1. Policy Requirements –the agency or entity is required to get multiple quotes from vendors.  This means the decision maker(s) aren’t empowered to make smart business choices or are constrained by the next bullet.
2. Cost – While I’m not a fan of county courthouses sporting $70,000 spittoons or urinals, there must be better ways to manage budgets, obliterate blatant nepotism and control corporate kickbacks than wholesale RFPs for everything under the sun.  The manpower and time wasted alone on both sides of the process alone makes my stomach turn.
3. Ignorance – and by ignorance I mean a lack of understanding surrounding the actual needs and objectives.  Hire someone who knows what they’re doing and stop wasting time.

I’ll expand as to why I don’t like RFPs:

Black Hole: RFPs are the “Black Hole of Business Development”.  They’re a time and resource suck drawing your entire team into an ever-expanding rabbit hole of regret.  They pull your BD person off task and away from focusing on closing the kind of clients that are a good fit for your agency. They pull subject matter experts (SME) away from their work instead of doing fantastic things for your existing clients.  They pull agency principles away from actually running the business to perform dog & ponies for points of contact they won’t really work with anyway.   If you add all of the billable hours; tap dancing, responding to multiple rounds of revision, coordinating pitches, practicing with SMEs, educating the potential client and blood sweat & tears you put into “winning the business” –and apply that to your margin analysis — was it really worth it in the end?

“They’re fishing for information, ideas or intellectual capital.”

Education:  RFPs are fishing expeditions rationalized as an acceptable practice by those who shouldn’t be making a decision.   They’re tools used by people who don’t understand what their needs, wants and ultimate objectives are and/or people who want the milk for free.  They’re fishing for information, ideas or intellectual capital.

Every client I’ve ever worked with requires some level of education or understanding of digital marketing and the ways of the web. That’s why they hire us. They’re not experts and they need not be. That’s why they outsource to an agency. But RFPs in my experience tend to be long, drawn-out learning sessions where the issuers of the RFP have some vague notion about their needs, try to fake the requirements and line items, and nine times outta ten what they’re asking for/requiring isn’t even the best solution for their stated objectives.   Not so much on the government side, but more frequently with large corporations (where inept individuals can fake their way to the top and hide), I’ve seen downright deviant behavior.  Requesting complex, lengthy and very valuable strategy upfront — before laying out one dime for the value they receive.  I find this practice abhorrent.

Fishing for Free Info, Ideas or IP

Contrived:  Again, on the topic of not being able to articulate what you need — far too often RFPs dictate bizarre requirements or line items that an uneducated individual thought they needed, but don’t make sense for the project. EXAMPLE:  “Obtain 100 in-bound links in month one.”

Hi. SPAM called and said that Google blackboxed your ass.  Would you like me to set up an appointment with a key word stuffing specialist too?  Or perhaps we can just put a whole bunch of key words at the footer of your page in the same color font as the background and hope for the best.  Umm, yeah.  How about “No”?

If you don’t know what you’re talking about, then don’t force unnatural behavior on your vendor partner as part of your RFP process.  Leave the know-how to the experts.

Cost-Conscious: Unless you’re Wal-Mart, is being the low cost leader really the best market position for your agency?  When it comes to marketing, do you want to pay bottom dollar for mediocre work or spend what’s appropriate to make marketing work in your favor?  When it comes to world-class design and development, the lowest bid never results in extraordinary outcomes.  Ever.

Commoditization: Following the footpath of penny-pinching only forces the agency to provide commoditized results and low value work product.  If your clients don’t see, understand and appreciate the value of your work, and only see you as order takers — you may as well close up shop and get a job at McDonalds.  Pride in your work product, creative strategy and solutions really don’t apply to the person manning the fry machine or single-ply toilet tissue. And commoditization should not be within your agency’s vocabulary or offerings.

Corporate Fit: In my experience, the best clients are those who value what you do, allocate appropriate budget and collaborate with you on making both of your businesses succeed.  Lisa and I started this company to work with a hand-selected roster of competent clients, who work with us in achieving results, building long-term relationships and see the value in outsourcing their digital marketing and web needs to us.  Identifying, closing and nurturing the right kinds of relationships is a foundational element of our agency and we would rather go hungry than work with the wrong type of client. Sounds like a simple ethos and so far it has worked for us.

