MarketingSherpa Blog

I’ve just been spammed by two i-ad industry players.

The first Primedia, is one of the biggest publishers on this planet (yeah they own About.com and a zillion special interest mags). They spammed me to find out if I’d like to opt-in to get their new email newsletter that promotes their mailing list rentals. The wording was unclear — they said, “Please subscribe” but they also said, “To get off this list….” which implies I’m stuck on it until I opt-out. Yuck.

The second, an email mailing firm called MonsterHut sent me a nice-looking HTML promotion. In fact it was so nicelooking that I almost didn’t think it was spam. Except for the fact that their subject line read, “RE: MonsterHut Direct Results…” trying to fool me into thinking they’re responding to my email. Not! Also when I skimmed down to find out where they got my email from, it read, ” MonsterHut solicits its data from a variety of online sources” which doesn’t exactly scream permission marketing.

It’s one thing being slimed by el-grosso sex-related spammers, it’s another being slimed by folks in your own industy who should SO know WAAAY better. Primedia and MonsterHut are lookin stupid today.

(Can you say “loss of professional credibility”?)

The new OPA (Online Publishing Association) just announced their membership rules. You gotta have “quality” original content, dedicated editorial and revenue-generation staff, and oh yeah, pay them $20,000-$100,000 per year depending on how many millions you’re making online. So I guess the non-gargantuan publishers are definitely not invited.

This kinda annoys me. They’re thowing a party but only the rich kids are invited. Aren’t trade associations supposed to be about the companies that are in that trade? After all, a majority of the issues that bigger publishers face also affect the smaller ones. Such as privacy regulations, online taxes, online ad rates and sales practices, ezine delivery problems, etc.

The Magazine Publishers of America association’s minimum dues are $1000 year. Newsletter Publishers (NEPA) is $395 a year. National Newspaper Association starts at under $200. OPA starts at $20,000? Oh come on. http://www.online-publishers.org

A friend who’s been in direct marketing for a zillion years called me yesterday afternoon in apparent disgust. “Did you see that article in the New York Times? Some e-retailers are discovering direct mail — postal mail! The Times is reporting it breathlessly like it’s the panacea for all woes.” Funny thing was, this old-time direct marketer wasn’t upset because it took so long for folks to realize snail mail still works. He was upset because the Times apparently reported the story as though snail mail is a solution in a vacumn. He snorted, “When will these people learn that it’s mixing online and offline that’s really powerful? It’s not one thing or another. It’s both.”

Problems I never thought would crop up in eMarketing: A Sherpa reader just emailed in asking for advice for his government-related site’s new community boards. He wanted to know if there are any pre-written lists of obscene words he can program in his boards with so they auto-bounce any messages with them. (Now there’s a biz to be in, can you imagine telling people, “I sell lists of obscene words”?) Anyway, I emailed back well if it’s a professional board it’s doubtful if you’ll get very many postings with obscenities. It’s usually not remotely a problem for communities like yours. He shot back, “we get VILE emails from postal employees….that have words that even the gutter hasn’t heard of!” I guess it’s the virtual version of ‘Going Postal.’

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions to improve our new Knowledge Store. The most important thing everyone mentioned was to “move reviews higher up!” So, we redesigned the page to bring quotes from reviews above the fold. Here are five more lessons we learned:

1. Store buyers will definitely use a viral “Tell a friend about this product” tool if you give it to them. In fact about 20% of our visitors use this tool. It may be particularly useful for the business marketplace where some employees need to get permission to make purchases.

2. However, the viral “tell a friend about this product” tool only gets a high response when the form is right on the product page. If visitors have to click on a link to be able to use the tool, far, far fewer of them will do so.

3. eBooks created using executable files (.exe) won’t work as viral sales tools for the business market because most companies’ email security systems stop those files from entering. I love the idea of systems, such as RoyaltyLock, that allow visitors to download tantalizing samples including offers to pay to “unlock” the rest of the document, especially because it can encourage pass-along sales when they send the free sample on to their friends. But in the B-to-B marketplace you’re stuck with PDF, Word or HTML for now.

