ATLANTA, GA - Surely by now you have heard this advice:Buy YOURNAME.COM. But do you own YOURJOB.COM? You should! Increasingly, recruiting researchers and HR managers are using Google as a source of high-quality passive candidates.
Moral of the story: Job One in your job search should be increasing your visibility in search engines, because success today has less to do with you finding the right job than the right job finding you.
Hey! I finally discovered the mobile blogging function on Typepad. I am sending this post to myself in an email, and then Typepad is supposed to post it to my blog. Let's see what happens ...
Rock on! Harry
ATLANTA, GA - My brother Eric's weblog, Freightdawg, is one of the best known logistics blogs in America. This week, Eric wrote a great post called "Retail Economy: It's War Out There!" which claimed that ...
Retail sales for the 2007 Holiday season were the lowest in 5 years according to TNS Retail Forward, with fourth quarter growth year over year only 3.4%. Unfortunately, the parcel carriers are feeling the pinch too. When retail suffers, parcel suffers. That makes for a major dogfight between FedEx, DHL and UPS for domestic business ...
Eric's piece continued:
My brother (Harry) runs a successful executive search firm that specializes in finding and hiring e-commerce gurus for the online retail market. I'll have to ask him whether he asks any supply chain related questions of his candidates. In today's economy, knowing how the goods get to the consumer is critical to online marketing strategy. It's not all about drop shipping any more.
He's right about that. So, do I ask logistics questions? Sometimes.
At the risk of oversimplifying, online marketing is broken down into three areas:
Prospect attraction
Prospect conversion, and
Customer retention
If the client needs someone to attract or convert prospects (though SEO, PPC, email, affiliate marketing, online merchandising, web design, usability, etc) -- then NO, I don't ask logistics questions. But with respect to customer retention, fulfillment makes an enormous difference in how customers perceive a brand. Nothing will make a customer tell ten friends you suck more than breaking your promises to that customer.
So for retention-based interviews, I will always ask a candidate this two part question ...
What three words best describe your company's brand?
How would you improve your company's supply chain to better deliver these three attributes? Be specific.
OK readers, what are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from Sam Decker and Kevin Hillstrom on this. I know my question is broad -- but at least it lets me know that a candidate can think holistically about a company's operating model before I move on to other interview topics. __________________________________________ Get my latest searches. (Opt out anytime.)
Snap Names has listed the domain SearchEngineAdvisors.com for sale for $65,315. And that's just for starters. The domain could fetch more than that once the bidding starts tomorrow. Stay tuned.
ATLANTA, GA - As most everyone knows, I do much of my business in the online retailing and direct-to-consumer ecommerce arena (with subscription-based content publishers, etc). Here is a five minute tell-all podcast which features the BEST advice I could give to any job candidate who wants to advance their career in DTC ecommerce. I hope you enjoy it. Here is the link to the HP 17BII. Please suggest your improvements to my approach in the comments field below.
__________________________________________ Get my latest searches. (Opt out anytime.)
PHOENIX, AZ - Online marketers: On your resume, never refer to your email marketing experience as "coordinated email blasts." A blast implies no targeting whatsoever. A blast sounds ineffective and expensive -- and in all likelihood it pisses off your recipients and violates CAN-SPAM regs. When I think blast, I think collateral damage. In most cases, blasts of any kind are designed to destroy value -- and that's the exact opposite of what marketing is all about.
If you have been handling your firm's email marketing programs, then learn some customer friendly lingo by subscribing to a few good email marketing blogs. Here are the email marketing blogs I read on a regular basis:
NEW YORK, NY - Along with the blog comments, I got a bunch of email from yesterday's "Death to Catalog Marketing!!!" post. Guess I touched a nerve. Just to clarify, I'm not anti-catalog -- nor am I pro-catalog. I am staunchly channel agnostic.
Obviously, whether or not a catalog is "good" boils down to relevance.
