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August 28, 2007
Thinking out loud as I usually do, it came up in a conversation that I should become regular contributor to Marqui’s Blog. It has felt a little quiet on our company blog so weekly I’ll be sharing my thoughts and I welcome your comments and feedback. *handshake*
Viral Web Marketing – 6 Tips
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about new tips for viral marketing. It is a marketing practice that facilitates and encourages people to communicate and pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral marketing campaigns are also known as word-of-mouth campaigns, referral marketing or network marketing.
To date, viral marketing is the most cost effective form of marketing and can produce a powerful impact. Using viral marketing, your campaigns will suddenly get a life of its own - and start to spread like wildfire.
Here is a recent Viral Marketing campaign we all have seen lately from Dove:
September 19, 2006
I talk a lot about Social Networks here. I think they're extremely important to marketers, because they hold the key to future consumers and marketers (and are the people who will run the world when we're all old...) I ran across a great post by Sean Carton (I'd include his bio link here, but it's broken) on the ClickZ Network (one of my favorites) on the dangers of inauthentic behavior in Social Network marketing.
What marketers don't seem to realize is that people in the 16-29 year old range can smell fakery (or will quickly discover it) a mile away. Why do we think we can get away with "play characters" or fake personas as we market to such media savvy, technically savvy people? What on earth are we thinking? And who is consulting with the dopes in corporate marketing organizations who rely on "industry experts" to guide them through marketing in this new medium?
It's amazing to me that we raise our children to know the difference between truth and lying, yet we market to them in their own hangouts in a false manner. What are we thinking?
Read Sean's article. Click on his reference links. Learn something about how not to market to the future leaders of the world.
July 12, 2006
We're pretty proud of our logo here at Marqui. It's different from the logos of most software companies (in terms of size, concept, etc.), and that's exactly what we like about it. I mean, check it out...
Unfortunately, the unusual shape has caused all kinds of interesting problems. It drives our designers crazy trying to fit it into our collateral. Our product development team has had to jump through hoops to incorporate it into the user interface of our software. And when we signed up as an exhibitor for an upcoming tradeshow, the show coordinators couldn't squeeze our logo into the designated exhibitor section on the Web site...so they decided to "fix" it for us...
Lovely, isn't it?
To their credit, the event coordinators swapped out the amputated version with a more acceptable image as soon as I sent them a note.
I must also admit that sometimes the strange shape has actually worked to our advantage since we've received better placement in ads, e-mail promotions, etc.
So what's my point? Well, if you are looking at new logo designs and are considering going a little "outside the box," consider yourself forewarned: people might take some liberties with it.
Of course, we still like our logo. Odd shape and all.
July 10, 2006
I ran across an interesting paper written in 2004 by Roy Williams on marketing to the "Emerging" generations here (free download). It basically outlined why Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are no longer relevant - because Emerging generations see the world differently - and the line that hooked me was this:
"Businesses that don't get in step... are going to find it increasingly difficult to succeed."
Prophetic. We've been saying that for the past 18 months, too. More from Mr. Williams' paper:
"Based solely on the core values of the emerging generation, here's what I believe we can expect to see beginning to happen during the next 3 to 4 years:
1. A decline among prestige brands such as Rolex, Harley-Davidson and Gucci. (JJ: How about Sony, Morgan Stanley and Volkswagen? The new Businessweek/Interbrand study should be out in a month - here are the biggest losers in 2005, according to them. Stay tuned for the biggest losers this year. Meanwhile, here's a list of the top 25 "stickiest brands" online from ClickZ. No luxury brands there.)2. The end of "upwardly mobile" as a slang expression. (JJ: Can't remember the last time I heard that one!)
3. A decline in the effectiveness of traditional advertising. (JJ: Pick a marketing 'zine, any one, and read that in the headlines.)
4. Comparison-shopping to be done increasingly online, though purchasing will remain in
brick-and-mortar stores in many product categories. (JJ: Yeah, it's hard to buy a barbecue online...)
5. An increase in volunteerism and donor support to socially responsible organizations.
6. A slow increase in the popularity of labor unions. (JJ: Check out the news of unions and China from this weekend here.)
7. A slight decrease in the divorce rate as couples become increasingly committed to family
unity and fall less under the spell of idealistic "true love.""
In passing the paper internally, it was funny to get a note back from Tara (who's definitely NOT a Boomer). Her response was this:
"I don't know that I buy the piece about the current generation being more into social obligation and less into opulent spending. Most people my age (i.e. late 20's/30's) are in debt up to their eyeballs buying fancy stuff they can't afford and probably spend less than 8 hours a year doing volunteer work.Or maybe he is referring to the next generation down (i.e. people in their teens right now?). I still find that hard to believe."
"Of course, maybe I'm just living proof of his perspective -- I basically just called everyone in my own generation a poser!"
May 22, 2006
In case you missed it last week, an archived version of our latest Web seminar on business blogging is now available.
As a quick reminder, this seminar featured Shel Israel, Lynann Bradbury and Marqui's very own Michael O'Connor Clarke.
Participants asked a lot of great questions during the event; we will try to post responses to everything this week...
March 29, 2006
Another pretty eyetracking image for you, this time courtesy of Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice Coyne of Nielsen Norman Group. Based on their recent research, it appears folks aren't looking at Google ads in the right-hand margin any more than they do banner ads.
This image was published as part of the promotion for Neilsen's and Coyne's upcoming Eyetracking Web Usability tutorial(s). Might be worth checking out.
