Now that Movable Type 3.0 has moved out of the Alpha test phase, they are allowing us to post items in 3.0! There are a number of things that are improved with this version. Look for more information at the Movable Type site.

The third round of the Businss Blog Book Tour rolls on! I unfortunately didn't have the time to commit to this one, but can't wait to see Seth commenting at everyone's sites during the tour.

Author: Seth Godin
Title: Free Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea

Dates: May 3rd - May 14th
To find out more about Seth and the book, you can visit Seth's website or his blog.
Tour Stops

May 3rd - A Penny For... May 4th - Brand Autopsy May 5th - Decent Marketing May 7th - Brand Mantra May 10th - Ensight May 11th - WonderBranding May 12th - Business Evolutionist May 13th - Branding Blog May 14th - Thinking by Peter

Strategy + Business has a great short article on how managers can become more aware, keen to how they enlist the support of employees, and generally more effective through volunteer experience.

Yet, the sentiments of most employees about volunteering are contrarian to this data because they feel they have no time, or more to the point, that their organizations do not value the time they spend in volunteer mode. Some companies even have restrictive policies about their employees utilizing corporate equipment while doing non profit work, which, I can understand, but what kind of message are you sending.

If employees are made to feel like they can bring their "constructive passions," such as working with non-profits in their quasi spare time, to work with them (so to speak...) I firmly believe that it enhances quality of life and reduces worker and "identity" anxiety as they are more comfortable knowing that the difference they make in the community also makes a difference with the company. This improves worker loyalty and reduces stress. (in some way, shape, or form...)

I've always encouraged my employees to get involved outside of work. Here we have a few of those things going on that we're really proud of:
- We do a lot of work for the Red Cross. It's a great cause, and they help a lot of people.
- One of our employees teaches at a local tech college in the evenings. He brings students in for tours and it's a great source of potential employees/interns for us.
- One of us volunteers heavily at a local private college on various advisory boards trying to help students make good decisions before they enter the work world.

We don't sponsor a lot of events of get involved like that, we try to do it on a more personal nature. I figure that it's because it's better to get involved at the employee level. If they make good decisions in their volunteer organizations in the "leadership by permission" realm, they're bound to make more informed and insightful decisions here too.

One of the biggest challenges in creating a stronger business is to make employees feel there's a larger purpose to their work lives than making money. That's one reason more companies are encouraging employees to work for nonprofit organizations in their communities. But volunteer work isn't just an outlet for employees in search of meaning; it's a way for experienced executives to hone their leadership skills, and for aspiring leaders to learn in a challenging management environment.

Sure shit - Google actually does see some Flash files. They are now able to read both of the Flash menus on www.danavan.net, and render links from them. Also, according to the recent article on WebProNews, they are delving into the binary elements of Flash. This may very well knock down one of the strongest arguments against Flash to date.

This is great to see! So now when you get to school you'll not only get your own email, but your own blog. They also have a lot of links to some great MovableType resources on how to start blogging and other beginner type stuff. They've obviously done their homework on this one!

UThink is available to the faculty, staff, and students of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and is intended to support teaching and learning, scholarly communication, and individual expression for the U of M community. All you need to login and start blogging is your U of M Internet ID and Password.

UThink: Blogs at the University Libraries
[via The Minnesota Daily]

SAP is choosing not to get into on-demand CRM, a market Siebel has attacked aggressively in recent months in response to the success of upstart hosted CRM vendor Salesforce.com. McDermott says SAP's customers want their CRM systems to be integrated with other enterprise apps and linked to business processes--and that it's only a matter of time before hosted CRM customers look at what they've got and determine it's a standalone sales-force-automation tool. He questions whether hosted CRM vendors will be able to retain their customers for long.

[via InformationWeek]

You can find a very interesting tool (I should say toy) in http://ranking.thumbshots.com/

Apart from giving you a quite pretty graphical represantation of the comparison between the results of the search engines it provides some very interesting statistics concerning the overlapping and unique links.

The results show small percentages of overlap between the search engines - fact that is actually not unexpected. The differences in the first 100 links in the search engine results pages are both due to the different algorithm used by search engines (and the fact that most pages have been optimized only for the Google algorithm) and the size/type of the database between search engines.

[via Rugles.com]

Also:

New Tool Compares Search Uniqueness, Rankings

Search marketers are finding surprisingly little overlap in listings from one search engine to another. A new tool called Thumbshots provides graphical comparisons of the link overlap seen on a particular search term between one engine and another. Most often, more than 85 percent of the links in one set of results is different from those in another. The tool also shows that most links ranking highly in Google will generally rank much lower in Yahoo, and vice versa.
http://marketingvox.com/rd/9144

Funny - I just got the email labs newsletter today that they have an article on 28 ways to build your permission email list, which reminded me of the article that Sue Duris and I did this year, 29 Ways to Build Your House Email List. Similar, but not exact...

Our List -
29 Ways to Build Your House Email List
- Feb 15, 2004

Their List -
28 Ways to Build Permission-Based Email Lists
- April 29, 2004

After an eight-year run, the United States Postal Service will end its sponsorship of the U.S.P.S Pro Cycling Team led by Lance Armstrong at the end of the year.
The 24-member U.S. Pro Cycling Team will continue to be supported by the Postal Service at events in the U.S. and abroad throughout the 2004 racing season, the USPS said.

"It's been a wonderful ride," CMO, Anita Bizzotto, said in a statement.

During its sponsorship, Armstrong won five consecutive Tour de France championships, bringing enormous exposure for the Postal Service and cycling. Armstrong is a possible contender to win a sixth Tour in July.

Last summer, the Postal Service was criticized by the Citizens Against Government Waste for wasting millions of dollars in sports sponsorships, especially the U.S. cycling team deal with Armstrong, despite a corporate loss of $675 million. The group claimed the Postal Service spent $40 million on the U.S. Pro Cycling Team between 1996 and 2002, out of a total $48 million for sports sponsorships.

