MARKETING BRILLO

Welcome to the Reformation of Education and Awe

2012-02-08T04:42:00.000-08:00

Are you dumbstruck or numbstruck by programmers -- those "geniuses" down in IT who can do stuff that baffles and bullies? Get over it.

You, too, can code. Moreover you can learn how through practical exercises, for free, online -- and even do it with friends, if you prefer. Codeacademy is your place to learn.

I found out about this very cool enterprise reading the TrendCentral newsletter. I realized that an edulution is afoot.

Learning and training, like everything else, is undergoing an "up-end." That which was arcane, will soon be accessible to the rest of us (if we so choose).

Demystification: Where will it take us?

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Do-It-Yourself Brain Surgery. Yes, You CAN!

2012-02-03T08:21:00.001-08:00

Among the many things I didn't know Amazon does, is their forums. Apparently, Amazon is hosting a lot of conversation spots for the diversity of humans (and others) buying their diverse stuff.

Among the forums, I think I've found the best: the forum on do-it-yourself brain surgery. Or as one of the insightful commentators terms it, "cranial correction."

Oh, c'mon. You did look for a writer and a video maker on CraigsList, didn't you? Exactly! So, grab your drill and get crazy!

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p.s. Kudos to T. Johnson who notes, "Might I recommend watching Fox News. It may not fix the problem at hand, but it will suck your brains right out."

What's A Trend Got To Do With It?

2012-02-03T08:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve been a fan of trendwatching.com for a long time. For example, check out their “12 Crucial consumer trends for 2012” here.

Of all the information trendwatching came up with here, I was most struck by the last paragraph of the landing page, which told readers – and marketers – four ways to apply these consumer trends.

That’s what I’ve always wondered: How does a marketer or fundraiser look at a consumer trend and translate it into action?

Here’s the answer: View trends as a way to:

1. Influence or shape your company's vision.
2. As inspiration for a new business concept, an entirely new venture, a new brand.
3. Add a new product, service or experience for a certain customer segment.
4. Speak the language of those consumers already 'living' a trend.

To boost the application even further, trendwatching offers “15 Trend Tips” that offer practical, contextual, specific ways to use trends data to shape your own marketing program.

My favorite? “Don’t worry about timing or life cycles or regional suitability or … “In short, look at trends as opportunities, not threats.

Every predicted or identified“trend” makes a good conversation starter and a tremendous seed for brainstorming. I love #6 on the 2012 list “bottom of the urban pyramid” which points to the growth of the “hundreds of millions of lower-income CITYSUMERS” that offer a whole new market.

Hmmm.. now what can I do with THAT?

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Why RADICAL Redesign Should Be the FIRST Step In Web Page Optimization

2012-01-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, I tuned into a webinar sponsored by Marketing Experiments. Tagged Rapidly Maximizing Conversion: How one company quickly achieved a 53.9% lift with a radical redesign, the webinar was hosted by MECLABS Managing Director Flint McGlaughlin.

The basic message was this: When attempting to achieve a web page response lift, do not test individual components of the landing page. Rather, go for a radical redesign of the whole web page.

Why? Because testing one variable at a time is very very slow. For example, an average web page redesign experiment might test the headline, color, call to action, three dimensionality, video, copy, etc.

Instead, begin with a radical redesign and work backwards to achieve the necessary fast conversion improvement that marketers are looking for.

How do you know whether or not you need a radical redesign?

First, Evaluate your results to date to identify any of the following failures:

1. Your website is significantly under-performing.
2. You are experiencing unimpressive test results.
3. You have trouble getting a valid test.
4. The market you are appealing to has shifted in macro or micro directions.

Second, review your conversion index and customer profile analyses to determine specific structural [categorical] problems. [More about "categorical problems" in item #2, below].

The Six Key Principles

Based on a variety of independent theories -- decision theory and game theory, for example -- radical redesign urges marketers and web page designers to adopt six key principles.

1. Understand how to utilize radical redesigns to determine your optimum page "category."

a. A radical redesign is one in which the experimental approach is "categorically" different from the control.

b. Various perceived problems in the page design -- for example, weak headline, jumbled layout, ineffective call-to-action, a value proposition buried in links, poor thought sequence, poorly performing form field, too many or too few graphics, questionable perceived value, multiple steps to get to the buy process, etc. -- will all be changed and tested in one move.

c. From the point of radical improvement, then you can go back and look at individual variables.

2. Radical Redesign is aimed at determining our "best page" category. This is accomplished by taking into account structural elements inherent in a given communication archetype (for example, long copy vs. short copy, graphics heavy versus copy heavy, etc.)

Through radical redesign, you learn as soon as possible everything about how to get a lift. You are able to test such structural website attributes as image-heavy structure v. text heavy design; sales tone emphasis v. to academic tone; a 3-column layout v. a 1-column layout; structure that shifts from process value to product value, etc..

3. Use Radical Redesign to get to single-factor testing.

First, figure the structural communication categories [see#2 above], then move to such single-factor testing as an a/b split.

3. Hypothesize solutions.

• How might it work to simplify the multiple steps in the buy process?
• Suppose you eliminated as many cart steps as possible?
• What would be the effect of replacing a single call-to-action with radio buttons aimed at product selection?
• How might change copy to clarify and highlight the underlying value proposition.

4. Design alternative treatments.

Test as many treatments as your traffic will allow, then test the differential between the control and the treatments.

5. Analyze and interpret test results.
Look for enough actions and enough variants to allow for statistical significance and be sure to run tests full cycle. Don't assume anything too early in the testing cycle.

At this point, the learning begins. Now you must convert how much and how many into why and what can I learn about my customer? for example:
a. Is my customer's motivation sufficient to maintain momentum through longer cart processes?
b. Is the customer confused by multiple calls to action?
c. Is the customer ready to click the call-to-action button only when they have read and understood the value of the product?

6. Plan iterative tests.
a. Once you've tested into the correct category you can challenge the control enough to generate a significant difference. The objective now is to test the highest performing variables and increase channel specificity.

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Why Use ONE Video When 22 Will Do?

2012-01-06T14:47:00.000-08:00

My December 12 blog post was titled "2012 Is [Definitely] the Year of Video. If a promotion I recieved from Borrell Associates on Wednesday is any indication, I may have underestimated video's impact this year.

Borrell Associates took video marketing to a new level in promoting a line-up of 22 conference speakers via video!

On March 21-22, the Local Online Advertising Conference in New York City will feature a host of industry stars. The promotional landing page for this event gives us a few minutes with all of them.

Check it out here.

Nice!

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The Marketers' Best of 2011

2012-01-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

Allow me to throw my “Best” hat into the ring. Here is a list of marketing developments that hit top grade in 2011.

1. Best marketing ebook: Newsjacking. This little gem by David Meerman Scott underscores what savvy PR folks have always known: for expansive media interest, tie your own stories to major news events. Scott tells us how.

2. Best marketing concept: content marketing. The wisdom of using information to influence consumer attitudes and purchasing came on strong in 2011. This not-new practice got a catchy new name -- content marketing -- and attracted conferences, seminars, books, and other how-to paraphenalia. Best advice? Get a writer.

3. Best emerging communications tool: the infographic. USAToday popularized the modern-day information graphic when it featured small, color-rich, quick-look graphics on its front page. Click-hungry marketers took the option to a new level in 2011, scrambling to develop content-rich infographics that could go viral and drive consumers to websites.

4. Best marketing channel: video. Video is nothing new, obviously, but in 2011 the masses jumped in to create millions of simple little videos that sell everything from “how-to” to “why not?” In 2012, no smart marketer will leave a website without video.

5. Best direct marketing innovation: pURLs. Personalized landing pages came on strong in 2011. Associated with the massive increase in digital marketing of all kinds (email, in particular), well-designed, content-specific, response-targeted pURLs became the must-have element in every sophisticated marketing campaign.

6. Best prediction: the rise of mobile. All the experts said 2011 would be the “year of mobile.” They were right. “App” became a common term and mobile devices – from smart phones to smart tablets – now rule consumer and B2B communications alike.

7. Best direct marketing innovation that didn’t catch on (yet): QR codes. Marketers love "quick response" [QR] codes, but as AdAgeDigital recently observed, so far consumers aren’t much interested. The codes are too confusing, too many apps have spoiled the broth, and irrelevant code spamming has turned off would-be users. Expect better response in 2012.

8. Best unpredicted marketing powerhouse: coupons. Who knew that 2011 would be the year of coupons? Direct mail couponing flourished when online mega coupon pushers like Groupon and Specialicious made coupons awesome all over again.

9. Best potential technology: location based marketing. This technology may hold the most promise for retailers, but marketers' ability to grab people where they stand is certain to grow in 2012. Consider the 13 possibilities in this article from Mashable.

10. Best “the time has come” technology: cloud computing. With booming sales of low-storage-capacity, but easy-to-cart mobile devices, the demand for creating and storing information “in the cloud” will explode in 2012. Millions of new consumers armed with more affordable smart tablets [see #11 below] will get familiar – and comfortable – with cloud computing.

11. Best new product: Kindle Fire. And, yes, this does belong on a “best of marketing” list because – at $199 – this little tablet is on fire. Some people are calling it the iPad killer. That’s not precisely true, since there will always be snob-appeal marketing for the expensive version of anything. In terms of mass use, though, the Kindle Fire does everything needed. Meanwhile, Forbes has an interesting take on where tablet explosions might take marketing. In “Advertising as an App,” contributor Roland Deal writes,” What if you approached the development of your marketing/advertising campaigns as you would in developing an app?”

What if, indeed …

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The Happiest New Year Thought -- Ordinary People Have Power

2011-12-30T04:58:00.000-08:00

Ian and Meg Lawton followed me on Twitter this morning. Since I am one of 29,381 people the Lawtons are following, I assumed they were Internet Marketing folks, eager to sell me something. Moreover, I was a bit turned off by their hokey Twitter handle (@seeds4couples). I almost didn't follow back, but then I thought, "What the heck? I'll have a look."

So, I went to soulseeds.com to see what these two were about.

The website had some pleasant bird tweets playing in the background and the colors were earthy and peaceful. Words like "greenhouse," "grass roots," and "community garden" appealed to me. A lot of the message addressed "the power of positive thought," not a new concept by any stretch, but always useful.

Visiting the Lawtons, I had a little revelation. How powerful the Internet is!

(Okay, duh. And, yes, I *do* feel a little like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents saying, "Oh, Dear God, you are such a good God."). Nevertheless ...

Folks like Ian and Meg Lawton are doing their part to spread good will.

That's pretty awesome when you think about it. Similar messages come from thousands of videos, blogs, and sites developed by ordinary people who yearn to make a difference. Even a curmudgeon can get in tune with that simple notion, since, if anything can save this fair earth, ordinary people would be it. Transformation happens one at a time and, just like Ian and Meg, we've all got a shot at it.

Happy New Year!

2012 Is [Definitely] the Year of Video

2011-12-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

It’s all over the Internet, stuffed into every eNewsletter, offered up on any website that works, glowing LED at every click. It’s marketing VIDEO. By the end of 2012, we’re going to be seeing so much of it people will begin to ask [all over again] whether “this is the death of print.”

Examples? How about the following three videos, all of which landed on my desk in a single morning (December 1).

Square2Marketing has its “Video Marketing Minute.”

Direct Marketing IQ [Target Marketing Group] has DMIQTV.

Production Solutions features Package Formats that will get your attention.

None of these videos are fancy-schmancy. They feature real people talking about -- and demonstrating -- marketing expertise. The films are short, sweet, and targeted.

There’s plenty more where this came from, so if video isn’t on your 2012 calendar (yet), you still have two weeks to put it there. Happy New Year!

p.s. In its Who's Mailing What archive report, DirectMarketingIQ.com reported a big crash (33% decline) in B2B direct mail in 2011. Please note that all of the above videos are B2B efforts.

p.s.s. When this post appeared on The Digital Nirvana blog to which I contribute, one commenter defended direct mail's role in acquisition marketing and wrongly assumed I was echoing the oft-repeated "direct mail is dead" mantra. Not so. Direct mail remains an effective — even essential — part of acquisition marketing. DMIQ’s “Who’s Mailing What” analysis led to their conclusion that B2B marketers had been doing far less direct mail in the first six months of 2011, compared to 2010. Meanwhile, I, too, have seen an explosion of B2B marketing video, not necessarily for acquisition, but certainly as a substitute for textual "content marketing." I stand by the prediction that 2012 will be the year video becomes commonplace on websites, in emails, in eNewletters, and in landing pages. A case in point? HubSpot's brilliant use of a "What is HubSpot" video on its download landing page for a free eBook.

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Why Email Propecting Is So Effective (When Done Right)

2011-12-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

I just watched Ed Gandia's three videos on "warm prospecting." Ed is the founder of the International Freelancer's Academy, but the advice he offers here is terrific for anyone looking for business: PR professionals, direct marketers, and sales professionals can all use these tips.

Ed's three videos are each 15 to 20 minutes and packed with information. Sign up here and watch them if you have time, but the videos will be taken down on December 11. (Note: Ed includes a full transcript of each video, so you can download those pdfs if you can't listen today).

If you're in a hurry for quick information, here are my notes.

Why Is Email Propecting So Effective (When Done Right)?

1. Less intrusive and more convenient than cold calling.
2. Better than phone messages, which can't be scanned quickly.
3. Prospects are far more responsive to a well delivered email.
4. With cold-calling, you get 3 to 5 seconds; email gives you 20 seconds.
5. It's easier to digest a marketing message in writing.
6. When the email is personal and targeted, it's very effective.
7. Propsecting with email helps you stay motivated.
8. Email prospecting is inexpensive.
9. Email prospecting is quick and immediate!
10. You can hand-pick the prospects you want to work with.

Here is what doesn't work.

1. Don't send an email blast to a list.
2. Don't send the same message to everybody.
3. Don't use email to market your newsletter.

Warm Email Prospecting Works When You ...
1. Handpick your list.
2. Customize your list.
3. Write an email like this:

Hi Randy,

I’ve been reading about your company in the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the work you’ve been doing at Emory
Hospital. And based on the work I’ve done with Acme Medical and XYZ International, I may be able to help you get "X" accomplished faster and cheaper.

Here’s a short article on how I’ve helped Acme
Medical: [URL goes here]. Would it make sense for us to chat briefly sometime in the next couple of weeks?

Regards,
[Your email signature]

1. Describe your ideal client profile.
- Get clear about the clients you are best suited to.
- No specialty needed.

2. Create a targeted list.
- Create a TARGETED list (identify organizations, identify specific individuals, find the email addresses for those individuals)

3. Establish a meaningful connection.
- You have to give every prospect a good reason to respond immediately
- Give the prospect a relevant reason to reach out to you.

4. Make a quick and relevant pitch -- 125 WORDS OR LESS.
- No small talk; no warming up the prospect.

5. Prepare for conversation.
- You need to be ready when the prospect calls you.
- Have some stock email to respond to a positive answer.
- Develop a set of talking points for the call.

6. Do smart follow-up

Remember:

- Warm Prospecting is a direct response strategy. MOST attempts will not get a response.
- Recommends sending a 2nd response after 2 weeks of no response.

How to Uncover and Communicate a Meaningful Connection with Your Prospect

The key strategy is to give prospects a meaningful bridge to connection

Three Ways to find Meaningful Connections

1. Use trigger events
- A big event or change in the organization's industry is a logical trigger event; for example, positive or negative financial announcements; new manager in the department you usually work with; layoffs, downsizing; finding prestigious new clients, etc.
- Trigger events create a certain level of pain or need that makes the organization more receptive to your needs.
- Scour the news for trigger events (industry or trade pubs, business pubs, news magus, etc.).
- Set up Google alerts for organizations already on your targeted list.

2. Mention one of your high profile clients or one of your accomplishments.
- It may make sense to throw out names that the prospect may recognize or even names they may not recognize.
- Leverage your successes. Mention an award you've recently accomplished, or a placement you made for a client.

3. Leverage a mutual connection and think of LinkedIn.
- Look at your personal or professional network.
- See if somebody will make an introduction for you.
- Use LinkedIn account to see if somebody in your immediate network knows your prospect

What About Subject Lines for Your Warm Prospecting Emails?

1. Use your subject line to allude to the meaningful connection you will talk about.
- Examples: Congrats on the Book Deal! or … I Helped B&B Foods Rebrand …
2. Keep subjects short -- 30 to 50 characters.
3. Show relevance in the subject, but don't give away too much information and don't "bait and switch."In the body of your short email, deliver on the subject line.

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Smart Marketers Are Always Thinking. Get This. It's Brilliant.

2011-11-11T04:59:00.000-08:00

Entrepreneur and corporate strategist Colin Jensen has a great post up on Quora. Jensen says, "No matter what kind of business you're starting, you need more than one source of revenue, and hopefully at least one your competition won't have thought of."

That reminded me of a GoogleOffer that showed up in my mailbox just this morning. Fairfield Inn & Suites (Marriott property) has a hotel near Dulles Airport. Anybody who lives in the Washington, D.C. area has utterly NO reason to go to the Dulles area, except to fly or pick up fliers. But wait! Maybe there's something out there in Dulles land after all ...

Fairfield was making an amazing offer -- 14 days of parking and free every-half-hour shuttle service to and the airport for only $20! Fairfield says that's a $140 value and I believe it. Moreover, Fairfield is offering staff help to haul luggage in and out of the shuttle bus. (No, I don't work for them and, yes, I never knew they existed until this a.m.). Wow.

In fact, this offer was SO wow that I went to the Fairfield website just to see if they would let me use the service other times. Yes, we can! But, for Fairfield, the real benefit is that their hotel is now on my radar. I found out they have inexpensive weekend packages and I can also consider staying there overnight before an early flight.

The discounted offer won't make any money of course, but it won't cost Fairfield any money, either. In short, this is some of the best hotel advertising I've seen in years. I'm sure many other curious local gawkers hopped to their website this morning, too .. where we found all manner of other offers besides "fly and park" also featured. This is very smart marketing, right Colin?

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A GREAT promotion to build Facebook "Likes"

2011-11-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Napco's "Publishing Business Webinar Series" sent an email this morning that got my attention.

The subject line was good -- "Like" Publishing Business and "Love" Your Free Gift -- but I almost never read subject lines.

What grabbed me was this fabulous graphic.

I went to the website and took a look. What a great way to honor staff. Now this is effective social media. And, yes, I like it -- very much, actually.

http://www.facebook.com/PublishingBusiness

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Two Experts Recommend These Direct Mail Response Boosters

2011-11-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

On November 1, DirectMarketingIQ hosted a Webinar featuring Patrick Fultz, DM Creative Group, LLC, and Michael Capuzzi, Copy Doodles.com. Fultz and Capuzzi cited their favorite direct mail response boosters. Here's a quick recap.

PATRICK FULTZ

Try variations of the envelope teaser:
• hand-written teasers;
• presenting the offer on the envelope;
• a novel approach to presenting the teaser;
• promising a gift inside;
• pointing out special features with handwritten arrows and notes.

Vary the size of windows in a window envelope to:
• show variable text elements on the outside;
• feature a product or sticky item (labels, etc.);
• show a premium or free gift through a window;
• create interest with specially shaped or odd-shaped windows.

Personalize with options like these:
• name and address, of course;
• variable images (in some cases, variable images have generated response rates of 40%);
• 1 to 1 marketing;
• tailored copy, offer, and images for individual relevance;
• handwritten personalization.

Consider a variety of options for the postage space:
• First class v. Standard;
• Indicia incorporating graphics;
• Live stamps;
• Meters with the company logo incorporated into the meter imprint.

Test changes in delivery format, including:
• Postcards (generally, these appear to be generating good returns now);
• Self-Mailers (these require testing, but can boost response and save on postage);
• In-line printed envelopes that offer additional personalization options;
• Three-dimensional mailers to create additional interest.

Test newer technologies:

pURLS, which can drive response rates up significantly, but need to be tested;
QR Codes, which are in wider use now, but should be used highlighted only when it makes sense to use them and always highlighted;
Mail Tracking. For example, it’s now possible to structure and track Standard rate mail to hit a 3 to 5-day window, thus saving on First-Class postage.
eMail follow-ups that are triggered by the direct mail drop;
Sound-Light-Video blurs the line between digital and print media and can be very powerful for the right audience.

