Anyone following our piss-take on the iPad rumour-mill (see the very latest iPad 3 rumours) will have spotted that we took a poke at Apple’s propensity to sue anything that moves.

Now it seems that Apple has learned the true meaning of Christmas the phrase ‘those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.

MacRumors reports that ‘Motorola Mobility has won an initial ruling in Germany that could allow the company to bar Apple from selling the iPhone and 3G-capable iPad models throughout the European Union.’

This is a perfect example of poetic justice. Perhaps Apple should have put more effort into the iPhone 4s instead of throwing its weight around in court?

Unlike LinkedIn, there’s no paid upgrade or advertising. This programme exists to give you and I a superb set of tools with which to connect, give and receive referrals. The programme is very well thought through and highly effective.

You can sign up (free) via this link. Once you’re on board, get in touch with me from inside the programme and ask me to explain how to take advantage of its power.

It was a very secure facility, and the Germans considered Colditz to be escape-proof.

Despite the castle’s natural security advantages and the rigorous efforts of its chief security officer, there were successful escapes from Colditz because…

• It housed prisoners who had already tried to escape and were likely to do so again
• Lessons learned from failed attempts were applied to future escape plans
• Prisoners housed in Colditz were highly organised
• The prisoners systematically gathered intelligence about the outside world, planned accordingly, and debriefed (i.e. learned from) failed escapees on recapture

This same approach can be applied to web marketing. A smart marketer will take a lead from Colditz…

• Understand the market (i.e. the outside world)
• Plan accordingly
• Execute the plan
• Implement proper measures
• Learn from mistakes

Understand the Market

Allied prisoners in Colditz gathered as much information about Germany and its occupied territories as they could.

They knew what identity papers they’d need, formed plausible cover stories (e.g. posing as immigrant workers to get around an inability to speak German), and devised ways to navigate successfully across the occupied territories.

Business owners also need to understand what their competitors are doing, the requirements of the market with respect to their product or service, and any weaknesses in the wider market that can be exploited.

In simple terms, ongoing success depends on a business owner’s ability to spot unrealised demand and supply it.

Plan Accordingly

Once Allied prisoners understood what they’d need to escape from Coliditz they began to plan. They formed escape committees to chase down every detail and acquire the resources they’d need to execute the plan.

Different nationalities within Colditz had their own escape committee, and each appointed a liaison officer to meet with and coordinate among the different groups. This was to ensure their respective plans didn’t overlap.

It’s not enough to know what the competition is up to. A business also has to ensure its devises an advantage for itself in the market. A business has to make it hard to compete against it.

Execute the plan

POWs in Colditz worked hard to execute their plans. Dedicated teams worked together to help small groups of people escape.

This extended to staging fake escapes where prisoners were hidden for up to a year within Colditz to mislead the Germans into thinking men had successfully escaped. They adjusted their roll-call counts accordingly.

When a genuine escape took place these ‘ghosts’ (hidden prisoners) were returned to the general population to make up numbers in roll calls. As a result of this ingenious plan the Germans didn’t know an escape had occurred so they weren’t out scouring the countryside looking for the escapees.

This gave escapees more time to get away. Read more about Colditz ‘ghosts’.

The execution of a marketing plan is every bit as important as the data collected for it. Attention to detail is essential, and every member of the team needs to know what his/her specific job is.

It’s also vital that a business be able to analyse the results. Successes are important, but failures often teach the most valuable lessons.

Implement Proper Measures

Escaping prisoners who were caught often faced extended periods of time in solitary confinement. It was crucial to know exactly why any given plan had failed, but solitary confinement delayed the essential debriefing.

A marketing plan will have many potential points of failure. If the results of the plan aren’t measured it won’t be possible to understand why it failed.

At a minimum a business must be able to record the following…

• Where every visitor to the site came from
• Which ad each visitor responded to
• Which offer each visitor accepted
• What each visitor did at each step of the campaign

Armed with this information it’s possible to tell…

• Which visitor source generated the best visitors
• Which offer generated the most sales
• The cost per sale for each ad source and offer
• The return on investment for each visitor source, ad and offer

This level of detail makes it possible to determine the cause of failure at any given point. It also ensures successful elements of a failed campaign are detected. For example, a business may discover a particular combination of visitor source, ad and offer was profitable despite an overall failure.

This allows the business to make changes that will deliver more successful campaigns in future.

Learn from mistakes

Despite the inventiveness and genius that went into Allied escape attempts from Colditz, many mistakes were made. Both the prisoners and their guards learned from these mistakes.

Every marketer can expect to make mistakes. It’s not important that a mistake was made, but that the business be able to analyse the results, discover what went wrong, and correct it.

