If Managing Your Online Branding Hurts, SYNQY Could Ease the Pain

SYNQY -- a new start up near San Francisco -- is introducing an innovation designed to help organizations standardize and update the information that current and prospective customers see online.

Chairman and CEO Michael Weissman says SYNQY applies Meta embed code to a subscriber’s “brand assets”—logos, photos, messaging, video, registration forms, donation pages, white papers, slide presentations, articles, brochures, and so on. Thereafter, when an online user clicks on any coded asset, the right intended information pops up.

How It Works

To demonstrate, Weissman points to an Internet user who’s browsing an online fashion magazine that features a red dress sold by a major online retailer. Typically, when the user clicks on such a photo, she’s yanked off the magazine's website and plunked onto a seller's website. Too often, she has trouble getting back to the online magazine again. With SNYQY, wherever she sees the red dress online—either at the magazine’s site or anywhere else—her click pops up consistent information without jumping to a new site.

That’s the buyer’s (and the magazine’s) advantage. But Weissman says the marketer’s advantage is greater. As the CMO responsible for selling that red dress, SYNQY code automatically ensures that the buying experience is going to be the same for every buyer, every time.

Right for You?

Whether SYNQY is right for a given organization depends on how often people search for or buy that organization’s product(s) online. Weissman explains: “A printing company that depends on direct sales, but very little inbound marketing, is less likely to be a SYNQY customer. But an integrated communications firm that does content marketing and creates news stories to drive sales would be an excellent candidate. Large fundraising organizations with networks of partners or advocates would find SYNQY an option in managing their brand assets, as would a franchise company, political campaign, automobile dealership, or any organization with chapters.”

A New Process

Weissman differentiates SYNQY from so-called brand asset management entities that simply store digital materials for distribution. That process depends on human effort, he says—a sales person, chapter or branch manager, dealer, franchise owner, and so on.  By contrast, SYNQY manages and distributes brand assets without human involvement, thereby saving money. “So often, marketers are involved in non-bonus activities like updating content and keeping channels current. But there's no return for these labor-intensive activities. SYNQY can take over that job."

Build It Yourself?
The concept is easy, but building a competing technology would be very difficult and expensive, Weissman adds. “That's why it hasn't been done before. It would take millions of dollars to replicate what SYNQY does and millions more to keep it updated, but using SNYQY software is easy and inexpensive.”

How Much?

SNYQY costs $100 per user per month, which includes one SYNQY embed code. Additional SYNQY embeds cost $100 apiece per year.

Weissman, who has 25 years of high-tech marketing experience, suggests the price is a bargain for marketers who must spend thousands of dollars—or more—updating widespread, disparate Internet content. “Simply turning a static asset into a SYNQY is a 10 to 15 second effort, from start to finish. So, to take a catalog of 10 brand assets and turn them into trackable, manageable code would take less than five minutes and cost $1,000 — very little for most companies.”

What about retrofitting all the brand assets currently floating on the Internet?

“Many of our customers are starting with new assets,” Weissman says. “Eventually, we expect they will retrofit. The other approach is to put an entire product catalog inside a single SYNQY. This gives the best of both worlds.”

Free 30-day trials are available at SYNQY.com. Click below for a short video.

Big Data Doesn’t Know A Thing, But It Sure Can Ask the Right Questions

When I was 12, I remember telling my mother that if a human being could know all the events that factor into the moment just before an automobile accident, it would be possible to avoid the accident. Little did I know that, a) I was talking about “big data;” b) I was wrong.

Fortunately, a couple of guys who actually know what they’re talking about have written the book that explains it all: Predicting the Future With ‘Big Data’.

Kenneth Cukier is data editor for The Economist and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is Professor of internet governance and regulation at Oxford University. The co-authors appeared on the Kojo Nnamdi show March 7.

If I understand what Cukier and Mayer-Schönberger are saying, big data leads us not to more facts, but to more data, within which will be more questions and, therefore, greater opportunities for insights. And yet, the whys of “the universe” will remain a mystery.

