This guest post was written by Glen Allsopp, the author of PluginID.

About a year ago, I feared I would struggle to build an audience for my new personal development website.  My fear was solely based on the fact that I had just turned 19.  I simply assumed most people would question my age, and thus, my advice.  After all, I haven’t lived as long as many of you who are reading this right now.

I did, however, manage to break my own limiting beliefs by sharing quality information and using my fresh personal experiences to my advantage.  Just last week a friend from the speakers club I go to came up to me and said, “I love your website, but how do you do it?  Where do you get all of your insight from?  I’m 40 and I haven’t even come to some of these realizations yet.”

At the time, I had to give a quick answer and it probably wasn’t the best advice.  However, now that I’ve had more time to think about it, there are certain principles I follow that have allowed me to generate loads of new ideas and insights in a relatively short timeframe.  I’ve come to realize that ideas don’t tend to just ‘come’ to me, but instead there are clear-cut actions I take to produce them.

For a little boost of creativity and insight, follow these 5 steps.

Think Before You Sleep

Although you may not be aware of it it, even when you’re sleeping your brain continues to process and evaluate your ideas and thoughts.  Throughout history, famous figures like Napoleon have stated that they focus on their problems just before they sleep, and tend to have an answer when they wake up.

As soon as I read about this, I instantly remembered how many times I had solved an issue of mine just minutes after waking up.  The stresses of our daily routine can sometimes get in the way of our creativity, but if we focus on our thoughts, ideas, and insights minutes before bedtime, our subconscious mind will ponder it all while we rest.

Don’t Let Your Beliefs Limit You

I thoroughly believe that at times we stall on executing excellent ideas and solutions simply because we think they are too obvious or too easy.  We think about it too much and convince ourselves that it’s silly or not worth it.  At other times we doubt the fact that we are even capable of coming up with good ideas nobody else has thought of yet.

If you let your beliefs limit you, like I almost did by telling myself that I was too young, then these beliefs will always hold you back.  Realize that you are a unique person with the ability to create and conjure ideas that no human has had before you.

Read Relevant Books

Truth be told, I’ve never been a big reader… at least not until the last year or so.  In the last 12 months I’ve probably read more books than I did during the previous 18 years of my life.  So it’s no coincidence that I’m now coming up with more practical insights than I had in the past.

It’s been said that you can become very knowledgeable about something just by reading 3 quality books on the subject.  Of course, it also helps if you concentrate on reading books that pertain to subjects you have an interest in.  If you enjoy personal development, then two books I highly recommend are Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Remember, humans have been around for thousands of years.  There’s lots of excellent information out there to digest.

Take and Review Notes

I think this is the most important habit of all.  Think of a book or great article that you read in the last year.  My guess is that you can remember some of the key points, but you’ve probably also completely forgotten numerous pages of useful information.  Whenever I read a quality book, I either take notes at the time or go back through it and highlight my favorite points.  I then review these points regularly until I have them ingrained in my mind.

This doesn’t apply to reading only.  You’ll probably find that some of your best ideas come when you are doing something completely unrelated to the idea itself.  In such cases, it’s wise to carry a small notebook or smart phone around with you so you can record your ideas on the go.

My Google Docs account is literally flooded with high quality notes from a number of my favorite authors and my own personal experiences.  I tend to look through these notes when I need inspiration or just to refresh my memory.

Maintain an Open Mind to New Information

If you adopt the position that you know everything about a subject then you’ll obviously never come up with any new insights about it.  Additionally, if you are too shortsighted to see that some of your current beliefs may be mistaken, then you are completely inhibiting your peronal growth potential.

Instead, be open-minded and realize that there will always be more for you to learn.  Of course, you don’t have to accept every new piece of information that comes your way, but at least evaluate it properly before discarding it.

Conclusion

I believe everyone, regardless of age or background, can come up with new ideas and excellent insights.  You just need to know how to harness them.

Glen Allsopp writes for a blog called PluginID on the subject of personal development.  He also teaches people how they can be who they want to be through personality development.

Posted by Paul under Business Management & Internet Marketing | No Comments »

When educating new or current clients on the benefits of social media I often hear “I don’t get Twitter” or “How can Twitter help our business?” After spending some time on the subject, I get most of the point across, but there are still some suspicions present.A case study or real world example always helps, so I am going to share an experience I had with a company that has begun to utilize Twitter to reach out to their customers.

