Know-How Exchange : Just for Fun

Thanks, Anthony! When I was running my start-up company, I always thought of MProfs as my best secret weapon. ;]

Interesting that you bring up LOVE, Conrad... I've heard that affection from other people, too! (Er, for MarketingProfs, not for me, that is.)

Is something like this farfetched?
"Loved by 163,000 marketers around the world."

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Hi Shelley

echoing Conrad, i just love MarketingProfs. in fact sometimes it seems i am addicted to it. i spend almost all of my afterwork hours in MP.

anyway, how about these taglines..

MarketingProfs.com

"Sharing Marketing Knowledge Globally"

"All the Marketing Brains Under One Roof"

"The Marketing Knowlege Mine"


thats all for now, will get back later with more.

cheers!!

Shelley

on second thought....

"163,000 passionate (addicted) Marketers Around the World"

Cheers!!

There definitely should be a 12-step program for those of us addicted to this forum. :)

Perhaps it's worth restating: I'm after a tagline for MarketingProfs as a whole, not just for KHE. Thanks!

Im pretty new to this forum and to MarketingProfs...

But i think i CAN say one thing.

I'm from India and from a business school in Delhi. Not many people here know about this site. In fact it was by chance that i stumbled on this site. I should try and stumble more often:)

The one thing's for sure is that whatever MarketingProfs says it is... one can sure call it "The Dummies' Guide To Marketing" :)

The professors and professionals here sure know what they're talking about and certainly help wherever they can.


Cheers All!

Ariez Thomas

Hey, as BOTH a marketing guy and professor, don't diss the profs! They're out there teaching your future employees and clients--and don't assume they're too "ivory tower" to contribute to these discussions! (Not saying it's bad to take it out of the tag line...just had to speak up for them/us!)

Anyway -- I too find it addictive. (I wish we'd get ONE project out of it -- then it would be easier to justify even "during the day" time on it! Oh well...)

I think of it as "The World's Largest Marketing Round Table." (I think that includes lots of the things offered besides KHE.)

Or "A marketing encyclopedia that's updated every day."

"The Marketing Seminar that never ends."

If more surface, I'll send them. Good luck, Shelley!

I think there is one thing you might be missing. The small businessman.

I own several small businesses and I use and contribute to this forum on a regular basis.

Maybe you ought to do some research on who your customer base is. Then you can target your advertising and tagline at that audience. Or if your audience is not what you want you can define your target market and slant your work that way. "Know your customer"

If you are moving away from the forum concept to sell webinars and premium stuff you have a completely different audience and marketing techniques than when you are just trying to induce readership and participation.

I have no interest in even looking at your premium products. My funds are to tight, and I know as a businessman that most marketing/advertising is wasted. Not all but most. I will take what I can and put it to work for as little as possible. When I am convinced it is necessary I will and do spend the money. I spend about 3.0% of gross on marketing annually.

All that being said I am on hear every week and am starting to build some points by sharing my knowledge while at the same time learning innumerable things.

Keep up the good work.

Charles Read

I think we should take it from scratch as in how we saw marketing profs and what it was that really gave us the motive to start using marketing profs.
Well I've only been on marketing profs for a very short period of time but to be honest with you, it's one hell of an addiction. A friend of mine in the marketing business had told me about it and the first time I logged on, the phrase "marketing know-how" didn't really appeal to me. I've been in the business of marketing & advertizing for over 6 years now and was not waiting to take online education on marketing, or how I perceived it to be. BUT when I had realized the existance of a community from around the globe, it really struck me greatly, and in a matter of days found myself logging on the marketing profs more than I check my mail. :) I believe marketing to be a language and not a theory, each approach has a lot of dependancies to it whether nature of item, culture of audience and the list goes on and on....

I believe what makes marketing profs successful is it's diverse structure of having a common ground where marketeers around the globe can share different ideas ... that brings me to the tagline .. simple,. straight forward and catchy.

" The Global Marketers Arena with 163,000 members and counting"

Or maybe if not that I think I you can work around that direction.

Good Luck ... and thanks

Everyone, you're doing great! MarketingProfs is about brains, love, dummies, war, encyclopedias... what else?

I'd say that the customer profiles are pretty clear, especially after the recent member surveys. I can make one over-generalized observation for you that you might find interesting. Only a tiny percentage of MarketingProfs readers visit this forum. They join for the newsletter, then some upgrade to get the Premium content. That's it.

