ShareThis Adds Social Media Analytics

The biggest problem with social media marketing is that it’s hard to measure your results. You throw everything you have at Twitter and Facebook and mostly you just hope to see an upswing in traffic.

To alleviate this problem, ShareThis, the social media sharing widget, is adding an analytic component that will not only measure sharing but will also monitor the Social Reach. Social Reach looks not only at the outbound sharing but it follows through to see if the person who gets the link clicks on it, thus completing the circle of [blog] life.

According to ShareThis’ website, the new analytics will also deliver numbers related to the type of audience that is sharing your links and it will compare your blog to others in the category to see if you’re doing better or worse than your competition.

To show the impact of their new tool, ShareThis has provided an infograph made from information collected across the 850,000 publishers in their system.

What’s interesting to note here is that Twitter isn’t very effective when it comes to social reach. Only 8% of people are clicking on what they’re sent, while the return on both email and Facebook are nearly equal. Many people have been warning marketers not to give up on email and this graphic shows why.

The information I’m interested in seeing is how these numbers change when you drill down into the various categories. Do entertainment tweets get clicked on more often than business tweets, for example? These are the numbers you need to have in order to make the most of your social media marketing campaign.

Right now, ShareThis is beta testing the new reports so not everyone has them. If you’re on WordPress, though, you should go in an upgrade your ShareThis widget. They have clean, new buttons that are a huge improvement over the old design.

ShareThis says they expect to fully roll out the new reports within the next few weeks.

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Mobile Marketing at the Mall: An Interview with Sam Feuer of FastMall

The Mall of America has 4.2 million square feet of gross building space, 4.3 miles of storefront footage, 520 stores and 40 million visitors annually. Now try to remember where you parked, let alone find a bathroom when you need one. Sam Feuer, CEO of Mindsmack has the solution. It’s a smartphone app called FastMall which is as helpful to advertisers as it is to consumers.

I spent some time with Sam this week talking about FastMall and the rise in mobile marketing.
Let’s begin with a short description of your product and how it came about.

Sam Feuer: FastMall is the world’s only true turn by turn navigation for shopping malls and areas around the globe. Our navigation works without the need for GPS, instead it uses a system called MapOS or Map Operating System which we have developed from scratch. Once the user downloads the map to their device, no Internet signal is needed for any route desired including multi-level, elevator only routes. It began as my wife’s idea when we could not find a restroom at our local mall and has spawned into truly useful technology that can be used anywhere in the world for any structure or venue indoors or outdoors.

FastMall is a true advertising platform that can be utilized in many ways for the retailer, mall owner, sponsor, user and of course, venues outside the shopping area including hospitals, museums, universities, airports, conferences and anywhere else around the globe.

Local is the big buzz word in marketing these days. First the internet was about reaching the global market place now we’re using geo-targeting to go local. Your thoughts?

S Feuer: Lets go with globally local, in our case, if that makes sense. We are currently in 21 countries and reach the local shopping malls that the public attends. The idea in our case is to make a significant impact to ensure users can navigate the indoors or areas where a GPS/Internet signal may not be prevalent. Also, in an emergency if there is no Internet, our maps will still work and we are able to even black out the map and find emergency exits in an upcoming release. Our application will also come in multiple languages starting with Spanish and we have just finalized the ability to let those who are visually impaired on any level including completely blind utilize our navigation to feel confident in their ability of navigating a structure or area.

Mobile is the next big thing in marketing. Would you talk about how you see this trend progressing in the future.

S Feuer: Mobile marketing is pretty awesome if we can all harness it effectively. Obviously the idea long term for retailers and tourist areas is to give users of applications an incentive for being there and even doing something. I know 1000′s of times I would have bought something if I was offered something a bit more significant at the point of sale. Even if it was a ploy by the store and sounded good, for the way I shop, I feel a deal will push me over the top. Exclusive deals to make the user feel like a VIP is integral for success as we progress with mobile marketing.

Most mobile marketing requires a smartphone but not everyone has one. Is that a concern?

S Feuer: Not really because on the whole all of this is still in its infancy. As we progress just about everyone will have a mobile device capable of handling technology like our FastMall application. We will all continue to work at enhancing our technology, applications and ability to hit as many people as we can to enhance their lives for the better by saving them time and money through technology.

What would you say is the most important thing a business needs to think about when building a marketing campaign.

S Feuer: Distinguishing the difference between you and the competition through some type of fun/exciting/powerful/memorable visual experience. At the core level though, I am a firm believer that if you build something truly special that solves important problems in our societies and also helps people save money and time, the people will take note and discover you through word of mouth. While running MindSmack.com over the last 12 years, I have paid for advertising 2 times, the rest has been word of mouth.

To download the application or to get information about advertising your business with FastMall, visit the website at www.FastMall.com.

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The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

Email is back.

Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman, but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches.

You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line.

Email subject lines are a form of headline. They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read.

So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for.

Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. Let’s take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel.

