Leveraging the Web for Off-line Media Buys
Jan 30, 2008 by Jake Matthews | Analytics, Business, Web DevelopmentI get angry when I see companies buy pricey media such as print, television, radio or outdoor and they don’t take advantage to tie that media buy to the web in an effective way. What do I mean by this?
Take for example a large billboard on the side of the highway that has a message about a specific offer from a company, and the only web address displayed is the company’s main domain name eg, www.company.com I feel that this is a wasted advertising opportunity to have just your main domain name listed. Much in the same way Danielle pointed out when off-line link-bait is often not leveraged properly on-line, targeted messages, spaces, interactivity and landing pages should be created and matched on-line for off-line media buys.
I believe that every advertising buy should have a targeted message behind it and accordingly specific media creatives and goals to go along with it.
Recently I found a couple of examples of companies that are tying print and TV to web pretty well – Marathon Oil, Prudential, Fidelity, Chrysler and Burger King:
Marathon Oil print ad:
Prudential print ad:
www.prudential.com/retirementincome
Fidelity print ad:
www.fidelity.com/rolloverleader
Another company that’s doing it well from Television spots to the web is Chrysler with the Jeep brand. They have an interesting campaign which features singing animals having fun around the 2008 Jeep Liberty. The TV spot is very catchy and they use the web URL www.jeep.com/sessions to bring visitors into the site and have an interactive view of their Jeep Liberty. A truly great and targeted campaign.
A couple of reasons to have specific landing pages for these TV, print and off-line campaigns are as follows:
- targeted messaging.
- better interactivity and audience response.
- higher conversion.
- tighter tracking, analytics, and return on ad spend (ROAS) information.
When are some good times to use specific URL’s and landing pages for off-line advertising and marketing?
- Trade show exhibitor – if you are spending thousands to go to a trade show and display as an Exhibitor, you want to make sure you can track and manage those leads. Create a specific landing page for booth visitors to follow up with your company and put that on your print at the show. For example, if I am a chemical company and I exhibit at a scientific show in Boston, why not create a campaign and page around www.chemicalcompany.com/bostontrade2008 and have targeted lead/follow up forms on that page so that you can channel and track leads. A special offer always works well.
- New product launches – with a new product launching, take advantage of the internet’s great interactive media capability. Don’t just send the traffic to your company’s main homepage and let all the traffic from a targeted message be lost in the rest of your site.
- PR campaigns – drive traffic to a specific message on your site and as above, leverage the web’s interactivity to track response from users.
In some cases a campaign is worth creating an entire micro-site. An example of this is Chrispin Porter + Bogusky’s creation of WhopperFreakout for Burger King.
When using off-line media, don’t be afraid to match the on-line component pound for pound. The results will astonish you, and your target audience will be that much more pleased and responsive!
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In the olden days a sociologist had to find people and recruit them to fill out long arduous forms. Today there is Facebook, and these sociologists are finding out that people generally love to talk about themselves. It is fun to talk about my interests, social networks and life!
Check out the New York Times article ‘On Facebook, Scholars Link Up With Data’. I would imagine this is being used in many other ways and will be being used more frequently in the future.
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Harness the Power of the Internet: People Power!
Jan 25, 2008 by Patrick Winfield | E-commerce, Search Engines, Social Networks
I remember when I first experienced the power of the Internet. I was in middle school hanging out with a friend. We decided to use the computer in my father’s office and got online to chat. Of course that led to starting trouble within the chat room and getting kicked out, but the feeling of connecting (even if it was very juvenile and idiotic) was lasting.
Well both myself and the internet have evolved since then (thankfully). We are in the midst of Web 2.0. I mean, look at who Time’s person of the year in 2006 was- it was me, or was it you?
Now you can sell your handmade t-shirts to someone in California, post a video so millions can see it, raise money for a certain candidate or cause or even connect with a classmate that now lives in Boston.
Lets look at few of these powerful aspects, some general and specific, of being online and postulate on where it is all going.
Facebook and MySpace. Social sites are amazing! They allow you to connect with potential clients, friends, 
employers or employees. Careers have been launched through MySpace with relative quickness, something that would have taken much longer through more traditional means.
Personally I have connected with some friends from school over Facebook and learned of developments within their lives as well as forging new venues and relationships for my work.
Digg. A giant content source! Easily the one and only place you need to go to find out what
is happening in your area of interest. Or simply stop by the homepage and see what is hot around the world. This has brought issues and ideas to the forefront and continues to prove that the masses will be heard. I am always inspired when I read through the Science section as well as Images. With the amount of people submitting content and rating you don’t get anything but the best.
StumbleUpon. I find new interesting sites and content all the time with this tool, right from the comfort of my browser tool bar. This social tool was built for discovering sites that are recommended by your like minded users. Jake just posted a great article about harnessing the power of local searching within StumbleUpon.
The site allows for networking and the toolbar allows for finding and discovering new great content on the web. This is a powerful combination of Internet function and social web.
YouTube. This community has amazing potential for sparking ideas and movements. Some very passionate people are creating videos not just for songs or commercials, those are great too, but for change and doing things many newspapers or journalists wouldn’t dare do.
Helping others is important. Do Some Good Now and Freerice.com have unique approach’s to the donation type of site.
For each word you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
Google. Where would we be without it? I have used it maybe 30 times today alone. The 
ease of differing to the search engine when a question or a need arises, a debate or thought has us stumped is amazing.My one friend, not the trouble-maker, would say “lets ask the magic box!” whenever we would get into a disagreement on something-anything. We don’t even need to own a dictionary or an encyclopedia these days.
Improving on our personal lives is another area where the web has excelled. Sites like Lifehack.org, ririan project and Zen Habits all provide information and resources to being more productive and improving upon our lives.
With so many personal opinions and voices out there, more able to reach a wide and diverse audience, we are having to rely less on corporate news and bloggers are being taken seriously. Blogging just may be the single best way to communicate and interact online. Public speaking for Internet. And did you know blogging is good for your health?
This may seem obvious, but with the ease and simplicity to buy products and services online more people are able to benefit. The elderly are especially beneficial because of mobility and health issues that may otherwise not allow them to drive their car 12 miles to the mall.
