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Friday, May 09, 2008
Imagine the brains of your readers and wonder what they make of your web site
 Your web site visitors can be manipulated. Indeed, successful web sites do this with great care. They lure you in, almost hypnotically, and get you to do whatever it is they want, such as buy something from them.
Copywriting expert Joe Vitale is the pioneer of "hypnotic writing" in which he suggests the use of words to help "hypnotise" your readers into doing your bidding. Imagine that - being able to get your web site readers to do whatever it is you want.
True enough, the words are important, but the "whole package" you present to people also makes a difference as to whether or not they are going to be persuaded by your material. And make no mistake - your web site's job is to persuade people. It might be an obvious bit of persuasion, as in getting them to buy something. Or it might be more subtle, such as convincing your readers you are an expert.
Recent research suggests that the pictures that accompany your text are also part of the persuasion package. This study looked at how people perceived popular media stories on psychology. When a picture of a brain scan accompanied the story, the information was given more credibility by the readers. In other words, they were more persuaded by what they read because of the "scientific" image that accompanied the text.
This suggests that people have an expectation of the kind of image that "accurately" portrays a subject. That expectation may be stereotypical, but it is there. So, if you own a web site and you try to sell from it, or persuade people of your views, how much attention do you pay to the choice of pictures and other images?
It may well be that by choosing images without much thought, you are having a negative impact on your likely sales. Once you know the kind of pictures that your audience will find more trustworthy and which add credibility to your subject matter, then the more likely it is that you will persuade your web site's readers to accept your position.
Often, imagery is down to the design team - but how well do they know the images your audience expects? By choosing images that look good - but which don't connect in the right way with your readers, you could actually be reducing your sales potential.
Joe Vitale is right that we can be almost hypnotically persuaded by words; it appears that pictures also play a part in our beliefs. That means if you spend lots of money on getting the copy right on your web site, you probably also need to spend similar amounts on getting the pictures right.
Oh, by the way, did you notice the "scientific" image at the start of this article? Subtly that has made it more likely that you will accept my point of view.
Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology
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I sometimes wonder what's in the brains of my readers!
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Internet marketers need to get inside each customer's head
You will make more money if you get inside each customer's head; really get inside and start to think exactly like they think. We all know that marketing is about providing what people want, but new research, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that we need to do much more than simply finding out basic needs and desires.
Psychologists in Chicago at Northwestern University looked at the comparative value of empathy and perspective taking. Their investigations showed that during negotiating sessions, those individuals who showed empathy towards their "opponents" were less successful than those who undertook "perspective taking".
Empathy is not enough online
In psychological terms, empathy means the ability to have an emotional connection to someone, to be able to gauge their feelings and react appropriately. That might seem sensible for sales people and for anyone trying to negotiate. Indeed, you'll find plenty of sales training material suggesting that you work on your empathy.
But the researchers discovered that "perspective takers" had much more successful negotiations. Those people who can perform "perspective taking" are able to consider a situation from someone else's viewpoint. It is much more than empathy, which merely deals with emotion. Perspective taking allows you to think like your opponent. When you do this, you are considerably more successful than merely being empathetic.
So what does this tell us as Internet Marketers? It suggests that simply knowing what your customers want and connecting with them emotionally is nowhere near enough to be sure of selling. Instead, you need to see your web site and all your sales materials, emails and so on, from the customer perspective.
Connect with your customers
And how can you achieve that? It means you have to really, really, really get to know your customers. Talk to them, ask them questions, find out as much as you can about them. Be with them, go where they go, join the clubs they join. The more you understand your customers and the more you connect with them the more you will be able to start thinking like them. And once you do that, you can take their perspective, resulting in more sales. Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Why the Google advertising change doesn't matter
Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday. Up until now, advertisers using Google AdWords have been banned from using the brand names of their competitors in their adverts; now they can.
This has spawned all sorts of suggestions as to how businesses might capitalise on the change. One example I read was if you are Sainsbury, you can now use the word Tesco in your online advertising with Google. Fine; but what value does it bring you.
Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys". However, both of these stores sell millions of different things. Compared with the other keywords for which they might be found, these figures pale into insignificance.
