Marketing the Armed Forces

Fact #1: The Bush Fiefdom has made it clear that GWB's legacy will include a massive build up in US Armed Forces. Aside from wanting to send another 20,000 or so boys and girls to Baghdad, we all know that he wants to leave office with a US troop presence in half the middle-eastern countries, Africa, and who knows where else.

Problem is--there's barely enough National Guardsmen available for a hurricane in the US, no less Department of Defense enlistees that could occupy 1/4 of the globe.

Its not as if the Army, Navy, Marines or Air Force don't offer a great career building and a free education opportunity. OK, so the downside from joining up is that odds are high that before your tour is up, you'll come home with less baggage (i.e. arms, legs etc.). Or, if you have the same misfortune as a former US Marine that joined a private security company under contract to the US Govt in Iraq--you'll uncover massive corruption, blow the whistle, be enlisted by the FBI as an informant, and ultimately find yourself in Guantanamo for 3 months as a suspected terrorist.. (Yet another truly remarkable story illustrating the complete stupidity of upper management and the total lack of communication)

Anyway--ever see the last series of TV and print ads being put out by the various armed forces division? The worst, right? Of course they are...and of course its our tax dollars that are paying the media agencies tens of millions to send exactly the wrong message. When will they learn to appeal to today's audience???

We Train You To Be A Leader Skills. Before and after joining: quick shot of a teenager flipping burgers at Mickey D's..flash forward to him strolling in Navy formals past a brigade, all jumping to attentiona and saluting..

Education: Instead of you spending 100k on a 4 year college program, WE spend 100k minimum teaching you foreign languages, technology skills, special skills--all of which are in demand when you graduate and go back into the private sector.

Career Path: Once we've spent the 100k, taught you a wide range of skills--the job market is waiting for you. Flash image of solider turning his fatigues, and walking across the street (ok, its Main Street in Fallujah) to sign a contract with a private security company--which is under contract to Uncle Sam. But instead of getting paid $500 a week before taxes--you'll be getting $1500 a week.

We get your mind AND Body into shape. Throw in a few video snips of muscle toned guys and gals in green t's working out in a health club.. (not climbing ropes at Camp Lejuene!!)

If you believe that NSA or some other alphabet division monitors everything on the internet and focuses on "buzz words" like those included here---maybe some twit analyst has an uncle working at a media company and he can steal the ideas here and put them into action.

Integrated Advertising-Turnkey Solution

3 months ago, resident guru Jay Berkman spotlighted SpotRunner--a new, web2.0 enterprise servicing small businesses seeking an efficient, cost effective way to advertise via local network and Cable TV. The company's platform provides a menu of 15 & 30 second spot templates specific to your industry/business offering, then allows you to select from a menu of media stations, and time schedules that you want your ad to broadcast. You can build a TV campaign that runs for 4 weeks on multiple networks, runs your spot upwards of 100 times, all for less than the cost of a full page print ad in your local newspaper. And the cost includes the actual spot.

No surprise that the Dec 18 edition of the Wall Street Journal profiled this company within the Media/Marketing section...Case study: a florist that spends 100k/year on advertising (primarily Google Adwords) his two retail stores. He re-allocated 5k of his budget to SpotRunner and sales increased 20% in one month. Goes without saying what the florist has since done i.e. budgeting advertising.

Website Copywriting 101

You're a genius marketer and you know everything about the differences between copy that's appropriate for a website vs. copy that you incorporate into collateral...Then again, tips like those below might enlighten you..(courtesy of this week's edition of Startup Nation--but you don't have to be a start-up to learn from these 10 basic tips!)

Here are 10 website writing tips to help get you started:

• Address people directly as “you.” This personalizes your message and involves readers directly. Too many small business sites say “we” this and “we” that, never bothering to involve the customer.
• Write like you talk. Be friendly. Use contractions and expressions, just as people use in everyday speech. Use anecdotes. In other words, don’t be boring.
• Let your passion about your product or service come through in your online voice. Show that you believe in what you are doing.
• Testimonials are a powerful credibility tool for most small business websites. Feature them prominently. Place two or three of your best testimonial quotes or anecdotes up front. Sprinkle others throughout the site. Use them to reinforce specific points of your sales pitch.
• Keep your writing simple. Avoid jargon and overly-technical explanations, “corporate-speak” and excessive use of capital letters (boldface is better) or exclamation points. Clarity is key. Keep sentences and paragraphs short to conform to the short time you have a visitor's attention.
• Write tight. Cut unnecessary words. If you mean to say, “If there’s a problem,” don’t write “In the event of an unsatisfactory experience.”
• Talk benefits, not features — age-old copywriting advice that applies equally to the web. Will your product or service save me time? Make me money? Entertain me or make me feel better?
• Don’t plop a mission statement on your homepage. Most are boring and repetitive. Visitors don’t care.
• Build credibility with a guarantee or free trial. Show a small photo of yourself, and perhaps your place of business.
• Proofread everything at least three times. Spelling, factual and grammatical goofs cramp your credibility.

Ad Buying: The Basics

Courtesy of Denny Hatch's latest newsletter... As always, its the basic tips that demystify the process that experts often seem to forget (or over-complicate)

* Never hire a general agency to write, design and place direct response advertising. And don’t do it yourself.

* Before placing an insertion order for a direct response ad, learn everything you can about the publication as well as the readers and their behavior. Be sure that it regularly carries off-the-page ads, ideally for your competitors’ products. Put another way, if your competitors aren’t advertising there, chances are they tested it and it didn’t work.


1. Never buy retail. Only if you absolutely must have page 3 or page 5 of a major magazine should you pay full price. The reason: virtually all magazine publishers and reps negotiate and will sell space at up to 60 percent off.

2. One technique: Hang back until closing and then call at the last minute. Most magazines will take a space reservation up to 10 days after closing. Have the ad ready and the money set aside in your budget so you can move quickly and take advantage of a deal.

3. For budgeting purposes, start with a projected response of one order per thousand circulation and work down or up from there based on experience.

4. Use experienced direct response media buyers. Buying media wisely is a very time-consuming business. Prices, percentage points and response rates are constantly changing, and media buyers dedicate 100 percent of their time to being one step ahead of the game. In media buying, how you play the game greatly affects whether you will win or lose.

Private Equity Firms To Buy Ecuador...

Private Equity firm Blackston Group has partnered with Apoloo Investments in a bid to purchase the country of Ecuador--the first of what many analysts expect to be a new focus for private equity firms with hordes of cash and significant access to credit markets. According to sources that asked not to be identified, Merill Lunch and Credit Swiss will serve as bankers on the deal.....

Noted one Wall Street researcher "This is just the beginning...a country like Ecuador has signifcant untapped natural resources, a cheap labor force, and a strategic location. No doubt current management of the country will be in a much better position to execute its business plan, without having the World Bank breathing down its neck. It's anybody' guess when the the country will be taken public via an IPO...but its no doubt part of the private equity game plan."

Gotta love it...If GWB had thought of this approach in dealing with Iraq--simply buying the country and paying its citizens to go along with the program, no doubt we'd have saved billions, would have controlled the oil fields, and most importantly, we would have avoided losing so many of our own that have been put in harm's way....Is anybody listening?????

Marketing Widgets: You Saw it Here First : Addiem

The nice thing about the internet is that it time stamps brilliant observations...one that resident guru Jay Berkman made several months ago after tripping over Synovativ Technology's and their Addiem "widget"

Today's article in Wall Street Journal profiles the burgeoning trend in web-based applications that are designed to deliver uncluttered messages to captive audiences. Can you spell Permission-Based Marketing. OK...definitely not a new concept..but its always refreshing to know that we can spot 'em! Article is below:

Web-Page Clocks and Other 'Widgets'
Anchor New Internet Strategy

Gadgets Give Marketers
Access to Personal Sites
Unreachable by Banner Ads

By EMILY STEEL
November 21, 2006; Page B4

To generate buzz for this winter's launch of the film "Freedom Writers," Paramount Pictures decided it needed a cutting-edge Internet advertising strategy. Blitzing the Web with banner ads wasn't good enough.

So Amy Powell, senior vice president of interactive marketing at the Viacom-owned movie studio, turned to something that she and other major marketers see as the next generation of advertising on the Web: widgets. Easily accessible from various Web sites, widgets are tiny computer programs that allow everyday people to incorporate professional-looking content into their personal Web pages or computer desktops.

