Important Email Address - Think About It

January 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I have written about the importance of having an outside email address before.

Chris Brogan wrote about email and why he cannot contact so many people today for a different reason, but it is just one more good point.

Being a business owner with employees, I can understand both sides of this equation.

Business Owners want to own the relationships that you develop on the clock.  If you leave, they still want to have access to your netword, the things you did for them on the web, etc.

If you are in sales, that is really important.  If you are not, then you can argue it is none of their business.

So here is the thing.  You should talk to clients, team members and vendors via your business email.

You should have a Gmail or Yahoo email account for newsletters, signing up for free services, etc.

And you should have your own domain and email (or a different free email) for connection with people through social media, family, building your personal network, etc.

Consider what happens in the following situations

  1. You are fired - They are probably going to go through your company email.
  2. You are laid off - You can no longer access your company email, which could have many connections that can help you get a new job.
  3. You quit - Did you remember to get all your contacts out of your email?
  4. Your company goes out of business - email is simply gone.  You cannot access accounts you set up with that email address as the approval email.
  5. Liability - You may be just talking to a personal friend, but you could still be making the company liable for what you say if it is via the company email.

Go read Broagan’s article.  Think about the value of having a relationship (even lightly) with someone that has influence, like him.  And now he cannot reach you.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Employee Advocates 

Membership Website Software

January 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment

If you are one of the many authors, speakers, consultants or specialists that read this blog, you will like this post.  I have been experimenting for about 9 months with different membership website software and finally I found the winner.  Wishlist Member

I went through a progression of different membership website software packages.  I tried Moodle, but it was too complex for what I was trying to do (and was hard to make look good.)  Then I tried a paid vesion on Ning, but that is more social networking and not great for leading learning.  I also tried Joomla, Drupal and DotNetNuke.

Finally I came to realize that a membership site is about publishing highly valuable content in a clean, private environment.  I decided upon Wordpress and it was a great decision.

The only down side was the wordpress membership plugin made it necessary for me to set up people’s accounts.  That was just not acceptable.

Then I found Wordpress Wishlist Member.  I already had ecommerce, affiliates and more.  I just needed an easy way to integrate membership and manage them.

The Wishlist development team does a great job with online training videos and their support is very good as well.  They have also just updated the membership website software to include paypal integration that looks fantastic.  I am looking forward to trying that option.

If you have ever thought about starting a membership website but did not know what is the best membership website software and the best membership site platform, I strongly recommend keeping it simple and powerful with the combination of wordpress and Wishlist Membership.

Want more infomation about membership site creation?  Visit How to create a membership site.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Buzz with Blogs, Internet Marketing, Marketing ROI 

Wordpress.TV

January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Wordpress is the software that this blog runs on.  It is free, although you need a web host to run it.

While I tell people all the time that they can do 90% of what they want in wordpress themselves, many people still have trouble.

The good news is Wordpress just launched Wordpress.TV which has tutorials.

This kind of public video is increasingly important for you to make complex sales.  For example, look at Wordpress Wishlist.  I would have not bought the software had they not had the video tutorials on the right side  I bought it because I was confident it would solve my problem after watching every video.

I like the software so much, I launched a whole new website dedicated to helping people build membership sites with the same low-cost membership website software tools I use.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Marketing Blog - 7 Reasons not to start one

January 15, 2009 | 1 Comment

If you enjoy marketing on the web, you might be tempted to start a blog about marketing, social media, twitter or some other passion you have.  Don’t!

Here are seven reasons you should not start a marketing blog.

  1. A broad marketing blog has no appeal except to other marketers (and probably not even them) - it is not specific enough.
  2. Too much competition for general marketing blogs
  3. Does not address people’s specific marketing needs.
  4. Marketing as a topic is constantly changing, to stay relevant is a full time job.
  5. Very difficult to not be a ME TOO marketing blog.
  6. Clients do not care about marketing - they are looking for people to solve their marketing issues, not wax poetically about them.
  7. Niche topics get great traffic - broad topics like marketing just do not perform well.

Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule.  Chris Brogan does a great job.  But most people that I know that write about marketing find it a good exercise but do not get big benefits.  Worth doing, yes.  But don’t get your hopes up.

Recently I set up a very specific niche blog for a client that targeted a good set of keywords.  It seemed very narrow to me, but he was not in a hurry to have readers.  Two weeks later and a brand new domain with 3 articles on it, he got 2,500 unique visitors.  The lesson of this story is that you should not write about what everyone needs and can already find, you should write about what a small group needs but cannot find.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Branding, Buzz with Blogs 

iLearningGlobal - Audio Autorun

January 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment

The code below does an interesting thing.  It is basically a cookie detector for first time visitors on the iLearningGlobal website I run.

The problem I had was that I wanted to automatically run the audio the first time someone visited the site, and then require them to push play on later visits.  (See the iLearningGlobal website for the example)

Finally, I added it to the sidebar with a cookie setter and this if statement.  It looks like a lot, but take out the audio player and it is really not that much.  The two options are the same, with only the auto-play feature different.  echo means print in PHP.