I’m not sure what kind of agency responds to and wins RFPs. Someone wins these and I almost feel sorry for the agency that does. They’re now required to dance a dance of death with the devil until they’ve provided the set deliverables and frankly I’ve never seen anything creative, engaging or that could be held up as an example of best-in-class innovation come out of an RFP. I’ve seen plenty of bloated & bland government sites, un-navigable municipal sites, or downright dreadful non-profit sites that in no way shape or form convey the message, passion or mission of the entity that paid for it.  Please tell me I’m wrong.

In addition to serving as an advisor to the Social Media Marketing Bootcamp‘s Creative Content Marketing and Brand +Product Marketing groups, she’ll also be presenting on how to build a targeted Social Media Strategy on October 3rd.

Looking for SEO and Online Marketing? Slots are still available for the following courses:

SEO Writing, 2 weeks, November 29 – December 13
Understanding Search & Online Marketing, 6 weeks, October 24 – December 5

Contact Lisa for more details.

BOLO 2011 National Agency Conference

Double Dutch & Company’s co-founder & digital strategist Josh Yeager will be speaking again this year at the BOLO 2011 national agency conference.  The conference is an annual educational event hosted by agencyside that brings top digital marketing talent and nationally-recognized indie marketing agencies, traditional firms, PR agencies and direct marketing agencies together to share, learn and discuss the latest in digital marketing trends.

A past presenter at numerous agencyside events, workshops and webinars — at this year’s BOLO 2011 signature event, Josh will speak on “Curation: The Art of Digital Discernment”.  What does this mean? You’ll have to ask Josh or attend the event!

Hear Josh speak alongside fellow digital marketing luminaries like Jay Baer (Convince & Convert), Scott Stratten (Un-Marketing) and Columbia University’s Sree Sreenivasan.

The ever-glamorous, historic and swanky Hotel Valley Ho resort in Scottsdale, AZ is the host location for this year’s event.  A special group rate is now avilable on the BOLO website.

Discounted early-bird registration is available through 8/31/11 and you can use Josh’s discount code “JYEAGER” to save $100 off of registration.

The Two faces of Daily Deals

Being a marketer and a Gemini, I often grapple with disparate sentiments on topics.  While I feel as though being a Gemini affords me the holistic ability to see things from both sides of the coin, I often see the world in shades of grey.  I am not a “black or white” type of guy.  I think so often things depend on context, aren’t definitive, or require additional insight as to how something will be used, who is the intended audience…etc.  Somewhat like the famous Batman villain and former district attorney gone wrong; Harvey Dent/Two-Face –a mortal struggle exists within me as to my feelings on daily deal sites like Groupon, Living Social and locally, Deal Chicken.

Consumers Love a Deal

While it’s true that most people love a deal (case in point, my titillation at finding all 4 Batman movies for $9.99), cheap isn’t always a good thing.  While the DVD pack I bought was an absolute bargain, basically $2.50 per movie, I’m sure the execs over at Warner Brothers had to think long and hard about discounting their brand this way.

Consumers love luxury.  As part of The American Dream, most of us aspire to live a gilt-edged existence; a big house, a sleek vehicle, a killer sound system, a huge rock on our finger, a cruise on a luxury liner. We have a love/hate relationship with luxury.  On one hand we idolize and envy those who lead “lifestyles of the rich and famous”, yet we also abhor excess; in government, in those who profit from the peons, six figure suburban housewives in monster SUV’s, the rich who keep on getting richer.  Our Democratic ideals are at odds with the American Dream.

So while many of us yearn for the good things in life, and savor a fine dining experience, a night at the ballet or a box of Godiva chocolates – when it comes cheap, it cheapens the experience.  When brands use sites like Groupon, they are commoditizing their brand. Once you discount your brand, you cannot go back. If people can pay $25 for dinner at your restaurant, why should they ever pay $50 again?  Many businesses clamored to hop on the Groupon bandwagon during the recession as a means to just stay afloat, but don’t think it’ll be easy to regain your former perceived luxury or exclusivity once you’ve bastardized your brand with massive discounting.  Don’t think that Warner Brothers can ever again charge $19.99 for one single Batman DVD now that a 4-pack costs only $10.

Throngs of Customers | Today, Tomorrow or Never Again?

