Marketing is?

I'm a marketing professional, right? With a recent MBA, so I know my stuff, right?

So why did I feel so intimidated reading In Search of Mediocrity in CRM, Marketing, and Advertising in which the publisher of Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine says that only one of his marketing-job candidate could define marketing. Would I be one of the many bozos who couldn't accurately answer? I got a little anxious, as if I was in the interview, and quickly continued reading to find the answer, rather than form the answer myself. How about you?

Luckily, he gave the answer later in the article, and I felt better. These are the two things that I do concentrate on in my marketing efforts. But my lack of verbalization still bothers me. Oh, what is the right answer? Here it is:

1. Create awareness, and
2. Articulate benefits.
Effectively executed, the combination of the above should generate responses which are commonly referred to as ?sales leads.?

PowerPoint Heck

Here is a list of details to watch out for when running a PowerPoint presentation with integrated video. This list is based on my experience this week putting together and running PP for our church's VBS (Vacation Bible School). Granted, I didn't do myself any favors by thinking I could dub the video from a VCR to the PC during breaks, even though I had never done this before.

• Don't turn off the monitors when you are done. Someone might think the computer is off or hung and reboot it.
• Don't use CDs or floppies. If someone reboots the machine with the disk still in, you get a very upsetting and confusing "NTLDR is missing" message.
  
• When dubbing video from the VCR, remember to plug it back into the projector--or the next segment thats still on tape won't be seen.
  
• Make sure that the sound cable is plugged into the sound board and working. It might be plugged into the wrong channel on the board, too.
• Make sure the sound-guy knows if you are playing off the VCR or PC.
• If playing a 'slide show' using XPs default tool while waiting to run the presentation, de-select any image files, in case you accidentally double-click and try to open 94 images simultaneously.
• The projector's 'video' button needs to be pressed twice to switch from the PC (once goes to S-video, which we don't use).
• Don't dub the video starting at a black screen, or you won't be sure what video it is until you start to play it.
  
• Arrive early!
• And a lesson from last year--don't touch anything while a video or sound is playing in PP.
  

Doing video/PP for such an event does have its challenges, but it does give you a geek-high and expands your skill set. Lots of fun!

Web site critique

Normally, I don't do website critiques unless I want to call someone a nitwit. This site isn't bad, but it begs to be discussed because the designer was able to get BtoB Magazine (July 19 issue) to highlight it. And it is for an industrial supplier, a target of this blog.

Chardon Rubber's new website is hailed as part of a rebranding effort to be "more than just a parts supplier". Adding "success stories" to their site is a great way to do this, although the tag line "Ensuring your success one elastomeric/innovative solution at a time" is too cliche. The biggest branding foible is not having a distinctive logo (apparently just the company's name in Arial/italic in a red block), and then burying it in the middle of the home page, and to the right on the other pages. I wasn't brave enough to download the 15M PDF of the corporate brochure to compare offline branding efforts.

Visually, the site is pleasing and integrates Flash as part of the page. The home page suffers from a scrolling marque and a Flash image with flying text--two gee-whiz efforts that shouldn't be used together. The press release hails the marque as good way for visitors to get "a quick overview of products and services" which it does (if they can read the small, fast type), but not as effectively as the image below it with a variety of rubber parts they make. Images inside the site show manufacturing and products, which also helps tell their story.

They did break some of my web design rules, though:

• Their address isn't displayed, except in a flash image on the contact page. Because they appear to have a mostly regional business, this is a major oversite. They at least need a phone number on every page.
  
• They used a globe. Okay, it was just one page, and they were probably desperate for an appropriate image, but it is a crime, none-the-less.
• Using the word "solutions". I know that they are trying to be more than a parts supplier, but I've never found this to be a convincing method.
• The site uses a non-flexible page design, including height. This limits not only the visitor, but the company's ability to make longer pages that tell a better story or show more images.
  

Try finding your doctor online

No, I don't mean try to find out if he is rated good or bad...just try to find his phone number. Or his address. Or, how about his webpage? Googling your doctor just seems to be fruitless, or at least mine are.

My primary care physician just opened a new office. He has a logo and a brand, but no website. Some digging will find a PDF file at the hospital of related doctors, but that's the closest I can come...and who wants to scan thru a multi-page PDF to find your doctor's info?

Apparently these professionals who still rely on paper and their memories haven't figured out that making a web page with their phone number, address, and hours would be a convenience to their clients, and probably make their receptionist's job easier.

So, are they clueless? Or too busy? Or fearful of an avalanche of emails? Or just don't know where to start?

If they can't get this simple technology up and going (which should cost them a grand-total of $100), when will we ever see electronic prescriptions and record-keeping?

