Marketing02

Analytics As WMD (Weapons of Mass Delusion)

So, it's certainly no secret that data and our ability to measure is becoming a big piece of the practice of online marketing and advertising.

The New York Times is reporting on how agencies are looking at the struggling financial services industry for mathematicians to start driving differentiation through data gathering and analysis.  That's right, your new online campaign delivered by the same algorithms of credit default swap analysis.

As the capability for us to measure every single thing about our visitors grows, even to the point where we are able to make assumptions on their interests from past web site visits and/or clicks, two things come to mind.

1. Measurement Is A Double-Edged Sword

Measurement done correctly illustrates a benchmark that provides insight into the relevance of your message and your tactic in order that you might improve the results by changing the creative or the tactic.  This includes, of course, everything from the (old school) method of just test, iterate, publish, repeat - to (as the NYT article points out) using data to optimize ads and content on the fly.   The other edge of that sword is of course that it shows how woefully wrong some campaigns are.  And, as the NYT times also points out, the culture at some advertising agencies (and I'd argue in most marketing departments) just aren't ready to "handle the truth" of how inefficent their current campaigns really are.

To address the double-edged sword - agencies (and again marketing departments) that deploy deep data usage will need to get permission to fail.  They will need to shift from a culture that uses analytics to "prove a point", and instead use analytics to "improve content".   That seems easy on paper (or rather on screen) - but it's an extraordinarily large attitudinal shift for most organizations.

Just as an example, in one of my favorite books, Call To Action, the Eisenberg brothers talked about "aiming for the gutter" on conversion rates.  So, an "industry average" conversion rate is 2% to 3%.  The Eisenbergs argue this is aiming for the gutter - and what a 2% to 3% conversion rates means is that 98% aren't converting.  The question will be how long after the agency hires the Nobel Laureate mathemetician to derive optimization strategies will clients/management teams expect to flip this.  It's just variables right?  Everything can be broken down into behaviours and measurement right?  And how long will it be until we comb through the numbers to get to a result that we like.

That brings me to my second point.

2. Analytics Can Be Wrong - Or More Accurately Mis-Interpreted

This is something I think, over time, is a bit more dangerous.  It's a trend I see with data becoming so predominant in marketing and advertising strategies - that in some instances it's not only tearing the heart out of content and creative, but actually hampering the success it's supposed to improve.  This is best exemplified in Douglas Bowman's blog post where he discusses his departure from Google.  They really did test the 41 shades of blue, and also asked him to "prove his case" that a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide.

The article in the NYT also seems to be suggesting this trend with the idea that "quantitative analysts" from the financial services industry are being hired by ad agencies in order to derive strategies for optimized marketing and advertising. 

Now, I want to be clear, I'm a marketing guy - and I suck at Math.  But I think that recent events would tell us that analytics, algorithms and data in general doesn't eliminate risk.  And, in fact, and an over-dependence on them can even fill our heads with a delusional (we can't fail) mentality to the point where now even average people NOT in bond markets have heard of a Gaussian copula function.

I've blogged before on how I believe we should be content-centric and not data-centric in our marketing strategy.  I think an extraordinarily interesting trend to follow is whether the practice of marketing and advertising will ultimately breed a new split practice of marketing data management and analysis.

I do believe in measurement, but I believe the KPI's I measure provide me a benchmark that gives me insight to continually improve my performance over time. Analytics are not a proof point that one method, tactic or piece of creative is superior to another forever.

I've personally seen landing pages designed by amateurs beat those designed by "best practices".  I've seen a call to action work wildly in 2004 and fail in 2006. I've seen great leads from a landing page that failed to convert directly, but instead came from a conversion on a secondary call to action (why do I suddenly feel like Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner).

Anyway, it's the balance of the art and science, and of the heart vs. head that makes the magic of marketing.  And, I would caution that an over-reliance on math to determine our marketing and advertising strategy is a dangerous game - and one we've already seen play out disasterously.

