Kate Morris

Being in school for an MBA, you hear the same companies talked about over and over again. That’s the good and the “bad” ones. Worldcom and Enron are favorites for what not to do. Google and Sun Microsystems are the most recently talked about in my organizational behavior class as the “good kids.”

There has been a lot of buzz about the new search engine Cuil, including my own review, and many others. But now we have reached terminal velocity, people are tired of hearing about it. There was so much buzz before and so many scathing reviews after that the saturation point has been reached.

So why do we keep talking about it? It’s a clear example of what not to do. If I do get to teaching at the university level someday, I am sure Cuil will be an example I use over and over again. They did everything right before the release, but missed the boat on their release. Like Vista, it’s pretty, but the functionality just isn’t there. Things should have been tested over and over, then checked again by beta testers. Once that was done, and they had the sign off from a few top minds, then they should have released.

So hopefully this will be the last time I speak of the abomination until I end up teaching, or writing a thesis. As writers and educators (which all SEOs are), we love to have a “what not to do” and that’s what Cuil gave us.

Okay, off search engine marketing for a second. I’m not sick, promise. My other love is traditional marketing and when companies get things right.

A friend of mine recently had plastic surgery and elected to participate in a 10 year study (yeah, I talked her into it). Well she sent me a link to the company running it (Natrelle) and I signed up to get more information about their product.

Skip to a few weeks later, and I get a notice about a package waiting at my complex office. Okay, I am an impulsive buyer (can we say $10 something?), but I haven’t ordered anything! I get to the office and get a nice chocolate brown box with the words “It’s time to rejuvenate.” Interested.

Open it and this is what I see:

Okay, even further interested. I open it to find a myriad of products for relaxation:

A Journal, Loofah, Exfoliator pad, Massage bar, brush, fine tooth brush, pumice stone, and two candles. Plus a sample of one of their facial product sets and a coupon (have to get it from doctor). With all of that was a description of their other products that I might be interested in.

I’ve got to say, this was NICE. The bag even kicks booty. These are things I will use and remember them with. I am not ready for the products they offer just yet, but I will most definitely remember them when I am ready. Nice Job guys!

I think this man is the only one who “gets” it. Seth Godin hits the nail on the head again with his newest post, and I wish more CEOs and VPs would read and understand it. He asks a simple question “Who answers the phone?”

At my last company, our customer support came out of Pakistan. Yep, one of those annoying companies you call and get someone that doesn’t speak English very well. Don’t get me wrong, I loved all our people in Pakistan, but the customer service was horrible.

Every once in a while, we’d have 2-3 days where there were riots, bombings (happy to live in America!), or phone lines were down. Those were the days when the product people had to answer the phone. While it was detrimental to our own workload, the customers were so happy to hear it was us! We got things taken care of the right way the first time and things got fixed.

But every company still spends less on customer service than they do on other forms of marketing. I mean there are lots of people to employ, but the cost of adding a training with the product person once a month would cost very minimal money and bring back so much in return.

It’s like walking into a retail store and lucking out by getting someone that knows the store products, the person that can really help you. Remember it only takes one bad experience to create a lifetime of bad word of mouth.

I was reading a Seth Godin blog entry today about his new book, Meatball Sundae. This entry was about organizations new obsession with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing. One thing he said hit home:

They [company's efforts] fail because the Web and the New Marketing work only when applied to the right organization. New Media makes a promise to the consumer. If the organization is unable to keep that promise, then it fails.

I see that a lot in organizations today. They think that all they have to do is market in the right way and the sales will come. Guess what? Web 2.0 and SMM are all about the end user taking back the power. You will soon no longer be able to have all the money in the world and a bad product, and expect to do well.

As a speaker I once heard said, we have circled back to the origins of communication. We started as people just telling stories to each other, making recommendations. Then marketing came into play and people lost that power, it was the media that told us everything. Now we are back to informing each other by stories. The power is back in the hands of consumers, and they will not buy if you don’t appease them with a good product.

Love is being stupid together,
originally uploaded by nattu.

I found this photo through my iGoogle, and while it’s sucha beautiful picture, I also love something else about it. Get ready for the geek in me.

I love that I know she is holding a product made by Coca-Cola.

Branding is a beautiful thing.

My roommate introduced me to a great site today. Goodhealth.com - A WebMD of sorts, but run by Seton Healthcare Network.

It’s a corporate shoot off really, but it has some great content (I haven’t checked if its taken from Web MD or anything, but it doesn’t look like it). This site and its creator (if you ever read this, let me know who you are) just get it!

1. It’s a nice, easy-to-comprehend layout. There are no tricks, no content stuffing. It flows very well.

2. It is very text/content rich (aka search engine friendly). I haven’t busted out my big SEO guns. But so far Google has indexed 4,360 pages. That’s a lot of content. And it’s all good content too.

3. They only have 9 Google links, but 17,350 Yahoo (that’s more like it, but mainly due to cross linking from Seton’s other websites). Good job on that, but they can do so much better. My guess is this site was redesigned recently and just now picking up steam.

I just wish everyone “got it” like they did. Please the consumer first, worry about the engine second.