I’ve decided that one of the indicators of the New Rudeness is a failure to acknowledge emails.
I don’t mean that I expect everybody to respond to deposed Nigerian dictators, pharmacy solicitations, or any other spammers. Rather, when a co-worker or a friend or an acquaintance sends you an email, you should at least acknowledge that you received it.
For business purposes, this could be vital. The proliferation of anti-spam protection devices, not all of which are always accurate in divining junk mail from good mail, means that it is very possible to have legitimate emails blocked and shunted into the black hole. Thus you never see the email, which could be very important and relate to an urgent project, and the sender will never see a “failure to deliver” error message, so neither of you will know what has transpired. In a time-critical situation, this could be disastrous.
(Of course, if it really *that* urgent, use the phone! But some people’s reliance on email as a crutch for communication is a different pet peeve and not the subject of this post.)
However, if you are in the habit of responding to your (legitimate) emails with a quick, “Got it! Thanks!” or something similar, then the lack thereof will trigger an alarm in your sender’s mind and perhaps s/he will in fact follow up with a call to make sure you received the urgent information.
But even beyond this somewhat extreme scenario, it is always worthwhile to know that your communication has been received properly. In verbal matters, the gentle throat clearing or the less subtle “Hey! Are you listening to me?” can serve to restart the process and provide the positive feedback the speaker needs. That is not possible in the POP3 and related spaces. Thus the need for a positive action to trigger the feedback loop, a simple REPLY-TO with brief acknowledgement.
The lack of response, especially if you are asking or tasking somebody, implies a devaluation of the sender which can rankle. The non-respondent is either saying that s/he is too busy to answer (thus indicating your lack of importance, because whatever s/he is preoccupied with is more vital than the 12 seconds it would take to reply); or, worse, that s/he does not like you and is ignoring you. Even if the request is accomplished, the non-response is still rude and can only rankle the sender. It signifies a lack of respect.
Those who create interactive marketing elements need to be aware of these kinds of feelings. Nobody likes to take an action and have it seem to vanish into the void. If you as a web consumer should order something online, you want to get an email or at least a “thank you” page to acknowledge that your purchase form completion did really go through and you do stand a reasonable chance of receiving your items. If you hand over your personal info in order to download a white paper or log into a protected area, you want to know how to do it and not feel like you are left out in the cold.
This may seem like Usability 101 but problems can be found throughout the web. Do a Google search and click on the pay-per-click results along the right hand column; count how many times you are taken to a web site home page, that makes no specific mention of your search term or any targeted info about your topic of interest. That is almost as bad as refusing to respond to an email. You the searcher just put your trust in a paying advertiser, only to be given the SEM equivalent of the cold shoulder.
Make sure you respond to your users, or they will take the hint and find somebody else who will treat them with more respect.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Banner A**
I need to rant about something that is a pet peeve of mine: banner ads.
First I should say, from a practical value standpoint, banner ads suck. As documented a billion times, banner ads are routinely ignored, disparaged, and despised by web users. The actual trackable return on investment is almost always miniscule. The vehicles for these ads, the web sites and applications that can be used by millions of visitors, still do not encompass the greater pool of possible customers and cannot support the demographic targeting that might enhance your messaging.
Now I primarily swim in the B2B space. In this world, unlike the B2C, you are typically able to pretty precisely define your customers. By definition, they are engineers or architects or industrial designers in a particular vertical market. In this world trade publications really do have value because their audience really can be assumed to match our targets. The reach may not be all-encompassing, but at least you can be fairly sure that everybody you DO reach will at least have a professional inclination to pay at least a slight bit of attention.
Thus I grudgingly admit that banner ads (and its ancestor, the equally ROI-deficient print ad) in trade publications have some value. So we want to make good ads that attract attention, convey the proper call to action, support the brand, etc. etc.
HOWEVER: as important, or arguably more important, is what happens AFTER the reader clicks on the ad.
The genesis of all this ranting involves a client of my agency. We do not directly manage their interactive efforts, but we have developed microsites with them in conjunction with a very successful integrated campaign aimed at different groups of target customers. Thus we were a little surprised to see them in a banner ad on the web site of a very popular trade magazine in the building construction industry.
