Pressing your buttons

What buttons when pressed, make your part with your hard earned cash??

Amazon “recommends” is now over 15 years old – presenting us with recommendations based on buying patterns of like-minded people. Love it or hate it (does this actually narrow our choice rather than broadening our horizons) using empirical data to try and second guess the most opportune moment to interrupt, recommend or “tip” us to a point of purchase is now common place across multiple media channels.

At this point of purchase we as the consumer consider other aspects that have precluded this journey. We take into account peer recommendations (“Liked”, word of mouth) , customers’ reviews, discounts or authority recommendations from respected experts in our decision to purchase (specifically for items which are at the top of products and services which fulfil the upper tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs)

Marketers understand the importance of these factors, however as demonstrated on nearly all commerce sites they are all employed as tactics, rather than those which are relevant being emphasised and leveraged.

Recommending the same book with the message “6 of your friends purchased this in the past 24 hours” VS “30% discount for the next 5 minutes” will have varying degrees of success depending on the user.

So not only personalising the products that are recommended to us, but tailor how they are pitched to us.

It is also true that once the code to your ‘buttons’ is unlocked, they can be used other across other domains – i.e figure out how to sell you books and these persuasion techniques can be used to sell you clothes, music.

Understanding which of these factors really influences makes for a powerful tool in the war for our attention, however raises an ethical responsibility not to use these persuasion profiles irresponsibly…… “we know you’re depressed, buy chocolate”

source :

http://www.persuasion-profiling.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/EffectiveMeans.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Penny for your thoughts.....

Survey's are a necessary evil

They offer the insight and intelligence that, when combined with other metrics such as sales data give organisations insight on how best to target, talk and engage with current, potential and existing customers.

Organisations such as Dynamic logic offer online survey technologies, gleaning these insights with an immediacy far greater than that offered by existing methods post, face to face, telephone interviews.

However in the day and age of hype cycles that last days rather than weeks and the ability for advertising campaigns to be launched and changed with increased immediacy through social media sites, things need to happen faster and have increased relevance.

Nielsens Brandlift, a partnership with Facebook last year in the US signalled a more immediate and intimate method for measuring the impact of advertising through the site.

This service has now launched in the UK.

The idea

• User group one are exposed to Facebook adverts
• The Facebook ad systems create a small control group whose profile matches that of your target audience, however these users will not be exposed to the advertisement
• A Poll is then show to both sets of user groups in a simple short format
• Results are processed and compared.

Success

The use of the inbuilt tools within Facebook ( the poll ) giving familiarity to the users and the short form nature of the questions has resulted in higher than average responses to the surveys.
marketing technology
Couple this with the segmentation offered by the site through your user profile information ( thus to remove unnecessary questions which in turn increases response rates and one would guess, honesty in response. ) adds to the success of this method and gives advertisers a quick method to test and review their campaign effectiveness

Spam overload

An estimated 34.7 Trillion spam emails sent during 2009 according to Cisco's 2009 annual security survey - so approximately 5 for every person on this planet.

Distributed problem

The report goes on to further highlight the rise in the use of 'botnets ' - taking over host computers to launch attacks. This is significant, previously security focus for blocking and prevention would be on specified devices or countries, now the use of host computers (mine and yours essentially!) which are distributed around the world means repelling these attacks is ever more difficult.

Marketeers

With the problem only looking to increase, the compelling arguments for permission based marketing are stronger than ever in trying to cut through this ever increasing 'noise'.

Email is still a powerful tool - if used with a focus on 'relevance' in the context of content, frequency and timing not being nice to haves, but essential.

*Update

Analysis of 1.5% of one ' botnet ' called Storm during one month in 2008

• 35 million emails sent
• 8.2 million were delievered to mail servers - the remainder were dropped as incorrect / non existent addresses
• Of these 10,500 people clicked the link in the email, resulting in 28 purchases.
• Scaling this out to the full exposure of the botnet reach, it was estimated $3.5million in sales.

*source new scientist

AD:Tech - Meerkats and Search

over 570,000 meerkat fans

Recent trip to AD:Tech in the UK and some interesting insights from the search providers and HitWise, the analytics company

search

They all focused on online retailers and the challenges they face in attracting and customers making comparisons to there high street cousins and the economic downturn which affecting them both.

