Author: Graham Jones

PR company calls for help

Interesting how things develop. The fact that I appear regularly in the media appears to have been spotted by at least one (very well known, international) PR company. They called today and asked me to be an independent spokesperson on a project they are doing. What they want to do

Blogging still isn’t getting through to businesses

Marketing people in businesses still don’t understand blogging, it seems. And if these people don’t understand it, what hope is there for the rest of a company which is not so marketing oriented. New data suggests that while 85% of marketing staff agree that the web helps a company hit

Online business does not depend upon web site traffic

Online business owners are consumed by getting traffic to their web site. The phrase “web site traffic” generates over 1.5m results in Google, for instance. Plus there are endless streams of newsletters and blogs that tell you how to increase your traffic. All fantastic, but all useless. Web site traffic

Internet connected wardrobe will prevent fashion errors

Imagine the scene – you are asked to a dinner party by an important client. You want to do well so you and your partner dress to impress. You both arrive at their home to discover your hosts are wearing the same clothes as you. Help! Consider too the fact

Internet shopping set to rise but not for most retailers

Sir Richard Branson knows a thing or two about business. Whether you like him or not, you can’t deny that overall his business activities have been rather successful. So this week we hear that he has sold his Virgin Megastores chain in a management buyout that involves taking the Virgin

Social networking needs a strategy if you want to benefit from it

Accountants, lawyers and bankers often turn up at business networking events, such as those run by a Chamber of Commerce. They grab a drink, pick up a leaflet or two from the exhibition stand and then pretend to read it. Self-consciously they meander around the room until someone more extrovert

Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is all about words

Internet marketers need to be wordsmiths; yet the vast majority of them appear to be focused on products and sales and technology. However, people engage online with the words they read. Even video content is driven by words in links, the words we use to recommend a video to our

Northern Rock saga just gets worse online

Customers at the Northern Rock bank are in a state of panic, that’s clear. So much so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, has guaranteed the money for all customers of the troubled bank. However, what’s interesting is what has been happening online. In the past 24 hours,

Symantec doesn’t seem to understand the Internet

Criminals are gaining big bucks online, according to a new report from Symantec, the computer security firm. However, the publication of this study is an interesting look at how a big business uses the Internet – and clearly fails to understand how people behave online. The report is to be

Untapped riches still to be found in the Internet

Thousands of visitors went to the annual Berkshire Show today. It was packed with people – many of whom were spending money at the 600 shops or the hundreds of exhibition stands. Equally, thousands of people bought food and drink to keep them fuelled for the miles of walking they

Northern Rock Bank panic helps Internet retailers

Customers of the Northern Rock bank in the UK are being urged to calm down. Yesterday the nation was swept with mass panic as customers flocked to the bank’s branches to withdraw their savings. Queues were seen stretching round the block and branches had to remain open until late at

How you can easily cut through the social networking hype

Readers of articles on social networking will find that the advice tends to be polarised. Either we are told that social networking is fabulous, marvellous, and essential to improving our daily lives. Or we read that social networks are full of weirdos, ne’er do-wells and other social misfits. Take today,

Travelodge couple are really early adopters

Pensioners David and Jean Davidson have been living in a Travelodge in the UK for the past 22 years. They went to a Travelodge back in 1985 and liked it so much, they have never left. Amazing. However, consider this – it only costs them £90 a week and that

Internet marketing is easy – oh really?

Every day, hundreds of people set up their online business sure in the knowledge that making money online is straightforward. They read tales of people making millions within a week. They get CD packages explaining how to “make money while you sleep”. And they download dozens of PDF ebooks at

Blogging

Blogging will increase your print sales

Bloggers often try to make money out of their blogs. Some are successful, few are. The reason is that most bloggers trying to make money from their blogs are attempting to cash in directly – selling things “off the page”. As any competent advertiser will tell you, few people actually

You really should think like a publisher on the Internet

Your web site is a publication. Every business web site is a publication – even the giant catalogues that are Google or Amazon are publications. Several years ago I did some consultancy work with a giant international chemical company. We analysed what kind of business they were in and guess

Trust is a key issue in the online future

When you look something up online, do you always believe it? Sometimes, just sometimes, do you question what you read? Perhaps searching again to find out if another site says much the same thing? The trouble is, in the online world what is written isn’t always checked before it is