A common request by my clients is to help them get listed with search engines. Depending on the industry, this is generally a great idea as most folks find their way around the web (when they want to go to a new site) using search engines.

There are tomes written on this subject and a real science to it and I'm not going to attempt to add to that here.

But for the purposes of a nutshell description, here is your Readers Digest version:

There are essentially 4 ways to get listed ("high up" on in the listings) by search engines.

1-800-201-7575

I reluctantly love Amazon.com.
I say reluctantly because while I marvel at, drool over and worship their technical and marketing pioneering achievements -- if something ever goes wrong with an order - I am usually hosed.

I'm savvy enough to figure out and resolve most "user" errors so when I get a problem - it's usually a fairly serious one, and one that isn't going to be easily resolved by a well meaning copy-paste boilerplate intern at the email help desk. That and I don't generally want to wait for the multiple iterations it takes to finally get someone with more advanced knowledge to look at the issue. (Most of the email questions they get are of the simple "how come I can't see my cart" variety, for which the existing system generally works fine).

I don't order tons from Amazon, but I do order now and again, and unfortunately I've had problems a few times. And never have I been able to find a customer service phone number (they don't want us to find it). So I'm always forced to use the marginally-effective email support.

But today, I found it. The Amazon.com customer service phone number. And I present it here for my own future reference, and for yours.

1-800-201-7575

My unsolicited suggestions for Amazon.
At least include that phone number in the body of the message of the first email support reply. So if your email support proves unhelpful, I can use that number and get to the bottom of the matter using a more efficient means of communication. This would allow you to knock out the 80% of problems that can be solved with a simple email boilerplate response, but still keep me from cussing you, canceling and heading over to Barnes and Noble when the issue takes some genuine thinking and communicating to resolve. I know this would mean some of your email folks would have to be on the phones, and I know this means you would probably need more support people. Sorry.

A great little article on Wegmans. A grocer who, while other grocers are shutting down in the face of WalMart pressure, is expanding.

Read why.

You've probably heard a little of the buzz surrounding the Mishawaka Indiana opening of a Krispy Kreme store. Made famous because some nut (Rob Perugini) sat in line for 17 (SEVENTEEN!) days awaiting the opening of the store.

Well Krispy Kreme is quite simply one of the sharpest and best marketers in the world. The buzz they create around a store makes for hour long lines every time I ever go. The openings are stunning. Clever stuff like handing out free KK t-shirts with their line number to the first 25 folks in line, plus hundreds of free donuts.

Anyhow - Customer Evangelists was at this KK opening and offers superb insight into what they did that worked, as well as some truly tear-jerking photos for a marketing lubber like me. That picture of Perugini rushing in to the applause of 75 employees to flip on the "Hot Doughnuts Now" neon sign has me all choked up.

What can you learn from KK?

Reshaping Dell with Kevin Rollins

I thought this article held some great insight into how the world's number one PC computer manufacturer makes it all work. Some great ideas in there for all of us.

Some nuggets:

First of all - if you are like me, you are constantly "stealing" good ideas from web sites who seem to get it better than I or a client I'm working with. Well, here's this from the President of Dell about the recent Dell.com redesign (note that Dell.com does tens of millions of dollars a day)

Dell recently redesigned its Web site. Has Dell looked at making it even easier to use?
We're looking at that all the time by talking to customers and by comparing it to the easiest (shopping) Web sites on the Net. The shopping ability (of the site) is really critical to us, so you're going to see every six months or nine months another revolution of that as we learn more. You'll see a constant evolution and flow of that. Our goal is to have the best shopping experience on the Web.

And this about attention to detail in a company filled with a zillion details.

So the important thing is sweating the little details?
Sam Walton (the founder of retailer Wal-Mart Stores) told a story. When asked, "What's the secret to the success of Wal-Mart?" Every time reporters would ask him, he'd tell them something different.

The answers boiled down to the concept of successfully doing 100 things right every day. We're a little bit like that. Wal-Mart just does a lot of things right. While we're not completely similar--because we develop our own products and manufacture our own products as well as sell them--the execution discipline there is very similar. We're not willing to accept defeat or failure. We don't have that in our psyche.

Eureka!

Sorry, I just had to let that out. After reading this article I couldn't help but shake my fist at the sky. Yes, exactly!

Remember my comments of a few days ago - about treating your email list right? Well this author nails it right on the head. She uses the analogy of her friend that goes into a coffee shop only to recieve a little too much service.

With respect to your email list, she includes some research to backup findings about what kind of frequency people can stand.

Daily
news
weather

Weekly
special offers from retailers, online merchants and catalogers

Monthly
account statements
bill payment communications

And this note to remember as you head into the holiday season:

The temptation to increase frequency -- especially if e-mail marketing is working well -- may be irresistible as the holiday season approaches. Resist the impulse. Remember, people are going to be busier than ever over the next couple of months. Respect their time. Train them to tune in, not drop out.

TOP TEN RETAIL RIPOFFS EXPOSED!

