Michael Madej presents: Digital Marketing Rucksack

Update on MINE magazine

2009-06-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

A couple months ago I wrote about MINE magazine (see blog entry here) and its unique approach for repurposing content, packaging it with an advertiser's message, and re-distributing it to readers. MINE recently won two awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

I've received about half of my 10 issues of MINE magazine in the mail now, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. It's an interesting mix of content. When I was first signing up for it, I thought the variety of content from such a wide range of magzines seemed random. But it's really not that different from a mix of different types of music on an iPod.

The other thing about MINE that's impressed me is the advertising. Each of the four Lexus ads that appear in the magazine are personalized, using the information I provided at registration. Some of these ads include my name, my city of residence, or a couple of the interests I specified on the reg form. It feels a little strange to see this kind of personalization in print -- we're used to seeing web ads with this level of personalization, but print ads usually don't go to this level. But it's done tastefully -- and I feel like it's boosted my impression of Lexus as a brand that's interested in my needs.

If a printed magazine (long perceived as being slow or unable to keep up with online campaigns' personalization and targeting) is getting this customized, what's your excuse for implementing more customization in your online campaigns?

Great viral video about the media transformation

2009-06-14T13:26:00.000-04:00

Old media companies that can't make the digital transformation are doomed. Here's a wonderful viral video that was posted to YouTube last week. I don't need to add much more -- the song pretty much sums it up.

How would you prefer to be contacted?

2009-06-08T12:15:00.003-04:00

When collecting contact information on an online form, doesn't it make sense to ask the person for their preferences? It seems like common sense, but at least 90% of the forms I see don't have that type of option.

Here's an example. In the world of trade magazines, qualifying and re-qualifying subscribers is a major business expense. Some trade publications spend more than a million dollars a year making calls, sending direct mail and emails, doing cover wraps on their magazines, and doing co-registration to reach their circulation goals. Once you have a subscriber's name on your file, you have to re-qualify them every so often, to make sure they're still at the same place and to update their info. But most trade publications don't bother to ask you how you'd like to be contacted for circulation renewals. They just start sending you emails, or making phone calls, or sending you direct mail pieces until you renew.

In the 9 years I've been in trade publishing, I've never seen a requalification form as smart (yet simple!) as this one from Website Magazine. After you change/verify your contact info and purchasing influences, you're taken to this screen where you specify how you'd like to be contacted for circulation renewals. They provide all sorts of options, from email to text messages and calls on your mobile phone, to an alternate email address, business phone, and a postcard. Plus they even give you a text box to include your comments or additional information.

It's simple, effective, personal, and user-focused. It probably saves them a ton of money. Why don't more websites do this?

Take control of your name in search results

2009-06-03T20:21:00.004-04:00

As college graduates prepare to enter one of the toughest job markets in modern times, not only do they need to worry about the normal job seeking advice like keeping their resume short, writing a good cover lettter, never showing up to an interview late, etc. But now they might need to Google bomb themselves, as Avelyn Austin points out in this excellent post. Facebook pictures, YouTube videos, or other incriminating evidence might make an employer think twice about hiring you. Some job seekers may employ the Google bomb tactic (basically trying to manipulate the search engines so more flattering results appear on the first page).

Google itself has come out with a new tool that might help people take more control of their identities online. Called Google Profile, it lets you "control how you appear on Google and tell others a bit more about who you are." Google claims that with a Google profile, "you can easily share your web content on one central location. You can include, for example, links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more."

It will be interesting to see how well Google Profiles rank in Google. Will a search on a name turn up a Google Profile in the top few results, on top of the Facebook and LinkedIn results that now dominate many name searches? If so, this might be an excellent way for people to give the world a more organized view of themselves within search results. Google Profile might be an easier alternative to buying a domain name for yourself and setting up your own website to serve as a hub for your online identity. (Personally, I'll stick to www.michaelmadej.com as the center of the brand that is myself, but I can see how many people might not want to go to that extra effort.)

I spent a few minutes adding my own profile to Google Profile, just to see how well it works and what kind of information it asks for. At this point it appears to be pretty sparse, but in time I have a feeling they'll be adding more to this tool.

I still think back to this Wall Street Journal article from a few years ago, about parents picking names that will be easily findable in Google. Maybe none of this naming stuff will be an issue when these kids grow up though -- perhaps search will be so advanced (or so integrated into everything else we do) that a unique name won't be necessary for Google results. In reality, I think names will matter less and less as the technology gets smarter at pegging exactly who you are.

Rate my ad!

2009-05-31T11:18:00.003-04:00

Update 6/11/09: Read more details on Digg Ads

Recently social bookmarking site Digg announced a new initiative for its advertising, where the users rate the ads and discuss them. Poor performing ads have to pay more, or get kicked off the site. (Details here in the MediaVision blog) It's an interesting concept, and it just might be crazy enough to work.

Remember a decade ago when everyone thought search results needed to be unbiased and "editorial", rather than being paid? At the time, GoTo (later Overture, now Yahoo! Search Marketing), and later Google AdSense and MSN adCenter have proven that the users "voting with their mice" for pay-per-click advertising is a smart and lucrative business model.

Will people vote for ads? Comment on ads? Similar functionality already exists in Facebook, with the thumbs up or thumbs down button next to each ad. It sounds like Digg plans to take this to the next level, although I couldn't find any further details on their plans yet. Update 6/11/09: Read more details on Digg Ads

Certain kinds of ads are likely to work well here. Think about the Super Bowl, where you have day-after-the-game reviews of the ads in every major newspaper and TV station, plus dozens of websites. People will weigh in on advertising. But is Super Bowl advertising different, since companies are spending millions of dollars on the airtime and likely six or seven figures making each 30-second spot? How will that model translate to a simple online ad, created by a not-so-talented marketing manager in less than an hour? That's where I fear the Digg model may fall down.

But whether or not it works, kudos to Digg for trying something new. If this type of model is going to work anywhere, Digg is probably the place -- since the whole site is based on people voting for articles.

