Bill Sweetman

Bill Sweetman is the General Manager, Domain Portfolio at Tucows.

Bill is one of the interactive marketing industry's most respected authorities, and his innovative work over the last 15+ years has been recognized by numerous awards, including the prestigious Internet World Impact Award for Communications.

As an interactive marketing specialist, Bill has overseen Internet marketing campaigns for companies such as Alliance Atlantis Communications, CBC, Dupont, Enbridge Gas Distribution, Harlequin Enterprises, Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer Canada, and RBC Royal Bank.

Bill is a regular contributor to various industry publications and Websites, a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and is regularly interviewed by the media as an interactive marketing expert. He is also one of the founders of The Canadian New Media Awards, and he has worked as a producer on numerous award-winning Websites.

A member of the Association for Internet Marketing and Sales (AIMS), Bill also serves on the Digital Marketing Conference Committee for the Canadian Marketing Association and the Centennial College e-Business Institute Advisory Council.

For a wealth of practical Internet marketing advice, tips, and best practices, be sure to check out Bill's popular Internet marketing blog, Sweetmantra.

Domain Name Disputes: Honey or Vinegar?

One of the more unusual aspects of my job as General Manager of a large private portfolio of domain names is that I see all the "poison pen" letters from lawyers representing clients who believe (usually incorrectly, I should add) they are legally entitled to a domain name that we own. Since we own over 150,000 domain names, we get quite a few of these letters every week!

I make sure that we respond to each and every one of these inquiries, and now that I've seen and dealt with over a hundred of these letters I wanted to make a suggestion to the marketing community at large:

"You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

Admittedly, I didn't come up with this age-old concept, but I'd like to remind people that you will have better luck resolving a dispute - any dispute - by playing nice than by being hostile.

For instance, the next time you think that someone owns a domain name that you think you are legally entitled to, don't make your first move a "nasty lawyer's letter."

Instead, just reach out to the current owner with a courteous phone call or email (which you can get from checking the public WHOIS records) and let them know you have some questions or concerns. You might discover that the current owner is a lot nicer than you think, is not a hardened criminal, and is more than willing to negotiate in good faith. You might even learn that the original basis for your complaint is flawed and that - surprise, surprise - you aren't legally entitled to the domain name after all.

Not only will you save yourself the time, hassle, and significant expense of going the legal route (fighting a domain name dispute can cost many thousands of dollars), but you will begin the dialogue on a positive and constructive basis, not an adversarial one.

I go out of my way to help the small minority of folks who approach me nicely and are willing to listen to and consider our side of the story. Between us, we can usually resolve the situation within a few days. Unfortunately, I can count these "honey" folks on the fingers of one hand.

I'm not so sympathetic towards the "vinegar" folks - those who courier me three-inch thick stacks of legal documents that make all sorts of false accusations, ridiculous demands, and set unrealistic timelines for a response. (One company did this to me, quite deliberately, on Christmas Eve last year.) Sadly, these "poison pen" letters make up the vast majority of inquiries I receive. Sure, we respond to them as well, but I'm not going to cut them any slack or do them any favours. Why should I?

In the end, this boils down to one simple suggestion: be nice. ;+)

A New Year's Resolution That's Easy to Keep

I'd like to suggest a New Year's resolution to you:

Don't "lose" your domain name.

What am I talking about? Well, every day my colleagues at Tucows deal with business owners who are in a panic because they "lost" their all-important domain names. And by "lost" this (upon further investigation) usually means the business owners forgot to renew their domain name on time.

Now, I'm sympathetic to a point, however the responsibility for renewing a domain name ultimately rests with the owner of the domain name and no one else.

Sometimes, I'm proud to say, we can help reinstate the "lost" domain name. And sometimes we simply can't. Which, for some businesses, is a disaster. Yet it's a disaster that could have been so easily avoided.

Here's how:

Take 30 seconds, RIGHT NOW, to find out when your domain name is going to expire. (Do a WHOIS query at whois.tucows.com, then check to see what expiration/renewal date is listed.) Make note of this date.

Now, take another 30 seconds to write a reminder to yourself to renew the domain name a few weeks before it expires. Go ahead, I'll wait while you do this. Use Outlook or whatever calendaring system you use. Just make sure you set a reminder!

Finally, when you get your reminder to renew your domain name, RENEW your darn domain name! In most cases this takes less than two minutes, and you can do it online via the company your registered the domain name with.

See, that wasn't too difficult, was it? Especially compared to how difficult "losing" your domain name would be...

Happy New Year!

When Does Innovation Become Irritation?

On a recent flight to the United States, I came across a quintessential example of what I believe is wrong with the traditional advertising industry.

Sitting in my seat on a US Airways flight bound for Savannah, I decide to unlock the table tray in order to have a place to rest my papers on.

This is what I was greeted with:

That's right, the surface of the table tray was completely covered by a vinyl clingy ad for an electronic manufacturer's noise canceling headphones.

