Marketing | Demand Creation Blog

Barcode This!

2011-06-09T10:10:00.002-04:00

Back in December my company, Logarithmic IMPACT, did a little fortune telling with our "Top 10 Marketing Predictions for 2011," looking at some trends we believe will take hold this and in coming years.

One of our picks was a trendy new thing called called a 2d-barcode, which is really not new at all since barcodes revolutionized product manufacturing, distribution and package tracking and have been around for years in places like Japan.

I don't know if I've just become more aware of them of late, but in the first few months of 2011 it seems like their use has exploded beyond anything I saw last year. Certainly magazine advertisers are picking up on the power of the barcode to connect the print and online worlds -- it's a logical fit and lends some real numbers to the generally squishy measurability of print advertising.

As we've become an ever mobile-ized society I've noticed codes popping up on everything from theater promotional mailers, food packaging, plastic seedling tags (so you can scan the code and learn more about the flora you're about to put into the ground) to business cards. Back at the beginning of 2011, pharmaceutical industry magazine PharmaVoice surveyed over 500 people in healthcare and 48.15% in this famously cautious industry were at least somewhat familiar with QR codes (12.28% were Very Familiar). That sounds promising and suggests a bright future for the barcode in the marketing and demand creation mix.

Will 2d barcoding really be the ubiquitous marketing tool of the future? All I know is they seem to be great way to easily provide value-added information to busy clients and prospects on the go -- and all that extra engagement can't be a bad thing for the bottom line.

BTW, if you'd like to check out the rest of the "Top 10 Marketing Predictions for 2011," feel free to download a copy.

Image Sources:
http://qrmedia.us/petunias-have-their-own-qr-codes-at-home-depot/
http://funbeach.com/qrpress/portfolio/dune-grass-qr-code/

Technorati Tags: advertising, b2b, branding, business, demand creation, leads, marketing, mobile

Dazed and Confused

2010-02-02T18:19:00.002-05:00

Dear friends, I opened my emails this morning to find a distressing message from Twitter:

Of course I do not believe my account was hacked in any way and have not seen any suspicious Tweets posted in my name, but regardless since just after midnight last night and throughout today my account at @JosephMann has been in a state of suspended animation.

I won't bore you with the gory details of how much time I've spent trying fruitlessly to get any kind of resolution from Twitter -- I'm sure plenty of people out there have had to deal with the same issues. Reflecting on this -- still ongoing -- experience I suddenly realized how dependent I've become on Twitter for my business (and occasionally personal) information. From a sense of apathy bordering on abandonment nearly 3 years ago when I first tried it, Twitter has become an indispensable feed of business information and conversation from and with like-minded professionals.

It is with a strange mixture of loss, anger, fear, resentment and some confusion that I've stumbled through this Twitter-less day. You might be tempted to say I'm addicted to it, but that's not quite it. In fact, when my account was working, although I regularly posted I usually only popped on 2-3 times per day to read, reply and post. I sometimes skipped a day or two of logging in without a second thought and I never checked it on the weekends.

So what's going on here? Maybe it's a sign of how far Twitter has come as a business tool, insinuating itself into the daily routine (for some anyway). And though it's still got a long way to go (hello? is my account working again yet?), I can't imagine how I would easily replace it with some other form of interactive, information-gathering communication. Google Wave? Interesting -- promising even -- but still a long way to go. My blog is whispering seditiously in my ear that I should update it more often instead.

Here's hoping I won't have to learn to be without Twitter for long!

Technorati Tags: blogging, business, social media, twitter

Twitter to Business Users: You are now on Double Secret Probation

2009-10-16T08:19:00.011-04:00

As far as business use I have always seen and used Twitter as an information gathering tool with an allowance for just a smidge of promotion. I am deeply appreciative of the valuable links and insight posted by those I follow and try to return the same in kind. I've also endured plenty of Twitter spam, as a whole probably no worse than the amount of email spam I get. I do appreciate Twitter's desire to reduce spam.

But their Terms of Service revised on October 12 brings into question the long-term value of the service for legitimate business use (if the TOS stays as it is), ironically as Twitter claims to have an eye on offering premium corporate services. Here's a snip:

If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;

If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);

If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;

If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;

If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;

If a large number of people are blocking you;
The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;

If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account

If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #

If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic

If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies

If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link

If you repost other user’s content without attribution.

If you have attempted to "sell" followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn.

I think the real problem here, particularly for business, is with numbers 5 and 7.

"If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates"
I actually WANT businesses and Twitter users I follow to provide links. Aside from it being pretty much impossible to provide perspective in 140 characters, I think contributing links to tweets promotes the ideal of sharing and adds value to the service that keeps me coming back. Without them, Twitter is sure to return to the kind of vapid, navel-staring that initially hurt its credibility for business (and to some would say this is still the case. I don't know - I don't follow navel-watchers). Maybe they mean you can't post a tweet that consists ONLY of a link. If they do, the TOS should be more clear about it. As it stands, the wording is too vague.

"If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account"
I don't spend 24/7 on Twitter scanning updates so it's easy to miss tweets that I might want to see but was not online at the time to catch. As both a sender and recipient of business tweets it's helpful to have some tweets rebroadcast once in a while. Provided it's not daily, I'm all for it. Maybe once a month or every two weeks. And if Twitter is able to spot these Tweets and punish people for posting them, why can't they give users an toggle to selectively block or allow them. Why the Draconian approach? Let the people decide!

It also makes sense to be able to post some of the same content across accounts. Many people and corporations manage multiple Twitter accounts and while it would be simpler if each was compartmentalized from the other, the truth is there are times when it makes sense to post the same tweet to multiple or all of your accounts if there is some overlap in the kind of tweets the followers of each account like to see. We should not be punished for trying to tailor content to fit our audiences. I've heard it rumored that so far only tweet text that is EXACTLY the same as recently tweeted text is being blocked and that duplicate links are so far unaffected, but haven't tested this myself.

There is the bright spot in Twitter rolling out the "Report as spam" button and I've read there are humans behind the review process to avoid abuse by someone with an axe to grind. I just wish the terms of use were a little more specific in all areas. As it stands, it feels a lot like being on double secret probation!

Sources:

"Rumors Abound as Tweet Scheduling Services are Targeted by Twitter" (Jesse Stay)

Twitter TERMS OF SERVICE: http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311

"Twitter Starts to Talk Up Corporate Account Plan"

"Twitter Confirms Paid Pro Accounts On The Way" (Silicon Alley Insider)

"Surveillance Cameras" image by Quevaal. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Technorati Tags: business, marketing, social media, spam, twitter

Sideswiped by Sidewiki

2009-10-06T13:14:00.004-04:00

Reading through posts to the Web 2.0 Marketing Group I belong to on LinkedIn recently, a question came up about the implications of Google's Sidewiki for pharmaceutical/medical device brands. In an industry as heavily regulated as pharma, I can understand just how nervous this is going to make the lawyers (once it's on their radar)

While dipping its toes tentatively into the social media waters more and more, by and large the industry sees all sorts of beasts and monsters lurking in it's uncharted depths. Rightly so — implying acceptance of off-label uses of drugs or medical devices could mean legal headaches and fines the size of a Kraken.

