Jamdo Marketing Blog

The first partnership in a website I entered into had quite a few problems. It didn’t end particularly badly or anything like that (in fact I am having a beer with my old partner on Monday), but there was always a bit of tension regarding the site and the business surrounding it. This is a real risk for online business collaborations where partners don’t necessarily meet face to face or talk with each other all that often (and sometimes never at all).

The main reason for the tension in that first partnership was that our communication system wasn’t all that good. Sure we had spreadsheets and email and phone, but we never really got a system settled for how we recorded business decisions, marketing decisions or design and content decisions. It was all a bit ad hoc with us emailing and saving over each other’s documents (sometimes unintentionally). It was not a great setup.

Recently, I have started another online project with a partner and it is quite the opposite. Everything is going startlingly smoothly and there have been no tensions, no fights, no disagreements or really anything like that.

The single greatest reason for this is Google Documents.

Now, I am sure you have heard of Google Spreadsheets (which was formerly iRows). It is basically a collaborative spreadsheet that saves in real time so one person or twenty can be working on the same document.

We have a single spreadsheet document that has a bunch of different worksheets. One for keeping track of finances, another for keeping track of the publishing schedule. Another for keeping track of advertising and marketing campaigns, another for keeping track of other blogs and sites that we want to be mentioned on. There’s really no limit there.

But the main point is that we are on the same page! (sorry - bad pun).

We also keep a another document that has the template of the format that we use to post content to our blog. That way we can both refer to that document for our own purposes and we can also share it with contractors who we hire to write content for us. This seems to be working quite well so far.

Once again, the central idea is open communication.

Google’s online documents allow collaborative abilities that simply weren’t widely available (let alone free) all that long ago.

The thing is that these tools are a great arrow in the quiver of good business communications for online partnerships and projects.

With the imminent release of Google Gears, which will allow users to take Google Docs offline, one can only hope that the aids to successful online collaborations will get even better.

Technorati Tags: google, blogging, arguments

Share This

Building an email list is one of the smartest things that any website owner can do.

A few weeks ago, I got in contact with an affiliate who owns a very large email list to ask her to promote one of the Merchant programs that I manage. Within 24 hours she had driven several thousand dollars in sales from a single product - all from a single email list.

I was impressed.

So impressed that it compelled me to take a closer look at one of the membership sites I belong to - one called “List and Traffic” which is run by a guy called Jimmy D. Brown.

As the name suggests, it is all about building an email list and subsequent website traffic and profitting from them both.

Now, I have been using the tips from this site for my own nefarious purposes for at least 6 months. To be blunt, Jimmy is a kickass copywriter and I regularly use tips from this site to generate my headlines for blogs and some of my Adwords campaigns. By using some of his headline tricks, I am generally able to significantly increase click through rates by around 50% on some of my Adwords campaigns (this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he wrote the tips, but it works for me).

Other gems on List and Traffic are geared towards building an email list quickly and effectively with small reports, incentives, paid and free traffic - in fact he seems to have a detailed system for just about every online marketing strategy I have ever used and a bunch that I haven’t. Most of these systems come in the form of unique written reports (which is what I prefer), but he also has a lot of video tutorials which seems to be what newbies prefer. There’s also a bunch of podcasts which suits me nicely so I can listen when I am on the move.

Some of the material, you will know the general principals of from reading quality sites like Copyblogger or Pay Per Click IQ, or even Jamdo, but this guy has narrowed its focus to email lists and promotion only (that’s not to say you can’t use his tips for other stuff like I have).

I must say, I would prefer to see him update the content a little more (usually it’s two or three times per week) but there are plently of archives to read through (and act on). Standards wise, I would rank him among the best for quality of written material (his writing reminds me a little of Brian from Copyblogger). The forum is not as good as some other forums, but it does have the advantage that Jimmy posts on it so you can differentiate between the experts and the loud-mouths.

All up, if you want to kickstart your list, I would say this one is worth checking out.

Further Resources:

List and Traffic

Share This

Getting up to date stats for your blog can be a bit of a pain.

Most stats packages only update once every 24 hours.

Performacing Metrics is great in that it updates every hour which means bloggers can analyse their stats almost in real time in order to take advantage of any surges in blog traffic. That’s especially handy for bloggers because some of our traffic surges only last for a few hours and a 24 hour stats update sequence doesn’t cut the mustard.

But for users of AWStats there is actually a simple little hack that you can use to get your stats updated when you want.

Firstly make sure you have AWStats!

Then you need to log into your site (I use an FTP program, but you can navigate to the correct file from within your CPanel using the tools there).

Go to tmp>awstats>awstats.yourURL.com.config

This is a config file that you can edit using a standard text editor like Notpad (just right click on it and open it using Notepad or your FTP program).

Go to line 155 where you will find something that says “AllowToUpdateStatsFromBrowser=0″

Cange that to “AllowToUpdateStatsFromBrowser=1″

Note: Don’t use the “”

Save the file to the server.

Now when you log into your AWStats you will see an option at the top of the page which allows you to update your stats!

Real time AWStats! Woot!

Now for some reason, this isn’t very stable and occassionally keeps resetting to 24 hours but it only takes 20 seconds to fix again, and then you have up-to-date stats.

