Brian Giese's Blog

Is direct mail and print advertizing going away?

I think it is - over time, not overnight.

Colin Crawford, an SVP at IDG (technologies largest print publisher) nails it in his blog. He says, "It’s been a challenging time to be a print publisher"... "the stark reality is that print is not rebounding and is not likely to". The honest truth is that print media is failing and dying a slow and very painful death. Last March I met with Scott Harding, CEO if ADVO (a 2B direct mail marketer) to discuss the future of online vs print marketing. He said that print media was growing and that the market looked rosy for ADVO and print media. On July 6, 2006 ADVO was sold to Valassis.

Smart print publishers (like IDG) are driving toward online media which is perfectly fueled for direct marketing. Digits were always meant to be measured. For the first time in marketing history we're able to measure patterns, like and dislikes, habits and trends of entire markets using the Internet. All this is being done real-time with very little user intervention. As a result, the economy is changing for mainstream direct marketing companies and If they listen to their customers they will change to serve them.

How Does Sales Execution Affect AOL?

Last Friday, Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose Show. Steve told Charlie that he was "sorry" for AOL's merger with Time Warner. Case said that the concept behind the 2001 mega-deal "made tremendous sense," but has not turned out the way he envisioned. "Ultimately it comes down to execution," he said. "One of the lessens learned, I think, is that an idea is important, but leadership and execution is really what matters… I'm disappointed and frustrated that it hasn't developed in the way that we all hoped at the time it could." In response to a question from Rose, Case added, "Yes, I'm sorry I did it." Case, who now heads DC-based private investment firm Revolution, has in recent months publicly advocated for the break-up of the two companies. Here is the video from the show...

Corporate Blogging Generates Sales

I read a recent report by Cymfony, an analytics company, and public relations agency Porter Novelli about corporate blogging. I was happy to hear that three-quarters of corporate blog owners (76%) said company Web traffic and "media attention" increased as a result of the blogs. It also said that 42% said at least one specific post on their blog has affected the company's brand and in most cases has had an extremely positive effect.

We know that corporate blogging is still very much a pioneer environment and most companies don't have blogging guidelines in place. I see most companies using blogs because they feel a need to participate in the "wave" rather than to satisfy a specific objective. There is still has a lot of room for growth and a burgeoning future for B2B marketing using blogs. Lots to do here. I encourage all of my clients to create relevant, specific blogs to generate knowledge power and share thier subject-matter expertise in thier field. This has an immediate impact on search engine rankings and drives customers your way. More on that later.

Newsworthy podcasts create new revenue possibility

PostNewsweek, the business-to-business publishing company, will soon automatically convert ordinary text stories into MP3 audio. This big idea is from the company Newsworthy, the makers of Click-to-Listen technology.

Here's how it works. Click-to-Listen takes an FTP feed of any text article, converts it into MP3 audio format within minutes and returns it via an RSS feed. Really cool. PostNewsweek will brand the new audio feature for all of its sites, calling it Tech Media Cast.

The Click-2-Listen feature goes up on www.GCN.com this month. Six to eight weeks later, it will launch on sister sites www.WashingtonTechnology.com, www.DefenseSystems.com and www.GovernmentLeader.com. Great work Newsworthy!

AOL Sales Techniques Backfire

AOL is struggling to remain relevant as they open their mouth and insert both feet on this studio recording of the Vincent Ferrari Interview on the Today's show with Matt Lauer. In the now famous “I want to cancel my account” episode, AOL subscriber, Vincent Ferrari, battled mightily with a service rep to shut down his account.

This is a clear example of selling at its worst. AOL’s self-inflicted wound reveals the problems of a good sales strategy gone awry by using customer service staff in the wrong way. Granted, most customers expect to hear some sales pitch when they talk to a service rep but tenacious efforts to sell something to a customer while on a service call violates some basic marketing tenets. Namely, to keep the customer happy by providing a good experience.

GoDaddy.com's Bob Parsons Rules

I've been using GoDaddy.com to host my web sites since about 2000. It's been a great relationship and mostly because of Bob Parson's, it's founder. Bob's a real sales and marketing guru and he's built a rock solid technical marketing machine with GoDaddy.com. Here are some words of wisdom from Bob that he calls "My Rules for Business and Life in General" recently posted on his blog. Definitely worth the read.

