Month: April 2006

My first post here was four years ago. Amazing on several different points. Probably most amazing is how I’ve followed my original vision:

My first post. Lets list the current issues on my plate that I want to discuss in the future. Basically, I have several “directory listing services” to pick (or not). They are:

Thomas Register
Kompass
GlobalSpec
Industrial QuickSearch

Throw those on top of Trade advertising, website design/maintenance, and internal issues to make an interesting blog for like-minded people.

For a walk down memory lane here is my archive page from May 2002. Some sample posts:

• We came to the conclusion that sites with comparison tools attempt to make our product a commodity (not desirable).
• Marketing “Mystery Meat”
• This is a hysterical “Daily Sucker” from Web Sites that Suck!
• Directory day
• Friday’s cool links
• Despite my questioning bingo-deck’s future, I made another insertion order for one.

The one thing I do have to say is that I have written this blog as personal, a place to deposit my thoughts and reactions to doing my job that no one I normally talk to really understands or cares about. Not to pontificate, not to impress, but to just express myself in writing.

A very gracious thank you for all my readers. You have all been great listeners.

Maybe its not news or maybe you already heard, but Microsoft has killed Frontpage. Admit it, we all have used Frontpage. I actually found it to be quite powerful for what I was doing. Of course, I was smart enough to avoid using their Themes system (which is how it earned the reputation of generating ugly websites).

I’ve since moved on to Dreamweaver, but what is Microsoft going to do next? In the interest of knowing what’s going on (whether or not I’ll ever take a close look at these programs), here is the answer from PixelMill (a template site):

“SharePoint Designer 2007 and Expression Web Designer are both solid replacements to FrontPage. SharePoint Designer has been positioned as the enterprise solution to be used with Microsoft’s SharePoint solution, and Expression Web Designer has been positioned as the new ‘designer’s’ tool.”

Read more: PixelMill – April 2006 Newsletter

When I went for my MBA, I picked the school by the amount of finance classes that were required…GVSU won with just two needed. I was able to concentrate on the marketing and business classes I wanted. And I felt vindicated when the accounting professor said that marketing ‘is where its at’.

But maybe I shouldn’t be so fast to dismiss finance in marketing, especially when the Marketing Headhunter says so in his post: Why Financial Literacy?

“Increasingly, great marketers are excellent intra-preneurs who can marshal internal and external resources to get the funding they need for their expeditionary marketing projects. That means being savvy enough to speak the language of the risk-averse finance guys in your company. Naturally, the better you can communicate with your internal stakeholders, the higher the likelihood your project has of getting a green light.”

Harry Joiner links to a great finance site with spreadsheets and short articles on different finance terms and methodologies. Its like finding my Finance 524 crib-notes.

That said, there should have also been a MBA class in politics and motivation. (I’m getting my online training on politics at Big Picture Small Office, and motivation at Motivation on the Run.

Survey results can be interesting reading, but a lot of surveys aren’t that actionable. After all, knowing most people think Jessica Simpson is a bimbo doesn’t really help me any. Business trend surveys can be the same way, and the following is no exception. Those who sell to us marketers may find more value in the survey.

Industrial Marketing – SVM E-Business Trends in Manufacturing Report: “Download the 2006 E-Business Trends in Manufacturing Report – the results of a survey of over 220 marketing executives at U.S. manufacturing firms.”

So I started looking for the negative sides of some of the survey questions to help understand my competition and contemporaries. Here are three insights:

Graph 4-1 asked about effectiveness of marketing vehicles in the future. The bottom of the chart was weighted down by trade shows, direct mail, directories, and magazines (see below, dark blue is % saying less effective). I’d suspect that trade publications have a way to go to win the hearts of marketing managers again!

Graph 5-2 showed only 19% of marketers who felt they could attribute 20% or more of their business to their website (even indirectly). Either the website isn’t on their radar or they must rely on outbound marketing.

