Welcome to

For example, when your marketing campaign sets off a frantic, city-wide terrorism scare.

Last night, I watched American Idol- they’re doing the initial auditions, which bring out a lot of horrible singers who get cut down mercilessly (and deservedly) by the acerbic Simon Cowell. Afterwards, I was online, and came across this post on Powerpoint by Seth Godin. He laments what Powerpoint is, and dreams of what it could be, describing an approach to crafting a Powerpoint presentation which can’t be farther than the reality of what most of us experience when we get trapped in yet another excrutiatingly boring meeting.

Back when I was in college, professors used to stand before the class and lecture. I went back for a masters degree 15 years later, and found that times had changed. Sure, some professors still lectured. But (too) many just put presentations up on the projector and read the slides.

In the business world, it’s even worse than that. At least the professors had some point they were trying to convey, albeit in dull fashion. In most business meetings, the only point is ‘Buy my product’. Not a whole lot of value for the attendee.

So tonight I got an idea– I propose a new approach to ending Powerpoint Hell, to be instituted not by the presenters of the world, but by the meeting attendees. First, let’s recognize that we the attendees are at fault for this situation. Why? Because we have been willing to sit for and placidly accept the crap presentations foisted upon us. It’s all our fault, because we have not demanded more.

So let’s change that. Let’s become American Idol judges. Be Simon Cowell. Give immediate, bracingly direct, honest feedback on the presentations you attend. In real time.

Here’s how it would work:

Presenter begins with a slide telling you his name, company name and date. You: Frown and glower.

Presenter puts up a slide with 12 bullets and 425 words in 6 point font. Proceeds to read them all. You: “I think you missed a few words there, Herman Melville. Would you like to try that one again?”

Presenter runs through series of graphs. Lots of numbers. You: Blatant yawn. Roll eyes.

Presenter brings things to a close with a Conclusions slide, reiterating points made 5 minutes ago. You: “Tell me- WHAT exactly do you think you’re doing here. Do you REALLY think we should buy your widgets based on that mess? I’ve NEVER been so bored in my life. ABSOLUTE mess. WORST presentation ever. We’ve learned something today- and that is: YOU sir, will never sell me anything.”

Now, if presenters knew that they were going to face public humiliation, wouldn’t they perhaps try a little harder? Hey, at the very least, meetings might be a little less dull for the rest of us.

1. Make a list
2. Make a list
3. Make a list

When I was in college, I wrote a music review column for the school paper. As far as I could tell at the time, no one paid any attention to my brilliant articles. No comments, no praise, just a lot of… nothing.

And then one week, I decided to do a column on the ‘10 Best Albums of the Year’.  Everything changed… comments, arguments, opinions, coming from every direction. People were paying attention.

I learned something that week– people love a list. Maybe they don’t love the list, but they can’t avert their eyes from it. If you list the 10-best of something, they just have to see what you said was #1. I suspect this is to be certain that they agree with you. If they do, you are a genius. If they do not, you are an idiot. (A corollary lesson is that you’ll never go broke telling people things they want to hear).

Another possibility is what I think of as the ‘in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound syndrome’– once they see the first item on a list, they’ve just got to follow it all the way through (a good reason why if you do use a ranking list, it should always be in descending order). The movie might stink, but you’ve got to see how it ends. Whatever the reason actually is, a list seems to improve the odds that people will read what you have to say.

Why does any of this matter to a marketer? Well, whether you’re trying to convince people you’re a genius or sell them something, you need them reading to get anywhere. So look for opportunities to use lists in your promotional copy. 3 problems your product will solve. 5 ways you beat the competition. 10 reasons they should Act Now!

Your copy still needs to be compelling, but the list format tilts the playing field in your favor. Actually, there are 3 reasons for that…

If any of these sound familiar, start worrying…

1. You have a splash intro page with flash running longer than 0.00002 seconds, and/or requires me to click ‘Enter’ to pass on to the home page.
2. I can’t figure out with reasonable accuracy what you do within 5 seconds of scanning the homepage, without having to read everything on it.
3. Your….. site…… is……. slow…….
4. You use frames. Actually, you can skip the rest of the items if you use frames, because I can tell you right now your site sucks.
5. Text is hard to read, whether due to busy background, poor color contrast, or small, cutesy font choices.
6. Your menu and navigation choices aren’t clearly labeled, including text and not just obscure icons.
7. It’s not really easy to figure out how to contact you. Deduct points if you don’t have a phone number at the top of every page, and an easy-to-find link called ‘Contact’ on every page. And your contact page better include phone and email options.
8. You cause anything to pop up, on, under, or over my browser window. And that includes those annoying ads and forms which float over the page content which I have to close myself.
9. You haven’t updated or changed a thing in at least a year (and I’m being generous). Might have been cool then, but it sucks now.
10. and finally… if I buy something from you, you don’t send me a confirmation and receipt by email (see my prior post on confirmation emails here).

