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An Important Lesson from Amazon on How NOT to Treat Your Customers.

March 30, 2008

GRR!!!!! I hate it when people get so FOCUSED upon the bottom line that they lose sight of the long term consequences of their actions!!!!

Angela Hoy is the publisher of the Writer’s Weekly which she uses to promote her POD publishing business, Booklocker.com. On Friday, Angela launched a firestorm when she reported that Amazon is putting the squeeze on POD publishers.

So here’s the deal… Amazon executives are doing their best “Tony Soprano” impression by threatening to remove the “buy” buttons from POD (print on demand) titles listed on the site that ARE NOT printed by Amazon’s own Book Surge POD. “Do this and nobody gets hurt,” is the implication. The problem is, someone is going to get hurt and my guess is it will be Amazon.

Amazon was the first hog to the internet book selling trough. In the early days, when you signed up as an Amazon affiliate, you could choose to be paid in “books” instead of dollars. I know that is how I still choose to be paid for my Amazon affiliate commissions. The thing is, authors are readers by nature. Angela confesses to spending over $1500 last year on Amazon.  That may be a bit above “average” but maybe not.  I just realized the figure I gave my CPA was only for the books I bought, not the ones I “bought” using my affiliate earnings!

So, authors are big book buyers… and Amazon was a pioneer in the whole internet affiliate marketing model. By removing the “buy” button for POD works on the site, Amazon is not only going to lose their author /customers.  These authors may not be buying copies of their own book from the retail giant, but I’m sure they are buying other author’s works through the site.  However, in addition to peeving off their biggest spending customers…. Amazon is  also going to lose a portion of their affiliate sales network as well.  My guess would be that those affiliates are probably part of the productive 20% of the old 80/20 rule which applies to affiliates and their sales in SPADES.

My mother used to refer to such actions as “cutting off your nose to spite your face”.

There’s a HUGE firestorm brewing over Angela’s revelation. So far over 60 blogs have weighed in to comment and I’m sure that Monday morning… more will join the cause. The very NATURE of Web 2.0 is for this type of story to go “viral”. (I hope Booklocker’s web hosting company is ready for this onslaught!)

POD authors who link to Amazon to sell their books will be changing those links and they probably won’t wait until the buy button is removed. Once they go to the time and effort to “switch” the links promoting their book from Amazon to Barnes and Noble… THEY WILL NOT take the time to switch them back to Amazon if Amazon backs down from this stand.

Now, Slashdot has picked up the story… suddenly this fight will extend BEYOND authors and into regular book readers who will be outraged at the “Big Bully” tactics being employed by Amazon. Nobody likes a bully… and until now, Amazon didn’t look like a bully.

Amazon loses all around. They lose the sales… they lose the links… they lose the relationship with thousands of authors… A.K.A. their customers!!!!

It’s obvious that the long term consequences of this action have yet to dawn on the executives at Amazon. Perhaps they thought no one would speak up. Looks like Amazon needs a lesson in Web 2.0.  You know the old saying… “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”?  I think this may be just such a case.

Here is a list of other bloggers (from Angela’s article page) taking up the fight. If you want to add your post to the “cause”… the post a comment to this post. If you’ve got your own blog, copy this list and post it on your blog as well. The more links to these posts… the more “traction” this cause will get.

Filed Under Marketing Boo Boos · 8 Comments  

Easy Transition to Wordpress 2.5

March 29, 2008

So far so good…. I must admit, I was REALLY worried about the upgrade to WP 2.5

The upgrade to 2.3 was a real bear for me. It took a bit for me to sort out which plug ins could co-exist peacefully within the new framework.

However, I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 and the only plug in that didn’t make the transition was the one I used to display online videos inline in blog posts. Since WP 2.5 offers that feature as part of the “standard” package…. it’s not a great loss.

If you’re one of my “people”… ignore the beg message from Wordpress asking you to upgrade. Allow me time to make a few test posts on the new system to ensure there aren’t any “hidden” surprises in store.

The administration panel is completely revamped… which means all those video tutorials I created for my people are now obsolete. New video tutorial creation will be filling my early morning hours for the next few weeks.

Definitely not worth migrating to a new platform over!

Filed Under Blog, Word Press Blogs · Leave a Comment  

I hate “marketing”: The fashion model syndrome and your marketing message

March 28, 2008

I’m searching for information which isn’t appearing in my “main” email in box. That means I’ve given my hotmail email account as the contact point and now, I’m searching through HUNDREDS of “marketing” emails in search of the information I need.

I confess…. I subscribe to email newsletters using email accounts I RARELY check… I’m not the only one. Your email subscribers do this too.

Heck, MY EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS DO THIS!

So today, I’m perusing the subject lines of emails, trying to find the “golden” one for which I seek. In the meantime, I see such subject lines as:

  • Now you CAN skyrocket your site to the top of the major …
  • Unlimited Hits To Your Website in Just 15 mins From …
  • Instant Cash in your Paypal Account
  • Earn 7 Figures in 2008 with Quantum Leap Principle…

Suddenly, I start to get angry.  I’ll call it the “fashion model” syndrome and it’s affecting legitimate marketing and advertising.

