A Lesson from the Marketing Scams

I really can't help it - I am absolutely fascinated by these letters I get from third world countries and people in dire need of getting my banking information in order to give me millions of dollars.

What I don't get is how on earth people fall for them? But they must because otherwise why bother doing it.

So I had to share this one because it's better and the reason why is immediacy. Not only does this person have all of this money that they want to transfer to my bank account but the person writing to me from Spain is dying so he must give me the money NOW.

One of the biggest mistakes people who don't really understand marketing make is they don't come up with a reason why you have to immediately respond to their offer. A good marketer comes up with reasons not just why you need what they are selling but why you need it immediately.

Good PR people do the same thing. I can tell a journalist or producer about a product I'm pitching but if it doesn't have a news peg or some immediacy you go into a file and never come out - if you get that far. The "WHY NOW" is the second half of your sales pitch.

This happened with an event ad I saw recently - the ad was focused on the event but not on why you should go to it. This happens sometimes when we're so involved with our brand we think everyone feels the same way about it we do. But of course they don't, it's your job to make them.

The writer of this scam email which is below has done a few things others don't do - he's linked the money to a real plane crash which I looked up and he even got the date right. What he got wrong is that David Learmount was a writer who covered the crash, not on the plane and so leaving me his fortune. Yes I can Google too.

So for what it's worth here's the latest of these emails I've gotten.

Dear X -

I am writing to introduce you to a prospective mutual venture regarding an unclaimed deceased client`s portfolio that i have been in charge of for over 18years. My client; Late Mr. David Learmount died on 14th of August 2005 on the ill-fated Cypriot Helios Airways Flight 522, that crashed over Greece. I have since searched for any of his known relatives to fill-in as his next of kin to claim inheritance, but all to no avail to this date as he did not name any in his file until his sudden death.

The said portfolio will be liquidated and returned as unclaimed if I don't name someone to inherit it before the end of this month(August 2010), hence why I have contacted you. I got to you through my massive web search for his relatives, now i need you to stand as someone who shall work with me to be named as the next of kin. I had earlier contracted this search/case to a junior colleague in the UK since i was diagnosed of esophageal cancer early this year.
My condition is no longer stable at my present age of 70years, to the point that i can hardly speak well now and i want this matter wrapped up before the deadline at the end of next month or anything happens to me.

Please send your response urgently with your Names Address, Telephone etc) for more information on the value of the said portfolio, procedure, etc via this email:[ de.faustinoelias@yahoo.com ]

Note that time is of the essence and i implore your strong assurance and strict confidentiality on these matters.

Remain yours

De Faustino Ramon Elias (Esq.)
Madrid, Spain.

Why is Business Writing so Awful?

This was a question posed on the International Association of Business Communicators web site recently and about three dozen people responded.

Here is some of the rationale people gave:

They don't teach people how to write in college - and then they get out into the business world and there's no one to train them.

Executives are uncomfortable letting others write for them and so take all the punch out of what they say.

Writing for SEO means you don't write at the highest level you can - instead it's to fuel the search engines.

Layers of review water down text - and if lawyers are involved it only gets worse.

" I've come across many people who can write well technically and stun with their dextrous manipulation of multiple clause sentences.. . but they are not compelling."

"The biggest problem is that most people think of this as business writing instead of communicating. . . The goal needs to be: communicate in ways that drive the results you wish to achieve.

So what does the expert marketer think? The bar is just way, way too low. I hired a writer once who had a masters degree from a very prestigious "business writing" program and she had no idea how to organize information or determine what was important and what was fluff. She was a good technical editor - but she wasn't a good writer.

I was talking to a former colleague once about the writing that came out of our company and how bad some of it was.

And he said "I now understand that the bar is so low the stuff we produce - even when it's not really good - is better most of the other stuff out of there."

His point was if our clients didn't know what good writing was and didn't respect and admire it - then when they got something that was just OK, but comprehensible and said what they wanted - they were happy. I agree with that.

I also think that most kids are not taught to write in school unless they are in a communications or arts magnet program in middle and high school. I remember the stuff my ex-husband used to get when he was a teaching assistant at MIT.

