Portrait ads make it easier for brands to tell those stories. The oversized, three-module units create rich-media canvases for brands to share HD video, audio, images, social media and other interactive elements. Many leading publishers are successfully creating native opportunities for advertisers by incorporating their own site content into one of the modules. The adjacency of premium publisher content to the advertiser’s own content is mutually beneficial and creates an effective, engaging ad unit that feels as if it’s part of the website. While the publisher content within the unit does not truly constitute an editorial endorsement of the advertiser’s product, it does serve to instill the consumer with a sense of trust for the brand advertised.

We know that the Portrait ad works, particularly for luxury brands. While the IAB’s Rising Stars are slower to catch on than the industry hoped, they are steadily gaining traction. As viewability issues and low engagement rates with banners and other less dynamic formats continue to frustrate publishers and advertisers, the Rising Stars become more and more appealing. However, one issue that’s hindering broader adoption is cost. Portrait ads definitely cost more to produce than banners and buttons, and they cost more to place, as well. The oversized units take more space on the page and tend to only appear on premium publishers sites. That means advertising with Rising Stars is going to require a much more significant investment than a typical media buy.

However, there’s a change emerging in the marketplace. Since the Rising Stars are IAB Standard ad units, they can be sold programmatically. With that in mind, there is no reason why these ads couldn’t be sold via networks and exchanges.  And that is what is beginning to happen: Forward-thinking companies that see the potential for this kind of premium marketplace are joining together to make it a reality.

This is good news for luxury brands, which have historically shied away from programmatic buying.  A premium programmatic exchange will allow brands to invest in rich media advertising at scale, while addressing many of the concerns that previously kept them at bay. Exchanges of this nature are invitation-only, so only inventory from the most exclusive publishers will be available. That can allay most concerns around brand safety and fraud. Leading technology partners would ensure data-driven targeting and analytics, so advertisers can ensure that they’re reaching the right audience and engaging them, and then optimize as necessary. And use of the Rising Stars in these exchanges supports viewability, since the ad units were designed with this metric in mind.

Shenan Reed, founder of Morpheus Media, was recently quoted in an article by Skip Brand in MediaPost.  She referenced a recent study by Undertone Networks that revealed that awareness of the IAB Rising Stars was shockingly low. “If less than a third of brand marketers in the online advertising industry don’t know what these units are, it just means we’ve continued to force ourselves into mediocrity,” she said. “Helping build industry awareness and move the industry forward by doing away with banner blindness through use of the Rising Star units -- that makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

I feel the same way. Rising Stars are a powerful vehicle for brand advertisers, particularly in the luxury space. They represent a tremendous opportunity for brands to tell their story in an eloquent and impactful way. An introduction of premium exchanges will allow brand advertisers to begin to do this at scale, reaching larger, targeted audiences with brilliant rich media ads. It’s a shift in the right direction for the industry, and if we really want to see more brands advertising online, it’s an effort we should all get behind. Then we’ll all be doing something right.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemmingway
The concept of buyer personas, as a means for understanding buyers, has been around now for over a decade.  It is an understatement to say many things have changed in the world of buying and selling since their beginning.

We have witnessed the changing dynamics of the buyer-seller relationship. The dynamics I refer to are buying behaviors and buyer goals.  On the other side of the coin, we see marketing and sales making attempts to adapt.  The concepts of content marketing, lead nurturing, insight-based selling, customer experience, and brand management emphasized.  These practices have been introduced as gateways to connecting with buyers in the new digital age.

Adapting to New Realities

Personas, at their core, were introduced as a tool to communicate the goals and behaviors of users and buyers.  Specifically for informing strategies related to product design and marketing to buyers.  For B2B Marketing and Sales, a clearer picture has begun to emerge around the goals and behaviors of buyers.  Yet, there are many more miles to go.  My endeavor and work with organizations over the past decade lead me to this conclusion:

Personas, specifically in B2B, need to be adaptive to new goals and behaviors of buyers throughout their buyer’s journey.  In addition, personas need to be designed for the new practices, which are developing in marketing and sales.

The term buyer persona has been used universally to an extreme level. The term worked well when buyers relied on sales for their buying cycle for upwards to eighty percent.  We are seeing the inverse today.  Here is where I believe buyer trends as well as qualitative evidence is telling us to go:

B2B personas need to be researched, understood, and designed to meet robust goals and behaviors of buyers throughout the end-to-end buying cycle and brand experience.  In addition, personas need to be designed to enable as well as make more effective new practices, functions, and roles.

