Mark Jones gets this as well as anyone, and has built a smart marketing business to prove it. I recently asked Mark to describe in greater detail his approach to successful marketing and advertising.

How has successful marketing changed since you started in the ad business?

When I started in the advertising business in 1989, television was considered THE primary advertising medium, and the Internet didn’t even exist as a consumer medium. When we first started presenting Internet options to our clients in the mid 90s, it was a hard sell. Most people weren’t connected or only had a slow dial-up connection (remember 1200 B.O.D., anyone?), so the online audience was too small to justify. When the web audience finally ballooned to justify the numbers, the dot-com bust burned many advertisers, and Internet was once again a hard sell. Today, we are not only recommending a strong Internet component in our campaigns, but with many target audiences web advertising and branded entertainment have replaced television as the primary medium. But calling it “the Internet” is just too vague, so we break it down into websites, e-commerce sites, online advertising, search, social networking, branded entertainment, viral, mobile, and whatever comes out tomorrow. What’s great for us is that now that video plays well on the web, our television experience puts us in a leadership position on the Internet. Do you really want a web designer creating your video?

What’s been the key to making television advertising so successful for so long?

Even with the new importance of the web, television is still as powerful a branding medium as ever. The highest definition video is a television standard, not a web standard, so if you want your product to look and sound its best, television is key. There is still no better way to create a laugh, generate fear, or engage a consumer quickly. Even with broadband connections, the web pales by comparison in delivering the goods. Consumers must wait for a small video to load, followed by a tiny video that is compressed beyond recognition, and then play it through your computer speakers. Consider that most web video starts as “broadcast quality” and then gets squished and scrunched down until it is “acceptable” for the web. The web is catching up quickly though, and the lines between web and TV continue to blur. Sure the interactivity isn’t there, but after being interactive all day at work, millions of people still want to veg-out in front of the TV.

What’s the key to making it successful today?

I think there’s a misconception that TV audiences are shrinking. But since we don’t pay if no one is watching, this really doesn’t matter to us. And consider that some heavy user groups average more than six hours of TV viewing every day, any news that the thirty second ad is dead is a bit premature. So it really comes down to our target audience: if they have the TV on, we want to be there.

What makes video such a compelling medium for marketers?

The storytelling ability. Video is more than pictures, its words, movement, music, emotion. I can show a new sports car from every angle, inside and out, zoom in for a close up, cut to a wide shot, enhance it with music while you hear the throaty exhaust in surround sound. I can put you in the drivers seat or make you look on as an envious observer. I can explain that it has 300 horsepower without having to say it. That doesn’t work in a skyscraper ad on a website, or a magazine ad. A picture is worth a thousand words, and video is moving at 30 pictures a second, and has words to boot.

Can you share any best practices about what makes a good DRTV spot work?

Direct response is about creating compelling demonstrations and backing them with strong testimonials. Follow this with a persuasive call-to-action that has a good product at a great price. Then, it is simply a numbers game. What was the ROI? If it works, buy more media and run it again. If it bombs, don’t.

How do television best practices translate to other media – print, online, etc.?

The creative strategy should be created independent of any medium, and the concept should map directly to the creative strategy. With a solid strategy and concept, it shouldn’t matter what medium you work in.

You have a five-floor elevator ride. How do you describe Jones Advertising?

We’re a small advertising agency that makes a big impact for our clients. Check us out at www.jonesadvertising.com.

The idea behind this positioning is strong, that Bud Light is an easy-to-drink beer (relative to more complex, hoppy beers that may not be as smooth or easy to quaff).

But the specific wording Anheuser-Busch uses here continues to befuddle me. Drinkability is an awkward word. It implies that other beers aren’t drinkable, which is silly.

It’s also not consistent with Bud Light’s core audience, which has also been blue-collar, everyman, “Joe Six Pack” drinkers. Anheuser Busch’s ad campaigns to this day reinforce this audience focus, with slapstick humor used again and again to keep its audience’s attention.

