Tag - marketing

Marketing: snail versus email

October 29, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I’m looking at some interesting education marketing reports right now and found this interesting comment:

“We have tried combo programs, encouraging folks to go to our website and answer questions if they get the direct mail piece, and/or the e-mail to test which works better – and the e-mail always does!”

The reason, I’m sure, is context. When you get the email, you’re on your computer, and you’re just a click away from the website. But when you get the mail, you’re not … and it’s too much hassle to save the piece until you are.

Selling yourself

October 18, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Pickthebrain has a post on selling yourself. I can personally attest that, after getting the qualifications and knowledge you need to succeed in your chosen field, being able to “sell yourself” is the most critical part of professional success. The highlights:

  • Be Sold on Yourself
  • Have a Saleable Package
  • Be Positive and Enthusiastic
  • Be Real and Authentic

I’d have to say the most important one, though, is not there. To me, it’s that day in and day out, you have to work hard, put your best foot forward, make those around you look good, and not care (too much) about who gets the credit.

Google has much better …

October 16, 2007
John Koetsier
news

. . . Excel help than Excel.Every single time I need to find out how to do something in Excel, I try to figure it out from Excel help. Search usually gets me nowhere, but sometimes gives me a clue what I should actually be searching on. But the help I usually get is not very helpful.So I turn to Google, and usually on the first page of results, using the search terms that make sense to me (an admitted Excel weenie, and proud of it) I find the answer.Isn’t that bass-ackwards? Shouldn’t the best source of information about your product come from your company?

LinkedIn: fact meets fiction

October 15, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I just got another LinkedIn connection request this morning. Every one has a little LinkedIn fact at the bottom, like this:

Fact: 3,414 CEOs use LinkedIn every day

As you know, since you’re a smart denizen of the blogosphere, whether something is a fact or not is a function of what kind of statement it is … not about whether it’s true.So here’s my version of that fact:

Fact: 3,414 people who claim to be CEOs use LinkedIn every day

That’s much better. None of the CEOs that I know personally have anywhere near enough time to be obsessively checking LinkedIn every single day.What about you?

Updates, ETEC, CrowdTrust, Life

September 11, 2007
John Koetsier
news

In case you’re wondering what’s going on with this blog, I’m currently taking 2 courses for my Master of Educational Technology program at the University of British Columbia.

Plus doing some home reno, plus I have 3 kids, plus my wife seems to feel that somehow I ought to spend some time with her (odd, that), plus I have a full-time job (money: it’s a love/hate relationship).

So some things suffer.In any case, for my ETEC 522 course “Ventures in Learning Technology” we’re reviewing educational technology ventures: start-up businesses. Since one of the profs for the course is behind a social knowledge storage/management start-up called CrowdTrust, we’re putting most of our thoughts and comments into that system. (Here are mine.)

One thing I wanted to share here is a memo I wrote concerning a company’s pitch for VC money.

Hopefully I haven’t been too savage.

Brand protection, marketing, and responsiveness in a new media world

September 9, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Consumer-generated Media has a nice breakdown of Steve Jobs open letter to early iPhone adopters who hit the roof when Apple recently announced the $200 price break.Excerpt:

What an incredible year to watch and learn from CEO-level behavior in times of crisis and difficulty. First we had Jet Blue, faced with an impossibly difficult situation, take to the airwaves on YouTube, apologize profusely, and announce a new passenger bill of rights. While Menu Foods practically hid their CEO during the pet recall issue, Mattel put their CEO, Bob Eckert, on the website video airwaves to nurture trust and confidence in the wake of the toy recall (a still-in-progress case study). Now we have Steve Jobs, who just wrote and posted the most remarkable letter in response to concerns about iPhone’s recent price decrease. He coupled an apology with a $100 Apple credit for all early-buyers of the iPhone. This is classic Defensive Branding. I predict it will be one of the most discussed, debated, and linked-to letters of the year, and so far I’ve already counted over 800 unique blog postings referencing his letter since 6 PM last night.

A full breakdown of the letter follows …

Pay more, get less

August 29, 2007
John Koetsier
news

These are the options if you want an Education Week subscription:education week bad deal

As you’ll quickly see, you actually pay more to get the online version than the print+online versions. Probably has a lot to do with advertising revenue and subscription counts.

Major rip-off … and it isn’t doing trees any favors either.

