MDC Group Inc’s Blog

Web Citizens Try To Kill IE 6 Browser

Some Web designers are staging an online revolt against an old version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, which they say is hampering the ability of the Web to move forward in a cool and interactive way.

The designers say Internet Explorer 6, which was released in 2001 and since has been updated twice by Microsoft Corp., is crippling the Internet’s potential and slowing down the online experience. They also blame IE 6 for giving webmasters a collective headache, because they have to write special “hacks” into Web code to accommodate an outmoded browser.

An estimated 15 to 25 percent of people still use IE 6 as their portal to the Internet, according to two Web monitors.

In recent months, several Web companies have launched sites devoted to the idea of undermining or killing Internet Explorer 6. The most recent site, called “IE 6 No More,” has gained momentum this week on social-media sites like Twitter and Digg in part because a number of respected Internet start-up companies have signed onto the campaign.

The “IE 6 No More” site provides Web developers with a piece of code — an online hurdle, essentially — they can install to encourage Internet users to download a new browser before coming back to the site.

“As any Web developer will tell you, working with IE 6 is one of the most difficult and frustrating things they have to deal with on a daily basis, taking up a disproportionate amount of their time,” an introduction on the site says. “Beyond that, IE 6’s support for modern Web standards is very lacking, restricting what developers can create and holding the Web back.”

On the surface, the campaign against IE 6 may seem like a cult of disgruntled techies who are angry at Microsoft or want to gripe about people who lag behind the technological curve.

But that analysis is too simplistic, said Dan Oliver, editor of .net, a UK magazine about Web design

This isn’t an anti-Microsoft campaign,” he said. “Microsoft makes some fantastic products. The latest version of their browser is a good browser. But with regards to IE 6 … [it] is an awful browser and no one should be using it.”

He added: “Ultimately, we’ve kind of waited long enough. That’s why there’s a big movement of support for it because the geeks out there have known about this for years and have been waiting for big sites to jump on and push it forward.”

In a statement to CNN, Microsoft said it also wants people to turn away from IE 6.

“Microsoft has consistently recommended that consumers upgrade to the latest version of our browser,” the company said. “Internet Explorer 8 offers improvements in speed, security and reliability as well as new features designed for the way people use the Web.”

Oliver said his magazine started an anti-IE 6 Web site about three months ago. The movement has been growing among savvy Web developers for years, he said, but has hit a groundswell since bigger-name Internet companies jumped aboard.

YouTube, for instance, now sends a message to Internet Explorer 6 users who visit the site, asking them to upgrade to another browser like Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

The video-streaming site will continue to function in a basic way for IE 6 users, according to a statement sent to CNN by YouTube.

But bigger problems for IE 6 may be on the horizon as the Web becomes more complicated.

Developers are already working with a new Web language — called HTML 5 — that is expected to make Web sites able to display flashier video, save documents to computers more easily and act more like traditional computer applications.

When that shift comes, IE 6 will doubtlessly perish, said Ben Parr, a writer for the social-networking news blog Mashable.

“We’re about to hit a breaking point where innovation will be stifled if Web sites must continue to cater to this browser,” he wrote in a post titled, “IE 6 Must Die for the Web to Move On.”

The browser’s popularity is declining as newer versions of Internet Explorer become more widely used. But it’s unclear whether everyone who continues to use IE 6 does so by choice.

Many businesses have built computer applications that run on the browser, and upgrades to those systems can be costly and difficult.

That makes campaigns that tell people to switch their browser ineffective, Mark Trammell, a Digg employee, wrote on the company’s blog.

“Giving them a message saying, ‘Hey! Upgrade!’ in this case is not only pointless; it’s sadistic,” he wrote, also noting that Digg likely will stop supporting IE 6 for some of the site’s functions.

That leaves some Web sites trying to find a middle ground. They want to be cutting-edge, but they also don’t want to alienate IE 6 users and business clients.

Justin.tv, which lets people stream video live online, is among the sites trying to strike a balance.

The company is backing an anti-IE 6 Web site, but Evan Solomon, the site’s vice-president for marketing, said the best thing that will come out of this discussion is that more people will become aware that there are alternatives in Web browsers.

It’s also important to know how much those browsers control a person’s Internet experience, he said.

“It sucks for us if someone comes to the site and has a bad experience and the reason that happens is because they use a browser that was developed 10 years ago,” he said.

