Josue Sierra

I-Media Connection has a valuable article on what an organization can do to build an email list from scratch. You don’t have to be a web-marketing guru to execute on these ideas. If you have a website, you should be doing this already.

You can pretty much summarize it into 3 basic steps:

• It’s best to focus on organic growth
• Don’t require so much info that it keeps people from filling out the form
• If you must, choose a reputable list-rental service

This is rather simple and very basic, but so many organizations don’t take the time to execute on these baby steps.

The good news is that there are several ways to grow your lists organically that will enable you to amass a loyal following of happy customers. The first thing you want to do is put a sign-up link on every page of your website — and don’t hide it with small text or bury it at the bottom of your page. Put it in a prominent position that won’t get ignored. As you drive people to your website through various marketing and advertising programs, there should be an obvious path that leads respondents to a simple form for opting into your list. Making it easy to sign up is key, and that involves careful consideration about the number of steps that you require and the amount of information you request.

I’m a big politics buff, so I thought this article was rather interesting as it brings together my interest in interactive media and the world of politics (and its related to a tool I have used and can recommend).

Bloggers and social media enthusiasts on the Internet have weighed in on the recent McCain – Palin ticket, and the responses have pulled the Republican nominee into a virtual tie with Senator Barack Obama in the blogosphere.

I’ve had the opportunity to test-drive the technology behind this — lots of powerful intelligence and analytic tools to help you interpret the “noise” out there.

…according to RelevantNoise(TM), Zeta Interactive’s technology that mines the Internet’s social media landscape — including over 100 million blogs, as well as countless message boards and online communities — the buzz on the Internet regarding John McCain has skyrocketed by more than 12 percent since the announcement of Palin as his running mate, bringing him virtually even with Obama for the first time in the campaign.

I’m rooting for McCain, and was happy with his pick for VP, so its nice to read the good news. From a political strategy point of view, it seems to me that all the attacks on Sarah Palin is backfiring for the Obama campaign and has them off-message.

Since announcing Palin as his running mate, McCain also has benefitted from an increase in positive posts on the online media landscape. According to RelevantNoise, the number of posts that were determined positive in tone increased from 47 percent in the month prior to announcing his VP to 59 percent positive on the day that McCain named Palin. (Click the URL to see the volume and tonal charts) – http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080903/NYW144

I had the opportunity to present to a group of college students from Patrick Henry College at a weekend Leadership Institute Campaign School in Arlington. Great audience — very attentive and focused, with good questions all through out the hour 1/2.

Here is my power point, provided via SlideShare.net.

I’ll be talking about Obama’s Miami Herald op-ed, the Univision debate and other political subjects. Read more here.

Update: Great time talking with Michelle, as always! You can read Michelle’s Tell Me More blog right here.

You can listen to the audio clip of the segment of Tell Me More.

This is an interesting article on the political balance in media, and certainly worth a read. Its from a right-of-center perspective. I agree with Adam. The way I see it, let free market forces do their job — we don’t need more regulation on our communication channels.

Its interesting to see the different strategies each candidate on both sides of the aisle is using.

Nielsen has published some fascinating details on how the presidential candidates are spending their media money and what kind of results they’re getting for it. MarketingCharts.com has the numbers;

TechPresident has the highlights.