So the marketing industry went looking for something that would help them break the cycle. Well, a few of them did. And what was that? Stories.

Storytelling became the buzzword of Marketing 2013. Based on a lot of neuroscience about our affinity for stories, marketers adopted storytelling for two main reasons. First, it was more personal. Stories connect with us individually. When they are well written, with narrative and characters and plot and setups and following a dramatic triangle, our neurons fire on all cylinders. Second, they are differentiating. You can’t just copy a story, especially if people have already read it. So marketers were forced to really dig deeply into their organizational DNA, into their creative minds, to find the unique angle, the special way to portray their product and service within narrative structure. Many of them did that through video which is rapidly becoming the defacto and preferred content type for a global audience.

But there was also a lot of talk in 2013 about data and personalization. Marketing automation vendors like Marketo (went public in 2013) and Eloqua demonstrated that marketers wanted more quantifiable ways to engage with their audiences. Perhaps recognizing the digital noise that they helped create, or maybe responding to consumer behavior that reflects busier lives, marketers looked to pure technology to help them personalize the content experience. But even that becomes part of the noise.

And finally, 2013 was about the maturity of social network marketing. Many organizations already had a social media presence in the big networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) but new networks like Vine, and what had been considered non-essential networks like Pinterest, rapidly gained in favor with marketers as they realized that video and images were more engaging than traditional text.

Still, as we exit 2013, I am left wondering if anything really had a difference. Of course, that’s not the right way to look at it. Trends take years, sometimes decades, to fully come to fruition. And that’s why I think in 2014 we will see the birth of the real trend, the fundamental evolution that has been happening under the covers: micro-marketing.

What is micro-marketing?

Micro-marketing is the development of marketing programs targeted at a small group of individuals or a single individual. This is opposed to macro-marketing which targets an entire market or specific buying persona (what most marketers currently do now).

The first thing you might ask is, “well, how is this different than personalization?” Personalization is a component of micro-marketing. Personalization doesn’t take into account the campaign mechanics of targeting a small group or individual person. Within marketing, personalization is really about the content experience. It’s about utilizing technologies and data to deliver the right content to an individual based on their behavior (within the content experience) or other demographic/psychographic data.

Micro-marketing, on the other hand, focuses on developing campaigns and other marketing programs around a highly personalized view of individuals gleaned from direct engagement through social media, commenting, email, and other 1:1 digital technologies. It addresses the elephant in the room: “what do I do with all this one-on-one interaction?” So although micro-marketing makes use of the same data that personalization might use, it goes a step further by taking into consideration direct conversations and interactions with people. Consider this example:

• Company A uses a social media management platform and a CRM. As they have direct conversations via the social platform, they record those into the CRM as part of an opportunity record.
• Using analysis capabilities within the CRM, Company A aggregates these conversations into a report that exposes common threads and patterns.
• Using that report, Company A designs micro-marketing programs targeting those opportunities specifically. But these programs aren’t entirely automated. Because they are based on direct interaction and engagement, some component of them relies on the same one-on-one interaction.

Micro-marketing is based on the premise that digital technologies actually unite us much more closely together than they divide us. With just a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can connect with anyone else, especially customers to companies. This therefore supposes that relationships will be the primary differentiator and driver of business success in the years to come, especially when you consider how easily it has become for upstart companies to replicate products or services.

Micro-marketing, then, is all about capitalizing on relationships.

What exactly will we see in 2014?

You won’t see micro-marketing displace macro-marketing. That’s because macro marketing, although inefficient, is great for general awareness campaigns. What we will see is marketers starting to experiment more with micro-marketing campaigns. They will start leveraging the relationships they have been developing throughout 2013 to test sales funnels, marketing campaigns, and conversion tactics on much smaller groups…perhaps even individuals. It’s possible that software like Marketo, Elquoa, and even HubSpot will turn into micro-marketing platforms enabling management and maybe even some automation of micro-marketing campaigns and activities.

Do you see yourself practicing micro-marketing in 2014? Could you ever target a single individual with a marketing campaign?

Image courtesy of vladstudio.deviantart.com

http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/award-winning-photographer-looks-into-our-eyes

Originally posted 2011-07-14 10:34:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Smarter-Strategies/Apple-SpinOff-Hosts-Enterprise-App-Stores/

And this makes total sense. Although the company in question, Apperian, is not a spin-out of Apple but a privately-funded company that, unlike other companies, it has Apple’s blessing with using their Over-the-Air technologies for app purchases. It’s using this blessing to create enterprise-specific stores for the likes of Cisco, Dupont, and others. There’s a lot of benefit on both sides to this.

First, on the enterprise side, companies get a dedicated place to which their corporate-controlled iPhones can download approved software. Whether these are apps built by the enterprise itself or simply those that have been vetted as secure enough to be used on corporate networks, it’s a very walled garden which appeals to corporate IT folks.

