Archive for Permission Marketing

James Carson | May 8, 2012
18 comments

Mo Books, Mo Products: An Alternative View on Inbound Marketing

So here’s an alternative view on inbound marketing, knitted together by my own views and the many conversations I’ve seen, heard or been involved with in the SEO industry. I hope everyone doesn’t take it too seriously, particularly those involved in the graphic. If you’d like to comment, I’d appreciate it if you took the time to read the author’s note at the bottom.

Inbound Conundrum

Inbound Marketing Conundrum

Inbound Conundrum

Slides 13-14, Everything’s Better With Fans, Rand Fishkin. Search Love 2011
Available to purchase at the Distilled Store.

Interruption Marketing vs. Inbound Marketing

Image available at http://minus.com/mxZ5HpLwm/1f

Inbound Conundrum

See also: http://yfrog.com/g0slip. A long post on SEO rebranding is available at: The Brand of SEO and the Trend of Inbound Marketing. I actually think SEO has an image problem, and Rand does a great job explaining that, but that’s neither here nor there at to whether we need to replace the term.

Inbound Conundrum

Inbound Marketing

Author’s Note: I hope people can see that this is just a bit of fun; I have a lot of respect for Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, Rand Fishkin and Seth Godin. Perhaps the first and last parts of the graphic seem cynical, and trivializes the thought put into the concept – I doubt Dharmesh and Brian ever did literally think like that – but I do want to entertain people as well as inform.

I was mainly considering new ways of presenting content, and was particularly drawn to the comics at The Oatmeal. But I didn’t really have a topic to do it justice, until I thought of my earlier post around rejecting Inbound Marketing. Here was a topic I’ve read a lot about and I new a range of points of view. Most of all, I thought I’d be able to do it in a humorous way. I was also slightly amazed by the reaction to infographics such as Hubspot’s History of Marketing, which is really rather biased. I like design, and haven’t done a graphic on this scale before, but thought I could do it justice.

I have read all the books mentioned in the post and watched many of Rand’s presentations (which while I don’t think are always correct, I have always found inspiring). I think inbound marketing is a useful book, but I’m not sure it’s a useful addition to the marketing lexicon. The big issue is explained in the graphic – it’s divisive, and its adoption will create a divide. I’ve had a few defensive reactions to earlier posts from Hub Spotters… (unfortunately in some cases it was patently obvious they didn’t read or understand the message of the post before leaving comments – just see this Google+ thread) but what they seem to want to do is talk about the apparent ‘proof’ that ‘inbound is clearly the better buy and its kicking the crap out of Outbound..’ I think this is a misinformed point of view.

I’m also very keen for people not just to believe whatever thought leaders say – while they are often convincing, there are always other ways of looking at it. Steve Harrison’s book is particularly interesting in this context.

Finally, I’ll also say that I’ve been working in SEO, social media and online content since my career started. These are entirely ‘inbound’ disciplines. I like it. But just because I like it doesn’t mean it’s better than something else. We have an obsession in the web to throw out the old and bring in the new. Like with all marketing, this way of thinking doesn’t add up to common sense.

Category: Inbound Marketing, Permission Marketing, SEO |
James Carson | March 26, 2012
10 comments

Thought Leaders and Failures of Digital Integration: Why I’m Rejecting Inbound Marketing

I had a period of loving Seth Godin, listening to whatever Rand Fishkin said and gulping down The Cluetrain Manifesto. But something wasn’t quite right – if all this Internet was so much more effective as a marketing channel, why did established media remain so big ever since these guys started operating?

Not only has it remained, but established media continues to grow – not diminish! Last year the UK watched a record average of 28 hours a week. It is true that print has been fighting decline since the growth of ‘Web 2.0’ (another buzzword that has been replaced by ‘Social Media’), but broadcast is thriving. How on earth can what funds the majority of TV viewing in Britain – interruptive advertising – be dead as Godin has written on numerous occasions?

