JD Anderson Blog

7 Marketing Lessons for Businesses from the Super Bowl

2012-02-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

Running a small business is a lot of pressure. But, what if 110 million people were watching you everyday like at the Super Bowl? This is the type of stress that businesses face when they advertise by spending $3M for a 30-second Super Bowl commercial.
For some consumers, the commercials are a very popular part of the event. Super Bowl ads have produced many breakthrough moments in television and many more bombs. There are memorable commercials from the 2010 Super Bowl like Betty White for Snickers and the Old Spice Man, and 2011 Super Bowl's Doritos. But there have been many more horrible ads like Pets.com sock puppet.

So without spending millions of dollars, what can your business learn by watching Super Bowl commercials?

1. Bring a cliché to life (Snickers). The advantage of cliché’s is that everyone immediately "gets" them. The danger is in having your marketing become part of the cliché itself. Snickers brought the cliché of your friends comparing your effort on the football field to that of an old woman by showing Betty White on the football field. The tagline - "you are not you when you're hungry." It was a moment most guys can relate to and used humor to bring home their overall strategic message for the candy bar ... which is that it conquers hunger.

2. Make your competition the bad guy (Comcast & Teleflora) - Comcast had an ad featuring an overeager Verizon rep ready to bring out the heavy machinery to rip up your front lawn in an effort to install their new Fios lines. Teleflora poked fun for the second year in a row at their competitors who send flowers in a box. What both ads managed to do is give the viewer a very clear portrayal of the bad guy (ie - their competition) and therefore positioned themselves as the far better choice as a result. A relatively straightforward marketing tactic that is applicable no matter what your marketing budget happens to be.

3. Tap the cultural zeitgeist (Audi) - For Audi's ad touting their new A3 (a "green" environmentally friendly car), they showed a vision of a world where the "green police" were a real group. For anyone who has had a passionately believer in all things green as a friend or colleague, this concept of the green police is very recognizable. With the increasing attention from all angles (the media, your friends, your kids, etc.) on being green, all you need to do is make one simple choice to get the A3 and you'll be travelling in the faster green lane on the road and give yourself a "get out of jail free card" in relation to the environment. A powerful message.

4. Be the statement your customer makes. (Dodge & Flo TV) - I wrote on my own blog this week about the recurring theme in this year's Super Bowl of the "emasculated man" who is portrayed as having little of his own will left after giving up much of it to his wife/girlfriend. This is, of course, a caricature of men, however the more interesting marketing strategy is that both Dodge and Flo TV positioned their products as the "last stand" that a man can make to keep his manhood. In other words, buy a subscription to our service or get our car and you will be a man again. See how the power of making a big statement works?

5. Appeal to your customer's ego (Dove & Cars.com) - In stark contrast to the concept of the ads in #4, both Dove and Cars.com presented a much more positive portrayal of today's man. Dove pitched their product to men who are "comfortable in their own skin" and Cars.com used a child prodigy/man-of-the-world character to show how even renaissance men need help with buying a new car. The lesson from both was that sometimes you can also use the ideal vision of themselves that your customers have to position your product as the enlightened choice.

6. Don’t risk everything at once. In small business marketing, it is far safer and more effective to spread your bets by testing many different marketing methods. Homeaway.com took a big risk for a small company running their second Super Bowl ad this year. For your small business, it is far more effective to take patient interim steps. After your company has learned what works and doesn’t work in your marketing campaign, plot the next step. With limited capital, small businesses can’t afford the risk of a “one and done” strategy.

7. Track how the marketing tactic performed. Most companies have a variety of things they do to promote their business. Spending money on marketing is worthless unless your business knows what worked and what did not work. It is essential to get feedback on all aspects of your campaign. It is simple with today’s technology to ask the consumer in the targeted segment to go to your website or use a social media tool to judge results. The Ford Focus commercial encouraged the audience to cheer on their team online and “Watch, Compete, and Win."

Advertising Is A Poison -And We're Hooked On It

2011-10-27T06:01:00.001-06:00

This article is by George Monbiot and appeared on The Guardia

We think we know who the enemies are: banks, big business, lobbyists, the politicians who exist to appease them. But somehow the sector which stitches this system of hypercapitalism together gets overlooked. That seems strange when you consider how pervasive it is. In fact you can probably see it right now. It is everywhere, yet we see without seeing, without understanding the role that it plays in our lives.

I am talking about the industry whose output frames this column and pays for it: advertising. For obvious reasons, it is seldom confronted by either the newspapers or the broadcasters.

The problem was laid out by Rory Sutherland when president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Marketing, he argued, is either ineffectual or it "raises enormous ethical questions every day". With admirable if disturbing candour he concluded that "I would rather be thought of as evil than useless." A new report by the Public Interest Research Centre and WWF opens up the discussion he appears to invite. Think of Me as Evil? asks the ethical questions that most of the media ignore.

Advertising claims to enhance our choice, but it offers us little choice about whether we see and hear it, and ever less choice about whether we respond to it. Since Edward Bernays began to apply the findings of his uncle Sigmund Freud, advertisers have been developing sophisticated means of overcoming our defences. In public they insist that if we become informed consumers and school our children in media literacy we have nothing to fear from their attempts at persuasion. In private they employ neurobiologists to find ingenious methods of bypassing the conscious mind.

Pervasiveness and repetition act like a battering ram against our minds. The first time we see an advertisement, we are likely to be aware of what it's telling us and what it is encouraging us to buy. From then on, we process it passively, absorbing its imagery and messages without contesting them, as we are no longer fully switched on. Brands and memes then become linked in ways our conscious minds fail to detect. As a report by the progressive thinktank Compass explains, the messages used by advertisers are designed to trigger emotional rather than rational responses. The low-attention processing model developed by Robert Heath at the University of Bath shows how, in a crowded advertising market, passive and implicit learning become the key drivers of emotional attachment. They are particularly powerful among children, as the prefrontal cortex – which helps us to interpret and analyse what we see – is not yet fully developed.

Advertising agencies build on this knowledge to minimise opportunities for the rational mind to intervene in choice. The research company TwoMinds, which has worked for Betfair, the drinks company Diageo, Mars, Nationwide and Waitrose, works to "uncover a layer of behavioural drivers that have previously remained elusive". New developments in neurobiology have allowed it to home in on "intuitive judgments" that "are made instantaneously and with little or no apparent conscious effort on the part of consumers – at point of purchase".

The power and pervasiveness of advertising helps to explain, I believe, the remarkable figure I stumbled across last week while reading the latest government spreadsheet on household spending. Households in the UK put an average of just £5.70 a week, or £296 a year, into savings and investments. Academic research suggests a link between advertising and both consumer debt and the number of hours we work. People who watch a lot of advertisements appear to save less, spend more and use more of their time working to meet their rising material aspirations. All three outcomes can have terrible impacts on family life. They also change the character of the nation. Burdened by debt, without savings, we are less free, less resilient, less able to stand up to those who bully us.

Invention is the mother of necessity. To keep their markets growing, companies must keep persuading us that we have unmet needs. In other words, they must encourage us to become dissatisfied with what we have. To be sexy, beautiful, happy, relaxed, we must buy their products. They shove us on to the hedonic treadmill, on which we must run ever faster to escape a growing sense of inadequacy.

The problem this causes was identified almost 300 years ago. In Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, the hero remarks: "It put me to reflecting, how little repining there would be among mankind, at any condition of life, if people would rather compare their condition with those that are worse, in order to be thankful, than be always comparing them with those which are better, to assist their murmurings and complainings." Advertising encourages us to compare ourselves with those we perceive to be better off. It persuades us to trash our happiness and trash the biosphere to answer a craving it exists to perpetuate.

But perhaps the most important impact explored by Think of Me As Evil? is the one we discuss the least: the effect it has on our values. Our social identity is shaped by values which psychologists label as either extrinsic or intrinsic. People with a strong set of intrinsic values place most weight on their relationships with family, friends and community. They have a sense of self-acceptance and a concern for other people and the environment. People with largely extrinsic values are driven by a desire for status, wealth and power over others. They tend to be image-conscious, to have a strong desire to conform to social norms and to possess less concern for other people or the planet. They are also more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression and to report low levels of satisfaction with their lives.

We are not born with our values: they are embedded and normalised by the messages we receive from our social environment. Most advertising appeals to and reinforces extrinsic values. It doesn't matter what the product is: by celebrating image, beauty, wealth, power and status, it helps create an environment that shifts our value system. Some adverts appear to promote intrinsic values, associating their products with family life and strong communities. But they also create the impression that these values can be purchased, which demeans and undermines them. Even love is commingled with material aspiration, and those worthy of this love mostly conform to a narrow conception of beauty, lending greater weight to the importance of image.

I detest this poison, but I also recognise that I am becoming more dependent on it. As sales of print editions decline, newspapers lean even more heavily on advertising. Nor is the problem confined to the commercial media. Even those who write only for their own websites rely on search engines, platforms and programs ultimately funded by advertising. We're hooked on a drug that is destroying society. As with all addictions, the first step is to admit to it.

7 Things to Do When the Media Gets it Wrong

2011-10-25T06:39:00.002-06:00

It’s one of the most asked questions in media training sessions: “Should I ever freeze a reporter out?”

When I hear that, says Brad Phillips president of Phillips Media Relations, I immediately think of a scene out of The Godfather or Fatal Attraction, complete with horse’s heads and boiled bunnies. I imagine my clients suddenly appearing as caped crusaders, known by names like, “The Wronged Spokespersons,” who exact their revenge on unfair journalists by “rubbing them out.” But freezing out a reporter is a dramatic step, and it often backfires. After all, don’t you think a company is guilty when a newscaster says, “We contacted representatives from the Huge Corporation, and they refused to return our calls?”

So, before making a decision to blacklist a reporter, here are some remedies that may solve your problem:

1. Show it to a neutral party. It’s an age-old truth: The closer you are to a news story, the more likely it is you will think it’s a negative story. Ask neutral parties to read, listen to, or watch the story and give you their views. Often, you will be surprised to find that the message you hoped would get through to the audience got through.

2. Talk to the reporter. Remember, reporters need access to sources to do their jobs, and good reporters are willing to hear their sources’ objections to a story (they may not agree with you, but they usually listen). Call the reporter, and ask if he or she is on deadline—if so, ask to schedule a time to call back. When you speak, remain polite regardless of his or her response. You will get a better reaction to a discussion about objective factual errors than subjective differences of opinions.

3. Write a response. In print journalism, you almost always have forums available to you for a response, such as a letter-to-the-editor or op-ed. If it’s an option, use it. Don’t repeat the original errors in reporting, since it just gives those errors more airtime—just articulate your point of view.

4. Speak to the editor. If you’ve gotten nowhere with the reporter, it may be a good idea to raise your objection with the reporter’s boss to insure he or she is aware of your complaints. Who knows? Perhaps you’re the fourth person to complain about the same reporter in a week. There is a downside here: no one likes to be complained about, and the reporter may take it out on you through future news coverage.

5. Respond with statements only. If it has become abundantly clear to most independent observers that the news organization in question is irrevocably biased against you or your organization, you have two choices: cut off all access, or respond with precision. It is almost always recommend the latter option, which means sending a short written statement in response to a reporter’s query.

6. Cut off all access. The only time you would consider cutting off all access is when you can honestly say that there is nothing to be gained by speaking to the reporter. Those cases may exist, but they are rare. Most of the time, good media management means finding solutions to working with the press—not avoiding them altogether.

7. Use social media. Cutting off access doesn’t mean you stop communicating. Instead, use social media to continue communicating with your key audiences—through all available channels, including your company website and blog, and your corporate YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

Should a Brand Use Social Media?

2011-10-20T05:58:00.000-06:00

Should a brand be on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter? The answer depends on context. The phenomenon that is social media has meant that many brands or businesses want to leverage it – in many cases before they understand it. There’s a brilliant quote by Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist at Google that sums this eagerness up:

Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s done, they’re surprised it’s not better.

As with any other medium, we don’t recommend you dive in head first without knowing your audience or what you want to achieve.

Take Twitter for example. It was founded in 2006 as a fun and casual way to share your thoughts with others around the world. But as one of the co-founders, Biz Stone, admitted in a recent interview with The Age (25/02/10), Twitter is no longer considered fun and casual, but has changed to being a real-time “information network for discovering and sharing information”.

People seek instant information and Twitter gives it to them. It broadcasts information succinctly and quickly to those interested in your brand.

Two brands that have been hugely successful using Twitter are Starbucks coffee and Dell computers. Why? Because they follow the basic principles of engaging with their fans:

1. Understand the environment
Twitter is about contributing. It’s about being part of a whole. It’s an extension of one’s own brand. So don’t expect the majority of followers to interact with you. A 2009 study by Heil & Piskorski showed that 90% of the content is generated by 10% of users, but that does not mean that the majority aren’t listening or letting others know.

2. Add a return for investment
Dell computers have used Twitter to offer their followers exclusive offers and have reportedly generated US$6.5 million in sales as a result. Both Starbucks and Dell also listen to their followers about how they can improve their products and customer experience.

3. Dedicate resources
Twitter is a real-time broadcaster of information, so if you are receiving customer feedback, positive or negative, you must be able to respond promptly to be seen as credible. Again, the two examples here do a brilliant job.

Which brings us back to the question – should a brand use social media?
Yes, if it fits a strategy to expand the brand online, to get people talking about the brand, generate awareness, seek out ideas and look for opportunities to improve customer support.
No, if there aren’t enough resources to dedicate or if the commitment to the network isn’t genuine.

How To Get Consumers To Buy Your Product After Looking At The Print Ad

2011-10-18T05:10:00.003-06:00

It may be tempting to use attention-grabbing visuals in your print ads, but research shows that if you go too far, as Budweiser did in this ad, readers will remember the visual and not the product

On average, readers only spend about 2 seconds looking at a print ad. Given the short amount of time you have to grab their attention says Francesca Pefianco, a marketing analyst, it’s important that any ad you create 1) grabs the reader’s attention, and 2) encourages them to buy your product or service.

Most print ads are composed of a strong visual, a headline, body copy and a logo or signature. But producing a great print ad isn’t as simple tossing these elements together. There are several do’s and don’ts that are essential to creating effective print ads:

DO:
Agree on your SMART goals. Your objective should be more than to simply “increase sales.” Get more specific with your goals, such as to “increase lunchtime store visits by 30% in 3 months” or “drive 15% more customers into our retail locations over the course of 60 days.” Specific goals are called SMART goals, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic and Timebound. Design your ad around SMART goals and be sure to hold yourself accountable to them.
Hook the reader within 2 seconds. On average, readers only spend 2 seconds looking at a print ad. It’s important to use visuals and headlines that cause the reader to stop and look at your ad. Headlines that evoke an emotion from the reader are more likely to catch the reader’s attention. Using white space and bullet points in an ad have both proven to stop readers in their tracks and produce a higher response rate as well.
Use high-impact visuals. In the 2 seconds a reader takes to look at your ad, 1.5 seconds are dedicated to visuals while only 0.5 seconds are spent looking at your copy. Use bright, clear images to promote your product. Research shows that people recall photographs 26% more than artwork and are more likely to look at an ad where the subject’s eyes are looking directly at you. That said, your visuals should always support the concept of the product or service you’re selling. Using attention-grabbing visuals just so you can stand out can have a negative impact on your brand.
Put strategy before creativity. Many advertisers sacrifice targeted content for witty or appealing messages. Even if it would be interesting to use a cartoon to advertise your product, would that really be appropriate in an ad about fine jewelry? Think about where your ad will be printed as well. The message you might want to use to sell your orange juice will be different in a local newspaper than it would be in a specialty magazine.

DON’T :
Don’t stuff your ad with too much information. Less really is more. Too much copy or too many images can actually cause the reader to skip the ad because they feel overwhelmed. In most cases, brand-oriented ads should only use one or two images, have a one-sentence headline and keep the copy to four sentences or less. (There are exceptions to this rule such as when you’re running a promotional/retail ad. But if you’re running a branding ad, it’s a good idea to keep your ad clean and uncluttered.)
Don’t force unrelated connections. It may be tempting to use a funny visual of a baby with food all over its face in your ad, but if your ad is for a new desktop computer, the audience might not make the connection. Worse yet, research indicates that when an association in an ad isn’t clear, the audience will forget about the product and simply remember the funny visual — in this case, the baby with food all over its face.
Don’t create negative associations. You might think its clever to compare your energy drink to a cheetah, but the second you mention that a cheetah hunts and kills its prey, the audience automatically applies that association to your product. It’s difficult to avoid some negative associations when using analogies in your messaging, but think through all of the possibilities before printing your ad. In the same vein, try to forgo offensive or stereotypical associations in your message. What may be funny to one person might enrage another and forever damage your brand image.
Don’t let your brand disappear. It’s not unusual for a brand to disappear in a print ad. When the integration is stretched or when your logo and signature are not prominently displayed, people can forget what product an ad was about entirely. Be sure to place your brand’s logo at a readable size in one of the corners of your advertisement.
When crafting a print ad, compose your elements in a way that’s eye-catching, creative, thought-provoking and positive. Be sure to avoid clutter, negative association and bad integration. Print ads are still a prominent form of advertising and can be an incredible tool for your marketing when done correctly and effectively, so use these tips as guidelines the next time you create an ad for your product or service.

5 Tips on Crowdsourcing Content for Marketing

2011-10-13T06:47:00.001-06:00

Content is an essential vehicle for corporate storytelling, attracting and engaging customers to buy, Lee Odden blogs. Organizations are beginning to get that, but struggle with content sourcing and how to scale. Besides hiring an editorial staff complete with corporate journalists, one of the most valuable sources of content for online marketing comes from your brand’s community.

Tapping in to what customers care about related to your products /services and what your brand stands for can be a gold mine of meaningful content. Here are 5 of those tips with some additional commentary based on discussions with audience members at a recent SES San Francisco conference:

Interviews. Raising questions is one of the most basic ways to crowdsource content. The method to employ depends on the desired outcome. Asking the community for suggestions of whom to interview and what questions to ask is a great way to get people involved. Interviewing industry thought leaders provides the brand’s audience with unique content and creates a positive association between the “brandividual” and the company.
Example: Tapping multiple industry thought leaders for their definition of “content curation” for a blog post that received substantial distribution and return visits.

Social Q&A. Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn, and sites like Quora can provide very useful platforms to present questions and attract answers from a variety of people. Of course, your intent needs to be clear and permission for reuse should be obtained before republishing. Those familiar with the Q&A communities can word questions to attract replies from specific influentials who might not otherwise respond to a content participation pitch via email.
Example: Posting a question to LinkedIn related to the “shift in direct marketing budgets to digital“, that received great quality responses and over 30 comments on the post.

Contests Resulting in Content. Examples of contests in which consumers produce their own videos and share images abound on the social web. Search engines love any kind of content, especially text.
Example: In the past, Marketing Pilgrim ran a great contest for a search marketing scholarship. The articles written by contestants drive traffic to Andy’s website and also become content on it. To top it off, the articles were compiled into an e-book.

Comment Feedback Loop. One of the most meaningful ways for a community to engage with a brand is through comments on a company blog. Asking readers to participate in a dialogue by commenting can result in content that is better than the original blog post. Brands can then recognize blog commenters by drawing attention to the “best of” comments through a separate blog post or in a newsletter.
Example: See TopRank’s Online Marketing Newsletter for an example of this in action, where comments are curated into a section called, “What the Online Marketing Blog Community Has to Say”.

Book Authoring by Community. Reaching out to industry experts to share their insights as part of a larger project, such as a book in print or an eBook can be very effective.
Example: Author Michael Miller did this with Online Marketing Heroes, of which I was a part. He interviewed 25 successful marketers; the results of those interviews became the book published by Wiley. Numerous companies have connected with industry thought leaders for content and compiled the responses into an eBook. A good example is Jay Baer’s – Staggering Social Media Insights: The Best of the Twitter 20 eBook.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg for creative content crowdsourcing ideas. Each industry and community is different and with quality analysis and creative ideas, organizations can accomplish content creation objectives as well as better engaging and growing their social networks.

Have you overcome content creation and scaling issues by crowdsourcing? What creative content sourcing ideas have you implemented? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Social Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

2011-10-11T05:46:00.002-06:00

Does your business engage in social media? Then you must have a social CRM strategy: How can you integrate social collaboration functionality with your existing systems? How do you staff your SCRM efforts? How do you transition from listening to engaging in conversations, and which ones should you engage in? How do you get the results of those conversations into your CRM system? Start with understanding the following.

1- Google Is Your Friend
One of the great CRM questions is, "how do I find out where my customers are talking about me?" The big social media standard bearers -- Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn -- are obvious first thoughts, but often customers congregate on smaller sites that are more narrowly focused on their vertical markets or their unique interests.

Discovering these rich niches of often-intense conversation could prove far more lucrative than relentlessly panning in the waters of Facebook or Twitter for a nugget of discussion about your business. So how do you find these smaller, specialized channels? Do you need to throw significant cash at it? Is there a tool you can buy that will magically reveal these social media mother lodes?

You can surely blow a lot of dough on technology to find them, but before you do, make your task easy: plug in the name of your company, the names of your competitors, or keywords that pertain to your business into Google Search. It'll return results for those terms and, with a little digging, it should reveal many of the significant smaller social media channels where people are talking about you.

2- Make Sure To Show Up At Your Own Party
These days, online marketing pieces and company websites have lots of little Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media icons strewn about their landscapes inviting customers to click on them to friend, connect or subscribe to them. It's remarkably easy for designers to add them to their pages, and it's also remarkably easy for marketing managers and other executives to tell designers to add them to their pages.

Unfortunately, it's not quite so easy to recognize that when you plaster an icon on company content, you're making a commitment to be part of the conversation -- not just when the content is published, but for as long as that standing invitation is open to the public. If you're going to tell people to follow you on Twitter or Facebook, then you'd better be there for them.

Don't start inviting people to your Facebook or LinkedIn page or to follow you on Twitter unless you plan on having a real, ongoing presence there. And, for heaven's sake, don't invite them to a customer community of your creation if you don't have a genuine commitment to maintaining and participating in that community.

Engaging haphazardly is worse than not engaging in the first place, because it asks the customer to do something and then fails to honor that action. Customers get the same level of non-communication, even though they have actively done something extra to get it.

3- Once You Go Social There Ain’t No Coming Back
One of the terrifying things about social media is that it takes control of the company message away from designated spokespeople and distributes it around the company. Especially when people love their jobs, their blogs, tweets and status updates may be chock-full of information that the company may not want in the public sphere yet.

This isn't happening because employees all over the world have decided to maliciously divulge important material or to sabotage marketing efforts, said Greg Gunn, vice president of business development at HootSuite. It's happening because most companies don't bother to educate their employees about how they should talk about the business on social media.

So tell them. Unless you include them in the company's understanding of how social media should be used in discussing the business, don't be surprised if they say things you don't want them to say.

For example, for competitive reasons, it's not OK for the engineers at a software company to blog about new, revolutionary features before they are announced. Do they know that? And do they know the date when the project they're working on will be announced? If they do, then you could effectively multiply your marketing efforts, with your traditional marketing being supplemented by the blogs and tweets of your developers.

Here's a non-technology example: Marketing creates a new, official name for an incentive program, but the sales department fails to get the word, and the socially active people in sales continue to use the old name, creating confusion among the customers and, ultimately, the impression that internal chaos reigns inside your business. Did sales get the memo -- not just about the name change, but about how the program needed to be referred to in all circumstances, including on social media?

Companies need to realize that everyone in the business is potentially a source of company information in the social era. You must help them deliver a controlled and coherent message about your business, and that entails keeping everyone inside the company informed about marketing and messaging plans. It also means making them aware of the importance of bringing things they learn through their conversations back to the business when appropriate.

So make sure you have a sound strategy in place before jumping into social media. Make sure all your employees are aware of the dos and don’ts you have put in place. Most importantly, make sure your internal communications are clear and followed. If you have any questions let us know.

