Clients want agency & reference reviews. The question now becomes, why? The review process is meant to be a screening format to put your best foot forward. What actually happens (for the most part) is what is revealed by Ignited about the recent Zappos.com agency review:
Zappos' agency review, launched this summer, quickly attracted widespread interest from the agency community, as the marketer has been a darling of the advertising world with much-admired customer-service smarts.
Zappos had worked with Ad Store, New York, and Gotham Direct. Originally, the retailer contacted 16 agencies but later opened up the process to more respondents, eventually attracting more than 100 shops.
One of the participating shops, called Ignited, tracked the amount of time Zappos spent reviewing its submission. With the help of Google Analytics, Ignited found that the retailer had only viewed five pages of its 25-page submission, with an average page-view time of 14 seconds. Ignited then publicly criticized Zappos for what it felt was an inadequate review.
14 seconds per page on the first 5 pages of a 25 page review? I wouldn't even call that skimming. It's like anything else when it comes to marketing. The more real you are, the best response you get.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
If you not testing and trying, you're dead....you're just not broke.
Luxury Marketers Move Online but Most Lack Digital Cunning
NYU Stern Study Shows Recession Pushing Brands to Belatedly Innovate Web Efforts 'Out of Necessity'
Despite an increased number of luxury brands finally moving online, most luxury brands lack digital savvy, said Scott Galloway, an associate professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business who looked at 109 luxury brands across 11 categories, including fashion, electronics, jewelry, hotels, and automobiles.
During the flush years, luxury brands seemingly cemented their exclusive status by shunning one of the ultimate mass mediums, the internet. According to a new study, only 33% of luxury brands were selling online a year ago, but the recession has had a profound effect, as 66% of luxury brands are now peddling their wares on the web.
Ralph Lauren has bested many of its luxury peers in the mobile space with its iPhone app. But, despite the increase, most luxury brands lack digital savvy, said Scott Galloway, an associate professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business who looked at 109 luxury brands across 11 categories, including fashion, electronics, jewelry, hotels and automobiles.
"It was fine when revenues were growing 11% a year. And then everything changed. They've woken up and said, 'Last holiday season sales were down 34% but traffic to our website was up 61%.' Brands are innovating out of necessity."
In his study, Mr. Galloway awarded brands designations of "Genius," "Gifted," "Average," "Challenged" and "Feeble." He found that the high-end automobile and electronics categories tended to have more digital savvy, while the cruise and tours segment, along with jewelry, were the least savvy.
Luxury marketers' fear of losing control of their brands, when coupled with a lack of digital and social-media skills, has contributed to the dismal state of the category online, Mr. Galloway said. But he expects that will change dramatically over the next 24 months, as brands realize they can't ignore technology. The days of a tightly controlled brand, with beautiful merchandise and flagship stores at tony addresses, along with ads shot by high-profile names in Vogue and Vanity Fair, are over, he said.
But some brands have been rolling with the times, and it's probably no surprise that Apple and Sony have been at the forefront with robust digital presences that utilize search and incorporate video and user-generated content. In the auto category, more than half of the brands in the study are reaching consumers via mobile devices. BMW sends text messages to remind owners to purchase winter tires, while Ferrari's mobile game lets users customize and race vehicles.
There are other bright spots. Ralph Lauren has been aggressive in the mobile space, with the launch of an iPhone app. And Estee Lauder has a makeover widget that allows users to upload a photo and virtually test products on their faces.
When it comes to Twitter and Facebook, luxury brands are making a showing but have not had nearly the same impact as other marketers. The Four Seasons and Fairmont hotels have separate Twitter accounts for each property and post updates with special events and promotions. And Trump Hotels, tweeting via Twitter, boasts the largest number of followers, just shy of 260,000. After Apple, Lamborghini has the highest Facebook fan count, with about 1 million fans.
Still, less than half of the brands included in the study purchase search terms.
Mr. Galloway suggests that the excuse that luxury customers are not online is dated, pointing out that 40- to 55-year-old women, a sweet spot for these brands, is the fastest-growing segment on Facebook. Likewise, Generation Y, a growing group of luxury consumers, is poised to outnumber baby boomers by 2010.
"Luxury has become very complacent, as they've had the curse of being monstrously successful over the past 20 years. There hasn't been a great deal of urgency around innovation," he said. "All of a sudden the model has become very broken."