More Data Is Just More Data
The paradox, apparently, is this: More data negates — or at least counter-balances — the need for perfect data. Mayer-Schönberger puts it this way: “… as we have more data, we can also be accepting some inexactitude in how we collect the data and how perfectly curated the data is because we just have so much of it … [And, any move away from] an elusive quest to find causality, targets something much more pragmatic and much simpler called correlations. It means that we are not looking for the why. We are looking for the what and that’s good enough.”

The Power of the Spread Is the Greatest Power Yet
Mayer-Schönberger thinks both the invention of the printing press and the invention of the Internet will be dwarfed by another major leap forward: not the mere spreading of information, but the spreading of the power of information. [Crowd-sourcing, anyone? Or, maybe, targeted sharing?]

Say what? Cukier explains. “You can imagine that [big data is] going to actually change the way that businesses run. They’ll find their most precious asset might not be what they’re actually building [or selling or offering], but the data that goes into it — because they can learn from [that data] and cross-apply it to other things.”

Got data?
You’re in the cat bird’s seat. And you know it. As a marketer, you know better than to despair at data results. You just test again … and again. You just get more data.

Cukier gives us a good example: “Imagine an algebra teacher who would find out that 60 percent of her students got the same question wrong with the exact same answer. She would, therefore, learn that, in fact, maybe she taught the algebra wrong, that maybe she wasn’t clear enough.” Insight. New testing. More data.

Data Is Fake
Should we worry about the issue of big data and our privacy? Sure, because we always need to be vigilant as a society not to misuse or abuse big data. But keep calm.

Cuckier explains. “Data is only a simulacrum of reality. It is not the real thing, firstly. Also, we’ll never have all the data. That’s not actually possible … So this sort of hypothetical thought experiment of what will happen when we know everything about everyone, that day is just not going to happen. So on a practical level, to get wound up in knots about this doesn’t seem useful..”

If only I’d known then what I know now …

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What Customer Service "Chatter" SHOULD Be Doing For Your Organization

A report from Salesforce projects that a new level of business intelligence will come from online support communities operating in the cloud. So-called "chatter communities" are touted as both a multiplier for current support efforts, as well as a prospective revenue generator for sales and marketing.

Online discussion communities are nothing new, of course. These meeting places for customers with problems have traditionally been set up by vendors or by customers themselves looking to one another for help. In today's data-laden world, however, vendors should be using online discussions in a variety of other organization functions. For example, "chatter communities" supply market research, identify engaged customers, and open the door to volunteer testing and problem-solving.

Feared by some organizations as a place where grumpy customers will sign on to gripe, online discussion boards actually help control bad sentiments by furnishing a place to let off -- and respond to -- steam. Importantly, open discussions also allow companies to integrate customer commentary with other communication and support mechanisms.

In summary, Salesforce suggests that chatter communities should help solve multiple organizational objectives, to wit:

• eliminate "ghost town" problems where customers get no feedback;
• set-up solution channels for especially difficult or peculiar problems;
• integrate the various silos which provide customer support;
• capture customer knowledge;
• replace "noise" with real answers;
• establish a beginning point for newbies to check-in;
• help control negativity;
• demonstrate organizational credibility;
• measure the productivity, success, and ROI of support communities; and
• apply customer support activities to the larger data mining initiative.

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"They let their data be their spin."

The headline above echoes Chuck Todd, Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, talking election strategy -- and success -- today on Morning Joe.

Todd -- an admitted enthusiastic for the power of data -- attributed President Obama's re-election victory in large part to the data-directed dedication of Obama's top political advisers Jim Messina, campaign manager; David Axelrod, political adviser; and political strategist David Plouffe.

As Scarborough's panel noted, post-election results prove that this group of strategists and analysts knew they would win and they knew why. How could they have been so sure?