The Myth Of The Myths of Social Media

So, I don't know what it is - but leading up to this Memorial Day holiday I happened to catch every downer, doubting Thomas out there. 

It started with the extraordinarily odd comments by Sony CEO Michael Lynton, who claimed that he hasn't seen any good come out of the Internet.  It reminded me of that scene In Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Cameron said he hasn't seen "anything good" on his day off.

I, like Ferris did in the movie, just simply hung my mouth open... Really?  Nothing good?

Lynton has since clarified (thus continuing to insert foot into mouth) his comments saying that what he really meant was that nothing good has come of the internet...yet.   And, that if we would just add guard-rails then all the pirates would go home and the world would be a better place for Movie Moguls and Record Companies.  

Anyway, before I get off on a rant about that - I then find this short article linked from the front page of BusinessWeek.com.  Written by Gene Marks it's entitled - "Beware Social Media Marketing Myths".

In this article, Gene provides the "5 Myths" that are meant to correct how we've been "misled" by all those who are "hyping" the Social Media marketing idea.

So, you'll get no argument from me that Social Media has been hyped.  I mean, when there's talk of a Twitter TV show, you know we must be inches away from the apocalypse.

But "hyped" doesn't mean that the benefits are misleading; or that small business owners shouldn't do it. 

Now, in all fairness Gene's bio states that he's a CPA and the owner of a company that sells CRM and Financial Management tools to small businesses.  So, given that, he's of course the perfect expert to give advice on how marketers should beware the dangers of social media marketing. 

In any event, I thought these 5 myths also provided a nice base line for those looking at Social Media for marketing - and what the realities are:

So, here are Gene's Myths:

1. Social media sites are free.
Here, Gene points out that although the services are free, the resources needed to keep social sites "current" with content are, of course, not.  

So, I agree with the thinking here - and would completely agree that the costs of "effort" around keeping a social media strategy current is a real cost and should be accounted.  But that's not unique to Social Media.  Using that logic, we shouldn't try anything new.  No one (at least no one sane) is suggesting that we should devote 8 to 10 hours of our day to social media contribution - without an appropriate cost-justification.  But experimenting with social media - and trying new things is absolutely critical - especially when we're trying to do more with less.  And if we can increase the organic traffic to our site, or improve our search ranking, or start to build a community that we can foster with service - why would that not be a productive use of time?  

2. Social media sites are a great place to find new customers

Gene points out here that social networks (e.g. Facebook and MySpace) are fairly useless for finding your customers.  He advises that the "major sites" are (in his words) filled with "pimply adolescents and goth teenagers".  For Twitter he says that only "four of them actually understand what it does".  

Okay, reality check. Last I looked, there were more than 150 million users of Facebook (and that number will be outdated by the time I finish typing this sentence).  As for MySpace (well let's leave ol' MySpace out of this as they're a bit busy at the moment).  And as for Twitter - I'm just going to hazard a guess and say that since Oprah and Ashton have figured it out - that there's probably more than two others that are feeling pretty good about it.

Also, while they may be pimply and goth, the 18-34 demographic has long been one of the most sought after demographics by marketers out there. And, certainly there are companies marketing to kids younger than that.  This demographic influences more than $500 billion of annual purchase decisions.  They may not be purchasing small business CRM or financial software, but they are indeed making purchases, and they are indeed utilizing their social networks to make purchasing decisions.  I can point you to many case studies with real, monetized results.

Additionally B2B marketers are also finding creative success with Social Media. There's a wonderful case study available on Marketing Profs that talks of Serena Software's success in using Facebook to very cost-effectively drive traffic to white papers, downloads and other content marketing pieces. 

3. You need to be on all the big sites
So, here Gene says that just because the media says you must "tweet" doesn't mean you must.  In other words, you've got to find the appropriate avenue to build your community.

