A Net Gain For Revenue

Branding Does Not Mean Boring

Anet Dunne — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:50:33 +0000

Branding is important, but it doesn’t mean sanitizing what makes you special so that you can package yourself like a product. Here are two manifestos: one from a writer, one a company.

The red poster on the left is the Lululemon Manifesto from a company in Burnaby (near Vancouver.) While their product is athletic wear, the manifesto clearly shows their goals, as people and (as a result) as a company.

Now, I know a thing or two about branding. It’s not just that I have a masters degree in marketing, and that I still have friends from in New York ad agencies from the days of “Mad Men.” I was part of the Bufferin account team at Bristol-Myers, I have placed media campaigns for Procter & Gamble brands in Cincinnati, the corporate home of Procter & Gamble. And I can tell you that the Internet is most effective when you show your individuality.

Here’s how writer Maureen Johnson put it in BlogHer.com

MY POINT IS . . . it’s early days yet on the Internet, and lines are being drawn. We can, if we group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the Internet into a giant commercial. Hence, the manifesto. It goes something like this:

The Internet is made of people. People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people -— talk TO people. It’s organic. Make stuff for the Internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important. Put up more cat pictures. Make more songs. Show your doodles. Give things away and take things that are free. Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare… but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make.

Don’t shove yourself into that tiny, airless box called a brand -— tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people.

For example, here is the current website of the oldest awning company in San Francisco. They’ve been making awnings since before the earthquake. Does this website tell the story of this family-owned business? The father-to-son training in measuring, sewing, selecting fabrics and getting logos to look great?

Here’s the website that I am developing… much more personal. Notice how I use testimonials to convey how long this family has been making awnings for restaurants and businesses. The pictures show the range of shapes and styles, but the text gives the visitor a chance to see the people who make the awnings, and how they bring creativity and craftsmanship to their work.

Awnings matter to them, and they matter to the businesses. They are hand-made. Each awning is custom made and one-of-a-kind. I think that’s what Maureen Johnson means by “organic.” This business was struggling because so many restaurants are being squeezed by the down economy. They were not going to attract more business with the sanitary, ordinary website, they need something to make them stand out. And we are going to leverage this so that businesses in San Francisco and find them.

It is safe to be ordinary. If you are extraordinary, open the kimono. Put what makes you extraordinary on your website. If you love what you are doing, sing out loud. Let people hear you. Let them hear that you are proud of what you make. It is a gift.

Post from: aNetGain.com

Branding Does Not Mean Boring

Everything is Marketing

Anet Dunne — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:38:23 +0000

According to the new book “ReWork,” everything is marketing. Every word on your website is marketing. Every time someone uses your product, it’s marketing. According to authors Jason Fried and Daven Hansson, founders of software firm 37signals.com, Marketing isn’t a department. Accounting is a department.

This book is a speed-read of reality, like “Bernbach on Advertising.” It is an energetic exhortation to develop fast, lean programs and products and to resist the temptation to complexify. If your biggest client wants more bells and whistles in the software, let your customer outgrow your product. Don’t make it more complicated to appease one customer because that customer will eventually move on and you will be left with a bloated product that lost its original charm. Small is good. Fast is good. Big companies wish they were nimble. Stay nimble.

They believe in creative solutions rather than using a bigger hammer. They don’t think the customer is always right. They quote Henry Ford, “If I had listened to my customers, I would have built a faster horse.” As for creativity, ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything. But inspiration, that moment when you can see the path clearly, is perishable. When you are on a roll, don’t stop. Just make sure you are working on something that is important.

You can download a PDF excerpt of the book at http://37signals.com/rework/ Recommended.

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Everything is Marketing

Google Ads Help Global Portable Buildings Help Haiti

Anet Dunne — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:13:33 +0000

Global Portable Buildings provides modified steel cargo containers for use as temporary homes, offices, emergency shelters and crew quarters. On May 18, a flatbed truck will pick up the two 8×20 steel containers that are now customized prosthetics labs, and drive them to Miami for the barge trip to Haiti. Jon Batzdorff, owner of Sierra Orthopedic Laboratory in Santa Rosa, is coordinating the relief mission and will take enough material and volunteers to Haiti to make 100 artificial legs.

Art Forman, a retired prosthetist from Las Vegas, visited the Haitian capital in March to assess the demand for artificial limbs. He knew from three previous visits to Haiti that “the need was terrible,” but that humanitarian aid was limited because of Haiti’s reputation for political instability and corruption, according to the Press Democrat. The January earthquake killed about 200,000 islanders and crushed the limbs of many more, creating about 5,000 more amputees.

