Category Archives: General

General thoughts and info about marketing.

Considering a website re-design? Read this 1st.

Redesigning your website look is something that every marketer has to consider at one point or another. Very few websites out there have the same design they did 5 years ago.

Your website is a reflection of who you are as an organization – and the design of your site will influence the perceptions, sales and response rates of your visitors. If your website is not taking an active role in your marketing, it may be time to consider a redesign.

When it comes to redesigning a website, there are two approaches a marketer can take:

1) Offer your visitors a series of small changes over time, tweaking the look and feel so that it always looks familiar, but is slowly evolving over time. Sort of like wearing a new shirt every day – your friends will recognize you, but will notice something “fresh” every day.

2) Offer a radical makeover. Sometimes a couple tweaks won’t cut it – especially if your website is out of synch with the rest of your brand, or if you really want to make people sit up and take notice. This approach is more like getting an extreme makeover – your friends will know it’s you, but you are projecting a different image of who you are.

Many times your budget will force you into picking one path or another.  Check back for web project management tips.  Or, leave your own.

More is Not Always Better.

Think the way to win more customers is to offer more options on your products and services? Surprise. It’s not. And, it can seriously hurt your business to continue down that path.

“The belief that variety is good is not always true,” argues Harvard Business School professor John Gourville in “Overchoice and Assortment Type: When and Why Variety Backfires.” The research paper, co-written by professor Dilip Soman of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, demonstrates that sometimes offering too many choices prompts a confused customer to “run to the arms of a competitor” with less complicated offerings.

According to Gourville, when consumers go to make a buying decision, they can be overwhelmed by variety and start to question if they are making the right buying decision. The end result? Consumers simply give up or go somewhere else. In a sense, the consumer is saying, “I can’t decide which product to choose from the many offered by Brand A, so I will choose from the one or two products offered by Brand B.”

From my own experience with ecommerce and clients I can definitely see that the large number of options available make it almost impossible to move forward. It’s always a challenge to balance the “cookie-cutter” approach” to the custom one. It’s something that I constantly wrestle with.

Have thoughts? Why not share them.

Multi-tasking

Do you multi-task? It probably depends on how old you are. Really.

It’s rare that I take a phone call and do not do something else “behind the scenes” like answer an email, instant message, open mail, walk the dogs, even yes– drive.

It’s really not that unusual for my generation (Gen X’rs). We can actually walk and chew gum and any other number of things. It could be because we are an entire generation of ADD afflicted people, or we just have had so much thrown at us over the years due to new technology, that we’ve become immune to the affects.

Yes, some people, usually the Baby Boomers and older generations call it “rude”. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I just can’t help it. The line for work and home life somehow got grayed out. I don’t think I’m alone.

According to BIGresearch, “The complexities of everyday life seem to be increasing, and as a result consumers are multitasking as a way of coping.” A recent study shows that 25-34 year olds are most likely to engage in multi-tasking, when using electronic media (TV, Radio, Internet) with almost 70% saying they do so regularly or occasionally. Not surprisingly, the 55+ age group multitasks the least.

Do you multi-task? What age group do you fit in? Do you agree with the study?

What is a social media expert?

I’ve seen quite a few things recently written about “social media experts”.  It’s my turn to chime in.  Since social media itself is pretty new, the way it is being used is even newer and constantly changing.

In the traditional world, to become an expert you would go to school, earn a degree and have defined proof that you were able to master many of the nuances of a topic or field.  With the lightening-speed arrival of the Internet and web 2.0, most people didn’t wait for a degree or for the curriculum to be built, they became experts by doing.  This same concept applies to social media.

Since there are few standard to gage by, the rules are being made up as we go along.  That has caused a few “self described” experts to take it upon themselves to create their own definitions.  I find this a somewhat narrow point of view.  Kind of like creating a club and then only inviting the people you want to it.

I was talking recently to a client.  He said that he was approached by a social media company to help them manage their social media brand.  He asked them what their company page was on Facebook.  They replied that they had individual pages and client pages but not a company page.  He dismissed them as “not experienced enough”.

Ok, so I understand that there are some different nuances to managing a corporate page on Facebook than a personal one.  Some of the options do work differently.  But why penalize a company for how they market themselves?  Shouldn’t it be about what they do for their clients?

I guess it did hit a nerve with me.  Does nxtConcepts have a Facebook page?  Yup.  Do we do much with it?  Nope.  I think because we frankly run out of steam when we get done updating all the other networks we are on such as: Twitter, Plaxo, Friendfeed, mySpace, Technorati, SecondLife, TripIt, TalkBizNow, Digg, Kiva, LinkedIn, Yahoo, YouTube, Zazzle,  eBay, Reddit, Blogger, Twitpic, Flickr, Squidoo and others.  Not to mention the work we do for clients in these and other spaces.  The other point is that Facebook may be critical to many of the ski resorts and other clients we work with in a business to consumer relationship but frankly in a business to business situation it sucks.  So, why devote considerable time there, when other social networks are more in-line with our corporate marketing strategy?  Just to say we can?

I digress.

Another writer says there are styles of social media experts including:
the “Power User” (someone that has built an established following over a long period of time),
the “Content Creator” (create and launch content tailored to the social world’s desires),
the “Salesman” (tout ways to make money or blatantly try to sell you something) and
the “Famous” (comfortable with the brand, the person or know of their accomplishments).

