The dearth of quality apps for Android tablets is certainly a result of poor tablets sales. Why would companies put money into products that don’t have enough traction to warrant the effort? Poor tablet sales, however, is directly correlated to Android tablet companies attempting to be just like Apple rather than forging their own path. Poor tablet sales is the result of bad marketing strategies.

By almost any ranking, Apple is the number one brand in the world. Samsung, the Android tablet manufacturer ranked next highest on BrandZ’s list of the top 100 global brands is at number 67. What everyone fails to realize is that Apple, in its pole position, can do things that others marketers cannot or should not do. Namely, while Apple can target its device at seemingly everyone (or at least everyone solidly middle class and higher), doing so is generally considered a path to failure for almost any other product (except toilet paper). Yet, that is exactly what every Android tablet manufacturer has done.

Motorola, Samsung, ASUS et al have created devices with no clear target audience in mind because they were following Apple’s lead. Good marketing says the 4Ps (product, price, placement, promotion) are critical and key to getting the 4Ps right is understanding your audience. When you assume, as Android tablet companies have, that your target is the same as your lead competitor’s, you are bound to fail. When you convince yourself that your audience will ignore the marketplace leader because of your high profile promotions and good partnerships (a la cellular carriers) — all in spite of a clear lack of product distinction and poor pricing — you are bound to fail.

Amazon will launch its Android tablet within the next few months. I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ll sell more devices before the end of the year than all of the other Android tablets have – combined. Their device will have a clear audience — digital content consumers who want to read eBooks on an affordable tablet device. This idea isn’t all that much of a stretch – especially considering that Barnes & Noble was estimated to have sold more than 3,000,000 Nook Colors as of March, 2011 — making it the best selling Android tablet.

For other Android tablet companies to achieve anything close to those numbers, they’re going to have to stop copying the Apple playbook and get back to good, ole fashion, tried-and-true marketing.

Few people these days mention IPv6, the Internet Protocol standard that significantly expands the number of available IP addresses – up to about 3.4×1038 of them (that’s a lot). One of the reasons IPv6 came about was smart people realized we were going to get to a place where every electronic device was connected to the Internet. For that to happen, the infrastructure of the Internet had to support an extreme number of connections. That couldn’t happen with IPv4 but is more likely with IPv6. Why is this important? It gets exactly to HP’s point in buying Palm and WebOS.

HP, I think, and in spite of what they say now, wants their entire non-PC product line (and perhaps later, even that) to run WebOS. Every calculator, every printer, every smartphone, every scanner, every monitor, every tablet Slate style device, every video conference product – it will all run WebOS, their own connected-to-the-web, no-need-to-license-it operating system.

It’s clear that the benefits for HP are huge. I already pointed out that there’s no need to license it, so that frees them up to do with the OS as they please. Additionally, with one OS running all of its products, they achieve scale and presence. Sure, developers aren’t flocking to WebOS right now, but they might if they know it’s running on almost everything HP makes – from consumer products up to enterprise solutions. In addition to all of that, they get the peace of mind that comes with having a common platform on which to begin their world domination. It’s the very scenario for which IPv6 was built and HP is going to be there first thanks to this acquisition.

I’m open to being wrong, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.

What’s New – Not Your Father’s iPod Touch

The iPad is sometimes referred to as a large iPod Touch and while the user interface is similar to that of the iPod Touch and the iPhone, there are two major differences that make the device much more interesting as a vehicle for marketing communications – size and speed.

The iPhone and iPod Touch are essentially pocket-sized computers. Their small size makes them great for finding bite-sized information on the go. The devices, especially the iPhone, are great always-in-touch, information-at-your-fingertips devices. What is more difficult with the smaller ‘i’ devices is consuming large amounts of content. Reading books, watching movies, browsing full versions of web sites are all challenging on a device with a 3-inch screen. The iPad’s size makes it far more practical as a media consumption device.

The iPad’s position as a media consumption device is strengthened by its speed. Apple designed and built a CPU specifically for the iPad so that the user experience would be blazing fast. They wanted users to be able to turn the pages of books without delay and watch movies without the stuttering seen on many computers. The result is a device designed to provide its users with an experience that feels more like a desktop or powerful laptop than a mobile device.

Why the iPad Matters

People have their own thoughts on the technological importance of the iPad – whether it is revolutionary or evolutionary. I’ll leave my thoughts on that for another time. Regardless of which ‘-lutionary’ the iPad is, it undoubtedly presents users with a more accessible perspective on the tablet form factor. To that end, it will lead to greater prevalence of tablets by both individual consumers and business users.

In the short term, the iPad’s audience will be early adopters, particularly those with wealth or who otherwise have large amounts of discretionary income. Apple’s goal, however, is for the iPad to be ubiquitous. They would like the iPad to be within the reach of almost every media consumer in the country, if not the world. In the meantime, the early adopters represent a unique opportunity for marketers to reach the ultimate consumer – high-income, tech savvy, heavy consumers of media content.

Not to be overlooked is the new type of relationship users will have with their mobile devices thanks to the iPad and other tablets. The iPad brings to the fore the idea that people can access full-sized content on a device lighter (1.5 pounds) and more convenient than a laptop. This new relationship modality is what allows the iPad to be such a tremendous opportunity for marketers.

