Links
RSS FeedArchives
|
Friday, March 05, 2010When Words Collide
There's certainly been a lot of buzz about the lawsuit against popular online business review site Yelp. Most of it is a misreading of the situation. What's going on in this lawsuit will not have any impact on those of us with business reviews of any kind, nor is it a "potential death knell" for online reviews as some are breathlessly claiming. What the Yelp lawsuit is about, pure and simple, is alleged extortion. The company suing Yelp is claiming it was told that if it advertised, negative online reviews would be hidden or removed, and if the company didn't advertise, the negative reviews would remain.
What this lawsuit does highlight, however, is something I have discussed previously: the inherent friction between user reviews and paid advertising. The case of Yelp points up an important but subtle distinction. Usually the issue is how a publisher can add user reviews to paid listings. In the case of Yelp, the question is how a publisher can add paid listings to user reviews. Same difference? I think not. For the buying guide publisher, the business model is already established: companies pay for an enhanced presence within the buying guide. To add user reviews is not simple: advertisers want a positive environment in which to advertise. Don't expect a paid listing surrounded by negative user reviews to be renewed. Even the most enlightened advertiser will have trouble finding the value in that equation. There are ways to walk a fine line where reviews and advertisers can peacefully co-exist. Capterra was awarded a 2009 Model of Excellence award for, among other things, devising a successful approach to this. But the reason that a middle ground can be carved out is that user reviews are an additional feature for a buyers' guide. They are not the reason the buyers' guide exists. Contrast that with Yelp. Yelp's success is entirely due to it achieving a critical mass of reviews. Users respond to it and value it because it lets users have their say - the good, the bad, the ugly. Yelp strikes an unabashedly consumerist stance. Without this positioning, which fostered a critical mass of reviews, Yelp would be just another also-ran in the highly competitive local business directory space. So how does Yelp sell advertising? It can't be that easy. The business with glowing reviews could quite reasonably see no need to advertise. The business with horrid reviews could quite reasonably have no desire to advertise. Yet the moment Yelp starts fiddling or filtering its reviews to accommodate advertisers, it puts its business at risk. Nothing would kill Yelp faster than a general perception (amplified by social media of course) that it had "sold out." Bottom line: the reviews are not an additional feature; they are the product. I don't see an easy answer to this one. If Yelp wants to succeed selling local business advertising, it's going to need to make compromises that one or more of its constituencies won't like. The strategy and its execution are both critical. And the object lesson is that it does matter which came first: the directory or the reviews. Friday, February 26, 2010Unsubscribe is Forever
I admit to watching the subscriber list to this e-newsletter very closely. I feel good when I see a sudden surge of new subscribers in a given week. I’m disappointed when people unsubscribe, but if it’s not of interest, better to know it.
Things started to get strange about six months ago. Suddenly, I started seeing people unsubscribe who I knew. Even stranger, some of the people had gone out of their way to compliment me on this e-newsletter at various events. Had my topics become too dull? Was my commentary no longer on point? I let the first handful go, but it kept happening. When a few clients showed up on the unsubscribe list, I knew I had to get on the phone. The story I heard was consistent: they all absolutely wanted to continue receiving this newsletter, and they blamed their clicks on the unsubscribe button on “fat fingers,” “going too fast” and “cleaning up my mailbox.” What became clear to me is a lot of people, reacting no doubt to the avalanche of mail in their inboxes, are aggressively unsubscribing to everything that looks even vaguely promotional, and since they are going for speed and volume, a lot of good stuff gets unsubscribed along with the bad. I really started thinking about this when several clients began complaining about the same problem: paying customers of theirs clicking unsubscribe to a promotional email, then being lost to them for email purposes forever. Most of us still utilize this hair-trigger unsubscribe approach: one click and the recipient will never hear from you again by email. That’s a powerful statement that marks you as a responsible online marketer, but the results can badly damage your business. Forever is a long time. There’s a simple solution that far too few companies utilize: qualify the unsubscribe request. Perhaps the recipient just doesn’t want promotional email from you, but would still be interested in other communications. Perhaps the recipient is very interested in emails about your data products, but not your conferences. The simple point is that by asking, you can often keep the email channel to a customer or prospect open just by asking specifically want they want and don’t want to receive. One-click unsubscribe sounds great, but it’s a dangerous weapon in the hands of recipients who are, increasingly, just trying to “clean up” their mailboxes. Don’t get swept out with the trash. Friday, February 19, 2010Growing a Backbone
I just downloaded the new LinkedIn Outlook Connector that brings my “LinkedIn Professional Network tight within my Microsoft Outlook Inbox.”
