The Strategy Web™ » Web Marketing

ComScore study: 31% of banner ads get lost for viewers

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:05:28 +0000

Companies and brands love to book page impressions with publishers, shopping and trading sites. Users find themselves being bombarded with banner ads all over the web – and not often do these ads add any value on customer journeys and the digital shopping experience. Often they bore us (dresses and dishes), annoy us (gay ads for married people) or make us hate companies brands (you love a and get b beer brands). Real Time bidding (RTB), (Behavioral) Retargeting technology and demand side platforms (DSP) will become game changers in the ad space in the future.

Sounds good but do advertisers get what publishers promise today, just on the basis of ad impression buying? Well, not really…

Yesterday, ComScore announced their “Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE)” which is said to be a Holistic Measurement tool for verifying the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and their subsequent targeting tactics. Thus, ComScore can double-check of where the ads are being delivered, where they are positioned within a page and who’s eyeballs they meet with the optimization add-on to know where they can be better positioned and at what time. The new technology or tool (vCE) will allow ComScore check campaigns effectiveness on a demographics basis.

ComScore definitely recognizes clients need for a world of better performance with campaigns for a reasonable future of advertisements. However the good news, when you worried about the effectiveness of your last campaign, there is much worse stuff to think about…

ComScore has found, in a recent comprehensive study, that over 31% of online display ads get lost for eyeballs of potential viewers, and for some websites it is even a scary number of 91%. Reasons are obvious: Some of these ads are below the fold. User might not scroll down far enough to view them, and vice versa. Some people just scroll too quick and thus get passed them before they have been loading.

The findings also state that as many as 15% of campaign ads were delivered to viewers outside of the targeted media plan places. An average of 4% of ad impressions found viewers in locations that weren’t on the plan, or where products weren’t available. Do you still wonder why the above mentioned banner campaigns reach us? But ComScore works on the issue…

“One big issue with internet advertising is that not all ads that are served end up being seen. This is a core issue raised by the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative. In order for marketers to have the same confidence in the digital channel as they do in TV, we need measurement around the visibility of ads.” Mike Donahue, EVP, Strategic Partnerships, ComScore

Spot On!
Google will penalize companies and platforms that have too many ads above the fold in the future: 3 ads per page is sufficient and strategically clever, Google advices in this video. Just imagine your banners are being delivered to platforms that are damaging for your brand. It happens. Impressions appear beside content that were defined as “not brand safe” by the advertiser. Of all tested campaigns, 72% showed up on pages that had objectionable content, as defined by the brand. Now, that ComScore and advertisers like Chrysler, Discover, E*TRADE Financial, Ford, Kellogg’s, Kimberly Clark and Kraft among others push the development of the third-party tracking, there might be hope that consumers and clients get banners delivered that are targeted the right way. Nevertheless, companies need to start thinking about the right call-to-action in order to get the right conversation figures…

Tags:Ads, Banner, Brand, Campaign, Change, Comscore, Content, DSP, Future, Google, Marke, Media, Realtime bidding, RTB, SEM, Shopping, Study, User, Video, Website

How a campaign brings multiscreen couples together

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:00:45 +0000

Many families, and especially couples, experience new formats of evening togetherness. Couples are not leaning back any longer and simply watching TV, or having relaxed chats next to it. With most couples, both partners are using their smartphones, tablets or notebooks to chat with friends, to update their status for their fans and keep in touch with their digital fellows while the TV sceen is fighting for viewing figures.

Did you realize that TV gets the former status of the radio in our digital world? People listen to TV but are actively engaged in something else, in another screen conversation, in a multiscreen reality. Mobile becomes the new prime time. Radio always was the number two from a user attention perspective. So is singlescreen attention today, it is out, digital leads. Multichannel is the big future, and the looser is… the personal relationship. We all know how relaxing it is to lean back, and how TV reduces our “most emotional relationship activities” to a minimum, multiscreen usage could become a limitation catalyst.

But there is hope…

CP+B has thought about this development, maybe not… Still, they tell us in a new campaign how couples most commonly book trips. They have created a 2 for 1 campaign for Scandinavian Airlines. The campaign called “Couple Up to Buckle Up” was launched in banners, emails, facebook app, or print ads, and used two unique QR codes to bring people closer together again, i.e. to book a flight to Paris together.

In the campaign approach, couples need to scan the QR code assigned to them. Then, they would sync their half of a video based offer and reveal the discount code split across both screens. Bit of a challenge to scan/play at the same time but still a nice idea on a critical relationship topic.

And maybe this will help to… Well, you decide!

Couple Up to Buckle Up from Tobias Carlson on Vimeo.

Tags:Ads, Campaign, Email, Facebook, Future, Listen, Mobile, Print, Relationship, User, Video, XING

The Social Google: Google Search and Google+ unite

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:18:44 +0000

Google revolutionized the internet, the way we interact, we use our brains and thus, somehow it changed the world. And now they will do it for the second time… with “Search, plus Your World”. This new search engine technology does not only bring us information from across the web. It proclaims to make search even better better by including photos, posts, and “more from you and your friends”.

With an all new algorithm for their search they have changed their search strategy. Today, people are searching not only for content. Today people also want to find personal and private information and touchpoints. The normal result is one which we have all expected for a long time since Google+ launched: Google+ will be integrated in Google search which will definitely affect the power of Google against their hardest social competitor Facebook.

