tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1032824174112046712023-10-20T06:24:48.253-07:00Nugatory NewsOne in 17 million opinions...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-82376385215571279402013-03-10T12:27:00.000-07:002013-03-10T12:32:00.666-07:00How to do a simple A/B TestIn digital marketing we often want to test to see what works
best. What is most attractive to a potential customer? What message resonates
best? What advertising campaign is most likely to get attention? How can we
maximize the completion rate on a website landing page?
<br />
<br />
These kinds of questions often involve a simple test of two
competing ideas or approaches. For example, we might have two banner
advertisements or two registration pages, and we want to know which results in
the most click-throughs or which is most likely to result in more leads. This is
called an A/B test. Here’s how to do one right and not have to worry about the
stats too much.
<br />
<br />
<b>What is an A/B Test?</b><br />
In marketing, an A/B test is a simple way to understand if
there’s a <i>meaningful</i> difference
between two competing approaches to a problem, such as a banner advertisement
or a direct mail campaign. Using the test, we can measure the results of the
two approaches and decide if there’s a real (statistically significant)
difference.
<br />
<br />
A/B testing isn’t a new idea. I can remember decades ago
talking to an executive at AMEX where they performed extremely elaborate
versions of A/B testing on their direct mail campaigns supporting new credit
card applications. They were looking for tiny differences in response rates
across millions of mailings, and tested everything down to the color of ink. Usually
we’re not nearly as sophisticated but the same principles apply.
<br />
<br />
<b>How do I set up the Test?</b>
<br />
Setting up the test isn’t that hard. Normally, you’ll have
two approaches to a problem and a desired outcome. Here’s a few examples:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br />
<ul>
<li>Your agency comes back with a new creative idea for a banner ad, and you'd like to test it against an existing design. You want to see if the new creative idea gets more click
throughs over the other.</li>
<li>You have a new layouts for a web page.
Which keeps people on the page the longest, the new idea or the old one you already have in place?</li>
<li>You have an email newsletter. You want to test a different subject line to see which gets the best open rate</li>
<li>You’ve a new direct mail campaign, but can’t
agree whether to feature the discount offer again on the envelope, or picture of the
new product. Which gets the best response to your order hotline?</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p><br />
In each case, you have a couple of alternative approaches to
a problem, and an obvious way of measuring (counting) which is best.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>What else should I
know to make sure the test will work?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s a few things to be careful about:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>Ideally, make sure you’re actually measuring the
right thing. For example, if you have two banner ads, and each features a
different offer, different graphics and is placed on different websites – well,
it’s really hard to know what is affecting click-throughs. Is it the websites that
make a difference, or the offer or the graphic? The test will not tell you the
answer. As much as possible, try and keep everything constant across each test
except the specific thing you’re testing. </li>
<li>Try and randomize as much as possible. What does
this mean? Here’s some examples:</li>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>If you’re testing two direct mail pieces across
a sample of your database (say, 500 people), then make sure to randomly select
people from the list and randomly place them in each group. This way, the
selection process can’t influence the outcome.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span>If you’re running two different banner ads on a
website to see which performs best, try and make sure they’re seen randomly, or
as near as you can get.</li>
</ul>
<li>Try and make sure that you’re testing across a
big enough sample. Bigger is usually better. Statistically, the power of the
A/B test is related to the amount of data you gather, and hence the sample
size. And remember, your data is often measured in terms of response rates,
which in marketing can be very low. There’s no magic number, but try and get
large.</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>How do I perform the
test, and do I need to understand statistics?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most people who do A/B testing never perform an actual test –
they “eyeball” the data instead. As we’ll see, this can be a big mistake. It’s
absolutely worth doing the tests because it’s easy to come to a wrong
conclusion. The test involves statistics, but luckily for us there are online
tools that do all the math for you. Here’s two examples:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Example One: Banner Advertising<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You run two banner ads on the same website page that appear
randomly to viewers (Banner A is old, and you think Banner B might do better). You use 5,000 impressions, 2,500 of each banner, and here’s
the results:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Impressions<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Click Thrus<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Banner A<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
2,500<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
25 (1%)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Banner B<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
2,500<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
32 (1.28%)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eyeball this data, and most people would conclude that
Banner B is easily better than Banner A. So let’s run a test to see if this is statistically the case – I’m going to <a href="http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ab-split-significance-calculator/">use
a simple tool</a> supplied by the good people at Optimizer. (The tool is
designed for a specific example for a website registration page, but we can
easily adapt it for our use.)<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To use the tool, let Control = Banner A and Variation =
Banner B (remember, in this example you’ve a hunch that B is better than A). The “Number
of Visitors” can equal the number of impressions, which is 2,500 in each case.
The number of Conversions is the number of click-thrus for each banner (25 and
32 in our example).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Ignore the “p-value” unless you’re a stats geek. Hit
Calculate and the tool will tell you if the difference in click throughs is
really statistically significant. And the answer is – NO!<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How can this be??? Surely, if there’s a difference in the
results, it must mean our Banner B is better than Banner A!<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, imagine you’re flipping a coin, and you flip it 100
times – assuming the coin is fair, you <i>should</i>
get 50 heads and 50 tails, but you wouldn’t be surprised if you got 48 heads
and 52 tails. Or even 45 heads and 55 tails. The same random chance with coin
flips can influence our simple A/B test, so even though there’s a small
difference in results, we can’t be certain this isn’t just random. You could be
making a mistake going with Banner B. This is why it is so important to
actually do a test – especially in situations where “responses” are very low,
as is usual in most marketing activities.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Example Two: Website registration<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You now run a test of two landing pages where visitors are
asked to register. Page A is the old page you’ve used for a long time, and Page
B is “variation” you want to test. You want to see which gets the most
registrations, and here’s the data:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Impressions/Visitors<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Registrations<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Landing Page A<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
13,000<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
83 (0.64%)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Landing Page B<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
8,900<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
78 (0.87%)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plug in the numbers and… the answer is YES! But what does
this mean?<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It means, <i>Page B
performs better than Page A,</i> within the margin of error of the statistical
test. Let’s explore this.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this case, we should note that the number of visitors on
each page is very different (which is not to say that they aren’t random across
each page, we assume they are. It’s pretty common to have different numbers
given the practical realities of market research). Page A has 13,000 visitors,
compared to only 8,900 on Page B. Page B has a better registration rate of
0.87% compared to 0.64% for Page A (the absolute numbers of registrations are
very close, but are misleading). Eyeballing the data could be confusing, but
the test makes it clear that Page B is the better bet.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Happy testing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-63835728072305687512013-02-11T09:54:00.000-08:002013-02-11T10:49:26.493-08:00What’s at the core of Apple’s social media strategy?Get into a discussion on marketing strategy, or attend any
meeting with “brand” in the title, and it’s usually only a few nanoseconds
before somebody invokes Apple and rattles on about how we need to be more like
them and do exactly what they do. You can work for any kind of company, from a
biotech start-up to a manufacturer of concrete, and this rule applies: Apple is
the gold standard on how to do marketing right and create a winning brand that
has a gravitational attraction for customers and a magic ability to mint cash.<br />
<br />
Yet, when it comes to social media, Apple is doing exactly
the opposite of everyone else. Lemming
like, most companies have leapt head-first into the social world, and most
experts agree that having a solid social strategy is critical for building a
successful brand. Yet Apple is largely absent from social. So, how come the most successful brand on the planet has been
such a contrarian when it comes to social media, and been so successful doing
it?<br />
<br />
‘Reputation management‘ is often the reason given for an
active social program, especially for established brands like Apple, the logic
being that reputations are made or lost amidst the babble of customers,
prospects and competitors. But the linkage between reputation, brand, and
company performance is fluid, with one not clearly being dependent on another. Indeed,
there’s plenty of crappy companies that have award-winning social programs - <a href="http://www.gravitysummit.com/2010/02/gravity-summit-2010-at-ucla-social-media-marketing-event-kicks-off-with-keynote-from-kodak/">Kodak</a>
comes to mind, or Dell.<br />
<br />
