Oct 11

The Fine Art of Targeting

By Michael Goldberg Advertisers, Analytics, Audience Measurement, Audience Targeting, Behavioral Targeting, Consumers, Display, Executive Insight, Online Marketing 1 Comment »

Datran Media’s Chris Gaeblar wax poetic on the fine art of targeting…

My mother-in-law has a great expression.  In the family we call it, “updating your prior.”  What it means is that you always have to remember to update your prior view of things, because otherwise you are making false assumptions based on outdated information.

As marketers we often fall into the trap of neglecting to “update our prior.” We pick a demographic and a target profile, and we stick with it. This is natural byproduct of having studied and chased after a singular customer segment for many years. Over time, however, customer needs may have changed, and new prospects may have emerged unnoticed. Examples of this tendency include industries like automotive and electronics.  In these markets brands have been targeting men forever, not realizing that the wife in the family may be the primary decision-makers for household purchase decisions. Unfortunately, a narrow focus on demographics can cause marketers to miss critical shifts in their audience profiles.

A recent study by Microsoft confirms this theory.  The study shows that premium brands have been missing up to 50% of their best audience by relying too heavily on targeting only to the affluent. Purchase behavior turned out to be a more important indicator than affluence.  In fact, 43% of online customers in Europe are premium buyers, yet this group is not affluent by any traditional measure.

So what are some of the other reasons marketers may be missing their targets?

1. Customers Are a Moving Target

Changing habits and overlapping interests and hobbies can sometimes be hard to correlate with buying behavior. While there is a preponderance of information available on the Web, many data providers offer a limited view of the user.  With the right audience measurement tools, however, marketers can put the pieces together to create a coherent picture.  A story in Ad Exchanger describes a marketer targeting home-based business users with children.  In order to reach this demographic, he had to combine data for micro-business users, home-based users, and households with children from three separate data providers. Scaling audiences can be particularly difficult without the ability to normalize and aggregate audience profiles in one place. Using web-based tools to measure who is engaging with your messaging and who is responding to your offers will give you a better view of a larger potential customer pool.

2. Aiming at the Wrong Target

Products are often delivered to market with preconceived expectations about who the audience will be.  When David Roberts, the CEO of PopCap launched a game called Bejeweled on Facebook, he fully expected the game to appeal to a young male audience.  Instead, he was astounded to learn that 70% of the game players were women.  The social aspect of the game was an attraction for young mothers who were stuck at home, and wanted to play and interact with friends and family.  I’m not sure why anyone thought a game called Bejeweled would be a magnet for young males, but never mind. The company had to integrate this new view of its customers into its marketing strategy.

3. The Unintended Target

Toyota Scion was a car designed specifically to appeal to a youth segment with a focus on customizable features and a low price.  The original target was young people, 20-25 years old, and Scion avoided the Toyota brand name because they felt it was too ‘old’.  Toyota soon discovered that the Scion appealed simultaneously to both millennial upstarts and empty-nest boomers.  Auto makers now are looking to replicate this model and design more Twin Peaks Cars. That is, cars that have two peaks in a line graph of the age distribution of the buyers.

So how can brands best identify and consistently maintain the right targeting?

The key to developing good market targets is to be clear on your segmentation strategy, and then market specifically to those targets. But don’t fall in love with a target profile, be flexible and ready to make changes based on updated data.  Ideally, marketers should measure customers based on three yardsticks, behavioral, transactional, and demographic. Behavioral marketing allows brands to identify their highest value segments.  Transactional data allows marketers to revisit their current customer profile to see if anything has changed.  Demographic data makes it easy for brands to understand their audience and identify customers.

Marketers need to learn how to optimize marketing based on business intelligence gathered during the campaign.  The real-time technology platforms that enable audience measurement and campaign management provide an advantage to the marketer.   Those platforms, coupled with smart targeting techniques, create a new opportunity for greater scale and efficiency in online marketing.  Marketers can discover new customers by using audience measurement that provides more insight into those responding to your message. In other words, sometimes you just need to update your prior.

