The Worx Group Blog

Why does everyone want your email address?

2006-10-24T17:22:00.000-04:00

I had another meeting today where I was trying to explain to a client how important it is to have all of his customers' email addresses. About half way through the conversation he asked, "why does everyone want my email address anyway?" That is a great question, and there are many great answers including the low cost of email versus traditional mail, the ability for the recipient to forward your message to a friend, and everybody's favorite - to drive traffic to their website, but I think the best answer is metrics. Email communications are completely trackable. It is as close to big brother as we can get. When someone sends you an email that you open, they know it. If you click on something, they see that too. They also see how many pages you visited, how long you were on their site, what pages you looked at, if you buy something, and my favorite, your exit page. An exit page is the last page of your website that the visitor was on before leaving your site. (P.S. - improving this page can improve conversions, results, sales, or whatever it is you are tracking.)

I now receive emails from Snickers and Pepsi (what does that say about me?). I also receive email from Industry Week, Thompson Cigar, BtoB magazine, Ad Age, Dell Horoscope, Tri-state Tech Wire, JustSell.com, TheStreet.com, SamAsh.com, ticketmaster.com, FYE.com and literally hundreds of others. Does it work? Is it worth it? I think so. If I am not interested today, I can easily delete it, but many days I take a look, and some days I actually take action. Not often, but once in a while I actually do. So do thousands of other people on their list, and that action can really add up for the company sending the email.

Back to metrics and big brother - we were sending all of the emails for a sporting goods company, and we really raised the bar on their metrics and understanding their customers' habits, likes and hobbies. We would send a monthly newsletter that featured a wide array of sporting good promotions. It was a potpourri of sports including golf, fishing, tennis, running and others. We would then send follow-up emails to everyone who clicked on a specific sport, but the follow up emails were customized to the client based on the click and purchase habits. (Oh yeah, we had it tied into their loyalty and rewards program too.) Like football? We know, that is why we send you football related emails. Like tennis? We know.

Now of course you don't have to be this tactful with your email list, but you should at least be testing a message or headline before spending big bucks to run an ad. Your customers' email addresses really come in handy here. What we do is craft two messages and send it to a good sample of your customers, and then simply track the response to help decide which creative is more effective. Sound simple? It actually is. Call me, I'll be happy to tell you more.

Joe Bottone
VP Business Development
The Worx Group
203-758-3311
jbottone@theworxgroup.com

Happy e-marketing!

Bring the Noise (down)

2006-05-31T18:17:00.000-04:00

I worked a long time ago in radio. To put it in perspective, when I edited, I used a razor blade and tape... rather analog compared to the digital editing and recording equipment they have today for audio. Every audio engineer is concerned about the quality of the audio. One of the ways this is measured is SNR or Signal-to-Noise Ratio. Modern microphone technology makes it pretty easy to get a good signal and limit noise these days. SNR is probably a concept that will go the way of the buggy whip as technology gets better.

But as I was looking at a particularly busy marketing-based website, it occurred to me that the idea of Signal-to-Noise Ratio applied well to marketing. While the site I was viewing was pleasant to look at, I got so caught up in the “noise” of the bells and whistles, that the whole message of their products and services was lost. The noise had overtaken the signal in their marketing message. So, despite the fact that I was impressed with the folks who built the website, the message was lost.

It’s easy to get caught up in the fun of designing. I’ve seen clients and marketers alike, who add features for the sake of adding features. When the piece is near complete, though, it may be a good idea to step back, put on the headphones and listen for the noise. Then be sure your message is getting through.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Tiny battles on many fronts

2006-04-07T18:47:00.000-04:00

I enjoy watching The Office on NBC. It’s a half-hour comedy that is written and shot as if it were a real documentary in the making. Very funny. I never really watch it during its Thursday night time slot, though. I’m a TiVo addict, like most DVR users have become, so I watch it at my leisure sometime after it airs.

As any TiVo/DVR user will tell you, we don’t watch commercials any more, except maybe during live televised sports, and sometimes not even then. This is bad news for the advertisers and bad news for those of us who make our living as marketers. One way advertisers have fought back is through product placement. The CSI franchise on CBS is obviously sponsored by GM. The Hummer H2 is almost a featured character on CSI: Miami, even to the point that viewers have been directed to the website to see extended scenes featuring a Hummer. Now the Yukon (with special crime fighting accessories) is making regular appearances on the fictional crime scenes of Las Vegas. Product placement is nothing new in this front as marketers battle against the DVR remote and ever less patient viewers.

The newest front in the battle against commercial skipping brings us back to The Office. Using the cast as their spokespersons, The Office made some fake PSA’s (public service announcements) using the graphics, backgrounds and music traditionally associated with NBC’s real PSA’s (The More You Know campaign). Except for their content, these PSA’s were the real deal. The content, of course, was as silly as one would expect from The Office. They passed these off as an April Fool’s gag (and they are funny), but the really brilliant part was that the PSA’s were embedded in the middle of the commercial break. If you’re a fan of the show and have a DVR, then you stopped fast forwarding to watch the fake PSA’s… and laugh. You also probably caught a commercial or two on either side of the PSA. Brilliant. Was this an intended consequence or a happy accident? Only a few at NBC know for sure.