Now, I've worked with enough media planners to appreciate the strategic thinking that probably went into this in terms of demographic targeting. And from an advertiser's perspective I can totally appreciate the evil genius of the whole 'captive audience' mentality behind this media placement.

It's 2007, however, and should marketers really be trying to find 'virgin' surfaces to plaster yet another one of their ads upon? Is this really innovation? Is this something the industry should be proud of?

And check out the ad copy itself:

The ultimate irony, in my mind, is the ad copy's claim that the headphones "dramatically reduce unwanted sounds." It's too bad that in promoting this feature the advertiser may have dramatically increased the level of visual pollution.

Podcast: Worst Term Ever

It's no secret I'm a huge proponent of podcasting. What may come as surprise is that I think the term "podcast" is a horrible name for this new medium.

Although I've since left MacLaren MRM to take on a new role at a different company later this month, one of the projects I'm most proud to have worked on during my time at the agency is a podcast series for the Buick division of General Motors of Canada. Aesthetic Intent quietly launched during my final week at the agency, and to the best of my knowledge is the first ever podcast by a Canadian automotive manufacturer. Even more noteworthy, in my opinion, is that this podcast is not about cars.

As proud as I am of this initiative, one thing that became glaringly obvious during its production was how problematic the term "podcast" is.

First there's the "pod" part of the word, which to many people implies an association with Apple's popular iPod MP3 player. I can't begin to tell you how many people I spoke with during the course of this project thought you needed an iPod, or some other portable MP3 player, to listen to a podcast. I don't blame anyone for this misunderstanding - I used to think that as well - I blame the word itself.

Then there's the "cast" part of the word. When I mentioned to Canadian artist Jane Martin, one of the people interviewed for Aesthetic Intent, that the podcast had launched, she remarked to me that she was away that week and would therefore miss it. I was puzzled by her comment at first, and then I realized that the "cast" part of "podcast" had given her the impression that the podcast episode was like a traditional radio broadcast that is aired only once at a particular date and time. Once again, nothing could be further from the truth (podcast episodes are available anytime, on-demand), yet I completely understand how someone might get this (wrong) impression.

There's probably no point in me griping about the term "podcast" since we're stuck with it. And I don't have any suggestions for a better word (yet), although when I find myself explaining podcasts to people I usually end up saying something like, "it's an on-demand audio-visual program delivered via the Internet." I do sometimes wonder, however, how much the growth of podcasting has been hindered by its confusing name.

More Confessions of a PVR User

Last November I wrote a post for this blog (Confessions of a PVR User) about how my television consumption habits had changed since I'd gotten a PVR.

Six months later, based on my 'focus group' of two (me and my wife), I'm even further convinced that the PVR is not the dire threat to the television advertising industry some thought it would be. Not if the industry learns how to leverage this platform better, that is.

Here's why...

I'm watching more television, not less, because I have the ability to time-shift programming. Watching more television means advertisers, at least in theory, have more opportunities to reach me. (More on that later.)

The programming I am watching is more relevant to me because I am not confined to a choice of what is on live. Let's say I was into Egyptology. If a show about pyramids was on at 3 AM during the week, I'd hardly stay up to watch it. But with my PVR I can record it for playback at a time that is convenient for me. Once again, another win for advertisers who normally wouldn't have been able to reach me through this show.

I used to "skip" forward through commercials 30 seconds at a time, however I found this visually disorienting and acoustically jarring. So now, I fast forward through them at 15-times speed, which turns 30-second spots into 2-second Max Headroom-like "Blipverts". I find this allows me to get a sense of what the commercial is about, yet still navigate quickly through it should I not be interested.

If I am interested, I skip back and watch the commercial in its entirety. In a sense, I am scanning the commercials for relevance, then choosing to watch the ones that are relevant to me (or that my wife insists we watch, such as every single ad for Apple and Telus.)

Even the commercials I am not watching I'm still seeing in their entirety (although at 15-times speed). You can't tell me that some of the original messaging isn't getting through to me, even if only on a subliminal level.

While I'm probably watching fewer commercials than my pre-PVR days, I am giving the ones I choose to watch my undivided attention. Once again, another win for advertisers.

The most unusual thing that's occurred over the last few months has been what I call program sharing. You see, with a PVR it's easier to 'share' programming with another person. My wife, if she's watching TV alone, will sometimes find herself watching a show or commercial that she thinks I would enjoy. So she simply rewinds the live signal, hits record, then shares the recorded segment with me at a later date. Yet another win for advertisers.

Does the advertising industry need to wean itself, and its clients, away from the dependence on the 30-second TV spot? Yes, it does.

Do we need to develop a better understanding of how to effectively use some of the many new media channels (like the PVR) now at our disposal? Yes, we do.

Will the PVR kill advertising on television? No it won't.