MICHAEL CAPUZZI

Adopt creative strategies to help shut out the noise of other marketing:

Make It Personal.
1. Personalize the "who," the copy, the message, the offer.
2. Make your direct mail look like it's coming from a friend.
3. Make your direct mail distinctive (for example, try a hand-crafted look).
4. Apply handwritten messages that pop-out and work as eye-magnets and envelope teasers.
5. Use cartoons and comics to generate interest.
6. Use sticky notes, rubber stamps, doodles, and hand-art on letters and envelopes.

Create Envelopes That Get Opened.
7. Window envelopes with handwritten fonts generate interest.
8. Print on both sides of the envelope so all real estate is used.
9. Use "Do Not Fold" messages to pique interest.
10. Test cool stamps or multiple stamps.

Create Postcards That Get Results and Campaigns That Get Attention.
11. pURLS are appropriate, but not all the time. Make sure the web landing page for a pURL is also highly personal!
12. Handwriting is a smart way to get eyeballs to focus on certain parts of an envelope or letter.
13. Photos of the sender on the envelope are worth considering.
14. Be creative with the mailer (for example, try a brown paper bag to deliver the message).
15. Create urgency with envelope teasers and notes that say "Last Chance," "Final Offer," "Act Now," etc.

So What’s Working in the Real World?
16. Addition of a red note on the envelope saying "Your Tickets Enclosed" bumped response from 1.1% to 8.7% response rate.
17. Addition of an item circled in red and addition of two hand writte words (free and Stop boosted response rate from zero to 3.3%.
18. Adding doodles boosted response to 5.9%.
19. The sender sent the same letter, but added handwritten notes "Act Now" and "Call Me," along with underlines and other handwritten marks drove response rate up.
20. A 28% boost in response came when one marketer added a few red handwritten notes, underlines, and doodles to the letter.

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Video Content Delivers Marketing Wins Across the Board

2011-10-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

Increasingly, video is replacing text.

2011 statistics are difficult to come by (yet), but we do know that, according to a comScore study released in February 2011, 82.5% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed a video online. As far back as October 2009, Mashable notes that YouTube already was serving 1 billion videos per day. We also know, for example, that Discovery Channel increased video streams by 123% in 2010.

So, yes, we're watching more video online -- lots more. And, for marketing purposes, videos can't be beat.

• Better Conversion. Online retailer Ice.com reportedly found that viewers who chose to view video converted at a 400% increase over those who did not.

• Decreasing Returns. Ice.com also credits video with decreasing returns by 25% (Internet Retailer, December 2009).

• Better Conversion Again. Shoppers who view video at Onlineshoes.com convert at a 45% higher rate than other shoppers, and the site has seen a 359% year-over-year increase in video views. Product pages with video have higher conversion rates than product pages without video. (Internet Retailer, February 2010).

For more stats, check out "101 Online Video Stats" To Make Your Eyes Glaze Over" by Matthew Bavosa at engage.com. Or visit stats from activate media group.

So, if you're still getting resistance to the video marketing investment, let's hope this ammunition packs enough fire power to argue for a test.

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Can -- and Should -- Creativity Be Crowdsourced?

2011-10-05T04:18:00.000-07:00

Crowdsourcing our own opinions and relying on others' is all the rage: Yelp, Angie’s List, Facebook Likes -- apparently, we won’t buy anything unless we consult to see if groups of strangers think it’s okay.

Crowdsourcing, first name-tagged in a 2006 Wired magazine article, has infiltrated the creative arts, too.

For instance, the Japanese are heavily into keitai shosetsu -- thumb novels written by collaborating hoards of teenagers and 20-somethings who knock out romance novels and crime thrillers via mobile phone texting.

The trend to crowdsourcing film has been tested in the Netherlands. The Dutch filmmaker who undertook this effort said, “We wanted to make a movie that shows the opinion of the public, created by the public, on a subject that concerns every tax-payer: The bankruptcy of DSB Bank in the Netherlands (2009) … We did not have any budget. Lucky us, we have an excellent … social system in the Netherlands.”

Mashable demonstrated the possibilities of creative crowdsourcing when it featured “10 Cool Crowdsourced Music Video Projects.” Similar collaborative projects have popped up at Fashion Stake, communal problem-solver Innocentive, photo sharing site Flickr Creative Commons, and Wiki-Art.

Naturally, somebody saw the dollar signs in crowdsourcing. In Chicago, the enterprise Crowdspring.com has sprung.These online marketing folks allude to crowdsourcing in their name, but others describe the process as a worldwide contest wherein folks in the creative arts (design, website development, writing) are invited to “work for spec” and, if they’re lucky (?), be chosen to actually work on a project and get paid. Chances of being chosen and getting paid are very slim, say detractors – and some (like Brian Yerkes) who have participated are, frankly, furious.

In a Nutshell, Please: Can Creativity Be Crowdsourced?
Garrick Schmitt addressed that question exactly in AdAgeDigital in 2009. Garrick concludes: "For agencies, crowdsourcing forces us to re-examine how great work gets produced and where the best talent resides ... For marketers, crowdsourcing creative services poses both great risks and rewards ... And finally, for the industry as a whole ... time will tell."

Point Is, There's Crowdsourcing and Then There's Working for Free
In his article, Garrick came up with some excellent examples of creative crowdsourcing, as has econsultancy. In many of these examples -- though not all -- true sharing and collaboration occurs when participants group together in a common pursuit. A different scenario emerges when dozens (or hundreds) of folks of all ilk compete fiercely, investing time and resources in pursuit of a positive outcome that only one will ever enjoy.

And, now, for MarketingBrillo's Final Word ...
Crowdsourcing for creative inspiration and a good time? Definitely yes.
Crowdsourcing spec work in hopes of landing a job or getting cheap work? Definitely stupid, probably exploitative.

More Resources For Deciding How You Feel About Crowdsourcing
As for whether crowdsourcing can work for commercial enterprises looking for publicity, this report demonstrates that effective crowd sourcing requires 1) a crowd, 2) incentives, and 3) an easy project.

For an authoritative voice on the economics and ethics of crowdsourcing, check out writer/designer/entrepreneur/Ironman competitor Andrew Hyde's various blog posts on the subject (alert: Andrew thinks spec work is evil, period.)

For more info on what’s new in crowdsourcing, see The Complete Idiot’s Guide here.

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Another 2012 Prediction (You Won’t Like It)

2011-09-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Luxuriate in the Fresh Air of a Wholesale Dump! Take in the Aroma of Original Content. Ahhhhh!

Yes, my friends, I’m talking about the murder of “content aggregation.” It's an early demise, I know, since aggregation just got born in 2011. But, if I have anything to say about it, "content aggregation" is going to wither and die in 2012. For somebody who's done a fair amount of "aggregation" this year, the prediction hurts. But it's inevitable.

Why? Because we Can't HANDLE it.

When Chris Brogan began unfriending people left and right in March, he called it getting rid of a mess.

Margie Clayman, too, is wondering if smaller social media might not be better social media.

The real issue, though, isn’t what you call it, or even how you do it. The nugget here is the sense of panic human beings are grappling with under the information tsunami. And "aggregation," which has the potential for exponential repeat, retweet, rehash, and regurgitate, has got to go.

A Case In Point
I got a brilliant e-newsletter from Brad and Steve at bscopes. I don't know why I read it-- I am way too busy to read any enewsletter -- except that it used the phrase "RSS bankruptcy" in the first sentence and alluded in the second paragraph to feeling a tremendous sense of relief at wholesale dumping of articles collecting dust in the reader.

I had to write to bscopes. “I don't think I've received your email before. I tend to throw stuff out, but this post caught my eye and I read it all the way through. You're right, information-choke is a HUGE problem and the "just throw it away" process doesn't work. I think part of it starts with a better email client coupled with, perhaps, the growing professions of "virtual assistant" (not kidding)."

But that was just a stab in the dark. The real solution lies with Brogan: Just turn it off.

Why Are Human Beings Reacting This Way?
Amid the “anxiety of not knowing” [something, everything, more, enough!], we find ourselves facing the reality that there is no way to know enough. Suddenly, this year, in 2011, as we drowned in the tsunami, we realized everything we don’t know. Fact is, we’ve never known… it’s just that we didn’t know we didn’t know (if you know what I mean).

There’s more. The more we delve into a topic, the more anxious we become about not knowing.
Well, how about crowd-sourcing, then? Can’t these other people tell us what to eat, think, feel, buy? No, because as soon as we start listening to crowd-sourced comments, we realize all that opinion is worth the paper it’s written on. There's just too much of it and nobody agrees anyway.

Instead, when we need to know, proactive researching is our best option. Sure, we'll come across a lot of junk. And, if we think it’s all relevant, we're a dead duck. So, we're going to need to use our own judgment.

With information as with everything else in life, less is more. I do believe that in 2012 many many of us will start by simply "turning it off" and then rebuilding: consciously, purposefully, intelligently. The skill of "curation" will be invaluable here, but aggregation is headed for the landfill.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

The Secret Ingredient In Zillow's Social Media Magic

2011-09-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

How come Zillow does social media so well? Simple. They employ Grade A, top-notch writers churning out top-notch social media at every turn.

People have yakked about the folks who write copy for Groupon, but I think Zillow out does them. Groupon is self-conscious, insider-ish, and full of itself (sorry guys). but Zillow does what copy is supposed to do: It challenges us to open -- and read -- the social media envelope.

As a company, Zillow started with data in early 2005 and hit the Internet about a year later with info on millions of U.S. homes. Though Zillow hadn't turned a profit when it went public in July this year, shares of Zillow shot up 120% at the IPO. Not bad for a company operating in the industry that's experienced -- some would say caused -- the worst recession in history. If anything can kill the National Association of Realtors®, it's Zillow (no, I don't have stock in the company).

Even if Zillow goes under, I will always argue that they have one of the best social media efforts in the country. And the entire program is built on good writing.

Cases in point:

1. They know how to gossip. Zwillow knows that America is talking about and they find a great way to relate the latest buzz to real estate. Take the story that appeared front and center in the September 22 newsletter: Where Are They Now? Update on Some Guilty Pleasures.

2. They write killer headlines:
• Reasons to Friend (or Not) Your Tenants on Social Media Networks
• Strutting Their Stuff: Homes of Fashion Designers

3. Their tweets are must-click masterpieces.
• Have an open house coming up? Here's how to do it on Zillow. http://bit.ly/n4QcLs
• Zillow's Facebook Question of Day: Do you drink tap water, filtered or bottled in your home? http://on.fb.me/p4PTrx
• Can you buy a house when your current mortgage is upside down? http://bit.ly/pgimos
• Borum Hill rental: $3,100/month. Bedrooms: 0 -- But hey, its got bike storage
• Crazy times. See a home you can buy for the price of a car. http://bit.ly/mRJ9MW

4. Their content is USEFUL. Gossip isn't all Zillow has going for it. This is useful stuff. Here are just two examples
• Do you understand income tax considerations of rental properties?
http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-20/do-you-understand-income-tax-considerations-of-rental-properties/
• What to do if your home doesn't sell. http://www.zillow.com/blog/2011-09-21/what-to-do-if-your-home-doesn%E2%80%99t-sell/
• Moving? How many boxes will you need? Use our cool, new Moving Box Estimator Widget to find out. http://u.zillow.com/bEbN/
• How to protect yourself from rental scams. http://bit.ly/nhi6YE

5. Their Facebook page is fresh, interesting, and interactive. Just to "be there" is to join in. For example, how about these options to get involved and comment?
• Good morning, weekend warriors! Tell us your locale and present real estate status.
• Is there a home in your neighborhood that has been on the market forever? What do you think the reasons are?
• How is the water consumed in your home?
• What is the costliest home system/structure failure you’ve ever faced?

6. Zillow is out front in social media with its own YouTube channel. This one features Zillow's Performance Engineer talking about Zillow's performance on mobile apps. This is content sharing at its best.

6. What else, you ask? How about Zillow's new real estate blog, Curbed. Or in Zillow words, "For the first time, Curbed readers can search for local and national listings directly from Curbed National and all of Curbed’s city sites [Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.]. The Zillow search experience gives Curbed readers direct access to a comprehensive selection of real estate listings alongside Curbed’s witty and insightful coverage of the country’s most vibrant urban centers."

Yep, the copywriters are at it again. Who said words don't count? In Zillow's case, you can take them to the bank.

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

What's Bothering the Big Boys and Girls?

2011-09-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

The Big Boys and Girls of Marketing -- that is the 150 online and direct marketers with at least $100M in annual revenue and the other 150 with $2B or more per annum -- are eager to turn data into action.

That's the #1 finding of Unica's latest Annual Survey of Marketers, -- and that's different from last year when the big concern was getting IT to tow the line in support of marketing needs.

Apparently, IT has been tamed (don't believe it), or at least is now less of a problem for marketing. And that's a good thing because -- in "rock-and-a-hard-place" terms -- marketers also believe that those cranky IT folks (technology) can ease their pain. Over half of respondents cited technology as the key to productivity.

Marketers also are desperate for the highly touted "integrated marketing suite" that Marketing Brillo blogged about in April and June.

So, where are the pitfalls? Marketers believe in interactive marketing, but aren't sure how to make it work. The roadblock is, once again and forever more, silos. All the reports we've seen at Marketing Brillo reveal silo-smashing as the top skill required for success. Meanwhile, fiefdoms are probably the most difficult for the tradition-ridden, established Big Boys and Girls to demolish. Lesson: If you're new, small, nimble, and quick, this is your chance to jump silos and grab market share.

More findings: Web data is highly prized, but -- as with all data -- it's tough to turn into action. The report calls it a "paradox" that 92% of marketers appreciate the value and importance of web data, but less than half can figure out how to apply data to customer analyses and campaigns. To Marketing Brillo, that seems less a paradox than a "duh!" For the data-eureka connection -- as with all discovery -- only genuine brilliance will cut it.

Email is another sore point. Seventy-five present of respondents say their email data is not integrated with other customer data and/or is a basic hand job. Marketers don't like paid search either and keyword management continues to frustrate.

Meanwhile, the star of 2010 -- social media -- has proved more problem than solution. The SocMed star still shines brightly among emerging marketing channels, but marketers aren't so enthusiastic this year, suggesting (says the report) "that we have passed the peak of inflated expectations and are focused on finding the value that social channels can yield." In the hyper-churning sea of social media, good luck with that.

In conclusion, it's probably safe to call Mobile Marketing the 2011 star. And yet, marketers acknowledge this exploding channel isn't well integrated either.

For more details and a numbers analysis, download the free report here. Note: Unica is an IBM company.

Early FourSquare "Fan" Strategy Gets Monetized

2011-09-20T07:52:00.001-07:00

When FourSquare launched in March 2009, most consumers couldn't "get" why people would want to pinpoint their whereabouts. Twitter was full of "who cares?" commentary.

But FourSquare was smart. By wooing the early adopters with a competitive, one-up game of "Mayor," FourSquare got cool in the right places -- among techies -- real quick.

Today, the social game is poised for a higher paying purpose: commerce.

Now that Near Field Communications are getting closer, Four Square can easily graduate from game to get-down-to-business. As blogger Caitlyn Mayers sees it, there's lots of opportunity for location-based marketing to eat through the landscape. "Think about how this could change your experience at a concert or at a movie. You could purchase tickets for reserved seats, order food and drinks, and pay for it all without having to use more that just your cell phone."

How can a business leverage FourSquare and other location-based apps? In July, business people in Charlotte, North Carolina, were invited to a session titled "The Evolution of FourSquare Marketing." The panel suggested eight fundamentals to help business people think through the possibilities:

• Ask the right questions before leveraging FourSquare for your business.
• Experiment with FourSquare as a user first.
• Listen through FourSquare.
• Understand the basic marketing tactics of FourSquare (tips, specials, badges).
• Build offline community through FourSquare.
• Integrate FourSquare marketing efforts with your full marketing campaign.
• Train your staff to keep them "in the know."
• Promote your FourSquare marketing/specials.

The same month, American Express launched Go Social, a tool that enables retailers to integrate offers to consumers with Foursquare and Facebook.

Clearly, the potential is here -- and when American Express buys-in, the potential is hot.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Before You Give Away Creative Advice, Check Out the "Helping Friends Manifesto."

2011-08-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

If you have a creative talent -- writing, website development, photography, marketing, design and layout, etc. -- chances are about 100% that friends and family sometimes say, "Do you think you could 'give me a hand with/just take a look at' [fill in the blanks]… "

You're a nice person and, of course, you want to help. But before you do, you might want to hand off a copy of the Helping Friends Manifesto (HMFM). Otherwise, after you freely share, you could hear any of the following:

1. I really like what you've done here. Can I make changes?
2. This is good. Could you give me the original file so I can play with it?
3. I don't like this font. Can we try some other choices?
4. Would you mind if I ran this by another friend who's a [pick one: marketer, writer, designer, web developer]?
5. Why did you put THAT, THERE?
6. I hate that picture.

The Helping Friends Manifesto
I'm flattered that you've asked me for help. Normally, I charge (quite a bit) for this type of work, but I can definitely get you started for free. I want this to be fun for both of us, so it might help if we set some ground rules.

1. If you have a concept in mind -- style, tone, appearance, layout, color, wording, headlines, copy, tagline, headers, font -- please share your thoughts before I begin. The more detail, the better.

2. If you don't have a concept in mind -- in other words, if you are a blank slate who is simply saying "I need a brochure" -- let's agree that you have come to me for my skill and experience, upon which it makes sense to rely.

3. In this project, I am taking the lead as expert. Agreed?

4. Does the following statement sound like something you might say? "I don't know what I want. I only know what I don't want." If this is true, please provide me a point-by-point list of what you don't want. Otherwise, I won't be able to help you with this project.

5. Does the following statement sound like something you might say? "I don't like it. I don't know why. I just don't like it." Please understand that, in the hands of a professional, creative choices are driven both by talent and by reason. I will be able to tell you why I made a certain choice, so -- in turn -- please be able to tell me why you think a particular choice won't work. Otherwise, please see #3, above.

6. Typically, my work includes one round of reasonable changes/alterations as part of the fee. Beyond that, I charge "x" dollar per hour. Therefore, while I can draft something for you and make one set of reasonable changes, a wholesale "makeover" is not part of the deal. Note: Time constraints related to my paying work make it essential that I assume the role of "decider" as to what's "reasonable." Agreed?

8. We are both free to say to one another, without rancor, "Let's give this a rest."

--scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

What Keeps Them Awake At Night?

2011-08-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine in the PR business just picked up a client well-known and highly regarded in the direct mail business.

Since I'm editor of the monthly publication of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington and my colleague is putting an ad together for my sort of readers, he asked me:
• What are the things that keep direct mailers awake at night?
• What challenges has the economy posed for the industry?
• Is anything changing in the world of premium fulfillment or personalized acknowledgements?

Here’s what I told my friend.

What keeps them awake at night?
• missed schedules
• bad/poorly performing mailing lists
• low ROI
• missing insertions
• rising paper costs
• losing their jobs

What has the economy done to them?
• made them afraid to mail and afraid to fail
• prompted them to pull back out of fear
• raised concerns that their customers/clients think direct mail no longer performs
• promoted the perception that direct mail is "old fashioned"
• turned competitive arguments vicious ("direct mail is dead," "direct mail hurts the environment," "digital is the new and only way to go," etc.)

What is current behavior in relationship to premiums and personalized CRM?

• notion that one-time premium snatchers don't bring return orders, so finding the sweet spot is paramount.
• personalized acknowledgements never go out of style, but they do cost money; thus, concern that the "niceties" can be dispensed with in response to dollar concerns.
• an increasing shift to social media, which is cheaper and can stand-in for personalized contact.

What would YOU add to this list?

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

Tips for Marketing to the Uber Rich

2011-08-18T04:19:00.000-07:00

Somehow I got on the mailing list of Bluefish.com, which kindly sent me an announcement of the new "Bluefish Concierge service" (a partnership with Citibank Bahrain). From this unlikely excursion, I landed at "Fish Food," the Bluefish blog. Swimming in this sea carries a hefty price.

What did I sample at Fish Food? The Buggatti family sedan, retailing for $1.42 million at the time of its release in fall 2012 .. a peek at the outside of several of the most expensive hotels in the world ... a gawk at a pair of $18,000 flip flops.

What the heck is going on here? Who needs this stuff and why? Maybe -- if you're a marketer -- you do. So I figured "Why not?" I, too, can blog about toys for the dripping rich.

Here are the pitch points I picked up at Fish Food.

Just A Few Left
Your prospect may want the Buggatti family sedan, but might not get one. Make sure he/she knows that "time is of the essence." Buggatti (owned by VW ... who knew?) expects to sell no more than 1,500 of the "Galibier" model. No, not just next year ... ever. So if you want one, hurry up.

