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Are you familiar with the phrase Permission Marketing? If you’re trying to sell anything online (including your ideas), you should be. In 1999, a certain smart marketer made some observations about what kinds of persuasive communication worked well as we moved into the 21st century … and what kinds didn’t. Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them. ~Seth Godin The 20th century was the era of interruption. Your favorite television shows were “brought to you by” an increasingly noisy set of ads for soap, cereal, and shiny new automobiles. Nearly all mass communication was supported by advertising — television, newspapers, radio. The internet brought something different. The attempt to “monetize” the web with advertising has been a mixed bag. There have been a few stunning successes (ok, one stunning success, Google AdWords — which succeeds because it delivers a marketing message at the precise time the customer is actually looking for one) and a lot of flops. If you’ve spent any time at all on the web, you’ve noticed something: You cannot make anyone on the internet do anything they don’t want to do. The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. ~John Gilmore The internet routes around not just censorship, but any impediment to what its users feel like doing. It’s in the nature of the internet (and more to the point, of the people who use the internet) to “route around” experiences they don’t want. You can’t force anyone to pay attention to you online. All you can do is entice. Permission Marketing was an expanded observation of that fact, and an exploration of an alternative. Instead of trying to gain attention by being increasingly obnoxious, we can earn a prospect’s permission to deliver a message to them. This calls for a whole new tool kit. If people are going to ask you to communicate with them, you have to come up with a form of marketing that’s too valuable to throw away. Advertising copy gives way to content — informative, interesting material that speaks to a highly informed customer. Is Permission Marketing just another term for “email”? Email has been the “killer app” for permission marketing for a long time. RSS seemed like a promising candidate, but never picked up widespread adoption. There are some interesting things you can do with permission and direct mail, if you have a massive budget and a wealth of experience … which most businesses don’t. Email is a jewel of a tool for permission marketers, but sadly, most email marketers are still doing it wrong. The basic tenet of Permission — that you need to create content with enough intrinsic value that you earn prospect attention — is ignored most of the time. Spammers and phishers still sneak through, eroding prospect trust and killing conversion for the good guys. Companies still buy email lists, then use them to send unwanted garbage. In other words, nearly everyone’s email box is cluttered with a tremendous amount of crap. So as Permission Marketing evolves, the question isn’t only How do I create content that’s so excellent that people will opt in for it? It’s also How do I fight the Towering Wall of Crap and get my own message heard? Please don’t misunderstand. Email is still what works. But there are other tools out there that can make it work much better — for your business, yes, but much more important, for your audience. Boost the power of content by improving the context Permission in 2013 depends more than ever on context. What does your site design look like? How’s the quality of material you publish for free? (For example, your blog posts and any free resources like white papers or ebooks.) How’s your reputation

In the online business world, getting attention or visitors to our websites is becoming more and more difficult. By that I mean, the right kind of visitors, visitors that are relevant and that will most likely be interested in our products or...

If your itunes music collection is a mess, you really need a solution to organize it. There are several solutions available, but it may cost lots of work for you to get things done. In order to get things done professionally and easily, you need a third party software which can clean your itunes library without the need of technicalities.Leawo has a wonderful software known as “Leawo Tunes Cleaner” which can organize and clean up the music library of your itunes and external music collections as well.About Leawo iTunes CleanerIt is one of the top rated software reviewed by CNET.com, which can easily and professionally clean up the entire itunes music library + any external music library to organize it and improve its efficiency. It allows you to easily delete duplicate songs, get album artwork, edit song tags etc.Key FeaturesDetect and delete duplicate songs in iTunes and other music collections;Download and get album artwork for iTunes music files;Download Song tags like album, artist, song name, etc. to complete music info;Support manual fixing to complete music tags;Easily repair iTunes library to get iTunes library well organized;It can even fix your digital library from the break-point, the progressing point of last fixing.The software is not just bound to fixing iTunes. You can also use it for any external phone music library or MP4.The automatic scanner helps you scan your entire itunes music library and can even show you the health status of the library.Get Leawo iTunes Cleaner for FREEThe standard price of the software is $29.95, but for a very limited time you can get the software free of cost.In order to get the software for free, you just need to post your review about the software. A free code will be then sent to your email address.Here is the Promo Link:  http://www.leawo.com/promotion/new-products/tunes-cleaner-cnet-debut.htmlClick on the “Download Now” button located at the top of the page, and complete the review process.Note:  Make sure to click on the appropriate button. If you are a Windows user, then click on the Red button. Mac users should click on the Blue button to get the free code.The software is 100% compatible with Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP and Mac. Grab it before the promotion expires.

