Digital Marketing Commentary (Now With 15% More Snark!)

The SEO Rapper is combining two of everyone’s favorite things: coherent rap and inbound marketing. Last week, he paid a visit to Hubspot in Boston and seriously upped their street cred.

I first learned of the SEO Rapper when I ran across his video on page rank in the wake of the JC Penney scandal. Remember that? It was when JCP was busted using inbound links from spam farms to rank #1 on any Google term that correlated to an item they sold. Prom dresses? Samsonite Luggage? Somewhere, a link farm was making that term look relevant for JC Penney. The SEO rapper does not condone such things, and his “Page Rank” video explains exactly what kind of hard work needs to be done in lieu of those content farms. Of course, Google pretty much handled the spam link farms with their Panda update. Now, the methods espoused by the SEO Rapper are the only way to achieve top rankings in organic search.

I think the SEO Rapper is actually fantastic. He has a lot of excellent points, and has cleverly woven them into rap. The videos are also almost parodies of rap videos, but contain too much information to be mere humor.

BTW, speaking of parodies, THIS is a parody:

YouTube, is there anything you can’t give us?

Last night, while updating my transactions on Mint, I saw an ad for Groupon’s version of the LivingSocial/Amazon deal. Groupon, in their second nationwide brand partnership, are offering $20 worth of merchandise at Barnes and Noble for $10. The only problem is that, while LivingSocial managed to handle their 80% traffic jump and sell over a million Amazon vouchers, Groupon is experiencing a “fail whale” situation at the login screen:

Groupon's Login Screen, as of 10:47AM PST February 4th

This started at 10pm PST last night, and is STILL happening over 12 hours later. This is kind of a shock. And a disappointment. Groupon’s screen says that users can purchase the Groupon using their account emails, and it will be added to their accounts later. But I happen to have a $10 credit with Groupon from when my DealBucks were converted last week, and I would very much like to use that to purchase this deal. Furthermore, Groupon redemptions will be on hold everywhere until this login is resolved, because being unable to log in also means being unable to access existing Groupons.

So now I’m waiting to find out:

1) When will Groupon be back up so I can download my voucher for cupcakes for a team meeting today?
2) How will this affect sales of this deal, and skew comparisons against LivingSocial/Amazon?
3) Is Groupon REALLY ready to run a $3M ad this weekend? If we’re getting the fail whale effect on Friday, will they be able to reap the benefits from the ad on Sunday?

Four years ago, my husband and I moved into our apartment. I like to call it “the oldest apartment in L.A.”: four townhouse style units in a rambling 1917 building. It has high ceilings, hardwood floors…and wiring issues.

When we moved in, the most apparent of these was that none of the phone jacks inside worked. So we called AT&T. They sent a repair tech out who informed us that the test box was working, so our jacks should be. Therefore, it was our landlord’s problem, and they needed to re-wire the apartment. If we wanted further testing, we could pay $50 to have a tech investigate further. So we told our landlord, and jury rigged our DSL through the test box line instead, running the phone cord in a window, down the hall, and to the wifi router. And four years later, we still had that temporary solution in place.

This weekend, the DSL slowed to unacceptable speeds. I was working on a client project and had to be able to download and upload photos and video. Not exactly possible at 8kbps. Assuming the rain and possible AT&T node failures were to blame, I called DSL customer service, and actually got a solid rep…who spoke English…and was in the USA!  From Indianapolis, he checked our DSL, informed us it might be a bad line, and listened as I told him how we had rigged the line four years before.  He then offered to send a rep to look at the line on a Sunday.

When the rep showed up at 5pm last night, he went straight to work checking all the house jacks. He carefully went through and checked wiring on multiple inside jacks, and informed us the wiring WAS messed up…but he thought he could fix it!  And he actually spent an hour with us that resulted in a dial tone on an inside jack!  He took the time and care to find out what was wrong and fix it, instead of passing the problem on to us and our landlords. Maybe he was a better tech…but maybe AT&T had changed their policy for the better to allow him to be a better rep.

