3 Must-Have Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

Brought to you by Eric Groves

Small businesses naturally gravitate to tools and strategies that quickly generate revenue without incurring significant costs. So it's no surprise that web-based marketing technologies have become a boon to small businesses because of their low cost and ease of use. Tools that are purpose-built for small businesses project a more professional image and deliver a richer set of management and monitoring capabilities than online tools targeted to consumers, which are often ad-supported and limited in function.

The essential small business marketing tools described below encourage stronger customer relationships and are easy to use and affordable, which makes them must-have tools in the small business marketer's toolkit.

Email marketing
Despite critics who have called email marketing's effectiveness into question, email marketing continually delivers the highest ROI for any marketing method. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing delivered $43.62 for every dollar spent in 2009.

What makes email marketing so effective? It's simple: permission and relevant content. This means that the recipient is looking forward to receiving messages and considers the content of the emails to be beneficial. For marketers, this translates into a pre-qualified list of prospects and returning customers. All you need to do to keep them is stay in touch with content that is compelling and useful.

Businesses can achieve several important goals with email marketing, but the most important are strong, lasting customer relationships. With email marketing, you can consistently communicate your expertise, your offerings, and your brand, thereby building trust and recognition. When the time comes for customers to make purchases, they'll naturally turn to the businesses they're familiar with and loyal to, and they're more likely to recommend those businesses to others.

Online surveys
The most successful small business owners understand that listening to their customers is critically important. Yet, it's not always practical to engage in one-on-one conversations to find out what every customer is thinking. That's where online surveys come in. Online survey tools allow you to easily request anonymous feedback from your customers at their convenience.

Whether conducted frequently, such as after a purchase, event, or customer service issue, or just once a year, surveys are an excellent way to glean valuable information about your customers' satisfaction, experience with your business, or feedback on your product. For example, a retailer might survey his customers to find out what product lines they'd like to see expanded. A consultant could survey customers to learn what marketing challenges are most important to them for 2010. In both cases, the survey results will help guide important business decisions that neither business owner may have determined without the help of the customer base.

Another benefit of online surveys is the opportunity for your customers to feel like they're a part of your business. In fact, asking customers about the best way to communicate with them -- either via email, Facebook, Twitter, or some other mode or combination -- is a great first step in gathering useful feedback. By opening up a two-way dialogue and inviting them to offer suggestions and constructive criticism, your customers feel that they're contributing to your success. Knowing that you took their advice or considered their feedback creates a sense of loyalty that will naturally lead to longer and stronger relationships.

Your social network of choice
Everywhere you turn these days, someone is talking about Facebook, retweeting Ashton Kutcher's latest comment, or asking you to connect on LinkedIn. While all the hype can seem a bit frivolous, the business benefits of social networks are very real. Countless small business owners have made valuable connections, including new customers, through their participation in social networks.

Participation is the key to success when it comes to social media. Much like email marketing, you must first offer real value before you can expect to get anything in return. Simply being there isn't going to place your brand at the center of the conversation. You first have to establish your credibility as a member of the community and a legitimate expert in your field.

Establish yourself as a resource by sharing your knowledge. This may mean linking to your blog posts, media coverage of your product or business, or your email newsletter. You can easily add value and show you "get it" by offering your thoughts and commenting on another's blog post or tweet, or by answering a question on LinkedIn Answers.

Once you've committed to a particular mode of communication, be consistent in using it. Frequency of communications is always a challenge for busy small businesses owners, but a regular effort to communicate will help deliver your message most effectively. Eventually, your audience will begin to anticipate your outreach and even look forward to your next tweet, post, update, or newsletter.

Low cost, high return
Today's small businesses face an ongoing battle for mindshare among their target consumers. These low cost, high return marketing tools provide small businesses with the advantage they need to cut through the noise and get their messages heard without breaking their budget.

Eric Groves is senior vice president of global market development for Constant Contact Inc.

Where Twitter Drops the Marketing Ball

Brought to you by Bryce Marshall

Many marketers misunderstand the distinction between the micro-blogging social media service Twitter and opt-in SMS marketing. The most common misconception is that Twitter is a viable alternative for opt-in text message marketing. Or, at least, the benefits of "free" far outweigh the potential benefits of any SMS marketing initiative with hard costs.

This misconception has the unfortunate consequence of making it tough to sell the CMO on why a comprehensive SMS marketing program is justified. Here are some arguments to break through the Twitter-vs.-SMS misconception and help justify investment in an opt-in SMS marketing program.

Twitter is not mobile marketing
Many marketers operate under a fundamental misconception about Twitter, confusing the 140-character text limit for tweets as being the hallmark of mobile or SMS marketing. Sure, the 140-character limit on tweets is there in part to ensure they can be created and delivered as SMS messages. But this does not mean that tweets are SMS.

Some Twitter users have tweets delivered as SMS messages, but many do not. The 140-character limit for tweets simply ensures the content is always small bites of information, quickly digested, and very disposable. This does not necessarily mean the content is consumed through SMS. In most circumstances tweeting does not qualify as mobile marketing either in the technical sense of being accessed on a mobile device or in the spirit of mobile marketing, which is designed to leverage timeliness and location to define a unique and valuable interaction.

Free isn't "free"
Yes, SMS marketing will probably require a budget to cover transmission fees and perhaps other short code, technology, or services costs. Compared with the free Twitter service even a modest SMS budget can seem like a bitter pill to swallow. However, considering the resources, time, and materials necessary to promote a Twitter account, it is easy to realize there are costs in play no matter what. To obtain a critical mass of followers and achieve any semblance of mass-marketing, investments have to be made. To leverage Twitter to its strengths for maintaining more personal dialogs, well-educated personnel need not just monitor the Twitter presence, but actively engage. Getting value out of the free Twitter service is an investment in itself.

You can't take it with you
Two-way communications through Twitter are excellent, and the application -- when used well -- really does foster legitimate interactions. Those interactions supply profound insights into a consumer base. However, this intelligence is locked away in Twitter. Simply, Twitter followers do not represent a database in any valuable sense outside of Twitter. It is impossible to compile, package, and export knowledge gathered there in a concrete sense. It is impossible to make those insights portable and actionable in meaningful ways across other digital or offline channels, because those consumer attributes are not in a database.

Now, think about the organizational value of data that can be mined through smart, two-way SMS marketing programs; for instance, discovering where SMS program subscribers live or shop, based on a zip code volunteered in exchange for more relevant offers and information. Or, a subscriber may share demographic information when participating in a mobile poll and receive an instant coupon in exchange. Or, understanding which subscribers are converting in-store or online based on unique coupon codes and tying that insight back to a database profile. These are all valuable pieces of knowledge -- database optimization -- that simply cannot be managed with, or extracted from, Twitter.

Twitter is not database or direct digital marketing
Twitter is not database marketing, and please do not let anyone argue that it is. As noted above, Twitter followers do not represent a marketing database in any viable way, not like the proprietary opt-in database of profiles built with savvy SMS marketing. Additionally, Twitter does not support the scalable application of message relevance and personalization for direct digital marketing on a mass scale.

Twitter followers are fans, and perhaps even loyalists, but they are not individually addressable in a scalable way. Marketers are unable to gather additional data points such as a location, product preference, or purchase history and then layer these attributes to create more comprehensive follower profiles. Marketers cannot segment and target tweets based on these attributes, as is possible with SMS marketing. Marketers cannot personalize tweets in any scalable way.