On the flip side, most of the people on the forum got here "accidentally" through Google. They sign up, post a question, and then they never return... or they become addicts. Many of them think that KHE is MarketingProfs. :)

I think that's one reason that the tagline is a bit of a stumper. The audience for MarketingProfs is at least 25 times larger than the audience for KHE itself. Yet the two are inseparable.

Here's what I'd...well, LOVE to know....

Why do you all LOVE MarketingProfs? What is it that you really connect with here? Is it a specific product (like the KHE or the newsletter)? Or is it something more...like a community? A resource? A connection to great resources? The advice of our experts or writers?

Or is it just Shelley? : )

I'm curious what makes all of you fans.

Ann

Ann,

Let me answer your question from my perspective.The reason why I log on nearly every day is I feel it is my community and I want to belong in here.The content is great and the premium stuff's well worth its price but the most important thing for me is networking. No matter who the asker is, where she/he comes from as long as they know what they are really after they are sure to get support and help here.We come from different countries, our cultures are sometimes poles apart, but still we feel we can speak same language, share similar views and can really help each other.
What I mean is not only free advice Fred mentioned but good-will and eagerness to help your unknown friend out.
I can think of only a few things which can compare to that good feeling you can have when you felt you had helped some one.

Adam

As the saying goes: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach"

So, how about "Can-do's who teach"

The best thing about MarketingProfs is that someone actually monitors (THANK YOU!) the posts to keep selling and MLM advertisements as close to zero as possible. Other forums exist, but they have slid into the MLM gutter. Not that MLM is so bad....especially if you want to ask questions about marketing them...we'd all just prefer to not read the ads.

Thanks Big Brother....er, sister.

Michael

OK. I'll stay in character and ask a few basic questions:

1. What's the objective? Why do you need/want a tagline? What do you think it will do for you? What do you want people to do/think/feel when they read the tagline?

2. Who is the primary target audience? Be specific, just as we recommend to those who ask questions on this forum.

3. What's the positioning? What is it you want to communicate in the tagline? What's the key benefit someone in the target audience will realize if/when they do whatever it is you want them to do?

4. How will you know the right tagline when it shows up? What are the criteria for picking a winner?


As for the "163,000 marketers" approach, I find that very inward looking. Why should someone in the target audience care if there are 25,000, 100,000, or 163,000 members? What's the benefit? I can understand why it feels good to be that appealing and successful, but that's not a benefit to your target audience -- unless Allen is the target audience.

Michael,

Thanks for your comments. Let me explain the "163,000" approach. In my mind, "163,000 Marketers" isn't about sheer numbers, like "One Billion Served." Instead, it implies a global community, mass, market share, and a rich resource in numbers.

In other words, it's not about us. It's about being part of that 163,000. Dig?

So maybe there's a better way to express it if that's not working for ya?

Ann

Hello Shelly,

How about:

a. "Espirit de Marketing"

b. "Market Forces at Work ..Here"

c. "Market Lovers (Online)"

d. "Mind Your Market ...Here"

e. "Marketeers Do It "

(Add whatever you want in the brackets.
this is quite racy; I am surprise I came up with this.)


- Raj Doshi -

Agreeing with mgoodman - what is motivating the change? Are you attempting to increase revenue by promoting premium services?

I'm not a "premium member" and so I could be unfamiliar with the premium content and way off base - but if you are attempting to sell the premium content, does it really make sense to use thousands participating in this forum as a "reference" - since it seems to me few who write articles participate in the forum, and vice versa?

I think the concept is good, the forum is fine - it seems to me we have lots of Marketing Professionals, we need to find a way to include more Marketing Professors.

Tim (wiglaf), thanks for responding!

No, we don't want professors to move out. Our fearless leader Allen Weiss is a USC professor himself, and he founded MarketingProfs on the premise that the world needed easy access to intelligent material from marketing professionals and academics.

As I said, though, I think we need to update the tagline with less emphasis on academia. It's only because it's become such a small fraction of our membership.

Michael (mgoodman), MProfs has evolved into way more than a source of know-how. Our weekly newsletter (and archive of 1,300 published articles) is still our flagship product, but we continue to develop material and functionality that we know are valuable to our members (yes, the Premium set). Like what? Benchmark surveys, dynamic vendor selection tools, thought leader summits... and more interactive tools and resources on the way.