Using email to follow-up with prospects

As part of some recent 'changes' here at work, I've been asked to manage some opportunities with potential clients. That means following up on quotes that I've sent on behalf of our now-missing field salesperson.

I'm a busy guy, so I thought it would be easiest and least intrusive to follow up via email. I spent about 45 minutes sending the same basic email, but with a personalized message relating to their quote. Results: about a 30% response rate one week later. I'm a little disappointed, as I thought my emails raised good questions that would be easy for the contact to reply to.

Next month I'll try the same thing, but use the phone. Kind of a test to see which is more effective...and find out if Email is sabotaging my sales efforts.

BTW: B2blog is taking a week off for some R&R. Yippee!

Is Google to blame?

I continue to blog about Traffic-Power (alert, fight) because I believe that smaller b2b marketers like myself were more likely to fall victim to their sales pitch. Based on my recent experience at an internet seminar, b2b marketers still don't understand the web. Now that TP-type search-engine-optimization (SEO) is banned by Google, hopefully some of these folks learn how to do it right.

My comments to TP victims:

One issue is Google's indirect complicity, which the TP-victims that contacted me have highlighted. Yes, Google let this go on too long. I've watched a competitor of mine for years hog the top spots because they've got a spammy website, while being dropped by Google twice, for just a month each time.

At the same time, you can't expect Google to tell you personally that your site is doing something illegal and will be banned soon. When people from Michigan go to Indiana to buy fireworks, who tells them what they are doing is wrong? The cashier? the Michigan government? the state troopers at the border? Most likely it will be the local cops, and only after you've pissed off the neighbors by making too much noise. And telling the cop that you 'didn't know' the fireworks were illegal isn't going to help, either. Same goes for this situation.

And as a current victim of a competitor 'spamming the index', I'm not totally sympathetic. I've known the rules and played by them, and will continue to do so. Granted, the salespeople at TP don't understand the rules or that they are violating them--they think if it works, it must be legal. Anyway, I hope you are looking at the current down-turn in business as part of the cost for inflated sales you've had while your TP pages worked.

Yes, SEO is part black-magic. Either learn it, or hire someone who knows it, especially if your livelihood depends on it. Marketing on the web is vastly more complex than getting top rankings, too. Now is the time get ahead of everyone else. If you can spend $1-5,000 with traffic-power, what can you do with your site to increase conversions??

For a more contrarian view on SEO, here is a great post from Seth Godin:

If you want to grow your business, you need a reliable and scalable and dependable way to spend time and money and have it turn into traffic and revenue. In the real world, companies do that with real estate and with advertising. Online, it's about adwords and site design.

Edgecraft with Alton Brown

What part of that title didn't you understand?

Edgecraft is a Seth Godin term for taking competitive advantages and pushing them to their limits. Understanding the whole Free Prize mantra from Seth is essential to this post, so go read my recent summary if you need to.

Alton Brown is the host of Food Network's "Good Eats". If I could actually link you to an episode or two, I would, as it would help you understand this post as well. If it helps, Alton describes himself as a 'groovy home-ec teacher'.

So let me define Alton in terms of Free Prize:

Free Prize: Good Eats, literally. Making learning fun has always been a great Free Prize (think Bill Nye). Getting enough information to get off the couch and actually cook makes it truly interactive and special.
Long-term Prize: Learning enough (and actually cooking) to be a kitchen 'hack'.
Edgecraft: Making his shows focus on the WHYS of cooking. Why a souffle will collapse when you open the oven, for example. Making the show emphasize only one topic/recipe is important, too. Alton's often-tossed "but that's another show" is testament to this focus.
Champion: The interesting thing I recently learned is that Alton went to cooking school expressly to create Good Eats. He saw the edge, and knew he had the skills to create a show, he just didn't have the food knowledge. His original intention wasn't even to be the star.

Having the champion as the star is what makes the show so addictive--obviously I've become a big fan. But now that I understand more about him (thanks Wired), I am raising him to hero-status. That isn't a casual statement to make. He saw the edge, and made it happen.

Part of my respect is his obvious willingness to push the limits and experiment with what resources he has available. Attaching a battery-powered drill to a pepper grinder is hilarious, but also smart when you need a lot of fresh pepper. More subtle is doing a split screen so you can see him talk and watch him mix a bowl of ingredients.

Making the connection between Seth Godin's Free Prize mantra and a living example is quite inspiring. It will affect what I do in my life, and not just my kitchen. Perhaps for me, that IS the free prize!

Links:
The Thermochemical Joy of Cooking at Wired
Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Alton Brown at Brian's Belly
Rants & Raves, Alton's poorly posted blog
My first Good Eats experience (I actually cooked it): Fish & Chips