Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

Into the Fantastic Four, plus Good is getting better and upcoming attractions

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Busy week, but I didn’t feel I could let the third birthday of Marketing Roadmaps go unremarked. Thanks for sticking with me.

A quick update on the ongoing get.good.com saga. Thanks to the good offices of a Twitter friend who works for Good Technology’s PR agency, I finally connected with someone. A real live person. Not sure there’s a real solution, but at least we are talking.

Upcoming on the blog: a report on the Intuit Just Start campaign (thumbs up), some comments of the state of customer service in the US (thumbs go the opposite direction), details on the HP Photographic Memories project and more case studies on good blogger relations practice.

Here’s to Year Four!

UPDATE 11/15/07: Too busy tonight to write a whole new post, but it looks like the people at Good Technology took some action and worked out something with Google to insert the Good Technology results on the first page of a search on “Getgood.” Getgood.com still comes up first,as it should because it is the closest match, followed by a British ad campaign that also uses a “Get Good” theme,  but then they insert the results for Goodlink before returning all the pages from my blog and mentions of me and other Getgoods on blogs and websites. Amen. I will be so happy to not get these calls anymore. And I am sure the people trying to get customer service for their phones will be much happier too.

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Intuit Just Start pulls into South Station Tuesday November 13th

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Intuit, the publisher of the popular QuickBooks software, has taken its show on the road for the past month, holding two day events in NY, Chicago and Seattle to encourage entrepereneurs to just get started.

The campaign pulls into Boston’s South Station next Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the events, entrepreneurs can get business, software and marketing advice from experts.  There’s also a contest which will award $50K in cash and resources to a lucky business owner;  visit IWillJustStart.com for contest details.

I’ll be there on Tuesday November 13th  from 11am-6pm to provide online marketing advice. Drop by if you are in the area.

You can also get a free copy of QuickBooks Simple Start financial software, if the opportunity to see me in person isn’t enough of a draw 🙂

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Who will win the writers’ strike?

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I have no idea who will prevail in the current screenwriters’ strike. If I have sympathy for a side, it is probably the writers, since they have some valid points, and appear to be marginally less greedy than the networks and the studios.

But it really doesn’t matter who wins that battle. Because that’s not the real battle.

The real question is, do we really care about TV anymore, full stop. The answer is, of course, yes, but perhaps not as much as the studios and the writers’ guild would like to believe.

Because I don’t think network TV is going to be the winner here. Unlike the last strike in 1988, when folks turned to repeats of shows they hadn’t caught the last time around, now we have real alternatives. And we aren’t limited to what the networks, all gamillion of them, want to show or when they want to show it.

In about four to six weeks when the current inventory of new episodes is depleted and we enter the repeat zone, we will get our first glimpse at how the social media explosion could play out.

What will we see? Here’s my prediction:

Netflix will do quite well. Certainly within the current subscriber base as we actually have time to watch old TV shows and movies that we meant to see but didn’t. They *must* have new subscriber campaigns ready. Not like the strike was a big surprise.

We’ll be watching even more online amateur video – long, short, episodic, and everything in between. For amateurs, talented and un-, their moment in the sun. Will everyone be a brilliant success? No. Some of it will be really really really bad (although with shows like Caveman setting the bar…)  But we are going to discover some really talented folks online in the next few weeks,  and not just comics, pundits and musicians. Much of this material is already there, online, waiting for us to find it. Well, now, we’ve got the time. Carpe diem.

I’ll also be interested in what happens with online product swap services like Swaptree, whose president Greg Boesel I met at Web Inno last night. Not as easy as just paying the fee to Netflix every month, but folks now may be more receptive to the effort required to get started swapping the books, cds and dvds they no longer want for ones they do.

What do you think will happen?

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The week in PR: Blacklists, sex, education and breaking down walls

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Well, the week started with the shot heard round the world, 21st century style: Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired, blogged more than 300 email addresses that had spammed him in one form or another — mistargeted pitches, unsolicited newsletters and so on — in the past 30 days. And this followed right on the heels of Marshall Kirkpatrick’s 5 bad pitches post the previous week.

I’m sure that a large number of the folks outed in Anderson’s email were just in the wrong place (his email box) at the wrong time (October 07). They made a mistake. Do they deserve to be raked over the coals forever? No, and they won’t be. They may never get off his list but I doubt it will ruin their reputations or their careers.

And some of them don’t have reputations to ruin. Being on the Anderson blacklist won’t affect them in the slightest because they will just get another email address and spam away. They don’t care, and they never will.

