Engaged In a Conversation

UPDATE: Stuart was kind enough to send me an email and I have since removed his last name from this post. Seems he outsourced a link-building project on a freelance board and was surprised to find the guy who took the job was not playing by the rules.

I hate the guys that comment on blogs like this:

"Cold air is certainly a relative term, but a name brand cold air intake is engineered to retrieve the air from the coolest part of your engine compartment. Cooler air has more oxygen by volume and therefore ignites better which turns into to increased power." - Stuart [last name redacted]

So I sent them a note on their "Contact Us" form.

Hey, Intake Systems:

Not sure if you have a guy named Stuart working for you in the area of "online presence management," but he's spamming my blog in your name.

Please see here: http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/well-stop-when-someone-sues-meantime-we.html

I will let slide his grammatical error at the end of the comment, but you'll note that his comment has absolutely NOTHING to do with my blog post and is of the haphazard copy/paste variety that annoys people to no end. This is not a good marketing technique and anyone who told you it was is feeding you a line. If they are an outside agency, you should fire them now.

We have come to expect these tactics from Third World operators of foreign currency exchange sites, Costa Rican real estate developers and (in the old days) Russian pornographers, but I'm sure that an upstanding auto supply specialist such as Intake Systems does not want to be associated with such practices. You're doing well in other areas: you've got the requisite articles stuffed full of keywords and opportunities for people to "like" those articles on Facebook or share them on Twitter, but you have to tell Stuart to knock off the blog spam.

I see your headquarters is in Ocala, not too far from where I live north of Orlando. Go Gators!

I have a good rule of thumb for you when questioning whether or not an online marketing practice is a good one or a questionable one: Ask yourselves, "What would Tebow do?"

Don't make Tebow sad.

Thanks,

Dave

PS: Since you chose to "engage in a conversation" (as your marketing genius likely told you to) I will continue that conversation now over at my blog. See here: http://wheresmyjetpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/engaged-in-conversation.html

Master of Internet Marketing, Nay - ROCKSTAR

It looks like Daniel Day Lewis in a velvet top coat and high collared shirt, playing to a rabid Victorian crowd. Good sir, it would not at all be a haphazard conjecture to venture that you have indeed rocked this assemblage with a most impressive display of marketing.

Full Sail University, a vocational school for the film, recording and gaming industries, is seeking to make itself into a breeding ground for marketing rockstars. As if we needed more of those.

And if you're going with that font, I expect an umlaut somewhere.

This had to have been created in-house, and it is not a very good calling card as to what they will be teaching you.

Seeking Pizza Blogger

Actual job listing on Craigslist:

Needed: a part-time blogger to help set up and run a blog. Flexible hours and working environment. Must have blogging experience and also must have prior or current working experience in a pizza restaurant.

Over the weekend, we went to a new restaurant in the neighborhood. A jazz trio played indoors, the wait staff dressed all in black while a couple of ladies lingered over a glass of wine on the patio for an hour, their Golden Retriever at their feet. From the name of the place, to the atmosphere to the overuse of the word "artisan," this restaurant was trying way too hard. Their interactive agency, who boast knowing all about "Web 2.0," also talked them into a bunch of blogs, none of which have been updated in a few months.

It ain't working, people. Blogging for your business because someone told you to, with a careful eye toward not offending anyone while promoting your business is not effective, a waste of time and soon abandoned.

I Guess It's Time To Sell T-Shirts

Teri, a reader who handles interactive strategy at an agency in Michigan, has posted some of my comics on her cube wall without my permission; the very same comics that are based on a picture I stole from Getty Images without permission. I have chosen not to pursue legal action against Teri, since she also posts a picture of Robert Plant with the caption, "Does anyone remember Friendster?"

Le Large

Blame The Recession

Cold Call Carl, like most good salespeople, believes that behind every "Don't Ever Call Here Again," there is a potential customer just waiting to be swayed.

Click to share his optimism

More Cold Call Comics.

Cold Call Carl - Rejected Again

Click for the Maxi

Previously in Cold Call Carl

Nailin' It

Nail Communications of Providence, Rhode Island (state motto: "The Tiniest State") has a rare handle on Social Media and the Web 2.0 craze. Clicking that link will take you to an irreverent PDF/white paper of sorts, outlining Nail's approach to Web 2.0. It's long and involved, but what it amounts to is a little common sense in this wild frontier. Maybe you're already doing what Nail recommends, but I know for a fact that many of you aren't. Nail is offering this PDF for free, giving away all of their secrets to all the other shops and new media start-ups doing it wrong. (And hopefully putting a few of the scheming, scamming charlatans out of business in the process.)

