How is your email reputation?

Maybe this is not so much a concern for smaller volumes but it becomes important when dealing with larger volumes.

If you are sending emails for your company, do you know your email senders reputation? Do you care to know?

·         Are many of your emails bouncing?

·         Are too many of your recipients opting out?

·         Do your emails get trapped in the spam filters?

·         Are you sending very large volumes?

These can cause your email senders reputation to decrease and affect deliverability.

If your reputation gets bad – regardless of how great your email content is and how well intended you are - some Email Service providers (like the Yahoo Mail, hotmails,… ) could blacklist your company’s IP.

Following the best practices we have reviewed in class will definitively help.

But errors and distractions do happen and sometimes a good list becomes corrupted list with a few bad clicks. Or sometimes, stress takes over planning and 2 or 3 of your teams send emails to the same list causing too many opt outs.

Then what can you do when - inadvertently - you have been black listed?

If you are lucky to work with a good email deliverability team or vendor, they can try to work out the problem with the email service provider and get you back in good terms. If not, you might need to get your IT to change your sender’s domain IP address. But that only gets your reputation back to zero.

Did this happen to you? How have you been able to resolve?

"It's Not About Your Product"

Good advice about content marketing from Ad Age.

Effectiveness of email as a marketing tool

Research has shown that emails that have a discount or "savings" offer associated with it, are more likely to be shared and forwarded amongst friends, family and your social network.This trend makes sense as word of mouth gains in importance as an effective form of advertising.  Direct incentives for sharing emails have proven to be ineffective in promoting sharing.Moreover when you combine email with other social media like Facebook,Twitter or Linked In, there is greater impact. Email marketing has proven to be most effective in the Creating Brand Awareness stage of the marketing function as we get informed about new offers/ events via email. This further highlights the point, that no one single form of media can be expected to achieve a marketer's desired results, but when used in combination with other marketing channels and as part of an integrated marketing mix,gains exponentially in effectiveness. An interesting article about this can be viewed here- http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008868&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

The Era of Behavioral Pricing is Upon Us!

During the last class we discussed chapter six of the text (Display Advertising and Other Customer Acquisition Techniques). More specifically, we discussed the aspect of "Behavioral Targeting." The advancement of internet technologies, coupled with social media, has made it easier for retailers to track consumer buying habits. Additionally, retailers now have the capability to adjust prices based on consumer preferences and trends (see the Next Wed: Insider article: "Why 2012 is the Year of Behavioral Pricing").

For a long time businesses have tried to identify consumers' reservation prices and charge them a price close to it.  Old airline days of higher price for no Saturday stay over, Broadway higher prices when you buy way ahead of time, or any auction scheme are prime example of this.  Now that people on a voluntary basis reveal so much about themselves, the task of identifying the high payers (those with a higher reservation price for a product) is becoming easier and charging them a higher price, more tempting.

The article delves a little deeper into this concept stating:

"By piecing together your web history, social media presence, and demographics, marketers have a near complete picture of you. Do you own a house, visit home improvement websites, and tweet about DIY? Watch as online stores use behavioral pricing to extract the highest price possible from you."

On top of that, some sites now employ un-deleteable/undetectable cookies. No telling what they're doing or plan on doing with the information they obtain. But when it comes to marketing, any and all data gives businesses the opportunity to capitalize on consumer behavior, with or without their knowledge.

Why videos go viral – a YouTube manager explains

As we discussed in class it is impossible to tell what will make a video go viral. I came across some very interesting and entertaining insights provided by an employee of the online platform that makes it all possible: YouTube.

Kevin Allocca indeed has a very interesting job at YouTube: as a trends manager he gets to "professionally watch YouTube videos". He recently gave a talk at TED about why he believes certain videos are turning into a viral phenomenon. If you don't know TED please make sure to check it out – it offers hundreds of interesting and inspiring talks from the most amazing people. You can watch Allocca's short TED talk here.