The iPad and Marketers

Before getting into some potential opportunities, it’s important that I explain the means by which marketers can reach users on the iPad. Just like with the iPhone and iPod Touch, there are three methods by which marketers can interact with iPad users:

• Web Sites – Marketers can create custom web sites which render content in a format specifically designed to meet the needs of iPad users. Such sites can take advantage of technologies like HTML 5 to play videos and display rudimentary Flash type animations. An iPad web site could live side-by-side with your existing company web site.
• Web Applications – Actually a type of web site, web applications are functional web sites designed specifically for iPad users. These sites look and behave similarly to native applications but can be limited in their scope because they are loaded like a web site rather than a native iPad application.
• Applications – You’ve likely seen applications running on an iPhone or an iPod Touch. At the very least, you’ve probably seen the “There’s an App for That” commercials. iPad users can log into the iTunes App Store and buy applications which extend the functionality of the iPad – just as you can buy applications for your personal computer. Where the web sites and web applications require access to the network for usage, the iPad application does not. Additionally, iPad applications allow access to the full iPad user experience while the previous options are limited to what is accomplishable on the web.

Your company could use any and/or all of these options to engage iPad users. Deciding on which to use should be done on a case-by-case basis. No matter which option(s) you select, however, one key to success is remembering that on the iPad the experience matters.

As mentioned earlier, the small size of the iPhone inclines itself to being used for data-driven type functionality – such as reading a weather forecast or finding a great restaurant. The iPad’s size makes it much more appealing for more experiential endeavors. Rather than just demonstrating the weather with icons and numbers, as is generally the case on the iPhone, the iPad can make the weather experiential with video, maps, animations and, perhaps, a gallery of pictures from the requested city – much as you might see on your desktop computer. By taking advantage of the greater screen real estate, marketers can offer users a more engaging experience on the iPad than on the iPhone.

Marketing on the iPad

The experiential approach afforded to marketers by the size of the iPad’s screen and its speed could potentially lead marketers to think about the iPad in the same way they would a regular computer. In the short-term such thinking would be misplaced. Instead, marketers should think of the iPad experience as living between the bite-sized, data-driven approach of the iPhone and the over-arching, productivity-driven approach of a notebook or desktop computer.

To that end, marketing on the iPad should offer users an experience that differs from those available on other devices. Below, we offer a few examples of ways marketers in different industries might build an iPad marketing program. Each of these examples is based on native applications downloaded from the iTunes app store rather than the web sites or web applications mentioned earlier. Doing so ensures users can access some amount of functionality even when they are away from a network.

Industry: Medical Devices
Company: MediDev
Example Type: B2B

Industry: Environment
Company: Murphy Rogers
Example Type: B2C

These are just two ideas. Keep in mind that with the iPad, the sky is the limit. For example, B2B marketers could work with their sales team to provide complimentary iPads with orders over a certain threshold. Such an iPad might contain an application that provides easy access to the material data safety sheets (MSDS) or manuals for the products sold. On the other hand, B2C marketers can create a unique experience for the iPad especially for the iPads tech-savvy, affluent audience.

Regardless of what you do be sure set well-defined objectives for your iPad marketing and to measure, measure, measure. That way, the iPad becomes an educational exercise you can use as the tablet market grows rather than only serving as money thrown at the next big thing.

DAMs are not new. They’ve been around for some years and were initially used by media companies who needed to manage an extraordinary number of digital assets being used in print, TV and/or the web. Having a DAM makes it easier to find a video clip or an image that can be inserted into a TV segment or print ad.

As analog has given way to digital and the number of digital assets within every organization has grown, DAMs have become much more relevant to the marketing / communications departments of non-media organizations. With different agencies managing different elements of your brand, DAMs can help ensure that each group has access to the right asset at the right time.

Want to know if your organization should be considering a DAM? There are a few questions you can ask yourself:

• Does my company have thousands of brand assets managed by numerous departments and/or vendors in various geographic locations?
• Is my company challenged to verify we have the rights to use some assets in our existing asset library?
• Is there potential for numerous organizational groups to reuse our digital assets across multiple communications channels?
• Is the process / workflow for attaining access to digital assets convoluted, confusing, frustrating or improvised?

If your answer to any of these questions is yes, your company might be a good candidate for a digital asset management system.

There are many vendors who provide digital asset management software. Options range from open-source products like EnterMedia and FocusOPEN to enterprise products like Open Text’s Artesia DAM, North Plains’ Telescope and Canto Cumulus. Which one is right for you? That depends on the scale and type of asset management challenge your company faces.

Some things to keep in mind as you explore DAMs:

• If using the DAM to deploy assets to your web site, the DAM should integrate with your company’s existing web or enterprise content management system.
• Even more important than having the DAM in place is having an asset management workflow that makes sense for your organization. Think about ideal use cases for managing assets within your organization. The DAM you choose should be able to come close to matching those use cases.
• The DAM must be able to support your environment. Be careful not to choose a DAM that does not support every file in your organization.
• Rome wasn’t conquered in a day. It’s not necessary to deploy the DAM throughout your entire organization as soon as it’s ready. Instead, develop a rollout schedule and use feedback from your early-adopters to tweak the system as you roll it out to other parts of the organization.

Good luck!

Potentially useful links:

What is the best digital asset management product?
Building the DAM
Enterprise Information Watch’s DAM channel
Insight Community case on DAMs
Making the Case for Digital Asset Management
DPS Magazine’s Assessing Digital Asset Management

It’s not that the iPad isn’t a cool looking device. It’s beautiful. It’s that I don’t see it as the savior of all things analog the media is making it out to be. Beyond that, it seems to me it has a very limited audience.

