Search Me!

Sooo….I don’t know about many of you, but for some reason, even if I know the domain I would like to visit, I still type it into the Google search bar in my browser. Why? I think it’s out of fear – fear of spelling it wrong and being sent to some page I can’t escape from, fear of not actually knowing the real URL (My cousin once told me a story about how he was looking for the Dick’s Sporting Goods website, and therefore typed in that first word, followed by a (dot) com…), perhaps even fear of Google getting mad at me for not using them EVERY SINGLE TIME I BROWSE THE WEB…who really knows!

Either way, I think this is an important behavioral characteristic to note. This tells me that instead of paying attention to long/weird/strange/numbered URLs, what I really pay attention to is the brand (this is a favorite blog of mine that features very poor URLs, so here are a few examples of companies who should make use of search call-to-action, IMO). My guess is, I’m not the only one.

I know this isn’t a new concept by any means, this 2 year old post talks about Pontiac’s search call-to-action campaign and its success, but what I don’t understand is why more companies aren’t using more of this?!

Not only does it have the potential to be a partnership in the making, but even if your campaign is to just “search: ______”, there’s no doubt in my mind that you will get just as much traffic as if you marketed your URL by itself.

There is the problem of searchers not actually clicking on your link, but also others who may capitalize on your marketing campaign, I’ll admit that – but that’s just unavoidable as your competitors will always be trying to grab your searchers from you (that’s another blog post for another day).

mark_IT: behavior is just as important as attitudes, figure out how to pay attention to both.

Brands Are Forever?

Why are companies changing their brand name?! This is boggling my mind. Not that I can be seen regularly using the dishwasher, but I am very familiar with the brand Electrasol – and if you aren’t, then something is wrong with you, end of story. Guess what they changed their name to?? “Finish.” That’s it. Well I guess in liue of their one-word brandname change, I have one response:

Why????????????????

It just has never made sense to me to take a well established brand and call it something new. That’s what slogans are for – they are allowed to change regularly for different marketing campaigns, but the actual name of your product? I’m not digging this.

I think a better route would have been to change their tagline or something to include “finish” in it…I noticed their domain is now http://www.finishdishwashing.com, and to me, that screams something more clever about being ‘finished washing dishes’ than the simple route they took. Oh well…anyone else notice that when you say the word “finish” over and over it starts to seem like you are referring to someone from Finland?? Maybe it’s just me…

I guess one perk might be some deep discounts for the formerly branded items…not that I have a need for them, but I’m sure some people do.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Eye Spel goode

Oh grammar, how I love thee.

I have had many a detailed discussion about grammatical errors commonly made via any form of communication I come across regularly and it just makes me chuckle (sometimes giggle, snicker, wallow, what have you). I just want to know why the heck no one decided that either a second pair of (hopefully functioning) eyes (not to mention brain) hadn’t looked over the written content.

I had an English professor once tell me that a grammar mistake or typo is similar to this situation:

Say you are on a first date with the most amazing person you have ever laid eyes on. The conversation is flowing, the food is great, and you have no complaints whatsoever. Then, the next thing you know, as they lean over to slurp a bit of soup, a large, green chunk of nose drippings come oozing out of this poor man/woman/it’s nose, and they don’t seem to notice. Now you, being the observant and critical turd that you are, can’t help but stare at this thing for the rest of the meal. The meal and date and all hope have been lost.

This is what a typo is to content. A big, green, annoying booger just staring you in the face. It ruins anything else that may haver otherwise been great.

So grab a kleenex (or tissue, if you prefer the unbranded version of the actual item) and get someone to read what you write. Your mom? Sister? Blind uncle? Anyone…just do it. For me, please.

Thanks.

markIT_quit being a lazy bastid.

E-Swiffer for my E-dust

Let’s discuss the marketing word, “shelf life” (ok, I guess it’s not JUST a  marketing word…and perhaps it has other, MUCH more important, meanings…but let’s just forget about ecol i poisoning for now and stay on track )…wow, that was quite a rant…and it’s still going! AHH! STOP!

Back to the topic at hand – magazines are always said to have quite the shelf life when compared to newspapers…but what about email newsletters?? Do those have shelf lives? For me, they do. Not on purpose, but because I don’t delete them for some reason. Your guess is as good as mine as to why I don’t delete them…maybe I should see a therapist about this, but for now, let’s delve deeper into the issue.

Just to give you an idea, I took a screen shot of a small portion of my inbox to give you an idea of the amount of e-dust collecting on my e-newsletters…

Weird, huh?

Does any one else do this? Or am I a marketing anomaly? Does anyone actually e-dust them off?

I think (surprising, I know) that my subconscious self might think I will go back and re-read these things. Sometimes I do, but mostly, I don’t. However, with the addition of this blog, I have certainly found that I search through them a whole bunch more.

In my opinion, if this is a common thing, then newsletters should totally milk this for all it’s worth! Why are the offline people the only ones who get to brag about shelf life and use it as a selling point? I say, empower the newsletters…I mean, if i were to reference back to either an offline OR online newsletter, the idea of being able to use CtrlF is enough to sell me on the online one, fo sho.