Who knows where this will lead? Maybe the program stars will become the pitchmen (and women) of the future. Maybe we’ll return to the sponsored programming that kicked off the TV era. Maybe we can’t yet conceive of the next front on which we’ll fight for the attention of viewers.

French-born philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote "Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity." There are many reasons one might disagree with Ellul on many points he makes, but it’s pretty hard to argue with the idea that “efficiency is…a necessity imposed on all human activity.” So TV viewers are made more efficient by DVR, and marketers have to come up with more efficient (and creative) ways of getting the attention of viewers. And so the battle will always go on. New innovations create the need for yet more new innovations. But we sure are going to have some fun as both marketers and viewers as it happens.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

One brand many faces

2006-02-23T18:11:00.000-05:00

Probably every net-savvy graphical designer out there would love to have the job held by Dennis Hwang... at least for a few weeks. He does all the fun variations on the Google logo that appear on the Google website for holidays and special occasions. I'm sure you've seen them for Christmas or the Olympics.

Did you know that there is an online museum of Google logos? Browsing these is like eating Lay's potato chips - you can't look at just one. I dare ya.

How great is it that no matter how many times they change the logo you still get it. Sure it's always in context - that helps. But every rendition reinforces their brand completely. If anyone ever has a question about the power of a strong brand, this is the answer. I can't wait to see what's next.

My current favorite? I'm so into curling in Torino, despite the recent USA men's team elimination, so I like the curling tribute logo. Nice how the red and yellow stones fit right into the logo where the red and yellow O's usually are, huh?

What's your favorite?

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

U2: World's Biggest Band... and Smartest Brand?

2006-02-16T08:23:00.000-05:00

With the rattle and hum of this year's Grammys now subsided, sufficed to say that U2 is with little argument one of the seminal bands in music history. Five more Grammys for the four lads from Dublin - giving them a grand total of 21 - places them sixth on the all-time award winners list. But is it the music that makes them such a tour de force, or is it a marketing decision made almost thirty years ago?

U2's image and marketing strategy has always been as much a part of the package as Edge's guitar licks or Bono's distinct voice. Think of the Joshua Tree era of the late 1980s, and you can see the stark, timeless black and white images of the band in the desert in your head; or the Achtung Baby era of the early 1990s, with its sensory overload and multimedia onslaught; or the current era of red and black, highly-graphical simplicity. Every image, every delivery of their "brand," is carefully and intentionally crafted.

But what may have been one of the most pivotal marketing moves in music history - and certainly for the band - came from their long-time graphic design collaborator Steve Averill, way back in 1978. Averill has designed the albums and tour artwork for every album of the band's 28-year career (talk about a long-term client). The story goes something like this: in the late 1970s, the band was playing under the name The Hype, and bassist Adam Clayton felt like they needed to change their name. For a battle-of-the-bands contest, they hastily decided on U2 with Averill's guidance. The name harkened images of the spy plane of the same name, but in broader (marketing) terms, meant "you too": the idea of inclusion and involvement with the audience. In addition, the graphical simplicity and strength of the two symbols - a capital "U" and "2" - allowed the band's name to project prominently on posters and in publications. For a baby band competing with a million other hopefuls, it gave them an initial marketing edge. From there, all they did was make defining music for generations and sell millions upon millions of albums.

How does this apply to the "real world"? For starters, it shows how careful marketing consideration and brand development from day one - and a commitment to evolving your brand while remaining true to its core competencies - can lead you to unchartered terrritory. Or just get you out of your middle-class existence in the heart of Ireland. To this day, U2 is still about "you too," and they're a brand that has extended globally, gaining more equity with each hit single.

Grant@TheWorxGroup.com

Time travel

2006-02-10T17:58:00.000-05:00

I used to joke that TiVo was the closest thing to a time machine ever invented… and it is pretty close. But yesterday I got an email that made me rethink that. It was an email from me that took a year to get here. It was sent via FutureMe.org.

It sounds pretty banal; getting an email. And it is, but this is something I had written in my own “style” exactly one year earlier. It was like the little voice in my head had a 12-month echo. And while it is technically very simple to store some text for a year and email it at the end of that time, the email itself was very powerful.

My message to myself is not important and I’ll spare the reader the details, but what was impactful was that the message was filled with 12-month goals. Some I had completed and some I hadn’t. One personal goal I had literally accomplished the day prior to receiving the email! How did I know it would take one year? Creepy, but powerful.

