You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me – Expert Marketing Sites Not so Expert

This is the first in a series of articles on marketing web sites and their customer service and marketing. This site is called MarketingProfs.com. I already know it will be two parts.

I started getting the MarketingProfs newsletter “Get to the Point – B2B Marketing,” a little over a week ago. It was free and I was curious. The positioning of the site is great – Marketing Professors – or those smarter about marketing than everyone else are sharing what they know. Cool.

I developed, wrote, reported and edited a marketing newsletter for five years. I wrote about marketing and advertising for Business Week, The New York Times and other publications. I thought I had seen every possible angle. There were a couple of new ones – of course about social media.

The first couple of issues the cover stories of the newsletter were pretty good. I thought this is refreshing – and a couple of issues I actually learned something. Then the articles changed about three days ago – they became your standard web crap, drivel with a marginal headline – one point I already knew and a lot of other ideas I didn’t even bother reading. The About.com of marketing.

So I went on the MarketingProfs web site. I still like this idea so I go to a section called Sponsored Links. Maybe I should advertise? So I fill out a form – I make an ad – well it’s actually two lines but they call it an ad. Then the site asks for $140 for 20,000 impressions and there’s a 7 in there somewhere. I don’t get what this means.

So I call the toll free number and ask what the Sponsored Links are, where they go, what 20,000 impressions means. I get customer service and someone who puts me on hold for 11 minutes and then tells me his supervisor will call me back. Three hours later I have a toll free number that I think is them in my phone – I call back and it’s her, the supervisor. She didn’t leave a message and says something about getting interrupted by another call as she dialed. Right.

I ask about the content. I learn that the free content is not “premium content,” which of course you have to pay for. I do not ask the price and she does not offer one. I ask her if all of their content is for sale? She says something bright and chipper that kind of answers yes.

I get off the phone and figure out that the first content I got for the newsletter must be better and then they started sending the free crap. This probably makes people go to the web site and learn more. Or maybe it just makes me cancel or stop reading it.

So I ask her about the Sponsored Links and she says she can’t help me either but she can find someone who can. I ask if the Sponsored Links are for the web site. She says they are for the newsletters.

An hour later I get a call from an advertising sales rep. He says the sponsored links are self explanatory and he doesn’t sell them. When I persist, he says he’ll walk through the web site with me. He does not know where the Sponsored Links are on the home page. I show them to him. I remind him that he is an advertising sales rep - as nicely as I can while wanting to scream. His dog starts barking in the background.

I ask him the same questions about impressions, reach, etc. and he is impatient and tries to get me off the phone. I picture the dog, big, with a lot of matted hair, barking at the door wanting to be walked or maybe tackling a child or robber.

He sends me a media kit which has no information about sponsored links in it and asks me to send a list of questions and he’ll get me answers. I haven’t done this yet.

Stay tuned for Part II of Learn to Practice What You Preach.

Don't Waste My Time - Six Ways to Improve Your Presentations

Throughout my career as a journalist and communications consultant, I’ve probably been to thousands of presentations. When I wrote a newsletter for marketers my job was to go to conferences around the world then come back and report on what top marketers were saying.

The vast majority of the presentations I saw were incredibly boring. But if I listened there was always something buried inside that I learned something from. Forty five minutes of hell to get one good idea? How many people whose job it wasn’t to sit there would stay in the room?

In all those years I probably saw half a dozen presentations that I’d sit through again. Here’s why:

1. British humor. Martin Sorrell, the former head of the WPP Group, one of the largest advertising and marketing conglomerates in the word, came to talk to the first year Harvard Business School marketing class. He opened with “Our research shows within the first couple of minutes during a lecture most people drift off into sexual fantasy. So here’s to enjoying where you go with that.” Be outrageous. It’s unexpected and incredibly compelling. And you bet we listened to him too.

2. A good schtick. Yiddish says it better than English – they had a gimmick. And they were entertaining. People like Stephen Covey and Tom Peters captivated the room. I felt better about myself listening to their common sense advice confirming much of which I already knew. They packaged it well and told a good story. Trouble was when I went back to my notebook afterwards I couldn’t find anything to write about.

3. No PowerPoint. Whoever invented PowerPoint made a lot of money. But they ruined business presentations. What happens when you use slides? People read them and stop listening to you. And these days you look dated and foolish. The Internet generation has no attention span. That’s the point a Generation Y consultant made at a presentation I saw recently. She showed up in jeans and just talked about why she didn’t listen to the grown-ups. I listened to the whole thing.


