Image via Wikipedia

As an independent professional service provider looking to succeed online you’re going to encounter one fundamental problem. You – your time, your skills, your personality, your charisma – are not scaleable.

No matter how well you market yourself, and how much business you bring in, you can only do so much of that work yourself. Once you’re fully booked, you’re fully booked – you can’t take on more work until you stop doing something else.

How to scale your online business

There is one absolutely vital thing that you do own, however, which is valuable and truly scaleable: that’s your knowledge. By packaging your expertise effectively, and turning it into a product rather than a professional service, you do two things:

1. You make access to your expertise more affordable to a much wider audience
2. After the initial investment of creating your knowledge product you’re free to sell it to as many people as you can without much additional demand on your time and resources.

But how do you go about developing a product based on your knowledge and expertise?

Dave Navarro, AKA “The Launch Coach”, has built a successful online business showing people just like you how to do exactly that!

I’ve been working through Dave’s excellent free online marketing workbooks in the LaunchCoach Library. The workbooks take you step-by-step through:

• 7 steps you can take to playing a much bigger online game
• 7 steps to networking yourself to A-Listers
• 7 simple income streams that you can actually create
• How to start making real money with your product in just 3 days

The thing I like most about Dave’s style is that he avoids the usual marketing hype of your typical online “gurus”, and gets straight to the meaty stuff that’s really valuable to people like you and me who are looking to turn our expertise into a scaleable online business.

I’m not a "guru."  I’m just a guy who’s pretty darned
good at teaching people how to do things in a simple
step-by-step, you-can-do-this manner.

Dave Navarro – The Launch Coach

The free stuff that Dave offers is amazing – but if you’re looking to fast-track your online product creation and promotion skills, you should check out his latest offering

Two downloadable Workshops — 10 great training modules — that show you how he built his own online business, and that could be just the catalyst you need to kick start your online business.

I’m certainly going to check it out. You’ll find all the details on Creating Products that Sell & Building a Responsive List on Dave’s site.

Toyota teamed with comedy director Jody Hill to create this creative series of online videos featuring a couple of self-absorbed parents and their young family with the only vehicle that can match their awesomeness, the Toyota Sienna.

The ads seems to be resonating with parents and are generating a lot of buzz through this clever hip hop parody. Check out the full series of Swagger Wagon videos here… and watch for this one cropping up in 2010 online marketing awards later this year.

We’re sourcing case studies from various places, and will feature a mixture of different online campaigns in the book, from award-winners to more obscure but successful campaigns from all sorts of businesses spanning a variety of industries.

We’re a bit short of time to truly crowdsource all the case studies for this edition – but we are looking for your nominations to help us identify truly exceptional examples of online marketing that we may miss through other channels.

You can use this form to submit your favourite campaign for consideration. We’ll let you know if it goes on to be featured in the book.

Thanks a million for your input.

Understanding Digital: CREATIVE will take place at the National College of Ireland in the city centre from 4-7 pm, followed by a drinks reception and  an opportunity for informal networking.  We’re hosting the event in conjunction with the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD) as part of Design Week 2009.

For just €50 (€10 for current ICAD members) you get to share the expertise and insight of four leading digital creative minds.

Places are limited, and at that price they’re going fast so register now to secure yours.

The speakers

As well as Damian and myself… who’ll be hosting he event… our panel of speakers will explore how digital media can expand the scope of creative marketing online, facilitate interaction and ultimately improve the bottom line.

We’ll hear from Dave Birss, Creative Digital Director at Ogilvy London; Matt Butterworth, Managing Director of Folk Creative; Nick Suckley, Managing Partner of Agenda 21 Digital and Robin Grant, founder of We are Social.

It’s a line-up that Damian and I are very excited about. It promises to be a great event, and the drinks reception afterwards, in association with Design Week sponsor Bombay Sapphire will be a great opportunity to meet and chat with us, with the speakers and a great mix of people from inside and outside the digital media sector.

We hope you can make it, and look forward to welcoming you on the 05 November.

Image by HubSpot via Flickr

Social media is the buzzword in online marketing today.

It’s still in its embryonic stages, and not nearly as critical to online success, or indeed as measurable, as some more established online marketing channels (search springs to mind as the online marketing granddaddy that dwarfs all others in terms of potential ROI and measurability), but it is gaining momentum fast.

People are flocking to social media sites around the globe, using them to connect more effectively with more of their peers, to share, entertain and communicate. And of course where the masses lead, the marketers are never far behind.

