Greetings, true believers! And welcome to another edition of "How's That Website Coming," brought to you by your favorite neighborhood website that's still not yet open, MetroProper.com. And the answer: very good. In fact, we open in just seven days. Yikes! And we're starting to sit down and write a lot of copy right now, and also do a lot of coding, and hopefully marry it all as the week unfolds. And then of course we go live on the 15th; and then officially announce it to the public on September 1st, and have a second party at Dollop Cafe for it and everything, this time fully co-sponsored by Unscene magazine, and with Dollop itself getting specially decorated by Mackett Hidalgo, the founder of Chicago Fashion Week, easily the biggest and most well-known fashion event in the city each year. Hooray! We recently met Mackett, in fact, Phil and I, through our friends Victoria and Chris at Unscene; and he's turned out to be a really great guy, actually, a big believer in what we're doing, who has been offering us volunteer help and everything.

Anyway, as long as I still don't have active news to share, I thought I'd share yet another part of our plan in a little more detail (not enough to blab industry secrets, of course, or our detailed plan, but only the broad strokes); and then finish by talking about a tricky part of Proper, the part that no one has really gotten around to acknowledging yet.

And the subject today is marketing: which as we all know, is not really advertising at all, like a lot of people think marketing is, but merely advertising with a whole lot of other stuff added to it. In general the subject of marketing boils down to four Ps: Price (how much your service costs); place (how easy it is to find and use your service); product (what your actual service is, and how well it works), and promotion (how you get the word about your service out to others). And as you can see, when thought of this way, marketing actually encompasses all sorts of things: the social events you hold, the business events, the street teams you assemble, the t-shirts you print, even the business cards you hand out.

Then in addition, there are other things you have to figure out before creating a marketing plan. Like, who your "target market" is, or the very very specific people who could most use your service, and for whom you'll have to spend as little money as possible convincing to use your service. You then "target" your marketing mostly towards them, you see, as to get your money's worth as much as possible. You then have secondary markets and the like, who you should spend less on but still try to reach; and then there is "demographic" information (or "analytics") that helps you determine those things, and also determine how to best spend your money reaching them.

So, as those who read this journal regularly know, how you actually market something these days basically boils down to a number of competing schools of thought, about how to most wisely spend one's money for the greatest return. And the perfect business, of course, then combines these theories, and spends some amount on one and some on another and sees what best works, based on their own theories on what they themselves think will best work. Some of the options include...

--Mass/traditional marketing: Newspaper ads, television spots, billboards, even banner ads at websites, which are now considered "traditional" since the medium is now a decade old.

--Keyword marketing: Google AdSense and all their imitators.

--Experiential marketing: A cutting-edge theory, that urges creating a special, one-time experience for your customers. The name of the game, experiential marketers say, is now creating a relationship with your customers, and adding to the overall quality of their personal life. Creating special experiences for them helps with this goal.

--Viral marketing: Another cutting-edge theory, that says that promotional campaigns are best released like biological viruses. Instead of spending a zillion dollars on advertising a boring message, viral marketers say, you should instead simply create something so surreal, cool, or just plain weird, that those who stumble across it themselves will want to voluntarily forward it to others...who do it to others...who do it to others. When it works, it gets your message out to a million people, possibly by you only spending the money to set up a blog; when it doesn't work, it's an unmitigated disaster, which is why this is such a controversial theory. See: that crazy-ass Samuel Jackson voicemail thing going around right now for Snakes on a Plane. Yeah, I got it too. Yeah, I sent it to someone else too, just because it was so damn funny. That's viral marketing in a nutshell.

--Search Engine Optimization (or SEO): Yet another cutting-edge theory, this time specifically for businesses in crowded industries. The theory is that most people will only click through two or three pages of Google results total, when doing a search on a general subject; so you damn well better make sure your company shows up as high as it can, when someone types on "Travel Agents" or "T-Shirts" or "Hotels" or whatever. A lot of disagreement exists over just how important a subject this is; some companies, for example, install an SEO specialist all the way in a senior executive position, while others claim that it should be a young marketing specialist at most worrying about SEO.

Anyway, you see what I'm getting at; a series of questions to factually answer, then a series of theories to pick and choose from. And here now are our answers and choices; although, to remind you, in broad strokes only, and with a lot of detailed information about our plan deliberately withheld. I mean, jeez, how do you expect us to compete in the first place, if we're going around blabbing all our secrets?

