Who's at the front of the line?

Our tired, vacationing family once walked out of a Wendy's because they were filling that must have been huge (there were three x-large sacks on the counter already). As we left, my wife doing all the fuming and me wondering exactly what Big Picture Guy was in his post The Wendy's Queuing Conundrum--was this a profitable customer, or high cost in lost sales? BPG and his CFO, General Ledger, debated the issue:

"General suggested that the man in the short line had a large order and, while this slowed things down, he was likely a most profitable customer. I countered that his order might simply be the most complex, most difficult to fill and, as such, possibly the least profitable."

We recently had this problem in our business. One of our major clients very suddenly ordered a huge amount (1/3 of our annual production, I think) of our entry-level model. While they were accomodating in the delivery schedule, we still had to extend our lead time for other clients. Now we are potentially losing sales to a number of small clients for whom this product is targeted due. But they got to the head of the line and ordered as many hamburgers as they wanted, with the toppings they like.

Read the BigPictureSmallOffice.com: The Wendy's Queuing Conundrum

Fine Wine Cable

I needed to get a car-charger for my iPod or I was going to prematurely kill the non-replaceable batteries. The charger I bought uses the FireWire cable I got with the iPod. Or is it a Fine-Wine cable?We've all seen poorly written instructions in Chinese-made goods, but I thought this faux pas was too good to keep to myself, especially on the front of the package.

Marketing commentary: I bought the product despite the obvious error.

Squared-away marketing tools

Now that I (almost) can do full-time marketing, I've got a list of a million things that we've put up with that need to be done properly. But I need to start with the basics, which Jay Lipe's post at Smart Marketing can help with:

"The concept of brand marketing is often lost on the small business person. That's because they ignore the most important of all brand concepts - consistency.

Next time you have a minute, spread across a table all of these basic marketing tools for your business:

* Business cards
* Letterhead
* Envelopes
* Thank you notes
* Brochures
* Flyers

Now, take a look at how consistent (or inconsistent) your brand is across these elements. Are the logos the same? Typestyles? Colors? Key messages?"

Trivial? Yes? Worthwhile? Definitely! Just like the soldier who makes sure his uniform is 'squared away', so should my marketing tools be. It's also humbling to see how far I really have to go.

Read: Brand marketing at its very basic

Is the brochure dead?

Is the web killing every form of communication, even the brochure?

Jakob Nielsen provides a guest column in the latest BtoB Magazine, where he continues to rail on B2B websites lagging behind B2C usability, content, and hints at the death of the brochure.

"When we test users on b-to-b sites, they tell us that they expect the same level of simplicity and polish as they are accustomed to in their personal shopping; after all, when you are spending $10,000 on a business purchase, you expect to get service that is at least as good as when you are buying a $6 paperback on Amazon."

He goes on, alluding to points made in his article last year (my review here) that B2B sites need content that supports the purchasing cycle, specifically suggesting an 'advocate toolkit'. Then he makes a more dramatic statement:

"Suppliers must change their communication strategy and develop content for the Web first, and print second-if at all. The days of repurposing printed brochures as lumpy and unpleasant PDF files must come to an end."

I agree that print comes second, but lets not kill it altogether. I develop content for the web first because this gets the new product information out the quickest, and is most flexible for doing so. This also has the benefit of editing/experience so the brochure becomes easier to do. And all the content in the brochure should also be available (usually in pieces) somewhere in the website.

However, I think the brochure (print or PDF) still is a needed tool, especially for capital equipment. Less useful, and less used, but obligatory (much like trade shows). It frames the product in a complete, total message that can be hard to do on the web. And it somehow gives substance to a product that most of the time the customer isn't going to see or touch before buying. And this makes it indispensable as part of the 'advocate toolkit' that Nielsen says is needed.

They still don't get it!

What year is this? I'm not sure because when I got an (unsolicited) email at work announcing the new website of a company I'd never heard of before, I felt like I was in a time-warp. While the HTML email is good alright, if irrelevant, it does date itself with this statement: "Visit and bookmark our website for future reference. Arris International Corp. constantly evolves to meet the needs of a changing marketplace." This belongs in the same paragraph?

I started looking closer at the email and then the website, and found a number of technical errors that just shouldn't happen in 2005--especially with a 'new' website. Not to mention marketing copy and visuals that look so 1999. But let me just pick on the technical errors, as copy and visuals are much more subjective.

• First off the email is spam, sent to our sales@ email address.
• The subject line is pretty lame: "Arris Int'l Corp.: New Website". (You may say this is a subjective opinion, but I think this actually a technical error...subject lines need to be useful.)
• The email has javascript in it (to create a pop-up of all things), which Outlook doesn't like and I imagine might get blocked by some mail servers.
• The email promotes www.arrisinternational.com, which is actually just framing the content from www.arris-intl.com. Why? Are they trying track response to the email? There are more professional ways of doing this.
• Why start to use the longer URL when the -intl URL has a Google PageRank of 5? But as you will see, they don't care about search engines.
• They use graphics for major content, including their name and address. Their name is used in text only five times in the whole site.
• Their major keywords of what they do are also in the graphic header of each page, where search engines can't find them.
• All pages have the same title-tag, which is just the company name.
• On the right-side of the home page is their worst crime against the user: A vertical-scrolling marque containing seven paragraphs and 150 words. How does one read this moving block of text?
• The graphic on the left of the page is a 1.6M animated GIF.
• Besides the navigation, there is only one link on the home page. Home pages are supposed to be about providing info-scent and navigation.

