And I’m not talking about a company being tenacious. Tenacity in marketing is good. Imperative even. Never take no for an answer. I get it. I practice it. But sometimes, you’re just barking up the wrong tree. For example, my husband, who is many years before retirement and his golden years, has hit the AARP mailing list and no matter how often we remind them that he is young, virile and not on Medicare – they still waste money – oodles of money – sending us direct mail. Several a month. AT & T knows I just bought the new iphone. They know my contract has recently been extended. They know everyone in my family is registered with AT & T and have very expensive phones. But they still waste money telling me about all the lower quality phones just in case I decided to downgrade?

This past week was yet another example of this from our local public television broadcasting station and I decided to challenge them on it. Several years ago I bought a DVD set which automatically signed me up as a supporter. Fine. No problem. I support them. It was a great show. I love the DVD.  Several years later,  I still get calls and emails and direct mail asking me to rejoin. Fine. Great. They are tenacious. I love it. Recently, on several calls I received from them, I indicated that we no longer receive the channel at all due to the cable selection we have. I would not be interested in supporting them for logical reasons. They wrote it down. Great. I got another call. They wrote it down again. I got a direct mail (which I calculated to cost no less than $1.50 plus postage). I got another call. Then I got mad. Not mad because I had to tell them again not to call me. That’s not a big deal. But mad because some Marketing Director in a cushy office is not doing his/her job. That pisses me off.

Being the marketer that I am I couldn’t help but challenge the call center on why they were not keeping track of my responses. I am not suggesting that they not be tenacious and continue to bug me because the numbers show that eventually I might break down and support them again but when a “dealbreaker” enters the situation like you are moving or you don’t get the channel anymore or you just went bankrupt or whatever, at that point you are wasting money you could be spending on warmer leads. And you can simply move the lead to another “cooler” list that you can keep contact with in cheaper ways,  like email.

The response from the call center was that the call center doesn’t have anything to do with the direct mail list, yada yada. The same response I usually get when I challenge the call center – which unfortunately, I have lots of opportunity to do because so many companies do not cross reference their lists.

The bottom line is obvious. And perhaps a lesson. Years ago I got my start in advertising in a Recruitment Advertising firm. To get new business, we would scan the New York Times and Wall Street Journal help wanted sections, cut out ads with typos or that we think we could have written better and mail them to the response in the ad with a business card. We got tons of business that way. It was cheesy but in reality it worked. Perhaps that should be a new sales strategy every time I see someone doing it wrong!

So for all the marketers who don’t know their customers – if you get a package with all your misguided direct mails – you’ll know who it came from.

1. If your agency doesn’t ask hard questions – it’s a sure sign they don’t understand marketing. This is usually the case with graphic design firms or web designers who are only focused on what the end result looks like, not whether it will achieve it’s goals.  A true marketing firm will want to know everything about the project, the audience, the objectives, the planned response and will even play devils advocate.

2. On this note, your agency should not only be executing your ideas, but they should be bringing plenty of ideas to the table as well.  A true marketer is constantly thinking of ways to expand your market share, continue a dialogue with your clients and just genuinely make your job easier.

3. Your “Marketing  Strategy” should not just consist of lists of communications materials that you need to develop. Many agencies hang their hat on good creative when in fact good creative is the price of admission. The value that an agency brings to the table is not how good they can make a website look – but instead, how they are going to bring people to that website. Not how kool your Twitter background is, but how you can use Twitter to increase relevant traffic to your site, your store or your service venues.

4. Bigger does not always mean better when it comes to marketing. In other words, you don’t always need the most expensive ad placement, the website with the most bells and whistles or the $5000 stock photo in order to reach your goals. Sometimes, the most effective strategies we recommend, are the cheapest and easiest to execute but only a real marketing company will be brave enough to share them with you.

5. ROI is a real thing but it’s not the only thing. This is a tricky one. Some agencies make their living off of slicing and dicing ROI numbers but at the end of the day, cannot tell you cost per lead vs cost per latte. While others will fleece you for thousands of creative dollars with not a single lead to show for it. Use common sense on this one. If you have an agency swinging the pendulum in either one of these directions, they probably don’t get that marketing should have some measurable returns.

6. Is your agency “full-service”? I personally love a company called “such and such” web design or “somebody’s name” design firm that claims to be a full service marketing firm. There is a difference between an agency and a design shop.  Look for their list of services then ask them to show you examples of it.

