Archive for October, 2009
As an early adopter (November 2007) of the Kindle I have been a rather ardent fan of what could now be considered the forerunner of e-readers. I recently downloaded several titles that I wanted to read. I opened my Kindle the other night to see some odd horizontal lines across the entire screen yet the device was in the off position. After charging and recharging with no change in the display it was obvious that the flame had gone out on my Kindle.
Out of warranty (this one was more than a year old) apparently I am out of luck. So now I have several titles in my account that I cannot view unless I purchase a new Kindle or I guess return my Kindle to Amazon (at my cost) and hope that they can somehow repair it for less than the cost of the now reduced price of $ 259. I paid $ 399 for mine and it does thrill me that not once did Amazon offer me some sort of discount on purchasing the latest version which apparently is superior to the one that I have. Of course mine now does not work at all so a book with no printing is on a par.
A little history – the first one I received did not work and I had to send it back. Amazon had me check a bunch of things prior to agreeing to replace it which they did with no questions asked. Then I had another one which after several months also went dead. Again through the checklist that Amazon has you do on the phone (a half hour or so) with their tech person before they assented to my sending it back for yet a third which I received and has been working fine for more than a year.
I have been (and remain) a fan of Amazon in general. Jeff Bezos is a smart guy and has defied his critics in managing a company that has a stellar reputation for customer service and intuitive product offerings. But I really don’t understand the idea of not offering a replacement for a broken Kindle ANY TIME a customer asks. After all aren’t I going to use that platform to purchase e-books for the foreseeable future? And I buy a fair amount of books. I can ‘return’ those titles that I downloaded but have not read for some sort of rebate but that really does not solve my problem. I love e-readers (as well as traditional books) and think they will only get better (how about color folks and a back-lighted screen option?).
So now I have to reconsider my entire relationship with Amazon’s Kindle. Maybe the Sony Reader, or the new device from Plastic Logic, or maybe even the new Barnes & Noble device. What a shame, the Kindle had me at hello.
Yell loud enough and people will hear you. That premise has enveloped television direct response ads for many years. Billy Mays was a prime example of an affable yeller. At the recent Direct Marketing Association conference I came away with a sense that maybe, just maybe the days of shouting out a promotional message are coming to an end. I hope that is the case.
Today’s consumer has many ‘channel choices’ when it comes to information. While there remain a substantial number of people that actually watch infomercials, (c’mon you know who you are) Gen Y’ers and Millennials look at infomercials with bemusement and at times with condescension. Those groups are the future of commerce. The real question is will people still respond to being shouted at?
Audience relevancy, offer, and interesting creative continue to rule the day when it comes to direct marketing and as far as I am concerned MARKETING in general. I can safely opine that this will not change. But in a world where the laws of attraction have taken hold in the advertising world is there still room for shouting out the message in order to be heard?
Today more than ever consumers need to be drawn to a brand and its message. We all talk about higher levels customer engagement, about creating a better and more enjoyable (even fun) customer experience. Personally when I am shouted at I shut down and really don’t hear the message.
Billy Mays was phenomenally successful and a true marketing legend. Here’s hoping that with his passing we see the beginning of the end of the shouting of advertising messages. We all deserve much better. Don’t you think so?
In a report, titled “Mobile Devices Market Sizing and Share,” market research firm ABI says that more than 171 million smart phones were shipped in 2008 compared to 116 million shipped in 2007. The report says that smart phones accounted for 14 percent of all cell phones shipped in 2008. ABI noted that the sales are expected to grow 18% to 203 million 2009 as operators seek to sell lure users with aggressive strategies. Strategy Analytics estimates that smart phone shipments will total 177.2 million in 2009. Juniper Research forecasts that annual sales of smart phones will rise by some 95 percent to more than 300 million between now and 2013. The report says that by 2013 at least 23 percent of all new mobile phones will actually be smart phones.
OK so we all get it – smart phones are the future – and actually the present. But how many times have you tried to access a site on your smart phone and waited, and waited and waited for the pages to load? This is because the site you are accessing is not optimized for viewing on a mobile device.
100% of .mobi sites must be optimized for viewing on a mobile phone, the main advantage of .mobi, from the users’ perspective, is that they are theoretically guaranteed a site optimized for usage on the go. This means the website can be optimized for hard factors such as smaller screens, device form/size, device input/output options, existence of embedded sensors (acceleration, location, touch, etc.), as well as soft factors such as expectations of immediacy of results, context awareness under a shortened attention span (compared to home use of the Internet). Although a .com or any other extension can technically employ the same optimizations for mobile phones as .mobi sites, in practice, only a fraction of them are, thus necessitating content adaptation solutions.
