I included the word potentially in the title because testing are critical componants of any and every marketing campaigns. Below is a case study regarding testing that Ice.com did with their blog. What you learn form this case study may or may not directly apply to your company. 

SUMMARY
Are company blogs really as successful as everyone makes out? The answer is … yes, no, well, maybe.

CHALLENGE
Two years ago, Ice.com® Marketing EVP Pinny Gniwisch noticed from his site traffic logs that he was getting an unusual amount of traffic from independent blogs.

Turns out dozens of bloggers who loved fashion frequently linked to SKUs they admired in Ice.com’s jewelry selection.

Naturally Gniwisch began to wonder, what if Ice.com launched some blogs of its own? His marketing department could control the messaging and feature SKUs that way. In effect, the idea was blogs as separate promotional microsites.

Bad news — Ice.com’s CEO “was not keen on the idea.” However, Gniwisch promised the idea wouldn’t take up many company resources — he and the in-house team would write the blogs and they’d use ultra-cheap blogging software to post them online.

CAMPAIGN
Gniwisch decided to test several very different blog ideas. Each, however, shared the same seven rules of thumb:

#1. Look like a blog — not a company site.

The templates used were absolutely prototypical of average consumers’ blog templates. On first view, these looked like “normal” blogs.

#2. Don’t totally hide ownership

It’s one thing to look like a blog, it’s another to mislead the public. If you poke around at any of the blogs, it’s clear who the owner is.

#3. Hotlinks are your friends

Unlike landing pages and merchandising pages where outside links are verboten because you don’t want to confuse traffic, blogs link to all sorts of places as part of the value of their content. Instead of fearing the outside links, Gniwisch decided to embrace them, both to provide a more realistic blogging experience and also to encourage other bloggers to link in.

Naturally the blogs would also contain links to Ice.com merchandise pages, as well as to each other.

#4. Tag every posting with search-friendly terms

The team added tags to every posting — especially image tags — so that search engine spiders would be likely to pick up on the postings under those words.

#5. Don’t promote the blogs on the main site.

Gniwisch wanted the test to be as pure as possible, so he resisted adding visible hotlinks or tabs to the blogs from Ice.com’s home. Instead, to help them out of the search sandbox, he merely added them to the site map — a page that most human visitors never look at but search engine spiders adore.

#6. Do let other bloggers know you’re out there

Gniwisch’s team conducted a down-and-dirty link-building campaign, individually emailing “hundreds and hundreds” of fashion blog owners to let them know about Ice.com’s blogs. Key — Ice.com let the other blog owners know when a hotlink was being posted in their direction. There’s little that bloggers appreciate more than being told another site is already linking to them.

#7. Let the press know you’re out there

Gniwisch also emailed his personally complied list of journalists at media outlets ranging from the Village Voice to BusinessWeek to let them know about the new blogs as they launched. Key — he didn’t send a formulaic press release. Reporters are inundated with releases and toss them more frequently than reading them (when your job is to seek out news, releases sent to everyone else on the planet are the last place to look.)

Instead, he dashed off a brief text-only note with a hotlink. Each note was individually sent and individually addressed.

Three of the blogs launched were:

-> Just Ask Leslie

This blog launched Aug. 27, 2004, featuring a photo of Leslie herself, had the tagline “The Jewelry Expert Answers All Your Questions.” Leslie answered questions such as which is the best jewelry for summertime activities or best for blondes. Her answers were illustrated with Ice.com product pictures. This blog linked to almost 100 other bloggers’ Web sites.

-> Ice Blog

Taglined ‘Official Blog of Ice.com the Leading Online Jewelry,” this blog launched March 1, 2005. Gniwisch’s vision for this blog was a place where site news and related events (such as sales) could be announced. This blog only linked to Ice.com and its sibling blogs.

-> Sparkle Like The Stars -

This blog, with the tagline “Celebrity Fashion, News, Gossip and Jewelry,” launched March 12, 2005. The postings showed a celebrity photo or magazine cover shot and talked about the jewelry featured in them. This blog also linked to almost 100 other bloggers’ Web sites.

RESULTS
Results were mixed, but upbeat. The good news is Sparkle Like The Stars alone brought in $50,000 worth of sales in December 2005.

Sparkle Like The Stars is currently getting between 10,000 and 15,000 unique monthly visitors, 31% of whom click through to the main Ice.com site. The conversion rate on clickthroughs is about 1%, which Gniwisch says is “higher than many affiliates but lower than search marketing which converts at 2%.”

This blog also continues to get higher and higher search rankings for terms such as celebrity jewelry,” which has helped traffic arc upwards by roughly 30% per typical month this year.

Plus, Gniwisch’s PR campaign landed him a great deal of ink, including mentions in The New York Times, The Washington Post and BusinessWeek — and even speaking gigs at shows such as eTail.

(Note: We doubt the same campaign would work now that blogs are such a common topic, but Gniwisch’s PR tactics can’t be faulted.)

Impressed by these results for virtually no outlay, Ice.com’s CEO allowed the effort to continue and authorized a few cheap part-time hires (a summer intern, a freelance writer) to help out.

For which Gniwisch was very grateful because — here’s the bad news — keeping the blogs updated using his own time and help from in-house staff was tough after the bloom wore off.

Across the Web, more than 50% of blogs that are launched peter out after 90 days as the author’s enthusiasm wanes and writing begins to feel more like work. That reality was mirrored by Ice.com’s staff.

So, Gniwisch began to surf the blogsphere looking for a writer to hire.

One of his favorite independent bloggers agreed to take the job — posting two-three times per week in exchange for a flat per-posting fee. This effort again had mixed results — the blogger in question wasn’t a professional freelancer (those folks cost much more) and wasn’t as consistent as a professional writer might be.