Breaking down the digital IQs:
BEST IN CLASS:
Automobiles: BMW
Beauty & Skin Care: Clinique
Credit Cards: American Express
Cruises & Tours: Orient Express Hotels
Electronics: Apple
Fashion: Louis Vuitton
Hotels: W Hotels
Home & Design: Viking
Jewelry: Tiffany
Watches: Tag Heuer
Wines & Champagnes: Veuve Clicquot
'GENIUS' BRANDS
Automobiles: Audi, BMW, Porsche
Electronics: Apple, Sony
Fashion: Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren
Watches:Tag Heuer
'FEEBLE' BRANDS
Beauty & Skin Care: Stila
Credit Cards: Coutts & Co.
Cruises & Tours: Windstar Cruises, Abercrombie & Kent, Travcoa
Fashion: Bottega Veneta
Hotels: Waldorf Astoria, Trump
Home & Design: La Cornue
Jewelry: Buccellati, Faberge, Graff
Watches: Franck Muller, Bulova
Wines & Champagnes: Korbel
NYU Stern Study Shows Recession Pushing Brands to Belatedly Innovate Web Efforts 'Out of Necessity'
Despite an increased number of luxury brands finally moving online, most luxury brands lack digital savvy, said Scott Galloway, an associate professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business who looked at 109 luxury brands across 11 categories, including fashion, electronics, jewelry, hotels, and automobiles.
During the flush years, luxury brands seemingly cemented their exclusive status by shunning one of the ultimate mass mediums, the internet. According to a new study, only 33% of luxury brands were selling online a year ago, but the recession has had a profound effect, as 66% of luxury brands are now peddling their wares on the web.
Ralph Lauren has bested many of its luxury peers in the mobile space with its iPhone app. But, despite the increase, most luxury brands lack digital savvy, said Scott Galloway, an associate professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business who looked at 109 luxury brands across 11 categories, including fashion, electronics, jewelry, hotels and automobiles.
"It was fine when revenues were growing 11% a year. And then everything changed. They've woken up and said, 'Last holiday season sales were down 34% but traffic to our website was up 61%.' Brands are innovating out of necessity."
In his study, Mr. Galloway awarded brands designations of "Genius," "Gifted," "Average," "Challenged" and "Feeble." He found that the high-end automobile and electronics categories tended to have more digital savvy, while the cruise and tours segment, along with jewelry, were the least savvy.
Luxury marketers' fear of losing control of their brands, when coupled with a lack of digital and social-media skills, has contributed to the dismal state of the category online, Mr. Galloway said. But he expects that will change dramatically over the next 24 months, as brands realize they can't ignore technology. The days of a tightly controlled brand, with beautiful merchandise and flagship stores at tony addresses, along with ads shot by high-profile names in Vogue and Vanity Fair, are over, he said.
But some brands have been rolling with the times, and it's probably no surprise that Apple and Sony have been at the forefront with robust digital presences that utilize search and incorporate video and user-generated content. In the auto category, more than half of the brands in the study are reaching consumers via mobile devices. BMW sends text messages to remind owners to purchase winter tires, while Ferrari's mobile game lets users customize and race vehicles.
There are other bright spots. Ralph Lauren has been aggressive in the mobile space, with the launch of an iPhone app. And Estee Lauder has a makeover widget that allows users to upload a photo and virtually test products on their faces.
When it comes to Twitter and Facebook, luxury brands are making a showing but have not had nearly the same impact as other marketers. The Four Seasons and Fairmont hotels have separate Twitter accounts for each property and post updates with special events and promotions. And Trump Hotels, tweeting via Twitter, boasts the largest number of followers, just shy of 260,000. After Apple, Lamborghini has the highest Facebook fan count, with about 1 million fans.
Still, less than half of the brands included in the study purchase search terms.
Mr. Galloway suggests that the excuse that luxury customers are not online is dated, pointing out that 40- to 55-year-old women, a sweet spot for these brands, is the fastest-growing segment on Facebook. Likewise, Generation Y, a growing group of luxury consumers, is poised to outnumber baby boomers by 2010.
"Luxury has become very complacent, as they've had the curse of being monstrously successful over the past 20 years. There hasn't been a great deal of urgency around innovation," he said. "All of a sudden the model has become very broken."
Breaking down the digital IQs:
BEST IN CLASS:
Automobiles: BMW
Beauty & Skin Care: Clinique
Credit Cards: American Express
Cruises & Tours: Orient Express Hotels
Electronics: Apple
Fashion: Louis Vuitton
Hotels: W Hotels
Home & Design: Viking
Jewelry: Tiffany
Watches: Tag Heuer
Wines & Champagnes: Veuve Clicquot
'GENIUS' BRANDS
Automobiles: Audi, BMW, Porsche
Electronics: Apple, Sony
Fashion: Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren
Watches:Tag Heuer
'FEEBLE' BRANDS
Beauty & Skin Care: Stila
Credit Cards: Coutts & Co.
