Sweetmantra: Domain Name Strategy

No Wonder Our Parents Are Confused

One thing I'm willing to bet every Internet entrepreneur reading this has in common is that your parents still probably don't fully understand what you do for a living.

I can't tell you how many times my parents (both of whom are highly educated professionals) will inform me that they ran into someone at a party that was "in the same line of work as you are, dear." When I do a bit of digging, nine times out of ten it turns out that the supposed 'industry colleague' they've met is actually a Web designer or IT support person.

"For the last time, mom and dad, I don't build Websites and I don't fix computers! My clients already have Websites and IT people. What they don't have is enough sales or a reliable way to accomplish that."

At least that's what I imagine myself saying to my parents, but usually I just thank them for the information and politely change the topic. I can hardly blame my parents, or anyone else I meet who is confused about what Internet marketing is, when I see how some of us describe what we do. For instance, check out what one agency that I have been told does Internet marketing uses on the "Services" page of their corporate Website:

"We provide channel agnostic Relationship Marketing services that focus on the customer experience of the brand. A synergistic consumer experience is created with a holistic end-to-end approach that encompasses all points of contact."

Huh? Honestly, have you ever seen so much jargon in one place at one time? (Buzzword Bingo, anyone?) I work in the business and have re-read that paragraph several times and I still don't know what this agency (which shall remain nameless) actually does. Can you imagine what a potential client reading that would make of it? Perhaps that's this agency's ingenious marketing strategy: be as cryptic as possible so that the reader will be motivated to contact them for clarification:

"So, I'm looking for an agency and was browsing your Website just now to find out what your company does but I couldn't understand your services description so I thought I'd call you instead to find out."

Then again, maybe not.

Jargon or no jargon, the onus is on us as Internet marketers to do a better job of explaining what we do, myself included. Especially now that many lay people are becoming aware of the concept of "Internet marketing" even if they have little or no clue what it actually means. If we can find a way to explain to our parents what we actually do for a living, then we will have made great progress - both for ourselves and for our profession.

Mom and dad, I think it's time we had a little chat...

Eight Words that Rocked My World

Since I loathe shopping in the real world, I spend a lot of time shopping online.

Not too long ago I was on Henry's Website in the middle of purchasing some camera gear when I stumbled across a touch of pure e-commerce genius. Right below the section of the shopping cart where I could enter my credit card information was a simple but powerful eight-word sentence that rocked my world. Next to an optional checkbox was written...

"Please call me for my credit card information."

Let's face it, despite the fact that we Internet marketers know transacting online is way safer than transacting offline, there are still lots of people who are skittish about revealing their credit card information over the Internet.

Henry's ingenious answer to this is to give the scaredy cat shopper an alternative way to transact, rather than risk losing the sale. This is a brilliant way for Henry's to reduce their shopping cart abandonment rate and, perhaps, to give them an opportunity to up-sell or cross-sell a highly motivated buyer. (I don't know if they do this because I didn't ask them to "call me," tempting though it was.)

What I love about this tactic is that it's so simple and so perfectly positioned right at the precise moment in time that a prospective buyer might be having second thoughts about providing their credit card details. Cool and sexy tactics have their place, yet sometimes it's seemingly 'mundane' tactics like this one that can make all the difference in increasing e-commerce conversion rates.

Henry's, I salute you!

URLs Gone Wild

I still kick myself for not following through on an idea for a book I had during the early days of the Dotcom boom. I had been on a business trip to San Francisco - arguably the epicentre of the Internet 'gold rush' - and while I was there I started to notice all the unusual places that URLs were plastered.

Sure, people were promoting 'MyGoofyBusinessIdea.com' on billboards and posters, but creative (or maybe desperate) marketers were also putting their URLs on other, uh, interesting things. Had I been more on the ball at the time, I would have started documenting this phenomenon with my camera.

Even without photographic evidence, I still thought it would be beneficial, even inspirational, to share with you some of the more memorable places I've seen URLs advertised over the years.

• printed onto tiny stickers affixed at eye level above a men's urinal
• stencilled onto highway signs and overpasses (like graffiti) on a busy highway
• printed on the 'fortune' inside a fortune cookie
• carved in ice and used as a dinner table centrepiece
• painted on the entire side of a Volkswagen Beetle
• written in the sky in little 'digital' puffs of smoke by a skywriter plane
• encased in layers of ice on the surface of a hockey rink
• moulded into the top of a chocolate bar
• printed on the side of a hot air balloon
• written into the sand on a public beach before it opened for the day
• temporarily tattooed on a woman's bust (at least I think it was temporary!)

I'd love to hear about the strange places you've seen URLs advertised.

Do Internet Marketing Firms Need a Seal of Approval?