So what have I missed? Drop a comment and let me know what makes a site suck in your judgement… 

It was one-month ago that I unleashed the hounds and let my first post spew forth. Just taking a moment to bask in the glory of my own soapbox…

Why start a blog? Especially since I have no books or consulting services to sell? Who knows, but I like to think about the many facets of the marketing discipline, so this seemed like a good forum. I’m resolved to get out a meaningful daily post, for at least 90 days anyways, and see what’s happening by then.

Market feedback opportunity — let me know what you think so far, drop a comment.

Blogging onward and outward…

A few questions to ask yourself when designing your next product:

1) What products will mine compete with, and how are they positioned?

You need to know what’s out there before you do anything. Otherwise, you’re just reinventing the wheel or wasting your time.

2) How will my product differ from those already on the market?

Why will anyone want to buy your product? Define your positioning relative to your competition. No competition? Then define your positioning relative to any possible substitutes. I like to attempt to capture the relative positioning graphically:

3) When you get right down to it, what is my value proposition?

Can you sum it up in 10 words or less? Encapsulating the message like that goes a long way towards getting the rest of your development team on board, and keeping them focused. Plus, it gives you a head start on crafting the marketing message.

4) What are the most important features my product needs to contain in order to hit the target set in #3 above?

They call the front end fuzzy for a reason. Things will change, the sands will shift. But you should be clear on what goals are non-negotiable, ie. if you find you can’t hit them, you need to look at cancelling the project. 

If you’ve got a big fat budget, you can hire a few focus groups to help you answer these questions. No budget? Then gather a few friends, customers and co-workers to get their input.  No friends? Then just answer the questions yourself, to the best of your ability.

Then write it all down!

Keep the list handy, so you can refer back to it along the way. Still on track? Great. And then, when you think your product design is complete, check the list one more time, just to be sure.

It’s not a perfect process, but hey, it’s a start. And it’s a whole lot better than sailing without any rudder at all.

Has anyone else had this experience: phone call comes in from someone breathlessly wanting to talk to marketing or the company owner about a great promotional opportunity. They’ve been searching ALL OVER, and they’ve narrowed down to YOUR COMPANY and YOUR PRODUCT (they’re not quite sure which one), and they want to shoot a commercial to put your product ON TV for direct-to-consumer marketing!

WOW, what an opportunity! ALL they need from you, just to be sure you’re vested in this chance of a lifetime, is a modest sum to finance the commercial. Say, $18,000?

I hear from these companies all the time. I can’t be the only one they’re calling, so maybe someone else can comment on the phenomena. I’ve noticed a few common characteristics:

1. The companies are always based in Florida. Can’t tell you why for sure, but I believe I’ve read that Florida has bankruptcy laws advantageous for pulling scams and going belly-up.
2. The company’s often have names remarkably similar to, but slightly different than, well-known shopping broadcasters like Home Shopping Network or QVC.
3. The whole process typically starts with a call from the ‘buyer’s assistant’, maybe for a pre-interview, maybe just to arrange an appointment time for you to speak with his boss. Wow, that guy must be busy!
4. The buyer is upbeat, and always smooth.
5. They’ve ‘reviewed your products’, and love them, but need you to go into detail on… what is it exactly you make, and which product do you think would sell the best on tv?
6. Often, the first call ends with the buyer needing to ‘run things pas his investors’, followed within a day or two by another call from his assistant to set up another phone meeting (I’m a slow learner, I’ve been roped into these more than once. And I’m kind of fascinated by the process. It’s like stepping inside Glengarry Glen Ross.)
7. Finally, the buyer works around to the issue of the modest investment on your part, just to be sure you’re fully invested in the program.

After that, I don’t know what happens, because that’s when I bow out.

Who are these guys? Where do they come from? Has anyone else encountered this?

And, from the marketing side of things… does this sales process actually work?

