How To Ruin A Perfectly Good Advertising Campaign In One Easy Phone Call July 13, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment
By Mark Blei
Today I was a ripe target. While in the course of going through my daily email I found an advertisement through eFax or J2 communications about a new service called eVoice receptionist. As a media guy, I know how hard the folks over at J2’s advertising agency must have worked to get that offer into my hands.
As a guy who used to work in the email world, I also know how unlikely it is that that specific email would have hit me at the exact moment when I was ripe to get it. I’ve been a Vonage user for quite awhile now. As my title is International Business Development, it would seem obvious that occasionally I’m off developing business internationally, and so Vonage has served me well. I can forward my office phone to it and it does all sorts of neat tricks so that no one knows when they call me if I’m in my office in New York, the outer reaches of Africa, or sitting in a small hamlet on the outskirts of Toronto as I was today.
Between Vonage and eFax I can effectively conduct my workday from anywhere in the planet that has a moderately good broadband signal. But as a professional, I am always looking for a way to make the process of dealing with me easier.
One of the things that’s been nagging at the back of my mind is that Vonage is having some trouble right now. Not just financial trouble but legal trouble as well, and I’m loath to think about what would happen if they were to drop out of the VOIP business one day with no notice. It also annoys me a bit that when you’re on my Vonage line you can’t dial zero and get an operator. What would happen if one of my clients had a crisis of some sort and need to buy some media research right now? (Hey, it happens!) As well today I went to dial into my bridge line and somehow ended up on a phone sex line. And if my wife is reading this, yes that is exactly what happened. Whether that was the fault of my Vonage line or my bridge line, I still wasn’t happy.
So between that, my various and sundry neurosis about Vonage, and the hordes of customers who I’m theoretically making wait to place their emergency orders for projects I was as I said ripe to get that message from J2/Efax today. I went and looked at the site.
By the time I dialed the phone number in the email I had my credit card in my hand. I had one or two questions about the capabilities and I was going to own that service and get ready to give Vonage the kiss off. And then…and then the best laid plans of advertisers and agencies fell apart, as I called the number in the email and I got to speak with Jill. Jill was a pleasure to speak to, after she made me go through 8 minutes of confirming the information on my eFax account. Why Jill assumed I was a support case and not a new customer I don’t know.
The important part is that after we established that I was an existing eFax customer and after she gave me and I wrote down my reference number and after I told her what I wanted to discuss with her and after she put me on hold for eight minutes, she asked me to email her the offer. She asked me to email her the offer because no one had bothered to tell the reps who answered the phone that eFax was directing sales calls to that number. And so we waited. We waited for Jill to get my email and after Jill got my email and then we waited for another 7 minutes while Jill tried to figure out what this was that I had sent her. Finally she gave me yet another toll free line. That line brought me to Steve. Steve led off the same way that Jill did in trying to confirm my eFax information including fax number, phone credit card, secret code, etc… I asked Steve if perhaps he could just tell me if he were the correct person to discuss this new service that I wanted to buy? Because if Steve wasn’t the guy I didn’t want to bother doing the whole rigmarole again and why?
Because my eFax was working just fine, and both Jill and Steve were both eFax support agents. Yes, they did sales and yes, Jill was even smart enough to try and talk eFax stuff while she had me holding. But I wasn’t interested in talking about my eFax I wanted to buy a new product and what they did not know about was the product I was trying very hard to buy.
Steve again made me go through the confirmation process and when finished promptly gave me another toll free number that he assured me led directly to the eVoice receptionist sales department which it did and where I waited on hold for over 13 minutes before hanging up.
My point is this; you can spend a million dollars doing R&D on a product. You can beta test it and run studies to see how people are reacting to it. You can do all sorts of pre-testing and then have your agency do an all out blitz and really come home and bring the message to me. You can optimize the frequency and the creative; you can look at it from a synergistic standpoint, from a cost effectiveness standpoint and you can see the broader effect of exposure beyond the click. And I help people do all of that. But you also have to remember that the folks answering the sales line need to be looped into this as well. Most people would have dropped out and gone when Jill asked me to email her the creative.
eFax/ J2 just lost $30
bucks a month of my money because someone forgot to work the basics of sales, which is to inform the sales people of what products you’re having them sell and give them training on the sales procedure. Many times we look at the various technical aspects of doing advertising. But if the kid in the store can’t answer my questions and make me feel like the company is ready to handle my most important asset- my communication with my clients- then they lose my sale.