Sometimes the most simple contests are the most successful

2009-05-29T16:47:00.000-04:00

As I was sorting through my postal mail the other day, I saw an ad for a heating and air conditioning company that caught my eye. The reason I noticed this ad promoting a contest is because of its simplicity. It's nothing new, nothing groundbreaking...but still smart. Cyngier Heating & Air Conditioning is running an "oldest furnace" contest. If you are found to have the oldest furnace, you win a new furnace.

The reason I like this promotion is because it's directly tied to the company's line of business. Usually you see "win an iPod for filling out this survey" or "win a free vacation" when the prize has nothing to do with the company who is sponsoring it. But in this case they're giving away a furnace -- which makes sense. But more importantly, Cyngier is going to end up with a stack of entries for people who are admitting they have an old furnace. I'd imagine that's a pretty valuable list, since it'll allow them to approach the non-winners with an offer to sell them a new furnace.

A few ways Cyngier could make their contest better next time:

If the customer can't verify the age of their furnace, the fine print says they can't win. I don't know a lot about furnaces, but my guess is it's going to be very hard for most people to verify the age of their furnace. That seems like a deal-breaker to many people who otherwise might consider entering. I know my furnace has its date of manufacture stamped on it, perhaps many others do too. A friendly note in the contest description to that effect might be helpful. Or if people can't verify the age, let them enter anyway for the potential to win a secondary prize.
Cyngier isn't really interested in the oldest furnace, they're more interested in finding a bunch of people with old furnaces. They could set up a similar promotion that invites people to enter any furnace that is at least 20 years old, then hold a random drawing. Under the current contest, homeowners who have a 25 year old furnace probably don't have much motive to enter, since they'll be pretty sure someone has a 30 or 50 year old furnace.
Instead of needing to print a PDF and fill out a sheet of paper to enter, make the entry form online.
Tie it into social media. Ask people to take digital pictures of their old furnace when they enter (an optional part of the contest), then let people browse the pictures on the Cyngier website.
A "tell a friend" about this contest is a no-brainer too.

Suggestions aside, this type of contest is a smart and simple way for a business to drive new sales leads. Can you tie your company's sales leads to a contest like this?

New Facebook Chat: An example of social media going anti-social

2009-05-13T08:49:00.000-04:00

Within the past couple days, Facebook rolled out new functionality for its chat application. The old system only allowed you to be "online" or "offline" for chat purposes -- there was no in between. So either all your friends were able to chat with you, or none of them were.

With the new functionality (see official Facebook blog post here, and AllFacebook.com explanation here), now you can allow certain groups to see you online and chat with you, while appearing offline and inaccessible for chat with others. Now you're in control of who can and can't chat with you.

This isn't new technology or a new idea. You've been able to appear offline to certain users or certain groups within IM applications for a long time. But this is groundbreaking for Facebook.

Thanks to this change, I'm sure there will be plenty of people I'll never see in my Facebook chat window again. I guarantee some people will only allow chatting with a specific circle of their friends. And people will be able to go "into hiding" a lot easier, where they're chattable to only one or two people, while the rest of the world can't see they're online.

Facebook is supposed to be a social network, but this feature sounds more anti-social to me. It'll make avoiding particular people on Facebook a lot easier. But if you don't want to talk to certain people on Facebook, why are you friends with them? (That's a rhetorical question)

Even though I call the new Facebook Chat anti-social, it certainly has its benefits. Will I use it? No doubt I will. But that doesn't make it any less anti-social.

Photo by r-z

Your website is thirsty. Water it.

2009-05-09T21:34:00.000-04:00

I don't like to update web pages I assembled a long time ago. If I've seen the page hundreds of times, and if the initial thrill of creating it is long gone, it becomes difficult to stay on top of updates. Those types of pages give me a "been there, done that" type of feeling.

Updating old web pages isn't a challenge. I'd much rather create something new! Where's the triumph, where's the challenge in working on old pages? But yes, care and maintenance is critical to a healthy website.

This afternoon my wife and I went to the nursery to buy some new shrubs. The only reason we needed to buy new shrubs is because four of ours died in the past year, and it's finally time to rip out the old and put in the new. And I know why they died -- because I'm bad with plants. Plants hate me because I don't take care of them well. I don't prune shrubs, I don't water them during dry spells, and I certainly don't protect them in the winter or fertilize them often enough.

Think about your website(s). How often do you prune them (remove old content, look for dead links)? How often do you give them the maintenance they deserve? Do you take existing pages for granted, and only get excited when you're creating a new page (just like I take my existing shrubs for granted, and only spend time thinking about them once they've died and I need to buy new ones)?

This week, give some tender loving care to a section of your website you haven't looked at in a long time. What can you do to remove the dead wood? How can you make it stronger? Are there ways you can build it into something that can blossom? If you give a little thought to SEO on these neglected pages, can you help to pollinate the search engines and drive more traffic?

Photo by Art Poskanzer

Every day we make it, we'll make it the best we can

2009-04-27T23:38:00.003-04:00

his week I'm on the road in Nashville, working at the IndustryWeek Best Plants Conference. It's a gathering of manufacturing leaders who are striving for continuous improvement in their manufacturing facilities. As part of the conference we offer plant tours, and today I was the tour captain of a journey to Lynchburg, Tennessee to visit the Jack Daniel's distillery.

One of my favorite takeaways from today's tour (other than the whiskey tasting) was the culture the company pursues. Jack Daniel himself uttered these words about the company's Tennessee whiskey: "Every day we make it, we'll make it the best we can."

Every day you come to work, are you doing your best at your job? Are you going out of your way to put the best possible ingredients into your work, like Jack Daniel's puts into their whiskey? It's a simple concept, but sometimes when we get lost in the daily grind, we need a reminder.