Some of the papers didn't even make sense. He failed one girl on a paper and she came to him absolutely hysterical. She'd never gotten anything less than an A or B before on an assignment. She was a science and engineering whiz but no paid attention to her writing. When he did - and she calmed down - he was able to help her get better.

So if we as business professionals do not take the time to teach those who work for us - and over the years I have spent a lot of time trying and gotten very little management support for it in the PR world - we bear a lot of the responsibility too.

Redoing Stern Communications Web Site - Design and Definition

If your web site doesn't reflect social media, video, the endless power of the Google search engine, new coding formats, I will not hire you as a partner.

I'm looking for a partner in government relations for what could be a very large project and people are sending me recommendations so I go to their sites - they are just like mine but even flatter. I will not work with them.

I've been wanting to my redo my site for awhile and now we're starting. Awhile ago, I realized that all of the things I was telling clients to do - start blogs, use social media, RSS feeds, and especially coding with key words - were not done on my site.

A colleague put up a band-aid on the gaping out-of-dateness of it, with an RSS feed from one of my blogs and some buttons to social media sites. He had absolutely no sense of design and it looked unbalanced and weird. But he didn't charge me and I can't complain.

My web site is three years-old. It was created before I understood social media and what it can do for you, when you couldn't upload your web site into really flexible formats (or at least no one told me that) and by a woman who though very nice, was pretty limited in her web skills.

Bottom line PR people - while it still may be possible to live within the worlds of the future and the past - your time is ending. Get with the program.

This time around I'm doing better with the web development process. I found a designer through one of the only designers I know in this town who is really good, and the woman she sent me is better. The exact endorsement was "I found this fabulous new designer. . ." and she is absolutely that. I'm not going to give you her contact information until she finishes my site though. The other advantage is Alissa is very client savvy and easy to work with.

Not only did the new designer come with talent - she came with a web developer who is affordable, will answer any questions on just about anything and is as smart and as affable as you get. I feel like I've died and gone to web heaven.

Oh and I forgot the best part. I got a bid to develop a web site from a company recently and it was $15-20,000. This is a designer and web developer who has already done the look and feel and put it into a book and e-book. Plus all their web sites look exactly the same. I'm not saying that overall they didn't do an excellent job - they did. But design wise my redo is creative, smart and going to be 15-20% of that.

To be fair I'm keeping my logo, but it looks so updated in the new format it's unbelievable. So it's really new copy, new categories, new architecture, it's a whole new web site.

So here's what I've learned so far, other than prices for these kind of services, and quality, are all over the place.

Know your business model. When I started this company it was after eight years of fuzzy thinking about how to brand an organization. A group of us tried to define and brand and specialize the DC PR company I was with for several years but all we got was rolled eyes from one founder, and a full listen too by the other who then didn't do anything. Their web site makes mine look like it was developed yesterday morning.

So I started my business and based it fuzzily on the practice I'd developed at the previous client. Like my old company, I was reluctant to specialize because I felt it would cost me business. But of course if you don't specialize, and you can't quickly define what you do best, no one else figures it out either. So now I know - Sharing science, health, engineering and education with everyone. We take our clients' complex stories and transform them into compelling easily understood ones for the media and general public. It's that simple.

Give yourself a break. I could think of a million reasons why I shouldn't pay out a couple grand to redo my site right now, but I can only think of one why I should. If I went to my site and looked at it, I wouldn't hire me. That's about as strong a reason as it gets.

Sound bites are the future You have to tell your company's story right away - and you have to get my attention or I'm off your site. Compelling isn't saying you are great at what you do - although I am. It's conveying experience and confidence then demonstrating through examples how you've helped others. Pretty simple.

More next time on architecture. Oh and as I was writing this I figured out how to connect my intro page with all of the others. So it's not just a rant - it's a productive one. Yeah.

TV Media Training 101 - What Really Makes You Better

http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=12776360

I don't do television very often, but I was on NBC Richmond recently for Healthcarebluebook.com, and it was a cake walk. The producer came to my house, did the interview, filmed it, edited it and handed it over to someone else to integrate into her broadcast.

