Cincinnati Internet Marketing Blog

Get One Free Rewards Program

Bob Berendsen of GetOneFree.com sends this message about the blog and their rewards program.  If you're looking to do an online promotion in the Cincinnati area you might want to give Bob a call:

Hey Rob, Great idea about creating this Blog for our group. I see many possibilities... Including the opportunity to tell the group what we're up to.

My involvement in the Cincy I-marketing Group has been about the best networking that I've found. This Blog takes it a step further, and we have more than 10 seconds to explain (you all know what I mean). Hey, the price is right too (cost: one 12-Pack every three months). What a DEAL! Thanks Rob!

We're experiencing some great times as pioneers of what I still consider, The Internet Frontier. We survived the dot.com Bubble burst, 9/11 and all those corporate scandals. In addition, GetOneFree.com has found a way to expand through our own viral marketing system. I believe this system could also be useful to your businesses or maybe even your business clients, who want to generate targeted sales traffic. Please check out our Web site at http://www.GetOneFree.com.

Think about how many times you have heard or seen the words Get One Free!
GetOneFree.com is like a mix between Google and a Free Entertainment Book... with a sticky rewards program, that often keeps visitors clicking away, at our web site for hours at a time. And we're getting a lot of local visitors too... thanks to a joint venture we have with WCPO.

Members of GetOneFree.com Rewards receive Rewards Points for telling their friends about us, through a form on our Web site. For each email address they insert, they receive 50 Points. If that person, who
receives the email signs up, the sender gets 500 Points. Points can be used to make purchases on GetOneFree.com (there are 9 other ways to earn Points too). We have offers like Buy $25 Gift Card to Margaritas Mexican Restaurant and Get a $25 Gift Card FREE!

You can check it out at http://www.GetOneFree.com/rewards. Visitors also get 2000 Rewards Points, just for signing up and we don't sell our database to anyone. We do an email once a week to keep members informed about offers, contests and sweepstakes that they are eligible to participate in!

Hey, maybe you'll even save some enough money to help pay for Gas! Never pay full price when you can GetOneFree!

Bob Berendsen, Founder & President
GetOneFree.com

Bob@GetOneFree.com

513-861-1400

Google Ticks Off eBay - and finds out partnerships can be difficult

As detailed in this Clickz article Last week eBay pulled its advertising on Google Adwords and while their spokesperson claimed it was the result of eBay doing optimization testing and choosing to reallocate their marketing dollars, the blogosphere has another theory.

Google has been pushing it's Google Checkout payment service, which competes with eBay's PayPal.  Well eBay wants folks to of course, use PayPal, so they do not allow people to use Google Checkout on eBay.  So Google, posted an invitation on their Google Checkout Blog invited eBay sellers attending the eBay Live conference in Boston last week to a party with the theme "Let Freedom Ring" and described the party as a "celebration of user choice."

eBay was not happy about this and pulled all of its advertising on Google, which by some estimates is just under a cool million dollars a day.  Google cancelled the party but still has some fence mending to do.

I understand Google wants to promote Google Checkout, but ticking off such an important (and lucrative) partner and advertiser as eBay with such a blatant dig seems like a really bad idea to me.  Of course Google has been singularly independent and successful to this point, but as Google branches out its businesses and expands into so many other areas they better getting used to working and playing well with others. 

What do you think?  Was Google out of line?  Or, do you think Google was right to promote Google Checkout this way and eBay should chill out a bit?

   

 

Links from June 7th Meeting

Here are links to sites and articles mentioned at the June 7th Cincinnati I-marketing Group meeting.  If you'd like a copy of the Czar's complete meeting notes, email me at robbunting@gmail.com.

Internet Marketing Industry News

Clickz article on Google purchasing DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion

Clickz article on Google purchasing Feedburner

Social Networking Marketing

MySpace www.myspace.com

Examples of companies using MySpace profiles for promotion: Jack In The Box, TLC's Life Lessons, the movie X-Men 3

Case Study: How RollerWarehouse created a news ticker for people to put on their MySpace or other pages and the results are detailed in this article on Conversion Rater.com

Facebook www.facebook.com

Fast Company article on Facebook & it's 23-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Clickz article on Facebook creating new platform letting advertisers create free applications for users to share

LinkedIn www.linkedin.com

del.icio.us http://del.icio.us A social bookmarking or "tagging" website.  Upload your bookmarks from your computer and use this web-based service to access them on any Inetrnet-connected computer.  Share your bookmarks with others as a way of rewarding sites with good content.

Digg www.digg.com Vote or "digg" sites and content you think is cool or may be of interest to others.  Rankings in results determined by number of votes from users.

Second Life www.secondlife.com Virtual environment where 7 million users move their avatars through various "worlds" and interact with other avatars.

DMNews article on how MTV engages viewers of its shows in their Second Life virtual worlds.

SLurl.com allows companies to create weblinks to their virtual worlds on Second Life.  New marketing company Crayon has a virtual world called Crayonville, which can be reached via their Crayonville link on SLurl.com.

NY Times article on girls using doll websites such as Webkinz which Ed demonstrated.