There is a great report out by the 4 A's "Understanding the Economics of Digital Compared to Traditional Advertising and Media Services" By Joe Burton - it explains in great detail why Interactive Ad Agencies charge what they do for our services. It highlighted the importance of understanding the labor costs that go into SEO, Web Site Development, eMail Marketing, Video Advertising and Social Media Marketing and how the critical talent is scare to do the job well.

One key point was that in Traditional Advertising, media equals 73% of all spending with your agency partner but with an Interactive Media Agency you should expect 52% to be media and 45% to be agency services fees. This is critical when doing channel shifting from one medium to another.

So it is very important if you are going to make the move from direct mail to eMail or from broadcast to display media or PR to social media that you understand the costs and the ROI before jumping into the fray.  But the rewards are worth the effort.

There is a quote in the book The Truth about Email Marketing:
"Email marketing has been called the original social networking tool..."

Social media does not replace emails.  The advantage continues to be that not everyone has a Facebook or LinkedIn profile, but everyone has an email address.

You can capitalize on your social media campaigns by integrating email marketing:
Capture email addresses on your Facebook page.
Promote your email services on your LinkedIn profile.
Test marketing messages and creative elements on social networking sites.
Use email to drive traffic to your social media initiatives.

Recent stats from EmailStatCenter.com you might find helpful in convincing your management team to continue to invest in email marketing in order to reap the benefits:

"50% of consumers surveyed said they're more likely to buy products from companies who send them email, whether their purchases are online or at a place of business."
- Epsilon "Branding Survey" (Feb 2009)

"80.4% of marketing executives surveyed say email performs strongly as an advertising channel for their companies."
- Datran Media "3rd Annual Marketing & Media Survey Results" (2008)

"While 60% of marketers plan to cut their traditional marketing budgets this year, 47% of marketers plan to boost their email marketing budgets."
- Aberdeen Group, "Recessionary Marketing: How Best-in-Class Companies Are Weathering the Storm," (Jan 2009)

Has social media replaced email marketing?  Hardly!  Has it changed it?  Sure.  It offers a new way to use email marketing.  Email marketing continues to drive relationships, retention, and revenue.

Definition 6 sends out almost 300 million emails on behalf of clients.  We also specialize in social media.  We can help you integrate your interactive marketing initiatives to maximize the benefit.

As the CEO of an Interactive Ad Agency, I have been in the digital marketing arena for about 14 years now and it still boggles my mind when I read an article that highlights the lack of metrics use in the world. I have included a link to the full article at the end of the post but I wanted to highlight this particular quote: "Less than half (47%) of marketing professionals in North America and the U.K. recently surveyed by Alterian reported that they currently use analytics to measure on-line campaign results." Are you kidding me, how can you not use web analytics? It is like not having a scoreboard at a game or a speedometer on a car. Driving traffic to your web site without a control panel is stupid! Sorry to offend those of you that are in the majority, non web analytic users. Why would you spend money on SEO, email marketing, interactive advertising or even hosting services if you are not tracking what is happening on-line and on your site?

I guess maybe it is because it cost so much to implement analytics when doing website development! I barely could type that sentence without laughing - it can be Free and done in less than 5 hours! So I understand that a full blown deployment maybe more than you can handle, but no software cost, no usage fee and less than 1 day of effort to track what is happening on your website, seems like a no brain-er to me.  Check out Goggle Analytics if you are part of the 53% that are doing nothing. If you are part of the 47% that are, what do you do with the information?

A good Interactive Agency should be making monthly or quarterly recommendations to improve conversion and a weekly adjustment to PPC spends (or even hourly) and a good Media and Advertising partner would be accountable to you for the results. Of course if you don't care about management, then I'm sure your agency is very happy to charge you without accountability. 

Sorry about the rant, I was just blown away.

Fewer Than Half Of Marketers Use On-line Metrics

by Karlene Lukovitz, Friday, February 20, 2009, 2:02 PM

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=100692

Definition 6 Client Manager, Gabe Rand, on the impact of implement overnight sends on your next targeted email marketing campaign...

