Capturing the Lurkers

Why “Engagement” May Not Be All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Featured in last week’s PR Week White Paper Update is an offering from SAS titled “Social Media Metrics Listening, Understanding and Predicting the Impacts of Social Media on Your Business,” labelled as insights from a May 2010 workshop on social media metrics at the eMetrics conference in San Jose, CA. One of the key participants in the workshop was Katie Paine of KDPaine & Partners, and she made an observation that I think is keenly important:

Now the Holy Grail is “engagement,” Paine said. “Proctor & Gamble last summer said to all of its media folks, ‘We’re no longer paying you for eyeballs. We don’t care about how many eyeballs there are, all we care about is engagement.’ Needless to say, the media folks said, ‘What’s engagement?’ And they said, ‘We want some evidence that the people you’re reaching are at least alive and at least somewhat interested in the brand. If they clicked on something, bought something, downloaded something, retweeted something, or said they liked us, then we have some sign of life out there. That’s what we’re going to pay for.’ Good thinking.”

The paper also references a 2009 IBM study of 250 chief marketing officers, which indicated that organizations are shifting significant amounts of money away from traditional advertising and into public relations, particularly mobile and online channels. Paine is further quoted as saying. “So measurement is shifting away from ‘impressions’ and ‘eyeballs’ and toward ‘engagement’ and ‘impact-based metrics.’ This isn’t me saying this; this is 250 CMOs out there who are predicting that most of this will happen within the next three years.”

Paine classifies information consumers into five levels of engagement, based on how they interact with online channels, each more valuable (in her estimation) than the previous:

• Searchers: most passive, they scan online resources to find specific information and largely ignore social media
• Lurkers: those who listen in on the conversation but don’t participate
• Casuals: followers/fans, but participate only lightly in social media
• Actives: more valuable, in that they retweet to others, regularly participate in interactive threads, and post comments frequently
• Defenders: your most influential ambassadors, advocating, recommending and defending the brand and helping police your critics in the community space

On the one hand, this is all well and good. Clearly it is easier to claim value from a more active audience, and most social media marketers will say they want “engagement” with their audiences, as if we all understand and agree on what that means.

I have some concerns about the focus on active participation (i.e. posting, replying, commenting) as the only way to measure social media success. This runs the risk of devaluing customers that could be equally or even more valuable than active social media participants. There is no evidence that a Lurker, to use Paine’s terminology, buys any less product than a Defender. This illustrates the complexity of determining value in social marketing; we assume that the more vocal participants in the conversation are more valuable as consumers, but in fact that may not be so.

Certainly there is huge value in a positive tone in any sort of brand conversation, whether it be media coverage or Facebook or water cooler chats. Undeniably, it is better to have more people say good things about you than the opposite or to say nothing. My point however is that the Lurkers have value too, and since they are in the majority (only 22.5% of users accounted for 90% of all Twitter activity in 2010 according to Sysomos) they represent the biggest potential as customers.

A brand’s Defenders and Actives are also arguably the ones that least need marketing, since presumably they are committed users of the product.

So how can one tap into the Lurker market, and more importantly, how can we measure success?

Make it worth their while. Social media mavens talk a lot about the importance of the conversation, and caution against overt marketing or (gasp) selling in social media channels. I would argue however that today’s social media-savvy consumer EXPECTS to get some tangible value for her interaction with a brand. The explosion of online coupons has furthered the collective desire for incentive or reward with almost any transaction, to the point where it feels wrong to purchase anything WITHOUT a coupon. Coupons are the core method for a brand to tie a marketing initiative directly to sales.

Make it about more than money. There are many other ways to bring value to a consumer and the reward does not always have to include coupons, contests, or incentives. Lifestyle and luxury brands thrive on exclusivity or supporting a kind of cultural image, and social media connections to “private” groups or preferred customer status can be compelling even for non-active consumers. Green messaging is important to many brands, so links to reassuring product or eco-action brand information also bring value.

Make it easy for them to participate. Every tweet or post should include a link to content of value, whether an online coupon or registration for a customer community or more info about brand sustainability. It is keenly important to use technology to provide the absolute best user experience. For example, you must know what kind of device your consumer is using and return content that is optimized for that device. You must have different versions of your content--don’t send somebody to a regular web page if they are linking via Twitter’s mobile app, make sure they get optimized mobile content or even better a custom app.

Make it even easier for them to participate. More and more consumers are admitting that they want a seamless user experience across all interaction channels, and they are willing to permit the technical deployments that support it. Cookies, behavior profiles, single social sign-in capability: as long as these actions are not intrusive, and as long as brands are not egregious in their targeted marketing, consumers will tolerate them and actually appreciate the resulting enhanced user experience. People respond well when they are given customized content, even in a cross- or up-selling vein, as long as it is accurate; if you “get” them wrong, then you’ve lost them, so brands must be careful.

Measure, record, report, iterate. The traffic generated via those links must be carefully measured, as must be the data from the interaction on the landing page, app, or site. Obviously, any coupon use will be tracked but must be segmented in such a way that you can see which channel gave the best result. All marketing and customer interaction activity must be viewed holistically and considered as an integrated and connective whole; social media can really help as a kind of electrolytic fluid that carries the consumer from one channel to the other but with the same connective experience. The key is to take your measurement strategy to a new level, where you are monitoring different metrics in different ways based on your audiences. Data must be regularly analyzed and should be used as the basis for positive change; do not expect the interactions to always be the same, and don’t be afraid to jettison things that are not working.

This will help you tap into the huge customer potential of a social media user segment that generally gets short shrift, and shows how the focus on engagement may not necessarily be the most conducive toward building business success. However, it also might help you convert some of these passive listeners into more active participants, and build the chorus of positive voices that ARE engaging in the conversation.