Marketers cannot insert dynamic text in a tweet, or have the user click through to a personalized mobile web page with a targeted offer, or generate a unique barcode for in-store redemption, or track an individual user's preferences, activity, and behavior. These capabilities are the domain of intelligent database and direct digital marketing and can only be achieved with opt-in SMS programs.

Twitter is a 5/8" socket wrench
Twitter is a single, specialized tool. While it can accomplish some excellent tasks when used well, it falls short as a comprehensive online communications tool at critical mass. In comparison, well-designed opt-in SMS marketing programs provide not just offers or notifications of sales events, but also can automate valuable services, such as providing information on store locations and driving directions, execute delivery and shipping status alerts, provide reminders on bank balances, send alerts when out-of-stock items are now in-stock, or help online shoppers get in-store help with a purchase decision. All of these services -- and more -- are provided through a comprehensive SMS marketing approach that delivers extraordinary value and brand experiences for customers.

So what is that 5/8" socket wrench -- Twitter -- good for? Twitter delivers very real marketing value in these ways:

- Establishes brand key terms and positioning points with hash tags, tapping into the power of trending topics and searches
- Builds a network of advocates who help distribute a message across their social network through one-click retweets
- Develops and hones a brand personality through the highly social, dialog-based nature of the application
- Exceeds expectations with customers by managing fantastic customer support programs that could never be replicated through SMS alone.

Conclusion
Twitter is a microblogging service that delivers real marketing value to organizations, if they are willing to invest education and resources to the management of interactive relationships with their customers. Twitter is a marketing phenomenon unto itself and does not need -- or deserve -- to be muddled in with the definitions of mobile or direct digital marketing. Twitter will be a strong and valuable complement to work in the digital channels, not a replacement.

Bryce Marshall is the director of strategic services for Knotice. You can check out their blog at http://lunchpail.knotice.com/.

The Principles of Marketing Can Be Summarized in One Word

Brought to you by Al Ries

A number of people have asked us to summarize our marketing principles in a simple, easy-to-remember way. Good thought. Having written (or co-written) 11 books on the subject, I can see how our basic principles can get buried in a blizzard of examples and case histories.

What's the No. 1 principle of marketing, at least as far as we're concerned? It's the principle of focus. You narrow the focus in order to own a word in the mind of the consumer. Without a focus, it's very difficult to build a strong brand. And without a strong brand, any company's future is in doubt.

While focus should be the key ingredient in any marketing campaign, it's not the whole story. So we developed an acronym called FOCVS that does sum up our key thoughts. "FOCVS," a word using the original alphabet of the Roman Empire, consists of five key elements.

F is for 'first'
Nothing works better in marketing than being the first brand in a new category in the mind.

Starbucks in high-end coffee.
Red Bull in energy drinks.
BlackBerry in wireless e-mail.
There are two issues, however, that many people miss. The first issue is what we mean by being first. It's the first brand in the mind that matters, not the first brand in the category. Powells.com was the first internet bookstore, but not in the mind. The first brand in the mind was Amazon.
The second issue is focus. It's always possible to become the first brand in a new category by narrowing your focus.

Take Dell, which became the world's No. 1 brand of personal computer. Dell wasn't the first personal computer in the mind. (Apple, IBM and a host of other brands got into the mind long before Michael Dell's creation.) Dell Computer narrowed its focus to direct sales only, the first brand to do so. This was the key decision that made the Dell brand a worldwide success.

Dell didn't get started until 1984, nine years after the first personal computer hit the market. By 1984, the market was saturated with computer manufacturers. As Business Week reported in its Aug. 8, 1983, issue: "Pounding on corporate doors are more than 150 makers of personal computers."

Suppose you had said to one of these 150: "Let's narrow the focus to direct sales only." That's probably the opposite of what they wanted to do. "We need more distribution, not less," might have been the likely response.

It gets worse. In that same issue, Business Week reported: "Computer and office automation companies are beginning to pitch comprehensive office systems that offer everything from personal computers to large central computers as well as the communications to connect all the equipment. This list of companies includes Burroughs, Data General, Digital Equipment, International Business Machines, Sperry and Wang."

Narrow the focus? Everybody was doing exactly the opposite. Expansion, not contraction, was the order of the day.

It's also the order of today's day. You've probably noticed that Dell has joined the expansion crowd with predictable results.

What mystifies many marketing mavens is how two companies can use the same strategy with diametrically different results. One is successful; the other is not -- a mystery that can be solved by assuming that the successful company has superior products.

And we're left with the same old canard: The better product wins in the marketplace.

Hewlett-Packard is expanding its product line at the same rate as Dell. By 2006, the two companies had virtually identical worldwide PC market shares: Dell had 17.1%; Hewlett-Packard had 17%.

Three years later, Hewlett-Packard's market share is 19.9% and Dell's market share is 12.8%.

Even more ominous is Dell's drop in net profit margins. In the decade ending in 2006, Dell had a net profit margin of 6.2%. Last year it was 4.1% vs. Hewlett-Packard's 7%.

What differentiates Hewlett-Packard from Dell? Hewlett-Packard is perceived as the leader in personal computers. And "leadership" is the most important aspect of a marketing program. You lose your leadership (as Dell has done) and you lose your marketing power.

Dell used to mean "direct." What does Dell mean today?

A company with problems.

O is for 'opposite'
What if you can't be first in a new category? Is there no hope? Sure, there is. Just be the opposite of the brand that did get into the mind first.

Red Bull came in 8.3-oz. cans, so Monster came in 16-oz. cans and rapidly became the No. 2 energy-drink brand with 25% of the U.S. market.

A number of years ago, all perfume brands were feminine. So Revlon introduced "Charlie." For three straight years in a row, Charlie was the world's best-selling perfume.

The Home Depot is a messy, male-oriented home improvement warehouse, so Lowe's became neat, clean, female-oriented and a strong No. 2 brand.

Walmart is "cheap," so Target became "cheap chic" and a strong No. 2 brand. Stuck in the mushy middle was Kmart, which went bankrupt.

Coca-Cola is the old, established cola brand, the real thing. Your parents drank Coca-Cola. So Pepsi-Cola focused on the younger crowd. The Pepsi Generation. (An idea Pepsi needs to reprise.)

Look at the numbers. The last flickering of the Pepsi Generation idea was in 2002, when Pepsi-Cola ran the rather insipid campaign "Think young. Drink young." That was the year Pepsi was 35% behind Coca-Cola in sales. In 2003, Pepsi switched to: "The joy of Pepsi." In 2004: "It's the cola." In 2009: "Refresh everything."

Today, Pepsi is 41% behind Coca-Cola in sales.

In marketing, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Why is this so? Because the rich generally own a word in the mind (leadership) and the poor do not.

Refresh everything? Pepsi should be trying to refresh something. My choice would have been the younger generation.

C is for 'category dominance'
What is the primary objective of a marketing program anyway? Is it to increase sales? To increase profits? To build a brand in consumers' minds?

All of these things are important, but they are only markers on the road to success. The primary objective of any marketing campaign is to dominate a category. When you can do that, your long-term success is almost guaranteed. (Until the category evaporates, but that's another story.)

Take Sony, for example. In a recent survey of 3,600 Asian consumers, the No.1 brand was Sony. In a recent survey of 1,500 American consumers, the No.1 brand was Sony.

Like most Japanese electronics companies, Sony is heavily line-extended. Sony puts its brand name on TV sets, videocassette recorders, digital cameras, personal computers, cellphones, semiconductors, camcorders, DVD players, MP3 players, stereos, broadcast video equipment, batteries and a host of other products.

In which categories is Sony the leader?