I recently read an article on the Marketing Sherpa site about how a company using email marketeing services ccontinued to test email send times after a previous test showed a surprising boost in CTRs for messages sent out overnight. They wanted to verify tests of this unconventional time to make sure the rate held up.  What the article points out is that:

1. Varying send times may impact click throughs, even if it does not impact open rates
2. Early morning sends positively impacted click through rates, while making minor impacts on open rates
3. Be sure to not only test send times for the entire send but do a/b or split testing for the same send for multiple times of day.

In summary, continuous testing of an email program leads to additional insights and the more you know about how your consumer interacts with the messages you are sending them the more power you have.  Check out the full article by logging into MarketingSherpa.com.

Definition 6 Account Coordinator, Cecilia Barella, on the social media revolution...
 

Social Media Marketing and PR (as it relates to marketing your product or service) is a hot topic these days - and you'll often find a multitude of definitions on this subject.   Marketing Sherpa sums up Social Media Marketing and PR best in their recent Benchmark Guide. They define Social media marketing and PR as the "the practice of facilitating a dialogue and sharing content between companies, influencers, prospects and customers using various online platforms and social networks, video and photo sharing, wikis, forums and related web 2.0 technologies."  The article also seperates out the difference between social media and social media marketing and PR.

Here are a few other key points from the article that I think you'll find interesting...
 

• Social Media and Email are the only two tactics between online and offline marketing tactics in which more companies are planning to increase spending rather than decrease spending in 2009.
• Lack of knowledge is the most significant barrier to social media adoption -- even though people are familiar with social media, they do not know how to use it effectively for Marketing or PR
• More than 90% of companies believe that social media is most effective in achieving brand building goals, followed closely by goals of attracting website visitors.
   

Check out one of our most recent blogs on social media marketing -also learn how leading interactive agency Definition 6 can help launch your next social media strategy. 

As the CEO of a traditional Atlanta Interactive Agency I find the evolution of Socail Media Marketing to be a great emerging domain for our consultants and our customers. I am attending Socon 09' and will be bloging a few times today.
The breadth of this conference is pretty wide and it appears taht the use of eMail Marketing, Web Site Design, Search Engine Optimzation have evolved as teh buidling blocks of a digtial stragey but the newest engagment tool has truly become the social network. That community of on-line users who connect to share, colloboarte, publish, listen, learn and grow, all digitally and all the time. This makes the job of a marketer harder than ever because the messages crafted to describe why to use our customers products or services is now being absorbed and maniupulated by the end users and then enforced by feedback from others. Like an echo chamber the expereince, good - bad - or avearge is amplified, repeated, and heard hundreds or thousdands of times over.

It should be an interesting day, I imagine a few new thoughts will emerge and couple of old ones will die and mostly more details will emerge as the conversation continues.

I came across a great article yesterday on MarketingSherpa.com which summarized some very practical and useful tips on improving email opt-ins.  Below are 10 low-cost tactics collected from past MarketingSherpa case studies including how to’s on boosting referrals, establishing co-registration barters, optimizing registration pages and using offline channels for email address collection.

Low-cost Tactics for Opt-in Growth

 

1.     Increase incentive for referrals - offer a discount coupon to encourage your customers to recruit new opt-ins to their email newsletter and promotional messages

2.     Highlight relevance in co-registration placement - find relevant partners and present your offer in a compelling way

3.     Create co-branded sweepstakes – recruit partners to share the promotion with their own customers and in exchange, trade opt-in checkboxes on one another’s sites.

4.     Combat email address typos – conduct tests to capture email typos before they reach your database

5.     Test a delayed intercept for opt-ins i.e. test a version of on overlay that appears only after your visitor spends 1+ minute on the site.

6.     Test additional locations for opt-in checkboxes i.e. add them on higher traffic web pages

7.     Test small tweaks of registration form such as offer type, images, required fields, amount of information and submit button copy

8.     Use telesales and customer service reps to collect opt-ins – have your inbound call center representatives ask for email opt-ins during calls

9.     Print an opt-in URL on receipts for POS registrations – let customers enter their own information through a custom URL on a sales receipt

10.   Add change-of-email address form to site - place reminders throughout your site that ask customers to report a change of address.