Seth Godin is a Very Rich Man

It quickly dawned on me that Seth Godin was made a very rich man via the Internet. Yahoo! Paid $30million for his company YoYodyne and he became VP of Direct Marketing at one of the web’s biggest companies. His form of Permission Marketing made him wealthy, and in marketing circles, famous. He is likely to support an agenda that made him rich, because it worked for him, and now his agenda makes him even wealthier as people continue to buy his books. I’m quite a big fan of Seth’s – without reading four of his books, I don’t think I’d have quite so much belief in trying to change things – but stating ‘old marketing is dead’ is simply flawed. As Steve Harrison notes in his excellent How to do Better Creative Work, Godin mistook a broken discipline for bad execution. ‘Interruptive advertising’, as Godin puts it, relies on good ideas. Godin never makes this point – he just says it’s a wasteful media buy.

HubSpot is Carrying the Inbound Fire

The people carrying Godin’s fire are many, but the people I come across the most are the founders of HubSpot – Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan. This is mostly because their overview of Inbound Marketing is regularly quoted by Rand Fishkin (indeed I first the term first from him), and I’ve followed him since I started in the game.

Note: Inbound Marketing has a quote by Seth Godin on the cover, and he’s second on an acknowledgements list that includes a host of people who have similar mantras.

Fundamentally, Inbound Marketing is a fairly basic book. It touches on a broad subject range and can’t do all the disciplines mentioned that much justice. Most of its concepts (they’re not ideas, although grouping them is) are easily found elsewhere (read The One to One Future or The Cluetrain Manifesto for deeper thoughts into how the web can work). Unlike Godin, they don’t make the point that established media is dead. However, much in the same vein, their entire first chapter is devoted to ‘outbound’ tactics (those paid ones) being expensively wasteful against ‘inbound’ ones. They pretty much say outbound is dead without saying it directly.

Rand Fishkin and SeoMoz Killed it for Me (The Irony)

To be honest, I really enjoyed the overall message of Inbound Marketing and couldn’t recommend it more for small business owners. However, I’ve realised that the ‘outbound’ rejection is flawed, and that ‘inbound’ actually is not the path of integration that I think digital marketing needs to follow. Unfortunately Rand Fishkin nailed this on the head for me on two occasions:

  • 1 Everything’s Easier with Fans

The first was at his ‘Everything’s Easier with Fans’ at last year’s Search Love conference – while typically well delivered, it’s fundamental rejection of ‘outbound’ media, in favour of building communities doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for everyone. For the first time, I really didn’t believe in Rand’s argument. What if you sell toothpaste? Or kitchen supplies? Sure you could build a community around those products, but my guess it would be a pretty small one. Books like Groundswell point out a range of online communities that have worked, but no one pointed out the thousands of attempts that have failed. The web is littered with spam filled graveyards, born out of dreams for communities.

  • 2 SEO Has an Image Problem

The second death knell to my faith in inbound came from Rand two weeks ago in his blog The Brand of SEO and the Trend of Inbound Marketing. The post clearly drummed up a lot of debate – and it became apparent that a lot of people in SEO want to reject the mantra of ‘inbound’ for a number of reasons (read the comments for the onslaught). For instance:

  • Inbound is just ‘digital marketing’ – it’s another buzzword that will confuse people.
  • I’m tired of this holistic view of SEO – my clients pay for rankings.
  • We’ve lost our identity!

I doubt many people who reject the term have read the book, but I have begun to feel the sentiment. Those who define themselves as ‘SEO’ have a right to feel cheesed off by thought leaders redefining their role for them, when it might not be how they want to play the game with clients.

I’ve got to say, I agree with Rand’s sentiment on the post – what he puts forth is difficult to argue with in this context. SEO has an image problem.

If you were an alien visiting from space and read enough blogs, you could make the conclusion that SEO is a spam riddled mess of low quality link farms created by snake oil salesman.

