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Marketing During a Recession – Nine Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Dollars

2009-02-17T12:05:00.002-06:00

Today's news is all about the economy and how we are in the worst recession since the Great Depression. We wanted to put a "recess" to all the negativity and discuss some ways to use the Internet as a cost-effective marketing tool, not only during difficult times, but at anytime.

We interviewed some of the best and brightest people in marketing today, people like David Meerman Scott, Paul Gillin, Ben McConnell, Ann Handley, Todd Defren, David Alston and a host of others, gleaned their insights and created a nine-part series we've entitled, Nine Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Dollars During the Recession. Each video is only a few minutes long, yet contains a wealth of information we know you will find helpful.

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Gmail Goggles

2008-12-06T02:43:00.017-06:00

When I first discovered Gmail Labs, I went a little overboard and enabled every feature they offered without fully exploring them. I was more than a little surprised when I tried to send an email tonight (um, this morning) and encountered a little roadblock... a pop-up with a few little math problems and 60 seconds to solve them if I wanted my email to send!

Ok, now I get it... Mail Goggles - very clever! And effective. I'm not drunk, just working late and tired and I actually had to use my desktop calculator to solve the problems in 60 seconds. If I were drunk I feel certain I would have given up and gone to bed and written a letter of thanks to the developers in the morning when I woke up to the count down on my Gmail.

And if at first you don't succeed, it just gives you new problems. And some gentle criticism. I may leave it up and see if the comments get progressively worse: "Go to bed you drunk, idiot!"

Now that I'm thinking about it, this would be a great feature to add the the Google Phone for text messages - no more TWI!

read more | digg story

My Opinion on The G1 - An Interview with Manifest Magazine

2008-12-05T01:52:00.014-06:00

When Wahyd Vannoni saw my steady stream of Twitter tweets on the G1, he asked if I would write an article for Manifest Magazine. I said I would love to! I never actually found the time to do it, so he interviewed me instead. Fittingly, the interview took place via Google Chat - though I was on my computer, not the phone at the time - I'm not that good...yet!

Google Phone

While the iPhone is now available in several countries, the Google Phone is only available in the US for now.
“Manifest” asked digital marketing strategist Caroline Barry for her opinion on this latest communications device.

Caroline please tell us, what made you chose the GPhone? What was the appeal?

I have wanted an iPhone since they came out, however I am in a contract with T-Mobile. It turns out the GPhone is much better suited for me as I use all of the Google apps that the GPhone uses - Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Docs.

What are your likes and dislikes so far?

I absolutely love all of the add-ons available. My only dislikes would be some of the actual "phone" features. For example switching between calls is difﬁcult and there is no notiﬁcation if you are on the phone and receive a text that I can tell. Another dislike is that it is highly sensitive, I have "accidentally" called people too many times. I would also like to see the calendar feature enhanced. However, the call quality is excellent, and I have never had a call dropped. The aesthetics of the phone are very pleasing as well.

Do you think it is good value for money?

It’s a very good value if you are able to get it for $179 as I did - I was eligible for the upgrade. However, I have deﬁnitely heard some complaints of people having to pay close to $500.

Have you been able to compare your GPhone with a friend's iPhone?

I really have not used an iPhone, but I think the biggest difference would be the keyboard - the GPhone has a full keyboard, complete with numbers so it is very easy to operate. Though I do wish it had the option of not having to pull out the keyboard all the time.

The phone is not symmetrical when the keyboard is extended, so at ﬁrst it seemed awkward to use - you can see this in a photo of the phone. I thought it would be an issue, but I really don't notice it anymore and have become very proﬁcient at typing on the keyboard.

I think as far as apps go, the GPhone offers a similar selection, possibly some more advanced apps than the iPhone. The GPS is a key selling point, one I was not really aware of, but many of the apps are tied into the GPS. It has Google Maps with street-level viewing, which is amazing! I am not sure if the iPhone offers this.

I have not been terribly impressed with the music feature though, so I do think this is
something that iPhone would be better for. There is only one headphone jack, which is also the same as your charger jack. Also it comes with only a 1 gigabyte card so it does not store much music and I have not had the patience to download much from my iTunes. This is because it doesn't interact with iTunes as an iPhone would, so you have to import directly from your library as far as I can tell, just creating a lot of extra steps - I just haven't spent much time on it yet.

The contacts feature is interesting. The contacts on the GPhone are your GMail contacts. It was a bit of a nightmare at ﬁrst - taking care of the many multiple entries for each contact. I spent a good deal of time updating all of my contacts online. I had to create a few groups, and then choose which I wanted to have as my phone list. Overall, it is good because now I have the info saved, but a merging feature of some sort would have been nice!