Anyway, until Hanz Gubenstein invents time travel,* FutureMe.org is a great way to help keep yourself honest when it comes to your marketing (or personal) goals. I highly recommend a little time travel in the name of personal and/or professional growth.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

*Does Anybody Here Remember When Hanz Gubenstein Invented Time Travel? is a hilarious movie script that got to the finals of the third season of Project Greenlight. Emails are actually sent back in time (rather than forward) and become the vehicle for many comical situations. The script was written by Rick Carr, a personal friend and fraternity brother whose movie I hope to see in theaters soon.

Star Power

2006-01-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

In their January 9, 2006 issue, MediaWeek published an article titled Blog Fog in which they make the case that the revenue models for blogging and advertising on blogs are not yet developed. In the meantime, they recommend that corporations should create their own blog(s) to get in touch with their customers and that they should watch the blogosphere so that they can stay in touch with the buzz about them.

I don't disagree with any of their assessments or advice. But I want to put you on my meandering train of thought about their title that got me thinking a bit more about the future of blogs. What does fog imply? Poor visibility to be sure. A mirky future, probably. Shapelessness. I guess you could say the future is "nebulous." Root word 'nebula' (maybe not, but this is my train of thought, for better or worse). Is a nebula a better descriptor for the current state of blogs and their power? I'd like to think that it is.

Rather than an uncertain fog that sets the stage for some horrible fate (like dry ice in a B horror movie), a nebula is a loose cloud of gases and particles that, while shapeless, will someday hold star power. What will that look like? Who knows. But it sure seems more hopeful for those of us who read and write blogs!

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Resolved...

2006-01-06T16:36:00.000-05:00

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution? I’m not big on them. I believe in goal setting, of course, but that has to happen year ‘round. But I did make one resolution as a marketer this year. That is to do more homework.

It’s easy to take for granted the current state of technology and communications. But every once in a while, when I forget my cell phone or the satellite TV freaks out due to a storm, I’m reminded of the technology that surrounds us all the time. It’s those few moments of silence when I think about how much information technology has put at our fingertips. If we don’t use that information as marketers, or at least take advantage of the technology to get the information, then we’re not doing our job.

If you’ve ever done a focus group, you know the value of a good moderator, a two-way mirror and a video camera. But you also know the time, hassle and expense associated with a successful focus group session. Why not do that same research online? It’s cheaper and faster and probably causes fewer headaches.

Resolve to do your homework this year and to do it better with the technology that’s all around you. It easier to do that than to lose that pesky 5 lbs. you promise yourself every year.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Billions served

2005-12-22T14:47:00.000-05:00

It’s always tough to judge history while it’s still the present. Trying to figure out how we will remember 2005 is just a tough as predicting 2006. There were lots of great viral campaigns and huge pushes in Web 2.0 technologies – all good for us marketing types. It might be remembered as the year of Google, who seemed to be in the headlines every other day for better or for worse. I think, though, one quiet little fact sums all these up pretty well.

There are now over 1 billion Internet users online. With about 6.5 billion earthlings out there, that means we’re at about 15% of the world population now online. So there’s still a lot of room for growth to continue, obviously, but that’s more than 3 times the population of the entire U.S. That’s a milestone.

Just as impressive as how far the Internet has come is how far it has to go. As the rest of that 85% of the population continues to get online, the Internet will become more and more international and our little chunk of the solar system will seem to shrink even faster. Imagine the audiences you will soon be able to reach. Man, I can’t wait to see what happens next year.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Are the years getting shorter?

2005-12-18T18:53:00.000-05:00

It seems like only a few months ago we were celebrating the holidays in 04. Oh well, another year has passed. Actually, now that I think of it, it seems like it was only a year or two ago that we were celebrating the coming of a new millennium. Wow, can you believe that was six years ago? Oh well, at least we become a little wiser every year. It is hard to believe that at this time last year the word blog (or acronym I guess for all you English majors) wasn't even part of my vocabulary. Sure I had heard of blogs, and I kinda even knew what they were and how they worked, but I sure wasn't writing in one. And now we have a Wiki too. That one I know I learned about just this past year. So I guess what I will focus on in 06 is continuing to learn and try to become wiser. To paraphrase Mark Twain, "The person who does not read good books has no advantage over a person who can't." So Happy Holidays to all and to all a good book. (Or blog, whatever.) Thanks for looking,

Joe Bottone
jbottone@theworxgroup.com

Metrics on Creative? Since When?

2005-12-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

We as creatives live and breathe this every day. The increasing pressure to show quantifiable results and tangible impact on a client's business goals. Clients are ever-demanding on seeing metrics as a way to justify increased expenditures, additional technology or simply, the power that marketing communications has on their target market's buying decisions. While the ability of marketing communications firms to provide this data is still somewhat difficult in many mediums, it is getting more pervasive and accepted.

Marketing staffing and services giant Aquent is making great strides in defining R.O.I. parameters in communications. Check out their fantastic Aquent Inside Marketing video series, including Ed Krug's piece on Internal Benchmarking. In it, Krug defines the three main components of quantifying creative services – on-time delivery of the work, accuracy to estimate and adherence to brand standards – plus much more.

It's an eye-opening three minutes.