I don't know, and I'm pretty sure that most consumers don't know either. Sony's lack of a leadership perception in any individual category, in my opinion, is the reason for Sony's lackluster financial performance. In the past 10 years, Sony has had revenues of $681.6 billion and net profits after taxes of $9.5 billion, or a net profit margin of just 1.4%. Which is one reason Sir Howard Stringer is now Sony's CEO. (When a Japanese company is run by an Englishman, you know the Japanese company is in trouble.)

Compare Sony with Nintendo, the company that dominates the video-game player category. In the past 10 years, Nintendo has had revenues of $75.3 billion and net profits of $11.5 billion, or a net profit margin of an astonishing 15.3%.

Ask a few marketing managers which is the stronger brand, Sony or Nintendo? Don't be surprised if most of them say "Sony."

In category after category, well-known, highly admired global megabrands are trying to compete with narrowly focused brands. Invariably the narrowly focused brands are the winners.

Take Duracell, the leader in appliance batteries. Sony, Kodak, Toshiba and other companies with well-known brand names have tried to compete with Duracell in the battery business with little to show for their efforts. The category is the key to success. The brand is only a tool to facilitate that process.

V is for 'visual hammer'
The verbally oriented left-brainers who run most major companies don't seem to understand the power of a visual.

Take Boston Chicken, which early in its history changed its name to Boston Market and promptly went bankrupt. Why in the world would they have done that? Boston Chicken was the first food chain to feature "rotisserie chicken," an easy-to-visualize concept. But how do you visualize "market?"

Every brand needs two things: (1) A verbal nail to preempt a conceptual idea and (2) A visual hammer to hammer that conceptual idea into consumers' minds.

Some effective verbal nails and their associated visual hammers:

"The real thing" and the hobble-skirt Coke bottle.
"Marlboro country" and cowboys.
"Not from concentrate" and the straw in the orange.
"The shoe that breathes" and the smoke from a Geox.
"Engineered like no other car in the world" and the TriStar logotype.
"King of Beers" and the Clydesdales.
One important point: The verbal decision should come first, not the visual. That's true even though the visual is often more powerful than the verbal.
Take the Marlboro cowboy. While the American cowboy is a universally admired symbol, it would be useless for a brand that didn't want to hammer the "masculine" idea into consumers' minds.

The Budweiser frog and the Aflac duck are striking visuals, but what words do they hammer into prospects' minds? In Budweiser's case, the "Bud . . . weis . . . er" slogan was redundant. In Aflac's case, "We've got you under our wing" is a relatively weak slogan.

S is for 'second brands'
In the boardrooms of corporate America, you seldom hear the word "focus." A common perception is that focus means sacrifice, and what left-brained CEO wants to do that?

What you do hear a lot of is the word "expand." How do we expand our brand into more categories, more price points, more distribution outlets, etc.?

The FOCVS answer to that question is the "second brand." Keep your existing brand focused and launch a second brand to exploit a new market.

As Levi's did with Dockers.
As Toyota did with Lexus.
As Black & Decker did with DeWalt.
As Hanes did with L'eggs.
Another common perception is that the launch of a second brand requires a major advertising investment. Not true.
When you study the histories of famous brands, you are struck by how slowly those brands took off. That is true whether the brands were initially supported by massive advertising or not.

It took Red Bull nine years to reach $100 million in sales.
It took Microsoft 10 years to reach $100 million in sales.
It took Walmart 14 years to reach $100 million in sales.
It took Gatorade 18 years to reach $100 million in sales.
A successful new brand (Red Bull, for example) is usually based on a new category (energy drink.) At first, consumers are leery of buying such brands because they don't fit into existing buying patterns. Advertising doesn't have the credibility to break down those barriers.
The best way to launch a new brand is with PR. Unlike advertising, PR has credibility with many consumers. Then, too, PR drives word-of-mouth, which is the ultimate in brand credibility.

Since a PR campaign is usually far less expensive than an advertising campaign, PR is a better fit with the slow growth pattern of a new brand. Ultimately, of course, any new brand runs out of PR potential. That's the time to switch to advertising.

F . . . O . . . C . . . V . . . S. That's a summary of our marketing principles in a simple, easy-to-remember way.

To read more, please visit adage.com.

6 Digital Agency Survival Tips for 2010

Brought to you by Liz Ross

It's that time of year again. Only a couple weeks ago, honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes, and fighting with hoards of people over $15 DVD players in the aisles of Wal-Mart was all the rage. And although the holidays are now behind us, two types of articles are still in season -- the first being the much anticipated and expected lists of the "best" and the "worst" campaigns, products, and songs of the year past. The other common article type consists of predictions and proclamations for the year ahead. This is one of the latter.

Looking to survive in the ever-changing agency world? What follows is some proverbial food for thought for digital agencies in 2010. I hope some of them prove to be valuable for you and your business.

And now, without further ado, here are top six agency survival tips for the coming year.

Stop calling yourself a "digital agency."

It is official: The world has changed. This means that it's no longer important or relevant to define ourselves and our agencies by the channels in which we execute. Everything is digital, and all communication is delivered through digital channels. With this being true, the very idea of a digital agency is irrelevant. Focus on creating an agency that derives its identity and culture from the creation of powerful, relevant stories that are based in real insight.

The pace of change is quickening -- keep moving.

We are living in a time of tremendous change, and we're exposed to volumes of data that can be almost completely indecipherable. We live in a culture that is occurring in real-time, all the time. This means that there is no delay. Ever. We order a Samsung flat-screen television, and we want it set up and in our living rooms immediately.

What does this mean for agencies in 2010? We must devise new and constructive methods for listening -- and more importantly, understanding. There is no shortage of tools on the market today meant to help us listen to the cacophony of conversations that are happening in the world. What is missing by and large, however, is the ability to understand what we are listening to. We must find better ways to understand context and nuance and identify insights that are true to the human condition but not necessarily obvious.

Never stop asking "why?"

In our business, it is very easy to fall into the trap of the "obvious-sight." I wrote earlier of the importance of not only listening but also understanding. This is true in all human relationships, yet we have become complacent about the identification of insights.

We can all agree that we have seen many a brief where the singular insight is "Moms love their kids," or my second favorite, "Mom is busy." While these are true, and essentially inarguable, they are not insights. If the truth is "Moms are busy," force yourself and your teams to ask "why?" If the answer is "because the kids have a lot of activities," ask "why" again. When the answer is "that it's important for them to be well-rounded human beings," once again, force yourself to ask "why." You get the idea. Having and fostering an insatiable curiosity about the human condition is what creates great marketing.

Stories are the currency of our business.

We can all get caught up in what we do. Shows like "Mad Men" perpetuate the idea that we are doing glamorous, important work that is sexy and even a little bit dangerous. For those of us who have been lucky enough to grace the lobby bar at Shutters in Santa Monica, it can sometimes feel as though we are doing something that deserves great respect and admiration. Almost as if we are celebrities ourselves. But this notion would be wrong.

We are storytellers, and it is no more complicated than that. If you think back to the earliest tribes of humans, stories connected us to one another and were the currency of culture and family. In essence, stories are our lifeblood and define who we are as people. Agencies have lost, for the most part, the love of a good story. We have been subsumed by tactics, technologies, and nifty ways to use Flash to make things sparkle and move.

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is John Candy and Steve Martin in the hotel room in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." It's the scene where Steve Martin wakes up to John Candy snuggling him, and he utters the famous phrase, "Those aren't two pillows!" What happens after the line is what we should all take note of: Steve Martin unloads on John Candy in a mean-spirited, angry diatribe that could only happen after days of hideous travel mishaps. Steve Martin says to John Candy's character, "And by the way, when you tell a story, have a point! It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!"

