I was in a strategy meeting today with the head of online marketing at an accommodation reservations company. They’re kind of a big deal, but for the last two years they’ve been getting at least three complaints a day from members of the public who have tried to use their system and been pissed-off because some of the prices they were initially being quoted weren’t, in fact, the prices they would be paying. (I won’t bore you with details, but basically, they were showing a list of hotel rates from a particular source, but they were often three days out of date).

The head of online marketing is a pretty switched-on guy, and he knew that pissing people off was the best way to ensure they never visited his website ever again (you don’t want to annoy any customer, but you especially don’t want to annoy tech-savvy early-adopters of your product who have the potential to tell hundreds of others). He’d been having trouble convincing the CEO that the system had to change because there was a lot of development cost involved, but finally, after a year of trying, he’d got the change approved and a new system was in place that showed accurate prices. He had been conviced that the change would result in more sales, but he was at a loss because after a few weeks, the conversion rate had barely shifted at all. The GM told him that he’d have to break the news to the tech team that the costly change he’d implemented hadn’t been effective and it had been a bit of a waste; he was disappointed.

“But…” I said.

“I’ll bet your returning visitor numbers are up.”

His eyes lit up: “Hmm?”

“That’s your metric.” I told him. “I’ll bet you any money your returning visitor numbers increase dramatically over the next few months because people are going to be much happier with your product and they’ll want to come back. They’ll probably even tell their friends. And once you get more and more returning visitors, your conversion rates are going to keep going up because they’ll stop shopping around as much.”

This was good news.

Very good news. I think he wanted to hug me…

If there’s one web metric you want to see curve upward, it’s your returning visitor numbers. More new visitors are great, but what you really want to see are more people coming back. 1,000 visitors who come back ten times are worth far more than 10,000 visitors you never see again.

The best way of getting them to come back is figuring out why they’d want to leave in the first place; think about what they’re NOT getting and give it to them. If the solution sounds expensive, think about what a lifelong customer is worth to you, over time, and I’ll bet you’ll change your mind.

A friend of mine has developed his marketing mantra. It’s quite good and it goes like this:

1. Markets are conversations
2. Conversations happen around social objects
3. Social objects are products or services that are remarkable
4. Remarkable is not just something special, but something worth being remarked about
5. A great product, and even better customer service are the most remarkable things you can offer.

I like it (although I’d change the first point to read “your market is conversing”), and it fits in with pretty much everything I hold to be self-evident: The TV-industrial complex has crumbled and in an age where advertising saturation makes it almost impossible to push your message out, the best way of marketing your product is to get people to talk about it. Social media, as a form of word of mouth marketing, works, but what if you’re not remarkable? What if no-one wants to talk about you?

What if you make brown shoelaces, or you have a brand of aspirin that does the same thing as all the other brands of aspirin? What if you don’t really have a story or you don’t have a chance to really impress your customers with amazing service… What do you do? Do you just give up and start something else?

Nope. You invent a story.

If you make brown shoelaces you get Bear Grylls to explain that if he was stuck on a mountain and needed to create a makeshift parachute, he would only recommend using your brand. You would start a YouTube channel with a series of videos detailing other amazing uses for your brown shoelaces and explain how they are the best. You would find bloggers who talk about running shoes and dress shoes and adventure shoes and you would send them free product samples. It would be so successful that people would start buying your laces to put in their brand new shoes because they would think that shoe manufacturers didn’t know enough about lace technology.

If you make a new brand of aspirin you would create a 1300 number that people could call and whinge to; you’d remove their headaches. This number would be advertised, radio presenters would copy the idea. You would setup a social community where people can talk about their headaches and you would get experts to jump online and give advice.

If you think your product isn’t remarkable, you’re not trying hard enough.

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft provide solutions to people with video game problems. The trouble was, in 2006, the proportion of people who realised they had a gaming problem in need of a solution was very small in comparison to the population of the earth. Worse still, most people with video game problems needed to get hold of their mom’s (sic) purse first.

Rather then come up with the next fastest/loudest/baddest/blue rayest/most violent/most banned/most wanted new gaming console in the history of the world to date, Nintendo, instead, were smart. Very smart. They created Wii. Kids like it. Mom’s love it, heck, even the Queen of England has one. In fact, Wii sales now account for more than both main competitors combined.

If you’re going to develop a new product, think outside the (X) box. It’ll pay off. Especially if you back it up with customer service people rave about.

Have you ever wished you could find out everything people were saying about your company in blogs, forums, online media and on third-party websites? Better still, have you ever wished you could be notified via email when new information or comments about your company are published anywhere on the world wide web?

