Posted by: Andy on May 28th, 2005
Category: Internet Marketing
Viewed: 2,770 times
On a daily basis, many startup/SME owners inquire as to how to setup and gain exposure (market) their websites. Having an excellent website directed at your niche brand isn’t enough, orders won’t come rolling in if no one ever sees your website. This is something so basic but very often completely overlooked.
It simply is not enough just to have a website these days. The pages must be marketed on-line, optimised to meet the demands of search engines, boosted up the popularity rankings by linking strategies and promoted by whatever means appropriate and possible on a weekly basis.
On-line marketing has now become a science of its own and professional help from a WAIM (World Association of Internet Marketers) member is an option/service that can be employed to assist in production of a successful campaign.
But let’s say that you can’t afford the investment for the site and the on-line marketing? In an ideal world a bank would bend over backwards to provide the funds to turn your business into a market leader. In reality, particularly since the dot-com bust, the bank manager may be very sceptical. This is where the power of the internet comes into its own.
If your loan manager fails to see the tremendous opportunity for business growth, one solution is to negotiate a percentage sales cut for your webmaster and/or your web marketer. That way you retain the database of customer enquiries for yourself and you design and control the branding of each niche market. The operation is tracked by the online shopping cart software and the webmaster and marketer both derive revenue dependent upon their success, which is an incentive for them in itself.
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Posted by: Andy on May 25th, 2005
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 1,408 times
Hello all,
I would like to introduce myself to you as I will be temporarily filling the positions for the previous eBC consultants.
I am a small business owner. I own (in partnership) an “all services” computer business. We provide graphic/web/ecommerc development services, networking services, consulting, on-site technical support, etc. Due to low overhead by means of using a suite in my residence as an office/lab, I am able to yield higher profits and offer more competitive pricing than my competitors. This description is not to sound like an advertisement, but rather information as requested by a few regular ebizblog readers.
In addition to my business, I own a large national automotive club. I also work as an instructor/IT at a local college and for one of the local municipal fire departments in special projects.
Like many of you, I am on my journey along a path to pursue success in my business. Thus far, my investment ventures (including my business) has been very generous in providing me with good returns. Since I have many contacts in many different industries, my marketing expenditures were very low and also contributed to my high return.
Aside from business and the life of work, I like to unwind at the end of my days…as I’m sure most of you do too. I find peace of mind via channels of various athletics.
So that’s a little bit about myself. If any of you regulars would like to introduce yourself, please feel free to do so in an attached comment. If you have any questions for me, I can be reached via email.
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Posted by: Andy on May 16th, 2005
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 991 times
1. NO HTML. That means no graphics of any kind – no logo, no product shots, nothing but text.
2. No table of contents. That means you can only send one headline, one item, one link at a time. Newsletter material will have to broken up into separate parts.
3. Little space. Your headline and teaser better be catchy because that’s all you’ll have to get people to click through to a site to read the full message.
In short, they put it like this: “An email newsletter is like a print magazine while an RSS feed is like a telegram.â€
And I tend to agree. Maybe we need to think about RSS as a different, complementary media channel to email, instead of painting it with the same brush we did the early personal computer. Remember when prophesiers said computers would create a ‘paperless society’? Yet, global demand for commercial paper has been on the rise for some time now (though I’m sure the multitude of free dailies discarded on the streets of Vancouver is partially to blame for this).
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We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz lately about RSS, the next big thing to take over the web. And some proponents of the technology have gone so far as to say that RSS has the potential to replace email publications as the communication of choice.
Here, on the other side, Marketing Sherpa isn’t as impressed. “RSS lacks hard numbers,†they say, “making it impossible to base a business case for relying on it as a publishing or marketing tool.â€
They do admit that RSS is a great tool — under certain circumstances. Publishers can use it to send a headline, teaser and link to new content posted online. And a reader can ‘opt-in’ to a publisher’s feed and be updated through their RSS reader whenever content changes on a site. No spam, no spam filters. Sounds good to me.
But, wait. RSS does have obvious challenges for marketers that email does not. For example:
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Posted by: Andy on May 15th, 2005
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 1,032 times
We ran a seminar the other day on pay-per-click advertising and learned from our speaker Pauline Pageau of Searchwerx that small business advertisers would do well to consider Overture (now, Yahoo) ad space in their pay-per-click campaigns.
Pauline tells us that some of her clients get better conversion rates with Overture ads than they do with Google ads, simply because Overture seems to draw more serious information gatherers and shoppers. It’s true that Google is the most popular search engine, but it may be that it tends to draw the looky-loos. Maybe, once shoppers start drilling down to lesser known engines they’re more comfortable online and more willing to buy.
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Posted by: Andy on May 14th, 2005
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 805 times
Law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP (Gowlings) is inviting technology companies to participate in Technology Boot Camp 2005, a series of seminars designed to educate emerging technology companies about the critical legal issues their businesses may face.
The boot camps will take place during the last week of May in four cities — Montreal (May 25), Ottawa (May 26), Toronto (May 30) and Waterloo (May 31)– and be led by Gowlings Technology Industry Group professionals.
Gowlings boot camps will include a variety of seminars covering practical knowledge on topics such as licensing intellectual property, privacy laws, employment issues, financing options and information on tax credits.
Topics include:
- Key Strategies for Developing and Maintaining IP Portfolios;
- Employment Issues for Technology Companies;
- What You Need to Know when Licensing IP;
- Financing Options for Technology Companies;
- Canadian Privacy Laws: Keeping the Privacy Commissioner at Bay.
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