Matt's Marketing Digest

Transparency has come of age, but can it go too far?

Autumn is upon us and it’s at times like this that I like to reflect on the big stories of our year. One of the biggest has to be the expenses scandal, and what a clanger that one turned out to be for our political serfs. Without trawling the details of the scandal, which the media did so well, it raised one fundamental point...

 

Out of all the debacle of those months and preposterous expense claims from those politicians who are supposed to exercise the moral authority, I can see one clear benefit where business is concerned. And that relates unequivocally to the issue of transparency and more significantly, its importance in today’s business world.

 

Transparency is a core value and always has been at Media Safari. It is defined not just through the way we interact with clients, the media, suppliers, partners and staff, but also in the way we clearly demonstrate detailed activity in reporting. Clients know, month-in, month-out, where their investment is going and what they are getting for it. I obviously hope then that more businesses will pick up on what is, and should now be considered, a normal practice.

 

It is interesting to note that in this week’s Conservative Party conference, the Shadow Chancellor has taken the lesson of transparency to new heights (in political spheres at least) by announcing big spending cuts that particularly target the public sector, tax credit cuts and a rise in the retirement age. In so doing, he is taking a big political gamble as the electorate suddenly realise that new political mandates, from whatever corner, are going to hurt.

 

Sure, this is honesty but is it a wise strategy to appeal to an already sceptical electorate?

 

Only time will tell…

Digital Britain? Digital donkey more like...

This is interesting. The BBC today reports that the UK ranks 25th out of 66 countries in terms of the quality and reach of its networks.

The research by Cisco also found that “countries such as Latvia and Bulgaria were better prepared than the UK for next generation net applications.”

This is not just about being ready to meet today’s needs, but about being prepared for future needs; and when you consider high speed broadband issues to meet the needs of high definition TV or video on demand, suddenly the term ‘room for improvement’ looks very real.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8282839.stm

Power To The People - Bring on Digital Britain!

I have just been on a speaking tour of the Baltic States with brief stays in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Whilst there are many things about these places that warrant recommendation as desirable travel destinations, there’s one thing that sets them apart, and puts them leagues ahead of the UK. And that's FREE Wi-Fi for everyone, everywhere.

If digital is all about collaboration, connection, relationships and engagement, what better way to embrace the community than by connecting it? In these places, pretty much everywhere you go, you’ll find a free Wi-Fi network – this is a truly networked world. The result is that no matter where you are, or what you’re doing, you can connect and get hold of the information that you need and share it with others. 

I don’t think I ever saw the value in this until I experienced it. Sitting at various destinations in the UK and around the world, it’s one of those things you wish you had, but get used to not having. Then someone comes along and permanently connects your laptop to the World Wide Web, and hey presto, it becomes a living thing with endless, productive potential.

"Digital Britain is about giving the country the tools to succeed and lead the way in the economy of the future,” says our PM. It is about a connected communications infrastructure, greater digital participation and increased distribution of digital content. It has ambitious objectives and wide reaching implications that will benefit everyone.  

So join the debate here http://digitalbritainforum.org.uk/ and let’s get connected!

 

 

 

Email Marketing - What's wrong with 'Batch and Blast'?

Email is giving marketing a bad name.

 

Yes, it’s cheap, yes it can be interactive and targeted. And yes, it can deliver more bottom line results than any other marketing method. When it comes to prospect conversion, increasing customer retention and building loyalty, it is virtually unsurpassable.

 

When you know what you are doing and can be bothered to do it.

 

The trouble is with email is that it is cheap. That’s one of the main reasons marketers use it and the main reason it gets abused. Subscriber boxes are overflowing with permission based email that is irrelevant. Because the use of it doesn’t cost the earth, the same email is blasted to everyone with no time, reason or interest if the customer responds. It’s one frantic campaign after another….sales down, send another… until some poor sod is caught in the unrelenting cross fire…

 

Clearly this no longer performs.

 

Most are now ignoring the emails (research proves it) which deflates the efforts to build the relationship and drive sales. Average open rates have fallen from 19% in 2005 to 13% in 2008. This has led to the much wiser principal of ‘farming,’ back to the good old days of data driven marketing, CRM, relationship marketing, when we had to make difficult decisions because of rising postal costs.

 

This week I am delivering a key note speech on email marketing at Best Marketing’s annual marketing conferences in the Baltic States. But if you’d like to read more, check out a book which provides a good insight into ‘Successful Email Marketing Strategies – From Hunting to Farming’ by Hughes and Sweetser.

 

http://www.best-marketing.com/index.php?lang=est&main_id=83

Media Safari has moved office

This will partly explain my extended absence from updating my blog… it has been a busy few months arranging an office move… But now I’m back after a brief vacation.