That’s hyperbole from within our own industry talking.

But Rand went on Twitter to defend himself and I had to put it to him that outbound methods can contribute to inbound. While Brian Halligan later contributed that he felt this was possible, Rand remained sceptical.

Inbound is Dead

So I rejected inbound for the summarised reasons below:

Five Reasons Why I’ve Rejected Inbound:

  • It is largely based around the utopian sentiment similar to The Cluetrain Manifesto and Permission Marketing. Both of these make hyperbole filled rejections of so called ‘traditional’ methods to promote a new agenda.
  • Its promoters aim at rejecting paid for ‘interruption marketing’ – indeed Rand bundled interruptive media with spam in this diagram. That just doesn’t ring true.
  • ‘Inbound marketing’ does not do a good job in considering markets. It works in selling software to digital natives for Halligan, Shah and Fishkin –‘it worked for me so it’ll work for you.’ It won’t have quite the same effect on my non digital dad.
  • The term is a marketing vehicle in itself for HubSpot. Its continued adoption leads to greater fame for a commercial company.
  • It does not account for the economies of scale involved in mass media. If there is a good idea executed on multiple sources of paid media, sales often sky rocket.

The Key One: Inbound’s Hyperbole Will Lead to Integration Failure

Most unfortunately, Inbound fails to comprehend the required merging of online and offline into data driven integrated marketing departments, or the integration of media sources. In many companies digital continues to exist as a separate entity to established (outbound, offline, traditional, whatever) marketing and operates in a silo. Inbound does nothing to consolidate the two. I thought it did, and have even created a model that felt could lead to proper integration. However, I think it is a mistake to carry on this mantra since Inbound fundamentally rejects paid media, and thus integration.

Oh Dear… SEO has an Image Problem and Inbound Doesn’t Work

I now leave myself with an identity crisis. I can’t call myself an SEO because that’s not the crux of what I do. I think people who work in SEO can still call themselves SEOs if they wish to – that’s fine – but I don’t think it’ll ever shake the image problem. I can’t call myself an Inbound Marketer because the mantra rejects paid media, which I need to integrate into for my message to be more effective. So what am I?

Well I’m a marketer. I feel pretty integrated already. It’s that simple.

Further Reading

Category: Good Books, Inbound Marketing, Permission Marketing, SEO, Theory |
James Carson | November 8, 2011
No comments

The Web’s Next Phase: Data Driving Integrated Marketing Departments

Today I went to Exact Target’s Connections 2011, and it was a data frenzy that would get most analytical marketer’s tails wagging. Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales gave a keynote address, but the presentation that stood out for me was the second keynote speech (Scott McCorkle), where they showcased the Interactive Marketing Hub. This tool pulled and compiled data from numerous sources; you could find someone’s Klout score matched against their email address, Twitter mentions, ReTweets and website comments, along with their gender and age group – all through one interface. Rather than being depressed that I’d never get my hands fully on such data (largely because I’m not a data analyst), it made me figure that we’re entering a new age – one of data driven integration. The standard consideration of the semantic web is that data driven devices connect and become integrated, but integrated data will also drive more integrated marketing departments.

Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales speaking at Exact Target Connections 2011

Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales gave a keynote, but the Interactive Marketing Hub spurred more thought

Opportunism Led to Silos

It’s been some time since Don Pepper’s and Martha Roger’s marketing gem The One to One Future. Some of the ideas and predictions presented there have evidently worked brilliantly for many companies, but for most the vision has not been realised. Many digital marketers have developed different strategies according to specific knowledge, skillsets and verticals.

Harry Crane

1960s maybe, but Harry Crane shows an opportunism shared with many digital marketers

This is often the consequence of opportunism. If you read a book like Seth Godin’s Linchpin, it’s possible to conclude that digital media has created so many gaps in marketing structure, that you only have to be the most passionate (which normally means the most knowledgeable) about that medium within your own organisation if you want to fill a role there (if you’ve seen it, think about what Harry Crane does in Madmen with the invention of TV). You also have an agency mix up of email specialists, search specialists and, more recently, social media specialists. It’s not often clear how often these people meet to discuss the client’s objectives in an integrated manner.

