Puit d’Amour from St. Honoré Boulangerie

This past week, I had the pleasure of visiting the still somewhat chilly seaside of Oregon thanks to a handful of out of town appointments.

In between the productive parts of the week, we managed to visit a couple of western Oregon wineries.

While a good time was had by all, I found it interesting how different each winery’s tasting room experience was designed to sell.

The Fancy One

This winery, created originally as a farm by a Montanan from Butte, was a bit upscale, sizable and very clean. It was a long-established place, noting that “long established” means “since 1980 or so”.

They’re that new because ash from Mount St. Helens’ eruption killed most crops in the area, changing the soil for decades to come.

The room said “old money” (dark, massive woods). While there were a few sweatshirts available, the retail portion of the room was all about the wine. Lots of it. Information from two inconsistently dressed but very sharp wine servers was on target, friendly and as detailed as you wanted. They clearly loved talking wine.

The Spartan One

This tasting room had a simple, fuss-free entry off of their gravel parking lot behind the wine production area. There’s a bar, a few barstools and an area clearly used for packing shipments. All in the tasting room. The lone wine steward was reasonably well-educated about the wine but didn’t really provoke the conversation.

The Homey One

This one was very new, expecting to bottle their own wine from their own grapes for the very first time this year. Previously, they’ve made wine using grapes from nearby vineyards.

The tasting room was homey, if not a bit cluttered with every wine accessory and kitsch you could think of. A yellow lab was chilled out on the floor. A guitarist was just outside the tasting room’s open door, playing in shaded patio seating area. Unfortunately the wine at this place wasn’t very good. The staff was right at home, downright friendly and maybe even too at home if that’s possible.

The Experienced One

This winery was almost 20 years old. Their marketing materials (online) referenced comments by a well-known reviewer. The tasting room was small, uncluttered and while it had wine accessories, they include only those focused on a better wine experience (vs. coasters and talking corkscrews).

Staff was knowledgeable and friendly in an average sort of way. Nothing bad, but nothing outstanding.

What struck me

While we didn’t visit all of the wineries (there are quite a few), the ones we did visit took very different approaches to their goal – presumably that of selling wine.

In every tasting room, there was little to take home other than wine that would bring you back to them to buy more. Few items had a website address on them – at least those that you could take with you.

No one asked us for contact information, not even those who sold us a bottle of wine.

In some cases, there were Oregon wine country brochures and/or county-specific winery marketing association brochures, rather than winery-specific info.

Every winery but the “Fancy One” was out of “wine menus”. These are descriptive sheets about each of their wines that left you room to take notes and perhaps note which one you prefer over another and why. In two different places, the only one they had was leftover from a Memorial Day special event – in both situations, it was the last one they had.

Why is this important?

How will they choose?

Out of the 40+ wineries in that Oregon county, during our visit they often have but ONE chance to get a visitor to fall in love with their place, their wine, their mystique, and the grapes that only they know how to nurture.

These small facilities (small in the wine world) sell at most one wine in retail locations. Some sell only at the winery. That’s right – they have no retail presence.

Ordinarily, you’d want these visitors to ask their local store for your wine, but they often can’t. Their small production (number of cases produced annually) prevents widespread distribution. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ve got to get them loving your stuff quickly in that situation.

Think about trying to penetrate (much less stand out in) mainstream retail wine shelf space the next time you walk into a grocery that carries wine (or a wine center store). It’s like looking at the salad dressing bottle shelves at WalMart. Your eyes glaze over at all the choices.

When the mind is presented with a zillion choices, one of two things tends to happen. People take the default choice (Gallo?, Wishbone?) or they make no choice at all. Next time you’re in your local grocery, watch people look at the wine shelves. They’ll look and look and in many cases, they’ll give up and take a Gallo (or whatever they saw on TV recently, or whatever is on sale).

Why? Because no one stands out in that environment. That’s why you see more and more outlandish labels and wine names. They know their bottles are on a shelf with 200 others so they’ll do A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G to catch your eye.

What do you want me to do next?

Knowing that the competition (where you might not be stocked) often caters to “How much?”, why wouldn’t you try to hook folks while they’re in your tasting room? It’s the best possible situation for the winery. They can’t grab a Gallo. They can shop by price, but they still get to taste before they buy. They have experts to help them choose what fits their taste buds and their budget.

There’s something else critical about that the tasting room visitor: She walks in the front door with a sign over her head that says “I like wine and I’m willing to drive all the way here to try YOURS.”  Think about how often you get the opportunity to make a first impression on someone who has tipped their hand that strongly.

What does the winery want them to do next? Beyond taking home a case (or even a single bottle), they want these visitors to go home and order more of their wines online (if they can). They want them to ask their local store to stock or custom order them. They want their visitors want them to go to the DailyGrape and watch Gary‘s reviews of their wines and then order from him.

If that’s what you want them to do, you have to make it easy.

And now, it’s your turn.

Now…think about the “browsers” who enter your business. Think about the first time buyers and, where appropriate, the tourists who enter your business.

How do you “stick” in their minds? How do you help them return, even if all they can do is return to your website?

Wineries have to deal with customers in states (like Montana) who cannot (easily) have wine shipped to them due to arcane laws put in place (and kept there) by fear-driven trade associations.

In one way or another, we all have situations like that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take every step possible to make it easy to buy. How are you making it “easy to buy” even for your customers who have to exert effort to do so?

Let’s simplify that a bit: How are you making your stuff easy to buy?

What do you want them (your visitors) to do next?

photo credit: KhayaL

Last night I was working on the web site for our local Scout camp.

Lots of Scout troops from out of state visit Glacier National Park every year.

Some of them use our local Scout camp property as a “base camp” for a week or two of treks they make into the Bob Marshall, Glacier Park and elsewhere.

One thing they depend on us for is referrals to quality local businesses for various outdoor adventures. We don’t have the staff, money or licenses to be an outfitter, so we refer them to professionals. Part of that process is providing these troops with contact info.