Before Allocca shared his insights he explained how the invention of web video was a game changer for the society. Allocca argues that "we all wanna be stars" and that until a few years ago it was almost impossible to make this wish come true. Through online video and platforms like YouTube everything changed: "now everyone or any of the creative things we do can almost instantly become incredibly famous." Of course only a very small percentage of videos ever goes viral. But why does it happen?

Based on his experience Allocca pins down the most important reasons:

• Tastemakers: To make a video go viral there has to be someone who gets it all started. Celebrities who have a huge group of followers on social networks like Twitter and Facebook often are the first step. By simply posting a single tweet TV-host Jimmy Kimmel has already made many videos go viral. Allocca argues that those "tastemakers introduce us to new interesting things and bring them to a larger audience". 


• Community Participation: Once a tastemaker spreads the word, the community takes over. Thus accelerating the process of spreading the content. "A community forms around this shared information and starts to talk about it and to do things with it." A music video is given as an example that now has thousands of parodies on the web. "Unlike the one way entertainment of the 20th century, this community participation is how we become part of the phenomenon by either just spreading the info or creating something new with it. We don't just enjoy now, we participate."

• Unexpectedness: Over 48 hours of video gets uploaded to YouTube alone every minute. Allocca points out that only content that is "truly unique and unexpected can stand out". Being totally surprising, humorous and creative seems to be a good approach. 

At the end of his talk Allocca tries to explain the shift that changed media from a one way into an interactive channel: "These are characteristics of a new kind of media and a new kind of culture where anyone has access and the audience defines the popularity. On the internet no one has to green light your idea... These are not characteristics of old media, and they are barely true of the media today. But they will define the entertainment of the future."


From my point of view these insights add to the ones we discussed in class. It is very surprising and interesting to see which videos went viral and to find out why they most likely did. Just look at the examples given in Allocca's talk and you will be stunned by the impressive statistics. Thus it is 99.9 % impossible to produce a viral video on purpose.

I think that tastemakers might play the most important role for a video to go viral. A tastemaker is a true opinion leader. As a single person a tastemaker has the power to reach out to a huge audience of followers that is eagerly waiting for any new piece of information ...

Twitter aims to capture larger share of the digital marketing budget

As Twitter continues to grow in importance as a social media tool, it is gearing up to generate a significantly larger amount of ad revenue-it has just launched a self service advertising platform for the SMB segment. While it is still much smaller than Facebook or Google, it has created an important niche for itself in the area of instant communication and time sensitive dissemination of key information and contimues to add subscribers at a fast pace. This was evidenced by news about Michael Jackson's death, Whitney Houston's death and the news about the Italian ship capsizing first appeaing on Twitter before being aired on traditional news channels. Marketers ignore Twitter at your own peril ! An interesting article-http://www.marketingvox.com/fitting-twitter-into-the-digital-marketing-budget-050695/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_source=mv&utm_medium=textlink

There's an article in Ad Age today with some info on YouTube CPMs--expensive channel sponsorships that most brands can't touch, but interesting nonetheless .  Encourage you to record any info you need as this may go behind firewall in a week or 2.

Pop-Up Store, No Cash - but Facebook!

I wanted to share this with you following our class on Chapter 6 - a marketer event that I think is great in several ways - kind of an "old school" meets "present" in marketing disciplines.

Anton Berg is a Danish Chocolate company having manufactured and sold the addictive stuff since the 18th century. Back then the founder himself was on the streets giving out free bites of his fine chocolate to  the passing people. Of course he hoped that many of them would go all the way through the acquisition process and immediately go into one of his stores to actually buy a box of chocolate. Well - the company is still around so his strategy might have helped.

Recently Anton Berg changed their buyline to "You Can Never Be Too Generous" and just a few days ago they announced that they would have a pop-up store in Copenhagen featuring their new slogan. The pop-up store was only open for five hours and during that period of time they were (like the founder did 128 years ago) handing out free boxes of chocolate and taste bites. No cash was accepted - only Good Causes - referring - once again - to their buyline that you can never be too generous. 