Squeeze new life out of your existing content

2009-04-25T08:39:00.001-04:00

Your content is valuable. You spend lots of time and money developing white papers, articles, and other pieces of content for your website and other electronic offerings. But how often do you let your content go stale? Once it's finished and published, that shouldn't be the end -- it should be the beginning of the process. There are so many ways you can continue to use content that's already been developed. Repurpose it!

A great example is Time Inc's new custom magazine, called MINE. Readers can sign up to receive five free issues of MINE, which contains re-purposed editorial content that previously appeared in one of Time Inc's or American Express Publishing's magazines. Interestingly, it's a custom publication that's specifically designed for each reader. A reader has eight magazine choices -- from Sports Illustrated to Golf Magazine to Food & Wine. The reader chooses which five magazines they're interested in receiving content from, and the custom publication is sent to them. In addition, readers can choose whether to receive their custom magazine in a printed or digital format. Think of it as a remix of a magazine.

It's an interesting model because it:
1) Capitalizes on previously developed magazine content that would've otherwise been generating little interest in Time's archives, so it's inexpensive for Time to do.
2) Satisfies Lexus, the sponsor of the whole initiative, because it generates leads (from the MINE registration form). It also helps Lexus position itself as a brand that listens to customers, since it's giving them a free subscription to a customized magazine.
3) Gives the reader what they want -- a mix of content they're interested in, but might not have otherwise been exposed to. Chances are good most readers aren't receiving five different Time magazines, so this gives the company a chance to showcase several of its other titles to an audience that might not have otherwise seen them. For example, I chose Travel + Leisure as one of the titles in my custom magazine -- a brand I've never interacted with in the past. This could help Time get readers hooked on new titles and interacting with brands they were previously unaware of. In short, it's a clever circulation initiative too.

Is this the future of magazines, where consumers can choose the content and "bind their own"? Probably not. I think publishers would quickly find the costs to be too high to do this on a large scale. But it's an interesting custom project when it leans on repurposed content from past magazine issues, as Time and Lexus are doing.

Think about this model. Are there new and different things you can be doing with your content? How can you repackage your content and bring it to the audience in a different way? Maybe it's not a huge component of your overall content strategy, but why not squeeze a little more life out of your existing content? After all, you already paid for it.

Photo by jrob86

Three value-conscious tools for online marketers

2009-04-20T22:50:00.002-04:00

Digital marketers need to wear a lot of hats. One minute we might be writing copy, the next we're tweaking graphics in Photoshop, and the next we're shooting or editing video. This profession takes a variety of skills, and it also requires a lot of tools. Often those tools need to be as inexpensive as possible, because while some projects have big budgets, others are being run on a shoestring.

Today I'd like to look at a few simple tools that can make your life easier without breaking the bank. (All of these are written as my own personal viewpoint...nobody's paying me to write these endorsements.)

Need to shoot good-looking video, but don't have the budget for a studio? The Westcott Photo Basics PB500 Educational 3-Light Kit can provide good lighting for simple "talking head" or interview videos. Of course for less than $500, you can't expect professional quality...especially when pros are easily spending 10 times that amount for a simple lighting setup! But this kit gets the job done for non-pros, even people with no previous experience in lighting. It comes with an instructional DVD and a reference card that will get you set up. Even though the DVD focuses on still photography, it still provides good takeaways that apply to simple video shoots. With a Google search, I was able to find this kit for $369 here.
For podcasts and simple audio editing, Audacity is a solid product at a price you can't beat: free. It doesn't come with all the goodies you'll want (like MP3 capability) with the main download. You'll need to spend a few minutes downloading add-ons and filters that do everything you need. But that's a quick and painless one-time process. The software itself is solid, fast, and relatively easy to use. There are a few controls that aren't the most logical, and newbies to the audio editing world will need to spend a few hours playing around with the software and reading about it until they feel comfortable. Luckily, Audacity has some great documentation, tutorials, and even a wiki where you can learn how to do just about anything. Goldwave is another solid choice for audio editing that I used for many years, and it comes with more capabilities. But it also costs $45. Audacity can get the job done for free, which is why it's a no-brainer for podcast and webcast audio editing.

My favorite new tool is called Dropbox. It's basically like a Flash drive that you don't need to carry, but even better. With Dropbox, you can store files online in an easy-to-access tool. It has automatic synchronization so the files are always ready on your computer when you need them, which is especially handy if you regularly work on more than one computer. You can also use it to share files with friends -- either a single file they might need to grab quickly, or an entire folder for long-term collaboration. The software you download onto your computer is slick, giving you drag-and-drop ease of use. It has a web interface too, so you can access files from a friend’s computer or wherever you are. With Dropbox, you might never need to email files to yourself anymore. I've tried several online file exchange services before, and Dropbox is by far the best. Plus it's free for 2GB of storage space! You can pay for additional storage if you need it. (If you sign up using my referrer tracking link, you get an extra 250MB of bonus storage...and I get an extra 250MB too. Here's my referral link that gives you the bonus 250MB. If you don't want to use my referral link and you're happy with the standard amount of storage, you can sign up here).

Front row tickets in row G? Give your audience the experience they're expecting

2009-04-08T22:25:00.000-04:00

It's the first week of the baseball season, and that means another season of trips down to the ballpark, hot dogs, and some great baseball action. This morning I was thinking about my beloved Cleveland Indians and my plans to visit Progressive Field a number of times this year.

I love Progressive Field and I think it's a great place to watch a baseball game. But one thing in particular has always baffled me about this ballpark, ever since I saw the first game played there in 1994. It's the numbering (or actually lettering) of seating rows. Depending on where you are in the ballpark, the first row isn't always row A like you might expect it to be. In fact, the Diamond Box and Field box seats -- the premium seats closest to the field behind home plate and both dugouts -- have a notoriously odd lettering system. In most of these sections, the first row closest to the field is row F, G, or H.