Daily deal sites definitely deliver the customers, but are they the customers you want?  In the near term it may be great to fill your restaurant or business with paying Joes and Janes, but what are the long term implications?

Some may argue on the side of exposure.  You may be driving new customers who never would have enjoyed what your brand has to offer – but will those customers return? Here we must consider the Sales Funnel.  With daily deals sites we’ve pushed people down the funnel past Awareness, Consideration and to a point of conversion. They’re in your shop or restaurant, but now what?

The Sales Funnel

How do you encourage Loyalty, Evangelism and/or even Advocacy?  How do you get these customers to return without offering huge savings?  How do you get these customers, now exposed to your business to advocate on behalf of your brand?  How do you turn them into advocates; influencing others to try and buy in your store or restaurant?   That’s a challenge when you’ve spent precious marketing budget on driving potentially non-qualified long-term leads.

Your business may be packed today but will those customers return tomorrow without the enticement of half off?  Carefully consider the potential long-term effects of daily deals sites and have a retention strategy in place to recapture those customers you’ve just spent your wad on acquiring. Otherwise you’re just spitting into the wind and sacrificing long term growth for short term bodies.

Of Tire Kickers & Tension Headaches

One of my best clients asked my opinion of Groupon-like sites about a year ago. He was being hit up by salespeople on a nearly daily basis to participate in daily deals with promises of a packed house.  I was leery then as to what these sites meant for his business and cautioned him as to my thoughts on the commoditization of his brand.  He was gung-ho and figured that the promise of increased foot traffic merited his participation. Everyone else was doing it, shouldn’t his business as well? I advised him then to test, try and consider — but not to put all of his eggs in one basket.

He recently told me he’d never do a deal site again. Had he tested and learned that that the massive discounting distorted his brand value? “No”, he said, “it’s a frickin’ logistical nightmare for me and my staff.  People come in claiming this, that or the other thing.  We can’t keep track of these things and end up honoring the deal anyway.”  When things are fast paced and an employee has to go chase down a manager and quibble over the veracity of a coupon, it creates heartburn for the staff, leaves the customer feeling awkward, other customers watching weird scenes unfold and potentially tainting their experience and it ultimately benefits no one.

He ended up handing out discounts to those few who probably abused the system or took advantage of expired deals and it ended up causing him and his staff more grief than what it was worth  for some discount-grubbing “tire-kickers” (as I call them).  To simplify things he simply does not participate in daily deals any more.  End of story.  That is certainly a black & white approach.  It resolves the issue before it even begins and avoids potentially brand-damaging scenarios altogether.

What Does This Mean for My Business?

Ultimately, the question you need to ask is “what does this mean for my business”?  I was recently intrigued by an Op Ed piece on Mashable expounding the virtues of daily deals sites.  The author believes that daily deals sites are here to stay.  While I would agree that coupons, discounting and their newest incarnation as daily deals sites are a staple for many businesses, I also think there are some major considerations the author doesn’t address.  First and foremost is the assumption that your business needs to be providing coupons or discounts to draw in customers. There are craftier ways to drive traffic, in my opinion.

I’d also like to consider the mathematical equations and implications of the deal.  Hypothetically speaking if a restaurant client has a $50 sale, does that mean the restaurant made $50?  Certainly not. The restaurant, considering today’s food costs, employees, overhead and more would be lucky to make $10 off of said meal and that’s a generous example.  If the restaurant sold a $50 gift card for $25 on Groupon, the author argues that after compensating Groupon $12.50 they made $12.50.  No, they didn’t.  They’re actually upside down.  That $12.50 did not cover the cost of the food, beverage, rent, electricity, taxes, employee benefits…etc    They most likely lost money on the deal on a tire kicker coupon-loving customer who’ll not return without further discount-enticement.

Why then give away your food, beverage and brand experience and more? This is the biggest reason why businesses need to track and understand their profit margin and perform margin analysis on their offerings.  Perhaps employee training on aggressive up-selling is required to make these deals profitable.  Perhaps they could have made money if the customer bought 2 glasses of wine when they got 1 free, or were enticed by a free dessert on their third visit, but I digress. You, as the business owner must understand the logistics of your margin and what your threshold is for offering coupons or promotions in the first place.  Assuming that making $12.50 on a $50 gift card sale meant money in the bank is not my idea of a profitable business or a smart business owner, when costs and margin are not factored into the equation.