An audit publicized around the same time by the USPS Office of the Inspector General claimed that the USPS was unable to track or verify revenue associated with sponsorships; lacked goals and objectives for some sponsorships; and did not manage tickets and invitations appropriately. The audit documents said the USPS could not determine return on investment for its sponsorships.

[via Patricia Odell - PROMO Magazine]

Also:
The Seattle Times

San Jose Mercury News - U.S. Postal ends cycling contract with Armstrong

Velo News - Postal, cycling parting ways at season's end

Interactive marketing can no longer be a skunk project for agencies that want to have relevant solutions. The smartest creatives are already thinking in Net-applicable ideas. See Goodby's Internet work for HP, Crispin's Subservient Chicken for Burger King, Ogilvy's Superman movies for Amex, and my favorite, Wieden's Beta 7 campaign for Sega, which was an Andy winner last week.

As Andrew Robertson, worldwide president of BBDO says, you don't have to be a pioneer experimenting with clients' money, but you do have to be able to move when the consumer moves. And the consumer is moving.

What does this say for those companies that are "specialists" in the interactive space and are not part of an agency. Well, there will always be room for you, but unless you significantly differentiate yourself, your best bet may be to find an agency to partner with. At some point, the space will consolidate, your local agency will become more hip to interactive, and you may need a friend.

[via AdAge.com - WHAT LEO BURNETT TAUGHT US ABOUT THE INTERNET]

While I'm not always a fan of Jakob Nielsen, I agree with what he has to say about making your B2B site help your fans convince their bosses.

What web companies sometimes forget when they are designing clients' B2B sites is that B2B buyers go through a buying cycle and have established processes. In fact, when I was in sales, I always asked my business buyers "What do you need from me to help you sell this..."

This same thing applies with B2B websites - which is where "The Advocacy Kit" comes in.

This post about "Shoestring Marketing" touches on the subject of why "Time and Money are Interchangeable" and how a mechanic who specializes in BMWs drives around parking lots when his biz is slow and leaves flyers on each of the cars notifying the owners of his specialty, which usually nets his business before he even gets back to the lot.

This same topic was raised by John this weekend when we batted around the value of a local takeout place dropping flyers off to everyone in the neighborhood on a Friday afternoon. I'm partial to building an email list and sending emails to people at work while they're thinking of dinner, but the result is the same.

Which gets me thinking more on this subject. What if I were a local take -n- bake pizza company, like Papa Murphys, that collected email addresses at their retail POS with the promise of just in time deals and coupons for customers. I then declare Thursday "local pizza bonanza night" and send emails at 3:45 to everyone on the list with the promise that they could order online from their local chain and the pizza would be ready for them to pickup on the way home, and stick in the oven for dinner. Every Thursday, I send new email deals.

Taking it a step further, I ask people "What's your favorite pizza night?" and allow them to choose which days they want to get email deals. I them build an automated backend system to blast out the latest specials, I track the user behavior, and start sending more and more personalized info. The info is linked with the instore POS so that I don't lose the huge pizza that they bought for their kids birthday party on Saturday...

Better yet, for businesses, everyone keeps a "Menu" folder - I have, and I was always the "goto person" for menus. Whatever I had for takeout menus is what we chose from. What if you were to build an online "local menu" favorites system or something like that that you could forward around the office,

Ok, maybe that's a bit too geek, but It sure is damn fun to think about!

Survey says: Less than one-quarter of marketing professionals surveyed said they usually or always test marketing communciation campaigns before releasing them upon their audience, according to a new study. Another 27% indicated they “occasionally” test their campaigns, with the rest saying they seldom (34%) or never (15%) test marcom campaigns before rolling them out.

Testing takes time, testing takes money, testing tests your patience. Holy crap, well no wonder people don't test.

The question is - has anyone ever done a study on parallel campaigns - one in a market where testing was done and "learned from" and one where the first idea out of the gate was what was sent? Now there's an idea. Take a campaign, launch it in one area with no testing and see what happens. As long as you've got your demos pretty close (age, income, values, whatever) you should be able to launch the other into an area with significant testing and judge whether or not the RESULTS are worth doing the testing for.

Or, I bet someone already has this data...so, where is it???

[via DIRECT & Ovation]

I'm working on designing a weblog to use as a freelance client communication tool...yeah, I 'm too cheap for basecamp, and don't like the interface anyway. Anyway, Dudz pointed me to this site which has some really well designed blog ideas - love em all!

Damnit, why don't all college students just start their own companies? OK, so that's not realistic, but here's a great article on a few students who are doing it!

John Thompson, a University of Iowa business major, and a group of five other UI students have joined forces to create a multi-service Web site company called Hollithomp (I have no idea what the hell that means, but at least they found a URL to match it!). The group isn't just a bunch of code monkeys either, they focus on how to make Web sites work more efficiently for small businesses. They are working with a variety of local companies, from flower shops to real estate developers, to help solve business problems through Web sites, like allowing apartment dwellers to pay their rent online.

"I talk to a lot of small business owners who say their Web site isn't doing anything for them, it's a waste. No one knows it's out there and no one can find it," Thompson said. "People doing Web sites don't understand business. They might be good at design or programming but they don't understand how to bring it to the business side."

While I respect that they're doing, I think he's full of shit. How do you think web design/marketing firms got into business doing that work if they don't understand business? One of the greatest strengths that our clients tell us we have is that Balance Studios does understand business, and take the time to really understand theirs. And yes, that goes beyond the pitch.

Nevertheless, the students who run Hollithomp on concentrating on bringing several facets of business together, from financing to marketing, and bring it to the Internet for companies. Which is where the beauty of this arrangement lies, and why I think more college students w/out corporate gigs should just go it on their own (throw tomatoes...OK, are you finished? let me get on with my point). I know how little resources it takes to freelance, and with as many small businesses as there are in towns all across the US that could use some help from energetic, passionate and knowledgeable college students, I can't see any reason not to hang your shingle out when you've nothing to lose!

