With ‘effective’ do not only think about sales. If time to conversion is getter longer because people are waiting longer before they buy/invest, or if you website is just not an ecommerce site. It may be wise to track leads.

The thing with leads is that you have always this value issue. How valuable are my leads and if I have valuable leads how did I get them.

When you are using only your webanalytics software the best you can get is a conversion rate for leads. You can check which source of traffic is giving you most leads. But this does not say anything about quality.

To get quality info you can do two things. Either you separate lead paths so that you can measure them separately. Or you add info to the lead.

Adding info to a lead can be done manually by asking people to mention or ask for a particular word/code. This way your sales team receiving the leads will have more info about the traffic source.

But you can also integrate you analytics with you CRM for example using Google analytics.

Further more I see indeed less spending at the moment. A lot of houses for sale etc. But is this temporary or a real trend? If it is one thing we learned from the whole crisis then it is that we are really bad in predictions. So if they now predict downturn..Maybe it is just a matter of a longer time to conversion after all.

In digital marketing I hear a lot about less investments. There seems to be a big opportunity for affiliate marketing because of the performance based model. Display ads and branding seem to have a hard time, but companies are used to these “reach”model for ages and they learned to never skip too much marketing budget in bad times. So they will think twice and spend a little less I guess.

For cleaning up however it is now time for analytics. While we are all waiting for new investments it is a good time to look at how effective our webpresence is in engaging, converting etc. In my opinion there is a lot to gain here.  Most companies where to busy spending in the past, now it is time to look at costs and ROI.

This is totally in line with the overall commercial clean up.

-Ski Worldcup.  (ski wm, and Lara gut)

-Google latitude (see where your friends are)

-Floricienta (see also picture)

- and of course Valentinstag.

Will try to keep posting in the new year.

<update>

With the crisis going on more money is shifting towards digital marketing. Probably because of the good possibility of measuring ROI.  Affiliate marketing is enjoying this most. Digital branding will have to wait a little. Just a little because more sources are proving that digital branding is good for ROI.

Affiliate marketers prefer big brands because they know this already.

Any chocolate lovers out there who want to start up a small project?

Meanwhile made my first money on twitter and poken (a Swiss invention) is getting bigger in the Netherlands

In general social media is used more and more for commercial reasons and not everybody is staying relevant.  But the difference between wrong and right is not always clear.

Even if Yahoo is monetizing Flickr with more relevant advertising options. Free publicity will always exist.

Like in old media free and paid publicity have their own place and advantages. Big difference though is that in old media there are editors who are in charge of the quality of content. In new media it’s us, the audience.

If you only measure clicks, or even worse last-click, you miss the point of branding completely. People buy more easily when they know your brand or after seeing your display ads.

Check this article about engagement mapping from Microsoft advertising.

eMarketer recently published an article:  eMarketer seven strategies. In this article (starting from page 15) eMarketer shows even the impact of display advertising on Offline sales.

So people learn about your brand online and finally buy offline.

ps. I have business connections with eMarketer

Banners and advertising are getting visually very attractive. However most websites stay behind.

If your customer clicks on your well animated banner and comes on your website, be careful the two match. Due two the use of flash in advertising your landing page or company website  is becoming a sort of disappointment.

Most websites are still built around text. This is changing fast. The web is getting more visual. We are able to send out and consume more pictures, video’s etc.

For Brands this is a very welcome change. With the combination of image and text your message can get out stronger. The only thing is don’t stay behind. Avoid the risk of looking poor.

If your banners look better than your website you know it is time for a change. You could either change your banners or change your website.

I would chose the latter.

Check Google Flu Trends (thanks to hyped.nl)

Interesting relation between search and real-life issue’s. Marketing and Brand managers must actively  spot such trends because following a trend is much easier than creating one.

Start following Google Zeitgeist

Check out the rising searches for Switzerland for the last 30 days.

Do you recognize this:

You have this so called ‘friend’ you never hear anything from. He doesn’t call you on your birthday. He hardly knows your name or the name of your children. He actually only contacts you when he needs a favour.

The first time you didn’t notice but the second time it really bothers you.

It is the same with email marketing. Most newsletters you get just ask and don’t give. All they do is talk about themselves without asking you anything. Be carefull email marketing is not a one way street.

We don’t like it when people only talk about themselves (or about their products). If you do so, you better be sure it is interesting, something we didn’t hear many times before. Yes you can get my click if your headline speaks out. But next time I will not fall for your tricks.

Email marketing is more then a sales or lead generation tool. It is also about retaining and connecting with customers. Getting them to be part of your brand experience.

Two tips:

- When you are again filling your newsletter with your next special offer think also about sending out a certain emotion, brand association.  So next newsletter use story telling.

- You do your best to create content you think your subscribers will like. But why not ask. “It is your list, what do you want to hear”

We did ones a test with a music video at the buttom of every newsletter. It seems irrelevant, but it generated the most clicks and we asked people which music to put in the next newsletter.

Branding with email is more than just  a special offer in a nice branded template. It is also about tone of voice. Read more on this on Clickz.com

And yes you can create a lot of damage if you don’t know what you are doing. One good example from aweber.com is: Trying to sell to somebody who just bought. (see full discussion here)

sharing,

sharing,

sharing,

emotions.