Twitter Business Model

The other day Sarah Silverman tweeted a somewhat vulgar complaint about American Airlines.  I'd post it here but it looks like she deleted it from her Twitter account. Her complaint regarded a connecting flight that was cancelled after a 7 hour layover.

Following her tweet, a short discussion ensued between Sarah and her followers about the poor service they've experienced from American Airlines.

As of today, Sarah has 1,692,580 followers.  To give you a sense of her reach, that's approximately the same number of people that will see this 17,000 square foot Walgreen's billboard that rises 340 feet above Times Square in a 24 hour period.

Imagine someone posting a complaint about your company on this billboard?  The damage that can come to American Airlines and other consumer businesses from Twitter is significant.

I know several companies (particularly airlines) are already using Twitter to communicate with frustrated customers.  I believe there’s a huge B2B revenue opportunity here for Twitter.

If I was American Airlines, I'd pay a lot for a Twitter application that would integrate into my CRM or customer service software where I could view all of my @mentions sorted by the number of people that follow the Tweeter.  If American Airlines is able to turn Sarah into a happy customer and can get a positive Tweet from her, they’ll get 17,000 square feet of Times Square advertising for $0.  A pretty good investment to make in one customer.

I have no idea if Twitter is already doing this or if they're considering B2B CRM as a future revenue stream.  But it seems to me that there'd  be a significant revenue opportunity if Twitter was able to effectively integrate their reach, data and users into a company's CRM systems and process.

Drip Marketing

In an earlier post I wrote about what makes a good Tweet. The best Tweets are those that make me laugh or provide me with an interesting insight or make me look at something differently I follow about 150 people on Twitter and I have a pretty high bar for what I keep in my timeline. If a Tweeter isn't adding some kind of consistent value in those 140 characters, I'll stop following them.

There are a lot of similarities between being a good Tweeter and a good marketer. If what you're saying to prospects/clients isn't highly valuable and said very efficiently, it's a matter of time before they tune you out.

I've begun pushing my team to have "Twitter-like" conversations with clients and prospects; I've also heard this referred to as "drip marketing". That is, provide the client with regular, short and highly interesting/engaging/insightful pieces of information (most often without an ask) that educate the recipient and -- just as importantly -- change their perception of what you do in a favorable way. I like to think of these as small, mutual gifts -- they provide both parties with some benefit.

Ideally, I've asked my team to try to keep their drip emails down to 140 characters, though depending on the message this can be quite challenging.

Regardless, the aspiration is simple: be really concise and be really interesting.

Poke the Box

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s new book, Poke the Box.  Much like the book, I'll try to keep my thoughts concise -- it's only 96 pages.

Like most of Seth’s books -- I’ve read most if not all of them-- Poke the Box promotes a very simple concept.  Seth probably could’ve communicated what he was trying to communicate in a couple of blog posts; actually, he could’ve summed it up in a word: “Go!”

Poke the Box means make change, make it happen, start, don’t wait, ship!  Shipping is what matters.

It was a  quick read and I’d recommend it if you have a few hours to kill on a plane or if you're feeling like you could use a good kick in the pants.  The book wasn’t all that insightful -- most of what Seth had to say most of us already know,  but it was filled with good reminders that can help motivate.

For me, the two most notable reminders were:

1. Get started and iterate like crazy.  Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply move.
2. Most initiatives don’t work so don’t be afraid of failure and don‘t get frustrated when they don‘t work.  Real failure is when we don't start.

Of course sometimes the hardest thing about starting is knowing when to quit.  Seth tried to answer that a few years ago in The Dip.

All in all, a solid, quick read.

Product vs. Marketing

Fred Wilson and Jim Keenan, two bloggers that I admire, had a couple of interesting blog posts over the last few weeks that have got me thinking. Fred’s post was titled Marketing and the Bubble and was a follow up to his controversial Marketing post.  In Marketing and the Bubble he uses the really interesting graph below (submitted by a commenter) to illustrate how in the last few years the pendulum of focus for startups has shifted towards product and away from marketing (the focus of the last bubble.)  Fred says:

 “…I am certain that experience has caused me and my partners to view marketing oriented startups with a fair bit of caution.”  

Jim’s post is titled Product Surpasses Sales, the key line is:

“The Internet has shifted the balance of power from sales to product.  They’ve always worked together, but it has been sales leading the way.  Things have changed.  With the ubiquity of information, it’s the product that now leads sales.  A good, strong, innovative product is far more important today, than the best sales team in the world.”