Danielle LaFleur shows how you can learn alot about a client by kissing them. Hmmm...never thought of it, but it sounds interesting.

We have a guy in the office who's worked extensively with Aritificial Intelligence. Maybe he can design a robot with some AI that does this sort of test for us... That would be cool. We could say that it's something like a funny thing that our company does as a joke, but really it's a test, and then we take secret videos of our clients kissing our Pucker Test 2000 robot and them into our new corporate demo reel. Yeah, that would be cool for 2 days while we're still in business... :)

More companies increased Internet marketing budgets than any other medium over the past quarter, leading one to believe that the sector has consistently outperformed all other media.

John Owen, IPA Digital Marketing Group chairman and planning director of Dare Digital, said of the findings: "The trend towards online marketing continues unabated. There is no surer sign of the effectiveness of the medium than the fact that clients are investing more and more of their marketing budget in it."

[via Brand Republic]

Someone needed to write this article! Scottie Claiborne wrote this great, quick overview of what basic web analytics terms mean, and why you all should stop saying HITS to refer to anything that happens on your website. Here are some of the terms that the article airs out.

My friend Toby Bloomberg sent me a transcript of a recent online conversation about advice to college grads. I thought this point was particularly important. I started my career with a field sales job for this same reason, and it's opened doors like you wouldn't believe.

Are you a recent college grad? If so, my advice is to start with a sales position. You can never underestimate the value of working directly with clients and customers to better understand the purchase decision-making process. As you move up the marketing ladder within organizations, you oftentimes get further and further away from the customer. Starting in sales can help ground you in being customer-focused.

With today’s many PPC (Pay per Click), PFP (Pay for Placement) and PFI (Paid for Inclusion) programs from so many vendors, it’s no surprise that some people can be confused. While organic SEO (search engine optimization) search results (the ones you see at the left of Google’s screen) are considered the best and generally constitute the highest ROI, for companies that just launched a new site and that need sales real fast, these various ‘paid’ programs can make a big difference in their search engine marketing campaigns.

When a company has a large website, with more than 400, 500 or maybe 600 pages, a trusted feed program would make a lot of sense. With most trusted feed programs offered today, your site’s listings are given the same chance to rank among the generic or organic listings, usually on the same pages. With certain PFI programs such as Inktomi, you need to pay for each Web page you submit. Trusted feed programs differ from this, since you are required to pay a fee only for the clicks your links are getting.

Advantages of Trusted Feed programs:
1. Trusted feed is continually re-indexed
2. Appears as generic listings, not advertisements
3. Can boost more keyword and key phrase rankings
4. Greatly facilitates indexing of sites that are database-driven
5. Helps with indexing information that is buried deep in a site

[via Serge Thibodeau on ISEDB.com]

The Adrian Dominican Sisters proudly oversee a revamped Web site, which allows the public to learn about the congregation, find out about upcoming events, and even ''ask a sister'' questions about religious life, is the centerpiece of the Adrian Sisters' marketing campaign, now in its third year.

The Internet is especially key to reaching the sisters' target group of women in their mid-20s, though people of all ages have been accessing the site, Sister Carleen Maly said. And three years after the first billboards went up, the effort has begun to produce results in the forms of thousands of phone calls and Web site hits, a surge in attendance at religious retreats and a few women who have started their journey toward joining the Adrian Sisters.

''I asked myself, 'If Saint Dominic were alive, how would he reach people?' " she said. ''I think he would be doing all of this. I think he would have a Web site.''

Poodle Predictor is a little known tactic for increasing web site traffic and yet it is so easy to use that anyone can do it.

When there simply type in the url that you want to check to see what your site will look like in search-engine results. You might be surprised to find that what you thought google or any other search engine would pick up from your site such as your carefully crafted description is not at all what google sees and presents to the public.

Keep changing the text at the top of your url until you get exactly what you want your visitors to see. Write new text if needed.

This will increase the amount of traffic that you get since most people don't know about this trick

[via Trafficology & Laurette Trudeau, http://www.highrankingsolutions.com]

This review is enough to keep me away from seeing BBT's new movie, The Alamo.

I have to speak to a group of students this Friday at a "Student Business Conference" at St. Norbert College and will be there on behalf of SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise). More to the point, my "mission" there is to be a SIFE evangelist, but a great goal is to encourage underclassmen to get involved in the collegiate business community to enhance their opportunities when they graduate.

I have my reasons for hiring students right out of school have have "been involved" (students business orgs, community, internship, etc) but am looking for some additional insight, and was wondering if any of you have a moment to consider the following:

1. Do recruiters care if a student has been involved in "constructive organizations" (I.e. math group, programmer's guild, student business network, etc - vs. - a frat/sorority)
- If so, why? What diff does it make? Why should students strive to acquire these experiences.

2. What impact, if any, do positions of school leadership (i.e. president of an aforementioned club) have on one's personal brand coming out of college?

3. Are there any axioms that you have/have seen on the level of involvement that a student has in the aforementioned orgs. and their propensity for success in a career at your organization?

4. I am always asked advice from students that I work with, and I tell them, among other things, to "Do Something Different" - like start a weblog, website, do a personal press release, develop your brand (at least, what brand you have through college) and things of that nature. Do any of these make a difference in how a student/potential candidate comes across to you, or am I full of crap?

Any other thoughts? Please comment. I'd appreciate it!

This is not breakthrough, but clever. Dell's radio ads (I just heard one on the way back from lunch) have unique URLS in them instead of using dell.com. The URL they are using is "www.dellradio.com".

Nothing too new, but like everything else that's common sense...it isn't so common. A lesson for local retailers who to a lot of radio ads!

This is the first RSS ad that I 've seen - pretty cool! I found this on Lockergnome's web dev blog.

This is that the landing page looks like - I like how that ad is placed nicely in the RSS text. Could be a pretty simple PHP includes file or something. Sweet!

