found this today – twitscoop – looks very handy :D

As recent figures show there is still a lot of abuse going on in email marketing among UK businesses. 31% of the companies are breaking the anti-spam laws when sending out their email newsletters and building mailing lists. Your customers’ trust is priceless, so make sure you don’t loose it by not respecting their rights. Nothing annoys more than spammy emails, that you are unable to unsubscribe from.
This is something that your webdesigner should always advise you about, however:
- make sure every form on your website that collects the visitors’ data, includes an opt- in or opt-out option
- make sure every email that you send includes the usubscribe information and that this is clearly visible. moreover, make sure it works (and it’s free)

From http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing:

Ah, storytelling, yet another holy grail in the wonderful world of marketing. What’s new in this field? How about companies no longer inundating consumers with their ‘brand stories’, but instead helping customers tell a story to other consumers. Not to promote that particular brand, but to make those customers more interesting to others. Curious?

We have seen this trend slowly catching on in the jewellery world, it’s not the Roberto Coin jewellery these days, it’s the piece that a particular designer has designed and created FOR ME. Brands are big, but they are also strict and rigid. And mass-produced. They seem to think that the audience in London and in Exeter are the same people responding to same tickles. While we are seeing the customer increasingly looking for the unique and original. The companies that will adapt and give the customers something to tell stories about will win.

As recent figures show there is still a lot of abuse going on in email marketing among UK businesses. 31% of the companies are breaking the anti-spam laws when sending out their email newsletters and building mailing lists. Your customers’ trust is priceless, so make sure you don’t loose it by not respecting their rights. Nothing annoys more than spammy emails, that you are not able to unsubscribe from. This is something that your webdesigner should always advise you about, however: – make sure every form on your website, that collects the visitors’ data, includes an opt- in or opt-out option – make sure every email that you send includes the usubscribe information and that this is clearly visible. moreover, make sure it works (and it’s free)

went to the christmas networking event organised by Girly Geeks and Women in Technology yesterday, it was really nice to meet so many interesting people. being
quite shy i found it much easier to meet people where everyone’s aimed
at networking, AND everyone’s a woman. after few conversations i think
the consensus is that (first) there are only about 20% women in
technology, but it’s really not down to the employers not wanting to
employ females. quite the opposite, if you’re a woman it’s quite easy
to find a job as companies are trying to balance the staff. hence the
very interesting initiative to get 11-15 year old girls interested in
technology and IT, and show them it’s not only for boys. secondly, men
treat a job as a goal whereas women treat a job as a responsiblity,
which also means they take everything much more personally than men.
this sometimes can lead to women being able to resolve issues in a
better way then men, making them good project managers. but only after
they’ve learned not to take work as a personal issue.
all in all a very intersting evening.

Just had a thought…
If i put a given keyword into Google, say i’m
looking for a blog on windsurfing, i get a list of 10 blogs. Now i know
roughly how Google indexes the pages, but nobody knows for sure, the
algorythm is pretty complicated and not public. Google would have a
direct income from some of those blogs, through the AdSense programme.
Now do we trust Google that the possible gain is not influencing the
results? What i mean how do we know we’re not served the sites that
earn Google money before the sites that don’t if all the other factors
are comparable?
Do we trust Google ethics? I mean if it was any other company, we’d laugh.. But Google is cool, right?

i have two clients within the recruitment market – and they’re on the
opposite poles too: financial and construction. Now after reviewing the
year with both we came to the same conclusion. Online-only approach
does not work. Or maybe it would work if you had unlimited funds to pay
for SEO and SEM campaigns, AdWords and pay absolutely HEAPS for SE
positioning. But in the cost-effective small business world, having a
site with joblistings – and don’t get me wrong, all interactive with
loads of jobs and as current as possible – and advertising in industry
papers/magazines seems to be the most effective combination.
Which
came as a bit of a surprise, we all look for jobs online, innit? And
after an industry moves online (as we’ve seen with most shopping,
travel, flights…) it stays online? Well recruitment seems to have
moved online and stayed in print just as well. Now I’m not sure i can
explain the phenomenon, in my opinion it could have something to do
with the printed word still carrying some weight, or with the fact that
most of professionals (apart from IT/Marketing) are still reading
papers instead of online-papers and blogs, and thus advertising in
print still yields good results.
As i said, i won’t attempt an explanation, however i thought that our findings might interest some of you guys.
For
both companies the best results were obtained after slight rebranding -
nothing fancy, just bringing the company’s corporate look a bit up to
date. Careful competitor research, bit of market research and putting
together paper ads – then analysing what worked and what didn’t. So in
the end the advert served as a teaser to look for ‘more’ on the
website, and the website had to make sure it had ‘more’ and it all
worked just fine… Classic marketing, innit?
So next time someone
offers to put you on top of Google listing for ‘jobs’ for gazillions,
sit back and consider advertising in two of the industry papers. Seems
to work…

Internet world 2007 came and went and i must say i’m glad i went but
might skip it next year… Yes i know it sounds confusing but i was
confused too – looking at the list of exhibitors made me wonder who the
target audience was.
Half companies seemed targeted at Web Managers
and industry professionals: hosting, payment processing solutions,
analytics and such. Half companies our direct competitors: off-the
shelf CMS systems and e-commerce applications, people selling to an
audience who have their own product. Then the seminars – i cannot
comment on the Google academy, as i haven’t managed to get in, but from
the turnout it looked like the most interesting thing in the whole
exhibition. However every time i went past they seemed to be discussing
screenshots from Google local. I have sat in on a seminar on ‘The
ROI of Usability’ and popped in on a number of seminars on Web 2.0. And
it all seemed like preaching to the converted – everyone who’s in the
industry would be clued in about these issues already, they would form
our working practice, so my overall impression is – nothing new. But
it’s still good to see Web 2.0 finding its way into all online
solutions.

However i did pick up a couple of interesting leads for SME companies:
Payment processing: eKashu – looks to be affordable and easy to set up for SMEs, SecureTrading – bit higher prices but definitely good value for money
Product presentation – brandsauce - 3D modelling of your product to any specs – and the price seems really affordable.
And postcode anywhere – a solution we’ve integrated for a client before, and seems to work
like magic, so will look into providing it for other clients.

http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads/
just
received an email editorial from SitePro news (just one of the things
in my reading inbox, but nevermind), and to prove one of the points in
the article they refer to their recent advertising campaign. now it’s
so obviously a lame copy of the ongoing apple campaign that you want to
shout: You’re a marketer!! why do you tell your prospective clients
that your work ethos is blatant copying??

i know being inspired by successful campaigns isn’t such a bad idea, but is it worth to end up looking like a rip off???