This posting is a personal opinion article by Mark Blei who is in International Business Development for Dynamic Logic Inc and the author of this blog. None of the content of this article is meant to be an opinion of Dynamic Logic, It’s parent company Millward Brown or anybody but the writer.
Incentives for online research are not always in the best interest of your results, or why more is not always better June 7, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentIncentives for online research are not always in the best interest of your results, or why more is not always better
By Mark Blei
I get asked very frequently about using incentives for research. It seems that there is a feeling that the increased response rates by providing an incentive will somehow improve the results of online branding studies. In my opinion this is not the case and since I just had this conversation I thought I would blog about it.
People will tell you what they think you want to hear. And what I mean by that is despite our best efforts to give as little information as to who might be sponsoring a specific study, most people can guess by midpoint in the survey who the sponsor is. If a study is put out there and the incentive for people to participate is that they will receive a hard incentive like a gift certificate to an online vendor like Amazon.com respondents will do what they can to make sure that they don’t disqualify themselves from the study and thereby disqualify themselves from the incentive. You also aggravate your participants much more if they find out about their disqualification after they have taken time to give you their opinion. The study results will be skewed because people are going to give you the answers that you think they want to hear.
That doesn’t mean that using a soft incentive won’t occasionally help with response ratios (a soft incentive means that everyone participating regardless of if they qualify or not are entered into a periodic drawing for a small cash amount.) And it also doesn’t mean that getting more responses are always better- I would rather have 1000 responses from consumers who have a better chance of being non-biased because the only real tangible reward that they are getting is the ability to voice their opinions on what advertising or branding efforts resonates with them then have 100,000 people responding to get a hard incentive( the hypothetical $3.00 Amazon gift certificate) .
Those 1000 people who are responding in my opinion for no other reason then to give us their valuable input or to have their voices heard have a better chance of giving us their gut feelings in the truest possible form then the large amount of people who might be trying to get through the survey as fast as possible to collect that award .
I’ve asked a number of people personally who are not in industry how they feel about this and there seem to be two camps.
The first who believe that they should be paid in some form of hard incentive or even direct currency for giving up their valuable time and the second are people who feel that they truly get empowered by knowing that the input they give is going to be looked at directly by an advertiser or agency and are therefore somehow controlling their environment regardless of the incentive.
I don’t mean to imply that people don’t deserve a reward for giving their input but I also know that those same people told me that they had mostly stopped filling out surveys because they were aggravated that those surveys were generally longer and would kick them out after a great deal of time had been spent giving input or were in fact doing everything possible to make sure that they didn’t say anything that could disqualify themselves from that survey. This includes even though how a respondent feels about a specific product will never get them disqualified from a real branding survey, lying about how much they enjoy or like the advertising,brand or product in relation to who they feel the sponsor of the study is . Whereas the people who I have spoken to who tell me that they like the fact that the input that they give is being used to change the way that advertising is presented to them or by giving their opinion may in fact change the way the product is offered or some attribute of the product tend to like to give their input more freely and tend to give more detailed and honest input.
And so while the one group might be much smaller then the other, the group of people who will participate in a survey just to have their voices heard in my opinion are going to give you a truer outlook as to how that particular product is truly resonating with them.
I would like to hear your thought on this and encourage you to leave a comment.
This posting is a personal opinion article by Mark Blei who is in International business Development for Dynamic Logic Inc and the author of this blog. None of the content of this article is meant to be an opinion of Dynamic Logic, It’s parent company Millward Brown or anybody but the writer.
What is a publishers responsability for user generated content? May 31, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentWhat is a publisher’s responsibility for user generated content on their websites?
By Mark Blei
Today one of LiveJournal’s executives had to publish a mea culpa after taking down about 500 LiveJournal pages that were supposedly containing references to pedophilia. Some of them did, and some of them were taken down mistakenly though having been targeted by other people as obscene. This raised a large scale user revolt along the lines of what occurred at Digg when they were served with a notice to remove a posting of a copyrighted cracked HD-DVD encryption key.