[via John Cass - PR Communications]

The only downfall of this PDF download of the e-agency PR Elements Plan is that is speaks nothing of weblogs and their power to put a personal face on a corporate entitity, which, as we've seen in some cases, weblogs do pretty well in the PR world.

We often get asked what makes a successful public relations program? What does it cost? Does my organization really need it? How long do I need to do it? Can’t I do it myself? Why do my competitors always get in the papers? Why does the media get my story wrong? To answer some of these questions we have put together this booklet as a starting point for a discussion on how to develop a public relations plan.

Unless you are a celebrity good public relations just doesn’t happen on its own. It takes a lot of skill, and consistent hard work, over a period of time. It’s part art, part science and when practiced correctly the results can be very rewarding. The bottom line, public relations—versus other marketing communication tools — delivers the most bang for your buck.

Once within the domain of only those companies that had advanced website analytics programs or 3rd party tools like GoToast, Google has announced it's FREE version of PPC conversion tracking via the adwords program. Google's conversion tracking feature is completely free. All you need to get started with conversion tracking is a Google AdWords account with running ads and keywords, and a basic knowledge of your website code.

It works the same way that javascript web analytics tools like HitBox (HBX) work. This is a tremendous value add for those advertisers who've invested signifcant stock in AdWords as a PPC/Advertising medium.

[via Kolabora]

Heidelberg, the printing press people, are on track to pull of some great integrated marketing tactics for their upcoming trade show in Dusseldorf. This only makes sense. The trade show is no longer just about the show, but about another venue to further/begin the long relationship with customers. I wrote an article a while back about Internet marketing for trade shows, but this goes much further. This is about bring the entire experience full circle, using the right tools to make it cost effective, and showing your customers that you've got it together.

"Heidelberg's multi-stage concept is based on personalized addressing of target groups and dialog between the company and its customers - before, during and after the trade show. The various international measures involve customers, employees, opinion leaders, print-media buyers, journalists and investors and utilize all existing communication channels from dialog and advertising campaigns to electronic and print media, the website and, last but not least, the drupa booth itself. This will all be complemented by targeted marketing measures around the exhibition center," says Dr. Klaus Spiegel, Member of the Heidelberg Management Board and responsible for products and marketing.

I just came across this article on integrated marketing on the Digital Web Magazine site. I particlularly like this quote - because we also do TV spots here, this makes perfect sense, and is some thing that agencies should be thinking about. Sometimes, the tools you use really can make a difference for the client!

Today, we have HD video with 24fps frame rate—the same frame rate as 35mm film. Not only does this 24P technology produce similar quality to film at a significantly reduced cost, you can also pull still images from the video that maintains 300dpi for brochure applications, and are more than adequate in size and resolution for any Web application. This technology not only saves marketing dollars up front, it provides easy integration across various media and, best of all, provides many dozens of unique still images for Web application. More than a couple of select shots taken during an expensive photo shoot, this is a veritable cornucopia of visual images to pick from, identical to what is being used on the television commercials, in print pieces, and beyond.

Through an understanding of integrated marketing and related media and technologies, such as this example with HD video, Web designers can add value to their clients and companies. The exploration of new (non-Web) technologies, like HD video, as a method to improve our Web design can provide extra value through lower production costs and greater integration across other media. This level of broader thinking and knowledge makes us more valuable and improves the business success of those who employ us.

Check out managing e-loyalty through experience design, a three-year project to test theory, review current literature and conduct research in three areas:

»trust development in e-business
»culturally sensitive interface design
»adaptive designs for mobility

Their latest work is on the localization of interface design, drawing upon limited experiments and surveys in Boston, Munich, Tokyo and Vancouver. ( Here's their latest academic paper, .pdf)

More practical details can be found in their corporate report. (you'll have to provide your name and email)

Data collection involved a survey, online task, and interviews in order to elaborate differences across cultures related to trusting online payment security preferences, degree to which a company is considered legitimate and has a solid reputation, the type of assurance in after sales attention desired, and preferences for design elements.

For the online task participants responded to a local version of the Samsung website, and a foreign version (which was the Hong Kong site in each case). When the site was activated, participants were asked to explore the site, observe its attributes, and test for navigation.

[Thanks to Colin McKay for this]

Seth Godin just penned a great article for Fast Company on the rapid rise of your public life on the Internet. It's interesting, not being anonymous anymore, being able to start over, move on or what have you. I type any one of your names into Google, and I've got most of what I want. I make a phone call to someone who does a bit more legwork, and I've got more information than we both need.

As Seth say, four words that appear on almost every résumé--and that are now irrelevant: "References available upon request."

Consider the implications for you, and your company. Bloggers and online "personal journalists" have immense power, and it's only growing, which is more than we can say for these folks:

...they bounced three checks. After trying to call them, write them, and work with them, I finally had to hire a lawyer. They never paid. In the old days, that would be that. But today, there's a record online. A quick Google search of the company name would lead you to my blog, which would make you think twice about doing any sort of business with them.

One thing is becoming crystal clear: You are your references. If a friend tells me a play is no good, I don't go. A friend's recommendation will also determine my choice of lawn-care service or an island to vacation on. My publisher just sent me an email asking about a potential author--and if I don't back up the author's version of our relationship, he won't get the contract.

No person or company can escape their past. You can no longer change your prices with impunity, because the old price lists may be cached at The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (www.archive.org ), which regularly takes snapshots of Web sites and stores them forever. With a little care, you won't hire a manager with a history of abusing his employees, because the lawsuits are all in the public record.

So what should we do? Should we fret and live in fear of our past actions and words coming back to haunt us? I don't think so. There's a bright new opportunity just sitting here, waiting for organizations and individuals to take advantage of it: Spend your future creating your past, starting right now. Live your life out loud, well aware that everything you say can (and will) be used against you (or for you). Treat every customer as though he could turn into a testimonial. Treat every vendor as if she could give you a recommendation. And then, when the time comes, the seeds you've sown will pay off.