Typical desktop widgets, also referred to as "gadgets," include self-updating news feeds, clocks, calculators and weather information -- usually framed by or positioned next to a brand name or promotional consideration of some kind. Yahoo and Google provide such desktop widgets as stock tickers and airline schedules. Widgets that users publish on their Web sites or MySpace profiles are generally more advanced, including things such as chat boxes, videogames, polls and video.

Ms. Powell and many other marketers see sponsoring widgets as a promising route to consumers because they integrate advertising onto the Web page. It is a more-relevant approach than banner advertising, she says, and less annoying than video ads that take over the screen. Widgets are also one of the only ways marketers can get inside MySpace pages because the popular News Corp. social-networking site doesn't sell advertising on individual members' pages.

Most types of widgets also offer the marketers the chance to monitor eyeballs, because a user's click on one of these live features can be counted as easily as a click on a banner ad.

"I don't believe in banner advertising," Ms. Powell says. "It's important to create content that speaks to different audience segments where they are."

For the January release of "Freedom Writers," which stars Hilary Swank as a teacher who inspires students affected by violence, poverty and racism to change their lives through keeping journals, Paramount is working with Freewebs, a closely held company in Silver Spring, Md., that provides free tools for consumers to build Web sites.

Visitors to the Freewebs site can upload programs from the movie-themed "toolkit for self-expression" -- including a photo album, video injector and chat box -- all of which can be used on an individual's profile page. The widgets incorporate references to the film, such as a "Be Heard" Web template.

Advertisers can piggyback on Web-page content tools known as 'widgets.'

Set for a December launch, the widgets will build on a YouTube campaign already in motion. On a video posted on a Paramount-created YouTube group, a "Freedom Writers" actor, Jason Finn, talks about growing up in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood. "The way I deal with my anger or the way I deal with my pain is I express it. Instead of bottling it up, I hurry up and write it down," he says in the video, which has been viewed more than 275,000 times since it was posted last week.

Paramount is one of the first companies to embrace what some are calling the "widgetization of the Web," but others are not far behind. Reebok is creating a widget that allows users to display customized pairs of RBK shoes for others to critique. Time Inc. is creating gadgets for magazines such as People, Sports Illustrated and Time to provide live updates. Once dragged onto Microsoft's new operating system, the gadgets will automatically update themselves on a user's desktop PC with news from the various titles.

San Francisco-based interactive agency AKQA just created a weather widget to promote Microsoft Flight Simulator X for Xbox. The widget allows users to virtually fly and find out the weather at any airport through a live feed from the National Weather Service -- giving PC users a taste of what the videogame offers. In the past two months, users have downloaded the widget more than 150,000 times, spending an average of 23 minutes with the flight simulator, the agency says.

OJ Simpson--What is FOX Thinking????

Sure, we can all debate the ethical and moral issues of Rupert Murdoch's allowing his various media platforms (book publishing and TV) to promote OJ Simpson's latest chapter.

But the fact remains, the TV interview(s) scheduled on FOX is likely to bring in an audience that will blow away any other TV event...whether comparing to Super Bowl stats, the Who Shot J.R. episode of Dallas---or the first astronauts landing on the moon. It'll be a media coup. And if Fox hasn't lined up advertisers, no doubt some French brand marketer will seize the opportunity if all others find the subject too appalling.

As for the book...its sort of unbelievable to think that anyone would pay money to read it--especially knowing that the proceeds are going into OJ's back pocket.

But lots of people (NOT ME) are into ghoulish subjects---and based on advance snippets of the TV interview, OJ won't be disappointing anyone that likes ghouls.

CMO Meets CIO..Marketing and Technology

Title link is an inspiring profile of Hyatt's Tom O'Toole-perhaps the only Chief Marketing Executive that also wears the title Chief Information Officer...and is responsible for overseeing Hyatt's technology initiatives

Since I've had to wear both hats on many occassions (albeit for companies a bit smaller than Hyatt)---its a great illustration of how important it is for marketers to have a complete appreciation and understanding of technology applications, as this is the backbone of just about every business other than pizzerias and lemondate stands. More importantly---Marketers and technology execs, if not wearing the same hat---should be required to have adjacent workspaces, or otherwise be completely in tune with each other's projects and requirements. Period

How to Make Your Web Site Sing

Marketing means many things to many people--but the fact remains that the web has transformed every business--from the home-office consultant to global brands. And that means that your website is your front door, your business card, your customer service center, and for those embracing e-commerce, your check- out counter and the front end to your fulfillment center.
Please excuse the length of the article below, (perhaps not very blog-centric)--but today's article from the NY Times Small Business section provides very basic, but critical insight to marketers of all shapes and sizes. You big shots out there overseeing corporate sites and catering to millions of customers can read this too--I'm betting that at least one of the "common mistakes" mentioned below is an issue that you've failed to address...

Equally important--more than 50% of small businesses (we're talking hundreds of thousands in the US alone)--still have NO web presence.. How silly is that? As resident guru Jay Berkman points out "if you're in business, but don't have a web-site, even if its a one-page site, than your competition has a big advantage over you..."

How to Make Your Web Site Sing for You

By ERIC A. TAUB

THE idea that if you build it, they will come, might have worked for Kevin Costner in the movie “Field of Dreams,” but it certainly does not hold true for Web sites.

Build a bad-looking small-business site filled with poorly written text, and your potential customers will go away. Build one that is attractive, compelling and clever, but crucial design mistakes will still guarantee that few people will know that the site exists.

Your Web site is like a digital business card, designers say, the first online look at your company that a customer gets. With luck, it will not be the last.

A site must have addictive content, said Vincent Flanders, a Web design consultant in the Seattle area who is the creator of Webpagesthatsuck.com, a site that analyzes why some pages do not work. “People must be willing to crawl through a sewer for it.”

It is not just small operations that make a mishmash of their sites. Large companies can be just as prone to major design mistakes.

One global company states on its home page that “Indigenous and proven career management tools coupled with a comprehensive series of integrated initiatives have been evolved, to ensure that employees continue to sustain a high performance culture, while recruitment and selection is based on necessary competencies.”

That is “just gobbledygook,” Mr. Flanders said. “The words are not understandable by humans.”

According to Jakob Nielsen, a Web site consultant and author of the book “Prioritizing Web Usability,” it is essential that a Web page get a company’s message across quickly, because visitors are a fickle bunch. Most people do not go beyond what is in front of their faces.

Studies by Mr. Nielsen’s company, the Nielsen Norman Group, an Internet design firm in Fremont, Calif., show that only 50 percent of Web visitors scroll down the screen to see what lies below the visible part on their PC monitor.

“Users spend 30 seconds reviewing a home page,” Mr. Nielsen said. “A business must encapsulate what they do in very few words.”

With findings like those, it is no wonder that Web pages must visually hit a visitor right between the eyes. If a site does not answer a user’s questions about a business, then you have scored one for the competition. For example, the first thing customers visiting any restaurant’s Web site want to know is when it is open. But often that information can be found only by digging through multiple pages. As a result, “the site fails,” Mr. Nielsen said.

“It’s all about the basics,” said Baris Cetinok, Microsoft’s director of product management for Office Live, a site that offers free Web hosting and design tools for small businesses.

Visitors must immediately find out “who you are, what you do and how people can reach you,” Mr. Cetinok said.

Besides good grammar, Mr. Nielsen suggests that companies list a physical address, include a photograph of the building and not ask potential clients to fill out a form simply to ask a question. “That immediately communicates danger,” he said.

Making a site look good is complicated by the fact that no two monitors will necessarily present the Web in the same way. Users can set their browser’s default font size to be bigger or smaller, so it is impossible to know exactly how text will appear to any one person.

And how much of a Web site’s home page can actually be seen by users varies, based on the screen’s resolution.

The problems are made worse by designers being in Los Angeles or New York, and not, say, Texas, so “they think everyone has a large monitor and a fast D.S.L. connection,” said Neil Hettinger, co-owner of Lead Pencil Ad Design, a marketing and design company in Manhattan Beach, Calif. He suggests mixing text and graphics on a Web site, with dark type set against a light background for easy reading.

If you are selling a product, use thumbnail photos that can be enlarged when clicked on, Mr. Nielsen said, not a graphic that can be rotated in every direction. Otherwise “you see products at weird angles.”

