Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

July 23, 2015 · 10:22 am

Stirring With A Fork

One of the things I work on with clients is using the appropriate tools to solve their needs.  We also focus on using those tools in the right way, which means using the right tool in the right manner to solve the issue.  Failing to do so is the equivalent of stirring a big pot of soup with a fork.  Sure, you can sort of get things mixed up that way but there are more appropriate tools (a spoon) that are better suited for the task and which will result in a better, more efficient result.

I thought of that as I read the report on a study by Regalix.  They surveyed senior B2B marketers to understand current trends in social media marketing and the challenges faced by them in implementing a social media strategy.  While much of the data showed progress, certain results made me raise an eyebrow.  Let’s see what you think.

According to the study, 94% respondents choose increasing brand awareness as the key objective of their social media marketing efforts.  I find that interesting since many of these same marketing types denigrate the use of banners as being only suited to raising awareness and their focus is more on generating click-throughs and other direct actions.  Frankly, there are other tools more suited to the awareness task as well.  I wholeheartedly agree with this point, made in the Research Brief report on the study:

Given the power of social media to engage with customers, it is surprising to find brand awareness overwhelmingly top the list of key objectives, says the report. Perhaps, opines the report, a reflection of the fact that most organizations still largely use social media as a broadcast or advertising medium, and not as much for meaningfully engaging with customers.

Exactly, and there is our fork stirring the pot.  If all you’re doing is switching the megaphone from broadcast media to social, it’s unlikely that you’re going to have much, if any, success. How do you think you’re going to generate actionable insights from social data when you’re doing very little to engage your audience? 71% of organizations said they were either not able to measure the ROI of their social media campaigns or were not sure how to. Only 29% said they were able to measure it.  That’s not surprising since there probably hasn’t been much to measure given the inappropriate manner in which they’re using the social channels.

I have nothing against forks, but I never use them to stir the pot.  You?

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July 22, 2015 · 11:41 am

Plans Etched In Sand

So, marketing compatriots. Let me ask you: what are you plans for MySpace this year? Or Orkut? What role does Friendster play in your brand strategy? While you may be giggling about the ridiculousness of those questions, you might have taken them quite seriously a few years ago. As an aside, I remember that when I met with the MySpace folks at the height of their popularity I was surprised both by the outrageous demands they were making and by their refusal to acknowledge that nothing seems to last forever in the digital world.  Oops.

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The business planning cycle tends to begin at budget time and if you’re a media or marketing person you’re often asked for a fairly detailed plan of attack.  I always prefaced my presentation with a broad disclaimer.  “What I am presenting is accurate and true for right now but I can’t promise you that it will be the best plan of attack in a month and certainly not in six months.  I can live with the budget requests I am making but please allow me flexibility with respect to the channels and media we use.”  Most of my bosses were great about that.

There is no way a social media plan you’ve developed a year prior is accurate. As with the examples above, circumstances change.  While I don’t believe most companies can support a major presence on EVERY platform which emerges, I do believe that it’s important to be aware of all of them and to test.  It’s really OK to cross-post great content every so often! Those tests need to be done with your key performance indicators in mind, and if an emerging platform doesn’t give you the ability to measure them, it’s probably not worth your time.  What’s very important is not to dismiss anything as “a fad” or “for kids.”  Remember that Facebook began as something for college kids and once it opened up the brands that were early adopters had an advantage (well, at least they did until Facebook destroyed a brand’s ability to engage their fans easily without paying).

The message today: don’t follow the plan; let the plan follow your customers.  Those plans should be etched in sand and not in stone.  Are yours?

 

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July 20, 2015 · 10:58 am

The Broken Business Model

I’ve written before about ad blocking and all of the business questions it raises.  Those questions are most directly asked about the business model in media, but they might also involve your business as well.  After all, when the basis of your revenue model involves getting consumers to do something which they really don’t want to do, maybe it’s time for some more thinking.

The media business has been built on a business model that involves a trade: the consumer gets content in return for giving up their attention.  In the digital world, they provide data along with that attention.  The flaw right out of the box with this is that publishers tell users that their content is free, or at least they do nothing to discourage that belief.  When a consumer adds ad blocking software to their browser, they do so to create a better browsing experience.  They probably don’t realize that they’re breaking the business model; they just want pages to load faster or not to be interrupted by pop-ups, screen takeovers, or any of the other ad formats that scream at them instead of talking with them.  Some publishers have tried either a subscription or “freemium” model which eliminates the ads, but consumers haven’t responded.  Instead, many sites are seeing up to 60% of the ads they serve being blocked.  This, clearly, is broken.

What to do?  I’d be lying if I said I knew.  I’d start by using something on my site that sniffs for ad blocking and maybe redirect anyone who uses it to a page where we explain why the ads are necessary.  At least it makes the value exchange explicit.  Will consumers care?  Will they make a small donation?  Will they buy a subscription?  Some will, and that’s a step in the right direction.  I don’t think the nuclear option of refusing to serve content to anyone using an ad blocker is smart.

Maybe hard code the ads (build them into the page instead of serving them via an external call).  They can’t block something that’s part of the page and appears to be content to a blocker.  Way more work on the administrative end, but effective.  I don’t know what to do about page load times, another key annoyance caused by ads.  When an ad-free page loads in under a second and the external ad and tracking calls add up to 10 seconds to the load time, there is a problem.

Any business model has to provide something of value to the customer.  In this case, the site’s customers are advertisers and the products are consumers.  Unfortunately, the consumers are not cooperating and the product is in trouble.  Any thoughts on how we fix this?

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