Ready or not, 2009 is here. By now, you should have your marketing plan for the year completed so you can hit the ground running. But…the percentages say you haven’t even started. Would you like to know how you can significantly improve your business right out of the shoot? If you’ve got it in you, here’s a [...]

Ok so maybe we won’t throw a huge bash or anything and I wasn’t even going to share about my Birthday today because of other pressing issues, but here we are. It’s January 5th and it’s my Birthday. I dub myself officially “older.” It also marks 14 years in business. I still have insecurities about my [...]

As a woman entrepreneur I love reading and looking at other women who are successful in business. Thanks in part to the troubled economy, entrepreneurship has been on the rise over the past few years. Small businesses have helped replace the jobs lost due to large manufacturers moving operations overseas, and they have helped boost [...]

I hope you had the most wonderful New Years Eve! I sure did, we got together with friends, ate dinner together, played the Wii and really enjoyed our time together. Then as I opened up my laptop with coffee in hand I woke up to my own Holiday Gift. First let me tell you I LOVE [...]

When talking about allocating a marketing budget, one of the most important questions is the split between corporate and brand spending. In other words, is it better to lift the brand as a whole, or hawk specific products? Peeling the onion another layer, when doing corporate advertising, should a company focus on "hard" attributes--also called "corporate ability" or CA advertising--or on softer "corporate social responsibility" or CSR?

I hadn't really thought about this much in the context of tech until today, when I started running through various ad campaigns and realizing just how bereft most are of CSR advertising in tech. Literally the only company I can come up with that does CSR is Microsoft. Am I missing someone? I guess you could argue that Google does it, but that's not really advertising as much as big PR stunts.

I think the reason for this is simple: most tech companies don't really do anything "bad", or at least they're not accused of it. Have any tech companies recently changed the climate? Cut down a rainforest? Enslaved children to mine silicon? If they have, it doesn't make the news because they're so far down the value chain from these activities. And of course, this is why Microsoft has to run ad campaigns on its CSR.




Keep in mind, the above table contains estimates I put together in five minutes. They are 100% wrong.

This leads me to wonder, does CSR even work to a technology environment? Does it almost backfire? I mean, I watch these Exxon Mobil / BP greenwashing ads and I literally want to vomit. Maybe Microsoft would be better off ignoring CSR because the audience is so savvy. I think there's probably a big inverse correlation between CSR effective and audience sophistication.

What about product vs. corporate spending? Apple doesn't do any corporate spending. They market their products only, and yet have an incredibly strong brand. This is because their products are (1) linked together through design, creating an "idea" of an Apple brand just by handling, viewing and using their products, and (2) are advertised in very similar ways. So, they're getting the double-whammy of getting product SKUs out the door with product advertising and strengthening their brand.

Could any company do this? Could Microsoft do this? Are they better off just abandoning CSR and CA altogether and advertising products through a unified portfolio approach? I think it's worth a shot.

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Get Closer to Your Customers Now What the heck, the phone’s not ringing like it was this time last year, something must be up. In good times it’s easy to get lazy and one of the first things to go is that genuine, I really appreciate your business and want to [...]

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Adding a Chief Conversation Officer “Markets are conversations - talk is cheap, silence is fatal” - from the cluetrain manifesto - Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger The statement above embodies for many the changed landscape of marketing. Bigco started to embrace this over the course of the last few years and now [...]

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Automate Copyright Updates on Web Pages Nothing earth shattering today, but a nice little new year item for your web site. Many web pages carry copyright notice that reflects the creation date of some or all of the content - Copyright 2003-2009 for example. This is great until the year changes and you [...]

I’ve often written about “NASCAR Blindness” -- the strongly held belief that if no one in your little bubble of upscale artsy BoBo friends is into something, then clearly no one else could be either-- and how it afflicts the advertising community. But there’s an equally insidious syndrome affecting the tech community: Scoble Blindness.

Scoble Blindness is the strongly held belief that everyone using social media is supremely interested in what Robert Scoble and others like him have to say.

But nothing could be farther from the truth.

Now Mr. Scoble is a very bright man who legitimately has many interesting things to say. But the topics he discusses are mainly of interest to people working in the greater technology field. And hard as it is for those afflicted with Scoble Blindness to accept, most people using social media are not in the greater technology field. And that percentage is growing rapidly, as more and more non-tech users discover things like Facebook and Twitter.

It’s why I roll my eyes in amazement at the endless discussions (and subsequent hand-wringing) about the power of/desirability of/definition of “influencers.” As if said “influencers” were universal or (and this is key) people outside of the Silicon Valley bubble had any interest at all in Scoble-type “influencers” of any stripe or for that matter, in using Twitter as a “tool.”