Google’s new “Search, plus Your World” integrates also personal data like personal content, pictures or videos from Google+. Here is their new promotion video…

On the official Google blog Amit Singhal explains how the new Google search works with an experience of his past.

“As a child, my favorite fruit was Chikoo, which is exceptionally sweet and tasty. A few years back when getting a family dog, we decided to name our sweet little puppy after my favorite fruit. Over the years we have privately shared many pictures of Chikoo (our dog) with our family. To me, the query [chikoo] means two very sweet and different things, and today’s improvements give me the magical experience of finding both the Chikoos I love, right in the results page.”

Google’s first step to integrate Social Search results gets now followed by the integration of Google+ which becomes a massive hub to “socially unite” all of their own products and services. The new search offers three main benefits…

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,
3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Spot On!
However, this might sound as if Google makes us more transparent, users have the opportunity to select whether they want the new Google search algorith, or not. This gives users the ability to see either the good old search results or the brand new private search results. People just need to use the little buttons…

…or they will simply change it in the account settings. And Google extends the Google+ circles idea to their search: Every single result in the private search mode gets marked whether it is private, public or limited entry. Somehow a clever filter, don’t you think…?

Tags:Brand, Change, Community, Content, Facebook, Google, Google Search, Google Search plus the world, Marke, Media, Search, Share, User, Video

Google study offers insights in B2B Marketing

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:59:51 +0000

Following up on the webinar “Social Media for B2B companies – tactics, tools and techniques” that I held today from South Tyrol, I have promised to share one of the latest Google studies on B2B marketing.

At their event “Thing B2B 2011″ Google introduced the results of their new B2B study. It refers to business decision makers and how they make their way to buying decisions, which tools they are using and which technical platforms influence their purchase process.

The study “Connecting with the Customer” (video) asked 1.600 B2B business decision makedrs from various industries. The results were then combined with the latest findings of a Compete Clickstream study. The Compete study is tracking website conversion rates of a panel that is based on 2 Mio. consumers.

The study concludes that 30% of conversions on activities like whitepaper downloads, Email, Calls or other pull activity happen after two weeks time, or even at a later stage. It also states that -not surprising- in order to reach B2B decision makers the Internet is the best choice. 57% of the respondents say Internet advertising sticks to their mind versus 34% print. Only 16% say TV ads have a lasting effect on them.

When B2B decision makers are in a purchase process, they make use of the following sources…
- 71% Internet
- 41% Professional organizations
- 39% Tradeshows
- 37% Catalogue
- 33% Consultants
- 31% Direct Mail
- 11% TV

The leading online resources where B2B decision makers go to…
- 73% Search engines
- 51% Brand websites
- 45% Online reviews
- 42% Websites of professional organizations

In the following video Sam Sebastian, Industry Director at Google reviews the most important results of the study “Connecting with the Customer”, and makes clear that Social Media has the best effect if it is connected with all the other marketing activities companies are running. The review is followed by a dscussion between Paul Miller, Vice President of eCommerce at Grainger; Kathy Leech, Director of Brand Communications at BP; Andy Markowitz, Director of Global Digital Strategy at GE. Just watch it…

Spot On!
Business decision makers are a challenging shopper category. However, the study makes clear that the Internet is the place to reach them easily. Mobiles and Social Networks are becoming more and more important in the lead generation process, too. One in three B2B clients who searches for information on their smartphones also uses Social Networks for research purposes. Sam Sebastian, Industry Director at Google summarizes the findings in three bullets:
1. The Internet is the new tradeshow
2. B2B customers search early and often across the Web to information
3. Think orchestration, not integration

Maybe I would have chosen a different third point… “Think stimulation, not penetration!”. But that is my view…

Source

Tags:Ads, B2B, Brand, Business Decision Makers, Communication, Email, Google, Marke, Marketing, Media, Mobile, Networks, Print, Research, Review, Search, Share, Social Media, Social Networks, Studie, Study, Tools, Video, Website

National Geographic makes Augmented Reality go live…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:10:12 +0000

The opportunities to attract peoples’ attention are increasing with the use of Augmented reality. Appshaker recently launched a fantastic way for people to interact with the world of National Geographic Channel’s content from around the globe. The set-up obviously took some budget. With the use of augmented reality, people could virtually interact with different scenes in which they were able to get in touch with dolphins, leopards, the space landings, dinosaurs and more.

The result..
1000s of people interacted with the National Geographic Channel brand in the process as it toured Hungary, with 1000s more people sharing snapshots and video on Facebook as a result.

Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC from Appshaker Ltd on Vimeo.

Tags:Augmented Reality, Brand, Budget, Content, Facebook, Video

Is this how Google affects our memory? (infographic)

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:40:50 +0000

We all rely on Google search to find the truth on our current questions, right? Isn’t it scary in some way? Is Google becoming our brain in the future? What if you cannot find the answer on Google? We all use Google – and not only search. But do we use it too much? Could Google become an intelligence pitfall?

An interesting infographic by Onlinecollege.net on “Google and Memory” explains the impact Google has had and will have in our daily life in the future, especially on our collective memories. The infographic is well created as it separates “The Google’s Brain” into four separate quadrants. And all of us who use Google can see what effect this has on our habits… We don’t need our brain anymore it seems. Google give us all information: “just a click away”, “available all the time” and makes us remember where we stored the information we needed.

