Archive for December, 2009
Recession-busting efficiency for your marketing
Dec 21st
When time and money are in short supply, efficiency is the name of the game, and nothing has done more to increase marketing efficiency than the internet. These are the top 3 technologies that I have found most effective in getting more bangs out of the marketing budget – and why.
1) Web Analytics
With some investment in the initial setup, it’s amazing what you can learn from web analytics – and how much wastage you can eliminate. The best free service is Google Analytics. It can tell you how much interest you get from each marketing campaign, how many sales, and how much revenue. With Google Analytics I managed to halve our spend on pay per click advertising, and improve results from other types of marketing as well.
2) Email
Using email, it is as quick and almost as cheap to reach 10,000 prospects as 100. Email is highly scalable; and because the call to action can be as simple as clicking a link, response rates are significantly higher than with direct mail or print advertising, and more immediate. It’s also very easy to incentivise a response by using a special offer that is triggered simply by clicking a link in the email.
3) XML Feeds
Publishing data in XML (or ‘RSS’) format enables you to multiply the delivery at no extra cost. You can display the same information automatically on your web site, on social networking sites like Facebook, and even on Twitter. You can submit it to Google Base, ensuring that it gets spidered by Google and any links in it get indexed. And you can publish it using services like AddThis and Feedburner, so that clients and prospects can follow it via their news readers or personal home pages.
What are your top efficiency-inducing technologies?
Bruce Townsend, online marketing expert at ecommerce & EPOS supplier, Actinic
Android crashes the smartphone party – will it push Apple out?
Dec 17th
Android is quickly gaining in the popularity stakes, but can it even come close to the success of Apple’s iPhone?
Consumer awareness of Google’s Android is growing rapidly, due in large part to the Verizon Droid ad campaign in the US.
Further, of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone, 17% are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20% indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone.
Last week on UTalkMarketing, we revealed that the new Android handset is expected to become more popular than Apple’s iPhone, according to exclusive research from OneNewsPage.com.
Asked, ‘Will the new version of Android beat the iPhone?’, 77% of readers said yes, while just 23% disagreed.
The statistics show that despite Apple’s growing popularity, it might finally be losing its luster as new competition enters the market.
Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile, said, “With handsets on multiple carriers, from multiple manufacturers, and numerous Android device models expected to be in the U.S. market by January, the Android platform is rapidly shaking up the smartphone market.
“While the iPhone continues to set the bar with its App Store and passionate user base, and RIM remains the leader among the business set, Android is clearly gaining momentum among developers and consumers.”
Although Android’s share of the smartphone market is relatively small, it has quickly doubled in the past year to 3.5% in October 2009.
Understanding the mobile media behaviour of Android users highlights why operators and media companies might embrace the platform and fuel its growth.
An analysis of mobile media consumption on smartphones revealed that users of both Apple and Android-supported devices were more likely to engage with mobile media than an average smartphone user.
Users of the Apple iPhone were most likely to consume mobile media, with 94% of users doing so in September 2009, while 92% of Android device users, predominantly T-Mobile G1 users, engaged in mobile media activities – 12% higher than an average smartphone user.
Apple and Android users are equally likely to engage with news via their browser and nearly identical in their mobile application engagement, according to comScore.
Email was the only major activity in which iPhone users (87% were far more likely to participate than Android users (63%).
Overall, Android users will behave more like iPhone users than other smartphone users giving some hope to Google and its endeavor into the mobile market next year. However, it is more bad news for BalckBerry and Nokia, which have already suffered declines this year following the launch of Apple’s 3G iPhone.
The question now is, is there room in the market for all four devices, or will older player be squeezed out?
Google’s Android platform has continued to gain awareness and has sparked interest this week by announcing a Google handset in the testing phases, but to be rolled out next year.
In August 2009, just 22% of mobile users had heard of the Android, while in November 2009 this figure had reached 37%, largely prompted by an advertising push launched in September. The comScore study found that not only is general awareness increasing about Android, but intent to purchase an Android-supported device is also increasing among mobile phone users.
When mobile users were asked in November which phone they planned to buy in the next three months, 17% said they planned to purchase an Android-supported device compared to 20% of respondents who said they planned to purchase an iPhone.
Has the iPhone lost its lustre?
