joshuakelly.com

The new Silverado Vineyards website is a dramatic and seamless site for a classic Napa name. I like the image of the spring flowers in the home page rotation, which reminds me that someday my lawn will thaw. Nice job FINE Design Group.

A consequence of the ability to measure certain things easily online is that most people now measure easy things. Anyone with a Google account can figure out conversion rates and traffic sources. What’s happening is that people in many markets are realizing the limits of mining for keywords and clickthroughs – everyone and anyone knows how to do it.

So we’re on to the next phase, which turns out to be old news: marketing is about getting and keeping good customers. And the best measure keys on an understanding of the Lifetime Value of A Customer, or at least the value of winning their favorable brand perceptions and behaviors past the next click.

There is some truth in the idea that there’s no such thing as brand loyalty anymore. But it’s more accurate to say you can’t assume loyalty anymore; you have to work for it continuously. And it’s also clear, as a result, that a small but loyal customer base is more of a valuable asset than ever.

If all you’re measuring is sales and traffic, you are not doing marketing. You are not measuring customer acquisition and retention; you are measuring dollar volume acquisition and retention. A good score there will keep you employed through your quarterly Board meeting. Congratulations.

But think now about the question of what happens when you adjust your view to consider the next purchase, the next year, or a lifetime. What asset are you building? What value are you creating? What relationships are you solidifying? How does that change the way you approach your interaction with customers and potential customers through design, technology, social media, social responsibility, metrics, advertising, customer service, and even how you hire and train staff?

The answer is, it can change everything.

What’s magic is that the further out you think, the greater the chance that the interests of your customers and the interest of your organization, and even greater social interests, intersect and align. The more likely it is that you will be competing for customers, not competing against your own interests.

You could argue that the most important role of marketing in any organization is to get people thinking longer term, about getting and keeping customers and growing a meaningful, profitable company.

So adjust your sightlines forward a notch and we’ll explore further in Part 2.

P.S., A related read on Seth Godin’s blog: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/11/embracing-lifetime-value.html

Every generation has its heroes and villains. I’m going to assume that much has been written about the social context for the myths of the vampire, werewolf, mummy, superheroes and their corresponding villains, and all the gory monsters along the way. Today, though, the scariest stuff is the outwardly mundane – the boogie man may still keep the kids up at night, but their parents are more worried about the “quiet guy next door” and some nondescript fella in a faraway country that ends with a -stan who can steal your identity online. If you really want to simultaneously scare, amuse, and educate the folks at your Halloween party, try being a cybercriminal. This handy kit on Norton Today will help, but you may have your own creative ideas about how to represent this silent but deadly scourge and teach people how to deny digital dangers.

http://nortontoday.symantec.com/community/wiretrend/halloween-costume

A letter I wrote but was afraid to send. No courage. Sad. Little matters of domestic surveillance and incarceration without due process and all that. Special thanks to Josh Brolin for nailing the pronunciation in the otherwise lackluster movie W. Triple special thanks to the new President for pronouncing it correctly, perhaps an indication of addressing the entire issue correctly. Seemed like the right day to trot it out again.

Mr. President George W. Bush
43^rd President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Hello, Sir!

I don’t know how you feel, but I am a big proponent of continuous improvement. Every day in every way, I’m getting better and better! And so are you! Right?

Knowing that you are a like-minded individual (or perhaps I’m just ASSUMING you are, but I feel like I know you!) I have been racking my brain to come up with one – just one! – suggestion for how you might improve yourself, your administration…perhaps even the whole blessed country (or at least just the world). However, either because I’m not that smart or you’re just THAT good, for 6 years I’ve come up dry. But last week I was watching your last State of the Union address and I think I may have finally come up with something! At first I thought it was a small thing. But the more I thought about it, the more I think that instead of a small thing, it’s a big thing!

I know you’re a busy man (and if you did have some free time you’d want to spend it on that cool ranch-themed property you set up down in Texas where you can take pictures clearing brush and wearing cowboy stuff), so let’s not beat around the bush (no pun!) any further. Ready? Read this word aloud: nuclear.

Did you hear that? Do it again! See? That happened three times in your State of the Union!

If you can fix that pronunciation thing you probably just noticed (i.e., the way you say “new-KEW-lur” instead of “new-KLEE-er”), it will send a message to the world that a) you care a lot about that particular topic, and b) you are highly competent. I say these are important messages for a President to deliver!

I know. Words are just words. And normally I’d just say “let ‘er rip!” But this just happens to be one of the most critical words in the history of the human race. Plus, I figure that if you spend the big bucks on speechwriters (like that Frum guy, how much did he make? Heck, I’d do it for half that!), then words must be at least a little important. I find that words make a certain impression. Remember when Kennedy wore makeup on TV and Nixon didn’t? Same idea! And who won that debate? Need I say more?

I myself am full-time employed right now, though there’s probably a scenario where I’d come aboard to pitch in on the wordsmithing. “Answer the call,” if you will.