While looking up some websites to add to the “nearby activities” directory on the camp’s site, I noticed that when I searched for the name of one of the outfitters, a Google Adwords ad for their direct competitor appeared at the top of the page.

“How 1999…”, I thought.

What do I mean by that? It’s a reference to standard (and kinda dumb) stuff that businesses did online way back in 1999.

It could just be a dumb move. Or it could be unethical, which in this case qualifies as both.

Dumb and Dumber

I’ll address “dumb” first.

It could be that this business just doesn’t know any better and thinks they’re being clever by using their competitor’s name as a keyword to place their ad.

The “don’t know any better” thing doesn’t wash with me. Would they buy a Yellow Pages or newspaper ad with the other business’ name in it but put their own phone number in the ad? Of course not. Yet they do it in the hidden keywords of online ads and in their web site’s html source. The ad itself isn’t misleading, of course.

Like the Wild West, whatever you get away with online is legal and ethical, right? I mean It’s online, so the rules are different (if they exist at all), right?

Not hardly.

It’s obvious that outfitter-in-the-ad is advertising their business on Google Adwords using the business name of a competitor as a keyword. It’s equally obvious from the site’s meta info (source code that isn’t visible). The former is subject to discussion. The latter is uncool in any legitimate web marketer’s unwritten rulebook.

If “Joe’s Climbing Wall” had bought an ad to display when “climbing walls” or “climbing walls Glacier Park” is searched, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But that clearly isn’t the case. And no, this isn’t about climbing walls.

A big deal

You might not think this is worth talking about, so let me elaborate a little.

Imagine Ford’s reaction if every search for “Ford Mustang” resulted in seeing a Google search results page starting with Chevy Camaro ads and links.

Should I expect to see both companies in the ads and search results displayed when I search for “American sports car”? Absolutely.

The key here is that this isn’t what the searcher is looking for when looking for a specific business name.

Yeah, I’m yelling. A little, anyhow. Misuse of trade names – even at this level – will sooner or later get you bit. Misleading people in search results also annoys Google, who wants people to find what they are searching for the first time they search.

Placing Gain next to Tide on the shelf at your grocery is fair game (thanks Shane). It’s obvious to the consumer which is which in that case.

How’s your icemaker?

Even for the ethically challenged, using a competitor’s business name as an advertising keyword is a bad idea.

If someone calls your HDTV store and asks a question about the newest 3D TV models and your salesperson say “Well, our refrigerators all have in-door icemakers”, would you expect that prospect to have a positive reaction? How would you react to a totally out-of-context response like that?

It’s foolish.

Likewise, so is advertising your business using someone else’s business name.

The other shoe

What troubles me most is the signal it sends. It makes me question how the rest of your business operates. It could be an innocent mistake. It could be something the web developer did and didn’t share with the business. Further research indicates otherwise.

When it comes to sending Scouts out into the woods or on the water, that wonder extends to…

• Whether your safety equipment is up to par, or in another ethical lapse, you just say it is.
• Whether your staff is properly trained, or in another ethical lapse, you just say they are.

It’s the last thought you want in the heads of folks who funnel hundreds of young, out-of-state visitors to businesses like yours.

photo credit: solidstate_

Over the last 2 days, we’ve talked about poorly thought through emails.

Today, one more email that should have been thought about a bit more.

Last week, I received an email from a guy whose email newsletter I receive. The subject of this random email? ”I saw you open my newsletter, any questions I can answer?”

On top of that, there was no email body text.

That’s right. An email that says “I saw you open my newsletter” with no other text.

Where’s the spy cam?

So how can emailers figure out that I opened an email? Several ways. Legal ones, of course.

Emailers can tell if you opened your email if they include an image in the email that has a unique “web address” (like http://www.website.com/markriffeyopenedmyemail.jpg). If you open the email, that image is loaded from their web server.

Like any web server, it logs when a file is loaded into a browser (or elsewhere). If the name of the image is unique (or there is software on the server to make it appear that way internally to them), then it can record that someone (not necessarily you, but probably you) viewed that particular image.

It doesn’t see onto your computer or anything like that, it simply notes that a computer somewhere (yours or someone else’s) asked it to load an image file name associated with you.

Emailers can also tell if you opened if you click a link in the email – not because there’s a spycam – but because links in the email are customized by their email software to make them unique to you. Same principle.

These links still go to the page you wanted, of course.

All of this is decades old technology, but we haven’t gotten to the dumb part: The discomfort of the subject line of the email.

Discomfort leads to unsubscribes

A programmer (as others might) knows how the emailer might know I’ve opened (not necessarily read) their email, but for anyone else, saying “I saw you open my newsletter” is inviting them to unsubscribe.

Saying it to a programmer is kinda dumb (not that the emailer knows that). Saying it to anyone else could be fatal to their email list.

Be very careful with those who have chosen to value your thoughts enough to subscribe to your blog, newsletter or email address.

You can lose it all in a heartbeat with one inopportune comment.

photo credit: gregor_y

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of speaking about websites at the monthly Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce lunch meeting.

While it’s not exactly opening for the Stones at Madison Square Garden, it’s an honor because it’s a group of mostly local business owners whose success is important to me.

I was asked to talk on the subject ”So, Ive got a website…now what?”

While it’s a valid question, it’s not how I want you to be thinking about your site. See, a fair number of business owners think about their site as “Something I gotta do” rather than something that is part of their strategic efforts to win business.

Please don’t do that.

Your website (like your advertising, hiring, etc) is not a checkbox that you mark off and have done forever after you’ve finished it the first time.

Your website, like those other things, is like a garden.

Be the Farmer

When you have a garden, it requires a process to start it and continued maintenance to help it produce.

You till, you plant after the last frost, you water, you weed, you chase off the deer and rabbits. After doing those last few things all summer, you enjoy the harvest before the first frost (mostly). All of these things happen on a schedule.

