Something Fresh

Here lately I think most marketers feel like their battles are all uphill. The economy is down, the cost of living up, and demand for products is disappearing (unless you're Budweiser of course). So what's an ad agency to do?

Work harder? Sure, that's a given. Work smarter? Hopefully, but some of us are more capable than others. Even with this approach though, it really comes down to how much of your efforts really shine through to a client when times are tough.

Across the spectrum agencies and marketing budgets are getting dropped like flies, but as a direct response agency, I've always felt we've got the distinct advantage of being able to show the empirical truth for every dollar our clients spend. That said, sometimes it's a little more evident than others. With this in mind, I'd like to share a little mini case study on one of the biggest suggestions we're making to our accounts... keep your marketing fresh!

Instead of putting what money you have into media spend and cutting production costs, I would recommend almost the exact opposite. Of course don't cut your media entirely, but find the right mix so your buy is optimized. Then follow it up with strong messaging on a regular basis.

Last month, we A/B tested new creative for a client against an old "standby" ad they've been running. Their approach was simple. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Ours was the opposite. We can do better. Here's what we found out...

• A 39% lift in clickthroughs for the new creative
• 53% more leads generated through new messaging
• A 28% decrease in their overall cost per lead
• A 200% increase in sales
• And finally, a 63% reduction in their overall cost per sale

Anyone up for some new creative?

Marketing/Media Plan for 2013

I think everyone is in agreement that 2008 ended horribly, and 2009 is starting off with longer lines at the unemployment office than at Disney these days (FYI unemployment office workers – Disney started a “fast pass” program a number of years ago that is awesome – you may want to consider it for 09). Every morning my inbox is filled with 10% layoff notices at this agency and that agency, and everyone on the OldTimers List and my Twitter is networking and appealing to the masses. So how are companies going to survive 2009? Well – if you haven’t figured that out already, chances are you’re not going to – so let’s move on.

I sat in on a great strategy and recap session yesterday between our account services team and the client themselves. The client was asking how they could catch up to their number one competitor who had dominated their industry. We just started with them in September and we’ve already hit a lot of their goals and expectations, but we’re playing catch-up to their competitor, and so the point was brought up by our media team for the client to start thinking ahead. We’ll worry about planning and executing for 2009 and make it a success – but what is going to differentiate them in the future. How are we going to get ahead and have their competition trying to figure out what hit them?

The most common theme brought up was mobile and new applications such as iPhones that make desktops a thing of the past. According to a new study by Parks Associates published on Media Post there will be more than 140 million US consumers paying for mobile broadband services in 2013. I personally have used my laptop for maybe 5 things since getting my iPhone in November. So if your website isn’t currently mobile enabled at the very least – now’s the time to be doing it. Then starting to look at technologies such as the iPhone where it registers as a web browser rather than a mobile device, and it doesn’t yet accept flash… So you need to take that into account – but understand that in the future flash will be there – so don’t spend millions now to only have to change it later. Road map your audience by age category and target usage, and build your mobile site appropriately.

The key to your success is still going to be knowing who your audience is and what marketing principles have worked in the past. Saving yourself from the grey hairs (and unemployment lines) is going to come with aligning yourself with the right partner who understands all of the changing technologies and can guide you through the process.

New Year’s Resolutions in Interactive for the CMO

A few weeks ago I sat and watched with great interest at the Internet Summit a panel of venture capitalists as they gave their forecasts for when the economy would turn around. There were 4 panelists, and their answers started out with 12 months, 18 months, 24 months… And then it got to the last person, and I could kick myself for not remembering who he was… “I have no idea” was his response.

Finally! It is ok to admit that nobody knows… So why is everyone so intent on trying to guess what 2009 will bring for Madison Avenue? After 13+ years in this industry, you’d think that I’d understand that it’s just the “big guns” trying to sound intelligent, and the reality is all of us in the trenches who are actually defining the industry are still focusing on delivering tangible results for our clients. So with that in mind, I’ve created a New Year’s Resolution list for Chief Marketing Officers everywhere (regardless of whether ad spend in 2009 will go up or down in each channel):

Test something new: I still believe 20% of your budget should be set aside to test new campaigns, technologies, solutions, etc… And by “new” – it can be something that is simply new to you – you don’t always have to be the first out the door launching your new Facebook Connect campaign. But if you know text ads work for you, maybe give SMS ads a try in a controlled environment. Just keep testing, as people’s wants and needs are changing every day - so too should your testing.

Marketing through Search: Yes – I say this a lot… It is Search Engine MARKETING – so test different products on different keywords, test pricing and discounts, test in-store promotions… Some of you that stayed awake in Marketing 101 are starting to hear some familiar P’s… Don’t lose track of what got your company where you are today. Search is the medium - marketing is how you use it.

Set Your Metrics: This goes without saying – right? Well knowing your metrics and dictating your marketing to hitting them while keeping a good marketing mix are a lot more difficult than you may think. That being said, if you know that your product retails at $20, and you need a COGS of $10 to be profitable, make sure you have a media campaign set up as a whole that will accomplish that. Don’t judge one medium independently of another. Even though interactive may appear to be the cheapest, there are offline occurrences that affect your online campaigns.

Own Social Media: The words social media seem to now be what “emerging” media was 2 years ago… A catch all for everything you don’t understand. Grasp the areas of social media that are relevant to you. Set up Google Alerts on your company name, your competitors, etc… Own your online reputation. Set up a Twitter account for your company, set up a LinkedIn account for your company… These are all free tools that are available for you to communicate with your customer. If you find they’re not working (make sure you review your site analytics before you make that judgment), then move on. But allow your customers to interact with you in the way they want to… You need to own Social Media – not let it own you.