Apple’s Sept. 5 iPod Announcement: iPod, iPhone, iPDA, iComputer, iMobile Computing

August 28, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Apple’s scheduled a Steptember 5th special event: “the beat goes on.”It’s obviously about iPods. My guess is that Apple’s now ready to take the next step. More to the point, the marketplace is finally ready for Apple to release the next evolution in iPod: mobile computing.You already see it in iPhone. And we know that OS X is underpinning future iPods.iPods have been carrying our calendars and notes for years. But it’s always been the sideshow, the off-off-Broadway down-the-lane-to-the-left non-attraction.I think the new iPods are going to take a huge leap in functionality. iPhone’s seamless reading of PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, and more will be part of the iPod experience.It’ll still be the entertainment hub – music, movies, podcasts – that it is. But it’s going to take the next step to a mobile computing platform that includes some of what we currently think of as “business” functionality and some of what we think of as “consumer” functionality – especially games.It would not shock me if concurrent with this unveiling of the new iPod we have an “iSDK,” a software development kit for iPhone and iPod.You read it hear first.

I wanted to do this 7 years ago …

August 13, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Smart article on changing your browser’s useragent to gain access to pay sites:

Ever wondered why Google returned search results that lead to sites that require a registration? How did Google index the site without a registration? Many sites want their site indexed in Google to receive more hits, so they allow Googlebots in. Because of this reason we can take advantage of this. All we have to do is disguise ourself as a Googlebot and many sites will let us in without registration.

I was planning to do exactly that with an online learning site I built in 2000, but the feature got lost on the cutting room floor …

Verisign is hounding me …

August 10, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Verisign is driving me nuts emailing me and phoning me. Just to make it perfectly clear:

  • I don’t want your PDF white papers on internet security.
  • I don’t want your SSL certificates.
  • I don’t want your emails.
  • I especially don’t want your phone calls from “sales executives.”

Hrm … now that’s off my chest I feel marginally better. Until the next call starting off with “Hello, this is $salesguy calling from Verisign. How are you?”Worse than I was before you called.

Thumbs up, thumbs down: obligatory post-Jobs-keynote post

August 7, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I want the new iMac.
I want the new iPhoto.
I want the new iMovie.
I want the new GarageBand.
I want the new Keynote.
I want the new Numbers.
I’m not really impressed with iWeb.
Not too sure about .Mac yet.
I don’t really have a need for Pages – Word is good.

Best new iPhoto feature
Better organization of photos. Events is just brilliant … we have 14,000 photos and they’re just a complete blur. Events makes sense, and it’ll be a major enhancements. I called my wife down for that chunk of the demo, and it passed her keenly tuned BS filters. She even said “cool” a few times.

Best new iMovie features
Movie library just like photo library: one of those things that is obvious after Apple does it. Creating a movie in minutes: very needed, and very awesome.

Still needed: easier podcasting
I still think Apple needs a better podcasting tool. GarageBand is not the obvious place to go for podcasting, and it’s still not super simple and easy there, AFAIK.

for the BS-in-marketing category …

July 26, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I’m checking out some online resources for education and came across this:

For nearly 70 years, ProQuest has offered superior information services in electronic, microform, and print-on-demand formats to university libraries.

Interesting.

Obviously, this is a programmer’s use of the inclusive AND – as long as one part of the conjunction is true, it all evaluates to true. POD and electronic have certainly not been around for “nearly 70 years.”

Bah, humbug.

Iceberg on Demand

July 12, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Note: this is a paid review – ReviewMe is paying me $50 for posting this. However, all thoughts are my own, and I’m saying only what I decide to say. The payment part is so that I say *something* about Iceberg on Demand.

Iceberg on Demand is one of a new class of development tools designed for the web. They kinda make me think of GUI RAD environments, but they’re for the web, and they’re typically much, much easier to use. Similar tools include Sidewalk (which I’ve mentioned before), The Form Assembly, and WyaCracker.

The difference
The difference appears to be that Iceberg on Demand is orders of magnitude more powerful than these other solutions, that pretty much focus on simple web forms to gather data. It’s billed as allowing non-technical users to create “enterprise applications,” which is a major, major claim.

I wanted to personally try it before reviewing the application, so I signed up at their home page for a beta account. However, they appear to be in limited beta, as I haven’t received any access privileges in the 48 hours since I signed up.

