WMC Interviews: Albert Maruggi

This week, I had the chance to sit down with Albert Maruggi, principal of St. Paul-based marketing agency Provident Partners (and huge baseball fan). His agency assists companies in a variety of industries in all areas of marketing, with particular expertise in PR, events management, integrated marketing and podcasting.

WebMarketCentral (WMC): What did you do before founding Provident Partners?

Albert Maruggi (AM): Worked in radio for a number of years. I was a television reporter and anchor. I also shot and edited video for news stations. I was a political reporter who made the jump to being a press secretary for a Member of Congress. From there I became Press Secretary for the Republican National Committee and then held public affairs management positions in the Bush '41 Administration.

WMC: How, when and why did Provident Partners get started?

AM: When I could not get my flight from LA to MN on September 11, 2001 I drove back home. I did a lot of thinking on that trip and I made two promises, 1) take my family on vacation to southern Utah, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. 2) Start a marketing firm that was a full service outsourcing asset to midsize companies, those between $20 and $150 million in annual revenues.

LA to Denver 13 hours, Denver to St. Paul 12 hours – One speeding ticket in Golden, Colorado. Speed 100, empathic officer priceless. I got off with a considerably reduced fine as opposed to being hauled into the pokey.

The reasons for starting the company were simple: as a VP of marketing for a $70 million company I knew I had two internal customers. The VP of Sales who would say “Where are my leads?” and the CEO who would say “Do more with less.”

I believe that a VP of marketing can outsource the experts he or she needs to get specific objectives met and then not carry that overhead. I see disturbing trends in marketing technology such as web development, Flash etc, that should make every marketer quake in their boots. An internal marketing lead has a difficult time juggling company objectives, politics, travel let alone new technologies, channel marketing, and PR.

Our profession is in transition and you must demonstrate value every day.

WMC: Who is your ideal or typical client?

AM: We are best suited for companies that have a limited marketing staff or a VP of Sales and Marketing. This situation best utilizes the four core expertise areas of Provident Partners; those being, creative ideas, public relations, lead generation, and multi-media production. We think creatively about the big picture and execute flawlessly over the details.

Our typical client has marketing or single project budget of between $50,000 to $100,000. For that they must expand brand ID, generate leads, secure media coverage, and have a better than average appreciation for public relations.

WMC: What are your key differentiators? What sets you apart from your competition?

AM: We have a unique mix of national talent and industry knowledge in technology, manufacturing, and professional services. We have, bar none, the best service record of any firm in our space. Our clients are all referenceable. I tested as an ENTP on Myers-Briggs. That means I hate letting anyone down. Our clients use this trait to their advantage.

WMC: How do you market/promote your business?

AM: Podcasting, advertising, email newsletters, media coverage, direct mail, webcasts, and calling. Or yes, there’s the secret weapon that we use too, but if I include it in this question I’d have to kill you. You understand right?

WMC: Absolutely, we'll just move on. What's the biggest or most important marketing lesson you've learned since starting Provident Partners?

AM: Never assume people know you or have heard about you. Always talk about your clients and never you. You mean nothing, your clients and their success means everything to your prospect.

WMC: Anything else you'd like to add?

AM: Two eggs, a stick of butter, two cups of brownie mix, stir, pour in pan, lick spoon, repeat.

*****

Terms: Provident Partners, marketing agency, ad agency, podcasting

The Web marketing and e-commerce portal: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

New Blog Friends for WMC

Marketing is about relationships. And one of my favorite aspects of blogging is "meeting" new people across the marketing blog space. Over the last couple of weeks I've had the pleasure of exchanging emails with several prominent bloggers, all of whom have made me smarter.

David Wolfe at Ageless Marketing
Many bloggers provide tips, which are very helpful. David, however, provides something even more valuable – wisdom. David shares a lifetime of experience on topics such as branding, consumer advertising and earning customer trust.

Sarah Eaton at BeTuitive
Both Sarah and her blog are delightful. Her specialties are email marketing and uncommon observations. A highly useful feature of her blog is the topical category listing.

John Moore at Brand Autopsy
A brilliant, visual and wide-ranging blog on branding. Highly recommended for anyone interested entertaining commentary on consumer and business branding, from a brilliant and eclectic mind.

Michael Smock at Maneuver Marketing Communique
There are marketers who are effervescent, artsy and hyper-creative – and then there’s Michael Smock. Not content to cuddle customers, he concentrates on crushing competition (don’t tell ME I can’t alliterate). He blasts bad marketing. He uses war metaphors and predator imagery. As I am currently working on a Blue Ocean consulting project, I found his commentary on the book particularly compelling.