I was chatting recently with someone from one of the Canadian arms of the Better Business Bureau. He told me that not only do they get a lot of inquiries from people looking for more information on Internet-related companies, but complaints about Internet-related companies rank very high compared to other types of businesses.

To date, the Better Business Bureau has apparently logged (across North America) 253,015 inquires about Internet-related companies and 15,250 complaints, putting Internet-related companies fourth on the list of most complained about companies behind only credit card companies (third), cell phone companies (second), and auto dealerships (first). Ouch!

That's right, according to my source at the Better Business Bureau, out of the hundreds of types of businesses that exist today, Internet-related companies appear to be ticking off a lot of people.

I realize this is not a scientific study and that "Internet-related companies" is rather broad and likely encompasses everything from ISPs to Web design firms to legitimate Internet marketing firms - and not so legitimate Internet marketing firms(i.e. spammers). Still, these numbers are rather provocative.

I asked my contact about specific inquiries for "Internet marketing" and was pleasantly surprised to learn that across North America they'd had 74,851 inquiries about companies offering these types of services.

My little chat with the Better Business Bureau (who, by the way, were NOT calling to investigate a complaint) has gotten me thinking about what we as Internet marketers may need to do to address a great deal of potential confusion, suspicion, and maybe even apprehension about using our services, at least in the eyes of some potential and existing customers.

Do those of us that run ethical and legitimate businesses need to do more to communicate and prove our honesty and integrity? I'm not for one moment suggesting we all run out and join the Better Business Bureau, and I'm not even sure that would help much, but this did get me wondering if I'd ever seen a Better Business Bureau icon displayed on the Website of an Internet marketing firm. Have you?

Other than the (rather elusive) WebTrust icon, which is focused on privacy, or the occasional logo indicating that a company is a member of an industry association, is there any universally-recognized 'seal of approval' for Internet marketing firms? And should there be?

Five Simple Internet Marketing Resolutions for 2006

As we kick off what promises to be another record year for the Internet marketing industry, I'd like to propose five simple resolutions for you to make, especially if you're on the client side of the equation.

Don't worry, none of these resolutions involves breaking your precious caffeine habit or spending long hours on the treadmill. These should be simple resolutions for you to make and - more importantly - keep. Hence the simple part.

Here they are...

1. Visit your own Website right now and at least once a week throughout the year. You'd be surprised how many people forget to look at their own company's Websites, which is often the first and only impression prospective customers may have of them. Don't have a Website yet? (I know you're out there!) This is the year to finally launch one.
2. Do a search for your company's products or services on Google or Yahoo. Take note of which Websites rank high as well as which of your competitors, if any, are advertising in the search results. Is your Website anywhere to be found? Should it be? If so, do something about it. Repeat monthly.
3. If you already have an email newsletter, commit to publishing it at least once per quarter this year. If you don't have an email newsletter, start thinking about launching one or, alternatively, a simple blog or podcast. Something. Anything. No more excuses!
4. Figure out who your best customers are and send them a personalized e-greeting with a coupon or some other incentive on their birthday or Mother's Day or Canada Day.
5. Find some budget, any budget, and try a Search Engine Advertising campaign. (And if you've already tried AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing, try a different network.) The learning alone will be worth the investment.

Good luck, and Happy New Year!

A Bizarre Twist on Search Engine Optimization

Over the years, dozens of companies have approached me looking for advice on how to boost their Website’s ranking in search engines. I am always happy to oblige -- for a fee, of course.

Recently, however, I’ve been getting requests to do the opposite. Seriously.

In the first instance, I was approached by a well-known figure in the investment community who wanted to 'correct' the results of anyone Googling him. Turns out he had a little legal run-in with the securities regulators a few years ago and was now tired of seeing Web pages about the whole sordid affair showing up at the top of search results when people typed in his name.

In the second instance, which is probably a far more common occurrence, I was contacted by a company that had discovered – to their horror – that the partially completed prototype of their new Website had been indexed by the search engines and was already getting considerable consumer traffic. (Note: this is one of many reasons you should always password protect any Website you have in development. Search engine spiders can be very aggressive!)

Both times I had to explain to the ‘unfairly’ spidered party that the nice folks at Google weren’t about to stop buying up every company in sight in order to remove their ‘incorrect’ page listings from their master index. Yes, there are effective solutions to their problem, but they would have to be patient. Just as improving a Website’s ranking in the search engines does not happen overnight, getting a site bumped down or removed altogether also takes time. And don’t even get me started on the topic of the Wayback Machine!

Now this is hardly a scientific study, but based on these two recent and unusual 'leads' I hereby and very publicly predict that we are about to see a boom in what I am going to call “Search Engine Deterioration” or SED for short. Who knows, maybe one day there’ll be entire conferences devoted to the topic of how to worsen your Website’s ranking! Remember, you read it here first, and I’m the guy to call!