“The most important rule in Web page design is to eliminate unnecessary design,” Mr. Flanders said. He recommends not adding large, spinning graphics that take a long time to download.

He also advises business owners not to add introductory splash pages that force a viewer to watch a video or animation.

“Splash pages are only needed for pornography, gambling and multinational Web sites that need to direct users to a particular country’s page,” Mr. Flanders said.

Graphics also do nothing to help a site get discovered by search engines like Google or Yahoo. Those sites troll the Internet for key words, as well as the frequency and quality of one site that links to another.

Text embedded in a graphic, like the name of a shop in a photograph, cannot be seen by search engines. And the old practice of embedding key words in white-on-white type will not increase a site’s page ranking; in fact it will do the opposite.

“The first time a word is used on a site, it’s significant,” said Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer. “If that word is used 50 times, there is a diminishing return.”

“If you put hidden tags on your page, you’re a total moron,” Mr. Flanders said. “You will get caught by search engines, or others will turn you in.”

If your business is local, make sure that the entire geographic area you serve is mentioned in text on the site. To increase the number of sites that link to yours, list your business in online trade directories, and mention it on various blogs.

Google offers free Web master tools that automatically analyze a site to determine if it is being optimized by search engines.

In the end, getting a prominent placement in a search engine is the only way to ensure that your site will be seen by those who can increase your business.

“If your site is not listed on the first page of search results, you might as well not exist,” Mr. Nielsen said.

Creating a Marketing Plan--For Dynamos and Dummies

Courtesy of Richard Hessler--a very prolific guy!

If you are going to create a marketing plan or campaign on a limited budget, the size of your target market should be limited. In determining the size of your target market, consider your ability to fund and manage a minimum of five simultaneous marketing channels. Five to eight marketing channels focused repetitively on the same target market group will yield the greatest results from your time and money investment.

Generally, there are 21 marketing channels from which to choose:

1. Advertising: (indirect) display advertising, classified advertising, yellow pages, inserts/circulars.
2. Buzz Marketing: (direct) paying people to say good things about your product or service to others.
3. Canvassing: (direct) Physically going door-to-door to solicit leads.
4. Cinema Advertising: (indirect) movie trailer ads, pre-movie advertising slides.
5. Client referrals: (direct)
6. Direct Mail: (indirect)
7. Indoor Advertising: (indirect) airport signage, marquee advertising
8. Networking: (direct) charity, community organizations, volunteering, formal networking groups.
9. Outdoor advertising: (indirect) billboards, building signage, bus benches/boards, lawn signs, sky writing/airplane banners, blimps, posters & playbills, stickers/bumper stickers, flyers, banners.
10. Point-of-Purchase Display: (indirect) banners, counter displays, mobiles, multi-media CD-ROM.
11. Professional Referrals: (direct)
12. Public Relations: (indirect) print articles, radio & TV commentary, print feature stories, print quotes.
13. Publishing: (indirect) books, newsletter.
14. Radio Advertising: (indirect) host-paid radio show, commercials, infomercials.
15. Seminars: (direct) public, private.
16. Telemarketing: (direct/indirect) outbound, on-hold narration, conference calls, tele-seminars, fax blasting.
17. Television Advertising: (indirect) host-paid TV show, pay-for-guest TV show, commercials, infomercials, product/service placement.
18. Trade shows: (direct)
19. Special Events: (direct) birthday parties, retirement parties, event parties, celebrity events, charity fundraisers, sport professionals, open houses, client appreciation.
20. Sponsorships: (indirect)
21. World Wide Web: (indirect) website, direct email, eNewsletter, SPAM, blogging, pod casting.

The impression you want to leave with your target market is that you appear to be everywhere; when in fact, you are just in front of your target audience.

Emphasize direct marketing channels over indirect. Direct marketing channels put you or a spokesperson face-to-face or voice-to-voice with your target audience. Direct marketing channels should be implemented first. Indirect marketing channels are used to reinforce your direct marketing efforts and create brand awareness.

Overall, the 21 marketing channel categories listed are effective. Some may not be as applicable to promote your specific product or service. Your results will depend on your creativity and making adjustments based on your results over time.

An Example:

Let’s say you want to sell a specific professional service to a specific group of people in a community. Choosing the following marketing channels may help you enroll attendees to a seminar that will generate sales meetings.

1. Client referrals: (direct) ask your existing clients, friends and family to invite people to the event.
2. Advertising: (indirect) run a low-cost circular in the newspaper, rent a billboard in a conspicuous location.
3. Direct mail: (indirect) purchase a mailing list for your demographic in the community.
4. Networking: (direct) promote the seminar at networking groups you frequent.
5. Professional Referrals: (direct) ask other professionals you work with to invite their clients to your event.
6. Telemarketing: (direct) call warm prospects and cold prospects to invite them to the event (businesses only unless you have a prior relationship).
7. Trade Shows: (direct) promote the seminar at a tradeshow.
8. World Wide Web: (indirect) promote the seminar on your website or eNewsletter.
9. Seminars: (direct) conduct the seminar with the goal being to schedule sales meetings at a later date.

The goal of marketing is to get someone to want to meet with you to learn more about your product or service. Marketing is NOT about educating everyone about your entire menu of services, save the details for the sales presentation. Market with an eye towards what the target market believes they need. We all use the same marketing channels, it’s your unique creativity and concerted efforts to communicate your value tailored to the prospect that will produce results.

Website Design / Marketing 101

However rudimentary it might seem to most, the basics of a creating successful web-site continue to be overlooked and under-appreciated by a large majority of businesses.

Successful means different things to different people-but it all boils down to the same principles--and principles that the largest organizations, including "new media" companies have a strange habit of not paying attention to--including making it simple for a prospect or a client to contact you.

Read the link to an elementary disseration provided by Startup Nation... Its not only applicable to start-ups, some of the world's biggest brand marketers would do themselves a big favor by focusing on the simplest 5 points in the article.

Inviting Customers To Write Your Ads???

Marketing Guru Denny Hatch hits the nail on the head when lamenting about the latest approach brand marketers and high priced advertising execs are taking in efforts to embrace their audience--letting customers develop ad campaigns and tag lines....

I completely agree with Denny--GM encouraging customers to develop short videos is fun...but is it selling cars?...Giving customers the opportunity to be part of the experience by inviting them to create ad copy and content is a fad...what marketers need to really focus on is paying more attention to customer feedback and what really inspires them to purchase (or not purchase) their products

A Somber Moment: A Great Marketer is Gone

Last week, I posted a missive about a frustrating experience that I had with a "free, anti-virus software" being touted by a company called Comodo, whose Chairman, Eric Emanuel was a long time friend of mine. The 'beta' version, which had been promoted for several months, corrupted my hard drive. After exchanging flame mail throughout the day with Eric's CEO and, Eric interceded, spanked us both, after which he and I had a spirited discussion i.e. his company's marketing strategy...and how to leverage his special friends & family email list..

Two days ago, I received an email from Eric's daughter informing those on his friends and family list that Eric, barely 60, had passed away the previous night. Eric Emanuel's career extended more than 40 years, he was a visionary on Wall Street, an accomplished entertainment industry marketer and producer, a philanthropist, a mentor to rising stars, a dedicated father and loving husband. Eric's magic wand touched hundreds of people, and those that he took into his circle were truly fortunate.

Marketing & Sales : Running For Office--Case Study Jeanine Pirro

If you're from outside the New York area, you might not be aware of Westchester County District Attorney, Ms. Jeanine Pirro (R).. A case study in leadership, marketing, sales and a great representative of the GOP mindset.

I like Jeanine because she is scrappy, says her mind (when she can make it up), and pushes the envelope.. all of the hallmarks of a great marketer/salesperson. But she's a politician, so its part of the territory. Her Achilles heel (on one foot anyway)--is her husband...a man's man. While she's been politicking---he's been finding himself in one jam after another..including jail stints on tax charges, out-of-wedlock children appearing, driving too fast too often, etc etc... But God Bless Jean--she's sticking by her man, while he keeps dragging her through the mud...