1. The Fundamentals:

When you’re writing your next email subject line, run it through this checklist, based on the Four “U” Approach to headline writing:

• Useful: Is the promised message valuable to the reader?
• Ultra-specific: Does the reader know what’s being promised?
• Unique: Is the promised message compelling and remarkable?
• Urgent: Does the reader feel the need to read now?

When you’re trying to get someone to take valuable time and invest it in your message, a subject line that properly incorporates all four of these elements can’t miss. And yet, execution in the email context can be tricky, so let’s drill down into subject-line specifics for greater clarity.

2. The Specifics:

Beyond headline fundamentals, these are the things to specifically focus on with email subject lines:

• Identify yourself: Over time, the most compelling thing about an email message should be that it’s from you. Even before then, your recipient needs to know at a glance that you’re a trusted source. Either make it crystal clear by smart use of your “From” field, or start every subject line with the same identifier. For example, with our own Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter, every subject line begins with [Smart People].
• Useful and specific first: Of the four “U” fundamentals, focus on useful and ultra-specific, even if you have to ignore unique and urgent. There are plenty of others who work at unique and urgent with every subject line — we call them spammers. Don’t cross the line into subject lines that are perceived as garbage. But do throw in a bit of a tease.
• Urgent when it’s useful: When every email from you is urgent, none is. Use urgency when it’s actually useful, such as when there’s a real deadline or compelling reason to act now. If you’re running your email marketing based on value and great offers, people don’t want to miss out and need to know how much time they have.
• Rely on spam checking software: We all know that certain words trigger spam filters, but there’s a lot of confusion out there about which words are the problem. Is it okay to use the word “free” in a subject line? Actually, yes. All reputable email services provide spam checking software as part of the service or as an add-on. Craft your messages with compelling language, let the software do its job, and adjust when you have to.
• Shorter is better: Subject line real estate is valuable, so the more compact your subject line, the better. Don’t forget useful and ultra-specific, but try to compress the fundamentals into the most powerful promise possible.

3. The Secret Sauce:

Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy. Twelve years ago when I started in email publishing, people would sign up for anything remotely interesting.

No longer.

But if you do gain that initial trust, and more importantly, confirm and grow it, you can write pretty lame subject lines and people will still read your emails. Just as with that ditzy friend from high school who nonetheless always has something interesting to say, trust and substance matter most.

Don’t get me wrong, writing great subject lines combined with the more intimate relationship email represents is much more effective. And you have to get your initial messages read to establish the relationship in the first place. Regardless, your open rates will improve based on the quality of your subject line.

But there’s something special in this jaded digital age about being invited into someone’s email inbox. You just have to over-deliver on the value to ensure you’re a treasured guest who gets invited back.

The inbox can be a stressful place. How do you make it brighter?

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Is Daily Radar Gone For Good?

A few minutes ago, I pointed by my browser to the Daily Radar Blips sites with the intention of dropping a link to my last post here on Marketing Pilgrim. This is what I found:

Apparently Future US, the parent company of Daily Radar, has pulled the plug on the entire network including BallHype, ShowHype and my beloved TVBlips. Seriously? Just like that?

I took a turn around the internet and Twitter and was surprised to find that it wasn’t a big topic of conversation. Few people seem to have noticed the closure and maybe that, right there, explains it all.

Daily Radar was a niche version of Digg. Instead of adding your links to a general pot, you added them to a specific “blips” portal individually or by way of a feed. They had a site for TV, music, politics, green living, webmarketing, technology and all the major sports. There had to be at 30 – 50 sites in the network and now there are none.

Websites close everyday, though not as often as they used to, but this no notice closure is particularly annoying because Daily Radar was a community site. It wasn’t written by staff members. I know this because I was a staff member a few years ago. We kept the sites neat and tidy, but the content was provided by the thousands of blog feeds that were listed across all the niche sites.

Once you became a member, there was friending and following and voting stories up and down and commenting. . .you know. . .a community. People. People  like me who both enjoyed reading the sites and learned to depend on it as a means of marketing my posts.

I suppose there are numerous legitimate business reasons for not alerting the world that a site is about to go dark. I also supposed that I wouldn’t feel any better about losing a site I visited on a regular basis if I knew about it ahead of time. Still, it would be nice to hear an explanation, even if it is the standard, we weren’t making enough money.  The parent company, Future US, is a major publisher of gamer and computer magazines, which has to be a tough sell these days. Things are changing so fast, how can there be any new news in a computer magazine that has to be written three months before publication? Maybe the downturn in magazine sales meant that the budget had to be slashed and Daily Radar took the bullet.

Maybe in the next few days, more news on the whys and wheres will come to light. But for me, it’s a sad day. Daily Radar sites are on the referrers list on every one of my websites and I will be hard pressed to find a replacement. Maybe the new Digg will take their spot? I doubt it, but I’ll give it a try.

Were you a Daily Radar blip site user? What are your thoughts on the no-notice shut down?

