Month: October 2005

Interesting how little details can screw things up. I had a online survey form set-up by an outside agency for a specific purpose. Their form asked users to provide their Name, Business, Address, Phone, etc.

It was interesting how many described what their company does in the ‘business’ field. No, we just want their company’s name! And it does make working with the resulting data a bunch more work.

The details will kill ‘ya.

InfoCommerce’s last blog/newsletter had an interesting editorial that centered around this statement: “What’s fueling paid search is the pay-for-performance model, where advertisers don’t pay unless something happens.” The title of the article: In a word: Fair.

Actually the article is a good exploration for pricing of online advertising pricing. How much are leads worth? How much more are quality leads? How does pay-for-performance make for a fair bargain between advertiser and publisher?

My take? The ones charging flat rates (Industrial Quick Search, ThomasNet, GlobalSpec) are big pills to swallow. However, they promise targeted leads…high quality.

PFP sites (business.com, Yahoo/Overture) keep my business because I can maintain a low investment and just pay for performance. Lower quality, lower cost, lower risk.

Meanwhile, pay-for-performance at Google, if looked at annually, can eclipse the flat-rate sites, so the overall cost is similar. Google Adwords has proven performance and quality…probably the best value of the bunch.

Anyway, as a marketer, I depend on a mix of sites to gain visiblity and quality clicks/leads. The mix I use is strongly influenced by the site’s pricing model, as well as percieved quality.

Today’s mail brought me two articles to blog about. Both are not online, so no links:

Sales & Marketing Management wrote about blogs and yours-truly in its October issue. A concise one-page article in it’s Work/Life Balance section. “Decide if what you write about is for the general good, and not gossip or strategic secrets,” Jung suggests. Also quoted in the article is Steve Rubel of micropersuasion.com.

UPDATE: You can find the article about blogging & me here: Express Yourself (I like the Madonna title)

Now that my ego’s been stroked, here is some real content:

Circuits Assembly had a very interesting story in its October Industry News about how BTU International rescued itself from 14 negative quarters. Like a lot of manufacturers, they were caught in a recession and the shift to China. The article tells about the personnel changes and strategic efforts that brought them back. It looks like getting their arms around the international sales organization needed to support the now international client base was a big part of the successful turn-around. Well, that and good leadership, and developing manufacturing in China. Anyway, a good read, if you get CA.

Heard over a couple cubes: “Oh crap, an invite to a reverse auction!” Yes, the only thing worse than getting an official RFQ is getting invited to a reverse auction.

Unfamiliar with the reverse auction? It is an online auction where you bid the price you are willing to sell your product at. These auctions are powerful because they limit control of the sale to the buyer with price as the sole factor. That means the company buying has: decided your product is a commodity, cut out the end users, and will be unsympathetic to pleas of anything unrelated to price.

Here is an article from the other side of the table at Purchasing.com poorly titled as: Not just a cost-reduction tool:

“And while price will always be an issue, more buyers today use reverse auctions to determine best value. That is, they factor into the reverse auction equation the quality and delivery performance of suppliers. They will evaluate potential suppliers before including them in reverse auctions.

‘If they pass our quality audits, and, if they pass our financial audits, then we may allow them to participate in reverse auctions,’ says DeHart. And while existing suppliers sometimes balk at being part of a reverse auction, they often ‘come out looking good,’ he says.”

In other words, if you meet their minimum performance standards, you are included in the auction. I don’t see how that really adds any value to the reverse-auction model. But when someone else bids 25% less than you did, you want to call and ask to make sure the offer is ‘apples to apples’, but they don’t care–its a commodity.

Some time ago, I predicted a Google Calendar back in February. Looks like things might be moving foward, both in others spectulation and possibility. Here is one take on it:

A Google Calendar Theory: “Perhaps this is it. Google Calendar will be Mozilla’s Calendar Project, except it will be a Web-based hosted application running on Google’s servers and tied nicely into Gmail and Google Talk. Mozilla would really become for-profit then.”