The problem is that most of these new departments and agencies have not been correctly aligned. There might be an offline marketing department relying on data fed back from their focus group centric agency, a digital team feeding off Google Analytics, and within that an email team that uses an email service provider – yet the goals and funnels used to assess email users are not set up within Google Analytics.

Thus, what have evolved in this landscape are pockets of data, and a general failure of integration between departments. The biggest gulf lies within divisions between traditional marketers and digital departments – a marketing department that lines up alongside a digital specialist team, but has no digital skills of its own, and thus there is no integration. What often unfolds is that both teams make misinformed judgements about the other team’s ‘specialism’ – although they should be considered as one department. The marketing department’s forays into digital may ignore perceived obstructionism from digital specialists, but then return with egg on their face when their execution doesn’t work. Meanwhile, digital specialists may be creating campaigns on social media or search, which may work far better if they included workings from the marketing department which already exist. In the worst case scenario, neither department is aware of the other’s existence, and the two operate in siloes.

The Extent of Siloes in Digital Only

Even if we removed traditional marketing from the equation and examined digital structure, you would still find many instances of isolated siloes. We noted earlier of the divisions of email, search and social, but it is possible to delve into further isolated specialisms – such as PPC, SEO, social publishing, mobile and display. Further segmentation is even possible – in SEO a good structure would consist of: analytics, web development, content, outreach (link building), although very few inhouse departments can lay claim to all of these specialisms. In some digital agencies, some of these teams seldom communicate with each other.

Data Should Be Automatically Seen, and Not Manually Shared

A leading cause of departmental siloes is that everyone is accessing and possibly creating their own data, and inefficiency is created by making the action of sharing, compiling and then assessing this data an action at all. There is rarely a widely accessible central hub for everyone to automatically feed their data into, thus many people rely on manual feeding and office email to compile data. It only takes a few people to be on holiday, or to have left the company without immediate replacement, for whole systems to deliver serious inconsistencies or grind to a complete halt. In many businesses data is reported but not actioned for so long that the action of sharing is deemed worthless and stopped.

Thankfully, we are steering towards a position (through tools that Exact Target are now offering) which are doing a much better job at integrating data sets from communications like email and social media, as well as other open data sources. But without data analysts already present in your company, you will not be able to make sense of what data you already have, and thus not be able to benchmark the improvements that integration will bring (which will at least be matched against the cost of integrated tools). Thus it is imperative to allow analysts to assess data sources and workflow of access to data before you begin the task of integration.

The Arrival of an Integrated System

When an integrated system arrives, marketers need to be trained on the system and access it as the standard hub for doing their job. Once this occurs, over a period of months, it is likely that marketing and digital teams will integrate much more closely as they will share common and automatically reported goals. But it’s important to remember that this still doesn’t meet the big marketing picture of completely integrating online and offline data centres, and it doesn’t integrate SEO efforts, which can be a major factor in the success of websites. I’ve seen a demo of Google Analytics which does attempt to match media value vs. search volume and other metrics, but since it hasn’t appeared in v.5 of the free version of GA, I can only assume that it is part of the enterprise package. I’m unlikely to be looking at this any time soon.

A data sharing hub is the key to integration between marketing departments

Picture credit from We Are Circle

In Conclusion…

We are certainly creeping towards a more integrated norm. In this norm, the data siloes of different departments and sub-departments should be better integrated, which should break down the barriers which currently exist within marketing and indeed digital departments. But even so, only when the action of sharing data is no longer a manual process between any departments, can we say that we have arrived at a truly integrated future. Although integrated data centres appear to have caught up with the varying media that we now use to reach consumers, new technologies continue to arrive, and it could be forecast that we never arrive at a stage of perfect integration.