Grant@TheWorxGroup.com

Shiny Happy People

2005-12-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

Remember that R.E.M. song? Wow, what a bad song from such a great band. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the latest trend in marketing communications, where it seems like nearly every piece you see – be it a billboard, brochure, website, banner, credit card or advertisement – has a scene with a handful of happy people smiling at the camera. Sometimes it works; hey, designers are trained that specifically in advertising, having a positive-looking person staring straight forward captures viewer attention. Many times it doesn't; not because of the overall look of the piece or because this type of composition is becoming extremely trite, but because no unique marketing message supports the image.

It seems like marketing communications messages are now being developed around what stock photos are available. Get a shiny happy person photo now, and retrofit a marketing message later. Sound familiar? Stock photos are a necessary evil in the design world, for sure. They allow us to expedite projects at an all-time quick pace while keeping overall project costs down. It's just that when you attempt to develop communications by working the process in reverse, it usually doesn't work. And when a marketing piece doesn't work, it's no more valuable than just plain artwork. Or wallpaper.

The "shiny happy people" approach pervaded 2005's work. But many more design fads come immediately to mind. Past yearly trends include 2003 – the "year of the pseudo-techno online designs," with small, unreadable type, gray on gray color schemes and corner-cut arrows pointing in every which way – and 2000-2004, the "years of the swoosh logo design," where everyone from banks to manufacturers to hospitals to restaurants inexplicably had some sort of eliptical element in their identity.

Whether you're a designer, copywriter, salesperson or just someone involved in marketing, always consider the business objective, any unique selling factors and how to creatively and succinctly deliver your marketing message first. Once you have a strategic perspective, worry about how the piece should look. Or whether shiny happy people should be a part of that look.

And put a little R.E.M. on the old CD player for some inspiration as you're considering your marketing communications. Just not that song!

Grant@TheWorxGroup.com

We all love validation.

2005-12-09T08:59:00.000-05:00

We all love validation. So when I read in Kristin Zhivago’s blog about how “marketing had shifted from ‘80% creative and 20% logistics’ to ‘80% logistics and 20% creative,’” I knew that the integrated marketing approach meant we were on the right track. Some of the points she makes (like email response rates sinking to the same level as direct mail) are a bit too gloomy to reflect the reality I see every day. But her point is well taken – everyone knows it’s about measured results these days – your customers know it, your competitors know it and you know it.

Make sure when you do your marketing you're measuring your results, then adjusting your message based on those results. Then measure again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Some folks don't like cranberries

2005-11-23T14:27:00.000-05:00

As you sit down for turkey and gravy tomorrow, take a look at all the different faces that make up your family and friends. Even in a very homogeneous-looking family, there will be all kinds, right? That's what makes these functions so much fun (or dreadful as the case may be). In marketing, even a very tightly defined target market is going to have many different types of people who respond to different types of messages. So what's the one thing each person understands? Him or herself!

Personalization in this age of technology has become relatively easy to accomplish. Whether it's an email, a website experience or a postcard using Variable Data Printing (VDP) technology, a personalized experience can be a powerful marketing tool that improves what is often a generic message. Of course everyone likes to see his or her name in "lights," but what makes personalization successful is going beyond the name-in-lights phenomenon to add value.

As usability guru Jakob Nielsen posited in a recent article entitled Incompetent Email Marketing = Lost Future Opportunities (he is nothing if not to the point), using personalization to add value for the recipient in email can increase the chance for success of that piece as well as future pieces. In other words, add value for the user and he/she will be more receptive to future communications; fail to add value and your next effort may go right into the circular file. His piece talks about email, but the same holds true of other marketing vehicles that are personalized.

Next time you're looking to personalize your marketing message, be sure to ask yourself if you are adding value to the recipient's message and/or experience. Is it more important that I know your name or that I remember that you don't care for cranberries?

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Insert News Cliché Here

2005-11-15T18:16:00.000-05:00

The temptation to make some bad pun using newspaper terms is strong, but for the good of everyone, we’ll just announce the launch of the second generation BICnews.com. For most of us, it’s an enviable place to be – when the media is seeking information on our company rather than us launching press releases hoping one of them sticks in the daily news vacuum. But that’s the position a company the size of BIC is often in, and the BICnews.com site is designed to deal specifically with members of the media.

It has the latest news, images that can be downloaded, a place to sign up for press releases via email, a news search and a groovy ticker on the homepage (not to be outdone by any Times Square facades). It’s designed to make life easier for the PR staffers at BIC, and that’s just what it’s doing. So when you find yourself in the enviable position of having too many journalists calling, you know who can help.

In the immortal words of Edward R. Murrow, “Good night and good luck.”