Technology is a fickle market these days. Consumers have little loyalty and a very ‘gadget’ driven, keen to try out new devices and technologies – out with the old and in with the new is the attitude. We want the latest, up-to-date, ‘wow’ technology and we’re even more willing to ‘give it a go’. And with a brand name such as Google behind it, it’s no surprise the Android is participating success.
However, 21% of consumers are still planning to purchase an iPhone in the next three months. Remember, Apple is untouchable. For now.
Email versus Twitter – which has the best conversion rates?
Dec 17th
Email will not be defunct in 10 years, but either will social networks
Email generates 86% of all online sharing activity, making it the preferred consumer sharing method by far, while Facebook and Twitter are the next most preferred channels for sharing, but only represent a fraction of all activity.
So, that little statistic counters the mountains of research that has surfaced this year declaring that email marketing has been replaced by social networks.
Benchmark data from millions of sharing activities on the StrongMail Influencer platform has identified email and blogs as most effective social channels for direct marketing conversions.
Sharing online content via email generates the highest conversion rates, while Twitter is the most effective channel for extending reach, according to the December 2009 “Social Influence Benchmark Report “, released today.
However, according to Q3 2009 data, while email dominates the sharing activity, each email shared by an influencer only generates 0.41 additional clicks.
Conversely, sharing via Twitter generates more than 18 clicks per post, which translates into a 1,837% click-through rate versus 41% for email.
This impressive click-through rate firmly establishes Twitter as the most effective channel for amplifying a marketer’s program across the social web.
Peer-to-peer emails generate a 36.8% conversion rate, compared to just 3% for Facebook. Conversions from Twitter programs remain very low, but trends within the data suggest growth in Q4 2009.
Embedded links for sharing via web pages and blogs turned in the second highest conversion percentage at 20.5%.
Read more here.
The analytical tools you need for your social media campaign
Dec 16th
Is this a new science or a new fad?
Social media sites make up at least half of the top 20 websites in most regions of the world, with Facebook this week being named the most searched for search term by Hitwise. However, this has left marketers that primarily judge the health of their brands in the online world by web statistics and click-through rates, in real need of rethinking their social media strategies.
Jennifer Major, Business Development Manager, Communications, Media and Entertainment Practice at business analytics company SAS UK, said, “We’ve seen the blunders big companies have made by not monitoring and, more importantly, not reacting intelligently and expeditiously to social upheaval in the digital space. In today’s current market, businesses and their reputations cannot afford to take any kind of hit.”
Through blogs, message boards, fan pages and the like, the internet is fast rebalancing the relationship between customers and companies, while social media networks, such as YouTube and Twitter, are giving consumers instant and, occasionally, very powerful ways to ’strike back’ and make their voices heard.
Companies from all industries have quickly realised the necessity to go where the conversation is going in order to remain relevant and pertinent to customers. Big companies, such as Ford, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola to name but a few, have recognised the need to use the internet and, more importantly, the rich vein of market intelligence that social media sites provide, to ‘listen’, monitor and, if need be, counteract any bad publicity these virtual – and viral – conversations might be generating in order to avoid a PR disaster.
There are a number of alternative social media analysis tools in the marketplace, but knowing which one is the right one your brand is key. Businesses are clearly spoilt for choice. Social media technology and techniques include web crawling APIs that collect keywords and free format text relating to specific criteria, text mining applications that analyze key concepts, features and even segments of common terms, as well as pattern matching, probabilistic modelling and sentiment analysis technologies that evaluate the information as positive, neutral or negative.
Such tools and techniques have been added to the product portfolios of an array of companies including internet/publishing/data mining/research/marketing organisations including the likes of Factiva, Motive Quest and Omniture, to keep on top of the social media game. Is this seemingly ‘Jack of all trade, Master of none’ approach to social media analysis a reliable one or should businesses wanting to monitor, measure and understand social media conversations opt for organisations with an expert analytic heritage at its core?
A combination of the above techniques can undoubtedly provide a richer and more contextual set of data than traditional keyword spotting tools – yet which is the best one to adopt? It is clear that there are companies out there that generally take a couple of different stances to analysing social media information – so it is important to note the distinctions, which will ultimately impact the relevance, reliability and validity a business might be looking for.
The simplest algorithms work by scanning keywords to categorise a statement as positive or negative based on simple binary analysis (‘love’ is good ‘hate’ is bad). However, such an approach fails to capture the subtleties that bring human language to life: irony, sarcasm, slang and other idiomatic expressions. Social media, which are by nature dynamic and based on unstructured forms of information, do not fit neatly into traditional database-driven analytics systems.