Take "car insurance"; both Tesco and Sainsbury's sell car insurance. There are almost 3,000 searches on Google every day for the phrase "car insurance". There are just over 200 for "Tesco car insurance", but none at all for any combination of "Sainsbury" and "car insurance". In other words there are almost twice as many people looking for "car insurance" as anything containing the word "tesco" or "sainsbury".
Brand, online trust and credibility
What does this tell us? It suggests that at the outset, brand does not matter. When people are searching for something they are looking, for instance, for anyone who can help them with their car insurance needs. When they have a selection, then, perhaps, brand comes into play in terms of trust and credibility. But at the search level, it is of secondary importance.
This means that using a competitor's brand name in an advert is - once again - looking in the wrong direction. What it means is that companies will focus on their competition, rather than spending their time thinking about their customers. Tesco, for instance, is well known for saying its turnaround from being an also-ran in the supermarket business, to a world leader came when they stopped worrying about their competitors and focused every ounce of corporate muscle on their customers.
The Google change will do the reverse. It will make companies focus on their competitors rather than their customers. And as the "car insurance" example suggests, at the search stage of the process who provides the car insurance is not important.
Consider fresh bread!
As another example, consider "fresh bread". Only 11 people every 24 hours search for this phrase - but there is only one advert on Google and that's not from Tesco or Sainsbury. Yet, both these companies have in-store bakeries and would be able to outbid the current advertiser easily, gaining almost all of those 11 people a day. Add that to the millions of other products and they'd gain even more traffic from people looking for specific products.
What the corporate brands do, is believe their own publicity. They honestly believe that the brand is all important, when online it is of only secondary importance. To the people who want fresh bread, they want fresh bread - who supplies it doesn't matter that much.
I'm not saying that brand is irrelevant; I'm just saying it is lower down the pecking order than big brand owners would like to think. The problem with the Google change it confirms in the brand owner's mind the importance of brand. Hence they will spend more money using brand names in their Google AdWords campaigns - and who will benefit? Well Google of course.
Brand names are not important
What will happen to those 4,105 people a year who want "fresh bread"? Well they will be denied the knowledge that Tesco and Sainsbury offer them tasty fresh bread prepared by master bakers. Tough on them, but even tougher on the retailers who are denying themselves income by worrying about the competitor's brand name adverts rather than focusing on their customers.
Google is laughing all the way to it's bank of course. Why? Because they have focused on their customers very well indeed. Google knows that its brand name customers love using brand names - even though Google knows it's a fools game. So, if big brands want to waste their money? Let them, says Google.
Focus on your customers - and online that means providing what they want at the precise moment in time they want it. When searching, brand is of little importance. Only when people are making a decision to buy online does brand start to play its part. The result is that for almost every business this change from Google is worthless. Your customers are not searching for your brand, or your competition's brand; instead they are searching for your solutions and that's what your advert should focus on. Labels: internet, internet marketing, shopping
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It's a rather shortsighted viewpoint you put forth. The reality is that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't necessarily worried about each using the other's brand. They are worried about the many fraudulent websites that attempt to lure you to their sites based on a trusted brand name. At the end of the day, Google shows they are only in it for the money and don't care if they support and encourage fraud along the way.
Thanks for your comment. I disagree that I am being short sighted. I'm well aware that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't bothered about each other. The point I am making is that the change Google has instituted means that online businesses will be encouraged to focus on what their competitors are doing, rather than focusing on their customers. It's not about "fraud"; it's about customers.
What? Fraud? If someone was had up for fraud every time someone ended up on a website they didn't intend to be on, I think the courts would be rather full!
Anyone who does arrive on the wrong site won't be out of pocket anyway. It's the advertiser that pays for the click, not the person viewing it, so how have they been defrauded? I think our anonymous friend fails to understand the mechanics of pay per click and the definition of fraud. And let's not forget that Google insist on a 'display URL' showing where the ad goes through to, on every single ad to avoid misleading people.
Pay per click is just a form of marketing (a blindingly obvious fact which many people manage to miss) and in any form of marketing communication, you need to tell your prospect what you can do for them. They don't want to be in the middle of a squabble between you and a competitor, so any mention of competitors needs to be subtle at best. Consumers are generally sceptical of any mention of a competitor, so I hardly think any floodgates are about to open.
