• • Certified Knowledge PPC Training & Tools. Training to fit your schedule. Tools to increase
    your profits.
  • AdWords SeminarsIntensive two day seminars
    supported by Google™.
  • Advanced Google AdWords BookRead the most advanced guide
    ever written about AdWords.

links for 2009-07-31

July 31, 2009

• Google Adwords Bid Simulator Reference Guide
  Google's presentation on the new Bid Simulator program that lets you anticipate the number of clicks by changes in your max CPC.
  (tags: adwords)
• Inside AdWords: New Interface Thursday: Bye bye beta
  The new UI is now live for everyone. If you travel a lot and connect via a lot of methods, or just have a slow connection – I'd recommend using the AdWords Editor a lot. There have been many days the new UI is just unusable because of how long it takes to load.
  (tags: adwords)

Learn from Nuance (the makers of Dragon Naturally Speaking) in Making Customer’s Not Contact Your Business to Learn More

July 31, 2009

How many barriers do you have to providing pre-sales customer support? Even one can stop a sale from happening. Read just one consumer’s thoughts (mine) about trying to buy a product and what the potential barriers are. Have you evaluated your sales process through your customer’s eyes?

I’ve always wanted to test out Dragon Naturally Speaking (a speech to text program), and it’s on sale right now. However, their downloads are by Digital River, possibly one of the worst customer support offices ever. My last time I dealt with Digital River, my experience went like this (and all consumers have bad experiences in their past with some provider):

• Bought the software where you have 30 days to install
• The install failed due to an error on the manufacturer’s side
• Repeated attempts to contact manufacturer went unanswered for weeks
• Repeated attempts to contact digital river are still unanswered
• This resulted in my first, and only, chargeback
• Avoiding any software downloads that involves digital river

However, all Dragon Naturally Speaking downloads appear to be by Digital River, so I wanted to contact Nuance real quick before buying the product just to see if there were alternatives to the download process.

It turns out you have to make an account to contact Nuance by email. And what’s worse, you actually leave Nuance’s site when you hit the contact customer support button (while this screenshot is for technical support, you have to create an account on nuance’s site for standard customer support. And since they are on different sites, you have no idea if you need to create multiple accounts to contact different departments).

Suddenly the trust factor drops significantly, and questions go through the buyers mind:

• A different site?
• So does someone else do your technical support?
• Can I understand the person doing support?

As customer support satisfaction is dropping in many places due to the outsourcing involved, this could be a big issue. And secondly, who wants to create an account just to email technical or pre-sales support?

Post sale support is almost always worse than pre-sale support. Post sales means the company already has money from you, and usually does not support items nearly as well as getting you to buy the product in the first place. So, if your pre-sale support requires this many hoops; what are you imagining your post-sales experience will be?

Suffice it to say, while I was ready to buy the product this morning and test it out. However, after finding:

• Potential barriers to download
• Barriers to customer support
• Barriers to technical support
• Poor experience with their technical backend download system
• A website that auto plays videos with sound (really? That turns off everyone in an office setting)

I’ll wait another day to try out Dragon, or take a good look at some of their competitor’s reviews.

While I’ve rarely ever used customer support for post-sale software; and probably will never need it – it’s the fact the barriers seem so high if I ever needed to use it.

That’s what customers think. If I need this, will you be there?

While most may never need support; if a customer thinks you won’t be available when they need you – then it’s time for your potential customers to move on to your competitors.

links for 2009-07-30

July 30, 2009

• The Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal, In Simple Terms
  The article is long; but if you want to see the microsoft / yahoo deal in a simple Q&A style writing; this is a fantastic place to get into some of the deal's nuances.
  (tags: microhoo)

What you need to know about search engine policies and trademarks

July 30, 2009

I did a webinar last week that covered:

• What is a trademark (as far as search is concerned)
• How did we get here (trademark lawsuit Google vs Geico)
• Microsoft adCenter policies & what to do
• Yahoo Search Marketing policies & what to do
• Trademarks on Google prior to May of this year
• May’s country expansion of trademarked keywords
• July’s change to using trademarks in ad copy even if you are not the trademark holder
• Google’s policies & what to do
• What will be an ‘informational site’?
• Reasons to use trademarks in ad copy
• General Q&A

The webinar is now on-demand at Search Marketing Now. You do need to register; but after you register you’ll be able to view the entire webinar. It’s about 30 minutes in length.

Some of the Q&A has been transcribed on Search Marketing Now’s website.

I also wrote an article a couple months ago that is still relevant: How will Google’s recent trademark changes affect you?

links for 2009-07-29

July 29, 2009

• An Easy Way to Increase Creativity: Scientific American
  Quick, interesting read on psychological distance and thought processes.
  (tags: creativity)
• Read This If You Hate Meetings – Freakonomics Blog – NYTimes.com
  Meeting people vs Maker people.
  1 hour intervals vs 1/2 day intervals
  Which are you?
  (tags: organization)
• AP: “We’re Done” Answering Questions About Fair Use & Our Rights System
  Danny goes into good thoughts on his personal blog about the APs 'fair use' comments.
  (tags: ap copyright)
• Hotels.com Not Unique Enough To Get A Trademark | Techdirt
  I have to admit; I'm a bit happy about this ruling; if for nothing else the courts actually realized there are alternative spellings to domains and it seems that the courts are starting to understand the the internet. I'm still all for TM protection under the correct circumstances; however, I'm more for courts starting to think about online and offline together when awarding TMs. Hopefully, the patent office will follow their example.
  (tags: trademarks)

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