Archive for November, 2006

Sometimes I come across things that are just downright exhilarating.

The headline listed above it one of them. I came across the header and I had to know who wrote it. Turns out it's part of a book title called The Radical Edge: Stoke Your Business, Amp Your Life, and Change the World by Steve Farber. Now, to my thinking, anyone who can come up with a book title that sounds like it was taken directly from my basic life theory about being the change you want to see in the world (or was that Gandhi?) MUST be a stand up kind of guy.

I wanted to know more. So, I googled him.

Just let me pause for a second and say…wow. Who knew? You might have but I sure didn't. This guy has some radical ideas. He is really twisting up what it means to be a leader in the business world. It's called "Extreme Leadership."

Here is an abbreviated version of the characteristics required for an Extreme Leader lifted straight from Steve Farber's web site. See if you practice any of the following in your daily work routine…

• Cultivate Love
• Love is good business.
• Love is your retention strategy.
• Love is your customer strategy.
• Generate Energy
• The Extreme Leader is a generator, a powerful force for action, for progress, and an enthusiastic believer in people and in their capacity to do the awesome. 
• Inspire Audacity: a bold and blatant disregard for normal constraints.
• How are we going to change the world of our company, employees, customers, marketplace and industry?
• Every "normal constraint" in the proverbial book will tell you that this question is too audacious, that it's unrealistic and a waste of time.
• Boldly and blatantly disregard that book.
• Provide Proof 
• Prove it. Prove it to others. Prove it to yourself.
• Prove to others that you're proving it to yourself.
• What have I done today that shows my commitment to my colleagues and customers?
• How have I changed the World— even a little bit — today?
• What measurable, tangible evidence can I provide?

There's more, of course. Really good stuff - all of it. I'll definitely be reading the book and checking the Steve Farber blog regularly

Ready to shop? Check this out.

This new flash product display tool brings products to life for web site visitors offering a more 3-D tactile experience. You can get a good look at it here.

Test it out. Give me your feedback.

The tool’s been in the works since late summer and after a lot of angst and development issues, I’m happy to report that the first test run yielded some very positive results.

We quietly launched the tool on a Friday and it had an immediate impact on the conversion on the line of products in our test group over the subsequent weekend. Sales in my test group were way above average!

In an effort to ferret out even more data, I personally called customers to get a first-hand description of their shopping experiences AND to see if the product display tool was, indeed, that “thing” that pushed them over the edge and made them want to do something - ie. make a purchase.

Turns out, it did make a difference…in a pretty big way.

One woman said she’d been shopping three different companies for about six weeks for a high dollar purchase. When she went back to our web site to do a product comparison she was able to get the detail she needed to make her decision from the display tool. Plus, she pointed out that none of our competitors had anything remotely similar so the “coolness” factor wasn’t lost on her.

The ROI (return on investment) has been good so far. The true test will be when it's launched for the entire product catalogue. Keeping fingers crossed for that one.

This is a rather new, cutting-edge concept – but just one in a long list of new technologies and techniques that can increase personalization and bring products to life for web browsers.

I want to take just a minute and point out a brand spankin' new shiny social spot on the web - Zemble.

If you are into text messaging and have a group of, say, 3 or more friends you text regularly then Zemble might be your dream come true.

It's a new social site due to launch sometime next week where members can send out a single text message via their cell phones to everyone in their zemble group. The creators of Zemble call it "an incredibly sophisticated yet ridiculously easy to use tool…" and based on what is out there so far it IS pretty interesting.

The interesting part, though, isn't so much about creating or joining a group of avid text messagers. The really cool angle in all this is what they are selling - teeny, tiny ad spaces that will appear on the mobile devices and cell phones of Zemble users.

Who knows if it will truly be successful or not. But it is, for sure, the first place on the web of its kind. Can't beat those bragging rights! 

I am raising my hand up right now to swear I'm not on a feminist kick.

But…

I came across some startling information and it's my duty as a responsible blogger (which is the same thing as a blog addict, I think) to share what I found.

As a marketer, I do a lot of research on who I am marketing to. In fact, creating very specific personalities and personas for the person or people I am marketing too has proven extremely useful in creating marketing and pr campaigns. It's called persuasion architecture and you can find a lot of detailed information on it at the Marketing to Women Online blog.

