Location Based Mobile: Location Location Location! What Makes Sense for Real Estate May NOT Be the Magic Bean for Mobile Advertising

Today on Chief Marketer, Conversant Mobile GM Kurt Hawks provided an important reminder that consumer insight and not location should be at the center of your mobile strategy. My favorite lines from the piece say it all:

A consumer’s purchase history and interests are the best predictors of future shopping behavior, not their location alone. Think about it. A vegan is probably not the best target for a butcher shop no matter how close that person is to the meat-slicer. Purchase and interest data give advertisers the critical insights necessary to use location data intelligently. So they can find the committed carnivores in the appropriate proximity around the store instead of the herbivores leaning against the window.

In digital we have a tendency to seek simple answers to complex questions. As Kurt notes, location can be a valuable component of a larger targeting strategy focused on genuine consumer insight.

Check out the post here. 

Travel and Affiliate Marketing

My friends at CJ Affiliate have just released a new benchmarking study for the travel industry, and many of the findings are rather fascinating. 

The study is the latest in an annual series produced by CJ, providing the industry's most comprehensive benchmarking for:

• Clicks

• Bookings

• Average Booking Value

• Rate of Consumption

To create the CJ Affiliate Travel Benchmarks report they focused on measuring the growth of the primary actions that travel advertisers track in the CJ Network—airline ticket sales, car rentals and hotel room bookings. This report looked at all network advertisers who reported sales of these actions in 2012 and 2013. The performance was aggregated for four key metrics and then averaged to achieve a category average for each quarter of the calendar year. To address outliers in the category, they used trimmed averages which exclude the top and bottom 2.5 percentile. 

Check out this great report now, at no cost, by visiting our Insights and Ideas section on the Conversant website. 

Would You Like to Get Better Results From Cross Device?

The typical consumer now uses just over three different devices to access the web. Given that, cross-device capabilities are critical to the success of today’s digital campaigns. But while many marketers are aware of “what works” in cross-device, something is often lost between conception and execution of cross-device campaigns. In the rush to get programs up and running on “Internet Time,” cross-device efforts frequently fall short of best practices. Keep the following strategies in mind as you architect your next cross-device campaign.

First, don’t think in screen silos and don’t think about cross-device solely in context of media delivery. To truly succeed in cross-device, your approach must be all-encompassing. This means that data, delivery, and insights gathering must all be considered when you are devising your cross-device strategy.

• Cross-Device Data: According to comScore, consumers now spend 60% of their online time on mobile devices. And consumer behavior can vary greatly from device to device. As such, to attain a 360 degree view of a consumer, you must incorporate unique learnings from all of a consumer’s interactions, across screens. These learnings collectively create a richer consumer profile that will significantly improve targeting capabilities, for both multi- and even single-device programs.
• Cross-Device Delivery: Leverage the best media in order to reach, connect and convert as the consumer migrates from device to device throughout the day. Right screen. Right place. Right time. Right message.
• Cross-Device Measurement: Every consumer action, regardless of the device it occurs on, sheds some light on the motivations and inclinations of that user. Leverage the individual and interconnected value of these insights to help shed light on the role each channel plays in a given user’s decisions.

Second, identify an app strategy. Four out of five mobile interactions take place in apps versus on the mobile web. With so much time being spent in-app, stakeholders must find ways to navigate the gaps in reporting and optimization that in-app engagement presents. It’s harder to measure marketing activity in apps, but no longer impossible. Luckily, new solutions now exist to bridge these gaps. These solutions are the key to unlocking the value of a consumer’s in-app activity. The resulting insights can be used to eliminate waste while driving greater optimization and scale.

Finally, consider the individual strengths of each type of device when developing and implementing your creative. To connect with consumers as they migrate between devices, you must make sure to deliver media that is optimized for whatever device it is being viewed on. Your strategy and execution should reflect a recognition of each device’s individual strengths:

• Smartphone Viewers should be engaged with messages that keep their out-and-about nature in mind. Examples: Motivate and facilitate action using store finders and discount offers.
• Tablet Users can be thoroughly engaged with attractive product visuals and other rich media experiences.
• PC Browsers have the easiest time entering data, so use these contacts to quickly link consumers to online purchase options.

