How to promote your new Web site

Give something away! Something big, something that appeals to your target market. Something that vividly shows prospects (that's what they are, right?) how great your service or products are.

That's the time-honored marketing strategy, and it's exactly what IKEA is doing to promote its new website aimed at small businesses (rather than home furnishings). An online video contest, "Small Business, Big Dreams," will award a design makeover to not one but a group of small businesses from the same neighborhood (a nice touch). To enter, entrepreneurs submit a short video showcasing unique aspects of their business and its role within the community.

Not surprisingly, the Ikea business site also includes a forum to share tips and techniques for creating the ideal business space, including visitor-submitted photos and videos of their workspaces.

The only gripe I have is the use of Flash animation to open every section. Even with my (fairly peppy) broadband connection, I find animations slow-loading and annoying. But hey, maybe that's just me.

Have you ever given away a sample of your work (website design, for example) as a way of attracting a new set of prospects? Thinking about it for the future? Post a comment and let's talk about it.

Dvorak: Google ads an irrelevant "fad"

PC pundit John C. Dvorak thinks Google-style "relevance" ads have failed, and he's sick of them.

"Every move I make on my computer—and, for that matter, every channel I click to on my TV set—is monitored and used as a basis for "context relevance" advertising."

Dvorak is tired of the loss of privacy as Google, Doubleclick and a dozen others plant tracking cookies on his computer (and yours). But his real gripe is that Google's pay-per-click ads often don't work. Sp^mmers are exploiting the system, ruining the results and turning PPC into just another advertising fad.

They're only relevant, he says, when you actually want to buy something.

"Today's advertisers try to trick us into buying when we might not want ... This is acceptable up to a point, (but) we've passed that point. Relevance advertising came about because traditional advertising (failed) to do its job."

Dvorak would prefer what he calls "intelligent" ads -- the kind Madison Avenue doesn't make any more because they don't win Art Director awards.

"Personally, I prefer an advertisement that tells me something new... Intelligent sales pitches do not bother me in that context. But these sorts of ads are now gone as relevance advertising heads to the diving board to do its bellyflop."

What do you think? Is Dvorak all wet? (Sorry, that swimming pool metaphor is stuck in my head.)

What's your experience with AdWords? Is it working for you? Do you plan to do more, less or about the same? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Continental feels the love

For the second year in a row, Continental Airlines has the most satisfied customers among domestic carriers, according to the latest J.D. Power and Associates 2007 North America Airline Satisfaction Study.

It finished 24 points ahead of Delta, its nearest rival, for customer satisfaction among traditional network carriers in North America. It is the second consecutive year that Continental has won the award. link

Among low-cost carriers, JetBlue won top honors, as it did in 2006 and 2005. link

Business and leisure flyers evaluated the airlines in seven areas: Reservations, check-in, boarding/ deplaning/ baggage, aircraft, flight crew, in-flight services, and costs/ fees.

Agree? Disagree? Who is your top choice among domestic airlines? Why?

Outrageous bank fees jump the shark

First, Sun State Credit Union in Gainesville started charging customers two bucks if they had the gall to enter one of their branches more than four times a month. (Heaven forbid you actually encourage customers to come in and give you their money.)

Sun State may also fine you $2 if you don't have your deposit slip ready when you pull up to the drive-through window. "I was outraged," said Gainesville resident Karen Soesbe, who got smacked with the fee. via Consumerist

"It's not a lot of money. I know that. But to be charged $2 just for not having your bank slip at the drive-through teller just seems wrong."

It's fair and perfectly legal, insists Sun State CEO Jim Woodward. Besides, he says, everybody does it. "If you look at our competition, you'd see that the fees we're charging are fair, based on what's going on in the market right now."

In other words, it's OK because everybody's reaming their customers.

Consumer advocate Ed Mierzwinski of the Florida Public Interest Research Group agrees that the fees aren't illegal. Actually, financial institutions use them as a profit center.

"Primarily banks, but also credit unions, have a three-part strategy to increase their fee income. They raise existing fees, make it harder to avoid fees and invent new fees. Pretty soon, the way things are going, people (will be charged) to breathe the air in the bank or credit union."

Banks, credit unions, financial institutions of all kinds give lip service to how much they love their customers, yet they keep slamming us with ridiculous, user-unfriendly fees buried in the fine print of multi-page disclosure agreements.

