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Making Marketing Happen Blog

Tips, Tools and Techniques for Making Marketing Happen

Online Ad Campaigns Not Reaching Target Audiences

Online advertising has been touted as one of the best ways for advertisers to reach the specific target markets they are after. Ad networks and publishers promote to advertisers that they have multiple methods of helping them get to the precise prospects and customers they are seeking, whether it be via demographics, geography, behavioral, contextual or other targeting techniques.

But findings released last week by Nielsen call these claims into question. Nielsen’s research is showing that the targeting capabilities of online ad campaigns are typically no more precise than targeting results achieved by traditional TV campaigns.

Nielsen Online Campaigns Ratings system was introduced in September 2010 as a new way to measure audiences of online ad campaigns by “combining traditional Nielsen TV and online panel data with aggregated, anonymous demographic information from participating online data contributors.  Using its unique approach, Nielsen will be able to provide reach, frequency and Gross Rating Point measures for online advertising campaigns of nearly any size, running nearly anywhere on the web.”

Nielsen has used the system to assess approximately 40 campaigns for over 20 brands. Having aggregated data from million of internet users, it is yielding a higher sample coverage than average, at 42%. A larger sample size infers a greater accuracy in the results.

So, let’s look at the recently announced findings. According to Nielsen, “an analysis of the campaigns showed that when comparing campaigns with narrow audience (less than 20 year age span or age + gender) vs. broad audience (greater than 20 year age span), narrowly defined demos typically delivered 30 percent on-target vs. 77 percent for broad.” For companies that have been spending thousands, or even millions of dollars advertising online, this preliminary discovery should get their attention immediately.

The study also concluded that “Age + Gender-specific campaigns exhibited the highest delivery outside of the desired audience (27% for age + gender vs. 75% for general).”

This means that companies that want to reach women within specified age brackets through online advertising are either having their offers viewed by women outside those ranges, or by men a whopping 72% of the time! The mistargeting is one percentage worse for advertisers marketing and selling to men online.

What is to be made of these findings? First off, this is a new methodology and it will be in beta until mid-summer. Like any company debuting a new product, Nielsen wants to make a big splash with its introduction and unexpected findings get attention.  Also, Nielsen has not publicly stated whether the bulk of the campaign analyses were done on SEM, Facebook or other types of ad platforms. This would be helpful to know, as some platforms are going to be more accurate at targeting than others. A portion of the mistargeting can likely be attributed to non-cleansed databases filled with bogus user data  intentionally provided inaccurately by people or spambots.

No matter, Nielsen’s early findings are provocative. They should prompt marketers to take an even closer look at the effectiveness of their online campaigns and to demand highly accurate and verifiable analytics from their agencies, ad networks and publishers.


Baby Boomer Trends Online

Baby Boomers are as likely as other younger generations to be active online. That was a common theme at both the Aging in America Conference and the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit held in San Francisco last week. How are these 78 million Americans spending their time and engaging with others on the internet? What are the Baby Boomer trends online?

The most recent and significant change is that social media has gone mainstream. According to Bill Tancer, GM, Global Research at Experian Marketing Services, research conducted by his organization found that 51% of the adults online ages 50+ are using social networking sites.

Boomers are actually surpassing their younger cohorts when it comes to engaging in the web’s foremost social media hub, Facebook.  In fact, Facebook visitors 55+ years old are 23% more likely to go onto Facebook than other age groups. This visit share is in contrast to the 35 – 44 year old “Gen X” generation, which actually decreased its Facebook visit share from 23% to 21% in 2010.

Bill Tancer also reported that, after Facebook, the most popular social media sites for Boomers over 55 years old are You Tube, MySpace and Yahoo Answers.

Delving into the preferences of Boomer women, AARP’s research has found that nearly half are active online, spending an average of 20 hour per week on the web. More than 50% of these women are on Facebook, where they average 50 friends each.

However, social media is not Boomer women’s primary activity online. Stephen Reily, CEO of Vibrant Nation, shared that it is most common for these women to be spending their time on the internet using search engines and email, followed by doing research and visiting health-related sites. Online gaming is also a popular pastime.

The most connected Boomer cohort is the “Social Media Maven.” As described by Lori Bitter, President and CEO of Continuum Crew, this group is 53% female, communicates intensively and is regularly exploring and expanding its networks. Social Media Mavens are more likely to try new products and refer them to friends, thereby influencing their networks’ buying decisions and preferences. Interestingly, because they thrive on being in touch and on personal interactions, they use the phone more often than email.

