Brand Central Station

(from TheList Online’s Sales Intelligence Solutions Newsletter)
by Jen Luna

As marketers and sales people, we all know that companies now employ increasingly sophisticated means to avoid receiving “Spam”. And, since spam has come to dominate email on the Internet, it’s no wonder.

Internet historians believe that the first spam email was sent on May 1st, 1978, by a DEC marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States. The general reaction was one of annoyance, and it hasn’t abated since. In 2001, only 5% of email on the Net was spam. By 2003 this figure had risen to 50%. Then, by 2004 it was 70%. By 2007, almost 90% of business email was characterized as “Spam”.

One line of defense is to buy your email marketing lists from providers who understand the nuances of spam blocking. One low-tech way that companies use to dodge your email is to frequently alter and/or use multiple syntaxes in email address construction. For example, Jamie.Bloomquist@thelistinc.com is an email syntax that suggests that everyone at The List Inc. has an email address consisting of Firstname.Lastname@thelistinc.com.

But that’s not always – or even often – the case. A study of several thousand major brands in The List Online database, determines that major brands frequently change, mix and multiply the syntaxes of their employee email address, in an effort to stay a few steps ahead of spammers.

For example, in a study by The List Online, it was determined that Proctor & Gamble uses 5 distinctly different email syntaxes. Coca Cola currently uses 7 different formats. Microsoft Corporation also uses 7 different syntaxes. General Motors uses three.  These syntaxes can also vary based on job functionality; for example brand managers will differ from marketing directors who will differ with CMO’s.

What does this mean to you? First, it means that deliverable email is getting increasingly difficult to count on as a marketing vehicle. CAN-SPAM Compliance has limited marketers’ options dramatically. Add to that the increasing proclivity for companies to utilize multiple syntaxes and formats and it means that accuracy in sourcing your email lists is essential.

With B2B opt-in email address lists going for $1 per record to as high as $7 per record, depending on the broker, it’s essential that you ask your list broker about multiple syntaxes and address construction formats. If they don’t know, chances are the email list is both filled with junk addresses and violates CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. You don’t want to spend that kind of money on a list that is both in violation of the Law, and, grossly inaccurate. Make sure you know how often your broker verifies email address lists both for syntax and CAN SPAM.

Visit the Sales Intelligence Solutions website

Posted:  June, 15, 2010

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By: Andrew Eisner, Retrevo.com’s Director of Community and Content

Everyone is talking about the mobile Internet and how more and more consumers are browsing and using lots of apps anywhere they and their mobile phones happen to be. Are cell phone owners also becoming more comfortable buying things with their phones? If not, what would make them more likely to shop with their phones? This Retrevo Pulse Study looked at consumers and mobile commerce and found many willing shoppers ready to make purchases with their phones.

Consumers Are Warming to Mobile Commerce
In February of 2010, a Retrevo Pulse studyfound almost 10% of the respondents indicating they had purchased something with their cell phones. Four months later, with a different sample, that number had doubled to 20%. The bad news is that a little less than half the respondents have never purchased anything with their phone and have no plans to do so in the future. The better news is the 27% that haven’t bought anything yet but indicate they will in the future. That leaves about 20% who purchased something through their phone.

Apps Make Shopping Easier
Apps make everything so much easier and more fun, and that includes shopping. Retrevo found that nearly 42% of those who have shopped with their phones said they have used apps to make purchases. When we looked at gender and smartphone owners we weren’t surprised to see male mobile shoppers outnumbering females and iPhone owners leading the pack.

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Chicago (June 14, 2010)—Recent research from Mintel suggests that Hispanic women feel underrepresented in the beauty and personal care aisle. Over half of survey respondents said they would like to see more personal care products designed just for them and 64% would like more hair care products created specifically for Latinas.

“It can be a very daunting task for companies to hone in on the specific needs of their Hispanic customers,” says Leylha Ahuile, senior multicultural analyst at Mintel. “Latinas come in a variety of shades, so a wide range of products must be developed to cater to every pigment and hair type.”

Hispanic women are especially concerned with the box or bottle their favorite products come in. Eighty-one percent of Latinas surveyed report that they would like to see more personal care products with bilingual packaging. Younger Hispanic women are more inclined to express a desire for bilingual packaging than their older counterparts.

“Hispanic consumers often look at bilingual packaging as a way of being acknowledged and respected by a brand, not because they are unable to read English,” notes Leylha Ahuile. “The lack of Spanish-language packaging has the potential to make these women feel ignored by manufacturers.”

