In America, money buys life. Marketing medical services online in the
US make me question absolute capitalism.

I was taught that laissez fare capitalism, although while it sometimes doesn’t work perfectly, is the best off all evils. That’s what they told me at Temple University’s liberal arts college and that’s what I’ve been getting from most of my business education and environment. If you work hard and use your god-given talents, you can benefit from all that the land of equal opportunity has to offer.

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Dror and I have made an unwritten promise to one another to make every effort to avoid working with clients who do not appreciate our work. I must admit we have not always succeeded but we usually know when to politely refuse the opportunity. Truthfully, it happens often in Israel. Sometimes, Israeli clients have a tendency to be unreasonable and unappreciative.

Anyone reading here , especially those who work in Israel, knows exactly what I am talking about. But my colleague, Itai Raz, just sent me a video that is too good not to share and sums up, with some good comic relief, exactly how some clients approach each vendor from which they want to receive services.

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We’ve been working with the AVIISHA Medical Wellness Institute of Los Angeles that specializes in weight loss program, sleep apnea and variety of health related issues. As prevention takes central stage in the health and medical disciplines, we hear more and more about the concept of wellness. We thought that video clips would be one of the better tools to communicate efficiently what the Aviisha institute is all about. We’ve hired Video Builders, a savvy video production company in Los Angeles, to help us create online video clips. While shooting the first 3 clips, we’ve started to think of what would be on clip 4 that will capture and explain the concept of medical wellness. Read more »

Once you decide on building a website, you start trying to figure out the what and how. The average marketing person is usually overwhelmed by the idea of choosing which development company to work with. What I am most concerned about is that I notice that , as they should, marketing people often ask their colleagues from other organizations for recommendations. Problem is, those colleagues may not be basing their recommendations on a good solid understanding - so I see lots of recommendations made for developers that may not be the best for the job. In fact, I never understood how when someone asks as general a question as  - “Who should I consider for building my website?”, so many people are quick to recommend. Read more »

בברוטו מדובר בטיסה של קרוב ל20 שעות לכל כיוון.עכשיו בדרך חזרה,  את התחושה ברגליים איבדתי בערך כשעתיים ביציאה מקליפורניה. אם הפרויקט הזה יתפתח כפי שכולם מקווים מדובר במאות שעות טיסה טראנס אטלנטיות. הפרדוקס הוא שלמרות שמדובר בפרויקט רפואי אני מרגיש פיזית גמור. אני אתנחם בעובדה שהפעם, בניגוד להרבה מיזמים עסקיים, מדובר בפרויקט שהצלחתו תעזור להציל אנשים רבים (פרטים בקרוב).

טוב, נגיד שאני ציני בדרך כלל, ברור שכן, אנשים הרי מודעים לעינייני שמירה על בריאות, תזונה אורך חיים תקין. אבל לפעמים כשמסר חד, מדויק ונוגע ברגש הנכון הוא גם אפקטיבי.

כשמדובר במיזמי B2B לשוק האמריקאי אז אין ספק שהוידיאו משמש ככלי העיקרי להעביר את המסרים האמוציונאליים באפן האפקטיבי ביותר. כמו הרבה דברים אחרים בקליפורניה העסק הרבה יותר קיצוני. מנהל הפרויקט אמר לי שבוידיאו, כמו במערבון If you want to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.

הנה דוגמא לקליפ שממחיש את העוצמה והדיוק של לחיצה על הרגש:

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If you haven’t signed up yet , now is the time.

This is a good opportunity to thank all of the people that contributed to the production: Raanan Tessler is probably one of the more talented people in the local (Israel) film industry. He filmed, directed and edited this clip. Thanks Raanan - we continue to collaborate on our clients online video needs - -and already learned the hard way what can happen when we let a client “try out” someone else! . Thanks to the supporting cast: Lester & Yael, Noam and Keren, you where all wonderful.  Now comes the real fun – revealing parts of Code 37 in our upcoming video clips.This is a local campaign so it is obviously in Hebrew. Maybe we will add English subtitles.

Go to http://www.webwhile.co.il/code37 and submit your e mail at the left under the קבלו את סדרת הקליפים בה נחשפים סודות השיווק באינטרנט .

אני לא מנהיג, בדרך כלל דווקא סימפטי. אבל די הלחיצה אותי הפגישה הזו של הלקוחה עם המשקיע שלה שבה הוצגתי כגורו של המיזם לעיניני שיווק באינטרנט.

אני? גורו? מאיפה היא הפילה עלי את השטות הזאת. מיד דימיינתי את עצמי במכנסי שרוול לבנים, בעיניים חצי עצומות מדגים תנוחת טנטרה בעוד המוני מעריצים סביבי מביטים בי בהשתהות. לפתע קטעה אותי מחלומותי  התגובה של הבת שלי שאם היתה שם בוודאי הייתה מסכמת  “פחחחחח!”, גורו אעלק.

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Affilicon, point of view of an objective, knowledgable observer.

For those of you not fortunate enough to have attended Affilicon Israel 2008, the first of its kind affiliate marketing conference in Israel, allow me to share with you some of the highlights and a taste of who and what you missed. Having myself reached the 6 figure mark with a single product (and preparing to conquer the next markets I am targeting), I was confident I would be hearing a lot I already knew. But I was quickly reminded of just how rich and dynamic online marketing is. I learned a lot and appreciated being exposed to some of the best minds in the business. Read more »

Recently, I noticed a huge discrepancy in the statistics that one of our client’s sites was reporting on Google Analytics. I suggested to the client to add one of my favorite free web metrics tools, Statcounter. Statcounter gives you free stats up to a certain number of visits and then you can upgrade to be able to collect and view more historical data, once you get a taste of how user friendly and useful the program is.

So, the client added Statcounter and we were greeted with a very pleasant and more accurate view into what was happening on their site. By chance, this excellent article was just published pointing to the real (and somewhat intentional) inaccuracies of Google Analytics: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/21144.asp

But be wary. Google Analytics is not inaccurate because it is free. Don’t forget that Google Analytics was formerly Urchin, one of, if not THE leading web metrics applications from a few years back – and it was not a cheap subscription back then. The article offers some interesting insights as to the reasons for the inaccuracies and also points out that no analytics applications can be completely accurate.