When you think about it, it is the simple questions that often spark the deepest sense of reflection.

Why are we here?

Who are you?

What is it you are really looking for?

Who stole my chocolate?

All kidding aside, when it comes to good marketing it all has to start with the ultimate question:

"Where Are You Going?"

Without clearly articulating and establishing WHERE your company will be in the future moving your business forward effectively becomes an obvious challenge.


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The reality is that most of the emails we get from businesses are...lame. And, if you are sending out emails yourself you may have already resigned to the fact that you get a low response rate - it's just the nature of email, right?

No.

The reason we can accept poor response rates from email marketing is because we are lazy. Creating and sending an email is just too easy these days. So, type away....drop it into a nice template...fire it off and see what happens.

No wonder response is weak. You've earned it.

Want to get some killer results???? Read on..

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When companies set out to create their websites...or re-create them they often talk about two key things.

1. I want it to look great.
2. I want it to be easy to navigate.

Now those are two good objectives that should be on your list. But there is a third item that is even more important that those that most companies miss:

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The notion of "choosing your customers" is a strange one - but it is really the key to faster and more profitable business growth.

It is tempting to look at a broad market and salivate at its potential. But if you go after the entire market, you often end up watering down your proposition and end up making customer acquisition more of a challenge.

If you think about it, by understanding and being very clear about WHO you want to acquire, your sales and marketing efforts can be that much more effective, efficient and directed towards your ideal customer group. When I present this notion to my clients the concept becomes immediately intuitive.

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In Branding Google Part 1 I talked about the importance of having a clearly distinguished and differentiated message in your Google ad in order to significantly attract more qualified and valuable customers to your website.

The impetus behind this is that as more players come in and compete with Pay Per Click marketing you are going to find more and more competing messages on that first page of results...so you need to have a more compelling message for the people that you want to click on your ad...otherwise it is a crap shoot who they choose.

In this part, Part 2, I want to talk about another impact of the growing participation in Pay Per Click marketing - multi-page pay per click results.

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This is not really about branding Google, the brand, but about what I see as the next generation of effective pay per click marketing.

One of the advantages today of pay per click (PPC) marketing over search engine optimization (SEO) is that you could get your website up on the first page for your desired keywords the next day (or even the same day). No fancy tricks or funny algorithms or linking strategies..you just bid high on the keywords and boom...you are up. It is one of the best and most cost effective ways of getting in front of your prospective buyers immediately.

But with less than 5% of businesses using pay per click marketing as more and more companies come on board it is going to have an enormous impact on your ability to get a good position even in PPC marketing - plus, the competition for your prospects eyeballs is going to increase.

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Well, I thought I was done with online dating but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

In November 2006 along with some buddies I launched a new dating site Single Parent Love Life.

In 1993 I began my career as an online matchmaker when I was hired by Lavalife as their first marketing person. Eight years later I was the VP Marketing. It's funny cause back then it was lame to be using online dating services...you were a loser. Eventually we turned things around for singles so all of a sudden online dating and who you met online was/were cool.

So now I am back at it with a new group of singles that need a better online dating experience...single moms and dads.

When I was approached by Peter Ehrlich, a single dad in Toronto about helping take on this project I knew very little about single parents and dating. But, I was curious. Eventually I found out some staggering statistics:

- one out of every four singles in North America is a single mom or dad...that's 20
million people
- one out of every three online daters is a single parent
- single parent households are the fastest growing household type in the world
- while single parents need online dating (it fits into their busy lifestyle) their experience in the online dating world sucks

Enter Single Parent Love Life - the first online dating service designed to deal with the real lifestyle and dating realities of single moms and dads - and it is a place where they are the stars of the show - a place to feel desired, attractive and sexy!

Dave Evans, an online dating blogger gave us an early review and Alana Pratt and Jodi Seidler, two single parent and sexy mom gurus gave us a big thumbs up.

Check out our video. It is funny cause most non-single parents think it is kinda tasteless...but our single moms like it (guys like it unanimously).

More on SPLL later....

There are many arguments for how long a successful campaign can run - a few weeks, maybe even months.

But what about years?

It is possible if you button down your media management.

With a good ad media management is the key to extended duration. Let’s face it if an ad pulls then it pulls. The only time it will stop pulling is if you a) run out of media dollars or, b) run out of audience.

There are a number of ways to use your media buy and media testing to extend any campaign that works.


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Ah yes....an endless budget...every marketer's dream! But the real world tells us there is only so much to go around.

One of the most common comments I hear from colleagues and clients is that "I would love to do that if I only had more time and more money".


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I have decided to add a new category for my blog called "Mitch's Tips". The category will include a host of practical ideas and suggestions to help you out where you may be struggling on your business or within your marketing efforts.

All the tips will be practical in nature vs theoretical - so you can use them right away to start making a difference.

Enjoy!

Mitch