So. What does this say about AT&T?  It tells me they should be taking more credit for my experience. Reps in the US to handle customer service?  Techs that come out on a Sunday to fix a line?  I will pay extra to be able to work with their people, because they were empowered enough by the company to get the job done and fix my DSL. They weren’t hampered by policies that kept them from doing their job, and were allowed to take every step necessary. Maybe this is a fluke. But, if it isn’t, AT&T, you should be telling more people about how you helped me.

Calls are more valuable than e-leads. They convert better, because an inbound call is always going to be more interested in buying than a user who submitted a form and is being called back hours later. Call center reps can close a deal better on an inbound call than they can on a form-fill lead that they’re calling back. Inbound calls, like PPC search leads, are the cream of the crop of DR marketing

That said, Skype is now selling a click to call product through Marchex. The article in AdAge on it today just forgot to mention one TINY LITTLE DETAIL. Users ONLY see the “Free Call” button if they have the Skype browser plugin installed. I’m a geek, I use Skype daily, and I don’t even have that plugin. So how many people are ever going to see that “Free Call” highlighted link? Skype/Marchex still haven’t told me.

This is a great idea, and if everyone who just had Skype installed on their computer (or smartphone!) would see this link, then it would be huge. But because it requires a browser extension to be installed, and it’s probably a very small market. Is this worth the time to set up & test? Depends on the size of the client. But if your Google click to call gets less than a dozen calls per month, you’re probably not going to get too many here.

700,000 people checked in on Foursquare last Friday. That’s 700,000 check-ins in one day. For a social media tool that no one seems to know how to use, that’s ridiculous. (Exception: The Governator is already on it.)

The question is, how does this actually affect the marketing landscape? Foursquare is still a blip on the radar. No one can tell me it will be as big as Facebook, or even as big as Twitter. Facebook is now powering the web, providing a back-end sign-in architecture that Google dreamed of a few years ago. And Twitter is still easier to use and understand than Foursquare, because you can sum it up in one sentence: “like blogging, but shorter.” How do you even start describing Foursquare to your friends? More importantly, who are these 700,000 check-ins? How many unique users is that? And does that represent the majority of the people who will ever sign up for Foursquare? Has Foursquare already achieved saturation in its market of young, urban types who go out and remember to check in on their smartphones? I mean, I have the app on both phones (home and work), and I always forget to check in when I go out. Will there be a drop-off rate in usage that exceeds the sign-up rate, and will that come soon?

I see the marketing future of Foursquare in three directions. First of all, there’s the small, local aspect: offering discounts for check-ins, or for the mayors of a location. Tasty-D-Lite is doing this in NYC, and Starbucks is offering $1 off Frappucinos for all store mayors through June. The second is to set up specific badges by working with Foursquare, but that’s only really feasible if you have national advertising branding dollars behind your plan. I’d love to set up a program where a client gave out custom badges when people checked in, but I have no idea how much that would even cost, and I haven’t been able to track down anyone at Foursquare to tell me. (My guess? “A lot.”) And the third would be to have paid “suggestions” available, an ad for a nearby business that pops up when you check in somewhere. That might diminish the customer experience somewhat, but would it drive enough foot traffic – especially if it included a discount or other offer – to offset the complaints?

I’m watching you, Foursquare. I’m checking in on you, when I remember to do so. And as soon as I figure out a way to put effective advertising on you, I will do it.

Apple bought Quattro Wireless today. If you were totally out of the blogosphere, you can catch the recap on All Things D.

Seriously, I really can’t figure out what Quattro’s got that Apple couldn’t just build, or what they have that Apple can use. The AdMob acquisition by Google made sense to me, because Google can now add the AdMob inventory and infrastructure onto the rest of the Google Network. I expect it will eventually function as an extension of the Google Network, only with mobile ads instead of full size display banners. Quattro has an extensive network, but how is Apple going to leverage that? I can understand that perhaps Apple wants some of the mobile site development technology that Quattro sells, but why would Apple want mobile advertising inventory? To compete with Google?

Kara Swisher says:

“Both innovative start-ups are aimed squarely at the fast-growing market to advertise on smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.”

Yes, but how does that tie in with the greater business plans of both companies? How is Apple going to leverage the (rather excellent, actually) advertising, analytics, tracking, hosting, and general campaign management of Quattro’s mobile advertising core competency? I’m stymied, folks. Anyone have any ideas?