Excited about 2011

Every year of the Digital Age produces exciting new technologies, bright industry superstars, and the purported decay or demise of some hereditary company, platform, or application that (in an earlier time) we previously could not live without. The only constant is change, as somebody probably said at some point while playing Space Invaders on his Commodore 64.

Even in the B2B world, where traditional ways of selling still reign supreme and early adoption is a dirty phrase, this past year has been one of evolution and innovation. In particular, there has been explosive growth in the use of digital technologies and social media for sales, marketing, and communications. The challenging business climate of the past couple years has resulted in very sharp marketers who know how to do more with less, always a key digital/social strength, and the improving economy has now created even greater opportunities for smart technology-driven initiatives.

This constant change is what excites me about 2011. Trends that are just now sprouting will blossom and grow in the coming year, and B2B marketing professionals will be in an excellent position to help clients leverage these evolving memes into sound business strategies for growth and market expansion.

Here are some of the things I look forward to in 2011:

Mobile keeps moving. The continued growth of mobile device use, especially smart phones, tablets, and other advanced platforms, will be a dominant story in the coming year. The ubiquity of consumer use will continue to cascade into the B2B world, as business customers come to expect the same capabilities and user experience as in B2C. Engineers and the R&D crowd have always been eager adopters of personal gadgetry, but in 2011 even the crusty traditionalists and old-timer sales reps will have advanced Blackberrys or even iPhones. The brands that provide a seamless experience on all mobile devices between web site content, email, social media channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter, and online video and audio media will have the competitive advantage.

Clients get real. This year I expect clients to become more sophisticated in their understanding of the potential business value of social media…and in what they can expect from these channels and the expert partners they hire. In the B2B world, Return on Investment is a key consideration for any expense. It is surprising to learn a recent survey found that less than 15% of surveyed companies measure ROI for their social media programs (SmartBrief, The State of Social Media 2010). That percentage will certainly increase as the buzz and resulting hyped desire to participate or get left behind, is replaced by an acceptance of social media as a mature marketing/communications channel that should be subject to the same measured consideration as any other. The ability to measure impact and demonstrate ROI will be key to continued growth of social media use for consumer brands as well as B2B.

The Cloud and the Crowd take over. From a technology perspective, the development of “Cloud” computing is almost as compelling as the growth of mobile. From the corporate Facebook page to Salesforce.com lead tracking to the branded YouTube channels, hugely important marketing, communications, and enterprise operation elements are now hosted completely outside of the corporate IT structure. This results in an unprecedented freedom of access for both audiences and employees, but also raises huge questions of security and risk management. Savvy technologists are thinking long and hard about ways to leverage the Cloud for business gain while mitigating the risk of loss of control.

In a similar vein, brands have lost a great deal of control because of the growth of social media which is fueled by the Cloud. Customers now communicate with each other about, with, and through the brand in ways they historically never could. Influential voices in an audience community now have power to directly impact brands with a broader reach than ever before.

However, this also means the learning from customers is now easier and more effective than ever, in particular with the use of social channels for almost real-time feedback and crowd-sourcing innovation. One thing is clear: brands have got to understand how to operate within the new reality to deal with both crowds and their angry incarnation—mobs--if they want to avoid public firestorms like those famously experienced by BP and Nestle in the past year.

This is a key reason why Public Relations professionals are very important in the management of social media: identification of influencers, and engaging them as champions, has always been a core PR competency. In an agency like Fleishman-Hillard, this is now coupled with expertise in social media technology and practice to create powerfully effective client programs.

One thing I know about the coming year: it is going to contain innovations and developments that nobody can predict. Something new will come along to fire the imagination and attract all the attention. The key is to be ready to decide whether and how a given splashy innocation can help a business succeed and grow, while still capitalizing on the evolving strategies and tactics of previous technological revolutions. That’s what really excites me about 2011.

B2B Companies: Do They Believe the Hype?

Parsing the eMarketer Report on B2B Social Media

Earlier this month, eMarketer released a report titled “B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up.” eMarketer bills itself as “a business service unlike any other.” It is different from other well-known business intelligence companies, such as Forrester Research, in that it conducts no primary research itself; instead, it aggregates and analyzes all the available research, surveys, and data on a given topic.

I took a careful look at this report and have some thoughts about the following key points, as well as additional observations that might be helpful for B2B marketers thinking about social media.
· Spending on B2B social media is expected to increase significantly
· There are still barriers to adoption for many B2B companies
· Lead generation remains keenly important and is being achieved by many via social media
· Measurement and ROI are also key for B2B companies
· The differences between how B2B and B2C companies approach social media illustrate the differences between audiences and the respective marketers’ needs

B2B Social Media Spending to Increase (or as the kids say, “Duh”)
One obvious conclusion reached by the report is that spending is on the rise for B2B social media marketing (their term, not mine). They lead with a Forrester prediction: B2B firms will spend $54 million on social media marketing in 2014, up from just $11 million in 2009. The $ figures seem small to me, although the report does specify that internal costs such as staffing and training are not included. Since most of the social media channels are currently free or cheap (which may not be the case forever), it stands to reason that increased person-power will comprise the bulk of expanded social media efforts and thus would not be represented in these numbers. Still, given the consistent trend of exponentially increased online budgets from year-to-year, these amounts seem very cautious to me especially over a five year period.

One trend worth noting: the flight of budget from other media to social, especially that of online display advertising.

Nielsen reported that in 2009 B2B display advertising overall declined 8%. My assumption is that this was due to a couple of factors: the failure of many B2B trade media titles and associated Web sites, and an increased understanding by B2B marketers that display ads don’t work, especially when compared to tactics like SEM and email.

However, spending for paid advertising on social media (mostly Facebook ads) increased by 184% (probably reflecting the small $ from 2008 as much as the increased interest in social media).

Barriers to Adoption
The key question B2B companies have about social media is the same question they have about any marketing approach: can it help with their business objectives?
· The number one concern for B2B companies, in survey after survey over the years, is lead generation. If social media can generate leads, then it will be embraced.
· The other main concern is ROI; if the value of social media can be measured and documented, and proved to be acceptable, then they are more likely to use it.