There is no 3G network available where I live, however I have not seemed to notice, the phone is very fast in all applications and I will run multiple programs without it
freezing up. The email notiﬁcations actually show up before I get them on my computer!

The touchscreen is very fun to look at and play with! The android market has amazing, free apps that are fun and useful - I love the barcode scanner, jogtracker, and the ﬂashlight! Overall I am very impressed and pleased with this phone. I ﬁnd it interesting that I have not met anyone else who has one, yet a lot of people recognize
it and ask me about it.

---
Caroline Barry is a self-employed digital marketing strategist specializing in search engine optimization and social networking. She is ﬁnally ﬁnding time to set-up her own website: www.beawebpreneur.com, which will be available soon.

You can keep in touch with Caroline through her twitterfeeds at www.twitter.com/tweetcaroline

What's a feed? RSS in Plain English

2008-12-05T01:22:00.002-06:00

Really Simple Syndication: not really simple to explain. This video from Common Craft does an excellent job.

Twitter in Plain English

2008-12-05T01:09:00.002-06:00

An excellent explanation of Twitter from the geniuses at Common Craft.

Internet Searching May Boost Brain

2008-10-16T13:59:00.001-05:00

For middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet could be a boost to the brain, a new study suggests.

read more | digg story

Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

2008-10-16T13:42:00.001-05:00

The masters shares some LinkedIn wisdom... Great article on some little known uses of LinkedIn.By Guy Kawasaki

read more | digg story

iPhone vs gPhone

2008-09-29T10:56:00.002-05:00

Will my indentured servitude to TMobile finally pay off? I have been lusting after the IPhone since the day it came out but unable to stomach the buyout of my 2 contracts with TMobile. It looks like revenge might be sweet!

read more | digg story

Finding a $250K contract on LinkedIn Answers

2008-09-29T10:35:00.001-05:00

I love Linkedin Answers and use it all the time when I need quick, professional advice. I also recommend my clients use it to establish themselves as experts in their field, as well as to meet new contacts. Read how one exec garnered a quarter million dollar contract with his answers.

read more | digg story

Craig's List Meta Search

2008-09-29T05:35:00.002-05:00

Ever need or want to find something across several craig's lists? This is a cool web based utility to search with key words etc... Check out the help link for all the flexible options.

read more | digg story

Skinny Z's

2008-09-29T05:33:00.001-05:00

Possibly the best reason to get a good night's sleep, it will help you lose weight! Check out the article in Psychology Today.

read more | digg story

Gustav’s effect on Baton Rouge could be messy

2008-08-28T14:16:00.000-05:00

A direct hit or near hit on Baton Rouge from a powerful Hurricane Gustav would not be catastrophic, though it would be a mess, says Dane Dartez, a research associate with the LSU Hurricane Center.

The Capital Region, being more than 60 miles from the coast, doesn't have to worry about a storm surge, though the Mississippi River would rise because of pressure on the river from the south, while homes in low-lying areas would flood from heavy rainfall. Dartez particularly cites development along the low-elevation Maurepas Swamp region in Ascension Parish as being vulnerable to flooding. The likely scenario for the Baton Rouge region could be similar to the drenching Tropical Storm Allison delivered in 2001, but with stronger, damaging winds. Expect downed trees and power lines, and the inconvenience of being without power, possibly for several days, if Gustav strikes the Capital Region.

—Steve Clark
:: Baton Rouge Business Report :: Daily Report

Will History Repeat Itself?

2008-08-28T10:27:00.001-05:00

National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles are selling briskly, and one small-town mayor has spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area is skittishly watching as a storm marches across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.

read more | digg story

Hurricane Prep: Get a Game Plan

2008-08-27T03:39:00.000-05:00

Get A Game Plan - www.getagameplan.org

Louisiana Gov. Jindal urges residents to prepare for Gustav

2008-08-27T01:29:00.001-05:00

During a news conference in Baton Rouge on Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Bobby Jindal shared that concern and urged Louisiana residents to start preparing for the worst. Jindal emphasized that although there is still a lot of uncertainty in the track Gustav could take, it’s not too early for families to make sure they’re prepared.

read more | digg story

Never Lose an Email Again

2008-08-26T12:12:00.001-05:00

From the Official Gmail Blog: How to find any email with Gmail search

The sight of someone scrolling through hundreds of email messages trying to find a specific one is like fingers on a chalkboard for me. With a few tricks, you can use Gmail to find the exact message you're looking for, without all the scrolling.