As of this date, two of the blogs have not been updated in almost a month and one of them has replaced original content with a feed of previously published posts from the other two blogs. It’s late summer and not peak time for Ice.com, so we suspect the situation may change closer to the holiday season.

Gniwisch also noticed that it was a bit harder to get significant traffic and hotlinks to his blogs, without a paid ad campaign, than he had anticipated. Link stats from Google and Technorati as of today:

-> Just Ask Leslie has 134 incoming links, with only roughly 40 from other bloggers.

-> Sparkle Like the Stars has 312 incoming links, only 130 of which appear to be from other bloggers.

-> Ice Blog has 106 incoming links, with only 17 being from other bloggers, many of which are marketing-related press lauding it as a clever campaign.

Some of the press mentions helped blog traffic — Ice.com got a 10% rise in traffic the week it was mentioned in the Village Voice Online. However, these were momentary blips that could not be counted on for sustained traffic.

Gniwisch is re-evaluating the blogs himself right now. We suspect he’ll opt to continue the Sparkle Like The Stars blog because it is finally taking off as search engine fodder. One a typical day, 20% of traffic is from MSN, 50% from Google, 14% from Yahoo and 16% from other blogs, including Ice.com blogs. This blog is definitely worth careful, continued investment.

On the other hand, perhaps the most interesting factoid of this entire Case Study is that Ice.com’s main site continues to be a true blog marketing success story.

The main Ice.com site has 838 incoming links *from* other bloggers — far, far more than any of its blogs have. Plus, the site’s link map in the Websphere shows it’s in the center of some extremely heavy-hitting fashion blogs.

So perhaps the lesson is, if the blogsphere loves your site already, reach out to them to make them happier with the site they already link to before putting energy into your own blogs.

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In my last article, I talked about how to approach writing a blog.  And a lot of what I said applies here too with a lot of the same principles at work;

• being personal by revealing our personality, values, and points of view in every article
• being plain and conversational in our language and not use sales copy
• being confident in our selves and in our products and service
• being diligent when it comes to addressing issues brought up by readers
• being consistent when it comes to how frequently new posts are published

Blogging is easy, once you get the hang of it.  But, getting the hang of it can be the hard part for a lot of people.  And one of the key questions that comes up in conversation when it comes time to write our first blog post is “what do I write about?”

After all, some of us don’t exactly work in exciting, sexy industries where everything we deal with is immediately super-fantastically interesting to a general audience.  A lot of our day-to-day business might even be looked upon by outsiders as downright mundane.  And this can be true, if we’re just writing about the impersonal facts of our industries.  So, what’s needed is more than just an article or two that covers the basics with nothing extra for the reader to digest.

What I’ve found when writing my own personal blog, along with my contributions to the wood flooring blogs at BuildDirect, is that blogs are best approached when they have an overall purpose.  Your blog should be constantly addressing a question that your customers are asking.  And all of your posts should contribute to that effort.  Whatever types of posts you decide to go with, this is a good thing to keep in mind.

Here are a selected 10 suggestions on types of blog posts which you might consider.

• Thought of the day.  This can take any form you choose, whether it’s a thought on how to improve an area in your industry which your colleagues or competitors are talking about, or a concept you’ve picked up from a book you’ve read, or even a film you’ve seen.
• Quotations. Take a quote from someone you admire, and talk about how it might relate to your business, or to the lives of your customers.
• News. This one needs to have some parameters set by you as far as how much you want to reveal, but news items about your company - what you’re working on, what you’re working toward -  are often great ways to let your customers “in”, rather than keeping them at a distance
• History. Maybe the products or services you offer have a long, illustrious history that not many people know about.  Who better to talk about it than you?
• Rant and Rave. Sometimes, it’s a good idea to be opinionated.  It helps to build up that sense of confidence which is so important to a successful blog.  Take an issue - large or small, important or innocuous - and have a good rant.  Try to be funny if you can (don’t if you can’t!). But, let your point of view be known.
• True Stories. One way to build credibility with readers is to talk about your business in action.  Talk about a unique sale, or a business trip you took when things went well or not so well.  Any real life information humanizes your business, and keeps it from being just a name on a sign
• How To. Instructional information about your products and services is very useful to readers.  And content which is useful to readers means more of them, and more of a chance to sell to them on another part of your site.
• Reviews. Depending on your business or industry, reviews can be a great source of information for your readers, and also builds up a lot of credibility for you as an expert in your field
• Question of the Week. FAQs have always been a useful part of corporate communications.  But, what if you could talk about some of them in more detail, allowing your customers to interact with them, rather than just read them?  This is where a Question of the Week can really boost your readership, and your reputation as a trusted voice in your industry.
• Picture of the day. This type of blog post also can take on many forms.  If you’re an installer of wood flooring for instance (as many of our customers are…) maybe the picture can be a before and after shot, with a commentary about the job, having a very hands on application to what you’re writing about. Maybe the picture you choose is just something which sparks a thought, and isn’t directly related to your business.  Remember to use a creative commons image (Flickr has a great resource for this) if you’re not using your own pictures, or get the written permission of the owner of an image you use.

These are obviously just a few examples of how you might go about creating blog posts.  Some of the better strategies surrounding topics is to create (you guessed it!) a series.  This is particularly useful if you’re trying to tackle a big topic.  One thing you want to do is to make sure that you’re not giving too much information in one entry.  Breaking up a topic is a pretty useful way of managing this issue.

Blogging can be a lot of fun, as well as being very useful.  Blogging is a great way to communicate with your customers and invite them into your world.  When you engage directly with your customers, you build trust, confidence, and long term benefits when it comes to relationship management. Your blog can be a sales catalyst, as well as a useful vehicle for public relations.  Your blog can be a great way of gaining visibility on the search engines, and as a means to raise your profile among your competitors and industry peers too.  The advantages are pretty obvious!

