The Next Scandal in Online Advertising Is…

Harder to do online?

It has been a rough year for online advertising, mostly from two long-standing concerns, both of which seem to be gaining in importance. The first is privacy, the second is viewability. But with other media choices having their own issues, and the field doing well in terms of increased reach via mobile, the tide seems to be turning on the pure numbers. But we are not out of the woods yet, at least to my eyes, because I see a fresh problem on the horizon.

To explain it, I will need to go through a brief history lesson.

In 1977 in the U.S., Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act. The purpose of the bill was to end the practice of redlining, which was where financial institutions would use maps to discriminate against lenders, primarily in minority areas. Redlining goes beyond cautious lending and straight into discrimination, as it does not take the individual’s qualifications or trustworthiness into account. It also seems like something that the free market would punish, since a redlining institution leaves money on the table, but that is not the point I am trying to make here.

What is intriguing about online marketing and advertising is how even though the technology is new and ever-changing, the challenges are the same as before. Offer, list, creative, in roughly the same ratios as before, for direct. Context, timing and buying cycle, with benefits for cross-channel penetration and frequency. And in the case of remarketing / retargeting, combined with cookie information or device targeting… well, redlining. But this time, it’s more about the individual.

Let’s take this out of the theoretical, so we can make this a little easier to understand.

Two different prospects come to an apparel site that caters to style-forward affluent individuals in the 18 to 25 demographic. The first is highly active on several social media sites, creates content on their own, and is highly active in the category. They also add items to a cart easily, abandon those items often, revisit on mobile, and do not respond to email.

The second prospect comes to the same site for the first time. The visit is out of character or category for the individual, as they usually spend their time on content sites that do not index to the apparel demographic. They are less active in social, spend much more time with email, and do not have the same level of use from mobile.

In the first case, we likely have a dramatically better prospect for lifetime value and referrals – and, in all likelihood, one that is much more sensitive on price. The second is, at best, someone who might use the site periodically for gifting purposes. At worst, we might be in the realm of a fraudulent purchase.

From a business standpoint, it makes sense to float the first profile a better price. In any event, it makes sense to pitch them on a loyalty program, which is a relatively uncontroversial way to offer different pricing levels. But it also makes sense to make the more competitive deal right away.

So far, we are still on the side of defensible business decisions and matching the individual prospect. Nothing too controversial here, unless you are the second prospect, and find out about the practice. 

But it is a very short, very slippery slope into more unseemly areas, where the higher price comes because a brand wants not to reward a higher lifetime value prospect, but to “protect” the brand by having it more likely to appear with desired demographics. The capacity for abuse is, of course, a lot greater with bigger ticket items like financial services, and much easier to disguise, since it is not on an easy to comprehend discrimination level, like a map.

Targeting allows for all of this to happen not in a dark future dystopia, but right now. Public relations risk and the sheer complexity involved in multiple pricing models makes it unlikely, not impossible. There are already recent news stories about how cell phone companies are complicit in the practice, by the way. This isn’t a problem in theory.

Some of these moves may be defensible, both in a court of law and in the court of public opinion… and in all likelihood, it will not be the last that you have heard of it. Especially in an election year, with net neutrality showing as something that activates public interest.

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Speaking of a targeting with a relevant offer, I would like to ask you to like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP box at the top right of the page. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

The End Of Agencies?

Fade to Black

Much noise this week in my social media feed about how agencies are endangered by the coming changes in marketing and advertising. The theory is that the current way of doing things for the big ticket items in media -- interruptive ads for mass-market brands, with standardized creative -- is going to go away when the last mile of connectivity gets, well, connected.

Let's back to that down out of the jargon, and put it in terms eveyone can understand. Instead of, say, 30-second spots for tires, a family movie, and an expensive sedan to appear in the middle of my preferred TV content, data would allow for the swap out of advertisers that are more relevant to my current purchasing cycles. Say, auto insurance in the weeks before my next six-month auto premium is due, beer that's in my range of past preferences, and a mobile gaming app, because people in my household are into that category. Eventually, this leads to no untargeted mass-market campaigns, or at the very least, a whole lot less of them.

And, well, sure... but only if you are in market for something more lucrative than those less targeted branding approaches. Currently, we don't have enough data to make exceptionally accurate determinations on how much each of these advertising opportunities are truly worth. Direct marketing plays, or online approaches where the branding impact isn't thought to be strong enough to bill, are a different story.

