Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Dear Tom

Jay’s comment is probably true, but it’s a bit dry for such a fun media. Just to be a bit boring, I have to report a problem which is typical of this type of marketing.

I went to the Jingle Generator which I thought was, well, (uncharacteristic language for me), rather er, cool!

However I didn’t complete the process to the “send” button because I received two separate and worrying site certificate errors – enough for me to doubt the validity of the proposed connection, regardless of my army of techies and our layers of security. Get that sorted and you will have the closest thing to a truly new and useable tool in the new audio media.

The concept of using sound to reach out to people is still novel enough to catch all but the most jaded eye. In fact I used this in the 1990’s with both my email campaigns and on my website. I used .wav files as wallpaper in Outlook and had buried self opening files on the website. It was novel, whacky, off the wall and utterly attention grabbing. My partners thought that it was too whacky to be successful, but in those days, the combined efforts of the web and email generated over 10 leads a day, which for CRM systems is bloody fantastic. The more established I became and the more successful, the more conventional I was persuaded to be and, if you can believe it, we became a lot less successful in that arena, such that a website is fortunate to generate a lead a week for CRM systems.

I think that this is worth investing both time and money in, but to secure traction you must pay attention to details. I couldn’t get away with downloading executable files from a website these days and I havn’t seen emails with background music from anyone else for 5 years or more.

The fact that it is not done, doesn’t mean that it is wrong or ineffective, just that following the dot-com bubble bursting, we are collectively too frightened to try this out.

I decided to invest in this type of technology again only this month. I have bought the hardware and installed a studio system which I can use for almost anything in conjunction with a PC – I got some very useful advice from David Gilmour who has his own studio on a house boat on the Thames and we share a hanger of a barn with 3 inch security doors where we store some silly cars, so my advice came almost for free. Well, some time, I trust that he will return my Bentley----

Back in the 1980’s I used to have a really useful small studio with a range of hardware synthesisers and recording equipment – to replicate what I’ve done here this month for peanuts, would have costed about half a million quid back then, but it is not robust enough to use for live performances. Computers crash, most synthesisers don’t unless they have been stuck full of knives (Keith Emerson) or set on fire! It is however ideal for crafting my own sonic bits for marketing purposes and I’m already enjoying myself wasting aeons trying to find out how it all works.

Again back in the 1980’s, Douglas Adams, the writer of Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, invented Gordon Way, the boss of WayForward Technologies in Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency.

Gordon’s killer product?

“Software which sets financial spreadsheets to music, to make them less boring”

I think that you / we are onto a winner with this

Best wishes

Steve Alker