If I was a member of that credit union, I'd close my account in a flash -- and tell all my friends about the shabby treatment I received. (Actually, I do belong to a credit union because it charges fewer fees, among other reasons. Come to think of it, mine once slapped me with a $35 fee for covering a $2 overdraft. Talk about a profit center!)

If a company treats you badly, vote with your feet, people. Take your dollars somewhere else. Financial services is a highly competitive sector. There are lots of other banks around.

Business owners: Want to attract lots of customers? It ain't rocket science. Respect your customers. Treat them right. Be fair. Good customer service is rare these days. To get ahead, become the exception. The company that customers rave about. Do away with user-unfriendly practices, like predatory bank fees. They may fatten your purse this quarter, but over the long run they tarnish your reputation.

Eventually your company becomes the one that pays the price.

Happy Father's Day

To all the dads out there...

... from all your sons and daughters.

Thanks!

Money for nothing, Web browsers for free

Update to yesterday's post and also an earlier one about Apple's new version of Safari for Windows.

Why would Apple develop a product for Windows? Aren't they arch rivals and bitter enemies? Gossip is flying that Apply did it just for the (gasp!) money. Can it be true? What would the shareholders say? ;-)

Apple isn't talking, but others are. Get the dish here.

From a marketing standpoint, the interesting question is: How can something that's free (Web browsers) make money for the people who created them and give them away?

Answer: When Firefox users use the Google search field in the Firefox toolbar (instead of going to Google's home page), Google shares a piece of the financial action. It's a tiny share (if I know Google) but Mozilla's CEO admits it adds up to "tens of millions of dollars" a year for the open source developers.

Gee, why would Apple wants a piece of that? Only Steve Jobs knows for sure -- but maybe the Fake Steve Jobs will spill the beans.

FWIW, Safari currently has around 5 percent of the browser market share, compared to Internet Explorer's 78 percent and 15 percent for Firefox.

Confirmed: I'm not crazy

Safari for Windows is supposed to be faster than either Microsoft's IE or open-source Firefox. Steve Jobs says it's faster, so it must be true, right?

But that certainly wasn't my experience. I found it much slower to boot and to load pages. (See the original post here.) And now Wired has run some comparative speed tests that confirm Firefox really is faster (although not by much).

Whew. Thought I was losing it.

Imus petition, rally, and a "fake Don Imus blog"

Imus in the Morning used to promote itself as "This ain't your mother's morning show." Actually, it turns out, it is. And your grandmother's too.

The comments I've received suggest that Imus fans are not predominantly male, as one might have expected. There are lots of females, too, as young as college age and extending well into their 80s. A lot more older women than I would have expected.

Other comments reveal:

• They don' t mind being called I-Hos. (Even the guys.) One told me, "Being an I-ho sure beats being a media ho!"
  
• Petitions are now being circulated to pressure MSNBC and CBS to bring him back.
  
• A rally will be held in NYC on June 29, when the petitions will be presented to the three media outlets. Imus supporters are coming from as far away as Washington State -- now that's a dedicated fan!
  
• Somebody has started a "fake" Imus blog. A commenter tipped me off to it, and I must say, it's pretty funny. The guy writes like Imus talks, so if your ears are offended by vulgarity, don't go there.Wait a minute, what am I saying? These are Imus fans! ;-)

With apologies to Steven Stills:

"If you can't watch the Imus you love,
now you can read the Imus you've got."

Imus supporters: young, old, loud, proud

Don Imus and his abrupt (and unfair) ouster from the airwaves continues to stir passionate comments. 100% of the comments I got support the I-Dude, mostly in passionate terms. (Where are the others? The witch hunters and haters? Maybe they're busy hounding other public figures.)

While the sample was tiny -- OK, infinitesimal -- the demographic range of the commenters astounds me. Who knew the I-Man had millions of fans in every age bracket, from a 76 year-old female in NJ (actually, just one of several in their 70s) to today's most recent comment from a 21 year-old college senior named Michelle.

I found Michelle’s comments to be especially eloquent and insightful. They certainly reflect well on her and her so-called “slacker” generation. Take a look:

“Believe it or not, a lot of kids my age enjoyed the I-Man… If you go on Facebook or other social networking sites, you'll see a lot of kids who are in Imus in the Morning fan groups. I fell in love with (the show) because I love politics, news, and comedy. While I enjoy The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I think the Imus show was superior, simply because it had longer interviews, more discussion, and a great deal of humorous conversation."

Like me (and you, no doubt) Michelle loved the variety Imus delivered.