The iPad is targeted at people who care enough about technology to pony up a minimum of $499 for what is essentially a large iPod touch (others may disagree but that’s my opinion). Reports are out today from Engadget and others indicating the Wall Street Journal will be available on the iPad for $17.99/month and monthly issues of magazines will cost close to newsstand prices. That’s cute but the reality is few industries have found success by simply porting their existing business model to the digital arena. Changes are required. Companies must adapt and I don’t believe Apple is encouraging media companies to do so. They’re stuck in old school thinking.

Media companies aside, here are my issues with the iPad based on the specs I’ve seen:

• Pricing – Most people still don’t have an extra $499 to spend on an optional item. Pinning hopes on the device ignores the millions of people who still believe $1 / day for a newspaper they can leave on the bus is the ultimate in convenient. On top of that, this is a market where people still prefer buying on-contract phones because the price is subsidized. Even Apple has helped support that model with the iPhone.
• Multitasking – It’s been claimed as a weakness for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and now, the iPad. It hasn’t mattered for the first two because people don’t multitask that much on phone type devices. They can do without it. It will matter for the iPad because people are used to doing multiple things at once on their computers. They’re used to switching back and forth between multiple applications. Multitasking matters…
• Apple ecosystem – Don’t get me wrong. I think Apple’s ecosystem is brilliant. I immensely admire Apple’s ability to create new core competencies for the company around industries tangentially related to their true fundamental business model. It makes customers’ lives easier. But, the reality is, it only makes Apple’s customers’ lives easier. There are still millions of desktops, laptops, Kindles, Nooks, Android tablets, etc that have to be supported. By building their digital capabilities around the iPad, media companies will end up ignoring others. That seems like a good way to destroy a company rather than build it up.
• Size – I can’t believe no one else is saying this. This thing is too big. Yes, it’s light and thin. That’s great. Unfortunately, you’re going to be carrying this thing in your laptop bag along with your laptop, books, papers and that thing with hard edges you totally forgot about. That ill-forgotten thing will crack your iPad screen. A device this large in a bag will be broken within weeks (or so I think). Once you add a case, the device becomes a little bit heavier and a little bit thicker – taking up a little more space and adding a little more weight to your bag. Not so much fun…

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day” is an oft-heard refrain. The opposite of that must be something along the lines of even the perfect stumble sometimes. I think this is Apple’s time to stumble. Unfortunately, newspapers and magazines can’t afford the trip as well as Apple can. Let’s hope they’re hedging their bets.

For your kicks, Apple’s iPad video…

That ability to create devices that “just work” and to make them more user friendly, cooler and better looking than any other company in the world has earned Apple three years at the top of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies. Where other companies create products consumers tell them they want, Apple creates products consumers only know they want once Apple produces them. It’s an amazing business model and they do it excellently.

My problem with Apple is mobile. Without question, Apple redefined the way consumers saw phones. By offering a phenomenally usable operating system with a beautiful user experience, Apple made the cell phone as cool as an iPod. By further, creating an iPhone ecosystem via the iPhone App Store, Apple converted the device from a phone to a multi-function device that allows its users to lead a life where everything they need to do can be done from the palm of their hand.

What Apple did was not new. Palm phones had long supported color icons, touchscreen input and rather small form factors. Nokia phones pre-2006 (when the iPhone debuted) offered smartphone style functionality, Wi-Fi, downloadable applications (I know because I built an app), the ability to surf the web and view video (if you had the right software). Blackberrys from RIM have long offered an exceptional communications platform. All of this existed prior to the launch of the iPhone. Apple’s contribution was bringing it all together in a phenomenally tantalizing package that just worked.

Putting a beautiful wrapper, however, on old technology is not novel. It is exactly that lack of novelty that has me questioning Apple’s recent actions in suing HTC for patent infringement in a thinly veiled attack on Google’s Android. Engadget provides a detailed explanation of the patents involved here.

Apple has not attacked HTC because it is a cell phone manufacturer who might (or might not) infringe on their patents. In fact, Apple has attacked HTC because they are at this moment the only phone manufacturer who 1) is relatively small; 2) makes devices whose capabilities, on many levels, rival those of the iPhone; 3) creates great devices that use Google’s Android.

Android is the mobile operating system many see as the iPhone’s greatest competitor. Nokia’s Symbian and RIM’s Blackberry OSes both have greater market share than the either the iPhone OS or Android but Android has been developed much in the same way the iPhone OS was — with phenomenal speed, tremendous attention to detail and a focus on both ease of use and being easy on the eyes. Combining the Android operating system with HTC’s hardware was a shot across Apple’s bow. Their response, however, has the potential to stop the mobile business in its tracks – leaving Apple as the only company capable of creating modern smartphones.

Apple’s immediate goal is to neuter Android and HTC before they can truly challenge their leadership position. This is not about patent infringement. The broad nature of many of Apple’s patents and their questionable applicability (as well as the likelihood that prior art can be demonstrated for some) indicate that Apple is going for a shot gun approach to take out the weakest gazelle in the herd. You can be sure that if Apple is successful that they will soon go after Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony, Motorola and other OS and hardware manufacturers. Apple clearly wants to own the mobile business all to itself in spite of other companies having long history of mobile accomplishments long before Apple got on the field. Their goal is to decimate all competitors in a way that relies not on consumers’ demand for their products but on questionable intellectual property awards. To my mind, that borders anti-competitive and is not in the spirit of how the marketplace should operate.

Let’s be clear. Apple should absolutely have the ability to protect their intellectual property. For example, the slide to unlock a phone patent seems valid to me. I don’t know who owns the patent for the zoom in / zoom out gesture on the iPhone but if that’s Apple, then that is absolutely protectable. To want to enforce patents on multitasking or using parsed data, however, is a stretch. (Perhaps the stretch is the USPTO even awarding such a patent.)