So Dave (telemoxie), the goal is to tag MProfs with something that better reflects what it's become and where it's going. Is it just know-how? Or is it also know-when, know-who and know-where? Of course we aim to boost Premium memberships, but I'm under no illusion that a spiffy slogan will accomplish that on its own.

We'll see whether or not it makes sense to use forum participants as a reference point. It's clear that a handful of people reading this DO use other MarketingProfs resources (like shellycs), but most folks here really seem to be hyperfocused on the value of KHE alone.

Hope that helps give everyone a better sense of direction!

Shelley

Oh... and Jared (mccarthy), thanks for the grin! ;]

Hi all! As usual, mgoodman and telemoxie have asked some important questions. Here's some more info, to build on Shelley's response.

The way I think of it, we're hoping the right tagline will help prospective members figure out if this is a place they belong ... and if they should register (free) or at least subscribe to the newsletter. People who do one of those things are more likely to buy stuff later, so we want to encourage them to join.

Our business model is based on 3 revenue sources: newsletter ads, premium memberships and one-off sales (articles, seminars, etc.). The vast majority of our new members come to us by way of a Google search. Our research tells us we have 2 broad categories of customers:

1) Members (Basic and Premium): interested in continual learning and networking; KHE regulars are in this group; also newsletter subscribers and Premium members

2) Quick Fixers (visitors): find us when they have a specific question; might buy a seminar or post a forum question, then they're gone; they have a problem and they're surfing to solve it

In the past, we focused only on the first group. But we're starting to offer one-off pricing for more of our products to appeal to the second group.

The tricky thing is these two groups care about different benefits ... but I believe the ones they share include: convenience (one-stop), trust, secret weapon. Of course, they don't share my favorite benefit: community.

OK, that's it for now. I swore I wouldn't stay up past 1am tonight ... and I'm already late. :)

Best,

Val

So much input that's pretty interesting, but I think as Shelley surprisingly mentioned that there is a large number of active members that don't use the forum. I'm one of the other members that can't do without the forum, it's become part of a virtual community that I always have to visit and be around.
But again personally don't think the tagline should highlight the word "forum" 'cause in most cases you'd instantly anticipate another crowded forum with a lot of trash thus lose interest.

I think the tagline should be straight to the point, like:

Marketing Profs – Servicing and Connecting Marketers World-Wide

Or

Marketing Profs – Servicing and Connecting 163,000 Marketers World-Wide

Or

Marketing Profs – 163,000 marketers gather under one roof!

Just thoughts

Cheers

Solid Marketing Advice from Professors and Professionals

because we all need help sometime

Are we the blind men describing an elephant or what?

MP is different things to different people, just as Val said. Coming up with a tagline that combines the benefits, or even adds a third benefit, is a way to confuse everyone.

ChrisB is right about not having the right/clear segmentation. That's where we need to begin. Which MP user/visitor is most important to reach? If we want to get the casual visitor to come back/purchase one-off products, that's one segment. If we want to get subscribers to become premium subscribers, that's another one. An if we want newsletter recipients to visit the KHE, that's yet another one.

Trying to come up with a "generic" tagline that will somehow be the Swiss Army Knife of all taglines is NOT the way to go.

I see two possible approaches:

1. Focus on getting more professional marketers to become active/hooked on the KHE as a "community center" for marketing professionals (and hope to trade them up to premium membership, sell them one-off products, etc.); or

2. Appeal to drop-ins (with an immediate need) and get them to subscribe to the newsletter, purchase a one-off product, and/or become part of the community.

I would think #1 is easier and potentially more productive/profitable -- but I haven't really given it a lot of thought.

Has MP done the research to determine why some members become premium members and why the others don't? If the objective of the tagline were to increase premium membership sales (by upgrading non-premium members), then I think the process should begin by understanding why some people upgrade and others don't. What characteristics/beliefs do the premium members share that the non-premium members don't?

Sorry to be so academic, but I see a lot of good tagline suggestions seeking a reason for being -- and no strategy to guide us in picking the winner.

Let's get the strategy right before we drown in taglines.