Together, Mr. Batzdorff and Mr. Forman raised funds to customize the steel containers from Global Portable Buildings. Workbenches were built and the labs were packed with $75,000 worth of tools and equipment. The two buildings make a complete prosthetics laboratory which will be installed on the grounds of Port-au-Prince’s Adventist Hospital. They will manufacture artificial legs made mostly of plastic to withstand the island’s humid climate.

The project is managed through the nonprofit ProsthetiKa.org which Jon Batzdorff created five years ago to help amputation victims. ProsthetiKa has fabricated and fitted prostheses in Mexico, India, Lithuania and Bolivia. “Of all the portable buildings we have shipped to Haiti,” said Sean Taylor of Global Portable Buildings, “I am most proud of these labs.”

The labs were customized in Santa Rosa by Arnie Lund of Colfax, who taught prosthetics in Kenya with the Peace Corps in 1973, and Wayne Wendell, a retired Santa Rosa engineer who also does welding.

“I’m retired,” said Lund. “There’s a big need and we have a little bit of help we can offer.” Donations helped Prosthetika get the labs ready for Haiti but more is needed to keep them running, Jon Batzdorff said. You can donate through PayPal or credit card.

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Google Ads Help Global Portable Buildings Help Haiti

Domain Name Expiration Scam

Anet Dunne — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:38:40 +0000

Don’t fall victim to the misleading Domain Name Expiration Notice that Domain Registry of America mails out.

I register and manage my own domain names, and the domain names of many of my clients, at several registrars. Domain Registry of America is not one of them. I received a misleading “Domain Name Expiration Notice” from DROA for my own domain name indicating $30 to renew for a year, TRIPLE my current rate. A quick glance at the DROA Domain Name Expiration Notice does not reveal that the domain name is not registered with them. The notice is designed to confuse non-technical people into TRANSFERRING the domain name to DROA, and to pay triple the normal rate.

Then a client called. She received a DROA Domain Name Expiration Notice for their company domain name and she was puzzled because she paid me annually for the domain name. I’m glad she manages accounts so carefully and remembers annual payments. This kind of diligence is not widespread and DROA is preying on this. DROA even highlights “Reply Requested By” in a way that looks like “Payment Due By” and the date is several months before expiration so that TRANSFER can take place before normal renewal procedures kick in!

Beware of mailings from DROA. It is easy for them to get the address of the owners of domain names. My client originally reserved the domain name through the Yellow Pages (yikes!) and it took quite a bit of work to get it back from them, but I have managed the name for years. Unfortunately, this information continues to be on a contact database and the mailings will continue. Don’t fall victim to this misleading Domain Name Expiration Notice. It is predatory .

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Domain Name Expiration Scam

How To Get Blog Sponsors

Anet Dunne — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:37:41 +0000

The husband of a blogger called me. “I’m told you do advertising. Can you get sponsors for my wife’s blog?” Her do-it-yourself home decor blog has a clean and inviting style, some sponsors and some advertising. It sounded like he wanted more income from his wife’s efforts.

The advertising on the blog is very subtle. There’s two words you don’t hear together very often: subtle and advertising. It reminded me of the challenge I have with a friend who has a food website, a food blog, a cooking website, a cooking blog, videos on YouTube, DVDs for sale and a monthly newsletter. In an effort to consolidate her work so that her fans could find everything from one website, I built a spec website for her. She loved it, but she hated the catch. I wanted to put advertising on the site. By consolidating the food, cooking, recipes and how-to videos, I could create a compelling marketing strategy and attract sponsorships that would pay for the web work. I know how to get sponsorships, but she was afraid advertising would make the site look tacky. So a year has slipped by.

Advertising is Your Friend

Some people think advertising is bad the way children think vegetables are bad. But advertising can be very nutritious, as in “you need money to keep going.” I suspect that the home decor blogger (let’s call her DIYgrrl.com) feels that keeping the “organic” quality of her blog is crucial to long-term audience growth. And she’s right. So here’s how to add national sponsors while retaining the design purity and increasing revenue.