Cruises & Tours: Windstar Cruises, Abercrombie & Kent, Travcoa
Fashion: Bottega Veneta
Hotels: Waldorf Astoria, Trump
Home & Design: La Cornue
Jewelry: Buccellati, Faberge, Graff
Watches: Franck Muller, Bulova
Wines & Champagnes: Korbel
Monday, September 21, 2009
eMail Loyalty Programs....
Every retailer claims they are engaged in data-based marketing and CRM programs, and indeed, the oft-repeated mantra of retailers is "focus on keeping existing customers over acquiring new customers."
According to David Frankland, principal analyst at Forrester, 33% of marketers cite relevance as a primary factor in the method of communication used to reach existing customers; some 47% say it's often a factor. Yet, he said, "I'd call bullshit on that," pointing out that almost one-third of marketers who capture at least one type of preference data on existing customers take no action based on it.
Indeed, the disconnect is in using data. Retailers have access to or could develop data that is transactional, behavioral, demographic and attitudinal to customize communications, said consultants in the space. But most don't, for many reasons, among them disparate databases running on varying technology platforms, a murky understanding of who owns the data and should be using it and, in some cases, an unwillingness to tackle what can be an expensive and time-consuming project.
Studies have found only 4% of retailers are using purchase histories and transaction data to personalize the content of their customer communications.
"Very few retailers are actually doing a good job of retention and loyalty marketing. Everything else is fundamentally acquisition driven or promotion driven, which is just spam against loyal customers," he said. "That's why you get three to four e-mails per week from every retailer you shop with. Very few retailers understand your behavior and are rewarding you for it."
For many retailers embracing an opt-in loyalty program and then mining that data is the first step toward a more functional data-based marketing program. Best Buy, Neiman Marcus and Sephora,for example, have developed extensive loyalty programs that allow members to earn points and receive targeted communications and special offers. Others, like Amazon, iTunes and eBay, have succeeded at sending specialized offers based on previous selections without the benefit of loyalty programs.
According to David Frankland, principal analyst at Forrester, 33% of marketers cite relevance as a primary factor in the method of communication used to reach existing customers; some 47% say it's often a factor. Yet, he said, "I'd call bullshit on that," pointing out that almost one-third of marketers who capture at least one type of preference data on existing customers take no action based on it.
Indeed, the disconnect is in using data. Retailers have access to or could develop data that is transactional, behavioral, demographic and attitudinal to customize communications, said consultants in the space. But most don't, for many reasons, among them disparate databases running on varying technology platforms, a murky understanding of who owns the data and should be using it and, in some cases, an unwillingness to tackle what can be an expensive and time-consuming project.
Studies have found only 4% of retailers are using purchase histories and transaction data to personalize the content of their customer communications.
"Very few retailers are actually doing a good job of retention and loyalty marketing. Everything else is fundamentally acquisition driven or promotion driven, which is just spam against loyal customers," he said. "That's why you get three to four e-mails per week from every retailer you shop with. Very few retailers understand your behavior and are rewarding you for it."
For many retailers embracing an opt-in loyalty program and then mining that data is the first step toward a more functional data-based marketing program. Best Buy, Neiman Marcus and Sephora,for example, have developed extensive loyalty programs that allow members to earn points and receive targeted communications and special offers. Others, like Amazon, iTunes and eBay, have succeeded at sending specialized offers based on previous selections without the benefit of loyalty programs.
Friday, September 18, 2009
eLink Media says goodbye to display ad networks...
Google is opening its own display-ad exchange today in a bid to bring the technological approach derived from its search-advertising success to the display ad market.
The DoubleClick AdExchange is a rebuild of DoubleClick's old exchange using Google's technology and the first big product launch out of the search giant's $3.1 billion acquisition of the company, completed in 2008.
The new system, under wraps and in testing mode for months, is key to making that acquisition pay off for Google and to helping it take a bigger bite out of the unruly display ad market, which Google has found difficult to tame.
Google's search market matches ad buyers and ad impressions in real time, based on advertisers' bids and a set of targeting criteria. The AdExchange works similarly, but for display advertising. It also includes integration with Google's search ad-sales system, with the idea that it will let search advertisers move money more easily to display and vice versa. In addition, all of Google's network inventory will be available as part of the exchange, not just sites that use DoubleClick for ad serving.
The DoubleClick AdExchange is a rebuild of DoubleClick's old exchange using Google's technology and the first big product launch out of the search giant's $3.1 billion acquisition of the company, completed in 2008.
The new system, under wraps and in testing mode for months, is key to making that acquisition pay off for Google and to helping it take a bigger bite out of the unruly display ad market, which Google has found difficult to tame.