Your business is no different. You perform various activities on a schedule because it’s strategically wise to do so.

You don’t plant a garden and then walk away from it for months at a time and come back expecting it to feed you. Likewise, you shouldn’t expect that of a website. Both require strategic thought and upkeep.

What to plant?

Let’s back up a little though… In your website garden, what do you plant?

Would it help to consider the roles you want your site to serve?

Depending on what you do, your website may carry a heavy burden that makes it seem an impossible task. Don’t let that stop you from starting a site.

You might have to start small and incrementally expand the roles it fills.

Some possible roles…

• Brochure. Far too many small business websites stop here.
• Greeter
• Customer service department
• Order processing
• PR person
• News source. What’s new. If you havent changed your site’s content in 5 years, what does that say about your business?
• 24 hour answering service
• Reservations agent
• Waiter
• Maitre D
• Marketing dude
• Trade show booth

How well does your site fill these roles? Did I miss any?

The toughest question facing many small business owners is “What should I put on my site?”

Why do people call you? What info do they need?

If you look at the roles your site serves, the questions and answers become obvious. You deal with them every day.

Weeds

A big mistake I see made with small business websites is that they are created and then ignored (or close to it).

You wouldn’t do that to a garden…why would you do it to a strategically important part of your business?

You wouldn’t ignore a client at your doorstep or on the phone, so why do it online?

Some example weeds include…

• A site that offers no way to interact with a visitor or let them contact you.
• A site that fails to give visitors a reason to come back regularly.
• A site whose address (URL) isn’t included on your other business materials, signs, vehicles, brochures, business cards, etc. I shouldn’t have to mention this but I STILL SEE it.
• A site that doesn’t offer information to help the customer get more out of their investment at that business.

Curb appeal

Most people don’t care so much about their garden’s curb appeal, unless it’s a flower garden.

How are you presenting the information your site’s visitors want?

Think about describing your favorite national park to a friend.

• You can write a description.
• You can talk about it.
• You can show them photos.
• You can show them videos.
• Or you can take them there.

Which has the most impact?

While the last one is ideal, it isn’t always possible, so aim for the next best thing.

It’ll depend on what info you are trying to convey, but short videos are likely the most powerful.

The impact difference between text  vs. photos and video is substantial. The investment is cheap. Most people won’t have to invest in a fancy camera and software because their cell phone will capture photos and/or HD video. Some of them will upload directly to YouTube (etc).

Critters who visit

Mobile browser use continues to grow like crazy. How does your site look in a mobile browser?

For some people, it doesn’t matter all that much. In the last 10 months, our chamber website has had only 150 visits by mobile browser users. The reasons are obvious because of the type of info a chamber site contains and the content sought by typical site users.

Your site might be exactly the opposite. If I had a restaurant, motel or tourist attraction, I’d be sure my site worked well from mobile browsers so that people could use it from their phone while traveling. If your site is one that would be used frequently by a person on the go, failing to have a mobile-friendly site is like putting a fence around your garden to keep the bees out during the bloom.

Location, location, location

Location-sensitive mobile web applications (Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places, et al) are growing in lock step with mobile browsing.

Taking advantage of them is a great idea…unless your garden has been neglected and overrun with weeds. Until the site is in tip top shape, your time is best spent on making the best possible content available to your visitors given the roles your site serves.

Even if you don’t take advantage of location-specific mobile applications, there are several location-specific things your site should address. Is there a map to your business? Is your business registered with Google Places? (formerly Google Local) If you’re in a tourist area, how close are you to big ticket items? What can you help them enjoy? How hard is it to find out all the stuff a visitor wants to know? How hard is it for them to make an online reservation?

Pests

All over TV and elsewhere, you see businesses referring to Facebook-based web pages.

While it’s OK to have a Facebook page for your business, I don’t recommend that its the ONLY site you have. Keep in mind that your Facebook page is also yet-another-garden to tend. Don’t spread yourself too thin or the weeds will take over.

So…how’s your garden doing? Is it primed for a great harvest?

photo credit: _Max-B

One of the reasons that you see some businesses flocking to Facebook is that their advertising (and sites they connect to) are now capable of scanning your profile’s musical and movie preferences and passing  them anonymously to a site you visit so that selections can be made easier for you.

In markets where a Facebook profile is a good match to your marketing needs, the new profile scanning feature lets Facebook partner sites *anonymously* “see” your likes and use them to fine tune your shopping, listening, viewing and other experiences at other sites – but only if you give your permission (you’ll be prompted at sites which use that data).

It automatically tries to show you stuff that will be of interest, just like a good retail salesperson would. The difference is that it happens online.

The same thing happens in retail businesses and restaurants every day. Think about “Norm” from Cheers. Do you know what he likes to drink? Anyone who has ever watched Cheers – even once – probably knows what he drinks.

If Norm put “beer” in his Facebook profile, would he suddenly become paranoid because a liquor store website automatically showed him the beer page when he opened their site? Probably not.

That’s how this feature works with sites that have this feature setup. This same feature is also the topic of a lot of privacy discussions on the net. More on that shortly.

In your Facebook advertising

Facebook is also launching advertising that is even more context sensitive. Like Google’s Ad Sense ads that appear on pages all over the net, these Facebook ads will come up based on info in your profile and content on the page.

Don’t look at this as a bad thing.

As a business owner, it’s good for you because it allows you to target people more likely to be interested in what you do.

As a purchaser of consumer and business products and services, it means you’ll see fewer ads for junk you have no interest in. Note that I said “fewer” not none.

Despite the fact that I have no need for some products and services; magazines, TV, radio, newspapers and other media sources pound me with ads all the time for things I’ll NEVER buy.

Most of this happens because they don’t pay enough attention to the media buys they make. Too often, they sell the wrong things at the wrong time of day, on the wrong channel/station or in the wrong paper.

That’s one reason why people get tired of advertising – they see messages about things they don’t care about and aren’t interested in, so they see it as noise.

