Apparently, a lot. Tweeting forced a major drug manufacturer to deep-six a new marketing campaign. Seems as though thousands of irate new mothers, upset at what they felt was an unfair depiction in an ad for Motin, turned to Twitter to voice their displeasure. The outcry was so loud and so forceful that McNeil Consumer Healthcare, maker of Motrin, decided to pull the ad.

Now, you can argue about how offensive the ad was — as a 53-year old man, I thought it was kind of clever — but you can’t argue that Twitter was a powerful vehicle for social change.

Of course, the downside is my inbox is immediately flooded with a steady stream of emails asking me to subscribe, buy, join or otherwise spend money for some product or service. A few examples, without naming the guilty parties:

• After downloading a free report on October 20, I have received 14 emails from one company, including two on one day and three on another.
• After downloading a report on Nov. 1, I’ve received seven emails from another company, including two in one day.
• In a third instance, I’ve received 80 emails from a company I downloaded something from on June 26.
• By coincidence, a client I work with showed my an increasingly aggressive, almost annoyed series of emails he received from a company begging him to sign up for a several hundred dollar coaching course.

So, my question is this: when it comes to autoresponding systems, how much is too much? Once a day? Twice a week? Three times a month?

At what point does the recipient become numb and stop paying attention? Or worse yet, unsubscribes? Now you’ve turned off a potential customer who, at one point at least, thought you had something valuable to offer?

What is the best kind of testimonial to generate new sales, to produce extra profits for your business? Is it best to have the President of the United States endorse your product? Or is it better to have a no-name from down the street say the same nice things?

Steve Martin, co-author of “Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive,” says new research shows that while a testimonial from the President might be great at drawing attention and attracting new people to your business, it will be people most like the new customers you are trying to attract who turn that attention into real business and profits for you.

“We tend to follow the lead of others like ourselves,” says Martin, who appeared on the Nov. 9 episode of “Your Business” on MSNBC. “The most effective testimonial comes from someone similar to the new customer you are trying to attract.”

Martin says that while an endorsement from the President might be impressive — say you did a great plumbing job in the White House — if you’re looking to sell your plumbing services to a local builder, he’s going to want to see testimonials from other builders like himself. He might be impressed with the President’s testimonial, says Martin, but he won’t be motivated to move in your direction until he sees evidence that other local builders feel the same way.

There is a bit of good news: the survey shows the number of companies spending 10 percent or more of their total budget on marketing increased by 16 percent over last year. Nearly half of companies surveyed said they spend 10 percent or more of their budget on marketing and 81 percent said they spend 5 percent or more.

Other key results include:

• 51% of the respondents utilize both in-house resources and outsource to marketing firms, which is a 7% increase from last year;
• 41% of the respondents do not have formal marketing plans in place, down from 44 percent in 2007;
• companies are spending most of their marketing dollars on web development and web marketing.

The survey also includes data about how marketing budgets are spent, where sales leads come from, which tactics have the highest rate of return, and tools used by online marketers. Sagefrog Marketing Group conducted the survey online during the summer of 2008 and drew responses from 100 marketing professionals from health, technology and business service companies in the Greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region.

In a truely inspirational presentation, Jim shared several strategies business owners can use to thrive — not only survive — these tough financial times:

1. Ignore Reality. Try to imagine what your business would like like five years from now if everything was running perfectly. Make that your goal. it is pretty much accepted in psychology that we attract what we focus on or, to put it another way, our minds move in the direction of our thoughts. Taking that a step further, it becomes apparent that for our lives to change, we must be focusing on not what is, but rather what we want; hence, ignore reality. We must start telling a different story about how our life is. So many people cling to their “story” about how their life is and why and then wonder why it’s not changing. It can’t! As long as you’re constantly reinforcing conditions as they are, they cannot change. Only when you are willing to let go of your “story” and start telling yourself a new one, will things on the outside begin to change.
2. Change Your Focus. Beginning immediately, stop talking about anything that is not working. Stop defending and justifying why you’re not doing better. Stop blaming the economy or whatever else you deem to be the cause of your troubles. If something is not working, continuing to talk about it will cause you to start seeing more things going wrong and continue the downward spiral. Ask only, “What’s working?” and continue asking every day. Make a list of what is working and have your team do the same, individually and as a group. Change the tone of your meetings. If you understand that you get more of whatever you focus upon, it’s obvious why you’ll want to do this.
3. Fire some customers. The rule of thumb is that 20 percent of your customers account for 80 percent of your revenue. Take a hard look at the 80 percent that are producing only 20 percent of your revenue and get rid of the ones that drain your enthusiam. They’re not worth the energy they require; by getting rid of them you’ll have more time to devote to the customers who generate your revenue.
4. Be creative. Find new products that meet the needs of your existing customers. Understand their problems and figure out how you can solve them. It’s much easier to sell to existing customers than it is to cultivate new ones. You can also find new markets for existing products. Arm and Hammer’s sales of baking soda, for example, were flat until someone realized it was also a good way to absorb odors in a refrigerator. Sales skrocketed. Now the company is offering a whole line of products based on baking soda. The essential product didn’t change; it’s use did.
5. Take advantage of technology. So many options exist for marketing products and services online but most small businesses do not take advantage of them. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are just as few examples. If you can’t master the technology yourself, find someone on staff who can. Or outsource your technology needs to an expert who can maximize their use.

Anyway, it just so happens that this week’s Stumbling was jam-packed with sites that feature — you guessed it — list headlines. Let’s get counting, from the most to the fewest:

1. Writing at The Future Buzz, Adam Singer offers “65 Bite-Sized Web Marketing Tips.” The sheer number might seem intimidating, but Adam stays true to his word and keeps his suggestions to single sentences (for the most part), and short ones at that. Lots of useful links.
2. The folks at The Bootstrapping Blog came up with “50 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using.” Some are a little off the wall — Temporary Tattoos? Sponsor the Homeless? — but most are brilliant. Great suggestions for businesses where cash is at a premium.
3. We all want to know what our competitors are up to, right? But short of breaking in at night or hacking their network, what can you do to get the real goods? FutureNow’s Bryan Eisenberg says there are several strategies, all perfectly legal, to spy on your competition. If you’re comfortable with some esoteric web tools, these look like they could be a lot of fun to play with.
4. Anyone who has read this blog knows I’m a big fan of Google and the awesome tools its provides. Gil’s Method offers “11 Obscure Google Tricks You Didn’t Know Existed.” You can track a UPS package on Google? I didn’t know that!
5. I still admit it: I don’t get Twitter. I’ve looked at it from every direction and just fail to see its usefulness as a marketing tool. But that doesn’t mean other people aren’t taking advantage. Jeff Woelker has come up with “7 Habits of Successful Twitterers.” My mind remains open…

The other day, I was checking out the InfoUSA.com website on behalf of a client who is thinking about doing a modest direct mail campaign. After choosing criteria and generating a mailing list, I had to register on the company’s website to get a price quote.

I filled out the short form and hit the submit button. At that precise moment, my phone rang. Wouldn’t it be something, I joked with him, if it was InfoUSA calling to welcome me to their database.

Alas, that wasn’t the case.

However, five minutes later I did receive a call from InfoUSA welcoming me and assuring me I would receive personalized attention if I needed it. It made me feel welcomed and appreciated. As a new customer, it made me feel confident that I will be able to get help.

In these tough times, successful marketing is all about relationships. It doesn’t have to be expensive ad campaigns or elaborate branding efforts, although those sure are helpful. For InfoUSA, all it took was a simple timely phone call from a cheerful voice to get our relationship off to a flying start.

1. At SlyVisions.com, writer Sly Blanco offers 30 Tips for Exploding Your Site Traffic. Nothing revolutionary here, but plenty of good reminders of simple things you can do to attract more visitors to your website.
2. Sometime we get so caught up in crafting the message that we ignore the mechanics of good writing. The folks at Precise Writing list 10 Overused Words in Writing. While not grammatically incorrect, they are commonly used. With just a little attention, omitting the words and finding a better way to say the same thing can make a powerful difference.
3. I’m often called on to make comments in public places. While technically not a speech, I do like to have an outline in my mind for what I’m about to say. Speakweek offers s simple formula with The Three Parts of a Great Five-Minute Speech.
4. Viral marketing is a great, inexpensive way to get your product or service noticed. But how to go about generatng that buzz? Dan Zarella, who bills himself as a “social and viral marketing scientist” offers his Viral Marketing Campaign Checklist.
5. Here’s one whose only purpose is to bring a smile to your face. Enjoy!