(Thanks to the folks at the Blog Business Summit for the heads up about this.)
March 15, 2006
Janet and I had a mid-project status call with the Influencer50 folks last week. They have already sent out the survey and received a healthy response -- 7.5% of the people who received it ended up completing it.
I won't disclose the full results of that survey quite yet (we may end up doing a press release on it later on), but here are just a few tidbits we found interesting:
*83% of respondents said they have already implemented (or plan to implement) some form of marketing automation or campaign management software.
*40% of respondents said they regularly read AdvertisingAge Magazine...whereas only 14% said they regularly read PR Week. (Kind of intriguing given that this particular survey even went to a PR Week subscriber list!)
*Only 15% of respondents said they are planning to attend Ad:Tech Chicago or San Francisco in the next year, whereas 62% said they will attend regional shows such as AMA, BMA, PRSA or DMA events.
If we do decide to issue a press release on the full survey, I will be sure to flag it here.
Next up for the Influencer50 team: more research to determine who the top 50 industry influencers are for Marqui's market.
And BTW, since I know a few of Marqui's competitors like to lurk around this blog...I hope you enjoy these little nuggets of info!
February 15, 2006
For those of you following our Influencer50 project, here's a link to the survey they put together. Based (in part) on the information they glean from these questions, they will compile a report of the top 50 influencers in our market.
Of course, if you are a marketer and are so inclined, please take a moment to fill out the survey and help us with the project.
February 13, 2006
Another interesting question from Marqui's RSS Rx web seminar concerns our neighbor to the north, Microsoft. We had just discussed the fact that Microsoft was incorporating "web feed" technology (their term for RSS) into every one of their Microsoft Office applications Todd Watson asked:
Q: Will Microsoft's incorporation of RSS potentially create a rift in the standard and lead to a fractionalization of the subscription space (i.e., IE v. Netscape), or do you think it will drive synergy and harmony and, in turn, widespread usage?
A: I think it will drive synergy and harmony and certainly more widespread usage and adoption because of the sheer number of Microsoft users out in the world. They're not doing us any favors by 'renaming' RSS to "web feeds," except that it's a better, more friendly way of describing the results of the technology. People will subscribe to feeds in ways we haven't even anticipated yet.
That's a promise I know I'll see delivered.
10/29/2005 10:30
Robert Scoble just started his presentation at the Blog Business Seminar by pointing out a great resource for anyone interested in the latest and greatest news about technology. It's a site called Tech.Memeorandum and per the description on the site, it is "auto-updated every 5 minutes with the most relevant items from thousands of news sites and blogs." BTW, as a side note...Scoble says he currently reads about 1,400 feeds/blogs a night. He also says that with better technology he could probably do 10,000. Can you say overachiever???
10/17/2005 10:03
Janet and I usually try to avoid using Marqui's World as some sort of platform for Marqui sales pitches, but we've been a little quiet the last few days and I wanted to briefly explain why. Well, we've been hard at work prepping for the launch of the latest addition to our software suite: a corporate blog module. (The formal announcement went out this morning, if you'd like more details.) Okay, I'll leave it at that since I don't want this post to be too annoying/salesy. We will now return to our regular programming of (reasonably unbiased) insight on the wild world of marketing...
October 6, 2005
At a recent conference the idea surfaced about the impact of blogs on traditional customer response models and if the dynamic between marketing and sales needs to change. My answer is that indeed it does. For web based marketing is moving from search to subscribe and from capture and deliver to building a conversation with the prospect. Implicit in this is the need for marketing to manage that conversation and nurturing the prospect before passing it over to the sales organization.
9/21/2005 10:35
Janet's post about the PRSA event on blogging reminded me that it is Global PR Blog Week time. Don't know what this is? Let me elaborate... Global PR Blog Week 2.0 is designed to engage public relations, marketing and business professionals in a discussion about how new communications technologies are changing public relations/business communications. It's an online event that runs from September 19 to September 23, and includes participants from Argentina, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States. Participants will publish 70 case studies, articles and podcast interviews on new communications technologies. This morning's discussion started off with the oh-so-inflammatory topic of blogs vs. press releases. Shel Holtz elaborates on why the growing popularity of blogs doesn't necessarily herald the death of press releases. Global PR Blog Week is free and open to everybody, so check it out.
9/20/2005 12:06
Apparently, people are becoming more like machines. Or we're relying on them much more than we should. Case in point: I just received an e-mail from Media Post (whom I trust and respect - which is why I enjoy subscribing to their newsletters) with the following opening paragraph:
While users of Really Simple Syndication are frequently considered early adapters, new data issued by Nielsen//NetRatings suggests that many who use RSS technology do so inadvertently.Now, I'm not someone who considers herself a great writer. But I know the difference between adapters and adopters - pretty much right off the bat. I found the title of the news note to be ironic, in light of their adapter/adopter faux pas:
RSS Users Newshounds, Not Tech FiendsNow I know my sense of what's funny is warped, but I really got a chuckle at this obvious oversight. There is really something to be said about having someone edit your work - especially when it is meant to be broadcast to a bunch of marketers.
