THINKing

Dropping Breadcrumbs

How are you helping your visitors find their way around your website? Do you have a good grasp of what visitors are looking for when they visit you? Do you provide them with visual references so they’ll know where they are in your site at all times? Are you leaving them some breadcrumbs to follow? This is something we struggle with when we are designing sites.

I just got a note from Michael Douma, CEO of IDEA about a study they completed on factors that improve online experiences. One of the most fascinating findings from the executive summary was this,

Designers are overly optimistic about visitors’ ability to maintain orientation. In the survey, the ability to maintain orientation was defined as visitors’ ability to know “where they are, where they can go next, and which pages are related.” About 70% of designers believe that visitors are almost always able to maintain orientation. That drops to about 30% when non-profit organizations express their view. In contrast, only about 10% of visitors report being able to almost always maintain their orientation. Fewer than 5% report that they tend to get lost frequently. Said another way, your visitors don’t know your site as well as you do, so make sure it is obvious how to find information through meaningful menus, prompts, and not too much clutter.

There is some solid information in the report (pdf) for those involved in web design and development.

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Last Gasp

A couple of recent news stories have me thinking about the death of certain types of companies. First we had the story about PRNewswire vs. HARO. Briefly, HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a new model using the power of social networks to pair sources with journalists at no cost to sources. Here’s the rub: PRNewswire has a service called ProfNet that does the same thing but sources have to pay for it. There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about this. PRNewswire is miffed about having competition and is making petty, inaccurate charges against HARO.

Then, we had this story about newspapers: Newspapers vs. Themselves. Print journalism is on the way out. Subscriber numbers are in freefall, longtime readers are literally dying and new ones are not replacing them. Newspapers are making some strides online but it’s too little, too late for most.

Just like carbon-based units, a company must evolve or die. And that is the upshot of my cautionary tale. PRNewswire and newspapers are cut from the same cloth. They are old school entities which are big on control and low on customer service. Cover them up and let’s call the time of death.

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How Is Your Personal Brand Batting Average?

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile
Personal brands have been on my mind a lot recently, as you can tell by my posting last week. A couple of episodes of late have me thinking about how people evaluate your brand and how many strikes you are allowed before they chalk up an out in your personal box score.

Let’s say there is a product manager with great overall skills, who is detail-oriented and very good at juggling several projects at a time as long as he has plenty of time. This manager gets squeezed with some tight deadlines and freezes up. The projects are completed but not all of them are on time. The average human evaluating the manager’s performance thinks that this was an anomaly. Strike one.

Then, it happens again. Ohhh, strike two. But you are still ready to give that good manager the benefit of the doubt.

Here comes the pitch. Strike three! He’s out and has now become known as that guy who freezes under pressure.

That is why you must be vigilant about your brand. You can’t neglect it.

In a case like this one: know your manager’s expectations. Examine your performance based on those expectations. Determine why these things happen. Seek training or communicate to your supervisor to manage expectations before you get to strike three.

In so many cases it is about managing expectations, providing thoughtful solutions before you miss the deadline, and keeping everyone briefed.

How is your personal brand batting average?

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Links 7/30/2008

Google News Separates Blogs From News Links

Five Free Must Have SEO Tools (hint: be sure to get SEOQuake)

FaceBook vs. Hasbro

PRNewswire vs. HARO

Newspapers vs. Themselves

Brands Joining Twitter

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Links 7/29/2008

Why Is Stuart Elliott Shilling On Facebook?

Hundreds Of Bloggers To Interact With On Digg, StumbleUpon

48 Cool Social Media Sites

Social Media Ad Spending Hasn’t Caught Up With Hype

Cuil Stumbles Out Of The Gate

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Links - 7/25/2008

A few things I’m reading:
Top 142 Social Marketing Blogs

Media Political Donations Favor Democrats 100 - 1 

How To Use Twitter For Marketing

25 Visionaries Who Created Empires From Virtually Nothing

Press Releases We Wished We Had Gotten

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What Are They Saying About Your Brand?

I’m working on a presentation about personal branding for delivery at My Creative Team University. As I was doing the research, it became clear that in today’s working world you must take control of your own brand. If you don’t position yourself, someone else will position you. That’s not always a good thing.

Whether you are a freelancer, a small business owner, or an employee, you have a brand. Do you know what people think about your brand?

Sometime back I asked 10 colleagues what their impression of my brand is because you need to know where you are before you can make any adjustments. Same as in any kind of brand work. I’d encourage you to do the same.

I learned that people think I’m assertive, intimidating and very “alpha.” Perhaps I need to tone that down a bit. They say I have a strategic understanding but am very tactically oriented. Might need to work on the strategy piece. I’m conservative, principled and honest, they say. Not changing that.