What I saw was on the site’s home page: our client had a square banner space in the middle, lower part of the page (falls below the fold in my browser). The ad was for a particular package of publications that our client has put together aimed at architects, which they sell via their online bookstore.
All well and good.
However, when you click on the ad, you open the home page of the client site. Problems are legion:
--the home page does NOT have a header or any other kind of graphic that mentions the Architect package
--there is no special call-out to point the users to the bookstore (where they can buy the item), only the standard navigation links
--if the user is intrepid enough to fight their way through 3 subsequent levels of navigation, they will eventually land on a purchase link for the product—but only a banal text list of the contents, no descriptions or other content that might get an architect interested in purchasing
Imagine the user experience: he or she sees the ad, interest is sparked, it is clicked, and…s/he lands on a home page with no mention of the subject of the ad, no links to where the thing can be purchased, no call to action, and no clear support for the user’s needs AS DOCUMENTED BY THE ACT OF CLICKING.
Ideally, the user should go to a landing page that echoes the message of the ad and speaks directly to the user, and preferably has a direct call to action that allows him or her to IMMEDIATELY purchase the item.
This is a classic example of how banner advertising can ultimately be *USELESS* no matter how much traffic it generates. I bet you that 99.9% of the people who click through the ad immediately exit our client’s site. All the money they spend advertising with this popular (and therefore probably expensive) trade publication is wasted because their site is not set up to properly receive those people clicking through.
The receiving end of an online campaign is as important or probably MORE important than the creativity or effectiveness of the ads themselves. It is almost criminal to have somebody click through (thus demonstrating that they are a qualified and interested lead) only to insult them with a lack of support for their interest on the site itself.
If you must advertise via banner ads, then you MUST consider the second part of the equation: what happens after the click. We have to help our clients think about their sites themselves and help them optimize the user experience, identify a conversion metric, and channel the users into that conversion—oh and by the way, help them track that metric and determine what users are doing and learn whether or not the $ they are spending on banner ads is really worthwhile. Those are foundational strengths of the web channel, and if they are ignored, why bother being on the web in the first place?
I have a colleague who has a colorful way of expressing displeasure with something. He’ll say, “That looks like a**” (using a term referring to the gluteal area, what the Hawaiians call the okole).
Well, that’s how I feel about banner ads when they are not properly supported on the web site receiving end. They are not banner ads, just banner a** when that happens.
First I should say, from a practical value standpoint, banner ads suck. As documented a billion times, banner ads are routinely ignored, disparaged, and despised by web users. The actual trackable return on investment is almost always miniscule. The vehicles for these ads, the web sites and applications that can be used by millions of visitors, still do not encompass the greater pool of possible customers and cannot support the demographic targeting that might enhance your messaging.
Now I primarily swim in the B2B space. In this world, unlike the B2C, you are typically able to pretty precisely define your customers. By definition, they are engineers or architects or industrial designers in a particular vertical market. In this world trade publications really do have value because their audience really can be assumed to match our targets. The reach may not be all-encompassing, but at least you can be fairly sure that everybody you DO reach will at least have a professional inclination to pay at least a slight bit of attention.
Thus I grudgingly admit that banner ads (and its ancestor, the equally ROI-deficient print ad) in trade publications have some value. So we want to make good ads that attract attention, convey the proper call to action, support the brand, etc. etc.
HOWEVER: as important, or arguably more important, is what happens AFTER the reader clicks on the ad.
The genesis of all this ranting involves a client of my agency. We do not directly manage their interactive efforts, but we have developed microsites with them in conjunction with a very successful integrated campaign aimed at different groups of target customers. Thus we were a little surprised to see them in a banner ad on the web site of a very popular trade magazine in the building construction industry.
What I saw was on the site’s home page: our client had a square banner space in the middle, lower part of the page (falls below the fold in my browser). The ad was for a particular package of publications that our client has put together aimed at architects, which they sell via their online bookstore.
All well and good.