As a social media user, I like the concept of Sidewiki and see significant value it can add to web sites. At the same time, with the current toolset (none) available to companies/brands/site owners, this is incredibly scary — anybody with a mean-spirited agenda can post a comment that pops right out next to any page on your web site. This is not some dark corner of Cafe Pharma message boards or a third-party rating site. For the majority of people who don't know any better, it looks like it's part of your site, endorsed by you.

Here's my comment (and recommendation) about the situation posted to the Web 2.0 Marketing Group:

"Working in pharma/healthcare I know what you mean about regulatory concerns. I'm sure many of my clients will be nervous about this once it's on their radar. Until (and if) Google gives some measure of control or comment moderation to the site owners, my suggestion is for companies to pre-emptively post the first Sidewiki entry to their sites making clear their policies about off-label use and perhaps including links to the appropriate site terms of use policy. As the site owner, a comment can be set to always appear at the top of the listings."

Although I posted regarding pharma regulatory concerns specifically, there's no reason why any company in any industry can't be the first to set some expectations or policy outlines for those who view Sidewiki comments on their site. It might not be as good as comment moderation, but for those in highly regulated industries it might put a little more control back in the company's hands (and make the lawyers less nervous!)

For more about this topic as it relates to the pharma industry, John Mack has posted quite a bit on his Pharma Marketing Blog about it. And a related post by Magnus Nillson "Google Sidewiki-Power to the People" provides a little more background about Sidewiki.

Sources:
Magnus Nillson. "Google Sidewiki-Power to the People." Sep 25, 2009.
John Mack. "3rd Party Dissemination of Altered Rx Drug Information on Social Media Sites. Survey says.."
John Mack. "Google's Wacky Wiki is Whack! Pharma Should Demand Ability to Block It!"
Public Domain Image "Colossal octopus" by Pierre Denys de Montfort. 1810. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Technorati Tags: advertising, branding, marketing, medical device, pharmaceutical, wiki, social media

All That Twitters Is Not Gold

2009-09-09T19:46:00.000-04:00

The talk about how the majority of the traffic on Twitter is pretty much junk is nothing new. Back in March 2009 Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the crowd at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference that Twitter is a "poor man's e-mail system." David Letterman called it "a waste of time" (although he apparently only found out about it on his July 21, 2009 show, so let's give him some time). It even took a comparatively non-famous gnat like myself a while to warm up to Twitter: I signed up in July 2007 and tweeted barely 17 times between July and October that year. Then I got bored and forgot about it for 8 months. In all, it took nearly a year and half for me to come back and discover how useful Twitter can be to learn more about subjects that interest me, can help me do my job better and connect with like-minded professionals.

Despite Twitter's popularity, the perceived problem with Twitter being a waste of time has not really abated much in the media or on the web: in August 2009 Pear Analytics released an interesting report simply called "Twitter Study" that sampled 2,000 tweets and classified them into six categories: News, Spam, Self-promotion, Pointless Babble, Conversational and Pass-Along Value. (I originally saw the post on the WebProNews blog) The Pear report found that over 40% of its sample was "Pointless Babble" ("Self-promotional" and "Spam" posts falling in at 5.85% and 3.75% respectively)

And almost from the beginning of my Twitter explorations it was very clear to me just how spammy Twitter could be. Sure, there were plenty of tweets in the public timeline trying to sell get rich quick schemes as well as the not surprising number of porn-related tweets. What I discovered early on was Twitter's potential for a more subtle form of spam: Follower Spam. Initially excited to get alerts of all kinds of new people following my tweets, I would look at my Follower list and be surprised to find nearly all were the same multi-level marketing, dating/porn and other unwanted accounts I had no interest in seeing. I suppose I could have just left them alone and hoped that over time these accounts would stop following, but at the same time I became concerned that others viewing my public list would see all these "questionable" accounts following and get the wrong impression of me (am I the only one who thinks like this?). I had to do something about it, so I devised a plan to clear these out on a regular basis ("Twitter-Blocked: It's Nothing Personal, Just Business" January 19, 2009), but at the same time being a metrics guy, I was curious to see how many of my followers would turn out to be spam if I just tracked it for a while.

So beginning in March 2009 I saved all of my new follower notification emails and classed them into 6 buckets:

Follower & Following: people who followed me and whose content I value enough to follow back — I don't as a rule follow back everyone

Following Only: people whose tweets I like enough to follow but who did not follow me back

No Follow: those I did not object to following me but who I could not find any common ground to justify a follow back

Follower Unfollowed: those who followed me but had unfollowed before I got a chance to review the request. I don't lose much sleep over these since I suspect many are using auto-follow/unfollow bot services like SocialToo.

Blocked: followers that once I reviewed them I found the content of their tweets, their profile, etc. to be objectionable. I often block those that don't have a profile photo or a URL n their profile. Overtly salesy tweets that predominate the timeline (vs. a good mix of informational vs. promotional) I also usually block.

Twitter Suspended: Twitter has suspended the account before I get a chance to review the follower.

After 6 months of capturing the alerts, representing 578 follow requests, I was surprised to find that my tracking of follower spam was not really that far off from the Pear study of individual tweet spam: 33.73% of the follower requests I received I ultimately blocked compared to 40.55% Pointless Babble tweets in the Pear study (see the pie chart "Follow Request Composition Mar-Aug 2009"). It's a bit of an Apples to Pears (!) comparison, but if you consider that ultimately the Pear study and my informal tracking are trying to assess value, we're pretty close. I see the Pear study "Pass along", "Conversational" and "News" categories as representing my categories of "Follower & Following" with "Following Only" thrown in — the kinds of tweets I usually find valuable.

Despite the challenges of maintaining a clean and vibrant follower list in an atmosphere of increasing noise, I tend to agree with Scott Bishop of Real Time Marketer Blog who said in a post "There is no Twitter spam, there is no such thing as a bad Tweet, there is no Twitter 'pointless babble.' Why? Because Twitter is only and exactly how you make it." And I choose to make my own corner of the Twitterverse as interesting and valuable as I can.

If you enjoy talking about this kind of thing like I do, please follow me on Twitter from the sidebar. If you're a spambot, web-cam porn star, MLM schemer or "life coach," don't bother — I'll block you soon after :)

Sources:
Scott Bishop. "Most Twitter Statistics Are Worthless." Real Time Marketer Blog. August 19, 2009.
Ryan Kelly. "Twitter Study Reveals Interesting Results About Usage – 40% is 'Pointless Babble' " Pear Analytics. August 12th, 2009.
Mark Glaser. "How 'Follower Spam' Infiltrated Twitter - and How to Stop It." PBS MediaShift. October 23, 2008.

