Companies take many different roads in their journeys to success. We imagine that the path from idea in a garage to IPO is a smooth set of steps from Angel Funding to A, then B, and then filing. But the more I dig into the histories of start-ups the more I am convinced that every company has its own unique story.
And here’s a really interesting one. Mamalode, a start-up based in Missoula, MT, is a combined online/offline publication geared to meeting the needs of today’s Mom. The key to Mamalode, it appears, is the idea that it offers a unique form of respect and admiration for the power and wonder of Motherhood.
Mamalode began as a local print publication geared to serving the needs of the local Missoula community. But clearly their content and editorial voice are quite powerful; they soon had paid subscribers in 45 states and several countries around the world.
And how is that editorial voice different? Well, a lot of ways. First, there is a decidedly first person emphasis – one of Moms talking to other Moms about the everyday events in their lives in a style that oozes empathy and alliance. While the writing is often excellent, and professionally driven, its subject matter is right down in there washing out the sippy cups. Further, reader voices aren’t simply given a forum, they are celebrated and highlighted in major ways across the site.
Often in marketing there seems to be a conventional wisdom that the way to connect with Moms is to milquetoast the content, video kids making chaos in a kitchen, and have pictures of frazzled Moms trying to cope.
It’s fundamentally condescension to the people who, more than any other group, control the purse strings of society. And far from being dowdy marms that ubercool adbiz types prefer to look at with either disdain or pity, they are among the strongest, most progressive thinkers and consumers.
I’ve spent many years targeting Moms in my advertising career, and the lessons I have learned boil down to four things:
Moms control pretty much every purchase in a household. Maybe not motor oil brand choice. But other than that…
Even more than information, Moms seek connection – to one another, to their families, and to things and ideas that make life better.
Moms prefer real. Not stereotyped idyllic imagery, and not stereotyped over the top
Mama Chaos. They want to understand how something fits into their routines and makes being a Mom more rewarding.
Moms WANT TO KNOW ABOUT PRODUCTS that can help them. They don’t view marketer messages as an intrusion if they deliver real information and value.
Founder Elke Govertsen is clearly a driving force behind the unique perspective and very rich editorial style of this pub. Here’s how she describes the business imperative of talking to Moms in a way that is meaningful.
When you look at the online presence, the first thing you may notice is that it ISN’T packed with 23 ways to… stories, or how to. They’ve wisely realized that there are more than enough sources for that from the legacy Mommy sites. Not to say that you don’t learn things on the site. For indeed it is impossible not to. But it’s the way you learn – as if you were having a conversation with a real person and sharing give and take, that makes the site so rich and compelling.
From a marketing perspective, the company really embraces marketers, partly out of pragmatism but also because connecting Moms with products that make life better is a key part of their offering. I’d liken it to Oprah’s Favorite Things, in that the team clearly understands that Moms are perfectly happy to learn about and use products that address real needs. That product based solutions aren’t disdained but rather welcomes with open arms.
The Mamalode infrastructure is designed to serve multiple communities, enabling a combination of both regionally driven and national content. Hey, I know that there are lots of local pubs out there, but I wanted to intro you to this property because I really think they are on to something. With an editorial voice that offers lower costs through a combination of professional and UGC content, their more affordable way to do local, and the really compelling and addictive voice of the site, I expect that they will create a significant national media presence – perhaps market by market? – in the months and years ahead. And it didn't get its start at Stanford, or through an A round. But rather through a belief in celebrating the most important people in our families - and our economy.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Start-Up Watch COD: Blurb IQ CRANKS video interactivity and metrics!
When video arrived on the digital scene, it quickly became apparent that the interactivity of sight, sound and motion blew the doors off metrics when compared to Flash or gif banners. It is not at all uncommon to see interactivity 10x, 20x, even 30x higher for a vid, even when the video runs in exactly the same ad space on a page.
So I was really excited to hear about a company that says it can boost interactivity rates a FURTHER 10X. Blurb IQ is that company, and it has since become a client of ours because we were so taken by the concept. It works by taking an existing brand asset like a :30 or a :60 and adding questions in an overlay that quizzes consumers on what is being said and shown. Here’s a set of screen caps to show it in action:
By adding game mechanics to the video asset, Blurb IQ appeals to the competitive side in most people. Additionally, once a consumer has played an ad, they can challenge friends to try it. Finally, brands can distribute discounts and other promotions by rewarding consumers who complete the quizzes and score at threshold levels.
Check out these metrics that they have reported from their analytics layer:
90% + unaided brand and key message recall 1 week after 1 exposure to our interactive advertising video platform vs. 2%-3% via TV
Click Thru Rates of 10%-79.8% + versus 2%-4% via other online rich media vehicles online
Triple digit lifts in key branding metrics after 1 exposure
Average length of engagement is 60 Seconds
Average number of brand questions answered per engagement is 7.9 Questions
21.8% conversion rate to advertiser site
5% of visitors end up sharing something with friends. Of these shares 52% are done via Facebook, 26% share via Twitter and 22% share via email.
While I would expect that some of those numbers will decline a bit as the platform becomes more and more common “in the wild,” it’s plain that these folks are onto something very big indeed. Here’s their intro vid:
Naturally, this basic concept can be refined to specific marketing and research objectives. For example, a consumer could be asked about what they like and don’t like in an ad, thus uncovering which executions drive the strongest lean-forward participation and consumer attention.
Their business is currently focused on in-banner vids, and they are partnered with some very large networks to drive faster broad scale adoption, including Adconion and Specific. They offer the interactivity layer on videos in IAB standard units as well as some large sized executions and pop-outs that can help attract even more consumer attention.
