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The Great Online Marketing Scavenger Hunt: Extended for Another 6 Weeks!

Posted on April 1, 2013 | In Scavenger Hunt

The last five weeks have been so much fun, I just can’t imagine stopping. So we’ve decided to double the length of the hunt and release a brand new list of challenges – bigger and better than ever. We’re going to be taking things a few steps further, and will be upping the ante on [...]

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Project ABC Peeks its Head Above Water

Posted on March 30, 2013 | In Firepole Marketing Updates

It has been one heck of a long time since I’ve posted an update about Project ABC.

I’ve missed it!

Both writing about my business plans… and working on them. Before sitting down to write this update for you, I went back and read my post from January.

Oh my.

Wasn’t I enthusiastic about working extra hard to meet my big goals?

I can only chuckle a little sadly at my hubris. I meant well. ;-)

You know pretty well why that is – you read about the launch, and you may be following the the Scavenger Hunt - so I won’t re-hash any of that. I will say that in some of the time I was able to snatch away from other important endeavors, I did some serious thinking, about some pretty serious questions.

Really serious.

Like:

  • Do I really have the time and energy to do this?
  • Am I still interested in what I started out doing?
  • Am I going to be able to do a good enough job to serve as a case study for all of our students and readers?

I came to the decision that the answer to all three is a (slightly tentative resounding) yes.

So let’s get down to brass tacks – what’s been going on?

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Are You Thinking One Step Ahead?

Posted on March 28, 2013 | In Guest Appearances

How’s your audience based business coming along? Are you beginning to build engagement? Are you beginning to see a plan coming together like the A Team?

These are exciting times indeed on the newest frontier of business (society, even) and you’re on the cutting edge.

Does that ever make you take a breath, step back and think a little? Did you imagine ten years ago what you’d be doing today? When I took this picture six years ago I had no idea I’d be doing this.

Turn it around: have you ever wondered where you’ll be ten years from now? Things change so rapidly, in ways we don’t anticipate. Forks in the road, dead ends and new opportunities appear out of nowhere all the time.

Success

Now, imagine yourself twenty years from now. Odds are you will succeed at what you do. But how will that success look? New customers, new offerings?

There will be more. It’s funny how it works, but it’s true universally: the more successful you are, the more the excitement morphs into a grind. The thrill of the chase gives way to hassles with personnel, taxes, cash flow, competition and, well, you get the picture. Even if you enjoy what you do, there are days when it might feel a little old.

What will you do then? Are you thinking ahead toward the next step?

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How the Firepole Marketing Scavenger Hunt Reveals Your Marketing Personality

Posted on March 26, 2013 | In Guest Appearances

Are you playing in the Great Online Marketing Scavenger Hunt, or are you just watching the game from the sidelines?

Either way, it’s a lot of fun!

But scavenger hunts aren’t merely a fun way to spend your time – they’re an opportunity to grow as a person and as a business. For example, scavenger hunts give you a chance to:

  •  Try something you normally wouldn’t
  • Connect with like-minded people (and cool people with different opinions, too)
  • Win a nifty prize, whether it’s cash or fame or a GIF of a trophy with your name on it

AND…

  •  Learn how your strategic personality affects your business success

Gamification is popular because it works with human nature – we all love to count our achievements, show off the spoils of our good deeds, and (eek!) compare ourselves to others.

You might not realise it, but the way you handle a multi-task challenge like this speaks volumes about you. Your personality tends to show through in the way you run your business and the way you handle your marketing, too, just like it does in a game.

Take a look at these common ways people approach a scavenger hunt, and let me know if you recognize yourself…

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Conversion Lessons from Donors Choose: Making Every Subscriber and Customer More Valuable

Posted on March 24, 2013 | In Guest Appearances

One of the most overlooked ways to make your business more profitable is increasing the average sale value.

That is to say, instead of going after more sales, you make each sale more profitable.

It’s one of those things usual conversion optimization doesn’t really help you with.

But when you do it well, it can make a big difference in your business.

This applies to you even if you don’t sell anything because you can make each opt-in more valuable.

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Blog Traffic: Choose Quality over Quantity

Posted on March 22, 2013 | In Guest Appearances

If you’re a new-ish blogger like me, you probably share my not-so-secret obsession.

Traffic.

If you had never gotten into blogging you’d probably have a pretty negative impression of that word. For non-bloggers “traffic” conjures images of bumper to bumper commuters stacked up on the 101 frustrated and contemplating going all Michael Douglas on each other’s asses.

But that’s not what it means to you… to us.

To a blogger, traffic is an attractive… even sexy word. It’s the narcotic of choice in the blogosphere.

“If only I could get some traffic, I know my blog would be a huge hit.”

We’ve all thought that – and we all know the frustration of watching visitors drip in one by one like a not-so-leaky faucet instead of flooding in like a big, cool wave.