Technorati Tags: metrics, spam, social media, tips, twitter

Peace, Love and New Age Metrics

2009-06-22T22:11:00.001-04:00

It seems that with the popularity of Twitter these days everyone is trying to figure out how to make a buck with the service that has famously yet to figure out how to make money for itself. Every day I receive a few follower notices that turn out to be people hawking their "How to make [insert dollar amount here] per month from Twitter" plans that I'm convinced are the tip of some multi-level marketing ponzi scheme supporting a cult group. Of course, I promptly block these followers.

Today, however, I became aware of something different: a tweet from @EONpr tipped me off to an article about one company that has developed a system (as I understand it) to let advertisers buy brand-specific marketing "leads" as a list of Twitter users that have apparently opted-in to communications from the brand targeting them (huh?). The Cost-per-lead advertising concept is not a new one but the application of it to Twitter seems to be. While I'm a fan of measurement and applaud a company trying to find a legitimate way to build its own business and also serve the needs of advertisers, to my mind this example misses the point by grafting old media advertising concepts (CPL display advertising) onto Twitter. (Note: I hesitate to even call Twitter "new media" because I think the term underplays its potential power as a communication, conversation and engagement platform, but that is another discussion!)

The model also seems to fall into the same trap as marketing list firms claiming to sell "leads." I wouldn't call an address/email list of names "leads" and I wouldn't call a list of even opt-in Tweeps "leads." At best they are targets, people who might have mentioned a brand by name in a tweet and might like the brand (or not), or might have purchasing intent or influence. For something sold as "leads" that's a whole lot of mights and maybes — the kind of stuff salespeople hate and the stuff they bounce back to Marketing for qualification (and rightly so).

Even if the cost is minimal, how do you assign a value to an individual Tweep bought from a pay-per-lead list? Is it the number of people who follow them? But who says THOSE people are a value measurement? I think in the end it is wrong to try and apply measurements of certainty to Twitter (at least at the present time). The value of Twitter is probably more akin to the traditionally "squishy" concepts of branding that are hard to quantify: increased awareness, preference, loyalty and customer "delight" delivered through superior customer service — something Twitter can excel at. Maybe its okay for now to call it what it is and let Twitter do it's touchy-feely, new age thing. The hard numbers can come later.

Sources:
@EONpr "Is Cost Per Twitter Lead the next sales metric?" 6/22/2009
Peter A. Prestipino. "Cost Per Twitter Lead?" Website Magazine. Jun 17 2009
Tie-dye shirt (without Twitter bird) by MpegMan via Wikimedia Commons. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license

Technorati Tags: branding, demand creation, leads, marketing, metrics, social media, twitter

Brand Threat Management in the Age of Cyberscamming

2009-05-12T23:20:00.002-04:00

Is the soft global economy eroding brand value? A new study by the CMO Council seems to say so. Their global audit of 306 marketers titled "Protection From Brand Infection" reports that trademark infringement and brand knockoff artists are moving increasingly online.

According to Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor, a brand reputation protection solutions company, “The immediate impact of a brand attack through online scams, phishing or cyber squatting is on the integrity and reputation because such activities are customer-facing and go right to the heart of what contributes to underlying brand value, customer attitudes and interpretations.”

Yet ironically, the study reports that those typically with the most intimate understanding of brands and their value — the marketing department — are being left on the sidelines in the war to maintain brand reputation. Indeed only 15% of marketers lead brand protection programs, with 42% of those surveyed assigning this role to legal, finance or IT.

Although marketers in some of these companies may have been officially cut out of the picture, there may still be hope to leverage marketer skillsets for brand protection in less formal ways. "Older" Web communication tools like blogs can help put valuable brand protection information in front of customers while newer tools like Twitter have already been famously used in customer service and help ensure that consumers receive the right communications from the brand owners — not knock-off competitors. While many of the brand erosion threats seem to be focused on business-to-consumer brands and less so on business-to-business sales, these and other customer communication tools still have a valuable education role to play.

The CMO Council for its part is leading the charge by teaming with AVG Technologies and launching a consumer notification and education center to boost brand threat detection, called "Slam the Online Scam" at http://slamtheonlinescam.com.

Source:
The CMO Council and MarkMonitor. "Protection From Brand Infection." May 11, 2009 http://slamtheonlinescam.com

Technorati Tags: b2b, brand equity, branding, marketing, social media, twitter

Does Twitter Make You Dumbr?

2009-03-12T19:23:00.002-04:00

Blogs are dead, so said Wired Magazine back in October — a casualty of Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms serving the short attention span generation (Flickr and Facebook were also named as blog-killers). But as I was catching up on the magazines that have been piling up in my [real world] inbox I saw an op-ed piece reassuring me the blog's demise has been greatly exaggerated: micro-blogging may be great for short-form content, trading links, etc. But having genuine conversation in 140 characters is practically impossible. And I think this is true — Twitter has its niche as a place to get out quick thoughts and blogs are great for having the space to develop those thoughts. Integrating the two can be a perfect match.

The sad realization I suddenly came to is that my addiction to reading and (to a lesser extent) posting tweets has made me remember how much I've been neglecting my blog. It's a relatively painless process to flit through the dozens of mail lists in my [digital] inbox, pick out interesting tidbits and links to share and post them on Twitter. I can do it while waiting for a big file to download or a Final Cut video to render. And skimming through the tweets of those I follow (please don't ask me to call them 'tweeple') is just as quick and easy. But ask me to sit down and plan out a blog post - oy veh! Of course I enjoy the end product of blogging and like the fact that blogs are so much less ephemeral than tweeting, but the process is much like working out at the gym: like the end result, hate the steps it takes to get there.

And worse than than neglecting longer form writing, with limited hours in the day all this tweeting does tend to take time away from sitting down and reading anything not delivered in short bursts. So then does Twitter make you dumber? Uhhhhhh....dunno.

Oh by the way, you can follow my ongoing Tweetaholism here twitter.com/josephmann

Sources:

Paul Boutin. "Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004" Wired Magazine. October 2008.

Tony Byrne. "Blogs are Dead! Long Live Blogging!" EContent Magazine. Jan/Feb 2009. p.22

Photo "Dunce Cap" by citizen_smith58 used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported license. Twitter bird added.

Technorati Tags: blogging, social media, twitter

Twitter-Blocked: It's Nothing Personal, Just Business

2009-01-19T12:19:00.001-05:00

It's been more than a year since I first logged into Twitter and blogged about my early experiences and thoughts for turning the service towards business use. I walked away for a while and came back late in 2008 and found myself hooked in a serious way. I now find Twitter to be an indispensable source of information, interesting links and conversation with like-minded colleagues around the world. I've even been surprised to find a growing number of Twitterers interested in following my own postings.

