I recently received an email from Luxor about rooms for only $55 a night during select dates. Not “starting at $55″. Just a good old price of $55.
Their promotion code was “LDBLAST” and the dates listed were:
November 23 - 29
December 14 - 20
January 2 -6
January 18 - 24
I thought it was a good deal and I clicked the link to make the reservation. I was surprised that a Friday date would be so cheap. After I was on the site I punched in the dates of January 21 - 24. I was surprised that the 23rd went from $55 up to $129.
Before I called them to get assistance in getting the promotional rate on the last night I made sure to read over the email multiple times to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Again. It said $55. Not “starting at $55″.
The first lady I talked to was of no help at all. She kept telling me it said “as low as…”. I told her that I was looking at the email right now and it said nothing of the sort. She passed me to her supervisor. After explaining for another 10 minutes I received the same answer. I was then forwarded to a manager. After my favorite thing, explaining it for a 3rd time, she had me forward the email to see for her own eyes.
This time I set up the conversation. I first had her read it over and confirm that it was $55. I then had her confirm the dates. After her interpreting it the same way she then logged on to make the reservation for me. She saw the higher price on the last night too and then suddenly changed her story. She said the last night was more and that’s how it was, regardless of the email.
I was then given the phone number to Michell Martinez, reservations manager. In case anyone else wants another dead end you can call her at 702-262-4445, or email her at mmartinez@luxor.com. Conveniently enough, I only received her voicemail and never a return phone call.
Working in internet marketing I am very familiar with FTC compliance. This email is totally non-compliant and very heavy on insinuation and false advertising. This would be an example of bad marketing ethics. Some may even consider it a “bait and switch”. Having seen many companies get in trouble, and even shut down, by the FTC for their marketing practices I’ve learned that the FTC “reads between the lines”. With that, if Luxor did not intend to offer the $55 price on all the dates within the date ranges they listed I would assume the FTC would look at that as a no-no.
Wow. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. Diesel nailed their latest viral marketing ad.
Yes, it’s safe to click on. Well, kind of. Click at your discretion. The great thing about this ad is that Diesel considered their consumer base. This kind of ad worked perfect. A few short weeks after it’s posting it already had over 5 million views. That doesn’t count any other sites they posted it on either.
If your audience would laugh at the risque, then why not try. The old saying is true, “sex sales!” However, if your consumer base is not like Diesel’s and couldn’t laugh, then obviously this kind of viral marketing ad would not work. Could you imagine seeing a Martha Stewart ad like this? She might pick up a new customer here and there, but her big chunk of cash, her loyal customers, would be appauled.
Again, don’t be afraid to be different.
I’m often asked what a good content theme for a blog site would be?
I was recently asked if it would be a good idea to blog about Scion xB’s. xB owners are very enthusiastic about their cars. The domain this person was thinking about was IlovemyxB.com. It’s catchy and could be a great domain, but for a forum… not a blog
Things to consider when starting a blog site.
- Pick something you enjoy (otherwise you’ll get sick of it and lose interest in blogging)
- Pick something others will enjoy (the idea is to build readership). If you’re blogging about loving green shoelaces, chances are your blog isn’t going to take off
- Pick something that doesn’t have a definitive ending. At some point xB’s will stop being made, or you may sell your own, or you just may stop liking it because it breaks down all the time. Who knows…?
I often have people write me and ask about starting their first blog. People start blogs for many reasons.
- For an online journal
- To make PPC income
- To make some affiliate marketing income
- To spread the word of a cause
- Just because
The person in particular that contacted me last wanted some passive income. So, I’d say it was for PPC. The had heard me speak of bloggers making $60K+ a year and they wanted a piece. They had thought about it for a while and thought they had a blog topic. They asked for my opinion about starting a website with the domain, “IloveMyXB.com”. This person, obviously, had a Scion XB.
Here’s where we immediately get into the pros and cons of a domain… and, more importantly, blogging on a doman. Yes, it’s a good idea to blog about something you are passionate about. Most Scion owners are very passionate about their vehicle. However… are you really going to love your Scion for more than a year or two? Probably not. There lies the problem. You start this awesome blog. You get tons of readers. Then, one day, you wake up and your Scion doesn’t start. You hate that POS. All of the sudden you go from Uber Scion advocate to anti-Scion advocate.
My point it… blog about something you love. Thise goes deeper than that too. If you are starting a blog to make some sort of income, no matter how big, you need to blog about somethign that will last. On the same note, even if you love Scions forever, others may not. Blog about something universal. Something that will last. You do not want to start a blgo about something that will make you a bunch of money for 6 months and then no one cares about that topic, or you don’t care about it yourself.
If you are going to blog for dollar, blog about something you can always blog about. Make it something that won’t die. Let’s make this a gravy train. Fishing will never die… blog about fishing. Entrepreneurs will never die. Write about ways to make money doing things you love.
The bottom line is to blog about something you can’t stop bloggin about. Otherwise, what is the point?
Hey everybody. As you can tell, I’ve converted the site from Joomla to Wordpress. While I still prefer/recommend Joomla for commercial sites, I found Wordpress to be the best for just blogging. Since that will now become the focus of this site, blogging about internet marketing, that is why I decided to make the conversion.
I look forward to sharing my internet marketing knowledge with you.
Recently I had a good friend ask if I could help him set up an online store for his family business, selling floral supplies. His dad had been running it the good ‘ol fashion way. With their success as is, they wanted to duplicate it online as well. I had them purchase a couple domains, one of them being discountfloralsupplies.com. This is the domain that would actually be hosted, because it had the best opportunity for SEO.
I had been experimenting with how influential certain elements of a website are for SEO. What single optimization items return the greatest SEO “bump” if you were to do only one thing. At this point it was a good opportunity to test title tags with a brand new site.
I decided to set them up using Joomla for their CMS (Content Management System) to run the site. After a quick install I set up some test items for them so they could understand how the site works so they could begin building it and adding content. After I turned the site over to them I made one change. That’s it… just one SEO change. I updated the title tag to read “Discount Floral Supplies”. I left everything else. I left the default “Home - ” prefix in the title tag, I left the default meta description, keywords, etc. The only other benefit they had was the domain I suggested they buy was great too.
The combination of those two was amazing. Amazing and fast. I had them buy the domain on May 28th, 2008. I was lucky enough to have great propagation time and the domain was visible that day. So, I set it up that day.
Just four days later they were on page one of Google out of 1 million+ results for the term “discount floral supplies”.
The lesson to be taken is that title tags are very important. Personally, I would consider them one of the most important elements of SEO. Now, with the combination of that and a matching domain. You can hit a homerun for whatever your domain may be.