What I’d like is for Apple to not try to hobble the mobile business buy pursuing enforcement of questionable patents. I’m sure Motorola, Nokia, RIM and other companies have similar patents that could just as simply be applied to Apple. Instead, I’d like to see the companies press each other to innovate. I like the pressure the success of the iPhone has had on the rest of the mobile business. If not for Apple, we’d still be on 20MB calling plans and Palm would have the most advanced phones. And if Apple was in the business by itself, what we’d find is that we’d be stuck using a phone that only allowed us to download applications Apple liked and doing only things Apple approved of. We’d find that even Apple would slow down innovation if no one was nipping at its tail and, most of all, we’d find that the mobile business was a whole lot more boring — except for Apple.

Let’s not let Apple ruin the mobile business…

As a tech guy, I’m a big fan of open source software. Like most people who work on the Internet, I make use of web server software like Apache and the relational database, MySQL. But, on the desktop, I also find myself using the office suite, Open Office, and the graphical application, GIMP. These packages are often regarded as some of the best open source packages but they are from the only good ones. Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Thunderbird email program are widely used among people in the know, but ignored by people who use their computer as it comes out of the box. Truth be told, given the relatively light needs of most computer users, there is a perfectly capable open source package that can go head-to-head with most commercial packages. So, the question has to be asked, why isn’t open source software more popular — especially on Windows machines. The answer, in mind, is two fold:

Awareness — People just don’t know the software is out there. If all anyone talks about is Microsoft Office, why would you think about Open Office unless you know? You wouldn’t.

Ease of Access — Even if you know about open source software, it’s not all that easy to get. You end up at some open source site and instead of “Download” button taking you to the most recent version of the software, it takes you to Sourceforge where you can choose to download the “source” or the “binaries” in .tar.gz, .bz or .zip format. Huh? Nevermind. I have a feeling it will just be easier to go buy Word or Photoshop Elements. How does the average computer user know whether they want the source or the binary and in what format?

When I first got into computers, there was an organization, PC-SIG, that kept a directory of shareware applications one could get. We would get the directory, peruse through the descriptions and ratings and then decide which software we would buy. A similar idea is needed today. Someone should create an installer, similar to the Ubuntu or Redhat ones, for open source applications that run on Windows. From one utility, you can download and install Open Office, GIMP, Pidgin, Mplayer, Miro, Camstudio or any other software that might suite your needs. This type of application already exists for developers in the form of tools like XAMPP which install the entire LAMP stack on Windows, but applications focused on the needs of consumers have been ignored.

To my mind, creating such an installer will lead to greater use of open source applications by general consumers and, in turn, greater contributions to the included packages as awareness is increased. I’m thinking it shouldn’t be that big of a deal to do and some smart developer out there needs to get on it…

In the meantime, for those interested, Open Source Windows maintains a cool list of open source applications that run on Windows. Additionally, Downloadpedia maintains a pretty detailed list of Windows-friendly applications.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Pricing isn’t the only issue. As we now see from the AT&T / iPhone debacle, when carriers hold exclusive agreements on phones they come to hold their customers in contempt. AT&T sat and watched Apple launch the iPhone, the iPhone 3G and then the iPhone 3GS – knowing full well the impact the phones would have on their network – and did little to increase the capacity of the network to match demand. Sure, you have a beautiful high-speed capable iPhone, but your network often only supports slower speeds because of AT&T’s commitment to mediocrity.

Carriers need to get out of the retail cell phone business. Carriers have been complicit with manufacturers in gouging consumers on the prices of cell phones. Doing so has led to a huge conflict of interest that has resulted in the carriers considering the devices more important than the services they offer. It’s almost as if the broadcast networks sold the TVs on which you watched their shows. Remember when Ma Bell leased you a cell phone along with your phone services. They stopped post breakup because they realized phones weren’t there core competency. The same goes for the carriers. They’re essentially network service providers who play cell phone sales people on TV. They need to stop.

The alternative, in my mind, is two-fold:

• Create phones that work on any network — I don’t mean create unlocked phones. Instead, I’d like to see phones, like the Blackberry Storm, that support the network technologies of Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile. The expense of adding multiple technologies to mobiles doesn’t add substantially to the price of the phone and it gives consumers more options
• Manufacturers should partner with big box stores – Stores like Walmart, Target and Best Buy have the heft to pressure manufacturers to deliver phones at prices that are more consumer-friendly. It is true that manufacturers’ margins will decline, but I expect they’ll make up some of that on quantity given the lower prices, lack of burdensome contracts or carrier exclusives. What we’ll also see as a result of this, I believe, is more innovation. Lower margins give manufacturers less reason to stick with phones that don’t sell. Lower prices will lead to greater sales of popular phones. This, I believe, will lead to greater and quicker phone innovation as manufacturers work harder to deliver phones with innovative features that allow them to keep a leg up on their competition.

These two changes will change the industry but in doing so benefit all involved. Consumers will have more selection at better prices. Manufacturers will be able to better gauge consumer need and react more quickly as consumers become free to buy phones as frequently as they’d like. Carriers become more able to focus their energies on their core competencies – their networks. Seems like a win-win to me.