Google's search market matches ad buyers and ad impressions in real time, based on advertisers' bids and a set of targeting criteria. The AdExchange works similarly, but for display advertising. It also includes integration with Google's search ad-sales system, with the idea that it will let search advertisers move money more easily to display and vice versa. In addition, all of Google's network inventory will be available as part of the exchange, not just sites that use DoubleClick for ad serving.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Social Media Snake-Oil
Social Media Marketing:
Recently my colleague and I found ourselves in close contact with a "social media expert." The problem was this expert was sucking in the feed of my blog without permission, attribution and had more holes in his resume than a slice of Swiss cheese. So how do you separate the social media snake oil from the vinegar?" It's not easy, but here's a few pointers:
My last job was selling junk bonds. As I mentioned in social media's dirty secrets, there's a bandwagon to be jumped on. As you do background checks around the people you choose to partner with in social business, you should be able to see ties from the past to what they are doing now. Has this person been working in community- or internet-related fields? That's a good sign. Was this person selling pre-paid calling cards? Maybe not so good. There are no hard rules here, but some previous positions transfer better than others. Use common sense.
I'm an expert, just see the testimonials. Actually there really isn't anything wrong with self-identifying yourself as an expert in a field or including things people said about you. However, it's up to you to leverage tools like Google, LinkedIn, etc., to see what others have said or investigate further -- don't just take them at their word.
I can guarantee you X number of followers. Anyone who starts their pitch by promising friends, followers, or even positive word of mouth is suspicious. This tells you they're looking to "sell you" a quick fix, which is probably in response to people placing such a big emphasis on metrics such as this. A social way of doing business is often a slow burn with complex problems that need to be addressed. There are no silver bullets in an industry built on connections, relationships and the direct empowerment of citizens.
Social media will save you. No it won't. Anyone framing social media as the solution to the world's problems is either drinking Koolaid or looking to make a buck. That said, the prospect of doing business in a socially calibrated fashion is bigger than a new communication channel, it's a shift that's causing changes. However, never confuse shift with salvation.
Build it and they will socialize. Be wary of anyone selling a point solution that promises instant social interactions, conversations, collaboration, etc. Many businesses fail because they were built at the wrong time, in the wrong place or with the wrong tools. Any respectable practitioner will try to investigate where fertile ground is before building anything -- and will tell you if there isn't any.
Bottom line, there's unfortunately a short-term business model for hucksters out to make a buck at your expense. That's because the field is still young and there isn't much that's been established -- it's a bit of a Wild West scenario. This, ironically, is the period in time when the snake oil salesmen thrived.
Recently my colleague and I found ourselves in close contact with a "social media expert." The problem was this expert was sucking in the feed of my blog without permission, attribution and had more holes in his resume than a slice of Swiss cheese. So how do you separate the social media snake oil from the vinegar?" It's not easy, but here's a few pointers:
My last job was selling junk bonds. As I mentioned in social media's dirty secrets, there's a bandwagon to be jumped on. As you do background checks around the people you choose to partner with in social business, you should be able to see ties from the past to what they are doing now. Has this person been working in community- or internet-related fields? That's a good sign. Was this person selling pre-paid calling cards? Maybe not so good. There are no hard rules here, but some previous positions transfer better than others. Use common sense.
I'm an expert, just see the testimonials. Actually there really isn't anything wrong with self-identifying yourself as an expert in a field or including things people said about you. However, it's up to you to leverage tools like Google, LinkedIn, etc., to see what others have said or investigate further -- don't just take them at their word.
I can guarantee you X number of followers. Anyone who starts their pitch by promising friends, followers, or even positive word of mouth is suspicious. This tells you they're looking to "sell you" a quick fix, which is probably in response to people placing such a big emphasis on metrics such as this. A social way of doing business is often a slow burn with complex problems that need to be addressed. There are no silver bullets in an industry built on connections, relationships and the direct empowerment of citizens.
Social media will save you. No it won't. Anyone framing social media as the solution to the world's problems is either drinking Koolaid or looking to make a buck. That said, the prospect of doing business in a socially calibrated fashion is bigger than a new communication channel, it's a shift that's causing changes. However, never confuse shift with salvation.
Build it and they will socialize. Be wary of anyone selling a point solution that promises instant social interactions, conversations, collaboration, etc. Many businesses fail because they were built at the wrong time, in the wrong place or with the wrong tools. Any respectable practitioner will try to investigate where fertile ground is before building anything -- and will tell you if there isn't any.