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Creative Inspiration: Hyundai Uncensored and Halo’s Robot Arm

Customer interaction is the key behind two new marketing campaigns that hit the web this past week, Hyundai “Uncensored” and Halo’s Robotic Arm. Let’s take a closer look and see if we can get inspired for a campaign of our own.

Hyundai’s “Uncensored” campaign has gained the interest of both consumers and the media. The idea behind it was to gather unsolicited and uncensored testimonials by putting hidden cameras in cars. The commercials have been airing on TV and YouTube for the past month and now Hyundai is using Facebook to drive their point home. They used their Facebook page to pick 50 participants for a one-month test drive. The drivers were asked to post their thoughts regularly on their Facebook page. They were also given cameras so they could record and upload videos. The assumption here is that most people will post kind thoughts even if it’s not the full truth. But anytime you ask people for an opinion, you’re bound to get complainers and Hyundai has several on their “Uncensored” Facebook page. One woman talks about a class action suit due to a gas problem and another wails on Hyundai’s customer service.

Is this a case of “no publicity is bad publicity?” By opening their virtual doors to both positive and negative comments, does that make Hyundai a more trustworthy brand? So far, it looks like it’s working for them.

Another interesting marketing ploy to pop up this week is Halo’s robotic arm. The story behind it is that the makers of Halo have a Kuka KR 140, robotic arm hidden in a warehouse in San Francisco. When fans of the game sign on at RememberReach.com, they can activate the robot which illuminates a point of light in honor of a fallen comrade. More than 50,000 points will be needed to create the completed work of art which will resemble the team in action.

CNET, Wired and a dozen other gamer and geek sites wrote about this marketing effort and if I’m reading the Halo page right, lots of people have already participated. I logged in (using Facebook connect) to give it a shot and found it totally underwhelming. I picked a spot on the screen, it lit up for a second then I got a message saying I’d be notified when my spot was permanently lit. If I imagine that I really made a robot arm in San Francisco move when I clicked the screen, then it is pretty cool. But it’s kind of like that episode of “The Big Bang Theory” where they turn down their stereo by sending a signal around the world through the internet. The theory is pretty neat, but the reality. . .not so much.

Have you checked out the Halo robotic arm? Creative idea or a just a lot of marketing hype? Or the better question is, does it matter as long as people are talking about it?

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Shut Up and Podcast

Last week I attended Affiliate Summit in New York. While I was there I was able to attend the Podcasting 101 session with my Geek Dads Weekly co-hosts Daniel M. Clark and Joe Magennis. They were part of the session along with Trisha Lyn Fawver of Affiliate Marketing Fanatics. Trisha is on the Affiliate Marketing Fanatics podcast with Mike Buechele. The panel was moderated by Lisa Picarille, who has such a fantastic voice and who is the co-host of the Affiliate Thing podcast with Shawn Collins. What I learned from this session was that podcasting is such an easy way to get your voice out there and gain an additional audience.

Basically all you need are a few things to get started podcasting. A voice, a mic and recording software. Luckily every since computer has the last two pieces and if you are blogging you should already have a voice. If not then why are you blogging?

A Voice

As a blogger you have a unique voice in your writing and because of that you have a unique perspective on things that can translate to the spoken word. Do you review blogs, how about an interview series with the bloggers that you review, you can review the blog in writing and then do an interview with the blog owner via Skype as something extra to add to your post. Then make that an actual podcast and you can tap into a whole other audience.

A Mic

Many laptops have an internal mic that you can use to record your voice. It isn’t the greatest but it works. If you want to step up you can get an external mic and record better sound. You can even use a telephone to call into sites like Blog Talk Radio. There are many ways to record your voice.

Recording Software

If you are a MAC user then you have it all set with Garage Band but as a PC user I use Audacity to record my own voice. I also use a program called G-Recorder to record my own voice and the people that I talk with with Skype. When I record on Skype I can download the MP3, open it with Audacity edit it. This is a very easy thing to do.

Get it on Itunes

You also need a way to get your podcast onto iTunes. If you are using WordPress then you have some great options like PowerPress and PodPress. These plug ins will help you get your new content uploaded into iTunes. Once it is there you can use all your blogging and SEO skills to get that show seen by an entirely new audience and also give your existing audience something new and fresh from you.

Practicing what I Preach

Personally I am working on a video podcast. I am learning how to do this correctly and in the meantime I am creating the content anyway and posting it to Vimeo and Youtube. Once I figure out how to do the video podcast the best I can it will go up to iTunes and it will be an enhancement to my current blog.

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Stupid Contests & Giveaways Selling Your Personal Info

When was the last time you saw a car sitting in your local mall with a big “Win this Car Free!” sign above it? I have a presentation in my local mall right now! Then on each corner it has four stations to fill out entry forms. Ever wonder why people are just randomly giving cars and huge cash prizes away? I’m sure as a marketer you already understand the concept, but for everyone else it just seems like an amazing opportunity. The truth is, it’s usually anything but.