There isn’t any doubt that the incredible rise of anorexia and bulimia amongst teen girls is being fueled by the virtual skeletons with skin who are featured everywhere you look. At one point, the “fashion” was to make the  models look like drug addicts.  Fortunately, that extreme created a slight backlash and Dove launched their “real beauty” campaign.

Over the past half century, by surrounding normal growing girls with images featuring unrealistic “freaks of nature” we’ve desensitized our selves to what is normal.   Little girls have become desensitized to what normal, healthy female bodies look like and as a result, they aspire to the extreme.

The same desensitization is happening to your audience with your marketing messages.

In talking with a client a few weeks back, we were discussing how to promote her new product. We found ourselves in a horrible quandary. In order to effectively “compete” with the trash that is constantly bombarding us… we found ourselves toying with making ridiculous and outrageous claims in order to “grab” attention. We did it in the name of “brainstorming” and eventually moved on to actually creating messages that solved her client’s “problems” but the temptation was there.  It’s truly the softer, easier way to create an outlandish claim to move product or services.

Over promising and under delivering is not the path to marketing nirvana.

Making outrageous claims may have improved your email campaign open rates at one time, but now those outrageous offers are being tossed around so liberally are going to come back to haunt not only you.  The foundation of a successful business is repeat customers and building a customer base that refers your products and services to others… right?
Am I  being a prude?  Are outrageous claims and setting up unrealistic expectations just a part of “modern” marketing?   Is this just the “way” of marketing 2.0?

Filed Under Marketing Magic · Leave a Comment  

How “Regular” People Use the Web

March 25, 2008

Frank Gilroy has a GREAT post on his observations on “6 Things Regular People Aren’t Doing on the Internet.”

He also covers some I haven’t harped upon like “buying big ticket items sight unseen” and “telecommuting” but first and foremost on his list is this: “regular” people aren’t subscribing to RSS feeds.

It’s a common question for tech teachers such as Dave Taylor and despite a WEALTH OF posts and pages on how to subscribe,  according to SlashDot… as of January 2007, only 12% of internet users knew what RSS was and even fewer, 4% used it knowingly.

Most of my clients aren’t creating web sites directed at the tech savvy 4-12%….  instead, they’re focusing on reaching “regular” people…. which is why I recommend that ALL of my clients treat RSS in the same manner  that they treat the search engines.

Treat RSS as if it doesn’t exist.  Any RSS subscribers to your blog are “gravy”.  The real value is in your email newsletter.  The level of trust required to subscribe to your RSS feed is minimal (see Trust is Not Transitive) so even if regular people WERE using RSS to subscribe, it’s still a good idea to have an email newsletter in addition to your RSS feed from your blog.

If your customers are “regular people” you’ve got to meet them where they live.  Regular people may not understand RSS but they do understand email and that’s where your email newsletter comes in handy!

Filed Under Blog, Web Site Basics, Web Site Success · Leave a Comment  

GoDaddy Domain Names and Hosting May Put Your Business in Danger

March 21, 2008

I’ve had more than one client politely listen to my warnings about using GoDaddy as a domain name registrar/host and then go right on using their services. I do understand their reluctance to accept my warnings at face value. After all, I do offer in the course of my business what I believe is a “better” alternative.

I wrote way back in April 2007 on my free Blogger account about the GoDaddy Tar Baby. (You can actually see that at that time, I recommended the service for my clients. UGH! More crow for me to eat…. see my post “Quasi Scientific Blogging Observations).

Back to the Tar Baby that is Godaddy…. for those who think that the stories are of the “urban legend” category, Mashable offers this recent report GoDaddy Pulls the Plug on RateMyCop.

Daily Blog Post concurs and offers commentary on the “quality” of the hosting services at Godaddy as well.
Trouble has been brewing at GoDaddy for a while. Here’s an article I wrote a while back about GoDaddy’s troubles for my clients (it’s a PDF…. so you might want to save this rather than try to open it in your browser.)

Shortly after I wrote and posted that article, Godaddy began donning the cap of “internet police”… the horror stories are chronicled at the site NoDaddy.com In response, I created a GoDaddy Transfer package for my clients. A few took me up on the offer.

I will admit, I still use Godaddy’s domain name registration services for picking up domain names I have yet to put into “action”…. but now, I’m considering whether or not this is wise.

See the following for why I’ll probably be closing my Godaddy hosting account:

Hey, I’m just like everybody else. My preferred ICANN registrar charges a LOT more than Godaddy does…. and I don’t want to pay more than I “have” to for my excessive list of domain names. But I’ve been getting a LOT of “update your information or else” emails from them and it makes me nervous… because I DID pay for those domain names because I DO want access to them!! Paying less than $10 per domain name looses it’s attractiveness when you realize that they can be taken from you on a whim.

On one  hand, some of those names on the list aren’t worth paying more for… which should have been my FIRST clue that maybe they weren’t as grand as I thought they were when I was registering them.  However, on the other hand, there is a short list for the ones I’m being “hassled” on from Godaddy and those domain names are all extremely short and all revolve around online video.   Perhaps there are “squatters” waiting on those domain names just waiting for a mis-step on my part.

Filed Under Web Based Horror Stories, Web Site Basics, Web Site Success · 1 Comment  

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