9/16/2005 11:17
Okay, I admit it...I have a serious Google problem. I must Google at least 10-15 times a day. I use it for almost everything. So you can imagine my delight at seeing Janet's post yesterday about Google's new blog search capabilities. She and I have chatted at length about the myriad benefits of Google, and she often shakes her head when I talk about all of the ways I use it. For example, on any given day, I might go to Google for: *Media coverage searches: Google News is still one of the best ways to find out who is writing about Marqui and our competitors. Sure, there may be more comprehensive services out there, but Google is free and it's fast. *Industry research: Need a stat on the size of a market? Just type in a few keywords along with "statistics" or "market size" and you'll find all sorts of relevant information from analyst groups, etc. Of course, it's important to double check any stats you find and adhere to any copyright restrictions to avoid legal issues, but it's a good place to start. *Images: Many people don't seem to know about Google Images but this is a great little tool for finding logos or images for presentations. (Legal disclaimer: Once again, watch out on the copyright front!). To provide an example, during preparations for a recent Marqui Webinar, I needed to gather photos of the speakers. Unfortunately, one of the speakers couldn't locate a digital photo. I popped onto Google Images and within 30 seconds found a photo she had used at a previous speaking engagement. *An online dictionary: Can't remember the exact definition of "paradigm"? No problem. Type "define: paradigm" into Google and you'll get all kinds of definitions and references to the word. *Spell checking: Since Google thoughtfully flags potential misspellings with a polite "Did you mean...?" it is great for sorting out whether a word like "embarrassment" has one "s" or two. Obviously, there are more tricks out there, but I only have so much time to indulge my little addiction this morning. And on that note, I must sheepishly admit that while writing this post, I got curious about who else is using the term "Googleholic"...so I Googled it...and found more than 12,000 results. Guess I'm not alone. Perhaps this is why Google has such a lead over the other search engines. According to Nielsen NetRatings metrics, Google leads the search market with 46 percent share, while Yahoo! had 23 percent, MSN had 13 percent and AOL had 5.4 percent. Googleholics unite!
8/4/2005 13:41
As Janet mentioned in an earlier post, we just finished up our latest whitepaper. We decided to focus on Multicultural Marketing this time, so we teamed up with our partner, viaLanguage, to make sure we covered everything correctly. (For those of you who aren't familiar with viaLanguage, they specialize in localization and translation.) Anyone who is interested can download the paper here. This whitepaper complements the Webinar Marqui and viaLanguage hosted this morning, "Multicultural Marketing: Breaking Down the Barriers." More than 200 people signed up for the event and so far the feedback has been very positive, so we are feeling pretty good about it. Similar to the way we handled the Gross Blog Anatomy Webinar, we'll provide a recap of the Q&A section of the presentation over the next few days. We'll also post a link to the recording once it's available. As always, we'd love to hear what people think about the Webinar or the whitepaper so feel free to send us an e-mail or post a comment.
8/1/2005 13:04
Color is subjective. At best. I was reading a blog entry about color on the Industrial Brand Creative site aptly titled: "That's Not the Colour I Approved!"
7/26/2005 9:47
You gotta love companies that take something as bland and irritating as a 404 error page and do something fun with it. For instance, while browsing Technorati yesterday, I accidentally typed an extra character in the URL. Instead of getting the standard "page not found" message, I got: "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that." Very clever. This got me wondering whether there are other interesting 404 pages lurking about, and guess what? There are entire Web sites devoted to this topic. For instance, there is the 404 Research Lab (warning: some of the links on this site are R-rated, but many of the 404 pages are pretty funny). And a simple Google search yields dozens of discussions on the topic. The reason I bring this up? Companies could be missing a great opportunity to communicate with site visitors by "neglecting" their 404 page. Some of the suggestions I found on the 404 Research site include: *Encourage people to go somewhere other than back by providing links to key pages on the site. *Include a search box to search the site. *List the links on the site that are similar to what was entered, in order to guess what the visitor was looking for. The point being to keep people on the site and/or drive them to pages you want them to visit. Marqui will be revamping its Web site in the next few weeks, so it'll be interesting to see what we can cook up along these lines...
7/21/2005 15:44
Yep, it's that little red box (a.k.a. a "chicklet") under the list of recent entries. In theory, FeedCount will help Janet and I track how many folks are subscribing to our RSS feeds. It's one of the many services available through FeedBurner, a company that specializes in helping folks make the most of RSS. Of course, I've only started digging into what FeedBurner has to offer and I currently understand maybe 60% of the info on the company's Web site (can you say geek speak?), so stay tuned for more on this later. I'll try to decipher as much as I can...
7/21/2005 12:26
Funny, I just popped into Janet's office to tell her I was blogging about that MarketingSherpa copyright article, only to find she'd beaten me to the punch. Great minds think alike, I guess...only she seems to think a bit faster! At any rate, this is just a quick post to say Flackster is at it again. Michael O'Connor Clarke has posted his latest and greatest on the Seven Deadly Agency Types: If It Moves, Bill It. Bottom line: Agencies, knock off those smarmy billing practices. Clients, make sure you are keeping an eye on those invoices and think twice before you spend 45 minutes chatting up your account team about the weather.