I’m at a fan of Nokia phones – or at least I was. Nokia, one of the largest mobile companies in the world, has failed to establish a real foothold in the U.S. market. Unfortunately for them, the U.S. is where so much of the mobile excitement is these days. Between the iPhone, Google’s Android and RIM’s quickly evolving Blackberrys (Canadian, I know), the smart-phones have changed the way people see and use phones. Nokia has sat on the sidelines releasing phones with inferior features and usability inhibited by a long-in-the-tooth operating system. They’re one of the few manufacturers who has actually tried the end-run around the carrier-retail model by going direct to retail. High unsubsidized prices and curious lack of marketing, along with lackluster phones, have impeded their success. this article from the New York Times analyzes some of their issues.

Based on recent news, there is another company considering trying to circumvent the carrier-retail model. It is rumored that in January Google will launch its own HTC manufactured Google Phone. The phone, if speculation is accurate, will be sold directly through retailers as opposed to carriers. I have not seen pricing details but my own guess is that the price of the phone will need to be competitive with that of subsidized phones sold by the carriers. I also expect that, contrary to Nokia’s approach, Google will market the Google Phone – perhaps heavily.

I’m hoping that this could be the start of some really great changes in the mobile phone business that lead to more innovation and better products for consumers.

The marketing DSS differs from a standard application in that the marketing DSS is designed to turn users into customers rather than simply making some process easier. The content within the DSS is critical to establishing interactions that engage the user, piquing and holding their interest. Each step in the navigation path, when done well, leads to a connection with the user where she feels educated and believes there is value for her in getting to the application’s payoff – the final answer.

The final answer is also the payoff for the marketer because it is likely that conversion actually takes place there. If the user has gone through the application and reached the final step then the application has to close the deal. The value of the payoff to the user is directly correlated to the likelihood of the user to convert into a lead or a customer.

Want to know how to make your own DSS? That’s for me to know and you to find out *wink*, but here are some tips for creating a winner:

• Focus on the User Experience
  
  

  Do what you can to make the tool visually appealing. Consider using technologies like Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight, which allow the use of animation, video and other engaging visual elements. The investment may be a little higher but the returns can justify the cost.

  Navigational devices like ‘Next’ and ‘Back’ buttons should be well-placed and easy to find. The location of other navigational elements like ‘Back to Home’ should be based on generally accepted human factors principles and, perhaps most importantly, don’t underestimate the value of usability testing.

• Be Strategic About the Content
  
  

  Don’t just take content from your web site, add some perfunctory questions and call it a DSS. Know your audience, know what bothers them, what challenges they have in deciding to use your product. Then use that information to create the DSS content. Content should valuable, questions should be insightful.

• Clear Call-to-Actions
  
  

  Your final call-to-action can differ by your objective. Is your focus lead generation? Ask users to submit their contact information so they can be contacted by a sales rep or offer up a code and telephone number so the sales rep can see the user’s answers via the code. Sell direct? Include direct links to the product pages for those products recommended by the system, perhaps with a 10% discount for taking the time to use the tool. Heck, offer your first born child if you think it might close the deal.

• Make It Flexible
  
  

  The path through the tool should be pretty linear and easy to navigate. You should also give users the opportunity to try alternate scenarios by going back and changing their answers. Seeing varied recommendations indicates the responses really are personalized to each individual – making it more likely users will forward the tool to friends.

• Don’t Forget to Market It
  
  

  If you build it, people will come. Not. At the moment you start building the tool, you should also begin planning a media campaign that directs people to the application. Whether it’s SEM, display advertising, broadcast or all of the above, driving people to the DSS is the only way to meet your objectives.

Have a cool DSS or other type of marketing application you want to share? Tell us about it in the comments. In the meantime, check out this one from MetLife.

I’m a huge fan of Barnes & Noble retail stores. As explained in the letter below, my mother used to frequently take me to the store on Fifth Avenue in NYC and, even as a child, I used to love walking the aisles – especially the textbook section in the back. These days, I still go to Barnes & Noble frequently – to work in the café or to buy books.

I’m disappointed by a recent experience I had with them. I went to buy a book and decided to look for reviews on Amazon using their Blackberry app. No reviews there but I saw the price was just about half price. Naturally, I ordered the book from Amazon. However, because I love B&N, I sent them a message asking them (practically begging them) to help me help them take my money. Their response to me was a form message telling me “we are unable to credit you for the difference in price, and will honor the original price at the time of purchase.”

Did they even read my email to them? Here’s my message in full:

Hi B&N,

I am a huge fan of Barnes & Noble. My mother used to take me to thelegendary 5th Avenue store in NYC when I was a kid and I’ve loved youall since. Naturally, I’m a B&N member and love my discount.

Here’s my problem. Your prices are no longer competitive for me. I just left your store in Edison, NJ, my favorite in the area. I sat, did some work, had some tea and then decided to check for a book on iPhone
development. The book, “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK”, was on the shelf and had information I needed, at a price of $49.99. I pulled out my Blackberry and used the Amazon app to check reviews for the book. There were no reviews but the price at Amazon was $26.39 — almost half the price at the store.

Granted in the store, I’d get my 10% member discount which would lower the price but I’d also pay 7% sales tax. By my calculation, the book would cost $48.14 at the store. I’m a member of Amazon Prime so I pay $4 for next day delivery. Even with that, my order on Amazon comes to
$30.39 – a savings of almost $20.

I ordered the book from the Blackberry app right there in the Barnes and Noble parking lot. It will be at my home tomorrow. It’s not quite the instant gratification of purchasing it in the store but it’ll do.

Listen, I want to buy from Barnes & Noble but you all have to help me. It doesn’t even make bad sense, as a friend of mine used to say, for me to spend an extra $20 on a book I don’t need immediately. If the
difference had been $5, I would have said it’s only $5. Maybe even $10 would have been okay but $20? That’s a lot of money. Please, please, please fix this. I want to give you my money so that you’ll be around for years to come but you have to get more price competitive.