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I’m surprised by the number of companies that lack an understanding of how to improve stickiness on their site. Every end-user approaches a site for the first time with a degree of anxiety. We’re all a little apprehensive about whether the site will be secure, easy to navigate and, ultimately, whether we will actually get what we order.

Over the years we’ve looked at perhaps a hundred thousand sites and we’ve found that the best sites (and best converting sites) have security symbols above the fold, crisp images and convey a feeling of orderliness. Additionally a shopper is made to feel comfortable in other ways too; most importantly, no surprises! The “best practices” site will give the shopper a window view on availability and shipping costs well before they arrive at the check out page.

A real concern for end-users, too, is privacy…the collection and use of personal information. Studies show that 30% of the online population is still wary of giving out their personal information and an astounding 51% don’t trust search engines to keep their search data secret. Additionally, 30 percent of consumers report reducing their overall use of the Web, while 25 percent say they no longer make online purchases, according to WebWatch. The report, “Leap of Faith: Using the Internet Despite the Dangers,” was based on a survey of 1,501 online adults. 

Even those who continued to shop online reported taking precautions. Fifty-four percent of online shoppers said they now are more likely to read a site’s privacy policy or user agreement than in the past–while 29 percent say they shop online less frequently than before.

It’s a hot button issue for end-users and marketers too.

Representatives from a leading publication talked to a former Federal Trade Commissioner and a privacy expert about collecting cookie data, ways to build consumer trust and five privacy failures. Plus, three marketers’ policies you should emulate.

“If you are a premier brand, you have to not only say that, ‘We stand for quality. We stand for service.’ But also, ‘We stand for privacy principles. We share data in *these* types of situations. We handle data with *this* level of care,’ ” explains privacy expert Alan Chapell, President, Chapell & Associates, who founded the privacy program at Jupiter Research.

With technology constantly changing and shifting marketing practices, it’s not getting easier to define the rules of the road when it comes to ecommerce privacy — especially when consumer advocates and the online community appear to still be out-of-synch.

The biggest difference today is marketers’ ability to deliver targeted behavioral ads to consumers without collecting personally identifiable information, says Christine Varney, who served as a Federal Trade Commission in the Clinton administration and is now a Partner with Hogan & Hartson, where she counsels brands, such as eBay, MySpace, Zango, DoubleClick and AOL.

“You need to deliver targeted ads in a privacy-friendly matter,” says Varney. “The good news is that marketers are getting smarter about their tactics. The bad news is that people are still screwing up and not being as straightforward as they need to be about what information they are collecting.”

Varney and Chapell offered six strategies for marketers to follow:

-> Strategy #1. Set standard across all channels

Not enough big-name brands have multichannel privacy policies. Privacy issues should be consistent in ecommerce, catalog, mobile, point-of-purchase retail and call center operations.

So, is anyone getting it right? Chapell mentioned Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard and Procter & Gamble as three companies doing well at creating singular privacy policies (see links to their policies below).

-> Strategy #2. Costs and disclosures

Yes, it costs money to run a good privacy program. Costs are determined by many factors, including:

o What kind of data you collect and from how many sources
o How many third parties touch the data
o How automated the collection process is
o How sensitive the data is (different security measures for Social Security numbers than non-person-identifiable data, such as cookie data)
o How many platforms you offer the data on
o How many jurisdictions you operate in globally

“It’s a challenge to get implemented in an organization because it’s not a revenue-generator,” Chapell says. “But you need to source the ROI for privacy by looking at the risk-reward of it.”

Three other concerns:

- Data that doesn’t cost much probably is not worth much — certainly not worth the cost of getting in trouble with regulators. “Big brands cannot afford to use substandard data partners,” Chapell says. “While it’s truly cool that people working out of their garage can compete with the big guys, it is also true that if you are larger you are going to draw the attention of the regulators far, far quicker.”

- Advertisers must be sure that their partners comply, too. Have someone on your staff routinely visit partner sites to watch practices and receive their newsletters. Whenever possible, upgrade your back-end technology so that your marketing efforts are delivered third party as little as possible. It simply gives you greater control over your brand identity.

For instance, gaming site Zango, which went thorough an FTC investigation recently and received counsel from Varney, quit allowing the downloading of their software from a third-party site. The messages always come from their server now. “It’s really cut down on confusion,” Varney says. “Now, there’s implicit instructions at Zango that helps people remove the software.”

- Think the whole “Big Brother” thing is overrated? Look no further than what’s happening between DirectRevenue LLC and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. In a trial that was initially about spyware distribution, Cuomo’s office — along with the FTC — have argued that DirectRevenue’s advertisers have benefited from the company’s “misleading software.”

“Advertisers need to understand that at least in New York state, the attorney general will go after them if their marketing partners are not using the highest standards of consumer protection,” Varney says.

-> Strategy #3. Cookie permission

Privacy experts say, “Be consumer-friendly. Obtain more permission on ALL the data you collect.” Yet, merchants are collecting anonymous cookie data at an increasing rate in five out of seven retail categories this year compared to 2006, according to recent MarketingSherpa data.

This is why marketers need to explain to consumers what they’re doing and give them as many choices as reasonably possible.
The importance of building trust online with strong, consistent branding and customer-centric practices

“If I sign up for an email that’s going to give me the daily weather forecast in my neighborhood, you’d better tell me if you plan on putting a cookie in that email and tracking me around the Internet and delivering me targeted behavioral advertising.” Varney warns.

-> Strategy #4. Give more control to consumers

Over the next six to 18 months, Chapell says, organizations in the behavioral targeting space — even if all they are doing is collecting information from cookies — need to implement what he called “layered notice regimes.” These will increasingly provide some level of access so customers will know what information has been collected about them.

The layered notice regimes will be similar to online accounts in which the customer can log in and see what has been collected about them.