However, when you click on the ad, you open the home page of the client site. Problems are legion:
--the home page does NOT have a header or any other kind of graphic that mentions the Architect package
--there is no special call-out to point the users to the bookstore (where they can buy the item), only the standard navigation links
--if the user is intrepid enough to fight their way through 3 subsequent levels of navigation, they will eventually land on a purchase link for the product—but only a banal text list of the contents, no descriptions or other content that might get an architect interested in purchasing
Imagine the user experience: he or she sees the ad, interest is sparked, it is clicked, and…s/he lands on a home page with no mention of the subject of the ad, no links to where the thing can be purchased, no call to action, and no clear support for the user’s needs AS DOCUMENTED BY THE ACT OF CLICKING.
Ideally, the user should go to a landing page that echoes the message of the ad and speaks directly to the user, and preferably has a direct call to action that allows him or her to IMMEDIATELY purchase the item.
This is a classic example of how banner advertising can ultimately be *USELESS* no matter how much traffic it generates. I bet you that 99.9% of the people who click through the ad immediately exit our client’s site. All the money they spend advertising with this popular (and therefore probably expensive) trade publication is wasted because their site is not set up to properly receive those people clicking through.
The receiving end of an online campaign is as important or probably MORE important than the creativity or effectiveness of the ads themselves. It is almost criminal to have somebody click through (thus demonstrating that they are a qualified and interested lead) only to insult them with a lack of support for their interest on the site itself.
If you must advertise via banner ads, then you MUST consider the second part of the equation: what happens after the click. We have to help our clients think about their sites themselves and help them optimize the user experience, identify a conversion metric, and channel the users into that conversion—oh and by the way, help them track that metric and determine what users are doing and learn whether or not the $ they are spending on banner ads is really worthwhile. Those are foundational strengths of the web channel, and if they are ignored, why bother being on the web in the first place?
I have a colleague who has a colorful way of expressing displeasure with something. He’ll say, “That looks like a**” (using a term referring to the gluteal area, what the Hawaiians call the okole).
Well, that’s how I feel about banner ads when they are not properly supported on the web site receiving end. They are not banner ads, just banner a** when that happens.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Push Me, Pull You
In the interactive space, Push vs. Pull marketing means something a little different than in the traditional sense. I like to define Push as any tactic that thrusts itself into the user’s consciousness. In other words, by its action it causes the user to (hopefully) become aware of your products/service and hopefully will compel her to consider you and influence her to purchase.
Push works best when you have a captive audience, i.e. one that is unlikely to pull away from the media when your message is on. The old school model of broadcast television is the classic place for push, defined this way; a TV viewer in the 1960s would be unlikely to change channels during a commercial break, especially when watching a very popular show, although she might head to the bathroom. Thus anybody left in the room is almost certainly going to be exposed to the commercial.
Airing that commercial in a movie theater, before the Coming Attraction trailers, is another example. The audience literally has no place else to go (except to the popcorn stand or the bathroom).
Think about the language used with TV commercials; it can be pretty aggressive. Creative is expected to “grab” attention. A spot that is considered to have done well is said to have “killed.” You have a “target” audience.
On the other hand, a Pull tactic is set up to respond to interest on the part of the user, not to generate it. The content “pulls” the interested users to it.
Using this definition, it is easy to see that the web is really a Pull phenomenon. Participation with a web site is solely at the discretion of the user. All it takes is one click and that user is gone; you cannot force her to do anything at all, much less stick around on your lame site if it doesn’t meet her needs or answer her questions.
Push tactics don’t work on the web because the user has all the control. All she has to do is click her mouse and she’s gone to another site. And unlike the TV viewer of old, she has an infinite variety of other places to go, and she may not ever come back.
Push works best when you have a captive audience, i.e. one that is unlikely to pull away from the media when your message is on. The old school model of broadcast television is the classic place for push, defined this way; a TV viewer in the 1960s would be unlikely to change channels during a commercial break, especially when watching a very popular show, although she might head to the bathroom. Thus anybody left in the room is almost certainly going to be exposed to the commercial.
Airing that commercial in a movie theater, before the Coming Attraction trailers, is another example. The audience literally has no place else to go (except to the popcorn stand or the bathroom).
Think about the language used with TV commercials; it can be pretty aggressive. Creative is expected to “grab” attention. A spot that is considered to have done well is said to have “killed.” You have a “target” audience.
On the other hand, a Pull tactic is set up to respond to interest on the part of the user, not to generate it. The content “pulls” the interested users to it.