The idea for this post was inspired by a call my sister got on her phone today, and from other upsell crap I’ve wrote about in the past. She entered a contest at Hershey Park in PA a few weeks ago to win a free car or $50,000 in cash. Today a voice mail was left on her phone that basically said the following:

Hi, my name is Sandy. I am calling in regards to the contest you entered to win $50,000 or a luxury car while at a Sundance Concert . I have GREAT NEWS!!” regarding your contest entry. Please call back as soon as possible as we are waiting to hear from you.

This sounds pretty awesome at first. To get an actual call with the possibility that you have won a huge cash prize or a luxury is just amazing! However, as marketers we almost know it’s too good to be true. My sister came over, we listened to the voice mail, then looked at the number it came from and did a quick Google search.

The number was listed as 800-309-7000, and Google came up with a whole selection of relevant sites. I went to one of the first listings, which was WhoCallsMe.com and it was a page full of complaints and people with the same exact call and experience.

As expected, it’s some trash company collecting/selling all of their content entry information then trying to upsell them some garbage that no one wants… another shady business. However, thanks to the power of the internet and people taking action against these scummy promotion companies, you can easily save yourself a lot of time, money and stress by doing your research and not calling these idiots back.

Other great sites for researching promotional companies and random calls you may receive are WhoCallsMe.com, RipOffReport.com and Complaints.com.

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How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these.

Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money.

Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for 2000-word feature articles. That was the big money.

Magazine pay doesn’t go much higher until you get into the really big-name publications. I could often get two of those assignments at a time, but I needed to coordinate and interview around ten people for each article, so doing two in a month was a hell of a task.

Today, I’m doing much better in my writing career. Since I started blogging, I’ve written hundreds of posts, both for myself and for other blogs. I don’t have to interview people anymore, so it goes much faster and I can write much more. The combined total I’ve been paid for all of those posts (including what I’ve been paid for writing sales copy, promotional emails, and so on) is zero dollars. And really, it pays the bills better than my magazine writing ever did.

How to make “not getting paid” pay off

I just recorded a call with Copyblogger Associate Editor Jon Morrow entitled “How We Make $2000 per Guest Post,” and the funny thing about that call was that I’d had the idea to write the post you’re currently reading before Jon came up with the hook for the call. I guess great minds think alike.

See, newbie online entrepreneurs often want to “make money blogging,” and seasoned writers often come to the internet to expand their freelance businesses by doing online what they do offline: selling words for dollars. Both of those approaches assume a straight line between composing paragraphs and getting a check, but that straight line hasn’t reflected my experience in the blogosphere (and I’m in good company).

To put it succinctly, I don’t make money writing. I make money through a business, and that business does its marketing almost exclusively through writing.

Writing for me is a means to an end. It’s a way to gain exposure, gain popularity and authority, and build trust. Once you have enough exposure, trust, and authority with your audience, they’ll consider buying products and services from you if what you offer them is good. The cool part? It almost doesn’t matter which category or niche those products or services fall into.

It works like this:

Writing -> Readers -> Exposure, popularity, authority, and trust -> The ability to sell stuff.

Need a fancy term to make it legit? Call it content marketing.

Notice that I’ve used the very specific noun “stuff” to describe what you’re able to sell to a well-matched, receptive audience with enough of those preceding magic ingredients.

• Information products? Yep.
• Software and services of all kinds? Yep.
• Hats? Maybe.

Want to sell hats? Then write enough, in places where people who like hats congregate, to become a popular and trustworthy personality who happens to sell hats. Or makes hats. Or wears interesting hats. Or at least likes hats, and talks about hats a lot.

Your audience has to be willing to pay for hats, but if they are, they’re going to buy from someone. If your writing has put you in front of them, and made you popular and trustworthy, they’ll buy from you. It works for just about anything.

This is all about thinking outside of the nine dots. I came to the blogosphere as a humorist, but what I found was that people wouldn’t pay for humor. So what could I do with my funny writing? Why, sell consulting and website services, of course.

I remember asking my readers at the time, “Can I be the funny guy who writes about business, and also build websites somehow?”

Give what attracts, sell what people want to buy

And the answer was apparently that yes, I could write humorously about business — and tattoos, and unschooling, and The Matrix — and build a large readership who seemed to like and trust me. And at that point, I could offer websites. And consulting. And info products. And likely waffles. If those folks needed a site and/or were hungry, they’d work with me rather than finding their website guy or waffle house on Google.

When Jon and I did that call about making $2000 per guest post, what we meant was that guest posting is our primary (almost our exclusive) marketing strategy, and that on average, each post — each performance in front of a blog audience to build trust and exposure — resulted in around $2000 of income. That’s income that was created through writing, but wasn’t income we received for completing a writing assignment.

You want to be a writer? Well, don’t confine your thinking to the obvious example of putting words together for pay. There’s a whole world of ways out there to make money as a writer… and the interesting part is that most of them mean you’ll be writing for free.