While Boomers are active consumers of web content, they are not as inclined to react to what they read by adding their opinions to the online conversation. Lori Bitter stated that 90% of Boomers just view content, 9% comment and 1% upload information related to what they’ve read. One of the reasons that the comment percentage is so low is simple. Boomers like to be asked to participate in the conversation before doing so.

All of these data points leave no doubt that Boomers are entrenched in the online mainstream. Marketers striving to influence this notable market segment need to broaden the design of their campaigns to include email and social media components, in combination with offline and, where appropriate, mobile tactics as well. Don’t forget to ask Boomers to join in the online conversation and share their opinions.

What do you think? Do you agree? Yes, I’m asking you to please join the conversation.


Company Criteria for a Successful Product Launch

Buyers’ preferences will inevitably change. Technologies will evolve. New markets will form and existing ones will disappear. Companies that don’t adapt by rolling out new products, or creating new services will, overtime, become less relevant or even fold. This reality is summed up by the mantra “innovate or die.”

Companies must keep rejuvenating themselves. Product introductions are a way to do so. They are important milestones for businesses. No matter the frequency at which new products or services are released, each introduction should deliver value to customers. Each one should have business objectives and success factors tied to it. 

The last post examined the criteria that customers use to evaluate whether a company’s product release is a success. Now let’s flip the equation and consider the company’s perspective. How does a company judge whether its launch is successful?

I believe that there are eight factors that comprise a company’s criteria for a successful product launch. They are:

1. Satisfaction – Buyers love the product. They tell their friends and anyone who will listen about it.

2. Financial Success – The results meet or exceed the company’s goals. Whether success is measured by revenue, units sold, downloads, increased market share, stock price, or some other metric, it’s achieved.

3. Marketing Success – With so many marketing metrics to choose from, it may be a combination of brand awareness, website traffic, new leads, email opens, inquiries, clickthroughs, coverage, social media reach & influence and more that the company is after. The targets are nailed, no matter what they are.

4. Organizational Success – The launch is managed well. Cross-functional teams works in unison.

5. Training Success – Customer service, partners and salespeople are trained on the product and can knowledgeably answer users’ questions on day one.

6. Operational Success – The public is unaware of the complexities of the launch process. To them it all looks seamless and easy. Product development meets all the deadlines. The supply chain functions as expected. Engineering, manufacturing, QA, fulfillment and distribution all get it done.

7. Competitive Advantage – The competition has been beaten to market, or major strides have been made against them.

8. Accomplishment – Members of the launch team feel like they’ve achieved something significant, both personally and professionally. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it!

The combined customer and company criteria provide guidance for how to pull off a successful launch. If you are planning a launch, begin by tying metrics to each of the success factors. Then build and execute a launch plan that is designed to achieve each one. Do it well and your launch will be a sensation!


Posted on Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 in Marketing, Marketing Technique, Product Launch | Permalink
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Customer Criteria for a Successful Product Launch

New products are constantly being introduced into the marketplace. Most don’t arrive with as much fanfare and anticipation as products such as the iPad, the Nintendo Wii, or even Furby from years ago. But they do arrive, many with full marketing campaigns fueling their debuts.

Let’s consider the consumer’s point of view. For the people who choose to spend money on whatever is the “latest and greatest,” what makes for a positive product release experience?

I believe that there are six factors that make up the customer criteria for a successful launch. They are:

1. Excitement - There is a lot of buzz and anticipation. Everyone is talking about it. The early reviews are positive

2. Quality – There are no major problems with the product. It operates as expected.

3. Integrity – If there are problems, the company immediately takes ownership of the issues and lets its customers know how to go about getting the product fixed. Fast!

4. Availability – Distribution works. Enough units get to where they need to go so that the people who are eager to get the product as soon as it is released can. If people have reserved or pre-ordered the product, it is delivered to them as expected, or sooner.

5. Support – Customer service reps, partners and salespeople are trained on the product and can knowledgeably answer users’ questions on day one.

6. Feeling of Satisfaction – The buyer feels that the product is a least worth the price he or she paid for it, if not more.

Do you agree? And what about the other side of the equation? What about the company’s perspective?

The next blog post will look at what makes a launch a positive and memorable experience for the company that’s launched the product.

