Have channels will travel

I'm always quite impressed at the short term memory of the IT industry when it comes to "latest fads".  They are always trumpeted as "the replacement" for previous ways of doing things, where the truth is closer to them offering an "additional" or perhaps "alternative" way of doing things. 

We're seeing it now in the hype such as "Facebook will replace email" or "Facebook will replace Google" (both statements from F/B itself,  unsurprisingly).  I guess the CEO & founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg,  is a little too young to remember the statements in the early 90's like "Client-Server spells the end of the mainframe"; "Internet will replace call centres and branches".

The fact is new technologies challenge existing capabilities and "revolutionise" where there is obvious inefficiency - sure. But these mini revolutions are only a process of incrementalism and not root and branch upheavals.  Try telling a large corporate today that it can do without its mainframe. Wasn't it Charles Schwabb that bent over backwards to re-possess all the physical outlets it had sold-off in its haste to become "Internet Trendy?"  Has anyone yet had an accurate, relevant search result from Facebook?

None of the many new web marketing channels (see my brain) out-and-out replace existing ones.  The trick, is to understand them and adopt them where they offer improvement (see my write-up on International Casting as an example below).  But then, cruelly, that also requires us to understand where our existing position is already strong, and where the new widget DOESN'T (maybe yet) add much value.

The irony behind the new-widget-sexy-statement is that it plays as much to what we DON'T KNOW about what we already have, as much as it offers rewards that may, or may not be true... or long-lived.  I chose the name "Bricks and Clicks" for my Internet Marketing venture for a reason.

Sites of interest this month

I have been involved with the following sites since June:

Green Energy (Eu) - adds the Edd:e

Green Energy (eu) have added the Edd:e - an energy consumption monitor that works at the level of each individual circuit in your premises or business. The consequently gives much greater granularity of analysis and reporting allowing much more accurate problem determination and prediction of solutions.  We have added Edd:e to the site.  Mike now tells me I'm one product behind as they have now also added an Eco Cooling solution to their range of energy-saving appliances.  You'll have to wait until the next newsletter to read about those!

International Casting

International Casting launched its Facebook page this month, on my prompting (this is definitely a proposition that would do very well on this social network).  230 "likes" and counting.  However, this month I am focussing back on the web-site as this is still "home base" as far as web marketing is concerned.  What we have done with Facebook now is to add a very useful channel.

English speaking for Japanese

Well, I have now completed the market research for the home page for Simone's business and am now waiting to implement the changes on the site.  It sounds like Simone has had some great success off-web calling people up and shaking hands (when did THAT technology ever get replaced?).  More to report in August.

HolidayGites.co.uk

Link building work continues for Paul's Holiday Gites directory for France.  Interestingly the Alexa web statistics group produced a report of how such holiday sites rank against each other and I was gratified to see Paul's site listed in the top 20 by traffic volume (currently number 14).  That is a great achievement, given the plethora of "me too" sites in this market.

Legacy Habitat Management

We continue to manage and tune Legacy Habitat's sponsored search campaigns but now really need to look behind the scenes at the Google Analytics to see the customer behaviour going on on some of the pages where there may be opportunities to exploit the evident market interest.

Nearly Heaven

A number of activities in June.  I'll start with the Discount Pilot Shop we have now added to Sue's site. By usung the  word "nearlyheaven" at the checkout stages, you get a 5% discount on all prices in the store.  This has already taken off (ha ha) with Sue's circle of pilots.

In June I also implemented the Facebook page for the Hungarian Vizslas site and also added some "Ticker tape" ability to all Sue's sites to allow her to place specific messages in front of her web visitors.  (See example.)

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