Google Succeeds Where Governments Fail

With Google now recognised as the UK’s number one brand we’re seeing the developing maturity of an Internet-controlling corporation. Google has been remarkably subtle and intelligent in taking control of the Internet. They won the search engine wars some time ago, effectively defining the way Websites are developed and presented. Governments and the EU have tried to do this and failed.

The Rise and Rise of Google Checkout
It seems certain that we’re about to see strong growth in take-up of Google’s checkout system for buy-online Websites. Google Checkout is a good example of the company’s subtlety. EBay’s PayPal has a long-established lead here, but it’s regarded as e-commerce for amateurs; it’s a great way of selling Billy’s outgrown bicycle, but there’s no real solution here for serious Internet marketers. By contrast, Google has introduced a feature-rich, scalable payment solution that’s easy for developers to implement.

David Ogilvy always maintained that having a product that delivers what your customers want is an essential for sustained market success. Google’s satisfied that criterion, but it’s then raised the stakes by a clever offer proposition: free order processing to a value of ten times your pay-per-click marketing spend. I have a client spending around £6,000 a month on Google Adwords. Effectively that gives him free order processing, which makes alternatives like ProtX or the infamous HSBC payment gateway look ludicrously expensive.

But Google’s cleverer still, using their Checkout puts a highlighted flash on your paid Google advertisement, which is already shown to be increasing click-through rate. This is going to make all of us more aware that Google Checkout exists and, sooner or later, every one of us will have set up a purchase account. Now the snowball rolls. Once you’ve signed up, it’s easier to buy through a Google Checkout than anyone else’s, and the alternatives start to die.

I foresee Google Checkout becoming the de facto standard for buying online in under twelve months. EBay is actually banning it from its auctions. This looks very much like a finger in a dyke: it may stop the leak for now, but the water pressure’s going to keep on building on the other side of the wall. PayPal may have something under development, but they’re going to need to be very clever not to be forced into a “me-too” style of marketing.

The Responsibilities of Market Leadership
It’s clear that, with the success of Checkout, Google has raised the bar and further strengthened its grip on the market. The survey carried out by Superbrands of the UK’s top 500 brands showed Google a clear leader, despite being only ten years old – the average age of companies in the top 50 is 90 years.

We have to watch carefully how Google handles this power. Microsoft has demonstrated that it’s possible for a market leader to be a benign dictator, and has largely proved laudably ethical during its reign as the world’s biggest brand. Signs so far suggest that Google may be similarly responsible, and that bodes well for the Internet as a whole.

Implications for Search Engine Optimisation
Google’s ascendancy has significant implications for search engine optimisers. XSEO, the company I co-founded with Matt Paines in 2001, has seen big players like AltaVista disappear, and even MSN, with all of Microsoft’s massive muscle behind it has been unable to break Google’s stranglehold.
Put simply, Google is frighteningly good at what it does. Before Page and Brin, people were optimising their sites by repeating words a hundred times over, and Internet searching was pretty much a lottery. It was Google who made it possible for us to find what we want by detecting these tricks.
XSEO has always tried to give Google what it wants, though admittedly finding out what Google wants can be something of a battle. Overall I see Google’s position as a good thing for the good guys. The strength of their recognition algorithms is now such that they can detect more and more of the tricks pulled by the “black-hat” optimisers. We’ve recently seen major UK players like GoCompare and Kwik Fit Insurance black-listed by Google. As the Google search engine handles more than 80% of UK search traffic, no one can ignore being removed from its listings.

What we’re seeing is an emerging set of standards – something the search engine optimisation industry has been seeking for some years. The EU legislation has failed to force site owners to comply with accessibility guidelines, while Google has enforced accessibility as a by-product of its search engine spider requirements. A site that’s accessible, has good relevant content, and that’s regarded as genuinely authoritative by its peers is likely to be a site worth visiting. It’s no coincidence that Google has aligned its ranking criteria with these three parameters.