Thanks,
Talib

Here’s their response in full:

Dear Talib Morgan,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding a price change for an item you saw in store.

Barnes & Noble offers very competitive pricing on many items, resulting in the best value for our customers. However, as with all retail products, prices are subject to change due to current promotions. As such, we are unable to credit you for the difference in price, and will honor the original price at the time of purchase.

We do apologize for any confusion. Thank you for your understanding.

Visit www.bn.com and click on the options that appear in the upper right-hand corner to view information about your order.

We look forward to your next visit.

Sincerely,

Wendy
Customer Service Representative
Barnes and Noble

http://www.bn.com/

Huh?

The sad reality is that without a change in business model companies like Barnes & Noble (and Best Buy) are at the risk of becoming glorified showrooms. People will enter the stores find what they like and buy it online from their phone while at the store — just like I did. I don’t want to see that happen to B&N. (It might be okay for Best Buy. Their prices are RIDICULOUS.)

Companies,please… Please listen to your customers. They want you to survive. They want to give you their money. Many, like me, want to help you help them take their money. Sometimes we write in begging you to do so. We are not complaining. We’re asking you to take our cash. Isn’t that why you’re in business? And let’s say we are complaining, maybe the complaint is something worth heeding. And maybe, just maybe, we want a response that tells us you understand that we love you and that you want want to help us allow you to ravage our wallets (but a little less than you’re doing right now).

My own thinking is that any customer who cares enough to write is a customer worth keeping…

An even better experience is one I had with Cathay Pacific. I’m flying Cathay Pacific to Bali for my honeymoon next month. I mentioned on Twitter that I had looked at Cathay’s online virtual tour. Cathay found me and let me know they hoped to see me onboard soon. I replied that I’d be flying with them to Bali on my honeymoon. They first congratulated me on my marriage and then followed up the next day with a restaurant recommendation. Neither of these things cost them much (if anything) but acknowledging my marriage and making the recommendation have both improved my perception of the brand before I even board the plane.

These experiences have me offering a few pieces of advice for brands on Twitter:

• Take it seriously – Twitter may be a fad. Who’s to say? Right now, however, your customers are on it. Don’t create a Twitter account and ignore it. Use it as a serious tool to engage your customers and learn about their preferences. Search to see what people are saying about your brand and, where necessary, interject. Even if it is a fad, it can provide you with insights and, perhaps, prepare your company for what comes next.
• Inquire – People choose to follow you on Twitter for a reason. It may be good, it may be bad. Use the new follower notification as a catalyst for improving the relationship you have with customers. Send a note saying hello and say something positive about their potential relationship with the brand like Cathay Pacific did for me.
• Offer to help – Use Twitter to make recommendations or provide customers with solutions or even to express remorse. Sabra didn’t send me coupons but the dialogue with them, though not completed, let me know that they cared. The tweeter at Cathay Pacific thought it worthwhile to send me a restaurant recommendation and I really appreciated it. Customers feel important when they feel the brand cared enough to communicate directly with them. Such 1-to-1 communication is a unique benefit of Twitter.

• News businesses that try to copy their print media ways to the Internet are dead in the water.
• Contrary to what print news companies believe, readers never paid for news. They paid for the paper on which the news was printed. Having something tangible made it seem as if it should be paid for.
• Internet users will eventually pay for content. They, however, will not pay for content that they don’t feel they need. News as presented on cnn.com or msnbc.com or even nytimes.com is not news the average person NEEDS. There is no compelling reason to pay for it. The results of this poll by PaidContent UK and Harris Interactive prove the point that consumers aren’t interested in paying for news online.
• B2B news outlets face a larger uphill climb to the pay wall. Their news can often be found on blogs, forums and Twitter long before the small staffs at B2B media companies can even write a story and vet their sources. By the time they post the story, readers have already moved on.

The second part of the post pointed out that print media companies are still living in the days of the Internet boom. They’re presenting news much in the same way they did on print. Essentially, they are stuck in uni-directional print mode rather than harnessing the bi-directional benefits of the web. To get out of this rut, they need to focus on three core ideas (or tenets):

1. Be a Resource – Create products/applications online that are compelling to users. These products will keep users coming back even when they believe your news is boring. Organize your content in ways that establish your site as an expert on relevant topics. Become almost encyclopedic on those topics and offer numerous ways to browse relevant content.
2. Make Life Easier – Use all of the tools in your online toolbox – behavioral modeling, personalization, customization, site search, path tracking and others to learn what your customers want. Then present them with that functionality wherever they want it – mobile apps, web and desktop widgets or on your site. That’s how people start associating your brand with innovation, new thinking and value within your industry.
3. Focus on the Money – Both of the tenets above have to be done with the idea of how you’ll generate revenue from them in the short-term and in the long-term. Ideas for which you cannot demonstrate ROI are ideas that should not be pursued.

Success is dependent upon thinking about the news differently. Come to see your company’s core competency as providing functional access to information and you’ll win. Stay stuck in the thought that you’re providing news and it’s likely your company will join the dead pool.

I suggest checking out Bloomberg, L.P. for a company that gets news right. Also, while I focused on the news business, the tenets here are applicable to every print media company in the process of transitioning to the web.

Rupert Murdoch is perhaps the top news mogul in the world. The online edition of the Wall Street Journal, which Mr. Murdoch owns, is one of the few remaining newspapers with a pay wall through which people must go to access content. To the Wall Street Journal’s credit, they reportedly make close to $80 million per year from the subscriptions to their online edition. This revenue, apparently, gives Mr. Murdoch the legitimacy he needs to lead the charge of convincing other newspapers to charge for their online content. The problem, however, is that he is leading news organizations down a very dangerous path.

