What’s changing?

Starting on July 1st of this year, any code that touches a credit card must be PCI compliant – not only compliant, but certified as compliant.

Until recently, not storing credit cards, encrypting credit card information (through a secure certificate) and sending the information directly to a Gateway such as Authorize.net for final processing has been regarded as a secure setup. As of July 1st, though, the requirement now includes the security of your shopping cart.

Your shopping cart must be certified as PCI compliant, or you have to find another way of processing credit cards. And the list of certified carts is very short – chances are your cart isn’t on the list. Check the PCI Security Standards Council site (filter by application type: Shopping Cart).

What’s the solution if your cart isn’t compliant?

You can check with the provider and see if they plan on obtaining certification soon. But if you’re a small to medium-size business using an inexpensive or open-source cart, they probably won’t be. Certification is prohibitively expensive for most small cart providers.

The safest and probably cheapest solution is to change your payment processing. You can keep your current cart, but change where the credit card information is collected – outsource that part of the process.

Be sure to look for payment processors that are themselves compliant – that information should be on their site. Paypal is a well-known solution that’s PCI compliant. Another alternative is Authorize.net. Since Authorize.net is one of the most used gateways, there’s a good chance that you’re already using it. If you’re now collecting the credit card information on your site and sending it to Authorize.net, you can have a programmer switch you to Authorize.net’s server integration method (SIM). With this method, all the credit card information is taken at the Authorize.net site, so they’re responsible for security.

What else do you need to do?

Figure out what merchant level applies to you – Visa’s site has a clear listing.

Then follow the requirements for your level. Small merchants (< 20,000 transactions), for example, need to fill out the self-assessment questionnaire -  and may or may not need quarterly security scans. Check with your merchant bank for specific requirements.

You also need to provide security for credit card numbers you take over the phone or in person.

What are the consequences of non-compliance?

Your merchant bank could decide not to let you process credit cards. If you should happen to experience a security breach (stolen credit card number), the credit card company fines could put you out of business. They range from $2000 a day until you’re compliant to $500,000 for a single incident.

A note about our suggestions

There are other ways of dealing with the compliance issue. If your host has great security, you may be able to pass a scan even if your cart isn’t compliant. But as Trust-Guard notes, “it’s important to keep in mind that no matter what your acquirer does or does not recommend that you do in order to be PCI DSS compliant, you could still be financially responsible if something happened.” I.e. if there were a security breach with your host between security scans and credit cards were stolen, you might be fined. We don’t like the uncertainty, so we’re recommending a method that protects against that possibility. You could also switch carts, but that’s likely to be a more expensive solution than changing your processing.

In some marketing departments, they think everyone in sales is named Willy Loman or Shelly “The Machine” Levine. Of course, these same sales people may see themselves as Dale Carnegie or Tony Robbins. The key for management is to remind each group that they weren’t hired to make great theater or start a self-help industry. They are, for better or worse, partners in the same enterprise, critical players on the same team.

The teams start off from the same places – product or service FAB, audience definitions, strategy and leads – but they diverge from there. Marketers pick the appropriate medium to drive Attention, Interest, Decision, Action and Retention (AIDA). Sales people, however, deal with people, not media.

Depending on the product, service and distribution channel, a sales person may use many of the following terms, but all Sales people must decide – usually in moments – whether marketing has succeeded, and whether they are talking to a:

• Suspect: an unqualified lead – not yet attentive or interested

• Opportunity, Contact, Call Back or Prospect: a Qualified lead that has some familiarity, but has not decided to buy “our” brand

After the Pitch, Proposal, Assumptive Close, Trial Close or just plain Close (failure of the aforementioned not-withstanding), there is a:

• New Customer: someone who has purchased, but not re-purchased

• Client, Established Customer: repeat business

This is quantitatively and qualitatively different than marketing.

Can’t we all just get along?

What can be confusing is that there are many other similarities between the two. Both the successful sales person and successful marketer wishes to gain trust; both try to handle objections. But only the sales person presents and closes sales. Both sales and marketing work to retain clients. But few marketers get a person-to-person earful when a marketer has over-promised.