Does the average Bud Light drinker know what “drinkability” means? Do they care? Is this phrase helping Anheuser-Busch sell beer?

I doubt it.

This actually surprised me, in that I had always assumed that others get much more email volume than I typically do. This assumption is based on frequent observation of colleagues and friends with overloaded inboxes, sometimes with hundreds of unread emails. These colleagues talk about drowning in their email, which makes both focus and staying on top of things far more difficult.

Despite my high inbound email volume, my inbox is almost always empty. What’s more, I have peace of mind in knowing where (and how) to find anything, and have built myself an email system that allows me to tackle every email “action” in the right time.

The net result of this system is that I no longer let my email run my day. I can stay focused on what’s most important throughout the day, get to my email when I need to, and still keep the inbox clean.

How? Listed below are my top seven best practices:

(Note: These tips assume you’re using Microsoft Outlook as your email client, although some will work with Gmail and other Web email services as well).

Rules

I aggressively use Outlook’s email rules to manage my inbox. This automates much of the filing and sorting I’d otherwise have to do manually, especially when Outlook can recognize patterns and help me save certain types of emails for quick scanning or processing later. For example, I subscribe to several email newsletters, but every one is automatically filed in a “reading” folder (more on that below). I get “watched item” alerts from eBay, which also get filed in a separate folder. There are certain reports I’m copied on, which I found that I rarely read but want filed away for future reference. I have an Outlook rule that does this filing for me automatically. This tool alone saves me countless clicks and minutes every day.

Three Main Folders: For short-term processing, I typically sort the rest of my email into three folders: Action, Waiting For, and Reading.

· Action: If I receive an email that can be responded to in two minutes or less, I just tackle it right away. Any degree of procrastination on such a short-term task can literally double (or worse) the amount of time I spend on it. Anything else that takes longer than two minutes goes into the Action folder. Very, very few of these requests need immediate response. Putting them together in an “action” folder allows me to tackle them later, and all at once.

· Waiting For: I often send an email to a colleague or vendor, and wait for a response. I typically blind-copy myself on these emails, and have an Outlook rule set up so that these emails automatically get sorted into a “Waiting For” folder. This gives me a complete inventory of the outstanding emails I’ve sent for which I haven’t received a response. I’ll quickly scan this folder a few times a week, deleting emails that have been responded to, and occasionally following up with people that haven’t yet taken action.

· Reading: I get to this once a day, usually on the bus in the morning or evening. None of it is urgent, and I have no problem deleting an unread newsletter if the folder is getting too large, or if more recent emails (especially in the case of news summaries) are piling up.

I file these folders in my Outlook folders with an “@” symbol in front of them, so that they all stack up at the top of my Outlook folders list. This way they’re always in front of me for easy clicking and viewing when I’m ready.

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wsletter if the folder is getting too large, or if more recent e

Work in Offline Mode

Right-click the “online” tag at the bottom, right-hand corner of Outlook, and click the “work offline” link. This will essentially “freeze” your Outlook based on what emails you already have received, and will allow you to manually control when emails are sent, and when new emails come into your inbox. Any emails you write and “send” when in offline mode will be queued up in your Outbox, and will automatically be sent when you click the send/receive button (or click F9). This is a great way to stay focused on what you’re currently doing, and not get distracted by new emails coming in. Plenty of productivity experts tell their clients to turn off “new email” notifications already – get rid of the little beep, the preview pane, the “new email” graphic in the taskbar. All of those suggestions are moot if you work offline. How often you click that send/receive button is up to you. Many gurus suggest you don’t need to check your email more than 1-2 times a day. I’m more addicted to email than that, but still typically go at least 30-60 minutes between checks. This helps me stay focused on getting the right things done in the meantime.

Keep Storage Folders for Everything

I keep folders in Outlook for everything, and open new folders on a regular basis. I try to organize them in a consistent manner, and use lots of subfolders. This gets anything that no longer needs an action – that’s purely for future reference – out of sight but within reach.

