Rocketseed Blog

What if people told their people that your product sucks?

While the Detroit Big 3 CEO’s are jetting off to Washington DC to kneel at the powers for some bailout money, a shocking realisation awaits them upon their return: The general public, aka their customers, want them to fail.

Back in the days, when Dell computers became the new weapons of mass destruction, going up in flames at the drop of a penny, the response from Dell’s superiors were to act is if nothing happened. When word got out, instead of addressing the issue, they simply attempted to stamp down their authority and request that the bad press be removed at once.

When a stubborn George W. Bush launched his much profound war against terrorism, attempting to marginalize any bearded Muslim with a video camera, refusing to adhere to rationale in any form, shape or size…well, he was just obnoxious and probably not smart enough to realize his mistake. (Bad example, sorry.)

Email: from villian to victor in brand marketing

Making a case for email branding as value adding tool to everyday business communications is not always as simple as explaining the obvious benefits of branding alone. Some decision makers are driven by return on investment figures, where for some others elegant designs are enough to sell a product.

Whichever way we choose to look at branding, it’s undeniably one of the most important components in business practices. However, while many companies consider their branding strategy as top priority, very few focus on their everyday email communications as a way of managing their brand.

Why is that?

Let’s highlight four major contributing factors:

Please don’t visit my website

I can tell you now, all you’re going to find is a list of services that we render to clients, a video explaining what the internet has become and why it’s important to your business and a portfolio of the work we’ve done for various clients.

Unless you’re specifically looking for a company to help you with your (new) website design or an e-mail marketing strategy for your business, there is really not much else my website can offer you.

“Like Las Vegas casinos, websites were previously designed to centralize customers and make it difficult for them to leave.”

Believe it or not, this is true. Let me share a little secret with you.

Lost in Translation: Design vs Marketing

Business owners often question the effect their website has on their business and the little actual return on investment it delivers. Why isn’t their websites working for them and why do (online) marketers harp on about the necessity of an online presence when it doesn’t seem to provide any substantial leads or returns?

I would like to shed some light on this issue and underline some critical misperceptions that are doing the rounds.

Web design agencies aren’t marketers and marketers aren’t web design agencies.

Some of them are and provide the complete package, but it is important to keep in mind that many design agencies and marketing agencies work independently.

Marketers should stop talking, and start educating

Marketers have the tendency to evangelise the new media armory and common internet marketing practices to all and sundry.We step on toes and we blame businesses for not catching a wake up and accustom themselves with New Media.

It is the sort of comfort zone that many of us (as marketers) fall prey to. Speaking to fellow marketers is far easier. They understand the terminology and jargon. They even get the geek jokes.

Marketers tend to speak to fellow marketers, rather than educating businesses. We should be taking their hands and guide them into a world totally unbeknownst to them, familiarize them with new media and commercialize their efforts.

We need to share the pervasive qualities of new media in a language that they can associate with. We need to explain how it adds brand sustenance and how the internet allows it to permeate far beyond their reasonable expectations.

10 Secrets all businesses should know

A common tendency among many businesses is to exclude the most critical party in their communications cycle – their prospects. I would like to share 10 of my secrets that are very well known among the marketing community, but secrets I feel not really understood among businesses themselves.

Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo email accounts?

I recently had an enquiry if Rocketseed can be used to brand an Gmail account (Google’s webmail service).

The short answer is, unfortunately not at this moment.

If you are able to configure the Outgoing SMTP & authentication (username & password) details of your email account on the webmail client, then there is definately light at the end of the tunnel for you.

But my honest opinion is that I don’t think that any of these big renowned webmail clients such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or MSN will allow you to configure these settings.

There are rumours that this can be overcome but it is not official yet. If you are interested to find out more about this then please send me an email and we can discuss it further.

What Drives Modern Buyers, and therefore Marketers

A short while ago Andy Hobsbawn (founder of Agency.com) and I discussed some thoughts on what drives modern buyers. Thought I would share it with you:

1. Self expression - people want to show others what they are about. Look at people who buy cars for image, Apple Mac’s to look cool, etc.
2. Recognition and self worth - people aren’t only after the money! The average person lives better than any of the kings of the past centuries (running hot water, lights, entertainment, you name it, we’ve got it). Look at open source software such as Linux, where people spend huge amounts of time and energy to get their name on the credits list, nothing else comes their way.
3. Crave relationships - people want to engage, be part of communities, get to know others (even if fleetingly). Look at all the high growth businesses on the internet (MySpace, YouTube, Google, Amazon); every one of them has a user generated content and engagement component to the offering.

So, when selling something, think again about what drives the buyer.

Also, if you are looking for an interesting book, check out the The Cluetrain Manifesto. A great read.

Are modern marketers up to the “challenge of channels”?

The challenge I see modern marketers being faced with is that they need to use multiple channels to communicate with to be successful. This I call the “challenge of channels”.

Marketers need to select the appropriate channels to accomplish specific goals. And, with more and more channels becoming available, that means the job of marketing is getting more complex. So, if a marketer is not able to select, manage and align numerous channels at once, then their marketing efforts will be less effective and less cost efficient than they should be.

I suspect some marketers will step up to this challenge, and some won’t. The former will be the high flyers and the latter will be relegated to the position of “marketing administrator” who gets brochures printed.

Ants have microphones!

Today, ANTS HAVE MICROPHONES. Think about the noise small businesses make, and how they can touch people far away from them.

I met Andy Hobsbawn (founder of Agency.com) a while ago. He said “marketers in general don’t want to do mass marketing anymore. They want, and need, to sell to small focused groups. Businesses want to be famous with 15 people, not for 15 seconds.” Great thoughts, and I believe it is the future of communication and marketing. This may be different for large FMCG players, but for most companies it isn’t about blasting your message out, it’s about speaking perfectly with a few, and making the message relevant and timely.

Technology has changed marketing practices forever, and businesses need to point their microphones at the right people.