To make these causes visible to everyone of your friends you had to post it on Facebook on a computer in the pop-up store. This post told visitors on Anton Bergs Facebook page (and your own friends) that you had signed up to mourn your neighbors lawn, run 10 miles for charity, take your girlfriend to Paris, take a marketing course etc etc. 

I like campaigns like that - matching their original values and strategy with a new slogan and todays social media. 

As you can see from the picture attached - it was a pretty big success!

Depending on the specific products I think this strategy would work for a lot of companies - or what do you think?

Soren

Link to Anton Bergs FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/anthonberg.dk

Picture of line up in front of the pop-up store:

 

Internet Marketing Plan team size

Hi Prof. Roberts,

There are four of us that want to form a team to undertake the Internet Marketing Plan- Anurag, Lance, Syed and me-is that ok by you ? If it is not, then I will have to drop off and find someone else to work with.
Please let me know, so that we can move forward accordingly.

Thanks
Sael Celly

Happy to see you in class!

Hello to everybody

I would like to thank your Professor MaryLou Roberts for letting me participate to a class on campus. I was very glad to introduce me to most of the students who were in the classroom on Wednesday 22nd.

Al ban
@value2020

Social Media Press Release Template

Here is the link to the "Social Media Press Release Template" (Shift Communications) mentioned in the presentation from class this past week.  This commentary on Shift's website gives some context for why this template makes sense for online communications in today's social media landscape.

Imagining a social future for Amazon.com : a place of experiment, and a source of discovery

Year 2012: online store

American company Amazon.com Inc., one of the main places to buy on the Internet, offers a service with great ideas like the functionality to write its own review on an item on display. The service suggests as well other items according to other viewer preferences.

Interactions are easy between the product and the user. The user can rate the product and write a review. The user can also click on a “Like” button when she/he is interested by the book.

As of today, interactions between users are not developed. Users cannot follow or add another user to her/his list.

The future: 2013-2020, a place of discovery, sharing, and purchase

In the near future, Facebook will be a place of shopping and the competition will be very intense. Amazon.com should go social in order to give more power to people and increase sales.

The system of Amazon would include profiles of the users with a functionality of search per interest. Interest is calculated with voluntary choices of the user on her/his profile, reviews, “Like” clicks, and any contacts she/he decides to create or accept.

The reasons for adding someone is not based on friendship but on a common interest. Someone who likes books about wine will send a request to include a user with shared interests.

Transparent profiles will give a more personal characteristic to the service. Furthermore, the firm will have access to new data thanks to the discussions between users.

Today, amazon.com is in comfortable situation. Faced to new players like Facebook, other new global giants, and Chinese players, Amazon must prepare now the road to year 2020.

@Value2020 – Alban Fournier

Continuing the Conversation on Display Advertising

The article mentioned by Professor Roberts at the beginning of class this past week "5 ad formats that will boost your brand" (iMedia Newsletter 2/22/2012) is a good continuation of the discussion on display advertising.  As consumers continue to require engagement and "wow" factor with the brands they commit to, I can see why having interactive ads will soon outpace the traditional search ads. On the other side, I am also sensitive to the discussion about ensuring you do not let the creative trump the brand message.  If all they remember is the ad and not the product, the marketer has ultimately failed.  Display advertising and rich media have the capability to get TOO creative, leaving the product (and the sale) on the curb.

World's First - Open-Heart Surgery Live!

I almost fell off my chair, but I shouldn't be surprised.  According to Mashable's Sam Laird, Houston's Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital has taken the leap to be the first in medical and social history to live tweet double-coronary artery bypass open-heart surgery on a 57 year-old patient.   Surgeons answered follower questions and wore video cameras and snapped photographs to capture the action during the two hour operation.