I know why they assigned the row letters this way (or at least I suspect I know). Because the ballpark has contours and a unique layout, this type of system makes it easier to create uniformity with all areas of the park. So the system makes sense from the perspective of allowing row Z in one part of the ballpark to line up with row Z in another part. But to fans who aren't familiar with row G being the front row, it can seem quite strange -- and it probably hurts the Indians' ticket sales. I don't understand why the Indians don't make row A the front row around the entire ballpark, since it would 1) conform to fans' expectations that the first row is row A; and 2) it would make every seat more attractive on paper, which might increase the value of those seats and the Indians' revenue as a result.

Whether it's baseball tickets or anything else -- don't forget that when you're marketing, make sure you're giving the customer the experience they're expecting!

Last Friday I was comparing my group's digital marketing materials and media kits. There are a lot of different sites in the group, and each one is customized to the particular market, as it should be. But there were a lot of odd differences across the media kits -- similar to the Indians' odd choice of row G as the front row.

Some of the pricing is expressed in gross terms (before the 15% agency discount) and other prices are expressed in net.
Web ad specifications don't necessarily agree across the sites, despite the fact that we're using a common platform for ad serving. For example, some sites list the file size maximum as 25KB, when others say 35KB for the exact same ad.
And perhaps most puzzling, the same product on two different sites can have two different names -- and the same name might mean two very different things to different sites! On one site, a 125x125 might be called a "Square Ad", while it's a "Marketplace Ad" on another. It gets really confusing when a Rectangle Ad means 300x250 on one site, and 180x150 on a different site!

I'll definitely be asking my team to standardize their terminology and ensure it's consistent across the entire group in the future, because otherwise we're presenting information to the market that causes needless confusion.

Are you consistent with the way you present information to your audience? Does it make sense? But most importantly, is it the experience they're expecting? In other words, don't call your front row tickets "row G", otherwise you might be making your job harder for no good reason.

Photo by Chris Metcalf

The ad-supported Internet

2009-04-05T22:07:00.006-04:00

This is somewhat related to my last post about "the free lunch" that consumers get from ad-supported websites and services.

I ran across a presentation from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) about the current state of online advertising. This slide jumped out at me for a couple reasons:

The first bullet point says 70% of consumers want ad-supported services (read: free services where they'll tolerate a few ads) for video. I'm shocked the stats only came back at 70%, because I would've expected that number to be closer to 90% or maybe more. I don't think there are too many people who would be anxious to pay a bill for Internet video, just like they pay their cable bill and phone bill now.
The second sentence in the second bullet point made me laugh. "66% of all Internet users would click on more online ads if they were better targeted to them." I guess this is a perfect example of how people can't predict their own behavior. When given a survey question that says something like, "Would you click on more ads if they were more targeted to you?", I'd expect a large number of yes responses. But when it comes to actual behavior, it's funny to see how far from the truth that is.

In late 2007, Facebook came out with a system called Beacon for better targeting of ads and offers based on its users' behaviors. But Facebook was forced to pull back on this effort and remove it from default settings because of a huge public outcry that it was an invasion of users' privacy. Likewise, behavioral targeting -- the targeting of ads based on users' behaviors -- was recently investigated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

People say they'd click on more ads if they were more targeted, but the moment the ads become more targeted, users panic because they feel creeped out. There's lots of data that digital marketers could be using -- for example, detailed click-through data on enewsletters that could be passed along to advertisers -- but most don't because of the fear of user backlash. I don't know if this phenomenon will ever go away, or if the erosion of privacy will chip away at most users' objections to super-targeted ads and tracking information.

Web 2.0, "mom-and-pop" style

2009-03-30T20:55:00.000-04:00

The Economist featured an article in its March 19 edition called "Making the Web Pay: The End of the Free Lunch -- Again." It's a quick read, and it's interesting food for thought. Just like the Internet bubble burst in 2000, the article asserts that history is beginning to repeat itself -- and Web 2.0 is going to come crashing down, given the current pressure on sites like Facebook and Twitter to develop a business model.

I agree that a viable business model is necessary for any Internet business that plans to generate significant long-term revenues and profits. That's business school 101. And within the next 12 months we'll have a much better idea about Facebook's and Twitter's long-term profit potential.

I think you'll continue to see the Facebooks and Twitters of the world -- online services that generate a large user base first, then try to monetize those users later. Some will survive, others will not. But for every one Facebook or Twitter out there, you'll see 100 websites or online services that aren't as concerned about making money. These are the sites run by avid business owners who view their site as their baby. They want to build a community, provide a solution to a problem, or make the world a better place in a small way...and maybe make a few bucks while they're at it. Sure, these sites will still try to generate some revenue. But they'll survive through inexpensive ads, donations, or simple pay-to-play business models. But because it's a passion rather than a business, the user experience takes priority over revenue.

It will keep these companies small and under the radar in many cases. But regardless of what happens to Facebook and Twitter, the mom-and-pop Web 2.0 sites will do just fine.

Video books: A new way to bring long-form content to your audience

2009-03-20T20:39:00.011-04:00

I try to read books. I really do. But for the past couple years, I've really struggled to get through nearly every book I've picked up. I might get through the first few chapters, but somehow I put them down and never pick them up again. It's depressing.

With tongue embedded firmly in cheek, I blame Google for my reading woes. Here's a cover story from The Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Whether it's correct or not -- and there's been much debate about that -- the premise that the Internet has changed the way our brains function is an interesting one. Ever since I read this article last summer, I've conveniently had a scapegoat for that huge stack of unfinished books sitting in my home.

So when I saw this Washington Post article about how Jeff Jarvis and HarperCollins are launching what they're calling the "video book" (or as Amazon is calling it, a "V-Book"). It's a 23 minute video for sale for $10. It's basically a video synopsis of his book. He's not trying to cover the entire book here -- just summarize it and hit the key points. That's what makes this format quite different from the audiobook, where you have a full or abridged version of a book that you listen to on CD, tape, or in a digital format like Audible or Playaway.

I think the price point is interesting. Some people may not want to pay $10 for a 23 minute video book when they can buy the full book on Amazon for $18. But for those who are busy and know they won't get through the full book, it might be a good deal. And with the CD version of Jarvis' book going for $30 and the Audible version priced at $28, the $10 video book really seems like a bargain.