Apple’s attitude to social is more likely bound-up with their
fetish for control. They control the message and they control the user
experience. They close others out and control the supply chain. They operate on
a principle that information scarcity will drive anticipation and demand. None
of this would argue in favor of an aggressive social program, where control is
relinquished and being closed just doesn’t work. Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue
against the success of Apple’s approach, at least under Jobs’ tenure.<br />
<br />
This approach wouldn’t work for most companies. At a practical level, most of us don’t have
the discipline to make it work. But more importantly, ignoring social won’t work
because, sadly, none of us actually <i>are</i> Apple. Until recently, Apple was the <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/apple-most-valuable-company/">most
valuable company in the world</a>. They command attention, people actively
listen to the slightest rumor from them, the media fawn. You and I need to
fight for these things. It’s the difference between playing offense and
defense.<br />
<br />
But there’s a bigger lesson to be taken from this.<br />
<br />
Apple is good at many, many things, among them having a very
clearly articulated business strategy that permeates everything they do. Their
approach to social is an articulation of this strategy – it just so happens
that this means they do very little social at all. Too often, social is seen as
an end in itself, and having a social media strategy as something distinct from
broader business objectives. At its core, that’s a recipe for failure.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-50823959540093108832013-01-19T19:40:00.000-08:002013-01-20T15:36:34.850-08:00The Crowdsourcing Myth and the White HouseA while back the Obama administration, in a wild fit of
optimism, created <i>We the People</i>, an <a href="https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/">online forum</a> where any citizen can
petition the government on a question, and if sufficient people sign the petition
they’ll get a response. Great idea, right? Government needs to be more open and
responsive, and this is open to all. It’s a form of crowdsourcing, where citizens
with common cause can directly engage with elected officials.<br />
<br />
Turns out, the idea is great in theory and absurd in
practice, much like crowdsourcing itself. Within weeks of launching <i>We the People</i> petitioners <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/14/white-house-secede-petitions-reach-660000-signatures-50-state-participation/">from
50 states</a> were asking to secede from the union, and a petition to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-death-star-wars-petition-white-house-20130114,0,2255194.story?track=rss">build
a Star Wars’ Death Star</a> attracted over 34,000 signatures (but was regrettably
turned down). The Brit CNN talk show host Piers Morgan, a fierce gun control
advocate, was quickly the subject of a petition to have him deported. In
response to all this nonsense the White House raised the threshold for getting
a response from 25,000 to 100,000 signatures, a move only likely to encourage
the crackpots and fringe dwellers even further. The UK governments’ e-petitions
site has a 100,000 signature threshold, and still gets <a href="http://mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/05017714-last-chance-sign-e-petition-save-e-petitions-and-we-arent-joking">petitions
attempting to save chocolate bars</a>.<br />
<br />
Opening the opinion floodgates is admirable, but we forget
that those of us with moderate views are labeled the “silent majority” for a
good reason. It’s not that we’re lazy, though that could be true, but that the frenzied extremists are the people who are always going to exert themselves the
most. If you doubt me, take a look at the comments on any online
coverage about the Obama administrations recent efforts to enact gun control
legislation – the ferocity of opinion is itself a great argument for keeping
kitchen utensils out of the hands of most Americans, never mind semi-automatic
firearms.<br />
<br />
Crowdsourcing is a dangerous myth. The wisdom of the crowd
is far too easily drowned out by the madness of the masses.<o:p></o:p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-87347987641724075502012-11-06T07:04:00.000-08:002012-11-09T10:46:03.517-08:00US Election Costs $50 Per Vote –Money Well Spent?The presidential election of 2012 may not be remembered for
who won or lost, or the issues, or the storm that wrecked the east coast: There’s
a good chance it will be remembered by how much it cost.<br />
<br />
By <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/06/us-usa-campaign-idUSBRE89M11220121106">some
estimates</a>, over $6 billion (with a ‘B’) has been spent collectively on the
various election races nationwide, with something close to a billion being
spent on the presidential election alone. With at least 120 million Americans
expected to go to the ballot, that’s a staggering $50 per vote. This compares
with under $20 per vote in 2000.<br />
<br />
This is unquestionably great news if you’re a TV station
owner, especially if you’re Ohioan, but of dubious merit for just about
everyone else and for democracy at large. But let’s ignore the Big Question about
the wisdom of mixing all that money in a democratic election process. I have a
more fundamental question: Is this money well spent? Said another way, can you
buy an election?<br />
<br />
There’s no question that advertising is persuasive to some
degree, but can it influence voting? Not so much. <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/01/17/how-much-does-campaign-spending-influence-the-election-a-freakonomics-quorum/">Stephen
Dunbar at Freaknomics </a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>finds that
campaigns managers and insiders from all political parties don’t see a nice
linear relationship between spending and outcome, but they recognize it
contributes. While researchers acknowledge that the biggest spender is also most often the
winner, when all other factors are taken into account, the spending isn’t the root
cause of success. To cite recent examples, Meg Whitman in California or McMahon in Connecticut each spent a considerable part of their private fortunes on loosing campaigns. So, the good news is you apparently can’t buy an election.<br />
<br />
But wait. There has to be a reason all this money is
sloshing around in politics – why are we all subjected to so many crappy TV ads
unless they do something?<br />
<br />
Advertising does a couple of things very well. First, and
most obviously, advertising raises awareness. In this regard, political candidates are no different
to dog food or Viagra, at least from an advertising perspective (there may be
other similarities which I won’t pursue). This is why so many ‘third party’
candidates rail against the political system – they aren’t able to compete for
awareness is a noisy, cluttered political environment. (Indeed, many Americans
are surprised and confused to find that there’s actually four candidates on the
ballot for president this year. Most voters have never heard of two of them).<br />
<br />
The second effect of advertising is to set the agenda. The
famous adage about the news business – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>news
organizations can’t tell us what to think, but they can tell us <i>what to think
about</i> – is also true of advertising. This election cycle, the Democrats did a
masterful job of framing the political debate, so that the focus became less
about the economy and more about social, environmental and health issues. This didn't directly persuade voters to vote for any specific candidate, but it did provide evaluation criteria that favors one over the other.<br />
<br />
Advertising can have others effects, especially for so-called ‘low involvement’ buying decisions (think breakfast cereal or washing detergent), but for most situations it’s influence is weak, indirect and fleeting.<br />
<br />
As goes political advertising, so goes advertising
everywhere. Those we
wish to influence in business may not be heavily swayed by our own advertising and
self-promotion. We can make them aware of our company, we can raise issues we
think are significant and warrant attention – but we will need to rely on other
tools to really influence decision making.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-38822317424499950592012-09-28T07:59:00.001-07:002012-09-28T08:11:32.284-07:00The Value of Social MediaEver since the Facebook IPO debacle last May there’s been a
lot of fretting about the real value of social media platforms. Facebook’s
stock opened at $38 a share, and today trades at about $21, a loss of 45% or
about $25 billion dollars, or the equivalent of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29#List">GDP
of a small country</a> – say Cyprus or Panama.<br />
<br />
Of course not all social platforms have disappointed so
magnificently. LinkedIn, the social professional networking platform, IPO’d in
May 2011, and first day investors have <a href="http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/equity-charts?CA=0&CB=0&CC=0&CD=0&D4=1&DD=1&D5=0&DCS=2&MA0=0&MA1=0&C5=0&C5D=0&C6=0&C7=0&C7D=0&C8=0&C9=0&CF=0&D8=0&DB=0&DC=0&D9=0&DA=0&D1=0&symbol=LNKD&SZ=0&PT=8">made
a healthy 50% return</a>. There are other success stories.<br />
<br />
The valuation of social platforms isn’t just about investor
returns. We need to consider the value proposition to users and to those that
will provide income to these platforms – potential sponsors. Most social
platforms have at their core an advertising model for making money, and
advertisers have also begun to express their value judgments. Responses have
been mixed. Back in May this year, shortly after Facebook’s roller-coaster IPO, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/05/15/gm-says-facebook-ads-dont-work-pulls-10-million-account/">GM
announced</a> that it was withdrawing advertising support, citing poor
performance. Many other companies have taken a measured approach to all online
advertising, although <a href="http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/04/forrester-social-media-growth.html">according
to Forrester</a>, advertising revenues for social platforms are expected to
rise by 34% through 2014. To some extent, advertising on social is a victim of
its own success: clutter and saturation make any advertising or sponsorship
difficult. And many potential sponsors see an opportunity to disintermediate
all media, and reach out directly to potential customers with their own
tailored content. Then there’s the Transparent ROI Problem – online is so
amenable to measurement, smart companies are able to precisely gage the hard
returns on investments (or lack thereof), and increasingly are discounting
softer brand benefits.<br />
<br />
One thing is certain – the value proposition to users of
social is beyond compelling. For most teens, Facebook is as necessary to life
as oxygen. For most everybody else, social is an ingrained and everyday part of
life, like the morning cup of coffee or, dare I say it, like the daily newspaper
used to be. It is this collective addiction to social media that is
fuelling a social media investment bubble, but until we find a clearer conjunction
of shared value between users, sponsors and the platforms, the real potential
won’t be realized.<br />
<br />
To some extent, LinkedIn shows the way and for sponsors and
users, the meeting point for shared value is bound up in the idea of community.
