How Halloween has changed (UK Edition)

I'm a child of the 70's. In England the 70's (the real one not the one on TV) was very brown.

Begrudgingly in the my parents allowed me to celebrate Halloween. It was frowned on as too American. Anyway the upshot is that we never had pumpkins. They where far to exotic and colourful.

No,we were given Turnips.

My mum would cut the top off and score the surface. Then I'd be issued with a blunt tea spoon to scrape the insides out. My Dad would then use a sharp knife to cut out the all important face, while I nursed my bruised hand from scraping a rock hard Turnip with a blunt spoon.

Tell that to English kids these days and they won't believe you.

Using Social Networking sites and the future of Marketing

On Linkedin John Cass asked "What is the future of marketing? What strategies, processes and tactics are in marketing department of 2015?"

This is a great question and one that if I could answer would make me a millionaire.

For my ten pence worth. Nothing will really change that much. People are people. The issue now for Marketers is that our customers are now a lot closer to us and can effect our businesses in ways we never imagined before.

There are two ways of looking at this.

1. We can stay frightened at the "Nasty" customers who aren't happy with our us and are telling everyone and spoiling our profit margin.
2. We can engage with our customers and listen to what they tell us and act one it. That way we'll ensure that they spread the word about what great companies we have and how "they really listened and did what I asked them to."

For the last 100 years or so business has been moving away from interaction with customers. From the corner shop we moved to the faceless supermarket. Now we've gone full circle. Even the largest companies have to take notice of the little guy. They now have real power and can spread good or bad for you and your company in the blink of and email.

Which would you rather they do?

Don't be afraid. Dive in and engage with your customers. If you're afraid of doing it then do you have ask yourself "Have I got something to hide"? If you have then start changing. If they don't know what your hiding, they soon will. And they'll tell everyone!

Social Networking Experiment Update

After sticking my toe in the Facebook water a week ago, I'm pleased to report that it's going really well. In fact better than I expected.

From a standing start there are now over 300 members of the Applied Language Translation and Interpreting Group. If you are interested in being a translator or interpreter then I'd recommend signing up to the group and to our suppliers data base www.talkbase.net.

Should you be nervous on Facebook?

I've started using Facebook recently and I've set up a few groups for work. We're a Translation and Interpreting company so to get more linguists to register with us I set up a group. It's worked really well. If you're a linguist on Facebook please join.

While I was looking for other related groups I found this quite scary one for United States Intelligence Community. It's an open group so anyone can join. What I can't tell is if it's a spoof or not. It looks pretty official and if it is maybe you should be nervous.

The web is a really weird place sometimes!

Naming a product to suit your audience

I was just watching a re-run of I'm Alan Partridge and spotted the ident in the corner of the screen. I did a double take when I saw what the name of the channel was.

UKTV 2 (a digital channel in the UK) has just changed it's name to

DAVE

Dave is a very brave thing to call a TV station. It definitely makes it stand out from the crowd and at the same time identifies it with it's core audience.

Dave shows classic TV for English Men aged between 25 and 40 (that's me). Dave's shows include Top Gear, Have I Got News For You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Dave's a great name as far as I'm concerned and my hat's off to the team who came up with it, but especially to the guy who paid the bill and stood his corner.

More Marketing Books you should read

Since my last list I felt a bit ashamed that I'd missed some classics out. To re-dress the balance here are a few more marketing books you should read.

1. Purple Cow - Seth Godin
2. Full Frontal PR - Richard Laermer
3. Naked Conversations - Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
4. Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing - Drayton Bird
5. Open for Business, How to write letters that get results - Courtney Ferguson
6. The World is Flat - Thomas L Friedman

I've read all of these and they've helped shaped my marketing view. If you've got any recommendations or views on these books I'd love to know.

Here's a link to my previous list of Marketing Books you should read.

