Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

This morning I got an email from HighBeam Research letting me know my year-long subscription was almost up. In the note, it politely let me know exactly what would happen if I took no action:

I had found it to be a good research tool especially for clients in the health or biotech space, as it had catalogued many esoteric medical journals, etc. But not for $299.95. I decided to cancel my subscription. The friendly email reminder told me exactly how to do so, by clicking the customer service link in my account.

Imagine my surprise when I was made a special offer for those about to cancel:

I wasn’t surprised to see the special offer, that made sense. But see that last sentence there?

“…your annual membership will automatically return to the regular rate of $199.95 a year after one year.”

Having just been told my credit card would be automatically charged $299.95 for my next year, you can bet my next action was to say, “No thanks. Cancel my membership.”

Have I mentioned that nowhere on the Customer Service page was there an option to either speak with or chat with a representative?  (I could submit a form that would be answered within one business day. Never mind.)

I was a little nervous that canceling my membership early would shut down my account today (rather than waiting until Jan. 3) but was so irritated by their marketing and pricing inconsistencies that I took the chance. It would have been nice for them to spell that out on the cancellation page.

I was happy to find that I still had use of my subscription and a link on the cancellation confirmation page to a “billing questions” email form. So I sent them just a little feedback there… And Twittered about it, and am now blogging about it. I wonder which of my rants (if any) will get a response?

To try to milk people with accounts set up to auto-renew is appalling. I know many companies bank on auto-renew as their main source of recurring revenue… (how many of us ignore these messages/forget to call to cancel, etc.)

But to have your marketing be so out of touch with your billing policies (perhaps they submit forms to each other as feedback) in this day and age, is simply absurd.

I hear Google Book Search is now indexing magazine content. Undoubtedly, even the esoteric medical journals.

I think I’ll be just fine or now without HighBeam Research.

I’m working with a company in Redwood City, CA, called Smub. Think what you want about the name (I’ve been told ‘I love it,’ ‘I hate it,’ ‘it’s like a porn name…’), what it does is pretty cool.

With Smub, I can shrink and personalize any URL into a memorable link that I can easily share - and it also saves my links in a personal bookmark area in case I forget my “memorable” links. (Which happens.)

I wrote about how easy it is to share Smubs, even at 50MPH here earlier. (And over on the Smub blog I’ve been writing about how to set Smub up, how to use the Smub toolbar, and how Smub’s bookmarks work.) BTW, Smub is free, you just have to register for it.

I’ve honestly had many of my search, saving and storing habits transformed in a few short weeks using Smub. Here’s how:

My Smub Experience

To make a Smub, I just type in smub.it/ to the left of the http:// in the address bar of the page I want to personalize, save or share:

A window pops up and I’ve got the ability to name my Smub - I generally try to be contextual (vs. clever) in my naming scheme (clever usually trips me up later).

For example: this Smub (http://smub.it/jlj/90.9.1) is from the Forrester blog, and describes the 90:9:1 principle, whereby 90% of people read blogs, 9% will comment on them, and only 1% write them in comparison to their social technographics study, just released. (One thing that bugs me right now about Smub is that it’ll automatically change any character - like a colon - into a period. We’ll see if that can’t be changed as part of Beta.)

What’s cool is that anyone can access a Smub, whether they’re registered or not.

From here, I can give my friend Jacob up at Sur la Table a little more background on the concept, which we discussed last night over manhattans and martinis. (I’m certain my explanation at the time was enthusiastic, but a bit muddled…).

If I see him today, I can tell him the Smub, or I can email it to him, Tweet it, post it to my Facebook profile, or my MySpace page.

I usually tag my Smubs for recollection later in my personal bookmarks and can designate a Smub as “shareable” or “personal.” I have created personal Smubs for my bank login page, two clients’ Basecamp accounts, and for the three different email accounts I keep for clients.

The freedom and simplicity of a personal bookmark page is very cool, as I can access my Smubs from any computer (or my iPhone) connected to the web. I no longer have to clutter my browser or my iPhone with bookmarks, or be tied to my own system to be productive.

Sharing Searches, Sharing Sites

But the sharing capabilities go way beyond email, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace…

Now, I can set up a search in Craigslist for my friend Britt, looking for a marketing job in a non-profit organization in the Portland area. She doesn’t use Craigslist, so I can easily do the work for her, and she can check her Smub anytime to see the most recent listings for jobs in the PDX area - you can, too, by heading over to http://smub.it/jlj/marketingnonprofit.

It’s a handy way to share what you can do with those who might not be familiar with the sites you are.

I was on a web conference the other day where one of the invitees didn’t have the email with her access URL handy. Had the organizer Smubbed the page, she could have simply logged on by typing http://smub.it/_____/______. So easily readable, and quick to communicate over the phone.

But what I’m really excited about is the ability to share my Smubs with those who have the Smub toolbar installed. As I mentioned on the Smub blog, it’s a great way to shortcut shortcuts. Anyone who’s downloaded the Smub toolbar can flip among Smubs incredibly easily:

All I’d have to do is tell you the account (jlj) and the “Smubcut” 90.9.1 and you’re there. To see a video of Smub, you can switch to the “janet” account and type in “video.”

Or to see Thierry’s friend Mike’s bio, which he Smubbed for me, anyone with Smub can simply choose “thierry” and “mike.”

Imagine how easily you’d be able to share information with your work team. Two words is all you’d have to share. Go to ________, the Smub user name, and ________, the page.

Personal, memorable, easily shareable.

Smub.

It’s my new favorite tool. And I’m lucky to have ‘em as a client, too.