Marketing Lesson #1: Get the Data
In Obama's reelection effort, Big Smart Data did the trick -- big data that already knew where to find Democratic leaning constituents, including where they shop, what they buy, where their spouses/partners work, what magazines they read, what TV programs they watch, what moves them -- all of it.

Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time Magazine, also touted the value and impact of sophisticated data mining described in the magazine's November 7 story by Time White House correspondent Michael Scherer. A similar Poynter article quoted a senior Obama campaign official saying, "We ran the election 66,000 times every night," said a senior official describing the computer simulations the campaign ran to figure out Obama's odds of winning each swing state. "And every morning we got the spit-out -- there are your chances of winning these states. And that is how we allocated resources."

And so it went ... "All into one gigantic database," Stengel noted.

Marketing Lesson #2: Put Effort Where It Counts Most
Marketers call it the 80/20 rule. In the 2012 election, Big Data was applied to instructing Obama's reelection efforts -- particularly in the nine swing states -- exactly where and how to boost voter registration. In other words, the point wasn't to convert non-believers. The point was to grow and nurture the believer base.

The Obama campaign also took Big Data to an art form in areas where the Democrats were traditionally less strong, but where great potential lay. "[In Ohio, among labor] the effort was particularly helpful in targeting some of the more difficult demographic groups - white men, for example."

Marketing Lesson #3: Follow-up with CRM
From the gigantic database, relevant information was converted into "boots on the ground." In all nine swing states, for years before the election, committed volunteers worked to "get out the vote." They registered voters, of course, but it didn't end with registration. Many volunteers actually became friends with those they had recruited: they had coffee together, they stayed in touch, they practiced the proven tactics of customer relationship management (CRM). And, on election day, these volunteers made as certain as possible that their constituents actually would vote: they phoned, they visited, they offered rides, the followed up, close and personal.

Marketing Lesson #4: Don't Talk Down to Your Audience
To marketers, of course, Big Data is no mystery. "Companies like Proctor & Gamble, are accustomed to calibrating data against message," Stengel pointed out. The "secret," of course, is to spend money only on messaging that's targeted and effective.

Making this point, Stengel noted that some of the opposition's repetitive TV ads actually helped Obama. In particular, a Romney campaign ad playing in industrial Ohio that many viewers believed misrepresented Romney's position on the auto bailout, angered the well-informed viewers in Ohio's heavily unionized areas. "Watchers do become experts on ads," Stengel noted.

Having Said All This, If It Don't Work, It Don't Work
The Republicans had data, too, of course -- a huge machine they nicknamed Orca. Somehow, though, Orca went awry. An article by political columnist Paul Glastris that appeared in Washington Monthly sought to address the question, The Mystery of Why Republicans Were So Sure They’d Win.

Glastris wrote, "Orca, which was headquartered in a giant war room spread across the floor of the Boston Garden, turned out to be problematic at best. Early in the evening, one aide said that, as of 4 p.m., Orca still projected a Romney victory of somewhere between 290 and 300 electoral votes. Obviously that didn’t happen. Later, another aide said Orca had pretty much crashed in the heat of the action. 'Somebody said Orca is lying on the beach with a harpoon in it,' said the aide."

Just for the Fun of It, Remember: Anecdotal Evidence Also Counts
Rising Democratic star San Antonio (TX) Mayor Julian Castro explained how voters in his city were persuaded to approve a modest one-eighth of one percent tax increase dedicated to underwriting high-quality pre-kindergarten for thousands of children. Castro noted that -- contrary to the "no new taxes ever" mantra, people will accept taxation when they know its purpose. Voters understand the need for education for young children, understanding that "brain power is the currency of success," he said.

Incidentally, Castro predicts the effect of the Hispanic vote will take Texas to the Democrats in six to eight years.

