Archive for February, 2007
Making Lists
Blogger Todd And has put together his “Power 150″ list of “Top Marketing Blogs.” (Nope, we’re not on it, and no, we’re not bitter, really. We haven’t been at this as long as many of you.)
People love lists. We want to know what the most popular books, movies, blogs, and web sites are. Every year we [...]
Ads in Email: Yet More AOL Cluelessness
AOL has started attaching ads to email messages sent by paying subscribers (that ever-vanishing breed) who are using their AOL 9.0 software:
The change, which began Tuesday, affects e-mails sent from AOL accounts using the internet provider’s AOL 9.0 software, which is available to AOL’s 13 million paid subscribers and others who have downloaded the program.
E-mails [...]
Personalized Advertising: It’s all about ME
Sunday’s Boston Globe had an interesting article by Scott Kirsner on personalized advertising, which focused on how marketers are coping with the “DVR problem”. I.e., with so many people recording shows for later replay, they’re zapping right through the ads. (Kirsner also deals with another ad phenomenon: people voluntarily watching ads they like on YouTube [...]
The Apple Product Cycle
Just something funny. A brief excerpt:
The haters offer their assessment. The forums are ablaze with vitriolic rage. Haters pan the device for being less powerful than a Cray X1 while zealots counter that it is both smaller and lighter than a Buick Regal. The virtual slap-fight goes on and on, until obscure technical nuances like, “Will [...]
In Houston, We Don’t Have a Problem
There are familiar phrases that are useful tools in your writing; they get a point across in a way that’s familiar to readers, they illustrate something perfectly through cultural references. Then there are phrases so worn out that they need to be given a rest. And one of those is “Houston, we have a problem.” [...]
Paradise by the CRM Dashboard Light?
Some marketers love metrics, and happily slice and dice numbers - the open and click-through rates from email campaigns, Google AdWords reports, sales reports that tie back to marketing campaigns. Others look at them as an unpleasant necessity. I think that reflects the different ways we all found our way into marketing careers - some of us from the [...]
Marketing’s from Venus, Sales is from Mars
Through twenty-odd years in high-tech marketing, I’ve come to appreciate the healthy tension that can and should exist between sales and marketing. Sales professionals are to be admired and respected. After all, they’re responsible for the revenue that makes everything else possible. They’re actually out there, every day, on the front lines, battling the competitors, [...]
Radioactivity
The old familiar international symbol for radiation:
… is being supplemented by this:
According to the International Atomic Energy Association and the International Standards Organization, this is a clearer way to tell people to run! Run! Run for your lives!
The new symbol is aimed at alerting anyone, anywhere to the potential dangers of being close [...]
Pay-per-Click and Pay-per-Call
A recent article about pay-per-call advertising in online yellow pages tickled me, because it’s a great example of how new ways of doing business online can filter back and change more traditional models:
Three-year-old Rhode Island-based roofing company AS Enterprises had a big, albeit common, problem: not enough customers. Owner Ann Marie Appleton had tried offering free estimates in local [...]
Online Marketing Predictions
MarketingProfs, those masters of the handy list, have published their Top 10 Online Marketing Predictions for 2007 (article by Ryan Buchanan).
It’s a pretty good list, and how relevant any particular item is to you depends on your industry and its dynamics; for example, while I think we will see greater integration of video into web sites, I [...]
