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!

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.
 

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.

I have found that the Interactive Ad Agency community and the Online Ad Agency segment is having a good time with this economy.  I say this not because they are immune to economic downturn, but because in a tough economy measuring the ROI is more important than every.

I recently was in a meeting with a client about their SEO results and the focus had come down to "what 5 words matter most?"  That is pretty focused and very on point for a client. We went through with them the top 20 words in terms of search queries, traffic, conversions, and competitiveness. Ultimately we decided 7 words mattered most to their SEO performance and overall ROI for their Search Engine Optimization Marketing plans.
 
What was nice was that the web analytics combined with a detailed SEO approach gave us the tools to make a certain business decision in uncertain times.

I came across a Mediapost article that I found very interesting because as a technical project manager at an online agency, I work with several clients that do market to the Spanish speaking community. It shows that most US Hispanics who prefer to speak Spanish are using a lot of websites outside of the US.  In fact, 7 of the top 10 are websites in Spain, Mexico and Columbia.  So companies that need to reach out to Hispanics need to find ways to advertise on these non-US websites in order to bring those customers back to their US websites.

Here are a few key points I got from this article:

1.US Hispanics who prefer Spanish prefer to read Spanish sites and most of them go to websites outside of the US to get the content they want.

2.To reach US Hispanic consumers, companies need to run their media and advertising on non-US Spanish websites.

3. US Spanish speaking consumers use non-US sites more than the major Spanish portals in the US, such as Yahoo! En Espanol, Univision, Telemundo and AOL Latino.

In addition to builing multilingual websites, Definition 6 is an interactive ad agency who helps clients strategize on how to best market to different segments, which can include cultural, regional or age groups.
 

I get really cool alerts as part of my job at an Online Ad Agency and one of the blogs that I subscribe to is the Google Blog. I found a really cool feature that is great if you are planning a trip or going on a trip. It shows how good website integration with user needs makes interactive a part of our everyday lives.  Check this out:

"Google Street View has a new option to show photos uploaded to the Google-owned Panoramio. "Now you can browse user-contributed photos that have been precisely-matched to Street View images. Gorgeous photos from Panoramio allow you to see some of the world's most famous landmarks at an even closer level," explains Google."

Here is a video of how it works: Video


I hope you find it as fun as I do. Think about it, which hotel should I stay out, take a virtual tour around the corner, not just in your room. Interactive at its best!

Sales Marketing Specialist, Dana Long, shares an article on how QSR's and fast-casual restaurants have adopted their own social media strategies...

Giving away freebies in today's economic climate resonates well with consumers -- and huge gains are being made within the restuarant industry by brands who are reaching out to consumers through the use of social media marketing.

There is a recent article on Media Post explaining how restaurant brands can benefit from a social media strategy by incorporating freebies, surveys, polling and even a restaurant locator.  And with the right tools, franchisees can tap into their online social circles in order to market local events through email marketing and other search engine optimization solutions.  Bottom line, online tactics employed at minimal expense lead to massive revenue gains and brand awareness.

Contact online ad agency Definition 6 today to learn how we can help you implement your next social media, SEO or email marketing campaign.
 

An interactive advertising agency is in business to help its customers make more money at a lower cost than they did yesterday!  This meshes nicely with a Peter Drucker thought: "Because it is the purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two-and only two-basic functions: marketing and innovation." So if those of us in Interactive Marketing buy into this mindset, we are are at the epicenter of business. We are innovative marketers.

Let me give an example of what I mean. Let's say you come to your agency with the problem of losing sales leads when your customers come into contact with your retail partners floor sales staff. You have tried training programs, spiff, even eMail marketing Newsletters to stay top of mind with your partners. Unfortunately, they still often dislodge your customer from buying your brand and direct them to another brand. (you should confirm that you don't have a pricing or quality problem) How should you expect your Interactive advertising agency to solve this problem?

Some agencies will give you a better PPC plan, others will try on-line coupons, some might even talk about lifestyle content around your product via eNewsletters, but this is more of the same. An innovative partner will start with the simple question: "Why isn't your customer loyalty to your brand when the get to the store?" so they will solve the problem; "How to make our customers loyal before reaching the sales person". This is where innovation comes from, asking the root cause questions and not simply slapping tactic against the wall and hoping for results.

An Interactive Media Agency has to pay a lot of attention to a lot of things. So we tend to read, digest, synthesize and retransmit a ton of information. As a result, we get pretty good at dissecting information and applying it against our own customers, lessons learned and next assignments. I found that Matt Cutt's makes some good points and I agree with everything he said with the exception of point 1 about natural search. I think SEO will be something of critical importance and in growing importance in the years to come. Aside from that, I think he is spot on with his comments.

Google's Matt Cutts cited the decreasing importance of rank for any given phrase and other implications. To be successful in 2009, marketers must strive for relevance in paid and natural search. Marketers should also keep these points in mind:

• Natural search ranking reports will tell less of the story and become less important
• Relevancy in PPC ads becomes more important than ever: keywords, ad copy and landing pages should match to boost quality scores and attract attention
• Other ways to instantly boost relevance on the SERPs include:
• Geotargeting for multichannel and local advertisers
• Natural search landing pages, targeting specific people with specific keywords

Key recommendation: Improve relevance in PPC advertising, keyword research and other efforts to dominate SERPs.

As interactive marketing continues to grow in importance, the recommendations above will grow in impact and your interactive ad agency will need to focus on making the dollars you spend, more effective and revenue supporting. I particularly love the recommendations about " keywords, ad copy and landing pages should match to boost quality scores and attract attention" - I think this is a great point of reference for everyone to think about - what happens, before, during and after the click.

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 Project Manager, Lisa Seals, on what not to do on FaceBook…

Before establishing a social media strategy, particular as it involves FaceBook, it’s important to understand the laws regulating how you market your product or service.  Failure to adhere to these regulations can result in warnings, requests for immediate action, suspension, termination/disablement of an application or just plain user turnoff.  Online Ad Agency Definition 6 can help you avoid making these mistakes when launching a campaign on FaceBook.

1. Infringing on Intellectual Property Rights - The legal rights bestowed by regulatory trademarks and copyrights are binding in the social media realm.
2. Pretending to Be Someone You're Not - FaceBook explicitly states that applications must not be designed "to impersonate any person" or "in a manner that is misleading, deceptive or fraudulent."
3. Violating Users' Privacy Rights
4. Flouting the Accepted Rules of User Engagement - FaceBook policy dictates that applications may no longer offer incentives to users for inviting friends or adding profile boxes, etc.

FaceBook is implementing more controls for establishing trust between users and companies who market on the site and in November 2008, they launched an Application Verification program, which rewards marketers with a certification seal - similar to the VeriSign logo used on e-commerce sites.  To read the entire article, login to MarketingProfs.com.
 

As an Interactive Advertising Agency executive one of the things that we have learned is to talk about how "things are different" on the internet.  Certianly interactions in the social medai space are different and web analtics allows us to track differently than traditional advertising.



And from a cost perspective email marketing is very different than direct mail. But it isn't about us, it is about the users. I found these stats interesting.

Generation X (ages 33-44) continues to lead in online shopping:

• 80% of Generation X (33-44) internet users buy products online
• 71% of internet users ages 18- 32 buy products online
• 38% of online teens buy products online
• 56% of internet users ages 64-72 do  
• 47% of internet users age 73 and older buy online

This is According to surveys through 2008 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and can be found at: www.pewinternet.org

I find these nubmers to indicate that if you are 18 or older you are always more than 50% likely to buy on-line than not and in your peak earning years 80% likely to buy on-line. That to me says that the consumer will buy on line if you make it avaliable - at least better than half the time. Think about that, is a consumer likely to buy from your retail store 50% time if you are in one mall, town, or corner?  Probably, if they see your store, it has things they want and the price is decent (a good reputation helps).

So if you have good search engine optimization, ppc plans, the right amount of online information to engage a buyer and a good reputation witin the social sphere - then you have a 50/50 shot or better. Digital doesn't seem so different at all.

Definition 6 Account Coordinator, Jeremy Bromwell, on how consumer response to personalized ads...

A February 5 article sent by MediaPost discussed the 2008 Personalization Survey from ChoiceStream.  The survey found that overall 39% of consumers are more likely to click on a personalized ad, and of those individuals that shop online more frequently the number rises to 58%.

The relationship of media and advertising is continually evolving, particularly in the social media space.  73% of respondents are interested in the online distribution of personalized advertising and 78% are interested in receiving personalized content.  Clearly consumers have an appetitie for personalized content and it is being viewed by many as time a time-saving activity.

As an interactive marketing agency, Definition 6 can help you develop and implement a social media strategy for advertising.  This is a great time to also examine personalized pay-per-click advertising and as Google’s Latitude gains traction look specifically at geo-targeted and mobile advertising to help your product or service maximize exposure and returns.