Second, on the Apple site, it allows them to appeal to a customer base that it has historically had trouble reaching especially with the iPhone. Businesses have been reticent to deploy iPhones to corporate users because of an inability to control the environment. Users could download any applications they want to from the AppStore potentially introducing security holes in the corporate network.

I don’t think it’s going to take much for Apperian to be successful. Using an already established UI and UE with the iPhone, this is really about ensuring quality of apps, reporting, and user management than anything else…none of which is very difficult.

Image courtesy of 9to5mac.com.

Originally posted 2011-07-14 11:18:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

The Smithsonian has published a gallery of photos taken of that trial (1925) which provide a very nostalgic look at a very charged event:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/sets/72157607580371997/with/2898281349/

Originally posted 2011-07-12 23:09:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Originally posted 2011-07-12 08:41:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

http://gigaom.com/2011/07/10/the-future-of-companies-work-you-i/

There is a lot of information in these videos and a bit of postulation about what the Internet means for modern businesses. Two points in particular I want to touch on.

The first is about the Internet enabling companies to appear bigger than they are. John kind of glances over this as far as I am concerned. Because without a doubt, the Internet not only lends to the appearance of a company’s size but, more importantly, actually enables it to be bigger by utilizing distribution, just-in-time resources to enable business operations that once required hundreds of people. Take fulfillment for example. As an online retailer, I now longer have to manage an entire supply chain myself. Using the Internet, I can process orders, send the order detail to an outsourced fulfillment center who drop-ships the product for me right to the customer’s door. In fact, all of this can happen while I am sitting on the beach sipping a margarita. The connectivity of the Internet has enabled a wide swatch of business that are part of any supply chain to connect. In fact, we often talk about social media and the social graph in terms of people. I would suggest that we need to talk about those to concepts in terms of businesses. Perhaps it’s a Facebook of business? This state of n-connectedness is actually a direct correlation to the technology of the Internet. As the Internet (and the Web, the presentation layer for the Internet) has grown and matured, a layer of connectivity has bubbled up. Instantiated primarily through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) one company can easily connect with another company. These APIs enable companies to not only share information but also to share services. I could build a business right now (it would take me only a couple of weeks) that would center around a web application connected to multiple other business for content and services (my supply chain), utilize a virtual 800# for customer service (or outsource that to India), and build a website with an off-the-shelf template that has the appeal of a Fortune 500 company. Yes, the Internet can not only make companies appear bigger than they are, it can actually increase the physical size and scope of companies.

The second is about being always connected. Unfortunately, this is rapidly becoming a state of life. I agree with John about setting boundaries. It’s important to keep a level of sanity in a very rapidly-moving post-industrial world, especially as everything becomes “dataized.” The “dataization” of the modern world, enabled by the Internet, is pushing us towards a new economic era that will eventually replace industrialization. When companies no longer produce “goods” but instead traffic in data, industrialization is over. But it’s important to understand our need to be connected all the time that doesn’t relate one bit to the business world (it is simply a reflection of some fundamental aspects of human nature). If you look back a hundred years, our primary means of getting information was centered around relationships. One person shares their information with another who shares it with another who shares it with another. In some cases, a person who is a hub can share information with a lot of other people (just think degrees of separation). Let’s say that in this model, with we will call very analog, you go on vacation. Do you still wonder what is happening at home? Do you still wonder what is happening at the office? Of course you do. It’s all about your degree of relevance. As human beings age, they go through stages of relevance. When you are young, you are trying to capture that relevance. When you hit the work force, you are trying to demonstrate it. When you retire, you are trying to keep hold of it. Relevance is a glue that binds the social structure of humanity together stemming back from our first hunter-gatherer days. When you were no longer relevant, there was no need for you to consume resources and, in most cases, you were expunged from the tribe. That deep-seeded part of our humanity has become magnified by the interconnectedness of the Internet. It’s now extremely hard to stay relevant as that analog situation a hundred years ago has been supercharged 1000 fold. The questions we face now are “how do I stay relevant? What information is important for me to be relevant?” This dataifcation of the world will only make this worse over time. But I believe that as software becomes more intelligent we will be able to use it to carve out our boundaries. John talks about making boundaries with the connected world, as if “shutting it out” solves the problem. I would disagree. Remember, this concept of relevance is in our very nature as human beings. I think the boundaries we need to create are between that information which supports our relevance and that information which doesn’t. Right now there is just a constant flood. When we can clearly identify the small streams we need to support our relevance in the world, our “always-on connectivity” will be much more manageable. I won’t have to be connected 24-7.

There are some valuable points discussed in these videos. I believe, most importantly as parents though, that we need to educate our children about relevance, about how to utilize the data streaming around the world to become relevant, and about how to remain always on without letting it consume our lives. Even if I am connected all the time doesn’t mean that my focus is on it 24-7.

Image courtesy of www.verizoninsider.com.