Bottom line, there's unfortunately a short-term business model for hucksters out to make a buck at your expense. That's because the field is still young and there isn't much that's been established -- it's a bit of a Wild West scenario. This, ironically, is the period in time when the snake oil salesmen thrived.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Facebook Profitability....
Scratch Facebook from the list of web 2.0 startups that don't make money. The world's largest social network said today that it has become profitable.
Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook had crossed the 300 million registered-user milestone and that it had become "cash-flow positive" in the second quarter, ahead of schedule. Previously, Facebook had said it was targeting profitability "sometime in 2010."
Facebook's brand pages, such as this one for Pizza Hut, are popular with marketers.
This is significant for a number of reasons, but mostly because it has done so without a fully developed advertising business. Indeed while Facebook pages and groups are popular among brands, Facebook itself is still figuring out the right ad model for social networking, beyond low-cost display ads. Facebook's other revenue models are also nascent, including virtual gifts, commerce and a payments system now in testing phase.
The problem being now is that will this profitability for Facebook translate into actual returns for advertisers using social media. So far...not so much, but will this trend change?
Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook had crossed the 300 million registered-user milestone and that it had become "cash-flow positive" in the second quarter, ahead of schedule. Previously, Facebook had said it was targeting profitability "sometime in 2010."
Facebook's brand pages, such as this one for Pizza Hut, are popular with marketers.
This is significant for a number of reasons, but mostly because it has done so without a fully developed advertising business. Indeed while Facebook pages and groups are popular among brands, Facebook itself is still figuring out the right ad model for social networking, beyond low-cost display ads. Facebook's other revenue models are also nascent, including virtual gifts, commerce and a payments system now in testing phase.
The problem being now is that will this profitability for Facebook translate into actual returns for advertisers using social media. So far...not so much, but will this trend change?
Monday, September 14, 2009
eLink Media, GM, CEOs, and Ads....
It isn't a new idea for General Motors to star Chairman Ed Whitacre in advertising, but is it a good one? For too long now, the consumer public has heard "heart-felt" confessions and ads by CEOs in a vast array of verticals. But trotting out your CEO to pitch is like playing with hand grenades. If you come out unscathed, you're a genius....if not, don't be around when the first one explodes. Will this tactic work for GM?...only time will tell, but in the day and age when foreign competition exudes a confidence and youthful spirit, rolling out a 70+ CEO of a bankrupt and federally funded conglomerate hardly gives the same impression.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Flexibility & Strategy in Marketing...
Great Interview with Best Buy CMO Mike Linton about flexibility....
Given that innovation is the only sustainable advantage these days, advertisers need to allocate at least 10% of their marketing budget to foster it, even in these economically challenged times, said former eBay and Best Buy CMO Mike Linton, who spoke to an audience at the Aberdeen Group's Chief Marketing Officer Summit here yesterday.
Mike Linton Innovation, by Mr. Linton's definition, is any action taken by the brand that changes consumer behavior in favor of the company, and that can range from a new product to a new way to service customers. While it's no surprise that Starbucks has managed to build a massive social-media audience, considering that it gives away latte coupons on Twitter and Facebook, innovation is also when a toilet-paper brand can get consumers to tweet about how soft its product is and show brand in a new light.
Any marketer standing still at a time when the consumer is ahead of the brand is bound to lose, said Mr. Linton, now a Forbes columnist. And amid the wide array of choices that consumers have today, fickleness represents a greater challenge than ever and loyalty dissipates that much more quickly. "Without innovation, you end up in a defensive position," he said.
Yet at a time when marketers are challenged to produce immediate returns, how can they balance the need to innovate against the pressure to produce bottom-line quarterly results?
Mr. Linton offered a few tips for driving innovation that don't require rich resources:
1. Just go for it.
If it's true innovation, you won't know everything about it, including how to measure it. Don't spend precious resources planning and testing your new approach or product until everything's in perfect alignment, he said. Though it can be a bit scary to navigate in uncharted territory, the price to pay for holding back is that your competitors may be on the verge of launching the next big thing that could render your brand passé.
"You have to keep pace with the market, and [that means] the marketers have to get comfortable with the ambiguity," Mr. Linton said.
2. Give your team incentives to innovate.
One tactic Mr. Linton has leaned on is to compensate his teams not only by how they measure specific functions, but by the totality of the customer experience, such as store sales, customer complaints and other metrics.
"I paid my team on total ROI first," Mr. Linton said.
If you pay your search-engine optimization guru solely by click-throughs or the media buyer strictly on media efficiency, you're encouraging them to think in silos and not outside the box. For example, if you set the success metric for customer-service reps to handle incoming calls within five minutes, you could be compromising their level of care in handling more time-consuming, complex customer-service issues.
