Even Sex Can’t Save Print

Last week, I saw a news story online that even gave me a start about the fate of the print medium: The next issue of Playboy magazine would cover two months.

What?

 

One of the staples of American pop scene for more than half a century, and let’s face it, the interest was there before the magazine arrived, can’t/won’t publish an independent August issue?

 

The bunny, Hef, Marilyn Monroe, the Jimmy Carter Interview, the foldout, reading it for the articles? Yet they can’t scrape up the money to publish an August issue?

 

For as long as I can recall, and I go back to the days before disco, there have been certain inviolate rules/aphorisms:

 

If it bleeds, it leads

Get on page one

Sex sells

 

Well, it doesn’t anymore.

 

Did you think the day would come when Playboy couldn’t sell pictures of the girl next door in the all together? It’s enough to make Anna Nicole Smith turn over in her grave.

 

So now what do you believe? Where are you putting your ad dollar? Are you going to pay $35,000 for a page of advertising now and wait two months for your message to reach an uninterested world? Or will you consider video pushcasts now?

 

And don’t forget, even when print was king, a National Podcasting System pushcast started at almost 1/6th of that page price– and that was for everything, the finished product delivered, not just the ad space. Plus, a pushcast can be in front of your prospects and clients the same day it was shot, unlike a print advertisement.

 

How do we do it? Well, just like Playboy, we strip off all the frills and unnecessary pieces to work with stark naked ability. That is, we use a minimal, mobile crew. We don’t script our stories, we let your experts “sell what they know.” We use the latest technology to capture, edit, and compress your story. And we do it all without staples in our navels.

 

If Playboy can skip an issue, you can consider another medium.

 

So send us an email: krobles@nationalpod.com, and hear our story and see our quality. Let’s face it, without those articles to read, you’ll have some extra time to kill.

 

Brian McMahon, CEO – National Podcasting System

News Moves

When news happens today, there are repercussions. Stocks rise. Stocks tank. Heads roll. Political careers turn.

 

It happens instantly.

 

Why?

 

Is it because we as a civilization are so finely attuned to the changes in fortune?

 

No.

 

It happens because it can. After 400,000 years, news can finally reach us almost as fast as it happens. Progress or not, that is the fact. It’s more than a trend, it’s happening now.

 

Things used to take months or weeks to be reported, but when we got the news we acted instantly.

 

Why are elections in November and inaugurations in January? Because in 1786, it took weeks to collect votes from the outskirts in Florida. Yes, Florida has always been an issue.

 

Why was the Pony Express founded? Because if gold was found in California, it took days for the news to reach New York.

 

In 1875, why didn’t Elisha Gray get the patent for the telephone? Because there was no telephone at the time and he didn’t know that Alexander Graham Bell’s lawyer had already left for the Patent Office, before he got out the door.

 

There are two lessons from this:

 

1. News has historically been getting faster, and

2. The lag time can have fatal or financial consequences

 

That’s why so many people in the world work so hard to speed up the news. Why are magazines dying? because I can’t wait until next week to get the news. Why are newspapers dying? Because I can’t wait until tomorrow morning to get the news. Why is the 6 o’clock news dying? Because I can’t wait until this evening to get the news.

 

So why are you still creating traditional print ads and brochures? In a world where now is finally news, why are you still stuck between 1965 and 1980?

 

Wireless. Instant messaging. Tweets. Smart phones. It’s not enough just to be fast, you have to be mobile.

 

So how are you mobile?

 

Yes, your clients can carry a magazine or newspaper. Some still do. But it’s full of old news.

 

So how are you mobile?

 

You have a Web site. Good. Do you know html? Can you produce Java Script or Flash?

 

Have you considered Push-casting? Video Podcasting? Web based video?

 

But that takes time…?

 

No, it doesn’t. If you have news now, National Podcasting System can be there within the hour, shoot your story and edit it on the spot. Can you do that with an ad?

 

But video requires a script….?

 

No it doesn’t. You have innovators and engineers, the people who create your products. They know the inner working inside an out. They don’t need a script. Besides, your users would rather hear it from the creator’s mouth anyway.

 

But video is expensive…?

 

No, print is expensive. Traditional media is expensive. Producing an ad that no one will read and no one will respond to is expensive.