This is where we find the common values of like-minded users of a product, or
passionate followers of a brand. In LinkedIn's case, they attract professionals who want a
mediated way to network with colleagues and companies, and businesses want a
way to find talent. Everyone sees value. Today, too many social platforms are hoping to exploit
business value by mining users’ personal information, marketing this data to
companies. Trouble is, users don’t see the shared value – they see
exploitation, and that’s not good news for social media companies.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-77790243104820625482012-04-09T13:37:00.000-07:002012-04-09T13:46:21.629-07:00The Emperor Wants ClothesWe used to have an assumption that is the digital world we
remained cloaked – almost anonymous – unless we choose to reveal ourselves, and
even then we were able to invent a self of our choosing. Not anymore.<br />
<br />
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, everyone now knows that as
we rummage around in the virtual world, our digital trail is soon followed: What
we do, where we go, who we are, and what we think can all be discovered and
refactored with unnerving ease. Our online selves are laid bare.<br />
<br />
Us marketing types are very happy with this situation. We
like naked consumers who cavort online as if well-dressed, because this
unrequited intimacy allows us to target them very effectively. Knowledge is
always powerful, and in marketing circles the manifold details we can gather
online make us giddy with excitement about how we can tailor
loving entreaties the better to woo prospects.<br />
<br />
The whole thing is a parody of the old children’s story of
the <i>Emperor’s Clothes</i>, expect that in this version the Emperor is starting to
demand we give him his old wardrobe back.<br />
<br />
Punters know they’re being digitally stripped searched and
they’re not thrilled. They want some
protection, some dignity, some rights. Enter <a href="http://donottrack.us/">Do
Not Track</a>.
As early as 2007 the US Federal Trade Commission was
approached about creating a “do not track” list, similar to the “do not call”
lists that exists to suppress telephone solicitations. Over time, a more
practical, technical solution has become favored: The implementation of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_track_header">HTML header field</a>
that automatically signals a user’s willingness to allow tracking. This is a
small step in the inevitable direction of giving consumers more rights to
privacy, but it may not be enough to placate regulatory bodies like the FTC or
EU regulators.<br />
<br />
So, what do we marketing types do when the Emperor has robes
again? More permission-based marketing is one outcome. A reliance on
cultivating trust and a relationship with prospects is another. Certainly, the
crutch of unfettered access to consumer information may soon be gone.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-48427313283154433032012-03-06T19:26:00.000-08:002012-03-06T19:29:00.876-08:00The Gladwell EffectA virulent meme of the moment is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">10,000 Hours</i> – the idea, popularized by <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/">Malcolm Gladwell</a> in his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29">Outliers</a></i>, that
brute force persistency is the route to greatness.<br />
<br />
In his best-selling book, Gladwell examines the factors that
contribute to high levels of success and acclaim. Looking at everyone from Robert
Oppenheimer to Bill Gates, he concludes that success is largely predicated on
having the stamina and determination to work at a task for a total of around
10,000 hours – what he calls the 10,000-Hour Rule.<br />
<br />
Really? <br />
<br />
One of his examples is The Beatles, who Gladwell
points out spent much of their early days in a daze, in Hamburg, playing and
playing and playing. Having read about their exploits in Germany, it’s actually
amazing they even survived the experience, never mind rose to acclaim. But to
say that the critical ingredient that led to their fame was being on stage
together for months on end is, at best, misleading.
There’s just so much more to account for.<br />
<br />
For one thing, The
Beatles adroitly (or fortuitously) surrounded themselves with great talent. To
take an example, their producer on most of their recordings, George Martin, was
enormously influential on their musical development, making the studio an
instrument in itself and pushing the band to explore more complex sounds. Then
there’s Brian Epstein, who took their raw talent and turned it into a mop-haired
product for worldwide consumption. Oh, and in case we forget, Lennon and
McCartney wrote some pretty good tunes, a talent that transcends anything they might have picked-up at the
Ratskeller.<br />
<br />
Perseverance is undoubtedly a characteristic of greatness.
So is its near-neighbor, obsession. I’d actually argue that the real driver
here is passion, an ardor for what you do. But this is never enough and to
argue otherwise is an oversimplification.<br />
<br />
Gladwell can’t be entirely blamed – although some, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?pagewanted=all">like
scientist Stephen Pinker</a>, have claimed his whole argument is flawed. Gladwell’s
idea is more nuanced, but the popular interpretation is a reduction to a direct
cause-and-effect: If only we all tried harder, we’d be rock stars.<br />
<br />
It’s a very human failing to try and account for all results
by isolating a single variable. In marketing, we do this all the time – be it attempting
to understand what led to a sale, why that video went viral, or what caused our
competitor to beat us on a deal. It’s too easy to say it was all down to the
salesman, or the clever script, or the fact we didn’t have that one specific
feature in our product. Usual this reductive reasoning is all wrong.<br />
<br />
In marketing, don’t expect simple answers. And don’t
anticipate that repetition and persistence alone will drive success.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-43036241050490104132012-02-24T11:50:00.001-08:002012-02-24T11:55:08.834-08:00Can social media predict the future?We all know reporters love to prognosticate, their opinions
respecting no temporal boundaries. But now a whole other industry has grown up
that lives off their stories, trying to predict future events based on today’s
news coverage.
Companies like <a href="http://www.ravenpack.com/aboutus/index.htm">RavenPack</a> have built a
business by sifting through news stories in near real-time, looking for the
sentiment of coverage related to publicly-traded companies. They claim this
information can be profitably used to predict fluctuations in stock prices.<br />
<br />
Predicting stock price moves based on current media
sentiment has logic to it – readers are also traders, so if we see a string of
gloomy stories about IBM’s recent product announcement, then some of us will
likely dump the stock. And our likelihood to take action is proportional to our
trust in the news source: If we see negative reporting in the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>
that outweighs positive opinions on iLoveIBM.com.<br />
<br />
Now we have social media and the prediction game has got a
good deal more complicated.
<a href="http://www.annenberglab.com/viewresearch/33">Researchers
at the USC Annenberg School</a> have been working hard to see how social media traffic
can be used to try and predict future events. They started by looking at new
movies and tried to correlate Twitter messages to first weekend receipts. They
managed to get very good at estimating this, often better than industry
experts, and what they found has broad implications for social media marketing.<br />
<br />
The Annenberg team discovered that the best predictor of box
office outcomes wasn’t the volume of traffic related to a movie, but the net
sentiment expressed. In other words, quality beats quantity in predicting
outcomes. A new movie might get a lot of buzz, but that wasn’t predictive of
making a lot of money. This confirms what companies like RavenPack have long known:
it’s the tonality, not the totality of coverage that really matter.<br />
<br />
The takeaway from this? We need to be very careful how we
measure social media outcomes. Measuring retweets, mentions and the raw volume
of coverage for your brand just isn’t enough. Yet this is what most people do
today.<br />
<br />
Annenberg, in co-operation with the <i>LA Times</i>, are now trying
to see if they can use their system to <a href="http://graphics.latimes.com/senti-meter/">predict the outcome of this
week’s Oscars</a>. If you believe them, we should expect a big upset: The
winner for best movie will be <i>Midnight in Paris</i>. Here I’ll make a prediction of
my own: Much as I liked it, <i>Midnight</i> will lose.<br />
<br />
Remember, I said that being able to predict stock
fluctuations worked because readers are also often traders; the same logic does
not apply to Oscar voting. The Oscar outcomes are based on the opinions of a
mere 5,700 members of the Academy. Winning others awards such as BAFTA are a
much better indicator of Oscar success.<br />
<br />
The lesson here is that listening to everyone’s opinions is
often a mistake. Instead, we need to target on influential audiences –
potential customers, shareholders, employees – and understand clearly how they impact
our brand and business.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-22675749654597754842012-02-10T17:39:00.000-08:002012-02-10T17:40:35.327-08:00The social deluge and market saturationHere’s a fun statistic: every 10 days, over a century’s
worth of video footage gets uploaded to YouTube. Here’s another: there are over
<a href="http://www.groovypost.com/news/playing-numbers-game-facebook-ipo/">27
billion</a> likes and comments added to Facebook every day. Or try this: last
week, the number of Superbowl tweets peaked at over 12,000 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">per second</i>.<br />
<br />
If you’re a marketing type, then your first reaction to all this
is probably salivation – all those eyeballs, all that attention!! – but dwell
on this for a moment and you’ll quickly despair. The astonishing growth in social media – the unbelievable
volume and velocity of messages, news, and information – is quickly leading to
saturation. As users of social, we’re all increasingly unable to deal with the
cacophony and clutter.<br />
<br />
There’s another, related effect. In his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Data Smog</i>, David Shenk estimated that
the average American consumer was exposed to about 50 commercial messages a day
in the 1970s; by 1997, that number had grown to <a href="http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=56750">3,000 messages a
day</a>. Today, some put the number of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=103282417411204671">marketing
messages as high as 5,000 per day</a>, with most of the increase coming from
online and social sources. Commensurate with this dramatic increase in message density
is a <a href="http://www.bullcitymutterings.com/2011/05/alarming-decline-in-effectiveness-of.html">dramatic
decrease in advertising effectiveness</a>. The effectiveness of commercial
messages is inversely proportional to the number of messages received.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Getting attention in social media is getting harder and
harder. The effectiveness of pushing any messages through social channels will
only diminish with time. This isn’t solely an advertising problem.<br />
<br />
There are several consequences to this. First, social
platforms that rely wholly on advertising for revenue will slowly see
growth-rates falter as smart, data-driven companies begin to see waning returns
from their advertising investments. The irony here is that the runaway
popularity of social platforms will be their undoing.<br />
<br />
Second, marketing pros will be forced to rethink old ways of
engaging with consumers. Heavy-handed corporate marketing in a social world won’t
work. Getting heard amid the social din will require an authenticity and
empathy that is alien to many old-school marketing pros. It will require
careful targeting and impeccable timing.<br />
<br />
Finally, marketing professionals need to educate their
organizations on what can realistically be achieved with social media. Engaging
through social marketing will require clarity of message and intention, as well
as focus and agility – and resources.