What I think has happened here is that Google have simply relaxed a rule that was proving increasingly hard to police. Millions of companies worldwide now use Adwords - can Google really keep a list of ALL of their advertisers' competitors? Especially if we continue with Tesco as an example - they sell just about everything these days, they must have thousands of competitors.
Clearly, Google know as well as you do Graham that this will make barely a scrap of difference. If they felt it would I hardly think they would put their multi-billion pound advertising model at risk for the extra few quid they will make from people who think there's a huge opportunity here.
Absolutely Rob, I agree. Thanks for your excellent comment which puts things into perspective. I suspect that the Tescos and the Sainsburys of the world will not be in the least bit bothered by Google's move. However, many small businesses may be tempted to use competitor names in their adverts and they are the ones who will waste time worrying about how they can steal clicks from their competition, rather than focusing on serving their customers.
Sorry, but your post is clearly flawed on a number of areas. Let's look at the first line.
Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday.
It wasn't very quiet - it was announced about a month ago and it's been in the press quite a bit since, I believe even the FT ran an article on it.
You then go on to say..
Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys".
Firstly Wordtracker is outdated and you should not take that figure as gospel - it's better to use MSN's figures (that use real search numbers). These show that last month on MSN the keyword "tesco" had 158,875 searches. If you do some calculations based on their market share information it actually means that the keyword "tesco" that you mention gets 1,200 searches a day actually gets more like 143,118 searches per day.
Quite a bit more and as your post is based around those figures I think it makes a big difference.
With that being said - I don't think terms like Tesco are going to be impacted too much, but terms suddenly available now such as "ipod" (with about 7k a day in searches) will have an impact.
Time will tell though - it's certainly going to be an interesting few months ahead.
James, thanks for your comments. However I don't agree that my article is flawed. Let me address your comments individually.
Firstly I used "quietly" to indicate they did this without announcing it to AdWords customers. True there were press announcements, but it was a "quiet" introduction of a policy change if you thought you'd hear about it via AdWords directly.
Secondly, I don't take any figures as gospel, so why should I take MSN's as valid either? The exact numbers themselves do not matter. It's the proportions that matter. Even with the hugely inflated figures that MSN suggests, more people are searching for the products and services that Tesco sells, than for the company itself. This means that if they are using PPC keywords merely for their brand name - they are missing out.
I am saying nothing different to the theory proposed in the leading business book, The Long Tail. That tells us - along with plenty of other examples - that focusing on your competitors is doomed. People should focus on their customers.
Whether you want to use your numbers or my numbers, they point to the same thing. Anyone worrying about the use of brand names in their PPC adverts is barking up the wrong tree.
Finally, where do you get the notion that Wordtracker is out-dated? True it uses a different process to MSN and it comes up with other figures, but it's not the raw numbers that matter. What matters is the general indication that these tools provide.
Thanks for your reply.
In terms of Wordtracker vs. MSN, I would say that MSN is more reliable - the figures are taken from actual search numbers in the previous month.
Some people still use Overture even though it's about 6 or 7 months old and wordtracker uses it's own metric and is still relatively new to the UK - it's more of a sample than real results. Saying that, my wordtracker login shows a heck of a lot more than 1,200 searches a day for Tesco so unsure why it's so different to your own..
With all that said - I appreciate and agree that merchants should concentrate on their own customers, but as part of an overall PPC campaign I think it's fair to say that competitor and product keywords that were previously trademarked can now have a big impact on the ROI - this can be both positive and negative.
Let's look at one each one.
Negative - in that your own brand becomes more expensive to bid on. As a paid search agency we have seem that bidding on your brand, even when you rank number 1 organically can have an impact to your sales - so of all of a sudden this becomes a lot more expensive.
Positive - As mentioned in my previous example, retailers who sell ipods can all of a sudden start bidding on a product that they sell, which is not a bad thing. There are plenty of other examples of where this could work and we've already seen (before the changes) that competitive terms convert, sometimes very well.