What You Can Learn From Apple To Market Your Store

2011-10-06T06:07:00.012-06:00

The Apple store turned 10 this past May celebrating a spectacular and surprising success. Back in 2001 when the first two stores opened in Tysons Corner, Virginia and Glendale, California, it seemed like a crazy and desperate idea, writes Peter Gorenstein, financial blogger.

Critics asked, "why would a technology company like Apple open a brick and mortar store when the future of commerce is moving online?"

"Literally half the store is devoted to solutions because people don't just want to buy personal computers any more. They want to know what they can do with them," was Steve Jobs' answer, in a video presented at MacWorld just days before the first grand opening. Like so many of his decisions over the last decade Jobs was right.

Today, with its 300 stores across the country, and more than $9 billion in retail sales last year, Apple is arguably the most successful retailer on the planet based on sales per square foot, says Peter Gorenstein, finance writer.

According to a recent MacWorld article Jeweler Tiffany & Company's $2,700 per square foot used to be considered the gold standard, but Apple has surpassed Tiffany, generating more than $4,000 in sales per square foot. By comparison, Best Buy's sales per square foot is about $1,000, and Walmart's is about $400.

Apple has been able dominate at a time so many other retailers are struggling or have gone out of business, due in part to Apple's iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac and iTunes offerings.
Remember Virgin, Tower, and all those independently owned music stores? You might, but your kids may not. They've been buying music on iTunes and using their iPods for as long as they can remember.

Many suspected electronics giant Best Buy would benefit when its top rival Circuit City went under. That hasn't happened. Best Buy has reported three straight quarters of declining same-store sales, including a 5.5% drop in U.S. stores in the last quarter.

Borders filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last winter but Barnes & Noble isn't likely to see an increase in business, what with Amazon and the iPad and all the tablet copycats popping up. Meanwhile, direct competitors like Microsoft and Dell have had little success with their retail stores. It's unlikely fans of either will be lining up outside their doors when the next version of Windows is released.

The lesson Apple offers is to give customers a chance to interact with your product, test it out and ask questions. Going to your store should be an experience for your customers regardless of the product you sell. The more time customers spend in your store, the more comfortable they will be with your product and the more likely they will be to buy.

Green PR

2011-10-04T06:32:00.001-06:00

Ever wonder how much energy you use every time you google something? Of course you have, says Greg Menken, VP of Sustainability at Beckerman PR. Google reports that the energy used by the company (not your computer) per average search is about 1kJ (0.0003 kWh). To put this in perspective, Google says the CO2 emissions of a newspaper is the equivalent of 850 searches, that of a glass of orange juice, 1,050 searches, and so on. But multiply that 1kJ by hundreds of billions, and you need a lot of energy.

In response to growing scrutiny of such high energy use by the tech sector, many companies are looking to economize their data center operations, hoping to save cash, ease criticism, and win customers. While it is true that an online search is greener than a trip to the library, it is also true that many technology companies, and their data centers, have developed reputations as energy hogs. Reports indicate that data center electricity use more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, and is expected to double again by 2011, climbing to as much as 10% of all energy use in the U.S. by 2020.

According to Greenpeace, if considered as a country, global telecommunications and data centers would have ranked fifth in the world for energy use in 2007, behind the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Kent Garber of U.S. News and World Report says that with increasing concern about greenhouse gases, server farms are attracting the same kind of "furrowed-eyebrow" examination as other major energy users. Environmental groups are applying pressure on data center-heavy technology companies to make their data centers as green as possible. Even Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to study private and federal data center energy usage.

As reported in Distributed Energy, the industry is trying to improve its energy consumption reputation. Eaton, a power management company to data centers, has recognized that its customers are increasingly demanding that their centers be designed with maximum energy efficiency. Fairly or not, "Data centers have gained such a reputation as energy hogs. That's not a good thing to have, PR-wise," says Ed Spears of Eaton.

Greenpeace v. Facebook is a good example. Whatever your opinion of Greenpeace, this year it launched a "Facebook loves coal" type of campaign to pressure the company to use renewables to power its new data centers. The group claims that 500,000 of its own Facebook friends engaged in the campaign. True, Mark Zuckerberg is no poorer, but the company has been forced to address the issue.

Partly in response to consumer interest in green, many companies are beginning to green-up their data center operations, often as part as an overall sustainability strategy. Yahoo's new data center near Buffalo, N.Y., for example, is designed to maximize air circulation (important for cooling) and will get energy from hydroelectric facilities. Microsoft is using retrofitted shipping containers to house servers at its new Chicago data center. The container architecture requires much less energy to cool the systems. HP, ranked among the most sustainable companies in the U.S., recently built a data center in the U.K. in a cold climate that uses outside air to reduce cooling costs.

More than good PR, these innovations are being driven by economics. According to Eaton, energy costs for cooling and operating a data center have gone from about 10% to as much as 60% of some companies' entire operating budgets. Microsoft saves 30% in operating costs at its Chicago center and HP's U.K. center saves the company $8 million a year -- critical cash flow in a down economy.

Whether it's PR or economics that drive green, both will continue to play an important role in the energy and environmental decisions that technology companies make. Says Bill Kosik of HP, "The business case for green could just as easily include increasing market share by taking an aggressive stance on minimizing the impact on the environment as it could include tactical upgrades to optimize energy use." Sustainability will always be driven first and foremost by economics but, as Kosik says, tech companies would be mistaken not to realize the PR and marketing value of sustainability as well.

Marketing to Multigenerational Audiences

2011-09-29T06:00:00.001-06:00

A key to successful engagement in public relations is to provide meaningful content that also takes into account the evolving habits, preferences and values of today’s multiple audiences. One useful way to define those audiences is to understand how members of each group have been influenced by the era in which they were born and raised, and how their experiences growing up have shaped their view of the world says BurrellesLuce PR agency.

Identifying Generational Markers
While there is some debate as to the start and end dates of each generation, these are the generally accepted demarcations usually associated with each American age cohort:
* The Silent Generation or Traditionalists (born late-1920s through 1945)
* Baby Boomers (born 1946 through 1964)
* Gen-X (born 1965 through 1980)
* Gen-Y, or Millennials (born 1981 through 1993)
* Gen-Z, or Generation Next (born 1994 through 2004)

Winning Tactics for Communicating With Multigenerational Audiences Today
1. Understand your audience by demographic. Determining the gender, age, and other key characteristics of your core audience is the first step in building an effective campaign. By working with other departments within your organization, you should be able to construct a clear picture of your target market and be confident that you're proceeding in the right direction. Even a little research can go a long way when getting to know your audience.

2. Consider audience traits in shaping messages. Take, for instance, Gen-X and the ramification of communications via geo-location sites such as Foursquare—understanding the distinctive preferences and values of each group can help you form messages that are precisely aligned with each constituency.

3. Avoid unexamined assumptions about an audience’s preferred media channels. It’s risky to assume that all members of a generation would rather receive, say, an email instead of a phone call, even if their generation is perceived as preferring one over the other. Instead, begin to build your own library of research (including customer surveys and testimonials), which can be a more reliable guide to the preferences of your target audiences.

4. Identify the generations most responsive to calls to action. It may be that you are aiming a product promotion toward Gen-X, but it is really the Baby Boomers who are the most responsive. Rather than continue to push the brand on someone who isn't interested, recalibrate the campaign to focus on those who are listening and engaging.

5. Look beyond generalizations. While some Millenials, for example, seem to need more attention and praise than, say, members of the Silent Generation, there are always exceptions to the generalizations. Gen-Yer Kristin Piombino, editorial assistant for Ragan.com, challenges people to move beyond "millennial myths and stereotypes" in this article. "We don’t want you to treat us differently than anyone else in the office or look at us like we’re another species," she states. "We just want your respect, and a chance to prove ourselves."

Indeed, respect and being heard are really what any audience or person wants, regardless of generation or industry. You must truly listen to your audience and view your constituents as individuals with specific needs—and not just another set of data—to enhance the conversation and foster engagement with important communities across multi-generations.

Netflix Teaches a Valuable Lesson in Social Media Marketing

2011-09-28T05:58:00.001-06:00

If you are a successful online movie streaming service with a DVD rental wing, are facing incredible pressures from competition and changing technologies and need to increase your prices and differentiate your service then it’s only natural that you will be using social media marketing with every breath, right? Well, umm…maybe not. This is a lesson Netflix simply forgot to take into account says online strategist David Amerland.

When Netflix decided to change its name to Qwikster not only did it lay itself open to just about every joke you can imagine concerning the company’s literacy but it also, it seems, forgot to trademark the name and did not check to see if the name was available in social media. The result of the oversight is nothing less than disastrous. Qwikster, is a handle already owned by a Twitter user who has a joint-smoking Elmo (the Sesame Street character) as his avatar. The account belongs to a student by the name of Jason Castillo, whose Tweets around recreational drugs, sex, games and music have a surreal, hypnotic quality all of their own and are a world apart from the mundane concerns surrounding the renting of DVDs or the streaming of movies.

Without a trademark on the name and with Jason Castillo actively posting, Twitter can do nothing to make him close his account or hand it over. Amusement aside, this illustrates first, that even a company like Netflix, which in many ways ‘gets’ the web, has not yet made social media marketing part of its DNA. Second, that the moment you take your eye off the ball and forget that we live in an age where social media is pervasive and capable of creating a massive boost or being an unforeseen hurdle, that’s when you are most likely to stumble.

Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO recently had to use Google’s social network, Google+ to apologize to Netflix users for the rise in Netflix prices and also explain why it was necessary and why the company had no option but to do it. He also posted an apologetic note on the Netflix blog. His opening confessional tone aside, it is clear that had there actually been thought put into social media as a valid means of communication from the very beginning, Netflix would now not be in hot water with its users nor would it be the butt of jokes concerning the pot-smoking Elmo’s Tweets.

Here are some lessons taught by Netflix’ social marketing faux pas:

1. Use the social media channel correctly. Social media is a communication channel first and foremost. Marketing on it is incidental and incremental, requiring a lot of effort for relatively little appreciable return. Communication however is instant.

2. Make communication with your public a core activity. Do not treat social media communication as something you bolt on as an afterthought. Social media is about creating transparency and a two-way conversation. Try to use it as a new form of Press Release and it is likely to explode in your face.

3. Create a dialogue. Does any company have a 100% grasp on its customers? They all work with a marketing persona in mind, yes they all have a certain demographic profile they operate with and yes, again, every company has some idea of the age-range and income of its core customers, but all of these figures make sense only when viewed from a distance. You’d be pressed to find a single person who precisely fits any demographic, marketing persona or even age-range income combination (though, it has to be said the latter is usually the ones which come closer because of their built-in imprecision). To suddenly have the ability to really talk to customers on a daily basis about what they like and dislike concerning your products and services is something which last century we could only dream about.

4. Be enthusiastic. Communicating like there is a gun being held to your head hardly makes for successful online communication in any channel. This is the real-time web! There are great opportunities to utilize social media correctly. Do it like you really care.

5. Respond to feedback. There is no point in saying you are listening if your behavior shows you are prepared to do nothing about it. You have to show what you are prepared to do and why when you take no action that is the right thing to do.

6. Show you are human. You may be corporate. You might be a one-man operation. You might, even, be part of a large conglomerate worth over $7 billion a year. If you are not prepared to put a human face to your communications, admit mistakes, explain faults and give well-reasoned arguments for everything, the only thing you’ll do is manage to alienate your customers.

Social media is still new. Communicating with customers is not. However, the latter has always been governed by what has been possible to communicate through the channels. We should expect many more mistakes to be made in the near future but as we learn from each one, the excuses for us getting our social media strategy wrong will at some point begin to wear a little thin.

6 Tips to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Banner Ads

2011-09-27T06:11:00.001-06:00

When searching the web, you probably have come across your fair share of banner ads, most of which you don’t even notice and many you find intrusive or annoying. Can you recall the last banner ad that you saw? How about one you actually clicked on?

The average click through rate from banner advertising on the internet is 2.1%, says Brittney Smith, Marketing Analyst for the 60 Second Marketer. You want viewers to not only see the ad, but also to interact with it. In order to boost the effectiveness of your online advertising, take a look at these six tips to help get you the response you’re looking for:

1. Make it quick. Gaining the attention of the viewer occurs within the first few seconds they glance through the webpage. The message needs to be kept as simple and concise as possible. Shorter ads will be easier for the consumer to remember.

2. Location, Location. Your banner will fade into the background of the page if the message is not relevant to the audience viewing it. Targeted placements are crucial if you want to reach people who will be receptive to your message. Be selective where you buy ad space. A successful response does not include a 16-year-old boy clicking through on your banner ad directed towards mothers.

3. Intrigue your audience. Using simple animation can increase your response rates by 25%. Adding a bit of creativity to the ad can go a long way. If you have the proper resources available, consider using rich media, with sound and other special effects, to set your ads apart from the rest of the clutter. Make sure the animation or images are useful, not annoying, to consumers. “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.”

4. Develop follow-through mechanism. If you are looking for a specific action from your users, be sure to create follow-through mechanisms that lead the consumer where you want them to go, whether that is the company’s homepage or a landing page specific to the banner.

5. Test your banner ad. The most important factor in the effectiveness of a banner ad is to test and optimize across several fronts. The performance of your banner ad can vary greatly from one design to another along with the size and placement within the website. Be sure to constantly monitor the ad once it has been placed.

6. Keep consistent with your campaign. Your banner ads should not simply be a one off, but be integrated with your overall marketing campaign. Banner ads need to support and tie in with your other marketing such as email and direct mail.

Banner ads can be a useful addition to your ad campaign, but a futile venture if they do not expose the brand to users or drive them to action. When creating banners, consider the users’ interests and what you want the end goal to be. The performance of your banner ad can always be improved through revision and if used properly can be an effective tool. Banner ads can offer a layer of interactivity to the consumer that they do not get from traditional media. Users can spend minutes interacting with these ads, so make each second count!

Minority Youth Media Consumption

2011-09-20T06:05:00.015-06:00

Minority youth spend more than half their day consuming media content, a rate that's 4.5 hours greater than their white counterparts, according to a Northwestern University report. Television remains king among all youth, but among minorities who spend 13 hours per day consuming media of various types, electronic gadgets such as cell phones and iPods increasingly are the way such content gets delivered, the report found.

"Children, Media and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic and Asian American Children" was touted by researchers as the first national study to focus exclusively on children's media use by race and ethnicity.

Minority youth media consumption rates outpace their white counterparts by two hours when it comes to TV and video viewership, approximately an hour for music, up to 1.5 hours for computer use, and 30 to 40 minutes for playing video games. In the past decade, the gap between minority and white youth's daily media use has doubled for blacks and quadrupled for Hispanics.

The study acknowledged that technology is a structural part of modern society but said the numbers suggest that young people are settling for a sedentary lifestyle and risk further exacerbating ongoing problems such as child obesity. Increased parental involvement, including limiting usage time and monitoring content, could mitigate those concerns.

The report analyzes by race data from the 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation Generation M2 study on media use among 2,000 8- to 18-year-olds and the foundation's 2006 Media Family study on another 2,000 children from birth to 6 years old. It did not chart the type of programming youth were consuming nor did it offer final conclusions. Young people in all groups read for pleasure 30 to 40 minutes a day, the only medium that no difference was found between minority and white youth.

Other findings include:

- Minority youth spend 3 hours and 7 minutes per day using mobile devices to watch TV and videos, play games and listen to music. That's about 1.5 hours more each day than white youth.

- Traditional TV viewing remains most popular. Black and Hispanic youth consume more than three hours daily; whites and Asians more than two hours.

- Access to TiVo, DVDs, and mobile and online viewing increase television consumption to 5 hours and 54 minutes for black youth, 5 hours and 21 minutes for Hispanics, 4 hours and 41 minutes for Asians, and 3 hours and 36 minutes for whites.

- Black and Hispanic youth are more likely to have TV sets in their bedrooms (84 percent of blacks, 77 percent of Hispanics compared to 64 percent of whites and Asians), and to have cable and premium channels available in their bedrooms (42 percent of blacks and 28 percent of Hispanics compared to 17 percent of whites and 14% of Asians).

- 78 percent of black youth, 67 percent of Hispanic, 58 percent of white and 55 percent of Asian 8- to 18-year-olds say the TV is "usually" on during home meals.

- Black children under 6 are twice as likely to have a TV in their bedroom as whites, and more than twice as likely to go to sleep with the TV on.

- Asian youth spend more time in recreational computer use: Nearly 3 hours a day compared to 1:49 for Hispanics, nearly 1.24 for blacks and 1:17 for whites.

How to Make a 3D YouTube Video the Easy Way

2011-09-15T06:08:00.001-06:00

3D is no longer exclusive to movie studios. If you can scrape together two camcorders, some sticky tape and access to a hooked-up computer, you’re just a few steps away from making your own three-dimensional cinematic works of art, says Amy-Mae Elliot of Mashable.

This is largely thanks to YouTube‘s free online 3D Editor suite. Mashable spoke to Samuel Kvaalen, YouTube software engineer who helped develop the product. Kvaalen told why the video-sharing company created the tool in the first place: “The idea was trying to make creating 3D videos accessible to as many users as possible in a simple, easy manner.”

So is it really easy to make your own 3D YouTube video? After a quick walk-through of the software with Kvaalen, Mashable tested it out. Here’s the super-simple, step-by-step look at how to shoot and edit a three-dimensional video.

1. Shooting

As far as hardware goes, you’ll need two cameras, ideally the same model, although you can use any two that can record at the same resolution. You’ll also need some way of holding them together and some 3D glasses so you can edit and view the final result.

They used two Cisco Flip MinoHD pocket video cameras. They separated them slightly with Blu-Tack in order to reach the power button on the side of the camera. Be sure to use a ruler or other straight surface to ensure the camera’s lenses are at exactly the same height.

Once you’ve got your cameras lined up, you need to attach them together. They simply wound masking tape around the bottom of the cameras to hold them in place. Think of it as recording separate footage for your left and right eyes. This is the basic principle behind how 3D technology actually works.

With that set-up complete, you’re ready to go. What to shoot is, of course, up to you, although Kvaalen has some pointers to share. “You don’t want to film objects that are too close — you want to try and keep it at a decent distance — a few feet away is ideal,” says Kvaalen. In addition he suggests keeping the camera as stable as possible. This will yield the best results. Finally, try and press record at exactly the same time on each camera.

2. Editing

Once you’ve shot your footage, signed into your YouTube account and uploaded your two videos, head over to YouTube’s 3D Editor. It looks similar to the ordinary YouTube Editor, but you’ll see tabs on the bottom right that relate specifically to 3D editing. You can now drag and drop the two clips that you want to use to the “left” and “right” boxes.

The first thing to do is get the time sync right. Whereas this used to be done manually with editing software, the 3D Editor does it for you. Kvaalen explains: “You want to start filming with both cameras at the same time but that’s pretty much impossible, you’ll always have at least a few milliseconds off, so this uses the audio to sync them automatically.”
By “listening” to the audio from the videos — even just ambient sound — the Editor will be able to accurately time sync the two videos.

Next up is vertical alignment. Kvaalen offers some more advice: “Users should bolt the cameras together so they don’t move relative to each other, or “vertically shift,” but there is usually a small vertical difference in height. This tool lets a user manually suggest a vertical shift percentage.” As far as attempting a guess estimate the shift, they just kept tweaking until it looked right. Start at plus or minus 10% and keep going until you get the best result.

Finally, once you are happy with your video in the preview window, you can add a title in the top right hand box and publish it. After the video processes (usually a couple of minutes) you’ll have a shareable 3D video to impress your friends!

3. The Results

To view one of their test videos in 3D, you’ll have to grab your 3D glasses, but even if you can’t find a pair, they can report we were happy with the results.

With relatively little hardware and a pain-free editing process, YouTube’s aim of making 3D video creation simple, easy and “accessible to as many users as possible” has been achieved with the 3D Editor. There will be a lot of YouTube users having lots of fun with this 3D tool.

Have you used YouTube’s 3D Editor? How did you find it? Let us know and link us to your creations in the comments below.

Reinventing the Newspaper: Part 620

2011-09-13T06:15:00.003-06:00

To date, the print newspaper’s relationship with the Internet has been a little bit like Dr. Jekyl’s learning to live with Mr. Hyde: On the one hand, enormously powerful; but on the other, quite difficult to control, and pretty easy to have turn against you, says blogger Nate Hubbell. And in recent years, the traditional newspaper has more often than not found itself on the receiving end of Mr. Hyde’s more destructive side.

The popular way of fighting back for larger newspapers and print magazines, if they have the brand
recognition and readership base required to support it, has been to launch a so-called “paywall” – basically a digital subscription – for their online content. Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, Wired, The New York Times -they’ve all got a paywall of some design erected around their Web content now.

In the main, all of these paywalls have been examples of the newspaper and magazine companies trying to apply their print business model to the digital age. Very few, with the possible exception of The Daily, have tried
to really break the mold and do something completely different.

The New York Times has launched a new section of their website, called beta620 (the 620 refers to their headquarters’ building number in Manhattan, NY), which appears to approach the idea of the newspaper in 21st
century from a truly fresh perspective.

As GigaOm noted, the site itself has the feel of a startup, “with the lower-case beta620 label, and a series of quirky images that identify the different projects underway at the NYT.” And, indeed, it does have somewhat
of the same goal in mind. The projects underway are explained quickly, and the lead developer of the project is given direct credit for the idea right on the page. Additionally, at least for the time being, all the apps on the site are free to try out – much like the give-it-away-free-at-first-to-get-them-hooked strategy of many Internet and social startups.

The new site is a great attempt by the newspaper company to actually innovate and move the industry’s model forward. In my humble opinion, we find some of the ideas very cool, especially the Longitude app, which shows
news stories’ geographical origin and spread overlaid on Google Maps; and Buzz, which puts a “filter” over the normal NYT.com site appearance to show the extent to which each story is being shared and generating “buzz” across various social networking platforms.

Of course, we have no way of knowing if this new startup-like path is the future for newspapers. But, for our money, it seems like a good idea, and at least they are trying something new. We’re certainly interested. And that’s really the point.

Paying for Followers is as Icky as Paying for Sex

2011-09-08T05:23:00.002-06:00

Peter Shankman

There are certain things you don’t do in this world: Abuse an animal. Make any attempt to get any TSA official to smile. And also, you never pay a consultant or company to acquire new Twitter followers for you. They’re not real, and they won’t help you in the long run says Social Media Entrepreneur Peter Shankman.

By itself, the number of Twitter followers you have is the new penis envy. If that sounds familiar, it should – I’ve said it before. But with new “consultants” popping up all over the place guaranteeing you “2,000 new followers in 30 days” in exchange for your credit card number, I believe it’s time to revisit the subject.

1) Quality will always trump quantity. I’ll take 500 interested, engaged, active, and contributing-to-the-conversation Twitter followers over 50,000 from whom I never hear back any day. In fact, (and I mentioned this before, too,) when I have some occasional free time, I’ll DM some followers I’ve never heard from before, asking them if I can change anything to make their experience of following me more beneficial. If I don’t hear back, or if they continue not to respond to anything I tweet, I no longer count them as a “real” follower in my mind. In some cases, I’ve suggested that some followers unfollow me, and based on what they’re tweeting about, follow other, more relevant Twitter users, instead. It’s never about the amount. It’s about the engagement of those you
have.

1a) – Remember –By default, high engagement from the followers you do have almost guarantees new followers daily, since they’ll be people who have seen your current followers engaging you – thus, they become interested in what you have to say. This is the best kind of follower, an organic follower. Getting organic
followers should always be your goal, because they’re born from you tweeting interesting and exciting content. I can guarantee you that paying for followers will not generate one single organic follower. Expecting it to is like
expecting a prostitute to want to come home the next morning to meet your family. There’s no reason for them to, since it was always a business transaction, and nothing more.

