The Pre-Commerce Blog

Would You Prefer Worst Practices?

How can you argue against 'best practices'? One way is to claim that they're really not the best, as Christopher Locke does successfully in his book Gonzo Marketing. Another is to claim that best practices aren't good enough, and you'd rather figure out your own way. That seems to be the point of a best practices post I found this morning, on a blog otherwise filled with posts with which I quite agree.

Certainly there are consultants and business writers who use the phrase 'best practices' as a cure-all. But it also means doing the basics right, and taking advantage of what's been learned by all those who already did what you're trying to do. The alternatives are 'worst practices' or 'a better way'. Fair enough, and Sig is clearly advocating the latter. But why not use best practices (assuming they really are the best, or even 'good enough' as some commenters suggest) and then innovate on top of them?

Geoffry Moore pointed out in one of his books that there is a difference between the innovations that set you apart and the basics that make your business run (he called them core and context, respectively). So best practices in many (probably most) cases actually enable innovation, because the alternative is wasting time reinventing the past.

The concept of best practices is on my mind in part because it's part of a phrase I often use to describe what most web sites are missing when it comes to online marketing. The vast majority of web sites haven't properly implemented even the basics of search engine optimization, run pay-per-click campaigns that lack even simple organization, and display landing and other web pages that could be entries into the 'conversion rate hall of shame'. In these cases, a simple set of best practices can have remarkable results (tm) :-). (That's my oft-repeaded phrase.) If only because I've seen the alternative.

The Smartest Conversation

I'm preparing for a presentation at the OutSell Executive Leadership Council Meeting in Sarasota FL this weekend. My topic is The State of Web Marketing. Unfortunately, all the speachwriters who are really good at bluster and bullsh*t are already busy, so I'm having to prep myself. I've come across two quotes that are impacting my thinking as I pull this together:

"Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center." - Peter Drucker

"But what YOU DO have control over is whether or not you're holding the smartest conversation on the planet about the market you're in, bar none. And once you do, the need to market evaporates." - Hugh @ gapingvoid.com

Defining marketing as 'creating a customer' is brilliant and typical Drucker. How do you create a customer? It seems to me that there are three variables: * DEMAND - Do they want what you have or can you make them want it? * SUPPLY - Can you convey the attractive qualities of your offering, or is it so good you don't even have to? * ACTION - Is the process of doing business with you easy enough, and can you inspire the necessary confidence so that they pull the trigger? It's interesting that the driver can be push or pull. If people want it badly enough, the product and the purchase process can be horrible. They'll seek it out buy it anyway. (As with airline tickets) If they don't want it you can 'create demand' via the various tricks the industry has perfected over the last few decades. (Like that folding table sold on late night TV). If demand is tepid, great marketing communications can help customers decide to buy. If demand is strong, it can be impossible to get any details at all and yet things will fly off the shelves. All of these forces and options come into play in the 'online version' of marketing. The friction of the buying process is no longer the physical process of locating the product, now it's the tangle of 'registration screens' or complexity of adding multiple items to the shopping cart. The generation of confidence is no longer the physical address or look in the eye of the sales person, it's customer reviews and Truste logos. Most of online marketing is about 'finding the demand' with organic and paid search, email and affiliate marketing, banners and whatever else. The remainder (though discussed far less frequently) is the development of a site that communicates effectively (from the viewpoint of each individual visitor) and makes the transaction process easy. The right methods and tactics for these fills millions of web pages, and book shelf space, and will fill a good part of my upcoming talk. But the Cluetrain crosses both sides of these tracks :-) and Hugh's brilliant comment points that out. A smart conversation is a magnet. A smart conversation is complelling and convincing. People talk about a smart conversation, especially if it's not too late for the people they're telling to come and watch or join in. People don't leave a smart conversation to go to a lesser one. Smart conversations create customers. Smart conversations aren't the state of online marketing. But they should a big part of it's future. Thanks to Peter Drucker for clarifying what we're trying to do, and to Hugh MacLeod for suggesting a great way to do a larger part of it.

Marketing: Interruption to Engagement

Following up on yesterday's post concerning the definition of marketing, here's an interesting piece that describes a transition from 'selling them what they don't want' to 'spreading ideas they fall in love with'. The essence is that interuption used to work, but not it doesn't so 'brand marketers' need to change tactics.

There's a lot of good thinking and summazation of ideas here, and I particularly like the nods to user participation and conversation. But there are some important ways in which this alone doesn't answer Seth's question or satisfy my 'problems with Marketing'. For one, I'm not yet convinced that the concept of 'brand marketing' is or should be at the center of marketing (not that the author necessarily makes that claim). And the goal of 'becoming part of the fabric of entertainment' (even with the disclaimers provided) is also limiting. Finally, I don't think the article makes the final leap to 'spreading ideas.'

But it is a great start to the search for a definition, or re-definition, of Marketing.

