Marketing with Technology and More

Google AdWords Marketers - Beware! Phisher's are Out There

I think I am pretty savvy when it comes to on-line purchasing.  The last thing I thought is thatI would ever fall prey to is a Phishing scam, but Phishers are crafty. 

As a business we are regular Adwords users on Google.  I had not used them in a while, so I reactivated a somewhat dormant account the other day.. A day later I ger an email telling me that my account information is not up-to-date, and that I need to correct it.  Diligently I clicked in the message and went to the site that the email pointed me to adWRods.com .  When I spell it out, it is obvious, but without the emphasis, it is easy to go to a bogus site.

When I arrived at the site, it looked just like the Google site, and I readily provided the requested information.  The last thing I would want is our Google campaign shut down because my credit card information was obsolete.  Fortunately, the latest versions of the major browser try to give you a heads-up.  In my case, I received a message that made me look closely at the URL.

I was like they fly in the spider web.  Once I was caught, I was doomed.  Phishers are creative and ingenious.  You have to be diligent every time you provide credit card information.  The identity you save may be your own.

United Airlines - What were these people thinking

I received an email from United Airlines today asking me to participate in a study on the "Elite Membership" kit they sent to me.  I looked at the survey and thought - who put this together, their marketing intern.  Actually, I think a marketing intern would have done a better job. 

The four data points related to all items were (you could only pick one):
- Received it
- Read it
   Received it and Read it
- Don't remember

So here is the question - can I read it if I don't receive it?  It would not taken much brainstorming to figure out that this did not make any sense.  Then it asked me about my membership card, and had the same four options.  I don't know about you, but I don't usually do much reading of my membership cards when I get them.  The second page of the survey asked how useful this information was to me.  I can't believe that they really think much of the advertising they throw into their envelopes these days is very useful to anyone.

It brings me to my point.  We assembled and sent out SubscriberMail's annual email survey in conjunction with the EEC this week.  We initially sent a small sample to test questions and reports.  When we got the sample back, there was a major back end issue with reports.  We were able to reconfigure the survey and send it out correctly.  If you are doing a survey, testing a small sample can give you great feedback on how to improve questions and what the reporting will look like.  Don't trigger a survey without testing.   Perhaps I was in the United test group - for their results sake, let's hope so.

The Web - Instant Market Research

I love the power of the web for feedback.  I had a community project I was involved in, and as part of that project I needed to conduct a simple survey.   Before the web, undertaking this task would have been daunting.  I would have had to print up surveys send them out (if I could afford the postage).  Then wait until the surveys were returned and then tabulate them.  If I wanted to get more details, I could get really fancy and run cross tabs. The cost of doing this kind of research was out of the scope of most community organizations (and many marketers).

Tonight, I sat down at my computer, used Zoomerang to put together a very simple survey.  I used our SubscriberMail system to send a message to the community (who had opted in to hear from us).  Literally five minutes after I launched the survey, the data started to pour in.  I can easily run cross tabs, and I can automatically send a follow-up email to anyone who has not clicked through to the survey.

As a marketer...what is not to love.

Marketing's Philosopher

When I was out at TED this year I ran into Seth Godin.  I wish I had more time to spend with him as I think he is a marketing genius.  He's often referred to as a guru.  I think that is the wrong moniker.  I think he is really a marketing philosopher.  Sometimes he makes simple statements that boil things down to their essential nature.  Today he posted the following:

"Persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. That's just annoying.

Persistence is having the same goal over and over."

If more salespeople and marketers paid attention to this advice, the world would definitely be much more enjoyable (and less annoying).

Navigating to success

My daughter is in college, and is working on a project for one of her classes.  She is working on a presentation for her speech class about the effect of web design on consumer behavior.  She sent me a copy of the speech outline and one of the key items in her talk really hit me as it relates to web interfaces:  “Shopping patterns and consumer behavior are not just random acts.”

This is basic marketing, but it is amazing how often major organizations forget about this.  From experience I know that the challenges related to user interface design is that many organizational factions get involved and everyone has a perspective.  What you often end up with is a design that looks like the elephant that was described by six blind men. 

Never forget that in most situations, people come to your web site with a specific goal in mind.  Very few will end up there by random chance.  Don’t design a website or email message from your perspective as a marketer, but from the perspective of the visitor.  Marketers are so used to push marketing that sites are often designed from the perspective of “here is where we want to push you” or “this is what we want you to buy”.  When you do this with little regard to ease of navigation, your website is doomed to underperform.

A great example she uses to illustrate this is walmart.com.  Just visit the site and move your mouse around.  There are so many navigation components that you can easily get lost.  Her research indicates that on an average day, the number one retailer in the world has .2 percent of all global internet traffic (compare this to Amazon, whose daily reach is as high as 5 percent).

In addition to these points, as a father, it is wonderful to see your daughter have such insight – she makes me very proud.

