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Good news - I think we will soon have a way to add videos(youtube) to gooruze. I think it will be a great way to add depth and energy to gooruze. mmm i think i might be inspired to start vlogging.

Have you have heard of pandora jewelry. If you have I'm sure you have been online and will agree 100% that it has to be one of the best products which was made for selling online. This must be every marketers dream to come up with such a flexible, ever growing product line - well it is certainly mine.

Ok for the uneducated - remember charm bracelet - well add a quality universal brand/quality silver/gold gemstones and you have the pandora pick and select range.

How it works - you buy the bracelet or necklace and then select from hundreds of charms to build your piece.

It's kind of like "Thomas the Tank Engine" - start with the tracks and then the sky is the limit how much you can spend.

Why so perfect for online?

1. Easily viewed and inspected online

2. Awesome brand power "authentic pandora"

3. low cost delivery

4. Large Target Market - suitable for every occassion for all women - xmas, birthday, valentines, mothers day.... you get the picture.

5. Addictive - no self respecting female will want just 1 charm on her bracelet - the race will be on to have them all.

6. Oh and my favorite - there is a wishlist - you can tick what you want and send your husband/friends to see what is on your wishlist.

I'm sure this gimmick will pass - but in the meantime Pandora has found a money tree and has revolutionalised jewelry gift buying. I wonder how this brilliance can be applied to other verticals.

 

I just picked up from twitter this cool video on scouta - by the same people who did "machine is us" - worth a watch. It says 5 days old so maybe I'm the last to see it  thanks for the tip richard.

Recent post by Nick Gonzalez of techcrunch describes the new AdReady. Here is the review - worth a read Nick provides a good overview.

I had a quick look - looks nice and clean I think worth testing it. It offers a cheap and easy way for small businesses to test display advertising . Looks a bit like spotrunner is to TV ads. 

Did you catch the latest story from Business Week re Micrsooft and prediction that over the next 4 to 10 years 25% of Microsoft revenues will come from advertising!  According to Chief, Steve Ballmer "All marketing will be digital sometime in the next 10 years," predicts Ballmer.

Interesting I see in another post "All Microsoft has to do is prove the value of all other marketing messages delivered prior to the action of searching" and they can beat Google & Yahoo.....Gosh I so would love to see them achieve this and take online marketing to a new level, new paradigms.

Ok so how do we get him on Gooruze? Anyone have his email address?

Funny enough about 10 years ago when I was working at Microsoft I sent him an email (he was Global Head of Mkting at the time)- cocky little thing that I was back then - I had just read One To One Future by Peppers and Rogers and was sick of working in such a "product focussed" organisation - yes in those days it was all about product and I was Manager Customer Development in Sydney Australia. Would you believe it I sent him a copy of the book and told him we need to move towards this new approach.  Not suprisingly ......I never got a reply

It's ok I took a "snagit" for memory sake - me in first place of Gooruze - perhaps one day I can show my son.

I'm pleased to say the post has been taken by a more rightful owner - well done Duncan - but can you hold it?

Plenty more competition now for ranking I wonder who will own the 1st spot on launch day.

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I have just finished reading the book by Ishmael Beah, a child solider in Sierra Leone, who shares of the horrors of war and the impact to young kids. Gut wrenching stuff which had me surfing the net at the finish of it wondering what I could do to help. I came across a couple of  “causes groups” on facebook.   Now maybe there are other factors going on like mistrust but what surprised me is the low level of donations given the number of members: 

 Invisible Children has 228,146 members and only $12,671 donated  

 Help the Invisible Children! 6,415 members and only $110 donated  

 Mothers Against Drunk Driving has 47,568 members and only $222donated

Facebook has brilliant mechanisms to automatically opt in friends which of course help drive up the numbers but really how active are those members. As any Direct Marketer knows quality not quantity has always been key to success. I think I read somewhere that members of facebook are not very committed. Do these donations suggest a rather passive involvement - or maybe it is just lacking credibility of cause. Either way be great to see web 2.0 help causes such as child soldiers achieve greater exposure and funding. By the way if you haven't read the book I'd highly recommend it - but be prepared to be "blue"  

I came across this interesting comment in AdWeek -

"Hallerman said that while economic conditions will, naturally, impact ad spending, Internet should be relatively safe in '08. "The Web is not going to be the first thing they cut," he said. "When times are tough, brands tend to gravitate to something they can prove to their bosses. Cover your ass becomes more important."

According to the article "Pure-play online advertising was the fastest-growing sub- segment of the pure-play Internet market, surging 36.3 percent last year to $15.11 billion, driven primarily by the national online ad market, particularly search advertising, per VSS."

The article points out that while there is a lot of discussion around digital and web 2.0 - the bread and butter is in search and display advertising.

What do we do with the 90% plus of traffic not converting!

An interesting interview in econsultancy today...many have probably heard of Bryan Eisenberg's view on Persuasion architecture, which he defines as "besides being focused on the results, metrics and so on, is focused on empathy - understanding what people need and want and how to take care of them properly" pretty fancy title for explaining good old customer journey and empathy but hey it caught my attention.

He makes the point that often when we look at web metrics we study the last step "the check-out" and in fact the reason why people don't proceed at the checkout is more likely due to the previous experience  - he says they are not CONFIDENT enough to proceed.

Wasn't the old ad process - Attention, interest, desire, action.... interesting concept that CONFIDENCE is now a new step before Action. So if this is true how do we increase people's confidence?

I saw a similar concept recently conversion path another great way to look at the journey prior to the sale.

Both have merit and definitely worth seeing more work in this area as so much traffic is wasted. I totally agree with Bryan's comment, "Too many people look at these big numbers of visitors and forget that these are their neighbour, cousin, father, daughter and so on, and went away dissatisfied".

 

I have been looking at this blank canvas for a week now - not sure what to write - trying to work out why 10 years ago I was full of advice and now not so much. I can't help thinking the more you observe in life the less sure you are that you have the answers.

But I have had a crack at it and have found a niche I'm going to follow  up "secrets for product launch success with online marketing" with new product launch analysis - who knows maybe one day I can create an ebook. Its a bold vision and now I have made it public so I've made a 1st step.