Just Because You Can Do Something, Doesn’t Mean You Should This has always been one of my favorite axioms for life and for entrepreneurship. Today’s example comes from Brad’s new running blog, and ultimately from an AP story reported in the Northwest Florida Daily News. The full story is here, but this teaser ought to get you hooked enough to click through, much as drivers slow down to see accidents on the other side of the road: Pain doesn’t defeat unshod marathoners Last month, after returning from an eight-mile run, Tsuyoshi Yoshino heated up a three-inch sewing needle until it turned bright red. Then, he says, he plunged the glowing instrument into the ball of his foot, puncturing a three-inch-long…
Archives / December, 2006
Second-Class Status for a First-Class Channel
Second-Class Status for a First-Class Channel (Below is the beginning of my December column for DM News.) The e-mail industry has changed a lot in the seven years since we started Return Path. And the past few years have been the most exciting in many ways. As the spam problem becomes more manageable, e-mail has enjoyed a renaissance, both from the marketer and the consumer’s view. So it surprises me that so many companies still don’t take e-mail as seriously as other direct marketing strategies. Too often…(read the rest at DMNews here).
Merry Whatever
Merry Whatever We had two horrendous customer service experiences at Return Path lately that just leave me scratching my head about how one could possibly run a business that way. In the process of buying some holiday gifts for a few of our larger clients, we first tried to order gift baskets from Harry & David. But we couldn’t, because they wouldn’t take our order via Excel spreadsheet — our office manager would have had to enter each order in a web form by hand. I imagine the conversation going something like this: Andrea from Return Path: “Hi, I’d like to give you $2,500.” Clerk from Harry & David: “Um, no thanks.” So, ok, fine, we moved on to vendor…
Book Short: A Primer on Viral Marketing
Book Short: A Primer on Viral Marketing “People talk about Andy,” writes Seth Godin in the foreward to Andy Sernovitz’s new book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. “He’s a living, breathing example of the power of word of mouth.” Andy’s the CEO of WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and a former colleague of mine. Ever since reading The Tipping Point, I keep looking for the secret sauce around viral marketing. What is it that makes something cool enough to buzz about? My conclusion from reading Andy’s book is that secret sauce doesn’t exist. Like everything else, being buzzworthy comes from hard work, being inherently good, AND using the techniques and understanding in Andy’s…
Lucky 7, or the 7 Year Itch?
Lucky 7, or the 7 Year Itch? Today is the seventh anniversary of the founding of Return Path. There are days when it feels like it’s been much longer, but most of the time, I feel like we’re still in the first quarter of the game here. The business is completely different than what we started and what we ever thought it would be, but it’s healthy, growing, and we’re having more and more fun every day. When I started the business, another more seasoned entrepreneur told me, "however long you think it’s going to take to build a great business — triple it." I’m not sure how long I thought it was going to take for us to hit…
I’m Embarrassed for My Profession
I’m Embarrassed for My Profession File this under the heading of “just when you think you’ve seen it all” — I am a marketing services person and typically applaud ingenuity and buzz-generating things wherever I see them. But even I was a bit surprised last night at dinner when I went to use the restroom to find a new form of advertising — the custom urinal cake. Universal is promoting its new film, Let’s Go to Prison, in this somewhat unorthodox manner. It did have my rapt attention for, say, 30-60 seconds, which is more time than I usually give ads. And perhaps I paid more attention to it than I would have had it been a wall-mounted eye-level ad…