| LED Digest 1854: The Cluetrain Manifesto, Marketing, and the Web |
|
|
|
================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ August 11, 2004 Issue #1854 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Cultivating the Human Touch ==-- ~ Nick Usborne "The Cluetrain Manifesto...has almost nothing to do with marketing." ~ Jim Novo "Design, copy, usability, marketing are finally all on the table *at the same time*..." --== The Future of SEO ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "...it looks like it's deja vu all over again in the world of search." ~ Shari Thurow "So, has SEO reached an 'end'? Absolutely not. SEO is evolving." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Shopping Directories - Worth a Listing? ==-- ~ Ian Dickson ~ Bill Davison ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Nick Usborne Subject: Human touch > Does anyone remember the Cluetrain Manifesto? ... What > do you think? Is the time right to start re-focusing on these > issues or is the market still recovering and dealing with > what it perceives to be 'the basics'? - Paul Magee, LED 1853 Paul, I was interested to read your comments about the Cluetrain Manifesto, and ambition to promote a more personal voice on the web. In some small way, this has been my own journey as a writer and consultant online over the last few years. My point of view is probably best expressed in my book on the subject, Net Words. I do believe that the web is unique, particularly in so far as this medium, unlike all others, is shared by our 'audience'. They were online before commercial sites arrived. And tens of millions of regular people still create more content than we do, every day, with emails, chat, forums, blogs, newsletters, lists and more. This is a shared environment in which trust, honesty and a human voice count for everything. That said, don't count me in as a romantic on this subject. The Cluetrain Manifesto was written by four brilliant people who articulated some important points. But the book has almost nothing to do with marketing. Prior to my life and work on the web, I was a direct marketing copywriter. In other words, my view of marketing was this: results, results, results. What I do now is blend both approaches. My promise to clients is to improve conversion rates, loyalty, word of mouth etc. My approach is to use a more personal voice and tap into the natural desire of people online to interact. And I blend both the results-driven approach of direct marketing with the conversational, interactive approach of the web. All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you want to build a business around this, I wouldn't start waving the Cluetrain Manifesto around. Its lessons are important. It highlights some basic truths about the nature of communication on the web. But it's not about selling. Yes, today's market online has changed a lot. What companies want is not a lecture on the nature of the web, they want better results from their sites. Pitch with a promise of results. Deliver with an approach that taps into the fundamental nature of the web - as a place of interaction. Hmmm... Note to self: Really must stop saying all this stuff to my competitors. : ) All the best in your venture. Nick Usborne Speaking and Consulting: www.nickusborne.com Newsletter & Copywriter Resources: www.excessvoice.com ------- new post - same topic --------- From: Jim Novo Subject: Human touch > It wasn't long after the popularity of thinking like the > cluetrain manifesto started to take hold that everything > went pear shaped in the online world. The focus shifted > to survival, budgets were cut, you know what happened.... - Paul Magee, LED 1853 That happened because people ignored these concepts... which by the way, have been around a very long time in direct and database marketing. The ClueTrain people and Seth Godin (Permission Marketing) took a lot of those old ideas and repositioned them for a new communication channel, one where there was more active participation by the audience. Brilliant stuff. > I'm not into absolutes. Technology is important, aesthetics are > important, branding is important, but if there is an area that has > been neglected, I believe that it is compensating for the limits of > what is essentially a remote medium - the human touch. The > market isn't full of people any more. Again, direct and database marketing people have been dealing with the "remote issue" for decades. There is a core body of knowledge out there that catalogs use, for example, to increase the response rate of remote shoppers. How do you build trust? How do you engage the customer? All of these issues are dealt with every day offline in direct. For example, there are reasons why most infomercials have a very definite rhythm and pattern to them. > So, what is it that I want to do? In a sentence, I want to 'help > people give their website a human voice' because quite simply > it creates more trust and leads to more business. Or an animal voice. Or a cartoon voice. Or a robot voice. "Voice" is truly important, what kind of voice depends on what the mission of the site is, in my opinion. Most copy is truly awful on the web. > The team I'm looking to build is less likely