I don't disagree with Gene here.  Of course not all social media sites are created equal. They, and the people who use them, are unique - like your organization.  So, if you're an HR professional, looking to build communities of high-end consultants - I'm going to bet that you'll have better luck on Linked-In rather than MySpace.  But, again, I wouldn't assume.  I'm a marketer.  I'd test it.

4. Social Networking sites are for marketing

Here, Gene says this is "baloney". He maintains that "smart business owners" say that social networks are for "service".  He quotes a CEO who says that they view social networks as "a place to get closer to his customers and respond to their needs."  He continues "by providing quick and helpful service, he will foster loyalty and satisfaction leading to more sales".  

I know we in marketing go misunderstood, but why don't I just leave that one there. (sigh)  

5. Social networking is the future
Here gene quotes a few sources noting MySpace's decline in traffic, as well as the recent stat that most Twitter users quit after the first month.   And then, inexplicably, uses GeoCities to bolster his argument that these sites are ephemeral at best.

Not that it's terribly relevant, but yes Yahoo is shutting Geocities down - but it's been up (as we know it) for almost 15 years.  I'd hardly call that an argument that things on the Internet don't last.  There's so many other memes to pick on.

As for spending time on these things, this comes back to the first "myth" and that is how important it is for marketers to have the flexibility to try things.

Like it or not social networks (in whatever form they may come in - are the future).  As digital marketers we're in a transformative time. The ground is shifting beneath us and it's an extraordinarily exciting place to be.   Advising marketers - especially those in smaller businesses that need accomplish more with less - that they should "beware" trying new things because they might not succeed, or that it doesn't look like traditional marketing is just simply bad advice. 

Two years ago I detailed some of this permission to fail in an article I wrote for iMediaConnection. Social Media, may end up being a mistake for some marketing organizations. But, as Albert Einstein said: "Anyone who has never made a mistake is someone who has never tried anything new." 

Stop Being A "Data-Driven" Marketer - Part 3 of 3

In yesterday's part two of three - I outlined why I thought becoming a "content-driven" marketer was important - and the challenges of the technologies that are available to us to become this kind of marketer.  

In this last of three posts - I'm posting what a framework for this solution might look like.  Whether we as marketers assemble this from myriad solutions, or find a service that provides this holistically - these are three things that I believe are the critical points in becoming a "content-driven" marketer.

• A strategy and process for managing web content

• An effective way to derive insight and measurability for the effectiveness of that content

• Both automated and manual ways to optimize and target that content for our constituents

Let's look at each:

The Content Management Process

To solve the web content management challenge, there are literally hundreds of choices, from Open Source solutions to full, enterprise-class content management solutions. In short, any professional WCM system can manage web site content. However, choosing a WCM as an easy-to-use interface for managers to update the web site provides only a partial online marketing solution. To fully realize the online marketing benefits of a WCM system marketers should employ a WCM technology strategy that focuses on how the web site will be an online marketing engine. To this end, marketers should consider a WCM that:

• Focuses On SEO. At the most basic level, marketers should be able to easily change the content on their web pages to add, change and optimize keyword densities to correspond to their chosen core keywords for those specific pages. Ideally,marketers should consider web content management solutions that give them full control over all aspects of meta data including the ability to publish XML sitemaps for Google.

• Easy creation, editing and managing of landing pages & microsites. Launching a new micro-site or landing page program should not be a huge IT intensive project but rather a small, lightweight project to design, implement and roll out on a frequent basis. A recent Marketing Sherpa study found that marketers received a 40%+ increase in conversion rate by constantly testing and tweaking their landing page content.

• Content Marketing. In the Aberdeen Group study that I mentioned before, it was determined that best-in-class online marketers (those who achieve greater than 100% return on marketing investment) update their site once a day or more. Producing a large amount of expertise content is critical to transforming an online brochure into an online marketing engine.