<?phpif (isset($_COOKIE["user"]))
echo ‘<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/plugins/pb-embedflash/swf/mediaplayer.swf?width=250&amp;height=190″ width=”250″ height=”190″ class=”embedflash”><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/plugins/pb-embedflash/swf/mediaplayer.swf?width=250&amp;height=190″ /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”flashvars” value=”searchbar=false&amp;image=http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ilearning-global-contact2.gif&amp;shownavigation=true&amp;autostart=false&amp;file=http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/webintro.mp3″ /><small>(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. <a href=”http://www.adobe.com/”>Please install the newest Flash Player</a>.)</small></object><br>’;
else
echo ‘<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/plugins/pb-embedflash/swf/mediaplayer.swf?width=250&amp;height=190″ width=”250″ height=”190″ class=”embedflash”><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/plugins/pb-embedflash/swf/mediaplayer.swf?width=250&amp;height=190″ /><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”flashvars” value=”searchbar=false&amp;image=http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ilearning-global-contact2.gif&amp;shownavigation=true&amp;autostart=true&amp;file=http://www.liquidlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/webintro.mp3″ /><small>(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. <a href=”http://www.adobe.com/”>Please install the newest Flash Player</a>.)</small></object><br>’;

$expire=time()+60*60*24*90;
setcookie(”user”, “yes”, $expire);
?>

The end result is higher conversion because people hear a welcoming audio on the first visit to this iLearningGlobal website - and I do not loose much in the way of bouncing visitors because it does not play on the next page they visit.

Programming Note:  I am sure this code can be improved upon by a programmer.  I do not program full time any more.  Feel free to leave a comment on how to make it better if you so wish.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Free Wordpress Theme

January 10, 2009 | 2 Comments

Wordpress is an Open Source Blog Package.  I write about it occasionally, but really should more often.  I spend a lot of time playing with Wordpress, customizing it, setting it up, etc.

One challenge is always to find good Free Wordpress Themes.

Wordpress Themes are a package of templates, images and style sheets that you upload to a specific folder and unzip.  Then you can activate it and customize it via the admin interface of Wordpress.

So via Twitter I found this Free Wordpress Theme called Apollo today - please note that I have not installed it yet, but is looks very clean and nice.  I am looking forward to giving it a try.  Go look at all the great layouts and they even provide a bunch of generic logos.

I have paid for good themes in the past.  I do not mind doing that, but with more and more quality free themes coming out, the days of paying for a theme seem numbered.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Branding, Buzz with Blogs, Interesting Buzz, Internet Marketing, Networking, Word of Mouth Marketing 

Quick Note: Attend Blogwell

January 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment

If you are interested in how bigger businesses are succeeding with blogs, you will want to take a look at Andy Sernovitz and GasPedal - BlogWell Conference.  It is coming up in Chicago.

I know many of you are out there wondering how to generate more sales with blogs.  I know because I speak all the time and it is the overwhelming area of interest from business owners in the audience.

If that sounds like you, you should go to BlogWell.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Is Your Brand Costing You a Fortune?

January 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment

I really love my Buzzoodle Brand.  I doubt I have monitized it the best I could, but I do love my brand.

In some ways it is important to love your brand.  If you really love it, you will be excited and talk about it with passion.

But loving your brand (and maybe yourself) too much can also cost you a fortune.

With the closing of Woolworths, people are not sad about the closing of the best way to buy toasters.  They are sad because they have grown used to the brand name and the idea of something with a long history.  People that have long ago stopped shopping there are still probably sad to see it go.

Successful people know the importance of brand, and they also know that it is just a tool for making money.

The problems with branding come into play when you let your  love for your brand cloud your judgement.  A business exists to make you money.  A brand should contribute to that.  Business first, brand second.

- If you have a brand you love and you are still trying to figure out how to make money with it, your brand is costing you a fortune.

- If you are spending many months building the perfect website, best logo, etc to establish your brand, the brand is costing you a fortune. Launch earlier and test your ideas, then continue to perfect it.

- If you are loosing money but think it is going to turn around next year because of the strength of your brand, your brand is costing you a fortune.

- If you are spending time tweaking your brand instead of improving the business process, your brand is costing you a fortune.

Falling in love with your brand can blind you to the hard facts about business.  The only brand you should be in love with and committed to is your personal brand, because ditching it for another is rather difficult without some plastic surgery and moving to another city.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Branding 

Hungry Howies Pizza - Where is the coupon?

January 2, 2009 | 6 Comments

Last night my daughter had a friend over which means pizza for dinner.  (Don’t all of you try to be my daughter’s friend at once now.)

I have a routine.  I usually go online to compare several pizza places we like and buy the deal that fits best.  I start with Hungry Howies Pizza.

They used to have coupons that were very easy to find.  However, this time they wasted my time and I bought a pizza from a competitor after getting frustrated with their website.  This is why you need to really look at how people use your website.  I can imagine that their online marketer is pleased.  The site looks nice enough and now it has the feature all the franchisees probably were asking for.  Different coupons by store.

Here is the problem - and it is costing them money - and you may be doing a similar mistakes.

  1. They’d taught me where to go in the past for online coupons.  After I have done it once or twice, I have no need to read the text on the page, I just click and find them.  It is very unpleasant to need to figure things out after you already learned it once.
  2. They falsely promise coupons many times - leading me through a maze that never did produce a coupon.  I was told to “Click the coupon below” and it was blank.  They are time thieves!  I just want to save a dollar on a pizza and precious minutes of my life were slipping away.
  3. They present pretend coupons - things that look like they will lead to coupons but do not produce any.

I did some quick screen shots below so you can see what I mean.  I do not want to bash Hungry Howies Pizza, but I think writing something like this illustrates what you might be doing wrong on your website as well.  And maybe Hungry Howies Marketing Team will visit and get some free consulting as well.

Twice now I have gone to their site and not been able to find coupons.  The first time I gave up really fast and ordered somewhere else, the second time I hunted more, gave up and ordered from somewhere else.

I know that we can argue that if I loved their pizza I would not worry about it.  But pizza is a commodity and I do not order it frequently and I do not have a favorite.  If they have lost 2 orders from me in the last 3 months, how many are they loosing all together?  They may be blaming a bad economy for something that has more to do with a bad website.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Branding, Internet Marketing