View Source Here

Social Networking in Plain English

The 5 Things People Really Buy

No matter how many shiny, cool features and benefits you cram into your marketing messages, brochures and presentations, you better find ways to help the prospect get what they really want. And, no matter if you sell heating and cooling services, legal services, hand painted greeting cards, or consulting, at the end of the day, your customers all buy some variation of the same five things.

So you better make sure you show them how you and your products and solutions are going to:
1) Make them more money
2) Save them more time
3) Allow them to avoid the frustration of doing stuff they don’t like (like wasting time and money)
4) Help them save or not lose money today and in future
5) Help them feel better about themselves

Copy these five points and refer to them often as you develop your marketing and sales pitches.

Now, you can focus all of your energy around selling one of these points or you can come up with ways to mix and match. Some lead to getting another, for example people want more of #1 to get them more of #5. Understand though that just because you tell a prospect they will save money or look and feel better doesn’t mean they will buy – they’ve also got to believe your solution will work for them and sometimes the hurdle is they don’t trust themselves – in fact, this is often the most frustrating “no” for a salesperson.

I know this can seem like an awfully simple and somewhat cynical approach to marketing, but I’m not suggesting you understand this concept so that you can paint your products and services in ways they are not, and I don’t really even mean that you should change your core marketing messages to address one of these five points.

What I am saying is that at some point this is how a decision about you, your products and solutions will be made, so you must answer one or all of these questions along the path to yes.

Marketing Execs’ Most Embarrassing Email Mistakes

Nearly eight in 10 (78%) US advertising and marketing executives confess to having made at least one mistake when sending out email at work, including emailing a message to someone it wasn’t intended for or copying someone on a message they weren’t meant to see, according to a survey by The Creative Group.

When asked to name the worst, most cringe-worthy email error that they or others have made on the job, respondents’ answers ran the gamut – from disclosing an employee’s salary details to the entire company to making insulting comments about the boss – who got accidentally copied on the email.

Among the most embarrassing email moments cited by respondents:

• Sending confidential employee salary information to the whole firm.
• Transmitting confidential client information to another client.
• Sending an internal memo about restroom etiquette to external clients.
• Sending a copy of an employee’s bank records to other employees.
• Sending a racy picture to the whole office that was only meant for a few people.
• Sending a job offer to the wrong candidate.
• Sending a resume to an internal recipient rather than to its intended recipient at an external, prospective employer.
• Nasty comments and catty, gossipy emails about supervisors – sent directly to supervisors by mistake.
• Calling a co-worker an “idiot” and mistakenly copying the entire company.

“E-mail mistakes can be painfully visible and viral,” said Megan Slabinski, executive director of The Creative Group. “Professionals must be especially careful in this economy not to do anything that could cause employers to question their competence or judgment, and that means paying close attention when sending any kind of message, particularly if the information is sensitive.”

The Creative Group recommends that emailers pay close attention to the distribution lists of their missives, double-check recipients before sending, check attachments and email trails, and always keep things professional.

With today’s long lifespan of electronic recordkeeping and email monitoring on the rise, some issues – the firm said – may be better expressed in person.

About the survey: The national survey was developed by The Creative Group and conducted by an independent research firm. It is based on 250 telephone interviews – 125 with advertising executives randomly selected from the nation’s 1,000 largest advertising agencies and 125 with senior marketing executives randomly selected from the nation’s 1,000 largest companies.

By: The Creative Group
View SourceHere

A Good Recession Brings Out Creative Marketing Ideas

I was on vacation last week and noticed an interesting way for retailers and companies to attract eyeballs.

The baggage claims are rocking!!!

I heard a saying once that one of the most captive audiences are those on airplanes, in prison, or watching bags go round and round at the airport baggage claim. I like the creativity of the baggage claim advertising. I think the more creative marking ideas retailers & restaurants can put in place today to drive revenue the better.

I feel too many business owners today in times like our current economic situation get into a shelter or panic mode. The only new thoughts are how you can cost cut everywhere. This mind set causes a status quo environment and being in that state of mind will never produce creative ideas. The status quo mindset will shut down the effective brains of a retailer’s organization.

My advice:

* Seek out good ideas from your people and make sure you are stimulating the most important asset you have “the creative minds of your employees”.

* Eliminate the entertainment of just good ideas and only focus on the best one or two ideas.

