Interactive Marketing

My blog: The End of the Road or a Change of Lanes?

Augie Ray — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:41:41 +0000

In three days, it will be the two year anniversary of my first blog post on Experience: The Blog. Originally intended to be an exploration of experiential marketing strategies, my interest and focus quickly turned to social media and how the growth of the peer-to-peer groundswell creates challenges and opportunities for marketers. It is apt to recall how my blog started as one thing and became another, because change is in the air again. I'd like to reflect on that change, put it into context and invite you to join me as I shift my blog publishing to a new address.

A month ago, news broke that Forrester would be altering its blog policies and analysts would shift their industry-related blogging into a new, common platform on Forrester.com. I posted at the time that I believed aggregating Forrester's thought leadership in one place made sense and that I was eager to continue blogging, sharing news and building my reputation within the new Forrester blog.

The reaction was swift and emotional. Hundreds of tweets and blog posts weighed in on the topic; a few supported the new blogging policies, but most did not. One person tweeted I was "licking the boots of (my) corporate paymasters," and a friend sent heartfelt condolences at the loss of my blog. I ignored the tweet and assured my friend that I was not progressing through any of the stages of grief (unless bemusement was one of those stages.)

It's time to evaluate your use of customer data

Emily Riley — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:58:42 +0000

The online space is moving swiftly toward audience targeting, where demographic, behavioral and contextual data are aggregated to create a better picture of a target audience. While the offline world has already established relatively structured data trading processes, online marketing is just beginning to really trade in this valuable currency. In fact, one of the companies I moderated a panel for, eXelate, is about to announce a partnership with Nielsen, which would make Nielsen's panel data available for purchase and use on display targeting campaigns.
While it is true, as Emily Steele notes in the Wall Street Journal, that Congress and consumer advocacy groups are concerned about so much data being aggregated for online marketing use - which could cause improper use of consumer data for targeting purposes - it is also true that both marketers and consumers can benefit from this use if it's done right. Using consumer behavior data is not new, but what is new is how easy it is to aggregate data and get a clearer picture of what a customer wants. For interactive marketers, this presents both opportunities (giving customers better deals on things they like to buy) and risks (targeting with data that should remain private.)
Navigating this terrain can be difficult for marketers who want to create a good customer experience but don't want to cross the line into murky territory. To help determine how to maximize your use of customer data, join us for our panel. We will have some of the leading players in the data space on a panel at the Marketing Forum on April 22 to discuss how data plays a role in the interactive media buying process. To learn more click here.

Want to join the IM analyst team?

Emily Riley — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:38:22 +0000

Our team has been growing fast! We just hired two great new researchers and are currently interviewing candidates for analyst positions as well. We are looking for someone who has experience measuring campaign performance across digital channels and who can look at how emerging technologies will fit into a cross channel strategy. We are looking for someone with 5-10 years experience. We are open to hiring this person in NYC, Cambridge or Foster City, CA. If you or someone you know is interested in working at Forrester, please submit your resume here: http://forrester.myvurv.com/main/careerportal/Job_Profile.cfm?szOrderID=...

Welcome to the new blog network

Cliff Condon — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:10:28 +0000

Hey everyone. Here it is – Forrester’s new blog network. We made some changes to improve the experience for readers and to encourage more analysts to blog. Feel free to poke around and let me know what you think.

There are a few things I’d like to point out to you:

Everyone’s welcome here. Forrester analysts use blogs as an input into the research they produce, so having an open, ongoing dialogue with the marketplace is critical. Clients and non-clients can participate – so I encourage you to be part of the conversations on Forrester blogs.

We still have team blogs focused on role professionals. Our role blogs, such as the CIO blog and the Interactive Marketing blog, are a rollup of all the posts from the analysts serving that specific role professional. By following a role team blog, you can participate in all the conversational threads affecting a role.

And now we’ve added analyst blogs as well. If you prefer to engage directly with your favorite analyst, you can. Look on the right-hand rail of the team blog and you’ll see a list of the analyst blogs. Just click on their name to go to their blog. Or type their name into “Search”. An analyst blog is a place for the analyst to get reaction to their ideas and connect with others shaping the marketplace. You’ll find the blogs to be personal in tone and approach.

How Do You Keep Mass Influencers Engaged? An Example from TripAdvisor

Augie Ray — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

In the Forrester report, Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid, we introduced the Mass Influencer, a category of online influencer comprised of people who create most of the peer impressions about about brands in social channels. Although just 16 percent of the online population, Mass Influencers create 80 percent of all peer impressions about products and services.

