Is anybody listening? Does it matter?

When I first started this blog I had Google Analytics on it so I could measure the traffic. For whatever reason I took it off. When I had the stats I'd get excited that I had say 5 readers in a day. Since I took it off and forgot I'd done it I now don't really care how many readers I have.

I'm thinking does it really matter? And my answer is probably not.

If what I write is read by only me then at least I'm relieving my mind of it. If you are reading this too then maybe it makes you think. If you're not reading this then at least it made me think.

Hey I'm only an armchair thinker so please excuse the fact that this may not make any sense at all. Frankly I don't really care, these are my thoughts.

In an ideal world everyone should be able to do this and say what they feel. But, respect and human decency mean that you can't do that with everyone.

Maybe I should be bolder on here. Maybe I should stop doing it. Best idea? To do it when it feels right. Not many things you can do that way are there.

Have a great day and do what makes you happy.

Broke my blog and updated the design

I just tried to remove Google Adsense from my blog and managed to break the site. So to fix it I've gone for a new design, what do you think?

Working for the rat race - any ideas?

Sometimes the rat race is fun. The excitement of finishing a great project, the promotion and the paycheck, obviously.

But lots of the time its stress for no gain mentally of monetary.

I must find a way to get the buzz of the achievement without the stress. Must exist somewhere, but where?

Your help is appreciated

Here's Wikipedia definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_race

New Facebook? - New Coke?

Just upgraded? to New Facebook.

Not sure if I like it or not. Was old Facebook bad?

There doesn't seem to be any improvement in performance just everything is moved around and I can't find it any more.

The chat function was great when added. But why change the GUI?

What do you think?

A I Hate new Facebook group has already launched.

Recession? Or just a trick of the mind?

I'm no financial expert, if you could see my bank balance you'd know that.

But I'm sure this recession is fueled by the media. Sure there have been issues with Sub-prime mortgages, but they have been coming for a while. Why suddenly in the last month or so has the recession word come to the fore?

In my opinion it's been fueled by the reports in the media, if the public are told enough times that there's a recession then they believe it and stop spending. They then spread the message that there's a recession and the whole thing spirals.

In about a years time the media will report that the recession is easing and that the signs are looking better. Coming out will take longer than getting in. People believe bad news quicker and start to spread the word. Good news is harder to sell in as people don't want to feel fooled.

But the message will start to eek it's way out and before you know it it'll all be over. Not much will actually change only the message.

I think this is what's called a self fulfilling prophesy!

Watch the details when you cut costs

In time of recession what do most businesses do? They cut costs, they drop marketing and stop the ads. What kind of signal does that send out to hard pressed customers also in the recession?

• It says that you probably went under with the recession.
• That you have no new products.
• That you don't care about service.
• That you don't care about them.

That last one's a bit of a tough one but let me explain. If you have a friend for years and you've been through the good times together, they got what they needed from you and you made a nice profit out of them too. How will they feel if you suddenly don't talk to them anymore?

They feel hurt and find someone else to talk to or buy from.

Changing your friendship hurts too. A friend who suddenly stops offering you coffee when you visit changes in your eyes.

Business is the same, when the little things change customers are upset and look for others who can give them what they were used to.

So when you cut back, be careful what you cut back on and ask yourself how would you feel if your friend did this to you?

Here's a great post on watching what you cut back on.

Take heed! Customers really do care!

The future of music? The 17!

Driving home last night I listened to Radio 2's Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Marconie show.
The guest last night was Bill Drummond who you may know as the driving force behind the KLF. Bill had a brainstorm one day and decided that all music was now just repetition and he threw out all his recorded songs and decided to find something on a much higher plain.

His idea was The 17. Simple idea. Take 17 people, no musical talent needed, and get them to make a noise. Any noise is fine, record it and play it back. Once you've played it once destroy it. That way the music lives only in your mind and the only way to hear it again is the re-create it again. And because it was only performed once and no recordings exists no two performances will ever be the same.

I'm not sure if this is genius or just a gimmick. What do you think?

Have you ever recommended a book you've never read?

Seth Godin is pre-launching his new book The Tribe on his only on his blog.

Seth's books are must reads for anyone in marketing because they are a guide to how business should be done and how thinking differently about the world of business helps everyone.

Seth's concept for pushing this book is pure genius and should become the subject of a entire book on it's own, written by a better man than me I'm sure.

Seth's promise is that for all pre-orderers of his book he'll offer untold benefits. Seth has such a loyal following that the offer is already oversubscribed, it was only added today (29th July). Even without this the book is due to be massive, the really clever part is that he's got all the pre-orderers, me included, all ready spreading the word about it. I've no idea what the book is actually about yet but I'm already so sold that I've bought it and I've recommended it to my work colleagues.

Have you ever recommended a book you've never read? I haven't - 'til today.

Order your book now. If you're quick enough you can join the tribe too! Look he's even got me to give a free plug. The man is a legend

Really good advice for writing copy

Seth Godin points to this really good article on writing copy. There are some really good points in here which I'll be trying to put into my own ranting, writing whatever you want to call it.

I've no idea if anyone is reading this but hopefully you are and will be kind or cruel enough to tell me whether I'm interesting or crap. Knowing either will be useful because how can I develop otherwise.

Anyway here's the link: How to say nothing with 500 words.

Enjoy

Instant Karma's gonna get you!

On Monday I had a very strange night. I was travelling back from Sheffield about 11pm. As I got to the M1 to Leeds, two girls flagged me down.

They said they'd got stranded in Sheffield and someone had given them a lift as far as Barnsley. Being an idiot and reckoning that no one should be stood at the side of the motorway at 11.30 at night I gave them a lift to Leeds. They obviously turned out not to be murderers, or I wouldn't be telling you. They could have been prostitutes though, though that's just a guess!