2) Here’s the number one, time tested, best way to get new, organic followers: Respect the followers you currently have! My favorite line of all time, and I say it often: Having an audience who actually wants to listen to what you have to say is a privilege, not a right, just like wearing Spandex. You have the privilege of having an audience who wants to engage with you, and you must respect that. That means listening to what they have to say more than you ask them to listen to you. It means holding contests and giving away free (quality) product or discounts to the audience you currently have, and not insulting and ignoring them by holding weekly “our next follower/fan gets a free thingamabob!” contests. You’ve worked hard to have the right to talk to the audience you have. Why would you, as soon as you get them, ignore them, looking for the next one? It’s like those people we’ve all met at networking events: As you’re introducing yourself to them, you can’t catch their eyes, because they’re
already scanning the room for the next possible introduction who they think might be better than you. Insulting as hell, isn’t it? Well, by constantly focusing on trying to get that next new follower/fan and not giving props to the ones you have, you’ve become that guy to your audience. Don’t become that guy.

3) So the logical question then becomes “well, if you’re telling us to only focus on the followers/fans we have, how do we attract new ones?” And it’s a valid question, with an even more valid answer. Your job is no longer to do your own PR. For years, it was. For years, you were the one charged with shouting from the rooftops how totally awesome your company was, and getting people to listen and believe you. Those days are over. That’s no longer your job. If you’re still doing that, you’re wasting your time.

Your new job is simply thus: Create such amazing experiences for your current customers and audience, with stellar customer service, amazing response to them, and spectacular content tailor-made for the audience you already have, and your current audience will take over your job AND DO YOUR PR FOR YOU!

Think about it – Your audience, if treated beyond well (think awesomely,) will go out and share how happy they are with their audience, and well, simply put, chances are, that’ll convert some of their audience over to you, and you’ve got an organic follower, who’s so much more likely to turn into a paying customer for you.

It’s no longer about you having to shout about your awesomeness. It’s about allowing an audience who for the first time has the tools to do it themselves, to go out and do it. And you’re not asking them to – you’re not begging – you’re not asking them to “vote for your page,” or any of that crap we see so often. You’re simply offering such an amazing service, product, and in the end, full experience, that they do it on their own, because they want to share their story.

Think about the last time your flight was late. Remember when you finally landed? You and everyone else on the plane pulled out your mobile phones and bitched. Didn’t matter who you called, you just needed to bitch about the craptastic service you got, and how you were never flying that airline again. But then, think about the last time you had an awesome experience. You did the same thing, without even realizing it. You shared it. You talked about it. And you did it without being prompted. You wanted to talk about it. You wanted your friends,
those people who put their trust in you, to have that same amazing experience. You wanted to build organic followers for the company or brand that made you feel like a superstar.

That’s what we need to be striving to do. Not trying to get to a “number” or fans of followers. Not pulling out the tape measure. We need to focus on being amazing, in all aspects of our business. When we figure that out, it won’t be a numbers game anymore. It’ll be about your business growing. And in the end, a business that grows,
and generates revenue, and is profitable… Well, I’ll take that over a thousand new followers every single time, and so should you.

Advertisers’ Cookies: 'Do Not Track' Goes Live, Gets Slammed

2011-09-06T05:14:00.001-06:00

An organization of Internet advertisers took steps this week to protect Web surfers' privacy, but the system may be more bark than bite, reports Matt Brownell of MainStreet.
Third-party advertisers regularly use information gathered from your browsing and buying habits to target you with relevant ads -- think, for instance, of how many times you've visited an online retailer, then noticed the retailer's banner ads following you around the Internet. That's raised some privacy concerns among many users uncomfortable with advertisers knowing their habits in such detail.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, whose members are responsible for 86% of online advertising, has proposed a self-regulatory step in which advertisements would contain a "do not track" button as a means of disclosing the tracking mechanism and giving users the ability to opt out. Monday was the deadline for the members to join the program and comply with the rules.
Privacy advocates aren't convinced, however.

The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog said Monday that the "Advertising Option Icon" doesn't qualify as a "do not track" feature, as it allows users only to opt out of being tracked by the companies participating in the program. Also of concern was the fact that the opt-out action would remain in place only until the user cleared his or her tracking cookies -- something many privacy-conscious people do on a regular basis.

Perhaps the biggest objection, though, is that any self-regulating system will be ineffective in the absence of actual government enforcement.
"This industry program is another example of the failure of self-regulation to protect consumers from unwanted monitoring of every move they make on the internet and their mobile devices," said Carmen Balber, Washington director for Consumer Watchdog, in a statement. "Action by Congress and the FTC to require a 'Do Not Track Me' option is crucial for consumers to gain control over their own information."

It's not the first time we've heard that refrain in reference to Internet tracking. Earlier this year, when Microsoft's Internet Explorer joined Mozilla's Firefox in implementing a tool that would let users automatically disable tracking, we noted that both browsers rely on voluntary compliance by the advertisers.

The question, then, is whether such mandatory compliance will take place. When the Federal Trade Commission proposed a "do not track" option back in December, it said self-regulation could be sufficient. But its tune may be changing: Earlier this month, an FTC commissioner expressed his belief that more compulsory regulations may be necessary to force advertising companies to disclose their practices and give consumers a way to opt out.

If the industry's new attempt at self-regulation does indeed prove ineffective, those calls could grow louder.

Mobile Advertising's Battle of the Sexes

2011-09-01T05:28:00.009-06:00

Leslie Horn writes in PC Magazine Men aren't from Mars, and women don't hail from Venus. But it appears men prefer Android and women tend toward BlackBerry, according to a new infographic from Inneractive that analyzes the differences in mobile advertising among males and females.

Inneractive reports that men tend to click on ads more frequently than women. Men have a click through rate (CTR) of 2.73 percent versus a CTR rate of 1.65 percent for women.

The company also takes a look at the top app categories used by either sex. The top three apps for women are entertainment, social, instant messaging apps, and brain and puzzle apps.

For men, the top three are sports, arcade, and action, and card and casino apps, Inneractive's infographic shows.

"It is understandable that men and women prefer different types of apps," the graphic reads. "What is even more interesting is the different return that developers generate based on the app category."

For example, women are almost six times more likely to click on ads within entertainment apps than in social and IM apps. This means the eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions, or how much it costs to show an ad 1,00 times in an app) is higher for entertainment apps.

Men, however, click through ads at the same rate in the top two app categories for their gender, making the eCPM the same for these categories as well.

Inneractive also broke down the different operating systems each gender favors.
"When analyzing the gender of our users based on OS, we found that most platforms were split down the middle," Inneractive says. "Most, but not all. Android, we found, has a dominant male user-base and BlackBerry was just the opposite, mostly female."

Apple was found to be very close to an even split, with 49 percent female users and 51 percent male. Symbian reported the same stats.

Android, however, is 39 percent female and 61 percent male, and BlackBerry is 59 percent female and 41 percent male, Inneractive says.

The 7 Social Media Marketing Essentials for Brands and Companies

2011-08-30T06:02:00.001-06:00

Social media is changing in front of our eyes. It can be easy to become distracted by all the new technologies and some people don’t know where to start or how to make a difference with their social media marketing.

With that in mind, Niall of Simply Zesty agency, created a list of seven key areas that we think all businesses and brands should be spending their time on. Yes the headings are broad and there are a hundred things you could be trying within each section but if you improved your company’s performance across these 7 areas you would start to see real tangible results. It can be easy to get caught up in all the hype and move from one platform to another trying to follow the trends but have a little focus, hone in on these clear goals and you will be in a far better place…

Internal Communications
The tools are available to help improve how you talk to each other within your company. Companies that communicate well internally will more often than not have far better results. Try out Yammer, Convofy, SocialCast, Campfire, Facebook groups or instant messaging tools like Skype or Google chat to get the best out of your company. The smart companies are adding a social layer to their entire business and putting as big a focus on internal communications as external comms. Make sure that your company has excellent social media guidelines to allow staff to talk about where they work and the benefits of working there. The days of control where upper management decided what was projected in to public domain about your company are long gone and every single one of your staff now have a voice thanks to social media.

Branded Content
It’s not enough trying to create engaging updates or throw up the odd picture on social media channels. If you are really serious about engaging with a community you’ll need to start thinking about branded content and how to seed it within the communities that you have access to. This could be anything from videos and websites to blogs or podcasts and the most important thing about branded content is creating something that the consumer has genuine interest in. We all know how to filter ads out these days and the savvy consumer is looking for new ways to engage with brands. Content should be at the very center of everything you do and spending time and money developing branded content is a route most brands and businesses should be going down. Now you won’t have their budgets for creating content but it’s an important part of social media now and one your company should be trying to engage with.

Stunning Customer Service
There is no reason why you should’t be talking to your customers in this day and age. The tools are there from Twitter and Facebook to Linkedin or forums and the smart brands are talking to their customers and solving problems to build positive word of mouth. The businesses doing this well are actually being proactive via social media channels and finding the problems and putting out the fires before they go any further. The upside of creating advocates through stunning social media customer service is that they all have the power to tell 100s of friends about their positive experiences. Being proactive and engaging with your customers on 3rd party channels rather than waiting for them to come to you is the key.

Ignore Facebook At Your Peril
Websites come and go. Look at Myspace and Bebo as classic examples. Many think Facebook will have a similar fall from grace one day and that we will move on to the next big thing but to think like that would be foolish. You need to think of Facebook not as a website but as a platform which will become as important as the internet or Google itself. Facebook is starting to force its way on to websites, it’s being built in to the core of mobile phones and soon you’ll be buying stuff through there and it will influence search results. Facebook is not going away any time soon and while you should always have a broad approach and not have all your eggs in one basket, spend a decent percentage of your time and money marketing via Facebook. It’s only going to get bigger and more important.

Transparency
It’s getting harder and harder to spin a story about your company that is not accurate or glosses over the truth. Brands and businesses have to be more transparent than they ever have in the past. Consumers and the man in the street have as much say in a brand as people working within the company. It’s a seismic shift away from the days when control was key and the message could be tailored to suit the goals of the company. There have been countless social media disasters and many of them arise from companies trying to bend the truth or cover something up. Social media is bringing a whole new level of transparency to business and for the consumer that can only be a good thing.

Adapting To Technology And Being Nimble
Trends change in social media circles quicker than you could imagine. While it is important not to jump from trend to trend without achieving anything it’s also important to be nimble and have your marketing strategy evolve over time. In the past placing an advert in a newspaper was always pretty much the same process but marketing on Facebook can change from week to week as the platform evolves. Twitter doesn’t even have an effective ad platform yet but chances are you could be using it next year. You need to look at new platforms like the tablet computer which, although less than 2 years old, is creating a seismic shift in our online habits. These new technologies and platforms seem to come out of nowhere and they can change entire industries within a year so be nimble and evolve your strategy because consumers might not always be in the same place.

Mobile Mobile Mobile
If you don’t have some sort of mobile strategy for your business or brand then you better start moving fast. Consumers are moving away from newspapers and magazines and embracing smart phones and tablets. Have a look around at other people on the next bus or train you are on and you’ll see people peering in to their mobiles. People are finding deals on the go and they are researching products on their mobiles. We’re only at the very start of this journey and as tools like location aware advertising and local deals take hold over the next year it’s clear that you would be a fool if you hadn’t at least started to put some thought in to the area of mobile.

NASCAR and the Pentagon: As American as Apple Pie

2011-08-25T06:27:00.009-06:00

The battle over spending continues to rage on Capitol Hill and while Republicans are keen to take an axe to the budget, one interesting item was spared: The Army’s sponsorship of NASCAR. The House gave the green light for that sponsorship to continue, rejecting an amendment that would have blocked the Pentagon from using taxpayer dollars for NASCAR ads.

The Army spends more than $7 million a year to sponsor NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Ryan Newman and several million more as part of a partnership with NASCAR. It says the prominent ads on the car and presence at the track help attract recruits.

Over the last decade each branch of the military has had a partnership with NASCAR. But now just the Army, Air Force and National Guard continue to sponsor teams - the Marines, Navy and Coast Guard dropped their own NASCAR sponsorships in recent years.

Perhaps the ads are working. Military recruitment is surging - the waiting lists to sign up are currently longer than they have been in recent years which could be a result of several factors: the still-struggling economy, high unemployment rate and the post-9/11 GI Bill, that pays for education and housing for family and service members who have served at least 90 days and were honorably discharged.

Recently NASCAR revamped its business and marketing model to reach new and younger audiences hoping to increase track attendance and TV ratings. NASCAR's audience had steadily eroded over the last four years due to a variety of circumstances, not the least of which was alienating its longtime, hard-core fans with a variety of changes: later starts to appease West Coast viewers; altering its rules that made for safer, albeit less exciting racing; as well as a tepid economy, rising ticket prices and skyrocketing gas prices.

The new integrated-marketing communications department has focused a good part of its attention to the critical 18- to 34 year-old demographic, using social media to help organize college viewing parties; developing a dedicated youth website; and promoting young drivers such as surprise Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne (age 20), Joey Logano (21) and, starting with the Nationwide Series Kroger 200 race this Saturday, action sports star Travis Pastrana (27). It is also expanding its outreach for branded entertainment in TV, films and music videos, and taking a deeper dive into the burgeoning Hispanic market with the creation of more Spanish-language content.

The Army saw an opportunity to leverage NASCAR’s strategy into a recruiting tool so it sank some serious advertising dollars into drag racing. They wanted a driver to be all he could be for them, personable with a heavy foot on the gas, as passionate for what the Army represented as he was for squeezing every nano-second out of his Top Fuel dragster. The Army’s sponsorship places an impetus among young fans that sharpens the focus and dedication, the idea being that a military branch active in a foreign theater provides more of a motivation than, say, selling auto parts.

The Army has maintained a presence in NASCAR since 2000, through direction from Congress itself. NASCAR, of course, is one of the most popular spectator sports in America, and if the Army wants to attract more people, then—stereotypes aside—there aren’t many better places than stock car racing.

All Publicity Is Good Publicity

2011-08-23T05:51:00.025-06:00

Any brand will tell you that the pinnacle in publicity is to have your customers be your brand ambassadors since word of mouth is cheaper than any advertising campaign. Recently we encountered two situations (no pun intended) where this premise was put to the test.

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino doesn't usually require a lot of motivation to lose the shirt. But Abercrombie & Fitch wants him to go one further — the company offered to pay a "substantial payment” to "Jersey Shore" cast members to stop wearing clothes carrying their brand because the series is "contrary to the aspirational nature of the brand. We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image," the retailer said in a news release.

It may seem strange that a brand that employs half-naked models to stand outside its flagship stores and courted controversy with racy catalogs has come out with such an aggressive campaign against the hard-partying cast of "Jersey Shore." But the audacious approach is getting the teen retailer tons of publicity during the crucial back-to-school season, the second biggest shopping period of the year. The CEO says it's having fun with the ploy, and marketing experts say the company may wind up laughing all the way to the bank. "It's free marketing. Because the approach is so ridiculous, everybody's talking about it," said Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi. Most companies spend millions paying movie stars to wear their brand, but Abercrombie & Fitch flipped that model on its head.

Peter Shankman, social media entrepreneur and self-described steak lover, was on a flight to Newark when he jokingly tweeted the following:

“Over the past few years, I’ve developed an affinity for Morton’s Steakhouses, and if I’m doing business in a city which has one, I’ll try to schedule a dinner there if I can. I’m a frequent diner, and Morton’s knows it.” said Shankman who insisted that he was merely joking and had no expectations from that tweet. But lo and behold! Next to his driver waiting at the airport was a Morton’s representative carrying a Morton’s bag with a Porterhouse. Shankman was so pleased and surprised that he tweeted out what happened to his 100k followers --some of whom wondered if it had been staged (was not) and if this would have happened if Shankman had had only a few followers.

Shankman credits Morton’s “spectacular” Customer Relations Management system and social media team (they know his mobile number) for going above the call of duty to make a customer happy. “Customer service is no longer about telling people how great you are. It’s about producing amazing moments in time, and letting those moments become the focal point of how amazing you are, told not by you, but by the customer who you thrilled. They tell their friends, and the trust level goes up at a factor of a thousand. Think about it: Who do you trust more, an advertisement or a friend telling you how awesome something is? We live in a world where everyone you meet is a broadcaster. Look around. Think of all your friends, all your colleagues. Do you know anyone anymore who doesn’t have a camera in their phone, or anyone who doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account?” Shankman said.

All this raises the question -- what are you doing with your brand that flip-flops the norms the way Abercrombie & Fitch did or that transforms your customers into brand ambassadors?

How To Do PR without Looking like You're Selling Something

2011-08-18T04:44:00.003-06:00

Valeria Maltoni writes on her blog:
People flee sellers, especially in a bad economy. Public relations was born and thrived for many years on the wave of mass media - newspapers, television news, and magazines, for example. It's quite logical to think that if you get someone else to talk about how great your company is, then you are much more likely to gain public trust. Gaining trust helps you sell your products better.

In a connected world, citizen journalists will also begin and continue to gain credibility and trust. While the demands for news of so many online communities continues to grow, we're already seeing many start to view certain bloggers and peers as filters.

By definition, public relations is the art and science of establishing relationships between your organization and its key audiences. You gain exposure to groups and individuals by using useful topics and timely content directly and through third parties, while no money exchanges hands.

I associate PR closely with branding, they're both about behavior and reputation, sort of the organization infrastructure on top of which sit applications like sales and product development. In that light, then, how do you do PR without looking like you're selling something?

What do you want from PR?
Decide what kinds of relationships you're looking to develop and also what kind of behaviors you're willing to exhibit. When people talk about transparency, what they're really looking for is if you'll do what you say you'll do. That will be the starting point for a strategy.

What resources are you willing to commit?
I find by far the greatest challenge organizations face today is that of committing resources to developing relationships at the Grail of leads. The biggest opportunity companies are missing is internal. Do you have a network inside your organization? Whenever I ask this question at events where I speak, no hands go up. Why? Something that is seen as long term with (potentially) no fast results in the short term.

People answer that it's not their goal to chat up someone in development, for example. Let's not kid ourselves, people, a) if you want to become valued, you need to make the time to mingle with many in the organization at different levels to gain insights into what they know and what your role could be, and b) if you want to build relationships, you need to be in it for the long haul.

Set goals
How are you going to get there? Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. If you set them up that way, you'll be able to track how you're doing achieving them. To help with goal setting, start with understanding the people you're trying to reach. What are they looking to learn?

Execute
This is usually where the best laid out plans fall apart. If you run a search, you will find that the terms business strategy give you 7.9MM entries (I use inverted commas) and business execution only a little more than 88k. Why the disparity? Everyone likes to be a strategist, yet the money is in the execution - and that's where the hard work is, too. Execution is not making lame pitches on Twitter.

Re-evaluate goals in light of interim progress
Since we're talking about a long term strategy, it's a good idea to check in on goals frequently so you can adjust your aim and activity mix. I find deltas helpful - two columns, a) What did we do well? b) What could be done better? In much new media the feedback is instantaneous, and public. You'll be able to capture it, if you're listening.

Execute some more
When you deal with the community in a new media space, thus mostly public, demonstrating you learn from feedback gives you major props at the moment. There will come a time when etiquette will be understood, and you'll be held to much closer scrutiny over not respecting the time and attention people and their communities give you. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The Web presence of the future is composed in thirds - community building, marketing, and editorial impact. This diagram will hopefully help you see the intersections.

On demand means as pulled by the community or people, when they decide they want it, which doesn't necessarily mean real time. The other two are fairly self-explanatory.

And let's not ever forget that just because we may be trying all these new technologies and adopting them, our customers or the people we're working to build relationships with are, too.

Focusing on the Social, Minus the Media

2011-08-16T04:25:00.006-06:00

Jenna Wortham writes about her own experience with social media in the following article from The New York Times:
The scene unfolding at the Thai restaurant in Brooklyn was like that of any other casual dinner party. A small group of people sat around a wooden table, passing large dishes of spicy red curry and fried rice, drinking cold beers and swapping war stories about apartment hunting in New York. But the twist was this: Before about 8 that evening, none of us had met before.

My newfound friends came courtesy of a Chicago start-up business called Grubwithus, an online service with the seemingly modest aim of bringing strangers together to have a meal. The concept is simple enough: People browse through a list of dinners in their cities and buy tickets, usually for around $25. Before the event, they can share a few online tidbits about themselves with their dining partners, a precautionary measure against awkward lulls in conversation and a way to ease fears about meeting up with a bunch of unknowns. For example, Eunice, one of my dining mates, wrote in her profile that she was a young nurse who loved to shop and travel.

But the service has deeper ambitions. It is using contemporary techniques to foster a kind of social networking that predates the dawn of services like Facebook and Twitter: old-fashioned conversation among casual acquaintances, without keyboards and screens.

Academics who study how we socialize online say that even in an era of almost nonstop communication across a bevy of platforms, in which so many millions of us are just a few clicks away from one another on the Web, people still crave the intimacy of face-to-face meetings.

People worry that “online contact and networking might replace offline interactions, but offline is still so precious that we’re creating ways to bring offline even more front and center,” said S. Shyam Sundar, a director of the Media Effects Research Lab at Pennsylvania State University. “Physical proximity plays a big role in terms of building relationships.”

Mr. Sundar noted the contradiction of a new generation of services that rely on the ubiquity of social networking to prompt contact that the Web calls IRL, or “in real life,” sometimes known as the real world. People are using social technology to feed their need to meet up and close the gap between all the social networking that they do from a distance.

Grubwithus, which began organizing group dinners last August, says that more than 10,000 people have registered with the site. It’s hoping to turn the concept of social meals into a full-fledged business. Grubwithus helps the restaurant coordinate the menu for the group for the night and then charges a service fee to the restaurant; the amount varies by meal.

It has already sold a handful of prominent venture capitalists on the concept of social dining: the company raised $1.6 million in financing earlier this year from Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, among others.

Of course, there is no shortage of ways to connect with the people you already know or have recently met. LinkedIn, Facebook, Hashable and Foursquare, for starters, have gained momentum and traction for exactly that. The challenge here is to come up with a way of gently expanding that network, something that clubs, ice cream socials and schools have done for generations.

Before the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, it may have been easier to strike up a conversation with a fellow commuter or to exchange pleasantries with another solo diner or drinker. And while that certainly has not vanished, the presence of soft glowing screens may get in the way of casual connections.

Other entrepreneurs have noticed this distinctly modern quandary and are coming up with applications to deal with it. Sonar, for example, is a new mobile application that combs a user’s connections on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare and alerts them if they have any friends in the vicinity.

One of Sonar’s founders, Brett Martin, says the company wants to leverage the dozens, or even hundreds, of connections that many people have already made online and see if they can use those to form new, meaningful friendships.

For example, when you turn on the application and check into a movie theater in your location, it pings you — letting you know that a guy named Joe and you share several Facebook friends, and that Joe is lingering nearby. You are given the option of messaging Joe to see if he wants to organize a quick meeting.

Of course, there is also something to be said for not becoming overly dependent on technology. Do we really need the Web to make new friends? My first instinct is to say no — that the most interesting people I’ve met have been through serendipitous and random encounters while traipsing around a new city.

But after our Grubwithus meal wound to a close — four hearty courses and two hours of entertaining chatter later — we trooped into the thick night air, lingering on the sidewalk, shaking hands and saying our goodbyes. Promises were made to keep in contact and plan a reunion meal. I couldn’t help but ask: would we really all keep in touch after this?

Nicolae, a young, bright-eyed entrepreneur, paused on his descent into the subway, smiled and said: “Of course! We’re all on the Internet.”

2011-08-11T05:12:00.001-06:00

People love a good anecdote. From hieroglyphics to song lyrics to a favorite novel, the well-crafted story is arguably the most effective means of communication to motivate change and pass along history. If an individual can tell a good tale, they have the ability to command the attention of others. Same goes for a business, says Scott Esmond, Director of Business Development at Red Door Interactive.