Sentiment Analysis is an important, but very hard to master, science and it is still in its infancy.
While it can be quite accurate it does not necessarily make the data valid or useful for making strategic decisions grounded in effective brand monitoring. Also when it comes to languages, things get more complex than simple tweet or text analysis, making success an even more elusive concept for sentiment analysis, where cultural differences – an American ‘quite’ would mean ‘very’ whereas an English ‘quite’ would refer to ‘not at all’ – and linguistics come into play – sinful isn’t always sinfully good chocolate.
Understanding social media is much more sophisticated and demands building in an analysis of sentiment. It is fair to assume that the added value promised from a company whose heritage isn’t a sophisticated analytical one, would not be equipped to analyze and provide as relevant results when translating finer linguistic nuances, cultural factors and the vagaries of human emotion, and might not help avoid what could be very damning social media comments.
In this fast-paced market, it is important to be able to review information in near real-time.Bringing all this data together – research, monitoring, sentiment analysis and other analytical capabilities – can start to provide the grand unified vision that overlays all relevant data sets for correlative analysis.
Only this way will we start to determine an ROI for social media campaigns – finding the meaning within the measurement is critical.
Forget SEO and PPC, display advertising is hot for 2010
Dec 15th
Google has made a number of acquisitions in the past month which it will next year be using to its full advantage as new players enter the search marketing war.
Online display advertising, viewed by many marketers as inefficient and time-consuming, has been a bit of a hard sell in recent years, but next year, Google is aiming to change all that.
Hundreds of thousands of advertisers use search advertising — short, highly relevant text ads alongside search results on Google and other search engines — to grow their businesses. Thanks to a decade of innovation, search advertising is an open platform that allows businesses to easily connect with customers.
But now, Google is expecting the “if you build it, they will come” model to pay off.
Display advertising, such as videos, images and interactive ads, connect users with products, services and ideas that interest them. For advertisers, display ads are vital in boosting awareness and sales. For websites and online publishers, they help fund investments in online content and the web services that we all use.
But with a multitude of display ad formats, and thousands of websites, it often takes thousands of hours for advertisers to plan and manage their display ad campaigns. With this complexity, lots of advertisers today just don’t bother, or don’t invest as much as they would like, which is why, for 2010, Google has made it a whole lot easier.
The search engine giant rolled out a new version of its DoubleClick ad exchange in September to open display ad buying to more marketers believing that if it could make it as easy as possible for people to buy display ads, the network can grow.
Display advertising is an important part of any digital marketing programme.
Marketers spent $7.7 billion (£4.7bn) on display ads in the US alone last year. Even though spending will be up 5% this year, according to marketing research company eMarketer, it’s still tiny compared to the search advertising market.
So far though, Google is only just get started when it comes to web display ads.
Improved display technology will make ads more appealing to web users and, therefore, more effective for more marketers. Google knows that advertisers, big and small, are looking for measurable results - and consumer data that will help them target potential customers.
And don’t forget about Google’s purchase of AdMob in November – the mobile ad service will let Google draw analysis from consumers’ phones, as well as their computers, and enable the company to provide insight on which display ads are most effective and which delivery formats perform best.
The AdMob buy and an October launch of Campaign Insights, a data compiling tool that helps marketers track how often consumers are searching for terms and which ads they click, is part of a broader strategy at Google.
It believes that by growing the display advertising pie, everyone will greatly enhance the web experience for advertisers, publishers, and ultimately users. But will display ever take over search…or social media?
Google’s Nexus One marks a new era for search giant
Dec 14th
Can Google crack the handset market too?
Google has been forced to confirm that it is currently testing out its own branded mobile handsets after rumours surfaced on the internet over weekend. A rare but strategic move for Google…can it possibly pay off though?
Dubbed the ‘Nexus One’ and made by smartphone maker HTC, the phone will run on the search giant’s Android operating system and will be sold online, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal.
Looks like Google is desperately trying to cling to its market share and internet monopoly as in the past few months, the search engine giant has announced a number of new products as competition from tech giant Microsoft heats up.
But, can Google be everything to everyone?
It’s one thing to be a leader in search – an area where Google has established itself as one of the most enterprising, innovative and ‘cool’ brands of the decade. But will consumers follow the brand through to its new endeavors?
