Year: 2005

Wow, going to the InfoCommerce Group’s annual conference was a terriffic experience. My thanks to Russ and Roxanne for inviting me to speak.

The exciting part was meeting so many different people from such diverse companies, all there interested in the same things I am. And it was really cool introducing myself to people who then say “hey, I’m a real fan of your blog”–that’s what the first person I met said, in fact (thanks Greg!).

It was also great to meet other bloggers, some who had the energy to ‘blog the conference’. Check these out:
John Blossom of Shore Communications posts detailed live notes on each presentation, including mine.
Barry Graubart (who I didn’t meet) summarizes his experience at Content Matters Blog.

I’ll post more stuff later.

Via MarketingVox, here is a cool new b2b search engine: VerticalSearch.com

Doing searches with it, it looks like the content comes almost exclusively from B2B media publications. Well, now that I’ve read their mission statement, they that’s exactly what they have indexed to start. But they are ambitious:

“Soon we will be adding tens of thousands of B2B company sites to augment the B2B trade press sites. And, as VerticalSearch.com evolves, watch for useful community tools and features that will allow each vertical B2B community to share domain expertise, product offerings, and business and job opportunities by sector.”

Sure, this kind of thing has been tried before, it some form or another. But as I work on reviewing the online directory business, I keep seeing something similar to VerticalSearch as where directories should be headed. Let’s see how well they can do.

In August I talked about pay-per-call services that generate unique phone numbers on websites to allow tracking of response. Well, if you are a chosen ThomasNet client, you will now get phone call tracking. The press release from eStara (the call tracker) doesn’t clarify, but I would assume that these clients are getting the service as part of their fixed-price program.

In my previous post, I said this, which I still think applies to Thomas using call tracking:

This technology is being positioned for supporting advertising of service companies and local businesses, where a phone call is much more useful to the prospect than a website.

For all the job-shops and custom manufacturers in ThomasNet, this may be a much better way to judge response to their listings. Interesting.

Part of the logic and emotions that drive paying to be listed in a business directory, is whether there is competition. Directories push the fear that because your competition is listed, you are missing out and letting them run away with all the business. We marketers react emotionally, often signing up out of fear…or arrogantly rejecting being listed because the competition is there. But realistically, what is the right answer?

What directories and marketplaces do (or should do) is create an environment where prospects can confidently shop. Seth Godin soothes us in this post from a week ago called The proximity effect:

“Too often we’re beaten down by comparison shoppers and companies issuing RFPs and commodity buyers who won’t take the time to hear our story. Too often, frustrated marketers believe that they’d do better if they just didn’t have any competition.

In fact, the proximity effect can work in your favor. It usually does if your product or service is special. The proximity effect gives the consumer confidence. It creates a category where no category existed before. It lets you sell the difference, as opposed to the whole thing.”

The proximity effect is part of the Hotelling effect. Don’t know about this? First it is named after someone, not hotels and explains why Burger Kings can be found so close to McD’s. Hotelling said that two competitors located centrally have access to the whole marketplace, instead of being separated and only having access to part of the market.

This is what drives our desire to be listed in Directories. Its the same as the physical world…its location, location, location!

Two personal oberservations of mine, brought together to define what good service should be all about:

Be engaged:
In the car the other day, I heard NPR’s Terry Gross interviewing Jerry Lewis. Not something I would have planned to do, but there it was. Jerry explained two things about how he works:
1. He has an internal critic that evaluates each performance.
2. In his live shows his adrenaline (to overcome performance anxiety) overtakes all else.

In each case, he said if don’t have these, you aren’t going to be successful as a performer. He told these not as motivational mantras, but simple facts about what keeps him going at his age and health. In other words, he is fully engaged in what he is doing when he performs, and so should a customer service rep or salesperson.

Know what your customer really wants:
In a separate event, a friend of mine who is a wedding DJ, said that what he provides to his clients is not music…he provides someone they can bug for six to nine months during the planning process. A sharp guy, he knows that the product he provides is not the benefit that the customer is buying. And I’m sure he plays the part, sucking up to future mother-in-laws micromanaging a wedding.

Now bring the two together:
We need to be fully engaged with our prospects and customers, which includes listening. But we need be aware of what that person really wants that isn’t said and include that in our performance.

Sounds simple? It is, but engagement takes energy, and awareness takes keen observation.