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Processed meatfood

2005-11-10T14:28:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe it's the future of marketing… and maybe it's only loosely referred to as "marketing." I guess it depends on your point of view. McDonald's has launched a farewell tour for the McRib sandwich. The website at mcrib.com comes complete with a petition to save the McRib (ready for this - sponsored by the Boneless Pig Farmer's Association of America), activities, and a kitschy gallery of "candid" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) photos. I'm not sure it will catch on as strong as the Burger King "Subservient Chicken" or the Coors "Monster Outreach" program, but it's proof positive that viral marketing is alive and well. Now you have it too.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Users are Architects

2005-10-30T16:36:00.000-05:00

Here's one of those words that's made out of a couple of other words. Take taxonomy (a system of categorizing data) and let the users (the people, the folk) do it for you, and you get a new way of categorizing web data called folksonomies. These systems allow users to "tag" items with keywords as categories and hence provide categorizations that you, as the information architect, might not have used. It also allows systems with lots of data to be cataloged on the fly, so to speak.

To see this in action go to del.icio.us, a web link sharing site. If a user posts a link, she and other users can "tag" the link with keywords that are relevant to allow other users to find the link easily. The photo sharing website Flickr.com is doing the same for photos.

Continuing our thread of web users as "prosumers" (hey there's another one of those new words - producers and consumers), tagging not only allows your user base to better classify your data to the way they use it, but also helps by giving you valuable insights into the way users see your product or service. Power to the people (and their tags)!

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

And smoother too...

2005-10-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

Another great technology that's pushing along the next generation web is AJAX. This stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (an acronym of an acronym !!!), but knowing that isn't as important as knowing why it's cool. The really exciting aspect of AJAX is that it will allow for web applications that don't require a plug-in and don't require the screen to refresh. An earlier blog entry on Scipionus.com pointed out the power of this technology. That application provided by Google Maps uses AJAX for a smooth scrolling map experience unlike any previous mapping websites. Frapper is another site that is using the same technology to give virtual groups a real sense of space. The possibilities, like those of the web itself, are limitless as AJAX catches on, but one thing is certain: the web is going to get a heck of a lot smoother.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Wiki. What? You know, a wiki.

2005-10-10T16:45:00.000-04:00

One of the technologies that is demonstrative of the new web is the wiki. Some claim this stands for “What I Know Is…” Others say that it gets it name from the Hawaiian word for “quick.” The truth is that it is both- a way for users to posit knowledge into a database quickly and easily. A wiki is an online database that allows users to edit articles using very simple markup as they see fit.

Perhaps the most famous at this point is the Wikipedia, but the first wiki (often graced with a capital “W”) has been around since 1995. So why classify it as Web 2.0? The reason is that the wiki is indicative of what is at the core of the new web – user participation in content generation and classification. As we discussed earlier, the user can be both producer and consumer at the same time. This collaboration saves time and adds to the overall value of the data itself.

So what are the commercial applications? Like blogs, those will come, but for the present, wikis are mainly used by corporations for internal collaboration and knowledge share. Many large companies are finding that wikis are time-savers in that they are just so darn simple. The Worx Group recently launch its own internal wiki for collaboration and knowledge share amongst employees and the early returns are that it is both productivity enhancing and fun. That’s Web 2.0.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Upgrading the Web

2005-09-23T17:29:00.000-04:00

There’s been a term bantered around for a while now – Web 2.0. It certainly has all the trappings of hype. It sounds great and defies an easy definition, but can there really be a new version of something so large and amorphous? The answer is of course “no,” but there may be more than hype to this Web 2.0 thing.

Web 2.0 is a loose term to describe new ways that website developers are building sites to allow users a whole new level of interaction. API’s (Application Programming Interfaces), RSS (Really Simple Syndication), AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), tagging, folksonomies, social networking and wikis are the technologies that are powering the Web 2.0. These technologies have increased the ability of users to control and create the content of the web, rather than simply consuming the content put out by website publishers.

What does this mean for the marketer? Hold on – tough pill to swallow coming – it’s not all about your company or your products. Web 2.0 is about your users. It’s about your site making them the star. It’s about empowering users to allow them to become prosumers (producer-consumers) rather than just treating them as consumers.

Media scholar Marshall McLuhan wrote over 40 years ago that “the medium is the message.” Never has that been truer than in Web 2.0. The medium is an interactive network and the message has to be one that supports an interactive network.

In future entries, we will look at some of these technologies and some of the sites using them effectively.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Virtual Push Pins

2005-09-08T11:45:00.000-04:00

There have been and will continue to be thousands of stories to come out of the tragedy last week on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Thanks to bloggers and citizen journalists, there are many more stories being told than there would have been before the advent of the Internet. The web has also allowed much more coordination of private relief efforts than would have been possible otherwise. Perhaps one of the most amazing repositories for these stories is a site that sprang to life seemingly overnight as a result of the disaster itself. That site is scipionus.com.

Scipionus.com uses the Google Maps software designed by Google engineers using AJAX technology. It was put together by a resourceful programmer for a friend displaced by the storm. Like Google Maps, scipionus.com allows users to see a hybrid view of satellite photos and street maps to zoom in on particular areas. What scipionus.com adds is the ability of users to post markers on the map and add comments to them.