There is no question that cross-device presents a wealth of opportunities for marketers and their brands. Take the time to identify these opportunities while devising your cross-device programs so that you may take full advantage of them.

Thanks to iMedia Connection for publishing this first. 

Perspectives and Swear Jars

Buzzword Bingo can be a rather frustrating thing for marketers trying to master every essential aspect of digital. Because personalization is such a hot topic, my boss Scott Eagle, CMO of Conversant, has issued his own take on what "personalized marketing" really means.

There are so many companies promulgating self-serving definitions that Scott decided to put a stake in the ground and put forward a comprehensive definition. This impassioned argument is provocatively titled "What the *!X&! does "personalized marketing really mean?" It's enough for me to put a quarter in the swear jar! ;-) But it's all to make an important point. 

In order to get maximum benefit from one-to-one marketing, we need to be vigilant in ensuring that whatever solution we choose truly delivers on the promise of personalization. That's what this paper is all about. 

Its a good and thought provoking read. Find the paper on SlideShare or our website. 

New Conversant Whitepaper on Cross-Device

One of the reasons why I so appreciate working at Conversant is the company's commitment to providing valuable, non-selly content to hep buyers at agencies and brand direct alike to make better decisions on the critical topics that can make a huge difference to their success.

Digital is or can seem mindbogglingly complicated, so inasmuch as Conversant, Inc. has strong expertise in the many technologies and innovations, we can help the industry make better decisions. Whether or not you buy from us, though of course I very much hope that you do. Cross-device is one of the topics where getting better information out to decision makers can make a big difference.

Conversant has just published a new paper on cross device that offers six simple tips or things to look for as you  contemplate your options. All of our content is free for download. You can do so on SlideShare or on the increasingly massive Insights and Ideas section of our website.

Improve Your Next Cross-Device Campaign by Following These Three Tips

Kurt Hawks, GM of Mobile for Conversant, penned a post that appeared today on MediaPost, offering three tips to driving better omni-channel marketing results.

The most interesting part to me is his appeal for brands to avail themselves of technologies that allow them to get granular action tracking in the mobile app environment. Right now, most brands spend a disproportionate share of their total spend on the mobile web versus in apps. Perhaps in part because in-app tracking is (well, used to be) so much tougher. But there are solutions now and they can enable brands to capitalize on the 44% of user time now spent in apps.

Do check out Kurt's post.

Mobile Travel Sites ~ Challenges and Opportunities

Laurie Sullivan at MediaPost delivered a great post this week about the state of mobile travel sites. Her analysis revealed that many travel sites aren't really optimized to deliver a rich mobile experience - this in a world where comScore is now reporting that 60% of Internet time now takes place on mobile devices. 

Also of interest in this piece were some new figures from a big piece of CJ Affiliate by Conversant research that showed remarkable growth in travel booking via mobile apps and click to call. Said Heather Pilat, VP of Analytics at CJ, 

Advertisers have the opportunity to pull off a marketing double-play by creating an engagement strategy that taps the trend for higher booking by promoting higher priced packages or hotel stays within a mobile environment. As the travel seasons winds down, advertisers should take a hard look at their organization’s data strategy. We find many companies still need to make some hard decisions about how they get data, analyze it and use it for customer engagement."

It's a good read. Check it out. 

Focus on the Person, Not the Device

My coleague Kurt Hawks did a great post for AdExchanger today. The focus is on the need to put person-first versus utilizing siloed user data. The key, according to Kurt, is to recognize that with comScore now reproting that 60% (!) of digital activity taking pace on smartphones and tablets, it is highly inadvisable to rely on PC behavioral data alone for targeting.

Even if you are buying media in a single channel, like PC or Mobile, you need to ensure that your media partner uses REAL-TIME cross-device data for user profiling and individualized target selection.

Check out the post here.