At this point in the evolution of social media, I begin to worry about oversaturation. Users of social media can easily find themselves bombarded with input, and many are simply unable or unwilling to read everything or engage with brands as they had in the past.

Despite this concern, it is worth noting that a significant percentage of B2B companies are NOT using social media and represent a worthwhile business opportunity for communications agencies. 37% said they did not know enough about social media or how to begin, according to an Equation Research study in August 2009.

It’s About the Leads, Stupid
Some important numbers discussed in the report:
· DemandGen June 2009: 14% of companies surveyed were getting more than 10% of their leads from social media (218 companies surveyed); 28% were getting more than 5%
· 35% of respondents expected their number of leads generated via social media to rise by 1% to 5% over the next year.
· Hubspot reported in January of 2010 that the following percentage of B2B companies using the indicated channel have acquired a customer from that channel:
· Company blog 43%
· Facebook 33%
· Twitter 38%
· LinkedIn 45%

These figures are both encouraging AND somewhat daunting. Clearly, social media channels are effective at generating B2B customers as well as qualified leads; however, more than half of the companies surveyed in these various polls have not had success using them. Sobering reality, reminding us not to jump at the hype but rather consider the facts and realize there is risk in every venture.

Measurement of B2B Social Media
As my colleague Don Bartholomew puts it, there is a difference between value and ROI. Sometimes you can clearly demonstrate value without necessarily being able to calculate ROI, which is a financial metric.

Still, being an internet-based engagement process, there is an assumption that social media should be able to be measured and tracked the way that Web site traffic or email opens/click-throughs can be tracked. Lack of clear metrics is a major reason some B2B marketers choose not to engage with social media: 37%, according to Equation Research ("2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report, "August 18, 2009).

It seems clear that more marketers are expecting and demanding a clearer measurement of the value of social media engagement. A lot of people who have built their careers on the fuzzy values of “engagement” or “community” have pushed back that social media cannot fit into the dull box of ROI because its inherent value is much higher than simple metrics.

I am not sure B2B companies will accept that. They are clearly leading the charge over their consumer-oriented brethren when it comes to identifying success metrics and tracking results. Business.com’s report of November 2009 identified the percentage of companies (engaged in social media marketing) using the following criteria for success:
· Website traffic: 68%
· Brand awareness: 61%
· Engagement with prospects: 60%
· Engagement with customers: 52%
· Brand reputation: 47%
· Prospect lead quality: 40%
· Revenue: 38%
· Prospect lead volume: 37%
· Useful product feedback: 26%

To Don’s point, most of these indicate value, but to calculate ROI is complicated. Attributing success to any of a variety of factors can be difficult, so even a clear financial metric like revenue is not easy to connect directly to social media. At FH, we conduct a significant period of discovery and definition to fully understand what factors contribute to a business’s success, and we carefully choose the trackable events that form a basis for suggesting ROI or value attribution to the social media programs we develop for our clients.

Differences between B2B and B2C
The report identifies two key differences between the business audience and the consumer audience:
· Multiple influencers/deciders
· Longer buying cycle = more need/opportunity for interaction

The consumer is usually the sole decider and often susceptible to the spur-of-the-moment purchase. The business decision, in contract, is almost always subject to group input and careful financial scrutiny. The purchasing process is often hard-coded to enforce consideration of multiple providers in pursuit of the best choice and lowest cost. With a buying cycle in multiple stages, the B2B customer will benefit from consistent and appropriate input, which social media can facilitate.

Business.com noted some important differences between B2B and B2C in their survey (September 2009) of social media initiatives.
· B2B companies are much more likely to maintain corporate blogs (74% of respondents vice 55% consumer)
· Business marketers were also more likely to upload content (i.e. white papers, videos) to third-party sites (50% vice 32% consumer); vertical sites like GlobalSpec certainly promote and encourage sharing content via their platforms
· Not surprisingly, Facebook and MySpace were more popular with consumer companies, while more B2B companies were using LinkedIn and Twitter

One more note on Twitter: an October 2009 survey from Chief Marketer, Direct, and Promo found that B2B marketers were more likely than B2C marketers to use Twitter to announce new Website content. On the other hand, B2C marketers tended more to tweet about special offers and locate brand fans.

Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for Web marketing at IBM.com, seems to be an excellent provider of illustrative sound-bites because he is quoted several times in the report. On this topic, he points out: “In B2C you’re looking for a lot of interaction and collaboration between the individuals who tend to be a youthful audience, and from time to time there’s a celebrity element. In the B2B space, you want subject matter experts who are known authorities on particular topics. They’re credible experts on a particular area that people are trying to learn more about and make educated decisions on.”

I think his latter point underscores what has always been a key difference between B2B and B2C, and why social media is such a good fit for the former: the need for technical credibility. Expertise in B2B is valued in a different way than popularity in B2C, and the technical audience has always sought guidance and instruction on how to apply a given technology to its own needs and application. Social media facilitates that in a more direct and immediate way than any other interaction besides face-to-face meetings, or as we now call it F2F.

Conclusion: Heating Up, but No Slam Dunk
Pardon my mixed metaphors, but it’s important to realize that few B2B companies are willing to jump onto the social media bandwagon simply because of the hype. The ones that have adopted these strategies and tactics are doing so because they see the value, not simply because it is “hot.”

eMarketer concludes the report with a set of conclusions that seem achingly obvious but are nonetheless worth making:
· B2B marketers need a social media strategy
· Social media can and does generate leads
· It is very important to monitor and measure your B2B social media efforts

B2B social media is certainly riding the buzz wave, and most companies are aware of the various channels and interested in learning more, but they approach all marketing efforts with a critical eye and will not gamble their hard-earned and only now slightly-rebounding budgets on strategy or tactics that they don’t understand or can’t properly value. It’s up to us as communications and marketing professionals to explain the value and demonstrate the worth of social media for B2B companies.