However, the modern expression of this ancient art is far more complicated than the days of pen and paper. The present digital age means individuals can Tweet, Skype, blog, Facebook and IM at any moment of the day from almost any platform. In a marketplace filled with competing and often confusing messages from companies and products, one of the only remaining ways to truly stand out is through one cohesive voice.

A cohesive content strategy is an effective tool to facilitate and simplify storytelling on the web. It’s the delivery of fresh and relevant information to a specific group so they can be actionable. In today’s world, content covers everything from a press release to video to a website; essentially anything you can produce that’s consumed. The practice, previously reserved for web designers and usability testers, is fairly novel and gaining momentum among marketers and mainstream business because it’s just that efficient and targeted.

With effective content strategies, companies large and small can be rewarded with increased customer loyalty, increased brand equity and a perception of leadership in their market. So when launching a content strategy for your online presence, make sure that you follow these seven steps to make sure your story is both heard and appreciated.

Do a content audit of the business. Every company has a voice – whether they work at it or not -and managing it starts from the inside. Identify what type of content is available and what should be updated. Look beyond just your website and include any off-site content (user reviews, organic search listings, social profiles and posts) as well as marketing, sales and PR content. Begin gathering opinions from your own staff, then reach out to the public to reveal any discrepancies between perception and reality. It can be a daunting task, but agencies like ours can help guide you through the process.

Designate a content strategy leader. Put one central person in charge of managing the process. This individual is responsible for keeping the content up-to-date, managing editorial calendars and delegating tasks. It’s essential that a skilled, trusted employee is the point person for company information every day. If your leader is not already an expert, some good learning sources include Junta42.com and copyblogger.com.

Be timely and relevant. This quote sums up the importance of timeliness; “Good content capitalizes on an opportunity in the life of the content’s consumer.” Such information is fed by what’s going on with a company’s brand, what’s going on with the media and what’s relevant to the customer. Try and gain information from the audience, ask them directly what type of content they want, and then follow through and provide what’s applicable to their lifestyle. Much like a relationship, it’s important not to just talk about the company all the time.

Assign contributors. Once the state of environment, audience, and content has been identified, it's time to write. This is when companies task their most talented and creative staff to help deliver to the consumer what they want. Ask that good storyteller to be the voice of the brand.

Make it easy for customers to share. The quickest way companies can allow their customers to share content is putting links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare and other social media channels on their own website. Consider content your most important design element. It's imperative for companies to pay attention to content placement and ensure its consumable, not hidden or lost to a lot of scrolling. Also identify the piece as yours, for example, a title card with your company name before a video gets set to go viral on the web.

Study, Study, Study. When it comes to content strategy, businesses should spend a good portion of time in the virtual "library." Now companies can see where visitors went before and after coming to their website and referral URLs, where people share your content. This information is readily available through Google Analytics, Facebook metrics for fan pages, and social media monitoring tools including (from free to far from free) SocialMention, PeopleBrowsr, Radian 6, and TNS Cymfony. It's also fairly easy to set up on-site surveys.

Let go of the fear. Conversations about the company's content are going to happen regardless. That's why it's helpful to provide consumers a conversational platform and engage them on your space. Should they be more active on review sites like Yelp, you should still engage and learn. Leading review sites also provide statistics that can help inform your strategy.

There are certainly a handful of companies that are grasping the concept of content strategy. REI incorporated an "expert advice" section for customers interested in rock climbing and provides them with a list of important items to pack for their trips. Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty has done an exceptional job reaching out to teen girls, presenting content that's relevant and not simply trying to sell their products.

Lastly, Vail Resorts mobilized their loyal skiers and riders to produce user generated content in their Snow Squad competition to become part of next year's on mountain social media team. The takeaway is that effective content strategy leads to effective storytelling in the digital age.

Will Books Survive eBooks?

2011-08-09T05:20:00.003-06:00

This is a post by Ned Resnikoff, researcher and freelance writer.

When you cut through all of the chaff, the debate over whether analog books are dead sounds a lot like this:

Pro-ebook, anti-book: I personally think ebooks are fine. They are also cheaper to produce. Therefore, the book is dead.

Pro-book: Hey! I happen to like books. Therefore, the book is not dead, and we should continue to pay taxes supporting our local libraries.

Those are some pretty self-centered arguments, but as a stalwart book partisan I figure the least I can do is be unabashed about my self-centeredness. I happen to like books. Therefore, the book is not dead.

Here’s the thing: I don’t have anything against ebooks. I own a first-generation Kindle, and sometimes I even use it. But it’s almost always easier and more pleasurable for me to read a book. My attachment to them is pragmatic, and not just aesthetic or sentimental (though it is both of those things as well). As Nicholas Carr writes:

Because we’ve come to take printed books for granted, we tend to overlook their enormous flexibility as reading instruments. It’s easy to flip through the pages of a physical book, forward and backward. It’s easy to jump quickly between widely separated sections, marking your place with your thumb or a stray bit of paper or even a hair plucked from your head (yes, I believe I’ve done that). You can write anywhere and in any form on any page of a book, using pen or pencil or highlighter or the tip of a burnt match (ditto). You can dog-ear pages or fold them in half or rip them out. You can keep many different books open simultaneously, dipping in and out of them to gather related information. And when you just want to read, the tranquility of a printed book provides a natural shield against distraction. Despite being low-tech – or maybe because of it – printed books and other paper documents support all sorts of reading techniques, they make it easy to shift seamlessly between those techniques, and they’re amenable to personal idiosyncrasies and eccentricities.

E-books are much more rigid. Refreshing discrete pages of text on a fixed screen is a far different, and far less flexible, process than flipping through pliant pages of fixed text. By necessity, a screen-based, software-powered reading device imposes navigational protocols and routines on the user, allowing certain patterns of use but preventing or hindering others. All sorts of modes of navigation and reading that are easy with printed books become more difficult with electronic books – and even a small degree of added difficulty will quickly frustrate a reader. Whereas a printed book adapts readily to whoever is holding it, an e-book requires the reader to adapt to it.

Maybe someday the ebook will become as versatile as the book. I rather suspect it will just become a different kind of medium with its own advantages and idiosyncrasies. The book will remain the book: disposable for some, not so much for others.

That’s all the justification I need for keeping libraries open and well-stocked. If a statistically significant slice of the population still finds it easier and more pleasurable to read a physical book than an ebook, taxpayers should accommodate them. After all, the whole reason we have libraries is to increase everyone’s ease of access to information. For quite a few folks, gleaning that information from ink and paper is still easier than squinting at a screen.

5 Tips for Using Online Video to Market Your Small Business

2011-07-28T05:28:00.000-06:00

For small businesses, getting noticed online is a challenge, particularly when competing with big brands with large marketing departments and seemingly endless marketing budgets. But more and more local companies are finding success cutting through the clutter with online video. Statistics show that video improves online visibility and drives more action online than plain images and text. For example, according to the BIA Kelsey Group, viewers engage more after watching a video, with clicks for more information increasing by 30-40% and phone inquiries by 16-20%.

Unlike the hefty price tags associated with TV advertising, online video is affordable for businesses of any size. And you don’t have to be Scorsese to make video work either, says Morgan Brown, marketing director at TurnHere.
Whether you choose to do-it-yourself or hire a pro, marketing your business with online video doesn’t end with the production. Remember, videos need to be seen. Here are a few tips to help you make the most out of your video marketing:

1. Aim for Authentic, Actionable Content
Don’t worry about stock photography, templates, or videographers who will make you look like all their other clients. Be authentic. Be personal. After all, this is your big chance to highlight your strengths and show what really makes you different. Keep the video short and the less scripted, the better — since customers are jaded by typical sales pitches and marketing buzzwords. Creating authentic video that captures the human element behind any business allows customers to connect on a personal level.

And don’t forget to incorporate a call to action. While your authentic video builds trust and drives action, viewers must be given a reason and a way to call you, visit your website, or stop by your store. Be sure to include some action path — for example, a trackable URL, a coupon, discount code, or unique phone number to call. This not only encourages viewers to engage with you, but also provides a tangible way to measure the results of your video.

2. Optimize Video for Google Search
The advent of blended or universal search has changed the search game. Search engines now display more and more videos, images, blogs, maps, and books in their results. These new search algorithms weigh video heavily, giving you a great opportunity to increase your relevance in search results (and even achieve that coveted first page ranking on Google). In fact, Forrester Research ran an experiment on the top-searched keywords and discovered that videos have an 11,000-to-1 chance of appearing on the first page of Google’s results, while text has a 500,000-to-1 chance of making it on the first page — in short, video has a 50 times better chance than plain text for getting to the top of search rankings.
Even with this incredible opportunity, many marketers don’t yet think about making their video Google-friendly. There are several simple steps you can take to optimize your online video content.

3. Add Video to Your Facebook Page
Most likely, your Facebook fans are already customers — the social network gives you the chance to strengthen existing relationships, build your brand, present special offers, as well as find some new customers as you reach into the extended networks of your current fan base. On Facebook, use video to show the human side of your company. Think fun and creative. Show a ‘behind the scenes’ peak at your office or shop. Use video to announce a new contest or special. Post video highlights of past events, customer testimonials, etc.

4. Put Video on YouTube and Other Video Sites
YouTube has quickly grown from a network of user-generated content to become an invaluable repository of content. Next to Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine, with more than 3.5 billion queries a month according to comScore. YouTube and other video sites are great vehicles to reach an audience who might not find you otherwise. Best of all, you can create a branded YouTube channel and host your videos without incurring any bandwidth costs. And don’t worry — you don’t necessarily have to create the next viral sensation to find success on YouTube. Small businesses can create valuable new relationships and build sales without generating a million views.

5. Add Video to Your Google Local Business Listing
By adding video to your business listing on Google Local, you’ll be able to tell your story and connect with those people who are looking for your products or services, at the very point in time when they’re actively researching or ready to buy. This ultra-targeted form of marketing is highly effective for driving clicks and calls. And amid a list of company names, addresses, and phone numbers, an engaging video brings your listing to life and sets you apart from the crowd.

Most Importantly – Get Started

There’s no time like the present to get started with video. While spare time is always in short supply for the small business owner, online video can be less time intensive and is relatively low cost compared with other marketing initiatives. Most importantly, video will reap dividends in both the short and long term.

How to Use Publicity to your Advantage

2011-07-26T05:59:00.004-06:00

Publicity is like any other form of marketing: You can’t expect immediate results out of the gate. Sure, it can and does happen, but a better approach is to keep it part of a long term marketing plan for the best results. Your plan must include your target market (what motivates them to buy your product or service, what media outlets they engage with to get their information, etc.) a message crafted for both your target market and the media (your message must answer two questions: what’s in it for your target market, and why should the media care) and a proper channel to deliver your message to the media. It is best to establish your short and long-term goals so you don’t chew more than you can swallow.
You may have been marketing for awhile with ok results; might have even tried social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to build relationships, gain visibility and build a client list. Now you and your business may be ready for an infusion of publicity from the mass media to start the sales rolling. Whatever your goals are (and whatever kind of business you have) learning the tools to effectively use the media will make all your marketing efforts much easier.

But before you infuse massive publicity for your business, you need to be prepared to fill out all the orders, that is, you have to be business ready. Imagine you launch a media campaign for your online business and you get 27,000 visitors only to have your website crash under the weight of the avalanche. Or you don’t have your product ready to ship when the order comes in. You get the point.

There are some publicity-getting tricks you can use for your business. If you are launching a product, write press releases that journalists will be interested in. Produce a webinar (a video that is seen on the Internet) explaining how your product works. Contact your local television and radio station and offer to be a guest on a show pertaining to your industry. Send an introductory letter to your contacts on the social media sites.

Don’t forget your website is the best place to showcase all the tricks mentioned above; and if all fails, contact us for help at http://www.jd-anderson.com target= "_blank"

To Charge For Content Or Not To Charge, That Is NOT The Question!

2011-07-21T05:59:00.001-06:00

People is the world's most profitable magazine. But People achieves its profitability by giving away more content to more readers than any other magazine. Yes, People is giving away print readership. How can they make money when they give away so much free? What can we learn from this about making money in online publishing?

Three million, four hundred and fifty thousand readers pay to read People magazine every week, and 40.08 million read it free every week. We’re not writing about their Internet readership. Three and a half million People readers don't want to miss an issue or an article. In Internet parlance, they are "highly engaged." They subscribe or buy People on the newsstand. In the magazine business we call them primary readers. There are another 40 million readers, about 10.8 readers per print copy as reported by MRI, who are somewhat less committed to People. These secondary readers probably don't read it cover to cover, and certainly not every issue. If you measured the unduplicated number of people who read the four issues of People in a given month, it would be an even higher number. These casual readers are a significant part of what makes the People franchise so valuable. Advertisers want to reach them.

Virtually every print property has multiple readers per copy -- some far more than others, points out the MediaPost. Most newspapers have more than two readers per copy, and lots of magazines have between three and six RPC because weeklies and monthlies have time to accumulate additional readers while they sit on waiting room tables or coffee tables for a week or a month or more. These secondary readers are likely to be highly engaged with an article, but not so frequently that they want to pay for a subscription or buy a single copy.

Print analogies are an irresistible way to think of online content strategies, But let's get them right. One false analogy that has been perpetrated on the industry is that print thrived because its readers pay for it. However, analysis shows that most print readers don't pay. In every category of content, some readers who need or want the information most, are willing to pay to get more, get it more regularly, even get it earlier. Others, not so much.

Ironically, the information some people pay for is worth more to them later if others read it. Being the first to know, and being able to say I told you so, is worth paying for, or in other cases, getting more in-depth coverage or more sophisticated interpretation is what information consumers will pay for. But in the print world, may free readers will get the same information as the paid readers, but not as often, or as certainly.

Some people have suggested News Corp. is smart to put up paywalls limiting access to its content for certain properties because great content should be purchased. Inferior content should be voted off the island. The difference between the two can be found by measuring the commitment consumers make to embrace it. By lowering the level of commitment required online, publishers have lowered their own value. However, some people will pay to receive lots of great content. Others will not. But both groups of readers are valuable to advertisers. And the Internet allows us to discriminate between those people who care enough to pay, and those who don't, with metering systems.

Murdoch may or may not "own" the idea of charging for content. But what Murdoch really owns is greater experience with the economics of paid AND free readership. After his purchase of the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch's company, News Corp., did not follow up widely speculated strategy to drop the pay wall, but kept it up on the WSJ site, meanwhile adding lots of free content to attract readers and increase the total advertising inventory. It's the Goldilocks strategy: Not too much, not too little, but just the right amount of free content. When content is paid for, the audience is more saleable because it creates a more salable "engagement." So why are publishers struggling to define the consumer engagement they deliver online? It's because their content is not directly paid for. But in the world of print, the more readers a title has per copy, the more valuable it is -- strong evidence that its content is attractive and read.

Most newspapers have two readers per copy and most magazines have two to six readers per copy, meaning that for a magazine with six readers per copy, 83% of the audience is reading it "free." The demand-and-pricing configuration of paid circulation magazines is based on charging the core audience who most values the content and wants it with regularity for access; daily, weekly or monthly, as the case may be. Some readers who are less dedicated may pay on a once in a while basis for single copies. But the majority of the audience is people who know and appreciate the title, but not as much as the core audience. They read it casually -- much like an online reader who finds an article in Google and clicks to read it.

Rupert Murdoch may bluster about putting content behind a paywall. But he's not the world's leading media mogul because he isn't subtle enough to emphasize one thing as a marketing ploy and do something more nuanced. Murdoch's News Corp., like all top media companies, is evolving to a model that extracts the most money, often in the form of subscriptions, from the most avid, or needful customers, and makes some or all of the content available to others on a more casual basis. ESPN is doing this with its subscription products too. Even Yahoo has paid content products like Rivals.com for sports fans.

It's been clear for quite some time that there are some consumers who will pay for content online. And we also know that there are more readers who will not pay, but who are valuable to advertisers. So each media franchise is going to have to experiment with where and how to implement limitations and possibly a pay wall to get the optimum revenue from readers and advertisers. A good example of the nuanced approach to this is Time magazine’s limited access to magazine content in a variety of ways.
This is exactly the right way to think. The magazine and newspaper businesses evolved over 250 years to optimize the balance between circulation and advertising revenue, developing circulation sales strategies that were economically viable. It will take a while, but online publishing will get there, too. So let's move from the "to charge or not to charge" question, on to the really interesting question of how to merchandize content and price the multiple delivery platforms that media companies will be delivering their content through.

To bundle or not to bundle, that is the question.

3 Big Ideas on the Merging of Social Media, Journalism, Advertising and PR

2011-07-21T05:29:00.004-06:00

commPRO.biz ran a news story about a woman who was on a plane, snapped a picture of the last shuttle flight from her seat with her iPhone, posted the picture on Twitter (with subsequent pictures and short video) and became an overnight celebrity. In what other ways can the different channels merge a little and be more hip and cool? Here are some ideas for you to consider:

Big Idea #1: Relax your boundaries about vetting, authority citing, credentials
Traditional journalism calls for very restrictive vetting, authority citing, and credentials. The “average Joe” in the right place at the right time is not the preferred eye witness. Anyone who’s watched an alien close encounter movie knows how bad it can be when the uneducated hick farmer in the fields claims to have seen little green men….awkward!
We say, encourage it! We're not suggesting that you toss out fluff of low quality but rather that you get over yourself and get ahead of a story no matter who is telling it. Respect the idea that it’s less important to cite experts as the only option and let stories take on a life of their own. Truthfully, we’re kind of tired of seeing the same old parade of experts anyway….just saying…

Big Idea #2: Integrate the Crowd
Leverage the concept of paraprofessional research. Weather predictors do it. Bird watchers do it. Astronomers do it. You should too.
Here’s the general idea, say in astronomy: To discover new planets, stars, and other astronomy phenomenon, it takes long hours of tedious work watching the sky. If you happen to have your multi-million dollar telescope aimed the wrong place at the wrong time, you miss out on historical discoveries. By using a network of professionals and highly educated amateurs (read “geek”) to work together in a coordinated network, you cover more of the sky and science (read “all of us”) are better off for it. Many celestial bodies have been discovered by hard core hobbyists working this way. That is what we mean by integrating the crowd. Is there a way to do this in your channel?

Big Idea #3: Become stewards not owners of information
Instead of sending a cease and desist letter to people “stealing” your information, how about partnering with them? (Wink, wink Social Media Examiner.) When Threadless, through the power of their geek network, was making t-shirts by graphic designers submitting designs inspired by Tron, Disney reached out. NO, not the Disney’s lawyers but Disney’s licensing marketers. They worked together to sponsor contests and extend their brand by realizing that in today’s market place the power lies in the sharing of information not the owning of it.

Walk Toward the Cool
Expand on these ideas and extend them into your marketing campaigns, your Social, and your advertising. Find ways to create street teams of rabid fans, reach out to unlikely partners, arm your customers with video cams, find ways to cooperate, and make more rather than just make yours. It works. It’s the new way. It will SO make you more cool!

Bon Jovi’s Strategy to Succeed in Business through Time

2011-07-08T04:36:00.002-06:00

Bon Jovi the band took home $125 million over the past 12 months by FORBES' estimates, more than any other music act besides U2--and more than relative whippersnappers Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Kanye West combined. In the past year the band has played 74 gigs in 15 nations, grossing $203 million in ticket sales and $20 million in merchandise; Bon Jovi ranks No. 8 on this year's Celebrity 100. Bon Jovi was named the #1 worldwide touring act of 2010, according to Billboard. The iconic band scored the top-grossing spot for the second time in just three years, an achievement that only Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead have earned.

Surprised? Throughout his career, Jon Bon Jovi has plunged into every venture not as pretty-faced front man, but as a passionate entrepreneur and a successful marketer who guided his own career through the fever-chart topography of pop music, selling 100 million albums and counting. Bon Jovi out-earns younger, glitzier acts thanks to a relatively affluent, aging fan base who turn out to hear the ballads of their youth and see a tightly run touring machine built on decades of experience.

Whereas Lady Gaga schleps dozens of dancers from town to town and needs 28 trucks to cart her equipment, Bon Jovi typically plays with six people. A dozen trucks carry the gear, including a circular stage and 192 double-sided LED video screens connected with a specially designed motion control system, which allows them to come together to form a screen 13 feet high and 40 feet wide. At arenas like Montreal's 21,500-capacity Bell Center, the in-theround setup lets the band sell up to 5,500 more tickets than a traditional arena stage would. Wherever possible, Bon Jovi plays consecutive nights at the same venue to cut back on setup and strike costs. By playing 12 shows in 19 days at London's O2 arena the band saved $300,000.

On the revenue side the band's U.S. fans sport an average household income of $78,989, slightly higher than the mean for the 350 music groups tracked by research firm NPD's Brand Link database. The economic difference between Bon Jovi's fans and those of, say, Justin Bieber ($71,389) or Metallica ($71,089) is more than enough to cover a pricey special like the Crush Package, which comes with a grab bag of perks and tchotchkes, including souvenir lanyards, autographed lithographs and two front-row seats that you can fold up and take home after the show. The average cost for this VIP treatment is $2,550 per couple; low-end alternatives set you back $450. Bon Jovi sells an average of 600 individual special package tickets per arena show. Though regular tickets start at $20, these packages push Bon Jovi's average price to $95, about 50% higher than acts like the Dave Matthews Band ($59) and the Black Eyed Peas ($63). Bon Jovi shows have up to 20 different price points, including special packages; on a recent tour AC/DC offered only one.

Born in 1962 in Perth Amboy, N.J., a rough port town just south of New York City, John Francis Bongiovi Jr. decided to be a rock star at age 13 after seeing the Doobie Brothers in Erie, Pa. His break came when he wrote and recorded the song "Runaway." He sent his tape out to record labels but didn't receive any responses. So in 1983 he took his cassette to Long Island's WAPP, a station so new it didn't yet have a receptionist. He banged on the window of the DJ's booth and convinced him to play the song. Within months it hit number 39 on the Billboard charts. "That same cassette that was sitting on every record guy's desk was suddenly getting me phone calls," he says.

Mercury Records signed Bon Jovi that year. He clipped his name to Jon Bon Jovi and recruited guitarist Richie Sambora, drummer Tico Torres, keyboardist David Bryan and bassist Alec John Such to form his band. They're still together (minus Such, who left the band in 1994), but it isn't an equal partnership: Jon Bon Jovi keeps the bulk of the earnings, whereas bands like U2 split proceeds evenly.

Jon is the CEO of Jon Bon Jovi Enterprises where he is intimately involved with every business venture from research to marketing. As CEO he doesn’t believe in overhead and runs it lean and mean. “I've got just two people here. I've been self-managed for 19 years now. I had a creative falling out with my manager at the time, and the options were to go to another big management company -- and be a part of the puzzle -- or create my own. Twenty percent was just going out the window for something that wasn't necessary. My record deal was done. CAA was booking the tour. I just had to handle the creative and continue my relationships with the record company; I've been with the same record company for 20 years,” Bon Jovi said.

When Grunge transformed Rock many thought it would be the end of the band, but Jon implemented a new business strategy by entering other markets in Europe and Asia. His business success is very much grounded in authenticity –customers know when you’re faking it. “I'm not trying to be the 18-year-old new kid. And I'm not hanging out with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and pretending I'm an old guy. I'm just me. Every time I release a song I know I may have to sing it in 20 years, so therefore I better be happy with it, really happy with it, and not do it just because it's going to be a hit,” Jon said.

There is a story that Jon once took some tracks to a pizza parlor and did a focus group with kids. “We were making demos for what was our third album in Sayreville, N.J. -- my hometown -- in a little demo studio. The game of telephone makes it sound like I was so smart to poll these people. But the truth is that I went around the corner to have a pizza, and a bunch of kids were in there, and they said we know you guys, you made two records, blah, blah, blah. So we invited a dozen of them back, and their reaction to various songs helped influence the decision-making.” His business advice? “Have failures because it strengthens you as an individual. The diversity that is part of my career has been great to help me learn about who I am and where I want to go.”