Consumer information and reviews is also a valuable addition to the shopping experience. The ability to find reliable reviews and ratings from like minded people makes your decisions and shopping more informed and accurate.
Sites like ebay and Craig’s List also create a huge opportunity for people to connect and exchange, sell or simply get together for events and activities. I have personally bought a good amount of film from Ebay and for a lot cheaper than if I would have bought it directly from a store. I also sold a computer and a couch using Craig’s List.
This is one of those resources that has tremendous value to educators and the arts. Access to information and images is so helpful to progress of education and culture. Some sites have vast amounts of additional resources such as podcasts, videos and photography in addition to text.
Look at one of my favorites, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. You can view some of the exhibits and learn more with supplemental information.
With the progresses being made everyday within the fields of technology and social intelligence it would seem like brighter days are in our future online. There are many pitfalls and predators on the Internet and I would love to see more accountibilty put in place for users. Viruses, pornography, scams and stalkers are all bad things in my opinion for the Internet simply because age is not really distinguished. SPAM is another issue altogether that makes life difficult online, not to mention clogs up your inbox daily. Some people see real value in the Internet while others see liability.
I feel that the power of having the Internet at my disposal is such People seem to want to connect and learn from each other. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertisement. As our altruistic, whether your nice because you want to be treated nicely or not, nature grows online lets hope the rest of our lives off line catch up.
Now I ask you, what do you think is the best thing going for the Internet and why?
Thank you!
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I am becoming a big fan of the organic approach to StumbleUpon (SU) and the ways you can connect with members finding like minded users in demographic and interest areas.
The StumbleUpon social tool was built for discovering webpages that are recommended by your network of friends. The site allows for networking and the toolbar allows for finding and discovering new great content on the web. This is a powerful combination of Internet function and social web.
After using SU for a long while it seems that the tool will be able to grow in its use as a localized marketing tool. And though outwardly commercial sites tend not to get a great amount of traffic (rather fail miserably) – it’s all in the approach.
SU has been tested for the value of its traffic in a number of scenarios and discussed in relevant ways over the course of 2007. At 10e20, Tamar did a very thorough review of the benefits of StumbleUpon and how it can be used for business as a whole. Dosh Dosh did a really comprehensive guide to the ways and means of SU and how one can monetize and Loren Baker spoke of fun and useful techniques to employ in SU to bounce traffic to your site.
The Paid advertising program of SU allows you to purchase Stumble visits for 5 cents per. Others have looked at the paid program and assessed it, but buying traffic from Stumble just doesn’t interest me. SU is about finding users with like-minded interests. They are there for a conversation and a dialogue to find new and interesting content, stories and information. That’s why I think the local aspects and drill downs of geography in SU can be tremendously powerful for social networking and marketing a local business. Users want to know about new things. They are there for discovery. If you show a user something local, they will get excited about it and probably talk it up. Just like with all Social Media – you get the most out of it when you put a lot into it.
So how does one leverage SU for getting local? SU allows you to go to pretty much any state and find people who are there. The way I like to think of it is like Craig’s List or any other site where you might find others who have similar interests and needs in similar locations. Except, unlike Craig’s, SU is good because it has so many great social features like viewing avatars, photos, videos and so much more that people have tagged and thumbed up.
Say for example, I’m opening a new retail store location in
State –
http://www.stumbleupon.com/state/new_york/
City –
http://www.stumbleupon.com/city/brooklyn/
Furthermore, you can drill down by gender in these city areas. That’s pretty cool targeting.
It takes work, but it could very well be worth the time spent, as you can make actual connections. After you’ve made good local connections, messaging and blogging within this audience can be tremendously powerful. Note: if you have trouble finding a state (sometimes SU’s search features are cumbersome) you can just use the (.com/state/new_york/) at the end of the URL to get where you need to go; similar action can work with city (.com/city/brooklyn/.)
As in the boutique retail example above, if for example you’re opening a women’s accessory boutique in Brooklyn, New York you may want to sort by City (Brooklyn) and Gender (Women) and begin friending these users and getting the word out about your opening, location, website and your products, by tagging and submitting your site, product images and other sites related to Brooklyn and the other users likes and interests. And, begin thumbing up pages that this group of users have submitted and showed to you. Do make sure your profile page indicates what you’re all about (your site, interests etc.). After you’ve made good local connections, using the messaging and blogging tools within SU can be tremendously powerful to engage this audience and get word out.
So not only is SU helpful for bouncing your site traffic, but you can also connect with very targeted users on a local geographic level, gender and topical interest areas to bounce your foot traffic. You may find that this social media tool can help you grow your foot traffic in a local business and get the word of mouth buzz that you need to launch something new. Who says Guerrilla Marketing can’t be accomplished online? If I were opening up a location in Brooklyn, the 2,060 users from
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The three C’s of a strong social news profile are content, consistency and contacts. If you follow these tips, your success on social news sites will become that much easier.
Reliable Sources. Make sure the blogs and news sources you’re submitting from are reliable and have quality information. Make sure they aren’t sending false information to the readers. And if you see that they might be trying to game social news websites don’t submit their content.
General viewpoint. Find a viewpoint in which the majority of the users will have interest in, or even care about. Take a look at the top submissions for the day. Those are basically the stories which most people have interest in. If you don’t find stories for all audiences, the users will either bury your story, or it will just be left unnoticed. Try thinking from a global standpoint. Does your town hockey championship really effect people half way across the world?
Large list of blogs/news sources. If you are just starting out and you want to find some good reliable blogs to submit content from, take a look at some of the top users submissions (what sites they link to.) You can also scavenge the site for links constantly making it on the homepage, and consider putting some of those sites into your RSS Reader. Also try out some of your own sites you enjoy and think have content worthy enough for social news. (Right now, I have about 200 sites which I think have worthy enough content.) In the end make sure YOU have interest in what you are reading.
Fast RSS Reader. My recommendations for RSS Readers are: for Mac Net News Wire (which just went completely free) and for Windows Feed Demon is the way to go. If you’re always on different computers an online RSS Reader would be best. I recommend Google Reader for this. Try read your feeds twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.