Justifiable Extravagance
Your teenager isn't the only one wearing flip-flops. You gotta have 'em ... but $18,000 a pair? Well, sure, (I guess) if you can show customers how to simultaneously flaunt their bank accounts and save the Costa Rican rainforest. That's right, flop manufacturer Chipkos not only sells you the sandal, but throws in two-nights at the eco-friendly Beverly Hills Montage Hotel, a "meet and greet" with the flip-flop designer, and a guarantee to protect 100 square feet of rainforest. (How do they make any money on this utterly fab deal?)

Who's Who Becomes You
The Dorchester Collection is a group of 5-star luxury hotels in London, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Milan, and Paris. Only nine of these unique properties exist and you'd better duck because the names are dropping from every vaulted chandelier. Architect, designer and rumored cold fish Thierry W. Despont joins the more accessible friendlier food master, Wolfgang Puck, as notables responsible for the good life at 45 Park Lane, Dorchester's latest addition. Contributors to the other Dorchester hotels are no less renown.

Everybody Who's Anybody
World Cup 2014 is gonna be a blow-out. The Brazilians are building a 500-mile bullet-train railway from Sao Paul to Rio. Five-star hotels are sprouting like weeds, and even the famous Favela slums are getting a spiff. Bottom line: IF you're somebody, you will be there. End of pitch.

Because You Have Taste, Dammit
Ernest Shackleton trekked 25 cases of whiskey to Antarctica, some of which froze solid in the minus-22-degrees-Fahrenheit tundra. The Scottish whiskey is believed to have been bottled in 1896 and collectors crave it. If the cache goes on the open market -- like whiskey lovers believe it should -- the price could vault to hundreds of thousands dollars per bottle, not much for a swig of the real deal.

Because You Can
The iPhone 4 Lady Blanche made by Gresso costs $30,000. C'mon... this gadget is crystal encrusted (What!? You expected diamonds?) and tells time in New York, London, and Moscow. And, Gresso says it takes "several hundred hours of labor-intensive process" to make the Lady Blanche. (How do they make any money on this utterly fab deal?)

I'm sorry. Tummy hurting. Must be all that rich food, whisky, and 300 hours of minimum-wage intensive labor. I sincerely hope you have top drawer luck marketing to the rich. After all, they've earned it.

Haven't they?

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

Near Field Communications Are Near

2011-08-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

NFC is the acronym for Near Field Communications. So what?

Put simply, near field communications (NFC) let devices (like cell phones) that are close to one another (like 4 inches apart) exchange information (like credit card numbers).

For those who find that too simple, here’s the real deal from Wikipedia: "Near field communication, or NFC, allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and connections with a touch. Co-invented by NXP Semiconductors and Sony in 2002, NFC technology is being added to a growing number of mobile handsets to enable mobile payments, as well as many other applications."

NFC also has potential applications for instant file exchange, electronic business cards, mobile gaming , friend-to-friend connections, and, of course, electronic money. In fact, The New York Times reported yesterday that some states (California, Massachussets, Iowa, and District of Columbia) may be turning to online gambling to build revenues),

In January 2011, the tech blogs got all hot and sweaty about a rumor that the Apple iPad2 and iPhone5 would have NFC. By March, we knew that wasn’t going to happen, but when it does, some observes say it’s going to be huge. For example, MG Sigler at TechCrunch says, “If Apple can nail Near-Field Communication (NFC) and tie it directly into their already-established iTunes payment system, it could change everything. It could transform Apple from the biggest technology company in the world, to the biggest company in the world, period. By far.”

Also “coming soon,” Google Wallet (a mobile app that will “make your phone your wallet"), which, in partnership with Citibank, will let consumers “tap, pay, and save.”

NFC: What’s in your wallet?

What Can Home Invasion News Teach Us About Content Marketing? These Eight Realities.

2011-08-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Three months ago I conceived homeinvasionnews.com. The content strategy was three-fold:
1) demonstrate my ability to create content for any topic, including one with which I had no experience;
2) demonstrate the added value of content displayed in a dynamic format;
3) demonstrate the various formats in which content can be presented.

I was able to take Home Invasion News from concept to launch in 30 days. Since launch, I have been maintaining the site, adding new content daily. I will launch a PR push in the next few weeks, but the site is already ranking on page one of Google in a variety of home invasion related topics: news, statistics, safeguards, laws, etc.

Here's are eight realities that confirm the validity of the original three-point strategy:

1. Content development is about intelligent content curation. If you have a body of knowledge at your disposal, content will come. If you don't -- but if you know how to research on the Internet -- you will find all the content you need: statistics, expertise, opinion, case studies, definitions, and controversy for any topic, any project.

2. The best content adds something extra: A viewpoint, a sense of humor, a different take, an unusual way of presenting. In short, the best content starts with dry information and adds YOU.

3. How you present content makes all the difference. Give the reader/browser something extra to look at, chew on, think about. At Home Invasion News, this something extra would be the active layout of the homepage and the editorial point of view.

4. Specialized infographics can play a key role. The top menu bar of the site features "Faces of Home Invasion." That link jumps to an interactive graphic used to publicize the site through press releases.

5. Video has a place. In the case of HIN, limitless video is free for the asking and we embed it everywhere. Most any topic you can think of has related video somewhere on the Internet. Most of it is free and easy. Figure out how to use it and do so.

6. RSS feeds are good -- both for content curation and for readers' viewing pleasure. HIN features a feed based on the term "home invasion." The feed is continuous and it creates great fodder for daily consumption, as well as background for the "top story" weekly blog post.

7. Content curation sites like Scoop-It help track national stories. For some sites (like HIN), linking to your Scoop-It site on a separate page makes for solid, in-the-moment content. [Tip: You can set up Scoop-It to make sure your own site is first on this feed.]

8. Understanding the various e-media possibilities -- video, slideshows, webinars. etc. -- helps guide content development. For example, we recognize that -- as resources grow -- interviews and podcasts are a natural progression in the Home Invasion News effort.

A final thought: Sites like WriterAccess aggregate a pool of writers looking for content development projects. The last time I checked, WriterAccess had 3,800 writers signed on. Perhaps this model creates work for journalists closed out in the newspaper shrinkage. I certainly hope so. In any event, WriterAccess is a huge step up from content sweatshops I wrote about awhile back. On the other hand, lining up with 3,800 other writers feels a bit like trying to land a job -- or locate a Chief Marketing Officer -- on MONSTER (not that there's anything wrong with that :-)

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo

"Caving In" and Seven Sub-Trends for the Middle Class

2011-08-09T04:50:00.001-07:00

In the process of writing a post about demographic trends among seniors, I came across this article that appeared in Psychology Today about a year ago. The writer describes "The Villages," a middle-of-nowhere place in Florida that now houses some 80,000 baby-boomer escapists who have left everything behind: children, traffic, government interference, taxes, and noise.

What the article doesn't say is that, in a harsher reality, these runaway grey panthers are actually trying to hang on to what they've got (and think they are about to lose) in a crashing economy. In short, these folks have "caved in."

I think there's a clue in here for the psychology of the middle class in the post-housing/debt ceiling fiasco. "Caving In" means playing it safe, controlling your environment, keeping what you have, hunkering down, being watchful, and "holding it close." "Caving in" incorporates seven lifestyle sub-trends that also reflect new economic realities.

1. Trend To the Familiar
Family, Family, Family
Community Support Systems
Family Live-Togethers
Neighborhoods

2. Trend To Cheap
Coupons
Rent the Runway et al
Recycling
Refurbishing

3. Trend To Unplanned, Close-by, and Contained
Parks and Free Events
Road Trips
Neighborhoods
Spontaneous community events
lastminute.com
Local, Local, Local

4. Trend Away from Technology
Nature
Food
Quiet
Soothing
Intimate
Art and Design
Crafts

5. Trend to Animals
Pets as Companions and Family Members
Animal Charities
Vegetarian lifestyles

6. Trend to Social Anonymity
What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas
Cruise Ships

7. Trend to Distrust
Angie's List
Customer Reviews (Yelp)
Facebook and Friend Referrals

There is, of course, a counterpoint to "caving in." That would be "busting out." For more about that, check out this great post on the London riots.

Can Technology Kill Direct Marketing?

2011-08-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I spotted a question on LinkedIn's Direct Mail Group from Mark Zazeela, mailing and shipping consultant in the Greater New York City area.

Marc was pondering what the rest of us are almost afraid to think about: Technology Overload.

Marc said, "I have been reading and hearing a lot of people talking about how difficult it is becoming to keep up with everything. You've got a million emails in your inbox, about half are SPAM, you've got your Twitter stream to manage, Facebook keeps popping up on your screen, and then there's LinkedIn, and now Google +. How do you think this will affect the direct marketing industry in the months and years to come?"

Well, Marc, as I commented, that's a good question. And, unfortunately, I think the issue goes much deeper than many of us want to acknowledge; in short, can technology, in general, kill direct marketing as we know it.

For starters, I think the bludgeoning of technology is a lot bigger than a crammed email inbox (as if that weren't enough). And small businesses -- the presumed economic backbone of a troubled economy -- are getting hit the hardest. For example:

• Apple's new "Lion" operating system reportedly won't work with QuickBooks 2010, a mainstay of many small business operations.
• And then there's Adobe's brutal restyling of FinalCutPro, which has left the majority of small business video and independent film makers in the lurch.
• I also hear that some apps for the iPad are going out of operation almost as fast as iPad OS upgrades are released.
• And then there is the sky-rocketing cost of hi-speed Internet. Our failing Congress may not recognize it as such, but to a small business, Internet is akin to electricity and water.

I wish it were possible to predict how this will affect the direct marketing industry. Up to now, technology has actually enabled many small business enterprises to compete in an increasingly fused economy. As the fusion is strained by technology evolution, how will small print shops, list brokers, design companies, copywriters, website developers, and all the small business support systems for direct marketing cope? Who will care?

One Verizon customer who found a $4.19 charge on her bill and asked Verizon for an itemization of the charges. They said they wouldn't do that and told her, essentially, to shut up and go away. She took them to court, where the judge agreed the Verizon practice of billing without explanation was outrageous. Either give the customer her itemization of charges or face a $1,000 fine, the judge said.

Sadly, as satisfying as that example of Customer v. Big Technology is, those stories are a drop in the bucket. In the meantime, we keep up as best we can, understanding that -- for the most part -- small businesses are all in this mess together. Maybe there's some way we can help one another. Thoughts?

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

The Two New TVs: Branded and Social. Are You Ready?

2011-07-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought it was safe to relax in front of the TV, it isn't. In fact, one of your new marketing tasks may involve putting up the content on your organization's own TV channel. That would be called a branded content channel.

Rob Davis, who heads the online video practice at adverting giant Ogilvy, says in this interview that his agency is working closely on branded content channels on YouTube.

Here are some sound bites from Rob.

"We're finding that with a lot of our clients it goes beyond 'I want to have a video and hope it goes well.' [The push] is about making use of the tools YouTube has available. We're focusing a lot of the effort around identifying the opportunities available with a brand channel. The brand channel model itself on YouTube is growing up. It's a place to curate content; it's a place where we're seeing people using the channel for direct marketing.

"Cure Bad Breath, for example, is a YouTube that's all about moving product, moving the Orabrush. We've just done a brand new channel for IBM that's about curating the best IBM content on the web on YouTube and bringing it into one place.

"When we talk about value of video content, we're looking at engagement, at views plus length of view and completion rates. At Ogilvy, we talk about PPI -- post play interaction. We help our clients identify what the next click should be in their strategy. Is it direct marketing, is it lead generation, is it awareness, is it about viewing more videos or going to a landing page and getting into the sales funnel. Different strategies require different measurements.

"Branded content is a major part of what we're doing. We're still focusing on VSEO (video search engine optimization) for a lot of the content we're creating. It's finding the right blend to get the eyeballs to the branded content. We're not leaving out the notion of blogger outreach and influencers, either. [The strategy involves] getting the content into the right hands so your audience finds the content where they are participating, rather than the old method of trying to drive them to a url.

[In branded channel TV] you want high production values. You don't want to cut corners on the content. The industry is ready for it, although the Internet audience may not be totally ready for it just yet. But I think it can happen. Technology is in place for this year -- 2011 -- to be the year."

And then there's Social TV. Even if you're not developing branded content for your own TV channel, you will probably be pulled into Social TV before long. So what is that?

If the MIT Technology Review on Social TV in 2010 is correct, it's coming on strong. In fact, social TV was named by this group as one of the 10 most important emerging technologies.

How about some real-life examples? Maybe you'll recall seeing Twitter integrated into a TV show. Or maybe you were part of Facebook reactions to the U.S. team's rise and fall at the Women's World Cup. Check out these and more at "Social TV," a blog on the subject.

LostRemote is another blog that covers the social TV scene. One story describes integrating TV into socialization via the Dexter app that allows users to set up their own text-messaging group chat surrounding Showtime's "Dexter" TV show.

And then there's Miso, a phone app designed to notify friends which TV shows you're watching. The process works much like Foursquare, as participants "check in" to report viewing.

Mashable gives us a quick run-down of how social TV is faring, according to TV Guide research. Surprise, Smallville, a program that's one of Nielsen's lowest-rated, has a huge social media following.

Content options provide audiences with additional content that is engaging, unique, and innovative, so that the experience is simultaneously available across platforms.

Wikipedia describes the burgeoning phenomenon this way: "Social TV is creating the cyber-living-room and cyber-bar to enable increased interactivity around shared programming, both live and time-shifted."

See you on the telly.

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Research Shows Mobile Is the Big Chatter

2011-07-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

“Get near any group of marketing professionals and you're likely to hear a chorus of ‘mobile.'” In fact, mobile is pretty much all we think about, according to a press release announcing availability of Mobile Marketing: Plans, Trends and Measurability: What Do Marketers Think?

Some 560 respondents, split between corporate management and marketing/sales management professionals, spilled their thoughts to King Fish Media, Maxymiser, HubSpot, and Junta42, the quartet that partnered to gather and publish the results of an online survey conducted April 12-27, 2011.

Among the key findings:

• The mobile market is very much in its early stages, with corporate plans in a state of flux.
• Companies are faced with a growing base of installed mobile devices.
• Thirty-three percent of companies currently have a mobile strategy in place, and among those who don't, they plan to have one ready within the next 12 months.
• While only about 12 percent of brands' marketing is spent on mobile, 82 percent plans to increase their spending on mobile over the next year, with 30 percent taking the budget from mainstream marketing and advertising.
• Most commonly, brands are using mobile initiatives to build/grow relationships, which explains why the most popular content types are currently: social media, branded, email capabilities, geo-location/maps, and general reference.

Additional findings:

• About 75% of companies are planning apps using the iPhone platform vs. Android (45 percent), iPad (41 percent) and BlackBerry(41 percent).
• Looking out 12 months, interest in iPad (76 percent) and Android (75 percent) rises significantly, while iPhone and BlackBerry stay flat.
• Interestingly, 68 percent of companies have no plans to develop apps using the Windows operating system.
• Social media, branded content, email, geo-location/maps and general reference are most often mentioned as applications being executed as part of a mobile initiative.
• Original branded content, ads, expert content, and videos are the types of content used most often in mobile format.
• Commerce over mobile channels is slow to take hold among respondents. Less than 20 percent of respondents said they are currently conducting mobile commerce, mostly over a mobile website. Interest does rise for 2012.
• Relationship marketing (customer loyalty and retention) is at the heart of the perceived benefits of mobile marketing.
• In terms of ROI for current mobile programs, 24 percent report that it has exceeded or performed as expected and a full one third have not measured it at all.
• Forty-one percent say future mobile marketing programs will need to show a positive return to continue the program and 34 percent say they will be tracking it, but a positive return will not be required at this time.

“The mobile marketplace has gotten the attention of marketers as a valuable media platform, but it is also still taking shape and in its early stages,” explains Gordon Plutsky, director of marketing and research, King Fish Media. “This report will hopefully offer some clarity on the direction of this developing communications channel, so that marketers can react in ways both prescient and strategic.”

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Today’s “Show Me” Website Is A Content Marketer’s Dream

2011-07-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

A content marketer’s job is to share what an organization knows. We can do that piecemeal in blogs, videos, slideshows, whitepapers, articles, and so on. But nothing puts it all out there like a “show-me” website.

I just finished writing a short ebook (free for the asking) that describes how to launch a show-me website in 30 days, from concept to launch – and that’s starting with zero content and no background in the topic area.

To demonstrate this could be done, starting on May 17 with only a topic in mind, I developed enough original content for Home Invasion News to go live on June 17. When I searched the generic term “home invasion news” on Google this morning, the site had moved up from seventh place, to fifth and sixth positions on page one, just behind recent TV news reports. We’re also ranking on the first page for “home statistics,” and “FBI home invasion statistics.”

Is this some sort of extraordinary achievement? I don’t think so. If you are still reading this article, I am absolutely certain you can do the same.

But why bother? I mean, why is launching this sort of a website so important right now? Ho-hum websites without color and a profusion of choices for the visitor are worse than ineffective. They are a detriment to the content itself.

Information consumers today are used to splash and dash. They don’t want to think about how to find and navigate content. That part should be easy. The show-me website is the architecture content marketers need to make their work shine and succeed.

To clarify, the following list presents a quick run-down of ways a show-me website makes content marketing so much more effective.

1. Offers Instant Choices. At first glance, a show-me website offers a visitor many, many intriguing content choices.

2. Creates Information Categories. Navigation of a show-me website is intuitive because information is so beautifully organized.

3. Ignites the Imagination. The visuals on a show-me website are dynamic, shifting, changing, sliding, and colorful. The user gets excited deciding to what to look at first.

4. Dances As a Unit. On a show-me website, all content marketing options harmonize. Rather than appearing to be separate “chunks” of information, video, slideshows, podcasts, images, articles, and stories create a tight symphony.

5. Facilitates Natural Advertising. Show-me websites can be constructed to make ads a seamless part of the presentation.

6. Encourages Play. We may be used to information delivered in static columns when we’re reading, but when we’re playing on the Internet, we want a dynamic grid that’s more like a movie than a book.

7. Invites Infographics. Infographics as content are growing in popularity. Show-me websites incorporate options for presenting and cycling through multiple samples of these popular visuals.

8. Makes the Content All About the Visitor. Because of the way a show-me website organizes and displays content – by content category – the focus remains on what the visitor is looking for, not what the organization is selling.

9. Matches Contemporary Information Delivery. The show-me website breaks the typical Internet website static-column gird. The show-me website helps content marketers emulate the information presentation tactics employed by leading magazines and newspapers.

Finally, if you’re wondering what a show-me website looks like, the book gives 30 examples, including these: GQ Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and National Geographic. You’ll notice right away that these and so many other amazing show-me websites are loaded with content, delivered within a framework that makes information pop.

If you’d like a copy of the ebook “How To Launch Your Own Show-Me Website in 30 Days,” please send a request using the button on the right.

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More Signs That "Listening," Personalization, and Customer Collaboration Are the “It” Trends

2011-06-30T04:36:00.000-07:00

• Google News now features automatic personalization. “Last summer we redesigned Google News with new personalization features that let you tell us which subjects and sources you’d like to see more or less often. Starting today -- if you’re logged in -- you may also find stories based on articles you’ve clicked on before.”

• Wrangler asked its customers to design the next pair of jeans. “They have incredible ideas about what they want their jeans to look like and how they want them to function. Now, the ability to collaborate with consumers is at an all-time high, thanks to the ever-growing digital and social space. We thought this was the perfect time to put the design process directly into consumers’ hands.” From PromoMagazine.

• Musicians are cashing in on consumers’ demand for immediacy and participation. Coca-Cola hosted a 24-hour live session to write and produce an original song from Maroon 5, created while fans watched and interacted with band members.

• Malcolm Faulds pointed out in AdAgeCMO Strategy, “With a few candid words, the right highly connected consumer can get people all over the web stampeding to buy products.” Faulds’ company. BzzAgent, recently did an in-depth study of so-called “brand advocates” and tells marketers five ways to reach this influential group:

• get the products in their hands;
• display your stuff on Amazon.com; brand advocates go there to check out product reviews and stay on top of what’s new;
• feed brand advocates a steady steam of fun stuff to engage with and share with colleagues;
• be genuine and never manipulate, but engage with advocates on social networks;
• honor your brand advocates by featuring them on Twitter, Facebook, in ads, and elsewhere.