Image courtesy of VectorPortal.com. www.vectorportal.com


Posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 in Marketing, Marketing Technique, Product Launch | Permalink
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Promote Your Company Vision – Part II

The previous post discussed how marketing campaigns that are inspired by company visions are not prevalent these days. A company vision is a business’ forward-thinking declaration of its aspirations for the future.

“Promote Your Company Vision – Part I” provided tips for how to market your company vision as a means of promoting your brand, attracting and retaining customers and differentiating your business. Here are two more marketing tips:

Bring It to Life

The saying “a pictures is worth a thousand words” conveys the notion that complex ideas can be conveyed more easily with images. That adage definitely applies to company visions. Video is a fantastic tool to use for this purpose.

Videos are less expensive to produce than they use to be. They are easily to distribute via YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing platforms and they go viral faster than most any other medium. Why not create a company video that captures your company’s vision for the future?

Interviews are one approach to take. You can film executives sharing how the company vision guides their business decisions. You can also feature employees discussing how they are personally inspired by the vision.

Some corporations have the financial ability to produce high-end films that portray a world in which the companies’ visions have become a reality. Here are two superb examples of company visions brought to life via videos.

The first is by Corning, the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. It is called “A Day Made of Glass.”

The second video campaign is by Honda. It consists of a series of short documentaries titled “Dream the Impossible.” This dream-based thematic complements Honda’s current vision-inspired tagline, “Powered by Dreams.”

Talk About It

Your company has a vision for a better future that it wants to help shape. Get out and tell the world about it! Does your business have an evangelist or executive on staff whose job it is to share this message? Have him/her blog and tweet in support of the vision. Create a speaker series and arrange for executives or evangelists to give lectures or participate on panels about relevant topics.

Are there other experts in the market whose research or interests support your company’s vision? Hold a series of webcasts or in-person events featuring these subject matter experts. Record the talks and then package them as podcasts. Put the podcasts on your website and market them to existing and prospective customers.

Actively promoting your business’ vision will give the public greater insight into the essence of your company. People who find your company vision compelling will have another reason to believe in your brand and become loyal customers.

 


Promote Your Company Vision – Part I

A company vision sets a business apart from all others. What is a company vision? It is a business’ forward-thinking declaration of its aspirations for the future. It is the image it has of its goals before plans are laid out for how to achieve them. Company visions often are a declaration of a business’ desire to innovate and change its market for the better.

The vision is also a foundational component of a company’s brand. The most compelling ones inspire employees and endure as a business grows. Yet, many businesses don’t actively communicate their visions. Companies that don’t promote their visions are missing a marketing opportunity.

Why do it? A business that actively promotes its vision is positioning itself as a thought leader and innovator in its market. Touting its vision is also a great way for a business to differentiate itself from it competition.

If a company doesn’t have one, it should write a vision statement. Once that is done, it is time to share it with the world. The following are suggestions of ways that a company can market its corporate vision.

Unbury It

Many businesses have their company vision statements listed on their websites. But the statements are usually buried somewhere deep in the site’s “About” or “Company” sections. Liberate your vision statement! Highlight it in appropriately-placed callout boxes. Or go for the gusto and place the vision on the home page so that every visitor can easily grasp the business’ reason for being.

Does your company produce an annual report? Incorporate the vision into the CEO’s letter to shareholders. Have executives discuss it at the annual shareholder meeting. If your company publishes a newsletter, include mention of the vision in it. As progress is made, write articles and updates about it.

Incorporate It into Your Tagline

A tagline is a means of communicating a brand-based message. It should be changed over time as a business evolves. Taglines are another way to promote a company’s vision. This strategy is especially appropriate if a company’s marketing objective is to establish itself as the thought leader in its category.

Some examples of past and present vision-inspired taglines are: “Think Different” (Apple), “Imagination at Work” (General Electric), “The World’s Networking Company” (AT&T), “The Power of Dreams,” (Honda) “The Next Stage” (Wells Fargo) and “The Power of Human Energy” (Chevron). Can you think of others?

The next post will provide additional ways for companies to promote their unique visions.


Study Finds Feeling Valued is More Important than Control for Customers

The popular wisdom among many marketers has been that consumers want a sense of control over the brands they use. Brands are getting on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms partly to provide customers with that capability.

But hold on! A new report by Razorfish that looked at how consumers want to interact with brands finds that control is actually the least important of six Engagement Elements. What do consumers want most from their engagement with brands? They want to feel valued.