Case example: When I was traveling the other day, eating a lousy breakfast-burrito at McD’s, my head snapped up as I heard a hearty “Goood morning” to a new customer at the counter. The young man was engaging the client, giving friendly service (not just food). Fantastic! Compare that to the normal cashier who believes there job is to ring up orders–there is no engagement with the customer, partly because they don’t see that as their job. They end up just ‘going thru the motions’.

Maybe the problem with powerpoint presentations is that the presenter becomes focused on the job of running thru the slides, and not on engaging the audience and giving them the real info they are there for.

Where do you see engagement and awareness lacking? I’m starting to see it repeatedly.

I am preparing my talk for the InfoCommerce Conference coming up in a couple weeks. At the same time I am working on renewing my ThomasNet contract. I think you will see much of my posts leading up to the program centering around online directories.

Here’s a fun one to start…Googling “thomas register globalspec” lead to this forum discussion: Where do you find info online?, posted by someone considering GS advertising. A couple responses from the engineers:

“The company lists don’t seem to help me too much (GlobalSpec, TR, etc.) The categories are too broad, and clicking on 20 of them to find the one product I need is is a lot more difficult than letting Google do the searching.”

“It seems like TR or GlobalSpec just want to give you to an unorganized list of the paying advertisers that generally might match your search string regardless of what you are looking for, oh well.”

What these two comments imply is that using these directories requires more effort than Google. They are still left with the need to filter and/or flip thru each vendor’s site. Depending on the sophistication of the search, this can quickly kill the directories’ chance to help.

Another major Google Dance is upon us, apparently. According to this article, Talking To Google About Jagger, you can register your complaints to Google, using a special ‘jagger1’ keyword. Nice way to separate the whiners from the playerz.

The article has some interesting tidbits on issues regarding Google search results and webspam and is worth reading (its short, too).

For my company site, recent changes on Google’s SERP (search engine results pages) have been very good. Most of the top twenty listings are for companies that actually manufacture what the keywords are looking for.

GlobalSpec and ThomasNet are the two major exceptions to this, which could help explain why I am seeing better traffic from both (even tho I don’t pay GlobalSpec anything).

And Google has completely dropped one major competitor who had stuffed their home page with hidden keywords and links. They have been dropped before, but only for a month or so. This time they actually removed their ‘stuffing’, so I suspect I will see them back again.

Gosh, if I’ve read a business book, chances are it has already tipped and I don’t have to say very much. Ideas ‘tip’ into sudden popularity, but even though Malcom Gladwell does an excellent job of explaining why in The Tipping Point, the question remains if this is something you can actually harness…especially as a b2b marketer.

The book shows how the ‘connectors’, ‘mavens’, ‘salespeople’, and ‘stickiness’ are extreme states that are needed to make something tip. These extremes are hard to create and maintain, making them even rarer. And in a B2B world, I think it would be foolish to think that this is something you can create or control. Your best bet is to watch for ‘tipping’ things and ride the coat-tails.

While an interesting book, I found what I learned in Paradox of Choice (amazon link) more useful personally, and as a marketer.

An ‘appointment specialist’ from the Zycon Manufacturer’s Directory called me this morning. The what? I thought. Typical spiel, promising an email with more info and appointment to talk to a salesperson, which I accepted, if only to learn more for you, my loyal readers. Do I really feel like dealing with the a sales pitch from another directory? Not really.

From what I’ve gleaned so far:

• They charge $1 per view of your product listing on their site.
• Based on reverse IP log they offer in the email, I’d say they have 5,000 visitors a month.
• Main webpage has a PR of 4 (This blog has a 6 (wow, haven’t checked that in a while.))
• Most of the new product announcements for the last three months are from just one company. The announcement page does have an RSS feed.

Anyone know about this company? I’ll post more after I talk to the salesperson.

We’ve all seen recently closed businesses with signage still entact–a ghost of commerce past. Suppose it was an upscale business? How about renting the building and putting up ‘going out of business sale’ signs and selling off-brand merchandise? That’s was has happened right here in town:

Signage controversy confusing customers at furniture store:

“Flashy going out of business signs placed side-by-side with removed lettering and awnings carrying the Ethan Allen name have some customers confused.

‘I thought it was an Ethan Allen store that was going out of business,’ said Lisa Tikkala told 24 Hour News 8. We have learned that is simply not the case, as there are no pieces of Ethan Allen furniture in the store.”

While legal action is mentioned in the article, it also says that the new EA store, just down the road, is losing business. Lesson? Guard your brand!