Chad Brooks at Busines News Daily published a short critique of the latest Conversant whitepaper, 7 Myths Senior Marketers Need to Stop Believing. The piece, entitled 7 Digital Marketing Myths Debunked, provides a short rundown of each of the myths that Conversant CMO, Scott Eagle, takes on in this new paper. You can read the article here, and download the full whitepaper for free here.

Congratulations to the CJ Affiliate by Conversant team!

Once again, Internet Retailer has reported that CJ Affiliate is the most highly regarded affiliate network in the business. Heartfelt congrats to my colleagues at CJ! It's great news and a testament to how CJ leads affiliate in service, quality, technology and innovation. 

In addition to this news, IR also published a great article about the growth and vitality of affiliate that is definitely worth a peruse. 

FROM THE RELEASE:

CJ Affiliate has been recognized by Internet Retailer for operating the most highly regarded affiliate marketing network and delivering a wide range of pay for performance-based solutions. Internet Retailer named CJ Affiliate the No. 1 affiliate marketing vendor in its "Top Tech 2014" book, signifying that retailers in every merchandising category are more likely to choose CJ as their trusted affiliate marketing partner. This is the second year in a row that CJ Affiliate has made the top spot, being named No. 1 in 2013 "by a long shot" by Internet Retailer.

"At CJ Affiliate by Conversant, we are proud to provide advertisers and publishers with innovative technology and access to the largest consumer reach. This, combined with our strategic analytics and a supreme support team, has proven to help our customers drive revenue and increase profits," said Kerri Pollard, president of CJ Affiliate. "We are honored by this recognition, and I think the stats tell a very compelling story. We look forward to pushing our limits in the coming year to deliver higher value and even better results for our clients."

In support of CJ Affiliate's No. 1 ranking, Internet Retailer's Top Tech 2014 book included data that indicated that 57 percent of the top Internet Retailer 500 advertisers on an affiliate network choose CJ Affiliate. The Top Tech 2014 guide offers a clear roadmap for online retailers searching for the e-commerce technologies and services preferred by America's top Web merchants. The Top Tech 2014 comprehensively ranks the top vendors in each of 28 solutions categories--from affiliate marketing to Web performance management--based on the total 2013 and 2012 e-commerce sales of their clients among North America's Top 1,000 e-retailers.

According to the 2013 AffiliateBenchmarks report, 72 percent of publishers prefer CJ as one of their top three networks. And from March 27 to April 12, 2013, CJ Affiliate surveyed more than 100 clients who fully migrated to CJ or closed a dual program on another network in 2011 or 2012. The survey found that:

   -- 100 percent of advertisers migrating to CJ rate the quality of CJ publishers as good or better than their previous partner 

   -- 95 percent of advertisers migrating to CJ rate CJ's global consumer reach  as good or better than their previous partner 

CJ Affiliate by Conversant facilitates and supports equitable, lucrative relationships between advertisers and publishers. Many of the world's most widely recognized and highly specialized brands run their pay-for-performance programs on CJ's platform.

The 6 Sides of Every Customer

Are we all hexagons under the skin? No, I am not talking about some sort of new geometric philosophy. Nor am I making a mock profound assessment of the human condition. Rather, I want to spark a discussion about the consumer data that matters to developing rich, genuine customer understanding -- powerful insights to drive the best possible program results.

A person is a lot more than a gaping maw relentlessly focused on consume, consume, consume and/or making a rational and detailed assessment of the options in your category. Yes, Virginia, people are complex, and their motivations, needs, and actions emanate from a complex set of mindspaces. Analysis of a variety of successful digital and integrated campaigns shows us that comprehensive customer insight comes from six different types of data -- a range of information types that, in aggregate, reveals the six sides of the customer that drive persuasion.

Let's consider each of these data types and what they reveal about your customer.

Demographics and lifestyle

Most products and services companies have a demographic skew in their audience base. In addition, many brands have recognized that there's value in getting far more granular in their demographically based segmentation. Consider a popular target like moms 18-49. Take a look at the two photos below, and then imagine how different the perspectives and lifestyles of these two mothers might be.

