Advertising is a tricky thing, especially if you find your business in a very competitive market. Perhaps the single biggest thing to keep in mind is that whatever the potential customer perceives to be true will be true for them. You may have the absolute best product with simply sensational customer service, but if all they see is a poorly designed website and any ads that you run look kitchy, cheap, and unreliable, that’s exactly how the potential customer will view your business. If they think you’re a scam, you might as well be one.

Perception is reality. Near the end of September, I put up a post on my blog exclaiming that I would be offering paid reviews for 90% off. People saw a substantial savings opportunity and jumped all over it. Instead of paying $400 for a sponsored review at John Chow dot Com, they could pay 10% of that — $40 — to get a review on Beyond the Rhetoric. The kicker is that the actual review would probably be written by the same person anyways: me.

While I still believe that it is a great deal, in truth, it is only $10 off of my regular paid review price of $50. At the $50 price point, I’d receive one or two paid review requests a month. After launching the promotion, I’ve received 10 review requests and the month isn’t even over yet. Some people may say that it’s a little deceptive, and it might be, but really, that’s the power of perception.

Are you a Facebook Developer or would like to become one? Next week kicks-off the first Facebook Developer Garage in Vancouver. Please join BlueFur and local Facebook Developers for a deep dive into Facebook Platform.

Come and share your ideas, find partners on your latest project, check out app demonstrations, seek developer support direct from Facebook Developers, or just socialize with people like you.

Event Details:

Date: October 23 2007
Time: 5:30pm – 9:00pm
Location: Vancouver Film School (VFS) Theatre 1 – 420 Homer Street between Pender and W. Hastings
Cost: $FREE
RSVP: here

Automattic the company that owns WordPress and Akismet, has purchased blog avatar provider Gravatar. It appears that like most free business models they were not able to afford the servers and bandwidth requirements to stay afloat.

I have added the Gravatar plug-in to this blog and you can now add a little avatar for yourself at Gravatar to represent yourself as long as it is G rated. If you notice a silhouette of our logo on your comment it is because you do not have a Gravatar set. The reason I have added it is because I am sure it will become a more integrated feature in WordPress in the future.

I see this purchase as a good thing for Gravatar users as all the premium features will now be free and because it will be owned by WordPress it will be integrated into wordpress.org.

If you haven’t signed up for Gravatar I suggest you do.

What do you do when you know it’s the same person that’s been spamming your blog over and over again? What do you do when you know that someone is committing click fraud from a particular computer in hopes of getting you banned from Adsense? Speaking for myself, I have adjusted my .htaccess file to ban referrals from certain domains, but what about when it’s a single person?

That’s when I found the WP-Ban WordPress plug-in by Lester Chan. Currently in version 1.20, WP-Ban allows you to ban users based on four different factors: IP, IP range, host name, or referrer URL. Sometimes, it’s difficult to know who you need to ban, but if you’ve been receiving a large amount of spam comments from a particular IP, WP-Ban is a good plug-in to prevent their entry from your blog in the first place. No entry, no spam.

When they plunk your blog’s URI into their address bar, instead of seeing your blog, they will see a page that simply reads, “You are banned.” This message can be customized to say whatever you want. The plug-in also allows for wild cards and it has a stat-tracking feature so you’ll know how many times that particular IP attempted to visit your blog. There are shortcomings, of course, because persistent spammers can still get to you via a proxy. That said, I feel that WP-Ban is a good first line of defense.

In addition to Akismet, what else do you use to prevent spam comments on your blog?

Last week I had mentioned I was reading a great book called the 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. I asked what word do you think would best describe BlueFur and put forth my own idea. I am still looking for a word that works well and if you have an ideas let us know.

The next chapter called The Law of Credentials talks about being the Leader in ‘something’. If you are in an industry where there is not a lot of separation then create a new category.

For example I am sure we would all agree Google is the Leader in Search Engines. In an industry like Beer manufacturing you hear all the time that Molson is the leading Canadian beer or Corona is the leading Mexican beer.

These credentials that puts you as a leader in ‘something’ gives you credentials and strengthen your brand.

So what are we the leader of?

I know we are the Leader in cPanel Hosting in Canada. That being said most customer don’t know what cPanel is before purchasing. We are also the Leader in Managed Blog Hosting. The problem with saying that is that 95% of our customer don’t purchase managed blog hosting and I don’t think were prepared to change our business focus to only blog hosting.

I would like to say we are a Leader in Progressive Hosting in Canada although it seems a bit long.

Back in August, I posed the question as to whether a freelance writer should write for a niche or for the masses. In the end, I concluded that I could ultimately do both, focusing my energies on a particular niche or two, while still dabbling in other topics to help broaden my horizons. This strategy may or may not be effective, depending on the nature of your business. That said, at least one company has taken their niche and transformed it into something that is appealing to the masses.

Lululemon Athletica was founded in 1998 by Chip Wilson. It was a company that was clearly targeting the yoga crowd, offering clothing and other products for that particular lifestyle. The majority of their customer base was and continues to be female, but they also sell clothing for men and children as well. Yoga used to be an activity that was on the fringe and only a small group of people would actually participate. That has changed, especially in Vancouver where Lululemon is based.

It could be because of companies like Lululemon that yoga, pilates and other similar exercises have become so popular. Alternatively, it could be because yoga is getting popular that Lululemon has continued to grow. Whatever the case, Chip Wilson has rode the wave and made a bundle of money along the way. What started as a niche market has quickly become the mass market. I know far too many people who wear Lululemon clothing but have never even attempted a single yoga pose. They wear it because it’s comfortable and because it’s fashionable.

If you want to talk about success, you should check out what has been happening with the Lululemon Athletica stock. The company put forth an initial public offering at US$18 a share before making its TSX debut in late July for $28.99. Since then, the stock price has continued to rise, most recently getting an $8.14 jump yesterday based on new profit projections for the third quarter. Shares in Lululemon Athletica (TSX:LLL) hit an all-time high of $49.75 before dropping down to $48.14 to close the day.

This goes to show you that even if your initial business idea approaches a very specific niche, given the right circumstances and proper marketing, you can expand that niche (without departing from your core sales pitch) so that it appeals to everyone.