Blurb IQ appears also to be interested in fostering greater community among consumers by providing venues, high score boards, and other game tools in order to ramp up the consumer interest and competitiveness even higher. But in my view, competitiveness is only part of the appeal to this concept. We as digital marketers need to be aware that a great deal of time a consumer spends online hasn’t been made all that interactive. While we can choose the content we look at, much of it is ultimately falls into a passive viewing bucket. By making in banner videos the most interactive and interesting content on the page, Blurb IQ makes it far more likely that consumers will find it valuable.
And that, my friends, is how you turn value exchange into a brand enhancer!
So I was really excited to hear about a company that says it can boost interactivity rates a FURTHER 10X. Blurb IQ is that company, and it has since become a client of ours because we were so taken by the concept. It works by taking an existing brand asset like a :30 or a :60 and adding questions in an overlay that quizzes consumers on what is being said and shown. Here’s a set of screen caps to show it in action:
By adding game mechanics to the video asset, Blurb IQ appeals to the competitive side in most people. Additionally, once a consumer has played an ad, they can challenge friends to try it. Finally, brands can distribute discounts and other promotions by rewarding consumers who complete the quizzes and score at threshold levels.
Check out these metrics that they have reported from their analytics layer:
90% + unaided brand and key message recall 1 week after 1 exposure to our interactive advertising video platform vs. 2%-3% via TV
Click Thru Rates of 10%-79.8% + versus 2%-4% via other online rich media vehicles online
Triple digit lifts in key branding metrics after 1 exposure
Average length of engagement is 60 Seconds
Average number of brand questions answered per engagement is 7.9 Questions
21.8% conversion rate to advertiser site
5% of visitors end up sharing something with friends. Of these shares 52% are done via Facebook, 26% share via Twitter and 22% share via email.
While I would expect that some of those numbers will decline a bit as the platform becomes more and more common “in the wild,” it’s plain that these folks are onto something very big indeed. Here’s their intro vid:
Naturally, this basic concept can be refined to specific marketing and research objectives. For example, a consumer could be asked about what they like and don’t like in an ad, thus uncovering which executions drive the strongest lean-forward participation and consumer attention.
Their business is currently focused on in-banner vids, and they are partnered with some very large networks to drive faster broad scale adoption, including Adconion and Specific. They offer the interactivity layer on videos in IAB standard units as well as some large sized executions and pop-outs that can help attract even more consumer attention.
Blurb IQ appears also to be interested in fostering greater community among consumers by providing venues, high score boards, and other game tools in order to ramp up the consumer interest and competitiveness even higher. But in my view, competitiveness is only part of the appeal to this concept. We as digital marketers need to be aware that a great deal of time a consumer spends online hasn’t been made all that interactive. While we can choose the content we look at, much of it is ultimately falls into a passive viewing bucket. By making in banner videos the most interactive and interesting content on the page, Blurb IQ makes it far more likely that consumers will find it valuable.
And that, my friends, is how you turn value exchange into a brand enhancer!
Start-Up Watch COD: Trada brings crowd sourcing benefits to SEM
Just when you think you’ve thought of all the places and ways that crowd sourcing was going to be used to accelerate business, along comes another fascinating approach. And people, lemme tell ya, this one is DEFINITELY fascinating.
The people behind it are a company called Trada, which offers small and medium sized businesses the opportunity to pay search experts by the purchase for sales driven by SEM. And don’t forget agencies, who can also utilize the service to provide scale to their SEM accounts without hiring staff or availing themselves of automation platforms.
So, here’s how it works: A company determines what it is willing to pay to drive a web sale, and posts the offer on the Trada community site. More than 1000 SEM experts that are members of Trada can review the offer and determine if they think they can help. Different experts are essentially pitted against one another. These experts can generate campaigns of thousands of KWs and focus their time on optimizing performance while the original business owner gets risk free CPA sales and scale. The SEM expert is essentially working on “the spread,” the amount of money between what it costs them to drive a sale and the brand’s CPA offer.
The laws of supply and demand drive this community, of course. The savvy business owner provides the true maximum they are willing to pay to maximize interest among the optimizing community. If you sand bag your max, naturally the sales that can be driven by experts will be lower. And if you really sandbag, you’ll find no one is interested in your campaign because the outlay of time and resources doesn’t make sense for them. So by introducing transparency into the world of search, savvy businesses and search experts can both profit by dealing with one another fairly and honestly.
Here’s a vid explaining the value proposition:
Now, huge brands are probably going to be better served by utilizing in house experts and an automation platform like Kenshoo or Marin. But many small agencies and businesses find the costs on the investment of time to use these platforms prohibitive. By creating the Trada community, this company has unleashed people power against the challenges, and I for one think that this concept is probably a winner.
For businesses, a solution like Trada may also help level the playing field between them and the search providers. Because let’s talk brass tacks. Who do you think knows more about Search, you or Google? As Google makes changes and adjustments to its business policies, how are your interests affected? You know the changes are good for THEIR bottom line, after all why else would they make them? But are they good for YOU? Chances are, you don’t know and don’t have time to figure it out yourself.
Trada community members know a great deal more about Search than you do – after all, it’s how they make their livelihood! When you align their interests with ours via CPA, you have important allies in your corner.
If you are a small or medium sized business or agency, I suggest you find out more about this concept. Given the CPA model, you have literally NOTHING to lose!
The people behind it are a company called Trada, which offers small and medium sized businesses the opportunity to pay search experts by the purchase for sales driven by SEM. And don’t forget agencies, who can also utilize the service to provide scale to their SEM accounts without hiring staff or availing themselves of automation platforms.
