Matrix Group International

Tag: Marketing

Are You Ready to Ditch Your Paper Subscriptions?

More and more of my clients are making the decision to eliminate their print magazines and newsletters. They’re choosing digital versions of their publications over print to eliminate printing and mailing costs, achieve immediate delivery, and occasionally, create personalized versions based on customer preferences.

All of this makes sense to me. I get most of my information via e-mail these days, and I’m subscribed to dozens of newsletters via e-mail and RSS. And in an effort to minimize the “piles” at home, I have canceled all but a few paper subscriptions.

But I got to thinking: Am I ready to ditch ALL of my paper subscriptions? Am I ready to cancel my print subscriptions to my favorite magazines, namely TIME, Smithsonian and Stanford magazines?

Here’s my concern about all digital publications: it’s easy to ignore an e-mail newsletter as just another e-mail in the hundreds I get every day. Consider this: when my copy of TIME magazine arrives on Saturday, it ends up in my “to read” pile. This pile gets shuffled around from dining room table to coffee table to bedroom side table. Each issue sticks around until I read or skim it, then toss. But here’s what happens with some of my e-mail subscriptions: if I have the time, I read them on the spot. If I don’t have the time, I may leave them in my inbox or move them to a “read” folder for later reading. Trouble is, with the flood of e-mail that I get, I rarely get to my e-mail read pile. And sometimes, in an attempt to gain back control of my inbox, I delete a huge group of e-mail newsletters and start over.

Ugh, so much for the future of publishing. What is the balance that content organizations should try to achieve between print and digital? And if digital is your only future, how do you ensure delivery and readership? I have some thoughts:
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May 27, 2010
Dear Restaurant Owner, Please Ditch the All-Flash Web Site
Why do restaurant owners love Flash so much that their entire Web sites are in Flash? Don’t get me wrong, I love Flash and I make a living selling Flash movies, branding areas, yada, yada. But most Web sites should not be all Flash!

Here’s an example of an all Flash site that is annoying and borderline useless. I was scheduling lunch with a friend, who asked me to recommend a restaurant and send him the physical and Web addresses. No problem, right? Wrong.

Check out the Web site for Kora in Crystal City – http://www.korarestaurant.com/ The Web site is pretty, but if you’re trying to get an address and send it to a friend, it’s not user-friendly at all!
- It took me 5 minutes to find the address. It’s not on the home page, nor under Hours and Directions. It’s under Contact Us and Reservations.
- Because the site is entirely in Flash, I couldn’t copy the address and paste into the e-mail I was sending my friend.
- I also could not copy and paste the address into Google maps so that I could send my friend directions from Reston.
- Forget being able to bookmark specific pages because the URL never changes in the single Flash file for the entire site. So I couldn’t send my friend the URL of a menu page. Aaaargh.
- Oh yeah, you can’t print Flash pages either unless print-friendly pages have been specifically created; most designers don’t bother. So if you want to print Kora’s Hours and Directions page, you’re out of luck.
Since I’m lazy and did not want to re-type the address, I simply went to Google, typed “Kora Arlington, VA” and got a link to a map and directions from Google maps. God bless Google.

I’m sure Kora paid good money for its beautiful, all Flash site, but I bet it’s a pain to update and it’s not very accommodating for visitors who just want to copy and paste an address. Good grief!

How about you? Got your own rants against an all Flash site? Post links and comments!
April 21, 2010
Companies Beware! Unhappy Customers are Turning to Social Media
Last week, I blogged about how a social media site like YouTube represent the future of advertising. But social media can also represent the anti-advertisement: bad reviews from unhappy customers who are eager to spread the word about a company’s failings. Witness the following:
- My friend Tanya runs a blog called NitpickyConsumer.com. Tanya blogs about good and bad customer service, companies that don’t seem to care, companies that just don’t get it.
- This disillusioned Dell customer created a Dear Dell rant on YouTube that has garnered over 32,000 views and nearly 1,600 comments!
- Check this one out. Dave Caroll wrote a song and created a video about United Airlines breaking his guitar. The video has been viewed over 8 million and generated nearly 43,000 ratings (average 5 stars). Ouch.
- And don’t forget the millions of updates that subscribers to various social networks fire off every day about their experiences. Many are about lousy customer service. Do a search on Twitter for “comcast sucks” or “verizon sucks” and you’ll never run out of tweets.
As marketers, we’re always trying to position or brand our companies. But Harvard Business Review says “your brand is no longer your own” because anyone can go online and talk about your company and its offerings. And when our family, friends and colleagues talk, we listen. A recent survey sponsored by Tealeaf.com found that “74% of online adults said negative comments read online have an influence on whether they will do business with a company.” Wow.
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March 5, 2010
The Future of Advertising
It’s got to be tough being in the advertising business these days. DVRs (digital video recorders) are allowing viewers to skip commercials, premium channels offer fewer advertising opportunities, circulation numbers for print publications continue to spiral downwards, and research shows that most users avoid anything that looks like a banner ad on a Web page.