4. Got me in the gut. Something has to resonate with the majority of your audience, help me see myself in what you are saying and figure out how this could apply to my business or life right now. Jason Alba of Jib Jab wins this one. He talked about how to build a marketing program around your blog by explaining how he did it with his company. Still haven’t done everything he suggested but took small suggestions and did them right away. And it really helped.

5. Entertaining. Why do you think comedians make the best talk show hosts? Because they can be spontaneously endearing, funny and in the best cases, really smart. They make something we know is ridiculous look more ridiculous. Be Stephen Colbert. His parody of a right wing talk show host is so engaging we can't stop watching. Of course in business you’re supposed to be professional and serious. But you can also let some personality shine through. You’re on stage – work it or I start reaching for my Blackberry.

6. Keep it Simple. What do you want me to walk out of the room remembering? My brain can only hold so much information as I go from session to session. And I may be smarter than a fifth grader, but I don't always remember what they taught me in fifth grade about writing. A refresher: Tell me what you are writing about, give me information to support that, and tell me again. You can call it messaging, or many other buzz word like terms, but it's as simple as that.


6. Know when to shut up. I saw this in a new business presentation recently. The tenor of the room wasn't good because the prospective client was late and rushed. We had a long presentation and didn't communicate well and adapt it to the moment. The meeting just didn't go well because there was too much of us showing work and too little of her engaging with us. We should have shut up and engaged her by offering potential solutions to her challenges but instead we talked about ourselves. She just stopped listening. Yes even smart people screw up sometimes.

So what's your takeaway? If you don't know I'll be the one napping during your next presentation or texting my way through it.

Match.com for Scientists and Schools?

This is not a story about dating. Six weeks before October of 2009, the DC Coalition on Public Understanding of Science, a loosely knit group of science cheerleaders from associations, federal agencies, local schools and businesses decided to hold a Meet the Scientist program in October.

We’d been kicking the idea around for months and hoping someone would volunteer to make it happen and that person ended up being me. Why? Because for five years of elementary school I saw almost no science taught to my son. Because I’ve been working in public understanding of science for the last eight years in the DC metro area and we needed it.

Because I love challenges – except in dating. How’s that for an intro?

Ed Rock of the National Science Teachers’ Association is a tech guy and one of our COPUS volunteers. He built two databases for us – one for scientists and the other for schools. The scientists told us what area of science they specialized in, how comfortable they were talking to students and at what level, how to find them and when they were available.

The science teachers (some were schools but most were individual teachers) told us what type of science they were looking for, which class they wanted scientists for, and what their expectations were.

DC COPUS – which has a small core group of about six people – and then a network of maybe 100 more – sent out the request for scientists to everyone it knew. Our best response came from the National Institutes of Health and we don’t really know why. A couple of federal agencies got cold feet and didn’t help but some of their people signed up anyway.

Since we had no budget – a local news release distributed by PR Newswire was out of the question. So I created a local media list and sent out a release that didn’t really go anywhere. I also posted on a free site called Impact Wire which got us some attention.

What worked? Facebook. I posted notifications for teachers and scientists on every page I could find where scientists and science teachers gathered – particularly young ones. I posted on the college and grad school pages of those nearby. AAAS sent out notifications to its Facebook Science Careers’ fans in the Washington, DC area (you can segment your audiences now with the last redesign).

I called some of the bigger scientific organizations in DC and got help from some – the neuroscientists in particular.

For the schools I tried two tactics – in Arlington, VA I went to the science supervisor for the district and she sent it to her entire list of science teachers. In Montgomery County, I randomly selected schools off its web site (it was the only local district that had all its people information on line) and sent to their science leads. In the end, the Arlington administrator worked better. Now we know.

Then Ed the tech guy matched the scientists with the schools. One of our big concerns was we didn’t want to get in the middle of schools talking to scientists because we didn’t have enough people to manage it (there were three of us) and we didn’t want to be responsible for what happened.

We had just over 100 scientists sign up and 50 plus schools. I could have gotten far more schools but I was afraid we wouldn’t have enough scientists. In the end, Ed was able to give each school two choices of scientists and the suggestion that they could have them come in as a team. Emails were sent to scientists and schools telling them what they needed to know. We will do a follow-up survey to see what they thought of it.

One issue is that many scientists don't really know how to talk with kids. But since we had no time for training, we posted information from organizations who do public understanding of science on the COPUS web site and hoped they'd use it.

I promoted the first Meet the Scientist event at Takoma Park Middle School and got the local paper to cover it as well as the district. A second event held by Johns Hopkins a few days later got the Washington Post.

October is almost over and it’s working. Yippee. Can we duplicate it somewhere else and do it the same way? I’m not sure but I’m going to try.