That may not seem like a hugely significant development, but as I have noted many times previously, I think LinkedIn is slowly (and perhaps not even consciously) starting to become a global business backbone directory. Okay, you’re probably wondering right now what I mean by “backbone directory.” I’ll admit I am not entirely sure myself, even though I know I am right! What I increasingly see is LinkedIn playing a supporting, background role within a growing number of directory products. Typically, those directories let you easily connect a person listed in their directories to your professional network on LinkedIn. It’s an easy way to see how you might be connected to somebody, which is wonderful for salespeople. It also lets you readily peruse an individual’s LinkedIn profile, more times than not a current and detailed resume and an indicator of who they are based on who they know. Where I see particular opportunities for LinkedIn is in professional services buying guides. What better way to pre-screen a prospective lawyer, accountant or financial advisor than by quickly determining who you might know in common so that you can get a trusted opinion? But back to my Microsoft Outlook inbox. After installing the LinkedIn connector (you must also install the Outlook Social Connector from Microsoft), I got a glimpse of what the future might hold. When you view an email from someone with whom you are connected in LinkedIn, you see their LinkedIn photo right along the message. There is also a new window that almost instantly organizes all your emails to and from that person along with your prior meetings with that person. You can also quickly isolate email attachments received from that person, making it easy to review documents that person had sent to you. In short, my email inbox has become an entry-level CRM system. I also have easy access to the email addresses of everyone in my LinkedIn network each time I send an email. Actually, the information being pulled from LinkedIn right now is pretty limited. But start thinking out a bit. There’s no reason I couldn’t filter and prioritize my emails based on whether or not the email sender was in my LinkedIn network. Indeed, what if LinkedIn was to supply me with information on anyone who was in LinkedIn, whether or not the person was in my network? Imagine seeing a photo, company name and title, and information on who you know in common on more, if not most, of your incoming emails? There’s information value, to be sure, but there’s also a “trusted sender” play here. Yes, LinkedIn could be used to validate the integrity if not the identity of email senders. You might even someday filter out email from anyone without a LinkedIn record. Push this out a bit further, and you can see a day where you need a LinkedIn record just to be in business. At that point, LinkedIn’s position as a “backbone directory” is secure, and the revenue opportunities are many and huge. Labels: LinkedIn Friday, February 05, 2010Contemplating Curation
Though the buzz around e-books and mobile is deafening right now, I'm hearing another word entering the buzz zone at rocket speed, and it's a word much more relevant to our businesses: curation.
Yes, it's become trendy and mainstream to acknowledge that with so much information so readily available these days, there is real value in plucking out the information that really matters. Malcolm Gladwell, speaking at the recent ALM LegalTech conference, reportedly summed up the problem beautifully, saying "Until search engines can filter as well as they can find, they only add to confusion." Filtering is something of a geeky way to describe curation. Others may be more comfortable with an older term: editing. Yes, as I have said so many times before, there's not much on the Internet that's really new: it's mostly old ideas sporting flashy new names. We've spent the last fifteen years on the Internet focused on aggregation. Everyone was trying to build huge pots of content, the most notable examples of this being the search engines. Now it seems that after this frenzy of aggregation, we're starting to stand back and say, "Well that's not very useful." Hence the race to curate. Another interesting thing to note about this interest in curation is that the experts seem to agree that it's a task for humans. Only a few years ago, we would all have automatically assumed that "there's an app for that," or more precisely, some algorithm or technology that would solve the problem with point-and-click ease. Now, we're starting to appreciate how much nuance is involved. Of course as data publishers, we have long been practicing a form of curation. We analyze, interpret and add value to information by normalizing it and fielding it. Further, we typically limit ourselves to standardized subsets of information that won't solve every need, but are amazingly powerfully for specific applications. Even better, our selected, normalized and fielded data is easily filtered, meaning that users can easily get to the nuggets most valuable to them. The lesson I take away from this is that it's easier to extract meaning and value from smaller, focused sets of information rather than trying to find small needles in large haystacks. Friday, January 22, 2010Love Them Books!
It's 2010, but client research we recently completed revealed some users still prefer print.