The hospital published the tweets, video and photographs via Storify on Feburary 21, 2012.  You can view it out here, (warning images are graphic and not for the faint hearted, excuse the pun:))

...view First Live Tweet of an Open-Heart Surgery

Source:  Memorial Hermann @houstonhospital
http://twitter.com/#!/labeeisawesome/status/171974644822327297

More on Facebook -- New Social Ads Coming.

In addition to Facebook's ability to target a market precisely "in terms of both demographics and interests," the company will soon be unveiling new social ad formats.  Ads that will show users their friends who have "Liked" the advertiser or brand.

According to an article in yesterday's Fast Company: "Leaked documents show Facebook making a radical departure from traditional online display advertising into a world where ads are conversations and brands automatically tell you which of your friends are already on their side."

We discussed in class that people are more predisposed to buying on the recommendations from friends and family.  Facebook's new ad approach clearly leverages the "word of mouth" advantage.

Taking it one further -- and brilliant -- step, the new Facebook ads will use content exclusively from posts on a company's/brand's Facebook Pages, "rather from advertising copy written independently."

Facebook says that the new ads are expected to produce 40 percent more engagement and are 80 percent more likely to be remembered.

Source: Fast Company.

Online Rate Card

Here's a link to the advertising page of the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard. It has all the data you would expect about their area, the subscriber base, and so forth. You have to read a bit to get down to the various rate cards, including the online rate card. Notice that they only offer 3 formats--medium rectangle, skyscraper and leaderboard. That may be one reason that they post their rate card online. Whatever the reason it's useful information--thanks David!
http://projects.registerguard.com/pages/advertising/rate-card/#rate-cards

Targeting a Facebook Ad

I started with an ad (uninteresting headline, uninspired copy) that was going to reach all FB users in the US aged 18 and over

I decided to target Internet marketers in Australia. At this point I have all Australians between the ages of 25 and 64.

Using broad category targeting. Internet, much less Internet marketing, wasn't available. Closest I could come was Science/Technology, Mobile. Almost 6 million users. Probably everyone who had posted something about their mobile phone!

At this point I switched to precise interest targeting. That's where I blew it in class. I was looking for it on a separate pane and a long list. It is a toggle on the basic targeting pane and it gives options that are close matches to what you enter.



I started with #Internet marketing, and added #digital marketing #search engine optimization and #web banner. Now am down to 30 thousand users who have interest in specific Internet marketing topics

I continued experimenting. There was nothing even close to #teach Internet marketing. I tried adding it, but it wasn't one of the FB interest categories, so it didn't change the reach at all. However, I added #email and that brought it from about 30k to over 67k. A lot of users are interested in email. I could have kept going, but this didn't seem to be getting me anywhere.

So, I kept  those interest categories intact. I could have looked for every major topic in the book, but I didn't go that far. I switched to demographic targeting and specified just college graduates. Since I'm looking for people who teach Internet marketing in college, that made sense. The number is now just over 17k; I'm targeting more precisely but I decide to narrow it further.

I tried several majors--all gave the same result as Management and Marketing shown here--less than 20 people in the entire country fit that profile of demographics and interests. At this point I'm tired, so I go on to the budget pane.



I should give it an identifying name. It's set at a limit of $50 per day and will run continuously. That's not optimal; we'll talk more about that in ch 8. Facebook tells me that the maximum cost per click for the specified profile is $1.42. The actual cost is likely to be lower; in my experience consistently so. You can work with the CPC by changing the profile or by actual bidding--Set a Different Bid at the bottom of the pricing section. I went on to review my ad.

So here it is, lack of creative copy and all!

Was this a waste of time to reach fewer than 20 people? Not if only qualified people clicked, and if even one professor adopted the book for a class that's multiple sales (I estimate 20 per adoption, just my personal rule of thumb). Hopefully they like the book and use it for the next 3 years, so that's a pretty good CLV.

