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Off Topic: My Biggest Influencers


Back to the Best of 2007 series next week. But first, blogger and podcaster extraordinaire Paul Dunay, inspired by Paul Gillin's book The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media, tagged me to write about the most important influences in my life, so here goes.

1) My mother. Not only one of the wisest people I've ever known, but also one of the smartest. She finished college in three years and became a teacher—back in the days when few women pursued higher education. Going strong at 87, she still reads voraciously. Of the hundreds of lessons she taught me, one of the most important was to love learning.

2) Alan Koepp, my high school guidance counselor. As a somewhat confused young man, I told him I wasn't sure what I'd do after high school. He told me point blank: "With your grades, if you don't go to college, you're an idiot." That—plus a summer spent as a union truck loader—was the kick in the pants I needed to continue my academic pursuits.

3) My brother, Joe Pick. As my mother taught me how to learn, Joe, my second-oldest brother and first boss, taught me how to work. I also learned that the family business (custom trailer manufacturing) wasn't for me. Thanks to that experience, however, I'm probably the only marketing blogger on the planet who's helped build a trailer to transport a circus lion, among other interesting jobs.

4) Terry Peterson, VP of Customer Service, SoftBrands. Terry was my first marketing mentor, as well as one of the most contagiously upbeat and positive people I've ever met. From Terry I learned that almost anything is possible, with the right plan and execution.

5) Kirsten Chapman, principal of KC Associates, and my current employer. Kirsten is the toughest boss I've ever had. Some days, that makes life very unpleasant. But she is a brilliant strategic and creative thinker who has taught me a great deal, and forced me to take my marketing game to a whole new level, which is a good thing—for me, for KCA, and most importantly, for the success of our clients.

I'm tagging Harry Hoover, Elge Premeau, and Ardath Albee to keep this going.

*****


Contact Mike Bannan: mike@digitalrdm.com

Comments

Anonymous said…
The Power of the Squeeze Pages ($top Losing All Your Money!)

If you were sending people directly to a sales page, you’re missing out on finding out who the customer is, any contact information that we could possibly get to market to that customer in the future and to follow up to find out if they were able to get the product and how they enjoyed that and then cross sell to them.

1. Squeeze pages are definitely… can be a huge benefit to product owners and their affiliates who are trying to market to customers. The problem is that people just starting out do not have squeeze pages. So people click on the link and with that link they’re taken directly to the sales page.

2. Unfortunately for that affiliate, they’re not able to capture any of the important information that will help them down the roa d. If you were sending people directly to a sales page, your’re missing out on finding out who the customer is, any contact information that we could possibly get to market to that customer in the future and to follow up to find out if they were able to get the product and how they enjoyed that and then cross sell. So the problem is that we’re missing out on a lot of information that could be a huge benefit and the product owner obviously is the one who’s really going to benefit because when he makes that sale he’s going to address and name and phone number of the person.


3. So the solution is a squeeze page before taking the customer directly to the sales page. Once they click on that link they’ll be taken to a squeeze page. And at that squeeze page you can usually have a title and you can have the offer. The visitor enters his/her information for a bonus CD or free E-book (your Free gift or offer). After they fill out the information, name and E-mail address they are taken to the sales page of the product you are promoting. Now you have their Name and E-mail Address and can sell them more products and make much more money. Now when you make your own product you can market to a list that already know like and trust you and save on advertising expense as you already have potential customers in your list. There are definitely some benefits to squeeze page like I mentioned.

4. You know, first of all the squeeze page puts you you in charge of your promotions. Any other promotion that you come up with a month or so, or in a year, you’ve got access to all these people who’ve already expressed interest in the product that you’re selling or promoting. This is power. Why? Because all top internet markets and wannabes will be seeking you out to do business with you for as you have a lists of buyers. and by using the squeeze page you’re already starting that list for yourself. And you therefore become powerful. You can make sales; you can definitely participate in JV partnerships and help make a product owner a lot of money and in doing so makes you a lot of money and connections for favors latter own.

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