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Never Treat Your Customers Like This

Some people never cease to amaze.

Just read:

http://penny-arcade.com/2011/12/26/just-wow1

and http://www.geekosystem.com/avenger-controller-pr-berates-penny-arcade/

I learned of this situation via @reverendfitty and this tweet.

Takeaways:

1. I think there is a misperception amongst some people (knuckleheads, we’ll call them) that any publicity is good publicity. No, bad PR is bad. A local restaurant made similar mistakes, saying whatever they wanted and then thinking that deleting the offending comments made it all better (that restaurant is now closed). Yes, you can say whatever you want anytime you want; it’s a free country. However, know that you’re going to get some blowback shrapnel coming your way. If receiving such negative publicity is part of your business plan, then have at it. Otherwise, you’re probably sullying your brand.

2. Also, I don’t think these same knuckleheads understand the multiplicative power of social media. You simply cannot treat people like crap, because it’s so damned easy to out such behavior. Why would you ever say things like this to people, either online or off? Slightly offtopic: I’ve always wondered about the legality of posting such emails. Do you need permission? And does that depend on what state you’re in? I’ll have to ask my friends @CraigGMoore and @JeffSchultzEsq about this.

3. Finally, this is not a social media problem. This is just a human relations problem. This is one person or set of people treating another human being like shit. Social media takes the shitty treatment and airs it out for all to see. I’d like to think we’d see less (or none) of this as time goes by and more such examples are made public. But we should be clear that this is not a social media issue. It’s just a company treating its customers poorly.

REALLY AWESOME POSTSCRIPT: Out of business?

REALLY AWESOME POSTSCRIPT 2 – Here’s a 2012 business goal for you: make sure people DON’T make movies like this about your business! (WARNING: this video is rated R – it contains foul language. Do not watch it if you don’t want to hear such words)

LOL Red Carpet Stylin’

http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=39384837&event=1381916&CategoryID=38577

Marshall Faulk was the best

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Should You Put Your Content Behind A Registration Wall?

Castle gate

photo courtesy of TravelPod.com

Personally, I am in the David Meerman Scott camp on this, and would prefer that you not put any content behind a registration wall. Studies show that your content will be downloaded 50x more times if you don’t require info from the downloader. 50x more downloads equals more thought leadership. The message spreads farther and wider.

In a no-reg-wall scenario, prospective customers will download your content, and “tire kickers” will too. We must answer a few questions:

1. What harm, if any, is there in providing your content to mere tire kickers?
2. What harm, if any, is there in reducing the number of content downloads by requiring registration?
3. In a reg wall scenario, what do you do with the intel you receive from the downloader?
4. What protection, if any, do you provide yourself by putting valuable info behind a reg wall?

My answers to these questions:

1. I do not believe there is any harm. I believe that having more people consume your content is better than having less people consume it. More consumption leads to enhanced thought leadership.

2. There could be some harm. You need to be as easy as possible to work with in every facet of your business. Genuine prospects arriving at your site might balk at providing you info (even if they really think they want to work with you). Think of it this way. The most highly qualified prospect (the purchasing manager closest to pulling the trigger on working with you) arrives at your website. Perhaps he or she will download and consume your content either way (reg wall or no reg wall). However, there is a chance that they won’t download and consume it if you require info from them. In my book, that is a huge problem. Why depress your numbers like that? The only logical answer could be contained in the answer to question #3…….

3. If you take their contact info and do someone with it, then that is a reason for requiring registration. I’m still not nuts about it and would like to find another way to provide your content to everyone while still capturing qualified leads (for example, requiring registration for the second download, or putting the best of the best content behind a wall). But if your salespeople are individually contacting the people registering on your site, that could be an argument for erecting a registration wall. I would still be leery of using this info for “cold call” purposes, and just because someone provided you their email address in exchange for valuable information does not make that sales call any less cold. One of the important reasons you want a blog with great content and a social media strategy is to create a strong inbound marketing program, built around thought leadership and relationships. Help, help, help everyone you can, and then prospects contact you right at the moment of their greatest need. That’s the best kind of lead.

4. My opinion is that the mere act of someone giving you their email address (registering) will not make them a more likely buyer. You have captured some info from them in exchange for your valuable content. On your end, what happens next? As discussed in #3, if a salesperson follows up individually with each new registered person/company, then a reg wall could make sense. But to think that free, easily spreadable no-reg-wall content might land in your competitor’s hands…. I mean, it will anyway. I’ve provided a fake email address to a website before just to plow through the reg process. I just wanted to get to the info, and all of the registration stuff only aggravated me. So a registration wall provides you no protection whatsoever.

Restricting access to content behind a reg wall is only a good idea if you have a very successful system in place for doing something with the registration intel you collect from the downloader. And you may have that already. Ultimately, my opinion may not matter. Testing these theories may be your best option. As discussed near the bottom of this article, some companies have split test this and found that better leads were generated on reg wall (“gated”) days. For thought leadership purposes, I still prefer no reg wall, but perhaps you should test it.

Of course, I’d like to know what you guys think.

Christmas Music Light Show

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Stranded 18-wheeler at @FalkHarrison [ VIDEO ]

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If you can call this “good…”

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No offense to this fine man, but what in the world am I looking at here?

Poor Twitter usage

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The movie Pulp Fiction is a story told out of order. Here, let’s fix that.

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I hope that I am as helpful to people as they are to me.