Law of decrecesing returns on Email Marketing

When I did my Direct Marketing Diploma there was a rule of decreasing returns which went along the lines of this:

Once you've mailed a file return to the same file again but exclude people who responded the first time. This rule generates more sales. You can keep doing this at least 10 times so that our list gets smaller and smaller but your only working on people who don't buy or respond.

I've been trying this same rule with email marketing. Using Campaign Monitor you can segment any list and include only those people who didn't open the initial email or click on a link etc. I opted for the didn't open as I figured that didn't click a link was a bit too risky and would produce a barrage of abuse and spam complaints.

I re-emailed about a week after the initial offer. The strange thing is that the law seems to be broken at least for these campaigns.

There are two options

1. My campaign was crap (very likely)
2. The rule doesn't work for email

I've seen independent result for this on a traditional paper based mailing. I've even done it myself and had a lot of success. But for some reason it's not worked with email.

If anyone has any different experiences I'd love to hear them as I'm sure this should work.

Getting around the postal strike

In the UK the postal workers are on strike. I'm not going to get into the details but it's causing lots of issues and doing them no good at all.

In an age where less and less post is being delivered anyway all they are doing is speeding up the process of people looking for other avenues to deliver what would traditionally go via Royal Mail.

Hats off to Marketing Week who have thought through the problem. My weekly issue can't delivered this week, so quick as a flash they've just delivered it by email. Great I still get my copy.

What will have happened now is that the management will have looked at just how much cash they've just saved. As well as the postage they've saved the print, the fulfillment, the repro and all the admin charges associated.

So how long do you think it will be 'til they offer a split subscription? You can have a PDF or if you insist a paper version. They discount the PDF version and then pretty soon the printed version will be fazed out.

This was of course always going to happen with weekly trade magazines where the biggest outlay is the print and distribution, it just that the Royal Mail strikers have just begun to unwittingly accelerate their own demise.

Remote PowerPoint and presentation tips

At my company we give our presentations via the web. This saves traveling time and the planet. Presenting via the web has it's own issues. Most notably that you're not there in person. Here are a few tips to help you out if you do that same as we do.

Your PowerPoint presentation

• Keep it simple and to the point
• Avoid bullet pointed lists that you're going to read out to them. Save yourself and them the time and just send them the document so they can read it themselves.
• Be passionate

Your desktop

• Make sure your desktop is as clear as possible. If for any reason you have to click on it you don’t want customers to see other customer’s files or clutter on the screen.
• Ensure you have your company wallpaper on your screen. It's easy to do and look so much more professional than a picture of your favourite car or your wedding day, or your cat (however cute).
  
  Your Customer
• Your customer may have a different screen resolution to you. Make sure they can see what you can before you start your presentation. You don’t want a customer to miss something at the edge of your screen. You can do this by moving your mouse from corner to corner of your screen and asking if they can see it moving.
  

Oh my god I'm skydiving!

I've decided to do a tandem skydive for charity in December. I'd really love it if you'd sponsor me, you can do it on this special website http://www.justgiving.com/throw-management-from-the-plane all the details are here. I'm trying to raise cash for a much needed hospice in Huddersfield.

To stick with the theme of the blog, I wanted to share with you how I'm trying to promote the skydive. As well as the donation site, I've also set up a facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5412826380. And invited my contacts on Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/rmichieappliedlanguage

I'm encouraging people to pass on the details to try and raise as much cash as I can for the charity. I've never tried the social network route before, and wanted to see how well it worked. If any one has more ideas I'd love to hear them.

I'll keep you up to date on how the experiment goes as well as the skydive.

How PowerPoint can and should be great

I attended the a translation industry conference this week in London. The people involved in this industry are highly intelligent, witty and engaging people. They write for a living.

Translation is probably harder than original writing, you have to get under the skin of the original to ensure you convey the right meaning.

So you'd have thought that the presentations, using the ubiquitous PowerPoint, would have been engaging, funny, intellectual, challenging even.

No. They all used the same dull, formulaic bullet point approach.