Submit often. Aim for about two-three quality submissions a day. That is what I have had the most success with.
Add Friends. Try find users who’s interests you have in common, or if you their posts are the same types as yours. You should then add them to your network of friends. Try interacting with these users either by a shout, a direct message or IM. This is one of the keys ways to make your profile and stories more know when you are first starting out.
IM Friends. IM (instant message) some of these friends you have added, and get to know them a bit. You can then send the odd submission of yours to them – to vote for (make sure they are okay with this.)
Vote for your friend’s submissions. Be sure you actually read the content of the story first and enjoy it. Hopefully next time that user will repay the favor by voting for one of yours.
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How to Select a Paid Search Management Application
Jan 21, 2008 by Shannon Bowden | Coverage, Pay Per Click
On Thursday, Christine Churchill, President of Key Relevance presented an informative webinar on How to Select a Paid Search Management Application.
This session presented by Search Marketing Now and sponsored by Marin Software was an excellent introduction in how to determine whether you need a third party search management application and if so, what considerations you need to make when selecting the application.
Ms. Churchill started by demonstrating that the projected growth of paid search is high. In fact, US paid search advertising revenues were $11.76 billion in 2007 and are projected to grow to $26.79 billion in 2011 (JPMorgan and Company reports “Nothing But Net”).
All indications point to paid search continuing to grow. New players are entering into the market and those involved are increasing their spend. Double digit growth is expected.
Yet – with all this growth, there are still many difficulties associated with managing PPC.
Difficulties Associated With Managing PPC
- Complexity of running paid campaigns has grown.
- Bid prices and ad positions are now longer transparent.
- Increased competition.
- Dynamic industry where change is the norm.
In the past few years, complexity has grown in PPC. The relationship between bid price and ad position has become less transparent. Now, the quality score affects the bid price and the position of the ad. Relevant ads are rewarded over less relevant ads.
The move away from transparency has made it more difficult for the PPC manager. More and more competitors are driving up the bid price, which created a tipping point where running PPC efficiently was very difficult and required a high level of proficiency.
Options for Managing PPC
Companies have many options as to how they manage their PPC campaigns.
- Train/hire in house staff
- Outsource management
- In house staff with outside consulting
- Above choices along with PPC management application.
Christine commented that as the complexity grew as noted above – companies realized that they needed trained personnel to manage the PPC. All of the above are options for your company; she says that each company needs to determine which one works best for their organization.
She then went through each of the potential options.
Train / Hire In House Staff
- Can be difficult/time consuming.
- MarketingSherpa survey (Sept. 07) found that filling in house SEM specialists was very challenging.
- Almost a third of respondents in the survey said it was very difficult to attract qualified employees.
- More difficult to fill SEM roles than filling other roles in marketing. Short supply of trained staff.
- Requires ongoing resources and commitment from company management.
- Most in house staff wear multiple hats and are pulled in many directions.
- SEM skill set portable and in demand – need incentives to keep good people.
Christine stated that if you want to make the in house staff option work for your organization – you need to support your staff in attending industry conferences and allowing them to read up on the area so that they stay current since the industry is constantly changing. The cultures of companies can make it difficult to keep good staff so management needs to be willing to provide ongoing support and resources to the internal search marketing area.
Outsource SEM
- The MarketingSherpa survey (Sept. 07) found that the number of companies getting outside help has increased in the past 12 months.
- More than half of the big paid search spenders use full service search agencies.
Churchill commented that outsourcing is a popular option for many companies. In paid search, more than ½ of the big spenders use full service search agencies. Many clients like one stop shopping and will hire for services in addition to paid search.
In House With Outside Consulting
- This is an excellent option because both sides can help each other. The inside staff can learn from the knowledge and expertise of the outside company and the outside company can have internal players to draw on for internal business information.
- The agency recommends high end tactics and strategy.
PPC Management Using Software
Churchill cautioned that 3rd party software is not the total answer. While the tools are useful – they do have limitations such as:
- PPC management is more than just bid management.
- Some PPC management software is outdated:
- Some engines incorporated dayparting and other features into their standard interface.
- Bidding games don’t work anymore with the advent of quality score in the main engines.
- One engine dominance – Google has nearly 70% of search volume.
However, there are some definite benefits to third party software:
- The software allows the marketer to be more effective.
- Saves time and simplifies management – lets you create ads, adjust bids, budgets and creatives across search engines.
- The 3rd party tools have the capability to optimize for ROI or other metrics across campaigns and provide consistent reporting across ad networks.
- They provide better performance insight by providing a better understanding as to what is working across engines.
- Keep data private.
When To Consider PPC Management Software
Christine went through many scenarios where it would make sense to invest in PPC management software:
- If running an extremely large or complex campaign.
- If running campaigns across multiple engines.
- If media spend is in excess of $50k per month.
- If you want to optimize in bulk.
- If the manager is spending more time doing the math than being creative, planning, or doing other efforts to improve performance.
- Have well defined metrics and goals.
What To Ask When Selecting PPC Management Application
Breadth of Service
- Which engines does the application support?
- Does it scale to the size and volume of my business? Is there a limit on the number of ads, keywords or changes per day?
- Is the reporting sufficient? Can it email reports? Does it generate graphs and charts? Does it track different digital media types and conversions across different engines?
Churchill stressed that these questions are important. For example, if the software doesn’t support your most important engine, then it doesn’t make sense to investigate it further. As for reporting, different managers will want different reports – make sure the reporting will meet your needs.
Features
- Does it offer features not supplied in search engine interface (i.e. dayparting for engines that don’t offer it, monitoring competitors bids, performing global campaign changes).
- Is dynamic keyword insertion supported?
- Does the tool support how you measure conversions? Are these separate conversion tracking modules?
- Does the tool include keyword generation options?
- Does application offer click fraud monitoring?
Bidding Related
- Transparency – is it a black box or is there defined logic for the bid change?
- Does the tool learn over time and automatically adjust bids?
- How does the software handle low volume tail phrases or infrequent success metrics?
- How does it hand the Google minimum bid?
