| Time to
Rewrite the Business Books? |
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I was in my
wife's office having a cup of
tea when the phone rang.
It was a big customer, so business conditions
being what they are she took the call and I was left contemplating the
wallpaper.
Actually you can't see the walls in her office because
they're lined from floor to ceiling with marketing books. It's a big office, and
the amazon of
marketing
literature flows out into the hall too. | |
My
wife's a marketing guru - who
has trained marketers in many of the world's best known IT companies, telcos,
pharmaceuticals and banks, and has been a company doctor for countless
organizations of all sizes.
(Not mine. I'm a lost cause.) She
disclaims all responsibility for the
mice BTW - I'd better
make that clear. She says I correctly picked up on the idea of using
animal
metaphors in services marketing but completely failed to apply them as a
consistent brand. That's what happens when someone like me puts the marketing
book down only half way through and never picks it up again.
Her
office is nicer than mine - so I thought I'd finish my tea in there - and while
she was talking on the phone I idly cast my eyes around some old familiar
titles.
After the call the phone was remated to its cradle.
It's
a complicated process - which when I do it - if it rings late at night -
involves me picking the damn thing up and studying where the pins are so I don't
bend them or break them. But my wife just pops it back on - and it works fine
for her.
You can't buy a simple phone that looks like a phone
nowadays. As a dotcom publisher my own phone hasn't seen much action in the
past 12 years - which is why it hasn't worn out. For security reasons - it's
got a wire which comes out of it and goes directly into the wall. Then into the
roof and up a pole. You can't use wireless phones in an office where someone
might ring in to give you their credit card number. I don't mind having a
big old fashioned phone. It doesn't pose an RSI risk or see much action as
it's located conveniently out of the way - and just out of reach of my desk.
"They
won't be selling too many of those in the next few years" I said,
pointing to a whole shelf of populist marketing books by
the Chasm Group.
"They'll have to come up with new titles for the recession - like
Hanging onto the Edge of the Chasm."
My wife calls them "airport
books" by which she means the sort of book a "type A" manager can
easily digest - and feel good about - without the risk of learning anything of
substance - or getting a headache - since you can usually summarise the entire
book in a single sentence.
In
Search of Excellence,
Marketing
Warfare... you know the sort of thing. I love them. I haven't even read the
covers of the serious marketing books.
Getting into the spirit of it I
suggested that the new business autobiographies could have names like... "the
Chasm Got Wider after I Jumped."
One of the problems is that
nearly all the populist literature about marketing tells you how to operate in
growing markets. So everything you've learned is obsolete.
"Surrender
Marketing" doesn't sound as sexy as "Guerrilla Marketing"
And
Bill Gates' book "Hard
Drive" wouldn't have sold as well if it had been called "Soft
Drive."
"Honey I Shrank the Company?"
We agreed
this was an important subject that we should return to later.
I did
write a serious article a few months ago called
is the SSD Market
Recession-Proof?
It included some warnings - like don't jump too
quickly into a new market which sounds better than yours - just because some
editor or market researcher said optimistic things about it.
They may
be completely wrong - or over simplifying a market that's scarier than the one
you already know about.
In evolution - survival of the species does
not necessarily mean survival of the individual. Markets can survive and grow
while feeding on the dead bodies of the companies which rushed in at the wrong
time. |
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- After SSDs...
What Next? - Predicting the storage market's next obsession... looks beyond
the next 3 years of hoopla in the
SSD market and forecasts
what will be the next "big thing" in storage after that.
- The harder-working eshot
- 13 guidelines to improve the odds of your email marketing messages getting
through. Classic article from an expert in enterprise server marketing.
