Mike Grehan just wrote a fascinating article at Click Z regarding testing; he’s a big fan, as am I, of the Eisenberg brothers and their team at Future Now.  I’ve bought every one of their books and will buy their newest, “Always Be Testing.” If you’re serious about improving your online results, you should also consider buying it; Google’s Website Optimizer, on which the book focuses, has been a staple of our client testing methods for the past several month.

This caused me to think about a talk I gave last week to a group of small business owners here in Cincinnati.  I asked the question, “How many of you know the value of a new customer, client, or patient?”  No hands were raised.  I’m not surprised by this response anymore, but it really is one of the basic numbers one has to know about his or her business.  If you don’t know what new customers, clients, or patients is worth (either initial or life time value), how can you make intelligent decisions about how much to invest in acquiring them?  I think the answer is, “You can’t.”

And it’s really not that hard.  The first decision one has to make is the hardest, that is to commit to finding it out.

This leads to the bigger picture of having a mindset of “test, measure, refine, and do it all over again.”  It’s a little easier to accomplish in the online world, but one still has to commit to do it.

One of our hard and fast rules is that we measure, and we measure everything.  We’ve made the business decision to not engage with clients that won’t commit to putting measurement systems in place.

All of this gets back to Mike’s post.  All of our marketing (and I believe, business) efforts are really just a test.  None of us knows all the answers upfront.  That’s why we need to continually “test”, to try to improve our last best efforts.  Google’s Website Optimizer gives you a fairly simple way to test all types of web page factors.

As a wise man one said, “When you get right down to it, life is a test.  If it weren’t you would have been given more instructions.”

Here’s to testing and measuring.

My friend, David Bullock, just wrote an interesting post this past week on how to set up processes in your business.  Although the example in his post was focused on developing a process for a software program, it got me to thinking.

One of the things that limited the growth of my business for years was my, to take a phrase from Michael Gerber, “working in the business” and not “working on the business.”  As Iong as I continued to work in the business I was really nothing more than a high-paid employee.

As I focused on growing my business in mid-2007 (and we are experiencing phenomenal growth), it became readily apparent that I had to change some things.  As a wise sage once said, “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to continue to get what you’ve always got.”

And I didn’t want what I’d “always got.” (How about you?)

The change I had to implement was to look at all the things I was doing (very few of them marketing oriented, by the way…I was just too busy “doing stuff”).  I had read all about this but I hadn’t done anything with it.  Over the next 3 to 4 months, I critically looked at all that I did (I even had to stoop to keeping track of my time in 15 to 30 minute increments - unbelievable what I discovered).

I wrote down almost everything I was doing and it became readily apparent that if I could find someone else to do a lot of those things, I could focus on “working on my business.”

The sad truth is that you can only get someone else to perform a business activity if you can outline all the steps involved (paper, software, etc.) so that someone else can “do what you did.”  I even found (and am continuing to find out) that using a screen capture software so that the person can “see” what needs to be done in addition to reading about it works well.  A serendipity for me was that as I brought people on board to help out (I’m not talking employees, by the way - another story sometime) they figured out better ways to perform the tasks than I had developed.  Fresh eyes do work.

Anyway, the downside of not developing processes for almost every part of your business will keep you where you are.  If that’s where you want to be, fine.  If you want to grow (and help other people to grow) so that you can spend your time on high-value activities, get started today on implementing this approach.

It will truly make a difference.

You may not have heard yet about Google’s new online publishing service, Knol, which some believe is a direct “slap” to Wikipedia.  Knol (a little literacy license for “knowlege”) is a cool tool which gives you the ability to create content on just about any subject and get it posted.  You can, over time, brand yourself as an expert in any field you want.

From a pure search engine optimization perspective it has some pluses and minuses.  On the plus side, one doesn’t have to think real hard about where Google is going.  Search today on just about any term and you’re likely to see a Wikipedia entry in the top 10 results; since Google was unable to get the Wikipedia purchase consummated, do you think it’s possible that they’re positioning Knol to replace the Wikipedia results?  If so, it won’t happen overnight, but what if you’ve done the work to place a large number of Knol articles (all interlinked) on line and done some inbound linking to boot?  Hmmm….

