Ok, so in all fairness, the title should probably be:

Online Campaign – How Blue Sky Factory, Chris Brogan and Christopher S. Penn nearly got it right, but failed in my case and how everything here can make your next sales push a success.

But that title is just too long.

We all make mistakes and sometimes, the mistake is farther down the chain than we realize or have control over.

I believe that is precisely what happened in my case.  And IF it happened to more people than just me, you can bet the good guys: Blue Sky Factory, Chris Brogan, and CS Penn are holding the bag – their fault or not.

This is a detailed look at trust, marketing, and execution on an online sales push from some of the biggest names in Social Media – the good and the bad and how you can learn and apply this to your sales and marketing efforts.

Follow every bit of this through (except the last part) and you will succeed in your next email sales push. The sections I call “What’s Happening Here” should provide the key elements for you to model in your online campaign and sales efforts.

Nearly everything here is actually a success story other than the fifth area below.

First – Chris Brogan eNewsletter

Subject line of email from Chris: “Email marketing and the folks at Blue Sky Factory”

This is a great little sales piece from Chris.  It clearly identifies his role in the email, why I (we) received it and who it benefits and why.  On top of that, a nice bit of positioning and display of influence by offering an exclusive ebook download and discount to use Blue Sky Factory as a benefit to loyalty with Chris.  Well done.  This is the right sort of email marketing and who would expect less from Chris?

What’s Happening Here:

1)  Chris leverages his list of readers, his name, and his promise to help others in exchange for our attention in the trusted environment of his newsletter.

2) Chris offers value with an informative eBook and a nice discount if you use Blue Sky Factory for email marketing services.

3)  Chris gives clear calls to action if you are interested in either the eBook or professional services of Blue Sky Factory.

4)  Blue Sky Factory gets great promotion, visibility, and an opportunity to grow their email marketing list via the eBook link and an opportunity to make sales (which I’m sure they did).

5)  It’s understood Chris gets something from Blue Sky Factory for the effort (obviously).

This entire sales push is based on the value of Chris; his audience, and his usage of the Blue Sky Factory services, and his brand promise.

All this is very good marketing, strategically and tactically.

Second – Blue Sky Factory eBook Offer Web Page

Title of Page: Blue Sky Factory presents: The Ultimate Guide to Email

The offer page from Blue Sky Factory is a wonderful sales page that explains the value of the eBook, who will benefit from reading it. (I downloaded the ebook and would explain the value of the content, but Acrobat says its damaged and wont open – so I’m not sure, but I assume it’s high value content). In true Hubspot fashion, you have to complete a lead generation form to gain access to the ebook.  Give up some information about you including email marketing volume and a clear message to indicate how you would like to be sold to.  Well done.  Of course, you expect that a sales push from Chris is going to be this well done.

What’s Happening Here:

1)  Offering value to Chris Brogan’s audience as a thank you for responding to his sales message.

2)  Lead generation. Lots of lead generation from the Blue Sky Factory.  Each email they get could turn into cash and lots of cash if people convert and use the service.

3)  Trust Building.  Thanks to Chris’s endorsement, there is little resistance to the lead generation form and Blue Sky Factory gets trusted implicitly as a result.

This sales and lead generation page is well done. Excellent response items and a clear way to identify the person responding and how to sell to them.  Excellent execution.

Blue Sky Factory undoubtedly grew their permission marketing list and prospect list quite a bit.  So far, Chris Brogan, Blue Sky Factory and the reader (prospects) are all winning.

Third – Christopher S Penn Follow Up and Thank You Email.

Subject line of email from CS Penn: “Thank you for downloading the Ultimate Guide to Email!”

This well thought out and drafted email from Chris S Penn clearly identifies his role at Blue Sky Factory, an oddity with the eBook and how to fix it, and sets a clear expectation to expect follow up from a Blue Sky Factory sales rep.  Excellent writing, not pushy, and relevant.  Very well done.

What’s Happening Here:

1)  Immediately touching you as a result of the free eBook offer to personally tie the prospect to the company and to the next step in the sales process.  You have to create the connection with the prospect or your lead gen form and recipient become a number with no personal contact other than the eBook.

2)  Enhancing CS Penn’s personal brand and connection to Blue Sky Factory (if you didn’t already know) allowing him to leverage Chris Brogan’s relationship with us and give him personal access to us – should he choose to do so.

3)  Clearly setting an expectation to be contacted by a sales rep from Blue Sky Factory.

This is a great ‘next step’ item from Blue Sky Factory to move you further down the sales funnel.  And this is all happening more or less on autopilot because it was pre-planned, pre-written, and all the touch points plotted and setup.  Awesome execution of funnel building. Note, the email included sales reps names, company phone number, company website and CS Penns email.  Completely transparent communication here.  Also note, so far there is no “we are the best”, “hundreds of people use us and love us”, “act now, limited time offer, buy buy buy” messages in this email or the sales page or Chris Brogans eNewsletter.

Fourth – Blue Sky Factory Sales Rep Follow Up and Call to Action Email.

Subject line of email from Sales Rep: “Blue Sky Factory / Publicaster Information”

Now, after three touches with the Blue Sky Factory brand, this is the first somewhat typical sales message. It includes a brief message of thanks for my interest as well as various links to the Blue Sky Factory website and more information on their products.  All pretty standard “learn more about us” type information.  Also included is acknowledgment that the sales rep is indeed interested in talking to me about my interest in their product and asks when we can connect to discuss. Presumably the rep has seen all my information from completing the lead gen form on the eBook page, where I actually listed several questions and areas of interest.  However, the rep does not actually directly speak to those items I indicated so I’m not sure if that information is known at this point.  I am provided links to review and a phone number to call.

What’s Happening Here:

1)  Providing more information on Blue Sky Factory and products.  Which move me further along the funnel as I learn and understand more about their services.

2)  Clearly identified the interest to speak to me, learn about my needs, and ideally sell me something.