And this is critical: Marketing, along with operations, needs to listen to sales, to know what worked and what didn’t. Do sales people hear what they want to hear? Do sales people sell to their strengths? Are they human? Of course, and that’s why marketing needs to balance sales feedback with up-to-date demographic and psychographic information. This is usually where problems arise – when marketing finds facts that will mean new markets, transitions, uncomfortable changes. But in the long run, the two must work hand-in-glove, for mutual improvement, and improvement of the bottom line.

Why Brands Should Embrace Technological Change

Worst Smithy Ever.

The best thing that business owners can do is be aware and, when possible, get involved. Google Alerts is an excellent way to monitor your reputation online. Sign up for the free service, and Google Alerts will scour the web for your company name and send you reports on where you’re popping up. Additionally, find out where your audience gathers online to talk. Track down the forums that cover your business, and join the discussion. And remember, this isn’t a place to sell, it’s a place to contribute. Show expertise in your field, be helpful, ask questions — this is how you build an online reputation that can gain you customers, and maybe, silence a few of the critics.

Restauranteur? Visit Chowhound.

Brewer? Try BeerAdvocate.

Blacksmith? Iforgeiron.

If it exists in this universe, there’s a forum about it, and someone’s finishing a Worst of 09 list.

Constant Vigilance… isn’t worth it

This doesn’t mean non-stop, white-knuckled, late-night web-surfing. Find a few top sites, and check them out once a week. Skim through your Google Alerts and take action if necessary. Participate in the discussion, but don’t obsess. Just understand that everyone’s a critic, some of them are jerks, and some battles just can’t be won.

Read the CP article

Thinking outside the box means thinking outside traditional normatives and mores. But normatives and mores are the building blocks for shared communication. They are our way of thinking and behaving. By living inside the borders (created by the the famous “nine dots” puzzle) we are safe and comfortable. To go beyond their borders means “art.” No more, no less. And I include scientific discovery and prophesy in that realm.*

Connect all the dots using four lines, without lifting the pen off the paper. Hint: Think outside the box.

In other words, truly thinking outside the box means Picasso, John Cage, Trio-X, and every 100th student at MIT and CalArts. Being outside the box is strange, unusual, weird, uncanny, awful, smelly, messy and unique. It can also be fantastic, glorious, transcendent – and quite scary and lonely. We know. We’ve been there.**

What most trainers and marketers usually really want is derivative thinking.

Derivatives are not merely instruments of unethical financial behavior. They are based on well-known social conventions, such as TV shows. When BMW commissioned a video for webcast, it is a derivative of broadcast moved to the new medium. Placing videos on YouTube is a synthesis of TV and Americans Funniest Home Movies. These ideas are new, refreshing, fun and not outside the box.

Which is why advertisers long-ago coined the term “edgy,” with, perhaps, an unconscious nod to “the box.” Being “on the edge” can be a metaphor for many potential changes – from emotionally explosive to physical danger. But “edgy” is most often used in ad lingo to describe, I submit, that border between derivative and the truly unique – that which is “outside the box.”

The truly unique

Why should you care? The truly unique is ground-breaking; it evokes an emotional response, sometimes a physical reaction, and occasionally provokes actual thought. Thought, of course, is often unwelcome, and is unnecessary in the Attention stage of adoption-diffusion and advertising. But if the emotion is strong enough – especially if it is positive – it can push a clients brand into instant recognition, and prospects scurrying to discover more.

Being outside the box isn’t for everyone, and deciding how far to go outside the box is fraught with second-guessing. So if you’re thinking of going there, call us for a tour. It’s where we work on many days, before we drive home in our solar powered cars to our cubist homes and minimalist pets.
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*Great authors on the subject include C.P. Snow and Dr. Rudolf Arnheim.

