My post on Tap Defense strategies generated 40k+ uniques in a year and continues to drive traffic

(I’m going to do a few of these over the next little while, with each one focused on a different part of the online marketing mix)

1. Create Something
Write a blog post. Start a podcast. Develop an eBook. Make something original people can’t get anywhere else. Make sure it’s search engine friendly.

2. Plant the seed
*Carefully* share the link to your content on relevant sites (digg, facebook groups/fan page, other blog comments – do some research to determine what’s appropriate). Do not spam, and never use it as a selling opportunity.

3. Don’t be a quitter
This is a key step. At first almost everything you post will seem to fall flat. Don’t be like every corporate marketing department and give up after 1 week of trying it out.

Rinse & repeat steps 1-3.

If you build it, they will come…eventually
It may take 6 months to a year of regular content marketing before you see results. The bottom line is if you create lots of content, you may not see much traffic from any particular piece of content but collectively the effect is like rain in a bucket (it all adds up), and with some persistence you will see that bucket overflow. The best part? This can all be done for free using free open source tools like WordPress.

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Sons Of Maxwell, the guys that put this video together are a small Canadian band from Nova Scotia. Was this a display of marketing genius? Definitely. Has it got them tons of press and views on Youtube? Absolutely. Will United make things right? Maybe. But will it help them win new fans & help take the band to the next level? That i’m not so sure about, at least not the way they may have wanted.

This video is catapulting them from playing pubs in Nova Scotia to coverage on CNN overnight. I just don’t think this is necessarily a good thing for a band because it turns you into a meme, which (as we have seen) have a limited shelf life. This video is going to cast a shadow over everything they do, shows, interviews etc – for the rest of their careers. I guess if they are going the Weird Al Yankovic path that’s ok, but didn’t you start a band to be known for the music?

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Now, i should mention their last album “Soapbox Heroes” – was probably my least favorite ETH album (sorry guys hehe). The production was slick, the musicianship was exemplary as usual and there were a few catchy tunes like new monthly flavour & one last drink, but something was just lacking for me overall. I do not feel this way about Gutter Anthems at all. I cannot stop listening to this album, check my last.fm profile for proof! This album is a very special musical creation and while i don’t usually talk about album reviews here, today i make an exception.

Here are some of my personal favorites:

Litter & the Leaves: a ridiculously catchy nod to Dropkick Murphy’s, Green Day & Freddy Mercury

Cameos: A great poppy folk song many will find reminiscent of Great Big Sea.

Death of Johnny Mooring: A hard rocker that tells the story of a Canadian fiddle great who was killed outside a bar one night in 1974. The vivid imagery in storytelling is prevalent on other tracks as well (check out “Noseworthy & Piercy”!).

DNA: One of the catchiest, radio friendly songs on the album. Love the REM/Goo Goo Dolls’ish guitar melodies.

Lights & Cars: Lush vocal harmonies, the ending reminds me of “They Stood up for Love” by Live. Check it out, i’m not crazy.

Murphy’s Ashes: Rush would be proud of this prog-rock instrumental accomplishment. As a musician myself i can tell you shuffle + hard rock is not an easy thing to pull off but when it works (as it does here) it’s awesome.

Suburban Plains: Fans of Paul Simon’s Graceland or world music should dig this tune, featuring some masterful drumming/percussion and African inspired guitar lines.

These are just my personal favorites, but every track is strong. I think that’s part of what makes this album so special. Like classic ‘rootsy’ albums that came before it such as “Crash” by Dave Matthews Band, Gutter Anthems is a melodic tour de force which i HIGHLY recommend everyone should check out.

You can listen to the whole album for free here. If you like what you hear, share their music with your friends, buy their stuff, go to their shows & be sure to follow them on Twitter / Facebook / Myspace & Youtube.

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The results were surprising. Since last week, that post has generated over 7k in unique visitors.

As i type this, I have about 85 posts on this blog to date, with only a few handfuls getting much in the way of traffic. This would seem like a colossal waste of time. However, the more stuff you “throw against the wall”, the better chance something eventually will stick, right?. Keep experimenting and eventually your content will click with an audience.

