Does Pay Per Click Work?

I"m not a marketing guru. Never have been. Never will be. You too? So how do we maximize traffic to our blog, our side project, or our main gig? Well, we tell our clients to hire us, the expert, when they need some coding done.

So hire an expert.

I know just the expert. I've watched these guys in action. They know what they're doing. Check them out at http://www.webevident.com/ppc-management.php.

They can handle all your pay per click campaigns. And you would be surprised how much traffic they can drive to your site on a very tight budget. They do a free analysis for you, so you have nothing to lose by at least checking them out.  

A Requirements Management Allegory

My wife won the lottery. Two hundred thousand dollars. Uncle Sam took half. She said, "I want a new car. Go buy me a new car."

So I took the checkbook and bought a brand new Honda Accord for $30,000. When I arrived home my wife said, "I didn't want an Accord. I want an SUV."

On the way back to the dealership, an accident occurred. I escaped with my life but the car was a total loss.

I still had the checkbook so I wrote a check for $40,000 and took home a nice, new Dodge Durango. I was so pleased with myself.

But my wife was not. She said, "The Durango is too small and I don't like the color red."

So I turned around and took it back to the dealer. I asked for my money back but he whipped out the magnifying glass and pointed out the small print: "absolutely, under no circumstances can you get a refund."

"Besides," said the salesmanager, "we've already spent the money and we can't take a new car in trade. It's just policy."

So I drove the Durango to the Ford dealership and on the way was rearended by a large truck. The Ford dealership gave me $10,000 in trade and I wrote a check for $40,000 more for the last of the new Ford Excursions.

I drove the Excursion home. Finally my wife was happy. "Now let's go buy the boat," she said.

"Sorry, honey," I said. "We're out of money."

So we have this giant SUV and we can't afford to put gas in it, and we have nothing to pull behind it.

But, we do have an SUV that cost $100,000 and in three years will be worth less than $20,000. And as a compensating note, I can haul a ton of groceries with it which helps save the cost of gasoline to get to the grocery store in the first place.

Now if only we could find another lottery to win.

Automate Your Customer Service Complaints

I recently ordered something online. Let's hypothetically say it was a pair of glasses. I won't say which company because your experience will in all likelihood be better than mine. In point of fact, I have a crazy prescription that is hard to make and throws every optical lab for a loop the first time they see it.

Actually, I ordered two pairs. One pair was produced and arrived in a reasonable timeframe. The other has yet to arrive, hence my hesitance to name names. It's been weeks and weeks now. I would call and receive placating assurances that the matter would be looked into and that all would be resolved. I sent email nearly every other day inquirying. No answer. No status update. No way to look at the order status online--okay, yes that's partly my fault. Know before you press "confirm order."

So how did I solve this great quandry. Just a few lines of code which I will share below produced an emailed response within the hour. Have fun with it. Use it at your own risk. I take no responsibility for how you make yourself heard. And I've removed the identifying strings to avoid embarrassing the vendor and further endangering my order. BTW, their response was:

"We apologize for the inconvenience you experienced with us. We are remaking the glasses you ordered in our lab. You will receive them in about 10 days."

Here's the simple code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace
CrazyEmail
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
       string n = Environment.NewLine;
       string nn = n + n;
       string body = "Hello," + nn
         + "I can think of no other way..." + nn
         + "Can you please respond..." + nn
         + "You can either..." + nn
         + "Thanks," + nn
         + "-Tyler";

       System.Net.Mail.MailMessage msg = 
         new System.Net.Mail.MailMessage("myemail@address.com", customer@service.com
         "order #xyz status inquiry"
, body);

       System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient client = 
         new System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient("mail.myserver.com"
);

       for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
       {
         client.Send(msg);
         Console.WriteLine(i.ToString());
       }

       Console.WriteLine("Done.");
       Console.ReadLine();
     }
  }
}