TARGET MARKET: Small neighborhood businesses and the self-employed; specifically, those who are already establishing social networks physically among their existing customers. We figure that our services will be most easily sold to this group; that we simply portray them as a natural supplement to what they're already doing, which they actually are, that will naturally mesh the plans they already have in place. So this not only includes retail spaces like bars, restaurants, clothing boutiques and more, which is what most yellow-pages and classifieds websites concentrate on; but also indie-rock bands, aspiring models, niche-industry freelancers, graphic designers, wedding coordinators, certain types of lawyers, certain types of agents, more more and just more still. That's the first big difference between "us" and "them" -- that on top of the usual small retail businesses, we also help the people who don't usually have a voice at these places, who can never find their industry listed in those stupid "Job Industry" lists at our competitors. We give you a way to define this stuff yourself, instead of you having to beg us to define it for you.

Ah, but see, that comes at a price; that our tools might seem a little confusing at first to a lot of traditional small-business owners, especially ones not used to running a sophisticated online presence yet. Let's say, for example, my parents; who are always the best example to use when you want to talk about people who don't "get it," since you can make fun of your parents for being old and slow and they're not legally allowed to get mad at you. So, for example, my parents are members of a fun community band back in Missouri, where they live; and this would be a perfect thing for them to start a profile for, their community band, as a way of keeping all their bandmembers communicating as well as their fans. But what exact tags should a community band add to their profile in the first place, to make it as useful a band profile as possible?

Well, how about listing the unusual instruments your band has? How about a list of composers that band plays? How about a list of their usual venues? Or what cities all their members cover in the St. Louis metropolitan area? Or, how about just checking out the tags that other community bands are using, to get ideas straight from them? That's what I'm talking about regarding our education campaign; that instead of endless ads at Crain's and the Reader and whatever, we spend some of that money on tutorials, networking events, mass mailings, customer contests, a customer wiki, the actual tech at the website that lets us feature a "frequently used tags" page in the first place. The ads are important, sure; but what's ultimately the point, when your potential customers don't understand what's so cool and unique about your service in the first place? That's the eternal onus of tech companies, to explain to customers why they're so cool to begin with; and instead of fighting this, I figured we should build it right into the marketing campaign itself.

So then, pick a few of these niche industries we're planning on targeting, and make full national promotional campaigns out of them -- like our upcoming national campaign for indie-rock musicians, for example. Instead of blowing money on ads in Pitchfork, spend that money directly on the bands; print off thousands of t-shirts, for example, for these bands to take on tour with them, with their logo on the front and ours on the sleeve, so that those bands don't have to print off tour t-shirts themselves. Open a whole portal for indie-rock musicians, in fact; a special website just for those interested in musician members, regardless of what city they originally come from. Combine this with mass mailings to record labels, sending the "indie-rock tutorial" we've written beforehand; combine this with a massive free party later this fall, specifically promoting this new indie-rock portal, featuring the four most popular bands we've sponsored at that point, at an amazing venue here in Chicago that I can't even begin to tell you the identity of yet, but I guarantee will blow you fucking away when you finally learn who it is, and will guarantee us at least 10 major pieces of free press in traditional national publications.

And then, finally, combine it with a campaign to create a "national brand awareness" -- six more launch parties next year, in six more cities, five American and one in Jordan (or whenever that damn war over there ends, anyway -- don't any of those people realize that we're trying to run a business?!). Combine with an incredibly strong, popular corporate blog, where Phil and I are simply posting goofy cellphone videos of each other during these launch trips and other Chicago events. Combine with just a little national advertising; add up to one big national brand awareness at the end, or at least that's the hope, and 100,000 daily users at the end of a year, and a million dollars in revenue.

So? A plan? We hope. We'll see. Ugh.

So, there's no good way to bring this next subject up, so let me just blurt it out...

I've stopped swinging. Sorry, ladies! (WARNING: THE PRECEDING STATEMENT WAS BITTER SELF-DEPRECATORY SARCASM, FOR THOSE TOO FUCKING STUPID TO UNDERSTAND THAT THEMSELVES. YES, I'M SORRY TOO THAT I HAVE TO EXPLAIN SUCH THINGS FOR EVERY LITTLE JOKE I NOW MAKE HERE. PLEASE DIRECT ALL COMPLAINTS TO 'BitterLittle23YearOldWithNoSenseOfHumorWhatsoever' AT LIVEJOURNAL.COM. THANK YOU.) It's just time, you know? I can't be a very public executive at a very public company, and still go running around having group sex with random strangers via public advertisements (much less at one of our competitors; I mean, come on).

This is fine with me, of course; I mean, Jesus, it's been two years now since I've had sex in any form whatsoever, so it's not exactly a traumatic decision for me to give it all up. It does, however, bring up a delicate subject, the 800-pound gorilla that so far none of us at Proper have talked about; of how we deal with the past I've now had. Because let's face it, it sometimes hasn't been a pretty one, and it's all public record by now: two drug addictions in my past; two years as sex columnist; a commercial porn video out there (still for sale) with me as the star. More fistfights now in my past than I can even count; lots of burnt bridges; lots of people who have made it their personal mission in life to ruin me, and who years later still haven't given up the attempt.