TweetDownload the Text Transcript in PDF Subscribe to this Podcast in iTunes Anthony Puttee is a designer with a background in video games and television media. He entered the world of publishing after illustrating a young adult book series. Through his experience he became a go-to-guy for dealing with all aspects publishing all kinds of books, from fiction, non-fiction, … Read the rest of this entry »

Gone are the days when a company could make headway with newspaper ads or radio spots. These days, a company must accept social media or perish, because that’s where customers spend time and cash. Learn many of the ways new media has change the business world, below. Companies Have New Tools Via Flickr by Alvin Chua. While the new tools presented to companies via social media can sometimes be overwhelming and scary, they also become powerful tools to reach new markets. Utilized correctly, they impress clients, win new customers, and smooth-over ruffled feathers in ways that static ads never could (for example, Kanye West used a tweet to apologize to Taylor Swift for his MTV Music Awards incident). From Twitter’s tweets to Facebook’s likes, companies have the opportunity to craft social site-specific ads. The right 100-character tweet at the right moment can spell tremendous growth. Companies could reach Facebook’s 1.06 billion monthly visitors with a $1,000 ad: the same ad on TV would cost millions. Passive Consumers Disappeared Businesses are faced with the growing demand of customers wanting to be heard. Before new media customers might (rarely) write to a company to complain or praise them. However, today customers can post on Reddit about a negative shopping experience and effect that business adversely within minutes. The business might not even know why customers are outraged. If a company utilizes social media to connect with customers in a positive way, active customers can easily become brand loyalists or even brand advocates. These people will post about your brand, and share your posts. It’s a great way to get a company’s information out there for free. Competition Is Growing  Image via Wikimedia.org Due to the easy interactivity of social media, companies are able to create fun and new contests for their customer bases. They can encourage people to like and share their information as a method of entering contests, too. This means that companies are not only competing for customers’ business in traditional venues, but they’re also doing it through the content they create online. But while well-chosen content can inspire customer loyalty, the wrong content can create a public outcry. Applebees famously discovered this when it tried to address a developing situation on Facebook. In these situations, reputation and damage control may be in order – check out the Media Whiz LinkedIn page for more information if your company finds itself in one of these situations. People Read Reviews, & Check Them Twice People used to buy products without thinking about it. Some diligent shoppers would look up review in books, or ask friends about it. However, consumers were extremely limited before new media. Today, consumers can scan a bar code in a store and pull up online reviews from several different sites. The aggregate score is shown, as well as the top and bottom feedback. Facebook also has its own review system. The business world has changed and is still evolving. Companies must embrace new media in order to stay relevant and understand what their customers are thinking.

As a web designer, one of the most annoying parts of designing a website is cross-browser testing to make sure the site functions and/or looks proper on all browsers. The reason this causes so many headaches is that many designers like myself choose to use either a Mac or Linux computer, so we don’t have easy access to Internet Explorer – Microsoft’s web browser made specifically for Windows computers. Up until March 13, 2013, I used a service called Adobe Browser Lab to test my websites to see how they behaved on Internet Explorer. Adobe has since closed their Browser Lab service, so I needed an alternative… I tried the few that Adobe recommended trying: Cross Browser Testing and Mogotest, but neither were as good as Browser Lab once was simply because they aren’t free. The cheaper of the two, Cross Browser Testing, is $30 a month at the least which is very expensive for a program that just tests websites. If I paid for that service for just 10 months I would have spent $300 which is the price of a cheap Windows laptop that I could’ve bought to use for testing instead. The prices are just too expensive to justify making the business expense. modern.IE: The New Alternative The other day, I saw a Google AdSense banner on a website I was viewing that was advertising a new service from Microsoft called modern.IE. I didn’t really understand the name at first, but once I thought about it, they were trying to get a name that would agree with the .ie domain name extension from Ireland that could also stand for Internet Explorer. Basically, the idea behind modern.IE is simple: it’s a free service that tests for coding errors, tests websites across multiple browsers, and suggests changes you can make to your code to make things more cross-browser-friendly… Essentially, it’s the best cross browser testing tool for web developers. modern.IE Website Scanner The website scanner tool offered by modern.IE will scan any website that’s live on the Internet simply by entering the URL into a box. I decided to scan the website of a local college, www.nwfsc.edu, and here’s the results: According to the results, the Northwest Florida State College website has issues with frameworks and libraries, responsive web design, and touch-first browsing and they also lack a start screen site tile. Just being familiar with the website, I know they don’t have a responsive design at all because it doesn’t change when I view it on my smartphone. I also know that the last two issues can most likely be ignored in most cases because they’re features only found in Windows 8 that not many people use. However, the frameworks and libraries issue could lead to problems with older versions of Internet Explorer, so I decided to see what modern.IE found: What’s awesome about modern.IE is it not only shows you the errors on the website, but it tells you why you should fix them and gives the option to run a dynamic code-scan to show you exactly how to fix the error. Overall, I found Microsoft’s scanner tool to be extremely helpful. If you’re just starting out with new technologies (such as converting your website from Adobe Flash to HTML5) or learning web design from the very beginning (basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), this scanner tool will be very helpful. Be the first to comment... Related Posts:Google Chrome 14: Supports C/C++, Mac OS X Lion features and Native ClientUsing Google Structured Data Testing ToolWhich is the Fastest Internet Web Browser?Blogging Tips – Test All Of Your Blogs Functionality OftenA super fast alternative to Firefox for Windows RSS Feed Powered by MaxBlogPress Bring My Blog Visitors BackAuthor informationIan EberleWeb designer, Apple enthusiast, and entrepreneur. I'm currently attending Northwest Florida State College and have future plans to transfer to Florida State College to obtain a degree in entrepreneurship. I like anything w