If this is a model for the future - editorial house calls are more than welcome.

As a matter of fact, all of those high-priced media trainers out there should do a live interview on television and use that as part of their presentation to new clients. That would be a great way to find those who really know what they are doing.

Anyway the person I worked with said I was very good on television. Since I've trained people how to do television, I do know what I'm doing. But I've read so many banal tips about preparing for a broadcast interview, I thought it might be useful to add a few tips of my own.

Don't Be Nervous - If you can talk to your boss, or someone several levels above you with an attitude, television is much easier. First of all most interviews these days are friendly and informative, not hostile and inflammatory unless you work for a company like BP. Most of today's news is about getting information out there that can help people do what products used to do - get things done faster, smarter, more effectively, and save money in the process. Take a deep breath, do some sort of relaxation exercise - you pick - and just have a conversation.

Not being nervous, will also get rid of the Ummmms - remember Caroline Kennedy they counted hers. I can't remember how many there were but it made her look completely unready for the role in which they'd placed her. This may have been totally false, but if it's on TV or the Internet people believe it.

Know Your Talking Points But Don't Spout Them - Talking points are just that - they are ideas to talk about not a line you recite every time you get on television or a list of stuff you must get in no matter what the questions are. Listen first. Figure out the context in which the question was asked and what your interviewer wants to hear. Breathe. Anecdotes are always better than one liners. If you want to hear over talking pointed people, watch Jon Stewart. Most executives that go on that show have a list they've memorized, and aside from an occasional burst of laughter when Stewart says something outrageous, they often come across as scripted. The same is true for Steven Colbert and the morning shows.

Watch the Show - You don't always have to but you should. See how the interviewer interacts with people, and the kinds of information that makes it to into the actual program whether its live or pre-recorded. What do they really want to get across? Then make sure you do it in an engaging way.

Connect, connect, connect - If you don't like the interviewer, the camera will slap you down. Television shows leering, snottiness, anger, drug use (no names but you know you've seen it) you name it - your facial expressions tell a story too. I'm not telling you to be super bland but be conscious of what your face, hands, and mouth are doing. This isn't just talking it's also major body language.

Look where they tell you to look - Whoever is interviewing you does this all the time and knows what to do to make you look your best. Follow the instructions. Look at the camera exactly where they tell you too - or the wall or whatever else the instructions are. Whether you are pre-recorded or live, you'll appear confident and focused. When you have a central focal point, you fidget less. That's a good thing.

Say Thank You - It may not make it on the air, but it always pays to say thank you to the interviewer while film is still rolling. Depending on what kind of show it is - the morning shows in particular - it's a requirement. When people don't say thank you or they delay the thank you they look foolish and kind of rude. It's part of that connection thing.

So You Think Scientists and Engineers Can't Dance?

Marketing complex products and services to the general public is a huge challenge. Our firm specializes in it, and we struggle with trying to figure out how to connect science, health, education and engineering research and findings with the general public.

In many of these disciplines PR people take what they are given – edit it - and put it back out there in the same language it was handed to them in. That doesn’t help anyone else understand it.

So I thought this marketing story would be useful to everyone. It’s about a contest started by John Bohannon, the Gonzo Scientist http:gonzolabs.org working with AAAS. The point is to challenge graduate students and their professors to dance their PhDs.

PhDs can be endless documents that take exhaustive research, hours to explain and drive both the writer and his or her spouse (I lived through one fortunately, not mine) crazy. Marriages are destroyed over PhDs, friendships ruined, relationships with advisors can be either helpful or hostile. Earning a PhD is a long and painful process that few come out of unscathed.

PhDs start with a germ of an idea – in my ex-husband’s case the role of NGOs in international political negotiations – and watch it blossom around them. He wrote his thesis (Yes there are other kinds of sciences at MIT) at the beginning of the Internet, when the NGOs like Greenpeace, Save the Whales, and the World Wildlife Fund – were just figuring out how to use this new form of mass communication.

