Tag: marketing

September 5, 2003

  • Thought

    EEVL has created one of the best overviews of RSS I’ve seen yet: “RSS — A Primer for Publishers and Content Providers”:

    “This document is aimed at publishers and content providers with the intention of introducing & explaining the concepts behind RSS and addressing some commonly expressed concerns. It is primarily intended for a non-technical audience who require an overview of RSS in order to allow them to make decisions regarding the possible use of the technology. However, the guidelines do provide recommendations for good practice, case studies on RSS production and links to tools and specifications which will provide useful starting points for those tasked with actually producing RSS feeds.”

    If you are just now trying to figure out what this all means, this is definitely the place to start.

August 29, 2003

  • Thought

    Emerging Technology: Built-In Spam:

    “To date, most software applications have been designed with one basic principle: to make it as easy as possible for the user to do what he or she wants to do. The emphasis on ease of use isn’t free of commercial interests, of course. Software companies know people are more likely to buy programs that are easy to use. But when commercial transactions insinuate themselves into the applications, the equation changes. Suddenly, the software companies aren’t making money simply from sales of the application; they’re also making money from sales generated within the application. Apple even gives away its iTunes software, so all the profits from the application are coming from the store.”

    (via Tomalak’s Realm)

August 28, 2003

  • Thought

    Fantastic article on RSS vs. E-mail Publishing in “Editor and Publisher” called With E-mail Dying, RSS Offers Alternative:

    “Many e-mail publishers today remain afraid of RSS, suggests Pirillo, but there’s little to fear. He points out that the business model of e-mail publishing doesn’t really change using RSS. Readers still see the same ads, and the same content and design/layout that they would in receiving an HTML newsletter — assuming that they find your site’s headlines and blurbs worthy of clicking on to see full content.”

    (via PaidContent.org)

August 26, 2003

  • Thought

    Seven Deadly Sins of Web Writing:

    “The general quality of writing on the Web is poor. The way you write has a major impact on what people think of you. Avoid these common mistakes, and you will achieve more with your Web site.”

  • Thought

    Another article on the prospect that SoBig is being created as a money-making scheme: New York Times: Spam-for-Money Plan Suspected by Expert on E-Mail Viruses”

    Still, there is no evidence given as to why they think this is commercial in nature. The closest the article comes is:

    “There is some evidence that he’s been tied in with spammers,” said Bruce Hughes, director of malicious code research at Trusecure. Although many companies blacklist Internet addresses that are the sources of spam, a strategy that used computers commandeered by the SoBig program would be almost impossible to defeat.”

    Of course “impossible to defeat” is hogwash. Blacklisting would be useless in this case (which might be a good thing since it is largely a failed strategy towards stemming the flow of unwanted messages), but Bayesian mail filters like Cloudmark or SpamBayes would have no trouble with this.

August 25, 2003

  • Thought

    The New York Time’s Technology article called “Evite’s Day of Atonement” runs the body of an apology e-mail the company sent. It runs without commentary from NYT:

    “Dear Evite Newsletter Subscriber,

    Yesterday we mailed a newsletter to our subscribers with incorrect dates for three important holidays. Please accept our sincerest apologies for these errors and note the following corrections:

    Labor Day, September 1st

    Rosh Hashana, September 27th

    Yom Kippur, October 6th

    In addition, we also wish to apologize for having listed Yom Kippur as one of our ‘Reasons To Party.’ We understand and respect that Yom Kippur is a Day of Atonement, a day to be taken seriously to reflect and fast, and as such, one of the most important Jewish holidays in the year.

    Again we deeply apologize for the error and thank you for allowing us to make this correction.

    Very Best,

    The Evite Team”

    Let’s put aside for a moment how the original message was sent out in the first place and focus on the mea culpa. If you make a mistake, the best thing you can do is admit it, openly and candidly. Too many companies want to hide from the error, hoping no one will notice. Or they blame someone else. I think Evite did a very good job on this. The only thing I would change if I was running evite is I would have signed the apology and offered an e-mail address where users could contact me.

  • Thought

    As a modern variant to Godwin’s Law (“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”), I would submit the following:

    “As blog comments grow longer, the probability of someone being called a “spammer” approaches one.”

    Does this mean that spammers are the new Nazi’s? Will we see spammers looking the other way while bloggers storm the prison camps to free newbies?

August 21, 2003

August 20, 2003

August 19, 2003

  • Thought

    My first reaction to Randall Chapman’s article “A Marketing Definition in Six Words” was that his six words were too general, and therefore less than useful.

    His definition of Marketing is:

    “Marketing means solving customers’ problems profitably.”

    But as I read the article, I came to agree that this is as good a definition as any. I’m not sure the “we’re all in marketing or we shouldn’t work here” argument will play well in larger companies, but it probably should. Too many people confuse advertising as equalling marketing.

    Then again, I think you could make an equally solid argument that:

    “Business means solving customers’ problems profitably.”

    or

    “Sales means solving customers’ problems profitably.”

August 14, 2003

  • Thought

    Knowledge@Wharton offers us a scholarly (ahem) defense of pop-ups in “Darn Those Pop-Up Ads! They’re Maddening, But Do They Work?”

