Blogging for love and money: the blog niche in the media universe

Not too long ago Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion posted a link to this piece about "A-List Bloggers" and how many of them support their sites with ads:

There is a myth being perpetrated in the tech blogosphere that it isn’t about the money; that the real bloggers do it for the love it. Well they might be doing it for the love of it but the money they are making isn’t hurting matters at all...

Well, I'm not familiar with that myth, but I think there's an element of truth to it: it's very hard to really make money off of a blog. That post calls the ads a "dirty little secret" but it's not actually a secret at all.

The ad thing is, I think, no big deal; blogging is work and if you can bring in some cash from it, it justifies spending the time on it more directly than what most of us do, which is use our blogs to establish thought leadership, blow off steam, make connections with other bloggers by participating in the great online conversation, and so on. (Don't be surprised if you see things like Google ads turning up here in the future; we're talking about things like that.)

What actually bugs me is this whole idea of "A-List bloggers" (and not just because I'm not one of them!). Yes, there are blogs that are much more widely read than others, because they're great, or their writers are well-known, and so forth. But isn't the whole point of blogging that it's low-entry-cost self publishing, so everybody can hop into the conversation?

Is an "A-List blog" better than those of us who are farther down the alphabet? If you want to run ads on it, sure, but if you only read the big blogs, you're essentially reading a bunch of newspapers. Nothing wrong with that, but the real power of blogging is the ability to find smaller voices that may be only talking to 100 people but saying really interesting things. And for those 100 people, those bloggers are indeed A-List.

People like to rank and list things, so the A-List is inevitable, but I think it misses the point. Many A-List blogs seem to me to be moving from what I think of as "real" blogging - the conversations among the small bloggers - into an entirely different media niche.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's just something different than what most of us do.

I watch the traffic stats for this blog closely, and we seem to have a small but loyal group of readers, and that's great. Sure, I'd love it if ten times as many people read it - and we talk about how to get more people visiting this site - but for me, at least, that's not the main point.

Why do you blog? (Why don't you?) How do you pick blogs for your daily reading?

Technorati tags: blogging

Once More Round the Carousel: the Circuit City Rebate Game Continues!

Well, I got an email from the people at Parago about my elusive Circuit City rebate (discussed earlier here and here). This is Parago, the company that responded to my initial inquiry, then ignored me for a while, told me I had to write to Circuit City... which I did, and promptly got a response from Parago!

They informed me that they needed a ticket number and a program number to help me. Of course, both of those pieces of information were in the very email to which they were responding. As well as an earlier one from February.

I provided them (again) to "Eddy," who I suspect is a chunk of code in an auto-response system.

You know, I don't like to think I'm cynical, but this kind of nonsense makes me ever more sure that the "customer service" process which Parago provides to Circuit City is primarily designed to exhaust consumers so that they will just give up. ("Let's just keep asking them for the same information they've already given us until they go away!")

Which, of course, brings out the Irish in me and makes me determined to see it through. See you in hell, Parago!

Besides, I got a little thrill today when I drove past Circuit City's store on the West Loop to buy a new router from one of their competitors. (Several models had rebates. I did not choose any of them. Sorry, D-Link, that's how you lost my business today, although you seemed to be offering exactly what I bought for $10 cheaper - after hoop-jumping.)

(Update: I wrote to Parago's PR person asking her if they'd like to comment on any of this, and threw out some general questions about rebates - not just about my experience with them. I really hope she responds.)

Technorati tags: rebates, Circuit City, Parago, fraud, D-Link

Expedia Should Consider the Only Definition of "Spam" That Matters

And that's the recipient's definition. David Berlind at ZDNet writes about how Expedia is digging in its heels and insisting that their unwanted email really isn't spam, so it's okay:

Recently, I received an e-mail that told me my $200 coupon with Expedia was about to expire. What coupon that was and how I became entitled to it, I had no idea. My first post regarding this e-mail notification simply had to do with my opinion that the e-mail was incredibly misleading. At first, you're led to believe that that the $200 coupon can be applied to any travel. You're even provided with links to four destinations as "inspiration" for ways in which to apply the coupon. It isn't until later in the email, after you carefully study all the text, that the coupon turns out to only be good for those four destinations and that it only applies to trips that are five days or longer in length. Given the language and the open ended search form near the top of the e-mail into which any travel destination can be entered and searched, I found the e-mail to be incredibly misleading. In fact, I considered it to be a bait and switch.