So, here’s how it works: A company determines what it is willing to pay to drive a web sale, and posts the offer on the Trada community site. More than 1000 SEM experts that are members of Trada can review the offer and determine if they think they can help. Different experts are essentially pitted against one another. These experts can generate campaigns of thousands of KWs and focus their time on optimizing performance while the original business owner gets risk free CPA sales and scale. The SEM expert is essentially working on “the spread,” the amount of money between what it costs them to drive a sale and the brand’s CPA offer.
The laws of supply and demand drive this community, of course. The savvy business owner provides the true maximum they are willing to pay to maximize interest among the optimizing community. If you sand bag your max, naturally the sales that can be driven by experts will be lower. And if you really sandbag, you’ll find no one is interested in your campaign because the outlay of time and resources doesn’t make sense for them. So by introducing transparency into the world of search, savvy businesses and search experts can both profit by dealing with one another fairly and honestly.
Here’s a vid explaining the value proposition:
Now, huge brands are probably going to be better served by utilizing in house experts and an automation platform like Kenshoo or Marin. But many small agencies and businesses find the costs on the investment of time to use these platforms prohibitive. By creating the Trada community, this company has unleashed people power against the challenges, and I for one think that this concept is probably a winner.
For businesses, a solution like Trada may also help level the playing field between them and the search providers. Because let’s talk brass tacks. Who do you think knows more about Search, you or Google? As Google makes changes and adjustments to its business policies, how are your interests affected? You know the changes are good for THEIR bottom line, after all why else would they make them? But are they good for YOU? Chances are, you don’t know and don’t have time to figure it out yourself.
Trada community members know a great deal more about Search than you do – after all, it’s how they make their livelihood! When you align their interests with ours via CPA, you have important allies in your corner.
If you are a small or medium sized business or agency, I suggest you find out more about this concept. Given the CPA model, you have literally NOTHING to lose!
Start-Up Watch COD: Extole makes social acquisition, engagement, and recommendations turnkey
As companies get more used to social media, they are increasingly searching for accountable metrics and simpler execution to help make this channel deliver on brand KPIs. While few brands dispute the potential for social media, the amount of time and effort it takes to fully leverage this channel can seem daunting.
Extole is a company focused on simplifying social media for its clients and streamlining its execution so that it can deliver actionable results and insights. Essentially, they offer purpose built solutions that can be customized for brands and implemented quickly. Extole manages most of the work required, so marketing teams can stay focused more on strategic issues.
Here’s a capsule run-down on the sorts of services they can provide:
Refer-a-Friend Platform offers a custom branded referral system that rewards people for getting their friends to participate in a brand. While many referral solutions focus solely on email, theirs combines an email based solution with integration into other social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs (via a widget.) Back end reporting provides valuable insights, such as insights into your prime referrers and the demographics of people who take action based upon the referrals. The platform itself provides third party verification of the referral so that referrers can be assured that they will receive the rewards offered. Extole also manages the fulfillments of these rewards, significantly simplifying execution for the client.
Social Builder Platform grows your Facebook social media community through a sweepstakes platform that integrates easily into your Facebook page. The platform is fully customizable, and collects the information required to demonstrate brand impact. Virality is built in, so that as new people visit the page and interact with it, they can communicate the sweepstakes and brand messages to their friends. Extole dramatically simplifies execution by providing sweepstakes rules and the required winner selection and fulfillment services that can consumer time and resources when managed independently. Again, you get back end reporting that analyzes the growth and composition of your fans base, so that programs can be improved and optimized.
Social Marketing Services are delivered by members of the Extole team, who manage the strategic development and execution of programs. They also provide reporting and analytics services to round out the turn key offering.
As we all know, individuals are far more likely to convert – to purchase OR brand participation – when they become aware of genuine recommendations from their friends. By simplifying the dissemination of these recommendations and endorsements, Extole says it helps build real business results without major time or people commitments from its clients. Here’s a vid of their VP of Marketing, Blake Hayward:
That ease of execution is their hallmark benefit. Organizations small and large recognize the resource challenges of building social programs from scratch. By providing robust platforms and services, Extole states that it significantly speeds programs to market and ensures that all the is are dotted and ts crossed. Easy money, in other words. And who doesn’t like that?
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Extole is a company focused on simplifying social media for its clients and streamlining its execution so that it can deliver actionable results and insights. Essentially, they offer purpose built solutions that can be customized for brands and implemented quickly. Extole manages most of the work required, so marketing teams can stay focused more on strategic issues.
Here’s a capsule run-down on the sorts of services they can provide:
Refer-a-Friend Platform offers a custom branded referral system that rewards people for getting their friends to participate in a brand. While many referral solutions focus solely on email, theirs combines an email based solution with integration into other social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and blogs (via a widget.) Back end reporting provides valuable insights, such as insights into your prime referrers and the demographics of people who take action based upon the referrals. The platform itself provides third party verification of the referral so that referrers can be assured that they will receive the rewards offered. Extole also manages the fulfillments of these rewards, significantly simplifying execution for the client.
Social Builder Platform grows your Facebook social media community through a sweepstakes platform that integrates easily into your Facebook page. The platform is fully customizable, and collects the information required to demonstrate brand impact. Virality is built in, so that as new people visit the page and interact with it, they can communicate the sweepstakes and brand messages to their friends. Extole dramatically simplifies execution by providing sweepstakes rules and the required winner selection and fulfillment services that can consumer time and resources when managed independently. Again, you get back end reporting that analyzes the growth and composition of your fans base, so that programs can be improved and optimized.
Social Marketing Services are delivered by members of the Extole team, who manage the strategic development and execution of programs. They also provide reporting and analytics services to round out the turn key offering.