Latina women are younger than the average US female population, and 62% of the Hispanic female population has yet to enter their peak earning years (35+). As a result, Mintel believes Latina purchasing power is definitely on the rise.

Please join Leylha Ahuile for a FREE webinar on June 16 at 2 pm CDT as she presents, “Marketing to Today’s Latina.”

Register here: http://tinyurl.com/26ood6p

About Mintel
Mintel is a leading global supplier of consumer, product and media intelligence. For more than 38 years, Mintel has provided insight into key worldwide trends, offering exclusive data and analysis that directly impacts client success. With offices in Chicago, New York, London, Sydney, Shanghai and Tokyo, Mintel has forged a unique reputation as a world-renowned business brand. For more information on Mintel, please visit www.mintel.com. Follow Mintel on Twitter:http://twitter.com/mintelnews

by Mike Bawden
President & CEO; Brand Central Station

There was a recent article that appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer about Procter & Gamble and the financial impact it appears their re-focused charitable efforts are having on the company. (Read it here)

This story caught my eye for two reasons: First, only P&G could pull off a global good-will effort like this. And it’s interesting to read about the groundwork they are laying for a variety of their consumer brands in emerging and developing markets. In addition to the awareness and market-building efforts, P&G’s philanthropic program also enhances the value of the company in the eyes of shareholders who are becoming focused on results beyond the bottom line when evaluating their equity holdings.

But the second reason this article was of interest is that it was sent to me by a client.

This is a company not of hundreds of thousands of employees and billions of dollars in sales but of just over one hundred employees and sales that are, shall we say, significantly less than anything in P&G’s portfolio. Yet we’ve managed to work with this client and establish a national connection to a leading health association (The American Diabetes Association) and put together a corporate social responsibility program that will achieve the same kind of awareness and market-building objectives P&G is striving for on a global scale.

For many marketers, whether they’re inside an agency, working from home or cloistered away in a marketing department somewhere, the marketing strategies and actions of the mega-brands (P&G, Pepsi, AB/Interbev, etc.) can all seem out of reach. The fact is, though, their not … and marketers who don’t seem to understand that are destined to live out their professional lives doing more of the same and wondering why they’re not getting better results than they did the year before.

I’ve written about corporate social responsibility programs before. They’re interesting to put together and, done right, can not only have an impact on your company or brand’s growth; they can re-energize your employee base and help build long-term equity in your brand’s value. That can mean better margins on the sale of products to retailers or consumers and, just as important, it can mean better multiples if you decide to sell your business to an investor group or acquiring company.

Doing the right thing, the right way can be a tremendous benefit to your company.

More on this at another time.

Methodology Presented at La Londe Conference in Service Management Shows Service Indicators Can Predict Customer Potential

(from BIGResearch)
COLUMBUS, OH — (MARKET WIRE) – 6/1/2010 – A paper presented last Friday at the La Londe Conference in Service Management in La Londe les Maures, France demonstrates a new, non-invasive approach to behavioral targeting. This methodology developed by Professors Don Schultz and Martin Block (both of the Medill School at Northwestern University), using BIGreseach® Simultaneous Media Usage® Survey data, avoids online privacy issues by using services people subscribe to to predict purchase behaviors. The presentation demonstrated how this method can improve the predictability of purchase behaviors 20-70%.

The approach re-frames the whole question of behavioral targeting. Consumers often aren’t aware of electronic tags and “cookies” and such tactics can often be perceived as invasions of privacy. This research concludes that non-invasive service indicators – information consumers willingly provide via a survey – can be used to enhance existing behavioral targeting approaches at minimal cost.

“Relating service indicators to consumer purchases bridges the gap between services people use and the products people buy,” said Professor Don Schultz of Northwestern. “The example developed in the paper is only the tip of the iceberg and holds great promise for low cost, non-invasive predictability.”

Key Points – “Expanding the Success of Behavioral Targeting with Service Resource Availability”:

• Online behavioral targeting today is focused primarily on using “cookies” attached to web-based consumer searches. From these tags algorithms, are developed to estimate customer potential and then are used to deliver targeted advertising messages.
• The current system is generally based on a limited linear predictive model to generate results.
• This paper provides a methodology that extends and expands beyond tagging methodology to other, non-direct contact product categories.
• It demonstrates how adding commonly available consumer service indicators can be used to effectively increase the predictability of frequent and non-frequent purchases.
• In addition to avoiding privacy issues found in the current system, this methodology demonstrates the value of additional customer services resources as a method of improving general marketing capabilities.

