Posts by Howie Jacobson
What Tina Fey Can Teach You About AdWords
A 50-year-old comedy and improv school/theater in Chicago called The Second City has produced an alumni list consisting of many of the world’s most talented and successful comics. A short list would include Tina Fey, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, Amy Poehler, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, John Candy, Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd,…
Read MoreCourting Your Ideal Customer
Your computer. Your shoes. Your sunglasses. Your cell phone.
Chances are, all of those products (and thousands of others you own or use regularly) were made in China. In today’s essay, Marc Charles explains how this fact of everyday life is the basis of a tremendous opportunity for first-time entrepreneurs.
Read MoreCourting Your Ideal Customer
Google AdWords is nothing more or less than a medium for direct marketing. So every now and then, I put away my books about the latest online techniques and reach for the classic texts.
Here’s some of what you can learn from the old masters:
There are three elements to any direct-marketing offer — the offer itself, the creative, and the list.
Read MoreHow Your Website Is Like My New Favorite Car Dealership
I just took my 2002 Prius to the local Toyota dealer here in North Carolina for its 100,000-mile servicing . Now I’m used to service stations and dealers in New Jersey, where standard operating procedure is to make customers guess where to park, what line to wait i n, and what those stains are on…
Read MoreHow to Handle the Ongoing Recession
This recession has revealed a psychological rift in the world’s consciousness. A lot of people are scared and angry. They’ve lost their jobs, their businesses, their insurance, and in some cases their self-worth. They feel victimized by events, by elites, and by entities. So they bob up and down, waiting to be rescued by a government…
Read MoreThe Dirty Secret of Screw-Ups
Here’s something I discovered shortly after launching my business in 2001: Up to a point, customers don’t really mind when something goes wrong. What drives them batty is when they complain and nobody cares. And when you make it clear to everyone in your organization that listening to customers is the Number One job of…
Read MoreA Non-Entrepreneurial Slap of Reality
My buddy – author, CEO, and consultant Peter Bregman – recently wrote a commentary for CNN.com advising people to embrace the recession as a chance to reconfigure their careers to be in line with their passions. “Focus your time on what you’re truly passionate about,” he said. “Successful people are passionate, obsessed. And obsession isn’t…
Read MoreIt All Starts With Traffic
If you’re getting 20 leads a week now from AdWords, it’s hard to imagine what 200 leads a week would look like. From your current perspective, it would probably look just like 20, except 10 times more. But when volume and velocity and quality of traffic increase, lots of things change. Big time.
Read MoreAn Advanced Internet Marketing Tactic
Your website visitors will convert – to buyers or subscribers – when they’re ready, willing, and able. And the usability testing and feedback gathering you do should give you an idea of which of those three factors will make the biggest difference. Ready: Are your visitors ready to take the action you want them to take?…
Read MoreHave You Tested Your Landing Page Lately?
You know all about the value of testing your marketing copy, but are you doing it on your landing pages? Let’s talk about some tests you can run having to do with placement. Don’t worry about the copy at the moment. Just where things go on the page. First thing is to know what your…
Read MoreOnline Marketing in 3 Steps
Find a problem. Solve it. And charge people for the solution. If you’re wondering why your online business isn’t doing better, put it through this three-part marketing audit. • Have you found a problem? A problem that matters to people? To enough people?
Read MoreGoogle’s Duplicate Content Penalty
Google doesn’t like twins much. That is to say, Google penalizes Web pages that it deems to be near-exact copies of existing Web pages. It won’t let them appear in search results.
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