This is where it gets messy. Jean was going to run for US Senate...but the GOP Gods told her " no dice--we're not putting you up against Hilary Clinton.." They told her to run for NY Attorney General instead, where her big opposition is only the former NY Governor's son...and a handsome guy at that too.... This week the news flash comes that Jean was conspiring to wire tap her husband--she thought he was cheating on her again...and she recruited none other than Bernard Kerik..the wannabe Homeland Security Director that turned out be slightly mobbed up...and operates slightly under the table...(this is the guy that was Rudy Guiliani's Police Commissioner (and he actually did a great job; and I don't care who payed for and decorated the apartment that he set up to have trysts with a girlfriend).

Jean---after what we've been reading about HP, why would you rely on Bernie Kerik of all people...all while running for the top law enforcement job in the state.... ..

This story goes under "would you believe it????"

Demystifying Search Engine Optimization

That's it. I've had it. After reading an advice column in the WSJ responding to a small business owner weighing alternatives on how to better optimize her website for search engines--including whether to pay the $10,000 to an SEO firm.

I've said this before in prior postings...and I'll say it again. . There is no silver bullet to getting first page rankings on the major search engines--other than the pay-per-click ads that appear on the right side of Google--and equivalent spots on MSN or Yahoo!. .

Unless you're hiring a relative, a girlfriend (or boyfriend), or someone that has pictures of you having intimate relations with a farm animal, paying $5000, $10,000 or even the $40,000 that have been quoted to me for the" latest and greatest SEO Solutions", you're wasting your money... And in deference to the hundreds of 'consultants', 'experts' and gurus that claim otherwise---I'd welcome any comments/replies.... But in the mean time---here's some very practical, proven, and easy to implement steps that integrate a modicum of knowledge i.e. website architecture, the ability to spell, and the compunction to roll up your sleeves and do a little bit of work.

1. key words. duh...incorporate no more than 20 within the text presentation on each of your pages.. If you don't know which key words will be more productive than others, simply defer to your google adwords or yahoo adminstrator page...they do free analysis of your page and display rankings i.e. popularity of various words phrases.

2. make sure you incorporate them into page titles...using hyphens to separate the specific page title is a good idea...if changing an existing page title...i.e. www.jlcgroup.net/client_testimonials.html make sure to do a 301direct...if you don't know what that is,..ask your web adminstator to make sure its done....have him review the various meta tag structures and key words within those tags also...too many is not good...know what the rules are i.e. number of characters/words for each type of tag.

3. This is where it gets important..... SEO is no different than the integrated strategies that you use to promote any kind of business business...e.g. co-branding campaigns, referrals from local partners, a news release every once in a while...a newsletter...telephoning clients to make sure the car they just bought is running smoothly...
so..as far as SEO...this means

i. Links---have a page on your site for 'partners'....provide a brief description of each, and a hyperlink...it works better if they do the same for you...if you're a member of an association, club, professional organization..links to those should be included...links links links...

ii. news releases. write them and distribute them.. you can pay $400 to PR News..or more lyou can use any of the free news release websites...make sure they are well written, appropriate, and don't do it too often....your website should have a section for 'news'...upload the links to that section...

iii. enewsletters are great because if designed nicely, they servce multiple purposes---and i've got one client that published a newsletter that automatically appears when i enter the key word for his company name.

iv. if you are a small on-line retailer....you need complentary approaches to get people to your website...you don't want visitors, you want customers...and you get customers via referral, or via third party credibility (being mentioned in a news story etc)..and via advertising...which brings us to pay per click....call up the people at efrontier...they can help the biggest idiots in the world.....

i just saved you $10,000 on a SEO expert...if you have the money to spend, you can contact me, for the same price, i'll help with ALL of the above. :)

Email: What Problem Are You Solving??

Sitting down and coming up with copy for anything can be a daunting task right? Even if you're writing about something you know pretty well. One of the things I've been wrestling with is that fact that so many companies are so enamored with their "features" they fail to talk about the benefits, that is, what problems the features are going to solve.

Not surprisingly, this is the same thing that many people overlook when constructing a one-sheet, a business proposal, or a capital raising campaign.

But let's focus on email marketing for a second....and some nice tips from VerticalResponse..one of the leading vendors in the email marketing space.

BENEFITS-BENEFITS-BENEFITS

Make your copy more benefit-oriented and tell your recipients why they'd want your widget, not just how cool your widget is. People are emotional, they buy because they want to know how your product or service will benefit them first, features are secondary.

When you're writing your copy and you list a feature, always pay off the feature with what goes after "...so now you can..." or "...for better..." in your copy.

I went through my inbox and found a few emails that outlined both the need for and good use of benefit-oriented copy.

Toysrus.com - In the excerpt from their latest email, we're never told "why" it's going to be better for us to shop using our existing account information.

We might have said,

"... so now you won't have to create another new account and manage yet another user name and password! More time for shopping and saving!"

... or something like that.

The Sport Tec jacket - What an amazing invention. So many pockets and zippers. But what are they all good for? You wouldn't know with their email, and we can only guess whether anyone else can figure out what makes Sport Tec great.

Those "FREE" Anti-Virus Softwares---Nothing is Free

OK...I got snookered....by a long time friend and Chairman of a company called Comodo that has been putting out a press release every week touting its products, many of which are free (the trojan horse to selling its primary product, SSL certificates).

After getting CEO emails to 'friends/investors' every week for past three years i.e. 'our latest and greatest accomplishments"---and even recommending the company to numerous friends, I finally downloaded the 'latest free anti-virus and free firewall apps... What a mistake...my laptop imploded and several hard drive extensions were corrupted....in the course of a 4 hour support call with Dell, it was determined this software was the root of the problem...I emailed the CEO of Comodo..who promptly responded with "this is a known problem with the Beta version" (which was introduced 2 months ago and is being heavily touted by the company)

Since the company isn't big enough to provide live tech support, the CEO pointed me to a blog where users contribute fixes to problems....bottom line, I've blown an entire day and have had to wipe out the OS and re-install, losing personal settings/configurations for (3) shared users..
Moral to the story: Don't download any free software---even if being promoted by someone that you had trusted.

Click Fraud & In Your Face FaceBook

Perhaps it was a coincidence that both front page of the New York Times Business section ran the same story that Business Week profiled on the front page of its weekly edition--which came out one day earlier--Click Fraud--Internet Advertising biggest achilles heel. I'm arguably one of the first that started using Google Adwords--and promoted its use to clients....but throughout that time, I've been shouting about instances of click fraud, and experienced several very costly instances. When complaining--and pointing to the abberational activity, Google's support analysts kept replying with excuses and explanations that made no sense... That caused me to cancel ad programs---and warn my clients about best practices for click advertising.

Are advertisers losing millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions or Billions??? Probably some where in the middle to upper end of the guestimates---and let's face it, no matter what Google or Yahoo! have evangelized, their incentive to take progressive steps to stem this problem is outweighed by the fact that these companies are direct beneficiaries of click fraud.

Its really simple--Google will distribute the placement of your ad through a daisy chain of networks, and get a slice of the pie every time the ad is clicked on. Unless the advertiser specifically configures his advertising program to only display ads within the Google search engine return page, that ad is displayed on upwards of thousands, if not tens of thousands of individual websites..

Now, from the advertiser perspective, that's the goal---presuming the third-party sites fall within the targeted demographic profile.. Which is what Google's recently recent platform 'content network' is supposed to achieve.. (The content network charges based on impressions, not clicks---the old fashioned method...Which is doubly troublesome...) And I have first have experience testing all of the different approaches.... And I can tell you that click fraud is a MAJOR problem...despite what Google or Yahoo! would like you to believe...

By the way, MSN has a new program that purportedly places your ads within sites that conform to the advertiser's demographic target zone---but again, wrought with potential for fraudsters to run up your ad spending with impressions and/or clicks being generated by those looking to get a piece of your ad spending, not access to a product or service that you are advertising.

If you want to limit your exposure--you can simply configure your adwords setting so that your ad only displays within the Google search network. This means your ad will only display when someone does a google search using one of the keywords that you are bidding for.. And this will also make it easier for Google to track those nasty competitors that are clicking on your ad hundreds of times so that they buy up all of your air time-

The downside is that you will get alot less exposure (figure 1/10 of what you are getting now if your ad setting includes both "Google search' and 'network partners')---the upside is that your ad will be displayed to a qualified audience that are specifically looking for results based on the Google search...But it will cost you more (figure 2x-3x) to get your ad displayed on the first or second return page.

