Keeping The Fundamentals Fresh

Success and Growth, unless you're lucky enough to find the perfect wave, are a process of repeatedly returning to the fundamentals. Sometimes it happens by force, sometimes by accident and, less frequently, it happens by choice. Today's Nugget, Internet Marketing: Strategies and Implementation is yet another return to those basics.

Sharrow

In the background, the computer is working hard to take the skips out of Pachabel's "Canon". Sounds like the folks at Sharrow keep a keyboard next to their computer. Unfortunately for us, the tune always evokes images of the death scene in "Soylent Green" or a late 80s commercial for a rehab or the bland interior of a funeral home. We we're surprised that the musical choice evoked a sense of calm as we bounced through Sharrow's site.

It's a sharp contrast to the content which is jangly and delightful. The folks at Sharrow just can't take themselves too seriously. That's a nice change from the "normal" marketing website.

But don't visit them for the tunes. Underneath the playful exterior, Sharrow is deadly earnest about the role of marketing in web development. They've put together a long, detailed and very useful piece called: An Examination of Alternative Marketing Organization Models for Use in a Re-structuring within a Fictional Book and Software Publishing Company The rest of the material is equally heady and fun. If you're in a medium to large organization and interested in seeing the fleshed out impacts of the web on your company, look them over.

Wilson Internet Services

Ralph Wilson has painstakingly evolved a major marketing resource. Take a look at the Marketing Info Center. It contains solid tutorials on banner ad placement, website design and links to all sorts of delightful tools. It's a gem.

Wilson's approach, which we think is repeatable in other arenas, is to provide solid sound advice mixed with a hard-sell. He seems to believe, as we do, that our success is totally dependent on our customer's success. He doesn't take the responsibility lightly. WilsonWeb (the frontdoor) is a gateway to understanding the puts and takes in the web marketing game. We're fans.

Direct Marketing World

We like Direct Marketing World (though we get the sense that the site hasn't lived up to their hopes). Their archives include three great articles:

• Winning Strategies for Direct Response Marketing: How a Good Designer Can Kill You
  
• Copy By Design, Clarity is King
  
• Writing Web Copy That Sells
  

Our favorite banner ad of recent days says:

Good design doesn't have to be expensive, Bad design always is.

Thinking About It

Running a website as a part of your business makes you a publisher. Although it is easy to overuse the analogy between print and the Web, it is also easy to dismiss it. Editor and Publisher Interactive is another site you should bookmark and visit occasionally. Targeted at the Newspaper industry, the tries to walk the line between being informative (regular critical news pieces) and instructive (articles on ad placement).