(Also remember that you've posted this question where KHE regulars live. You're bound to get responses that focus on KHE and its benefits. Meanwhile, the majority of MP visibility comes from the newsletter. Hmm ... )

A quick reaction to virago's suggestion that we allude to the price:

Professional Marketing Advice, at a low price.

To me, that would be the kiss of death. I participate actively in the forum because I know that I have knowledge and experience that can help people and I want to give back a bit. I also learn a lot from all of you, just by reading responses to questions that I'd never have thought to ask myself.

To devalue the quality of the "advice" by mentioning "a low price" would really poison the well for me. When people get good advice and realize they didn't pay for it, they have a loyalty or appreciation for the source. If we promote the fact that our advice is free/low-price, we essentially tell them that it's NOT the best advice money can buy.



P.S. to virago: I'm not picking on you personally. Most of your suggestions are just fine. It's just this one idea that somehow got to me and struck a raw nerve. Maybe I'm feeling a little stupid for giving away know-how (on KHE) that my clients pay a lot of money to get. (OK, I give them more than the few dozen words in a typical response.)

MarketingProfs.com - Now you can be as smart as Allen Weiss

Sorry to disappear from the conversation, gang... it gets a little busy here on newsletter days. And I confess, I've been keeping one eye on CNN to see what's happening to our neighbors in Louisiana. (I'm in Houston, which is filled with displaced people from New Orleans today.)

Okay, back to the thread now...

Steve, I'm sure Allen will be pleased to know that some of us have aspirations to be just that brainy. ;]

mgoodman, we get thousands of new members a month who sign up for the weekly newsletter. For many of them, the free articles are enough. A few of them eventually upgrade to a Premium membership to get the extra goodies. Some tell us that they will NEVER pay for our content "because everything on the internet should be free." Others say they don't have the $5 or $50 in their marketing budget.

Increasingly, though, we're getting new members who immediately sign up for Premium (paid) membership, and to me it seems that a whole lot of those folks are getting here by word of mouth. So, maybe the question to ponder is why it's easier to get the new guy to buy and harder to get the Basic (free) member to convert?

Like I said, any numbskull knows that a new MarketingProfs tagline isn't a magic pill -- but it should better reflect what we offer to everyone, especially Premium members. Does the existing tag do that already?

Pat, you're right, changing the business name is not up for debate. :)

Hoping that my supersmart colleagues Ann and Val will continue to weigh in here. They're nearly as brainy as Allen.

Hi guys. ChrisB and mgoodman -- you could be right that our segmentation is off. But let me try to explain it better first.

Quick Fixers: We're not interested in convincing the casual visitors to return -- rather, we want to make it easy for them to find what they're looking for and buy it in their first visit. This segment isn't into long-term commitments. We want to respect that and get out of the way.

* Revenue model: one-off product sales
* Benefits: convenience, solutions

Premium Members: These folks are in it for more than one article or seminar. They are committed to continual learning. Some see MP as a training solution for their marketing team. Many join for access to our Premium articles, tools and reports. Others see the value in buying 20 seminars for the price of 2.

* Revenue model: membership fees
* Benefits: convenience, MORE solutions, learning, savings

Basic Members: This is our largest group. They are also committed to long-term learning. Some of them join because of KHE. They like being part of an interactive community. Others like to receive the free newsletter. Or they want access to our article archives.

* Revenue model: newsletter advertising
* Benefits: learning, free info, community

Note that most KHErs fall in the 3rd group. And, as Shelley stated, they are a minority in that group. The second group drives the business, and many (not all) Premium members start out as Basic.

Which visitor is most important to reach?

We're still setting up systems and working with our data to try to answer that question. But without a doubt, Premium members are our best customers. So this is the group we're working hard to understand. And since many tend to upgrade from the Basic population, that group is also important.

Who exactly upgrades?

There are some consultants, professors and students. But the majority are marketing practitioners. Many of them are with organizations with >20 people in their marketing departments. Another large segment are small business owners with no formal training in marketing. Most upgraders are in the U.S. But we have a growing number of English-speakers in other countries.

Why do some upgrade and others don't?

You've hit the nail on the head there, Michael. That's exactly what we're trying to uncover. This discussion in KHE is just one of many feedback loops. Over the last 10 days we've also surveyed our Basic members, our Premium members and our Expires (former Premium members). We're just beginning to study this data. So far, it's hard to tell what characteristics/beliefs the Premium members share that the non-Premium don't ... except that they more highly value the content and are willing to pay for it.