A nice thing to have for us bloggers!

Share This

I just unsubscribed from 90% of the “marketing” e-newsletters that I generally read.

It’s gotten to the point where I am sick of these idiots whoring their affiliate links onto me without actually giving me any good content or ideas in return. Some of them hadn’t sent me a “newsletter” in months that didn’t contain an affiliate link and I just got fed up. A few months back when that “Butterfly Affiliate Marketing” course was released, I remember waking up to at least 10 emails from the affiliate vultures trying to get me to purchase through their links.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for affiliate marketing, but at least provide a little value to me in the 10 minutes of the day that you aren’t trying to take my money. Do not try to sell to me EVERY time you write to me.

Despite desperately wanting to, I am not going to reveal which e-newsletters I unsubscribed from (doing stuff like that has a nasty habit of coming back to bite you on the ass when you are on the internet), but I would like to share a couple of newsletters that I think represent value in the content and ideas they give me without forcing every two-bit “must-have” internet program down my throat. These are not affiliate links and I have no connection with these newsletters other than enjoying them and thinking the people who produce them deserve recognition, thanks and a bigger audience.

When these guys DO send me an affiliate program I will go out of my way to make sure I have clicked on their affiliate links so they get some commission, if I make a purchase on their recommendations.

Yaro Starak’s Newsletter

Most of you will know Yarro as the Blog Traffic King or from Entrepreneur’s journey. I have been following his blog for quite a while, but he also does a newsletter targeted towards getting good traffic to your blog. It is well worth the read every time and I can’t actually remember the last time he tried to sell me something. Great content, great ideas and a selfless blogger.

It doesn’t come out too often and Yaro has never spammed me with some lame affiliate product that I “must buy today.”

I highly recommend subscribing to his enewsletter.

Gary Bencivenga

Gary’s newsletter is geared towards skillful copywriting. It is not specifically for bloggers, but it is very useful for anyone who likes to learn the skills of writing persuasively. While it might be more geared towards marketers in general, I think a lot of bloggers could learn a thing or two from the ideas in these newsletters.

Gary doesn’t write his newsletter very often, but I always open it because I know there is going to be a good idea on writing in it, even if it’s something I don’t want to apply to my own situation.

The other thing is that Gary does not spam me with affiliate links (in fact I can’t remember the last time he even included an affiliate link in his newsletter). One thing I don’t like is Gary’s site which looks like one of those tacky sales letters, but in his defence, a lot of markters swear by those type of sites.

Anyway, this one is well worth subscribing to.

____________

Now I am sure there are a few other enewsletters that are ok. I am just sick of having things pushed on me and the two nesletters above rarely, if ever do that. They also happily give me a lot fo ideas for free and I see value in what they offer.

Of course, I am open to other enewsletters, but in the meantime I am enjoying my emptier in-box.

Share This

If you like sharing photographs online then you will probably be interested in a relatively new Web 2.0 company called Riya.

They are an online photsharing service with a slight twist.

Sure, they have most of the other cool things that you would expect from a photo sharing site like unlimited uploads, hotlinking, sharing with friends etc, but also one extra thing…

You can teach Riya to recognise your photos!

What that actually means is that it can recognise certain people in your photographs by use of biometric facial recognition software.

After the system has recognised a certain face, it will put a little box around the face to indicate that it has recognised a face, and then you can tag that box with the name of the person. It can also recgise multiple people in the one image.

Riya learns so in future it will recognise that person and tag photos of them automatically.

This is a very handy use of biometrics.

Riya can also recognise text in a photo and transform it to text that you can alter. One very cool application for this is that you could theoretically take a photo of an essay and then upload it to Riya and have it transferred to editable text.

All very cool stuff, but it is still in Beta and it is far from perfect. For example the software does not always recognise faces and tagged faces cannot always be recognised in additional photos that you upload. You also need to download a little program to your desktop that allows you to upload your photos to their system. The upload process is a little slow and if you have more than 500 photo they recommend that you leave the system uploading overnight.

One major concern that I had was the issue of privacy. When Riya recognises a face in a photo, it prompts you to tag the photo with the name of the person and their email. I simply was not comfortable doing that with photos of my friends, whose permission I did not explicitly have to be giving their personal information to an online service.

No amount of privacy policy reassurance would ever convince me that this was a good idea and so that is one thing I will NOT be doing on Riya. A massive database of people’s photos, names and emails, all attained without those people’s explicit permission is something that strikes at the heart of my Libertarian conscience.

On the other hand there is no denying that this is a very adept use of technology and I think it will be hugely popular.

Technorati Tags: riya, photo sharing, photos

Share This

OK, so I wrote a slightly tongue in cheek post about the $0.11 I made with Squidoo a while back.

Bit the catcher is that they actuall paid that eleven cents to my PayPal account!

I actually dropped an email to them mentioning that they may like to introduce a minimum payout threshold. Here’s what they had to say:

For this first payment, we wanted to make a point: People are making
money. And we’re paying it out.

We’ll consider a threshold for the future.

So there you have it!

These guys are very serious about paying their writers and kudos to them for that.

Actually as far as I can see, they are doing everything right in an effort to earn the confidence of the online community.

That is commendable and I think that they will be successful as a result.

Technorati: Squidoo

Share This