4. Never write online marketing copy in a void. You can’t know if it will work until you see it posted in the store. Suddenly phrases that looked great in Word just don’t fit the space or format. Also, set up a schedule to revisit copy a week or so after it’s posted. Unlike printed marketing materials, you can change copy online … and with fresh eyes, you’ll almost always spot a word or two you can tweak to improve sales.

5. Sales conversion rates are higher if you reference where the visitor is coming from. For example, if you are running a marketing campaign in Cars.com for your car book, everyone who clicks through should see something saying “Welcome Cars.com visitor!” or references a special discount available to Cars.com members only. (Plus, as an added benefit, your affiliates will love you.)

I was going to write a happy column this week, full of pride in our new online “Knowledge Store.” I was going to invite you to visit it yourself in order to give me your expert, content-insider, opinion on how we can tweak the design to make it even better.

Then, after endless testing, we launched on Wednesday.

Five minutes later the lovely new store was hacked.

Hacked, and hacked and hacked again, with some type of repeating program that shot the servers down, let them stagger up and then two minutes later punched them down again. At first I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, because I was getting pleasant “You Got an Order!” emails from the credit card processing system at AuthorizeNet at the same time as dozens of emails from readers saying “Hey this link isn’t working!”

It was week from hell. The techies would say things are fixed now. We emailed everybody saying, ‘It’s ok, it’s fixed, go back to play at the store!” And then everything would break again.

Lessons learned? Hackers happen. It happened to Britney Spears, it happened to us, it will happen to you someday.

I am profoundly grateful that we chose a system that didn’t collect and save credit card numbers. So my customers’ security wasn’t breached. I’m also grateful that I’m in email publishing because it’s more personal and interactive than print. Dozens of readers emailed support and informational notes — two even offered the services of their own company’s tech teams!

Thanks aside, now I feel karmatically that I’ve paid for every single ant I’ve squashed this Summer. It’s time for the wheel of fate to turn.

So, cross your fingers. (And do let me know if you have any good ideas to improve the store. Thanks.)

Oh what misery pricing new subscription products is. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent years pricing new products and invariably come up wrong. (Most infamous: the time when my 1996 price tests revealed Internet execs would be willing to spend $95 a month or $1,250 a year to be FAXED the top 10 related biz news summaries of the day. Yeah, and more than 100 of them subscribed to it!)

Over the past couple of months I couldn’t help but notice two trends in the pricing arena. The first is the plethora of free site, ezine, and discussion group publishers emailing surveys to their opt-in readers in order to ask, “What would you pay if we charged?” (And pretty much these days it seems if you’re not owned by either a trade magazine or internet.com you’ve sent out one of these surveys.) See our story below about that.

The second trend is that online B-to-B publishers are launching paid subscription offerings at rock bottom, scavenger-level prices such as $3.95 a month, $10 a quarter, $19 a year….

Enough already! Just because lots of online B-to-B content was free in the past doesn’t mean, now that we’ve all agreed to charge, that we should devalue it. If you are insecure about your new pricing model as least have the decency to cloak your maidenly fears in “special discounts” — as in Current Reader Discount, Buy Before September 1st Discount, and Co-Marketing Partner Limited-Time Discount. Lou Betancourt of BULL MARKET REPORT told me this week that he’s slowly using various offers (openly promoted as limited time discounts) to bring his paid subscribers in stages up from $129-$199 over the next year.

What’s a reasonable price point for a Web-only product? Whatever a print subscription publication, of similar editorial “value” and percent ad sales, would normally charge. Plus more ’cause you’ve probably got easy-to-search archives, minus less ’cause you are e-only. (So why not call it even?)

What’s a reasonable circulation sales rate for a paid non-ad-based product? In my experience — and this is a VAST generalization — it’s about 1/100th of the circulation you could expect as a “free” controlled circulation trade magazine or nominally priced consumer rag. (So yes, Fairchild’s reported expectations of winning thousands of $995 subscribers for its new WWD.com service are absurd.)