Rotation – It Makes the World Go ‘Round

Most national brands use television advertising which is sold in rotation. This is a concept that advertisers and media buyers are familiar with, but few bloggers are aware of. This panel shows six squares of sponsor ads. If DIYgrrl want to limit advertising space on her blog to this area, and to triple the number of sponsors, all she has to do it ROTATE the ads. Think of each square as a slot with three flash cards in it. One flashcard appears in the square each time the web page is loaded. Simply sell the ads “in rotation” and you can have 18 sponsors in the space of six.

As your audience increases and you increase your advertising rates, explain to your original sponsors that prices have gone up, and that you will honor the old rate if you can show the ad in rotation with new advertisers. If a long-time sponsor insists on paying for all three “flashcards,” make three separate, similar ads to create visual interest in the spot each time the page loads.

Where’s the Big Sponsorship Money?

DIYgrrl will not do paid product reviews, but she has developed a preference for some national brands and the husband has these targets in mind. Most are paint and hardware products typically marketed to men, so let’s use the hypothetical paint brand “Coatorama.” I recommended putting together a compelling presentation showing

existing articles that put the brand in a favorable light

comments from visitors grateful to learn about the brand

photos showing the brand being used in creative, innovative ways

The husband needs to persuade the Coatorama brand Product Manager that the blog is a channel to new markets — women who are unafraid of tools. The blog often shows how different Coatorama products can be used to get fabulous home decor results. The Product Manager, who works for Coatorama, is always looking for new categories of customers and ways to reach them economically. This blog would be a great way to showcase his product to a market segment (homemakers) that is a small but growing portion of total sales.

Can the Product Manger (PM) make the sponsorship deal? Maybe, but he will probably say, “I can’t sign this, all the media buys are made by our ad agency.” Husband persuades PM to set up an appointment with the Account Executive (AE) at the ad agency. AE says, “Our client Colorama likes this idea, but you have to talk to the media buyer.” Husband takes the media buyer to lunch, she signs the contract giving the appearance that it is her decision, but it is really the PM’s decision just going through the chain of command. Note: this process does not work in the other direction.

Two ways to sell sponsorships

Nearly all advertising is purchased on “efficiency” which means getting the most for your advertising dollar. On the web, it means that you reach a lot of people in your target market for a reasonable price. Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens have great websites, many more visitors, plus they throw in magazine ads to get the “efficiency” ratio that media buyers want.

DIYgrrl has a great blog and the audience is growing, but the numbers are still too small for a national advertiser to consider it in the ordinary “efficiency” calculation. Time to go to the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl Sell

You know what that means… the ad costs so much money you can’t possibly justify on “efficiency” but the client wants it regardless of cost. That’s the strategy this blog needs. Locating the Product Manager and getting the meeting takes a lot of work. Linked in and Facebook contacts may help. A Skype meeting may be easier to set, and he can make an almost-in-person pitch that allows him to demonstrate the blog while selling. He need to show the PM the enthusiastic product comments and photos. He will talk about the rate of growth and project this growth into the future so that the PM is looking at some decent audience numbers one or two years out. He needs to have some dollar figures ready, to be willing to negotiate, to have a contract ready to email, to make sure the ad is sold IN ROTATION for a year, and that the sponsorship runs until canceled.

Who can sell this?

So, if I know all this, why didn’t I take the job? Because a sponsorshp like this can be sold only by the blogger herself, or the husband. The “Super Bowl Sell” requires you to have substantial skin in the game. The PM and AE must be convinced that there is a continuing commitment to the blog and that the quality will continue for the years necessary to build the audience that they are buying on the come. They must believe the blogger and her husband can go the distance before they buy the sponsorship.

A Fine Line

There will be some discussion with the PM and the AE about the content of future articles on the blog. The husband must be charming, diplomatic, and crystal clear that Coatorama has exactly the same amount of content control as if they were advertising on The Daily Show. None. The PM and AE will ask, and he must say no. It’s part of the dance.

I hope they succeed because it is a great blog. And I hope my food friend comes to realize that advertising is a valid source of information to readers and income to writers. What do you think is the best way to get a sponsorship? Any special sponsorship tips?

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How To Get Blog Sponsors

No Flash video on iPad & iPhone?

Anet Dunne — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:25:55 +0000

Who blocked Flash from iPhone, iPad and Android? It may be the telephone carriers, not Apple or Google. Flash downloads gobble up bandwidth and run up charges. The New York Times reported that the new iPad can’t play Flash video and speculated that it was Apple who decided that Flash would not be used on the iPhone. Apple has argued that the Flash technology is too slow and unduly taxes laptops and netbooks. The company also has concerns over Flash’s vulnerability to viruses and other malware, as well as the way Flash-based content can voraciously consume battery life.