What I think is the more likely end game is a mix of placements. While we currently have local and national campaigns in, say, a basic cable run of broadcast ads. Having the ability to swap in some branding spots triggered by retargeting bids is just the logical next step. More importantly, it's hard to see how those kinds of ads would just be so much more lucrative as to overwhelm the brand spots. But the market will drive.

Where the monkey wrench hits the gears is when more devices come online, and more consumer categories join the mix. Consider wearable technology, where connected items might have, say, the ability to monitor your blood pressure and heart rate for exercise. If it's also able to monitor for spikes, we have the ability to do more cost-efficient and effective healthcare. We also have the ability to advertise over the counter pharmaceuticals to that same targeted audience.

This raises privacy concerns, of course, but the nature of privacy discussions online has been a simple one. Consumers don't care very much, so long as they see any kind of benefit for the exchange of information, and you are upfront and not very excited about the ask for the data. Also, the younger you are, the less offended you seem to be by the approach.

Realistically, there just isn't going to be enough ROI for hyper-targeted broadcast ads for anything but the most over-the-top high margin consumer categories. Which means that the traditional agency still gets to make all of the same ads that they are making right now, and many of the same buys. Hopefully, those ads will just get shown to fewer people, because they will only be going to the folks who are in the right consumer category and lifecycle moment.

That doesn't strike me as the end of agencies. It does, however, strike me as the end of dumb ones. But those folks were always going to go away, right?

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Something else that isn't ending: me asking you to connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP box at top right. .

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out an RFP.

In Defense of Remarketing

Well, that's constructive

Seen tonight in my feed: a "Green Eggs and Ham" style illustration sequence, from a UK content provider, of how everyone hates remarketing.

Sigh. Well, once more into the fray, dear friends.

First off, the linguist in me hates the laziness. If you make universal generalizations about people in any grouping, you are on the express train to Idiot Town, and that train is making no stops. Doing the same thing with a business practice is no better. Be more exact in your ranting.

Secondly, the sentiment it fails on the metrics. If people hated remarketing more than untargeted advertising, it would not be a business, let alone a multiplier on performance metrics. Feel free to slip in the old adage of the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. Higher performance is not consistent with hate, especially in a maturing market.

Next, the statement assumes that all remarketing is executed the same, or that the practice is such a universal commodity that it can be summed up without any kind of qualifier in regards to creative execution, publisher mix, dynamic recs, and so on. I would argue that if you are remarketing the same for 0 to 3 day as you might 3 to 7, 7 to 14, 14 to 30 and 30+... well, that's remarketing that everyone should hate. Because no one should like to see money left on the table, let alone a sledgehammer approach to brand and offer awareness. (Small aside: why is it OK to see a million replays of the same ad offline, but not online? Ah, right, branding.) If you can honor where your prospect is in the buying cycle, you should. Any competent remarketer should let you do that.

And finally... well, this is something of a good news moment, because it avoids a problem that has been plaguing display ads, especially in RTB platforms, but to hate remarketing, you have to see it. Which means the ads are not appearing below the fold, on bot sites, or to hacked machines where it all adds up to Not Seen By A Human Traffic.

Nevertheless, let us take away the core of the complaint, and edit it to something that is more accurate. Many people are annoyed by remarketing. That's something we can all agree on, right? Well, actually, not me, because it falls back into the status quo issue. To wit... no one is bothered by untargeted ads with weak frequency, because no one notices those ads in the first place. And we're back to that indifference moment.

Remarketing ads, when they are noticed, work because they are graphically relevant to the user. If the advertiser is executing beyond a static and sad level (i.e., no variation on recency), they can easily deliver different offers and dynamic products, and potentially delight a user that was on the fence, or now finding a better deal. When they do not work, it is because the user is out of cycle for the advertiser, but the remarketing / RTB buyer does not know enough to turn off the frequency. (Also, that the industry has not done enough to publicize how Ghostery watermarks work to turn off a campaign. Top right logo mark, folks. Takes two clicks and five seconds. Compare that to getting off someone's telemarketing or direct mail list. Even an unsub from an email list is slow in comparison.)