Ease of Use
- How difficult is the tool to learn to use? Is training available?
- Does it provide one centralized platform to manage the account?
- Does the application provide a dashboard for top level metric tracking?
- Does the application have mature help text and online documentation?
- How difficult is it to import or export data?Can the software adapt quickly and easily for seasonal campaigns.
Maturity/Flexibility
- How long has the tool been on the market?
- What are the demographic characteristics of targeted tool user?
- Does the application stay in sync with the search engines?
- How does it handle changes made by the search engines such as when they suddenly upgrade their systems with little warning?
- Is it an online or downloadable tool?
Christine suggests that mature software tends to be more stable and have more of the features that people really need. Ask the questions above to help you determine the maturity.
Pricing and Support
- Is there a free trial to test out the application?
- What are the terms of the contract?
- What is the pricing model?
- What level of technical support and customer service comes with the tool?
- Are there service level agreements regarding the performance and availability of the tool?
- What rollout support is included?
Other Factors
- How much testing time should be allotted after initial setup to confirm that setup is correct?
- Is it a management service or tool? (For a company wanting to do it themselves, the service may be overkill. Paying for a service you may not want is an unnecessary expense. For others, a full service experienced team to handle the account may be desirable.
- Confidentiality – is the data kept private?
- Does the tool act as handcuffs? Is it easy to leave application without hurting or rebuilding the campaigns?
After reviewing everything a company should consider when selecting a 3rd party PPC management tool, Christine discussed whether PPC management software is a replacement for the human in the campaign.
Is PPC Management Software A Replacement For The Human In the Loop?
- Christine emphasized that absolutely NOT – the software is simply a way of reducing the drudgery of managing a large account – it is not a replacement for the human brain.
- It frees up the human to do more creative work such as:
- Developing and testing new landing pages and ads
- Strategizing and planning out new campaign ideas
- Focusing on the big picture instead of the minutia
The tools are a great way of removing much of the tedium of managing a PPC campaign.
- Several options exist for managing a search marketing campaign (hiring, training, outsourcing, doing a hybrid solution, all of these options and combine with PPC software).
- PPC management is more than just bid management. Bid management is just one variable of successful search engine marketing – it involves bidding, using effective keywords, creating successful landing pages etc.
- PPC management software can be an effective way to optimize a large complex paid search campaign.
- PPC management applications can save time and free account managers from the drudgery associated with managing a large campaign. This allows managers to make better use of their time, increase creativity and make better decisions.
I found Christine Churchill’s presentation to be very informative and provided the audience with excellent information to have on hand when selecting a paid search management application. I would like to thank Christine Churchill from Key Relevance and moderator Claire Schoen for another excellent Search Marketing Now webcast!
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Treating your users or audience like a human being rather than a faceless mouse clicker is crucial to any relationship online. Some sites excel in their ability to inspire and encourage a user to go deeper, feel comfortable with the experience they are about to have and possibly visit again or tell a friend.
Professional design has this effect, from the spacing of information so that each block of content is far enough apart from the other so that the eye can flow smoother- to the copy written with personality, making an audience feel as if they are understood or even better part of the conversation.
Give me options
Look at this page that I am directed to after I create an account with Flickr.com:
It welcomes me with an ‘OK, you’re all set…‘ and then suggests some pointers to help get me started as well as some recent photo submissions from users that I can investigate further.
Same thing when a Gmail account is created. I am shown some simple tips graphically and then prompted to ‘see my account‘:
Moo.com has another great example of this. When I completed an order instead of simply saying, “great your done, thanks for the order!” I am prompted to sign up for the Moo newsletter, “catch up” on the Moo blog and view what other people are doing with Moo cards on the Moo Flickr group:
Have a personality
When my order was completed and confirmed I received an email notice of the status. It wasn’t the same dry copy saying the usual stuff. Yes, all the information I needed was in there but it also made me laugh. That is great. I will be more likely to use them surely if the product meets my expectations. Look at the personality put into this automated bit of information (some information removed):
Hello patrick
I’m Little MOO – the bit of software that will be managing your order with us. It will shortly be sent to Big MOO, our print machine who will print it for you in the next few days. I’ll let you know when it’s done and on its way to you.
Remember, I’m just a bit of software. So, if you have any questions regarding your order please first read our Frequently Asked Questions
at: http://www.moo.com/help/and if you’re still not sure, contact customer services (who are real
people) at: http://www.moo.com/service/Thanks,
Little MOO, Print Robot
Tell me a story
Covering all the angles seems to be the direction that news sites are going in with regards to telling a story. Reading a recent story online at CNN I am presented with more than just a few paragraphs of the story. I can view 2 videos, look through some relevant photos and read 3 articles that deal with the same main story:
This broadens the reach of the story and allows the user/reader to learn more and become further engulfed. And this can all be done at the pace of the user, unlike a news cast on TV when it is a linear event- the internet allows for a non-linear gathering of this information.
Respect my time
Respecting a users time may require that a designer or writer sit in the users shoes. Does your events listing site have a lengthy flash animation welcoming the user each time? This may deter a parent sitting down at the home computer for the only 20 free minutes they have that night to research a weekend activity with the kids.
Cut to the chase. Give the information in the time you would want it. Bells and whistles are for New Years Eve, keep it to the essentials. Think of your work as a haiku and limit to what is important to tell the story effectively, sell the product or simply relay the information. People will thank you.
Habitat’s site for home decor had even me a bit confused for a second with their initial page. I was supposed to choose what to do next but the options are hidden initially and when I realize that I have to rollover the 3 sections to reveal the navigation I am distracted by the movement and how it hides the previous section. This, in my opinion was not needed.
The products are beautiful and the site is super clean without it. When I finally got into the site there was a good example of using Flash effectively and creatively. Photos of various rooms in a house are shown and when you rollover them (again, I would have liked it if it was obvious to me that these elements were interactive without requiring interaction to know this) you see what product it is. This is nice.
Look at Adobes page for Flash, there is a tiny bit of animation towards the bottom on this page and they sell the program! Yes, minimal use on a page is fine or full blown sites with Flash that are meant to be explored in such a way are great but knowing your audience and their needs are paramount.