Or we can all vote with our checkbooks and inundate Google Support with emails telling them we're refraining from advertising until they address the problem to our satisfaction... Sounds crazy?...

Not if you appreciate what happened over the past two weeks after FaceBook's users revolted when that company started publishing 'newsfeeds' profiling every single activity and posting of its members... That was a really stupid idea put into production by the brash 22 year old Harvard dropout that runs FaceBook --- 200,000 or more of its college student users revolted in mass, prompting FaceBook's pimply-faced genius to realize how much he screwed up. And his plan to open the network to anyone with a valid email address (as opposed to limiting it to college students/teachers---and more recently high school students) is perhaps the last goose that will kill his golden egg. This kid should have finished his coursework in Harvard--he might have been exposed to a few case studies that documented what happends to a company when they expand to quickly and disenfranchise the customer base that made them what they are..

This kid should hit whatever bid MSN has put on the table---take his $100 million in cash and call it a life...FaceBook is never---repeat NEVER--going to become a global social network---it was perfectly designed to cater to one very narrow audience---but if I'm allowed to have a page, my college daughter would puke---and immediately turn off her own page.

Enough said.

Embracing The Web: Better Late Than Never

Today's announcemente that the largest theatre owner in NYC (Nederlander Organization) has launched a web site aimed at prompting more people to buy show tickets on line (and helps them to compete with the third party on-line resellers) is hardly a stroke of genius.. BUT illustrates that its never too late to play on the web---maybe they'll ultimately embrace new media applications (displaying audio/video clips) as a means to really do it right...

The New Meaning of Privacy--Thank you HP!

One of the leading corporations in the world (Hewlett Packard) has helped us to really understand the new millenium's definition of privacy...other than perhaps in bathrooms, there is no such thing as privacy... so you can all take it out of your vocabulary.

Should we really be shocked that the Board of Directors of a Fortune 100 company authorized illegal surveillance one of its peers?.. Of course not...Led by George W. Bush, we're in a whole new world...the concept of ethics disappeared a long time ago...and as we continue to struggle in the war against terrorism and "Islamic Facism", our government and corporate leaders have no qualms about embracing the same hypocritical ideals of our enemies... It would seem that laws are interpreted as we see fit...and its okay to break them if a few people think its for the greater good..

HP Board Members include CEO's of companies that control and adminster private information of tens of millions of Americans. If these people see fit to invade the privacy of one of their peers, why would we think any one of them would hesitate to illegally leverage or exploit the information databases of millions that are immediately available to them.

And why would we think any of us are safe.... George Bush is setting an example for us all...so the message for all you marketers: enjoy the party...do whatever you want with whatever databases you can peak into...everything is fair game now...just keep a good lawyer on hand...or someone that merely knows how to keep good news clippings and can cite what is taking place in America today as your defense.

The Basics of Email Marketing

Ok...taking a light moment from heavy topics and just re-visiting some very rudimentary tacts for those that are trying to leverage the power of email marketing--without making a nuisance of yourselves.

Click on the link and take some sage and practice advice from Janine Popick..she's the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. Profitable and 20,000 customers strong, VerticalResponse is a leading self-service direct marketing provider to businesses of any size...and a platform that I use on behalf of several tier 1 clients

Marketing Made Smart-Advertising on Blogs

I've been preaching about the power of blogs for more than three years, and even though I pressed clients to embrace blogging as a key ingredient to viral marketing, 80% pooh-poohed the notion. Until recently. .

(The funniest part is, the technology-centric clients didn't think it would be a smart way to chatter up their offerings--- "too secret to talk about"...which otherwise means : "don't want to get egg on our face and don't feel secure enough about about our product".....if you're targeting a mass audience, you must be advertising in some shape manner or form. If nothing else, you have a website, so your competitors are going to find out about you anyway... so, hesitating to beat your chest, opine, inform or solicit comment via a blog for fear of competitors learning about what you are doing is a critical mistake...and thinking that your secret sauce will be discovered via your blog posting only means that you aren't operating in the real world.

OK, with that said...the link to MarketingProf's provides a great insight --and points to the fact that everyone is blogging now (or at least those that have the time)---and the interesting blogs are attracting exactly the audience you want to reach....which makes it obvious that these are the best channels to advertise on...its a combination of viral marketing blended with demographic zoning.....and its a fraction of the cost of any other advertising application... So why wouldn't you try it? Duh.

BetOnSports Exec Arrested: Feds Running Out of Things To Do:

If I didn't confirm the front page story on the NY Times by visiting the Wall St. Journal and several other papers, I wouldn't have believed it.

Bombs are literally flying across every inch of the Middle East, Israel is under attack, we're facing the biggest international crisis since the Bay of Pigs...and the morons at the Justice Department can't think of any better use of their resources than to sit and wait at the Dallas airport so they could arrest the UK ceo of BetOnSports, a publicly traded internet gambling company that was backed by Goldman Sachs and Fidelity. The charge??? Racketeering conspiracy for participating in an illegal enterprise.

Do I care that the company's shareholders lost their CEO to the wunderkinds at the FBI? And that all of the other execs of this UK, publicly traded company with thousands of shareholders can expect the FBI to wake them up at the crack of dawn and cart them off? After all, didn't these guys learn from Jay Cohen's experience? How stupid could these guys be to believe that its safe to set foot in this country when Congress just voted in favor of cracking down on internet gambling?? After all, the FBI and Justice Department don't have anything else to do...they killed off Ken Lay (he deserved it)...they've upended Martha Stewart (she deserved it too).....so now its Internet Gambling...--perhaps the most vile crime in the world...certainly worse than distributing child porn...after all...it takes NBC news to track down child porn promoters and abusers...the FBI is too busy chasing CEO's of internet gambling companies!

Hey George---loved your use of the word "shit" when the microphones picked up your chatting with Tony...what kind of shit is going on inside our own borders....and by the way...why hasn't the CEO of Goldman Sachs (now the Treasury Secretary been arrested on the internet gambling case---after all, they floated the stock on the UK exchange---isn't that aiding and abetting?..and how about arresting the portfolio managers from Fidelity---they bought a bunch of it in the IPO and still own it?...Isn't that aiding and abetting???
Can anyone spell P-R-I-O-R-I-T-Y ????

Fair and Unbalanced Business Week?

I'm on the receiving end of a newsletter published by Leadership IQ--a very intriguing boutique that occupies the leadership training sector. Not your typical 'talking head'--the firm's principal is a guy named Mike Murphy--solid background for being a hired gun in the "turn-around management" world, and now provides seminars, training sessions etc for a formidable list of Fortune clients. I've attended one of his seminars--and this isn't jibber jabber stuff...Its tood bad his firm was launched after I was CEO of a public company...I could have used his insight on a number of challenges.

Murphy polls his subscribers every once in a while i.e. interesting topics of the day--the May canvass created lots of stir "What do you think of George Bush's leadership talents"...Forbes and WSJ reported on those results..... Anyway--Murphy polled us on Wed in the aftermath of Ken Lay's death...We all know who Ken Lay was.. Per the link on the title of this posting, it seems that Business Week reporter Jon Fine took exception to the poll thinking it was in poor taste. No big deal. Apparently a few of the receipients of the poll thought the same.. Murphy did a follow up and said he got two death threats...

But, reporter Fine, purportedly an accredited news hound thought it was so distasteful when Murphy's PR firm suggested BW write an article about the poll--he retalitated and sent an email to gawker suggesting that they should write a piece profiling Murphy as a grave dancer. (The front page of BW carried a story by Mark Morrison that pounced on Ken Lay's grave..so it seems that Jon Fine has some internal editorial issues that he can only vent through third party platforms)

Who cares? Probably nobody.. just a reminder for anyone that reads Business Week (and of course the NY Times)...and the hundreds of other "objective news channels" ..to be wary of the slant..and that we can really only expect 'fair and balanced' reporting from pre-schoolers (From the mouths of babes...)

NYSE's Thain To Circumvent Wall St.

NY Times ran interesting update i.e. John Thain's plan to invite institutional investors to trade directly into the NYSE--and bypass the Wall Street firms that have traditionally facilitated order execution. Not that many don't already do this via electronic trading platforms, but Thain is clearly suggesting to alter the entire landscape of the secuities industry---and cut out the middle men... wow

I said this 3 months ago! Wall Street & Casinos

Excerpt from Institutional Investor...Proud to say that I made this observation months ago...read the whole article.....No doubt fodder for George W. and wannabe's like E. Spitzer to distract everyone from real problems in society.

