Re: Serve the Customer

From: D Yancey <gen_at_intergen.co.uk>
Date: Fri 02 Mar 2001 12:35:51 -0600

JARROD MAXFIELD <maxfieldj_at_digitalroot.com> WROTE:

>We cannot use the bad times as an excuse to neglect
>our customers. In fact,this is the time when the
>biggest push made should be to service the customer
>120%. A happy customer will stay with you, good or
>bad. But, make one mistake and they will leave you
>forever.

Thanks, Jarrod Maxfield! Refreshing to see a post (in
Online Ads 20 February) from someone mainly concerned
with getting some business done.

While the same-old, same-old controversies and design
issues and SPAM jam go on, some of us out here are
actually building businesses, and trying to find ways for
hard-pressed advertisers to get a better bang for their
recession-wary dollars.

And Mr Maxfield got it right, I have to say. We are coming
at from the publisher's point of view, and let me assure
you, the same lack of interest you see on the buying side
maps precisely the same un-businesslike attitude on the
seller's side. Out of the top seven firms who say they are
in the business of selling online ad space, we have seen
little talk, less sense of bsuiness direction, and no action
from six.

I'm angry, too, Mr. Maxfield. Having built the fastest
growing online business publication group ever, here we are
with over 100 million projected premium business-targeted ad
impressions to move the rest of this year, and no rep can be
bothered.

Mr. Maxfield says he is a first time poster to the list,
while I am an old-timer. He has shamed me out of my
lethargy.

Achieving results is clearly the order of the day, when the
very viability of our whole sector is being challenged. I
suspect that a lot more attention to the client's concerns
and needs is the most positive thing we can do as a nascent
industry.

And the step right before that is to listen to those like Mr
Maxfield who are trying to find ways to help their clients
take advantage of this great new medium.

But how many of us have thought to invite our client-side
contacts to join this list?

Instead of us "experts" ruling on this type of banner or
that limitation on pop-ups, when have we done a rigorous
test to see what the advertisers want to accomplish with
these tools?

Has anyone got hard, empirically sound data from the
*customer* as to what they expect to get from advertising
online, or in our various newsletters, and at what cost?

We all say we know that the Web and its email-based siblings
represents a massive potential improvement in commercial
messaging. But where is the effort to educate the
advertiser on the pros, like targeting, and also advise them
constructively of the very definite cons, like SPAMming. Do
we expect the ad agencies to do this job for us? Why would
they? After all, the real impact of online and (true)
opt-in email messaging, when it is felt, means an end to a
significant chunk of today's ad business, with its comfy 15%
mentality, rigid creative and account management structure,
and its easy to plan, mass-media bias.

Thanks for posting, Mr. Maxfield - if more who speak for
those who are paying the bills would contribute, maybe we'd
be more focused on getting on with building this industry
into a force to challenge print and the tube.

And any other advertisers out there who have trouble getting
a response to a request for assistance in reaching business
audiences are welcome to call me personally!

David Yancey - - Chairman/CEO
Internet Business Forum, Inc.
http://www.ibizHome.com
mailto:dyancey_at_ibizadmin.com
or call our office in Japan at 81-42-943-2637



Received on Fri Mar 02 2001 - 12:35:51 CST