I considered that one drawback to fixing this pronunciation is that it does have a certain folksy appeal. It’s something somebody’s Uncle Clem might say after a few Blue Ribbons, if you know my meaning. But then I realized that doesn’t help you anymore because you don’t need to get reelected! According to my calculations and thorough review of The Constitution, you’ve gotta vacate White House premises in a couple years anyway (much to my chagrin)! You can totally focus on delivering the dual impression of caring and competence mentioned above. What a relief!

The other thing is, maybe you just don’t want people to worry. You know when your wife asks you the name of that TOTALLY hot new intern at work and you pause for a second and furrow your brow and answer, “Sicily, Cecilia, Sybill…somethin’ like ‘at.” But you know darn well her name is Serena and you’re just trying to pretend like she’s no big deal and you can’t even remember her name. Maybe you’re doing the same thing with nuclear. And I have to say, I appreciate the effort to make the whole topic seem too trivial to merit proper pronunciation!

But I think the real answer is this: you just ain’t sayin’ it right. And with a small adjustment in palette deployment, you can easily change all that. It might in some small measure help with our country’s worldwide approval ratings, which are at an all-time low. Even the Guamanians hate us. Or your domestic approval rating, which is down there in the dumper too. So, aside from getting another good speechwriter on staff, this may be just the ticket. People would talk about this, I know they would. Especially, and here’s the clincher, if you admitted your mistake. That’s the rap on you – never admits his mistakes. So this one you can admit and it’s not that big a deal and you look good and every time you say the word people will say, that Dubya, he owned up to his faults and just listen to the mellifluous tones now! Plus, that sure was one heckuva speech!

Anyway, them’s my thoughts.

Signed,

[Name Withheld Pending Future Rulings On Validity of FISA and Guantanamo]

Josh Kelley

Los Angeles, CA

Hello Josh Kelley:

You’re intergalactically famous, with scads of talent and a superstar wife. Your biggest problem is where to relocate the cascading piles of cash that festoon every surface of your multi-million dollar home every time you need to clear a space to perch upon the otherwise spotless surface of your mid-century modern seating.

I, on the other hand, am just “some guy”.

But I’m a guy who’s signed up for Google Alerts, and what Google Alerts is telling me is that the volume of online information circulating around the name Josh Kelly is largely now focused on you, despite the fact that your name is spelled differently, and less correctly, than mine. If anyone finds me online, it’s probably because they’re looking for you. I’m getting nothing so much as your sloppy e-seconds.

Sure, there are many instances of online name redundancy for folks with names like Jennifer Smith or Dave Brown. But the name we share is just rare enough in its unique combo of Old Testament meets Irish, as though we’re named for the leader of a lost tribe of Gaelic Jews, that I think people can be genuinely confused.

So what can be done about this?

For starters, the ball is really in your court for three reasons:

1. I am older and I had the name first and this is my idea so there
2. Anything I do to attract attention to the issue will be like a popcorn fart into a roaring jet engine compared to the transcendent impact of your celebrity stellar-ness
3. The spelling of your name is plainly in error
4. You wouldn’t want it to seem like you were picking on “the little guy” – what a PR nightmare! Can you say “publicist overtime?”

Now that we’ve established you’ll need to personally do something drastic, there appear to be three feasible courses of action:

1. You correct the typo in Kelly to remove the superfluous E in your name. At first glance, this may seem counter-productive, but my theory is that at least in this scenario I will get the benefit of some substantial widespread confusion, rather than simply the annoyance of a visit to my blog from the occasional slacker who doesn’t even know that your name was misspelled. Here are some other reasons:
   • It’s a tragic waste of a perfectly good vowel
   • If you were going to add another letter to your last name, it should be something WAY more interesting than E.
   • Baby, You’re Amazing(ly bad at spelling Kelly)
   • I’d sooner spell it Kellee
   • Guys with extras E’s in their last name are weeenies
2. You change your first name to something non-conflicting. Elmo or Phineas are my immediate ideas, but there are others to consider and you are super creative. I trust you – as long as it’s not Josh, Joshua, J, or Hoshua we’ll be fine.
3. You engage in a protracted, well-funded media campaign to clarify that there is an extra E in your last name, that you’re totally comfortable with it, and that people shouldn’t confuse you with other people of the same name, especially the certain Josh Kelly found at joshuakelly.com or twitter.com/jmkelly (NOTE: include the http part and it’ll be a live link to my pages).

Of the 3, I like 3 best. It’s time for you to own your name, not just answer to it. You have to take the negative and twist it to your own ends. You know, when life hands you lemons…

I don’t know how you ended up with the extra E in your last name — I have a running theory with friends that you got the same intoxicated maternity ward nurse that gummed up the name of DeForest “Bones” Kelley and made Star Trek credits a painful experience for me — but it’s not too late to turn this thing around.

Meantime, you should start to really ROCKIN with the music. I want to hear some oomph out of the JK name. A little grittiness, some rebel music. See what you can do.

Anyhoo. Let me know.

Sincerely,

Josh “The Real Deal” Kelly

San Francisco Bay Area, USA