Yes, looks can deceive, but they can also be revealing. This is why more and more brands are pursuing granular demographic segmentation and personalized media to better deliver relevant messages to prospects.

Traditionally, digital media has used a great deal of inference to identify demographics and lifestyle. Many audience definition models use browsing -- and other habits -- as a proxy for known facts about a person. The quality of those inferences is based upon the amount of data analyzed, the quality of that data, and the standards with which we make inferences.

Inference isn't inherently bad, but more and more brands are seeking more verified forms of demographic and lifestyle information to drive better audiences for their programs. Those focusing on personalized media are also looking to data sources that use known facts versus inferences. Working with Nielsen and comScore, my company has compared inferred audiences against verified offline-derived demographics. The results found big gaps in the accuracy of inference. Inference, after all, is simply educated guesswork.

But the crucial value of demographic and lifestyle data is well established. And a combination of verified demographics and rich digital behavior provide an excellent -- and often essential --foundation.

Passions and interests

Digital has long leveraged browsing and interaction data to unlock insights about a person's passions and interests. From browsing reviews of crossover SUVs to spending hours on recipe sites, what people choose to do online helps us identify the right people for targeting. Passions also help us determine more compelling messaging for individuals and segments. For example: Does a person's behavior indicate that they respond better to the perceived prestige of a brand, or evidence of its quality? Or, family-centered messaging or ads that are all about me?

 

One example would be in the use of content to determine passions. Knowing that someone looked at 10 pages of sports content in a month is less valuable than knowing that they've watched three hours of UFC video in the same period. The latter shows a greater time commitment and a clear, deliberate choice to consume large amounts of such content.

Interest data can help us segment or personalize messaging to individual interests. For a pickup truck manufacturer, reaching people who have a passion for monster truck sporting content might be preferable to avid consumption of equestrian dressage videos. Better still might be an approach that speaks one way to the first group, and highlights the horse trailer towing power to the second. In short, uncovering a person's passions helps us deliver far more compelling communications.

Device usage

ComScore says that 51 percent of total digital time is now spent on devices other than a PC. Given this, we need to understand user behavior across all device types in order to truly understand their needs and passions. After all, if we see only PC-based data, then we understand less than half of what someone does online.

Real-time cross-device browsing, interaction, shopping, and purchase data help us create a holistic view of how our target is spending their time right now. That informs message timing. From there, understanding the particular cross-device behaviors of an individual (for personalized media) or a group (in segmented marketing) helps us to deliver the right mix of messages at the right places on the right screens for maximum impact.

As we all know, connecting devices for either data analytics or media delivery is tough stuff. Methodology matters a great deal. But behavioral and device usage data from PCs, smartphones, and tablets is becoming essential to driving maximum results for marketing investments.

Social media interactions

People spend a lot of time in social environments -- this is true across demos and devices. According to GlobalWebIndex, people spend two hours per day -- about 27 percent of internet time -- on social platforms. Other data sources show similar percentages.

 That's too big a block of time to ignore, which is why many solutions providers now offer social advertising solutions that leverage first-, third-party, and/or social network audience data to extend digital programs.

Now, not all social time is relevant to your category or product. In fact, much of it probably isn't. But some may well be, and given that it represents more than a quarter of the average person's digital time -- and even more for younger, more urban folks -- you shouldn't ignore social.

Brand relationships

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the big change in digital advertising, over the next two to three years, is going to be the nearly ubiquitous use of first-party brand relationship data to inform targeting and messaging. Brands will embrace the idea of putting their big customer data to work in all of their digital programs and campaigns.

Traditionally, it has been tough for agencies to convince clients to share their first-party data for targeting -- it can seem like a hassle and requires the heavy participation of client IT teams. But that is changing fast. Tag management has made it easier, and the value of first-party brand data for targeting has proven massive.

Integrating site interaction data -- available when a brand tags all of its pages -- is a great start because it helps reveal the preferences, interests, browsing, and even purchases that customers conduct online. Further, by using third-party data and cookies you can actually identify more of your customers and hand raisers as they browse the web. When you rely on third-party cookies, a high percentage of your users are hiding in plain sight because it's unknown that they have a pre-existing relationship with your brand.

Data from other digital interactions can also enrich your insights, and through them your overall program effectiveness. In addition, in most categories 80 percent or more of products are purchased offline. Offline brand interaction data is very powerful in order to understand and measure the offline impact of your online programs.

Actual purchase data

We've saved the biggie for last. There is no better way to predict future purchases than with a comprehensive understanding of past purchases -- both historical and recent transactions. Real-time or recent data helps predict both need and stage in the decision process. Historical data reveals seasonality, purchase cadence, and other insights that pinpoint people who are most likely to buy in the immediate future.

First-party purchase data is an unparalleled resource for targeting and messaging. In addition, companies with access to broad sets of purchase data -- in the same and related product categories -- have a great advantage. Again, the keys are the quantity, quality, and recency of purchase data.

Conclusions

You don't need to understand all six sides of your consumer to get good results. Companies prove this every day with campaigns and ongoing programs that drive good results. But while good results might have been good enough in the past, these results are insufficient to achieve today's KPIs. Marketers need every potential tool in their arsenals to drive the best possible results.

As you think about the programs you are planning now, ask yourself whether you are leveraging all six types of data -- and in the best ways possible. If you are on the agency side, one of the big opportunities might be in convincing your clients that putting all of their first-party data to work will yield great benefits.

Although this kind of client persuasion might not be easy, the results will be worth it. In fact, putting that first-party data to work might be the key to demonstrating the agency's value today and in the future. After all, our industry is only getting more competitive.

Thanks to iMediaConnection for publishing this first.

8 Ways Digital Retail Marketing is Changing

Retail is using its rich consumer insight and data -- and some of the newest creative engagement tools -- to create greater consumer satisfaction and maximum sales. Here are eight of the biggest findings and insights from the study -- results that reveal some of the fascinating ways retailers are thinking and acting in 2014.

They're becoming digital experts

Given the amount of spending now pouring into digital from merchants, it makes sense that retailers would be working hard to understand and master key digital strategies and trends. In fact, almost half of retail marketers rate their digital knowledge as "expert" or "high." Just 10 percent rate their knowledge as low or very low.

 

Digital is increasingly core to the capabilities of retail marketing leadership. It's a far cry from the time when digital was the bastard stepchild -- a time that digital pros know wasn't all that long ago.

They're spending almost $4 of $10 on digital

Respondents to the survey reported that they are spending an average of 39 percent of their total marketing budgets on digital. That share is 58 percent above the average company across all verticals, as reported by eMarketer. While retailers were among the first movers into digital -- given its power as a direct response (DR) medium -- what's interesting today is that retailers are actively unlocking the value of digital as a branding tool. In the survey, 58 percent disagreed with the idea that digital is for DR only.

That shift in perception is a big deal because it reflects the need to connect with more people at various stages of the product decision journeys -- not just the "bottom-funnel" demand fulfillment stages.

They're caring deeply about personalization and personalized marketing

While personalization is certainly a hot topic across the digital universe, it's particularly viewed as important by senior retail marketers. In fact, more than 70 percent of marketers surveyed said that personalization represented the future of marketing.

While personalized marketing may once have seemed like a pipedream to those that have heard pundits talk about the promise of it for years, most retailers know that it is possible today. Retail leads the pack in understanding and implementing personalized marketing. In fact, 70 percent of these marketers said that personalized marketing is possible.

iMedia SVP Marti Funk posits that retailers are so interested in and focused on personalization because they understand that they need to turn real-time experiences -- like 24/7 shopping -- into "me time" experiences. It's ultimately an extension of "consumer control" -- the idea that we need to tailor our brand experiences to the wants and needs of individuals in order to connect and convert.

They're increasingly concerned about partner glut

Anyone who has seen a Lumascape understands that the world of digital marketing solutions is highly complex and fragmented. Seen from the perspective of a client like a retailer, all of these point solutions mean that it's tough to identify, select, and work with vendors in digital.