I could do better, though. If I went back and edited the ad to include New Zealand and Singapore where I know the book is also used, that would up my reach and the same ad would work. Why not add India? Why not add Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where there are also adopters (graduate texts don't get translated into, for example, Finnish; they use English-language texts out of necessity).

So I could go through a country-by-country evaluation of where the book might sell -- and write much better copy--and I'd have an ad that might be productive. And I'm not going to spend more than $50 per day (I might have to up that if the ad was really working) and I  can pause it any time I like.

Two final points. It won't start running the minute I submit my credit card. The ad has to be approved and that can take 24 hours or so. Second, once it starts running I can sign in to my dashboard for real-time analytics showing how many exposures, how many clicks, in what time period, cost per click, and more.

Remember, it's not the reach that has caused Facebook advertising to explode; it's the ability to precisely target a market in terms of both demographics and, more importantly, interests.

Google Soup Anybody?

We’re all celebs for sure. Our life, now mirrored on the internet, is a public affair. Or so Google thought. It seems to have landed in another soup for circumventing a security setting on the Safari browser for iphones and ipads.

Jonathan Mayer of Stanford University’s Security Lab, and the Center for Internet and Society, released a study that claimed that Google was able to go past the “third-party cookie blocking” privacy feature without interaction with the user.

The Study says – “Some companies track the cookies generated by the websites you visit, so they can gather and sell information about your web activity. Safari is the first browser that blocks these tracking cookies by default, better protecting your privacy. Safari accepts cookies only from the current domain.”

That said, the Safari cookie blocking is not as rigid as some of the other browsers and there are a few cases where the browser allows third party cookies to be ‘let in’. It is a very exhaustive read and technical in nature but has a nice enough Conclusion at the end where this interplay between third-party web trackers and browser privacy measures is likened to the ‘Arms Race’. In the end, janta loses.

Read more @ consumerwatchdog.org

                  mobilemarketer.com

Pinterest TOS – Users Beware

I found an informative article on Pinterest’s terms of service policy. Boston Business Journal criticized Pinterest for infringing upon users copyright ownership. By agreeing to the social media site’s terms and uploading an image, the user forfeits full copyright ownership and the company assumes the right to sell that image.

Here are two excerpts the editor from BBJ provided detailing Pinterest’s terms of service:

"By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services."

"... you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms."

(Source: bizjournals.com)

There is no doubt Pinterest has made its mark as one of the top social networking sites and has provided unique and effective ways for companies to promote their business but is it worth the cost of losing their intellectual property rights?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmAKTYjSRpU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmgmeprnVlo&feature=player_embedded

Mercedes-Benz was never considered a performance brand by car enthusiasts, even with its in-house AMG high performance tuners in mind.  Now, the, luxury first - performance after, company has teamed up with Italian superbike firm, Ducati, on a marketing campaign to give its new high performance entry-level coupe a new perspective as it intends to create a triumvirate with the new additions from BMW's M division and Audi's RS line.

Two useful items

A webinar by Overdrive Interactive on Pinterest, which is certainly the flavor of the month. Here's the signup link; you can probably find more info on the Overdrive site https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/584552838

The second is more FYI unless you either market to Gen Y customers or manage Gen Y employees. It is a new venture of personal branding guru Dan Schawbel, who you will hear more about in ch 9. Just looking at the offerings on personal branding on his home page is worthwhile.  http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/announcing-millennial-brandings-new-premium-gen-y-research-portal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=announcing-millennial-brandings-new-premium-gen-y-research-portal

