Thursday, September 3, 2009

Not Enough Sales?? Controversy Sells, Just ask Madonna....

Controversy Sells

Having a little trouble grabbing some attention for your products? Well, have you considered that you may be playing it too safe to be noticeable. Let's face it, people who get attention aren't typically the shy and unadorned kind, they are the more extroverted and rambunctious crowd. So, is your product too staid to really go after the traffic on the web, and generate genuine interest and enthusiasm? Well, then you might want to think about The “Madonna” Effect.

The “Madonna” Effect

Well known singer Madonna, a marketing genius in my eyes, sold millions of videos, music and books based on controversy. When MTV pulled the plug on showing, a highly anticipated video from Madonna, millions of people could not wait to get their hands on that video the sales were unheard of. If you find yourself shying away from controversy, this is one area you genuinely need to explore. It doesn't even have to be your own created controversy, it can be someone else's controversy, and all you're doing is adding to the conversation. For instance, when eBay first came out with it's policy to not allow infoproducts on their auction listings unless sellers delivered a physical product, like a CD or DVD, it generated a huge controversy around the Internet.

While others where moaning about the collapse of their business models, there were more astute business people who exploited the opportunity to get some free publicity by offering products to help sellers transform their business model so they could continue to sell on eBay. No matter what side you were on, whether it was a bad or a good policy, the fact is that the amount of controversy that it produced provided a perfect opportunity to ride a wave of free publicity, if you can help people overcome some of their issues.

Walk A Fine Line

So, yes, you do want to constantly look out for opportunities that come with issues of great controversy.  They typically have a short window, but during that window, you can get instant product and name recognition, if you play your cards right. What you don't want to do is pick a side and alienate half your customers. There is a fine line you must walk if you dare to apply the Madonna Effect. You want to engage the controversy, but you don't want your name associated with negatives of the entire thing too. And, certainly there are some controversies that are simply “too hot to handle”, even though you may think you are that hot.

Don't Light A Match In The Wind

Unless you are Planned Parenthood, the odds of a classic online business wanting to engage an abortion controversy is almost non-existent. It's just a controversy that is extremely volatile and can end up burning people out instead of creating enthusiasm and genuine interest in the topic. So, engage controversies that are interesting, have some cha cha cha, but avoid the ones that are going to cause problems for your public image or alienate too many of your customers. If you do find that you've done that by accident, retract your support immediately, issue an apology to all your customers, regardless of the issue, and move on. 

So, it does take a bit of “Ba.. (wait perhaps that word would not be appropriate here, but you know what I mean) to engage in controversy, but the strategy can wake up your business overnight, if done properly. If you do that, you can try the “Madonna” effect, and learn how to position your products to profit with a wave of free publicity.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

I used to think Traffic was just a bunch of cars!

Before Web Traffic was even explained, the World Wide Web was in need of a guide that captured each and every traffic generation strategy that the veteran Internet marketers were using. The question now is are these veterans, guru's old timers being left in the dust by the Superstar Marketers of today? The new school "Super" beings are coming up with more complicated formulas and methods that are changing the less complicated Internet world as we knew it.

We're talking, article marketing, forum marketing, blog and ping, affiliate programs, traffic exchanges, PPC advertising, Birds of a feather (I believe they call it Twitter) and Diverse Software that even does your hair and sweeps on the way out! These were things, back then, that not everyone knew about.

The change has come

Nowadays, the online marketing superstars are using new techniques... I mean strategies that are cutting-edge... tactics that you never even imagined were possible. Yes, not even a 5th grader can figure these methods out (o.k. maybe a 5th grader but with a heck of a lot more "Analytics".

These are the traffic-generating strategies that will define the next ten years.

These are the traffic-generating strategies that are defining a new era in the online world. Traffic is one of the main ingredients one must have to make any money in this business.

You see, whereas, the traffic-generating strategies of the past were exclusively focused on getting prominent and favorable positions in search engines, the trend these days is veering away from the search engines and leaning towards user-driven categorizing systems. The engines have their work done for them by "bots" and "Spiders" oh my! Not to mention a preset algorithm.

User-driven systems use human discernment to categorize websites into appropriate topics.
Hence, more and more people are starting to prefer social indexing websites over search engine results. And more and more Internet users are starting to focus on social indexing websites to position themselves well for what is the dominant practice of today and the future.

Yes, getting a high Google ranking and being on page 1 certainly helps you to be the Belle of the Ball for the time being but keep looking over your shoulder cause your wicked step sisters are brewing up a new formula!

And a new age is upon us indeed. Now we have tags and style, CSS, PPC, CPA,xhtml heck I need CPR how about something for my headache? Have we come up with a super software for that yet? Sales Page, Squeeze Page, Download Page pretty soon a Bettie Page. The popularity of tags (basically Keywords) is one that is instantly dictated by user-initiated actions, in real time at that. They don't have to pass through the complicated algorithms of search engines. If a tag is hot, you'll defiantly see it. Can I wear a Tag? Oh! and let's not forget "The List" if ya ain't got one you might as well pack it up.

These are the development of new and exciting strategies that can rake in tons of traffic for many websites. These are strategies that are revolutionary. Not everyone knows how to optimize them and those who do would rather keep the knowledge to themselves.
Yes the times are changing.

Manny F.

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