The best analogy I can think of would be a description of Pixar University I read about. At Pixar University, accountants, chefs, and any one who works at Pixar are encouraged to take drawing classes.  When questioned about the appropriateness of teaching accountants to draw, the head of Pixar University answered, “Why teach drawing to accountants? Because drawing class doesn’t just teach people to draw. It teaches them to be more observant. There’s no company on earth that wouldn’t benefit from having people become more observant.”

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

by Dan Ariely

This behavioral economics book offers a wide variety of experiments and explanations about why people act the way they do and more importantly, how to recognize subtle marketing tactics in everyday life.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

by David Allen

The simple premise of this amazing book is that if you can close the endless thought loops in your mind then you will get more done by not over thinking (or maybe better put, redundant thinking).
Three simple steps:

• One “inbox” with all the tasks/emails/projects that you need to analyze or want to remember.
• Categorize the information, determine what you need to do to complete it, schedule it.
• Forget about it.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

by Daniel H. Pink

A broad base of ideas to help people become better problem solvers and thinkers. Encourages better communication and better ways to communicate. Explains why creativity can be beneficial to all professionals.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

If you have to give a speech, give a presentation, write a paper, write ad copy, COMMUNICATE, read this book. The principles and conclusions in this book make presenting ideas (that will be remembered) straight-forward and easy.

Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers

by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a marketing genius. This book is widely accepted as how marketing should be done in the 20th century. People don’t want to be sold to. But people want information about products and companies they are already interested in. This book tells businesses, step-by-step, how to build relationships with customers online, as well as, in real life.

Rotating banners on the homepage of top retailer websites is becoming more and more common.  Out of the top 15 websites survayed, 7 had rotating billboard banners, approximately 47%.  Most of the retailers who used rotating banners used Flash to display them.  Sears used a JavaScript method probably jQuery.

4 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

4 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

Rotating Billboard

3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

3 Button Rotating Billboard with No Pause

3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

3 Button Rotating Billboard with Pause

Circuit City effectively posted an “out of business” sign on their web site ceasing US operations.  Siting challenges to business and a “bleak” business enviornment, the company will be liquidating assets to pay off creditors.

567 stores in 153 media markets will close and approximately 34,000 people will lose their jobs.

Liquidation sales started at stores Jan 17, 2009 and are expected to continue through March 2009.

Click the link below to see an archived version of the Circuit City home page.

Circuit City Website 1/19/2007

“The goal is to teach, cajole, and encourage this stranger to become a friend.  And once she becomes a friend, to apply enough focused marketing to create a customer.”

-Seth Godin, Permission Marketing, pg 63

Managing a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign for a brick-n-mortar store has its advantages and disadvantages. Internet marketing professionals are accustom to studying analytic data, crunching numbers, and optimizing campaigns on conclusive data. But for brick-n-mortar stores, internet marketers are forced to rely on the same subjective data used for TV, radio, and print marketing. A lot of marketing managers focus on impressions and a lot of mangers focus on clicks but most internet marketers know that either of these metrics are easily manipulated by bid, position, ad copy, keyword relevance, etc.

This Costco ad caught my attention recently:

Costco AdWord Ad

Initially, I thought the ad was odd because it was promoting Black Friday (Friday, November 28) and I was viewing the ad on Sunday, December 21. I let this obvious error go because I figured Costco was referring to “all” Fridays before Christmas as Black Friday.

Second, I tried to figure out what triggered the ad. My Gmail account is almost empty (keeping with good GTD principles) but there was a Kohl’s email (you get a Kohl’s email everyday). Either Costco was using a very broad term like “Christmas” or “Sale” or the competitor term “Kohls” but neither term seemed very targeted or relevant.  It would have been much wiser for focus on the keyword “Costco” or use keywords relevent to the products in the promotion.

The most asinine aspect of the campaign was the landing page:

Costco Landing Page

Not only was the Google AdWord ad copy out of date, the campaign expired six days ago on December, 15. Costco’s marketing manager or Costco’s SEM firm had forgotten to pull-down the campaign after it had expired and were now just wasting money.

Excerpt from Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing.   Short checklist from Peppers and Rogers on what businesses should focus on when selling to customers.

• Increase your “share of wallet”.  Figure out what needs you can satisfy, then use the knowledge you have, and the trust you have built with the customer, to make the additional sale.
• Increase the durability of the relationship.  invest money in customer retention because it is a small fraction of the cost of customer acquistion.
• Increase your product offerings to customers by being customer-focused, not retail-focused or factory-focused.  Offer products based on what the customer wants not on how you define your business.
• Create an interactive relationship that leads to meeting more customer needs.  By constantly encouraging the customer to give more information, the marketer can offer more products.