This email had a lot to review – too much in my opinion and did not specifically speak to my questions from the lead gen form on the eBook page.  This is not particularly bad, just worth noting as an area of possible opportunity on their side.  Again, this email does not have any swanky sales messages “buy now” offers or promises.  It clearly is a request to learn more from me and offer me ways to learn more about them should I decide to follow all the provided links…. Again too many links in this email, so I didn’t look at any of them. However, I did make a note to call the rep as requested.

Fifth – My Call to the Sales Rep

WHO WAS JUST FIRED.

So, now the breakdown. The kink in the chain.  The plot twist.

After all this excellent marketing, a truly well thought out campaign with many pieces of communication and undoubtedly tons of energy and time and at the expense of Chris Brogan’s name and list, the whole thing comes to a faltering halt – at least for me – all because the sales rep had just been terminated.

How much sense does this make? How many people experienced this? 2 (I count as one of them)? 20? 500?… I don’t know, but it goes to show how you can do all the things right to build the funnel, build interest and momentum, and drop-the-ball when it matters most.

The sales rep was professional despite the situation and did give me a phone number to call (which I already had from CS Penn’s email).  The problem though, is that I’m spent for the moment.

The one-shot opportunity the campaign was all about has come and gone.  My emotional well of interest, trust, and value has drained.  Not completely, but certainly no longer full enough for action.

Why did the Blue Sky Factory management team do this? I mean, either fire the person before the push so they are not a link the chain, or wait till after the push to utilize their role in the campaign and at least move the prospects deeper into the funnel and then strategically migrate those accounts.  But do it in the middle of the push? Crazy.

It should be noted that I got Chris Brogan’s Initial email (first step above) and called the sales rep (fifth step above) all within the same business day.  It’s not like I hesitated in my response and drug out my actions over weeks.  We are talking just a few hours here.

The Result:

1)  Lost confidence in Blue Sky Factory and it’s product – their fault or not, no matter, its happened (for me at least).

2)  A mental note registered against CS Penn and Chris Brogan – one that will either be dismissed as a non-incident and no real risk, or one that will fester and grow over time depending on my future experiences.

3)  Lost conversions.  For every prospect this sales rep is associated with is now costing Blue Sky Factory with little hope of the original ROI goals.

The Praise:

I’m sure its understood by now, but I switch gears through out this post between affected prospect and marketer…

1)  Excellent execution on the front part of the funnel from Brogan’s email, through the creation and leveraging of a valuable eBook and to the positioning of the sale from CS Penn.

2)  Remarkably well written sales messages that were not too pushy, did not have false promises, and effectively moved prospects through the funnel of conversion.

3)  Great timing.  Each follow up piece was appropriately timed and deepend the desire to act since it was timely and appropriately messaged.

This was a 98% perfect campaign, but the last 2% is where it failed.

How Blue Sky Factory, Brogan and Penn Should Fix This:

1)  Acknowledge it.  No excuses, just acknowledge it happened – don’t act as if it didn’t happen and don’t make it about me.  It may not be “your” fault, but that’s the burden of leadership. So own it and work with it.

2)  Communicate.  Maintain the same transparency and authenticity of the earlier messages and emails and reach out to each and every one of the people who got contacted by the terminated sales rep.

3)  Care. Show you think my interest is important and that the situation doesn’t define our budding relationship.

4)  Be Trustworthy.  Make every effort to regain the trust you had at the beginning and make it right, make it remarkable, make it deeply valuable.  This is your opportunity to win despite the written off and implied loss of this experience.

5)  Bring me back into the fold and remind me why I was interested and taking action to begin with.

An upset customer has the capacity to be a great customer.  Don’t loose sight of your efforts to get me here and jump in now and salvage all those interested people before it’s too late.

Conclusion:

This was a well planned campaign and you marketers out there should follow these points all the way through. Just don’t fire your sales rep in the middle of it and you should have stellar results!

Disclosure:
I personally like Chris Brogan (we chatted a bit at this years SXSW in Austin Tx and he has RT’d my blog before), and I like CS Penn and I also intend to get to know Blue Sky Factory and still see if there is a fit.  I follow all three on twitter and value their contribution to social media and marketing 2.o.

My hope is that this shines a light on effective marketing, how it can breakdown, and what we can all learn from it… And, I don’t blame any of the mentioned people – just acknowledge that they have ownership in the process and outcome.

While I was at SXSW in Austin I met Michael Procopio, a great guy who is leading the Social Media team of one of the top computer and software makers in the country.  We both sat in on this panel discussion with about 150 others and decided to co-author a blog on this exciting discussion.

“Blogger to Expert to Professional Speaker” by Michael Procopio and Justin McCullough.

We were at the SXSW Interactive session – From Blogger to Social Media Guru to Professional Speaker given by Nick Morgan (@nfrodom1) and Tim Sanders (@sanderssays). With a packed room, in a panel style layout with Nick and Tim in the center of the room rotating as they talked, we were given a behind-the-scenes look inside the professional speaking industry.

Tim became a speaker while at Yahoo! Nick is a speaker, author and Tim’s coach. Tim said Nick took him from ~$10,000 per talk to the next level. Turns out “the next level” is a bit more than a step away.  Throughout the discussion, we learned how to go from a $2,000 speaker to a $10,000 speaker and up to $35,000 and beyond.

Tim lead off the discussion by saying, when it comes to speaking, in his opinion there is only one book to read: “Give your speech and change the world” by Nick Morgan
People want a speaker to move an audience to action, which means an emotional topic or talk.

How do you make the journey from blogger to social media expert to professional speaker? That was the discussion. Professional speaker, in this case, is tear 3 or tier 2. By example tier 1 would be former President Bill Clinton or comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Tier 3 starts at $3500 and up for a one-hour talk. How do you get there? According to Nick and Tim, first write a book published by a major publisher, self-publishing unfortunately doesn’t count. Tim wrote Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends. If you don’t have a book, expect to be limited to ~$2000 per talk.

To get the major publisher, you must follow the rules of publishing and Tim recommends reading and following the advice of Jeff Herman in his book “Write the Perfect Book Proposal”.

