"Haaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrd!"

The best part about the Olympics is women's curling...they become strangely attractive over two to three hours. Almost how waitresses in a bowling alley become after a few games.

Postcards and Voodoo Dolls

Memo to the Marketing Department:

Stop sticking pins in your Direct Mail doll. However the post office may have offended you--What, did it take one of the stripes from Old Glory? Did it say "I love George W. Bush?" Misspell your Twitter update?--surely you've punished the greatest promotional vehicle enough. It's time to remove your hex.

And, don't act as if you don't know what I am talking about. The last 24 months have been brutal for the often-maligned junk mail and not once in your recent trip to the outer rims of the world have you thought to connect to your neighbors with a pretty landscape postcard. When you put the finishing touches on your second quarter marketing budgets where was the love for paper, ink and postage? I bet you there was love for banner ads, Facebook ads and the lot.

I mean, really, who's going to keep my bills company in the mailbox? My associates at other firms have seen it coming while others say "it's plain weird."

It's more than weird; it borders on the catastrophic. Direct mail spending will decline 39 percent during the next five years from $49 billion in 2008 to $29 billion in 2013! Are you kidding me? Disastrous! It is just a streak of rotten luck. A tried and true medium being pushed back by the new kids in town? No, a dry spell like this can only be the work of the Deities of the Online Wonderland. Internet is King. Long live the Internet.

Is it really too much to ask to drop some intelligent print media at the post office? Is e-mail instead of direct mail really the end-all-be-all answer? Judging by what advertisers spent on e-mail marketing in 2008, $12 billion, and what it will spend in each of the next five (over $16 billion), it seems so.

Here's the catch though: the Direct Marketing Association studies show that when snail mail is added to eDirect marketing, the effectiveness of the total campaign rises three-fold. That's a 300% increase.

So why do all of the promotional experts torture the direct mail piece by leaving it on the shelf while less worthy targets enjoy the marketing spotlight? The telemarketer is a pain in the posterior for decades, yet spending there was UP 5% in 2009. Remarkable!

Beware the marketer that tells you to abandon the direct mail world. Although the changes in spending are systemic, not cyclical, in nature, there is a place for this medium. It does create the greatest value for marketers when it is used as one component of sophisticated, data-driven, multichannel marketing programs.

On second thought, all you haters out there keep sticking those pins in your dolls. Don't worry about lifting your hex. Direct Mail is strong enough to break it on its own.

Networking: Always Be Closing!

"A-B-C. A-always, B-be, C-closing. Always be closing! Always be closing!!"

The words resonate.

They resonate everytime I go to those networking things. You know the ones everyone says you have to hit because you have to network in a time where we type our social interaction instead of speak it.

Those words belong to Alec Baldwin's super-duper salesman Blake character in Glengarry Glen Ross. He's inspiring. Intense. Undeterring. He lets you know that coffee is for closers, only.

Always
Be
Closing

Those are the ABC's of business. If you want to compete in this global world you have to ask for that order. Then demand it. I hate these networking things. A bunch of cliques where they circle the wagons effectively locking out the walk-up. One guy always camped at the iced shrimp. And then there's the know-it-all who can't be bothered by your trival conversation. Yet, you have to get out of the office to meet those new people. You gotta close!

Now I'm not a command-the-room-kind-of-guy. I'm definitely the get-to-know-you-kind-of-guy. I like to sit down with you and have a drink and bond with you in a beneath-the-surface conversation. Next thing you know we are doing this regularly, doing deals and having fun along the way. Relationships are so much better than networking, aren't they?

But since you have to be out there you might as well do it right. These events are full of companies vying for users’ attention so you need to separate yourself from the competition. You can do this by creating a compelling headline for youself with a opening billboard that explains who you are and what you do without it being like trying to figure out E=MC2 or why Jim Caldwell looks like a coaching Avatar.

After you get the someone's attention, keep it. This is where creating persuasive content comes into play. THEIRS, not yours. Listen to what they want and who they are. This is like a date and always that no matter how much they laughed at your jokes in the Monday morning recap meeting your date is more concern with their feelings. Paramount to everything is that they want to know you like THEM!

If you have someone's attention, now you have to get your new best friend to take action. Map a plan right there. Set a meeting. Show up on time. Be intelligent. Make it simple. It should be a simple step to get someone to want to do business with you, no more. You have the answers they need. Show them. Find a way to get to the cigars.

So if you haven't been following, remember coffee is for closers only and cigars are for the fun once you close.

Remember luck isn't for closers and don't forget to follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/MarketingVIP) and Facebook (facebook.com/MarketingVIP).

Finding Your Niche

During the summer of 2006, with W. ruining our favor with the world, the dollar collapsing and my beloved Lakers redefining a tragic "we suck" rebuilding stage, I caught the travel bug. It's not something you can take of Sudafed and sleep it off. It can only be cured by hitting road. Luckily I work for a marketing boutique where I HAVE to travel. Poor me, right? Traveling has come to define me and my perspectives.

Along the road I find myself talking to a lot of people. Anonymity and an outgoing nature is a powerful elixir for mixing tales of truth and allowing perfect strangers to tell you virtually everything about themselves.

Take last Monday on my way to Reno for the Western Fairs Association annual conference. Trust me, I get to more exotic lands usually -- Paris, Dubai, Beirut, London -- but I'll have to save those for another time. Anyway...

...I'm at Burbank Airport, a quick commuter landing strip where I can get through security in less than two hours and usually have time to text and check email.

Monday mornings at the Burbank are special though. Nothing to be taken with a grain of salt. The worker's least favorite day here is "Stripper Monday." No, there aren't shiny metal poles in the center where twentysomethings writhe for tips and trips to the Champagne Room. This is the day where the strippers return home from Vegas after a long weekend working the alcohol-soaked clubs.

As I killed time watching the tight jeans and high heels pass by, I struck up a conversation with my neighbor in wait, a thirtysomething, petite redhead who's Blackberry was glued to her thumbs, that went something like this:

ME: Good news! Flight's on time, got to connect through Vegas. Where are you heading to?

HER: I'm headed to Phoenix from Vegas.

ME: Oh, we you there for business?

HER: Kind of. I'm an exotic dancer.

ME: (after a long silence) Are you serious? (picking jaw up from the floor)

She was indeed serious. Penelope does this route every week. Every Friday she travels to Sin City and works at the Crazy Horse. Even in this economy she clears $1700 a week in tip. So with gyrating stances and seductive dances, she takes her place on the stage of life, swaying the hips she uses as her lips. She says she's the maker of dreams, or that's how it seems. She has a business degree from Cal State Northridge and in regular clothes she could be your little sister's best friend.

So it hit me right here that finding your niche isn't easy. Penelope found her niche. Dancing her weekends for the pleasure of horny young men and the convention set in exchange for monetary delights.

I wondered if I was prettier would I have to spend those sleepless nights crafting those marketing plans that are dream makers on their own, guiding the visions of corporations and countries. You know, life is strange...and I wouldn't change a thing.