Moving Targets: Somebody Follow Me, Please?
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During the last decade of covering behavioral targeting online I have seen piles and piles of data mined from peoples' digital travels. The digital universe has helped surface countless audience affinities and statistical correlations that many of us never suspected. But there are some consumer behaviors that require no sophisticated data queries or cookie-dropping. They are as obvious as they are, alas, under-utilized. To wit: walk through the aisles of any grocery, big box, apparel or media retailer and count how many people are on their cell phones. Amazing, isn't it?
China’s Zero-Interest Credit Card Conundrum
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According to the recent “China Credit Card Market Outlook to 2013” report, China, with its huge population base and new-found economic superpower status, offers massive potential to the credit card industry. The total number of cards in circulation is forecast to grow a robust 25% in 2010–2011, and the gross value of domestic credit card use value grew by 69.9% in 2009 thanks to nearly 2,000,000,000 individual transactions. 27.9% of all 2009 domestic consumer goods sales were conducted using credit cards.
Email Campaign Management: Three Rules of Engagement
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While many email marketers focus solely on issues of deliverability, sophisticated companies know they need to understand the customer to bring their promotions to the next level. With Internet search providers cracking down on bulk mailers and the need for CAN-SPAM compliance, relevant and engaging messaging are necessary to drive results.
Here are three rules for email marketing engagement to drive consistent profit when targeting a prospect over the lifetime of that relationship.
Why Isn't Back-to-School a Subscription?
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The annual back-to-school shopping season is nearly over, and this year we've witnessed major retailers throw at it bundles, up-sells, bulk discounts, co-branded promotions, free shipping, buzz agents and every other conceivable sales trick. And yet it's hard not to think that they've completely missed the boat.
How to Adapt to the Ultra Managed Inbox
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It's never been a question of knowledge, really. Email marketers have always known what to do to create amazing customer experiences. We know we need to segment, customize content, personalize the experience, and pull back on generic promotions. The reason why most email marketing doesn't do those things and resembles broadcasts more than dialogs is that we just never put our full effort into it. Pressure was low because the channel is inexpensive and broadcasts to the file earned plenty of short-term revenue.
IKEA Turns Consumer Behavior into Viral Marketing
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Have you ever played hide-and-seek at IKEA? I have, though not intentionally. The stores are set up in these funky little mazes that make it very easy to lose a husband or a child while shopping, so it’s no wonder that people have taken to playing the game there on purpose. This week, the idea rose to new heights when a person in Australia set up a Facebook event announcing a “massive” game at their local store. Since then, almost 4,000 people have signed up and the news has gone viral.
How to Integrate Mobile Into All Your Campaigns
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As mobile continues to emerge as an increasingly important marketing channel, marketers are facing a new set of challenges and opportunities in the struggle to find the most effective means for engaging consumers on their mobile phones.
8 Marketing Blunders to Avoid
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While the world economy has been bouncing back of late, we are all more than aware that the recovery is fragile -- and so are many of digital's companies, small and large. Thus, it's more important than ever for us to be smarter and learn from our own mistakes, as well as the mistakes of those around us.
The beauty of digital is that there have been so many initiatives in this fragmented arena that history's lessons come fast and furious. And yet, it's human nature to assume that our individual situations are somehow unique. We are, of course, wrong.
Marketers' Constitution Tenet #3
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The third tenet of the Marketers' Constitution states, "Marketing must become more effective -- more creative, insightful and accountable." Marketing as a whole encompasses a wide range of activities geared to address and inform the consumer and provide a return on that marketing investment. However, business leaders are challenged to measure the impact of their marketing strategies. A successful plan involves the implementation of three pillars which serve as the basis for marketing effectiveness:
An Effective Lead-Nurturing Program in 3 Steps
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B2B marketers are constantly being asked to generate more leads. But is it enough just to collect the leads when prospects complete a form on your website and then pass them over to sales? Probably not, as studies show that sales departments don't follow up on almost 80 percent of marketing leads.
The solution? Develop a lead-nurture email series to gather more information about your prospects. You can then analyze the responses to help you identify the "sales-ready" leads.
The Evolution of the Email Service Provider
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When email emerged as a key marketing channel in the late 1990s, marketers’ needs were pretty basic: acquire email addresses and send out one message to everyone. “Batch and blast” wasn’t a bad term—it was the only term. Since then email marketing has matured to the point where companies need more-sophisticated solutions to meet their communication needs. As those needs increase and transcend offline and online channels, service providers, too, are evolving.
10 Email Commandments
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To optimize email marketing, you need to stand out from the loud, growing and frequent crowd and take concerted action to get attention for your brand and your message.
1. Start with the end. What do you want the recipients of your email to feel, think or do? If this is a one-off effort it will need to work differently than if its part of a newsletter, club or continuity program. Clarity on the front end will make measurement and analysis much easier on the back end.
Segmentation Clarifies Direct Marketer's Data
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All of us in the direct response industry talk about the importance of gaining further understanding of our client's customer. And today, frankly, we're all in direct response in one way or another. So we employ the use of syndicated data to reveal demographics of the category, we ask our clients for studies against their own customers and we even conduct surveys ourselves in order to gain additional insight. What we are often missing in this exploration is capitalizing on our client's own database and improving our understanding of the complexity of a target through segmentation.
Social: The Next Frontier of Behavioral Targeting?
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This year has never been bigger for social media. Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Twitter obtains over 300,000 new users a day, and YouTube exceeds 2 billion views per day. Devices designed to support social media, from Droids to iPads, are selling out before they hit the market. Even old standby brands like Old Spice are finding a new home in social media.
Is This the End of Behavioral Targeting?
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As the saga continues between advertisers and the Federal Trade Commission regarding giving consumers the opportunity to opt out of behaviorally targeted advertising, one thing is for sure: the advertising will not stop, nor will the targeting. Behavioral targeting, while based on consumers’ past behaviors, is hardly the main digital gateway to consumer data.