With the three ( soon to be 2 ? ) search engine companies going through constant evolution in order to make their offer and effectiveness of their product both better for users and advertisers through improved search results, is this having a direct impact on the paid search market?
marketing technology
All three search providers are investing time and effort of surfacing relevant information in the main search results. In the context of retail this would be location maps, product images and key information which may be buried in the site such as customer service or booking numbers .

This enriched user experience is not only for the benefit of us, Yahoo quoted as seeing as much as a 50% increase in Click through Rates and an increase of 20% in conversion using these methods.

As if to confirm this recent data from Hitwise did indeed points to a decrease in paid search across all online retailer categories with more time and effort going into SEO.

Free lunch

Consumers are now more than ever attracted to offers such as discount vouchers with the success of traditional retailers such as Pizza Express and Threshers (wine retail outline) in the UK using this method. With it’s high viral pass on rates between friends these two companies regularly make use of this tactic, in fact many price comparison sites have built a business model around this aggregating and subsequently redirecting searches from users to these offer however it was noted that many retailers are now looking to capture these users directly through smarter use of SEO rather than having to pay this referral fee to such sites.

Social network - What part do Twitter and Facebook play?

Face book this month announced they were finally cash flow positive along with recording there 300 millionth member , validating there dominant position in the social media space.

Twitters exponential growth is well documented, as is their current inability also to turn a buck.

What is interesting though about both of these players is where do users go after they have visited these sites?

• 1 in 3 Google users ends up at a transactional based website after leaving the site – implying that there is specific intention in the search and therefore the subsequent purchase action.
• Twitter users however have a very different exit, over 55% of its users end up at entertainment sites.
• Social sites users in generally do not end up at online retailers after they have exited the site, with 7% of their traffic finding its way to these.

So social media websites do not work for retailers?

The trend buckers

marketing technology

ASOS the exclusively online retailer of fashion goods and clothing has a quite astonishing funnel of users from social sites – with 14% of it’s traffic coming from Facebook alone ( Google comes in at 25% - which while significantly more is actually less than the usual traffic volume of between 30 – 40% from the site to online retailers) demonstrating the importance of Face-book to ASOS.

marketing technology

Other brands which have managed to setup successful communities in the social space are comparethemarket.com, with their meerkat now having over ½ million Facebook friends and 28,000 followers on Twitter – applying the rationale these users will subsequently visit entertainment site ‘s could be of intrinsically beneficial to a price comparison website if leverage correctly with context of the user being reasonably inferred

marketing technology

Christmas rush online

What was also interesting was online retailers busiest times in the all important build up to Christmas compared to retail outlets.

Online November and first week of December, with then a sharp decline with the opposite in retail outlets taking place.

Reasons cited were as simple as delivery / lead times affecting the level of trust consumers had in online to deliver in time for the holiday season.

Sharp rises in online activity after the Xmas period though may not translate directly to increased in online sales, rather consumers searching for discounts and the location of retail ‘ discount sales ‘.

Online and Retail

marketing

Retailers who offer both an online and retail combination could though seize on the surges and declines – with click and collect offering the convenience of online and security of being able to obtain the goods by going to the store.

Fit for purpose

Poor media planning or justifiably promoting an offer ?

I can't make my mind up on this one.

The key message for this ad is the fact you can purchase your new Dell laptop with colour options.

technology in marketing

Does a black and white press ad really convey this effectively?

marketing

1932
First colour photo in a British newspaper, The Times, 17 March

technology
1941
The first colour TV commercial, for Bulova watches, in US*

adverting in colour or color

*Young and Rubicam is cited as creating the first colour TV advert as an experiment, however there were no colour TV's in circulation

marketing technology

1969

First UK colour TV commercial, Bird's Eye Peas, 15 November

technology in marketing

1986

First colour UK natioanl newspaper "Today"

Surrender or drown

The web grows bigger – fact

Content creation is estimated to be growing at around a billion pages per day

Google recently reached a milestone of a trillion pages while running there indexing tools.

Now of course there is a lot of content which is replicated and duplicated but even considering this it still leaves a staggering amount of new information, content and ‘stuff ‘ that makes our jobs even harder to find relevant and more importantly contextual content when we hit that search button.

Search tools fundamental purpose in life is to separate the wheat from the chaff, using smart technology to aid in the sorting process to deliver results which fulfil our criteria, but also deliver the all important contextual advertising that drives the revenue for search companies.

