Curation Revolution

Drone Marketing
Watch the insanely cool video of the DARPA drone flying indoors at 45mph and ask if your content is that cool. Even better ask how you can co-opt cool content like this to serve your brand, website and goals. 

The web is always about two things - NOW and EVERYTHING. If you and your team truly understand those ideas and how they apply to the web and your online marketing then you watch a seemingly unrelated video of a drone thinking, "How can we use this".

The web is always about NOW and EVERYTHING so if you use the platform your marketing is always happening NOW and is about EVERYTHING whether you realize it or not.  

How To Make $30M Online
When people ask me how teams I've managed made more than $30M online I say it's simple - find your 80:20 Rule, double down on winners, leave laggards and hire great people.

None of those things are nearly as "simple" as they sound, but you must know what NOT to do. Any website has an enduring and constant fractal called the 80:20 Rule. This post includes a video about the importance of your 80:20 Rule, how to use what you find and a link to an earlier post on how to find your 80:20 Rule. 

http://www.curagami.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/fractals-cover-image.png 

 

Lots of questions after our presentation of asking the right Ecommerce questions last week to a group of about 40 Small to Medium Sized Businesses in Raleigh sponsored by FedEx. Instead fo writing more, we took a different approach and developed short "Video Notes" adding Curagami YouTube links to our Haiku Deck:

Find the Haiku Deck Here
http://shar.es/1gssvu

Find Introductory Video Notes on YouTube Here
https://youtu.be/T3KVhY_yK10 

Find Video Notes about creating online community here
https://youtu.be/KXmON4U1I_E 

Will add more video notes soon.  

This Ecommerce Master Class Video shares one of our favor web marketing tips. Contests create tribes, engagement & loyalty. Cotests are WORK and they work.

Features Moon-Audio.com's Music & Gear Lover Reviewer Contest:
http://www.moon-audio.com/ambassador-review-contest

When Google went public 10 years ago, co-founder Larry Page said he wanted to get his search engine's users out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. Today, Google is often doing the opposite. WSJ's Rolfe Winkler reports on the News Hub with Tanya Rivero. (Photo: Getty Images).

Marty Note
10 years old Google is moving from search to a content and commerce portal. Increasingly Google wants to be s destination not simply the world leading sieve. Content is king and the king is beginning to emulate one of their subjects - Amazon.

Amazon has been successful at balancing their business between content and commerce. Many Amazon interactions are "rich search" engagements where we use Amazon's reviews or vast scale to teach us something about an online marketplace.

Look at Amazon's nascent entry into streaming video market. Using their loyalty program, Prime, Amazon has the most addictive and best looking streaming option. Amazon's advantage? They SELL movies as well as giving away what feels like about 1/3 of their titles FREE to prime members.

BRILLIANT use of a loyalty program since it reinforces a key benefit, access, and creates a crack cocaine like addiction. When I want to find a movie Netflix doesn't have Amazon is where I go. Lately I even pay to "rent" or "buy" a title too having plowed through free titles.

Now let's turn back to Google and realize that content, search and content are VERY different things. Amazon's use of prime to improve their streaming option into a viable digital marketplace demonstrates the interconnected synergies a commerce & content player like Amazon can achieve.

Can Google become equally as successful at content and commerce? Perhaps, but one need only look at Yahoo's struggles to be both search and content portal to question whether either is sufficiently difficult to demand full attention.

As we search less and differently Google wants to diversify and protect the kingdom they've built. Entering oceans made red with competition as both content and commerce are is a different gig. Will be interesting to see how the king adapts to being a lowly prince.

Websites Need MacGuffins
Website MacGuffins are different than film MacGuffins, an idea important to moving the plot along that may never be fully disclosed to viewers. Website Macguffins move customers along a journey to conversion.

Website MacGuffins Include:

• Free Shipping.
• Prevalent & Easy To Find Email List.
• About Page.
• Relevant Content.
• Reviews.
• Trust Marks (Visa, MasterCard for example) in cart.
• Terms of Use.
• Satisfaction Guarantee.
• Social Share Buttons especially Twitter and Facebook.

What are your website's MacGuffins?

Internet Marketing's Triptych is Cause, Crowds and Cash. Learn how to use those three ideas in concert with one another and your online marketing wins.

Why You Must Curate Content
We shocked a SEO Meetup suggesting 90% curation to 10% content creation. This deck explains why you MUST curate content. Content curation is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for online marketing.

Among the 7 Reasons we share content are these three:

* Proof of "Digital Listening"

* Reach
* Costs

Discover 4 more reasons you must curate content at Haiku Deck: https://shar.es/1vwHY8 

Market Makers Matter
Janet McKean & Drew Baird Are Market Makers. Market makers see what is next a fraction before the rest of us. Janet's gift of vision is in the specialty gift space. Drew Baird is the founder of Moon-Audio.com and the creator of Dragon Audio Cables. 

Market makers matter now more than ever. Our advice? Become a market maker and learn from Janet and Drew.l 
 

The Platform Revolution "
Google is all about big brands now," a frustrated customer said. The complaint was about how this Small to Medium Sized Business couldn't win organic listings anymore. We disagreed. Google isn't rewarding top organic listings to Big Brands. Big brands look and feel more like platforms and that is why they are winning in spite of themselves. 

Learn more about why you MUST think in platforms NOW: http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/new-seo/the-platform-revolution/  

Question: What is a revolution without a white paper?

Answer: A book club.

Want easy access to our 2 shocking white papers? Click on the links below OR join us by visiting http://www.Curagami.com

Why Ecommerce Marketing Is Broken

The New SEO: How Conversations Became The New Links

Get the stuff, join the revolution.

Tap into the power of mobile marketing, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest you can really turn up the volume in

3 Internet Marketing Haiku Deck Triptych is BUZZING:

Invisible Giant: Why It's So Hard To See The New SEO (1,726 views 2wks)
http://shar.es/1nY2gX

Get Hired or Bought By Warren Buffet (132 views in 12 hrs)
http://shar.es/1nY2qu

Connection: The New Ecommerce (1,094 views in a week)
http://shar.es/1nY27I

Marty Note
Great meeting today with our Triangle Startup Factory mentor Kirk Owen (@RKirkOwen). Kirk is a Jedi Master Mentor and Internet marketer. He is working with VC Firm Intersouth Partners (@intersouth) to create an online site to help teach music with a combination of VIDEO and "live" via the web instructors.

COOL idea for ecommerce merchants to adapt especially given results of this study showing higher engagement and more money when video marketing is supplemented by a "live" instructor.

So imagine you are the Bass Pro Shop site. You are learning about new lures from videos and waiting for the Bass Pro to come explain how he matches lures to weather, water and other conditions. Videos helped you learn some features but the "live to the web" presentation via a G+ Hangout or via a streaming service increases engagement and conversion.

Oh, Time on Site goes up to since I bet Bass Pro Shops would find a large audience consuming videos immediately before and after the "live" presentation. Kirk is an amazing IMer, entrepreneur, coach and mentor. Follow him on Twitter and if you are in the Triangle area of NC ask him to lunch and guarantee you will be smarter for it.

After creating the Story of Cancer Store (https://storyofcancer.gostorego.com/ ) in a matter of days I learned 5 valuable "New Ecommerce" lessons including:

1. Everyone Should Have A Store.

2. Stores Are Easy.

3. Stores Are Visual.

4. Stores Tell Stories.

5. Stores Are Fun.

Your brand and Internet marketing is STRONGER with a store and creating a store is becoming one of the most profitable and underutilized ideas in Internet marketing (especially for B2B relationship based sellers).