The promise
The basic premise – giving non-programmers the tools to create full-functionality business applications – is incredibly compelling: use the business process mapping tool to map a process, create your business forms via drag-and-drop, integrate simply into already-built apps such as HR, CRM, project management, and bug tracking … and voila … you have a working enterprise system to run your business on. It reminds me somewhat of Sigurd Rinde‘s thingamy.

I’m sure the reality is a little different: I don’t yet see accounting apps that you need to run a business and I’m sure there’s a number of other missing pieces, but wow … if this takes off and they increase the number of built-in apps over time, this could be very, very exciting.

The reality is, most of what businesses need to function is to get, store, retrieve, and modify data. It’s not rocket science. It’s data that follows business process rules.

If Iceberg on Demand can essentially automate creation of enterprise systems, look out IBM, Oracle, Infosys, and all the other “business services” tech shops out there: the billions you’re hoovering out of clients’ pockets is in danger.

OK, back to reality for a moment.

Right now, this looks like a great tool for start-ups, young companies, anyone with not much budget but need for real business systems.

In the future? Who knows.

Don’t bother me with the facts

June 21, 2007
John Koetsier
news

“People do not care about facts, they care about stories.”

Was just reading Eric Enge’s interview with Seth Godin, and that little tidbit resonates. It resonates strong.

It explains a lot about media and their stories, it explains a lot about successful and unsuccessful marketing, and it explains a lot about good presentations versus bad presentations.

The challenge: deliver the facts you need others to need wrapped in a story that is too compelling to tune out.

[tags] seth godin, interview, eric enge, john koetsier, marketing, facts, stories [/tags]

Buzz starts in the hive

June 19, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Seth Godin fingered this post at The Messaging Times about buzz.

Key point: it starts with the people who want the buzz to spread. It starts with the people who are building/creating/growing/nurturing the product/process/market/widget.

Buzz starts in the hive. No buzz in the hive – no buzz on the street. You gotta drink your own koolaid, eat your own dogfood, be passionate about what you want others to be passionate about. If you can’t, tear it down and start over.

Makes me think …

[tags] buzz, marketing, hive, seth godin, marketing times, john koetsier [/tags]

Made to stick … sticks

June 18, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Not a single person has passed through my office and seen the cover of this book without touching it to see if, in fact, the cover has duct tape stuck to it:

made to stick

(It does not.) But it is bumpy and tactile, just as if it was.

And the book is very, very good.

Most ridiculous opt-out page ever

June 14, 2007
John Koetsier
news

This has got to be the most ridiculous opt-out page in the history of permission marketing:

netapp opt-out form

First name, last name, job role, department, industry, company name, address, city, state/province, zip/postal code, country, phone, fax, email, and comments.

Unbelievable. Email address and UNSUBSCRIBE is the max expected.

Better yet is a link in the email that includes your email address and automatically takes you to a page that processes the unsubscription and lets you know.

I hated MySpace; now I hate Facebook

June 11, 2007
John Koetsier
news

So I got an account on Facebook a couple of weeks ago.

It’s protection – in the personal SEO era, you need to lock up accounts on popular services with your actual name. Amazingly enough, I’m John Koetsier on Facebook.

After being on the service for all of about 25 days, I’ve already formed some conclusions:

  1. Facebook is the anti-MySpace
  2. MySpace is gaudy and busy; Facebook is boring
  3. MySpace is full of ads; haven’t seen many on Facebook
  4. MySpace is web 1.0; Facebook is web 1.0 too. Only difference: it’s designers weren’t on LSD
    (I know, I know Facebook is doing all kinds of API deals, I know, I know, it’s a platform now … blah, blah, blah. I’m talking about the visual feel, the scent you get from using it. It’s all been done so, so, so many times, and it’s all very 1.0)

  5. MySpace was programmed by Hammy, the hyperactive squirrel in Over the Hedge, and few things work as advertised; Facebook actually works, which is good, but still does stupid stuff.

Case in point: check out this screenshot from the homepage of Facebook …
facebook.png

Facebook wants me to give it access to my online email so that it can check if any people that I sent messages to and from are also on Facebook … it’s an auto-friend feature.

Cool? Uncool.

I don’t have a Hotmail address. Or a Yahoo, MSN, AOL address. I don’t know too many self-respecting technically-proficient over-20 people do. (I have a Gmail account, but that’s mostly for subscriptions and possibly spammy stuff.)

So the feature is useless to me. But can I get rid of it? Can I edit it? Can I dismiss it? No, no, no.

So every visit to the boring uninspired homepage of Facebook is punctuated by the uselessness to me of the largest element on the page.

