Dells model of a sale was that users made their minds up before phoning, using public information (and Dell resources such as adverts and catalogues – pre-Web days). Then the sales person would upsell in a two minute phone call to the next fastest processor, with more RAM and a bigger screen, a tape drive for backups and some software.

UNIX systems, in that period, involved conversations about which exact version of source it was derived from; whether the IP stack was Wollongong, Lachman, etc; whether the latest CERT vulnerability in fingerd had been fixed, etc. The result was that about 50% of Dell sales staff would deny that Dell sold UNIX rather than get involved in technical questions they couldn’t answer in their two and half minute target.

The marketing failure was a classic design phase error – in that Dell UNIX shouldn’t have been sold through that method. It needed a different selling system, which probably meant selling it separated from Dell. Calling the Dell number was the wrong way to sell it, *OR* it should have been passed to a specialist sales team; getting the general sales force to sell it was demonstrably unworkable. But the decision to sell was based on observing customer response – which was generally between positive and extremely positive.

Just because the customer base who buy it like it, doesn’t mean that the buying segment is the same segment that the whole business is trying to reach. A painful lesson in confused segmentation.

I find myself now talking to technologists who think they have a product… and define the segment as “well, gee, I dunno, pretty much anyone, I guess”, and who think a benefit is a company car. Quite amusing.

Regards to Randy, BTW.

:-) HI – how ya doin?

I don’t see the next big thing, yet. The sites like Sphinn, Digg and so on can help, but they’ve been massively abused and have defensive reactions to spamming.

I can think of some techniques, and have talked with some SEO guys about them and what they use. But until I see the techniques in wider use, I’m not going to spill the beans in public. I like knowing what the cutting edge stuff is, even if I don’t pass it on ;)

I’m still fairly certain that the citation model for search engine ranking is intrinsically flawed, because it is based on an assumption that links have no monetary value. And that means that organic results will end up being influenced by money – top sites in a commercially related search will tend to be the ones that have invested in traditional name recognition and in, umm, “innovative techniques to ensure presence”.

Ranking from blog activity is just one tool. The whole marketing mix should be considered. I don’t actually recommend (or heavily recommend) blogs to some of my clients – the nature and type of competition that they have doesn’t justify that effort. For example, small geotarget service areas mean that globe spanning domination of a keyword is meaningless – they actually want SE’s to do a better job of identifying local area interest.

The further future, I suspect, lies in what happens when the web isn’t a new toy? When it is really accepted and required instead of treated as an incremental sales tool of dubious value? When the manual for your new consumer products is available on the web and only on the web?

In that rapidly approaching day, I suspect that the role of the search engine declines. You know where the things are that you want. There’ll be Amazon, eBay, Yahoo Stores and so on. There’ll be other communities that you hang out on. The digital bookmarking and networking sites will offer the connections you need (as later generations of these technologies evolve). When you can get to the other stuff you need for your life, without visiting an SE, why would you?

If that’s right, then maintaining client communications becomes hugely important. Talking to your existing client base will help them to give you word of mouth promotion. Anyway I slice and dice it, blogs and derived communications are an important technique, here to stay as part of the mix.

It is now very difficult (but not impossible) to get a new conventional web site a high ranking in the SE’s. The problem in the future of course is that there will be so many blogs that the same ranking problem will apply to them.

Any thoughts?

Regards

Graham

We’re also number 3 (as of today) in Google.co.uk for “internet marketing blog“. I would never have known, but for Lijit and Feedburner. :) We’re on page 6 of the general US index, for the same search – though the main readership of this blog is US based.

The other intriguing effect is that since you added this blog, a lot more MFA sites are including article snippets from here, new and old. Blogrolls – the happy hunting ground of the MFA content duplicator. I love this internet marketing stuff – so many complex outcomes from simple actions!