For me getting to London isn't easy, there are cars, trams, trains and tubes involved as well as hotels well away from where I need to be. So I get quite annoyed when a presenter either just reads out loud to me what I can plainly read for myself, or uses really complex diagrams that even they don't understand or explain.

If that's what you're going to do save me the hassle and just email or post me your notes, because I can read!

Only one presentation used any humor and only mine didn't use bullets. I'd have loved to have used humour but the subject matter didn't fit.

I know everyone hates giving presentations, but at the end of the day they have to be entertaining or at least informative. Reading aloud what I can all ready see it just a waste of my time and yours. Please don't do it.

Next time you have a presentation to give. Drop me an email, I'll be more than happy to take a look and give a few pointers. Alternatively take a look at Presentation Zen, you'll never look back and bullet points will be a thing of the past.

Information overload

I love the Internet, it's made businesses, social networks and connected the world in millions of unimaginable ways. One issue I'm having though is keeping track of the information I receive. Only 10 years ago the only real communication was phone, letter and fax. How did we survive then? How did anything get done?

Today I have information overload. Here's a list of what I use daily.

• Company Email
• Gmail
• Text
• Microsoft Instant Messenger
• Skype
• Blogger
• Facebook
• Linkedin
• Squidoo
• Ebay
• YouTube
• MySpace
• iTunes
• Phone
• Mobile Phone
• TV
• Books
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Letters
• Second Life (not very ofter though)

It's amazing that we survive. Your brain can only take in two pieces of information at any one time so it's really no wonder so many people live online. All their attention is spent there.

Inspiring story

A colleague in our Indian Office just emailed me this very inspiring story. I thought I should share it.

A little boy wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with a bag of potato chips and a six-pack of root beer and started his journey. When he had gone about three blocks, he met an old woman. She was sitting in the park, just staring at some pigeons.

The boy sat down next to her and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the old lady looked hungry, so he offered her some chips. She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered her a root beer. Again, she smiled at him. The boy was delighted!

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word. As twilight approached, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave; but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the old woman, and gave her a hug. She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked him, "What did you do today that made you so happy?" He replied, "I had lunch with God." But before his mother could respond, he added, "You know what? She's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen!"

Meanwhile, the old woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home. Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and he asked, "Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy?" She replied! "I ate potato chips in the park with God." However, before her son responded, she added, "You know, he's much younger than I expected."

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime! Embrace all equally!

Using all the media you can

As Google takes over the world and acquires more and more sections of the internet. Using more and more media will reap huge rewards.

So if you've got video footage, get it on YouTube and tag it up properly. If you've pictures make sure they have targeted alt tags. If you've got a book out make sure Google knows about that too.

The more you have indexed the better, as Google begins to bring all it assets together and shows them in the search results.

List of online marketing books

On Linkedin the other day a question was asked about what were the ultimate books about online marketing. The guy who asked doesn't have a blog so I posted it on mine. This is a pretty impressive list which also includes some of the all time marketing classics. I've not read all of them but it's a great starter list for anyone.

• The Long Tail - by Chris Anderson
• Citizen Marketers - Ben McConnell and Jakie Huba
• Waiting for Your Cat to Bark - Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg
• Word of Mouth Marketing- Andy Sernovitz
• Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging by John Cass
• "Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing" by George Silverman
• Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins
• Tested Advertising - John Caples
• How To Write A Good Advertisement - Victor Schwab
• Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy
• Triggers - Joseph Sugarman
• Breakthrough Advertising - Eugene Schwartz
• The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords – Perry Marshall
• The New rules of marketing and PR: how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing, & online media to reach buyers directly by David Meerman Scott
• The new influencers : a marketer's guide to the new social media by Paul Gillin
• Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz
• Smart Start-Ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities by David Silver.
• The Big Red Fez by Seth Godin

Real customer service from IKEA

This weekend I had to buy a new bed. Best one I could find was Ikea in Leeds. I like Ikea it's cheap yes but the quality is pretty good. I had a budget and their designs fitted it.

