Happy 2012 + Thoughts On Digital Marketing

Happy 2012

Here is a list of few key things to watch out for.

1. How to leverage social networks for marketing. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ have got the consumer traction. How to leverage them for marketing is still to be discovered. Nothing so far has caused the disruption like what "Pay per click" did to search engines initially

2. Marketing automation. Consumers read what you have to say in your ads and website - but believe and take decisions based on what they hear online :). The good thing is everything happens online. These systems will need to get more integrated with consumers

3. The lines between Marketing and Customer Service is getting blurred. A disgruntled customer or a happy customer both can impact your brand - much more than your ads do

Cheers!

Groupon: More money, To diminish more value?

I just read about Groupon raising $950 Million. Great news for Groupon. I was thinking more on the underlying impact for marketers - and that bothered me.

Groupon helps sell more by offering significant discounts, in return for volume. Many marketers discount products and services, to acquire a customer. In essence - it is diminishing value, as the marketer faces a short term hit on profitability, and perhaps a loss in many cases. Agreed?

Now with $950 Million in the kitty, Groupon will aggressively do more of what it does - diminish value for more marketers! In the end customers win, but its a circle, it will catch up soon. Are we looking at a bubble? Or is there enough profit buffer amongst producers, that this will just scratch the surface?

Obviously a very contrarian view - am i alone?

Wishing all a super successfull 2011!

Ok, a bit late as we are into the 2nd week. But then the new year is still fresh in all our minds.

Somehow, the transition from 2010 to 2011 did not have the usual gap. Perhaps the environment was so stressed that people were busy at work even on 31st. Never before were so many of our clients available at office during the last week!

We seem to be all set for exciting times for digital marketing in 2011. With more and more users getting connected via the internet and mobile, and marketers finding that $$ are better spent on digital. With potential, there does come the pressure to deliver on the promises.

Here are a few key trends related to the digital marketing industry, that I feel will be key to our industry overall.

Adapt: The crazy growth of Facebook and Twitter, clearly indicated the presence of large vacuums in what users need in the new digital ecosystem. A similar vacuum exists for marketers - to leverage these. And the best part is - we will not know what it is - till it is out there! So every agency needs to keep innovating and investing to discover better methods to leverage these for marketers.

Educate: Any new method or technique, needs significant research and investments in the areas of defining models and then creating a system to educate practitioners and users - overall. Else, it will not overcome the proverbial "chasm" that exists before widespread adoption.

Share & collaborate: This is the only way, we agencies can help increase the pie. Rather than fighting over a small pie, lets grow the pie.

Happy 2011!

Position2 Newsletter: December 2010

Content Overload - the Challenge for Companies Monitoring Social Media  Finding ways to handle the deluge of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube conversations circulating on your brand is a challenge. To fully understand this, the Brand Monitor™ team at Position² analyzed social media conversations on Amazon, Best Buy, Dell, eBay, and Walmart®. Here's what we found. Read More »

Understanding the Online Sales Cycle Using Google Analytics  The Holy Grail of Web Analytics: an online sales cycle deep dive, tracked through Google Analytics, reports the impact of PPC and organic search. This includes interesting data points on the time taken to convert visitors, depending on your website entry path. Read more »

Airtel Brand Revamp: Social Media Response  The largest telecom service brand in India, Airtel, launched a much-hyped $65 million revamp of its brand identity. Right after the launch, Airtel social media conversations increased drastically. Read on for a detailed analysis of how they fared. Read More »

Futurewatch Series - 1

Well, they say it all started with barter. Where one man's produce was another's need. I made shoes, you made food - lets' exchange. Then it extended to a local community. Then appeared currency. Travel made it possible to expand your market. Then competition created advertising.

Ad for Coca-Cola, 1890s

 Advertising & marketing became an integral part of a business - as it had to identify customers to buy its product at the right price at the right time - this is important, if there was no constraint on price or time, a business could hypothetically wait for all inventory to sell on its own,  a.k.a monopolies!

And now, the internet's happening. Suddenly - every business has a market, distance does not matter. Technically all of what a business produces will find a buyer - somewhere - made easy by the internet


Do we still need advertising & marketing. We just need production and distribution. Ah yes - perhaps a few decades out - so we are safe

Quick thoughts: Google Instant

My initial thoughts - Google Instant does not make sense. Google suggest was perfect, as it led people to potential search terms.

For those people who havent read about it, Google has launched a new service called Google Instant - where  search results start popping up as the user types in their search terms. This is an extension of Suggest - where the search box, suggested keywords based on what users typed.


Use case 1. Type "a", and you will get Amazon, and you could be searching for any keyword that begins with a.

Problem for user: Hey,  this is not what I want, do not disturb me as I type!
Problem for advertiser: Amazon ads will be shown to all people who search for a term that starts in "a". That's an exponential increase in impressions - wasted impressions. lower CTR, lower quality score.

And then, I may be completely wrong - only time will tell. :)

Measuring advertising effectiveness using social media

Offline advertising that is...

If they like it they will talk about it. If they hate it, they will. Conversations are happening in social media. read what people are saying about your ads, products and marketing.

Well, you say, we had panels and research. But werent you aware of research bias. when you can silently listen in, why not?

You could do Google alerts. Or then there are platforms like Radian 6, Trackur, and Position2 Brand Monitor...among many