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e_Marketing Blog 2009 Will Be Pivotal for Microsoft 2008 has not been the greatest year for Microsoft, but they have still done surprisingly well in spite of the economic slowdown around the world. In an article from PCWorld called Microsoft's Top Three 2008 Mistakes, Shane O'Neill of CIO.com discusses some of the things that went well for MS, and some that clearly did not. In spite of aggressive marketing by Apple, Mac sales fell 1 percent over the year and Windows PC sales were up 7 percent. Microsoft's grip on the PC market remained firm - with 90% of users running Windows, and 70% of internet browsers using Internet Explorer. One has to think that the bad press MS keeps getting will have to impact these market shares eventually. Although it sure seems like both Apple and Firefox do not understand that their elitist attitude ("we're so much better and smarter than the other 90% of you") is an implicit criticism of the very customer they are trying to reach. 2009 will be a pivotal year for MS as they continue to try to beat off Apple, Google and Mozilla (Firefox). According to the PC Word article Microsoft's biggest mistakes for 2008 were: 1. Poor marketing of Windows Vista - They've been letting Apple get away with bashing Vista for years now. It's just not as bas as the critics say it is, and MS's own lack of promotion reinforces the idea that the critics are right. 2. Letting Apple Build Anti-Vista Momentum - Even though the sales figures may not yet show it in a convincing way, Apple has taken the marketing game away from MS with their constant Vista-bashing. MS has not shown that it can adequately respond. Expensive ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld missed the mark. Just recently I saw an ad touting the unique features of Vista in a straight-ahead way. It's about time. 3. The Failed Yahoo Bid - Early in 08 the bid for Yahoo looked like it might be a case of two search losers getting together. The failure of the bid did nothing for MS's image as a "winner" or a company forging into the future. As it turned out it was probably good for MS that Yahoo rejected their offer. Now Yahoo is worth a fraction of what MS offered, Jerry Yang, the big Yahoo opponent of the bid is gone, and new Yahoo investors are now courting MS. MS is still interested in Yahoo's search business, and may very well end up with it in 2009. Communicating With Your Real Estate Agent In an article called The Future of Real Estate Communication Phoenix area real estate specialist and blogger Jay Thompson suggests that agents who want to be in the loop with the next generation of home buyers had better understand the communication media they use. Text messaging is something that has become second nature to young people as young as 9 or 10 years old, and it has basically made email obsolete as a way for teenagers to communicate with one another. Thompson reports that in December his two teenagers sent and received about 10,000 text messages - that's about 83 messages each per day - while his 17 year old son claims to have sent maybe 10 emails in the whole month. On the other hand Thompson himself - a technology savvy parent and real estate agent - has more than 5,000 email messages in his inbox, and most of his own text messages have been back and forth with his children. So there is clearly a "generation gap" when it comes to the use of electronic messaging. As he says, "The point is, the way we communicate is changing. According to some researchers there will be 2.3 trillion text messages sent this year. Wikipedia says that 80% of 13 – 24 year olds use text messaging (compared to 18% of 40 – 49 year olds). That’s a whole lot of texting by a whole lot of soon to be first-time home buyers." The other change that has already taken place over the last couple of years is the way an increasing number of people use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. People who would not think of using a stuffy email message to talk to each other find themselves commenting to each other back and forth through Facebook and Twitter. Not only are these becoming mature communication channels between people, but companies and entrepreneurs are finding innovative ways to interact with customers and prospects through these massively popular media. The bottom line is that real estate agents will have to accommodate themselves to the communication media used by their clients. That means if they want to reach young people who are plugged into these non-traditional modes of communication, they themselves will have to become plugged in. Free Blog or Your Own Domain? Once you've decided to create your own blog, the first question you have to address is whether you want your blog to be hosted on your own web hosting account or be part of an already established site like wordpress.com, blogger.com, or one of the many other free blogging sites. If you use one of the free "hosted" blogging sites (Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog.com, and many more) you can create a brand new blog in about 15 minutes. When you choose this option you become part of a larger site such as wordpress.com and your address will be something like http://yourtownrealestate.wordpress.com or http://yourtownmoneymanager.blogspot.com The advantage of this approach is that it is fast and cheap. Plus you will get some traction and search engine exposure for your blog because it will be part of a much larger network that gets crawled by the search engines on a regular basis. But in my estimation, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. |
Ezine-Network.com - This site contains information about getting published — submission of articles, photographs, ebooks, and other special features for a growing number of online publications. It also contains significant amounts of information, resources dealing with, and examples of blogs and blogging. Ezine-Network.