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On Tuesday, Seth Godin, author of bestselling books and agent of change presented an informative session call 14 Trends No Marketer Should Ignore. This enthusiastic and informative presentation, sponsored by SEMpdx and Corvent provided a wealth of info on New Marketing.
According to the promos on this session, Seth was going to question if our marketing is out of sync. HE wants us to make the most out of today’s new marketing technologies – without making ‘meatball sundaes’!
I must admit the title of this session was intriguing (albeit a bit disgusting – a meatball sundae – YUCK!) and I was excited to find out what Seth had to say.
Seth started out by telling us that he has discovered that there is a disconnect between the people doing the work and the people writing the checks. The people doing the work recognized that it wasn’t working. They realized that the time was being wasted in meetings etc.
His book tries to combine the idea of the breathtaking opportunity when we deal with Internet marketing along with the sad side effect when people abuse the power of the Internet.
The Internet is everywhere – everywhere you go all people want to talk about is the Web and how it is impacting them. The web is an evolution – just like other evolutions like transportation, assembly line, mass marketing. He believes that right now we are in the middle of the next, possibly biggest industrial revolution. This represents a tremendous opportunity for people who understand it.
The Meatball Sundae. So, what about this term meatball sundae? He wanted to use a term that we can all use when someone suggests something you think is wrong – a meatball sundae – a meatball’s are delicious – the sundae is the fun stuff, the whip cream etc. Each one works great together – but doesn’t work so great when you mix it up.
If you are a mass marketer, you are used to making products that the mass wants to buy (Pop Tarts, Cap’n Crunch, Skippy). What made them successful is that they got good and selling stuff that people wanted no matter what type of industry. Being in the marketing, interrupting the market and selling average products for average people.
Now new marketing comes along and you want your share. Example, the Yellow Pages – one of the most popular marketing medium every invented. Good for being a directory. How come we go to Google and not Yellow Pages.com?
Another example, if I want to buy a piece of art I go to Sotheby’s. How come if I go online – I don’t go on Sotheby’s – but EBay?
TV Guide was the ultimate directory for what was on TV. How come when I go online to look for video – I go to You Tube and not TV Guide?
America Online – in the 1990s was supposed to be the winner – how come when I go online to find friends I don’t go on aolbook?
The truth is – it’s really hard for existing players to give up what they got.
The First Marketer. Godin provided an interesting example of what he calls the first marketer. We all know Wedgwood – that blue china that we know from their grandmothers. Founded by Josiah Wedgwood. He was the first marketer. It was invented by this man. Grew up in a small town in England, son of a potter, brother of a potter – knew he was going to be a potter. Wedgwood looked at the changes and he started a factory. He hired people how to do things and didn’t hire potters. He realized he needed to add value to his brand; he shipped china to the crown heads of Europe (equivalent of $2 million in today’s dollars). More people bought his stuff. He was the first one to open a showroom. He was famous for walking around his factory and if he saw something that didn’t live up to his expectations – he would smash those pieces (quality control). He understood that transportation was changing things so he lobbied parliament to build a canal by his factory so that he could ship items around the world.
It could be easy to say – that’s not marketing. That’s exactly Seth’s point. Josiah’s brother made pottery and he died poor. Josiah Wedgwood died with over $40 million (current $) in his bank account. The difference between the two of them is really simple – the difference is the pyramid.
The Pyramid. Marketers think we are the most important people (top of the pyramid) the bottom (strategy, manufacturing, customer service) exists to serve us at the top. We wait for the guys at the factory to give us something good, we sell it – we take credit when it succeeds. We’ve figured out how to take money, apply it to average stuff, and market it – that’s what marketing has been about for hundreds of years.
Godin wants to argue that being at the top of the pyramid is overrated. Anyone who views marketing as isolated from what’s being made is going to fail. There are going to fail because they don’t have something that’s worth marketing. It’s the meatballs – are coming from the bottom – from the factory. If you are going to stand still and wait for the meatballs to arrive – you are going to fail – because you are going take average products for average people that are designed for the masses and you’re going to put on top of them whip cream and the toppings of new marketing and they don’t work – they don’t go together. Example. When Wal-Mart tried take on MySpace – WM is clearly a meatball company and they are great at it – but when they tried to put the stuff on top – the culture clash was too great; they couldn’t succeed at doing it.
Just because you have a lot of cherries doesn’t mean you should succeed.
SEO. SEO – if you need to trick the search engines into finding you – you aren’t going to have a long term advantage. The long term advantage is going to belong to people who don’t make meatballs. It’s going to belong to companies that make stuff that people seek out in the first place.
Godin exampled that what we are seeing is that marketers are discovering lots of ways they can get the word out for free. If what they are selling isn’t interesting to us – we are going to ignore them – no matter how much they yell. If what they have to say is boring – we’ll ignore them… boring is invisible, boring doesn’t get found, boring doesn’t show up on the Internet. A traditional marketer may be feeling some momentary panic. Maybe new marketing means the end – but Seth wants to argue that there are 20, 30, 50 trends that are making up this new marketing. He discussed 14 of them (and a bonus one).
He believes that if you put some of these ideas below and organize around them – the web and the world of new marketing will embrace you. Once you organize for these trends as opposed to fighting them, you discover that your products and your marketing are in sync. You discover that this is the greatest arsenal of marketing tactics ever – but only if you organize for it the right way.
1. Direct Communication – between users and the people who make stuff. Your organization should be open to this direct communication to users. Make it easy, seductive, and fun to contact your company.
2. Amplification of Consumers – every consumer has become a critic and every consumer has the power to speak loudly. If you own a restaurant, every person that comes in is the potential reviewer because of the power of the Internet. If you run a hotel – every guest has the potential to be a reviewer for Fodor’s. If you run a cable TV company and one of your installers falls asleep while he’s supposed to be installing cable and it ends up on You Tube – it will undo millions of dollars worth of advertising.
After discussing these two points, Godin switched gears for a moment to stress that we always have a choice – he am not suggesting you stop making meatballs- he is suggesting that you choose that you either make meatballs or you don’t. Need to pick an integrated solution that is coherent.