7/15/2005 15:14
Wow. This was a great presentation at WebVisions 2005 on why simplicity in design matters. I hope the notes translate well. BJ Fogg Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab What People Love, Inc. Why Simplicity Matters – he had great, beautiful slides - nary a word on them. He told a story about being at SeaWorld, "Watching operant conditioning" with fish. As they were going home, they were heading up I-5 – and he watched a truck turning in front of them. He knew they were going to smash into the truck. He was immediately surprised by noise and jarring – more than he'd imagine. The first thing that went through his mind – before anything else, was Ctrl-Z (for those of us who use a keyboard, that is the keystoke combination for undo.) Lesson: The tools we use change us. Ctrl-Z was an instinct to him at that moment. He knew a ballerina once, well enough to see her toes. Ballerina shoes had deformed her toes. We're at a pivot point in the world. We're replacing roles that kings, bishops, shamans, etc. used to play. People shaping technology are reshaping the rituals of today and of the future. As we design systems, we need to look at the impacts we can have in the world. Fascinated that computers can change beliefs and behaviours. Became concerned – now says how computers can manipulate people. Power behind design is like fire – it can be used to warm, shed light, or can be destructive - torturous. State of computing today is like a slow torture. How many hours / month do you spend solving computer problems? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to spend one minute working on problems with our digital products? The digital products we create today will shape the future of the planet. He showed a cute video he'd made about a Monkey trying to find the weather on Saturday for a picnic. He went to his nagging computer – ... Microsoft updates are available… ... you have a message from Brittany spears… ... you should archive your files… ... you should check for viruses… He says no for all the nags. he left the session knowing the weather, but feeling poked, prodded and nagged by his computer. Notes on computer / human interaction: Frustration: that feeling that we get when something is harder to do than we think it should be. Along with it comes powerlessness and resentment. Those feelings spill to the brand of the company making it hard. Delight: benefits go well beyond the cost Satisfaction: Costs and benefits are even. Stay out of the frustration corner. Reduce tasks to the bare minimum. Design for simplicity. Why? 1) We're lazy – we're born to be efficient. Hardwired to be lazy. (shot of lion sleeping) 2) We have limited abilities. 40% of American adults are either illiterate of semi-literate. Wow. These are people who don't have limited opportunities… or didn't work hard. They simply can't read or write effectively. 3) We are busy. We don't have tolerance for not getting things done. 4) Simplicity sells. Google, Netflix, consumer products world are way ahead of technology companies. Solve for focused needs. What are the problems people are having, and how can we solve them? 5) Inclusiveness is imperative. Excluding people is unfair. 6) We free people through designing for simplicity. Ride the extra energy they have. 7) Radical simplicity is a relatively untouched field. We have plenty of opportunity here. Benefits of designing with simplicity: 1) Learning – as you learn more, the costs go down. You can introduce fun or entertainment, which makes the costs come down. People love a sense of growing competency. That's the secret sauce in the gaming world – immediate feedback that you're getting better. Gratitude is ‘healthiest emotion you can feel.' What's getting in our way of designing for simplicity? Standing still on your hands is 5x harder than walking on hands – because you can fudge to stay up. You have to get everything just right to just stand simply on your hands. 2) Simplicity is brittle. Manufacturing product changes in – challenge in designing systems to preserve the design. 3) Benefits are fickle – what people feel are benefits change quickly based on these costs: time/physical resources/money/cognitive load What do you have the least of? Depends on where you are in your life. Individual costs are individual, and designing to those scarce resources and costs are 5x harder - which is why fewer people are doing it. Avocates of Radical Simplicity 1) Research – boil it down to something you can get a hold of. a. “I just want to get a phone that makes phone calls� b. Women, seniors are different from young male engineers who are generally creating technology. 2) Empathy – it's a quality you can develop with practice – the #1 quality he wishes from his design students at Stanford. If you have great empathy, you can go a little lighter in the research phase of design. 3) Courage – don't be afraid to say no. Too many people just jump at “we can add this feature!� Everything should be data driven. Add features only when they're data driven. Every feature you add or element you add to your product or website adds to your risk of failure. Start each day asking yourself: What is my true north, what are my values? What do I do best? Focus on those things as you do your work. Simplicity will follow.
July 7, 2005
As some of you may recall, I posted a little rant a while back about wire services. I raised the question as to whether or not it made sense for smaller, private organizations to bother using the big name services (i.e., Business Wire and PR Newswire) given the high cost and seemingly marginal results. So, I embarked on a little experiment and compared the four primary services: PR Newswire, Business Wire, PrimeZone and Market Wire. I also took a look at what happens using no service at all.
Now, before I dive into the results, let me briefly explain my methodology. It was pretty simple -- I wired press releases using each service and then compared them based on cost, ease-of-use, reporting capabilities and overall impact. A little disclaimer here: I couldn't exactly wire the same exact release on the same exact day using four different services, so obviously one could argue that my results are skewed by variations in date and the "newsworthiness" of each release. But hey, I don't work in a lab and I'm not exactly a scientist, so bear with me.
7/6/2005 9:20
In a simple graphic, once again, we can see the patterns that a human eye makes when 'reading' e-mail. Eyetools has a 'heat tracking' system that can track how an eye scans material - where they go, how much they linger, and what they pay no attention to. Advertising Age carried a story about the technology and how agencies are (ahem) looking at it. You may have to subscribe (free) to see it. Have a look at the image map of the e-mail study here. It's really quite fascinating. The cool thing is that some agencies are starting to use their technology to create better material for their clients. The really cool thing is that there's an Eyetools blog where you can see some of their research findings. Today's post is about branding - and there's a fabulous shot of how a brand can be literally hidden from sight in a couple of sports shots. Scroll down the page - you'll find it. Poke around the Eyetools site and their blog. It's worth the time.
