You need your competition

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!

Be engaged and aware

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.

Do engineers like online directories?

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.

Dancing with Jagger

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.

Book Review: The Tipping Point

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.

New directory: Zycon

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.

Store hijacked, story at 6

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!

I'm embarrassed

I am the ruler over my computer and know how to get it to do almost anything. But today I learned something I didn't know. Something helpful that I didn't even expect, and its so easy:

Adobe Acrobat can 'Save As' the following file formats: jpg, ps, rtf, txt, eps, png, and tif. Now I can put PDF documents into a PowerPoint presentation easily and do other nifty things.

Go ahead and laugh at me if you already knew this, but I'm more excited than embarrassed.

Marketing Nitwit: Graphic Controls

I received a postcard from Graphic Controls yesterday. It was addressed to our company without a name or title to go to. Apparently the receptionist assumed it was for printing services and put it in my mail. That may be the biggest problem with this nitwit...sending a mailer without directing it anyone. (And after a little investigation, I find they are a vendor of ours--you'd think they'd have a name to send it to.)

Here's the headline of the card. Can you guess what their second error is?

Got it? They don't tell you what they do, or give any scent of information to get you to read the card. The list of bullet points below the head just give the benefits of the website, with no indication of what they sell (see the card here). If you squint at the screen shot you might figure out what they do, but it isn't until the back of the card that you read that they make "quality precision charts and marking systems".

The list of benefit bullets is lame, stuff like "Place Orders on-line" (without clarifying if they will accept PO numbers online). They bury the biggest benefit in the last bullet...the ability to search for products by OEM part numbers.

Their lastly, their special offer:
"Special for On-line orders only: $100 minimum reduced to $25 now through 12/31/05"
Okay, as I think about it, this isn't that bad a deal, but should it be a 'special'? Isn't part of the benefits of an e-commerce website is the reduced cost to handle orders? Wouldn't this serve better as a permanent change?

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are testing a shift in the minimum order. But with a lousy card like this, they are going to be struggling to get much traffic at all on their new site.

Free Monitor for Google

If you haven't got this nifty tool, go get the new version 2.0.
Free Monitor for Google

It just quickly queries Google for your ranking for a URL by keyword. Painless...unless it delivers bad news, anyway.

What's your business?

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.

Online, we can meet in the middle

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.

In the news: B2Blog plus BTU

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.

The new RFQ: the reverse auction

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.

The Google Calendar Theory Expands

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."