There is enough technical skill in this site to say that webmaster knows what he is doing, but enough errors to say that he needs to learn more. If they want more traffic for their site, they need to make it search-engine friendly, not send out spam.

It's the landing page, stupid!

GlobalSpec's "Marketing Maven" Newsletter had a good article on landing pages for online advertising, like AdWords. First they provided this graph to peak interest:

The message being that a specific landing page doubles response from using your home page as the landing page. For me, making specific-match landing pages is impractical, but a theme-match is. The article goes on to offer some practical advice:

1. Match Landing Pages to the Creative: "Consistency...lets visitors know they've arrived in the right place."
2. Focus on the Task at Hand: Make your call to action obvious and attractive."
3. Make Friendly Forms: "Collect only the data you must have right now."
4. Simple Pages are Best

Read the Marketing Maven

Do customers even listen?

As marketers and salespeople, we all carefully craft our message to highlight features of a product, as well as to explain what it doesn't do. Of course we are heavy on the former and light on the latter. But since we've provided a detailed, accurate description, the customer is well informed, right? Wrong. They only hear what they want to hear--here are two cases:

1. A new customer wanted to order two of our units that we promote as 'in stock'. The proposal states that we allow a few days for shipment. When he talked to our salesperson, he was told that the equipment would ship 'early next week'. His PO was in Friday after close of business, and by Monday afternoon he had sent an email complaining it hadn't shipped yet and doubting that we really had the equipment in stock. Sheesh.

2. One of our customers 'called us on the carpet' because the standard equipment we sold was missing a feature called out on our proposal. He was right, this feature is only included with its sister product. What's truly embarrassing is that we've been calling out this feature for over four years without anyone else noticing. I can only guess that this feature isn't important to the people buying this equipment, so they didn't check or care.

Is the press release dead?

The Marketing Profs declare: The Press Release is Dead (Will Somebody Please Tell the Clients?) Hey, I'm the client and now I've been told. I'm imagine the PR pros out there have been debating this issue for a while. The author, Sally Saville Hodge, makes the point that you can't expect broad PRs to be picked up by the press. Instead, she suggests:

"A short, personalized email—three paragraphs at most—to the targeted journalists with a to-the-point lead-in should not only outline the storyline but also emphasize its relevance to the outlet's audiences. This personal approach is going to have a far greater chance of grabbing the reporter's attention than a news release that's written for the masses."

I'd say that this approach has always been superior, but the less available print space has changed the demand, so that lower-quality approaches are ineffective. Less print space means less PRs will be picked up. The ability to post news to your own website also lessens the expectation that the PR needs to get in the press. Well, it lessens the need, but we need to change our expectations--those who care about our company or products will find this news on our website first anyway.

I've done a new-product PR and a newsy PR this year, broadly distributed to editors in appropriate publications. None picked up on the releases, as far as I know. Now I know why.

Semicon is a marketing nitwit

I've been thinking its been a while since I've posted a marketing nitwit here. Always fun to pick on someone else. And when I came in this morning, a 43 pound box next to my desk held today's nitwit material.

What weighs 43 pounds? Just 315 promotional brochures for the Semicon trade show! These are the free promo brochures you can request to send to your prospects to promote the show and your participation. Usually, these are tri-fold affairs that are easy to mail or stuff in envelopes. This Semicon brochure is 50 pages, 1/8th inch thick, and weighs 2.3 oz. Worst yet, they would cost 83 cents to mail.

But would it really cost me anything? They do have a "presorted first class postage" indicia on it, so the postage would be on them, right? No, presorted first class would require I meet the terms of presorted, including a 500 piece minimum. Plus, I don' t think the local post office would accept the indicia from California--at least I'm not going to waste my time finding out.

How many companies are going to want to deal with this piece? Not me.

Go ahead, think negative thoughts

I am not a self-improvement geek. Tony Robbin's smile is just a little too scary to me. But I like to do better, to make incremental improvements in my life. Maybe its better to say, just like my marketing, I like tactical improvements, not strategic changes. Tactical (yes): getting an MBA, Strategic (no): opening my own consulting firm.

But being tactical can sometimes be a problem if you aren't on the right trajectory. So an infrequent, but close, review of your life's goals and your strategy for achieving them is needed. Sometimes I get frustrated by my inaction to do this--you know, where your goals are more like wishes and your strategy is procrastination.

Here is the eye-opener that got me thinking about this. In an email from a much more approachable improvement guru, Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler, she stands the conventional goal setting approach on its head. While goal-setting is good as a guide, it doesn't make a compelling tool to motivate and drive us to action. She puts it this way:

You really only have three choices about how your image of the *you of the future* will look. Your choices are something like this:

Choice One: Somewhere between how you are today, and a totally broken mess. Here is where the *avoiding pain* motivator could kick in.