*Sinard has been a consistent early adapter of new – outrageously new, and often unique – technology and art. We were amongst the first to use a new technology called videography in 1970; “interactive” in 1984; digital video editing in 1987; Sandin Image processing in 1990, and Portable Domes in 1997. Have you seen our interactive surfaces and environmental objects?

[Note: My thought process goes something like this: my friends at the Art Institute of Chicago and Circle Campus had fabric, roll-up keyboards attached to their Bally computers (with audio cassette drives (really)) in the 1970s. Why would I buy an ultra-modern computer unable to connect to peripherals in the 21st century? Sorry, not me.}

What Does This Mean for Your Marketing Efforts?

But reasons and specific features aside, what does this example mean to your product, your service, your marketing efforts? Well, soon to be out-of-date, tech example aside, this is an example of where AIDA, Adoption-Diffusion, Social Media, Marketing and Operations meet.

Obviously Apple spent the ad dollars to garner everyone's attention, and posted enough information for me to make a decision. AIDA is satisfied. But Adoption-Diffusion is different. Always a bell curve, Innovators, Early Adopters, Middle and Late Adopters and Laggards choose based on perceived needs. Until Operations makes changes to the product, I will be a laggard.

This is undoubtedly a deliberate decision by Apple. Someone at Apple decided: we have a good enough product for this launch; we don't need those people who require more; we'll get them later, if ever.

But what if they were wrong (and for serious salespeople and business professionals, they might be!)? What if the vast majority of us wanted the ability to hook up peripherals? The Palm Pre is planning it. Blackberry can do it now. How would you know how important a feature set might be to your prospects, ahead of time?

New Approaches to Market Research

Market research. Pure, fundamental focus groups, questionnaires and client/user-group input. But also, what if you were to use social media to research your product before launch? I'm not saying Apple would have given the iPhone peripheral connectivity if they had adopted Twitter. But what if you used your Facebook and Twitter accounts to build an international support group, and create a [the name of your developing product/service here] Wiki, especially in the early design and marketing development stages? What input would you get from various communities with interest in your product development?

Of course, your competitors would love to be part of your social media community as well. But there are ways to deal with that. The point is, there’s more to Twitter than Twits, more to Facebook than pretty Faces. Collaboration can be a powerful tool – if and when used judiciously. Doing so in 2008 would have been innovative. In 2009, using social media for product research is still ahead of the bell curve. By next year, it will be standard operating procedure.

Your Facebook fans – people who like your business enough to sign up as a “fan” – will be happy to tell others about your services. You probably won’t even need to ask for testimonials.

If you haven’t ventured into Facebook yet, set up a personal account, learn a little about how it works and then create a business page. Ask your friends and your current clients or customers to become fans of your business page. Satisfied customers will start referring their Facebook friends to your page.

The basics are that simple – word of mouth made (relatively) easy.

Is spending time and energy on Facebook worth it? Here’s Facebook’s latest stats*:

• More than 300 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

You decide.

Join us on Facebook

*[Source: http://www.new.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics]

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/dan-macsai/popwise/report-nine-scientifically-proven-ways-get-re-tweeted-twitter

Thanks to Dan Mascai at Fast Company

People like Craig, who specializes in “finding ways to break out of the clutter, sameness and unfocused messages that diminish the effectiveness” of too many marketing efforts. Or Flo, who speaks Marketing + HTML + SEO + Social Media. Or Josh, who listens to radio without a radio and watches TV without a TV.  Doug, the brandmaster; Julie, our Executive Goddess; Rich, our Chief Wizard … so many great minds, so little time.

Yes, here at the ol’ blog, we will share our experiences of B2C and B2B; hospitality and medical and food categories; web-work and Omni-theaters; Fortune 500s and startups. It’s what our clients say they love about us: versatility, flexibility, a focus on facilitating business and prospect discovery.

But enough about us! Please find in the post above an example of the kind of stuff we read, and, in a moment of contrite self-promotion, see below for an example of the kind of stuff we create. Check these out, then come back for more.

Creative Water Solutions website

Dimension Printing website