Online Reputation Management

2011-07-07T04:16:00.000-06:00

Good news travels fast; bad news travels faster, says Shell Harris, founding partner of Big Oak Studios, a SEO company. Recent spurt in cases of rampant, and sometimes baseless, negative online publicity has affected brand image of many companies. In 2005, a single post by a blogger criticizing Dell's support services pulled down the company's reputation by a couple of notches. The corporate world is waking up to the necessity of playing an active role in online reputation management.

Online Reputation Management involves not only analyzing all that is being written about your brand online but also repairing any damage found and constructing a positive image. A successful ORM campaign should involve public relations and search engine marketing. You have to ensure that good things are being said about you on various websites and these websites get top search engine rankings.

How to Monitor/Track your Online Reputation

Regular monitoring of online media will help you keep tabs on your public perception. It will also alert you in cases of copyright violations, competitor smear campaigns, domain squatting, etc. There are many online tools you can use to keep one step ahead and take immediate action. Google Alerts is the most popular monitoring tools that will track and inform you if your brand name comes up in news, feeds, videos, blogs and web results. There are blog-specific search tools like Technorati and Feedster. Twitter Search and Social Mention can also help you catch the buzz about you in social networking sites.

How to Repair your Online Reputation

With the growth of user-generated media like blogs, Tweets and Yelps, the chances of creating negative publicity have also increased. The first step towards tackling negative comments is to create your real presence in popular consumer-generated websites. Responding to your critics on these sites will build trust around your brand. In cases of inaccurate projections, you can request the comment authors to pull down their posts by giving substantial evidence.

Press releases can be posted on popular press release submission sites. Expert articles pertaining to your industry can be submitted to reputed sites with back-link to your website.
You can also buy domains with your brand name (for example if your company is called blush, blush.com, blush.net or blushsucks.com are some domain names you can book) to prevent people with malicious intent misusing them against you.

Not to keep picking on Dell, but here is a negative site that could have been snagged to prevent bad publicity: http://www.ihatedell.net/.
Sometimes, repair can be a long-drawn exhaustive process. Companies often use search engine optimization techniques to push down negative websites and increase the visibility of websites with positive content.

How to Improve your Online Reputation

With the growth of user-generated media like blogs, Tweets and Yelps, the chances of creating negative publicity have also increased. The first step towards tackling negative comments is to create your real presence in popular consumer-generated websites. Responding to your critics on these sites will build trust around your brand. In cases of inaccurate projections, you can request the comment authors to pull down their posts by giving substantial evidence.

Have you had to do emergency repair on your online reputation? Tell us about your experience by leaving a comment.

Weinergate The Musical: How NOT to Respond to a Sex Scandal

2011-06-29T06:13:00.000-06:00

He resigned. Finally. After nearly three weeks of the Anthony Weiner crash and burn tour, in which he broke every rule of good crisis communications, the Congressman from New York is leaving office, and the news cycle, too. His bizarre odyssey will be a new chapter in crisis communications textbooks on how NOT to respond, according to PR specialist Ashley McCown. Before he fades from view, here is a musical review of the latest and perhaps most bizarre implosion of a politician.

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

And Twitter and Facebook … Let’s start with how social media works. Did Congressman Weiner really not understand that by posting his pictures on Twitter and Facebook he was not exactly having a private conversation? Hubris trumps ignorance I guess, but his sexting does fall into the category of “did you really think you could get away with it?” Every sex scandal is incredible in its own way, but the public nature of this one takes the cake.

Yesterday

“All my troubles seemed so far away, now I know that they are here to stay …” A cardinal rule in crisis communications is when you get caught, come clean. Don’t lie or cover-up. Acknowledge what you did, accept responsibility and apologize. Perhaps Weiner missed that session in his Congressional orientation. Incredibly, when the story broke on June 1, he claimed in an interview that his Twitter account had been hacked and said, “I can’t say with certainty very much about where the photograph came from.” It was great theater and the networks played that interview over and over again. #weinergate was born. His answers were so ludicrous and the details so ripe for the picking (and joking) given his name that Twitter exploded with a litany of angry, lewd and hysterical tweets. #weiner and #weinergate trended high for days. There was no escaping it.

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Apparently, the Congressman didn’t want to escape the notoriety. He has been described as a publicity seeker. It seems that applies even when he is at the center of a sex scandal. How else do you explain sticking to that ridiculous story for five days. He led or was near the top of the news cycle all day, every day. The woman he sexted was interviewed and he still didn’t come clean- until June 6 when he finally told the truth. He could have chosen to admit the truth when the story first broke in a single interview or series of one-on-one interviews. He would have defined what happened on his own terms and that would have been the clip that got played over and over again. Instead, he stood on a stage in front of hundreds of reporters and cameras, under hot lights, perspiring as he admitted to it all. All publicity is not good publicity, Congressman.

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

But something was missing: his resignation. Apparently the Congressman thought it was enough to apologize, pledge to seek treatment, and then he could hold on to his job. Not so. He spent the next 10 days being hounded by the media everywhere he went. His Democratic colleagues kept hoping he would do the right thing. When they could keep silent no more, some began calling for him to step down.

Stand by Your Man

Kudos to Huma Abedin. She has responded to her husband’s embarrassing transgressions with dignity and silence. Unlike so many other aggrieved wives of politicians, she was not standing by his side on June 6 when he confessed or when he resigned on June 16. Good for her.

Walk this Way

I certainly won’t hold up Eliot Spitzer as the poster boy for good behavior, but from a crisis communications standpoint, he did the right thing. Spitzer resigned 48 hours after the New York Times broke the story about his involvement with prostitutes, and he left public life to focus on his family. Two years later, CNN gave him a show on which he has commented on Weinergate.

I Will Survive

If Congressman Weiner can stay out of the limelight for a while, he too can stage a comeback. In his resignation speech (complete with a heckler calling him a pervert), he said, “I got into politics to help give voice to the many who simply did not have one.” Here’s hoping the next time Mr. Weiner finds himself in the press it’s because he did just that.

With apologies to Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Tammy Wynette, Aerosmith and Gloria Gaynor.

Spanish-Language TV Networks Poised for Advertising Fiesta

2011-06-28T06:08:00.001-06:00

The Big Five TV networks are expecting to receive a record $9.5 billion at the upfront ad market this year. But they're going to be giving up some of their commercial dollars to fast-growing Spanish-language broadcasters Univision and Telemundo, which are expecting their own upfront haul to be, well, mas macho, according to John Consoli writer for The Wrap.

When the official selling season begins -- after all the major networks present their 2011-12 schedules to advertisers next week -- expect the two Hispanic networks to take in between 15-20 percent more ad dollars than they did in last year's upfront. In total, it’s expected that Univision will rake in about $1.3 billion, while Telemundo will tally about $450 million.

A good portion of those added dollars will come from new advertiser brands, but there will also be money moving from the English-language networks into Hispanic. Why? Because while primetime ratings in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 age demo are down for all five major English-language networks this season, ratings and viewership are up for the Hispanic networks.

What’s more, the results of the new census show that there is a potential audience of about 50 million Hispanics in the U.S. and many of them can be reached through the two Hispanic broadcast networks.

David Lawenda, president of ad sales for Univision Communications, told TheWrap that the awareness of advertisers about the growing importance of Hispanic television has resulted in his network bringing in 150 new brands over the past year, and he expects that to continue in this upfront. "We belong in the same [media buying] conversation with the Big Four broadcast networks," Lawenda said. "We are no longer a niche network."

In the recent February sweeps month, Univision on 22 nights had higher ratings than at least one of the Big Four English-language networks in the 18-34 or 18-49 demos in primetime. And Telemundo had its best first quarter of the year in 2011 in its history in viewers, averaging 1.2 million in primetime per night. It also had its most watched April primetime.

Telemundo's current 10 p.m. novela “La Reina del Sur” has peaked at more than 3.3 million viewers and on several nights has drawn more than 2.2 million 18-49 viewers to edge out Univision in that hour. And Univision's 9 p.m. novela “Teresa” premiered on March 30 with 4.9 million viewers and 2.7 million 18-49 viewers. It has outdrawn both ABC and NBC on certain nights since in those demos.

While Telemundo is not a threat to take a lion's share of dollars away from Univision, it is making its own inroads. Once commanding below a 20 percent share of primetime Hispanic audience, it’s now averaging about 28 percent, compared to Univision's 72 percent in the 18-34 and 18-49 demos.

Branding Louis Vuitton: Behind the World's Most Famous Luxury Label

2011-06-22T05:44:00.001-06:00

You know the bag. The chocolate-brown leather canvas emblazoned with quatrefoils and the LV monogram is immediately recognizable as the international symbol of globetrotting luxury. The Louis Vuitton brand is the most valuable brand in luxury, according to a new study from Millward Brown, says Derek Thompson an associate editor at The Atlantic. But in a world with knock offs on street tables from New York to New Dehli and rappers like Kanye West pronouncing himself the "Louis Vuitton don," how does the world's most famous luxury brand protect its image?

Colin Mitchell oversees Ogilvy's Global Strategy and Planning Group, which handles some of the world's most famous brands, including Louis Vuitton. Walking me through the basics of brand management, he told me the firm's signature framework for building brands is called The Big Ideal.

"We go through the exercise, where we complete the sentence 'The world would be a better place if ...,'" Mitchell said. "The thing that finishes the sentence gives us a big ideal."

The Big Ideal doesn't have to be noble. For the fruity, fizzy soft drink Fanta, the company designed the ad campaign "More Fanta. Less Serious." around the ideal of play. For Louis Vuitton, a travel company with its 19th century origins on Rue Neuve des Capucines in Paris, the ideal that centers the LV brand is journey.

"We say that travel has lost its romance," Mitchell said. "It's become an onerous duty rather than a pleasure. When there's tension like that between ideal of travel as romantic and the reality which falls short, that's an opportunity for brands to come in and make a statement."

One of the biggest losers in the global recession was luxury and travel, which threatened to strike the heart of Louis Vuitton's business. LVMH, the holding company that owns Louis Vuitton and other luxury brands like Dom Perignon, saw its stock plummet from 40 to 10 at the end of 2008. But Louis Vuitton didn't change its message to fit with the time.

"It's crucial for luxury brands to be consistent and authentic," he said. "They become cultural reference points as the world shifts. It's not that they don't take account of cultural forces, but they can't react. They have to be beacons of a certain point of view."

LVMH's stock has recovered to the high 30s, a few points from its all-time pre-recession high. In 2010, Louis Vuitton's net profit jumped 73% led by the Asian market. A strong brand reduces business risk precisely because it stands for something more than affordability. Companies without focused brands -- Mitchell named Oldsmobile -- are in danger when affordability is the only selling point, because "somebody builds a cheaper or more convenient product, you're irrelevant."

As China and Brazil lead the race among emerging nations to enter the global middle class, Louis Vuitton suddenly finds itself with millions more potential customers outside its typical market of Europe and North America. "These people are very interesting because they're arriving in massive numbers and in a single lifetime they've made transition from villages to cities," he said. "They're looking for brands as signifiers to make sense of a new world."

The new world in advertising is moving away from the glossy magazine pages that often make a home for thickly coiffed men in shades and a Vuitton bag slung over their shoulder. The ad world has become a hectic, decentralized ecosystem of apps, targeted Web ads, and Facebook pages. After surviving the recession, Louis Vuitton's next challenge is to navigate the narrow channel between mass market technologies and a high-culture message.

"We talk a lot about roots and wings," Mitchell said. "We need roots, a back story, but also we need wings to stretch forward into the future. Managing that tension is what agencies are supposed to do." Louis Vuitton still banks opulent photographs on wide magazine pages. But its newest creation is Amble, a mobile app that lets users follow celebrities' favorite city experiences or create their own online journals with photos, videos, and notes.

Will Kanye West, the Louis Vuitton don himself, someday make an appearance in an LV advertisement? Don't count on it. "We can't be opportunistic about whoever endorsed us this week. I think Cristal champagne, Tommy Hilfiger and Burberry, all hurt their brands with overexposure to celebrities. We use Sean Connery, Keith Richards, Bono. These are famous travelers. They're more aligned with where we want to take the brand."

Customer Segmentation and Predictive Modeling Improve the Results of Marketing Campaigns

2011-06-21T05:44:00.001-06:00

There’s an important concept in marketing that you’re probably already familiar with called Customer Segmentation.
Here’s why it’s important:

The more you segment your target market, the more you can customize your marketing materials;
The more you customize your marketing materials, the more meaningful they become to your prospects;
The more meaningful they become to your prospects, the more stuff you’ll sell.

The more you know about Customer Segmentation and Predictive Modeling, the more stuff you'll sell. And that would be a good thing.

The bottom line — Customer Segmentation is an important concept because it can help you sell more stuff to more people. And that would be a good thing.
What are the different kinds of Customer Segmentation? Glad you asked. Here’s a summary of how Dr. George Belch and Dr. Michael Belch break things down in Advertising and Promotion.

Demographic Segmentation: This is pretty straightforward and something you’re probably doing already. Essentially, it’s dividing your target market on the basis of demographic variables such as age, sex, family size, education, income and social class.
You want to focus attention on the specific demographic groups that drive large chunks of your revenue. For example, when Ikea found out that 70% of their shoppers were women, they enhanced their store environment to be more “women friendly.” The results speak for themselves.

Psychographic Segmentation: Dividing your target market on the basis of personality and/or lifestyles is called psychographic segmentation. There is some disagreement as to whether a personality is a useful basis for segmentation, but lifestyle has been used effectively by the majority of sophisticated marketers.
The determination of lifestyles is usually based on an analysis of the activities, interests and opinions of consumers. These lifestyles are then correlated with the consumers’ product, brand and/or media usage. For many products or services, lifestyles may be the best discriminator between use and non-use, accounting for differences in food, clothing and car selections among numerous other consumer behaviors.

Behavioral Segmentation: Dividing customers into groups according to their usage, loyalties or buying responses to a product is called behavioral segmentation. For example, product or brand usage, degree of use (heavy vs. light), and/or brand loyalty are combined with demographic and/or psychographic criteria to develop profiles of market segments.
In the case of usage, the marketer assumes that non-purchasers of a brand or product who have the same characteristics as purchasers hold greater potential for adoption than non-users with different characteristics.

Benefit Segmentation: In purchasing products, consumers are generally trying to satisfy specific needs and/or wants. They’re looking for products that provide specific benefits to satisfy these needs. The grouping of consumers on the basis of attributes sought in a product is known as benefit segmentation.
Consider the purchase of a wristwatch. While you might buy a watch for particular benefits such as accuracy and water resistance, others may see a different set of benefits relating to style and prestige. Those different customer groups would be broken out using benefit segmentation.

Going Deeper with Predictive Modeling Customer Segmentation was just the starting point for marketing analytics. Demographic, Psychographic, Behavioral and Benefit Segmentation are important foundations, but they’re just the beginning. If you’re really going to get deep into this kind of stuff, you’ll want to get into Predictive Modeling.
Predictive Modeling is used to describe the likelihood that a customer will take a particular action, usually in the form of a purchase. For example, a large telecommunications company will have a set of predictive models for product cross-selling, product deep-selling and churn.

Data, or different criteria, is used to analyze and predict how certain customer segments would respond to the marketing initiatives. The starting point might be to use Segmentation to develop your overall strategy and to use Predictive Modeling as a way to analyze transactional and other data to predict the likelihood that customer segments will respond to marketing messages.

Action Steps for You:

At a minimum, you should have a good grasp of your different customer segments.
You should also be customizing your marketing materials based on which customer segments will be receiving them.
Ideally, you’ll also use sophisticated techniques like Predictive Modeling to super-charge your efforts and to improve the efficiency of your marketing programs.

A Marketing Lesson from the Apocalypse

2011-06-15T05:30:00.001-06:00

This is a post by Seth Godin, blogger and marketer

If you're reading this blog, then the world didn't end, at least in my time zone.

How does one market the end of the world? After all, you don't have a big ad budget. Your 'product' is something that has been marketed again and again through the ages and it has never worked. There's significant peer pressure not to buy it...

And yet, every time, people succumb. They sell their belongings, stop paying into their kid's college fund and create tension and despair.

Here's the simple lesson:

Sell a story that some people want to believe. In fact, sell a story they already believe.

The story has to be integrated into your product. The iPad, for example, wasn't something that people were clamoring for... but the story of it, the magic tablet, the universal book, the ticket to the fashion-geek tribe--there was a line out the door for that. The same way that every year we see a new music sensation or a new fashion superstar. That's not an accident. That story is just waiting for someone to wear it.

And the some part is vital. Not everyone wants to believe in the end of the world, but some people (fortunately, just a few) really do. To reach them, you don't need much of a hard sell at all.

Too often marketers take a product and try to invent a campaign. Much more effective is to find a tribe, find a story and make a product that resonates, one that makes the story work.

That's the whole thing. A story that resonates and a tribe that's tight and small and eager.

I hope you can dream up something more productive than the end of the world, though.

5 Tips to Create an Effective Newsletter

2011-06-14T05:17:00.002-06:00

Newsletters can be a powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal. They help to create trust, build brand recognition, and establish you as the expert. Here are a few tips to help you take your newsletters to the next level.

1. Know your readers.

Although your newsletter should promote your business, its primary function is to build relationships with prospects and customers. Be sure to discuss topics that are relevant and interesting to your readers. If they know they'll be getting useful information, they'll continue to subscribe.

2. Make it unique.

If you want your newsletter to get noticed (and read), make it different. Add a touch of personalization by including a snapshot from your office, a video message from your staff, a link to an entertaining website, etc. Don't be afraid to portray emotion and personality.

3. Take time for design.

The visual appeal of your newsletter has a lot to do with its success. The right design can captivate your audience before they read a single word. Create a design that is clean, simple, and reinforces your brand.

4. Solicit feedback.

Include your readers by asking for comments on your articles or stories. They'll feel welcomed and you will get feedback on what you can do to improve and what your readers really like.

5. Include your contact information.

Although your goal isn't to sell through your newsletter, you probably wouldn't object to an occasional sale. So make sure readers have a way to reach you if they feel the urge to buy now.

Implement the above steps and your newsletter will help convert your readers into lifelong customers. To your success!

Blog Networks are Attracting More Ad Dollars

2011-06-08T06:00:00.001-06:00

Kathy Crosett reports in Marketing Forecast that when blogs first arrived on the digital scene several years back, few bloggers imagined they could make their living from ad revenue generated because of consumer visits to their sites. But consumers are spending more time online and they often read blog site content. Meanwhile, the blog industry has matured enough to offer marketers efficient ways to advertise on these sites. Blog networks, conglomerations of blogs devoted to specific topics, are springing up and shaping a central control for the flow of ad money.

A New York Times article recently highlighted one of these networks, Sugar Inc., which boasts of “12 blogs, 11 million readers a months and advertisers like Chanel and Sony.” Sugar is expecting to double its ad revenue this year and another blog network, Gawker Media, is also looking for a significant revenue increase in 2009.

The success of blog networks is connected to their ability to narrowly target audiences when it comes to ad revenues. For example, the blogs under Sugar’s umbrella are “edited and designed with 28-year-old women in mind.” By updating content frequently and competing for exclusive content, blogs ensure a constant audience, historically an audience that read fashion and shelter magazines.

The other attractive piece of the puzzle for marketers is that online ad space is much less expensive than in traditional magazines. The big question is whether this financial imbalance can continue. As consumers continue to read online, blog networks may grab more advertising dollars but industry experts also note that staying profitable has required these companies to partially rely on other revenue streams such as from e-commerce.

Boomer Advertising: Proof That Advertising is "Dumb"

2011-06-07T06:00:00.003-06:00

After 40 years of catering to younger consumers, advertisers and media executives are coming to a different realization: older people aren’t so bad, after all, Bill Carter and Tanzina Vega report for The New York Times. Marketers like Kellogg’s, Skechers and 5-Hour Energy drink are broadening their focus to those 55 and up, who were largely ignored in most of their media plans until recently. During next week’s upfront announcements, the annual preview of the fall television season, network executives are planning to introduce shows created to have broad appeal, including to older viewers, and the ad dollars they represent.

This amounts to a reversal in thinking that took hold during the 1960s, when advertisers first started aiming for baby boomers, the largest segment of the United States population. But the reasons for the shift are not just demographic, they are economic. As a result of the recent recession, unemployment rates for younger age groups have been far higher than those for older Americans. Financially, the disparity is similar. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those people aged 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 had the highest median weekly earnings of any age segment in the United States. The older demographic has buying power and discretionary income to spend. Boomers know they’ll most likely live longer than their parents did, and they plan to enjoy it. They love to travel, they engage in various leisure activities and they want to be well and energetic. Many of these folks are ready to spend money in their “Golden Years” in order to feel young and vibrant.

This isn’t just a marketing issue; it’s a cultural and social issue as well. On the occasions that they are marketed to, the advertising is usually condescending. Rather than increasing their value and esteem, once past the age of 50 older Americans are depicted as stale and out-of-sync. That is not their self-image. For decades, television has been the most determined proselytizer on behalf of the premium value of reaching consumers aged 18 to 49. In the 1960s, ABC found itself hopelessly uncompetitive with CBS and NBC in what was then the standard ratings measurement, total households. So the network adopted a strategy to appeal to younger viewers with programs like “Batman,” “Shindig,” and “Mod Squad.”

The idea caught on, and even as the boomer generation grew older, advertisers continued to court younger viewers — first on the theory that they had not yet established brand loyalty, then because they were harder to reach than mature viewers who watched far more television. Since then, all advertising sales have been based on two main groups, those people aged 18 to 49, and those 25 to 54. Once viewers reached 55, they were considered all but valueless.

In the last decade, NBC has been a central force in pushing that view, as the home of youth-oriented hits like “Friends” and “The Office.” But Alan Wurtzel, the president of research for NBC Universal, initiated a study last year into a group he labeled “alpha boomers,” the leading edge of the baby boom generation, which is now turning 65. For companies to avoid shifting advertising and marketing attention toward older Americans is “a big mistake,” he said. “You risk not only growth, but at some point you risk your brand.”

Mature consumers also seem to be spending on categories not traditionally associated with older people. NBC’s study of those people 55 to 64 showed that they spent more than the average consumer on categories like home improvement, large appliances, casual dining and cosmetics.

They have also become heavy spenders on electronics and digital devices. The study also showed that members of the 55-to-64 age group were just as likely as those ages 18 to 34 to have high-definition televisions, digital video recorders and broadband service.

The median age for audiences for every broadcast network has moved upward since 2006. NBC has moved to 50.1, from 48.5; ABC increased to 52.3, from 47.4. Fox, always the youngest network, aged to 45.4, from 41.5. CBS began at 53 and is now at a median age of 56.

“American Idol,” once considered the hot show for young people, finished its first season 10 years ago with a median age of 32.1. This season, its median age is 47.2. ABC’s biggest hit, “Dancing with the Stars” has a large complement of 50-plus viewers.

Brent Bouchez, the founder of Agency Five-0, which caters to older consumers, said the biggest misconception about the group was that older Americans wanted to be younger. He cited the example of Ketel One, a vodka brand that he drank before it changed its advertising to aim for a younger audience. Mr. Bouchez said he stopped asking for the vodka at bars.

“I don’t want to look like the 53-year-old who’s trying to look 30,” he said.

Is Internet Radio an Effective Marketing Tool?