And perhaps the most critical trend in todays online marketing content management arsenal is the ability for online marketers to manage content beyond the bounds of their web site. More than ever, micro-sites controlled by divisions, third-party web sites, social networking sites, email campaign management systems, directories and banner ads are all being driven by the online marketer. The content that resides beyond the bounds of the web site is often outdated, inaccurate or (at worst) impossible to change.

Capturing And Measuring Data

The marketing “brochure site” has seen somewhat of a resurrection over the last two years. The web site is certainly the destination for the online marketer employing Search Engine Marketing strategies (both SEM and SEO). But it has also become the destination for deeper content, as well as measurement, against other tactics as well – including email campaigns, print and even television.

In 2008, Beagle Research Group published its paper “Marketing Finds Its ‘A’ Game” – which concluded that lead management/nurturing programs – and closed loop marketing accomplished three things:

• Kept the sales process moving – by tracking leads and being able to know where they are in the sales funnel and maintaining communication

• Reduced costs – by determining the most effective campaigns and “tagging” leads by those campaigns – thus being able to track leads from click to close.

• Improved lead quality – by being able to more effectively target leads to the appropriate sales teams at the right time – as well as identify “soft” buyers as well as “hard” leads and have a more-informed sales process about what the prospect is interested in

But this goes even beyond simple lead management. Other extraordinarily valuable data is coming into the marketer’s web site, and isn’t currently being captured. Consider:

• Content that’s being generated by users of the web site – that’s currently going unused, ignored or just isn’t re-generated because the ability to capture it isn’t available. Or because the method to capture that data is being handled by a third-party web site or blogging tool.

• Ratings or polls that can be used as data to formulate marketing strategies and tactics – or even additional content to be published out to the web site.

• Data that lives beyond the bounds of the web site. Content from social networking sites, blogs, or third party feeds that can be pulled in and re-published to the web site – measured – and republished as static content so that it actually benefits the web site from a search engine standpoint

Content Optimization – Manage, Segment and Target

As an online marketer, it’s a pretty safe bet that your consumers are overwhelmed with information. When your prospects are searching for a solution – it’s not only that they have many more choices – it’s that even among the choices they have, the staggering amount of information available makes it hard to digest.

In short, the technology that has made it easy for us as marketers to publish anything and everything, has made it more difficult for the consumer to find what’s relevant to them.
In order to engage an online audience – you’ve got to optimize content to be relevant for their needs. As a marketer you’ve got to identify which calls to action, which content is going to compel a prospect, customer or partner to act. In short, you’ve got to be able to use all the data and analytics you’re tracking from your web content to optimize that content for your users.

Certainly, the most prevalent example of this is A/B Testing and Multivariate Testing.  But beyond the control you have managing and publishing specific offers; this same philosophy should drive other elements of your web content. In short, take the welcome banner message on your web site. If it’s a known visitor – perhaps it should be targeted to an aspect of that visitor that you know – “welcome back, if you’re interested in trips abroad, click here…”

Putting It All Together

In the end, there are three fundamental components of online marketing; Strategy, Platform and Insight. The technology platform is a promise; a potential to leverage web content, measure its success and optimize it to facilitate a compelling, engaging conversation with prospects and compel them to become customers.

But a platform, just like any other tool, is just a more efficient way of doing something. A web content management tool is just a simpler and more efficient way of managing content. Analytics and conversion metrics are just a more meaningful way of aggregating traffic. And optimization tools are just more efficient ways to refine your message based on those analytics.

The key to fueling the platform is insight. Insight is more than just data. Its the interpretation and application of analytics into a process that continually feeds upon itself transforming the online marketer over time into a finely sharpened success generating machine.

In HD Marketing 2010: Sharpening the Conversation a study produced by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the authors pointed out the convergence of technology and advertising is changing the landscape. In order to stay competitive, the marketer must adapt and change and know which capabilities to keep in-house and which is better managed by external partners.