- PR Strategies:
Remember, the web has no memory! - Can you remember what your home page
looked like back in 1996? Maybe you think that's not important right now. Like
global warming, you suspect there may be some problems accumulating somewhere
because of all this web stuff, but it's only when your house gets flooded, you
really start to believe in it.
scary home pages
from the past
- The 4 Seasons of Publicity
- Building an All-Year Publicity Machine - In this age of immediacy (only a
few seconds separate a Matt Drudge or a CNN from writing a story and putting it
before millions), it's easy to forget that, for many print publications and TV
shows, it can be weeks -- and sometimes months -- before a completed story sees
the light of day.
- Poor
Market Research by IT Vendors Means They Go Bust Faster - I often get a
sense of deja vu when seeing press releases which claim that a company is the
first to ship a certain type of technology or product. A quick bit of research
in the news archives reveals that another company did exactly the same thing
maybe 6 to 10 months before
- Is Your Company
Below the Visibility Horizon? - My experience as a web directory publisher,
suggest that most of the companies below the visibility threshold eventually
join our acquired, dead & merged companies list. It's a very good indicator
of a company whose marketing is in deep trouble, although sometimes the
marketers in those companies (who are not externally focused enough) are the
last to know.
- Web Advertising
Strategies: choosing the wrong portal - If you're familiar with the concept
of segmenting your market, into segments defined by how you market to them, such
as end-users (by market, size and geography), resellers, new customers, lapsed
customers, etc, then another new segment model you should think about is
segmenting your market by the portals they use.
- Web Advertising
Strategies: for emerging technologies - The single most important concept
about web advertising which you have to grasp as a new product marketer is this:
the absolutely best advertising slots for your new product are a finite
resource. Ever since the web became commercial in the mid 1990's, forward
looking marketers have grabbed and secured the best ad slots for their products.
- Where B2B IT Web
Advertising Works Best, and Why - I often talk to B2B computer advertisers
who after disappointment with search-engine advertising ask me why advertising
in a portal should be any better? They get hits, from their key word
advertising but not much business.
- Why Batching Up
Press Releases is a Bad Idea for the Web - When it comes to delivering
physical goods, it's a good idea to batch up several items and send them in one
package. It saves time and money. However when it comes to issuing press
releases, this is almost always a bad idea.
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- Market research & storage
analysts - This directory includes every market research company ever cited
by a storage company on StorageSearch.com. Even if you don't have a budget for
buying their market reports - many of these companies publish free articles and
blogs which can help you understand important trends.
- Customers
Search Differently - customers (who want to find suppliers and buy stuff)
search differently to marketers (who want to promote their companies and sell
stuff). That's why most search marketing misses the best targets.
- Press Release Errors
I see every day - Every month I have to disregard thousands of press
releases, which vendors have paid good money to their agencies to write and
distribute. Here are some of the common reasons why.
- What's a Good
Click Rate for a Banner Ad? - what you learn from testing banner ads - often
results in you having to change the way you talk about your company in other
places... your web site, your PR. Leaving this important task in the hands of
graphics designers is lunacy.
- SEO Chicks - is an interesting
collection of thoughts and articles related to search and web marketing topics.
No mice here. No chickens either.
- Search
Engine Optimization - Google's own SEO article includes an amusing but
serious warning. Apparently Google themselves receive spam emails offering to
improve their search rank and saying - "you are not listed in major
search engines and directories".
- Getting
the Message - Email, Blogging, Linked-In etc. It seems that once a popular
messaging channel becomes too clogged with extraneous messages, a new message
channel emerges.
- Alleviating Advertising
Anorexia - some companies think they can't afford to advertise online or
don't need to do so. Dr. Ralph F. Wilson examines these disturbing symptoms -
and the associated complications of the "Freebie Jeebies".
- Knol
versus Wikipedia - Fair Fight or No Contest? - I like this article because
it appeals to my sense of balance. Wikipedia
irritates writers like me by remixing and regurgitating articles from original
sources - and producing ersatz blends which sometimes score higher with
Google searches than the originals. Now Google is annoying Wikipedia by doing
something similar -with articles called knols
which often cite their main research source as being - Wikipedia.
