Social Media Metrics - Measuring Interactions

For all those marketers trying to figure out how the best return on marketing metrics for social media, MarketingWitz strongly recommends the Internet Advertising Bureau overview of social media marketing metrics. Good stuff.

Marketers enter the Shark Tank

Time for another reality business show. We've already seen Trump's "You're Fired" and Richard Branson gave it a show. This time it's Shark Tank, produced by Sony. Entreprenuer wannabes meet succesful entrepreneurs to pitch thier ideas. It may be entertaining, but will it paint a picture close to the reality faced by most entrepreneurs trying market their business? Here are some other blog posts about small business marketing.

New Writing and Publsihing Models - Comment on Godin

Seth Godin recently posted a comment about the need for publishing models that allow writers to benefit from their writing. With digital publising eleminating the historical barriers of printing and publishing content, anyone today can publish their thoughts and writing. (Heck, look at this blog post itself.) For the serious "professional" writer, it now becomes more challenging to stand out from the mass of citizen writers, and even more difficult to earn a living writing in the tradtional manner. Godin posits that new publishing models will evolve to allow writers to be compensated. I suggest that new writing formats may be the solution rather than new publsiing models. Perhaps a combination of both.

For those in marketing, what are the implications? Fewer copy writers? Ability to write your own copy? More or less ways to interact and communicate your brand mesage?

Newspaper vs Online Advertising - Hilarious

Marketers wondering about the future return on marketing investment between newspapers and internet advertising investments will love this hilarious interview between Mr. Colbert of Comedy Central and the head of the NAA (Newspaper Association of America). Be sure to watch through the exercise where the Colbert hands him three newspapers and challenges him find the current Dow index and the current temperature while Colbert does the same on his iPhone. Is the future of the newspaper in doubt.





http://adage.com/adages/post?article_id=135703

Economic Stimulus, Brands, and the Social Contract

Our economic woes and the ongoing efforts to stimulate the economy strike me as having some comparisons and learning for corporate brand marketers. The private sector is experiencing major balance sheet issues with tight credit markets freezing the system. While political diffferences about the form exist, nearly all economists agree that some form of governmental stimulus is necessary. In essence, the government is forming a social contract with the private sector that says that government will take a balance sheet hit (increased deficit) to feed the private sector needs for this year and beyond. In return, following the end of the recession the private sector will need to help the government improve its balance sheet by reducing the deficit.

For corporate brands, this is in some ways like brands seeking corporate marketing investment to fund brand revitalization with the promise of generating future profits for the organization. As a brand leader, think about the nature of the organizational contract that your brand is making with the company. Show the company the long term return on investment proposition that you are advocating for the brand.

Tweet Tweet Tweet...Metrics?

Lots of talk about Twitter for marketers these days. Is there a return on investment model for marketers using Twitter? Haven't seen it yet. As a tactic, it can work well as a tool to engage in the conversation with consumers about your brand and, more specifically, about issues relevant to your brand and your consumers. But is it any more measurable than pr, advertising, or other tactics? Is direct response for link activity really the way to measure the impact of tweeting acivity?

I love the innovation of Twitter as a new form of communication. As a marketer, it's as interesting as the innovation of email marketing, followed later by IM, as tools for digital communication. If you have a developed a useful metric (not platitudes, actual metrics) for measuring the marketing benefit of using twitter for brand building, I'd love to hear from you.

Yellow Pages ROMI versus Online Marketing

A new thick Yellow Pages book was dropped on my front lawn this week. The two thoughts that immediately entered my mind as I bent to pick up the book were: 1. Where will I put this huge book?, and 2. How much money have all these firms wasted? With the exception of perhaps some very local retailers, most of the money spent on ads in the Yellow Pages has been a waste. If you need a number, find it online. If you need to find an address or hours of operation, check the company website. The premium for Yellow Pages ads is just too high. If you're a samll business and want to fund an online marketing effort, cancel your Yellow Pages ad reallocate those funds.

Marketing return during slow times

As the economy continues to struggle business investment will decline, furthering the economic woes of 2008. Marketing spend will be a casualty. This need not be bad news for marketers, except for those locked into an old model where success is dependent upon size of budget. Successful marketers will be fine-tuning programs to demonstrate and expand programs with positive ROI. Not measuring return on marketing investment? What's your excuse?

Negative Advertsing in Politics versus Consumer Brand Marketing

One further comment on politcal brand marketing. See the excellent comments at http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5937.html which discusses the role and value of negative advertising in political elections versus consumer product marketing. From my perspective, the zero-sum winner-take-all nature of elections differs markedly from the consumer marketers trying to grow categories and take share from competitors in an environment where products rarely change formulas and no formal deadlines exist.