Category: Analytics, Data, Permission Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Strategy | Tags: , ,
James Carson | October 31, 2011
No comments

Great Books for Digital Marketers #2: Thinking Digitally

So a couple of weeks back I hightlighted my favourite reads for crowdsourcing. This time around I’ve got several books on overall digital theory – basically how to think about marketing digitally. A couple of books by Seth Godin and the one that clearly influenced him feature in the list:

 

Top Books for Digital Marketing

 

The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time, Don Peppers and Martha Richards (1993)

Written before the strength of the Internet was realised, most of The One to One Future’s practical examples are now dated. It talks about fax, VCR and automated phone messaging a lot, but this book is a complete powerhouse in explaining the new dynamic of customer relationship management before social media. It appears to be the key influence in both Seth Godin’s writings and Inbound Marketing theory.

 

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers, by Seth Godin (1999)

Seth Godin’s classic develops ideas presented by The One to One Future into more practical usage for today. It’s explains customer funnels and levels of permission you need to get to achieve lifelong loyal customers.

 

The Long Tail: How Unlimited Choice is Creating Endless Demand, by Chris Anderson (2006)

The former editor of Wired explains the new economic system of endless choice creates unlimited demand – ushering in the age of eBay, iTunes, Netflix and Amazon. It pretty much explains why Woolworths was doomed.

 

 

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth Godin (2008)

Simple in its concept, but brilliantly argued, Seth Godin tells us what’s required to succeed in a world of endless choice. It is no longer enough to have a well marketed but mediocre product, the game has changed so that your product must be remarkable to stand out – a Purple Cow.

 

 

Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, Brian Halligan and Darmesh Shah (2009)

Most experienced digital marketers will tear through this at a rapid pace, but it gives a well-rounded overview of the new system of marketing that is practically free to use. I liked it so much I bought 20 copies for our office.

Category: Good Books, Inbound Marketing, Permission Marketing, Social Media, Theory | Tags: , ,
James Carson | September 11, 2011
One comment

Further Education in Digital Marketing – 8 of the Top Courses

Guest Post from Genial Joe of Think Genial.

Another batch of students are about to enter the world of work (I am assuming they ‘chilled out’ over summer, though I am probably ‘out of touch’), but for those with a thirst for knowledge and a healthy dislike of the 9-5 world there is the Masters!

The most astute amongst this group IMO will be doing digital marketing courses. Here is a selection I found on t’internet. Incidentally I didn’t find any undergrad degrees in digital marketing.

1. London School of Business and Finance – MSc in Digital Marketing

Entry Requirements:

Undergraduate degree or equivalent

3 years of full-time work experience recommended prior to joining the programme

The Course:

Term 1: certificate in Marketing, term 2: diploma in Marketing, term 3. MSc in Marketing

Facts:

  • Degree is validated and awarded by the University of Wales, UK.
  • Campuses available: London – Campus, Manchester – Campus & Online
  • Class diversity breakdown Aug 2011 29 students from 20 countries (All Marketing MSCs)

Fees: Home £8,500, overseas: £11,500

2. Manchester Metropolitan University – MSc Digital Marketing Communications

Entry Requirements: A good British honours degree (or equivalent) in any subject.

The Course:

Covered: Customer Acquisition and Conversion Concepts, Integrated Marketing, Customer Management and Retention Concepts, Social Media, Advanced Search Engine Optimisation, Advanced Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing

Facts:

  • UK’s first Masters in Digital Marketing Communications
  • In conjunction with e-consultancy.com
  • Full time students will have the opportunity to apply for internships and work placements with a number of organisations in the UK.
  • Full Econsultancy membership for the duration of your studies – £295 per year

Fees: Part time: £9,450 + VAT, Full Time: £8,950 + VAT

3. University of Southampton – MSc in Digital Marketing

Entry Requirements: First- or upper second-class honours degree from a UK university, or equivalent

