Archive | Marketing

Google Reader Shutting Down on July 1st – How Else Can You Subscribe

By Jacob S Paulsen on March 27, 2013 in Marketing, Online

Google Reader has announced they will be shutting down on July 1st. Google Reader is the most popular RSS reader tool on the internet but for whatever reason Google has decided to discontinue this free product.

Based on the reporting it appears that there are a large number of our blog subscribers that currently are subscribed via Google Reader. It is time to make a change. Let me make the following suggestions:

Other Ways to Follow Our Blog Other Than RSS:

Subscribe to receive each blog post via email. This ensures you won’t miss a thing and makes it easier for you to find what you are looking for and easier to share with people you feel may benefit.

Subscribe to the Blog Via Your Amazon Kindle. Our blog publishes with Amazon Kindle. There is a very small fee associated with this subscription but if you love your Kindle this might be the best solution.

If You Really Like RSS And Need A New Reader:

Personally I’ve moved on to Feedly. Feedly seems to be a strong RSS feeder that offers a no cost solution and has a multi-platform approach to their technology. So far so good. I’ve also heard good things about TheOldReader.com, NetVibes, and Pulse.

Implement Call Tracking to Monitor Your ROI and Operation

By Jacob S Paulsen on March 15, 2013 in Featured, Marketing, Online

You may or may not already be familiar with Call Tracking technology. The general idea is that you pay a company to provide you with a unique phone number (local or toll free) that you place on advertising or printed collateral such as business cards. Incoming phone calls are forwarded to your office phone or other phone of choice. The service provider gives you access to reporting.

The Applications for Call Tracking

Generally Call Tracking tools are used to measure a return on investment from a specific advertising source or medium. In addition Call Tracking can help you monitor the effectiveness of your business; or at least that part of your business that receives phone calls.

Various Common Call Tracking Features

Features to look for when shopping providers:

How long of a history do they keep of your call logs?
Do they reference the caller’s name (where available) in addition to the origination number?
Do they provide integration with Google Analytics and / or Google Adwords? If so can you track actual keywords?
Do they allow whisper messages? This is a short audio message that the receiver hears before the call is connected. It tell you where the call is coming from before you are connected with the caller.
Call ID Options. Can you select if you want the tracking number or origination phone number to display on your caller id? This can be helpful to help you know which calls are coming from where before you even pick it up.
Do they report new callers vs returning callers?
Do they provide individual call details such as call duration?
Do they provide phone support?
Can you select from local numbers or toll free numbers? Extra costs?
Can you setup multiple user accounts to allow employees and business partners to login and access some or all of your reporting?
Can you get email notifications?
Is the data truly Real-Time?
Do they provide Call Recording?

Call Tracking Pricing Models

Beware of various methods by which these providers charge your account. Costs can be tied to:

How many minutes are used.
- Are minutes under a certain duration not counted?
- Do repeat calls count?
Toll Free numbers vs Local Numbers
The total number of tracking numbers you need
Call Recording often has an associated unique cost.

Suggested Call Tracking Provider

After doing my research I have decided to work with CallRail. CallRail seemed to have the best pricing that included all the features I wanted. For only $30 per month you can get up to 10 unique tracking numbers and use up to 500 minutes. The other thing I like about CallRail is their free trial. You can get a free trial WITHOUT giving them your credit card and within about 2-3 minutes you will have your account up and running. If you like it just get your billing info plugged in before the trial runs out. The reporting has been flawless and the recording has been a huge asset to my business.

–>Start Your Free Trial Today

Goodreads For Authors: How to Take Your Book Social

By Jacob S Paulsen on March 6, 2013 in Marketing, Tutorials

As the director of the largest online business book group; I have the opportunity to speak with a lot of authors. If you are an author, and haven’t heard about Goodreads.com you need to fire your coach, publisher, or PR company. Goodreads.com is a fast growing social network for readers of all genres. Like most social networks you setup your own profile, connect with friends, and send private messages. It is different in that everything you do to interact within the site is based around books.