Had we simply discovered the last of the Luddites? It doesn't seem that way. In fact, one of the markets in which we conducted research depends very heavily on online systems to do business. We have said many times that different markets get online religion at very different rates. Even so, to find so many enthusiastic fans of print at this late date was surprising. Here are some of the reasons we heard about why print still retains its appeal: The Wall of History - There is apparently a sizable population out there who still collect directories. Over the years, they purchased every edition published and have amassed a wall or shelf of them. This group maintains that it's important to have a "history of the industry" as expressed through print products, and don't want the print version to end. It sounds pretty loopy on the surface, but in fact very few data publishers have addressed the issue of archival information, and in fact their online version isn't satisfactory to those who wish to look back for various reasons. The Traveling Salesman - It's a classic stereotype but there's truth here as well. When a directory is used for prospecting purposes, we regularly hear that salespeople who live on the road like print because they can throw the directory in a briefcase or in a backseat. We may all live on our iPhones, but it's dangerous to assume everyone else does as well. Related to this, we often hear mobile access being dismissed by users - salespeople in particular - because "you can't really browse." Being able to page through a directory to pick your prospects still means a lot to this group. The Swiss Army Knife - Forget the purpose for which print directories were designed, there are a surprising number of people who turn them into virtual filing cabinets, appending Post-It notes, marginal notations, memory jogs, names of new personnel and more to the pages. We find this particularly pronounced where the print product has a comb binding or otherwise lies fairly flat on the desk. Sure, many online databases allow users to add private notes, but as print users correctly point out, they tend to be an afterthought: often not convenient, not highly visible, not searchable and not customizable. And the nagging thought of losing it all should the user fail to renew a subscription haunts many of these folks. The Speed Racer - Don't ever contradict a print directory user who says print is faster to use than online. Right or wrong, they believe it, and passionately. And sometimes they are right. Print directories that get used in large part for quick contact information can in fact be faster and easier to use than elaborate online databases that sport lots of bells and whistles and incredible power, but whose designers forgot that fast contact information look-up was important to the user base. There's more of course, but these are some common examples. More importantly, they point up that while online is better, online isn't automatically better. Friday, January 08, 2010Taking the LEad
An interesting article in Search Engine Land reported that Google is offering a sales lead form as an option to its AdWords advertisers. A user will be able to click a special link at the bottom of an AdWords advertisement, and a pop-up form will ask for the user's name, phone and some specifics about what they are looking to buy. After submitting the form, the user is promised a call back from the advertiser.
You can see a screen capture of the form here. It's worth a look. Implications? At first I thought this was another of what I have come to call the Google Daily Disrupter™, a new product or feature from Google that knocks still another industry on its ear. But perhaps not. Consider the following: 1. This lead gen form comes awfully early in the selling process. Can you really generate this high level of interest from a six word advertisement? 2. Success in lead gen depends on the user getting a quick return call from the advertiser. This can happen, but it's not easy to guarantee, so it is questionable how well this will scale, especially given Google's well-known aversion to talking to either its advertisers or users. 3. As the article notes, the call-back process is a bit convoluted, with Google not releasing the prospect's phone number to the advertiser. I can see where this might appeal to the user, but I don't see any great appeal to the advertiser. Further, there is an implicit "we'll protect you from our untrustworthy advertisers" message here. 4. Google will apparently let its all-powerful algorithms, not you the paying advertiser, determine exactly what will display on your lead gen form. So is Google's new lead gen feature fatally flawed? I am not sure I would go that far. It's a nicely designed form, and the offering is sure to evolve. What may be more important is that over time an offering like this will help to accustom more users to take advantage of sales inquiry forms, which should be good news for B2B buying guide publishers. Lead gen is a Godsend to B2B data publishers, because not only can they charge stiff premiums for every lead delivered, they can also document the power and efficacy of their products to their advertisers, and that's the essential foundation of every successful buying guide. Friday, December 11, 2009News Notes
DATA.GOV GETS A BOOST - In a directive from the Office of Management and Budget, all federal agencies have been ordered to place at least three high-value and not previously available datasets online within the next 45 days, and register them at DATA.GOV. This has the potential to start changing the landscape on public data availability, and it's just the beginning. Read the entire directive here.
GOOGLE TAKES STOCK - Word has it that Google Product Search (formerly Froogle) will soon start offering retail store inventory information, both in online and mobile formats. Find the vendor, find the nearest location, see if the product is in stock - this is powerful stuff. Intriguingly, Google is playing catch-up in the retail inventory space, as a number of fierce competitors roll out similar offerings. And where B2C leads, B2B will surely follow. THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW - A blogger has unearthed the fascinating fact that the U.S. Department of Justice spends well over $4 million buying public domain court decisions from the federal court system each year, using a creaky online site called PACER. Apparently the federal courts rake in over $50 million annually selling public documents to the public (and those other pesky co-equal branches of government). Don't like it? Tell it to the judge. Of course, being the federal government, there's even more to this story. Since PACER doesn't have comprehensive case coverage, the U.S. Department of Justice also pays legal publishing giant Thomson-West $5 million a year to get access to the rest of those cases. |