Using this definition, it is easy to see that the web is really a Pull phenomenon. Participation with a web site is solely at the discretion of the user. All it takes is one click and that user is gone; you cannot force her to do anything at all, much less stick around on your lame site if it doesn’t meet her needs or answer her questions.
Push tactics don’t work on the web because the user has all the control. All she has to do is click her mouse and she’s gone to another site. And unlike the TV viewer of old, she has an infinite variety of other places to go, and she may not ever come back.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Pharma BAdWords A-Rising
Pharmaceutical marketing is its own unique sub-specialty, almost like marketing viewed in a slightly different dimension: aspects are familiar, but skewed and warped somewhat. It's kind of like the difference between Portuguese and Spanish--similar roots but a completely different language.
I read an interesting post in John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog about a concept he calls Google BAdWords. This is an idea that really is only specifically applicable to pharma marketing, but has a worthwhile point for the rest of us too.
There are many arcane restrictions on pharma marketing that come from the FDA. There are specific rules that have to be followed, such as never advertising a therapy for use that has not been specifically approved by the FDA. This is called "off label" use and suggesting it is a big no-no, even if studies support it or doctors do it. Other restrictions involve everything from what you call the therapy (i.e. brand name vs. generic name) to the formal documentation of the drug that has to be associated with any advertising or marketing (the Prescribing Information or PI).
To make a long story short, this seriously complicates marketing procedures that the rest of us can take for granted. Google AdWords, for instance.
The text ads which are still the bedrock of PPC advertising do not lend themselves to support of these various pharma marketing restrictions. The haiku-like copy requirements require brevity and an exquisite control of language. With only so many character spaces available, the need to list a brand name AND a generic name really cramps one's ability to craft a compelling call to action. The need to link directly to PI subverts the creation of a landing page that can speak directly to clicking searchers, based on their keywords, and thus scuttles any likelihood of further customer interaction. Even the use of the most effect key phrases can be prohibited by pharma company ad regulation approval boards (who have to review ALL external communication) because of fears of FDA condemnation. And you'd better believe that competitors, advocacy groups, watch-dog bloggers, and the FDA itself all routinely spy on and inform on each other so violations really do run the risk of being reported.
So Mack basically suggests you cheat.
He proposes that you keep one ad copy for general use, which is crafted for success and ignores FDA regulations. If challenged on it, you switch it out for the second ad copy. The second meets all regulations, which means it would be a poor performer in real use. His thought is that nobody will be able to prove that you haven't been running the "good" ad all the time except possibly Google itself, and they are not likely to divulge your historical data unless facing a court order. Thus the "BAdWord" copy is effective, and the non-violative copy is kept on the shelf unless absolutely necessary.
Now I am not sure I completely agree with this reasoning, but I understand it. FDA rules are not documented well, open to wide interpretation, and enforcement is notoriously fickle and inconsistent. It is difficult to push yourself and your clients into ineffective tactics under a vague and arguably unjustified threat from the FDA.
Still, the basic concept is something that the rest of us in B2C and B2B marketing can and should use in our own PPC campaigns and web marketing efforts. We should create different versions of the same basic communication object, based around any number of factors.
The primary difference-maker will be target audience. You speak differently to different types of people. Patients care about different aspects of the problem than caregivers or family, and they are both different from physician concerns. Depending on the key phrases involved, you can anticipate the different audiences based on the searches.
Second and perhaps more important overall, create more than one version of anything you do and *measure* the results. Use this data for regular iteration that will continuously improve your efforts and generate more and more success.
Marketers have always used test cases or test markets to develop a proof of concept. If it plays in Poughkeepsie, it'll play anywhere. In Search Marketing, there really isn't a need to test in the classic sense; just create your two versions and launch, and the results will tell you which is working better.
This means of course that you need to put some thought into the two versions, so you have a handle on why one might work better than the other. Does one use colloquial language and the other a more formal tone? Perhaps one focuses on a particular user-based theme and the second on another. Maybe one refers to the product by brand name and another by a more general description, like Kleenex vs. tissue. Whatever it is, the relative success of click-throughs will indicate that the audience generally speaking prefers one to the other. Review after a month, get rid of the loser, and evolve the winner to a new version. You will be like the optometrist who keeps offering you "one or two? two or three? four or five?" until she finds the right prescription.