Activities include:

Adding a book to one of your bookshelves (Defaults include: Read, To-Read, and Currently Reading)
Reviewing a book
Updating your status on a book you are currently reading
Commenting on a friend’s review or status
Joining book groups
Creating or commenting on existing book discussions in groups

So, as an author of a book you can see how this would present a fantastic opportunity.

The Three Things Authors Should Do On Goodreads.com

Complete Your Profile. You probably already have an author profile and just don’t know it. Now you need to setup an account and claim your author profile. This is done by searching and finding your author profile, and then scrolling to the bottom where you will see a link that reads: “Is this you? Let us know.” Click on that link and follow the steps to connect/merge your account with your author profile. Once this is done add some pictures, videos, all the bio information and connect your blog feed and Twitter profile.
Join in the discussion. If you expect others to read your books and review them you need to show that you also know how to read and review a book. Go back the last 3-5 years and find all the books you have read. Write short reviews and publish them. Search for book groups of readers that would be interested in your writing. Join these groups and become an active participant in the discussions. Remember that all forms of social media boil down to your ability to connect with people. Respond to reviews about your writing; especially the negative ones. It is ok to listen to what others say about you and respond professionally.
Consider buying advertising. Goodreads has a fantastic advertising dashboard. You can target Goodreads users based on what books or author they like making it easy to put your new book in front of the people most likely to enjoy it. Advertising doesn’t have to be expensive. Start here: http://www.goodreads.com/advertisers/ad_home

The Three Things Authors Should NOT Do On Goodreads.com

Add mass numbers of friends. Similar to Facebook or Twitter, searching for and sending friend requests to thousands of Goodreads users is unlikely to actually do you any good. Produce valuable content and contribute to conversations and people will send you the friend requests. Those are valuable connections.
Be Self-Promotional in your discussion. The worst thing you could do is start a new discussion topic in the biggest group of your genre and tell everyone to check out your book, or tour, or promotion. Advertising is not only against the rules but its also annoying. Again, if you contribute to discussion then people will naturally follow your name/link to your author profile where they will learn more about you and your writing. Let that happen naturally. It is OK to share links to articles you have written or blog entries that are relevant to the discussion at hand.
Ignore the feedback and comments. You should be grateful for all the reviews, comments, and feedback you can get. It will only help you refine your work and better target your promotional efforts. Pay attention and respond!

Hopefully this gives you some context that will make it easier to get started but in the end we all learn by doing!

Reputation Mangement: Quick Look at Google Alerts

By Jacob S Paulsen on February 12, 2013 in Marketing, Online, Tutorials

We all have a brand. You have your personal brand which is the group of perceived values and principles you live by. You may also have something to do with the brand of an organization or company. In this digital age it has become more difficult to monitor what is being said about your brand. There are a large number of reputation management tools that perform various forms of online searches for your brand’s name or keywords. Today I am going to introduce Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a no cost service that searches the ongoing Google index of the web for a preset list of your designated keywords or phrases. This is particularly effective at searching on blogs and news sites. The service is not perfect and the more remote the site where your keywords or phrases are used the less likely Google is to index it as part of your alert.

Google Alerts It is a simple enough service to use. Just visit http://www.google.com/alerts and put in your criteria. You can enter keywords or phrases. You can select different content types such as blogs, news, videos, etc. You can determine how often you want the alerts sent to you and to what email address.

According to your preferences you will begin to receive emails with an index of all the new web pages during the specified period of time that include your keyword or phrase. To change, delete, or otherwise manage your alerts return to the same URL and click on the “Manage Your Alerts” link below.

It isn’t a perfect option but it is a no-cost option for small to medium size brands who want to begin to explore brand and reputation management.

How Can I Tell If Comments On My Site Are SPAM?

By Jacob S Paulsen on October 8, 2012 in Marketing, Online, Tutorials

If you have a website that uses popular blogging software such as WordPress, you probably are bombarded with comments that you assume are JUNK and other comments that you can’t help but wonder if they are legitimate or not. The following is designed to act as a guide and tutorial to help you better identify SPAM comments and prevent them from occurring in the first place.