Will we forget to memorize? Will we lose conceptual thinking? Will we be misinformed?

Tags:Future, Google, Infographic, Search

AddThis: Sharing trends based on last 5 years (Infographic)

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:13:39 +0000

A while ago, ShareThis shared their insights why people share content. And also this year, bit.ly stated in a research they did that the half life of a link is approximately three hours.

Now, AddThis (1.2bn monthly users) is following their approach with an infographic on their 5th birthday to visualise user behaviour around Social Media sharing trends across the social web.

If you plan your next viral campaign you might consider time and day: 9:30am and Wednesday are said to be the best peaks for shareable content. Most users share content within the first 2 minutes. And 75% of shared content occur within the first day of a share. Interesting though is the fact that cut and paste sharing can still be up to 10x more used than the well-known social sharing tools.

PS: The average Twitter user shares half a tweet per day, according to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo…

Tags:Campaign, Content, Infographic, Media, Research, Search, Share, Social Media, Social Sharing, Tools, Trend, Twitter, User, Viral

CMO’s studies: Yes, Social Media is key! – Can someone gimme a plan on “Social”…?

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:10:00 +0000

CMO’s and marketers all over the world and across industries understand the increasing value of Social Media in (their) business. However, I sometimes wonder whether they really recognize how to use Social Capital and Social Business effectively.

How did I get this view…?

Well, studies show me the reality… and many seminars and webinars open eyes. Today, I came across two studies which might illustrate what marketers and CMO’s need to get their heads around. If they are good, they create brand advocate programs, if they act badly consumers will see brands as boring, poor, and even worse… not obeying the rules of social business. And today brands cannot miss out on “Social”. That is a fact, CMO’s understand…

Market Research vs. Social Research
In one of the latest IBM studies of 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and across 19 industries, 82% of CMOs stated that they will increase their use (or budgets?) of Social Media over the next three to five years. The flipside is that just 26% are currently tracking blogs, 42% are tracking third-party reviews and 48% are tracking the consumer reviews which might help change their market positioning, their marketing insights, their marketing programs. Let’s take the qualitative aspect of Social Research first.

From a quantitative research perspective, 80% rely on market research and corporate benchmarking to rely on as their primary sources for market insights. Obviously, most companies also obey other “non-social” monitoring tools to value the development of their business: 68% use sales campaign analysis for strategic decision making.

In the end, it comes down to numbers. 63% of CMOs believe the ROI on their marketing invest will be the primary measure of effectiveness by 2015. However, almost half of respondents don’t feel prepared to satisfy those business figure aspects. The reason is obvious: CMOs often don’t have enough influence on radical company-wide change processes. Over half of responding CMOs stated they have no impact on pricing process and even less have any impact on new product development or retail channel selection.

Community and Brand Reputation
On the other hand, another new Weber Shandwick study found out how companies understand and plan their social efforts. So, why are some marketers more social than others?

The challenge is to find the key tactics with best possible metric efficiency. Most marketers know about the impact of the 3 “r’s”… reviews, ratings, recommendations on their business efforts. 52% attribute their brand reputation to their online social presence. And even more, 65% project online sociability will boost their reputation in the next three years. However, I would doubt if they act accordingly.

Today, Social Media is part of CMOs marketing mix. The question is, why only 16% consider their efforts as “world class”. This study also makes clear that marketers have trouble establishing clear goals for their social media strategy. Finding the right KPIs is essential. No wonder, companies state they are not well-prepared for the social future in terms of effectiveness. Most o fhtese companies don’t really integrate their social engagement into their enterprise processes.

Spot On!
CMO’s and marketers need to get insights beyond traditional market sources like page impresions, click-throughs and superficial numbers like fans and follower. The good spot is that 54% of global executives experience rewards to outweigh risks – versus 23% the other way round, and some European bosses even focus their attention preferably on Twitter. Although, C-level often does not know how to leverage Social efficiency. The community gives input on the value of products, services and preferrences. When did we have that years ago?

Somehow, marketers are in a poor position as they are working in the transition period. Top down target-group thinking is out, community centric thinking is the future. In some day, we will publish a new strategic theory on this at the IBM JamCamp. Nice coincidence…

Tags:Ads, Brand, Budget, C-Level, Campaign, Change, CMO, Community, Efficiency, Future, Marke, Marketing, Media, Research, Search, SEM, Social Media, Studie, Study, Tools, Twitter

Study: The Social Customer – How consumer get influenced by reviews and recommendations…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:38:17 +0000

We all know that we get influenced by the 3 R’s that people publish on the Social Web: reviews, recommendations and ratings. Now, there is some more proof with the study “2011 Cone Online Influence Trend Tracker” by Cone Communications. Positive and negative information found on the Social Web have the same massive impact on how people change their minds after having received purchase recommendations.

The study shows that more than 80% of users change their minds after reading reviews whether positive or negative.

Positive reviews confirm the process of consumer decision making. 87% of the repondents were agreeing a favorable review has confirmed their decision to purchase. Still, negative recommendation can also turn down a recommended purchase. Interesting for me was that blogs get tracktion as a credible source of information when researching products and services online – an increase by 20% to 2010.