Keep it private

One last comment about all the uproar about Facebook privacy: Why in the world would you post anything on Facebook that you aren’t comfortable sharing with the world? That’s just silly, and no more wise than tossing your checkbook out in the driveway. Share appropriately.

photo credit: flattop341

Every day, I get automated emails. Just like you do.

Most of them are so boring that we never read them, even though they might contain information we need to see.

For example, I recently received an email from Mozy, the online backup service:

Thank you for using MozyHome!

Your credit card ending in xxxx was billed $4.95 today for a monthly subscription to .

We appreciate your business.

- The MozyHome Team

Now contrast it to this hypothetical one:

Dear Mark,

Hard to believe that we’ve been protecting your data for xx months (or since mm/dd/yyyy).

A few stats for you:

• Your first complete backup was on 09/16/2009.
• You have 31,266 files on our system, which take up 118 gigabytes of space.
• Your last successful backup was 12 days ago.

12 days ago seems like a really long time to go without backing up your stuff. Think “I have to redo the last 12 days worth of work”. Ouch. Avoiding that pain is why you signed up for Mozy in the first place, right?

The last thing we want is for you to lose your important data.

You might want to reboot your computer to force Mozy to start again. If that doesn’t get backups rolling again, please contact our support center (it’s open 24 x 7) and we’ll help you fix it.

Yes, this is an automatically generated email, but someone had to write it. That someone was me, and I appreciate what your business does for my company. Thanks for using MozyHome!

Joe Smith
A MozyHome Team Member

PS: Our billing system is obligated to tell you that your credit card ending in xxxx was billed $4.95 today for your monthly MozyHome subscription. $4.95. Not bad for backing up 118 gig of your stuff, eh?

PPS: Even though he works here and wrote this email template, Joe can’t see any of that billing or usage information. Naturally, neither he nor anyone else here can see your files.

The point: Don’t waste opportunities to communicate with your customers. Use them strategically.

Rotate between a small set of templates, perhaps seasonal ones, so that the messages don’t become 100% repetitive and again – go without being read.

Illustrate the value you provide in a way that the client actually cares about and show them that you’re taking care of them even when they aren’t thinking about you.

photo credit: freeparking

In today’s guest post from TED, Dan Ariely talks about why we make decisions and how we are influenced.

There are several pieces of this presentation that apply directly to traditional or online direct marketing of the stuff you do and sell, much less knowing a little more about what makes your internal decision tree tick.

Use what Dan discusses to analyze what kind of decisions you offer your customers and prospects. It’s all part of that “What do they buy the least of that they really need the most?” question. Part 2 of the question might be – “…and how do you get them to buy what they *really really* need?”

Recently, someone came to my website and went to the trouble to paste this message into my contact form:

Hi,

My name is Ben Bigelow and I am currently working with the Cisco TelePresence team. We are working in conjunction to create awareness for the recently launched “Why I Want Cisco TelePresence” video contest at http://www.whyiwantciscotelepresence.com/contest/.

This new contest is designed to entice individuals from around the world to submit their ideas about why or how they would like to use Cisco TelePresence.

Winners in two categories, Productivity and Shaping the Future, have a chance to win $3,000 each. Winners will also receive 5 hours of Cisco TelePresence at a Cisco Location (www.ciscomeetingonus) to connect with colleagues, peers, friends around the globe.

It would be great if you are willing to post about the video contest and encourage your readers to create their own videos.  They don’t have to be Ridley Scott or Cecil B. DeMille – all they need is a home video camera, some passion and a tad of creativity.  Most digital cameras can record short form videos, and the site is set up for easy uploading and includes a simple pass along feature.  We appreciate anything you can to help raise awareness for Cisco TelePresence and how it benefits entire organizations.

Thanks!

They included their name and what appeared to be a real (albeit non-Cisco) email address. The IP address even resolves to the same town where Cisco’s headquarters are.

But what didn’t they do?

They didn’t bother telling me what Cisco Telepresence is.

They didn’t describe the problems it solves, reminding me of the pain I’m in telecommunications-wise, and why I should be interested in finding out more, much less spending some money with them.

Instead, they asked me to make a video about a product I’ve never heard of. Makes absolutely no sense.

It’s not WWII

If I was already a Cisco Telepresence user and perhaps a product champion in their eyes, this message might have made sense.

Instead, it just felt like a German WWII bomber flying over dropping plane loads of pamphlets from 10,000 ft that explain how I’ve lost the war (you know, as I march on Berlin).

Don’t do that.

Take a close look at the marketing messages you’re sending out, regardless of their cost.

Are you sending the right message to the right person at the right time?

Are you sending a message that is in context with the relationship you currently have with that person?

It doesn’t matter if the message is delivered via email, telephone, tv, radio, newspaper, magazine, Twitter or whatever – the problem is the same if the message isn’t fine tuned for the situation.

I thought I’d provide a few Twitter stories for you today – call it Twitter Thursday if you like.

First, a baker who uses Twitter to notify people what’s baking, what’s ready, etc. Customizable via the BakerTweet website, it takes a twist of a knob and a push of a button and you’re done.

Obviously you could use this to talk about your daily special, what beans you’re roasting and so on. Whatever the fanatic wants – tell them about it.

Only 3 million dollars

Dell has stated publicly that their @DellOutlet Twitter account has earned them about $2 million since they started issuing Twitter-only promo codes and other deals. Dell Outlet uses Twitter as a way to message out coupons, clearance events and new arrival information to those looking for Dell technology at a discounted price

But then, one of the folks responsible for the tweeting did a little more math, researching where those Twitter followers go after chasing a promo code for a refurb machine.

Some of them go to the regular “Buy a New Dell” part of the store. Another million in sales from “some of them”.

609,000+ people following the @DellOutlet account.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to send a special offer to 609,000+ people who might be in the market for whatever you sell?

That’s what @DellOutlet gets to do all day long.