If you don't get a ton of mail, just typing in the words you're looking for usually does the trick. I can just type lisa in the search box and get all of the messages from my friend Lisa, southwest to bring up my ticket confirmations, or "bank statement" to help get my finances in order.

But the real power of Gmail search lies in search operators -- words that help modify your queries. Search operators work pretty much the same way within Gmail as they do for Google. So, if I want the email Lisa sent me with her flight information so I know when to pick her up at the airport, I type from:lisa SFO. Likewise:

A link from my co-worker Michael: from:michael http
A photo from my mom: from:mom has:attachment
That last chat I had with one of the Gmail product managers: keith is:chat
All messages from ebay that aren't outbid notices: ebay -outbid (the hyphen tells Gmail to return all of the messages that don't contain the word that follows it)
The messages in my inbox sent directly to me that I haven't read yet: to:me is:unread in:inbox

You can limit the scope of your search to a particular subject (subject:) or label (label:) as well. And you can get pretty fancy. Recently, I was trying to remember the date of my friend's April birthday. I always send her a birthday email, so I searched to:maya (birthday OR bday) after:2007/4/1 before:2007/5/1. It's the 19th.

If remembering operators isn't really your thing, that's ok. There's a "Show search options" link to the right of the search bar at the top of your inbox.

Clicking that provides you with text fields you can fill in to get the precision of advanced search. Start there, but after a while you'll probably find that using operators is a lot faster.

Top 10 Gmail Tips

2008-08-26T12:07:00.001-05:00

Gmail blog turns 1: Looking back at our 10 most read tips

Thursday, July 03, 2008 1:28 PM

Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

When we launched the Gmail blog exactly one year ago, our goal was to provide you with new feature announcements, insight into how the Gmail team works, and tips on how to become a Gmail ninja. We hope you've enjoyed reading our posts, and to celebrate our birthday, here's a look back at the past year and a recap of our 10 most read tips:

10) Have Gmail do your laundry - How to suggest new features for Gmail. We always like hearing from you.

9) Tips for importing old email to Gmail - A post on how to make the switch to Gmail as seamless as possible.

8) Edit contacts right from your chat list - When we released the newest version of Gmail, it came with some new bells and whistles. This one will help you clean up your chat list and change contact information quickly.

7) 2 Hidden ways to get more from your Gmail address - You can insert certain characters to your email address to get additional names out of it -- all of which still make it to your inbox.

6) How to find any email with Gmail search - To take the best advantage of Gmail search, we explain how to use search operators so you can find any email the first time.

5) 5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about - When we released the newest version of Gmail, there were a bunch of really useful features people didn't yet know about. So we told you about them.

4) Top 10 little known Gmail features (and Part 2) - In this post, we explained ten Gmail features that people generally didn't know about. From "custom from" to creating events in Gmail, this post goes over key features any serious Gmail user needs to know.

3) Getting Gmail anywhere: IMAP versus POP - A lot of people choose to get Gmail on mobile phones and destkop mail clients, so we went over the two most popular ways people do so and showed the key benefits of using IMAP -- which we've provided for free since the fall.

2) 3 Gmail Labs features that will spice up your inbox - This post covers how to enable and use the most popular Gmail Labs features: Superstars, Pictures in chat and Quick Links.

1) 9 reasons to archive - From the sophisticated to the snarky, these tips fueled the most viewed post in Gmail blog history. If this doesn't get you to archive, then we don't know what will.

Thanks for reading this past year, and we hope to provide even more tips this year -- so stay tuned.

AdSense for Feeds Rocking Google

2008-08-26T11:47:00.001-05:00

Legendary blogger, John Chow explains Google's Adsense for feeds. Chow says he has "already made more in one day with AdSense for Feeds than I made in a full month running the now dead FeedBurner Ad Network." Chow explains the migration process in this informative post.

read more | digg story

I dreamed my whole house was clean...

2008-08-22T00:45:00.001-05:00

Kids Say the Darndest Things

2008-07-02T10:03:00.002-05:00

My 10 year old daughter just shared this poem she wrote about me last January. I must plead guilty.

The Caroline

30 seconds til takeoff,
All aboard The Caroline.
We are very fast,
We're the #1 airline.

How social networking saved New Orleans

2008-07-01T11:33:00.002-05:00

In a powerful presentation, Alan Gutierrez of the nonprofit group Think New Orleans detailed an inspiring post-Hurricane Katrina story of how a crash course in social networking helped people emerge from the rubble; find their voice; fight the government; solicit help; and save their neighborhoods, schools and each other.

read more | digg story

May I buy you dinner?