3. Make sure you have at least one new thing every year.
As you prepare your annual business plan, ask yourself if you have anything new in the roadmap that wasn't there last year. You have to constantly ask: "Are we on the offensive? Who's our real competition?" Mr. Linton said.
"What are you doing that's new this year? If you don't have something new, someone else will," he said.
4. Use the 70% rule.
If your team feels there's a 70% chance that an out-of-the-box initiative based on rough math and intuition will deliver significant learning and success, you should go for it. "You have to have a belief that it's going to work for you," Mr. Linton said.
5. Don't be blindsided by the competition and get lost in what innovation is.
Record labels still believed they were each other's competition even as they engaged in legal battles with music download, peer-to-peer sites and the consumers who used those sites. They didn't see that consumers were bypassing the $19.99 CD en masse while Apple created a colossal digital-music franchise.
By the way, innovation isn't printing $1 coupons when the 50-cent coupons don't work. "If you temporarily buy your way to greatness, that's a problem and it's not going to solve the long-term problem," Mr. Linton said. "Pricing only solves long-term problems if you only compete on price."
Given that innovation is the only sustainable advantage these days, advertisers need to allocate at least 10% of their marketing budget to foster it, even in these economically challenged times, said former eBay and Best Buy CMO Mike Linton, who spoke to an audience at the Aberdeen Group's Chief Marketing Officer Summit here yesterday.
Mike Linton Innovation, by Mr. Linton's definition, is any action taken by the brand that changes consumer behavior in favor of the company, and that can range from a new product to a new way to service customers. While it's no surprise that Starbucks has managed to build a massive social-media audience, considering that it gives away latte coupons on Twitter and Facebook, innovation is also when a toilet-paper brand can get consumers to tweet about how soft its product is and show brand in a new light.
Any marketer standing still at a time when the consumer is ahead of the brand is bound to lose, said Mr. Linton, now a Forbes columnist. And amid the wide array of choices that consumers have today, fickleness represents a greater challenge than ever and loyalty dissipates that much more quickly. "Without innovation, you end up in a defensive position," he said.
Yet at a time when marketers are challenged to produce immediate returns, how can they balance the need to innovate against the pressure to produce bottom-line quarterly results?
Mr. Linton offered a few tips for driving innovation that don't require rich resources:
1. Just go for it.
If it's true innovation, you won't know everything about it, including how to measure it. Don't spend precious resources planning and testing your new approach or product until everything's in perfect alignment, he said. Though it can be a bit scary to navigate in uncharted territory, the price to pay for holding back is that your competitors may be on the verge of launching the next big thing that could render your brand passé.
"You have to keep pace with the market, and [that means] the marketers have to get comfortable with the ambiguity," Mr. Linton said.
2. Give your team incentives to innovate.
One tactic Mr. Linton has leaned on is to compensate his teams not only by how they measure specific functions, but by the totality of the customer experience, such as store sales, customer complaints and other metrics.
"I paid my team on total ROI first," Mr. Linton said.
If you pay your search-engine optimization guru solely by click-throughs or the media buyer strictly on media efficiency, you're encouraging them to think in silos and not outside the box. For example, if you set the success metric for customer-service reps to handle incoming calls within five minutes, you could be compromising their level of care in handling more time-consuming, complex customer-service issues.
3. Make sure you have at least one new thing every year.
As you prepare your annual business plan, ask yourself if you have anything new in the roadmap that wasn't there last year. You have to constantly ask: "Are we on the offensive? Who's our real competition?" Mr. Linton said.
"What are you doing that's new this year? If you don't have something new, someone else will," he said.
4. Use the 70% rule.
If your team feels there's a 70% chance that an out-of-the-box initiative based on rough math and intuition will deliver significant learning and success, you should go for it. "You have to have a belief that it's going to work for you," Mr. Linton said.
5. Don't be blindsided by the competition and get lost in what innovation is.
Record labels still believed they were each other's competition even as they engaged in legal battles with music download, peer-to-peer sites and the consumers who used those sites. They didn't see that consumers were bypassing the $19.99 CD en masse while Apple created a colossal digital-music franchise.
By the way, innovation isn't printing $1 coupons when the 50-cent coupons don't work. "If you temporarily buy your way to greatness, that's a problem and it's not going to solve the long-term problem," Mr. Linton said. "Pricing only solves long-term problems if you only compete on price."
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Stop Talking Marketing-ese....let's talk about BUSINESS!
Salespeople understand the concept of deadbeat conversations and avoid them like procurement-driven RFPs, but marketers haven't yet learned a very critical lesson: A lot of the conversations we engage in aren't worth the effort.