“Sometimes it was a comedy show; sometimes it was news and politics; sometimes it was an activism/progressive show; sometimes it was a music program. It was really a marvelous thing… One thing I also loved… was that it was not a partisan hack program. Most news shows only offer the "left" opinion or the "right" opinion. Even though Imus and his cast mostly leaned Republican, they called BS when they saw it on *any* topic. I really appreciated that.

Watching Imus made her feel like she was pulling a fast one on advertisers while thumbing her nose at popular culture.

"As a young female, advertisers expect me to be obsessed with Gilmore Girls or Laguna Beach or whatever. Yet here I was... tuning into a crazy old man in a cowboy hat… The news reports (gave) the impression that Imus fans were nothing but a bunch of old ignorant racist Klansmen. To paraphrase one of the previous commenters, I am young, female, and educated - and proud to be an I-Ho."

What about you? Are you also proud to be an I-Ho?

BTW, guys -- does that term apply to us, too?

Attract customers first -- then figure out what to sell them

Want a sure-fire strategy for building a successful Web business? Line up customers first, then create a business to serve them.

It's an approach that's working for the UK's David Carter, says Business 2.0. Carter identifies a business niche or a hot growth area like commercial real estate. Then he buys domain names around the topic. He saves money by shunning pricey domains for URLs with hyphens, such as commercial-property.co.uk/.

He builds the sites, adds content, and waits for customers. When inquiries come in, Carter steers them to an acquaintance or a local business he's partnering with. In many cases, Carter simply becomes the middleman, using the Web to attract willing buyers that he hands off to others for a fee.

To satisfy a flood of eager customers, Carter turned his original AsbestosSurveys.com site into an actual business, called AsbestosServices.com. He took a half-week course, got certified, and teamed up with a friend. Today, once or twice a week -- essentially whenever he feels like getting out of the house -- Carter surveys a property, armed with a digital camera and notepad. He claims the effort will net the pair about $350,000 this year.

Not too shabby for a guy who knew absolutely nothing about asbestos when he started.

Carter's way, in brief:

1. Identify an overlooked need for services kicked up by, for instance, relatively obscure regulatory changes.
2. Construct a first-rate website with a generic domain name that will draw in prospective customers.
3. With clients in hand, create the business, providing the service yourself or subcontracting to established players.

Why you SHOULDN'T have a sale this summer

I hate sales and discounts -- at least for professionals and small businesses. When you lower prices, you're basically training customers to wait for a lower price before buying-- a bad habit.

There are many better ways to drum up business, especially during your slow season. Rather than simply offering discounts, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing suggests thinking of some combination of the following offers:

• Exclusive and private members-only discount sale days
• Community-building events that include the entire family
• Early hours just for current customers, where they get first crack at the newest stuff
• Credits and/or discounts for referrals and passing out gift certificates
• Promotion with a non-profit partner that donates a portion of sales during an exclusive event (you can probably find a way to work this into one of the non-profit's events).

This approach is much classier than simply lowering prices. First, as Jantsch points out, it rewards your good clients. Plus it motivates prospects to become clients, because they see they get lots of unique benefits when they do.

By the way, this approach isn't only for retailers. It can work just as well for B2B and even service businesses. So -- what are your plans for a summer promotion?

By the way, if you need some professional help writing the copy... ;-)

Apple's Safari Web browser for Windows: ho hum

Apple has just released a Windows version of their Safari browser. It's supposed to be twice as fast as Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.

Tain't so, based on my (admittedly limited) testing. I downloaded it. Installed it. Launched it. The default Apple home page took almost 20 seconds to load. Yikes!

Yahoo News loaded much more slowly than with FireFox. The New York Times opened a bit faster, but that was included as a default bookmark, so it may have started loading even before my click, like FireFox's pre-fetching capability.

On many pages the type (Verdana) looked muddy and smeared, like I'd forgotten to put on my glasses. But the strangest thing of all? I'd forgotten how crowded, flashy and distracting the Web can be when you don't have AdBlock Plus filtering out the crap. Until Safari has ABP, I'm sticking with the 'Fox. (And probably even then.)

But hey, Apple -- I still love my iPod...

More on Don Imus: Like Tony Soprano, a misunderstood guy.

Lots of reaction to Saturday’s post about Don Imus. It attracted more comments than any other post. Thank you all for participating.

Like all of you who left comments, I am (was?) also a huge Imus fan, and have been for over 20 years. So let me start by pointing out that the quote about Imus going “off the deep end” was said by an Emory University business professor, not me. Unfortunately, I neglected to include the link, so I'll add it here.

