Relevant Engagement

Success Measure Methods

I'm constantly being asked by clients about appropriate measures for their digital efforts.

A simple framework we like to follow always has the following core elements:

1. Identify the business problem
2. Identify the specific user behavior
3. Identify the measure associated to that behavior
4. Identify and associate a value to that measure
5. Calculate the financial impact of that effort

This is in a simplistic presentation format but the approach works. 

From the looks of some recent research, basic measures applied to their marketing efforts seem to be the benchmark for measurement.

SOS: Shiny Object Syndrome is A Constant Battle

A New World Trend that we all have to wrestle with is SOS.  Sooner or later you too will be a victim of this malady.

In this business, I feel it is a good thing to take in the daily torrent of the information in "moderation."  You'll live longer, be happier and will not end up curled in a ball in your office crying because you feel out of touch with what is going on in the new world of marketing.

The good news is, the basics still seem to carry a lot of weight with your customers.

From research just published by King Fish Media, a solid Website is a must.  Second, an engagement architecture to manage the relationships with your customers within your marketing eco-system is the next element.  If you were to stop right there with those two activities (which is a lot of work) you're doing great.

Remember, to keep your sanity, keep your thinking and focus simple.  SOS in moderation.  Apply relevant elements you find on your journey to your marketing efforts and you should have a long and fruitful career.

Pineapple Bubblegum Anyone?

We're finding clients and potential customers are sometimes having trouble understanding how social media can help with their overall marketing strategy.

We decided to be proactive and create a small video highlighting some of the possibilities......ever think about pineapple flavored gum?

Signal Attenuation

Basic marketing tenet: companies need to make money and they need to listen to their customers.  How to make it all work together?

It is about Signal Attenuation: gathering all of the discussions, extracting value, quickly reducing the noise and getting to the valuable discussions.  The faster this information can get back into the the feedback management loop the greater chance the corporation has for extended success.

Social CRM - Harder Than Social Media? Maybe, Maybe Not

Social CRM: How do you plan for something more complex than Social Media?

There is a huge body of opinions today that believe there are still no real viable, clear or tangible at this point in time.

Maybe, maybe not.  I do feel that success starts with a good understanding of the business objective.  From that objective you can build a framework of issues, strategies and tactics.  Basically you develop a direction and start to catalog your options.  Based on the value and need of the business and the customer, your resources and technology investments will start to clearly present themselves.  You mitigate risk when you apply a thoughtful approach to solving a very complex issue. 

Analytical approaches that can help with your efforts:

1. Understanding the “value-to-cost” ratio (also referred to as NPV or ROI) of the project/investment or initiative.
2. Secondly, determine the volatility of the investment: make an assessment of the risk/uncertainty involved in combination with how long you can afford not to make a decision.

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Potential Reach is a Risky Sales Approach

Can't take credit for this either.  However I agree 100% with the thinking. 

Potential Reach

Nearly every video publisher, network, blogger and journalist I talk to believes this metric is misleading. But, even more than the confusion it causes, I believe the potential reach metric is hurting all players in the video business for the following reasons:

1.    "Potential reach" provides no meaningful representation of reach, access to inventory or actual business traction.  In fact, if the same methodology were applied to other sectors, any (paying) company has the potential to reach 100 million+ users in email, display, outdoor, television and radio.  All that is required to achieve this "potential reach" validation from the most trusted name in measurement is to provide a list of properties a network "works with" -- literally, that's it.

2.    "Potential reach" is confusing advertisers, agencies, clients and the press.  Yes, the people who buy video advertising do not understand the metric and don't understand the difference between potential reach and actual reach.  Why?  Because vendors use the inflated potential reach numbers as a sales tool.  This inventory Ponzi scheme is a failed strategy. Eventually, it will be uncovered, but not before all industry players have been negatively impacted.

3.     "Potential reach" is tarnishing the brand of the leading Internet measurement company.  ComScore is clearly in the forefront of video measurement, and it's in a position to champion accurate measurement.  Only two other measurement alternatives exist -- Nielsen or Quantcast.  Nielsen has yet to commit to the online video category, which resulted in an incomplete solution, and Quantcast is now selling data collected from our ads to our competitors.  We need to have faith in comScore's measurement, as this ongoing issue of potential reach is beginning to break trust with key industry constituents.

4.    "Potential reach" is hurting the video companies that are doing well.  The metric blurs the distinction between the video companies that are doing well (those with large actual reach) and the companies that are new, small or faltering (those with minimal actual reach). This results in buyers failing to understand differentiation in the market. We are a nascent category and we should be promoting our success stories, not clouding them in confusion. 

Fundamentally, we deserve better measurement solutions in our industry and we must protect the collective, long-term trust within the agency and advertiser communities. Sacrificing long-term value for short-term profits may seem attractive if you are trying to hit your quarterly goal. However, I suggest we all travel a few blocks -- from Madison Avenue to Wall Street-- so we can remind ourselves of the brand damage that be done when we mislead key customers under the guise of short-term or quarterly planning.