Many of the retailers surveyed say they are working with a very large number of vendors. Sixty-five percent say they are working with six or more vendors. The mean number of vendors per retailer was 12.

All those vendors add to the unprecedented management complexity of retail digital marketing. In addition, almost half (48 percent) of retailers are reporting that it's increasingly difficult to select the right vendor from the many options available. In addition, many retailers say that integrating all of these vendors is a major challenge.

So how is all of this changing the market? The consequences of all of this are that retailers appear to be seeking more comprehensive solutions from vendors, so that they can work with fewer partners and do more with more comprehensive and integrated consumer data sets. This in turn appears to be driving consolidation across digital as larger companies acquire or build new service lines to bring more capabilities under one roof.

They're rethinking their approach to measurement

One of the reasons why retailers fell in love with digital in the first place is the ability to measure it in so many ways. From simple models like last click, to more complex rules-based and algorithmic ways of assigning credit for sales to certain marketing tactics, today there are a variety of different approaches to measurement.

According to the survey, last-click attribution remains the most popular among retailers, with more than two-thirds saying that they use this format for at least part of their marketing measurement.

These figures appear to be poised to change given other survey results; many retailers say they plan to deploy more advanced measurement methodologies in 2014.

They're concerned about finding alternatives to the third-party cookie

Sixty-two percent of retailers reported that they are concerned about the implications of cookie tracking and cookie deletion. Given the importance of accurate measurement to any commerce-focused company, it's natural that retailers have expressed some misgivings here.

One way retailers are addressing these challenges is by placing more importance on their existing customers -- people with whom they have first-party relationships. By refocusing resources onto growing lifetime value and leveraging rich understanding of individual product preferences, retailers are finding powerful ways to grow their businesses, despite the challenges facing the third-party cookie.

They're rightsizing retargeting spending

Retargeting is a popular marketing tactic, with 74 percent of senior level retail marketers rating it important. That said, nearly half of our respondents believe that retargeting takes too much credit for sales that would have occurred anyway -- without advertising.

Although few doubt the intrinsic value of retargeting, what this conveys is a growing recognition that at some point there is a diminishing return for retargeting an investment. And at some point it is more economical to invest at other stages of the purchase journey. What's happening isn't an abandonment of retargeting, but rather a more reasoned approach to marketing allocation across the consumer journey.

They're hungry for more knowledge

We've seen that many senior retail marketers rank themselves highly on digital knowledge. But at the same time, they also say they are anxious to learn more about many topics in digital -- especially those that appear to reflect the key trends expected over the next several years.

Specifically, when asked which topics retailers are most interested in learning more about in 2014, they gave us these results:

Perhaps not surprisingly, topics related to data, ROI, and cross-device marketing led the pack. Almost half also said they were interested in learning more about how best to integrate online and offline data. Social media marketing also showed strong interest, though it no longer dominates the list of marketer interests as it did just a few years ago.

Parting thoughts

This survey -- conducted in the first quarter and soliciting the opinions of 81 senior level marketers at leading U.S. retailers -- underscores the dynamism in today's retail environment. Since retailers often move before other business sectors in digital, these results may portend larger cross-industry trends in the months and years ahead.

What's plain to see is that merchants aren't resting on their digital laurels -- not by a long shot. As they embrace new ideas and trends, it's safe to bet that we'll be seeing radical innovation in this vertical -- just as we have in the past.

If you'd like a copy of the full study, you can get it here.

For this study, senior-level retailer marketers were contacted via phone and email to take a 10-minute survey. Contacts were informed that the research was sponsored by Conversant (then ValueClick Inc.), Bovitz Inc., and Edelman; they were also informed they would receive a monetary incentive and a copy of the aggregated research results. 

Thanks to iMediaConnection for publishing this first!

Nice eMarketer feature on a recent Conversant study

eMarketer highlighted a few of the findings of our latest research opus- How the Media Buying Process Really Works. Check out the complete article by clicking here or on the mini below. If you want to download the entire Conversant study, please click here.