to contain techies > and graphic designers but rather communications experts, > journalists and photographers. Agreed, and I would add "usability experts". There is nothing less trustworthy than a web site that is "clueless" and difficult to use, and these characteristics carry over right to the company - "clueless" and difficult to deal with. After all, **somebody** at the company is in fact responsible for the situation. > What do you think? Is the time right to start re-focusing > on these issues or is the market still recovering and > dealing with what it perceives to be 'the basics'? "The market" (at least in the US) is already dealing with it, the more progressive companies have been planning it for some time. They know their web sites suck. This year there has been a lot of activity around re-design, usually based on this formula: 1. Setting specific goals for the web site 2. Measuring how the site is currently achieving those goals 3. Rebuilding the site based on this analysis 4. Measuring goal attainment again 5. Striving for continuous improvement Design, copy, usability, marketing are finally all on the table **at the same time** rather than approached as individual silos. That is the only way to make it work, in my opinion. Tradeoffs between the disciplines have to be made relative to achieving the goals of the web site. No firm goals, and it's just another disaster waiting to happen. Jim Novo, Author Turning Customer Data into Profits http://www.jimnovo.com Co-Author: Marketer's Common Sense Guide to E-Metrics ------- new post - new topic --------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: Looks like it's deja vu all over again > ... with the cost of acquiring new prospects likely to escalate, > and the limited long-term effectiveness of techniques such as > SEO, investigate economical alternatives such as paid-inclusion. - David Yancey, LED 1851 Since I first started hanging around the Internet neighborhood back in 1995, I've heard numerous much talk about upheaval, cataclysmic changes, and dirty tricks in the search engine world. Back in the mid-1990s, as now, website owners were warned that if they did not attain and maintain top rankings, they would be doomed. A lot SEO types used this rhetoric in their sales pitches, and I understand that it was quite effective. I'll bet it still is. Then there was that big uproar over Yahoo's decision to require business sites to pay US$299 to be _considered_ for a listing in their hallowed directory. I can recall quite a few online discussion groups that went ballistic over how unfair this policy was to small businesses, starving startups, etc. But people ponied up the money, in hopes of gaining admission to the Inner Sanctum of Yahoo. (Hey, I paid the $299, didn't you?) Then along came Google, we know what that did to Yahoo's position in the search world. So much for charging $299. I recently heard that the fee has gone by the wayside. More recently, we've gone through the PPC hype period. Which was followed by the startling news (gasp!) that there are fraudulent clickers out there. Why, some of these nefarious types will repeatedly click your link, costing you ever more money, while not increasing your revenue. So, it looks like it's deja vu all over again in the world of search. Martha Retallick "The Passionate Postcarder" http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ------- new post - same topic --------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: Putting SEO in Perspective Hi all- This is in response to the recent thread about search engine optimization (SEO) and its supposed "end". With all due respect to Vivante and other LED subscribers who have posted on this subject, I don't think that everyone is looking at the big picture. The term "search-engine friendly" has a much wider meaning than being "Google friendly" or "Yahoo friendly" or "Overture friendly." After people click on a link to your Web site (be it from an email link, an offline advertisement, or a search engine), how easy are you making it for people to form a mental model of your site? When people click on a product or a category page, do users feel they are making progress? Are the calls to action clear? Are you making it easy for visitors to browse the site as well as create a relevant, usable site search? That, in a nutshell, is search friendliness. The benefit of having a search friendly Web site is that it tends to rank well in the spider-based search engines and the Web directories (as long as submission is done correctly). And it tends to convert because the users' intent has always been part of the design and copywriting process. What I am seeing in the search industry is an overemphasis on search engine advertising. So much so that search engine advertising has become synonymous with search engine marketing. And I find that very irritating. Search marketing existed long before Overture and Google came into existence. My hypothesis is that ad agencies have found the "new banner." They can make media buys and do keyword research. They can write ads. So now the text ad replaces the rich media banner. Interestingly, keyword buys existed long before Overture and Google came into existence, too. We purchased