A New Marketing Commentator

If you’re looking for a reason to blog, you need look no further than the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to Florida, where Katrina’s fierce winds and brutal, punishing rain resulted in what could be America’s deadliest natural disaster since the 1906 San Francisco fire and earthquake.

As I wrote here back in December, 2004, “a blog makes it possible for the everyday communications professional to distribute newsworthy, thematic content to a large, like-minded audience – without many, if any, layers of approval – almost instantaneously. If timeliness is a critical element of your publishing plan, it’s an irresistible platform.”

Today, there’s no valid reason for any organization involved in the business of providing disaster relief not to have a blog in its communications toolbox.

A blog can be set up immediately and inexpensively.

And by granting the opportunity to respond to any and all posts, a blogger is able to open a dialogue, receive constructive feedback and build an honest, mutually-beneficial relationship with his or her constituency.

A blog is a centralized repository for experience and expertise, an incredibly easy way to disseminate key, timely news and information to an audience of readers who are already interested in what you have to offer or – in the case of fundraising – ask of them.

A blog is infectious, too. Like a good viral marketing campaign, the content of the best blogs is passed from reader to reader, extending the author’s reach – and influence – exponentially.

A perfect example of how a blog can be used as an emergency response to a natural disaster is The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami (or SEA-EAT) blog, which features a post today on blogging for disaster relief (today has been proclaimed International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day) and – in a touch of bittersweet irony – Hurricane Katrina.

Other random online initiatives, resources and noteworthy responses on behalf of all the helpless, innocent victims on the Gulf Coast:

*An “Emergency Update” on Hurricane Katrina from Covenant House at 4 PM on Monday, the day of the storm, was the first appeal for financial assistance I took delivery of by email.

*The second request I received for an online donation was on Tuesday at 6:16 PM. It was from the American Red Cross, and the subject line read, “Situation Critical: Emergency Mobilization Underway.”

*Just before midnight on Tuesday arrived another Hurricane Katrina-related email, this one from Governor Howard Dean of The Democratic Party, asking me to help the disaster relief effort by donating to – again – the American Red Cross.

*On August 29, the folks at NPAdvisors.com announced that they have launched a blog, saying: “We decided that now is the time to start posting our thoughts about disaster fundraising so that all nonprofits can participate in the discussion.” Their blog can be found here.

*The September 1 edition of Denny Hatch’s Business Common Sense featured an interesting column on “Dealing with Katrina and 9/11.”

*Charity Folks, a leading online auction venue that provides technology-based solutions to nonprofit organizations, just opened bidding in an auction to benefit the victims of Katrina as well as thousands of other disasters that the American Red Cross responds to each year.

*Paul Chaney, President of the Radiant Marketing Group and a Mississippi resident, has been blogging all week about this catastrophic event.

*Nonprofit technology consultant Deborah Elizabeth Finn reports that her friend, Andy Carvin, of the Digital Divide Network, has created a Katrina Aftermath web site.

*Grassroots.org has declared that all online donations it receives during the month of September will go towards relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

*According to today’s edition of DIRECT Newsline, The Marketing Research Association (MRA) has launched a Researcher-to-Researcher Relief Assistance Blog “to aid any marketing and research professionals that have been affected by Hurricane Katrina.”

*And, finally, via B.L. Ochman’s What’s Next Blog, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary “has set up online information and resources about animal rescue groups efforts in the aftermath of Katrina.”

Bob Cargill Blogging, Cause-Related Marketing, Fundraising

Why simply dip a toe in the water when you can make a big splash? I’m guessing that’s what the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) had in mind when it recently begun publishing not just one, but seven different blogs. In a press release on August 1, the association said it is “experimenting with blogs as a way of keeping members better informed about stories, events and trends in the charitable sector.”

The AFP blogs (on such topics as youth and philanthropy, the Southeast Asia tsunami relief efforts, National Philanthropy Day and the 2005 International Conference on Fundraising) can be found here.

Bob Cargill Blogging, Fundraising

While we can safely say that business blogs have not only arrived, they’re here to stay, that doesn’t mean there are still not a number of good reasons why someone might not want – or be able – to establish a presence in the blogosphere.

