It is not often that I get to read something that makes me stop. Seriously the last time I did this was about 6 - 8 months ago when I was forced to write one of my most read blogs at the time. I am not going to write a blog here because I have no words.

Sheena said it all.

Six years down the line she’s outside the local shebeen leaning up against the tree pressing out her hips with her legs slightly parted showing off as much skin as possible. Her breasts haven’t come into full blossom yet, but she knows it’s the way to most African men’s heart. For R5 she will allow the drunk patrons to do what that other man did to her all those years ago, except now she’s older it isn’t very painful anymore. She is only 11 years old but no one cares that what she is doing is wrong, its the norm.

Ouch!!

The key to a long life could be as simple as getting a second wife.

Research suggests that men from polygamist cultures live 12 per cent longer than those who limit their affections to one woman at a time.

It is thought men benefit from having a fuss made over them by a gaggle of women.
They may also better care of themselves into old age when they have a large family to feed, this week’s New Scientist reports.

DailyMail UK

Its pretty damned obvious that this research was done by single men hoping for threesomes and such.

Do you really need one? The thing is I would suggest many companies waste money on their websites. Most waste money having email because they don’t see these tools as communication tools. Email is for writing letters and the website is an advert.

Email as a communication tool.

Life without a website is possible, I grant you, BUT If all you do is answer emails promptly, respond to queries and communicate via email, You are achieving more in a day than most websites will achieve in a year. People communicated by writing long before we had the first website. Email allows you to do this so much faster.

Why have email if you only check it once a week?

You are losing business and teaching your clients not to use email for their queries if you don’t respond timeously. Seriously you want to answer the query before the customer has forgotten you asked the question. You need to answer the query before the customer moves on and finds someone else who will.

Using email to devastating effect.

The key to being a power email user is having a customer database in the first place. Not just any database. My database is no good for you unless you are competing with me. You need people who have worked with you, Secondly you need permission to send emails to the list.

JUST REMEMBER!

People don’t care what you are selling, all they care about is themselves. If your email is not helping them in any way, giving them something to improve their existance, they will read it once and bin it. You may never get a second chance. You see its really easy to be added to a spam list. Getting back onto their whitelist is a hell of a lot less easy.

Can my business use E-mail?

The only business I can think of that I would not suggest use an email mailing list is a funeral director, but even then it was pointed out to me that some people may be interested in finding hout who they have outlived, or what the latest is in coffin fashion.

On line brochures have no value

Your website allows you to explain what your business does. It gives you space to add those newsletters for people who are not on your mailing list. There must be a thousand ways to harness the power of the web and increase your business. Don’t panic if you are without a website. Use email and build your website tomorrow.

Call today for advice on creating your own mailing list. We can help

Bolton DeVenter was an imaginary person made up by a marketing “genius” who failed to take credit for his work. In less than a month Bolton was known to most people in the South African Blogosphere. The memory of Bolton was awoken by Lohmann social marketing guru for News 24.

Richard Catto immediately accused me of being DeVenter. I just wish I had thought of that before the other chap did. I would have taken credit for one of the best viral marketing gigs to hit the street. In fact I would probably still be making money from Boltons website.

I just checked Google for Bolton DeVenter and my name and found 344 sites.The top 40 only being relevant. Ok I did not do an advanced search, but still my name and Boltons were linked no less than 40 times. You see I have a marketing method I uses and some people don’t approve of commercialism in the social marketing arena. Bolton followed much of the stuff I had previously posted on trafficdepartment.co.za.

Much of the interesting stuff has been lost because I deleted trafficdepartment because it was more trouble than it was worth. I learned much from the Bolton saga. A few people were accused of being Bolton including yours truly, Vincent Maher, Justin Hartman and a few others.

Bolton contact me, Your secret is safe with me. I would love to know who the real influential blogger is in this part of the world.

Mandy DeWaal rated Bolton as a person with more influence than many real South African Bloggers. I think Mandy has a skewed perception of influence. Just because someone appears in the news often does not make them influential, It purely means they are oft written about.

Mugabe is influential in Zimbabwe but oft written about because he is a mad man. Mandela was influential and was written about often. He is now retired and suffers a sever lack of influence.

I think Mandy needs to first define influence or is she talking about popularity?

Here is my take. How big is the pond you wish to define influence for? What are you defining as influence?

In my own way I am influential in my Pond. I pretty much stay in my pond so my influence is limited to my pond. I don’t attend all the meetings in Cape Town, Johannesburg and such like, not being much of a socialite so thus do not get into the news much.

According to her ratings I don’t mean much, but to my clients that are getting the results I am a huge influence even if I don’t get talked about in the media much.

Bolton DeVenter was a much maligned invention of an anonymous blogger, He was written about often. In fact Bolton was a satirical spoof based on me the way I understood it. So Boltons press coverage was high but what actual influence did Bolton bring. What changes were made to the Web because of Boltons influence? Did Bolton make anyone famous?

The Clique that continuously mutually masturbate one anothers egos has not change one jot or one tittle. The fact is that the clique give each other the means to say, Look how influential I am? They preen, They make a little money but do they actually change anything.

Just look at Rafiqs fiasco just recently. Is that influence or just written about?

Guy McLaren is Bolton DeVenter

I’ve kept his secret too long. I’ve known this from almost day one.

Sorry for not busting him sooner.

People are still being duped by McLaren, so it’s time to out him.