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One More Reason You Need Video Marketing Now and Ten Reasons to Produce It for the Tablet

A compelling video from Gary Hennerberg convinced me that video and tablets -- together -- will lead the digital marketing revolution. Gary is a direct marketing consultant, copywriter and author of Online Video Marketing Deep Dive, so it's no surprise that he is armed with facts, explanations, inspiration, and more than a little great copy, 

In the six-minute video, Gary cites ten reasons marketers need to think about creating video for the tablet market today, including these highlights:

1. The number of tablets purchased this year doubled over 2011, reaching 119 million in 2012 (Gartner). Smartphones started the trend, but this is the early part of the curve for tablets. Takeaway: Get ready now.

2. We’re in the post-PC era, and the amount of video watched on tablets has jumped 26%. iPads presently account for 95% of tablet video viewing. Takeaway: The iPad won’t play Flash, so convert your legacy videos to a format that doesn't rely on Flash.

3. Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted technologies in history. Tablets are used for "watching" everything (TV viewing, included). Takeaway: The future is “location-based video.”

4. Video viewing is a “given” on tablets. Takeaway? Got a tablet? You want video.

5. Tablet users are three times as likely to watch video on their devices. Takeaway: Shoot and upload your videos in HD, whenever possible. Tabbies expect quality.

6. Nineteen percent of tablet users watch video once a week, nine percent watch daily. Better yet, One in four viewers is willing to pay to view. Takeaway: These users have money and are willing to spend.

7. The heaviest concentration of smartphone and tablet users combined occurs between the ages of 25-44, but the tablet cohort is 28% more likely to be age 65 and older and 25% less likely to be 18-24. Takeaway: Tablet users tend to be well-heeled.

8. Three in five tablet owners reside in households with a $75,000+ income. Takeaway: See takeaway #7, above.

9. Tablets will become the preferred, primary device for millions worldwide by 2015, overtaking notebook PCs by 2016, says Forrester. Takeaway: Start early and travel fast to master this marketing channel.

10. Ten percent of a publisher’s audience are “power viewers” willing to watch five or more videos in a given day. Takeaway: Consider producing an ongoing series of educational and instructional videos to build trust, authority, and a following. Then you can sell.

Check out Gary’s complete video here.  There's lots more good info in the full monty.

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Will Facebook Go the Way of Yesterday's Yahoo? This Expert Says “For Sure.”

Facebook will lose dominance as a major Web company in less than a decade, Eric Jackson, founder of Ironfire Capital said in a June 4 video interview broadcast on CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

"In five to eight years they are going to disappear in the way that Yahoo has disappeared," Jackson said. "Yahoo is still making money, it's still profitable, still has 13,000 employees working for it, but it's 10 percent of the value that it was at the height of 2000. For all intents and purposes, it's disappeared."

Jackson assumes that Facebook will not be able to evolve any better.

“When you look at Web companies … there have been three generations of Web companies over the last 15 years: Web portals, social Web, and, currently, companies that are purely focused on Mobile (phones or tablets)…. No matter how successful you are in one generation, you don’t seem to be able to translate that into success in the second generation, no matter how much money you have in the bank or how many smart PhDs you have working for you."

Jackson forecasts Mobile as Facebook's Achilles heel. "I think Facebook will have the same sort of challenge moving into Mobile … The world is moving faster. It’s getting more competitive, not less, and those who were dominant in their prior generation are really going to have a hard time moving into this newer generation."

Google, too, will struggle, Jackson predicts. "Specifically, with Google, in five to ten years, the world of typing into a blue box on your desktop PC to get search terms? That’s going away. In the world of mobile, search is far less profitable for Google."

How can a company with 900 million subscribers disappear? It won't. "I think Facebook is NOT going bankrupt … but something new is coming along that we haven’t seen yet probably… People will be fascinated by it and attracted to it …[As for Facebook] what makes you successful in generation one, doesn’t make you successful in generation two. [In the world of mobile], Facebook is still a big fat website.”

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Source: Cadie Thompson, Technology Editor, CNBC.com

Smart Marketers Are Already Mastering Gamification. Should You Be Playing?