There are two types of books that lead to professional speaking opportunities:

• You did something successful and write about how you did it, even if it creates competitors
• Niche – everything you know is wrong, here is what’s right.

Tim urges us to not write another “duh” book that tells us what we already know.  Make yourself and your content outstanding – that’s what it takes to go pro.

Tim is all about actionable content. The gem for me was the answer to the question: “How do I go from speaking for free to getting paid”. Tim gave two points:

• When asked will you speak at our event you first statement is, “My standard fee is x thousand dollars”
• If the ‘will you do it for free’ topic comes up say, “I’d be happy to do this pro bono, just put it in writing that no one else is being paid to speak”.

For the second statement, Tim said you’ll probably hear a bit of silence on the phone and then they will give you a number and you can negotiate from there. He enforced the point saying, “don’t let them disrespect you” and gave an example of the huge dollars an event planner has to work with. In many cases, the large events cost and generate millions of dollars, so your speaker’s fee is really just a small portion of the overall expense. Many times, the event coordinators are just trying to leverage the event and get you for free or as cheaply as possible.  Tim illustrated the point where a planner told him they wanted three free speakers so they could pay the keynote speaker more.

Are you an opening or closing keynote or a panel speaker? That’s the question you have to answer.  Tim and Nick discussed the fact that pro speakers, the ones who make the big dollars, are the openers and the closers of the event. Interestingly, a panel speaker is valued around $5,000 – $8,000 for the hour where as the keynote may be $10,000 or more.  As a point of reference, Tim mentioned that his fee is around $25,000 for a 1-hour gig and comparatively, Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of “the Tipping Point”, “Blink” and “Outliers” is currently charging $86,000 for a speech.

His next point to becoming a pro speaker is to treat speaking bureaus like gold. When you get the speaking engagement above, look up your nearest speaking bureau and take the deal to their office personally. They will get ~25% commission but they will love you and give you more work. Also NEVER accept a job directly, ALWAYS take it to your bureau. Go around the bureaus and they will stop giving you work.

One note about speaking bureaus, their job is to deliver the best presenter, the safest bet, and the best results to organizations requesting a speaker.  If you use profanity or go into inappropriate areas during your presentation, you will most likely be cut from future gigs through the bureau.  In this context, you must package yourself as a safe and reliable purchase.

Money is great to get but you must earn it. First practice, practice, practice including the day of the presentation in front of a mirror. If you screw up once you won’t get any more work from the bureaus, he had examples of well-known people who are struggling to get speaking engagements because of off-hand comments and in one case, slipping the “f” word just one time.

You need to create a brand, that is, a promise of what you will deliver. Once you have your niche or unique topic you must package yourself.  Ask yourself, “what do I stand for”, “what do I represent” and own it.  This means you, personally, may sacrifice how you dress, how you speak, the words you use, and which of your opinions you share.  He talked about how the simple fact of long sideburns cost him $10,000 on each speaking gig because he just didn’t realize it was devaluing him in the bureaus mind.  Tim, as it turns out, once was in a rock band and had long hair in addition to those long sideburns so he has gone through quite a metamorphosis to become the pro speaker he is today. In addition to his appearance, Tim has also removed religion and politics from his areas of discussion – because it doesn’t fit his personal brand, his promise to deliver and he can’t afford to talk about things outside of his personal brand since he understands why the speakers bureaus are hiring him.

Also, create a professional DVD about 20 minutes of you speaking. The short clips are ok, but anyone who is interested wants to see continuous footage so they know what you are like, not just the best clips you have of yourself. One inexpensive way to do this is ask if the venue has IMAG projection, then give the director a $100 Amazon gift card or similar to give you a DV cam master. [Most large corporate events are recorded.] Hire a photographer [Craigslist.org was suggested to get a bargain price] to shoot the audience to get picture of people reacting to what you are saying.

How do you get the first gig? Use your social media network. Probably no one in your network will have a gig, but his or her network probably will.

The Quick Points:

• Get a publishing deal (based on niche topic or unique experience)
• Create a personal brand and promise to deliver it
• Have a DVD and website that shows your on-stage performance
• Offer high value content, no “duh, we already know that” material
• Ask for a fee that matches your role (Opener, Closer, Keynote or Panel)
• Always work your gigs through the speakers bureau
• Don’t be taken advantage of by “free” gigs
• Practice your speech, take it seriously, always improve your performance

Give your best at every gig; you can’t afford to have an off day.

Related items:

• Nick’s blog
• Tim’s blog
• Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur, Pam Slim

Examples of Twitter #fail happen every day, and I just lived through one. In fact, I didn’t just live through it, I demonstrated twitter #fail myself and now I see how it can happen even if it’s unintentional.  Don’t let this happen to you.

Quick Back Story - I had just gone through a great effort to prepare a one hour presentation over social media.  I spent a lot of time on this over the weekend and gave the presentation Monday January 11^th.  Several people who wanted to come but couldn’t make it asked me to video it.  So I did.  After the presentation I got a great deal of feedback on it’s value from many of the business leaders.  My bucket was full – overflowing actually from all the positive feedback.  I must be on to something meaningful here.  (Side note, For pro marketers and internet evangelists, this is probably just the “regular” stuff, but for many who are on the sidelines watching the internet speed past their business storefronts, this was really insightful stuff.)

With fresh recommendations and praise and the knowledge that I touched many, I set on a self imposed mission to share this good content.

My priority: Get the message out and the content in the hands that needed it most via the power of the social web (exactly what I just presented on).

I just knew this was a eureka opportunity and all I had to do was empower others to put this in the hands of those who needed it.

Naturally the side benefit, I thought, would be increasing my value, starting a meaningful discussion on the topics in the presentation and maybe, just maybe picking up a few followers and friends along the way.  And hey, I thought, I’m not selling anything here, just giving away content – this is the perfect message and the perfect reason to leverage the social web.
Or so I thought.

What I did next, was classic fail (and I didn’t even see it happening).

So, with my blinders on and seeing the world through rose colored glasses, off I went into the twittersphere.