I use @Task, a web based project management tool to keep track of client accounts. While viewing a webinar a couple weeks ago, I logged into my @Task account to check on a few things (yes, I multitask). My Gant Chart screen was acting a little flaky so I sent out a Tweet to see if any of my followers were having the same issue:

I did not get much of a response from my followers, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was to have an @Task representative call me within 3 minutes!

Unfortunately, I was not answering my phone due to my webinar participation but I still appreciated the prompt follow up and concern nevertheless.

The issue ended up being my browser’s fault, not @Task’s.

I even received a follow up Tweet from their Twitter account administrator making sure the problem had been rectified:

That was the icing on the cake. The whole experience made me feel like a valued customer, even though the firm I work for is small compared to many of their clients.

There you have it: real world proof that Twitter is good for your brand and your customers.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing & Internet News | No Comments »

As the paradigm of advertising and reader engagement has shifted to the internet, we have seen the fall of many well known print properties such as Vibe and the Seattle Post Intelligencer.  Today, the iconic Readers Digest has announced plans to file for bankruptcy. According to the Wall Street Journal, the publication has “reached an agreement with its lenders on a restructuring plan that it will likely complete under a prepackaged bankruptcy filing in order to reduce its debt.”

The agreement will keep the widely circulated publication alive for now, but the fact that a change in order for them to stay profitable remains.  Unlike other struggling print media, Readers Digest has not truly implemented a more digitally focused approach.

Events like this continue to show the impact online activity has on print media. What does it mean for your business? Consider allocating more of your ad spend to the Internet before your competitors catch on, because when they do, those ad spots will become more costly.

Contact us to learn how we can taking your advertising to the Internet.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing & Internet News | No Comments »

Internet entrepreneurs have been compared to early gold prospectors so often the comparison is now a cliche, but those prospectors still can provide valuable insight in running a lean operation. Did the early prospectors invest in large equipment upfront to sift through tons of dirt? In fact, the earliest prospectors invested in just enough equipment to reap an initial reward. Often, he bought only a pan to swirl the mixture of river dirt and water, a shovel and a mule to transport the precious flecks of gold found in the pan. his tools were easily obtained and (pardon the pun) “dirt-cheap”. Only after the opportunity cost of using these portable tools became too great did he switch to fixed equipment and mining.

Organizations using hosted solutions at the application and infrastructure level save in both time and money, as both are readily available, usually at a low cost monthly basis. Customers can still add their unique branding to public-facing sites, while skipping the development costs for dedicated back-end management applications. Whether your gold is social media, e-commerce, real estate marketing or a mixture, hosted solutions are the modern equivalent of the prospector’s pan. Looking at today’s Internet prospectors who choose hosted solutions, the old-timers would surely be proud.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing | No Comments »

The Seattle Post Intelligencer ran it’s last print edition last week.  Now the 146 year old publication will be serving up  content exclusively on the web.  This is a common trend with Newspapers across the country who are struggling to make money with print.

Is this a sad time? No, not really. It is just another evolution in the media industry. Younger generations are immersed in the internet just about daily and older generations are starting to catch on. In our fast paced digital society, subscribing to your favorite content and viewing it on your mobile device is beginning to take the place of walking to the mailbox with your morning coffee and robe. I, personally do not have one magazine or newspaper subscription.

“I think digital publishing’s absolutely the trend,” said Robert Grimshaw, publisher and managing director of FT.com, the Web site for the Financial Times. “Everything ultimately follows the consumer, and everybody is going online, so publishers have to be comfortable with operating in a different environment.”

According to the Magazine Publishers of America, the number of unique visitors to consumer magazine Web sites for the first quarter of 2008 averaged around 70.7 million unique users per month, a new record. In fact, online readership is rising at twice the rate of the general Internet audience.

MediaNews Group has been using digital to focus on its niche audiences such as lifestyle groups and specific communities. It is segmenting e-mails to reach special interests groups and, by adding more niche newsletters, it adds more ad inventory targeted to a specific audience. For example, Denver has many pet owners and dog lovers, so it has created a newsletter that targets this audience.