Graph 7-2 listed ‘barriers to e-business success’, which was a laundry list of political, organizational, or strategic problems. I think these barriers, if they haven’t been overcome already, as so instilled in their organizations that they will be perpetual barriers to success online (it sucks to be you!).

Post a comment if you find something else juicy in this report.

Last February 22nd, I posted I know what Google’s going to do next! Well, I was right. Google Calendar is live.

Here’s a review from StreetLessons.com
Or the analysis at Search Engine Watch
Or you can try it yourself. (And that’s exactly what I’m going to do next!)

(BTW, that one post continues to be the most active on my blog.)

Got this email this morning from Reed Business Information’s direct mail list operation DM2:

“By matching your house file to DM2-DecisionMaker’s powerful database of over 13.5 million direct response sourced business professionals, we can provide demographics such as: buying authority, job function, industry, title and more.

DM2-DecisionMaker can then offer new prospects qualified by these same characteristics! “

Very cool use of a database. And by focusing on characteristics, they can continue to distinguish themselves from new competition Jigsaw.

Our company’s spree of trade shows are done. Just two more this year. I’ve been impressed with some of the show promoter’s attempts at making their events more worthwhile or just plain easier. Here are a list of some things I’ve noticed:

• New SmartBooth programs that help you connect with attendees. I’ve written about it here before, but now I have actually used it. At the very least, it allows you to filter the attendee list and get a feel for how many visitors are actually in your target.
• Show giant Freeman has an integrated event management website that actually makes you feel like you are managing your shows. It has a little way to go yet (try to find where to reserve a forklift), but it is so much better than other shows that have 25 links to different PDF files.
• The last show I was at put round tables at junctures in the aisles. These were a nice convenience to attendees who I saw rearranging their bags, reading materials, or sipping their coffees.
• One major show included carpet, lead retrevial,, a power outlet, a table, and two chairs all in the base price. Just saving me from having to reserve all those was a blessing.

I want to continue to rant against candy bowls in booths. Even a giant like GE had mini Starlite mints in a bowl. Get real quality candy, please!!! And component people, why not give away samples instead? But more about that later.

Some readers may recognize their media company here, to everyone else, let this be a warning:

You know you’ve lost your brand voice when…

• You create 20 different positioning statements and 5 brand concept statements
• You hire a market research firm to analyze them
• The firm then surveys your customers about which is ‘most appealing’

And, frankly, all these statements suck to begin with. They lack specifics about the product and compelling reasons to be an advertiser. The survey was a chore to read all of them. It all smells of marketing by committee (and that’s how you lose your brand voice). Snippet:

“With XXX you are forming relationships with prospects, deepening relationships with customers and entering a relationship with a firm that can help you improve the productivity of your on-line marketing efforts. There is a big difference between a customer and just another click.”

Don’t ask me what message is ‘appealing’ either. These statements need to be compelling! Ask your salespeople what work with their prospects. They could write statements a thousand times better.

MORE: Maybe this article at MarketingProfs.com would help this company: Brands Matter in B2B Markets which reviews the why and how of B2B branding. Kevin Randall’s last point is important: “Strong B2B brands are branded from the inside-out, top-down, and bottom-up.” The statements in the survey seemed to be from the outside-in, which is maybe why I reacted the way I did.

I’m back. Spring break and a trade show have slowed me, down, but I’ve got a backlog of links and pieces to post. Here’s a great one pointed at by Marketing Update from Progressive Business Publishing (I recommend signing up for their email newsletters here).

This article talks about how to build a successful fractional-page ad, step by step. This is great stuff:

“If you flip through successive issues of any trade publication, you’ll often see the same smaller half, quarter, and one-eighth page ads repeating every single month.

This is often a telltale sign these fractional-space ads are paying their own way by generating solid sales leads for their advertisers, where larger, prettier, full-page ads in the same pubs often appear and disappear like footprints along the beach.”

BMA: Ugly Little Ads that Sell: How to Make a Smaller Ad Pull Better Than a Bigger One