Are you using the right hand sanitizer??

If you don't carry around a small bottle of Purell, I promise that you know someone that does, and they probably also have larger dispensers for their home, office and/or car. Why--can you spell F-E-A-R? Asian Flu, Bird Flu, you name it, we're all getting freaked out about the little germsn and mutants that are so easily transported.
What do you think you're touching when you pull that shopping cart out of the stack at the local A&P? Or how about when you (finally) put your hands on the arm rests of a plane, train or bus seat? How about when you open and close a taxi door?

Yikes...
Whats the point? Hand sanitizer sales in the US alone have doubled in the last 4 years. According to Neilsen, the market has grown from $50 million to $150 million since since 2002.
BUT..the real news is that Purell, which owns 90% or so market share is now getting its comeupance, and consumers are discovering that ALCOHOL-FREE ALTERNATIVES , such as Canada's "Soapopular" brand not only provide the same degree of germ/bacteria killing potency, but alcohol free products are safer and friendlier to use.
No sticky gel
No unpleasant fragrance (Soapopular is fragrance free)
No drying/chapping / irritation caused by alcohol
KID Safe...Want to guess how many incidents of children inadvertently ingesting Purell and winding up in the hospital have been reported this year?? Literally dozens.

Go Alcohol-Free.

Marketing Videos Became a Hit in Their Own Right

Sure, we've all read about the various home-made videos that make it big on YouTube and some not only prove powerful in the course of creating brand/product awareness, but actually turn out to be revenue producers in their own right.

Its a long distance to haul before a video on YouTube turns out to be a stand-alone money maker, but the point of today's WSJ article is that home-grown videos, especially those with a creative and irreverant twist can accomplish more than a $1million ad campaign.

Its about word of mouth!--And if you can add images/audio to the words that attract, inspire, entertain--then you've got yourself a grass roots marketing campaign that, through email alone, can land you a spot on Donny Deutch's next TV show.

Here's an excerpt:
E-commerce started with television commerce,” he said. “The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future.”

Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis., said a transition to video “will be seamless for us.” The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video “so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.”

Because Drs. Foster & Smith lacks a history in video production, Mr. Magee said the company would rely on vendors “who’ll do the video for you and just send you a piece of code to get it on your site. It’ll be an easy switch for most people. And I do think it’ll become a major thing in e-commerce.”

Whether it will be an expensive transition is unclear. In the meantime, Mr. Magee said the company should sustain its customer satisfaction levels as long as it continues to anticipate even basic needs. For instance, he said the company’s customers expect prices on the Web site to reflect what they see in the printed catalog, even though other retailers often post different prices in stores, in their catalogs and online.

Its All About the Video!! What You See is What You Get!

Come on webkins!....Why could you possibly be waiting to introduce video elements to your website???

To Raise Shopper Satisfaction, Web Merchants Turn to Videos

Mike Mergen for The New York Times

By BOB TEDESCHI

Published: July 2, 2007

FOR years Internet merchants have poured millions of dollars into new technologies to make their sites easier to use. So why aren’t online customers happier?

Customer satisfaction levels have remained almost flat through the last several years, according to a survey of about 20,000 online shoppers recently released by ForeSee Results, a consulting and research firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich. The problem, according to Larry Freed, ForeSee’s chief executive, is not so much that consumers have ignored the many improvements made in recent years. Rather, he said, they still expect more from Internet shopping than it has delivered.

“If we walk into a local store, we don’t expect that experience to be better than it was a couple years ago,” Mr. Freed said. “But we expect sites to be better. The bar goes up every year.”

In ForeSee’s latest survey, released last month, just five e-commerce sites registered scores higher than 80 out of 100, and no site scored higher than 85. They were, in descending order, Netflix, QVC.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the pet supplies site Drs. Foster & Smith. It was much the same story a year ago, when just five scored higher than 80, with no site surpassing 85.