I picked a few friends and invited them to get involved.

@leader4hire - First Tweet (innocent enough)

Then… A few others

@leader4hire Second Tweet (ok, why not)

Then… I remembered a few others and invited them too

@leader4hire Third Tweet (hmm, this feels kinda weird)

Then… I thought, hey, this is showing in my stream and I probably look insincere – I should probably announce that I’m not trying to bend twitter to my will and spam away for attention. I know, it would be best for me to say something like that.

@leader4hire Fourth Tweet (see look, I'm not a bad guy)

And then back to the business at hand, another tweet or two…

@leader4hire 5th Tweet (and maybe one or two more...)

Oh yeah, and these guys too

@leader4hire 6th Tweet (a plot shifting and pivitol moment coming up)

Then… In response to my tweet moments before, someone I respect and enjoy said:

@unmarketing First Tweet (pithy... and... right?)

Uhh *gulp* What?  I’m THAT guy now? Not me… Not me. Never. Why didn’t I see this coming?

@leader4hire 7th Tweet (humbled)

… but but.. Not what I meant

@unmarketing Second Tweet (Back to the basics, remember those?)

Well, but here’s what I was thinking (actually just wanting redemption at this point)

@leader4hire 8th post (doesnt matter now)

Engagement over. Then self loathing, despair and frustration set in there after and go into a ponderous state.

@leader4hire 9th Tweet (humbled and a bit wiser)

Then the light bulb.

I’ve learned something here.  Something very important through a real experience that really was filled with good intentions.  I need to share this story, and show how it happens and how to avoid it.  Thus this blog post was born – as shameful to me as it may seem, it’s a valuable lesson.

I hope my loss is your gain.

5 Tips to Avoid Twitter Fail:

1 – Only single out a few people that you really want feedback from with your @reply message.

As I looked back through my tweets, I had 3 maybe 4  people I absolutely needed/wanted feedback from.  For the others, my motivation was different (maybe it’s useful to them, they probably know somebody that needs it, this guy will probably think I’m smart, I want this persons attention and this is a good way to get it). #Fail happened here.  Don’t do this.

2 – Do not confusion your goal.

If you want honest feedback ask for feedback from ONLY the person (people) you honestly want it from.  If you want to share, openly share it with just one tweet.  The people who care will see it.  If you want to use it for self promotion, consider this and don’t do what I did (unless you don’t care about your image).  Use the tool for good reasons and get good results.  Start combining goals and using the tool for questionable reasons and get bad results… And remember, on twitter it’s not you that makes it questionable it’s what your viewers see that define it as questionable (not authentic, not sincere, etc).

3 – Share you content over time and over discussion like a meal with friends.

My link and to the presentation and video didn’t need to be shared in massive quantities all at once.  The truth of the matter is that I only had a few people I was discussing this presentation with and sharing it with them was expected.  For others, I should have started a dialog and when it made sense, suggested the content for the right reasons – for them, not for me.

4 – Match what is valuable to you to what will be perceived as valuable to them.

This is the classic advertising snafu – assume everyone is interested and if they aren’t, interrupt them until they notice.  I know better.  The truth is, Scott called me out because this video probably means very little to him AND I hadn’t been talking to him about this presentation. In fact, my only engagement with him has been me complimenting his progress on his book which he cordially replies back to let me know he sees me. However that does not yet mean that he “gets me”. In fact, Scott is not even following me (I didn’t realize that until writing this).  To him, (I presume) we aren’t yet friends and all I was doing was leveraging the network to get his attention.  And in hindsight, that’s exactly what I was doing – I just didn’t realize it because it only takes a second to write @unmarketing in my next tweet.  My thought process – (use goober voice) “hey I like Scott, he replies back to me. I’ll include him in this next tweet. Weeeee”.  Just because it only takes a second doesn’t mean you should do it.

5 – When it feels like you shifted from honest intentions to “seizing the moment” that should be a red flag.

This happened after my 2^nd or 3^rd tweet, which is what prompted me to make the promise that I wasn’t spamming.  I should have seen this as a sign, but didn’t.  Don’t make this mistake. You may not have someone like Scott who sees it quickly, checks your profile, and calls it like they see it.  I was lucky and hopefully before too much damage was done.

Bonus Tip

Be open minded and considerate of your twitter fellows (and their feedback). Good stuff is everywhere and it’s up to you to see it and acknowledge it – regardless of the shape, package, or presentation of it.

The Bottom Line for Me

I got a real life lesson on twitter etiquette and I’m better for it (I think).

I hope I haven’t lost traction with any of my twitter people along the way.  Good intentions or not, lesson learned. Special thanks to Scott.  Not sure how others would have taken it, but for me it was a needed wake up call.  Thanks.

So now, tweet this so I don’t have too

I’m often asked by business owners, friends and even other marketers about recommended tools for social media and websites.  Here is a quick list of social media search tools you really must know about.

Free tracking tool for your website or blog:

Google Analytics – This free analytics tool will tell you everything you need to know about your website traffic, pageviews, source of visitors, and so much more.  It’s free to signup and easy to use.

BlogTracker by IceRocket – This free analytics tool is geared to serve blogs only.  A good tool that works directly with IceRocket.

Free search tools for your blogs and twitter:

Google Alerts – This is an easy and powerful tool that lets you setup keywords or phrases to keep track of and Google will tell you every time those words or phrases are used in new posts online.  Great way to be notified when your brand name, company, product, blog or real name gets used and where.  Good for spotting trends, seeking out issues for damage control, or staying up to speed on a developing topic.

Google Blogsearch – Pretty straightforward use of Google Search technology only its applied to the spectrum of blog posts as opposed to the entire spectrum of the web.  Search for a keyword of phrase and you will find blogs that match your search.

Blogpulse – A blog search engine that offers a variety of ways to search blogs, see blogging trends and blogging statistics.  This service is offered by Nielsen and reports to have 126.4 Million blogs indexed (as of today).  This tool offers so many ways to slice and dice your data that you really need to see the benefits and uses here.