On the minus side, Knol no-follows all the outbound links on an article page.  So, while you won’t get much link credit with internal links within an article, having a large number of articles can, we suspect, increase the credibility you have.

Some of our initial research shows that there are a number of “amateurs” posting; this is an opportunity for you if you develop and publish valuable content.  Funny how it always gets back to the same thing…it’s always about good, valuable content.

Anyway, take a look and get to work.  See how you can use Know to your advantage.

By the way, here’s an article I placed on Knol 2 days after it went live; it’s probably a little long, but you get the picture.

Sean Carton has just written an excellent article at ClickZ where he describes the challenge of social media marketing.  He observes that, in some to many cases, it’s like “1999 all over again.”  Back then folks were all excited about how the Internet was going to drastically change everything and that people would fall in love with your site “just because it was so cool.”

Big mistake.

We saw back through the Internet bust of the early 2000’s how wrong this belief and approach was.

It seems today that many marketers are caught up in the same way of thinking regarding social media.  “I’ll just create hundreds to thousands of ‘friends’ in various social networking platforms and my problems will all be over.”  And so on…

No focus on the amount of time and work it takes to build genuine relationships with people, the level of thinking it takes to create genuine, useful content.  Or, taking another approach, “People will just be so interested in what I have to say that I can communicate ad nauseum with them.”  Witness the huge amount of totally meaningless and useless Twitter posts.  I really don’t care that you’re watching your favorite TV show right now as an example.

Taking an offline example: my experience shows that the most effective “networking” occurs when I find out about you, your interests, and how I might be able to help you.  Then, over time, as we spend more time together, we come to trust each other.  Then, if I want to talk to you about something related to “my stuff,” you’ll be more open to listen because we know one another.

It’s really no different with social media.  To be successful as a marketer will take time and hard work.  Just as in all other areas of life, there is no silver bullet.

It seems like it’s 1999 all over again.  I remember “way back then” when things started taking off online…tons of buzz and promises of untold riches for all those, both entrepreneurs and conventional businesses, that embraced the new Internet.  With the crash of the early 2000’s, most of that didn’t realize.  People came to realize that the Internet is really just another channel for one’s business, and, when used effectively, a very effective channel.  But it’s not the only channel.  As my mentor, Dan Kennedy, says, “The worst number in business is one.”

Over the past several years a groundswell (by the way, if you haven’t read the book, Groundswell, you really need to get a copy) has been developing around the social media and social networking theme.  Today there are literally thousands of social networking sites available.  And in some cases, it reminds me of the late 1990’s.

Social media and Social Networking give you as a business owner the means to reach your prospects and customers in different ways.  It is true that, at the end of the day, business is not about companies dealing with companies but about people dealing with people.  Social Networking offers a much improved way of creating and developing true interactive relationships with and among individuals.  That’s important.

At the same time, with the numerous choices available to you, how do you get the best return for your time and money investment?  This is a question Charles Heflin and I have been “struggling” with for almost a year.  We think we’ve found one answer and created a new Social Networking business to address that question.  And, as the business evolves, we’ve got some very cool additions coming in the next several months.

Just don’t forget this one important thing: there is no “one” answer to a business’ marketing challenges.  Social Networking offers another tool to the business owner’s toolbelt.  And CorpSocialNetworking.com makes the job a little easier.

In case you haven’t heard, Google has updated their Keyword Tool and now shows approximate search volume for keywords.  Here’s their exact quote, “This column shows the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network in the previous calendar month. This number is specific to your targeted country and language as well as your selection from the Match Type drop-down menu.”

You’ll want to spend a little time with this new development from Google, but they seem to have opened up a little more information to their internal data.

This appears to have implications for more than just ppc advertising; if you’re theming your web site, you’ll be able to get a perspective from Google on related keywords.  All this might help with your SEO efforts.

This is just one more “tool” now available to you in your keyword research toolbox.

Go for it.

You might have heard of Dan Kennedy, who many people call the greatest marketer living. I don’t know about that, but I do know that since I started listening to him several years ago my business at Improved Results has grown. And I believe that most of the growth has come from my changing my thinking, much of which has resulted from reading from and listening to Dan. If you’ve read any of Dan’s books, you know he is irreverant about many things and definitely is not what one would call “p.c.”