Here on one map is the best and worst of humanity and everything in between - in short, direct-to-the-point comments written by people like you and me who just happen to have a little bit of information.

From the mundane and expected like "Short St & St. Charles Ave.-Dry: No water on the streets" or "Around 8 feet of water in the houses..."

to the worst of it: "No police. No national guard. Just anarchy" and "guns shots and small gangs roaming streets…"

to proof that the human spirit will prevail even in the worst of times: "Residents were evacuated after a couple of days. We found our family in San Antonio at a Baptist church..."

to simple requests like "can someone check on 3920 banks? my bro and wife are
missing-our mother and their son rob are with me..." it's all right here on the map.

Each virtual push pin has its own story to tell. Hopefully each one can help someone find a little peace of mind in the face of a true tragedy. While I don't think the Internet can ever prevent the types of loss we saw in this disaster, I'm encouraged by the way a piece of technology can really serve as a community when that physical community is all but lost.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Help any way you can...

2005-09-02T17:32:00.000-04:00

It’s so hard to concentrate on the task at hand these days. Every time I started to write this week, my mind drifted to those poor souls trapped on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina and the flood waters. Please, if you haven’t already done so, make a contribution to the Red Cross or another reputable relief agency.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

It's Magic

2005-08-23T11:21:00.000-04:00

OK... a brief reprieve from the normal perspective on marketing to toot our own horn for a moment. Check out this article in the Local Tech Wire about The Worx Group's sponsorship of the Magic Software Show. The journalist misspelled our name a bit, but it's great to be recognized as part of the show and a contributor to the Emily K Family Life Center.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Convergence

2005-08-20T17:35:00.000-04:00

As I was finishing up my master’s degree in mass communications in 1996, I took a class on media convergence. Most of this dealt with hardware, and we all imagined a web browser/toaster/juicer/television device that could download games. And certainly some of this has come to pass. If you look at the all-in-one PDA/mobile email/cell phone devices like the Sidekick and the Treo, it’s easy to see how hardware is converging.

What is perhaps more to the point these days, though, is that the software is converging much more rapidly. By software, think anything that is played, used or viewed on a piece of hardware – for computers it’s obvious; for TV it’s the programming; for an iPod it’s the MP3’s – you get the idea. While our devices aren’t necessarily converging as quickly as my 5 or 6 colleagues and I imagined in our seminar, the software is converging much faster.

Why is this important to you as a marketer? What we know is that as this trend continues, the delivery method (the vehicle) becomes much less important than the message itself (the content). What’s important is making sure that your content is just that, content. It’s not a brochure or a website; it’s content no matter what software it becomes a part of or what hardware is used to experience it.

A recent article in Baseline Magazine demonstrated how Volkswagen saw great productivity gains in producing its owner’s manuals while increasing the number of languages threefold. What’s more - they consider their manuals a point of differentiation from a marketing perspective. The point? They treat the content as content, not as part of an individual publication. This is where marketing meets technology and the future is now.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Protecting MI children

2005-08-06T16:41:00.000-04:00

As of August 1st, Michigan's new law on commercial email took effect (A similar law is in effect in Utah). Basically, it's designed as anti-SPAM legislation in that it makes it illegal to send commercial email to children that may link to items meant for adults. The actual wording of the legislation reads like this: "a person shall not send, cause to be sent, or conspire with a third party to send a message to a contact point that has been registered for more than 30 calendar days with the department if the primary purpose of the message is to, directly or indirectly, advertise or otherwise link to a message that advertises a product or service that a minor is prohibited by law from purchasing, viewing, possessing, participating in, or otherwise receiving."

So what are these products and services? Basically, they are alcohol, tobacco, pornography, gambling, lotteries, illegal drugs and firearms. OK. Most of us don't want to receive this stuff anyway, right? And we really don't want our kids receiving this stuff whether they live in Michigan or any other state. Good legislation, right?

Well-intentioned at least. The problem is that every marketer is held responsible for direct and indirect messages sent. That leaves some room for interpretation. No biggie, though, I just won't send my message to minors - it's not really meant for them anyway, right?

Agreed, but the problem behind this initiative comes with its implementation. As a marketer, you can't request a list of registered emails to exclude. They want to take your list and scrub it, then give it back to you. Still not too bad - but there's a per-email fee to do this.

This is the first step in a per-email tax and will likely only hurt the legitimate marketers. Those who are sending actual SPAM and hiding their methods and covering their tracks aren't going to bother to check their lists against the registries - they're already circumventing the systems used to cut back on SPAM. Only legitimate marketers will, and it basically amounts to a per-address tax.

Further, it's unclear whether it will be considered a violation to send to an adult email address that may be registered erroneously or fraudulently. In other words, if the email is on the registry, it's the emailer's responsibility to not send to that address whether or not it is truly likely that a child will be able to read email at that address. And the law applies to both solicited and unsolicited email - even if the person using that email address opted in and then registered the email address with the MI registry, you cannot send to them, despite the fact that you may have permission.