Happy New Year CMO’s!

Interactive Media Education: Value of the View-Through

In the last couple of weeks, I have talked to agencies and clients alike about the value of how Microsoft's Atlas utilizes Engagement Mapping and MediaPlex' MOJO utilizes Path to Conversion. Both products are fantastic, and they help you establish the number of online touch points it takes from start to finish of a conversion cycle (among many other things of course). But when I try and talk to people about it in "plain English", I find myself referencing View-Through Data - which seems to instantly draw a red flag.

For those of you relatively new to the industry, it might not conjure up negative connotations, but for those of you that have been in interactive media for a few years, it probably takes you back to the early days of publishers claiming credit for everything. A great example is when you are running ads on an ad network like Advertising.com that has approx. 90% internet market penetration, and at the same time you are running ads on a search engine. When an ad is displayed by advertising.com, a cookie is instantly set and when the conversion happens, that cookie pings the ad server letting it know a conversion has happened. If the ad was only served, and not clicked on - it is considered a view-through conversion. The problem is, the last click may have occurred on the search engine you were running on, and now your publisher (advertising.com) is taking claim for a conversion and your search engine is taking claim for a conversion - but you only have one conversion. So naturally, the view through got discounted in the past and was instantly labeled a black sheep.

Jumping at least 14 years ahead (FYI - Internet years are the equivalent of dog years), the view through still has a negative connotation, and when I speak to people about it now - they immediate stop me and say "oh no - I'm not paying for view through conversions again!" The reality is - a view through is just another metric that helps me do my job better. If we know that 12 people viewed your ad on Yahoo and eventually converted on a google search term - then we know our ads were targeting the correct people - but the offer just didn't immediately resonate to the "buy" mode. That being said, we have started to compile frequency data through the help of our ad servers that let us know exactly how many view-through's or touch points it takes our clients to convert an offer.

Imagine if you knew that it took your ad being displayed 12 times before someone actually purchased your product or service. You could tweak your messaging and work to get that down to 6 times, and essentially cut your advertising costs in half. Then imagine if you were able to insert an offline ad right after your first touchpoint... Imagine what your media mix could do if it all worked together seamlessly!

So before you cringe when I talk about view-through's... Just know that like everything, the view-through has evolved as well, and its making our job of defining the media mix all that much more enjoyable.

Search Strategy for a Struggling Economy

Search Engine Marketing – for all of the hype (and rightfully so) – is finally being affected by the economy. Although we still consider it the best converting online platform, we are definitely seeing the indirect results of clients pulling back budgets. We’re seeing it easier to spend a lot of money. We’re seeing conversion rates slipping a little. And best of all – we’re seeing clients moving more money to search in hopes of a strong end to the year.

Without going into a long explanation about how search is not a stand-alone medium, I wanted to simply explain a changing strategy that we’re implementing here at Media Two that could save a lot of others money and headaches. Get back to the basics.

We’re getting back to manually changing ads out in the engines. Regrouping keywords into appropriate ad groups that have ads that match the content . Lowering our bids on keywords. Limiting the keywords we’re bidding on. And most importantly, turning off the bid managers. Why? Because we’re after the short-tail conversion.

The value in the long-tail conversion goes without saying, but in a time where clients are cutting back Broadcast, Print and everything that doesn’t answer to the bottom line, search engines can start to jumpstart a clients marketing again when focusing on the short-tail. Think of it in these terms… The long tail terms are still being bid on because of the eventual value. But with overall marketing budgets being cut, if an agency or client doesn’t scale back on these, then they’ll start to be short on budgets. This shortfall on budgets is the perfect supply and demand equation for a client that focuses their time and effort on the here and now.

I’m not saying that cutting off your conversion funnel is the right thing to do, but let’s face it – these are tough economic times and when the client dictates that you spend less and convert more – you need to focus on what will give the client the biggest bang for the buck right now. Once you’ve proven that this philosophy works, there will then be more marketing dollars to expand on your strategy. But right now – stay focused on cutting your costs, and maximizing your conversions.

Everybody's Doing It, Why Aren't You?

I have been thinking recently about Media Two Interactive, our current clients and future clients. This reflection involved me asking "What Advertiser Would I Want to Work With", as well as, "Who Do I Think Media Two Can Help" take their business to the next level. It is somewhat the same question, but there is a difference. I was able to put together a solid Top 10 list of companies that I would love to help grow their business online. This list read like the "Hobbies and Interest" section of some online dating site (Interests - Golf, Fitness and Wellness, Technology, Long Walks O... ok, not that). So, if anyone from ClubCorp happens to stumble across this blog, call me! We could do great things in the online space, as two of my passions come together, Online Marketing and Golf.

As for the second question, Who Can Media Two Help? That's simple, any advertiser who is not spending the industry average of 10% of their marketing budget on the Internet. The trends speak for themselves (Online Ad Spending Should Grow 20% in 2008). Online ad spending has already surpassed Radio in the overall marketing mix (Internet to Surpass Radio in 2008), and will soon leap Magazine advertising. The time is now to get onboard.

Maybe you handle your online marketing in-house or maybe your longtime agency handles your "one-off" online initiatives. That's fine, but if you marketing mix doesn't include a 10 - 20% budget allocation to online marketing, then you're a candidate for expanded efforts. With one of our most successful clients, Media Two grew their online budget from less than 1% in 2006 to 49% in Q3 2008. I think that's worth repeating. 49% of the total marketing budget went to online in Q3. So, jump on in, the water feels great!