Media Monitors offer a paid service which is great if you like being sent newspaper clippings to stick in scrapbooks (scrapbooking is very popular these days). But did you realise that Google offer a very similar thing for free? It’s called Google alerts. It won’t send you dead trees, but it will email you any time the keywords of your choice appear on the web. It’s dead simple, and dirt cheap. Use it. Now.

OK, so you’ve got yourself a blog, congratulations! You’re blogger #50,000,001, welcome to the fold; I hope you enjoy yourself. I’m presuming you’ve got a pretty little orange RSS icon on your site somewhere so people can subscribe to your wisdom and/or ranting? Good. If not, get one, syndication is kinda’ the whole point.

…Except; do you know how many people: a) know what that icon does and b) know how to use it?

Answer: 2

If you’re going to go to the trouble of writing a blog, make it easy for EVERYONE to get your content; provide an email option. If you don’t know how, go to Feedburner. You’ll be far more popular that way.

I recently wrote a post on the definition of spam in a 21st Century marketing context which touched on the topic of what happens if you get caught spamming in Australia. The process is similar in most western countries. In case you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s a quick summary:

1. You generally get an official warning from the Australian Communications and Media Authority first, but;
2. There are fines of up to $220,000 per day for a first offence for a business entity
3. Do it again and you risk a range of harsh penalties, you’ll get an infringement notice and we’re talking anything from a few thousand to a few million dollars: read some case studies here

If you live in Nigeria your government probably won’t take a whole lot of action if you decide to send unsolicited email with little regard for the recipients’ rights (or intelligence). However, if you live in Australia, or any of the other more progressive countries with stern privacy laws, the consequeneces of sending out bulk email can be severe, even if you think you’re doing the right thing (in one case a managing director of an infringing company was ordered to pay $1 million out of his own pocket).

People generally only want to receive email they’re expecting to get, so no matter how great you think your offer is, if you send an unnounced message to a bunch of people who aren’t waiting to receive it, it’s not going to go over very well. At best they’ll ignore you, at worst, they’ll report you to the authorities. The Australian government provides a handy online form for reporting spam and to their credit, they even provide a plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express, which means that if you send email people aren’t expecting to get, you are literally only one mouse-click away from being reported to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (other countries have similar systems in place).

If someone does lodge a complaint against you (everyone’s definition of spam is different, even people who opted in can change their mind, it happens) and it’s your first offence, expect to receive the following email from Alana Keynes, or one of her colleagues in the Australian Government (or a government near you).

The following message was passed onto me by the client who received it (we had nothing to do with it, I swear!) And remember, this is just for a first, seemingly innocent offence. Do it again and you could end up in court:

—

To Whom It May Concern:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is responsible for the investigation of complaints of alleged breaches of the Spam Act 2003.

This email is to inform you that ACMA has received a complaint from [the complaintants email address was here] alleging that a commercial electronic message (email), that did not meet the requirements of the Act, was sent on 1 July 2008 from [senders name went here] with the subject heading “Association Member Survey”.

Specifically, the complainant alleges that no consent to receive such messages was given.

The Act makes it an offence to send unsolicited commercial electronic messages with an Australian link. ‘Unsolicited’ refers to messages that are sent without the consent of the recipient.

The Act requires that senders of commercial electronic messages must include accurate identifying information about the organisation or person that authorised the sending of the message, and must include a functional unsubscribe facility.  All requests to unsubscribe must be actioned within five working days.

At this time ACMA would simply like to ensure that you and your staff are fully aware of the Act’s requirements. To assist in this, ACMA maintains extensive information regarding compliance at www.spam.acma.gov.au (click on ‘Understanding spam’ and ‘Ensuring that you don’t spam’).

However, please be aware that if ACMA receives further complaints about your activities, or other information that indicates non-compliance with the Act, we may initiate further investigative action.  This could include further inquiries into this complaint or a formal ACMA investigation as to whether a breach of the Act has occurred.

It is important that all senders of commercial electronic messages are fully aware of the requirements of the Act, as the penalties that can be imposed under the Act are substantial, with fines of up to $220,000 per day for a first offence for a business entity.

Please ensure that the complainant’s email address is removed from all electronic mailing lists immediately, and that all future electronic correspondence complies with the Act.

Please respond to this message to ensure it has been received by the correct recipient.