I saw the “nappy headed ho” comment live as it happened, and it didn’t even register a blip in my Outrage Meter. It was obviously just an offhand comment, a spontaneous ad lib, not meant maliciously. It was just part of the Imus in the Morning routine. Regular (and even irregular) viewers knew he didn’t mean it.

However, it was probably a mistake to direct a comment like that toward young college athletes like that. So-called "public figures" (like Rev. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Al Roker) are fair game, but not young kids.

Another point: When you look at Imus’s words in print, they look hateful, racist and indefensible. But seen/heard in the context of his show, they were actually pretty tame. But Sharpton, Roker et al pounced on it and made them seem far more hateful and incendiary.

Imus’s ranting -- about autism, Thimerosal, Greening the Cleaning, Auto Body Express, even Whittaker Chambers -- has long been an integral part of his act. But I don’t think it's an “act” at all -- just part of his personality. He routinely rails against the foibles of many ethnic and demographic groups, religions, stereotypes of all sorts.

I certainly do not believe Imus is a racist. If anything, he’s a curmudgeon, a cranky old grouch. I've never met him, but people who know him personally have told me that that’s who he is, that's his authentic self. He isn’t afraid to be unlikable. He's real -- no wonder he was such an effective communicator. Name one other person in the blow-dried media who reveals their authentic self...

Of course, Imus is also a performer who put on a great show. He brought in terrific guests, asked good questions, then actually gave them the time to answer, instead of constantly interrupting and badgering them like most Talking TV Heads. (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Bill O’Reilly.) His in-depth interviews and live musical performances by often-ignored talents were a delight and a rarity in today’s ratings-obsessed media.

He was also rich enough that he didn’t care if anyone listened/watched or not. Imus did what HE wanted to do, and screw anyone who didn’t like it. That authenticity attracted millions of listeners and viewers, which in turn attracted sponsors and big bucks. Both have now left MSNBC and CBS radio once they booted Imus.

With his telethons and other campaigns, he did a lot of good. Like NPR pledge breaks, I personally couldn’t listen to them, but I applaud his efforts to use his fame to do good. I admire him for that.

And like many of you commenters, I haven’t watched MSNBC since. It’s part protest, but mostly because there is virtually nothing worth watching on that channel or any other. I’m on a media fast of sorts. Clears the mind. It's good for you.

BTW, many commenters mentioned they’re boycotting Procter & Gamble. Good for you. Personally, my family hasn't bought their products in years. Not because of Imus, but because they test their products on live animals, often blinding and maiming them in the process. An inexcusable and barbaric practice.

Finally, it’s interesting that all this reaction came just as The Sopranos was ending its long run on HBO. Like Imus, Tony Soprano is one misunderstood guy. Like Imus, the Sopranos is seen as profane, casting negative stereotypes, etc.

Most of all, what Sopranos executive producer Terence Winter said about networks applies equally to Imus:

"They live in fear of offending anybody. If one guy writes in and says, 'I'm never going to buy Ivory soap again because you had a joke in your show about albinos and I'm an albino,' you will get a memo the next day: 'No more albino jokes.' They don't have the courage of their convictions."

And so it goes...

Celebrity endorsements: pros and cons

Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, Paris Hilton, Kirstie Alley. Advertisers have long hitched their brand wagon to celebrities, hoping some of the attention these stars attract will rub off on them. But as the recent Don Imus "nappy-headed hos" affair made clear, there is a definite downside to associating your brand with controversial celebrities like Imus, Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.

“You hope they don’t go off the deep end like Imus, but advertisers want to be associated with something that gets them attention,” explains Reshma Shah, assistant professor of marketing at Emory’s Goizueta Business School.

As Shah correctly points out, Imus's firing wasn’t necessarily a direct result of what he said, but because the advertisers dropped him. “The show’s outlets realized that if they didn’t let him go, they’d have an even bigger financial problem,” she says.

Thinking of hiring a celebrity to represent your brand? Shah offers some advice:

"Think long and hard about finding the right fit,” adds Shah. “They’re communicating your image and your promise. You don’t mess with that.”

UPDATE: In my original post, I forgot to link to the Emory article, so I added it above. Here it is again if you missed it.

What can an unrepentant hippie teach you about business?

Jansport backpacks have been around since 1967 -- the Summer of Love, baby-- when Skip Yowell's cousin had an idea for a better backpack, built around a lightweight, adjustable aluminum frame. Murray formed a company. His girlfriend was a virtuoso on the sewing machine. Murray promised that if she'd marry him, he'd name the company after her. She did, and he did, and JanSport was born.

