I had one of those "marketing lessons from everyday life" moments this morning as I made cinnamon sugar toast for my daughter.

If you've never made cinnamon sugar toast, the process goes something like this: toast bread, spread butter onto it, and sprinkle a mixture of cinnamon and sugar on it. Pretty simple, but there...
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Yesterday, I wrote a little about how to sell in markets where there's lots of free stuff available. This is a big challenge for sellers of downloadable products. Since the cost of making and distributing additional copies of "virtual goods" is nearly zero, it's only a matter of time before somebody creates something similar to...
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I'm listening to an interview with Andy Jenkins and fellow Nebraskan Jeremy Shoemaker (a.k.a. Shoemoney) this morning, and just heard something funny I thought you might enjoy.

Jeremy is talking about how he uses controversy to get links. One key, he says, is to take a controversial position on things that other people have a...
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Okay, this isn't really about selling sandwiches to children, but it's a useful metaphor.

It's happened with all three of my kids -- not long after they started eating sandwiches, they stopped eating the crust. One of them would pick the middle of the sandwich out with his fingers if I didn't cut the crust...
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Back in 1990, I got a job at a Japanese travel agency to pay my way through college. From the beginning, one of the ladies in the office seemed to think that picking on me was a great way to enhance her life.

Maybe she'd liked the guy I'd replaced, and subconsciously resented me for...
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One of my most popular posts from last month (as you'll see below) was the one where I shared which of my emails from March had been opened most, and which got the most clicks through to my blog.

Here's the report for April.

Where you see (+), (++) and (+++), that indicates that the...
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All marketers have to learn to think like their prospects in order to sell effectively.

But if ethics are important to you, you face an even bigger challenge than the average marketer: you've got to untangle your own thoughts and figure out which you can set aside and which you can't. Yeah, that's true for...
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A few days ago, I mentioned how I inject a message between my checkout button and the PayPal website to reinforce the customer's purchase decision while waiting for the PayPal site to come up (which often takes 5 or 10 seconds). Yesterday, I came across a tip from Glen Allsopp for customizing the next step...
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Last month, I wrote a post about the need for internet marketing teachers to emphasize ethics in their training. At the end, I said I'd be adding a statement on ethics here.

It's taken a bit of work to get it just the way I want it, but I've finally finished hammering it out. Please...
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What message do your website's visitors see immediately after they subscribe to your mailing list. "Please check your mail box for a confirmation email, and click the link"? Good, but incomplete.

What do they see in the confirmation email? A confirmation link? Good, but incomplete.

What do they see after they click the confirmation link?...
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