It's all part of a balanced keyword campaign :)
James, thanks for the clarification. From what you say, I can see we are in agreement. The difference in our Wordtracker results may be because of the use of different databases. The "compressed" database can produce different results from the "comprehensive" database, for instance. But I don't think we need to get hung up on precise numbers. Your iPod example is a good one which shows that focusing on the products people want to buy is probably going to be more successful than focusing on the Apple brand name, for instance.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Internet training courses might not help you
Trainers are available on all sorts of Internet subjects. Want to learn how to do "SEO" (search engine optimisation)? well, there's a course on it. Like to discover how to "monetise" your web site? There's a course on that too. Perhaps you'd really like to learn about corporate blogging. Well, guess what, you can have a training course for all your staff on that as well.
However, new research on obstetricians confirms what I've long suspected - that training courses themselves are of little effect on their own. The study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine shows us that training courses had little impact on the practice of doctors.
From old to new
Here's what they did. The researchers wanted to see how doctors changed their practice from the "old ways" to better, more modern methods. In one group of hospitals, everyone was put through their paces on a training course. A second group merely had one doctor who was trained who then had to "spread the word".
It turned out that where "spreading the word" was four times more effective in getting a change in practice than training everyone. So why might that be? Two reasons. Firstly, the message was delivered via a "social network" of peers, making it seem more "natural". Secondly, the new information was delivered by someone the doctors knew and trusted - one of "them", rather than some unknown trainer.
 The implications of this study should not be underestimated. We learn more from our peers and our social groups than we might think. Indeed, think about how you learned about numbers. Was it at school? Or was it as a toddler with your Mum singing songs like "one two three four five, once I caught a fish alive" and counting out Lego bricks with you? Numbers are learned socially. How did you learn language - in a classroom, or by learning from those around you? Yes, you've guessed it - socially.
Improving your online business
So what does this all mean for your Internet plans? The study suggests yThe same is true for what we learn about the Internet and how to apply it in our business. We discover more things by talking with our peers and colleagues about running an online business than you ever might in a formal training course.
ou need to mix with other businesses doing the same as you. Go to networking groups in your industry; make sure you are in all the relevant associations and club, join online social networking groups, like the Internet Marketing Club, to share your knowledge. Social learning is much more likely to have an impact on your business performance than formal training. Labels: internet, internet psychology, social networking
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Graham,
The "word of mouth" is a very powerful tool, which is largely ignored in Marketing and that is precisely what is needed. To make a product that will be recommended by "social networks", should be the goal.
When a product achieves that, it goes viral!
See Google, for example, minimal advertising - just "peer recommendation". So when someone goes for a search engine, they go to Google.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Internet World is all about relationships
Your friends like you; honest, trust me, they do. If they didn't like you, then you wouldn't like them and, hey, you wouldn't be friends. Web sites are the same; if they demonstrate they like you - by providing exactly what you are after - then you like them. It's simple really, give your audience what they want and you are home and dry.
So, why oh why is that so few web sites do that? They tell us all about themselves - and frankly, we couldn't give a stuff could we? Sign on at Amazon and the first thing you see is a list of books all suited to your personal preferences; the site is about you. Is there material about Amazon itself? Sure, but it's tucked away.
You see, Amazon knows about relationships. They know that to build a relationship you have to ask questions. Imagine how difficult it would be for you to get new friends if you were never able to ask people a question. It would be impossible. But you can't ask any old question. To build relationships you need to ask questions that allow people to provide you with information about themselves.
Amazon does this in subtle ways - you provide them information on your buying preferences, but also in answering their questions such as "do you want it gift wrapped?" They know from that whether you are a "fluffy" person or not - and that helps them direct the right kind of materials to you. In building friendships we do the same. We ask questions that help us create a picture in our mind of the kind of person we are dealing with.
So, tell me why today when I went to the Internet World exhibition at London's Earl's Court was I faced with so many people who were unable to ask me the right questions. The questions I received were useless in helping the exhibitors find out anything about me; as a result they were unable to build any kind of relationship with me.
For instance, if I got asked once I was asked a dozen times "are you looking for more traffic for your web site?". I answered "no" every time, at which point I was met with a stunned "oh" and a "well thank you anyway" before they moved off to the next victim. But what if I had been asked "how do you get people to come to your web site?". I have to give more information - and then they could enter into a dialogue with me about how they could help me get more of those kind of people.
