Stupid Things to Say

You read it all the time. Whether it is in a press release or a proposal. It is usually in the first sentence or if not, it is definitely in the first paragraph. It doesn’t matter what company or what industry. It is always there. It may take a variety of forms yet it is meant to convey the same meaning.

 

Do you know what it is?

“Acme Company, a leading supplier in to the widget-making industry“

XYZ Company, the premier manufacturer of unobtainium”

“Engulf & Devour, a leader in technology solutions”

These are all stupid things to say. What is a prospect or a reader supposed to make of these? The problem with statements like these is that they are difficult to define or verify. They sound great, and I’m sure some marketing person is very proud for having thought of it – which I believe happened somewhere in the early Paleolithic Era and everyone else has simply copied and pasted the phrase since then.

Why not make statements that are fact-based and quantifiable?

“HyperDisk Marketing, providing technology and marketing innovation for nearly 20 years.”

HyperDisk, launched its first hospitality website in 1993; was a pioneer in Email Registration Systems (ERS); a leader in 3-D Immersive Website technology (1994); and first integrated micro-formats and Geo-tagging into a website in 2007.

Do you want to work with a company that uses a well-worn phrase stating their “leadership” or a company with an easy-to-prove track record of being a leader?

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Tags: Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising

Lessons from Horst Schulze

Golden Rule: Treat your employees as good as your treat your guests.

I guess the folks at GHM Management haven’t learned that rule yet. That’s too bad. I will always remember a speech given by Horst Shulze, former president of Ritz-Carlton and now CEO of West Paces Hotel Group, at an HSMAI conference quite a few years ago in Arizona. He stressed how important the employees are to the success of the company. As evidence of his belief in that, there were no less than 20 employees from the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton who made the trip out to the Camelback area just to hear his speech. They greeted him with a standing ovation and provided robust applause for his comments about his employees. It made such an impression on me that I remember it well even after nearly 25 years.

Things Were Not Always Good at The Setai But Here’s Hoping It Can Get Better || HotelChatter

Maybe, just maybe, this experience with the Setai will change the policies at GHM. I doubt it.

Tags: Horst Shulze, Ritz-Carlton, Setai

The Web Isn’t Dead….Yet

Tim Berners-Lee: The World Wide Web - Opportunity, Challenge, Responsibility (Photo credit: Fräulein Schiller)

The embedded link is to a Pew Research paper that was written in response to a much talked about Wired Magazine article declaring the Web Is Dead. It provides an excellent analysis of the inter-connectedness of the Internet, mobile, and apps, and provides a logical hypothesis on why the Web may not be dead after all.

 

PIP_Future_of_Apps_and_Web.pdf (application/pdf Object).

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We Know Who You Are And We’re Watching You

Have you visited a website and left without buying anything only to see an advertisement on Google from that very same website? Eery isn’t it. Then you go another site that has advertising only to see another advertisement from that previous site. You think, this is getting downright weird. I’m not sure if you should be alarmed or not. What you are being exposed to is known as Retargeting in the online marketing world. The theory is that since you visited BestBuy.com for example, you have a shown a predisposition to Best Buy. Google and others believe therefore that if you are shown ads from Best Buy you will be inclined to act on that message more than someone who has not been to BestBuy.com. You have been retargeted. It is possible to do this because coding known as cookies are dropped into your browser from the Best Buy site which are then “read” by search engines and ad networks who then deliver ads to you based on those cookies.
An easier explanation would be an example from the offline world. Let’s say you went shopping for furniture. The first store you visited placed an electronic device on your car while you were in the store. This electronic device was then activated by the store manager once you left without purchasing that nice leather sofa you had been interested in. You drive a few blocks and all of the sudden an advertisement on the radio is from that same furniture store disclosing a sale price on that very same leather sofa! Viola! You are back in the store buying the sofa!

Retargeting can be a very effective method to capture a customer who has been to your site but didn’t purchase.

Some facts about retargeting

Forrester Research predicts that spending on display advertising will represent 36 percent ($27.6 billion) of overall interactive marketing spend by 2016.

Used improperly, your brand appearance can become irritating or even appear intrusive.

Targeting your subscriber for longer than a week is highly irritating for your viewers and wastes your marketing budget.

(the above are from ClickZ.com)

 

The bottom line is that retargeting done correctly can be very successful. Please give me a shout for more information on retargeting or to discuss how a retargeting program can help you.

Hoteliers rake in returns through retargeting.

Are Mobile Luxury Customers Different?

You will write this post. I want you to read this article Redefining luxury for a mobile world — Mobile Technology NewsWhen you finish, post your thoughts here on what you think luxury customers want or need from a mobile experience. Next week I’ll pick the one I think is the best and provide my own comments on the subject.

Two phones with mobile internet capability displayed (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tags: Handheld Platforms, Mobile device, Mobile phone, Technology

What Would You Do?

The following email exchange was provided to me from a confidential source. It is between the account manager of an Internet Marketing firm and the client. It is a very large marketing firm with 1,000′s of clients.

Client: “The main issue I’m having is in trying to understand the traffic sources data. I think a brief conversation where we can look at the data together would be better to address these questions. Perhaps we can take a few minutes on our next call this week?”

Account Manager: “You are not drilling down into the data correctly. If you are having issues interpreting Google Analytics I can certainly pull the required reports for you, but this will take time and I will have to charge you for the service.*”

*Google Analytics is a free service.

Would you put up with this?

Based on many conversations I would venture to say that far too many of you ARE putting up with this is some form or another. What will it take you to make a change?

 

Note: The client is now a HyperDisk client

Tags: Account manager, Customer service

Google Changes – Who Needs To Worry?

Logo of CNET. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is a lot of talk in SEO circles about the forthcoming changes with Google. I believe much of it is unwarranted however there are far too many firms who try to “game the system” in a variety of methods. Google has always been upfront about their ultimate goal of producing the most credible and reliable search results for their customers. I see these changes as another step toward that goal. Optimizing a site for the best possible ranking on high value searches has basic parameters which everyone implements. It is beyond those basic parameters where the true measure of how effective, and professional, your optimization program is. As is the case with this recent announcement from Google, they always provide notice and guidelines well ahead of time if you know where and what to look for. It is the experience of the search marketing team at HyperDisk that allows our clients to be out ahead of their competition while remaining well within Google’s good graces.

 

The bottom line is that you can have an aggressive search optimization program as long as you follow Google’s recommendations.

Our focus at HyperDisk has always been on long-term sustainable marketing. Those who choose, or have chosen, to incorporate questionable optimization tactics for immediate impact will now get their just due. Those are the ones who should be worried about Google’s upcoming changes. And rightly so. Contact me for a free analysis of your site you are concerned that it might be penalized or are not completely confident that your search marketing partner is well within Google standards. I will be happy to provide with a detailed report using outside objective resources.

 

Google plans to penalize ‘overly optimized’ sites | Digital Media – CNET News.

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