This is how the HTML DOM Visualizer applet sees NextMark's home page. It's an interesting data visualization and it's got me thinking about other applications.
NextMark home page as a graph
Thursday, July 9th, 2009Protect your brand from the Facebook vanity URL land rush
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009Facebook is opening a free-for-all registration of vanity URL’s starting this Friday night.
What’s a vanity URL? Instead of your URL being a cryptic http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1128369056&ref=profile (that’s mine) you can get a branded URL that includes your company name like http://www.facebook.com/nextmark or personal name like http://www.facebook.com/jpych (note: these links don’t work yet).
You know every name squatter in the world will be raring to go at 12:01 a.m. and will be rushing to snatch up valuable names in the hope of extracting a ransom from you and everyone else who cares about their brand.
You can protect your trademarked name now by registering your trademark with Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights.
Unfortunately, you can’t use this for your own personal name, so be ready to snatch up yours when the time comes!
DMAW List Bazaar sets the standards
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 Last week, I attended the DMAW’s List Bazaar conference at Maggiano’s in Washington, DC. This conference set the standards in more than one way.
Wounded Warrior Project
John Melia started the day talking about the Wounded Warriors Project he started to provide wounded soldiers with a backpack full of essentials immediately upon arrival on US soil. WWP’s mission does not end there – the program now provides many other services to help these soldiers successfully transition back to civilian life including family services, transition training, job placement, sporting activities, and much more.
How does this relate to mailing lists? Mr. Melia admits, “Five years ago I did not know what a mailing list was.” Partnering with a list broker has enabled him to grow from a modest home-based backpack project to a $42 million budget, 100 employees, and a full range of services for these soldiers in transition.
List Rental and Exchange Standards
Patrick Frame of List Service Corp. presented the collaboratively developed “Standards of List Conduct for Non-Profit List Rentals and Exchanges.” This standard, which is currently supported by 39 parties, advocates the rights of list owners, accomodates the needs of mailers to become more effective in their fundraising strategies, and protects the privacy interests of the general public.
The standards document covers a lot of ground. I was particularly interested in the section on data card accuracy:
“The accuracy of datacards is paramount to allowing list brokers to make informed decisions for their clients. List managers should ensure that any publicly available datacards are accurate. These include datacards on the major datacard systems, on company websites, printed materials, etc.
Datacard items which must be clear and accurate include:
- The date the fulfillment file was last updated – “updated monthly” is not sufficiently specific.
- The date the datacard was last updated with current counts.
- The dollar range included on each segment – both upper and lower dollar limits should be published.
- The recency included on each segment “Actives” is not acceptable. A specific recency must be included such as 0-6mos.
If reciprocal pricing policies are utilized (whereby a list owner/manager alters published rates on a case by case basis to reflect the same rates charged by the other party) this policy must be noted on the datacard.”
Data Cards
Data cards were a main topic in the conference roundtable program. Fittingly, these discussions on data cards were held in the Medici room (the Medici family set standards for accounting and created efficient marketplaces). Paul Martin of Atlantic List Company said, “The data card is your store front that invites your customers into your store.”
Some of the specific ideas discussed were:
- List Caps – many donor files exclude donors over a specific amount ($e.g. $99.99). Should this be explicitly stated on the data card?
- Active donors – the definition of “active” varies from one list owner to another. Should the definition of active be explicitly stated on the data card?
- NCOA date – with new rules on NCOA standards, it is important to know when a file has last been through NCOA processing. Should the data card store NCOA date?
- List counts – should the data card have a button that enables the user to get count information?
- List ratings – many other marketplaces enable users to rate products and services. Should ratings be added to the data card?
Many other topics were discussed. I was impressed by the level of thoughtfulness, professionalism, and candor that was exhibited in the conversation. The DMAW is truly a first-class organization with first-class members. They exemplify the standards for the industry. As such, NextMark is proud to sponsor the DMAW.
It’s gonna be done right quick… in about two weeks
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
Love this video, Auto Tuning, by Casey D at Vimeo that comically illustrates the friction between the business project manager and the software developer. Of course, nothing like this ever happens here at NextMark with our silky smooth development process 😉 Best lyric:
It’s gonna be done right quick, oh yeah.
It’s gonna be done so soon.
It’s gonna be done in two weeks.
Hilarious!
The cost of DMA*08
Thursday, November 6th, 2008As I promised in my previous post about DMA*08, here is a tally of our costs for six of us from NextMark to exhibit at the DMA*08 conference:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| 10×10 booth space | $3,995 |
| Booth furniture | $1,490 |
| Booth shipping | $502 |
| Phone | $282 |
| Plants | $66 |
| Registrations | $450 |
| Hotels | $3,085 |
| Airfare | $2,218 |
| Food | $879 |
| Banner Stand | $560 |
| Taxi | $388 |
| Personal Car | $343 |
| Parking | $231 |
| Total | $14,489 |
Ours is a modest setup… 10×10 popup booth. We do our best to keep the expenses down, but a it's hard to do because the prices at the conference are a rip-off.
We worked hard in advance of the conference to get the most from it. As a result, we had 60 scheduled meetings at the show. Those meetings and other unscheduled conversations led to 41 sales opportunities. Not bad.
Doing the math… $2,415/person, $241/meeting, and $353/opportunity.
Now our challenge is to turn those opportunities into sales. That will be the subject of a future posting once we've let these have a chance to come to fruition.
We connected at DMA*08
Friday, October 17th, 2008
Scott, Lisa, Joni, John, Chris, and I headed to Las Vegas earlier this week to represent NextMark at the DMA*08 conference. The theme of this year’s conference was "r u connected?"