There is no doubt that Apple’s iPhone will have little competition over the next year or so. It’s virtually pushed Nokia out of the market as its profits and sales dipped dramatically this year. Even BalckBerry is suffering declines as consumers are wooed to Apple by its ‘wow’ factor.
However, Google’s Android phones have won attention in the mobile industry lately, with Motorola and Sony Ericsson choosing to launch it with their new top models.
But perhaps Google isn’t after ‘world domination’ with this new venture. Analysts have said that the company is aiming to gain access to valuable consumer data that can be used to sell ads at premium prices. So perhaps Google is just going that one step further to confirm it is still the King of search engine marketing.
Producing its own phone would be seen as competing with its partners and would represent a rare venture by Google. By the time January comes around (when the launch is predicted) we’ll have a much clearer explanation as to why Google has chosen to go down this route. For now though, it seems like the giant is just looking to stay ahead – by any means possible.
Google’s Living Stories: free SEO, but no ad dollars
Dec 10th
Will news survive in the digital era? Google says yes, and has launched ‘Living Stories’ to prove that it isn’t the news industry’s enemy, but its friend.
The ‘to pay or not to pay’ for news content debate may rage on but what’s most exciting about this is that it makes online news a more appealing – and more commercially valuable commodity – that publishers could charge for.
Google says that what has often been overlooked in the ongoing debate about the future of news is the nature of the news story itself and the experience of how it is read online.
On its blog, Google said, “We believe it’s just as important to experiment with how news organizations can take advantage of the web to tell stories in new ways — ways that simply aren’t possible offline.”
Living Stories, in partnership with The News York Times and The Washington Post, is being tested through Google Labs and features new ways to interact with news online. (For more info read our news story here).
Living Stories takes a different approach to the way that news is traditionally presented and read, playing to certain unique advantages of online publishing. It unifies coverage on a single, dynamic page with a consistent URL and organizes information by developments in the story.
The software also knows where a user has clicked before by turning those stories a different shade of blue. “Living Stories automatically tracks user interactions with the story, helping users get the latest updates to the stories they’re following and sift through the coverage in novel ways,” says its blog.
Andreas Pouros, chief operating officer at search marketing agency Greenlight, believes that Google has essentially found a way to try and bring publishers on-side by offering them free SEO, and what in his view, would appear to be a win-win situation for all involved.
“This marks a significant collaboration between Google and some major heavyweights in the publishing industry,” he says.
But of course only time will tell of which approach will gain the most traction.
Money, honey?
Google thinks Living Stories can help newspapers adapt to a shift that is causing millions of people to get their news from online sources instead of print. But that’s a huge problem for newspapers because they make most of their money from ads appearing in print.
Even though the Living Stories page design follows the usual Google template – simple layout, plenty of white space for potential online advertising – the search engine giant has no plans to show ads during the experiment.
Is there anything besides ad placement in Living Stories that could open up a new revenue stream for money-starved media outlets? Not as far as we can see. Will Living Stories be a viable solution to save the media industry? I am thinking ‘no’.
Facebook privacy tools launched. Now the backlash begins.
Dec 10th
Is Facebook really handing over control of privacy to its users? That’s the social network’s stance with the launch of new tools.
Users welcomed their new lease of empowerment with open arms but some quarters are verging on the side of caution claiming the move simply allows Google to wipe their hands of future problems.
“Let’s get one thing straight: Facebook is forcing users to choose their new privacy options to promote the Everyone update, and to clear itself of any potential wrongdoing going forward,” said Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch.
“If there is significant backlash against the social network, it can claim that users willingly made the choice to share their information with everyone.”
He adds, “That’s why there are all of these notifications informing users about what these privacy features do. And it’s why there’s now a Privacy Center.
“The vast majority of users will ignore this information the same way 80% of them have ignored privacy settings in the first place. But Facebook will still be able to claim that it did its best to get their informed consent.”
Kincaid’s claims have been backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“These new “privacy” changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.,” said the Foundation.
Kincaid went on to predict future problems with prospective employers stumbling over Facebook users’ potentially sensitive information.
He added that problems would be compounded when Facebook starts sharing status updates with the search engines and other third parties.
