| LED Digest 2507: Finding Marketing Expertise |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom www.GetWebContent.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor The Web's Most Experienced SEO Content Providers. www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. October 5, 2007 Issue no. 2507 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Hiring a Marketing Manager ==-- ~ Barry Mills "Sometimes it is better to work with a consultant, interim manager or non-exec..." ~ Dirk Johnson "...ask the potential candidate to take some time to evaluate your business..." --== Placing Links on Client Sites ==-- ~ Shelly Cole "I also refuse to put up an 'under construction' page. Bad idea, IMO." --== Email Overload ==-- ~ Adam Boettiger "Email is not secure. Period. It's just not." ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Barry Mills Subject: Hiring > ... I need high powered Marketing Manager who could > help bring my company to the next level... but I'm facing > a challenge. How will I be able to evaluate such a person? - Bogdan Fiedur, LED Digest 2506 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1918/190/ Bogdan asks an interesting question about hiring a senior person in a (marketing) role he doesn't feel qualified to judge. The first thing I'd say is that good marketing should be easy to interview. They should be able to tell you why they are right for the job, because they should know more about it than you do. So I would start by defining some objectives and a simple job profile -- leaving some scope for the candidate to shape the role themselves. Then invite candidates to present how they would approach it and why they are right for the job. Immediately, you will learn something about their presentation skills. If they can't sell themselves in this way, it's unlikely they will be able to sell your proposition to potential partners. Then validate the claims of the strongest-sounding candidates by asking for evidence of their achievements, taking up employer & client references etc. Be wary of people who talk waffle - phrases like "I was involved in" or "I was part of the team that..." always ring alarm bells with me. They aren't necessarily fatal, but you need to probe further. Ask firmly, what did YOU actually DO, and what was the outcome of your actions. If they are evasive, cross them off the list? If you are not 100% comfortable with writing the job description, get some help. Not necessarily from a recruitment agent, but maybe from a marketing or HR consultancy, or both. If this seems expensive, consider the cost of hiring the wrong person! Finally, I always urge anyone looking for a big hitting senior person in what is essentially a new function for their business (I'm generalising here and not sure if this really applies in Bogdan's case) to ask themselves if they really need a bit hitter, in the medium to long term, or do they just need one for a short while because they don't know what to do or how to manage the particular functional area, be it marketing or whatever. In marketing, it generally pays to harvest the low hanging fruit first -- pick off the easy wins. Identifying where they are, and devising a strategy to approach them, may well be a senior role. Implementing the strategy may well not be. If you hire a big hitter they will sometimes develop a strategy then get bored and leave, or remain and be overpaid and underutilised. Sometimes it is better to work with a consultant, interim manager or non-exec to develop plans, then hire a middleweight to run with them. Good luck Bogdan whatever you decide to do. Barry S Mills Chairman Netstep Corporate Communications http://www.netstep.co.uk -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Dirk Johnson Subject: Hiring One approach would be to ask the potential candidate to take some time to evaluate your business, and present a proposal for how they would manage your existing marketing, and also how they would do it differently. A service contractor may balk at that and call it "fishing" for free ideas, but experienced, skilled job candidate should jump at the chance to differentiate themselves, and detail their skills and show an understanding of the marketing process. It's also a way to see inside their head. How they would deal with challenges, how thorough they are, how analytical, etc. If they can't do this task with any kind of meaningful outcome, they're probably not right for the position, since strategy development, analysis, and execution is *the* core competency for a qualified marketing manager. Best regards, Dirk Johnson Partner - Operations DomainDrivers LLC www.domaindrivers.com ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Autumn Leaves Must Fall, But Not Your PR Seasons change. How about your site's copy? When was the last time you added or updated your content to make it more end-user useful and search-engine succulent? Customers and search bots want fresh meat. www.GetWebContent.com/LED, we deliver the beef. ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Shelly Cole Subject: Placing links > We all know that a good website has so many > different components, rarely done by the same > person or even agency. So, who gets the credit? - Alex Hughart, LED Digest 2506 I know I can't speak for *everything*, but I outsource my skills to a few design houses. I have quite a number of websites that I've designed / coded for, but I can't claim credit on them, because they hired me to do that specific job. (But they also paid me well in compensation, and have allowed me to use them for references when I need to get a job on my own.) IMO, when a company hires a design company to do a website for them, then the person / company they hired is who gets to put the credit link in the footer. They're the ones who got everyone together to complete the job. I've never had a problem with that. As for "movie-like credits" - I've actually had a couple of the design houses that use me have a page on their sites that list the movie-like credits you're talking about - so I still get credit for my work. It's nice all around, really. > Especially, recovering from cancer, with > limited site, I read it as Brass Balls. - Al Toman YES! Someone gets it! (I know Adam "got it" - he mentioned he liked my new logo, which *will* make an appearance soon LOL) Do you know how many times I've had to explain that? My own mother didn't get that (and believe me, my mother is the type that *would*) - I was beginning to think I was being way too subtle with that "play on words", I've had to explain it so many times. For the record, I would like to apologize for how the site looks right now. That design is way old, and I've been working on a redesign for the last *year* - I've been so busy this year I haven't been able to update it any faster. Why is it that, as designers, *our* sites always seem to come last? I also refuse to put up an "under construction" page. Bad idea, IMO. > I would also like to see internet marketers and seo > dudes / dudettes signature the web sites they worked, > as well. Do y'all think that THAT will ever happen!?! As stated in a response to another question, I've had it happen to me - but via an alternate route - a couple of the people I work for *do* give credit to everyone they've outsourced by linking to them from *their* site. Which is nice - you still get the reciprocal linking and credit without mungling the client's site. Gonna shut up now... Shelly Cole (of Brass BLOGS! ;) ) http://www.brassblogs.com -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Adam Boettiger Subject: Email > I know Google "doesn't do evil" but how do you > know that will always be the case? What security > and privacy guarantees do they offer? - Veronica Yuill, LED Digest 2506 Hi Veronica. Good question. You don't. "Always" is a very permanent term that you are trying to use in a dynamic medium. Not going to work. The answer is that you have exactly the same guarantee that you have right now with the email you currently store on your existing internet provider or anywhere else for that matter. Right now, the email you send and receive from your existing email provider is NOT SECURE. Other people can see it at your hosting provider level if they really wanted to. In seeking a free solution you will almost always sacrifice some degree of privacy. If you want to be 100% sure that your information is locked down, then you can invest money into your own server and buy a server-side search solution hardware piece and maintain it yourself. In lieu of you not wanting to or being able to commit the time and money of doing this, yes, you are going to need to either lower your privacy criteria or simply opt to not archive your email in this manner. It is a tradeoff and only you can decide which is more important to you personally. Is it more important to be 100% secure on privacy, or is it more important to you to have a backup of your email in case your laptop is stolen or your house catches on fire? Is it more important to have 100% security or is it more important to be able to retrieve a piece of data within seconds when you need it most? In many instances you cannot have your cake and eat it too, despite how much you want it to happen. My personal opinion - and I've been online since 1994 - is that EMAIL IS NOT SECURE. PERIOD. It's just not. The only way it is secure is if you use something like PGP encryption, which is just impractical to use for business communications. So when you start with the assumption that email is never secure, then the "fear" that Google might do something with your data becomes less of a concern. If something is that sensitive, you should not be sending it by email. What if you wake up one day and your email archive is gone? Personally, I have much greater faith that a multi-billion dollar company like Google is going to have the hardware and connectivity and backups to have fewer problems with data loss and to survive major catastrophes than I might at an individual level or that a smaller provider might. Simply put, they've got the cash to do it well, and they do. However, the internet and technology in general are inherently broken. The sooner you make this assumption, the better off you will be if you do business online. There is always the chance that something will break, be lost, not work etc. Nothing you do online is 100% reliable, including advertising. If you want 100% reliability, go offline. What we can and do do, is to hedge our bets with redundancy strategies for worst case scenarios. One way with email is to create an archive on your laptop or your own hard drive. But the whole point of my article is to create something that does not take up space on your hard drive, does not take up RAM on your computer and will survive a house fire or stolen laptop. Your asking "what happens if I wake up one day and my email archive is deleted from Google" is akin to asking something like, "What happens if my house is on fire and the fire truck responding to it gets in an accident?" It's highly unlikely it will happen, but hey anything is possible in an imperfect medium. In terms of Google housing data, I'm not concerned about my data being there. For me it is far more important to have the convenience and security of having an archive that does not reside on my computer than it is to worry about privacy issues with who houses it. I am satisfied with Google's privacy policy, but would encourage you to review it. In terms of what Google might do with your data in the future or whether they will learn things about you, that's a decision you will need to make on a personal level. If your concern for privacy outweighs your need for a mission-critical backup of your email communications, don't create an archive. Personally I think it's a non-issue and those who are truly concerned probably should be using encrypted email or going offline for their communications. Adam Boettiger http://www.iadam.org/ (c) Copyright 1995-2007 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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