But all this has come at a price — my attention seems more and more divided trying to keep up with a growing stream of posts from those I follow. I admit a twinge of anxiety creeps in when I'm NOT scanning through tweets, wondering what I'm missing. My Twit-addiction is probably not unique — I've recently read about more and more people claiming to "take a vacation from Twitter." I don't think this is a viable option for me so I've decided to try to tame and organize the beast rather than slay it in three steps:

Step 1
Decide what is the "mission" of your Twitter account — and stick to it. Perhaps one of the reasons Twitter has gotten a (semi-deserved) rep as a forum for the inane minutia of people's lives is that not enough Twitterers have figured out exactly what they want to do with it before they start tweeting away. I decided I wanted to try and keep my tweets on track by making my mission to seek out and share conversation on b2b marketing, social media and demand creation. This also necessitated creating a second Twitter account for keeping up conversations with friends and as a conduit for easy posting to my personal Facebook account. I've seen some create a separate Twitter account just for posting links and bookmarks (Great idea, RoboChris!)

Step 2
Filter tweets. If you spend any time with Twitter you realize that viewing the tweets of those you follow with the web interface is a chore at best. You need to be able to easily filter your friend's postings into categories to prioritize reading. My organizational tool of choice is TweetDeck. While it's still billed as a beta, it is just about the sweetest tool I've seen on any platform, thanks in part to it's development as an Adobe Air application. Organize friends into different groups, filter within groups, tweeting directly from the application and short link integration make it a joy to use.

Step 3
Actively manage follows and follow-backs. This is where it can get sticky. There seems to be an unspoken rule of "twittiquette" that says if someone follows you, you should follow them back. But what if their postings and use of the service don't mesh with your mission for using Twitter? Do you really want their postings junking up your timeline, or worse their replies that every one of your followers can see? Some people seem to use Twitter to try and get as many followers as they can and follow everyone. Others seem only interested in pushing their latest product. Then there are those who I can't understand why they want to read my tweets, like the guy who writes in his profile "I like to sit on my couch and drink beer."

Don't get me wrong, I'm genuinely thrilled to see that someone is interested in what I post, but if I'm going to keep on mission and stay efficient I'm afraid I sometimes have to get out the scalpel and occasionally do some culling — quality over quantity. First, when I see a new follower I file the notification in an "Evaluating" folder. When I have a chance I take a look at their profile to view things like their Follow to Follower ratio, their profile and whether there is a picture and a web address to go to for more info. Finally I look over their tweets a bit to see if they mesh with the mission I've set for my own tweets.

In the best of cases (and most often), I move them to a "Follower and Following" folder and initiate a follow-back as well as a thank you for following me. For the ones I'm a bit on the fence about, I move to a "No Follow" folder for ongoing evaluation. In extreme cases where I think there is a glaring incongruity between a follower's postings and my mission I do go as far blocking them from following. These are honestly few and far between and usually Twitter has flagged and removed these accounts as "suspicious" (violating their terms of service) before I ever get to.

So just in case I ever Twitter-block you, please keep in mind that I just don't think we have the same goals and it would be best to part ways. It's not you, it's me. It's nothing personal — it's just business!

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, marketing, social media, twitter

Seasons Tweetings

2008-12-24T12:24:00.001-05:00

Wordle is nothing new, but I couldn't resist playing around anyway to present this holiday word cloud card today on the 4th anniversary of my blog. It represents the past year of tweets from my Twitter stream with sizes relative to the number of times each word was used.

Happy Holidays & New Year to All!

Technorati Tags: art, twitter, wordle

Transparent about Transparency

2008-12-16T21:31:00.000-05:00

Just last week during the FutureLab LiveBlog a fair amount of the lively conversation turned to the need for greater transparency in how marketers work with their clients (you can still read the thought trail here http://liveblog.futurelab.net). The challenge of companies and brands building trust with their customers has never been greater now that the economy has tanked and budgets for 2009 are in flux.

Mulling all these things over, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new issue of BtoB Magazine in my mailbox a few days later with the timely front page article "Recession forces marketers to be more frugal. Emphasis on trust and transparency among key trends to watch in the new year."¹ Beyond the need to cultivate trust as a brand attribute, success in 2009 will require leveraging social marketing, deeper use of analytics and new kinds of metrics to measure Web 2.0 and even broader use of video.

A BtoB Magazine survey found that almost 70% of marketing budgets will either be flat or reduced in 2009 ² — on the surface a grim picture indeed. But the "new frugality" will also open opportunities to leverage other marketing tech: social networks, viral marketing, home grown video, podcasting and more. Where less money is going into traditional advertising and print projects next year, more is expected to go into online initiatives.

A shift away from launching new ad campaigns, for example (see chart above), will see customers scrambling for other ways to generate leads and awareness to meet their marketing objectives in 2009.

When less than half of those surveyed say they use social media as part of their overall marketing strategy, this is perhaps a historic opportunity to nudge along customers who might have been reticent about delving into new marketing media when budget was available for the perceived "tried and true" methods. And in these new and uncharted waters, marketers will need to take care to respect the fragile trust that is earned through the honest, transparent customer communications demanded by social media. It's going to be an interesting year indeed.

Sources:

¹ Kate Maddox. "Recession forces marketers to be more frugal" BtoB Magazine. December 8, 2008. p1

² BtoB's "2009 Marketing Priorities and Plans" Survey

Technorati Tags: advertising, b2b, demand creation, leads, marketing, podcast, social media, web video

In-Game Ads? No Problem!

2008-12-08T21:38:00.000-05:00

Being a marketer and also a relatively serious gamer in my down time, I usually take notice when I read things about the business of games and in-game advertising. Of course in-game ads are nothing new but as I've put my XBOX 360 through its paces I've come to notice ads embedded within game content more and more. And apparently this is an OK thing: according to a recent survey 82% of gamers have no problem with in-game ads ¹

It's fine with me too. I first really became aware of it back with the Ubisoft release of Tom Clancy's tactical shooter Rainbow 6 Three: Black Arrow in 2004. Sneaking around a subway station and catching a glimpse of a station platform billboard for another Clancy game, Splinter Cell. "Isn't that interesting..." I thought as I stared at the ad "Maybe I'll have to check that one out too." Of course while ogling the ad, I was also promptly shot by a terrorist I was supposed to be hunting in the game. That ad never changed in the game.

But just this summer, not quite 4 years later, I realized how much in-game ads had matured. Playing the Electronic Arts/DICE game Battlefield: Bad Company I noted many of the ads change each time I play. I'm not sure I've even seen the same ad twice. As far as I can tell they still all reside on traditional billboards in the various environments/locales where the game takes place and there doesn't seem to be any behavioral targeting of me that I can discern, but still the fact that they change and I that know they WILL change gets me to stop and check them out almost every time — and then I am promptly shot by an opponent.