7. Is their portfolio a collection of  ”award-winning” designs with no explanation on why or how or who? For true marketing firms, there is a real story behind every piece and it’s not focused on the color palette or the photography. It’s focused on the who, the what, the why. Constantly check yourself as you review portfolios – it’s easy to be enamored by pretty pictures, just make sure there is a reason for them.

8. Does your agency make your life easier? Good agencies come to the table with copy, photo recommendations, agendas, outlines, status reports, spreadsheets – whatever it takes to make your life easier and keep the project moving.

9. No Account Management. While your creative team is important and they make your brand come to life, designers, developers and the like can only do a great job with great direction.  Your main contact should understand your brand inside and out, have strong and diplomatic leadership skills and be prepared to guide you and the company’s management team to make good decisions for your brand and your business.

10. Bad Marketing of their own company. This is a dead giveaway. Do they have a hard to navigate website circa 1980? As Peter Shankman pointed out – can you even find them on the web? Do they blog about the same old marketing 101 junk that you can find everywhere without an original thought or comment on current events? Do you want your company to look like that? Enough said.

I hope this wasn’t too objectionable. It’s been stirring for a while and perhaps is the reason it took me so long to start blogging about marketing – I really have not wanted to join the ranks of the millions of “Marketing Experts” that clutter up the airways.  So thanks to Peter Shankman for opening the floodgates for experts everywhere to reclaim their space!

@AlexDeGruven Saw your tweet about the flooring, sorry about that, can I help

@cymbalmom1 Saw your Tweet, Sorry we let you down and thnx for your feedback. Let me know if I can help in the future.about 4 hours ago from web in reply to cymbalmom1

@BoerneSearch Sorry to hear that. I’ve asked someone to contact the manufacturer, in the meantime can you DM me your contact info?

@tvjamesGlad to have you back Hey, If we ever mess up please reach out before you walk away though

Now, I am no Chris Brogan or Peter Shankman but it appears to even a novice social networker that this doesn’t seem like a very valuable use of the only corporate Home Depot Twitter account available. First, it occurs to me that public responses to DMs give you only one half of the picture. Plus, it leads one to believe that Home Depot is basically full of unsatisfied customers (whether or not this is true is irrelevant). Rather than use the feed to provide project ideas, special in-store discounts, product announcements, or just plain damage control, they have what amounts to a public customer service line.

I would think that large organizations such as Home Depot already have a strong social networking strategy in place but that appears to be an erroneous assumption. So the best we can learn from this is basically “how not to do it”.

The book is called: “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology” by a brilliant guy named Eric Brende. After spending much of his life living in the “plugged in” world, Eric then spent years theorizing and developing his position on the impact of technology on our culture. The book is about his journey into the unplugged world – literally living for a lengthy period of time – completely and utterly “off the grid”. While there are myriad lessons in barnraising and community gardening, the interesting part is that his position is not to get rid of technology all together, but simply to develop smarter – building to complement human capabilities, not replace or replicate them en masse.

My own take away is that there is a difference between building, say a can opener and an automatic can opener. A can opener is a useful thing. Runs on human power but really makes it much easier than banging at a can with a hammer and nail. The automated version, now runs on the power grid, reduces my need to do anything physical (which cumulatively will have an affect on me at some point) and is wholely unnecessary because it doesn’t save any time at all, just a little exertion, which is theoretically good for me.

Interesting position but what does it have to do with the Internet? Everything.

I build websites for a living. Well, my team does. Been doing it since the early nineties when most everyone discovered they needed a web presence. During that time, I’ve seen lots of agencies go above and beyond to develop the next biggest idea in Web delivery. Some of that was akin to the can opener – really improving things at a reasonable trade off. Much of it, however, falls into the automatic can opener category for me. Extra junk that clutters up the counter and doesn’t improve the final outcome.

I could literally write a book about all of the ways I have seen this happen but the most frustrating part is that companies buy into it. They want that automated can opener. They want to know that website is plugged in, they want to hear the tell-tale hum of automation and they want their friends to see the latest gadget proudly displayed on their counter. I want to scream to them and say – WHY? How many phone calls did you get today from customers because of that automated thing-a-ma-bob? How many people did you lose because their quaint little computers didn’t have the fortitude to handle your big and colorful home page fireworks display?