In terms of trustworthy information source, people respect the fact that somebody has used the product or service in the first place (69%). Obviously, recognized experts with product or service expertise com in the top end position (60%) when it comes to trust. However, Social Media gets more importance from a marketing perspective when people trust someoone when “he/she has a lot of social media followers” (8%).

Finally, the higher the costs for the purchase are (i.e. cars), the more likely are people to verify the quality of the product and service online. However, moderate- and low-cost purchases are also quite likely to be verified online.

Spot On!
The study is a great support in the assumption that the influence of the social customer’s has essential power in changing mindsets on purchase decisions. The experience and feedback shared on the Social Web will influence the sales funnel in the future in a way we cannot foresee yet. What is definitely clear is the fact that sales people and marketers have to change their approach on how to interact with these reviews, recommendations and ratings. This is where the competition in the sales funnel will be decided, and in the end lost or won…

Tags:Change, Communication, Future, Marke, Marketing, Media, Research, Search, Share, Social Media, Study, Trend, User, Vision

The multiscreen world is evolving…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:55:44 +0000

Some days ago, I have written about the timely relationship in media usage between TV and mobile apps. This week, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey Company, found a statistically significant relationship that shows a correlation between online buzz and TV ratings.

The study concludes that the correlation takes place throughout the TV show season. However, the impact online buzz has on ratings can vary based on a season’s timeline. The strongest correlation is with viewers ages 12-17 and 18-34 with a slightly stronger correlation for women over men. Seeing older viewers, social buzz gets more impact on ratings toward the end of the season.

The studies show that the usage of mobile and social are also linked when we bear in mind that 50% of social media usage came through mobile last year. It suggests that more and more people are sitting in front of their TV screens with their mobiles (smartphones or tablets) while surfing the web and chatting with their friends or other people all over the world about the shows they are watching… or other topics of interest.

We see more and more ConnectedTV’s coming to the market. US smart TV shipments is said to double in 2012, reaching 52.85 million units and 20% of the market according to Parks Associates research, and over 60% of US connected TV homes use apps.

There is no dout that TV and online will become one world in the future. Already, 74% of people with broadband surf internet while watching TV according to some OVUM research. However, the questions arise whether the user will have and use one or two screens in the future, and which one will be first and second screen? Will smartphones and tablets replace the importance of TV, or will the power of TV increase. In the US studies the average TV viewing time is

This week, I have been to Mediamind’s DED2011 in London where some great speaker where giving insights in the cross-channel consumer and the future of ConnectedTV.

Dean Donaldson, Global Director of Media Innovation at MediaMind gave a great summary of the latest development how users engage with screen today. The usage time of Online versus TV usage (more than 5 hours) is only 10%, mobile is used 20 minutes daily. However, this does not mean that the user is in front of the screen. The question is which screen is really catching the interest of the user and how long are people paying attention to what is happening on the screen. What was “watching onair” becomes “engaging online”. The latest Honda Jazz commercial illustrates the opportunities that the convergence of TV, Online and mobile offer.

After the event I had some time to speak with Dr. Patrick Dixon, Chairman of Global Change and author of Futurewise. His success ca be manifested in his social web figures. The website gets 14 million unique users, 4 million video views and his Twitter account shows 42.000 followers. This man knows what he is talking about…

Spot On!
The outook into the future of Connected TV is fascinating and goes hand-in-hand with the evolution of screen technology. ConnectedTV, or Smart TV, will need to take the customer with them and TV manufacturers, cable suppliers and broadcasters need to find the right path from hype, futuristic gaming to reality. Consumers are not buying a TV screen as fast as a laptop or a smartphone, although they are using it more often than the other devices. And marketing in a Connected TV world will become even more difficult as marketers need to address the customer with their brand message on the right screen, at the right time and in the contextual situation.

Tags:Brand, Change, Facebook, Future, Marke, Marketing, Media, Mobile, Relationship, Research, Search, Social Media, Studie, Study, Twitter, User, Video, Website, WOM

Study: Three mindsets of search categorize peoples’ seach mode

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:14:43 +0000

According to a new study conducted by the New York Times Co.’s About.com in collaboration with Latitude there are three kinds of search behavior: “answer me,” “educate me” and “inspire me”. Thus, the study identifies some distinct human behavior search patterns which will help marketers connect and understand the target groups they are heading for.

So, how do these three search pattern types differentiate in the study that surveyed 928 Americans, age 21 to 54 with household incomes of $50,000 or higher?

“Answer me” searches accounted for 46% of all searches, the study found. People searching in this mode simply just want exactly what they ask for. They don’t want any value add. Their typical search is looking for beauty, fashion and entertainment.
Advice for marketers: The option to capitalize on an “Answer me” moment by featuring product benefits front and center, in addition to aligning content that presents quick, easy-to-find answers, offers a massive opportunity to marketers to generate leads.

“Inspire me” searches accounted for 28% of all searches. This is the typical browsing mode. Usually, people in this mode look for travel as well as home and garden.
Advice for marketers: For those consumers in the “Inspire me” mindset, creativity and different inspirational information sources will be wanted by consumers.

“Educate me” searches accounted for 26% of all searches. People searching in this mode expect to find multiple perspectives on a topic. The top categories of most interest are health and finance.
Advice for marketers: In the “Educate me” the contextual search mode marketers offer might help consumers with creating informative, multiple messages.