I find myself wondering why I'm not bothered by the ads (other than the fact that I get killed every time I stop to look), but maybe it's because in our media and advertising saturated real world, the same display ad metaphor translated into bits and bytes feels so familiar it goes unnoticed. There's some interesting psychology going on there and I suspect the game publishers know it, too. When 72% of the population age 6-44 played videogames in 2007 — up from 64% in 2006² — it seems certain that game publishers and brand marketers alike have only just begun to tap into a lucrative channel even as traditional display ad revenue has declined.

Sources:

¹ Nielsen BASES, commissioned by IGA Worldwide. Summer 2008

² NPD

"Battlefield: Bad Company" screen capture by Matt Brett. Accessed 12/8/2008. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license

"Rainbow 6 Three: Black Arrow" screen capture by Vandal. Accessed 12/8/2008.

Technorati Tags: in-game, marketing, videogame, advertising

Marketers Face Steep Web 2.0 Learning Curve

2008-11-26T14:51:00.000-05:00

According to a new Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) report mentioned on MarketingCharts and in the CMO Council's "Marketing Magnified" most marketing execs are not surprisingly still in the early, experimental phases of using and measuring social media. According to the report:

67% of respondents consider themselves beginners at using social media for marketing purposes.

More than 87% of respondents are not regularly measuring the ROI of their social media marketing efforts.

Though marketers are paying attention to social media and see a future in it, they still consider the social media world akin to the “Wild West.”

I like that last point about the "Wild West." The thing about the Wild West was that someone had to tame it, so why not your company? In these challenging economic times being the last person to the frontier, being the last one to dig into social media for marketing your company will probably be far worse than doing some trials and making a few mistakes along the way.

It's at least heartening that 67% of those in the report say they plan to increase their social media advertising budget in 2009 and see some benefits to using social media. But even without advertising on social networks there are alot of simple things business-to-business companies can do to get their feet wet without spending much at all: blogging, Twitter, YouTube are just a few.

"Marketing Executives Networking Group Survey Finds
Social Media Practices Still in Infancy Stages." Marketing Executives Networking Group. November 6, 2008

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, marketing, metrics, social media

FutureLab's Blog Nominated for Webby Award

2008-04-16T16:09:00.000-04:00

Got a note a little while ago that the FutureLab Marketing Strategy & Innovation blog (which also syndicates some of this blog's postings) has been nominated as one of the 5 blogs in the Business Blog Category for a Webby Award.

Congrats to Stefan Kolle, Alain Thys and my fellow FutureLab bloggers for their hard work!

Twitterific: Expand Your Multi-Channelverse

2007-08-05T23:36:00.001-04:00

After hearing all the Twitter talk in recent months I decided it was finally time to give it a try and see what microblogging is all about. I figured I've been blogging for a while, so doing even smaller, quicker posts would be easy. Even so, I thought it probably wouldn't last long with me - I barely ever use the texting features on my mobile phone and hardly ever IM anyone (no one ever seems to be online when I am).

Still feeling a little self-conscious about broadcasting the mundane details of my daily life to the world, I decided to sandbox my musings for the time being and sent invitations to a dozen friends.

Well, it's been about 18 days now and not a single person has accepted an invitation to view my twitters. But oddly enough I keep sending pings to my Twitter account. I'm a little addicted. I even sent mobile text messages while I was away on vacation. Which leads me to the existential question: If you twitter and no one is there to read it did it really happen?

Who knows? I'm pretty sure it happened. But the experiment got me thinking about the nature of microblogging and how my immediate fascination with Twitter might be put to business use. Twitter defines itself as "a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?" But this is obviously too trite to fly with business users. I think it boils down to this: Twitter is about instant communication with everyone (or just a targeted audience) in the way they want it. That is something business can latch onto: after all, driving business growth depends on communicating with your target audiences. For those who have shied away from building and maintaining a company blog due to the time commitment, a Twitter microblog may be the next best thing, or at least something else to add to your multi-channelverse.

Here are a few ideas I came up with (I'd love to hear more):

News Alerts - new product/service announcements, acquisitions, business wins, etc.
Crisis Communications - perhaps as part of a web site media center
Customer updates - the ultimate microtargeting of content
Web site update alerts - a new podcast, video clip, article quip linking to more meat

While the 140 character maximum message length can be a challenge, it does force you to focus on concise messaging. The ability to embed URLs means interested "followers" of your twitters can be directed to more detail on a landing page and then tracked. As with a blog, however, I think using Twitter in this semi-promotional way requires that you be upfront with what you're doing or risk being called out as a phony. Provide value-added microblog content and you'll be a hero.

Lastly, by way of the Twitter Fan Wiki here are a few more uses and mashups using the tool that I thought might be useful in Twitter microblogs for business:

Twitterment is a Twitter search engine that also provides trend graphs and identifies buzzy and fading terms.
Twitter Groups! From creator of Twitter Mosaic. Put your followers into groups and send messages to them instead of individually.
MobiFeedLive.com Receive Keyword Based Email Alerts so you can see who is saying what about you - buzz and competitive tracking, micro-scale. It also has search, link metrics, and trend analysis.

Sources:
Thompson, Clive. "How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense" Wired Magazine. June 26, 2007

What is the Measure of an Email Campaign?

2007-06-28T10:52:00.000-04:00

The answer is apparently a resounding "I don't know." JupiterResearch/e-Rewards, Inc. recently reported that when business-to-business and business-to-consumer email marketers were asked which of a fairly straightforward number of success metrics they use at least once a month, 50% of B2C and 56% of B2B respondents responded "none of the above"!

Click-to-conversion rate, Aggregate clickthrough rate, Aggregate open rate, Revenue per mailing, Average order size, Profit/margin per mailing, Revenue per subscriber — none were used by any more than 19% of the respondents.

Among email marketing providers there were also large inconsistencies in the meanings of delivery, open and clickthrough rates. According to the Email Experience Council, only half of email service providers measured open rates by dividing "unique opens" by total messages delivered, yet 73% of mailers defined unique opens that way. What's going on here? Why all the lack of standards? Some have attributed it to the relative newness of email as a marketing channel. RSS-as-marketing channel seems to suffer from some of the same measurement murkiness as well. Hopefully things will improve. But even if they don't I'm not sure it matters.

