Spam King Busted..big deal!

By now most of you should know that a big “Spam King” was busted today.

Wow…a real shocker….NOT! Who cares cause somewhere, someone is out there poised to be the next big one. So we put the guy in jail and he pays a fine. Big whoop. We got one of probably thousands of these guys out there.

Can I say that my inbox or spam filter has seen a slowdown? Nope…not here and not me. To tell you the truth, I don’t get emotional or irate over spam. In fact, I could care less. I just delete it and move on. There are ton of people out there however who get so irate and want people to “die like a pig” (quoted from someone I know) for sending out messages.

Sure spam sucks. Can we stop it? Nope. Can we take measures to prevent it? Yes. Do I want to send nasty notes to people or companies or ISP’s wanting to start a world war over it….yea..I could do that, but I have better things to do. Just remember these few simple rules

1. Don’t give any supposed “rich Nigerian ex- prime minister” any private information.

2. That .15 stock is not going to go up over 5000% in the next 2 days

3. There are no magic pills to increase your sexual organs or sexual appetite

4. If eBay or Amazon wants me to update my information, don’t think that giving them your SS number or CC number

5. Not every bank wants you to update your information online

6. You never applied for that mortgage

7. You don’t win prizes online

8. How many sites can there be for “horny people in your area” looking for sex tonight?

I can go on and on, but the bottom line here is to keep a clear head about you and have some common sense. In addition, think like a spammer and you should do quite well at warding off unwelcome messages. I often wonder this…do spammers receive spam and if so are they annoyed by it?

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spam, spammers, rich nigerian, phishing, email, marketing, spamking, scams, email scams

The Trick to Web 2.0: Give Up Control - from iMedia Connection

Steve Mulder and Riccardo La Rosa co-author an interesting article on iMedia Connection about Web 2.0. It appears to be the first part in a series that they plan to do.

With all of this talk about web 2.0 and marketing, I am wondering how many people are still confused on how to put together a sustainable strategy. It seems as if Steve and Riccardo are off to a good start at introducing folks to this.

Thanks guys for the good info.

Showing ROI on Email Marketing Requires Experience and Expertise

Awesome post from the folks at My Educated Guess about showing the ROI in email marketing.

At Quest we have an entire team dedicated to email marketing. On the surface, email marketing appears to be easy, but it is a science and an art and is constantly changing. Before jumping into the ocean grab a life preserver and have a captain who knows what they are doing.

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email marketing, marketing, software, ROI, techtarget

PL/SQL Game called Toad Squared

Are you a PL/SQL developer?

Well if you are, we just created a great game for you to play. Its called Toad Squared and I hope all of you like it. The question is….how long will it take for you to solve the game? Let me know.

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oracle, PL/SQL, developer, oracle developer, Toad for Oracle, Toad, games, dba, database administrator,

The Cluetrain Manifesto

I was recently introduced to a book called the Cluetrain Manifesto. It was written back in 1999 and gives some great insight in marketing, specifically Web 2.0. I am especially intrigued at the 95 theses at the beginning of the book. One of my favorite theses is #12 which states:

“There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone”

These 95 theses are awesome and I encourage everyone to read them. It will really change the way you think about marketing. Let me know what you think.

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cluetrain manifesto, marketing, web 2.0

ROI vs. Marketing Accountability

***Thanks to Nadia L. for this post which came from my teams internal blog at Quest***

On May 11, Bryan Eisenberg wrote a new ClickZ article entitled “The Difference Between ROI and Marketing Accountability.” He reference’s Brian Carroll’s recent post on demand generation tools/software. But I was really most interested in Eisenberg’s article title and topic, this idea of ROI vs. Marketing Accountability, which I had never really thought to distinguish between.

The article starts by pointing out that CEOs are demanding “better ROI measurement and accountability from marketers,” which in turn is fueling interest in software “tools to manage the process of lead management, lead nurturing and lead generation with a greater emphasis on measurability.” However, he goes on to explain that unless a company finds a tool that fits within their lead generation processes, metric goals, and supportive users, most companies don’t receive maximum value/ROI from the tool. A comment on Carroll’s article says:

“Measuring the ROI of lead generation isn’t the same thing as full accountability. If marketing is a profitable activity, it still doesn’t mean that what it is communicating to the universe of buyers is building the business. I’ve seen lots of marketers sacrifice early and middle stage buyers because they had to show an immediate ROI on each campaign they ran. Who is accountable for all the potential business they lose by saying the wrong the thing to the right people at the wrong time?”