The "Bait and Switch" Fraud
The "Keep You Waiting /Wear You Down" Ploy
Extended Warranty Scare Tactics
The "I Made a Mistake Adding This Up" Trick
The "Get `Em Saying Yes" Routine
The "This is the Last One" Ruse
The "Low-Ball" Lie
The "Today Only" Tactic
The "Paperwork" Euphemism
The "Turn Over" Maneuver

Seems to me like it would be a great idea to review this list, then make sure nothing in your sales process bears even the slightest resemblance to anything here - your company email blasts in particular. Customers, especially those with any money, are becoming more wise to this stuff all the time. If you convey even the slightest hint of dishonesty or swindlery - you'll be categorized with the other scalawags and ne'r-do-wells peddling weight loss, home loans and exciting work from home opportunities. As you should be.

Rise above it.

Permission based email vs. spam. A new study find that email marketing can help or hurt greatly.

Email can be a highly effective channel for driving revenues, developing customer relationships and creating brand-experience differentiation. At the same time, however, poor email practices can train customers not only to ignore an offending company in the channel, entailing a high opportunity cost of lost revenues, but nearly half of consumers surveyed reported that they have stopped doing business with companies altogether as a result of poor email practices. Thus, sending "just one more email" is a double-edged sword: it may yield an additional sale, or it might drive a customer away forever.

Having a strong email based relationship with your customers is indisputably one of the very best marketing tools available to you as a business. (And I would argue that it is the very best tool you have). But in a world where web users have become much more savvy and much more averse to spam - email communication can also be a double edged sword.

Spam is a sticky topic. No one wants to admit they engage in it, particularly to their own customers. Most companies are scared to be accused of it. The real spammers are finding it increasingly difficult to do it. All of us hate to get it.

And with the flood of fierce opposition to spam both from the spam watchdog community, and from legislatures in the wake of the wildly popular do-not-call list, it has become clear that playing with commercial email, is playing with fire.

So what is the message here for companies who have "legitimately" acquired an email address from a trusting customer?

The real message is this: abuse that trust, and lose a customer forever. You walk a fine line as a business, and if you cross that line, you've lost a customer, and the revenue that customer might have provided down the road. And of course that means revenue from both them, and anyone they may have referred to you.

Customers stop doing business with companies that have poor email practices.

nearly half of consumers surveyed reported that they have stopped doing business with companies altogether as a result of poor email practices.

So if you perturb a customer by spamming them, they are likely to reject you and your brand wholesale.

This makes sense intuitively. Just like we don't want to waste time sifting through offers for Via*ra, mortgages, debt reduction and Russian brides - our customers don't want to waste time sifting through our spam.

But what about well done email marketing? This may be difficult to define (and if so, drop me a note and let's talk about it), but this study also found this:

Similarly the study finds that over 57% of consumers have made purchases as a result of email.

So engage in email marketing very, very carefully.

A good rule of thumb for content: Pretend that the email you are sending is actually you, as a salesperson, approaching this customer as they just walked through your door. Would you assault your customer with half-truths, empty promises, a long rolling hyped up sales pitch? Make your email content as respectful as you would be if you were speaking with them face-to-face. Brief too, they didn't come in for a monologue.

A good rule of thumb for frequency: Imagine that you have a customer who is interested in what your company offers, and has given you permission to give them a call when you think something they might like comes up. How often would you call them? (For most of us, never more than once a week, much more like once a month or less).

Update [11/04/03] : some findings on frequency.

Show your customers the respect they deserve. Yes, the very respect with which you would like to be treated. Be a pioneer in honoring the trust your customers have placed in you. If you do this, sustainable, strong, and enviable business can follow.

So get this:

The ____ for Dummies and the Idiots guide to ____ books have sold 120 million copies between them (100 mil for dummies, 20 mil for idiots). The "Dummies" series has 796 titles (69 new this year) and "Idiot's" has 450 titles (79 this year). Details...

This is just since 1991 when the first copy of "DOS for Dummies" was introduced.

I know I own a couple myself - and obviously I'm not alone.

The question is this: why do these books have such appeal? The answer isn't rocket science of course, it's because we like to have it spoon fed to us. We don't want to have to work real hard at "getting it." Plus many of us feel we missed the train when it went by, and everyone else hopped on. We want to catch up, and we want to do it fast.

This is perhaps the single biggest mistake most companies make when they create a website. It's just too darn hard to understand and use. And your visitors don't have the interest or time to work a learning curve just so you can communicate with them. It's your job to create understanding, not theirs.

It is critical that your site be designed for dummies. Strip it down, simplify it. Remove 50% of your copy, and then get rid of half of what is left. Put "click here" where people are supposed to click. Make everything obvious. (Your sophisticated users won't mind if your site is more obvious and clear to use, trust me). Don't try to do more than 1 or 2 things on any given page (even your home page).

If you start with this approach to web design I suspect you will be amazed at the response you get from visitors. I recently advised and helped a client implement a brain-dead simple solution to helping them present holiday shopping to their visitors. The day it launched sales spiked over 50% and have held solid for a month and counting.

While it won't bring traffic to your site, or improve your product - simplifying and (re)designing your site for dummies will make the money you spend getting visitors to your site, far less likely to be wasted money.

As Seth Godin prophesied in his book Purple Cow, TV Advertising is dead.

Now you must come up with a combination of a remarkable product/service that is easy to spread the word about. You must also facilitate that word spread - which is where word of mouse comes in.