Thankfully the grey areas are thin in these instances because it's easy to agree that we don't want children receiving messages concerning alcohol, tobacco, pornography, gambling, lotteries, illegal drugs or firearms. Heck, we don't want to get them either, for the most part. Let's hope, though, that before other states start enacting similar laws that they consider the effect on legitimate marketers. In the meantime, those of us who use email for legitimate marketing purposes will continue to fight the good fight to responsibly put such a powerful medium to use.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

41, Female and Amish

2005-07-28T18:37:00.000-04:00

No, that's not the start of my next ad to be posted on a dating website, but it does describe the changing face of the Internet according to an excellent article in the latest Wired magazine called "We Are the Web." The article is an insightful commentary on the Internet as techno-social sea change to be long remembered by historians as the birth of an age. If you're into trying to figure out how history will judge this era, or just think it's a really cool time to be alive, then Kevin Kelly's article is well worth a read.

From a marketer's perspective, though, especially one who's worried more about this quarter's ROI than how history will judge her, there are a few interesting tidbits within. First, that web users are majority female (52%) and have been since 2002. This should not surprise us - it simply reflects the population at large.

Second is that the average web surfer these days clocks in at 41 years old. Not that this is by any means "old," but is it in line with what you would have guessed? When the fledgling World Wide Web took off just about 10 years ago, it was the stomping ground of the young male technophile. Today it is us… everyone of us in all sorts of ages, colors, locations (or on the move)… the Internet is everyone.

Kelly drives home his point by mentioning some Amish folks he talked to recently have websites. The Amish, contrary to popular belief, don't shun technology per se, just technologies that tie them into a network run by the rest of the world. (When they use electricity it is often from a diesel generator and not on the grid.) This makes the fact that some Amish have taken to using public library computers to run websites that advertise their wares all the more astounding... and should put to rest the buggy whip of an idea that the Internet is for the youthful, Y-chromosomed techie.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

The King's Domain

2005-07-25T16:50:00.000-04:00

I went to see Spamalot on Broadway yesterday. And, yes, it was as fun and funny as the glowing reviews and 3 Tony Awards would suggest. I would recommend it to anyone, but my opinion on theater isn't my reason for today's entry.

As is my habit, almost all my preparations for the performance and my brief trip into the city were made online. I bought my tickets online. I booked lunch online (it was a matinee) at a nearby sushi joint. Once those ducks were in a row, I wanted to educate myself a bit on the play (though I have seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail more times than I'll ever cop to). Naturally I headed over to spamalot.com to read up. Unfortunately, spamalot.com is not the official home of the musical's website. Nor, for that matter, does it have much to do with it, though the author is a Python fan.

As domain names, especially in the .com space, continue to become more scarce, can we expect that all marketers will be able to get domain names for their brands? Well, if it's an existing brand and you don't have the domain name yet, that's your fault. (Stop reading and go register it NOW!)

The real lesson to take away from this, though, is for future brands. When developing your new brand, make sure you have a domain name to go with it that meets the criteria for a marketable domain name; that is, memorable, short, and easy to spell. Avoid non-traditional spellings, plurals, punctuation and the like (I'd retire if I had a nickel for every time I said 'Worx with an X').

Am I suggesting that Eric Idle should have named his play something different? Well, maybe. It's clear that the owner of spamalot.com had it well before the musical was conceived. Maybe Idle's team should have tried to secure the domain name from him for a small fee. Sure he's a big star and it's unlikely that the play has been hurt by it at all (tickets are commanding a premium on ebay and are sold out for the foreseeable future), but imagine if your product doesn't have the power of the Monty Python brand and Broadway already behind it? Would you want to take the same chance that users will eventually find your site? No way.

Sure we all know the importance of getting the domains for our company name - we figured that out a decade ago, right? We have even secured most of the domains for our brands, whether or not we've set any kind of microsite strategy to go with them (more on this later). But as we develop new brands are we making a domain search part of our initial criteria? If not, it's a lot like trying to cut down the largest tree in the forest with... a herring (see the play or at least the movie to get this one).

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Social Linking

2005-07-20T18:52:00.000-04:00

I was speaking with a client the other day about search engine placement and Google’s page ranking scheme. After explaining how some other search engines usually rank pages I started to talk about Google’s page rank and realized that the discussion had gotten very technical. So how does one explain the page ranking system employed by Google? Better yet how does one explain an appropriate linking strategy that avoids creating link farms, but moves a site up to greater page rank?

I scratched my head on this one for a while, but then it hit me. If you’ve ever met a master networker, you get it too… one of these guys (or gals) who knows someone wherever he goes. In fact, I wonder if that’s where the Google inventors got the idea. (Not that I would dream to be on the same level intellectually as these guys, but hey, maybe I figured it out after a while.) If you know someone like that; someone who is very talented at meeting people, making an impression and then hooking those people up with other people; then you probably understand page ranking as well.