Blogs, newsgroups, professional organizations, and all the rest are perfect for someone who wants to leave a vivid, positive trail. You can choose to use the new tools or to become a victim of them.

Thanks to Naseem Javad of the Wisconsin Technology Network for this.

First: Is the name structure good enough to invest a century of branding?

1) Very distinct and very unique?
2) Short, simple with attractive alpha-structure?
3) Highly related to the business?
4) Globally trademarked and protected?
5) With an identical URL?

For scientists and engineers, it's often easier to develop a product in the laboratory than it is to create the company that will deliver it to the world. Now, a website provides free resources to those interested in becoming high-technology entrepreneurs (http://edcorner.stanford.edu).

Called the STVP Educators Corner, the website is a creation of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), an entrepreneurship education and research center within the School of Engineering. It includes videotaped interviews with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Stanford course materials, case studies, and links to organizations, events and journals.

[via Syllabus.com]

I dig Harry Potter. I was working at WB when the first movie was being launched and damn was it exciting!

WB ANNOUNCES RELEASE DATE FOR HARRY POTTER 4

Warner Bros. has announced that HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE will be released in theaters Nov. 18, 2005. Directed by Mike Newell (FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL), the fourth film in the popular series will go into production later this year. Unlike the other POTTER films that begin with Harry at his aunt and uncle Dursley's house, this film will kick off with Harry and friends attending the International Quidditch Cup. The deviation from the novel is due to the source material's enormous size, which needed to be pared down to
accommodate a responsible theatrical length film. The third POTTER film, PRISONER OF AZKABAN, opens in theaters June 4, 2004.

A great article from Leap Frog Strategies on product launches - it's a couple of years old, but still relevant. Thank you Brian Carroll for this one

If you have an important introduction in the upcoming months, make sure you do it right. Don't make these often devastating mistakes:

1. Weak Value Propositions
2. Insufficient Targeting of Prospects
3. Inadequate Sales Tools
4. Poor Sales Processes
5. Calling on Top Prospects First

What’s lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful communication with viable prospects regardless of their timing to buy. It’s not calling up every few months to find out if a prospect is “ready to buy yet?” Lead nurturing about building solid relationships with the right people.

[via B2B Lead Generation Blog]

Good PR is just as complex as rocket science. The customer is pulling one way and the client is pushing another, while competitors shift this way and that and the economy fluctuates yet again. One little mistake and hundreds of thousands of dollars of PR fees become nothing more than a bathroom break during half time.

The truth is that in many ways, PR is harder than rocket science. It's news when a rocket launch fails. It's news when a PR campaign succeeds.

Steven Blinn of the Blinn PR Report goes further on this subject in the latest edition of the Blinn PR Report, go check it out.

A couple of resources surfaced today on the value of linking (reciprocal linking is a cost efficient method of driving traffic to websites). So many of us get down the road in our e-marketing endeavors and forget about the basics when working with our clients, or even our own sites. Linking is one of those things that you can't skimp on, and regardless of Google & PageRank, you need a linking strategy for a whole host of reasons. Here's a couple good resources to refresh your memory.

There are a number of ways to do this - I have a post (see link below) with a link to some resources that I've found to be agreeable, many of which accept article submissions.
http://www.danavan.net/weblog/archives/potential_publications_for_articles.html

Also consider the following:
1. Do you currently offer RSS feeds of all of your reviews so that people can easily "syndicate" them? If you're charging membership fees to certain content, you can password protect these for access, while still affording ease of use.
2. Try to forge alliances with other technology sites/blogs/newsletters - locally, regionally, and nationally.
3. Post things to sites like Yahoo's Free Content, which allows others to grab your information and use it, providing they give you credit

I love these overarching research releases by Jupiter, like this: Online Branding Tactician's Guide: Optimization Becomes Critical. I don't know whether to heed the call, run and hide, or just keep trucking, because things will change...???

What the hell does this mean? How is "online branding" so different that "offline branding"?
"Online branding is an ongoing data-driven management process focused on optimization, and not merely a copy of off-line branding. Marketers that understand this quality will find the greatest return on their investment.

While major publishers have been courting major advertisers, there’s also a boom going on in the local markets. Borrell Associates’ WebAudit predicts a rise of 28.7 percent in local online ad buys for 2004, with markets such as New York (34.2%) and Los Angeles (24.2%) leading the way. Borrell includes 210 U.S. markets in its report, which tallies money spent by local advertisers for newspaper, yellow pages, search engines and other sites. Perhaps the biggest eye-opener in the report was a predicted 100 percent jump in online ads for the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY market to $40 million. Local observers were stunned by the prediction, according to the Albany Times-Union, though Gordon Borrell stood by his projections, saying they were grounded in a tech recovery and business-to-business growth.

» Local Web Spending Up Nearly 29% (ClickZ)

» Boom forecast for online ad spending (Albany Times-Union)

» 2003/04 WebAudit for U.S. Markets (Borrell research)

[via Online Publishers Association]

For those Internet users have long since graduated from the 1 or 2 phrase search terms to longer search phrases - now it's your turn to have some fun with this stuff.

Try out Googlephrasing

My personal favorites

This is an awesome story about the power of targeted, relevant, and useful email marketing. I love stories like this because they underscore how powerful email marketing is, even in the 'age of SPAM', when you actually THINK about what your company is sending, and strategize on how you bring value to your customers.

The Scotts corporation (any of you who have lawns know who these guys are) has a robust, targeted email marketing regiment that targets consumers of its products with a lawn-care reminder service, in which subscribers get e-mails when it is time for them to put down lawn applications. Reminders are sent based on where recipients live and their grass type, ensuring, for example, that customers with St. Augustine grass receive different care recommendations than those with Kentucky bluegrass.