In that case the supposed crackdown on free speech through Digg resulted in thousands of users and bloggers republishing the key thousands of times a minute. It spread like wildfire throughout the Blogosphere and eventually the owners of the Digg site were forced to choose between alienating their user base or possibly facing serious repercussions in legal channels . The Digg folks decided to stick with their user base and damn the torpedoes .
In the case of LiveJournal some of the content clearly was appropriately targeted, and some of it clearly was not appropriately targeted. What is considered acceptable casualties of lost or suppressed content when publishers like LiveJournal are trying in good faith to remove not only illegal but damaging content?
So who draws the line and where? As is becoming more and more obvious the model of user generated content is becoming the dominant player in direct engagement with consumers and so the advertising dollars are following as they should. But the dialog that comes to my mind is where is the line in the sand? Of course we should applaud every effort to remove and moderate those who would post or try to engage in activities that are illegal and most certainly the ones that are harmful , but in the end, who is at fault if it slips through the cracks?
The fact that user generated content is an income generator and also can be used to successfully engage a consumer for branding purposes is out of the bag and it can’t be stopped. But at what point does it reach critical mass in that an publisher has to throw up his hands and say that there inevitably will be materials that go online that will slip through? If I am an advertiser using such sites for either viral or branding engagement purposes how much control do I have or should I expect once the content is out there?
How much blame should be pushed onto a publisher or an agency if my advertisement or branding content appears next to content that is illegal, obscene or possibly just politically incorrect or just in bad taste? Once an image, sound clip or video goes out there how much control should I expect anyone to have, and who says what is and is not a reasonable amount of precaution, moderation or what is or is not a reasonable effort?
If I have a channel that is specifically for user generated content and I have millions of users and in a good faith attempt to remove copyrighted, illegal and or dangerous content from my website, and in the end I mistakenly remove some material that has nothing to do with those activities, where does my liability come in with hundreds of thousands or millions of users? And what should be expected of me from a legal standpoint and how much control should I have in place on a site that gives those millions of people the ability to upload or post content?
As was clearly shown in the case of Millennium Act huckster Michael Crook this power that consumers, grassroots, watchdog groups and legal entities have can be abused. In the cases of even some of the smaller portals though they occasionally fight and win , but at what cost? And who decides how much bandwidth, effort, or time should be spent in verifying that each individual posting or upload of content meets with the site’s terms of service and legal obligations?
I think that as we expand out, and user generated content becomes more and more accessible to people with nefarious purposes an industry wide dialog has to take place as to how much responsibility lies with whom and where that line is. I certainly remember the dialog that the direct marketing folks had that took place in the 2003 over the Canned Spam Act and we can certainly see how effective that was.
I think it’s time the leaders in the Publisher, Advertiser, Agency and Legal world had a powwow and lit up the peace pipe and hashed this out so that there are clear guide lines as to what a reasonable expectation that any one entity has over millions of users when you have an open portal that allows anyone with an account or the BugMeNot extension to login and upload or post anything that comes to mind. We all think that repression of ideas and speech are bad things. Who should be responsible for protecting us from ourselves though?
This posting is a personal opinion article by Mark Blei who is in international business development for Dynamic Logic Inc and the author of this blog. None of the content of this article is meant to be an opinion of Dynamic Logic, It’s parent company Millward Brown or anybody but the writer.
We are experiencing some tech issues with the email subscribe function May 25, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe email subscribe functions is apparently attaching itself to the wrong feed and sending people updates on my personal rather then business blog.
For the moment I have taken away the email feed subscribe and deleted the burn from my personal blog in hopes of correcting the situation. As of yet it is not resolved. You can still view the feed directly through your favorite RSS or Atom feed like Google Reader or Yahoo Reader but for the moment we will no longer be allowing subscribes to the DL media Roundup feed. For the 24 people that have subscribed since the email subscribe function has been offered , please be aware that if I have to delete the email burn list and rebuild it in order to have the correct burn sent to you . And because Feedburner does not allow me to see the names or email addresses of subscribers , I will have no way of notifying you that you will be unsubbed nor will I be able to direct you to the new feed subscribe site.
Please keep your eye on the blog when when you see the email subscribe function return then feel free to resub yourself. I will also post a notice about it when I have developed a fix .