PC uses a Mac

John Hodgman, better known as PC from last year's Apple commercials, as well as a very funny Daily Show contributor was caught on film at TED using a Mac by Erik Charlton.  Read Erik's flickr posting for a real laugh, and a great story behind this picture.

Hodgman presented an extremely humorous program on his encounter with aliens. 

Zappos in the Airport

I was in the airport in San Diego last week, and while going through security, noticed that something was different than at other airports.  The little baskets that you put your shoes and laptops in had liners.  These liners were promoting online shoe retailer Zappos.  Easch had a different promotional slogan. What a great marketing idea.  According to information I have found on-line, this is being piloted at several airports.  The company providing the service, SecurityPoint, provides the TSA with the bins at no charge, and charges the companies for the advertising.

Data Point - Reviews on the Web

Back in December I blogged about what I called The Power of The Customer’s Voice.  Reviews on the web have completely changed consumer’s buying process.  In data just published by eMarketer, this phenomenon is confirmed. 

According to the data, assembled by PowerReviews and the etailing group, nine out of ten consumers read online reviews at least some of the time before making an on-line purchase.  Additionally, most consumers check multiple reviews.

ATT/Cingular Rebate Saga Continues

The saga of the Cingular Reward Visa Cards continues.  I received three Cingular rebate cards instead of actual rebates from Cingular.  I am convinced that ATT (previously Cingular) wants to make sure that we don’t redeem them as  they have made it nearly impossible to do so. 

Today I went to our neighborhood Meijer (a local supermarket/superstore).  The cards expire in a month, and I am convinced that we are going to forget we have them, so I took them to with me to pay for the few items I was picking up.  When I get to the cashier, I enter the first card and she tells me it is denied for insufficient funds.  I tell her it is a reward card and she asks me how much remains on the card.  I tell her I have no idea, to please look it up, which she tells me is impossible.  Unless I know exactly how much the balance is on the card, she can’t use it.

Wow, talk about making them hard to use.  So there I stand with my three rebate cards in hand, unable to use any of them.  She tells me that I can call the number on the back of the card and find out the balance of the cards.  Meanwhile she will void my transaction and the person in line behind me (with the boat paddle he is probably wishing he could us on me by this time) checks out.  I tell her to forget about it, and pay for my transaction and leave.

Tonight I called the number.  Here is the next glitch.  In order to determine the balance, I must know the phone number associated with each card.  If I don’t know the number, I can look at the form that the card is attached to.  Well, since I detached the card months ago when I received it,  that becomes hard to do.  So, by trial and error, I finally conclude that across all three cards I have $23.42 of credit. 

I know the marketing goal of rebates is that consumers never actually use them.  It is the bait that the marketers never hope we swallow.  But when marketers behave like this, it is like feeding consumers poison bait.  Treat you customers with care and they will remain loyal, treat your customers like this, and you must force them to be loyal (if AT&T wonders why they must force clients into two year contracts…this is why).   

AT&T this is no way to treat customers. 

It Doesn't Matter How Great Your Marketing Is

Sometimes marketing doesn't matter.  If your product sucks, all the marketing in the world can't fix it.  I traveled this weekend with my family on United Airlines.  I have been an extremely loyal United customer for a long time.  I have flown over a million miles with them (I know this because they were so happy that they sent me a little plastic card that said so...along with two upgrades --wow --).  I have been loyal during good times and bad whether it was labor issues, restructures, lost luggage, you name it.

Well this weekend, our flight involved two aircraft.  The first a 777, and the second a 757.  Both planes are pretty standard on most of the major airlines around the world.  The 777 flight went well.  In fact I must say, the flight crew was probably one of the nicest I've encountered in some time.  On the second plane, the flight crew was fine, but the plane was ready for the scrap yard.  There was grime around the seat areas (you know where you pull the trays out) that was caked on.  Plastic parts were cracked and broken.  Everything on the plane was either dirty, old or broken.  One of the TV monitors didn't work, so part of the plane could not see the movie.  Some of us, could see the movie, but the sound system would short out, so we couldn't hear it.  The john's looked like Porta-Pottys at the end of a long outdoor concert (and somehow had become permanently stained blue by that blue water they use).  We were on a five hour flight, so is it too much to ask for clean pillows and blankets?  I think you get the picture - the plane sucked.

So what is my point.  United Airlines has a huge marketing department and spends millions on advertising and promotion.  Living in Chicago hardly a day passes that I am not exposed to the company at least a dozen times.  All the marketing was undone in a single flight, because despite marketing's best efforts, the experience failed to deliver.  During the trip my wife and I decided next time, we are going to try another carrier (so much for Mr. Loyal 1 Million Mile Flyer).

So, ask yourself a simple question.  Does your customer's experience with your product align with your marketing?  Unless the user experience far exceeds your marketing claims (in which case you are hurting yourself), you should probably change one or the other.  My suggestion, improve the experience, and your business is likely to grow.