Rather than taking a side in the debate over product versus marketing, I’d like to make two points that I think should be kept in mind:

1. How much you prioritize marketing investment depends on your lifecycle stage, industry, product, customer base and the current market.  An early-stage biotechnology startup trying to develop a vaccine for bacterial infections likely needs to focus mostly on product.  A startup distribution company that resells telecommunications equipment to small businesses probably needs to prioritize their marketing.
2. Regardless of the above, I believe that your best sales & marketing (externally facing) people should be doing two things: a.) supporting your product and product team by interacting with the market and early adopters, generating intelligence and identifying the products that your customers want but don’t yet know they want and b.) influencing customers and potential customers by telling stories that speed up the diffusion of your most innovative and next generation products into the market.  If you find that your product is so amazing that it gets ahead of your marketing people, it doesn’t mean that marketing isn’t a priority, it just means you need to get those people focused on the harder stuff -- the stuff that your product isn’t doing yet.

Ignore Everybody

I ordered Hugh Macleod's new book Ignore Everybody from Amazon and read it cover to cover in one sitting after getting home from work tonight.  Great book.  There were a lot of really cool ideas and observations that I felt I could really relate to.  Some of his lines about New York were right on. ..

Anyway, here are the lines I liked the most and I hope I don't forget.

• ...most team members are far more concerned with the power relationships going on inside their immediate professional circle than with what may be actually interesting and useful to the customer.
• Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.  You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven.  But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed and all you will feel is emptiness.
• Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me.  Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on a antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would seriously surprise me.
• Art suffers the moment people start paying for it.
• Never try to sell a meteor to a Dinosaur.  It wastes your time and annoys the Dinosaur.
• Quality isn’t Job One.  Being totally f***ing amazing is Job One.
• It’s hard to sell if nobody has bought in.
• Stay ahead of the culture by creating the culture.
• Nobody moves to Ne w York in order to survive.  Of course that’s what most of them end up doing.
• A lot of people in business say they have twenty years experience, when in fact they only have one year’s experience, repeated twenty times.
• The biggest mistake young people make is underestimating how competitive the world is out there.
• "I don’t need a lot to be happy," said Eric.  "Just enough to pay the rent and enjoy a beer with my friends.  I don't think that’s asking for too much."  Eric was obviously a deranged lunatic.
• Work hard.  Keep at it.  Live simply and quietly.  Remain humble.  Stay positive.  Create your own luck.  Be nice.  Be polite.

Upselling

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years trying to find ways to generate more revenue from existing clients; mostly by building and marketing new products that leverage our base product to solve top-of-mind client problems. This is a smart way to grow your business because you're marketing to an audience that already knows, trusts and likes you, your product and your company. In most cases, this puts you at a huge advantage over competition that doesn't have an existing relationship.

I've learned a few valuable lessons during this time about getting more from your current customers.

1. Clients have a strong perception of who you are and what your capabilities are. They actually pre-judge you more than they do a new provider. It can be really hard to get out of this box. The best ways that I've found to deal with this are:
   • Be super honest and upfront about what your limitations are with respect to added offerings. If you talk too big you'll lose trust.
   • Your clients know that you can do something well; if they didn't, they wouldn't be working with you. Clearly identify that thing and find a way to make this capability a part of what you're upselling. But make the story simple and make it make sense to the group that you're working with; i.e. a lab supply company can sell its logistics expertise to help clients manage lab inventory but it shouldn't start selling office supplies to the office manager.
2. Don't be afraid to test your pitch with some smaller clients; your first several passes will always be off the mark. But balance this with not taking the feedback from a couple of clients too seriously. If you think you're solving a real problem then stay on course for a while.
3. You have to be ultra sensitive of not appearing to "salesy." You've got a certain level of trust and a willingness to listen built up among existing clients. Don't damage that, it'll be hard to get back and it's not worth losing.
4. Because most deals can get done with a statement of work or an amendment to an existing contract, the sales cycles are much shorter than those with new clients. Leverage this to keep deals really simple and moving fast. In some cases you can simply invoice the added product or service without a signature which can avoid the involvement of busy lawyers and senior managers.

You Can't "Do" Viral Marketing

A friend of mine told me the other day that he was working on a viral marketing project at work.  He was trying to spread the word about a site he just released.

Curious, I asked him what activities he considered viral marketing activities.  He listed building a Facebook page, postings in web forums and "Twittering."

To me, this isn't viral marketing.  It's simply old fashioned advertising through new channels.

Viral marketing, on the other hand, is when a customer tells a friend who tells two friends who each tell four friends who each tell eight friends.

It's a passive activity for the marketer; the marketer isn't "doing" viral marketing, he's simply watching it happen.

But I do believe you can enable it in two ways:

1. By creating a product or service that is so cool that people are inclined to spread the word.
2. By making it REALLY easy for your customers to spread the word.