Companies such as Google admit that technology though can only go part of the way to solving the search problem, encouraging us to share information and store our browsing history to further improve these results but leading to privacy debates which continually rage.

So do we have to surrender our personal privacy so as not to drown in non relevant search results ?

A new entrant into the market place is Cuil, a start-up whose privacy policy very clearly states that they keep no logs, no history and do not use the information your computer sends in any way to identify you could be the life preserver many people are looking for.

Question is how then, with this expanding universe of data and information, can they provide today ( let alone the future ) a search tool that delivers relevancy?

Key features :

Context

“Cuil prefers to find all the pages with your keyword or phrase and then analyze the rest of the content on those pages. During this analysis we discover that your keywords have different meanings in different contexts. Once we’ve established the context of the pages, we’re in a much better position to help you in your search.”

Organisation

“We separate different ideas from each other so you can choose the one that interests you. We pick images to illustrate the idea behind each page to aid you in your choice. We include roll-over definitions and offer you ideas to refine your search.”

Search the web, not it’s users

“Because Cuil analyzes Web pages and not click-throughs, we don’t need to know your search history and habits” marketing technology

marketing technology

Mobile - Engagement and Porn

Engagement

Screenvision and Verizon are rolling out a polling program to ask moviegoers questions related to their music preferences, with audience results shown on the screen - a neat way of using technology to engage the captive audience.

The reward, a Spike Lee production ' short ' about the benefits for the Verizon V Cast service. marketing technology

Question, why did he not produce a number of shorts, the most ' relevant ' to the audience being aired ? marketing technology

Porn

Crisp Wireless, the mobile content management and delivery company has released it's list of top searches gleaned from over 14 million users across their content publishing network.

No suprise 'sex and porno' featuring within the top 10 with Britney still managing to make the cut - maybe a victim of these search terms being combined ?

One interesting fact is the presidential election could be ' called ' early by reviewing the results, echoing the democratic results. Barack Obama came in number one with Hilary only making 14 on the list.
marketing technology

Top 20 :

Refreshing, in more ways than one

Just when you thought it was all getting a little formulaic and boring, a neat example from the marketing folks at 'Bar Da Boa ' using technology to engage and delight.

Type your name in both fields then hit visualise.

"Context", not content is king ( sorry Bill )

While marketing still debates the best method for delivering online advertising, Visible World is using technology to concentrate on the all important ‘ context question ‘.

Regardless of the method of delivery, making the content more personalised and relevant is key to maximising it’s effects.

Too often we still see video content being pushed in a manner which is reminiscent of TV broadcast – using assumption rather than data to help define and tailor the message.

Visible creates ‘ unique ‘ adverts using elements such as geography, information supplied by the user and time to ‘ pull ‘ various part of commercials together to create a targeted relevant video message.

Grouping the search

A diversion from the norm here ( however a great example of how enhancing search adds context and relevance) with a music search tool called Yamelo.



The service which is still currently in beta allows you to search for music ( nothing new here ) but also usefully groups popular music by year. marketing technology

Youtube provides the content and also the visuals which are displayed from your search, along with ' tag clouds ' which enhances the entire experience and often leads to you revisiting some classic songs and artists.marketing

Read all about it...

geographical context

In the area of news context and locality are key elements. The popularity of local news and information which is relevant to users has resulted in newspapers adopting ‘ mashing up ‘ Google maps into the news stores. While adding context the interface, presentation and more importantly how users navigate is not optimal.markeing technology

MetaCarta takes feeds from the Associated Press and Reuters indexing and mapping the results against geographical locations. Stories are then categorised by geography or keyword and offers a great way to personalise and search for relevant news stories.

You need to get out more

With the ever increasing accessibility to media there is little need to venture out into the wilderness (especially with this winter weather expected over the Easter break)

News, TV programmes and music are all delivered to our homes 24x7. Time shifted programming, PVR's and music services that learn our preferences and recommend entertainment based on these means our choice is huge – the reasons to leave the sofa are becoming less and less, as Robert Putnam highlighted - the bowling alleys of America are empty.

But what if you do fancy some ‘ old skool ‘ live entertainment?

The challenge

Having as most a music library that is digitally stored and accessed (therefore running into thousands of songs) does mean most of us have a music taste which is generally more varied than our predecessors.