Indeed, even if you’re comfortable expressing yourself so openly to so many – think transparency (which, by the way, should be listed among every organization’s set of values, right up there with integrity, accountability, etc.) – there are still a few impediments to overcome (what I would call The Immutable Three T’s) if you want to be a bona fide blogger…

The Immutable Three T’s of Blogging

1) Time – Most blogs take at least a few hours a week to write and maintain, the best among them much longer.

2) Talent – As a blogger, you’re not writing the great American novel, but you are putting words to computer screen over the course of a long, indefinite period of time. To build and hold an audience, you need to have the gift of gab and be part essayist, journalist, critic and commentator.

3) Topic – To write a successful blog, you need to be as prolific as you are informed, repeatedly producing fresh, new content that your readers will find interesting and worthwhile.

There’s another barrier to blogging, however, one that’s more a matter of perception than reality, but that’s just the same causing many prospective bloggers to give pause before writing even a single post.

Blog is not a pretty word.

Yes, it may have won top honors as Merriam-Webster’s most looked-up word in 2004, but you don’t have to have a Ph.D. in English to know that blog is an odd-looking word with a pejorative – albeit undeserved – connotation.

Blog sounds like blob, which is defined as “an indistinct, shapeless form,” a “splotch” or a “dribble,” not exactly something you want to come to mind if your language is otherwise the lexicon of business, if your world is one in which customers are targeted and profits tallied.

Blog is short for Web log, and is stereotypically associated with those cathartic, online diaries kept by moody, meandering teenagers (despite the rapid proliferation of business blogs of all kinds, most of which are being written by some of the heaviest hitters in their fields of endeavor).

No, the word, blog, just doesn’t do justice to the power and popularity of this self-publishing platform as it relates to the corporate world.

Blog as a word makes it easier for the naysayers and the highfalutin to dismiss blogging as a fad not to be taken seriously, as a pastime better left at home than practiced at the office.

Ouch….

There is the possibility, however, that we won’t have this word to kick around forever, that a blog will be called something entirely different in the not-too-distant future, something that resonates more with the traditional majority, something that speaks more to the value of this new communications model and mindset.

As business blogging expert, Debbie Weil, says on her own blog, BlogWrite for CEOs: “For the many who aren’t immersed in the blogosphere, the word is nasty. And negative. And makes them wary of this whole blogging thing.”

To read more of what Debbie has to say about the word, blog, and its future, click here.

Bob Cargill Blogging

The blog has come a long way in just the last year alone, but with Donald Trump now waxing eloquently in the blogosphere, a good argument could be made that this revolutionary self-publishing and marketing platform has gone from the outhouse to the penthouse. Read all about it here in Information Week.

Elsewhere…DIRECT magazine reports that DM hiring is on the rise.

The NonProfit Times issues its 8th annual Power & Influence Top 50.

FundRaising Success magazine weighs in on the state of online fundraising today (”From Buttons to Blogs” by Paul Barbagallo).

Bob Bly pits blogs versus white papers in his most recent reader survey.

Mike Westfall, on Annual Fund Inc. (August 11, 2005), shares some best practices for e-solicitations to college and university alumni.

And finally, for the nonprofits among us who are exploring the blogosphere, you just have to check out Lisa Meyers Brown’s post (via Diva Marketing, thank you) on blogging and the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life program.

Bob Cargill Blogging, Direct Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing

In the latest issue of Details magazine (June/July 2005, p. 99), columnist Jonathan Sabin plays the devil’s advocate and argues that rubber wristbands – such as those ubiquitous yellow ones that have helped the Lance Armstrong Foundation raise so much money for such a good cause – should be banned.

Who would have thought that one man’s solution to cancer prevention and survivorship would be another man’s problem with marketing and philanthropy?

“Today nearly 50 million are looped around self-righteous wrists as the cheesy trinkets metastasize like the cancers they’re supposed to help cure,” writes Sabin, taking an unseemly, cheap shot – in my opinion – at not just one of the most popular charitable organizations going right now, but at the business of direct response fundraising as a whole.

In the same article, Sabin claims “the problem is that we’ve become a nation of philanthropic exhibitionists.”