• A Mashable article by Leyl Master Black in early June agrees that customers should be rewarded for their loyalty. Black suggests offering Facebook fans exclusive discounts, coupons, and content; tying charitable donations to the growth of the fan base; responding to each and every comment or listening in other innovative ways; and recognizing individual fans.

• In his May 26 blog post, Jacob Morgan, principal at Chess Media Group, writes, “Collaborating with customers isn’t about sending them offers, news, information, or messages. Collaborating is about putting the customer at the center of how your organization conducts business, it’s about integrating the voice of the customer … This is far more powerful than simply using social tools and technologies to get your message across … So when you say you want to collaborate with your customers, do you really mean that, or are you really talking about ways to use social channels to spread a message?”

Inviting and encouraging commentary on social media may be a good first step in collaboration. A June 27 article at Marketing Vox reports that The Rockville Central blog abandoned its website and began posting on Facebook, instead. The result? More readers began interacting with the stories through comments and “likes.” Facebook posts that promoted Rockville Central stores are netting about 2,000 “impressions” each, per month.

The Washington Post covered the blog-to-Facebook story also. The Post interviewed Reggie Bradford, chief executive of Vitrue, a social-marketing software firm whose job it is to place a value on social pages. Viture released research that attempted to place a media value of $3.60 per “like” on individual Facebook connections. The Post article also cited findings from a Fortune 100 companies study by Adgregate Markets. Of the Fortune 100 companies surveyed, 68 percent said they're experiencing shrinkage in unique visits to their website, with an average drop of 23 percent. Out of 44 of those companies sampled, 40 percent found that they had higher traffic volumes to their Facebook page, according to this Retail Online Integration wrap-up of the study.

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Why Are Marketers Struggling? Just LOOK at What We’re Facing.

2011-06-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

Barbara Pellow, group director, InfoTrends, presented at Printing Impressions’ webinar, Web-to-Finish. The focus was on web-to-print and web-to-finish capabilities that make a lot of sense in the push to increase efficiency, innovate, stay competitive, reduce cost, and maintain quality.

Barbara presented an intriguing list of “then” and “now” comparisons to describe the reality of the new economy – all of which are driving the production process. Here’s what Barbara described.

• From supply economics to demand economics

• From “make-then-sell” to “sell-then-make”

• From production-centric to customer-centric manufacturing

• From manual to automated

• From analog to digital

• From single media to cross-media

• From wired to wireless

• From fast to immediate

• From experience-based to best practices

• From intuitive to fact-based

• From reactive/adaptive to proactive

• From ad-hoc (job focus) to systematic (process focus)

• From creative to innovative

If Barb has any of this right – and I’m convinced she does – that’s why marketers are struggling mightily with “keeping up.”

Webinars like this one sponsored by Xerox and moderated by Barb and Bryan Yeager from InfoTrends, along with John Davila from Kaye-Smith, are vital to easing the job.

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If You’re Making a Video, Don’t Hire Just Any Writer. Here’s What You Need Instead.

2011-06-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

In putting the August issue of DMAW's Marketing AdVents together, I received an awesome article from Bob James, the Mighty Copywriter.

Bob put together a seriously good wrap-up of what’s going on in the direct marketing copywriting business. He talked to a number of colleagues who described how the profession has changed and the sorts of new projects copywriters are undertaking.

In reading Bob’s piece, I noticed that more than a few of the folks he talked to said they were writing fewer direct mail letters and more video scripts. I was surprised.

I have great respect for my fellow copywriters. Intuitively, though, it seems to be that, in the same way copywriting is a specialty, so is video scripting.

For years, direct marketing copywriters have been saying that “not just anyone” can write direct mail. It’s a special type of writing. I know that’s true. Not all journalists can be feature writers; not all authors can write poetry; not all business writers can be technical writers; certainly not all writers can be editors; and not all copywriters can be scriptwriters.

So, in putting this blog post together, I talked to short-film maker and corporate video consultant, Deryck White (DCW Concepts.) “Can somebody simply switch from copywriting to scriptwriting?” I asked.

“There's no reason a copywriter can't write for video,” Deryck says, “but scriptwriting is a beast of a different nature and writers should be aware of the special considerations inherent in this type of work – and it is work.”

Deryck clarified the differences of which writers should be most aware.

1. Good scriptwriters think visually first, verbally second. Effective copywriters do the opposite.

2. A copywriter spends hours polishing the narrative and picking over colorful words that will speak to the reader. A video/film scriptwriter is crafting a message that will be funneled through one other person – an actor or voiceover narrator, for example – before it reaches the viewer. In short, words that read well on the printed page may translate less well when delivered in speech.

3. Writing low-cost is an art. The story a video/film scriptwriter can afford to tell is limited by what the client can afford – in dollars-- to show on screen. Copywriters are constrained by length too, of course, but the “cost-per-word” calculation in video and film is far higher.

4. A video/film scriptwriter often must write for non-professionals not quite able to deliver the words as written or conceived. These intermediaries (actors, staff) will stand between the writer’s words and the viewer's eye, so the scriptwriter must be able to write for them, too.

5. Scriptwriting has to take into account the capabilities of the performers and also be adaptable to acting/directing/shooting dynamics.

6. Scriptwriters must work with a range of professionals with whom they may be unfamiliar: the director, the actor, the producer, and the film editor. This may be a team of creatives with whom most copywriters have never collaborated.

So, write on, everybody. But write right!

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Too Exciting To Stand It!

2011-06-11T03:02:00.000-07:00

Boxpark is a first-of-its-kind “pop-up” mall in an industrial section of London. Boxpark will feature 60 small “by invitation only” retailers.

Watch this video and be enchanted by the concept, the vision, the execution, the portability, the "now" way of coming (and going).

Sometimes change really is a charmer.

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Sure You Can Market But Can You Measure Everything and Report Back?

2011-06-08T02:44:00.000-07:00

A Webinar in May sponsored by Forbes Insights addressed how top marketers are using online data analytics (for example, IBM’s “coremetrics”) to navigate these changing times.

The after-Webinar Q&A with panelists Yuchun Lee and Christiaan Rizy disclosed the panelists endorsement of two marketing essentials: measurability and reportability.

Q. Is database decision-making adversely affecting marketing?

A. Data and results have always ultimately driven marketing; and, yes, ROI surrounding customer acquisition, retention, and marketability is primarily a numbers priority. But todays’ data-driven marketing is not equivalent to black box marketing, where you set it and forget it. Forward-thinking marketers are adopting a suite of marketing technologies that can collect, measure and evaluate all marketing channels. This suite can look at customer service behavior, social media, behavior, email, advertising, affiliate channels, display advertising – the whole operation. Those who adopt this comprehensive approach are on the cutting-edge. Survey results of top marketers show adopters of comprehensive measurement also are three times as likely to review campaign results in real time and four times as likely to adjust the campaign in real time.

Q How does a new company decide how to invest marketing dollars?

A. You’ll always need to do brand marketing. The point is to make sure you’re measuring the success of your brand marketing and awareness-raising activities, too. As you collect and measure behavior data, you can fine-tune the branding effort as well.

While, measurement is key to instilling a data-driven structure, it’s just as important to present information that’s easily consumable by upper levels of management. For instance, tools like dashboards, exportable Excel based documents, and so on ensure that data from the analysts is always accessible by the decision-makers.

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Revivals You Never Thought of, Retreads You Never Imagined, Marketing and Biz Opps Galore

2011-06-03T05:12:00.000-07:00

A whole world of talent, commerce, and life/biz innovation is sprouting. For example:

• The trend to non-digital. Type-ins in Brooklyn.

• An App for that. Skouting or real-time, in-time meetchas.

• Art from the heart. The brukup revival.

• The new lemonade stand. Coolhaus, the hot new Taco truck in L.A.

• Bootstrap experts. "Ampros" (amateur professionals) find a million ways to share they know. YouTube is the medium.

• Recycle next door. Krrb has great appeal for renting, trading, and donating “stuff” locally.

TIP: TrendCentral delivers a daily check in for what’s happening at the root level.

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If “Nobody Goes to Websites,” What Else Is "Nobody" Doing?

2011-05-27T02:25:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows that direct mail is dead. Print also is dead. Email might be dead (at the very least it’s terminal). Now some are saying that websites, too, are approaching the Big By and By. Where are we going with all this?

Kathy Hanbury’s great blog post “The Future of Content Marketing: 4 Tips to Help You Prepare.” really grabbed me -- especially the point made by her 17-year old daughter, who reportedly claimed that “Nobody goes to websites.”

Kathy thinks the statement may be premature and I suppose it is in 2011. But in the next couple years? I’m not so sure. I mean it, folks! Sometime in 2015 it’s entirely possible that people won’t go to websites. It’s likely that the “internets” will simply be a gathering spot, a sort of digital waterhole.

I probably wouldn’t have reacted so strongly to this teen message if I hadn’t this very morning happened upon Say Media’s “website.” I spent about 20 precious minutes there, running around the site, trying to figure out what the heck I was watching.

Is it entertainment? An advertisement? Promotion? A celebration of color and video and art? If this is a website, it sure doesn’t act like one. Now consider that Say Media is doing this in 2011.

So, yes, I think Kathy’s daughter is right. Nobody goes to “websites.” But “nobody” does go to Facebook, the mommy blogs, Polyvore and sneakpeeq.

We’re in the thick(et) of the new “non-website” Internet and I need to get with it.

TrendCentral seems like a great place for the uninitiated (me) to start. This appears to be the motherlode of websites I never heard of … which drags me to my (growing) list of other non-website eventualities that marketers should be contemplating:

1. Nobody shops in stores. [Note: A U.K. retailer is now offering 90-minute order delivery.]

2. Nobody goes out to vote.

3. Nobody goes to the movies. [Netflix video streaming is up 45% over last year.]

4. Nobody drives to work.

5. Nobody phones the police.

6. Nobody goes to school. [75% of college presidents say online learning is the best way to solve budget problems.]

7. Nobody “reads” information. [Those watching more online video is up 83% this year.]

If these “nobodies” reflect the future, then most of tomorrow's marketing activities will also be “on screen” and most will be extravagantly visual. Like Say Media ...

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Oprah Winfrey and Six More Blog Topics To Get You Through the Week

2011-05-26T04:59:00.000-07:00

The inspiration for this post came from Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing blog. On May 25 – the day of her farewell to network TV – Oprah Winfrey was Rohit’s topic … which led me to the first item (below) on the list of things to blog about this or any week -- a list set up to smash writer’s block and propel you forward.

1. Blog What Everybody Is Talking About. This would be your “departure-of-Oprah-Winfrey” blog. A “now” topic keeps your blog contemporary and generates headlines readers can’t resist. It also means that, like Rohit, you’ll need to think on your feet and turn an event toward your point. Isn’t that what the best bloggers do?

2. Blog What You Observed Yesterday. This means you have to watch the world around you – your own little piece of it. Watch very carefully; then cast your individual light (or shadow) on what you’ve seen.

3. Blog the Holiday. It doesn’t have to be a national holiday. It can be a personal holiday (an anniversary or birthday), a community holiday (back-to-school night or a local election), or somebody else’s holiday (your cousin’s vacation or your co-worker’s family visit). Pick one, anyone, and have a say.

4. Blog A Webinar. This is a personal favorite of mine. Webinars are ubiquitous. A lot of people want to tune in, but don't’ have time. Sign up, take some notes, and share what you curated. Then share what you think about what you curated.

5. Blog A Memory. What was the most defining moment on your elementary school playground and how did it affect your view of teamwork? Recall the summer vacation you hated and describe what you learned from it? Which friend came through when you never expected it and how did that shape your relationships. If you think nobody cares, please remember “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned In Kindergarten.”

6. Blog Your or Somebody Else’s Pet. Our own animals or somebody else’s, pets teach us a lot about “dealing with it.” Your take on the topic will be something most readers can relate to. Cesar Milan has built an empire off this simple idea and Animal Planet wraps an unbelievable amount of programming around it. This works.

7. Blog Your Latest Business Purchase. Your smartphone, your computer, your new app or software, your old app or software – tell us what your gadget does well or what drives you crazy. Let us know how it affects your work and why. Give us a reason to get one now or never get one. Be specific. We’ll love it.

Have a good week!

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The Spring Round-up of Cyber Assaults

2011-05-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

Somehow smart thieves have always been able to create chaos in society, at least for awhile. Unfortunately, that “while” seems to have hit its peak in the merry month of May. We’ve seen horrid security breaches at some pretty big outfits.

Actually, to back up a trifle, the trend got off to a running start on April 3, with the breach of Epsilon’s email marketing files.

The ultimate "flip you" may have occurred at LastPass, an operation that stores passwords.

Sony joined the hit list on April 3, when hackers organized a bludgeoning from which the beleagued Japanese PlayStation manufacturer is still recovering. Overall, personal details of some 80,000 registered users were compromised.

On May 9, thieves stole debit card information from Michaels' customers in Chicago.

A few days later, on May 11, reports spread that information about 500 million Facebook users might have been leaked to advertisers. Can information really get “leaked to advertisers”? Hmmm....

Even reality TV hasn’t been immune. Some 250,000 applicants to the U.K.’s X-Factor TV series had their personal details stolen from Fox Networks computer system in early May.

And please, let’s not go back to the somber month of March, when RSA, an IT security vendor, sniffed out an extremely sophisticated attack aimed at its SecurID two-factor authentication products. The executive chairman of RSA says an investigation led officials to believe the attack falls under the category of an “advanced persistent threat.” Wow.

Because some of “those people” who hold our personal information have been slow to tell us we’ve been compromised, U.S. senators John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and four colleagues called on the SEC to bolster data breach disclosure requirements

If you want to keep up with the breaches, you can watch Experian’s rolling “breach” newsfeed here or follow the Twitter hashtag, #databreach. Consume with Ambien and baby aspirin. Nitey Nite.

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I’ve Got Awesome Content, But My Blog Rank Sucks Nails

2011-05-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I tested my blog rank with Alexa and learned I was off-the-charts – literally. They could barely find me. They’re telling me my rank is 13,237,557. That sounds pretty bad to me, so guess what?

I’m just gonna “fuhgeddaboutit.”

I mean, really. I’m posting good, original content, with great external links. My headlines are compelling; I feature internal links, too. I post often and have done so consistently since I launched Marketing Brillo in 2008.

Why is Marketing Brillo such a zero? It’s Google’s fault, I think.

Alexa notes that the top search queries for Marketing Brillo are related to the “brillo” part of things, including brillo technology (whatever that is), brillo fumes (I actually like the way my computer smells) brillo selling points,” (the shape of the box, the color of the little pad, it’s ability to attack and destroy grease) and other crazy-ass stuff unrelated to marketing. So, apparently, none of the people searching for “brillo’s” stench are coming to my website. How the term “marketing” got lost in the mix beats the heck outta me? I mean that’s the FIRST word guys.

Even more distressing is that my rank for www.nancyscott.com is almost as bad --5,879,932. I do know there are a LOT of Nancy Scotts in this world because – as the primary and first holder of the obvious gmail account, for years I have received gmail meant for many of the hundreds of other Nancy Scotts on this planet, and confused with a few more (including the murderer and the highly respected prosecutor)…. but I’m pretty sure I AM the only nancyscottDOTCOM on the Internet.

Clearly, I have no idea what I’m doing. But, like I said, I don’t care. If anybody wants help with writing or curating content for their website, I can do that. And I’m not going to fuss with my page rankings to accomplish it.

Instead, I’m going to keep guest posting to the content marketing section on B2C, The Digital Nirvana, and, of course, Marketing Brillo. I’ll persist in finding the newest and best content for the DMAW newsletter I edit and for the blog I write for a Metro DC production company. I’m going to keep LinkedIn and Facebook/Marketing Brillo updated so my colleagues and clients know what I’m up to. I’m going to go on “commenting” when I have something to offer, and I’m going to continue supporting the people I’ve chosen to follow, every one of whom is chosen carefully. In short, I’ll do most of what Robb Sutton says I need to do (great article, Robb, thank you) because, after all, being ranked (or rank) isn’t what I’m about.

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Yummy Content Makes My Mouth Water!

2011-05-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

I’ve been coming across all kinds of content marketing projects that I’m sure are doing a tremendous job for their clients and organizations. Here are five of my recent favorites.

This fantastic little video from the editors of Printing Impressions enewsletter is a tremendous testament to genuine educational value that costs very little, uses in-house talent, makes a great point, and knocks the whole thing out in 120-seconds flat. Part of PI’s “Fold of the Week” video series, this one features Chief Folding Fanatic Trish Witkowski demonstrating a beautiful pop-up mailer from Westland Printers in Laurel, MD. Nice job guys!

The WhichTestWon “landing page optimization” webinar series has been outstanding. I got not just one, but two blog posts out of this superb free content from Anne Holland, publisher of WhichTestWon.com and her co-presenters.

Nobody rounds up infographics better than Randy Krum, president of InfoNewt. If you need an illustrative way to say something, take a look at Randy’s blog, Cool Infographics. You’ll still need a graphic designer to execute a good infographic (it’s much harder than it looks), but at least Randy’s blog will give you an idea what a good infographic looks like.

This week, I put up a few web pages using Shareist, a new content aggregation website that lets users “build” web pages based on content the program pulls from around the web. It took me about 20 minutes to build Content Marketing and Content Curation pages that I can refresh whenever I want by selecting “curate.” I stumbled a bit here and there simply because I didn’t follow directions, but was reassured by an email exchange with Shareist founder Scott Jangro, who patiently explained that Shareist actually has a “How to get started” video. Sites like this are the reason that content grows exponentially .. and a fundamental reason that technology is thrilling.

A podcast interview with Bryn Mooth, the immediate ex-editor of How Magazine, shares the angst of a long-time professional who’s “out on her own” for the first time. Mooth talks about her first week as a freelancer after 20 years as a work-for-somebody-else writer/editor. How’d she do it? For starters, she turned her blog into Writes4Food.com. Going forward? Unknown, she says, but I'm betting she won't be sorry.

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This Spring, Webinars Get the Gold Star for Superior Content Marketing. More, More, Please.

2011-05-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Something happened in April. Free webinars from every corner of the industry hit my email inbox like rolling thunder. A quick and casual count reveals I have been offered 31 webinars since April 1. Experts like MindFire, Marketo, HubSpot, Printing Impressions, MarketingProfs, and Vocus have shared what they know. And they know a lot.

Sure, all these folks are selling products/services, but I couldn’t care less. In the last few weeks, I’ve attended five Webinars, with two more scheduled in May. I even have a “webinar” folder in my email so I can go back to see who, what, where, how. What’s going on here?

For way too long, marketers saw webinars as a way to make money, charging $199, $297, $499 and up. Providers have gotten MUCH smarter. This spring, content marketers are keeping webinars free and short (one hour max). What a gift!

•For my part, I take notes while I’m listening. These turn very quickly into blog posts. Sometimes five minutes after the Webinar is over I’ve blogged and Tweeted. I figure it’s the least I can do for the great information I’m gathering!

I’ve gathered a couple of stories while listening. For one, Guy Kawasaki’s computer decided to do a software update during his Enchanted presentation. Viewers saw the prompt on his computer to "upgrade now." When Kawasaki said “sure, go ahead,” the software download took over. He couldn’t get back online with his slides for seven minutes. Let that be a lesson.

Bryan Yaeger’s phone rang while he was making his Printing Impressions presentation. We heard the ring, but fortunately the phone was not on speaker. Lesson number two.

What features have I most enjoyed in my various webinars?

• I love the button that lets me “download slides now”, since I tend to miss some stuff while furiously typing.

• I find I can monitor email and work while I am listening. Super efficiency.

• Thank you, thank you for post-webinar download options. It’s great archival material that I can refer to in the months ahead.

Advice to webinar Mavens? Please do send me a reminder the day before and TWO on the day of. I do forget what time it is and fail to tune in on time (if at all)

Bottomline: Webinars are a super-duper learning environment. I’m hooked on Webinars!

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Mildred Pierce Pays Tribute to Direct Mail

2011-05-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I watched the very gifted Kate Winslet starring in the Todd Haynes-directed TV mini-series, Mildred Pierce. In her role as a beleagued restaurateur (among other beleaguered life choices), Winslet opens the door of her new chicken place… and then waits .. and waits….

Tense moments pass before the tables begin filling up. And then the flood of hungry diners almost overtakes Mildred. Where did all these people come from, she asks her friend and business partner, Wally Burgan. “It’s direct mail, baby. It works because you only mail to people you want!”

Wow. That got my attention.