The study, titled Liminal, was designed to define brand engagement from the consumer’s, not the marketer’s, point of view. Through its research, Razorfish discovered that “consumers’ six Engagement Elements – the needs they have when they interact with a brand – are feeling Valued, Trust, Efficiency, Consistency, Relevance and Control.”

Feeling valued, trust and efficiency were the top three brand engagement priorities across all consumer segments. Consistency, relevance and control ranked at the bottom.

This study also looked at the channels that are the most important and the least important for consumers when it comes to engaging with brands and which channels did the best job and the worst job at meeting consumers’ brand engagement expectations.

The findings are that “the most important consumer engagement channels are transactional email, company websites, traditional word-of-mouth and face-to-face conversation with a company representative.”

What channels do consumers regard as the lowest in importance? According to the study “social networking services were the least important, be it LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or the even newer location-based social networking services”

Moreover, “the least frequent actions taken on individual channels were participating in a company community site, looking up a company on YouTube, posting a review, reading or participating in a company community site and sending an email to a company. Twitter and Facebook didn’t even make it into the top nine in terms of importance or frequency of use.” Surprised?

When it comes to meeting expectations, consumers felt that the channels that did the poorest job of meeting their brand engagement expectations were postal mail, print ads, mobile applications and real-time chat with customer service representatives.

Now, what are marketers to do with these provocative findings? First off, conduct an assessment of all of your company’s customer contact points. How do they measure up against the six Engagement Elements? Are your external interactions designed to evoke feelings of value, trust and efficiency in your prospects, installed base and partners? If not, improve existing processes. Focus on personalization. Modify call center scripts. Write new website text. Revise your salesperson training. Further customize the emails and direct mail that you send out.

Are you missing opportunities to provide positive brand engagement? Brainstorm and implement new ways to interact with your customers that deliver a respectful, highly responsive and efficient experience.

Even though social media ranked low as a preferred channel, stay with it. Use the six Engagement Elements as a litmus test for your social media initiatives. Implement changes that make your brand seem more attentive and responsive to customers.

Creating brand affinity and loyalty is a critical imperative for marketers because strong brands enjoy dedicated customers, repeat sales and competitive barriers. Take the insights that this study provides and use them to advance your brand building efforts.


Eight “Must Haves” When Planning a Product Launch

With all of the announcements that came out of the Customer Electronics Show, product launches have been getting a lot buzz in the tech world this month. And for foodies, this past weekend was very much about the new delectables that were tasted at the Fancy Food Show. Whatever the product is being launched, the public only sees the outcome. But as so many of us marketers know, pulling off a successful product launch is not an easy feat.

There are numerous pieces to the launch puzzle that all need to fall into place in time for the big announcement and first customer shipment. Much of a product launch’s fate is determined in the early planning stages. Rest assured, you can put your launch on solid footing by following eight “must haves” when planning a product launch.

1. Have a clear launch strategy, launch plan and budget. Metrics are mandatory. It all should be approved, and ultimately owned, by a senior executive.

2. Have a strong, capable and communicative cross-functional core team. The team should be comprised of people representing each department or functional area that has launch responsibilities. Meet regularly. Make each person accountable.

3. Have a comprehensive project management plan. Include tactics and deliverables, ownership of the deliverables and corresponding due dates. Track the status.

4. Have a messaging platform. The platform needs to be blessed by management. Make sure it is consistently incorporated into all customer-facing deliverables, such as the packaging, website, PR and ads, as well as all customer sales and support interactions.

5. Have a product that is delivered to market on time. If for some reason the product turns out not to be capable of doing all that the messaging says it can do, the messaging needs to be adjusted.

6. Have a “worst case scenario” backup plan. Mitigate risk.

7. Have an executive sponsor who is accountable for the launch. The buck needs to stop somewhere.

8. Have some fun. Driving to a major deadline is stressful. Fun eases the stress.

Launching a product is a complex undertaking and no two launch experiences are ever the same.  Follow these eight principles and your product launch will be off to a stellar start.


Posted on Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 in Marketing, Marketing Technique, Product Launch | Permalink
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Email and Social Media Form a Tighter Union in 2011

Making predictions at the start of a new year has become an American tradition. The marketing community has been busy at it! There have been plenty of articles, blog posts and tweets predicting what will happen in the marketing realm over the next 12 months.

I’ve noticed, though, that most of the prognostications have been on the future of social media. A word to the wise; don’t overlook the power of email marketing in 2011.