We’ll give the final word to Ed Linde from IBM who pretty much sums up the bottom line:

“…at the end of the day, the marketer’s job is to facilitate collaborations between the customer and the seller. If we can use social media technologies to help do that, we will.”
—Ed Linde II, senior marketing manager for Web marketing, IBM.com

Actionable Awareness

For months now I've been thinking about digital communications for public relations, especially in the B2B space. This of course coincides with my joining a PR agency, and getting deeply immersed in how PR views digital. In most cases, there is a heavy emphasis on social media support, most obviously Twitter and Facebook, but that's not always a viable area for B2B companies. Social media in a broader sense, in the sense of community building, has been an important part of interactive B2B for many years, but for most manufacturers of highly designed products (with long, carefully considered buying cycles) the worth in engaging with those kinds of channels is still under review.

In my mind, even beyond social media there is constantly a question as to how we measure success and therefore how we structure our efforts to bring real value to clients.Traditional PR metrics like share of voice or impressions have value but the B2B world is so focused on achieving specific results (i.e. generating leads, making sales, etc.) that PR metrics are often denigrated. Budgets for interactive PR often suffer because of this perceived notion of vague attribution and suspicion about ROI.

I've come to the idea of "actionable awareness" as a concept that leverages both the intrinsic goal of public relations (awareness) with the measurable impact of digital (action):

actionable awareness = ability for web users to not only BE aware of brand but also immediately act on that awareness in a way that helps drive business goals and objectives

Tactics like Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, and other inbound efforts clearly fall within this concept, but in the digital world, so does media relations, blog posts, Twitter links--anything that mentions your client can allow them to find your web site or landing page with just a few clicks, especially with text links that many publishers now routinely insert.

And that of course allows us to measure any number of data points which can indicate spread of our messaging, value of our communications, level of influence, and the $ metrics like data capture (lead generation) or even ecommerce sales.

For me, this means that actionable awareness is a good handle on which to hang one's B2B digital PR efforts.

Display Ads, Whither to Wither?

According to the "Natural Born Clickers" study (released recently by ComScore and media agency Starcom), the number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years. They conducted a similar study in 2007 which found that 32% of the respondents affirmed they clicked on banner ads; now, two years later, the figure is down to 16%.

Ad Age, in their article discussing the study, leaps to the question of whether Click-Thru-Rate is the proper metric for online display advertising. They report ComScore as determining, through "client studies," that banners generate significant lift in brand-site visitation, trademark search, and both online and offline sales among those exposed to the ads.

I have to confess to skepticism about this. I'd have to see those "client studies" to determine their scientific rigor.

While I believe in the importance of branding, and I am willing to admit that display ads might be able to help lift a brand's awareness or mindset penetration, I doubt very seriously that really accurate data can be identified to prove this. We in the interactive marketing space like to tout metrics as a core part of the web's value, but in the case of display ads, the most obvious or intuitive metric (clicks) are usually SO LOW as to be worthless as a way to make money. I sure wouldn't pay thousands of dollars for at best a 0.4% CTR...so it behooves publishers to try and justify, however possible, this revenue-generation method with which they are stuck.

The paradigm needs to continue to shift and we need to continue to innovate. A reader identified as "ivak99" makes a very good response to the Ad Age article in which he points out that internet users are "active" while banner presentation, like TV commercials, are intended for a "passive" viewer. Marketers need to leverage the strengths of the medium and craft content, as well as traffic-generation methods, that DO work on the web. Banner ads really don't and we should not be wasting money on them when we can innovate and figure out new and exciting ways to get our customers the stuff they need, and when they need it.

Don't Believe the Hype

"Social marketing is a shiny new toy and almost everyone is wising up and getting involved, as they should...There's no question that social applications are becoming central to our online lives, and soon social apps will be a central part of the very operating systems we use...Still, at the heart of it all for marketers is the message. Never forget that these new social technologies are just new ways to communicate. And technology by itself is not persuasive. Beware not to get the media mixed up with the message...Every status update, tweet, and inbox message is nothing more than a communication between a sender and a reader. What you say and how you say it matters."

--Bryan Eisenberg, Social Media Is Not the Message

I love Bryan Eisenberg. He almost always hits the proverbial nail right on the head, and in this case his words ring truer than ever over the buzz around Social Media.

From the earliest days of technology-aided communication, the temptation of the new has always been the demon of the effective, or at least of the cost-effective. Many of us remember the client refrain from the early days of Web 1.0: "We just need a web site!" In other words, we haven't thought at all about what to put in the web site, or how it can help us, we just want one because everybody is getting one. It is the classic case of substituting the tool for the finished object, and that is what Social Media is--a tool, and only a tool, for communicating. Just having a Twitter account means nothing, you have to use the tool in the proper way and most important you have to create good and appropriate content for that tool.

Please don't get caught up in the hype. Think carefully about how you would use Social Media applications to further your business objectives, how you can properly support it, and whether your target audiences will utilize your Social Media presence in a way that furthers your goals. If not, don't bother. Use the money and time you might otherwise put into it for channels and initiatives that will help you achieve your success metrics.

It's the End of the World as We Know It

…and I Feel Fine

(with apologies to REM)

Sean Carton recently wrote a very interesting column on ClickZ entitled “The End of Ad Agencies as We Know Them.” (http://www.clickz.com/3633372) He posits that a confluence of shifting forces have created a new world in which the “full-service monolithic agency model” is no longer effective and will likely die away.

