Marketing Roadmaps

Marketing

Web sites and newsletters and blogs, here’s why…

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In my post last week about redoing my Web site, newsletter and blog, I promised to write about why companies should consider all three tools in the marketing mix. Each performs a different role for the company; together, they tell the whole story.

Web site: Your Web site is your selling vehicle. It’s where you lay out your offering and value proposition, clearly, succintly, and yes, promotionally, for your target audience. Your goal is to take interested prospects and move them along the sales continuum to become leads and eventually closed business. For some products and services, and particularly business-to-consumer, the Web site does it all — interest to close. We buy online, and the Web site should make that as easy as possible. For most business-to-business offerings, the sale is more complex; the Web site’s job is to inform, entertain and yes, sell, the prospect so she wants to engage further with the company.

Your blog: If the Web site is where you sell, your blog is where you tell. But not about product features. The blog is about thought leadership, not full-on sales. It’s where you show your expertise in the subject, or talk to customers about their experiences, or explore ideas in your chosen field. It can help your community — customers and colleagues — understand you and your company, and certainly that can have a positive effect on your business. You might even get leads from it. But if it is overtly promotional, it won’t work. See above. That’s what the Web site does.

Done right, your blog is one way to bring people to your Web site.

But, blogs aren’t the right tool for everyone. If the company isn’t ready to engage with its community with honesty, it is better off NOT blogging. There are other ways to engage with your customers, and it is far worse to do something wrong or half-baked than to not do it at all.

By honesty, I do not mean lifting your skirts and showing all the goodies. No company can or should be totally transparent. Nor can or should people but that’s a story for another time.

Honesty does mean being clear about your intentions, the role of the blog, what you will and won’t share, and then sticking to it. And never lie. Mistakes can be forgiven, but lies are never forgotten. I also believe you have to walk the talk. If you come out in favor of something on your blog, your company’s, and your, actions had better be consistent. It’s okay to change your mind. It is not okay to say one thing and do another.

Enewsletter: Newsletters are the key to a good lead nurturing campaign. Not every prospect is ready to buy right away. You need to stay in front of them. Customers may buy something, or do a project, and then go silent for a while. You need to stay in front of them. But you don’t need to do costly direct mail packages to nurture prospects and customers. Save the big bucks programs for when you are trying to cut through the clutter at a trade show or build a list of new prospects from a purchased list. The people that already know you want information, not glitz.

Your newsletter is a regular drip feed of information that reminds them of your company. Most of the articles should be in the general area of interest represented by your products, but not explicitly about your products or services. It is perfectly okay to have articles about your products, announcements of new features, reports from events and so forth. But that should not be the bulk of the content. If it is, your prospects and customers will see right through you, and the effort will not have the intended effect.

For an example, check out Driving Sales Success, a newsletter I write for my client GuideMark. GuideMark implements CRM systems. The newsletter is about sales and marketing tips, the area of shared interest. We do mention the products and services, and from time to time, we have a product article. But the bulk of the newsletter is tips that any sales and marketing professional could benefit from, whether they use our product or not. 

I’m sure many readers will say that the blog can do all of this just as well, if not better. And that is true, if everyone you want to reach is a regular blog reader. Of your blog. The truth is, there are very few segments for, and very few blogs about, which this is true. Use of RSS is still less than 10% of Internet users last I checked. For most of us, the best way to be sure our prospects and customers are regularly reminded of us is with the enewsletter.

Here’s how I use the three tools.

My Web site is very compact — less than 10 pages. The goal is to get the prospect to take the offer of a free hour of consulting. I am planning some major changes to the content, which has been up for about two years, but the general goal will be the same. Tell them what we can do for them and let them try it out for free. Hopefully, what I do with the free hour will make them want to pay for quite a few more.

On this blog, I write about marketing, public relations and sales. In that this is also my business, the blog  is loosely associated with GetGood Strategic Marketing, however, I don’t market the business too strongly on the blog. I do regularly mention client projects, which of course has a dual effect – it spreads the word about the client, and illustrates what I do. When I redesign the blog, I expect to have a few more explicit links to getgood.com than I do now, but not too many more.

