Steve Hooker's Radio Weblog: A Welsh boy stuck in the wrong country, struggling to get home

Liquidation.com Has Tested Almost Every Online Marketing Tactic -- Here's What Worked:
"Q: What's your experience been like with broadcast email campaigns?"
"Haroon: Email marketing has been hugely successful. Overall we've had our best acquisition through email."
" Our strategy is to test a lot of things out, do small buys in a lot of different things and then do major buys on the winners. We tested lists from B2BNow, YesMail, Cahners, PostMaster Direct, Thomas Register, etc."

The New Paradigm: Back to Basics - "So now we go back to basics. Market research is back in vogue.Today, a new company needs a well-defined message and a focusedapproach to a specific market segment. Market testing, beta productsand focus groups are now cool again."

"Features and Benefits are so... '60s. Who cares? We are on information overload. People have problems that need to be solved. Provide problem/solution scenarios for people to look at. If you define a problem your site visitor has, that person will spend more time on your site. Testimonials put some muscle behind your punch."

"Document case studies. Define the problem, then what you and/or your company did to solve the problem."

"People buy for three reasons; need, desire, and emotion. When developing a Web site, you need to know where you and your company are in this buying chain."

Business consultants. I met two tonight, briefly. They work for the Small Business Service and Business Link, a UK Governmental service. Their fees are at the bottom end of the scale.

I roughly and cack-handedly outlined to idea, culminating in contacts and crossovers between disciplines. But one said she knew all the consultants she wanted to know. The other mentioned a new service by the S.B.S., which is a database of consultants, including fees, telephone numbers, experience, specialities etc.

So I thought, one, that it's going to be very hard to sell the idea initially -- they're going to be against the idea of changing the way they've always worked; two, need to bring out those benefits to the front, and not bother about the structure (i.e. features).

• Keep up to date with cutting edge knowledge
• Build reputation and increase fees
• Network, and build contacts lists

And that's really it.

Steve Hooker is mobile blogging his way through a business schmooze. Keep watching he's maybe on to something with community blogs. [David Davies' Radio Weblog]
Not much mobile blogging Dr. David. I couldn't be bothered. I thought I could just as easily wait till I got home and blog in the piece and quiet and comfort of my own home. Anyway, I'm not much of a camper either. I can't really get the hand of predictive text either. I have to swap from predictive to non predictive, to caps find an apostrophe, then back to predictive. No, I can mobile blog, and I'm grateful for that, but I really couldn't be arsed to whip out the mobie and start working my thumb and index finger just to send a "I'm on the train' type message. Please keep checking this site though. Maybe, I'll breakdown or crash and be marooned, with the only way of contacting the outside world being mobie to blog... Watch out for my distress messages.

i'm here. So is Charlotte, an old friend. Not started yet. 50 people expected.

Amazon may spark new shipping war. The answer is still fuzzy, but rivals in the past have countered the e-tailer's moves. Jeff Bezos says the offer will be "expensive" in the short term. [CNET News.com]
Looks like smoke on the horizon.Bezos the Bastard, going for the kill.

Yahoo to put price on searches. The Web portal plans to unveil a pay-per-view search product Wednesday, the latest premium service aimed at offsetting its online advertising decline. [CNET News.com]
Amazin'