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When you start out a home based business it's a common mistake to start off advertising your website. If you have a website with lots of things for sale on it you'll probably just end up confusing your potential customer. They may or may not be able to determine what it is that's for sale. Here are a few reasons why it's better to advertise a Splash Page/Squeeze Page vs. a Website.

1. If you're using Google Adwords to drive people to your site then you'll want to get sales for your advertising dollar. If you're paying for people to come to your website and they are confused about what it is that's for sale, chances are that they will click on through. If a splash/squeeze page is used then you can capture names, email addresses and a whole lot more useful information. By using the splash page/squeeze page you will at least get some information in which you can use for a sale down the road. Having a newsletter sign up on the splash page/squeeze Page will accomplish this.

2. If your using Traffic Exchanges for your advertising then you'll want to make sure that your surfing is all for not. Using a Splash/Squeeze Page to capture leads for your business is what people are doing more and more now. The splash/squeeze Page forces the surfer to put in info by using a method like: "If you join now I'll give you this free.....", or "Join up now before it's too late". By using this method the seller accomplishes two things; they obtain info on the potential customer and give away probably some sort of viral e-book/software etc... This method of advertising is becoming more and more popular. Why? Because it produces results.

3. Joining Ad forums/groups is another yet not as effective way to advertise yet the same thing applies here as well. By using a well thought out ad and using a splash page/squeeze page to obtain information you will accomplish some results. If you just advertise your website, again people will tend not to take your offer up because they get confused about what's for sale.

By using a splash/squeeze page you will obtain very important information on your potential customer which will give you an opportunity to repeatedly give you chances to sell what ever it is you're selling. The whole idea of Internet Marketing is to have buyers for your products and to be able to have repeat customers is what the splash page/squeeze page is all about. If you just advertise your website then you risk the customer clicking through and not ever seeing them again.

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I was doing my annual reading of Ted Levitt's Marketing Myopia this week and got to thinking about the whole process of product development and what business certain companies are really in.

Not sure where this came from, but gas stations are one of the places that I just loathe. They think they're in the business of dispensing fuel and, save for the convenience store movement, which was a marginal improvement over just pumps, they've not changed much. I'm not sure that I'll be able to redefine their business, but here's a few things I was thinking of that would just make things better. Hell, it might change their

...Get better coffee. Shell or BP or someone should partner with Starbucks or Peets or someone. Gas station coffee is notoriously horrible. Why not do something about it, promote it, and raise your margins a bit. Put a major recognized brand in place, not some shitty house brand that's no different than folgers.

...Put air hoses with built in tire pressure gauges at every pump, and charge for it. Mario Andretti and Michelin are all over the TV with their 'inflate your tires' safety message, yet there's one air hose hidden behind the building that only works 1/2 of the time. Why not become the 'Volvo' of convenience stores and promote safety, quality and efficient transportation. Won't you join us, my ass. Put some muscle into it. And, charge me for the privilege of pumping up my tires, or ask me when I'm done filling up, like you do when you want me to buy a car wash. What do I need more, fuel economy & safety or a car wash?

...Put Purell dispensers next to the toweling and window washer. I hate the way that my hands smell when I get done pumping gas and I'm sure I'm not alone. How am I supposed to eat that pastry I just bought if my hands smell like fuel?

I'm sure that there's more, but there's a few ideas...if someone did those, I'd certainly get loyal real quick!

A new study released by the Business Performance Management Forum (via ClickZ Stats) found that despite continued investments in CRM and other market/company tracking data software solutions, most product marketing and product management executives use spreadsheets and gut instinct to make key business-changing decisions.

While the study implies that this is a refection of the current state of the marketing software solutions, one should not discount the possibility that it could also be an indication that marketing execs do not believe that you can extract business-changing decisions from existing company data.

There is no doubt that the current state of marketing software solutions are woefully inadequate (siloed, too hard to use, etc.). That being said, it could be that the solutions that will find the widest adoption are not those that increase complexity while enhancing usability, but rather simpler tools.

Look what wikis are doing to the collaboration space...

[Tags: crm marketing software solution collaboration wiki]

Co-host Brad Forsythe interviews Jeff Diskin, Senior Vice President of Brand Performance for Hilton Hotels.  In his position, Diskin is responsible for providing strategic brand direction for the Hilton full service brand, targeting market share growth, meeting revenue targets, overall brand positioning, brand marketing, and establishing and maintaining brand standards. Prior to his appointment as Senior Vice President, Diskin served as President, Chief Operating Officer – Hilton HHonors Worldwide, and was responsible for the worldwide marketing and operations of the award-winning Hilton HHonors hotel guest loyalty program. He joined Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1989 as Manager of Business Programs, and later was promoted to Director of Business Programs for the company. Prior to joining Hilton, Diskin held a variety of account service, customer service, and creative management positions at Marketing Performance & Innovation (MPI), a subsidiary of United Airlines.

For entertaining advice join hosts, Ray Schilens and Brad Forsythe, for a lively and informative two-hour discussion.

I've now got ShoZu on my Nokia 6630 setup to easily send video to my blip.tv account*. Lots of Gnomedex video going up.

Most fun was lamenting about the lack of Nokia smartphones to buy here in North America with Bre Pettis (someone *needs* to give Bre a phone for his Phonetagger alter-ego) and Will Pate. Short story here is: Nokia, forget about buzz marketing to give away phones -- there are people that just want to *buy* your high end phones.

Watch the Video

And I'm going to repeat what I said to Nokia before about encouraging carriers (especially in Canada):

My top hint on what Nokia should do? Forget the free phones: continue to sell great phones, but pressure Fido and Rogers to offer a "citizen journalism" data package so people in Canada can use all the cool features. The HipTop plan from Fido is $25/month for unlimited data...I think there would be a ton of people that would pay that to be able to upload pictures to Flickr on the fly and use all of the other great features that Nokia phones can enable (*cough* ShoZu *cough*).

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