Conversations that don't go anywhere drive me crazy. You know, the customer service rep who never sends you that critical e-mail he promised. Or that prospect you take out to lunch once a month who never hires you. Or those 2,000 people who follow you on Twitter but never even glance at your website.
Yet for some reason, we marketing folks worship the conversation. If the economy ran off of talk, we'd be rich. But it doesn't. We can talk with an audience forever, but if we can't get them to take an action that helps get money into our pockets, our business is dead.
Salespeople understand the concept of deadbeat conversations and avoid them like procurement-driven RFPs, but marketers haven't yet learned a very critical lesson: A lot of the conversations we engage in aren't worth the effort.
Most conversations are wastedMost marketers fail to build a strategy to get what we want from our conversations. The main reason we tend to ignore conversation strategy is because most of us have been raised in marketing silos. Brand advertising may not drive sales right now, but sooner or later everybody buys, right? That's what we've wanted to believe.
But the proliferation of addressable media is giving us the ability to highlight, for the first time, the conversations that meet the goals of our strategy and, perhaps more importantly, those that don't.
My team is just as channel-agnostic as I am, and we work with analysts who can pick up the faintest signal in the most chaotic of background noise in any channel. You put these two together, and you begin to see patterns: People who are exposed to a bunch of brand impressions, banner ads, magazine articles and social media messages about a product have a much higher propensity to buy.
We've been studying and practicing this for years. We might, in the best of all worlds, get as many as 10% of targeted prospects to make a purchase over a five-year period. And we're giddy from that. Slaps on backs all around.
But then think about the inverse. Nine out of 10 of those conversations we had for five years didn't get us any financial return.
Marketing drives sales, not conversationsI see evidence that marketers are paying more attention to what is worth doing and what is not. Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of ComScore, speaking at the OMMA conference on July 31, said we should stop using clicks as the primary measurable unit in interactive marketing. Why? Because display ads and search ads play off of each other in ways that mere clicks won't capture.
He's a smart man, and he's right. But I think he'd agree it's much, much bigger than clicks.
In the new world of marketing, agencies are more like orchestra conductors than musicians. No channel has much value on its own and good ol' Internet Protocol (IP) can tag nearly everything from banner clicks to TV commercials, which allows clever analysts to discern whether the guy on the freeway who's looking at your billboard is going to buy your product. What really excites me in all this is our growing ability to identify and filter out the deadbeat conversations.
From the perspective of business strategy, all media and communications are the same. There are conversations going on all the time, some of which mention your product and influence sales but that aren't directly due to anything you've done. That's the background business as usual, the sales you'd have if you stopped doing any marketing at all (in the short term anyway -- the background sales would also slowly fade without marketing support). But then there are stimulated sales that result directly from some action we've taken.
Is there an equivalent of stimulated sales in social media? Absolutely -- it's the conversations we have that spur a sale. Even more pointedly, can we measure it? The answer is yes, we can. There are lots of companies out there doing it, including my own. We're getting better at it all the time. And while details are proprietary to our clients, I can say with certainty that social media mirrors all other conversational channels -- about 98 percent of conversations are really just people talking, the business as usual background noise that defines modern society.
And that's fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's admirable to sustain all the conversations you can, but if you're doing it for business reasons, you must realize that there is zero return on your investment for nearly all those conversations, regardless of where you have them.
The trick is to identify the wasted conversations before you have them, or at least as soon as they become obvious. The good news is we marketers have been doing that for decades in channels from telephones to email. Now we just need to start doing it in social media using the same business rules.
All it takes is knowledge and the discipline to hang up the phone on unhelpful support reps, stop buying lunches for prospects who will never help or hire us and unfollow those Twitter people who do us no good. Only then will our conversations start being worth our marketing effort.
Conversations that don't go anywhere drive me crazy. You know, the customer service rep who never sends you that critical e-mail he promised. Or that prospect you take out to lunch once a month who never hires you. Or those 2,000 people who follow you on Twitter but never even glance at your website.
Yet for some reason, we marketing folks worship the conversation. If the economy ran off of talk, we'd be rich. But it doesn't. We can talk with an audience forever, but if we can't get them to take an action that helps get money into our pockets, our business is dead.
Salespeople understand the concept of deadbeat conversations and avoid them like procurement-driven RFPs, but marketers haven't yet learned a very critical lesson: A lot of the conversations we engage in aren't worth the effort.
Most conversations are wastedMost marketers fail to build a strategy to get what we want from our conversations. The main reason we tend to ignore conversation strategy is because most of us have been raised in marketing silos. Brand advertising may not drive sales right now, but sooner or later everybody buys, right? That's what we've wanted to believe.