Good News and Bad News

The good news is that in the early stages of building your audience, a lack of traffic doesn’t necessarily indicate that you’re doing something wrong.

The bad news is that lack of traffic early on is the norm. It’s something you need to endure and overcome to get from square one until you get where you want to be.

Come to think of it, that’s not really even bad news. That’s just how things work on this planet. You put in the time, you perfect your craft, and you earn your stripes just like everyone else.

I have spent over 20 years in consumer and business to business sales from local to national levels. And you don’t spend that long in such a competitive environment without learning a little bit about what makes people successful. One thing I can tell you for sure is that there is no such thing as instant success that lasts.

And I’m finding that to be just as true online as it is offline…

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Pulling the Plug on the Podcast?

Posted on March 20, 2013 | In Firepole Marketing Updates

You may be familiar with our Fireside Chats with Danny Iny Podcast series. We’ve run 9 of them so far, and have had a really good time putting them together – it’s been a good learning experience for us, and the content has (we think!) been solid. We’ve covered everything from webinars, to hiring, and [...]

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Reading, Writing and Researching Your Way Around Writers Block and Other Creative Hang-Ups

Posted on March 18, 2013 | In Scavenger Hunt

Let’s be honest for a moment. When you blog – you spend a lot of time writing. And most of the time – it’s great! It goes well. If you do it enough to have a readership – where people listen to you and respond to what you say – then you’ve got something going [...]

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Fun and Focused, Tips and Tricks – Best of the Web

Posted on March 16, 2013 | In Best of the Web

It’s that time of the month again…

…time to release another jam-packed Best of the Web. It seems like these things just keep getting longer and longer. There is so much valuable content out there right now that we can’t even include all the great things we see and hear.

This month we have a pretty wide range of articles from Gamification, to Self Publishing, Affiliate Marketing and the Audience Business Masterclass. Here at Firepole Marketing we have been spending a lot of time of all of these topics, and so has the rest of the web.

Its nice to see such a perfect alignment of content between ourselves and the web this month, I hope you make some of your own connections from these great articles…

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7 Warning Signs Your Viral Marketing Campaign Is Screwed

Posted on March 14, 2013 | In Guest Appearances

“What am I missing?” You wonder.

Part of you wants to ditch your entire viral marketing campaign, and forget about the whole online entrepreneurship thing forever.

And yet, here you are, reading this post, trying to figure out if there is any reason why things aren’t going according to plan.

Of course, it’s not that you haven’t tried. You have. You have done everything the expert marketers say to do.

And yet, the viral effect you hoped for is not taking place. The rapid multiplication to explode your message to thousands, and even millions of people around the world is not happening.

What could you possibly have done wrong along the way?

What is the secret difference between you and all the other successful people who have done this?

What in the world have you done (or not done) to screw things up so badly?

Well, I’ll tell you nine possible reasons you could be having this problem. Let’s start with number 1…

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How to Build an Online Audience for Your Off-Line Business When Time & Money Are Limited

Posted on March 12, 2013 | In Guest Appearances

Successfully marketing your business online is inherently challenging.

Building up an audience of dedicated followers, increasing your online visibility and even finding your “voice” can take up a considerable amount of time, money, and effort. It may involve a lot of tweaking and testing and trying things out till you land on the formula that will work for you and your business.

But, when the majority of your business is conducted off-line, there are additional challenges that can make the path to success even steeper – and that’s not something most online marketers talk about too often.

A business conducted both on and offline is desirable to have – but making the transition in a way that is both cost- and energy-effective can be one heck of a challenge.

So I’d like to talk today about building an online audience for your off-line business without having to invest one or more of your limbs and a month of Sundays to do it.

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Ask the Readers: Should it all be Free?

Posted on March 10, 2013 | In Ask the Readers

The most controversial price in the world is… free.

If you’ve ever read a blog about blogging and list building, you know that one of the very first things you do is create an awesome piece of content and give it away for free in exchange for an email address.

And the free giveaways don’t stop there. All or most of the content on your blog will be free, as well your newsletter content, and possible trials of your products and services.

These days, a lot can be got for free.

Is this the way it should be?

Look at it this way: Once a piece of content or other digital product is created, distribution costs almost nothing , it’s a matter of making something available to download through a link. You set it up once and then there is unlimited download potential. How much should an item of this nature cost?

On the other hand, bloggers and other business owners making a living online need to be compensated, and an income that accrues whether or not you’re actively spending time on something is the golden apple that bloggers are looking for.

Of course, free products and samples can be a great way to get people interested in physical products or services, for example – but when people get something for free – often they have no desire to pay for something down the line. They just want more and more for free.

So what do you think? What does giving something away for free cost you? Is it worth it? Should bloggers start charging for more of their digital giveaways?

What is information really worth today? Please leave a comment and let us know what you think!

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