The Cross-Device Manifesto - New Conversant Presentation Available

Our Mobile General Manager Kurt Hawks delivered a great presentation on cross-device marketing this week at the Direct Marketing Association of New York. Get the latest stats on consumer behavior and the marketing effectiveness in just 22 slides!

View the presentation in the player above. ;-) Visit Slideshare to download a pdf (no reg required)

How to get 5400 Media Buyers to Answer the Phone...And Take a Meeting

The case study below is a synopsis of the presentation I delivered during the iMedia Agency Summit.

It’s getting tougher than ever for media and technology sellers to connect with media professionals at leading agencies. A big part of that challenge comes from the sheer number of sellers trying to break through. For example, a dear friend – who is planning director on a medium sized for-profit education brand – tells me she averages about 35 unsolicited seller phone calls a day, and at least as many emails.

It’s the flip side of those crowded lumaScapes – every one of those companies are wangling for an hour of a buyer’s time.  That kind of environment is tough on everyone – buyer and seller alike. It’s only natural that buyers tend to be skeptical of seller promises, and frugal with their meeting time.

When our company began planning our relaunch as Conversant, we knew that breaking through and getting agency people to care was one of our biggest challenges. We were prepared to “go big” – but wanted that bigness to help deliver our differentiation and make our transformation as exciting (well, okay, ALMOST as exciting) to them as it was to us.

So how could we create outstanding brand awareness in just a few days, vividly exemplify the meaning of our brand, and make buyers excited about hearing more?

INSIGHT

Every marketer knows that the best initiatives start with an insight into the target audience. Ours came from conversations our sellers had with clients over the course of 2013. Many agency pros talked about the challenges they face in a constantly changing media environment. But where was the fun? Where was the creativity? Where was the excitement that drew them to the ad biz initially?

One area where buyers reported that they saw virtually no imagination was in the ways that sellers tried to connect with them. Emails. Calls. Drop-bys. Lunch invites. All okay for what they are, but hardly the sorts of things that help a company stand out from the pack.

We wanted a program/concept that would encapsulate our new positioning and mission. 

We wanted to be understood as a different kind of company, focused on giving brands richer, individual–level consumer understanding – understanding that helps them deliver individually relevant marketing messages and create lasting customer relationships. Unique. Individual understanding. Brand conversations. A big deal.

PROGRAM

To attract the attention of buyers and get them to take a meeting with us, our team devised the “Answer the Call Program.” On the day of our brand launch, 8,200 media planning professionals arrived at their desk to find an interoffice envelope. We had actually prearranged with the office managers at many large agencies to have them hand-deliver these “interoffice” envelopes – to stand out and grab immediate attention.

These days, getting an interoffice envelope is pretty rare, so you know there’s something important inside. And in this case, that was definitely true.

Inside the envelope was an actual working “burner phone” and a mini brochure explaining that Conversant would be calling that phone sometime in the next three days. If the recipient answered it when we called, they’d be eligible for a great prize.

The timing of that call was a mystery, but the prizes definitely weren’t. They ranged from a Roku 3 or $100 in UBER credit to UBER for a year or a great trip. The prizes were enough to get the blood going, but what we were really counting on was that the need to wait for a call – and heck, the inside joke of a media person actually wanting to answer a vendor call – would take us a lot farther than some simple prizing.

On the Conversant end, our sales team conducted a three-day sales blitz, with each seller placing 100+ calls apiece. Some more than 300 calls. Thousands of names and phone numbers were loaded into Salesforce to ensure accuracy.

Marketing ordered prizes to arrive in time for the first scheduled meetings. Well, we thought we did. (Note to selves – make sure you build in a couple of days for when an East Coast blizzard strands thousands of prizes in Lackawanna County, PA. Fortunately, the agency pros in those first meetings were forgiving. Thanks!)

In addition, a special sales intro to Conversant deck was created – low on hyperbole, high on real, substantive points of difference.