-> Strategy #5. Follow-through system

Certified programs and security seals are nice, as are privacy statements. But you need to have a follow-through system in place and constantly evolve the policy. For instance, a Web 2.0 community’s policy from a couple of years ago probably doesn’t deal with widgets. In short, the programs are certifying a shrinking portion of the pie.

“Writing a privacy policy can be, in and of itself, just window dressing,” Chapell says. “I recommend that you have one because in many situations it’s legally required, but you have to follow through and show that it’s actually important to the brand.”

-> Strategy #6. Five privacy failures

We understand that some of these failures have been touched on already, but they’re worth repeating:

o Failure to understand how your actions might affect others in the business ecosystem
o Failure to adequately vet and monitor your business partners’ practices
o Failure to update your privacy policy as your business model changes
o Failure to offer enough choice in how you interact with your customers and how much information you collect on them
o Failure to integrate privacy across multiple channels. Once again, privacy cannot be silo’d from the rest of your organization

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Rob Jones has written a several articles regarding blogging for business and I thought I’d jump in with this real life story that I came across in the eBrand Media library. Although this case study relates to a B2B business, I think the tactics discussed are applicable to the B2C world as well:

SUMMARY
Can business marketers use the blog world to get more site traffic from highly targeted prospects? Yes, it is possible.

CHALLENGE
Like many niche B-to-B marketers, David Aferiat’s first online marketing efforts focused around search engine optimization. “We were relentless, optimizing every page of the site for SEO.”

His team’s efforts were rewarded. The firm, which offers analytical software for professional hedge fund traders, began to get significant rankings and traffic for extremely targeted terms such as ‘Fibonacci Retracement.’

As Aferiat studied his Web analytics reports to see which terms pulled the best targeted traffic, he was startled to notice something else. Although search engines dominated his traffic sources, a smaller slice of visitors who converted fairly well were coming from blogs.

He wondered, was there a way to get more of that targeted blog traffic?

CAMPAIGN
Aferiat knew the types of people — often consultants and other self-proclaimed experts — who tend to participate in online communities such as bulletin boards and forums are also often themselves bloggers.

In the past he’d experimented (naively) with online networking by posting comments about the glory of his company’s software on related bulletin boards and online forums. It had proven to be a disastrous mistake.

“Some people were delighted to hear about us, but some were vitriolic.” The fact is, any content that smacks of blatant self-promotion can and will offend online communities.

So, when reaching out to bloggers directly, Aferiat needed to be extra-careful not to offend or appear too commercial. The goal was to tap into their enthusiasm for the topic of hedge fund analysis, rather than simply beg for hotlinks:

Tactic #1. Offer bloggers valuable content

Bloggers want to make their blogs more interesting and surf-worthy. So Aferiat’s team created four types of content that bloggers might find valuable to either hotlink to or place on their own blogs (link to samples below):

o Content banners — Instead of banners with offers and ads, Aferiat’s team invented banners with valuable content, in this case streaming data related to hedge funds. Bloggers could choose from a variety of sizes to suit their format. They could also customize the banners to just show the types of funds or analysis they specialized in writing about.

o Extensive glossary — Originally created for search engine optimization, Trade Ideas’ glossary featured a fairly long dedicated page of technical information for each individual term.

Aferiat began to promote this free content to bloggers as a way they could hotlink technical terms in their postings to educational content without having to build their own glossary.

o Extensive stock profile — Again, originally created for SEO, the Trade Ideas site featured static heavy-text content profile pages for each major hedge fund. Aferiat also started promoting these to bloggers as useful links for their posts.

o End-of-day news — Aferiat created a day-end news feed that bloggers could pick up and add to their blog.

Tactic #2. Build personal relationships

Aferiat combed his Web logs carefully, looking for blogs that sent the site traffic. Then he carefully wrote each a personal email relating to the posting they’d made about the firm — not a “Dear webmaster” form letter.

“Every new name we go to and say, ‘I’m glad you like the tool and do you have any questions about it I could answer?’”

If the blogger sent a steady stream of traffic that converted well, Aferiat upped his response by offering that blogger a complimentary account for the Trade Ideas software. He didn’t attach any strings, but hoped the account would encourage the blogger to continue writing about the software.

If the blogger was a real winner, with significant presence in the marketplace and an affinity for the product, Aferiat tried to take the relationship to the next level by taking the relationship beyond email. “I’ve met the heavy hitters in person. If you want attention you have to get close to them. I’ll get on a plane and take them out to breakfast.”

In addition, Aferiat and other management team members posted profiles of themselves on popular business networking services such as LinkedIn so potential partners could check them out. He included these profile links in his email SIG and on the company blog (see below).

Important — Aferiat carefully limited the number of relationships in each system to less than 150 because he believes if you have too many “relationships” in public networking services it becomes less believable.

Tactic #3. Give them hotlinks

Again, remember, most business bloggers are in it because they themselves want to share their passion and expertise with the marketplace. They are not in the game to send traffic to you but rather to get traffic from you.

No problem, Aferiat started a company blog to do precisely that.

Along with regular information-rich postings from Trade Ideas top management, the blog included a list of hotlinks to his favored partner bloggers and a daily hotlinked headline round-up of posts from his favorite blogger sites.

He used SEO to drive traffic to the blog and also posted the blog’s newest headlines on the company home page.

Tactic #4. Reward top performers

In addition to free software, Aferiat tested offering top fan bloggers a commission on any traffic they sent (a.k.a. affiliate marketing.) He also made sure they had most-favored-nation status by receiving company updates and new software release info *before* civilians and customers.

RESULTS
After a year of focus on schmoozing the blogging community, 8.2% of Trade Ideas’ referred traffic comes from search engines and nearly 90% comes from bloggers. This doesn’t represent a drop in total search-generated traffic, but rather an addition from the blog community.

