After nearly 3 decades in marketing, I’ve come to the conclusion that the easiest job in marketing is market research. Here’s why:

1. You don’t have to sell anything.

2. You don’t have to come up with new ideas; you merely have to ask questions and report the results.

3. Anything you create, no matter what the findings, adds to your client’s knowledge. Therefore, you are seen as a provider of wisdom on the leading edge of the market.

4. If the market research yields great insights, you are a hero.

5. If the market research yields nothing, it’s not your fault; you can’t help what people think.

The toughest job in marketing?

Direct response copywriter.

No matter how well you write, you are subject to the judgment of a client committee — which is of course subjective.

Even if you have been writing DR for years and have a great track record, MBAs fresh out of college who know nothing about direct marketing will try to tell you how to do your job.

If the promotion you write doesn’t work, you’re in the doghouse.

If your promotion is a winner, the client will immediately start hiring other writers to beat your control, and of course, one of them will, sooner or later.

Why would anyone want to be a direct response copywriter when you can get paid to write lengthy market research reports that clients pay fortunes for and never ask you to rewrite?

In the mail today I received a bright red Monarch envelope.

The teaser — in large boldface all-caps — simply read:

“LIMITED TIME FREE GIFT OFFER.”

Would that make you want to open the envelope — either because it makes you curious or you like to get free stuff?

Or would does it instantly warn you “this is advertising mail,” causing you to throw it away unopened?

In short, is “LIMITED TIME FREE GIFT OFFER” a good, bad, or terrible headline … and why?

The cover story in this month’s issue of Training & Development magazine is “Metrics and Measurement: Do They Matter?”

The article argues in favor of measuring success in sales training and performance … vs. (I would guess) NOT measuring it.

The fact that the headline is phrased as a question implies that there are people who are AGAINST measuring the results generated through sales training.

Sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it?

Yet, there are people who don’t measure the results generated from their marketing programs.

And there are those who never test marketing ideas against each other in a simple A/B split.

They argue passionately about whether concept A or B … or headline A or B … is better, when they could quicky and easily test the two concepts or headlines online at minimal cost.

Marketers give lip service to testing, but except for the bigger direct marketers, most companies do little measurement and even less split testing.

I think the top reasons for lack of testing and measurement are:

A. Lack of knowledge of how to conduct a test.
B. View testing as too much work and hassle.
C. Not sure what they would do with the results.

Any other reasons you can think of why so many marketers measure their results minimally if at all?

The hidden danger in political advertising centered on a candidate’s ideology is that voters will misinterpret it, disagree with it, or both.

A case in point: a local political candidate ran a radio spot today.

In it, he asserted that every American has these inalienable rights:

1. A good job at a living wage.
2. Decent, affordable housing.
3. A good education.
4. Quality health care.

At first glance, this seems both admirable and hard to argue with.

But let’s go through them one at a time:

1. A good job at a decent wage — sounds good in theory. But are you going to force business owners to employ undesirable candidates at wages their skills and experience don’t justify just to make good on this promise.

2. Decent, affordable housing — does this mean the government provides free housing to those who can’t buy their own? If so, what’s my incentive to work and earn rent money?

3. A good education — I can’t argue here. I’m all for getting rid of the tenure system and holding teachers more accountable.

4. Quality health care — should we have socialized medicine that puts a cap on what doctors can earn? Being a medical doctor is so difficult and demanding, won’t more would-be doctors select a different profession if they can’t earn what they’re worth in medicine?

The candidate who paid for this radio spot is running as a liberal Democrat.

Does his 4-point ideology fit the bill of a liberal Democrat?

Or is it nothing more than a Socialist agenda?

Would you vote for him?

Or at the very least, rewrite his commercial?

Are you sick and tired of getting hype-filled e-mail marketing messages from the publishers of all those free e-zines you read?

Here’s an easy way to stop them: don’t accept free e-zine subscriptions.

“I write my own free e-newsletter and have to desensitive myself to comments from negative readers who think all of us are writing for their benefit with no underlying profit motive,” says DE. “I love what I do, but I do it for the money.”

“Perhaps some day the complainers will understand that the purpose of a business is to create a profit. But until then,” advises DE, “they should unsubscribe from all the free e-newsletters to eliminate their frustration.”

DE’s position is clear: the “price” for getting his “free” e-newsletter is not money — he doesn’t ask for a credit card number — but permission.

Specifically, permission to send you e-mail messages about products and services he thinks would be useful to you.

Do you think this permission is a reasonable “subscription fee” for the publisher of a free e-zine to charge you?

Or do you think DE and others should offer you the option of just getting the e-zine but not the e-mail marketing messages?

According to an article in Training & Development magazine (7/07, p. 20), senior executives attend fewer training classes than other corporate employees.

I can only think of 3 reasons for this:

1. Senior executives are smarter than ordinary workers and know more, so they do not require training or improvement.

2. Senior executives are busier and their work more important than ordinary workers, so they do not have time to attend training classes.

3. Training and development is universally perceived by corporate employees as a waste of time, but only senior executives have the authority to excuse themselves, while the rest of us don’t.

Which of the above do you think is the reason for senior management’s exemption from training?

Or is there another reason senior executives avoid training that I don’t know about?

My colleagues Michael Stelzner and David Scott Meerman are, like me, advocates of marketing with content.

But a recent article suggests that our approach is all wrong.

The author said that branding is more effective than ever today.

Reason: prospects are suffering from information overload. They don’t have time to process product information. And so they make purchase decisions based on brand reputation rather than product facts.

Well, hey, if that’s true, then prospects don’t want — or have time to read — more content, right?

So which should a marketer concentrate on?

Becoming a thought leader by publishing valuable content?

Or branding?

The voice-over in a recent KFC commercial for their thighs and drumstick bucket says the chicken now contains “less” transfat.

Less than what? Less doesn’t mean anything unless you say what it has less fat than.

While we hear the voice-over, the words “0% transfat” appear on the screen.

Hey, that’s not less transfat. That’s NO transfat. Shouldn’t the script say “no transfat”?

This may seem a small nitpik, but words matter, especially when you consider the price KFC paid to create and run that spot.

Isn’t “zero transfat” the big health selling point here? “Less” communicates that it still has some transfat, just not as much as before.

But since we don’t know how much transfat KFC’s chicken had before (they don’t tell us), or how much they reduced transfat, the phrase “less transfat” is virtually meaningless.

Right?