The theme was meant to prompt consideration of new marketing mediums in direct marketing programs such as social networks and mobile platforms. It’s good for the DMA to show their support for these other marketing mediums because the DMA is often perceived as exclusively devoted to postal mail. That’s something they’d like to change as more direct marketing is done outside the mailbox.
As always, the conference was an ideal place to connect with customers, partners, friends, and colleagues.
I was impressed by how hard the team worked to make the most of the conference. Between the six of us, we held 60 scheduled meetings and countless serendipidous meetings at our booth, on the show floor, and around town. Judging by the nice comments I received, we certainly connected with our clients. Thank you!
What were the results from the conference? I don’t know just yet, but I will be tallying the costs and the results soon and will post them to this blog when I have them.
Spotlight – Gail Horinek
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
Gail Horinek soon begins her 18th year with mIn and today sets off on a new journey, when she and long time companion Brad Harber head off to Las Vegas to make it official.
Through the years Gail has been THE key component to the mIn Audited data. Her understanding of data cards, what list brokers want to see and what list managers try to get by with are only matched by a handful in the industry.
Congratulations to Gail!
LinkedIn vs. Facebook: which to choose?
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008Online Social Networking is all the rage these days. Being in the technology industry, I feel an obligation to keep up with major technology trends. So, I’ve jumped in by taking LinkedIn and Facebook for an extended test drive.
LinkedIn is who you are
LinkedIn is a resume board. It lets you post an enhanced resume and to selectively share it with your friends and the public. Beyond the standard resume items, you can post recommendations to others’ resume and vice versa. It’s a combination of resume and recommendation letters in a clean package. You can see my LinkedIn profile here.
LinkedIn connects you with your colleagues. It enables you to establish connections with your business associates. You can use this to meet other people through their network. I’ve never used this feature, but I can see how that could be handy in business situations where you are looking to get a "foot in the door". Beyond making new connections, I have not found much utility in these connections.
Facebook is what you do
Facebook is "lifecasting." Your profile is very limited — no extended resume like LinkedIn. Instead, Facebook lets you post comments, pictures, videos, links to websites, etc. As you post these items, it shows up on your "news feed." So, your presence in Facebook less about who you claim yourself to be and more about what you post. Your behavior defines your persona.
Facebook is personal. Your items are only available to your friends. So, it’s a safe way to share personal information. I think it’s a great way to share photos with your friends. I’m hesitant to use Facebook for business use because it’s so personal.
Facebook gets you reconnected. In my short time using Facebook, I’ve reconnected with a bunch of college and high school friends I’ve not spoken with in 20 years. We just drifted away from each other. Facebook made it easy to find these friends, connect with them, and then stay connected. It’s amazing in that respect.
Facebook is entertaining. Unlike LinkedIn, I find it entertaining to log into Facebook. On the main page, I can see what my friends have been up to — I see a consolidated listing of all my friends’ postings. And most items allow for comments making it more interactive and fun.
For example, my friend Tom posted a video of his son doing some tricks on his skateboard. I clicked the link and was able to see the video. Then I posted a comment complementing his son on the tricks and Tom on the videography. Tom got an email right away and responded to my comment with one of his own.
Facebook is hard to navigate. Good luck trying to find anything that’s not on the main feed. I find the user interface confusing and it’s even hard to find the stuff that I’ve posted.
Facebook is an applications platform. There are a million little applications that you can add to your Facebook account. To me, most have little value. For example, there’s a "pieces of flair" application that enables you to post virtual buttons on your own and others virtual corkboard. Big deal. And I think you have to share your personal information with the application provider, which I don’t like. But lots of people like these little apps and find it to be a fun way to stay connected. I should be more open-minded about these applications. But as of today, I don’t get it.
Facebook vs. LinkedIn: which to choose?
Both are social networks, but there’s no need to choose between the two. Each is unique and complements the other. Definitely post your resume on LinkedIn to connect with your business colleagues and use Facebook to stay connected with your close friends.
Google Chrome
Friday, September 26th, 2008There’s a new web browser on the block. Google has introduced
Chrome, a new browser that is being hailed, perhaps a bit
prematurely, as superior to Internet Explorer and Firefox with
regards to speed, stability, and security. Google Chrome is a bit
different from the others. It behaves less like your average desktop
application and more like a thin, simple picture frame around the web
sites you visit.
With Chrome, Google is responding to the fact that many of today’s web
sites, from online banks to retailers (and of course, NextMark), are
really complete applications in their own right that need to be secure
and responsive. They may even need to continue to work if your
internet connection goes down. The web browser used to display the web
site needs to get out of the way and be as invisible as possible while
still making sure that the web site follows the rules of security and
generally "plays nice".
At NextMark we’re excited to take advantage of what Google Chrome has
to offer, and we’d like to offer official support for it and for other
web browsers in the near future. We’ve taken it for a test drive, and
we encourage others to do the same. However, Google Chrome is still
beta quality, meaning that it is still rough around the edges and,
despite claims to the contrary, might crash on you. Use (and enjoy) at
your own risk!
Hello, World
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007It’s about time. NextMark finally has a blog. Yay! I hope to use this tiny corner of the Internet to discuss marketing techniques that help you "reach your market" in an effective and responsible way.
I’ll try to explore areas where there is a shortage of literature or understanding. For example, most business people and a surprising number of marketing professionals do not understand the business of mailing lists. This is an area of specialty for us. We work with over 700 list companies and index more than 70,000 mailing lists in our mailing list search tool, which has been called the "Google of Mailing Lists" becaus it’s the biggest collection of list information on the planet.
Anyway… I hope to provide some unique and useful information. What are your marketing challenges? How can we help you?
Regards,
– Joe