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Social Media Marketing Insight from 21 Smart People (And Me, Too)

There’s a new book out called Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars. Yes, that title sets off my hyperbole radar a bit too (not to mention my alliteration alert), but it’s a solid collection of smart social media advice based on real-world case studies, best practices, and proven techniques.

I wrote Chapter Two of the book – The Psychology of Social Media. It’s about applying tried-and-trued influence factors in the social media space to build a business or make whatever case you’re trying to make.

Here’s what else you’ll learn:

• How to Create a Mega-Following With Social Media – Gary Vaynerchuk
• Personality: How To Stand Out In Virtual Crowd – Andy Wibbels
Build Strong Online Communities Using Social Media – Chris Brogan
• Creating Content People Care About: The Cornerstone of Social Media – Ann Handley
• Building Your Social Media Relationship Strategy – Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
• Mastering Online Marketing: Six Key Principles – Mitch Meyerson
• Social Media Success Qualities – Joel Comm
• How To Communicate With Impact Using Social Media – Craig Valentine
• How To Profit From Your Social Media Efforts – Starr Hall
• PR Strategies for Social Media – Dan Janal
• Making Your Content Go Viral With Social Media – Michael Stelzner
• Business Blogs: How To Make Your Blog The Centerpiece of Your Social Media Enterprise – Denise Wakeman
• Facebook: The Essential Rules For Building a Large and Loyal Following 
 – Mari Smith
• Twitter: Your Power PR Tool for Attracting A Tribe of Raving Fans – Deborah Cole Micek
• LinkedIn: Transforming Networks into Dynamic Business Connections – Barbara Rozgonyi
• YouTube: Leveraging the Power Of Google To Get Your Video Content To Millions – Julie Perry
• Podcasting: Leveraging the Power of Apple To Get Your Content To Millions – Paul Colligan
• Using Social Bookmarking To Improve Your Traffic, Links and Visibility – Chris Garrett
• Mobile Marketing: How To Integrate this Powerful Tool With Your Social Media Marketing – Kim Dushinski
• Online Video: A Mini Guide to Your Own Web Show – Shama Kabani
• Social Media In One Hour A Day – Dave Evans

Head over to the website for the book and check it out. I’m not an affiliate or being compensated for this in any way, so buy the book however you’d like. I think you’ll get a lot out of it, and at less than $15, it’s hard to go wrong.

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Mitch Meyerson Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars Interview

Mitch Meyerson has put together a fantastic book about social media, “Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars”, but as important to me is the strategy he used to create the book. Anyone who has publishing aspirations should take a good look, not just at the product but the model.

I got a chance to interview Mitch yesterday about the book and his strategy behind it. Check it out here.

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

The book contains “the priceless secrets, strategies, tactics and insights of more than 20 of today’s social media elite.” (and me):

Contributions from 20+ top social media marketers
The biggest mistakes people make with social media and how to fix them
Actionable plans for all areas including social networks, blogs, web TV and mobile marketing
Real-world case studies, best practices and proven techniques from the experts

If you want to check out the book, the book site is:
http://www.SocialMediaMarketingSuperstars.com/

Thanks to Mitch for the interview and for including me in the book, and I hope everyone enjoys it

[Apparently I need some kind of disclaimer here. If you buy this book as far as I know I don't get any compensation at all. Look, not even an Amazon link! Hopefully someone will read my chapter and say "Hey, that Chris Garrett is the awesome, I need to look him up on the interwebs", but essentially I contributed for the Authority and just so I could say I was in the same book as those famous people.]

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Cause Marketing: The New A/B Test

My name is Travis Ketchum, I am an online marketer who runs a blog at TheCollegeStartup.com and I have a little project of my own called MyBigGive.com.

(Photo Credit: @Shoemoney Free Shirt Friday)

When it comes to marketing online or offline, the same basic goals are set to maximize the value of your business:

a) Increase Revenue
b) Decrease Cost

By aiming for both of these goals your business will be more profitable, give you more freedom and more leverage to accomplish what you want to do within your business. These goals seem simple, but as Jonathan Volk has tried to drive home, attaining these goals can involve a handful of techniques to maximize the potential.

Current Methods
When promoting an offer right now, you want to make sure that every visitor who lands on your website converts at the highest rate possible. By convert, we mean that they complete an action that you get paid for – from filling out a form, buying an item or sharing the information through Twitter, Facebook etc. Most people have a general idea as to what they think will convert at the highest rate, but the only way to capitalize on the “human factor” of consumers (read: the intangible purchasing influences) is to try as many variations on placement, colors, call to action, and product images as possible.

What other factors could influence a consumers decision to not only convert, but could influence a customer to buy a more premium version of your product? What kinds of incentives really pull the levers for people during their purchasing process? You might be surprised to see the results, and how easy it is to boost your outcome.