2011-06-01T09:12:00.003-06:00

This post was written by Elijah Young and published in the Social Media Examiner.
If you’re not a huge fan of writing, it’s probably safe to say that you’ve considered speaking your content instead of organizing it into written words. If that’s true, then you’ve probably heard of several podcast-type platforms, all the way up to the big dog in the industry, BlogTalkRadio.
Because demand is the main driver of more podcasts, platforms have evolved to add a number of social and practical features to entice would-be hosts to join their community. Today, we add a new face to that group with Spreaker. Spreaker gives you two immediate calls to action. First, “Free the DJ inside you,” which doesn’t really appeal to the inner marketer in me. Second, they ask you to “Talk to the world.” Not a bad start, but I wanted to see if Speaker was all taglines and hullabaloo before I passed a final judgment.

Reasons to Give Spreaker a Try

Fun Interface/Tools

Spreaker just looks cool. When you pop open the interface you actually feel like a real DJ… for a second. Spreaker gives you the option to record your session for future posting, or you can be brave and record a live session immediately. Be warned that if you record a live session, it will be automatically posted on your Facebook wall, so be careful when you test the platform out for the first time.

You have clear areas to tell you how much time you have left, and how much time there is until the next commercial break. Spreaker handles all commercials, so it’s kind of like a DIY (do it yourself) Talktainmentradio.com. You also have the option to upload samples of music for your show into a toolbox for use at any time, and even a pool of sound effects to integrate into your broadcast.

Great Tutorial Videos

One of the issues marketers have with this medium is that often there isn’t enough direction from the makers of the platform you’re using on how to use it effectively. Spreaker really stood out here. In six very helpful videos, you feel like a Spreaker pro in less than half an hour.

Unfortunately, this is the end of the good news…

Reasons to Give Spreaker the Boot

Nothing New

Notice that the previous section is really short? That’s because there’s really nothing more to say about Spreaker. It’s a DJ-type platform with a mixer that lets you record “shows” and add soundtracks as you wish. Sound familiar? Of course, there are tons of platforms out there that do the exact same thing (minus the mixing live). Spreaker seems to have focused a lot of time on the “fun” aspect of their platform, and might have slacked on the side where they offer something new or different from their competitors. When you’re in an industry with a large entrenched competitor like BlogTalkRadio, it’s important to carve out your niche and differentiate yourself, which brings me to my next point:

Is this for marketers?

Looking through the existing shows on Spreaker.com, you’ll notice that they’re about 90% radio shows (with music) and 10% talk shows. There’s probably a reason for this. Spreaker is carving out its niche to be music-focused, and it’s being adopted well by that niche.

Unfortunately for many marketers, that’s not a realistic avenue to use when reaching your customer base. Even their blog posts unapologetically lean towards the music mix radio shows, not showcasing a talk alternative until recently. Sometimes you just need to read the tea leaves…

In my testing of the platform I ended up feeling more like a DJ and less like a communicator of anything valuable. Don’t get me wrong, I like Spreaker and Spreaker is fun to use. I’ll even go as far as saying Spreaker is a great niche platform; unfortunately, I believe that the general marketer is not included in that niche.

The Final Judgment

For the general marketer, Spreaker is the Easy-Bake Oven to BlogTalkRadio’s Cameron Mitchell Restaurant, minus the burned fingers. This is a tool that can entertain you and your friends for a while, but I fear that it will end up tucked away in marketers’ “online closet of abandoned platforms” when the novelty wears off, and it will.

This is a tool that caters to music mixing and, to be honest, that’s not what many of us are looking to do with an online radio show. I imagine that the sound effects and cool tools are fun to play with, but they don’t offer any long-term benefit to the user or the listener. At the end of the day, an awesome-looking embedded audio widget isn’t enough to choose Spreaker over a tool like BlogTalkRadio in terms of functionality and community.

Spreaker makes the mistake of thinking that it’s competing with terrestrial radio… on the Internet. The problem is that terrestrial radio is competing with tools much more advanced and is just now beginning to catch up in the social space when it comes to distributing content online. Spreaker seems to have forgotten about the 800 lb. gorilla already dominating online audio (as well as the myriad of second-tier competitors). They’ve chosen a foe they can beat handily, but that unfortunately is irrelevant.

Have you used any online radio show recording program to promote your brand? If so, which one? Let us know about your experience leaving a comment.

3 Social Media Lessons To Be Learned From The Google vs. Facebook PR Fiasco

2011-05-31T06:10:00.002-06:00

In case you haven’t been following the story, PR agency giant Burson-Marsteller admitted last week, amidst great gnashing of teeth and ludicrous scandal, that they were hired by Facebook to circulate anti-Google privacy stories. Facebook paid Burson to try and plant anti-Google stories in major media outlets, but the ham-handed employees at the center of the campaign refused to disclose their client--Facebook--to reporters, a clear violation of industry ethical standards. This is a pretty big black eye for the PR industry. It’s also a very teachable Social Media moment.

Google wants to play in the social network space, Facebook doesn’t want them to, and some PR agency thought it was a smart business decision to take money to get in the mud with the two of them. Burson thought this was a good idea? This agency, one of the most powerful PR agencies around, had just won the SABRE North American Agency of the Year award days before the story broke. Did they really think they were going to get by with this type of shenanigans? And these questions lead to the teachable moments:

Lesson #1 – Know Your Influencers in Social Media

Burson-Marsteller made several slip-ups but one that is worth noting is that they deleted a Facebook post from Jessica Murray. She is the Global Community Manager and social media goddess for the international professional group SocialMediaClub.org. Jessica knows her stuff, she comments on professional conduct in the social media industry, and she is connected to tens of thousands of professional level social media business people through her extended network. Jessica noticed the deletion and was not amused. She used her influence to spread the word about the mess. "That was wrong," a Burson representative told Wired. "We`ll be reaching out to Jessica, and we`ll let her put her post back," the representative said, adding that the company`s Facebook page has received "a lot of profanity."

Not all Twitter and Facebook freaks are alike. The agency kind of screwed with the wrong one with their behavior (and Jessica was likely not the only one the agency treated this way!), so know your influencers. You might not be able to shush out every little homegrown blogger that happens to go viral, but it’s wise to hedge your bets when the big guns show up to visit.

Lesson #2 – There is No Such Thing as a Secret Anymore
In the old day pre Web and social media communication was slow, towns were poorly connected (if connected ever at all), plenty of people couldn’t read or “do numbers” and much of the inner workings of business were kept on a need to know basis. It’s not those times anymore so wake up! There are very few industries that actually need secrecy, so it’s time to ditch a business model that requires it.

The only way Burson could have possibly thought their stunt would work is if no one found out. Have they heard of the Internet? HELLO! You think when it’s easy to google just about anything and anybody who’s nobody gets paid for dirt, just to feed the 24/7 global information beast, that news about a Google-Facebook tangle wouldn’t surface? Do you think those secrets will stay secret when you snub people like Jessica? The audacity is staggering. Relying on secrets is not reliable at all in the new Social Media World Order. Get rid of it where you can. Be social, be open, be actually transparent, and be real.

Lesson #3 – Grow a Pair and Learn to Say No
There’s always going to be mismatched agencies and clients. If you are a PR professional and someone asks you to do something, like black hat SEO or tricky trick accounting, don’t take the client. And if your marketing and advertising agency advices you to throw enough numbers at the wall and see what sticks, any publicity is good publicity, and hey, let’s spy on your competition, better think twice about working with them.

Legal guidelines and a sound social media policy is required to handle these situations. Taking the gig in the first place was a bad idea and then how Burson’s social media department handled the situation made things worse. Without either the courage or a policy, employees will wander as they will in the Social landscape and make decisions that aren’t in alignment with your mission. Don’t let them. Whether you’re in PR or Social, you should learn to say NO.

PR isn’t News – Get It!
PR people want what we do to seem like objective news, but it’s not. It might be news, but it’s not reporting and it often steps into advertising and spin. It’s especially not objective news when there is an agenda laying underneath the PR release that is nefarious or at best opaque. Every honest PR person knows this. Every Social Media professional knows this.
If the conduct of the PR industry gets sideways with the ethos of Social, someone will get hurt. Don’t let it be you. Learn from this fiasco and do better.

Picture courtesy of Creative Commons attibution license by qwrrty

Hasta La Vista, Baby! Arnold’s Next Act Gives PR Lessons for Scandal

2011-05-25T06:00:00.001-06:00

“I’ll be back.” Given the disgust and anger (yet no one seems surprised) spewing across the Twitosphere, there are plenty of people who would prefer that Arnold Schwarzenegger said “hasta la vista, baby,” says Ashley McCown, President Solomon McCown & Co.

But, he is walking in the well-worn steps of other cheating pols and celebrities who have made it back on the main stage. Cheating on your wife and even fathering an illegitimate child is no death sentence for our public figures. Just ask Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich who is now married to the woman he had an affair with or Eliot Spitzer. CNN gave him his own show just two years after his scandal went public and he left his office in shame.

Like it or not, Arnold will be back.

What matters, from a crisis communications perspective, is what he does in the immediate days and weeks to come. So let me offer up a three-act script …

TRUE LIES

Everyone is marveling at how Arnold managed to keep this under wraps for 10 years, but now that it is out, the odds of other allegations surfacing just went up. Way up. There have been rumors of affairs and groping for years, which he always dismissed. He won’t be able to do that any more. One of the principles of crisis communications is to put the bad news out before others do it for you and take responsibility. Looks like Arnold did that or was forced to do that over the weekend.

The media will be on a search and destroy mission. If there are other skeletons in the closet, they will find them. Or other women who kept silent all these years will feel emboldened or will be enticed to come forward. Remember all the other women Tiger Woods slept with? Arnold needs to get out of the media cycle as soon as he can, so if there is more, he should: Put the bad news out there himself.

By doing so, he would avoid a slow drip of more salacious allegations that will keep “Arnold” at the top of Google searches for weeks to come.

John Edwards can hardly be considered the poster boy for good behavior, but he has managed to stay out of the limelight since Elizabeth’s death and focused on his family. Out of respect for his wife and family, who he has deeply hurt, the newest member of the Bad Boys’ Club should: Keep a low profile.

That’s not easy in Hollywood, but he is an actor after all. Every public outing he makes will be scrutinized. If he smiles, he will be criticized for being callous while his family suffers. If he looks serious, inferences will be drawn about how he is coping.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

The reality is there are plenty of people and organizations that may want to keep their distance. Top of the list: the Republican Party. Fathering a love child with the housekeeper is not exactly in keeping with the party’s family values so he won’t be headlining fundraisers any time soon.

Arnold should weigh each public appearance carefully before stepping out, first and foremost for how it impacts his family. Secondarily, he needs to consider the impact his presence may have on charities and other organizations that in happier times thought he would be a draw. Now, he is more likely to draw a media scrum. As a result, he should: Bow out of public appearances for charities and others.

And what about the Hollywood movie machine? Arnold is starring in two upcoming films and producers have been quick to say the scandal will have no impact on filming or release dates (even though Arnold apparently queried his agency, CAA, about the possibility of putting these projects on hold late Thursday). For the long term, “Cry Macho” producer Albert Ruddy put it this way: “This is not gonna be a black eye for a guy with an astounding career.” He’s probably right.

ERASER

The Arnold scandal may lead the news for now, but barring any further revelations, the story will recede. There will be the obligatory “bare all” interviews with the housekeeper and at some point Arnold will do his own mea culpa interview. While we may not forgive or entirely forget, at some point, we won’t care anymore. And sadly, there will be another celebrity scandal to take its place.

Brand Oprah Has Some Marketing Lessons For You

2011-05-24T06:03:00.002-06:00

Susan Berfield reports for Bloomberg Businessweek that in 1988 Oprah Winfrey made a decision that would change her life—and eventually the future of television. Her talk show was already getting better ratings than kingpin Phil Donahue and aired in 198 markets. When she renegotiated her contract with King World Productions, which syndicated her show, and with ABC, which produced it, Winfrey demanded control and got it. Winfrey's Harpo Productions assumed the show's production costs, but it also collected licensing fees from local stations, estimated at $100 million in 1988. Plus, Harpo earned money from a few lucrative moments of advertising each day. "I never wanted to be in a position again in life where I was meant to do something but couldn't do it because somebody was telling me I couldn't," Winfrey later told writers of a Harvard Business School case study.

The impulse to take control of her life—and then enjoy it—resonated with her viewers over a 25-year span that will end on May 25, when she airs her finale on broadcast television and turns her attention to her new cable channel. Over that time, Oprah became a singular brand born of her own personal history. Winfrey's story of childhood poverty and sexual abuse, her struggle with her weight, and her striving and charisma made her the near-perfect peddler of a relentless optimism. She was more than a celebrity: She stood for self-improvement, doing good, and controlling your own destiny. Her motto, "Live your best life," was invoked on her show, in her magazine, and on her website.

It all added up to a brand radically different but no less powerful than Coca-Cola or the Marlboro Man. It propelled her show, which drew about 12 million viewers in the U.S. at its peak, through more than 4,500 episodes and some 30,000 guests. She stayed on message as she launched her magazine and produced movies and developed a raft of syndicated television shows including those of Dr. Phil McGraw and Rachael Ray. The brand ultimately made the meticulously manicured entrepreneur very rich, with an estimated fortune of $2.7 billion, according to Forbes

Winfrey's other great talent was to combine her message with a rousing consumerism absent even a hint of irony: Treat yourself! You deserve it! Her viewers and readers bought in and bought big. The brand's marketing fairy dust was sprinkled on an array of products she endorsed without compensation, somehow adding to her already robust credibility. One day she might talk about age-defying makeovers, the next about the faces of autism; she went to Ethiopia; she went green; she went vegan. And then she went shopping. "For her, transformation is about self-esteem and about buying stuff," says Susan Mackey-Kallis, a communications professor at Villanova University. "It's consumerism, but it's not crass."

Winfrey has helped turn her favorite books into bestsellers and her favorite things into instant successes. After she recommended Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth in January 2008, it topped the bestseller list on Amazon.com. Within a month, Penguin Group had shipped 3.5 million copies. Her "Oprah's Book Club" plugged 65 books and was credited by some with saving the publishing industry.

Winfrey regularly announced her "favorite things" in shows that were tantamount to infomercials, though far more effective. When DreamTime's Foot Cozys, aromatherapy slippers, were featured on an episode in 2002, the company was selling 3,000 pairs a month. The following month, it sold 20,000. The slippers became DreamTime's best-selling product that year. When Winfrey presented such goodies to her audience, it was the companies (from Williams-Sonoma to Apple) that donated them. The big shows—in which audiences received cars and trips—inspired the fervor of revival meetings. Product placement is a fair way to describe her 'favorite things, but she is the one who is brokering those deals for her audience. It's product placement in a funny kind of way because the companies are giving the product away. Her brand could sell everything from croissants to refrigerators.

Like any great marketer, Winfrey has sought to extend her brand's reach. She has launched the TV careers of other live-your-best-life gurus, such as Dr. Oz and the designer Nate Berkus—whose shows Harpo developed. She even made her personal trainer, Bob Greene, a celebrity. He now sells his own fitness and diet books. She creates this army of celebrities who are all part of the same campaign. That's an economy of scale and lets her have an exponential impact.

Winfrey's empire also includes a monthly magazine published by Hearst, O, The Oprah Magazine, that combines her do-good and enjoy-good-things ethos and has a circulation of about 2.5 million. (She's been on the cover of every issue.) Even most of Harpo's feature films and television movies—including The Great Debaters and Tuesdays with Morrie—have been emotionally rich dramas about reinvention.

Winfrey has stoked some controversy along the way. She gave credence to Suzanne Somers's questionable anti-aging hormone and vitamin regimen and Jenny McCarthy's book linking vaccines and autism. Her school for girls in South Africa was hit with allegations of sexual abuse. Yet these embarrassments barely affected Winfrey's standing because her moral character hasn't been questioned -there haven't been any personal transgressions. The resilience of her brand didn't surprise the experts. "All strong brands are authentic, relevant, and different," says Josh Feldmeth, chief executive officer of consultancy Interbrand's New York office. "Oprah performs as well as anything in the market today."

Still, as Winfrey prepares to move to cable, there are signs she's preparing her brand for a shift. In October she appeared via satellite on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and announced she was giving everyone in the audience a free trip to Washington to attend the rally that Stewart and Stephen Colbert were organizing. "She was going on Jon Stewart's show to cash in on his cultural power," says Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. "She wanted to start courting younger viewers for her cable network. It was the first time we saw Oprah trying to suck the cultural mojo from someone else."

Janice Peck, author of The Age of Oprah: Cultural Icon for the Neoliberal Era, points out that Winfrey is a baby boomer, and that "her historical moment is passing." Even Feldmeth says the big trends are no longer in Winfrey's favor. "If credibility and expertise come more from our social networks, are we still going to be sitting at the feet of a master like Oprah?" he asks.

After 25 years, Oprah's influence remains unparalleled. As she moves to cable, there are signs she's preparing to shift her brand as well.

The Hispanic Mom Car Buying Behavior

2011-05-18T08:16:00.002-06:00

Coast to coast more dealers are starting to tap into the sales potential of their local Hispanic auto buyers' market. They are reaching out to the Hispanic community in ways that didn't exist just a couple of years ago. COO at Todobebé Cynthia Nelson says a new research explores Hispanic moms' insights, perceptions and involvement with the automotive category: ownership, usage, attitudes, considerations, and key factors influencing purchase. When it comes to automotive purchases, there is always a misunderstanding that women either aren't interested or don't have a say in which vehicle is chosen. Not so with Hispanic moms, who are not only interested in what type of car but also very involved in features that will not only make her life easier with children in tow, but also be safe and reliable. She is concerned as well with purchase vs. lease, and even performance.

This new research identifies key insights for approaches and messaging with this audience, particularly with regard to choice and selection of a family vehicle.

General Panel Demographics:

87% are women ages 18-34.
79% are married or living with a partner.
50% say their country of origin is Mexico.
67% household income is $45,000 or less.
60% are stay-at-home moms.
74% have children ages 0-5 in the home.

Key Outcomes & Marketing Opportunities:

Factors Influencing Purchase

More than 56% of respondents said that expecting a child was a major factor influencing the purchase of a new vehicle.
Room for passengers (78%) is a major factor in choice, followed by safety/security and price/value.
Nearly all respondents said they test drove the vehicle that they purchased.
Respondents also said that they test drove other vehicles -- averaging two or more.
One in four purchased or leased a vehicle during the last year; a lesser percentage are considering purchasing in the next 12 months.
Most respondents indicate preference for a SUV or Minivan, followed by station wagon or four-door sedan.
The majority of respondents indicate they have a preference between foreign vs. domestic vehicles.
Toyota (21.9%), Ford (21.1%) and Honda (18.8%) lead in brand preference.
The majority of respondents say they receive information regarding family vehicles and auto safety via TV (79%) and the Internet (68%).

Key Take-Aways:

Hispanic moms are a key and influential target for automotive communications, particularly as related to selection and purchase of a new family vehicle. There are many, many ways to positively influence buyer behavior of your vehicle brand by making mom the central point of your marketing communication platform:

Understand her needs/walk in her shoes in terms of how her family and having children is an important factor in the vehicle that she purchases -- what is important to her, should be reflected in your messaging.
Provide her with tips and information that help her visualize the features and functionality that your automotive brand will bring to her -- if it saves her money, time or helps her store more stuff -- let her know.
Don't limit yourself to TV spots -- the Internet, Video Downloads, Mobile, Grass Roots Events, In-Retail, non-traditional media, are all great ways to reach this busy mom.
Remember she is a viral creature. If you build her trust, she will share your data with her friends and family -- priceless for any marketer.

Build Fan/Customer Loyalty With A '2C2R' Approach

2011-05-17T06:00:00.001-06:00

In a still-uncertain economic climate, sports marketers are rightfully putting greater emphasis on customer loyalty and fan experience. Jon Last, president of Sports and Leisure Research Group spoke at a golf industry conference about an approach he developed to address this, known as "2C2R." The four elements are:

1. Communication: The best loyalty marketing efforts take great care in crafting the right type and frequency of marketing communication to best customers. They recognize that one mass message is often insufficient in establishing the "one-to-one" bond that demonstrates to a best customer that they are valued and appreciated. Further, the communication acknowledges unique needs and articulates a solution, rather than simply a sales proposition.

2. Community: Effective fan communities bring people of shared needs together in a meaningful and honest exchange. We applied it for a cruise line by offering forums for future passengers to meet in advance of their sailings, for past guests to share memories together and through special events that fostered literal community building within local markets. Finding the right approach can often be as simple as conducting needs assessment and concept testing research.

3. Recognition: Best-of-breed loyalty efforts go out of their way to make the customer feel special. A great example was when I returned to a favorite hotel after about a three-year lapse. To my surprise and delight, the agent at registration welcomed me back and asked me if I would like the same room that I stayed in during my most recent visit.

The gesture cost the hotel nothing, but it demonstrated commitment to cultivating customer relationships. Recognition can be as simple as remembering birthdays or distributing commemorative pins or apparel that fans can wear as badges of honor, distinguishing themselves from others. It's a soft-sell approach that shows appreciation and doesn't tarnish your brand through discounting.

4. Reward: Many marketers skip immediately to this step, associating good customer retention efforts solely with points and reward programs. While research has demonstrated the efficacy of offering aspirational "carrots at the end of sticks" to acknowledge long-term loyalty, too many sports marketers falsely assume that fans will become as locked in on the prize as they are.

In countless loyalty research that we have conducted, clients are often underwhelmed to observe how unwilling the customer is to engage in a new points program or track their behaviors for far-off rewards. The key is to reward frequently in soft and subtle ways, while making the pursuit of long-term rewards as seamless and self managing as possible. We've heard in too many focus groups, "Please don't give me another points card to carry around!"

It Starts with Research

Like any CRM approach, identifying the right consumers for targeted offerings is both art and science. But even absent sophisticated databases and mining systems, a fundamental research audit of the customer base can enable sports brands to segment their customers by demographics, attitudes, past behaviors and defined need states.

We've often deployed a research approach where we measure these perceptions and behaviors between disparate groups of customers and prospects and look for gaps that can suggest the right tactical marketing approaches to reach each group. Concept testing is another means in which specific rewards, recognition offerings and communications approaches can be evaluated.

Regardless of the specifics of your own marketing efforts towards best customers, or the breadth of loyalty research that you conduct, remembering the principles of 2C2R and incorporating them into your program can be a valuable first step in differentiating your brand from competitors and breaking through the clutter of too many look-alike programs.

How to Emulate Apple’s Marketing Magic and Build a Great Brand in 3 Steps

2011-05-13T12:09:00.000-06:00

Apple, the world’s most admired company according to Fortune magazine, toppled Google this week as the most valuable brand in the world. A brand is not the logo that identifies a company, but rather the mental associations people have when thinking of the company. So what makes a brand “great”? The formula to measure brand equity is Reach x Appeal, where Reach is how many people are aware of the brand and Appeal is the common view people have of the brand.

Apple exhibits three of the most important elements of brand building: 1) consistency, 2) simplicity and 3) identity.

Consistency

A brand is built with consistency and repetition in the products, services and messaging. Apple’s products –iPad, Macbook, iLife Software, etc- all have a minimalist design, are made of aluminum and glass and are lightweight. The website apple.com shares similarities with the products: it has lots of white space contrasted with blacks and greys; the rounded corners of information boxes are similar to the rounded corners of the iPhone and MacBook. One of the principal typefaces used on the Apple web site – Myriad Pro Semi Bold – is seen in everything from CEO Steve Job’s slide decks to the t-shirts worn by the employees at the Apple Retail Store. There is very clearly a well-defined cultural and stylistic mandate that can be seen in everything from the look and feel of an iPod Touch to the set design of the “Get a Mac” television ad campaign. The latter memorably featured actors John Hodgman and Justin Long, playing the same roles, communicating the same messages – and typically, all against a stark white background.