 

We can create a video on the spot as good as National news, for $6K, maybe less.

 

And the resulting, compressed video can reach your partners at coffee shops, your employees around the world, your customers on their smart phones, within seconds of completion.

 

It will take our production truck longer to get back to the office than your video to reach the other side of the planet.

 

That’s instant. That’s impact. That’s news.

 

That’s National Podcasting System.

 

Get your news off the table in the lobby and into the hands of your people in the field.

 

Brian McMahon, CEO – National Podcasting System

The Death of Gadgets?

I just finished watching the keynote to the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, which occurred this morning in San Francisco. Suddenly I put two and two together… 

 

Several months ago, The Sharper Image closed all of its brick and mortar stores. I was shocked. I loved The Sharper Image; not that I bought much there, the prices were always a little high, but I always went in and looked around. I love gadgets, so the Sharper Image was kind of a little Mecca for me. And I don’t think I’m alone. There are lot’s of gadget lovers, hundreds of thousands, I’m sure. And yet, poof, it was gone.

 

So what was going to fill in the vacuum? Brookstone? I don’t think so, they don’t have the locations. I was perplexed. I just realized nothing is going to fill the void.

 

As the new features of the iPhone were announced, one of the announcements was the opening of the dock connector to developers  and the addition of a magnetometer. The iPhone is all the old gadgets and the new gadgets rolled into one. 

 

Whoa!

 

Gadgets have always been cool design and cool utilities in a neat hardware package.

 

You no longer need the hardware. More important, you no longer need the expense of gadgets. The hand-held computer that is a iPhone (and probably the Blackberry and Pre) is now the gadget platform.

 

What did The Sharper Image know ahead of time? 

 

Now innovators can develop any manner of gadget features into a software package that runs on the iPhone. Not one gadget or a few, hundreds, thousands; and they’re upgradeable. Not just notes and compass features, but networking, printing, focusing cameras, video, video editing, medical equipment, music equipment, etc. etc.

 

What will happen to the gadget makers?

 

What will happen to the economy?

 

What will happen to you?

 

You probably don’t run a business based on gadgets, but don’t think this doesn’t have an effect on what you do. The world is changing. Are you?

 

Are you still selling your business the way you did ten years ago? How about ten days ago?

 

The hand-held digital gadget platform is now the new social network tool. So where is your message? 

 

An email? A tweet? You might as well sell Swiss Army Knives knives with hand-crank flashlights. 

 

Video is the new medium and it has to be fast and it has to reach the new gadget platforms. Are you taking advantage of it yet?

 

Do you even know how?

 

Perhaps it’s time you contacted National Podcasting System, the company that launched the push-video revolution. NPS packages your message, puts it on video, compresses it, and pushes it to your customers, users, employees, anyone!

 

Think about that as your changing world drifts into a sharper image.

 

Brian McMahon, CEO - National Podcasting System

 

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009

Metcalfe’s Law

In talking about web-based video and assistance, and return on investment, I’m reminded of what has become known as Metcalfe’s Law.

 

There are many forms of the law, which was expressed by Robert Metcalfe in 1980, while discussing Ethernet networks. The version I’m familiar with is stated like this:

 

While the cost of expanding a network grows linearly, the value of the network grows geometrically.

 

Which means adding each node in the network is roughly the same, it may drop a little, but the third unit is roughly the same cost as the 10,000th. However the value of having 10,000 connectors is astronomically more than cost.

 

This is where the Old ROI argument fails. When eBay and Yahoo and Google were buying their equipment, they had no idea what their network would be worth or what it would return. 

 

Our customers know that a standard web-based video will cost “x“. They know that if they do 12 in a year, they will get a better price, say “y” each, or “y x 12″ total. Then they compare that number to their marketing budget.

 

Some invest, some don’t.

 

Those that don’t look at the linear cost. If I invest in 12 web videos that cover a range of topics in a way that is more memorable, more engaging, and more conversational then what I do now, then I’ll have to cut a single page of print advertising, that I know will only provide a 1% return.

 

They aren’t looking at the value of twelve web-based videos. 

 

Any prospect can review a video any time, day or night. They can call it up right when the info is critical to their decision. They can call it up right when they are confused. They can call it up in the middle of a presentation to explain how they have solved their company’s problem.