Check out their 8 Internet Marketing Experts to Avoid. I've worked with a few of these clowns. If you see yourself in any of those profiles, I'm sorry. I didn't write it. It's never too late to get your girlfriend to cut your faux hawk.

Nail also has a nice site, utilizing the whimsical Flash animation so prevalent with agency sites, but keeping navigation simple, a rare thing with hipster shops. You don't have to guess where anything is, which is refreshing. I'm not sure why agencies (usually the big ones) think it's creative to create a site so unnavigable that it requires guesswork and insider cool to figure out.

Go Nail.

Sharing Some Good

Click image for full flavored freshness

On my way to work this morning I heard a somewhat labored and not fully fleshed-out radio ad in which the narrator implores the listeners to "share the good." He makes a vague reference to cleaning up garbage by the docks, sharing a beer and basically "doing your part." He mentions Heineken. He mentions a URL, "Sharethegood.com." And I'm thinking, "Please God, No! Not another SunChips-styled attempt to turn a product into a religion. The bottle is already green. What more do you want? Besides Rolling Rock, you're the Green Beer!"

So the first thing I do when I get to work is go to sharethegood.com. "Coming Soon" from register.com. is all there is right now. Who Is reveals it's registered to Brian Citron of New York City. He registered it on February 12 of this year. A quick Google search reveals Brian is Associate Brand Manager for Heineken, USA. (Firefox and IE will show it as unavailable. Safari reveals the register.com registration.) Here's a picture I found of Brian from The New York Times when his marriage was announced in 2005. Congratulations, by the way, sir.

Brian: Since you haven't yet launched the site but you're running radio for a site that isn't ready, you're now going to have to buy more radio when the site eventually goes live. Let's hope in the interim you can think through this "Share The Good" concept and not fall flat on your face as one more brand executing another self-satisfied half-stab at making the world a better place through [beer, chips, toilet paper, dog food, tampons, shoes, etc.] I truly hope the Heineken effort is different from what we've been treated to so far by other brands.

I'm sure it's one of those cases where airtime was bought based on something the web team promised. Then some snags were hit on the development side and the radio stations (Clear Channel) said "Screw you. Contract's signed. We've already scheduled the spots!" (And they chuckled under their breath, saying, "It's Heineken, They can afford it.") So the AE was all, "C'mon, Web Team. You're totally screwing me here!" And the Web Team was like, "Dude, it's not our fault! The servers in White Plans were supposed to propagate the domain nationally by 7AM Tuesday. That's what they promised! I'll show you the email!" And there were late nights of scrambling and iPhones were buzzing as they tried to finish in time for the spots to air. But the spots aired before the site was ready and someone's passing the buck right now and someone else is eating crap. Hopefully it all gets worked out soon. I'd like the chance to see what this new Heineken religion is all about.

Maybe it's just the interactive agency not communicating effectively with the traditional agency.

Or maybe it's simply a case of my local Clear Channel station playing a spot before it was supposed to be played.

Whatever, I'd be interested to hear from Brian Citron if he finds this. When is the new site coming, Brian? What's the plan? How can I help?

(And I'm available to help with your marketing efforts in exchange for massive shipments of beer. I will also require a walk-in cooler installed in my garage.)

The Corporate Blog Challenge

Click for bigger, printable, stealable version.



Having assisted companies in setting up and administering blogs, I know it’s challenging to convince them of the need to be transparent, less stodgy and a little “uncorporate” if they want to (get ready) “maximize their presence in the social media space.” Most of the blogs I helped get established are miserable failures now because the companies either a) gave up on frequent posting or b) only wanted to be rah-rah vehicles, self-promoting and basically devoid of personality. The authors also weren’t going out to other blogs, boards and forums and making relevant comments that directed readers back to them.