These e-mails go four to six times a year depending on grass type. Scotts divided the country into 18 lawn-care regions defined by conditions and the types of grass that grow in each region. Think of the type of content that Scotts needed to develop - it's a bit, yes, but not anything they didn't already have down somewhere in house! I think of the typical manufacturing company - they have data on what products work where, test information, application and maintenance information, ideas for how to best use the products, and so on and so forth. How hard would it be for the average company, on a shoestring budget (Scotts started the reminder e-mails on a shoestring budget in 2000, and they grew to about 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2002) to start some relevant and emails to a base of consumers and watch the list grow!

What's better, is Scotts is driving traffic to their local retailers every time they send a reminder out! "The scotts.com Web site is not at all an e-commerce site, and so our objective with the site and our e-mail programs is really to build lasting and individual relationships with consumers..." Further proof that manufacturers can have brilliant and relevant relationships directly with their consumers that help everyone in the value chain!

Joel Reimer is the Manager of Interactive Marketing at Scotts and the genius behind the campaign.

[via DMNews - Scotts' E-Mails Grow Strong Customer Roots]

Bruce Kasanoff just wrote an insightful little "e-book" ( you know, those things that PR gurus preach to us about doing for your personal publicity but that none of us ever actually do) I like it. It's a quick read, offers some great case examples about how to do "less" to actually help yourself and your customers. Check it out!

LESS: What Customers Really Want [pdf]

The most profitable, most sustainable way to run a business is to find a group of customers who have problems that drive them crazy, and can afford to pay for solutions. Then, become obsessed with solving these customers’ problems. Many business professionals forget this simple truth. If you don’t believe me, spend an hour in almost any established business. Odds are the firm has become more obsessed with selling than with solving. This brief eBook reminds you how to solve problems for customers, and in doing so make quite a nice living for yourself. It’s not intended to tell you everything, but instead is just long enough to get you energized.

[via Bruce Kasanoff]

This study from Luth Research fits nicely into the mantra that Ben and Jackie have been preaching over at Church of the Customer.

In a survey of 1,751 Luth Research panel members concluded that over 58% of respondents worldwide say personal correspondence is their top motivating factor for making a contribution.

Think about that. If NPR, which we've seen many discussions on lately, offered their listener/donors to send creative emails from their site, similar to how you can send all of your friends a discount on the books you just purchased from Amazon, they could potentially, at least according to this study, raise the success ratio of their donations among peer groups!

The Luth and Kintera survey, conducted in December 2003, also determined that 22.4% of people around the world have made an online donation. Furthermore, 17.8% planned to make a contribution to a political candidate or party in 2004. Among those people who have made on online donation before and are likely to donate to a politician or political party this year, 15% say they respond to solicitation e-mails sent from a person they know, whereas just 3% respond to e-mails from people they do not know.


[via eMarketer]

A recent study by Euro RSCG Worldwide and AdWeek confirms that a high proportion of graduating students want to join the "creative industry", while industry insiders are quite content to stay here. Nice. Come on in everyone, the water's fine! I just read a study over the weekending about some of the highest hourly wage occupations, of which Anethesiologists and Surgeons rank near the top of the heap. Ad industry execs where no where in sight. Nevertheless, it's a damn fun, but stressful industry. I hope everyone enjoys the ride

When asked in which three of a group of 19 industries they'd most like to work, respondents put "advertising agency/marketing firm" head and shoulders above the other venues, with 38% of students and 79% of ad industry professionals including it among their three choices. No other industry came even close to advertising in the professionals' responses, and students' second choice, "educational institution," earned 10 percentage points less than advertising.

When asked in which area of the industry they'd most like to work, the student respondents were most likely to choose "creative" (38 percent). The next most popular choices were "media" (27 percent) and "creative services" (23 percent). At the bottom of the ladder: "human resources," the goal for just 9% of the sample.

[via Media Post]

"This essay is a manifesto about software for collaboration -- why the world's future depends on it, why the current crop of tools isn't good enough, and what programmers can and must do about it. "Society's problems are scaling at unprecedented rates, so solutions need to scale also. Our very survival depends on our ability to work together more effectively, to get collectively smarter. Computers -- when used properly -- can help us do this." Our software tools -- particularly in the collaboration space -- are nowhere close to fulfilling their potential. I can walk into any meeting anywhere in the world with a piece of paper in hand, and I can be sure that people will be able to read it, mark it up, pass it around, and file it away. I can't say the same for electronic documents. I can't annotate a Web page or use the same filing system for both my email and my Word documents, at least not in a way that is guaranteed to be interoperable with applications on my own machine and on others. Why not? In order to make a real impact in the collaborative space, tools must not only be good, they must be interoperable. Improving collaborative tools, then, boils down to this: We must be people-centric when designing and building applications, and we must work with other developers to make our tools more interoperable."

Eugene Eric Kim - Blue Oxen Associates -- A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools

[via Kolabora]

It's rare that I have any fewer than 5 books going at one time - good reading begets better reading!

Here are a few that are on the coffee table as I write, all in various stages of completion:

Profitable Growth Is Everyone's Business : 10 Tools You Can Use Monday Morning by Ram Charan - I've only gotten though the first 30 pages, but I love this book already. I truly value Ram's original thinking, and am quite sure that this book will live up to its promises.

Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

The Commanding Heights : The Battle for the World Economy by Daniel Yergin

Defensive Design for the Web : How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points by 37Signals

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2nd Edition) by Alan Cooper

Call of the Mall : The Author of Why We Buy on the Geography of Shopping by Paco Underhill

Re-imagine! by Tom Peters

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Free Prize Inside: The Next Big Marketing Idea by Seth Godin - This is part of the next round of the BBBT - Catch it here on May 6th

I always bring wine as my gift for pretty much any friendly social gathering. I love wine, and love finding new wines. What bugs me though is that wine.com doesn't have any Easter recommendations on their site. A missed opportunity if you ask me!

This article from Cleveland.com about choosing wine to go with a traditional Easter ham or lamb caught my eye today. Here are some of their thoughts. I concur. I especially recommend the Pinot Grigio from Cedar Creek Winery in Cedarburg, WI.