I recently started using VerticalReponse for some email services and I like how easy it is to build and send a campagin, but lets face it — the metrics available are pretty basic: Emails sent, opened, bounced, unsubscribed. You can see which links have been clicked too, and a few other measurements. I imagine the options are much the same with other providers. Of course, I'm a data junkie and I'd love to track more but my feeling is in business-to-business what matters most is whether the people who receive my email marketing respond and eventually convert to new business (though it might not happen right away). That may be saying the clickthrough metric is the most important since its how they get to the next stage of engagement, but with ever-shrinking budgets and cries for greater accountability, what the boss really cares about is "did I get any new business for my efforts?" Sometimes that can be answered relatively quickly, but in the B2B world more often its a long-term process requiring prospect nurturing through a variety of channels.

So are we confused with all this metrics murkiness? Yes. Will it stop us from continuing to expand the use of the email channel? No way.

Sources:
Magill, Ken. "E-mail's Metrics Mess." Direct Magazine. May 2007 p.49,52
The Email Experience Council. www.emailexperience.org
JupiterResearch. "Email Marketing Measurement: Making Metrics Meaningful" March 6, 2007.

Technorati Tags: b2b, email, lead generation optimization, leads, marketing, metrics

Take Me to Your Lead Generation Optimization Leader!

2007-05-23T23:42:00.001-04:00

In case you missed the news, the top priority for marketers in 2007 is to quantify the value of marketing programs and investments, according to the CMO Council's Marketing Outlook 2007 survey. 44% of respondents said this was their primary goal in 2007, a change from 2006 where the emphasis was on building sales.

I agree that it is critical to be able to quantify the value of marketing investments and certainly that methodologies need to be put in place to do that, but is it possible that the pendulum has shifted too far in the opposite direction? After all, without lead generation and sales you won't be around long to enough to worry about quantifying the value of your investments.

Perhaps the point is that seeking to quantify marketing ROI, if done well, gives senior leadership and the marketing team the decision-making tools to adjust initiatives in mid-stream — potentially saving a troubled program and driving even better performance from programs that are already doing well. It ensures that all marketing programs are lead generators and (ultimately) sale closers. And there is evidence of other compelling reasons to optimize the lead generation process with marketing ROI measurement: in companies that are "lead generation optimization leaders" — companies characterized by the tight integration of sales and marketing groups in which high-quality leads are delivered to the sales force and higher conversion rates of leads to first calls — there are higher win rates, more sales people making quotas and faster ramp-up for new sales people than in other companies

What's the bad news? Most companies do not fall into this group. In fact, one report found that only about 8% of companies are defined as "Lead Generation Optimization (LGO) Leaders." I guess we all need something to shoot for!

Sources:
Levey, Richard H. "Walking the Walk: Measurement tops marketer's to-do lists" Direct Magazine. May 2007. pg 15.

“Optimizing Lead Generation: What’s the payback?” CSO Insights (via BtoB Magazine). July 10 2006 p1

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, lead generation optimization, leads, marketing

Dissecting Marketing Forensics

2007-05-04T00:01:00.001-04:00

I just came across an intriguing banner ad offer for a webinar titled "Multichannel Forensics: Understanding How Customers Interact with Advertising, Products, Brands and Channels" being given by Kevin Hillstrom and it made me think - what exactly is multichannel or marketing forensics? The marketer in me likes the phrase - it has a very scientific ring to it - and perhaps some clients might even think it sounds good when they pitch to their bosses for budget money for a "multichannel forensics initiative." After registering for the webinar (yes, I signed up to see what it's all about), I decided to do a little research into how this term is being bandied around the Web.

As far as search engines go, Google had 933 hits for the quoted term "multichannel forensics" and most seemed related to marketing data mining. The use of "marketing forensics" was somewhat less common with only 170 hits and one of them for a company of that name doing marketing-ish things to increase product sales. In the blogosphere, Technorati lists 27 posts mentioning "multichannel forensics," and only one relevant post for "marketing forensics" (as of this writing), so the coinage of these phrases is probably relatively new and/or obscure. In most instances it seems the terms are used merely as a sexier alternative to customer intelligence.

But what should "marketing forensics" mean, especially if we hope clients have a more understanding response to its use than a quizzical 'huh?'
Paraphrasing somewhat from Kevin Hillstrom's whitepaper "An Introduction to Multichannel Forensics" a place to start might be:

Multichannel Forensics are the methods, made up of a series of analyses, that are applied to a multichannel environment to help us understand the complex behavior of how customers interact with products, services, brands, and channels.

That seems pretty much in line with how The American Heritage Dictionary defines forensics:

The art or study of formal debate; argumentation.

The use of science and technology to investigate and establish facts in criminal or civil courts of law.

The use of "science and technology" to uncover customer insight is key - the importance of having a method and means to measure how customers interact with your business cannot be overstated. The next trick is maintaining and integrating these processes across multiple channels so that a comprehensive picture of the customer can be captured. And don't forget about the "argumentation" part: there needs to be plenty of upfront discussion and agreement about what needs to be measured as well as what those measurements are. Everyone defines success differently.

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, leads, marketing, marketing forensics, multichannel

2007 The Year of B2B Video?

2007-04-03T18:43:00.000-04:00

Just as consumer Web video exploded last year with Google Video, YouTube, JumpCut, etc., is this the year Web video will take off in business-to-business usage? An article in BtoB Magazine seems to say so:

"Online video is becoming the killer application of the Internet as b-to-b marketers embrace it as an integral part of their marketing programs, using it in such disparate formats as 15-second banner ads and long-form documentaries..."¹

Though the article tends to talk about video's potential as an advertising platform (citing projected growth from $US 775.0 million to $US 2.90 billion in 2010 - some enticing numbers to chase), In the B2B sector, I see it more as a medium for businesses to enhance dialogue with their customers. When streaming video segments are produced within the framework of a discussion of customer pain points and industry dynamics, companies - and the executives who represent them - can position themselves as thought leaders in their marketspace while moving prospects along the sales adoption curve - without the eye-rolling that often happens when prospects realize they're not going to get any information of substance from a video clip but are about to be subjected to yet another sales pitch (albeit in a slick wrapper!)

According to the BtoB article, more than just using video to enhance Web banner ads, some companies like IBM are creating "long-form documentaries" to segment and use in variety of ways as a demand creation tool. I believe that's a good approach.

If 2007 is the "Year of B2B Web Video," it is more of a quiet revolution. Many companies have been leveraging video on the Web for the past few years, learning best practices, subject matter and the balance of substance-to-sales pitch to drive lead generation in marketing initiatives. Since 2003 I've been doing it too. The difference from a few years ago is that business-to-business companies are beginning to see this stuff as mission critical: a recent McKinsey survey found that nearly two-thirds of the respondents who were investing in Web 2.0 technologies (including video and podcasts) think they are important for maintaining company market share, creating competitive edge or meeting customer demand. 35% of those surveyed were either using or planning to use podcasts/video in 2007.² Those aren't huge numbers yet, but its certainly worth testing the waters - before the competition beats you to it.