PPC campaigns should *never* rest on their laurels. If your client has loaded up a Google account with key phrases and let it fly, without changing it from month to month, then that is a waste of potential, no matter how well it might do from week to week. The market will dictate what works and what doesn't, so listen to the market (i.e. the use data) and learn from your mistakes and profit from your successes.
But don't cheat, generally speaking. Even for the FDA.
I read an interesting post in John Mack's Pharma Marketing Blog about a concept he calls Google BAdWords. This is an idea that really is only specifically applicable to pharma marketing, but has a worthwhile point for the rest of us too.
There are many arcane restrictions on pharma marketing that come from the FDA. There are specific rules that have to be followed, such as never advertising a therapy for use that has not been specifically approved by the FDA. This is called "off label" use and suggesting it is a big no-no, even if studies support it or doctors do it. Other restrictions involve everything from what you call the therapy (i.e. brand name vs. generic name) to the formal documentation of the drug that has to be associated with any advertising or marketing (the Prescribing Information or PI).
To make a long story short, this seriously complicates marketing procedures that the rest of us can take for granted. Google AdWords, for instance.
The text ads which are still the bedrock of PPC advertising do not lend themselves to support of these various pharma marketing restrictions. The haiku-like copy requirements require brevity and an exquisite control of language. With only so many character spaces available, the need to list a brand name AND a generic name really cramps one's ability to craft a compelling call to action. The need to link directly to PI subverts the creation of a landing page that can speak directly to clicking searchers, based on their keywords, and thus scuttles any likelihood of further customer interaction. Even the use of the most effect key phrases can be prohibited by pharma company ad regulation approval boards (who have to review ALL external communication) because of fears of FDA condemnation. And you'd better believe that competitors, advocacy groups, watch-dog bloggers, and the FDA itself all routinely spy on and inform on each other so violations really do run the risk of being reported.
So Mack basically suggests you cheat.
He proposes that you keep one ad copy for general use, which is crafted for success and ignores FDA regulations. If challenged on it, you switch it out for the second ad copy. The second meets all regulations, which means it would be a poor performer in real use. His thought is that nobody will be able to prove that you haven't been running the "good" ad all the time except possibly Google itself, and they are not likely to divulge your historical data unless facing a court order. Thus the "BAdWord" copy is effective, and the non-violative copy is kept on the shelf unless absolutely necessary.
Now I am not sure I completely agree with this reasoning, but I understand it. FDA rules are not documented well, open to wide interpretation, and enforcement is notoriously fickle and inconsistent. It is difficult to push yourself and your clients into ineffective tactics under a vague and arguably unjustified threat from the FDA.
Still, the basic concept is something that the rest of us in B2C and B2B marketing can and should use in our own PPC campaigns and web marketing efforts. We should create different versions of the same basic communication object, based around any number of factors.
The primary difference-maker will be target audience. You speak differently to different types of people. Patients care about different aspects of the problem than caregivers or family, and they are both different from physician concerns. Depending on the key phrases involved, you can anticipate the different audiences based on the searches.
Second and perhaps more important overall, create more than one version of anything you do and *measure* the results. Use this data for regular iteration that will continuously improve your efforts and generate more and more success.
Marketers have always used test cases or test markets to develop a proof of concept. If it plays in Poughkeepsie, it'll play anywhere. In Search Marketing, there really isn't a need to test in the classic sense; just create your two versions and launch, and the results will tell you which is working better.
This means of course that you need to put some thought into the two versions, so you have a handle on why one might work better than the other. Does one use colloquial language and the other a more formal tone? Perhaps one focuses on a particular user-based theme and the second on another. Maybe one refers to the product by brand name and another by a more general description, like Kleenex vs. tissue. Whatever it is, the relative success of click-throughs will indicate that the audience generally speaking prefers one to the other. Review after a month, get rid of the loser, and evolve the winner to a new version. You will be like the optometrist who keeps offering you "one or two? two or three? four or five?" until she finds the right prescription.
PPC campaigns should *never* rest on their laurels. If your client has loaded up a Google account with key phrases and let it fly, without changing it from month to month, then that is a waste of potential, no matter how well it might do from week to week. The market will dictate what works and what doesn't, so listen to the market (i.e. the use data) and learn from your mistakes and profit from your successes.
But don't cheat, generally speaking. Even for the FDA.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Going eGreen
Heard an interesting story on NPR this morning about Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and how they were “going green” per an announcement in May. In addition to becoming carbon neutral by 2010, they wanted to do something different, something beyond the capability of most Fortune 1000 companies. They want to use their entertainment and news properties to push the message of sustainability to their consumers and effect a change far beyond that which can be gained by standardizing recycling efforts in all offices or switching news trucks to biodiesel fuel.
How exactly that takes place is yet to be determined. A corporate SWAT team, toting along an “Earth scientist” (whatever that means exactly), is making the rounds of 20th Century Fox and the Fox Network to get out the edict and perhaps brainstorm some tactics.
The irony in this is spelled out by NPR when they point out that the politically conservative Fox News Channel, which regularly airs pundit commentary that casts doubt on global warming and other green concerns, will presumably also be involved in this initiative. Fox News has such a lousy record with environmentalists that their major advertisers, like Home Depot, are being boycotted by the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
News Corp already faces charges that they are simply “greening” to catch some PR benefits. For the record, whatever the real motivations and whatever actually comes out of this, I think this is great. Particularly the part about trying to get the entertainment properties on board and get the message out via story lines or product placement or whatever. Needless to say, it will have to be done in a subtle manner, and the “artists” who create these entertainment properties will no doubt insist that it has to fit in with the creative direction. They would NEVER compromise themselves because of bureaucratic corporate pressure.
So what is an interactive marketer to do if s/he wants to leverage this green power surge and oh by the way help the planet? What does one have to do in order to go eGreen?
Well for starters there aren’t a lot of tactical things we can do as interactive marketers, simply because we are a pretty resource-conserving channel. Unlike major corporations, where economies of scale in their daily operations can allow a simple change (e.g. recycling all paper waste or changing to eco-friendly ink cartridges) to have a measurable and worthwhile effect, there isn’t a lot we can do in the tasking itself to make a difference. I guess we can make sure all our old PCs are properly recycled and ride the El train to work, but since we don’t create bricks and mortar (or paper and wood) sorts of deliverables we can’t really do anything substantial along those lines in the real world.
What we can do for our clients in the green space is what we do for them with all their communication needs: leverage the strengths of interactive media in order to efficiently and successfully achieve their measurable business objectives.
The web in particular is the classic way to house lots of information in a non-linear state and organize it so that any interested user can easily find what s/he wants. Once that content is generated and posted, all manner of links and connections can be implemented to direct users to it.
News Corp can do a lot of good things with interactive initiatives.
Say an episode of Fox’s “24” features super agent Jack Bauer racing around in a hybrid, or even better a biodiesel-burning vehicle. A quick super at the end of the show can direct interested users to a specific URL on the “24” web site, where they can be pointed to the central page about alternative fuels and how you can convert your car to run on cooking grease (or whatever).
Maybe a program is initiated that puts show clips on You Tube with hot links to that Bio Fuels page from the scenes with the trucks. (Hopefully there won’t be any torture scenes that need hot links…)
Start a new Fox TV viewer community program: sign up, get a free T shirt made of organically grown cotton, and get access to online perks or incentives and oh by the way receive the bi-weekly e-newsletter. Sponsors would jump on that bandwagon in a heartbeat, in order to toot their own sustainable horns.
Create online calculators, again linked from Fox show websites, that help the user calculate his/her carbon footprint. England is way into this kind of thing, so we don’t have to reinvent or develop from scratch.
You don’t have to be an entertainment conglomerate to make an impact. All of these kinds of tactics can absolutely be extended into the B2B world, although on a reduced scale and with a slightly different focus.
Green has to be a part of your messaging in all communications. There is no downside to including it and lots of potential upside. The web site can be the repository for information about your green thinking, including referrals to other sites and online tools. Do you send customers a monthly or quarterly newsletter? Include a story about your sustainability efforts, even if they seem relatively minor. Include material about how your products or services can help customers go green. Give them info about political developments that correspond to your industry and relate to sustainability; give them links to related sites that explain or support green tactics.
