Blog Author Mellissah Smith - Page 82

1 Billion Users. Now that is a really big number. HUGE!

If you think about the fact that there are only 7 billion people reportedly on the planet, Facebook has a staggering 14% as friends.

In July 2010, they had half that. 500 million registered users to be precise. So, how in 26 months have they increased to double that size excluding China, because its banned there?

We've all heard about 'why companies fail to grow' with literally thousands of books, blogs, articles and shows talking about why businesses have failed to grow or have had a sudden death.

When you ask someone who has had a business fail, why, they usually give you one reason. We all know that there is never one singular reason why a business fails, it usually is combination of things; market size, competition and demand all feature highly on external factors while operations, leadership, complacency, technology, marketing and lack of investment feature highly as internal reasons.

But the real story that we all should be following is 'why businesses grow and succeed' because in that, there are lessons and patterns we all can follow.

By Christopher Niesche - smh.com.au

EVERY small business should have a prospect list - a database of existing and potential customers where the business can focus its marketing efforts.

But it needs to be more than just a list of names and email addresses. It has to contain people who are in the target market for your products.

Here are tips on how to build up a prospect list.

Recently, I ventured out to a Turkish Hamams as part of an off-site adventure organised by a conference that I attended in Istanbul.

As I readied myself for the excursion, I packed a bathing suit, took off my makeup and put on some comfortable clothing attire. That's what you do, right? Well, almost.

The bathing suit is not required. In fact, if you bring it along, and you go to a traditional hamams you may be confronted with an old Turkish woman telling you to put the bathing suit away "not needed". Then what do you do? You are there for an experience, right?

Every now and again, this blog gets personal. Very personal.

Today is one of those days. Not because I feel particularly inspired to share how I am feeling, but as I am sitting here on a Sunday, enjoying the Spring breezes through my balcony opening, I thought I would share with you something that a former Monk shared with 800 people at a conference I attended in Istanbul.

Life on earth is limited.

It is. We may live to be 80 and if we are really lucky, 100, but most probably, we will die before then. Therefore, we have only ourselves to blame for not making the most of what life has to offer us.

Prioritize things and people that are most important in life

The king of reinvention then subsequent flops, Myspace, has once again relaunched and its looking very promising. A mixture between an entertainment version of Pinterest with a splash of Twitter and Facebook, has seen the new promotion video linked to The New Myspace go viral.



"Who am I to say I want you back? When you were never mine to give away."

The lyrics that accompanies the promotional video reinforces the company's positioning. Having sold for US$580 million to News Corporation in 2005, the 9 year old business (founded in 2003) has reinvented itself which what can only be described as a "beautiful" looking website. Aesthetically, it has WINNER all over it, but the proof will be in how they not only attract their followers but keep them.

Scoring Justin Timberlake, an early investor into the comeback is of course clever marketing because after all, he is the "comeback king" and is considered one of the coolest and sexiest people on the planet. If brand association is anything to go by, the public should be in for something very special.

What do you think?

If you have ever marketed even one of your products or services, you’d know what they say about Direct Marketing (DM). There are so many different views about DM amongst the marketers today that it’s difficult to understand whether it’s worth all the time and effort at all. It’s confused, abused and misused by several marketers.

That’s right: there are the haters and then there are the DM lovers. Some are the in-betweeners (no reference to the teen TV show). Whatever it is, as a small business you need to know where DM stands in the digital age of 2011.

In his book, The Complete Guide to Direct Marketing, Chet Meisner refers to an Orlando newspaper which ran a hateful story about direct marketers. The headline was “Spammers, Telemarketers Share Secrets in Orlando”. According to the story, direct marketers were “making way too much money to stop the suppertime phone calls and endless emails.”

It's time for celebration, or is it? It's Google's 14th Birthday and while one part of me wants to celebrate how much Google has made my life easier, the other part wants to pull back the curtain and see how I can control this addiction.

And addiction it is. Think about how long you can go without 'Googling' something or saying the world "Google". Try going a week. I have. It's impossible!

It's hard to imagine what life was like without Google?

If you are finding it hard to keep up to the latest in marketing techniques, you are not alone.

Most marketers, let alone small business owners, are struggling to keep abreast of the new developments in technology, buzz words, Google algorithm changes, content trends and more. Why? Innovation has been put on steriods and every technology guru is hoping to become the next Mark Zuckerberg and bank a few billion or at the very least, get their faces on the cover of Forbes.