 

Now multiply that by all the prospects in the world.

 

Can they do the same with that single ad insertion you had to cut?

 

Would they want to call up that single ad insertion you had to cut?

 

Web-based videos can easily be five minutes long, a print ad my have 180 words of copy. Which conveys more info?

 

People watch web-based video (ask YouTube), they don’t read ad copy (ask the newspaper industry).

 

People retain what they see in video, they don’t retain what they don’t read.

 

Web videos can cover any topic, they can demonstrate any product or product aspect, they can even demonstrate products that don’t exist.

 

You can train, you can give repair directions, you can demonstrate features.

 

You can reach 100% of your prospects with web video: on your site, on YouTube, via RSS.

 

You can update a video with an edit (with an extra cost).

 

You can provide video soundtracks in any language (with an extra cost).

 

So what is the cost and what is the value?

 

The real ROI of web-base video is in the conversation they generate. That’s recall of Interest and it’s worth geometrically more than the cost of production.

 

Brian McMahon – CEO, National Podcasting System

 

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009

What Just Changed?

In my last blog, I was talking about the difference between “Promotion and Assistance.” It’s such a big and important concept, I have to talk about it again, but from a different point of view.

 

Another misplaced artifact of “Old Media” is “stickiness.” 

 

That’s the concept of getting a prospect to visit your site and then hover there. To look all over, to be absorbed with your offerings. And by extension, not to have any more time so they can’t go to a competitor’s site and linger there.

 

That’s foolish.

 

In fact, that’s foolish on numerous levels.

 

1. It’s disrespectful of customer time. Prospects who come to your site have a job and that job is not looking at your site. They came to you for assistance, “my company needs to do this and I think you can help me.” 

 

You give them back layers and layers of promotion and hype, requiring click after click to hack through to finally, if ever, get what they were looking for. How is that helpful? And do you think they’ll ever come back?

 

2. They’re going to go the your competitor’s anyway. Attempts to hold prospects to your site are folly. No prospect says I’m going to go to one site and one site only. 

 

No matter how cool your site is or how many cool effects it has, customers are going to compare. Creating a site that isn’t fast, that doesn’t present the information as quickly as possible, that hides assistance under layers of hype, not only won’t be sticky and won’t hold prospects, it will PUSH them to competitors, who do do a good job

 

3. Word will get out. How many times have you heard, “oh that site sucks, don’t go there.” People talk. What are they saying about your site? 

 

If your site is layers of hype, you’re one of the ones who suck. But if you are helpful and assist people quickly, you’ll get the recommendation of all those people in chat room. Where does that show up in “return on investment” calculations? You can buy good will.

 

4. Let them go and talk. Your real goal should be to assist prospects, give them the info they needed as quickly as possible and then let them leave and sing your praises. Let them go to the competitor’s chat room and tell the people there how great your site was.

 

5. What do you really want? Would you prefer holding someone on your site for an hour and driving them away so frustrated that they never return? Or getting some to visit 60 days in a row for a minute and to spread the word you’re trying to get out.

 

It’s not about stickiness, it’s about assistance. The new webROI is recall of interest. Who helped me? Where did you go to get what you need? Who can I talk with and get answers?

 

The web village bazaar is not another print or TV. You don’t get to hold people rapt because there is nothing else on. You have to be chosen. You have to be selected. You assist people and the want to come back and bring their colleagues. 

 

In the end, what has changed is this: Old school ad hype doesn’t work on the web because people can instantly ask your users if it is true… and get the answer. 

 

If it is hype, all your sticky tricks won’t save you. If if isn’t just hype, you won’t need the hype.

 

So just assist people with the information they need. Don’t get Angelina Jolie to do it, get Andrew from Receiving. Web-based video podcasts are the fastest way to share your information. They are always on. They allow users to listen while doing something else at their desks. They are faster than reading. They are better retained than printed material. They are faster to make and easier to change.

 

And all of that promotes ROI: Recall of Interest and assistance.

 

How do I know? We make web-based videos that assist our clients to assist their clients. We’re the National Podcasting System.

