What is "Best Practices"

Great insight from Razorfish's David Baker...Below excerpt from this week's MediaPost

THE BUZZ PHRASE FOR YEARS has been, "let's apply best practices" to help improve our e-mail or online programs. We go through the same motions, we look at what has worked for others and try to repurpose the key call-outs for our own programs.

I'm as guilty as every other strategist or consultant in our space who makes "best practices" presentations to clients, spouting every statistic in the book to describe the consumer/marketer landscape and what works. But when push comes to shove, and I have to show five "best practices" examples of relevancy in e-mail programs, triggered e-mail programs, surveys, opt-in registration pages, or media creative... I grit my teeth and smile and present work from the industry to show what others are doing. Does that make it "best practices," though? I've seen three presentations from e-mail vendors in the last month about "best practices," and I find them less and less useful.

Best practices are like benchmarks. They are very personal and contextual. Applied incorrectly, best practices can become handcuffs. Let's face it, you can't build a differentiated business or strategy around some other company's work. While I don't completely discount looking at what's happening with your competitors or others in the online marketing space--and I've stolen an more than an idea or two that way myself--too many marketers and consultants have a copy-and-paste mentality these days. We're 10 years into this channel, and there are very few things that we haven't tried in e-mail marketing. Yes, the landscape has changed; we have more robust technology, better reporting, more dynamic abilities, a more complex delivery environment, and a more complex consumer to reach. However, the principles of what works in marketing have not changed. Honestly, I still refresh from best practice presentations from years ago and chuckle when I see the same content re invented today.

I tend to scoff at people who tout the "best practices" as a test-and-learn approach. They remind me of the consultant who did a brainstorming session and wrote everyone's comments on a large sheet of paper. After the session he walked out of the meeting and left the sheet with all the critical feedback on it behind. What's worse, he never realized his mistake or called up to ask for it. We felt cheated, as is the case with most "testing" strategies.

When you've been in the space long enough, you have already learned or figured out 80% of what you need to do to be successful at e-mail and integrating it into your interactive or customer relationship programs. The value you bring is your ability to apply it as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is called "applied learning".

As marketers, we are so tasked with production-side marketing that we are relying on artificial creativity to spawn our programs. We need to build interruption exercises into our routine to infuse creativity into our programs.

While many folks make a living off copying other programs and tactics and re-applying them in a different context, the best marketing programs don't rely on best practices alone. They rely on a mix of discipline, business rules, creativity, and timely intervention to reinvigorate the programs and teams.

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.