I wandered around the exhibition for over two hours noting what was happening at each stand. Apart from the fact that most stands had almost no visitors (they were all at the various presentation "theatres"), most of the people wandering around were doing just that - wandering. When I did overhear people being accosted, just like me they were all asked completely closed questions, making it almost impossible for the exhibitor to build any form of relationship.
 No doubt the exhibitors will go away with a huge pile of business cards and say it was an event worth going to. I doubt it - except for one company, Huddle. This is an online collaboration and project management system that incorporates social networking principles.
However, Jon Landau from Huddle was different to almost every other exhibitor I met. He asked me several open questions and engaged in conversation with me. In other words, he treated me as a human being rather than a "prospect". Interestingly, the Huddle stand was amongst the busiest; no surprise there.
Do I know if Huddle is better than its competitors? No. Do I think it is? Yes. How do I judge it? On the fact that the company, through Jon, engaged with me. And that's why most web sites do not work - they don't engage. Most web site are rather like those hapless exhibitors at today's Internet World, asking closed questions and letting me pass on by without engaging. That's what most of the world's Internet traffic does. It stumbles across a site, which asks "do you want to know about us?" - a lovely closed question to which we all say "no thanks". But the owners of those web sites measure their success in terms of the number of visitors they get, just like today's exhibitors counting business cards into the small wee hours. It's one measure, but not a very good one.
Far better for you to really engage with people. Not only do you get more business, but you get more recommendations. You might have noticed I spent a couple of hours in a large exhibition centre and only found one company to recommend. Now what does that tell you about the Internet World? Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology, social networking
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Readers' Comments:
I had a very similar experience last year Graham which is why I didn't return this year.
It seems that very few exhibitors have thought about how to engage with visitors to the exhibition.
I recall wandering around collecting free pens (for my daughter); picking up a few leaflets (for inspiration for my then embryonic business); dropping my business card into bowls promising me the chance to win something useful (but which I knew would lead to 'spam emails' so I was choosy; and being ignored by most exhibitors who simply waited for people to step onto their stands and ask for information.
When I was approached (like you) I was asked closed questions that may have been consciously chosen to quickly identify serious prospects and avoid time wasters. In reality they probably only received positive answers from the time wasters.
I've long subscribed to the view that, in business especially, 'you get the behaviour that you are seen to measure and to record'. I'll bet most of those exhibitors judge a successful exhibition quantitatively by the number of business cards and 'leads' they generate. A qualitative aspect is rarely apparent.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The World Wide Web is just a baby
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, claims today that the technology is merely in its infancy. It's almost 17 years since the first ever web site was published (6th August 1991), so you'd expect the web to be a spotty teenager.
The first British newspapers can be traced back to the 1620s, but they only really entered the "modern" world with colour printing in the 1990s, almost 400 years later. Who would have thought in 1620 that you would be able to print something in colour from a picture taken on the other side of the planet just a few hours later? So in age terms, 400 years on, newspapers have probably only recently entered adulthood themselves.
At any moment in history, people like to think they have all the answers, have solved all the problems and have advanced their technologies as far as they can go. Those first inventors of stone age tools probably were unable to predict the microchip. And so it is today; those of us heavily engaged with the Internet world like to think we are working with the latest technologies. Come back in 1,000 years and take a look...!
From the Stone Age to the Microchip
There is one problem, though. To get from stone age tools to the microchip took thousands of years; to get from hundreds of copies of flimsy black and white newspapers to their international production in colour took hundreds of years. But to go from an idea about hyperlinks to online shopping and downloadable products has taken less than 20 years. In other words, the development of Internet technologies is much more rapid.
So what does this mean for your business? It means that even though the web is in its infancy, you cannot afford to sit back and wait for it to mature. The changes that keep happening are taking place so rapidly that you need to keep up. Rather like a 5-year-old child nowadays - if they didn't mix with their friends and keep up to date on the world around them, they would stagnate into people who could not take part in society.
