because it depends on your overall web site design and the kind of people you are targeting. Big business uses eye tracking tests plus "heatmap" analysis of web visitors. What these two measures do is tell the company's web designers where people go on their page. They can use the data to put the most important material in the most looked at part of their page.

Knowing such information is very useful for anyone engaged in Internet marketing. The problem for small businesses and independent Internet marketers is that such research is hugely expensive. However, I've discovered a brilliant service that provides you with heat maps and visitor tracking - free of charge...! It's called Crazy Egg and your behaviour on this page is being monitored for me....you have been warned...!

Labels: internet marketing

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

At April 26, 2007 10:12 AM  Guy Redwood said…

At April 26, 2007 10:22 AM  Graham Jones said…

Post a Comment

Every day around 120,000 new blogs are created. There are now an estimated 75 million blogs available. Many of these are what are called "spam blogs" - these are blogs automatically created by software which have little if any content, but are stuffed with adverts. People arrive on these blogs, realise there is nothing of interest and click on an advert, thus generating revenue for the owners. Around 11,000 of these blogs are created each day as well.

Now there's another problem; according to web security experts, Scansafe, eight out of ten blogs are offensive. Even worse, one in every 15 blogs contains hidden software (known as malware) which can damage your computer. Many blogs, it seems, either use swearwords, carry offensive pictures or are so poorly constructed they can easily pass on viruses and other problems to a reader's computer.

Combine this with the huge number of blogs available it's easy to see why there may be the beginnings of a backlash against blogging. People don't have the time to read page after page of blogs; neither do they want to visit a blog thinking they will find something of value, only to read swearwords or see disgusting or irrelevant pictures.

Earlier this year ProBlogger Darren Rowse completed a survey of why people give up on blogs. Offensive content was high in the list; so too was irrelevant content and too much material. In other words, what readers want is something that is useful and interesting to them, that they can read quickly without being offended in any way. It's just common sense really.

So will there be a backlash against blogging? Almost certainly the millions of blogs in existence will get little readership; but those blogs that provide what the readers want, in the right amounts at the right time, will be the ones that succeed. As ever, understanding your readers is the most important task if you write a blog.

Labels: blogging, future

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

British Airways used to be "the world's favourite airline" - not any more. Indeed, BA has been fighting hard against a huge onslaught of competition for several years now. Investors would tell you it has been doing well; indeed the share price has outperformed (until recently) the FTSE100 index. However, share price performance isn't everything. Yet it is usually the only thing the board of big businesses care about. Sooner or later, focus on share price causes problems for a company. Why? Because it takes the "eye of the ball" of what the company should be doing - satisfying customers, not satisfying investors. Inevitably, if you look after your customers, you look after your investors.

But it seems that British Airways constantly takes its focus away from its reputation with its customers. Almost all the negative publicity about airlines is on BA. Quickly reviewing this weekend's news would make you think someone has their knives sharpened against the company: the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh was refused a boarding pass to get on a BA plane; some travel agents have been boycotting BA over the fees they charge; tour operators in Malta are angry about BA remuneration decisions. And these stories are just in the past 24 hours. But another one has gained much more coverage - the fact that the cameo appearance of Sir Richard Branson (the owner of Virgin Atlantic airlines) in the movie Casino Royale, has been "edited out" of the version that is currently being shown "in flight" in BA planes.

When BA is in a reputation hole, it appears to keep digging. And surprisingly this has been happening for several years. Indeed, I know some people in the PR industry who use British Airways as their leading example of how NOT to do things. A couple of years back BA won a PR industry award for the "most column inches" achieved of any company in the world's media. There was a big razzmatazz "do" where the award was given to the Chief Executive. Subsequent analysis of those column inches printed in newspapers discovered that the vast majority of them were negative.

So what does all this mean? For British Airways their constant "shooting themselves in the foot" makes it all the more difficult for them to do business. Every time a company gets bad publicity it makes the job of front-line sales teams harder. The boards of firms probably never notice this - they are too far removed from the sales teams. Only some months later do they notice dips in sales or increased costs caused by the need to advertise their way out of situations. So, the boards change the targets, get in new sales managers and "fix" the problem. But they should focus on reputation. Every time a company takes an action of any kind it affects reputation.

