Media Consumption In A Digital Age: It's One Big Experiment

In the past, there was a silver screen, a few broadcasters, and a lot of paper.  If you wanted to watch something, you sat in front of someone's television or a theater screen.  If you wanted to listen to music, it was on a stereo - home or portable.  If you wanted to read something, or take something with you, it was most likely printed on paper.  You were in your home, in a movie theater, picked up the mail, or you went to a store to purchase your entertainment.

A few large companies controlled the publishing and availability of the media you chose to consume.  Prices were pretty much the same everywhere you went.  Competition was non-existent.  That's the way it was.  Then this "thing" called the personal computer appeared.  Then the internet appeared.  Everything changed, and it still is.

Last year Time, Inc. hoped to take advantage of it's multiple consumption and distribution publishing model. Time Inc. was attempting to bundle "digital" media with a traditional print subscription under an "All Access" strategy - which would have eliminated print-only subscriptions in the process - and would have allowed Sports Illustrated to raise its price to $48 from $39. Sports Illustrated reversed course in January.  Said Steve Sachs, Executive VP of Consumer Marketing and Sales, "That price, we found, was higher than the market commanded.  Monica Ray, the Executive Vice President of Conde Nast, commented, "The whole industry has the opportunity to redefine what a subscription is."

What kind of subscriptions do consumers want?  Is a "subscription" model appropriate anymore?  How do I find out?  The only way you can find out is by collecting data.  Without data, you're making decisions in the dark, you are walking around blind.  Since the way consumers consume media is changing, we need to be collecting data and study how our customers are using our media products.  If we don't adapt, if we aren't willing to constantly evolve our model of media delivery, we will forever be stuck in our traditions, and more media institutions will perish.

There are no longer a few ways to consume media.  Now there are many publishers, many screens, and the vast majority of them are portable.  Oh ... there still is some paper too.  Because traditional publishing methods have changed drastically from decades of old, traditional media publishers are walking around blindfolded, feeling their way around a media consumption environment that they no longer control.  Today publishing in a digitally dominated ecosystem has become one big experiment, and understanding what will work for you is all about knowing your customer ... and that requires data.

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Using Online Communities to Create Brand Awareness - Part 2

This is Part 2 of my thoughts on Using Online Communities to Build Brand Awareness.  Last time I discussed how online communities help you build credibility and general awareness about your products and brand.  This time I want to discuss how online communities help you create SEO-aware content, and how they can help you build customer satisfaction.

Many marketing directors don't realize that as you are building awareness through your community posts, you are also creating SEO-aware content.  All posts and comments are index-able.  Search engines such as Google are able to look through and "store" your posts from an online community.  Because these posts are on a website other than your own, Google gives this content more weight, since it considers content about you on other websites more relevant.  As a result, your brand name and product information move up in ranking within relevant search results. 

Google also looks for links back to your website.  Make sure to put the address of your website in your signature.  This insures that your website's address is always displayed with every post, and that it is indexed as many times as possible when a search engine crawls the online community's site.

As you post more searchable content, it becomes easier for existing customers to find information that may help them solve problems.  Online communities are a great way to get involved in the first steps of basic customer service issues.  You can use the posts of others as an opportunity to acknowledge issues with your product.  You can also show your willingness via the public domain to serve the customer and create a positive brand experience.  However, remember that people tend to be more vocal on the internet, because it's a more anonymous experience.  You must always write posts that are calm, clear, and emotion free.  Use positive language, but never "beat around the bush" when a clear acknowledgement of a problem is best.

Remember that today being a part of online communities is necessary when marketing digitally, because it gives you a direct opportunity to build credibility, build awareness, create SEO-aware content, and address customer service issues.

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Using Online Communities To Create Brand Awareness - Part 1

We should always endeavor to connect with our customers.  Isn't that one of the great goals and mysteries of marketing and branding?  What is the best way to connect with our customers?  How should we convince them to purchase our products?  How can we spend AS LITTLE MONEY as possible doing this and still make a profit?

It seems that many small businesses, and even large ones, still have not discovered the online community "gold mine".  Being a part of online communities is necessary, because it gives you a direct opportunity to build credibility, build awareness, create SEO-aware content, and address customer service issues.