Sure, there are issues. Having items show on shared screens, or in sensitive categories, can be inconvenient and embarrassing. There is a threat to profit margins for vendors when we teach price-shopper consumers to always abandon the cart and look for the remarketing ads with a discount. All of these concerns are valid and legitimate, and will eventually shake out as companies that are more efficient consolidate the industry. We are not in the final flower of remarketing, just as we are not in the final flower of online advertising.

Remarketing is progress from what marketers could do before. It is a step up in revenue for publishers. It is a step up in relevance for consumers. Progress is almost never smooth and perfect, but it is, well, an overall good thing.

And hating progress is, well, hateful.

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Speaking of progress, I'd like you to move forward and connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the quote box at top right.

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out an RFP.

3 Common Lead Generation Tactics That Never Work

Big Whammy

As a direct marketing pro, I love tests. Settling for a control is just a missed opportunity, and so long as you are making sure the analysis has statistical significance and you are measuring for the right outcomes (hint: not just clicks!), we are golden. Sometimes, literally.

Some tests are better than others, of course, in that they lead to a next stage that is more actionable. But in my time in email, static banners and dynamic ad units, over thousands of campaigns and tens of thousands of individual pieces of creative, there have been a few consistent stone cold losers, so much so that I cannot, in good conscience, even encourage the use of a test cell on them.

So, steer away from…

1) Better Business Bureau style seals of approval.

First off, many consumers do not know what these logos mean, and the logos usually do not minimize well, so it is difficult to get legibility without devoting a significant number of pixels to them.

Secondly, the approval seal tends to fall into the realm of false positive – which is to say, overcoming an objection to buy that might not have even been in the prospect’s mind in the first place. In overcoming the objection, the negative is brought up, and overwhelms the benefit.

Finally, there are the results – consistent losers of up to 20% or more in multiple consumer categories and metrics, at varying levels of importance.

I understand why you might be proud of an endorsement, or work in a consumer category where reassurance seems like it might be a lead generation practice, or competitive separation. But I’ve never seen it work, and I’m not really counting the days until it does.

2) Showing how to pay.

When it comes to e-commerce on lead gen, devoting significant real estate to credit card logos and wallet approaches is a tacit admission that you have two problems. The first is that you need the familiarity of a well-known logo to make your brand look legitimate, and the second is that you are hoping for an immediate, impulse-level purchase to carry the day. Neither is a very powerful statement to make in lead generation, and dulls the impact of your pitch.

Lead generation is rarely also lead fulfillment for paid ventures. Trying to close the deal on first communication is putting the cart before the horse. When it has been tried, it’s usually by brands who are lacking in other things to sell. In my experience, you are better off with selling copy, images, or even just more white space or a smaller piece.

3) Removing the call to action.

Sometimes you get a brand marketing play, or high e-commerce campaign, that wants to protect the brand to the point of not having anything so gauche as a button or click point. After all, everyone knows how to respond, and your audience is advanced enough that you can spend pixels in a better way, right?

Well, no.

It is possible that your distribution is poor enough that performance does not go down too much by removing the lack of a call to action element. (Which would make me wonder, well, why you are working with a network that cannot get you better distribution. Moving on. ) You may also see similar performance from a more subtle element, different language, or even icons instead of copy. This point is not meant to argue for oversized buttons regardless of offer, brand, or prospect demographic.

However, I have never seen performance improve, and do not really expect it to, for pure branding pieces that seem above response. Since it more or less flies into the face of direct marketing experience, dating back to the early days of the industry, either offline or digital. You need to ask, if you want the prospect to do something. The platform does not change that.

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Speaking of asking, mine is that you connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP box at the top right of this page.

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out an RFP.

Hype(r) Targeting Ads

Does Not Seem Very Selly To Me

There's an odd little prank that's been making the rounds of Reddit recently. In it, a marketing pro does a concept exercise to see if he can do a Facebook campaign to an audience of one -- that one being his roommate. Using personal information of issues and interests about his target, the pro makes copy-specific creative and launches. Said roommate notices the ads, posts to his stream about how creeped out he is by this, and pulls out of Facebook before the prank can be revealed.

The short lesson from this is, of course, do not take a marketing pro for a roommate. Or, at least, not this one. The longer lesson is a little more actionable for our purposes.