Online Marketing ROI: A Web Site ROI Mental Model

Mental models and analogies often help explain software and technology when experts are explaining solutions to business owners who are not technical experts. One of the dangers is that as technology changes those mental images must adapt to reflect the new state. For the past decade the primary mental model for the traditional web site has been a traditonal house. Thus, the use of the term "Home Page" as a point of entry to a web site, with a variety of rooms for "Visitors" to "Enter". We spend countless hours perfecting our Home page because we know that the entrance is the most important moment to make a positive impression.

The model has changed. The rapid evolution of Search as the primary method of traveling the web and the advanced use of SEO tools to drive users to pages of a site means that many visitors to web sites no longer visit the home page as the point of entry to the site, if at all. I sugges that that the new mental model in no longer the Home, but the Apartment building. Any particular visitor may visit any particular apartment (page)as the point of entry. As the site owner, all of your apartments must be optimized and prepared to make a positive impression on the visitor, and each apartment (page) must consider where you want the visitor to go after completing the visit to that page. So, maximum ROI from marketing investment in the web site must consider optimizing across the site and not simply the Home Page.

Let MarketingWitz know what you think about this updated mental model.

Marketing Benefits the Community

Today's Post is a bit of a diversion from our core topic, but still an observation of Marketing. I was in attendance at a local awards ceremony last evening where organizations were being honored for programs that represent collaboration to enhance the local community. It was great that four recipients were a collaborative client team that I've worked with, but what influenced me as I listened and learned about what various organizations were doing for the local community, was that it reinforced a fundamental belief that there is a great deal of good to done in the world. And, importantly, the marketing professionals can and do play an important role in many of these achievements. As I listened, I was encouraged by the passion and commitment demonstrated by the individuals who comprise these collaborative efforts. So, my message to everyone today is that while marketing may often be demonized and, at times may be used for less than honorable goals by less than honorable people, marketing can and is often applied for the betterment of consumers and citizens. Go Marketing!

Will brand personalization generate profit?

Interesting comments are popping up in the marketing literature regarding the advent of personalization of brands. This trend has been growing over the past several years and has become more prominent as technology permits efficient implementation of persoanalization. Jim Holbrook, CEO of eMak, summarized the shift toward personalization of brands in a recent eMak e-mail, saying "Now its about brands conforming to consumer preferences, rather than consumers being conformists." In other words, why wear an Izod logo shirt or a Nike cap, when you can personalize your blue jeans to your exact style and size, wear a personalized cologne, and create your own pizza combination (including naming and posting the pizza combination for others to view)?

As consumer marketers, this trend toward personalizing the brand experience is exhilirating because of the many marketing opportunities that it creates (can't you feel the energy of the agency creative teams buzzing on this topic?), but care must be taken to ensure that both short and long-term ROI can be generated from impact of personalizing the brand. Can it be achieved? Yes. But not in every instance. Marketers should evaluate the cost structures implicit in personalization and ensure that the consumer response will justify the operational impact. Ask whether the personalization of the brand permits the brand to command a premium in the marketplace.

Are You First In Line? Marketing during Recession

How often have you heard the question “should we increase or decrease our marketing and selling expenditures when the economy softens?” We’re in recession. The politicians may not use the word, but it’s clear that the market has slowed and growth has stalled. Today, with business orders soft for many companies, there is concern about how long the economy may be in the doldrums. The value of the dollar remains weak (and I have a trip to Paris in a month!), Bear Stearns is getting a bailout, and 8% of mortgage holders can’t make their monthly payments. Many project a protracted slowdown before a recovery. So what do you do with your marketing budget as you try to protect your profits?

You may be looking in the wrong place for the answer. The answer may well lie in the state of your balance sheet rather than your income statement. We’ve all seen it: sales are soft and in order to achieve our net profit for the fiscal year we reduce expenses. When sales soften, marketing and advertising budgets are among the first to go. It’s the easiest, least painful expense reduction in the income statement. It typically means the fewest reductions in labor costs as well. At the same time (how often have you heard this?) business leaders will say “I know I am mortgaging future sales and wish we could have kept our marketing spending at current levels. I wish we could spend even more.”

