How To
Timing Your Email Marketing
Email Marketing – What Day / Time is Best? You may be wondering one of two things, “what is this guy talking about, timing of day/hour?” or “I know what’s best because I have read some reports”. I wrote this to say that none of it matters to you. The why is below. I had [...]
6Aug2010 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
Internet is Third Most Popular News Platform
In my opinion a marketing campaign used to be a mix of different forms of media to reach a demographic, such as print, radio, magazines, newspapers. However these days I believe it is entirely possible that some demographics can only be reached by one form of media, online media. My two cents.
5Mar2010 | Brian | 1 comment | Continued
POST and IP checking tool
As a developer you can send POST variables to Post Parrots home page and it echos back what was in the post. This is a great tool to help you debug. It also show the client IP and the headers that were sent.
4Mar2010 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
Link Google AdSense to Google Analytics
If you use Google Analytics for your website statistics and place Google AdSense advertisements you can link the two accounts. But why would you care? By linking the accounts you are provided with information on which pages are generating adsense revenue.
29Dec2009 | Brian | 3 comments | Continued
GoDaddy Holiday Deal
You can obtain a years worth of hosting as well as a .COM domain registration for under $50.
16Dec2009 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
New eBook
I put out a new eBook today. The first book was over 40 pages and too much content. So instead we decided to create a straight forward book focused on just setting up a new website with domain as quickly as possible. This book walks you through a set up to be done in merely an hour or two and and entire year of website hosting as well as domain registration for under $50.
15Dec2009 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
eBay – How Much We Owe You
My Favorite Site
My favorite site happens to be eBay, whether I admit it or not. Let me explain, some people may believe one thing about themselves but then do another. It is their actions that show true behaviour. I just realized after logging into my eBay account that I have been a member since 1999.
A Member Since 1999
Wow, I knew I had used eBay for a while but after looking at my profile I did not recall having signed up on June 24, 1999. Over the last 10 years I have bought and sold 129 items. Now that is not a lot however I do not utilize eBay as a business but I do use it to buy and sell items. More buying than selling.
So let us analyze me as a typical customer. I have been a member for 10 years and bought or sold a total of over 129 items. That is more than 12 items a year, or at least one item per month. That is one good customer to come back and interact every month for the past 10 years. Let’s just say we wish every site we operated or company we worked for had that kind of customer loyalty and lifetime value.
Are They a Success?
eBay is a huge success in my opinion. Their site and service have grown over the years and I am sure they have modified their customer outreach and site look and feel, but done it with such grace that I never had a reason to complain or notice their constant upgrades.
As a business they are worldwide, and as a company they own some of the top online properties such as Skype, StubHub and many many others. Not only did they perfect the online auctions and have one of the best, if not the best, eCommerce online platforms, but they also pioneered corporate communications online. Follow the eBay Ink Blog, my personal favorite and Mr. Brewer-Hay as he keeps everyone apprised of the goings on at eBay corporate.
Model Yourself
If ever there was a business case to review and study, this is the one. If ever there was a site communication strategy, look and feel, and overall user experience to imitate, this is the one. Model yourself after the best.
Roam and Study
I suggest you roam around the eBay site and study how they do what they do. Enjoy!
Huge Domain Portfolios and the Account Executive Role
Domain Management
I had never thought about this feature and option for domain management before. The idea that you have so many domains in your portfolio you do not have the time to manage them all. Of course, there are many they keep large domain portfolios. There are those that have portfolios of domains simply to sell them in the future and there are those that have many for their business.
What to do with the domains?
While some people use all of your domains, many of us purchase them (and by the way you can use a GoDaddy promo code for a domain discount) randomly in never use them. We may want to create a website in just not have the time. We may want to create it and hold it for while possibly for someone else such as maybe a family member, or a potential new business that we have come up with.
Now typically if the domain is not used it is parked somewhere, usually at the registrar where you purchase the domain. What this means is that when someone types in that URL they will go to a page that the domain registrar has put up. Therefore you do not have to worry that you are not using the domain, except for potential squatter issues. But that is more of a trademark issue and not something to discuss here.
Another popular thing to do is to find a company that will park the domain for you and help you make a little revenue. Revenue is made whenever advertisements placed on the page and someone goes to the page, your domains, and that page has been been created by the company that parked it for you. now typically this only works for the domains they already have inherent traffic. If you have thought of a brand-new name and registered it for the first time and no one ever owned it before you probably will not have that traffic. So while some people do claim to make a lot of money doing this and they may a brand-new domain may not be what make much. However if you are able to cover the cost of the domain that’s great.
Now let’s talk about the interesting account executive.
What is an account executive?
When it comes to domains, has created what they call an account executive. What I mean is that they have created an account executive role. Let’s say for example that you have a couple hundred domains. You will have to worry about where they are parked, are they renewed in time, or the name servers correct, is the contact information up-to-date, and many other issues around the domains themselves.