And that’s just annoying.

No. 33 on Autoroll list

June 8, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Top 100 isn’t too bad …

You might have noticed the “Autoroll” blogroll in the sidebar of this blog. It’s designed to link similar blogs automatically … blogs that discuss similar topics to bizhack will dynamically show up in my blogroll.

Criteo, the company behind Autoroll, recently released the top 100 blogs on the service, also mentioning that Autoroll is growing quickly:

AutoRoll is accelerating its expansion in the blogsphere. Compared to last April, we have seen an impressive 50% growth of AutoRoll registered bloggers in May. This means that blog affinities are improving nicely. AutoRoll is indeed getting more and more accurate to find related blogs. This means also that it’s getting increasingly difficult to join the Top 100 blogs which have installed AutoRoll!

It’s kind of nice to know that bizhack is #33 on the list of top blogs currently using Autoroll. Modesty is appropriate, however, Autoroll is nowhere near as popular as some of the other blogroll innovators, such as MyBlogLog.

However, with 50% monthly growth … who knows?

Something about people …

May 31, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Was at a B -B-Q recently, and I was the burger flipper. Not such a bad job … I could probably get used to it … maybe even saying “would you like fries with that” 500 times a day.

On the other hand … maybe not.

But it was interesting to see who went for the vegie burgers and who went for the beef. I’ve seen a lot of people who are on low-carb diets. A lot of people on low-protein diets. And a lot of people on all kinds of other types of diets.

There’s one constant: they’re all fat.

There’s gotta be a lesson about human nature in this. Or one about marketing.

Or if not, maybe one about food.

[tags] diets, marketing, john koetsier, human nature [/tags]

Despair, Inc.

May 29, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Do you have one of those cheesy motivational posters on your wall? In your company, somewhere? It’s probably something about teamwork, or hard work, or persistence, or excellence, or …

Boring! Old hat! Cheap! Manipulative!

Welcome Demotivators from Despair, Inc. Now these are fun. Their customer (dis)service page says “We’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied.”

I like the one on consistency … “it’s only a virtue if you’re not a screw-up.” Or the one on consulting: “If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.”

At least they make you laugh. And that might be the best motivator of all.

[tags] funny, motivation, demotivator, despair, joke, john koetsier [/tags]

To Russia without love

May 23, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I hate Russians.

Not all Russians – just the ones who keep ruining the internet for the rest of us by running half the spam zombies on the planet.

The software that runs this blog (WordPress) notifies me every time I have a new registered user – someone who can post comments, even write posts. A couple times a day, I get a subscriber from Russia.

Every time I do, I know it’s some jerk who’s not reading my posts, not writing comments, and not contributing story. Rather, it’s someone who is going to make Akismet work harder to keep this blog clean of comment spam.

Bah. Humbug.

Perhaps it was better when they were the Evil Empire and we were were allowed to hate them.

[tags] russia, spam, comment spam, zombies, akismet, wordpress, john koetsier [/tags]

Gifts from the grave

May 22, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Free business idea of the week, coming right up …

  1. Rent a warehouse. Your bedroom will do until you get swamped with business.
  2. Advertise that you will send people’s gifts to their loved ones after they die.
  3. Collect people’s articles and store them safely. (OK, maybe the bedroom won’t work after all.) Charge them a small monthly sum, payable 3 time per year so the credit card fees don’t kill you. Something like $10/month.
  4. Tell them that the second month their credit card is declined, the articles will be shipped to the loved one of their choice, set up when they send you the goods.
  5. Sit back and collect the cash.

Please note that I didn’t say it was a particularly good idea. Just one that happened to come to me a while back.

[tags] business, idea, innovation, entrepreneur, john koetsier [/tags]

Buy the problem

May 22, 2007
John Koetsier
news

I just got reminded today that you can’t sell someone the solution before they’ve bought the problem.

Which is why so much marketing is selling real or imagined problems.

[tags] problems, solutions, marketing, john koetsier [/tags]

Yippey-yi-yay

May 18, 2007
John Koetsier
news

Remember that …

totally innovative never-been-done-before six-figure customer support, training, and marketing initiative for a multi-ten-figure product line with extremely high gross margin

… project that I was pitching a week or so ago? It’s a go. Just completed it via conference call a few minutes ago. I am pumped!

Now, of course, the real work starts.

[tags] project, management, woohoo, john koetsier [/tags]