Today is National Gorilla Suit Day. Enjoy!

Seth Godin has another e-book out. This one’s called Flipping the Funnel, and if you haven’t already figured out what it’s about from the graphic, here you go: It’s about taking the marketing funnel and flipping it sideways into a megaphone, enabling your best customers to serve as your advocates.

It’s interesting that Seth has released three editions of this e-book: In addition to one for businesses and traditional marketers, he’s also posted customized versions for non-profits and politicians — two areas where the notion of giving your best customers the power to advocate on your behalf long ago took root.

The other day, I get an email from Business Week touting a story about Steve Jobs and Disney. The subject line of the email possessively spells Steve’s last name: “Job’s.”

Of course Business Week, of all entities, knows his name is Steve Jobs and not Steve Job, so the error, while pretty lousy (especially in a high-profile spot like an email subject line), feels a little more excusable. But had that error been made by a publication trying to build its reputation, that reputation would be that much farther out of reach. (“Sheesh, they can’t even get Jobs’ name right? What else can’t they get right?!) It may not be fair, but it’s the way it is.

Takeaway for marketers: Don’t discount the written word. Make sure you have quality copywriting and proofreading to match your quality product.

This eMarketer article is troubling for anyone who does email marketing. It reports that nearly 34% of people receiving marketing email during the holiday season reported that mail as being spam.

People subscribe to lists and forget about it. People make purchases, but don’t opt out of the “we’ll share your info with third parties” condition. People don’t read privacy policies, detailing how their information is going to be shared. Clicking that “Report Spam” button is as easy as clicking “Delete,” but it sets off a very different chain reaction.

My guess is that the vast majority of what’s reported as spam is in fact legitimate and legal email marketing (and I’m talking in the broad, best-practice sense, not the sleazy and technical sense). Yet, companies who are trying to do the right thing are spending more and more time dealing with time-consuming spam complaints (ever have to deal with a string of Spamcop emails?) and ISP blacklisting issues.

Just a cost of doing business? For now, yes. A major contributor to the erosion of the effectiveness of email marketing? We’ll see.

“People are getting wise, not just to the products they buy, but to the companies behind those products.”
—Bono