The instantaneous nature of web marketing means it’s often possible to correct a campaign while its still running. Sometimes a disaster can even be turned into a triumph.

Disappointment.

The event started with about 9 million hours worth of self-congratulatory statistics in a stunning example of death by Powerpoint. Although I suspect Apple wasn’t using Powerpoint

And what did we learn from this excruciating session? Apparently Apple employs a lot of windbags. Oh, and it’s #1 in every single category on the market. I suppose this must also include those categories it doesn’t compete in. Why, Apple even makes the best darn Windows 7 PC on the market!

Uh huh, but what about the new phone?

All 4 journalists and numerous tweeters agreed. Stop patting yourself on the back and get to the phone.

They didn’t.

Well, they did. Eventually. And it turned out to be a tweak of the iPhone 4. This is a clear example of how to blow a presentation. And so, without further ado, I present the fully patented, trademarked and litigiously ‘Apple’ approach to running a presentation…

1. Talk about how great you are – for hours
2. Prove it with plenty of Powerpoint Keynote slides
3. Talk about how many market categories you dominate
4. Prove it with plenty of Powerpoint Keynote slides
5. Talk about every other product you make except the one people are actually interested in
6. Revamp your last presentation in mind-numbingly dull detail
7. Show more Powerpoint Keynote slides
8. Reveal your new but disappointing product
9. Hope that everybody has fallen asleep and so fails to notice that your new product falls somewhat short of its competitors
10. Show more Powerpoint Keynote slides that prove how great you are

Having said all that the new iPhone looks pretty good from where I sit. Especially as my contract expires in December.

The iPhone 4S may not best the Samsung Galaxy S2, or some of the more exciting Android phones about to hit the market. But none of those phones contain my Apps and data so they’re irrelevant to me (along with 125 million other iPhone users).

EDIT: I’ve changed my mind. My iPhone 3Gs does everything I need it to do. It’s the single most useful business tool I’ve ever owned. The most useful improvement given the way I use this thing is a larger screen. So I’ve decided to wait for the iPhone 5.

The article deals specifically with the main problem of online lead generation, includes a number of counter-intuitive ideas and goes against the prevailing ‘wisdom’.

Head on over to my specialist lead generation blog and take a look.

I overlooked an essential ingredient to success – health. A combination of long hours, poor diet, a specific vitamin deficiency, middle age and my liver all conspired to leave me without the energy to work more than an hour or two per day.

This state of affairs continued for a bank-account depleting five full months!

It wasn’t much fun, and it took my Gastroenterologist over 3 months to get to the heart of the matter. Like other people too stupid to look after themselves, I ended up having a certain type of conversation with my Gastroenterologist that went something like this…

• You’re overweight even though you don’t look it. Your body hides it well
• There is fat you can’t see surrounding your liver and this sometimes stops if from functioning correctly
• If things continue you’re likely to develop serious health issues later in life
• You need to make some changes. In particular…
• Avoid sugar and sugary drinks – including fruit juice
• Eat less fruit (but not no fruit) and more veges
• Avoid anything the body easily turns to sugar such as white flour and alcoholic beverages
• Start exercising regularly
• Take a vitamin D supplement every day
  I want to be clear about this – I have a deficiency that shows up in blood tests. This has nothing to do with the current (incorrect) woo-belief that everybody should take a vitamin D supplement (they shouldn’t). Neither do I believe the assertion that the RDA for vitamin D wildly understates the actual amount needed per day (it doesn’t)
• Get out into the sunshine for 15 minutes whenever it’s sunny (i.e. to make as much of my own vitamin D as I can)

It’s quite a challenge to run a business when you can’t work more than a few hours a day. The idea that I could add regular exercise to my daily routine just seemed impossible to me because I got tired sitting at a computer for a couple of hours!

Fortunately I met two brilliant personal trainers at just the right time. The first is Rob Brennan of Fitness Universal. Rob did 5 things that were crucial for someone in my position (i.e. overweight, ill and middle aged)…

1. He had me work out at my level of fitness so I didn’t overdo things. I’m the sort of person who gets too keen and ends up injuring themselves – rendering further exercise impossible (i.e. undoes all that good work)
2. He made the workouts a lot more fun than they normally are. A personal trainer has many ways to make an exercise session more fun
3. He got me motivated to get fit. And I don’t just mean overall. When I’m on my 15th rep of a kettlebell exercise Rob provides a much needed burst of motivation to complete the final 5. And it’s those final 5 that deliver the most benefit
4. He focussed on my technique. This ensures the right muscles are exercised and helps to prevent injury
5. He put me on a diet that avoided foods my Gastroenterologist told me to avoid, and provides the energy necessary to train 3 days a week

I can’t speak highly enough of personal training in general, and Rob specifically. If you need to exercise and can get to West Hampstead (London UK), get in touch with Rob.

