Mailing List Service That Doesn't Require Confirmation Link

The problem with using Feedburner as a mailing list service (via RSS to email), is the signup process.

For one, it requires opt-in with confirmation link. According to its reports, about 30% of my sign-ups failed confirmation, for whatever reasons. But two, it has no way to manually enter or edit subscribers.

So now, I moved the mailing list over to MailChimp, which has manual entering and editing of subscribers. However, it still requires opt-in with confirmation.

To get around that, I set up a subscriber form in Google Docs, which automatically posts to a spreadsheet. Every few days, I check the spreadsheet and manually enter those e-mail addresses into MailChimp. The end result is I have an opt-in with no confirmation, and hence a faster growing mailing list.

However, it's still a pain in the butt to manually enter subscribers.

Yeah, I understand the issue with non-confirmation, it's easy for someone to enter the wrong e-mail address or enter someone else's e-mail address. But considering that e-mail services are filtering out so much mail that's not spam, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyone know of a mailing list service that doesn't require confirmation link?✓

Building Facebook Fans is a Waste of Time

Mark Olivito, CMO of Monogram Food Solutions, tweeted the other day...

I find it hard 2 believe serious Marketers would "buy" Facebook fans and consider that "investment." Loyalty is earned. #RonR #CMO

True, loyalty is earned. And you cannot buy loyalty.

But now that Facebook has limited organic views of your postings to about 5% of your fans (20% if you manage to get a bunch of likes, comments, and shares on that post), it seems Facebook marketing is now only a numbers game.

If you want to reach 100,000 fans, organically, with an otherwise commercial posting that few people are going interact with, you'll need 1,000,000 fans. That means, you'll have to buy them.

Of course, Facebook's response is that if you want to reach fans organically, you have to post something that they'll interact with. They'll argue that they're a "social" network, you have to play the social game if you want free results.

OK, I get that.

But even when do post content that gets a lot of interaction, it still doesn't reach many fans.

For example, I had one posting that fetched 18 comments, 47 likes, and 2 shares. Organically, it only reached 13% of my fans.

Sometimes, you'll find that magic posting, maybe it's a link to your blog, or a funny photo, or just dumb little joke, and it gets a hundred comments, several hundred more likes, and about 50 shares, and miraculously it reaches 100% of your fans, or even more.

But over the course of your marketing efforts, across the hundreds or thousands of postings, the average organic reach is about 5%.

And when push comes to shove, you want to drive traffic to your website, and earn some revenue.

The bottom line, however, is that Facebook doesn't want to drive traffic to your website. They don't want you promoting anything. The only way they'll allow it is if you pay.

So face it, don't put all your eggs into building up a Facebook presence. It's good that you have one. But you're still better off building your e-mail list.✓

How to Monetize A Hyperlocal Blog

Since I'm back to discussing hyperlocal blogging, I've decided it was better to launch a separate blog on this topic...

http://www.hyperlocalblogging.org

This blog is specific to the monetization of hyperlocal blogs, and less so on how to publish one, or build a following. I think monetization is the subject that everyone is going to be most interested in.

Hyperlocal Blogging is perhaps a buzzword that we'll be hearing more of in 2011, with the likes of AOL Patch leading the forefront, along with other hyperlocal blog networks sprouting up.

Of course, I've been publishing one of my own since 2004.

Anyways, since I'm deep into the Internet publishing/marketing business, it makes sense that I register a domain name with the "hyperlocal blogging" keywords in it, and write about it. Maybe, someone will listen.  ✓

Internet Marketing Predictions for 2011

Internet Marketing Predictions for 2011

With the start of the new year, I thought I'd throw out my predictions for the Internet marketing industry in this coming year.

And no "pansy predictions" here, I'm going all out...

• Hosting Company Crash - Web hosting companies have been hard hit over the past few years, but this is the year it's all going to crash. By the end of 2011, most of them will have been bought out by larger companies.
  
  All those $9.99 a month hosting providers will be gone, and what will be left are dedicated hosting services. These days, there are so many options for free hosting, including Blogger, Posterous, and Tumblr. Plus, people with no website-building knowledge can still create their own web presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.



• Facebook for Domain Names - Facebook will provide its users with a way to direct domain names to their servers. So imagine registering a domain name (www.mydomain.com), directing it to Facebook's servers, and seeing your Facebook account? That way, you can print "www.mydomain.com" on your business card, and have people land on your Facebook account or page.
  
  Blogger already provides this feature, allowing such users to completely customize their blogs, making them look anything but a Blogger blog. So why shouldn't Facebook do this too?



• Google Buys eBay - One space where Google has little market share is the eCommerce space. Yes, they do have Google Product Search and Google Checkout, but when it comes to dominating the retail sector of the Internet, you're talking eBay, Amazon, iTunes, et al.
  
  And buying eBay also gives Google access to PayPal, which will let it dominate the financial transaction space.
  
  Oh, and Facebook now allowing its users to set up e-commerce on Facebook Pages, only fuels the fire.



• Google to buy Twitter? Well Google already attempted to do this in 2009. But I think Google is going to feel ever-more pressured to become a major player in the social media arena. It's arch-enemy, Facebook, is only getting bigger. And as I reported a few days ago, Twitter still doesn't have a viable means of monetizing itself aside from getting injections of capital.
  
  On the other hand, Google doesn't need Twitter to be profitable. It only needs Twitter.
  
  And of course Twitter founder Evan Williams is no stranger to selling cool ideas to Google.