Jul 29

How We Communicate

By Kevin Senne Email Marketing, Online Marketing No Comments »

I am writing this from about 33,000 feet over West Virginia.  I am on my way back to Dallas from a great week visiting customers in New York City.  As always seems to be the case these days, my flight was delayed.  We sat on the runway for around 2 hours and 15 minutes before we were finally given the green light to take-off.  I don’t normally get hooked up to the wi-fi on flights.  The times when I am on airplanes are the last times in my life that I am actually disconnected from the world.  I enjoy getting lost in a book or a crossword puzzle and thinking about nothing at all.  Events on this flight inspired me to get connected and get writing.

We’ve become information junkies whether we like it on not.  Television, radio, cell phones, text messages, smart phones, ticker crawls on every channel, and we haven’t even mentioned the internet.  We have email, Facebook, Twitter, ICQ, Foursquare, and about a million other ways to communicate and receive information.  What happens when we’re cut off from that information?  I’ll tell you what happens.  People freak out when they don’t feel like they know what’s happening.

We taxied out from the terminal and took our position.  The pilot was more than forthcoming telling us everything he knew about our situation.  Weather west of NYC was stacking up traffic and causing delays.  He told us the tower would let us know when things cleared up.  He also told us when they released the traffic to the south, we were 3rd in line.  Good enough if you are listening.  Here is the problem, most of us don’t listen anymore because we don’t have to, we have information.

A man in the row behind us started to panic.  He called his buddies on another flight.  He kept looking out the window watching other flights (certainly going another direction) take off and loudly complaining that WE were 3rd in line.  This went on for about an hour and he was counting down the time until the 3 hour rule kicked in and we returned to the terminal.  I’m sure he was disappointed that we took off.

What’s the point of all this?  We expect information at all times today and we’re lost without it.  Our listening skills continue to deteriorate becuase we’ve grown accustomed to not using them.  We need to keep this in mind as we attempt to communicate through whatever channel we might be using.  Clear and concise bits of information are what people like to digest.

Think about the new “attention span” as you are building out a communication plan.  Are there points where your customers will need information and feel left out?  Remember Mr. Impatient on my flight and how freaked out he was.  Kill us with information.  We crave it and need it in today’s world.

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Jul 27

As Lead Gen Generates Buzz, Customer Centricity is Crucial

By Michael Goldberg Advertisers, Consumers, Email Marketing, Executive Insight, General, Industry Research, Online Marketing No Comments »

For the first time since the recession reared its ugly head, marketers are once again making new customer acquisition a top priority.  According to the “2010 Lead Generation Optimization Key Trends Analysis” from CSO Insights and reported in eMarketer, more than 91% of companies worldwide reported increasing new customer acquisition was one of their top strategic marketing objectives for 2010.  And of all the marketing channels used to generate a steady quantity and quality of leads, companies said email was their best lead generation program.

As marketers rev up their new acquisition programs, it’s important to think about the customer as more than just a number in a database.  Customers are savvy and are clearly in control more than ever before.  So to truly be able to penetrate a new audience, you must treat them like you would a close friend.

Every great relationship, be it with a friend, co-working or customer, is dependent on good communications and a continuous fair value exchange.   Without that, someone always feels left out, abused and taken advantage of.  If you don’t understand how to listen and value your friends and relationships you’ll have limited success in your personal and business endeavors.   How often do you hear of people or groups of people being referred to as Readers, Customers or Consumers?   Those names are a bit impersonal, but not as bad as Aggregators, Data, Leads or Screamers.   How a company refers to its prospects and customers tells you lot about how those people are treated and valued.   How do you like it when “that friend” (and you all have one) call you or stops by only when they want something but are never interested in returning the favor or bringing some sort of value to the table…beyond what you’d expect from an acquaintance.

We’re all somewhat dependent on each other and while developing a competitive advantage is important in business, it’s much more important to building trusting, efficient, scalable and sustainable relationships.    If we pick a few important common goals, we’ll be much more aligned with our partners and that’s one of the most important competitive advantages you can have.