7/5/2005 17:09
I exchanged a couple of e-mails with Flackster's Michael O'Connor Clarke last week, and it reminded me how much I've been enjoying his posts on the Seven Deadly Agency Types. For those of you who are at all familiar with the PR world and haven't had a chance to read these yet, you should check them out. Immediately. He still has three more to go (which he promises he is working on!), but here are the first four: Part One: The Classic Sweatshop Part Two: The One Trick Pony Part Three: The Behemoth Part Four: The Flack of All Trades
6/27/2005 17:04
We just posted it online with our other whitepapers. Of course, we couldn't resist asking for at least a little information from folks before they download it, so I apologize in advance to anyone who finds that annoying. Janet and I try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum but hey, we're marketers!
6/17/2005 14:53
I was perusing Paul Kedrosky's blog earlier today and came across his post about the new Feed Awareness API from the clever folks at Feedburner. According to Feedburner, the Feed Awareness API will "enable any 3rd party to query feed statistics on FeedBurner feeds." Why might this be of interest? It will pave the way for people to get more detailed feed information and metrics, of course. Feedburner says that NewsGator and Rojo already have plans to support it. For those of you who aren't familiar with Feedburner, the company helps people manage their syndicated feeds -- from increasing awareness to tracking circulation/usage to providing a "foundation for monetization." (Isn't that a pleasant way to say it???) There is an impressive amount of techno-babble on Feedburner's web site, but the section explaining RSS is actually pretty helpful.
6/16/2005 10:56
If so, you are not alone. As part of the registration process for our recent Webinar on Marketing Trends, we asked everyone, "What are your top challenges from a marketing and communications perspective?" We gave registrants a number of options and allowed them to check all that applied. Out of the 92 people who registered: 75% checked the box for "demonstrating measurable results" 65% checked the box for "leveraging new tools/technologies" 45% checked "keeping costs low" 42% checked "improving staff/process efficiencies" Other options included "protecting brand integrity" and "ensuring version control on key documents." In terms of demographics, about 30% of the attendees were director-level and above, and another 30% were managers/senior managers. On a somewhat related topic, Janet and I will be participating in another Webinar on June 23 at 9 AM Pacific. This one will focus solely on corporate blogging. To sign up, click here.
6/6/2005 10:24
In an earlier post, I mentioned the value of running e-mail copy through a spam analyzer prior to any large e-mail campaign. By doing this, marketers can determine the likelihood that e-mails will be flagged as spam and adjust the content accordingly. Since Marqui has been doing some e-mail promotions around our upcoming Web seminar with AMI-Partners, we asked our list broker, Ann McMullen of MediaShark, to do this for us. Our score on the spam test: 1.2. According to Ann, anything over 5.0 would be cause for concern. (Note: The rating system varies depending on the tool you use.) For those interested in reading more on this topic, Ann recommends the following two sites: 1) Email Marketing Best Practices 2) Email Marketing Strategy Tutorials
5/16/2005 12:58
A new study published in Time, Inc.'s Life supplement (remember when it was a 'real' magazine on its own?) recently found that most 18-24 year old Americans come to work on Monday mornings "exhausted." Their weekends are consumed with chores and work that they don't have time to do during the week. (Really? At that age?) Now... when I was 18-24, I pretty much went to work on Mondays exhausted, too. But no one wrote (or cared) much about it. We were expected to have exhausting weekends at that age. In an article on Advertising Age's web site, the study results were discussed from a marketer's perspective. Apparently, people over 55 don't have exhausting weekend issues, coming to work relatively refreshed on Mondays. Never mind getting through your own weekend chores, you'd best start worrying that your mail blasts may not get the attention they deserve if your prospects are youthful and prone to exhausting Saturdays and Sundays. Of course, if your prospects are more mature, you might have a better chance of reaching them with your compelling headline on a Monday morning. It's only Monday afternoon. I'm kind of tired (I'm well on the way to the mature age group) and am looking forward to e-mailing prospects on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Every study I've ever read has said the open rates on e-mail campaigns are best on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. But the reasons have never been articulated with quite this kind of cut. Nevertheless, I'm hoping that everyone has a couple of good nights sleep under their belts when they see their message this week from Marqui.
5/13/2005 15:15
There is a ton of confusion about RSS out there. We started writing about RSS in February. Apparently there are a lot of marketers talking about it, but there are many misunderstandings about why its important, or even what it is. And (most alarmingly) there are marketers who think they have to jump on the bandwagon, without really knowing how RSS works, or even why it's a good thing. Think of RSS like this: they're little text telegrams that are delivered to people who've asked to get information. Look at the bottom of this blog, and you'll see a little RSS symbol. It'll allow you to 'opt in' to receive notifications (little telegrams) when a new blog is posted here, for example. They're handy because you can read them at your leisure. There are RSS readers (you need a reader in order to get the feeds, and You Software has a cool free one) that will help you find feeds and then once you've opted to get them, it'll deliver the little telegrams right into your e-mail box. You have control of the information you can gather by subscribing to RSS feeds. No longer would Our Dear Readers have to come check out Marqui's World for new posts. You could have notifications of them delivered to you via RSS. Get it?
5/9/2005 16:24
At Marqui, we regularly check to see how many results appear if someone types in our company name on Google. Over the weekend, that number shot up to something like 250,000 results. So, in a moment of sheer insanity, I decided I was going to venture beyond the first few magical pages of Google and view all 250,000 results. I made it to page 23. And people wonder why search engine optimization is so critical for marketers.
5/5/2005 15:21
I posted this on Marcomblog a few minutes ago, but can't resist adding it to Marqui's World too...