From a brand marketer’s point of view, the study explains that ads can be relevant to search. When nearly 90% of respondents “enjoy when brands stop trying to sell you something and focus on teaching you something,” this tells them that putting your bets on search is defenitely not the worst tactic.

Furthermore, most respondents agreed on search advertising terms…
- the best ads are the ones that work with the information source to help you get what you need (88%)
- that ads can be useful when they are very relevant to their search (77%)
- that ads have helped them find great options, deals or discounts (64%)

Spot On!
However, marketers can take their advantage from this study, being successful with the findings is still a challenge. What is the best way to identify in which mode a user is? The easiest option will probably be to have some ads for each of the categories. Still, this means to have the right content when consumers are clicking through to the landing page. If you think about it, you will understand why content marketing is seen as a major trend from CMO’s.

Tags:Ads, Brand, CMO, Content, Marke, Marketing, Search, Search Advertising, SEM, SEO, Study, Survey, Trend, User

LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook? Study finds leading social network from journalists…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:28:22 +0000

What’s your guess? What is the leading social network for journalists? And what does this mean to business decision makers, managers and PR professionals?

The answer by far is LinkedIn with 92% – with a remarkable increase of 7% compared to 2009. However, this does not mean that it is their main source of information. At least, this is what the latest study tells us which is called 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside BtoB Media Usage of Social Media.

For me it was a bit of an eye-opener as I thought journalists might prefer to use Twitter to monitor sources for trending topics and breaking news. Probably, the statement has some value still. For Mike Neumeier, Pricipal, Arketi Group was not surprised…

“It comes as no surprise more BtoB journalists are participating in social media sites, especially LinkedIn. (…) LinkedIn provides an online outlet for them to connect with industry sources, find story leads and build their professional networks.”

The second largest still is not Twitter. It is Facebook. 85% of journalists are on Facebook (increase by 30% to 2009). However, Twitter comes in nearly at the same result (84%) and with the highest growth of 60% to 2009. And nearly half of the responding journalists (49%) say they blog or read blogs regularly.

“When compared to the 2009 Arketi Web Watch Survey, this year’s results show significantly more journalists are using social media tools (…) This means companies have more online channels through which they can reach media targets. This is both a blessing and curse for today’s PR professionals.” Dr. Kaye Sweetser, associate professor of PR, University of Georgia’s Grady College

Findings where journalists have their news sources…
- 80% via public relations contacts
- 77% rely on news releases
- 74% turn to newswires (i.e. BusinessWire or PRNewswire)
- 71% get from email pitches
- 56% from blogs
- 44% from micro-blogs (such as Twitter), and
- 39% from social networking sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace).

More than nine out of ten journalists responding (96 percent) say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they know, and 95 percent of business journalists say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they don’t know but are in industries they cover.

Journalists get crucial information regarding breaking news from the following sources…
- 85% Industry experts
- 81% Company website
- 80% Industry website
- 80% Other interested parties
- 57% Industry blog
- 53% Company blog
- 41% Industry Twitter feed
- 33% Company Twitter feed

Spot On!
Although LinkedIn is very popular among journalists, it does not seem to be the centre of attention to get a big story. Still, the direct contact and company websites have massive power and as they are probably the most trusted sources, they still lead. Still, social networks make it easy for journalists to get in touch with relevant people for good quotes. It should assume that investigative journalism is on the rise. Reading newspapers and websites today, I personally get the feeling that blogs have far more to offer.

What is your view?

Tags:Ads, Business Decision Makers, Email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Manager, Media, MySpace, Networks, Social Media, Study, Survey, Tools, Trend, Twitter, Website

Marketing automation – A sleeping lead generation star…?

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:53:17 +0000

Although companies get flooded with information concerning the benefits of marketing automation, the topic is still “not self-explanatory” to most marketers. The majority of B2B companies understand the general benefit in principle. Nevertheless, only a few are using marketing automation yet (7-10%). It seems that marketing automation is a sleeping star…

Still, the market for marketing automation is growing as you can figure out from the numbers below. Not surprising. The solution providersfor marketing automation proclaim an increase in lead generation and explain companies how easy it is to manage the sales lead funnel. And generating leads is what drives the B2B world around…

The annuitas Group just recently published some statistics from numerous sources that summarize the marketing automation market and published an interesting infographic.

- 110 vendors are seeling products and solutions in the marketing automation space
- 81% of best-in-class companies see the benefit in closing deals faster
- 76% of marketing decision makers see generation of high-qualified leads as the biggest challenge
- 64% of them have neither an internal nor external process to manage marketing automation
- 36% use marketing automation for lead nurturing
- 451% increase in qualified leads get businesses that use marketing automation for lead nurturing
- 47% more closed werde generated via lead nurturing generiert
- 10% use marketing automation to follow up later in the buying cycle

Spot On!
The statistics illustrate the power of marketing automation and what it could do to lead generation. However, when companies use marketing automation, only 25% use the full potential of marketing automation. It has become a “must have” in the marketing departments, at least of enterprises. If small and medium-sized companies use marketing automation or their a pre-sales/telemarketing to leverage their marketing and thus sales potential would be an eye-opening statistic in these terms. In many cases, time and resources hinder most companies from diving deeper into the potential of marketing automation and thus their brand content, the context in which it appears, and the community that talks about their business, products and services. The approach that I came across the last three years was an outsourced solution to service providers like agencies, publishers or software providers. And the main challenge of lead generation and nurturing is to align marketing, sales and customer service for a more efficient web strategy.