Ankesh Kothari at Marketing eYe
A remarkable blog which ranges from big thoughts (life, philanthropy) to simple yet effective marketing ideas. I like his suggestions so much that I borrowed a couple for the Best Practices in Blog Marketing page on web marketing portal WebMarketCentral.

Harry Joiner at Marketing Headhunter
An executive recruiter in the marketing arena (explains the blog title), Harry expounds on topics like key marketing skills, people moves, and new opportunities. He’s smart, direct, and well worth the read.

Laura Ries at the Origin of Brands Blog
Co-author with her father, Al, of popular marketing books such as The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR and The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (my personal favorite), Laura brings the same intelligence, sensibility and fluent style to her blog. This is an entertaining must-read for anyone in consumer/retail marketing.

Terms: Blue Ocean Strategy, marketing blogs, web marketing portal

The portal for Web marketing and e-commerce: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

Big Brother Really IS Watching You

While this is not a political blog, government actions that specifically affect online marketing or e-commerce are fair game. Several states have recently begun sending nasty letters to taxpayers who purchased tobacco products online from several e-retailers, including eSmokes.com.

How did they obtain information on these customers? This issue is about far more than the perils or expense of smoking; these actions have the potential to affect anyone and everyone involved in online marketing or e-commerce, anyone who buys or sells anything online. Do you sell products online? Are you absolutely positively certain that you comply with EVERY state and federal tax statute enacted in the last 100 years? Ever purchased anything online, maybe a book or CD, perhaps some jewelry, say back in 2001? Are you certain that the online retailer paid all appropriate taxes on your purchase? Disturbing? Absolutely. Please read on.

First, the state actions: the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on this activity in late July of this year, although for some mysterious reason the articles can no longer be found on their site. I was able to track down one of the articles here. Minnesota, among other states, is apparently using a dusty 60-year-old law called the Jenkins Act, originally enacted to combat cross-border cigarette smuggling by the Mafia, to bypass the normal channels of obtaining evidence and simply demand that legal, private companies in other states simply throw open their customer records to state investigators. This law may run afoul of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, not to mention Indian tribal sovereignty.

There are several problems here. First, no state has any more right to search through your online purchasing records than they do to break down your door and search your home. There needs to be evidence of a crime, probable cause to believe that you were involved in it, and a warrant granted by a judge before the state can legally search your online history or your home. Several states have therefore violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unreasonable searches. The Jenkins Act itself may be an unconstitutional violation of the Tenth Amendment.

Second, if the online retailers were acting illegally, isn't it logical to prosecute them? To use an offline analogy, if the proprietor of a local retailer in your neighborhood, let's call it John's Bait Shop and Beauty Supply, decided to increase his profits by simply failing to pay sales taxes to his state, that would be clearly be illegal. The state would no doubt pursue John in this case. However, it is inconceivable, unless the state not only knew but could prove that John's customers were in on this activity, that the state would track down John's customers for payment of back taxes.

Minnesota, along with Michigan and at least 10 other states, have violated the Constitution in their pursuit of higher revenues; even more disturbing than the fact that online retailers have been forced to throw open their confidential customer information is that the major credit card companies are also exposing their records (which means of course, your records). And Minnesota "intends to work with the U.S. Postal Service and commercial transportation companies to monitor cigarette deliveries to residential addresses." So Big Brother is now searching your mail and FedEx packages as well.

Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle is one of the few sane politicians fighting this practice.

The state of Minnesota, along with the other participating states, apparently believe that it is fine to violate the Constitution in their pursuit of revenue. They've violated the privacy of their citizens. They've violated certainly the spirit, if not the letter, of the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Worst of all, however, they have violated the trust of the entire e-commerce marketplace.

To the long list of nefarious cretins intent on stealing your private online information -- hackers, spammers, perpetrators of fraud -- we can now add state revenue officials. They want your money. They won't stop with tobacco users. Express your outrage. And watch your back.

A Cluetrain Moment

I just finished reading The Cluetrain Manifesto (yes, I know C-2001, I'm a bit behind on my reading). Those of you who've read this book will understand the reference. For those of you who haven't, I'll provide a more detailed response to the book in some future post, but it is well worth the read.

Anyway, I had a "Cluetrain moment" last week when I met an extraordinary gentleman named Brad Cleveland, CEO of a rapid plastic injection molding prototyping company called Protomold. I don't know if Brad has read the book or not, but he certainly gets it, and lives it.