I firmly believe that this blog needs to remain a personal intellectual outlet and conversation among people of like (and sometimes not-like) minds, not an explicit marketing site. If my thoughts lead someone to consider hiring me, great, but I won’t change what or how I write in some attempt to turn the blog into a lead generation vehicle. All that said,  I believe that the blog has had a positive effect on the business and my reputation. It has certainly been a great conversation, and for that I thank all my wonderful readers.

On the other hand, my newsletter, Marketing Roadsigns, is explicitly linked to GetGood Strategic Marketing. All clients and prospects are added to the list automatically, and getgood.com hosts the archive of past issues. While I write about the same topics in the newsletter as I do on the blog, the newsletter tends to be more practical, covering evergreen sales & marketing issues like lead generation and customer loyalty. The blog, not surprisingly, is more reactive, timely and philosophical, although I do make an effort to give practical advice as well. For example,  this post. The newsletter also has a specific call to action; it reminds the reader of my free hour offer. Softly, but it is there. I’m also planning to promote my workshops more heavily in the newsletter this fall. Not in your face, but much more explicit than I would ever be on the blog.

About half my newsletter subscribers read the blog. For this reason, I try to put a significant amount of new or exclusive content in the newsletter. And half of my newsletter readers do not read my blog (or any blogs) with any regularity. Over time they will, but now, the way to reach them is through their in-box.

So, Web sites and newsletters and blogs… that’s why.
And coming this fall, a podcast. Oh my.

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Good Technology update: Still no word from anyone at Good Technology. Maybe we should keep track of the calls and emails, and send them a support bill?

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Random: like cobbler’s children, no shoes and please, Good Technology, do something

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This has been a very odd and busy week, and I do promise to get back to something like regular posting soon. For today however, I have two simple but unrelated topics.

First, like the cobbler’s children with no shoes, I am a marketing person who has not had enough time to spend on her own Web site, newsletter and  blog design. Content is fine. Design not so much. So, I am starting to look around for designers who can help me with all three. I still want separate things, for a number of reasons, which I will document here as part of the process (later, not today), but I do want them to tie together thematically. I’ve got a few names from here and there, but I figured I’ve got some of the brightest, coolest blog readers on the planet, maybe they know the perfect person to help. Or could even do it themselves. Email me at sgetgood@getgood.com!!

Second, the tech support calls for bloody Good Technology have started up again. Two in the past week. The people who call don’t seem brain-damaged, which means the documentation for the product must be really lacking.

To refresh your memory, this began when I started my business in 2004 and took the “no robots, no spiders” code off  getgood.com, which up til then had been a personal family site, and turned it into the site for GetGood Strategic Marketing.

On a regular basis, I would get telephone calls and emails from people looking for support for their “good link.” Did I have a clue? No, because I don’t have a TREO. I just told people they had a wrong number. Eventually, I did match it up to Good Technology, which makes a piece of mobile communications software for TREO phones. But I didn’t know why they were calling an independent marketing and communications consultant for help.

Then one day,  I learned that the download link for something to do with this product is “http://get.good.com”  Ta-duh!!!  Now we knew why people were making the link from Good Technology to Getgood. You can read about this magical moment of discovery here.

I’ve emailed the PR person at the company relating my tale of woe (yes, as a marketing person, I know who cares about this sort of reputation thing) but to date, no answer. I’ve blogged about this before, in the hopes that maybe the company was monitoring blogs, but I was much nicer in my previous posts. I even posted information about them on both the Web site and the blog to help their customers. Not working.

So, here I am. Knowing the power of blogs, testing the power of blogs. I am not being so nice today.

Good Technology: please do something about this problem. I am very nice to your customers. I give them your URL and phone number. But this is both my business and my home. I am fed up with getting support calls from your customers who are having trouble with your software. I know that the problems are equally likely to be operator error as crappy software. And I understand if you can’t change the file name; you probably have tons of this software in the field.

But maybe you could put YOUR PHONE NUMBER somewhere so people stop looking up getgood.com and calling ME.