 

Brian McMahon – CEO, National Podcasting System

 

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009

Look Who’s Podcasting: Nolo Press

Nolo Press

Almost 40 years ago, Nolo Press began offering affordable, plain-English books, forms and software on a wide range of legal issues to help small business owners and ordinary people. In 2006, Nolo Press started a series of free audio podcasts to further assist customers and prospects alike with another channel for legal information that people want and need.

Click here to engage with: Nolo Press Podcasts

Engagement Is Not Promotion

Engagement is not Promotion, it’s Assistance

 

New media and new industries take some time to absorb and understand. Few things are still used “as they were promoted” ten years after they were out. New products eventually inspire new usage strategies. So when I go around to talk about web-based video online and using video like a podcast to engage new and old prospects and clients, I realize some re-engineering of Marketing or Sales thought is also required.

 

Let me explain. 

 

The issue is what do you want vs. what do your clients want. You want to promote your products or services. Of course you do. Who would have an issue with that. What do clients and prospects want? They want information or options about how to do their work better, faster, cheaper. That also makes complete sense.

 

Here’s the disconnect. 

 

Companies often get so caught up in promotion they forget to promote what the customer wants. Instead they focus on new or deals, or price cuts, or techno-mumbo-jumbo designed to make their site or product sound smart or cutting edge.

 

These problems all began in the Old Media Age, which, let’s face it, was only ten years ago. It proliferated because there was no natural feedback loop in print and collateral. Companies could say whatever they thought was important, or whatever focus group research said was important (i.e. New Coke). Even worse, old media took time to create, so you had weeks, even months to tweak and take input: and let’s put a starburst in, and let’s put the price in shiny gold type, and let’s mention how great we are, etc.

 

You ended up with something that appealed to no one. And then companies ported that same thinking to the web. Except now you do have interaction. The web is a bazaar in a global village. Everyone can talk and they do. So if you avoid or hide what the customer wants, they’ll go talk to someone else.

 

Here is the key point: The web is not for promotion, it’s for assistance.

 

You want to promote your product? You want to keep you clients? You want your clients to promote you products to others? Then assist them.

 

I signed up for a newsletter last week from a technical Web site whose products I use. I had to sign up to get a certain level of functionality for a product I own. Okay, I said, I can always use technical advice. I’ve gotten five “newsletters” since then (in a week), each one: Buy this…, One Day sale…, Last chance! I like their products. Would I advise a colleague to sign up? No way.

 

The Web ROI is not the return on investment. Your investment is minuscule. You’ll spend more on a single TV spot or the media for one print ad then you’ll ever spend on your site. But nothing will every generate the potential assistance and potential good will as a site that assists your prospects.

 

And what’s the best way to us it? What is most respectful of your prospect’s time? What is best at planting seeds that will be retained?

 

Web-based video.

 

In a world where the new ROI is Recall of Interest, web-based video is the king of the hill.

 

Don’t use actors. Don’t uses hype.

 

Get real employees who really know the various aspects  of the products YOUR CLIENTS WANT PROMOTED, and have them discuss them, explain them.

 

That’s assistance.

That’s the real promotion.

That’s ROI: Recall of Interest.

That’s the web village bazaar conversation.

That’s what we sell.

We’re the National Podcasting System.

 

Brian McMahon – CEO, National Podcasting System

 

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009

Selling Engagement

Print is dead. Print is dead. Print is dead!

There I said it.

 

Now, don’t mourn, books aren’t going to go away. News papers aren’t going to end up threatening adventurers in Jurassic Park 4. It’s not print that’s dead, it’s one-to-many braggadocio.

 

No longer do you get to script and hone and spend four months retouching photos for the Fall brochure or next year’s catalog. The new selling is now. More important, it is one to one. You say something, a prospect says something back. The prospect says something to another prospect and that one says something to you. That is what the web has wrought.

 

Traditional media stopped at broadcasting to prospects. The new media means, the prospect can broadcast back. That is the essence of the New Media if anyone ever asks. But to get that, first, you must engage.

 

The new media means anyone can broadcast. There are 50 million voices. The world has become a village and there is only one bazaar in the middle of it all. So you can’t prepare a speech. You must be prepared to converse. People like to converse.

 

How do you do it? 

 

You need real people. Don’t hire an actor. Don’t spend $10,000 a month to coach the CEO. Find someone who “gets” your product and let them talk. 

