The Courage to Be Great

DM Review: Trends in the Job Marketplace: Recruiting the All Stars presents an excellent overview of the reasons it's dangerous to take employees for granted, especially the ones who really understand direct marketing.

It's not the dot com era, where an HTML programmer could demand an exhorbitant salary to write code. To be successful in Online marketing, we need to create a customer experience leading to our goal, not just a pretty Web page. Marketers are at a place where we have the opportunity to be great if we execute our direct traditional and digital sales programs couragously and correctly.

Both traditional and online direct marketing programs are becoming more important than ever before, because they speak to the need for relevance and measurable results in the marketing realm, familiar territory for the classic direct marketer. No longer can we just buy ads, even in targeted publications, and expect them to drive our sales.

At the risk of being accused of shameless self-promotion, I would consider myself a direct marketing all-star, having worked in this business for the last two decades, and in the Online marketing world for the last eleven years (I started as a mailing list broker in the early '80's and started online promotions for computer companies pre-Web.) I even leveraged my skills in direct marketing to become successful in public relations, deciding that it was really direct marketing that asked for coverage instead of an order.

Of course, this willingness to try new things and question old assumptions can be threatening to those who don't "get it." When I tell people about the success I have had at executing programs generating sales, profits and new customer acquisition with literally no ad budget, there are usually one of two reactions. Some marketers scoff at the idea that this was achieved without any national ad buys. Others want to know how we did it and are eager to talk about new ways to initiate and execute the process in their own organizations.

Some companies that scoff I would consider among the chronically corporate. They are the ones that tend to pile on the management layers and create bottlenecks to success with the justification that they are necessary because of the organization's size or "image."

Guess what? Bigcompanyitis still slows rather than speeds, and adds cost to the equation no matter what the actual size of the organization. If you want a corporate drone, you can always find someone who is happy to come to work at a set time, take an hour lunch and leave after saying yes to all of the old ways all day long and not rocking the boat with new suggestions or plans.

Finding individuals who understand the power of relevance, the relevance of ROI and have the execution skills to generate results is a rare occurrence, though. It is also one that only the enlightened few seek. It can be uncomfortable to manage an entrepreneurial type, and, yes, his or her approach may make the commissioned agency that places your ads cringe (think about it, if you can get the sales for free....)

Does your organization have the courage to recruit the All Stars?

Computing by Candlelight?

Valley Cleans Up After Monsoon Storm

In Arizona, we get used to the idea that in the summer, a monsoon can pop up at any time and bring with it high winds, blowing dust and driving rain. We were one of the 12,300 APS customers without power, which finally came on sometime during the wee hours of the morning.

The scary thing about these storms is that they include intense lightning and the winds can cause quite a bit of damage. Fortunately, our trees are still intact, although the pool will again need an intense cleaning to get all of the lovely yellow dust out of it. Unfortunately, the battery on my notebook didn't last long enough for me to complete all of my work last night, so it's catch-up time today!

The storms put on a great show, though. Here's a shot I took during one last year.

Expand Your Knowledge

The New York Times: First Chapters page delivers just what it says it will, the first chapters of hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books.

Whether you want to figure out whether that new business book is worth your $29.95, or simply check out some new fiction, this page is a resource you'll appreciate. Plus, NYT reviews are not archived as are other articles, meaning you won't be frustrated if you don't have a paid subscription to the site.

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Buy Music, Get Loaded

Tech TV's article on Buy.com founder's newest venture, BuyMusic is a nice overview of what promises to be a way to build a payment model that works around downloadable music.

The theory behind BuyMusic.com is that customers have shown a preference for downloading music by the song, and also by the album in some cases. Rather than fighting to make that audience conform to the existing model, this site has instead adapted the file sharing model to a pay model, while adding enhancements such as the ability to download an entire album together if desired, and enhancing ease of use.

