What's Better? Ultimate or Pure?

Hesitating, I remain caught 'twixt will and will not in my thoughts.
-- Dante

How can clients make decisions about intangibles like life insurance when it's so difficult to decide on common, physical products like computers?

Take a look at a recent Dell ad. Ignore the spelling (which is discussed on my Spark Insight blog). Instead, look at the two notebook computers. They're the same price. So which is better:

• ultimate business notebook, or
• pure business power

"Ultimate" sounds like the best. Microsoft calls their $499 ($299 upgrade) version of Windows Vista "Ultimate". But "pure" sounds natural.

How do you decide? The Latitude D620 has a smaller screen, which suggests that it's lighter. So it's probably easier to lug around. The Latitude D820 may be more of a "desktop replacement". Maybe it has a bigger keyboard or better graphics. It's hard to tell

Other Comparisons
Comparing here should be easy:

• products from the same manufacturer (Dell, not vs HP/Compaq or Toshiba or Lenovo)
• the same line (Latitude business grade, not vs Inspiron for consumers or XPS for gamers or Precision for specialized needs)

In contrast, financial products like life insurance are compared among companies. How do we decide on one product over another? How do we help our clients understand the advantages? So they aren't caught 'twixt will and will not in their decision to buy.

Fax Marketing

I got a chain letter by fax.
It's very simple.
You just fax a dollar bill to everybody on the list.
-- Steven Wright

Do you use your fax machine for marketing? Do you even use a fax machine any more?

I was passing by mine and saw an usually large stack of paper. About 50 pages. The first 23 pages were for me. The rest were garbage.

Here's what I got

1. Bookkeeping software with a special offer for signing up before Feb. It's already April ...
2. Getting logos put on clothing
3. An anger management course ($400)
   
4. An accounting course ($700)
5. Training for supervisors ($800)
6. Training for office managers ($800)
7. Car insurance
8. Mortgages ... no income verification!
9. Collingwood timeshare ($130 for two full nights) ... what's a partial night?
   
10. Water cooler ($20/month)
11. Public speaking seminar ($280)
12. Mortgages ... up to 100% financing
    
13. Cleaning supplies
14. Mortgage insurance
15. Loans for any purpose ... 6% interest ... rates subject to change
16. Warm leads
17. Supervisor training ($270)
18. Florida vacation ($600 for 8 nights and 11 days) ... 3 more days than nights?!?
    
19. Florida Disney and Bahamas cruise ($700 for 8 nights and 9 days) ... $5,000 value

Who Pays?
Not only do you get junk faxes, you get to pay for the paper and ink. Doesn't that make you more receptive to the offers?

Opt Out Option
The faxes did give an option to get taken off the distribution. Or so they said. Interestingly, you'd have to phone to be removed. You couldn't just send a fax. So you can't retaliate by sending the senders junk faxes. Their privacy is more important than ours.

Death of Faxes
In the 1980s, fax machines were rare and expensive. At Metropolitan Life in Ottawa, ours was called a "telecopier" and my department had the only one. In the 1990s, fax machines became commonplace. Do you remember the funny or rude covering pages?

Most nights, fax machines would call our voice line. And keep calling back, thinking our (nonexistent) machine was out of paper. Thankfully, those calls have disappeared. Either there are better filters or -- my guess -- fax use has dropped.

In contrast, email spam isn't so bad.

Marketing By Fax
If you're thinking of marketing by fax. One word: DON'T.
Unless you're giving away a free anger management course.