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-66971197392254166092011-12-16T08:10:00.000-08:002011-12-19T05:00:18.194-08:00Pottingers, Wikipedia, & WikiLiesLast week, The UK newspaper The Independent <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-founder-attacks-bell-pottinger-for-ethical-blindness-6273836.html?origin=internalSearch">revealed
that Bell Pottinger</a>, a leading PR agency, had engaged in the covert
manipulation of Wikipedia entries related to some of its clients. Using
multiple, anonymous accounts, staff at the agency had eradicated negative
information, inflated positive references, and altered the facts of numerous
Wikipedia entries. It also became apparent that agency executives routinely
pitched to clients and prospects their ability to alter Wikipedia entries as
part of their services.<br />
<br />
I propose that henceforth we name an entry in Wikipedia that has been willfully manipulated a "Pottinger" in their honor. I challenge readers to create the "Pottinger" Wikipedia entry. <br />
<br />
Your immediate reaction to this story might reasonably be
this – how stupid can you get??? My reaction was a little different: I’m a
marketing professional with over 15 years’ experience running PR programs for
big organizations, and I must confess to having altered Wikipedia entries too.<br />
<br />
A few years back I started a new job at a well know
technology company, and on my second day got a call from the CMO: Could I come
to his office immediately. When I got there he showed me the Wikipedia entry
for a senior executive. I was shocked. The entry had been altered by several
anonymous people and contained openly slanderous statements. Some of the
changes seemed downright bizarre. I had a Wikipedia account (I’d created a
number of entries years ago), and I worked to get the changes removed and
details corrected. It was an uphill struggle because I didn’t disguise who I
was, but eventually things were made right (then right again, as the entry
continued to be changed). We made no attempt to catch the perpetrators – that was
too complex and time-consuming.<br />
<br />
Of course, unlike Bell Pottinger, my actions didn’t breach
any of Wikipedia’s guidelines (that I know about) or hide any truths – in fact,
the reverse. And I’m not alone: I know of many instances where company
employees or agency staff altered entries related to their employer or client,
almost all correcting wrongs, adding missing information, or providing context.
Wikipedia is a crowdsourced entity, open to anyone; laudably democratic, but
ripe for abuse, neglect or simple error. Fixing things can feel unnecessarily
arduous and often frustrating.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, none of this excuses the stupidity of Bell
Pottinger. They’re dolts, with a <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2011/03/is-ethical-pr-oxymoron.html">history
of ethical issues</a>. <br />
<br />
However, you can’t argue BP is a unique case, or even
out-of-the-ordinary. Far from it.
There’s a long history of Wikipedia <a href="http://www.philipcoppens.com/wikiworld.html">abuse</a>. WikiScanner,
Wikipedia Review and others <a href="http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/">have
catalogued</a> many examples over the years, and others have pointed to the
inherent problem with a trust-based, crowdsourcing model for gathering
information. Indeed, Wikipedia <a href="http://su-laine.blogspot.com/2006/05/worst-of-wikipedia.html">deletes
over a thousand entries</a> every day.<br />
<br />
In general, crowdsourcing anything should invite scrutiny
and skepticism. We certainly shouldn’t assume that Wikipedia is the bastion of
unalienable truth. And unfortunately, nor should we think of Bell Pottinger as
an anomaly – expect continued revelations of WikiLies as Wikipedia, already the
<a href="http://topsitesblog.com/top-100-websites/">sixth most visited website
worldwide</a>, gains in significance.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-29623590935798698922011-12-12T09:11:00.000-08:002011-12-12T09:14:29.647-08:00Fortune 500 Lag in Social Media Adoption, To Their Great CostAt the end of last month <a href="http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/High_Tech/Strategy_Analysis/How_social_technologies_are_extending_the_organization_2888">McKinsey
published the results</a> of their fifth annual survey on the ways
organizations use social technologies.<br />
<br />
For the most part, the results are a snooze: The adoption of
social media tools, from Twitter to Quora, is steadily rising; measurable
benefits are steadily if slowly increasing; and the sophistication in the way
organizations use social media has seen significant gains. All good, although
hardly ground-breaking news.<br />
<br />
But wait. The McKinsey people aren’t anything if not
thorough, so they also tried to show a correlation between adoption of social
media and self-reported organizational performance (that is, market share
gains, operating margin compared to competition, and being first in industry
market share). To my surprise, on the latter measure – showing a link between market
share leadership and adopting social tools – the correlations are mostly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">negative</i>. This suggests that the
adoption of social media is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">adversely
associated</i> with being a market leader, a counter-intuitive and strange
result. If it were so, then the good people at McKinsey should be telling the
titans of industry to flee Facebook, ban blogging, and terminate Twitter
post-haste.<br />
<br />
But wait. The researchers’ explanation of this is that “while
market leaders may use social media technologies within the organization, they
might be less inclined than market challengers to push for a full range of
benefits [and use social media externally].” So, according to McKinsey, they
suspect that market leaders as a group are actually under-utilizing social media.<br />
<br />
This sounds plausible. Indeed, <a href="http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesandresearch/2011fortune500/">very detailed
research by UMASS Dartmouth</a> shows that for blogs, about 23 percent of the
Fortune 500 (large, market-share leaders) have corporate blogs, compared to
well over 50% if the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing companies compiled
by Inc. magazine. There are similar results for corporate adoption of Facebook
and Twitter – the Fortune 500 lag the rest of industry, especially the
fastest-growing companies.<br />
<br />
Put these two pieces of research together and we have strong
data suggesting that large, market-share leaders – think companies like WalMart, Exxon-Mobil,
Proctor and Gamble, Hewlett Packard, Boeing and Dow Chemical – are collectively failing to
extract value from the social media revolution. These findings play into the
stereotype of the lumbering, bureaucratic multinational that often enjoy a
market-share lead but fail to take first-mover advantage of new innovations.<br />
<br />
And the research clearly shows that the price of late
adoption of social media is very high indeed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-35560183127168681142011-12-05T06:59:00.001-08:002011-12-06T14:10:35.221-08:00Latest Update: A Definitive List of Social Media Measurment and Monitoring ToolsWay back in April 2010 I compiled what I boldly claimed was a <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2010/04/definitive-list-of-social-media.html" target="_blank">definitive list of social media measurement and monitoring tools</a>. Since then, I've updated the list a couple of times and critically reevaluated my 'definitive' claim: Most likely, I've missed a lot of solutions and have certainly struggled to keep pace with the constant changes in the evolving social media measurement market.<br />
<br />
My latest update saw numerous changes, reflecting increasing competitive pressures in a very cluttered marketplace. A half-dozen companies have disappeared completely, and several others have moved on to provide different solutions only tangentially related to social media metrics. There's also been a small number of acquisitions, most notably <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2011/03/radian6-sells-for-10x-revenues-to.html" target="_blank">Salesforce.com buying the market-leader Radian6</a> in March this year. The net result is that the total number of solutions has fallen, although the quality of the survivors is very high.<br />
<br />
If you're looking to buy a social media measurement solution there's a few important takeaways from all these changes:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>It's a Buyers Market</b><br />Despite the predicted consolidation, there's still an abundance of companies supplying solutions. Companies are eager to get your business and you should be able to cut a deal for the right solution.</li>
<li><b>Buyer Beware!</b><br />Expect the consolidation to accelerate over the coming year. Be cautious about companies that aren't able to demonstrate good market traction, supply a full list of references, or just seem too desperate; they may well be gone in a year or two.</li>
<li><b>Understand Your Requirements</b><br />There's a broad spectrum of solutions out there, and every day new features are being added. Make sure you have a strong understanding of what you need to do and how a tool will help you do it. Take a look at the guides from many industry analysts (mine is <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2010/10/questions-to-ask-your-prospective.html" target="_blank">here</a>).</li>
<li><b>Recognize that the Market is Still Maturing</b><br />There is no perfect solution out there. Sourcing data, avoiding spam, providing adequate filtering, integration to marketing automation systems, providing easy-to-configure dashboards and reporting, alerting for your customer services folks... these are just a handful of important issues that are still being worked out.</li>
<li><b>The Giants are Coming</b><br />Finally, we 're still waiting for the obvious market giants... Google, Microsoft, maybe Facebook... to really enter this market. There's been ongoing rumors that Google was going to release a full-blown media monitoring solution; if they ever do, it could upturn the market and put an end to many of the companies I list. Stay tuned...</li>
</ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-49715786520081876552011-11-22T07:59:00.001-08:002011-11-22T13:31:24.377-08:00Any Ideas What Public Relations Is?When you’re in the business of managing the image of others
it’s a little embarrassing to acknowledge you’re suffering from an identity
crisis.<br />
<br />
This week, the good people at the Public Relations Society
of America (PRSA) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/media/redefining-public-relations-in-the-age-of-social-media.html?_r=1&src=tp">began
an effort to better define what “public relations” is</a>. This isn’t their
first attempt: Two previous tries at a definition, in 2003 and 2007, ended in
failure.<br />
<br />
A perfectly reasonable question to ask is ‘why doesn't a working
definition for public relations already exist?’ After all, the modern discipline of public relations was pioneered at
the turn of the last century by Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee and others; the PRSA
itself was formed in 1935. Isn’t it fairly obvious what PR
is about? And you don’t see physicists, lawyers, or dog trainers agonizing over
what their chosen profession is all about, so why the debate with PR?<br />
<br />
One answer is that <a href="http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2011/11/21/corporate-communications-disrupted-yet-more-important-than-ever-before/">PR
and Corporate Communications are enduring monumental change</a>. The economic
collapse of conventional journalism has permanently altered the way news is
created and shared. Opinions are formed and reputations altered through a
labyrinth of social connections. Managing a public image has become more complicated,
and the role of a PR pro less clear.<br />
<br />
Another, less palatable reason is that most things in the
world of marketing and communications are badly defined. If we were to take <a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/if_you_wish_to_converse_with_me-define_your/175628.html">Voltaire
at his word</a> – “if you wish to converse with me, define your terms” – then a
discussion with marketing pros would be very abbreviated indeed. As a
profession, we bandy about overloaded terms like “brand”, “image”, and even “marketing”
itself with only a fuzzy and shifting sense of what we mean.<br />
<br />
So the PRSA, in an act of either abdication or inclusion, depending on your
perspective, has <a href="http://prdefinition.prsa.org/">asked for
crowd-sourced inputs</a> on what a definition should be. In my view, they’re asking
the wrong question.
We know full-well what PR is. The issue is how to make PR effective.<br />
<br />
Bernays, the grandchild of Sigmund Freud, was very blunt in
his assessment of what <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html">PR is about and its
underlying intent</a>, with his notion of “engineered consent” being rooted in ideas
borrowed from propaganda. Ivy Lee was gentler:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In brief, our plan is frankly, and openly, on behalf
of business concerns and public institutions, to supply the press and public…prompt
and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest
to the public to know about." </blockquote>
<br />
Modern PR hovers uneasily between the two truths offered by
Bernays and Lee. Not much has changed at this level. The PRSA is thoroughly confused;
we don’t need a new definition of what PR is, but rather we need to understand
how to make PR more effective in a new communications landscape. The goals of PR
are the same; the mechanisms for reaching those goals are changing and uncertain. The PRSA’s
energies would be better spent on addressing these real challenges.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-55192786897523400982011-11-17T08:53:00.001-08:002011-11-17T16:12:17.642-08:00Marketing by the NumbersOne of the side-effects of our always online existence is
that everything has become visible and measurable. As we all rummage around in
the virtual world, we leave behind a trail of digital detritus that others can
find, accumulate and sequence: What we do, where we go, who we are and what we
think can all be discovered and refactored with unnerving ease. This has raised
many alarms about privacy and security, but has also introduced opportunities
for marketing professionals.<br />
<br />
I’d argue that the new world of digital marketing is upending
the whole marketing profession.<br />
<br />
Marketing used to be a largely subjective,
qualitative, artful enterprise. For sure, we could do research, conduct
elaborate focus groups, and painstakingly gather data to inform decisions and
discover the impact of our marketing activities, but all this was arduous and
often ad-hoc. We’ve moved from an environment of information sparcity to
information overload. Instead of ‘mining’ for data, we’re dealing with the
avalanche.<br />
<br />
Today, data-driven marketing is becoming the norm. Expectations
of what marketing can achieve are changing. Most important, there’s a new level
of expected accountability.<br />
<br />
Some years back I got a Ph.D. and as a result accumulated
more knowledge about statistics and research methods that I thought was
healthy, or useful. Turns out, my old stats texts are the books I’m referring
to most. I’ve been interviewing for a new job and a common ground for
questioning is “how do you measure the effectiveness of what you do?” I’ve even
seen job descriptions that single out the ability to conduct A/B and multivariate
analysis of campaign data. Being able to read data – and to conduct marketing
from a data-driven perspective – is a vital skill today.<br />
<br />
Of course, data isn’t wisdom, as <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2870">Wharton Professor
George Day</a> has pointed out. According to him, the amount of data a company
faces is doubling every 18 months, while our ability to sift and assimilate the
data is remaining pretty much static. Day and his colleagues advocate ‘adaptive
marketing experimentation’, an approach to marketing that fosters data-driven
decision-making by continually testing variations on different solutions – a fail-fast,
discover-quickly methodology. Their views are informed by a <a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/download/11032011-IBMCMOStudy.pdf">recent
IBM research report</a> created from interviews with over 1,700 CMOs. The
leading issues for these CMOs: data overload, social media, channel
proliferation and shifting demographics.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/download/11032011-ClosingMarketingCapabiliiesGap.pdf">Professor Day’s
recent article</a> is a great read. And after you’ve finished, see if you can
find those old statistics textbooks in the attic.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-69113274723020331592011-11-03T13:44:00.000-07:002011-11-04T08:54:32.882-07:00Klout, Qwikster, and Mob MarketingThere’s been a <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/write-connection/384141/how-klout-klunked">lot</a> of <a href="http://prbreakfastclub.com/2011/10/27/klout-influence/">chatter</a> recently about <a href="http://klout.com/home">Klout</a>, a tool that attempts to measure an
individual’s online social influence. As with all scales that try to quantify
individual prowess – think IQ to SAT – there’s a healthy debate about the basic
validity of what Klout purports to do: After all, what exactly is “influence”?<br />
<br />
I’d hazard a guess that whether you’re a fan or a foe of
Klout has a lot to do with how well you score on their 100-point scale, though
I may be being overly cynical. But whatever you’re opinion of Klout I
think we can agree that finding some way of articulating relative influence is a
big marketing problem we need to solve. We desperately need a way to sort the wheat
from the chaff, because in our noisy online world there’s an awful lot of
chaff.<br />
<br />
Personally, I don't see Klout as a permanent fixture of the social media
landscape. Klout thinks it is selling a solution when they really only
have a feature: Most social media monitoring tools of any worth have in
them a way of determining salience, aka influence. Most search engines
will get there soon too. This is where this "feature" belongs, in a
context that has some value. <br />
<br />
But there’s another problem, neatly exemplified by the
well-publicized and stock-shrinking antics at Netflix. To recap, after doing a
great deal of research with users, Netflix decided to split the company’s
identity in two, and launched Qwikster so they can focus on their rapidly growing
steaming media business. About the same time they also changed their fee
structure. Within days the online hordes were screaming foul, droves left the
service, and <a href="http://ir.netflix.com/stockquote.cfm">as of today the
stock price</a> is down about 70 percent from its high this year. A quasi- <a href="http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html">apology</a> was made.<br />
<br />
There are many complex financial and business issues at play here, and there's no question that <a href="http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-kills-qwikster/">Netflix management failed on many levels</a>. There's also a consensus that, from a strictly business standpoint, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/what-netflix-did-right-and-what-it-did-wrong/2011/09/19/gIQABGgdfK_story.html">Netflix was making the right decisions</a>. All that aside, my question
is this: Given that Netflix did extensive research and consulted with their
community of users <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before</i> they made
any changes, why was the subsequent reaction so profoundly negative?<br />
<br />
One answer gets at the root of the real problem with Klout,
which measures an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">individual’s</i>
influence. Often, this is the wrong unit of analysis. I’d argue that Netflix,
like many brands before it, fell victim to a mob – a highly vocal minority that
individually may have no clout at all, but collectively exert enormous
influence. Worse, this vocal and passionate minority may not even represent the
feelings of the silent majority of users, but they exert a disproportionate