Think of how your friends and relations outside the Silicon Valley bubble use MySpace or Facebook. Are they putting up blog posts about how to increase site traffic? Commenting on Zappos’ brilliant use of Twitter? Or are they commenting on their friends pictures from their trip to Jamaica last month and posting mildly funny clips they found on YouTube?

So what makes you all think they’re going to act any differently on Twitter?

Rather than a “tool” that “provides value” most non-tech users are going to use Twitter as an asynchronous IM device to (a) keep up with their real-life friends (b) follow the ramblings of a celebrity tweeter like Shaquille O’Neal or Britney Spears-- people with whom they have zero expectations of reciprocity and (c) get updates from broadcast-only news feeds like the New York Times or the BBC.

The notion of the “citizen-expert” -- someone like Robert Scoble, who is well-known in his field, but makes time and effort to reach out to unknowns-- is unique to Silicon Valley culture where the difference between “known” and “unknown” can change overnight.

This paradigm does not exist in other fields. Silicon Valley is still building up an infrastructure around social media and social media itself is evolving daily, so blogs and tweets have become their primary information sources.

But if I’m a golfer, there’s already a world of information out there: books, magazines, DVDs-- all from established media sources. So it’s pretty easy for me to find it all myself, both online and off-- I don’t need a Twitter “golf guru” to point me to interesting golf articles or to opine on Tiger Woods’ putting game.
The closest golfers might get to a “Twitter guru” is a well-known golf journalist whose comments about the PGA tour provoke discussion among golf fans. But that’s a discussion, not a learning experience and the golf journalist is not influencing anyone, at least not in the sense that many in Silicon Valley see their gurus influencing the masses. (To wit: many Silicon Valley “gurus” also have a sizable following in the investment community, since investors are hoping they’ll alert them to the next Google or YouTube.)

Twitter offers the option of keeping one’s feed “closed” and that’s an option I’m seeing most of my non-tech world friends choosing. And while they’re an admittedly non-scientific sampling, they are, to a one, baffled by the notion of following/being followed by strangers and the fact that there are people who actively seek out strangers to follow them. They view it both in terms of security and social normalcy: why would you want all these complete strangers to know you like raisins in your oatmeal (and vice versa)?

And while there are those who’d respond that the solution is to only tweet things “of value” (rather than one’s breakfast menu) that’s sort of beside the point. Part of the charm of Twitter is the ability to share our friends’ breakfast menus, which creates something the writer Clive Thompson calls “ambient intimacy.” And outside the Silicon Valley bubble, the twin notions of “tool” and “value” are lost on users for whom those terms have a complete different meaning.

The solution to Scoble Blindness is an easy one: acknowledging that the rules and norms of the Silicon Valley social media scene begin and end with that scene. So that when a Guy Kawasaki asserts that everyone on Twitter really wants to have thousands of followers, he needs to frame his statement in terms of the Twitterers he’s actually talking about: those people working in the space who wish to use Twitter as a business tool to market themselves, a group which includes both the tech community and (funny enough) the “multi-level marketer” community (who have also discovered the business possibilities of Twitter, but that’s a whole different post.)

For marketers, the proposition is different: we’ve got to stop listening to the chatter coming out of Silicon Valley. To remember that the people we’re marketing to have a very different view of social media, it’s values and uses. And that we’ve got to advise our clients accordingly. We also need to remember that the rules for promoting one’s own personal brand are not the same as the rules for promoting our clients brands. In other words, we need to avoid coming down with Scoble Blindness.

Here's one of my worries as we continue to trudge through the murky waters of the recession. Business owners have always been an impatient lot, when it comes to marketing efforts.

They plant the seed and then two days later, when nothing has sprouted, they dig up the seeds before they've had a chance to take root. Tactics that would have worked, given enough time, are aborted before they've had a chance. Lots of wasted time. Lots of wasted money.

But with the pressures of tougher times, I worry that the impatience factor will get even worse. And there are a lot of businesses who can't afford too many missteps.

So before you invest in a marketing effort, be sure you are willing to hang in there and take into account these factors:

How often do people need/want it? If you run a restaurant or sell ice cream – you’re in luck. Mail a coupon on Tuesday and you might see the family, coupon in hand, by Saturday. But on average, someone buys a car every 3-5 years. Own a car dealership and you might wait 18+ months after your first ad to see that person in your door.

Who the heck are you? Does the prospect recognize your brand? Do they know what you are all about? What makes you different from your competitors?