Would you agree that marketing automation is still a sleeping marketing star for lead generation…?

Tags:Ads, B2B, Brand, Community, Content, Customer Service, Marke, Marketing, Web Strategy

LinkedIn – The future of career advertising goes social…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 07:33:49 +0000

About one and a half years ago, the guys from Mediamind asked me if I want to write a guest post on the future of banner creatives on their blog. Well, I flashed back to find the future – the old strategic approach… What came out was a headline called “Engagement creatives reloading the future”. Seeing what was happening on LinkedIn in the last months, it seems I had quite a good feeling on what the future might look like.

In the Mediamind post, I focussed on the response banner functionality of Facebook creatives and how the referential potential of social graph marketing intelligence let the personal network get engaged. One individual creates buzz just by being integrated with a linked name in one line of the graphic. So, people know your name and get dragged into campaign activity, just by curiosity, just by wanting to know why, what and how. Just by … you name it.

In the last weeks, LinkedIn came from being just another platform selling space to opening the potential for intelligent career online advertising, and leveraging the network potential with clever display advertising. Companies were focussing on personalization, the social targeting opportunities and the API potential to enable innovative campaigns creatives on the business network.

While some social media marketing companies (funny right…?! see picture above) use the traditional way of banner creatives, Volkswagen identified the evolution of the pick-a-boo effect and the competitive aspect of having more contacts, more recommendations and better education. Just the things that make up a career…

Another example is AMEX. They took their social advertising career campaign even a step further by not spoting you, but the person next to us that helps successful managers, the teams and you: the administrators. People could nominate their business supporters, and by voting promote these “second liners” to have a chance to win a gift card courtesy of 2.500 USD.

In the end, the most convincing career social display campaign is when you find yourself in the middle of a personalized creative. When I checked one of my contacts from SAP today, a rectangle banner appeared next to the SAP contact profile of the person I am linked with. Now, guess what happened? I got offered a job from SAP. Well, maybe not the job I wanted but still a great approach.

The banner was personalized using my LinkedIn picture and my name. It was really somehow talking to me. It detected I could be in the software industry, I could be a consulting sales person, and yes, the creation is clever in terms of straight interaction and sharing. Don’t you think…?

Spot On!
We are still early stages with these new (career) display advertising opportunities. Still, the advertising evolution is happening, and publishers need to have a close look at the opportunities if they don’t want to loose the battle to social networks. These examples might be geeky – however, they are engaging, personalized and conversational. Just what traditional banner cannot offer far too often…

Tags:Ads, Campaign, Consulting, Facebook, Future, LinkedIn, Manager, Marke, Marketing, Media, Networks, Social Media

Study: Social Media and Advertising – What is the next hype for marketers…?

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:39:32 +0000

When you do Social Media marketing seminars and trainings (and I have done many in the last 24 months), most of the times marketers want to know everything around Facebook and Twitter (maybe Google Plus these days). However, according to the Pivot Conference that released their study “The Rise of the Social Consumer”, with the response of 230 brand managers, executives, and marketing professionals yesterday, some new hypes from marketers can be seen. Just check out the platforms that marketers are planning to invest in…

Although the big players on the market dominate at present, the next wave is already approaching marketers mindset. YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Zynga have made their popularity in the Social Media market and might get the future attention of the marketers. The second column shows an increase of those four platforms between 13-26% which obviously have some good business value if seen from the right customer service and customer relationship management spot.

For B2B companies LinkedIn got some great assets, not only with their special groups. YouTube is some higly underated platform in my eyes. It can be used for different visual aspects in B2B, but also viral topics and campaign opportunities in B2C. If restaurants, service providers or entertainment brands want to head for local promotions, Foursquare (and Gowalla in some areas – also 5% increase forecasted) offers some fantastic buzz potential. Whether Zynga is really so powerful for marketers to promote their offerings, needs to be seen and proved in the future. I would rather recomment and elaborate on reward advertising models.

The study also showed that 84% of brands encourage user involvement with social advertisement campaigns. This is interesting as very often the perception of marketers was that people don’t really see the ads next to their streams. The intention of marketers why they invest in Social Media advertising is manyfold…

Spot On!
Over half of respondents of the study (see full report) said they were shifting money away from other forms of marketing towards Social Media. 23% of respondents even stated that social advertising delivers a greater ROI than other forms of advertising. Although this sounds great, the strategic approach to every social advertising and Social Media engagement needs to be double-checked. The development of the results need to be aligned with the expectations and targets set before the Social Media activity started. At least if they don’t want to lack business credibility in front of their bosses…

Tags:Ads, B2B, Brand, Campaign, Customer Service, Facebook, Future, Google, LinkedIn, Management, Manager, Marke, Marketing, Media, Relationship, Social Media, Study, Twitter, User, Viral, YouTube

Reports indicate, Facebook has value for B2B business…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 11:12:06 +0000

Many discussions have been going on in the past two years with people who participated in the Social Media seminars and workshops I held recently. And there is still a “fight” going on how much B2B value Facebook has, and for which industry sectors Facebook is relevant, or if only for promotions and campaigns.