When Mildred’s restaurant opened in the depression era (1932), “direct mail” couldn’t have been a term bandied about by the uninitiated. But the business-savvy Wally definitely knew his marketing. In the “History of Direct Mail,” one expert estimated that, in 1920, 45 percent of total American commerce was done through the mails.

At first glance, Wally's appeared to be an anachronistic reference to direct mail, but Mildred Pierce historians were dead on. And they were prescient, too.

Direct mail worked then and it still works. Now, more than ever, you can mail only to people you want -- which in 2011, are likely the very same people who want you.

Thanks, Wally.

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How Forms and First Impressions Affect Conversion Rates on Your Website

2011-05-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

The May 6 HubSpot Webinar, The Science of Lead Generation, featured Dan Zarrella. The part of the presentation that focused on Form Fields and Conversion rates produced the following info of interest to marketers.

• Ask for information that makes sense. For example, if you ask for a home address when registering for a webinar, people wonder “why?” Zarrella says the reluctance is less about privacy invasion than it is about a fear that sales people will hassle you later. Zarrella looked at conversation rates as related to the number of form fields required. “Yes, there is a very slight decline when the number of fields go up, generally, so I looked at how the number of text fields affected conversion. As the number of text fields goes up, you don’t see significant decline until you reach 15 text fields and up. But when I looked at the number of “select boxes,” as the number of those increased, conversation rate did show a sharp decline.”

Other findings included:
• “When you’re trying to decide about removing form fields, you need to be worried about the more complicated fields.”

• Asking for people’s age is a big no-no.

• When you ask for an address, conversion rate is lower, but ZIP information doesn’t significantly hurt conversion.

• Aversion to giving address, phone, and other information is less about privacy than it is about an aversion to being hassled by random cold calls.

• When you use the word “submit” as a button text, you get a much lower conversion rate than with alternate text choices. “The word ‘submit’ has a negative association for most B2B consumers. When I tested five other kinds of text on buttons instead, the most popular button text choices, in descending order of conversion, were ‘click here,’ ‘go,’ ‘submit,’ ‘download,’ and ‘register.’”

Also of interest were Dan’s general pointers on how visitors tend to evaluate a website.

• Design skill and professionalism are super important to the impression your website leaves with visitors, so give it your best.

• People who are interested in you after a website viewing, will also research you. They won’t just Google you, either. They will search third-party results for complaints or bad comments about you. Research yourself to see what might pop up.

• One of the ways people decide if your website is genuine is by looking for specificity. The more specific you can be about your business, the more people will trust you.

Hats off to Dan Zarrella and HubSpot for its great series of free Webinars.

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Guy Kawasaki told me how to be enchanting. I don't think I'm fast enough.

2011-05-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

During today's webinar to promote his new book, Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki talked about achieving success by being likeable, trustworthy, and great. But during the Q&A, Kawasaki said something that struck me as preposterous. “To enchant your wife, do everything she asks you to do -- and do it quickly.” Okay, maybe it does work for some people, but if you don't have that particular fetish, who's enjoying? So, yeah, that left me wondering ...

Still, Kawasaki is a big deal, being an early Apple and all, so I'll share the following points that came out during the Q&A.

• Stemming from his enchantment advice to "engage quickly, engage many people, and engage them often, Kawasaki says, "Answer your email within 24-48 hours; that separates you from most people."

• Constantly push out links on Twitter. Retweet often and on a range of interesting topics. Facebook is different, he says. The key to Facebook is constantly pushing out pictures.

• How long does it take to enchant someone? “I would say two minutes, or in about that order of magnitude," he says, noting that, like it or not, we have 60 seconds to enchant someone. If we mess up we can enchant them later, but only if we're willing to help them upon request and immediately (why am I smelling leather again?)

• Kawasaki acknowledges that not everyone can be enchanted. "If you are going to be enchanting, you will definitely make some people angry." For example, if someone is transparent, a quality Kawasaki recommends, some people might not like them. Live with it.

• How can we know if we're enchanting someone? "If someone is giving you a smile back, then they are probably enchanted by you. Also, if you ask them to do something, will they do it? If so, they are enchanted." (But how fast will they do it? That seems to be the key; yes, yes, I'm struggling with this. I admit it.).

• Who enchants Guy himself? His Enchantment Hall of Fame includes Andrew Zimmern, Queen Latifah, Istanbul, and the MacIIci. Best book ever? If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland.

• Product development advice? Conduct a pre-mortem exercise wherein you take the collective reason of the group to come up with all the reasons something might fail. You need a formal pre-mortem because an informal invite to “share your opinion” will make people hesitate. And it only works when the boss says, “What are the hypothetical reasons we could fail?” Actually, this sounds fun, although after this exercise, you might have to do quite a few things very quickly to appease the boss.

• In a situation when your boss and client disagree, it's hard, but you're not off the hook. In a situation like this, you have to enchant both of them (Kawasaki never said this would be easy).

Conclusion: a) Please don't do everything I tell you quickly, especially if I've been drinking; b) I had a Mac IIfx and I'm pretty sure that was the best Mac ever; c) You win. I do want to read Ueland's book.

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More Landing Page Testing Tips from WhichTestWon

2011-04-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today’s webinar from WhichTestWon, focused listeners again on the testing of landing pages.

Note: With the advent of the ubiquitous QR code, landing pages will certainly take on greater significance than ever, so it pays to get this fundamental part of direct marketing right.

Here are some quick tips from presenters Anne Holland, publisher of WhichTestWon.com, and Anna Talerico, executive vice president of Ion Interactive.

1. Test the big picture stuff -- the landing page experience, the page layout, the offer, and the aesthetics.

2. What to test first -- Headline wording, distraction-removal, images, forms/check-outs, and buttons/response links.

3. Multivariate versus A/B Testing. A/B testing is about testing one element on a page against another element on the page, or one page against another. Multivariate testing is more about testing multiple elements on a single page. Multivariate testing isn’t “fancier,” but it’s more complex, so it does take longer to get significant results.

4. When you’re testing, it takes time to reach desired “confidence levels.” Many marketers want at least a 95% confidence level in order to run the winner forward, so it’s important to wait until the test has had at least two – preferably three -- weeks to run. Things can shift even at the highest level of confidence, so give the test time. No matter how eager you are to talk about the test, hold your results close to the chest until sufficient time has been invested. On the other hand, when there’s a big variance in one test result versus another, it’s okay to consider moving earlier to remove the poor player. Just be careful not to rush it.

5. What four outcomes matter to your CFO? More sales, more qualified leads, lower cost per lead, and higher revenues per cart -- that’s what your test results are working toward. Therefore, be careful about testing for testing’s sake and never lose sight of these four desired outcomes in testing.

6. The “thank you” page where folks land to pick-up their free giveaways should be used to influence what you are testing at the top of the experience. This is your first conversion for that person and should be the start of a great relationship. It's worth time to get your thank-you page right.

Q&A

What if you have to pull the plug on a never-ending test in which results remain unclear? This may be one time you need to use your good marketing intuition to make a choice. Which one of the options do you not want to work with any longer? Pull that one.

How do you test without code or IT help? Marketers have a choice of many testing tools that facilitate self-sufficient operation (Google, for example). WhichTestWon has a 5-minute video that instructs marketers how to get started in testing without IT help.

If I have dynamic pages, how do I test? Usually when you have dynamic/changing content on site, you can still test the shell of the page and the layout of the page.

Do I have to wait 21 days for email testing? No, email is a little different. On the other hand, you want to wait until you have sufficient data (for example, it takes time to measure cart abandonment or reaction to shifting banner ads).

How do I know if my results are statistically significant? This information will be part of the reports you’re getting. If this feature isn’t part of your reporting system, change systems.

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Is Content Marketing Making Us Dumb?

2011-04-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Writing on his rethinc.k blog last week, Jason Wilson posted “Content Marketing Will Kill the Law.” Not a question, mind you, a declaration.

Wilson, vice president of Jones McClure publishing in Houston, likens much of today’s “content” in the legal field to a golf course, “overrun by trees, grasses, and weeds clumped together in patches.”

Wilson is describing what he perceives as a dearth of those “weighty tomes” that, traditionally, feature a substantial body of analytical material. “Now, thanks to the Internet," he says, "lawyers spend their time writing SEO pieces. Lawyers are no longer scholars organizing and explaining the law, but brand developers and managers.”

I can’t disagree, but I am compelled to point out the competitive jungle out there. What’s an ESQ to do?

Wilson acknowledges that his detractors say lawyers are producing more content than ever. He remains skeptical. “Where is the insight, how far does it extend?” he wonders. “You use terms like content, curation, and real-time as if these are the Three Kings that will lead us to a new era of knowledge and understanding. But I’ve actually tried to understand areas of the law using only the content marketing I could find, and it has failed me up to now. Have you tried to practice law from it?”

I wouldn’t argue with Wilson. Not a bit. In fact, I applaud him. But I do need to underscore that content market is just that: marketing. It's a way for people "in the know" to connect with and influence prospective and current customers.

Let’s say it again. Content marketing is, indeed, “information,” but it need not be “analysis.” It can be statistics and definitions, case studies, and opinion. It can provoke thought and even probe, but its purpose is to offer the reader an overview, a synopsis, a round-up, and a quick look. In short, content marketing is a lot closer to public relations that it is to education. Those of us who do content marketing know that.

To his credit, as Wilson moves through his blog, he acknowledges this point. But he makes another poignant observation that actually scares me. “The end result of the shift from weighty tomes to content marketing is this: the disparity between the haves and the have nots is going to grow. Large law will compensate for the dearth of comprehensive analytical content by creating its own and using it in-house, or selling it to others at a steep cost.”

I fear that as much as Wilson does. Sadly, I think we’re already seeing this trend in areas both inside and outside the law. The deepest research – the most detailed, investigative, and diagnostic – is saved for those who can afford it. For-profit outfits like Gartner, Forrester and even MarketingSherpa (to name only a few), give away information in executive summary or teaser form, but reserve the complete deal for folks who can pay $499 and (way) up. That’s not a criticism at all. It’s the reality of economic survival in a capitalist society.

Besides, hasn’t this always been true? Haven't the best educational resources always been primarily for those who have money – the elite schools, the brainiest professors, the costliest books, the in-depth research, and the pricey trade associations?

We experienced a bright shining moment there for a while, when the middle class was finally gaining access to some of the educational perks traditionally reserved for the rich folks. But the economy has exploded that populist notion. Meanwhile, the volume and speed of information – thrown at everybody, all at once – has nurtured the trend to shallow. Filling in the gap, at least partially, is the Internet, with its free “content.”

The legal field may have some peculiarities, but I think Wilson’s concern about content marketing is a scapegoat for more serious issues – namely, society’s move from a growing to a shrinking middle class, along with a decline in thinking, analysis, and self-examination replaced by the quick fix. That worries me, too.

Nobody so far seems to have a solution for the dumbing down of society, but it’s probably a blessing that content marketers are available to help overwhelmed attorneys – and the rest of us -- stay in the race.

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From Tradesman to Now, What's NEXT in Marketing?

2011-04-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

It seems as though marketing and advertising have gone through six macro stages to date. We’re still counting, of course, though we’re counting much much faster now, so fast that by 2015 we’ll likely be in stage seven.. whatever that is.

1. Marketing by Reputation. Since forever until about the 1800s, local tradesmen (yes, mostly men) have been selling a known product to a local audience with excellent customer service as the core principle.

2. Marketing by Exclusivity. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, companies like Sears and Ford developed a national customer base by selling a product few companies offered.

3. Marketing by Description. In the 1930s and 1940s, advertisers marketed to a national audience by describing, in depth, the features of a product.

4. Marketing by Sizzle. This would be the 60s and 70s advertising of the Mad Men, which separates the product features from the ad, focusing instead on some abstract “connection” the customer might make to the product. This worked well nationally and grabbed status-bound global customers, too.

5. Marketing by Community. That’s us, in the middle of the first decade of the 21^st century, with social media “communities,” and crowd sourcing. This marketing mechanism started global and it’s still evolving.

6. Marketing by Information Sharing. That the trend du jour in 2011. It’s way global, it’s off the starting block relatively faster than social media, and I have no idea how long it will last or how it will evolve.

7. Next? Right … like I know the answer to that. Still, I can imagine that “next” will cater to either lots of “at home” or, alternatively, "on the go" consumption, via either a very large or a very small screen; will require fewer, if any, in-person connections; will span global and nano-consumption models; and, possibly, require very little "marketing."

How can we sell anything without marketing? I don’t know. I just know that about 100 years ago, not even the richest imagination could conjure up – or believe – that a pair of shoes from any of hundreds of shoemakers could be sold by giving away detailed information, generally--but not necessarily specifically--related to a given product…all of it without ever meeting the shoemaker (or the customer).

Next?

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It’s All About the Database. It’s All About the Marketing.

2011-04-12T04:46:00.000-07:00

Everybody is raving about Groupon’s speedy domination of the old-fashioned coupon business. Some consumers are wondering what the fuss is all about. Marketers know. The fuss is the same brouhaha that’s accelerated Facebook’s valuation to $75 billion and rising. It’s the database.

This morning I received an email from my credit card company offering me 15% off my next purchase at a local department store. Last week, I spent $200 at that department store. My credit card company knows that. I’m sure the department store is a partner in this joint promotion. They may have paid for it. The point is that my credit card company knows where I shop and what I buy. I’m in their database.

Groupon knows what my credit card company knows… except they know even more. Groupon knows what I don’t buy. They know who else bought what I bought on a given day (my consumer cohort). And every time I buy or don’t buy, they know even more. Their knowledge is exponential and investors are drooling.

There's more. Groupon offers a range of products and services – and that range is spreading. On Saturday, I saw a local business show featuring a real estate broker from Chicago who has partnered with Groupon to offer a $1,000 rebate on closing costs for $25. The catch? The deal has to close with either the buyer or the seller working with the real estate firm. Groupon will at least consider getting it on with anybody who sells anything. And the database grows.

And then there’s the reality TV show, Georgetown Cupcake, which features a couple of cute sisters from Canada who have customers lining the street to scarf down little treats with big calories. Somehow these two women have become an overnight sensation in a superficial city known more for its wonkiness than its cuisine. Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis are now baking 5,000 cupcakes a day. At $3.00 apiece (guesstimate, probably low knowing Georgetown prices), that’s a $15,000/day gross. Working 365 days a year (and why wouldn’t they?), these entrepreneurs are grossing $5,475,000 a year. Are their cupcakes to die for? I’m sure they’re good. They say the cupcakes are baked on site, using Valrhona chocolate, Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla, European sweet cream butter, gourmet chocolate sprinkles (yeah, like we know what any of that means, but, hey; it sounds exclusive … I’ll take a half dozen).

But, really, that’s not the point. Wait! Actually that IS the point.

These business owners market themselves brilliantly. They have an aristocratic location, a darling logo, personality, accessibility, a friendly attitude, and singular pink rubber boots. They knew zilch about professional baking when they started the business, but they have terrific branding experience tailor made for the label-conscious D.C. market segment. Katherine Kallinis, 29, was an event planner for Gucci, and Sophie worked in private equity. These sisters know their status-desperate market and they speak to it just right.

Certainly, these tales are no-brainers for smart marketers, but there’s a lovely reminder here for our profession.

The Mad Men of 2011 can sell snow to an Eskimo because they know their Eskimos. That’s why investors love Groupon and Facebook -- and anybody who’s got a rich database. And that’s why the DC cognescenti (who absolutely must be in the know about absolutely everything) shop at Georgetown Cupcake. It’s all about the marketing.

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Which Content Works At Which Stage of Marketing? Tips for B2B-ers.

2011-04-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

April Brown, president/CEO, Rubicon Group, presented at the April 6 Marketing Automation 101 webcast sponsored by DM News with Eloqua.

The webcast focused on automated lead management systems (technology) designed to boost prospect conversion and loyalty/retention.

Brown says that automating the marketing process improves results. She cites statistics achieved in key marketing/sales efforts, including: sales forecast accuracy up 17%; lead conversions up 107%; revenue per sales rep up 20%; increase in “deal size” up 40%.

One dimension of the marketing process involves using content (fresh or repurposed) to pull a given prospect into the buying cycle, and then track the stages that prospect goes through in becoming a loyal customer. “What matters is that you are delivering content at the right point in the buying cycle to match with the stages of decision making,” she says.

Brown identifies ten types of content that can be delivered, as well as the various stages of decision-making most affected by each type, in her experience. “In general, here is [the type of content] we have found to work in the various buckets [buyer awareness, comprehension, consideration, preference, loyalty],” she says.

• Industry trends – awareness/comprehension
• Data sheets -- comprehension
• Case studies – consideration, preference
• White paper—comprehension, consideration
• Analyst reports – awareness, preference, loyalty
• Demos/pilots – comprehension, consideration
• F2F meetings – preference, loyalty
• Newsletters -- loyalty
• Promotions – preference, loyalty
• Social media – awareness, consideration

Brown also discussed lead scoring, the process that helps marketers rank one prospect against another and identify where a given prospect sits within the buying cycle. For example is the prospect: a) the right customer, but not interested; b) not the ideal customer, but very interested; c) a good fit and very interested; etc.?

Lead scoring fuses explicit and implicit scoring.

Explicit Scoring relates to the “profile fit” and stems from what prospects say, for example:

• job role
• industry
• pain/need identified
• lead source

As defined, content plays a key role in implicit scoring.

Implicit Scoring relates to a prospect’s behavioral characteristics or what they do, for example:

• attend industry events
• download a high-value asset with last 30 days
• visit high-value content
• click through from an email campaign.

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The Faceless Interview Pens A New Chapter in Content Aggregation

2011-04-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

I follow Laura Dodd (@digthisgig) on Twitter, but I don’t know her personally. Still her simple Tweet caught my eye. It read, “My new book is in stores tomorrow! http://fb.me/UrS53jWK”

I clicked through, of course, and found a video featuring a twenty-something (her description, not mine) telling how she had aggregated content for her new book, Dig This Gig. The self-help manual is designed to show first-timers what’s actually going on in the job market they’re entering: what do titles really mean, what are employers really looking for, etc. etc.

Dodd says the process that ended in her book grew organically, beginning in conversations with her twenty-something friends already in the marketplace. As such online conversations are wont to do, the process webbed outward via social media to an ever larger group from whom she drew material. In other words, she gathered empirical evidence -- commentary, opinion, and “sharing” -- from friends and friends-of-friends online.

This is quite a contemporary approach to expertise, but one that the twenty-somethings reportedly trust more than information from distant “experts.” To this cohort, somebody you don’t know definitely needs to know somebody you do know ... or somebody you know who knows somebody.

The empirical road to book publishing isn’t anything new, or course. Helen Gurley Brown took this approach all the way to the bank when she wrote Sex and the Single Girl in 1962. Still, Laura Dodd’s book – which may or may not be successful – exemplifies a growing (and likely permanent) trend in content aggregation: the faceless, joined-at-the-web interview.

So, business execs everywhere: Add social media aggregation to your content development strategy. Perhaps, over time, we’ll have less respect for this “friends” approach to expertise. But for now, I give kudos to Laura Dodd. Like all success stories she’s got the first step down – she’s early to market. I wish her the best.

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Four Must-Do Practices for Senior Executives and One New Twist On An Old-Fashioned Solution

2011-04-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

January’s newsletter from McKinsey Quarterly included an article to help senior executives cope with information overload. The advice boils down to four must-dos:

1. Stop multi-tasking. It’s addictive, makes us anxious, slows us down, and impairs creative problem solving. Acknowledge, reevaluate, and adjust the mind-set that glues us to futile work patterns.

2. Focus. Resist intellectual over-consumption. Create and protect “alone time.” According to article authors Derek Dean and Caroline Webb, each day senior executives should shut down email, close web browsers, send phone calls to voice mail and – if they must – leave the BlackBerry or smart phone where they can’t check it.

3. Filter. Look only at the things that matter or need a decision. Delegate. Don’t read “cc’d” emails and consider only matters that have been researched and prefiltered by the sender.

4. Forget. In short, regularly do something that puts work out of your mind.

But hold on there … This is all well and good (very good, actually), but there’s a problem. The "Just do it" tagline is a glib response to the "How do I do it?” conundrum – and we all know that.

So I got to thinking about the how-to part of the focus-and-filter equation. And that’s when I thought of yesteryear’s "executive secretarial" function. Hear me out.