Here's a rundown on the stats I found:

• Women head approximately 40 percent of the households with assets of more than $600,000 and have quietly become the majority asset holders in the United States controlling 51 percent of private wealth in this country.
• The ranks of affluent women will only increase and it is estimated by 2010 that two-thirds of all private wealth will reside in their hands. 
• Women account for roughly 80 percent of all consumer buying. The Center for Women's Business Research indicates that businesswomen (working women and female entrepreneurs) are the primary decision makers in households making 95 percent of the purchasing decisions.

Now, I love seeing that information passed around and talked about. The problem I ran into is that not everyone felt the same way.

(You can see all the stats I listed above and more in the book Don't Think Pink: What Really Makes Women Buy or visit Andrea Learned's blog.)

Armed with my newfound super cool knowledge about women I decided to do one of the things we women do best, share. I shared it first with a male colleague. 

I was truly surprised. He was not impressed.

In fact, he didn't believe me - thought I made it all up or had misinterpreted the information. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. So, I moved on to the next person. I made sure it was a man, just to see what sort of reaction I'd get. 

Same thing.

I decided to do a very unofficial poll. I asked every man I came into contact with over a two-day period what they thought of the information I'd found on women and their purchasing power. Here's what I found out:

• None of them was nearly as excited as I was about the whole concept
• Statistic or not, they all questioned where I got the information (had to be some crazy terrorist man-hating blog)
• Almost all asked if the income these women enjoyed had come from dead husbands (ie. she be a gold digga?)
• 100 percent of the men I asked went from relaxed to panicked when they realized the topic of conversation
• Worst of all, only one saw it as a positive thing. And even he admitted it made him feel a little strange.

What a bummer. Here I thought we'd made real progress…you know, equality for all people regardless of gender or race.

Women, as a whole, it seems, are a pretty viable market with exponential growth in their purchasing power. Who wouldn't want to capitalize on that? But, how do you overcome the big monkey-wrench of men-vs-women? Even bigger, maybe, is how do men, who still hold the majority of positions as business owners and CEO's, market to these women with any kind of integrity or sincerity?

This is a true story.

It involves a country music star.

And, no, it wasn’t a dark and stormy night.

It was a regular day, not very long ago when I was thoroughly schooled about the twisted nature of the beast called word of mouth marketing. My e-Book cohort and colleague out in California sent a press release via PR Web on behalf of one of his clients. It was, as I said, a regular day just like every other day in sunny California. However on this particular day, from this particular press release, rabid celebrity fans unleashed their latent fury on an unsuspecting group of marketers.

The press release was sent on behalf of a music teacher and voice coach in LA, who sang backup for LeAnn Rimes on an episode of a television show early in her career. The press release, of course, mentioned this fact which in and of itself wasn’t inflammatory. What incited a near riot on the fan forum, however, was the misinterpretation of the release by one of Rimes’ more…shall we say…“excitable” fans who failed to read the fine print. She reported back to the forum site that LeAnn Rimes had in fact been given voice lessons by this particular teacher or worse that the teacher was claiming she’d given voice lessons to Rimes who quite adamantly denies ever taking voice lessons from anyone.

That’s when the buzz became a dull roar.

Apparently, when she learned about the supposed claim by music teacher, Rimes chimed in on the forum with her two cents…

I have never met this woman! I have never had voice lessons! My dear friend Ron Anderson taught me how to warm up before going on stage so I would save my voice and not strain anything. How funny, everyone wants to say they taught you how to sing.”

Barbed comments flew all over the forum for a good part of the day. Web traffic to the music teacher's web site spiked from forum members checking her out looking for falsehoods and lies. Then the nasty emails ensued. Rimes fans sent emails directly to ProjectThunder the company responsible for submitting the release on behalf of the music teacher. It was all, of course, on behalf of their beloved country music star.