Rob just happens to be a keen Rugby Union fan, so he’s in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup. Leading up to his 6 week departure he referred me to another brilliant personal trainer – Ilaria Petrucci in Wembley.

Ilaria is likewise an excellent motivator and has an encyclopedic knowledge of fitness training. For example, when my wrist was too sore to perform a particular exercise Ilaria instantly switched to another that gets the same result but avoids placing stress on the wrist. When it comes to exercise, Ilaria is a walking talking Wikipedia!

As you can tell, I’m now a big fan of personal trainers. I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of exercise, which muscles they work on and so on. Neither can I monitor my own form during an exercise and correct poor technique. A good personal trainer can and will.

Even better – your personal trainer will customise each and every workout. Your session is designed specifically for your needs at that time.

Each session takes into account niggling injuries you might have, and aims to advance your current level of fitness in spite of the day-to-day circumstances. A personal trainer gets you through the ‘I don’t wannas’ that might otherwise scupper a workout if left to one’s own devices.

As a result of Rob and Ilaria’s dedication over the last 3 months I look thinner, more toned and have more energy than I’ve had in years. I don’t believe I’d be where I am right now without their input.

If you woke up this morning and found yourself overweight, middle aged and lacking in energy – go get yourself a personal trainer.

EDIT: See the comments below for handy tips on choosing a personal trainer and how to pay for sessions if you’re strapped for cash.

It’s main virtue is that all my files are now instantly available on my desktop, laptop and iphone, no matter where I am in the world, and without me having to do anything to make it happen.

Even better, if I accidentally leave all my online devices at home (perish the thought), I can still access my files by logging in to Dropbox via a browser (e.g. Internet cafe, friends computer). I should also add that I’ll still have access to my files even if all my computers are stolen and my house burns down.

I’ve been waiting for this product for years and didn’t even know it.

Dropbox is generous too. It gives you 2GB absolutely free, and lets you earn another 250MB for watching its introduction. Naturally you can buy more space if you need it. It is a work of genius, and I thoroughly recommend it.

What are you still reading this for? Get your Dropbox account now!

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO for short) must be one of the most misunderstood subjects on Earth. Sometimes it seems that I encounter people who misunderstand it every single day!

Such a high level of misunderstanding inevitably leads to mistakes. And there are 3 SEO mistakes that I see repeated over and over again. They are…

1. Lack of keyword research
2. Low keyword density
3. Worthless link-building

As mistakes go, this is about as bad as it gets. So let’s take a look at each SEO mistake and find out how to avoid it.

Lack of keyword research

SEO works by focussing the content of a page on a particular keyword. The objective is to have that particular keyword stand out to Google.

The question every sight owner must ask is How do I know I’m focussing on the right keyword? The last thing you want to do is invest hours of time on a keyword that nobody actually types into Google.

Discovering the best search term (i.e. keyword phrase) for any given page is the job of keyword research. And for the most part, it can be done using Google’s Keyword Analysis Tool.

Low Keyword Density

Keyword Density refers to the number of times a particular keyword phrase occurs within a web page relative to all other words on the page. This ratio is called a Keyword Density Score.

If the targeted keyword doesn’t appear more frequently than other common words on the page, it won’t stand out to Google. And as a result, the site won’t be indexed for the keyword you’re aiming to focus on.

The tool you need to check the Keyword Density of any given web page is called a Keyword Density Report. This will tell you at a glance whether or not your page is up to snuff.

Worthless Link-Building

Links from external sites are the life-blood of SEO. In general terms, the more links you get to your site the better. Having said that, some links are worth more than others. And some links are worth nothing at all.

A smart webmaster will seek links that come from sites that…

• Have a Google PageRank of 3 or more
• Contain content that is related or relevant in some way to the web page being linked to
• Delivers context to the site being linked to

For example, this Ballroom Dancing link delivers context to the site I’m linking to. This is because the the keyword phrase Ballroom Dancing appears as the clickable text within the link.

• It’s interactive
• It’s involving
• It’s digital

This is all just so much ‘blah blah’. Viral marketing is an over-hyped tool that has promised much and delivered little in the real world. How many truly successful viral marketing campaigns have you seen?

Yes, there are plenty of things that have gone viral. But they’re not marketing anything. They’re fun. A bit of frippery to distract and amuse. They achieve nothing more.

To be successful as a marketing tool, a viral campaign must achieve a marketing result. It has to deliver eyeballs, sales and/or brand/product awareness. If it can’t achieve any of these objectives, it’s a complete and utter waste of time and money from the perspective of the one paying for it.