Thank you.

UPDATE, late pm: In the interest of fairness, I did email Good Technology’s PR and sales contacts about this whole thing this afternoon. I’ll let you know if I hear from them. Or if I don’t 🙂

Update, 9 September: I do realize that this a problem that affects only a few people, me and the occasional customers who get confused, but it would be nice if Good Technology at least apologized for the nuisance and thanked us for being pleasant to the customers. Instead:


Your message

To: Internal PR Person; Sales; PR Agency Person [names redacted because this is not about them]

Subject: Get.Good.Com versus getgood.com

Sent: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 15:31:55 -0700

was deleted without being read on Fri, 8 Sep 2006 23:19:07 -0700

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Why it is important to speak up

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This week, there was a big hullabaloo over the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference. The short story: the conference was dominantly male speakers, only one woman. The organizers were initially unclear as to a) why this was a problem and b) why they should correct the situation. For the story, check out Shelley Powers, Jeneane Sessum, Elisa Camahort, Tara Hunt, the Head Lemur and Stowe Boyd.

I’m not going to go into a long analysis of the situation because these other bloggers have already done a superb job at explaining everything. The end result, at least from what I read this evening, was that more women are being added to the program. Thanks to some squeaky wheels, maybe we can put this one in the sort-of win column.

But here’s what has to change. It shouldn’t need squeaky wheels to understand, and point out, that it is a problem when a professional conference is pretty much all male speakers. Conference organizers should understand from the get-go that the conference needs to represent its audience, and unless the topic is living with penile implants or jock itch, you have to be living under a rock to not know that there are women in the audience. If you want to appeal to them, if you want to argue that your conference represents the topic, you have to include women. And if they don’t come to you, you have to go find them.

Not to pick on anyone, but last spring I attended a conference with a panel about social media and PR comprised entirely of men. This in an industry that is woman-dominant (though certainly not woman-dominated, and if you want more about that, you’ll probably get it here eventually). And the PRSA’s fall conference is no better; the sessions are 50/50 but all the keynotes? Testosterone, baby.

It is not enough to say "we’ll consider them if they put themselves forward." If you want your conference to matter, make it matter. Make it truly representative of the audience. Find the great woman keynoters. Invite interesting women to come to your conferences. Not sure they’ll be great speakers? Put them on a panel with a kick-ass moderator. She or he will know how to bring the best out of the speakers. Need help with this? Call me. Call any of the folks who comment on this regularly (see above). We care tremendously about this issue. We will help you. And really, our bark is much worse than our bite 🙂

In leaving a comment about this on Elisa’s blog, I included the following quote which pretty much summarizes why I have been, and continue to be, so vocal on this subject.

 "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
And if not now, when?"
Rabbi Hillel
Jewish scholar & theologian (30 BC – 9 AD)

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In Women We Trust — book review

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being a stop on author Mary Hunt’s virtual book tour for In Women We Trust: A cultural shift to the softer side of business, published by and available from Windsor Media Enterprises.

First, here’s my short review of the book. Next, I’ll post some tidbits from our conversation.

Mary’s thesis is pretty simple, and not totally unfamiliar. Women have significant buying power, and businesses should pay attention. That’s the really familiar part 🙂 She discusses how women are taking that buying power and using it with companies and service providers that sell to them in a female-friendly manner. And she doesn’t mean packaging it in pink.

The key, she says, is to approach and sell to women in a manner consistent with and respective of women’s culture. Women buy differently than men do. In order to sell your product to her, you have to approach her the way she wants, answer her questions, deliver a level of customer service that she demands, gain her trust.  She identifies nine "Trust Points"  Community, Respectful, Considerate, Fun, Safety, Honesty, Reliability, Thoughtful and Loyalty. If you deliver on the trust points, she says, women will buy.  And you’ll reap untold benefits because women will tell each other about their good experiences with you, your store, your products. If you don’t….