Some background. I've been at three different high impact adtech companies, and while all of them were smart enough to avoid personally identifiable information (aka, PII, or the thing that ad tech companies never want to have, for reasons that Rhyme With Beagle), that didn't prevent us from making strong claims about how great our data was. And, by the power of inference, how you would have to suffer with less if you used our competitors.

Need to reach someone the instant that they were about to buy from a competitor? Three start ups ago had just the thing, with 100% deliverability and viewability in a proprietary ad format. How about doing the deed in dedicated emails where you were more polite, but had high control on frequency? That was two start ups ago, with high legal compliance and all kinds of auxiliary programs to make sure you were on the side of the angels. Want to not just reach, but deepen the lifetime value through showing additional SKUs that were certain to delight your prospect and make the cart size bigger? That was the last start up, and those recs would follow you around the Web like a bloodhound if the spend was high enough. And so on, and so on. Ad Tech Land is not exactly shy about telling you how truly wonderful their data is, and how the targeting makes a marketer's life far more lucrative and rewarding.

And yet, as you might guess from my current professional standing of not working for any of those guys, many campaigns at all of these stops would underperform, especially when you factored in ROI metrics that take into account higher spends to reach that juicy audience. How do you fix it? There are a lot of ways, from simple analysis of creative to see if the blocking and tackling (calls to action, entry points, etc.) was up to snuff. Testing the offer to see if it was truly right for the brand. Varying by daypart, platform, recency, and so on. Changing bid levels or payment methods. There's a lot of options, but sometimes targeting is not enough. Brand, offer and list trump creative, and always will.

But if you are very far apart from an acceptable ROI threshold on v1, for whatever reason, you'll never get the chance to iterate your way to tolerable. No client wants to hear that the things that can't easily be fixed -- their brand and, likely offer -- are at fault more than the targeting. And before you fold your tent and just blame the list anyway, some clients will try to complete the Hail Mary pass by making the art "stronger" with downright creepy and over-the-top targeting copy or imagery.

So, for the benefit of those about to waste good time after bad... your potential future customers do not now, and have not ever, cared about your efforts to put together a great list. Telling them about such things is pointless at best, and when you combine that sort of thing with cyber-creepy copy ("Still interested?" "We miss you!" "You forgot this!"), it not only irritates the prospect, it can also harm the brand. Oh, and it doesn't generally work in control cells against other executions, and if you do this kind of thing often enough, you can easily train a client base to wait until after a cart abandon to get a margin-crushing price. It's not easy to make retargeting a bad idea, but it can be done.

I've had any number of clients that felt compelled to tell the prospects of how special the targeting was to reach them, or how long it's been since they were on site, or why they are getting this offer now. Sometimes, they even go through with it despite my strong recommendation not to, and at that point, we're in the realm of my special Law of Dumb Clients. Which is: "If a client is going to do a dumb thing, and you've told them why it's a dumb thing, and they insist on doing it anyway... do the dumb thing *quickly*, while getting their payment ASAP, because they will be out of business soon enough from doing dumb things."

Anyway, back to the creepy text and selects. Beyond the ethics and lack of efficiency, if your list choices are tight enough, you can't scale. (And congrats, by the way, on finding an online advertising method that doesn't scale. That takes talent.) If you tell the prospect what you know about them, you are wasting everyone's time and being off-putting.

Instead, give your super-targeted list a different offer. Make the creative execution more about the SKU in question. Add a one-time coupon code and clock to redemption. Give them a price break at higher spend levels. Link to testimonials, social media plays or other reasons that would get someone over the last mile. And give them the option of a fine sausage dinner, rather than a documentary on how it's made. You'll both eat, and sleep, much better afterwards.

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You have read this far, so feel free to connect with me onLinkedIn. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or you can hit the quote box at the top right of this page.

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out an RFP.

On the awful, awful practice of using data for ad targeting

(sung) I'm Against It...

I read a study recently where, news of news, it was discussed that respondents didn't want to share their data in regards to the ads they see. (Here it is, in case you want to see the shocking news for yourself.)

Good thing you were sitting down for that, right?

Rather than point out all of the things that advertising does for the Internet -- i.e., more or less pay for highly attractive and useful chunks of it -- I thought I'd just add this small fact to the list of things that people don't like.