Take a look at your balance sheet. The answer to your approach to marketing and sales spending during this soft economy may be answered, in part, by the health of your overall business as indicated by your assets and liabilities, not your revenue and annual profit lines. If the economic slowdown has strained your existing capital resources and you’ve taken on additional debt burdens to fund your operations or growth plans it may make sense to hold back on marketing and sales expenses. But if you’ve been taking care of business and your balance sheet remains relatively healthy despite a near-term slowdown, and if you believe the economy will eventual begin to heal, accelerated (or at least maintaining) marketing spending may be an advisable strategy.

Why? As the market turns and returns from negative growth businesses will experience increases in orders and production requirements, inventories will build, labor requirements will begin to increase and the flow of dollars through the economy will increase. Whether your business delivers goods and/or services to consumers or businesses, those customers will begin to increase demand for your needed product. You need to be first in line when that demand occurs. You need to be positioned so that the customer reaches out to you to meet that need at the very moment that they are ready to return to the market. Be prudent, but stick with your customers through the tough times and they will stick with you through the good times.

Marketers talk of being first in “mind share”. You want to be in position to be the first among your competitors to be contacted. Better yet, you want to be in contact with your customers when they recognize their need to place an order. If you’ve taken care of your balance sheet, now may be the time to use efficient, effective marketing strategies to tighten relationships with your customers.

Are you first in line?

If this was interesting, take a look at Seth Gdin's comments about how to craft your story during a recession.

Marketing Metrics - The Old and The New

As the year comes to an end it is a good time to ponder what is old and what is new. My previous post focuses on what is new, looking at some of the top marketing trends for 2008. Today I want to make a brief comment about making the distinction between the old and the new.

I read an a recent article in Chief Marketer which discusses "a new way to allocate marketing resources". The article focuses on an excellent description of an approach that suggests three key stages of marketing optimization: 1. Campaign optimization, 2. Contact optimization (using predictive analysis on your customer data to optimize communication over a business cycle), and 3. Market Mix optimization (correlating sales data with marketing efforts across the enterprise). The approach outlined makes sense, but is it really new? Haven't marketers been pursuing the Holy Grail of market mix optimization for more than 40 years? The theoretical approach isn't new. It's old. What is new is the advancement of technology, allowing more sophisticated databases, data anaysis and insight development. The theory and the stages aren't new, our improving capabilities to achieve them are.

Top 10 Marketing Trends - Another List for 2008

Everyone's got to have one. Here's mine. It's brief.

In no particular order, watch these trends in 2008:
10. Mobile Marketing. We're still in the experimentation mode. Look for more advanced promotional marketing, and movement beyond the test and learn stage. Cellfire has been doing some cool promotions - I tried it just to prove to my teenagers that I could download a coupon on my cell and get a free burger...

9. Green. Continued enthusiasm for a green world. See earlier post on Sustainability and the Spiral of Expectations.

8. Creativity. It's time to get creativity back in our marketing programs. Not just great creative (the art) but creativity as marketers, bringing new approaches and ideas to the market. There's so much untapped potential with the capabilities marketers have today versus just a few short years ago. Let's make s--t happen!

7. Investment Thinking. Marketing measurement is ready to hit the mainstream and move beyond lip service. Of course, this is a theme of this Blog so of course I believe this to be true. It's not that creativity doesn't matter - it matters a lot. But as a means to an end, and the end must be measurable.

6. Mass Is Dead. We've all heard it. It's true. The writer's strike, if it lasts, will be the proof. No one will miss network or even major cable shows after a while.

5. Direct is Alive. Online or offline, direct connection with consumers is where the action will be. The ability to converse with your customer in a 1:1 opt-in world is like finding a haystack full of needles.

4. Integrate. Integration of marketing processes into the selling process. Integration of all marketing element from strategy through execution, across media, web, promotion, packaging, etc.. It's all about marketing systems. Connect the dots so it all makes sense, then measure every step.

3. Narrowcast. Such a cool trend. Micro-media networks are like micro-breweries. You may not always like the taste, but you have to experience them. Look for targeted messaging to grow rapidly as networks expand and begin to appear in places you've never thought of -- how about your local bank or dry cleaner?

What, no #2 or #1? I told you I'd try to keep it short. And leaving out #1 and #2 might spark your own creativity. What else will happen in 2008?

Brand Paradigms Harming CMOs?

There is a very thought provoking article recently published on Brand Channel, titled "The End of the Master Brand" which challenges the core paradigms that brand marketers have used to organize thinking about brand portfolios for the past 20+ years. Going beyond a critique of brand architecture as we know it and a suggested alternative way to view portfolios, the article suggests that the forced structure of brand architectures alienates marketers and may inhibit marketers from gaining a seat at the C-Level strategic table. Do you agree? I think that may be going a bit far, but it certainly raises an interesting question about whether force-fitting paradigms is harming strategic marketers, and we know that average tenure of CMOs is remarkably short. Linking those two thoughts - perhaps there is more here than meets the eye.