Various publications in Portland, Oregon have now chronicled the intriguing relationship between Nathaniel Clevenger, CEO of 3 Public Communications, and the Portland Development Commission. If you are so inclined, you can read the Oregonian article on it here. More interesting, however, is the "debate" that has been raging for the past 24 hours on Portland Communique, a local blog. In my ever so humble opinion, this is an excellent example of how NOT to handle PR, particularly when dealing with bloggers.
5/4/2005 13:33
In case you haven't seen it, a new company called Unmailme.com plans to do for postal mail what the "Do Not Call" list does for telemarketing. According to its corporate web site, Unmailme helps individuals or businesses "stop unwanted postal mail before it's sent" with a service that allows users to: *Register a home or business address *Select what categories to block or allow *Opt-out from mailers' lists with just a few clicks *Stop your name from being rented out *Verify that mailers have confirmed your requests I'm not sure whether this is really a viable business, but the service is free during its "beta period" so I'm willing to give it a try. And who knows -- maybe it will mean an end to the dozen or so credit card offers I get each day. As a side note, I recently asked the readers of Marcomblog whether they thought the increasing amount of spam would drive more marketers to return to direct mail. Most participants said "no," although fellow Marcomblog contributor Dale Wolf was quick to jump with some great stats about the ongoing usage/value of direct mail. Bottom line: as with any marketing activity, the more relevant your message is to your audience the more successful the campaign will be, regardless of whether it's conducted via e-mail, postal mail, etc.
4/27/2005 16:50
My friend Brandon has been designing web sites for many years, we met doing a bunch of work together on web sites five years ago. He and I were talking today, and he said something that was really interesting to me. He said he's noticing a big shift in the way designers are creating sites. When I asked him what the most noticable change in web design was, it was funny to hear him say "Kids have grown up with big screens." It used to be that web sites were optimized to accommodate 800 x 600 screens (for laptops). (Well, it used to be that "green" screens were then norm, and that orange type was a novelty... but that was the time of the 300 baud modems, and I digress.) Apparently now, the trend is to create "print-like" environments where there are beautiful images at the top of the page that will sometimes fill a browser window half full. Another change is the concept of first level, second level and third level pages. They're disappearing. No more do you find the drastic design differences as you navigate through web properties. As we talked about this, Brandon remarked that he's starting to see more and more business and portfolio sites that look more like blogs than the more familiar, traditional sites. Another shift When I told Tara about this shift, she noted that she's seen more traditional journalism sites - like cnet.com - with trackback links on their stories. They might not be inviting comments (yet!) on their own sites, but they can track the resulting discussions. When you think about the ripple effects of technology - big screens and blogging, for example - on design, it's really pretty fun to watch them unfold. I wonder how our brains will evolve to map the changes?
4/25/2005 10:16
Janet recently sent me a great MediaPost article, "Can Search Help PR's Reputation." The author, Max Kalehoff, asks why PR pros seem to expend so little energy monitoring the content of search-engine results. He goes on to point out the number of industry leaders, such as United Airlines, McDonald's, Splenda and iPod, with damaging third-party content appearing within their top results. Given how many Internet users now rely on search engines to gather information about a company, product or service, this article is a must-read for any PR person. My only nit is that while Kalehoff points out a few firms that offer integrated PR/search services, he doesn't provide any practical advice on how to handle search-engine related crises. Marqui has had a bit of experience in this arena since our PayBloggers program has led to some unusual items popping up in our top results. (Nothing too terrible, just not the most relevant content.) We are actively working with our search engine marketing agency, Anvil Media, to get this resolved...but it's not quite as easy as one might think. Among Anvil's suggestions was the idea of crafting a press release filled with keywords, links, etc. that will appeal to search engine spiders, thus giving it a higher ranking than less desirable content. Now, the more traditional PR person in me cringes at the thought of such a buzzword-soaked creation. However, I have definitely come to realize that it's a brave new world out there -- and that world is highly influenced by search engines. Rest assured, once I move forward with this little project, I'll report back on the "results."
4/21/2005 8:41
Janet's post made me wonder why on earth "phishing" is spelled the way it is. This is what Wikipedia had to say about it: "The term 'phishing' is sometimes said to stand for password harvesting fishing, though this is likely a backronym. The cracker community tends to use creative spellings as a sort of jargon, and coinages such as warez have even escaped into more mainstream usages. The term phreaking, which refers to gaining access to telephone networks, most likely influenced the spelling of the term. Still other theories accredit the term "phishing" to originate from the name "Brien Phish" who was the first to allegedly use psychological techniques to steal credit card numbers in the 1980s. Others believe that "Brien Phish" was not a real person but a fictional character used by scammers to identify each other. Another, more recent theory credits the nature of the attacks, in which one is fishing, metaphorically, for an unsuspecting user's information." So there you have it.
4/20/2005 17:15
Every once in awhile my boss, Stephen King (no, not that one!) forwards me an e-mail where someone has "forgotten" to include an enclosure they reference in the body of the e-mail. He believes they're a ploy to get him to contact the sender and ask for the promised file. I'm notorious for forgetting to send files to people and invariably sending an immediate "oops!" note with the enclosure. I'm not sure I could be devious about my forgetfulness. Is this a new marketing tactic? If so, I would liken it to phishing. Phorgetting the phile? Clever marketing or devious ploy?