So how do I view Google’s increasing power over our online lives? Provided they keep their heads and don’t allow absolute power to corrupt absolutely, I’m more than happy for them to rule. When standards are imposed legislatively they’re often ill-considered and rarely well-implemented. Here we’re seeing standards emerging commercially; if they’re the right standard – and so far I believe they are – then we all benefit.

Why John Wanamaker Should Have Listened to Tommy Cooper

You’ll like this; it gives you the chance to do impressions. Tousle your hair, stagger slightly, put on a gruff, slurred voice – if you like you can even wear a fez – and when you’re ready, say the following:

“I went to the doctor’s yesterday. I said ‘it hurts when I do this’. The doctor said, ‘Well don’t do it then’.

OK, so you sounded more like Arnold Schwarzenegger doing dalek impressions, but that’s not the point. The point is that today I’m going to hold up Tommy Cooper as a marketing guru. And on the way I’m going to make the same deposit on John Wanamaker that pigeons outside the British Museum make on Horatio Nelson.

John Wanamaker, so we’re told, originally coined the phrase “I know half of my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don’t know which half”. If I’m lucky enough to be remembered when I’m gone, I hope it’ll be for something less fatuous. If Tommy Cooper had been around in 1886, he’d have fixed Wanamaker with that glorious bloodshot, gap-toothed stare and said, “Well don’t do it then”.

This thought came to me on the road to Damascus. Well, OK, the road from Barnsley to Stafford, using that really cute road across the Peaks – you know, through Warslow and… sorry, back to the plot. I’d just been to see a new client who showed me the adverts they’d been running in trade magazines.

What I saw was typical trade magazine fare – quality, customer service, excellence, all the words to fill your BS Bingo card. I asked how well they worked and braced myself. Sure enough “I know half my…” etc. Suddenly I sensed the ghostly figure of a 6 foot three drunk magician at my elbow and, with all the conviction of Derek Acorah preparing to make Yvette Fielding’s pupils dilate even further, I grunted “Well don’t do it then”.

This client sells to multi-million pound players in a clearly defined market. He has maybe 100 potential new customers in the UK, and any one of them can add a million pounds to his annual turnover. To meet his growth targets he needs two new clients a year.

So why is he advertising? If we take his existing marketing budget – of which apparently 50% is wasted – and turn it all to bear on that small, defined market, surely we can win two new customers in the next twelve months? If we spent, say, £1,000 on a drop-dead pitch to one new customer, what conversion rate could we expect?

Obvious, yes. But don’t judge my client too harshly. They’re running one of the most successful businesses in their industry. They’re smart people. But they’ve fallen into a trap that I see at least once a month. They’ve seen what other people do in their marketing, and simply done the same.

Don’t do this. If Tommy Cooper had done it he’d have been just another reasonably competent magician. John Wanamaker made his millions the same way: he looked at what other people did, and told people about what he did differently.

When my clients look at their marketing, do they realise they’re being advised by a comedian?

Oh I hope so.

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Go Back in the Kitchen

Back in July the Birmingham Post asked me to write an article about the Silly Season for their Media Types column. Here it is to remind us of that hour and a half of British summer.

Where did the summer go?

Who wants to type articles on a day like this? Nothing’s moving except for a few freelance bumblebees. They don’t seem bothered that what they’re doing is impossible, and the noise they make is providing a nice counterpoint to the crack of lighter fluid on charcoal. One advantage of advancing years is that your kids can run the barbecue.

A blank screen stares accusingly back. Might as well neck what’s left of the Chablis before it gets too warm.

The mind wanders…

A friend of mine has built a multi-million pound business on the ethos that if you’re too busy you’re doing something wrong. His home village boasts an annual presentation of the Stoke Albany Lazy Bastards Award. He was devastated to come second last year; apparently he was seen entering his office before ten o’clock on two consecutive months.

It’s a talent we all need to emulate. If becoming more successful means becoming more busy, what’s going wrong? I haven’t mastered the technique, but believe me I’m willing to learn.