According to allfacebook.com, 50% of Facebook log-ins are specifically to play games like Farmville, Zynga Poker, and Words with Friends.

Yes, we love ourselves some games -- and smart marketers are using the gaming passion two ways:

1. To increase efficiency, customer loyalty, and engagement
2. To improve results in marketing campaigns.

Gamification is the term being used to describe this use of traditional game mechanics in non-game businesses.

According to Gartner Group, gamification is the newest type of loyalty marketing. The analyst firm predicts that by 2015, a gamified service for consumer goods, marketing, and customer retention will become as important to companies’ marketing engagement efforts as Facebook and Twitter. Gartner further predicts that in less than three years, more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application. 

Among respondents to the Acxiom/Loyalty 360 survey, only 14% of respondents already use gamification in their customer retention efforts, but nearly one-third (29%) plan to add gamification. At the time of the survey, more than half (56%) said they have no plan to try ramification and will be putting their resources elsewhere. Ha! We'll see about that ...

The Gamification Summit, which is meeting in San Francisco tomorrow through Wednesday, notes that "Gamification is radically changing the way companies do business, driving unprecedented engagement with customers, employees and stakeholders."

The gamification blog notes that enterprise gamification designers and marketers face a unique set of challenges. "We must advocate for the concept and win budget," says Tyler Altrup -- who also says that gamification is a marketers' business, not the stuff of platform managers.

Altrup describes four familiar marketing steps for good design/marketing gamification : set goals, define behaviors, establish rewards/incentives, and -- listen up: here's the key point -- framing the result according to status. "Every gamification program must be framed as a component of a meaningful status for the user," he says.

For more about gamification in the marketing context, check in with this video from Bunchball's founder and chief product officer, Rajat Paharia.

Game on!

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Now Is the Time to Try Barcodes + Mobile Because ...

According to eMarketer, the pairing of printed quick response (QR) barcodes and mobile marketing works.

Successful coding isn't difficult, says ad tracking firm Competitrack. Put mobile barcodes in attention-grabbing places and then give customers a clear link to content,  Once folks arrive, make sure content is easy-to read … and do consider video as a landing-page option.

The Trend Works Well in Retail, But Wait .. There's More
So far, mobile barcodes are attracting the most users in the retail (22%) and technology (13%) sectors, although Oppenheimer Funds -- an investment management firm -- has used more mobile barcodes than any other sector, with 85% of Oppenheimer's print ads featuring the small squigglies.

Buying and Entertainment Trends Add Up to New Barcode Possibilities
Even though Quick Response (QR) codes have yet to gain widespread consumer acceptance, by January this year, 50% of smartphone users had, indeed, scanned them, according to a Chadwick Martin Bailey study -- and even non-users recognize a QR when they see it.

As a marketer, remember, too, that mobile doesn't necessarily mean your user is "out and about." A March 2012 survey showed that close to half of all mobile entertainment gamers -- including both action/sports and puzzle gamers) -- play at home. 

It's time to think beyond retail shopping. More likely than not, your mobile user is at home, relaxed and ready to consider buying. The user could be watching television and still be on a smartphone or a tablet (check out this CMB research from February that confirms tablets and mobile devices are replacing traditional home entertainment).

Point is, when shown the code, savvy folks know the QR drill and will use it ... which is why smart marketers are offering the option.

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Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

If You're A Marketer, Think Like An App

A piece in the New York Times by writer Nick Bilton describes a typical evening. He’s tired. It’s been a long day and the TV experience doesn’t appeal. “Every night, I get home from work, drop onto the couch and sit there surfing the Web or watching videos on my 3-1/2 inch iPhone screen. My big-screen HDTV sits powered off on the other side of the room.”

I had no idea other people felt this way. After a work day , my Kindle Fire can be more appealing than a mega-channeled television with it’s vast capability that never seems to work right.