Did anyone stop to think for a second what would happen to British Airways' reputation if they cut out Richard Branson from the in-flight movie? Would they have cut out every mention of him in the newspapers they provide on board? All across the Internet you'll find plenty of column inches talking about this nonsensical decision (263 newspaper articles listed by Google News so far!). In the coming days and weeks, the competition to British Airways will find it easier to sell their seats - without having to do anything. Sir Richard Branson will receive even more positive column inches, making it even easier for Virgin Atlantic to sell its tickets. Meanwhile, British Airways sales teams and representatives will find it harder. Why? Because of the psychological reaction of people: why fly with such a petty company?

For the British Airways shareholder, there's no problem. The size of the company means that it can pretty much buy its way out of the reputational hole it is in. But why put yourself there in the first place? And that's the crucial question for anyone running an online business. Your reputation is the basis on which trust is formed. If you have a strong reputation - and everything you do in your business builds that reputation or knocks it down - you will do well.

Focus everything on building and maintaining reputation and you won't suffer from what I call the British Airways effect. So, for every action you take online we all need to consider "what impact will this activity have on my business reputation?". If there is any negative impact - don't do it. Otherwise you create an environment in which it is harder for you to sell and easier for your competition.

Labels: internet marketing, internet psychology, shopping

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

At April 24, 2007 10:02 AM  kirbstones said…

At April 24, 2007 10:08 AM  Graham Jones said…

At April 24, 2007 10:18 AM  Graham Jones said…

Post a Comment

The London Marathon has just begun and 36,000 people are attempting the 26.2 miles through the historic London streets. Professional athletes, elite club runners and people who enjoy running all run alongside people raising money for charity, TV personalities and celebrities. Importantly, they are all advised to "pace themselves". If you are not an elite runner who can complete the course in just over two hours, do it in your own time, the runners are advised. And it strikes me that this is sensible advice for Internet marketers. Far too many people see Internet marketing as a "sprint". They want to get their web site to the top of Google, tomorrow; they want to achieve millions of hits within a week and they want to earn millions from their web site by the end of the month. But this attitude means almost certain failure; running an online business is a marathon, not a sprint. Aim for the longer view - see your business in several months time and then determine the stages you need to get their. Just as today's runners in the London Marathon know their "split times" - the timing they want to achieve for each mile they run - so you should have your step by step achievements for your online business. So what month by month targets do you have for traffic, rankings and so on? Set those targets for your web based business; see it as a long term venture, rather than a quick way to raise money, and you will be rewarded.

Labels: internet, internet marketing

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

At April 24, 2007 9:40 PM  merjoem32 said…

Post a Comment

Gordon Bell is an amazing man. He is in his 70s, still works at Microsoft and can remember every single event that has happened in his life for several years. So how does he do that? He is using technology, including a large slice of Internet technology, to help him. Every phone call he makes is automatically recorded, stored in a database, indexed and annotated. If you ask him what you said in a phone call to him five years ago, he can almost instantly tell you word for word. He is not alone, though. Many people now store their pictures online, at places like Picassa. Instead of having to remember all the events in your life, you just store them online, add some keywords then you can be reminded of them by a simple search. We are using Internet technology to increasingly replace what our brains used to do. That has significant implications in a psychological sense and I explore some of them in my article in today's Daily Telegraph newspaper. You can read the online version of my article in the Digital Life section.

Labels: future, internet, internet psychology

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

Your web site loses sales. Shocking as it may seem, not everyone who visits your web site buys from you. Well, you knew that, of course. But did you know that around one third of people who don't make a purchase from your web site would do if only you provided an incentive. According to an article in New Media Age, CheetahMail has found that 30% of people who abandon their online purchase at the shopping cart stage would have gone back and bought something if there was an incentive to buy at this final stage. Something like a small discount would be enough. Additional research from Interactive Media in Retail Group has also shown that 41% of shoppers in the UK get as far as the checkout and then give up. So, it seems that a significant proportion of your web site customers are giving up at the final moments. With everyone emphasising the need for good sales copy, perhaps its time to re-dress the balance somewhat and put some effort in to producing a shopping cart that entices people to complete their desired purchase?