Example, on a typical day this June, 18% of total referring sites were search engines and 71% were bloggers.

Just as with B-to-C affiliate programs, a handful of bloggers drive the lions share of the traffic. In fact 65% of total referred traffic (representing thousands of prospects each day) comes from just five blogs.

32.4% of clicks come from those content-banners and of these 30% convert to starting a trial that can lead to either a site license sale for their entire company or an individual $60 per month account.

27% of referred traffic arrives at the stock profile pages, and 13% at various glossary pages. This traffic doesn’t convert quite as well because it’s not as directly product related, but still proves offering bloggers a variety of content to hotlink to is worthwhile.

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I remember watching a grainy black and white film of Albert Einstein accepting his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. What struck me was that he expressed gratitude for his intuition which put him on the path to his great discovery. I’ve often wondered why he didn’t express gratitude for his intelligence, his mathematical skills or his ability to conceptualize and express what was then inconceivable. But, instead, he chose to mention specifically his intuition. More than that; I’m impressed that he had the courage to follow his intuition. How often have you felt on a cellular level that you should do something, take a path that’s contrary to logic, only to think yourself out of it?

One of my favorite Einstein stories is the based on his famous quote that God doesn’t play dice with the Universe. During an interview this quote was mentioned and the person conducting the interview asked, “Well, if you believe in God, Mr. Einstein, how do you explain His maliciousness? Einstein supposedly replied, “I don’t believe that God is malicious….I think that He is very, very sophisticated.”

Here are a few quotes that I hope will add value to your day:

“I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.” - John Wanamaker (widely considered the father of modern advertising)

“Any seeming deception in a statement is costly, not only in the expense of the advertising but in the detrimental effect produced upon the customer, who believes she has been misled.” -  John Wanamaker

“Many persons have an idea that one cannot be in business and lead an upright life, whereas the truth is that no one succeeds in business to any great extent, who misleads or misrepresents” -  John Wanamaker

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” – Pericles

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” - Peter F. Drucker, Author and Management Expert

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” - George S. Patton, US Army General

“Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.” - Hyman Rickover, Admiral

“Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch.” - Ivern Ball, Poet

“Heroism consists of hanging on one minute longer.” - Norwegian Proverb

“Trying times are not the times to stop trying.” - Ray Owen, Writer

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.” - Benjamin Disraeli

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Is this the summer that the Internet finally kills television as we once knew it? Most industry observers are stopping short of that prediction, citing some significant hurdles still in the way.

But the growing number of new deals and new devices being announced suggests that a profound change in the way people watch video — and what video they watch — is under way.

The line between “television” and video via the Internet already has blurred and may disappear in coming years.

At least one industry analyst has declared “TV is dead” and welcomes Americans to a new age of video everywhere.

Increasingly, Americans are watching video when they want to, and on the screen that suits them at the time. And more programming is from new sources that threaten to unlock Hollywood’s domination of content.

Video is now delivered on displays and devices of every shape and size, from gigantic theater screens and ever-larger home projector screens to flat-screen HDTVs and from desktop and laptop computer monitors to tiny personal screens such as those found on iPods and mobile phones.

Meanwhile, NBC Universal is touting its coverage of the Summer Olympics in Beijing as “the single most ambitious digital event coverage ever.” Along with video coverage on several of its cable TV networks, NBC is streaming 2,200 hours of live competition in 25 sports on the NBCOlympics.com Web site.

“The Olympic viewer will be able to define his or her own Olympic experience like never before,” said Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics, in announcing coverage plans last month. Media coverage has speculated that heavy viewing of Olympics on workplace computers would cause systems to bog down or crash.

“NBC is certainly taking the right approach by stepping back and trying to look at (the Olympics) as a holistic suite of (video) offerings and then trying to figure out what pieces best go where,” says Kendall Whitehouse, senior director of information technology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

How do you get all that interesting Internet video onto your nice big-screen TV? Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, has some ideas.NBC concedes that this unprecedented blanket of coverage across TV, Internet and mobile devices amounts to a giant experiment. “I have no idea how people are going to use this stuff,” Alan Wurtzel, the company’s research chief, told The Associated Press.

This spring and summer, deals to make video more ubiquitous across screens have popped up with more and more frequency:

Netflix (NFLX, news, msgs), the video rent-by-mail company, has struck several new agreements to deliver its content online. A new $100 box from Roku the size of a paperback book lets users stream any of about 10,000 movies from Netflix to their TVs (though the vast majority of Netflix’s library will still be available only through DVDs by mail).

South Korea’s LG Electronics announced it will offer a high-definition (HD) disc player that also will be able to access HD-quality movies from Netflix via the Internet.

 And Microsoft (MSFT, news, msgs) will stream Netflix video to its Xbox 360 videogame consoles.

Sony (SNE, news, msgs) says it will offer a movie and TV show download option for its Playstation video-game console.

Apple (AAPL, news, msgs), which sells millions of videos online through its iTunes store, relaunched its Apple TV player, which can send that content to a TV set.

Amazon.com (AMZN, news, msgs), the online retailer, is offering Amazon Video on Demand, which will give users immediate streaming access to 40,000 movies and TV shows. This video is now available only on a computer.

At least a half-dozen TV manufacturers, including Sony, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, news, msgs) and Samsung, have said they will sell sets that are continuously connected to a broadband Internet network, allowing Web content, including video, to move easily to the biggest screen in the house. TiVo (TIVO, news, msgs), the digital video recorder, will supply video from YouTube, the online video site famous for short, often amateur videos. Hulu was launched in March as a Web site offering free, ad-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox and other networks.

While these new services get video moving to new screens, none is a complete solution on its own, says the Wharton School’s Whitehouse. “There are a lot of different companies supporting different file formats,” he says. What you don’t have is the one device that can “get content from all the major services like Hulu and Netflix and iTunes.”

