September 2008
26 posts
Why I Keep Getting Phone Books
Remember phone books? I do, because I just got another one on my doorstep yesterday morning. Do the phone book companies care that I haven’t used a phone book in at least three years? No, they bring them any way.
The phone book companies don’t care if you use it or not. They sell their ad space by reach, not by eyeballs or times your ad phone number was called (I bet there are...
Point|Counterpoint: Is the Customer Always Right?
Point: Why You Should Care What Customers Say
“The customer is always right.” This phrase is the most popular creed in the history of customer service, but it’s also a hotly debated topic. How much effort should you put into making sure all your customers have a good experience? My answer: as much as it takes.Your business depends on your customers. Without them,...
Netflix Popups are so annoying, but...
For a long time, I have utilized popup blockers on my web browser, but for some reason the Netflix popups sneak through the filter somehow. This doesn’t happen with any other ads. It’s very annoying. I can’t stand it. The popup ads make me want to cancel my Netflix subscription.
But they work.
People see them, click them and then sign up for Netflix accounts. If the company...
What is Marketing?
The nuts a bolts of marketing are many, varied and complex. You probably read more than you need to about testing, sales revenue, customer retention, CPA, ROI, AOV, tracking, measurement and everything else.
But guess what?
Marketing is not about sales revenue
Marketing is not about getting more customers
Marketing is not about your brand
Marketing is not about ROI
Marketing is not about...
Introducing Point|Counterpoint
Being able to understand both sides of a discussion is the key to developing strong, convincing arguments. If you only understand your point of view, you won’t change people’s minds. And that is true in marketing too.
So in that spirit, I’m going to try something new and different and hopefully innovative here on Manizesto. It’s called Point|Counterpoint. The premise is...
The high-pitched lie detector
I’ve noticed when you ask someone a question and the response the person gives back comes in a high-pitched tone, it means the person doesn’t believe what they’re telling you. The higher pitched the response, the more likely it is to not be true and vice versa.
“How was your weekend?”
“It was good.” (This sentence starts in a high pitched tone, then...
You're more crazy than you think
You’ve probably heard this Einstein quote before:
“Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Now apply it to your marketing.
With your financial goals, with your customer acquisition rates, with your efforts to outshine the competition, with your relationships with clients, with your marketing ratios and with your attempts at...
My Grandma, Incentives and Revenge
My dear, feisty Grandmother Margaret knew a thing or two about incentives and revenge. She was an independent woman, living alone for more than a decade in her large tudor-style home in Idaho. The very thought of having to live in an assisted living center was so repugnant to her that she made sure everyone around her knew her wish and secretly planned revenge on anyone that dared defy said wish....
The Spirit of a Good Salesman
I will never forget the knock on our door twenty years ago one Saturday morning. It was a door to door salesman.
“Hello Sir, How are you this fine morning? That’s fine, just fine! I know it’s Saturday and I want to respect your time, but I wonder if I might steal just 3 minutes to show you an amazing home cleaning product that will change your life.”
After a 30 second...
Spy Game in Marketing
I want to obliterate my competition. And to do that, I often compare myself to the competition, analyzing every nuance of their business, finding out what makes them successful and innovative, and how I can replicate that success to their demise. Many companies spend millions and countless man-hours trying to beat the competition at their own game.
Who do you think you’re competition looks...
Inn-0-V-Eight
Having trouble innovating? I am.
It’s draining to come up with ideas to grow your business, especially when tried and true tactics that you’ve tested and proven in the past suddenly don’t work. Has anything we’ve been doing changed? Why are our messages not getting through? Have we become irrelevant overnight? Was there an impact we could not foresee?
When things start...
The Smart/Creepy Balance
There’s a delicate balance between being friendly, competent and timely and just being creepy.
1. We like it when people use our names, but not if we haven’t told them it.
2. We like it when people smile at us, but not if they do it from a park bench 50 meters away and keep doing it as we walk by.
3. We like a nice firm handshake, but not when the person doesn’t know a...
Two natural tendencies, two bad ideas
The first tendency is one I just wrote about: providing too many choices to customers.
On the other extreme are marketers or salespeople that artificially make it seem like your offering is the only choice. Here’s an example.
Some friends of mine recently got a postcard in the mail inviting them to a free dinner. They could invite up to four other couples as well. “Leave your...