Power to the Consumer: How Will You Embrace Permission-Based Marketing?

According to MSNBC, in 1967 a thirty-second commercial spot during Super Bowl I was $42,500 on CBS and $37,500 on NBC. By 1987, the spot was going for $600,000, and the asking price for a spot in this years game was a whopping $2.6 million. Do the math and you’ll find that’s a 6100% increase [...]

May 19, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 5 Comments 

How Green Is Your Blog? Green Marketing and the Internet

It all started with an email from DreamHost. That domain name I got along with a years’ subscription to their hosting plan was about to expire, and I had to decide if I wanted to keep it. Along the same lines I also had to decide if I wanted to keep that hosting plan, the [...]

May 18, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 10 Comments 

Three Billy Goats and a Media Mogul Troll: Permission-Based Marketing Meets the Old Gatekeepers

Once upon a time there lived three Billy goat brothers. They were considered forward-thinking marketers and each had developed extensive opt-in email lists.
One sunny day the smallest of the three Billy goats set out to market his wares and started crossing a small wooden bridge. When the small goat was half was across, an ugly [...]

May 5, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 8 Comments 

Snow White and the Seven Outsourcing Dwarfs

A long time ago in a far away land there lived a wicked Internet Marketing Queen and her lovely stepdaughter, Snow White. The Queen had significant control issues and treated her large staff of trolls and wicked elves quite poorly; they endured unreasonable deadlines and expectations, and often the Queen simply discarded their work proclaiming, [...]

March 19, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 10 Comments 

Goldilocks and the Three Copywriters

Once upon a time there was an up-and-coming Internet Marketer named Goldilocks. One bright morning she ventured into the deep dark woods to peddle her wares. Goldilocks had written her own sales copy already but after walking around in the woods awhile she became tired of her copy’s low conversion rates and decided to have [...]

March 9, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 17 Comments 

The Emperor’s New Blog - A Tale of Social Proof

Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a vain emperor. He longed for the day when all his subjects would obey his every command and hang upon his every word. So he started a blog because he heard blogs were the perfect way to build authority.
This emperor followed all the latest blogging [...]

March 9, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 25 Comments 

Blogging’s False Economics

I grew up in a small town. Like many small towns, the downtown district of my hometown has spent much of the last 20 years searching for an identity. The buildings are old, parking is limited, and commerce has moved to strip malls and mega retailers in newly developed areas. It has been interesting to [...]

March 9, 2008 | Filed Under Social Media | 13 Comments