I’ve just posted on my site a complete transcript of an “interview” with Dan in which I was able to participate titled, “How To Bite Back At The ‘Recession’.” I agree with almost all of what Dan espouses and I encourage you to read and assimilate what he said. Having read his two newest books, I’m on board with his ending comment that to succeed in business for the long haul you can’t be a “sissie.” It takes hard work, smart marketing, and a continued emphasis on underpromising and overdelivering.

Understanding that the U.S. public is easily swayed, is not generally well read, and actually believes what they see and hear on the network news, can get one a little down. At the same time, many times these people are your competition. That’s a comforting feeling.

I hope you’re as excited as I am about the endless opportunities that are out there today.Technorati Tags: dan kennedy, marketing, recession

As you may have heard, Google announced on Tuesday, June 26th, its Beta version of Ad Planner. I first picked up on it in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal but only got “interested” after clicking through to and reading about it at the Ad Planner page at Google. Right now you can sign up and request to be part of the Beta version, although it appears that they’ll be testing it with a limited number of agencies and advertisers; my suspicion is that you’ve got to be somewhat of a major player, but we’ll see.

What looks cool about this is that you’ll be able to gather information on which web sites your prospects are visiting and incorporate this into your Google Adwords campaign. One of the limitations with the Content Network option within Adwords for almost all of our clients is that the conversion just isn’t there.

It may be with Ad Planner that you’ll be able to, with a little research, focus your Content Network option and have your ads appear on the web sites you know your prospects are visiting. If this is the case, good move by Google.

Of course, that means more revenue for them. But who cares if by using this tool you can convert Content Network click throughs to more customers or clients for you.Technorati Tags: pay per click, ppc, google adwords, google ad planner, conversion, web site traffic

I spoke at an event this past weekend about using the Internet more effectively for your business.  The attendees were small business owners who mostly focus locally and regionally.  The event was hosted by Ed Lyon and Keith VandeStadt of TaxCoachSoftware, clients of mine who have built a very cool business over the past 3 years.

While my talk focused on basics (web site conversion, driving traffic with pay-per-click and organic search engines, and getting your visitors to return to your site), during the weekend several of the attendees asked me about social media…and how and if they should be using it to promote their businesses.  I answered with an enthusiastic “yes,” although that’s only part of the answer.  In other words, knowing what you should do and then knowing how to do it are two separate issues.

I’m just finishing a phenomenal book, “Groundswell“, written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research.  Suffice it to say the book is probably the best I’ve seen in terms of what your business can and should be doing regarding social media.  It’s more of a why and what book.

There are no quick answers in terms of “how.”  At the recent Peak Performers meeting, about which I talked last week, several of the attendees were attempting to get a handle on their social media efforts.  They were spending time and money…they just weren’t sure about the return on investment they were achieving.

My friend Charles Heflin of SEO2020 and I will be announcing a business oriented approach to the problem of how to use social media in the near future.  In the meantime, I encourage all with whom I come into contact to become familiar with the opportunity of how it can postively affect their businesses.  You should to.

Missed my self-imposed deadline of posting every Monday as I was in Baltimore the first 3 days of this week at the Glazer-Kennedy Peak Performers meeting.  I just joined this group in April and this was the first “event” since then.

Wow!  Being in a room for that long with a group of proven entrepreneurs, many of whom have very successful businesses, makes one realize just how differently successful entrepreneurs think from the many wannabees and from those who want to work for someone else.  It’s not that the latter is bad…no way, but I’ve found over the years that it’s our thinking that separates us.

I won’t get into all the content that was delivered from the likes of Bill Glazer and Lee Milteer, among others, but the part I really enjoy is the interaction with other people at the tables, at breaks, and then at meals.  None of us has all the answers (reminds me of the definition I once heard of a fool - a legal defendant who hires himself as his own counsel); I have gleaned much insight in the past several years from various mastermind groups, but interacting at this level is a little different.

Bottom line: I’ve recommitted to investing in myself… my professional education, participation in high level mastermind groups, and then just doing the hard work it takes.  And to encourage those with whom I come into contact to do the same.  I don’t want to be in the same place next year because my thinking hasn’t changed and grown.  How about you?