Originally posted 2011-07-10 09:05:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/177027/20110709/millions-jellyfish-invade-nuclear-reactors-japan-israel-2011-power-plant-shut-down-unusual-growth-tr.htm

Millions of jellyfish invade the cooling system around these nuclear powerplants forcing them to shut down. The pictures are amazing.

I wonder what else the jellyfish can force to shut down? A Justin Beiber concert?

Originally posted 2011-07-09 20:46:49. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/09/joseph-holmes-photographs-punctilious-texters-in-nyc-encourages/

When you look at these pictures, you begin to wonder what they are texting. Is it about banal things? Is it something important? Is it life changing? Because regardless of the subject of their digital conversation, they are utterly engrossed in the activity, so engrossed that it, in many times, usurps common activities (like walking) and common sense.

Here is the FlickR album with the pics as well:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeholmes/sets/72157627036687802/with/5866202835/
 

Originally posted 2011-07-09 17:06:32. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

But I have had students ask me, “why is this important? Isn’t the story the reason the reader is engaging with my writing?” The answer I give them is, “yes, the story is important but how engaged are your readers? Your prose is yet another tool to create connection between reader and writing.”

Writers must use all the tools available to them to keep the reader focused and interested. Readers are fickle creatures, prone to boredom and distraction. Come on, face it. As writers we are competing against the likes of Lost, True Blood, and a longer work week with less free time.

Engaging and exciting writing (with different sentence lengths, different grammatical structures, different words) is yet another way to capture a readers attention. Think of it like driving. What would you rather drive: a straight, long highway with no end in sight or something with an occasional turn, maybe a stoplight, or a town to pass through? I would argue that most readers want the later because it adds the element of “unpredictability” to your story. Remember that reading (and our interaction with language) is a very deep, psychological process. By adding variety to our writing, we engage with that process and create a level of engagement with the reader not otherwise there.

And that’s what  most writers fail to realize: the impact of word choice and sentence structure on the reading experience. Readers want to be visually stimulated as much as they are looking for an emotional connection to your characters. Of course, you could just make all sorts of different type faces and put in occasional pictures but I’d argue that those are visual distractions ultimately detracting from the reader’s connection with your writing.

The question, then, is when does this creep into the writing? Should a writer concentrate on it during an initial draft? Is this something that an editor should do after everything has been accomplished?

This really depends on the writer. Mixing sentence and paragraph lengths, ensuring that a repetition of words is kept to a minimum, infusing the prose with different grammatical elements has become a natural extension of my writing. I find myself doing it even as I am putting thought to pen to paper (although I always do more tweaking during the editing phase). Re-reading a book by one of my favorite authors (Clive Barker, The Great and Secret Show; yes, it’s the Kindle e-book version), I am reminded again how important prose is. Clive does such a spectacular job with his prose and as I read I often see a painter in front of his canvas, sometimes with wide swashes of the brush and other times with a masterful eye to the details.

Regardless of when you chose to do it, I implore writers of all levels and experience to pay attention to their prose, to provide not only a richer environment for their story and characters but also to give their reader a variety of writing that only enhances their overall experience with your work.

Originally posted 2011-07-04 10:37:56. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

http://gigaom.com/2011/06/29/pottermore-future-of-publishing-or-club-penguin-for-potter-fans/

Although Wolf’s article really talks about how Rowling’s move harkens to the very fast-moving changes facing the publishing industry, it also has profound implications on the way we read. I have written before about the transformation of the reading experience (books in combination with software/applications) but I think this is truly another step forward as virtual worlds represent so much more than just a game or an application. Harkening to my recent post about why MMORPGs are so appealing to people, imagine being able to read a book and then, while following along with the book in some fashion, carry out the book’s activities. You can imagine the power of this with Harry Potter, a franchise that has redefined fanatacism. Turbine broached this concept as well with Lord of the Rings Online in which you could not only complete normal quests but also follow along the primary path of the book. I think that was significantly meaningful to the players who were playing the game because of their relationship to the primary characters (who appear in these quests) and the book plot lines. There’s a lot of identity formation issues with specific franchises (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter) that transcend normal, imaginative game play. We are talking about projection here. People want to believe they are these characters.

Rowling is attempting to tap into that here and I think she will be immensely successful if she manages to pull it off with a good user experience. Rather than just another Club Penguin (as Wolf points out), this would truly be an immersive reading experience by which her fans could bring some tangible moments to their character projections. I know a lot of kids who would die to really be Harry Potter and in a virtual world, they have that opportunity. Perhaps it’s a brand new e-reader in which there are triggers in the books by which you can jump into the virtual world to game (working and socializing with other players) and then return to the book for traditional reading later. Perhaps it’s something else that combines movie clips as well.

Whatever, there is no doubt that transformation is afoot. What were once distinct channels of media consumption (book, PC game, TV, web site) are merging together in an evolution of that consumption.

Originally posted 2011-06-29 16:50:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter