Archive for December, 2006
AdAge: Waiting for Your Cat… is #5 in ‘06
What a great end to 2006! Not only did Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing reach #1 on the Wall Street Journal list, as well as charting big on the New York Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Amazon bestsellers lists, but now Advertising Age is chiming in with a meowing high-five.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot? We’re still not sure if that’s rhetorical. One thing’s certain, though: if 2007 shapes up any better than this year, we’ll be entirely bored with congratulating Lisa T. Davis and Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg for their fantastic work.
So, for those who haven’t gotten around to reading the book, what are you waiting for?
10 books you should have read
18 December 2006 (Volume 77; Number 51)
(c) 2006 Crain Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
- Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart: “What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds” (Kaplan Business)Uses data from experiments by real marketers to cut through the doomsday hype and cynical opportunism that surround the slow death of conventional advertising.
- Charles Hughes and William Jeanes: “Branding Iron: Branding Lessons from the Meltdown of the U.S. Auto Industry” (Racom Books)Uses lessons from the car business to hammer away at the importance of creating world-class brands, chastising the industry for going “safe, soft and somnolent.”
- Chris Anderson: “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More” (Hyperion)One of the most-discussed concepts and most-used catchphrases of the year, the “long tail” theory has its fair share of lovers and haters.
- Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton: “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management” (Harvard Business School Press)Denounces many modern management practices based on hype and conventional wisdom.
- Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa T. Davis “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing” (Nelson Business) - Breaks down tools such as consumer-generated media and word-of-mouth marketing to help marketers reach today’s aloof, independent customer.
- Seth Godin: “Small Is the New Big, and 183 Other Riffs, Rants and Remarkable Business Ideas” (Portfolio Hardcover)Tips and ideas culled from Godin’s blog and Fast Company column for everyone from McDonald’s to business schools. The, er, big idea: Act small if you want to be big.
- Robert Gordman and Armin Brott: “The Must-Have Customer: Seven Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven’t Got” (Truman Talley Books)For companies looking to expand, this book lays out the steps to not just retaining core customers but winning over those who are more elusive.
- Glenn Reynolds: “An Army of Davids” (Nelson Current)How advances in technology “empower ordinary people to beat big media, big government and other goliaths.” Podcasts and blogs are the least of your worries.
- Pat Fallon and Fred Senn: “Juicing the Orange” (Harvard Business School Press)Unlike many advertising books, this is smartly written and fun to read. But it must be said that the “aha” moments are evened out by the number of businesses no longer making juice with Fallon.
- Fred Reichheld: “The Ultimate Question” (Harvard Business School Press)Reduces customer-loyalty quandaries to a breathtakingly simple question: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” Of course, after that, things get more complicated after that.
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Written by:Robert Gorell
2006: The Year Mass Media Got a Clue
“Time” magazine just arrived in my snail-mail box. On the cover was my own mug staring back at me. Seems I’m “Time” magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year. So are you, and so is anyone you know who ever created content and put it online. “Time” also extended this honor to anyone who consumes online content:
For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.
While we bask in the glory of this accolade, I have to ask: what took them so long? In December 2004, Roy H. Williams wrote:
The Age of the Baby Boomer ended in 2003. The torch has been handed to a new generation with new ideas and values. Sure, we Boomers still hold the power at the top, but the prevailing worldview that drives our nation is completely other than the one we grew up with. Businesses that don’t get in step with the new world order are going to find it increasingly difficult to succeed.
Being a Baby Boomer isn’t about when you were born. It’s about how you see the world.
Baby Boomers were idealists who worshipped heroes, perfect icons of beauty and success. Today these icons are seen as phony, posed and laughable. Our cool as ice, suave lady’s man James Bond has become the comic poser Austin Powers or the tragically flawed and vulnerable Jason Bourne of “The Bourne Identity.” That’s the essence of the new worldview; the rejection of delusion, a quiet demand for gritty truth.
In 2006, we witnessed what Williams called “a quiet demand for gritty truth” mature into a riotous call to arms. Monsters like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, digg, and the rest of the Web 2.0 love babies came into their own, devouring big business and media egos in their wake. We moved from an era of individualistic my.website.com to a social, community-oriented view of our.website.com.
This wasn’t the year customers finally took control, it was the year big marketers and big media figured out they’d been in control all along.
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Web Rage Only Takes 4 Seconds to Activate
I had to do a double-take when I read this piece in EETimes (which, ironically, has a 10-second ad you need to skip to read the article):
It’s Mouse Rage Syndrome, and it infects all Internet users sooner or
later, according to a study of 2,500 Web users that was released
Tuesday. Conducted by the Social Issues Research Centre in the United
Kingdom, the study identified key factors that can negatively affect
cardio functions, as well as the immune and nervous systems.What’s the root cause of Mouse Rage Syndrome? It’s primarily caused by
badly designed and hosted Web sites, according to the research center.All Web surfers are familiar with the causes: slow-loading
pages, layouts that are difficult to navigate, pesky pop-ups, and
unnecessary ads, including banners. And, of course, the killer cause:
site unavailability.“The test results indicate that users want Google-style speed,
function, and accuracy from all of the Web sites they visit, and they
want it now,” according to the SIRC report. “Unfortunately, many Web
sites and their servers cannot deliver this.”
