Marketing 101

Came across the following on Freelance UK.

Given that the recent Hotel eMarketing Conference empahasised that we have to get Web 1.0 sorted out before we move on to Web 2.0, the article below looks like we have to get Marketing 1.0 sorted out before we even consider eMarketing!

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Marketing? Beats us, say small firms

We’re not sure how to use it, or where it fits into our business - so don’t expect us to implement it online. Such is the message coming from two surveys that quizzed new start-up companies about their feelings on marketing.

Marketing experts selling themselves to these small firms will no doubt be upbeat, as the first survey found almost one in three firms don’t know what marketing is. Forty-per cent had no marketing plan, and almost half launched without any budget for advertising or marketing, says the survey of 3,000 firms by Project Word.

Obtained by FreelanceUK, the headline findings show one-third of new firms are clueless as to what role marketing should play in a start-up business. Of the nearly 50% of start-ups who had no form of marketing at their launch, 36% said they would make a success of their firm solely through word of mouth.

“These statistics establish the downfall of many new companies that just assume consumers will have heard of their website,” said Jamie Delo, Project Word’s founder.

His comments tally with the second survey, which found company owners are missing out on sales by failing to market their business effectively on the internet.

The poll of 225 companies, reported by the Financial Times, by SuccessTrack found that only 11 per cent of owners felt their marketing skills were good or very good. Not being able to get their message across was the biggest barrier to firms getting more sales online, though the pollster admitted “there was no magic formula.”

“You just have to pay attention to the basics,” the firm advised, “and do everything 1 per cent better than your competition.”

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Given the theory discussed below I do not think "1 per cent better than your competition" cuts it any more!

Singapore Grand Prix > Game Theory > Hotel Marketing

What I Learnt from Watching the Grand Prix in Singapore Yesterday.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose

and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace,

the slaves of the ordinary."

Cecil Beaton

Pat Symonds of the Renault F1 Team subscribes to something called Game Theory.

Definition: A mathematical method of decision-making in which a competitive situation is analyzed to determine the optimal course of action for an interested party, often used in political, economic, and military planning. Also called theory of games. Answers.com

This in a very simple form was explained as follows.

In Grand Prix terms the theory says that if you are in the pack on the grid and you want to get to the front do something completely different and completely unexpected.

Because ...

If you only do the same as the others around, but with a bit more quality or a bit more efficiency then all that can happen is that you will only be a bit better - and still in the mid pack at the end of the race.

Do the different thing and you could end up first by a country mile as Alonso did!

Having looked up Game Theory on the Web (Google 10,500,00o results in 0.26 seconds!) I cannot find anywhere that says the above, however, it does propose a lot of interesting counter intuitive approaches to situations.

The main thing for me is that it encourages the different after all as Einstein said

"Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Whether it is in creating the brand, Search Engine Optimisation Strategies, Web 2.0 Strategies, Rate Distribution or Yield Management, we all need to look to alternative ways of doing things.

Hotel eMarketing 2008

As promised during my recent talk at Hotel eMarketing 2008 in London below are a few places you can find tools to help you optimise (or optimize for our American friends) your website.

You will probably see a few of the themes from my talk developed here over the next few weeks as well as the latest ideas in website optmisation. So add this blog to your news feed by clicking one of the links at the bottom of the page.

Remember the search bot/spider needs to be able to technically find your site and then work its way round.

Set up a google alert for your hotels name: http://www.google.com/alerts. This will e-mail you whenever Goggle see new content featuring your name.

The first priority in tools is the Google Webmaster suite. Thats you s webmastern not the designer! Google Webmaster Tools - www.google.com/webmasters/tools. If you haven't already set up an account. You'll find it of great value.

1) Check your source code. From Internet Explorer click on "view" and then "source"

Use find to check your key tags. Title, Description, Keyword, H1 and alt.

Copy it into word and run spell check!

2) Check who owns & controls your domain name in the "who is" section of http://www.selfseo.com/

3) Check your Google Cache type - cache:yourdomainname.com - into a Google search box

4) How many of your websites pages are cached at http://www.checkmypr.com/

5) What is your hotels Alexa rank? What is the trend? http://www.alexa.com/

6) How many links do you have? www.searchengineoptimising.com/link-popularity-check

Another tool is http://tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer

7) Where is your server located? http://www.81solutions.com/server-location.html

8) Do you have the correct re-directs? http://www.ragepank.com/redirect-check

9) What speed is your site loading at? http://www.selfseo.com/website_speed_test.php

10) Keyword research https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

For geographic information see www.google.com/insights/search

HOW NOT TO DO SEO

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTENT

YU9A1757 - hmm appetising

YU9A1757, originally uploaded by ciollileach.

Google Alerts did their job and told me there was something new on the web about an old client of mine, Stapleford Park, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. Photographs posted on Flickr!

Obviously created by the photographer and with no real marketing info attached (what does that title code mean!), it did get me thinking, however!

If the album had been created in the name of, or indeed by, the Chef - not the company ;-) If the title was appropriate, there was a description of the wonderful fresh ingredients used and the tags were carefully thought through, then this would have been a perfect bit of low cost Web 2.0 SEO activity.

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There are a couple of other pictures below.

I really want to know what the descriptions of these dishes are!

Asian Domain Name Spam

A client of mine recently received the e-mail below.

*******************************************************
Dear Principal / CEO,

Hello!Sorry to trouble you!
We are a domain name registration service company in HongKong, which mainly deal with international company's domain name registration and disputing
in Asia.On the Sep 10,2008, Our auditing dept received an application formally from "Daredi international ltd",they claimed as your agent in Asia and consigned
by you to register following internet trademark :
domainname (clients domain name)

and the domain names:
domainname.asia
domainname.cn
domainname.com.cn
domainname.hk
domainname.in
domainname.net
domainname.tw etc...

Through our company.
According to our procedures and in order to protect your intellectual property rights, we need to send this email to the original company for confirming the
actual relationship with this company.If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other motivation to register these domain names and probably
want to do some cybersquatting. Now we have postponed this issue and have not proceeded their registration,In order not to confuse registering these domain
names,Please contact us Asap.

PS:If you are not in charge of this matter,please transfer this email to appropriate dept.

Best Regards
Sophia
Auditing Director

West Technology Limited
Tel: 00852 9566 0205
Fax: 00852 8226 1055
E-mail: sophia@westtechnology.org
Website: http://www.west-technology.net/

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This appears to be at the very least a spam e-mail praying on fears of cyber squatting.

For the website that clued me in to it see http://www.kenkai.com/seo-blog-article-142.htm

If you want an Asian domain name seek the advice of your website deigner or SEO specialist and get them to look at a variety of the domain name providers to find the cheapest price and most flexible service.