Marketing Headhunter

The Spiderman Trojan Horse

Kung fu ...
That was one of my good ones
Well what's a few broken bones
When we all know it's good clean fun?
Skateboards ...
I've almost made them respectable.
You see I can't always get through to you,
So I go for your son.
- Joe Jackson, "I'm the Man"

I have pointed out on these pages that the average US citizen gets hit with more than 5000 commercial messages a day.  Everything from "I'd rather be driving a Titleist" to the logo on your watch.  Your brain is under constant assault.  You know it.  We all know it.  We are marinating in marketing all the time.

And as the guys over at YourMarketingSucks.com know, my wife and I run a pretty tight ship when it comes to what our four kids can watch on TV.  Look, I'm not a bad guy.  I love marketing, but I know how effective it can be.  And what marketers are doing to kids today isn't much different than what the spy-ware companies try to do with your computer.

My kids need things, and I want to buy them things.  The latest things, in fact.  But there's a limit to what's productive for them to want.  My 8 year old girl is chomping at the bit to be the next Hillary Duff.  However, I'm not gonna buy her thigh-high boots no matter who she sees wearing them.  Call me Tipper Gore if you want.

Hollywood sees it differently.

Several weeks ago, the makers of the new blockbuster movie, Spiderman 3, started running trailers on Cartoon Network.  Naturally, the trailers looked really cool to all of my kids, age 11, 8, and 5 (twins).  Normally, Cartoon Network is pretty innocuous.  What's not to like about cartoons, right?

So the trailers run and say "This movie is not yet rated."  And I'm thinking "Right.  It's a $50 million dollar movie coming out in 14 days and they don't know what it's going to be rated?  My eye."  Meanwhile, my kids are getting amped about seeing Spiderman 3, even going so far as to plan out when I'm going to take them.

Finally, this afternoon a Spiderman 3 "sneak-a-peek" airs on Cartoon Network, immediately followed by a showing of Spiderman 1.  My kids have got the popcorn and Sprite all teed up in the rec room, and they're rubbing their little hands, w a i t i n g ... Then the bomb drops when the announcer says

"Spiderman 3 and 1 are rated PG-13."

Now I've got a fight on my hands.  Only Jack, my 11 year old is OK'd to watch PG-13 flicks, and then only selectively.  He's 11.  He doesn't need to watch graphic gun-fights and make-out scenes and the usual PG-13 fare.  Soon, but not now.  And I'll be damned if my 8 year old girl is going to soak in that -- let alone my twins.  But when I broke up the party, you'd have thought I was Osama Bin Laden.  All hell broke loose, and you could hear the uproar a mile away.

As a marketer, I'm impressed with what Hollywood did.  If they had said from the get-go that Spiderman 3 was going to be rated PG-13, then things never would have gotten so far out of hand.  I would have red-lighted Project Spiderman immediately for everyone but Jack.  Hollywood knew that, so they kept a lid on the rating until my all of my kids were literally screaming to see the movie.  Literally.  Screaming.  Now that's marketing.

The New Economics of the Entertainment Business

My kids get me and their grandparents to buy them a lot of entertainment -- and neither me, their grandparents, nor my kids are inclined to download it illegally off of the web.

Which is exactly why young kids are such a hot market for media companies:  They or someone who loves them actually pays for what they consume.  Miracle of miracles!  According to a recent WSJ article, this explains why Hannah Montana is one of Disney's most profitable entertainment franchises.  There's a "near zero" piracy factor among very old and very young people.

So here's what I've learned from this episode ...

Hollywood is like a drug dealer.  They know who watches Cartoon Network.  Little kids who are too young to attend their movie without my accompaniment -- which is tantamount to my endorsement.

Hollywood knows that if they give my kids a free taste of their stuff, my kids will come back for more -- at my expense (which makes it better than the "real" illegal drug business, where the addict pays).  And like a real drug dealer, Hollywood doesn't care how their product effects my kids as long as they make money.

What do YOU think?

Tom Peters: "The Brand is the Talent"

The Rules of Blog Branding

I'm a couple of days behind in my blog reading, and I have reached a conclusion about blog branding:

A great blog brand means that you have right of first refusal on my limited attention and its ever-shortening span.  It means that I have learned from experience that if I have 156 RSS feeds and only time to read 15, I will visit your blog first.  You've earned a top-of-mind position.  I can count on you to entertain and enlighten me.  My attention is yours to lose.