Only 16% trust corporate blogs

A recent Forrester study showed that corporate blogs are the least trusted source of information about products & services, so it’s really important that you don’t waste time trying to sell – it doesn’t work. Remember that famous scene in Glengarry Glen Ross with Alec Baldwin “A – always! B – be! C – closing!”? I think a good rule for marketers is “never be selling” when it comes to social media. Instead, the right approach is to continue to work on developing remarkable content that somehow relates to what you sell. If you can drive a few thousand eyeballs to your social media efforts, a) even if they don’t buy anything, that’s thousands of people who now know your brand, and b) a few of those visitors are probably going to continue over to your product pages and learn about what it is you sell.

Consider this, how much would it cost to get 7,000 people to your booth at a tradeshow?

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• Lots of fun, fast paced.
• Seems to have pretty solid replay value.
• Controls are simple and feel good.
• Graphics are pretty solid.

The Bad

• No soundtrack or even sound effects, although this is rumored to be coming in an update.

How it works
Your goal is to stop waves of enemies from making it from the left side of the screen to the right. With each wave, you’ll face different & stronger enemies. Once 20 make it to the right, it’s game over. So how do you stop them? You’re able to create 4 different types of ‘towers’, each having it’s own strengths/weaknesses. You have your “Gatling Tower”, which has a weak but continuous short range attack. The “Goo Tower” which does no damage, but slows enemies down from a medium range. The “Missile Tower” which causes fairly significant splash damage & from a long range and finally the “Tesla Tower” which does massive damage but only within medium range.

As you kill bad guys with your towers, you get cash. Cash is required to buy towers. The other interesting dimension to the game is you can also spend cash on upgrades for existing towers to make them more powerful. The positioning of towers and the types of towers you use make for a really interesting strategy game.

So here’s what i think about it.

Graphics 9/10
Really solid for an iPhone. Only seems to be one level right now (albeit a long one), but the textures are really nice and suit the game. Kind of reminds me of Legend of Zelda for SNES if you recall that game.

Audio 0/10
Unless i am missing something, which i don’t think i am there is none! No sound effects, no music – nothing.*

Gameplay 8.5/10
Tapping & positioning towers feels just right. If i was going to complain about anything it might be that i wish you could zoom in a bit more and add more variety of maps.

* On the App Store page the developer mentions a big update is coming that adds music, sound & new content, which will take this game from great to awesome most likely.

Fieldrunners is available on the App Store for $4.99. Here’s the link.

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The thing that is really flawed with old school marketing is that you are asking your potential customer to ‘pay’ something, i.e “hey you should pay attention to this email i just sent you and 20,000 others!!”. or “now that i have you on the phone, you should pay attention to why you should switch phone companies!”. Painful truth is it just doesn’t work anymore.

That is why developing good content online is so important. Here’s a formula for you, Content + Quality = Audience. Your business needs an audience to sell product!

If you do this, you’ll build trust and thought leadership with your potential customers. If you establish yourself as the ‘go to’ brand in your space, who are they going to call when they have pain? The guy who understands their problems!

“But my executive team is fighting me on this!”. A post by David Meerman i read this morning that makes a good point about dealing with your boss.

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Ever noticed how the mediocre products/services are usually the ones to offer rewards for word of mouth (“refer 5 friends and get a free ____ “). Yet when referring a truly amazing product to family/friends consumers are more than happy to do this sans incentives. The satisfaction from evangelizing is enough reward for them!

I’ve actually gotten to the point with my own consumer habits that when i hear/see an ad for product/service promotion it changes my image of the brand to one of desperation “if they had a product people actually want/need they wouldn’t need to be doing this – clearly something is wrong what they are offering”. Maybe that’s just me though?

Every day brands like Apple, Virgin Airlines and Google are doing some insanely powerful marketing regardless of their advertising. Word of mouth is king. So how do you get people ‘converting’ their friends / family / colleagues to your brand?

Easier said than done, but you need to build something and make it remarkable. Hint: must be remarkable to your customers.

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1. Canada has 3 cellular carrier options. Bell, Telus & Rogers. The iPhone is exclusively a GSM phone, Telus/Bell are both using CDMA technology which means the iPhone will never work with their networks.
2. Bell & Telus have terrible options for phones. I’ve been patient with Bell Mobility for like 10 years.
3. I have an ipod touch and cannot live without it. I also have a cell phone, digital camera & GPS. This will replace my ipod touch and consolidate alot of seperate gadgetry i tend to carry around.
4. As a web developer, i’m excited about learning how to develop for the iPhone and getting to write apps that take advantage of the GPS or camera.
5. The iPhone syncs with Address Book on my iMac at home, so centralizing my contacts is going to be awesome.

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