• The Internet has changed how consumers are willing to receive information about products and services; instead of an “interrupt” model where channels are limited and attention has to be grabbed within a narrow set of viewing options, the consumer is now in charge and has a nearly infinite range of choices for viewing and receiving information
• Because of that, traditional media (broadcast television and newspaper/periodical readership, specifically) is experiencing monumental audience loss and a corresponding plummet in advertising revenue
• The economic downturn has exacerbated job loss in the advertising industry, releasing thousands of talented professionals into the market who often establish themselves as freelancers or independent contractors within their particular specialties. This has significantly improved the freelance pool and has made it relatively easy to find a qualified resource when one needs it for a particular project or program.

Agencies will need to remake themselves in a new image to cope with, and survive, these forces. Carton has an idea as to how that might work:

"So what's the agency of the future going to look like? Probably a lot smaller and focused on strategy, account/project management, creative leadership (but not execution), and media strategy (but not planning and buying). Most agencies will revolve around these hubs if they're honest with themselves. Agencies will exist to provide high-level strategic guidance that clients need in a media-chaotic environment. Agencies will expand or contract as needed or will explore radical solutions such as crowdsourcing to get work done for less money."

Historically, the B2B space has been smaller in scale than the monolithic full-service model as described by Carton, but the description is still applicable. Choices have been few on the business side, with media typically limited to trade publications and trade show sponsorship. Marketing consisted of making brochures or direct mail pieces, for the most part, or sponsoring educational outreach efforts that were necessarily limited in effect.

Now the options have exploded with the growth of the internet. Email marketing is now much more cost-effective and arguably more precise than printed mailers; web sites can be updated regularly and fresh information made available much more quickly and cheaply than a brochure redesign/print/mailing.

Coming from the interactive sphere, I have no reason to weep if this particular vision of Rome burning comes true. The key characteristics of interactive marketing are in direct contrast to those of traditional advertising.

Good interactive communications:

• Are crafted to receive interested visitors rather than reach out to grab attention
• Speak well to niche audiences as opposed to appealing to the lowest common denominator (and can speak directly to ALL audiences individually, there is no limit on the quantity or type of content that can be made available)
• Are measurable and can be tied to specific success metrics, vs. broadly distributed and only vaguely associated with quantifiable results

The challenge remains to develop a new agency model that can adapt to the realities of this new world and continue to properly service clients as well as be profitable. The value we bring as professional marketers will evolve from the “big idea” to more of a content-based approach, especially in these economic times where client staff has typically been reduced to skeleton levels. We will be integrated into not just the marketing of the client but the sales process as well. An agency of the future will:

• Staff core skills and abilities (like strategy, industry knowledge, creative direction, account relationship) but bring in freelance or independent resources for tactical execution needs (design, web programming, project coordination, media buying)
• Be a key partner to clients in developing content for use across all channels; this means becoming an expert in the client’s business and being able to step in and generate anything from press releases to web page content to technical white papers, at least in initial form. More importantly, the agency will need to be able to aggregate raw content from the client and refine to appropriate delivery format depending on the tactical need. Content management will be a key service in the future agency-client relationship.
• Build metrics and analysis into all client work; ROI calculations need to be considered for every engagement. Even broader-scope communications like TV or radio advertising are going to be tied into an interactive component, and agencies must be very sophisticated in how they track results that will cross several media channels and impact brand engagement over time. Clients will expect this as they themselves become more concerned with cost control and managing tighter budgets.
• Have a tight estimating and proposing process, which will then result in a tight project management process. Agencies need to know their actual costs for prospective projects, and make sure they know what they are providing for any retainer fee structure. Clients will pay for good talent, but measurable return is the benchmark of the future.

So it may be the beginning of the end, but smart marketers know that an end of an era marks the dawn of a new one, and if we play it properly we will emerge stronger from the cataclysm and succeed where others will fall away.

Towards a General Theory of Web Site Relativity

I have been grappling with a way to distill the essence of web site marketing into a structure or presentation that can instantly and easily be comprehended by potential clients. In my more grandiose moments, I feel like Newton or Einstein trying to craft a new language to describe things that seem so evident but remain so hard to crystallize. Fortunately, my co-workers and family members are quick and thorough in deflating my grandiosity before my head swells to dangerous proportions. Nevertheless, I feel moved to expound a bit on the essence of communicating via the interactive channel, and specifically what we are talking about when we talk about the web site.

Essentially, this is what we want to do when we craft a web site:
ATTRACT --> ENGAGE --> MEASURE --> ADVANCE

Please note the use of arrows, implying motion. One might envision a circular illustration depicting the cyclical nature of this process. That’s a core element of my theory, that a web site is not an object but in truth a process that involves not only creation of engaging content objects but also developing ways of bringing in users, measuring patterns of their interaction with the site, and iterative improvements designed to maximize both successful audience generation and effective user engagement.

Too often a client tends to envision a web site as an object, perhaps a library or maybe the snake curled around the globe, swallowing his own tail. In fact, in the modern web world, we cannot afford to think in terms of communicative content only (no matter how dynamic it might be). We must think holistically about how our users engage the web (and the world as a whole) to make sure that we have an effective interaction with them.


ATTRACT: to draw by appealing to the emotions or senses, by stimulating interest, or by exciting admiration
Most people first think about a web site in terms of the site itself: content, structure, functionality, domain name. But in reality the first step is to envision who we want to experience the site, which leads to an examination of how they might find it. Search Engine Optimization of the site’s content is only the starting point. A key phrase strategy must be a core part of any modern web site content plan. That concept extends beyond the site copy. We need to make sure that videos are also uploaded to YouTube with appropriate key phrase tags and clear linkage back to the site. Social media tagging for site content must be easy and comprehensive, as well as the ability to forward to a friend. Linkback and blogger support must be considered.

In short, the site itself must be as friendly as possible to all of the ways in which our preferred influencers, aggregators, and editors might encounter it.

ENGAGE: to attract and hold fast
Needless to say, once a visitor comes to the site, we want to maximize his/her experience. But it is keenly important to realize that does not always mean keeping the person on the site. Especially in the B2B space, sometimes the most effective interactions are the quickest: user is looking for something specific, s/he finds it, and they are done. Success is not measured through time on site (in fact, that might more often indicate failure.)