Now, none of this is big news. Especially if you are a woman

 🙂

What makes this book really worth adding to your marketing bookshelf are the checklists she gives for the Nine Trust Points. Even though the concepts are fairly easy to understand,  this stuff is hard for many companies to do. In part because it means giving back some control to the consumer, which is really really hard for corporate America’s command and control culture. The checklists give you a place to start … asking the right questions, evaluating your performance and delivery and service, and so forth. 

This would be a very useful book for marketers who want to reach out to the female consumer, and don’t know where to start. It’s a quick read and it will get you going. And if you already know where to go, but just need a little help convincing others, leave a copy on their desks 🙂

Next post: my chat with Mary.

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Summertime

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"Summertime and the livin’ is easy,
Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high.
Oh your daddy’s rich, and your ma is good lookin’,
So hush, little baby, don’ yo’ cry.

One of these mornin’s you goin’ to rise up singin’,
Then you’ll spread yo’ wings an’ you’ll take the sky.
But till that mornin’, there’s a-nothin’ can harm you
With Daddy and Mammy standin’ by."
(Summertime, from Porgy and Bess, Gershwin, Heyward and Gershwin)

This past week has been pretty busy, and I really didn’t have all that much to say, so the blog went a bit silent. Lots of client work right now, so this state of affairs may continue until Labor Day, with maybe one post per week. Never fear, though, I will be back come September …

I did want to share one truly amazing thing that happened last weekend. I took my mother and son up to Boothbay Harbor Maine for a long weekend (while my husband enjoyed his two-day golf school at home). Boothbay Harbor  is a lovely place, and I highly recommend it. But that’s not the amazing thing.

We were eating our lunch outside on the 2d floor deck at this small cafe. Unbeknownst to us, the deck was actually over the water. My son was playing with a couple of plastic cars he had just bought, with his own money, when one rolled off the table, off the deck and into the drink. He was pretty upset and no amount of telling him that we could go buy another one would console him.

Here’s the amazing part.

A man at an adjoining table who had just finished his lunch asked if the car was still floating, When Douglas replied Yes, the man proceeded to go down on the dock, asked the manager of an adjoining restaurant if he could borrow their little row boat, poled over to the car and retrieved it.

There is a lot of unpleasantness in the world. And occasionally an unexpected act of kindness like this that restores your faith. Whoever, wherever you are, thanks again. You made our day.

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Shel Holtz has assembled the thinking from a number of folks this week about blog monitoring on a list at the New PR wiki. Check it out. Add your own thoughts.

Lots of people commenting on Google’s nastygrams about the use of its trademark "Google" as a generic. I expect Google knows it can’t prevent the use of “Google” as a generic, but they have to make these efforts to defend the trademark to keep it from passing *legally* into the generic. If it does that — becomes a legal generic — the word could be used inside someone else’s product name, and Google’s brand value literally stolen. You cannot trademark a generic term. Robert Scoble gave the best example: Google wouldn’t want to see a new product called "Microsoft Google," would they?

So they make these “good faith” efforts to defend the trademark against improper use. They have to use the proper legal language and so on to make the case strong that they defended the mark in case they ever need it in a full-blown trademark defense. No wishy washy or nudge nudge wink wink letters.

I doubt they really want to prevail and stifle the word of mouth branding they get when we talk about "Googling" something. Think about it, the only way to “win” this battle is to lose the dominant market position so that you no longer define the market. I haven’t heard the term ‘Xerox’ in reference to photocopies in a long time. But ‘Kleenex’ for ’tissue’ is still going strong. Did Xerox do a better job than Kimberly-Clark defending the mark and getting us to switch to the actual generic term ‘photocopy’? Doubt it. Reality is: Xerox no longer defines the market for copiers, so the mark no longer works as well as a generic.

It is quite schizophrenic really — you achieve the goal of becoming the definition of the segment, and then you have to spend time and money preventing people from using you as the definition of the segment. Catch-22.

I’m sure Google would rather be Kleenex than Xerox.

(Some of these Google thoughts were originally posted as comments on Sherrilynne Starkie and Neville Hobson’s blogs.)

Oh, and the lyrics at the beginning of this post? I Googled ’em.

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