In the end, I think that newspapers with digital presences will be able to offer more to advertisers. Digital marketing offers more targeting capabilities and metrics than newspaper ever has.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing & Internet News | No Comments »

According to a Forsee Results survey, a staggering 1/3 of consumers used their phones as a supplement to their in store shopping process. That means that 29% of the shoppers actually pulled their phone while in a store to learn more about a product instead of consulting a sales associate. This shows a significant gap that retailers could fill.

According to the survey, these mobile-enabled shoppers did not head right for the retailer’s website while in the store.

The survey also found that these mobile-enabled shoppers acted almost exactly like non-mobile-enabled shoppers—except that mobile shoppers are a little more likely to buy the product offline. This is understandable, as it wouldn’t make sense to do in store research, drive home to use a home computer for more research and drive back to the store.

This there is definitely evidence of a gap to be filled here. For example, an offline retailer could work on an app for their customers to post and read product reviews and compare prices, then advertise the app in their store, right alongside the products that people will surely be comparing.

Forsee Results had this to say:

“Going forward, retailers should encourage smart phone users to adopt retailer-generated mobile apps, not only to ask about a product or send a picture of a product to a friend, but to compare online prices, remember specs of something they were researching online, and identify the proper model or version of a wish list item.”

Mobile Internet and Mobile Applications have not been widely adopted yet, but will be a major force in the coming years.

Will your business be ready?

Posted by Paul under All Content & Internet Marketing & Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Too many developers focus on increasing traffic, when conversion (gaining customers) should be getting as much, if not even more, focus. Michelle Howe of Internet Word Magic has an excellent view on how to address this issue.

The average internet site has only a three percent conversion. In other words, out of 100 people who come to your internet site, only 3 will make a purchase. So the challenge is how to get those other 97 people to make a purchase and increase your conversion rate.

Just getting internet site traffic is not enough; they need to buy, or at least make contact through an e-mail or phone call.

Relate to Your Customer

Your homepage should immediately start building rapport with your visitors. Make sure it is very clear who you are, what you do and why they should do business with you.

Think about what you need to do to start a conversation with your customer. What are the buying habits of your customers? What language is being used in the searches to find your internet site?

Align yourself with your customer so that you are looking out for their best interests. Think of ways you can improve their buying experience on your internet site by using words that are familiar to your customer. Give them enough information so that it is easy to make a decision to do business with you.

Build Customer Relationships
Let your potential customers know that you understand their problems and that you have a solution to their problems. One effective way to do this is to put testimonials on your internet site Make them feel that you can be trusted by posting testimonials from other satisfied customers. You can tell them how great your product or service is and how it is the right choice, but why believe you? It’s better to have the positive statements coming from someone who has successfully done business with you.

Don’t you tell people how you solve their problems; let someone else tell the story. Testimonials are powerful and necessary to a successful Internet Presence / Presentation. Testimonials not only say you can do the job, but they say how well you can do the job. And they are so much more believable than you trying to promote yourself. Let others speak for you.

Include testimonials throughout your Internet site. Don’t make the mistake of having one page just for testimonials. Rarely will someone click to a testimonials page and read the whole thing. So, you are in essence wasting your time and resources with a testimonials page.

Instead, sprinkle testimonials wherever you think they might help convince your audience that what you are saying is true. Back up your statements with testimonials and you start building relationships with your readers.

Make It Easy to Find Information
The navigation on a internet site can make or break a site. You can have the best content in the world, but if readers can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave.

Use simple, descriptive headings and subheadings to direct visitors throughout your Internet site. Put keywords in the headings and subheadings so that the search engines have an easier time indexing your pages.

Think about the problems you solve for your readers and make sure you offer solutions to those problems. Remember, people are searching for information and solutions to their problems.

The easier you make it for them to find information, the more likely you will be able to entice the visitor to stay awhile.
And, the longer they stay, the more likely you will gain a customer.

Conclusion
More than ever, in these bad economic times, companies need to improve communication with customers to increase website conversion. Making sales on a website is more than generating traffic. To increase the conversion rate, consider relating to your customer with easy-to understand language, build your customer relationships through testimonials and make the website navigation easy to find information.