Todays digital marketer struggles with a seemingly conflicting set of expectations vs. capabilities. The expectation for proof and ROI is coupled with a desire to engage and converse. We can measure and test everything including (as Google did) the 41 shades of blue on a web page. We lament the lack of scientific templates or more precisely maps - that we can simply follow to achieve success; but also strive for the unique, creative message that will differentiate our product or service. As being data-driven becomes more and more pervasive in our lives the yin and yang balance between the art and science of marketing seems to become more imbalanced.

However, there is an ancient Chinese proverb that says a crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind. And so, we now find ourselves riding that wind. I believe that if we move from being "data driven" to being "content driven" we will find that wind at our back.

Stop Being A "Data Driven" Marketer - Part 2 of 3

In yesterday's post, I outlined some of the ideas about becoming a "content driven" marketer.   But why is it important? 

The function of digital marketing is in a crisis. The same technology that enabled us to become more efficient has now flattened our world to the point where every person with an internet connection manages web content and interacts with digital marketing.   And, to that end, consumers are overwhelmed by information and are becoming inured to it. As digital marketers, we find ourselves struggling to keep up with the furious pace of technology; both the myriad ways to get our message out and the ways to manage the process. And, with margins shrinking, and the capability of measurement growing, we have to achieve more with less while we measure less of more.

From a technology standpoint - here is our challenge:

Existing Solutions Are Too Big, or Too Specialized:

Enterprise Marketing Suites Are Too Big For Most Of Us:  These expensive marketing resource management (MRM) applications are large and intensive and usually require an extraordinary amount of IT Support. Additionally, they offer virtually no web content management capabilities, aside from managing digital assets and (in some cases) some landing page capabilities.

Content Management Solutions Lack Real Marketing Expertise: Most web content management solutions lack focus on web marketing.  I mean let's be honest - we spend most of our time either fixing the CMS, trying to make it work with our newly designed web site, or just throwing up our hands and living with what we have.

Lead Management Solutions Lack Any Web Content Expertise: A number of lead management and lead nurturing applications are available to offer analytics on the "who" is visiting a web site offering the ability to tag qualitative content data on the visitor, their interests and campaign success. These solutions usually emanate from the e-mail space and focus their lead management capabilities there. Once integrated, these solutions can provide insight across the entire web content repository but again, without content management it means either no ability to make a change, or a large technology project to integrate a web CMS.

Analytics Vendors Approach The Solution Too Late: Analytics vendors have certainly become popular with online marketers over the years measuring web traffic from the aggregate level. Some even offer solutions to optimize content based on business rules or analytics. The challenge with Analytics Vendors is, like the Lead Management Solutions, they dont empower the online marketer to change the message holistically. And, unlike the Lead Management Solutions most don't add the qualitative who as an individual, rather than the who as an aggregate, is visiting the web site. They dont capture content or allow the marketer to manage content based on those analytics functions.

So in order to solve all of these challenges, online marketers must piece together solutions from all of these vendors. Typically, they choose a WCM (web content management) solution for managing their web site, and/or micro sites. Then, they choose an email and/or lead management vendor to handle their lead nurturing and conversion metrics solutions and they choose a web analytics vendor and/or an optimization vendor to handle global site analytics and content optimization. Since each of these solutions can be large technology projects integrating them together proves to be difficult and expensive. The result is that many marketers are simply doing the best they can with what they have.

Marketers need a new type of framework to close the loop on managing an online marketing engine. They need new, cost-efficient capabilities from a suite of tools that enable both a technology platform and the insight to fuel it.

In tomorrow's post (the last of this series), I'll try and outline what I think that framework looks like.

Stop Being A "Data Driven" Marketer (Part 1 of 3)

So, last week I spoke at Chris Brogan's Inbound Marketing Summit.   The title of my talk was "Content Management - Bringing Sexy Back".  Okay, yeah, I was pandering a bit - but what do you expect - I was one of the last guys and I wanted to make sure there was at least a few butts in the seat. 

