Publishers and Wives...

From: Andy Bourland <andybourland_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Wed 07 Nov 2001 18:05:28 -0500

I got a chuckle out of a question to the advice
columnist at Salon.com earlier this week. It reminded me
of the current relationship between online marketers and
publishers. Read below:

(note: Salon.com copyright 2001
http://www.salon.com/sex/col/tenn/2001/10/30/tenn_3/index1.html)

Dear Cary,

My husband of less than a year has the expectation of daily
sex. He keeps precise records about how often we have sex
and how satisfying he believes it has been. He has made it
clear that he will divorce me if we do not have the type
and frequency of sex he desires. He critiques my sexual
performance, means of initiating relations and lingerie.
I have never rebuffed his advances and have tried to be
available to him as often as he'd like. I knew he had a
strong sex drive when we married, and I have no problem
with that; it's just that the quota system and hanging
threat of the dissolution of our marriage is leaving me
cold.

Am I wrong to feel he is being unreasonable? Am I wrong to
believe there's more to "love" than a sexual quota?

Love Quota

</end>

I'm convinced the husband is a direct response marketer.

He puts nothing into the relationship. Controls and
measures the variables every which way. Doesn't look
beyond what you've done for me today. No patience. No
thought for the long run.

Manage your personal relationships like that and you're
going to end up with no friends or lovers.

Manage your business relationships like that and you may
find yourself broke in a different way... or paying a far
higher price to get much less satisfaction.

People today are a lot wiser to the wiley ways of marketers,
far more sophisticated than marketers would like to believe.
Marketers need to court them like lovers. They need to
listen, to be honest, to be responsive and to deliver what
they promise. They need to respect their intelligence.
They need to be patient during times when the object of
their affection can't or won't "deliver the goods" for
whatever reason.

They need to realize that the short term gains of one
night stands with hyper-compulsive lovers are often acquired
at a higher cost than they would have incurred by taking a
slower, more patient approach with one. The benefits of
long term retention cost far less and deliver far more
than the constant, frenzied chase for the instant sale.

This is reflective in the way they market their products,
in their relationships with the media partners they choose
and especially in their relationships with the customers
and clients who choose to do business with them.

Customers and publishers feel exploited by direct response
marketers in exactly the same way that this woman does by
her husband.

We often use aggressive, warlike metaphors for marketing,
but I think we'd do better to develop metaphors of long
term relationships with lovers.

I firmly believe that the internet is the space where
marketing can and will be changed, where companies and
their customers can set aside the bullshit and start
developing more honest, candid relationships. Marketers
can adapt to the way that people use the internet and
work with it, rather than force feeding the crap that
works for them in other media on to the net.

Those marketers that go with the flow and treat potential
and current clients with intelligence, respect and
appreciation will benefit in ways it's hard to imagine now.

Nuff said... Some food for thought for the weekend...

Andy Bourland



Received on Wed Nov 07 2001 - 17:05:28 CST