The Christmas break, with time to think, and the beginning of a new year allows for a bit of perspective and goal setting. Here are mt tasks for 2008.

1. Strip down the number of Blogs I read. I waste a lot of time trying to ‘keep up’ when I could probably manage this with less than 10 industry Blogs. This begs the question, should I continue my Blog? This is not going to be a snap decision but I may end up posting less.
2. Experiment more with outsourcing. I need to try a few things I wouldn’t normally. eg. There are many very cheap web services coming out of India for directory submissions, etc. Outsourcing is a viable way of making money and getting results. Articles, directory submissions and other SEO services may be more cost effective to outsource (as long as a level of control remains and good partners can be found).
3. Concentrate on the money. It almost seems as though I shouldn’t be saying this but it’s what pays the mortgage and potentially in the UK, we may be having a tough year. By focussing on where the money is (or could be) made, I can save a hell of a lot of time and effort with more reward.

With technology playing a huge part in the way we watch entertainment, I think it’s fair to say that adverts are losing their effectiveness. For instance, I tend to record TV programmes and forward through the ads, and I am sure I’m not alone.

It’s why I think permission and relevance is the way to go. A way of using technology to the advantage of your advertising, displaying appropriate advertising at the right time, to the right people, who do have an interest.

Sometimes you can force your adverts, when you have a captive audience. Like me today at the cinema. I took my two girls to watch a film today that ’started’ at 2.15pm.

19 minutes of general adverts, followed by 2 minutes of cinema adverts, followed by 8 minutes of film trailers, finished off with another 2 minutes of cinema adverts… later… the film started.

The problem with forced advertising is that it creates resentment, unless it’s clear why the advertising is there, like the compromise for using free software.

I don’t want to watch adverts. And, the cleverer technology gets, the more likely I won’t have to.

Before I start, yes I know, a campaign is only as good as the person who has created it and I like to think by now I know how it works, so this is (in my opinion) an honest overview of Adwords effectiveness, bearing in mind the costs below don’t take into consideration my time managing them.

Anyway, Adwords. It is seemingly becoming harder and harder to justify the spend, and the temptation to spend more, on the advertising platform for some of the products I am selling.

What once seemed like the holy grail a few years ago has become saturated with advertisers, trying to outbid each other and the costs have spiralled. Add to the mix the sheer number of retailers joining the market and it is becoming a little overcrowded.

Below, is a graph of sales on one of my online shops. The average sale value is about £30-40 so every click that I am paying for needs to offer real value.

But, sales through Adwords are on the decline vs. costs. with an averaging of 40% of the sale going on Adwords. This is still profitable for me overall, but only just.

Now, I could argue that I am perhaps getting buyers come back having found the site and bookmarking it rather than buying then and there. I could also factor in repeat sales from returning customers (I also utilise opt-in e-mail marketing).

But, I have to wonder if online pay-per-click is losing it’s appeal as a viable sales route, at least for this product range, or am I missing the point?

Yahoo Adverts comes out even worse, actually costing me money to run!

My answer, and I wish I had more time to spend on applying this, is two-fold.

Content - to attract traffic. I am talking words in articles, videos on You Tube, etc. Basically, the creation of quality content that will age like a fine cheese, attracting traffic and links, raising my profile for specifics.

Social Media and Online PR - While a few people moan about Facebook and privacy issues, we are having quite good success off the back of it at a fraction of the price of Google. There is also room to spend interacting with forums, etc. And, you can’t beat a good bit of old fashion PR, sending products to people who may write about them, picking the right writers for the right audience.

Organic seems to be the way to go.

I have just read a book about Lance Armstrong, seven time winner of the Tour De France. “How Lance Does It” charts a quick overview into the type of person Lance is and how her has applied four key principles to attain success. It’s an okay book, but one of the principles has had me thinking a lot in the past couple of weeks.

Clarity of Purpose: Develop the deep commitment and focus needed to align your behavior and the pursuit of your goals with your ultimate life purpose.

Now obviously the book goes into more details but the thing I took from it is that Lance didn’t concentrate on winning the Tour De France, he focussed on the process that could make it happen by optimising his peak performance. His diet, his exercise regime, his weight, the construction of his bike (in detail), etc. These are the things he focussed on.

Basically he tested and optimised to the n’th degree. The attention to detail on the processes helped him to create the situation to win.

This arguably needs continuing investment of resources - time - and the understanding that you are never there. The journey to optimum performance is the ongoing challenge.

Sound familiar?

Found through Stumbling… Sidewalk

I run a local business news website for my home town of Basingstoke. The idea being that any local company can forward me their press releases and they can get exposure. Meanwhile I create a relevant source for local business news, and a local business-to-business directory.

It’s never going to be a website with so much traffic to monetize and I run Adwords on it just because I can, rather than to make money. . It’s a bit of a labour of love.

That said, it seems to really annoy some people that it is localised to Basingstoke and that I won’t accept stories or directory entries from outside of the town and the local phone code.

I had an e-mail from a ‘marketing’ person in Andover (about 15 miles away) this morning:

I would welcome the opportunity to add our details to your directory. Unfortunately you will not allow companies in Andover to register. We have a number of clients in Basingstoke and would like the opportunity to contribute to the Basingstoke Business News.

After replying with an explanation why, I got this sarcastic reply:

We have decided to start our own Basingstoke Gazette web Site for Non Basingstoke Companies. Please encourage your non Basingstoke Companies to forward their Non Basingstoke news to us. We are also contributing to the non Southampton Directory and the non Portsmouth Directory.

Thank you from a non Basingstoke company.

Firstly, it’s not a Gazette website, that’s here. Secondly, this person is in ‘marketing’.

I love it when people don’t understand it. Especially when they are potential competitors.

Copyblogger is one of my favourite Blogs, and I recommend it to most people who write, especially online. Dean Rieck is currently running a series on the Blog, with his 58 of the World’s Greatest Offers series.

They are coming out over four Blog posts so it may be worth subscribing to stay in touch. The first has already been published: Offers that Raise Response and Lower Risk.

The 10 most common e-commerce mistakes, taken from a report from E-Consultancy.

1. Poor search/filtering options
2. Hidden checkouts
3. Asking for unnecessary information
4. Poor customer service / contact options
5. Making delivery charges / returns policies hard to find
6. Compulsory registration
7. Poor search engine visibility
8. Pop-ups SUCK
9. Use of Flash
10. Displaying out of stock products

I agree with most of these apart from number 10.

Setting items out of stock is logistically quite hard and conflicts with point number 7 about good search engine visibility. Search engines need to know if your page exists or it doesn’t.

I guess the way around this is to take the page out of the navigation, but that wouldn’t eliminate a search link.

Also, it depends how the “out of stock” is displayed and suggested. I recently changed the sign on the Beauty Shop to show as “back in stock soon”.

Sometimes, we are so close to our own businesses, that the message we think is our key business sales message, actually answers question number 2 or 3 for your customer.

Although you, and maybe your existing client base, already understand what you do, perhaps a new visitor doesn’t and needs an initial explanation to put them in the picture.

Explain your key business message to a non-client and see if they ask a question back. Maybe, that’s the one that needs answering first.