The price to download one song is 79 cents, and an album is $6.99, about half the price of a CD, but virtually all royalties and profit, as the distribution costs are minimal. (Never mind that P2P file sharing actually led to an increase in CD Sales, and that the sales have declined with the demise of P2P sharing. From the press attention, it would seem that busting those pre-teens with Napster downloads on their hard drives is a matter of national security...)

As the article mentions, iTunes Music Store has been an early provider of this type of service on the Mac side. BTW, how cool is the VW ad spot which combines the iPod and the Beetle to show how the trendy maintain a seamless musical accompaniment no matter where they are?

Anyway, not being much into music downloads, I first heard about this on Fox 10's Arizona Morning show this week. Founder Scott Blum and rocker Tommy Lee were live on the air promoting the new site.

If Blum's name sounds familiar, you might remember his coup related to another company he founded, Buy.com. He grew the business quickly, selling a wide range of products, including computer products, at or below cost. At the height of the dot com bubble, Blum sold the company for $260 million. Then, after the bubble burst, he bought it back for $26 million. Pretty shrewd!

The new BuyMusic.com site is poised to meet a demand for downloadable music by providing a profit for the music business. Their new slogan is Buy Music. Get Loaded.

Rock On!

The Ides of July

I guess it was too much to ask for another July 17 to pass without incident. I thought that the Web was a little slow today and also that my ISP sent a last minute maintenance notice for tonight which I didn't receive until this afternoon was a little unusual. Usually there is a little more warning...At least it's not me...Just wish some of the quotes in that article didn't sound so much like a challenge.

July 17 is a day I don't really like much, for multiple reasons I won't go into here. Let's just say that, over the years, I've learned to be wary of the day. This year it wasn't a good day for network security news or the stock market. Guess declaring the recession over was like saying the war is over. Wonder why we still have lots of folks without jobs or over in the Gulf?

On the upside, my Keywords on eBay are performing well. (Hopefully you can still see my banner on this search result...) After the first week, I made a simple change to my list that today yielded the most keyword-generated orders to date. The change will mean far fewer impressions for my banner, but, hopefully much longer program length and greater conversion percentages. The Keywords might even become profitable. One good change was an increase in the file size limit for the banners. I need to go in and update mine, which is a little pixelated at 15K. With 25K, we can go wild!

Interesting item in my weekly newsletter from Ephemerala. Suzanne reports success with her Keywords, as well, and asks her customers not to click on her banners so that she won't be charged. Happy to help, since Suzanne's newsletter comes like clockwork early every Monday morning, and it's full of inspiring deals on gemstone beads (last week, she even offered some for free! If you're into bead crafting, be sure and check out her eBay store. (Also, be sure and visit the About the Store page for an example of how to leverage this often under-used page well!)

A store like Suzanne's makes me wish we could choose to have our "vanity" store URLs link to the about me page instead of the main store on eBay. Fortunately, you can easily set up your own domain to point to your About Me page, and it can easily be featured with an easy to remember URL and e-mail that matches.

By the way...

... anyone else notice the Powered by IBM logo at the top of the new eBay product pages?

... found a new site tonight while browsing an an article about Google on Slate.com. It's called Friendster and it promises to be an interesting experiment in using Word of Mouth to spread ideas. (If you are a Doonesbury fan, check this out!)

...thought it was interesting that the merchandising Amazon.com chose to use on this page was for actual doormats.

... eValueville has tons of designer shoes on their auctions this week.

Congratulations to all of those who are graduating from the University of Phoenix this weekend!

On Good Authority

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In his blog this week, Seth Godin suggests that if you go to google and type in Weapons of Mass Destruction, then hit, "I feel lucky," you will be part of a spreading ideavirus.

Try it, it's prestty cool. (One of the links leads to this page on Amazon UK -- underneath an online gaming site.)

Who knew that the man who's been the brains behind numerous Republican plans, including the orchestration of Nixon's resignation was a poet, too?

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Back in the Day

In one of my consumer behavior classes we started reminiscing about tv commercials from the 80s, which reminded me of the 80's Server where I found more than I ever wanted to remember about that wild decade.