The theme of my talk was really about why I think it's time we should stop being a "data driven marketer".  I don't think it's hyperbole to say that there's been alot of noise about being "data driven" and "ROI" and "using analytics to drive our strategy".  There are even vendors that have centered their messaging around this idea.   And, today there's a great article in Ad Age by Jonathan Salem Baskin on this very topic. 

So, this post is the first of three (over the next three days) - where I'm hoping to at least bring the idea of being a "content driven marketer".  In short, I'd like to humbly suggest bringing some creativity back into the yin and yang balance of our strategy.

The danger of approaching online marketing from a purely statistical point of view is best summed up by baseball player Bobby Bragan. When commenting on those in baseball that rely too heavily on percentages, he said "say you were standing with one foot in the oven and one foot in an ice bucket. According to the percentage people, you should be perfectly comfortable."

Being a purely data driven marketer has similar perils. It only allows you to measure what you have and not empower you to do anything about it. Data without insight are just statistics more dangerous for what they dont say, rather than what they do.

Rather, in todays online marketing landscape marketers need both the insight and the tools to help them bring prospects into the measurement in the first place. Marketers need a solution that helps create, manage and optimize their creative and deliver more and more success into their organization. In short, analytics delivers efficiency. Content, and the ability to optimize that content, delivers growth.

The importance of content, and the importance of managing it well, is starting to be recognized with the growth of landing page optimization, content segmentation strategies, and certainly web content management. In Maximize Business Results Online: How Web Content Management Technology is Transforming Digital Marketing, the Aberdeen Group found that 70% of all the businesses they interviewed placed content optimization and distribution of online content as a high priority in 2009.

However, managing content, without the ability to measure the success or failure of that content falls just as short as having the ability to measure without the ability to do anything about it.

Interactive marketers need a solution that accomplishes all of this. A Content Marketing hub should help the marketer manage their content no matter where it lives including their web sites, micro-sites, landing pages, search, email and social media. It should help them capture and manage conversions such as leads or other user generated data. And, finally it should provide for the ability to help optimize the content based on those measurements.

Solutions to do select pieces of this exist today but are a bit like the quintessential committee charged with building a horse and ending up with a camel. No one solution offers these capabilities armed with both the platform and the insight to assist the online marketer who still feels overwhelmed. So, even the online marketer who wants to assemble this solution will be faced with a large, unwieldy technology project.

The idea for this type of online marketing hub technology has been floated for a few years but hasnt really been realized. The reason for this is because it is most often associated with a marketing resource management, marketing automation, or more recently site analytics solution. Many of the MRM and Web analytics vendors extol the promise of success by putting data as the centerpiece as a data driven marketer. However this is a bit of red herring because being a data driven marketer only makes sense if you have something to measure. Where is the online marketing hub technology and service that both delivers data to the marketer, and simultaneously enables them to have insight and, most importantly, manage and optimize the content that drives success

In the next post, I'll explore what this technology and service might look like.

Day Two Of The Inbound Marketing Summit

So, settling in just after lunch here at the Inbound Marketing Summit.   It was a little weird that the lunch was identical to yesterday - but hey, brand consistency is a good thing right?

Today's sessions were really fantastic.  Paul Gillin started the day out - really talking about the democratization of media - and how the main stream media was really going the way of the dodo.  Very interesting talk - especially when he talked about how journalists are building brands that are creating the "sense of discovery" that old media has said would be missing from new media.

John Battelle then gave a great talk - that he admited was normally a 45 minute extravaganza of video and interweb surfing.  But the gist of the talk was really interesting - especially one slide that he says he's been using for 15 years, showing how humans interface with machines - and we're now at the "tipping point" of that interaction.   He asks the question - what's next - very effectively and says we're just at the beginning of something "profound".

Paul Gillin then moderated a couple of other panels - which were really interesting.

You can certainly follow the Tweet Stream here.

My talk is up at 3:50 PM - and will go to 4:05... Seems short - but honestly it kinda works.  The short attention span theater thing is really interesting.  I'll certainly be doing alot of what's going on (repeating the theme of content, marketing, social media etc...) but hopefully I'm providing somewhat of an interesting angle on it.