As we all know, individuals are far more likely to convert – to purchase OR brand participation – when they become aware of genuine recommendations from their friends. By simplifying the dissemination of these recommendations and endorsements, Extole says it helps build real business results without major time or people commitments from its clients. Here’s a vid of their VP of Marketing, Blake Hayward:
That ease of execution is their hallmark benefit. Organizations small and large recognize the resource challenges of building social programs from scratch. By providing robust platforms and services, Extole states that it significantly speeds programs to market and ensures that all the is are dotted and ts crossed. Easy money, in other words. And who doesn’t like that?
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Now it’s easy and affordable to Ask Your Target Market most anything!
I love actionable market research as a means of powering marketing. But the cost can be prohibitive in some circumstances, and for many smaller and boutique brands. A company called Ask Your Target Market (on the web at aytm.com) hopes to bring the value of quantitative market research to more brands and situations by making it vastly more affordable.
“Powered” by a panel of more than 2 million possible respondents, AYTM enables people to define a pool of respondents and field quantitative research for a very low cost per respondent. The minimum cost for respondents is indeed quite minimal – 95 cents per – though with some specs like gender, family situation and region, the costs get a scosh higher. But in experimenting with their audience definition tools I found that more specific targets (reflective of what a large brand might want) could be had in the $5-$10 per respondent range. Still a bargain at twice the price. Thrice even.
Specs you can use to target your audience include:
Age – By age ranges or with a minimum or maximum
Employment status – Full time, part time, retired, student, or not working
Ethnicity – The usual breaks here
Household income – Options to select a range or a maximum/minimum only
Education – The usual breaks
Geographical location – Regions, states
Gender – No surprises here
Relationship status – Single, married, divorced, widowed
Additionally, they have people categorized by 168 behaviors and psychographics, like “have a Facebook account.”
One of the interesting things they offer is an estimated completed by date. Or rather time, because the turnaround of a project from launch is ridiculously short. Getting a survey of about 100 Moms, for example, would have taken about 2 hours when I did my demo.
Not two months
Not two weeks
Not even two days
Two miracuolously short hours.
Think about THAT the next time you want to run some spec creative by consumers for a pitch.
Anyway. To use the service, you visit the site, input your respondent specs, define a number of completes, and upload the content (like video or documents) that you want people to respond to. You can field a standard questionnaire or take advantage of skip logic to go deeper into issues and segments without overwhelming people with question counts.
Here’s their short and sweet demo vid:
I don't think this platform can entirely replace custom research. But so many of the projects we want to field, at least in my experience, could be more than met with this sort of standardized offering. At a cost that is smaller than that available from a custom research provider by a factor of ten or more.
But even more important than the potential savings is the opportunity to do real research in more instances and situations. We don’t need to fly blind anymore. And THAT is most definitely a good thing, especially as society and lifestyles get more and more complicated.
Good stuff you should definitely check out.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
“Powered” by a panel of more than 2 million possible respondents, AYTM enables people to define a pool of respondents and field quantitative research for a very low cost per respondent. The minimum cost for respondents is indeed quite minimal – 95 cents per – though with some specs like gender, family situation and region, the costs get a scosh higher. But in experimenting with their audience definition tools I found that more specific targets (reflective of what a large brand might want) could be had in the $5-$10 per respondent range. Still a bargain at twice the price. Thrice even.
Specs you can use to target your audience include:
Age – By age ranges or with a minimum or maximum
Employment status – Full time, part time, retired, student, or not working
Ethnicity – The usual breaks here
Household income – Options to select a range or a maximum/minimum only
Education – The usual breaks
Geographical location – Regions, states
Gender – No surprises here
Relationship status – Single, married, divorced, widowed
Additionally, they have people categorized by 168 behaviors and psychographics, like “have a Facebook account.”
One of the interesting things they offer is an estimated completed by date. Or rather time, because the turnaround of a project from launch is ridiculously short. Getting a survey of about 100 Moms, for example, would have taken about 2 hours when I did my demo.
Not two months
Not two weeks
Not even two days
Two miracuolously short hours.
Think about THAT the next time you want to run some spec creative by consumers for a pitch.
Anyway. To use the service, you visit the site, input your respondent specs, define a number of completes, and upload the content (like video or documents) that you want people to respond to. You can field a standard questionnaire or take advantage of skip logic to go deeper into issues and segments without overwhelming people with question counts.
Here’s their short and sweet demo vid:
I don't think this platform can entirely replace custom research. But so many of the projects we want to field, at least in my experience, could be more than met with this sort of standardized offering. At a cost that is smaller than that available from a custom research provider by a factor of ten or more.
But even more important than the potential savings is the opportunity to do real research in more instances and situations. We don’t need to fly blind anymore. And THAT is most definitely a good thing, especially as society and lifestyles get more and more complicated.
Good stuff you should definitely check out.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Stop Giving it Away For Free and Start Creating Brand Value
There's an enormous communication gap between we digital marketers and the startups that are trying to attract our dollars. Over the past several months, I have met with about four dozen emerging companies that hope to become a part of brand marketing plans. Almost to the company, they appear to think that my colleagues and I are desperate for new ways to cut prices by distributing digital coupons and free product.
"And you can give people a dollar off right in the aisle!" "And you can reward gamers by sending them a free six pack." "And you can offer coupons that they can download right onto their phones." "And you can give your best customers a 50% rebate that appears on their credit card statement." "You'll get lots of people in your stores because millions check in every day to get 50-90% discounts."
These can be valuable tactics when you have very specific business goals. But for most brands such programs don't actually constitute marketing. They're the opposite.
At its core, a brand's value is represented by the premium a company can charge versus its competitors. If I can get millions of people to pay $5.99 for Kellogg's Corn Flakes versus $2.99 for generic corn flakes, that's a strong brand. If I have to pass out $2.50 coupons to get folks to buy them, that's a weak brand. And if people get used to receiving $2.50 coupons all the time, they'll ultimately think less of the coupons.
We don't need four dozen new ways to hand out coupons. We need ways to mitigate the need for distributing any coupons at all. Good marketing increases value, not decreases it.
I think part of the reason why this simple point is so poorly understood is that the realities of digital business versus actual business are so different. If you've existed for two years and never generated a nickel of revenue, you're not a business. At least not yet. And the realities facing your management are rather different than those of revenue-producing businesses.
Brand marketers need to find digital tools and platforms that can enhance brand value. The great almost-depression of 2009 escalated marketer interest in digital promotional tools, and start up companies have been wise to recognize and capitalize on that opportunity. But digital marketing is not enhancing brand value if the bulk of it is driving up the amount of products and services we sell on deal.
I brought this up to one start up CRO last week, and he told me that they were in the business of giving consumers what they want. OK fine, but the consumers aren't actually paying his salary. Brands are.
Excuse my cynicism, but what the consumer wants is everything for free. What brands need is revenue, increasing margins and long-term consumer loyalty. You (usually) don't get that by handing out freebies.
Many of the companies I've seen have data indicating that as a result of distributing offers, more consumers like the participating brands. But here's a splash of ice water to the face: a user that loves my product because they get a 50% off coupon every week is loyal to the deal, not the brand. They may like a brand for dropping the price, but for a brand, liking only matters inasmuch as it results in greater profits.
I'm not saying you can't be successful by offering a promotions platform. The people at Coupons.com are getting rich doing just that. But marketers are becoming more acutely aware that all this discounting is hurting rather than helping. Look at Groupon's month-over-month decreasing revenue for evidence.
A year from now, many of the startups touting their ability to distribute free product and deals are going to be gone. That doesn't mean that someone won't get rich by creating a whiz bang digital promotional platform. But the people that are really gonna clean up are the ones that offer digital solutions that help me charge more for something, not less.
Thanks to ReadWriteWeb for publishing this first.
"And you can give people a dollar off right in the aisle!" "And you can reward gamers by sending them a free six pack." "And you can offer coupons that they can download right onto their phones." "And you can give your best customers a 50% rebate that appears on their credit card statement." "You'll get lots of people in your stores because millions check in every day to get 50-90% discounts."
These can be valuable tactics when you have very specific business goals. But for most brands such programs don't actually constitute marketing. They're the opposite.
At its core, a brand's value is represented by the premium a company can charge versus its competitors. If I can get millions of people to pay $5.99 for Kellogg's Corn Flakes versus $2.99 for generic corn flakes, that's a strong brand. If I have to pass out $2.50 coupons to get folks to buy them, that's a weak brand. And if people get used to receiving $2.50 coupons all the time, they'll ultimately think less of the coupons.
We don't need four dozen new ways to hand out coupons. We need ways to mitigate the need for distributing any coupons at all. Good marketing increases value, not decreases it.
I think part of the reason why this simple point is so poorly understood is that the realities of digital business versus actual business are so different. If you've existed for two years and never generated a nickel of revenue, you're not a business. At least not yet. And the realities facing your management are rather different than those of revenue-producing businesses.
Brand marketers need to find digital tools and platforms that can enhance brand value. The great almost-depression of 2009 escalated marketer interest in digital promotional tools, and start up companies have been wise to recognize and capitalize on that opportunity. But digital marketing is not enhancing brand value if the bulk of it is driving up the amount of products and services we sell on deal.
I brought this up to one start up CRO last week, and he told me that they were in the business of giving consumers what they want. OK fine, but the consumers aren't actually paying his salary. Brands are.
Excuse my cynicism, but what the consumer wants is everything for free. What brands need is revenue, increasing margins and long-term consumer loyalty. You (usually) don't get that by handing out freebies.
Many of the companies I've seen have data indicating that as a result of distributing offers, more consumers like the participating brands. But here's a splash of ice water to the face: a user that loves my product because they get a 50% off coupon every week is loyal to the deal, not the brand. They may like a brand for dropping the price, but for a brand, liking only matters inasmuch as it results in greater profits.
I'm not saying you can't be successful by offering a promotions platform. The people at Coupons.com are getting rich doing just that. But marketers are becoming more acutely aware that all this discounting is hurting rather than helping. Look at Groupon's month-over-month decreasing revenue for evidence.
A year from now, many of the startups touting their ability to distribute free product and deals are going to be gone. That doesn't mean that someone won't get rich by creating a whiz bang digital promotional platform. But the people that are really gonna clean up are the ones that offer digital solutions that help me charge more for something, not less.
Thanks to ReadWriteWeb for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: ReviewSpotter gives online retailers a way to make the most of their reviews
We all know that online reviews have strong persuasive power for consumers looking for reassurance about what and where they buy. No matter how beautiful your TV ads…no matter how attractive your web pages…there’s really nothing like a user endorsement to get people comfy with clicking the buy button.
According to Forrester, more than seven out of ten consumers say that they are more likely to buy from a site that bears positive consumer reviews on its pages. And I’ll wager that for smaller businesses that 70% figure actually UNDERSTATES the importance of such endorsements. First, because when we don’t know a retailer we are less likely to trust it with our personal information. Second, because we need assurance that the sites we choose offer a good value. Reviews help on both scores.
The challenge for small and medium-sized businesses is that the reviews for an individual retailer are scattered across the web, and can be difficult for consumers to find. And we know that when things are difficult to find online, consumers often abandon their searches and move on.
