PPC or PPA?
Pay per click has been with us for a while and it has proved to be highly popular with web marketers. It offers immediacy, targeting and test data. What it hasn't done up to now is offer every...
View ArticlePPA and click fraud
Advertisers will like Pay per action adverts because they will pay out only when an action is completed. In the current experiment, advertisers can define what the action is (for example, a newsletter...
View ArticleKempton Park on Saturday
One of my clients has a horse running in the 2:55 at Kempton on Saturday. I won't mention the name of the horse because I wouldn't want any of you to complain about the quality of my racing tips. The...
View ArticleLink building
Everyone wants to build their site traffic. There are a variety of ways of building traffic, but organic search results offers lower cost traffic than pay per click advertisements. Pay per click...
View ArticleA sale is a very fragile thing
The headline is a quote from Gary Halbert who died on Easter Sunday. Halbert was internationally respected as a copywriter and managed the later years of his life as a mentor and trainer of people...
View ArticleCopywriting the Halbert way
Having noted the death of Gary Halbert in a previous post, I thought that it might be worthwhile to reflect on why his style of copywriting worked. Halbert himself didn't think it was much to do with...
View ArticleLorem Ipsum
If you have ever been involved in the design of any collateral then you have almost certainly seen the dummy text which is used to provide an impression of how the text would appear in the design...
View ArticleSalary sacrifice
I'm working with a team at the moment which provides a range of services associated with salary sacrifice programmes. Salary sacrifice involves deductions made from an employee's monthly pay which are...
View ArticleHere I am, where are you?
I got an email from someone the other day which said, more or less, "Here I am, where are you?", it then went on to describe some work that the writer wanted me to do.The email was from the Managing...
View ArticleIt's just like Pinnochio's nose
At the end of January, I reported that Feedburner's stats showed that over time 51 different types of feed readers, aggregators and bots had accessed the blog.Today that figure is 61, including three...
View ArticleCutting costs
A good pal of mine says that "Any fool can cut costs, it's reducing the cost base without reducing organisational capability that's the tricky part." That's been brought home to me during the last few...
View ArticleThe two tail problem
A and B are rarely separated by a clear unambiguous line. Statisticians refer to this as the two tail experiment. The attempt to separate A and B into 2 categories automatically will actually result in...
View ArticleWriting a manual is tough
I like espresso. I've had my current machine about 3 years and it's been excellent, but in the last couple of months it started to play up - the flow rate through the brew head didn't seem as fast and...
View ArticleWhat is the customer experience?
The other day I called 118 118. For those of you outside the UK, that is one of a number of directory enquiries companies who provide details of business and private telephone numbers. I knew the name...
View ArticleExtending a supply chain doesn't just mean finding a low cost supplier
Many European organisations have been shifting their focus from local manufacture to import and distribution from an increasingly long supply chain, all in the name of reducing the cost to serve.I...
View ArticleDon't ignore SPAM
I have just come back from a few days holiday and was welcomed on my return by 1783 messages in my SPAM inbox totalling 12.2 Mb. It would be easy to delete it all without reviewing it, but I thought I...
View ArticleThe customer contact problem
While on holiday I met some people who don't use mobile text messages - they claimed not to know how to access them on their phones. That can be a problem for an organisation which may assume that...
View ArticleWhat does a product recall cost?
At the beginning of July, I noted that finding a low cost supplier in a far off country wasn't guaranteed to keep input costs low. Maintaining quality over long supply chains is difficult.Mattel is a...
View ArticleGetting the budget right
I've talked before about the problems of cutting costs in complex organisations. One of the things that I didn't mention is that arbitrary cost cuts can cause a good deal of internal debate as well as...
View ArticleAnother food outlet
Many UK golf clubs have had a thin time over the last few years. Some of them have decided that they should do something positive to increase their attendance and bar sales, so they have made a real...
View ArticleJust a spike
For the past 6 weeks or so I have been working in an organisation with about 400 managers and staff. Although I have been there every day and I have met a number of people, I can’t normally claim to...
View Article19 55 28N 23 28 50W
That was the reported position of the lead boat in the round the world race Clipper Round the World 07-08 at midday today. The current leg is from La Rochelle to Salvador. The 10 boats are all...
View ArticleMaking a business more stable
A small business that I know set up a new offer in my area about a year ago. From a standing start this offering has generated new revenues of about $400k in the last 12 months. That indicates that...
View ArticleThe power of reviews
Recently I bought a new electrical appliance. It came top in a (2 year old) Which consumer survey and they were completely unequivocal - it outperformed the brand leader by a healthy margin against...
View ArticleIt's just as well they have a good brand ...
I was talking to a couple of people last week about an e-commerce website. Rather, I was listening, they were complaining. One person had stopped using the site completely while the other customer had...
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