Author Archives: Marketing Snark

Self-Running Videos That You Can’t Turn Off Abuse Customers

Posted on July 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Self-running Videos on websites, that visitors can’t turn off, are customer abuse. If you put one on your website, you guarantee that I will not buy what you’re selling. Here’s why.

Self-running demos are rude. I’ve written about them before. I hate them.

Self-running demos are counterproductive for marketers, because people who go to your site from their office must usually turn them off or close the site immediately. If they’re like me, and they have to close the site, they will not go back. You’ve lost them.

But the videos that the site visitor cannot turn off are truly abusive. They violate the rights of the site visitor and say, “I’m more important than you, and I don’t care what you want.

Besides being sociopathic and sick, that attitude does not bode well for support—or even for honesty and fairness. Anyone who tries to cram their offer down my throat probably doesn’t have a very good offer.

And as for pages that are all video, with little or no text, forget about it! If you won’t put your offer in writing, it’s probably a scam. So far, my experience has born that out. I’m not continuing the experiment.

So, marketers, suit yourself. Keep abusing customers and turning them off. Because that just leaves more for the rest of us, who treat them right.


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Posted in Internet, Marketing

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Your Questions About Book Cover Art

Posted on May 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

Susan asks…

How important is the cover art to get you to read a book?

http://www.thelastrejection.com

I was wondering if anyone has published a book and had a lot of success based on the cover of their book? I think my cover art for my book is pretty nice, but can it really get someone to buy it simply because of the look?

Also, do any of you actually read the synopsis before buying? Does it sway you at all? Or is it just the pretty colors? ‘)

Marketing Snark answers:

Cover art has to be not only visually pleasing but also appropriate to the content of the book. The old saying might go, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” however, people do. The publishing industry knows this and designs covers accordingly. The cover of a thriller, for example, looks nothing like the cover of a sweet teen romance. Continue reading →


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Posted in Book Marketing

If Your Product, Site or Support Fails a Customer, It’s *Your* Problem

Posted on January 30, 2010 | Leave a comment

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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Book Cover Design Mistakes, an Update

Posted on October 12, 2009 | Leave a comment
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

Posted on September 13, 2009 | 1 Comment
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.

Continue reading →


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Posted in Book Marketing, Marketing

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You CAN Judge a Book by its Cover!

Posted on August 16, 2009 | 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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Posted in Marketing

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Latest Is Not the Greatest for Marketing

Posted on May 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

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…

Posted on April 4, 2009 | Leave a comment

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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Either It’s Free. Or not. Period.

Posted on March 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

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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Posted in Internet Marketing

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Is Twitter Still a Good Marketing Tool?

Posted on March 7, 2009 | Leave a comment

I just read a blog post by Rich Shefren called How To Transform Twitter Into Your Own Personal ATM. Shefren advocates twittering constantly, including personal details of your life so as to be “totally transparent.”  

The goal is to make money by linking to offers to get people to buy things. Supposedly other Twitter users will like and trust you and want to buy from you because they feel that they know you.

I am twittering. In fact, I have several Twitter IDs, one for each niche I blog in, because my niches range from angels and art to political snarkery, marketing snarkery, and how to talk like a Texan—among others.

You can reach me at any of the following Twitter IDs: AngelWords, ArtFunCheap, DreamVisions, Glitzkat, KathleenGresham, kgresham, MarketingSnark, SnarkRemarks, TexasTalk, WhiteCranes, and a few others.

What I’m seeing, though, is that people are  just following other Twitter users wholesale in order to reciprocally build up their total followers. So who are these people?

If you have hundreds (or even dozens) of followers, how do you keep from being drowned out by the noise? I do weed out the really awful ones, but…even the ones that are left are not a focussed group—-for any of my IDs except maybe the Texas one.. Maybe.

Aren’t they all drowning each other out? How can they get any sense of my personality when I’m drowned out on my own Twitter streams?

And personally I don’t care about the really personal stuff—the stuff Twitter started for. Usually it is boring. I do not care what anybody ate for lunch. Originally I unfollowed anyone who was boring, but it is too late for that now.

So it seems to me that a Twitter following is like a very unfocused general mailing list. You have no way to know who is listening. Most followers do not know or care about you. Almost all of them are trying to sell something or other—-from real estate to Internet marketing products.

Shefren’s model seems to be based on the idea that people follow you because they know you and want to hear whatever you have to say—-even ordinary, personal stuff—like following a rock star. For Internet marketing legends like Shefren, that may be true.

But what if you are just an ordinary marketer? What if you are building up a Twitter following by using one of the services like TwitterGetter? What about for the rest of us?

This issue has been bothering me lately. (I did use TwitterGetter. Now I’m not sure that was a good idea.) 

So what do you think?


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Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Networks, Twitter

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