Bob Dylan, Seth Godin, and Neil Young

As someone who never thought of marketing as a profession, or even an interest, one of the questions that I've thought about a lot over the past year is 'what is marketing?'. I even bought and read a few classic marketing books like 'Kotler on Marketing' to brush up on the four 'P's and such.

My primary observation has been that 'Marketing' is badly named, branded, and positioned. Hopefully that will be the subject of a future post or ten.

But today in the first of a series of brilliant posts even by his own high standards, Seth Godin summarizes part of the confusion I have about marketing with this question:

Is marketing the art of tricking people into buying stuff they don’t need? Or is it about spreading ideas that people fall in love with?

I think both are done under this banner, and that's a problem. Hopefully admitting you have a problem is the first step to a resolution.

So how do Bob Dylan and Neil Young come into this? At BobFest in 1992 Neil Young said that what was great about Dylan was how simple he could be. Anyone can be complex he said, but Bob can be simple. I think this is true of Seth too.

(I don't have the exact Neil Young quote, but have asked the experts and should be able to post it here soon.)

Anyone Can Be The Company

If I'm your customer (or prospective customer) then anyone I talk to at your company is not only your representative, but for that moment they're the 'keeper of the brand'. (BTW, when I say brand I mean reputation - I really don't know what anyone else means when they use that word.)

Today I called tech support for an ASP phone system we use, because I was unhappy about some features. I'll spare you the whole story, but I was told that the things I didn't like were A) not a problem because nobody else had complained, and B) impossible to fix. When I shared the fact that the phone rep had turned me into a 'very unhappy customer' - she hung up.

A few moments later I called back, punched up the CEO's name in the company directory, and told him my story. When I started telling him what the original problem was, he chimed right in - "I don't like that either" he said, "and we've got a new release coming that changes how that works." He then listened to what a lousy job his support person had done, apologized, and told me he'd take care of it. It was a good call and despite the incident I feel good about the company again.

I normally wouldn't share ths story, but I just read a a great guy who answers the phones at Patagonia , and it's a great story of the opposite extreme. Here's one example:

One day a woman called Patagonia to say that her cat had chewed up her new Snap-T®. She asked if she could get a replacement.

"Absolutely, ma'am," answered Patagonia gatekeeper Chipper Bro Bell. "What kind of cat would you like?"

Check out a great bio on this guy here.

Wanted Dead Or Alive: Branding

There's been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about the status of brands and branding.

As usual, Seth sums things up and adds some real value. Here's his summary (but go read the full set of ideas):

Big brands are dying.
Little brands are doing great.
Branding is a weird gig.

Update: Some more good thoughts from Boing Boing

To Blog Or Not To Blog

We're helping more and more of our clients start Business Blogs - primarily because they're great communication tools. It doesn't hurt that they can also contribute to the amount of organic search traffic generated by a site. Gerry McGovern has written an interesting article discussing the pros and cons of business blogging.

My favorite Pro: "Blogs have potential to help the organization develop stronger relationships and brand loyalty with its customers, as they interact with the ‘human face’ of the organization through blogs."

My favorite Con: "Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one."

Over 75% of Email Marketing Goes Un-Opened

Information aggregated from clients of Bigfoot Interactive, as reported at Clickz, provide an interesting picture of email marketing today:

"The overall unique open rate has exhibited a year-over-year decline, dropping from 28.7 percent in Q2 2003 to 22.3 percent in Q2 2004, largely due to changes from e-mail providers, Bigfoot's DiGuido said."

The report is by no means negative on the current or future prospects of email:

""With the increasing attention to more contextually relevant e-mail communications we expect to see increased performance and perhaps more importantly conversion as a result of these efforts. Given the efficiency of e-mail this should have a huge impact on marketers overall ROI for the holiday season, as e-mail becomes an increasing portion of the marketing mix," DiGuido said."

Online Sales Grow, Blogs Help

CBS Marketwatch notes two important trends in one little article:

U.S. online retail sales are projected to more than double over the next six years and account for 12 percent of total retail sales in 2010, up from about 7 percent this year, according to a new report from Forrester Research. By targeting Weblogs, chat rooms and message boards, merchants will fuel sales growth by running ads while consumers are discussing a specific product or content related to a product, the researchers said.

Yadda, Yadda, & Yadda Some More

Seinfeld tells you why your web copy doesn't have to be brief, and your web pages don't have to be short. From an interview in the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: Most ad folks think the 30-second commercial is the optimal format. Your "Webisode" lasts for several minutes. Do consumers have that long an attention span?

Mr. Seinfeld: There is no such thing as an attention span. There is only the quality of what you are viewing. This whole idea of an attention span is, I think, a misnomer. People have infinite attention if you are entertaining them.

Or if you're informing them. You have to be brief to get their attention. You have to quickly prove that you've got what they want. But once you do, people want details. They want deep and extensive information about your products and services. And different people want different information, which means your site needs to have a lot of content.

(Quote via A Penny For..)