“Bing will be getting access to Facebook ‘Everyone’ status updates in early 2010. Google will only have access to Fan Pages at first, but don’t be surprised if they cough up the cash for access to the status updates too,” he wrote.
“In other words, if users do wind up sharing far more than they intended to, Facebook can’t do much to repair the damage.”
The bottom line. Will usage of the site diminish? Kincaid doesn’t predict this will happen.
But the private nature of the site – which made it popular in the first place – has now gone.
How Dell continues to use social media and make money from it
Dec 9th
Just how does Dell contiue to come up with winning social media strategies?
Dell has hit the jackpot with social media once more it would seem, generating some £37.5bn in revenue last year and £35bn the year before, with £3.9m attributed to having used Twitter as a marketing tool. But how did they do it?
On Monday, UTalkMarketing reported that tweeters are actually making money from Twitter following an exclusive poll conducted on behalf of OneNewsPage.com. One such brand is Dell. Always has been actually.
It’s certainly interesting that Dell pays enough attention to the social media space that it can accurately track the sales leads generated by services like Twitter.
It is also worth noting that the company describes Twitter as a “very vibrant channel for us and it’s growing aggressively.”
The number of users signing up to get Dell’s tweets has risen 23% in the past three months and now numbers 1.5 million, Manish Mehta, vice president of Dell’s online unit told Bloomberg.
More than 100 employees send out the tweets over 35 different channels. The million dollar figure is what has been generated since the inception of these efforts about two years ago.
But let’s face it – and this is what everyone else is saying too – £3.9m is not the kind of number that makes Dell a massive success since Dell is a £37.5bn company. But it must be said that the brand is certainly determined to continue down this social media route. And good on them - it certainly worked for me.
Dell reaches Twitter users in 12 countries, including the UK, US, Brazil, Mexico, China and Japan.
Now we can expect that the industry will continue to show off Dell as an example of Twitter generating revenue.
Dell provides possibly the best case study of how a company has successfully integrated social media into its marketing communications and culture.
What makes the ‘Dell story’ so compelling isn’t how the company is utilising social media now, but rather how Dell’s workers are so on top of their game after having such a horrible start.
We all know about ‘Dell Hell’, and Dell’s infamous ‘we don’t respond to bloggers’ reply to the blogging firestorm that Jeff Jarvis unleashed on his blog in response to what he felt was so really bad customer service from Dell.
Since that time back in 2005, Dell has gone from cautiously entering the blogosphere to completely embracing bloggers.
At its lowest point in 2006, Dell calculated at least 50% of the online conversation about Dell was negative. Today, Dell calculates the negative online conversation percentage number has been reduced to 23%.
Want to know how to do it too?
Dell’s Social Media Goals:
1. Enter into conversations with customers everyday in every major language
2. Address any form of customer dissatisfaction head-on knowing that not everything will be solved and some of Dell’s weaknesses will be exposed
4. Encourage “crowd sourcing” as the next step in listening to customers
5. Use video to personalise the Dell story
Tech gets dedicated Wiki treatment Intel style
Dec 8th
Wikpedia has revolutionised the way we receive and create information. That’s a fact.
Since its creation in 2001, the site has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference web sites, attracting around 65 million visitors monthly as of 2009.
Here come the stats. There are more than 85,000 active contributors working on more than 14,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages. As of today, there are 3,118,493 articles in English.
But that’s not good enough for some people.
Intel has launches an online encyclopaedia dedicated to all things Tech called ‘Tech Wiki’ (Can they do that? Copyright infringement?).
The technology information hub works pretty much like the Wiki Granddaddy. Users can post anecdotes, edit contributions and connect technologies (through an interactive timeline) from the past, present and future.
Whether or not it will take off remains to be seen. Why bother when Wiki itself has comprehensive Tech coverage and content?
And when a brand hosts a project like this, when happens when competitors start posting? Or negative Intel posts are created.
See some problems, folks?
Still Team Intel are hoping the project – currently in Beta stage – will catch the imagination of the public.
Stories that are submitted will form an interactive timeline where people can quickly navigate long periods of history and zoom in on the era that interests them.
Clusters of technology stories from that era will appear like constellations on the timeline. If a user moves their mouse over a ‘star’ it will expands the entry to reveal the subject and a click will open the full article on the web page.
The site can also be used to discuss the convergence of technologies from past, present and future innovations with like minded people.
One to watch? Or not? We’ll have to see how this one pans out.
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