Lisa Seals, Definition 6 Project Manager on earning consumer trust through the use of blogging…

Blogs are one of the most cost-effective mediums available for building relationships with your customers, and driving traffic to your website.  But, according to Forrester’s North American Technographics Media and Marketing Online Survey, corporate blogs rate very low on the scale for consumer trust.  Don’t swear off blogging quite yet - rather, use blogging as an addition to your marketing mix and overtime customers will value your openness and candor.  Here are some interesting suggestions from an article I recently read which were key take-aways for me…
 
1. Come up with a well-thought-out blogging policy to institute credibility into your company blog
2. Instill reader value – think about your customer's perspective before you blog
3. Foster transparency - be up front with your readers about who you are as the author.  Include your background, role within the company, if you have vested interests in the topic of discussion and whether they're writing from an insider-expert or end-user perspective
4. Set the tone - abstain from taking on a formal tone, talk to your readers like you would talk to real people in professional situations. Bring in your own personality and say what's on your mind
5. Allow readers to participate in the conversation -  your blog can provide an effective vehicle for gathering and understanding your customer’s perspectives

Check out the full article by logging into MarketingProfs.com and visit our blog to find out how online ad agency, Definition 6, leverages our website integration expertise in providing the right tools necessary to create your own corporate blog.
 

Business Development Exec, Rhonda Vincent, on how paid search surges despite the economy…

 

The paid search advertising market surged during Q4 2008 and estimates released by Covario show that paid search ad spending also continued to grow sequentially, posting a 7% gain over Q3 2008, despite our turbulent economy.

 

Covario’s report explains that the strong growth rate is the result of budgets that were already committed to fourth quarter spending before the deteriorating economy impacted corporate budget allocations along with the reluctance of advertisers to cut spending during the holiday season.  Additionally, the analysis indicates that paid search advertising volume continues to expand even as average prices paid continue to fall.

 

Other key points from the article…

1.     Advertisers are migrating spend away from high priced marketing terms that promote brand awareness toward terms which are about sales conversion and have lower CPC rates

2.     Clients are more aware of their spending and every dollar counts…paid search is a great way to monitor ROI which explains these trends

3.     There is an opportunity for interactive media agencies and interactive ad agencies to capture media dollars from more traditional methods and to recognize that spends are lower, however shifts in budgets are a trend for 2009.

Business Development Exec, TJ Hargen, came across a study conducted by Ispos Insight which explored the media trends, attitudes, opinions and purchasing habits of America's business elite, or "C Suite".  The study shows a dramatic shift toward the impact that digital media has on this particular demographic now that they are fully embracing online.
 
A few key findings from the study...
1. execs have rapidly adopted the Internet with rapid growth in the usage of print media sites - however this has not reduced usage of other media types such as TV
2. using a publication's website is part of the daily routine for about 2 out of 5 execs
3. top websites visited by US execs are heavily news-oriented including large portals and search engines, followed by cable news and newspaper sites

Business elite are getting more deeply emerged into the digital space including streaming video, blogs, podcasts, etc. which means good things for interactive ad agencies and interactive media agencies.  According to all of these findings, trends in this space are going to continue to accelerate.  You can read the article in its entirety on mediapost.com.

Project Manager, Lisa Seals on viral marketing...

Search Engine Watch recently ran an article on best practices and strategies for creating successful viral marketing campaigns.  If you’re an interactive media agency, interactive ad agency or SEO firm with limited knowledge on your client’s industry, there are helpful sites to help you compile data and uncover information about which sites have influence over your target audience.  For example, this illustration from Quantcast shows monthly traffic for a popular virtual world site.

 

Successful viral marketing campaigns lead to better branding, exposure, and links. The trick is creating the awareness.  Read through our blogs and find out how Definition 6 can help increase the likelihood of success for your next marketing campaign.  Or for more information on Definition 6's services, contact us today.

At this Interactive Advertising Agency, we have been writing about how traditional media spending is moving on line. We have not been alone and we do believe that it is a good action to take if you are in Interactive Adversing. However, Pat LaPointe makes a good point last Friday in the article "Fools Rush In -- In Search of Magic ROI", by Pat LaPointe , Friday, December 12, 2008 "....beware: nearly EVERYONE ELSE HAS THE SAME IDEA. .....But the laws of marketing physics suggest that more marketers and marketing dollars will rush in to the arena than proven executional avenues can accommodate in the short term. And most of them will NOT bring breakthrough new creativity with them. That will create lots of failure and un-delivered expectations, which in turn may slow adoption of otherwise valuable marketing options." Full Article at: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&art_aid=96614#comments.

So it got me thinking...what about Email marketing?  The more the idea soaked in the more I liked it. Targeted Email Marketing is a wonderful way to shift ad dollars into digital and avoid being overwhelmed by the clutter. It is your list, your relationships and your message. It might be better than an over priced PPC campaign and a weak display campaign. It certainly will be faster and cheaper to do!

At the same time, if your Interactive Adversing Agency is good at creative, good at media planning and optimization and good at conversion techniques, you might just be someone who can break through the clutter, gain market share and then use Email to crush your competition.