> Getting ads that are not relevant to their interests

> Getting ads that are targeted from their personal data

> Paying for content or apps

> Having content sites with ad formats that might get noticed / i.e., paid for

> Getting older

> Getting fatter

> Having to prepare food before eating it

> Having to clean up, rather than having someone else do it for them

> Spending money, perhaps on people that prepare or clean up after food preparation

Anyway, you get the point. And while I really don't want to come off as a cranky realist or apologist to overly aggressive forms of advertising, the plain and simple fact is that without a reasonable revenue stream, quality in content has only one direction to go. Take a look at all of the solid blogs in every consumer category that are no longer with us. Or how online newspaper sites are continually pivoting from free to paywall access, and also shedding staff. I get that this is a generation raised on the wisdom of crowds and the opinions of their friends, but that doesn't fund quality journalism, new music, books, etc... at least, any of those that don't exist in protected and proprietary distribution methods.

But to all of those who believe that the laws of marketing physics do not apply because the new tech is just so very very different from the old tech... well, do you enjoy getting untargeted ads?

And maybe a very large number of them, since they don't work as well as as the targeted ones?

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You have read this far, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or you can hit the box at top right for a project. .

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out an RFP.

Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste

Height isn't everything

This isn't going to start as marketing and advertising, but hang with me, we'll get there pretty quick.

Tonight in Cleveland in the NBA Finals, Golden State coach Steve Kerr tried something he hadn't done all year, in nearly 100 games. He benched his starting center (Andrew Bogut), moving his power forward (Draymond Green) over to the center position. With the empty slot, he brought Andre Iguodala, a versatile guard/forward, off the bench to start.This made his team very "small", and put them at a considerable risk for not getting enough rebounds of missed shots. It also meant that more players on the floor were offensive threats, as Iguodala is better than Bogut in that respect.

You probably couldn't get away with this kind of move all season long, because your shorter players would get worn down and injured from having to go against bigger players every game. Kerr did the move because his team was down 2-1 in a best of seven series, and from an odds realism standpoint, in serious jeopardy of losing the championship to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers if they didn't win this game. They had trailed for most of the previous three games of the series, and had lost home-court advantage. And in the first few minutes of the game, as Cleveland used its taller players to control rebounds and race their way to a seemingly instant 7-0 lead, it looked like a disastrous gamble.

Kerr called a timeout. Golden State started playing better, with Iguodala in particular having his best game of the year. The smaller players increased the tempo, and got to more loose balls to mitigate the rebounding problem. Cleveland's tallest player, Timofey Mozgov, had his best game of the series, but the Warriors took the early lead and never let it go. The series is now tied, and Cleveland coach David Blatt is under pressure to somehow adapt to the Warriors' short lineup. (By the way, to real NBA fans, this is an overly simplistic narrative. Please forgive me; as noted before, we're going to a larger point about marketing and advertising.)

Kerr probably didn't want to do this. Bogut has been a great player for him, and Iguodala has been terrific at leading the Warriors bench players in limited minutes. But he felt that, due to the 2-1 disadvantage and how the play had gone for the first few games, that he had no better option. What he was doing wasn't working, and to just keep losing the same way was not an option. He had statistical evidence that his team did well when they went small, and knew that increasing the tempo with faster players would help his team, but he doesn't make this move from a position of strength.

Now, back to the marketing and advertising.

I've worked on campaigns for thousands of clients over the course of my career. Frequently, I've been brought in to "put out fires", as performance has not met expectations, and we needed to increase the actionable rates to retain the business.

You might think this is, well, a bad way to work. Deadlines are short, tempers are frayed, pressure is high, and everyone knows the cost of failure if you can't hit the numbers. Sometimes the client is downright angry on calls when things have gotten to this point, and challenge your expectations or ability to serve. People can also get very defensive about what is working, what isn't, and who needs to step up their game to save the relationship.

Here's something you might not expect: this is frequently the most efficient creative cycle for new projects, and it's been the source of some of my favorite moments in business.

When a campaign is at risk, what you have is a pain point. Something needs to change, and change immediately. So much of the blocking agents for offers, creative practices, copy and more are dramatically scaled back. You also can usually work faster, with fewer revision cycles. Treat the project carefully, with professionalism and proactivity, and you can create your most attached long-term client.

The phenomenon is not limited to sports or creative, of course. In politics, campaigns that lose primaries might switch messaging and try to change the narrative. Financial analysts will change their recommendations or investment mixes. Musicians might try new formats, writers new categories, and so on, and so on. Success, seen in this light, can be something of a trap, and curtail learning and innovation.