 

The fact is that the owners of our last building went into administration so it forced us into an office move that we hadn’t planned on in the imminent future. Gladly though, we found a new office very close to our last place which happens to be much better. Every cloud and all that…

 

So our new details are:

Media Safari

Beehive Yard

Walcot Street

Bath BA1 5BT

+44 (0)1225 471202

Episodes, Webisodes and Mobisodes – Is this the year of the mobile?

Apple recently reached the magic number of 1 billion downloads in just 9 months on its App Store in a campaign called A billion Thanks.

 

Whilst we can’t dispute the magnitude of this number, it does suggest a wider resonation of our increased and almost common place consumption of mobile technology and content.

 

With the launches of new phones like the iPhone and Backberry’s Storm, there seems to be an increased tendency to consume media via a mobile device, as opposed to a fixed one.

 

In an article in The Telegraph’s Technology section on Saturday 18th April, I also read an interesting piece on how in Japan television drama created especially for phones is becoming big business.

 

“They differ to television episodes by being simpler, with short scripts, less movement and closer shooting to make the impact on the phones stronger,” said the CEO of Voltage, a Tokyo-based production company that makes lots of soap operas for download to mobile.

 

These soaps are broken down into 5 minute downloadable edisodes or mobisodes and are targeted at 13-25 yr old women. As Japan is frequently cited as the epicentre of global electronic trends, we should look out to see if this will take off here. You never know.

 

Closer to home, downloadable books and blogging could well be the next big things on mobile. Looking at my own behaviour, I’d say Twitter is perhaps the most likely recipient of my mobile tappings, a form of micro-blogging that is a very close relation to SMS. With 160 characters it is short but has the capacity to talk to a much bigger audience… handy!

 

Does online advertising work?

A recent quote from an individual at online business at Microsoft got me thinking…

 

“Digital today is the context for all consumer behaviour; our presence in this environment doesn’t define us because it’s increasingly assumed. For the first time in advertising’s history, those practising it can no longer buy an audience; instead they have to find ways to connect to individuals.”

Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business, Microsoft

(Source Contagiousmagazine.com 17/03/09)

 

The idea of buying an audience defined largely by OTS and OTH is without doubt becoming more difficult. A multitude of reasons has contributed to the weakening of the traditional (offline) marketing model where a big budget would effectively drown out competitor noise leading to market domination.

 

But traditional media is still totally valid for broad reach and generating awareness. However, the online or digital medium is about creating depth of understanding, generating deeper engagement with end users where organisations can seek to leverage the digital toolset to connect and build meaningful relationships.

 

Which leads to the question, does online advertising work?

 

Well the latest article on Adotas seems to suggest it does. “Forrester predicts interactive online advertising, display, email, mobile, search, and social media, will experience a 17 percent compound annual growth rate, totaling almost $55 billion in spending over the next seven years.” If this prediction is to be believed online advertising spend will dramatically increase but this doesn’t necessarily mean it will work…

 

I believe the answer lies in two main areas: Digital toolset mapping and creative execution.

 

Simply using targeted interactive advertising on its own is missing the fundamental benefits of the digital environment. Traditional media needs to seamlessly link with its digital counterpart, where online ads seek to reinforce the message and reveal a new part of the story. The online ads will then link with the other tools in the digital toolset creating a homogenous journey from unawareness to awareness, awareness to comprehension and so on. 

 

Experience tells me that online ads in isolation won’t instantly translate into sales (awareness to purchase in one step) and will leave marketers wondering what went wrong. But weaving online ads into a creative and engaging journey that links the traditional and digital landscapes together will lead to improved results.

Improving results by effective use of the digital toolset

The tool bag of digital media available to marketers is steadily growing. With ever richer sources of media (e.g. streaming video and vodcasts), micro-blogging facilities such as Twitter and social bookmarking sites like digg and delicious, you’d be forgiven for not knowing which tool to use when and why.

 

Just as in any campaign that utilises the mix of traditional media, the use of digital media needs to be coordinated in such a way as to ensure the delivery of the right message at the right time. The commonly accepted marketing funnel is now under heavy attack from user generated content which distracts your end user into online conversations and collaborations. All the while, removing the impetus usually commanded by those with bigger marketing budgets.

 

As users pass more free-time online, spending more time talking to each other, organisations need to seek new ways to connect and work with their customers online. The traditional media mix has increasingly limited reach; and with massive potential for creating a deeper sense of engagement in the digital environment, getting your digital mix right, is crucial.

 

In a concept that I have now come to call digital toolset mapping, the effective use of digital media can be enhanced by using the appropriate tool at the appropriate time in the funnel. If we define the funnel as something along the lines of AIDA to be awareness, comprehension, trial, purchase, repeat purchase and loyalty, each stage requires a distinct tool to help and accompany the customer’s journey through the funnel.