An offering called ReviewSpotter is a review discovery and presentation widget that helps retailers benefit from such reviews, at a very low monthly cost.
Review Spotter starts by scrounging the web looking for reviews for a particular online retailer. They then make the reviews available in a semi-customizable widget that can be easily incorporated into a site. As part of the service, the platform continues to sift through the web looking for new reviews to add to the rotation on the widget. The widget itself ONLY features positive reviews and ratings, and clients can actually select the reviews they wish to feature in the unit.
Consumers that are interested in seeing the retailer review where it originally appeared can simply click anywhere on the widget and a new browser window is spawned. That’s a nice feature because it reassures suspicious consumers that the reviews are real.
Improving results on a website is less about monumental changes than taking small steps. Including reviews on your site can help in that stream of incremental improvement. At just $40 a month, with no contract, offerings like this are certainly worth serious consideration.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
According to Forrester, more than seven out of ten consumers say that they are more likely to buy from a site that bears positive consumer reviews on its pages. And I’ll wager that for smaller businesses that 70% figure actually UNDERSTATES the importance of such endorsements. First, because when we don’t know a retailer we are less likely to trust it with our personal information. Second, because we need assurance that the sites we choose offer a good value. Reviews help on both scores.
The challenge for small and medium-sized businesses is that the reviews for an individual retailer are scattered across the web, and can be difficult for consumers to find. And we know that when things are difficult to find online, consumers often abandon their searches and move on.
An offering called ReviewSpotter is a review discovery and presentation widget that helps retailers benefit from such reviews, at a very low monthly cost.
Review Spotter starts by scrounging the web looking for reviews for a particular online retailer. They then make the reviews available in a semi-customizable widget that can be easily incorporated into a site. As part of the service, the platform continues to sift through the web looking for new reviews to add to the rotation on the widget. The widget itself ONLY features positive reviews and ratings, and clients can actually select the reviews they wish to feature in the unit.
Consumers that are interested in seeing the retailer review where it originally appeared can simply click anywhere on the widget and a new browser window is spawned. That’s a nice feature because it reassures suspicious consumers that the reviews are real.
Improving results on a website is less about monumental changes than taking small steps. Including reviews on your site can help in that stream of incremental improvement. At just $40 a month, with no contract, offerings like this are certainly worth serious consideration.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Magnetic delivers search retargeting to millions and millions
am a huge believer in the potential of search retargeting to drive strong ROI for brands. The model, for those who may be unfamiliar, is that a search retargeting firm serves banner ads to people based upon their recent search history.
Now why, you might ask, would you bother targeting with banners instead of just buying the search results? Well, it’s actually not an “instead,” it’s an “in addition to.” Everyone knows SEM delivers blockbuster results. The problem is that there are not enough instances of searches to satisfy the demand from brands. You can only buy the number of searches consumers organically make. And then only one company gets to be first on the results. And even if you are first, there is by no means a guarantee that people will buy as a direct result of seeing or even clicking on your link.
Search retargeting adds critical touch points to the bottom of the funnel ecosystem, giving brands an opportunity to follow up with consumers are clearly in consideration and buying mode. The banners appear in both contextually linked content and on quality sites where the searchers visit after their telltale searches.
Magnetic was the first company in the space, and collects more than five billion data points monthly through its partnerships with most of the leading search providers. Ergo more data. These partners provide Magnetic with 100% of their search queries, so the company can develop more precise user profiles of consumers.
But there are other distinctions as well. The data they get are mostly from search and e-commerce environments – that’s an important element of their value proposition. According to Magnetic, many search retargeting options are based upon data that come largely from sharing widgets. That’s OK, but the thing is that these widgets tend to appear more in news, blogs, and general edit than in environments where shoppers are actively looking for buying options. Think of it this way –would you rather show banners to someone who searched in a commercial environment, or on CNN?
There are a variety of ways that brands can benefit from Magnetic’s data. First, they can buy inventory direct from the company. Second, Magnetic works with other sellers, providing data to pubs and networks as a means of identifying more likely prospects. Finally, users of exchanges can also leverage the company’s information.
Founded in 2008, the company has amassed a broad range of blue chip customers. It’s an impressive list particularly because many of their customers are highly sophisticated DR marketers.
Through the use of the exchanges, Magnetic can make available inventory on virtually any type of site. For brands with very high levels of concern over brand safety, they can white list a set of sites that fulfill the advertiser’s specs. For example, many of their advertisers insist on inventory ONLY on the Comscore 250.
On the data provider side, sites need not provide data solely to Magnetic – they can continue to sell their data to companies like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. They can simply add Magnetic to their set of paying contracts and make more money. Always a good thing.
As I say, I am a big believer in this space. As a means of driving scale for transactional advertising, search retargeting can and should be a powerful extension of an SEM program. Definitely worth a look!
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Now why, you might ask, would you bother targeting with banners instead of just buying the search results? Well, it’s actually not an “instead,” it’s an “in addition to.” Everyone knows SEM delivers blockbuster results. The problem is that there are not enough instances of searches to satisfy the demand from brands. You can only buy the number of searches consumers organically make. And then only one company gets to be first on the results. And even if you are first, there is by no means a guarantee that people will buy as a direct result of seeing or even clicking on your link.
Search retargeting adds critical touch points to the bottom of the funnel ecosystem, giving brands an opportunity to follow up with consumers are clearly in consideration and buying mode. The banners appear in both contextually linked content and on quality sites where the searchers visit after their telltale searches.