The Course:

Core modules: Consumer insight; Data-driven marketing; Information systems strategy; Innovation and creativity; Digital marketing communications; Introduction to marketing; Key personal skills; Strategic marketing decisions; Strategic marketing intelligence; Web analytics; Web applications

Facts: Accreditation by Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing

Start date: End of September

Fees: £6,550, more for intl students

4. London Metropolitan University – Digital & Experiential Marketing (MA)

Entry Requirements:

A good honours degree, minimum 2:2, in marketing, communications, a business discipline, computing, or other degree with relevant business experience

Applicants who do not hold an undergraduate degree will require a minimum of three years of marketing experience within industry.

The Course:

Core modules: Digital Marketing Fundamentals, Experiential Marketing, Data Mining Business Applications, Brand Equity, E-solutions and Digital Media Applications, Marketing Research

Facts:

The course explores the nature of Digital Marketing and Experiential Marketing as distinct specialisations; while recognising that the two specialisations are inextricably linked.

no official closing date for this course

Programme ran for the first time from September 2010.

Fees: UK and EU students: £7,110, International students: £11,340

5. London South Bank University – MSc in Digital Marketing

Here’s a prospectus look at the course

Entry requirements: Must hold the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing (IDM) QCA Level 7 Diploma in Digital Marketing.

Core modules: Research Methods, Marketing in the Digital Environment

Options: Digital and Social Media, Public Relations, Emerging Issues, Global Operations & Logistics, Market Driven Marketing, Social Marketing Strategy or International Marketing

Facts:

  • Accredited by: Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing
  • Course run by the department of Management, Human Resources and Marketing

Fees:

home/ EU £3531

Overseas: £4925

Other ‘Short Courses’

University of Salford – Search & Social Media Marketing

Foundation course – 4 days next – Starts 22nd Sept

Professional 6 days next – Starts 20th Oct

Fees: Foundation – £1000, Professional – £1500, Both – £2000

City University of London – Digital Marketing, An Introduction

10 weekly classes, next starts Monday 3rd Oct,

Fees: £330

Chartered Institute of Marketing – Digital Marketing

3 day course, monthly,

Fees: £1,597 – £1,975

I hope you enjoyed this short roundup. If you have done any of these courses please let me know what they were like in the comments below.

If not then what are you doing to educate yourself in digital marketing?

Category: Courses, Inbound Marketing, Permission Marketing, Social Media | Tags: ,
James Carson | August 28, 2011
No comments

Socially Charging Your Content: Creating Content for Facebook and Twitter

Most of what social media presents us isn’t particularly new. Rick Levine’s essay But How Does it Taste in The Cluetrain Manifesto provides a great quote on this:

“It’s … practical to think of social media as the use of the mundane, commonplace technology around us in the pursuit of a goal transcending that technology: fostering conversation and connection between people.”

The quote is one of the most profound in the book – the web and social media are simply tools to accelerate communication, particularly conversation. When I think about the integration of social media into content, then I don’t feel this is particularly new either. Certainly, ten years ago we wouldn’t be asking viewers to upload a video of themselves to YouTube to enter a contest – the technology wasn’t there – but almost all magazines have had a letters section since they were first printed. There has been an interacting connection between reader and writer, just social media has broadened the range of this and accelerated its execution.

What Size Following Do You Need?

On Facebook, you can collect content from an engaged fanbase incredibly quickly. I’ve previously noted in my post Social Media Drives all Traffic Sources, that a ‘Larger Social Media Profiles’ stage, where you can capture data and poll users meaningfully really starts at around 10,000 for media brands. However, that’s not strictly necessary to collect content from your users, and size really depends on vertical – if you’re an ecommerce provider of white household goods, for instance, you’d probably have a much lower quantity. And it also depends on what kind of questions you want to ask.