Technorati – A blog search engine that is free to use and very popular.  It also reports top blogs overall and lets you surf by popular categories.  If you want to know what’s being talked about today, look to Technorati for the jump start.

IceRocket – A blog search engine that also has trending tools and top blogs.  This is a handy reference if you are trying to see things from a different perspective other then Blogpulse or Technorati.

Twitter Search – Search twitter on keywords and see up-to-the-minute tweets on that keyword. Great way to find out who is saying what RIGHT NOW.  Easy to search for your brand, product service, website etc. Also if you are looking to find like minded folks, this makes it easy to find people tweeting on topics that interest you.

This may seem like a short list, and there are many more services available, but this is a practical baseline you should know about.

Feel free to share any additional services you recommend.

In an earlier blog post I discussed the impact of Pandora being branded as free internet radio and promised to make suggestions for improvement.  So here’s to keeping promises.

According to Wiktionary, Half Baked means “ill-conceived, unsound or badly thought out” and I think that accurately describes how the Pandora 40 Hour Limit service interruption currently works.  Obviously it interrupts service as intended, but at what cost to Pandora and the listener?  Much of it is a matter of the language used in the service interruption notice which I refer to as the 40 hour limit road block.

When you consider the cost of attracting new customers, you really can’t afford to run them off – even the free ones.

I see the 40 hour limit road block, to be a great marketing opportunity.

When your time runs out, you can...

How the 40 Hour Limit Road Block is Half Baked:

Well, this is what you see (graphic above, typed out below) when your service is interrupted at the 40 hour mark:

You’ve reached the monthly free listening limit.  Pandora gives you (leader4hire@yahoo….) 40 hours of free listening each month.  To continue listening, we ask you to do one of the following:

For just 99 cents, ontinue listening as much as you’d like for the rest of the month.

For $36, enjoy an entire year of unlimited listening, plus great features:

No visual or audio advertising

Very high audio quality (192 kilobits per second).

Learn about all the Pandora One features.  To continue listening for free, simply come back on December 1.  The 40 hour limit is reset every month.

I think this message was crafted by someone in the web app department because there isn’t an ounce of friendly, customer centric, marketing copy in this whole message. Nothing makes me say “Yes, I want to do this”.  I think if the marketing department was involved, this would look more like an ad and less like a court summons.

Definitely seems half baked to put such an unfriendly message in front of the customer when they are at a critical decision point about your service.

A Closer Look

(hey moocher,) You’ve reached your monthly free listening limit.

Do you really need to make it so obvious that you attracted me to your free service, I used the free service, and now I’m being pointed at for using it?  What if this was my first month of service and I didn’t know, I may have been in love with your service, but this doesn’t make me feel good.  You’ve already started this critical conversation with a negative tone.  And in my case, I’ve been a long time user and I still hate this message, yet I still love Pandora over it’s competition.

Pandora gives you (leader4hire@yahoo…) 40 hours of free listening each month (and you better be thankful).

Yep, definitely feeling like you are pointing a finger at me.  I don’t like being singled out like this, even if no one else can see it, I don’t like how you present it.

To continue listening, we ask you do one of the following… (spend your money or else).

You must think you are the only guy in town and that I can’t find free music somewhere else. Customers shop with their dollars every day deciding where to spend or not spend their money.  When you are online this is even more difficult if their are a lot of free alternatives.  Tone has a lot to do with my perception and how I will spend my dollars.

Then the sterile report on price options and the rather valueless offer on the Pandora One service. In my mind, the other Pandora One benefits such as the skins, mini player, desktop application, and 5 hours before timeout are much more compelling then high quality and no ads.

Overall, the voice, tone, and “offer” to spend money just doesn’t make me feel special.  I may really like the service, but when you boil it down to these terms, I’m just not interested.  I think many of your listeners come to the same conclusion.

Resetting the Timer for Full Bake

What if this 40 hour roadblock was reconsidered from a marketing stand point.  What if the point was to attract the listener and move them closer to your brand, not away from the brand?  What would you do then?

Here is what I suggest as a better option… Sell me, don’t tell me .

Give me the rest of the month free!

Wild idea, I know, but see, I’m logged in and I’m valuable as a listener and important to advertisers.  So, what if the first 40 hour limit road block notice said something like:

Suggested ad copy:

Hey Leader4hire@yahoo…  You’ve been a busy listener and hit our 40 hour limit.  Betcha didn’t know we were counting!

This is the first time for you and you may not know that most listeners use less than 40 hours in a month.  You on the other hand are a true fan of music and the music legends are smiling down upon you. We would normally suggest you upgrade your account here, but Tim Westergren, the President of Pandora is going to cover you for this month.  The next time you hit 40 hours in a month, we’ll ask you to consider upgrading your membership so you can keep listening.  Okay?  Click here for Tim to spot you for the rest of the month at no charge.  Click here to go ahead and upgrade or Click here to wait until next month for another bank of 40 hours.

What to do with Tim’s Freebie Listeners?

From then on, I recommend your tech guys enhance the player to report my time for the rest of the month. Once I click to accept Tim’s free offer, my Pandora player would give me a counter showing me how many hours I’ve listened with a note that said “Tim sponsored you this month” and make it clickable to a blog post by Tim on this free month with user comments showing below. I bet it would have a ton of users saying thanks.

Why?

By the way, you would go ahead and give me this ‘free’ month because by giving me something I am more likely to give you something in return.  In psychology its classified as the rule of reciprocation in which we feel a strong obligation to repay debts.  Now, this is difficult online, but it’s still effective if you work it properly.  In this case, you’ve created value in something I thought was free, interrupted me and told me in a nice way that builds value in our relationship and as a listener that it normally cost money, but not this time.  So, in return I’ll feel special (or more special) and make a mental note that this could have cost me something, but you did me a favor.  Will people keep listening and still not upgrade next month – yes, but its worth the cost.

Remind them of the favor.