Truer words could not be spoken where our business is concerned today. Agencies need to not only understand the art of the story, but also have reverence for the way in which the story is delivered. We owe it to ourselves, and to the people we ask to engage with our marketing programs, to write better stories. We need to create stories that go beyond a suburban mom getting her harried family out the door in the morning with hot toaster waffles in hand, or a young couple impressing the neighbors with a new car. We need to create stories that move, delight, and surprise us with their power and resonance. With the technology we have in-hand, it is incumbent upon us to create more surprising stories than ever before.

Don't divorce what we do as a business from who you are as a person.

As agency people, digital or otherwise, we can be a little cavalier about our own media habits. We create television commercials and use DVRs to obliterate them from our sight. We create banners and microsites that we never even visit. The days of people waiting to receive our messages are over. The only proof you need is in your own behavior. What was the last television commercial you watched or banner you clicked on? We comfort ourselves with the soothing refrain of "we are not the target" or "they're not like us." The good news is that they are more like "us" than ever before, and it would be richly rewarding to treat the people we are marketing to the same way we wish to be treated.

Often, this assertion can be perceived and misconstrued as an indictment of all marketing. It is not. There is a place for television, banners, microsites, and emails. It is important for brands to share their stories and help people understand how their products and services can fit into our lives. What is critical is that we have a conversation about what all of this means. Have an open dialogue about what is best for your client, and ultimately, the audience, and don't hold on to sacred cows. Everything should be in question, and it's our job to push the envelope of what is possible and what is good.

Innovation is the lifeblood of any organization

Finally, no agency (or company, really) will survive without a healthy understanding and respect for the importance of innovation. We collectively gaze in wonder at Google, a company that seems to have so much money that it can afford to innovate. Companies that expect, and even demand, innovation from their employees have happier employees, happier clients and, by extension, more money.

Look for specific and measurable ways to encourage people to innovate within your organization and be accepting and forward-looking when some, inevitably, fail. Change does not come out of a two-day offsite where everything is "figured out" and all the answers are clear. Change comes from a relentless, steady focus on forward motion and discovery.

Adopt a program like Google's, in which you allow people to spend some percentage of their time in exploration of things that interest them. Require them to share and report back to their teams and the company what they've learned and how they're thinking. Only then will you begin to understand that change isn't a singular event, but a constant flow of ideas and thoughts that will cumulatively reinvent the way we look at our world.

2010 should prove to be another exceptional year, and that is a very good thing. The only constant is change, and I for one, along with the teams at my agency, look forward to a spectacular year that will continue to shape and redefine our industry.

Here's to a great 2010.

Liz Ross is EVP and chief growth officer for Digitas U.S.

Can Google Sell -- and Market -- a Smartphone?

Brought to you by Rita Chang

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Google can be counted on to spark a storm of buzz as only a few brands can. But can the internet search giant distribute, market and support hardware?

By many accounts, the Google-branded Nexus One smartphone is set to launch early January, although Google has been mum on how, exactly, it will distribute it. If reports are true, the search giant will sell a phone subsidized by a wireless carrier, probably T-Mobile, as well as a full-priced model without cell service. Google will sell the phone directly to consumers through Google.com/phone and buyers must have a Google checkout account, according to the terms of sale document obtained by Engadget.

Either way, it's a radical departure for an internet advertising company built on search terms and text ads to enter the low-margin, cut-throat hardware business. It would also land the search behemoth squarely on Apple's turf and ratchet up the rivalry between them, as they already compete on browsers and desktop and mobile operating systems.

Of course Google has none of Apple's chops in marketing, retail and customer support, and its product would have a long way to go to catch the iPhone. But, analysts and partners say, don't put it past Google to draw on its rich arsenal of brand power and sheer will to disrupt and experiment.

Obstacles abound
There's a laundry list of obstacles that Google needs to overcome, from convincing consumers that buying an unsubsidized phone is in their interest to not upsetting its telecom partners.

"It is arguable that Google can do an e-tail strategy; it is arguable that they have the marketing might in their brand to pull it off," said Philippe Winthrop, a Strategy Analystics analyst. "All these things are plausible, the question is, 'Can they all come together?'"

Carriers, not handset makers, dominate the wireless industry as they dictate device features and then support them with gargantuan marketing budgets. It's hard to believe that even cash-rich Google would replicate those budgets, given that big media buys and marketing blitzes are absent in its DNA.

Brand power, not marketing dollars
For Google, mass consumer marketing means a button on its search home page for a day or two, as it did for T-Mobile's G1 last year and, more recently, for Verizon's Droid. While the most-visited web page in the world is a powerful platform, it's hard to compare it to Verizon and AT&T, the nation's second- and third-largest advertisers, which collectively spent $6.8 billion on advertising in 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence. (Sprint Nextel, the nation's 18th-largest advertiser, spent $1.5 billion.)

That's not to say the company is beyond hitting the airwaves to plug a product, having placed its first TV ads to showcase its web browser, Chrome, on TV networks that allow Google to sell their inventory via Google TV Ads. These aren't big buys, however, and analysts say if Google was serious about selling phones in mass quantities to consumers directly, it would have to quickly ramp up its consumer-marketing efforts.

"To move a phone like this, they'll have to solve the marketing problem and Google sucks in marketing -- it's not their core competency," said Rob Enderle, principal of the Enderle Group.

Google's best weapon is its brand; its moves are widely followed, and any notable mention of the company gets the tech and investing worlds excited and riled up. The hype behind the Nexus One is already at fever pitch among tech circles.

Retail distribution and support
As a software company that gives away its services, Google lacks the distribution channel and support infrastructure to deal with complex hardware.

"The big unknown is what Google would do to get retail support," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin. "They really need relationships with someone like Best Buy who can get the phone into the hands of consumers."

Best Buy already has a retail partnership with Google to demo and install Google apps on smartphones, and it might not be a big stretch for the companies to expand that relationship. There are also online outlets such as Amazon and Wirefly that wouldn't pass up a chance to sell the widely buzzed phone that's been built up to be an iPhone killer.

Google might be a newcomer to consumer support, but it must have had some practice supporting paying customers; after all, Google has to field queries from the city of Los Angeles, which recently signed a multi-year, $7.2 million deal with the software company to use its enterprise apps.

The more likely possibility is that T-Mobile would support the phone, as carriers, not handset makers, typically provide that service in the U.S.

Unlocked phones
If indeed Google were to circumvent the wireless carriers and sell the phones unlocked -- meaning that consumers can sign with any wireless carrier -- it would have a big hurdle to clear in persuading consumers to buy the phone, which could cost closer to $500 than the $200 consumers are used to paying for high-end smartphones with a two-year service contract from a wireless provider. Those multi-year carrier plans that keep users tethered to carriers subsidize the actual cost of the phones.

For consumers, buying an unsubsidized, unlocked phone means they can upgrade their devices, switch carriers at will and without penalty, and access cheaper service plans as they own the devices outright and owe no subsidies to the carrier. To persuade American consumers to switch to unlocked phones, however, Google would have to succeed where companies like Nokia have failed.

"We're not trained to buy unsubsidized phones in masses, and there's no way for Google to viably subsidize this phone," said wireless analyst Chetan Sharma.

Presently, there are legions of people, albeit on the fringes, rooting for a vendor to break the stranglehold that carriers wield in the business. As the ecosystem evolves to become a more open one where carriers don't get to dictate the user experience, Google's initiative could gain steam in the blogosphere.