Today's quote of the day, for instance: You may have questions, but I don't have any answers

- Ronald Reagan really took me back...Wish it were a little farther than yesterday.

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Hugh Chou's calculators on Interest.com will help you get your finances in order.

Whether you are thinking about refinancing, have a burning desire to know how your wealth compares to that of others your age, or want to get an idea of the impact of cutting out seemingly small expenses like cigarettes or lunches from your budget, you'll find the tools to calculate the savings here!

Too Virtual?

Once you've worked around Web marketing too long, it can become difficult to separate the Online world from the real world. Find out if you've gone too far with the e-Bore-O-Meter on e-consultancy a UK-based portal that offers not only a wide selection of content via paid subscription, but also a huge amount of free content that you can use in planning and executing your eMarketing programs.

By the way, the average person socres about 40% on the e-Bore-O-Meter. I only scored about 60%, so there's still hope! ;^)

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Natural Selection to Veblen Goods

On the aptly named mailing list site The Mail Archive you'll find archives of a wide range of internet mailing lists, reminiscent of the old Deja News. This is a simple, yet elegant site that provides list owners with a central location to archive lists, and setting up your archive can be as simple as adding the site as a subscriber.

A suggested donation of $2 per month per archived list is optional, but that would be a bargain if you're looking for a low-cost way to manage and archive your public mailing list.

I found this site searching for a citation on the term Veblen Goods, which was found defined by a Brookings Institute professor, and debated in the Armchair list.

Another post in the same list discussed the article on using behavioral theory in economics (see We're Only Human) below. In picking out minor points to argue with assertions, the poster who commented on the article took a much different view than I toward the issue.

One of the key disconnects is that the opinion of the economist who wrote his opinion on the article didn't believe in "analysis paralysis," the condition where too many choices leads to a non-choice or a postponement of the choice. Unfortunately, this is a real phenomenon. Although "So what" sounds glib, the "what" is that purchases are often foregone or delayed due to the inability to choose.

Unfortunately, the variables economists have relied on to predict and direct consumer behavior have quit behaving predictably. I think if I were an economist, I might be defensive these days, too...

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Light Reading is a very comprehensive resource for information on telephony and communications networks.

Today, the site reported on a lawsuit filed against Spam Arrest LLC by Hormel Foods Corp. claiming that the use of its trademarked name for processed meat is being mis-used by the software company. Light Reading reported that:

" 'Hormel is acting like a corporate crybaby and ought to can it," (Spam Arrest CEO Brian) Cartmell is quoted as saying in a press release. ' "

The quote strikes me as a little odd, given its source. If a venerable company should "get over it" when millions use their tradename to disparage and sensationalize the UCE problem, maybe the folks who take it upon themselves to choose to define for others what they should read might try a little tolerance, also.

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Who Knew?

E-Mail Hucksterism, Offensive but Effective

Who knew that those spam e-mail messages promising to enhance male performance actually got response?

Of course, we know direct marketing is a numbers game. Throw a few million messages touting an herbal concoction's ability to turn a guy into Don Juan, and, even if just a small percentage of them lead to a sale, it's easy to turn a profit if your markup allows you make $47.50 per bottle and you can send your messages at little or no cost.

Sure, the companies who supply these "vitamins" say they don't tolerate the use of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) to promote their products, yet readily admit that it's easy for anyone with moderate technical skills to make themselves virtually anonymous.

According to today's article in the New York Times, suppliers admit that the use of UCE is easy to conceal:

"But as Congress considers laws to crack down on spam, the decentralized structure of the e-mail marketing industry shows how difficult the task will be. Most pill makers, like Eye Five, sell their products indirectly, through thousands of independent affiliates, a technique pioneered online by Amazon.com. A dozen affiliates can end up mailing the same message to similar lists of e-mail addresses, confounding millions of computer users, including women, with multiple copies of messages both inappropriate and unwanted.

The spammers are generally very small outfits, which hide their identities by bouncing their messages off computers in countries with lax regulation. The pill makers are more visible, defending themselves by insisting that they have strict policies against spamming by affiliates. They concede, though, that spammers often evade those policies.