I recently visited the corporate blog of a worldwide company. It is well-designed, has many expert authors and frequent postings. (One author has over 800 posts.) They’ve employed all the appropriate tag mechanisms and social media link widgets. They incorporate plenty of text links, images and the navigation is intuitive. But nothing is happening interactively. I am hard pressed to find a single comment on the entire blog. There is no “two-way” happening. The posts read more like little articles and they appear to have been sterilized. I’m starting to wonder if the blog is merely search engine fodder, because clearly, there’s no “conversation” going on. Comments are also monitored heavily, which is generally expected of a corporate blog, but I submitted an (somewhat) innocuous comment last Friday and it has yet to appear, perhaps because it was (somewhat) humorous and not in keeping with this corporation’s communications guidelines.

Corporate guidelines should be relaxed to a degree if you’re going to get any interaction from your company's blog. For legal reasons, you can’t have your authors going off on rants like a private blogger is free to do, but at the same time you should allow your authors (and commenters) the ability to speak with some candor.

The corporate blog I visited has a 150 word paragraph of fine print above the comment box. It's full of legalese, with phrases like “collect, process, use,” “personally identifiable information,” “worldwide in perpetuity,” and “without notice to you and without compensation.”

I mean, c’mon. I just want to comment. But this is one example of why corporate America is having a hard time getting a handle on “Web 2.0.” (Kill me if I ever use that term again.) In the interest of sales and marketing (and in the interest of covering their asses legally) they’ve pretty much killed the conversation.

Pretty Much Genius

How cool to have been in on the pitch that went, We're gonna create these off-the-wall banners ads for fictitious small businesses that have NOTHING to do with the car and we'll place them everywhere the likely Matrix buyer would visit. They’ll just be weird funny, like "Mr. Squirrel’s Pet Daycare" or "Sakura’s Animal Lingerie" or this one, which plays sportingly on the Soccer Hooligan stereotype of our Anglo cousins. They’ll be so bizarre that people will click on them and then they'll learn all about the Toyota Matrix when they’re directed to the equally off-the-wall yourotheryou website.”

Cooler still would be hearing the client say, "Go for it. Sounds like fun."

Unfortunately, it takes a dedicated detective with plenty of time on their hands to get to the meat of that website. Then again, when you name a car after a cult movie franchise, your demo might be really into finding clues and uncovering secrets.

Expect imitators of crazy wtf banners soon.

Check Your Bounce Rate, Washington Post

It's almost 2008, and we still have major news publications insisting we fill out these forms if we want to read their news. Get over yourselves.

I’ll read the same story at one of 50,000 other news sites that aren’t requiring I agree with your “user agreement” and “privacy policy” (8 pages, 3,327 words long. Really.) Buried in that massive pile of legalese, naturally, is your acquiescence to receive “offers” by email from the Washington Post’s “affiliates.”

I prefer my information without strings attached.

Need a Softer Call to Action

A job came across my desk today, the brief describing an existing landing page that wasn't converting, which in this case was defined as getting visitors to fill out a form. The AE had already identified the problem: "Need a stronger call to action." (I swear.)

So I go to the page. It's loaded with flowery copy and a basic image of a high-end product. At the bottom of the copy is a form. Below that form is a check-box that basically says you acknowledge that you know you are about to be harassed non-stop by a salesperson who has already asked in the above form what the best time to call you would be. He also wanted your home address, your email address and a few other nuggets.

It's not that people aren't visiting the landing page; they are. They just aren't filling out the form because they smell "sales hound" all over it. And the AE decides that we simply need to call them to action "stronger."

Wrong. We need to call them much softer. The client has a similar ad running in The New York Times that uses the same basic copy points and the exact same image, but it converts well because it only offers a phone number and a web address.

People don't like forms. Much less long ones. Much less invasive ones. Much less ones with terms of agreement check-boxes at the bottom. Put them all together and you've got a recipe for failure. Keep paying for those clicks on your PPC ads, and then keep wondering why no one is "converting" from your landing pages.

See the cartoon below.

Let Me Help You With That

The post above describes how this comic came about.

#17 in the new series "Where's My Jetpack?"








See the whole series here.

Interactive Eating

Click for bigness.
Photo taken on Highway A1A,
Saint Augustine Beach, FL.





Not only does this St. Augustine Beach, Florida ramshackle roadside restaurant offer Food, Fun and Magic (in addition to broiled shrimp for breakfast and "Treasure Ship"), but you can also have your web pages made here. And not just web pages...INTERNET web pages.