Michael Bay at CES - Epic Marketing Fail?

As most of the internet has now seen, Michael Bay had some issues presenting the new line of Samsung Curve TV's at CES. Apparently he had some issues with the teleprompter, got rattled, and had to leave the stage.

In this day in age when there is so much information, media and ads, I wondered to myself whether or not this was truly a fail for the Marketing people at Samsung. The amount of coverage this video is getting, will undoubtedly reach more people than it would have otherwise. Is all publicity good publicity?

Anyone who gets nervous public speaking has got to feel for this guy though, but little does he know he may have just got Samsung way more exposure than if he had of gone up there and done a flawless speech.

What do you guys think? Is this is a fail, or ultimately a win for Samsung?

Epic Social Media Fail

Have been pretty busy these days which has made the fails slow down a little bit, but here is a quick one that happened recently on Twitter. Apparently the agency who was running the account and the individual were fired, but unfortunately the damage has been done.

5 Things Marketers Can Learn from Glengarry Glen Ross

I was in a sales training meeting the other day, and Sales were all joking about the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. Anyone not familiar with the movie, here is the trailer:

I sat down to watch it the other night. Basically, it's about 4 real estate salesmen who have been having a tough time selling and are forced to enter a sales contest. Alec Baldwin's character puts it best:

"Cause we're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize's a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture?"

Anyways, it's kind of a dark comedy, but there are some amazing lines from the movie, some laughs and lots of profanity. At the end of the day, its a movie about selling. Whether you're selling real-estate or software, anyone is Sales or Marketing could relate to a lot of the stuff they talk about. Hopefully the tactics you use to sell are less sleazy than the ones employed in this movie, but you get the picture.

In between all the f-bombs (128 of them), are some pretty good lessons for Marketing, so here it is:

5 THINGS MARKETERS CAN LEARN FROM GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

1. It's all about the leads
   Throughout the movie, Sales complains that they cannot meet their targets because they are either not getting enough leads, the leads are not good quality, or the leads are old. What really struck me is how much they talked about leads. There must be 100+ mentions of the word 'leads' in the movie. As Marketers, we should always be thinking that the leads we give Sales are their gold. It's is their fuel. We need to give them the best possible leads so they can do their job effectively.
2. Not all leads are considered equal
   'Glengarry' is a new real estate project for the firm Sales works for, and they are considered the hot leads. Sales thinks that if they can get some of the Glengarry leads, they will be able to close more deals and meet their targets. At one point, one of the salesmen, Shelley, talks about actually paying to get some of the Glengarry leads. As a Marketer, this is the ideal perception we want Sales to have about the leads we hand-over to them. The reality is, most Sales organizations get the leads way too early, and prospects are not yet ready to be speaking with Sales. At this point, all you're doing is wasting everyone's time. Implementing a lead scoring system by Marketing Automation companies like Marketo can drastically help with this problem. They can help identify the ideal time a lead gets passed over to Sales, and create a 'Glengarry' like perception to your leads.
3. Don't be like Kevin Spacey
   Kevin Spacey is one of my favorite actors, but in this movie he plays, John Williamson, the office manager who controls all of the leads. In the movie, Sales is starving for leads, and he bogarts them until the Sales proves that they can close the leads he's given them. Although I believe that Marketing should hold leads longer than what has historically been the norm, it is also important to keep your sales organization busy by providing them with enough leads to keep them busy. Furthermore, the sales team does not respect him. This is also something that is critically important for a good relationship between Sales and Marketing. There needs to be mutual respect and trust. Once this has been established, they can co-exist effectively. If you have a scenario like in Glengarry Glen Ross, it is almost impossible to make it work.
4. Don't bother following up with 'the Patels'
   There are certain leads, that before you ever follow-up with them, you just know that they are not going to be a match for your product or service. There is no point of even sending these kind of leads to the sales team. This is where Marketing needs to work with Sales to determine the criteria for a 'lead' and also talk about leads that fit the 'wild goose chase' criteria. Then, this can be automated by using a Marketing Automation solution.
5. ABC for Sales. ABP for Marketing.
   In the famous scene with Alec Baldwin, he talks about the ABC of sales. Always Be Closing. When you think about it, this is what all Sales is trying to do. As Marketers, we should strive to ABP. Always Build Pipeline. Leads build pipeline, and pipeline builds sales and revenue. At the end of the day, that is what we are all around to do.