I found this to be really what is at the crux of the issue, differentiating between ROI and marketing accountability. Finally, Eisenberg talks about a challenge we are all too familiar with — marketers wanting “to think long term but [we] keep getting sucked in by the more immediate and pressing issue of not having enough high quality sale leads.”

Technorati Tags:
clickZ, marketing ROI, ROI, marketing, software, accountability, sales

Full Circle Marketing

I wonder how many companies…nay software companies can honestly admit to having a full circle marketing strategy? How many can say that they nurture the leads for sales and only pass on the highly qualified ones all while taking the others and keeping them warm on the bench? How many have the metrics and analytics in place to know exactly what assets were download and trigger mailings to those folks to provide them with other content of interest? Further still, how many of them do this manually or have a completely automated system to do this?

Does a true marketing automation system exist within any organization?

Nurture leads, set expectations with sales and give the power to the prospect to pull content from you. Curious to know from those folks that read this how close some of you are. I am even more curious to know how far away most orgs are as well.

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full circle marketing, marketing, pull marketing, push marketing, RSS, marketing automation, lead nurturing, leads, software, IT

How do you want to be remembered?

I was speaking with my sons teacher this morning about working in general. She was telling me that she has been with the current company that owns my sons private kindergarten for about 13 years. Her benefits are great and she gets almost 6 weeks of vacation, but feels guilty or made to feel guilty if she ever wants to use them.

I talk to alot of people in business. Some are working so hard: traveling, late nights, weekends and it seems like it never ends. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t work a 40 hour week..heck none of us do, but one thing I always tell folks is that I never ever let my work interfere with spending time with my family. A healthy work/life balance is essential to mental health and I would rather earn 35% less to maintain that sanity.

Here is something to ponder…..when you die and someone is giving your eulogy….what do you want them to say about you? How do you want to be remembered? I would find it really disturbing if they said “Andrew was a tireless worker, he was always there for the company and never let us down…(then they proceeded to say) and oh..by the way he was also a great husband and father and friend”

Take time to relax…slow down and don’t think for a minute that work is more important than everything else. In a blink of an eye, life will pass you by. Be remembered for who you want to be…but know this….no one really cares if you were the best employee in the world if you have nothing to show for it but office time, your blackberry and promotions. Be a great employee, but be a greater spouse, friend, son, daughter, father, mother etc…..your eulogy will thank you.

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life, death, slowing down, work, employee, father, spouse, eulogy

Better B2B Landing Pages

Jon Miller over at Marketo has a great summary post on some tips to effectively have better landing pages. I especially love the last tip.

Anyway…great article Jon.

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landing pages, B2B, marketo, search engine land, SEO, SEM

Are You Investing In Long Term Marketing?

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing has an awesome post about investing long term in your companies marketing efforts. His 3 C’s of: Content, Connection and Community are all so true if companies really have a long term vision for successful marketing.

Those 3 C’s are especially important in Software Marketing as Web 2.0 evolves and 3.0 (supposedly) are around the corner. Thanks John for the post…this is really great stuff.

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John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing, Content, Community, Connection, Software, Marketing

Your website experience……..

Ever wonder what sort of experience your users have on your website? Ever ask? Sometimes people or business’ create a website that they like and give no thought to what the user experience would be. Is it hard to find information? Do you ask for too much info to get something? Do you push or pull market to them?

Before you do a site re-design…..ask. Ask customers what they think. Ask others what sort of experience they have. If your site is content heavy do something about it.

Not asking and assuming that most folks like their experience can be detrimental.

Technorati Tags:
website, user experience, redesign, marketing

Is Buzz Marketing the Next SEO?

I am a big fan of Ron McDaniel. He had a recent post on the whether buzz marketing is the next SEO that you should really check out.

Buzz marketing is the new marketing period. (if done strategically and within reason) (buzz marketing encompasses alot so don’t jump on the bandwagon to jump) There are many methods to marketing and while I can only speak intelligently on software marketing the more buzz you can create via traditional and non traditional methods gets you noticed in the marketplace. The iPhone is a great example. Anyway, thanks Ron for the post. Enjoy everyone

A little bit of pain but we still must keep going

I woke up today feeling fine and ready to tackle the world. Then 7:15 came around and realized that I was beginning for the 3rd time in 18 months, the passing of the kidney stone. For any of you who have ever had one..you will know what type of pain this can cause. I immediately canceled my travel plans for tomorrow not knowing if I would end up in the hospital as the last 2 times and proceeded to get ready for a long and painful day. As you may or may not know the pain comes in waves (yes similar to labor) and lasts for a period of 15-45 minutes….so one minute I can be feeling just fine ready to go run around and the next, I am lying on the floor writhing in pain. Needless to say, I have not had to go to the emergency room yet….but we shall see how the afternoon progresses.

