Nov 0816
Earlier this week, Anne Holland, founder of MarketingSherpa.com posted her last blog entry on the Sherpablog. November 10 was her last day as a formal company employee and she used the occasion to recount how MarketingSherpa began.
If you don’t know MarketingSherpa, you should. MarketingSherpa is my favorite source for news, information, case studies, how-to guides — everything about online marketing. MarketingSherpa e-mails are the few e-newsletters that I read in their entirety. I pass the articles along to my staff and clients. The knowledge in MarketingSherpa case studies is amazing, the writing is terrific, and the know-how is real.
I remember meeting Anne at an iBreakfast, a pitchfest hosted by Alan Brody back in 1999. Anne had an idea to pitch, a marketing plan, no money, but a lot of passion and knowledge about online marketing and research. MarketingSherpa became one of Matrix Group’s first dot com clients. At first, we helped her develop her technical platform and prototypes so that she could show investors more than a business plan. Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0816
It seems purple is the color of the season and I’m not complaining. If you know me, have been to my office, or spent any time on the Matrix Group Web site (or this blog for that matter), you know that purple is an integral part of the Matrix Group experience.
I was pleased to see that Yahoo! has launched a Start Wearing Purple campaign. Even though the logo on the Yahoo Web site is red, it seems that purple has long been the company’s official color. Why purple? Yahoo says purple is associated with innovation and imagination.
Hmmm…. I always thought purple was associated with royalty and girl power, but hey, I’ll buy the innovation and imagination connection. Jerry Yang, Yahoo CEO, says he “bleeds purple.” Hmmm…. even I’m not crazy enough to say stuff like that. Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0814
Last weekend at the mall, while purchasing a pair of shoes, the saleswoman gave me a tantalizing offer: give us your e-mail address and we’ll give you 10% off the price of the shoes.
I had a lot of time to think about the offer because everyone in front me willingly gave up their e-mail address and contact information. Me, it took about 30 seconds to realize that saving less than $5 on a pair of shoes worth $49.95 was NOT worth getting spam from a store I don’t visit often (even though the shoes were really cute).
My shopping experience went from bad to worse. At a kids’ clothing store, I waited in line as each mom was asked, “would you like to give us your e-mail address and get $250 worth of coupons, would you like to subscribe to this magazine for the discounted price of $20, yada, yada.” And I was amazed at how many people provided their phone number AND e-mail simply when asked! When it was my turn, I paid cash and said no thanks when asked for my phone number, address and e-mail.
So I got to thinking. What is my e-mail address worth and when am I willing to share it with a site or vendor? Read the rest of this entry
Jul 0829
While preparing for a Matrix Group seminar on usage reports, I decided to get the latest news about Google Analytics and WebTrends on Demand. I found all the information about Google Analytics on the Google site with no problems. The WebTrends site advertised a Fact Sheet that promised more technical details about features and implementation, but I had to register.
Okay, I figure, I’m already a customer of the server software, why not register to get the Fact Sheet? The registration process was two screens, then I was directed to the PDF of the Fact Sheet. Guess what? The fact sheet was nothing but a page and half of marketing fluff that was absolutely NOT worth me registering for it. The Fact Sheet had no technical specs, no descriptions of the reports, and no pricing information. It was totally useless.
Read the rest of this entry
Jun 0816
My bible on selling services, customer service and marketing.