Is it coincidence that Google’s Android phones also don’t play Flash video? Maybe phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile don’t want the network load. Maybe smartphone users don’t want to pay bandwidth charges for Flash ads appearing on their phones. The bandwith required for other types of online content created in Flash, including animated advertisements and online gaming may not be how cellphone carriers want to tax their network capacities.

Many online video sites have been experimenting with a new video format, called HTML5. Unlike Flash, which is a downloaded piece of software that can interact with a computer’s operating system, HTML5 works directly in a Web browser.

The popular video-sharing site Vimeo.com is also experimenting with new platforms, based on comments from its online community. “We received a tremendous amount of feedback from our users saying that they wanted to have HTML5 as an option for their videos,” said Andrew Pile, vice president for product and development at Vimeo, an online video service. Mr. Pile does not see this new format replacing Vimeo’s Flash-video inventory, but will instead offer it as an option for its viewers.

And while HTML5 may help standardize Web video, it does not necessarily address the needs of other types of online content created in Flash, including animated advertisements, short “adult” movies and online gaming.

What do you think? Is it Apple who left Flash video out of the iPhone and iPad, or was it AT&T and the other carriers? How would you feel about paying bandwidth charges for unwanted Flash video advertising?

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No Flash video on iPad & iPhone?

Google advertising moves Westec up in tough year

Anet Dunne — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:46:24 +0000

California wine sales fell by four million cases in 2009, a drop of 1.6%, according to the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa. Westec Tank, in Healdsburg CA, makes custom stainless wine tanks, and was one of the few that did not suffer layoffs in 2009. Strong marketing and an experienced sales staff were supported by effective Google advertising which helped Westec gain name recognition and market share. Westec opened its doors in 2005, developed an effective website and began spending a few dollars a day on Google advertising. Today they are one of the top custom stainless tank fabricators in California and have increased their percentage of the market substantially, often at the expense of older companies that are not yet using Google advertising.

To learn more about Westec’s web development process, see our article “Are Static Websites Obsolete?”

If your company is ready for Google advertising, and ready for a website to make Google advertising work for you, please call us at 707-408-2638 or contact us.

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Google advertising moves Westec up in tough year

Microsoft IE Flaw in CyberAttack

Anet Dunne — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 23:57:05 +0000

The NYTimes reported that McAfee, the big security software maker, says that a security flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer was a factor in the Chinese cyberattacks on the Gmail of Chinese activists. An excerpt from the article follows:

In a blog post on Thursday afternoon, McAfee said that after examining the malicious software code used in the attacks, it believes a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser was an important pathway for the attacks, which were directed at Google and more than 30 other companies:

These attacks will look like they come from a trusted source, leading the target to fall for the trap and clicking a link or file. That’s when the exploitation takes place, using the vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Once the malware is downloaded and installed, it opens a back door that allows the attacker to perform reconnaissance and gain complete control over the compromised system. The attacker can now identify high value targets and start to siphon off valuable data from the company.

I urge you to take a look at Firefox security, and to download Firefox 3.5. It will not overwrite your Internet Explorer files, and it works fine with my online banking. Finally! It was really weird when I had to use the world’s least secure web browser, Internet Explorer, for my online financial transactions. Luckily, the financial community caught up with the times.

The German Government’s Federal Office for Information Security has officially advised web users to find an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer according to Sitepoint.com because of the same vulnerability involved in the Chinese attacks on Gmail.

My statistics show that only about 60% of visitors to my websites are using Internet Explorer. Firefox is gaining rapidly. I actually use Opera as my default browser because it is standards compliant, very fast, very secure, and (ahem) rather cool. Anything from Norway is cool. Opera is usually the leader with new features, such as tabbed browsing and being able to open or close a tab right from the tab bar. They were the first to offer a blank page start populated with screen shots of your most frequently visited sites. And they were founded by the guy who invented CSS. How smart is he?

Opera’s main business strategy is to provide a browser that operates across devices, platforms and operating systems, and can deliver a faster, more stable and flexible Internet experience than its competitors. Bottom line — make Firefox or Opera your default browser. Anything but IE!

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Microsoft IE Flaw in CyberAttack

Why I Teach WordPress

Anet Dunne — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:19:28 +0000

Great advertising will drive clicks to your website. If the website is weak, the clicks won’t turn into customers. Visitors have to say, “Yes! This is what I’ve been looking for!”