Could this be the future of books? Are books going to be reduced to 20-minute sound bites (or in this case, video bites)? If Google has really made us stupid as that article from The Atlantic hypothesizes, and given the success of online video in the past couple years, video books might have some legs.

I'm sure book marketers -- and other producers of long-form content -- will be watching closely and experimenting with similar formats soon.

What new "supersized" web ads and the U.S. auto industry have in common

2009-03-14T12:58:00.002-04:00

Recently a number of sites that belong to the OPA, or Online Publishers Association (ESPN, The New York Times, Forbes.com, Wall Street Journal, iVillage, and others) announced they're launching three new web ad sizes. See MarketingVox article here, PaidContent.org article here.

From MarketingVox:

AdWeek reports that members of the Online Publishers Association — including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and ESPN — have agreed to avail the following ad units to advertisers:
The fixed panel, a 336-by-860-pixel banner. Wider than standard skyscrapers, it follows users as they scroll down the page.
The XXL, a 468-by-648-pixel box with an expandable video option.
The pushdown, a 970-by-418-pixel unit that takes up over half of a page before rolling up.

In other words, web advertising is about to get a lot bigger. I don't mean more popular -- just bigger in size.

I suppose these changes aren't much different than when larger ad sizes (including 728x90 leaderboards, 120x600/160x600 skyscrapers, and 300x250/336x280 rectangles -- also known collectively as IMUs) hit the scene in 2001-2002. IMUs were the first major change since 468x60 banners were developed in the mid-1990s.

I understand why these new OPA sizes are being introduced in 2009. Revenues are down, and online publishers are looking for ways to create excitement. It's no coincidence the last time new ad sizes hit the market in 2001-2002 was in the middle of a big ad slowdown, and now we're seeing another new set of sizes during our current recession.

A few thoughts:

Pam Horan, president of the OPA, said, "As we talk to the agency community, one of the things we hear is they need new creative ways to connect with our audiences on the page." Of course they are! At least 50% of the RFPs that come across my desk are asking for "new and unique placements" or "outside the box thinking." Agencies always love new and bigger sizes, because they feel like they can get more creative with their creative. The only difference is the economy. When times are good, the majority of publishers don't listen to agencies' requests. But when dollars are disappearing, publishers and agencies do whatever they can to convince advertisers that they're doing something new and different.
Read any wish list for the online advertising business written by an industry analyst or expert in the past few years. You'll usually see statements like, "Online advertising needs to become more standardized in its creative placements, execution, and reporting. There are too many sites with varying standards and practices out there." These sorts of blog entries and columns are especially common at the beginning of a year, as people are writing their predictions for the coming year. Well, sadly these new web ad sizes won't help bring us toward greater standardization -- they'll take us farther away. These new ad sizes are not being adopted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the industry group that establishes de-facto standards for online ad sizes and practices.
More sizes equals less standardization. More sizes equals more work for agencies to produce different sets of creative that will fit multiple websites. More sizes equals more unsold inventory for many publishers. Why? Because publishers will have a wider variety of spots to fill on their sites, since it'll be hard to match up a greater number of sizes with the advertisers who have creative in that size.

The "let's make ad sizes bigger" and "let's keep throwing more sizes out there" mentality of the online ad industry reminds me of another business sector that isn't doing so great right now -- the U.S. auto industry.

"Let's make them bigger" strategy sounds extremely familiar to the path General Motors and Ford adopted in the 1990s, by supersizing their vehicles and pushing so many SUVs onto the roads.
And "let's give the market more and more choices" sounds exactly like GM's strategy of producing hundreds of different models and trim lines of its vehicles -- as opposed to Toyota's and Honda's philosophy of more standardization and fewer different models.

A few new ad sizes might put a few short-term dollars in a few publishers' pockets, but they certainly aren't the long-term answer the online ad industry still needs.

Sharing your location: the next big thing in social media (and an opportunity for mobile advertising)

2009-02-23T21:51:00.006-05:00

Just five years ago, if you would've asked most Americans if they'd be willing to put a page on the Internet with detailed personal information about themselves, plus hundreds of their photos, a status update to tell others what they're currently doing, plus all sorts of other private info such as 25 random facts about themselves, I think they would've immediately said you were insane. But today 45.3 million people in the United States are active Facebook users. Its adoption was led by college students, and it quickly caught fire with other age groups too. Facebook took posting detailed personal info online -- something that would otherwise be seen as creepy or scary to most people a few years ago -- and made it fashionable.

Likewise, many people today wouldn't be willing to share their precise physical location at every moment of the day with others. It seems "stalker-esque" to us now, but I have a feeling five years from now, sharing this type of information might be commonplace among friends. Google Latitude, announced earlier this month, is the first major step in that direction. Here's a description from the Google Latitude site:

With Google Latitude, you can:
See where your friends are and what they are up to
Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a phone call
Control what your location is and who gets to see it

First a few thoughts about the service itself, then how I see it impacting digital marketing...

Just like the way most people use Facebook, with Google Latitude you're only sharing your info with people you've friended. And similarly to Facebook, Latitude also gives you various privacy settings -- including being able to stop sharing with some/all of your friends at certain times, or only showing your more general city-level location rather than your precise geographical coordinates.

I expect to see significant adoption of Latitude in places where physical proximity is often relevant to friends. Colleges come to mind first...just like Facebook got its start on college campuses. But tech-savvy young professionals who live and work in urban areas are also quite likely to be early adopters of Google Latitude.

I wanted to give Latitude a spin on my mobile phone, but unfortunately even though the site says it supports most Windows Mobile devices, mine wasn't one of them. I tried the PC-based Latitude service too, but it couldn't automatically figure out where I was, even though it claims to use wireless signals to determine where your PC is. You can still use it on your PC to see the locations of others, even if it can't figure out where you are automatically -- but to me it lowers the coolness factor quite a bit. You can also set your location manually, but again, that's too much work to be useful.