But the proliferation of addressable media is giving us the ability to highlight, for the first time, the conversations that meet the goals of our strategy and, perhaps more importantly, those that don't.
My team is just as channel-agnostic as I am, and we work with analysts who can pick up the faintest signal in the most chaotic of background noise in any channel. You put these two together, and you begin to see patterns: People who are exposed to a bunch of brand impressions, banner ads, magazine articles and social media messages about a product have a much higher propensity to buy.
We've been studying and practicing this for years. We might, in the best of all worlds, get as many as 10% of targeted prospects to make a purchase over a five-year period. And we're giddy from that. Slaps on backs all around.
But then think about the inverse. Nine out of 10 of those conversations we had for five years didn't get us any financial return.
Marketing drives sales, not conversationsI see evidence that marketers are paying more attention to what is worth doing and what is not. Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of ComScore, speaking at the OMMA conference on July 31, said we should stop using clicks as the primary measurable unit in interactive marketing. Why? Because display ads and search ads play off of each other in ways that mere clicks won't capture.
He's a smart man, and he's right. But I think he'd agree it's much, much bigger than clicks.
In the new world of marketing, agencies are more like orchestra conductors than musicians. No channel has much value on its own and good ol' Internet Protocol (IP) can tag nearly everything from banner clicks to TV commercials, which allows clever analysts to discern whether the guy on the freeway who's looking at your billboard is going to buy your product. What really excites me in all this is our growing ability to identify and filter out the deadbeat conversations.
From the perspective of business strategy, all media and communications are the same. There are conversations going on all the time, some of which mention your product and influence sales but that aren't directly due to anything you've done. That's the background business as usual, the sales you'd have if you stopped doing any marketing at all (in the short term anyway -- the background sales would also slowly fade without marketing support). But then there are stimulated sales that result directly from some action we've taken.
Is there an equivalent of stimulated sales in social media? Absolutely -- it's the conversations we have that spur a sale. Even more pointedly, can we measure it? The answer is yes, we can. There are lots of companies out there doing it, including my own. We're getting better at it all the time. And while details are proprietary to our clients, I can say with certainty that social media mirrors all other conversational channels -- about 98 percent of conversations are really just people talking, the business as usual background noise that defines modern society.
And that's fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's admirable to sustain all the conversations you can, but if you're doing it for business reasons, you must realize that there is zero return on your investment for nearly all those conversations, regardless of where you have them.
The trick is to identify the wasted conversations before you have them, or at least as soon as they become obvious. The good news is we marketers have been doing that for decades in channels from telephones to email. Now we just need to start doing it in social media using the same business rules.
All it takes is knowledge and the discipline to hang up the phone on unhelpful support reps, stop buying lunches for prospects who will never help or hire us and unfollow those Twitter people who do us no good. Only then will our conversations start being worth our marketing effort.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Don't Give the Client what they think they want...
...Give Them What They Never Dreamed Possible!
“Isn’t that why they hire us in the first place?” I remember it like it was yesterday. My first real mentor at a client showed me a creative philosophy that he wrote. His philosophy had ten simple ideas about how to run a department. This was one that really stuck with me. It also forced me to ask this question at least a thousand times through the years in this fantastic, frustrating, exhausting and exhilarating business. "Why are we so quick to give a client good when great is out there waiting to be found?"
Creativity and accountability are alive and kicking, so how do we surprise our clients and prove that we’re worth our salt? I believe the answer is simple: Stop trying to just solve advertising problems and start solving business problems.
Cut to the chase to find out what the real problems are with our clients' businesses. What keeps them up at night? What are they not getting from their other strategic partners? We stop trying to come up with the next cool creative, and instead help them understand how to transform their business. Ironically, most of the time, a subject line or creative comes out of it. When all is right in the ad world, all of these things are working together.
“Isn’t that why they hire us in the first place?” I remember it like it was yesterday. My first real mentor at a client showed me a creative philosophy that he wrote. His philosophy had ten simple ideas about how to run a department. This was one that really stuck with me. It also forced me to ask this question at least a thousand times through the years in this fantastic, frustrating, exhausting and exhilarating business. "Why are we so quick to give a client good when great is out there waiting to be found?"
Creativity and accountability are alive and kicking, so how do we surprise our clients and prove that we’re worth our salt? I believe the answer is simple: Stop trying to just solve advertising problems and start solving business problems.
Cut to the chase to find out what the real problems are with our clients' businesses. What keeps them up at night? What are they not getting from their other strategic partners? We stop trying to come up with the next cool creative, and instead help them understand how to transform their business. Ironically, most of the time, a subject line or creative comes out of it. When all is right in the ad world, all of these things are working together.
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