Cause Marketing
What is cause marketing? In a nutshell, cause marketing is a term used to describe a marketing or promotional effort that directly benefits a cause or non-profit as a result of the effort. For instance, if you have ever come across the (RED) initiative or product line you have experience first hand one of the many forms that cause marketing can take. So what can it mean for your business, and what are some real world numbers?

For our quick example we are going to use validated results from the Amazon Associate program. This affiliate program has been around for quite a while and has proven to be a successful platform for SEO traffic, and other content driven sites.

Mahalo.com
This site was founded by Jason Calacanis and is essentially a crowd sourced answer site that monetizes through advertisements and affiliate links. This site is primarily based out of organic search traffic.
Average unit price: ~$22

Jonathan Volk
You know this guy well, and while he admits that his level of involvement surrounding the Amazon Associate program has been limited, the traffic has primarily been organic search traffic.
Average unit price: ~$30

MyBigGive.com
This is one of my current projects where we allow users to pick their favorite cause before starting their shopping experience to donate 70% of the commission.
Average unit price: ~$40

So what kind of return do we realize by offering a charitable incentive for shopping through MyBigGive? The charitable factor influenced the average unit price for shoppers up 33%-81%.

While we are still tweaking the experience at MyBigGive to try and enhance these figures as much as possible, it is evident that customers are more willing to up-sell themselves when they know that a cause they truly care about is able to benefit from the transaction. You could easily integrate this model into tiered package pricing in order to up-sell customers on a more comprehensive package. Having a hard time getting buyers to convert on the 20% more expensive package? Try offering a 5% contribution to their favorite charity ONLY when they buy the larger offering. These incentives work because customers do care about giving back, and often use it to justify their own upgrades in life.

So next time you are going through the process of A/B testing your web product, landing page etc make sure you take into account the potential that cause marketing has to drive your revenue, margins, and success.

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IKEA Turns Consumer Behavior into Viral Marketing

Have you ever played hide-and-seek at IKEA? I have, though not intentionally. The stores are set up in these funky little mazes that make it very easy to lose a husband or a child while shopping, so it’s no wonder that people have taken to playing the game there on purpose. This week, the idea rose to new heights when a person in Australia set up a Facebook event announcing a “massive” game at their local store. Since then, almost 4,000 people have signed up and the news has gone viral.

Smart Company Australia quoted the local IKEA spokesperson as saying that they weren’t behind anything that might endanger shoppers, but they weren’t going to go so far as to ban the game.

And why should they? This is the kind of thing PR companies get paid big money to arrange and IKEA is getting it for free. But short of waiting for a public epiphany to happen related to your product, Smart Company says there’s a way to create this kind of event for yourself.

“People play hide-and-seek at IKEA anyway, and that’s why this is gaining attention. I think the idea here is to look at what people are doing in your business and try and create Facebook pages or similar campaigns from that.”

They give the example of a lollipop company where people can never decide which flavor to buy when they come to the store. The response? Put up a Facebook page that asks people to choose their favorite flavor.

Avon had a situation similar to this years ago with a body oil that consumers swore was the best bug repellent. So many people were buying it for that purpose, despite proof that it wasn’t effective at all, Avon finally started packaging and promoting the item as such.

The lesson here, says Smart Company, is to focus on what your customers are already doing and not what you want them to do.

Remember, “how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” There’s a major Facebook game in that, I just know it.

Coke vs Pepsi. Federal Express becoming Fedex. Consumer behavior has a history of influencing marketing. Can you think of another example?

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Does Your Landing Page Say Trust Me?

Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners and bestselling author of Landing Page Optimization says there are “Four Pillars Of Trust” that you need in order to make your landing pages convert. At a recent marketing conference covered by Top Rank, Ash emphasized the fact that the winner is not always the guy with the zippiest website. Trust is about people and that’s the link that binds together his four pillars.

Let’s take a look:

1. Appearance

This one is pretty basic and yet it’s so often ignored. Does your website look professional? Is it clean and uncluttered? A few of my personal pet peeves in this area include light text on a light background, centered text that scrolls on and on like the opening of Star Wars and websites that play music or video as soon as you open them. Also included in this area is the “freebie” site. I can’t tell you how many young entrepreneurs say to me, why pay when I can have a free Blogger or WordPress account. If you want people to give you money, you have to spend at least a little.

2. Transactional assurances

This one is a little more technical. It’s all about assuring people that their payment is going to be handled in a secure manner. You might know your shopping cart system is protected but you need to tell your shoppers that or they won’t buy. Also, don’t make them search for return policies or the contact info for your company. Nothing breeds a lack of trust like an empty contact page.

3. Authority

This one is tricky. In the article, Ash suggests that associating yourself with a trusted source, be it an award or magazine, will increase the trust level. Sure, if David Beckham is seen holding your product in People Magazine, that’s going to help a lot. But how many of us have that kind of pull? Maybe for you, authority is posting a local chamber of commerce award or a testimonial from an influential blogger. This is one where thinking out of the box will go a long way.