Below are anonymous and unedited comments about the brand called Harry Hoover, in case you are interested:

- “Three T’s”– Trustworthy, truthful, timely. Does what he says he’ll do, when he says he’ll do it, and does it well.

- Down to earth, logical thinker. Strategic understanding, but more tactically oriented.

- Sense of humor, easy to work with. Always have new ideas.

- Authoritative, in charge, commanding, capable, competent, confident, professional, not just doing things right, but doing the right things, a leader and a strong communicator. On the lesser side, perhaps intimidating or very alpha male!

- “Out of the box”, balanced, solid, integrity

- I think of Harry Hoover as extremely savvy and good-hearted. He understands the power of the Internet and knows how to effectively represent his clients in dealings with the media. I also admire him greatly for making a successful transition from journalist/broadcaster to small business entrepreneur, which is no small feat.

- Confident, consistent, information resource, reliable, strategic, assertive, easy to work with, focused and professional.

- You and your brand are:

• chock full of fabulous and never-ending ideas
• early adopter technologically “ almost too far ahead of the curve so must teach/explain/pull others along
• extremely well-versed in all the advertising/pr/media-related disciplines. You know how to put all the pieces together and provide a comprehensive, strategic plan and all the necessary tactical pieces as well. You can strategize, plan and execute, from start to finish.
• you are inventive, creative, persistent, patient
• you communicate clearly and express yourself well both in writing and verbally
• you have a passion for technology, deep technical knowledge and are an aggressive self-teacher. You know how to use technology to drive business processes.
• you are a leader
• you are also a teacher
• you have morality and ethics (personally and professionally) - a rare commodity lately, it would seem
• you are flexible - if it doesn’t work this way, then we can do it that way
• you deliver what you promise, when you promised it. And if you can’t, you communicate why and when.

- To me, the HH brand is 1) Conservative, 2) Sage, 3) Clever and 4) Honest.

- The Harry Hoover brand revolves around integrity, honesty, open communication, thoughtful strategy and flexibility.

- I think that the Hoover brand consists of:

- optimistic focus on the task at hand

- openness to others’ ideas to improve the ultimate product

- loyal and fair, yet bound to a set of principles (albeit sometimes Republican-influenced)

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New Business Redux

Are you out looking for new business? Who isn’t? I wrote a series a few months back on the topic. You may want to check it out.

New Business Primer - Part 1 - A Primer

New Business Primer - Part 2 - Positioning

New Business Primer - Part 3 - Do Great Work For Current Clients

New Business Primer - Part 4 - Tactics

New Business Primer - Part 5 - Focus

New Business Primer - Part 6 - More Focus

New Business Primer - Part 7 - Speak Up

New Business Primer - Part 8 - Network It

New Business Primer - Part 9 - Build Your Brand

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And Now For The Really Bad News…

Newspapers, those media dinosaurs riding off into the evolutionary sunset, received a bit of good news yesterday. Or did they?

Media Daily News reports,

For all the gloom in the newspaper industry, total readership–including Web site visitors–is increasing, according to Mediamark Research and Intelligence, which found a 2.1% increase in audience size to 80.6 million between spring 2007 and spring 2008.

And now for the bad news. You’ll notice that this increase included web visitors. It also included pass-along readership. In other words, more non-paying customers. The truth is that newspaper circulation is in freefall. Older readers are abandoning print and young consumers aren’t picking up the slack.

Now, for the really bad news: newspapers have cut more than 3,500 jobs in the last two months. So, PR people take heed. There are going to be a lot of former journalists looking for jobs like yours.

More newspaper news:

Can Local Web Ads Save Newspapers?

US Newspapers Cut Foreign News

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It’s Always The Perfect Day To Send Email

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile
Email, now a teenager in media terms, is so misunderstood. Marketers are always asking questions about it, such as, when is the best day to send an email. The answer: every day is perfect. WTF?

Harry - you’re probably asking right now - are you giving a politician’s weasel-worded answer?

No. Let’s clarify as David Baker did in a recent Email Insider. Says Baker,

The point of this column is not to tell you when to send email. It’s to point you in the right direction toward applying a more accurate view of measurement, what influences can impact this behavior and the results of your email program.

Baker says that marketers are asking the wrong question. It’s not what is the best day, it is what is the best day to get the results you are seeking. Do you want a higher open rate, a higher per customer expenditure, or a higher conversion rate? Once you have your parameters defined, then you can figure out which day is best to accomplish your goal.

Here are some additional email tips from Larry Chase.

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