Death of the Alpha Female - Bring back Richard Farleigh!

I am not suggesting that Richard Farelighs long locks are affecting his sexuality but I did read an an amusing anecdote on Rachel Elnaugh's blog. Rachel's blog makes reference to the death of the alpha female and dragons being "thrown off" the Dragons Den show because they are too nice - as she says has happened to Richard Farleigh and Simon Woodruffe.

Some bright spark has subsequently created a website to bring back Richard Farleigh at
http://www.bringbackrichardfarleigh.com/. Much to the amusement of the creator the first petition signer appears to be Richard Farleigh himself. Clear evidence of the need for a double opt-in signature to ensure the veracity of your polls, petitions, surveys, requests for further information.

Double opt in: a process whereby when you sign up on-line (for more information, newsletter, survey etc. etc.) a link is sent to your registered e mail. You must click on the e mailed link to confirm your identity. This prevents your "best friends" prank signing your e mail address and helps to avoid "anonymous" signatories.

Now to something I have learned!

As a marketing test, look down the left hand navigation bar on the http://www.bringbackrichardfarleigh.com/ site to to the latest forum posts and look at those top to bottom and then click on which one attracts your interest.

Amazing what the words nude and an exclamation mark will do! With all due respect to Deborah Meadon I don't believe anyone really wants to see her nude. Deborah nude is a bit like a toothache, you know your tooth is sore, you know is going to hurt, you know it's going to be unpleasant but you press your tongue against it anyway! Sorry Debs!

Did you know that the simple addition of a question mark or exclamation mark at the end of an ad title on Google can increase click throughs by 3-5%. On a £100,000 revenue the addition of one additional character could increase click through by 5% and if click to purchase ratio was 20%. Then adding that extra character and pressing that key will earn you an extra £1,000 per annum. Does this make the question mark the most valuable character? There are two ways you could find this out trial and error (costly and lengthy) or you can learn it from others cleverer than you!

Spend time learning, put time aside every day. Apply what you learn. Remember Einstein's definition of insanity "doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results". Reading that one nugget of information above could increase your actual revenue by £1,000 per annum. The cost of finding it out a few minutes learning.

I don't know if anybody has assessed the increase in clickthrough for the addition of the words nude or naked. I'm sure it's huge but may not be particularly relevant for headlines like "need a hotel nude?", "new garden shed nude?", "want to earn a £1,000 a day nude?".