4. Consensus of peers

This is the pillar that ties in mostly to social media. The idea here is that one is indeed the loneliest number. Most people don’t want to join a Facebook Fan Page that has only one friend, but they’ll quickly join a page if ten of their friends have already joined. Ash says that this is good reason to show those widgets that announce how many fans, followers, and happy customers have visited your site. It’s the same technique eBay and Amazon use when they show customer feedback percents. If I’m going to trust a buyer to ship an item I’ve paid for, I’m more likely to trust the guy with the 99% positive rating.

So, you’ve read all this (thanks) and now you’re saying, there’s nothing here I didn’t already know. True. But are you acting on what you know? Does your landing page for your business conform to these four tenants? Ash suggests that you verify this by asking five random people to visit your site and give their thoughts. You may be very surprised by what they have to say about their first impression.

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Why Your Blog Doesn’t Make Money

Darren Rowse doesn’t make his money from Problogger.

Brian Clark doesn’t make his money from Copyblogger.

Chris Brogan doesn’t make his money from his blog, either.

Neither does Sonia Simone.

Not a single founding member of Third Tribe earns the bulk of their income from the blogs that are practically (or in Chris’ case, literally) synonymous with their names.

Yes, they make some money directly from those blogs. But revenue directly from the blog doesn’t represent the bulk of their income. Not by a long shot.

So why do so many bloggers equate blog success with financial success?

Many, if not most, of the bloggers I see are hoping that their blogs will make them popular. They are also hoping their blogs will make them money. This isn’t exactly surprising. Fame and riches are supposed to go hand in hand, after all.

But when you need a new stream of income tomorrow, you don’t write ten more blog posts.

You create a new product. You launch an email campaign. You make a special offer. You network. You find a great new JV partner. You ask for referrals and check in with your current clients.

Similarly, when you want to get more subscribers for your blog tomorrow, you don’t launch a product.

You write better content. You get more active on social media. You guest post on other people’s blogs. You link to other good articles. You improve your SEO.

Building a profitable business and creating a popular blog are two different things

Related, yes. But different.

The most popular blogs you know do not make most of their money simply by racking up the subscriber numbers. They make their money with products, consulting, services, and advertising.

They make their money by running a successful business. The fact that they run a popular blog facilitates that business.

If Brian wants to launch a product tomorrow, he has a big, engaged audience to whom he can launch it.

Having a huge audience who will listen when you launch a product isn’t the profitable part, though.

The profitable part is that Brian will create a product that his audience wants and needs. He’ll run an informative and compelling launch. He’ll have an affiliate program that works and a sales sequence that converts prospects into buyers.

Does the large subscriber base help with that product launch? Absolutely. But the blog itself is not the thing that’s making money.

If Copyblogger, with its magnificently large platform, were to launch a terrible product with a really weak campaign and only promoted it with a few blog posts to this vast audience of readers, they wouldn’t make enough money to pay my grocery bill.

Having a popular blog is not enough. You still have to build the business.

No, of course you shouldn’t neglect your blog

There are many, many virtues to a popular blog: social proof, credibility, enhanced visibility. They’re good for forging new business contacts and partnerships. They’re good for attracting potential customers for the products you’ll make or services you’ll provide.

They’re brilliant for creating relationships. I don’t know my dentist as well as I know some bloggers. And I trust my dentist with my teeth even though he comes at them with a variety of pointy things with hooks on their ends. Blogs help us make those trusting, potentially valuable connections, and for that reason alone, they’re worth pouring time and energy into.

But no matter how hard you try, your subscriber numbers are never going to magically transform themselves into your bank balance.

When it comes to making money, simply having a blog isn’t enough. Now you have to take all the things the blog has given you — visibility, authority, a reputation for knowing your industry, social proof — and put them to work building you a profitable business.

Because it won’t happen on its own.

If you want to use your blog as a jumping-off place for that business, though, Third Tribe has got you covered.

The seminar you’ll want to listen to is the 4-part series on Building a Business Around a Blog, which features interviews with Sonia Simone, Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, and Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. They cover a lot of ground, including:

• The three factors your blog must have if you want to make serious money with advertising
• Brogan’s two favorite ways to start bringing in revenue by using a blog
• The specifics about where the bulk of their income really comes from (you may be surprised)
• Why “blogging about blogging” isn’t the way to go
• How Darren uses surveys to build his business (and why Brian doesn’t)
• A quick creativity technique to develop the next killer idea for your business
• How to handle pushback if your customers respond negatively to your products

I listened to all four of these interviews. And not once, in hours of discussing techniques, business-building ideas, and marketing strategy, did any of these bloggers say that the best way to make money was to get more subscribers.

They’ve got a few ideas for how to do that too, though. Because blogs are valuable — just not in the way you think.

You can get instant access to all four seminars (and a dozen more), as well as Q&A sessions and the web’s best networking forum for internet businesspeople, by joining the Third Tribe today.

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Adapt.ly: Social Network Campaign Management

I was pretty interested when I saw this article on TechCrunch the other day about a new startup called Adapt.ly.