What does this have to do with software marketing? Simply put….we all feel pain sometimes…..sometimes severe pain. We sometimes get bashed from the sales group about lead generation, we get railed by our vendors, we have poor results on campaigns and so on. In my opinion, no matter what happens, pain in software marketing is a learning experience. I relish the chance to look at a failure and make it something positive…a learning experience if you will. Its really easy to pound your chest when things are going right, but it makes you a stronger person in business when you are lying face down in the dirt in pain…this is a true testament to your ability to perform under difficult circumstances.

So if you are in pain today….think about how you can change and learn from that pain. You will be glad you did.

Technorati Tags:
software, marketing, software marketing, kidney stones, pain

Web 3.0 and where we are going

Edward from ISG has an interesting post on Web 3.0 and where things might be headed.

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web 3.0, ISG, new technology, web, internet

Skeptics of the world unite!!!!

I love skeptics….there I said it, feel free to comment appropriately. Some of us believe that there are aliens among us and some believe that those people are nuts. Some of us believe that the internet is the devil and it will go away in due time, while others have embraced it and wonder what they would do without it.

People are inherently skeptical in business and like to take the safe road…the road that they have been down many times to do certain things. The typical overly skeptical person in business will say things like “I don’t believe……” “It won’t work…” “Well…we used to do it…..” or the classic “For the last 4 years we have been doing…..blah blah” not giving any thought to what business is like today.

What a great challenge for a professional marketer huh? I love it….I love challenges and sometimes I get charged every day by people saying those skeptical things. Granted, sometimes the skeptics are right and that could add fuel to the “skeptic fire”, but once you have proven that new things do work its like climbing the proverbial mountain.

So what does all this soapbox text above have to do with software marketing? The many hundreds of you that read this blog might say “Kordek…get to the point” and I will:

In software marketing you need to take a chance and challenge those folks who believe that what they did 3 years will continue to work today and produce the same results and growth expected. Heck, challenge what people have done 18 months ago and don’t be afraid to fail.

Allow me to give you an example. For the longest time at Quest we have been doing alot of live webinars and recording them. We would then put them on our site and make people register to see them. Now as marketer who loves data and wants more contacts to market to, I find that asking people to give us info to see a recorded webcast about our products a bit much. So, I decided to open up a youtube account, apply as a director and put alot if not most of our most current archived webcasts on there. I was met with some resistance in the marketing group because of the very registration nature that I mentioned above coupled with a few other minor issues. We really started to post alot of videos in Jan, Feb and so on. Since that time, we have had almost 32,000 views of the vids on there which I believe is more views in 3 months time than the history of all of the archived webcasts since the beginning of time at Quest.

We challenged what has been done for years and proved that in 3 months we can exceed what has taken 7 years to build.

If you are a marketer, stand up today and do something different.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, web 2.0, youtube, video, skeptics, software marketing, software

White Papers are the way to go to get registrations

Michael Stelzner has a great post on a recent study by knowledgestorm and marketingsherpa that I too read yesterday in that 2400 readers responded to saying that they are more likely to give up contact information when downloading a white paper. Depending on what your strategy is with that white paper (lead gen or thought leadership) this is good news for us folks in the software biz.

We use white papers as a huge driver for “inquiries” at my current company, although I am a huge proponent for instilling a lead nurturing program for those “inquiries” to keep them warm with content. Most folks just want to be educated and I like the idea of keeping them informed with content regularly for consumption. Anyway, thanks Michael…you beat me to the punch to post this data

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Michael Stelzner, knowledgstorm, marketingsherpa, whitepapers, IT, registering

Employees and Word of Mouth Advocates

A recent article on the WOMMA site talks about how Ford in a recent webcast urged it employees to become avid advocates. Now, I am all for word of mouth marketing, but if I were an employee of Ford I think I would react with a bit of negativity towards what they are asking to do. I truly don’t think that a company should have to ask its employees to become advocates, they should want to do it on their own. Lets face it, Ford is in trouble and they need people to become advocates for their products and what better way to start is with their employees. Sounds simple enough huh? Well I disagree.