He was also the Shirtless Blogger. And a couple of other identities who never became famous.

McLaren is an Internet chameleon, prepared to do anything for a bit of fame.

It’s quite sad really. Poor little guy.

If I told you the lengths he is prepared to go to for fame, you probably would not believe me.

Cape Town News

Sadly I am not Bolton Deventer, or the shirtless blogger. That takes imagination which sadly I never had enough of for that type of prank. I was Lance Rumgee but never actually found the time to put that character in play.

But watch this space I may have a surprise drama for you sooner rather than later. Don’t say you were not warned.

Yes we now have a way of paying for goods on line, transferring funds and all the other goodies that people from foreign climes take for granted.

Most surprising is the rates. They are reasonable if not almost cheap.

I believe this is one of the most exciting ventures to hit the South African web ever.

Payfast

1. Bounce rates are determined site wide and right down to very specific keywords and pages. Your site wide bounce rate tells you what percentage of people are coming, puking and leaving.

2. The overall bounce rate can tell you if you are improving or falling deeper in the hole with your articles. Watching the overall bounce rate can give you an indication of whether your site is improving in terms of content offered.

3. Bounce rate by country can tell you where you are gaining the most traction. If you are trying to gain traction in South Africa but your bounce rate in South Africa is higher than in the UK, its possible you need to spend more time identifying with the South African target market.

4. Checking bounce rates by article can tell you which articles are more successful at getting people to continue reading the information available on your website. If you analyse the article bounce rates you can concentrate on more of that which works and less of the articles that are not gaining and keeping traffic.

5. Bounce Rate by keyword can tell you which keywords to focus on. Imagine you are a plumbing supplier and you find that writing articles about “aquila taps” gets a 30% bounce rate but writing about “brass bib cocks” gets you an 90% bounce rate. Where do you focus your efforts?

6. Bounce rate by referrer. This one I adore. You see I know I get a 30% bounce rate from Stumble upon and a 80% bounce rate from entrecard. I know where to expend my efforts. I can focus my social bookmarking on the sites that give me the desired results.

7. Checking out the bounce rate by connection type gives me an indication of whether my site is well enough optimised for speed. For instance we have a 80% bounce rate from dial up connections yet only a 46% bounce rate on DSL connections. The dial up connections comprise 2% of my visitors. The question is do I optimise for more speed or not?

8.Looking at the bounce rate per browser can tell me if I may have a problem with a specific browser not seeing the full picture. There are really two possibilities here. Lets say we have a 30% bounce rate from FireFox and a 75% bounce rate from IE, we have one of two things happening. Either the more technically aware Firefox users are finding more value than the less technically aware IE users or Microsoft is destroying your website and more testing is needed.

9.Bounces by new visitor and returning visitor can tell you whether you are adding to your readership. Is most of your content aimed at existing visitors or are you attracting new custom?

10. The tenth is whether to call me or not. If you need help working out where you are going wrong just ask me.

In my 40 years and a few on this planet I missed spotting the first one I took part in, In fact my parents took part in that one not me. I saw the second coming and bit hook line and sinker. Back in the eighties I lost my shirt because I panicked. I saw the nineties one arriving and decided not to take part.

Here is my economic theory. Every decade there is a boom and bust cycle. The bust cycles normally last a couple of years, People get excited, people go bust. Shit happens really. But I got taught the following in the eighties just too late, Just after I lost my shirt.

When people are selling its time to buy. When business becomes slow its time to be more visible. So right now people are selling, its time to buy. Its time to buy advertising, Its time to get your website more visible. Its time to make a noise.

Oh yes, I almost forgot to tell you the story about the steam engine running across the plains at 100 miles an hour. If you step in front of it, Its gonna run you over. If its travelling at 80 mile an hour will the results differ much? Now see the steam train as the economy. People are still doing business just maybe with a little more caution, but they are still buying and selling. There is just a little less buying right now and thus a little less selling.

The cake has become a little smaller, so you may need to trim some of the icing, or you need to make sure that you are more visible than the others wanting a slice of that cake.

Get your website opened up, Get rid of the cloaking shields. Just ask me how.

Marketing analysis is the backbone of any business decision. Starting a business without doing market analysis is a surefire recipe for disaster. Traditional market analysis called for a lot of work. Finding the target market and getting the information was very hit and miss.

The 4p method of marketing analysis

Most people relied on the 4 P method. Find a Product, Put an advert in the paper, Put up the feet and Pray.

Most businesses were product driven rather than customer driven. You spent money developing a product, offered it to the market and then it was a crapshoot. Would the market like the product or not. Most businesses would ask a few questions first. What do the current customers think of this idea. They would get an answer and then guess if it were financialy feasible.

The internet and marketing analysis

The internet solves this problem, Would you like to know how many searches there are a day for the problem you want to solve? So how much of that searching is done by people wanting to spend money. How can you test the market and see if those people will actually open their wallets before doing any development?

Marketing Analysis, Trends

Using tools available on the internet you can now see what the trends are regarding the industry you want to join. You can research the popular keywords in that niche, You can verify the trends going back to previous years. Is the market going into the toilet or is it on the up?

Marketing analysis, Market competition

How much competition is there for the market? How strong is the competition? How local is the competition? Is the market saturated?

Marketing Analysis, Product availability

What products solve similar issues? What products are available? How are the Products priced? Can your Product compete?

Don’t you think knowing just that could make your decision that much easier?