Led by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Fidelity, big-name financial firms have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the shares of online casinos, even though the practice is considered illegal according to U.S. law. Most of these companies trade on the London Stock Exchange and are licensed in remote locations like Malta and Antigua that are more than friendly to Internet gambling. But, most of the users are Americans. There are fees to be made, however, and that apparently trumps the other concerns.

Incentivizing Your Sales Force

Brick & Click, Brick and Mortar, B2B; B2C--its always about Sales. Always.
With that said, resident guru Jay Berkman opines " the biggest challenge every enterprise has is keeping their salespeople incentivized and inspired. The commission carrot only works so far--and if someone else is dangling a more tasty carrot in front of your sales force, you're at risk of losing a valuable foot solider."

Today's WSJ profiled Snowfly--an interesting company that provides a game-based platform to help motivate anyone whose job is based on meeting regular goals or quotas. Visit the link--but here's some advice: don't let your employees access the game platform during normal working hours--let them use it at pre-defined times (you can create the platform so that its only accessible at certain hours of the day/night)

Web 2.0 Permission-Based Marketing

Every day I talk with at least five global brand marketers; in the course of a week, I exchange emails with dozens, and in the course of a month, upwards of 300 of the most senior marketing gurus in America and their new media agency reps are telling me what their needs/goals are. This group represents a wide cross-section of industries, products and services; telecom; entertainment; financial services; media/publications.

As a result, I've become a clearinghouse of information..That's why people like to hear from me and talk with me. Everyone likes to know what their peers are thinking about or plotting.

And if you take 30 seconds to keep reading, you might think that I'm on to something..and will want to forward this to the people on your team that are overseeing Internet-related marketing/advertising.

The theme is the same; each one is looking for the 'holy grail" application---

• entertains and informs in a place and time that the recipient is most receptive
• a completely captive, but non-intrusive application
• that delivers rich media content
• incorporates a call to action that can be acted upon
• one that can deliver subliminal third-party advertising
• track-able; easy to gauge recall, performance, and ROI
• proven; other major brands have employed it, and have used it successfully. Yes, references are available--see attached.
• but most importantly--an application that the consumer has asked to receive.

On-line advertising, opt-in email newsletters, and more recently, blogs are the most favored tools that "on-line" marketers employ to drive their audience to their cash registers or info centers, whether in a real world store, or on-line.

Woo. Woo. as my 20-yr old daughter would say. Virtually all of these apps still depend on a customer drilling down to locate the specific promotion; the hot item that I'm interested in knowing about--the one that is today's most popular.

Few of those applications are customized based on demographic profile, and fewer still are delivering entertaining and informative content tailored to the recipient. Yes, many of my friends are spending tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on email-centric strategies that incorporate very sophisticated, quant-based programs that are purportedly sending tailored messages based on the customer profile. Keep laughing.

Now you can stop laughing--and think about this--an application that meets all of the criteria described above, and costs a rounding point* of what you are spending to implement and deploy:

• a 'top listing' in a Google Adwords campaign
• implementing and managing an email-marketing campaign
• direct mail
• OOH mediums (from billboards to in-store, to direct mail to the wide selection of guerilla strategies)

* Rounding point means that for those spending six, seven or eight figures annually for a dedicated Internet strategy that targets tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions---this is a barely five-figure enhancement that could prove to not only complement those efforts, but can be more effective, more durable, and more long-lasting than anything you are spending on today.

What is it?

• Its an application that automatically launches on your customer's desk top--when he/she has asked to receive it--or simply launched via a desktop icon.
• It occupies 75% of the user's screen, and can be closed by one click of a mouse.
• It can be easily customized (by you or by Synovativ's programmers) to look like a mini-website, a digital billboard, a static billboard, or a condensed newsletter. It can be multi-paneled, or single paneled. It can even incorporate a pre-downloaded video app--which means that the user doesn't have to launch the darn thing, wait for it to load, and than view on his/her PC etc.
• It can be updated with fresh content and automatically display once a day, twice a day, three times a day--whatever. However frequently you want to update content--and however frequently your user wants to see--he/she will set his timer accordingly. Or, the user can launch it via the desktop icon.
• Installing it takes 30 seconds. Your customers will appreciate that it won't impact any on the computer, and more importantly--he/she is assured that there are no cookies, no adware, no spyware--no gremlins running around in the background. They don't need to provide any personal information, email address in order to download it.
• Its as clean as a newborn baby's tushy.

On your side--its plug and play; uploading content is a cut and paste process. The admin module tracks viewership data, and performance links to your existing transactional platforms.

Licensing/Delivery: Customized to your needs. 6 or 12 month site licenses; capped flat rate, or based on per user. You can have a turnkey service, where the vendor takes care of everything--we drive the entire program, and you sit back and watch the viewers come to your cash register--you just upload the content. Full reporting module included.

Or you can have a self-administered agreement where you get the keys to the car and let your IT team own the entire platform. The user manual is less than 4 pages long.

This link http://www.addiem.com/download.html will allow you to download a demo application, just to get a feel for how it would work for your clients/customers.

I'm happy to facilitate a conversation to talk about how you would incorporate this.

Almost Too Good; Template TV commercials

I'm a sponge for business periodicals, whether its Forbes or Fortune, and most especially Inc.com. There's an element to print magazines that the 'Net isn't going to replace. I absorb print articles while having coffee on the deck, and when digesting a favorite bottle of wine and watching the sun set. These are quiet times that my laptop isn't designed for, and for me, never will be.

With that said, the latest edition of Inc.com includes a great profile by Darren Dahl of Spot Runner, a company that has been getting lots of traction and deserved buzz for the past year. They've built a brilliant app that any half-witted brick and mortar retailer should embrace---pre-constructed TV commercials AND a menu for media placement in local, regional and national channels, network and cable. Its the idiot's version of Register.com---and is the perfect solution for anyone that aspires to advertise their business via television. And by way---TV advertising is far from dead. TV viewership remains intact, and its going to stay that way, albeit in different structures. So, advertising on TV makes good sense. Do I need to repeat myself? NO. Am I going out on a limb and making this statement, which will be forever memoralized in the world of digital information. NO.

Run the newstand to purchase the June edition, or you can wait until the 20th to access the article on line. If you wait until the 20th, read the article by simply clicking on the link. But don't wait.

If you run a small business, brick and mortar, brick and click, or even just click..this will fit right into your marketing program. If you don't have a marketing program, this is a good way to start!..

By the way, if you get INC.com's latest edition, Norm Brodsky's commentary is inspirational.

Pay Per Call Outranks Pay Per Click on AOL

Absolutely. The internet bubble imploded back at the turn of the century simply because 999 out of the 1000 'ground breaking' companies had no idea of how important the concept of 'customer service' is.
Arguably, too many of those operating e-businesses still don't 'get it' i.e. the importance of having a means where customers can actually speak to a human being, and even more importantly, a human being that is properly trained and capable of providing that personal connection and addressing the needs of the customer ON THE PHONE.

As archaic as this idea might sound, anyone operating a business via the internet MUST build a customer service component into the business model. OK..it costs more...OK...lots of people are getting the hang of shopping carts, click to buy...yadayadayada...and just as many people are being reluctant to do exactly that because of internet security concerns. And don't discount those concerns..for every story you ready about identity theft, there are thousands..yes thousands more that go unpublished.. After all, which website or credit card company wants to publicize the fact that ID theft is a big big problem?? ...Anyway, getting back to pay per call...duh!...I'd much rather pay $1, or even $5, or depending on the price of what I am selling, $10 or $20, for the opportunity to get a trained salesperson on the phone with a customer and close the deal...as opposed to paying .25 or .50 cents to lead someone to my website and hope to God they actually make a purchase.

OnLine Gambling-Las Vegas is ready to deal

duh....of course everyone was waiting for this...if you can't beat them (with lobbyists), join them and then conquer them....Let's be real--every major US casino enterprise have invested plenty of money in R&D over the past few years, and each one is ready to launch their own branded online casino...but they've been standing pat...until now.....and their opportunity is immense--for every dollar wagered on line, there are 5-10x the amount of potential players, only being held back one big concern--the integrity of the website they are gambling on...when major brand operators enter the marketplace, dozens of smaller, off-shore companies will be hit with a tsunami..bet on it and bank on it

U.S. Casinos Relax Opposition
To Gambling Over the Internet

A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
April 28, 2006 11:52 a.m.