Yes, social media continues to gain momentum and is undergoing rapid adoption. But email remains the most dominant means of electronic communications and it will continue to be a critical marketing tool in 2011. Anyone who questions the value of email marketing need just consider Groupon’s $6 billion valuation, which is largely attributed to the company’s enormous opt-in email lists and associated CRM data.

What we will see in 2011 is a deeper integration of email and social media. Marketers will use social media to enhance their email campaigns to a greater degree than ever before.

The line between Email Service Providers (ESPs) and social media companies is starting to blur. ESPs are busy adding social media tools to their product lists. ESPs’ current offerings include Lyris’ Social Media Enhancer, Nutshell Mail from Constant Contact, Social Studio by StrongMail and Mail Chimp’s Social Sharing and SocialPro tools, to name a few.

So eager are ESPs to get a stronger foothold in this hot emerging media that some have bought social media companies. StrongMail now owns social media marketing tool provider PopularMedia, Constant Contact purchased social networking management tool Nutshell Mail and Exact Target acquired social media conversation management company Cotweet. Look for more M&A activity to come.

With all this going on, marketers are increasingly recognizing that email and social media should be complementary components of a single campaign. A recent study by StrongMail found that 71% of the companies surveyed have either already integrated their social media and email campaigns, or plan to do so in 2011. (Source: eMarketer)

With so much marketing noise coming at consumers, capturing and retaining buyers’ attention will only get harder in 2011. Marketers need to remember that social media should not be viewed as a standalone marketing method and email should not be relegated to yesterday’s news. The challenge and the fun for marketers will be to figure out how to effectively distribute compelling content across a combination of email and social media tools and services in such a way that it all works well together and gets the desired results.


Should Your Company Be on Facebook?

With social media all the buzz, and Facebook at the heart of the social networking storm, many companies that have not yet created a presence on Facebook are feeling escalating pressure to do so.

I’ve talked to some clients who are haunted by the fear that, since their companies are not on Facebook, they must be missing out on something. But they have no idea what that “something” is. Here’s some advice. Don’t rush to put up a page because everyone else is doing it.

True, Facebook charges nothing, it doesn’t take much time to create a starter business page and adding the Facebook widget to your company’s website is simple. But the setup is the easy part. What you really need to decide is if having a page on Facebook is going to help you grow your business and is worth the investment of time and resources.

Facebook is a platform that enables 500+ million people to connect with trusted friends. It also is a forum for people to talk about themselves and share their likes and dislikes. Here’s the thing. Not every product or service is something that people want to publicly talk about. There are lots of things that people would never consider associating themselves with on Facebook.

I recommend using this evaluation criteria to help you decide whether your company should be on Facebook:

  1. First off, you need a strategy for how you are going to incorporate Facebook into all your other marketing activities and drive traffic to your page. “Build it and they will come” is not a strategy.
  2. Have concrete objectives. Is a Facebook presence intended to attract, acquire or retain customers for your business?
  3. Are your target customers on Facebook? Are they more likely to be using another social media platform instead, like Twitter? Or, maybe you sell to a segment, like elderly seniors, that has not taken to social media?
  4. Take a good look in the mirror. Is what your company sells something that people will gladly talk about on their personal pages and suggest to their friends? If you sell products to businesses, are your customers really going to want to overlap their work lives and their personal lives on their Facebook pages?
  5. Make sure that you can commit the time and resources to build and evolve the business page. Posts and comments should be responded to promptly. Do you have the staff to do this ongoing work?
  6. Come up with a plan for how to build community and get people to like your company’s page. A business page without any likes or fans is a lonely place and can be a turn-off to the customers you are hoping to attract.
  7. Get comfortable with the reality that you don’t control your business page. Your company will invest time and money creating and maintaining it and, without any warning, Facebook can change the business page template, as they just did last week. Surprise!
  8. Know that any contests, competitions or other marketing activities you run have to comply with Facebook’s promotional guidelines. This isn’t a bad thing. You just need to realize that you are not free to do anything you’d like. Facebook sets the rules.

We are in a consumer-driven world where engaging and participating with customers offline and online is essential to achieve customer satisfaction and spark word of mouth referrals. Facebook is helping a lot of companies do that and more. But, while Facebook is well-suited for many businesses, it is not necessarily a worthwhile marketing endeavor for all types of companies. Just think about it.


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