Just Desserts

All in all, I would say that while I can potentially see some benefits of daily deals sites; it’s not a black and white win-win.  To be successful with your marketing you must consider both sides of the coin; operational logistics, up-sell opportunities, retention programs and employee communication and training to make things work right. Considering the multitude of marketing options available today, and the potential for long-term return on investment with qualified customers who’re likely to return to your business and even advocate on behalf of your brand need to be part of your marketing mix.

I’d love to hear from you if you’ve had success or despair with daily deals sites and/or if you have insights I’ve not yet experienced. We only learn when we try new things, so please, help me broaden my horizons and better understand how daily deals have worked for your business.  Please comment below or drop me a line at josh@doubledutchco.com

The Great Digital Divide

I’m often surprised by how little experience many people have with digital interactions.  While nearly everybody is familiar with the all-pervasive internet in some way, shape or form — a full 17% of U.S. Adults are social media “Inactives” according to Forrester Research.  Some business people have even had near-violent reactions when I discuss the business applications of social media.  My predication is that this ostrich-esque behavior is leading to an inevitability of social and commercial isolationism; a very near and very plausible future wherein these social Luddites will be disconnected from society in general and unable to compete in the marketplace.

In 1895 one of my personal patron saints and the “Father of Science Fiction” H.G. Wells wrote a prolific tome entitled The Time Machine, wherein he predicted a fictional future of “Haves” & “Have-Nots” known as the Morlocks and the Eloi; two future races of humanoids descended from modern Earthlings.  The Morlocks live below ground, have technology and feed, hunt and consume their biological cousins the surface-dwelling Eloi.  There’s some food for thought that got me thinking about our current digital divide.

Eat My Dust

Unlike the groundswell of “silver surfers” and recent retirees leaving the workspace and headed directly online, my mother has yet to join Facebook.  While that’s 150% OK and her prerogative, we’re increasingly frustrated on our marathon phone calls when she shares with me a bit of treasured family news or gossip and I explain, “Yes Mom, I know — I saw the pix on Facebook” or “Aunt So & So posted on my wall — she says hello”.   As Facebook steadily becomes the preferred medium for social interactions of all ages, my mother is slowly being left in the digital dust.  She’s becoming increasingly out of touch with her friends, her family and world happenings.  Despite 85% of the crap I read on Facebook being ephemeral effluent about which I could give a rat’s ass – I’m in many ways “more connected” with the goings on in my community and circles of friends & colleagues; with society in general.

Required Skill Sets

But it’s not all fun and games and sharing of BBQ snapshots and baby showers.  As many are, if you’re looking for a job your LinkedIn profile is an absolute.  With more than 100m+ professionals as of March 2011 and 73 of the Fortune 100 using LinkedIn’s hiring solutions, it’s pretty obvious which garden a job seeker needs to tend.  This, along with other bits of controlled, online information like your Google Profile, and information that you choose to share, creates your online brand, your digital presence.  Make sure it’s up to snuff.

Some social & digital media strategists like Jay Baer, and I believe that the social media skills of today are the job requirements of tomorrow.  “Social needs to become a skill, not a job.”   Every employee in your organization is a representative of your company, your brand and their digital, social and networking skills are what will make your company successful.  “You gotta play to win” as they say, and I say that if your company is staffed with ostriches, you will soon be unable to compete or even participate n the marketplace.

Watch Your Back

Today’s grads, those entering the workforce and those who’ve already adopted and integrated technology into their existence are armed to the gills with information.  We now live in a real-time, always-on world that moves at a lighting pace that would give your grandparents a coronary.  And it’s just getting faster.  Millennials and even many Gen Y and Gen X’ers use tools like TweetDeck, CoTweet, chat apps and even something as basic as Google Alerts — to keep abreast of and sift through the incessant stream of data that bombards us.  As a society we’re developing new social skills to consume, process and digest the relevant bits of information that empower and enable us daily.  Well, by the second, actually.

The fact of the matter is that business connections, networking, deals, virtual handshakes and signed contracts all take place digitally.  Your website and your online presence matter – a lot!  Consumers and business people alike make decisions about where they spend their money and with whom they do business based on a company’s perceived presence and online reputation.  And as one of my wisest of mentors once said, “Perception is reality”.  Check out how your favorite brand is perceived.  Your brand is not what you say it is – it’s what others say about you.  So if you’re not keeping up online, you’re dead in the water offline.