Another story offers some ideas about using Twitter for business.

On a more serious note

While the mainstream news was largely useless (if not ignoring) the stories breaking during the early hours of the Iran election demonstrations and violence, Twitter was one of the few tools that people in Iran could use to tell their story.

Cell phone networks were being blocked, internet access was cutoff or filtered, all in an attempt to cut off Iranians from the outside world and vice versa.

But the internet finds a way. Soon after, people found a way to access the net, often through hidden proxy servers and dial up connections.

If you were on Twitter a few nights ago, you were able to witness what was going on through the eyes of those experiencing it.

Not a reporter, but students hiding in dorms and others trying to avoid being beaten or killed.

Via Twitter.

Over the next day, the mainstream media struggled to catch up. Photos eventually showed up on the Boston Globe site 24-36 hours later, but those watching for posts containing “iran” in them had been hearing the story in real-time from people experiencing the violence and uproar – for more than a day.

Real life in real time.

Twitter has turned out to be such an important communications tool for Iranians that Twitter moved a major network upgrade from the middle of the night U.S. time (when most upgrades like this are done to avoid impacting U.S. users). They shifted it to 1:30am Iran time, solely to try and mitigate the downtime’s impact on those who are using it to try and survive, much less report what’s going on there.

The same kind of thing happen during the Mumbai bombings.

If you still don’t get it, try this

Think of something that is really, really important to you.

Maybe it’s your market, industry or some such. Maybe you’re into Forex trading, Tiger Woods, the NFL or fantasy baseball. Maybe it’s your faith or your favorite breed of dog or one of a million other things. Might be serious as cancer, might be something silly like Britney.

Google it, but add site:twitter.com to the search. Or just go to twitter.com and do a search.

See anything there that interests you. I’ll warn you, not all of it will be high-quality stuff.

Here’s the secret: See if there are people there who do or know things that provoke you to join their conversation because they know the topic that interests you. You might find experts who you would never be able to reach otherwise.

Think back to my story about swapping messages with Robert Scoble as he toured Ansel Adams’ studio at Yosemite with Ansel’s son, answering my questions in real time.

Real time is prime-time

What’s real-time about your business? What do the fanatics in your market do when they need more info about what you sell – or just more of what you sell – RIGHT NOW?

They might just be on Twitter.

Since January 2005, I’ve been spent a lot of time explaining how Business is Personal.

When I started this journey way back then, I named the blog “Pancake Bunny“.

I called it that as a result of a customer service interaction where a company’s CEO told a customer that their message made no sense and then included the pancake bunny in their reply (click here to see the original pancake bunny).

It struck me that I had work to do.

Not solely because of the bunny remark, but because of a pervasive antagonistic attitude toward customers – especially by many in tech-related industries (remember, Ive been in the software biz since 1982).

Nine Hundred Eighty Five

Nine hundred and eighty four times I have posted here in order to teach this one important lesson. This one is number 985.

I’ve shared little anecdotes here and there, stories, admonitions, an occasional rant or two – whatever it takes to make you and your staff attract, sell, talk to, think about and work with your customers as if they are real people.

Like your grandma. Imagine that.

That lady you were snarky with on the phone this morning is probably someone’s grandma, or mom or something. Would you talk that way if she were in front of you? Hopefully you aren’t the snarky one in the first place and that was intended for someone else cuz you’d never do that.

Progress

I know that in many cases I am preaching to the choir, but I also know that many people have related personally to a story here and it has changed their business. They have finally seen how treating their clientele like a friend, a partner, a family member – changes their business.

Others have finally figured out that hiding from their customers, treating them poorly (if they treat them at all) and thinking “Damn, if those customers didn’t keep interrupting me I’d get some REAL work done” is not how business is done.

Instead, it’s how your “Dear Valued Customer” becomes someone else’s.

If you haven’t gotten that yet, today might be your lucky day.

Enter Mister Butts

Earlier today I got an email from a Twitter acquaintance named Rick Butts. He’s one of those internet marketer types (and he just winced when he read that – sorry Rick).

EXCEPT, he isn’t like many of them. He’s a regular guy who gets the Business is Personal thing.

If after reading Rick’s email, you don’t understand why you simply have to treat someone who is viewing your blog, your newsletter, walking into your store, calling you on the phone, or tweeting you *like your grandmother*, then I suggest going back to post #1 and read a few posts a day.

I can’t help but think it’ll help.

Here’s Rick’s email. Enjoy.

I Am Joe’s Email List – An Open Letter To Internet Marketers

Hi,

I am Joe’s email list.

Joe calls me his list, his peeps, and sometimes just “the list.”

But, I am not a list, really, I am not a crowd, or an audience. I am not “everyone out there” as they teach new broadcasters to say.

I am me.

One single person with hopes, dreams, stresses and fears.

In many ways I am just like you – the way you describe yourself in your hungry years before you went to that life changing event, read the book, and started making money online.

I get email from you Joe.

I can’t remember for sure, but I think I “joined” one day when you offered a free report or video and I had to put my email address in – and confirm – in order to see it.

In my inbox, Joe, your email looks just like the personal emails I get from my daughter or son, and sometimes, sadly, from my ex.

Now that you’ve been sending me email – as well as some of your “good friends” – I have begun to be able to see in a glance that they are just offers, sometimes disguised as important messages, sometimes blatantly, not.

Whenever I see the word “this” in your subject lines, like – “this won’t last long” – or “have you seen this?” I know it’s an offer.

Since the Product Launch Formula I and especially II – I’m amazed at how many times per month I am literally inundated with emails from so many people all about the same exciting product.

They arrive over multiple days, culminating in a bonus orgy that is just overwhelming.

I read a clever post in a forum once, that “the bonuses are so comprehensive, it makes me wonder what is covered in the course, that is not already covered in the bonuses!”

That made me laugh.

I’m writing you today, to share something important about myself – and I hope you’ll take the time to consider my feelings, ok?