True, the Kindle's screen is small, but navigation is simple and quickly delivers content with a few soft touches. If I want music, I go to TuneIn radio. For news, I have a choice of several newspaper apps. I can socialize on Twitter or Facebook or watch a movie on Netflix. Or even write something in Quickoffice and stick it in my Dropbox. Apps for everything -- but at the same time, apps for one thing. Yes? And that got me to thinking ...

Quite possibly, the future of technology interface will boil down to app-alikes — these little somethings, those whatevers —that do just one thing perfectly, but connect many things simultaneously.

That's brilliant ...

... which is why we marketers should learn to think like an app.

In terms of television, for example, your "dog" app might offer a one-stop spot to watch multiple episodes of Dog Whisperer Cesar Milan being calm and assertive. Or maybe the app would connect to other dog shows on other channels ... or connect to Oprah Winfrey's list of "17 books for dog lovers" ...  Or launch a live camera feed from the local animal shelter ... or show you dog training facilities in your area.... well you get the point. A Dog app would do all that because that's how how apps (and humans) think: in scattershot bursts crawling a web of possibilities.

Bilton thinks Apple will be the pioneer manufacturer to recast television interface by connecting software, hardware, and user appetites. Maybe. But, whoever rewires TV first, the  integrated approach to satisfying user thirst already maps the way marketers should think about gratifying customer needs.

As we marketers adapt the essence of apps, we learn to connect the dots for our customers. 

Human beings seem ever more eager to search for and glom onto "interlaced customer experiences," wherein a whole set of cross-functional, cross-channel experiences send the user spinning forward to fresh "real time" connections. In fact, isn't that what Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn have done so successfully?

App-solutely.


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Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

No Registration Required, So I, Too, Must Be a Segment

A few weeks ago, HubSpot offered me a report. They had me at “Hi, Nancy,” saying:

The best-performing email campaigns don't always have great subject lines. Or email copy. Or even calls-to-action … The experts at MarketingSherpa have discovered that two specific components greatly impact the success of your email campaigns: integration and segmentation.

I loved that copy, but the REAL treat was THIS Line: Get the Report Now (no registration required).

I’ve downloaded dozens of HubSpot’s great content over the past 18 months, but this was the first time I haven’t had to register all over again.

Perhaps I’m now in a “regular customer” segment. Whatever … it was sweet. And that was just the dessert. The meat followed: The report itself had great advice about how to segment your list, including these tips:

1. Be prepared to make your case and be patient. Email researcher Michael Wexler advises, "There's a high cost to entry for classic segmentation testing; it costs more than a simple test. However, this investment helps a lot. It stems lowered results, reporting of spam, unsubscribes, and it results in higher lifetime value per name."

2.  Gather your assets, namely these three: your email database, your process for testing, and great content.

3. Collect Data. MarketingSherpa identifies four types of data : endemic data from the subscriber; transactional data, behavioral data, and computed data developed from calculations performed on one or more variables.

4. Base your segments on long-term behaviors, for example:

    a) Were your customers brand-sensitive or price-sensitive?

    b) Do customers self-segmented based on the particular product purchased?

5. Identify segmentation types, for example: geographic, product type, lifecycle, personal data (self-reported, appended or behavioral).

6. Consider a variety of segmentation approaches. Even simple segmentation by customer profile or email activity can reap considerable rewards.

7. Start with a single segment (for example, subscribers). This tactic enables marketers to manage unforeseen challenges, adjust strategy, and prove the value of segmentation before getting too complicated.

8. Treat inactive subscribers as a segment, too.

9. Keep it under control; excessive segmentation can be wasteful.

10. Leverage and repurpose content to keep up with the demand of segments.

Download the full Special Report, “How to Segment & Integrate your Emails for Better Results,” from HubSpot. 

Welcome to the Reformation of Education and Awe

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

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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Video Content Delivers Marketing Wins Across the Board

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?

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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What's Bothering the Big Boys and Girls?

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Near Field Communications Are Near

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?

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

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

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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The Spring Round-up of Cyber Assaults

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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