Remember, if you put the customer’s needs and wants first, you will generate not just a lead, but a loyal customer.

Jun 23

Email & Social Make Great Tag Team

By Michael Goldberg Advertisers, General, Online Marketing No Comments »

When social media first burst on the scene, many experts predicted the death of email.  They were wrong.  In fact, if anything, social media actually helped increase the use of email, as detailed in a study by Nielsen last year. Marketers steadily began integrating the two channels, as they complement each other perfectly.

According to a new report from AWeber provided to eMarketer, many small businesses have plans to increase the integration of social and email.  More than three-quarters consider integration of email and social at least somewhat important. A majority plan to allow users to sign up for e-mails directly from social media sites like Facebook. This tactic allows email marketers to grow their lists—cited as the top benefit of integrating social and email by one-third of respondents—by allowing consumers to use their channel of choice and sign up on their own terms.

All of the tactics mentioned in the report are valid, and sophisticated email marketers have been testing them in an effort to a) build their email lists and b) syndicate email content throughout social networks.  Both are worthy goals.  None of these tactics, however, will do a marketer any good, unless they: 1) have a sound strategy which is tightly aligned with their business objectives, and 2) are producing extraordinary content worthy of being shared.  ie: Slapping on a “share this button” is not a viable social media strategy.

Jun 09

Digital Ad Spend to Surge. Good News – If You’re Prepared

By Michael Goldberg Advertisers, Executive Insight, General, Industry Research, Online Marketing No Comments »

According to a new report from IPG’s Mediabrands’ Magna Global, online advertising will climb

The Shift to Digital according to Datran Media's 4th Annual Marketing Survey. In 2010, what percentage of your company's overall multi-channel advertising campaign will be allocated to digital marketing channels?*

12.4% in 2010 to $61.0 billion. Plus, it will grow 64% from there to over $100 billion in five years.  That’s certainly good news for the industry as a whole, especially considering the gloomy forecasts that were being predicted just over a year ago.  So what does this mean for you?  It means the online marketplace is going to get increasingly crowded with your competitors; and unless you have smart plan to reach your ideal audience, you’re going to get lost in the crowd.

As more and more advertisers move their media budgets online, consumers are going to be inundated with more choices from more brands.  That means you’re going to need to tailor your messages to be relevant to your perfect audience.  The problem most marketers are unsure who their ideal customer really is.  Do you know the composition of your audience?  DO you know who is really engaging with your campaigns?  What metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) matter most to you when measuring campaigns?

More than ever, measurement is going to be crucial part of your success in the digital space. Audience measurement may be a nebulous term, especially in digital media where there is both linear and non-linear communication with your audience, and the ability for that audience to receive and reciprocate communication through multiple channel lines at once. As a result, there are a variety of dimensions that can be measured as it pertains to the audience; composition, awareness, engagement, social influence, and path preference to name a few. But regardless of the definition, what you measure needs to provide the opportunity for insight while furthering the quest to understand the value that is delivered for both you and your audience.

Measurement is ineffective unless it provides insight into delivered value. Therefore, advertisers have to define the value they seek to create before determining effectiveness.  Those that do it correctly will prosper; those that do not will have little to show other than wasted media budgets.

May 14

5 Email Marketing Testing Mistakes

By Kevin Senne Email Delivery, Email Marketing, Online Marketing 1 Comment »

Everybody knows you should be testing your email marketing messages.  A/B testing, split testing, time of day testing,  and day of week testing are just a few of the programs you can choose to run.  For something that seems so basic and mission critical, the email marketing industry as a whole does a pretty awful job with testing.

Today, I wanted to share a list of my top 5 mistakes that I’ve observed email marketers make.