So the next time you encounter a crisis, consider it for what it is -- a limited-time opportunity, with a fantastic payout if you turn the situation around. And even if you can't, your chance for learning is higher here than anything else in your workday.

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You have read this far, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or you can hit the RFP box at the top right of this page.

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out a free quote..

SEO Is Dead! Or, Well, Not.

Ready for a new round of why an online marketing discipline is pushing up the daisies? Sure you are. Soundtrack, please!

So in my professional feed recently, there's been much back and forth about how the job skills based in SEO work are now being transitioned to social media, because that's how Those Wacky Kids find stuff, and we're all about the leads, and those are coming from social now. (Also, How SEO Is Dead, Dead, Dead, because no form of Internet advertising is allowed to just be; it's either on the rise or at death's door.)

But on some level, this speaks to a generational shift that's more than platforms or sites, and will require more nuanced thought. Which leads me to the following bit of theorizing.

The first way to find anything on the Web was to either go to portal pages and be passive, or to take the wheel with search engines and drive as an active user. Users who grew up with closed system software, no "wisdom of crowds", and the relatively sudden wonder of a world-changing utility were used to finding their own information. It may have been time-consuming, or frustrating, but on some level, they took pride in the accomplishment, and were indoctrinated to that way of working.

The active users today are using esoteric search engines, maybe even checking the dark Web, and going far beyond ordinary sites. They are also more at risk for viruses and malfeasance, because black hat coding is a world-wide crime of opportunity. In addition to that chilling, the passive users are outnumbering them, because mobile traffic is outpacing desktop / laptop. So instead of being directed by the portal page, passive traffic comes from content aggregators and social media tastemakers or algorithms. Passive is more prevalent, and for an entire generation used to small screen hardware, "active" surfing is a rare event.

What I suspect will happen from all of this is a separation of traffic worth and levels. In many consumer categories, it's defensible to de-select mobile traffic, the same as you might countries where your product is not supported. It's defensible today, and demographically, it may be defensible for a very long time. Which doesn't really speak to the SEO Death Knells, especially when you take into consideration the following.

Just because search hasn't changed very much in the past 10 to 15 years does not mean that's going to continue. Wearable technology, the Internet of Things, increasingly accurate voice recognition, all have significant power to make SEO grow again. So does data analysis that shows commerce is platform driven, or the profound spend level difference between demographic classes, especially with the rough employment conditions facing Millennials. This can and might all change again, in ways that are very hard to predict.

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You have read this far, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or you can visit my agency's site.

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we'll work out an RFP.

The Best Creative Advice

Add One Stone

This will take a little while to explain, but I promise that the payoff is worth it.

A few cycles ago, I was very concerned about the US presidential election. So my wife and I donated a vacation level of payment to the campaign of our choosing. I am also the kind of person that does not believe in half measures, so I backed up the donation by also putting my feet on the line. On weekends, I would drive about four hours to a neighboring state (yes, a “swing” state) so that I could knock on doors and help get out the vote. There was one experience in particular, from this, that has always stuck with me, and made my work as a marketing and advertising pro much, much better.

The state in question allowed for early voting, and voting by mail. So the goal of the campaign was to “bank” as many votes as possible, by getting as many of “our” voters locked down. Then, the campaign could reach out to voters who were less likely to get to the polls, or who had no party affiliation.

The longer you do this kind of work, the more you are around people who are committed to your candidate’s victory… and the less likely you are to think charitably of undecided voters, especially those who are in your own affiliation. On some level, they are worse than people in the other camp, since they are taking up more of your time and energy. As Election Day gets closer, it seems more and more irresponsible to be undecided. It is very easy to go down the mental path, especially at the end of a long day pounding the pavement, to ask who are these people, really. Maybe, even more darkly, why their vote should count as much as others, since they are clearly not willing to be full citizens.

This was all running in the back of my mind one hot Saturday as I was canvassing an undecided woman, who our records had as in her mid-60s. As she came to the door, I noticed an elderly woman in the background, and quickly checked my notes to see if there were other voters in the house that I should also try to contact… and yeah, there was. Her mother, in her late 90s. But a quick read of my voter, and the waves of fatigue that were just apparent in her body language, stopped me short. So I told her who I was, why I was on her doorstep, and then just listened.