The internet is awash with consumer groups and advocacy organizations and thought-leader blogs in the sustainability space. Use some online PR tactics to directly address these influencers and agitators. Be careful, because the BS meters are well calibrated, but if you are genuine and sincere about what you are trying to do as a company, they will usually respond well.
In general, do what we always recommend for the web: put yourself in the mind of your customer. What about the green movement, and its impact on your industry, would be important to them? What kinds of specific problems can you solve for them via greener tactics, and what kinds of challenges are presented by going green? This user-focused approach will help you winnow out the value your company can provide and what you should therefore feature and discuss.
And make sure to properly recycle your batteries, don’t just throw them in the trash. And don’t let the water run constantly while you brush your teeth.
How exactly that takes place is yet to be determined. A corporate SWAT team, toting along an “Earth scientist” (whatever that means exactly), is making the rounds of 20th Century Fox and the Fox Network to get out the edict and perhaps brainstorm some tactics.
The irony in this is spelled out by NPR when they point out that the politically conservative Fox News Channel, which regularly airs pundit commentary that casts doubt on global warming and other green concerns, will presumably also be involved in this initiative. Fox News has such a lousy record with environmentalists that their major advertisers, like Home Depot, are being boycotted by the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
News Corp already faces charges that they are simply “greening” to catch some PR benefits. For the record, whatever the real motivations and whatever actually comes out of this, I think this is great. Particularly the part about trying to get the entertainment properties on board and get the message out via story lines or product placement or whatever. Needless to say, it will have to be done in a subtle manner, and the “artists” who create these entertainment properties will no doubt insist that it has to fit in with the creative direction. They would NEVER compromise themselves because of bureaucratic corporate pressure.
So what is an interactive marketer to do if s/he wants to leverage this green power surge and oh by the way help the planet? What does one have to do in order to go eGreen?
Well for starters there aren’t a lot of tactical things we can do as interactive marketers, simply because we are a pretty resource-conserving channel. Unlike major corporations, where economies of scale in their daily operations can allow a simple change (e.g. recycling all paper waste or changing to eco-friendly ink cartridges) to have a measurable and worthwhile effect, there isn’t a lot we can do in the tasking itself to make a difference. I guess we can make sure all our old PCs are properly recycled and ride the El train to work, but since we don’t create bricks and mortar (or paper and wood) sorts of deliverables we can’t really do anything substantial along those lines in the real world.
What we can do for our clients in the green space is what we do for them with all their communication needs: leverage the strengths of interactive media in order to efficiently and successfully achieve their measurable business objectives.
The web in particular is the classic way to house lots of information in a non-linear state and organize it so that any interested user can easily find what s/he wants. Once that content is generated and posted, all manner of links and connections can be implemented to direct users to it.
News Corp can do a lot of good things with interactive initiatives.
Say an episode of Fox’s “24” features super agent Jack Bauer racing around in a hybrid, or even better a biodiesel-burning vehicle. A quick super at the end of the show can direct interested users to a specific URL on the “24” web site, where they can be pointed to the central page about alternative fuels and how you can convert your car to run on cooking grease (or whatever).
Maybe a program is initiated that puts show clips on You Tube with hot links to that Bio Fuels page from the scenes with the trucks. (Hopefully there won’t be any torture scenes that need hot links…)
Start a new Fox TV viewer community program: sign up, get a free T shirt made of organically grown cotton, and get access to online perks or incentives and oh by the way receive the bi-weekly e-newsletter. Sponsors would jump on that bandwagon in a heartbeat, in order to toot their own sustainable horns.
Create online calculators, again linked from Fox show websites, that help the user calculate his/her carbon footprint. England is way into this kind of thing, so we don’t have to reinvent or develop from scratch.
You don’t have to be an entertainment conglomerate to make an impact. All of these kinds of tactics can absolutely be extended into the B2B world, although on a reduced scale and with a slightly different focus.
Green has to be a part of your messaging in all communications. There is no downside to including it and lots of potential upside. The web site can be the repository for information about your green thinking, including referrals to other sites and online tools. Do you send customers a monthly or quarterly newsletter? Include a story about your sustainability efforts, even if they seem relatively minor. Include material about how your products or services can help customers go green. Give them info about political developments that correspond to your industry and relate to sustainability; give them links to related sites that explain or support green tactics.