Ugh, so what’s an advertiser to do?

This morning, I had the pleasure of seeing Dave Nelsen, President of Dialog, talk about social media for business. While discussing YouTube, Dave showed us a video that he called “the future of advertising.” The T-Mobile Dance is a 2:41 minute video of commuters at Liverpool Station in England dancing their hearts out. As more and more people join in, onlookers snap photos, take video and share the experience with their friends through their T-Mobile phones, of course.

Dave made the point that this video represents the future of advertising because:
- The company got me to willingly watch a loooong ad. This would never happen on TV!
- Because YouTube allows comments, over 16,000 people have commented on this video, creating incredible buzz and feedback for the company.
- The video was so successful that T-Mobile created a YouTube channel for its “Life’s for Sharing” campaign. Fans can even create their own videos and T-Mobile posts the best of the bunch. There’s a video of a Korean baby singing Hey Jude and a singer jamming from atop a bus. How’s that for a user-generated content strategy?
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February 25, 2010
Is it Easy to Do Business With Your Company?
I was arranging lunch with a vendor and suggested Kora, the hip, new Italian restaurant in Crystal City. I wanted to e-mail my contact Kora’s address, phone number and a link to a Google map. Alas, the entire Kora site is in Flash, which is beautiful, but it’s not very user-friendly. The biggest problem? I can’t copy and paste the contact info to include in an e-mail and paste into Google Maps. I know, I know, it’ s not a big deal to retype the address, but I’m a picky consumer. I want to be able to copy and paste easily. Even better, I’d love a way to share the address page or just click on a map.

This got me to thinking. What are all the ways, big and little, that we make it difficult for our customers and potential customers to do business with us? Consider these examples.
- A few years ago, my husband and I were shopping around for a mortgage. I called three bankers. One was only available between 7am and 3pm. Another sent me 20 pages to fill out about our assets. The third asked me when it would be convenient to call (7pm), asked me to send bank and 401(k) statements so that he could fill out all the paperwork. Guess who got the business? At that point, I knew each banker would give us a competitive rate, but Craig Miller from BF Saul made it easy for us to work with him.
- During the planning for our office move, I called several vendors about office furniture systems. One never called back. One asked me to send her the architect’s drawings and information on what we wanted (I didn’t yet know what we wanted so I didn’t call back.) The third, Michelle Ferrari from Office Images, offered to come by with catalogs, look at the architect’s drawings with me and discuss our needs. There was no contest.
- I called a company to get a reference for someone applying for a job at Matrix Group. It took me 3 tries before I could figure out how to leave a message in the general mailbox. I couldn’t even imagine calling as a prospective customer.
- I’ve had a relationship with Insurance Designers for a very long time. Every time I have a question, I call or e-mail Neal or Wendy Cohen and they get back to me promptly. One time, Matrix Group was applying for some new type of insurance and Neal’s office sent over a very long questionnaire, which I couldnot figure out. I called Neal and he said, “don’t worry about it, let’s fill it out over the phone.” I love the guy.
February 3, 2010
What I Learned About Marketing From The Candy Man
What do you do if you make candy, most of your sales in grocery stores are from the checkout lane, and RFID is poised to eliminate checkout lanes?

I attended the holiday reception of the Grocery Manufacturers Association earlier this week. In addition to mingling with GMA staff and other sister association staff, I got to meet reps from several GMA members, including Tom from The Hershey Company. I told Tom that Matrix Group has got to be the biggest buyer of the dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses (the dark chocolate kisses are wrapped in purple foil). Purple kisses are a staple at nearly every Matrix Group meeting because a) they’re purple and b) meetings always run better when there’s chocolate involved.

Tom reported that Hershey’s chocolate is doing well because even during (or perhaps because of) the recession, chocolate is an indulgence most people can afford. I asked him what’s new in the business of candy/chocolate marketing and he said candy makers are in for a rough ride in the next few years because the grocery store user experience is changing dramatically. Consider this:
- Most candy sales in grocery stores come from the checkout line. Why? Because most people avoid the candy aisle, especially if they’re moms with kids. So the checkout line becomes the most important place to market candy.
- Grocery stores have been experimenting for years with self-checkout. Shoppers Food Warehouse has had self-checkout for years. Tom says we should expect self-check-out to be more common in the future.
- Even with self-checkout, there’s a check-out lane. BUT, RFID promises an end to the checkout lane as we know it. Last year, for example, Microsoft announced a digital grocery cart that lets shoppers access grocery lists created at home, receive targeted coupons, and scan products as they go into the cart. With the digital shopping cart, the checkout lane becomes a payment lane; no more waiting, no more scanning.
Yikes and wow! So if you’re The Hershey Company, Mars or Wrigley, what do you do? What kind of R&D and marketing initiatives do you start developing now — for the day when checkout lanes are gone forever or at least changed dramatically?
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December 11, 2009
Top Tips for Customizing Your Twitter Profile
I’m following over 700 people on Twitter so I’ve looked at a lot of Twitter pages. Yes, I look at pages and tweets closely before making a decision to follow someone. Some profiles are pretty sparse, while others are fairly elaborate. What’s the saying? “You only have a few seconds to make a first impression.” This is especially true on Twitter where people scan your page, then instantly make the decision to follow or not follow.