Huge growth predicted in Interactive Marketing

According to a recent Forrester Research study, by 2016 advertisers will spend  $ 75 billion on interactive marketing-as much as they spend on television today.Search marketing, display advertising, mobile marketing, email marketing and social media will grow to 35% of all advertising spend, as they become part of an integrated marketing mix. Search advertising which has the largest share of interactive marketing budgets will reduce as more marketing dollars are directed towards mobile and social networks as users rely more on non-PC devices and non-traditional search engines as Youtube abd Facebook for the information discovery phase of the buying process. The proliferation of tablets and smartphones will continue, combined with the development of better online ad management tools that will provide a more accurate and easier way to calculate the ROI for interactive marketing. This trend along with the growth of mobile commerce generated content and location based marketing will engender marketers to create more targeted and relevant mobile ads, instead of merely repurposing online ads into mobile search and display.The need to gain a comprehensive view of your customer across multiple and customer-preferred touchpoints will become paramount. As client expectations increase and customers in general become more demanding, companies that invest in : "customer listening" technologies will benefit. All this bodes well for the exciting and growing field of internet marketing. Allaying concerns of privacy, security and improving usability aided with favorable governemental regulations will provide a conducive environment for this sector to continue to flourish. Exciting times ahead !

Leveraging Social Media to provide great Customer Service

By listening four times as much as you speak, being relevant to your customers and responding in a timely manner to problems, astute corporations are leveraging social media to enhance their customer service and win brand loyalty that increases Customer Lifetime Value. There are a plethora of social media channels in the marketplace today, that allow consumers to air their views about things they like/dislike/value or consider unimportant. There is a lot of customer data that is being captured online and offline. By integrating all these channels into gaining a consolidated and comprehensive view of your customer, you can and should listen to what they are saying about you and their customer experience. Listeining is the first step. The second and more improtant step is doing something about what they said in a prompt and effective way. In a great book, Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, the authors talk about why Execution is a key differentiator of Great companies relative to Good companies. A fantastic idea means nothing at all, if you cannot execute on it.

Getting back to the issue of using social media to deliver outstanding customer service, there are some companies that still don't get it. How often do you receive a letter/ email that adresses you as Mr/ Ms. so and so- that is just not acceptable in this day and age of data mining and analytics. You have to continually be scanning the digital canvass to see what is being said about you/your brand/ user experience/customer enagement levels etc and get out ahead of potentail problems/ issues. United Airlines has done a good job of this by proactively addressing some customer concerns about losing their air-miles and rewards, as a result of the merger with Continental Airlines. There is a reason god has given us two ears and one mouth- lets make use of them in a similar proportion. An interesting video on how to leverage social media for delivering customer service can be viewed here- http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-social-media-has-changed-customer-service/
 enjoy ! 

Web TV

Google is spearheading an effort to create its own internet TV following by creating its own content.

Check out this video below.

For more information, read this Article from the Wall Street Journal



Some will fail, some may be successful. Are we ready for web TV? What if it is available on TV sets, not just computers (as with Apple TV, you can access youtube. TVs with Google do the same)?

Internet television can allow marketers to tailor ads to their viewers based on online data collected on sites visited and other habits. How do you think this will develop and where do you see this in 15 years?

It's Not about Technology, It's About Content

Important new report on content marketing from the Altimeter Group.
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2012/02/16/beyond-tools-marketers-must-focus-on-content-altimeter-report/
A must read!

Do you need a mobile website or an app?

In my current job, I am contemplating whether or not we need to create a mobile website.  The biggest issue? We have a lot of flash on our site and this does not play in Safari, leaving the user experience on our website disappointing if you are on a mobile device.  As I have been researching the mobile website landscape, I came across a good article in the iMedia Connection Newsletter on the debate between mobile websites and mobile apps - which one to go with?  Although my company's brand is too small to justify a mobile app (the likelihood of users going to the App Store and downloading would be minimal), it is an interesting conversation about the pros and cons between both.  The essential take-away is that if you have both, the user experience needs to be seamless between the two, with the ultimate objective being that the user cannot tell the difference between the  mobile app and the mobile website.  Better adoption of all the platforms you offer (and therefore customer happiness/loyalty) requires convergence!  This looks like it will be a topic of conversation later in the semester.