“Scores have inched up over time for the best e-commerce companies, but the overall numbers haven’t moved drastically,” Mr. Freed said. “At the same time though, if you don’t do anything you see your scores drop steadily.”

That dynamic has been a challenge for online merchants and investors, who a decade ago envisioned Internet stores as relatively inexpensive (and therefore extremely profitable) operations. Now some observers predict a future where online retailers will essentially adopt something like the QVC model, with sales staff pitching the site’s merchandise with polished video presentations, produced in a high-tech television studio.

QVC.com is evolving in that direction. The Web site, which sold more than $1 billion in merchandise in 2006, has for the last five years let visitors watch a live feed of the network’s broadcast. But in recent months, QVC.com has also given visitors the chance to watch archives of entire shows, and in the coming months visitors will be able to find more video segments from recent shows, featuring individual products that remain in stock.

Bob Myers, senior vice president of QVC.com, said the Web site’s video salesmanship is especially effective when combined with detailed product information, customer reviews and multiple photographs.

“E-commerce started with television commerce,” he said. “The sites who engage and entertain customers will be winning here in the near future.”

Such a prospect is not necessarily daunting to other e-commerce executives. Gordon Magee, head of Internet marketing for Drs. Foster & Smith, based in a Rhinelander, Wis., said a transition to video “will be seamless for us.” The company, Mr. Magee said, has in recent weeks discussed putting some of its product on video “so customers could see a 360-degree view they don’t have to manipulate themselves.”

Because Drs. Foster & Smith lacks a history in video production, Mr. Magee said the company would rely on vendors “who’ll do the video for you and just send you a piece of code to get it on your site. It’ll be an easy switch for most people. And I do think it’ll become a major thing in e-commerce.”

Whether it will be an expensive transition is unclear. In the meantime, Mr. Magee said the company should sustain its customer satisfaction levels as long as it continues to anticipate even basic needs. F

Some businesses, however, have managed to build extensive customer service systems without spending much money — and build them in a way that, they say, improves their overall customer satisfaction levels. Take, for example, Lala.com, the online barter service for CDs and DVDs.

When the company began last year, it did not have enough money to hire an extensive customer service staff. But the site’s founders created online discussion boards to encourage a sense of community among customers. Shortly thereafter, they witnessed customers helping others with problems or questions, and a de facto customer service team was born.

Now, according to Anselm Baird-Smith, one of Lala’s founders, customers find help through so-called guides — a designation earned by a few thousand volunteers who have shown a propensity to answer questions in the forums. Not only do the customers get help, he said, but the volunteers are more loyal to the site than they might otherwise be.

“Those guys like coming to our site, spending a few minutes and contributing,” Mr. Baird-Smith said. “People like being known in their own community.”

Its About Time: SmartAds from Yahoo!

duh...displaying an ad based on the profile of the reader...

Online Customized Ads Move a Step Closer

By LOUISE STORY

Yahoo will announce new tools for online advertising today that could pull the company ahead in the race for what is called “behavioral targeting,” that is, the ability to better tailor online advertisements to the people most likely to buy.

The product, Yahoo SmartAds, would help marketers create custom advertisements on the fly, using information on individual buyers and information on real prices and availability from the vendors. For example, a person who had recently searched for information about blenders might see an ad from Target that gives the prices for the blenders that are on the shelves in the store closest to that person’s home.

The Internet has long promised this kind of one-to-one marketing, but it has often been difficult for advertisers to customize display advertisements with a broad reach.

“Ad agencies have been really struggling with how to scale the value proposition of the Internet,” said Todd Teresi, senior vice president of display marketplaces at Yahoo. “We now can get scaleable one-to-one marketing.”

The announcement of SmartAds also comes while Yahoo is recovering from an extensive reshuffling in the executive offices, including the departure of its chief executive, Terry S. Semel, and Wenda Harris Millard, the company’s longtime chief sales officer. Yahoo has struggled to catch up with Google in search advertising and has disappointed investors with its ad sales the past few quarters.