So how do you customize your Twitter profile page to maximize followers? Here are my top tips:
- Make sure you fill out your name so it’s searchable. This sounds so simple, but consider this: The Humane Society of the United States is @humanesociety, but the profile name is listed as HSUS. If you use the Find People search on Twitter and type Humane Society, the HSUS page does not come up because the Twitter search only searches the Name field, NOT the username. A better name would have been Humane Society of the US.
- Fill out the Bio and Web site fields. This is a perfect opportunity to link your Twitter page to your company Web site or blog AND provide a short elevator speech. The bio and URL add perspective and credibility. You can be formal, you can be clever, or you can be funny in the bio field. Check out other bios for good ideas. I like @pmohara and @neagle. In addition, I hear from many, many people that if someone has not provided a bio or URL, they are much less likely to follow that person. (more…)
December 4, 2009
The Amazon Effect: What Amazon Has Done to the E-Tailing Experience
Like the rest of America, I went shopping on Black Friday. However, I didn’t get up at 3am and I didn’t brave the crowds. I did my shopping online, largely in response to promotional e-mails that I received throughout the day. What struck me was how I compared the shopping and checkout experience on all other sites to Amazon.com. I call it “The Amazon Effect” (I’m sure I’m not the only one to call it that, btw).

I actually hear it all the time from friends, family and clients: why can’t this (insert name of site here) work like Amazon? Okay, forget for a moment that that Amazon has spent tens of millions on their site. Here’s what I’ve come to expect from Amazon and would love it if other e-tailers followed suit.
- Much as I hate to think that my shopping patterns can be predicted by a computer, the personalization on Amazon rocks. Yep, the site pushes all kinds of merchandise on me via e-mail and the Web site, but it’s not crap if I’m even mildly interested. I’ve been introduced to new bands and authors, and I love that the related items often lead me to what I’m really looking for.
- Amazon fulfillment is lightning fast. I placed three orders on Black Friday and they all arrived Monday morning. Meanwhile, another retailer tells me I have to wait 7-10 days for regular shipping. 7-10 days, are you kidding? What are the people in the warehouse doing? (more…)
December 2, 2009
In the Event That Miss Universe is Unable to Serve…

I haven’t watched a Miss Universe pageant in a long time, but a part of the program will stay with me forever: the part where Bob Barker says to the 1st runner up something along the lines of: In the event that Miss Universe is unable to serve, you will take the crown.

What on earth does the Miss Universe pageant have to do with running a business?

Well, it turns out that if you run a business long enough, no matter how successful you, there are times when you don’t take home the prize. I can remember deals where we came soooo close to winning the account, but ultimately, we came in second place, or 1st runner up.

But unlike a Miss Universe pageant, the 1st runner up in business often has a good chance of taking the prize when: the first choice can’t deliver, the client’s needs outpace the capabilities of the selected vendor, or a change in staffing triggers a review of the account and the contracts.

When Matrix Group comes in second, yes, it totally sucks, but here’s what we try and do: (more…)

November 12, 2009
Did You Forget Your Order? — My Favorite Customer Service E-Mails
Last Sunday, I logged onto Snapfish.com and started creating a customized calendar using mostly photos of my son (who else should be featured on my homemade calendar?). I ran out of time before I could finish the order, so I saved it and logged off. Tonight, I got a really cute and friendly e-mail reminder that there’s something in my shopping cart and it’s not too late to complete my order. There was even a direct link to my cart so it was easy for me to check out.

In e-commerce lingo, my Snapfish shopping cart was abandoned because I left the site without completing the order. Some of my clients consider it creepy to let their customers know that they know about the abandoned carts. But here was a non-creepy, really helpful e-mail from Snapfish that prompted me to complete my order! What made the e-mail reminder successful?
- The cute photo of a girl next to the large caption that reads “Did you forget something?” Yes, the girl looks like she just realized that she forgot something and she’s got a hilarious expression on her face.
- The friendly, personalized message.
- The links to complete my order and forgot password. (more…)
October 27, 2009