banner ad space based on keywords and categories, and had remarkable conversion rates because we understand what a target audience is searching for. I do not believe search marketing is where it needs to be. Usability experts can create search pages that are 100% functional, but I don't see them creating pages that rank well in their own engines. I see software companies giving lip service. I'm tired of Macromedia making announcements that they are working with the search engines to make Flash search-engine friendly. I've been on that panel at Search Engine Strategies conferences for years. I've seen no improvement, and even Yahoo found that people just don't search for Flash sites. Adobe is no better. Their PDF files can be 100% search friendly, but the only thing they were interested in when they contacted me was who I knew at Google. Software developers who create shopping cart and content management systems do not consider search, either. Ad agencies (not all of them, just the ones I've come into contact with) won't get over that search advertising cannot "fix" an unusable Web site. Agency Web developers still seem more concerned about making pretty sites vs. usable sites that convert. Even search marketers are divided. Search engine spam is a huge industry because of the attitude, "My site is fine the way it is. I'm not going to change it. Now make it found in the search engines." Enter doorway pages, cloaking, and link farms. Unfortunately, there is still a huge market for those services. I think the search industry, Web design, software development, advertising, and usability industries need to mature. As a whole, I do not believe any of these industries "get" search. I think they "get" parts of search, but I do not believe that they see the big picture. So, has SEO reached an "end"? Absolutely not. SEO is evolving. I'm a better SEO now than I ever was. Okay, I'm off my soap box. Thanks for listening. Best wishes, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director ~ Search Engine Visibility book now available http://www.searchenginesbook.com/ ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Ian Dickson Subject: Shopping portals > Does anyone here have good or bad feedback regarding > these [shopping] directories. Is it worth getting listed on > them, even at the expense of giving them a return link? - Richard Stubbings, LED 1853 I hate Portals. Well, I hated them from 1994 to early 2004. Now I'm not so sure, partly because I am exploring building one. (I don't want to build things you go through, I want to build things you go to!) My gut view is now this: IF a portal has an enthusiastic and qualified audience then that Portal MIGHT have value to the smaller business - one that has something to offer, but finds it hard to stand up in Google etc. As to my own Portal Dreams - my economic model is only partly Advertising based, (around 10% of long term revenues are expected to be from businesses paying for "profile" in any shape or form. I don't think that niche portals are economic on an advertising only model, or even an advertising mainly model). The rest comes from using the ability to reach a targeted and enthusiastic group, and providing them with goods and services that they want, but are currently uneconomic to provide (mainly because of the overhead involved in reaching the right audience, which, it so happens, is exactly what our software is good at). So, for a business considering associating with a portal, what you need is evidence that they have the right audience, (or understand it well enough for you to believe that they might get there). In your specific case you'd want to see a site that was a hub of relevant Action Figure activity. Also note that building content is easy. The stumbling block for any Portal venture is building the right audience. In fact I expect to build mine almost entirely OFFLINE. Finally - if anyone in the Uk is interested in any of the following areas:- Local Search Good food, drink and entertainment Recruitment (esp in Hospitality industry) I'd be interested in chatting. Cheers Ian Dickson http://www.commkit.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Bill Davison Subject: Shopping portals Unfortunately, most of LED's discussion on search engine optimization and rankings centers on those who market widgets. However, there is a litany of other websites such a local realtors or other service providers. Few if any, have the slightest interest in PPC or other Search Engine gimmickry designed only to pluck the website owner's pocket. For years, my personal website has ranked #1 in Google search engine which yet has to bring me one nickel in profits. It really puzzles me why internet guru's continue to ignore this gigantic element of internet commerce or realizing there is far more to internet website design than searching for a more clever method to market widgets. Isn't it time to end the discussion on how to search for pots of gold at the end of the rainbow? Therefore, I also hope LED will broaden its vision and finally begin some useful discourse on how other website owners can improve their profitability. Bill Davison bizwebpage.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." - William Shakespeare |