Who else is talking? Just like at a party, if you are the only voice talking, it’s a lot easier to be heard. But, if you are one of many and others are talking louder and faster – you can easily get lost in the din.

Where are you talking? What would happen if you stood up right in the middle of a church service and started talking? You’d get noticed, wouldn’t you? That’s because you are doing something unexpected in an unexpected place.

What are you saying? The most important factor of all. Are you talking about what the consumer cares about or are you talking about you?

If you're on the agency side, how do you help clients have the patience to let a campaign take root? If you're a business owner/marketer -- how do manage expectations within your organization so that your efforts are given enough time to have impact?

Happy New Year! It's resolution season. How do you avoid the let-down of resolutions earnestly created in January that may not last until February? Instead of setting resolutions, I recommend a simple life philosophy that will stick. Comp Yourself.

That's it. That's the entire philosophy.

Did I do better this year than I did last year?

For example, at work to measure my own comp performance, I would ask myself...

• Did I contribute more?
  
• Did I do a better job?
  
• Did I take on more projects?
  
• Did I add more value?
  
• Did I learn more?
  
• Did I get a promotion?
  
• Did I get a pay increase?
  
• Did I receive more praise?
  
• Did I get better feedback from peers?
  
• Did I feel better about my skills?

This isn't the official company performance appraisal, it is your own gauge. There were years, despite receiving excellent performance feedback from my boss (using the company review process), when using my own comp performance measures, I felt stagnant. What you consider "better" is entirely up to you.

When you feel you haven't grown enough, put a plan together that will challenge you and push you where you want to be... Just like you would for an underperforming store location.

Hopefully this doesn't feel too daunting. Improvement doesn't necessarily require huge change. Alan Weiss, in his book Million Dollar Consulting, suggests the 1% Solution:

Now, that's an interesting and manageable approach.

"Comping yourself" is an idea a few of us came up with some years ago while working as marketers at Starbucks. We used comp performance to measure our stores, why not for ourselves?

Author and blogger John Moore documents how we practiced this philosophy in a chapter of his book "Tribal Knowledge: Business Wisdom Brewed from the Grounds of Starbucks Corporate Culture" In fact, he provides the entire chapter, Always Measure Your Comparable Job Performance on his blog for free.

Happy New Year!

For most businesses, customer segmentation -- the act of dividing customers into similar groups for the purpose of targeting -- is something that you did as a marketing exercise many years ago or at best, at the beginning of last year. In a challenging economy, a different and very powerful kind of segmentation called price segmentation can help you to make the most of each sale you get and stop leaving money on the table with each sale.

Price segmentation is the practice of offering different prices to different customer segments with an eye on maximizing the profitability of each segment. For most businesses, it is highly lucrative, though it can take some effort and planning to get started. Price segmentation works better when you have real customer need-based segments that you can effectively isolate from one another, but those are not prerequisites to success.

Pricing is a powerful marketing tool. Use it wisely. Let’s say that you have a product that sells for $5, but some customers will pay up to $8 for it, while others value it at $3. Through effective price segmentation, you can create opportunities for each customer to purchase your product at the price that is most relevant to them and most profitable for you.

Price segmentation happens every day, perhaps you’ve experienced some of these examples:

• Time based, as in hotels or attractions that are more or less expensive on weekdays or weekends.


• Location based, where you find or consume the product will affect its pricing, such as buying at a supermarket vs. a gas station.


• Control brands, such as private label products vs. national brands


• Solution sales, when a company packages a solution to a problem instead of a single product.


• Customer segments, such as member vs. non-member prices for products and services.

• Define your customer segments by benefit. What benefits do they derive from doing business with you? You can price differently based on convenience, level of service, time of service and loyalty.


• Look at your distribution channels. This is an easy way that many companies use to segment their pricing


• Use price segmentation as an opportunity to innovate or bundle products and services to create completely new offerings that offer more value that you price accordingly.


• Consider offering programs for your customers that allow them to pay upfront from pricing discounts later. Starbucks Gold Card program costs $25 upfront, but offers 10% off on all drinks. This helps them retain their most loyal customers who often spend upwards of $100 per month. They have the added benefit of customers self-segmenting into a category that Starbucks can market to for even greater return.

David writes in to point out that banks are losing a fortune on foreclosures because many frustrated homeowners are trashing the houses before they leave. This dramatically diminishes the value of the home and leaves scars all around.

Why not, he wonders, offer the homeowners $1000 in cash if they leave the house in great condition?

I can hear the objections already. "What! Why should we pay people not to break the law!" After all, if you do it this time, if you bribe people to behave, then you'll have to do it every time...

Every time? How often, exactly, do you expect to evict a person?

