“I once used the word ‘obsolete’ in a headline, only to discover that 43% of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline I used the word ‘ineffable,’ only to discover that I didn’t know what it meant myself.” – David Ogilvy
“Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.” – David Ogilvy
“Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.” – David Ogilvy
These gems from Jack Forde’s Copywriter’s roundtable newsletter. The most anticipated email in my inbox. http://copywritersroundtable.com
“Many a small thing has been made large by the
right kind of advertising.” – Mark Twain
“Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no
one.” – Adlai Stevenson
“Yes, I sell people things they don’t need. I
can’t, however, sell them something they don’t
want.” – John O’Toole
“Everyone is in sales… whatever area you work
in, you DO have clients and you DO need to sell.” -
Jay Abraham
“Advertising people who ignore research are as
dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy
signals.” – David Ogilvy
“I once used the word ‘obsolete’ in a headline,
only to discover that 43% of housewives had no idea
what it meant. In another headline I used the word
‘ineffable,’ only to discover that I didn’t know
what it meant myself.” – David Ogilvy
“Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t
want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to
your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.” – David
Ogilvy
“Committees can criticize advertisements, but they
should never be allowed to create them.” David
Ogilvy
“For a business not to advertise
is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what
you are doing but no one else does.” – Stuart Britt
I got a new shower mirror from ShowerTek (they used to sell these at Sharper Image..which is in some kind of bankrupcy limbo right now – their site says they’re coming back this fall). As I was installing the mirror, I noticed something interesting in the instructions. It said something to the effect: We’re continually improving product features so these instructions may not accurately depict the product you have.
I see this ocassionally. It’s that blurry area where marketing turns up in other printed materials. It’s nice to know that they’re always improving these mirrors…. but I couldn’t tell much difference from the older one I had. Regardless, they’re communicating a benefit right in the document where users are ending spending some time – the installation instructions.
Smart – perhaps accidental, perhaps completely true. Either way, it’s good to keep this in mind when you’re producing for your company. Find ways to show off your benefits in instructions, invoices, estimates…in addition to the usual places like landing pages, brochures, trade show booths, scripts, white papers, case studies and so forth.
Sometimes you need to connect to your desktop from a remote location in order to access files or data on your main computer. Many of you pay Citrix and do this with GoToMyPC. Others use Microsoft Remote Desktop from within Windows.
IMHO, the easiest, and cheapest, way to do it is with LogMeIn Free, however.
I installed it, and it works just like GoToMyPC.
I did hit one stumbling block, however, because I’m using Window 7 RC (release candidate) on several of my computers.
There’s a trick to logging in. You have to specify the name of the computer as well as the login when you’re logging on (and the password, as well).
Here are the instructions from LogMeIn support:
If you are using a Windows account username and password to access your Windows 7 host computer, you will need to enter the username in the format that includes the computer or domain name.
For example:
You normally log into your host computer with the username David and you are not on a domain.
Your host computer’s name is HomePC.
When connecting to the host computer, you would enter HomePC\David for the username.
If you don’t know what your host computer name is, you can easily find out by going to that computer, clicking Start/<right click> Computer/look under “computer name.” That’s the name that is equivalent to HomePC in the example above. You can find your name by clicking start and looking under the icon in the upper right of the Start pull-down. You know your password already, because you logged in .
Hope this helps out. It took me a while to figure it out (Googling and such), but the best answer came straight from the support folks at Logmein, who were nice, personable and helpful, btw.
One of my clients is a rubber manufacturing company. They make custom compounds for a varitey of different industries. Their products can be found in the car you’re driving, for example.
The client often complains about regulations. They have a lot of hoops to jump through just to make one pound of rubber. Environment, labor, disposal, transportation and a host of other regulatory demands have to be met every day.
Blessing for them, really. It’s a barrier to entry for their market.
My business, on the other hand, is different. Anyone can say they’re a writer.
I’ve got experience, with a B.A. in History from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Journalism from USC. But who the heck cares about that. So I jumped through some hoops way back when. I’ve been writing for 15 years as a technology-specific copywriter (and for rubber manufacturers, financial co’s, real estate moguls and medical equipment companies). That’s nice, but someone else could easily make the same claim, and you’d never know the difference until you look closely at their clips.
My point is this: Look past the credentials. Forget the bragging. Discard the testimonials. The bottom line? It’s easy (and cheap!) to try out writers.
Grab a few contacts from your Google search. (Include me in your evaluation, of course.) Then see if you can find something you like. Read their clips. Ask for specific kinds of samples. Not everyone’s the same, of course. Some will be more appropriate for your goals. When you settle on one, make sure they’re quick, responsive and reliable. That’s it. Connect the dots, and you’ve got yourself a writer that can make a difference in your business.
So, no I don’t have a big moat around my business. Anyone can hang up their shingle and compete against me.
This whole try it and buy it approach, however, is a big blessing when it comes to “barriers to entry.” I can shine quickly. I don’t need a huge capital investment. You don’t need to tour my plant. Our lawyers don’t have to sniff each other out.
You like it, you buy it. End of story. Give me a call (949-515-3510).
I have a short, “real life” story to tell which demonstrates some of the dangers of customer communication in a social media world. It’s also relevant to larger marketing and brand discussions. First the story:
I activated one of our company phones with the local Costa Mesa T-Mobile store the other day. The rep was great, I got the pricing I needed.