Regards

Alana Keynes
Compliance Officer
Anti-Spam Team
Australian Communications and Media Authority
1300 855 180

—

Bottom line: Just because people are a member of an organisation, or accidentally left a box ticked on an online survey they filled out, doesn’t mean they want to hear from YOU. Don’t send anyone anything unless you know they specifically requested it or you’re wasting time, pissing people off and jousting with the law, none of which is good for your brand. My golden rule for sending commercial email messages is:

“Only send an email if you know the person would complain if they didn’t get it.”

Footnote: US marketing guru Seth Godin has an excellent email checklist you might like to consider before you send any email message, bulk, commercial, personal or otherwise. It’s well worth a read.

OK, so that’s an inflamatory headline… I will disclaim up front that I love Wikipedia and definitely don’t endorse anyone trying to use it for shameless self promotion, but as the world’s most popular source of information on pretty much everything, Wikipedia is now an unavoidable part of public relations practice. People trust it as much as they trust the Encyclopedia Britannica and it’s often the first point of reference for anyone doing Internet research; you want to make sure references to your company are balanced. Like anything, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it though; the last thing you want to do is create bad PR for yourself by annoying people, abusing the system or acting in bad faith. If you take the time to learn some basic principles, act in good faith and don’t abuse the system, it will pay off.

Lesson #1 — You Have no Control

Anyone can edit Wikipedia; you probably know this already. It means you can write whatever you want and it also means anyone can change what you wrote. Forget about ever having any semblance of control. You don’t and you won’t. This is the most important thing to understand about Wikipedia. You can influence what is said about your company through intelligent discussion, but you can’t control it.

Lesson #2 — Understand the Community and Know the Rules

Don’t even think about starting to edit an article (or creating one) until you know your way around. Read all about Wikipedia first and make sure you understand what it is and what it is not. Know the rules (namely everything you write must be neutral and verifiable by external sources). If you have any questions, ask them. The best way to learn how to use it is to start by making some small changes, or adding content to a subject you know something about and can easily reference. If you’re a fan of a famous band, or a football club and have some reference material on hand, feel free to add to that topic, making sure you attribute your sources and follow the rules. It’s also a good idea to read and participate in a few ‘discussion’ pages as well (each article has a discussion page associated with it where people can talk about what should be in the article) so you get a feel for the kinds of people who may want to challenge what you have to say. A good start is the McDonald’s discussion page, or if you’re feeling brave, the Scientology discussion page!

Lesson #3 — When You Can and Can’t Create an Article for Your Organisation

These are the rules about what companies can have a page (I’ve extracted them from the guidelines):

• Articles about companies and products are written in an objective and unbiased style. Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small “garage” or local companies are typically unacceptable. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations associated with a topic (see finishing school for an example).
• An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources (eg. one small article in a local newspaper) is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must be verifiable.
• Organizations are usually notable if the scope of activities are national or international in scale and information can be verified by sources that are reliable and independent of the organization.
• A primary test of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself (or of its manufacturer, creator, or vendor) have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it.

If you think you fit that criteria and there isn’t currently an article about your company, you can probably now feel free to create one. I won’t go into technical specs, but there’s plenty of info in the Wikipedia help files.

Lesson #4 — Editing an Existing Company Page

If someone else has already created the article and you feel you know your way around Wikipedia well enough, dive right in and edit it, just make sure everything you say has been published somewhere other than Wikipedia, and remain neutral! There are guidelines about conflicts of interests which you should follow too, the main one being “Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals, companies, or groups, unless you are certain that the interests of Wikipedia remain paramount.” Obviously it’s a grey line, so if in doubt, ask yourself ‘what would I do if the media were watching me right now’ (chances are, they very well may be!).

Feel free to list company achievements (record companies are notorious for doing this for bands), and if someone has written something nasty and unverified, you can delete it. Just make sure you do everything in good faith and understand that if you stop acting in good faith, it’ll look really bad and the bad PR will far outweigh all your good efforts. If you break the rules, you can also be certain your contribution will  be deleted altered soon after you write it, so don’t waste your energy.

Lesson #5 — What to Do if Your Company Doesn’t Qualify for a Wikipedia Article

If other people haven’t written enough about your company for it to qualify for its own legitimate article here are a few ways to get a mention:

• Do some genuinely useful research about a topic that’s related to your company and publish it on your website. You can then reference your site on Wikipedia.
• Read up on the external links policies and see if your company fits the bill. (ie. External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations associated with a topic (see finishing school for an example)).

Lesson #6 — Wikipedia is Not an SEO Tool

External links from Wikipedia don’t count towards your page’s ranking in Google. It’s as simple as that. If you’re trying to use Wikipedia as a way to get links for SEO reasons, give up. There’s no point!