    “E-commerce experts at Wharton and elsewhere say pop-ups are not universally loathed and irrevocably worthless.”

    Question: Does something have to be “universally loathed and irrevocably worthless” before we say it might not be the best way to communicate with potential customers?

August 11, 2003

  • Thought

    I’ll be one of the “faculty” for Schulich School’s Masters Certificate in Marketing Communications Management course this fall:

    “The Masters Certificate in Marketing Communications Management is Canada’s first university-managed marketing communications program to be endorsed by the Association of Canadian Advertisers. The Masters Certificate in Marketing Communications Management curriculum has been developed through extensive consultation with major national and international marketing organizations. Their critical input helped identify the core competencies today’s marketing professional requires for performance improvement.”

    I’ll be providing an overview of the Internet as a communications medium as part of the course’s kick-off “bootcamp” sessions.

August 9, 2003

  • Thought

    Loads of e-mail marketing horror stories from Jared Blank in a ClickZ article called “E-Mail May Cost More Than You Think”:

    “E-mail messages are inexpensive and easy to create, factors that have led many marketers to use them carelessly. Just as many of us send e-mail to friends with little thought as to how it will be received, marketers frequently send e-mail without considering the message’s branding implications. How else can you explain the errors I’ve noted above?”

August 8, 2003

  • Thought

    notlong is a great little micro-service created by Eric Hammond.

    This site is a fine example of minimalist design and emphasis of functionality over flash.

    Pay particular attention to the competition link on the site. How many sites can you name that provide links and an A/B comparison of all their major competitors.

    Well done.

  • Thought

    The problem with contextual advertising is that computers don’t really understand context, they just look like they do.

    The most common way this shows up is in ads that match keywords, but not the intent of the page.

    For example, amazon.com’s page for

    Alfie Cohen’s “Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes” offers these contextual ads (served by Google):

    Incentive Toolkit

    The Tools You Need For Your Next Incentive

    www.incentivetoolkit.com

    Incentive Plans

    Find Solutions for Your Business Free Reports, Info. & Registration

    www.KnowledgeStorm.com

    Award Programs

    Personalized awards & incentives sold with our Price Guarantee.

    www.custom-promotional-logo.com

    Oh dear. These folks won’t get a very good response selling ads for incentive programs on a page for a book that is explicitly AGAINST incentives.

August 7, 2003

  • Thought

    Eight Steps to Ward Off Spam Complaints

    These eight simple suggestions will not only reduce spam complaints against your company or organization but also increase the chances that others will read your messages.

    1. Never (ever!) purchase, trade or borrow an email list.

    2. Always send a welcome email to members when they have signed up, but be careful.

    3. Keep records of those who have signed up.

    4. Remind people that they have subscribed to your mailing.

    5. Always be sure to include an alternate means of contact to your subscribers.

    6. Try to send mailings to your subscribers on a regular basis.

    7. If you have not sent a mailing for a while, initially send a message to no more than 1,000 randomly selected subscribers.

    8. Adhere to your privacy policy.

July 31, 2003

  • Thought

    Inc.com “Caught in the Crossfire”:

    “Now, after finally figuring out how to make e-mail work for them, marketers have found that the rules have changed. Their legitimate messages are being blocked by a new breed of super-aggressive spam filters; their good names are turning up on anti-spam blacklists; and they’re being forced to devote time, energy, and in many cases, a good outlay of cash to keep their e-mail marketing efforts out of hot water. ‘The landscape has changed,’ says Al DiGuido, CEO of Bigfoot Interactive, a New York-based e-mail marketing services provider. ‘This is not the same business it was a year ago.’”

July 23, 2003

  • Thought

    The rhetoric around spam and “finding a solution” to the spam problem is reaching fever pitch. One of the best discussions of the issue I’ve seen is being conducted by the Technology Review.

    They started their coverage with an excellent overview of the issue called “Spam Wars”

    This was followed by a Dialog between Vipul Ved Prakash (Cloudmark founder), David Crocker and Barry Shein.

    I was going to quote from Vipul and David, but they make so many solid points and argue the case for restraint in dealing with spam so eloquently that I will just urge you to follow the links.

July 11, 2003

  • Thought

    And I’ll also point you to Google Dance which was referred to somewhat vaguely at the event:

    Google Dance Tool

  • Thought

    Since I’ve been poking around in search since the AIMS event earlier this week, I thought I’d point you to this CNET article called “Microsoft brains take on Google”

    “Speaking here at the Fifth International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), professor Jennifer Tour Chayes said Microsoft is patenting new search algorithms with the goal of replacing the Inktomi technology currently powering MSN’s search with Microsoft’s own.

    “Since Yahoo acquired Inktomi, Bill (Gates) has decided we need our own capacity,” she said, adding that the company is already patenting new algorithms it believes have the potential to power a new search engine.”

July 10, 2003

  • AdSense Sensor

    I just launched something I call the “AdSense Sensor”.

    Google recently launched AdSense, their contextual ad serving service for small sites.