And since your blog content is free, the "economic goodwill" you accrue with me is that I will visit you more often, spend higher-quality attention on your blog (perhaps even commenting), and more readily believe what you have to say.  Plus, I might link to you in my posts, tell my friends about you -- or even blogroll you as a way of credibalizing myself to my own readers.

Now, the key to building a great brand is to be consistently great.  Imagine if everytime you popped open a can of Coke, it was better or worse: Sometimes salty, sometimes sweet, sometimes fizzy, sometimes flat.  A crap shoot.  If anything, Coke's brand would become known for its inconsistency.  Not good.

In the blogoshpere, greatness of content is subjective, defined solely by its relevance to the reader.  I won't get sidetracked about what makes content great.  It's an opinion thing.  But consistency matters to everyone.

But if your content starts to become consistently less relevant to me (or less edgy, because I like punchy, authentic, informed, high-quality content), then you risk my learning to pass you over in favor of other blogs who seem to be consistently "more" of these things.

Sooner than you think, someone takes your place at the top of my mind when a colleague asks me "Who's blogs do YOU read?"  Stick your fist in a bucket of water.  Now take it out.  With few exceptions, such is the impact that most blogs have on the world around them.

Bottom line: You have (+/-) 5 posts before your blog's "brand attention bank account" is overdrawn.  So spend my attention wisely.  You can be replaced in a jiffy.

Marketing Recruiter Milestone

I never thought I'd see the day, but pursuant to yesterday's front page article in the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal (hooray for So Young Park!!), I finally broke ten thousand downloads of my vCard.  If you're keeping score at home, that's 455 downloads per month for the last 22 months.  And counting.

How does your target customer buy?

When I became a recruiter in 2004, I realized pretty quickly that the first place a needy client looks for a marketing headhunter is in their own (or a friend's) Outlook database.  The second place they look is Google.  Pee in the corners of those places and you have a pretty good shot at getting some business when a client's need arises.  When I launched Marketing Headhunter.com in July 2005, it seemed like common sense to enable vCard downloads from my blog.

So what does this mean?

It means that there are 10,018 people whose Outlook databases list me as a "marketing headhunter."  I'm on their short list, and the beauty of it all is that each individual made a personal decision to download my vCard.  I didn't hold a gun to their heads;  It was their idea.  Now, for the rest of my career as a marketing recruiter, if I convert just 2% of those people into paying clients, ... Well, you get the point.

A Target-rich Environment

Another great thing about my industry is that every contact is BOTH a hiring manager and a candidate.  In fact, I have represented many VP-level candidates who lost painfully close executive searches and went on to use me as client-side hiring managers.  In other words, they morphed from candidates into clients.  Talk about no hard feelings!  That's a pretty high complement, in my book.  My thanks to them for their professionalism and continued confidence in me.

Bottom line:  If you have a blog -- and who doesn't? -- you really owe it to yourself to enable your blog readers to download your contact information off your website.  All you have to lose is business.

The New Silent Generation

Random thought:  I'm no demographer, and I don't market stuff to the New Silent Generation.  But I was having a "spirited discussion" tonight with my 8 year old daughter, and this I know:  If 50 is the new 40, and 40 is the new 30, then somehow 8 is the new 12, and 12 is the new 18.  I forget what 18 is.  Maybe it is what it is.

Now more than ever, does it seem to you like marketers are compressing everyone in our society, mentally, into the same 18-34 year old age group?

"Should you get an MBA?"

Here's an actual email exchange between me and a blog reader last week:

QUESTION:  I have two technical undergraduate degrees (Mathematics, Electrical Engineering).  Most of my experience has been in consulting, specifically project management.  I was a partner at my consulting firm, and I am interested in a upper level position in a technical company.  I am considering getting an MBA.

How important is having this degree is regard to placement in upper management?  I'm mainly asking with regard to the placements that you usually handle, though I notice that you have an MBA yourself.  Have you found it to be valuable?  Thanks in advance for your advice.

ANSWER:  Frankly, I love the MBA.  Yes, I have one, and I would have regretted not getting one.  However, I was one of those unusual students who was in business school mainly for the education and for that reason, I have found it to be invaluable.  In fact, although I attended a fine school for my specialty (international business), occasionally I regret not having gone to Harvard.