 

Mind that key word: “gets,” not “knows.” The new media is not a forum for data sheets. You have to “get” what you do. You have to know why it’s cool. And you have to know why people care. 

 

Then you can engage prospects. Prospects like learning new stuff and the love things that are cool. Engage them and they will sell for you. That is the benefit of the new media.

 

The fastest, easiest way is with web video. You let your people talk about what you do and even let them show what you do (the great advantage of video). Then you share it like a video podcast.

 

It’s what we do. We at the National Podcasting System have one great skill: we can look at what you make and tell you what you sell. There are lot’s of people with video cameras, you may even have them on staff. Who was the last one to mention engagement?

 

Engagement is the real ROI in the New Media Business: Recall of Interest. Look how fast videos and videos and viruses spread around the web? Can your brochure do that?

 

Engagement is the hand shake in the Web Village Bazaar. That’s what you need. That is what we sell. 

 

In fact, this blog just proved it.

 

Brian McMahon – CEO, National Podcasting System

 

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009

The New ROI

The new ROI is not “return on investment”

 

Since founding this company over three years ago, there is one question I get, we get all the time: What’s the ROI? What’s the return for investing in this podcast medium?

For most of those three years I’ve responded by pulling out all the research we can dig up on a medium and a product that is barely older than we are. I make comparisons to print options. I make comparisons to collateral options. I make comparisons to broadcast options.

If business people actually cared about ROI, the facts and figures I present may not turn them to the web-based video we produce and compress; but it sure as hell should turn them against traditional media. Instantly.

The world is changing. Wrong.

The world has changed. We are no longer a world and you are no longer a business person high up in some glass tower thousands of miles away. We are all now in a web village. This is where people come to play games on line, look at pictures, and, yes, buy your products from the web village bazaar.

In the bazaar, buying and selling is chatting. Your glossy ads and brochures are stylized walls designed to create a grand impression, while isolating you from revealing too much information. That worked when someone was alone reading a magazine or a newspaper and saw your ad.

They were alone. They had no way to interact. They couldn’t question what you said.

Now they can. The web village is interactive and too many people know the background of what you do or what someone else can do better or cheaper.

Have you looked at the return on investment of your media buys lately? Even banner ads?

ROI In the Web Village

The new ROI is Recall of Interest.

“Hey I saw something cool, or new, or funny, or interesting online last night. Did you see it? No? I’ll send it to you. I SAVED IT.”

That’s ROI.  

Think about the last fancy ad or “corporate video” you created. How much did it cost? Include time, approval cycles, the corporate lawyers. Do you have a number in your head?

There’s a little girl on YouTube named Magibon. She makes little videos and posts them every month or so. She says nothing or close to it. She just smiles and waves. She touches real people because she is a real person. Her videos get one and two million hits and comments.

How much response did your big, tested, targeted marketing campaign get?

What was your ROI?

What Recall of Interest did you get in your campaign? Is it already dead and buried?

In the Web Village you have to talk with people in the bazaar.

What ROI proves that?

It’s a Web Village. It’s Recall of Interest. And… it’s what the National Podcasting System delivers for you.

More on this topic soon.

Brian McMahon – CEO, National Podcasting System

 

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009

Sales SciFi

What if Science Fiction Happened and You Could Transport Your Best Salesperson to Every Client on Earth.

Wouldn’t that be the day the earth stood still?

Guess what? It’s here. Stop thinking like it’s the 20th Century.

The National Podcasting System has created SellCasts™, HD presentations of your products  by your best sales person or expert, combined with compelling graphics and musical beds, then compressed and sent to anyone or every one you want right now.

Have a surprise product you weren’t anticipating, introduce world wide the day it arrives, to your customers and your customers alone.

Can’t get enough detail in the ads, but no one reads data sheets or brochures? Send a SellCast. It’s a five minute introduction and explanation of all the benefits.

Can’t wait for salesmen to get up to speed and direct mail is too expensive? SellCasts are the least expensive, yet most productive marketing tool available today.

Why haven’t I heard of SellCasts? They’re brand new. Technology has just developed far enough to make them feasible.

You’ll be shocked by how far technology has come and how far behind you’ve fallen.

Brian McMahon – CEO, National Podcasting System

© National Podcasting System, Inc. and National Podcasting System Blog, 2006-2009