Brand Central Station

Besides when you’re at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, of course.

The answer is when you’re trying to drag your business (or your client) into the realm of social media and/or online marketing (no, they’re not exactly the same thing – but that’s a topic for another post at another time). 

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It’s the perpetual marketing question: “How do we know what we’re doing makes a difference?”  And it’s a question that’s only answered by the most ambigious phrase known to man …

“It depends.”

The inability to quantitatively answer the question and all it’s related derivations (e.g. “How do we know it will work?  What is going to work best? etc.) is the underlying cause for the continuous contraction and expansion of in-house marketing departments.  It’s also the driving force behind job changes for marketing people (average tenure is less than two years), the tendency for clients to look for new agencies every three years and the high dissatisfaction level with “Chief Marketing Officers” at major brands.

We live and work in an industry that is, by its very nature, creative and changing with the times.  As a result, it’s extremely hard to quantify.

And things that are hard to quantify are hard to measure.

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Web 2.0 marketing appeals on a number of levels to charities and non-profits.  It can be inexpensive.  It’s trendy.  It can appear to be very democratic – allowing all with an opinion to chime in on issues they feel are important.

The truth is, however, that what makes the social web such an intriguing tool for charities and non-profits faces many of the same obstacles those charities and non-profits faced in their pre-technology days.  Enthusiasm for a new medium can overcome some of those barriers initially; but in the long run, it’s the institutional thinking and long-established traditions and taboos that can doom a non-profit’s attempt to join the social web.

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There’s a tug-of-war going on between traditional marketers and those who consider themselves on the vanguard of the social web. This post by Mitch Joel, about the end of THE BIG IDEA, is indicative of this battle.

Some consider it “old school” to pitch THE BIG IDEA to a client when, in the age of the Internet, the individual is the thing and success is only, really attainable through the successful implementation of a succession of smaller, more highly targeted and customer-reponsive ideas. Big ideas are a thing of the past and should be relegated to Mad Men (or Bewitched, I suppose). It’s all about the small ideas that can make a difference.

On the PR side we see the same thing happening. Big media, newswires, mass audiences are breaking down (either as part of their own strategy or by circumstance) into smaller, more focused publications, distribution channels that often bypass reporters and editors and go straight to the people who have the need to know. It’s the triumph of small over big.

Or so it might seem.

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Blackhawk Content announced the debut of their live-action, web-based sitcom series on the www.petcentric.com web site yesterday.  The site, supporting Nestle Purina’s PetCare division, is a content-rich environment for people who are crazy about their pets.

So, it makes sense that content for pet-crazy people should be fun and entertaining, right?

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I’m not sure why clients never understood this … but when it comes to getting the best out of their ad agency or PR firm for the least amount of money, clients turn from being “marketing partners” into “general contractors from hell.”

I an’t tell you how many times I’ve received RFP’s from clients that read more like a purchase order for gravel than a request for our best thinking on a tough marketing assignment.  I’ve always wanted to respond: “Thanks for the bid request – we have a sale on four-color ads this week but we’re a little short on brochure ideas, can we arrange for a two-for-one swap?”

Now comes a study commissioned by Jones & Bonevac that reports at least 30% of marketing agency staff time is ineffective or wasted due to poor communications from their clients.

See, it was just as we suspected … it’s all the clients’ fault.

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James Hobday, CEO of pr2go, said that after talking to more than 500 UK-based business people, more than three out of four of them didn’t understand what PR is.

In an article that appeared on SocialMedia Today, Hobday said: “We’re not talking your average man in the street here, we’re talking marketing managers and directors of large businesses with multiple regional sites needing localised PR.” 

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One of the great things about online marketing is the ability to breakdown results to the most “granular” level.  It sounds great – but the biggest problem with all of the great measurement technology is that most marketers are still operating with a pre-online marketing set of expectations.  As a result, the assumptions they make about the impact their online marketing program will have can be way off.

Gary Stein, writing for ClickZ, outlined the five biggest mistakes people make when it comes to their social media campaigns.  I’ll summarize them here, but strongly recommend you read the whole article.