The main trade group for U.S. casinos called for the creation of a Congressional commission to study whether the online-gambling industry should be regulated, in a move that appears to relax opposition to the practice.

The move by the American Gaming Association comes at a time when Congress is considering several bills that would explicitly ban Internet gambling. The group said that while it officially remains neutral about the pending legislation, it now "strongly supports" a one-year study that would evaluate whether legalizing and regulating the industry would be "a more viable option" than a ban.

Experiential Marketing: Microsoft Case Study

For every one that looks to poo-poo MSN--first hand knowledge of how they seamlessly and studiously executed a brilliant on-site marketing campaign (at NY Auto Show---an event that had a captive audience of 1 million+ )--here's the news flash: 200 other brand marketers had the same opportunity, but were so dysfunctional--they snoozed and MSN scored.

1. Through an alliance with the show's ticketing system vendor (WalkUp Systems) MSN Autos secured the front door at the Jacob Javits Center and had the exclusive right to place use 'human billboards'..ostensibly serving as Show Ambassords at every entrance way...and the ability to interact with the 1million+ as they were standing on line to purchase tickets.

2. Once having this strategically incomparable physical placement, they leveraged the opportunity by age-old favorite of handing out premiums with a prize element--in this case...'collectible key chains' with MSN Autos and NY Auto Show logo--driving recipients to a special website where they could enter to win a Ford Mustang.

3. Complementing the greeting and key chains, MSN Autos 'wrapped" the ticketing kiosks with billboard signage and ran a montage of MSN Autos video spots (15-second spots ran 4x every 5 minutes) on the ticketing platforms' 9ft video screens---a trifecta approach ensuring high recall and participation in the promotion.

4. Bottom Line Results: 60% of the visitors polled on exit had immediate recall i.e. "who the ambassadors at front door were representing"---and at last count, 50% of the 100,000 key chains distributed have submitted their sweepstakes entry ticket to a special web site.

5. Cost--1/2 price of one (1) 30-second commercial on SNL..

Okay, not everyone has 50k to leverage a 10-day live event with a demographically-targeted audience...but I can count off 20 companies that do have that kind of budget, (duh...Yahoo! and AOL auto divisions, but their heads are so far up their butts trying to justify the impact of highway billboards and low recall tv commercials...they just ain't getting it...yet....

Product Launch Case Study: OnLine/OnPhone

You love the net, but you embrace real-live customer interaction..your brand name isn't famous yet and you can't afford to advertise on TV.

To get the word out, this marketer put 75% of his budget into off-peak radio ads and 25% into paid search ads with Google and Yahoo.

Every single ad had to pay for itself in incoming converted sales. "We go for direct ROI measurement -- always." Brand building would be a side benefit. Click on to see the full story! Combines innovative thinking with common business sense.

Marketing Metrics --Using a Dashboard

Great article to help you determine if you need an oil change, or if you need to fill up your tank..Its about creating a dashboard...what too many people automatically interpret as a software application...but it can simply be a "thought process"..read the whole article!

oes your company suffer from any of these symptoms?

• Marketing is not seen as having a direct impact on the organization's financial performance.
• Functional silos within marketing seem to be operating independently and fighting for budget dollars and attention.
• With the swarm of marketing initiatives, no one is clear on which ones are really contributing the most to the bottom line.
• Marketing budgets are set on what was spent in the past year, not on what was achieved in the prior 12 months or on new company goals.
• Finance isn't buying into the ability of the marketing mix model to link brand attributes to revenue or profits.

If so, you might want to think about how a marketing dashboard can help build marketing's alignment with organizational goals and increase marketing's accountability to enhancing the bottom line. A good dashboard reflects what's going on in marketing, what resources are deployed, to what end, and what ROI is expected for each initiative.

$5 million idea in three sentences

Business Week tripped over this blog posting and republished it in the May 1 edition. They have no idea out prescient they are.....but I'm betting my own $$ that MSN Autos takes notice and forges a deal with NY Auto Show, to be a follow-on to the sponsorship deal that yours truly put into place for this week's 2006 NY International Auto Show... (see www.newyorkautoshowwalkup.com for details of the deal)

NOTABLE POST
Even without considering the cost of an auto-show stand or the expense of going to one, the Internet is 175% more efficient... If the organizers of the New York International Auto Show could suck a buck from every one of the Web heads who check in on their vapid display of automobiles-in-aspic, they'd make enough money to pay for post-traumatic show disorder therapy -- for everyone!"

Whats In Store...

A must read for any media buyer or consumer brand marketer..but it only makes sense for those that know how to do basic math....

Today's article: Where do ad agencies stand with at-retail media?

If April's AdAge article has told us anything about how ad agencies feel about in-store marketing, it's that many firms have not given it the respect it deserves. And if the responses to the original article (including the letter from POPAI President/CEO Dick Blatt) tell us anything else, it's that people in the retail marketing industry are working to remedy the problem. While it's unlikely that one little article will derail the in-store marketing movement (in both static and digital forms), it still seems like the big agencies have done very little to establish their position one way or the other. Sure, all of the big conglomerates have agencies that focus exclusively on below-the-line tactics (including in-store, direct mail, data mining, etc.), but there's no clear powerhouse in the industry as of yet. This is especially surprising given that some of the biggest advertisers in the world, like P&G and Unilever, have conducted extensive surveys on the effectiveness of in-store marketing and stated that they will be spending more marketing dollars on in-store media, while research firms like Arbitron have found that shoppers are receptive to at-retail media. And the trend isn't just limited to the US. Just the other day, one Canadian newspaper noticed that while "TV advertising showed the slowest growth, increasing just 1 per cent, according to Nielsen... spending on out-of-home advertising grew by 14 per cent....

Inventive Ways to Use Place-Based Media

Great update from industry pro Kim Gordon!.

When was the last time you left home and were in a truly advertisement-free environment? Think about it. Now advertising messages go anywhere and everywhere people do. Go to almost any U.S. beach and you'll be greeted with a plane towing an ad banner. You may even be exposed to "beach sand impressions," which are ad messages imprinted into the sand and regenerated overnight. How about a ball game? Every conceivable stadium surface is covered with advertising, from signage to food snack packs, and some stadiums even have video screens built directly into the seat backs. Feel like going for a bike ride surrounded by nature? You may find your local biking trails are named after businesses, thanks to the new availability of naming rights for everything from nature trails to neighborhood swimming pools.

The industry calls this alternative out-of-home or placed-based media, and it's a bonanza for small businesses because there's literally something for everyone. While there are virtually limitless places to put your ads, here are just a few ideas to get you thinking:

Google's Latest Enhancement: Demographic Targeting

No doubt that Google's latest enhancement to Adsense and Adwords is neat. The latest update allows marketers to select specific websites within Google's ad network--if you don't know which sites are in the network, there is a tool that allows you to submit specific phrases and terms, and Google displays the sites that complement your phrases. In addition, you can target sites based on demographic profile of your audience (age, gender, income)... Here's the catch: this program is not a pay per click program--its a CPM impression program.. I got suckered into selecting one site within their network that delivered 65,000 impressions in the course of 6 hours...which is implausible given the 'product' that I was promoting on behalf of a client. But, the good news is that Google's network includes a wide spectrum of high profile and credible sites--the frequency by which the ads are displayed is merely a function of the price you are willing to pay for 1000 impressions.

Professional Services Marketing

Excellent excerpt from last month's CMO ...for all of those law firms looking to hire marketing execs.

Throw your brochures away. Peek in the dark closets of many professional-service firms and you're likely to find cartons of unopened marketing brochures gathering dust. Why? They missed the mark.

Too many brochures, websites and direct mail pieces focus on the professional-service provider, not the client. Clever slogans and images swallow up precious real estate that should be used for what clients really want: help with their problems.

If your marketing material doesn't directly address clients' business issues, you might as well throw it away. Stress instead how your firm solves specific problems. That will get the attention of the right clients. And your practitioners will want to use the material instead of relegating it to the broom closet.

Harness the power of feet on the street. What's the professional-service marketer's secret weapon for carrying the company's message to the market? Your practitioners.

The needs of professional-service clients vary too widely for generic marketing.

