Trends Archives - Page 13 of 19 - McLellan Marketing Group

What did 2007 stand for?

December 26, 2007

Greg Verdino summed up his take on 2007 in a great post earlier this month. You’ll want to go check it out to get the nuances of his thoughts, but in a very abbreviated form — he said the top 7 trends that defined 2007 were:

Merger Mania: Seems like everyone is buying someone…

Presence and Accounted for: Every day there’s a new beta for a social network being launched and everyone’s rushing to give each and every one a try.

Facebook Frenzy: About a bazillion people there. Nuff said.

The Mobile Year that Wasn’t: Everyone predicted this was going to be the year that mobile marketing was going to take off. Oops, not so much.

The Birth of Virtual Natives: Second Life to Webkinz. If you aren’t a member of one now…you will be.

Writers Wronged: What impact will the writer’s strike have on online content, videos etc.

And then Greg left #7 blank — asking readers to share what they thought was the 7th significant trend of the year.

So, here’s my take. A year ago, Time Magazine named YOU (meaning us) the person of the year….heralding the power and influence of social media.

It had to be the most talked about news item on blogs (other than the iPhone release) in ’07. And you can’t blame us. It’s tough being one of the first few million to do something, trying to break through. A little recognition is nice.

But…I think trend #7 is that the celebration was pretty premature. I believe that we’re still very much social media pioneers, a few million of us or not. And we are standing at the base of a very steep mountain. The climb is not going to be easy or short.

Step away from people who blog, read blogs, the media, marketing and advertising folks…and you will find a vast majority of human beings who are completely unaware of what social media means. If you said Second Life to them, they’d think you meant Saturday Night Live or you want to talk about your religious beliefs. They might have heard the word blog but it has no relevance to them. They don’t understand that social media has power — let alone how to harness it. Bottom line — we’re not on their radar screen yet.

As Gavin is famous for saying — you know something is mainstream when your grandma gets it. Well, grandma doesn’t get it yet.

I don’t take this as bad news, by the way. We’re riding the first wave of social media. It’s not mainstream yet but it will be. And we get to cut the path.

I believe trend #7 is/was that the euphoric fog lifted and most of us now recognize that while the journey is going to be a long one — the ride is going to be a blast!

How about you — what do you think the 7th trend that defined ’07 was?

New Year’s image courtesy of www.New-Year.in

Are you an elf or a scrooge?

December 6, 2007

No, I’m not really polling you about your pre-holiday state of mind. (I won’t ask if you don’t!)

But this holiday season, you can fashion yourself as an elf, scrooge or even a chipmunk! Viral marketing campaigns that allow people to add their own voice or picture and share them with their friends is all the rage.

Check out these interactive campaigns.

Feeling the season? Turn yourself (or a friend) into an elf. (check out this crazy elf!)

Feeling a little bah humbug about the holidays? Turn yourself into scrooge.

Remember sucking helium from a balloon? Turn your voice into a chipmunk’s.

Love football this time of year? How about doing your own victory dance?

So here’s the real question. These campaigns drive a lot of traffic to your website. They’re sticky, funny and very viral. Are they about branding? Does it make you want to buy stuff at OfficeMax or drink CokeZero? Or see the new movie?

Do you think certain products, services or companies can benefit more from this sort of campaign?

Logo re-designs — a good idea or bad?

December 5, 2007

It seems like a lot of companies are getting antsy about their logos. Whenever that happens — they get a bug to "update" their current logo. Sometimes that’s a great idea. Other times, a bit of a disaster.

Chrys Bader of Clever Cookie has gathered up many of the most recently revised and put together his own critique.

A logo revision is such a fine line. A company’s logo is one of their biggest assets. But, over time some of them begin to look a little dated. But the general feel/look of it should be timeless.

Head over to Clever Cookie and then come back and tell us which logo revision do you think hit it out of the park…and which one struck out?

Hillary Clinton called me!

December 4, 2007

Yes….me. She wanted to tell me her stand on the issues. And I know you’ll be stunned to hear this, but Hillary isn’t the only one calling.

I’ve heard from Mitt, Mike, Obama, Rudy, Bill, John, Chris and all the rest.

Impressed? Don’t be.

They don’t want to talk to me, they want to talk at me. Welcome to living in Iowa during a caucus year. Spending is at an all time high (over $15 million to date and on the rise) and one of the more popular tactics apparently is the personal phone call.

Well, not exactly personal. In fact, downright impersonal. I pick up the phone. I say hello. I wait. I say hello again. Finally, a recorded message from a candidate begins.

I hang up.

Come on, people. You say you are smart enough to run the country but you really think the recorded phone call method favored by cable TV companies and other automated sales forces is an effective marketing tool?

I know it’s cheap at first blush. Pennies per Iowan versus the big bucks of TV, radio and print. But it’s annoying and costing you votes. Not so cheap, perhaps.

Robo calls, as they’re known in the biz, are the second most popular tactic for politicians. Nearly 2/3 of all registered voters in the U.S. received at least one call in the past year. The only thing that tops it is direct mail.

The calling is such an aggravating tactic that 9 states (including Iowa) are considering legislation to ban these robo calls.

The marketing lesson here — be smarter than a politician. If your marketing tactic is so irritating that people are proposing a law to stop you from doing it — best look for a new tactic.

I’m sure Hillary is going to call again. Anything you want me to tell her?

P.S…and apparently this brilliant marketing tactic isn’t just being used by American politicians!

Matt Dickman: A solid, digital foundation is the key to new media success

November 23, 2007

Pardon the idiom, but if you don't have your marketing ducks in a row it's hard to make a move into emerging media.

Too many companies try to jump to Web2.0 and skip many important steps in the process. This makes for a hard sell internally and an even more awkward transition.

This post focuses on what you're already doing online and how to make a smooth transition to 2.0.

For the sake of this post, I'll assume you have a website. You've probably invested a pretty good amount of time and energy into it as well. But for most marketers, once a site is up and running, it is often left unattended.

Technology and design patterns change constantly, if a site has gone more than 18 months with no changes it's probably stale.

The best way to create a strategy to take advantage of the concepts behind Web2.0 is to build a solid foundation in the following areas. For each area, I will show how to get up to speed and set up the foundation for a 2.0 move.

User Interface: As I mentioned, design tastes and patterns change constantly. If I asked you to describe the visual essence of Web2.0 I bet you would say things like, "shiny", "plastic" or "chrome". The real shift in the next version of websites is a move more toward application-like interfaces. Technology like AJAX and XML is making it easier for designers to make the web work easier for users. Instead of making people step through multiple pages of a form, it can load questions dynamically on one page. Users can move content around a page to see what they want where they want it (think iGoogle).

The value proposition here for the users is that they click less, get more and connect with you faster. Take a good look at your homepage.

What can you change today to help people connect with you?
Is the contact information obvious?
If you provide them a lot of data, can they manipulate it and take it with them in the way that adds the most value?

Have you sat down with a customer and used the site to see how they do their job? Getting the experience right, making sure that every click adds value and letting people take it with them are great starting points to push into Web2.0.

Engagement: This goes along with user interface. Engagement is the new metric buzzword. Page views and clicks are becoming less valuable as more ads are blocked and less pages are created. Engagement is spoken of in terms of time on site, repeat visits and content creation.

Engagement, however, is unique from site to site. What is considered engaging on a blog is not what is engaging on a manufacturing or a non-profit site. Don't be afraid to create your own set of metrics. Look at what is valuable to you and what is engaging to the user and build something new. If you're using message boards on your site maybe a new metric is "comments per thread".

Customer Service: This is the most overlooked opportunity on 99% of sites out there.

If you have an email on the site that goes to customer service, what is your policy on response?

What is the message that is sent to the user?
Does the policy include a personal response or a form letter?
Is it easy for users to reply back or does it go to a trash bin somewhere in cyber space.

Every single contact point is a sales opportunity and too many go unanswered. If you have a customer service email or contact form, make sure it's routed to a service rep. Set expectations and communicate them to the users (response in 24 hours). Create a template that has re-contact information as well as a brief marketing message. Unanswered emails are deadly in a 2.0 world.

They turn into angry blog posts, message board threads and a rallying point for people to gang up on you. Once the emails are returned you can move on to more advanced community-based support.

Business Support: Let's face it, most sites out there are not e-commerce driven, but they all have a business purpose. Brand awareness, information dissemination, regulatory compliance, etc. What is the goal of your site? Do you have multiple goals? Are you accomplishing them? Here is a drill that I use to visualize the contrast between where companies place their value on their site and where users actually spend their time.

	Draw a map of your current site. You can use Visio, Word, pen and paper or anything else you have at your disposal. Just treat each page as a block and show them in their hierarchy.
	Now, create a copy of the map and color code each page so that is aligns with your business goals. For this example we'll say red is a top tier page that generates revenue, orange is a second tier support page, yellow is a third tier information page and blue is non-essential.
	Now, create a copy of THAT map (with the color coding) and roughly scale each section with your page view metrics so that pages with more views are larger and less views are smaller. Try to keep them in proportion. This is where people go on your site compared with your business goals. In our example, we need to create tactics that shift more views to the red blocks and less to the blue. (Note: you could also scale based on time spent on each page)

Hopefully these points shed some light and allow you to plan for growth into new media. Only with a strong foundation can you build to reach the next level.

What other points would you add to this list? What's on your must-have list to "graduate" from 1.0 to 2.0?

Drew's Note: Matt Dickman is an interactive marketing strategist with DigiKnow in Cleveland. He blogs at Techno//Marketer and is always the guy who offers a helping hand on projects big and small. Like Greg, Gavin, Cam, and Mark…he's a rock solid good guy.

Marketers are wishy washy on social media

November 19, 2007

According to a recent Coremetrics survey, titled "Face of the New Marketer" 78% of marketers indicate that social media initiatives give them a leg-up over the competition.

The survey found that in the last 12 months:

31% of respondents have started a blog
25% of respondents have put in place an RSS feed

So far, so good — right? Well, here's the rub. They talk a good game, but they're not really putting their money where their mouth is. Just 7.7 percent of their total online marketing spend was allocated to it compared to 33 percent to online advertising and 28 percent on online promotion design and implementation.

In a completely separate study conducted by Gunderson Partners, they found that 45% of companies surveyed have allocated 10% or less of their budget to new media. The report goes on to say "Of the hurdles mentioned, nearly 40% cited insufficient knowledge [lack of metrics] and 33% stated not having enough time to evaluate [metrics]."

So what do you think? Are we just on the bleeding edge? Is it a matter of time? Or is there a flaw in the medium?

4 things marketers could learn from reality shows

November 16, 2007

We make fun of them, we swear we never watch them….and yet they are everywhere.

Reality shows.

Long before the writer's strike, they were already here to stay. Having a teenager in the house means I get to watch more than my fair share of them. Like the proverbial train wreck, they're sort of hard to turn away from. They are both grotesque and fascinating.

I realized tonight that there are some lessons for us in the reality show recipe. After all, wouldn't we like our marketing efforts to be mesmerizing?

High Emotion/Drama: There's not a dull moment on these shows. They have a wonderful sense of story-telling build up. You can feel the tension mounting and before you know it — someone is taking a swing at someone else or we've got a full on sob fest.

How about your marketing materials? Are you telling a story that builds up to a satisfying emotional reaction? Are you drawing your audience in?

Messy: There's nothing pretty or perfect on a reality show. But then again, life isn't perfect. It's messy. Especially when you are doing things "live" or on the fly.

I think one of the reasons many companies shy away from social media tactics is because they can't package them up and put a bow on them. It's okay to just get out there and wing it a little. Maybe it will look a little messy from time to time — but it will also look authentic.

Conflict: Most reality shows are some sort of contest. It pits people against each other and within that, secret alliances, grudge matches and villains. We need someone to root for. And against.

We know that all buying decisions are based on emotions. Do you know what emotions trigger a prospect to become a buyer for your product/service? Are you setting up conflicts to evoke those emotions?

Surprise: There are more twists and turns than the roller coasters at Cedar Point. They're always bringing back old contestants or revealing secrets, just to keep everyone on their toes. Adding an element of surprise enhances the three earlier elements — high emotions, messiness and conflict. Surprise also offers relief from those elements. So just about the time you can't handle any more drama, they'll take a twist and offer a sentimental moment.

Are you remembering to surprise your customers? That's a very powerful way to generate word of mouth and stickiness.

So next time you are feeling a little guilty about watching Dancing with the Stars or I Love New York 2 — have no fear. You're just enhancing your marketing knowledge!

:60 ticks marketing tip: Find your facts

November 2, 2007

American Factfinder is a great source for population, social, housing, economic and geographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Looking for average family income, racial mix or other data for a state, county or city?

Want to identify cities or counties with a high percentage of Spanish-speakers? You can find them here.

Want to choose which zip codes to send a direct mail into based on home values or mortgage amounts? You can find them here.

You can even look at business patterns by city, county, state or region, find the number of businesses by NAICS code and identify business size, payroll, number of employees and much more.

All totally free. Gotta love that.

Do it Wrong Quickly — is a right choice!

October 31, 2007

In the past, marketers have had to carefully plan ahead because getting it wrong was just too expensive. But today you don’t have to get it right out of the shoot. Now you can start fast, change fast, and relentlessly optimize your way to success. We can do it wrong quickly…then fix it, just as quickly!

In Do it Wrong Quickly, Internet marketing pioneer Mike Moran shows us how to do that–step-by-step. Drawing on his experience building IBM.com, Moran shows how to quickly transition from “plan then execute” to a non-stop cycle of refinement.

I recently had a chance to run a few questions by Mike and I think you’ll enjoy his answers. But brace yourself — he’s a funny engineer. I know, I had trouble with the concept too!

Many of your readers are probably entrepreneurs stuck in a corporate culture. If they get what you’re saying but their boss does not – how would you recommend (other than reading your book) that they begin to infuse this idea into their company culture?

Reading my book and buying copies for their 20 closest friends is by far the best thing to do, but oh–you ruled that one out. I think that we marketers need to challenge ourselves to work just as hard at marketing inside our companies as we do outside.

We all think of ourselves as these very persuasive people that can get customers to consider new ideas, so why do we feel so stuck trying to explain something new to the boss? I say it’s because we don’t apply ourselves.

If your boss resists, do what you would do with customers that resist–try to understand what the blocks are and overcome them. For example, suppose your boss is extremely risk-averse, and trying something new scares him to death.

In that case, you might want to point out how dangerous it is for us to avoid this new important thing that our competitors are doing and customers are responding to. So if he really responds to fear, then scare him even more about the status quo.

Analyze what moves your boss and then pitch to that impulse, the same way you tailor messages to your target market.

How would you recommend that agencies help their clients embrace this thinking?

Read my book–oh wait. Sorry.

One of the things that drives most CEOs and CFOs nuts is that most marketing can’t be shown to contribute to the bottom line. It gives them fluffy stuff like "increased brand awareness."

If you adopt a metrics-based approach to Internet marketing, then everything an agency does produces tangible impact in money terms–which helps clients justify bigger marketing budgets over time and gets them promoted over their peers who are still pitching name recognition and customer satisfaction.

Any agency that can explain how their clients become heroes in their jobs can cause them to embrace this thinking (or at least give it a warm handshake).

Off-line consumers are changing as well. How does all of this translate for the local, primarily face-to-face business owner, like the butcher the baker or the candlestick maker? Is your premise only a web-based one?

The book focuses on Internet marketing of all varieties, but these ideas work offline, also.

In fact, some of them are stolen from offline direct marketing. Anyone sending out direct mail pieces or catalogs already knows how to "do it wrong quickly" because they judge the effectiveness of each piece based on response. They know what they send out the first time is wrong and they use the response to each version to tell them how to keep changing to get higher response.

Direct marketers tweak their materials over and over to get the highest response they can. One of the big messages of my book is how you can apply that thinking online.

If you could only use one tool (blogs, podcasts, Twitter, wikis, Facebook etc.) to track and observe your potential customer, which one would you choose and why?

I’d use a Web metrics package, such as Google Analytics or CoreMetrics.

As important as it is to listen to what your customers say (and I spend a lot of pages on that), it’s even more important to watch what they do. In the end, observing customers seeing your marketing message and clicking (or not) and buying (or not) tells you more than what they say.

Listening is important, but if you only do one thing, watch. A Web metrics package is the easiest way to watch, and Google’s is free, which is personally my favorite price.

Is there a specific industry that desperately needs to "get this" more than others?

I don’t know any industries that really have this down, but the ones that staring at the biggest culture changes are heavily-regulated industries.

Those industries are used to creating very effective one-way messages (even online), but they are scared to death to respond to customers in public because then they have to go off-message.

It’s hard to talk to anyone in pharmaceuticals or financial services without hearing about what their lawyers say about all this risky business. The problem is that the biggest risk of all is to sit out this change.

The first company in each regulated industry to figure this out will have a bigger edge than the first movers in other industries, because their competitors’ organizational cultures will be excruciating to change. Oh, and did I mention they should read my book? Oh, yeah. Just checking.

Are we becoming a world of snackers?

October 29, 2007

I’ve long said we’ve become a USA Today world. Bite-sized chunks of information, a pretty chart and we’re good.

I recently wrote about the power of downsizing how much information you try to cram into any marketing tactic. We’ve also talked about how being long-winded can hurt your effectiveness. And the value of offering bite-sized test drives to our prospects.

So, I was excited when Connie Reece tagged me on a meme that was started by Jeremiah Owyang. He asks the question — do you respect media snackers and if so, how?

So I’ll play along. Here’s where I think I am holding my own:

I write posts like the ones listed above, trying to not only walk the talk, but teach it.
I keep my blog posts short. (for the most part)
I write a weekly marketing column that tops off at 300 words.
I use solo visuals to help tell the story.
I use Twitter and other micromedia.

Here’s where I need to get even better:

Adding more categories so topic-specific readers can find content easier.
Introducing my readers to more resources for just in time searching.
Continuing to hone my messages down to their essence.

So, as the game is played…I tag David Armano, Chris Wilson, Tim Siedell, Gavin Heaton, Mark Goren and Doug Meacham.

Even if you weren’t tagged, feel free to jump in and play along. How are you modifying your communications to accommodate media snackers?

« Previous 1 … 11 12 13 14 15 … 19 Next »