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When “Tech Support” Is Neither Technical or Supportive

Jul 24th, 2010
by The Snark.
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Marketers who hype terms like “free” and “instant” are hurting themselves and other marketers. If you have to pay *anything* it is not free.

If you have to enter your name and email address, click the Submit button, check email, open a message, and click a link, then go to a site and download a file, it is not instant.

Yeah, yeah, “everybody knows” the offers are not *literally* free or instant, and that’s the problem. If that is the way you communicate as a marketer, why should buyers believe *anything* you say?

Now there is a new one: “support”. This week I “instantly” downloaded some “free” software. A prominent icon on the download page indicated that it would run in Mac OS X, but it does not.

It should, since it is written to run in Adobe Air, a cross-platform, ah, platform software. But no.

So I put in a support ticket. On the Help page (which did not mention my problem) was a prominent phone number. “Call us for quick help.” So I called.

The person who answered the phone knew nothing, wanted to know nothing, and could not seem to figure out why I bothered her. “You can look at the Help page.”

“I did. It did not help. It said to call this number.”

“On the Help page, you can put in a ticket.”

“I did,” I said. “The page said for faster help to call this number.” Irony was lost on her.

“Well, I’m not tech support. I’m sure they will respond soon.”

They did respond soon. (I’m pretty sure it was the same person, Victoria.) The message was, “If you need help, please go to our Help page.” (The one where I started.) “If you do not see your problem answered there, you can put in a Help ticket. “

It was clear that the person who answered the Help ticket had not actually read the Help ticket. So I replied, pointing that out.

Same person answered, “I am not a technical support specialist, but you can go to our Help page. If you do not see your question answered there, you can put in a Help ticket.”

Honestly I am not making any of this up—-or exaggerating even a tiny bit.

I have been a customer of this yoyo company. Do you think I will ever buy anything from them again? Noooooooo!

Meanwhile I got half a dozen email messages from that company the same day, offering to sell me things. (Talk about irony impaired!)

I don’t think so!

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Posted in: Internet Marketing.
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Autoplay Sound Turns Us Off!

May 26th, 2010
by admin.
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Autoplay sound or video (with sound) usually makes me leave a site immediately and not come back. Many of us, your potential customers, hate it!

The objection to automatically played sound or video is not just personal. It’s practical, too. (But many of us also consider it to be rude.)

Like many Internet users, I’m a multitasker. So when I hit your site, I may be already listening to an instructional MP3 or video, not to mention music I like, or a business telephone conversation.

Your message overrides whatever it is that I’m choosing to hear. That it is extremely annoying.  If I want to hear your message, I will turn it on.

Sometimes it takes me awhile to find the Off button. If it takes more than a couple of seconds, I close the window and usually don’t go back.

Bear in mind that some of us are searching for information from a client’s office. Or we may be at work at a regular job. Even if we are searching for a product like yours for our client and employer, the autoplay sales pitch sounds like we are goofing off, just surfing the web.

Even if we are on a break or lunch, your blaring ad—especially with loud music—can make us look bad. We hate that!

Not to mention that the sound may disturb our cubicle neighbors who are trying to do work that requires serious concentration. Some of them may complain. Others may be encouraged to make noise that later makes it hard for us to concentrate. Autoplay sound is unprofessional.

So if you competitor does not blare at us, and your competitor has a comparable product, guess who gets our business? That’s right: not you!

So think about that instead of how cool you think you sound...if your goal is to make sales.

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Posted in: Internet Marketing.
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If Your Product, Site or Support Fails a Customer, It’s *Your* Problem

Jan 30th, 2010
by Marketing Snark.
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If your product, website or support fails a customer, is it their problem? No, it’s yours.

Heed their feedback. It’s a warning.

Customers who complain are doing you a big favor. Instead of telling you that there is a problem, they could just go away mad—and tell all their friends.

Just because you have not encountered the problem yourself, that does not mean it is not real. It means that your interface, documentation, web design, or *something* is at fault, and you need to fix it.

And just because no one has complained before, that does not mean there has not been a problem all along.

Quit assuming that the customer is always wrong / stupid / lazy / dishonest. And even if you think that, do not let it show.

And the customer who is trying out a free service or product today (and complaining when it does not work as advertised) is not being “ungrateful.” Grow up! You’re in business.

That complaining, grouchy customer gave you a chance. They could have become your biggest fan. But you failed them.

Good marketers rise to the challenge, accept complaints as feedback, and make sure the customer is happy. That is how you keep customers and get new ones by referral. Sarcasm is not.

Sure, a grouchy customer could be just a mean person. Or they could be just having a bad day. And your product and/or inadequate service and support could just be the cause of that bad day.

So be nice. And pay attention. You could learn a lot.