Then, in response to that piece, a reader asked the obvious question that, until then, had completely escaped me. What gave Expedia the right to send me that promotional e-mail in the first place? The reader, who himself felt he was being spammed by Expedia, suggested the same had just happened to me. The reader suggested that I double check the e-mail preferences in my Expedia account. Sure enough, I had opted out of every possible promotional e-mail Expedia could have to offer. Yet, somehow, not only did I get this promotional e-mail from Expedia, there was no way to opt-out from future ones like it (as required by the Can Spam Act). So what the heck is going on here. How is Expedia able to get away with it?

That's a great question, and Berlind got a response from Expedia: an email trying to get you to use a coupon to buy something is not a promotional email, it's a transactional email, which is treated differently by the CAN-SPAM Act. If you thought that, for example, an email confirming a reservation would be transactional, but one selling something would be promotional, then you're not using Expedia's rather interesting definition of a "transaction."

According to Sylvana at Expedia whose title is Customer Service Lead and to whom Expedia's public relations department referred me, here's how. On July 8, 2006, I booked a rental car in San Francisco through Expedia. It was actually my first transaction with Expedia since 2004. So, I'm not a regular customer by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, Sylvana confided that when the Expedia site is used to do nothing but book a rental car, it doesn't even take a cut out of the transaction. It's simply a pass-thru. Nevertheless, as a result of using Expedia's site to book something before December 31, 2006, I qualified for the incredibly limited $200 coupon.

According to Sylvana, this qualification was not conditional upon my acceptance. Whether Expedia customers wanted them or not, the $200 coupons are automatically issued and deposited into qualifying customers' accounts...

As of Sept 27th, whether I wanted it there or not, I now had very limited $200 travel coupon in my account that, in its own mind, Expedia was treating as a part of my transaction involving the car rental. (emphasis added)

Do you think that's nonsense? I do, and I hope that the FTC clears it up by fining Expedia.

But even if this is deemed legal, it doesn't matter from a marketing point of view, because it's immensely stupid. Maybe Expedia can come up with a tortured rationale for exemption their promotional email from the law, but if you're an Expedia customer getting messages you didn't ask for and which you don't want, that doesn't matter: Expedia is a spammer in the customer's mind, and since it's the customer deciding where to spend the money, that judgment is more important than anything the FTC can come up with.

This kind of lawyer-driven marketing misses the point of email: building a good ongoing relationship with customers that leads to more business. A marketer who thinks that finding ways to annoy customers while evading legal sanctions is a smart approach should consider a career change.

Because those customers will be considering some changes of their own - to travel sites that actually respect their email preferences.

If the only thing keeping you from being a spammer is a legal loophole, you're out of luck. Instead of deploying your legal department on the issue, try asking your customers: Is the email you get from us what you expected? Is it useful? Is it desired?

If you don't like the answers to those questions, stop talking to the lawyers and go back to being a marketer.

Technorati tags: spam, email marketing, Expedia, CAN-SPAM

Avoiding Stalker Marketing

Meryl K. Evans and Hank Stroll at MarketingProfs have a nice little piece 0n how, and how much, you should follow up with potential customers. There's a point at which endless follow-up with no response from the prospect becomes stalker-ish.

A question they don't answer - how many times do you keep trying when you get absolutely no response? To me, more than 3 or 4 attempts, and you need to call it dead. If someone won't even answer an email, they're probably not going to talk to you.

The tips on how to follow up to make those couple of attempts valuable, however, is quite good. The basic message: say something interesting. In that quick voice message or email, say something that makes the prospect think that talking with your will pay off.