control. <br />
<br />
Mass Marketing is passé. Welcome to Mob Marketing.<br />
<br />
The communities that care about a particular brand or
organization are diverse – they’ve always been so. What’s changed is the leveling
effect of our online world: Everyone has equal voice, which means that amid all
the babble it’s very hard to discern <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">who</i>
matters individually <u>and</u> collectively. And it’s almost impossible to
guard against a loose coalition of marginal naysayers once they’re mobilized.<br />
<br />
What to do? Here's some suggestions: <br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>
First, make sure you are engaged with all constituents of
your brand. Listen widely, respond selectively. Make sure that your communities
feel appreciated. This is the responsibility of everyone in your organization.</li>
<li>Remember that all change attracts enemies. No matter
what you do, it’s likely someone will take offense. Remain in control and have the courage of your convictions. Recognize
that, despite what believers in crowd sourcing may say, giving over decision-making
control to an unfiltered community may be unwise. Consult, inform and listen. </li>
<li>Make sure you understand what the valuable – and often
silent – majority want and do everything you can to get them involved. Activating
your core base is critical: The weight of their collective opinion is the best
defense against a marginal mob. Find ways to amplify their views and champion
your brand. </li>
<li>Finally, learn to recognize the marginal
fanatics. Don’t overly invest in trying to change their hardened views – your energies
are better spend cultivating and engaging your loyalists, and attracting new
fans and supporters.</li>
</ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-37516636314011691512011-10-27T13:31:00.000-07:002011-10-27T13:39:58.118-07:00Brand AmericaIn these fractious and partisan times it’s interesting how U.S. politicians of all stripes are eager to distance themselves from their chosen profession. Democrats and Republicans alike, no matter their actual tenure, are all suddenly Washington “outsiders.” Many have also developed a newly found appreciation for how businesses are run, and think government could learn a trick or two from corporate America. We don’t need a President, they seem to be saying, we need a CEO.<br />
<br />
Government-as-business is an interesting concept, which got me thinking: Why not elect an American CMO, a kind of Marketer-in-Chief?<br />
<br />
The question isn’t as facetious as it might seem. Lots of countries actually do elect or appoint someone – often a “president” with limited legislative clout – to represent their country without having any overt political baggage. Truth is, in Europe that’s what royalty’s for.<br />
<br />
America desperately needs a Marketer-in-Chief. America the Brand isn’t so brave anymore. You don’t need to conduct an audit to see the signs of dwindling brand loyalty and a confused brand identity. A good CMO would have read the signals long ago: The latest <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/right_direction_or_wrong_track">Rasmussen Poll</a> shows that only 16 percent of likely voters think their country is “heading in the right direction,” while only 35 percent think America’s best days are to come. This is Quickster bad. The truth is, behind all the Tea Party bluster and Take Wall Street theatrics, there’s a shared disquiet that the US has lost its way and compromised on some ideals.<br />
<br />
Overseas, Brand America is being bashed as bad as tainted Tylenol or New Coke. A couple of foreign wars certainly don’t help, and a worldwide financial pandemic is also souring the mood. Interestingly, Obama’s reputation abroad remains strong – his personal brand is relatively unscathed.<br />
<br />
But Brand America has dealt with crisis before and come through, so, what’s the problem now?
I blame the politicians. As some famous American once said, “a house divided cannot stand,” and Brand America has some deep-sea-trench divisions on strategy and values. No self-respecting CMO would stand for this. It used to be that the country coalesced around a universally accepted brand promise: Liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness, etc. This was considered enough. Now, while we might agree on the brand promise, we dogmatically disagree on how to deliver on that promise. Even the role of government is being questioned. Meanwhile, as our fearless political leaders seem to encourage polarization, we flounder dealing with looming competitive threats from Brand China and the rest.<br />
<br />
As any CMO knows, brand equity is a fragile commodity, hard to earn and too easily lost. However, in the case of Brand America, I think the gloomy prognosis is overstated.<br />
<br />
A couple of months ago I was sworn-in as a US citizen, along with 260 others from over 30 different countries. It was a moving and sobering experience – I sat next to a Somali woman and a Nigerian man, both with harrowing stories of lost relatives and exile. An Indian man told me about the Pharma start-up he was creating – in the US. That same week, I listened to American scientists from the <a href="http://kepler.nasa.gov/">Kepler project </a>describe discovering the first planets from other solar systems. And this year U.S. citizens netted seven Nobel prizes. On the global stage, America is still a place of invention and promise. The old cliché is true: American is a land of opportunity.<br />
<br />
All we need is a Marketer-in-Chief to sell it better.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-83823155516489180752011-10-19T08:39:00.000-07:002011-10-27T13:41:15.833-07:00Is social media saturating – and what are the implications for marketing?According to the <a href="http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social/">latest data from Nielsen Research</a>
and <a href="http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/10/08/98-of-online-us-adults-aged-18-24-use-social-media/">Experian
Simmons</a>, the adoption of social media in the US has skyrocketed to 80
percent of those with online access, or over 40 percent of the overall
population. Putting this in perspective, among those 35-and-younger, the
adoption of social media is approaching that of <a href="http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/freight_analysis/nat_freight_stats/docs/04factsfigures/table3_2.htm">US
car ownership</a>. Safe to say, it is clearly foolish to think of social media
as something new or novel – it is an everyday part of most people’s lives.<br />
<br />
Collectively, Americans now spend almost a billion hours a
month exchanging news, information and gossip at social media sites. Last I
checked there are still only 24 hours in a day: As you look at these stats,
especially for the college-age set, the use of social media starts to look like borderline addiction.
For many teens and tweens being connected online is an umbilical necessity for
sustaining life. You wonder if Facebook and the rest shouldn’t carry warning
labels, like cigarettes: <i>Using Social Media Is Not A Substitute For Food, Sleep
Or Reality</i>.<br />
<br />
More seriously, as social media adoption becomes mainstream,
what are the consequences for marketing?<br />
<br />
First, marketing pros should understand that media use
overall is usually a zero-sum game: If we’re all spending more time online with
social media, it usually means we’re doing less of some other media activity.
There’s evidence to support this view, with online activities eating away at
everything from watching television to reading. Second, we should anticipate
that the use of social media is saturating. The amount of time we spend on
social media is cresting, especially among those 35-and-younger.<br />
<br />
This is a familiar scenario for marketing folks who have
lived through other communications and marketing revolutions. I can remember
when email marketing was a novelty, with response rates for well-targeted
campaigns routinely reachig 3-5 percent (I’ve seen similarly impressive stats for
the novelty-of-the-moment, QR codes). As social media saturates we should
expect it to become harder and harder to create and sustain relationships
between prospects and our brands. Saturation equates to clutter, attentions
wane, and people become weary and guarded.<br />
<br />
We should also remember that <i>social</i> media got that name for
a reason – it’s a tool for staying in touch with friends and family, not
primarily for finding your company, not matter how lovely it may be. Understand
that social media is only one part of an integrated marketing program. Have realistic expectations - and make sure you communicate these to your management teams. As you work with social media, be true
to yourself and your brand. The
fundamentals of good marketing have not been re-invented: Be engaging, be
credible, be trustworthy, and be unique.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-14254164835099430232011-09-15T12:03:00.000-07:002011-09-15T12:03:40.398-07:00Sales and Marketing May be Better Aligned Than We ThinkWhen I was asked by Bob Johnson at IDG to be on a <a href="https://m360.smei.org/ViewEvent.aspx?id=34628&instance=0">SMEI panel
to discuss the divide between sales and marketing</a>, I had a strong feeling
of déjà vu: I can remember ten years ago being invited on another panel to
debate the exact same issue. That event had been in London, hence there was an
open bar before the panel convened; I recall the discussion getting very heated
indeed.<br />
<br />
As I prepared for the SMEI panel I began to wonder if the
marketing/sales feud had improved much in the intervening decade, so decided to
pull together a short survey to find out. Using social media I got just under 100
responses from an assortment of friends, followers and colleagues – certainly not a representative sample, but
diverse nonetheless.<br />
<br />
<b>Q</b>: <i>Over the last 5 years, do you think the relationship
between sales and marketing has: </i><br />
<br />
Grown Worse: 24%<br />
Stayed about the same: 33%<br />
Grown Better: 43%<br />
<br />
The results surprised me; I’d guessed that as we endure a drawn-out
recession, relations between sales and marketing would have become more frayed.