I have to get off of some of these lists.

The volume of email and the distraction of chasing the offers is just crippling my time, my focus, and my ability to get things done.

When Rick Butts asked his readers to consider unsubscribing from the people who sent you Stompernet Launch offers IF they had not provided any useful content in the last month – he really got me thinking.

Then Ed Dale made a video saying, basically, that no one is holding a gun to your head and that if you wanted to stop getting offers – stop bitching – and just unsubscribe.

But here’s the deal. I’d LIKE to learn from you Joe – and to be able to know that being on “your list” is valuable to me, my business, and my future.

So, please don’t think me a big whiner, I’m a customer, and here’s what I respectfully request:

1. Slow down the frequency of mailing to me, Joe.

Do not email me every day – that’s just way too much now.

2. Don’t mail me offers all the time.

I’m reading a lot more RSS feeds from bloggers who are putting out great content. If you are using Feedburner or Feedblitz or Aweber’s blog notification service that mails me when you update your blog – then, cool. I’m good with that.

3. If you do mail me an offer PLEASE don’t cut and paste the pre-written one from the creator of the product.

Do you know how stupid that makes you look to me? And, how insulting it is to get them from multiple people?

4. Try giving me some TRUTHINESS in your communiques to me.

If you are really making money in the non-marketing-to-Internet-marketers, then tell me some useful tips that are working for you. No, you don’t need to tell me your market niche but hey, every once in a while how about your show me how valuable I am to you buy sharing one of those SECRETS?

5. Show me some stuff that made less than $1,000,000.00.

I’d be immensely interested in real world examples of success I can get my head around. I’m never going to build a big list of “biz-op” peeps and hammer them with a big JV launch. Show me how I can make $500 a week – then be able to replace my income and quit my skank job.

6. Stop bragging about your zero-gravity dives and how you are spending my money in outrageous ways.

Trust me, this is a lot more fun for you, then it is for me to read about it. You may excuse it as “inspirational” but I dont’ even think that works in MLM anymore. It just annoys me. A little “high life” goes a long way and I’m more impressed by how Internet marketing lets you enjoy your family.

7. Please, please, please, for the love of God, stop participating in these dreadful launches!

Let me believe you are successful enough without having to bend over and schlup me and the rest of my list mates through your embarrassing attempt to get me to “buy from you” and help you win a contest.

The reason Rick Butts wrote about the 12 Biggest Whores, without naming anyone, is that we have all watched the emergence of about that many well known marketers who cross-promote each others stuff so regularly it is hard to imagine that they do anything else.

I think that gives you a pretty good idea of the kind of things that would make getting email from you valuable again – and persuade me not to unsubscribe from you forever.

Final thought…

The blowback from the “unsubscribe” and “launch fatigue” has been to accuse me and my list mates, the little people, of being whiners.

And while there is no shortage of whiners in the world, I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart – I am pleading with you to not dismiss me so easily.

What most of us really want is for you to provide us with value, treat us like a long term relationship, and we will, certainly reward you for helping us get to the next level.

Now back to check my email, I think there’s a Traffic Secrets 2.0 launch today?

Sincerely,

Joe’s List

photo credit: Renneville

Imagine you’re talking with a prospect or client on the phone and right before the critical word or phrase that almost always closes the deal, you suddenly hang up.

You’d never do that, right? Would make it kinda hard to close the sale, don’t you think?

Thing is, your email, social media and website might be hanging up on prospects, albeit in a slightly different way.

Let’s talk about paying attention to some details you might not be watching. They’re details that might completely change the message you’re trying to get across to a client or prospect.

I’m talking about the repercussions of being just a tad too wordy.

Isn’t that funny? Yeah, I know I have zero room to talk on that. It’s an effort I have to stay focused on, so today I’ll show you why it’s important.

Twitter Cutoff

In Twitter,  your message can be 140 characters long.

BUT…if the message is more than 120 characters long and someone retweets it (sends it to their followers, which is very desirable for you), the characters past 120 are cut off as shown below.

See the … after “Jonathan Bu”? You’ve been snipped. Cut off.

If there’s part of a URL or some other important info at the end of your message, bummer.

If there’s anything there that’s critical to your message, you’re not a happy camper.

Outlook Cutoff

Outlook’s notification window shows approximately 30 characters of the title of your email. The number varies slightly because a proportional font is used in that window, meaning that some letters and numbers are wider than others.

I had my friend, mountain photographer and graphic artist Leroy Schulz send me 2 emails with totally different subjects. As you can see below, they look the same in the notification box.

Identical notifications, yet their messages are totally different: One says “Mark, Are you voting for Obama? You’d be crazy not to”, while the other says “Mark, Are you voting for Obama? I wouldn’t dream of it”.

How’d you like to make that mistake?

Sure, some people do it on purpose to provoke you to open the email, but are those the folks who gain your trust? I doubt it.

Likewise, at the default width, Outlook’s inbox shows you only a part of the email’s subject (see below).

As you can see above, having the subject cut off might cause a big problem, especially if someone doesn’t bother to read the email (like that ever happened).

The actual subject of the email above is “Dude, I caught your wife cheating last night at our weekly poker game.”

In fact, the cut off subject might just keep your email from getting read – and that’s what this is really about.

If your prospects and clients use some other email program, it’s bound to have similar limitations.

Google Cutoff

In Google results, page titles longer than 70 characters get cut off with a “…”.

This is the place where I get bit, because my blog post titles are occasionally too long.

Here’s an example:

In the example above, the title tag is too long (thus the … after “smart business moves”).

If the word after “moves” is important to finding your site, your prospect will never see it. For example, it might say “moves wisely to accept competitors’ cards” (which is what they did).

Sure, if the word is important, it should occur before that point if at all possible, but sometimes it isn’t.

Eliminating the … is the goal because you want the words in your title to be optimized for a) Google and b) those humans you want to see the title and be motivated to click on the link.