But Eric Brende gives me hope that some day, we’ll realize that less is more. The Internet already seems to be weeding out the junk and it seems that much of the current thought leadership is returning to the simpler, more focused user interface. We’ll continue to move our clients in that direction and we’ll be here when the bells and whistles are all quieted down.

After launching several months ago, rumour has it that Hard Rock Park, the music-themed entertainment spin-off of the Hard Rock Cafe geniuses, is not turning the numbers they could. Small crowds, opening day tickets that couldn’t even be sold for under value on e-bay, reduced ticket prices and the lack of traffic seen on the web cam (before it was taken down) tell me that they could be doing a lot better. On the occasions we’ve been there, the parking lot never got more than 1/3 full.

Unfortunately, many seasonal venues like this are probably using the economy as a major reason for this type of slump seen across the country – but is it really just the economy that causes this? And even if it is, is there no marketing initiative that can drag people off the couches and onto a coaster on a sunny Saturday afternoon? I think there is.

So here’s quick rundown on the Red Flags that tell me Hard Rock Park’ s marketing initiatives are in the Red Zone:

1. I live in North Carolina – just 80 miles away from the HRP, I am a member of the Hard Rock Cafe discount club and all the months leading up to the development of the park and after it’s launch – I never received a postcard or other print mailing telling me about HRP. (The problem with this should be obvious.)

2. I am a Hard Rock Cafe discount club card holder in the monthly emails have only seen the HRP mentioned 2 or 3 times (as afterthoughts) in the regular emails I receive.

3. I have been to Hard Rock Cafe in Myrtle Beach, SC – just minutes from HRP – many times since the groundbreaking of HRP and not once have I received a flyer, a coupon, a mention by my waiter, or any other indication that anything was going on. I happened to have known about it from a random search and actually asked a retail clerk in the Hard Rock Cafe store – and they couldn’t even answer a question such as – “Would Hard Rock Cafe discount card holders receive a discount to park tickets?”

4. Hard Rock Cafe discount card holders are, in fact, not entitled to a discount on HRP tickets. This is just plain silly.

5. All summer long there have been discounted ticket prices pushed for HRP (clearly to increase visitors) but this would not even be known to me if I hadn’t signed up for the HRP emails. No banner ads, no print ads – just a few local TV spots communicate this.

My list could be very long so I’ll spare you. The bottom line is, the park is fabulous. Expensive to get in for a day and not all that large, but if you love Rock music, the chance to hit a coaster with Zeppelin blaring in your ears – is an experience well worth plunking down your $50 bucks for. But I have to be honest, I’m scared for them. They clearly cannot keep up even the maintenance of the place without bringing in more revenue. The attendance at the park each time we were there doesn’t even cover the cost of the fireworks show at night (which is nothing less than tearjerking to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody) let alone the musicians, cover bands, performers, security, staff and upkeep – which is impeccable. And we are entering slow season for tourist attractions here in the Eastern Carolina’s so I’m not sure how they will survive the height of hurricane season and the slow months without seriously targeting locals. There are dozens of ideas that have popped into my own marketing mind and I’d love to know if they’ve considered them but most importantly, I love the place and I just want to be sure they keep their doors open.

So Hard Rock Park – how are you going to get out of the RED ZONE?

Clearly, no one wants to be here. But I’m baffled by how many companies are pouring money into initiatives that are most likely not adding to their bottom line. How do I know this? How do I know that companies are not reaping the benefits of their marketing dollars? How do I know there are other initiatives they could be spending money on which would likely result in a much greater return on their investment?

Well, yes, I am a marketing person. I have spent a long time understanding client businesses and then helping them put together a mix of programs that will help them increase sales. That’s what I do for a living, so experience is definitely one way to validate my opinion.

But, I’m also a customer. I am the market research. I am the person you are targeting. And I get frustrated when you miss the mark. When you tell me something that doesn’t make me want to pick up the phone and place an order. When you miss an opportunity to remind me of your sale. When you misinterpret my needs. When you forget to tell me about why you’re better than the next guy.

To me, marketing is not rocket science – it’s actually more like common sense and every day when I speak to clients about their campaigns and their brands and their spending, their reaction is usually a – “Yeah, you are so right” or a – “why didn’t we think of that?” kind of response.

So if it’s so obvious, why are so many companies in the Red?