- The Golden Keys of
E-Commerce - Domain names are no longer small issues to be handled by the
booming logo-centric-slogan-happy-agencies or web-tech-teams.
- Smashing the Myth of the
Press Release - Publicity "gurus" are springing up all over the
Internet touting the press release as the answer to all marketing ills. Just
knock out a release, mass e-mail it to journalists, sit back and wait for Oprah
to call. It's a cruel joke. Here's the reality:
- The Mysteries and
Future of Websites - Either your customers can find you easily or you're
simply lost. No amount of money can create a bounce to your expensive websites
or your big budget branding in these times, except your alpha-structure of your
URLs.
- Green Storage -
my new year resolution for 2008 was to see how many months I can go without
running a story including this abused term.
- Fighting
Linkrot - this article, written by web usability sage Jakob Nielsen, is
just as relevant today as it was back in 1998 when he first wrote it.
- Think of Web Ads
as Signposts - they can lead the right people to your destination. But give
them a credible message so that the brain follows the mouse click for sound
business reasons. Ideally the ad should also signal to the wrong type of
customer they can filter themselves out at this point and not waste their
time and yours by following this path.
- Venture Capital Funds in
Storage - If you're starting a new storage company where can you go to get
money? - I was asked that question so many times that in 2000 I started a list
of which VCs were giving how much to whom. It lists the failures too. It's
important to have a good story for your prospective VC if your business idea
sounds similar to an earlier one that tanked.
- 7 laws of direct marketing
- The late Isaac Asimov managed to write volumes of entertaining stories which
revolved around his three fundamental laws of robotics... The stories showed
that complex behaviour can result from apparently simple origins.
- Aspects of Web
Advertising - This classic article from 2000 outlines the theoretical
framework behind the major types of online ads.
- Rethinking the
Banner Ad - There are 2 sets of viewers who see you banner ad, and you
should cater for both. The most important set, are the 94% to 99.5% who are
typically going to see the banner, but not click on it at that moment in time.
What impression are they left with after seeing the banner?
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- Classic Web Marketing
Resources - I first published this list in the late 1990's, and from time to
time it gets a small update. That's why I've renamed it "Classic" Web
Marketing Resources.
- Is YOUR Web
Designer Working for the Enemy? - During the 2nd World War, people in the UK
were warned by the government that "Careless talk costs lives." If,
you regard marketing as warfare, then a modern version of this homily might be
something like this:- "Careless web design costs customers."
- Form is Not
the Same as Function in Web Advertising - Web advertising, like quantum
mechanics is not an intuitive process. It all comes out of the numbers. And the
theory can give you a headache. But just as you don't need to know quantum
theory to operate your CD player, you don't need to spend years analysing web
statistics to see why web advertising works.
- Writing an Electronic
Communications Policy - An electronics communications policy acts as a
guideline for employees in the use of a company's electronics communications
system. As such it provides an important safeguard for companies against
liability due to misuse and abuse of electronic communications resources by its
employees. A good electronic communications policy should also provide
guidelines for dealing with employees who abuse the policy.
more about us
- Why Being #1
on Search-Engines is only the Start of Your Web Promotion - Every
year companies in your market recruit new people, maybe fresh out of college, or
from other industries. They don't know where to look, so they use general
search-engines and directories like Yahoo. After a few months, or bunch of
searches they discover that there are better places to look. Their time is more
productively spent starting out from specialised portals.
- Events archive - (look
back at past events) - If you're a marketer involved with events, then it's
useful to look backwards at what events have taken place in the last year,
because many of these events operate on an annual cycle. A backwards looking
list like this one sometimes gives you better long range visibility than a
forward looking one.
- Why
Reader to Advertiser Ratios are Important to Advertisers - Another way to
apply this kind of ratio is to look at expos. If you divide the total number of
visitors by the total number of booths... That can give you numbers which are
scary, especially when you factor in all the costs. So don't do it if you're the
nervous type.
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