Now the payoff comes from taking advantage of the favor from that point forward.  Every time I log in the rest of that month, remind me that Tim hooked me up, tell me how many hours I’ve listend too so far and tell me you are glad I’m still listening and hungry for more.  Then, as I get closer to the end of the month encourage me to go ahead and upgrade and get something free (a hat, a shirt, a poster, a free download etc – all cheap stuff).  I’ll be spending a lot of time thinking about the free ride im taking, valuing my service, and rationalizing my future expense.  Then when the new month hits, tell me I get to start over at 40 hours but remind me Ive already got my free pass from Tim and that you would love to have me as a Pandora One member.  Follow me for the following 40 hours of my new month reminding me and smartly nudging me forward to the upgrade.  Then at the end of 40 hours, give me a very friendly service interruption.  Perhaps tell me that I seem to really like Pearl Jam, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails (my top 3 stations) and that Pandora has cataloged over 400 (correct number here) songs by those artists and you’d hate to see me lose touch with my favorite bands.  Encourage me to upgrade and get more of what I like with no restrictions.

Nice try Justin, show me another way.

Ok, what if you just took the current road block and rewrote it with a more friendly tone like this:

Suggested Ad Copy:

Leader4hire just rocked out 40 hours of free streaming radio and it’s only Thursday October 16^th.  You still have 15 days until the hours reset on November 1.

We bet you love Pandora.com and we want you to keep listening, don’t wait 15 days to come back.

Like your local pool hall or diner’s jukebox, drop 4 quarters (99 cents actually) and we’ll rock your socks off for the rest of the month – promise!

Or even better, show your support of the Music Genome Project and become a Pandora One member for only $3 a month ($36 a year).  You’ll get a free Pandora One badge for your site, all access to the Pandora One members-only club and members only downloads.  As an added bonus, we’ll stop those ads from showing in your Pandora player or playing commercials interrupting your playlist and we’ll give you a cool desktop Pandora player, a longer window to listen before we check to see if your still there, and high quality music.

See what we are doing here?  We are talking about what I like and how I like it.  This makes me sound like you really don’t want to cut me off and you are trying to work with me and you understand me.

If you really wanted to get clever and include an advertiser, here is the perfect hook:

Add a note in the more friendly version that says:

If none of these work for you, you can fill out this long form and we will see if we can get an advertiser to sponsor your listening, but you’ll need to fill it out completely and yes, we’ll be sharing your information with the advertiser so they can try to do business with you in exchange for giving you a free Pandora One subscription.  It’s the best we can do to keep Pandora from costing you money even when it costs us.  We’d rather see you be a Pandora One member though.

Still not sure what to do?  Okay, just come back on November 1 and you’ll have a fresh 40 hours to work with.

One last idea, Pandora should get my friend to buy:

Why not give me a way to share my service interruption with friends to see if they can buy my month or my Pandora One membership for me?  This would act as both a soliciting tool for the listener and a recruiting tool for new listeners.  In the months around Christmas and the listeners birthday, this might be an easy (very easy?) sale if the listener was prompted to share.  The trick here is to make it very easy, no complicated forms, now date of birth, city or state – just friends name and email with an optional message.

Bottom Line:

The 40 hour road block is not a notice to stop listening, it’s an invitation to keep listening (provided the listener acknowledges the value of Pandora’s service).  So, instead of throwing up a stop sign and pushing them in or out, try replacing the stop sign with a friendly greeter who sounds nice and interested in me as a listener.  Really wow me by giving me a free pass with a reminder that next time it’ll cost me.  Then work with me and remind me.  The sum of all those tiny touches will lead to me to take a more favorable view of Pandora and ultimately increase my willingness to open my wallet.  May sound far fetched, but it happens all the time from free samples at the grocery store to lunch and learn seminars to test drives at car dealerships and free mail list services like mailchimp.com.

Seth Godin, marketing mastermind, respected entrepreneur and author of “Tribes” and “Purple Cow” makes $50,000 in one day – By lying or by selling or both?

Get Seth Godin's boxed set

So, like Seth did when he was naming his book, “All Marketers are Liars”, I was lying when I named this blog post. Seth isn’t a liar; he’s just a great story teller. We are the liars. We lie to ourselves every day about what we wear, where we live, and where we work. And now 800 of us can lie to ourselves about the souvenir (wooden box of books) coming our way.

Today, in approximately 4 hours, Seth made over $50,000 in book sales with his unique souvenir idea. I admit to being one of the Godin junkies who purchased the book at 10:53 this morning – only 14 minutes after his email (from his blog) hit my inbox informing me of the boxed set and the website to purchase it from.

Webpage to purchase the Box Set

At that time, I was amazed to see the 800 in inventory was already showing as only 435 items remaining. A little scarcity in action + time sensitive + emotional hook = Sold without thinking twice. Now that’s great marketing (selling).

If you’ve read any of his books, you see that he is doing exactly what he preaches. Seth has created a reputation as a leader (tribes) and knows how to do big things by thinking small (small is the new big) and already has our permission to sell to us (permission marketing) and we are happy to be sold because we are a part of his community (triiibes.com) and he is offering us something valuable at a discount along with a story and something free (purple cow / free prize inside).

Having said that, I’m surprised he only did 800 because we all know it could have been more. Additionally, I’m surprised he sold the box set at a discount (about 25% off compared to buying the titles one-by-one) instead of selling them at a premium. But I’m not too surprised because he knows by giving what he can at a rate he can afford, he will get more back in other areas (speaking engagements, next books sales, bloggers buzzing, google juice juicing etc). Again, more of Seth doing what he tells all of us to do.

Now then, I noticed some odd stuff with the purchase site for the book. I sat on it throughout the day and made notes – I was enamored by the whole thing. So, for those of you who didn’t see the blog post soon enough, here is sort of a play-by-play. At least, what I saw.

10:39 AM – Seth’s email about the box set hits my inbox
10:49 AM – 435 boxed sets remain. I purchase mine
10:53 AM – 339 left
11:02 AM – 64 left
11:05 AM – 17 left. Amazed, I start to do screen captures
11:06 AM – Site shows negative quantities (see animation)
1:00 PM – Site shows 131 boxed sets left
1:14 PM – Site shows 90 boxed sets left
1:42 PM – Site shows 48 left
1:58 PM – Sold Out!