While Social Media may not be as fundamental as an effective search marketing strategy to your company’s online success (yet), there’s are some crucial differences. You can’t really compare the two directly, because they’re trying to achieve two very different objectives.

Search marketing is focussed on driving targeted traffic to your site, and ultimately converting that traffic into paying customers,  social media is more about nurturing and building ongoing relationships surrounding your brand. It’s about taking that first contact — whether it comes through a search engine, word of mouth, social media referral, or perhaps even a newspaper ad (yes, it still happens ) — and building it into a lasting, mutually beneficial relationship.

Of course there’s crossover here: some brands use search for more subliminal marketing like brand awareness and social media is used for direct marketing… but by and large, for most businesses, the distinction outlined above holds true.

Finding the Social Media Win-Win

Social media marketing is all about finding a “win-win”. Get it right and the viral potential of online networks can do wonders for your business. Get it wrong, and that same viral effect can be devastating.

That’s one of the things that makes social media a scary place for traditional marketers, who tend to be more used to shouting than listening. The conversational aspect of social media marketing… the fact that you have to listen, adapt and respond to what people are saying about your brand in practically real time… can be daunting.

There’s a steep learning curve, and because it’s all so new there’s no “manual” to speak of… everyone, even the apparent pandemic of “Social Media Experts” you’ll find on Twitter, are just feeling their way here, whatever they may claim.

In Understanding Digital Marketing we explored a few of the Social Media Rules of Engagement – some common-sense guidelines to help you navigate a course through the social media jungle. But talking to my own children recently, I realised that good social media etiquette isn’t a million miles away from the way any sensible parent teaches their child to play nicely with their peers.

Back to Social Media Basics

Think about it… as parents we teach our children to share, to listen, to respect other people’s opinions while understanding the value of their own.

Sounds a lot like a roadmap for a successful foray into Social Media if you ask me. So why, as adults, do we struggle to apply the “social rules” we mastered in the school playground when we venture online?

• Sharing is caring: Barney, may be as irritating as hell, but he also has a point. Sharing is at the heart of social media interaction… so provide useful content, links and comments that add real value and are relevant to the conversation.
• Show a little respect: we’re always telling children to respect other people’s views, and that even if they don’t match our own, they are no less valid. That’s just as relevant online.
• Play nicely: wherever people congregate, be it the school playground, the pub or a Facebook Fan Page, there are going to be disparate personalities, some of which will clash. We try to teach our children to work through their differences and to be polite and courteous. It’s no different online.
•  Rules are rules: another important lesson children learn when they’re young is to play by the rules… be they the household rules we set as parents, the school’s rules, rules at the local swimming pool or the rules of a family board game. It’s no different when the places we visit are virtual.

Interacting with other people is tricky, but we’ve been doing it for a long time. Yes, some are better at it than others… in the pub, at work or online, but this isn’t rocket science. We all know the basics… we;ve been doing it since pre-school!

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

Time to breathe a bit of life back into this blog.

Between writing and promoting Understanding Digital Marketing, work with SOHO Solo, Career Moves and other editorial commitments things have been pretty hectic. Damian and I have also just signed publishing contracts with Kogan Page to do a follow up book. So, interesting times ahead.

Distilling the very best in online marketing for you

The new book, which is set for delivery to the publishers by 31 January 2010, and should hit the shelves the middle of next year, will focus on how organisations around the world are harnessing integrated online marketing to drive their business forward, improve their ROI and enrich their relationship with their customers.

We’re in the process of putting together an international panel of online marketing experts – acknowledged leaders in their respective fields – to help us select the very best examples of online marketing in the world today. Together we’ll deconstruct them and analyse the lessons that others can learn from these innovative campaigns.

Stay tuned for more updates, and regular online marketing content here and on the soon to be re-vamped “Understanding Digital” website.

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com
• http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Our new book somehow seems very real this morning. I opened an e-mail from our publishers, Kogan Page, to find a link to the “Understanding Digital Marketing” page on their website.

It’s an exciting time.

Apparently:

Details of your book have already already been circulated to the book trade and to key online booksellers such as amazon. Your book will also feature in our ‘new books and bestsellers’ catalogue which is circulated by our Sales Agents to the international book trade

So, all good stuff then.

We’re planning to launch an accompanying website in the near future to support and build on Understanding Digital Marketing. This is still in the very early planning stages, but the vision is to build a dynamic and constantly evolving, community driven online marketing resource.

Stay tuned for updates by subscribing to our RSS feed or check back regularly to see what’s new. It’s going to be fun!