Read the full complimentary paper: http://info.bigresearch.com

About BIGresearch®
BIGresearch is a consumer intelligence firm providing analysis of behavior in areas of products and services, retail, financial services, automotive and media. BIGresearch conducts the monthly Consumer Intentions and Actions®) of 8,000+ respondents and the semi-annual Simultaneous Media Usage® Survey (SIMM®) of 15,000+ respondents.

Vancouver-based Vitrium Systems announced the launch of a new, online service that allows marketers to embed a registration form into PDF’s. The new system, dubbed PDFSalesLeads, allows marketers to take advantage of the portability of electronic sales literature while providing an interactive form inside the document that will allow the reader to provide the contact information required to carry the sales process to the next step.

During a sneak peak of the new service, Vitrium’s Manager of Marketing and Communications, Randa Codron, explained how PDFSalesLeads provided a solution to the dilema of making prospects register to download PDF’s online or giving digital documents away without any idea of who’s reading them. “PDFSalesLeads allows users to complete their registration information inside the PDF while they are engaged with the content,” she explained. “You can set the form up to appear on any specific page, so the reader has a chance to decide whether the information your providing is something they want more information about.”

Furthermore, the technology stays with the document, so PDF’s that are passed from one user to another also pass along the interactive registration form. All registrations are collected in real time back at the PDFSalesLeads web site and can be integrated into SalesForce.com.

View an online demo.

This is a handy break-through for small and mid-sized marketers who want to expand their reach via the Internet but can’t spend a lot of wasted time sorting through irrelevant leads or trying to follow up on bogus registration information. At just $49 per month, the service is affordable.

The possibilities of this technology appear to go beyond simple registration. During our conference call, I asked if there were plans for creating other interactive forms that could be imbedded into PDF’s. While Randa couldn’t be specific, it does sound like PDFSalesLeads may be just the first of a number of utilitarian products to roll out of Vitrium’s R&D team.

We’ll be watching for more developments from Vancouver in the future.

It’s not “greenwashing” per se - but more than a few people are skeptical of catalog and direct mailers when they say they’re concerned about the environment and want to cut the wasted circulation out of their marketing efforts.

As far as I’m concerned, if they save a little “green” (money) and a few trees in the process, I’m all for it.

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Nobody ever likes to think about what they’ll do when things go wrong.  As corporate marketers, a big piece of your job is to make sure things go right.  So, what are you doing to make sure a crisis doesn’t permanently derail your company?

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Editor’s Note: This is the first guest post by a contributing writer to the Brand Central Station Blog.  Mary Ann Johnson is a member of Team Position2, experts in search and social media marketing and sent us this post on behalf of the team.  You can learn more about Position2 by visiting their web site.

by Team Position2

Social Media Monitoring has become a hot topic of discussion over recent times. A brand makes or breaks its name by its users.

With the huge outbreak in the online media and platforms like, blogs, forums, microblogs and different types of social networking sites people have an effective place to express their opinions and influence others. In the online world people own the brand. Social Media Monitoring is to keep track of all the conversations happening in the online world.

Social Media Monitoring is all about figuring on what the objectives are, listening, refining the talks, analyzing and taking action.

Social Media Monitoring and analysis can be used by a brand to improve a product, get feedbacks, customer service, market research or any marketing and communication.

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Jack Bastide, a Twitter tweeter extraordinaire, has just released a new blog that covers all things Twitter.  It’s very helpful – especially to a Twitter-newbie like me.  And this blog post and intro video helps get you started:

I highly recommend checking out this blog if you’re trying to figure out Twitter and micro-blogging in general.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

My business partner and I are working to save a client from his current web site.  The site he has now looks okay.  It should.  It was designed by an award-winning, graphic designer who knows a lot about designing attractive brochures, annual reports and the like. But she doesn’t know Jack about designing a web site.

Or should I say Jakob. 

Jakob Nielsen, that is.  For those of you who don’t recognize the name, Jakob Nielsen is the “guru” of web page usability as a concept in the design and management of web sites.  And while I’m not a big fan of the look of his web site on the subject, it does put his theories into practice in a clear and obvious way.  Which is, I suppose, the point of web usability in the first place.

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