In general, though, content is king and the more compelling and useful content one can provide, the better. A content strategy must be based around a deep understanding of the target audience and what they will want or need from the web site. In B2B, this often means a clear definition of the Buying Cycle and the stages the customer must pass through before they are ready to purchase. Content has to be mapped to support each stage, and for each classification of potential site user—decider, influencer, researcher.

Finally, the call to action must be crystal clear and immediately available at all times. In B2B that usually involves contact, but it might involve an online sale or some other success metric that means we have achieved a business objective.

MEASURE: to estimate the relative amount, value, etc., of, by comparison with some standard
We have attraction and we have engagement, but are we getting the result we want? Are the visitors doing what we thought they would? How do we know if we have wisely spent our web-development $? Or have we wasted it all?

Web analytics seems like a basic sort of tenet yet I am consistently amazed at how many clients do not pay attention to site statistics. One must identify Key Performance Indicators that can be used to gauge activity on the site.

It is almost worse than ignoring analytics when customers pay attention to stats that ultimately have no meaning. As mentioned above, things like Time on Site can be worthless barometers of success. Even a large quantity of site visits or numbers of pages viewed can mean nothing if few users do what we’d hoped they would do.

We must construct the site in such a way as to be able to determine whether or not we are achieving our goals by statistical analysis. Data that documents this is called the Success Metric, and when a user completes our objective we call it a Conversion. It can be a direct-to-the-bottom-line sort of parameter, such as quantity of sales for an e-commerce site, or indirect as in a lead generated (for most B2B sites), to as ephemeral as visitors following a designated content path to get exposure to a particular set of information pieces. It is up to us to decide our success metrics when we design the site. And then, we must build the site to suit our needs.

Measurement is an ongoing process. Unless you are in the midst of a particular campaign with a particular calendar, you will want to regularly measure your Key Performance Indicators. The definition above indicates one needs a standard for comparison, and regular review allows that. One can see user behavior before and after an implementation; and of course averages over time give the best indication of trending and allow some estimation for the future.

ADVANCE: to improve or make progress
Finally, the real purpose of all of the measurement is to determine whether or not you could do it better. Take the data you have gathered, make some conclusions (or at least develop some hypotheses), and make changes to see if you can improve. Testing is a key to this; keep track of before and after data, and make sure you are scientific in your efforts. A/B testing is simplest, but multivariate testing is also very valuable. A book like Tim Ash’s Landing Page Optimization (http://landingpageoptimizationbook.com/) spells out the process very well.

The main idea is that one must keep moving forward, even as the process cycles back around to generating more traffic. Whether your web site moves on a seasonal basis, or can be rotated through a regular monthly cycle, or whether other market forces shape the ebb and flow of your universe, you need to keep refreshing at each stage in order to maximize your return on investment and achieve the greatest success. In order to attract new visitors, keep generating fresh and relevant content within your communication plan. When you have traffic on the site, measure to see if your goals are being achieved and whether you can learn anything helpful from the data. And then use that information to make changes that can improve the whole process, and begin the cycle anew. Thus my General Theory of Web Site Relativity.

Ow! Like Newton, I just got hit on the head by an apple, but I think it was thrown by our VP of Strategy…

Viral Marketing and B2B

By now we are all pretty familiar with viral marketing efforts in the Business-to-Consumer advertising and marketing space. In particular, the posting of video clips on YouTube has exploded along with the popularity of the site itself. Most of us have seen the “real” videos generated by consumers that serve as unintentional marketing tools (Mentos comes to mind), as well as the popular clips that are proved to have come from professional agencies (Ray-Ban sunglasses tossing, for example).

The whole idea of buzz marketing or viral marketing has reached both apogees of unqualified success (some feature film campaigns spring to mind) and perigees of unintended disaster (such as tying up traffic in Boston, getting the police to think you are a terrorist threat, negative PR, and being fired). That last point is a key aspect of viral marketing, I think—you can’t really control it. Like chaos theory suggests, there can be unintended consequences which far outstrip your ability to plan and control. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you need to be ready to handle the unknown unknowns.

For those reasons, B2B doesn’t really seem conducive to viral marketing at first glance. Business buyers, certainly including design engineers or purchasing authorities, do not make impulse purchases. Their buying decisions are very considered and based around specifications and similar hard data. They seem unlikely to be moved by buzz or any kind of groundswell of interest. Likewise, B2B clients tend to be risk adverse and very interested in controlling their own messages, in part because their customer community is much smaller than the general retail market. A percentage-based negative impact can really damage their sales.

Because the target market is usually pretty narrow, dissemination of the “virus” is also a challenge. Opportunities for chance encounter, enthusiasm, and evangelism of the viral objects or objects are limited. Another way to put it is that general distribution methods that are acceptable for B2C are too diffuse for B2B. If only design engineers can be “infected” then you won’t have a contagion unless you can expose a bunch of them to your viral efforts. Fortunately, professional groups are now connected via many of the same interactive tools and social media (email, blogs, forums, YouTube) used by the general digerati populace. Because engineers use the web and can access YouTube, like everybody else, it is full of clips related to the demonstration of specific products or training in processes. It’s there for the appropriate audience, no matter how small—the Long Tail in action.

However, it certainly seems that some tactics would be effective and could transfer well from B2C, especially when you consider that most B2B marketing is pretty dry and features-based, rather than engaging and brand-based. An attention-getting device by its very nature attracts attention; the key is to inject enough hints of substance that the user is willing to follow the viral trail back to a web site that contains the substantive information needed to move forward towards a purchase decision.