SmartAds is one attempt to catch up. Although the technology is complex, the goal of SmartAds is simple: show the right advertisement to the right person at just the moment that he is about to pull out his wallet to make a purchase.

“This fills a need that some advertisers have needed for a while — applying personalization to display ads, so they work like search and listing ads,” Mr. Kenny said. “Yahoo has a real advantage in SmartAds because of the data from their big and engaged audience, the combination of deep display and improving search capabilities, and the new changes to work with us at the technology level instead of just selling inventory.”

How Marketers Hone Their Aim Online

Can you spell behavioral targeting? Of course you can....but are you embracing it?

If you're not, you need to adjust your behavior. The driving force behind Web 2.0 and Web 2.5 billion dollar acquisitions isn't content--its search technology that empowers advertisers to strategically place their ads exactly where their most likely customers will be looking.
10 different ad placement agencies are leading the charge---and however nascent stage their applications are right now....this is where you want to allocate ad spend dollars.

Speaking of innovation, Synovativ's AdDiem --a desk top electronic billboard that I mentioned six months ago is making big inroads---the latest adopter : NASCAR....its a brilliant approach to staying in front of your customer, and not only delivers timely updates (daily) about your latest offerings, but its a trojan horse device that can be used for you to sell advertising on top of...and it cost pennies to implement....do end users get annoyed when a pop up appears on their PC screen at a pre-determined time every day? Some do , but audits indicated less than 14% remove the applet...and the balance of users will click thru at least three times. Not bad!

Landing Page 101

Introduction

You need copy for your landing page but you're not sure where to start. First let's clarify what we mean by a landing page. A landing page can be a page that visitors come to after clicking on a promotional banner or link. Ultimately, the landing page must convince the visitor that they should stay on your site. You may also have a goal that you want accomplished, such as:

• Signing up for a newsletter or filling out a förm
• Buying a product
• Reading informational pieces

What's going to keep them there? The structure, the language, and the visual appeal all play a part of it. Chëck out these tips to create a great landing page, or reinvent the one you already have.

The Structure

People arrive at your site looking for answers. They scan to see if they're in the right place and assess whether it's going to be a quick and easy visit or a long grinding one. Your landing page is the welcome wagon inviting them in and feeding them the information they need. The structure of the page will either pull them in and encourage them to fulfill your goal, or distract and cause them to cut out of there before getting the whole picture.

The structure of the landing page in general should be matching that of the banner, äd or link they clicked on to get them there. So for example, if your PPC Ad is targeting SEO articles, your landing page should discuss exactly that. If a Victoria Secret's äd for lingerie shows up and you clíck on it, you will be transferred to a landing page with the exact image and structure of the äd.

The Visuals

• Copy placement – Strategic use of copy and graphics will catch the visitor's attention. Don't muck up the page with large, distracting graphics. Use plenty of whitespace and place your message in the central portion of the page rather than placing information down the sides, where the focus can be lost quickly. Keep the copy short. The visitor expects a precise message, so don't choke it up with tons of mindless prose.
• Beauty is in the eye – Use a consistent color palette. If you have advertising or banners that link visitors to your website, make sure the concept and color scheme match across the board. It's also a great visual indicator for the visitor because they can easily identify that they're still in the right place.
• Simplify – Remove any distracting elements like advertising banners, links, or additional blocks of information from the page and get down to the specific message.

The Goal

Before you design the landing page, decide what the goal of the page will be. If you're looking for newsletter subscribers, the goal will be to have the visitor enter their information and become a member of your mailing líst.

Be a Sleuth

Do your research. Keep your visitors in mind when building your landing page and tailor it to suit their needs. By narrowing your options and focusing on your visitor, you'll stay on target.

Keep Your Focus

Keep the focus on you. You've dangled a large poster board over their head and pulled them in. Now that you've got them, don't give your visitors a reason to wander.