Anyway I dropped them off near the town centre and felt quite smug with myself. In my head I thought "that'll be great for my Karma, thoughtless act". But Karma has a way of getting you back.Two minutes later in one of the rough areas of Leeds I got a puncture! I rang my friend to come and watch my back, while we were changing the tyre 4 boy racers flew past at about 100 mph and nearly killed us!

So on my birthday I bought a new tyre!

To top it all on Friday (13th), the cover for my allow on the new tyre came off, so now I need to replace that two.

Needless to say I wondering if all this Karma and Buddhist stuff is worth the hassle and I should just turn into a selfish knob head like the rest of the world!

Been lazy!

I was going to write that I'd been to busy to add to the blog. But that's crap, I've been too lazy.

Lots has happened to me, I've got a new job at Direct Relations, a Marketing Agency, and I'm loving my new role of Senior Account Manager.

My laziness has had a strange effect on the PageRank for the blog. Last time I posted the PR was 0. I guessed that Google had been playing about again, the blog was fresh and looked after.

Nearly 5 months later, my PR is suddenly 3! I've done absolutely nothing to the blog. I know age of site is a factor in Google's algorithm but freshness is supposed to be one too.

As ever I have no concrete explanation.

I'm sure a better bet is to keep your site/blog up to date. Being lazy isn't much of a tactic whatever you do!

Google playing with PageRank again

Google appear to be messing about with PageRank again. They've just downgraded themselves to an 8/10, which seems strange. Google is the most used site in the world so how come it's not a 10?

Everything you read tells you to ignore the PageRank as it's out of date and no real indication of the quality of a site. I tend to agree but if that's case why do they still use it?

The real issue is don't sweat the PageRank, if you rank well for your terms in the serps and the cash/conversions are still rolling in then everything's fine.

How insignificant are we?

How insignificant are we in the greater scheme of things? I often think abut this.

I'm 5 ft 11, so I'm not too big anyway. Then think about how big your city is, then your country, then the continent, then the world. Move on the solar system, then the galaxy, then the universe!

Right now think about how important what you're doing really is.

Humbling isn't it?

Take a read of this http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/21/galaxy-hubble-stars.html

Tom Peters 100 ways to make more money

Over on Change This a site full of manifesto's, need to write one myself. Tom Peters who's always a very inpiring read has put together the second half of his 100 ways to make more money manifesto.

For those who've never read Tom before, this isn't 100 ways to make a quick few quid. These are truly life changing attitudes which are simple to impliment but that you won't think of while you're stuck up you backside getting on with things and wondering why you're getting your share of the good stuff. Having just read this, lots of little light bulbs have gone off and just reaffirmed for me why I'm changing jobs.

Tom's manifesto is available as a PDF download from the site so you can read it at your leisure and pass it round to your friends and colleagues.

Great design makes all the difference

I'm a sucker for great design for it's own sake. If a great design helps to sell products then even better. Most of the time it does.

It's part of the intagible bit of marketing that most of the public think they can't see because they're "not designers or artists". The thing about great design and art is that the man/woman on the street instinctivley knows good design, they just never trained themselves how to recognise it or describe it.

This is a great site I've just found which has some of the best product and packaging design I've ever seen. The examples are clear and work wonderfully, enjoy.

New BBC Homepage Beta

The BBC have just launched a Beta of thier home page. It looks like they've put a lot of work in to it and the functionality looks great.

It's not very subtle though and could do with a little refinement. Still it shows how the BBC want to enbrace online and I think they've been very brave.

What do you think?

Seth Godin on the Placebo effect

Seth's come up with the goods again. This is a great blog about marketing and a definate read.

It got me thinking about something my mate asked me the other day.

"How do you become and artist?"

My answer is that it's down to perception. As soon as one person, who apprears to have authority, says you are something and give you the title then everyone else will accept it as well. The next objective is to find someone else who agrees with the first person. Then you begin to get a chain and it all builds from there.

Doesn't matter what you want to be as soon as one other person says that what you are, job done. Most people are nervous to give themselves the title though.

So if you want to be an Actor, Rock Star, Model, Marketer (god help you), jockey, keep listing for ever. Then tell someone that's what you are not long after guess what you'll have managed it.

Good Luck in your new Careers!

Google Adwords test

Just spotted a little Google test on my site. The Ads, see above, now have little shuffling arrows so you can go to the next ad. Great idea and preumably a great way for Google to see which ads convert best and pass this back. Only problem is the randomness, you've no idea what's coming up.

What marketing equals

Seth Godin hits the spot again on what marketing is about. I really don't know where he get's his inspiration from, just wish he sold it! Here's his blog on what Marketing equals.

To get a bit of the Seth Magic, give his books a go. My favourite is the Purple Cow. For me this is one of the greatest marketing books of the last few years.

If you know something talk about it

I've just given a free consultation to two guys who are friends of my boss. The original idea was that they needed help with Pay Per Click campaigns. What they really needed was help with marketing thier product full stop.

They've got a business which sells high performance car days, you know 6 laps in a Ferarri. They are getting over run with booking but want to make more out of it.

I probably spent about 1 hour with them and mentioned Pay Per Click for about 2 minutes. They were looking at the problem from the wrong end.

They needed overall advice on how to get thier product to market at the lowest cost with the biggest return on investment.

The best bit of advice I gave them?

Make it easy for your customers to book, get the crap out of the way and make it simple. They'll be adding a large click here to book button to the top of every page.

The return on investment will go through the roof. I'll guarantee that.

If you've got a problem with your site, I'll happily take a look. Failing that ask someone you know who isn't a marketer, doesn't know your product really and doesn't use the web much. If they can't make your site do what you want your customers to do then you need to think again.

My best critic like this, my wife.