Customers who speak up are valuable. And they are the tip of the problem iceberg. For every one who speaks up, there are lots more who simply leave in disgust—and tell their friends.

Think about it.

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Posted in: Internet, Internet Marketing, Marketing.
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iPad: a Great Product in the Wrong Market?

Jan 29th, 2010
by admin.
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ipadI admit to being a diehard Steve Jobs fan. As a marketer, how can you not be? Jobs is not just a marketing genius; he’s a marketing revolutionary.

Defying marketing maxims about the difficulty of creating brand new markets for totally new products, Jobs has succeeded on a grand scale with products such as Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone…

And lest anyone think his success with Apple Computer was just a fluke, when Jobs left, the company foundered. His return brought the company back to success. Clearly he knows what he is doing.

But Uncle Stevie’s latest brainchild strikes me as a mismarketed product. It is a great product. I believe there is a large market for a tablet computer with great Internet connectivity at a reasonable price. Yet the iPad tablet computer is being marketed as a phone!

Too big to carry in your pocket, and too expensive, vulnerable, and heavy to carry everywhere, the tablet seems likely to fail in the cell phone market for those reasons and a few more. I hope I am wrong, because I really want one—but not to use as a cell phone.

At least that’s my opinion. What’s yours?

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Posted in: Internet, Marketing, Technology.
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Book Cover Design Mistakes, an Update

Oct 12th, 2009
by Marketing Snark.
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The End of Poverty

Example of a well-designed book cover. Image via Wikipedia

Awhile back I wrote about how you can judge a book by its cover and the importance of book jacket design in selling books. (The same could be said for most packaging design.)

As an example I used a nameless series of novels that had become highly successful with classy covers and then switched to unprofessional and rather repulsive cover illustrations—apparently to save money.

Last week in the grocery store I noticed a book from that series with yet another a new cover design. The illustration was midway in competence between the original sharp designs and the subsequent bad ones. However, I think the publisher finally got it right.

The books are a bit more serious than the original designs were. As I explained before, a cover that does not match the contents can turn off the intended audience and attract people who will put the book right back down again when they flip through it and see what is actually about.

The new illustration is attractive enough and gives a better idea of the content and tone of the series. Yay!

Needless to say, I bought the book.

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Posted in: Book Marketing, Marketing.
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Cheesy Graphics Turn Buyers Off

Sep 13th, 2009
by Marketing Snark.
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Mass-market paperback, Life, the Universe and ...

Image via Wikipedia

Recently I wrote about how you can judge a book by its cover—and should be able to. At that time, I was talking about the appropriateness—or congruency—of the design to the topic.

(The Douglas Adams book on the left is an example of good design from a series that was well designed, well marketed, and highly successful, establishing a huge base of loyal fans and eager buyers.)

Today I want to talk about the recent trend to cheap, ugly art on book covers. It is really obvious in some of the genre book series I follow.

For example, a series of books starts out with classy covers that convey the true nature of the contents. The series becomes highly successful and profitable—perhaps not a best seller, but a solid income producer for the publisher, with a great future ahead as the series grows.

Then the publisher commissions poorly executed, even repellent art for the reprints. Does that make sense? Not to this former book publisher.

You see the real profit in publishing is in the reprints. The first edition of most books does not make much money. Between the advance to the author, the costs of printing and binding, and the huge discounts required by the major bookstore chains, publishers often do not break even on the first book in series.

But they know that as more books in the series are published, new readers will go back and read the earlier ones, and the market for the series begins to build. That is why you often see the first few books in a series in paperback only, then the series switches to hardcover with paperback reprints of the hardbacks about a year later.

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Posted in: Book Marketing, Marketing.
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You CAN Judge a Book by its Cover!

Aug 16th, 2009
by Marketing Snark.
2 comments

There is an old saying, “You can’t just a book by its cover.” Whoever said that was not a book publisher. Book publishing is pure marketing.

You not only can judge a book by its cover, you have to be able to—for the book to sell well. Think not?

Imagine a hard-boiled detective thriller with a fluffy, flowery romantic cover. You think anyone who is interested in hard-boiled thrillers will even pick it up? Of course not.

Now think of a sweet, old-fashioned romance (barely hints at sex, innocent till marriage…Do they still sell those?) with a garish, words-only cover. Do you think a young girl looking for a blissful escape from reality is going to give that book a glance? Not even one.

Worse, if the romance reader buys the thriller by mistake, or the nonfiction reader accidentally buys the fluffy romance, they will be extremely unsatisfied customers. Angry customers. They will blame the publisher for misrepresentation—and rightly so!

The point of the story is this: Make sure your advertising and packaging appeal to the right market, and that the product matches the presentation.