Frankly I’m stunned when I see businesses still using outmoded technologies like faxes. This is the 21^st century, people!  If you care about your company, your brand or your personal livelihood – you’ll get in the game.  It’s not as scary as you may think. And if you need a helping hand to guide you into this century and its expansive universe of business tools, that’s why we’re here.  The last thing I want to see is you or your business eaten alive like a hapless (yet fairly tasty) Eloi.

Siouxsie & The Banshees, dogs, cooking, manners, grammar, tartar sauce, Berlin, Germany, Berlin The Band, art museums, The Smiths, spelling words with the letter “u” all British-like, John Waters, pupusas, Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom, Jameson whisky, ginger ale, ginger snaps, ginger cubs, Jugendstil, Pepsi, mint, Beat StrEat Truck, industrial design, terrariums, hiking,  Bauhaus, hummus, rock-a-billy, Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, Blondie, jazz, cigars, Sarah Vowell, John Hughes movies, The Golden Girls, beer, sex, history, Fiestaware, classical guitar, NPR, deviled eggs, botany, Yelp, Björk, AZWIT, Go-Kat-Go, Bazaar Bizarre, Catherine Deneuve, The Hotel Valley Ho, Nutella, The Vig Uptown, pretzel rolls, Parker Posey, Urban Cookies, cheese, sleeping, Chelsea Handler, filthy dirty martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives – tons of them, Pedro Almodóvar, Sedona AZ, muntjac deer, David Lynch, wingtip shoes, horn-rimmed glasses, sock-garters, Pocky, house music, handkerchiefs, The Hanky Code, Divine, monkies, zombies, donkeys, potatoes, tomatoes, Manhattan, WIRED magazine, Ira Glass, Ira Flatow, Ira Gerschwin, Regretsy, Ignite Phoenix, National Beard Registry, IKEA, Dottie Hinkle, Halloween, ribs, Sarah Silverman, cheeseburgers, Zack Galifianakis, The Onion, Butch Bakery, Local First Arizona, Pat O’s Bunkhouse Saloon, Glockenspielschnitzelliebe, tapioca pudding, Bärenjäger, stationary, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, kilts and Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands.

Now, if we could just make this rhyme and write a song about it!  Consider this a little taste of corporate flavour and perhaps a sneak peek into the mindset of the people behind the marketing smarts here at Double Dutch & Co.

One of my topics was a lightning round, speed session on social media marketing.  But how do you condense a topic as broad as that into 15 minutes? I created a quick & dirty acronym called CPR to make my case.  My version of CPR doesn’t involve synthetic “Resucsi-Annie” dolls – it involves real people – the people who use social media.  CPR works like this:

• Content
• People
• Relevance

The points I made are that in order to be a successful social media marketer, regardless of the website, platform, technology or channel – you need to focus on these three areas:

Create content that answers a question, solves a problem, provides a utility or entertains the end-user.

Focus on the people who will consume this content, and that means knowing and understanding everything you can about your target audience’s needs, wants, ideas, opinions, problems and hot buttons.

Relevance is king! Combine what you know about your target audience, create content that meets their needs, answers their questions, solves their problems or speaks to what entertains them – and you’re golden every time.

To learn more about my preso – watch it here on SlideShare or shoot me a message.

You might say “Well, no doy, Josh”, but surprisingly many companies, especially small businesses don’t make the cut.  You might say you’re dedicated to customer service but does your website really address those visiting it?

Studies show you have 3-7 seconds to grab the attention of a site visitor or they hit the back button. The very first page they see (which may not be your homepage, especially if you’ve optimized interior pages for specific key word phrases) must grab their attention and speak to what they are looking for.

It’s a simple shift in mindset, really, when writing for the web. A few things to bear in mind:

• People are inherently lazy, we don’t read – we skim.
• We look for visual cues and short, digestible bits of information.
• Your copy needs to speak to your target audience, on their level, in their vernacular
• Create copy with the words “you” and “yours”  instead of “we” and “our”
• Address the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) of your audience and focus on how your business solves their issues needs and wants

If you take your ego out of the equation and focus on what your company really does for your customers, your site will be a better resource and convert better every time.