I was wrong, and by a large majority the audience at the SMEI event also
believed sales and marketing were getting along much better these days.<br />
<br />
I then asked was might be the root cause of any conflict:<br />
<br />
<b>Q:</b> <i>The main cause of conflict and disagreement between
marketing and sales is (pick one): </i><br />
<br />
Lack on alignment on goals and objectives: 43%<br />
Resource allocation: 11%<br />
The quantity and quality of leads: 23%<br />
No clear demarcation of responsibility: 4%<br />
Lack of processes to coordinate activities: 12%<br />
Lack of professional respect: 8%<br />
<br />
By a wide margin, most respondents think that conflict is
caused by a lack of alignment around goals and objectives. This view was echoed
by my fellow panelists, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ann-marie-beasley/0/5bb/b67">Ann Marie
Beasley from CA</a> and <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/markblessing">Mark
Blessing at Bright Computing</a>.<br />
<br />
I discussed how the most common model used for engineering
alignment across sales and marketing – the ubiquitous marketing funnel – may be
long overdue for an overhaul. Whatever model you use, successful alignment across the two
organizations starts with a candid discussion on joint KPIs and metrics.
Measured accountability, agreed and shared, is the root to success.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-16537063118410299252011-08-29T14:29:00.000-07:002011-08-29T14:29:22.726-07:00Marketing and Sales: Closing the Great DivideI'm excited to have been invited to speak at the <a href="https://m360.smei.org/ViewEvent.aspx?id=34628&instance=0">Sales and Marketing Executives International event</a> here in Boston on September 14th. The subject is a perennial favorite -- <i>Marketing and Sales: Closing the Great Divide.</i><br />
<br />
I'm interested in your views - over the last five years has the relationship between sales and marketing improved, grown worse, or stayed about the same? What causes friction? Leave me a comment --<b><u> <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HX5JPSQ">or better yet, take 30 seconds to complete this three-question survey. </a></u></b><br />
<br />
I'll share results of the survey in a later post. Thanks!<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-43879442896280470282011-08-23T19:50:00.000-07:002011-08-23T19:50:53.992-07:00The Science of Marketing?Reading recent headlines and watching the gyrations of the stock market it’s easy to see why economics earned the epithet “the dismal science.” But is marketing any better? Indeed, is there any science to marketing at all?<br />
<br />
Usually not.<br />
<br />
Take social media as an example. Normally, marketing treats social media data in the same way that air traffic controllers treat blips on a radar screen – as signals that require careful help in landing, or emergencies demanding evasion on interception. The only difference is we marketeers attempt to land customers and intercept naysayers, rather than planes. Don’t get me wrong – marketing needs radar – but this hardly qualifies as science.<br />
<br />
Data by itself isn’t science: Marketing pros usually have an excess of the former and very little of the latter. A scientific approach would require proposing a hypothesis to explain observations or ideas, then devising an experiment to test the hypothesis. It requires the rigorous definition of terms and ways of quantifying things. It demands objectivity.<br />
<br />
Tom Webster gets at this distinction is his <a href="http://brandsavant.com/clicks-cakes-and-the-limits-of-social-media-science/">recent blog post</a>, and argues that we’ll always need a mix of qualitative and quantitative information. It’s tempting<a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/is-marketing-an-art-or-a-science.html"> to agree with Seth Godin</a> and others and say marketing is both art and science, but this feels like a cope-out to me.<br />
<br />
What we can say is that marketing is getting much more quantitative. This is a good thing. I can remember from my teaching days that marketing undergrads hated even the most rudimentary classes on quantitative analysis and statistics – today, they’d be well-advised to take these courses very seriously indeed. Science or not, the future of marketing will clearly move toward a more disciplined and measured approach. But the real gains will be with those organizations that go the next step, and apply more scientific rigor to their marketing investments.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-34164418861470789992011-07-27T09:33:00.000-07:002011-07-27T16:23:09.496-07:00Brand Potter: What Harry Can Teach us about MarketingThis month, at midnight, I took my daughter and a gaggle of her friends to the opening night of the final film in the Harry Potter franchise. Dressed as favorite characters – Luna, Bellatrix, McGonagall and Hermione – we arrived an hour before the show to find the movie theatre packed and transformed to a mini-Hogwarts. “Wingardiam Leviosa!” exclaimed our would-be Luna to the ticket guy, to which he responded brightly “Diffindo!” as he ripped the tickets. It was another world. And when we left the theater at around 3am it felt more like mid-afternoon on a busy weekend – the parking lot was packed and another crowd of Dumbledores, Snapes, Rons and Ginnys were piling in for the next show.<br />
<br />
JK Rowling published her first book in 1997: Seven novels, 4,000 pages and eight movies later, Harry has become a pop-culture phenomenon unparalleled in modern times. A whole generation of kids – including my daughter and most of her friends and cousins, not to say her parents – have grown enthralled by a fully-realized world of magic. Commercially, the Potter phenomenon has no equal: Over 400 million books sold in every language imaginable, a worldwide movie gross over $7 billion, and even a theme park in Florida. How on earth did this tale of a boy wizard going to school become so successful? <br />
<br />
There is no question that Rowling’s vision – and her near-flawless execution in her books – was the core of the success. She created wonderful characters, embellished her plot with great imaginative touches, and had a story in her mind that she knew would hold an audience across a decade of reading.<br />
<br />
But Rowling did more than that. Famously, she demanded great control over all things Harry, from franchising to having full creative control over the movies and their scripts, even selecting actors. She also remained true to her readers – she was almost possessive of them – and communicated directly to young fans in her blog and elsewhere. My daughter talks about “JK” as if they’ve met recently and are close friends: This is remarkable. Rowling also embraced the runaway success that Harry enjoyed. She has said that Harry and his world felt almost independent of her, and there must have come a point where the pop-culture juggernaut also felt outside her control. Despite this, there is a fidelity to the world she created that has never changed despite the movies, the fanzines, the endless media hoopla and the passage of time. Among her many other talents, Rowling has expertly managed the Harry brand. Her focus and fidelity to a vision is something we all could learn from in marketing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-84907735149486900102011-07-11T10:29:00.000-07:002011-07-11T10:29:39.757-07:00Marketing and MeLast week, after three great years, I left my job running corporate communications for a large software company.<br />
<br />
I was very fortunate – I left of my own accord, and I had plenty of time to think about the transition. Even so, I had two contradictory reactions to being gainfully unemployed: a feeling of delight at having oceans of time; and a feeling of mild panic at having no viable income. It’s hard not to oscillate wildly between indulging in projects and activities I’ve put off for years, then frantically job hunting.<br />
<br />
I’ve worked almost all my career marketing, mostly in the high tech world but also for professional services firms and some consumer brands. In the last few weeks I’ve learnt that marketing feels very different when the subject at hand is <i>You</i>. Thinking about <i>Brand You</i> does a lot to focus attention on the fundamentals. Here’s some observations:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Know Thyself!<br />
It’s easy to have an instinctive understanding of what your professional value is, but I found myself having to work hard to organize my search. What are my target markets? What is the current demand in that market? What’s my professional objective? What differentiates me from the many other candidates? Like any other marketing program, answering these fundamental questions is Step One.<br />
</li>
<li>Resumes Revisited<br />
For many decades the basic tool – the promo piece – for advertising for work has been the resume. Nolonger. I’ve found that many conversations start because someone “found me” at this blog, because of press coverage I’ve appeared in, or via some other online imprint. Increasingly, our online resumes – our brand – is a diffused collection of activities. Managing these properly is critical.<br />
</li>
<li>Networks and Friends<br />
The influence of word-of-mouth on brand perceptions is well understood, but the reality comes sharply into focus when you’re searching for work. A recruitment consultant told me that over 75% of jobs are found through an individual’s immediate network of friends, colleagues and family. We often forget that the same is true for how most people make decisions about what brands to trust and invest in. <br />
</li>
<li>Social media works – and doesn’t<br />
A recent Pew Research study showed that fewer than 10% of “friends” on Facebook have never met in person. Social media is a wonderfully efficient way to maintain connections to our extended network of friends and colleagues, but it’s not so efficient at broadcasting beyond that network. Once or twice removed, the signal seems to get attenuated.<br />
</li>
<li>Professional networking and career sites can work<br />
I’m using Ladders, LinkedIn, Indeed and the rest, and they are remarkable. One reservation – moving to a premium, fee-based service on some of these sites has only a marginal benefit. The basic service is often enough, raising questions about the business models for some of these companies.</li>
</ul><br />