It's very easy to set up policies and procedures designed to give people what they deserve, to set a standard, to teach a lesson, to make sure they understand who's boss. And I think that for parents, this is an excellent idea. Bribing your kid leads to spoiled kids who don't get it. But businesses aren't parents and customers aren't kids.

"I can't let you in, because you didn't follow the procedure, and even though you're never coming back here again, if I let you in now, without having followed the procedure, you'll think that you can ignore the procedure the next time you do business with someone else..." It sounds stupid when you say it that way because it is stupid.

You can extend this all the way to how you hire people. Is penalizing a 40 year old by not giving her a job a way to teach her a lesson about studying harder for the SAT when she was 17?

Instead of worrying so much about establishing good habits among transient customers, perhaps it's worth figuring out what works best for both sides and doing that instead.

Unless you work in a nuclear power plant, the answer is certainly no (and if you work there, I hope the answer is yes.)

No, everything is not okay. Not in a growing organization. Not if your company is making change happen, or dealing with customers. How could it be?

And yet, that's what so many managers focus on. How to make everything okay.

We spend so much time smoothing things out, we lose the opportunity for change, or for texture or creativity.

Instead of working so hard to make everything okay, perhaps it is more helpful to work hard at living with a world that rarely is.

Scarcity plus Christmas plus social pressure plus greed plus kids = critical mass.

The most poignant moment comes just after 3:00 when a young boy totally loses it.

This is the most disturbing video I've seen today.

If the local bank were offering a sale on dollar bills, ninety cents each, how many would you buy?

Most rational people would say, "I'll take them all please." Especially if you had thirty days to pay for them.

So, why, precisely, do you have an ad budget?

If your ads work, if you can measure them and they return more profit than they cost, why not keep buying them until they stop working?

And if they don't work, why are you running them?

The time-tested response is that you're not sure, that ads are risky, that you can't tell. And for some sorts of products and some sorts of ads, you'll get no argument from me.

Digital ads are different (or they should be). You should know cost per click and revenue per click and be able to make a smart guess about lifetime value of a click. And if that's positive, buy, buy, buy.

And if you don't know those things, why are you buying digital ads?

When Amazon was at its key growth peak, the mantra there was $33. They would buy unlimited ads, of any kind, as long as they generated new customers for $33 or less each. There was a risk that $33 was too high a number for the business to sustain, but the ads were no risk at all. As long as they came in under that number, there was unlimited money to buy them.

How often do you hear the marketing person say, "that's a neat idea, but we don't have the budget this year"?

Shouldn't she say, "We have an unlimited budget for ads that work"...

When a restaurant goes from a la carte to either a buffet or a prix fixe meal, it is able to find a new class of customers.

Could a law firm charge by the project? When I incorporated Yoyodyne, a fancy firm charged us a fix rate.

Netflix went from charging by the rental to charging by the month.

We use tolls to charge people who drive over bridges more than other folks. We don't hesitate to charge people ordering steak more than people ordering pasta in a restaurant. Could the library charge frequent readers more? What about insurance companies charging more to young families (more likely to have a baby).

Ski areas have a huge fixed cost base (land, grooming, etc.) so they get greedy, sell too many lift tickets and the lines get long. Fixed pricing encourages people to ski a lot, at peak times. What if only cost $3 to get on the mountain, plus a small charge for each lift ride and a premium price for popular lifts at popular times? The technology is already there, the only reason not to try it is momentum.

If you're a copywriter or masseuse or other sort of freelancer, how many retainer clients do you need to relax and spend more time on the work, less on the billing/looking part? What happens when an artist does this?

Why don't airlines experiment with auctioning of seats, baseball card style? You could buy the rights to a seat for $200 (speculating, if you like) and then try to sell it off as the flight time get closer--it's not hard to imagine an easy to use website for these transactions. The seat might change hands a dozen times, earning the airline a processing fee each time, and enriching those that want to start trading this expiring commodity. Sports teams are already trying to figure out how to make this work.

Changing your pricing changes your story.

I don't like New Year's. Faux merriment, excessive drinking, ridiculous resolutions and general malaise. Not to mention Dick Clark.

There's one great opportunity, though... Brand new expectations are set, expectations just waiting to be shattered.

Like an empty Moleskine notebook, the possibilities are exciting. Why not exceed them?

The place where expectations are lowest: leadership. Everyone expects you to get in line and follow, not lead.

The opportunity this year is bigger than ever: to lead change, to create a movement in a direction you want to go. While the rest of your world huddles and holds back, here's a golden chance to use cheap media, available attention and great talent to make something that matters.