Lessons to Learn: Stay on message, and consistently deliver that message throughout all parts of your business (your products, your service, your promotional materials). If one of your unique selling points is deep industry knowledge, make sure everyone right down to the receptionist reinforces that message. If your forte is customer service, instill in everyone the importance of a smile and a kind word – even among your employees who don’t take calls from customers. And be visually consistent as well. Use a small but consistent “library” of visual motifs, words and themes and use them over and over, whenever and wherever you can. Remember, what you are saying is often less important than how (and how often) you are saying it.

Simplicity

Apple is innovative but not pioneering. They didn’t create the first computer, laptop, smartphone, portable music player or business software suite. But they built devices and products that were easy to use. We as consumers have a wide variety of taste preferences. Some of us like luxury, while others prefer affordability. Some of us prefer “feature depth,” and some of us value convenience. There is, however, one thing that unites all consumers: we prefer products and solutions that are not complicated. Instead of introducing the very first iPod as a portable digital music player capable of supporting MP3, MP3 VBR, AIFF and WAV formats with upgradable firmware, a high-output 60-mw amplifier and a 160-by-128-pixel high-resolution display with white LED backlight, Apple’s marketing message was this:

1,000 songs. In Your Pocket.

Apple has a long history of demonstrating how their products simply improve your life, and they make it simple where it counts most: when you are ready to buy stuff from them.

Lessons to Learn: You’ll be hard-pressed to find a segment in your target market that prefers complicated, murky, and hard-to-use products and services over simple and elegant solutions. Don’t be lured into the common trap of thinking that the more complicated you make things, the smarter you will sound. In fact, the reverse is true. Don’t make it difficult for people to buy your products and services!

Identity

Apple creates and capitalizes on brand identification. Many people who buy Apple products often associate themselves with…other people who buy Apple products. People gravitate toward ideas of individualism and a unique identity. As kids, we loved being the “first kid on the block” to have something to show our friends. As teenagers, we hoped to be the first to buy the new CD from our favorite band. It is why adult men dream of one day owning a Harley, and why two women are mortified when they go to a social function and have on the same dress.

In recent years, America has embraced a “nerd counter-culture.” It has now become OK – and sometimes, even cool – to show a love for technology, gadgetry and all things “wired.” When Apple launched the first iPod in 2001, they not only revitalized Apple the company (and reimagined Apple the brand), they also helped launch this cultural zeitgeist. It became OK for CEOs to type their own letters or for people to “take notes” on an iPad during a meeting, or to replace cable television (and its monthly costs) with content streamed from an AppleTV or a Mac Mini. Apple helped usher in this new era of utilitarianism and comfort with technology. Think about it: how many people put stickers of a corporate logo (the Apple logo) on their cars? And perhaps more interesting, what assumptions do we make about the people driving a car adorned by an Apple sticker?

Lessons to Learn: Create products and services for a “special” kind of customer. No one can be all things to all people. Figure out who your target is, and do business exclusively with that market, especially at the outset of a brand new enterprise. Whenever possible, make it personal. Remember that it is better to have a smaller group of loyal, core customers who will evangelize on your behalf versus having a massive customer base with no real emotional attachment to your brand (because they will be the first to leave when a competitor offers a cheaper or better solution).

Pick just one of these to adopt for your business today, and you will be the better for it. Deftly combine all three, and you could be the next Apple!

How to Master the 3 Key Elements of an Effective Email

2011-05-10T06:00:00.010-06:00

In football lingo, a "triple threat" is a player who can run, pass and kick with equal skill. In entertainment, the term refers to an individual proficient in acting, singing and dancing. And in the world of marketing, it's reserved for those possibly perfect individuals who can write brilliant copy, design eye-catching layouts and increase ROI without breaking a sweat. Fortunately, you don't have to be Shakespeare with the pen or Picasso with the brush to create effective emails. You just need to master a three-pronged approach--relevant topic, informative content and attention-getting creative--that's guaranteed to engage subscribers and boost conversions. Here's a guide to nailing the email trifecta by Brian Brown, Director of Product Strategy at Silverpop:

I. Focus on Relevant Topics

As email volume continues to rise, it's essential that your marketing messages increase in relevancy to stand apart from the noise. To help achieve this objective, approach your email program with the goal of speaking to each person as an individual, covering topics that will create a deeper level of engagement. Three tools to get you rolling:

Dynamic content: Collect prospect and customer information through preference centers, forms and surveys, and then use this info to automatically replace entire sections of your messages based on each recipient's unique requirements, interests and needs.

Web tracking: Let customer and prospect actions on your website inform subsequent emails. For example, try assigning new subscribers to different communication tracks based on the Web pages they browsed before opting in.

Triggered messaging: Emails triggered by behaviors such as purchases, downloads or event attendance typically deliver several times the conversion rates of standard broadcast emails. So, sprinkle satisfaction surveys, review requests, cross-sell emails, anniversary incentives and other trigger-based messages into your overall mix.

II. Provide Informative Content

Today's customers and prospects are more knowledgeable and more connected than at any time in history. As a result, interruptive advertising and product-centric marketing messages are more likely to get tuned out. The trick, then, is to create messages that are eagerly anticipated by your audience. Here's how:

Make it educational: Instead of focusing solely on sales- or promotion-related content, provide educational content (e.g. recipes and baking tips, retirement-planning calculators, best practice white papers, etc.) that aligns with recipient interests.

Address their pain points: Monitor social media, industry blogs, online communities, etc. to improve your understanding of what customers and prospects are talking about, and use these insights to deliver content that helps address these pain points.

Match content to buying cycle: Segment campaigns by relationship stage, specifically targeting different email messages and offers based on both explicit and implicit indicators of your customer's readiness to purchase (interested, engaged, lapsed, etc).

III. Deliver Eye-Pleasing Content

By creating aesthetically pleasing messages in which design, layout and creative elements complement the text, you'll engage customers and prospects more strongly, resulting in increased opens, click-throughs and conversions. Instantly improve your email creative by:

Minimizing clutter: In the overloaded inbox, less is more. So, leave room for white space, which increases readability, and use strong borders and color accents to provide a visual structure that can survive images being blocked.

Building for mobile and tablets: More people are checking email on the go, so ensure a positive experience by using alt tags and strategic pre-header text, including key messaging in the top-left corner, and incorporating clickable content blocks that are at least a fingertip's width apart .

Designing around the sharing concept: If you have shareworthy content, build a short, focused email centered on a single subject and include both graphical icons and text encouraging recipients to share content. Test different link placement to see what works best.

Steelers PR headache: Star running back sends controversial bin Laden tweets

2011-05-06T06:07:00.006-06:00

The NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers are no strangers to off-field controversy. (See: Ben Roethlisberger, Jeff Reed, Santonio Holmes.) So, it may come as little surprise that in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. special forces, the team’s star running back Rashard Mendenhall is in hot water.

Let’s go to the highlights.

On Monday, Mendenhall tweeted:

“What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”

Then he outed himself as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist:

“I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

That tweet was removed.

The Steelers jumped all over this, hoping to distance itself from Mendenhall’s comments. Team president Art Rooney II had this to say on the team’s website:

“I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments. The entire Steelers’ organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon.”

We’re reminded once again that timing is everything, and you’ve got to know your audience. Players say controversial things all the time. They also take stances on political issues that don’t necessarily jibe with the mainstream.

With the national fervor over bin Laden’s death—an event that provides a sense of closure for many in the nation, particularly the families of 9/11 victims—right now would be a good time for Mendenhall to keep his mouth shut.

How to Build A YouTube Channel From The Ground Up

2011-05-02T08:02:00.000-06:00

Dr. Robert Wagstaff spent years trying to market his invention through traditional channels, Adam T. Sutton, Senior Reporter for Marketing Sherpa says. He tried offering Orabrush, a breath-freshening tongue cleaner, through retailers, infomercials and other outlets without success. Looking for ideas, he approached a marketing class in 2009 at a local university. The students told him that 92% of Orabrush's potential customers were unlikely to buy the product online and that he should avoid internet marketing.

But one of the students, Jeffrey Harmon, noted that the remaining 8% of the audience represented millions of people who might buy an Orabrush. Wagstaff liked Harmon's perspective. He connected with him outside of class and eventually hired him to market Orabrush part-time. "Once I knew that 90% of bad breath came from your tongue and that using the tongue scraper could get this gunk off, I thought this was a really cool idea," Harmon says.

While testing marketing ideas, Harmon found a YouTube video titled "How to tell if you have bad breath." He received permission from the video's publisher to add it to an Orabrush landing page and test the response. "That video boosted our conversion rate by three times," Harmon says. Excited by the results, he recruited a small team to create Orabrush's own "bad breath test video." That video has since received more than 13 million views on YouTube, and 19% of those viewers have visited Orabrush's website.

Since the launch of that first video, businesses from more than 40 countries have inquired about becoming Orabrush distributors. Other results include:

More than 35 million YouTube channel views
More than 116,000 YouTube subscribers (second only to OldSpice among YouTube sponsor channels)
Up to 10x increase in landing page conversion rates by adding Orabrush videos to landing pages
More than 271,000 Facebook fans (driven mostly from YouTube)
Orabrush’s sales volume in stores is comparable to premium toothbrush sales

Orabrush grew its YouTube strategy from scratch through experimentation, hard work and innovative marketing. Below, we outline the key tactics that the team used to build its inbound strategy.

Tactic #1. Create an effective YouTube page

Standard YouTube channel-pages have a basic template with videos, comments and profile information. Orabrush's page has a customized look that includes:

Image-based background
Image-based navigation buttons to video categories
A second video player below the primary player
A "try it now" button to order a free Orabrush
Twitter sharing button

Harmon painstakingly researched successful YouTube channels and tested their tactics. The resulting page is a combination of the best tactics he and his team have uncovered (see creative samples below).

- Doubles as a shareable landing page

The middle of Orabrush's YouTube page features a second video player and a large "try it now" button. When clicked, the button reveals a widget that encourages visitors to follow the brand in social networks and visit Orabrush's site for a free trial. Since the team can code links to automatically scroll to this section when visitors arrive, this section doubles as a landing page. It also includes a Twitter-sharing button that generates a link to the landing page in the following tweet:

"Bad Breath Test: http: //t.co/NKvCczU via @orabrush"

- Sponsors have more leeway

Standard YouTube channels cannot add linkable header images, buttons in videos, or buttons on their channel-pages. Orabrush has greater flexibility over its page because it is a high-level YouTube sponsor and buys a good amount of advertising on the network, Harmon says.

Tactic #2. Create more than one type of video

Orabrush's channel features three types of videos, each with a specific purpose.

- Conversion videos

As the name suggests, these videos are designed to encourage conversions. The team includes them on landing pages, and they can dramatically increase conversion rates, Harmon says.
Harmon calls the videos "edu-tainment." Each entertains and teaches viewers about Orabrush and topics such as bad breath. They include calls-to-action, typically as a button embedded in the video or as text (see creative samples below). Types of calls-to-action include:

Visit team's site to purchase or request a free brush
Locate a nearby store with Orabrush
Watch another of the team's videos
Download the team's iPhone app
Share the video on Facebook or Twitter
Connect with Orabrush on Facebook or Twitter

- Engagement videos

A YouTube audience must be engaged. The team fills this requirement, in part, by consistently uploading enjoyable videos. The videos are funny. Many feature Orabrush's human-tongue mascot joking with people about the product. These 'engagement' videos often end with buttons to view more videos or subscribe to Orabrush's YouTube channel.

- Customer reviews

Customer testimonials are powerful. Orabrush hosts more than two-dozen of them on YouTube, but Harmon's team did not create them or plan to, he says. Instead, the reviews were a fluke. Harmon gave an Orabrush to a friend and in exchange for a written review (several customers had written mini-reviews on Orabrush's Facebook page). Harmon's friend, a film buff, created a video review instead and Harmon uploaded it to YouTube. "After that, these reviews just started pouring in," Harmon says. "Tons and tons of video reviews came from people all over the world who had tried the product and wanted to tell people about it." (Note: Be sure to check with your legal department about the Federal Trade Commission's recently-updated guidelines on testimonials in advertising)

Tactic #3. Commit to consistency

Harmon thoroughly researched how successful YouTube channels operated. He found that video length, quality and subject matter were only loosely related to success. The big factor, he says, was consistency. "I realized that they constantly engaged their fans." Again and again, he saw that publishers who created content that interested their audiences on a weekly basis had huge followings. The challenge, though, was creating enough content to maintain a weekly schedule.

- Work in advance

Orabrush sets its publishing calendar several months in advance, Harmon says. He works with a tight-knit group of writers and video experts to publish at least one video per week -- every week. "I have talked to a lot of 'YouTubers' who took a break for a couple of months. Going back, it takes them forever to get back to where they were," he says.

- Ad algorithm favors weekly video

Similar to Google, YouTube's ads are matched to search results and their placement is based on an algorithm. Harmon has noticed that videos over one week old are not promoted as often as newer videos, he says.

- The costs can kill you

Video production can be expensive and a weekly schedule can drive costs to the moon. Be sure to set a strict budget or you'll risk running out of resources to keep up. Orabrush avoids overspending on sets, props or special effects. The team also recruits low-cost, high-value talent from the nearby Brigham Young University film program. That said, the team did invest in a good camera, lens and lights to give the videos a professional feel.

Tactic #4. Content has to interest the audience

Let's face it -- no one is going to subscribe to a YouTube channel that has boring videos, no matter how often they're published. The key to making good videos is to make them interesting to your audience. Videos do not have to be of the highest quality and their finer points, such as length, are not as important as their appeal, Harmon says. Each Orabrush video is entertaining and explains a product that most consumers have never heard of. These factors, combined with the team's persuasive calls-to-action, encourage viewers to subscribe and share with friends.

- Ads were a catalyst

The team boosted its performance by purchasing ads in YouTube's Promoted Videos program.
The ads were "crucial" to attracting visitors, Harmon says. Once they arrived, it was up to the team's content to convince viewers to subscribe and share with friends. "The real key is making sure you have enough 'virality' and enough engagement and interest that you can stretch those clicks," Harmon says.

Tactic #5. Engage fans and peers

YouTube is a social network that includes profiles, comments and updates. The network's users expect interaction. Here are three ways Orabrush connects with its audience:

- Responding and moderating

Although the team gets far too many comments to respond to them all, Orabrush makes it a point to reply to as many as possible. Also, Harmon notes that YouTube has many "haters" who troll the network looking for nasty things to say. "I moderate comments for about the first half of the day. Then once you get the haters weeded out of the first few hundred comments, then no more come usually."

- Use ideas and give "shout-out"s

Orabrush will sometimes ask fans questions, such as to which family members viewers would give an Orabrush and why. The team also mines viewer comments for content ideas. "When we first made the Orabrush video, everybody was saying they didn't know exactly how to use [the product]. So we made a how-to Orabrush video." A key part of using fans' ideas, Harmon says, is to give credit to them in the videos they inspire. This shows your fans that you're paying attention to them, you value them, and you think they're smart.

- Interact with fellow publishers

There are hundreds of YouTube channels with large followings and Orabrush makes it a point to make friends and interact with peers. For example, when the team started receiving unsolicited video user reviews, it sent several free Orabrushes to Juicystar07, a beauty-focused YouTube publisher with a large following. She loved the product and posted a video review. Afterward, even more user-generated reviews poured in!

6 Tips to Help Optimize Your Branding Efforts

2011-04-29T06:25:00.036-06:00

People typically equate a company's brand with the company's logo. But a brand is much more than a stylized name: It is a primary symbol of an organization's purpose, vision and values. Indeed, the act of branding represents a strategic endeavor that encompasses a range of corporate functions—marketing, public relations, and customer service, not the least, among them.

Branding also includes the way employees present their company to its various constituencies, whether intentionally through the communication of key messages or incidentally through everyday emails, social-media engagement and phone conversations.

Digital's Impact on Branding
Before the advent of digital technology, buyers in both the business-to-consumer (B-to-C) and the business-to business (B-to-B) space would be open to receiving sales communications from a number of brand ambassadors. They may have been exposed to messages pushed to them from dozens of companies, clients, or products from which they could reduce the pool of realistic choices to those offerings that were closely aligned with their needs. Marketing and other communications professionals relied on this traditional "funnel" approach, and reached out to their prospects and audiences at specific intervals in the selling cycle—most often at the point of "consideration." The ball was essentially in the seller's court.

Things are very different today. "Consumers in both the B-2-C and the B-2-B markets still want a clear brand promise and offerings they value. What has changed is when—at what touch points—they are most open to influence, and how you can interact with them at those points," David C. Edelman states in a Harvard Business Review article. "In the past," Edelman explains, "marketing strategies that put the lion's share of resources into building brand awareness and then opening wallets at the point of purchase worked pretty well. But touch points have changed in both number and nature, requiring a major adjustment to realign marketers' strategies and budgets with where consumers are actually spending their time." He goes on to suggest that consumers are now most open to influence at the "evaluate" stage and not at the "consider" stage.

Essentially, successful branding communication has shifted from a seller-controlled to a buyer-controlled model. Nonetheless, many marketing and PR efforts persist in following the older, less-effective, model. Commenting on the Edelman article, Taddy Hall, chief operating officer of Meteor Solutions, writes in a post: "Marketers' mental and economic models assume that consumer behaviors are primarily influenced by the message pushed to them—through media and promotion. In reality, we live in a world in which consumer behaviors are primarily influenced by the content they pull to themselves through their social networks."

How to Optimize Your Branding Efforts
There is a lot of potential for communications practitioners to harness the power of the new marketing model described above. Here are six tips that can help you get the most out of your branding communications activities in an increasingly digital environment.

1. Employees are brand ambassadors. Brand advocacy starts with all employees and not just the media spokespeople. Customer-facing employees are the first point of contact for prospective new customers and for existing clients, which gives them considerable influence in shaping the impression that audiences have of your company.

2. Seek information thoughtfully. In a WebInkNow post, David Meerman Scott likens mandatory "contact us" forms to asking intimate questions before introducing yourself to someone you want to date. For example, he says that you would never go up to someone and immediately ask for their phone number; nor would you ask the person how much money they make after first introducing yourself. "...You're not likely to get too far in the dating world acting like this. Yet, this is exactly how many companies behave," Scott contends. Instead of requiring a prospect to disclose "intimate details" (like the number of company employees) in order to speak with a human at your company, Scott says "the next time you have to design a marketing strategy, think about how you would approach it if you were trying to date the buyer."

3. Listen and respond. There is a vast amount of energy being devoted to persuading consumers of what their needs are instead of discovering and meeting those needs that already exist. The best way to identify existing needs is to truly listen and enter into comprehensive, two-way dialogues.

4. Adapt and adjust. The world of digital communications has expanded almost unimaginably in just a few years, and it continues to evolve at astonishing speed. Yet, many organizations are still slow in keeping up with these monumental changes. Writing about "Branding in 2011," Nicole Armstrong, of More Than a Logo, states that "Brands need to be nimble. They need to be able to quickly adapt to both new and existing marketing changes, challenges, and opportunities." Without adjusting, companies cannot expect to remain relevant, let alone to be successful.

5. Spell out the differences. Today's audiences want to know what separates your company from the competition. "If you don't differentiate, your brand will become a commodity and you will be forced to compete on price," Dave Dunn of Branding Communications and Forrest W. Anderson, consultant. "Once you become just a price, you are no longer a brand, just another supplier, and you're vulnerable." For your company to truly stand out, make your communications both creative and innovative, resisting the temptation to rehash the same material.

6. Choose tools wisely. Pick tools that best fit your community's requirements and preferences. That means using whatever gets you involved in the conversation in a relevant and meaningful way. And don't be afraid to incorporate new tactics if research shows that they are well-suited to your audience.

Today's consumers are more likely to engage in word-of-mouth marketing both online and offline. By targeting consumers at the point in the branding-communications-buying cycle at which they are most open to influence and then fulfilling those brand promises—with the help of the tips outlined above—you can harness the power inherent in the activities today's consumers participate in already and potentially create brand ambassadors that can continue to propel your branding forward.

Why The Print Industry Can’t Leave The World Of Messy Ink

2011-04-25T07:38:00.000-06:00

Lately we’ve heard growing concern from magazine and newspaper publishers regarding the challenge of providing content for mobile media while preserving their print franchises. The concern is nothing new, but it’s apparent that content providers are at risk of losing track of their customers like toddlers in a shopping mall, says John Squires, a former EVP of Time Inc., and founder of Next Issue Media.

Apple’s iPad success and the imminent release of new application distribution platforms from Google and other software companies threaten another seismic shift for publishers that may have far greater impact on their business models than the growth of free media on the web. Devices like the iPad offer consumers a rich reading experience and offer publishers even more targeted advertising, but the revenue tradeoff as publishers navigate the path from print to this new world is lopsided–and not in a good way.

While we all enjoy browsing publications at newsstands, over 90 percent of the circulation of U.S. magazines is delivered directly to consumers through the mail. The data and cross-marketing opportunities that these direct customer relationships provide to publishers is the fundamental underpinning of their business model.

Data informs advertising in magazines and allows for better targeting. It provides for the sale of ancillary products like books, videos and special issues. It allows multi-title publishers to solicit new readers across their enterprise. Even competitors agree to exchange lists because it benefits the industry by building more magazine readers from a pool of customers who already enjoy receiving their publications through subscription rather than by single copy purchase.

Without direct access to customers, publisher revenue will decline sharply and the publications that we depend on for in-depth reporting, news and entertainment will risk a final digital Armageddon. Should we care? Why can’t the publishing industry just leave the world of messy ink and rural route delivery? Can’t it pivot to a less costly distribution model where customer ownership isn’t as critical?

Unfortunately, even if we assume that publishers retain their customers, there are extraordinary business challenges in transforming today’s print consumers into exclusively digital readers. And publishers can’t afford to relinquish their direct connection to readers without a more attractive economic model than the digital publishing world presents today.

Here’s why:

The Advertising Model Won’t Pay.

Magazines are a wonderful advertising medium. Among the top fifty publications ranked by advertising revenues, each copy of paid circulation generates a pass-along audience that averages seven readers. Those seven readers factor heavily into advertising rates, and provide a significant revenue multiple to be weighed against the editorial, marketing, printing and distribution costs of delivering a copy to the consumer.

What happens to this audience with a digital magazine? If a publisher wishes to be paid for its distribution, it will likely set entitlement requirements that discourage free circulation of its products. Even with integration of social networking tools to enable article sharing, publishers won’t generate more than 1.5 or two readers per copy. So the advertising revenue per circulation unit will fall due to the fact that fewer people see the ads. Even to remain constant, advertising effectiveness per copy would have to increase over four times to make up for the audience decline from seven to 1.5 readers per copy.

Of course, most publishers believe these new digital magazines will have wonderful consumer engagement qualities that will result in a higher value being placed on their advertising. They believe digital ads will be better targeted and more efficient than print at delivering the right message to the right reader. But will that value be four times the value of print today? Not likely.

Some argue publishers must cast their lot with free content and endeavor to survive with an exclusively ad driven model. But we need to remember the lessons of the web for most publishers. Even with the powerful reach the web provides, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair would fail without the significant vote their consumers make every month by making a direct payment to the publisher.

So editors and consumer marketers will bear a larger burden in this new mobile reading world. They’ll need to increase the revenue from consumers. And one could argue that this is a good thing, redressing the imbalance of an industry that has been too highly leveraged on advertising. But for the consumer stream to become more valuable, one of two things must happen: either the demand for magazines must rise, or the cost of distribution must fall.

A 30 percent Cut to the Store Isn’t a Great Deal.

Isn’t selling your magazine through an app store and receiving 70 percent of the revenues a great deal? After all, magazine subscription agents and newsstands don’t return anywhere near that amount to publishers. But this is argument misses an important point. In iTunes and the Android Marketplace, there’s virtually no merchandising of magazine products. A magazine app must swim to the top of several hundred thousand other applications. And even in the context of a dedicated magazine store, the publisher won’t control featuring. The value of the brand must pull the consumer through to the purchase. And brands are expensive to build and nurture. So the publisher will continue to bear a high marketing cost to ensure enough sales for a stable level of circulation, just as they do today in the offline world. These marketing costs would certainly erase any advantage that a 70 percent cut would provide over the conventional agent model, particularly if the publisher cannot capture information on the customer and determine an effective ROI against their marketing expenditures.