There’s a frog poking its head out of the pond. A fly lands six inches from its head. No response, not a flicker. It’s too hot; another fly’s bound to land closer. Just be patient.

It’s that elusive easy life. We all want it. Quite possibly, we want it more than anything else on earth. One of my clients is just starting a marketing campaign based on a deckchair. What are they selling? That’s right… accountancy. And it works. It works because you choose your accountant because of what he takes away, not because of what he gives you. Do you want leading edge tax consultancy, or would you prefer a drink in that deckchair over there. Stop worrying. Leave it all to me.

Was that thunder?

A raindrop the size of a whisky measure in a Scottish pub hits the laptop keyboard. The barbecue crackles its annoyance, engulfing the patio in a fog bank that should have a sneaky French frigate hiding inside it. Russell Crowe dives behind a bulkhead just in case. It’s all dreams.

So where’s the marketing moral in all this? Make up your own – I’ve got this article to write. On the other hand, if it’s silly season for the press, why not for media types? Why keep writing when the next cork could be creaking out of its bottle?

Lazy Bastards Award: you will be mine.

Facing Death at Bullet Point

Which point does your audience care about?

How many PowerPoint presentations have you endured? How many presentation agendas have you vainly scanned in the hope of finding something interesting? How often have you watched the back of a presenter’s head as he doggedly repeats bullet points you could have read yourself?

And – given the agony of these amateur-night performances - how many times have you made exactly the same mistakes yourself?

Let’s invent a new batch of “changing a light bulb” jokes. You know the genre – “How many marketing people does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: none, marketing people never change anything.

How’s this for a start: how many people does it take to produce a new brochure? I’ve seen brochures that have involved input from more people than the client actually has on the payroll. Aside from the armies of designers, consultants and copywriters, we also show draft copies to the sales department, marketing, accounts, the cleaning staff, the bloke at the golf club who knows a bit about marketing, and next door’s budgie. Meanwhile the corporate identity police have the Agency’s visual strapped in a chair in a basement while they positively vet the Pantone references and… ha! I thought so! The white space around the logo isn’t exactly one third of the height of the third “J”!

The new Website tends to develop a similarly inflated supporting cast. Steven Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan with fewer people and in considerably shorter time. In fact you can replay the scenario for pretty much all of your marketing exercises. God can make a universe in six days. Humans can make more humans in nine months. The impossible we can do at once. Marketing takes a little longer.

Or does it?

There’s one aspect of our business-to-business communication that usually happens with indecent haste. We’ve done the advertising, built the Website, sent out the brochures and – finally – our dream client wants to talk to us. What do we do now?

Well, obviously, as it’s such an important opportunity, we’ll prepare properly. Two days before the meeting, the Sales Director will ask his secretary to put together that greatest of all persuaders: a PowerPoint presentation.
So here’s your maths homework for tonight: If it takes forty people six months to write a brochure, and twenty-five people can commission a new Website in just under a year, how long will Sharon take to build a PowerPoint presentation?

When your prospect saw your advertising, your brochures, your Website, you weren’t there. But when you finally got in front of them, you tried to win them over with a presentation that took an afternoon to cobble together.
If the corporate identity police saw this they’d turn up in Transit vans with wire mesh over the windscreens. The corporate identity manual calls for Gill Sans 18 point text, but you’ve only got Times New Roman and Arial – still, hey, who’s to notice? If you’re really diligent you might have scanned your prospect’s logo – or nicked it off their Website – and your presentation now boasts a grainy, pixelated travesty of your customer’s identity (and they might not be as forgiving as you are).

Can you all see this at the back?

Now it begins: death by bullet point. “Mr Client, to show my gratitude to you for giving me your time, let me bore you to tears”. You proudly click the mouse, and up comes your seven-point agenda. Point one – of course – is all about your company, its history, structure, expertise, unique product range, dedication to quality, focus on customer service… sorry, I dozed off then.