Magnetic was the first company in the space, and collects more than five billion data points monthly through its partnerships with most of the leading search providers. Ergo more data. These partners provide Magnetic with 100% of their search queries, so the company can develop more precise user profiles of consumers.
But there are other distinctions as well. The data they get are mostly from search and e-commerce environments – that’s an important element of their value proposition. According to Magnetic, many search retargeting options are based upon data that come largely from sharing widgets. That’s OK, but the thing is that these widgets tend to appear more in news, blogs, and general edit than in environments where shoppers are actively looking for buying options. Think of it this way –would you rather show banners to someone who searched in a commercial environment, or on CNN?
There are a variety of ways that brands can benefit from Magnetic’s data. First, they can buy inventory direct from the company. Second, Magnetic works with other sellers, providing data to pubs and networks as a means of identifying more likely prospects. Finally, users of exchanges can also leverage the company’s information.
Founded in 2008, the company has amassed a broad range of blue chip customers. It’s an impressive list particularly because many of their customers are highly sophisticated DR marketers.
Through the use of the exchanges, Magnetic can make available inventory on virtually any type of site. For brands with very high levels of concern over brand safety, they can white list a set of sites that fulfill the advertiser’s specs. For example, many of their advertisers insist on inventory ONLY on the Comscore 250.
On the data provider side, sites need not provide data solely to Magnetic – they can continue to sell their data to companies like Yahoo, Google, and Bing. They can simply add Magnetic to their set of paying contracts and make more money. Always a good thing.
As I say, I am a big believer in this space. As a means of driving scale for transactional advertising, search retargeting can and should be a powerful extension of an SEM program. Definitely worth a look!
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start Up Watch COD: Kiip delivers real world rewards during mobile gaming “achievement moments”
IMHO, mobile advertising has always been a dicey arena. We want to deliver marketing messages in this most lean forward of environments, but at the same time stay on the tolerate/detest divide. Or at least that balancing USED TO BE what drove our thinking.
A really intriguing start-up called Kiip (pronounced keep) completely utterly absolutely upends this very balancing act. Instead, they offer a remarkable and ingenious way to have people actually look forward to marketing messages. To deliver on this promise, they threw off the shackles of “screen real estate” thinking. Meaning that they are not focused on how much of a mobile screen they can fill with an ad. Rather, they pinpoint time-based opportunities when real world rewards can be provided for in-game achievements. Yep, you get actual things for doing well in mobile games.
Let’s compare and contrast two gaming scenarios to show the difference in thinking. And appeal.
Under the standard ad-supported model, ads appear in launch screens, as overlays on the game screen, and as interstitials between levels in a game. Finish level three? Watch an ad and then start playing level four. It’s certainly a serviceable model in that it is exposing a brand message to a captive audience. But in this scenario, the ads really aren’t providing consumer value. Rather they are something to be endured (or despised) because they keep us from what we want to do. Yes yes it’s just for a few seconds. But in our ADD world, they may well be very frustrating seconds for your target.
Enter Kiip. No banners or addy interstitials here. Rather, they offer players tangible, real world rewards for achievements like completing a level. Just finished level three? Yay for you. As your reward, we’re going to give you a mobile coupon for a free Dr. Pepper. Not a blob of electrons that looks like a Dr. Pepper. An actual Dr. Pepper you can go out, obtain, and enjoy.
What I love about this is how it flips the consumer's openness to the marketing message from something endured to something welcomed. Brand message receptivity goes from negative to positive. And how the real world nature of the reward ensures that the consumer exposure herself more than once to the message. See the reward, save the reward, redeem the reward.
Another aspect of this that I find intriguing is the potential to thematically tie offers to games. So, for example, getting free bacon when you exterminate the pigs in Angry Birds. Success never ever tasted so good. But anyway. Rewards are targeted demographically, so that games attracting an adolescent male audience would naturally offer different rewards than games that attract women 35+. The model is priced based upon a cost per reward redeemed basis. Tech Crunch reports a price range from 25 cents to $3 per.
Given the redemption costs and the cost pers, this isn’t a cheap way of reaching consumers. But it certainly is a rich, positive, and multilayered one. Me likey likey. Apparently I am not the only one that’s taken with this great new concept. They have already signed programs with lots of big brands, among them Sephora, Popchips, 800 Flowers, Carls Jr, Homerun, and Dr Pepper. Not bad for a company that a month ago only had a splash screen for its website.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
A really intriguing start-up called Kiip (pronounced keep) completely utterly absolutely upends this very balancing act. Instead, they offer a remarkable and ingenious way to have people actually look forward to marketing messages. To deliver on this promise, they threw off the shackles of “screen real estate” thinking. Meaning that they are not focused on how much of a mobile screen they can fill with an ad. Rather, they pinpoint time-based opportunities when real world rewards can be provided for in-game achievements. Yep, you get actual things for doing well in mobile games.
Let’s compare and contrast two gaming scenarios to show the difference in thinking. And appeal.
Under the standard ad-supported model, ads appear in launch screens, as overlays on the game screen, and as interstitials between levels in a game. Finish level three? Watch an ad and then start playing level four. It’s certainly a serviceable model in that it is exposing a brand message to a captive audience. But in this scenario, the ads really aren’t providing consumer value. Rather they are something to be endured (or despised) because they keep us from what we want to do. Yes yes it’s just for a few seconds. But in our ADD world, they may well be very frustrating seconds for your target.
Enter Kiip. No banners or addy interstitials here. Rather, they offer players tangible, real world rewards for achievements like completing a level. Just finished level three? Yay for you. As your reward, we’re going to give you a mobile coupon for a free Dr. Pepper. Not a blob of electrons that looks like a Dr. Pepper. An actual Dr. Pepper you can go out, obtain, and enjoy.