3G transmission speeds are pretty fast, but nowhere near what people have become accustomed to when we use super fast 100MPS+ connections via cable or fiber optic networks. Personally when I have to wait more than, oh let’s say 2 seconds for a page to load I begin to get impatient and even a bit annoyed. (I bet I am far from alone here). .Mobi sites address this far better than any increase in transmission speed can – at this point. It won’t be long before smart phone transmission speed rivals that of cable and fiber optic wired connections –of course for me that day cannot come soon enough.
People will have to become more familiar with going to the .mobi sites but many sites when accessed on a smart phone give the option to go to a mobile version that is optimized. The experience and interfaces are so much better – check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.
As I sit in the San Diego Airport waiting to go home I have just spent three nice days in one of America’s nicest cities. I have attended my 22nd DMA conference. This membership organization that began as the Direct Mail Association became the Direct Mail Marketing Association (DMMA) then and now the DMA.
Like many associations the industry conferences is the primary revenue source. After years of growth in attendance, vendor participation and offerings, the 2008 DMA saw a significant drop in all three areas. It took place in Las Vegas 2 months after the financial crisis ensued. In additional the DMA reduced its staff substantially and I still feel bad for former DMA employees I know for a long time who’ve yet to find new jobs.
My thoughts as I headed out to San Diego centered a testy proxy fight between a DMA board members and the DMA board itself. Many of our clients and my colleagues decided not to attend this year for various reasons, expense being the primary reason given. I think that those folks should regret their decision not to attend.
The DMA still has its feet firmly implanted in direct mail and old habits die hard. But the leadership of the DMA has recognized the move to new marketing channels and has made strides in making information and learning on new marketing channel a focus. The proxy fight was settled and I for one was happy with the points brought up and the resolution. The DMA is an organization that can well use some pot stirring. And the exhibit hall while a nice place to see old friends and associates but walking around the floor makes me feel like I am caught in my own ground-hog day moment. It’s not working and feels outdated.
We direct marketing folks like to cite the measurability of the direct marketing process. We are even a bit smug about it. For what reason I do not know as the rest of the advertising world has always considered direct marketers red-headed stepchildren as long as I have been involved. But I did hear a lot of honest talk (particularly at the DMA Global Leaders Forum held on Monday) questioning if direct marketers are measuring the right things when it comes to web analytics and e-commerce in general.
It’s fine to have all these cool tools but if the wrong things are being measured or the measurements are not indicative of what is really happening we are drinking our own Kool-Aid. I think it is great that these kinds of questions are asked and answered – or at least they are trying to be answered.
I read Ad Age, Adweek, DM News, and occasionally Brandweek, and more and more the stories are similar. All marketers and marketing agencies direct and otherwise are trying to do the same things for their clients –help acquire and retain more customers. The marketing world has been turned on its head in the past nearly two years. Lower marketing budgets, higher accountability and demand for better ROI have changed the landscape for ever more. I am more optimistic that the DMA is heading on the right path and can and will remain a relevant organization.
We had an employee recently depart our company and agreed to forward emails to the employee’s personal email for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks the emails were then redirected to an address back at our company. I was assured by the former employee that the individual had opted out of newsletters and sea of emails they received on a daily basis (many, many emails), yet the deluge continued.
So I opted out on the employee’s behalf. That stemmed some of the tide but far from all of it. What began as a desire to simply stop the madness ended being a study in deception. I have come to realize that despite best practices being an easy email opt-out (most of the companies did have this procedure) there were a good number of companies that did not have an easy opt-out, and even more that ignored the opt-out request by continuing to send daily emails even after an acknowledgment was sent saying ‘sorry to see you go’. Those companies are not only breaking the law, they are taking down the medium day by day.
Our company supports email marketing to current customers as well as those would-be customers that have opted in to receive more information. We rarely use email as a customer acquisition tool. And for the Generation Y folks and Millennials email is a passé form of communication. It is seen as an irrelevant communication tool and my recent experience only goes to support that notion. And ask for an email address from someone and you are 6 times more likely to get it than to get access to their Facebook account. Pretty easy to see which is the more relevant communication.
What possible benefit could a charity, marketer, or anyone for that matter gain from continuing to send out emails to those that do not wish to receive them? Aggravating them? An unusual marketing tactic to be sure but I am hard pressed to think of any other reasons other than dishonesty, laziness or plain stupidity.
Email opt out should be obvious, easy and immediate. Those that are not doing so are just killing it for the rest of us.