* Make sure they have a high potential rate of visibility.

* Get excited about a new campaign and have fun running it.

Never let good recessions go to waste; everyone in today’s environment is open to new ideas you just have to bring the ideas to life.

Let me know what creative marketing ideas you have done to attract customers.

View Source Here

Crossover Learnings Between Email And Social Media

by Chad White

What Email Can Learn from Social Networks

Expressing personality. Most brands can no longer afford to be faceless entities. The interactivity and transparency of the Internet has elevated the need for personality. Luckily, there are several ways to do this: You can use an executive as TigerDirect does, staff members like Crutchfield, or your customers like REI. The most poignant expression of personality I’ve seen recently is Backcountry’s memorial message for skier Shane McConkey.

Expressing a sense of community. People want discounts and helpful information, but many also want to be part of a community. Including product testimonials from product reviews on your site is one way to do this. Backcountry goes a step further and highlights its top contributors in its monthly newsletter.

Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports recently suggested another way to build a community feel: adding social proof to your email sign-up process, such as a running count of how many subscribers you have. Thanks to blogs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, subscriber counts are a well-established and highly promoted measurement of legitimacy and influence. I haven’t seen anyone try this yet, but the idea is intriguing.

What Social Networks Can Learn from Email

Providing exclusivity. Email subscribers appreciate it when they get exclusive deals and information not available to your Web site visitors. It helps justify them sharing their email address with you. With social networks, there’s a similar dynamic. Some people will ask themselves, “Why should I bother to be a fan if the announcements and other content are available on your Web site or to email subscribers?”

There’s value to making information available via different channels — being channel-agnostic is great m– but if you want to get people to engage with you via multiple channels, then the experience has to be different. Indeed, people expect to have a different experience with your brand via Facebook vs. Twitter vs. email, for instance.

Explaining the benefits of joining. Just as email sign-ups suffer when you don’t explain the benefits of receiving your emails, your “Find us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” call-to-action put the burden on your customers to explore the benefits themselves. Quickly listing the key benefits can be effective in getting people motivated to take action. In a recent email, Fingerhut did a good job of selling the benefits for engaging with the company on Facebook and Twitter.

Driving subscribers to other channels. Providing customers with many avenues to take advantage of offers and exposing them to different channels has well-established benefits. Just as email programs aren’t maximizing their opportunity when they drive traffic solely to the Web, self-contained social networks are destined to underperform. Look for occasions to expose customers to multiple channels. Sephora did that recently by asking email subscribers to share a digital gift (a tote bag) with their Facebook friends; if they did that, they could get a real Sephora tote from their local store. But the most impressive utilization of a brand’s channels that I’ve seen recently was Buy.com and its Tweet n Seek contest, which had participants following them on Twitter, searching Buy.com, visiting their Facebook page, and reading products pages.

Is It A Problem - Or An Opportunity?

By Zig Ziglar

Randy Males is a furniture salesman. In furniture stores the salespeople alternate with their “ups.” (They take turns serving customers as they come in the store or “come up.”) One day a fellow salesperson, muttering under his breath, said, “I can’t sell people like that!” Randy asked what the problem was and the salesman told him that the man was blind and deaf and the wife was almost completely blind and deaf. The salesman emphatically stated that he would not waste his time trying to sell them and he would not allow them to be counted as his “up.” Randy asked if it would be o.k. if he talked with the couple. The response was, “Yes, if you want to waste your time.”

Randy approached the customers from the front because the lady could make out forms and things held directly in front of her. He spoke to them and the lady signed to him that she was deaf. Randy took a pad and in big letters wrote, “Be right back.” He returned with a large writing pad and “talked” with the couple using the pad. The couple left with a sizeable purchase and huge smiles on their faces. The next day Randy received a call from the translation service for the deaf, thanking him for his courtesy. Randy was pleased but quickly pointed out that he was no saint. He was simply a salesman willing to go the extra mile.

Since that time, several of the couple’s friends have come in and purchased furniture from Randy. Because he went the extra mile, Randy turned one salesman’s problem into his opportunity.

I share this story with considerable pleasure because the message has real value and because Randy, a former ditch-digger, was inspired by my brother, the late Judge Ziglar. The message is clear. Be nice to people. You might be able to render service to those who need it most and benefit yourself in the process. Think about it, and I’ll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!