I’m still irked that these fundamental conversion issues keep popping their ugly head. I thought we had beat the drum one too many times when we published “Get That SIte to Me Fast” in GrokDotCom in 5/2002. In case you need more evidence, in November Akamai and Jupiter Research put out a press release about research that shows 4 seconds as the new threshold of acceptability for retail web page response times.
If you aren’t sure how long your site takes to load you may be held liable for Web Rage!
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Preparing for Panama: another case for Persuasion Architecture
A new Ad-Age article offer strategies for winning at Panama, namely:
Instead, marketers’ focus will shift from managing their bids to
managing the entire conversation with their customers. By improving attributes such as the relevance of keywords, ad copy and landing pages, advertisers provide a better user experience while having an positive influence on their own ad costs.
Panama certainly raises the stakes for all those who have yet to realize how critical true Customer-centricity has become (let’s not forget transparency either). With the added competition, it’s nice to have a methodology to follow…
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Written by:Howard Kaplan
Sorry It’s Been So Long…
Jeff and I are headed back today from visiting our friends in Burbank, Sunnyvale and Mountain View. Many of you know we have been traveling since June, mostly related to the book tour for Waiting For Your Cat to Bark? but thankfully that is all done. We have had lots to share and I’ll give you some of the top level ones:
First off a gift for you - we have completed the Table of Contents and Index for the paperback version of Call to Action. You can download it in PDF format.
At Future Now we’ve hired a new president. We hope you get a chance to meet Sondra Stewart soon.
There has been a ton of new stuff we’ve been working on behind the scenes. You will be seeing some major enhancements to GrokDotCom (lots more content). We have a bunch of new extremely affordable products and services coming out early next year. If you are interested in reviewing some of them, we’ll be selecting a few people who may be interested; just contact us.
Many people have been wondering about our tactic behind unsubscribing people from GrokDotCom. Like many of you, we subscribe a bunch of newsletters. We realize many people don’t have the time to read every issue, so we planned a campaign that informed people over 3 months to resubscribe to continue getting their subscription by email or to get The Grok either through RSS or Podcast formats. The thinking is if you don’t engage at least once in a 3 month period then all those issues that come in, for many people, become annoying and it is an erosion in their mind of our brand. In the words of A.G. Lafley, CEO of P&G - the customer is boss and let it go - you are in control. The response to this has been phenomenal by the way.
Howard Kaplan and I will be judges in the ad:tech awards recognizing the talented designers and strategic thinkers that lead the industry, demonstrating excellence in interactive marketing. Over 30 winners can claim the limelight… Make sure it’s you! Visit http://www.ad-tech.com/awards for more information.
I am sure there is lots more I am missing, but we’ll be publishing more often come the New Year.
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Four Steps to More Effective Web Site Testing
We’re thrilled that Google’s getting into the testing game with a new service called Website Optimizer. The service will be gratis to all Google advertisers. Just as Google Analytics had a major effect on how e-tailers viewed analytics, so this service will open the world of testing to a much broader audience. Testing is more action-oriented (and should therefore appeal to even more people) than straight analysis. However, some level of analysis is still required.
This is long overdue. We were fortunate to be an early beta tester of the system and are impressed with several features.
Making a decision to test is simple. But making that decision alone won’t deliver better online results.
In over 10 years of optimizing sites for our clients, we’ve identified over 1,100 factors that contribute to a customer’s ability to successfully complete a single conversion funnel.
Multiply that by the number of campaigns, offers, products, keywords, visitor motivations, visitor types, and several other elements and the number of contributing factors becomes astronomical. When you consider most of these factors as potential variants to test and optimize for, you must conclude determining what and how to test campaigns for maximum return takes plenty of thought, planning, and effort.
Fortunately, not all factors are equal in their ability to drive success. There are many things you can do to stack these factors in your favor.
If you’re new to testing, begin with A/B testing rather than multivariate. Although it may feel limiting and takes more time, you’re likely to get more sound scientific data with which to determine your optimization efforts. It also allows you to gain experience testing with proper methods.
Continue reading my column at ClickZ…
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Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
The Grok’s Top Ten Countdown
You wind up writing a lot of articles in six years! Yep … six info-packed years of Future Now, Inc., in GrokDotCom, ClickZ and other places! Of course, every one of these articles is special, but which are the specialest of the special? Which have truly, madly and deeply inspired our readers? You’ll find the answer in this issue.
This December, I’m featuring my Top Ten Countdown. These are the articles Future Now, Inc. has published, here and elsewhere, that have inspired folks to write (in droves), click through, investigate more and take notice. Whether you are revisiting the material or discovering it for the first time, I hope this issue encourages you to jump start your New Year’s resolutions for your business plans, online and off, in 2007.
And however you celebrate your holidays, may your preparations fill you with the inspiration of the season, may your relationships bring you joy, and may you experience it all in wellness and safety.
Read the rest of this article.
Read the entire newsletter: Volume 144
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Written by:The Grok