This vital -- albeit old-fashioned corporate function -- got thrown out with word processors and the downsizing rampage of the 80s. Capitol Hill still has it, though, up there, they call it the “administrative assistant.” I’m sure this power-position exists elsewhere as a tweaked version of the executive secretary, but I’m looking at this a bit differently. I'm thinking that what senior executives need this time around, is an "executive content manager." To do what? To focus and filter so that senior executives can stop multi-tasking and forget.

What are the qualifications of the 21^st Century Executive Content Manager?

1. Absolute integrity... a person you can trust NOT to discuss your business with anyone except you... a person to whom you grant open access to your email accounts, who can capably sift through, route, and abstract what you need to know, turning a useless mountain into a focused molehill.

2. Intelligence ... somebody smart and intuitive, who can navigate the swift political waters and who actually understands what is important, both intellectually and functionally.

3. Superior communications and interpersonal skills... somebody who can read, write, condense, perceive, abstract, and – perhaps most important of all – schmooze.

Sound good? It does to me!

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When It Doesn’t Make Sense, It Doesn’t Make Sense

2011-04-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

I ran across a new “marketing idea” today (short version: Ecko wants people to body-tatoo its brand wherever). I hate it. I mean there are problems here.

Never mind that the Tattooed One may decide Ecko is OUT like yesterday’s polyester. What if Ecko spies its brand on a serial killer or, worse yet, a dog groomer? What about THAT “permanent solution,” folks?

And yet… sickened as I am, I do sense a marketing gem in this wacky idea: To wit: take two utterly disparate practices/notions/idiocies and put them together .. permanently. My mind races to disparate connections …

SmartCars and tapioca; mobile phones and Crazy Glue; lawn chairs and Petri dishes; Mooshu Pork and hair spray; aging skin and Michelin tires (wait.. have you seen Rubber?).

And this is just what I came up with in 22 seconds? Imagine what a marketing TEAM could devise.

I see it. I do. An Ecko logo somewhere on Snooki. (Hey, I never said this was going to make sense, right?)

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Technology is the problem. Technology is the solution. Let us pray.

2011-04-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

In February, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council released results of a study that show today’s marketers struggling to innovate while keeping up with exploding technology.

Dubbed Unify to Multiply Marketing Ecosystem Effectiveness* [whew; that’s a mouthful] the report shows chief marketers scrambling to centralize data while extracting meaningful knowledge from vast volumes of transactional, behavioral, and attitudinal information. The dance has marketers seeking out partnerships with IT experts and/or relying on third-party sources to supplement customer profiling.

All the while, product life cycles are shorter and more tenuous. Consumer audiences are increasingly connected, opinionated, and virally influential. Supply chains and customer markets are more complex and distributed globally. And demand side marketing and sell-through requirements are now more resource intensive and channel-driven, requiring greater integration and alignment with the field.

It’s tough out there.

According to the white paper report sponsored by Webtrends, marketing process improvement, efficiency, and yield are directly tied to more effective use of tools—better platforms, analytics, and intelligence that improves rich media content creation, relevancy, delivery, access, control, workflow, partner collaboration, market engagement and sales lead provisioning, as well as campaign measurement and tracking.

It’s relentless out there.

Despite these pressing requirements, most marketers are hamstrung with antiquated legacy systems, an inability to “talk tech” with IT groups, and lack of resources to implement marketing automation projects. In short, tools that improve the quality and outcome of marketing decisions, as well as the effectiveness and performance of marketing teams and partners, are hard to come by.

It’s lethal out there.

This is the bad news. The good news? Well, we’re still looking for that.

In the report, the CMO Council identifies the top 10 ways marketers can create “marketing ecosystem value.” This includes the need to:

• Break down functional silos
• Institutionalize the use of data analytics
• Provide market insights + intelligence on-demand
• Transfer best-practice knowledge worldwide
• Synchronize supply and demand side operations
• Add discipline and rigor to campaign design, development, testing and delivery
• Ensure brand consistency, compliance and digital asset control
• Power the pipeline across acquisition, cultivation, and closure cycles
• Maximize customer value – relationships, revenue, and rapport
• Institute closed-loop performance measurement systems

What we haven’t been offered are the “how-tos” for breaking down functional silos or any of the rest of it. I mean, haven’t we been talking about this for years? HELP!

Source: The 20-plus page strategic brief can be downloaded here.

p.s. Why did they have to give this study such a jargon-ridden title? Yikes!

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Webinars Have Touched A Content Marketing Sweet Spot: Short, Free, and Friendly

2011-03-31T05:22:00.000-07:00

Webinars were hot about two years ago when users first caught up with the technology. Then webinars went quiet. I suspect that’s the time promoters found out people weren’t rushing to pay $199 (or more) for webinar information that’s readily available from a lot of other sources. We can all buy a book for $14, download a free white paper, read an eNewsletter, follow a group of informed bloggers, or even – with effort – Google search any topic.

Now, webinar sponsors have embraced content marketing.

In the past two months, content marketing webinars are eating up the landscape. The new model is free, short, and friendly. Since mid-March, I’ve had offers to attend six free webinars. Not only were these webinars complimentary, they aired for only an hour. Short is good and we’ll likely start seeing the ½-hour “blinkety-blink-blink” version soon.

I listened in on two of the six and would have indulged in two more had time been available. One of these (Anne Holland’s “Winning with Better Landing Pages”) taught me a lot and I spread the wealth via my blog post. I did something similar in December when I blogged about Chris Brogan and Pawan Desphande’s “Content Curation” webinar. Maybe that was a pay-off for the sponsors. I hope so.

I also missed a webinar I’d registered to attend. I certainly meant to attend, so I was happy when the sponsors acknowledged my empty seat. The follow-up email came a couple hours after the webinar finished, telling me I’d receive a link as soon the webinar was posted online. That’s a classy move (thank you, Marketing Experiments) and should count among webinar “best practices.”

Sponsors appear to have realized that webinars are a poor substitute for in-person meetings/seminars. Moreover, the early promise of webinars as a money-making scheme flopped. Webinars are, however, a superb approach to PR, branding, customer service, and community building -- otherwise known as “content marketing.”

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I Haven't Had A Fresh Idea In Months. How About You?

2011-03-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Dearheart sent me this link from Wired magazine with a note saying, “Once again, Nan is ahead of the curve.” If only it were true. I have never felt more BEHIND the curve. Lately, I don’t even know where the curve is.

The Wired story reviews Curation Nation, a book that deals the new notion that technology is worth squat unless human beings are around to filter the sludge. I used to think that was true; now I’m not so sure.

For about a year – and more significantly in the past six months – I’ve had a growing awareness that no matter what fresh insight I’ve grasped, somebody else has already written a book about it. When I first noticed this phenomenon, I decided to ignore it. But this “shared awareness” phenomenon is growing. Even worse, my awareness of the awareness is exploding.

What the heck am I talking about here? I’m talking about why, as a writer, I can’t seem to come up with a fresh idea. The truth is maybe I never could come up with a fresh idea.. I just didn’t know it. Well, the Internet has taken care of that. Now I am painfully aware just how far behind I am in capturing every realization and insight. My eureka moment? Google has 1,230,000 entries on that one. It’s humbling.

Maybe this blog post sounds like a joke. It certainly does have a comic dimension. But there’s angst, too, in this “late-to-market” syndrome. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone (after all, not being alone in the "awareness" is we’re talking about here, right?). So, yes. Most assuredly. As all of us knowledge workers sit on the razor’s edge of Singularity, it’s hard to discern our unique vantage point.

Perhaps this explains why the world’s gone mad .. why our exponential advances in information technology also breed exponential road rage, obesity, hoarding, addiction, and reality TV.

Along with the latest gadget or post-grad degree from MIT, I’m wishing somebody would serve up a little philosophy and sociology. It may not be the machine way, but, really, isn’t our ability to reflect and contemplate how we are wired?

p.s. If you’ve already written a book about this, good for you. I want to read it.

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Which Parts of My Landing Page Should I Test?

2011-03-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

With great new, easy-to-use technology like Marketo and Unbounce, marketers can easily execute a key feature of direct marketing: Testing.

But what exactly should marketers be testing about their landing pages? Marketing sherpa Anne Holland shared her wisdom today with webinar participants who checked in to learn about “Winning with Better Landing Pages: Top 5 Secrets to Lifting Conversions.” Here are some pointers from the session.

Buttons
Button visibility is a major factor in getting visitors to take action, so go to any necessary lengths in size, color, and position to make your “do this” buttons stand out. Simple, less complex landing pages tend to work best (though there are exceptions.. always exceptions), so try testing “distraction removal.” For example, one test Anne showed culled the copy, removed the navigation bar, and pared instructions down to a single, big orange button that said “Get Started.” The result? “Get Started” outperformed its more complicated counterpart by 1,363%. (Yes, one thousand three hundred sixty three percent).

Headlines
Headline testing is critical for B2B lead-generation landing pages. What seems obvious may be wrong, so marketers shouldn’t rely on their own “best practices” experience. Rather, run an A/B test on headline variations.

In particular, test the headline on your registration form. For example, which header do you think pulled best when featured on a registration form?

Risk Free
Create your own profile for free and unlimited access

Answer: The second.

Images
Marketers often turn the “pretty” part of landing pages over to graphic designers, with the notion that photos and images are simply “window dressing.” Not so. These, too, need to be tested. Should the image be male or female? Show people happy or neutral? Use avatars or real people? Show people or product photos? You can’t know until you test, since all of these (and other) differences affect response.

Forms
If you have a forms page, you need to test that, too. Marketers often defer to the IT or database folks about the information that must be on a form. That’s not a good idea, says Holland. “Marketers need to work with the database or IT department on the design of forms. Nothing should be assumed.” For example, should a form have "required fields” indicated or not? One such test showed a 31% lift in forms submitted when the “required fields” notation was left off.

Finally, if any of the following options -- “clear form,” “reset,” or “cancel” -- are offered any where near your form, get rid of them all. This is one thing you don’t need to test, says Holland, who notes that these options (often a hangover from database practices in the 90s) suppress results. “Strip them off,” she says.

Videos
Do videos on a landing page suppress or boost response? By now you know, “That depends.” In one case, a ‘form-only’ landing page out-pulled its ‘with-video’ counterpart by 190%. “Don’t just jump on anything because it’s the new thing,” says Holland. “Test.”

For lots more online examples of WHAT to test, check out the whichtestwon.com.

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Content Farming Is for Pigs

2011-03-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

As a writer and brand journalist, I’m vaguely familiar with Internet companies that pay a pittance per article (or less) in the drive to regurgitate “content” all over the Internet. The point is to get corporate money for fooling search engines.

I’ve stayed miles away from the practice, which may be the reason I had never heard the term “content farming” until recently. So this is what they call the wordsmith version of manufacturing sweatshops, is it? I mean, both are founded on the same principles of copyright infringement, exploitation of economically depressed people, and Industrial Age capitalism.

Incidentally, if you are a freelance writer, I strongly recommend reading the content farming Wikipedia entry. You’ll learn a lot about what not to do.

Content farming also illuminates the shenanigans of a major retailer (J.C.Penney), which got caught black-hat-handed earlier this week, thanks to excellent journalism by David Segal.

This Micro Study of One Direct Mail Piece Raises Macro Questions

2011-03-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

Production Solutions in Vienna, VA, did something interesting. They took a current mail piece and calculated how much it would have cost to produce the same piece a decade ago (in 2001).

Guess what?

The cost to mail a test package today appears to have fallen 17% below the cost to mail the same package ten years ago. Why? Because savings inherent in data processing, personalization, and mailshop fees offset rising costs in every other area of operations.

Observations:

• Technology has saved us some dollars and definitely enabled more personal, targeted, effective marketing.

• In the days ahead, ratios will shift adversely if the cost of manufactured materials goes up (paper, ink, window patch material, labels).

• Rising postage costs would squeeze margins, possibly out of existence. What will mitigate that? Can technology improvements and controlled labor costs offset the trend? So far, no … but technology delivers exponential surprises every day, so let’s not give up.

• For now, the real budget killer appears to be energy, gasoline in particular. Business owners also must deal with the rising and fixed energy costs inherent in plant operations. Again, innovations in technology may help us deal with super-charged gasoline and electricity prices. On the other hand, water could prove to be a problem most haven’t thought about.

• And then there’s the cost of labor. As states across the country try to regulate and repress wages and benefits for millions of American workers, the cost (and availability) of labor becomes vastly uncertain. Enter the influence of trends in the world economy, import/export practices, and even climate change (think paper production, for example): more uncertainty.

Whether or not one or more of these particular expenses skyrockets or plummets depends on a range of macro influences. Unforeseen technology advances and innovations in the areas of manufacturing, printing, lettershop, and even marketing itself could make us all rich (well, okay.. prosperous). In 2001, none of us really understood how huge email marketing and online shopping would be ten years later. We didn’t even know about QR codes or smart phones back then. So what will the world look like in 2021?

Perplexing, yes? ….. Perhaps direct mail production and marketing operations would benefit from a “Crazy Day brainstorming session” to encourage employees to “imagine the future” … leading maybe to some long-range thinking and planning, focused "out-of-the-box" on staying nimble, quick, responsive, and open to the coming deluge of change. I’d love to hear from readers!

In the meantime, thanks to Production Solutions for its thought-provoking article.

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Unbounce Sounds Like the ConstantContact of Landing Pages

2011-02-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

Everybody knows that unique landing pages are a great device for measuring who’s visited your website and what they did there. Well, I just found out about Unbounce, a site that makes landing page design and testing almost idiot proof (or so it appears…)

The company was founded in 2009, but, until today, I didn’t know Unbounce existed. I’m late to the party, but I’m enthusiastic. I thought other marketers might get equally excited (and, no, I don’t work for Unbounce; I’ve never even used it).

Truth is, technology very seldom makes life simpler and cheaper for marketing professionals. Unbounce developers say anybody who can use PowerPoint can use Unbounce. I don’t know about that, but this looks like a technology worth investigating.

I see striking similarities between Unbounce and ConstantContact (which I have used and like very much). An abundance of copycat services has followed since ConstantContact launched in 1998, but this service gave marketers (particularly those working for smaller, less heavily funded organizations) entry to the world of online newsletters. This option enabled a lot of marketers to bypass costly (and, in my view, overpriced) “website designers” and “html programmers” and deliver needed information to customers, members, and donors. Unbounce would appear to have similar advantages, including:

• affordability ($50/month for sites with 2,500 unique visitors/month)

• templates that allow marketers to very quickly set up a landing page

• ease of A/B testing of landing page components

• desktop execution that requires no participation from the IT department. I don’t mean to be disrespectful here, but this feature allows marketers to grab the reins and chase down market trends.

Again, I haven’t used Unbounce, so I can’t vouch for it personally. But I did a little research (below) to help marketers evaluate for themselves. All these links appear on page one of the “Unbounce” Google search. More research would produce additional reviews/evaluations.

• Which Multivariate. “The real strength of the solution is that the same person who creates the landing page can publish it live and run an A/B split test without ever touching the code.”

• Mixergy. “ … Unbounce, a tool that makes it dead easy to create and test landing pages.”

• AppVita. “If you’re a marketing professional putting together a new landing page for an important campaign, then you’re exactly the type of user Unbounce is looking for.”

• SchneiderB. “… I began experimenting with landing pages and discovered a hidden gem, Unbounce … I began using it immediately and I love their product for 6 reasons.”

• Disruptive Conversations. “I've used the site now for various ad campaigns, email newsletter links, print ads and more. What I like in particular is that it is so very easy to try out multiple variations of a landing page and see which one works the best.”

Prusak.com. “For many of the smaller mom-and-pop sites, simply creating the test pages or sections is beyond their capabilities … these new products come with a built in WYSIWYG editor, which truly lowers the barrier of entry for split testing.”

Reedge. “Making the Unbounce landing page respond dynamically to users’ behavior and users’ search keywords can increase conversion even more.”

p.s. Thanks to Cindy Kilgore, manager of creative development at EU Services, whose great tweet alerted me to Unbounce.

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What Technology Beams You Up, Scotty? QR Codes!

2011-02-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

Real life stories are the best examples, so here are a few that tout the value of QR codes.

Perfect for social medial: TDN recently featured a post by Heidi Tolliver-Nigro, “What Are You Doing To Compete with Email?” Richard Munoz, one of the commentators, noted that “more and more personal messages are reaching me via social media rather than through my primary email address .. Perhaps it’s time for printed direct mail to do the same. 2D barcodes that link a direct mail piece to aFacebook profile are one way.”

Great for print ads, too. QR Codes popped up on my radar in another way this week. Target Marketing asked me to participate in a survey evaluating ten of their advertisers. Only one of the 10 featured a QR code in the ad. Why? Where’s the response vehicle? Ads used to feature 800 numbers, but everybody knows that meant talking to a salesperson. QR codes are different. These can lead straight to information, not marketing … and information is the new marketing? Right?

Superb for mobile. And then there was my email exchange with a friend who owns a successful small biz in D.C. Here’s his message to the coupon pitchers: Get a QR Code: “Maybe it's the guy in me, but I hate having to remember coupons. Starbucks sends me the free drink coupon for my loyalty. Yaay. Except when I'm in Starbucks, the coupon is always at home. I put it in my bag, then I don't go to Starbucks. Now I'm worried that I'm gonna lose it before I use it. I like online coupons that I open purchase and use from my phone. I know my phone is always with me.”

There’s more. A lot more. So how ‘bout it? If you’ve got a story to tell, queue up!

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Dear Professor: Facebook Is the Digital Equivalent of “Kiss Kiss.” It is Not Human Connection.

2011-02-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Having mothered two teenagers, I read the New York Times article about parental fury aimed at teenagers, with interest. Only when I got to the last paragraph, however, did I find the nugget that prompted (no, compelled) me to write this blog.

To quote: “Amid the debate about whether social networks are depriving us of healthier, non-virtual encounters, a University of Texas study last fall claimed that Facebook was not supplanting such interactions.”

Hmm... So what – in the researcher’s own words -- did the University of Texas reportedly find out? Just this: “Contrary to popular opinion, Facebook is making us more social, [emphasis added] albeit in ways unique to the digital age.”

Sorry, Associate Professor S. Craig Watkins, I don’t even know what that means. Whose “popular opinion”? What “digital age”? Most glaringly, how are you defining “more social”? HELP!

The entire conclusion must be hogwash. It's certainly nonsense unbefitting a Phd-carrying associate professor of radio-TV-film at the University of Texas. I’m not buying what you're selling – and for good reason.

The source of the research is 900 Facebook users who are current college students and recent college graduates. What the heck did we expect these profoundly biased “research participants” to say about their Facebook activity? Of course they agreed they were primarily on FB to be “connected and involved” with their peers and family. What other conceivable reason might be offered?

Talk about asking the inmates what they love about the asylum! Hello?

Can we please define “connected and involved”? Please? Puh-leeeeeze? I mean that is the point, for Pete’s sake.

Look a little closer and you’ll find that this study actually underscores that social media has replaced face-to-face conversations, telephone calls, drop-in visits, even one-to-one email. And that pretty much leaves a lot of college-aged Facebook users with fewer (probably significantly fewer) non-sexual*, in-flesh, touching, seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling interactions with other human beings.

Keyboard interface is not human interaction. Go there if you must, but let’s not pretend Facebook is human interaction and don’t insist that it has us “connected to and involved” with our friends and family. Au contraire, mon ami. Just like the Housewives of Beverly Hills, Facebook enables us to “kiss kiss” hello and goodbye. I can't say this won't be the new reality. But, for Pete's sake, let's not, surrealistically, pretend a cow's not a cow.

* My inclusion of “non-sexual” interaction here is purposeful, since college-student sexual activity itself is tending to the impersonal, as noted in this study of binge drinking and sex by another University of Texas prof. I suspect that thisdrinking/sex trend reflects the same ineptitude for genuine human interaction that’s reflected in Facebook activity.

p.s. You can download the Facebook study pdf. But don’t expect to learn anything that a mother of a teenager doesn’t already know.

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Content Rules for Marketers: Notes from the Master

2011-02-11T06:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to hear Ann Handley, co-author of Content Rules and guru at MarketingProfs, talk about the challenges that marketers face in creating catchy content for websites, blogs, and social media.

I picked up four types of info from Ann: stats, musts, messages, and stories/samples, plus this key point: Blogging is the single best way to create content, but …

Many marketers are afraid to blog and here are the three reasons they cite:

• I don’t know what to say

• It’s difficult for me to find topics to write about.

• I don’t know how to write copy that will excite our clients.

Nevertheless, blogging counts. Consider these stats:

• Companies that blog pull 55% more website visitors

• Companies that blog enjoy 97% more inbound links.