In the same iMedia Connection Newsletter, there is another article about mobile content marketing.  I found the numbers surprising on how some of the largest companies lack mobile websites, and how those that do have them are often filled with user issues.  Looking at statistics on mobile usage, it seems entirely feasible that in the near term, mobile access of website content will outrun traditional access via desktops and laptops.  Seems to me that a mobile website is a must have!

Cue, Routine, Reward: Are you being targeted by Target?

(Aside:  I wrote this offline and just saw Sunil's below. I think it complements the data mining posts.)

With companies ranging from credit cards to retailers collecting all kinds of consumer data, it’s no wonder that “data scientist” is one of the current hot jobs.  Also, today’s successful CMOs must learn to “harness customer data and leverage it” based on a recent Ad Age article.  With digital data collection, the granularity can be so precise as to target an individual, and seeing patterns in data– such as understand shopping preferences and behavior - bring new marketing and business growth opportunities. 

Now you intersect this with psychology, specifically habit formation, and you get the case of how the giant retailer Target was able to move in the minds of consumer beyond the place to buy cleaning products or toilet paper to a “mom, baby, and beyond” shop, hence growing revenue from $44 billion to $67 billion between 2002 and 2010.  The February 19 NY Times article, How Companies Learn Your Secrets, demonstrates how Target marketers went after the pregnant mom segment using the predictive analytic capabilities of their statistical team.  They tied in all sources of data (including purchased data) and linked it to a unique Target guest ID.  Target’s marketing team also had to learn to temper the power of their data and subtly encourage spending without consumers feeling like Big Brother was watching…and knowing something personal about their lives.

If you’re a Target shopper and you read this article, you may be unnerved at the kinds of data they have on you.  How far will they go to grow to $100 billion revenue?  Based on Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff's take, "The only sustainable competitive advantage is knowledge of and engagement with customers," this means more targeting by Target and others.

What do you think as marketers and consumers?

Do they know about you more than yourself?

Today I came across this article "Google Tracking iPhone Users? Data Mining at Its Finest". This article states that Target can predict when a female customer is pregnant, their possible due-date, even gender of the expected baby etc. and market products promotions tailored to customer needs. A customer who typically don't monitor everything that they purchase, visits, clicks etc., but corporations are collecting this data across channels and applying advanced analytic techniques to extract information about their customers. It made me to think, corporations have potentially to learn about their customers more than the customer himself. Imagine a smart phone app that can predict what you likely to purchase and offer customized promotions in real-time as soon as you enter the store or near the store. May be there is already such an app that I don't know...

Predictive Modeling (Data Mining) in Banking

Deborah's post reminded me of what I didn't have time to get back to in chapter 4. See Figure 4.12 - Analytical Database Hierarchy. The most powerful of the techniques is predictive modeling. Predictive models are the basis for data mining. Here's a good short explanation about how it works in banking (it's a Google doc). Predictive modeling is essentially regression models (not necessarily linear) that pair a probability of response (based on cases in the customer database) with independent variables that are known to be predictive of the phenomenon. If you want to know how the models are developed (another place where you need a statistician who is an expert in response models), there is a lot of material on the web.
What marketers need to be clear about is that with a small amount of initial information about a newly-acquired customer, they can predict the likelihood of specific types of behavior occurring in the future. This is the basic of credit-scoring models and many more product-specific models.

Real or Fake social media numbers?

I read this article on Facebook and I believe it poses an important question: How real are the social media usage numbers? It is obvious that they are constantly increasing but there have been studies showing "empty" profiles and abandoned accounts. For marketers purposes this is a very relevant question that needs to be addressed by social media companies, which must be pressured to release "real" account numbers for the industry's sake.

What does it really mean to be customer-oriented?

A recent blog post of a former colleague of mine caught my attention the other day. His post was a comment on the definition of the customer-oriented corporation and what attributes characterize organizations with a profound customer-oriented focus. The post it self was made in Norwegian and may be found here, but I wanted to share the views of my friend with you in order to facilitate debate.