Hope this helps! Thanks for all the great suggestions, so far -- and the thought-provoking discussion! Our whole team is monitoring this conversation. As usual, we're learning lots from all of you.

Best,

Val

P.S. Shelley, I wish I was half as clever as you! ;)

Hey, Cal! It's good to have you back. Where've you been hiding?

What about, "The busiest marketing site ever."

Not sure how we can validate that, though. Allen might know. ;]

Very helpful, Val. It's clear you've given some good thought to what's driving the business.

Now, which of the segments generates the greatest revenue? Is the ad revenue greater, same, less than premium membership revenue? What's the trend? Is either one growing faster/slower than the other?

Once we know the key leverage point, we can focus our energies on growing that one, positioning around the benefits that apply to that segment, etc.

I've seen at least 5 suggested taglines that are really good, but it's almost impossible to pick among them without knowing who we're trying to reach, what we're trying to convince them to do, and what's in it for them (i.e., the benefit).

Shelley, Val, Ann

Michael Goodman (your new KHE overall #1, btw!) points out this question has been posted on KHE therefore the responses tend to be a little KHE focussed (although we are trying not to be).

Why not run a similar question through the newsletters with a link back to a survey to establish what the free and paid/premium subscribers are thinking?

Just an idea...

Hope you're keeping your feet dry.

ChrisB

Hi Shelley

it has been a great experience to read this thread. it is even greater to see that others feel addicted to this place like me.

since "The Boss" (Micheal) and other experts have talked about the objectives, strategy and Business Model of MP to reason changing Taglines, i wont dare to chip in in those matters.

but here are some Taglines adding to my earlier ones...


"Sharing Marketing Knowledge Globally"

"Connecting Marketers Around the World"

"Connecting Marketing Professionals and Professors Around the World"

"Knowledge Sharing from Marketers Around the World"

"Best Marketing Brains Under One Mouse-Click"

"Best Marketing Brains to Mould You Better"

"You are the best, we will make you better"

"You are a Great Marketer, We will make you Greater"

"Global Marketing 'HelpDesk' "

"Marketing-Paedia for the World"

"You gotta marketing Problem, We gotta Solution"


hope that helps.

cheers!!

Hi guys. Just a quick note as it's 3am. Ad sales is roughly 1/3 of our revenue. Premium memberships are 2/3. What we call "single sales" (the one-off products) is brand-new and a small contributor, so far.

Our sense is that ad sales are holding steady, but our growth potential is on the premium side of the business. We also hope to grow with single sales.

In addition, we're working on expanding our product offerings -- tho we're not ready to announce the details quite yet. In short, we're developing some things our customers have requested in multiple surveys.

We'll sell these new products one-off, and we'll include them in Premium or Premium Plus memberhips. Our plan is to enhance the value of Premium memberships until they're downright irresistible. :)

Yours in insomnia,

Val

I'm actually quite smitten with Cheryl's ideas. Here are some quick thoughts to add to the mix:

The marketing nerve center.
Your marketing brain trust.

Looking forward to seeing what other ideas people come up with!

Best,
Amanda

Lucky Guppy Marketing

Funny you should mention that ad, Michael.... I was just telling our team last week that it's always been my favorite.

It never occurred to me to use that as a tagline, though.

Look at the response! That is the proof of this society.

My humble contribution:

This world is your oyster
How smart you can get
Your ultimate marketing power supply
Your ultimate source of marketing brain power
Where best marketing brains rest
Meet the world leading brains on marketing
Share the world of marketing talents
Meet the masters of marketing
Meeting point for global marketing talents
Be there where marketing specialists move
Be there where we all make more of it
Get from it and make of it
Makes us all better marketing beings
Frontline of marketing specialists
The ultimate source of marketing solutions
Because we’re not alone here
At the final frontier of marketing
The only heaven for all marketing professionals

Good luck to your profiling process. Timo

Everyone, I appreciate all of these comments and ideas. You've provided almost TOO MUCH food for thought here. When I printed your responses, I think a tree went thud in a forest somewhere! ;]

As we unleash the planned new features on the site, I'm sure we'll have a new tagline to go with it all. Stay tuned!

Shelley