Google Ducks Lawsuit

Just read that Google has dodged a lawsuit filed by a California man who claimed his Web site rankings unfairly dropped. Apparently, Mark Roberts, who runs http://www.pinnaclejuicedprotein.com/ sued the search engine for breach of contract. 

Roberts had claimed that Google was negligent and breached its contract--making the unusual claim that the company's Web site-submission service constituted a binding contract. Technology law professor Eric Goldman writes in his blog that even though this lawsuit came to a premature end, the question of legal liability over search rankings remains an open one and more lawsuits could follow. What's next?

Marketing vs. Sales

I believe that there is one real purpose for marketing - to generate sales. It seems that top-line growth is back at the top of the corporate agenda and where growth is a priority, marketing is too.

Revenue growth using direct marketing is the rage in business-to-business marketing these days. And with good reason. The last time we had a market ascension in technology it was about the brand, now it's about top-line sales growth with a healthy respect for the bottom-line numbers, so marketing is being measured (like sales) to drive revenues. Here are 4 tips on how marketing can prove their value and work together with sales to accelerate the sales cycle and positively impact the top and bottom lines.

1. Work with sales to figure out what a lead is. Marketers have a serious credibility issue with Sellers that stems from a long history of finger pointing on this topic. So first things first. What is a lead? Sales and marketing rarely agree on this and it’s worth marketing’s time to work with sales and figure it out. If they do, everybody wins.

2. Marketing should treat sales like a customer. Marketing views sales as “arrogant” and sales view marketing as “worthless”. Get the picture? Marketing’s job is to support sales as if they were a customer and treat them like gold.

3. Agree on credible metrics to define success. Marketing should be evaluated by metrics for which it can be held accountable, such as number of qualified leads delivered to sales and the ratio of leads to close. The higher that ratio, the better marketing is nurturing and qualifying the lead before it is handed over to sales.

4. Focus on the things that matter. Most marketers have a list of priorities a mile long. In this environment, the key isn't how much you do, it's how much you help your organization achieve in top-line revenue. It's a good idea to drive some quick wins along with longer-term strategies such as strengthening the sales pipeline. Campaigns that target existing customers for up-sells and cross-sells are a great place to start.

Hope this helps.

Click Fraud Affects Google Sales

A survey about fraudulent clicks on online advertisements by research company Outsell, Inc. offers insight into a serious problem faced by online advertisers. The report exposes one of the most detailed looks at the massive headache that Google, Yahoo and other search engines have faced for years. The fact is that online advertisers have long complained that major search engine companies don't do enough to combat the click fraud practice. Here's some of the findings from the report:

-Revenue lost by Google, Yahoo and other Web sites, as a result: $500 million

-Clicks believed by advertisers to be fraudulent: 14.6 percent

-Money paid by advertisers for bogus clicks: $800 million (2005)

-Advertisers who said they were victims of click fraud: 75%

-Advertisers who said they reduced click-based advertising or plan to: 37%

-Advertisers who request refunds because of fraud: 7%

-Average refund: $9,507

Ok, this has been going on for a long time. I competely agree with Scott Karp and Brian Clark in thier blogs on this topic and Brian's view that Affilate Marketing is on a major comeback. My company and my clients have been using Adsense for years and it needs serious attention from Google. In the meantime, we'll manage it as best we can as we find more creative ways to market.

6 Tips on Selling Consulting Services

I think the most serious challenge facing consultants is believability. Unfortunately, recent consulting scandals reinforce the notion that that very few clients are satisfied with their consultants and this bad press makes clients even more skeptical. It seems that part the problem is that most consultants are experts in their subjects, but less familiar with the consultative selling process. So here are six tips that help in the process of selling technology consulting services to mainstream companies;

Be a complete expert on the subject. Be upfront with your client and don't "sell" yourself in areas you don't know.

Qualify each project to determine your ability to win the work and earn a profit. These two don't always go hand-in-hand.

Bring your network of skilled consultants with you on the project. You can't know everything so rely on you network of great contacts for support.

Scope projects properly to eliminate "scope creep" and produce predictable results. Your profit can evaporate if you have an ambiguous statement of the project scope.

Find an agreeable pricing model that protects both you and our client. Pricing services is as much an art as a science, and there are at least fifteen different pricing strategies you can use.

Deliver on-time and under budget.

Do those six things well, and you'll have more work than you can handle.