To go viral, a campaign must be easy to spread. If it requires anything even remotely difficult or time-consuming, it won’t spread beyond the first generation of people who receive it. This has implications for viral products that require downloading and installing. In most industries, this would kill a viral campaign right then and there.

It makes much more sense for most industries to instead build a web-based viral campaign that doesn’t require downloading, and instead runs instantly in a browser.

UK sex-toy retailer Electric LadyLounge has produced a viral marketing campaign based on a quiz format. The viral tests one’s knowledge of sex-toys. The quiz page loads immediately, and takes around 90 seconds to complete.

The results are displayed, and it’s a bit of a giggle. Even better, you can see how other people did, including the person who sent you the quiz.

This is something you might send on to your friends if they enjoy having a laugh. Electric LadyLounge make it clear that you and your friends can see each other’s results. This provides a social motivation to spread the virus.

The company goes one step further, and offers to enter you in a prize draw each time you send the quiz on to a friend. This is a smart step, although the prize isn’t all that exciting in and of itself. But then, it probably doesn’t need to be in this case. It merely adds a little spice to mix.

There is a built-in form that allows you to send a ‘personal’ invitation to your friends by supplying minimal data. This makes it reasonably easy to spread the ‘virus’, but only to one person at a time. And after supplying 3 pieces of data (firstname, lastname and email address).

It could be even easier to send this out. If the quiz was integrated with Facebook it would be possible to share it with all one’s Facebook friends with a single click.

In my view, a viral marketing campaign will only succeed if 3 criteria are met. You can read about them here.

It ain’t necessarily so.

Facebook is a social medium. It’s designed from the ground up to facilitate gossip. Which part of your business is gossip-worthy?

Are you likely to get on Facebook and tell all your friends about something you saw on Plumber’s business-orientated fan page?

“Ah,” you say (because you dare to debate the master), “if I was interested in knowing more about plumbing, and I saw something useful, then yes I would tell my network of plumbing fans all about it.”

“Aha!” I reply with a wry ‘gotcha’ grin. “How is sharing trade secrets useful to the plumber? You’re not actually in the plumber’s target market. You and your cadre of plumbing groupies are enthusiasts who don’t need to employ Joe. You’re merely benefiting from his generosity.”

The plain fact is all this free advice isn’t helping the business that’s sharing it. I write articles on this (and many other) blogs because I like writing. I didn’t write this article because I thought it would bring me business.

For the most part, the people who utilise this blog are free-loaders (sorry folks). They’re don’t constitute a viable target market for my services. The same is true of the vast majority of Facebook groups and fan pages.

My viable clients have absolutely zero interest in these articles. At best, a person in my target market may use these articles to assess my credibility. And even then, I have to provide him/her with the link. S.he is not otherwise interested in my thoughts about the viability of Facebook, and will never send the URL of this page to his/her social network.

For a conventional business-to-business company, Facebook will almost never generate business directly. It may generate a referral to somebody who is interested, but even then it’s hit and miss. And frankly, there are better social media tools for referral marketing.

Where Facebook comes into its own is for businesses that generate gossip-worthy content. That is, content the target market wishes to share with it’s personal network because it’s fun, or it delivers social benefits.

This type of business is almost always business-to-consumer. It must have some aspect that makes it inherently useful as a tool for social advancement. This is why a celebrity magazine’s Facebook group will do well as contributor to the companies revenue. And why Joe’s Plumbing and Heating Facebook group will not.

NOTE: I’m not saying Facebook isn’t worth your consideration. I’m merely trying to point out the difference between something people will gossip about, and something they won’t.
It’s also worth recognising the difference between a gossip-worthy item that has legs, and one that doesn’t.

Joe’s Plumbing may break the news that a commonly installed toilet can spontaneously explode. This is gossip-worthy, but a story of the moment. Unless Joe is constantly discovering common household items that spontaneously explode he won’t have much luck generating viral interest out there in Facebook land.

On the other hand, Sally’s Celebrity Shame Report will have no shortage of embarrassing celebrity tid-bits to share. Her site is assured of an endless supply of gossip-worthy exposes.

What’s more, Sally’s Facebook Group has another set of legs. It will be seen as a valuable contributor towards social advancement within specific groups. A person whose friends enjoy laughing at all the latest celebrity gafs will gain kudos within his/her social group by being the source of such stories. That is the value of Sally’s site to its target market.

There is a crucial difference between Joe’s businesses and the one run by Sally. That difference is the key to understanding whether or not Facebook is a viable tool for your own business. Joe should forget Facebook, and look towards ecademy if his purpose is making money. In fact, I think Joe would do even better if he went offline and decided to join BNI instead.