During the sign up process I told the rep that the charger jack on my phone doesn’t work so well. You have to connect the cord just right to get it to work. He told me to sign up for their $6 insurance plan and then file a claim with Asurion, T-Mobile’s mobile phone/cell phone claims company. I’d get a new phone and be set, he assured me.
Sounds too good to be true, ay? But you know what they say, “Sales people are the easiest people to sell to.” I’m a marketing guy, but I consider myself a sales pro, too (it’s part of the whole process – selling with words). So I was caught up in a feel good sales process, getting a new plan set up, and looking forward to getting the Blackberry Curve activated and working. I love this phone. I’ve had others, but this is my favorite.
Anyway, a few days later, I ask James, the sales rep, how to start the claim process. He emails me back with the phone number of a company in Fountain Valley (CA) that repairs phones.
I scratch my head and then call James to figure out what the deal is. I explain to him who I am and what he suggested when we first set up the account. He says I should file a claim with Asurion but that they’ll charge me a $130 deductible. “Really?” I say, “because you didn’t mention that earlier.” So he says that the repair place can fix the charger problem in a matter of minutes. I just take my phone in and they’ll resolder some wires. Quick fix – no problemo.
That sounds good to me. So I ask James if he can cancel the $6 insurance plan. He tells me to check out the repair shop first and then make sure it’s worth it. I scratch my head again.
I call the repair place, and they charge $85 for the repair. Hmmm. I’m starting to feel like a sucker at this point.
So, in the final analysis, communication and misunderstanding are at play here. I think there was some deception involved, too. If James were transparent about the deductible from the get go, I never would have wasted time tracking down service and claims options (or writing this article, for that matter).
But here’s the kicker.. and the crucial moment where an opportunity for a solution was fumbled away. During my first visit with James, I told him that I really like the new Sidekick LX. I mentioned that I’d probably upgrade to that sooner or later because I had one of the first gen devices and loved it (just a bit too clunky, but they’re slimmer now).
The thing is… James probably could have sold me one there and then. It was the solution to a *specific* problem I was having. They had 2008 models in the for $100 (less than a $130 deductible, cough, cough). And I was there as a new customer in activation mode.
But now I don’t want to give that store my business. I’d rather get an unlocked Sidekick on Craigslist or eBay and then bring it in an have them hassle with the activation and migration – which is a big, costly customer service exercise for them. I take up more of their staff’s time, I divert their attention from other customers, and other customers get peeved because I’m hogging all the time with this complicated migration issue.
From a marketing and customer service perspective, the whole situation is a lose-lose-lose for T-Mobile.
James doesn’t know that I’m a technology blogger and SEO consultant with a big following on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. I didn’t tell him, because I don’t want to be “that guy.” I’m sure they have lots of people pull the blogger card.
So, I’ve got good keyword density in this post. I’m reminding my marketing and advertising clients/readers about customer service in this brave new social media/social networking world. And, I have a place to vent about T-Mobile, Asurion and cell phone repair shops.
By the way, don’t ever get the insurance plan. The numbers don’t work out (as you can see above). And the repair places seem kind of scammy, too. James was telling me that this is a 5 minute procedure to fix a bad charger jack. $85 for 5 minutes is not reasonable, especially when you can find them all over craigslist and ebay.
I’m sure you’ve had experiences similar to this with a wide range of companies. Please comment below to tell your story or post a link to your own blog. Meanwhile, I’m off to Twitter and Facebook to link this post.
Happy Friday, btw. Phil – not bitter, just smarter today
Another note: I’ll be scheduling this one on TweetLater, too. What do you bet a T-Mobile Twitter monitoring employee contacts me (if they have a clue)?
If you’re like most people, you’ve upgraded your monitor over the years. Maybe you went from a CRT to a flatscreen… or from a standard 3:4 monitor to the larger cinema-style formats like 16:9.
Well, with a bigger screen or a different size ratio, you probably noticed that Microsoft Word docs (I’m using Microsoft Word 2007) look smaller on the bigger screens. This is a function of the zoom slider in the lower right-hand portion of the page. It has a range from 10% to 500%. Slide it and you’ll see what happens.
So, how do you change Microsoft Word’s default settings so you can see the same size page every time you open a Word doc or start a new document? Here’s the quick solution:
Go to the File menu => click Open => then locate and open the template you want to modify (This will usually be the normal.dot template)
The file is usually located here: C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates where <name> is the name of the user or computer you’re on (search your computer for the Templates folder if you can’t find it)
Locate, select and open Normal.dot
Change the Zoom level (lower right) on this particular document to whatever percentage you prefer (You can also change any of the template’s text and graphics, styles, formatting, macros, AutoText entries, toolbars, menu settings, and shortcut keys)
There are so many. (For fun, add your own in the comments below.) It’s the new illiteracy confusion trend.
Anyway, try to stay away from confusing, trendy words. Everybody can speak the basics and almost everything can be described in simple terms. Avoid complexity, and you’ll end up looking smart.
Stanford University did a study on intelligence perception that proves this out, in fact. Their research showed that people who write and speak in short sentences (while using short, simple words) are perceived as more intelligent than those who get crazy with big words and grammar complexity. It makes sense.. those who communicate well impart their knowledge more efficiently and effectively. (Ouch — ‘efficiently and effectively’ sounds like worn marketing-speak… sometimes it’s tough to avoid it.)
.
