Marketing Tom - Internet Marketing

Rollyo - Your Own Personal Search Engine

Rollyo is a brand new search engine tool which allows you to create your own 'mini' search engine. Rolyo is powered by Yahoo! and only displays the results from websites that you have already specified. Rollyo allows you to create a 'Searchroll' :

"A Searchroll is a personalized search engine that provides results from a hand selected collection of trusted sites on any given topic."

Searchrolls can consist of up to 25 web domains and Rollyo allows you to create multiple searchrolls for subjects that interest you. One that I created earlier - Internet Marketing - only provides results from selected internet marketing and blogging sites. So, imagine you would like to display sports results from online newspapers, you would probably create a mini search engine that included: the The Times, El Mundo, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Figaro and Le Monde. Here is the pitch from the people at Rollyo:

"Ever wish you could narrow your search to sites you already know and trust? With Rollyo, you can easily create your own custom search engines, and explore and save those created by others.

Rollyo puts the power of Yahoo! Search in your hands, by giving you the tools to create your own personal search engines - with no programming required. All you have to do is pick the sites you want to search, and we'll create a custom search engine for you."

I can see quite a lot of value in Rollyo as it could actually allow me to point supply visitors with search engine results that they are interested in, from sites that I have already pre-screened. I must check to see if there is a Rollyo script that I can bolt in to my own site.

Blogging or Dogging - Brits Don't Really See the Difference!

Latest research from the UK shows that the majority of people are not aware what a blog is - 70 percent had never heard of blogging, whilst 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is - and most seemed to confuse the word with 'dogging'. The survey conducted by DDB, a unit of New York-based advertising group Omnicom, said the survey results indicate that:

"...agencies may be pushing their clients to use new technology -- that is, to advertise on the new media formats -- too quickly."

Sarah Carter, planning director at DBB London:

"Dogging is the phenomenon of watching couples have sex in semi-secluded places such as out-of-town car parks. News of such events are often spread on Web sites or by using mobile phone text messages.

Our research not only shows that there is no buzz about blogging and podcasting outside of our media industry bubble, but also that people have no understanding of what the words mean," Carter said. "It's a real wake-up call."

Corporate Blogging - To Blog or Not to Blog

This is an interesting PDF document on corporate blogging:

The Content Factor has developed To Blog or Not to Blog, a white paper that provides the basics – and more – on corporate blogging. To receive your free copy, simply enter your name and email address below, and click DOWNLOAD. The paper will then be available for download to your hard drive.

Developing Email Contacts Through Wedding Lists

If you're stuck for ways of developing your email maketing list, you may want to consider a technique that a leading UK department store uses. The other day I went on the John Lewis (UK department store) to purchase some wedding gifts for a friend's wedding. On 'checking out'  I was presented with the following invitation:

It is quite a simple technique to use, though I would suggest that John Lewis invite people to sign up for a newsletter instead of asking them to 'opt-out' if they don't want to receive any email correspondence. This is a wonderfully cheap way of acquiring new customers: let people put their wedding lists online, invite their guests to order online and then try and convert the wedding guests to customers!

Why Did eBay Buy Skype?

Still wondering why eBay would buy Skype? Well, here’s John Batelle’s take on it:

Now eBay buying Skype? You kidding me? Of course that makes sense. Who is the largest paid search advertiser in the world? eBay. (Or at least in the top three). Why? They are a *mature business* which has reached the stage of *paying well for acquiring customers.* Skype has tens of millions of potential customers, AND a way for folks who are buying and selling to talk to each other for free. But the first point is more important than the second, trust me. Think AOL and ICQ. No brainer.

Marketing Tools - Keyword Density Analyzer

Search Engine World has got a neat little tool for analyzing the keyword density on your website. It reports on the most frequently used 1, 2 and 3-word phrases on a given web page and is ideal for giving you a quick idea of whether you're using your keywords effectively.

The Blogging Experience Comes to Austin

On the 2nd November there will be a one-day blogging coference in Austin, Texas. The Blogging Experience will:

"explore blogging, podcasting and video podcasting and their potential benefits and value in building brands, educating prospects, making sales and cultivating customer loyalty."

Speakers include Steve Rubel and Shel Israel and topics to be discussed include: RSS: The New Marketing Intelligence Radar, Blogging To #1: Positioning Your Company As The Thought Leader, PR & Blogs: Anticipating & Managing The Blogstorm, Top Blogs Dissected: What Separates The Winners From Losers and The Future: Enterprise-Casting. Entry is $170 and includes a free copy of Shel Israel and Robert Scoble's eagerly awaited book Naked Conversations.

Seth Godin Releases New eBook on Blogging

Seth Godin has just released a new ebook on blogging. Having already cast his eye over web design - with Knock Knock - and shown how you can use online marketing tools to make your site work better, he has now turned his attention to blogging. Called Who's There?, the ebook is not

".. about how to write better or how to follow the traditional conventions about formatting and building a blog. It's not designed to sell you one service instead of another, either.

Instead, I divide the blog world into three groups and turn my attention to one. And in particular, I try to sell you hard on how building a blog asset can have a spectacular impact on you, your career, your organization and your ideas."

You can download the pdf from here: Seth Godin: Who's There?

Via: Micropersuasion
Technorati Tags: blogging

How to Win Clients the FedEx Way

The Church of the Customer have an interesting write up about a FedEx client who appears to have incurred the wrath of the mighty corporate company. It would seem that José Avila decided to use his FedEx cardboard packaging boxes as furniture in his new house - he apparently didn't have the cash to buy new furniture having moved from one part of the US to another - and then posted some of the pictures on the web. This is the story according to Joe Jaffe, who seems to have generated a lot of buzz surrounding the story:

* Jose moves from California to Arizona

* Doesn't really have the cash to go to IKEA, so in the spirit of creativity and armed with the tagline, "it's ok to be ghetto", he decks out his apartment with Fedex boxes

* Sticks a few pictures on his website and before he knows it, the web lights up with activity and interest...

* Word gets out to Fedex who find Jose's efforts to be a distraction from the development of their next Superbowl spot or a raging debate about the recommended Pantone colors from their next branding logo styleguide.

* Fedex issues a Cease 'n Desist, citing everything from the Digital Millennium Copywriter's Act to Box Theft. Site taken down.

* Jose connects with Jennifer Granick over at Stanford who fights Fedex's imbecilic behavior all the way to the blog. Site back up.

* Avila maintains his position that it's ok to be ghetto and soaks up publicity from Countdown to the Today Show.

He believes that José Avila:

"a pink-haired, unassuming software engineer who could quite possibly be the marketer of the year (or at least the hour)"

When you read something like this you can't help but wonder at how incompetent some of these large corporate giants can really be. Instead of promoting the story and using viral marketing to push the brand for them, they wheel out the big legal guns and try to beat the poor customer into sumbissions.

Stupid buggers!

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Technorati Tags: fedex

Back from Summer Holidays

Why haven't I blogged in over 2 weeks? Basically, because I have been on holidays in Spain - Avila, (Teresa of Avila was born here) Burgos (birthplace of El Cid), Murcia and Madrid. My blogging batteries are now fully recharged.