• The best content reflects the “soul of who you are” and that’s true for businesses, too.

So, to push yourself and your organization ahead, understand the following five musts when creating content. The good news? All are familiar terrain to writers (brand journalists), editors, and marketers!

Share or Solve. Don’t be shrill and don’t sell.
Show, Don’t Tell. Share examples, stories, case studies, charts, graphs, and pictures.
Speak Human. Say it simple and straight. Be yourself.
Build Momentum. Help readers understand what you want them to do (you are still a marketer, yes?). Go here; tell me this; buy that; click on; share your opinion, etc.
Do something unexpected. With all the information out there, you’ll need to break through the clutter, so surprise them.

Messages

1. Let your blog serve as a sales force. Put up no walls and require no registration.

2. Think through your calls to action. What creative ways can you dream up to make something happen?

3. Host your blog and your website on something your organization owns (your own domain or your own Wordpress/Blogger spot. Facebook is owned by Facebook, so don’t site there. Feed in if you want to, but have your own Internet url.

4. Are you that marketer who must "do it all" for your organization? Start small, tap into your own passion, play to your personal strengths, and get help from a pro – even part-time help -- if you need it.

5. If you’re overwhelmed with content development, consider whether or not you can attract outside voices – customers, donors, members, other bloggers – to contribute.

6. Run your blog like a magazine. Explore whether or not there are various staff people in your organization who can contribute. Identify their passion and see if they’re willing to take on a “beat” in your blogazine.

7. Re-imagine content every chance you can. Do you have a large white paper? Break it down into articles. From there, write blogs. Film a video commentary with an expert. Develop some related podcast interviews. Make a slideshow. Feature pieces on your Facebook page. Tweet all of it.

Stories/Examples

• Content Done Right: My Sears Community. Lots of information here related to stuff that Sears sells, but w/o a direct sales message.

• Something Unexpected: Agilent’s “silly video”

• Re-imagining.

- Kinaxis may have a boring topic – supply chain management – but their site features a blog, of course, but also a “community” for learning, laughing, sharing, connecting.

- Openview Labs takes imagination everywhere with a corporate blogging ebook, video, podcasts, articles, and lots more.

The major takeaway?

Before the social media boom, brands relied on third-party ink to build credibility. No more. Today, brands are expected to build credibility by communicating and providing information .. and – in the main – marketers are given this responsibility.

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Hey, I'm a "brand journalist." Who knew?

2011-02-10T07:49:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to be myself, but I avoid talking about myself on this blog. Forgive me. I'm a little excited right now. This morning, I attended Ann Handley's seminar dedicated to the notion that Content Rules. This morning I learned a new name for what I do.

I am a "brand journalist."

This is a term Ann threw out during the Q&A, when somebody asked how a small organization can possibly "do it all" -- website, blog, social media, content curation and management, etc. Ann's answer was to hire a "brand journalist." Why? Because this is the person who has the skills specific to the accelerating demand for corporate and nonprofit content.

The specific skills of a brand journalist blend marketing, PR, and journalism and include the following attributes:

1. The ability to analyze and identify the needs of the audience for whom content is created.

2. A skill for writing fresh, authoritative, but also conversational, friendly, and approachable stories.

3. A penchant for show-don't-tell writing that's easy to read and accessible to many reader segments.

4. An understanding of and experience with all the ways to present content: blogging, articles, video, podcasting, slidesharing, etc.

5. Knowing how to "reimagine" content, which means, perceiving how to rethink, recreate, and rewrite current material to meet multiple cross-platform needs.

6. A writing style that builds momentum and can take the reader along to the next step or action.

Several weeks ago, I set up a new blog titled Brands That Share, so Ann's word choice was an exciting moment for me. I heard the new role of brand journalism defined exactly as I have been envisioning it.

My next blog will share other takeaways from this seminar. But, for now, I just need to say it: I'm a brand journalist!

And thank you for listening!

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Brilliant Zinio, Breathtaking Magazines

2011-02-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

We may not have direct mail sweepstakes from Publishers' Clearinghouse, but we do have email from digital/interactive publisher Zinio. Last year, I regularly received marketing emails from Zinio and I didn’t mind. Most of the time I deleted, but every now and then I’d open and be amazed what a great marketing tool these “free magazine articles” were.

Last summer, for example, the Zinio Daily Spotlight focused on “Water,” followed by a few thirst-inducing statistics:

• 100 gallons – amount of water the average American uses per day, enough to fill 1,600 glasses
• $600 – amount the average home spends annually on energy to heat water.

What did these striking statistics come from? I had to find out, so I clicked “read it.” That’s when I learned that all these tips were in the “Green Home Guide” issue of Popular Science. I realized I don’t know much about science, popular or otherwise. I should. Why don’t I?

Zinio did this to me often. In myriad ways, this digital company reminded me of the value and expertise found in magazines, whose editors and writers know oodles about their topic areas. Besides, most any magazine is just plain joyous to look it.

Zinio seems to be marketing differently now. I don't get any more Daily Spotlights or "read it" emails. (Okay, I didn't subscribe to anything, so that's fair enough.) Also, on Zinio's website, I notice that much of their advertising today is aimed at iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and other mobile readers. If digital downloads will save magazines, that’s a good thing, though I, personally, would miss the feel of glossy paper, the vibrant color, and the whoosh scent of a printed magazine.

Meanwhile, it's fun to cruise around Zinio’s website and peek inside contemporary publications like SPIN and T3, if for no other reason than to check the hip graphics and page layouts. It’s even a treat to sift through the titles of magazines still in print.

Long live magazines!

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A Few Things I’ve Done To Manage the Workload

2011-01-29T07:01:00.000-08:00

Productivity expert Barbara Hemphill cites an Accenture study that found middle managers spending two hours a day searching for information, half of which turns out to be of no value (and that was three years ago!). Today, I don’t know a single direct marketer -- a single person, actually -- who isn’t overwhelmed.

The following tactics have helped me cope over the last few months:

1. File incoming email to folders. As an editor in the direct marketing field, I need to read every notable industry publication and blog. BUT, I can’t afford the distraction of messages invading my inbox. To cope, I set up filters to hide my mail before I see it. Especially useful has been my “electronic newsletters folder," which contains every e-newsletter, press release, blog or announcement related to the industry. About once a week I spend an hour inside that folder. Estimated time savings: ½-hour per day.

2. Tell laytr.com everything. Laytr.com is a free service from Oslo, Norway, that reminds me of every must-recall detail, large or small, personal or professional. This service says it’s in beta, but I’ve never had any reminder system – human or otherwise -- that is easier or more reliable. Laytr helps keep my inbox clean, too, because I set-up alerts for stuff I need to deal with, but can't right now. Estimated time savings: I can’t even estimate because peace of mind is priceless.

3. Hit delete. No matter how much I filter my email, the SPAM comes. I used to suppress my instinct to delete. No more. Delete, delete, delete. It’s fun. Estimated time savings: 20 minutes/day.

4. Screen all phone calls. Vonage sends me an email that contains an audio file of every incoming phone message. This tells me who's called and why. Estimated time savings: 15 minutes/day.

5. Listen later. Online educational meetings and webinars are great, but they take an hour or two. Most of us can pick up the meat by registering ahead and downloading when a) we’re less busy; b) we’re in the mood to focus; c) we’re ready to take notes. Estimated time savings: 1 hour per week.

6. Contain news consumption to one online daily newspaper. The news summary allows me to scan the planetary zeitgeist first thing in the morning and/or go back later for details. Important headlines arrive as the news occurs. Estimated time savings: ½ hour per day (and YES, I miss reading -- and touching -- the full print newspaper).

7. Respect the 5x8. I have a 5x8 notebook beside my computer where I record everything … to-do, to-call, to-think-about, to-remember, to-follow-up-on, to-be-or-not-to-be. There is no question – ever. When I complete tasks, I check them off the list (very satisfying). I write down phone numbers, names, snippets of phone calls, ideas, concepts, working titles for articles, shopping lists, etc. When I have filled one page, I copy all the incompleted items to a new page and begin again. Estimated time savings: whatever I might have otherwise spent on mental health counseling.

8. Be less social. I’m not tweeting as frequently. I’m blogging fewer times per month. I visit the LinkedIn groups less often, so I cut my group memberships my 25%. My Facebook friends number 20. I did recently reactivate Quora. The information there is selective and intelligent and -- so far, unlike LinkedIn -- nobody is promoting anything. Apparently, such antisocial behavior mirrors a trend that Forrester reports: namely, that social behaviors have reached a plateau. Estimated time savings: 1 hour per day.

I sit in front of a computer most of the day. Your work life may be different. For example, if you’re on the road, I’m sure your smart phone is the essence of your work plan. If you’re moving around your office or plant, you have a different set of challenges. How are you coping?

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Which Digital Tool Will Facebook Annihilate First?

2011-01-20T13:12:00.000-08:00

Which will Facebook annihilate first? Email? Websites? Databases? Consider the facts.

Facebook is swallowing up the digital universe, fostering cozy relationships with Yahoo, Bing-aka-Microsoft, Verizon, Skype, MySpace….

Indeed, Facebook may squash websites as we’ve come to know and love them. Have you noticed that many companies now cite their Facebook presence in TV and print ads? All of corporate America is sending customers to Facebook! Even the government is inviting people to face the book (for example, the State of Maryland). How did this happen?

With the advent of Facebook messaging and email addresses early last year, some observers worried that the giant would gobble up our inboxes. Others disagreed. The jury is out, but there’s another potential takeover on the horizon. Facebook just might replace proprietary databases, becoming the largest database in human history.

And then there are the photographs. As this Public Radio International article noted, “Some believe Facebook is now the largest photo collection in the world.”

Millions seem immune to privacy invasion, as we learn to shrug off the published sharing of more and more personal information among several hundred of our very best friends in the whole wide world.

Various Facebook advances do cause brief flurries of outrage and speculation when they launch. The recent disclosure that Facebook was giving developers access to users’ addresses and mobile phone numbers caused a brouhaha. But apparently this vital part of the lives of over 500 million subscribers has, somehow, become too powerful to stop or even control.

So why write about it? Because "eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty." And because, so far, I have the right to say I don't like it.

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p.s. A side note: I use Google Chrome to surf. When I attempted to check the latest subscriber statistics, the very anti-Google Facebook wouldn’t allow me to access the site. I was told “You are using an incompatible web browser. Sorry, we're not cool enough to support your browser. Please keep it real with one of the following browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer.” Smirky sons of a gun, aren't they?

Direct Mail Copywriting 101. A Dozen Tips from Top Experts

2011-01-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

Some would argue that significantly successful copywriters are born not made. I suppose you could say the same thing for long-distance runners or sculptors. The talent is there, but the perfecting is in the practice.

Still, the rest of us can learn from these classic tactics employed by some of direct mail’s best, which have stood the test of time:

1. Know your audience. How To Write A More Effective Technical Brochure. Bob Bly

2. When writing headlines, go straight to the heart of the matter, without any attempt at cleverness. How To Write Headlines That Work. Brian Clark, Copyblogger.

3. Never “create” – know the product to the core and combine the details in new ways. Eugene Schwartz’s 8 Rules of Great Copywriting. Eugene Schwartz

4. Your reader matters most. 100 Great Copywriting Ideas from Leading Companies Around the World. Andy Maslen.

5. Tell A story. Great copywriters are great storytellers. Miguel Alvarez y Mena Brito

6. The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. Wiki Quote. David Ogilvy

7. Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read. WikiQuotes. Leo Burnett

8. Think strategically and objectively. Experiment. Meet the Masters. Martin Baier

9. People buy benefits, not features. Bob Stone’s 30 timeless Direct Marketing Principles. Bob Stone.

10. Intelligent redundancy has selling power. ProCopyTips. Dean Rieck

11. “Copywriter, you are Peter Pan, and what you’re selling is Tinker Bell. And unless that reader believes… Tinker Bell will drop dead." Copywriter magazine. Herschell Gordon Lewis.

12. “Now I spend hours on headlines—days if necessary.” Target Marketing. John Caples

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Direct Mail Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry

2011-01-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

Major League Baseball umpire Jim Joyce and Detroit Tiger’s pitcher Armando Galarraga both know that, no matter how sincere, an apology only goes so far.

Maybe that was on the mind of Neil Berman when he wrote about “Our Love Affair With Apology Emails” for a November Email Insider post.

Emailers are forgetting attachments, posting the wrong links, fudging numbers and statistics, sending to the “wrong Nancy,” delaying their response, suffering “server” issues, and generally embarrassing themselves. The preferred solution appears to be sending a blushing follow-up that only serves to draw unwanted attention to the initial error.

Loren McDonald addressed the apologetic trend back in April when she posted an article on Keys To An Effective Email Correction Process. “Mistake emails are simply a fact of life for digital marketers,” Loren said. “The question isn't if, but when, how often, how severe, and ‘How will you respond?’”

Wow.

I’ve no doubt that “I’m sorry” are two effective header words, particularly when delivered instantly, for free. I mean, who isn’t going to open an email full of slobbering servility. Still, I couldn’t help wondering how long a snail mail marketer would survive a similar trail of error. That’s when I realized that – unlike email – direct mail almost never has occasion to apologize.

How come?

1. A Barrier To Junk Entry. Mail that doesn’t work costs the sender dearly in dollars wasted, so mistakes can lead to termination (and I don’t mean that in a good way).

2. Quality-control Infusion. While direct mail goofs and typos can creep in (some of them quite deadly), direct mail materials pass through many hands and many stages of proofreading. (Note, the pressman himself is often proofreading.)

3. People Plus Machines. Direct mail insertions (“attachments,” in email parlance) are mechanized by regularly calibrated machines. If the direct mail package calls for lift notes, response cards, brochures, or BREs, chances are high that the attachments will be “in there.” On the other hand, email appears to eat its attachments (and often).

4. A Multi-Staged Dance. Direct mail campaigns encompass a series of steps, each requiring considerable finesse: planning, offer development, budgeting, approval, scheduling, targeting, creative, list analysis and procurement, production, mailing, testing, retesting, fulfillment, etc. Each sequence weeds out the unfit. Note: In all fairness – though not yet there -- email marketing is moving to the same sort of complex, integrated online campaign. Yea!

Admittedly, the direct mail “oops!” is not unheard of. Dan Kennedy, writing for Glazer-Kennedy’s Insiders Circle, disclosed a couple of very interesting direct mail boos-boos. In both situations, direct mailers turned a sorry situation into hot returns, proving, once again, that results are the measure.

The Little “i” That Doesn't

2010-12-23T03:41:00.000-08:00

Regulators are nervous about advertisers who track our movements online and then deliver targeted ads. Rob Yoegel just alerted me to the privacy “i” icon that’s supposed to appear on Internet ads designed to target. The point is to make consumers aware that the Internet ads they see online are directly related to their surfing habits.

How come I’ve never noticed this little iCon in the year it’s supposedly been in use? I surf like a maniac and I’ve never noticed the “i” in the corner of any Internet ad. Ron says he hasn’t seen it anywhere either.

I thought maybe I just hadn’t noticed. So I decided to run around the New York Times website, looking for the “i”llusive. No luck.

I tripped over to Mashable, figuring if anybody had advertising it was them. Nope. I tried TMZ for a change of pace. No “eyes” there, either.

When I first learned about the “i” from Rob – I mean while I was reading his article -- I did see the “i” on one LG Smart phone ad. Sure enough, as promised, when I clicked on the “i”con I got an explanation of the privacy policy. So, yes, I found “i” once but I never found her again. Never. Not even when I went looking. That’s spooky. Did LG know – at that very moment -- that I was actually interested in finding the ‘i” and not in the smart phone ad itself? I mean, really, did they know that? A friend of mine thinks machines are already running the world. This experience makes that seem eer“i”ly possible.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Can A Sales Pitch Be A Gift?

2010-12-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

I’m not going to tell you which company did what I’m writing about here because I actually think very highly of this enterprise. They do cutting-edge stuff in cross media marketing, their communications are first-rate, and their work looks terrific. But I think they screwed up their holiday message.

Their eCard arrived with the words “Sending you our warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful Holiday and a Happy New Year.” Right below, was a green box with the words “Click Here to find out what’s in your stocking!” Also on the elegantly simple cover page were a personalized URL link and a QR code. All the right digital pieces.

Unfortunately, when I got to the landing page, this company was offering me credits against a “new Enterprise or Premium [firm name] Web account. Also, my contact info was auto-filled with “Please sign me up for your newsletter” opted in.

Otherwise, this was a lovely piece of work that even featured a video of a warm living room with a crackling fire. Gosh, guys … couldn’t you just say “Seasons Greetings!” and be done with it?

Maybe I’m off base here. Maybe this company scored big with this Holiday Pitch. I didn’t like it much, personally, but when it comes to direct marketing, results count. So, if this was your work, set me straight. Take credit, tell me that you got a great return and call me Scrooge. I’ll take the coal in my stocking and not complain.

The 360 Touchpoints of Marketing

2010-12-14T06:11:00.000-08:00

MadMen don’t “create” marketing/advertising anymore. Marketing today is a 360 Touchpoint business, with more and more people branding themselves and creating their own marketing.

360 Touchpoint Marketing involves a host of exploding trends. Here are a few.

1. Blogging. How do a lot of young mothers make buying decisions? They read the recommendations/conversations of the “mommy bloggers” because they trust the mommy bloggers more than they trust you and me.

2. Information Marketing. If you’re in business, you’re an expert. If you’re REI, you tout excellence and daring in outdoor activities -- and you give advice.

3. Being Who Your Customers Are. How does Trader Joe’s market? They speak to those customers in a thousand intimate ways. Checkout how Trader Joe’s marketing has become the Trader Joe’s soapbox.

4. Building community. If you know about it, you write about. What the heck do we think Facebook biz pages are about anyway? To find out ask Victoria’s Secret, J.C. Penney, American Egale, Kohl’s, Forever 21, and Abercrombie and Fitch. This is where brands “share” who they are and what they know. And, if any of the folks who “like” them sniff promotion, it’s a serious stink.

5. Creating buzz … as in “let them talk” … as in McRib and McDonald’s reaction to every bit of it -- the yummy and the yucky.

6. Everything else. This changes every day, of course, but consider these already-established 360 Touchpoint Marketing efforts? Podcasting, YouTube (The Wall Street Journal says you can even sell it without doing a video), slideshare, flickr, LinkedIn, and dozens and dozens and dozens more.

7. Content Curation. To understand this new and important marketing focused on “brand as expert,” Check out Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman’s new book Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business or check out this article by Steve Rosenbaum.

Marketers are service providers, yes. But we, too, have customers and we, too, can adopt 360 Touchpoint Marketing strategies for our own businesses. What better way to demonstrate thought leadership in our field?

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Six Workhorse Print Formats Worth Suggesting (Again) To Clients

2010-12-13T09:02:00.005-08:00

1. Postcards focused on discount-pricing are commonplace… which, in this industry, means they’re working. I’ve been receiving “coupon-ish” bi-weekly postcards from Bed, Bath and Beyond for months, like clockwork. BB&B’s version is over-sized, printed in blue ink, and looks the same every time. In general, I’m receiving postcards in every configuration from all the retailer’s in my area. The market may hit overkill on “postcards” in 2011, but so far I don’t see a slow-down. Note: The Wall Street Journal’s report on an important consumer trend – just-in-time consumption – suggests an opportunity for smart retailers who can figure out how to embrace more frequent, targeted promotions.

2. Specialty self-mailer “newspapers,” packed with information and printed on inexpensive stock and exemplified by – but never surpassed by -- Trader Joe’s The Fearless Flyer. TJ’s describes this fun read as a cross between Consumer Reports and Mad Magazine. I’ve never signed up, but I still receive their annual Thanksgiving issue, which uses humor, great copywriting, and information to persuade shopping at their store. The product isn’t personalized at all, but compared to the full-color circulars other food stores use, this one stands apart because it demonstrates how well TJ understands their pan-generation, no-frills, loyal shoppers.

3. Classic fundraising appeals. Apparently, the white-wove, #10 letter format remains a workhorse for a host of nonprofit organizations. From those same mailers, however – particularly targeted to previous donors – come the periodic, extravagant lumpy-mail offer stuffed with premiums. I’ve seen no slack in fundraising direct mail. Quite the contrary, this season my mailbox has attracted more appeals than ever.

4. “Catalogs” in fresh shapes and configurations -- thinner, and more targeted. Read more about catalog trends in TDN’s November 11 post.