She told me, in a polite but matter of fact manner, that she was undecided because she never decided before watching the presidential debates, and that this had been her method for decades. She also told me that her mother was unable to leave the home anymore, so she worked three jobs to support them both. My time was probably not going to be well spent talking to her mother about voting, but I was welcome to, if I liked. I told her about voting by mail, which was welcome news, as it let her vote without finding someone to cover the house on that day. I gave her the paperwork and went on my way.

Now, does every undecided voter have such an incredible humanity and reason to be that way? Of course not. But was it fair of me to put all undecided voters into my previous unkind stereotype? No. More importantly, that negative attitude could easily keep me from presenting the best face for the cause I was representing.

Now, as to how this relates to copywriting, marketing and advertising.

There is a tendency, especially when you are working in a downmarket product or service, to think unkindly of your prospects and buyers. They only buy on price, or worse yet, because of trends or fads and so on. We need to distract them with packaging, or branding, or an offer that is not really an offer. They live where we do not, care about different things, dress and eat and listen and watch to social and cultural mores that are not our own. We do our jobs mechanically, or in execution steps to statistical projections, and do not put ourselves in the shoes of the buyers.

It is, simply, the wrong way to work. It will keep you from finding the heart in your offer, keep you from acting in the best interest of the brand, and leave you feeling drained at the end of the day, or just happy to punch the clock.

Instead, have a moment of charity. Tell a different story about your prospect. Imagine them to be, as in the case of my caretaking voter, a person with a kindness of spirit, and challenges, that are far greater than your own. Consider what small moments of happiness, or relief, or comfort, could be achieved by the purchase of your products or service.

I promise you, at the end of the process, you will do better work. You will also, most likely, feel better about what you are doing for a living.

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You have read this far, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com.

Five Points Of Wisdom From Turning Something-Something

Oh, Google, You Always Get Pixels

Today's my birthday (Thanks, Mom! You really did so much more on this day than I did!), which means I'm going to get some fun stuff and be in a kind and giving mood. I'll also reflect on What It All Means, and note that when you celebrate enough orbits around the sun and start to find yourself in a different demographic than your start-up colleagues, there are things you'd like to say to people... even if they don't work in your department. (You also get old enough to be a little brave about stuff like that.) So before you all tuck into my Google cake, the following gift requests from outside my realm.

5) HR Departments: Hire the Right Handed Purple Unicorns.

When you are short-staffed, there's a temptation to try to find new hires who can fill several small holes, or have someone fill roles that seem mutually exclusive. So the traffic manager who dabbles in design does that on the side, or the designer who writes good emails picks up some copy writing, or the receptionist does QA, and so on, and so on. So long as its junior level roles, or for low-leverage assignments, this is fine, and a good way to build redundancy, especially when you need to cover during illness or vacation.

Where it gets into dysfunction is when you try to hire for it at senior levels. And while it's understandable, especially in an age where benefits and salaries are blocking agents, and every dollar has to stretch... but, well, there just aren't so many people that get to expert level and beyond at multiple disciplines. So if you hold out for the perfect hire that isn't just ideal for your company and perfectly suited for a role -- i.e., a right-handed purple unicorn -- but also someone that can fill another box with a side skill?

That's, well, crazy. Not sustainable in the long run. Destined to keep your roles unfilled for some substantial amount of time, with missed opportunity costs that can be fatal for a start up. Oh, and with major issues if and when that *left* handed purple unicorn moves on. (And you'd be amazed just how often this mistake is made.) So just split out roles, take your right handed purple unicorn, and be happy!

4) Accounting: Stop Dragging Your Feet To Vendors

When you bill clients, how much do you enjoy having them push terms to the point where you have to spend most of your time chasing them down? Not at all, hopefully. So... if you aren't willing to pay your own accounts payable on time or better, you are, in fact, contributing to the same problem. Especially if you are dealing with small and/or dependent vendors, making their fiscal planning harder is just wrong, and hurts your ability to get exceptional service. Don't do it.

3) Sales: Tell Marketing... Something New

Every marketing pro worth their salt should be happy to hear from the people that actually talk to the leads the most... but all too often, those channels are siloed or closed. Having been on the marketing side of things, I can tell you why some in my world tune those folks out, and it's for one simple reason -- it's incredibly frustrating to only ever hear things that are outside of our ability to change.

