Archive for June, 2011
Fragmentation as Problem & Opportunity
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011The fragmentation of the marketplace is not at all new. But it is fragmented into tinier and tinier and tinier slivers at an accelerating pace.
The passing of Water Cronkite reminded many of us of an “un-fragmented” time in America. Three television networks, their evening newscasts important and watched by the overwhelming majority of households. A handful of major magazines read by just about everybody. Three, at times four automakers. If I’m not mistaken, Campbell’s soup and no others. Of course, niches and sub-cultures always existed, but there weren’t any really good ways to cater to them, and not catering to them wasn’t much of a problem. Lost opportunity, yes, but unnoticed and basically unimportant.
Challenges of the Internet, As I See ‘Em
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011A few preface comments …
You should not read this as a simplistic “anti-internet diatribe.” While I steadfastly refuse using it personally, the internet is used for me by several people, used extensively and enthusiastically by the Glazer-Kennedy team, used by my clients, and contributes to my personal wealth for which I am appreciative. I’m also quite effective in writing copy for use in online media, and these days, more than 50% of all that work that I do is for online deployment, not offline. However, there’s no denying that the internet is the single most destructive media, maybe most destructive force any generations have ever seen or experienced, societally, culturally, and in business. With no end to its destruction in sight. Despite efforts of smart marketers, it has commoditized any number of product categories and virtually eliminated offline business categories. Amazon.com alone has destroyed more than half of the brick and mortar bookstores with all heading for extinction, greatly suppressed prices, margins and authors’ royalties … yet I have fondness for Amazon. I write this not as Luddite resistor or simple critic of the internet, nor as a champion, but striving for the critical principle of Accurate Thinking, for Objective, Analytical Thinking, and for the most difficult feat of Accurately Predictive Thinking.
That ‘Ol Time Religion Loves a Good Recession
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011Let’s begin with the disclaimers. In all that follows, I mean no disrespect for anyone’s spiritual beliefs or religious affiliations. What follows is an intellectual exercise. Try not to personalize or emotionalize this discussion. If something you are attached to is used here as example, I assure you it is an interchangeable example; there are many that might just as easily have been used. There is nothing for you to gain by being offended. And I am not interested in receiving argumentative correspondence about this and won’t respond. If you feel compelled to defend something, defend it to yourself. Also, I do not intend this as an exercise in cynicism. I am a huge champion of ‘accurate thinking,’ and strive not to think of ‘what is’ as inherently positive or negative or good or bad; only as the set of circumstances and the nature of the people with which we are dealing at the moment. So much time, energy, money, blood, sweat, tears is wasted by denying ‘what is.’
5 Best Ways Info-Marketers Can Beat the Recession and Get Customers Spending NOW
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011As I’ve said elsewhere, this isn’t my first run around the recession track. Been here before, done this before.
To my knowledge, there are five “best strategies” for these conditions. Six, if you are sitting on mountains of money, have no need for more, and don’t mind your business going backwards and having to later be re-built, then you might choose to just hibernate. Take vacations, a sabbatical, see the U.S.A., or spend the next 3 to 5 years learning to ski or surf or bend spoons with your mind. It’s NOT the worst response. But most of you aren’t going on extended vacation. So you’re going to need these five strategies. They are not necessarily strategies you’re going to want. But you’re going to need them.
Bad Online Sales Letters and a Pox on Those Who Stick ‘Em Up There
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011In one of master-copywriter Michael Masterson’s books, he laments the many young copywriters/marketers going right to, and exclusively to the internet, never learning to write sales letters for direct-mail, correctly noting they lack knowledge of many important skills by never working with print. This is, I guess, one of the reasons—among others—there’s so many lousy sales letters to be found at websites. A member sent me one for critique, loaded with flaws that probably wouldn’t occur if the writer was putting it together to go into the mail. I’m going to rip it apart here, and hopefully give you a few things to think about, and check out at your own websites.