  1. No Testing – For all of the testing mistakes that are out there, it is shocking to find out just how many senders don’t do any testing.  If you aren’t testing your messages today, don’t feel embarrassed, you are not alone.  There is always room for improvement in your marketing programs.  Without testing and benchmarking, you will never know where those areas for improvement (increased loyalty, retention, and possibly revenue) exist.
  2. No Test Plan – If you decide to do testing, congratulations.  The first thing you should build is a test plan.  What do you want to accomplish with your program/campaign?  How long will the test run?  What will you test?  Put it on paper before you begin and don’t get distracted.  Have a plan.
  3. Too Many Variables – You should run testing to answer a specific question.  Answer ONE question at a time.  Testing a call to action in 2 segments with different subject lines doesn’t necessarily tell you much about the call to action, although it might.  Be patient, test, learn and move on.
  4. Sample Size – We tend to want our test results to come very quickly.  I see senders do a single test to a small percentage of their audience and make long-term decisions that shape the future based on those results.  You need to make sure everyone is comfortable with the results.  If you received a bad diagnosis from a doctor, you’d go and get a second opinion.  Give yourself enough data to make an informed decision.
  5. Interpreting Results – You’ve got a plan, sent out the right amount, tested things that make sense, and have reams of data.  Now what?  You need to be sure and look at these results in the context of your own universe.  Some email marketers see a 60% open rate for a mailing and are disappointed, while some campaign owners see a 1% open rate and are ecstatic.  Everything must be relevant to you.  Don’t compare apples to watermelons.

Testing email campaigns can be tricky business.  Don’t let the learning curve intimidate you.  I think you will feel that the more effort you spend in testing, the more reward you will see from your email program.

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Apr 21

2010: The Year of Engagement?

By Kevin Senne Email Delivery, Email Marketing, Executive Insight, Online Marketing No Comments »

What does it take to be a great email marketer? We’ve asked you to have and maintain a great reputation. We’ve asked you to be honest with your recipients. You have to be exactly who you say you are and send what you say you’re going to deliver. You can’t pretend to be something cool like a doctor or stuntman to impress potential recipients. As if all those requirements aren’t tough enough, we’re now going to ask you to make one final commitment: engagement.

We only just met. Now we’re talking engagement? I know the mere thought of commitment makes some of you break out in a rash. Understandably, engagement can be a pretty scary prospect. But take it from me, there’s nothing to fear. Now is the time to embrace engagement in a big way because engagement is the new black, the way of the jungle, the bee’s knees, and the cat’s meow all rolled into one. Engagement will be the single most important buzzword you hear in email marketing this year.

Here’s the skinny on engagement. Every day, the path to your customer’s inbox gets more and more narrow. ISPs are now not only looking at your reputation, mailing history and content before deciding to deliver to the inbox or the bulk folder, they now want your recipients to actually engage with your messages. Engagement in its simplest form means that when an email arrives in an inbox, it is actually opened and clicked. If messages aren’t engaging to their recipients, ISPs have started to help recipients out with inbox maintenance. You read that right. Messages that don’t generate clicks and opens will be filtered to the bulk or spam folders.

So what does this mean for senders? It means we’ve got to make ourselves presentable very quickly. Our reputation still matters. Our identity and infrastructure still matter. But, now we also have to be charming. You can put your best foot forward in email by following some of these best practices:

  • Only send messages with a clear purpose and message — all email should have a clear and identifiable call to action
  • Email templates should resemble your Web site to help with visual identification
  • “From” names should clearly identify your company and not change
  • Subject lines should clearly explain what your message is about

Commitment is good once you take the first step to building a long lasting relationship with your customers. Go out and get engaged!

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Apr 02

Optimism at the Dawning of a New Digital Decade

By Michael Goldberg Online Marketing No Comments »

Back in December, Datran Media conducted its 4th annual marketing and media survey. On the heels of one of the toughest years ever for the digital industry, we were very interested if marketers would continue to scale back their marketing plans as they had expressed the year before. The findings of the survey revealed that their is a light at the end of the tunnel.