There’s a kind of convergence between TV and Internet that’s happening, “but not really a friendly one (for consumers), I think,” says Bobby Tulsiani, an analyst who tracks developments in internet video for JupiterResearch.

TV networks, he says, have a time-tested model for making money through advertising and the fees cable TV companies pay to carry their programming. Online distribution presents potential new revenue sources, but also the danger that viewers will slide online, where profits are less certain.

YouTube has popularized video viewing online. But the conventional wisdom has been that people won’t watch anything longer than two or three minutes on a computer screen.

That assumption has been proved wrong with the huge popularity of TV series online.

“We’ve moved from TV on this biggest screen to TV on this middle screen,” the computer, says Tulsiani. It’s “a critical change,” he says. “That’s the fastest-growing segment of who’s watching TV content.”

Nearly 80 million Americans (43% of those who go online) have watched a TV show on the Internet, according to a February survey by Solutions Research Group in Toronto. Just a year ago, the figure was 25%.

Total video viewing will rise from about six hours a day today to a projected eight hours daily by 2013, Solutions forecasts, and fewer than four hours of that will be spent watching conventional TV.

The Internet is producing more and more polished original content. This summer Joss Whedon, creator of the critically acclaimed TV shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” and “Firefly,” produced “Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” an Internet-only “TV series” that’s become an online viewing phenomenon.

It’s also the kind of Internet video that viewers may wish they could easily shift to their TVs so they could watch from their sofas.

But not everyone is convinced that Internet video and TV are about to converge. “It’s the most overrated, overhyped story in the tech world today,” says Phillip Swann, president and publisher of TVpredictions.com. “It’s simply not convenient yet.”

Swann also disputes the idea that network TV schedules are going out the window as people call up online video whenever they want it. “People like routine, they like to able to know what is going to be on at 8 o’clock,” he says.

Also standing in the way is the need for true HD-quality video to be available over the Web. “They’re a long ways from that,” Swann says.

How do you get all that interesting Internet video onto your nice big-screen TV? Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, has some ideas.But Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey, who declared “TV is dead” in a June white paper, says the new “video everywhere” era is just beginning to emerge.

He foresees a “cocoon of video experiences that follow (people) from morning until night.” Video shipped to the small devices we carry will be displayed on bigger screens that surround us, such as on a table at a cafe. Portable devices will “talk with” nearby screens, such as one on the back of an airline seat in front of you, that will display your video.

By 2020, McQuivey says, video will become a kind of customized “white noise” behind users’ lives, as well as a companion “that will combine personal video, slide shows from your digital camera, music videos and clips from favorite movies, sitcoms and sporting events.”

While that may sound far out, just a couple of years ago users were marveling at being able to view tiny, grainy YouTube videos on their computers. Today’s online video quality already rivals that of old-fashioned analog TV. In a very short period, “the progress has been pretty striking,” Whitehouse says.

Although computers are rapidly becoming a mainstay of video viewing, the picture for mobile devices is less clear.

According to market researcher Nielsen, more than one-third of all mobile phone subscribers — some 91 million Americans — own a video-capable phone. And 6% of U.S. cell phone subscribers (about 14 million) pay for a video plan.

“The jury is out on mobile, but it seems likely that some experience will emerge there,” Tulsiani says. People said consumers would never watch video on computers, but they do, he says. Now they’re saying they’ll never watch on a mobile phone. “We’ll find out if that’s true or not.”

This article was reported and written by Gregory M. Lamb for The Christian Science Monitor.

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The case study that I’ve included to below got me to thinking that any advertiser could use the success principles InterContinental Hotels Group discovered to market to their house lists. They would just have to tailor the incentive to their offer. If it’s too capital and labor intensive to create a rewards program or a frequent buyer program, perhaps gift cards of varying amounts could be used to create the same virality. I hope that the case study sparks your thinking in new directions.

Viral remarketing case study, InterContinental Hotels Group:  

Summary: Making your best customers really feel appreciated can solidify their loyalty. But is it worth the investment in customers who are already your brand champions?

Find out how marketers for an international hotel chain crafted a simple email that got a 100% response rate from their most active loyalty club members. Ultimately, 1,766% more people than were initially sent the email responded.

Challenge:

Cassandra Jeyaram, Social Marketing Manager, InterContinental Hotels Group, and her team wanted to thank the 150 most active members of their Priority Club rewards program while boosting stays at the same time.

They intended to boost the already strong loyalty of their club members and get more people into rooms at hotels such as the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Hotel Indigo while keeping costs at a minimum. Such a campaign required a balancing act.

What type of campaign would make their biggest fans feel rewarded and leverage their passion for the hotels without making them feel like pawns? And still provide a solid ROI?

Campaign:

Jeyaram and her team crafted a viral email campaign to target the club’s most active members – less than 1% of total membership. Those members stayed frequently in InterContinental Hotels and applied for rewards points.

With a single, text-only email, Jeyaram asked these Priority Club members to share the offer with friends and family. Here are the steps they took:

->Step #1: Create an offer members can’t refuse

To inspire club members to refer friends, she made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

The members received triple rewards points for each three-night stay between May 1 and June 15. This ensured that the campaign provided some real value to the company’s bottom line while being more than just a simple thank you to the club’s most devoted members.

“This was, by far, the best offer that we had running at the time,” Jeyaram says. “If I said something like, ‘Hey, everybody who signs up for this gets a free TV,’ that would have fallen flat because that’s not what is important to this group.”

Members were emailed a code to use after completing their stay. They entered this code at the club’s website to obtain the bonus points.