The company has been using a wide variety of marketing tactics for some time, including search engine marketing / pay-per-click, print, direct mail and email marketing, but decided to hire an outside telemarketing firm to test that tactic as well. On one occasion, one of the telemarketers deviated from the script and upset a customer, who then called a CSR at Prototmold. Brad was notified immediately (Cluetrain factor #1: he actually has a system in place to notify him of any customer complaints that come to CSRs). Brad promptly contacted the customer, apologized and made sure things were okay.

When I mentioned that I found this extraordinary, Brad humbly shrugged it off, saying that most CEOs in his industry probably would have done the same thing. Cluetrain factors #2 and #3: a CEO who is both responsive to customers and modest.

One more thing: Brad also checks Google frequently to see where his company is being talked about (including forums and blogs) and what's being said about the firm. It's not surprising that a CEO like Anne Holland of Marketing Sherpa would do this sort of thing, but it's a very Cluetrain activity for a CEO in plastic injection molding space. So it probably isn't surprising that Protomold is one of the fast growing companies in the state, ranking #2 on the Deloitte Fast 50 for 2004, and named the fastest growing private company in Minnesota last year by Twin Cities Business Journal.

Brad attributes the company's success to its proprietary software that enables the company to produce prototypes much faster than industry standard, and to the company's aggressive and smart marketing. I would add that having a CEO who clearly has a clue is a key reason as well.

Keywords of the week: The Cluetrain Manifesto, Marketing Sherpa, email marketing, search engine marketing

The portal for Web marketing and e-commerce: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

It's News to You

Marketing professionals, particularly those focused on online or Web marketing, depend on the latest news from a wide variety of sources to help them stay current on their craft. While there are obviously some excellent news sites available (such as MarketingVOX, ClickZ and BtoBonline), it's impractical to visit all of them and way too time-consuming to sift through all of the articles that don't matter in order to find the ones that do.

But now you can get all of the pertinent content, from literally thousands of online sources, in one place: the new Web Marketing News and E-Commerce News pages on WebMarketCentral.com. I try to avoid being too self-referential here but I'm really excited about these new feeds and I think -- and hope -- that you will find them useful. The feeds are powered by Web content provider Moreover Technologies. Moreover pulls literally tens of thousands of articles from more than 10,000 online sources, categorizes them, and delivers news feeds on specific and/or custom topics in near-realtime.

There are several Web content providers listed in the WebMarketCentral directory; each has its own strengths and limitations, and specific applications for which it is the best fit. Moreover is generally considered the leader in current awareness solutions.

Keywords of the week: web marketing news, online marketing news, e-commerce news

The portal for online marketing: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

Ubiquitous Ads, Disappearing Freedom

The brilliant and entertaining Anne Holland at Marketing Sherpa recently blogged about the proliferation of advertising, and the need for marketers to save themselves through relevant targeting. She mentioned sand-sculpture advertising on the beach and other examples of the "loud shouting" sometimes done by marketers instead of delivering focused, relevant messages in targeted media.

I stumbled (or rather, paddled) across another example yesterday. My son and I canoed down the scenic and wild St. Croix river on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. While making our way down river, I occasionally glanced down at my paddle to make sure I was pushing water efficiently. Imprinted on the front side of the paddle was, not surprisingly, the name of the camp where we'd rented the canoe. However, late in the trip, I turned the paddle over and glanced at the back of it, on which was imprinted -- the Pepsi name and logo.

What brilliant marketer at Pepsi came up with the idea of putting their logo on the back of canoe paddles? How much did that cost? Was there any way to measure the ROI? Was it not possible -- even likely -- that there was no ROI? (I don't think there was a Pepsi machine around for miles). Oh, how nice it would be to have that kind of marketing budget to spend...

The other thing I noticed, at the camp sites where we parked, rented our gear, and stopped along for breaks along the way, even in the relative remoteness of the St. Croix valley, was the proliferation of "no" signs. There were rules when I was young too, of course, but it just seemed that there weren't so many. While our trip down river was beautiful and wonderful overall, it was annoying to see so many "no" signs even in the wilderness.