B2B Interactive Marketing Spending To Hit $4.8 Billion by 2014

Michael Greene — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Forrester’s five year forecast of B2B interactive marketing spending has gone live on the Forrester site. This report marks the beginning of a chain of research for interactive marketing professionals at B2B companies. It should be no surprise that B2B interactive marketing spending continues to grow – and quickly at that. We project B2B interactive marketing spending to hit $4.8 billion in 2014, over double an estimated $2.3 billion in 2009.

Is mobile really that big a deal?

Shar VanBoskirk — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

**Correction: Actually, we forecast that direct mail will be at about $67 billion by 2012. So to my comment below, the astronomical forecast of mobile at $20 billion would be closer to a third, not a half of dm spend by 2012. >Both Josh James and Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of Adobe mentioned mobile in their keynote presentations and now I'm listening to RIM also talk about the power of the mobile browser.

Adobe On Its Way To Being A Role Model For Interactive Marketers

Shar VanBoskirk — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

I just had a one on one with Adobe CMO, Ann Lewnes, a power house of interactive marketing energy for the combined Adobe/Omniture companies.

In her words, "Adobe's goal is to be the site role model of what the combined Adobe/Omniture suite of products can bring to any marketer's site."

Live from the Omniture Summit: The New Principles of A Successful CMO

Shar VanBoskirk — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Coming to you live this morning from the kick off keynote of the Adobe (nee Omniture) Summit in Salt Lake City. And I'm pleased to report that so far the event is as thumping and hued in neon green as in years past.

A nice change from past summits: Instead of discussing developments to Omniture's online marketig technology, today's Omniture keynote by Josh James is themed around "The New Principles Of A Successful CMO." These are Josh's principles for how marketing execs can succeed.

My First Forrester Report: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid

Augie Ray — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Three months after starting at Forrester, my first report for Interactive Marketers is now available: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid. Forrester subscribers can click the link to read about the Peer Influence Pyramid, which describes and shares recommendations about three types of online influencers: Social Broadcasters, Mass Influencers and Potential Influencers.

Single ID: What Consumers Think and Why It May Not Matter

Augie Ray — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

I saw some interesting Forrester research this week. We asked over 4,000 consumers about Single-ID systems, which permit a profile to be used on multiple Web sites and eliminate the need to register, create and maintain separate profiles on each new site. While we didn’t ask consumers about the currently available options (such as Facebook Connect,

Google, Gmail, Relevance Filtering & the Future of Social Media

Augie Ray — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Is the Social Media world about to change on Tuesday? Probably not, but all eyes will be on Mountain View tomorrow when Google announces their latest venture into the social sphere, reportedly a social add-on to Gmail.

Forrester Wants More Analysts Using Social Tools

Cliff Condon — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Wow. There are a lot of comments flying around about Forrester's yet-to-be released blog platform and associated policy - some accurate, some not. The blog posts from Forrester analysts like Josh Bernoff and Augie Ray have had the most accurate information to date.

My Thoughts on Forrester, Analysts, and Blogging

Augie Ray — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

A minor tempest in the research industry teapot erupted today on Twitter and elsewhere. A SageCircle blog post entitled "Forrester tells analysts no more personal blogs with interesting implications for analyst relations"sparked a fair amount of dialog about Forrester and the rights and independence of analysts. SageCircle shared rumors that a change

Who is the MVP of the Marketing Bowl: Social Media or Super Bowl Ads?

Augie Ray — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:00:00 +0000

Image by Michael Kwan (Freelancer) via Flickr

Interactive Marketing

My blog: The End of the Road or a Change of Lanes?

It's time to evaluate your use of customer data

Want to join the IM analyst team?

Welcome to the new blog network

How Do You Keep Mass Influencers Engaged? An Example from TripAdvisor

B2B Interactive Marketing Spending To Hit $4.8 Billion by 2014

Is mobile really *that* big a deal?

Adobe On Its Way To Being A Role Model For Interactive Marketers

Live from the Omniture Summit: The New Principles of A Successful CMO

My First Forrester Report: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid

Single ID: What Consumers Think and Why It May Not Matter

Google, Gmail, Relevance Filtering & the Future of Social Media

Forrester Wants More Analysts Using Social Tools

My Thoughts on Forrester, Analysts, and Blogging

Who is the MVP of the Marketing Bowl: Social Media or Super Bowl Ads?

Is mobile really that big a deal?