Overall - great conference and we're glad to be a part of it.

Day One At The Inbound Marketing Summit

We're really happy to be participating at Chris Brogan's Inbound Marketing Summit.   So far the best presetnation was David Meerman Scott's presentation on content marketing - and how developing original, creative content and innovative ways of using it is driving success for marketers.  

He also brought out one of the more humorous pieces which was the "gobbledygook" scale - which he ran through the Dow Jones service - and found tens of thousands of the "gobbledygook" we all have in our marketing and sales content (guilty as charged - we're now working on it).

Having said that, I've counted at least 6 speakers who are telling me to "fish where the fish are" and  yes, I do understand that "listening" is the first part of building a community.

So far, so great.  If you're around for the conference, stop by and say hello.

A Modest Marketing Proposal: 5 Ways To Ensure Failure Is An Option

Well - how did your first quarter end up?

There's certainly been alot of talk over the last three months about the economy, and its effect on marketing teams - and ultimately our sales efforts.   If you're anything like me, your email box is full of notes from people telling you how to make the most out of this economy.   I oughta know - I've even offered a few myself.

But I've been doing some research for a project - and in combination with a few other things - it really struck me that there's a few things we can do now to really ensure that we fail.  Yeah, there I said it.  I think it's time we just gave up - and really kept our head down till this whole economy, recession thing blows over.  I think we should just wait with our hand out until we get our bailout.  Sounds like a plan?

I mean this whole internet thing is just a fad right?  Like CB Radio, and Laser Discs before it.  This is the time when we make sure that we close up our doors and wait till it gets better.  If we just sit back and watch - we will really guarantee that the recession and the economy will just blow over.   So, because it's the new quarter - and maybe we can take a quick collective breath - here's a few "modest proposals" for you to ponder:

#1 Stop Updating Your Web Site & Landing Pages
I mean really - our web site performed well when we launched it.  The content is great.  We finally got to number 162 on Google for our keywords - let's not mess that up.  I mean The Aberdeen Group just released a study  where they interviewed 300 businesses - and they split them into three groups.  The first group were what they called "Best-In-Class". These companies were averaging 146% average return on their marketing investment.  The other two were, as you might expect, lower.  These "best-in-class" companies updated their web site once a day or more.  Once a day or more?  Man, that sounds like a lot of work.  Further, Marketing Sherpa relates tweaking landing pages to a 40% increase in conversions.  Man - even more work.  And, man, I just read that Marketing Sherpa report - and whew was it long...  I mean if you're looking for ALOT of information you can purchase it here. 

#2 Don't dive deep into social media - It's a fad
Some experts like the IAB are saying in their Outlook 2009 Report that Social media now exceeds television in its reach - and it's only growing.  But let's face it - who's got time to really worry about whether our brand is being discussed across Twitter and Facebook.  And, really, even though it's free (other than our sweat equity) do we really want to go to the effort of creating a Facebook presence, or encourage our teams to start connecting with a community.  I can't even get my college friends to stop tagging me with toga party pictures. I mean - really.  I just re-read Seth Godin's Tribes book and just can't be bothered to even try.

3. Stop experimenting - Now's the time to play it really safe
In today's market it's best to make sure you're putting your head down and letting everybody fail around you.  You'll be so much better off - really.   Stop trying small marketing experiments that may teach you something about your audience.   And, make sure you don't take the time and effort to implement good measuring techniques - because you really need to wait until the market turns around before you invest in a good way to measure your marketing success.  After all, there's no ROI in investing in a measurement capability now.. Right? 

4. Make sure that you don't call your customers right now.
No matter what you do - don't try to engage your customers for new products and services right now.  I mean never-mind that the CMO council found that a third of its respondents said that "customer insight and retention" were among its top executive mandates.  That's only a third... That's less than two thirds right?    All these customers are feeling just as bad as you.   So, it's best to make sure that you just let that sleeping dog lie and make sure you're not engaging.  Even if you're development teams are launching new products or services - it's best to just wait until the economy turns before you start trying to encourage and upsell your existing customers. 