"You'll have to explain the benefits of an unlocked phone to people, but Google is very viral. It went from a meaningless word to being a verb in our vernacular. Google has the marketing might and virality," Mr. Winthrop said.

Among the carriers, T-Mobile appears prepared for the Google phone because it has a service plan made just for unsubsidized handsets.

Delicate balance
Of course, Google runs the risk of upsetting its partners as it tries to compete against them. Google's goal, after all, is to popularize the Android platform to further its ad-serving ambitions by encouraging more handset makers to adopt the software.

"For Google, getting Android distributed and scale and reach are what's important," noted John Jackson, VP-research at CCS Insight. "If Google were to compete directly with Android licensees, it would be doing a profound disservice."

But Google may have the upper hand, as handset makers face few viable alternatives besides Android, which, as a highly customizable operating system, allows operators and handset makers to differentiate their wares. Symbian is being retooled as its owner, Nokia, tries to make it open-sourced.

Windows Mobile is a nonstarter: Until the Windows 7 mobile-operating system ships, handset makers are minimizing their exposure to Microsoft's software.

Where Digital Marketing Is Headed In 2010

Brought to you by Ken Mallon and Duncan Southgate

In our discussions about what will happen in the digital marketing industry during the next 12 months, one overarching trend emerged: The basic rules of brand building are just as important for innovations in the digital space as they are for traditional forms of communication.

Using new technology won't in itself bring success; your digital communications still need to be creative, engaging and relevant if they are to cut it during the second decade of this century. Here are the first five of our top 10 trends for 2010. (We'll post the next five here tomorrow.)

Online display: Don't be blinded by the shiny and new.
In 2010, advertisers will experiment with new, larger ad formats. These formats may be initially attractive because they are different, but the basics of brand building beyond awareness shouldn't be ignored. Most of the new formats perform very well in the short term. Dynamic Logic has previously reported the high performance (brand impact) of video ads when they were first introduced. They found that video ad performance, relative to average ad performance, declined over a two year period following introduction as the novelty wore off. We'd expect this to be true for most of the new, larger ad formats and their progeny.

Ultimately, over the next several years only the fittest for these larger formats will survive. If they prove too intrusive, they may make people less favorable toward the advertised brand or the website on which they are served. Other advertisers and agencies will use these formats more cautiously, taking note of creative best practices gleaned from prior work.

Viral video will move from art to science.
As online video consumption continues to rise, advertisers increasingly value viral viewings as a clear and visible sign that their campaigns are engaging audiences. In response, viral video analytics are becoming sophisticated. YouTube has enhanced its video analytics offer, and companies such as Visible Measures and Unruly Media are providing comprehensive viral monitoring services across multiple online video platforms.

This information will fuel a more scientific approach to viral campaign planning. Rather than just place videos online and hope an audience will come, advertisers will invest in viral seeding strategies. They'll promote their videos via online influencers, Facebook video-sharing applications and targeted, paid placements. Advertisers will also become smarter about developing and selecting ads with the most viral video potential before they employ the seeding. A recent calibration exercise for Millward Brown's Link pre-test, for example, identified the creative factors which explain most of the variation seen in levels of viral viewing.

While there are likely to still be more misses than hits in the viral space, the opportunity of being next year's T-Mobile "Dance" or Evian's roller babies is something many marketers will plan for.

Gaming gets more social and mobile.
The ability to access Twitter and Facebook from the Xbox game system is one sign console gaming is becoming a lot more social. Games such as "Uncharted 2" already allow you to tweet your progress from within the game and we anticipate seeing these features implemented in more games. Microsoft's Project Natal promises to bring even more interactivity to gaming by supplanting controllers with your actual body movements, improving immensely on a model created by Nintendo. Perhaps the most promising and category-busting idea appears to be OnLive, a games-on-demand service that allows you to play any console or PC game on your TV or computer, without the need for a console at all.

Gaming's reach is already significant -- "Modern Warfare 2" is the biggest entertainment launch ever -- but the social elements are going to make the growth exponential. The proliferation of mobile games such as Doodle Jump for the iPhone, which allows the user to interact with other players, brings gaming to the masses.

Dynamic Logic's research has already shown that gaming can be very effective in increasing brand metrics. As interactivity increases and gaming becomes ubiquitous, we expect more advertisers to enter this space. For example, in the fall of 2010, Disney will launch "Epic Mickey" for the Nintendo Wii, the first major communication vehicle for a significant repositioning of this much-loved global brand.

Mobile takes a bite out of online.
According to the Mobile Marketing Association, total U.S. spend on mobile marketing will grow from $1.7 billion this year to $2.16 billion in 2010. Google's $750 million purchase of mobile ad network Admob reinforces that 2010 will be a significant year for mobile. We expect to see more consolidation in the mobile space.

With Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and RIM's BlackBerry platforms making the smartphone choices more attractive to consumers and cost of access slowly coming down, mobile web usage numbers will increase. The iPhone alone has now reached 57 million units worldwide, the fastest uptake in the history of technology. The real innovation will be increased adoption of the next-generation mobile browsers that will make the mobile web look and feel more like the applications we know today.

While web-based mobile, despite its growth, still only reaches a relatively small number of people, this niche audience can be particularly attractive to some brands and we've seen many targeting successes. Mobile provides the ability to target by site, phone model, demographics and location, all of which can be useful to advertisers. In addition, Dynamic Logic's normative advertising effectiveness data already suggests that mobile is two to five times better at driving brand metrics than online, and we expect this differential to remain consistent in 2010.

All of this means that mobile may well start to take ad dollars which would previously have been spent online. Since it's a new medium, there remains some consumer resistance to mobile advertising, so we advertisers will initially favor the soft-sell approach of providing useful content in this space, rather than pushing hard-sell messaging.

Here I am. Over here!
The promise that technology would enable automated direct-marketing messages to be pushed to consumers with GPS-enabled mobile devices has yet to come to fruition. Consumers are understandably reluctant to broadcast their location randomly or to be interrupted by unexpected messages without their consent. Instead we're seeing a variety of innovative solutions created to facilitate geo-targeting of marketing messages (when in-aisle, in-store or in-proximity) as the number of GPS-enabled devices continues to rise.

Services such as the mobile game FourSquare contain a social-media element that allows users to broadcast their location to a network of friends and other users in their respective cities. The social element of this voluntary disclosure has allowed marketers to tap into an engaged network of users and offer special promotions based on reported location. We expect FourSquare and other apps with a hybrid location/social-networking component to grow significantly in 2010.

We also expect to see utility-focused location applications gain popularity on GPS-enabled mobile devices during 2010. ComScore has reported that 11% of their mobile panel is currently using map or direction-based applications on their devices, representing 41% year-on-year growth and potentially stealing market share from standalone GPS devices. How these applications are eventually monetized remains to be seen, but the "Minority Report" scenario of "push" location-based advertising is starting to become a reality through voluntary user disclosure of location.

Even if consumers won't share their location with brands, brands can share their locations with consumers. In this vein, marketers will increasingly make location a feature of their campaigns, as the recent Levi's Twitter promotion in Australia demonstrates.

Search evolves, but not everyone notices.
As marketing budgets remain under intense pressure, search will do well thanks to its clear and measurable short-term ROI. In 2010 search will become more relevant and efficient for users. The arrival of Bing has intensified competition between the major search engines, who will develop and experiment with new features such as vertical searches and more visual integration. For example, Google may adopt Bing's handy "more on this page" hover-over feature. But most consumers will continue to prefer a simple experience, and so more complex new features will be used by just a small minority of users.