Your business is the same as that toddler. Take part, in full, in the Internet now and learn as much as you can every day about it. That way you will be able to grow with this infant. Stay on the sidelines and before you know it that child will have developed into something completely different and unpredictable - and your business won't know how to mix. Taking part with web technologies is no longer optional. Labels: future, internet, internet psychology
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Good conclusion, however, the comparison of the newspaper to the internet is a difficult one, because today, technology changes a lot faster than it did in the early 1900s. So, even though it is fairly new, I think it is safe to say the internet as a concept will reach adulthood very soon. However, like other forms of technology, I doubt the internet will every quit growing. You compare these forms of communication to a single adult, or child. I think it would be more apt to compare them to populations of species. The all populations eventually reach a decline (like newspaper) and even an extinction, like the telegraph. The evolution of the internet depends on where you look, some highly competitive environments have highly advanced concepts that they implement in their websites, whereas other, less competitive environments, will not be utilizing those concepts, and will run the risk of being left behind if their competitors adopt those concepts first.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Joined-up marketing is essential online
BBC Radio FiveLive carried an interesting item on the news this morning from Sony BMG that they are making their entire back catalogue available as a "free to listen" service. Wow - that's great, you might think. But this is another example of how big business still has not understood the Internet.
What did I do on hearing the news? That's right, go to the Sony BMG web site in the UK and look for the service. Where is it? No idea. Maybe it's in their "news" section, I thought. No, nothing there either. Perhaps it's on their US site, rather than their UK site? Nope. Nothing there. What about their news section? First item in their news list is dated January 2005.
This is one of the world's "leading" entertainment industries. So where are they leading us? Up the garden path, that's for sure.
If your business is undertaking PR activities - such as going on national radio - you should make sure your web site is "in sync". Or you should set up a separate domain name or web page and plug that like crazy. For example, I speak to several chief executive leadership groups. I have built a special web page just for them; when I am doing any publicity work around the world of CEOs, I only direct them to one page - http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/ceo. That way, when they read or hear an interview directed at them, they go straight to the relevant information.
Sony BMG have either been "caught on the hop" by the BBC, perhaps covering the story in advance of when Sony BMG wanted to release it, or Sony BMG did not think that people listening to the radio would immediately go to their web site. Either way, it's a significant failing by this entertainment giant.
Businesses - particularly big firms - seem to think we live in distinct little worlds; online one minute, offline the next. They haven't yet worked out that we live in an "integrated" world. The consumers of Sony BMG music for instance, listen to it online, on their iPods, live at concerts, on CDs, down the pub, in the car, on a website - and so on. The same individuals consume music in a variety of ways.
The record industry is still stuck in the 1970s when people bought either an "LP" or a "cassette". The world has changed and big firms like Sony BMG have yet to notice. Labels: internet, internet marketing, speaking
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This is a classic case of a large company taking the "multiple markets" or "stakeholder" approach to communications, whilst forgetting that we're ultimately just one large market.
It reminds me of something Sky did a few years back. They wrote to me telling me that prices were going up. This, they told me was unavoidable due to increases in their costs, but they were throwing in a new channel - Sky Mix (which to this date I've still never watched).
The same week I read in the Telegraph that Sky were putting up prices, which I already knew of course. What it also said though was that this was to boost margins and shareholder returns, not to cut costs.
Of course, we all know that every single person with Sky TV is a beer swilling football fan who wouldn't go near a broadsheet, so there's no danger of the big secret getting out is there? Yeah right.
And of course, Radio 5 live listeners won't actually go on the internet and try and find free music will they? They're too busy listening to all the free music they download to even use a radio. Think again Sony!
I don't think it's just online marketing they need to join up - it's all of their marketing across the board.
Well said, Rob. Thanks for your comment - I agree, many big businesses need to get their act together. Some of them succeed in spite of themselves. Gosh, if they were organised, they'd be dangerous...!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Can u undrstnd this? U mst b < 8teen
Teenagers write more now than ever before. Just think about it; when you were a teenager you probably only wrote at school, doing your homework and then on thank-you letters your Mum made you write. All your other communication was spoken.
But things have changed significantly and dramatically. Nowadays, teenagers write vast amounts. Not only do they write at school, they also write text messages, email messages, notes in social networking groups, blog postings, forum entries and so on. Teenagers have never communicated so much in writing.
And that means it is going to have a real impact on all our futures. What's revealing, according to a new report on teenage attitudes to writing, is that teenagers do not perceive all this written communication they do as writing. To them it is all just chatting to people.
