Antone is the creator of White Hat Crew, and the owner of Gecko Tribe, LLC. He's an internet marketer, blogger, and programmer.
Unlike some people who know what they want to do by the time they’re out of diapers, my path to internet marketing has taken a few twists and turns.
I don’t recall what I might have wanted to do early on, but by the time I graduated from high school, my interests were mostly in writing and music. I entered college as an English major.
After a year of college, I took two years off, which I spent in Japan. By the time I returned to school, I was thinking more practically (which may or may not be a good thing!), and registered as a math major.
Math is one of my strengths, but it didn’t take long to realize that math majors spend 99% of their time studying mathematical abstractions rather than the interesting real-world math I’d studied up till that point (hey, it was interesting to me!) And they take very few classes that deal with history, philosophy, the arts, etc.
Next, I considered majoring in business. I soon decided that marketing was the only area of business that wouldn’t bore me to tears. But before I could switch majors, I switched schools and ended up as a Japanese major instead.
I considered double majoring in Japanese and marketing, but eventually decided it would be better to graduate in whatever major I could complete most quickly. Japanese beat out marketing by one semester.
After graduation, I worked for a few years in the Japanese department of Claris, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, first as a software test engineer, and then as a programmer.
The 3 1/2 years I spent there were good, but then in 1998, it was time for a change. Aside from a few short stints as a contractor, I’ve been working independently ever since.
Today, I’d describe myself professionally as a programmer, internet marketer, and blogger.
Personally, I’m a husband, married since 2002, and father of three.
Which would you say is worse: a mistake that prevents you from gaining a new customer, or one that loses an existing customer?
They're both bad. But the mistake that loses an existing customer is worse, because if it's bad enough to change someone's good opinion of you, it's surely more than enough to turn...
[read more]
I may not be posting for the next few days. Before signing off for the holiday, I thought I'd leave a Thanksgiving message -- 7 ways internet marketing is like Thanksgiving.
#1 Most of what we think we know about it is a myth.
The myths of Thanksgiving start with it's beginnings. Most of us...
[read more]
Bloggers Widgetitis is an insidious disease. In the early stages of infection, the victim feels mild euphoria with few adverse effects. Later, as the disease enters it's virulent phase, they become overwhelmed with insatiable cravings for bright, shiny objects, and exhibit self-destructive behavior in an attempt to satisfy them.
In the late stages, their blogs...
[read more]
I got an email from my blog today asking me to moderate a comment. Here are a few excerpts:
Author : chad darwin...
My name is John...
I was looking in the search engines and seen your site your Alexa traffic rank is ****** [no, I didn't redact the numbers -- the comment actually contained...
[read more]
Did the announcement for your last event look something like this:
The door opens at 12:00 noon Eastern. That's 9:00am Pacific, 11:00am Central (sorry, Mountain, not enough people in your timezone for me to list you), 5:00pm GMT (a.k.a. UTC)...
The only thing worse than that mess is to only name your own timezone, leaving...
[read more]
Blogging experts talk about writing "anchor posts" or "pillar articles" -- posts that get links, rank high in the search engines, and pull in lots of traffic over the long haul.
Sounds great, but how do you write them?
Yesterday, I got a little curious. I've been blogging daily for a few months now (as...
[read more]
by Antone Roundy | Advertising, Affiliate, Marketing, Podcast, Premium Content, Product Creation
When marketing teachers talk about your "Unique Selling Proposition" or "USP", they nearly always assume that you have one, but just haven't figured it out yet.
But what if you don't have one? What if you really are just another "me too" marketer? Should you just give up and go back to your day job,...
[read more]
You wouldn't think charging more would be a good way to make your customers happy. And by itself, it's usually not. There are exceptions, like exclusive luxury items, where people brag about getting fleeced (though not in those words :-). But most of the time, people are happier with a lower price.
So how can...
[read more]
I wrote a few days ago about how to end procrastination -- a problem lots of internet marketers suffer from.
Well, guess what. Your customers have the same problem. How can you prevent them from putting off buying, and are there ways to benefit ethically from procrastination?
We usually think of procrastination as putting off...
[read more]
by Antone Roundy | Advertising, Marketing, Podcast, Product Creation
Terry Dean didn't beat around the bush when he wrote:
You cannot create desire for your product.
Trying to do so is a losing proposition. All we do in business is find out what hopes, dreams, fears, and desires people already have...and supply them with products that match. We create value based around what peopl...
[read more]
Split Test Content, Exit Intent Popups, Hover Stripes, Seasonal Ad Rotation, and much more.
TriggerNote is an Interaction Engine for your website. Use pre-configured "Recipes" to create exit hover ads, exit interstitial ads, etc. Or mix and match your own combinations of over 20 Triggers and Actions to make your website respond to visitor actions, grabbing attention, and customizing on the fly to speak to each unique visitor.
Hi.
I'm Antone Roundy.
I'm a strong believer in ethics, and have always tried to practice and promote ethical behavior in an industry where many slip over to the dark side.
At White Hat Crew, I'll share insights into internet marketing, with extra emphasis on ethical issues.
Read my Internet Marketing Ethics Manifesto
Join a Blogging Team
Blog & Tweet Easier
Guest Post
New to this blog? Start Here
Riffs on a Purple Cow is a Kindle eBook containing collection of articles I wrote, inspired by Seth Godin. Download your copy from Amazon.com.
It's also a demonstration of the blogging and business method outlined in my eBook, "How to Build and Operate an SEO Content Factory", which you can download for free in either of these formats:
PDF | Mobipocket (Kindle, etc.)