¹ Maddox, Kate."Picture this: Online video generating excitement" BtoB Magazine. April 2, 2007. page 1.
² McKinsey & Co."How businesses are using Web 2.0: A McKinsey Global Survey" McKinsey Quarterly. March 2007.

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, leads, marketing, podcast, web video

Off Topic: Cheesed About "Demand Generation Certification"

2007-02-24T23:30:00.001-05:00

I don't post too many op-ed pieces, preferring instead to keep with themes and metrics of real business importance, but I have to make an exception to say I'm a bit cheesed by an (unsolicited) email I received recently from a company-which-shall-remain nameless that sponsored a webinar I listened to a few months ago. It starts off:

"I would like to invite you to get certified in Demand Generation Marketing. Please join me...for the Marketing Effectiveness Summit, a boot camp for marketing professionals. This intensive two and one-half days workshop covers 12 key areas of marketing to optimize demand generation."

Certified in Demand Generation? In two and a half days? Are they kidding? I think its a bit silly and even misleading to pitch a seminar in this way. Call me crazy, but I happen to believe it's ridiculous to expect one seminar is going to make you a demand generation/creation expert. I'm not saying I or someone else might not pick up some good ideas from such a seminar (I often do), but seriously would a client be more likely to hire me if I showed them piece of paper saying I was certified to help them generate leads? They'd be laughing as security escorted me to the padded wagon! The real proof will always be in what kind of metrics, case studies and real success results I have to show them to PROVE I can grow their business. That's worth more than any piece of paper (in this case, a $US 1,500.00 piece of paper!)

But wait there's more!

"Our Professional Certification Program is a way to recognize marketing professionals who have met and surpassed high standards of education, experience, and knowledge in demand generation marketing."

Who appointed the seminar company the stewards of these high standards of education, experience and knowledge? Well, no one of course. It's just an unfortunate bit of copywriting that promises too much and, if anyone is silly enough to wave one of those pieces of paper in front of a potential client, ultimately damages the credibility of every professional who does an amazing job growing their clients' business every day without need of a gold-leafed, stamped and embossed paper.

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, leads, marketing

Upwardly Mobile

2007-01-17T15:36:00.000-05:00

Does your business have a mobile version of its client-facing web site? If not, are you ready to go mobile in 2007? You'd better be, if a survey and article by Information Week late last year is any measure:

"Eighty-five percent of businesses anticipate that the number of their employees accessing enterprise apps via mobile devices will increase next year"¹

"Three out of four businesses will increase spending next year on mobile devices such as smartphones, rugged handhelds, and Pocket PCs."¹

"More than eight of 10 respondents cite improved productivity and access to critical information as the biggest benefits of mobile computing. More than one out of three cite increased sales."¹

Of course, since bandwidth (and the cost of its use) and screen size is still an issue for non-PC devices accessing the Web, the tricky part is creating a "mobile-ized" version of your site that is lean, mean and provides high value to clients and prospects on the go. And that means you can't just post what they can already access from a PC in the office.

According to the W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices, developers should assume a screen width of 120 pixels and less than 20 kilobytes for the size of the page.² That doesn't allow for much excess, so here are a few suggestions to test the waters of mobile b2b marketing:

"Mini Case Studies": create one or two ultra-brief extracts from larger case studies you may have on your main client site. These should consist largely of teaser text highlighting results achieved. Ends with a linked email address for the mobile user to request more info.

Alerts: give clients the option to sign up to receive mobile alerts about their projects. Sign-up should be available on the main client-facing site as well as on a mobile-ized site.

Simple Newsletters: busy clients and prospects may appreciate being able to receive useful information from you on their Web-enabled phone or other mobile device. It may be industry stats, new service launches or a teaser to download a whitepaper from the main site the next time they are in the office.

These are just a few ideas to help get started leveraging mobile technology to drive revenue for companies in the b-to-b sector. Just remember - any mobile initiative you undertake has to be permission-based. Because most mobile users are paying for every bit of mobile access, the fastest way to alienate your potential customers is to start sending them mobile spam. Push-initiatives are critical to promoting your mobile presence to target audiences, but they should be done through non-mobile channels: direct mail, banner ads on your main site, word-of-mouth, etc. And don't forget to track your mobile web pages just as you would your main web site!

¹ Elena Malykhina."Mobile Devices Are Ready To Take Their Place Alongside PCs In Businesses" Information Week. Oct 30, 2006

² "Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0" W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). Jun 27, 2006

Technorati Tags: b2b, demand creation, leads, marketing, mobile

5 Tips for Shaking the Demand Creation Doldrums

2006-12-25T22:21:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's fatigue induced by the diminished daylight hours, but of late I've just had a heck of a time bringing myself to write. No ideas, no energy, and no desire to change the pattern. It made me think — how often are marketers afraid or unwilling to change the demand creation methods they've relied on for fear of unknown territory?

Of course change is a necessary part of life. So too, for a business to stay healthy, we must embrace the new. How do we go about shaking off the "demand creation doldrums"? Make a New Year's resolution to try something different as 2007 looms large on the horizon:

1) Pilot a demand creation initiative incorporating streaming video. B-to-B users were big on web video in 2006 and it's an area that's sure to grow. A Knowledgestorm survey said 78% of b-to-b executives believe video makes online content more compelling.¹

2) Consider mobile marketing. While still nascent in the business-to-business sector, tactics like video on phones are becoming more common: an October study by Horowitz Associates reported 8% of Internet users watching video on a handheld device at least once a month and 19% interested in service that provides streaming video on their mobile phone.² Email, IM and other phone features open up new possibilities for marketing to business prospects.

3) Go Web 2.0: Test blogging, social media, wikis, customer/prospect advisory panels, whatever. Even if you're not sure how to measure them — just get started. Larry Weber, CEO of W2 Group says "The future of b-to-b marketing is about aggregating customers and potential customers to your community."³ I agree.

4) Measure something you've never measured before. Simply.

5) Pick six publications, blogs or e-zines from outside your industry and read them regularly for at least a few weeks. You'll probably find some new ideas and sources of inspiration you can apply to your sector.

¹ "Emerging Media Series: Online Video, Social Networks and Wikis" Knowledgestorm. Nov 9, 2006.

² Maddox, Kate. "Mobile Marketing Making a Move" BtoB Magazine. October 9, 2006. pg 1. Study by Horowitz Associates of over 1,000 Internet users.

³ Krol, Carol. "Web 2.0: Join the Revolution" BtoB Magazine. November 13, 2006. pg 34.

Technorati Tags: demand creation, leads, marketing, social media, tips, web video

Of Focus Groups, Marketing and Social Influence in B2B

2006-12-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

I recently re-read a post on Paul Dunlay's Buzz Marketing for Technology blog about social media's impact on marketing. He cited a study in Science magazine by Columbia University¹ on how 'social influence' — people reacting to the recommendations of others — can drive consumer demand. And the study suggests what you might expect — the most recommended products (in this case certain music bands and songs) continue to accumulate positive reviews to a degree because readers see the positive reviews of others and are influenced to skew their own perceptions to the positive as well.