What was up with the weird glitches? I’m thinking it was tracking all clicks to the paypal account then checking to see which of those referring visitors completed the check out process. Once that happened, the site was updated releasing the inventory. If this is the case, this shows that nearly 400 people (maybe more) clicked with intent to buy and then bailed out. That tells you a lot about buyers intent and the biggest challenge with online sales – the abandoned shopping cart.

Alas, glitches or not, I got one for myself. How about you?

It’s true, “Marketing” may not be in the bible, but the marketing of beliefs and faith certainly was. Think John the Baptist and his relentless effort to announce (market) his beliefs and faith, not to mention Jesus and his efforts!

The folks at Church Marketing Sucks seem to have a bone to pick regarding the lack of marketing in churches and the poor marketing efforts from unknowing church members. Oh, and they take a firm position on the issue of using the word “sucks” stating:

We’re being authentic. We’re being real. We’re doing the same thing we’re asking the church to do when it comes to communicating and marketing who they are.

Personally, I think most churches have the basic concept of marketing and understand how to get the message out.  They use their signs, they make announcements to the congregation, they ask members to tell others about the church and their faith, many members actively recruit and encourage others to share in their faith, and they hold events to bring new people into the church.  That’s more than most businesses do!

When it comes to church marketing, or anything else, be smart and consistent with your marketing message and consider the quality of the message AND the presentation of the message.

Dear Tim Westergren and the Pandora.com team,
This is an open letter to you, my dearest friend at Pandora, the worlds best (free) internet radio. Like a brother in arms or a fraternity brother in the wee hours of a long night of debauchery, I’m going to shoot you straight, but I won’t leave you hanging.

Let’s talk about your identity crisis, or as I like to think of it:
Pandora, a Crisis of Disbelief.

Lets start with the fundamental issue. The root cause if you will. The Positioning of Pandora.com.

The marketing classic, “Positioning – a battle for your mind”, is a great book by Al Reis and Jack Trout and considered by many in the industry to be the authority on the topic of positioning for companies, products, and services. Although there are different definitions of Positioning, probably the most common is: “A product’s position is how potential buyers see the product”, and is expressed relative to the position of competitors. In this book, they have some great examples of positioning. One such example illustrates why Xerox can’t sell computers and IBM can’t sell copiers despite the millions of dollars they put into product development and advertising. In the mind of the customer, Xerox means copiers and IBM means computers no matter how much money either entity puts into trying to do something different than their core. You see, IBM = Computers and Xerox = Copiers. Just ask anyone on the street, they will tell you the same thing.

Enter Pandora. Pandora, you have built yourself on the back of free internet radio. This means all those years of saying and doing free internet radio has positioned you in the customers mind to mean free internet radio. So, like it or not Pandora = free internet radio in the mind of the customer. Hence your identity crisis and why your customers are going through a Crisis of Disbelief.

<title>Pandora Radio – Listen to Free Internet Radio, Find New Music</title>

To further confuse things, you still keep the “free internet radio” message in your Pandora.com browser title and repeat that message all over your website. So, after 9 years of operations and roughly $65 million in funding, all your users from the internet to iPhone to Blackberry and on and on have bought into your position of free internet radio. This is good, Pandora. This means unlike deezer.com, dizzler.com, bluebeat.com, grooveshark.com and all the others, you have earned the position as free internet radio. You, not anyone else, means free internet radio. What a wonderful position to own. Just like craigslist.com means free internet classifieds and pentyoffish.com means free dating site. All great places to be in the long-term.

Perception is reality (or should we say Position is reality).

The reason your listeners are crying like little girls at a midnight showing of the Titanic is because you have spent your whole life saying one thing and now you are doing something completely different.

I have plenty of money, but I didn’t expect to give you any.

If you go to the movie theater you expect to pay to watch it. If you go to a restaurant, you expect to pay for your food. If you go to the park, you don’t expect to pay for the sun to shine. Wait, what? See, the park has a position in your mind and by default that position means fresh air, family fun, and sunshine. If you put a park ranger out there to charge for being in the sun, it won’t matter who the people are (millionaires or bums), you’re going to run them off because the position and expectations don’t match what it means to go to the park. In your case, Pandora means free internet radio – all the time, not up to 40 hours. Where you might be tempted to think you are just getting backlash from the ‘poor’ listeners, that would be completely inaccurate. These listeners are operating on the position and expectations you created. The same things they fell in love with. See, it’s really not about the money, it’s about the position of Pandora.com no longer syncing up. Unfortunately most people can’t tell you what they are feeling in a meaningful way, they just throw up the price because it’s the easiest to zero in on. Additionally, with the paid advertising, they expect that you are making money and don’t need to charge them. Stupid, I know.

Stop your belly aching, we gotta make money don’t we?

Absolutely. I can assure you every one of your listeners wants you to make money and stay in business. This is also why the listeners are accepting of the ads because they know you have to make money somewhere since you are “free to listeners”. The key here, is that the listeners don’t expect you to try to make money off of them. If you want to give up your dominate position as free internet radio and see your listeners drop thus dropping your traffic and number of ad impressions, then keep on the path you are on now. If you want to continue to be the biggest player, clearly head and shoulders above everyone else, rethink the value of your position and what it means before you reposition yourself to something you wish you hadn’t.

What would Google Do?

Just like they don’t charge for all those extremely valuable search results, they wouldn’t charge for listening to the radio either.

It’s the listeners, stupid.

