The Best and Worst Experiences of Marketing Online

Misc

It may have happened this week, this month, this year, or this century, if you’ve had any experience marketing online, you’ve got stories, good ones, and, well, not so good ones. I call these lessons (smile). While I don’t read every post, I’m a fan of what Darren Rose does over at Problogger.net, last month he shared a best and worst blogging experiences of the week article, which I learned a lot from. I thought it was great, and decided to test out the idea here in light of some marketing stories I was sharing with a friend recently. I’ll share a couple of mine , and look forward to hearing yours. Between all of us, we should be able to learn a thing or two (let’s hope).

The Best and Worst Experiences of Marketing Online

Some say that marketing online is as much an art as it is a science, I tend to agree. Sometimes, however, the artistic/creative element of marketing could use a bit more science, and other times the scientific elements could use a bit more creative. Then there are those events that appear to be the perfect blend of both.

The Best: Recent Changes – Increased Conversions

Some adjustments have been made to the site recently, and noted some improvement. Optin conversions for the Online Marketers FAQ are up 9%, July over June. The change you ask? The popup lightbox new visitors get on the site was delayed 45 seconds, so instead of hitting them instantly, it gives them a chance to read some content prior to presenting them with an invitation for joining the site. Lesson: Giving prospects time to get to know you before making them an offer is smart, and gives you a better chance to build relationship with them down the road.

The Worst: Teleseminar Muted

This one might make Alex Mandossian proud… A few years ago, I hosted an 1 hour teleseminar with ACT! database software customers, and the handset was muted the entire time. This meant that not only did they not hear me, but the recording consisted of silence. I pulled an all nighter creating a video version of the teleseminar content presented that night (to myself!), and sent to customers the next day in the form of an apology. Lesson: Add the “verify people can hear you on the call” item to the preflight teleseminar checklist.

What Have Been Your Best and Worst Experiences of Marketing Online?

Have some best and worst experiences of marketing online? What did you learn? What will you change or do differently? Chime in using the comment boxes below.

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lessons, marketing strategy, online marketing

About Travis Campbell

Husband. Dad. Marketing automator. Author. Educating and coaching others in their online business endeavors. Here's his Google profile.

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Robert Mazel

Travis-
Best: Affiliate marketing revenues continue to climb.
Worst: By mistake I once sent an email to my newsletter list, which had no content in it.
-Robert

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

Congrats on your progress Robert. Was their anything you learned from either one of these items that you can share here?

http://www.ericstips.com/ Eric Holmlund

Running your own business is a constant stream of ups and downs, and I think a big part of one's ability to succeed in the long run is how they react and handle those successes and failures.

For me the best has been helping others. Recently I was able to help a missionary friend raise $7000 in one week at http://helpdani.com

The worst is technical problems… server issues… and hackers. In the past 6 years I've had my fair share of sleepless nights battling hacker attacks, spammers, and plain old technical glitches.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

Nice to hear someone doing something to benefit others in such a great way. Nice job Eric! As for technical glitches, there seems to be no end. It is important to hone those skills or hire those who have them. Which do you prefer?

http://www.ericstips.com/ Eric Holmlund

It's best to hire those who have the skills. No question about it.

However, it can certainly help to have some technical skills in this business. While most of us have hosting or a datacenter with on-call 24-7 support, the reality is that you can often get stuff done faster yourself and/or make sure they're doing a good job if you have the skills.

There are situations where fixing something myself in 10 minutes vs. waiting 30 minutes for a contracted tech guy to fix it can make a difference of thousands of dollars.

Fortunately those kind of incidences are fairly rare, but as my business grows, a time may come where it would be a good ROI for me to hire a team of full time server admins so I never have to be the one to step in and help.

http://www.googlingsocial.com IamChrisLang

Digg is now worthless to Kevin Rose. The last round of investment took any profit Rose can make out of his hands and it will now all go to the investors. $27M came in last month and that is the end of Digg being sold. For now.

The only way Kevin Rose and company can get the price back up to where he will profit is thru his new alliance with Facebook and Facebook Connect.

They just banned 2500 profiles removing dominant users to open the way and level the playing field on Digg. We feel that this is all about Facebook. They even banned the #3 user Zaibatsu for something that should not have mattered.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

Why do you think Digg failed? Was it poor judgement for Kevin to accept a cash infusion. Poor strategy, inability to execute, or the competition flattening them. If what you say is true, sounds like desperate moves to me. I guess what I'm saying here, in keeping with this post, what can we learn from the Digg story?

http://www.googlingsocial.com IamChrisLang

What can we learn? Don't let malicious groups like the Digg Mafia take over your social sites. It was the Digg Mafia that were the early users and made Digg.

But then when Kevin Rose could have easily sold the site early on he could not because the Digg Mafia had taken it over. So he took a second round of investment bankers in. Then Google passes, he took a third.

If he had done the right thing and kicked the malicious users out when he had the chance he could have made 50 million or so and sold it. Or removed the bury button. Anything, but his lack of action has now cost him more than Digg will ever return.

So, what have we learned? Inaction IS an action, doing nothing has just as much effect as doing something. When you wait and see, you usually end up seeing your butt get kicked.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

So what you are saying is that the rogue users took over the site for their purposes, abused it, and left Kevin Rose (founder and Owner of Digg) with the bag, and an company that had fraction of value. Am I getting you?

Taking action is important, with that I agree. However, the only thing worse that singing the wrong note in the choir, is doing so enthusiastically…right? Action has to be balanced with the idea of *sound* action. It must be thought out and calculated where possible.

That said, it is not enough to understand market trends, you almost have to be prophetic, and anticipate them in order to win. This is a skill not common among us, and the few that have it, seem to dominate, and *create* their own market. Now that is a different discussion altogether.

http://www.MarketingProfessor.com Travis Campbell

So what you are saying is that the rogue users took over the site for their purposes, abused it, and left Kevin Rose (founder and Owner of Digg) with the bag, and an company that had fraction of value. Am I getting you?

Taking action is important, with that I agree. However, the only thing worse that singing the wrong note in the choir, is doing so enthusiastically…right? Action has to be balanced with the idea of *sound* action. It must be thought out and calculated where possible.

That said, it is not enough to understand market trends, you almost have to be prophetic, and anticipate them in order to win. This is a skill not common among us, and the few that have it, seem to dominate, and *create* their own market. Now that is a different discussion altogether.

The Best and Worst Experiences of Marketing Online

The Best and Worst Experiences of Marketing Online