TBG Digital, a Marketing and technology company, has revealed some statistics now. The company put together a study called “Global Facebook Advertising Report” which analysed 200 billion impressions from 167 clients.

The report states that there is a 435% improvement in campaign conversion rates if companies and brands are targeting existing fans. Brand campaigns on Facebook grew by 104% quarter on quarter, and some industry sectors profit more than others, especially retail gains benefits…

The data provided highlights that one of the top five areas of growth is the business and industrial sector. Mentioning the amazing growth of these business areas, the report suggests that this ia the fact for the B2B value of Facebook which is “fast becoming a valid B2B marketing channel”.

If we combine these findings with a study published by digital agency The Group yesterday, the B2B picture becomes even more value. The Social Media Leaders tracking study revealed UK Facebook usage increased massively among FTSE 100 companies by more than 50% in the last six months.

Spot On!
The reports are more indicators (than proof) for the value of Facebook for B2B. It is not surprising that companies prefer to use Twitter (41%) to Blogging (12%) according to the The Group report. In the end, it takes resources to establish an effective presence with a powerful blog which is easier to be executed via Facebook (although another study claims that customer satisfaction is not the best at Facebook). However, I would see the value for B2B more in steady blogging effort than in Facebook (ad campaigns) but it depends again on what the objectives of the Social Media activity on Facebook will be.

How do you see that? Is Facebook a B2B platform? And if so, only for marketing and sales efforts or campaigns?

Tags:Ads, B2B, Brand, Campaign, Facebook, Marke, Marketing, Media, Social Media, Study, Twitter

SEO study: Measurable results are key, but without strategy…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:51:53 +0000

Would you like to know what tactics B2B and B2C marketers use to achieve a powerful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy? Well, then you should read the latest MarketingSherpa „2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – SEO Edition“. But only if you have time to read a 202-page paper. If not, find the latest insights in brief on SEO habits and effectiveness according to more than 1.500 respondents.

Although SEO is one of the main topics in meetings with clients these days, marketing decision makers tend to ignore the strategic approach. The study shows the discrepancy between what marketers want and are willing to invest…
- Developing a SEO strategy is a top challenge but ranks as bottom objective
- Organic SEO via Content creation is a winner but costs many resources
- Established SEO processes generate future investments in SEO
- Incremental SEO improvements add up to large profits
- Local business listings tactics are underutilized

Many organisations are not challenging a strategic plan. The tactical approach still rules the daily business with clear focus on fast tactical objective turnarounds (i.e. leveraging website traffic, lead generation and measurable ROI). Understanding and evaluating digital assets from a SEO point of view is still not a strategic topic in businesses. Only 27% of companies surveyed responded they consider planning an effective SEO strategy an important objective.

However, companies put massive importance on measurable results. The study claims the benefit of Inbound Marketing by some helpful numbers…
- Use Social Media – Revenue goes up 114% and Leads 30%
- Find and test niche content: Organic traffic increased by 40%
- Revamp and optimize web content – Doubles lead conversions

The graphic below illustrates the value if various tactics and how to position them for your strategic efforts.

Spot On!
The above numbers sound as if SEO needs to become a strategic focus of your web strategy – and yes, it should. However, content marketing as an inbound marketing tactic stays a challenge for marketers, especially if it shall be authentic, story-telling and benefitial for users. No wonder it is one of the most difficult processes. BUT it is still considered to gain best returns. Nevertheless, the best SEO strategy needs to have the right approach from data capture to generating leads through to good landing pages, leverage mobile and finally do lead nurturing. And it needs to take into account the right follow up process from customer service and sales to complete a SEO strategy.

Tags:Ads, B2B, Content, Customer Service, Future, Marke, Marketing, Media, Revenue, Search, SEO, Social Media, Survey, User, Web Strategy, Website

What happens in 60 seconds on the Social Web? A comparison and the value of “infographics”…

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:20:29 +0000

There are different ways to illustrate how fast the Social Web is growing these days. For two years my favorite “real-time” resource -based on studies and research data- was Gary Hayes Social Media Count. And I am sure, you have all seen this great little widget already…

However, we also have to keep up with the pace and realize that -although people already hate them- infographics are sometimes a nice way to grab facts quick and easy. The Shanghai Web Designers created an infographic which illustrates how fast conversations, comments and content are produced on social networking and online platforms in only 60 seconds.

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Now, although I honor the work of the Shanghai Web Designers, it lacks some information on where the data was generated from. Gary Hayes explains nicely how the app data was put together and how actual it is (having said that I think Gary needs to refresh his links as I found links ending in 404′s).