"It is impossible for us to control the marketing of all aspects of our products," Mr. Gerstein said."

Wonder how Amazon likes having its affiliate program compared to performance enhancement offers in the New York Times?

Unfortunately, even as the calls for regulation of UCE continue to appear, it's apparent that spam cannot be stopped by legislation. Money, technical and personnel resources to enforce UCE laws are lacking, and, as mentioned in the article, enforcement of laws is difficult when the law is broken off-shore. Also, returns for the items are low, and consumer lawsuits over them are also virtually non-existent. After all, what guy wants to stand up in court and admit that he not only ordered the pills, but that they didn't even work?

If, as the article mentions, the biggest spammers can make $5,000 to $10,000 per day from these offers, it's clear that there is only one way to stop them, and that's to hit them where it hurts -- in the wallet. Either a model needs to develop to capture fees for the distribution of UCE, or people need to stop buying these pills.

Guess size does matter, after all...

AdSense Makes Total Sense

Had Google's latest creation, AdSense followed on the heels of Amazon's introduction of the affiliate model, sites like LinkShare and Commission Junction might never have developed as they have. That's because AdSense appears to fill the promise that marketers obsessed with relevance have envisioned from the affiliate model from the beginning.

In 1999, I signed up for boatloads of affiliate programs with plans to target niche audiences through targeted offers on content-based sites, but it quickly became apparent that to make the vision a reality would take more time and patience than I had to spare! Now, I have just a very few affiliate links that are not optimally-targeted, nor especially relevant or profitable.

The new model Google has created in AdSense essentially automates that process, and its functionality in serving ads that match content reminds me somewhat of the system Channel Intelligence has created to match Where to Buy links with manufacturer Web sites.

The reason AdSense will be a success is that it's driven by relevance. There are already folks out there figuring out how to create dynamic pages of public domain content driven by the hot keyword du jour, but, hopefully, that won't mean reams of pages of the same content with the same ads. The flip side of this is that it will enable sites with great content, but little capital to use a non-intrusive, virtually no-maintenance tool to deploy relevant, revenue-generating links on their sites. From a user perspective, a discreet text-based ad that's relevant to valuable content beats an intrusive pop-up any time.

I have faith that Google will diligently monitor the integrity of the links to create an environment where, with a simple line of code, a site can intelligently deploy relevant ad links that are not intrusive. I'm also excited at the ease with which these links can be deployed. This is the next big thing from Google, and, in my opinion, they are on to another winner!

Psychological Self Help is a unique site I found while researching a question on Maslow's hierarchy for my Customer Behavior class. A Google search led me to chapter fourteen, which provides some good information on changing motivations by creating "positive addictions." Chapter three also has some apropos messages that mirror those of Zig Ziglar: We can be successful by helping others achieve their goals.

Of course, psychology has always played a key role in the study of customer behavior. One of my students made the observation that Maslow's view of life is "too neat" and I agree that the idea of the triangle is pretty cleancut. In reality, it seems like we move around the triangle sometimes. Many Maslow-based theories in answer to the challenge of other factors contributing to behavior find a way to work the hierarchy in somehow, either as part of the adult experience, or based on a childhood experience.

I agree that Maslow's hierarchy makes a great deal of sense. I also agree that sometimes, folks just need to find their inner children and set them straight. ;^)

Is Your Company Up To Speed? in the June issue of Fast Company is a great starting point for creating change in your organization.

Thinking purple seems to be a common trait of the companies in this article. The examples show how large and successful firms grew that way by being remarkable and unique. Worked for some folks I know.

Caution: If you do take the quiz, it could lead to change ....

eBay - Seller Central is a newly designed page on eBay that you'll want to check out whether you are a new seller, or an experienced eBay trader who wants to fine-tune your pitch.

Check it out!

BTW, it takes one to two days for the Keywords on eBay ads to show up (unlike Google AdWords, which are instant), so it will be a few days before I can compaire the results of the two....