->Step #2: Craft a straightforward message with a viral element

Jeyaram and her team used a text-only email that was fast and inexpensive to create.
The email:
o Let members know they were appreciated: “We couldn’t do it without you!”
o Explained the offer
o Linked to a redemption/registration page
o Encouraged sharing the offer with friends and family
o Provided promotion codes for the offer
o Listed contact information

Recipients were given three additional codes and were encouraged to send them along to friends and family who would receive the same offer. This touch made members more likely to praise the service while forwarding it.

The triple-points offer also acted as a promotion to encourage non-members to visit an InterContinental hotel and register for the program.

->Step #3: Create a simple landing page or repurpose an existing one

The landing page accepted the members’ information and code and linked to a registration page for new members to sign up. The page was generic and worked with other offers and codes.

What the page lacked in targeted messaging, it made up for in practicality. This page had already been created for other code-based offers. Jeyaram and her team did not have to wait or pay for it to be built.

Results:

Every person in the initial seed – 100% – took advantage of the triple-rewards offer and forwarded the email to at least one friend.

“We hypothesized that the members who consistently contributed to the online community would take up the offer at a high rate. [But] we were not bold enough to anticipate a 100% follow-through!” she says. “The first week, we got a couple hundred [people using the offer], and toward the end of the campaign, it was just exploding.”
Eventually, more than 17 times the number of people who received the initial email (1,766% more) ended up going to a hotel for at least three nights and registering for the bonus points. The offer was mailed only to U.S. residents, but spread to more than 30 countries.

The highly-active club members who first received the offer loved the promotion.

“We got emails back from the people who we sent to in the community. They were really excited about this. They thought it was a great benefit. They felt like they were kind of in-the-know and felt privileged to have this opportunity….”

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A while back, I wrote about 5 reasons why you should blog for business. And then, I wrote about 3 options to consider when setting up a blog for business. The next steps, once the framework of a blog has been decided upon is all about approach; what are the rules of a blog? How does blogging differ from other types of corporate communication? How do I set the right tone? And how does this translate into sales?

What is needed is a way for your reader to get a clear idea of who’s talking to them. Readers want to know what motivates the blogger, where their passions for their business really lay, and what the values of the blogger (and the company too, by association) are. Readers like to find out who it is they’re potentially doing business with. Knowing this greatly reduces their risk, and in increasing their buyer confidence, boosts the chances of the reader becoming a customer.

Here are 5 selected guidelines for writing a successful blog for business which may help you to get things started in communicating key points of interest to readers:

1. Be personal. Blogs are best when they come from a unique voice, or a select few voices that communicate common values. This is your chance to let your readers and potential customers know who you are. This builds trust, credibility, and goes a long way in building important momentum in relationship management.
2. Be plain. And by this, I don’t mean be dull. What this means is that readers are looking to get the straight goods from a person, not a salesperson. Think of your blog as a means to start a conversation with someone. Sales copy isn’t the way to do this, as useful as it may be in other areas like on product web pages or in eNews bulletins. Blogs are a conversation over coffee, with language that is down-to-earth, from a first-person point of view, and open to be engaged by others.
3. Be confident. The best corporate blogs don’t go on the defensive when it comes to their products. That is, confidence in services and products are just a given. As mentioned above, this is not the place for sales copy. Your blog is a place where you show your personal pride in your work, or in the products you’re selling. This means that even in your blog, you are free to talk about ideas in your industry which excite you, even if those ideas are coming from external sources - even from your competitors. Confidence is attractive. Make sure your blog is a vehicle for how confident you are in what you’re doing, and this will inspire others to be as confident in you, as you are in yourself.
4. Be diligent. One attitude to adopt is that your readers may not always agree with what you say. Expect it. They may even introduce you to information which you might not have considered. Sometimes, they’ll do it in very strong terms. The best way to manage this is to be welcoming, and open-minded, at all times, even if (some would argue especially if…) your reader has left a hostile comment on your blog. Address the concern. Admit when you don’t know the answers to any questions they’ve raised. And always follow-up in a timely manner with a respectful response. In this sense, blogging becomes as much a public relations tool as it does a potential sales tool.
5. Be consistent. Once you start a blog, the best way to get the most out of it is by posting regularly. You can choose the interval; there’s no right answer in terms of which one is best. But, once you’ve got a rhythm going, keep it consistent. This is not only the best way to keep readers interested; it increases your chances of attracting new readers too.

When working with some of our sales guys here at BuildDirect, a lot of this ground was covered. And for many of them, it went against their sales instincts. Yet, our blogs are beginning to attract those who are looking for a company who knows what it’s talking about when it comes to wood flooring, and other building materials. They’re looking for someone to trust first, before they delve deeper into what products to buy.

And that’s what it’s all about - building trust - which is not so different from the goal of making the single sale. Yet, with honest, confident voices which your blogs will reveal to potential customers, a lot of that work will be done already.

The next step of course, once you’ve established how to approach writing a blog, is what to write about? Well, that’s a blog entry for another time.

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Spammers have upped the ante in their efforts to trick news consumers, switching from e-mails with tabloid-style headlines to impersonating major online news services. On Wednesday, e-mails that appeared to be from msnbc.com landed in inboxes worldwide, promising breaking news and confusing some recipients.

The spam unleashed Wednesday follows a massive campaign last week in which spammers impersonated CNN.com. That campaign saw 250 million spam messages sent in one intense 24 hour period, according to spam-fighting firm MX Logic Inc. Those e-mails appeared to include links to CNN’s top 10 stories, but Internet users who were tricked into clicking on those links were sent instead to Web sites overseas that were booby-trapped with malicious software.

Recipients should immediately delete any unexpected e-mails purportedly from CNN, msnbc.com or any other firm that they haven’t done business with and authorized to contact them.