In 1967, no self-respecting flower child was thinking about business plans. In his book, The Hippie Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder & Other Mountains, Yowell describes the JanSport team as "three hippies...no business plan...even less money...All we had was Murray's innovative design, Jan's skill, my creative instincts and a shared affinity for Dylan music and beer."

One message is clear, says StartUpJournal:

Enthusiasm matters. We never really learn, from reading the book, just how much money Mr. Yowell has made or how big his company is. (Answers: a lot and very.) But we do learn about how he took dealers on climbs of Mount Rainier, joined an Everest expedition and got involved in goofy promotions like the "Bak-A-Yak" fundraiser for a Himalayan excursion.

Sounds like having fun is a solid core business principle -- one that's too often neglected in today's frenzy for power and profits. How about you? Are you having fun yet? If not, maybe you should take a tip from an ex-hippie. Maybe we all should...

Groovy, man!

The $800,000 Olympic logo

What's in a logo? What should a graphical representation of your brand or company really say?

There's a lot of buzz right now because London's Olympic committee spent almost $800,000 (and a year's work) on a controversial new logo for the 2102 Olympic games. And as anyone can tell, it's crappy. Choppy and misshapen, it looks like some pieces of paper cut out and slapped together by a kindergarten kid.

A good logo is an empty vessel, a clean, simple abstract image. It should have no intrinsic meaning until you bring meaning to it. For example, the swoop of the Nike logo meant nothing until the company filled it with meaning by infusing it with their values.

If your company needs a logo, hire a graphic designer to create a simple, abstract image. Add your company name is nice letterforms. Don't worry if it doesn't "say" much, if anything, yet. As Seth observed, later you'll add meaning -- i.e., the values your company represents to your customers.

Do that and you'll save about $798,000 on your logo. And you won't have 50,000 people signing a petition to ditch it.

How do New York City businesses make money?

How do companies make money? How much do (can) they make? Those questions pop up in the minds of anyone who is contemplating starting a business.

New York magazine wondered, too, and sent reporters out to dig up the facts and stats for a variety of NYC-based businesses, from cab driver to drug dealer to private eye, from four-star restaurant to diner to pizza joint, from department store to quick-copy shop to sex-toy shop.

The results are fascinating and revealing -- although keep in mind these are New York City numbers. Your mileage may vary. Remember, too, the figures were provided by the companies themselves. Some may be motivated to fudge the facts a little, either to make themselves look bigger -- or to avoid embarrassing questions from the IRS.

A few fun examples:

• For a private eye, men are the best clients. They're nearly always wrong when they suspect a cheating spouse, but they often won’t believe it and continue the surveillance. Women, on the other hand, are 90% correct when they suspect their husbands of straying.
• Pfizer, the giant drug manufacturer, makes average gross margins of 60% on its products.
• Goldman Sachs' most-glamorous activity is investment banking, but that's its least-profitable activity. Trading and investing are best, with 41.5% profit margins.
  
• Even at $28 per ticket, the MOMA loses money on every admission. Their cost per visitor is more like $56.
  

So -- should you start a business in the one of these fields? If not, what other areas do you see as most promising right now? Why? Let's discuss in the comments.

New York Magazine via 37 Signals

Bob Bly on refunds

No marketer likes giving money back. But a solid, no-questions-asked refund policy is an essential selling tool, especially in our cynical times. It reduces buyer hesitation and increases sales. Master copywriter Bob Bly recently explained four things you should know about refunds.

• A refund request doesn’t mean your product is bad or the customer doesn’t like it. It's more likely they just can't use it. It's not for them.
• Offering a refund doesn’t cost you money. It makes you money. The increased revenues and profits from a guarantee are much greater than any loss you suffer by issuing refunds.
• Longer guarantees are better than shorter guarantees. If you currently offer a 30-day guarantee, try a 60- or 90-day. The longer guarantee term invariably increases response rates and sales, Bly says, because it eliminates the concern many buyers have with a short guarantee.
• Generous guarantees sell better than miserly guarantees. The more unconditional the guarantee, the higher your response rates will be. Conditional guarantees (e.g., only if the product is returned "in saleable condition") actually reduce orders.

Sure, a few unscrupulous people might take advantage of your refund policy. But it's a mistake to assume that most of your customers are like that. I've found that people have a way of living up (or down) to your expectations of them. If you expect them to be crooked, they will. And vice versa.