Gary points out that success in the world of social media requires more than just showing up.  The assumptions they bring into the new media marketplace can lead to some disappointing (and sometimes non-existant) results.  Gary’s list of big mistakes:

1. Don’t assume your fans/followers will see a post.  An occassional post from you will get lost in the wash of other tweets, status updates, notes, shared content and more.
2. Be careful not to double-count people as fans or followers.  Some of the folks who follow you on Twitter may also be a connected to you via LinkedIn.  But they’re still just one person – don’t count them as two.
3. Driving traffic to your site via Twitter, Facebook, et al requires more than just dropping in links on your updates … COUNT THE CLICKS!
4. Pay attention to how your brand comes up in search on social networks.  Tools like SocialSeek are very helpful when it comes to doing this.
5. Don’t get caught up in how many followers or fans you have – focus on the folks who engage with your brand.

Gary sums it up this way:

The bottom line with social media measurement: we’re in some really early stages and there are plenty of bright lights to distract us. The biggest mistake of all, of course, is not to measure. With the effort you’re putting into social media, it’s like that famous bumper sticker: “If you’re not concerned, you’re not paying attention.”

Check out the entire article here.

Most businesses employ a direct marketing strategy of one type or another … but the success of a direct marketing program depends on more than just creative execution.  More than almost any marketing discipline, direct marketing is as scientific and statistics-driven as any.

That’s why knowing where to go for help is so important.

One of the Listservs I belong to posted this list of DM resources (special kudo’s to Andy Russell on the SmallShopNetwork Listserv (smallshopnetwork@yahoogroups.com).  Of course the list is incomplete, so any additions you can make to it is welcome.  Hopefully, you’ll find this list to be a useful resource in the future:

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Although my email Inbox is apparently the exception rather than the rule, ADOTAS reports that more than 20 percent of commercial, permissioned emails go undelivered – and most marketers don’t even realize it.

Yikes.  That’s bound to impact the response rate, isn’t it?

Read the whole story here.

Aaron Smith, writing for MediaPosts’s Email Insider, provided an interesting sumary of the most common misconceptions about email marketing.  Aaron is a founder and principal at Smith-Harmon, a design agency focused on email marketing.  (Visit the Smith-Harmon site.)

In these tough economic times, more and more businesses are turning to low-cost marketing tactics that offer potentially high rewards – tactics like email marketing.

The problem, as Aaron points out, is that this potential for a high return on the marketing investment can lead executives to make incorrect assumptions and uninformed business decisions that can have significant (and negative) consequences over time.

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The Apple iPhone has been a tremendous marketing success.  This week (today, in fact), Apple’s iTunes Apps Store just distributed its one billionth application for the iPhone.  This last quarter, Apple shipped over three and a half million iPhones.  Profits are up and things are looking good.

Well, except for that one misguided iPhone app debuting this week.  The “Baby Shaker” app.

“This application was deeply offensive and should not have been approved for distribution on the App Store,” said Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokesperson.  ”When we learned of this mistake, the app was removed immediately.  We sincerely apologize for this mistake and thank our customers for bringing this to our attention.”

Amid all great news, someone always seems to have to spoil the party, don’t they.

Fortunately, Apple not only did the right thing by removing the app, they promptly apologized and, more importantly, they acknowledged the role Apple customers had in making the recall possible.  Whatever the lingering lifespan this app is likely to have in the ether that is the Internet, it’s unlikely Apple will be tainted as a result. 

The Apple brand has its loyal advocates and acolytes.  They received the recognition they were do and, no doubt, see themselves as part of the Apple tribe responsible for keeping the brand pure as a result of this action and public recognition.  

All in all, it’s a great example of positive brand reinforcement with your key audiences.  Kudo’s to Apple.

And for those of you really interested in learning more about the state of Apple’s iPhone apps, I strongly suggest your read Nicholas Kolakowski’s story in eWeek.  Very interesting and informative.