Labels: internet marketing, shopping

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

How do you measure the effectiveness of your web site? Many people look at their statistics to see numbers of hits, unique visitors, geographical spread and so on. Whilst these are useful indicators, they do not provide a full indicator of effectiveness. Many companies provide a range of statistical analyses for your web site, but two reports just published suggest that the current way of measuring web sites is ineffective and needs to change. One of the problems is that much web site counting depends on "cookies" - little pieces of text that are automatically downloaded to a reader's computer. The statistical programs can count the cookies and collect information which helps build up the data you look at. The problem is that many people reject cookies or clear out their cookie collection - indeed modern browsers allow you to do this automatically; plus there are several "washing" programs that delete such "Internet junk" from your PC. The result is that web sites are over-counting cookies. If you cleared out the cookie from my web site and then re-visited, you would get another cookie and be counted as "unique" when in fact you are not. Consequently, many web statistics that people look at are actually misleading. The industry is discussing new ways of measuring web site data - including the way TV and radio assesses audiences by using a panel of people who record everything they watch and listen to. However, I have a much simpler measure - is my web site selling more today than it did yesterday? If so, it's effective.

Labels: internet, internet marketing, shopping

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

In the past 24 hours we have seen record profits of £2.6 billion announced from supermarket giant Tesco yet Yahoo has posted an 11% fall in profits at a mere £71m. Google, on the other hand is making around £525m every three months. Tesco's main competitor, Sainsbury's, only managed "a sharp rise" in profits of £267m last year - one tenth of Tesco's. So here we have it - Tesco is clearly beating Sainsbury's hands down, while Google is doing the same to Yahoo. But look at the market shares. Google gets 48% of search engine traffic while Yahoo gets 28%. Meanwhile, Tesco gets 31% of supermarket shoppers while Sainsbury's gets 16%. In both these cases the successful company (Tesco and Google) gets around twice the market share of their main competitor, yet in both instances they are getting around ten times the profits. In other words, doubling your market share doesn't double your profits, it clearly has a much more substantial effect. So, one way of helping boost your online business is to look at your share of your market place and then work out some steps which will help you increase that share. Small increases in market share can have substantial effects on your bottom line.

Labels: internet marketing, shopping

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

Post a Comment

If you sell anything online, you need a secure web site. But you also need security in your office or in your home office so there is no way that anyone can collect your customers' details. If a customer's details can be hacked into on your web site, or they can be stolen from your files in your office, you significantly reduce the chances of future sales. That's because a new survey of online shoppers shows they will shun any Internet store that has weak security. More than half of people in the survey said they would stop using any online store that had a poor security record. So, avoid a major hit on your sales by reviewing your current security procedures and those of your suppliers. It might be too late if you wait any longer to ensure your Internet marketing is fully secure.

Labels: internet marketing, shopping

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy | Spurl | Squidoo | Wink |

Email this story to your friends:

Readers' Comments:

At April 18, 2007 5:52 AM  sri said…

At September 25, 2007 6:10 AM  Prince said…

Post a Comment

Callers to a phone in on London's LBC Radio Station yesterday were full of tales of problems and difficulties they have with the Internet, in particular Ebay. One person had serious difficulties after someone launched a campaign against her by pretending to buy everything she put up for sale and then giving entirely negative feedback about the fictitious purchases. Another caller found that what she bought wasn't what was actually advertised. And another person was worried about paying for things online. It was fascinating to see how everyone focused on the problems and difficulties, rather than the positives. For every person who has problems with the Internet, there are millions who don't. But it seems to be a psychological tendency for us to focus on the negatives - few people are able to put the negatives to one side and deal with only the positives of any situation. There is a reason for this - from an evolutionary perspective if our brains were not able to spot the negatives it could lead us into potential harm, without realising it. So we seem to have an inbuilt system that allows us to avoid harm by focusing on negatives. But we have to remember that the positives about the Internet far outweigh the negatives. So what advice did the LBC listeners get? Well, they were told that they should base their reaction to a web site on "gut reaction". If you think an eBay purchaser is suspect or if you are not sure about a particular web page, you are probably right. So the listeners were told you don't need any fancy technology or tricks - just trust your instincts. And which "expert" gave that advice? Well, I have to admit it was me. I was one of the guests on the lunchtime show on LBC yesterday.

Labels: internet, internet psychology, shopping, speaking

Add this story to:

| BlinkList | BlogMarks | del.icio.us | Digg | Furl | Google | LinkRoll | Lycos |

| ma.gnolia | Netscape | Newsvine | Ning | reddit | Simpy |