In each of these 3 cases, you typically want the truncated info to help answer the question that’s on their mind at that moment or provoke them to take an action.

Needless to say, “…” doesn’t even begin to do that.

Where are you getting cut off?

photo credit: David Paul Ohmer

A New Orleans-based pizza chain using Twitter-only specials to attract new customers in real-time?

You might guess that it’d never work.

Twitter’s just a toy that people use to share what they had for lunch.

More accurately, Twitter offers a way for a pizza restaurant to give people a reason to visit their place to eat lunch.

Result: 15% of sales resulted from the Twitter-only campaign.

FIFTEEN percent of daily sales from a zero-cost promotion.

How creative can you be?

As I’ve mentioned here before, I write a business column for the Flathead Beacon, an online newspaper here in Northwest Montana.

When I have the time and inclination, I also cover sports and other stories about my community (Columbia Falls, Montana) that interest me.

So I take a photo of Rehberg and Montana Chamber of Commerce President / CEO Webb Brown (on the left in the photo above) at a Kalispell “listening session” a month or so ago and insert it into my brief article covering Rehberg’s session.

The next day, a communications specialist at the Montana Chamber of Commerce finds my Beacon article about Rehberg’s session and asks if they can use the photo (which includes their president/CEO)  in their monthly magazine / newsletter.

I was a bit surprised they wanted to use the photo since the microphone is obscuring some of Mr. Brown’s face, but it is what it is. I think they were simply glad to have his photo with Rep. Rehberg.

Good news, bad news

I say sure, they can use the photo in their publication if they include a photo credit that points to the blog and they agree. Good news for me, as state chamber members will be a very nicely targeted audience for Business is Personal.

So my mail arrives and what do you know, the photo not only appears in this month’s Montana Chamber of Commerce magazine called “Eye on Business”, but it appears *on the cover*.

Unfortunately, there is a typo in my photo credit’s URL.

It happens. In fact, it happens more often than you would expect, so you have to be prepared to react properly.

Some might flip out at this point, but think about it – I can’t change the magazine.

React strategically

The magazine is already printed and in the mail. Reacting strategically is the only viable solution.

Thankfully, I am fortunate enough that the typo’d website address is available, so I grab it and create a simple one-page website that acts as a landing page for Eye on Business readers who see the photo credit and are curious enough to read more.

But wait, there’s more. No one other than those readers know that site’s address. It’s only in the magazine and I have no good reason to use it elsewhere.

This means that a very high percentage of the people who see this page will do so because they are readers of Eye on Business. In fact, that means I have good reason NOT to use it elsewhere because of this situation.

Result: I can customize the message on the new site to Montana Chamber of Commerce members, making their first experience with me even more personal. That’s exactly what I did.

Yet another opportunity

I must admit that I thought it was a little odd that the contact with the Chamber was not also used as an opportunity to ask me what I know about the Chamber’s work, if I was a member, and if I would like to get an application form etc.

Nor was a brochure or application included in the package I received in the mail with the sample issues.  This was a missed opportunity to ask, much less just tell their story.

Are you missing out on opportunities like that? Keep your eyes open for them. Sales opportunities that are in context tend to be a lot more fruitful than those that are not.

Download audio file (HowDoYouMakeThePhoneRing.mp3)

photo credit: Yogi

There are no secrets around here.

I am busy as crap. Some weeks, so busy that I’ve had to let the blog slide a bit (Horrors!)

I’ve made it quite clear that I expect “well-behaved” readers to be contacting their clients, customers and prospects at least once a month – and not simply to say “Whaddaya wanna buy?”

I’ve also shown that I do this in a number of different ways, using a number of different media.

Why different media?

Different strokes for different folks

Because some people like email, some like using Google Reader, some prefer audio podcasts, some prefer video (still working on that one), and still others prefer direct mail. And so on.

Likewise, some of media is about access and exposure.

Not everyone has (or wants) access to radio or RSS or email or whatever. Are you willing to give up an awesome new client because they aren’t into Twitter or RSS feeds or email?

I’m not.

Just the other day, someone emailed me to ask me about doing some work for them on a big project they’re working on.

They don’t read my blog. They don’t get my print newsletter. They don’t listen to my radio show (or podcast) on iTunes. They didn’t find me on Utterli.

They found me through my newspaper column.

Their comment was this: “Though we are strangers, I feel I’ve gotten to know you fairly well through your weekly articles”.

I’ve never met them, never talked to them, yet they feel they know me.

How much of advantage do you think I have over competitors that they don’t know?

Ideally, my competition just sits around getting splinters from the bench. They never get a chance to take a swing at this work if I have anything to say about it.

The Temptation

The temptation with communication like this is to depend solely on email because its cheap.

That’s a big mistake.

Why? Because cheap only reflects your cost. It doesn’t reflect the results. Cheap ignores the return on investment (ROI).

If you want cheap and you don’t care about results, you can get yourself 50 million email addresses for $30, but you probably won’t make a sale to more than 50 of them (depending on what you sell). Worse yet, by emailing them – you’ll end up on every email blacklist there is.

If the result is your focus, then you should be thinking “I only want to use the media that have a great ROI”. In that case, I might suggest some slight adjustments (ie: don’t use just 1 media regardless of the ROI), but otherwise you’d get no argument.

The lesson

A long-time client of mine recently switched from printed newsletters to email (still using my service, just a change in media). I suggested *adding* email, not using it as a replacement.

One of the first response emails he received from a client and good friend was “I don’t have time to read another email every week”.

That same person has demonstrated (through their actions/responses) that they do have the time to read a 4 page printed newsletter once a month, yet an almost immediate reply email said they just don’t want more email.

I made note of that irony to the client, pointing out that his client’s reaction to yet another email is a great illustration of why printed newsletters just plain work.

His reply: “No kidding.”

What makes your phone ring?