While there are loud and persistent rumors afloat that several major players, including NY Times Digital, are launching a new Online Publisher’s Association in 1-2 weeks, I’m actually going to refer you to an older, mainly print-world association to help you figure out subscription pricing. Yup, the NEPA – Newsletter and Electronic Publishing Association (http://www.newsletters.org) — may be your best bet for getting pricing standards for subscription print competitors in your niche. Just buy their membership directory and check pricing for yourself.

In the meantime, stop slamming your content with begging bowls and rock-bottom prices. By low-balling your price, you devalue your product. Have some pride. Gird your loins. And if you fail, look first to your content’s perceived value and your direct marketing tactics. Pricing is NOT always at fault.

Can you get rich selling your content on the Internet? For the past few years tens of thousands of amateur and independent publishers have tried to. Until now, their hopes have been repeatedly dashed. First ebooks proved harder to sell than many had predicted. Then online advertising dollars dried up for even the most popular sites and ezines.

However, over the past month a new factor has begun fueling the independent epublishing scene’s growth — the promise of quick riches from selling subscriptions. In just the past 10 days, we’ve spotted independent epublisher wanna-bes eagerly discussing the possibilities of this newly hot business model on just about every online message board and email discussion list that’s open to them, including Motley Fool, I-Advertising Forum and Netprenuer.org’s AM List.

A typical posting, “If I could get 5,000 people to pay me $40 a year to read my content, I would make $200,000.”

It’s not Internet millions; but it sure is enough for most people to quit their day jobs. You can see how seductive this is: wear your PJs all day, write about whatever you love, make a bunch of money.

However, like most get-rich-quick schemes, the majority who try it are doomed to failure. Amateur’s expectations of the single most critical metric, conversion rates of free readers to paid subscribers, range from 10-25% or even higher. Publishing and direct response professionals say conversions of 1-7% are more likely … and that’s for valuable niche content marketed effectively at the right price point. Not an easy task.

Nevertheless, every professional publisher should keep a close eye on the independent scene. Underdogs often come up with inventive business ideas and guerrilla marketing tactics the big guys would never think of. One good way to track them is to join a few free lists where they hang out online. (Another way is to continue reading MarketingSherpa where we’ll bring you updates from leaders.)

It’s a fiendishly clever campaign. Now anyone can sign up to get a totally free personalized daily email from WSJ.com featuring the latest headlines on up to 10 companies of your choice. You can even choose what time of day you’d like to receive it. Only, as each daily email explains, there’s a catch:

“Your news includes the five most recent headlines on each company. To read these articles — and get additional online news from The Wall Street Journal 24 hours a day — subscribe to WSJ.com. Start a free trial now.”

Is it working? Anecdotal evidence suggests so. In fact Jennifer McDonald, Sr Manager of Corporate Marketing for Strategy.com (the company that powers this personalized email for WSJ.com) told us, “I’m becoming a paid WSJ.com subscriber now. I was just so tired of getting interested in the stories but not being able to read the whole thing.”

Should your B-to-B site start with a Flash intro page? Many experts say “No.” While Flash is a very useful tool — especially for online product demonstrations and presentations — business sites could hurt their results by forcing visitors to sit through a Flash introduction. Some visitors with older browsers can’t view Flash. Others (especially repeat visitors such as favored customers) are annoyed by constantly having to watch it to get to their destination.

What if you compromise by offering a “skip flash” option on your front page? The problem is, you’re still forcing someone to opt-out of Flash. The visitor has to wait for the page to be loaded, choose their option, click “Skip Intro” or “Non-Flash” and then wait for your home page to be loaded. While this may take less than a minute, most visitors only give a site 15 seconds before deciding whether to stay or go.

Chuck McLeester, VP Strategic Planning of B-to-B agency Roska Direct councils against Flash introduction pages because of visitor impatience. He says, “You have to deliver people the items they want within 2-3 clicks. If they have to go through more than that, you’ll probably lose them.” Is your lovely Flash intro really delivering so much value that it’s worth losing visitors for? Probably not.