Just how important is getting your name in print and your ideas noticed for an executive career?

Plenty important, say headhunters, career coaches and management-development professionals. "You have to arrange your own discovery," one executive search professional explains. But short of establishing your own vanity press and putting out books on topics you know something about -- assuming, of course, you have a book's worth of hot ideas in you -- just how can you get the visibility in your field that will lead headhunters and other talent scouts to your door?

Well, not really, but I recently saw him on one of those evening news shows and was wholesale impressed with his passion, drive, personal level of productivity, and tenacity. He seems like a 'truly amazing man' insofar as his accomplishments and work ethic are concerned.

In that spirit, I'm really glad that I found this post on Signal -vs- Noise today, which led me to a 2001 article called "Rumsfeld's Rules." Enjoy!

Some great business tips from Rumsfeld's Rules
* Don’t automatically fill vacant jobs. Leave some positions unfilled for six to eight months to see what happens. You will find you won’t need to fill some of them.
* When you initiate new activities, find things you are currently doing that you can discontinue — whether reports, activities, etc. It works, but you must force yourself to do it.
* That which you require be reported on to you will improve, if you are selective. How you fashion your reporting system announces your priorities and sets the institution’s priorities.
* Prune — prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.
* “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” — Old military axiom

Another great report from the US Department of Commerce. It's not new, but it's still relevant. I have qualms about using 6 year old data though - some of the data are from '98.

Main Street in The Digital Age: How Small Businesses Are Using the Tools of the New Economy

"Main Street in the Digital Age," examines the degree to which small- and medium-sized businesses are participating in the new economy. The term "new economy" was coined to describe an economy with surging productivity due largely to investment and use of information technologies like computers, software, and networks. If we are indeed in a "new economy," we would expect to see diffusion of these critical IT tools to businesses of all sizes throughout the economy. This report finds that small- and medium-sized businesses in every industry are investing in information technologies and exploring the potential of these technologies. However, this research also shows that the smaller the firm, the less it invests in IT equipment on a per-employee basis.

WSJ [sub req] has a series of articles in the personal journal section on how to keep afloat in a turbulent job market. One of the more interesting one's I've read recently is an interview with Richard Lampman, director of H-P Labs and senior vice president of research, about the outlook for information technology.

The article itself it interesting, and focuses on some of the needs that H-P has and what it's looking for in employees, but the following point struck me, because this is something that I preach as well. Think not only of what you can do for your company with your skills and talents, but rather, what can you also do for your industry, region, town, and the world. Many employers (most) DO NOT afford their employees the means to make an impact on the world around them via the corporation, nor do they encourage it as a personal development tool. According to Richard, perhaps we should do more of both!

WSJ: What qualities are you looking for in new hires at H-P Labs?

Mr. Lampman: I'd give them two bits of advice. One is to be ambitious, and by that I don't mean in a reality-show sense. But be ambitious in your thinking about what's possible. Think about the bigger change you could make through your work. Second, keep your eye on the world. Understand what's going on in the environment… There's always the hazard of getting too internally focused … and that's a dangerous thing.

Todd at apennyfor contacted me today on the subject of reading business books. Frankly, I think about this subject a lot because I read mostly business books, which, in most circles, is considered futile or nuts or both.

Nevertheless, I have tremendous respect for authors. If someone has enough confidence, competence and conviction to put their heart into a book, I feel that it's damn near worth reading, and I don't know anyone who's ever been worse off for reading a book. Further, I never mind paying modest overdue fines at the library because I believe strongly in the public library system, but we'll save that topic for another time.

Anyway, I'm also interested in why YOU read biz books. I have a theory that bloggers are more prolific readers than the average web user. Want to prove me right? Leave you comments here with the following (thanks Todd...)

1. Why do you read business books?
2. How many do you read, on average, per month?
3. What are your favorite ways to find out about new books, and how do you choose which ones to read?
4. Do you buy most of your books, or source them from the library?

I haven't had a chance to read it yet. In fact, it's still downloading, but anything Jim produces is usually golden.

FREE White Paper: 'Web Channel Performance Management: Aligning Web Site Vision and Strategy with Goals and Tactics', by web analytics expert Jim Sterne. Target Marketing's Jim Sterne looks at how web analytics should be used as an integral part of a company's business strategy.

An extract from Jim's summary in the report is below:
'We have long desired to have the ultimate spreadsheet that can take daily or hourly sales, production costs, promotional expenditures, etc. and scroll down to the bottom line to see how things are going. Web analytics has provided the tactical and goal-oriented tools necessary to understand the interactions and behaviour of Web site visitors. But we quickly discovered that the health of the Web channel depends on more than historical data such as financial metrics, number of visitors or performance of the site. These fail to allow an organization to manage future performance. While critical, Web analytics is just one piece of the puzzle, and without a connection to strategy and vision, it is impossible to manage future performance.

A performance management system provides the link between strategy and vision, and goals and tactics. It can help organizations lay out their Web site strategy and then break it down into objectives related to specific departments, business units or functional areas. Metrics and targets can be associated with these objectives to manage and monitor progress. This allows managers to track performance against organizational goals and objectives. Drilling down into detailed performance information can provide a window on local operations for every manager throughout the organization. With Web channel performance management, organizations can now move past simply measuring and monitoring Web site traffic to motivating their employees and managing the Web site toward a common vision.'


[via netimperative]

I love spring. I love new ideas. Here's a few from ClickZ this morning on "new" approaches to e-mail marketing. Remember, nothing is really "new" (well, few things) but if you haven't heard these, they're "new to you"! :) (me too...)

Jeff Schiller, network manager at MIT, discusses security on college campuses, and offers his beliefs on why things are done they way they are with commercial software.