Some links that will be helpful:

Press Release for Meet the Scientist

http://www.impactwire.com/a/502/Scientists-Go-Back-to-School-this-October-in-DC

COPUS DC Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=33739102607&ref=ts

Before Scientists Go to Schools - Resources

http://staging.yearofscience2009.org/about/meet-scientist-dc.html

Ninety Two Year-old Aunt Helen Vs. The Web Developers

Web sites have come a long way in the past five years, which became evident at two presentations I saw yesterday before one of the communications groups I belong too. Twenty six dollars for browning roast beef, honey mustard dressing, and the salad greens I buy at the market and scoop out with tongs.

The space was nice but the Topaz Hotel should be ashamed of itself. My local deli would have done a much better job.

First of all these were old presentations. The world is changing way too fast to do presentations pretty much on anything that was developed more than a year ago. You used to be able to get away with 3-5 years when there was a computer and only the beginnings of the Internet.

I designed my web site two years ago and I’m embarrassed at how dated it is. And it’s much better than these.

What was wrong with these sites? Let’s start with the one for senior citizens, whose presenter's lessons learned after four years of research and development on a plain HTML site were:

• Nothing should be more than two clicks away.
• Don’t clutter up the page.
• Use the same headings on every page for consistency.
• Organize your content organized clearly and simply.

Duh - isn't that Web 1.0? Did I miss a decade or something.

Maybe these were Big Ideas to the federal government web designers, the ones who make sites that have so much stuff on them you can never find what you are looking for. The search engine was Boolean, which basically means it was created by developers who know how to look things up on the sites they build.

There was not a word said about any of the things that matter right now - SEO, integration with other forms of media, branding, whether or not anyone uses them, what they think? They are working on a redesign of the site.

Somewhere in there was one piece of information I could use. It had a button that would help make the font bigger. Yipee.

To be fair, at the time this site was designed elderly people were just learning to turn on a computer. Now I’d match 92 year-old great aunt Helen with any teenager I know.

Part two of the worst web site presentations ever tomorrow.

What Happens in Vegas. . . Can Be Shared A Little

Went to a panel discussion on branding your organization through social media the other day - one of the better ones I've been too. Learned a few things too. Here are some highlights:

Google Wave - Haven't had a chance to look at it yet but hear it is the next best thing out there and will give other social media sites a run for their money. Check it out.

Social Media Policy - A smart one. On office time if you go on Facebook you are a representative of your company. Don't post anything you wouldn't say to your mother at a family dinner. After hours you can be a little more risque but remember it can come back to haunt you.

Should You Keep Work and Life Separate on Facebook? - This question always comes up. Facebook now has enough privacy settings that you can literally segment your groups into different sets of fans and only let one group see certain posts while others can see posts more applicable to them.

Branding in the Social Space - Every company and individual has the opportunity to develop a personality on line that is uniquely yours. That's how you brand. Figure out who you are and what you want to be and make sure you emphasize that. If you don't have a personality (seen this a lot on blind dates) then it's going to be pretty tough to make a social media one.

Facebook Advertising - One participant had a lot of success with this by spending very little money. His ROI was fantastic. Again though what are you trying to accomplish with advertising? The Facebook words you can use for SEO on your ads can be pretty limiting. But they're getting better.

Cross Promotion - I tweet, blog, Facebook, Plaxo, YouTube and cross promote my business and products on all of them. How much you toot your own horn is up to you and your audience. How much will they tolerate? Best bet is to connect all of them and then figure it out.

Lawyers Online - The loss of control freaks them out - totally. How can you protect yourself if it's up there for everyone to see? They're still trying to figure it out.

Many Companies and Associations Still Not Using Social Media - NOOOOO - REALLY - they're not. And they're still in business, thank you very much. You have to start with your customer base. Are they on there? How are they using social media? Are you trying to reach young professionals - then you'd better be there. Is your client base white men over the age of 55 - social not so much. Know your audience. That's pretty basic.

There's more but it's my birthday and I'm blogging. Done for the day.

Wild Wild West of Internet About to End

Today was a win for PR people, reputable journalists and those with ethics. I cannot count how many bloggers out there refuse to cover the clients I pitch (even when they really are different and useful).

Why - because they live by "pay to play" a form of marketing that fools the masses into believing that the products they are covering - and what they say about them - is an honest opinion. But the truth is these blogs and their writers are for sale. If you pay them, they will write about you. If not, well shrug, shrug, shrug.

Reputable journalists hate this because they are bound by ethics and rules. They can't take gifts. They can't take money. And most important, they try not to be sleazy.

