What's your take on this transaction.   I"ve long used Skype and Skype out, and really hope that Microsoft doen't try to 'fix' skype since it works well for me now.

The MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal, Q2 2010

1. 24-hour shopping convenience
2. Ability to compare prices
3. Free shipping offers
4. Convenience
5. Not wanting to fight crowds
6. Ease of finding wanted items
7. Variety
8. E-mail promotions
9. Not having to pay sales tax
10. Wanting to avoid checkout line
from the http://tinyurl.com/y8zh5d4 WebSite Magazine post http://www.websitemagazine.com/

Recently I was discussing Internet Marketing ‘tools’ with a fellow and he asked if I had a good starter list, so I’ve made the start here. These aren’t all of the things I use but a good start of them.

This might be the start of a ideas from others too.

1. Do you have a Gmail account from Google?
This is a good tool, it will give you access to lots of great desktop tools, one of which is “Docs” that is very quickly coming into it’s own, http://blog.compete.com/2007/12/06/google-docs-spreadsheets/ shows a clear picture.-updated 20071218

2. Do you have a Business PayPal account?

3. Do you have a CraigsList.org account?

4. Do you belong to MySpace, Facebook and Linked In (if not you can use
your Gmail account to join)

5. Do you have a Google account? Actually Gmail is a part of Google account for login.

6. Do you have a Yahoo account?

6a. Updated 20071216- Discover who visits your blog site MyBlogLog signup with your Yahoo ID from step 6.

6b. Updated 20080524 add also the Blog Catalog Terms of Service an easy to use social networking site for bloggers, publicize your blog and more.

7. Do you have a Skype account? It now offers outbound calling to land-line phones for only $2.95 per month (upgrade was easy done, and works very well)

8. What about Instant Messages? Ever heard of PIDGIN? This was added back in 2007 when this post started, now today in my email I get news that ZDnet has featured Pidgin in their downloads, here are the details “Pidgin: Feature Download”

After this was posted, another issue arose that used Feedburner for publicizing RSS feed of a site. Check them out at Feedburner.com That’s all for now 20071212
- updated 20080202 a great way to read RSS feeds is with a tool like Bloglines from Bloglines.com and it will allow you to have a ‘blog’ there to share what your reading. Mine is http://www.bloglines.com/blog/GuyRCook if you have one too, do share it here.

Added 20080617 – Meta Tag Generator saves time, once the tags are created they can be saved as snippets in your web page creation software.

Today I attended a webinar that explains this image above, from Mike Volpe (VP of Marketing for HubSpot), time well spent and cause again to “Rethink the Marketing strategy” online.

As promised, here’s that link to the webinar recording and slides at hubspot.com http://www.hubspot.com/seo-may2008

A portion of some good spider information at http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles3/spiders-301-redirect.htm
–start paste–
Canonical issues: www vs. non-www There’s been much talk lately of canonical issues and search engines. This is where both the www and non-www versions of your pages are listed in a search engine. This is said to possibly trigger a duplicate content penalty and/or split page rank. If this is of concern to you, you may wish to use the following, but be aware that you may suffer a further loss of traffic while the engines sort out what’s what. This example is where you wish to direct all non-www traffic to www. Add the following to your .htaccess file.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yoursite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Ensure that all your links to folders always end in a trailing / if there is no filename after that link.

FrontPage users: in addition to the above, you’ll also need to change the .htaccess files in: _vti_bin
_vti_bin /_vti_adm
_vti_bin/ _vti_aut Replace “Options None” to “Options +FollowSymLinks” Those folders are part of your FrontPage extensions on the server, so you’ll need to gain access via FTP. Note: test, test and test again after making changes. Test *immediately* after implementing 301 redirects. If you find anything wrong, remove the redirect immediately. User a server header checker to ensure that you’re getting a correct 301 response when using the old URL.

– end paste — Visit the page above for more information, to have all of the story.

Kim has an excellent article http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Internet-Marketing/Why-Aren-t-You-Using-Linkbait.html is the URL about “link bait” if you haven’t heard that word before, or even if you have read the article and note to 2 links in the article, worth bookmarking. I could post more but why cut into your time to read that article. Bye for now.

Details from ClickZ here Online retail is up? Are yours? The average was a 20% gain over last year, in the ninth annual report from Shop.org and conducted by Forrester Research It might well be time to visit the conversion rate model again me thinks, but that\’s for another blog entry.

8 Dynamic Marketing Tips
Copyright 2006 Bob Leduc
http://BobLeduc.com

Here are 8 dynamic marketing tips to help you increase your
sales and profits fast.

1. Don’t Just Sell Benefits

Don’t just tell prospects what they gain when they buy your
product or service. Tell them what they lose if they do not
buy it. Most people fear loss more than they desire gain.
Customers want your product or service to enjoy the benefits
it provides. They will want it even more when you remind
them of what they lose by not buying it.

2. Use Pleasant Surprises to Close Sales

An unpleasant surprise can kill a sale. But a pleasant
surprise can help close a sale. For example, adding an
unexpected bonus immediately before your prospect takes the
last action to complete a sale will eliminate any last
minute hesitation.

3. Provide Fast Delivery – Even When You Can’t

The faster you can deliver your product or service the more
sales you will get. If you cannot deliver all or part of
your product immediately, add something to the purchase that
you CAN deliver immediately. It could be as simple as a
series of helpful tips related to your product posted on
your web site …available only to new customers.

4. Make Buying Easier

Every non-essential action in the buying process is an
opportunity for customers to reverse their decision to buy.
Look for ways you can make your buying procedure easier and
faster. For example, many marketers use a multi-step
shopping cart to get online orders when a simple online
order form would do the job with just 1 or 2 quick clicks.

5. Improve Your Offers without Lowering Your Price

You don’t have to reduce your price to improve your offer.
Instead, simply load it up with bonuses. Make sure your
bonuses have a high perceived value to your customers
…even if they cost you little or nothing.

6. Keep Your Advertising Up to Date

If you never make any changes in your advertising, your
sales will eventually decline. Don’t abandon advertising
that’s working – but do keep trying to improve it. And
regularly test new advertising to see how it works for you.

7. Outsmart Your Competitors with Alternative Marketing

Look for some alternative marketing methods your competitors
are overlooking. That’s how one internet marketer discovered
direct mail postcards. They proved to be a highly effective
and very low-cost way to generate traffic to her web site
…while concealing her marketing activity from competitors.

8. Neutralize Customer Complaints Quickly

Handle customer complaints quickly and with a positive
attitude. Strive to preserve your relationship with the
customer instead of your immediate profit from them. They
will reward you with repeat sales and referrals instead of
punishing you by telling everybody they know about their
unhappy experience …causing you to lose future customers.

Each of these 8 marketing tips reveals a proven low-cost
marketing tactic many other small businesses have used to
boost their sales and profits. Integrate them into your
marketing program now and you’ll quickly start enjoying the
same results too.

Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find
new customers and increase sales. He just released a New
Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast
With Simple Postcards …and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a
newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You’ll
find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com
or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV