Probably one of my favorite commercials ever...

So clever and well done. Good use of a classic tune to tie it together with the point of their ad. Kudos!

A Touch of Luck?

I was on the treadmill this morning and looked up to the TV screen on the wall of the gym in time to see an ESPN replay of a PGA golfer chipping out of a sand trap. The ball delicately dropped a few feet short of the hole and rolled forward until -- PLUNK -- a miracle shot worthy of an ESPN highlight.

I don't know who the golfer was, but he's obviously talented enough to use his sand wedge to make such a great shot -- but not talented enough to avoid the bunker in the first place. His shot was both skill and luck. Sometimes it takes a good mix of both to be successful. If it was pure skill, pro golfers would never be in the bunker, and every tough shot would end up in the hole. Skill gets them close, but luck takes them the rest of the way.

When I'm launching a new app for, say, the iPad, the techniques may be similar as I'm reaching out to many of the same writers. Some of these campaigns are crazy successful (check out GoodReader -- STILL the #2 best-selling iPad app in the iTunes App Store after several weeks) while other campaigns are successful but maybe not what I'd hoped (boffo!). The difference may be timing, message, or the product itself, but some of it is just the level of luck -- hitting the right shot with the wind just-so and a squirrel that brushes the ball with his fluffy tail to cause the ball to drop in the hole.

We can't count on luck, so we must learn and practice the best techniques to get us as close to the cup as we can get (and perhaps a dash of luck will give us a highlight of our own).

Advertising in the good times and bad

There's nothing like impeccable timing to start a business. I launched TK Magazine, for example, almost 4 years ago, and 1 year into it the economy began to fall apart. It's been a rough few years, mostly because the magazine is advertiser supported and companies slooooowed their advertising down or stopped it altogether.

There's the old story of Post vs Kelloggs from the days of the Great Depression. When the economy crashed and burned, Post pulled the reins on its advertising to save cash, while Kelloggs continued advertising -- realizing that it needed to continue pushing its message out there to the market. Going into the Great Depression, Kelloggs and Post each owned about the same percentage of the overall cereal market, but after the recovery, Kelloggs was so far out in front that to this day Post is still a Kelloggs wannabe.

It's been a BIT easier to sell ads as of late, but I admire those small business owners who realized that if they disappeared during the bad times, customers would be drawn to competitors who didn't and they may not be able to win them back during the good times.

“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” –Thomas Jefferson

 

Pay to Play Journalism

A CNET writer that I work with from time to time sent me a link to a Wired article on the topic of "pay to play" review sites. The sites mentioned in the article, AppCraver and TheIphoneAppReview, both have sent me replies when I've pitched apps to them for review that I could get my app reviewed or expedited for a fee. This practice of editorial for a fee is common in mainstream media in other countries, but in the US we like to think that there is a firm line between editorial and advertising coverage.

I don't pay for reviews or any other kind of coverage because the practice is damaging to the credibility of the editorial review process which makes PR so much more, well, credible, than display advertising. The benefits of PR is that the perceived value of the information is so much higher because of the implied 3rd party endorsement of the journalist who is not compensated by the subject of the article. Simply put, rewarding this kind of media with revenue to get them to write a review will encourage this kind of "advertorial" business to flourish and, as a result, water down the advantage my service offers over other types of marketing communications.

Especially egregious is when these reviews don't disclose that they've been compensated for the article so the reader can judge for themselves whether or not the writing was biased in favor of the subject.

The line between advertising and editorial is one that gets blurred now in every form of media. Until recently, I published my city's business magazine and of course those who spent money advertising in the magazine wanted to be our quoted experts in the feature articles.

So how is a website or other form of media supposed to generate revenue? I personally think having ads and editorial that happen to feature the same companies just isn't the same kind of crime as making them pay for editorial coverage. Sure, all things being equal, if someone I worked with as an advertiser in the magazine happened to be a great source for an article, I saw no harm in quoting them because I knew them and their expertise couldn't be questioned just because they also placed a display ad somewhere in the magazine.

But the "pay to play" practice where payment for editorial coverage is required is bad for my business and the journalism business because it reduces the credibility of both. Everyone knows that websites and other media are supported by advertising, so the media company should clearly state its policy on the line between journalism and advertising and let the consumer judge the veracity of their content.

Getting noticed on the web

I've spent a bit of time over the past few days looking at church websites. Man, they're bad! Of course, that's why there's a website called Church Marketing Sucks! As the communication team leader at my church (charged with internal and external publicity), I want our church website to look good, offer usable content, and be easily found by people looking for a church home. Unfortunately, our website comes with a subscription-based church management system that offers a really grand "behind the curtain" online community for members -- and while better than most church websites, ours still sucks.

We're going to take matters into our own hands and develop our own website that looks much better, is written for the web, and is search engine optimized.

When you put together a great looking website, how do you get people to find it? If you're looking for local traffic, you can advertise it to your local market in the newspaper, on Facebook or Google, or on radio or TV (if that makes sense to your kind of business). Don't forget the obvious: put it on your business cards, stationery and brochures!

There are important steps you need to take that will pay off in much bigger results for building your web traffic. Include target keywords and phrases that your prospects would be using to find you online. If you don't overwhelm your pages with meaningless words, the prominent use of keywords will make the page more appealing to the search engines and more meaningful to potential customers.

Carefully evaluate the benefits of online advertising (banners and pay-per-click). The nice thing is you can tell pretty easily if your investment is paying off and then adjust your budget to those ads that get the best results.

And use a blog and social media (Twitter and Facebook are no-brainers for many kinds of businesses) to connect with and keep in touch with customers -- and remind them about you and your website.