I can think of worse things to show off than one’s benevolence.

Indeed, with all due respect to Jonathan Sabin, I think the real problem is the fact that there is so much disease and poverty and injustice in the world.

I think the real problem is that there are not enough people who are willing to give selflessly of themselves on behalf of others less fortunate.

If Americans take pride in their generosity and are wearing these wristbands as status symbols, so be it.

If fundraisers have a way of bringing in more charitable gifts, good for them and their beneficiaries, good for those who are counting on them to provide as much financial assistance and emotional relief as possible.

Why rain on Lance Armstrong’s seemingly endless parade of inspiration, courageousness and goodwill?

Sure, many people, young and old alike, enjoy wearing these wristbands as much because they’re a hip, new fashion statement as a way to help others. But that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that by offering such a cool tchotchke, nonprofit organizations of all kinds are able to amass more individual contributions (because the demand for wristbands is so strong), a higher average gift (because people are willing to give more when they’re getting something extra in return) and a glut of free publicity and promotion (because such body ornaments are attracting so much attention).

What matters is that more money is being raised to help more people in need, people who really couldn’t care less if donors want to wear silly rubber wristbands in their honor, as long as the reason for this jewelry gives them a reason to hope and believe in the future.

Bob Cargill Direct Marketing, Fundraising

Many executives should consider blogging, according to Ted Demopoulos, who’s not only an expert on information security and IT entrepreneurial issues but also a – surprise, surprise – prolific blogger himself.

“It [blogging] helps publicize company news as well as executive viewpoints and opinions, and adds to a company’s personality. Executives can blog extremely effectively as their thoughts are usually well regarded and trusted, and their blogs tend to get an instant large readership,” says Ted.

Naturally, I couldn’t agree with him more. A blog is tailor-made for storing and managing intellectual capital. It’s a centralized repository for experience and expertise, an incredibly easy way to disseminate key, timely information to an audience of readers who are already interested in what you have to offer.

While I’ll be the first to admit that authoring a blog is not a commitment to be taken lightly, the many benefits (see parts one, two and three of my three-part article on Why Advertising, Marketing and PR Pros Should Blog) of establishing a presence in the blogosphere more than make up for the sacrifice of time and talent.

No pain, no gain, no?

To read – or to listen to, thanks to Talkr – what else Ted has to say about executive blogging, click here.

Bob Cargill Blogging

If you were a neighbor of mine, you’d know what I mean when I say my lawn isn’t going to win any beauty contests. It’s so thin, brown and malnourished, it’s embarrassing – especially during the dog days of summer.

So when The Scotts Company wrote to me recently about growing a thicker, greener lawn, its timing – and targeting of me as a potential customer – couldn’t have been better.

After all, like any other proud homeowner in this day and age, I need to be doing everything I can to keep up with the Joneses, no?

Which reminds me of a direct mail package Scotts sent out a few years ago, bearing the words, “Now the grass can be greener on your side.” While these folks didn’t earn my business at the time, they did earn my respect, as the marketer in me was more than a little impressed with their use of a cliché as a headline.

Sure, a cliché (typically defined as a predictable, trite or overused expression) might not show much inventiveness and originality on the part of the copywriter, but it can go a long way towards capturing the attention of prospects.

A cliché is an expression to which almost everyone can relate. It speaks to something with which most people are familiar. Used in an unusual manner, or paraphrased, it can help you establish immediate rapport.

For instance, the Boston Sunday Globe once coined the headline, “Sunday Best,” to promote home delivery of the newspaper.

Then there’s Hoverspeed, a UK-based operator of high-speed catamarans, which issued a press release entitled, “Don’t Miss the Boat.”

Of course, Midas, the famous auto repair outlet, backs up its services with the tagline, “Trust the Midas Touch.”

And in the aftermath of September 11, New York City launched its “Paint the Town Red, White & Blue” campaign, as a way of stimulating more tourism and new business activity.

But I haven’t seen any other cliché worked over more often – albeit cleverly – in advertising than “The Cure for the Common Cold.”

Just this summer, in the June 30-July 14 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Triumph Motorcyles proclaimed its Rocket III, “The Cure for the Common Cruiser.”