 

Definition 6 leverages expertise in website integration, managed computer services, design, marketing and consulting to create solutions that help our clients increase revenues and reduce costs to build competetive advantage,

Client Manager, Gabe Rand came across a Marketing Sherpa article discussing 6 steps on how a simple referral process can create a surge in registrations.  The 6 steps mentioned in the article include preparing your email servers, building a referral page, building your email message, protecting the information, providing incentives and keeping the process as simple as possible.

Kiwibox's registration process has 3 simple steps:
1. choose a username
2. enter personal information
3. refer friends

After selecting which of your friends will receive the email and clicking the 'invite your friends' button, the registrants are dropped onto the welcome page where they being interacting.  A screenshot of the welcome page is provided here as an example.
 

Login to Marketing Sherpa to learn how Kiwibox, an online magazine and social network for teens, launched a redesigned site and saw an immediate lift in their registrations.  Contact Definition 6 to find out how we can help in the website integration process of a new or existing email service provider.

Project Manager Lisa Seals presented an article to our Client Services group on the effectiveness of optimzing PPC campaigns through targeted email marketing -geotargeting.  The article reinforces the importance of geotargeting to deliver relevant customized keywords, ad copy and offers to searchers in specific geographic locations.

And according to MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, marketers agree that geotargeting is an effective tactic that delivers high ROI.

 

Lisa highlighted three major points from the report:

 

1.     In addition to targeting PPC campaigns to searchers in specific locations, ecommerce sites (or other national search advertisers) should also consider geotargeting to optimize their overall search strategy.

2.     Shifting resources to regions that deliver the best performing traffic, or highlight brands based on regional popularity, will deliver the highest ROI.

3.      Always remember to test.  As a geotargeted ad group demonstrates its effectiveness, you can move on to a new region or increase spending in those areas to maximize results.

 

Check out the full article on MarketingSherpa.com to learn how a national jeans company developed a comprehensive search marketing strategy that included geotargeting to advertise a popular apparel of brands in major metropolitan areas.

 

Check out our some of our blogs for information about Definition 6's search engine optimization solutions.

 

 

Account Coordinator, Jeremy Bromwell, recently came across new research from Epsilon Strategic Services  which reveals that character length is not the only important item to consider when you are designing your email subject line for any permission based email marketing campaign.

Marketers spend significant time developing the email creative however most do not devote enough time to subject line strategy and development.  Many would argue that the subject line is the most important factor in overall response rate -- and that the subject line extends beyone the open to click-thru rate.  With the subject line being the initial piece of information subscribers see in their inbox (verses the well developed creative) marketers should re-think the relationship between the subject line length (SLL) and email performance.

Key points from Jeremy's article:

1. the combination of SLL and content is what drives higher open & click rates
2. 57% of U.S. email recipience will open an email based on their relationship with the sender andn the first 38-47 characters.
3. standards to keep in mind include front-loading your subject lines with the most important information, keep the subject line short to convey your message, use longer subject lines when there is a compelling reason to...and always test!

There are many important things to consider when developing the subject line strategy beyond length.  Split or multi-variate subject line testing should always be placed into the project schedule to maximize the ROI of the campaign.  Keep in mind personalization, especially beyond just name, is another best practice to consider when appropriate in the subject line and body of the email and increases subscriber engagement.

Definition 6 is a leading interactive agency in Atlanta serving many of our clients with the best and most effective email marketing strategies.

The best part of having an Interactive Advertising Agency is seeing how leading edge thinking evolves and grows. Years ago we would just talk about eMail Marketing, Search Engine Optimization Consulting, Website Development and hosting services. That was it and then the crash of 2001 came along and Interactive Advertising Agency life became harder and many companies went out of business. If the last two days are any indication of things to come, interactive advertising is going to only become stronger in the next 18 months. Take a look at this chart from Media Daily News:

ZenithOptimedia, GroupM Forecast U.S., Worldwide Ad Recession In 2009
	2008	2009	2010	2011
ZenithOptimedia
U.S.	-3.8%	-6.2%	+2.1%	+2.8%
Worldwide	+1.3%	-0.2%	+5.5%	+5.8%
GroupM
U.S.	+0.3%	-3.2%	NA	NA
Worldwide	+2.6%	-0.2%	NA	NA

Who would want to be in the traditional adverting and media business next year?  Not me, and not because traditional isn't important and can't help brands, but compared to Interactive Advertising - look at this chart from Online Media Daily:

Share Of Worldwide Ad Spending By Medium
	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Newspapers	27.1	25.4	23.8	22.3	21.2
Magazines	12.0	11.5	11.2	10.7	10.4
Television	37.3	38.0	38.3	38.5	38.5
Radio	8.0	7.6	7.1	6.9	6.7
Cinema	0.5	0.5	0.5	0.6	0.6
Outdoor	6.5	6.7	6.9	7.0	7.1
Internet	8.6	10.3	12.1	13.9	15.6
Source: ZenithOptimedia

Next year Interactive Adversing will exceed Outdoor, Radio, Magazine and I personally believe by 2011 will be equal to newspaper even if  others don't yet. Look for our upcoming posts on some rapid start programs on how to get involved in Interactive Advertising solutions for 2009.

Nearly across the board companies are lowering their spending or holding off on marketing and IT projects given the state of the economy.  You still have a need to market, drive sales, lower costs, and generate revenue using things like interactive marketing solutions, perhaps even more so now.

Read through our daily blog posts to learn how Definition 6, a leading interactive agency, can help identify smaller, lower cost solutions that can be delivered quickly and efficiently.  Below are example offerings (bucketed into revenue creation, growing market share and reducing IT costs) that we bring to our clients in an overall turbulent economy. Most solutions can be up and running in under 2 weeks:

Sales - Revenue Creation
• Mobile Sites
• Site Search
• Desktop and Web widgets
• Rapid SEO
• Email Marketing
• Web Analytics

Marketing - Growing Market Share
• Social Networking
• Mobile Sites
• Blogging
• SMS Campaigns

IT - Reducing Costs
• Offshore IT Solutions
• SaaS Infrastructure Workshop
• Hosted SharePoint
• Web Content Management
• Managed Services

I really enjoy the field of Interactive Advertising and being the head of an Interactive Advertising Agency as it allows me to see the continued evolution of the digital space.  I found an interesting chart on eMarketer the other day and I wanted to share it.



Look at these growth numbers! I know many of you are saying, wait a minute, we are not seeing double digit growth like the last few years and these projections are down from what they were in August. I know that you are correct, however if you are in the paid search business or search engine optimization consulting business this is a great chart. If you are into email marketing or provide website development services, then this is a very good chart to see.

Most advertising mediums are being cut back and actually declining, most expenses in all departments are being reduced. Our field is still going to grow and growth is always relative. If we grow 7% and the others decline 3% we actually see gains in excess of the 10% spread as compared to total spending. It is just great to be an interactive advertising agency!

Today’s Client Services meeting led into a discussion about how economic forces affect our clients’ media planning and budgeting.  Jeremy Bromwell, a Definition 6 Account Coordinator, shared some of his thoughts from an article he recently read on Marketing Sherpa…

Cuts for offline media and brand tactics are taking the biggest hits.  As an interactive advertising agency, we are uniquely positioned to help our clients divert offline dollars to the interactive channel and use superior analytics tools to increase both ROI and ROAS.  Jeremy’s key points included:

1. Over 50% of brand advertising is projected to have some to significant reductions in 2009.  Brand advertising would consist of both online display ads and print ads.
2. 68% of direct advertising budgets are projected to have no change or to increase.  Direct advertising includes tactics like direct mail and email campaigns.
3. When you split the same tactics between online and offline budgets, 12% of traditional media budgets are expected to increase while 31% expect increases in online budgets.

Brand efforts support direct tactics which can be especially important during an economic downturn, when brand advertising can underscore an organization’s strength.  Further, a downturn creates a buyer’s market for brand impressions offline and online which can give opportunistic companies a chance to enhance their market position.  As your overall marketing budget gets cut, evaluate the proportions like you would an investment and look for areas to reaportion funds to yield the most fruitful return.  As consumer preferences evolve away from traditional channels, money can easily be diverted to a variety of interactive techniques to keep brand engagement high.
You can read the article in its entirety at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?id=30914

Simple E-Mail Segmentation

Jeremy Bromwell and Cecilia Barella, Definition 6 Account Coordinators, recently spoke on articles they read on ClickZ...

List segmentation is often perceived as difficult or expensive; however, if you are not currently segmenting your list there are some very simple tactics you can use to better target content and improve performance of your direct email marketing efforts.

Jeremy and Cecilia explained segmenting your list based on metrics and developing 5 groups:

There are different strategies and tactics utilized to tailor your messaging for each of the above groups.  Our email marketing services can not only help you segment you subscriber list, but also develop comprehensive strategies ranging from trigger-based transactional emails, quarterly schedules, to templates that view and convert well across multiple platforms and browsers.

The full article can be viewed at: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629708

I guess I am having trouble hearing about recessions as we help companies as an Interactive Advertising Agency, because I see things in malls and stores that do not match.  Lots of companies tell us that they see sales down and that they want to hold off on their Business Website Development, but then you see this:

 

This line for $4.00+ coffee doesn't look like America is tightening its belt too much to me! So I think that we need to focus on things that will drive people to our stores and not let them go to others. Email Marketing Services take less than 20 days to activate and Paid Search Engine programs can impact traffic to your site and ultimately to your store within weeks. So the question I asked is: Are you a victim or are you making sure your Interactive Advertising Agency is working to make you a victor in today's interesting market conditions.  

Cecilia Barella, a Definition 6 Account Coordinator, recently discussed an article she read on Forrester...

The Hispanic population is one of the fastest growing population in the US however they are still underserved online. Companies should know that while only one-fourth of Hispanics must be served in Spanish, more than half of online Hispanics would prefer to be served in Spanish. Often due to the uncertainty over the benefits of creating a Spanish-language site, many marketers miss out on this market that is full of opportunities in email marketing, search engine optimization, and website development.

Cecilia focused on a few key points in the article:

1. Spanish-preferring online consumers fit at least one of four criteria . The more
criteria they select, the more likely they are to prefer Spanish over English. More than half of online Hispanics fit into one of these four criteria, and 23% of them fit into three or four of them. The four criteria are as follows:
 
• “I am more comfortable visiting Web sites that are Spanish-language.” Thirty-two percent of
online Hispanics agree with this statement.
• “I get more of the information I need when using a Spanish-language Web site.” Almost 30% of Spanish-preferring Hispanics agree with this.
• “I am more likely to trust companies that have Spanish-language Web sites.” Twenty-eight percent of Spanish-preferring Hispanics agree with this notion, revealing that a Spanishlanguage site is not just about reach but is also about brand trust and customer goodwill.
• Spend at least half of their Internet time in Spanish. Twenty-six percent of Spanish-preferring Hispanics fall into this group.   
 
2. Understand your existing and potential customers to see if their needs match your product or service. For example:
• Attitudes. More than half of Spanish-preferring Hispanics would be more likely to research products online if they could do it in Spanish, and they are more concerned about price than English-preferring Hispanics.
• Demographics. Online Spanish-preferring Hispanics have larger households and more children than English-preferring Hispanics, meaning that messaging around kids and family will have high impact with this group.
• Acculturation.  82% of Spanish-preferring online Hispanics are first-generation in the US. Some sites should not only focus on pushing products to this Market but also educating them in certain processes.

3. Make A Multichannel Spanish-Language Commitment.
Make sure that your Hispanic consumers have a seamless experience across all the channels in which they need Spanish.  Also, make sure that the content is culturally relevant and updated frequently.

Cecilia's concluding thoughts were that competition for Spanish-preferring consumers will accelerate, and companies that get in early with a Spanish language site have an advantage when it comes to building greater brand awareness and relationships within the Hispanic community. There are also multiple ways to do this.  Some examples are: using translator services, having a spanish-language minisite, having a landing page, or a second site.  An Interactive Advertising Agency, like Definition 6, can help you create a winning multi-cultural strategy for long lasting results.  The full article can be viewed at: http://forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,42066,00.html

As the holiday season approaches, the prospects for record setting sales appear dim for most retailers.  The economy is, well, you know...  Competition is keen and consumers are spending on necessities, if that.  This will make the 2008 holiday season especially challenging for marketers and retailers.  So for eTailors, and those in the electronic commerce space, getting it "right" this year can mean staying in business, or not. 

So I suggest a pre-holiday, eCommerce audit to ensure a successful holiday season.  Make sure your web site is search engine optimized by reviewing page tags, keywords, meta data and header information.  Ensure your home page has a strong call to action.  Are there special promotions prominently displayed on the homepage and above the fold?  There better be, because your competitors will have that nailed!

Have you checked the web channel integration with your inventory application?  Better make sure that inventory purchased on-line is reflected in your database in near real time, as the costs of returns will be higher this year, with gas prices as they are.

Are you planning special promotions and marketing events in your other channels?  Ensure that the web is being leveraged to support and augment those initiatives.  Are your call center employees up to date with your latest web promotions? 

If your website is hosted by a third party hosting provider, have you alerted them to that great new web promotion you are planning?  You'll need to ensure they can handle the anticipated increase in bandwidth.  Those managed services providers might also offer some ideas on how to keep that traffic even by varying messaging by the time of day and even day of the week.  This will smooth out traffic and promote a more consistent user experience.

And let's not forget the all important email campaigns.  Have you segmented your target audience so they can receive offers indicative of the part of your website that got them to opt in in the first place?  Are you promoting higher margin products so you don't generate a lot of traffic and revenue but no profits?  Are you sending emails often enough to keep your prospects engaged, but not too often that they stop opening your emails?  Can you do timely email clickstream analysis to identify which promotions are generating the most traffic, and stop the low performers and supplement the rain makers?

And have you reviewed your search and SEO strategies?  Will you be doing a lot of paid search?  Buying brand terms, category terms or product names?  Do you have a comparison or analysis regimen in place so you can add to the converting keywords and dial down the laggards?  Can you run timely metrics reports to get a good snapshot on how your website is performing on a daily basis?

If you have not thought through all of these interactive marketing concepts thoroughly, 2008 might be the year you learned a lot more about eCommerce than you bargained for.  And the way 2009 is shaping up, that job search will be long, prolonged and difficult.  So contact Definition6 now, and have us perform that eCommerce audit and tune up for you.  You'll sleep better, outpace the competition and ensure that 2008 is a stepping stone to a more prosperous 2009.

At Definition 6, I get this questions quite a bit, as an Interactive Advertising Agency we are often on the front lines of business managers arsenal of what to do during troubling times.  Most organizations have a flight or fight response to troubled times and we help both type of customer's needs with our core services.  I wanted to just provide two examples of why I feel the Interactive Ad Agency is a critical strategic asset for marketers today.

If you are one who is looking to "run from trouble", and I mean this to say you are thinking; "The economy is in trouble and I need to pull in the reins on spending and cut costs".  I would suggest you talk to your agency about search engine optimization solutions and move away from paid search as your only expenditure. This will allow you to earn traffic instead of pay for traffic. The effort might take a few months to begin seeing results, but the cost savings over a 6 month period will be dramatic.

If you are inclined to believe that in hard times it is time to pump up the effort. We would recommend that you look closely at leveraging your in-house email lists and focus on email marketing. By simple taking some of your existing offers from your direct mail budget and rapidly moving them to online email marketing you should be able to impact sales within 3-4 weeks and reduce costs per sale by 1/3 to 50% just by channel shifting your efforts to online.

These are certainly simple examples, but I wanted to just wanted to start a thread about what to do in uncertain times. For additional points of view on this topic check out http://www.beyondmadisonavenue.com/2008/10/invest-in-online-advertising-now/ by Brian Yalung.

More to come soon.