Again the following were excerpts, you can find the full article here: Potential Reach' Is More Than Potentially Misleading by Tod Sacerdoti , Monday, October 5, 2009

Is That a Mole or Google SideWiki?

Mole's can a clutching appendage that is annoying to anyone. 

Last week, Google announced “SideWiki” a new feature of the Firefox and IE browsers (Chrome to come soon) that allows anyone to contribute comments about any webpage. 

To me, this new feature is absolutely incredible to our business.  The scope of this feature is far reaching.  Now every Website and every page on that site becomes a social platform.

I actually had a potential client comment on this yesterday stating, "I'm not sure this activity is going to stick - we don't really pay much attention to these social tools like blogs and twitter."  Yet again, I cannot believe people like this still exist in positions of power in a marketing department.  To this client, social media is a mole.  

I found this impact breakout and thought it did a good job of encapsulating the announcement of this new feature.

Control Over the Corporate Website Is Shifting To The Customers:

1. Customers trust each other more than you –now they can assert their voices “on” your webpage. Every webpage on your corporate website, intranet, and extranet are now social. Anyone who accesses these features can now rely on their friends or those who contribute to get additional information. Competitors can link to their competing product, consumers can rate or discuss the positive and negative experiences with your company or product.
2. Yet, don’t expect everyone to participate –or contribute valuable content. While social technology adoption is on the rise, not everyone writes, rates, and contributes content in every location, likely those who have experienced the product, influential, or competitors will be involved. Secondly, content created in this sidebar may be generally useless. To be successful, Google will need it to look more like Wikipedia than YouTube comments
3. Expect Google to integrate this feature with existing systems. Google recently launched profiles, a feature that is the foundation for extending their social reach. With large social networks like Gmail already in place (That’s right, email is a social network) they can eventually sort content on SideWiki by context of friends, experts, or other sources.  Google’s strategy is to ‘envelope’ the web this is typical of their approach.
4. Although early, expect other social networks to launch competing features. Facebook has already created an ‘inlay’ so you can view links shared in the Facebook newspage in the context of your friends –expect them to grow this feature out shortly.

Reshaping Our Understanding

I've been consulting on strategic approaches for new world trends by utilizing simple steps/strategies and the importance of framing up your brand from the perspective of the customer.  The idea of reshaping our understanding has been a consistent thread throughout my years of consulting.

For this topic (in particular) I've found it best to describe these complex issues in simple ways to get broad acceptance.  As I discussed the changing tide of events with a friend of mine, she shared a great simile that worked well in my mind.

Reshaping our profession is like wanting to make a square ice cube round.  You don't hack away at the corners of the ice cube - you melt the ice cube and pour the water into a new mold.

THAT IS RESHAPING!  Take all of what we know (cause there is good stuff in our experiences) and use new techniques to solve challenges based on the world we live in today. I was very pleased to see a presentation by Clay Shirky that just nailed home some very salient issues facing marketers:

• For years we've been operating on a "lousy understandings of human behavior."
  
• TV is still a popular pastime, but the rise of social media shows people also want to produce and interact with content.
• Previous media channels did not let us engage with the medium - people couldn't interact, produce or share at the depth and speed they can today.
  
• Most instances content creators have intrinsic motivations that aren't, for example, about money.
• "We are living in the middle of the largest expansion of expressive capability in the history of media."

Go here to read more: Social Web Reshaping How Media Works

Letting go of the eyeballs

Eyeballs is about as meaningful to marketers today as they are tasty.

CMO Simon Clift delivered a message at the Ad Age conference last week that resonated with me to the core of my genetic markup.

"Brands aren't simply brands anymore. They are the center of a maelstrom of social and political dialogue made possible by digital media," said Unilever Chief Marketing Officer Simon Clift, who warned that marketers who do not recognize that -- and adapt their marketing -- are in grave peril.  "No matter how big your advertising spending, small groups of consumers on a tiny budget might hijack the conversation," he said. "So this internet thing is much bigger and more interesting than just finding successors to TV advertising."

Reading excerpts from the conference it was clear that Mr. Clift is fully aware of the environment in the marketing world today and basically outlined a cautionary tale to those in the audience (and beyond) that are thinking and acting differently.  According to Ad Age, his address did much to define an internet-driven sea change that's put consumers in control and at times threatened to overwhelm marketers and their agencies, who -- despite frequent protestations to the contrary -- are still rather partial to the idea that they define their brands.

I can't believe this is still being discussed but it is.  In my youth I discussed this very issue when the whole Mento's/Dt. Coke viral video went wild.  Doesn't fit our brand personality. 

Again, reported by Ad Age, Mr. Clift added: "brands are now becoming conversation factors where academics, celebrities, experts and key opinion formers discuss functional, emotional and, more interestingly, social concerns," and "of course, the conversation is no longer one way or 30 seconds. ... You may want to talk about sport and just doing it, and the consumer raises the uncomfortable question of sweatshops."

Our industry has had a century of doing things a certain way so I understand the pain of changing, but the issue is, it is time to change or perish. 

I'm excited for my firm because our direction and intent is to help those interested in addressing the market issues head on and succeeding.  Those not interested in success need not contact me.