3. Authentic Stories – what we know now is that you can’t tell two different stories to one person. The constituents are going to talk to each other. Your stories must be authentic and consistent. If the story is coherent and is shared – then the story will last fall longer than the facts ever do. People buy stories – good stories hold up under scrutiny.
4. Speed – has reached whole new levels. Two types of organization – one’s that are organized around speed and those that have competitors who have organized around speed.
5. The Long Tail – simple law of physics/human nature. As you add choices – sales go up. If you can own all of those choices – you win. Example. Amazon gets ½ their revenue from titles that Barnes and Noble doesn’t even carry. The ones that go down the long tail the faster – wins
6. Outsourcing – we are no longer in the factory business. The businesses that you own that make the meatball is old fashioned – outsourcing takes the factory out of the picture. Ex. Jott.com – you call and say you want to Jott something to yourself. Within 20 minutes, you get an email written what you said. A great way if you want to remember something when you are on the road. Godin wanted to know how they did this – and it turns out that they outsourced it to the third world where people listen to your Jott and then send you that email.
7. The Dicing of Everything – Google has shred the world a little big. The internet allows Google to take front doors and bust them open. They take things that are in bundles and they unbundled them. When you need information, you go to Google for your information, no need to go to bundled sites like cnet for your info.
8. Infinite channels of communication- Now there is an infinite number of ways to get information out there. Ex. look at the selection of analgesics, brands of beer, you have to understand that scarcity is no longer the power there used to be. Those scarcity rules are gone – you have to come up with a different way. It isn’t branding – we are branding our ways to death. You aren’t entitled to my attention.
9. Consumer to consumer – the fact is that your consumers are ganging up on you. They are talking to each other. You can enable that (Kiva, EBay) you can create industries where industries never used to exist. Connecting people who didn’t used to be connected.
10. Difference and the shift between scarcity and abundance – A good example is 6 years ago – a disposable cell phone seemed like a good idea. Today – we’d be queasy about the environmental impact. Used to be that fresh water was abundant – but today it isn’t. Take a hard look at what’s in short supply, and what’s not – and realize that our business is busy trying to make scare what is abundant and trying to use things that are abundant as if they are scarce – we can turn those things upside down.
11. Big Ideas – Big ideas are far more powerful than they were previously. Big product ideas. Example, the iPhone was hyped by the users because it was fun to talk about. When someone has something fun to talk about (example Numa Numa video) – it spreads like wildfire – Not because it’s a big marketing idea – not because it’s a big advertising idea – but because it’s a big idea in and of itself. Big reward for people who can find those ideas and bring them to market.
12. Who vs. How Many – Companies pay a premium to advertise on the Superbowl because of how many are watching. It used to be if you were selling to the masses, it matter a little bit that you reached the masses. Now, you care a lot more about who. A blog that only reaches a 1000 people could very well be more useful than the Superbowl.
13. The New Rich – The difference between the old rich and the new rich. The old rich were all the same – they were easy to find, they lived in Newport, they played polo, they played golf, they all read the same magazines etc. The new rich are like us – they are much more democratic, they do stuff that rich people didn’t used to, this idea means that there are some rich people in every demographic which changes the way you segment your marketing and the stuff you choose to make.
14. New Gatekeepers and No gatekeepers – People who used to have power as gatekeepers are finding their power disappearing. Instead, you have people having enormous of power and they are the gatekeepers. In addition, there are no gatekeepers, if you have a great idea, put it on YouTube – no one can say no, build your own website, your own Squidoo page – no one can say no.
15. The death zone between scarcity and ubiquity – In an inverted bell curve, there is a death zone between scarcity and ubiquity. Godin suggested that at either end of the spectrum, you win. You win if you are everywhere (Jerry Seinfeld) you win and if you are only a few places – but are in high demand – you also when. It’s when you are in the middle that you have trouble.
Conclusions
The scary thing about everything he has said is that many of your clients are going to want you to make better meatball sundaes. What he is hoping is that we can now embrace the fact that only can we say no to these people and that we should. But, the window is not going to be open for long, if we have a choice between clients and employers that get it and clients and employers who don’t, if you look back at this window in time – you are going to look back that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This sundae is really big, extraordinarily powerful and leaving you lots and lots of options. You can embrace them now or regret them later.
At the end of the session, Seth answered a few questions.
Questions – What do you do when your sales force is older than your customer based and is technologically lacking (real estate). Do you recruit new ones? What we need to do is measure people on metrics that make sense today. Your job as a manager- how can I make this tactically simple but strategically important.
Given the power of the amateur reviewer – how can we determine between authentic and fake stuff? It is difficult to detect – people pretending/shilling obviously is going to happen. We are going to make our circle smaller – you are going to want to interact with people who you know from life or who you can trust through the respect of reputation.
Clarification – to choose one the meatball or the sundae? How do you make that choice? Starbucks is about the story and the experience. Didn’t try to reach the masses – once they tried to look more like McDonalds and a whole bunch of things changed about Starbucks. They tried to make meatballs and have the topping – now they have to try to pick and choose one.
With all the channels – how do we get noticed? That’s a pretty selfish question. It’s not how do we get noticed. How do we make a product or service that people choose to talk about. Because it helps their life/planet etc. If we make a remarkable product, we will be talked about in tons of different places.
Why is branding dead? People need to differentiate with all these choices? Branding isn’t dead. Brand is the shortcut that we use to remember the attributes of the product we love. If branding is the act of creating all the things that people will associate with your logo and name.
Why are BtoB companies behind BtoC in using the web? Starts with what kind of person goes to work for a BtoB companies. There is a lot of top down thinking. BtoB suppliers tend to respond by making commodity products, do RFPs etc.. BtoB buy that stuff only when they can’t tell the difference between brand a and brand b. There is culture problem in typical BtoB companies (there are exceptions).
Are there any older companies getting our attention effectively on their websites? Microsoft – told the truth and went online and told the truth to business customers about what was happening at their company. No one wants to hear a product manager blather about legally approved info about marketing brochures. We are seeing pockets of truth telling, pockets of authentic stories that are usually happening when the boss isn’t looking. But these are making a difference in BtoB companies.
