Like you, I get a lot of invitations to attend teleseminars and webinars, and lately, I’ve been paying more attention to the price.

The cost to attend those events for which there is a registration fee (many are free) seems to range from $19 on the low end to $149 at the high end. Length is either 60 or 90 minutes.

As a tightwad consumer, I prefer free or $19. But many customers are gladly shelling out $49 to $79 and occasionally more.

Topic doesn’t seem to be critical, as I recently saw two different promoters charge widely different pricing ($29 vs. $149) for the same topic (for a marketing oriented webinar)!

As a marketer, what do you charge for your teleseminars and webinars — and why?

As a consumer, what price are you willing to pay?

I admire Joe Pulizzi, but his latest article about succeeding as a freelancer leaves me wondering if he’s lost his marbles.

In it, Joe says, “I don’t hire any freelancer that doesn’t blog.”

Huh?

He goes on: “Understanding what it takes to create a successful blog, learn the value of social sharing, and be able to define ideas succinctly is a must have for any marketer.”

What about the ability to be persuasive, increase response rates, and generate more sales and revenues?

If you are a freelancer who doesn’t blog (or even if you do), do you agree with Joe that a freelancer who does not blog is out of touch?

If you hire freelancers (like I do for my online publishing business), do you insist that they have a blog? If not, what DO you look for?

“Beware social media snake oil,” warns Stephen Baker in an article in Business Week (12/3/09).

According to the article, the benefits of social media are often nebulous — and the cost, contrary to what social media consultants and gurus claim, are far from zero.

“Employees encouraged to tap social networking sites can fritter away hours or worse, they can spill company secrets or harm corporate relationships by denigrating partners.”

As for social media consultants and gurus, Baker insists that “many are leading clients astray … [as] success is defined more often by number of Twitter followers, blog mentions, or YouTube hits than by traditional measures such as return on investment.”

Ironically, when asked for case studies to prove the effectiveness of social media, some of these consultants point to their own self-promotion rather than client success stories, which are few and far between. (That’s like me showing my own self-promotion sales letter for my copywriting services as my copywriting sample.)

Finally, says Baker, social networking does not make sense for every company.

Example: in the defense industry (where I once worked), where much of the revenue comes from the Department of Defense (DoD). Baker suggests the privacy-obsessed Pentagon “may not be thrilled with a supplier publicizing itself through Twitter.”

The subtitle of Erik Qualman’s new book “Socialnomics” states that “social media transforms the way we live and do business.”

Really?

I can’t think of a single way in which social media has transformed my life or my business.

Has it transformed yours?

Qualman says that social media is the new inbox.

For me, my e-mail inbox is the new inbox.

He also says that “Are you on Facebook?” has become the equivalent to “May I have your phone number?”

When I deal with clients, customers, vendors, and prospects, I ask for their phone number and e-mail address.

I don’t ask whether they are on Facebook.

How about you?

Source: Target Marketing, 11/09, p. 14.

You always read the old rule “use serif type which is easier to read than sans serif.”

That may be true in print but it’s not online.

Reason: the lower resolution of the screen vs. print renders serif imperfectly, making it less attractive and more difficult than sans serif to read.

With that in mind, here are the best fonts for online marketing:

>> For e-mail marketing messages, use either 12-point Arial or Verdana.

>> Do not use Times Roman for web pages – it’s a serif type and difficult to read online.

>> Recommended typefaces for web sites include Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, and other popular san serif fonts.

>> If your web pages are too light to read on screen or when printed, use a boldface font like Helvetica Bold Condensed.

>> The most common error in web page design is using too small a type size. Use at least 12-point type. Even 16-point won’t look awkward, and larger is easier to read than smaller.

>> For web page headlines, use Arial Bold in 2 or more point sizes larger than the body copy.

Do you have other fonts you like better? Or disagree with any of the above?

An article in SIPA Hotline (10/16/09) suggests that a way to measure the effectiveness of social media is to track certain metrics before, during, and after the social media campaign.

The metrics to be measured can include:

>> Traffic to web site and blog.
>> Number of brand impressions per month.
>> Percentage of content clicked through.
>> Percantage increase in site-return visitors.
>> Percentage increase in followers or fans per month.

