Mar
27
2009
27
2009
Gladwell’s Tipping Point in Haiku
As a homage to the insightful book, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, I’m going to attempt to write a summary in haiku (Japanese poetry stule consisting of three lines) that summarizes the essence of mastering a changing environment. All right, here it goes:
Posted via web from OverLinked
Mar
19
2009
19
2009
Can Marketers Use the “Data Minimization” Approach?
Peter Fader, Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, puts forth a “data minimization” approach for companies arguing that the histograms you can infer from doing more basic one time analyses, is more cost effective approach to marketing. It’s an interesting argument as it hones in on 1-to-1 marketing’s achilles heel, that of the relative ROI of 1-to-1 compared to the organizational investment required to realize this marketer’s dream. While it’s true that 1-to-1 messaging is difficult and expensive for most companies right now, there is a greater long term disadvantage to “throwing away” historical customer purchase data. True, credit card & billing data are a risk for an organization to house and guard, but this information can safely be stripped without having an impact on order level or purchase history. Also, the cost and complexity of safely storing customer data is coming down greatly. Well thought out data security policies can guard marketing & IT teams from mistakes, as long as the policy is carried out regularly (archive data offsite, secured & detached from external networks).
Think about the danger of not having access to your customer data – what if the histograms that you produced in the early part of the year, prove to be fine for a time, but you’d like to compare the effectiveness of this model against one that your team put forth. You’d have to wait 6+ months to aggregate enough data for the second model to show itself worthy, but not if you’d have simply kept access to the data.
For smaller companies, however, this may be a good option – but only if there’s a high hacking risk and lack of technology support internally. It’s better to reduce risk at that point than to save data for a rainy day – if you don’t have a current plan of using your customer data for marketing activities in the next 6 months, then it will not likely be of use anyway.
Mar
16
2009
16
2009
“Targeted” is not a theme, it’s a necessity
The winterberry group is now seeing a trend that we have seen for a while. That marketers are requiring more specialized, focused campaigns that take advantage of a more personal approach to niche groups. Some companies have already built tools to focus marketing on targeted messaging, others will have to catch up.
The white paper outlines six trends that took hold in 2008 and another three that are expected to continue defining the role of direct mail in 2009. Expected 2009 trends include:
- Recession forces decrease in spending
- Volumes fall as mailers seek efficiencies
- Production sector in crisis
- New demand for data, analytics, multichannel
- Mail emerges as ideal complement to digital
- “Green” practices fluctuate in importance
- End of untargeted, high-volume campaigns
- New marketing automation technologies applied
- Postal Service as the principal mail delivery channel compromised
Mar
16
2009
16
2009
SXSW and the Soft Sell
Ny Times reporting on the SXSW startups that are actively representing their new companies at the conference, but they are doing it in a nuanced way.
Start-up companies are aware that in-your-face marketing is a good way to scare off the kinds of people who go to South by Southwest. JagTag, a company based in Princeton, N.J., that incorporates barcodes into marketing campaigns for the benefit of camera-phone users, decided not to attend the conference. Instead, the company sent a single employee loaded with several thousand promotional postcards bearing barcodes. “We didn’t want to do a hard sell,” said Dudley Fitzpatrick, the chief executive. “We just wanted to show it to them.”
This is interestingly taking a page out of the old revlon playbook- give a customer a free sample, and count on a certain buzz and response from those free samples. If there is quality behind the product, this will be a sustainable strategy for acquiring new business. In more competitive fields, however, it may not be a thoughtful one. If there were milk companies giving away samples of their milk, for you to try – unless there was a substantial taste difference – would you really care? There are other differentiation points and marketing opportunities that are essential for moving a product into the mind of that audience (even if you use a soft sell approach).
Posted via web from OverLinked
Mar
13
2009
13
2009
Google: What’s Next? Pop-Ups and interstitials?
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Google branches into expandable ads
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Mar
13
2009
13
2009
Newspapers: Online Only Seattle?
Saw this on mashable, but if it takes hold, seattle’s Post intelligencer could be the first newspaper to move from being completely print to being completely online. This would be unprecendented for a major metro area newspaper. Good luck Intelligencer!!
Mar
13
2009
13
2009
Popular tactics in Adobe’s 2009 survey
Ecommerce companies recently reported in Adobe’s survey, that they are considering the following enhancements within the coming year.
- Lifestyle imagery/photos 38%
- Alternative images 36%
- Audio or animation 31%
- Zoom 27%
- Search landing pages 24%
- Catalogs & circulars 24%
- Microsites/brand boutiques 24%
- Videos 23%
- Color swatching/colorizing 22%
- Quick looks & rollover views 21%
97% of respondents said they’d be conducting a customer experience analysis this year.
Mar
04
2009
04
2009
As the Internet matures, do we maintain balance?
How much time do you spend online? Reading this Slate article, which recounts a primitive internet back in 1996, it’s amazing that our lives have changed so much since that time. Well, at least some of us. My wife does all she can not to sit in front of a computer when she comes home, but I’m very content to put the laptop on my lap. But how much is too much?
From Slate:
In 1996, Americans with Internet access spent fewer than 30 minutes a month surfing the Web, according to Steve Coffey, who’s now the chief research officer of the market research firm the NPD Group. (Today, we spend about 27 hours a month online, according to Nielsen.)
27 hours a month seems like a good amount of time, but I think it’s more telling when you break it down to daily bites. So, if it’s safe to round up, we can say that today Americans spend about an hour a day on the Internet. This isn’t all that much. What we don’t see are the increasing number of information workers who spend 8+ hours a day at work connected, and a competing amount in the evenings. I would say that I spend a good 7 hours on the Internet, conservatively, each day.
How bad is that, would you say? What is a good balance between online vs. offline life? Personally, as long as I get a good 35 minute run at the gym in, I can go back online without breaking a sweat [pun intended]. Life means living it fully and you cannot do that when you are forever hitting the send/receive button. Today’s assignment: Get out and do something.