What I love about this is how it flips the consumer's openness to the marketing message from something endured to something welcomed. Brand message receptivity goes from negative to positive. And how the real world nature of the reward ensures that the consumer exposure herself more than once to the message. See the reward, save the reward, redeem the reward.
Another aspect of this that I find intriguing is the potential to thematically tie offers to games. So, for example, getting free bacon when you exterminate the pigs in Angry Birds. Success never ever tasted so good. But anyway. Rewards are targeted demographically, so that games attracting an adolescent male audience would naturally offer different rewards than games that attract women 35+. The model is priced based upon a cost per reward redeemed basis. Tech Crunch reports a price range from 25 cents to $3 per.
Given the redemption costs and the cost pers, this isn’t a cheap way of reaching consumers. But it certainly is a rich, positive, and multilayered one. Me likey likey. Apparently I am not the only one that’s taken with this great new concept. They have already signed programs with lots of big brands, among them Sephora, Popchips, 800 Flowers, Carls Jr, Homerun, and Dr Pepper. Not bad for a company that a month ago only had a splash screen for its website.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
Start-Up Watch COD: Compass Labs uses real-time social comments to pinpoint user interests and deliver targeted ads
How do data companies and targeting engines determine your interests? Most of them use cookies to determine the sorts of content you’re consuming and the sites you’re visiting. It’s been proven effective, But if we get real for a minute, we need to admit to ourselves that Display response rates tend to be so microscopic that even small improvements in targeting make a difference. I’m not diminishing the power of BT to improve results but rather pointing out that the standard approaches and algorithms needn’t be perfect to have an impact.
But what if we could be CERTAIN about what a consumer was interested in. More specifically, interested in buying?
Compass Labs is an interesting new company that thinks it has a way to do just that. Rather than inferring user passions and needs, it analyzes what people actually tell the world they are interested in through their social media activity.
Put it this way: Would you rather put a Cadillac banner up in front of:
A consumer that has visited a lot of luxury auto content?
Someone who just typed “I am interested in buying a Cadillac” in their Twitter status?
Of course it’s not quite as simple as that; based on what I read from my friends and connections, comments are rarely THAT obvious. But the basic principle behind Compass Labs is that more effective targeting is possible when we interpret people's comments than when we read the tea leaves of their Internet travels.
Theirs is a real-time ad targeting and serving platform that puts ads into social environments precisely when users identify their interests. These ads appear in Facebook, Twitter, social media apps, and thousands of community posting boards across the web. In total, the company says it can reach 200,000,000 web users in any given month with highly targeted messages that offer stronger response and conversion rates.
Publicly available social media information enables Compass Labs to offer a broad range of targeting options, including users’ current interests, lifestyles, purchase intent, demographics, location and other factors.
Here’s their pitch vid from last year’s Under the Radar:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10810222
As is often the case with advanced targeting, the benefits to DR marketers are obvious. But brand-side advertisers can also benefit by impacting brand perceptions among people who in earlier stages of the buying funnel.
Flipping the coin over for a sec, there are some significant benefits to the pub side as well. Obviously Facebook and Twitter benefit from more ads, and higher value impressions. But for pubs that offer forums, this stream of advertising revenue can be almost 100% incremental because it has traditionally been so hard to convince advertisers to place messages in UGC environments. Advertisers tend to fear the unknown, and forums may as well be renamed “Unknown Zone” as far as content goes.
With this new dimension of precision targeting, millions more page views can get monetized – and at strong rates.
I haven’t worked on any programs using them, but I think the concept is rather compelling, and warrants a serious look from DR and Brand advertisers.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
But what if we could be CERTAIN about what a consumer was interested in. More specifically, interested in buying?
Compass Labs is an interesting new company that thinks it has a way to do just that. Rather than inferring user passions and needs, it analyzes what people actually tell the world they are interested in through their social media activity.
Put it this way: Would you rather put a Cadillac banner up in front of:
A consumer that has visited a lot of luxury auto content?
Someone who just typed “I am interested in buying a Cadillac” in their Twitter status?
Of course it’s not quite as simple as that; based on what I read from my friends and connections, comments are rarely THAT obvious. But the basic principle behind Compass Labs is that more effective targeting is possible when we interpret people's comments than when we read the tea leaves of their Internet travels.
Theirs is a real-time ad targeting and serving platform that puts ads into social environments precisely when users identify their interests. These ads appear in Facebook, Twitter, social media apps, and thousands of community posting boards across the web. In total, the company says it can reach 200,000,000 web users in any given month with highly targeted messages that offer stronger response and conversion rates.
Publicly available social media information enables Compass Labs to offer a broad range of targeting options, including users’ current interests, lifestyles, purchase intent, demographics, location and other factors.
Here’s their pitch vid from last year’s Under the Radar:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10810222
As is often the case with advanced targeting, the benefits to DR marketers are obvious. But brand-side advertisers can also benefit by impacting brand perceptions among people who in earlier stages of the buying funnel.
Flipping the coin over for a sec, there are some significant benefits to the pub side as well. Obviously Facebook and Twitter benefit from more ads, and higher value impressions. But for pubs that offer forums, this stream of advertising revenue can be almost 100% incremental because it has traditionally been so hard to convince advertisers to place messages in UGC environments. Advertisers tend to fear the unknown, and forums may as well be renamed “Unknown Zone” as far as content goes.
With this new dimension of precision targeting, millions more page views can get monetized – and at strong rates.
I haven’t worked on any programs using them, but I think the concept is rather compelling, and warrants a serious look from DR and Brand advertisers.
Thanks to ad:tech for publishing this first.
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