In the past keeping an eye out in the press for tours of bands and artists was a hit and miss affair, relying exclusively on the promotion of these artists to make connections with their fan base.

A new service called SongKick aims to change this.

Working through a plugin to iTunes or Media player SongKick scans your music library and matches your library and recently played songs to up and coming tours. In addition to this based on your tastes it makes recommendations for other artists which may whet your appetite for an evening out.

Users

We are all time precious - it makes the job far easier than relying on listing and advertising, by also adding recommendations it opens up other avenues of music.

The record company

It gives an immediacy - ‘ we are in the zone ‘the recommendations are relevant to us – with all this choice we act like butterflies dipping in and out of each media channel , capturing our attention when it is most relevant is key.

Bands

For new breaking artists it gives a chance for them to be recognised who may not have a record contract but are touring venues it opens up a new audience to their music.

SongKick recognises tapping into Word of mouth for promotion of music is also essential, ( portals such as MySpace evolved from a user base whose love of music underpinned the service ) so provides plugins which displays tour dates and links to tickets for artists it’s users are blogging about.

Maybe some things are better not spoken about, but while writing this I’ve been alerted Neil Diamond is on tour .. best get those tickets booked.

Digital gives relevance... beware

flight BA 38 over shoots runway

The software is indeed serving the correct adverts, based on computer logic.

But what if this air traffic incident had been more serious, is this really the place to advertise one of the most recent and emotional terrorist acts the world has seen ?

more examples

Motorola adopts Google approach.....

Motorola is developing software which scans SMS messages on the users handset to then deliver ' relevant ' advertising, using a combination of key words from the text and also your GPS location.

The article in the Times goes on to give examples of a user texting the word ' hungry ' to then be sent adverts for restaurants in the local area.

Recent studies from Dynamic Logic for the Hilton’s Hampton hotel chain showed a positive increase in the Hotels brand awareness by advertising on weather.com’s WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) site, demonstrating there is indeed a market for relevant mobile advertising content.

All sounds interesting working in a similar fashion to Google Mail, therefore the same concerns have to be raised over privacy and relevance.

Speaking of relevance, I can't help thinking with the circle of friends and the ' colourful ' language they use, I could have a quite a few offers from the local sex shop if the technology goes live...... marketing technology

Time and a place

A number of unfortunate ad placements here, some amusing other demonstrating the destruction of ill placed media can cause.

Radio gets impersonal

radio adds companionship ?

I've covered on several occasions music serving providers such as Pandora and more recently Dizzler but with Last.fm's recent sale to CBS has put these services firmly in the spot light.

Apart from how to monetize these offerings is the fact that all content selection is driven by technology and users, not DJ's.

This personalized targeted approach is exactly what we all want right ? - maybe not.

The future

In the future we will have at our finger tips our own personalized music and TV channels.

These will be built from combinations of our existing habits from viewing, subscriptions and recordings and be delivered with some form of advertising ( still debate how this will work ) but one important element is missing, people.

Will our lives be then just one single stream of entertainment with absolutely no human element ?

Inject

You can Partner with social networking sites to increased the social element but you still need to have the timely injection of the DJ and TV presenter.

We have to remember that people listen and watch TV not just for the specific content, but also for companionship.

The end of the poster?

Terminal 5 , Heathrow's soon to be opened British Airways Terminal will have over 300 digital ' sites ' installed, representing over half the advertising real estate within the terminal.

It is anticipated over 27 million passengers will pass through the terminal per year - a good majority of these are classed as primary targets for advertisers.

Digital in this space allows felxibility and interaction - flexibility which will adapt information and messages as passengers pass through the different locations within the airport, interaction as BA hold some very useful information through their membership programs and partnerships that could be put to good use.

Radio gets personal

X-fm, a UK based radio station is taking listening participation to a new level. Via there websites they are allowing listeners to construct playlists which will then voted on by both the shows producers and listeners, the winning playlists are then aired over their traditional broadcast.

This fundamental shift for it's listeners adds a new level of participation and engagement, which has traditionally been a lean back medium.

Personal music services on the web are nothing new. Pandora has for the past two years been successfully serving personalized music channels to listeners through their dedicated website.

But there is a change with the entry of Dizzler, a search enabled music and video player.

Nothing new in this concept, their method of promotion is though. Dizzler hands over control of the application and where it resides to users. Simple MySpace exports allows simple creation of their favorite play lists for both video and music to then embed them and the actual player within their personal pages.