Choice Two: An exact duplicate of how you are now except ten years older. Absolutely nothing will have changed in a decade. Again Â? not a very satisfying picture for most of us, and perhaps a strong *avoid pain* motivator for many.

Choice Three: A happier, healthier version of the *you of today.* This will kick in the *gain pleasure*motivator.

Obviously, no one would choose to visualize choice number one. But in doing so, you may in fact create a hot and intense *amygdala shunt.*

So every time you see some image that reminds you of NOT moving ahead, your amygdala shunt will spur you to take automatic action. *Make that phone call NOW,* it will insist? and you will have the telephone in your hand before you even think to procrastinate.

Wowa, what's an amygdala shunt? From the same email:

Recent research has proven thereÂ?s a direct route from your eyes to a unique part of your brain called the amygdala (ah-mig-da-la). So what? This happens without going through the conscious portion of your cerebral cortex (your thinking brain.) ...

The secret is this: The more emotion tied to those images, the more likely they are to be rushed directly to your amygdala. And once they are there Â? the more likely they will cause an automatic positive response in support of your goals.

So now I have to think of what I don't want to be in ten years and let that drive me--drive me to revisit my personal strategy and goals even. It'll be a scary picture I won't share here! You could certainly use this reverse-psychology technique in your marketing, sales, and business.

Don't be afraid to sign-up for her newsletter/ezine. And if you like the above message, maybe you'd like to hear about her #1 product. Let me know if you buy it, I'm still on the 'free' bandwagon.

More on the death of the Green Books

I’ve been slacking on posting to this blog, but not at work. Dumping my sales tasks and jumping to marketing has taken longer than I had hoped. I’ve really wanted to get a more in-depth review of the status of Thomas Publishing Company (TPC) now that we know the Green Books are dead.

First off, the Books aren’t dead yet. The announcement was that the 2006 edition (yet to be published) would be the last. TPC is promoting the longevity of this last edition, which I think is just an attempt to keep print advertisers from jumping ship. Yes, they will last longer, but will anyone look at them—As Linda Rigano of TPC admits, “All of our buyers are online.” Even still, they have about 6,000 print advertisers in the 2005 issue.

Published court documents regarding the ownership of TPC document the change in revenue sources between 1993 and 2002. Its surprising how their income continued to grow until 2001. What is most important for advertisers is that their subscription income (from businesses, colleges, etc.) dropped from 17M to 1M in a span of 5 years. Even at a low $50 a subscription, that would be just 20,000 sets of Green Books in 2002.

So, we can all agree that the print directory deserves the death it faces. But what about TPC? Can they survive selling their online directory? The gossipy types can listen to buzz and snipes, but it doesn’t really prove anything. Overall, I think that each online directory/service has its own major flaws, and Thomas has now escaped their biggest one—but they now have to sharply address how their other flaws before their business quickly shrinks. What other flaws: The god-awful number of product categories and their lack of direct control of listings, for a start.

I personally think that TPC’s greatest opportunity is to develop websites for their clients. A lot of these smaller industrial companies are still so clueless about running a website. But TPC isn't geared for doing this, as far as I can tell. Ms. Rigano’s comments alludes to this need, too: "If a client doesn't have a good Web site, it won't do us any good to sell them a traffic-based program.”

Boyink says: you get what you pay for

Mike Boyink explains the root cause why church websites suck...because the church doesn't have to pay for them. I think as web-geeks, we've all been asked (or volunteered) to do a pro-bono website, probably with poor results. Mike's nailed it on the head.

"I'm seeing a pattern here, and it angers me. It angers me that, as the church, we can always find the time and motivation to re-implement a site on a different backend, or change the site architecture, or implement new navigational widgets.

But try...just try...to find someone to invest that same effort in writing interesting, valuable content. "

Read more: Church Webmasters - Stop Working for Free
And church website guru Mean Dean's reaction

Dave's two rules for fixing things

Every so often I wonder why I haven't posted my two rules for fixing things. This is a theory that I've proven over and over to myself. If you are the go-to guy when something doesn't work, these will make you look smart (or embarrass the requester, depending on your style).

1. Jiggle the wires.
2. Check for gas.

Probably this is as much as the typical tech-support guy knows how to do, but its surprising how often that is all you need.

Engineering's indispensable tool

Interesting reading if you sell to engineering types, but nothing particularly earth-shattering:
"A new Test & Measurement World reader survey shows how the Internet continues to transform the work lives of engineers"

The accompanying article How leading vendors lure website vistors is much more interesting to us marketers. This is a glimpse into the world of four top engineering websites. Their trend-setting will certainly raise the expectations of engineers from other websites, like this from Agilent: "The company also has significantly increased Web content for older products, including manuals and application notes, to help customers get more value out of existing assets."

Thomas Register Print Edition Nixed

Thomas Register Print Edition Nixed

"It has been our strategy for the last 10 years to eventually eliminate the print properties. It was just a matter of how long it would take."

Gee, what a surprise! Thanks Mike for getting this to me first.