    Using AdSense you (as a site owner) get to place ads served by Google on your site and share revenue with Google. This is exciting because the ads they serve are contextually related to the content on your site. They do this by using their crawl of your pages to determine which ads are relevant.

    The first question I asked when looking at the service was ‘what kind of ads will be served on my pages?’ I couldn’t find a way to determine this directly from the Google site (which seems like an oversight to me). So to help us all figure whether AdSense makes sense for us, I created this ‘AdSense Sensor’.

    Hope you find it useful!

July 8, 2003

  • Thought

    Pissin’ in the great outdoors for fun and profit.

    “If you’ve driven through Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania or South Carolina this summer, there’s a chance you’ve motored by a billboard or two that caused you to do a bit of a double take. If so, you’re not alone.

    The product? Outhouse Springs bottled water.”

    In fact, this is a promotion by the outdoor ad company, most likely to prove billboard effectiveness. Note that 10’s of thousands of people have visited the Outhouse Springs website showing that offline channels can easily deliver online traffic (and build buzz).

July 5, 2003

  • Thought

    Wired News: E-Mail Mobs Materialize All Over

    “Flash mobs are performance art projects involving large groups of people. Mobilized by e-mail, a mob suddenly materializes in a public place, acts out according to some loose instructions, and then melts away as quickly as it formed.”

    Anyone know if this is happening in Toronto?

    Now what I’d like to see is a combination of this Japanese “Burly Brawl” with Flash Mobs. “Flash Burly Brawls”?

    discuss

  • Thought

    If you go to the Herman Miller site you’ll see an interesting way of promoting their “revolutionary” Mirra chair, pegged to be the first great chair after the Aeron (which I’m sitting in as I type).

    At the top of the page, you’ll notice a cropped image of the bottom of a Mirra chair. It looks like this:

    Clicking on the chair takes you to a rather large but overall effective Flash animation that explains the key features and benefits of the chair. Given that the chair is being sold using design aesthetics and sexiness as key drivers, this seems very effective.

July 2, 2003

  • Thought

    News.com reports that Overture unveils new ad service. This was, of course, expected given that competitor Google has already announced their similar contextual product.

    “The product, called Content Match, allows Overture to place advertising text links on relevant content Web pages of newly signed distribution partners, which include Microsoft’s MSN and Edmunds.com. The service builds on Overture’s core business of selling commercial placement within search results that appear on partner sites including Yahoo and Microsoft. Advertisers pay Overture a per-click fee for preferred placement in those search results, and Overture splits the sales with its partners.”

June 26, 2003

  • Thought

    This Business 2.0 article gives details on Autobytel’s new contextual ads for competitive products strategy.

    “Here’s how it works. Say you’re interested in a Honda (HMC) Accord. You surf to Autobytel.com and click through to the Accord research page. Splashed across the top, above all that detailed Accord data, is a box labeled “Sponsored by Ford.” It jeers: “The Ford Taurus has a larger engine than the Honda Accord DX.” An adjacent link takes you to the Ford web site for more details on the Taurus where, the theory goes, you’ll soon forget all about the Accord.”

    The biggest issue I see with this approach is Autobytel’s credibility in consumers’ eyes. If someone goes to the site to research Honda’s and sees the page is sponsored by Ford, my guess is many users will be skeptical not only of the sponsored link copy but of the entire page — maybe the entire site.

    Autobytel ends up looking like it is pimping for Ford rather than providing unbiased research on cars.

  • Thought

    Deloitte Consulting’s “Bullfighter” is getting a lot of media and blog coverage:

    “So, we call it our online conscience. Bullfighter is software that runs in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, within Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. It works a lot like the spelling and grammar checker in those applications, but focuses on jargon and readability. Download it for free, or order a CD-ROM/book package. Then install it.

    This is a brilliant piece of viral marketing (and also a useful tool for the jargon-prone).

June 25, 2003

  • Thought

    Interesting article on the beautiful International Herald Tribune (IHT) site called Google ferrets out a better way to get advertisers.

    Here’s a quote from a happy AdWords user:

    “Before Vavra advertised with Google, she was selling about 10 suits a month over eBay, the online auction site. Then she bought 50 Google keyword ads using her Visa card. The next morning, she said, sales took off. The business has continued to grow; she now sells almost 120 suits a month. She expects to spend $60,000 this year on Google search ads.

    ‘Our business exploded from Google, and Google alone,’ she said.”

June 20, 2003

  • Thought

    I’ve seen some people questioning the wisdom of Google’s AdSense, but overall I think the concept is spot on.

    Contextual advertising is the only kind that will work online in the long run. Of course, AdSense text ads on content pages (as opposed to on Google’s search results pages) will have to have lower clickthroughs, but this misses the point. Since the ads are targeted based on Google’s crawl of the page, the ads should be relatively targeted (read useful) and therefore should give good results when people do click.

    The lower average clickthrough doesn’t matter since the advertiser only pays for results.

    One thing I’d like to see is a way to see (before signing up) what kind of ads they would be serving. My guess is many sites will be nervous about trying this because they don’t want to see competitors or “cheesy” sites advertising on their pages.