Users who open the fake CNN or msnbc.com e-mails and click on a link are in for a bad day if they fall for the ruse. Those who do are sent to Web sites that attempt to trick them into downloading what is described as a video player plug-in. Instead, the malicious software will infect the user’s computer, ultimately giving hackers complete control over the machine. Infected computers are then used to send out even more spam.

“This new tactic is likely to be more successful than recent ‘single-line spam’ campaigns because it looks like a legitimate e-mail news update,” said Sam Masiello, director of threat management at MX Logic.

After the initial top 10 headline spam, the campaign morphed into more focused e-mails purporting to come from “CNN Alerts,” which included links to what appeared to be a single news story – with an actual headline lifted from the news site — but was actually a booby-trapped link. In one such e-mail reviewed by msnbc.com, the e-mail was sent from a domain in Australia, and the links took clickers back to Australian Web sites.

MX Logic says it captured 850 million CNN spam messages since Aug. 4, and that the volume has steadily increased, suggesting that recipients have fallen for the ploy and their infected computers have been used to send out even more spam.

So far, MX Logic says, it’s catching about 2 million msnbc.com spam messages per hour, but the rate is steadily increasing. Security firm Sophos said the msnbc.com spam spiked at one point on Wednesday morning and equaled the total amount of all other spam the firm was trapping.

The first msnbc.com spam was sent around 4 a.m. ET, MX Logic said.

Masiello said he believes the same criminal gang is responsible for both the CNN and the msnbc.com spam campaigns.

One of the msnbc.com spam messages, with the subject line “BREAKING NEWS: Americans love law suits for breakfast,” appeared to come from a computer in Spain. The realistic-looking e-mail includes some actual links to msnbc.com in an attempt to confuse the recipient.

Spammers have impersonated major Internet sites — including news sites — for years. In 2006, a widespread spam campaign impersonated the BBC Web site, promising news about Russian president Vladimir Putin.

It’s unclear why there’s a sudden surge of fake news spam, but security firm Message Labs speculates that it’s related to a cat-and-mouse game currently being played out between spammers and security companies. Most spam is sent out from hijacked computers known as “bots” that are connected in large networks called “botnets.”

The largest is called the “Storm” botnet, created by a virus known as the Storm worm. Recently, researchers enjoyed a small victory against the worm, and shrunk the size of the botnet by about two-thirds, said Message Labs’ Paul Wood. The aggressive news headline campaign is an attempt to reconstitute the network, he said.

“They are trying to do something to regain their power,” Wood said.

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Clarity will always be valued over persuasion by savvy internet users.  We’ve all become cynical over the years. Much of it is due to constant marketing pressures.  Yet so many companies and marketers still insult us with “dog and pony shows” and obfuscation. If a company wants to keep customers then it must be clear every step of the way. Relationship management, which to a large degree the management of expectations is of paramount importance.  And as we know it’s easier and more profitable to keep a customer than it is to keep looking for new ones.

One way for e-merchants to do this is to make sure that they do everything possible to allay the anxieties of the shopper. In our experience the top two reasons for abandoning the shopping process are:

1. Lack of confidence in the site.
2. Surprises.
3. Perceived potential difficulties in navigating the site. 

PEW studies show that the average end user will begin to make judgments about the aesthetics and “goodness” of a site within one (1) second. Therefore, our studies show that it’s critical to have credibility enhancing symbols above the fold on the left where the eyes naturally fall first. In addition, a hygienic, orderly and easy to navigate site will increase end-user stickiness. The last thing a shopper wants to be subjected to are unnecessary actions and confusion while trying to find products. Bring form and function together to create an online store—an environment, if you will— that is positive, easy to navigate, pleasant to be in and conducive to frequent and extended visits. 

On another note, I’m frequently asked how to look out for continuity programs. Typically, these programs will always offer a “free” trial.  In the registration process the end-user will be asked for a credit card number to cover the shipping. To most people that doesn’t seem too much to ask and they’ll provide that information before proceeding through to the confirmation page. However, usually buried somewhere in the site is a “Terms and Conditions” link, made to look as inconspicuous as possible. There one will find verbiage along these lines:

Your FREE Trial of the XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream includes a full 60–day supply for just $5.95 in shipping and processing. You will have 30 days to try XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream and discover why it is the perfect wrinkle reduction system for you. If you like how your system reduces the appearance of wrinkles and firms and tones skin, do nothing – at the end of your free–trial period you will be charged the discounted price of $99.95. If for any reason the system is not for you, call our Customer Care line toll–free at XXX-XXX-XXXX any time within your 30–day free–trial period to cancel. Then simply return the product (even if it is empty!) and you will NEVER be billed. No commitments, no hassles.

Plus, if you decide to keep the XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream, you will receive FREE acceptance in the XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream Platinum Program and will receive a fresh supply of the XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream approximately every 60 days at the same low price of $99.95, a 25% discount. You can cancel by calling XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream Customer Care. No risk, no obligation, cancel any time!

Return/Refund Policy
All California orders are subject to an 8.5% sales tax. Shipping and processing fees are non–refundable. All sales after the free–trial period are final. Returns may be subject to a re–stocking fee.

Please note that we cannot process packages marked “Return to Sender”. Returned packages require a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) number to ensure accurate processing. RMA numbers can be obtained by calling XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream Customer Care at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Customer Care
If you have any questions, please call us toll–free at: XXX-XXX-XXXX  XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream Customer Care is open from 6:00am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday and 7:00am to 3:30pm on Saturday (PST). Additionally, you can learn more about XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream 24 hours a day online at www.xxxxxxantiwrinklecream.com.

XXXXXXXXX Anti-Wrinkle Cream
P.O. Box 5689
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
1-XXX-XXX-XXXX

Good luck getting anybody on the phone when you call one of these companies. You’ll get voicemail, guaranteed.  Always read the terms and conditions! Particularly if you are about to give sensitive information to a company that used a Post Office Box.

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