Margin Must Come Before Marginal Cost.

What about the fact that there is virtually zero distribution cost? Well despite the problems of the U.S. Postal Service, the cost of printing and distribution represents a relatively low percentage of publisher expenses–somewhere on the order of 20 to 25 percent today. Of course there are significant creative and technical costs in publishing a beautiful new magazine in tablet form. Just adapting to the variety of screen sizes, screen resolutions and operating systems requires significant new investments. These costs, together with the aforementioned ad revenue decline, more than eclipse the savings from eliminating paper and postage.

So where will this margin come from if not from the consumer?

Tablets provide publishers a wonderful opportunity to rethink their products and add more value. But no manner of reinvention will be possible if they can’t mine their customer relationships to merchandise these new products. If the relationship between the magazine publisher and customer is broken, the industry will end up like music and book publishers–removed from customers, wedded to old habits and powerless as digital delivery inevitably overtakes and diminishes the value of their physical distribution.

Lastly, let’s consider the argument from a consumer’s perspective. Nearly one out of every two Americans subscribes to a magazine today. Many will purchase iPads and other tablets over the next year. When they do, Apple and others suggest that 150 million consumers ignore their existing relationships with publishers.

In this battle over ownership consumers are the losers. They will not be able to direct publishers as they wish, choose to get both a print and digital version of the magazine, or move to digital only delivery. They won’t be afforded the opportunity to get a better value by bundling their print and digital delivery together. They won’t be able to align their print and digital purchases so that expirations synchronize and billing is simplified. They won’t be able to move their experience to the device that suits them–irrespective of the platform–and read on phones, laptops, tablets or anywhere they like. Nothing in the transition will remove friction or frustration. Is this an experience we will be proud of?

How to Examine Your Failed Ads and Make Them Work Next Time

2011-04-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

"I tried advertising. It doesn’t work." The conviction of the people making this claim is unshakable - most likely because they’re describing exactly what happened to them. Of course, if they had said, "My kid tried riding a bike, but he fell over. Bicycles don’t work," or "I tried golf once. I didn’t get a hole in one. Golf is a stupid waste of time," everyone would recognize the absurdity of the statements, says marketing consultant Chuck McKay. But as every kid (and every golfer) knows, even common activities require some basic skills.
At its basis, advertising is simple.Incredibly simple. Just deliver to the public your offer to sell something. The public’s reaction, though, is not as uncomplicated as "I’ll buy" or "I won’t buy." Actual responses range from absolutely no interest on the unsuccessful end of the response continuum to, on the successful end, people pounding on the door because the sign says the store opens at 8:30, and it’s now 8:32.
Why do most ads produce results somewhere between these extremes? There are 10 factors that could cause your advertising to produce disappointing results. The first two factors involve your offer:

Cause #1: Did anyone want the stuff you had to offer?
Ideally, businesses would identify and research a market, then develop what the customer really wants. In the real world, manufacturers create, and retailers stock, things they believe people will want. Sometimes, they’re wrong. When those retailers say to the world, "Hey, come and buy our diamonelle-encrusted left-handed can openers," people don’t say, "I don’t want any, thank you." They don’t say anything. They care so little about the offering, they don’t even notice the ad, and won’t remember ever seeing or hearing it.

Cause #2: Did you offer what people needed when they were most likely to need it?
Think seasonality. Swimsuits don’t sell well in November. Halloween candy won’t get much attention in April.
The next four factors involve the content of your message:

Cause #3: Did your ad snag shoppers' attention? Were you able to hold that attention long enough to deliver your offer?

There are three broad categories of advertising communication: entertainment, information, and engagement.
1. Entertaining ads can work, if there’s a direct connection between entertainment and the one thought you’re trying to plant in the minds of shoppers. In far too many ads the entertainment is not relevant to the advertising message.
2. Most ads offer information. Unfortunately, it’s about the advertiser. Good ads are about the customer. Instead of "We have a huge selection of clean, late model cars to fit any budget," try "Admit it, you’re going to like the way people look at you when you drive a classic Porche."
3. Engagement requires the shopper to pay close attention to, and consciously consider, the content of your advertising. Unless that shopper is ready to purchase, catching her with a marginally different offer won’t elevate your ad to consideration status.
Say the same things your competitors do, and rest assured that most shoppers will ignore you. But say something salient, something highly meaningful, and watch the difference.

Cause #4: Did you engage? Did you actually say anything worth remembering?
Too many ads are tedious, dreary, boring, and monotonous. Are yours? Just because you have a lot to say doesn’t mean your audience will sit still and pay attention. Nobody gets emotionally involved in a laundry list of brand names, sale items, or the number of collective years of your staff’s experience. The most you can expect of any ad is to convey one single, compelling idea. Find that one idea, and express it.

Cause #5: Did your ad persuade? Did you extend an invitation to buy (a call to action)?
Sometimes we notice a highly creative and entertaining ad campaign, only to find out later that the advertiser lost market share while the campaign ran. The "¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!" chihuahua, "Joe Isuzu," and Old Spice’s "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaigns come to mind. High entertainment value. Precious little persuasion.
Entertainment aside, shoppers are skeptical. No matter how truthful any claim you make in your ad might be, people don’t automatically believe you. That process which falls between demonstrating your evidence, and leading them to agree with your claim, is persuasion.

Cause #6: Did your ad complement your image?
People who project different personalities, depending on which group of people they’re associating with, are not trusted. Without trust, you don’t have customers.
Like people, companies have personalities, which are a critical part of their brand. Advertising is an extension of that brand. If it’s loud, insulting, self-centered, annoying, or otherwise offensive, people will assume your business is organized around those qualities.
What is it that people know about you? What is your professional reputation? What is your image among customers? Among non-customers? Do you have an image? How do you know?
The final four causes involve external factors:

Cause #7: Did you choose the right medium? Did you have the right sized ad?
Think of advertising as your cost to acquire customers. Costs per exposure, per thousand, or per rating point only matter indirectly. Media efficiency is calculated by dividing the number of dollars invested by the number of new customers you’ve acquired. Magazines with tiny circulations but active readership may be a great investment. Regional television stations with the highest priced ads in town may also be a great investment.
Until you track the number of new customers each produces, and the average sale of each new customer, you can’t do a meaningful comparison.

Cause #8: Did you schedule your ads at the optimum frequency?
There are two factors which combine to make media impact. One is the size of the ad (in column inches, or seconds, or pixels), and the other is the number of times shoppers read / hear / view it. Exceptionally salient ads may only need one exposure. Most require multiple exposures to the ad before people respond to your offer. Under normal circumstances you’re going to need to run that ad several times.

Cause #9: Did you allow enough time for shoppers to need what you sell?
People eat several times a day. They need new tires every year or two. They buy refrigerators and mattresses maybe once per decade. How many of them are in the market for what you sell at any given time?
Ads for short purchase cycle offerings should pay off quickly. The impact of grocery or restaurant ads can be measured in days. Other products, which have longer purchase cycles require more patience, and more persistence.

Cause #10: Did you start with a clear goal?
What was it you wanted to happen when you bought that advertising which didn’t work? Did you expect to see new faces in your store? Additional referrals? Greater market awareness for your company ("getting your name out there")? Sales increases? Additional goodwill? If you don’t know what you were attempting to accomplish, how can you be sure your advertising DIDN’T work?
Yes, advertising works. We suspect everyone knows that.

A former boss, when told advertising didn’t work, offered to run some free radio ads for the skeptic. He said, "Let me tell you what they’ll say: Free $100 bills at your business." No one ever took him up on it.
Maybe yours is one of those companies which has all of the customers it needs. Congratulations. We envy you. Most every business owner we talk to, however, needs a steady influx of new customers.
Like playing golf or riding a bicycle, there are skills you’ll need to make it work. You weren’t born with the ability to run your own company, but you learned what to do, and when, and why. Likewise, you can develop the ability to profitably advertise that same company. You’ll need to invest a modest budget, commit to some seriously detailed record keeping, and allocate enough time to develop and hone those skills. Thirty minutes a day for the next year will give you the rough equivalent of one semester of Intro to Marketing.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of great information available, and much of it free. If you’re ready to get started, drop us a note and we’ll send you a recommended reading list.

Turn Your Business Resolution into a PR Revolution

2011-04-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

As eyes look forward to a new business year, many small business owners and entrepreneurs are hoping that this year will be the one that catapults them into success. But businesses often overlook a key element when making their business plans and resolutions.

Most new businesses fail within three years – and it’s often due to the fact that many business owners think that simply hanging up an OPEN sign and placing an ad in the yellow pages will attract customers.

What it takes is a marketing strategy that’s effective – and in the case of many small business owners – on a limited budget. They need public relations to turn the resolutions into revolutions.

Public relations and publicity are some of the most cost-effective methods of marketing available today.

Besides the fact that it’s low cost or no cost, publicity can help establish your credibility. It can position you as the expert in your field, building you a powerful presence.

The key is to include your public relations and publicity efforts as part of a year-long, strategic business plan.

As you’re looking toward what you’re going to accomplish in the future, make sure you incorporate different public relations efforts as part of your complete plan. That way you’ll be sure to schedule it in, just like any other business task.

Shannon Cherry, publicist, recommends these low-cost public relations strategies to help revolutionize small businesses:

Write articles. Articles don’t have to be long; they just need to be informative. Submitting online, as well as offline, provides a good chance to get your name in print at no cost.
Write press releases. Reporters everywhere are looking for stories, and a press release gives them the information to write that story. Just make sure it’s newsworthy, not just an advertisement.
Use social media. I cannot stress enough that social media including Twitter and Facebook are publicity tools, not your complete marketing effort. Make sure you include content valuable to your target market, as well as promote your products and services.
Use your business cards. Think of your business card as a mini billboard and start handing them out everywhere. Include them in all your correspondence and put them in places that they’ll be seen.
Start speaking. Speaking in front of an audience usually makes you an expert. People like to buy from experts. Speaking is free, and it’s just like making a sales call to many people at one time.

Successful companies make public relations a priority. Whether selling direct, through distribution channels or via e-commerce, a successful company must achieve and maintain a strong market presence through a continuous and effective public relations program.

A Marketing Lesson From American Idol

2011-04-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

Have you noticed how often incompetent people are supremely confident? Not just auditioning for American Idol, but throughout life?

Professor Justin Kruger and graduate student David Dunning of Cornell University studied this effect in their 1999 paper, Unskilled and Unaware of It. Their conclusion: those who knew the least rated themselves most knowledgeable, and those who actually understood the topic were far less sure of themselves.

This result has been confirmed in multiple follow-up studies involving several skills and fields of expertise. It is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, says marketing consultant Chuck McKay.

Which begs the question: why does this happen?

Answer: the basic skills and awareness needed for competency are exactly the same skills necessary to evaluate the competency.

Their lack of knowledge (incompetence) prevents them from recognizing their lack of knowledge (incompetence). People don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t even know where to look or how to look at it.

And it doesn’t dawn on them that skilled performers DO know this stuff, until they’re exposed, dramatically to their own ignorance. Until then, they delude their incompetent selves into illusions of confident competency.

If you’ve ever wondered how:
• people who can't articulate the issues, still feel confident casting their vote (or making inflammatory statements);
• how people with no experience teaching, know exactly what's wrong with our education system; and
• how those who have never studied investing, can blithely plow their life savings into the real estate market
Incompetence leads people to make poor choices. Incompetence prevents them from realizing they make poor choices. This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DK). On the other end of the DK continuum, competent people tend to rate themselves lower than they should. Their internal voices seem to say, "Hey, everyone knows this."

The dumb get confident; the intelligent get doubtful. And to a greater or lesser degree we're all guilty.

How Biased Feedback Makes it Even Worse

Imagine a typical Friday night in any typical neighborhood watering hole. The regular crowd shuffles in. One of them, Miss Karaoke Singer, is recognized by the rest as being the "best" in the club.

What kind of feedback does she get?

Do any of the other contestants tell her that her breath control is bad, her vibrato unnatural, or mention the odd affectation she's developed? Hardly. They don't know anything about nuanced performance. Since the only feedback she gets is positive, she thinks she's good.

Good? No, FANTASTIC! The Dunning-Kruger effect helps her to believe she's ready for American Idol!

Then comes the audition.

The judges tell her she's a poor singer. Her own incompetence prevents her from understanding what they're telling her. These judges must be stupid. After all, she just gave a great performance.

She gets angry. Tells off the judges. Not because she's defending herself. Not because she's trying not to look bad in front of her supporters. But because she's completely incapable of understanding just how bad she is.

Advertising That Doesn’t Work Probably Has More to Do With Dunning-Kruger Than Advertising

Much like our karaoke singer, every city has an advertiser who, rather than admit his advertising strategy and execution are flawed, convinces himself that advertising doesn’t work.

Does anyone in Mr. Businessman's entourage tell him his ads have nothing substantive to say? That they don’t speak to the buyer in natural language, and instead just spew out ad clichés like "fast, friendly, service?" Does anyone tell him that putting his kid and his dog in the ad won’t convince anyone to buy things from him?

Or more technically, does anyone tell our businessman that his ads don’t have enough frequency to make an impact? That he’s using the wrong medium? That his competition has effectively co-opted his position?

No. His friends get a kick out of seeing him on TV, or in the paper, or on radio, and the only feedback Mr. Businessman gets is positive. He thinks he's good.

Until he sees his sales figures. Plummeting or flat-lined sales force a confrontation with reality, and it’s the rare businessman indeed who doesn’t address his frustration and anger at advertising medium - or on advertising in general. Hence, the near-ubiquitous refrain of: "I tried advertising and it didn’t work."

Unfortunately for Mr. Businessman, if he doesn’t want to follow Miss Karaoke Singer back to waiting tables, he still needs to get more customers. And fast!

How Small Clients Can Get the Best Ads And Grow to Become Big Companies

The thing about big fish / small pond business owners is, they often believe their success in one field translates to competency in almost everything else. Rather than leveraging the expertise of their ad man, they’ll bully him until they get the kind of ads they want - ads full of Dunning-Kruger-esque follies.

But sometimes business owners who are genuinely good at what they do manage to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect. They find a professional to bring to them the same hard-won competency and expertise they offer to their own customers.

Its much like what happens when a truly talented singer gets on American Idol: with the right direction and promotion, some dreams do come true.

What about you?

Are you an average karaoke singer? Or a true star in search of the right stage and the right spotlight? Knowing which is critical when you're fishing for customers.

How People Make Buying Decisions

2011-04-11T08:20:00.000-06:00

The most important purchase you get from a customer is the second purchase.

Why? Because a two-time buyer is at least twice as likely to return and buy again as a one-time buyer, says marketer extraordinaire Jamie Turner.

So then the question becomes, "How do I get a one-time buyer to become a two-time buyer?"

Typically, that involves a combination of good customer service and the good sense of value. A good sense of value is achieved when a customer feels as though they're getting more of your product or service than they paid for.

For example, a Mercedes Benz is typically twice as expensive as a Volkswagen. Given that, you might assume that Mercedes Benz' market share would be significantly less than Volkswagen's, but it's not. They're almost equal (1.9% for Mercedes Benz vs 2.2% for Volkswagen).

Why? Because while a Mercedes Benz is twice as expensive, the perceived value is 2.5 to 3 times greater than a Volkswagen's. Customers who pay twice as much for a Mercedes Benz feel as though they're getting 2.5 to 3 times more value for their purchase.

See how that works?

How all This Relates to You
When you're thinking about how to sell more of your products and services, you can start by understanding how people make buying decisions.

Remember, most people make buying decisions in one of three ways:
With their gut
With their heart
With their mind

People who make decisions with their gut are intuitive, non-linear thinkers. They don't analyze a purchase in a structured "A...B...C" way as much as they analyze a purchase in a less-structured "A...Q...Z...Y...C...oh, look, there's a bird outside my window" way.

People who make decisions with their heart are driven by emotion. If your target market is driven by emotion, you'll want to work extra hard on establishing a strong, meaningful brand.

People who make decisions with their mind are logical, linear thinkers. If that's your target market, you'll want a feature-oriented, benefits-based marketing campaign.

Five great ways to take social media offline

2011-04-07T08:11:00.000-06:00

Nothing is more social than hundreds of people, alone at home, signing into Twitter for a midnight snack of connection, right? Unfortunately, while many companies have given the green light to ‘do' social media, setting up Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts, this pursuit of social media greatness appears to be creating a sort of temporary amnesia when it comes to the more traditional aspects of relationship building. What about the power of touch or shared oxygen?

The truly thrilling frontier is a place where online and offline connections exist in tandem, not in isolation, says Anne Buehner, Associate Social Media Strategist at Red Door Interactive. Smart marketers will begin to put forth campaign ideas and social media tenets that not only dissolve the divide between on- and offline communities, but extend and synthesize stakeholders to connect with brands and one-another at multiple (digital and physical) touch points.

Here are five ways that companies can start moving in this direction:

1. Promote and recognize your social media community in-store. From store windows and t-shirts to receipts and napkins, companies are taking advantage of every opportunity to remind their customers that they're on social media networks. For example, Red Door client Charlotte Russe recently launched an in-store campaign that included signage and window displays featuring Facebook comments, tweets, and photos from social media fans. A mobile and QR Code sign up made it easy for customers to become a part of the social community while still in the store.

2. Create a live experience and provide a way for participants to promote it for you. The Jeep Rocks & Road Tour organized various off-road course events across the country that put people behind the wheel of its new model SUV. After going through a variety of terrain - including a nearly vertical slope - participants were given the opportunity to record a video recounting their experience and could automatically post it on their own social networks. To rev up the momentum of this campaign, Jeep also posted a few of these videos on its YouTube channel.

3. Facilitate Meetups to bring your community together for events in real life. Social technology blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch have both created MeetUp groups in an effort to bring members of the community together. For its fifth anniversary, TechCrunch encouraged its community of "crunchies" to gather face-to-face and utilized meetup.com as a channel for folks to connect and plan events in their respective cities. In addition, Mashable encourages its readers to meet monthly in more than 1,150 cities around the world.

Similarly, tweet-ups bring a Twitter community together for a live event or mixer. Not only does this provide an opportunity to meet face-to-face with followers, but it can increase awareness of a brand and Twitter account. Attendees are also encouraged to tweet live from the events, thus updating their networks about the brand and activities.

4. Engage your online community with an offline scavenger hunt. Rather than offering prizes through online contests, brands can now mobilize followers through hybrid contents that involve offline activities. Last year, Red Door client ESET leveraged the early adopter crowd at SXSW and promoted its anti-virus software through a scavenger hunt that included a photo booth and interactive media wall. In addition, skateboarder Tony Hawk has hosted the "Tony Hawk Treasure Hunt" for two consecutive years and provides his followers with opportunities to win prizes that are hidden in more than 60 cities around the world by posting clues on his Twitter account. This tactic alone helped increase Tony's Twitter followers significantly.

Retailers can also execute similar tactics to spur foot traffic in-store and direct customers to Twitter - or any online community - for exclusive contest information.

5. Encourage check-ins. While the onslaught of location-based "check-in" services may seem overwhelming, there are many benefits to offering incentives for check-ins. Facebook Deals, for example, allows brands to drive those who like their business in-store and customers to Facebook for the deal, thus marrying the on- and offline communities. When consumers check-in to a location from most geo-location applications, it automatically posts to their Facebook and Twitter feeds (if they set up their accounts for social sharing). Thus, check-ins can increase a brand's exposure exponentially.

Vons and Pepsi both put a twist on basic check-ins when they teamed up with Foursquare. The Vons/Pepsi/Foursquare partnership made it easy for consumers to integrate their Vons Club card with Foursquare and receive special savings from Pepsi. Applications like Foursquare provide ample opportunities for business to offer incentives and syncing loyalty programs with social check-ins is a win-win for consumers and businesses.

Consumers are constantly seeking ways to translate their social media interactions into something more tangible. With new and evolving technologies, now is the time for companies to get creative and examine opportunities to extend the conversation, transparently and authentically, into the daily lives of their social communities. By engaging the social media family across multiple channels, platforms and locations, a brand can build and expand a loyal community of enthusiasts.

How Much Is a Great Idea Worth?

2011-04-04T08:31:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to believe that B.S. stands for Beyond Selling, says AdAge columnist Rance Crain. Marketers now seem to aspire to a higher purpose, or they churn out ads whose selling idea is obfuscated by obtuseness and complexity. What are the UPS and Xerox campaigns all about? Is Delta Airlines' "Still Climbing" any more product-directed that United Airlines' "Rising" of a few years ago? And couldn't Allstate's new "Mayhem" TV spots apply to any other insurance company?

Generic ideas that apply to any product in the category should be worth less than ideas that home in on the very core of what your brand is all about. But I'm afraid both are worth about the same in today's marketplace.

This isn't (just) a rant against big-company procurement practices, which were originally set up to value the worth of such staples as office supplies and bulk chemicals. It's also a rant against ads that don't seem to be trying very hard to move the merchandise.

Maybe marketers and their teams have another priority: execution as opposed to strategy. With so many platforms to deal with, it's not hard to see how marketers could be more involved in the mechanics of the message than the message itself. Or, as one agency exec told me, "Execution is becoming an excuse for ideas."

That's certainly what must have happened with the new Xerox campaign, which the company call its "most ambitious and innovative." The basic idea is that Xerox helps companies with business processes and document management, freeing them up to focus on their real business. The result is a mish-mash of elements -- in one spot that I've seen several times and had no idea what it was about (until I read the Xerox press release), a Marriott bellman processes invoices while trying to provide guest services at the same time.

Maybe Xerox is trying to do too much. "Along with the innovative use of brand characters, we're cutting through the clutter with innovative media, like interactive billboards and attention-grabbing digital units," explained Xerox CMO Christa Carone. Lots of innovation, lots of attention-grabbing. The idea gets trampled in the process.

Or take the new UPS campaign (please). To the tune of "That's Amore," UPS is airing a "We love logistics" ditty in commercials that show how UPS can repair laptops for a computer manufacturer, fill prescriptions for medical devices or provide online printing services. UPS refers to its portfolio of solutions collectively as "logistics," but I didn't know that, so I had no idea what the company was talking about.

The print ads take a more meat-and-potatoes approach with the headline, "Why logistics is the most powerful force in business today," and they provide more information about how UPS can help businesses of all sizes with logistics, according to Crain's BtoB magazine.

So why take such a consumer-oriented direction in the TV ads? "The true audience for logistics services are large, sophisticated companies. It is a trivializing approach," Laura Ries, of Ries & Ries, told BtoB. Another observer told me the UPS ads were "talking down to their customers."

Maybe procurement people and other arbiters of today's advertising weigh ads by the pound and decide that if they are complicated and have a lot of moving parts, they're worth more. A powerful yet simple idea just doesn't seem hefty enough to command respect.

I get the feeling that producing great advertising just isn't worth the effort anymore, especially given the short tenure of most marketing executives. It's easier to engineer elaborate, complicated extravaganzas.

So at a time when advertising is being forced down the food chain in the U.S., China, for one, is publicly endorsing its value. Advertising is "fundamental to economic development and sustaining a harmonious society," a top official declared recently. The Chinese government is incorporating advertising as a "pillar" of the country's economy in its latest five-year plan. As Tim Love, vice chairman Omnicom Group and CEO of Omnicom Group Asia Pacific, India, Middle East and Africa put it: "They sure have a very high regard for the profession of advertising."

Has the U.S. ever given advertising that kind of respect? And why should it be a surprise that businesses here have relegated it to the back burner, in favor of redoubling their efforts to make sure they're not being overcharged for ballpoint pens?