Where do your customers/clients/prospects get their information? What do they use to consume the news? That’s how you should be providing info to them.

photo credit: sashafatcat

Not what you’d expect, trust me.

Just a reminder that you should register the domain names for your tradenames / trademarks to protect yourself and your business from squatters.

For example, let’s assume you own a restaurant and you have a very popular menu item called “Tom’s Awesomely Canadian Cheesy Fries”.

If your restaurant is called House of Poutine and you own HouseOfPoutine.com, I urge you to buy TomsAwesomelyCanadianCheesyFries.com as well.

Do it even if you don’t plan to make a special site for your awesomely Canadian cheese fries. Worst case, buy the domain and have your website person do a permanent redirect (they call it a “301″) to your main site.

Why?

AppleTV.com (PG) illustrates the problem quite well.

All Apple had to do was spend 8 bucks a year (and do it first<g>) to avoid this.

I suggest you do the same.

photo credit: kevindooley

About a year ago, I ran some tests to see how clued in re: email use and mobile/internet marketing each Presidential campaign was.

Each campaign got an email address all to themselves, one that I use for no other purpose so that I could track what their campaign did. In fact, the candidate name was the part before the @ sign in the email address – hard to mistake for another campaign:)

One of the reasons I didn’t leave the lists after the election: I wanted to see what they did with the lists after the campaign – something you should be very aware of as you build an email list in your business.

Here’s a summary of what happened:

Ron Paul

The Ron Paul list ended up in the hands of a number of what I would categorize as “freedom fighter” lists as well as on Mr. Paul’s fundraising list. The email from this list was of such volume and high rhetoric that I finally had to unsubscribe out of annoyance: the interruption factor was just too high. Examples include the “Free Foundation” (Mr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education) and “Campaign for Liberty”.

I wasn’t asked to opt-in, they simply included me on their list because that email address specific to Ron Paul’s campaign was on Paul’s Presidential campaign list. They had it, they used it. I suspect someone there simply hasn’t taken the time to understand the written (and unwritten) rules/laws about email marketing, opt-in, etc.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary’s list ended up in the hands of HillaryPAC (which may be on hiatus now that she is U.S. Secretary of State) and while I was sent an email from Hillary’s list asking me to sign up for the “American Democracy Institute” (EmpowerChange.org) list, I wasn’t added to it without permission. The same type of attempt was made by MediaMatters. Since she was named SoS, no emails have been sent by anyone to this Hillary-specific address, which makes sense:)

John McCain

McCain’s list ended up going to the Republican National Committee (RNC). That one probably annoys me the most because it is most like the lists related to Mr. Paul’s original campaign email list. I now get emails about Norm Chapman and any other issue RNC Chairman Richard Steele thinks I simply must know about – and in a tone that is just about unreadable. Think “National Enquirer” with a little Rosanne Rosannadanna added in, along with an Obama-esque donation button at the bottom.

Barack Obama

Obama’s list appears to still be in the campaign’s hands (yes, he’s still campaigning, but that’s a post for someone else’s blog), as I’ve received nothing from other lists to that address.

Mitt Romney

Last but not least, the list from Mitt Romney: Amazingly, I havent received a single email from his list since he quit the campaign and it appears that his campaign didn’t give the list to anyone else.

Treat them like customers, not list members

With the exception of Mr. Paul’s list (primarily because of the volume), I’ve decided to remain on these lists to see what happens to these specific-to-the-campaign email addresses as time moves forward.

How you treat your customers’ email addresses will reflect back upon you. Stay on topic, stay on message and NEVER, EVER give your list to another vendor, business or associate.

What Hillary did (sending an email to her list, suggesting that you might check out another entity) is somewhat common – and still acceptable – business practice, but automatically signing up your customers to umpteen other lists as Mr. Paul’s campaign people did is not.

photo credit: Zesmerelda

After requesting a beta invitation to a web-based service, I received the activation email.

*ONE* minute later, I got an email from the CEO asking how I liked the service. 

Careful there, Sparky. 

While I’d be the first to encourage such emails, you have to think about how – and particularly, when – you send them. 

It doesn’t make sense to send them 1 minute after sending an activation email unless you want to send the wrong signals.

IE: “I’m sending everyone the same email even though my email is worded otherwise” and “I don’t really want your feedback since you couldn’t possibly have any yet”. 

Neither one is really what the sender wants. 

It doesn’t make sense to send the emails until some period of time after the activation email has been clicked on, since they couldn’t have any feedback for you until they’ve activated the service and had at least a little bit of time to use it and see what it’s really like. 

You see the same thing in blogs where you can generate emails automatically the first time someone comments. Sounds great in theory, but if the email comes 20 seconds after you post the comment, it isn’t personal.

Instead of doing that – what if the automated email was sent to the blog owner, giving them time to check the commenter’s website, find out a little about them, much less actually read their comment – then a personal touch can be applied to the partly pre-written email thanking someone for their comment. 

That’s the kind of personal follow up that is appreciated – and it’s still mostly automatic.

There are some hacks to existing tools that auto-email first time commenters. If you use those tools, I suggest using the hacks. Keep it personal.

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

With all that direct mail talk over the last couple of posts, I can just hear the eyes rolling.

After all, direct mail is dead, right?

Perhaps in your market it is. Or, no one needs to use it because other things work better in your market, or because everyone in your market uses it poorly.

Regardless of the reason, if you’re convinced that direct mail is irrelevant – or at least no longer useful – in your market, those last couple of posts were a big waste of your time, right?

Psst…Think about them again, but replace “direct mail” with “email”. Or “face to face sales”, “telephone”, “television”.

Likewise for radio, newspaper ads and any other media you use to communicate with your clients and prospects – including Twitter, blogs, video and other social media tools.

After all, if this message wasn’t carefully crafted to be of use to you…you wouldn’t likely be here.

Each of these tools are simply another way to have or start a conversation with a person.

Never, ever forget that.

Download audio file (DirectMailIsDead.mp3)