Creating Regular Features

With regard to creating content, then you can use Facebook and Twitter to ask questions of your fanbase. You could create a regular feature: ‘Facebook Fan Views’ and have the subject the trendiest topic in your vertical during a given week. Let’s think you operate as a seller of computer hardware. This week your post could be:

So this week Steve Jobs resigned from his role as Chief Executive of Apple. How do you think this will affect Apple’s next hardware releases?

Let us know in the comments – selected ones will be used in this week’s Facebook Fan Views.

You may get tripe from this, but you may get some really useful insight. Create an article, lead and open the debate but then express the best fan views for different schools of thought. Make sure that you allow user comments on the article too so you can take it further. People who contribute there may want to feature in the main article next week rather than down in the comments, so they’ll be waiting for you to make the next similar post. Make this a regular thing and you’ll quickly be able to see top contributors and highlight these people as advocates. Talk to them – use them for your own insight.

Facebook Questions

You can also collect data very fast through using the Facebook Question tool (the far right option of the status update). You can poll fans quickly on any topic – get their views and then use this data to create content. You could say, we polled our 2,000 strong Facebook fanbase and 800 of them let us know their view, then express the results (data visualisation skills desirable).

FHM Update

Form Building

The final thing you can do is collect more privately held views. Examples might be a medical practice that wants to find out stories of embarrassing illnesses. With this, a public poll or comment would be largely inappropriate. But since Facebook apps rely on iframes it’s incredibly easy to do – create some forms on your website that collect name, contact details and then a larger form for message input, then iframe it in via a tab application. Of course, you’ll need to drive people to the tab, so make sure you create posts on Facebook and Twitter that link directly to the tab – of course you could direct them direct to your website too. I just think it’s good to keep them within the network and build the engagement with your fans on the network itself.

Jillian Michaels on Facebook

Here’s a great example of the form builder in action on Jillian Michael’s Facebook page. Click on submit and then a modal window appears where you can input free text – great for finding out the personal fitness stories of her fans. The page is powered by Buddy Media, but you could build an ‘app’ on your site and iframe it in.

Category: Content, Facebook, Facebook Applications, Permission Marketing, Social Media, Twitter | Tags: , , ,
James Carson | August 13, 2011
No comments

Link Building is a Lot Like Getting Laid

It’s Saturday, so you might be wondering why I’m writing a blog post, but really the key thing about Saturday is about going out and meeting some people. If you’re a single guy, then it will certainly cross your mind that you’d like to meet a lady, and if you want to take it a bit further, it would be nice to get laid.

I had a little think about this after writing a couple of posts (as yet unpublished) about hustle. Then I thought that there really is an analogy – link building is a lot like getting laid! When I thought about the system of approach in bars, then there can be a neat analogy with the approach of link building. Still though, it would seem that a lot of link builders don’t get laid. No more – behold the link building/getting laid analogy. (Yes, it’s been done before, but I find this post a little creepy with Hunter/Hunted analogies.)

Attractiveness of Proposition

Shrek Rooney

Shrek, but good enough for Colleen

I’ll start at this because some but not all of the process of getting laid or getting links is attractiveness. Thus if you are a beautiful looking BBC with heavily researched and neatly laid out content, you are pretty much the most attractive website in the UK for getting links. If you look a cross between Brad Pitt and David Beckham, then you’ll have a head start for getting laid. The analogy falls down on the one side because the BBC’s online strength is built around large amounts of resources and skill, while being good looking is often a natural attribute unless you go to a plastic surgeon. Of course, you could read Men’s Health and sculpt your guns until you look like Arnie, but it doesn’t add up to much if you have a face like Wayne Rooney… although actually – it does! Wayne Rooney gets laid because his incredible honed skills have made him an extremely attractive proposition. He did very little during his teens other than play football. He’s now a very rich man as a consequence. Here’s a relevant equation:

money = power + power = attractiveness.

So, if you’re a nobody who looks like Wayne Rooney, you will probably find it harder to get laid. If you’re a .wordpress.blog with no links and no brand, you will probably find it harder to get laid. But let’s remember, it’s possible to become more attractive. You just need spend time to build your brand.

