Online Marketing: Concept of Perceived Value

One thing every online marketing specialist has to understand is that no matter what he does he is always dealing with individual persons. Once you get involved with analytics, the first mistake some marketers make is to start thinking that since you can track behavior as a group of users, all users are the same. It is very critical to understand that in the marketing business you assume that a market has similar needs and desires, and that they want to fill them with great intensity. The more they wait to fill their desires the more stress they receive, until they release the tension by fulfilling the desires, however everybody has slightly different desires and needs.

We all have real needs such as: a car, a house, a cell phone, a lottery ticket, friends, love, hosting, bananas and others, or it can be an abstract desire: I want to know the secret because it is secret. For example: a tv show says: “in a few seconds we are going to show you the biggest secret of all times!” and instantly they create in the viewers the abstract desire of completion. You want to know what it is. What for? It doesn’t matter. In fact before you started watching the show, you probably didn’t even have an interest. The same is applicable with sports. You may not be interested in a particular sport, however if you start to watch it, soon you’ll side with one of the teams.

The abstract desires can be created at any given moment by websites in many different ways. You can create this desires by creating un-conclusive statements to marketing phrases, for example: ” This product comes loaded with all your favorite features! What features are they talking about? Your favorite! How do they know my favorite features? By un-conclusive statements you transform the perception of the customer, because no matter what your copy says the brain has to process it and agree or disagree.

For example, right now you can agree or disagree with this article, but by reading it you are changing your perspective because you ask yourself if you agree or not. The moment you say: I don’t really care, that would mean that you are responding to the article.

You can direct the attention of your online users by the way you transform their emotions. For example if I say:

* Think for a second about the smell of the ocean, the warm sand and the breeze, feel the sun burning your skin little by little, think about the feeling later when your skin is all red and it hurts to touch anything.

If you read the last paragraph you don’t only read it and keep going but you actually set yourself in the picture because most of us has experienced that and it is painful.

You can use online copy to create sensations that will move the understanding of your audience in many ways. Some will make them buy, some will not.

If you go into a sweater store in the middle of the summer and it is 115 F. out and the store has this huge carpet with long hair and you happen to realize that the A/C is broken inside you probably won’t buy. That is why retailers make sure to set their A/C to 72 degrees.

Same situation, the hottest day ever, you look up an you see a beach bar selling bear for half price, the bear is 33F. just when it is starting to ice, you can feel the little pieces of ice – yes, it is very probably that you would buy.

Statement number one in Marketing: Life is about value. You, as everyone else, is fighting to be, to become. Things give us pleasure because they allow us to get closer to becoming or being. We buy food, cars, houses, pens, cds, magic cards, plastic bags, ice, cheese, stationary bikes. Just to become. The value of everything is determined by the ability to give that power > a bottle of water from a friend won’t be of value most of the time, however think of the value that it creates if you haven’t had any for a week in a remote desert…

The same bottle of water, however the perceived value is much higher the second time. The perceived value is based on 1. The location, 2. The especial conditions or circumstances 3. The belief system and others.

Imagine what happens when somebody writes a book. The book itself is written once. In other words the main effort is done once. The printing and distributing is a variable costs so technically you don’t really create true value every time that somebody buys the book. What you do create is perceived value because a new reader can use your information to his benefit.

Summarizing: Create perceived value for your products or services today, if you don’t, you’ll always regret it.

If you want to market sucessfully products online, find that one characteristic that makes people become, and share it.

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Techniques to better websites – revisited

I have seen how some businesses are more interested in the look of the website, instead of the little great things behind scenes. I guess it’s easy for me to see the complexities of interactive marketing because I work doing this all day long. However, I also understand that it doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everybody. Read the rest of this entry »

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Using Pain as an Internet Marketing strategy – revisited

First of all I want to say that every one of us responds pretty much the same way to stimuli. We all try to avoid pain and welcome pleasure. It seems to be inserted into our nervous systems. Read the rest of this entry »

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VideoCast: Retrieving IP Addresses with Google Analytics

In this episode Alex Centeno MBA. from Merkados, shows you how to install the necessary code to retrieve the IP addresses of your visitors using Google Analytics.

This online marketing technique can be modified to be used with other scripting languages other than PHP, however, in this case, the languages used are PHP and Javascript. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sign Up for a Host Gator Hosting Account.

In most of our projects we recommend using Host Gator as the hosting provider. We do so because in our experience so far they have been reliable and we have had good support experiences.