A comparison could be interesting, I thought. Why not compare the 60 seconds data from the Shanghai Web Designers (SWD) versus a “one-minute-momentum” of Gary Hayes (GH) counter…? I started the counter and waited 60 seconds, and there you go. Here are the results…

The comparison will just focus on the essentials Google, Email, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. You can still do your own comparison afterwards…

Google
Search queries: 694,445 (SWD) versus 1,393,519 (GH)

Emails
Emails sent: 168,000,000 (SWD) versus 204,255,455 (GH)

Facebook
Status Updates: 695,000 (SWD) versus 696,758 (GH)
Comments: 510,040 (SWD) versus 512,100 (GH)

Twitter
New accounts: 320 (SWD) versus 208 (GH)
Tweets published: 98,000 (SWD) versus 62,707 (GH)

YouTube
Hours of content uploaded: 25+ hours (SWD) verus 36 hours (GH)

LinkedIn
New members: 100 (SWD) versus 60 (GH)

Spot On!
The comparison makes clear that the Facebook figures are similar whereas for the rest of the figures there is a massive discrepancy in numbers. Facebook is sharing their latest actual figures, for the other technology platforms the data probably comes from third party sources (or at least as far as I can see). If all platform and technology owners would share their latest data, those discrepancies won’t happen. The lack of source information from Shanghai Web Designers makes it difficult to argue which data is the latest, where the differences in the comparison are coming from, and so on. Maybe this is the reason why some experts don’t like infographics any more. “Don’t like…” might be wrong when I see how many people have shared the infographic in the last days. They appear very nice and compelling in social networking accounts and “illustrate” thought-leadership in presentations. Right…?!

Tags:Content, Email, Facebook, Google, infographics, LinkedIn, Media, Research, Search, Share, Social Media, Studie, Trend, Twitter, YouTube

82% of word of mouth conversations are face-to-face

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:08:48 +0000

The word of mouth and research company Keller Fay Group and Google have collaborated to understand the effects of the Internet and Internet enabled devices on word of mouth conversations about brands – and the Google Business Youtube channel published some findings now in a video.

In the US there are 2.4 billion conversations involving brands on a day, and the question is what role do various types of media play in this process? The study -based on 3.000 responding adults- comes to the conclusion that the vast majority of word of mouth conversations still happens face-to-face (82%).

However, the internet is the leading source of information motivating conversations. TV is already number two media to trigger word of mouth conversations. Google searches directly inform 146 million brand conversations a day, says the video. Are we surprised? Well, I wasn’t…

Obviously, Google would not publish it, if search wasn’t the main initiator in conversations as the study claims. According to the study, search is also said to outperform social media when it comes to credibility and likelihood to purchase decisions.

The study video concludes to mention the importance of search which is the leading source that inspires and informs, and thus triggers word of mouth brand conversations, followed by e-commerce with 7%. Social Media and branded websites are coming in at the same level.

Spot On!
The findings illustrate the importance to connect offline and online brand activities. Although search definitely has a major impact on our purchase behavior these days, and especially Google with all their opportunities and different service offerings, I would definitely stress that brand advocates also have a major impact on word of mouth conversations when using them to empower social media capabilities. The study did not use these special people as “online channels” of course. However, think about brand advocates and how you could leverage your brand with them.

PS: The full video can be seen here…

Tags:Brand, E-Commerce, Google, Marke, Marketing, Media, Online Marketing, Search, Social Media, Video, Website, WOM, Word of Mouth, YouTube

Study: CEOs say that marketers lack business credibility

Martin Meyer-Gossner — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:00:11 +0000

It is a harsh statement. It is a statement that undermines the value of leading marketers in the world. But it comes from their bosses: CEOs.

A majority of CEO’s believe that marketers lack business credibility. And it is not only that… Marketers are not the business growth generators they should be and are not focused enough on effectiveness. This is the key findings of a recent report “2011 Global Marketing Effectiveness Porgram” by Fournaise Marketing Group. The report interviewed over 600 large corporation and SMB CEOs and decision makers in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the US.

Nearly three quarter (73%) of CEOs believe marketers are not able to demonstrate how their cross-channel marketing strategies and campaigns help to increase their organisations’ top line in terms of more customer demand, sales, prospects, conversions and market share.

However these findings sound like a slap in the face of marketers, the study makes also clear that vertical metric set-ups are still a challenge for companies. 77% of respondents admitted that they cannot connect EBIT, market valuation or revenues to marketing facts like brand equity, brand values or other marketing ROI metrics.

The study claims that 74% marketers rely too much on the creative element of their job, ‘arty’ and ‘fluffy’ thoughts and too much on their ad agencies to come up with the next big idea. I would like to add that very often publishers make up a lot of these ideas but appear to stay in second line to the client. Just a quick hint to CEO’s…

In some of my latest projects in the last five years, I have seen marketers asking for many and very detailed reportings. The interesting thing is that 70% of CEOs see marketing data marketers provide is hardly useful, or relate to or mean anything for their company’s P&L. Obviously, 69% of marketers say that their campaigns and strategies have an impact on business – but cannot precisely quantify.

“Until marketers start speaking the P&L language of their CEOs and stakeholders, and until they start tracking the business effectiveness of their strategies and campaigns to prove they generate incremental customer demand, they will continue to lack credibility in the eyes of their CEOs and will continue to be seen more as a cost centre than as an asset.”
Jerome Fontaine, CEO, Fournaise

Spot On!
For me one of the main interesting topics is that 74% of CEO’s find that marketers focus too much on the latest marketing hypes (i.e. social media 74%) without explaining the real value it brings to the business. In order to generate ROI, very often marketers are starting discussions with third parties or agencies about latest trends and then jumping on them immediately without even thinking about the ROI it might bring to the business – instead of focussing on where main revenue streams are coming from.

Now, the funny thing is that probably most of marketers won’t comment on these findings, I assume. Although it would help all marketers to start discussing now…

Tags:Brand, Campaign, Interview, Marke, Marketing, Media, Revenue, Share, Social Media, Strategie, Trend

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