 

By way of example, viral videos (check out ‘Will it blend’ on Youtube) and social media sites are great for generating awareness. When combined with other tactics (subscription to a newsletter as in the case with the ‘Greg the Architect’ videos on Youtube) it can help to move users onto the next stage in the funnel (understanding and comprehension).

 

Having used certain tactics to generate awareness and in the process gather customer contact details, the use of mobile and email can then generate trial and sales. Finally, a wiki might then be used to develop loyalty (see www.taxalmanac.com from Intuit – this is the USA's 20th most popular wiki) to encourage users to converse and collaborate with other customers, with your brand as the central platform for that discussion.

 

I am currently running a digital marketing workshop for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and certain corporate clients on Effective Digital Campaigns where we run through this concept in detail. If you’d like to know more, drop me a line.

Review: 'Crowdsourcing – How the power of the crowd is driving the future of business'

Crowdsourcing – Jeff Howe

What is Crowdsourcing you might ask? It is essentially the ‘act of taking a job traditionally performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people.' Or more specifically, it is the concept that labour can often be organised more efficiently in the context of community, than it can in the context of a corporation.

 

Jeff Howe sets out a convincing argument for the case of crowdsourcing, one that is well supported by many good examples already well known to the digital marketing community including Open Source Software (Linux), Dell's Ideastorm, InnoCentive and Netflix Prize. It perhaps loses some of its momentum in the number of examples in the first part of the book [How We Got Here], and as a result doesn’t really get into the meat of the issue until the middle, or section two [Where We Are].

 

Crowdsourcing, (as opposed to crowdcasting which is the act of broadcasting a problem to the widest possible audience in the blind hope that someone, somewhere will come up with a solution), relies on certain ingredients to make it work. The important factors are that the problem needs to be of a complex nature, the ‘crowd’ needs to have some qualification to solve the problem and the participants in the process need to be drawn from a diverse enough pool. So evidently, this concept won’t be for everyone.

 

The idea of open collaboration though is central to any digital marketing strategy and can be interpreted in many ways. By way of an example, Media Safari has been working on the launch of a new ‘photo-networking’ website called SendPhotos. Currently the product is in BETA so the task now is to build awareness of the product and encourage feedback from the community of users to help the developers, Avanquest Software, improve the product. So at the moment, it is offering the service for free in return for comments and suggestions.

 

Crowdsourcing is not a new concept, it is simply one that has been massively enhanced and enabled by digital technologies (the tools) and the Internet (the means). The benefits of collaboration speak for themselves as two-way communication improves the quality of the dialogue, bringing a deeper sense of engagement with end users and therefore an opportunity for the marketing department to create a bond of ‘loyalty,’ which in the context of leaner budgets, is no bad thing.

 

Matt King is a digital marketing specialist and delivers training workshops on digital strategy to a wide number of corporate clients. He is also an EMEA region tutor for digital marketing for Microsoft.

Social networking finds a new niche

The use of social networking sites in both consumer and business communities is now so ubiquitous you might wonder how we managed without them. Connecting and staying connected to friends and business colleagues means that long term relationships can be maintained with like-minded groups.

 

But as those groups continue to swell, their purpose becomes increasingly diluted; this is why we are now witnessing the creation of ‘mini’ communities within communities. This allows individuals with very specific interests to join several groups to more accurately define their interests and personality. As the next generation in online networking, let’s call this Networking 2.0.

 

Media Safari recently launched on behalf of one of its clients Avanquest Software, a new photo networking site called SendPhotos – the essence of which is to encourage individuals to share their photos with selected individuals or groups. The logic of this is based on evidence that supports the notion that most photos taken on a camera phone, remain on that camera phone without ever really being shared with the outside world.

 

The beauty of SendPhotos is that once you’ve set up your account, a photo taken on a camera phone is automatically uploaded to the online account, and every individual within that group will receive an email to notify them that a new photo has been uploaded. One of its unique propositions is that it then invites individuals to ‘share back’ their own photos; so taking a wedding as a good example, guests would be able to upload their own photos in order to build up a complete ‘picture’ of the occasion, rather than one individual’s perspective.

 

SendPhotos has a number of unique aspects to it. Largely this is down to the fact that it comprises an ‘ecosystem’ made up of a PC, a web and a mobile application – essentially these are small files that you download that enable the different platforms to talk to each other, so SendPhotos can be managed from any location at any time. This is where it differs from the likes of Flickr and Facebook that are largely and most effectively accessed via a web browser.

 

SendPhotos is in BETA at the moment, so it’s early days. At the moment it supports over 140 phones that use the most common mobile operating systems including Symbian and Android. So if you’re taking pictures and are wondering how you can instantly share your digital pics without the fuss of syncing and email, check out SendPhotos. Avanquest Software is looking for feedback and will provide you with 1GB of FREE online storage to back up your photos for your trouble. (www.SendPhotos.com)

 

Matt is a Director of Media Safari, a technology PR consultancy.