I can create a sensational ad campaign, but the money will be wasted if the website does not convert visitors to customers. How do you create an effective website that will bring in money instead of wasting of money?

Sell the sizzle. What do you have that your competitors don’t? Why should people buy from you? Put it RIGHT UP FRONT. I teach my Blogging for Business students to use a “sticky post” so that their marketing message always stays right on top.

Make your website easy to find. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just a fancy way of saying, “make your website easy for search engines to understand.” Your sticky post marketing message is right at the top of the page, in text (not an image) so search engines can see exactly what you are selling. Remember that search engines cannot “see” images, they can see text, so make sure you know the difference.

WordPress makes it easy. Easy for me to say… I have been building websites for years and have been building ad campaigns for LOTS of years. Keep in mind that the Web is still growing and changing every day, and that advertising is a fashion business. WordPress offers lots of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools to jump-start your website.

A blog is the cheapest, fastest way to get good organic page rank on Google. Organic is just a fancy way of saying FREE listing on the left side of the page — the side that people trust. Google likes fresh info, and frequently updated blogs are the kind of content Google likes to favor. So put your blog on the home page! I’ll show you how.

It takes time to work your way up in the page ranking, and it can take years to get to the first page in the organic listings. How do you leapfrog to the first page of Google? All it takes is money. I can get your ad on the first page of Google within a month. Will that make you rich?

Only if your website turns visitors into customers. How much does it cost to get a website like that? It costs less than $100 to take my WordPress Class, and everyone left with a multi-page website. Every single student had a website with a blog, an About Us page and a Contact Us page.

Exciting from the ground up — that’s how the students build their blogs.

The best way for me to help established businesses find new customers through the Web is to:

Build great advertising

Send the right prospects to a great website

When they call you, that’s when you make your magic. In this economy, people have more time than money. And websites can look out of date in just a few years because fashion changes so rapidly. WordPress makes it easy to update your website — both in content and in design. Find out more about the Blogging for Business class on Saturday, March 6.

To learn more about WordPress, visit the WordPress Links list I developed for a presentation to the North Bay Internet Society. To find out how to get a WordPress website for your business, contact me.

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Why I Teach WordPress

The Tim Ferriss School of Business

Anet Dunne — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:26:28 +0000

In business school, we learned that entrepreneurs were different from professional managers, and that business creators were often pushed out the door by the stockholders after the business went public. This typically happens about five to seven years after launch, because stockholders demand reliable, professional management, not unpredictable innovation. Tim Ferriss, author of the misleadingly-titled best-seller, “The 4-hour Workweek” shows how to transition your business to professional management through outsourcing and a systems approach to automation. He demonstrates how to find people to manage properly by providing direction ONCE ONLY, so they can carry on the work you started.

I first saw Tim Ferriss at WordCamp SF earlier this year. In response to a question from the audience, he gleefully recounted how he outsourced finding a girlfriend. I loved his sense of humor and respect for his own time and creativity. We all know that hit-or-miss dating can be drudgery, and he could not afford the time to go through that, so he created systems and benchmarks and outsourced the work… most hilariously, to French-speaking Philippinas.

Creativity needs large blocks of uninterrupted time; things like designing web pages and coding websites are not activities that fit well with answering phone calls from India offering to list me in the Yellow Pages. Tim offers concrete ideas on how to train capable people to perform repetitive task so that his creative time is not impinged by increasing maintenance demands. His systems approach matches tasks to people with the right talents. His customer response when callers interrupted him while he was coding or writing could be sub-optimal. Tim shows how to redirect questions skillfully and effectively.

Creativity also needs time away from the grindstone. When Tim lost some friends and relationships prematurely, he realized the “deferred-life plan” with retirement as the payoff for years of hard work was a cruel trap. When he imagined his life in fast-forward (he calls it “telescoping”) Tim saw himself on track to become “the fat bald man in the red BMW convertible.” Determined to unshackle himself from the cliché, and unable to find a book with the recipe to create a lifestyle that allowed maximum creativity, maximum cash-flow and maximum fun, Tim wrote the book himself.

The new, updated version of “The 4-hour Workweek” was just released and is available as an audiobook, a Kindle book or a hardback book. I recommend it to every business person who needs a fresh approach to balancing life, work, fun and creativity.

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The Tim Ferriss School of Business