By creating the role of account executive Go Daddy has now allowed you to assign certain roles and responsibilities to another individual. You enter their e-mail address and give them rights to your account. You will still own the domains and control them however certain things can be done by this executive on your behalf. Now I can only see this being useful if you have a lot of domains, or potentially a company may have the domain owned by their attorney or a founder. These individuals may not want to make changes that someone in the IT group may have to.
Therefore the control can remain in the hands of one individual, and someone in the IT group can make the changes they need to make. I say IT group but obviously it could be operations or anyone else is responsible for the management of the domains. I have been in the position, many times, of being a startup that I started or was involved in very early and I registered all of the domains. Even putting them into a new account isn’t enough, as people will come to you constantly telling you you need to change a name server or something else. I would have loved this feature years ago so I could have easily given control to someone else of the daily management of the domains while not actually giving up the ownership. More importantly not worrying about the company losing ownership.
So take a look at the account executive feature if you want someone else to manage the domains on a daily basis particularly in a company.
9Jul2009 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
Lifetime Value
Lifetime Value of a customer is and will continue to be more important. Everyone is familiar with customer acquisition. Customer acquisition is essentially obtaining a new customer. The cost of obtaining a new customer is called the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).
If you spend $100 and you obtain 10 customers your cost per acquisition is $10 per customer. Determining the right cost per acquisition is obviously assuring you have made a profit. If you are an affiliate marketer and you are paid $30 per customer and it costs you $10 to get a new customer then you have profited $20. However it is not always the case that the initial cost per acquisition is less than the initial profit on a sale. It is possible to have an initial cost per acquisition of $20 on a $10 product. Why would you do this?
This is due to the fact that while the initial cost of acquiring that customer was $20 and you only made a $10 profit, the customer’s lifetime value is enough to cover your initial cost per acquisition and make a profit. That customer over time may make you an additional $50 in profit and therefore the higher cost per acquisition in the long run make sense. This is why you need to know the lifetime value of your customers.
Obviously is easier said than done, but it is possible and we do it for client’s everyday. More important than comparing the lifetime value to the initial cost per acquisition is being able to tie the lifetime value to the initial marketing campaign.
Here is why. in the example of customer acquisition if one marketing campaign was costing you $2 per customer and the other marketing campaign was costing you $1 per person you would obviously turn off the $2 dollar campaign and continue the $1 campaign.
However, now add the lifetime value of a customer and your decision-making process may change completely. If the $1 customers had a lifetime value of only $.50 and the $2 customers have a lifetime value of $8, then your decision is the exact opposite. You would turn off the $1 customers, potentially, and continue the campaigns yielding $2 customers, as it is worth the extra $1 per customer due to the huge disparity in lifetime value and overall profit per customer.
The key is tracking the lifetime value and even more importantly associating it to an initial marketing campaign to be able to make the best decision and obtain the best return on investment for your marketing dollars.
12Jun2009 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
Consolidate Domains so You Do Not Forget
If you are like me you have slowly acquired domains over time. First you buy a couple, then you have 10 or 20, next thing you know you have 100. You may even have multiple accounts and never took the time to consolidate. With hundreds of domains, or even tens, you now need to be sure not to lose any. There are two options that GoDaddy has, one you are probably familiar with, one is a lesser known but convenient option.
Automatic Renewal
You may already be familiar with the automatic renewal option for domain names where you simply choose to automatically renew every year. Assuming you choose the 1 year option to keep costs down as opposed to purchasing 2,3,4,5 or more years in advance. Just be careful if you use a credit card that the card can expire. You may want to consider using your paypal account and therefore you only need to keep your paypal up to date.
Consolidating Domains
Consolidating Domains is the most interesting and less familiar option. In the past you would pay annually on the anniversary date of your domain registration. Therefore if you purchased a domain on June 13th, you pay every June 13th. After you purchase tens or hundreds of domains you may have domains that need to be renewed every month. This can become a full time job. The domain consolidation allows you to choose the date you want to renew your domains.
You could have all your scattered renewal dates consolidated into one day every year. So you may pick Jan 1 to be the day, as an example, that you always renew all your domains. Now you only have to renew once a year. However the downside is that you now have one large bill every year if you have a lot of domains.
A second option is to spread your domains over the entire year and choose the first of each month for 1/12 of your domains. This way you spread out your domain renewal expenses proportionally over the year and know that the bill is paid on the same day every month.
How to Consolidate
Simple quick and just $1 per domain per month, a one time fee per domain depending on how far out you extend each domain. Simply log into your GoDaddy account and choose to consolidate as they will walk you through the steps. Also if you are renewing or buying new domains use the code FPT3 at check out for a domain discount on every domain and the godaddy hosting promo code of FPT1 will get you 10% off every hosting package.
Try not to lose your domains, either auto-renew, or consolidate, or do both for ease of domain management.
3Jun2009 | Brian | 0 comments | Continued