The best companies are able to create evangelists of their people—in essence, thought leaders who enthusiastically spread the firm's point of view through multiple but coordinated channels to existing and prospective clients.

With the liberal use of low-cost, high-return marketing tactics like nonsponsored speaking opportunities, e-newsletters, blogs, webinars and surveys, the leading firms take full advantage of their experts as part of their marketing and sales processes. Clients want to know what your practitioners can do, not what you proclaim they can do.

Existing clients get the biggest slice of pie. In professional services, clients are the richest source of new business and referrals. For that reason, focus roughly 60 percent of marketing resources on cultivating those relationships.

Some companies have elaborate client-specific marketing strategies to generate new business and develop referrals from their clients' circle of influence. They measure the ROI of client-specific marketing by observing if the efforts result in incremental revenue.

You must also invest in prospective clients. Use 30 percent of your marketing efforts to reach prospects in your target market(s). Save the final 10 percent for building visibility in the business community.

It's not a refrigerator. What do you need a fridge to do? Keep items cold. Refrigerators vary in size and price, but the basic functions are standard. Not so with professional services. Ten clients who need tax help, for example, probably all need different types of help. The needs of professional-service clients vary too widely for generic marketing. So a critical guerrilla marketing principle applies: One size fits none.

Tailor marketing to meet the precise needs of clients and your market. And don't waste time and money trying to be too clever. You're seeking clients, not marketing awards.

Answer the tough questions. Before using resources for any marketing program, ask these questions: Why do we need this program? Is it aligned with client needs? What are the desired results? How will we measure effectiveness? How will the company be involved in rolling it out? Is there a better way to use these resources?

CMOs must answer these questions and be able to pull the plug on any initiative that is not generating business. Marketers can't solve all the problems facing those selling professional services, but as Peter Drucker said, "The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous."

Cheerios To Start The Day

White House Breakfast

Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were having breakfast at the White House.The attractive waitress asks Cheney what he would like, and he replies, "I'd like a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit." "And what can I get for you, Mr. President?" George W. replies with his trademark wink and slight grin, "How about a quickie this morning?" "Why, Mr. President!" the waitress exclaims. "How rude! You're starting to act like Mr. Clinton, and you've only been in your second term of office for a year! '' As the waitress storms away, Cheney leans over to Bush and whispers..."It's pronounced 'quiche'

In-Store, Place-Based Media

Sam Walton's famous insight into advertising (paraphrase)--"...maybe 50% of advertising is effective; if only one could figure out which half of the advertising really worked..."

Ok, a bit dated perhaps--as there are now a number of measurement tools that can actually determine the effectiveness of certain types of advertsing...dedicated 800#'s tied to specific print and TV placements, and the internet clearly provides tools to follow a shopper directly from an ad into a shopping cart...But lets face it, the bulk of most advertising spends are directed to wide-net extended reach 'channels' (traditional network TV and print ads)--the effectiveness is hard to track, but are justified because a marketer exec can say to his boss ''Hey--our ad reached 20 million viewers yesterday".. Yeah..maybe some of them are even gauging the impact by reviewing real-time sales data and noticing whether those ads had any real impact..but lets face it...there's a trend taking place..and its about time...and its about place. I've said this before..and Aribtron's latest study, published on Friday, says it all.. "nearly a third of shoppers reported making an unplanned purchase after seeing a product advertised on a retail digital signage network." In-store and place-based advertising makes dollars and sense because the message is being delivered at a single moment in time when the consumer is most responsive, most impacted, and most likely to make a purchase decision...

Duh! Prospecting in Gold Mines; Not Haystacks

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times...the best source of new customers is leveraging your existing ones...You can cut your advertising budget in half, direct that money to customer service and relationship managers, and if you don't seen a noticeable (more likely quantum) leap in new sales over the next year, I'll eat my hat, turn in my passport and move to Mars.

Here's the excerpt from Forrester's latest poll...."That’s why “recommendation by relative/friend” comes out on top in just about every survey of purchasing influences. ....more than 90% of consumers trust “recommendations from consumers,” while trust in various types of ads runs from about 40% to less than 10%." Click on the link to read the article

MISTAKING A MARKETPLACE 'VOID' FOR A MARKETPLACE NEED

Brilliant article from today's AdAge profiling the do's and don'ts of branding--whether re-vitalizing an established product, or more likely, introducing a new one.

Sirius Gets Serious with Sponsorship/Promotion Strategy

Noteworthy to profile Sirius Satellite Radio's recent sponsorship/customer acquisition strategy at Detroit's North American International Auto Show. Per link to news story--their marketing gurus are thinking out of the box with a box--and leveraging outsized point-of-entry ticketing 'kiosks' that are being deployed at Detroit, as well as a string of other major consumer auto shows.

The large scale platforms, provided by a company called WalkUp Systems seem ideal for advertisers of all kinds, as they incorporate large plasma screen video and plenty of real estate for static signage; place-based media applications that complement ticket back advertising opportunities for these massive audience events; Detroit Auto Show attendance is estimated at 750,000 and upcoming New York Auto Show will attract more than 1.2 million.

Sirius Radio scored a coup at the Detroit Auto Show this week, and owned the front door media by blanketing the platforms with static signage and broadcasting a selection of entertaining video spots as tens of thousands of visitors stood in ticketing queues to purchase their show entry tickets. A perfect way to drive the attendees to Sirius's exhibit inside the auto show, insiders say that Sirius merely needed to acquire less than 100 new subscribers to justify the cost and ROI for the advertising placement. Kudos to Sirius..Very smart marketing!!

Google Takes On Uncle Sam

With Google's Eric Schmidt move this week to challenge government investigators requests for user information, MediaPost's "MediaDailyNews" is one of several channels that are running daily editorials and comments...

Here's the crux of the story: The effort is part of a government campaign to revive an anti-pornography law, the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which the Supreme Court struck down two years ago. The law attempted to ensure that only adults visited porn sites by requiring that visitors register, or use access codes, before gaining entry to such sites. Now, the Bush administration is back in court, trying to prove that these requirements are the only realistic way of preventing minors from accessing online porn.

What remains unclear is why the government would need records from Google--which is, after all, a private company and not an investigative arm of the Department of Justice.

Here's one reader's feedback that I thought made for good reading...

"I'm actually thrilled that Google has thrown down the gauntlet, as its high time that Uncle Sam (well, lets face it, George W. & Co.) be called to task for its ever increasing, and more than alarming 'interpretation' of the government's constitutional powers and selective appreciation for what constitutes individual rights.

No doubt that the majority of Americans, including myself, believe that child pornography is abhorrent. Those that disseminate it, are indeed supplying the fuel that drives child molesters directly into our communities. And notwithstanding freedom of press issues, those that publish or distribute this material should at the very least, be subject to much more stringent penalties than what exists already. A firing squad would be fine with me.

But the fact of the matter is, this isn't about the government's attempt to track child pornographers on the internet, or even perhaps trying to find the sickos that are downloading the content. There's a much bigger picture, and Eric Schmidt knows it, even if he ultimately regrets taking a heroic stance on privacy issues when other Internet titans (Bill Gates, Terry Semel and Jon Miller) are unabashedly acquiescing to government inquiries for internet user information. After all, its not good for business to turn down Uncle Sam.

The government is attempting to enforce a law that was struck down by the Supreme Court two years ago. Its almost unbelievable how brazen the abuse of power is becoming.. no different than how George and Dick are instructing their private police force to interpret the Patriot Act--which was intended to protect us against terrorists (and all of those WMD's in Iraq) in much the same manner as a James Bond "00" license.

And if not flashing the Patriot Act badge, government prosecutors have become hell bent on using any tactic to thwart those whose morality is not in line with George, Dick and the handful of others that have their finger on the red button. Hundreds of examples, and each today, the abuse of power becomes more frightening.

Whether altruisticly trying to stand up for what he believes is right, or as others contend, merely trying to use his bankroll to protect the secret sauce of Google's search technology and the underlying powers that now rests in the hands of one of the world's best capitalized corporations, the fact remains that Schmidt is putting himself into the cross hairs of what could prove to be an arduous battle. And its one that his billionaire internet brethen have chosen to avoid. After all, the government has proven that it will go to all lengths to pursue anyone that challenges their wisdom, taking a chapter from the playbook of a fellow named Putin.