Epic Website Fail

For this post, let's look at an epic website marketing fail:

Flash website fail.

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

Open this website, and then come back and read the rest of this blog post. The website took a 63 seconds to load on my machine and my internet is usually pretty fast. On the web, where even patient people have A.D.D., that is about 60 seconds too long. The bounce rates on this website must be really high (close to 100%). In that minute, most people are probably thinking 'I haven't waited this long for a website to load since the days of dial-up internet. This site must be really good'. But, if its on this blog...


It could use some work. The load time is the first issue. Here are some others:

• After the load screen, you are presented with a bunch of numbers and its difficult to know what to do
• Then the music starts...
• The homepage contains a lengthy history lesson
• About us is a picture of a tradeshow booth with a bunch of servers/technology
• There is a section about horses and Equestrian (it's an IT security company)
• Products page is a very difficult to read networking diagram
• On the contact us section you cannot click on or copy the email address
• There is a timestamp to show when they updated the site. Some pages date back to 2009

THE UN-FAILURE

Here are the top 5 tips to ensure your website does not end up on Epic Marketing Fails:

1. Don't make a flash website

Flash sites can look great. I've seen some beautifully designed flash websites. The problem with them is usability. If your site doesn't load in under 5 seconds, you are losing visitors. If you are losing visitors, you are losing customers and money. Not to mention all of the iPhone and iPad visitors that are now gone.

2. Design your site for your visitors, not you

There is a fantastic story behind every business, but people are not coming to your website for that - they could care less. They are coming to your website to figure out how they can solve their problems, and are trying to decide if you are the right person to help them do that. Your homepage should clearly tell them what problems you solve, and point them to other pages that help them make their decision.

3. Keep it updated

People want to know that they are looking at recent information. Having at least one section of your website (a Twitter feed is a good one) that is constantly updated at least gives the sense that you care about your website and the people coming to it. If you are not updating your site on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, remove any timestamps that show when it was last updated.

4. Make it easy for people to get in contact with you
Your website should make it easy for people to engage with you. Don't make them search your contact information that is buried on one page. If possible, have chat functionality where people can reach a live person at any time. If you have a CRM system, use a form so you can track exactly where your leads are coming from. If you can't support chat or a form, at the very least make your email address hyperlinked so it automatically opens someone's email application.

5. Create a lead generation engine

Websites are no longer one way vehicles to get your information across. With CRM systems like Salesforce and marketing automation like Marketo, you can transform your site to start generating leads for your business. Offer your prospects something interesting of value, and in turn get their contact information to start a relationship with them. Giving people information is great, but getting theirs in return is even better. That way you can help them along their buying cycle and accelerate their purchase. Not to mention making your business look good and establishing your company as a thought leader in your field.

Why this blog is not a fail.

I have been thinking about doing a blog for a while now, but since there are millions of blogs out there now about marketing, I thought I would take a slightly different approach.

I would like this to be an educational blog, with a twist. That twist will be that I will post epic marketing fails, outline why they are fails, and what they could have done different to turn those fails into wins.

What I have noticed is that there are several consistencies with fail blogs/videos/pictures:

• Bicycles
• Alcohol
• Rope swings
• Skateboards
• Car accidents
• News reporters
• People falling down

While these things are all entertaining to watch, you rarely walk away learning something that could actually help your life/career/business... okay maybe I did learn you shouldn't try to karate chop coconuts on a hard metal railing:

My hope is that by breaking down where some of our fellow marketers have gone wrong, that we can all have a laugh and maybe even learn something from it.

Let's see how this goes. I have a couple of ideas for my first post, but I will have to think about what I want to start with.