Take the newspaper: Every day I get the WSJ, and every day I read it cover to cover. And I pay for it, too. On the other hand, every week my community paper throws their free rag into my bushes, and every week it goes straight to the trash with extreme prejudice. On top of that, I'm pissed that they spammed me -- even though they view this as a "service."
The difference? Relevance. And that's what CatalogChoice.org is about: Consumers choosing what's relevant to them. Naturally, making sure that I keep all catalogers dialed into my preferences is an idea that could save catalogers real dollars over time. Multiplied by millions of homes, we're talking serious money. A win/win for the environment and for catalogers. But mostly for catalogers.
Imagine that you're in a bar and you keep sending drinks to a pretty lady who keeps throwing them in the trash. Clearly she has no interest in you -- yet you keep sending her drinks hoping vainly that eventually she'll change her mind. After all, she fits your profile.
This is what catalogers would call "prospecting." This is what most people would call "nuts." Now, thanks to CatalogChoice.org, there's someone who knows the lady and can tell you to stop wasting your money.
Note to DMA members: The newspaper example says a lot about how catalogs might want to view their publications in the future. Their publications will need an editorial platform as much as anyone else -- if not more.
SEATTLE, WA -- Kevin Hillstrom's Mine That Data weblog has some excellent posts on the catalog cancellation craze. Well, maybe it's not a craze just yet. But it's gonna be. Look at this video from Kevin's post ...
About the kids: Gimme a break. This is some adult's agenda, and they are using kids to promote their cause. Seriously. Non-profits are businesses, too.
When a little girl tells a cameraman that "You can save two trees and some 92 pounds of carbon dioxide being released in the air ..." I want to laugh. Not because she's wrong or because her cause isn't noble (it is) -- but because to quote Warren Buffett: "You can teach a duck that its mother is a battleship if you get to it early enough." I have five kids and you can trust me on this one: Little kids only know what they are told. We just had a visit from Santa, so let's not get carried away.
About catalogs: We all get too many catalogs, and my first take on Kevin's posts is that if my kids came home from school and willy-nilly unsubscribed me from all of my catalogs -- I'd be pissed. Not because I need 56 catalogs coming to me. But because I probably want five or six of the ones they canceled.
And maybe that's the point of Catalog Choice. The consumer chooses what they want and don't want. I understand the mathematics of catalog marketing. I know all about prospecting. But perhaps this flap/ trend/ shake-out/ whatever is a blessing in disguise.
All marketers need to take a page from Seth Godin and communicate with their customers in a way that's CRAP: Consistent, Relevant, Anticipated, and Personal. And when catalogers prospect, they should do it in a way that saves pages. It is possible -- but catalogers don't do it, I presume, because of the way their organizations are structured and incentivized. Bummer, because you can't talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.
But hey. I'm just a marketing recruiter. Yet even I know about better targeting and niche marketing -- which means that far brighter minds than mine can avail themselves to the problem. The catalog industry has many great consultants. But sadly, just because catalogers know what to do in the face of this growing crisis doesn't mean that they'll do it.
Several years ago I bought ~$1000 worth of used Dan Kennedy, Joe Cossman, Gary Halbert, Melvin Powers and Jay Abraham tapes off of eBay. Roughly 150 in all. Best marketing education I ever got. Halbert, called the Prince of Print by his adoring fans, repeatedly said that if you have 3000 SKUs and you want to prospect -- narrow it down to one irresistibly offered item mailed with sniper-like precision to exactly the right prospect. Gerardo Joffe said the same thing.
Trouble is, catalogers mail an entire book to prospects. Statistically speaking, this is an inefficient approach -- for them and the prospect. And now it's a politically incorrect approach as well.
So now we have an election year witch hunt, where a "green cataloger" is an oxymoron -- like a jumbo shrimp. Too bad. Direct mail is a very effective marketing channel, when properly used.
LONDON - Boy, I'm really impressed with Radiohead. What they have done to market their new CD, In Rainbows, is spectacular. This viral widget (complete with header navigation!) is a great example.