Before I go on, I want to offer the caveat that I am not one of those who believes everything on the Internet should be free. Whether through ads or subscriptions, users should pay for content. With that said, I’ll continue.

People have never paid for the news. Sure, we’ve all purchased newspapers or news magazines. By doing that we paid for the news. What we actually paid for, however, was the paper on which the news was printed. The $0.75 we pay for a paper today or the $3.95 price of a magazine doesn’t cover the marginal cost of producing that paper or magazine. If it did, magazines with large numbers of subscribers wouldn’t go out of business. In the minds of consumers, paying for paper makes sense. We can feel it with our hands and see it with our eyes. We can take it and use for kindling for our grills or put it at the bottom of our pet’s cages. Of course we paid for paper. It’s tangible. Internet news is not tangible. We already pay our ISP for access to the Internet. Why should we have to pay to get the news too? Unfortunately, that’s but one problem.

Another? The news is pointless. Why does the average person need (not want, need) the news in their daily life? That people would pay for it implies some degree of perceived need. But what need is there? The weather – there’s some value there. Should I wear a coat or not? Will I need an umbrella or will it be too windy? There’s a valuable service with the weather. The news, itself, however offers little value beyond the moment for the average person. How does it truly affect my life to know that the war continues in Afghanistan or that the President’s poll numbers are down from last week? The average person does not NEED that information to go about their day. It is simply a nice to have. Nice to have news is not compelling. The results of this poll commissioned by PaidContent UK and done by Harris Interactive prove the point – consumers aren’t willing to pay for news they get online.

This unwillingness to pay for news is even more pronounced in B2B news media. With a few exceptions, the news stories that tend to grab readers’ attention are first leaked on industry blogs, then bantered about on forums and ultimately tweeted about by that guy down the hall who doesn’t seem to do anything but surf the web – all before a professional journalist can vet their sources and write an official story. Then there’s the reality that many B2B news outlets do not have sufficient staff to write daily news stories. By the time the next web update is made, readers have cross-checked the story topic on three major blogs, Digg and Google. Face it. The news is a commodity. In fact, the news as it is currently known must become the “loss-leader” for most news organization.

Stuck in the Boom

A sad reality is that most news outlets are so focused on the Chicken Little cries from the industry that they are unable to see that the problem may not be the sky but rather, the problem is within…

Remember the Internet boom when it seemed that all one had to do to make loads of money on the Internet was create a site that simply read “Sign up for beta testing” and procure really nice business cards. Those were the days. Back then, corporate marketers struggled to understand the Internet. They would put up brochure-ware sites, laying out the proverbial red carpet, and hope people flock to the sites. People didn’t. The sites were boring and did little to take advantage of the interactive nature of the web. The sites were very uni-directional. The Internet bust changed that.

After the bust, people saw that it wasn’t enough to just hang out a web shingle to make money online. You had to provide a service that was valuable, appealed to a target and, most of all, it had to be functional. Corporate e-business teams began to get that message and they’ve created some great applications that allow their employers to interact and engage their customers. The corporations learned to use the bi-directional nature of the web to provide functionality that made their customers lives easier. What they learned in the process is that offering such services allowed them to save money over having customers call in and take up the time of customers service reps. They also learned that great online customer service helped improve their brand positioning in the minds of their customers. The transition from delivering unidirectional brochure-ware to providing bi-directional products became a win-win for corporations. News outlets can learn from that example.

The news outlets that survive will be the ones who stop seeing the Internet as digital paper and start determining how to take advantage of the capabilities of the Internet. These outlets will find that by changing their thinking about the news business they can seize opportunities (and revenue) much in the way corporations did when they began looking at the Internet as a way to lower costs and provide better service to their customers.

How can your company get moving in the right direction? Naturally, that’s a question the answer to which can only be determined after careful analysis of your own business. However, there are three key tenets on which you should focus to achieve success:

1. Be a Resource – Your online news site has to be known for something. For a consumer-focused site, maybe you’re known for having encyclopedic quality information on the hot button issues of the day. Users visiting your site to look up healthcare reform can find the bills, video interviews you’ve done, C-SPAN clips and chronological and indexed views of stories done by your organization. Give them a reason to come back.
   
   

   In the B2B space, your company’s focus has to be on products that target the people in your primary industry. Knowing that company X wants to acquire company Y has little bearing on the average employee’s day-to-day. Changing your focus from delivering news to being a resource, however, would mean that you provide those in your industry with tools they need to do their jobs.

2. Make Life Easier – Simply providing products that your readers see as tools is not enough. You actually have to be focused on making your customers’ lives easier. This means getting them the tools they want, when they want them, where they want them. It means using all of the tools in the online toolbox to know what your customers want before they tell you they want them. Behavioral modeling, personalization, customization, site searches, path tracking and numerous other methods can give you the insight you need to get your customers to the tools they need quickly. Moreover, by offering these tools in various forms including web and desktop widgets and mobile applications, you make it easier for people to associate your brand with your industry.
3. Focus on the Money – Your customers should pay for access to the tools that make life easier. Very few businesses can afford to provide their services for free. I doubt yours is the exception. That being said, getting customers to pay for services on the Internet is a challenge but it can be done. The WSJ can generate its subscription revenue (in addition to its estimated $120 million in ad revenue) because the articles on the site are designed to provide its users with information they can use to make prudent decisions about their businesses. The New York Times (NYT), on the other hand, had to remove their pay wall because users were unwilling to pay for standard news online and the subscriptions were impeding the NYT’s ability to generate ad revenue.
   
