| LED Digest 2556: Communication in Marketing |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.WillMaster.com/Master : the LED's Key Sponsor Master Series Software - Get Connected with Your WebSite www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. December 17, 2007 Issue no. 2556 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Affiliate Manager Wanted ==-- ~ Jaffer Ali ==== CONTINUING ================= --== International SEO ==-- ~ Alex Hughart ~ Barry S Mills ~ Beth Earle --== Marketing Trends ==-- ~ David Spahr ========= NEW ===================================== From: Jaffer Ali Subject: Looking For an Affiliate Manager Hello folks: Jaffer Ali here. We broke into the online retail business back in 1998 and that is when I met Adam and John Audette. After a year of knocking our heads against the wall, we figured out it was more lucrative to OWN MEDIA than to sell CPS (Cheap Plastic S&*!). But we always maintained our e-commerce site and it continued to grow as our media grew. Unsold ad space would always carry our own ads. The business has now grown to be about $2 million/year. It is now of a size that is starting to matter. Here is what we need: We need someone to create and manage an affiliate program. They should have at least 10 big affiliates to bring to the table to introduce the top products (PulseTV.com has very good margins on the whole and good pay outs). At this point, we would rather outsource this than bring someone in-house. Any takers? Contact me at http://flow-to.com/email/LED.1197857354lv7dv54n3.mth Thanks, Jaffer Ali www.PulseTV.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Alex Hughart Subject: International SEO As Peter D'Aprix mentioned in his post, language is a living and evolving thing [ http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1970/190/ ]. If Romans had only policed Latin the way the French academy is advocating, the French language along with Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian would not exist today. As for English, it has more words rooted in Latin than an autonomous language would like to admit (not to mention that all Indo-European languages trace back to Sanskrit). Maybe, after thousands of years of perpetuating the "curse of Babylon", it's time to reverse the trend and let everything blend again. But, I don't mean to turn this topic into a history of language discussion. So, to Peter's statement that the only function of a language is to communicate, I will add: the same is true of marketing. Regardless of products being sold and targeted demographics, the goal of marketing is to spread the message to the widest possible audience within the given parameters. Here, language is just one of the tools along with other non-verbal elements. But, before we start communicating about something, we need to know what are we trying to say. The idea, the concept of the message itself, is the starting point. Clarity of a message comes from clarity of thought. When you know without a doubt what is it that you want to convey, everything else falls into place: targeted audience, language(s) used, design elements (colors, fonts, etc.), information architecture, etc. If journalism axiom is: Who, What, Where, When and How, for marketing it could be: What, to Whom(e) and How. Alex Hughart www.TheParticipator.com www.bonsavon.com ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= More tips for you- # - Find out what search engine spider robots see when they visit your page. http://bontragercgi.com/wsessLED # - Web development articles and tutorials by email! http://bontragerconnection.com/artsLED Watch this space for more great tips! ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Barry Mills Subject: International SEO Peter wrote > I was also amused at the marvelous > arrogance of Mr. Mills who obviously is > British and feels he has some ownership of > the English language. I'm sorry if this came across as arrogant, or as a personal view. It was mean to inform - to reflect and advise on the emotional response that is generated by a certain style of writing. Most Brits DO have a degree of pride in their heritage and feel they own the language. Personally, my only issue with the phrase "UK English" is that it sounds silly, and the comment was partly tongue in cheek. The serious point of the discussion is that to have the best chance of selling to consumers, you would be well advised to talk in a way that presses their positive emotional buttons, and doesn't press their negative ones. At the same time, you have to work to overcome stereotypical perceptions of your own nationality where they are likely to damage the prospects of a sale. One issue Americans will be faced with when selling abroad is that they are perceived the world over as being insular, and ignorant of the world outside their borders. I'm sure this doesn't apply to the people on this list, but you shouldn't assume that your customers will always know that. What I was trying to get across is that using a phrase like "uk English" is seen in the Uk as a classic example of American ignorance by a great many people. When anyone on the press wants to mock the USA they will refer to usage of a phrase such as this, or "French Champagne" (I won't insult anyone by explaining why that phrase is silly). When Peter says "If we get hung up in the form of the language itself when the meaning is perfectly clear, we only have ourselves to blame" this sounds like the worst kind or corporate arrogance to me, in all honesty. I don't think it was meant like that, I just think he took my comments out of context. But what you are saying, Peter, in the context of this discussion, is that if people don't understand or buy into your advertising copy then they only have themselves to blame. They are obviously too stupid to buy your product, and it's all their own fault. Well fine, but I'd rather write in a language they felt comfortable with and do some more business. Lastly, and returning to the core of the thread, I have to strongly disagree with this