I’m sure Triumph wasn’t aware that Nissan drew on an almost identical expression to help sell four wheels instead of two, heralding the 2002 Nissan Altima as “The Cure for the Common Car.”

That would be a bitter pill to swallow, otherwise.

Usage of this prescription-related metaphor doesn’t stop there, though.

Trade Secret, a chain of full-service salons, once promoted one of its products with the headline, “The Cure for the Common Curl.”

Boston’s Yale Electric Sales has advertised Casablanca, billed as the “World’s Finest Ceiling Fan,” as “The Cure for the Common Fan.”

And in an attempt to distinguish itself from the competition, The Samuel Adams Brewhouse (also in Boston) has taken the same expression one step further, claiming it serves up “The Cure for the Common Cold One,” adding, “We dispense six distinctive styles of freshly tapped Samuel Adams. For what ales you.”

I think I’m coming down with a fever.

Finally, The Scotts Company isn’t the only lawn care company to adopt a cliché and manipulate it to its advantage. While conducting research for this story, I found a cute, little classified ad for the Lawn Doctor, a company that really takes its name literally, claiming it offers “The Cure for the Common Job.”

For those among the ranks of the unemployed, that might be, er, the last hurrah.

Bob Cargill Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Marketing

I may not be a big Pauly Shore fan, but he scores big points in my book for putting his money where is mouth is and guaranteeing his new TV show, Minding the Store, (which is premiering this Sunday, July 17, at 10 PM EST on TBS).

“I am so confident that my new series will make people laugh,” said Shore in a press release, “I’ve convinced the network heads at TBS to let me offer this special guarantee. It’s our way of saying we value people’s television-viewing time, and we know they’ll feel their time spent watching Minding the Store is well worth it.”

Viewers who fail to laugh after watching the first episode of Minding the Store are invited to mail a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Shore, care of TBS. Shore will then send them $1 each. Details and address on the money-back guarantee are available online at www.tbs.com.

Good for Pauly. After all, as any experienced direct marketer knows, a simple albeit strong guarantee almost always increases your response rate – in this case, your viewership – and is rarely taken advantage of by customers.

“A guarantee is one of your most important marketing tools. A guarantee articulates that you stand by your product or service, and that there is absolutely no risk in doing business with you,” says my friend, colleague and fellow past president of the New England Direct Marketing Association, Katharine Barr.

Of course, given the medium (television) and the nature of this show (entertainment, not business), the likelihood is that more than a few viewers will take Pauly up on his generous offer, whether or not they crack a smile, in which case his sense of humor will really be put to the test.

Chances are, though, that the number of people who tune in to Minding the Store because of this money-back guarantee will far outweigh the cost of sponsoring such a brilliant marketing scheme. And Pauly Shore just may have a hit on his hands as well as the last laugh.

Bob Cargill Advertising, Direct Marketing, Marketing

To know Martha’s Vineyard, an island seven miles off the southeast coast of Massachusetts, is to know The Black Dog logo, which in recent years has come to represent this vacation paradise almost as much as the tavern, bakery café and general stores for which it was designed. Yes, this logo is that ubiquitous.

First emblazoned on a T-shirt in 1979, today The Black Dog is found on practically every article of clothing you can imagine, not to mention on bumper stickers, coffee mugs, tote bags and key chains. For tourists, it’s a status symbol and a fashion statement, a logo that tags them popular by association. For the business people who own the rights to this logo, The Black Dog must be, well, a cash cow.

Spending a little down time this week with my wife, Barbara, and my two sons, Scott and Ben, on Martha’s Vineyard, the marketer in me was as much surprised as impressed to see (in an ad on page Five-B of the July 1 edition of the Vineyard Gazette) The Black Dog offering a free beach towel “with purchase of $125 or more” at any one of its more than half a dozen general stores.

Either Black Dog paraphernalia isn’t quite so de rigueur these days and the company is testing a new retail sales incentive, or perhaps these guys have figured out a way to prompt tourists like me to buy even more of their merchandise. Given the large number of Black Dog T-shirts I’ve seen people wearing on the island the last few days, I’m guessing it’s the latter.

Bob Cargill Advertising, Branding, Direct Marketing