On the business side this reminds me of the "group think" mentality that can creep into focus groups and cause their purpose to be corrupted: in group situations people tend to want to agree with the group, to get along, and may (consciously or un) change their responses to be more in line with what the group is saying. As a participant in focus groups in the past, and despite my desire to keep my responses as genuine as possible, I became aware that I, too, was falling into that trap. Perhaps it's just human nature as social animals to try not to "rock the boat." As far as focus groups go, though, it makes accepting group "conclusions" as rock-solid guidance potentially dangerous.

But the Columbia study was basically about consumer related social response. Does any of this apply in the business-to-business world? Maybe. But consider this: if I drop $US 17.00 (okay $9.99 on the iTunes Store) and get a crummy album because I believed a deluge of positive reviews, it's no life shattering event. In B2B, however, the stakes are higher. According to some studies "the average B2C transaction value is $75 [$US]; the average B2B transaction value is $75,000,"² and in some industries reaches into the millions — especially IT services. Following bad advice could cost me and others their jobs. While I don't think this reality cuts social media and the phenomenon of social influence entirely out of the B2B world, I do think it will blunt its effect.

If social influence is to play any role in business-to-business purchasing, I think it will be in a controlled, step-by-step manner: the decision making process would begin with individual research into the available solutions to meet the business challenge at hand. Ideally, following this would be an outreach to known and trusted colleagues. Only later would the process expand outward to gather a wider perspective in potentially riskier waters, tapping business networks of unknown individuals such as connections through LinkedIn and other forms of social media with a business focus. And in many companies where big money is involved, once a short list of recommended solutions providers is completed, the final decision is not left to one individual anyway — it's up to a committee review (in 2005 an average of 3.5 people were required to make a typical purchasing decision³). Uh-oh. Now that sounds a lot like the makings of a focus group!

¹ Matthew J. Salganik, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Duncan J. Watts. "Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market." SCIENCE. Feb 10, 2006. Vol. 311. no. 5762, pp. 854 - 856

² Jalal Feghhi. "Trust in Business-to-Business Marketplaces." Addison Wesley Professional. Mar 30, 2001.

³ Allison Enright. "It Takes a Committee to Buy into B-to-B." Marketing News. Feb 15, 2006 p.11. Study by Sirius Decisions 2005.

Photo reproduced from the Encyclopaedia of Informal Education www.infed.org

Email Creative: B2B is from Mars, B2C is from Venus

2006-11-13T17:36:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that marketing to a busines-to-business audience is very different than marketing to a business-to-consumer one. A recent Silverpop study¹ on the clickthrough effectiveness of various email marketing creative seems to bear that out: in their study of 612 emails sent by 430 companies, consumers had a clickthrough rate of 7.1% on image-rich messages vs. 4.7% for all-text. On the b2b side, all-text emails pulled 5.4% vs. 3.5% for image and text emails.

What does this mean? Are b2b buyers nothing more than aesthetically-challenged suits, unable to appreciate the combined power of word and image? Or perhaps they are business sophisticates who are above persuasion by eye-candy (just the facts, ma'am)?

And consider this: the study also found that for b2c buyers, emails with a newsletter-style layout bested a postcard-style format in clickthroughs. Business-to-business buyers preferred the opposite. I suspect that while consumers are somewhat conditioned to receiving visually-rich communications (e.g. TV), in many cases businesspeople have come to see rich email as too promotional and are just looking for the information they need to get their jobs done. The b2b aversion to a scrolling e-newsletter format in favor of an "at-a-glance" postcard layout further suggests this audience is too busy to be bothered having to scroll down a page (and what does this portend for b2b-targeted web sites?)

I gained some similar insights when running a pilot campaign testing several ad placement formats in an opt-in pharmaceutical industry e-newsletter. The strongest ad click-throughs and offer response came from text-based “advertorial” placements in-line to the feature stories versus graphic ads in traditional banner or skyscraper formats. At first I expected a visual, [tastefully] animated banner ad situated at the top of the viewing screen would perform better than the text ad set in the middle of the newsletter content.

In reality the average number of click-throughs per all-text insertion was 1.6 times greater than a banner ad run. More importantly, the text ads drove greater than 6 times the number of qualified leads from the landing page but required just a little more than half the number of insertions to do so.²

This is only one example, but definitely something to think about when developing a "leadvertising" campaign for a business-to-business audience.

¹"Email Creative That Works." Silverpop. August 2006.
²Internal client study of an e-mail newsletter campaign over a 4-month period with 14 animated banner ad insertions and 8 in-line text advertorials, approximately one per week.

Web video: More than regurgitated cockroaches

2006-10-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

Back in June 2005, more than 94 million people in the U.S., or 56 percent of the domestic Internet population, viewed a streaming video online according to Comscore Networks.¹ Web video has come a long way in the year since: in July of this year Comscore data confirmed reports of 100 million worldwide daily video streams viewed from YouTube.com alone.² With growth like that it's no wonder Yahoo! and Google were interested in JumpCut and YouTube. Don't be thrown off by the public's interest in "Man Eats Regurgitated Cockroach" videos — the growth trend extends to serious content with news video downloads outpacing other subjects at 72%.³

With this in mind, a web video component should be built into every company's demand creation strategy. Admittedly video production requires a more expensive investment than podcasting, but as the interest in popular (and low-budget) consumer-generated media demonstrates, it doesn't have to be Hollywood production-quality either.

Even a conservative web video release schedule can drive large month-to-month viewing increases on a company's web site. This traffic spills over naturally to other areas of the site (or can be directed there by careful linking).

The chart showing analysis of one client's video usage data demonstrates that even increasing the number of clips on a web site by only 2-3 per month results in a strong viewing increase curve. In fact, data indicated that for each 1 video clip added, views/downloads of the video clips on the site increased by about 8% and page views on the site increased an average 36% each month. Of course, results will vary from company to company but it is clear that making web video a part of the opportunity pipeline web site and the overall demand creation strategy positively impacts interest in the company. Why is this the case? Most people have a basic desire for immersion and interactivity. While I don't think clicking the play button on a video clip truly qualifies as 'interactive,' when leveraged properly the medium does make a company seem more approachable. Combined with other channels, including face-to-face, this helps make a customer's entire experience with a company interactive and immersive. Creating that kind of connection can only help drive demand.

Sources:

¹ CMO Magazine. "June Statistics Reveal Online Video Popularity." Oct 26, 2005. Data from Comscore Networks. June 2005.

² Comscore Networks Data. Oct 11, 2006.

³ Booker, Ellis. "Do you see video in your future? I do." BtoB Magazine. Oct 9, 2006. Data from Associated Press and America Online report released in September 2006