Nevertheless, much online conversation ensued. Most commenters sympatized or empathized with Anderson’s plight. Some approved of the tactic. Others understood the motivation but didn’t approve of publishing the email addresses. The rant also spawned endless analysis of the state of PR, manifestos for change and the usual apologies for the bad behavior of the profession. [Too many to count, too many to link. To read the many screeds, here’s the Google search and here is Technorati for the terms "Chris Anderson PR" ]

Some commentary was good, some less so, but, really, it all felt like more of the same to me. Public outcry over bad PR practice, much gnashing wailing and wringing, promises to do it better, to make it better, god damn it. But it doesn’t seem to get better. Not really. This blog is almost three years old, and the more things change… 

The responsible practitioners of PR — the good guys — are still faced with unrealistic client expectations, a societal attitude that PR people are guilty until proven innocent and really bad PR practice from some members of the profession. Witness the truly juvenile behavior from two flacks, and I use this term deliberately, who used Anderson’s rant as an excuse to engage in some mutual, public mudslinging and attempted client poaching. Perhaps someone told them that any PR is good PR? Umm, no, and if that’s the sort of advice they give their clients…

And mixed up in the commentary was a theme started the week before by Jeremy Pepper in  PR will lose Social Media to Advertising Because of Sex, a manifesto of sorts for PR to change its ways or risk losing the "fight" for social media to the dreaded Marketers.

This is a far more interesting topic. No, not because of the sex. The title of the post was just a tease. Good tactic, that. I’ll have to use it someday 🙂

In my opinion,  we have to look at this conversation, this communication with our customers, with a completely different lens. Keep seeing it as a battle for supremacy, nobody wins. Not PR. Not marketing. Not the companies. And definitely not the customers.

In a post after the Anderson rant, Jeremy calls for better education, and that’s a start. But I don’t think it’s enough.

We have to break down the functional walls between PR and marketing. PR isn’t the rightful "master of social media" because of its traditional role as counselor, any more than marketing is because it has been the traditional channel to the customer.  You have to be able to do both, and you have to be willing to give up some of the most deeply held, profound assumptions about the "right" way to do things in the parent disciplines.

For example, press releases. Still useful, whether new or old form, when communicating with journalists, including journalistically inclined bloggers. Usefulness to customers. Not so much. The detached, impersonal format just doesn’t tell them everything they need to know. Now, neither does a hyped up direct mail piece. Sure, direct response has its place, but it is generally to encourage action, not to share information.

I firmly believe a blogger wants a meld of both. An honest, open, relevant communication with a clear benefit statement that tells her WIIFM. What’s In It For Me. To do this, you have to know, really know, what is in it for her. [Sidebar: I expect journalists would be happy if they got this much honesty too. More on that another time.]

The best social media marketing people won’t be PR people. Or marketing people. They will have a skill set that blends both disciplines. Whether you are at an agency or in a company, start developing this — in yourself, in your teams.

Stop worrying about whether PR or marketing is going to win. The answer is neither. And both.

The only thing that’s certain? If you keep thinking of it as a fight, with a winner, you will be the loser.

That, and if you spam Chris Anderson, one strike and you’re out.

Time to start breaking down some walls.

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Announcing Photographic Memories

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Cross-posted to Snapshot Chronicles

As I’ve mentioned here before, I occasionally help HP with social media projects. I’m thrilled to announce that the most recent one, Photographic Memories, went live today.

Part of the US launch of HP Photo Books, Photographic Memories is a series of interviews with mom bloggers about the photos that have captured the memories of their lives. I interviewed 23 women across the US – young moms, older moms, moms of newborns, toddlers and teens. Working moms and stay at home moms. Professional photographers and moms who simply carry a point and shoot in their pocket, just in case.

HP Photo Books are a great way to share photographic memories, and in these interviews, the moms share theirs with us. The first group of 10 interviews was posted today and the rest will follow later in the month.

A little bit more about HP Photo Books

With an HP Photo Book, you can easily create a professional quality photo book at home. Particularly cool is the innovative binding system – think of a big clip – that lets you replace or rearrange pages and add mementos like invitations, children’s artwork and so on. They are available in two sizes, 5×7 and 8.5×11, and multiple colors.

If you’d like your own Photo Book, HP is offering a 20% discount until the end of the year.

Or you can take your chances in one of the many contests and sweepstakes the women in the Photographic Memories series will be having on their blogs over the next couple months. Some contests have already happened, others are going on right now, and some will be starting next week. As I get the details, I’ll add them to the Photo Contests list in the sidebar of Snapshot Chronicles.

Later this week, I’ll be writing more about the project. For now, please enjoy the interviews.

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