Steve Jay's Digital Marketing Blog

My new part-time venture – Steve Jay Guitar Tuition

I would like to introduce you to my new part-time venture - http://www.stevejayguitartuition.com In recent years I've been improving my own guitar skills by taking courses in Technical Development at The Academy of Contemporary Music, devouring workbooks and improving my knowledge and application of music theory.

While reflecting on all this recently it dawned on me that the best to way to build on this knowledge is to teach the subject! So I've launched http://www.stevejayguitartuition.com

So what can I offer? Well...

• Lessons can be given either in your home or at my studio, check the http://www.stevejayguitartution.com/cost.html for a full price-list
• I can supply an instrument if required, so no initial outlay is required if you just want to give it ago
• I'm a member of the Registry of Guitar Tutors
• I am CRB checked

I'm also looking forward to being able to apply some of the skills from the day job, so please keep up to date on news and progress by Twitter, the Facebook Group or Linkedin.

Steve

My New Role at Mio / Navman

From 30th June I started my new at Mio / Navman as European Head of Web Marketing.

The last two years at The AA have been fantastic but the lengthy commute and the desire to move out of financial services finally won the day.

The combination of a demanding job, semi-professional band, training for a 10K charity run last Sunday, and a four year old daughter has taken the toll on thedigitalmarketingblog.co.uk.  Starting a new role obviously isn't going to help so I apologise in advance that my post frequency will remain woefully low.

I will continue to pass the odd nugget into the feed via my Del.icio.us feed and hope to post some items when I've perfected time-travel.

An update on my fundraising

Hello,

I thought you might like to know how my fundraising is going.

So far I have managed to raise £220.00 for Save the Baby, so a big thank you to everyone who has donated so far.

My target was £300 so if you would like to make a donation but haven't yet, it would be gratefully received. The run is in London on 6th July so there is still time!

The training has been going well and I'm on track for my target time of one hour.

If you know anyone else who might be kind enough to sponsor me, please take a moment to send them the link to my online fundraising page.

It only takes a minute to donate by credit or debit card. My page can be found at:

http://www.justgiving.com/stevejay

All donations are secure and sent electronically to Save the Baby. If you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving will automatically reclaim 28% Gift Aid on your behalf, so your donation is worth even more. Please join me in supporting Save the Baby and a fabulous cause.

Thanks and best wishes,

Steve

PLEASE NOTE: I used Justgiving to send this email, so please do not reply to it. Replies will go to Justgiving, not to me!

Digital Marketing Recruitment

A good test of the power of social media....

We are currently hiring at The AA within our Digital Marketing Team

If you have relevent experience in Affiliate Marketing, Search or Email, send your CV's to Steve.Jay@TheAA.com

The Digital Marketing Briefing

I stumbled into Joseph Jaffe’s podcast ‘Across the Sound’ about two years ago. I know this as I distinctly remember C.C. Chapman recommending him during an episode of Accident Hash while I was putting together a new bed in the spare room of the house we had just moved into.

That’s how strangely exact you can be when you hear something you like via audio!

Through CC’s great music podcast I made the synaptic jump to Josephs marketing podcast and the lines between my personal & business life were forever blurred.

Happily the crumb trail continued and before long I had plugged into For Immediate Release, The ClientSide Podcast, & Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Seperation (for which I am particularly grateful for).

Why the trip down memory lane? Well I got to meet Joseph Jaffe today at the Digital Marketing Briefing in London. Joseph delivered his keynote speech, ‘Life after the 30 Second Spot’ in the morning, and followed up in the afternoon with a workshop billed as ‘Join the Conversation’. This turned into a fun off piste ramble through blogging, podcasting, twitter and the power of community. A live shout out to his Twitter followers to call in via Skype solicited about 10 instant phone calls, that was great as you could almost see the moment the penny dropped as the group started to realise the power and opportunity of a truly connected world.

I love Josephs’ irreverent style. It worked perfectly in keeping your attention and serves as a kick up your ass. Something we can all do with from time to time.

An impromptu tweet up with Joseph, Mike O’Hara, Eaon Pritchard, David Cushman & Rachel Clarke blah plus a few Mohito’s, at Chez Gerard in Covent Garden, finished off the day. Dodgy video of which can be found here.

