I did a presentation today at Emerging Media Conference: How marketing can change the world. I’ve distilled it down to the essential bits here. It’s not the best organized ever, but it covers the essentials. Give it a read: Streeeetchhh First, a quick mental stretching exercise: “Marketing” is not “Selling stuff”. “Marketing” is: Communications created …

I noticed that my original Google Analytics video tutorial is a wee bit out of date. Like, 4 years out of date. So, here’s a new basic install video…

Watching the argument over online piracy unfold in the US is like watching chimpanzees drive a car. They fight over direction but they don’t give a crap if they take the rest of us off a goddamned cliff with them. Here’s my problem with both sides in this Greek tragedy: SOPA = stupid If it …

Portent’s starting a free webinar series, presented by yours truly. The first one is January 31, 2012 at 11 AM Pacific time. I’ll be doing a deep dive into inbound search content social media internet marketing strategy: The role of search engines, social media and other channels in your internet marketing campaign. What ‘inbound marketing’ …

You send an e-mail to 40,000 people, and get 1 response. Or, you run a Groupon deal that brings 1,000 new customers, who never buy from you again. Wonder why? You got everyone’s attention. They just don’t care. Now you’ve got a choice: Rend your garments, tear your hair and whine about how stupid the …

Writing isn’t a talent—it’s a skill. You can get better at it through practice. If you want awesome verbal pectoral muscles: If you want to get better, you could write a novel, or a textbook. But there’s a much easier way: Freewriting Freewriting is like a verbal sprint. You write a lot, really fast, and …

If I look at Portent’s growth over the last 16 years, we’ve had what my COO calls the Graph of Shame: Some of that might be due to economic poop hitting the fan. And some of it is natural turnover. But the Graph of Shame is a dead giveaway that a business isn’t scaling as …

As of yesterday, Portent officially has a President and a CEO, and they’re separate people. Why? Why would I bring in a business partner after all these years? That means I have to share the glory of running my own agency! Ian takes a brief pause to laugh, but bites it back before the giggles …

A long time ago, alchemists tried to turn lead into gold. They were pikers. Compared to digging keyword data out of the Google’s lovely (not provided) statistic, lead into gold woulda been a cinch. But I’m stubborn. So, I’ve pulled a bunch of keyword analytics data from Google Analytics, and the Search Queries report from …

Yesterday I wrote about how effort does not equal results. Results are always better. Great results come from testing and tweaking your own routine. You can set up a virtuous cycle: You get more efficient, and have more time to learn more about your job, which helps you be more efficient, and so on. I’ve …