Online communities give you a direct way to connect with consumers and build credibility.  Online communities allow you to present yourself as a subject manner expert.  By answering consumer's questions and helping them solve their problems in a friendly, non-pressured manner, you present yourself as a credible and knowledgeable, even though you are somewhat biased towards your product as a solution.  With a good attitude, and a friendly, clear writing style, you can present your product and brand as the wise solution to their needs.

As you are helping community members meet their needs, you are constantly building awareness.  Your participation helps to show others their potential need for your product.  Also, your participation helps to inform others of the existence of your product who may not have known about you.  Online communities also provide you with a great opportunity to receive feedback about your product.  If you are an advertiser in that community, you can also build awareness by posting news releases about new models and product updates.

Next time we will discuss using online communities to create more SEO-aware content and help create positive brand experiences via customer service.

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What Are You Doing To Create Awareness Today?

Did you do anything to market yourself today other than think about it?

Marketing doesn't happen by itself.  You have to do it.

People don't find out about you on their own.  They won't bring up Google and search for you unless they have a reason to do so.

So what are you doing today to create awareness?

If you need a jump start, here are some ideas that might be relevant to your customers:

1. Offer A Discount
Sometimes the easiest way to drive traffic to your website, or to retailer locations, is to offer a discount or a coupon.  However, remember that spending money can be an incredibly emotional thing.  The right price, or discount, can drive a person to spend money "easily" without any thought.  5%-10% off might not be the ticket.  Don't be afraid to explore 20%, even 30-40% off.  If you're concerned about your margins, make it a limited or exclusive offer to a select group of customers.  Once they are in the door, they tend to buy more.

2. Hold A Product Demo Event
People love to research products, and price-shop online.  But at the end of the day, a consumer that touches the product, tries it, and likes it, usually ends up buying it.  Consider putting on a demo event in a location that contains your primary customer demographic.

3. Ask For Product Testimonials Via Social Media
Social media makes it very easy to connect with your customers.  It can be a customer service haven and nightmare.  One of my favorite uses of social media is testimonials.  It's as easy as this:  Ask users of your product to submit positive experiences of your product: video is preferred, text and pictures are great as well.  Incentives are a must.  Offer discounts off of new product, or free accessories to those consumers whose testimonial you choose to post.  Post one a week for 13 weeks - the length of a typical television or radio ad buy.

4. Participate In Online Communities
This fourth option can take the most work, but it can reap some of the largest gains for building your brand's credibility.  It's as simple as joining relevant forums and blogs.  Put your name and company in your signature.  Make it clear who you are.  Offer advice and sensible solutions.  However, you cannot blatantly advertise your product in your posts.  It's best to offer sound advice that may or may not include any of your specific products.  Over time you will see a few benefits:
- Community members will see you as an expert
- Community members will begin to explore your website and your product
- All of your posts will be indexed by search engines (like Google) and it will increase the amount of searchable, relevant content about you online.

It's a good idea to put one of your best PR reps or customer service representatives in charge of online community participation.  Your Social Media Director is a great fit as well.  You can take this a step further by becoming an advertiser in that online community.  This allows you to blatantly post about your product and any specials you may be offering.

These four things are simple, yet highly effective ways to increase Brand Awareness for little cost other than labor and time.  If appropriate, and if used in a focused manner, they are a great way to connect with current and future customers, and can provide a great ROI for a little marketing budget expenditure.

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Organic Thinking

As we begin the new year, we often reflect on the past.  We think about our good and bad habits.  We think about what we loved, what we regretted, and what we want to change.  We sometimes spend a lot of time thinking, and very little time doing.  Maybe it's time to change the way we think, which in turn, may help us to "do" more effectively.

Have you ever thought about thinking organically?

Organic thinking is less organized and less structured.  Similar to brainstorming, organic thinking allows your thoughts and ideas to appear freely, without immediate evaluation or consideration.  Simply put, when you are organically thinking, you are allowing one thought to lead to another, and another, and another. Why would you want to do this?  Why would you effectively allow your brain to think without "thinking"?

The first reason is it makes it easier for you to be creative.  When you think organically, you don't constrain yourself with constant self-evaluation.  You don't hold back.  You suggest ideas as they come.  As with brainstorming, you must make sure you document everything that pours out of your brain.  Once you do that, then it is the appropriate time to evaluate and critique.