Your die hard listeners, the ones busting the 40 hour limit are your most loyal listeners and also make the best prospect for your advertisers because these listeners provide advertisers the consumption of their ads over and over – an advertising concept known as frequency. Because you have customers that stay on your site for HOURS, you are proving to be one of the most prominent ad networks online. You want as many of these ‘power listeners’ as possible because your advertisers want them. From looking at blogs and comments posted on the 40 hour limit, I see a trend of people reaching this limit as a product of listening at work. This is great news for Pandora. This means your listeners are by-passing their local radio station to listen to you, thus Pandora is becoming their local radio station. This is huge! Add elements to user profile to indicate the area you live in. Then you have the ability to target users in a market for advertisers and ultimately would open you up to allow media buys from hyper local advertisers who want to tell that guy at work that he can go to the sandwich shop in his home town for lunch instead of the current advertiser, Jimmy Johns, which isn’t in my market – but their ad and message is perfect for this medium and if they were in my market, mmmm sandwich time.

By limiting 40 hour or more listeners you do 3 things:

1. Erode your best asset for the advertisers you sell
2. Debunk your evangelists who praised and recruited people to Pandora.com causing them to work twice as hard to undo you, either intentionally or not.
3. Push your loyal fans into the arms of the next best “free internet radio” service which will later monetize their site in a better way having learned from your mistakes.

Buzz meter goes up then goes bust.

You will see a drop in your traffic as well as your apps downloads, your impressions served, and your new user signups. This is inevitable due to the power of buzz going from positive to negative like a wildfire with increasing winds. Your buzz has been positive overall, continually building on your position of free internet radio, but that may shift quickly and with a tremendously negative impact. As more and more people talk about this 40 hour limit, more people will seek alternatives before they ever sign up.

Begin the demise of Pandora.com (see also the twitter effect killing Bruno the first week in the box office). I like Pandora so much, I can not even vet out what the demise of Pandora.com would be like. Lets prevent this before it happens.

What is the best way to handle this?

Assuming Pandora.com values, cherishes, and wants to maintain the position of free internet radio in the mind of everyone, they need to keep the free internet radio message and own it at all levels. It means that instead of penalizing the 40 hour listener, they embrace and develop that habit, that addiction to the service. Perhaps a few suggestions can get you thinking about other ways to monetize it.

Let the ideas flow:

Sponsor a listener program
Offer people, business, corps, causes etc to pay any sum $10 or $10,000 to sponsor free listening for others. You can hold an annual fund raiser for this, put a huge marketing spin on it for all kind of PR that will grow the Pandora brand. Promise to donate a portion of the revenue to a good cause so it has the warm fuzzy element, then reward listeners with ongoing free listening (with ads showing). This way you can continue to monetize the user clicks for thumbs up/down, play/pause etc which is good for your advertisers. Your fans will love you more and will work harder for you. For more clarity on this model, just look at what PBS does every year (or NPR for radio) both of which aren’t far from Jerry’s Kids. The point here is that it works and will work for you if you just have a little imagination. And its not just for funds but great PR (and will not run off your listeners).

Promote membership
If you want to monetize the user, go for it, but don’t put me in fight or flight mode. Offer things that reward membership or transactions. For example, Pandora exclusive concert ticket purchasing at a Pandora price for paid members. Partner with an advertiser and give Pandora members special incentives when they purchase the membership. For example, pay $50 and get $25 in Rock Band credit. In other words, you can use promotions to drive membership, not a road block to your service.

Make me feel special and I’ll give you more
Develop Pandora exclusive content only available to members. This can be tshirts, books, compilation CD’s etc. Take a look at bluebeat.com and see about a similar setup where members can create their own playlist and share with friends this way they can have a little more control over the Pandora experience. Similarly, with grooveshark.com you can play a specific song pretty much on demand which is might be an example of something a member could do. Lastly, since you know so much about my musical interest, use that information and present hyper relevant products to me. By doing this, you give me access to things that I otherwise may not have known about. For example, I am a major nine inch nails fan, but don’t always know what’s going on with nin fan club promotions – however, I am always on Pandora.com and you can see I have a nin station and thumbs up nin when they play on my other stations. This means you can keep me tapped in as a one stop location for all my musical interest.

Feel free to chime in, agree or disagree. Think about your position. Pandora = Free Internet Radio. Or does it?

Potentially more to follow…

Regards,
Justin McCullough
leader4hire

http://www.pandora.com/people/leader4hire

More and more, consumers are relying on friends and family members for advice on what to purchase, where to shop, tonight’s dining experience and tomorrow’s evening out   This is great news for organizations who want to get the word out, i.e., market a new product, service or communicate an event, because word of mouth is essentially free.

Despite this oh-so-obvious fact, few organizations properly implement buzzmarketing by leveraging the “friends and family” network but it’s easy to do, and, did I mention..it’s FREE.

First, identify your friend network. You’ve already got it essentially. No need to create a new spreadsheet. Your organization’s “friends and family members” are its vendors, community alliances, partners, third-party providers and the friends and family members of your employees.

Second, tell ALL your employees, not just your sales and marketing gurus, about your new product, service or event. Every employee should know what your organization is doing, promoting and trying to be known for.   It’s always a bit baffling when the receptionist or gatekeeper of an organization doesn’t know that the company just merged with an international conglomerate, is having an open house and Madonna is performing or has launched a national campaign introducing a new organic, non-caloric, gluten-free chocolate bar. Basically, everyone from the janitor to president and every stakeholder in between needs to know what is going on with your company!

Third, encourage every employee to tell a friend about the event, product or service. And always make sure the “buzz” is clear. Concisely communicate the product, service and event and why a person should attend, buy, partake, etc.!

Communicate via email, word of mouth, phone calls, etc. to these friends and family members what is going on at your company.   Remember, we all have a business and personal friend network. If properly informed, they can do more for our cause than any mass advertising. All we have to do is tell them and excite them.They will do the rest.

A note about friends. Some friends are promoters and natural sales people who are likely to go out of their way to tell others about your cause. Others however, are more likely to be soft-spoken supporters. Don’t expect every friend to blast away emails, Tweets or Facebook posts about your cause. All you want to accomplish is awareness that produces discussion in conversation as your friends and family members interact with others in your market.

The more people that know about the organization’s cause, the better the discussion (and results).

So go out there and start a discussion with your friends and family and keep them informed. They will talk and you will benefit from the “friendly” conversation at no charge.

- Justin McCullough
leader4hire.net