Social media will affect search in two ways. Firstly, search will become increasingly real-time as users take advantage of Google and Bing search results, including Twitter and Facebook updates, or use Twitter search as a standalone application. Secondly, the meshing of search and social will be embodied by the arrival of Google's Social Search option, where you can see the information posted by people within your online social circle.

Major search providers, including Google, MSN and Yahoo are all focusing heavily on the new .mobi search domain. Travel and hospitality brands in particular will be interested in this new development as it fits well with the behavior of their target customers. Rapidly improving mobile applications such as map-based search and Google Goggles' picture-based search will encourage more consumers to search on the move.

We also expect research to continue into the interaction between search and display advertising. The influences between them are well established, but we expect experimentation to increase as more advertisers appreciate the branding role of search and the search influence of display, and then try to optimize this relationship for their brands.

Brands will realize online video is not a panacea.
Online video advertising continues to grow at a high rate, and we expect this trend to continue into 2010. Beyond the PC, online video is increasingly being watched via gaming consoles (eg. Xbox360) and mobile devices such as the iPhone. Developments in the sector will be driven largely by competition among major industry players such as Hulu and YouTube. Hulu, the ad-supported premium content site, has been growing fast, and some analysts estimate it accounts for 20% of all online video spend. YouTube still has a far higher number of viewers, and is incorporating increasing volumes of premium, long-form content from providers such as MGM, BBC, CBS and Lionsgate.

YouTube is also increasingly embracing short (15 second) pre-rolls and skippable video ads. Learning from the latter suggests that creative content plays a greater role in online video success than we see on TV. Content in the online space faces competition for user attention, thereby increasing the importance of creative ad quality -- this should lead more smart advertisers to pre-test their online creative before investing in relatively high online CPMs. Dynamic Logic has found that effectiveness may be tapering off as the "novelty" of online video fades and advertisers realize that the platform in itself is not the answer.

Video advertising can be highly effective when used well, with strong brand integration and entertaining content. In an effort to maintain impact and drive further engagement, advertisers will continue to experiment with extra layers of interactivity beyond standard pre-rolls -- such as one-third clickable overlays, expanding, interactive companion banners and interactive in-video elements. As they do this, advertisers need to be sure they aren't using technology just because they can: It will only be effective when it is relevant to the brand or the message.

Brands start taking advantage of social graphs.
If the late '00s were the era of the social network, the early '10s will see the rise of the "social graph" -- the network of you, your friends, and the friends of your friends.

Everyone has a social graph. In fact, the point of social networking has been to build one. We will now see services like Facebook and Google start to use social graph data more aggressively as we move away from the "destination web" towards a "social web" whereby people get information through their networks rather than a specific site. Facebook's new "reconnect with" feature is one implementation of social graph data.

The social graph needs two kinds of tool to work. At the service end, it needs algorithms -- the formulae that use your graph to determine what information and connections you value most, which allows services to predict what information you're going to like (including, of course, which products and marketing communications you'll appreciate). At the user end, it needs filters -- the ability to group people and information more effectively to get the most out of a network. The effectiveness of both algorithms and filters are improving rapidly, and these will be a big factor in the continued evolution of social media.

In 2010 there will be a heightened need for brands to understand how to be more social in order to access these more segmented networks. There's increasing evidence that the ROI of social media is definitely worth the effort.

Integration trend stimulated by privacy concerns.
We are in the midst of a shift (powered by digital) where information flows side to side as much as from top down or bottom up. This means that the act of consumers talking to one other now has a rightful place within the circle of influential communications that shape brands.

There are some unique rules of engagement in accessing that communication. If marketers and researchers want to be able to tap into the huge amounts of rich, accurate, and timely information that consumers themselves generate, they have to think beyond traditional paradigms.

The next 12 months will continue the "privacy by design" movement whereby consumer privacy and user control will become more important for those seeking to understand consumer behavior. Privacy elements will therefore need to be integrated into consumer generated platforms. This will naturally lead to a land grab where parties join forces e.g. a market research company and a social network provider, so that the transition between the platform and the third party collecting data become seamless.

We will also see a continuation of media convergence. The aggressive nature of regulatory regimes means a global privacy standards framework will become vital. A global framework will allow for a more uniform application of notice and consumer consent regardless of platform. This should allow for greater transparency, but will place a premium on the key partnerships that are given permission to be part of reduced set of data collectors and processors.

Data integration enables insightful 'tradigital' learning.
During 2009, digital marketing became increasingly complex and marketers have been looking for more guidance about where to advertise, what size of creative to deploy and which tools to use, from display to CRM to search to social networks and mobile.

Moving forward, the definition will change from managing "digital" to managing "tradigital" as the lines of demarcation between traditional and digital media blur. Media consumption patterns are driving this blurring of the boundaries, as TV viewing is either delayed or online; magazines offer integration of content in print and digital form; and online activities are leveraged for both online and offline sales goals.

This means that data integration will remain at the heart of our measurement challenge and will require a research platform linking many data initiatives that mirror the integration of the technology that delivers the marketing messages.

Survey research will remain the primary tool for understanding branding effects and motivations across these platforms, but the deeper value-add to the marketer will be how the branding effects in surveys help explain the behavioral and sales information coming from a variety of sources including buzz monitoring, online behavior tracking, shopper loyalty databases, consumer sales panels and custom databases. While online listening techniques will continue to grow in importance, marketers will find this of limited value unless they also understand who is saying what.

Lessons From Expensive Marketing Failures

Brought to you by Susan Kuchinskas

Interactive ad campaigns that miss the mark are as common as skid marks in winter. While failures are always costly, high-profile missteps can be particularly hazardous to a marketer's bottom line. We took a look at six 2008 campaigns that fomented outrage to see where they went wrong. And while it may not be fair to call any of these campaigns flops -- after all, all of these ads got the blogosphere buzzing, with mainstream media coverage as well -- we can tell you how to do better.


1. Brokeback Snickers

TBWA\Chiat\Day's Super Bowl commercial for Snickers, in which two grimy car mechanics are horrified at finding themselves unexpectedly lip-to-lip, was arguably a spoof of macho attitudes. But neither the Human Rights Campaign nor the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation thought so, calling it demeaning -- and calling for a boycott. Snickers' online component of the campaign made things worse.

Viewers could go online to choose alternate endings, which were darker and more violent than the TV version, in which the guys pull out their chest hair in an effort to "do something manly." Online, you could watch one mechanic slam a car's hood down on the other's head or hit a brutal belly blow with a wrench. Ouch! Bonus content included candid videos of the Super Bowl players going, "Eeeoouuu" when the mechanics' mouths touch.

Activists called for a boycott, amid global press coverage of the company's homophobia, not the yumminess of its product. Mars took down the website.

Okay, so the offending Super Bowl spot was way back in 2007, right? Lesson learned, right? Nope. Mars was back this past July with a TV spot in which a slender male race-walker in teensy yellow shorts is harassed by Mr. T and told to "run like a real man" and "get some nuts." The ad was promptly pulled following a new swell of protest. However, thanks to the miracle of viral media, the spot lives on via YouTube.

What we can learn

1. If you're going to engage in conversation with your customers, listen to what they say.

2. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.



2. The Google killer stubs its toe

Cuil is another tech startup in a long line of such that hope to grab a piece of Google's humongous ad action by doing search better.