The internet is awash with consumer groups and advocacy organizations and thought-leader blogs in the sustainability space. Use some online PR tactics to directly address these influencers and agitators. Be careful, because the BS meters are well calibrated, but if you are genuine and sincere about what you are trying to do as a company, they will usually respond well.
In general, do what we always recommend for the web: put yourself in the mind of your customer. What about the green movement, and its impact on your industry, would be important to them? What kinds of specific problems can you solve for them via greener tactics, and what kinds of challenges are presented by going green? This user-focused approach will help you winnow out the value your company can provide and what you should therefore feature and discuss.
And make sure to properly recycle your batteries, don’t just throw them in the trash. And don’t let the water run constantly while you brush your teeth.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Re: direction
Most web site redesigns are more than a simple update of the look and feel, particularly in the B2B space where I spend most of my time. The cycle of updates in the B2B world tends to be ponderous and almost glacial, reflecting an accumulation of time on what is for the most part stagnant and static content. A site redesign really means a content overhaul.
This is a good thing. The more fresh content on a site, the better. It would be best to have a vibrant and active site, with lots of new content and a vigorous content management program. The reality, particularly in B2B, is that this does not always happen and once a site is built, it tends to sit.
So change is good. However, if you're lucky, this can present a problem. Let me explain the conundrum.
If your client or your B2B company has had a web site for a while, and by now almost everybody has had at least a bare-bones site for many years, you may have developed decent search engine rankings for good key phrases. You don't want to lose that "equity" when you move to a new site with new page names and new content.
That's why any part of a new site plan needs to include 301 redirects and other programming or system tactics designed to send users (or spiders) to new pages when they are looking for the old.
Imagine the scenario: you have a new site design which includes new information architecture and updated content. You remove your old page www.sitename.com/widget.html because your new page, www.sitename.com/widget_new.html, has the updated content.
A searcher goes to Google and looks for "widget." Your old page was ranked #5 on the organic SERP. The searcher clicks on the link, which sends her to the old page, /widget.html. This is now a dead link and you've lost her. She goes back to the Google SERP and clicks on #6 instead.
Better scenario: you set up a 301 redirect so that when she clicks on your link, her browser tries to load the /widget.html page but is told by the server to instead load the page at /widget_new.html. Thus she lands on your new site, on the new page that still talks about widgets. She's happy (she's looking for widgets, after all); you're happy (you did not lose her); and the search engines are happy because a 301 is an approved redirect process and they don't think you are spamming.
This article by Erik Dafform at ClickZ does a good job of talking about some of the tactics that can be used to ensure that proper redirection takes place.
http://www.clickz.com/3626928
This is a good thing. The more fresh content on a site, the better. It would be best to have a vibrant and active site, with lots of new content and a vigorous content management program. The reality, particularly in B2B, is that this does not always happen and once a site is built, it tends to sit.
So change is good. However, if you're lucky, this can present a problem. Let me explain the conundrum.
If your client or your B2B company has had a web site for a while, and by now almost everybody has had at least a bare-bones site for many years, you may have developed decent search engine rankings for good key phrases. You don't want to lose that "equity" when you move to a new site with new page names and new content.
That's why any part of a new site plan needs to include 301 redirects and other programming or system tactics designed to send users (or spiders) to new pages when they are looking for the old.
Imagine the scenario: you have a new site design which includes new information architecture and updated content. You remove your old page www.sitename.com/widget.html because your new page, www.sitename.com/widget_new.html, has the updated content.
A searcher goes to Google and looks for "widget." Your old page was ranked #5 on the organic SERP. The searcher clicks on the link, which sends her to the old page, /widget.html. This is now a dead link and you've lost her. She goes back to the Google SERP and clicks on #6 instead.
Better scenario: you set up a 301 redirect so that when she clicks on your link, her browser tries to load the /widget.html page but is told by the server to instead load the page at /widget_new.html. Thus she lands on your new site, on the new page that still talks about widgets. She's happy (she's looking for widgets, after all); you're happy (you did not lose her); and the search engines are happy because a 301 is an approved redirect process and they don't think you are spamming.
This article by Erik Dafform at ClickZ does a good job of talking about some of the tactics that can be used to ensure that proper redirection takes place.
http://www.clickz.com/3626928
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