Apple Pie and the Wrath of Writers

Today on Twitter, I posted a Gawker article about Cooks Source. Twitter was abuzz with commentary:

The story is available here in the Washington Post:

A quick summary:

• Girl writes article and pulishes it on the web in 2005
• Friend calls Girl and says, saw your article, how did you get it published?
• Girls says, that was news to me
• Girl calls publisher asking for an apology
• Editor freaks out
• Girl blogs about the incident
• Social media spreads the post

We are still waiting for the ending in this story, but the commentors are out in full force.  Sharing stories, contacting advertisers and taking over the magazine’s facebook page.  Oh and investigating other copyright infringements.  And, unfortunately for the editor, Judith Griggs, they are looking to tarnish her image as well.  It has been a bad day for Cooks Source.

For business, social media can be your best friend or your worst nightmare.  The number one thing is to remember not to go into hiding when something goes wrong.  Ask Hotel 71 Chicago.  They handled a social media incident the right way, as covered in this case study.   Another good idea?  Social Media Training for your employees; social media is key element in your communications strategy.  Today everyone has a voice in building your brand, it’s a good idea to make sure it gets used the right way.

The last tip for today?  Be cautious before getting into a war of words with a writer.  They’ll take to the pen (or keyboard).

Outwit, Outplay, Outlast, Out-market (Food Truck Edition)

I’ve been watching the Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. It is just like the other competition shows with teams, challenges and eliminations. The thing that has impressed me so far:  The Nom Nom Truck.  I have no idea is their food is any good, but their marketing strategy is spot on.

They have been rolling over the competition with a few key ideas:

Find the right partner

At a stop in Texas, they contacted a local gourmet food market.  They figured, Vietnamese sandwiches in Texas might be a hard sell, but going where the “adventurous eaters” go is where they’ll find there customer base.  The market made announcements and also helped the team out during a challenge.

In New Orleans, they parked in front of the Pinkberry store.  Considering all of the yogurt chasers that chain attracts, the customers would embrace this LA-based food truck too.

Make it work for you: find a complementary product with the same customers you have.  It is a lot harder to move upmarket or downmarket via your partners.  It is an easier sell when you are already talking to the same people

Your fans are influencers

For the first challenge, the trucks went south to San Diego.  The Nom Nom truck went to Facebook and their fans told their friends in San Diego.  Suddenly it was a trending topic among SD college students.  Sell-outs ensued.

Make it work for you: when you have news, tell your customer right away. You never know where their networks may reach.

What marketing lessons have you learned from the food truck craze?

Lead Nurturing gone horribly wrong

I just returned from a trip east to my family reunion.  My trip started with a little bit of tourist-ing in Charelston, SC.  Along the way, we had a bit of debate on picking a hotel.  I booked one hotel, and ended up canceling the reservation to try my luck at Hotwire (it was a success).  Unfortunately the original hotel didn’t get the memo that I canceled my reservation.

I canceled my reservation about 1 week after placing it, and about a month before my trip.  I booked the wrong dates on the original reservation (oops) and canceled for that reason.  About a week before I was scheduled to arrive, i received an email “we can’t wait for you to stay with us, here are a few resources and coupons for your trip.”  I was understandably alarmed, because I had canceled my reservation!  So I called to confirm that the reservation was canceled :

• me:  Hi, I canceled my reservation a few weeks ago and I want to make sure it was really canceled since I received a “look forward to your arrival email.”
• reservation agent: Oh don’t worry about that, everyone gets that email even if you cancel.
• me: OK, thanks for the clarification

What kind of nurturing is that?!?!?! I ended up with 3 totally relevant emails: look forward to welcoming you, welcome, and a post stay survey.  This hotel was probably perfectly nice, but they have solidified the fact that I won’t be staying there.  How hard is it to remove people from the lead nurturing program?

So here is a friendly reminder: if you are automating your marketing don’t forget about the remove button.  No customer wants an email that says,  ”save 20% on all purchases this week,” when you finished shopping last week.  Or a message about continuing to research options when you’ve already decided a product and are in the negotiation phase.

</rant>

Surprisingly Simple Ways to Increase Conversions

A few days ago I got a sales pitch on LinkedIn.  Usually I can spot those a mile away, but this time I was caught blindsided.  I had a new friend request (or connection request to use the right terminology).  In the notes area of the request: I’d like to work with you!

I don’t know about you, but any time I get a request from an unknown name, I rack my brain trying to figure out if I have met them before.  In this case I hadn’t, but I did take the time to look at the profile.  I don’t want to advocate LinkedIn spam, but using requests wisely, with an earnest pitch can be effective.  Or at least get your prospects to open the door.

Less obvious conversion number 2: a form confirmation page, literally.   You work really hard to drive traffic to your webform.  And you are happy every time someone converts.  So what if you could follow up that conversion with a second offer.  Let’s say someone downloads your white paper.  How about following that up with a webinar invite landing page or ask about their interests.  The second form is short and sweet:  email address + 1-2 more qualification questions.  Instant progressive profiling.  And the worst thing that can happen?  They close the window and decline the offer.  But you’ll likely get a 2 for 1.