4/18/2005 13:06
I get a lot of e-mail newsletters. Some of my favorite are from MediaPost and BtoB. I like to keep up with what people in marketing say is 'hot news' for marketers. I think the MediaPost folks have some of the best aggregations of information for marketers available. I got a newsletter today talking about simplicity in e-mail offers, and how, if you keep it simple, you'll get a better response. In the newsletter, the author offered a white paper on e-mail marketing. I clicked the link that took me to the SubscriberMail site, where I submitted my information to receive whitepapers on e-Mail List Building Secrets, and one on e-Mail Marketing Tune-Ups. BAM! One simple entry begat six responses. I got two copies of each whitepaper, and two follow up e-mails from two different salespeople at SubscriberMail, each enclosing a 500K enclosure with more information about SubscriberMail. Suddenly, I'm feeling spammed. I'm wondering whether SubscriberMail might want to tune up their databases AND their auto-generated response notes. So much for keeping it simple.
4/18/2005 11:59
The Pew Internet & American Life Project published some new stats about spam last week. It shouldn't come as a shock to hear that the amount of spam flooding into in-boxes continues to rise. What did come as a surprise (to me at least) is that research indicates people are now less bothered by it. Yes, you read that correctly: e-mail users are getting more spam than ever and yet it's irritating them less. Obviously, I was not included in this survey. At any rate, if you'd like to know more about how much spam people are receiving these days, click here.
4/4/2005 10:06
According to The Pew Internet and American Life Project, 29% MP3 player owners, or almost 6 million people, have now downloaded podcasts to their MP3 players - like the iPod. Nearly half of digital-music player owners younger than 29 have tried out podcasts, compared with 20 percent of those 29 or older. Podcasts were equally popular among men and women, the survey found. That's pretty amazing for a communication tool that has only emerged in the past year. We've had a couple of our bloggers podcast information about Marqui. In fact, we had someone call Todd Cochrane's podcast with Stephen King 'the world's first podcast infomercial.' It was downloaded (last I heard) more than 16,000 times. You heard it (wherever/whenever you wanted) first!
4/4/2005 9:46
As anyone will tell you, blogging is an addictive activity -- in fact, it's so addictive that I couldn't just write for one. Nope, I went out and found a second blog to contribute to: MarcomBlog. Many in the marketing world are already familiar with MarcomBlog since it features marketing- and PR-oriented posts from Neville Hobson, Guillaume du Gardier, Dee Rambeau, etc. MarcomBlog has a wonderful story behind it. The creator, Robert French, is a teacher at Auburn University's Department of Communication and Journalism. Instead of just lecturing at his students, Robert wanted to help them get comfortable actually using things like blogs, wikis and content management systems. He also liked the idea of putting them in touch with other PR and Marcom professionals for some good old fashioned mentoring. Thus MarcomBlog was born. But Robert hasn't stopped there. Now he's interested in helping other professionals start their own blogs. Not only will he help with the set up process, he'll also host it for free. The only catch? The blog has to deal with marketing and/or PR issues (i.e. no personal blogs about tropical fish or something). Interested parties can either send me an e-mail or visit Robert's blog. His most recent post provides a full overview of what he's trying to accomplish and what he'll provide to get folks started. Talk about raising the bar for other college professors!
March 30, 2005
For the last week or so I've been busily making arrangements for Marqui to speak with industry analysts from a number of well known groups, such as AMR Research, Gartner, IDC, etc. Now, many companies are under the impression that the only way to get any attention from such firms is to pay them.
This is absolutely incorrect.
Granted, it may be easier to get multiple meetings if you are a paying client (it's part of the service after all), but all of the reputable firms will take at least 1-2 briefings without charging a dime -- in fact, most of them accept briefings on a yearly basis from non-paying companies.
The exact process varies depending on the firm but typically companies will be asked to submit some basic information via e-mail or an online form. This usually includes:
- A brief company overview, including employee headcount, headquarters address, etc.
- The objective for the meeting (e.g., is it for a general introduction or perhaps a product update)
- A list of company representatives planning to attend the meeting
- The names of the analyst(s) you'd prefer to meet with (NOTE: the process will move much faster if you have researched and correctly identified 1-2 relevant analysts. Most groups post analyst bios and a list of recent reports on their web sites so it shouldn't be too difficult to find this information.)
- A few dates and times for a meeting
The process takes anywhere from 48 hours to 2-3 weeks so I'd highly recommend starting a month in advance if you are trying to arrange briefings around a major corporate or product launch.
In terms of how to get things started with some of the biggies:
- For Gartner, send an e-mail to vendor.briefings@gartner.com. Within 24 hours, you'll receive a briefing request form to complete and send back.
- For AMR Research, click here and fill out the form.
- For Forrester, click here and fill out the form.
- For IDC, click here and fill out the form (NOTE: The form varies depending on whether or not your company has briefed IDC in the last 12 months, so be sure to follow the directions.)
If you've worked with a particular group before or have a PR agency (or analyst relations firm) that has, you might be able to bypass all of the forms by sending an e-mail directly to the appropriate analyst. However, given how many e-mails and briefing requests these folks receive it might actually be faster to go through the formal process.
