How to Evolve this Column

The promotion train keeps on rolling over here at the Sage Lewis Express.

I’ve been writing about the outcomes of a pretty interesting promotion I did here at Search Engine Watch.

I asked people to fill out a survey of some possible ways they would like to see this column evolve. These are the end results:

• Interview people with successful promotions: 4 (14 percent)
• Track and monitor promotions that were sent in by readers: 0 (0 percent)
• Use Ning as a private social media environment to watch promotions and allow all people to offer their input and opinions of the promotions: 7 (24 percent)
• Offer a $500 scholarship for promotional essay ideas and then promote the scholarship in all the scholarship sites: 4 (14 percent)
• Hold a contest or contests for the best promotions… measured with clear guidelines of what makes a promotion successful: 2 (7 percent)
• Breakdown the fundamentals of a promotion so other businesses can figure out how to best use the promotion in their case: 11 (38%)
• Offer a variety of promotional prizes, such as potential advertising space: 1 (3 percent)

With 38 percent of the vote, people were very interested in breaking down the fundamentals of promotions so they can best use them in their own businesses.

That response makes sense. After all, you probably aren’t here because Web marketing is a fascinating hobby. You want to know how to use promotions in your own situation.

Determining exactly which promotions to analyze and then exactly how to break them down in a way the makes sense to each of your businesses is more than one mild mannered Promotion and Link Building expert is likely capable of.

That’s OK though. Because the number two thing you were interested in was a Ning private social media environment.

So potentially we could break these promotions down as a group.

Here’s the thing. Through the magic of editing and writing ahead, today is actually March 19. You should see what we’re wearing today. The fashions today are so stupid.

Next week I’m going to Search Engine Strategies in New York where I’ll be able to talk to the powers that be about all of these things.

You’re probably reading this on April 9. (As you’re reading and studying furiously, I’m actually in Wisconsin at a water park totally chilling, right this very minute.)

By the time you’re reading this, I’ll have already talked with the people at Search Engine Watch and we’ll probably have come up with an amazing strategy. But since I’m in the past and you’re in the future, none of us know what that strategy will be because the meeting is somewhere in between us in a land time forgot.

Oh, time travel. I think all the green tea is making me loopy.

I’ve got a little space left in this article. Maybe I’ll have already found out what they say and I can tell you. I can tell me!

But now I have to wait. We all have to wait. Hmm… I wish New York would hurry up and get here. I mean, for you, it’s already come and gone. Did you go!? Did you have fun? I went. (At least I think I went.) I probably had fun. But I’m not sure because, you know… it’s March 19.

[Sage looks around. Bored. Taps keyboard.”

Zing!

I’m back to the future, which is the present, which is still technically the past because I had to get the piece done on deadline. But, whatever. This is what I found out.

I talked with Kevin Newcomb, the managing editor of Search Engine Watch. He thought this all sounded very cool and fun.

So, I’ll get to work right now and see how we can go about getting this all set up.

See you next time!