So instead of "I was just following up on that email," try something like "I'd love to tell you a little bit more about how Acme Services has helped other companies streamline their Whiz-bang Process."

They do recommend something that makes me a little nuts when I'm on the receiving end, though:

Another reader says people love to talk about themselves. So try, "I'd like to learn more about your situation." Something about the words, "your situation" gets people talking.

This always sounds to me like, "I'd really like you to do my homework for me, so I can figure out how to sell you something." Sorry, I'm too busy for that. You do your homework, and then call me with specific questions. In the next paragraph, they touch on this:

Do your research before calling anyone. Don't just call people because they're all in the XYZ business. Researching helps identify prospects' needs so you can focus on those when contacting them. A reader suggests trying out message variations as well as using a friendly voice.

Saying, "I know that a lot of marketers are having trouble determining whether they're getting any activity at all from Second Life programs, and was wondering if you've experienced that problem too..." at least sounds like you know who I am, and have some idea what I might be doing.

No matter how great your messages are, however, some people will just never, ever want to talk to you again. There's a point where you have to gracefully accept that, and put them on the back burner - perhaps in line for a quick, unintrusive follow-up email a few months down the road.

Technorati tags: direct marketing

Good Service is All About Expectations

Mouse Print, a blog that tracks down sweet little marketing lies, wrote about customer service at Woot, and they're off base.

Woot, in case you're not familiar with it, is a site that offers one item each day for sales at rock-bottom prices. The items appear at midnight, are available until they run out, and are replaced by a different item at the next midnight.

Go to Woot on any given day, and you might see a DVD player, or a coffee maker, or who knows what.  

Mouse Print's complaint with Woot is that you can't return items as you would at another store. Well, what do you expect? They sell items for one day. They can't resell it. You're getting a super-cheap price (and the fun of seeing what's there that day).

And Woot tells you this before you buy it.

There's a place in the world for cheap but low service options like Woot. As long as you know that's what you're doing, the spartan customer service isn't bad, it's the deal you agreed to when you bought from them - and if you're not comfortable with it, you don't buy from them.

It's all about expectations. Woot is setting them accurately, and delivering what they promise. That's not bad service, or misleading.

And there's a little lesson there - despite the emotional appeal of crowing about your fabulous customer service (whether it's real or not), you don't have to be the service leader if that's not what you're good at. You can provide more basic service but better prices or faster delivery. You can provide no service but offer amazing deals.

The key is understanding what you can deliver and whether there's a market niche for it.

Technorati tags: customer service, Woot

Top Senior Marketing Concerns: A look from the B2B perspective

A recently release Association of National Advertisers Survey identified the Top 10 things on the minds of 100 senior marketers who were asked to rank the issues that would have the greatest impact on their marketing decisions and planning for 2007. 

Here's the ANA's Top 10

1. Integrated Marketing
2. Accountability
3. Aligning marketing organization with innovation
4. Building strong brands
5. Media proliferation
6. Consumer control over what and how they view advertising
7. Globalization of marketing efforts
8. Growth of multi-cultural consumer segments
9. Advertising creative that achieves business results
10. Attracting and retaining top talent

Given that this is an advertising organization, I'm sure that the 100 marketing executives are skewed towards those who do heavy advertising - and, most likely, heavy consumer advertising.

But it did get me thinking about what applies and what doesn't to those of us in the B2B (B2T business to tech or T2T - tech to tech) world, especially if our work is primarily with small companies. Here are my Top 10 marketing concerns for 2007 (in no particular order, other than that Number 1 and Number 10 are in the right positions):