5. Commercial direct mail targeted with different offers to different groups. Paul Bobnak wrote a piece for Target Marketing about the evolution of credit card offers via mail. In analyzing a series of credit offers that went out this fall, Bobnak noted the trend to targeted appeals, including women business owners and seniors.

6. Your favorite mailing plus QR Codes. Okay, this is a new twist on an old response vehicle, but QR could add a little drama to an old appeal. Mobile billings are expected to touch $4.1 billion this year, up 24 percent from last, according to Juniper Research, the UK-based telecom and mobile analyst firm, with total turnover expected to hit $12 billion by 2015.

--scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

How Many Damn Partnerships Can There BE, Oh FTC?

2010-12-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

[Altogether now ….]

The Facebook’s Connected to the Yahoo…

the Yahoo’s Connected to the Tweet Tweet…

the Bing Bing’s Connected to the Facebook …

the Verizon’s connected to the Skype Skype …

the Skype Skye’s connected to the Facebook …

the Billy Gates connected to the Facebook …

the MySpace connected to the Yahoo …

the Yahoo’s connected to the Facebook …

Does that just about cover the Internet, ecommerce, database marketing and life as we know it?

I think it does. Who agrees?

--scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

A Database Will Become Something Else Altogether. But What?

2010-12-03T05:14:00.001-08:00

Multics released the first commercial relational database management system in 1976. Soon thereafter, in the 1980s, direct marketers moved to computerize and warehouse names and addresses. Zoom forward to today. Databases have become the fundament of direct marketing, customer relationship management, and a lot of other core business initiatives. The question is: Where is this evolution going?

In particular, I'm thinking of Facebook, which is becoming an Internet of its own [or even the Internet itself, some argue], with vast quantities of personal information databased in one location. With the addition of Facebook business pages where folks actually shop from within Facebook, this "FB universe" takes on a whole new dimension of control [and, reportedly, profitability].

Should FB begin to thoroughly monetize it's database by selling its data warehous e [and how can it possibly resist the temptation?] consisting of trillions of terabytes of information (names, email addresses, photos, educational background, connections, shopping and Internet habits, photos, videos, birth dates and records of children's growth and activities, from over 500 million subscribers internationally, as of this hour) how will external databases compete? Despite a firestorm of warnings about what not to do on Facebook and the fact that we sign away our rights to everything we post there, the user base keeps growing. So ...What will happen to databases as we currently know and love them?

It's a huge question. And only imaginings of the Brave New World variety can intuit the possibilities. As I work on the April "Lists and Databases" issue of DMAW's Marketing AdVents, I wonder how many years into the future this vital element that has driven direct marketing for three decades will remain as we have come to know and love it.

Thoughts anyone?

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Hoku: The Masters of Electronic Bait and Switch

2010-12-02T05:32:00.000-08:00

I got an email this morning from Hoku Unlimited in Van Nuys, CA. As an editor in the direct marketing industry, I receive all sorts of industry-related “information.” This one looked legit. It listed three questions [with partial answers] that a marketer should ask a potential list vendor. The info looked on target. Links proliferated. Links to the “full article;” links to “here;” and links to “list vendor check.”

All of the links went the same place: Nowhere.

What was the point? To get me to provide my name, email, phone, company, and a comment.

Who Is Hoku Unlimited? Nobody knows.

What am I giving Hoku? Exactly what they gave me: NOTHING.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Call It “Brands That Share.”™ Chris Brogan and Pawan Deshpande Totally Get It.

2010-12-01T08:57:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, the AMA sponsored a webcast featuring Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs, and Pawan Deshpande, CEO of HiveFire.

Titled Content Curation Is The Secret To Becoming A Thought Leader, the webcast shed light on an evolving and still fluid conversation about content marketing and content curation.

Before I present the outline of Chris and Pawan’s comments, here’s an important point. This webcast and a host of blog posts and books over the last couple of years – the number of which is growing rapidly – are exposing a new marketing initiative that will evolve into “Brands That Share.”™ I’ll be blogging about this a lot in the months ahead, but – in short – I believe that businesses large and small will move to distinguish themselves from competitors by shifting from “Brands That Promise” [traditional marketing] to “Brands That Share" [evolved marketing].

Here’s what Chris and Pawan had to say about the role of content in establishing “thought-leadership” and becoming Brands That Share®.

What Is the Role of Thought Leadership?

• influencing a SPECIFIC audience

• talking about information both INSIDE and OUTSIDE your own company. Note: If you’re only talking, you’re not a thought leader. You must also understand what are others saying.

What Are the Five Stages of the “Thought Leadership Cycle”?

• Topic identification and positioning
- follow the topic in general
- bring in 3^rd party case studies and research to bear
- develop your own content, either original or extrapolated or triangulated from others’ content (for example, this blog post)
- communicate outwards about other organizations and what they are doing right

• Research – see what others are saying

• Production – producing original content (blogging, video, social media, etc.)

• Repurposing – organizing and structuring content, repurposing 3^rd party content as well

• Distribution – delivering the information through appropriate channels

The Evolving Role of Content Marketing

• Marketers are struggling with providing content. They are called upon to publish white papers, blog posts, enewsletters, website content, etc. As technology evolves, marketers need to be on even more channels. Thus, the explosion of content marketing.

• Vicious cycle: more and more content demand, more and more time and resources committed to content development, more and more content created, more and more competition, more and more content created to meet more and more content demand ... etc.

• Information consumers have too many choices, so trust becomes a key factor in choosing content. For example, consumers go to Google for information because they trust that Google will produce the top 10 choices in their query. Consumers also trust Word of Mouth (in particular, a friend), so they also have begun to shift to the social channels for finding information.

• Consumers put trust in various channels, depending on the need: (Google for empirical information; The New York Times, for example, as an established, reliable source; social media for the “inside scoop.”

• Trust Development: Find the good stuff where it lies and share it, even if it’s competitors’ information.

The Blog Is Fundamental To A Thought-Leadership Strategy

• Do you have a blog? This is how webcast participants responded to that query (a “real time” survey):

-16% yes, and I’m happy with it
-30% yes, but not happy with it (amazing; 3 in 10 are not happy with their blog!)
-35% no, but are considering
-18% no, don’t know where to start

• 70 million blogs had already been tracked by technorati in 2007; the blogosphere is adding 120,000 blogs per day

How do you measure corporate blog performance? It depends.

• Brogan: Do not measure by the number of comments, or the number of hits or views. Rather, how many of your next-action steps have been taken? (e.g., how many ebooks have been ordered, how many items downloaded, etc.)

• Deshpande: the number of views is irrelevant; only “next-action” counts. Also, lead generation may not be your goal. Verne Global [see case in point, below] doesn’t even have a lead capture system; their goal is being in front of their audience every day (credibility and influence).

What Does Content Curation Involve?

• Creates “actionable” content through aggregating and gathering (curation) plus distilling
• Pulls sources from inside and outside the vertical market
• Boiling down and sharing thoughts
• More than a news resource, curators provide an original, innovative perspective around issues
• Curators become a trusted, go-to source
• You create a community to which people come to meet other people. Curating content is a great way to build a roster of content that will attract people.

Content Curation As A Thought-Leadership Strategy

Cases in Point:

• Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington: thought leadership as a content curator, sharing insights and her own perspectives, publishing her own original content, also sharing different points of view

• Verne Global: How does “expertise” relate to an increases in business? This company established themselves as a thought-leader in a specific green space.

• They set up a site called “green data center news”
- original blog content
- pulling in outside resources, too

• They receive queries and also "inbound PR" (that is, interest from major media outlets for opinion and industry thought leadership.

• They have experienced growth in lead generation and customer interest.

• They have saved $100,000 in traditional marketing expertise.

Questions To Ask About Your Role As A Content Marketer

1. Is your brand or industry focused on a particular issue and does your company have an innovative perspective on this?

2. Do your prospects already conduct extensive research in order to perform?

3. Do you already monitor a variety of sources?

4. How does this activity tie into your marketing plan

5. How might I do content curation with limited staff?

• Deshpande: It's time consuming, but with automation it can be done -- automatic identification, organization, sharing of content.
• Brogan: Sometimes it can be done by hand, using Google reader, but you must bring it all in; headlines become very important here for sorting. Note: Chris subscribes to 700 blogs.
• Brogan: It's a dedicated process. For me, it's a two-way street with one-hour of connecting with people to develop traction and acceptance; it's also a half-hour every day to create my own material.

6. What are the legal considerations in curating content?
• Curate content but never pirate contact
• Attribute sources

7. How Might B2B marketers deal with content curation?
• The buy-in process is different for B2B. With B2B, you need to connect with and convince multiple people in a single customer-setting, so you need more content, more variety of content, more reasons, more data, etc.
• The B2B process is more complex so all the touchpoints need to be addressed, which makes curation a natural fit.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo with gratitude to and admiration for Chris Brogan and Pawan Deshpande.

Social Media Steroids: We’ve Never Met, so Why Are You Sending Me Family Pics?

2010-11-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure why I’m on Kirsten Gillibrand’s email list. I live in Virginia, not New York. Kirsten and I have never been introduced (and, yes, I am entitled to use her first name because, this morning, she used my first name first) .. as in:

Nancy,

I hope you enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends and family. It's always a special time in our house, and the boys just love to help out in the kitchen. Just had to share with you this photo of Henry, Theo and me making an apple pie from scratch -- it doesn't get much better.

Best,
Kirsten

Embedded in the email was the photo of her and the boys.

Kirsten ran for the Senate in New York. She won. I hope she won on her experience, intellectual merits, knowledge of politics in the Empire State, integrity, and commitment to her constituents’ interests.

This email and this photo have nothing to do with any of those things. Is this what social media means? If so, I'm anti-social.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

2011: "Brands That Share" Are Shaking the Zeitgeist

2010-11-29T11:46:00.000-08:00

First a short story:

Even before he had heard the terms "content marketing" or "content curation," a colleague of mine intuited the value of “brand as expert.”

My friend went to a client for whom he had provided highly successful PR for years and urged them to stop generating profit for trade media. “Why not replace your PR investment with content hosted on your own site?” he suggested. “It really makes no sense to pay to have all these articles written and placed in for-profit publishing enterprises. They get paid by advertisers who want to wrap their message in your company's expertise.” The client agreed and a daily blog launched. Shortly thereafter, the project was handed off to the website developer as fodder for SEO.

I’ve urged my colleague to get a better handle on Brands That Share™ and I'd advise any marketer to do the same. To begin:

a) Read Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman’s new book Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business. Ann is editor at the highly successful MarketingProfs and C.C. is one of social media’s earliest adopters.

b) Check out this article. Published in July by Steve Rosenbaum, founder and CEO of Magnify.Net. This article says, “We're standing at the end of an era. ‘Mass Media' -- the ability to reach large segments of the population with a single message -- is essentially over. For advertisers, the need to find content in context, and to have that context be appropriate for their message and their brand is critical. So, Curation replaces Creation as the coin of the realm for advertiser-safe environments. No longer can advertisers simply default to big destination sites. The audience is too diffuse and the need to filter and organize quality crowd-created content is too critical.”

c) To further grasp the role of content in marketing, read this blog by C.C. about Zappos, a company that everyone pretty much agrees "gets it." In short, C.C. says Zappos is FULL of Content.

d) Consider this blog from Media Post discussing how people are engaging with brands via social media, namely (and I quote): The last couple months have brought a wave of data suggesting that a substantial proportion of online social network members use their profiles to engage with brands in some way -- including recommending or criticizing a product or service to other people, and engaging with the brand itself for customer service issues. In addition to confirming many of these earlier findings, the latest study, sponsored by Performics and performed by ROI Research, also found that a good number of social net users want more online offers and information from brands.” [Emphasis added]

e) Get familiar with Rohit Bhargava's Influential Marketing Blog, including posts like this on content curation (and don't pass up the comments).

Right now, the zeitgeist is chattering and the evidence is growing on multiple fronts: content marketing, content curation.....bzzzzzzzz..

p.s. Ian Greenleigh makes a plausible case against content curation .. well, at least against yakking about it. He's got a point. Better to tinker more, talk less. Thanks, Ian.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Should Print Media’s Loss Be Direct Mail’s Gain? Ya Tink?

2010-11-29T07:04:00.000-08:00

The November/December issue of What Advertisers Think confirms that print-media buys are down. Why? It's not about the money.

The article reports that print media decision makers are, indeed, super focused on price. But wait… there’s more ...

“It’s all about the audience, both the who (composition) and the how many (reach). The pricing discussions only happen after it is determined that the magazine or national newspaper is delivering enough of the right target.”

The report goes on to note affirm that print buyers have always struggled with the best way to measure the effectiveness of print campaigns. “The lack of accurate measurement has certainly not helped print increase its allocation of advertising dollars in comparison to more measurable media.”

The right target? More measurable media? Hmmm… Might we suggest… ahem .. digital direct mail? Thank you for your support.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Six Ways To Keep Your Blog Buzzworthy

2010-11-23T04:51:00.000-08:00

Amanda Moshier’s “How To Write A Blog Post in 30 Minutes or Less” hit home for me – and not because it has anything to do with writing a blog in a half hour.

In addition to being organized, opinionated, and authentic, Amanda makes the point that good blogging involves dogged, persistent background work. She says, “Get outside. Read the news. Go on YouTube if that’s your thing. Talk to people.”

All that connectedness doesn’t happen in 30 minutes, of course. Rather it means keeping up with industry buzz by ...

• following relevant groups on LinkedIn,

• subscribing to and scanning lots of trade and business publications,

• reading other bloggers in your field,

• keeping an eye on new developments via Twitter, and,

• my favorite, jotting down extensive notes (with links) as ideas occur.

As for staying current with pop culture? Buzzfeed makes that easier. If it’s contemporary or celebritorious (aka celebrity-focused), buzzfeed is probably featuring it. Warning: Buzzfeed videos can be very distracting. The end of the day – when work is finished – is a good time to browse this site.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

I Like Everything About This Company’s Website (And for Good Reason)

2010-11-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

I ran across a company I didn’t know about this morning and – with utterly no intention of being impressed – I was struck by the innovation and fresh face The Karcher Group in Canton/Akron/Cleveland has put on their website (thanks to Josh Gordon for introducing me).

So what do we have here and what do we NOT have here?

• Don’t have: An annoying intro page that “sits there” for 10 seconds, while inviting the visitor to “skip the introduction.”
• Do have: A crackerjack landing page – entertaining, engaging, humorous, fresh, wry and lively. This page sets the pace and the rest lives up to the challenge.

• Don’t have: Small serious type and a “corporate” look.
• Do have: Big, grabby type. ( If I didn’t know better, I’d think you know a lot about direct marketing.)

• Don’t have: Any sense that somebody is trying to sell me something
• Do have: Straightforward, honest, no-guess, no-fool-you navigability.

• Don’t have: A video of the president speaking.
• Do have: Meet the Group, featuring photos of everybody who works at TKG (big photos.. yea!)

• Don’t have. An endless series of portfolio graphics with no context.
• Do have: A portfolio and client list, that is easy to view at either a glance or in-depth (visitor’s choice).

• Don’t have. A list of links to “news” releases.
• Do have. The ingenious Web News tab, where I learned about MO-vember (aka “No Shave November.”) The write-up invited me to check out TKG’s Facebook page for “some hair-raising photos!” I did and was entertained all over again. These folks also know how to set up a Facebook page that brings together a community of fun people who love what they do and are happy to invite fans.

I like it!

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

I’m Going To Cell In A Handbasket

2010-11-17T05:38:00.000-08:00

Confession: I don’t have a smart phone and I have never surfed the Web on my cell. Don't hate me. I did – about four months ago – adopt text messaging for important occasions. But very few people have my cell phone number and I almost never use my cell for business. I’m not technology-averse. Really! I'm not! I just prefer to keep my work and social lives separate. Too bad for me.

I’m in deep trouble and I know it .. which is why (pretty soon)…

I’m going to buy an 8G iPod Touch. Yes, I know it’s not a cell phone, but it IS Mobile and I do need to do this Mobile thing. Everybody in the entire world is going to a very tiny place and I have to figure out WHY.

Eric Weymueller at Zyntoprics recently asked me to take a look at My Santa Talk, his new Mobile enterprise aimed at helping children enjoy Christmas. After all Eric’s work at enabling QR, 2D Codes and SMS, plus embedding video and an interactive chat experience, all I could do was view Santa on my huge computer monitor. I’m sorry, Eric.

Thank heavens Brian Solis wrote about “The Dawn of the Social Consumer.” I couldn’t figure out Foursquare until I read what Brian wrote (okay, I didn’t try that hard to figure it out, even though all the kewl SocMed kids were telling me every … single …day which Starbucks they were hitting). Point is, these handheld Mobile devices – call them cell phones if you must – are going to become as common as credit cards. That I get. Thank you, Brian.

And then there’s the marketing thing. Dean Steinman wrote an article for the DMAW newsletter that cited five reasons Mobile marketing is a must right now: text messaging demands attention (true dat); email received on Mobile has better odds of being read (interesting ...); every email needs a Mobile counterpart; Mobile is fresh; Mobile can be broad, variable, and targeted. As a marketer myself, I know this makes sense. Thank you, Dean.

So there you have it. You may not like it (I know I don’t) but that’s the way it is. For awhile – as the world sorts out how big small has to be – I need to follow the Mobile March. If not, the industry for which I work is likely to hand me my head in a handbasket.

Happy Holidaze.

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Best Idea for 2011. It’s Easy As Pie, But I Bet You Aren’t Doing It.

2010-11-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

Margaret Farmakis writing for Return Path posted the question, “Is Email Sexy?” She then offered three reasons why email is sexy and three reasons why it’s not.

Margaret's article is quite good but I think one of the reasons she cited for email's allure is misleading -- namely, our ability to dialog with it.

Fact is, most of the time it's pretty difficult to dialog with email -- at least in the case of most content-rich email coming from corporate and information-delivery sources. That's a shame, because those content-rich emails are exactly the ones readers want to chat with.

In my June 29 Marketing Brillo blogpost titled “Auto Stealth: THIS Is the Top Marketing Idea of the Year,” I touted the brilliance of an email I got from Tim Pitts at Trendwatching.com. Why did I love it? Because it appeared to be from Tim to me (and only me) and because it invited my input.

The bulk of the email I get comes from the webmaster (whoever the heck she is). I checked my “electronic newsletter” folder to confirm that this is true. It is. I’ve also got entities writing me who are named newsletter, workforce, social media, reply, ncreply2, support, and editorinchief (a slight improvement in that this appears to be an actual human being .. or at least an avatar).

Margaret says, “A one-way conversation is never sexy. A dialog that elicits a response definitely is. Email enables marketers to create a dialog with their subscribers, customers and prospects.”

Maybe, except "webmaster" keeps getting in the way.

Could this be a workable New Year’s Resolution for marketers -- to send customers an email they can respond to? I mean -- if under the new model -- everything else is going social, why do you suppose email is so darn .. well, one-sided?

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

Variable Data Printing Gets the Nod from Catalogers and A Big "About Time" from Me

2010-11-09T12:48:00.001-08:00

Multichannel Marketing magazine has been releasing the results of its 2010 surveys. Responses from the catalog industry were particularly interesting because feedback indicates that catalogers are both sticking with print and expanding into new print formats like postcards, fliers, solo mailers, and other direct mail media.

All four MCM reports -- catalog, e-commerce, marketing, and operations/fulfillment -- are downloadable here. What intrigued me about the catalog report was the merchants’ embrace of variable data printing.

Only 28% of catalogers surveyed in early 2010 said they were using variable printing to customize catalogs, but 35% say they plan to create customized catalogs for specific customer segments in the next 12 months. Another 29% are considering it. That’s a boost from 49% using or considering VDP in 2010, to 63% saying VDP is in their plans or on their radar for the coming 12 months.

Multichannel Merchant Editor-in-Chief Melissa Dowling who authored MCM Outlook 2010, says, “This is encouraging, since variable data printing has been slow to catch on.” She adds that “Even though costs have come down significantly in recent years, most mailers feel the technology is still too expensive—particularly during the harsh recession. But then, experts say that the returns are much higher with VDP vs. a static print job, especially the more personalized a mail piece is.”

Clearly, it’s ROI. Not only does this say a lot about the growing influence of variable data printed marketing materials, it suggests to me that VDP is about to bloom outwards in other key areas which have been hesitant to adopt. That includes marketing collateral for absolute sure, but I’m also watching for tailored informational material like newsletters, conference schedules, educational curricula, possibly even municipal or county notices targeted to specific residences.

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