Sorry for the Inconvenience
Thanks,
Mark Blei
About Our Company Blog May 16, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentFor your convenience we have added two new features to our company blog .
First we have established an RSS and Atom feed that appears on the blog main page with the text Subscribe in a reader this will allow you to subscribe your favorite RSS or ATOM reader including Google and Yahoo to our site feed so that you can keep up with postings on the blog .
We have also started using an email subscribe box which also appears on the main page. If you so choose to subscribe, all postings to the blog will be emailed to you in the format of your choice.
We take privacy very seriously and will never use any email addresses that are subscribed to our site blog feed for any purpose other then delivering the site feed to you.
Thank You.
Mark Blei
Blogger Dynamic Logic Media Roundup Blog
There will be no Blog postings tomorrow or Friday April 4, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentMedia Post Online Spin says Log In to Tune In – and I agree March 19, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSeana from online spin subscribes to a theory that I firmly believe in, which is one of the reasons that this blog exists. In order to be experts in part of what’s going on in the web we need at least a cursory knowledge of whats going on not only in our area but everywhere on the web that falls into our area. Now Seana is actually looking at the possible benefits and perils of being an early adopter without doing proper diligence which is why the text isn’t published here but it also brought up on of my peeves . “In order to discuss it , you have to know what the heck your talking about”
While I’m not a user of myspace , I do have an account so that when new initiatives are launched I can go and see what the hoopla is about. While I’m not personally a user of Second Life I do have an account and when I have a few minutes free, I fly around and see what’s changed from build to build. My kids use MSN and I don’t, but again, I do have an account.
The same goes for almost every major type of technology , network, or web based user tool that people are doing advertising on. That way I have an informed opinion as an actual user and when it comes time for us to start looking at how we can bring a new technology into a monetized product ,I have a decent starting point.
I can tell you just as a user that while I have found many spaces that sell stuff on Second Life, I have never come into one that had a live avatar there to greet me. A wasted chance. I also know that while Representative and majority leader Nancy Pelosi and others are having themselves turned into avatars to make public appearances in the second life version of capital hill , when I went to find the forum yesterday , I could not and even if I did I later found out that second life has a maximum amount of something like 60-70 avatars that can be in one place at one time. And while I’m not an expert in any of these technologies, as a person in Business Development for a company that does web based research I still see it as my responsibility to have a cursory understanding of how the latest and greatest works.
See the online spin article here And learn more about me Here
Mark Blei is part of the Global Business Development team at Dynamic Logic Inc. and is a contributer to many industry Blogs as well as general forums such as LockerGnome and an upcoming Media Industry forum through LinkedIn
Did you know that you could find almost anyone in Media that your looking for? February 22, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentBy Mark Blei
Many people ask me how I can find someone that other people have trouble finding.
Did you know that mediapost
Has a people finder that lists everyones contact information that subscribes to any of there newsletters? Your probably in their subscription base yourself and if your not your losing out on finding people.
Did you know that business social networking such as LinkedIn has a great search tool? On my profile I have had over 500 people contact me just because I list my email in my profile?
Did you know this has resulted in at least 5 sales and many more chances for me to evangelize about what we do any why it’s important? Did you know that by making myself available through those networks almost every week I am invited to join another industry related newsletter , blog, club or some device which gives me the opportunity to introduce myself to potential future customers and this results in our information being disseminated and has also resulted in people recommending me?
Groups you share with Mark:
I also get to try new toys for free before anyone else does.
Did you know that this week I’m in the process of making a sale because of a question I answered for free through a business social network by phone six months ago?
Did you know that one of the largest companies we brought in as first time customers last year was as a result of a drink I bought someone at a trade show two years ago while with another company but because I update my personal rolodex people want to know what I’m doing when I change jobs?
If our customers want to find you is there a way for them to do it? Take a few minutes and put yourself out there , talk about how great you are and let yourself be found.
This posting is a personal opinion article by Mark Blei who is in International Business Development for Dynamic Logic Inc and the author of this blog. None of the content of this article is meant to be an opinion of Dynamic Logic, It’s parent company Millward Brown or anybody but the writer.
There will be no Blogging on Monday February 19th Due to the Presidents Day Holiday February 16, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentEnjoy the weekend.
