von Roland Hachmann | Okt. 9, 2008 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Digital News, Marketing, Social Media Marketing
On Cnet is news about a new study by Gartner with the catching headline of a 50% failure rate:
75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are eager to get involved in social-networking initiatives for marketing or customer relations purposes, but 50 percent of those campaigns will be classified as failures
The main problem is (oh wonder) the differing expectations about what will happen during those marketing efforts:
The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don’t go over as well with the public.
In addition, the report points out that online usage during the purchasing process of all products and services will increase:
Gartner’s research shows that by 2012 fully half of all purchases will have some online component. That could mean searching for product reviews, reading about a new product on a blog, or comparing prices even if the purchase is ultimately made in a store.
So the need to figure out win-win situations for brands and the community are ever more important.
And furthermore, a „heads up“ for online marketers for the financially difficult times ahead:
Businesses will turn to the Web to stay in touch with consumers during a difficult financial climate. “This is going to be a lifeline,†he said. “Your spirit of customers is probably the only thing you have.â€
von Roland Hachmann | Apr. 17, 2008 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Seth Godin, godfather of good quotes, recently wrote this:
The best time to look for a job next year is right now. The best time to plan for a sale in three years is right now. The mistake so many marketers make is that they conjoin the urgency of making another sale with the timing to earn the right to make that sale. In other words, you must build trust before you need it. Building trust right when you want to make a sale is just too late.
Publishing your ideas… in books, or on a blog, or in little twits on Twitter… and doing it with patience, over time, is the best way I can think of to lay a foundation for whatever it is you hope to do next.
This is why, in my opinion, Social Media Marketing cannot simply be viewed as another tactical discipline within marketing – or even advertising, as many companies might currently think about it. You shouldn’t just do Social Media Marketing as a one-off, as part of a campaign („we’ll have som TV commercials, some online banners, and, let’s see, some social media activities“).
It needs to be a strategic, long term goal to engage in Social Media activities, to build relations with the target audience, and to build trust for those moments, when you (urgently) need to activate your greatest brand/product fans…
von Roland Hachmann | Apr. 10, 2008 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Over at the Online Spin blog, there is an interesting article about „peers vs influencers„. The question is, of course: who is your ideal target group. It’s the debate of Gladwells Tipping Point theory vs Duncan Watts argument, that there aren’t any network nodes more influential than others.
Joe Marchese says, there are indeed people who are more influential than others. But only in three dimensions – and they can vary according to topic, point in time and other variables for the same person:
–People have a quantity of influence: the maximum number of other people they can reach with a message.
–People have a quality of influence: the amount of influence they exert over those that they reach.
–People have types of influence: categories of “expertise†that other people assign to an individual.
If this is the case (if it is that easy), you can quickly deduct your target audience according to the marketing objective. Is it widespread awareness? Is it consideration? Is it increased sales?
Not sure if it is that easy. But it does sound nice to put these target groups against the typical marketing funnel. Only question remaining: can you always clearly distinguish one from the other these days? (I doubt that.)
von Roland Hachmann | Apr. 6, 2008 | Blog, Digital Culture, Digital News
Just a quick one: Joost shuts down its global operations and focuses on the US only. Shame, I liked the idea of Joost. But in the end, it was brought down by two main factors that even a technologically smart way of streaming videos can’t solve: first: trying to buy global rights for content that studios could probably sell much more profitable on a country-by-country basis. second: having exclusive, compelling content that users won’t find anywhere else (nevermind that they’re overloaded with too much online video anyway.
And for me: I always felt like the joost interface just wasn’t right somehow. I don’t watch fullscreen video on my PC. Still, I was always hoping for it to evolve (globally), so that one day I could enjoy watching videos via joost. But not any more, I guess.
von Roland Hachmann | Apr. 1, 2008 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Digital News, Marketing, Online Advertising
There is a standard joke around online advertising managers about the fear of those „chinese villages“ taking over one of your ad campaigns so that you receive the clicks you paid for, only all of them come from one and the same family (in China or India, or Eastern Europe or Antigua, etc. it doesn’t really matter).
But you don’t need to go very far away. Your next door neighbor might be part of a „click farm“. Even though he most likely never realised what he got himself into.
Just the other day I took a look at a site called OnlineTVRecorder.com (don’t want to give them any link credit). On that site you can record TV programms of any German TV Channel – most of which I wouldn’t even be able to access in this area of the country. You first record them, and then download and decode them. But you can only decode those that you „recorded“ in advance. This makes it similar to any VCR/DVD recorder and hence (I guess) a legal way of recording shows via the web.
So far so good. However, the system only works for you, when you pay per download with so called „good will points“. If you haven’t got enough points, you can’t download or decode any files.
And how do you get these points? There are two ways. Either you donate money, or you click on some of their ads. Yes, that’s right: you can click on the ads to receive good will points! You get points for clicks that advertisers pay a lot of money for (on aggregate).
I guess most users on this site aren’t fully aware of the fact that each of their clicks contributes to ripping of advertisers. Note: I am not saying „poor advertisers“ here! I am just saying that advertisers don’t get what they pay for when they signed the contract with these mediasites: intentional attention.
Clickworking is an interesting and positive trend, since it uses the minimal individual productivity of large crowds to achieve a large complex goal.
Clickfarming seems to be a dark side equivalent. Utilize the small contributions of a large crowd’s individuals who might not even (want to) realize that their few clicks are contributing to a large system of fraud.
I wonder how many other sites of this kind are out there? How much dubious content is paid for in this way? How many advertising campaigns bought on a pay-per-click basis have been corrupted by clickfarms like these?
If I was an advertiser and I saw one of my banners on one of those sites, I would ask my media agency or the publisher for my money back. And may be sue them.
Wo ich sonst so bin...