Beyond that, viral marketing is mostly luck.

Organic Traffic

A really useful metric for internet marketers to watch is "organic traffic %." 

Most web traffic comes from:

• Service Emails
• Marketing Emails
• Search
• Other Advertising (banners, TV, radio, print, etc.)
• RSS Feeds
• Organic (people that come without being prompted; a proactive visit, directly to your site)

The breakdown of these sources varies by industry of course, but it's useful to watch how the percentage of traffic that comes organically changes over time.  An increase in organic traffic over time is a good way to measure the increased value and quality of your product.

Marketing this Blog

To date, I've had virtually zero traffic on this blog. I've also done zero marketing.

The primary reason I haven't marketed it yet is that I'm unclear on what the value is for someone other than myself. I only blog because I like to write. And this seems like a fun place to do it.

There are a couple things that need to fall into place before I'll start actively marketing:

• A more narrow focus of topics
• Time and ability to regularly provide content that is remarkable; something that people will tell their friends about

Lastly, I'd like this blog to be an outlet for a certain area of expertise; an expertise that supports my career. I'm the best in the world at something -- something specific and narrow -- but I haven't identified it yet; I have some ideas, but I want to be sure. I literally have no idea when/if these things will come together. But in the meantime, I'm ok with a few hits a month.

The Hype Machine

The Hype Machine is a music blog aggregator that trolls the internet to find out what's hot and to give it attention. They just released their Top 50 Artists, Songs and Albums of 2008. For the last two weeks, I haven't stopped listening to the Top 50 Albums. You can find them here.

While I consider myself a music lover, I also recognize that I have terrible taste in music. I've always gone for what's most accessible, catchy and easy to get listen to. Hype Machine's Top 50 is not made up of that kind of music, not at all. In fact, I've only heard of five of the 50 artists:

• REM
• Beck
• Coldplay
• Kanye West
• Lil Wanye

All of the others are completely new to me. I've already found a few new favorites:

• Frightened Rabbit
• MGMT
• Vampire Weekend
• M83

This music takes some time and commitment to enjoy, but it's well worth it.

Of course, the best part of Hype Machine is the Bloggers that are discovering and writing about the music.

Here are a couple of quotes that will inspire you to listen to the music and appreciate how cool this site is:

• "...could be the soundtrack to an early morning drive down a country road."

• "Who'd have thought the classic "American" punk album would be reinvented by a New Jersey punk band rocking out the basement circuit."

• "Good music to listen to while jumping on a trampoline."

• "It's dark, creepy and if it happens to be raining where you are, it'll be the perfect soundtrack."

• "...an album best listened to alone, or at 3am at an open-minded party."

• "It's the musical equivalent of reading someone else's diary."

• "It's like watching the sun rise over distant mountaintops, over and over, familiar and captivating all at once."

If you haven't heard of a lot of these bands, I highly recommend giving it a listen.

Mobile News

I mentioned in an earlier post that I use the WSJ Reader on my Blackberry which allows me to read news updates and my favorite WSJ columnists (Jenkins, Mossberg, Morgenstern, etc.) at no cost. Even better, it pulls in feeds from my favorite blogs (about 15-20) in real time. I'm convinced that I get more news and information from the reader than I do through any other medium (TV, newspaper, magazines, etc.).

Whenever I add another blog I think about how great this thing is...for me. But what's the WSJ getting out of it? Probably a few things:

• Advertising fees (though very minimal, there's very little space for ads)
• Click throughs: once in a while I'll wind up clicking through to their website to "get more information"
• Branding/Loyalty: I've cancelled my newspaper subscription but WSJ remains top-of-mind for me and I continue to consume their product.
• Word of mouth: because I'm reading columns and articles from the WSJ, I'll continue to talk and write about the WSJ
• Upsell opportunity: they show ads for other Dow Jones products

But I think there's something much bigger and potentially brilliant going on here: The Wall street Journal has built a platform for all the news a reader could want that carries virtually zero distribution costs. Or, put another way, the WSJ Reader solves the two fundamental problems with a newspaper's business model: limited space and big costs. The jury is out on how well mobile attention can be monetized but my sense is that the WSJ is doing something pretty smart here...I'm sure I'll be writing more on this in the coming months.

What's a Marketer?

The other day I told someone that I'm not a big fan of copywriting. He replied with, "I thought you were a marketer."

It's funny how many people have a very limited view of marketing. People often think of branding, advertising and copywriting. But the fact is a car salesman is a marketer, just as a politician is a marketer, just as a teacher is a marketer.

Marketing is the art and act of telling stories that generate an intended result.  We're all marketers.