I had a post back in February about Volvo which is owned by Ford on just how stupid their pitch is for the new S80. Coincidentally, I own a Mazda and am totally happy with it so far, but when I bought it 2 years ago, I received a 4 year warranty. Now that Ford has infected that brand, they have pushed their current Mazda warranties back to 3 years. I know this as my wife is currently considering purchasing their CX-7.

In my heart of hearts, I don’t think any company should ask their employees to be advocates for their brand…it should be either just a part of their job because they enjoy working there or because they are proud of the organization that they work for. Perhaps I am naive and perhaps it is because I enjoy my current position and I don’t need to be asked to do it and/or its because I am a marketing person at heart and I know that value of pushing brand via WOM and truly becoming an advocate.

Here is a off the wall suggestion…..make better cars, stand behind your products with longer warranties and people will begin to trust and or talk about your brand more often. This goes beyond Ford…I think we can all learn a lesson here in any company that we work in.

Curious to know what your thoughts are.

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ford, volvo, word of mouth, WOMMA, buzz, mazda, branding, advocacy

The Dark Side of Blogging

There is an excellent article written by Michael Stelzner at Marketingprofs.com about the dark side of blogging and how it can be addictive.

While I do find that sometimes maintaining a blog can be time consuming, I find it extremely rewarding both professionally and personally to exercise my thoughts. Sometimes I have alot to say and others not so much.

Thanks Michael.

Technorati Tags:
marketingprofs.com, blogging, addiction

America: The Growing Digital Divide

Duncan Riley at TechCrunch has a great post on Americans use of Web 2.0. I would classify my use as elite - productivity enhancer. What are you?

Technorati Tags:
techcrunch, web 2.0

5 reasons why a company should monitor their reputation online

5. When people talk/write on the web, they want others to see what is written and they want you as a company to see what they wrote about you.

4. If they talk about you consistently, you can peg them as an evangelist. If they talk bad about you, its still an opportunity to get them to rethink and evangelize.

3. Know what you do right as company and continue to do it…and know what you do wrong and fix it.

2. Everyone in the company, from the admin to the CEO should know what people say about your brand.

1. Duh…the obvious….information is golden.

Technorati Tags:
reputation monitoring, monitoring, reputation, information

Top 8 Do’s & Don’ts 2 Increase Email Open Rates

**thanks to Nadia for this post which came from our internal blog**

I’m always on the lookout for internet marketing benchmarking statistics to share… A recent eBusiness News article offers the following:

95% of consumers open an email because of the subject line

email marketing’s ROI [is] hitting $51.45 for every marketing dollar spent”

the type of subject line content that most compells males to open a permission-based email is “compelling information/news”

the type of subject line content that most compells females to open a permission-based email is “discount offer”

Check out the article to also see the top 8 do’s and don’ts to increase your email marketing open rates!

CIO’s need to think like CEO’s according to Gartner.

A recent article written by Linda Tucci at SearchCIO magazine made me think about a few things. First I am in total agreement with Gartner and truly believe that as companies evolve and grow, more IT people need to think like a business person.

As a professional software marketer, I try to think like an IT person and so far it has worked out pretty good. I think this goes for any sort of profession you are in. Put yourself in the other persons shoes….walk a mile with them and try to understand their pain and joy. It makes you a stronger business person as well as a “more human” in relating to the world around you.

Thanks for the article Linda..it made me pause and think that there are other things we all need to think and act on.

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searchcio.com, gartner, software, cio, ceo

Experts experts all around…

At my current company we recently launched a newsroom where people can come and view press coverage, learn about our executives, investor relations and download media kits and such. However, one area of the newsroom is pretty darn cool: The Quest Experts Page.

We have a huge list of industry experts on staff at Quest and for the last 2 years, I have been bugging folks that we should really shout from the rooftops about this. Our experts range in the areas of database management, application management and windows management and I have to say am truly proud that it launched. My team at Quest had a bit of a role in this experts page and then some of the fine talented folks took it home and created something really neat.

Its good to see that a shell of concept we had well over a year ago finally get launched. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags:
quest software, application management, database management, windows management, experts, IT, software, database, application, windows, java, sql server, oracle, exchange

Stock Photo’s in Collateral

Chris has a great post on the use of stock photos in our communications material. I know that Quest is guilty of it sometimes and I shake my head when I see stuff like this from any company.

I guess my question is..most of the people in the photos are the beautiful people….the touched up no blemish, really in shape, perfect white teeth and just all around beautiful.  I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that none of these folks work any company they are pushing.  I guess that is why I have a face for radio….or the internet.

Enjoy.