Cinemark off the mark

Nothing is worse than when you want to purchase something online and its hard. Buying anything should be made as easy as possible.. but if you try to use a gift card online through Cinemark good luck.

I went in to use a gift card and then got an error. They didn't have my email on record. Right, because I didn't register and didn't really want to. I just wanted to use my gift card to get movie tickets for my daughter and I. So I'm forced to register and do so. So I go back through the process and submit my information. Opps, another error. My gift card wasn't registered to my email address ahead of time. What? I was putting in the gift card information and they had my registered email--they couldn't do that all in one form? So now I have to go back to my profile and register my gift card with a name. So I registered the user "Charlie." I should have registered it under something silly just to see if it mattered, but I was already losing patience.

So I finally get in and fill out all the information and guess what? I'm told that I have to "You must bring your confirmation number to the theater to pick up your tickets!" which is 13 digits. What year is this? I have a Blackberry so this is easy, but what If I didn't? Does this make any sense? Most theaters you just go and swipe the gift card and get your tickets. This might be the case with Cinemark too but then why does the confirmation email open with the following: "Your Confirmation Number is: and tell me "You must bring your confirmation number to the theater to pick up your tickets!" if it isn't true? This is a fast way to lose business.

The bad news for Cinemark is that I've not used their theaters in Utah but was going to give them a try and if you compare their experience with the other theater there is no comparison. I'm glad I have other theaters in my area so I can avoid this again.

Show that you care

I've had something wrong with my foot for about a week. It felt broken for a few days and then over time its slowly felt better. But I'd have avoided the doctor for as long as possible because doctor's visits are often as agonizing as the issue that brought you there.

But this visit was different. Not only did I not wait a long time, but the doctor spent time with me without feeling rushed. He also asked me to call him back the day that I felt better so he could make note of it and better treat me in the future. Huh? That's never happened to me before, maybe I've just had bad doctors all my life. The fact that he cared about me and what would help future patients was great and wasn't just trying to make a buck off a follow-up visit. I just wish my general practitioner cared this much.

My doctor didn't do this to get me to spread word-of-mouth about his practice, he did it because he cared. But by wanting to go above and beyond he got something better than a happy patient--he'll get future patients. By the way, I found out about him through a referral.

The death of newspapers

Time ran an article recently entitled "How to save your newspaper." It should have been entitled "How to kill your newspaper." Walter Isaacson is under the false impression that all newspaper content is worth buying. He is wrong. Even the great New York Times couldn't make enough money selling their premium content. And don't even give me the Wall Street Journal argument. They make money because those who read it make money by reading it.

Newspapers are desperate to make money any way they can and the only person who is on the right track is Jeff Jarvis with his new book "What Would Google Do?" Some of his ideas are off and they aren't completely original, but they are condensed in a way that even the least web savvy newspaper editor can read it and grasp the concepts.

I work at a newspaper and my goal is to keep it making money. At the same time I'm working on my Masters' thesis which is on the death (or rebirth) of newspapers. The one thing that doesn't seem to sink into the minds of newspapers are the following:

1. If you can do four things great (local, sports, photos, niche) then do it. Don't do 12 things mediocre. The content needs to be great.

2. The content needs to be local. Really local. Hyper local. Micro local. You get the picture. Don't think just because one county has only two new stories no one is going to notice--because they notice. And traffic will suffer. There are always other sources of news. Don't get arrogant. Just remember the Encyclopedia Britannica. That is if you can remember them.

3. You need to own the niches. If you own a newspaper in NYC then you better be printing a lot on tourism. If you own a newspaper in Utah you better be doing an outdoors product. If you own a newspaper in Buffalo you better do a lot of stories on hunting, fishing and the Buffalo Bills.

4. You need to think out to the edges. And example of this would be: if you don't have a staff writer to go to a city council meeting post the agenda online and ask those who attended to work out the details like a wiki article. The same could go for high school sports--supplemented with photos and video from readers. Also, why not allow readers to microblog live from games via their mobile phones onto your site?

5. The lines between the Publisher and Editor should be demolished. It should matter if no one ever reads a writer's stories. If you had an employee who was in the bottom 10% of production at a plant they wouldn't have a job very long. Why is that okay with journalists? The days of guessing are gone. Everyone should write every day as if it is to save their jobs. Those who are on the business end work like that every day--why not everyone else?