Xobni

This new Outlook add-on has saved me hours of searching through email archives, and I’ve only had it for about a month. In a nutshell, Xobni is a search engine for your email, and sits on the right-hand side of your screen. It allows you to search names and keywords, pulling up associated contacts, consolidating document attachments and more. Check out this demo for a better description of the service. I’ve found it invaluable, especially if you aggressively store archived emails in folders like I do, and don’t always remember where you put everything.

Use Outlook’s PST archive folders 2-4 times a year

If you get a lot of email, and store much of it for future reference, your folders will get really big, really fast. Use Outlook’s PST archive folders to create “offline” storage tanks for long-past emails. This will clear up space (and improve performance) with your account on the Exchange Server, but keeps those old emails within reach. You can even set up rules in Outlook to automatically archive files into your PST folders after a certain # of days.

Unsubscribe!

We all end up on too many distribution and subscriber lists. If you’re unsure if you want to stay on those lists or not, simply set up an Outlook rule. But if you find you never read them, unsubscribe. It’ll be that many fewer emails in your inbox, and you can always re-subscribe if you really need it or miss it.

This doesn’t even count the soft cost of the scene about to unfold at airports across the country - angry travelers questioning ticket counter agents when they learn of this policy, public grumblings in the concourse in front of other travelers, etc.

Differentiation in the travel industry is increasingly defined by service and customer focus. Some airlines get it. Others obviously have some catching up to do.

What if you could spend 80% of your time in quadrants I and II?

I bet your productivity, job satisfaction, work/life balance and peace of mind would improve significantly.

For many, Facebook is an obsession and a major part of their lives. It’s a source of incredible entertainment and social interactivity. I take nothing away from them and their enjoyment of the service.

It’s also a powerful advertising and brand-building channel, given its wide audience and deep usage patterns.

I just don’t like it, and don’t use it.

Here are ten reasons why.

10. It’s a huge time-suck
I get dizzy just visiting my Facebook page, and I haven’t even bothered adding that many friends or applications. There’s so much going on, and so much to do. If I start engaging with a fraction of what I see, I’ve wasted long periods of time with little return. It’s completely non-productive time for me.

9. It’s incredibly distracting
Just as bad as email. If you want to stay active with Facebook, and have a lot of friends, you have to visit multiple times a day. It will interrupt any prolonged period of productivity or focus on something more important - either at work or elsewhere.

8. It’s become non-differentiated
Everyone’s doing it, exchanging the same stuff, buying each other the same $1 gifts, giving virtual high-fives and more. When everyone’s doing the same things, and interacting the same way with each other, nobody’s unique. Nobody’s being remarkable. Facebook allows for very little individuality.

7. It’s mostly irrelevant
Facebook lets me virtually “drunk dial” a friend. It lets me send them a pixel of a flower. It lets me send someone a digital sucker-punch. It’s…irrelevant. Pointless. Maybe I’m too old, and apparently a curmudgeon too. But I don’t get the value of these exchanges.

6. I spend enough time online for work
Time on Facebook for me is a lose-lose. I’m either wasting time at work, spending time on Facebook, or spending even more time on the computer when at home. I’m in front of the computer all day as it is, when I’m home, and not working, I want an offline experience - not more hours stuck to a screen.

5. It keeps people from getting out and talking/meeting live
I love the Web as a networking and communication tool. But as a social playground, I think it often goes too far. I’d far prefer to meet friends in the real world, which provides for a much richer, more meaningful interaction and experience. Sure, it takes more time and isn’t nearly as efficient. But that misses the point.

4. It’s all fake
I worry that too many of our social interactions with each other are now virtual, with very little tangible evidence or momentos. Call me old-school, but my wife and I greatly enjoy the printed photos we have of family gatherings, friends getting together, etc. Not only are they physical reminders of those good times, they’re reminders of times we got together offline to enjoy each other’s company.