From a digital marketing standpoint, I have a feeling mobile advertising might soon be getting the break it's been waiting for, thanks to Google Latitude. Location-based mobile advertising is still in its infancy, thanks in part to consumers' qualms about the practice and marketers' inability to find the right formats that strike a balance between being effective and being too intrusive. But that might change soon with Latitude and similar services that could roll out in its wake. (I anticipate Facebook will end up on this bandwagon pretty soon -- whether it's through their own service, or 3rd party applications that tie Latitude into Facebook.)

Once consumers become more comfortable sharing their location data with friends, it's just a matter of time before Google starts offering advertising opportunities through Latitude. (Remember, Google didn't launch with AdWords embedded, and Facebook didn't have ads early on either. They built their user base first, then allowed advertising when they reached critical mass.) I'm sure there's a group of people at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California who are working on the ad model for Latitude right now.

One of the most interesting things to watch will be how relevant the ads are, and how well they work. Of course Google AdWords has become the darling of online advertising, with search's huge growth and powerful ROI. But ads on Facebook have fallen short, quite possibly because the ads are not directly related to a user's task at hand, as Bob Gilbreath points out. I'd expect Google Latitude ads could be more relevant than Facebook, if done correctly. It'll be interesting to see how this gets tied into Google Mobile Search as well.

Perhaps Google Latitude could look at the user's status and current location, and try to serve an ad based on those two factors combined. But serving a coffee shop ad just because the user happens to be nearby is not going to do the trick.

If Google Latitude can get a foothold among college students and early adopters in urban settings, I think the mobile ad world is about to get a whole lot more interesting in the next couple years.

Keep jargon and details from overwhelming your marketing

2009-02-13T22:46:00.001-05:00

As marketers, we all know the importance of communicating effectively to our customers and prospects. But we often become so absorbed in our own little world (with jargon, acronyms, and technical details) that our communications become unclear to anyone other than an expert in that field.

I see it happen quite a bit in the manufacturing industry:

Sometimes it's a white paper that was intended to be an introductory look at a topic, but instead by page 2 it's discussing nitty-gritty detail that's over the head of most readers.
I see it frequently on webcasts. Presenters use TLAs ("Three Letter Acronyms"...see, I just used an unnecessary acronym!) without explaining what the acronyms mean. When jargon creeps in, presenters tune out.
Even companies' own websites can be guilty of this sin. The executives and marketing people want the site to be perfect, so they put a lot of effort into it. Too many cooks in the kitchen, plus too much time micro-analyzing every last word, often equals a poor end result. They forget to step back and look at the site like a first-time visitor, someone who doesn't live and breathe this specific topic.

This comedy sketch -- a fake commercial about the digital TV transition -- illustrates the point well. How often do your marketing materials come across like this to your readers? (My favorite is the "300 ohm to 75 ohm transformer or balun" part!)

What can you do about it? A few basic suggestions:

Don't write it all at once. If possible, take a break and come back to it tomorrow. Next week is even better. Read it once with fresh eyes, making notes of anything that isn't immediately understandable.
Have a co-worker from a different area of the business read it. This works if they don't have the same body of knowledge as you, but still have a basic understanding of the topic. New employees are excellent for this task, because they have the desire to learn, but they don't have the same biases and "blinders" that veteran members of your team might have.
Have your spouse read it. (You should've made sure "I promise to read his/her marketing text" went into your wedding vows.) I've asked my wife to read things for me occasionally, and she's usually been able to give me at least one new insight each time.
If you're giving it to someone else to read, watch them read it. Better yet, ask them to put their finger on the paper to follow along with what they're reading. If you see their finger stop, you know they've hit something they don't understand. Look closer at those areas. Is it jargon? An acronym? Or maybe a poorly-worded sentence?

I'd love to hear about others' techniques. How do you keep your marketing copy from falling into the "I have no idea what you're talking about" trap?

Marketing wisdom for 2009

2009-02-07T13:41:00.006-05:00

MarketingSherpa just published their "Marketing Wisdom for 2009" report, which contains 94 best practices and ideasfor digital marketers. I've been a big fan of this PDF for the past few years, since it contains actionable nuggets as well as bigger picture thoughts.

You'll find one of my tips on page 36 (tip #74) about how intermediate offers within your ads can help you drive interest in tougher-to-promote offers like webcasts.

Download a copy of this free PDF now (requires registration)

"Soft Corinthian leather": What's in a name?

2009-01-23T17:16:00.005-05:00

In the past week, I've been working on the new name for a product we're about to relaunch. A lot of names have been kicked around -- many descriptive of the product, and others that are more vague. It's made me think a lot about why some product names are successful and others aren't.

On one hand, a descriptive name attempts to give the buyer an immediate idea of what you're selling. (Think Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. Upon hearing the names, you immediately know that Coca-Cola is a cola, but Pepsi could be a laundry detergent to someone hearing the name for the first time.) Descriptive names can be good, but they can often be dull -- especially in the B2B world where you're naming a product or service that doesn't evoke an emotional response. The name "Oracle Content Database Suite" tells you exactly what it is, but it sounds like it was created by a bunch of dull engineers.

Then you have the products/brands that use an existing word and attach the trendy prefix or suffix du jour. Adding "e" to the front of a product was the rage in the 1990s (E*Trade, eToys), as was the infamous ".com" on the end of any name. Today the letter "i" is the most fashionable, thanks to the iPod. Half the products sold at Brookstone match this description...iMedic, iNeed, iGallop, iHome, iDesign, iConvert, etc. If only I could predict what the next trendy prefix/suffix would be...

Next is completely made-up words, or combinations of Latin/Greek words. These have been popular for the past decade or two as company names -- probably due mostly to the rise of the Internet and the necessity of securing a domain name, but also to avoid existing trademarks. Verizon and Acura are a few consumer brand examples. But often these types of names can be tough to remember -- unless you're doing a lot of branding and trying to establish that name in your potential customers' minds. Most often I'd probably stay away from these types of names when I'm naming a new web product -- because it's not worth the effort to achieve flow-off-the-tongue status through advertising and promotion.