Posted by Paul under All Content & Internet Marketing | No Comments »

Recently, some of our clients have been asking us questions about their in house newsletter campaigns. While email newsletters and campaigns can be an effective way reach your customers and target audience, deploying them can be a daunting task. Obstacles like Spam Filters, ISP Blocks and faulty software can inhibit your campaign’s performance.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your email campaigns:

1. Avoid sales jargon in your subject lines.  Using words like”free”, “act now”, “cash”, “collect” etc. will raise flags by many spam filters. Save your offer for the body of the email.
2. Make sure you have an opt out link. It is required by the Can Spam Act and will ensure that you do not upset your contacts.
3. Notify your ISP. The connection to your ISP is one of the most important. So make sure they know that you’re sending legitimate bulk email and don’t label you as a spammer.
4. Don’t email market during the holidays. Holidays are often holidays from work, too. Save your campaign launch for a time when your user is likely to read it.
5. Make sure your emails reflect your brand. When someone opens your email, you want them to know right away that it is you. If you have an established rapport with a contact, they will be more likely to read the email if they recognize your brand.
6. Emphasize with words, not exclamations. Overuse of bold words and exclamation points in your copy can make your email come across as pushy and just plane rude.
7. Track everything. What good is a campaign if you can’t see your results? If you send your email blasts out via a local client like Thunderbird or Outlook Express, you are missing out on detailed analytics and metrics that can help you optimize campaign performance. Make sure you are using the right software.

This is a very broad topic and cannot be covered with a single email. However, once your email newsletter process is in place, it is more manageable than you may think.

If you are thinking of leveraging email marketing, feel free to drop us a line at customerservice@rtpdesigns.com. We will be happy to answer any questions and let you know about our capabilities.

You may also visit www.rtpdesigns.com for more information on internet marketing.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing | No Comments »

The close of last month introduced the highly anticipated Google Android G1 phone. Motorola is running the software on it’s devices and T-Mobile is selling the phones.

After some thought, I realized there wasn’t anything overly revolutionary about the functions of this phone. Sure it has the ability to create custom applications on it’s platform, but so does the iPhone, which is already 2 releases into the market.

So why release it? To me it looks like another attempt by Google to saturate the market. Sure they have given advertisers the ability to place ads on mobile website before, but they never had their own operating system on the phone displaying the ads/website. That will only expand their capabilities for targeted advertising.

David Aviv, VP of advanced services at Radware agrees:

“What Google is establishing is a way in which to inject targeted advertisements into the phone,”

Aside from displaying ads in the mobile browser, the phone will also display ads within standalone apps themselves.

For example, if you are playing a card game application on the phone, a banner ad can run within that poker application, without having to click back to a Web site. These ads can be sold on a cost per thousand basis and can be updated and targeted based on how a consumer clicks through.

Although the buzz about this phone is relatively low at the moment, I would anticipate it becoming a viable medium for advertising in the near future, especially given Google’s excellent track record for digital advertising releases.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing & Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

View The Full Study Here

Rubicon Consulting just completed a study and concluded that online reviews and word of mouth are the most influential factors in consumer purchase decisions. It also noted that a website is highly important from a customer support perspective.

The survey also concluded the following about user’s perceptions and participation on different websites:

• The web is the second largest resource for customer support, second only to user manuals. That means it even ranks ahead of calling a manufacturer or contacting a dealer.
• Websites that get the most daily traffic are social websites, news sites and online banking.
• Ameicans value Google, Yahoo, You Tube and Facebook the most, in that order.
• Despite Yahoo’s negative press, it still has a loyal following.
• Facebook is valued higher than Myspace by Americans.
• Despite a ton of publicity, the social sites Twitter and Second life reach only a small percentage of U.S. users.
• Democrats spend more time online than Republicans, especially on Social Communities.
• Young people (22 and under) are responsible for about half of the comments posted online.

So what does this mean? It’s important to have an online presence included in search results and online communities, especially Facebook apparently. Harry Max of Rubicon Consulting agrees:

“Many companies downplay the importance of online communities because only a few percent of all Internet users contribute to them heavily. What they don’t understand is that most other Internet users read those reviews and rely on them heavily when making purchase decisions. Taking good care of online communities can be a huge money-saver for companies trying to get more marketing impact from limited budgets”

Consumer behavior is changing. Make sure your marketing efforts adapt.

Posted by Paul under Internet Marketing | No Comments »