So, you've been downsized or made redundant. But you're certainly not ready to throw in the towel.

You've been paid lots of money over the years by some big company where you learned and refined the exact skills they needed you to have in order to make their business work.

Now it's your turn to do it for yourself. But where do you start? You've always had the company to give you business cards, cell phones, laptops, desktops, probably an office or a cubicle, and maybe an assistant and an expense account.

Now it's all gone!

But it's really not if you know what to do.

The most important thing to remember is...Your Name is your Brand!

Your skills are still there and your experience has taught you how to hone them.

Here are 5 practical starting points to get your personal brand going.

1.  Register yourself as a company or a partnership (first name last name company) This is easy to do, but you may have to wait in line at City Hall for a while.

2. Get your own URL. (You can lock that down at any number of place like name.com. Own your name if you can with your first name & last name.com (joeschmoe.com). Make a basic web page (you can do that a places like use.com).  Make it simple and use your new URL as the title (JoeSchmoe.com)

3.Get your own e-Mail address appropriate to your URL. firstname@firstnamelastname.com (you can do this for your business at google Apps) (Joe@joeschmoe.com)

4.  Print business cards that are very simple. Your name, your URL, your e-mail address, and your mobile phone number

5.  Start a Facebook fan page and a Twitter Page for your company. Show links to them on your website. Make a Linkedin page and get someone to do a Wikipedia page for you.

After you have populated your sites and pages with your expertise, experiences and some examples of your work (make sure you use video), get out there and network.  

Hand out your cards, talk up what you can do for a potential client.  Get their card....and then...Follow-Up.

A great example of personal branding is the recent campaign by Matt Epstein called "Google Please Hire Me" where he created a website and a video all focused on landing a job at Google.  He even worked his personal brand into the URL playing up the double entendre of "ME" to reference his initials.



TalentZoo also released an article last week entitled, "10 Strategies to Reinvent Your Personal Brand" which outlines many of the topics I touched on above.  In fact, it even further discusses ways in which you can improve your personal brand by being a catalyst or being a source of great knowledge.  In this day and age, you need to market yourself even more to differentiate yourself from the ever-growing talent pool.

Of course you need a strategy and you must understand how to use all of these tactics...but you've got to start somewhere.

Now let's get this party started.

Date: 7 April 2011
Subject: MI-6
Location: NOT LONDON!!!!

MI-6 is NOT the British Secret Service...it’s the name of the PROMAX/BDA Game Marketing convention in San Francisco.

That’s right, Gamers need marketing too!

And I will be there representing Definition 6 in my role as Grand Inquisitor, interviewing Lloyd Kaufman, President, CEO, Director and Producer of TROMA Entertainment, America’s longest running independent film production company.



You may remember such films as “The Toxic Avenger (1-4),” “The Class of Nuke’em High,” and “Sgt. Kabuki-man, NYPD” (and if you don’t, you should) Well..Lloyd made them all and more.

This guy is an institution (and he’s hilarious) and he has a lot to say about the business, marketing, movie-making and on the serious side...Net Neutrality!

Joining us will be Def 6’s own Jon Accarrino, reprising his role as the Social Media DJ, brining to life everything Lloyd and I talk about on stage.

It should be a great time in history.  Hope you can make it there.

While moderating a panel on “New Media” (I hate that phrase btw) at the Williamsburg Film Festival (Willifest) earlier this month, one of the panelists, Larry Banks, Chairman of Film/Media Arts Department at Long Island University, said “Context, not content, is king.”



Context? Hasn't content always been king? What happened?

Is Dr. Banks the only person to identify this shift? No, he’s not. Let’s take a look at what some notable people in the industry are saying about content versus context:

• In a recent NY Post article (the real paper of record in this town), Scott Kessler, Tech Analyst for Standard & Poor’s said about the music industry, “Companies are focusing more on user experience and distribution rather than content itself, and that is an overarching theme, it’s probably not something compelling for content providers.” Ya think?

• Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, guest writer for “TechCrunch” said, “The context—Facebook, Twitter, email—in which people are introduced to media and consume it is becoming more important than the content itself.”  As this chart shows, 81% of discovered video content comes from the blogs that people arguably already visit.

• “Context makes content relevant,” says Jeff Korhan of the blog NEW MEDIA & SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING. “If I give you information that is valuable, you will appreciate it, but possibly never use it.  If I help you appreciate the value of that information by showing you how it works for me or someone like you, then the context makes it invaluable.”

Alrighty then! These folks have a definite point of view. It’s about relevance, placement and a set of circumstances that surrounds the content. But I have a different take on it.

On TV context can help spell success. News, sports and specials have built in context. Comedy can be topical and relevant (From “Cosby" and "Seinfeld” in the 80’s and 90’s, to the more recent “Modern Family.”). Dramas can show real “ripped from the headlines” relevance with programs like “Law & Order.”

In advertising, both traditional and non-traditional, context is very important. That’s what targeting is all about.

Film is experience-oriented, but context is always at play in any given compelling scene. But after a movie plays out in a theater, viewing trends show that on line viewing is often the place for the following runs. Now there is a second layer of context…the place you go to when you want another experience and the way-in is more-and-more, an App. That is a condition that is relevant to the event.

Whether you’re listening to talk radio in your car, reading a billboard in Times Square, looking at a blog that takes you to a piece of video, watching the “Today” show in the morning or “Letterman” at night, you are doing so in “context,”

But at the end of the day (I hate that phrase too), there is no reason to engage with any content regardless of the context if the storytelling isn’t strong.

So what does that say?

Maybe content, not context, is king!

What do you want? Those of you that are CMOs, Brand Managers, VPs of Advertising or Marketing, what do you really want?
 
Whenever and wherever this question is asked, the answer is always the same: Results! You want results and you want them now (it’s the same thing you wanted yesterday, and the same thing you’ll want tomorrow).

If you are in the agency business, you should never lose sight of this basic marketing need. If you are in-house and spend your money on advertising and marketing, I hope this helps you think about how to find people who can improve those results faster.
 
This topic has been on my mind since I got together with a group of marketing professionals earlier this month. We started off talking about how to produce ROI reports for their CFOs and finance counter parts. Ultimately, what everyone really wants to see is results.

How you define results and what value they deliver for your business may vary, but here are some sample measurements based on our discussion:

•    Brand health metrics
•    Units Sold
•    Leads Generated
•    Awareness and Recall levels
•    ROAS
•    E-mail marketing conversion
•    Increased Foot Traffic
 
How can agencies produce results more consistently when results are so varied by each client? Here are six suggestions for ways I think agencies can be prepared to provide a variety of results for a variety of clients and also for the same customer who has evolving needs over a long period of time.

1.    Understand your client's business. If you are not as much a management consultant as an ad person, then I think you will fail in the future. Today's marketing and advertising challenges, impact customer service, public relations, product develop & procurement as well as IT, finance and channel relations. Now, they always have, but now that the world is digitized and visibility is possible; the demand to work on more than just demand is higher.

2.    Understand customer behavior. One of the things I think Agency can do better than most client-side marketers is getting to know the end customer and the customers along the way.  We can and should provide outsider insight into the purchase drivers that lead consumers or businesses to buy from clients. By being involved in the insight business, we can help our customers produce the results they need.

3.    Be more social. So much has been said about this over the last 18 months, so I'll share why I think agencies need to become more social. We are in the business of communications and in connecting companies and customers. The landscape has evolved where the cost of distributing messages is virtually zero and the demand for connection is 100%.  When demand is this high and the cost is so low, there is an unlimited amount of success you can have for you and your customers if you tap into this skill set.

4.    Learn math and how to analyze data. I became a Speech Communications major because it had no math requirement. I bet a lot of people who are in our field did the same thing, I know it.  Math has never been a problem for me, I just didn't care to do any more formulas or equations. Then I got into advertising, and as I did Nielsen store data, GRPs, category management, research, coupon redemption and media plans, it became clear that math was going to be a big part of my life. When I started our Integrated Interactive Agency in the 90s it become clear that math, engineering and analysis would be at the center of much of what we would do to help clients. A strong analytics capability and good math people, programmers, engineers and analysts are essential if you are serious about producing results and proving those results.

5.    Learn how to produce.  Content, code, sounds, event. From branding to social, to broadcast to micro-cast. From visual to technical, and in-home to the 6th screen. A good partner doesn't outsource the doing to sub-contractors, it is no longer acceptable to do the boards, the concept, the design, the plan and then hand it off. In these days and times, buyers expect ongoing interactions and learned messaging overtime. The mediums must be an integrated seamless experience or you will lose sales and revenue for your clients. That is not the result they want.

6.    Ask your clients what they need to thrive. So I end with this, what do you need to thrive in your current marketing and advertising role? We are listening……….
 

While the race for ‘ownership’ of the LBS market (Location Based Services) rages on, and naysayers’ debate its viability, I am sold on the concept.

If you are not familiar, LBS are the latest craze in the ever growing social media marketing landscape.  The general principle is that an end user uses their smart phone and its GPS abilities to ‘check in’ to their current location. 

Like its social media older cousins Facebook and Twitter, there are many out there that think this is just a passing phenomena - a game if you will.  Like Facebook and its now 400 million plus users, and Twitter and it’s large following I believe in the LBS strategy.  Out of the pack has emerged two ‘major’ players in the field, FourSquare and Gowalla.  Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and even Apple are also looking at entering the playing field but I believe they will have to make an acquisition to truly play. 

Along with the hype of these types of services there is also a lot of criticism.  Since I am a ‘fan’ and a user I might be a bit jaded but I think I can at least address the critics; here are the gripes I have heard, some legit, some just silly:

1. If you tell everyone where you are then you are leaving your house open to be robbed.  I originally thought that this was a ‘non-issue’ I have to admit but after a conversation with people smarter than I over drinks I have amended my opinion.  This is one that you DO have to pay attention to.  Use common sense, if you are ‘checking in’ on vacation, turn off the setting that posts to Facebook and Twitter, so ONLY your friends on that LBS Tool of your choice get it.  Second, and this goes whether you use and LBS or not, CHECK YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS IN FACEBOOK!  Facebook has gone through a number of changes and many people have forgotten to go into their settings and make sure they have the level of privacy that they want.  For me, I only want FRIENDS seeing information; others may have different standards and that’s cool, just make sure you are comfortable with yours.  As for Twitter, you can ‘protect your tweets’ as well so only your followers can see them.

2. You can get stalked by a crazy ex and have to deal with all that.  True, but is that really a concern?  If it was, you wouldn’t be on FB, Twitter or LinkedIn.  Can it be a problem?  Sure.  However, you don’t have to tell EVERYONE where you are.  Your standard LBS lets you self select who the information goes to.  Side note – crazy ex probably knows all your haunts and when you like to be there anyway…

3. Why would you want to be doing free marketing/advertising for a place or a brand?  Are we seriously talking about this one in 2010?  Look down at your feet people (go ahead, I’ll wait) --- is that a ‘swoosh’?  Did NIKE pay you to wear their shoes or did you drop $100+?  How about that laptop I carry around?  You know the really sleek, chrome looking thing with the fruit in the middle very well lit?  Let’s face it people, WE have become walking billboards!  Take the silly Ed Hardy T-shirts (yes, I am just over 40 and don’t get it).  You have people clamoring to be seen in an Ed Hardy, and what is besides some crazy print with the biggest part of it being his SIGNATURE!!!  I’ll talk more about personal brands in another blog.So there are some of the negatives, which may be legitimate, but aren’t exactly deal breakers.

What are the positives you might ask?

1. It’s fun and it’s social.  One of my favorite shows as a kid was CHEERS, the bar where everyone knows your name.  Basically, with a tool like FourSquare you can become your own walking CHEERS.  Check in at a friendly place and the bartender says, “Welcome, how about a beer Mr. Peterson”, OR how about you get to a place that is running an amazing special, you could take the time and call or your friends, or break your fingers and text them OR check in with an LBS, type in a comment, it automatically gets to everyone through whatever social tools you are using and who knows what can happen when everyone shows up.  Simply put, in its most elemental form, it’s a way to extend the party.

2. As I have heard from Social Media Guru, Gary Vaynerchuck, “why would someone check in at a bar?”  Give’em a free beer and watch them check in all day!  What a cool way to earn stuff and allow a small business truly establish a win-win customer loyalty program.  At one of the Whole Foods in Austin, TX you get a very valuable coupon on your 5th visit.  What does this do?  It drives loyalty, rewards it, makes it fun and even mysterious…what will I get on my 10th check in, etc…Not enough small businesses are using these tools to see a huge uptick here but I believe by this time next year it will be off the charts.

3. That last part of #2 is part of the biggest positive from a business application and it’s the direct corollary to the third criticism.  I’m not sure when MARKETING became a four letter word but when it comes to LBS that is seems to be the #1 complaint and it goes something like this, “that stuff is just one big marketing ploy to get you to go somewhere or buy something”.  My response is somewhere along the famous Socrates reply of “duh!”  Isn’t that the whole reason for newspapers, magazines, TV shows, etc…sure they have their entertainment and news value BUT no one is shocked to know that advertisers are paying to place their content in front of your eyeballs to get you to buy stuff!  Not sure why the uproar when it comes to LBS, it seems to me like a natural fit.

4. Last but not least and this is by far where I see the big win for LBS and that is creating partnerships to pull off some really cool stuff.  I was discussing the value of FourSquare with an Executive at one of the major record labels.  She is responsible for new acts and we were discussing the value of LBS for her and she said; give me one way it works in my world.  So I said, do you have an all girl band you want to promote?  The answer was yes.  How about an in store ‘tour’ across America teamed with an outlet like Express?  You have all the traditional ways to support it but now add an LBS layer for very little cost.  It is also a completed integrated approach across all the social media tools; from Facebook, to Twitter, blogs, Flickr and a full activation using LBS.  Her eyes lit up and she said, write it up and let’s take a look at it.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg.So, mock it if you want.  Five years ago you never thought you’d be on Facebook. 

If you can remember back to 1991, if someone asked if you wanted to be accessible 24/7 via the phone, some new thing called email and a feature called text that in our old lexicon meant a book at school you would have said, “no freaking way”…and how many of you don’t have a cell phone today?

I recently read that the White House has chosen an Open Source CMS (Content Management System) to develop their government Web site. This announcement caught my attention for several reasons--not only are many agencies moving their clients to open source and praising it's virtues, I also started using Drupal this past year and found it remarkably fast and easy to setup and maintain my own Web sites with quality results. Despite some criticism of open source over the years--more and more commercial (and government) developers are choosing it.

It's hard to argue against the benefits of free software, especially when results show that the software does what we expect, often exceeds expectations, and provides more opportunities for expansion than many proprietary products. While relative newcomers Drupal and Wordpress lead the pack for CMS offerings, open source mainstays such as Linux and Perl have been around for many years--not only surviving, but thriving over time. In a study by Amit Deshpande and Dirk Riehle of SAP Labs, LLC, Total Growth of Open Source results have shown that "the total amount of source code and the total number of projects double about every 14 months." Open source enables freedom for both users and developers to move & change quickly when needed, as well as providing more flexibility with software decisions such as to upgrade or not to upgrade. It's really no surprise that businesses and individuals are moving to open source at exponential rates.

Of course, Open Source has always been very much associated with Free, although there are other solid reasons to choose it beyond its cost. The pool of development resources is not limited to a specific company or provider, but instead is seemingly unlimited. As a specific open source project becomes popular, more and more developers start contributing, growing and adding to the code. Not only do they enhance the software to make it better for everyone, but they also create markets for their own support services. The better the code is--more people will use it-- and the more support is needed. Large developer communities have evolved around each software project, contributing to its growth, and administering its support. These open source communities are continually coming up with new innovations, powerful add-ons, extensions, and effective tools.

With so many open source choices available, even the ubiquitous LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl) has come to be accepted as generic term for any completely open source application stack--substituting interchangeable parts from other sources that include "PostgreSQL, SQLLite, Apache Derby," as well as "PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy and JavaScript." Even behemoth Microsoft has entered the game with their own Open Source CMS Platform.

Additionally, interactive ad agencies are able to offer their managed computer services at lower rates when developers take advantage of Open Source technologies. This enables clients to do more within their budgets. Every size company can now take advantage of Website integration, online advertising, and interactive media development due to the emergence of open source and accumulation of knowledge brought to us by the developer community. Businesses across industries are now embracing these technologies, taking advantage of interactive media, and using a more integrated approach to marketing with the vast number of new tools that are now available from these creative, innovative communities of developers.

Recently I visited the doctor for a single respiratory CT scan in which AFTER insurance I ended up paying close to $1,500. Upon seeing the exorbitant bill I headed straight to the nearest Mc Donald in an attempt to convince myself that ordering from the “Dollar Menu” could be a long term strategy to help me subsidize the 10 costly X-Rays (I think it’d have been cheaper for them to simply open my chest and take a look rather than spend 30 seconds photographing my lungs).

During the car ride home, in which I ate all of my fries before reaching the front doorstep, something dawned on me. As I attempted in vain to wipe the french-fry grease from my hands I came to the realization that when you combine something that’s good AND cheap it can make anyone’s day better.  Granted my cholesterol/MSG high only lasted for but a moment, I decided in the spirit of giving I’d share the same free and good satisfaction with those of you in the blogosphere.

As every aspect of business slowly moves into the clouds, businesses have been turning to website integration platforms such as SalesForce.com. Many businesses are unaware of the Sales Force app exchange, and those who are often times don’t realize there are a plethora (I’ve been dying to use that word) of extremely useful and FREE applications that help to make Sales Force a complete online marketing and sales tool.

So on behalf of myself and Definition 6, an interactive media agency in Atlanta, I present you with the top 10 FREE Sales Force applications that every business can benefit from. In no particular order;

1. SalesView:

MarketingSherpa released its 2009 eCommerce Benchmark Survey and reminds us that we should be gearing up for what is projected to be an improved holiday season: up 9% over 2008.  Nearly 1,500 eCommerce marketers rated tactics for improving website conversions.

1.  Perpetual shopping carts

These take many different forms:  from a simple note that there’s a product sitting in the cart to dynamic overlays showing images of the product, price, and estimated shipping costs.  The perpetual shopping cart keeps the purchase in the mind of the customer; that psychological anchor helps guide them back to the purchase.

2.  Website search

Consumer research suggests that almost 50% of shoppers prefer internal search over traditional menu options.  This number naturally rises when they have a specific product or brand in mind. 

The first priority is to test your internal search regularly to ensure that it works effectively. Second, examine the different business factors that can be used to optimize internal search results.  Some marketers use a ‘last in-first out’ method to move inventory, while others use their analytics and database systems to sort products by profit margin.  The choices are as broad as your technology and creativity.

3.  Enhanced display

Consumers are enthusiastic about getting multiple, varied photos of a product.   People want to know as much as they can about a product, and even static images can help.  Showing videos how to use products or explaining complex features can bring products to life for the user.

Definition 6 is an Atlanta ad agency and has extensive experience in building and designing eCommerce websites.  We can improve your Search Engine Optimization.  We are experts in Google Search technology and can implement search at your site.  We can also help you with your interactive advertising campaigns and targeted email marketing.  Do you need a mobile advertising strategy?  We can help!

In a recent Sales Caffeine email newsletter from Jeffrey Gitomer, there is an article by Michelle Joyce on Making Transactions Memorable.  She had a pleasant experience at the McDonald’s drive thru in Huntersville, North Carolina, and summarized what made the transaction memorable.
 
These three simple steps can be considered website redesign tips to improve user experience at your eCommerce websites and in all your interactive marketing efforts.

1.  Start with a smile and engage your prospect in a friendly manner.  Would you do business with someone you didn’t like?  Well, neither would your prospect.  This guy made me like him – immediately.  When he made that connection, the transaction became enjoyable and personal.  It was all about me, not just my order. 

2.  Offer alternative solutions.  People want choices.   Don't assume that your customer is aware of them.  Uncover their needs and help them make a choice.  McDonald's already mastered the upsell technique with their famous line, “Do you want fries with that?”  What kind of additional features and services can you upsell?  What kind of additional revenue are you leaving on the table at every sale?

3.  End the transaction with something memorable.  When is the last time that a fast food worker told you to “drive safely”?  Usually, it is the perfunctory "thank you” and “have a nice day”; but this guy made me feel like he was genuinely concerned about my personal safety.  What are you saying to your customers that make them remember you personally?

Michelle ends by saying:  The reality is that people are still buying products and services in this economy.  The only question is "Will they buy them from you?"

Definition 6 is an interactive marketing agency that can help you make a connection to your users, whether customers or prospective ones.  We are experts in website development and custom application development.  Even though we are an Atlanta Ad Agency, we have clients across the US that we help differentiate themselves from their competition.

In recent years it seems as if E-Mail marketing has fallen by the wayside in light of emerging technologies and trends. Time and time again statistics have supported the profitability and legitimacy of E-Mail marketing, so it’s important to take a step back and see how E-Mail marketing is or more importantly isn’t, affecting your company.
Here are three questions to ask yourself or your marketing team in order to answer the bottom line; do we need to invest or reinvest in E-Mail marketing?

1) Have you forgotten about the basics?

In this new Web 2.0 world marketers are constantly scrambling to keep up with the latest trends, throwing money at anything deemed “cool,” “trendy,” or “popular.” At first glance new social outlets and advertising mediums may seem appealing, but sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace have short track records in terms of performance and viewership capabilities. These mediums aren’t poor investments by any means, but more often than not companies are blinded by the popularity of new social sites and forget about the basics of interactive marketing; E-Mail marketing. 
In one Forrester survey E-Mail more than 80% of businesses surveys achieved a significant return on investment - double that of most other marketing initiatives. I highly doubt any current social media site can boast 80% ROI satisfaction for use of their advertising and marketing platforms.

There’s a reason social media and Web 2.0 technology is called the “frontier” of internet exploration; IT’S UNKNOWN TERRITORY. If you’re hoping to catch the wave early and become one of the first settlers on the new frontier, be prepared to sacrifice quite a bit of blood, sweat, and treasure. A word of warning though for those looking to brave these mysterious, ever-changing virtual landscapes;  by the time you and other businesses jump on the bandwagon, the consumer has most likely started getting off to ride the new model bandwagon – the one that has three axels instead of two.

BOTTOM LINE: Like my great grand pappy use to say, sometimes the best things in life are the simplest things; E-Mail marketing may not be as flashy as a MySpace page, but 9/10 it will dole out a much larger reward upon investment.

2) Are you putting your data to good use?

For those already utilizing E-Mail marketing it’s important to take a step back and review your E-Mail marketing process. Do you simply click “send” every two weeks to blast your newsletter or promotion? One of the foremost reasons E-Mail campaigns fail or plateau revolve around the marketers lack of interaction, understanding, diligence, or experience analyzing and applying the data generated by their E-Mail campaign.  E-Mail is light years ahead of almost every other advertising medium in terms of accountability and tracking, the question is whether you’re leveraging this unique capability or not. With the ability to instantly review the results of your efforts, it’s important to analyze the outcome through multiple lenses rather than just a couple such as “E-Mails opened,” “conversions,” or “bounced rates.”

As a rule of thumb every time you receive the results of an E-Mail blast you should be changing at least ONE aspect of your next E-Mail strategy or design. It’s entirely possible to deploy E-Mail blasts without acknowledging the data and still receive a good response and return. As a marketer you need to apply the data you receive in order to run a GREAT campaign. Just because you’re running a “good” campaign with minimal effort doesn’t change the fact that in reality you’re really running a poor to mediocre campaign.
The most effective E-Mail marketing is an evolutionary process consisting of hours, and hours, and hours (and hours) of data compilation, review, and reform. If you or your marketing team takes performs no action other than clicking “send,” odds are you’re missing out on the true strength of E-Mail marketing; quick, intuitive, statistically supported campaign adaptation.  

BOTTOM LINE: We don’t live in a static world; neither should your E-Mail marketing.  

 3) Are you maximizing your dollar during the recession?

Marketing departments across the world have been laying off employees in droves. Even higher level management today is looking for any way possible to show their superiors that they add value to the company. What would your superiors say if they saw you could not only boost revenue but cut costs at the same time?
Marketing budgets have shrank, but thankfully E-Mail marketing prices have stayed relatively the same – cost efficient. Of all the advertising mediums both virtual and physical, E-Mail marketing is among the most cost effective with the privilege of being able to boast one of the highest ROI’s. A single print ad can cost thousands upon thousands after the cost of graphic design and ad-space. Instead of paying $10,000-$25,000+ for one month of magazine advertising, you can run a four month e-mail campaign which normally entails better audiences, conversion rates, and accountability. If you find the costs of traditional advertising to be exorbitant, it may be time to dust off the E-Mail marketing proposal and take another look.

BOTTOM LINE: As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

So ask yourself:

1) Would it be beneficial to scale back on costly new-age technology investments in order to temporarily invest in more dependable marketing initiatives?

2) Would it be beneficial to engage in an E-Mail marketing discovery phase to see if you’ve truly been interacting with your campaigns and applying the data you find?

3) Would it be beneficial to divert your limited budget to more cost effective (and often times profitable) marketing venture such as E-Marketing?

 

In my previous post regarding the need to include auto-generated emails within a email marketing strategy, I reflected on the lack of love given to emails automatically generated through end-user website activity. It's time to give benchmarking some love too!

The promise of a new web project or marketing initiative leaves stakeholders dreaming of online success, higher conversion rates, higher traffic volumes and positive bottom line results. Quite often, the strategy for measuring success gets lost in the shuffle.

Some of you reading this might be thinking, "Why waste the time? Higher conversion equals success." In some cases you may be right on track with that thought, but most of you probably know it's more than that. Success can be measured in many ways, I'll get into that in second. But understand that it's worth a deeper dive into the metrics that are important to you, your company or your industry, before you start on a new initiative. Ask yourself what data you'll be reviewing a week after a website launch to determine if you're on your way towards a positive ROI. It might be PPC reporting, website analytics, email marketing, CRM comparison or another set of metrics that is specific to your industry. I've seen it before, 2 months after redesign and stakeholders are trying to figure out what to measure. By that point, you're probably not going to have the baseline data needed to show a comparison. Solution? Benchmark. And do it early. The strategy and planning phase of any project is the perfect time to start thinking about it.

So what metrics should you benchmark? There is no perfect answer. Sally, who manages an online retail business will have different success factors than Frank, the owner of a property management services company. Sally cares about online sales and revenue generation, but Frank wants to see an increase in online lead generation. It can be a daunting task, so here are a few good places to start:

1. Website analytics - If your initiative includes the enhancement or redesign of a website, start the project with an examination of your existing analytics data. If you don't have any, stop reading this and go get it. Figure out what will be important to you later. It may be as simple as traffic volume, visit duration, cost per ad spend or conversion rates. But you may find a need to collect custom data as well. Almost every analytics package out there has that capability.
2. External data - In this context, external data is performance data obtained through your CRM package or 3rd party sources. Call center volumes or in-store data would fall into this category. You need an adequate way to access it and you need historical references.
3. Email marketing - If your initiative includes modifications to email marketing programs, make sure your provider is collecting meaningful data on open and click-through rates. And make sure you'll have access to historical data to create a trending analysis.

There are plenty of other data sources to benchmark against to determine success. The main goal is to ensure you have the data you'll need to measure success after you've spent time and money to get there. And do it early. Your ROI calculation will depend on it.

As an interactive marketing agency, we deal in both the email marketing and the application development arena. Most of the time these two items go hand-in-hand. A company builds or enhances their website while marketing that website through emails, offering special deals, newsletters, subscription services and a variety of other services and products to its users. The combination of these can show impactfull and bottom-line results. But what often gets lost is auto-generated emails from the website or application. Marketing departments tend to create silos of activities, there's email marketing, and then there's website creation and management. Time and money is spent on creating an effective email marketing program that supports online activities. Auto-generated email should fall into this category as well.

There are various reasons this important form of communication get overlooked, but why are they important in the first place:

Branding - Any email generated from your domain represents your brand. Guess what, users aren't always left with an impression of your brand based on their website visit, they're often left with a confirmation, newsletter or subscription email based on their website activities. Why let that confirmation email negatively impact how you're perceived? It's just as important as that promotion email you're gearing up to send them next week.

Call-to-action - Auto-generated emails are often utilized to seek verification or ask users to continue the process started at the website.

Communication - If a user feels strongly enough about your website or your company in general, they're going to seek more information and allow you to keep in touch with them through automated emails. Keep them enganged and thinking about your products or services.

So where do most companies fall short? The biggest thing that we see is that auto-generated emails simply are not given much thought during the website enhancement or build process. As an afterthought, it will never be an adequate means of communication or engagment with your customers. Spend some time with the design. You spent time reviewing comps and making adjustments for various ESP's for standard email marketing initiatives, do the same for your auto-generated emails. ExactTarget provides a great reference for do's and don'ts conerning email marketing. Spend some time and follow as many best practices as possible. Make your calls-to-action precise and easy to comprehend (even 2 months later). Represent your brand, make sure your emails maintain company branding standards.

People tend to hold onto emails. Why not? Storage capacity is longer an issue at most ESP or client programs. If they're going to hold onto something that represents your business, make it worthwhile for them when they open it again 2 months later. It is still a representation or your company and they can still act on something you wanted them to previously. Don't be afraid to give auto-generated emails some love.

I recently read an article in BusinessWeek titled "What's a Friend Worth?"  The article gives an interesting perspective about social media strategy and how online media tools can help provide massive insight into consumer and employee behavior.

"What do these relationships say about us and the people in our networks? Companies armed with rich new data and powerful computers are beginning to explore these questions. They're finding that digital friendships speak volumes about us as consumers and workers, and decoding the data can lead to profitable insights. Calculating the value of these relationships has become a defining challenge for businesses and individuals.

Marketers are leading the way. They're finding that if our friends buy something, there's a better-than-average chance we'll buy it, too. It's a simple insight but one that could lead to targeted messaging in an age of growing media clutter.

The second arena for study is inside companies. Businesses such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM (IBM) are researching employees' relationships with an eye to quickening the flow of knowledge and the generation of ideas within their ranks. One team at IBM Research, studying anonymous data of Big Blue's consultants, concluded that employees who forged tighter e-mail connections with their boss brought in on average $588 more in monthly revenue. This is early-stage research, but the goal is to distill patterns of successful communication and replicate valuable links throughout the company.

For most of us, the business value of networked friends is tied to a third area, personal opportunity. In addition to companionship, friends online represent a turbocharged Rolodex for entrepreneurs and job seekers inside and outside companies. These collections of contacts expand social horizons, keeping us in touch with more people who can provide ideas, answers, business leads, and even legal advice. Those who master these connections stand to win a big edge: the connections and brainpower of a large team."

While monetizing social media marketing can, at times, be challenging increased brand awareness and buzz around your product, service, or company can help you reach new consumers with very targeted messaging.

As more and more data is collected and analyzed over time the insights will become more valuable. 

Read the full article here.

Learn more about Definition 6's Interactive Marketing Services.

As an Interactive Ad Agency executive I get questions all the time from various people about eMail Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design, Social Media Marketing, and Online Advertising. Often times it is from a frustrated marketing manager who says something like: "My boss doesn't get digital marketing and it is frustrating", so one of the things I try to do is help map digital marketing back to a deep seated belief in the executive mind.

Let's take banking and social media marketing, this conversation came up at Mashable Atlanta, "how can I convince my banking boss that social media is something we should use?"  I asked the marketing manager if her boss believed that banking was based on relationships? And of course, the answer was "yes", then I asked if he was one of those bankers that thought it was important to be a member of the right country club, right business club and school alumni network; And of course, the answer was "yes". Well, then it is very clear to me that the banker was the perfect candidate for social media marketing, because social marketing is about "RELATIONSHIPS" and the banker clearly believes that you need to have a relationship with your customer and prospects. So I pointed out that we should talk to the boss about joinning the best new club in town, "the social media networks" - be it Facebook, LinkedIn, or Affluence, it was the new club where RELATIONSHIPS were made and strengthened.

We will see how the conversation ultimately goes with her boss, but I wanted to share that the technique to selling Interactive Marketing to management is to start where they are and move from there to the digital world. Check out our thoughts at twitter.com/Defintion6 or my personal tweats at twitter.com/mkogon.

I was recently doing some research for a client presentation on interactive marketing and decided to check out their My Space and Face Book pages.  I Googled "company XYZ at My Space" and was delighted to get a link to what appeared to be the client's official My Space page.  Once inside My Space, I used their internal search tool to confirm that I was on the correct page.  Yep, looks like both My Space and Google were directing me to the same page, so it must be the correct one.  Only it wasn't.  Problem was, I didn't find out until I was well into my client presentation.  So that raised a simple question, how does a fan/user/prospect find a firm's "official" social networking properties?

In my case, performing an in-site or Google search yielded a false sense of security.  Now I know better.  But how many prospects out there had the same experience as me, i.e. logging into what appeared to be an "official" page, being underwhelmed with the experience, and moving on.  All without ever realizing that we never in fact reached our desired destination.  The easiest, most obvious way for a firm to prevent this experience is to put a link on their website directly to their social media pages.  This would remove all confusion.  Problem is, many firms do not do this.

And to compound the issue, I learned that many "fan" pages have more interesting, updated and relevant content than a firm's official page may have.  Again, adding to the confusion as to which is the actual "official" page.  I would posit that firms need to start addressing this issue seriously before an inordinate number of prospects begin to think that 12 year old Billy's My Space page is the public voice of their brand.

So, other than having links directly on their corporate websites to Face Book and My Space pages, what can a firm do to ensure users find their "official" social media pages?  Here are a few ideas:

1 - Somewhere on the page, state plainly that is is the "Official My Space Page of Company XYZ."  That will remove all doubt.
2 - Monitor the social network to identify fan pages, and post content or communications that will alert other users to the fact that the given page is a fan site and not the firm's official page.
3 - Ensure that your firm makes frequent updates to your official pages.  One way a prospect might realize they are on the wrong page is if the last post is 6 months old, or discusses "upcoming" events that happened last year.
4 - Where the law allows, link from the social networking page back to your official site.  This should confirm users found the correct page.
5 - Perform your SEO due-diligence to ensure your social media pages come up in the first page of search results.
6 - Put a little skin in the game and do some PPC (pay per click) to ensure your pages come up after the appropriate user search.

Companies should also include links to these official pages in their email and other correspondences.  In this way, businesses can ensure that the efforts they make in the social networking space will bear fruit, and that the fruit will be what they planted, not a knock-off of by an eager fan.

I just got a call from a strategic business partner, and as an Interactive Advertising Agency we stay up to speed on most things in the marketplace, and he was calling me from a break at a conference for his company.  As he said hello, I congratulated him on their company raising another round of VC dollars.  He said "Wow, how did you know that?!"  I told him simple; Twitter!  I was a follower of his company's partner account and at the same time they told the company they tweeted about it.  Interactive communications is so fast, that in less than 5 minutes the word was out!  Now this is a great story because they are an eMail marketing partner of ours, he is a long time friend and the news was good.  We talked about what the investment meant to his company and our partnership, we discussed how online ad agency business was continuing to see good growth this year and that 2010 was going to be a great year, and hung up smiling.

Now what if the news had been bad?  What if they had a meeting that was altering the relationship with partners and it was negative?  And someone had tweeted about it? I suspect our call wouldn't have been the same. 

Let's talk about your online interactive marketing and message management.  Do you have a twitter monitoring policy?  Do you have an account?  Do you follow your partners, customers, employees, competitors?  I do, you should too. Website Development is a very small part of being digital, search engine optimization is only a part as is eMail or even PPC. The big parts are listening, monitoring, and watching the ecosystem and being informed as quickly as possible to make decisions as rapidly as possible.  So next time you are with your Interactive Ad Agency, ask them what they know and when they learned it.  You will be amazed at how fast Digital has become.

The mantra of our time seems to be “do more with less.”  Nowhere in business is this sentiment more pronounced than marketing.  With the economy in free fall and marketing budgets slashed to the bone, maintaining market share, let alone growing market share, is more difficult than ever.  Enter the Interactive Marketing Roadmap.

One of the keys to “doing more with less” is reuse.  Most marketing organizations spend a lot of resources developing marketing collateral for various tradition channels.  These artifacts include direct mail pieces, television spots, brochures, catalogues and the like.  The goal of the interactive marketing roadmap is to identify the optimal re-use of these items on the web.  The challenge is to employ limited incremental spend to leverage existing assets created in traditional channels for re-purposing in the web channel.  Definition 6 has spent a lot of time and intellectual capital trying to address this challenge.  Via our Interactive Marketing Roadmap, you can get the benefit of this cumulative effort and knowledge base.

So let’s start with a simple example.  Your company is about to launch a new product, so the marketing manager has created a new direct mail piece to explain the offering.  For educational purposes, let us say that it cost one dollar for the design, development and distribution of the direct mail piece.  And let us also assume the target market for this effort is 50,000 households.  That would equate to a cost of $50,000 to reach 50,000 prospects, or $1.00 per prospect.  If the piece got a 2% conversion rate, the program would be considered wildly successful.  More likely, most of the direct mail pieces end up in the circular file.  And identifying the one’s that didn’t is no easy task.  Plus, the “shelf life” of the entire promotion is no more than a week or two.

