PRWeb Public Relations Blog

The Smartest Business Person I Know

I almost want to keep this one a secret, but you caught me on a generous day. So I will share this with you. Roy Williams is probably the sharpest mind in advertising and marketing, bar none. What makes someone brilliant? In my mind, it is his/her ability to assemble available information and put it to practical use. The best bakers (see how it comes back to food with me) in the world do not have an advantage because they have different ingredients. They have an advantage that comes with time, experience and the ability to combine those ingredients into something remarkable.

What's remarkable about Roy Williams is that he shares this knowledge with everyone. He teaches it at his Wizard Academy. His Monday Morning Memo is how I start my week. I recommend spending an afternoon reading through the archives. No time to read, download his podcast. I do both.

Now I did it. I just shared with you something that will change the way you approach marketing, public relations and advertising. Why did I share this with you. Because if Roy makes a recommendation I know that I better pay attention.

I attended a Wizards of Web conference in Austin last month where the topic of conversation for two days was Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, the new book on Persuasion Architecture by the Eisenberg brothers. I have read it many times. Why, well initially because Roy recommended that I do so. Then I re-read it and made it mandetory reading at PRWeb. Don't do it because I said so. Do it because Roy recommends it.

See you at the top!

-- David

The Need for Something Other than ROI

As we set out to revamp how PRWeb reports statistics to our users -- a major overhaul of our metrics is due out shortly -- we have debated, sometimes hotly, how ROI applies to PR. My opinion on this subject runs hot. I have recommended scrapping ROI and statistical reporting altogether, largely because I believe that current measurement standards miss the mark. I know that there are folks that are tackling this head on as we speak, but here are my thoughts and opinions on the subject.

ROI (or return on investment), in my mind, is largely an artifact of accounting and company business prevention units. It heralds back to the days of Fredrick Taylor and the scientific management of business, long before the Internet. But too much focus on ROI often prevents the business from doing the right thing for their customers. I have felt this on more than one occasion at PRWeb.

For example, when we launched PRWebPodcast.com the first question I received was "how are we going to monetize this?" followed by "what is the anticipated ROI?" I made the decision not to build a business model around our podcasting product. Podcasts are free with our premium distribution. We actually lose margin with each press release that is podcast enhanced. There may be ways that we monetize part of our podcasting service in the future, but I foresee our current service remaining in force for years to come. It is the right thing for our customers and at the right time.

Some things you do just because they improve the customer experience. For example, I am a huge fan of Enterprise car rental. Ask Mick Jolly, or anyone else who has had the misfortune of booking me with a company other than Enterprise in the past, how passionate I am about Enterprise. I guess that this is partly due to my personality -- I am sure that the other rental agencies are just fine. In reflecting on my Enterprise experiences, I think they have a unique point of differentiation. If they are ROI driven they are not as transparently ROI driven as other car rental companies. As far as this renter in concerned, Enterprise focuses on the entire customer experience--and it's predictable.

For example, I am 100% certain that by offering bottled water to their customers Enterprise is reducing their gross margin. It's simple math, right. But the economics of building a customer experience offsets any loss in margin. What if someone in the Enterprise business prevention unit decided the company could save millions a year by eliminating the bottled water because it could not be measured in terms of traditional ROI? Would they lose me as a customer? Probably not. But they would remove an element of their business that improves the customer experience.

So how do I measure ROI? I have always measured ROI in terms of gross revenue and margin at the end of the month, not by any one component of our business process. I am sure that if I had taken the ROI measurement approach, I could not have justified more than half of the enhancements that we have made to the PRWeb platform. I would have thought they were bad for business.

The Internet bubble burst not because a lack of focus on ROI. We had measurement back then. I think it was more because some companies didn't provide value. Companies with high customer value propositions survived while the rest of the industry imploded.

So help me out -- where do we go with ROI? I would like to see some measure that provides more insight on the long tail effects of product enhancements, word of mouth, messaging and branding.

Market Wire Credibility Woes, Round 2?