• The Beginning of the End for Affiliate Networks - the large networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare, Share A Sale, and Google Affiliate Network, are going to contract, lose money, and merge.
  
  This is because Internet marketing is making a shift towards display advertising.
  
  If you haven't already noticed but affiliate marketing has slowly lost its effectiveness over the past few years. Publishers are losing their income and finding it harder to earn those big bucks.
  
  This is because the Internet has become so mainstream, so saturated with consumers and vendors, that companies are having to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Where at one time it was easy for a merchant to convert an affiliate click into a sale, it's now tough for them to do with much more competition around.
  
  Just look at your own website. There are more websites competing with you than ever before. And in attempt to protect your traffic share, you've gone to great lengths to strengthen your reputation as an authority and thereby attract more inbound links. What you're doing is brand marketing.
  
  Instead of paying publishers for conversions or leads, advertisers are now simply looking to get their name out there. But don't think that CPM ads will make things easier for you. Instead, it will get harder. Advertisers will only buy CPM inventory from publishers who command a combination of massive page views with highly targeted audiences. What you need to do now is hone your audience down to just those people who want to buy stuff, and then build page views from there.   ✓

2011 Is the Year Twitter Dies?

Anytime a company requires a new round of investment money, you know things are not going good.

I mean, Twitter has been around for 4 1/2 years now.

And it still doesn't have a strategy to monetize its tweets?

Twitter is an example of what I've talked about on this blog a couple of times before. It's a cool idea in search of a business plan. But if you want to make money, you have to start with the business plan first...

Selling Local Advertising Is Tough

As an Internet marketer, I've never encountered anything more difficult than making a decent income from selling page views to local advertisers.

I mentioned earlier this month that I had made another push towards making my local blog profitable. I hired a sales person to sell ad space on my local website, "Menifee 24/7". It's been tough, but I'm sensing that we're close to turning a corner.

Thus far, we're getting positive feedback from local businesses here in Menifee about buying advertising space, but we haven't received any money in hand. We've gotten commitments, and we've had advertisers tell us what they want from us before pulling the trigger, which we've complied with. But again, still no money in hand...

Not All Content Is King

"Content is king" is the old saying, but it's not as simple as that.

Content is indeed king when it comes to building a large and loyal following of readers, but you also need good content, compelling content.

Another common opinion is that content can't be king if no one is reading your content. And that makes sense. However, if no one is reading your content, it's likely that you have nothing worth reading.  ✓

Leather Cases for Samsung Galaxy Tab Ain't Cheap

I discovered that cases and sleeves for the eBook readers are about 30-40% cheaper than the cases and sleeves for the tablet computers.

I bought a leather case for my Samsung Galaxy Tab. The case was actually designed for the Amazon Kindle. But because the Galaxy Tab and the Amazon Kindle are the same dimensions, the case works just fine.

What I bought is the "Zierra Leather Portfolio" from Targus at a price of $29.99 at Best Buy. Meanwhile, Best Buy also had a leather case designed specifically for the Galaxy Tab, I can't remember the brand name, but costs $49.99.

Targus Zierra Leather Portfolio for Amazon Kindle fits Samsung Galaxy Tab

Yet the Zierra I bought is clearly better quality, feels more solid, has pockets for business cards, receipts, and a pen holder. While the case for the Samsung Galaxy Tab was smaller, didn't come with any features, and had a flimsy feel.

And that was the cheaper case. Best Buy had other cases designed for the Galaxy Tab that went as high as $75.00.

So why is that cases for eBook readers are cheaper than cases for tablet computers?  ✓

Back to Local Blogging, Again

I'm making a renewed focus towards my local blog, "Menifee 24/7", a blog about the town I live in. I started that blog in 2004, and by late 2009 I had boosted traffic to as many as 15,000 visitors per month, which is a lot in this town 67,000 people.

But I found out fairly quickly that monetizing such traffic via Google AdSense and affiliate programs just doesn't work at the local level. The only way to monetize local traffic with a significant amount of earnings is to sell ads directly to local businesses. And I learned that I'm no good at selling ads to local businesses.

Hence, I ended up writing the blog mostly as a community service, by attending city council meetings and school board meetings and reporting on what took place. But eventually, I got burned out and stopped writing it. I still had a few local residents volunteering to write material for me, and they kept it going.

But a month ago, one such volunteer offered to help find local advertisers for me in exchange for a cut of the sales. I agreed.

So now, I've followed through by taking up writing again for Menifee 24/7. I've also updated the look of the site by incorporating a new template, and removing all references to the word "blog", in hopes of making it look more like a news organization.

I've also submitted the site to Google News for possible inclusion. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

And now comes word that the city's local newspaper went out of business a couple of months ago. Well, it wasn't really a newspaper. It didn't publish any hard news, just stuff like "student of the month", tips on how to grow bigger begonias, and stuff like that. Nonetheless, now that it's gone, perhaps it'll be easier for me to sell ads to local businesses.

We'll see.  ✓

Will Tablets Ever Replace Laptops?

The question that keeps coming up is if the iPad, and other tablets, will replace the laptop.

I keep saying no.

I tackled this question almost a year ago under a blog post entitled, "Will Smartphones Make Laptops Obsolete". To summarize, I said that people still see laptops as being more productive than smartphones, primarily because you can't connect a 24 inch monitor, full sized keyboard, and a 1 terabyte external drive, into a smartphone.

That is, people will always spend most of their time sitting down, either at their home or in an office. Hence, if you're sitting down, you might as well have a 24 inch monitor, a full sized keyboard, a 1 terabyte external drive, designed around a powerful laptop...