Day: December 9, 2006

Vario Creative Blog » Online Marketing and Measuring Social Media

Vario Creative Blog » Online Marketing and Measuring Social Media

The omni-intelligent Mark Cahill on engagement marketing and measuring. A great post:

“Engagement is sexy, it’s fun, it’s altruistic. It’s marketing riding in on a white charger to save the damsel. Direct marketing is unsubscribe lists, frequency and walking a thin line with the dark side. “Luke, I’m your marketing manager…””Engagement is the thing that allows you to direct market. It helps to create an environment where the customer is willing to recieve your message, opt in for email, open print mail, click on targetted ads, sign up for RSS, etc. It’s the difference between an open email and a new spam filter rule with your name on it. This is purely perception on the part of the customer.”

Words that need to be coined

Paul Gillin, a very smart tech editor/journalist (PC Week, Computerworld, TechTarget) and consultant once coined a phrase for the type of person who enters the express checkout lane at the grocery story with more than the maximum number of items:

Expresshole

I need a word for the emotion you feel in a convenience store when the person ahead of you plays his or her paycheck on scratch tickets and lottery numbers, dooming you to five minutes of: “And I’ll take three Quick Pick Megabucks of Welfare and seven Scratch Slots and eight ….” This word is dying to be born.

And, I need a word for the guilt one feels on an filled-to-the-brim airplane, when someone else breaks wind, makes a stinky, and you worry that others think you did it.  I think the psychographic profile generally lays suspicion on a) men, b) big men, c) big men who are sleeping.

Whereabouts for the rest of the year

12.9-11: Cotuit

12.11-13: RTP

12.14-1.7.07: Cotuit (with some vacation in there someplace)

1.8-1.11: Arizona

Time to think about the year in review list …

The staple of end-of-year journalism, when reporters start banking copy so they can take some time off during the holidays, the year-in-review list is generally partnered with the forecast for the year to come.

I thought I’d get a head start on the season and celebrate my 11 month anniversary as a first-time marketer with some random bloviations on life inside a $14 billion startup.

  1. I thought, going in, that marketing was where the right-brained side of the MBA class ended up. The creative, non-quantitative types — Word versus Excel users — who thought up “whiter-than-white/brighter-than-bright” slogans and approved television commercials. Wrong. Marketing is extremely quantitative and creative and driven by the Four P’s — Product, Price, Place and Promotion. This is a challenge to me, the most un-quantitative man alive.
  2. The Four P’s don’t mean much to me. I don’t care. That doesn’t mean they aren’t crucial, they just don’t hit me as that relevant.
  3. Web marketing is the “plastics” of modern business. If you are thinking of a career, then think about Web marketing. It changes so fast that half the fun (and half the terror) is making it up as you go along.
  4. Corporate blogging went from a circus freak show in January (when Scoble and Israel published Naked Conversations) to a fact of life in December. If you and your company are still noodling over whether to do it or not then I feel sad for you. Don’t hire a PR firm to set your blog policy.
  5. It’s all about Search.
  6. Interactive/Digital marketing feels hotter to me in 2006 than Online Journalism did in 1994 in terms of potential impact and disruptive impact.
  7. Metrics are nothing without analytics. Metrics are what makes number 6 as hot as it is and is what makes number 1 so crucial. Analytics driving actions are hard.
  8. Web publishers who depend on display advertising for their growth strategy are very threatened. Don’t focus on what is happening to the print and broadcast side, (as the obituary writers would say, “donations in lieu of flowers”) the next big upset is in the 1.0 to 2.0 model of transformation that is coming down on the gross tonnage web models that emphasize eyes, clicks, and impressions.
  9. Customer service is the noblest manifestation of a brand and should be parented by marketing.
  10. Engagement marketing is where the action is but direct marketing is where the money is.

There … ten random bloviations.

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