It took 900 pages and ten years to complete (including time out for getting a career and family started). The degree was worth it and the dissertation was thrown into a box in the attic where it remains today. A classmate destroyed his at a Burn Your PhD party. At 900 pages we weren’t burning anything.

I’m describing this process so you can understand just how hard it is for graduate students to transform their research into something that everyone can understand. In its third year, the Dance Your PhD contest lets graduate students and their professors create short videos that are representative of their PhD theses, acting and dancing them out for all to see. The winners get put up on YouTube, feted at the AAAS annual meeting and see their dance performed by a professional company.

As a marketer I love this idea – and so did the media. The first year, Dance Your PhD was on the network news, featured in the New York Times, on NPR and although it hasn’t happened yet – with a bit more pushing will probably end up viral. Call it what you want – Revenge of the Geeks, Geeks Gone Wild – it’s just plain smart marketing.

This type of effort to connect science with the rest of us in an art form we all can all appreciate is what informal science education is all about. From the thesis titles alone you could fall asleep – but the performances are inspirational. Here are few that really capture the spirit of the competition. You can find them on YouTube but the linking mess that is Blogger has stymied me once again. Just type in Dance Your PhD and the name of the submitter.

"Refitting repasts: a spatial exploration of food processing, cooking, sharing and disposal at the Dunefield Midden campsite, South Africa" (University of Oxford). A caveman like figure chases a deer across the stage in an interpretation of hunting and gathering. It’s set to the music of Herbie Hancock and created by Brian Stewart.

The role of Vitamin D in beta-cell function from graduate student, Sue Lynn Lau. An interpretive dance that takes you from Vitamin D production by the sun all the way through how it helps our bodies.

"The role of folate in epigenetic regulation of colon carcinogenesis.” PhD thesis of Lara Park at Tufts University, this one is performed by the Sarabande Repertory Dance Ensemble dance troupe and reminiscent of modern dance gone a bit wild.

All of the blogger links aren't working so if you want to enter go to Facebook - you can do it all through its Dance Your PhD page.

Not in My Backyard Will Become Not in My Ocean

Will the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and images of oil slicked pelicans and blackened sea life, that our children are sharing on YouTube and Facebook, create a new generation of fanatically environmentalist kids? That’s what I’m betting on.

I’m dating myself, but I still remember the black and white concentration camp films we watched in New York City public elementary schools  in the 1960s. We were very young, but the message was clear. They imprinted the raw footage taken by soldiers of gaunt, hollow-eyed concentration camp survivors on an entire generation of American children, so they would never let it happen again.  


Many parents in my generation are very conservative - about what they allow their kids to watch and the trust they place in them. Some won’t let them watch PG-13 movies, set rigid controls on their computers restricting them to pre-approved Web sites, lock up the liquor and drug cabinets, and review what’s permitted  and what’s not before every play date. 

I don’t agree.  Maintaining the innocence of childhood is wonderful, but turning off major events as they unfold in the world around us - childproofing our children rather than teaching - is doing our kids a disservice. They need to know and understand this environmental disaster, and make their own choices because if they don’t, their friends  will do it for them.

Not only is my 10 year-old daughter furious at BP and the images they are glued to on the endless stream of YouTube, she’s questioning how something like this could happen. The only good that can come of it – and I keep telling her this over and over – is that it will never be allowed happen again and she will be a part of that. Do I believe what I’m telling her? Not really, but what else can you say.

A quick Google search found little written about the lasting effect of disasters on children although I know there's a lot out there. As a marketer and a mother I know the power of even the most positive of images and the messages that accompany them.

When my kids were smaller, they would watch ads on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon and a persistent drumbeat would start of asking for whatever had caught their attention. Children are relentless when they want something. And that was just toys.

Fast forward and picture today’s elementary school children a decade from now, standing on the west coast of Florida and asking "Mommy where are all the seagulls?" We could lose the gulf of Mexico just as the Europeans lost parts of the Rhine 30 years ago because of chemical dumping. They cleaned up most of it but it took a very long time. Children are very intuitive and even now they are starting to understand how bad a mess their parents have made, and left for them to clean-up.  