They'll start listening around about here. Possibly

While you’re droning on about all this, your customer scans ahead to point six, which is what you’re actually both here for. Physicists have now proved that PowerPoint distorts reality into two distinct space-time continua. Presenter time condenses half an hour into a subjective ten minutes. Customer time, by contrast, extends the same thirty minutes into a geological era; the clock moves with the haste of continental drift. Blood slows. Deep vein thrombosis would at least break the monotony.

Let’s not do this. Let’s put something in front of our customers that looks professional. Let’s be slick, entertaining (yes, entertaining) and to the point. Let’s not make our presentation look interminable by showing an agenda with every point we’re going to cover. And let’s make sure that the first thing we talk about is what the customer stands to gain.

I'm not a fan of bullet points, so here are six more

Your business presentations are the element of your marketing that puts you there to take the embarrassment. They deserve at least the thought and resource you devote to the other components of your marketing engine.

Invest in your presentations and your presenters and you’ll change more than just a light bulb.

Smile for the Self-Portrait

I’d like to tell you how fabulous I am. No, seriously, you’d be amazed what a rounded, caring, all-round amazing guy you’d be talking to if we ever got to meet. In fact I’m going to put my phone number at the bottom of this piece, because you’re going to need it. I’m just that good.

Still reading?

If you’ve reached this paragraph, it’s either because I’ve convinced you, or you can’t believe this garbage is for real. And I’m betting on the latter. So if it’s such outrageous twaddle, why do you write your marketing messages this way? Come on, own up, you know you do. I’ve seen your brochures – you’re unique, you’re innovative, you’re focused on customer service, you tailor solutions and, unless I’m mistaken, you’re one of the leading companies in your field.

If any of those statements do appear in your brochures, on your advertisements or on your Website, call every one of your customers in turn and apologize for the time they had to waste either throwing them in the bin or looking for a more interesting site.
When you’re done apologizing, join the Caravan Club. It’s full of people who point their cameras in exactly the wrong direction. They hook their Sprite 14 (whatever that is) to the coathanger thing on the back of the Maxi and chug off to an area of outstanding natural beauty. Then they park in front of it and take a picture of the caravan. “Here’s Ethel and me completely obscuring the view across Loch Stochanbarel”.

If I’m being unfair to you, congratulations: you’re one of those rare people who’s learned which way to point the camera. How come my opening paragraph gave you a picture of an egotistical twerp suffering from terminal “I” strain? Could it be that you’d rather form your own opinions?

The core of good marketing points its camera at the customer. It puts him at the centre of a picture that shows exactly where he wants to be. As soon as you move the caravan out of the way, the view behind it becomes clear. I work with a client who prints barcode tickets for retailers like Next and Arcadia. It would be easy to focus our camera on those tickets, and the (genuinely excellent) service behind them. But how much quality do you need in a piece of cardboard that will be thrown away anyway?

Now look at what the ticket does: without that piece of card, the whole supply chain stalls. If the tickets aren’t right, how much is lost in missed opportunity? If market reaction can be speeded up, how much extra profit can we drive to the bottom line? The benefit that my client brings to his marketplace carries the focus completely away from the product he’s selling, and into a world that’s real and persuasive to his customer.

The bad news is that this takes more thought than throwing out a few more “experience to deliver” and “customer-driven” clichés. But put that extra thought into your marketing materials, and you’ll immediately pull ahead of 90% of your competitors.

And your holiday pictures will be more entertaining too.

But that’s enough about you, let’s talk about me…

Jem Shaw - +44 (0)1785 255904 (Told you I would)

So, about this marketing stuff

Having blogged, with relative regularity, a summer of aviational delights, it's time I added a slightly more businesslike aspect to my blogging. Not that I approach this with any intention of taking it seriously, but 30-odd years in this remarkably silly industry have given me a view of the way we operate.

In my typically egotistical way I feel obliged to share it.

So here are a few samples of articles wot I've wrote over the last few years, along with a few observations and grumbles on the way.

You don't have to agree with me, or at least admit that you do in polite company.