Check out the song Weird Fishes. Beautiful tune. The whole album rocks -- and as the WSJ said recently, it's a shame that the band's groundbreaking marketing is overshadowing its music. Both are praiseworthy.
What can "mainstream" online marketers learn from Radiohead? It remains to be seen. And enjoyed.
BOSTON, MA - Wanna drive someone crazy? Leave them a wandering, pointless 150 second voice mail -- and then machine gun through your phone number at the tail end of the message. >click!<
SILICON VALLEY -- I swear I'm not sucking up with this post: In the wake of the latest Scoble + Facebook thing, I discovered the blog of Lisa Amorao -- a recruiting blogger from Silicon Valley. Lisa is bigtime smart, and her blog rocks. If only we'd known about her, perhaps she'd have been a contender for the coveted RecruitingBlogs.com Best Blog Award. Oh well. Wait 'til next year.
PALO ALTO - I just caught this story in my RSS reader. Not gloating, but you gotta admit this sure is funny. I bet FB customer service will resolve this in a jiffy. More here.
HOUSTON, TX - This holiday season, I thought I'd give my readers a gift: Marketing guru David Frey has graciously agreed to let me publish his fantastic primer on the most important marketing concept ever: The Unique Selling Proposition. All marketers should understand this concept. No exceptions! This is the final installment, and I encourage you to visit David's website, MarketingBestPractices.com
PART III: Your USP Doesn't Have to be Unique
Although a USP is a statement of your uniqueness it doesn't always have to be something that is only unique to you ... if you proclaim it first!
For instance, if you were a furniture retailer and you proclaimed your USP to be 'Buy today, we'll deliver it tonight.' Most other competitors can do that too, but because you were the first to proclaim it, it is yours exclusively. This is sometimes called 'preemptive marketing.' You can preempt your competitors if you take a strong benefit, whether or not it's unique, and put your stamp on it first. All others who come after you will just be strengthening an advantage that you have already placed in the minds of your prospects.
Live Up To Your USP
Be bold when developing your USP but be careful to ensure that you can live up to your USP. Your USP should have promises, guarantees, policies and procedures, employee evaluations and other reinforcing processes to make each USP come alive. Having a strong USP can make your business super successful, on the other hand, having a USP that you can't live up to is suicide.
I'm sure that Domino's had to eat the cost of a lot of pizzas when they didn't arrive within 30 minutes, but they developed a system that allowed them to deliver on their promise consistently.
Integrate Your USP into Everything You Do
Once you have put some careful thought to your USP and have developed it, you need to integrate it into everything you do.
Your USP should be found somewhere in your headlines, body copy of ads, direct-mail, and yellow pages.
You should repeat clearly and consistently in every one of your radio and television commercials.
You should include it in your sales presentation, on the walls of your business and even on your business card.
You can't over do or wear out your USP
... especially if it's powerful. The nation's most successful furniture dealer is based in Houston, Texas. You can't turn on a radio or television without hearing the furniture store's USP, 'Saves You Money!' across the airwaves. It's everywhere.
If you stopped someone on the street in Houston and said two words, 'Gallery Furniture' and asked them to finish the sentence, nine out of ten people would say, 'Saves You Money!' That's why it's the most successful furniture store in the United States. __________________________________________ Get my latest searches. (Opt out anytime.)
ATLANTA, GA - Well, here we are: January first. Again. Have you made your resolutions yet?
If you're like most people, you probably want to lose a few pounds. As I worked out tonight on my elliptical trainer, it occurred to me how blessed I am to own my own machine. No, I'm not rich. It was an investment.
It wasn't cheap, but I really like the freedom it affords me to workout when I want. And because of that freedom, I work out 4-5 times per week. So, even though this machine cost me $3000, it's probably cheaper per-minute than any of the alternatives. Plus, I feel better -- which means I earn more money than I would otherwise.