So that’s it?  Is social media just a popularity contest?  Is this why businesses have a hard time justifying a portion of their marketing budget to it?  I believe it can be so much more.  The goal for business is to engage with the people that are interested in what you do.  Not to spend extraordinary amounts of time to interact with a world of uninterested people.  That to me is what defines a social media expert — the person or team that can pinpoint who you need to engage, on what networks, and with what content.  And, it is our job to keep expanding the definition and finding ways to make it work for our us and our clients.

My Thoughts of ResortXpo: First Day of the First Show

It’s great to be able to see a year’s worth of worth come together.  I am SO lucky to work with such a great team.  They humor me on my crazy ideas like Virtual Conferences!  I am so glad we decided to take on the challenge of creating and hosting the first ever Virtual Conference for the Ski Industry.

Did everything go seamlessly?  No.  We had a few bugs.  But, it was totally worth it!

–Trade Show Booths.  At the last minute we realized that the Trade Show was hard to see on some computer screens.  Although we tested it before it went live, it wasn’t until the day of the  show and comments started coming in, that we realized it was not as “user friendly” as we had hoped.  A few tweaks and changes later and it was fixed.  But, the design suffered a little bit on large monitor screens.

–Sending messages.  One of the biggest aspects to a social networking site is to be able to send messages to friends and others on the site.  This morning we realized that the message pop-up box had technical issues and was not fully visible in any browser other than IE6 and IE7.  We’ll limp through this show with that.  The change means updating some code, which we are not very excited to do while the show is open.

–Training.  Sometimes being ahead of the curve means you not only have to train your own staff, but the vendors, and attendees of a show like the one we produced.  That’s been the biggest challenge…helping people see the big picture and how to use technology to interact with other people.  We knew we had to create Training sessions for the seminar speakers.  But, then at the last minute, we also needed training materials for the vendors at the show, and even the attendees.  Once people get the hang of what’s available, they do get excited and even addicted to all the options available.  It’s just getting them to that point, that is the challenge.

–The Seminars.  Fortunately or unfortunately for me, I ended up being the first speaker of the show.  After a last minute issue with the upload of my presentation, we finally got the seminars off with a bang.  If you want to see an on-demand viewing, check it out here:
http://www.resortxpo.com/ski/seminars-101

All-in-all, we accomplished quite a bit.  We were able to prove that a Virtual Show can work.  And work well.  We proved that speakers, vendors and attendees even with NO technical expertise (just a bit of training) will participate and interact.

I look forward to tomorrow.  It’s the second day of the show.  But, interestingly not the last.  Unlike a traditional show that closes down after the speeches have been given and the booths wrapped up, ResortXpo.com will stay online until the next show which will be in November.

Dog Recovers after Skiing Accident, $2k Surgery Needed

March 23, 2009, Columbus, OH: Dare devil dog or irresponsible owners?  You be the judge.rossi

Sunday afternoon, a thirteen year old Pekingese canine was found dazed and hurt shortly after launching off a jump.  Rumor has it that the incident happened in Ohio after all ski resorts had closed for the winter.

According to inside sources the dog’s name is Rossi and he suffered ruptured tendons in his left rear foot.  At his age surgery may be his only option if he ever wants to walk again.  Jumping for this canine may also become a thing of the past.

Shortly after this story went public, debate started whether or not the owners whose names have not been released yet were irresponsible for letting the dog do something he enjoyed no matter the risk.  Surgery is scheduled for sometime at the end of March.  In the meanwhile, Rossi is walking in a splint and getting plenty of bed rest.

A SavethePeke.com website was created to help share the story and sell t-shirts to help raise money for the surgery.  Proceeds from product sales at http://www.zazzle.com/crossi10 will go towards the surgery and recovery.  Any additional funds received will be set aside for other dogs in need.

I got my Personal QR Code!

Ever since I saw the Ralph Lauren mobile campaign last summer that they launched for the U.S. Open, I have been excited about the possibilities of QR (Quick Response) codes for clients.

What are those?

QR code: (Quick response) it is a 2d bar code like you would see on any regular products.  This code allows cell phone users to be directed to a specific website where you can purchase or receive more info.

picture1

This example is for m.ralphlauren.com

It launched in the summer of 2008.  All the marketing for the event-posters, print ads, cards, shirts, etc had QR codes so that people could just “point and click (using a camera phone and internet access + QR reader).

How It Works

-open mobile application downloaded to your cellphone

-hover over code to snap picture

-Click to go to the site & browse info, read, watch videos, or buy something.

Cool note-using this technology you would be able to place a QR code on a t-shirt where people could scan and link directly to your myspace page.  So, that’s why I decided to try it out first with a personal code.  Here’s mine:

Samantha Rufo QR code
Samantha Rufo QR code

The Basics

Ok, if you want to see how this works, follow these instructions.  Note, you do need a camera enabled phone to do this and have a Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile or AT& T carrier.

From your cell phone (easiest way to do this)
1. On your cell phone go to the mobile site http://www.clic2c.us.mobile
2. The correct software will download to your cell phone.
3. After it is installed (about 60 seconds) open the program and aim the phone’s camera shutter at the QR code.  It will take you to my website.

From the web
1. Go here http://www.clic2c.us/download.aspx
2. Follow directions for getting the correct cellphone application download.
Once the application is downloaded to your PC, send it to your phone using Bluetooth, infrared or USB. Open the program on your cell phone to snap the QR code and see the magic.

Watch for some new and exciting case studies as we start implementing and getting feedback from some new mobile campaigns using QR codes.