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Stop Advertising and Give Them Content! [The Numbers Prove It]

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We all want to get more than we give, it is simply human nature. We don’t overpay at Walmart out of the goodness of our hearts. Likewise, we don’t pay attention to advertising that doesn’t give us something of value in return, either discounts, entertainment or information.

I could launch from here into the value of developing personas to ensure advertising is delivering value. And it is true, understanding your audience is critical. But instead, below are real results comparing an ad unit to other elements of the page.

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Are Your Company Values a House of Cards?

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House of CardsCompany values cannot be merely said, they must be lived. Lived by every single employee of your company, internally and externally. Prospects and customers experience how you live your values in every interaction.

All it takes is one misstep for the perception of your company and brand to unravel. If employees are not living your values, including internally, it undermines all of the effort that has gone into creating those values.

I experienced this earlier this year. A vendor inadvertently forwarded an internal email chain. And it was damning. [Read more…]

Part One: Marketing Measurement and Pissing People Off

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You know the line “you manage what you measure”. So do you consider what matters but is not measured? As digital marketers, we tend to measure the positives. Even negative measurements are rarely negative, they are just small positive measurements — low response rates or conversion rates.

Over the last 10 to 12 years, a number of online tactics have come and gone. A few of these delivered great results on paper, blinding marketers to the negative impacts that were not measured. Here are three activities which such negative impact that people fought back, outright disabling marketing tactics. [Read more…]

Four Insights for Cloud Computing Marketers

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IDG Enterprise released its Cloud  Computing Research results at the end of last year, and I finally had the opportunity to review it recently. I just wish I had looked at it earlier. The research is based on a survey of approximately 1,500 IT and business professionals, with good representation of senior IT management and large companies. There is a lot of great data in the research, if you market cloud computing services, it is worth downloading and spending a few minutes with the slides.

Beyond the data points, I saw four key themes. Each is an opportunity for marketers to differentiate their offerings or position in the cloud marketplace.

IT Expects Control
For CIOs, the top concerns are security (two-thirds), followed by access, governance, and meeting standards. And IT is a key stakeholder in cloud decisions at larger companies (more than 80% of the time). In contrast, concerns about business and employee receptiveness is cited by less than 15% of respondents. [Read more…]

Email List Rental: Approach with Caution

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The email list rental business is suffering, and no wonder. EmailExpert posted “We WILL Share Your Email Address” a few weeks ago, after receiving an email from Kodak, modifying the original permission received and notifying recipients that Kodak will begin sharing email addresses with other Kodak companies.

I was floored when I first read this. Kodak had a complete disregard for its relationship with the customer. Unfortunately, I understood how they landed there. Email is probably one of the most cost-effective channels for Kodak, and this allowed Kodak to quickly expand its email marketing. While all major marketers should understand email today, email is Kodak’s marketing, not their core business.

A few days ago, I was shocked to find, in my spam folder, a similar email [Read more…]

Online Advertising Metrics: A Simple Framework

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When planning an online advertising campaign, or reviewing results, the data can be overwhelming. It seems everything can be measured sixteen different ways. Other times, it seems nothing that matters is measured. Lots of data, but little to no actionable information.

When digital campaigns are not driving a single discrete activity, like an ecommerce transaction, selecting metrics requires care. We cannot measure the ultimate outcome (sales) with a long sales cycle and be agile marketers. It takes too long and there are not enough sales to provide meaningful insight into each element of a program. We have to select metrics that have sufficient volume and are available quickly as proxies for our long-term objective, sales and revenue.

The following framework is a useful starting place, [Read more…]

Ad Networks, Exchanges and … B2B?

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Ad networks and exchanges are not just for consumer marketers. There are opportunities for B2B marketers to cost effectively add ad networks and exchanges to online advertising campaigns, increasing reach and cost efficiency. And with the emergence of self-service platforms, even marketers with small budgets can test adding these to programs.

Here are three opportunities every B2B marketer should at least consider.

Retargeting
Retargeting allows you to reach people again that visited your site but did not register. If you already have a way to nurture contacts that you don’t have a lot of information about, you know how to use retargeting. The difference is that your message is reaching people that may be earlier in the buying process (they were not willing to give up their information yet), but they already looked at your content. These are your highest value anonymous prospects, [Read more…]