How and Why Do You Get Junk / SPAM Comments?

Unethical internet marketing companies and professionals are willing to do about anything to get links back to their sites. One of the easiest ways to get a link to your site, from some other credible site, is to leave a comment. When leaving comments, most site publishers allow the visitor to leave a name, website, email, and text comment. So, there are a variety of programs and companies that will send an automated script (robot) to scour the web looking for places they can leave comments. Thus, these programs stumble upon your site and auto-fill the first comment box they can find.

Aren’t There Ways to Filter Out the Junk?

Yes, there are a variety of WordPress plugins that are designed to identify SPAM comments and send them right to the junk folder. Think of this in the same way your email works. Your Email Service Provider (ESP) identifies Junk mail when it comes into your inbox. They recognize Junk mail based on other SPAM reports given by other users of that ESP. WordPress plugins designed to do the same job are always using SPAM reports from users like you, to identify when the same SPAM comments are left on other blogs. When identified they are filtered out and you do not need to moderate them.

The most popular WordPress plugin for this purpose is Akismet. It comes pre-installed on most WordPress installations and can be activated when you obtain a WordPress.com API key. The API key is critical for the plugin to be able to communicate with the source file to index SPAM comments as they are happening.

You can also make sure your WordPress settings are setup to correctly handle incoming comments. For example I recommend that you moderate every incoming comment, not just first time commentators. Often time Spammers will send an innocent comment with no link so that after your approval, their future comments will publish without moderation.

Check your “Discussion” menu under WordPress Settings.

Should I Assume Then That Any Comment I’m Asked to Moderate is Legitimate?

No, just like in your email inbox, someone has to receive and flag as junk a new SPAM comment when it first hits the web. After a few users have flagged it as SPAM, future users who get the same comment will have it filtered as JUNK. On occasion you will be one of those who needs to mark it as SPAM.This creates the need that you really check every comment as it comes in.

When Moderating Comments, What Things Should I Look For to Identify SPAM

Check the Name:
Often SPAM comments will use words or phrases that are obviously not names. These can also be often disguised by words that you don’t recognize as names.

Vague or Generic Comment:
Spammers also use very generic comment text that they think will work if pasted onto every blog post in the world. Something like, “I’ve been looking for this for a long time,” or “Thank you for this post,” or “I’ve never thought about this topic that way.” Here is an example of a comment with a lame name and generic comment.

Check the URL:
Normal site visitors who leave comments will often not have a website and will leave that field empty when leaving a comment. Those who do have websites will almost always include the URL to their sites home page and not an internal page of their site. So, when you look at the URL in the comment and see that it is a long URL to an internal site page it is probably SPAM. ALSO, if they include a URL in the actual comment area you can almost be sure its SPAM.

Flattering Words:
Spammers like to play on your ego. Often comments with vague compliments that seem unrelated to the blog post are SPAM. Examples may include, “Your site is so awesome,” “You understand this topic so well,” or “I have been looking for this information forever.”

Poor Grammar and Misspellings:
Often Spammers try to misspell words and use poor grammar on purpose to try to get past some of the filters. Anytime you have to read the comment twice to understand it, its probably SPAM.

Here is a great example that shows a URL in the comment and some bad grammar.

Hopefully this has given you some insights into how you can prevent and identify SPAM comments on your WordPress blogs.

As a last thought let me also suggest a WordPress plugin called InComment Referral. This plugin will add a line at the bottom of your comment notifications so you can see from what website the user came to your website when leaving the comment. This is also a helpful way to identify SPAM comments.

5 Resources I Give All Starting Out Entrepreneurs

By Jacob S Paulsen on September 26, 2012 in Featured, Marketing

When you are starting a business your needs vary depending on what you are doing. I have found however, that there are a few things that all businesses need. This isn’t a discussion about how to get big financial capital or anything. Just some of the simple basics that I always share.