6. Reporters should all be plugged in equally that means they:
-know how to shoot video/photos in a pinch
-know how to use twitter and other social network tools
-are willing to do extra things like blogging
-understand web statistics
-think web first
-get breaking news online fast and iterate quickly

7. Newspaper companies need to realize that money follows greatness. Facebook is valued at $15 billion and is free to all of us. We don't even need to bring up how much Google is worth. Why are they worth so much? Because they have great products. Newspapers are in trouble financially but they made their beds by cutting necessary staff while taking more and more wire stories which brings them closer and closer to average.

Newspapers don't have Craig to blame--they have themselves to blame for losing classifieds. They have themselves to blame for losing to Monster. They have themselves to blame for losing to Yelp. This could go on and on. Newspapers need to stop complaining and start creating. And not just in new media. Everyone can get in on the reconstruction of newspapers. I hope that "Take Risks" becomes a daily mantra at newspapers.

Talking a good game

A funny thing happened to me at Target yesterday. There was a cashier who talked a lot. Talked to the point of being a little weird. But he talked about wanting to make people happy in hopes that they would come back again--which he said would keep him employed. True enough.

So even as weird as this guy's incessant talking was he also seemed to care about customer service and quality service. The problem is with all his talking he didn't pay attention to the finer details of his job--like not charging me multiple times for the same product.

When you talk a good game make sure you can back it up--because you will be called on it. If only this young man did his entire job my conversations about this incident would have been different. Rather than talking about the guy who talked to much and overcharged me at Target I would have told them about the guy who talked a lot but cared a ton. Sadly its a fine line that can make or break your image.

How to spread great word of mouth about your product/service

Recently on vacation my wife and I took a Kayak tour in Kauai, Hawaii. Not only was the guide extremely nice, but he was amazingly knowledgeable. We were served well at an amazing price and educated along the way.

By the time we left Kauai we told at least a dozen people we met along the way about the kayaking company. I don't know how many used the company for kayaking after we told them, but imagine if they all did. We just increased our value to the company 12 fold.

And during our tour our guide shared some dried Mango with us. Guess what everyone asked: where did you get this from? I can tell you that we bought some from the store and shared it the next day on another hiking trail with a couple who wanted to know where we bought it from.

Marketing doesn't have to be hard. You just have to be great. And if you are great your business will thrive.

Rated the best... huh?

How many times have you read or heard something was rated the best? While on vacation in Kauai our hotel's island guide said the golf course at our hotel was rated the best in Hawaii. My question was "by who?" I wasn't surprised to find out they had no idea who rated it. But even if they had known it wouldn't have mattered. I'd rather have a handful of friends, or people with similar interests, tell me something was great rather than some expert. What is great for an expert doesn't make it great for me.

This is what makes the social aspects of the web so great and growing in vitality. I'd love to see a website that rates everything from restaurants to hotels to golf courses to food and as I build my profile it starts to recommend things based on interests, taste and skill level. If I like to hike, but its obvious my skill level is for easier trails than it could recommend similar trails, but if I select my desire to take it up a notch it could figure that out as well.

This website could take the Netflix "Movies you'll love" to a whole new level. This would help lead to reviews that matter to me. And help me avoid foods and services that use marketing slogans that sound like recommendations--like my soy sauce that claims its "used by great chefs".

I screwed up

President Obama admitted recently that he "Screwed up" with the nomination of Tom Daschle. It's refreshing. I hope companies take President Obama's lead and allow their employees to screw up more. If they did we'd be a lot more innovative as a whole. That's why Google has been so successful.

If you've read Clayton M. Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" about disruptive technology you'll find out why its so important to make mistakes. Mistakes can lead to innovation in unexpected ways. Companies can't afford to blow it numerous times, however the fear of error, that will occur when risks are taken, will only hurt your company.

Why I love to love/hate Consumer Reports

I love Consumer Reports because I believe they are unbiased.

I hate Consumer Reports because they are always way behind everyone else to review products. It appears they never want to trump their printed release of reviews--huge mistake. If I'm wrong about this please someone correct me because I'm a loyal subscriber--for now.

The issue is that I don't have time to wait for a review of a car for the April issue.

I remember looking at their reviews of tires, before their recent update, and they were at least one year behind on reviews for current products. All the tires they recommended were no longer being sold. And if they review HD televisions they wait until everything is out and then do one big comprehensive report. I just want to know if I should buy the 42" Panasonic.