It was a really informative hour and Seth Godin was a terrific and enthusiastic speaker. Thanks to Seth, SEMpdx and Corvent for a very worthwhile hour!
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Two weeks ago I posted about the ins and outs for forum marketing. When joining a community, especially if you plan to market to them, it is important to understand the dynamics behind a lot of the interactions.
Below are what I’ve noticed as the different types of prominent forum members.
The Worker Bees. These are the people that keep the forum moving. When someone posts a question they are quick to research the answer. When someone posts for advice, they give it. When someone need hugs, or encouragement they are there to offer it. These forum members will rarely cause controversy but they are the heart and soul of the community. They are the ones that keep coming back to make it lively.
Protector of the Community. Calls out trolls, like to keep threads organized, and tries to diffuse drama. These people take pride in their community and are protective of it. It is the neighborhood they hang out in. They like to see it organized. If there are multiple threads started about a similar topic they will often take on the moderator role and helpfully funnel the traffic into one centralized location. If they suspect a user is a “troll†or someone that does not contribute to the community, they are quick to call them out, or even report to moderators. If things are slow, they are likely to start threads to keep people engaged.
The Poster with a Cause. This user type has one cause or belief that they feel terribly strongly about. Whether it is the environment, a particular charity, animal rescue, whatever is it, this poster cannot help to inject this cause into the majority of their responses on a thread. At times it can be helpful additional information; at times it can turn this user into a thread hijacker. The user name may be reflective of this cause.
The Thread Hijacker. They have a hard time staying on topic. This person will derail a thread to oblivion annoying the protectors of the community the most. An example of a typical exchange with a thread hijacker:
Thread Topic: “How can I get my dog to eat all of his food?â€
Thread Hijacker: “I don’t know the answer to your question, but does anybody have any experience with (insert random dog food name here)?
Sometimes it takes, and sometimes it doesn’t.
The Ring Leader. This is a person that can change the tide of the thread. They are key influencers. An opposing view from the majority is welcome from this poster by other members. I’ve found people that I would put into this category are well thought out, and can also be extremely supportive of their peers. They wield their power carefully, but make no mistake that they have it. Once a ring leader has made up their mind about you or your product their minions are likely to follow or at least be influenced.
The Controversy Starter. Always looking to call a poster out. Loves to stir up controversy. There can be a thread about a controversial topic, where everyone is doing their best to remain civil, and sure enough the controversy starter comes along and immediately calls someone out. This group differs from the ring leader in that they are not there to lead; they are there to create a stir. They will argue points down to molecular levels. I usually see the old “Sorry to offend but you can’t really tell my tone over the computer†defense when people are trying to get away from the controversy starter. The controvery starter rarely changes their stance during a discussion.
The Evangelist. This is the group that you want to make sure you put your best foot forward to (should you be trying to raise awareness for a product). Once the evangelist has found a product that they love they are quick to recommend it, review it, and go so far as to offer help with it to users. If there is negativity about a product that an evangelist endorses they are quick to defend it. Be careful with this group. They can be your biggest asset or a huge negative. Should they use a product that they DO NOT LIKE or have a bad experience with, they will be quick to vocalize that as well.
If there is a good forum out there that you would like to use to help market your products, it’s important to try and identify these 7 types of people. See which ones might be a good fit to help you get your message out there and who wouldn’t. Investing a little bit of extra time doing this can make a huge difference.
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On Thursday, January 10th, Chris Sherman, Executive Editor from Search Engine Land spoke at a very valuable Search Marketing Now webcast entitled ‘Paid Search For Big Sites’. This event was sponsored by iProspect and provided pertinent information regarding paid search programs for big brands and big sites.
At the onset, Chris indicated that the goal of the presentation is to help those attending to better manage their paid search efforts.
Mr. Sherman started by stating that all big brands do have big sites – but that not all big sites are big brands. The presentation was broken into two segments – what you need to do to set up your PPC program for success and the marketing end of things related to search.
Know Your Goals. First off, Mr. Sherman counseled the audience that the first thing anyone working on a paid search program needs to define is the goals. With any search marketing campaign, it is crucial to look at goals and understand what you are trying to accomplish. Without knowing goals – you cannot measure success. Ask yourself these questions:
- Why are you doing PPC vs. SEO or even other types of marketing?
- Are you measuring the right things?
- Is PPC the most effective use of marketing resources?
Beyond The Basics. You need to get the right keywords, budgets and bids – however, when you are working with big sites and big brands, other things are equally important.
- Running a paid search campaign for a big site means far more than managing keywords, bids and budgets.
- Basic blocking and tackling is important, but there are several other key factors for running a successful campaign.
- You need a strategy that focuses on your own success metrics, yet fully accounts for the competitive landscape.
- You need an array of tools to automate manual tasks, offer feedback to fine tune strategy, and ideally, automatically adjust to constantly changing conditions.
Chris stressed that we need to understand what is we are trying to accomplish with PPC. Need to look at the competitive landscape and ascertain what our competitors are doings. For the big brands – whatever the competitors are doing will influence what you will do. You have to adapt and be flexible.
He also noted that you need to automate things wherever possible. Spend your time thinking at the higher level and leave the day-to-day work to automated tools (if you can). These tools are very sophisticated now and they can adapt in real time to changing conditions. Based on the business rules you supply, the tools will change the campaign and respond to what is happening with competition.
Leadership is Important. One of the important things that Chris Sherman feels is overlooked is the critical importance of leadership. In order to be successful, you need to work with all different groups to make sure all the stakeholders are getting their needs satisfied and that you are in alignment with other areas in the campaign. You need to influence not just the team – but top management as well. Top management is critical as they need to buy into your efforts for budgets etc. You need to show them that the campaign is working.
Managing Expectations is Key. Mr. Sherman posed the question …what happens when you find you are in a battle for position – against another group in your own organization? How would you deal with those types of challenges?
He feels that it is important to manage expectations amongst everyone.