So, by all means, keep us in the loop... but also keep your ears open for changes from the prospects, new areas of concern, and so on. We'll all be happier.

2) The Board of Directors: Resist Seagull Urges

You've probably heard the long-standing comparison of poor managers to seagulls, but all too often in start-ups, boards serve that exact purpose, especially with overly strong reactions to market trends. A responsive company is fine, but if last month's goals and means to get there rarely match next month's, you are just asking for turnover. An overly assertive board can get you there in a quickness.

1) IT: Please Don't Take IT Personally

I know that it seems like way too many of your co-workers are just here to create tickets and busy work for you on things they really should just learn how to do themselves... and if you had a dime for every problem that could be solved by reboot or not opening virus spams, you wouldn't have to come to work ever again... But honestly, if everyone at the start-up was always competent in their computing habits, you'd have a lot less in the way of life-saving thanks from your co-workers. Or, possibly, job security.

I can also tell you that some of the best people practice horrible computer etiquette. Also, that there is no corollary towards, say, prompt and diligent adherence to security upgrades and the ability to close a big deal, retain a critical account, and so on, and so on.

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It's my birthday! And you've read this far, so feel free to give me the present of a fresh connection on LinkedIn, or a share, comment, or like. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or RFPs at the top right of this page. Those are gifts for both of us, really...

Five Signs Of Fatal Start-Up Engineering

Engineering Fail

The numbers are not with start-ups. Depending on which statistics you believe, 90% of all new products fail, and even a veteran entrepreneur who has experienced IPO success, and has venture capital backing, will only succeed 30% of the time. Many factors have to be in place to make it in the long haul, and in my experience, your most likely failure will come from engineering.

To be fair, Engineering has the hardest job by far. Usually, marketing and sales only needs to be comparable to competitors, while engineering has to be better... and this all assumes that the value proposition of the business is valid in the first place. But if you find yourself in a business where the following points are happening all the time, run, do not walk, to your next opportunity

1) Road maps to nowhere.

If your scrum session never seems to address aspects of the business, or stays fixated on certain points while keeping other fields fallow, this is a major red flag. In most fields, standing still is falling behind, and if every aspect of the business isn't making some progress, you are likely to spend much of your time putting out different fires, rather than achieving a superior position.

2) 100% drama for release.

I have been at start ups where new releases happened during business hours, with no one on staff expected to trouble-shoot into the small hours of the morning, or with an unforeseen emergency kicking in over the weekend. At other stops in my career, every release caused held breath, thank you emails for heroic hours, and some team members fixing a major break point at an inhuman hour.

It is great when you have a team that's willing to go the extra mile, and if you have the camaraderie to kick through major challenges, there's nothing better. But if you are running into this every time out, it's a sign that your team either can't say no to overly ambitious plans, or just don't have the horsepower to deliver what's been promised. Neither situation will endear you to investors, clients or prospects. And in the long run, this will be fatal, because it will shake core confidence in the business.

3) Serving internal over external clients.

Helping internal teams work smarter, not harder, is a fine and noble goal... but at some point, it needs to be balanced against what might be required to support emerging business lines. Especially if you aren't suffering from intense employee turnover, or can't show that the internal comfort will result in increased business, making the staff happier than the people who pay the bills is a fundamental mistake.

4) Communication issues.

Not to be impolitic about this, but Engineering frequently brings in talent that is international in scope, and who may have issues in communicating with other aspects of the business. If your team is keeping to themselves to an extent that's nearly total, it leads to an easy "us vs. them" situation that's far from healthy. You are also at risk when communication is highly regimented or restricted from similar factors. This is also an easy factor in high turnover.

5) One way or no way.

Creativity in finding solutions is critical in getting a start-up to fruition, and so is timing. Your internal team may not be the best choice for getting to go live on individual projects, especially if the project involves competencies that are outside of their comfort zone. When an internal team isn't willing to concede projects to outside experts, or able to staff up to cover the shortfall, you've got a team that is putting their comfort in front of what's right for the business. You wouldn't put up with this from any other department, and you shouldn't do it with engineering, either.

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You've read this far, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I also welcome email to davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or you can hit the RFP box on the top right of the page.