No parking. No daytime parking. No overnight parking. No parking anytime. No swimming. No fishing. No alcoholic beverages. No non-alcoholic beverages. No food or beverages. No running. No motorized vehicles. No non-motorized vehicles. No experimental vehicles. No promotional vehicles. No smoking. No cigar smoking. No pipe smoking. No fish smoking. No wet bathing suits. No dry bathing suits. No littering. No loitering. No loud music. No soft music. No bad music from the 70's (okay, I made that one up, but I'm positive that someone's thought of it). No sun bathing. No nude sun bathing. No fully-clothed sunbathing. No pets. No children. No shell collecting (I'm NOT making that one up). Permit required. License required. Sticker required. Life jacket required. Insanity required. No screaming (AAAAArgh!).

Even the great outdoors in the "land of the free and home of the brave" has become as regulated and restricted as the most dense (in at least two senses of the word) urban core. Thanks to a small number of ill-behaved boors and large number of trial lawyers willing to sue anybody anytime anything bad happens to anyone anywhere, freedom gets eroded and life gets more rule-bound.

That's how it, sadly, has happened in the real world. The Internet is still, by comparison, a wide-open frontier. Regulation encroaches however; how long can we keep the Web (relatively) free? Yes, unfortunately, there are people who go online to do bad things: spammers, hackers, virus-writers and fraudsters. The law-abiding need to be protected. I hope that we can obtain this protection, predominantly if not entirely, through technology solutions (and more precise targeting by legitimate marketers), rather than asking the government to do more. In so many areas of life, we've already asked the government to do too much -- leading to higher taxes and reduced freedom. I hope that we can keep the "no" signs from proliferating on the Internet for a long time to come.

Keywords of the week: online advertising, targeted marketing

The Web marketing portal: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

WMC Interviews: Kelly Allan

This week, I had the opportunity to talk to Kelly Allan, founder of and senior associate at Kelly Allan Associates in Columbus, Ohio. Kelly's firm assists companies in a variety of industries with marketing and operations consulting, helping them to streamline business processes and achieve better results. Kelly has been widely published -- and is just a really nice guy.

WebMarketCentral (WMC): What did you do before starting Kelly Allan Associates?

Kelly Allan (KA): I was a writer, producer/director of educational programs for The University of Michigan Medical Center. Had I stayed, I'd be retired, fat, and unhappy. I had a great boss and great colleagues, but it wasn't what I really wantedto do. Staying would have been a compromise. I tell young people, "Don't sell your life for money. Go take some chances."

WMC: How, when and why did Kelly Allan Associates get started?

KA: I started the company full time in 1976, at age 24. I was too young to knowany better! There are people who, when they read about the evils ofdrinking, they give up reading. I decided to give up being an employee and follow my dream of starting a company. I started the company in my bedroom. It was difficult, but I loved every minute of it. I still do.

WMC: Whom do you target, that is, who is your ideal or typical client?

KA: The ideal client is full of energy to make things happen and to get things done --in an enlightened, healthy way. Our clients are local, national, and international. There are only a handful of companies that do both marketing/sales work and operations management work. We are one of them. When you do both, you attract companies that already have a systems view ofhow things really work. That puts us more in sync with presidents andCEOs --and increases our effectiveness on their behalf.

WMC: What is your key differentiator (or differentiators)? What separates you from your competition?

KA: I started the company with the ignorant notion that we ought to be able to pay for the cost of our advice and services by saving clients a LOT of money --or by making them a LOT more money. I figured we should promise that if within 90 days we couldn't provide a payback that couldn't would more than cover the cost of our work, we shouldn't take on the work. As Mark Twain said, '"Why not go out on a limb? That's where all the fruit is." Amazingly, we still live by that ignorant notion of extreme accountability. And, we like fruit.

WMC: How do you market/promote your business?

KA: We don't need much promotion because we tend to keep clients for a long, long time. Many have been with us for more than a decade. So, we are somewhat picky about adding to the list. Nor do we grow for growth sake. Many of my 25 associates have been with the company for more than a decade. New business often comes via word of mouth. We are also the only authorized contact point for Peter R. Scholtes, and we conduct seminars and consulting on his behalf. (Peter wrote The Leader's Handbook and The Team Handbook).

WMC: What's the biggest or most important marketing lesson you've learned since starting Kelly Allan Associates?

KA: I learned this lesson in the rain forest of Ecuador while doing client work: you must be able to prove you can do what you say you can do. You need to prove it quickly, compellingly, honestly, and humbly. If not, you might get killed.

WMC: Anything else you'd like to add?

KA: I encourage people to move things along quickly, yet thoughtfully. Did you hear about the new microwave fireplace? You can enjoy an entire evening in front of it in fewer than eight minutes. Now that's moving things along.

*****

Keywords of the week: marketing consulting, operations consulting, marketing portal

The Web marketing portal: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com