3. It’s not very meaningful
There’s a quality vs. quantity exchange going on in Facebook that, in my opinion, is taking us in the wrong direction. While it’s great that I can “play” with dozens of my friends at once, the quality of those interactions is greatly diminished online. The multi-faceted, rich nature of in-person interactions is completely lost. The memories and impact of those online interactions is incredibly shallow, compared to the richness of being together.

2. It’s not at all inclusive
Some of my best friends are not (gasp!) obsessed with the Internet. One of my good friends doesn’t even check email very often (can you imagine?!). If I’m relying on Facebook to drive my friendships and social interactions, what happens to these offline friends? Are they left out? Do they not count? Do they diminish in value or importance to me?

1. It will be over soon
I remember when we all had pages on GeoCities. Then we moved on to our blogs. Then MySpace, now Twitter and Facebook. We will move onto something else. And what will we have to show for it?

Said Jane Hodges, the “Cranky Consumer” columnist for the Journal, 1-800-Got-Junk’s performance when she tested them:

This is a company on the rise, with a laser-focus on customer service and an incredible operational system internally. They’re devotees of Verne Harnish’s Rockefeller Habits, which helps them focus the entire company on what’s most important to fuel growth.

Learn more about their operational best practices here.

Congratulations guys, keep up the great work.

Sound contradictory? For years, productivity and executive impact experts have encouraged us to focus on what’s important, not just what’s urgent. No less than Peter Drucker, in The Effective Executive, was among the first to note that much of our time as knowledge workers will naturally be pulled into a variety of urgent but not necessarily important time sucks, and that only careful consideration of what’s most important in our work - then focusing intently on getting those few things done - is the best path to productivity and success.

So, as Leo points out this week, focusing on just three things each day (rather than the pages and pages of to-do’s that most of us carry around) can have an effect both on our productivity and our peace of mind.

Call it lazy if you want, but knowing the night before exactly what needs to get done the next day (just 2-3 important things), then focusing early in the day on getting those things done can have an incredible impact. Give it a try for a week and see what happens.

More on being productive and lazy at the same time from Leo here.

Photo Credit: The Lazy Environmentalist

That publisher may want to sell you the leads generated from that white paper later, or you may be sacrificing value and ROI from your other lead generation efforts (lower response rates and higher costs from search ads, for example) when prospects find out they can get your information elsewhere without having to register.

But depending on your objectives, that might be OK. Especially with a non-customer and prospect audience, it all comes down to value - what value are you providing, what do they have to give up (if anything) to get it, and what value do you get in exchange for getting that information or service out there.

The first part of that value equation is the simplest. If you don’t produce something that others want, you’ve missed the entire point. Whether you sell it, give it in exchange for a registration, or simply give it away - people have to want it.

Whether or not your audience is willing to give something up (their personal information, an email address, or even money) depends on how much value you’ve created, and how badly they want it. Some of this is surely in how well you market your offer, but most of the value is baked into the offer itself.

Whether or not you choose to require something from your audience in exchange for that value is entirely up to your end-game. Are you publishing a white paper in order to develop thought leadership, extend awareness of your business, or build credibility for a new product? If that’s the case, then you want the white paper in as many hands as possible. Registration, therefore, is probably a bad strategy.

There’s no uniform answer to this value exchange. But it is important to fully understand what you want out of the exchange, and whether what you’re offering can support that objective. It may not be cut and dry, but lacking clear objectives and success metrics up front will only create greater ambiguity and confusion down the road.

Hat-tip to Howard for the inspiration.

A year ago, similar conditions swept Seattle, and I wrote about the two-sided opportunity snow days represent for many of us.

The analogy is in obstacles to success we face every day. Sometimes it’s a patch of ice between us and the office. Other times it’s a new competitor. Or slow market conditions. Or bad press.

How do you react? Are these obstacles used as an excuse, or leveraged as an opportunity?

Read more here.