This piece of research (that beautifully rolls up into a great viral piece) by the makers of Drambuie, is a great introduction on how paying yourself out and using negative customer feedback can improve your sales.
I think Guy Kawasaki's advice on the value of polarising your customer base comes true in this piece.
Ive never tried Drambuie, but given this bunch of yokels hate it, it makes me want to go and try it :)
I turned on the radio for the first time in a long time this morning ... i found their marketing slogans rather curious.
"Sydney #1 Hit Music Station" - Hit Music? What happened to the Best music, or the Newest music, or your favorite golden greats music.
If i was running a radio station, i would probably look to have a different slogan than "Today's Hit Music"
What is Hit Music anyways? Who decides what a "hit" is? I'm pretty sure its not the consumers of the hit music, i'm pretty sure its a bunch of fat old cocaine using, yacht sailing music execs... I'm also damn sure at best its not a democratic process
I think increasingly today and tomorrows consumers like to see themselves as cultural entrepreneurs, people who find cool new songs, artists, video clips, blogs, website etc - and try to be the first to share it with their friends.
Hit Culture is fighting uphill against this trend, Hit culture is trying to tell you than because everyone else is listening to it that its the best for you, Not the other way around.
I mean, sure JT and Brittany get a lot of play, but i think less and less people want to be listening to stuff that everyone else is listening to. New economy consumers crave the niche, the new, the unique. They want to be the first.
Combine the attention economy, the long tail, consumer generated media, bottom up publishing, social aggregation and voting systems and we end up with a situation where consumers don't need radio stations telling them what is cool to listen to today.
Sites like The Hype Machine consistently prove this. They ongoingly have the coolest music way before even the studios have released this music, and often enough some of the material the The Hype Machine makes great ends up on the radio.
On the other hand, im sure im a little bit wrong ... some people just love turning on the TV and watching Today Tonight or E! Entertainment news...
After the bush admin's overseas escapades over the last 6 years, americans now have $48 trillion, or $161,287 per man, woman and child in foreign debt on average...
It's quite likely that the COLOSSAL MP3 Player has somehow managed to stay largely hidden from view for some time now, but it is apparently popping up in a number of locations and begging to be purchased as the ultimate tech gag gift.
Apparently, these things come in a number of hues, check in at about five to ten times larger than your prototypical MP3 Plaster and include a USB cable, earphones and 256MB of built-in memory. The humongous units get their juice from four AA cells (which supposedly last around eight hours) and can be found at random drug stores (and probably elsewhere) for under $20. Needless to say, this is the stocking stuffer buster you've been looking for.
Why Marketing and sales can be measured againt police shooting accuracy... Thanks seth
In a new study released in today's Times, it turns out that the typical NY police officer only hits 34% of the time she fires a gun. Even from a distance of six feet or less, it's 43%. Obviously, Bruce Willis is the exception.
I wonder how it changes your decision making when you discover that you're only going to be successful one out of three times. Never mind blasting a weapon out of an assailant's hand, we're talking about hitting the target at all... How does a cop have the guts to even pull a weapon knowing that most of the time, it's not going to have its desired effect (my guess is that the threat and the noise and chaos is as positive an outcome as an actual hit...). I know I would never have the guts to do that job.
Salespeople have a harder time with this than marketers. Marketers have lots of 'bullets' and they don't notice the ones they miss (I usually miss 99.5% of the time online, and more than 99.999% of the time selling books). We just reload and blithely continue on. But salespeople have to deal both with personal rejection and the expectation of the boss.
The poor hit rate of selling explains call resistance. Non-professional salespeople almost aways wash out because they can't keep at it, day after day, once they realize that most of the time, they fail. I guess my point is that if a policeman can risk his life doing it, we can probably find the nerve to go on one more sales call.
Seven years ago, Seth Godin wrote an article about media, copyright, monopolies and the future.
I'm fascinated by the stuff he got right even back then... monoplies are fading in influence faster and faster - due to the rise of the bottom up, conversation oriented, free, open cry marketplace that online human communication has become in the marketplace of 2.0
Really? What kind of weird? Like barking-at-a-bathroom-scale weird?
Or talking-a-pair-of-boxer-briefs weird?
Or are you talking about when pattern conversational expectations are violated and you suddenly don't have the language to deal with that slightly uncomfortable feeling that you don't really know what's going on kind of weird.
Anyways, if you thought that was weird.. check this great 3 min ZeFrank Olympics Video
So this week we have had Emma, a year 10 work experience kid, in at our offices.
We have done a bunch of fun stuff around online, web, blogging, pr, marketing, technology and new media... Its great and refreshing to see that our education system produces work ready young minds.
Emma has made a blog about her experiences in the week with us.
I would encourage you to read her blog and make comments where you think is relevant, Im sure like all young 16yo entrepreneurs she would love the feedback and encouragement :)
Good luck emma!
(PS on a side note im 26 and am still craving feedback and encouragement! LOL doesit ever end)
Imagine you are an advertiser, you want to place your banners on the most popular website, and you want to know how much to pay.
Globally, the leading site is Google, which has the most "page views". Or is it Microsoft, whose various sites have, in the jargon, the most "time spent"?
Or should you go by unique users, duration, hits, click-through, impressions, queries, sessions, streams, or engagement?
Whether or not there is truth in advertising, there is certainly none for online advertisers, at least none that is immediately obvious and simple.
The web produces data as "a fire-hose shoots water", and that working out what those data mean is rather like "putting a straw into the fire hose to take a sip". Get the angle even slightly wrong, and you are blown away.
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