Adapt.ly is a new start-up that provides companies with a one stop place for all their social network advertising campaigns. By going through Adapt.ly, businesses don't have to micromanage all their campaigns on adverting platforms they are unfamiliar with. If your company is looking to expand its online advertising endeavors and don't want to take the time to learn social media marketing, Adapt.ly looks like a cool option to blitz all the social networks with campaigns customized for the different platforms by an automated process created by people already familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, StumpleUpon, Reddit, and Twitter advertising services.

Adapt.ly not only handles the campaign setup and optimization, but they also provide and analyze all the performance data as well. It sounds like they really want it to be as easy as possible on their users, so it seems like there might be a high price to pay (I don't know), but at the very least: the first ad deployed is on the house, according to their homepage. That being said, I can't speak for how well Adapt.ly is working out for their clients, and they're currently just in beta anyway, but their business model really sets them up for success. They have plenty of potential to gather a lot of data for what kinds of companies/products/offers work well on certain social networks and will gain a lot of expertise from the experience alone. Overall, I think it's an awesome concept and looks to be a decent way to outsource your social adverting efforts.

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You Need a $300 License to Blog!?!?

Yes, it’s true my friend. The cash strapped country is now taking to the blogging community for their next source of funds to blow. The first city on the list is Philadelphia, which has already sent out an undisclosed amount of documents to bloggers of all sizes to fork over $300 for a lifetime blogging license. To make things worse, a great majority of these bloggers aren’t even making over $300 with their blogging efforts. Many only making a few dollars a year, but are still required to fork over $300 for their blogger license.

In an article released by CityPaper, Bess is interviewed about her minimal blogging with eHow.com and her own personal, and the $300 blogger license letter she received from the state. Bess says:

“The real kick in the pants is that I don’t even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous,“.

Don’t think your blog is making enough money to be considered a business? An interesting statement from the article states:

“According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much or little money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelance writers.”

While a $300 blogger license may not seem like a lot to full time established bloggers, how about the millions of bloggers hosted on free services like Blogspot and Wordpress? Both of these services use ad serving on their sites, so all of these bloggers are potential targets. There is a wide range of speculation and questions to be answered here.

I’m sure this is only the beginning. Once the other states and law makers get wind of Philadelphia cashing in on bloggers, it will spread across the country like wildfire.

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10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization & Profit – Part Two

If you missed the first post on 10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization, click here to review the first five topics discussed. Today we will showcase the last five topics of discussion for maximizing profits through blogging.

Paid Forum / Membership Areas

One of the growing trends in the “make money online” blogger area has been to create your own membership based forums. I’ve actually joined a few of these forums and found they are well worth the dollar or so it costs per day to access them. From a blog owner point of view, if you can get enough paying members, it’s a great side income and really adds value to your site. From a forum user view, some of these forums offer quality advice and case studies for the low membership fees of around $30 a month.

Google Adsense

Yes, the dreaded and hated Google Adsense made the list! As much as Google Adsense is hated among the “smart” marketers, it is still a great starting point for a new blogger. For a new blogger or site, Google Adsense can quickly show your page stats while giving you a taste if people are clicking on your site, and just visit your blog to see what ads are showing, and you will have an idea on what they are clicking. Whether you stick with Google Adsense and make a few pennies per click, or decide to monetize and sell your own advertising or find relevant affiliate programs… that’s up to you.

Self Promotion & Consultations

Why are most of us blogging in the first place? For many of us, we want to grow our name recognition and our brand. Blogging is one of the cheapest, easiest and fasted ways to get noticed. Once you blog is established, so is your name. With everything now in place, you are in a position where you can start to sell yourself and your expertise. Throw up a “hire me” like page on your site and offer services like public speaking, attend your event and consultation services… see if anyone bites, you may have a whole knew source of income your never thought existed!

Paid Blog Post Reviews

Everyone wants more exposure for their blogs and business, whether it be through text links, banner ads or even review posts. Not all blogs offer review posts, but many do. There are also many “paid post” services available, such as SocialSpark, ReviewMe and many smaller independent companies. You also always have the option to handle review requests yourself. It’s best to only review services and sites on your blog that are relevant to your audience.

Established Blog Flipping

Now that you have a great list of ways to monetize your blog, your last option can be your most profitable. There is a whole industry of single person businesses building up small niche blogs, then flipping them for a quick profit on sites like Flippa.com. Small sites will only bring in so much money, but at the same time I’ve seen blogs sell for over six figures on these sites. Continually build up your blog with quality content, grow your RSS and subscribers, and creating legitimate revenue sources almost always results in a high interest blog sales auction.

There you have it. Ten tips for better monetizing your blog and bring in profits. If you’d like to add anything to the list, feel free to leave a comment. You can also download my free 130 page guide on Six Figure Affiliate Blogging and how 25 other well known six figure affiliates and bloggers are making their money online.

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