Some of our clients ask us how to go about the setting of their accounts. That is the reason of this post.

1. go to http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml

Host Gator Shared

There you will find a table with the following info:

2. Click where it says “Order Now” in the Hatchling Plan, the Baby or the Business. More often than not, for a starter website the Hatchling plan is more than enough. If you want a unique IP for your site, then Business will do.

Selection of Package

3. In the next page you will see an order wizard. Select the I will use My Existing Domain option. Type in your domain name: example.com and hit NEXT. This applies only if you already have a domain name. If you don’t, or if you want a new domain name, then click where it says “register new domain”.

Host Gator Signup Page 3

4. In the next screen you will enter the coupon code: XXXX. If you don’t have coupon codes, then it is time to go look online. How? Well, just go to Google.com and type something like HostGator Hosting Coupon.

Service Signup 4

5. In the following screen, review that the totals are correct and go to the next screen to pay by entering your credit card info.

6. That is it.

Once they setup your account you will receive an email confirming the information and payment but also with something extremely important— YOUR ACCOUNT INFO—

You are going to need specially three things:

1. The hostnames for your hosting server. They look something like: ns192.serverexample.com

2. The ftp access to your site (server ip, username and password).

3. The cpanel access for your site. (username and password).

Once you have that information in your hands you are set to go.

Make sure that you contact us for more information or if you have any questions. Thanks for using Shark Media Design for all your Website Design needs.

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Google Analytics Proper Goal Setting without Canonical Redirects.

Google Analytics is a great piece of software that allows you to track your visitors online. Sometimes, however, setting up goals can be a little bit more complicated. Read the rest of this entry »

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Installing Google Analytics in Drupal 6.6: Beginner’s Video Tutorial.

Many people often ask me how to properly install the Google Analytics javascript tags in their own site.
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Misalignment of Title Tags and Content on a Page: Free VideoCast.

Continuing with the Free podcast sessions about online marketing consulting, namely search engine optimization tactics, this particular screencast features a common practice that can improve both visibility and rankings easily.
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Updating Drupal Installations

1. Backup your database and Drupal directory

• “sites”
• “files”
• htaccess
• robots.txt
• Mysql base

2. Log on as the user1 , which is the first account
created and the main administrator account.  ** Do not close your
browser until the final step is complete.

3. Place the site in “Off-line” mode, to let the database updates run without
interruption and avoid displaying errors to end users of the site. This
option is at http://www.example.com/?q=admin/settings/site-maintenance

4. If using a custom or contributed theme, switch
to Garland.

5. Disable all custom and contributed modules if any.

6. Remove all files and directories from the Drupal installation directory.

7. Unpack the new files and directories into the Drupal installation directory.

8. Copy your backed up “files” and “sites” directories (from step1) to the Drupal
installation directory. If other system files such as .htaccess or
robots.txt were customized, re-create the modifications in the new
versions of the files using the backups taken in step #1.

9. Verify the new configuration file to make sure it has correct information.

10. Run update.php by visiting http://www.example.com/update.php (replace
www.example.com with your Drupal installation’s domain name and path). This
step will update the core database tables to the new Drupal installation.

Note: if you are unable to access update.php do the following:

- Open your settings.php with a text editor.

- There is a line that says $update_free_access = FALSE;
Change it to $update_free_access = TRUE;

- Once update.php is done, you must change the settings.php file
back to its original form with $update_free_access = FALSE;

11. Ensure that the versions of all custom and contributed modules match the
new Drupal version to which you have updated. For a major update, such as
from 5.x to 6.x, modules from previous versions will not be compatible
and updated versions will be required.

- For contributed modules, check http://drupal.org/project/modules
for the version of a module matching your version of Drupal.

- For custom modules, review http://drupal.org/update/modules to
ensure that a custom module is compatible with the current version.

12. Re-enable custom and contributed modules and re-run update.php
to update custom and contributed database tables.

13. Return the site to its original theme (if you switched to a core
theme like Garland or Bluemarine in step #4). If your site uses a
custom or contributed theme, make sure it is compatible with your
version of Drupal.

- For contributed themes, check http://drupal.org/project/themes
for the version of a theme matching your version of Drupal.

- For custom themes, review http://drupal.org/update/theme to ensure
that a custom theme is compatible with the current version.

14. Finally, return your site to “Online” mode so your visitors may resume
browsing. As in step #3, this option is available in your administration
screens at http://www.example.com/?q=admin/settings/site-maintenance
(replace www.example.com with your installation’s domain name and path).

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