Another option is taking an existing English word or phrase that has another meaning, and bringing it into a whole new context that has no current meaning. Chrysler is famous for doing this with "Corinthian leather" in the 1970s commercials featuring Ricardo Montalban. It was called Corinthian leather simply for marketing sizzle -- "Corinthian" really meant nothing in the world of leather. Similarly, the terms "leaderboard", "skyscraper", and "boombox" have become common sizes of online ads. Each of those words all have their own meanings outside the online ad business, but they had no meaning to the advertising world until they were coined as names for ads.

So when it comes time to choose a new product name, consider all these options. Think about your goals and the pros/cons of each type of name. Then start brainstorming. And if all else fails, hire a Mexican actor of Spanish descent to claim your product features soft Corinthian leather.

Photo by Giant Ginkgo

New Un-Roll video ad format: Is it the holy grail of short-form video advertising?

2009-01-14T22:07:00.001-05:00

It seems like every week someone comes out with a new format or a new ad unit for video ads. Recently Blinkx announced a placement called the Un-Roll, which is meant to allow advertisers to engage with video viewers in a less disruptive way. The Un-Roll isn't anything dramatically new, but rather a compilation of a few different tactics that have been seen in online advertising many times before. Basically it's a 2-second splash screen, followed by a 20-second overlay at the bottom of the video window as the clip is playing, with a clickable call to action placed below the video for the entire clip. Here's a demo of the Un-Roll on Blinkx's site.

The Un-Roll -- just like overlay ads in YouTube and several different formats developed by VideoEgg (and a number of others) -- are the industry's attempt to monetize shorter web videos. But no matter whether you're using an overlay, a branded video player, a pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll, etc., it's still all about relevance.

When you watch the Un-Roll demo, this new ad format seems to make sense because the advertiser is Shell and the video is contextually relevant to the sponsor. But I'm sure the moment the Shell ad appears on a video about something that isn't related to driving or fuel, the response rate will plummet. Nearly any type of video ad format can get good results when the ad is matched up with a relevant video content!

Right now you have brand advertisers like Shell that want to spend money on video advertising, but they struggle to find the right audience. Shell's ads perform best in contextually-relevant context, like the Un-Roll example about finding better fuel economy, so it's a no-brainer for Shell to place ads against those types of videos. But Shell's problem is that it needs to reach a mass market, and only a tiny fraction of its target audience will be watching videos about fuel economy.

How does Shell reach the viewers who are only watching a 23-second clip of a kid falling off his skateboard? You might say Shell can try advertising against user-generated videos on YouTube, but the click-through performance is going to be poor and the audience annoyance factor will be high.

I don't see an easy answer to this big challenge the online video industry faces. It doesn't matter what kind of brilliant ad format you develop. When the ad isn't relevant to the viewer, it's still interruption marketing, and the response rate decreases. (Does that mean the ad is completely ineffective? Of course not. You still have branding benefits, but that's a separate topic for a different day.) But a slick new ad format won't magically make ads placed within "kid-falling-off-skateboard" clips more effective.

Photo by I Love Trees

Break up a long page into multiple pages, or make users scroll?

2009-01-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been thinking about different usability issues on websites, and how to balance the users' preferences with your business model. Specifically today I'm thinking about situations where you have a large amount of content that belongs together. Should you put it on one page and make users scroll down to read it, or is it better to break that content into multiple pages?

This usability tip I received the other day in an email is what triggered my thoughts:

Usability studies have shown that internet users far prefer to click to another page than scroll to see content. As long as we provide content that gives users a reason to click, they’ll be happy to do so.

I've seen research that goes both ways on this topic. Here usability guru Jakob Nielsen says only 42% of users will scroll on a content page. And there's been plenty of research done on this behavior, including ClickTale's study and Razorfish's examination. And of course the closely related question of "is there such a thing as a 'fold' on a web page, and if so, how can you get users to scroll below the fold?"

But I think the question is more complicated. How should you balance usability with your site's main priorities? This is a big question for publishers especially, or anyone whose site depends on advertising. For example, CNNMoney.com does a lot of slideshow-type content, especially with feature such as 9 top tech flops and 6 terrific towns on the water. It calls these "galleries", and you'll see the presentation of this content is consistent. They have a short write-up about each one, usually accompanied by pictures, and prominent navigation along the edges (with red Next and Back buttons, and a "1 of 6" indication to let you know where you are in the list). At the bottom of the content, you'll also see a thumbnail navigation element, where you can quickly jump to the one you want to read.

It's in CNNMoney.com's best interests to display its content this way, rather than putting all 9 tech flops in a long list on a single page, simply because it benefits their advertising business. When you click the Next button to go from #1 in the list to #2, that generates a second page view -- and more ad impressions. Since most sites sell display advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, more impressions can equal more money. But sites need to adopt this strategy in moderation, because forcing users to click too much can be annoying. Plus this strategy can often decrease click-through rates on the ads that appear on each page, which has long-term financial ramifications for the site owner.

Some sites like to put all their content on a single page, because they feel it's easier for the user to interact with the article when it's on a single page. Many publishing sites like The Wall Street Journal keep most of their larger articles on one page, while others such as BusinessWeek break their longer articles into multiple pages.

Sometimes the motivation for keeping articles on a single page is a fear of metrics, especially among small and mid-sized companies. This doesn't just apply to publishers -- it can apply to any company selling a product or service. By breaking up content into multiple pages, it's a lot easier to measure exactly how engaged the audience is with a content asset. If an article is broken up into two pages and 1,000 people come to page 1, but only 50 click through to page 2, it can evoke an emotional response in the writer of the article (why are only 5% of readers interested enough in my writing to click through to the second half of the article?) or in the webmaster/marketing manager (we're not getting a lot of people to view the later parts of articles, so we must be pretty bad at this web thing). When the article is displayed on a single page, it's a lot easier to lie to yourself and convince yourself that everyone is reading every last word you wrote!

