Martin Koss – Internet Marketing Strategy Coach

Random Thoughts

… or should I say the .CO Domain Exploitation BAND-WAGON?

Here we go again… The next wave of exploitation is upon us.

While the .co domain gold rush was gathering pace, we (after making initial enquiries) were under the impression that you had to have some connection with the phrase of the domain you wanted to buy in order to be eligible to actually buy it.

How silly we were to think there would be any ‘policing’ of it. After all, if it means someone or some company was set to rake in a few million, who the heck gives two hoots who buys your brand name or a domain they have no connection with, whatsoever?

Well, as it has turned out: No-one.

No-one policed the purchasing of the .co domains and no-one will police all the tricksters who will now turn around and sell them to the highest bidder. Read the rest of this entry »

If what we’re seeing today is the future – someone shoot me now, please. Put me in a plywood box, hit play on ‘Wish You Were Here’ and send my splintered butt down the conveyor belt…

What on earth happened over the past 15 years to make us all turn into gossiping old grannies who sit around telling the world what happened to someone else, to spend our lives name-dropping and spilling the beans… Beans, that were, a few years ago, uninteresting and remain so – but for some odd reason that I can’t fathom out, all of a sudden the world is sharing the gossip and we’re all listening – well – not me – not exactly.

I personally think there are far too many extremely sad people out there with far too much time on their hands and far too much income generated from Adsense ads on their website gossip column. They simply can’t be bothered to create anything original – spending all their time regurgitating, retweeting, reposting, re-status-updating, reblogging…

Blah blah blah blah friggin blah. Read the rest of this entry »

It winds me up sommat rotten when I hear of someone using a bogus copy of expensive software that the rest of use shell out good money for, or when I hear of someone’s huge collection of divx movies that were hacked and downloaded for free, or the DJ who proudly advertises 100,000 tracks – most of which came from LimeWire or some other dodgy website…

The thieving cheating criminal ______________s…
(feel free to fill in the blank with your own choice word)

Just this morning (or, the other morning, depending on when you’re reading this – or, one morning about a year ago – you get the idea) I was checking some ‘latest’ Google snippets and came across a PDF of Chris Brogan & Julien Smith’s book “Trust Agents” was now available via one of those sites that should, quite frankly, never get indexed by Google, should never be given any search engine rankings and should be taken down for illegal activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you say “thank you”? All the time? Every time someone does something expected or unexpected? Think about it… Seriously think about it.

When you do something for someone – whether they are paying for it or your doing something out of the goodness of your heart – what’s the one thing you look forward to and hope for?

Yes – a simple gesture of appreciation – a “thank you”.

Two little words, less than 10 characters and less than 2 seconds of typing time makes the world of difference to any transaction, any communication, any interaction.

You, or the other person gave something. Gave their time, gave advice, gave some support or mentioned you to someone else, gave their money, gave an extra bit of help while buying a product, gave you public applause for your work – whatever they (or you) did – the bit you remember most is whether or not it was appreciated.

You may have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of giving but if there was no sign of appreciation you can so easily be left feeling a bit deflated. You may be left wondering why you bothered and, perhaps, wondering if you should repeat that effort in the future.

We all enjoy giving. Giving is the most awesome thing we get to do. And, most times, the only act of reciprocation we want is a sign of appreciation.

Every one loves the simple pleasantries…

We love it when whatever we do is appreciated. It tells us that what we said or did, no matter how big or small, was appreciated and it meant something. It means it was not taken for granted.

So next time you pay your newspaper delivery boy/girl, say “thank you”.
Next time someone sends you a bit of feedback about your products or services, send a quick reply to say “thank you”.
When you find a really useful bit of advice, say “thank you”.
When someone helps you through a problem or helps you locate a product (be it online or in a real shop), say “thank you”.

And, one of the biggies – before your next customer walks out of your shop – smile and say “thank you”.

Oh yes – make sure you mean it!

Finally when someone reads your latest blog post – say thank you for sharing this past couple of minutes with me…

Thank you.

Books, blogs, videos, podcasts – wow the information out there is amazing. A fantastic supply of everything we need to know to ‘make it’ on the web. But how much of it is really helpful, genuine and useful? How much of it is just regurgitated crap that is completely out of date?

Don’t get me wrong. There are some terrific books out ‘there’ and I don’t mean the $67 ebooks. I mean real touchy feely books that you hold in your hands while winding down at the end of the day. I could list dozens of books worth reading and the list includes work by Chris Brogan, Stephen Covey, the Eisenbergs, Steve Krug, Gary Vaynerchuck, John Jantsch, and many more.

But, back to the social media experiment. Read the rest of this entry »

So much to do and so little time. Well, that’s my problem and I’m sure we’ve all been there many times and will be there again and again…

Anyway, the point of this post is to say I appreciate your time popping by the blog but it is going to take a back seat for a while as I am snowed under with client work and many projects right now.

Blogging can be fun. But, as many have discovered, can also be extremely time sapping so, along with Twittering and Facebooking and all the other time sapping online activities… It’s all being shoved aside to make room for more important projects that enable me to add value to my client’s businesses and several new websites etc.,

A week ago I became a paid subscriber at Third Tribe, expecting that by now I’d be raving about it and writing a 100% positive review – with no intentions of canceling my subscription. However – things didn’t pan out as expected. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I had a lengthy (and painful) chat to a business owner about numerous websites and (rather dull) stuff but boy this guy absolutely loved the sound of his own voice – well – he must do because he certainly wasn’t listening to me. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris started the conversation with “I was asked today what’s better marketing content – Written, or Audio, or Video format? I always answer that All three are better. First create an audio version of the content, have it transcribed (written content type) & then Read the rest of this entry »

Without an audience you may as well be talking to yourself. Duh! How obvious was that? An audience of 1 or an audience of 1 million – it’s still an audience. An audience makes it worthwhile and tells you that whatever you are doing or saying is of value – to someone. Read the rest of this entry »