Published as a part of a three article series in the Career Moves section of the Evening Echo

Last week we looked at six ways you could use the internet to help you conduct efficient, cost effective market research. This week we offer another six suggestions that can help you get your fledgling business off the ground.

1. Create online polls and surveys: survey based market research can reveal all sorts of information about your potential customers. But putting together and undertaking an effective survey used to be a costly, time consuming and labour intensive process. Now, thanks to the popularity of the internet and sites like Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) and PollDaddy (www.polldaddy.com) creating interactive online polls and surveys to canvas customer opinion has never been easier. Best of all, these services will collate and present all the results without you having to lift a finger.

2. Check out your competitors’ websites: competitor research is crucial for any new business – and what better place to start than your competitors’ websites. You’ll find specific information about the company, the services or products they provide, what they charge, and will be able to infer things like the market their targeting. What are they doing well (emulate them), what are they doing badly (learn from them), and what aren’t they doing at all (and does that present an opportunity for you)?

3. Search peer review sites: peer review sites can be generic, like Louder Voice (www.loudervoice.com) and Epinions (www.epinions.com), or industry specific like the travel review sites TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com) and Boo.com (www.boo.com). Searching for specific keywords related to your business on both generic and industry specific review sites can tell you what people like and what they dislike about the services your competitors are offering, and your industry in general.

4. Harness the social web: social networking sites like MySpace (www.myspace.com), FaceBook (www.facebook.com), Bebo (www.bebo.com), and others are all the rage at the moment. Groups of like minded people are congregating in these digital social havens to interact, exchange ideas and to discuss anything and everything. If your customers are among them, these can be great places to engage, join groups, ask questions and share information about you and your business.

5. Feed me: RSS or “Really Simple Syndication” is a very easy and convenient way to keep up-to-date with the latest information online. Instead of spending time surfing a multitude of websites to see what, if anything, has been updated, your reader will pull all of the updates into one convenient location. All you need is a piece of software called an RSS Reader (Google offer a very capable, free online reader at http://reader.google.com), then simply add feeds from your favourite websites. To see what’s new all you need to do is fire up your feed reader and scan the headlines, then click through to the articles that interest you.

6. Look, listen, learn, engage: finally, the most important thing is to recognise that the web is an interactive and constantly evolving medium. Spend a bit of time “lurking” on relevant sites to get a feel for them. Listen to what people are saying and learn as much as you can from it. Once you’re comfortable though, you’ll get much more out of your online research if you choose to engage with and contribute to the online community your new business wants to reach. Just like in the real world the more you put in, the more you get out!

So many questions… when all you really want are answers. You obviously need to know all of these things and more to help you define a viable business plan and create an effective marketing strategy for your new business. But where do you start? Things like surveys and focus groups are often prohibitively expensive, and more often than not out of the financial reach of new businesses. You could make informed guesses, of course, but you’re really looking for something a bit more tangible.

Enter the Internet – that huge and ever growing ethereal melting pot of consumers and business. According to the latest figures there are some 1.3 billion people online, and they span the demographic gamut. There’s a pretty good chance that a healthy portion of your target market, and most of your competition is already online.

So what, you might think. Well, on today’s interactive web people are doing much more than simply looking for and absorbing information; they’re engaging in a two way discourse with their peers, a constantly evolving discussion about anything and everything that interests them – from how to grow runner beans to the relative merits of the Lisbon Treaty to what brand of hair-colouring they prefer. The web offers you a window into their world… a window of opportunity that could give your fledgling business that elusive competitive edge.

Web 2.0 maven Vanessa Fox, one of the guest speakers on social media at this year’s Search Marketing World conference in Dublin, believes that access to social media is levelling the playing field when it comes to market research. “Particularly for small businesses, who perhaps before didn’t have access to things like market research, focus groups and all those things that cost a lot of money, I think it’s very easy now for them to tap into the [online] conversation and see what’s going on,” she said.

Vanessa points out that there are all sorts of conversations going on online – not just about your business, but about key competitors, and about your industry in general – from which small businesses can glean real insight. “Even just the ability to hear what’s going on and take feedback from that I think is really valuable,” she said.

From conducting a simple keyword search to see who your main competitors are; to browsing through online groups, forums and blogs to identify the key influencers in your space; to setting up automated alerts and feeds that flag the conversations you want to track, and much more besides… there are a raft of tools out there to help you find out more about your customers, your competition, your industry and ultimately your business.

In the next article we’ll take a closer look at a few of them.

Image Credit: Explain market research by mafleen on Flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license