So off I went to Ikea to get my bed. Browsing the shop as always was easy and enjoyable. I ordered the bed and mattress very easily. Picked up the flat pack sections for the bed and paid. To get my mattress I had to go round to the collection centre. This looked pretty easy. Ikea had already got my money and I was confident that they wouldn't let me down when I picked up my mattress.

God I was wrong.

When I arrived the queue was massive, some people had been waiting for over 3/4 of and hour and were getting very irate.

But the was one beacon in all this. The smiling and very over worked lady handling all these angry and tired customers. As I stood there waiting in the queue she smiled and acknowledged each and every customer even speaking to the queue to apologise for the wait they were experiencing. The guy in front to me had been waiting for 40 minutes and when he got to the front he said he wanted to complain, rather than giving this man the usual response the lady I now know as Denise said "Certainly, just fill in this form and the customer service people will see to your complaint, I'm so sorry for the delay, I'll just have a quick check to see if your parcels are here." This instantly calmed the man who didn't bother to fill in the form. At one point Denise called for help from the front house staff at Ikea and was told they couldn't spare anyone.

This was a big mistake in the long run for Ikea. The customers who had a happy warm feeling about their new piece of furniture were now only remembering the bad and boring experience they were now having. This was the experience that they would remember. I'm sure the marketing and PR team fro Ikea would be fuming.

Denise even helped a man who's baby needed changing because the nappy dispenser in the toilets was broken. She then made sure she spoke to the mother of the baby to ensure that they were all ok.

I'll be writing to Ikea to let them know about the hard work Denise did. I hope they take note and advance her to head of customer service were she clearly needs to be.

Leeds Carnival

Just got back from Leeds Carnival, it's run in conjunction with the Notting Hill Carnival in London. I had a great time, the atmosphere, costumes and the curried goat were brilliant. I took loads of pictures which I've added to my new facebook page.

I've added my favourite one here.

Blog 150! SeoMoz guide to Social Media

I know that using social media will be good for my site and company. I already use linkedin. I'm sure there are ways to use MySpace, Bebo, FaceBook and the rest but I'm never sure where to start. If you're like me then this Whiteboard Friday from SEOMoz is for you. Enjoy



I never thought I'd reach this many entries!

Google Book results

I'm using my friend's PC at the moment so I don't have my bookmarks. So to get to pages normally on there I'm searching Google for the pages.

I just searched for Seth Godin so I could read today's blog. I got very weired book search results I've never seen before. When I followed them the results got stranger. After a couple of results which showed shots of chapters from Seth's books it showed other related books and then finally a map of all the places mentioned in the book, with links. All great in theory but surely not for Seth's books, they're not travel guides.

Maybe Google have just set my aspirations too high now, but it's disappointing when things aren't perfect on the results.

Things to buy a bloke

I'm your typical bloke. And when ever people buy me things as a gift they never get anything I'd like (of course there have been exceptions!)

So to help all those people who don't know what to buy for me or any bloke come to that I decided to make a list. So in no particular order:

• A big iPod, obvious I know but a definite winner
• Some really great books. George Orwell, Irving Welsh, something classic I've never read before, stretch my mind. I love that.
• A really great meal. Not a Bernie Inn. Somewhere special, tapenyaki, sushi, Bulgarian food. It doesn't need to be expensive, just different.
• A really nice tie. I know that sounds too easy, but a really nice tie goes a long way.
• Take me to see a comedian I've never heard of.
• Or a film I would normally turn my nose up at.
• A day at a Gallery.
• Drive a long way to see or do something that only takes an hour to do. As long as it's great enough, the drive's well worth it.
• Take me to a city I've never visited. Edinburgh was great, Sofia is fantastic.
• Get me to do an activity I've never done before, Archery, flower arranging, bungee jumping
• Get me some cool furniture. A clock, a really cool cup even.

I think the gist here is surprise and really getting to know someone. This is my list, you have a different one. Make sure your friends and loved ones know yours and importantly that you know theirs. Surprise is the key, but you really need to know someone to pull it off. Take the time it's worth it.