Happy Stumbling.

Back when I was a fulltime journalist, a writing coach once said you should use “golden coins” as strategically placed nuggets – an anecdote, a statistic, a vivid image – to keep readers walking along the story path. Rather than putting all your good stuff in the beginning, a strategy many writers use, he suggested spacing the golden coins throughout the narrative to maintain interest.

While the golden coins theory is useful, it’s also helpful to remember the things that cause readers’ eyes to gloss over to the point of boredom. Here are eight guaranteed ways to lose your reader’s attention in a hurry:

Take Forever to Get to the Point. Don’t hem and haw in your writing. Say what you have to say and get out of the way. Too may propositions are killers: “In an effort to provide employees with more time for their families, I would like to suggest that we try a four-day work week.” ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Telling Readers What They Already Know. Here’s an annoying way to begin a business letter, for example: “You wrote to us on June 4 asking for…”

Length. Closely related to the first point. No one wants to read more than they have to. Taking five paragraphs when three would do is a great way to lose interest.

Using technical terms. Imagine your reader having to stop every other sentence to figure out what your important-sounding acronym means or trying to decipher industry jargon.

Be Mysterious. Piquing interest is one thing. Being deliberately obscure is another. Make it clear from the start what you are writing about.

Using “I” A Lot. When you use the first person, it shows a sense of self-importance. Writing should be about the reader, not the writer.

Using “ing” Words. In addition to being generally wordy, using terms that end in “ing” frequently convey a feeling of uncertainty. “According to our phone conversation the other day, we are thinking about beginning…”

Saving the Best for Last. I’m all for concluding on a high note, but burying the lead is inexcusable.

Avoid these eight writing blunders, and your readers will make the journey from beginning to end with no interruptions.

Stumble Upon is cool service that helps you explore the Internet in a surprising, entertaining and efficient way. Essentially, you indicate your areas of interest – personal, professional, social – and, with a click of the Stumble button on your browser, you are directed to a random web page that matches your interests. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s all you need to know for now. Here’s a good explanation about Stumble and how to get it set up on your computer.

Anyway, I’ve decided that every Friday, I will bring you my Five Favorite Stumbles of the Week. Most will be related to public relations and marketing, but occasionally I may share a quirky, off-beat site that will make you laugh or cringe. Who knows?

Here are this week’s offerings:

1. Did you know colors play a key role in direct marketing? According to author Dean Rieck of Direct Creative, color is a form of nonverbal communication that increases brand identity, assists in memory, increases a reader’s participation in ads, and improves readership, learning, and comprehension. Find out more about using color in your marketing materials.
2. If you are a loyal reader of this blog, you know my roots are in the newspaper business. So imagine my surprise when one of my first Stumbles this week took me to the Newseum website. In addition to all sorts of neat information about the history of newspapers, it includes the current day’s front pages from more than 600 newspapers in 61 countries. You may never get any work done after visiting this site.
3. As a self-employed writer and editor sometimes I feel like I have three fulltime jobs: salesman, consultant and office manager. I’m always looking for ways to make efficient use of my time. One of my Stumbles last week took me to Freelance Switch, which offers 101 Essential Freelancing Resources. I didn’t check all 101 links, but they include everything from help with project management and organization to a compilation of sites that offer templates, photos and flash files. There are also sections on legal matters, web tools, advertising and marketing.
4. I’m a big proponent of using the right word in the right situation. Because of subtle differences in meanings, using the wrong word could have serious implications. Over at E-Commerce Optimization and Marketing, check out the list of 14 Words That LOSE Money. You might be surprised at some of the common words to avoid.
5. Do you really understand how the marketing brain works? Are you harnessing its immense potential to make your business generate greater revenues? Wouldn’t your strategy and tactics be vastly different, if you understood these psychological marketing ideas? The folks at Psychotactics.com offer some useful tips for getting inside your customers’ minds to see what makes them act.

That’s it for this week. Happy Stumbling.