Use a Call to Action

A call to action, such as 'subscribe now' or 'get this offër' reminds the visitor why they are on your website. Place them toward the top of your page. For users that want to clíck, it allows them to find it easily. For those who are still deciding, it's a great reminder.

Many sites place the consultation or contact förm directly on the landing page, which may not be such a bad idea. Again, you need glaring calls to action. Don't add several useless links on the page that will take the visitor back to your main site; rather include the links that will get them to actually purchase your product/service.

Write Like a Pro

No, you don't have to hire one to look like one. What's the best way to come off like a professional? Create landing pages with no grammatical or spelling errors. I recently hit a website offering 'discount holideys.' As I clicked out of there, I pictured the four-star flea-bag motel by the swampland I might have booked if I stayed.

Reassure

People get leery when they're asked for their personal data. If you're asking for personal information, make sure you have a credible privacy policy to back you up.

Staying in Front of Customers--

Marketing Sherpa's latest edition included a great article re: e-newsletters, including a customer-centric tactic that is too often overlooked: using surveys to elicit feedback..

Tip #3. Consider conducting surveys. We do about 10 per year involving various Sherpa reader groups (not everyone sees all of them) and then feed the results right back to the audience as articles.

What does this accomplish?
1. Demonstrates your interest in what your customer's interests really are
2. Provides a vehicle that makes it easy for your customers to provide their feedback
3. Gives you two different strategies to stay in front of customers. The #2 punch is delivering them the results of the survey...now they'll feel as if their feedback has actually been taken into consideration

Couple above with a prize for completing the survey (a coupon, a free something, whatever)...and now you are on the path to a consistent strategy that adds significant good will..and additional business

Hedge Fund Mania-Gordon Gekko is Back

Having spent most of my career on or next to Wall Street, I've watched trends come and go, which inspired me to apply my intuitive skills to marketing and sales. After reading that 20th Century Fox is re-incarnating the infamous Gordon Gekko in a new film--of course starring Michael Douglas--only one thing came to my mind. The bubble is about to burst.

The original film, Wall Street, which was released in 1987 (about the time that most of day's PE and Hedge Fund czars were in high school) epitimozied the greed and glory of the pandemic Wall Street boom of the '80s. The timing of the film's release also marked the peak of a financial market cycle, which ended with one of the biggest crashes in the history of Wall Street.

The stark similarities between then and now are plainly obvious. Private Equity players are the new junk bond czars, who are accumulatng massive personal wealth of courtesy of historic-proportion leverage. Once again, this trend is about greed--and the benchmark of success is measured only by how many billions one has put into his pocket.

Good, bad, or indifferent (if I were one of the winners, of course I'd say its good), the fact is that entertainment media is the best benchmark for picking the top in the markets. Keep your shorts on--if media and entertainment projects focusing on Wall Street mania's are as predicative as they've been for the past 50 years, we're in for an interesting ride. The only difference today is that the moguls in hedge fund and private equity have accumulated so much cash, that when the bubble bursts, their mansions in Greenwich will be far removed from the epicenter...

Why Do I Need A Website??

Part of my business includes helping legacy companies get with it and get on it (the internet).. Sounds silly, right?--Doesn't every company have a website??? duh!!

After all, in 1999, Andy Grove said "In 5 years, every company will be on the internet, or they won't be companies any more." Andy is certainly prescient, but like many others, he miscalculated the life expectancy of the modern dinosaur. More than 50% of small-to-medium sized businesses don't have a website. Its fair guess that many don't need a website, which makes that practice area of my business a bit challenging when my salespeople encounter the traditional obstacles.

And I won't even mention the number of businesses that built websites 5 years ago and have yet to make a change or update them...things like displaying a phone number to contact...
In any case, I tripped across a good third party article written by Gord Hotchkiss for Search Insider i.e. Why Do I Need a Website??...below is the excerpt.

What Web Site? I Don't Need No Stinking Web Site!