My philosophy? There are some pieces of content that lend themselves perfectly to the multi-page approach, like the CNNMoney.com galleries I mentioned above. Generating multiple page views on these types of pages is also a huge plus, especially for sites that sell CPM advertising. But as a user, if I have to do too much clicking (like if that CNNMoney.com gallery was any more than 10 pages), I'd get sick of it pretty quickly. Personally I like the approach MarketingProfs takes on its longer articles. It defaults to breaking long articles into multiple pieces, but it offers the user an easy and prominent option to override that format, thanks to a "view article on one page" link. I think it's the best of both worlds -- giving users the choice to read an article in a way they're most comfortable, while still defaulting to the multi-page method that generates the greatest number of ad impressions.

9 things you'll learn by viewing my presentation on webinar marketing

2009-01-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

Based on my experience producing online events for IndustryWeek, I was invited to give a webinar presentation about webinar marketing. The live event took place Dec. 17, and the title of the presentation was "Webinars as Part of a Digital Marketing Strategy." I gave an approximately 30-minute presentation as part of this 60-minute webinar, which was produced by Adobe.

Here's a link to the archive of this webinar, which you can view for free on Adobe.com.

These are just a few of the things I covered:

Aligning your marketing with the type of webinar you're producing
A list of metrics for tracking your success
The cornerstone of your webinar marketing
Why you don't want to buy website or enewsletter ads that say "come to my webinar" (and what you should do instead)
The most powerful social media tool for marketing your webinars. It's not Facebook, LinkedIn, or Delicious. It's something you've probably been doing for a long time...
Why pay-per-click ads aren't a magic bullet for webinar marketing
Tricks for optimizing your webinars for search engines
Using an industry guru as a webinar speaker (often for free!) and putting their content to work for you
How to tie your webinar into in-person events, and vice versa

...and much more! View the archive now

The Web's future: a $0.22 piece of felt

2008-12-31T14:01:00.000-05:00

I was diagnosed with tendinitis in my left thumb three weeks ago. My doctor fitted me with a stylish black brace that keeps me from moving my thumb. The wrist brace isn't too bad. I can still type very well -- almost as fast as usual, since the left thumb doesn't do a whole lot on a keyboard. But my main annoyance is the Velcro on the brace.

As you can see in these pictures, the manufacturer decided to sew one long strip of Velcro (the scratchy kind, not the soft kind) onto the length of the brace, where the three straps connect. But the Velcro area is bigger than it needs to be, so there's lots of exposed "scratchy" Velcro to catch onto other things. I keep getting my hand stuck to my sweaters! It's already caused minor damage to a couple pieces of my clothing. So to solve this problem, my wife and I stopped at Wal-Mart to buy a piece of black felt. $0.22 out the door, tax included -- quite possibly the cheapest Wal-Mart trip ever! This little add-on to cover up the excess Velcro should keep it from snagging.

As I was reading my friend Nate Riggs' post about the prospects of a Web 2.0 crash, as well as the Seth Godin post he links to about oversaturation, it made me think about how my $0.22 piece of black felt relates to the Web's future:

Content is like my brace's Velcro. The right amount is wonderful, but having too much is simply annoying.

Web 2.0 has made everyone publishers. From Facebook to Twitter to YouTube, an enormous amount of information is being churned out every minute by so many people. The more content that's added, the harder it becomes to separate the wheat from the chaff. Having too much Velcro on your brace (too much content to digest) gets your hand stuck to your sweater (paralyzed with too much information).
The future of Web 2.0 will come from filtering all this information. Too overwhelmed with thousands of unread items in their RSS feeds, the next generation of Web visionaries will find a way to filter this information to make it more manageable. If today's social media is Web 2.0, this filtered subset of information will be Web 2.1. It will be equivalent to a piece of felt being placed over the excess Velcro on my brace. The "filters" of Web 2.1 will hide the information that isn't adding value for that particular end user -- just like the felt is covering up the excess Velcro.

Social media is here to stay. It'll evolve, and it might even face some setbacks as people struggle with how to deal with too much information, and as companies like Facebook and Twitter try to put profitable business models in place. But once the right filters are in place, the trait that made Web 2.0 a success to begin with -- giving everyone the ability to be a publisher -- will sustain it for the long term.

How NOT to promote your webinar through banner ads or e-newsletters

2008-12-23T20:50:00.000-05:00

When you're trying to generate a lead through a webcast, make sure your initial offer isn't too intimidating. Many companies buy web ads or e-newsletter ads to directly promote a webcast, which I believe can be a big mistake that causes your campaign performance to take a hit.

Here at IndustryWeek, I get to see the click-through rates of many different types of advertising campaigns. And over the years, I've consistently seen the click-through rates for webcast-specific ad campaigns getting worse and worse -- to the point where they're now lagging far behind other non-webcast ads. So for the typical non-webcast campaign from XYZ Company, where they might see a click-through rate of 0.8% (just making up numbers here), the click-through rate falls to 0.2% or 0.3% when they run a campaign promoting a webcast. This is a pretty consistent occurrence across most campaigns.

I think these results are due to the time commitment involved. Asking a brand new prospect to give up an hour of their time to attend a webcast is a large commitment to communicate in a small ad, and that's why the ads often generate such a weak click-through rate and response.

For a campaign of this type, I'd recommend trying a different approach. Develop an intermediate offer to promote in the web ad or e-newsletter ad, then offer the webcast later. For example, offer a free research report within the ad. Once the prospect has clicked on your ad and responded to that low-commitment offer, then you can invite them to your webcast.

Your ad click-through-rates will increase dramatically. And while adding an intermediate step into the process sounds counter-intuitive, with this tactic you should see an increase in overall registrations -- because you're bringing more people into the first stage of the marketing funnel.