Wow. Now I have to say I was shocked and so was my colleague over at ProjectThunder. It happened fast. As we were chatting and emailing back and forth about the best route to take and who to contact in the upper echelons of the Rimes camp to dispel the whole myth that seemed to be erupting before our very eyes it occurred to me that this was, in fact, word of mouth marketing at its worst. When word of mouth goes bad, it’s nearly impossible to backtrack. Once a rumor is started a marketer really has no control over it. It can’t be squelched; it’s the voice of the people who carry it on…for better or worse.

The funny thing is that the Rimes fan who first saw the release wasn’t a member of the press corps. She was just a regular, albeit somewhat crazed, fan. First and foremost the fact the press release wound up in her hands is really quite interesting. It is a true testament to the power of a digital press release. With the socialization of the web, press releases can end up in front of literally anyone with an internet connection. Secondly, it got people talking. Even though it was a complete case of mistaken information, the shear number of people talking about the release compelled the celebrity (Rimes) to take a stance, act and even make a statement. That might be even bigger. Instead of the influence coming from the top down, it was flipped around.

Maybe small really is the new big. The web gives the small guys, the independent bloggers, anyone who posts on a forum…really any person with something to say the opportunity to be an influencer. That really switches up the current marketing world-view of how information is disseminated and passed from the "classes" to the "masses."

Just so you know, the whole case of mistaken information was cleared up. ProjectThunder was able to speak with Rimes via her blackberry. Rimes did reassess her statement, once she realized the mistake, and wished the music teacher well in her endeavors.  

The buzz died down rather quickly once all the information came to light. It was, after all, buzz. A hot topic for a day. Which makes me wonder…does buzz really work? Once all the hype is gone and the talking ceases, what then?

In the end, it really was one of those learning experiences. And to sum it up I guess you could say everyone ended their day (buzz or no buzz) with their own version of happily…ever…after.

So…many of you have asked, “Why truly twisted?”

(Okay, I do have to admit that by “many” I mean my two avid readers in Seattle and LA who…really love you guys, by the way…are into online marketing)

But, anyway, here’s my answer…

Because marketing is what drives business, it’s what brings people to your storefront, it’s that “thing” that compels people to take action, make a purchase, visit your store, sign up for your service, your event, your special offer or your email newsletter.

However, there’s a problem – a few actually (yeah, you knew I was getting to that). It’s not exciting anymore. Everyone and their brother, cousin, sister, aunt, uncle (distant relatives in general) know about marketing and that it’s important. But we seem to be running out of good ideas. I mean, really, have you seen any excellent marketing campaigns lately? Have you come across anything that is the tried and true marketing of yesteryear that made you want to, well, DO something?

Marketing needs to change. I say, let’s do it but let’s do it different. Let’s be REAL. Let’s twist it up, innovate it, have some fun with it and get it up with a new vision that maybe focuses on the customer (gasp!), focuses on the true benefit your company has to offer and what if, now this is a whopper, what if, it was HONEST? No spin, no hype, just pure, simple, in your face truth. Marketing is just a component of business. However, it can be the instrument of change in how we do business.

Transparency is in. People expect it. If you’re company isn’t transparently honest, they don’t want to do business with you. And, really, why should they? Think about it. Dishonesty or half truths in quality of products, services offered or even company mission statements eventually get out. Word of mouth is huge. It’s a marketer’s most exciting dream or worst nightmare.

New technologies are erupting every day that affect the way we live, where we go to get information, and how we process that information. That coupled with the fact that the people who have the majority of the purchasing power (at least in the US) are changing. And yes, ladies, it is us women who are the burgeoning market demographic full of all sorts of purchasing promise. Businesses still don’t know what to do with that information besides packaging their marketing efforts in a pink cellophane wrapper. But that’s another topic for another day. What I’m saying, here, is that our means of receiving information and disseminating it are changing quickly.

Look around.  It’s a whole new web 2.0 world out there. Social media networks, blogging, podcasting, mobile advertising, video are all in. Marketing hype doesn’t work with these channels. To use them effectively, the marketing message has to be fun, unique, different, something that is tangible and worthwhile.

So, in any event, TrulyTwistedMarketing is my petrie dish, my internet science project where I can test my own marketing strategies and theories and help you work out yours. My goal is for you or anyone who feels motivated to add their two-cents and throw in their own ideas, tips, general angst and triumphs to the mix.