I’ve seen amazing designs operated by the awesomeness of Thesis 2.0, and I thought it would be a good idea to put together a quick showcase and share these elegant sites with our FamousBlogger’s readers. I must say that working with...

Ah, niche sites – how I love thee!  I have always been in love with the idea of small, targeted sites that just sit out there and work FOR you.  And yep, I sure loved their results before Google unleashed all those Penguins and Pandas!  Such cute animals… why’d they have to make them have [...]

The Telegraph reports that Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code and Inferno hangs upside down to get the creative juices flowing again when he has writer’s block. Writer’s block is sure to paralyze you at some point during … Continue reading →

No one starts their blog with the intention of getting rid of it. Somewhere along the way, though, it’s perfectly normal to feel as though your website is no longer worth maintaining. What should you do then? If you’re smart about the way you build your website from day one, your blog will have accumulated enough value so that you can easily sell it for profit. While many people are surprised to hear that blogs can be bought and sold, website marketplaces are a growing segment of the web economy: one marketplace alone, Flippa, has sold over $100,000,000 in websites. So how can you make sure that your site grows in value from the start? 1. Start with a great niche What should your website be about? For the greatest longevity and value, your site should be about something that will interest many people. Our data shows that sites about sports, health and cars sell for the most money. On the other hand, sites about Internet marketing and technology tend not to do as well. Finding a niche may take you some time. Here are some of my favourite ways to come up with new niche ideas: Notice what bothers people around you. What are their pain points, what irritates them in daily life, and what can you write about that will help? Use Google Trends to measure relative interest in a topic over time. Ideally, your niche of choice should be trending up over the last few weeks, but not have such sudden growth that its popularity won’t last. Find out what people are passionate about. This is why sports is such a great topic: sports fans are always interested in their teams, and there is always new topics to cover in that area. There are other niches, like bands, hobbies or shopping, that cause a similar reaction. You should also have a personal interest in this niche: it’s hard to sustain the work that comes with building a blog if you don’t know anything about your topic, or if you just don’t care. 2. Invest in content With the almost-daily updates to Google‘s ranking algorithms, the only constant way to get to the top of search results is to spend time on quality content for your blog. This means that each post should be unique, interesting, and written with care. Google has many ways of detecting what counts as quality content, including grammar, sentence complexity, duplicate content and reputation of the author. If you decide, one day, to sell your website, these are the same things that smart buyers will be looking for: quality content, great spelling and grammar, and guaranteed uniqueness for each article. The days of autoblogs, which published automatically generated content to hundreds of websites at a time, are long gone. Your content should also extend to your readership: the more work you put into building a community around your website, including on Facebook, Twitter, and through comments, the higher your site will be valued by prospective buyers. 3. Choose the right monetization method Whether or not you started your blog in order to generate revenue, the #1 thing that will matter to buyers is going to be how much money your site is making every month. Even a few dollars per month in advertising or affiliate revenue can be enough to show a buyer that the site has potential for growth. There are three main ways to make money from a website: advertising (usually through a platform such as Google AdSense), product or service sales (where you directly sell a product or service to an end user), and affiliate sales (where you direct buyers to someone’s site, and get a percentage of the sale). Each of them can be used on its own, but sites that use a combination of these methods are typically seen as more valuable. This is because each monetization method can be unstable. When combining two or three, you guard yourself against losing all revenue if one monetization method fails. We have been selling websites on Flippa for almost four years. In that time, we have seen trends in website v