Andrew Graham of Bear Sterns posed a fascinating observation last week in his Friday “Morning Note” (emailed only, such a shame) when he said:

“The bottom line is it appears that we need to hit Control-Alt-Delete on the economy, and before investors “buy” into the new paradigm, they need to know what the new operating system will be:  The New Deal 2.0, Capitalism 3.1 or the Overlapitalism beta v1.  At least its on sale for the holidays.” 

That got me thinking about marketing in a down economy, and made me ask the question:

Is it Finally Time for Marketers to Hit Control-Alt-Delete on Traditional Marketing?

Unfortunately, marketers control (and live by) the largest discretionary budget in any organization. Programs and people are getting cut or will be victims of “planned obsolescence” as 2009 budgets are being drawn and redrawn.

The harsh reality of the day is that Darwinism has come to every part of every business: adapt, change or die.

At the same time, there are some truisms that still exist:

• Those who continue to market through economic downturns are far more likely to benefit than those who cut their marketing budgets too much during troubled times.

Think about it - the best time to gain visibility with your prospects is when your competition is cutting back. And because so many are cutting back, your messages have more opportunities to get through.

• Those who adapt to the demands of today’s marketplace - I see trends in authenticity, transparency, connectedness and simplicity being demanded all around - will be much more effective in their efforts.

Gone is the ‘coolness’ of excess - look at the automakers reception on Capital Hill as they flew in and out in their corporate jets - even the assumption of a sense of humor (hello, Motrin?). Our bullshit detectors are on high alert as we watch and listen to those who’ve driven our economies and futures to the brink, and even well-researched campaigns aren’t guaranteed to hit the mark.

Everyone suffers when people are inauthentic in their approach to marketing. (Check out Koifish Communications’ excellent post, “The Ethics of Advocacy” for even more fuel for that fire.)

As a result, we are increasingly shutting out “marketing” and “news sources” and turning to our friends and families - our smaller, more intimate and immediate circles of influence - and appreciating them more, sharing information with them, and (likely as a result) bullshitting less.

So are there any bright spots in the marketer’s toolkit?

I’m happy to see more and more explore the notion of marketing through social means. Let’s face it. People trust people they know. And (aside from searching for products and services online) most people ask around of family, friends and (now) their followers for advice when researching and buying pretty much anything… from food to fuel to Facebook.

We’re leaning on each other like never before in my lifetime.

Marketers, listen up. We’re about more than spray and pray messaging… we’re about more than behavioral targeting… it’s time to ask ourselves:

• How are you entering in ongoing conversations about your company, your products, your services?
• Is your entire company (from customer service to product management to sales) listening for mentions of your brand?
• If they hear something, do they know what to say or do?

Whether they occur online or in your local restaurants, malls, offices, hospitals or schools, it’s time to join the ongoing conversations. As marketers, it’s time to:

• Listen more than we speak
• Offer expert service more than braggadocio
• Engage rather than cajole
• And show rather than tell…

Are you ready to rethink everything? I believe it’s finally time to take advantage of a reset.

There’s an entertaining article today over on the ClickZ network called “Participating in the Visible Backchannel” by Dave Evans. That fabulous phrase, “visible backchannel,” was coined by Ymena Magnum, product line manager of Cloud Computing at Sun.

In the article, Dave started by saying how important it was that a company’s marketing and operations are aligned - because the speed with which information spreads about brands is exponential. He referenced a brand survey conducted on Twitter by Peter Sorgenfrei and Warren Sukernek (a colleague of mine from the Marqui days, with whom I recently reconnected on Twitter), where Twitterers profiled their expectations about brands within Twitter.

Turns out I participated in the brand survey, the results of which were published last week. Here are the highlights (directly from Twittermaven):

• Not surprisingly, most users (89%) agree that brands should engage their customers on Twitter. The majority also have a better impression of brands that use Twitter for customer service (81%).
• Proper usage of Twitter however, is paramount as almost 90% of users would frown upon poor or inappropriate brand use of Twitter.
• The power of a relationship is extremely strong on Twitter. 60% of respondents would recommend a company based on their presence on Twitter and 80% of Twitter users will reward those brands they have key relationships by being more willing to purchase from them.
• Influencers: More than 60% of respondents have 100+ followers and almost 50% of respondents have posted more than 1000 Tweets since they signed up for the service.

So back to Dave’s article… in it he recounted several interactions with the Starbucks brand in real life and in the digital world (they’re blending more and more). Starbucks is on Twitter, and helped him with a problem he was encountering in the stores. (Head on over and read it, you’ll probably have experienced something similar to the stories he told.)

Anyway, he summed it up perfectly for me:

“As you consider the social Web and the impact it has on your brand, consider the survey’s audience: 60 percent are male and the largest age concentration (just over 41 percent) in the 35 to 44 age group. It’s a decidedly mainstream audience, meaning that channels like Twitter are not fringe or youth.

The social Web, and Twitter in particular, can provide valuable, actionable insight. Ignore at your own peril. Get involved, participate, and take the time to assess your organizations’ ability to consistently deliver an excellent experience — across the entire frontline — in service of the brand you’re building.”

In my email today came an interesting bit of research: the 2008 Presidential ImagePower Survey by Landor Associates and Penn, Schoen & Berland. It describes the two presidential tickets’ brand associations, as selected by a survey of voters:

Click on the thumbnail for larger viewing,  the PDF of the results as announced by Penn, Schoen & Berland is here.

I found it interesting that the candidates complemented each other so well… and that Obama and Palin were more similar than not, in terms of brand perception, especially in being “different.” She was a Wendy’s in a sea of McDonalds, he was an iPhone in a bunch of Blackberrys.

The survey was conducted in early October, where 1002 Democrats, Republicans and Independents voted their brand associations.