Different writing styles
Indeed, most teenagers have different writing styles - one for their person to person communications worlds and another for formal writing at school. But the subtle perceptual change that writing online isn't writing means that the words on this page will be thought of differently depending on your age. And that means virtually every business online is going to have to adapt. As those teenagers enter the jobs market, they are going to find a disconnect between the kind of writing that all businesses engage in and the type of writing they perceive as the online norm.
Businesses need to write more informally to engage younger people - not to dumb anything down in any way, but to actually connect with them. Otherwise they will pass you by, ignore the jobs you have on offer and set up in competition with your business, engaging all those other people who no longer see writing as writing.
Teenagers love writing online, the report shows; and the fact they have an audience is a significant motivator in encouraging them to write more. But because they don't perceive it as writing, the online writing they will do is bound to be different to what someone my age is used to.
Adapt or die
Written communication has been much slower to change than the spoken word, which evolves rapidly. Now that teenagers have made the switch in thinking as to what constitutes written communication you can expect to see much more rapid changes in text based materials. And that means your business must adapt; otherwise you will be speaking a foreign language in your own country. Labels: future, internet, internet psychology, social networking
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Where do all the Internet profits go?
Billions of pounds is traded everyday here on the Internet - do you see any of it? Probably not much. If you do make money online you don't get those billions, I'm guessing. So who does?
Well, the vast majority of the money that is spent online goes to just a handful of companies - Google, Amazon, Ebay and Microsoft. Even Tesco, the leading British retailer, with its millions of pounds of income each week online is a minnow in comparison. So the rest of us, earning less than those millions each week, are the "also rans" of the Internet profit world.
That does not stop people dreaming about making millions online. The problem is for many they are just dreams; they do not turn their dreams into reality. There are endless ebooks and courses that promise a great deal - and offer very little. Dozens of "gurus" offer their advice on how to make more money online (me amongst them...!). However, the people making the real money don't offer their advice. The Googles and Ebays of the world don't tell us how they did it.
So I've been looking at what these businesses do to earn their billions; what do they do here on the Internet to make themselves so attractive? The answer is surprising. Ebay, Google and Amazon have all done the same thing to make themselves billions online - and that is one thing. They have ignored the Internet. That's right, the single common feature between these giants of online profits is that they have got their traffic and their business as a result of their "offline" activities. In other words they have set up a business where the Internet has merely been the delivery channel. This has enabled their focus to be on the business, not on the channel.
Most online businesses focus on the channel and not on being a business. That's the difference between the billionaires and the rest of us; we are all looking in the wrong place for that money. We are looking at the Internet when we should have a much wider perspective. Focus on running a business, rather than the Internet systems and technologies and you are much more likely to make more money out of the Internet.
If you'd like to hear more about this theme, I'll be discussing it tonight in a special one-hour live teleseminar with communications expert, David Festenstein. You can even get your question asked in the £47 call by going to askgrahamjones.co.uk and placing your query which I promise to answer during the call at 8pm, tonight, the 23rd April 2008. Labels: internet, internet marketing
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Promoting a site is not easy, experts are engaged for this process. However even you can do this now through Traffic Tactics. There are many techniques mentioned in Traffic Tactics ebook that outlines you step-by-step all the way to generate a lot of traffic online. This free e-book can be downloaded directly at http://traffictactics.com/book/download.asp without any opt-in process. You will also enjoy the optimization part for landing pages. Thanks Jeff.
Monday, April 21, 2008
How much time should you spend online?
Phil Calvert is a marketing expert who encourages everyone to market themselves "live" at seminars and other events. But he also says that blogging is the equivalent of live marketing because it places you in front of a large audience.
Indeed at an Ecademy event he explained to the 250-strong audience that social media of all kinds were now essential to anyone doing business. He went on to say that he is involved in over 30 different social networking groups and leads 50 different clubs on Ecademy. So it poses the question, when does Phil find time to do any work?
One person said to me at this event that she was far too busy working to do so much online social networking, blogging and group activities. So can you do too much online? How much time should you spend online compared with actually running your business?
Well, here's the rub. People like Phil have realised that the online world is the real world. People who claim that they are too busy running their business to do social networking are still thinking there is some kind of separation between the Internet and the "real world". But there isn't.