Tale of 2 Books - Marketing Metrics

I read two books this month, both focused on metric marketing issues. The first was "Return on Marketing Investment" by Guy Powell. The second book was "Measure What Matters" by Laura Patterson of Vision Edge Marketing. While both authors share a common goal of guiding CEOs and CMOs to measure marketing more effectively to achieve desired outcomes, the two authors approach the topic in decidedly different manners. Powell argues that marketing investment should be evaluated like any other business investment - calculate the expected return on various marketing investments and compare the returns against defined hurdle rates. Apply high hurdle rates for more risky investments such as advertising versus more known marketing tactics such as direct marketing. While Powell's approach is logical and the quantitative model mathematically correct, he fails to fully address an effective way to set hurdle rates or how to effectivey define expected returns on new marketing efforts, other than to say that the hurdle should be higher for higher risk or less known programs.

In comparison, Patterson breaks the role of marketing into three core performance areas that link to business objectives: acquisition, retention, and monetization. She then proceeds to offer specific marketing metrics for each area that can be measured to determine how marketing programs contribute to these fundamental objectives. I particularly like her reference to those metrics that measure business output versus those that measure marketing activity. See my earlier comments about process v. results marketing metrics.

Both share the goal of linking marketing to business results. Patterson's book is an easier read and will be more palatable to most marketers. Powell's book is more academic and by it's very nature feels more like your Finance 101 text, yet offers relevant thinking. Read both and see what you think. Both believe in my favorite line, "Facts Find Funding"(sm).

iPhone Marketing

It will be interesting to follow the marketing of the iPhone and competitive products over the coming months. I took at look at the iPhone more than once this past week, including the first evening that it went on sale. Lots of great features, although my wife calls it just another gadget. It's pricey, but it should be as a first entrant. Is is really a first entrant? I think so. The combination of multiple functions with the level of integration and the new functional features is enough to consider it new. Pricing should be at a premium to capture the demand. Scale is essential, but there has been enough (too much!) pre-launch hype to generate significant early adopter demand. Over time, will Apple bring price down to compete with other new entries? Perhaps, but I wouldn't expect that any time soon. The partnerships created between wireless providers and software developers to create competitors will also be an interesting strategic marketing scenario to watch as it unfolds.

Retail Banking Shows Us How To Brand in a Commoditized Industry

By the way, there are lots of similarities between the issues faced by the commercial printing industry and the issues faced by the retail banking industry. Retail banking is just further ahead on the curve. Banks went through a period of years in which retail banking became viewed as a commodity and “all banks are alike” so “just give me the best rates”. As much as banks tried toaster giveaways, nothing worked. As much as banks screamed “we provide great service”, nobody listened. Only in the past couple of years have banks learned that with an integrated rebranding effort they could attract new customers. In their world, they began to distribute banking access to smaller retail outlets closer to their retail customers (which is why there seems to be a bank going up on every corner!) and they began to use their retail space as selling space...that is, as a store (not just a waiting line with ropes and maybe a few chairs to wait in). Today, a contemporary bank is fully branded with visually integrated sales materials, site layout, building design and furnishings, logos, signage, advertising, and programmed digital communications in the bank - all geared towards selling and cross-selling. While retail banking is a far cry from industries such as commercial printing, it does demonstrate that the future is bright for traditional industries that can embrace technology , leverage branding concepts and adapt to changing customer needs not only in the services they sell and production processes, but also in how they communicate. Successful banks are moving away from the threat of commoditization. It can be done in other industries facing commoditization.

Sustainability and Spiral of Expectations

The "Greening" of consumable products will be subject to the same spiral of expectations described on Marketing Witz.
Marketing Witz: Marketing Witz: Spiral of Expectations. As companies race to make Green claims, consumers will increasingly expect performance in the area of environmental performance and sustainability. What today appeals to companies as a claim of competitive advantage will be but a cost of entry claim tomorrow. As consumers are increasingly educated on the issues surrounding sustainability, companies that pose by making inflated claims will be caught in the glare of consumer headlights. Companies must think and act at least one to two iterations ahead (or more!) of the curve. If a company chooses to make compelling envrionmental product claims, they must also make claims at the company level (How can the brand be environmentally friendly and support sustainability if the corporate entity cannot?) Forward thinking businesses will be aware of the spiral of expectations as applied to environmental consumer issues.