   

   By becoming a resource rather than simply delivering news you can improve your company’s value to your core audience and increase the likelihood that they will be willing to pay for access to your site.

For all intent and purposes, the news as we know it is dead. The news organizations that avoid the dead pool will be those who start view the Internet as a way to interact with customers in ways not at all capable in print. These companies will provide content and functionality their audiences need rather than want and they will focus on increasing their core competencies beyond just delivering individual news articles. Servicing the customer, rather than just serving up the news, will be the key to survival for tomorrow’s news organization.

I suggest checking out Bloomberg, L.P. for a company that gets news right. Also, while I focused on the news business, the tenets here are applicable to every print media company in the process of transitioning to the web.

Those companies finding great success with social networking only use social networking as a component of their marketing mix. Companies like Dell, have already laid the groundwork by targeting customers using a marketing mix that reaches the audience across multiple communications channels. Best Buy’s ability to use Twitter as a customer service channel works because customers have heard through other touch-points that Best Buy offers reliable answers for problems they’re having. Neither company has looked at social networking as the only way to reach customers.

If you’re going to use social networking sites to talk to your audience, remember the following things:

1. Always Brand Consistently (ABC) – Your online name is not the time to be clever. @No1CarMfr may be true but @Toyota uses long established brand equity to tell people who you are. The Twitter username Dell has used to generate over $3 million in sales is @DellOutlet. It clearly tells you who it is and what you’re going to get there. And, apparently, it’s working. Speak in your customers’ language and not your own. Also remember that social networking just allows you to extend your brand. Most companies don’t need to create a whole new persona for Twitter and in fact, they shouldn’t do that.
2. Don’t Cheapen It – One of the casualties of the cheap social networking thinking is the dedicated (or even semi-dedicated) resource. You cannot post random Twitter tweets or Facebook status updates once or twice a day and expect customers to flock to your brand. Before you get started, you have to assign a resource with time, decide what tone/personality you want the account to have, understand your audience and then create a schedule of what you’re going to say and when. You want to make your followers and friends retweet (RT) and share what you’re telling them. Random topics may pop up from day-to-day but this is business and this is marketing. Don’t cheapen it to just Twitter. It can work if you’re willing to put in the time to make it work for you.
3. Measure, Measure, Measure – This is a big one. People are unsure of how to measure social networking. As silly as it sounds, followers/friends are not an awful metric. They can at least help you gauge interest in your content. Beyond friends, you must also develop conversion metrics. Maybe a conversion is a purchase. Maybe it’s generating a lead. Maybe it’s someone spending 25 seconds watching a video. Whatever it is, you need to create links that you can track from Twitter/Facebook to your site and then monitor those users on your site. This will help validate your investment into social networking
4. Be Patient … but Not Too Patient – You should not expect results overnight from social networking. That being said if you’re not meeting your short-term key performance indicators (KPIs), then it’s time to change your approach. Maybe your tone isn’t right. Maybe your content and/or frequency aren’t right. Whatever it is, tweak it so that you can hit your stride.

Thinking of social networking as a cheap way to reach customers likely means you aren’t going to be successful at it. As with every other marketing channel, social networking success for brands requires proper planning. If you approach social networking marketing just as you would email marketing or display marketing, you’ll find your probability of success will increase accordingly.

These problems President Obama faces are of his own making. The country’s resistance to health care reform made quite clear during the Clinton administration. There was little reason to think President Obama wouldn’t face similar push-back, except for his being the Great I Am. Believing he was the Great I Am made him forget the lesson he actually taught during his Presidential campaign about the true great IAAM – It’s Always About Marketing.

I used to be on the Obama mailing list. I unsubscribed a couple of months ago after receiving daily (sometimes twice a day) emails from “Mitch Stewart” and other members of the Obama team. There they were, still campaigning and asking for money to support this issue or that one. It turned me off and, I imagine, it turned off others, too.

Instead, the formidable marketing machine from Obama’s campaign should have been used to begin selling his most fervent followers on health care reform – much in the same way they were sold on his Presidential candidacy. He should have returned to the great IAAM.

Here are some things the President can still do to get his supporters on board:

1. Stop asking for money to support issues – You’re the President now. You have the country’s resources at your disposal. I don’t want to give money to help push health care reform – especially if you haven’t sold me on the idea in the first place
2. Use email and video to tell the story – Obama hasn’t told a convincing story about why reform is necessary. We know anecdotally why it’s needed, but what’s his rationale? Beyond just telling us more of the same in the upcoming speech to Congress, he can tell his story in a series of 20 min videos on YouTube where he uses charts, graphs and images, not just teleprompter text, to explain why we should find this as important as he does
3. Make citizens part of your marketing team – Give your advocates talking points. So many of us want to tell people why health care reform is important but we don’t have any desire to read a 1,000+ page bill. Give us talking points in web, PDF and powerpoint formats that we can use to educate ourselves and share with others. Help us use word-of-mouth marketing to help you
4. Educate and counter with social media – Twitter and Facebook accounts/fan pages, at the least, should be used to disseminate daily truths/facts about Obama’s health care reform. They can also be used to direct people to the assets created in #2 and #3, above

It’s time for President Obama to stop thinking like a politician and to begin thinking like the marketer he was during the campaign. If he does that, then maybe, just maybe, the great IAAM will help the Great I Am achieve his goals.