In this post the author argues that a customer-oriented corporation is one whom strives to focus its organization, including leaders, processes and culture to efficiently meet the changing demands and preferences of its customers. He also argues that customer-orientation in turn remains a concept tied firmly to the internal activities of the corporation, from production and development of goods and services to after-sale support and retention. In contrary to this term related concepts such as customer value (customer satisfaction using the product to accomplish a required task) and customer experience (the sum of the experiences gathered throughout the procurement and utilization of the product) are distinct from the internal, and largely cultural, aspects and may be treated separately.

Within the premise of this discussion the author describes several consumer trends that influence modern day business in general and internet based businesses in particular. It is argued that the emergence of four customer types have changed the way corporations engage in consumer behavior. The types put forth are the self-service customer (customers experiencing an ever increasing pressure on time and require new solutions where they may self solve the necessary tasks when available), the social customer (whom socialize and interact in increasingly open media whom cannot be controlled nor censured by corporations), the technological customer (whom by the way new technology has lowered entry-barriers to many markets is blessed with more options and is inherently less loyal) and the demanding customer (whom experience that the new players in the marketplace acknowledges and adapts to their needs and lends the same expectations to established and mature corporations). The combination of these trends in consumer behavior means that the customer makes an increasingly attentive selection in deciding the vendors from whom one acquires product and services. In thus real customer-orientation becomes a competitive advantage to meet the increasing expectations of the customer.

In his closing remarks the author advice business whom seek further engagement with their customer to base their interaction on dialog concerning the selection of products and services made available by the corporation and its partners as well as the customer experience through procurement and within active use of the product or service. In thus the key premise of this dialog should remain with gathering insights to establish:

• Simple and user-friendly physical and digital points of contact
• A general culture of service
• An ability to adopt increasingly complex customer needs (rather than a push-mentality)
• An organizational structure based on customer segments rather than a functional organization.

Given the ever increasing availability and globalization of product offerings we see today I believe customer-orientation has/will become the prevalent form of cultural adoption and product development in the years to come. Businesses will come to realize that the days of industrial prowess must give way to more modern approaches to their value offering such as may be seen with mass customization as the expectations of the individual customer gains even further momentum.  As I see it such a transition will likely be one filled with difficulty for many established players set in their (somewhat outdated) ways. I believe we are entering an era of lurking dangers, but also with profound promise for players whom act accordingly to the new paradigm.

Data Mining for Non-Profit Organizations.


Chapter 4 really got me thinking about collection and data management in the world we live nowadays. I work for a very small non-profit organization - Terezin Music Foundation - and all that information about how to make the data I collect from my customers, in case donors, increase my organization's bottom line got me thinking about many things. I started wondering how a small organization like mine can benefit from data mining if all we have is one person trying very hard to put together a Filemaker database and keep all the data we have up to date in there. After some researching and lot of reading I  found a very interesting white paper that I would love to share with you. The paper did not answer all my questions or solved my dilemma but is full of very insightful information.


Prospect Research for Planned Gifts by Michael Quevli and Katherine Swank.

Interested in Google+?

Here's a slideshow--good info--promoting a new book from O'Reilly Media, whose technology writings are invariably sound.

February 8, 2012 Webcast: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Google+

View more presentations from O'Reilly Media

I've been noticing this link for a couple of days. It is an interesting example of both collaboration and of cause-related marketing.  

The Fine Art Of SEO Optimization for Blogs

Search Optimization is at the heart of people finding your blog. If they don’t get to it, they’re not going to be reading it, right? Design, Analytics, SEO tactics…pushing a blog is the new fine art in town.

Author Markup @ Google, using Double Click planner, use of large Images to attract the user, QnA sites and being seen and read there are just a few of the things that are now being employed by astute bloggers (or blogger groups like Mashable, Huffington Post and Life Hacker)

Just read a great article with lots of advanced insights into promoting a blog. Anybody entering the field needs to read this Search EngineJournal piece.