5. Let your Web site just be a brochure - People will find you.
Whatever you do, don't put the effort into transforming your web site into an online marketing engine - and develop the capability for closed loop marketing.  I mean, come on... Closed Loop?  That sounds so - closed and Web 1.0'ey.... Never mind that Aberdeen in their Customer-Centric Marketing study found that companies that adopt a closed loop process are more than three times likely to generate a greater than 50% return on marketing investment.  Now is the time to make sure your just maintaining the status quo.  Don't spend on anything - especially on improving your web site.

In short - we should just recognize that anything we do now will just have to be re-done once the economy gets better.  So, really, why should we put the effort in now - especially when budgets are so tight and the the executives are looking at marketing with such a critical eye.  I mean didn't somebody say that "flat is the new growth"

Anyway... I was going to make this a top ten list - but I just quite frankly couldn't muster the effort.

Hope this is helpful for you!!

Manifesto As Marketing

So, today I was asked for my opinion for an ECommerce Times article on the the Open Cloud Manifesto (and all of the surrounding hubbub)  - and I can't help but be reminded the family vacations I would take when I was a kid. So, picture us - traveling down the highway in the giant, wood-paneled station wagon. And instead of me and my sister in the back seat - it's Microsoft and IBM/Sun.   IBM is sticking their finger just inches in front of Microsoft's face and taunting "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you!!"

If you're not familiar with the Open Cloud Manifesto - it's basically a six-page statement of principles calling for anyone who is going to offer cloud services type technology services to keep the services as open as possible and encourages data portability as well as interoperability for customers to switch service providers.

After actually reading the Manifesto I have to say my conclusions are that it's:

A) thankfully short
B) woefully short on details
c) pretty clear that it's directed squarely at Microsoft's plans in cloud computing.

So, this is definitely an example of "manifesto as marketing" - where a smart marketer proposes something that sounds like an invocation of world peace in order to drive a differentiating set of examples for their product.

With that I did a bit of research and found some other interesting examples.  There was the Microsoft (irony duly noted) proposed "Microsoft At Work" proposal for standards in the way that codes and messages would be displayed on office machines.

Then, of course there's the recent Facebook "bill of rights" on privacy - which uses its recent dust up over ownership of content as a way to seem even more open and "Web 2.0" than ever before.

And, of course there is Google's OpenSocial proposal for standards across web widgets and social networking applications.  This last one, I think you could safely argue is more open than most of these kinds of proposals.

And I'm sure as marketers we can all remember proposed standards in Web Analytics, Online Advertising and on and on.  The point is that while certainly the idea of portability and interoperability in Cloud Services is a good one; we should be mindful that there are actually very few of these "manifestos" that really end up meaning anything in our day to day dealing with technology and how it will help our business.

Google Clarifies Issues Around Behavioral Advertising & I'm Still Mostly Yawning

So, Google has clarified some of the privacy issues around its "interest based" advertising model - especially as it pertains to publishers using Adsense. 

I blogged last week about this and why I thought this wasn't really going to be as much of a game-changer as some people are predicting.

Rather, I think those that are concerned will opt out or use plugins to avoid being tracked.  In the FAQ blog posting, they clarify that interest based ads "will compete in the same ad auction as contextually- and placement-targeted ads" and that they will "continue to show only the ad(s) that will generate highest earnings."

This is the most interesting thing to me as a marketer - and actually makes things a bit more interesting.  I'm going to be very interested to test some "interest" based ads vs. the traditional search ads and see which ones perform better. 

The last time I did this was when Google had the Pay Per Action - which was (to put it technically) yukky.  They've since discontinued this.  Stay tuned... It will be very interesting to see if all this privacy hype was misplaced...