It called itself the world's biggest search engine, claiming that the 120 billion web pages in its index was more than Google's. This boast instantly raised expectations, along with the pedigree of its founders, two former Google execs. Cuil would be a "Google killer," people began to say. Intense interest was fired by influential tech bloggers like Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who gushed in September 2007, "The murmurs about new stealth search engine Cuil (pronounced "cool"), which were barely a whisper earlier this year, are gaining strength and are starting to reverberate through Silicon Valley gatherings." In a later post, he fired up the buzz with words like "super-stealth," "secret sauce" and "massive search engine." Tech bloggers followed his lead.

By the time Cuil launched in July 2008, there was no way it could live up to the hype. More than 50 million visitors overwhelmed its servers and, worse, search results weren't all that good. Traffic to the site peaked in August at 1.5 million visitors, according to Quantcast, but plummeted faster than the mortgage securities market, dipping to .4 million users at the end of September. By then, Cuil was the "ill-fated" search engine.

This was a perfect word-of-mouth campaign that peaked way too early. In the best-case scenario, the search engine would have gone live with limited use and worked the kinks out before anyone noticed it. After all, that's what Google did. To be fair, Cuil didn't necessarily seed this campaign, other than to put up a placeholder web page. It was both the beneficiary and victim of the tech-blogging beast that's constantly on the hunt for scoops.

What we can learn

1. Timing is everything when it comes to viral campaigns.

2. Under-promise and over-deliver -- not the other way around.


3. Red with mortification

In April, Hollywood celebrities and international media packed the premiere party for "Scarlet," a new TV thriller series starring the Natassia Malthe, an exotic actress who'd played a few bit roles. Hollywood producer David Nutter lent credibility to the project, while Malthe began to make the scene at high-profile events like the Oscars.

An integrated marketing campaign reputed to cost $100 million was a group effort between Agency.com (New York and London), Tequila\London, Stream and Premier PR. Broadcast ads sent viewers to Scarlet.tv (no longer an active site), where they could see more commercials and trailers for the show. The PR folk planted rumors linking Malthe romantically to major stars.

So, excitement was high at the premiere, as partiers waited to see the opening episode. Instead, what they saw was a commercial for Scarlet, the world's slimmest LCD TV. While LG, Scarlet's manufacturer, said audience reaction was positive, on the internet, TV fanboys howled with rage.

But some advertising insiders loved it. "I absolutely fell for it. The concept of a TV series really being a series of TVs was incredibly creative," says integrated marketing consultant Amanda Vega. Where LG dropped the ball, she adds, is in not interacting with fans after the reveal. For example, the company could have asked fans whether it should sponsor a series and, if so, what should it be like. She thinks negative press about a campaign is harder on the agency than the advertiser.

What we can learn

Use every opportunity to gather feedback that will help with product development and future marketing.



4. Dr. Pepper leaves a bad taste

The band Guns N' Roses had become a rock-n-roll travesty, too addled to finish its sixth album after 14 years. So, in January, the folks at Dr. Pepper gave the band a challenge: Finish the album, and we'll give every American a free soda.

They may have thought this was a safe bet, but in October, the band finally released "Chinese Democracy" -- doubtless without giving a heads-up to the soft drink maker. The company issued a statement saying, "We never thought this day would come." Obviously not.

The day of the release, Dr. Pepper put up a website where people could register to be mailed a coupon for their drink. So, they weren't giving every American a soda, just every American who could log onto the site within 24 hours. The website couldn't keep up with demand, and the complaints and negative coverage began. The company added a toll-free number and extended the offer to give more Americans a chance to get their sugary due.

But the backlash was severe, led by Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose. The band's lawyer called the promotion -- or whatever -- an unmitigated disaster, and Rose is still being asked about it. Which means, he is still talking about Dr. Pepper. For free. Even though he's saying bad things.

Dr. Pepper gets style points for linking its brand to a major band without having to pay a fee -- or even negotiate with -- the record label. You could call this B2B social media.

What we can learn

1. Endorsements are not the only way to link your brand to celebrities.

2. Prepare for your campaign's success with a bullet-proof website.


5. It's so... big!

Crispin Porter + Bogusky made its mark by pushing the boundaries of taste, but this campaign takes that literally. "Watch the Whopper Virgins Take Their First Bite! It's a Burger King campaign that purports to ask remote indigenous people, from Thailand, Greenland and Transylvania -- "people who don't even have a word for burger" -- to decide whether a Whopper beats a Big Mac.

A teaser campaign launched Dec. 2, showing people in their native costumes sitting down to big burgers. A microsite hosts the spots online, along with an eight-minute documentary showing the crews traveling the world to perform the tests. It's not clear how much of this -- if any -- is true. "The remote Chang Mai villagers" who have never heard of a hamburger could buy one right in town, for example.

The commentariat criticized the spots for cultural insensitivity, as well as cruelty for subjecting these people to potential gastric complaints. The Boston Globe compared Burger King to the early European colonizers who wiped out the Native Americans with disease.

Those headlines may not matter, says Howard Greenstein, president and social strategist for the Harbrooke Group. "It matters as much as your film critic saying a film is terrible, but it's a huge box office hit. Certainly there's a place for people who have experience to say it's good or not. The crowd also decides whether something is great or not so great. The critic becomes just another voice."

Then there is the little matter of finding the spots in the first place. According to Advertising Age, after the campaign debuted, it was next to impossible to find the campaign's website via a Google search if you omitted the plural "s" on the end of the search terms (i.e., you searched for "whopper virgin" instead of "whopper virgins"). So, Burger King missed a simple SEM tactic and didn't buy any search ads to appear beside queries for "whopper virgin." Who knows how much additional web traffic this simple omission may have cost the company.

What we can learn

1. If you have a great idea, make sure to have an SEO plan in place for all terms and contingencies, including misspelled-but-similar keywords.

2. If you don't know which half of your advertising spend works, at least have fun spending the money.


6. A viral headache

You're probably familiar with the Motrin fiasco: An online video attempted to be humorous in pointing out that carrying a baby around can hurt your back. Mommy bloggers took offense and marshaled their minions to blast Motrin maker McNeil Consumer Healthcare. Motrin marketers had hoped the video would go viral as a kickoff to a new marketing campaign by Taxi. Instead, McNeil took down the video (useless) and abandoned the rest of the campaign.

What was notable about this particular backlash was that it broke on Twitter -- which means it spread almost instantaneously. McNeil should have had people monitoring Twitter, people who were trained in social media interaction, says Greenstein. "Social media crisis situations call for different responses than the spokesperson trained to talk to the media might come up with," he says.

Twitter is just another example of the tightening of the feedback loop between products and consumers, he adds. "You can wake up the next morning and find you're the number-one villain on Twitter. That's a real risk for brand marketers. You can also wake up and find you're a hero."

What we can learn

Designate people to listen to all communication channels 24/7, and empower them to respond to immediately to queries, rants and raves.

Susan Kuchinskas is a freelance writer who has written for Adweek, Business 2.0, M-Business and internetnews.com.

10 Signs You Don't Understand Web Analytics

Brought to you by Nicole Rawski

Web analytics has always been an important aspect of digital marketing, but only recently has it been considered critical to success. The data mined through savvy analytics tracking can maximize any marketing budget by driving conversions and results; however, this only comes to pass if you understand what the data are telling you.

Web analytics is critical to measuring the success of your website as you identify opportunities to improve your business and marketing initiatives. Most marketers are confused with business implications of analytics reports, so it ends up being simpler to track what you know.

Web analytics has made great strides in the past decade, from when hit counters were the most sophisticated metric trackers in use. But there is still a long way to go before analytics is used to its full marketing potential. In this article, I hope to articulate ways that marketers can maximize their analytics solutions. To do so, I will discuss the top 10 signs that the power of analytics is still eluding your company.