I posted a few days ago on Blowing up the business model, how Netflix was planning to avoid obsolescence of its business model. In an article in today’s New York Times, David Pogue gives the details on the Netflix movies-by-internet scheme. Thought this was interesting to flesh out the details in that earlier post. Can’t wait to try out the new service, could be fantastic for business travelers with time on their hands.

As I write this, we’re just 79 minutes (not that anyone’s counting) away from the new episode of 24. What a brilliant concept… it’s TV crack. You keep giving the viewer a taste, but he can never get full. There’s a new plot twist, and you’re left hanging for another week.

The serial approach can work in marketing as well. We’ve seen it in multi-part commercials, or sometimes just commercials which keep coming back with the same characters (Geico’s cavemen being a recent favorite).

Since I recently posted on email marketing, I thought a good followup would be to talk about serial emails, especially since I have a great example of this in practice.

I recently signed up for a free trial with ActiveWords. This is one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-that items. It’s software which runs in the background on your computer, and lets you trigger pretty much any action you want just by typing a word and hitting a pre-selected function key. So regardless of what you happen to be doing at the time, you can type IE and F8, and instantly open Internet Explorer.

Any fan of shortcuts and macros would love this. Back in the Olden Days of Computing, there was a wordprocessing program called Wordperfect, version 5.1. Greatest one ever. I had all kinds of macros saved, and used to run through certain routines at blazing speed. My colleagues could never figure it out, since they were typing everything.

Anyways, on to the marketing… Activewords offers a free 60-day trial. Generous trial period — they obviously are pretty confident that at the end of that period, you’re going to give them the “…from my cold dead hands” speech if they try to take it away. But they don’t just leave it at that. They send followup emails every few days. And it’s not spam! Their emails are chock-full of helpful tips on getting the most out of the program. “Did you know you could do this?…. Have you tried this?…”. Here’s one I received most recently, just to give you a flavor:

Serial followup emails (HELPFUL ones!) are a great idea for any web-based or web-delivered product. You can set up your email chain in advance, and program in the timing at which you want to release emails (or find a geek to help you do it). Then, while you sleep or drink beer, your marketing campaign carries on without you.

It’s another example of great soft-sell technique. Build the relationship, get the customer to where they not only want to buy from you… they can’t live without you. No need for 8 million cold calls after that.

2 weeks ago I was tragically stuck setting up for a trade show on a Sunday at the same time as my Philadelphia Eagles were playing the NY Giants in the playoff wildcard game. Tragedy! But I was savvy, and with my trusty laptop called up the NFL website and looked up their Field Pass program, which offers a ‘Risk-free 7-day free trial!’

You have to key in your credit card (red flag!), but then just have to cancel within 7 days to avoid a charge.

It turns out the whole Field Pass website is a web design disaster, and as far as I can tell, the game I wanted to hear wasn’t even available. I wound up running off to a sports bar to see the final quarter of the game.

Later than night, I tried to cancel my risk-free account… Search around their website for the cancel button, and eventually find this…

Question: How do I cancel my Fieldpass account?
Answer: To cancel your NFL Field Pass account, please call the NFL Field Pass team at 1-866-212-1346.

Oh, that’s just great. I called the number to learn… “Our business hours are 9-5 EST, please call back at that time.” Wow, this rocks!

The next day, I called, to discover that my call was important to them, but all reps were busy. Expected wait time… 12 minutes. You’ve got to be kidding me. 

At this point, I ask– where do so many companies get the idea that letting Joseph Heller create their cancellation process is the path to success and riches? It happens that this exact same topic is explored in the current issue of PC World magazine. Among other companies, they cover AOL’s notorious cancellation process. I’ve been through that once, and it’s about as much fun as running the gauntlet on a bed of hot coals.

I waited on hold for the Field Pass team to come available, and finally got someone on the line. It turns out the Field Pass team actually works out of India, via IP phone connected to the States via a 28.8 modem. That’s about the sound quality, anyways. At least they let me cancel.

There’s no excuse not to let someone unsubscribe from a service (especially a service where you’ve encouraged free, no-commitment trial) by clicking a button on the website. There’s only one reason for it– the company wants to make it as hard as possible, in the hopes you’ll… give up and just remain a member forever??? This sounds like the same logic behind many rebate programs, which I’ve blogged about previously (see Baited and Rebated).

Give me a break. What’s more likely is that you’ll swear never to do business with them again, and you’ll probably spread the word to a few friends.

Great plan guys. Anyone up for a free trial with AOL?