3/28/2005 7:58
According to an article I just received via MarketingVOX, the reach of the Internet has passed that of magazines. The full piece reads:
An American Press Institute study showed that the internet's reach continues to grow apace, coming to reach more people than even magazines, according to an AdWeek email. The web reached 51 percent of people in the study, putting it in fourth place and a country mile ahead of fifth place medium magazines, which managed 42 percent reach. Newspapers managed to hang on to 59 percent of respondents, ranking third. Radio ranked second with 73 percent and, not surprisingly, TV ranked first with 94 percent reach. In terms of time spent with the media, TV again ranked first with 272 minutes per day, radio too up 122 minutes, the web 73 minutes and newspapers only 29 minutes. Magazines managed only 19 minutes per day on average.Of course, this shouldn't come as a surprise to most, but it's still good to see some stats!
3/1/2005 17:06
I love salespeople. Really. After all, their hard work helps pay my bills. But let's face it, marketers and salespeople don't always...um...see eye-to-eye. I believe the reason for this is akin to the chicken and the egg problem. Marketers need salespeople to close deals so they have ample material for things like case studies, press releases, webinars, etc. But salespeople need marketers to come up with case studies, press releases, webinars, etc. in order to close deals. So what comes first? The amusing thing about this situation is that marketing and sales teams really do want the same thing: more deals (in larger amounts) closing faster. The question then becomes: how do we work together to make it happen? BusinessWeek ran a series of articles on this very topic last year. Here's Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. A somewhat shorter piece with a few exercises to try out is available here, courtesy of Goto-Silicon-Valley.com (kind of a weird little site, but I liked the article). It shouldn't come as a surprise that the unanimous opinion from all authors is that the key is open, constructive communication on a regular basis. So read the articles, give the excercises a whirl and play nice.
2/28/2005 13:43
While digging around BusinessWeek's web site, I came across the publication's blog on marketing and advertising: Brand New Day. It's authored by BusinessWeek's marketing writer, David Kiley. While Brand New Day doesn't really offer any tips for marketers -- it just seems to poke fun at various campaigns -- it's still a worthwhile read. Recent posts include thoughts on KFC's decision to use Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" in advertisements, advice for Martha Stewart and criticism about marketing efforts by airlines. However, it did remind me of a post from Byron not too long ago, pleading for bloggers to include an "About Page" so readers can more easily establish credibility. I'm already familiar with Kiley's work so I knew who he was when I saw the byline, but what about other readers? Or perhaps BusinessWeek is confident that Kiley's position with the publication establishes his credibility? (There is one small sentence on the right saying he covers marketing and advertising for BusinessWeek.) In any case, seeing Brand New Day made me realize how helpful an About Page really is. We're already making some adjustments to Marqui's World based on feedback from Byron (for instance, you'll notice we've removed that silly calendar) and an About Page will soon appear.
2/24/2005 17:56
Great, just what we needed...more reality TV. And this time, the focus is none other than PR. Yes, MTV has decided it's necessary to chronicle the exploits of PR professionals (if you can call them that) at Lizzie Grubman's New York firm. The show, which is called "PoweR Girls," airs in March. Check out the description from MTV's web site:
The life of a PoweR Girl at Lizzie Grubman's New York City PR firm is sometimes glamorous, sometimes stressful but always exciting. Don't miss the drama on PoweR Girls.Now, I'll withhold final judgment until I have a chance to watch it, but based on this description, I fear this show will do little to quash the stereotypes about women in PR. I'll provide an update after the first show.
2/22/2005 8:27
You Software recently issued a press release inviting Microsoft Outlook users to participate in a public preview program for You Subscribe: RSS, a new RSS news reader utility. For those of you who aren't familiar with how RSS feeds work, they are essentially mini "news briefs" from blogs, web sites, etc. A tool like You Subscribe: RSS brings these little news briefs directly into your Microsoft Outlook folders. And yes, you get to pick and choose which feeds you want. The system automatically creates a new folder for each feed. In case you're wondering about the more technical side of things...according to the press release, "You Subscribe: RSS uses an efficient software engine that works in the background to gather, process, organize and store RSS feeds whether Outlook is online, offline or completely closed. With background processing news feeds are instantly pulled into Outlook. There is no waiting for feeds to load every time you launch Outlook. The engine keeps track of RSS subscription preferences and data and keeps RSS accounts synchronized and up to date. It takes care of the business logic of downloading subscription files and updating an RSS feed database." The best part is that it's free. It only took me about 2 minutes to install and so far, it's been pretty useful. Of course, it IS an early release and it looks like they are issuing updates on a weekly basis. Hopefully, that won't turn into an issue. If you're interested in checking it out, you can download it here.
2/18/2005 11:30
Okay, we've all seen them. The cheery little e-mails from some co-worker or acquaintance that proudly state how wonderful LinkedIn is and politely invite you -- the lucky recipient -- to become "LinkedIn" too. If you're like me, you've probably accepted such invites. And then promptly forgotten about the growing list of contacts in your LinkedIn network. I have to wonder whether anyone is really using LinkedIn in a meaningful way. I've seen some folks post about the company's ambiguous business model, but how about some best practices on how to use it? After all, according to LinkedIn's FAQ, it's supposed to be an excellent resource for referrals. I'd love to talk to someone who has actually used LinkedIn for this, so that I can put together some tips/tricks on how to use it. Please contact me if you fit the bill.
2/7/2005 11:06
There was a fair amount of discussion this weekend regarding the value/proper use of conversation coordinators. Rok Hrastnik's expanded piece on dialog facilitators might be helpful for organizations looking to add something like this to their marketing program. Of course, anyone who is still wondering WHY it's so important to keep an eye on blogs should check out Jeff Nolan's post about the Dunkin Donuts fiasco. The Burger King reference is particularly amusing.
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