comment > Lastly spelling. Not much really > to do about that. Yes there is, and this is a really important thing for online marketers to attend to if they wish to sell overseas. If you want to sell to a target market where key words are spelled differently to how you spell them in your home territory, it is essential that you have separate landing pages, or even a separate site, to deal with the target territory. If you wish to sell "widget optimizers" to the UK, you need a page where they are referred to as "widget optimisers", because that's what the majority of UK customers will put into Google. If you don't use that word, they won't find your site and therefore won't have the opportunity to become tolerant of your choice of language. This brings us back to the point of the thread - if you want to be found in search engines, you HAVE to write using the spelling and phraseology your target audience will be using when they search, otherwise you'll be invisible. Barry S Mills Chairman Netstep Corporate Communications http://www.netstep.co.uk -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Beth Ann Earle Subject: International SEO > I have a book somewhere around about the > history of English (also ran as a series on > PBS many years ago). - Tom Aman, LED Digest 2555 It's "The Story of English" -- Robert MacNeil (of MacNeil Lehrer fame) was one of the authors. Great book. I have a copy of the original at home. Apparently, there's a third edition out now: http://www.amazon.com/Story-English-Third-Revised/dp/0142002313/ All the best to LED'ers everywhere, Beth Earle www.pilotfishseo.com -------- new post - new topic -------- From: David Spahr Subject: Marketing Trends > Anyone who has been an LED subscriber for > a long enough time will remember the endless > discussions about whether or not "frames" > were the way to go... Then there was "Flash" > and many designers felt that using it was the > way to go... Now, as Michael mentions in his > post, "blogs" were supposed to be the way to go. - Tom Aman, LED Digest 2553 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1968/190/ I have been a reader of this list since shortly after inception in the 90s. Yes, I did those useless banner exchanges (and learned to be careful about the next fad). One thing that bugs me about this list is how much we talk about the trees and not the forest. Web 2.0 is not an overnight change but merely a case of evolution. Agreed. The forest is changing and not changing with it suggests that obsolescence is very possible. Trees get bigger and shade out that which is on the ground. It's a rapidly shifting paradigm. All these other things mentioned like frames etc. make an invalid point. Anyone could see with these other examples that they had their liabilities. Nothing even slightly ubiquitous about them either. I never took any of them seriously. Frames - Go against the structure of the internet and create spidering and url problems. Just ugly too. Flash - Nifty graphics that are mostly time wasters and again create spidering problems. Anything you need to put "click here to skip" should be seen as an obvious problem. Blogs - They are fine if you really have something important to say that dovetails with the content of your site but getting readers and avoiding spam are big problems. Everybody is busy so who has the time anyway? Only good for people with time on their hands (which suggests your readership may not be of the highest quality). Music - Makes very heavy pages to deliver tunes your readers have a better than 50% chance of not appreciating. Music sites are an exception. This is video. Like we have seen on our TV for the last 50+ years. Sorry but this is different. Microsoft has bought in as has Google, our politicians, protesters in Myanmar, students doing sports or recitals, Oprah Winfrey, the news media, etc. etc. They certainly believe it. They have punched out billions on this. The news media pays people to monitor YouTube all day, every day. Also, it should be noted that this is not just the "latest and greatest". It has been around for quite some time now. Not new. Not going away any more than your TV is. Anybody paying attention will see it is just getting bigger and better. Anyone can go international now with just a cell phone. There's a video camera in someone's pocket on every street in America ready to shoot action as it happens. Newsworthy clips shot with cell phones show up on the 6 o'clock news. Putting video on a website is so easy now. Upload it to YouTube and copy the "embed" url and paste it on your site. Done. I'm going to mention the "I" word again. Imagination. Site designers with imagination should be able to find ways to use this without being spammy. Value added, truly excellent content is possible for way more sites than are presently using it. Tom Anson has thought about it. > Anyway, I've thought that it would be good > to do some short video demonstrations, upload > them to YouTube and somehow place them on my > website. But, I don't have the facilities to > produce a very good video. Tom sees the value. His issue is a hard one for now. Good production. Well produced videos with relevance and imagination are clearly a requirement. Web designers/SEOs are going to need to add a new aspect to their services to remain on the cutting edge. Suggesting that video is going to go away is like saying global warming isn't happening. I find it interesting that on Myspace about every aspect of questionable design exists there and people are still visiting in droves. Heavy pages, music, flash, trashy backgrounds, clunky design etc. etc. and the people that use it (212 million) have given it permission to exist. They wait for big pages. So much for "rules". It will get better. No comments on the representation of women on MySpace? This is not important to know? David Spahr http://stereoviews.com (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Happy Birthday Mom! To the most giving, loving and supportive person in the world. We're so lucky to have you in our lives. |
