The other day I told someone that I'm not a big fan of copywriting. He replied with, "I thought you were a marketer."
It's funny how many people have a very limited view of marketing. People often think of branding, advertising and copywriting. But the fact is a car salesman is a marketer, just as a politician is a marketer, just as a teacher is a marketer.
Marketing is the art and act of telling stories that generate an intended result. We're all marketers.
A person's online presence is becoming more and more important. People have suggested that you no longer need a resume - employers/partners can just Google you now. Think I'll use this blog to keep a short list of where I post writings/content/information on myself. Here's what I've got so far: LinkedIn Facebook Yahoo! Answers Kiva
One reason for the lightning fast demise of the remaining investment banks was due to a relatively simple concept -- the "snowball effect." The value of an investment bank's stock is tied very tightly to the value of its "products" -- basically, its debt. That is, when the stock price declines, paying off debt becomes more difficult for the bank. Thus, credit ratings decline, and the stock goes down further. Soon, credit ratings decline again and the stock goes down even further, and on and on. This isn't true for, say, an ice cream shop. The price a customer is willing to pay for an ice cream cone is completely unrelated to the ice cream shop's market valuation. I suppose the above is true for any bank. But the extreme leverage these companies were operating with - 30 to 1, in some cases - made these stocks very risky investments.
I went to the cobbler by my apartment to repair a pair of expensive shoes. $30. Cash only. I've never been to a cobbler before. It was a pretty cool experience. The place was packed. All businesses and industries evolve but here's one where an awful lot has stayed the same for an awful long time
As of today, the Detroit Tigers are in last place in the AL Central. This is truly unbelievable.
One other thought on Bloglines. (the blog aggregator that I plugged in an earlier post). The interesting thing about these services is that they allow a reader to completely avoid the ads served up on blogs. That is, you never actually leave Bloglines' site -- they simply feed you the text from the blogger's most recent post(s). Most of the blogs I read don't actually serve ads. They're simply using the forum as a way to generating interest and eventually selling more of their product or service. But for those bloggers that are generating substantial revenue by serving ads, these services present a big challenge.
I visit Bloglines more than any other website. Probably 3 or 4 times a day.
Bloglines is a free service that aggregates all of my favorite blogs onto one page for easy reading. They're plenty of these sites but Blogines is a very user friendly site that can be easily navigated on my laptop or BlackBerry. I'm not sure how they make money (my guess is they're charging for premium services or will be soon) but if you read a lot of blogs like I do they're definitely worth checking out.
I just started using Yahoo Answers again. This is a great source for blogging content. Just search through the questions, find something that you might be able to help with and write. What I really like about it is that it's a step beyond search; i.e. most people don't ask, "What's CPC?" You can find that on Google. The questions are much more difficult than that and thus a foundation for great content.
Here's an answer I just gave to an important question while I was riding the Acela back to New York.
Question: What is best way to keep long term clients and customers?
My Answer: I think there are three key ways to address this challenge:
A post by Seth Godin the other day stirred up some controversy among click advertisers. Check it out here.
It reminded me once again of a paper I wrote in business school proposing that marketers (and I suppose publishers) move towards more of a partnership with consumers
The post can be found here but the relevant section is below...
I propose that marketers change the way they view the consumer. Currently, it seems marketers see their function as a game of “cat and mouse.” They are chasing the consumer and the consumer is trying to escape. Instead, they should view the consumer as a partner. In a partnership, both parties benefit from each other.
Marketers should begin to appreciate the consumer who is willing to learn about their product offerings. Consumers should be rewarded for this willingness. Learning about product offerings takes time, and as the old saying goes, “time is money.” Thus, it seems only logical that marketers should pay consumers to learn about their products. That is, marketers should pay consumers to watch, read, and listen to their advertisements. This strategy has been gaining popularity recently, and smart marketers will begin to incorporate it in their plans.
So how does it work? Two examples:
A marketer sends a brochure on a new product to a consumer through the mail. The brochure includes a questionnaire on the content of the brochure. If the consumer answers the questions and mails it back, the marketer sends the consumer a check.
Marketers put informational commercials in movie theatres and pay targeted consumers to watch the movie. Of course, the commercials would be entertaining ― most already are.
An interesting extension of this concept was recently proposed by two professors at Yale School of Management. Their idea was to apply this thinking to the Do Not Call Registry. Households that sign up for the Do Not Call Registry would be allowed to authorize their phone company to connect any call that meets their price-per-minute. Households could charge different prices for different times of day or for different types of calls, a kind of reverse 900 service. Telemarketers of course pay only for the households that they reach, not for the ones that hang up. And if the telemarketer doesn’t think the consumer is listening, they can simply hang up. Consumers are equally free to quit the call and stop getting paid. This idea could easily be extended to faxes and emails.
Given the way that marketing has been done in the past, this may seem like a radical idea. But after taking a second look, it seems much more plausible. Think of the advantages for both the marketer and the consumer:
For the marketer:
- No more wasted marketing dollars on mass advertising. Rather than paying millions of dollars for mass advertising campaigns that reach consumers that will never buy their products, marketers could focus their ad budgets on selected consumers. Because the consumers are getting paid, they would be willing to give up specific demographic information. People are more than willing to give personal information to their employers, as long as they keep getting a paycheck.
- An improved image. People generally trust the people that they work for and because it is clear that consumers are getting paid to learn about products, the image of the sneaky marketer will slowly fade away.
- Compensation would make consumers much more open to exposing themselves to marketing messages.
For the consumer:
- Less exposure to annoying marketing tactics. While questionable marketing strategies will likely always exist, smart companies will cut down on traditional “involuntary” advertising strategies.
- Getting paid to watch TV. Many advertisements are already quite entertaining. Some people actually enjoy watching commercials on television. Getting paid for watching TV is a pretty good deal.
- Getting paid to learn. Many people like to learn about new products that make their lives more enjoyable.
Over time, marketers will be seen more as educators than salespeople. When companies realize the benefits of this image makeover, they will realign their marketing tactics to see the consumer not as a potential customer, but as a potential partner. Conversely, consumers will begin to see marketers not as adversaries but as partners.
Not sure who said it but it's great.
"Today is the youngest you will ever be. Act like it."
I just bought a new BlackBerry and when reviewing my plan the associate found that I spent $120 last month on text messages -- $0.20 per message. We made a simple adjustment in my plan; now I can send as many messages as I want for only $20 per month. Amazing. Texting is fairly new for me so I'm not sure how long this robbery has been occurring but it's still quite disturbing that the cell phone company I've been with for years would rip me off.
The Associate explained that they do this to incentivize customers to upgrade to a messaging plan. I suppose this is one way to drive new upgrades; once again a good short term strategy.
Another example of a short term strategy that will cause long term pain.
Did a little shopping today. Went to Kenneth Cole to buy shoes and Staples to buy a file cabinet. I found two pairs of shoes that I liked and a file cabinet that was perfect. When I asked the sales associates for my size and for the file cabinet they came back with the same answer: "out of stock -- best to check online."
This has been happening to me so often lately. It happens almost all the time at Banana Republic. What happened to all of that Kanban, just-in-time inventory stuff I read about in business school?
I'm convinced that this is not happening by accident. I'm convinced this is a calculated business decision; that is, the risk of having me not go home and go online to buy the items I want is outweighed by the costs associated with ensuring full inventory.
Interesting.
By the way, I'll probably wind up buying all this stuff online.