For now I'm dealing with it the same way I always have: to acknowledge the events of my past; acknowledge that those experiences were an important part of my past; and that I don't regret any of those experiences, although of course would choose to do most of them differently, if I knew then what I know now. (Ain't it always the case?) But then I wonder sometimes; is that enough? Should I maybe go through this personal site of mine, for example, and remove the more inflammatory things I've published over the years? Not in an attempt to act like they never existed; simply to stop their future continued distribution, that's all.

For decades of my life, I had no one else to answer to, no one to apologize or explain myself to, no one I could ill-afford to piss off. It was a luxury, frankly, one I was always took seriously; that's why I've never run external ads here at my personal site, for example, not even tiny little Google text ones, even when I had 30,000 readers a day, because I've loved over the years not having a single person in my life I've had to answer to. But that all changes when you suddenly become a muckety-muck at a tech company; suddenly you do have to play nice, do have to worry about whether you piss off random strangers or not.

It's something I think about a lot these days; of what exactly I want this personal site of mine to be now, of what kind of personal life I want to lead now. Let's face it, I'm already catching an unavoidable amount of flack about my life at this early date, small right now but undoubtedly bigger and bigger as we grow more successful, simply for being bisexual, something I can't even help. I wonder a lot about these things right now, of how much of this flack I want to continue to encourage, how much of it I could discourage simply by not talking about it publicly, and whether I'm being true to myself or not by not talking about it publicly. When all is said and done, I'm still a confessional human, and still a creative writer; these things are important to me, very important, and no job in the world is worth giving all of that up, as far as I'm concerned.

So yeah, some choices are self-explanatory. No more public sex with random strangers. No more drugs, besides pot, which I politically feel should be legalized, which is why I don't mind publicly mentioning that I enjoy it on occasion. No more drunken fistfights. No more drunken evenings at all, in fact, at least not while on the clock. A much closer attention to what I'm writing here, editing myself for both industry secrets and potentially offensive remarks. But then after that, what else? That's the question I'm figuring out an answer for these days. Should I pull my book about swinging from the website? Should I edit out all the statements I want to make in the future, that could in one way or another potentially offend someone? Who can I afford to piss off, and who at all cost should I avoid pissing off accidentally?

Whew, it's tough! It's easily the toughest thing I've been facing as Proper's new COO, in fact, much tougher than such silly questions as "What The Fuck Am I Doing" and "Who The Fuck Do I Think I'm Kidding" (which, admittedly, are other questions I'm reviewing on a daily basis as well these days). If I haven't made this perfectly clear yet, let me do so -- that right now, right as we speak, I am experiencing the most significant amount of stress I've ever felt in my life, the most significant amount of pressure. And when I say 'the most,' I mean astronomically more stress and pressure than I've ever dealt with before. A hundred times the pressure. A thousand times the pressure.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say this; that no matter how many books you read, no matter how many times you picture yourself in the situation, you will never fully know what it's like to have other people depend on you to pay rent, until you've experienced it yourself. My new hero Al Wasserberger, for example (see my last entry for more about him), has a number that he carries around in his head all the time; his "feed" number, that is, or the number of people who are currently dependent on his actions in order to eat. And guess what? My feed number is 9. That's nine people who don't get paid, if I fuck something up; nine people who don't make rent next month, if I screw around and miss a deadline; nine people who become homeless in October, if I make one major bad decision regarding our competitive strategy or corporate vision or marketing plan.

Yes, it's enough to make you throw up at random moments, just from thinking about it (which I've done). Yes, it's enough to make you burst into tears in public, after too much bourbon and too much talk about "monetization" this and "VC" that (which I've also done, OH, have I done). Yes, it's significantly more stress than I've ever dealt with in my life, certainly more than I was ever expecting, perhaps even too much to deal with on an ongoing long-term basis. I'm telling you right now, there's an easy way to learn why high-powered, highly-paid, middle-aged white males act the way they do; and that's to become a high-powered, highly-paid, middle-aged white male yourself.

I'll keep seeking the answers, as I always do. I'll keep experimenting by trial and error, as I always do. I'll keep making mistakes...sigh, as I always do. For now I'm giving up the random sex partners, the orgies, the heavy drugs, the pissing-off of random strangers merely because I have the opportunity to piss off random strangers. Later, probably more. I'll find a balance. I swear to fucking God, I will.