1. Product positioning. I don't care what year it is, figuring out the right target and the right messages for your products remain or paramount importance to small B2B's. You can't be all things to all people. Figure out what you can be to the people who matter.
2. Aligning the sales organization with marketing. If the sales organization isn't fishing in the ponds that marketing has given them a map to (and, hopefully, stocked a bit), it really doesn't matter what marketing's doing. If sales isn't going where you point them, figure out the reason fast. Get aligned. Stay aligned. Or just don't bother.
3. Accountability without making a fetish out of metrics. It's a lot easier to tie the success of a program when awareness-promotion-purchase have an obvious link. (Call this number! Say this magic word! Buy this now!) Those circumstances seldom hold in high ticket, complex sales where there's, at best, a bread-crumb trail from your first point of contact to the signed contract. Try to avoid "I saw it first" squabbles with sales by establishing early on just what constitutes a lead.
4. Trying to get in the customer's head. Real success seldom comes from doing everything your customer asks, but it does come from figuring out exactly what products and services will give them some combination of the better-cheaper-faster that everyone lusts after. Understand what it is your customer is doing now. Improve on it.
5. Make sure our products meet a real need - not a manufactured one. There's little room for Pet Rocks and other fad products in the B2B/B2T/T2T world. If your products aren't solving real problems for real people, all the marketing in the world ain't going to save you.
6. Cutting through the clutter (integrated marketing).  Whether you've got a gazillion dollar budget or guerrilla marketing bupkis, it's trickier to come up with the right mix of where to spend your time and budget than it was in the days when the winning combination was 2 Trade Shows + 3 Direct Mail Campaigns + monthly quarter-page B&W ad in tech journal = marketing success. Just don't forget that for some/most B2B/B2T/T2T markets, the old-fangled methods still work and still need to be part of the mix. But make sure you don't keep on doing what you've always been doing just because....
7. Cutting through the clutter (media proliferation). Media proliferation can work surprisingly well for small B2B, T2T companies. The proliferation of online media means that there are likely new journals, blogs, and other forum that are content hungry.
8. Product pricing. Few things are more difficult for small, boot strap companies than figuring out how to make sure the price is right. Sometimes a product  that really lends itself to a lower price point ends up getting forced into "enterprise sales" mode just because of the company's cost structure. If the true value of the product makes it a natural for thousands of smaller-ticket sales vs. a few larger-ticket sales, suck it up. Figure out a way to get to those thousands of smaller folks, even if it looks like it's more costly in the short run. In the long run, you'll come out ahead.
9. Keep up with SEO. Yes, the game changes perpetually, but you need to make sure that if someone's googling for what you've got they can find you on the first page. The good news: you can probably find an in-house techie who'll keep on top of what works and what doesn't for you.
10. Advertising creative that's just for fun. Most of the companies I work with have an advertising budget of somewhere between zero and zero. But it's still fun to noodle around with ad concepts that speak to your key messages and are creative and interesting. Even if you have no advertising budget whatsoever, come up with a few faux ads for internal consumption. Spit them out and dry mount them at Kinko's and hang them up around the office. Good for morale - your no-budget-blues morale and the morale of everyone else. You never know. You may actually get to use them someday.

Thanks to Elaine Fogel over on Marketing Profs for tipping me off to this survey.

Circuit City Rebate Rip-Off Update: Is Parago Actually a Company?

The story that started here continues!

After Parago, the "service" organization that Circuit City uses to pretend to issue rebates to customers, collected all of my information and asked me to fax them copies of all the rebate forms, then ignored repeated queries for several months, they told me that in fact they cannot help me track rebates and gave me a Circuit City email address to go to. I forwarded the entire thread of emails to that address, which prompted a response from Parago... asking me to supply them with all of the information (which was included in the emails I forwarded).

Sigh. I went ahead and resent it to them this morning, and refaxed everything for good measure.

Is this any way to provide "service?" I went to Parago's web site, which is quite interesting; if you click anything on it, it stays at the home page (at least in IE7). One wonders why Circuit City would choose a company that can't build a web site to run this kind of operation.

Though honestly, after communicating with Parago, I seriously doubt that anyone actually works there; it seems more like a giant auto-responder designed to tire customers out so they'll stop asking for their money. 

At this point my goal is really just to get some human being at Circuit City or Parago to contact me with something that doesn't sound like a canned email. We'll see.  

Technorati tags: Circuit City, Parago, rebates