Hustle

You won't get it as often if you don't try

Not very men are blessed with the aura of celebrity, thus they probably won’t get approached by women on a regular basis. If you look like Brad Pitt, then chances are occasionally you’ll get laid when you don’t really have to try, same as the BBC doesn’t really have to try to get links. But wait, what would happen if you did try? Even if you didn’t look the part, you’d be giving yourself a better chance.

How many times do you approach women on a night out? None? One? Next time you go out, try and approach women you don’t know five times. You will almost certainly get a lot further than not doing any approaching at all. You might get laughed at or the girl might be a bitch and she could even slap you, but at least you did try. It’s the same as your website. It’ll take a lot longer if you don’t do any outreach. If you emailed five targets a day you’re almost certain to build quite a lot of links during a year. Some might not respond and some might even call you a spammer (if you screw up the next part), but at least you tried.

The First Impression

So you haven’t got a very good conversion rate on either of your hustles? There’s not much link love going around. Fear not. If you’ve read The Game by Neill Strauss then you’ll find that there are PUA Openers and there are those openers that are said by AFCs (Average Frustrated Chumps). The latter type of opener would go something along the lines of: “If you were a burger at McDonald’s, then I’d call you McBeautiful.” Hopelessly cheesy chat up lines, or: “You’re so beautiful. What’s your name?” It just strikes a lot of women as weird, desperate and difficult to hold a conversation from. On the flip side you can take this PUA advice:

  • Use an opener that differentiates you from most of the other guys who have approached her in the past.
  • Skip over the normal, boring small talk that kills most approaches quickly (“What’s your name? Where are you from?” Not many people ever got laid starting out like this).
  • Engage everyone the girl is talking to. So when approaching a group you should always open the entire group.

For more on openers, check out this post – there are quite a range of original methods.

Toilet Talks Links

Now then, in link building, you need to have a good opener as well, else you risk never getting a reply and you will never get into bed with your prospective link partner. Going in and saying, “Hi, I love your site, could you link to me?” is about as effective as the above chat up line. Instead, you can use these approaches.

  • Tell them what you can do for them first rather than asking what they can do for you. Say what you can offer; if you’re pursuing long term partners, don’t go asking for links from the off
  • Be as personal as possible. Not addressing them by name if you can find one is inexcusable. If you can check them out on LinkedIn and Facebook, put a small detail about them in the opener – this is particularly good when you
  • Bin email all together. Email is for work, and a lot of people find emails from people they don’t know so irrelevant they don’t reply. If you can approach people after a few beers at networking events, they will almost certainly not say no. If you can approach them on Facebook, then for most people this is something a little unusual that differentiates you from the rest of the link building crowd. Don’t acknowledge the fact you’re being different. It’s just what you do.
  • I don’t like putting obvious stuff in, but if you’re writing style isn’t great (few people are aware of how bad they are) or it’s prone to making mistakes, get someone who can write to do your emails. It’s worth getting it right. You wouldn’t expect to go up to a beautiful lady with a stammer like The King’s Speech and get laid in a hurry.


There’s a long passage in Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing about the process of getting married in the analogies of an interruptive approach vs. a permission approach. It’s excellent, you should read it.

Build a Relationship

If you meet a nice lady in a bar, then she’ll likely be hammered or quite loose if she’s prepared to sleep with you right away. Normally people get laid after a passage of dating – and I would think fourth date is probably about average. You’re probably not going to get a link straight away either. Hold off, be patient, and wait until you have something really relevant to offer before you ask for links. Be nice to them, courteous, and conversational – a gentleman. If it stays interesting you will get laid.

Kate Upton in Bed

This is Kate Upton. I love her. Maybe if one day I apply these techniques we will get married.

Category: Hustle, Link Building, Permission Marketing, SEO | Tags: , , ,