One other thing – I’ve come to realize how much I enjoyed the ‘Company of Friends” I worked with over the last few years. Good luck to you all!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-22342596273283836052011-06-16T12:27:00.000-07:002011-06-16T12:27:30.852-07:00The Graying of Social MediaA popular myth about social media is that it's a fancy of youth, something endemic in the teen set but largely ignored by those well past their college years. If there was any doubt that this is a fallacy, read the latest <a href="http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2025/social-impact-social-networking-sites-technology-facebook-twitter-linkedin-myspace">Pew Research report</a>.<br />
<br />
According to their numbers, 47% of American adults have used some kind of social networking site, close to double the number recorded in 2008. The average age of users has shifted up from 33 to 38. On first blush this may not seem like much, but it's significant: Those 50 to 65 accounted for only 9 percent of social network users in 2008 and today they account for 20 percent of users. The numbers tripled for those 65 and over.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDTjK6M2vS9cUKacYA6The278xpTWcsJkkQRoj-t-rWmvORzhduWgL84vO2xMnePcOWYoSInnTz11s7tl5M7W8ikAhapJ5K3m6WMmtWRVcQ5tvtzPer0cL4mBfBCowlCyGiznBfSqCruHO/s1600/social_media_users_by_age.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDTjK6M2vS9cUKacYA6The278xpTWcsJkkQRoj-t-rWmvORzhduWgL84vO2xMnePcOWYoSInnTz11s7tl5M7W8ikAhapJ5K3m6WMmtWRVcQ5tvtzPer0cL4mBfBCowlCyGiznBfSqCruHO/s320/social_media_users_by_age.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
<br />
There's no question that the Early Adopters of social media were largely young, but we've long moved past the early stages of adoption. Social media is a part of the online landscape for most everybody.<br />
<br />
What astonished a jaded marketeer like me was the response to the question “most people can be trusted.” Be honest – you'd expect a healthy majority to lean towards a “Nah” on this question – and indeed there is a majority, but far less than I'd thought. Forty-one percent of adults are trusting, and this actually increases slightly to 45% for social media users (non-Internet users are a gloomy bunch, with only 27% being trusting). <br />
<br />
<br />
What emerges is that active users of social media are far more engaged, open and have more social support that non-users. Stating the painfully obvious, social media is about being social. It's about sustaining existing relationships (only 9% of Facebook “friends” have never met in person) and rekindling old friendships. <br />
<br />
The implications for marketing pros are clear. First, the days when social media was a playground for consumer-facing youth brands are over. But we've known this for a while. What may be more important is that social networks are focused around trusted relationships that preexist. For marketing to engage with these close-knit communities will require creating a persona – a brand – that can feel familiar, that is already a part of the extended social network, and that can instinctively be trusted.<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-43922273026224401802011-05-18T07:54:00.000-07:002011-11-04T09:46:02.775-07:00Viral Marketing and the Short TailViral marketing has very little to do with marketing – or <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-is-viral-marketing.html">so I argued</a> in my last post. I also suggested that we've done a pretty poor job of defining what the term “vital marketing” even means. <br />
<br />
Being viral is mostly a function of a product or idea, not of the tools and tricks employed by marketing pros for promotion. That said, being viral is also about the <i>vectors</i> that transmit and pass on information about the product or idea – that is, the people involved. Said another way, certain people are receptive to an innovation, others are not. And some people are better equipped to retransmit and amplify the viral effect – the are better connected themselves, and better respected – and are thus more coveted targets for viral marketing.<br />
<br />
This all has echoes of an old mass communications theory – adoption of innovation, championed by Everett Rogers. He's the guy that gave us familiar terms like Early Adopter and Late Majority to describe groups of people that characteristically are receptive to new ideas and are viewed by others as trusted sources of information.<br />
<br />
Many of the today's models for viral marketing focus on the medium – Twitter, Facebook and so on. This is a mistake. Some enlightened folks start by looking at the product or idea itself. Very few also consider how audience targeting can influence viral marketing.<br />
<br />
There's a lot of chatter in marketing circles about long tails – a statistical reference to the fact that the total sales of relatively unpopular items often outweigh the combined sales of very popular blockbuster items. An oft-cited example is book sales at Amazon, where cumulative niche sales of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bagpipe-Maintenance-Book-Michael-Hamilton/dp/0977103102/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305657857&sr=1-2">The Bagpipe Maintenance Book</a> and its ilk far outstrip Potteresque blockbusters. If the warehouse and distribution costs can be managed, then marketing to the long tail can be very lucrative.<br />
<br />
The reverse logic applies to viral marketing – we are short tail marketing. To see what I mean, consider the frequency distribution of Twitter followers, Facebook 'friends' and Facebook 'likes', all of which are more-or-less classic power distributions (that is, the kind of distribution people refer to when they think about long tails and marketing):<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-69f60e8e33ba6dd227129a4ee6cd61d9" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-69f60e8e33ba6dd227129a4ee6cd61d9" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Ask yourself: who do you want to target when you consider attempting viral marketing? The answer, of course, is the most influential, and all other things being equal this equates to the very few people with the most followers, likes or friends – the short beginnings of the distributions in the graphs. (This effect is also self-fulfilling – we tend to crowd around the already crowded, follow those that have a lot of followers. We see this effect in social media and we see it in high schools, politics and the entertainment industry.)<br />
<br />
Of course when I say we should target based on influence I'm stating the very obvious, but this all seems lost on many marketing pros when they think about viral marketing and new media. <br />
<br />
The arguments get even more complicated if there's any<i> real</i> audience targeting to be considered. The undifferentiated masses that haunt social media aren't a target for anyone unless you happen to have a social media product to hawk. For the rest of us, we're interested in influencers and buyers, and we usually have some ability to describe these folks in at least broad demographic ways. Virality only matters if it impacts these few. But even if we're interested in created gross awareness we should think about the short tail.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103282417411204671.post-43622585174221174142011-05-06T19:19:00.000-07:002011-05-06T19:21:37.039-07:00What is Viral Marketing?When we think of cloud computing we don't envision winged mainframes sitting angelic on fluffy cumulus, yet too often in marketing a clever metaphor morphs into a definition, leaving behind empty buzzwords. Such is the case with viral marketing.<br />
<br />
What is viral marketing really? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing">Go to Wikipedia</a> and you will leave none-the-wiser; the page has become the battleground of an ongoing dispute about who originated the term, but provides little insight into what it really means. Other attempts at a definition vier off at two tangents – either getting lost in epidemiology or waxing rhapsodic about social media. Or we revert to the “I know when I see it” school, which ladles out a stream of ex post facto cases-in-point that illustrate the effect without enlightening us about what is taking place. <br />
<br />
Arguably viral marketing is nothing new. If you look at early research into the effects and <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-are-we-talking-about.html">efficacy of propaganda</a>, the mechanisms by which <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-are-we-talking-about.html">mass media impact ideas</a>, or the <a href="http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2007/09/agriculture-and-chasms.html">ways that innovative ideas are adopted</a>, they all suggests ways that messages and ideas are disseminated through a population. The concept of viral marketing is really a restatement of these old theories, adapted to the new communication tools of today. <br />
<br />
A good theory and definition of viral marketing would provide an explanation based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning. It could be tested and confirmed and would help explain and predict the way some markets work or how some products become popular. It would build on what we already know from propaganda, mass media and public relations. What we've got instead is a lot of sound a fury every time a YouTube video gets a boatload of views, without any reasoning or insight.<br />
<br />
At least, that's what I thought until I <a href="http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/lessons-learnt-viral-marketing/">came across this blog post</a> by David Skok. David applies some simple math along with a useful concept – the K factor – and provides an abstract model of how viral effects work. He also derives some very useful variables to consider, and some principles describing what makes viral marketing viral. To take one example:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Virality is not a marketing strategy that can be executed by the marketing department. It has to be built into your product right from the beginning. This is a function that needs to be thought through by the product designers and developed by the engineers.</blockquote><br />
This is not how most people think and at first it appears counterintuitive, but he's right. Marketing may play a role in amplifying a viral effect, or reducing the time cycles on virality, but it can rarely be the prime mover in making a product “go viral.” There really is no substitute for a good idea well executed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12635017191874293966noreply@blogger.com2