The last tip is a little harder for marketers.  We like to explain things, but being direct and getting to the point right away is a lot more effective.  I’ve been reviewing the “Which Test Won” blog, and it has a ton of useful info on A/B testing and successes.  One continuous theme is really how the most direct buttons, images and wording are more effective.  That might mean putting the button at the top, clearly spelling out terms and conditions, or listing out the rewards for a registration.

To put this in practice, here are a few ideas:

• Before “You’ll learn how to improve your business”
• After: You’ll receive a 5 step checklist of areas to improve”

• Before: “Signing up will give you a free consultation”
• After: “You’ll receive a 30 minute consultation”

• Before: ” Sign up now for a discount coupon”
• After: “Sign up now to receive 20% off your first purchase”

To recap, here are 3 easy ways to improve your conversions, and be sure to share your tips in the comments:

1. Connect with your prospects, literally or find ways to stand out in the crowd of pitches with a unique come on
2. Change your landing pages into 2 for 1 offers: change your confirmation pages to secondary landing pages
3. Be direct, really direct, with your offer copy

The Farmer’s Market meets Social Media

I typically visit the farmer’s market weekly.  Last summer, or maybe the summer before I discovered Blue Chair Fruit, a local jam/spread/marmalade maker.   They make the best jam I’ve ever tasted, I am sure I am know to the Blue Chair team as the girl who stops by every week to try all of the samples.  (I like the stone fruit and berries the best so far.)

I’ve chatted with the owner/creator, Rachel, regularly about her upcoming book, all of the flavors and the typical banter.  It’s great to be able to meet the purveyors, and that is one of the main reasons I go to the market (and of course the fact that is fresher and tastier).

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed Blue Chair was on twitter and facebook.  I “liked-ed” them on Facebook and the next week when I was at the farmer’s market,  Rachael commented “Hey, you are our newest facebook fan!”

Facebook moved from online to reality!

A few weeks later, I gave Blue Chair a shout on twitter.

And sure enough, at the market I met Jamie, and she was holding 2 jars for me. 

We all know twitter is a great way to connect with people online, but it great to take that connection offline too. If you have a business where you meet your customers in person, encourage them to follow you online and off.  And reward them for participating in the conversation.  Your customers (and your revenues) will thank you.

4 signs it’s the wrong marketing automation vendor

After exchanging a couple of tweets with @AdamBlitzer related to some of the metrics marketing automation systems track.  It looks like a good segue way into a post on choosing the right platform.

Here are a couple of potential scenarios:

1.  The sales rep asked “how did you find out about us?”  After you clicked on a paid search ad and filled out 4 web forms.  (They should know)

Better:  it looks like you have been researching us for the past few weeks, what are your key requirements for choosing the right platform?

2.  You ask to see your history, on your contact page inside the app to get a sample on what “digital body language” has been captured.  The rep responds, “I do not have access to that information.”

Better:  Here is the notification I received from your last form submission and a screenshot of your info in our app.

3.  The only visitor reports available are the top XXX companies that have visited your site in the past week.  There is not info available on people you already “know” that have been identified and linked in the system.

Better:  Standard website analytics tools can give you data on generic visitors, recognized by the “whois” entry for their  IP address, tools like ours help you tie that visit to an actual person and track their behaviors and responses on an ongoing basis.

4.  When you ask about CRM integration/connection, they respond, “since marketing is a separate department from sales, we see no reason for the systems to connect.  Marketers have limited impact on the sales once it is thrown over the fence.

Better:  Connecting marketing automation and CRM solves a few key challenges: it offers sales the opportunity to see how their leads, prospects and customers are interacting with the company.  This also offers marketing a way to track prospects through the full funnel providing a way to prove marketing leads to revenue.  And that’s the real reason tools like these are critical.

What’s on your list of faux pas?

Time for Software Patent Reform?

I saw the news that Mircosoft is suing Salesforce.com for patent infringement.  My first thought…..

And then I started to read the suit:

Count #1

Microsoft is the owner of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 7,251,653 (“the ’653 patent”), entitled “Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data,”

Count #2

Microsoft is the owner of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 5,742,768 (“the ’768 patent”), entitled “System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu,”

Count #3

Microsoft is the owner of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 5,644,737 (“the ’737 patent”), entitled “Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display,”

Count #5

Microsoft is the owner of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 6,122,558 (“the ’558 patent”), entitled “Aggregation of system settings into objects,”

Count #6

Microsoft is the owner of all right, title, and interest in U.S. Patent No. 6,542,164 (“the ’164 patent”), entitled “Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information,”

Kudos for Microsoft’s legal team to secure patents for the “timing and velocity of displaying graphical information,” “method of mapping logical data into physical data,” “stacking toolbars,” and “embedded menus.”  But something is seriously wrong if these ideas are patentable.  Since Microsoft has patents for many of the key principles of software design, they can bully any organization that is competing with them, has annoyed them or they don’t like.  Unfortunately, these patents aren’t expiring anytime soon.

Technology companies should be able to protect their intellectual property, but allowing patents for obvious “innovations” like “using one button for GUI navigation on a small screen**” is a bit ridiculous.

** considering this innovation was patented in 1997, and available on Nintendo 10 years earlier….I am not sure why this is “unique.”

I think it is time to get with the program, and redo the patent rules.