Our agency works with a number of clients that develop highly-engineered products for use in manufacturing or other industrial sectors. In the past several months we have created a couple of fun videos intended to generate some buzz, if you will, within the industrial markets occupied by our clients. These clips are very different from the usual marketing efforts within the manufacturing and industrial plumbing sectors, respectively. Through viral distribution we are hoping to build viewership and create a broadened awareness of our clients and new products. We seed interest via targeted emails and trade journal advertising; success is marked by traffic to the supporting web sites which then provide some of the detail and substance that is actually needed by design engineers in order to make their purchase decisions.

These videos certainly stand out from the pack in the all-too-gray world of B2B marketing. Hopefully others will think so and be prompted to find out more about our clients and their products.

Siemens CNC Eye Team Investigates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA-qdHbWdf4

Powers industrial plumbing products: Angus and Ziegfried, Dynamic Duo Exposed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3UMWuWij6g

Brand Awareness in the Interactive World

Not Just Telling the Story

When brand awareness is the goal, it's sometimes easy to implement PPC as a "go to" for increasing awareness quickly and effectively. But, paid search is just one part of a broader, long-term brand awareness campaign.
--Search Engine Land (http://searchengineland.com/080527-130411.php)

This is actually a decent graphic they put together describing the elements that might go into a brand awareness campaign in the interactive world, focused around Paid Search primarily but also involving Social Media and Search Engine Optimization components.

I have a problem with the concept of brand awareness in the interactive channel. Although I happily accept that a brand represents the interaction, or at least the promise of interaction, between the customer and us the provider, and I also accept that web sites and other components should be a part of that brand, I nevertheless argue that the web is a special circumstance that is different from every other aspect of marketing, sales, and communications.

The web is a user-driven medium. The user calls all the shots, goes where s/he wants to go, and can refuse to be guided (much less led) to anyplace that s/he does not want.

The web is also a practical medium. Users come here because they need to find something, or get something done, or otherwise accomplish some sort of task. They rarely are willing or interested in having any sort of scripted experience, unless they are playing a game or watching a video clip or presentation. And even then they can depart in the blink of a mouse-click.

Thus brand interaction online takes on a much more pragmatic description than in other circumstances, including the actual use of the product. One has to be keenly aware of this difference in planning the extension of the brand vision into the interactive channel. If I may repeat myself from earlier rants, the web is NOT television or print. You cannot try and GRAB attention and/or force people to sit through your communication vehicle, because they won’t. However, if you have information or a tool or a functionality that helps them with their problem, as your product presumably does, then you can extend the brand identification properly. It’s when marketers try to squeeze a non-web experience out of the web that they run into trouble (and users run FROM their site).

One must also be aware of supporting the brand properly in the interactive space. If a brand’s identity is associated with service and efficiency, then presenting a clunky interface with slow load times and poor usability will sabotage it. Likewise a site that look straight out of Web 1.1 is not going to support a product that wants to exude bleeding edge hipness.

So I go back to the Search Engine Land graphic and my quibbles with it. In many ways, the idea of a brand awareness campaign in the interactive world seems counterintuitive, especially in the B2B space. Still, if one assumes that the core of any such campaign is a kick-ass, highly functional, extremely user-friendly site (or tool or functionality) that meets a user’s needs and solves some of his/her problems…then obviously you want to get it out in front of the right audience.

And there is no doubt, the self-selecting nature of search is the perfect vehicle for that.

I am not so sure about the “use social sites to promote your brand through video or other media” part of it, though. Did the dancing chicken really promote the Burger King brand? Or did it just get a lot of attention?

Thinking Outside the Box (or Banner)

“…’banner blindness,’ which describes the tendency of the eyes to ignore content—whether ads or noncommercial information—contained in banners on web sites…(banner ads) ‘aren’t very well-suited for the web’ and are ‘holdovers from a way of thinking best applicable to other, older media.”
--Jakob Nielsen, quoted in Advertising Age, March 17, 2008

Spurred by Advertising Age’s recent “Digital Issue” I find myself trying to brainstorm new and different ways to use interactive strategies to market B2B products and services.

Let’s pretend there is no legacy of advertising tied into this, no history of traditional media that has hardened into calcified ways of telling stories and reaching consumers. What could marketing look like without any preconceptions or expectations?

Disease-state Sites
Does your product or service solve a problem? Then create a problem site. Pack in all the possible information you can about that problem, add links to resources that explain or address the problem, create case studies about the different way people have solved the problem, include data about how widespread the problem is, and oh by the way include a small mention of how you solve the problem. Here’s the key, though: you have to be honest and complete about the problem, you cannot only feature your own solution. Enough visitors will follow your link and see what you have to say as long as they accept the genuineness of the site. The second they think you are sand-bagging and/or prioritizing yourself at the expense of them, the consumers, then they are gone and never coming back. BE CLEAR about your sponsorship, don’t try to be sneaky. Once the site is up, spend some time and money promoting it via channels that are effective, i.e. search marketing and online classifieds.

Facebook for Engineers
Is there a community of users of your products? Then build a site that addresses them and their needs. If you sell to electrical engineers, create a site that helps them across the board, not just where your product is concerned. Allow them to talk to each other, even at the risk of slagging you. Help them connect with each other. Facebook for engineers? Sure, why not? And of course you are the sponsor, but do not try to control them or steer them in any direct way, and do not try to be sneaky.

YouTube
Tape fun stuff related to your products. Put them on YouTube. Tell customers and prospective customers about it. If they see and hear it first from you, that elevates your perceived expertise and could make you a preferred provider.

Crazy Social Media
OK maybe you can’t generate a Flash Mob at the IMTS show to do something wacky, but maybe you can use those tools of communication to suddenly drive people to your booth. Everybody carries a cell phone, almost everybody can receive text messages, maybe you could build a database of your customer’s mobile phone and send a group message all at once promising them something if they did something. Bring a friendly crowd to your booth, and nothing draws a crowd like a crowd, so quickly you have people at your booth who otherwise might not stop by. Figure out the digital equivalent of the guy in the sandwich board, prowling the streets and hawking to passers-by.