It also recommends monitoring what is said about your company on social networking sites using a new service called filtrbox (www.filtrbox.com) and responding to negative comments to correct perception.

Make sense?

According to a new Citibank survey, more than three out of four small business owners have not found social networking sites to be helpful in either generating new business leads or expanding their businesses during the last year.

An article in Marketing Charts, sent to me by online media expert Sarah Stambler, reports: “Despite widespread consumer use and increasing marketing efforts on social sites among larger organizations, managers in small businesses apparently are not jumping on the (social media) bandwagon.”

Since small businesses have much smaller marketing budgets than large organizations, and since social media is supposedly free, you would think small businesses would flock to social networking sites and embrace social media marketing.

The only reason why they might NOT do so is lack of ROI: even with its low cost, if social media doesn’t generate results, small businesses are not going to use it. They simply cannot afford to waste their time or money on marketing that does not generate positive ROI.

Large organizations can get excited about social media and write articles about its importance, because large corporations often spend millions on marketing programs, like branding campaigns, that generate no discernible ROI.

Make sense? Am I right, wrong, stupid, or crazy?

An increasingly popular buzzword in online marketing today is “transparency.”

It means the more you reveal about yourself to your prospects, the more they will bond with – and hopefully buy from – you.

Transparency is contrary to the classic copywriting rule stated so eloquently by my old direct mail mentor Sig Rosenblum decades ago:

“The reader isn’t interested in you. The reader is interested in her needs, fears, concerns, problems, and desires.”

Transparency represents a paradigm shift of the prospect’s attention from herself to you, the marketer.

Is transparency true? Do you really care which blend the CEO of Starbucks drinks – or whether Joe Vitale is buying yet another expensive sports car?

I have trouble believing anyone cares much about what I do, like, or think. (Of course, I am more boring than Joe.)

But in case I am wrong, and transparency is what you crave, here are 15 things about me I probably haven’t told you before:

1—I am a grumpy old man – over 50 – who is increasingly alienated from our youth-oriented culture.

2—I am a luddite. I don’t own a Blackberry … a PDA … a Bluetooth … a wireless laptop … an iPod … an iPhone … a Kindle … or even a cell phone. Nor do I have any need of or use for them.

3—If you held a gun to my head and said I had to send a text message over a cell phone, or a photo over the Internet, or you’d shoot me – I’d be dead. I do not know how to do these things and have no interest in learning.

4—Although the Internet has eroded my attention span like it has everyone else’s, I am still an avid reader of books, both fiction and nonfiction.

5—While I read widely on a variety of topics, I have recently returned to science fiction, the preferred genre of my youth, and have put up a science fiction web site: www.sciencefictionprediction.com

5—I buy and listen to music on CDs. I do not download from iTunes.

6—Although I read CNN.com every day, my preferred mode of getting news is a newspaper – a medium my teenage sons say is the most absurd thing they have ever seen.

7—I don’t watch much TV. I enjoy TV as a medium, but there’s not much on I like. I wish there were. My favorite show was Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, and I hope it comes back.

8—My main hobby, aside from reading, is keeping tropical fish. I have a web site dedicated to this hobby: www.aquariumdetective.com. The latest addition to my aquarium is a freshwater stingray.

9—I also like nature, particularly lakes and rivers. We have a weekend home on a lake, and naturally I have a web site on that too: www.livingonalake.com

10—In school, my original major was chemistry (later changed to chemical engineering), and my goal was to be a scientist.

11—I am not entrepreneurial by nature. The primary reason I became a freelancer in 1982 was that my company asked me to relocate and I did not want to go.

12—I am a homebody. I do not like to travel – and with rare exception, I don’t.

13—I love writing. I agree with (I think it was) Noel Coward who said: “Work is more fun than fun.” My two favorite activities are reading and writing.

14—I have two teenage boys, Alex and Stephen, and the most important thing in the world to me is being a good dad.

15—I got married at a young age, in my 20s, and was the only one of my friends to do so. Amy and I have been happily married for 26 years, and we will continue to be so for as long as I live or until she changes her mind.

So there’s my transparency in a nutshell.

Now I have to ask: Is this list as boring to you as it is to me?

Or are these things you really want to know – and if so, for heaven’s sake why?