I believe the backlash against Big Oil will rival the “Not in My Backyard” movement against nuclear power plants that started after Three Mile Island and was cemented into our global consciousness with Chernobyl.  No nuclear plant has been built on American soil in more than 30 years, and despite the best efforts of the industry, lukewarm presidential support and the industry's PR people, it’s still a giant maybe.

If 1970s apathetic teens could fight the battle against nuclear – our kids should be able to shut down deep sea drilling.

Optimism is a rare commodity these days , but a new generation of environmentalists might just be our best hope yet.  

What Were BP's PR Executives Thinking?

 I was out having a couple of drinks with a friend last night who runs marketing for a consulting firm. He's a bright guy and of course we started talking about BP and the Gulf and what the company and CEO Tony Hayward should and shouldn't be doing from a PR standpoint. A few of the steps it's taken:

• Several weeks of silence during which you could hear the lawyers time clocks going Cha -Ching while they desperately tried to figure out what to do and what  to say.
• Hired a Bush loyalist who worked at DOE as the energy corporations were creating their own regulations or lack thereof. THer next boss was Dick Cheney which I won't even bother to comment on. Suffice it to say that the environment has never been a priority.
• A $50 million ad campaign that has BP's chairman doing too little to late. As the company has finally said it's no longer trying to plug the leak, he's out saying they're sorry and they're working on it.

Every PR expert who doesn't have BP or energy work is going to weigh in on this with some version of a crisis communications plan that fell short of what it should. That's pretty obvious.

What's not obvious and I think unexpected is the rage that ordinary Americans feel against this company and the energy industry. And the incredible similarities that President Obama has finally taken notice of between what happened in the Gulf of Mexico and what happened in the nuclear industry after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Drill baby drill has become Kill baby kill. Not in my backyard is going to become not in my ocean - no way.

It's not just the images of the oil slicked beaches and dying wildlife and people of  New Orleans and other places, lamenting the loss of their way of life. It's the mood of country. Notice how the tea baggers have been very silent since this happened. Keeping their mouths shut is all they've got. Or they'll get dragged into the oil slicked mud right behind BP.

So what should BP have done?

Don't Lie. Lying about the extent of the spill was just plain stupid. It would have been much smarter to say we don't know how bad it is, we're still trying to figure it out. Far better than saying the spill was smaller than BP knew it was. That means rich corporation caught lying to American people - not unusual perhaps, but in this situation a way to build really bad will.

Don't Spend Money that Should Be Used to Help People on Advertising.  This is just idiocy. The CEO of BP blew it already, to put him on paid advertisements just makes it worse. Better he should get himself down to the affected areas - with body guards if he needs them - and talk to the people who live there.

Let the news cover it. Donate money to the fisherman whose world has just been destroyed - create a Foundation to help their families during this time. Demonstrate you care by doing something that matters not making yourself less of a villian. Don't underestimate the intelligence of the American people - even though that's a very popular thing to do these days. Eventually they will get it.

Educate the Public About What Really Happened. BP is going to get stuck paying for the vast majority of this mess anyway. So go out and explain to the best of your knowledge what really happened otherwise it's just rumor which makes it look worse. Many companies were involved - the system failed in multiple points. Mea culpa. We didn't have a contingency plan. This may be the biggest oil spill in the history of this country and it's going to take a long time to fix it. But in the meantime, we have thousands of scientists studying what happened and making sure it will never, ever happen again. Here's what we're learning as we go.

Get Environmentalists To Help You Figure it Out - Why is BP going out and hiring all of the people who worked for the Bush administration and are in part responsible for creating a world where energy companies could operate without any rules? Bring the environmentalists to the table. Get Al Gore to the table. Get the World Wildlife Federation to the table. Just the very act of asking for help of the people who have been predicting this makes it look like BP is doing something.

Most important, BP's  advisors should be people who have demonstrated that they care about the environment we live in. Not those who sold it to the oil companies.