Sign 1: You bought the tool a year ago, and you're still not measuring your business objectives.

You were sold on the lure of data. You bought a web analytics tool, have dashboards sent to you every week, and have no idea what they're supposed to be telling you about your business. You know there is great information contained in these reports and dashboards -- but you cannot decipher how it helps achieve your goals. Don't worry, you're not alone. The overabundance of data makes it difficult to sync graphs with meeting agendas.

There are several avenues marketers can explore to align analytics with business objectives -- not the least of which is your analytics teams. Keep everyone in the loop as changes occur and reevaluate reporting on a regular basis to ensure marketers have the ammo they need to create educated strategies.

For example, one business objective for a B2B website is to increase the number of qualified leads that come through the site. Measuring the total number of leads is one relevant measurement of this goal, but it's more revealing if compared with comprehensive traffic numbers. Additionally, if campaigns are driving traffic, monitoring conversion rates will track whether website visitors reflect target audiences.

Sign 2: You still have to remind the executive team what your company's KPIs are (hint: key performance indicators).

It is understandable that analytics jargon is not mainstream yet. As more CMOs ask for reports and sound reasoning behind digital marketing decisions, terminology will become more commonplace, and this point will be inconsequential. Until that day, keep framing campaigns, objectives, and goals within key performance indicators. This will keep everyone on the same page. It will continue to drive home the importance and value of grounding decisions in quantitative data. You can start one person at a time -- and the sooner you begin, the sooner you can make a difference. Prove that web analytics and KPIs mean something by suggesting sound improvement opportunities based on data. Your executives will be impressed and memorize any acronym you throw at them.

Sign 3: You create these beautiful dashboards, and no one knows what they mean.

Ah, the infamous dashboards that have been defined to include only the most important key metrics, yet you manage to cram in every possible minute detail, making it impossible to read. Pause a campaign, write more blogs, or increase an SEM budget? You still feel like you are flying blind.

The answer: Throw it away and start over.

Refine and redefine your business objectives, and assign a KPI to each. Understand what influences your KPIs, and how fluctuations affect the success of your business objectives. Once this is established, dashboards start to look different and useable.

Sign 4: Your boss is always asking about the number of "hits" your company's website is getting.

This has not been a valuable success metric since the '90s, and it is like nails on a chalkboard to any analytics professional. Potential consumers are not "hits" -- they are people who expect valuable content and a quality user experience when they visit a website. This goes back to point No. 2. Education is needed if we are to evolve beyond basic metrics and start unearthing valuable user insights.

The next time your boss asks how many "hits" the website is getting, simply respond with a smile and say, "I don't know, but since we began optimizing the checkout process, our conversion rate has increased X percent, resulting in an increase in $X dollars last month. Do you want me to look into those 'hits' for you?"

That will likely be the last time you are asked about a hit count.

Sign 5: You're still scratching your head wondering what you should segment and how it will help.

A great place to begin is to differentiate between new and return visitors. How do they behave differently, and how do they convert differently? What are some insights that you could glean to help increase conversion rates? Analytics can also help segment out users who are not looking for your website. To do so, create a segment that does not include your target audience and learn what your true conversion rate is -- and optimize from there.

Continuing with the example from point No. 1, segmentation also provides value in measuring your business objectives. I mentioned that the conversion rate can help assess if the target audience is who is arriving on a website. Segmentation can help provide insight into identifying new and returning visitors. New visitors may not fill out a lead form; however, they may download a couple of white papers, and returning visitors may fill out the lead form on their second or third site visits. All of this information can help marketers target their audiences appropriately.

Sign 6: Even though your homepage has an 80 percent bounce rate, your boss doesn't want a change because he/she likes the way it looks.

This is a classic push-pull battle. The difference is that one group is comprised of potential consumers who are the key to a company's success. To convince decision makers to trust their data, run tests to prove that the reports reflect consumer preference. Remain persistent on the implications of what not changing it could do to your business goals. If bounce rates improve, there will be little left to debate.

When evaluating a homepage for performance and deciding what needs to change, there are a few things to keep in mind: What is the value proposition? Why should a visitor engage further with the site? What is the call-to-action? Where are you trying to drive visitors within the website? Does the homepage have a clear navigation path for various user types? If the answer is "I am not sure" to any of these questions, you've found a great place to begin testing.

Sign 7: You're running multiple online marketing campaigns, and you have no idea which performs better.

For the first time, marketing campaigns can be measured to show their direct correlation and impact. Start from the beginning and tag online media campaigns so that you can measure how well each drives traffic to your site and how it converts. Knowing where to move your marketing dollars will become obvious once campaigns are tracked individually.

Google Analytics provides a URL builder for those who are not familiar with tagging campaigns. However, analytics solutions vary, so it would be best to check your implementation guide to clearly understand the requirements. The following is a hypothetical example of a campaign parameter using Google Analytics:

www.mysite.com/landingpage1?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=may

The "?utm" portion of the URL lets Google Analytics know that a variable is being passed from a campaign. The source ID will let Google Analytics know where the visitor is coming from, the campaign medium, and other useful statistics. These variables can be established to reflect whatever data make sense for a particular campaign.

Sign 8: The one time you ran an A/B test, a winner was chosen -- but no improvements ensued.

Testing is only one part of optimization, the next -- and most difficult part -- is implementation. Optimization is a continual process to make sure you are putting your best foot, ad creative, and messaging forward. What improves conversion rates today may not be as effective three months from now. With analytics, marketers are equipped to do more than just keep up with their consumers, and doing so will help attain goals and drive business.

A/B and multivariate testing are widely used in search engine marketing to determine the most effective ad creative. If most of your sales are completed offline, run testing with ad copy including phone numbers/store locations versus creative without it. Track conversion rates to see if prominently displaying this information on search engine ads makes a difference.

Sign 9: You still can't figure out why total site visits don't add up in all the reports.

It's important to understand that web analytics is not perfect, and sometimes 1 plus 1 equals 3. This does not mean that the information is inaccurate, but with an infinite number of variables and moving parts, numbers do not always match up. Web analytics data are still extremely valuable and important in gauging how a website performs. Remember to look at trends and major changes in key metrics. Continue to investigate what may have caused drastic changes until you have an answer.

A metric that is often used to measure audience mix is a comparison of new versus returning visitors. This metric is calculated as the total amount of new visitors divided by the total amount of returning visitors. A small number (0.3) indicates that the website has a healthy retention of visitors, while a higher number (5.2) indicates that the website has an abundance of new visitors. Marketing strategies that are in place determine the optimal rate for this metric. If an acquisition campaign launches and the goal is to drive qualified traffic, you should expect to see the ratio increase -- hopefully not too much, as you want to see the new traffic return.

Sign 10: You still design with HiPPO (highest paid person's opinion) standards in mind.

Great design drives conversions, so it needs to be strategically crafted to contribute to marketing goals. What worked on a previous project or competitor's site does not necessarily translate to your company. I am not advocating that you discount people's opinions or blindly follow analytics -- it is important to take both into account. Data are a great unifier and can help keep people on the same page in board meetings. By combining objective and subjective points of discussion, it is easier to come to sound marketing decisions. Even if the topic on the table is outlandish, cutting edge, or uncharted territory, at least data can be a place to initiate the conversation.

In conclusion, combining marketing insight with data is an extremely powerful and successful strategy.

Nicole Rawski is a web analytics analyst at Geary Interactive.