So I find myself looking at Consumer Reports as an afterthought. Consumer Reports has become the last place to look if I'm on the fence between a few different products. There was a time when Consumer Reports was the first place. Now its the last resort.

A service from Twitter I'd pay to use

Running a newspaper's online department offers some opportunities to try many new and interesting technologies. One that has been a constant issue however has been chat programs. They are server intensive and don't always provide much ROI.

The ROI issue is simple. Everyone has heard of the fax machine example.. where the first fax machine was worthless but as everyone else purchased one they became more valuable. The same goes for a chat program. If one or two people are the only people on it then its worthless and never gains traction.

How do you fix this? Find a product that already has a large user base and incorporate that into your site. I'd love to see a Twitter API that allowed us to drop a live Twitter chat feed into our website. I want a full app to do more than a mashup using their search function. It would allow our readers to drop micro-bursts of information about news and information. This is an app I'd pay for from Twitter because it solves a problem and would certainly make my life easier. Better yet, if no one cares I have a small investment of money rather than a large investment in development time.

Social shopping

There are two reasons I never buy clothes online: I don't know how they will fit or look on me.

I'd love to be able to upload an image and then body dimensions and do a virtual fitting. I could then show my wife or friends what it looked like and get their opinions.

A great additional feature would be the marketing aspect. If I was trying on Brooks Brothers pants and showing friends I'd be advertising the brand. Then you have Facebook apps and more. Harness your customers--they are by far your best marketers.

Keep it simple... you know the rest

I thought I was the only one who couldn't figure out in a pinch which button opens the elevator doors, but I've observed a few people with the same level of indecision. I think I'm fairly smart and yet when someone comes running for the elevator at work there is always a hesitation trying to figure out which button to push. The issue being that the symbols aren't obvious when you are trying to make a quick decision.

The point? Can't it just say "Open" or "Close" under the buttons? Just make it simple. That's exactly the way your marketing message should be. Want someone to buy your tires. Tell them why you have great tires. Want someone to donate money to your cause? Tell them where their money goes. Keep it simple.

All you need is love

The best marketing is when a company provides a service that you didn't know you needed.

I went to the local grocery store and my receipt noted in big, bold letters that we purchased a peanut product on the recall list. I had no idea about the product because my wife bought it--but the store knew because of my store card.

I also got a letter in the mail from Costco which pointed out that some of the Clif Bars we bought were recalled. Their quick work didn't save my life, after all I had already eaten most of them and lived to talk about it, but it was nice to know they were doing something to help others who might not be so lucky.

Marketing doesn't have to be about commercials and the usual marketing propaganda. Sometimes the simplest things keep customers loyal.

How not to do a how to video

My son needed a science fair project. So we searched the web. We didn't actually know what we were searching for, we were just searching. But I remembered that a cool site existed that I always admired simply because it would be cool to create things like a solar powered hot water heater.

That's when I rediscovered Instructables.com. It's a great DIY website with videos or instructions on how to build just about anything. Even carve cool pumpkins!

So my son and I settled on building a levitation device out of magnets, which sounded really easy. We watched the video a dozen time, even though it seemed unbelievably easy. Once we got all the necessary parts we started putting it together.

Well it didn't work.

So we continued to tinker and tinker and tinker and realized we actually started to learn about magnets and polarity, etc. That was good news for my son, bad news for the frustrated dad. But the video wasn't for science fair projects or teaching you anything--it was to show you how to build something. If this were a chair you'd have to realize that nails were important on your own.

So you can understand what that the video left out some important things. One example is that the magnets polarity aren't going to be the same as his. He put his in sideways--that wouldn't work for us. He never told us how to keep our magnets on the stick without shoot towards each other and constantly locking up. Nor did he mention how the magnets are anchored because they end up pulling the magnets in the styrofoam out of the styrofoam.

Moral of the story: if you want someone to learn how to do something--you better teach them. Leaving things ambiguous is not a move in the right direction. The same goes for wacky commercials that never tell you about the product or why you should care. The one commercial that comes to mind during the Super Bowl was the Hulu.com commercial.

I love Hulu.com. I watch television shows on there all the time. That ad didn't convince me that its nearly as cool of a website as it is. Sell the features not Alec Baldwin goofing off as Jack Donaghy. And thanks to the bad commercial many viewers don't even know who Jack Donaghy is or that they can watch him on "30 Rock" anytime they want. Oops.