Secrets to Success Deborah Cole Micek and John-Paul Micek

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What we can learn from Michael Eisner

If you haven't heard, Michael Eisner has partnered with MySpace to promote his "Prom Queen" series. No, he didn't drink the new media Kool-Aid like every blog and new media evangelist out there is saying. He's just a smart businessman.

How and what can we learn from Eisner? The "how" part is quite simple -- just observe!

Do I see some things that Eisner and his team could do differently with the Prom Queen promotion on My-Space? Sure, but what do I know?

What does Eisner know? Any top marketer knows that you cannot predict what your target audience is going to do. You do your research and then take your best shot. From there it's all about testing. By observing and tracking how your target audience reacts, you can make adjustments and continue to test.

Eisner's target audience will tell him and his team what they did right, and what could be done better. The secret to success in marketing with new media or old is the same: Research, test, adjust, retry. It really is that simple.

The "what" part is yet to be seen. Follow along with Eisner and learn from his efforts. You can do it on your own, tracking and documenting simple changes to the pages and ads, and by watching the comment-and-friend numbers.

Or, you can follow along as we make this a long-term case study on Advanced Business Blogging over the next 2 1/2 months as Eisner and company roll out 80 sequential episodes (one per day) going into the real prom season.

For instance, on the first day of "Prom Queen" being released, there were 31 comments on the page (diverse, all appearing to be real profiles.) And there were 987 friends.

Just one day into the Prom Queen promotion, there were 64 comments and 4,730 friends. The Prom Queen page is still prominently positioned on the MySpace home page driving traffic to the Prom Queen TV home page.

What does the number of friends relative to the number of comments mean? What's the relationship of comments to episodes? What about page structure and layout?

No telling what these things mean right now. But, within the next 30 days or less, a pattern will begin to develop - a pattern we can all learn and profit from.

This takes patience and consistency. It's not sexy, but it sure as heck is how the millions in marketing are made.

Happily, you and I know that we're in good company with the likes of Michael Eisner, Seth Godin, and Jay Abraham. We don't know anything. Your market knows it all!

Let's watch, learn, and profit!