The results of the survey reveal significant optimism towards 2010 marketing and advertising spending, after a decline in 2009. Survey results also show a definitive move toward leveraging online marketing and audience measurement tools, and a focus on emerging digital and social channels for reaching target audiences. Below are a few key findings:

• 73.6 percent of respondents believe that advertising revenues will increase in 2010.
• 93.6 percent of respondents intend to increase budget allocation for digital marketing channels.
• 72.8 percent of respondents use audience measurement and analytics tools to assess the success of their digital campaigns.
• More than 50 percent of respondents have optimized campaigns based on audience measurement analytics, and more than 80 percent plan to do so in 2010 and beyond.

You can review the full results at www.datranmediasurvey2010.com The results of the survey speak to a broad trend in online marketing; namely, that brand marketers and advertising agencies intend to aggressively deploy online measurement tools in order to obtain actionable business intelligence from their marketing campaigns. This trend will accelerate the budget allocation shift into measurable digital channels going forward.

For the majority of marketers surveyed, clicks (72 percent), conversions (59.2 percent) and impressions (58.4 percent) remain the top three metrics that matter. These data points are indicative of a campaign’s overall success, and the survey findings demonstrate that marketers are now fully focused on quantifying their return on investment. 87.2 percent of respondents said that they believed accurate online audience measurement was important for driving increased brand awareness, increased revenue and better campaign performance.

2010 Industry Outlook

The Datran Media survey included an open-ended question regarding predictions of the biggest trends for 2010. Survey respondents had many thoughts on this topic, but most pointed towards innovations in measurement, mobile and social media as the biggest game-changers for the year ahead.

Some of the predictions included an increased focus on behavioral targeting and utilizing data to segment messages to appropriate audiences. Others pointed to social media monetization and measurement as essential pieces of the digital strategy mix. Of all the emerging channels, mobile is top of mind with many survey respondents. Whether it’s mobile or social media, marketers agree that leveraging new and emerging channels to reach customers will require precise audience measurement and insights to guide their campaigns.

Didn’t get a chance to take the survey? Tell us what you think! Email me your thoughts!

Jan 06

Voice YOUR Opinion! Annual Marketing Survey is Open

By Michael Goldberg Executive Insight, Industry Research, Online Marketing No Comments »

It’ss that time of year; time to look back on the year that was and look forward to what the future holds in store for digital marketing. The industry is gearing up for the dawning of a new digital decade. The experts have made their predictions, but what do you think are the most important strategies and channels for 2010 and beyond? It’s your turn to weigh in on the future of digital marketing. Let your voice be heard in our 4th annual marketing and media survey.

This survey is intended to provide the marketing community with a better understanding of how online marketing plans will impact what we all do in 2010 and beyond. We appreciate your time and feedback. The survey was designed to take you less than five minutes to complete!

In exchange for your time, Datran Media will select 20 lucky winners at random to send a $10 iTunes gift card. They survey will be open until Jan. 22. Thank you in advance for your time!

Click here to launch the survey.

Dec 09

PGATOUR.com Scores Hole in One at DPAC Awards

By Michael Goldberg Datran News, Email Marketing, Executive Insight, Online Marketing No Comments »

Looking for unique ways to drive increased visitor traffic to its Web site, PGATOUR.com. reached out to Datran Media to explore testing live, streaming videos within the body of their emails. Having never leveraged video in email before, embedding live video snippets within the email was a unique challenge, one that certainly paid off with increased clicks and a DPAC award for Best Email Marketing Campaign in 2009.

Last night in New York City, both PGATOUR.com and Datran Media were honored by DPAC as one of the innovators in the rapidly morphing media and marketing industry. Congratulations!

Using state-of-the-art technology with its email platform, StormPost, Datran Media helped PGATOUR.COM deliver groundbreaking email messages with live streaming video embedded within the body of the email. PGATOUR.COM discovered its fans favored video emails over the static email message. Initial campaign results revealed that emails with video received a 34 percent click-through rate versus a 14 percent click-through rate for the emails without embedded streaming video. PGATOUR.COM now plans to integrate additional KPI metrics into the measurement plan it employs as it embeds video into more of its fan-focused campaigns.

Click here to see a summary of this campaign:

http://www.datranmedia.com/pgatour/

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