Several weeks ago, I attended the Wizards of Web seminar with Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg outside of Austin, Texas, at the Wizard Academy.  It was a great event to be sure. Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, warned about being sensitive to the BS meter when developing online copy. 

This is something that I have been wanting to blog about for some time now.  Perhaps I have let it slide -- until I found a company and industry that I know well.  No matter what online industry you look at online, there seems to be at least a half dozen who claim to be industry leaders per category.  Do marketers think they can get away with this?  It barely passes the laugh test anymore.  It’s obnoxious unless it can be substantiated.

That leads me to Market Wire’s (remember Internet Wire and GINA) latest release. I would rather not even entertain it here, but it does illustrate my point. Let’s see… where do I begin with this one?  Let’s start with the first paragraph of the release:

“Market Wire, one of North America's largest newswires, and a full-service distributor of company press releases and material news, announced important industry milestones today for its revolutionary press release optimization solution, SEO Enhanced.”

Okay, you ready?  Here’s my analysis with the BS meter on “stun”:

“One of North America’s largest newswires”

Okay, I guess that is all in how you measure large.  And you can pretty much claim to be one of anything relating to your industry.  I will give them a pass here.

“… revolutionary press release optimization service”

This is frankly where they lose me.  Especially in the context of the following sentence:

            “Since SEO Enhanced was launched one year ago…”

I guess if we define “revolutionary” as finally “showing up” close to a decade after a movement has started, we could give them a pass.  But frankly, that hardly passes my test for revolutionary.  To be truly considered revolutionary one must contribute to the discussion and community.  There are others who supported us when this was new and revolutionary. Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, Lee Odden, Mark Effinger and many others all joined PRWeb in the discussion and evangelism of SEO press releases.   

Furthermore, Market Wire appears to have “borrowed” SEO principles from PR Newswire, which was essentially modeled after PRWeb, v1.0.  What do they say about a copy of a copy? (See the movie “Primer” for a less than subtle hint).  Bottom line: it is less of a Market Wire revolution than a Market Wire “catch-up.”

Now for some real fun.  Let’s look at the second paragraph.

“Since SEO Enhanced was launched one year ago, it has been used in thousands of press releases, on behalf of companies representing 137 different industries. Use of SEO Enhanced has grown from less than 1% of Market Wire's monthly release volume to nearly 6%, with nearly 30% of the company's SEO Enhanced releases being delivered for publicly traded companies. To date, over 10% of Market Wire customers have used SEO Enhanced with nearly 40% of those customers using it more than once. SEO Enhanced users include small privately held and Fortune 500 companies alike. Recently, Fortune 100 technology giant IBM agreed to SEO-enhance more than 200 of its press releases.”

What would the identical paragraph look like if it were used to talk about PRWeb’s SEO program?  Alright, just to make it easy on you, I’ve  taken the guess work out of this exercise and filled in the blanks for you. (I took out the bit about IBM as n/a to PRWeb.  I also removed references to growth in this space because we launched the service with SEO; therefore it is not relevant.)

“Since PRWeb SEO was launched nine years ago, SEO technology has been used in nearly 400,000 press releases, on behalf of companies across 250 different industry targets. Use of PRWeb SEO has been used by over 170,000 customers including a CA-based communications company of a Market Wire founder. To date, 100% of PRWeb customers have received some level of the PRWeb SEO service. PRWeb SEO users include small privately held and Fortune 500 companies alike.”

Here are just five reasons why I am not worried. 

1. PRWeb is Revolutionary -- We choose to lead and not follow.
2. The traditional wire service model prevents companies like Market Wire from taking full advantage of true SEO.  I would be more specific but will decline to do so in this forum.  Why give them the blueprint. 
3. While other wire services have their eyes focused on SEO, we have moved the cheese. SEO alone is not going to get the job done anymore. 
4. The community knows who pioneered this space.  The community has invested in the PRWeb platform and adopted our vision.
5. Our users are loyal.

Regardless of their marketing we welcome Market Wire to the game.

As always, open for comments. -- David