Recently I realized just how bad it had gotten when I got an email from a personal finance blogger who just flat out said, “Tell your client to spend some of the marketing budget they are spending on you here on my blog and I’ll write about him.” WOW.

Sorry bloggers but your reign of ethics free writing is taking a big hit. According to an article in today’s New York Times, the F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1st, 2009:

Bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, particularly if they are paid for placement.

Celebrities will need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter.

Advertisers are losing the ability to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement.

The important thing is that the government is beginning to impose rules on the Internet, similar to the same sorts of regulations that other forms of media, like television or print must live by. They must have some powerful lobbyists out there.

Marketing with No Money

Jason Alba of Jibber Jabber an online executive recruiting firm, gave the best talk I’ve ever seen on social media marketing. He was fired from his job a couple of years ago and launched this company, authored the book I’m on LinkedIn – Now What? and is finishing a second book on Facebook.

Despite his rambling, self-deprecating style Alba is very smart. He lives in Utah and built a nationally known company by sitting behind his computer.

And he did it without spending any money on marketing. Bravo Jason.

Here are four ways that Jason marketed his business without spending a dime:

1. Built His Network

As an executive recruiter network building and relationship management is Alba's specialty. He says the idea behind social media marketing is to create a network of evangelists – people who love you – people who will recommend you – people who will say great things about you.

Research says people have to see your brand at least 7X before they recognize it. So the strategy should be based on getting it in front of them in the most ways possible.


Alba's social media network includes Multiple Blogs – LinkedIn – Company Newsletter – Facebook – Communities/Groups – Twitter – Books - Articles

Your network should be built carefully and nurtured. It’s the guts of your business.

Alba recommends using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to track all of your contacts, many of whom are in different parts of the social networking sphere.

Segment your contacts and send information out to them regularly both by putting it in their in-box and having them come to you.

2. Used Email as a Branding Tool

You want buzz – people talking about you so you should generate interest in every way you connect with people. One place people forget to pitch their brand is in their email signature which should be used as a billboard for your company.

Figure out what message you are sending with it now (Do you have one?) and if not add one that distills your sales message into a sentence. Mine is now “Sharing health and science with everyone.” It’s not perfect but at least it says what I do.

Remember you can also paste your email signature into messages to communities, your LinkedIn, Facebook and other networks, and other places where you answer questions or participate in the discussion.

3. Got His Name Out There All the Time

Brag – Make a video, PowerPoint or slide show about your business. The presentation can go up on your LinkedIn page, your web site, and on other venues like Facebook. It will humanize your business and let everyone quickly get what you do and what your edge is.

Join groups – Alba says he’s found Yahoo Groups most active. The community groups are better because they are centered around a specific topic. The PR value of having someone post a positive experience with your business is priceless.

You can also give webinars that will make you sound smart and help others understand how smart you are.

Alba says at last count he had 7 blogs – some of which are written by others. He’s a devotee of blogging every day so people see your name in front of them every day. I have three blogs and strive for once a week. There’s only so much a busy entrepreneur can do.

He also regularly leaves comments on other's blogs and has built a network of links from his blogs to others.

3. Focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)


Alba’s growth strategy is blogging to build links and traffic to his site, other blogs, pages, etc. He started by developing a network of bloggers he could have relationships with – those who would link him, mention him or write an entire post about him. He always makes them aware of new and enticing posts. A recent one that got major attention: Depression in the Job Search.

Of course it’s great to be covered by the mega bloggers but getting their attention can be very hard. So start by building a large network of people who each have tiny audiences or you can start your own community and invite others to join.

(This is from me - many industries that I work with have online lists of the top 100 or 200 blogs in their area of expertise. The lists include names, contact information, etc. It's a great way to find out who's talking about your client's business - what they are saying - how they position themselves - and get a free up-to-date media list).

Twitter is also a great way to promote your blog - you have to strike a balance between too much tweeting your own horn and what works but once you find it - it's a great way to build readership.

You have to give your blog readers the ability to sign up and receive your blog via email – it gets your message in front of them if they don’t come to you.


4. Lead the Conversation

Alba says if you want to build your company then write a book. These days anyone can author a book and e-publish it. If you write a book about what you do, with a compelling title and smart advice people can learn from and it will help your business a lot.

Why? One reason is that most media programs – TV in particular – like authors. They can hold the book up in front of their audience. It makes them look smart to have read your book. And everyone sells more books.

If you write an e-book use online video, web sites, blogs, news programs, etc. that will link back to your book. An e-book can really help your clients understand what you do and how you do it well, as can white papers.

Should you charge for the e-book? Probaby not for the first one.