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites. 6 Ways to Pump Up Your Website TrafficMar 14, 2006 - Linknet Internet News 6 Ways to Pump Up Your Website Traffic Mar 13, 2006 - Linknet Marketing News - by Rick HendershotNo matter what you sell or are trying to promote online, you want visitors to your website -- traffic. And you want to turn that traffic into sales. To turn your website and other online activities into a powerful traffic and sales generating system, the simple fact is you need an aggressive website promotion program that is ongoing and relentless. Website promotion is not brain surgery, but it must be done correctly. Here are six of the main components that should be emphasized in a good website promotion program: 1. Know Your Product, Define it Clearly 2. Use Powerful Copy in Your Website, and Sales Materials 3. Create an Aggressive Link Program 4. Write Articles and Submit Them Everywhere 5. Turn Site Visitors into Leads 6. Get Instant Traffic with PPC Advertising 1. Know your product and define it clearly Many of us have difficulty telling other people exactly what we do. Imagine you're at a party, a meeting, or on the golf course and you get asked the inevitable question, "So, what does your company do?" What happens? Do you stumble around trying to remember what you told the last guy who asked that question? Or do you have a clear, precise and memorable answer that you can recite back to them in one or two sentences. It goes without saying that your clarity or confusion will be reflected in your website promotion. Make it one of your primary objectives to develop a clear explanation of your product or service, and your website promotion will fall nicely into place as a result. 2. Promote your product with powerful copy If you want your website to create sales, then the job of your most important pages is to get your primary selling message across quickly and powerfully before your impatient visitors click on to another site. For your people audience you must get to the point quickly and precisely, and with sufficient emphasis to impress your visitors that you know what you are talking about. The search engines also demand a clear product definition and clear product descriptions. But in this case the result should be search engine optimized copy. This is because the search engines do not read between the lines. They look for clear indications of what your pages are about. And they make their decisions on the basis of "keywords". == Antivirus: Download Norton AntiVirus 2006 == If the task of "optimizing" your website seems too daunting, then look for a website promotion expert who can bundle this service with other promotional services. 3. Create an aggressive link program Getting links from "relevant" sites serves two important purposes. First, relevant links create an important source of direct traffic. A visitor to a related site will see the link to yours, click on it, and become your visitor. Some estimates put the percentage of internet traffic resulting from this kind of link as high as 21% of total traffic. The other important purpose of your linking strategy is to impress the search engines. Links to and from other sites indicate other site owners in your area of interest consider your site worth looking at. That is why Google and the other major search engines give a much better ranking to sites with incoming links from relevant high traffic sites. The bad news is a productive link building program takes quite a bit of time and effort, and will take up to six months or more to do properly. The good news is there are website promotion professionals who will plan and execute a link building program for you as part of a package of promotion services. This makes it very economical. But it will still not happen overnight. Link building is an ongoing long term project. 4. Write Articles in your field of expertise, and distribute them wherever you can Publishing articles in online publications, directories and ezines is one of the most effective and least expensive kinds of website promotion. It is a perfect way to generate interest in your site, and create traffic. Well written articles can be used to highlight various aspects of your products or services. At the same time you will establish yourself as an authority in your field. And the articles you write and publish today will continue to be available on the web for years to come. Distributing articles is also an important way to create incoming links. Other websites and ezines publish your articles and in the process create links pointing back to your website. Why? Because when you write your article you make sure to embed a link or two pointing back to your site. Often this is done in what is called the "Resource Box" -- a short bio of the author that contains a low key pitch for your products or services. But writing and distributing articles is not for everyone. It is a very time-consuming activity, and if you are not much of a writer it will cost some money to have someone write articles for you. One interesting alternative is our own program in which we embed sponsor links in relevant articles. This is probably the easiest and least expensive way to get the benefits of article distribution without the pain and aggravation of actually having to write original articles. 5. Turn visitors into leads The online sales process starts with traffic — visitors to your site. But traffic is not enough. You want to turn some of these visitors into leads. A "lead" is a visitor who expresses an interest by contacting you. This puts them in "most-likely-to-buy" category, and gives you a clearly defined group of people you can target with more specific sales messages. To capture leads you need a carefully planned strategy. You need to get beyond the usual "send us an email for more information" approach. Simple online forms backed up with autoresponders are perfect for this task. Normally this involves offering some tip or free information course, or possibly a free piece of software. In order to receive the free gift the website visitor must fill in a short form giving you their name and email address. Then the autoresponder automatically sends out a message containg or pointing to the free gift, along with a presentation of your product. You can also program the autoresponder to send out a series of messages so your promotional pitch is place in front of them a number of times. 6. Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising for instant traffic Pay-Per-Click advertising — especially Google Adwords — can be an amazingly powerful tool to reach your exact target market and generate pre-qualified, targeted leads almost instantly. But this service is also becoming increasingly expensive. And when you make mistakes they can be very costly. There are ways of maximizing your Google Adwords results. Ways you have probably not heard about. These techniques can save you thousands of dollars, and greatly increase the effectiveness of your Adwords campaigns. The best website promotion program is one that combines all six of these techniques into an organized program. If you are too busy getting your business started, or too busy servicing your clients, then your best bet is to look for a website promotion professional who can prepare and maintain a program for you. Rick Hendershot publishes Linknet News | Link Aufbau - Pagerank-Optimierung durch Aufbau von Links - text links to enhance your search engine ranking | Web Reviews and Product Reviews and Promotions
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