By holding back your critique until after an organic thinking session, you make it safer for you and your team to put any and all ideas out there, no matter how outlandish or "stupid" one might be.  What you will often find is a couple of golden nuggets of suggestions, solutions or paths that no one person on their own may have come up with if they are scared to be judged by someone else.  Often a combination of ideas will lead to a better solution.

The next time you have a problem to solve or a product to pitch, allowing yourself to think organically will give you and your team more freedom to explore any and all possible ideas.  You will also find that as a whole, you will be more creative as well.

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Another Ad Network = More Fragmentation

On Wednesday Yahoo released it's "Living Ad", interactive video ad format for advertisers.  This new ad format works within an ad network, that is centered around Yahoo's Livestand publication app.  Livestand, along with it's ad network, enters an already saturated ad "market" occupied by the likes of Flipboard, Zite, AOL's Editions, and Pulse.  Yahoo is pushing advertisting packages to buyers, some of which are said to run upwards of $500,000.

According to Yahoo, Livestand features a magazine-style layout.  It will launch with some content from third-party publications.  Those publishers will share their ad revenue with Yahoo.  The details of these revenue sharing arrangements are not yet known. These publishers can also re-sell ad packages on the plarform.  I can only deduce that Yahoo get's a cut of that revenue as well. Diane McGarvey at Scientific American, which is offering some content on the Livestand, states Yahoo will keep about 70 percent of revenue on ads sold to appear inline with Scientific American content.
Living Ad, along with Livestand, is one of many initiatives to attempting to make Yahoo a relevant player in mobile advertising.  Mobile advertising is projected to net around $1 billion this year in the U.S. and up to $1.2 billion in 2012, according to eMarketer. Yahoo is positioning itself to receive as large a portion of this pie of revenue as possible.

The mobile ad space is already over-saturated.  Frankly, none of the ad formats and networks bring anything new to the table.  Nothing currently compells a consumer to do anything after viewing these ads compared with any other form of advertising medium.  We don't need another ad network.  We don't need another "method" to get an ad to a consumer.  What we need is a new type of ad, a new way to interact with a product, that might actually compel a consumer to buy.

Advertisers, and content networks, need to bring new ideas to the table.  The internet and mobile phone networks bring whole new possibilities to advertising via interactive ads.  An interactive ad would allow a consumer to configure products, explore them, walk around them, try a focused "demo" of it.  After they have played with it, or configured it to their hearts content, they could be connected with a vendor to purchase that product within a few clicks.  This gives the consumer a quick way to satisfy their emotional desire to buy the product.

However, most online ads don't do anything other than present a picture, an animation, a call to action phrase, and link to a normal website.  There's no point to showing a traditional ad online or on a smart phone if there's nothing new about it's experience.  None.

Yahoo's Living Ad is trying to do this.  However, most advertisers don't seem to know how to create an ad "experience" that really compels consumer interest.  We need to stop telling

If advertisting is going to survive, and make money, the "ad" as we know it needs to evolve along with the technology available to deliver it.  With the growing popularity of mobile devices that are connected to mobile data networks, there is a new opportunity to truly try something new.  Who is going to lead the way?

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Traditional...Non-Traditional...

Traditional...Non-Traditional.

Traditional...Non-Traditional.

Aren't these terms just labels meant to edify the decision a CMO or Director of Marketing has made where to make their media buys or marketing plans?  One goes the "proven" path, another goes down the "modern" road.

Last time I checked, we don't hire Chief Traditional Marketing Officers or Director of Non-Traditional Marketing-er's.... (pardon my poor grammar and spelling here).  At least we shouldn't.

A CMO or Director of Marketing is in charge of steering a company's MARKETING efforts.  The goal of this marketing is to find your customer, communicate your message, and convince them to give you their money.  Sometimes the most effective messaging medium is a 30 second spot on broadcast television networks.  Sometimes it's a 3 minute video on YouTube that is meant to go viral and attract consumers to a Facebook campaign.  Regardless of the medium, it's all marketing.  And it's only worth doing if it is reaching your customers and convincing them to buy.

Stop labeling your marketing ... and just market.

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