Now, let us leverage the Interactive Marketing Roadmap.  In this instance, we would identify the best re-use of the promotional direct mail package for the web.  First, we would most likely turn the direct mail copy into a targeted email marketing campaign.  The cost to turn the direct mail content into an email friendly version is a few thousand dollars.  Then there is the cost of the email blast, usually no more than pennies per email.  So we can spend $5,000 to make the direct mail piece email friendly, and spend an additional $2,500 on email distribution.  At that point, we can blast the email to 100,000 prospects for roughly $7,500.  Hence we tripled the total audience of the initial direct mail piece for an incremental spend of less than 20% of the cost of the original direct mail piece.  And click through and conversion rates from targeted email marketing campaigns is in the 4% conversion range.  At even less incremental cost we can add the direct mail piece to the website as new and additional content.  This will boost natural SEO results.  We can also allow the promotional coupon to be live on the website for an extended duration, thereby increasing its shelf life.  And through all of these initiatives, we have the added value of web analytics to give us insight into who is actually receptive to our overtures, so we can do even better next time!

Now, imagine that you have multiple brands, each of which employ a wide range of traditional marketing tactics, and the messaging of those tactics varies by market.  The Interactive Marketing Roadmap will literally map out the alignment of traditional and web programs across all of these brands, assets and markets to create a uniform, comprehensive marketing and tactical strategic plan.  And we can create this plan in matter of weeks.  That enables the marketing department to get the benefit of this analysis for the duration of the year.  I consider that a prime example of “doing more with less.”  And Definition 6 is the only online ad agency to offer such a service.

Definition 6 has a great role as an Interactive Ad Agency that provides a wide array of services, most notably the surge in interest in Interactive Media.  I found this chart at Silicon Valley Insider and felt was a great picture about what is happening to media spending.


As newspaper ad spending continues to decline and digital media spending rises, we see the growth of the digital consumer. If our grandparents settled into the paper on Sunday's and evenings to learn about the world; Our generation uses our mobile devices, computers, gaming consoles and each other to learn about what is going on in the world.  And this is the most important part of Interactive Marketing, we use lots of channels to get information, but more and more of it is digital.

So if you are selling to the under 65 consumer and business executive, you need to look at SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing, email and Websites to communicate and connect with your digital customer. Overtime, next 2-3 years, Interactive Advertising will take over newspaper spending and that is when Media and Advertising will look digital and "traditional" will no longer be the same ever again!

A client sent me two articles to react to about online advertising.  The title that I chose for this posting states my position:  I'm not sure why people think that advertising alone should support a website.

The first article is from The Economist and is entitled The demise of a popular but unsustainable business model for the Internet now seems inevitable.  This is one of the best articles I've read that explains the reality of Internet business models, whether realistic or not.  Read the entire article at www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13326158.

Great explanation of the dotcom crash…
Firms sprang up to offer content and services online, in the hope that they would eventually be able to “monetise” the resulting millions of “eyeballs” by selling advertising. Things did not work out that way, though, and the result was the dotcom crash.

…and of the Web 2.0 bubble…
Google’s ability to place small, targeted text advertisements next to Internet-search results, and on other websites, meant that many of the business models thought to have been killed by the dotcom bust now rose from the grave.

….and economical realities.
The idea that you can give things away online, and hope that advertising revenue will somehow materialize later on, undoubtedly appeals to users, who enjoy free services as a result.  Ultimately, though, every business needs revenues—and advertising is not going to provide enough.

The second article is a provocative one entitled Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet and states that advertising cannot fully support the Internet.  Read it at www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/22/why-advertising-is-failing-on-the-internet/.

Websites need to sell real products, services, information or 'access' to information like TripAdvisor.com.  Or, offer an 'experience' like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, or World of Warcraft.

It's true that most people don't trust ads, online or offline.  They don't 'want' them or 'need' them.  The Internet allows users to get information from a variety of sources and from sources they trust.

But, no company expecting to maintain market share in today's economic environment is going to say "Stop telling potential customers about us." 

Organic search, paid search and display banners can increase awareness and conversions even in today's climate.  Display banner advertising works because it reaches users where they are on the Internet.  You don't advertise just with your name on the building.  You advertise in high traffic areas, too.

How does Definition 6 ensure that online advertising succeeds for our clients?   First, we're big into collaborative strategy.  How can you differentiate yourself?  How can we build synergy with your other initiatives?  Who should you target with banners?  What should the messaging be?

Bottom line:  Appropriate targeting and messaging still works online.  We go beyond traditional banners; we use rich media to make the experience engaging and interactive.

Business Development Exec, Rhonda Vincent, shares with us the 7 top online marketing trends for 2009…

For online marketers 2009 will be a challenging year, they’ll need to build the basis for future expansion, leveraging social media, emerging technologies and vendor partners who are thinking about their business and find ways to maximize their budgets.  Here are 7 online marketing trends for 2009 that I came across on a ClickZ report:

• Increase customer retention efforts by marketing to your existing customer base – it’s cheaper and more effective because you know who they are and you understand their behavior.
• Create more attractive content – it will engage your customers and will help with your search engine optimization marketing
• Develop targeted marketing campaigns across a variety of mediums…e-mail, text messages, instant messages.
• Leverage online communities such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter…
• Increase your Web Analytics efforts
• Enhance search marketing advertising to expand across social media, mobile, and local search.
• Continue to integrate distribution channels despite higher cost

Interactive Ad Agencies like Definition 6 can leverage this insight to maximize your spends with the best ROI to get you through this year and still plan for 2010 initiatives.