A website with high page rank is the Internet version of that master networker. If there’s a woman in your area whose name keeps coming up followed by “you have to meet her,” then it’s likely she is very good at networking and can offer you something for your business. In much the same way, if many websites all link to your website, you’ll do better in search engine placement, especially on Google. Your name will keep coming up - as a blue hyperlink.

Just in the same way that dropping your business card on the food table at every networking event isn’t really networking, getting links to your websites from unrelated sites is not link building. Just as important as the number of links is the quality. If I am introduced to you by the master networker as someone with similar or complementary goals, that’s going to carry a lot of weight. It’s the same with page rank – quantity and quality matter.

This analogy is certainly an over-simplification of the whole process, but think of the value that master networker brings to any organization, and you’ll see the value of a link building strategy for your website.

Tap, Tap, Tap on the Fuel Gauge...

2005-07-14T11:48:00.000-04:00

OK, so let's assume that with the help of the right agency, you've managed to choose the right vehicles for your marketing campaign. As you'll recall from earlier discussion here, that's only half of the battle in doing integrated marketing correctly. The other half of the battle is in measuring your results.

In much the same way that a fuel gauge kept the space shuttle Discovery grounded, your integrated marketing campaign won't get off the ground if you're not prepared to measure the results properly. Just like the shuttle, measuring your results is mission critical. Fortunately for us marketers, there are very rarely lives on the line in marketing as there are in the shuttle missions. Also fortunately for us, measuring your results is not... dare I anger the pun-intolerant... well, it's just not rocket science.

When you're putting together your marketing campaign, be sure that you have 1) the means to measure results, 2) a baseline from which you can measure, 3) a means for calculating your ROI and 4) controls so that you and your team can be sure to get the credit for the "lift" in sales and the ROI. Better yet, pick marketing partners that can help you do this, and your job gets easier!

Dutch@TheWorxGroup

The Right Vehicle

2005-07-13T16:29:00.000-04:00

When reading about the cancellation of the space shuttle launch by NASA, I got to thinking what a complicated vehicle Discovery is. This, of course, got me thinking about marketing vehicles (work with me on this one) and how different they can be.

How does one choose a vehicle? Appointments, options, color and budget can always be factors, but the primary factor is purpose, or the intended route the vehicle will take. It doesn’t matter how many options your new car has; unless it is the amphibious car, it’s a poor choice for a water voyage. Similarly, the space shuttle is a poor choice for a trip to the grocery. Simpler than common sense, right? Your car dealer would laugh if you walked in and asked for a helicopter, right?

Why is it then that some marketers assume that a certain marketing vehicle will help with every problem? I can’t tell you the number of times we have a new client approach us and say “I need a brochure.” Of course the client is always right, but sometimes the vehicle they’re requesting is as inappropriate as taking the Discovery to the QuickieMart.

This is yet another reason that an integrated marketing approach is so important. It allows us to suggest different vehicles (one or several) that may better get you to your marketing destination, based on what your goal is. Maybe a trade ad and a microsite would serve your purposes better than a direct mail piece. Or maybe the direct mail piece can be complemented by email and text messaging.

So the next time your boss says “We need an updated brochure!” you may have to oblige, but keep in the back of your mind that there may be better vehicle choices to get you to the same goal. Before you sign on for the Space Shuttle of marketing ideas, be sure you have the right vehicle for the task at hand.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

Technology Gone Wrong

2005-07-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

When technology works, it's great. When it doesn't work, it’s worse than not having the technology at all – well maybe not, but close.

I arrived an hour early for a client meeting this morning. After apologies were exchanged (though she certainly owed me none) we both determined that there had been some problem with the exchange of automated Outlook appointment emails. She had sent 10:00, but my calendar clearly showed 9:00 once I had accepted the appointment. (Of course this gave me some time to work on today's blog. :-) Using Outlook to schedule appointments is usually fast, easy and convenient, but when it doesn't work, I'm left to wonder "Why didn't I just pick up the phone?"

It's the same with your website. When it meets the needs of your users successfully, they will call it fast, easy and convenient. When it doesn’t, they will leave in frustration. That's the importance of a good user experience... and the importance of choosing a web developer who understands website usability. Good website usability means enjoyable user experiences and that means getting to your marketing goals right on time.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com

What is Integrated Marketing?

2005-07-11T17:21:00.000-04:00

Simply, it’s marketing that takes advantage of the many different media that are available for use today (and new ones springing up all the time). Often the toughest part of marketing is making sure that your message remains consistent across all the various media. Sure, you can spend your valuable time doing this, but it’s much easier if you pick an agency that specializes in ensuring cross-media consistency.

Once you have a consistent message, you’re half-way home. Now you need to make sure that your various media and various campaigns all support each other and can be measured the same. That’s the more important half of the formula. Once you have consistent measurements of consistent messages, the rest is easy... That’s integrated marketing.

Watch this space daily for more on making your marketing life easier.

Dutch@TheWorxGroup.com