Being in the software development business ourselves, I think that it's very important to reflect on some of these issues we deal with every day. We're constantly asked about the security of our software, and frankly, we've put every effort we can into making the end software secure and stable. Unfortunately, this is not the case with a lot of software makers on the market. Software is a tough business and one that's ever-evolving. There are greater minds than mine on this subject, for sure, but it's up to the software companies, both small and large, to reset the expectations that the public has on how usable, secure, stable, and fun (yes, fun) we can make our products. Peoples lives are surrounded by software, and it's critical that we realize that fact and develop our wares in such a way that we improve the user's experience with our tools and improve their quality of work-life through the value that our software adds.

...Some interesting dialog from the interview...
S: Do you mean the end-user software?
JS: Yes. I mean basically every computer connected to the Internet. Put another way, you should not depend on the network to provide protection for your computer.

And so, with that kind of history, firewalls got developed because quite frankly, the network managers were told to “do something,” and that’s the kind of thing you can do. But don’t mistake that to mean that the only way to have a secure network is to have a network that is restricted or closed.

[via Sylabus]

Rick Bruner has a new blog on business blogging.

Business Blog Consulting is a site devoted to demonstrating how effective weblogs can be for communicating with customers and marketing to new customer prospects. You will find here lots of examples of business blogs, as well as resources to help you learn more about the topic.

This site is maintained by Rick E. Bruner, a consultant with almost 10 years of expertise in Internet marketing, including publishing two books on the subject. If you are interested in developing a weblog strategy and setting up an easy-to-maintain weblog for your business, Rick is the man who can help.

[via PR meets the WWW]

http://www.clicklab.com/cl/

I think that the current financial state of our country parallels, to some degree, the state of respect for copyrights in our county. This is why grade schools are taking students in grades as early as 3rd grade, and teaching them the basics of finance so that they don't become debt ridden burdens like their parents. Perhaps the same thing should be done with the treatment of copyrighted goods. However, is it the parents responsibility or the school's? I would argue that it falls on the parents. Funny thing, the parents think so to!

If teenagers and young adults aren't convinced that improper online downloading is a big deal, should the entertainment industry target an even younger generation? According to a BSA-sponsored Ipsos survey, 78% of US adults think it is the parents' responsibility, and not the teachers', to teach children respect for copyrighted works.
[via eMarketer - Teaching Copyright and Wrong]

Seems like we should all brush up on some of the more creative ways to keep employees, or to attract key employees on their own terms. While there are still some jobs that need to be done in house, no questions asked, there are many jobs that are increasingly being done in some sort of non-traditional fashion or off-location.

[via Communications Update]

So, I've had this site design up for a while, I've never swapped out the stock photos (no, that's not really me), and I'm seeking to add some new things.

So, if the 3 people that read this feed or visit this site on a regular basis could give me some feedback on what you, the regular readers would like to see, or see changed, I'm all ears and would love to hear it.

Please post your comments, questions, critiques and ideas in the comment section.

Thanks!

A class full of shy high school kids have completely re-done their school web site in Flash in Summit School District, Frisco, Colorado.

We weren't learning anything nearly this cool back in high school!

The project put the students' problem-solving abilities to the test when they realized that most people's home computer monitors had too low a resolution to handle the freshly designed site. "We had it all ready to go when we realized we had to start over," Karden said. "It took probably another week of class to get it fixed." The students have programmed the new SHS Web site entirely by hand, using HTML, JavaScript and Macromedia Flash. As project manager, Adams has learned leadership, management and organizational skills that belie her 14 years. "The hardest part was making sure sections got done when they needed to," Adams said. "It got stressful when I had to say, 'Have you gotten this done? Why not? I need you to do this.'" Adams acted as a liaison between Karden and her classmates, took responsibility for delegating sections of the project to them and navigated their work through a series of deadlines. "It's nice to learn how to be in charge and work with people's different needs and abilities," she said. "I'm really proud of how it all came out. I think we worked as a good team to make a professional-looking site."

[via Summit Daily News - STUDENTS redesign SHS Web site]

MarketingSherpa is launching thier "MarketingSherpa's Reader's Choice Award for Best Blogs" on the subjects of marketing, advertising and PR. A blog must have been regularly updated for at least the past 90 days to be considered. Winners get a review and hotlink from our site, plus a MarketingSherpa Blog Star t-shirt.

To enter a Blog you author, or to nominate this blog, email Managing Editor Anne Holland by April 30th. They'll collect reader votes in May (hey it's a great way to get traffic to your Blog), and announce winners in June. *Please* put "Best Blog" in the subject line of your nomination email and send to anneh [at] marketingsherpa.com

As a business advisorty board member to the St. Norber SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise) team, I am very proud to announce that the SNC group are the Midwest regional SIFE champions! This is a great victory for such a young team, who in their previous years have been named rookies of the year, and first runner-up.

It also make the advisory board members pretty proud to be part of a winning team!

[see also - Student enterprise teams to compete for shot at nationals - Green Bay Press Gazette]

Stephan Spencer of NetConepts just published a new article about gleaning competitive SEO intelligence from your competitors' websites. Check it out

The article purpots to give you tools on how "you can learn how to reverse-engineer your archrivals' tactics and join them at the top of the search results heap."

[via CatalogAge - Casing the Competition]

Did you know that:

Chris O'Donnell explains why he doesn't like WalMart. I agree with him...sort of. I hate shopping there because I think of how they treat employees and I despise the product quality, according to Paul, Home Depot pulls the same shit though.

What I do respect about them is the way that they manage data and fine-tune each store's inventory, placement, and refine their sales environment for their target demographic, which, apparently, I am not part of. Having worked at the #1 Home Video producer (Warner Bros.) and seeing the vendor side of WM, when you're at the top of your game, I have respect for how they use data in the retail environment. There are many things you can learn from WM. But that's really where my respect comes to a screeching halt.

Chicago is toying with the idea of a Wal-Mart, which would be the first in-city. Here's a great writeup on it, the politics, and the ramifications:
http://www.gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/kill_the_juggermart.php