You need to identify the owners vs. influencers. The owners own content and have the final say over specific campaigns. Equally important is mapping out the role of the influencers. Just make sure everyone has clearly spelled out roles, responsibilities, and evaluation metrics. If you can get these roles clearly mapped out it can really help drive the design and implementation of the campaign.
Global vs. Local Control. Another important area to define is whether the campaign is controlled globally (head office) or down to the local level (field office). One idea is to segment keywords and creative. For example – corporate could have the responsibility for general brand terms (a searcher just beginning an info quest) and local could have control over more specific, less branded terms (where the searcher knows what they are looking for).
Bidding Strategy. Chris suggested thinking of your keywords as you would your financial portfolio. Just as with your investment portfolio, some keywords will be winners while others will be losers. You will need to continually rebalance your portfolio after you understand how they are performing (trim the losers, invest more in winners) to maintain proper exposure to achieve business goals.
Automate Bid Management. As mentioned previously, Chris stressed how automation allows you to increase volume. With these powerful tools, you can perform rapid testing of ad strategies, position, time of day, day of week and other variables. Automation works well with both concentrated and localized strategies. With good bid management solutions, you can learn from testing and adjust your campaign in real time – 24/7.
Watch – Learn – Then React. You need to use your own goals and metrics as a baseline and then based on the feedback from the metrics you know when to raise bids, keep an eye on the status quo or dump the underperformers.
What to Do If Your Organization Has Separate Terms for SEO and PPC. If you organization has separate terms for SEO and PPC – communication is key. It is so important for the separate departments to share data and to beware of inconsistent or conflicting messages. The organic and paid search side must share data and be consistent and not competing.
PPC vs. SEO. One is not better than the other – instead big brands should use each for maximum effort. PPC is best for fluid, changing content, promotions and the beginning stages or search. However, it is less effective for getting people to evergreen or static content. PPC on the other hand is great to test creative for SEO campaigns.
Testing is So Important. Don’t assume PPC reinforces SEO – sometimes one strategy can undermine another. It is important to note that 70% of all clicks are still coming from organic results. Use organic search to help resolve conflicts between teams and dominate SERP (search engine result pages). If searchers see you in the natural listings and sees you in the paid search – it does reinforce legitimacy for the searcher.
Marketing Issues. After focusing on the tactical issues that need to be resolved with paid search, Chris switched gears and focused on marketing issues that are unique to big brands. He started by stating the branding is not direct marketing. With direct marketing, your focus is on conversion and outcome. However, with branding – it is more complex and takes place in stages. Branding can lead to conversion, but it isn’t the primary goal.
It is important that the paid search messaging should be tailored to match each of these stages.
Chris also stressed the importance of the role of perception. That is, the perception of what is in the searchers mind will ultimately influence what the searcher does. It doesn’t matter what keywords we have – but what the searcher has experienced leading up to sitting down at the computer.
Four Stages of Branding. Mr. Sherman then presented his perception as to what the whole branding process is about. It is a useful model to think about as you are creating your marketing messages.
- Building brand awareness (early stage – overcoming low recognition and emotion. Your marketing messages need to raise awareness.
- Reinforcing brand awareness (middle stage – emphasis on solidifying brand attributes and positive associations).
- Enhancing preference and favorability (late stage – emphasis on persuasion). Really want to reach out to consumers at this stage.
- Reinforcing brand loyalty (post sale). Here your messages are reinforcing their purchase decision to help them stay brand loyal in the future.
He also mentioned that search ads are only one part of the branding message – direct mail, radio, TV and online graphic ads are important too. Remember that your other types of brand messages can have a huge effect on the way people respond to search results. Search ads should complement your other efforts – they are important, but they are just one part of what you are trying to do. A good rule of thumb is – if you are doing an effective job on the other fronts, you should have a positive response to your paid search efforts.
It is a mistake to silo your ads. If you have a big brand, search ads are just one other component of all the other methods and techniques you have. Search ads should complement all your other efforts. They are important – but they are just one part of what you are trying to do.
Other types of brand messages have an impact. If you are doing an effective job on other fronts – they are likely to respond to your PPC.
Leveraging Online Strategy. Consider a mix of search and display ads. Chris sited the Microsoft Lending Tree study (11-07) where people who were exposed to both search and display advertising were:
- 556% more likely to visit LendingTree.com
- 650% more likely to fill out an online qualification form (so that the company could continue the sales process).
Use Your Search Data. Use your data! The data from your search campaign (demographics, time/day of search etc.) can help refine other brand campaign elements, and vice versa.
Get information from your search campaign – mine your data to find out important information that can help you relate to the prospects in ways that they have expressed through their search engine behavior. Remember to filter this information back to all your marketing efforts. It is a great testing ground because you get immediate feedback from people using it.
SERPs vs. Content Networks. SERPs are where all the direct marketers want to be. Content networks are when the search engine distributes ads to partners (ex. Google to the NY Times). Branding works both on SERPs and on content partner pages.
Since your conversion goal is less important – it is useful to be on both. There haven’t been any studies to determine effectiveness, but Sherman believes that they work in the case of branding. Again, he counsels that the only way to really tell is to go out and test with your own campaigns.
Conclusions
- Paid search for big sites requires leadership, not just skilled search marketing techniques.
- Search can be an effective part of a comprehensive branding effort.
- As with all types of search marketing – success will be determined by the quality of execution on your goals.
At the end of the presentation, there were a few minutes for questions.
- What tasks can be automated?
- Tons of tasks can be automated. For example, the bid management process, what time of day should an ad be running, what parts of the world do you want the ad to be running in. More and more of the processes are lending themselves to automation.
- How do you manage crossover keywords – how do you do that when you share amongst multiple departments?
- It’s is important to define the owners and influencers. Those issues are quickly diminished if the owners and influencers are identified. The ruthless approach is necessary to determine who owns the keywords.
- How do you rebalance your portfolio of keywords?
- It involves taking a hard look at all your keywords and how are they performing relative to the goals you have set for them. It involves going through the entire portfolio and matching each keyword against your goals. It is driven by bottom line but also by how those numbers relate to the business goals established for each individual keyword.
Thanks to Chris Sherman, Search Marketing Now and iProspect for an informative web seminar.
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