One of the challenges faced by ThomasNet, or for that matter, any online property that is targeting industrial manufacturers, is in convincing some of the advertisers of the need for establishing a Web presence. These are traditional and, very often, conservative businesses that have been around for decades, and they cast a jaundiced eye at anything too new, too trendy or anything that even vaguely smacks of "geekiness." In many cases, they've been turning out steel widgets and doodads that have a very specific niche market. They know their customers, and their customers know them. So why would they need a Web site? Why would they need to advertise on a search engine? And why do they have to worry about a global marketplace? All the reasons can be summed up in two words: things change.

Agents of Change

In 1990, the travel industry was a relatively stable place. Travelers went to the local travel agents and the travel agents acted as the channel for the information from various airlines, cruise lines, hotel chains and vacation companies to the consumer. They served a vital part of the value chain in the industry. And with something as highly personalized and variable as travel, it was hard to imagine how these travel experts could ever be disintermediated.

Even when the Internet started to gain traction and the first online agencies popped up in the mid-'90s, travel agent' place seemed relatively secure, because of many of the same reasons we currently hear from manufacturers: They knew their customers, their customers knew them and the exchange of information back and forth between the two parties proved the value of this relationship.

In 1995, the number of single-office travel agencies peaked at almost 22,000, according to the Airlines Reporting Corporation. And then things changed. The online travel agents upped the ante. They demystified travel and opened up control of information to anyone who had Internet access. Airlines and hotels readjusted their booking channels to be able to go first to online agencies, and ultimately, direct to savvy travelers. Online communities formed that allowed travelers to connect with others who'd been there, seen it and done it, getting firsthand advice of where to stay and how to get there. And by 2004, the number of single-office travel agencies had been cut in half. Less than 10 years and an industry was decimated. Things change quickly!

Look East for the Future

In 1999 Intel Chairman Andy Grove said, "In five years, all companies will be Internet companies, or they won't be companies at all." Grove may have been a touch optimistic in his timing (imagine, someone over-hyping the Internet in 1999), but I don't believe that takes away from the importance of his message. One of the mistakes that travel agents made, and the mistake that many small manufacturers are making again, is to assume that just because they're not interested in a global market, all other competitors are likewise uninterested in their market.

The balance of power in the manufacturing world is dramatically swinging eastward. Another sobering fact that I came up with in the preparation for my presentation was the fact that in the U.S., there are currently about 14 million jobs in manufacturing. In all G-7 countries combined (U.S., Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Japan), there are about 53 million manufacturing jobs. In China alone, there are almost 110 million jobs in manufacturing. A manufacturing powerhouse the likes of which we've never seen before is gearing up in Asia. And those Asian companies are desperately eager to learn how to use the Internet to connect with new markets right here, in our backyard. To add to what Andy Grove said, not only will all companies be Internet companies, we'll also have to become global companies. At the very least, we'll have to be acutely aware of our global competition

Keeping Blogs Fresh--Is This a Fad?

Common wisdom for those that want the world to zero in on their blogs: keep the content fresh and keep it current.

It doesn't have to be daily, and other than professional news reporters and the professionally unemployed, who really has the time to make pithy posts to a blog on a daily basis? And who in the world has the time to go surfing around reading blogs every day??

Well..the answer to the last is tied to the first comment. Apparently worker bees within the venture capital community are magnetized to blogs. In the course of sending a quaterly news letter to my firm's fan base (predominantly those in the investment and private equity universe), I included several links within the newsletter, including latest projects and engagements, and a link to my blog. Of the 1000 receipients that read the newsletter, 470 clicked on the link to the blog, overshadowing clicks to the other links by a factor of 400:1 .

Had I known that the response to that particular link would have been so overwhelming, I would have been better prepared, and updated this site with a more current and entertaining observation. But I blew it...Every one came here and found the last posting was two months stale..
Sort of scary that so many 'professionals' within the deal world have the time to surf blogs.
So the moral to the story is..if putting an Open sign on the door, make sure to dust of the welcome mat.