Be Prepared for Smaller Reach, but with Higher Value
You are never going to get web traffic that matches the eyeballs who watch a Super Bowl ad. You cannot shotgun via the web in the same way you can in traditional media. However, you must realize and be prepared for the fact that the traffic you DO get is already pre-qualified and primed to be interested in what you have to say. This is a higher-value reach, but it is also more fickle and easily lost.

What do you need to make a sale? You need three basic elements: something to sell, somebody who needs that something, and circumstances that allow that person to decide to buy it (i.e. he has to know about it, the price has to be right, and he has to have the money and the willingness to spend it).

Traditional media is about trying to create those circumstances. Get the message out to as many people as possible. Some of them will meet the criteria, or can be convinced to meet the criteria, and then they will go and find your product to purchase. Others won’t, and your efforts will be wasted on them.

In the interactive space, nobody finds you unless they want to. They may or may not know you, but they want what you have to offer. Pretty much all you can and should do is make sure they know about you. Then make darn sure you are ready when they get to you, or else you will lose them forever.

Taking the Plunge

OK I am finally joining Twitter. I have a deep-seated revulsion towards the trendy and the ephemeral, and I worry that Twitter will be both, but I have decided to take part in a social revolution (of sorts) while it is actually happening. Normally I am very late to anything hip; music is a classic example: I just purchased the Death Cab for Cutie album, the one with “Crooked Teeth” and “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” By now I have to suppose that they are no longer considered cool, having transgressed into popularity, and are wallowing in the backlash. I did the same thing with Rage Against the Machine; by time I finally bought The Battle of Los Angeles, they had broken up. That’s better I suppose than when I went through my Bob Dylan phase—nothing like being into an artist some 40 years after his first record came out.

But I digress, which will be much easier now that I am twitting. I suspect I will become one of those zombie-like texters, oblivious to the world around as I periodically work my thumbs over my cell phone. But since I don’t have a MySpace page, or a Facebook entry, nor do I post videos to YouTube or tag content via Digg or deli.co.us, I suppose this will have to be my one serious entry into the newest world of social media. (This blog, needless to say, doesn’t count.)

I have resisted the so-called Web 2.0 for so long because my Internet, the one used for business-to-business marketing, does not seem to mesh well with these newfangled gadgets. Clearly I am no Luddite, but a healthy reserve towards the new or the hip is important in my place in the marketing world. We do not need to be early adopters, since our audience is not. Only when a technology or capability has become accepted, well-known, and widespread do we employ it on behalf of our clients.

Still, Twitter seems irresistible. Quick hits of updates; a micro-blog of near-real time. How cool is that? It’s like a web cam without pictures, and without being tied to the PC (although yes tied to the cell phone, but that goes everywhere regardless).

So I guess I will give it a try. Maybe I can be more timely than with my blog.

New Year Resolutions

Resolved, for 2008:

• Pay less attention to banner ads and more attention to landing pages.
• User! User! User! Keep the focus on the user.
• No web sites without specific goals.
• Get better clients

Banner Ads and Landing Pages
It is a frequent and cardinal sin, the tendency to buy online banner space but link it to an existing, non-specialized page on the site. First of all, if you can actually get anybody to click on a banner ad you should consider him or her a beautiful prize, a rare specimen that should be treasured and coddled. Goodness knows you won’t see too many of them. But most often, they are shunted off to the home page or at best a product page that seems to be completely disconnected from the banner that brought them there. What are they likely to do? Get the heck out of dodge—why waste their time on a site that doesn’t even make the effort to guide them to the specific topic in which they have demonstrated their interest. We need to maximize the experience of the user who DOES click through and get him or her the info they need, perhaps guiding them carefully, so that they remain interested in proceeding along the buying cycle.

I intend to spend more time worrying about the user who lands on the site, rather than how the banner ad looks as it animates, streams video, or pops up into a large size.

Focus on the User
It’s not about you, the seller. It’s about your customer, your client, your web site user; so quit making your site all about you. It should be about the user, what s/he wants and needs and has to be able to do in order to buy something from you. Even in today’s age, web 2.5 or whatever you want to call it, too many sites are basically org charts and catalogs. They contain tons of info about the company and its products, but very little about how those products can help the users or how the company can solve the users’ problems. I pledge to make sites that are all about the users, because those sites will prosper.

Goooooooooooal!
Whether or not you follow Latin American soccer and are familiar with the long, drawn-out call from Andres Cantor or other Spanish-language play-by-play announcers, you can certainly understand the importance of the goal. And yet so many web site planners have no clear objective in mind. Their sites can pack a lot of information and features, but to what end? Any web site should have a particular goal as a central part of its plan, whether that is to generate leads or make an online sale or guide users to a particular download or sign them up for a newsletter. That will not only provide a success metric, to help determine whether your site is doing what it should, but also help shape the content and the language and even the way of thinking about the site. I really want to help my clients understand this and to incorporate this planning into any new site effort in the New Year.

And finally…
I really need to get better clients. And I mean no disrespect to our current stable when I say this: our agency is full of “old iron” companies that have been around a long time, compete in closed markets where the amount of business is fairly constant, and have competitors that are also well-established and not particularly innovative. These clients are happy to trudge along with traditional media and marketing approaches that vary little from year to year. It is a hard sell to get them to think about the interactive channel in new ways, and difficult to demonstrate the value of expanding and refining their web approach when they remain convinced that “customers don’t use the web” and “our customers all want to pick up the phone to deal with us.” After a certain amount of effort, one is no longer interested in pounding that proverbial brick wall, and the desire becomes overwhelming to seek out new clients who do understand the value of interactive and who can in fact think about their business in new ways and allow us to help determine solutions that can leverage the enormous power and capability of the web.

So I resolve to find new clients, like I do every year.

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2008!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T and Respond

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.