I promise you it is well worth the effort. And misrepresenting your product is never a good thing in the long run.

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Latest Is Not the Greatest for Marketing

May 21st, 2009
by Marketing Snark.
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If you post a marketing video, you want the most possible people to view it, right?

So why make it so that only those who have the latest, up-to-the-minute versions of software installed can watch it? When you do that, you lose a lot of potential customers!

Unless your video is demonstrating the latest special effects game, software, or movie, and your audience is young, affluent geekboys, you don’t need the latest version of Flash, released 5 minutes ago.

Today I received an email with a link to a video touting an Internet marketing product. From past experience with the seller, this will be a talking-head video. It will not need special effects. Five-year-old technology would work just fine.

Yet here I am with a less-than-one-year-old state-of-the-art laptop, and I can’t watch it because I don’t have Flash 10.1.01.1.1.1….whatever. In case it’s not obvious, that’s bad marketing.

(Yes, yes, I stopped work, closed all 25 browser windows and some other stuff, and installed it, but most people can’t or won’t bother to do that.)

Most people are not running the latest version of anything. If they are using their computer at work, they can’t. Most corporations deliberately stay at least a year behind the latest—and sometimes more—they want to wait for the bugs to be swatted and the security patches to be available before they update their software. It saves support costs. 

Corporate IT departments also set up the computers so that users cannot install anything not provided by IT. That also saves greatly on support costs.

And most people at home do not have the latest and greatest. Many do not even have the latest operating system. Like the big corporations, they may feel “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Or, no matter how intelligent and well educated, they may not want to get into PC maintenance.  You would be surprised how many affluent people just buy a new computer every two or three years—just like the big corporations they work for or with—instead of installing new software all the time. Adults are often using hand-me-downs from their high-school or college-age kids!

So if you eliminate everyone (even executives) using corporate computers (including laptops), everyone who is too busy/lazy to update software all the time, and also those who are using older computers and possibly cannot run the latest version of, say, Flash, you have just eliminated a huge percentage of potential customers—whatever your product. 

Is that smart? I don’t think so.

There’s a reason they call it “the bleeding edge.” You’re bleeding profits.

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Posted in: Internet Marketing, Marketing.
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Do Not Phone Me! Well, OK, Sometimes…

Apr 4th, 2009
by Marketing Snark.
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I keep subscribing to email lists for causes and charities that I’m interested in. I really do read most of the emails, and most of the time I take the actions they request. I donate. I sign petitions. I’m a good member—via email.

What I purely hate is when they call me. Calling can be a good marketing tool, but it should be used very, very rarely and wisely. Marketers who call to give me a sales pitch get a quick brush-off, especially if they got my phone number under false pretenses.

I never agree to calls. And I’m not very nice when people interrupt my day or evening with a phone call. 

On the other hand, an on-line marketing genius named Howie Schwartz calls frequently, and I welcome the calls. Why? He calls as a reminder of his webinars that I’ve signed up for.

Howie’s are automated calls, and they are truly helpful. I tend to get busy and forget webinars, and I find his really entertaining and useful.

Now if everyone else starts doing that, starts imitating Howie and calling me to bug me about their webinars, I will probably just unsubscribe from their lists. 

So the moral of this story is, “Don’t bug people.” If you manage to wangle someone’s phone number, treat it as golden. If they signed up for email from you, stick to that unless they give you permission to call—and unless you are truly doing them a service. 

You will sell a lot more products by respecting other people’s time and resources. 

And that’s all I have to say about that.

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Posted in: Internet Marketing, Marketing.
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Either It’s Free. Or not. Period.

Mar 18th, 2009
by Marketing Snark.
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C’mon, marketers. Either you are giving me something for free—or you are making a fraudulent come-on. 

I’m not saying you have to give anyone anything. Far from it. You are in business. No one expects that.

But be honest about what you are offering. Whether it’s a forced-continuity membership or “low fee for shipping,” that is not free. If there are any strings attached that require payment, it is not free.

[Whether or not "free" actually applies to things you give in return for the site visitor narking on---I mean, giving you the email addresses of---his or her friends is another quibble for another day.]

If you are offering a gift with purchase (normally referred to in Internet marketing as “a bonus”), say so. Call it a bonus. Don’t pretend it is a gift.

All these little scams (and, Yes, they are scams on a small scale) are simply making me unsubscribe from your list and/or delete your mail without opening. Do you think I’m the only one? Thank again.

Look at it this way: If you will scam me on small things, why should I trust you at all?

And on that shipping and handling scam: The last thing I need is more CDs or DVDs to store. Plus, this is the Web. If I want your info at all, I want it right now! Not whenever the post office gets around to processing it.

So there. I’ve said it. I feel better. How about you?

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