So get an MBA -- and get one from the best school you can get into.  Smarter folks than me will say I'm wrong.  They'll say that the curricula is irrelevant.  I don't disagree.

But from a career development standpoint, an MBA is like a union card in many industries, and it's an admission ticket to the top.  Having one won't get you to the top -- but not having one might limit you later on.

After all, you are in business to compete and win -- so it pays to learn as much as you can about your field of expertise.  My two cents.

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Stuff a Marketer Can Use

A couple of years ago on VH1's "Behind the Music," Ted Nugent told the story of the time he met guitar legend Jimi Hendrix.

Backstage at a Hendrix concert for which Mr. Nugent's Amboy Dukes were the opening act, the ever-cordial Mr. Hendrix offered Mr. Nugent a hit of dope, which the straight-edged Mr. Nugent politely declined.  Moments later Mr. Hendrix commented on the three items in Mr. Nugent's possession:  A gun, some rope, and a knife -- not exactly tools of the trade of a workaday rock star.

But according to Mr. Nugent, these things were simply "stuff a guy could use."

So Gentle Marketer, with a nod to Mr. Nugent, here's something you can use:  It's is a six-page Word document on radio copywriting that I found today on the internet.  I have no idea who wrote it -- and no idea for whom it is written.  But it's useful indeed -- particularly if you want to know how to design a simple, effective selling appeal or leave a punchier voice mail message.  The checklists at the end of the article are especially handy.

See for yourself.  And pass it around.  There's no reason that anyone who markets anything for a living wouldn't want to have this resource on his hard drive.

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Rick Schwartz Nails It

Oh, happy day:  The king of all domain name speculators, Rick Schwartz has just started a blog.  And if his first post is any indication, we are in for a wild ride.

Dig the following post, scraped from Rick's site in its entirety (the bold text and hyperlinks are mine).  For the record, copying and pasting other people's content is a cheap way to blog, which is why I almost never do it.  However, once in a blue moon a blogger will post something that is such a ray of light that I have no choice but to post the original text -- undiluted -- as a service to my readers.

In my mind, every word of the following post is true.  Not just some of it, or even most of it.  Every last word of it.  If you are not being guided by these principles, then you are either losing out now -- or going to lose out at some point in the future.  Here goes ...

"Let me start with a foundation of things I believe.  These few points are not debatable from where I sit.  So unless you get to this point, you will likely not understand nor accept anything else I have to say.

1. Getting a GREAT domain name is/was a "Unique opportunity in time."


2. No other commodity in the history of mankind has ever gone up in value faster than a GREAT domain name. No stock, no diamond, no gold, no land.


3. Just like land may have "Mineral rights" such as oil, a GREAT domain may also have mineral rights in the form of "Type in Traffic" from folks typing in your domain name directly into the navigation bar. If someone types in CubicZirconia.com and spells it right do you think they are not qualified?  Not targeted?  Is that visitor not valuable?  Maybe even more valuable than most traffic because of the closing ratios they achieve?  I'll talk more about closing ratios in a moment.


4. Fuel runs an automobile, TRAFFIC is what fuels the net.  You can have a million dollar auto but without fuel it won't be going anywhere on it's own power.  Same with a website.  You can spend millions in development but until you add targeted visitors and can CLOSE A SALE you really have nothing. It just sits like the car with no gas.


5. Nothing on this planet happens until a sale is made.  Nobody goes to work, not a truck rolls, not a plane takes off not a factory opens not a thing happens. Nothing happens until a sale is made and then you don't actually EAT until you turn a PROFIT.  So you don't have to be a genius to sell hundred dollar bills for $79.95.


6. If you sell a product or service on the net via your website and your CLOSING RATIO is not your guiding light, not on the tip of your tongue, not on your radar, then you are lost.  It is what I believe to be the single most important piece of data no matter what you are selling and less than 1% of all folks that run a site can answer that question.  They are lost and are like a captain with no map, no compass, no plan.  Your ratio is "How many visitors do you need on your site for you to close ONE sale and then repeating those sales?"  Many sites are incapable of closing any sales.  It may be for many reasons or even a single simple one, like the visitor can't find the checkout button.
   