Online and offline have now merged; few people aged under 25 understand why older people think there is some kind of barrier between the two. To them, the Internet is "where it is at" because - well, just because.
In the good old days of business - the 1990s - there used to be armies of sales staff who travelled up and down the motorways simply knocking on doors and seeing people. Then, back in the office, there were account managers, who spent all day on the phone, simply chatting to customers making sure all was OK. There were also client liaison officers whose task was to keep people happy, that's all. Indeed, back in those good old days, bank managers spent most of their days just meeting customers, chatting with them and taking them out to lunch.
Then along came the Internet and businesses saw a way of saving cash. Sell everything online, they thought, and we can dispense with half our sale staff, we can manage all the accounts using some kind of online database and a couple of clerical people and we can have an Internet controlled call centre somewhere cheap, so we can get rid of all those client liaison people. Whoopee, we'll be rich, they thought.
But along with the savings businesses have made as a result of Internet technology, there has also come a cost. All those sales staff, account managers and client liaison staff did a hugely important job - relationship building. As relationships dwindle, so does loyalty and businesses now have to constantly get new customers.
Online, now, thanks to social networking, blogging and so on, you can build and maintain relationships. The tools of Web 2.0 have replaced those endless streams of sales calls and account management meetings with clients. So, those companies who see social media as something that is a time waster for their business are rather missing the point. What Phil Calvert does is not a waste of time, rather it is essential for the success of any modern business. All those social networking engagements build relationships - just like the sales calls of the past.
If you see the divide between the online world and the "real world" you are unlikely to think that social networking or online clubs are the way to go; indeed you will see them as an unnecessary intrusion into your time. Younger people, in particular, expect online social networking and if your business does not do it - and you've dispensed with those older ways of relationship building - well, you can probably say goodbye to your business fairly soon.
Extensive online social networking is no longer a "nice to have", as Phil Calvert has shown, it is an essential activity. Either that, or re-employ all those sales teams and account managers. Which is more expensive? Extra staff, or a few hours online each week? You decide. Labels: blogging, future, internet, internet marketing, internet psychology
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Great post, Graham. I find it amazing how people think the internet is so different from the real world. It is the real world.
I often get the question what it takes to run a successful business on the internet. And I explain to them that it's exactly the same is you need to run a successful business elsewhere, good products, good service and the right location (which on the Internet is under the right search terms on the search engines).
This is an excellent post and I have to agree 110% with you about online communities narrowing the gap between old and young. I own an online community of business professionals and I had not though about this point looking at my community it is reflective of your observations.
See http://www.marzar.com it is different from ecademy and you can share files in groups or distribute them to the community.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Old-fashioned PR brings search engine benefits
A new study of online behaviour confirms that good old-fashioned public relations is essential in getting search engine results that people actually click on. The research, conducted by the search engine marketing firm, iProspect, reveals a significant "click behaviour" which every online business owner needs to take notice of.
The study looked into the impact of "blended" search results. Up until relatively recently, search engines like Google only presented search results from web sites. Now, when you search on the main Google page it "blends in" search results from its news service, the image search, blog search and so on. In other words, the results you get are no longer just from plain, ordinary web sites.
News is king
The iProspect analysis shows that 36% of searchers click on a news result. However, if the searchers only looked in the news section, than a mere 10% click on a link. What this shows is the fact that if you get your company in the news, you'll appear on the main Google results page and you will get more clicks by doing so. Importantly, the study revealed that news results are "the most clicked on" results in blended search. In other words, if you are not in the news, you are significantly reducing your chance of getting clicked on when your company appears in a Google search result. In order to get on the Google search results and get clicked by more people you simply must be in the news.
At one of the keynote talks I give about the Internet I concentrate on the need to use offline public relations to gain online benefits. This new study adds a new twist to what I have been saying. Not only does public relations get you better search engine ranking, but it also means you get more click throughs to information about you.
Most business I speak with are using search engine optimisation or pay per click as their central strategies to improve their online business. This new data from iProspect shows that this is a weak strategy. The strongest results are going to come from having public relations as your central focus for improving your online business.
You must be in the Top 10
And there's on other important poi |
I sometimes wonder what's in the brains of my readers!