Best quote of the day, well there were two really, ‘Production is the new consumption’, and ‘if your audience has fragmented, then you have to as well’.

Good affiliates are just ahead of the curve

Jason Calacanis has ignited a debate about the ethics of Affiliate Marketing. Joel Comms blog reports that at the 2008 Affiliate Summit in Vegas he's accused Affiliates of creating spam sites which have very little value. His view, along with the colourful way that he delivered his message, is provoking quite abit of response.

I have not yet seen the video of Jason's presentation so I wouldn't want to comment on what he did / didn't say but I have some sympathy for his point of view and would like to add something to the debate.

Affiliates are a diverse bunch, from the dyed in the wool fan of a product who promotes it out of love, to the bedroom enthusiast who's trying to make a fast buck, through very little effort. Therefore it's is unfair to tar everyone with the same brush.

In the most part, my experience of affiliates has been with the handful of sharp, professional outfits that drive 90% of your affiliate sales volume. These are smart individuals who provide cost efficient sales. All good then?

Well to a point. Or should I say - to a point in time. Successful affiliates occupy the the space 'ahead of your curve'. They generate incremental sales doing the things you haven't learned how to do yet. Once you learn how to do these techniques yourself the game changes and your affiliates move onto the 'next thing'. Only they've already been looking at it for a while because they're smart...remember.

I track key competitor terms in the blogosphere through Google Blog Search and Technorati and I can see the growth in spam blogs (Splogs) targetting those words, and to an extent they must be working. But I suspect they will become less effective when more corporates realise it and start blogging actively themselves. Thereby helping Google rank everybody more effectively.

Hat tip to Mitch

2008 - The year for mobile.....honest.

Apple's posted results just shy of $10b for the last quarter of 2007. Helped in no small part by Christmas iPhone sales.

With around 4 Million handsets sold around the world we appear to be entering a mobile renaissance, could 2008 really will be the year for mobile?

At a visit to Apple recently they shared some pretty staggering, but as far as I can see unverified figures,  about people's web usage on the iPhone. If the numbers are to be believed you should start to think about how your website is optimised for Apple's Safari browser which, given the Nokia browser is based in part on the same open source code, might not be such a bad idea...

The Software Developers Kit for the iPhone should be available at the end of February 2008 but here's a couple of resources to get you started.

A good overview on developing for the iPhone can be found (unsurprisingly) on Apple's site and if you want to know how to create a cool looking iPhone webclip when someone bookmarks your website on an iPhone check out this video tutorial from Fasticon

The Egg.com Pancake recipe

To celebrate Shrove Tuesday I though I would share a recipe of how to create your own PR pancake disaster.

Ingredients

1 Egg.com
150ml (or several sustained months) of dubious lending practice by your parent company
150ml of 'Credit Crunch' mixture
160,000 customers who pay their credit card bills on-time

Instructions

Place the ingredients together in a bowl and whisk together for 5 minutes. The 160,000 customers should separate and float to the top quite easily.

Remove the 160,000 customers and write to them informing them that their accounts will be cancelled in 35 days.

Release a press statement stating that you are closing the accounts of people who you feel pose a 'high lending risk'.

Poor remaining mixture down the kitchen sink along with any vestige of loyalty from your customer base.

Eggcellent.

My take-away from a great customer experience

I visit our local Chinese takeaway most Friday's on the way home to collect collect a meal for myself & Caroline. It's something we've done for the last three years or so,  ever since our daughter was born. We don't go out so much any more....

On Friday, while I was collecting our unremarkable order of mixed hors d'oeuvres and chicken & cashew nuts in yellow-bean sauce, I was presented with a gift wrapped box of chocolates and a Christmas card to  'Mr Jay & Family'. It was an unexpected reward for my custom over the last year and it made me feel good.

It probably didn't cost the Golden Willow much to target a subset of loyal customers, just abit of thought and effort. But it's the 'human ingredient' that a local small business can create with ease and it underlines a sense of community.

What a challenge for any online businesses to replicate!

If small businesses ever find a way of combining this magic with their website...supermarket chains will crumble.

圣诞快乐

How to use Google Maps

The guys & girls at Commoncraft have been at it again and produced another great informative video in their own style. Very cool. I blogged about one of their previous videos here.

This one is about using Googlemaps. Checkout the American pronouncation of Tottenham Court Road. Love it.