   If you have 10,000 visitors and you only sold one order I would ask why you did not close TWO out of 10,000 or FOUR or FIFTY?  Or more?  I would ask what you did with those other 9999 customers?  I would ask "Is the traffic no good or is it the website that is no good?"  You MUST isolate and figure out both sides. You absolutely MUST!  But almost nobody does. They are working in the blind and building without a plan.  TEST, TEST, TEST.  Tweak, Tweak, Tweak, experiment, experiment, experiment.  And when the result is worse, go back to what worked better and find out WHY it worked better and build on that.
   
   I can go on all day long talking about # 6.  But that is for another day and you may be asking what the hell does a domain owner know about this?  All I can tell you as I know how to close sales on the net and back in 1996 and 1997 and 1998 I made a name for myself by increasing the bottom line of websites by 15% in just FIVE MINUTES!  There are certain NAVIGATIONAL MISTAKES that almost everyone makes.  Fix those, change the font, change the color, change the location and sales can go up dramatically.


7. All the dead guys that built the corporations so many work for today are rolling in their graves because those in position of power and leadership largely missed the greatest opportunity of their lifetime, their fathers lifetime and their fathers before them!


8. Not all traffic is created equal


9. SHIT traffic and TARGETED traffic likely costs the SAME


10. If you don't know the SOURCE of you're traffic you better find out and re-read # 6 until you are blue in the face.  Imagine what it would do to your business if your site (Your MOUSETRAP) could only close ONE sale in 10,000 visitors while your competitor is closing 50 sales with the same amount of visitors.  He is EATING your lunch and you better start paying attention before you head to Monster.com and look for a new job.

So here we are:  This may sound pretty basic to domain owners and developers, however it is GREEK to those outside the industry. They will doubt these beliefs. What they don't know is we are armed with stats to back up what we say. So my target audience is those outside the industry that still have a misconception of what GREAT domain names represent." [End of post.]

Amen.  Click here to subscribe to Rick's Blog.

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Seth Godin on Recruiting

Seth Godin has a nice post today on the irrelevancy of the MBA.  Whether he meant it or not, Seth's post has a lot to do with executive recruiting.  As evidence, check out the following quote:

Ask people who are thriving in today's economy to name five things that helped them succeed, and they'll probably come up with a list like this one ...

1. Finding, hiring, and managing supergreat people
2. Embracing change and moving quickly
3. Understanding and excelling at business development and at making deals with other companies
4. Prioritizing tasks in a job that changes every day
5. Selling -- to people, to companies, and to markets

There are other skills that might show up on the list -- for example, balancing a life for the long term, working with venture capitalists and other sources of funds, being creative, and understanding the impact of new technologies -- but this is a good starting place.

Note the very first thing on the list.  Now imagine what an advantage it would be to hire supergreat people who can do the other four things.  Even if you are hiring a cost accountant, doesn't it make some sense for that person to know how to embrace change, make good deals, prioritize tasks, and sell their ideas to people, companies, and markets?  I think so.

Question:  To what extent does your company's sourcing and interview process for every function embrace Seth's philosophy?

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Get Organized with JibberJobber

Most people are in job search mode when they are … in a job search.   But what about once you’ve landed that job?   Do you let some of the finer points of career management slide?  I think we all do.  That’s where Jason Alba and JibberJobber come in.

Jason Alba entered the employment and career scene about a year ago after a fruitless job search.  During his search he designed a way for the average professional to implement all of the good advice given by recruiters and career coaches.  This good advice includes things like “keep track of where you apply,” “network your way into a job,” “have resumes customized for each job,” and stuff like that.  Jason explains:

I read a lot of advice and was directed to a lot of books -- but in the end I had nothing to help me organize my job search except my homegrown Excel spreadsheet.

Eventually, Jason designed JibberJobber, a handy website that allows job seekers to organize their job search.  Realizing that the average professional changes jobs nine times during his career, Jason designed JibberJobber as a long-term career management tool.

What’s the difference between career management and job search?  If it’s a job search tool then you throw your tool away once you get your job.  A career management tool is valuable even when you are not looking for a job.

According to Jason, "JibberJobber allows candidates to keep track of all of the information they generate during a job search -- like the companies and jobs for which they apply and the status of each job, such as the date of a first interview and when a thank you letter was sent.  I found that managing a job search was as much a full time job as having a full time job.  And garden-variety contact management systems just weren't up to the task."

So check out JibberJobber and sign up for a free account.  It's one slick career management tool.

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