2008-06-29T17:42:00.007-05:00

Just discovered something cool: Restaurant.com

Restaurant.com sells discounted online Gift Certificates to restaurants. $25 Gift Certificates are $10, $50 Gift Certificates are $20, etc. You can also see the restaurant details, check out the menu and wine lists and make online reservations.

If you place an order with Restaurant.com by June 30th you'll receive a FREE $10 Gift Certificate via email within 24 hours of your purchase.

AND if you use the Promo Code MEALS when you check out you will receive 60% off your order!

I wanted to check it out before I posted it, so I went to the site, found a restaurant I like and purchased a $10 Gift Certificate. I selected a $10 Gift Certificate which is $10 off of a $20 purchase. I used the code MEALS and saved 60% making my total $1.20, which I paid via PayPal. I received an email immediately and printed my certificate. I then received another email for an additional $10 Gift Certificate to Restaurant.com because I ordered before June 30th. So for a buck and some change I got the equivalent of $20 in food.

The certificates are good for 1 year and can be exchanged for other restaurants within 90 days. They have various other promotions and a Dinner of the Month Club. You can use only 1 coupon per party, per month and it excludes alcohol and beverages. I wouldn't want to whip out a coupon if I was at a fancy restaurant or on a date (that's for the guys reading this, ladies should never pay, but that's another post) but it's perfect for me to take my 3 kids out to eat - as you can see by my profile picture, I am "Domestically Disabled" which basically means I don't cook. So finding new places to eat that don't break the bank is important to me.

I am generally not a coupon saver, but lately I have been in the habit for looking for online promotional codes because I do so much internet shopping. I am going to share my finds with my readers so let me know if you know of any good ones!

My Question to Scott Fox: Web Site vs. Blog Hosting?

2008-06-29T14:40:00.004-05:00

Ask Scott Fox: Web Site vs. Blog Hosting?

Dear Scott,Can a business use a blog instead of a web site? For businesses that simply need a web presence to provide information, such as an attorney, insurance agent, or consultant, can a blog be used rather than a website? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What platform would you recommend?Thanks,Caroline

Scott Fox

Dear Caroline,The distinctions between blogs and web sites are disappearing. Traditionally a blog was more "post-based", while a web site was more about "web pages". But as everyone online updates their sites more frequently, it turns out that the easy posting and content management tools of blogs work very well for web sites, too.Because businesses such as the attorneys, insurance agents, and consultants you mention are more likely to need to communicate basic, evergreen info than fancy design or e-commerce functionality, blogs could likely work just fine for them. I've found that using a browser-based blog editing system to create and maintain a web site is a great solution, especially for newbies or small business owners who don't have the time, interest, or resources to worry about server maintenance, FTP, and the many other technical details that often accompany running your own site. In fact, this winter I moved this very site, ScottFox.com, from a traditional web host (IPW) to a blog host, Typepad, because the blog updating tools make it so much easier to administer.At first I did this just as an experiment in researching my next book (a sequel to Internet Riches). But I soon found that keeping the main site separate from my blog was unnecessary. As my frequent readers know, I now recommend Typepad to my books/blog/radio audience both for "blogs" and for basic "web sites" because the tools are essentially interchangeable. There's an extensive review/discussion of Typepad's pros & cons at the link below. Wordpress.com also seems to have improved its offerings substantially recently, so we're currently looking at that platform for further review/coverage in my blogs, too.I hope that's helpful. Scott Foxhttp://www.websitetoolreviews.com/2008/03/bestsitehosting.html ScottFox.com - Internet Riches: Ask Scott Fox: Web Site vs. Blog Hosting?

Comments

Scott,

Thank you for taking the time to answer and also for confirming what I thought to be true! I provide online marketing for several clients and have seen them taken advantage of by web design companies because of their naivety of search engines, websites, etc.

I am considering offering this service to a few clients who have never even heard of a blog, so I really wanted to confirm my own belief that in certain situations, it is actually a more useful tool. I am looking forward to exploring your blog, ebook, etc... I am continually looking for proper information on best practices. There is such an excess if SEO junk out there that it is almost impossible to weed through it all. I am now trying to decide between wordpress and typepad....

Thanks again!

Caroline Barry

eBags: Summer Sale! Up to 70% Off and FREE SHIPPING!

2008-06-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

Google Tries Tighter Aim for Web Ads -- Knows What You Want

2008-06-28T18:08:00.002-05:00

Google for the first time is testing ways to use some of the data it gathers to aim ads at Web users. Ads that a person sees on one Google search may be influenced by what was searched a few minutes earlier. Searching for “scuba,” then something else, and then “vacations" could pull up ads for diving trips, for example.

read more | digg story