GOALS AND ACTUALS

We felt our goals were pretty aggressive – to get 2,300 answered calls (28% of total mailed).  From there, to get 820 booked client meetings (35% convert to meeting) to showcase Conversant to clients and prospects.

But response was much greater. Much much greater. Our first inkling that we were onto something was when hundreds of posts began appearing in social media, from phone recipients. Comments like:

When our sales reps started making calls, we heard that entire departments were taking their phones everywhere. One agency even sent us a picture of their whole team clutching their phones!

Phones were answered on toilets, in a funeral procession, on Manhattan subways, the Chicago El, and in the 11^th lane of the 405 by the The Getty. Agency people pranked each other by calling a neighbor’s burner phone and pretending to be Conversant. I got an email from a rep at another leading media company complaining that our call made the AMD they’d been trying to get in front of for 4 months leave their meeting.

By the time the dust settled three days later, our sales organization had successfully:

·         Placed 7,264 answered calls (89% of received phones)

·         Booked 5,345 meetings (74% convert to meeting,  651% of total meetings booked goal)

In a world where a rep can expect perhaps 1 answered call out of 40 placed, and about 0 call backs when they leave 40 messages, these figures stunned us. The program has since driven remarkable growth in our RFPs received and revenue booked.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

So what was it about this program that reached out and shook the industry, and, according to one West Coast GMD, “made time stop for all media people everywhere for three days in February?”As you can imagine, our team has put a lot of thought into this. We think it boils down to five things. We challenge the entire “sell side” to try and reflect these ideas in their future programs:

1.    Focus on your KPI, not a Surrogate. It’s easy to blow a lot of money trying to drive awareness and interest with buyers. But if it doesn’t translate to meetings, what have you got?

2.    Find a Leverageable Target Insight. We built our program around the buyer lament that there just isn’t enough creativity in the business anymore. And tied that to the “truth” that buyers have created great strategies and tactics to avoid unsolicited meetings and messages. It’s not that buyers don’t want to meet with us – but they do want to know that the meeting will have genuine value. While we offered a promotional layer to our program, what we’ve been told is that it was the size and depth of this program that convinced buyers that our news was more than a name change and likely warranted a listen.

3.    Bring the Creativity. There’s a reason why people join agencies instead of accounting firms. The passion and creativity of our business are arguably its greatest draw. And then we try and do business with the same dishwater dull strategies and tactics as everyone else. What’s wrong with this picture?

4.    True Success is in the Details. My little narrative above doesn’t really give you a sense of the mind boggling amount of planning that went into this program. We worked with a promotions agency, Deare|2 who were invaluable on that score. In addition, our team spent weeks ensuring that we had the right contacts, prizing, programs, recycling partner, collateral, and the million other things that made it possible to deliver and call 8,200 phones to 8,200 people at over 1,000 separate addresses on one cold day in February. So many members of our team spend nights, weekends, and yes, even New Year’s Eve preparing this program. And it really paid off.

5.    Sales/Marketing Partnership Was Essential: Ask anybody at Conversant who made this program possible, and you’ll hear it was hundreds of people, because virtually everyone had a role to play to ensure this went off right. The time demands on both Marketing and Sales were enormous, and it was the willingness of everyone to commit and follow through that made it all possible. We drove each other crazy kvetching and demanding and wanting and needing and delivering, and through all of that we made something we can all be proud of.

New Research Studies from Conversant Media

Conversant Media has released three new studies about digital marketing and advertising that are worth a look.

1. First, What's Driving Marketing in 2014 summarizes the results of a recent survey of digital marketing and advertising pros on what they expect to do with their marketing resources for the balance of 2014. It's worth a look. Download here. (No reg req)

The second is a fascinating study of the agency media planning and buying process. Learn important information about the media that planners consume regularly, the details of the RFP process, and who actually makes the media buying decision.Download here (No reg req)

The third is a major study of senior retailer marketers. The paper outlines their plans, attitudes and interests as 2014 unfolds. Download it by clicking here. (Reg req)

Hope you find them valuable!