Relevance

Vistiors are then able not only able to listen to these, but enter and search for their own favorites leading I am sure to enhanced propagation of the player through the community.

Sales opportunities for both the records that are being listened to for download and relevant targeted marketing promotions, both on screen and through other methods make this a great route to the youth market through the use of internet marketing.


There are many content search and control websites available today with similar functions and technology, the key now is their positioning and associations.

Mine

By allowing user control in both the content played and then also allowing this to enhance personal sites and pages Dizzler and sites such as MyWaves recognize it is no longer good enough to offer these services in standalone webfront ends, the social aspect plays a key role in their success and acceptance. They are using the power of the crowd to market their technology.

Relevance

relevant adverts

customized AND personalised to my needs

I have just come back from our annual CFO conference in Morocco ( I recommend taking a long weekend to this mystical place , which is only 3 hours from the UK )

In between discussing the numbers and compliance , I spoke to the assembled bean counters on the subject of marketing technology and the importance of ' relevance '.

Technology delivery channels are beginning to blend more – material is being used and re purposed for use in the offline and online world – TV is now regarded as online through the advances in interaction.

Customers – people we are talking to expect a more personalised / customised and most of all , relevant conversation with brands.

The increase in lean forward activities , i.e. web browsing has meant that now with the knowledge people are imparting through their implied actions or information they provide to us, it is no longer acceptable to deliver a one size fits all solution to their questions and purchase options.

Simply being on the web is no longer enough

Personalisation - This not just about inserting a name

First we have to listen and then respond to my requests and needs.

It is no longer good enough for people to invest their time to only receive standard material – it shows we are not listening

Are you really listening ?

The example of this is my recent enquiry in an Audi dealership. After spending over an hour in the show room working out my options , specification I was then handed a standard brochure – with a finance plan which had no transparency or information for me to make an informed decision on – this is not good enough.

I should have walked out with a tailored brochure to my time spent with the rep, options which were relevant to my personal circumstances but maybe not sold or talked about in depth during our time together – such as children’s fold down tables, heated rear seats other child friendly options - the technology is available , why do marketing not use it ?

Googles acquisition of double click demonstrates their desire to listen - and then more importantly enter into meaningful dialogue.

Most countries now and all in the future, viewing audiences are changing. Sporting events such as the World cup are one of the few time audience figures are massive, even here though relevance should still focus on segmenting the audience – again it is no longer good enough to rely on mass to get your message across – this mass can be made to work better through relevance.

War

In the UK a war is happening. Sky and Virgin are basically fighting over the control of the Internet connection in the living room. They know TV delivery is changing – control and understanding that technology is allowing will allow economies of scale give back the return on advertising clients are demanding – by using the knowledge they collect to convert into relevance . Combine these lean back activities and habits with my online behaviour and you can take a step forward in delivering a relevant offer.

The 30 second Ad – they say this is finished however there may be life left in this , as long as it is delivered in the correct context.

We touched on the impact and implications of ‘ Virtual Me ‘ and how moving traditional concepts into the online world and how this engaging lean forward content and activity is the perfect place for a 30 second or similar advert.

Just make sure it is relevant.

Advertising’s effectiveness will diminish as we seek to multitask.

The UK government has now enforced laws to prevent you using your mobile phone while driving – a fine and points on your license now await you should you be caught.

This ‘ distraction ‘ and the need for us to ‘ multitask’ in this ever increasingly busy world not only effects how we conduct our lives , it has ramifications in how companies get there message across to consumers.

Convergence of functions is still proceeding at pace - example the advent of the Apple Iphone in June is going to further increase the effects of ‘Digital Distraction ‘ with it’s multiple functions.

Research shows that our ability to multitask reduces our effectiveness in areas such as ability to react to situations ( such as breaking at 70mph ) concentration and recall.

Many believe the young are able to multitask better than older age groups, this is not entirely true. While there ability to operate technology may be better , the older age groups are able to block out interruptions therefore in tests both achieve similar results.

The knock on effect is also once you are distracted, it takes time to get back to the original task.

While media in effect converges ( through the use of content aggregators such as netvibes, mywaves for mobile video ) into these devices and web portals our ability to recall and interact will come under ever increasing pressures from external forces these devices enable.

The key to internet marketing – make the interruption contextual and complimentary.