Buy the website before you settle on a name. Anymore it has become critical to make sure that yourbusinessname.com is available before you settle on that name for your business. Before you incorporate/organize your business check to see if the domain is available. This might be a deal breaker.
I always recommend Paynet merchant services. Paynet makes it easy to take credit card charges via a traditional machine, mobile apps, a virtual terminal, or a configured online shopping cart.
When it comes to getting a business phone number I always stress the importance of not using your cell phone number. That makes it hard to eventually scale the business and take yourself out of it. Try Google Voice, RingCentral, or MagicJack for economic phone numbers that you can forward to any other phone.
Email Marketing & Website. Obviously you need a website. Check my new website launch guide for a quick overview of the basics. Do it yourself or hire someone else but do it quickly. Almost without exception, you also need to be working on an Email Marketing strategy. Its the most cost effective way to get a message out to current or potential customers. Get the strategy put in place and move forward.
While my company provides the business incorporation/organization setup services in some states, I always suggest my clients and friends retain an attorney and a CPA. These professionals are critical to the success of any venture. Schedule an initial meeting with your attorney and CPA to discuss your business plan. They will give you insights that will pay you back ten fold. When picking a professional to work with ask for references. Find out who works with the most successful entrepreneurs you know and retain them.

Blogs Are a Trusted Source for Moms

By Jacob S Paulsen on September 11, 2012 in Marketing, Online

Recently eMarketer published an article called, “Blogs Are a Trusted Source for Moms.” This research confirmed what we have always suspected, Moms consider blogs a credible source of information and they rely on Blogs to direct their actions in many circumstances.

In 2011 we launched our Mom blog, ThePinkApronBlog.com which has been a fabulous experience thus far. It helps to round off our blog network and gives a niche audience to our advertisers. WHY, however, would advertisers want to reach moms via blog content?

Blogs are the number one most trusted online medium for Moms looking for parenting advice among other things. More trusted than Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, or Tumblr. Can you visualize it? Moms also are much more likely than any other demographic to take action after reading a blog post (see graph to the left). With this type of information advertisers may be looking for greater ways to get integrated into Blog content far beyond just banner advertising!!

MyEmailProgram.com JUST LAUNCHED

By Jacob S Paulsen on July 23, 2012 in Marketing, NORT, Online

I have been working hard over the last 12 months to test and launch my very own email marketing product to compete with the iContacts and Constant Contacts of the web. Now after much testing, investment, and feedback I’m excited to share with you MyEmailProgram.com This new platform is designed for both the small business owner and the email marketing professionals. You can setup subscription forms, manage email lists, send out campaigns, drip autoresponders, and much more. If you have a need to communicate with people via email on a regular basis please reach out and lets discuss how this solution might work best for you.

Email Marketing Learn more

The Art of Split Testing: Online Marketing Strategies

By Jacob S Paulsen on June 20, 2012 in Marketing, Online

Split testing is the basic process of trying two very similar things to see which is more effective. With Internet marketing this could be two banner ads, landing pages, email scripts, or subject lines. Split testing is a good thing to try whenever you are trying to determine the most effective copy, image, or headline for… well anything. In fact in Timothy Ferris’s book, The Four Hour Work Week, he explains how he even used split testing with online ads to determine the best title for his book. Here are some basic rules I like to follow with split testing my campaigns.

Test Everything. Test PPC campaigns, banners, emails, headlines, etc
Have a plan to measure results. Depending on the campaign you might have a built in measurement system but sometimes you have to get creative about how you will determine which is more effective
Test only one variable at a time. If running ads on Facebook you shouldn’t run two ads that have different headlines, images, and body text. Run two ads that are the same with only one variable different so that you can actually draw a conclusion about what is and isn’t effective.
After you figure out what is effective, split test again. Just because one is better than the other doesn’t mean it’s the best possible option.
Don’t draw conclusions from too little data. You have to run the test through a significant amount of volume before you settle on the results.

I recently started wondering about the street beggars I pass downtown. I want to do some split testing with their business to determine the best signage, locations, accessories, facial expressions, etc. There are best practices for everything and I find myself wanting to split test everything in life. Any other ideas of what would be worth split testing?