Persona Buying Cycle™

As new operational models for marketing and sales develop, there are 5 buying behavior phases of the buying cycle personas must now address:

1. Audience Behavior: the concept of content marketing reaching audiences is more prevalent.  Audience goals and behaviors are distinctly different when not in the market for products or services.  Yet, awareness, insight, and intelligence are an important component of connecting with existing customers and future buyers today.  Content marketing effectiveness is enabled when it can reach many different types of audiences.  Audience personas must now include the likes of industry influences and more.
2. Lead Behavior: one of the fastest growing areas, in terms of emerging practices, is the rise in lead nurturing and lead development.  Buyers have distinct goals and behaviors when they convert from being a part of a wider audience to an interested party.   New forms of lead research and lead personas can create more effective conversions from an interested party to an active buyer.
3. Buyer Behavior: the core persona when buyers have become actually engaged in the process of buying.  Buying behaviors, and buying goals, operate on a different level when buyers are actively engaged in the buying process.  Buyer personas, true their original intent, are designed to enable the buying process between buyer and seller.
4. Customer Behavior: when a buyer becomes a customer, there is a trial period underway.  This trial period consists of a different set of goals and behaviors meaningful to confirmation and customer experience.  Specific customer personas can enable understanding and capabilities to meet customer goals post-sale.  Implementation and customer support teams can benefit immensely from personas designed specifically for their roles.
5. Brand Behavior: brand management is emerging out of the shadows, as a competency B2B companies have to get right today.  Fulfilling the brand promise consistently is one of the hardest jobs of marketing and an organization as a whole.  Customers and buyers have different goals, behaviors, and beliefs, which surround brands.  The goal here is to convert customer personas into brand persona advocates.

A recommendation for forward-thinking marketing and sales leaders is to begin thinking in terms of the Persona Buying Cycle™ versus a singular focus on a buyer persona.  One certainty is the buyer’s journey not only begins before buyers think of themselves as a buyer, but also extends beyond the purchase.  Having a common visual and story of how buyer’s goals and behaviors change throughout the buying cycle is compelling.   We are also seeing activities, functions, and roles widen in marketing and sales in response to changing buying behaviors.  The Persona Buying Cycle™ is a natural extension to address both of these developments.

Positive Outcomes

Creating B2B personas through the lenses of a Persona Buying Cycle™ help bring these positive outcomes:

• • Make personas relevant throughout the major touchpoints of the end-to-end buyer’s journey
  • Make personas more practical to each functional team interacting with audiences, buyers, and customers
  • Make demand generation, lead generation, opportunity management, and customer experience more effective
  • Provide a common communications platform for understanding buyers
  • Foster alignment between marketing and sales by mapping to specific buyer goals and behaviors

In a dozen years, we have seen the then straightforward buyer-seller dynamics become more complex.  How B2B views the use of personas, from a pragmatic standpoint, now must adapt.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• The Art of Buying

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle (tonyzambito.com)

The quest to uncover how and why people and businesses engage in the act of buying is becoming an endurance race.  Spurred on by increasing social technologies advances.  The result is many organizations, whether academia or business, have focused on the science of buying.  What we may be losing is critical understanding of the art of buying.

What we are witnessing in the new digital age is the old rules of near total dependency on understanding processes and rules associated with buying is no longer the sole winning ticket.  Buying processes and rules have been dissected and analyzed many times over throughout the past few decades.  We clung to the belief of knowing the how will lead us to systematic knowledge of how to close more business with buyers.   The problem marketing and selling organizations face today is the how – processes and rules – are not as easily defined or structured as in the past.  Social technologies have made it possible for new networks and collaboration amongst buyers – causing plenty of flex in processes and rules.

The Why of Buying

If the science of buying has focused on the how of buying, the art of buying is a heightened quest for understanding the Why of Buying™.  The focus on how businesses buy in B2B marketing and sales has led to many different spin offs of stages, processes, cycles, and funnel shapes.  These exercises do have value.  However, here is a way of looking at what is missing:

A pure focus on process and stages, for example, creates a focus on what buyers are doing rather than what they are thinking and why it is important.

My point of view goes something like this:

Despite all the hype and efforts made in demand generation and content marketing, organizations are still struggling in these areas.  This is due to campaigns and programs designed to fit into established ideas of how businesses buy.  We have even believed automating processes to fit into our view of how we believe buyers buy will speed up purchase cycles.  This is happening at the expense of innovating marketing and sales to get at the core why of buying.

In the recent B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey 2012 sponsored by Eloqua, CMO, and Software Advice, I was struck by how 45 to 60% of the 155 marketer respondents believed demand generation performance were below expectations.  Those using marketing automation believing performances were better than those not using marketing automation.   In recent CMI as well as eConsultancy surveys, 40 to 50% of marketers surveyed believed their content marketing efforts were not effective.

Effectiveness a Continuing Struggle

Effectiveness and performance continue to be ongoing issues when it comes to demand generation and content marketing.  While organizations may be getting more productive and efficient at automating processes related to demand generation and content marketing, the missing link is an understanding of why buyers behave, think, and decide as they do.  How buyers behave, think, and decide do not always fit squarely into boxes we have defined to go with processes, rules, or stages.

To become more effective at helping buyers, marketing and sales organizations will need to do this:

Put more investment and energy into understanding the why of buying as opposed to an over abundance on the science of marketing and sales.  We cannot understand how to help buyers unless we are grounded in knowing the why.

Competitive advantage will be determined by knowledge of the motivations, beliefs, thinking, perceptions, goals, behaviors, and responses on the part of buyers.  Marketing today must fulfill the role of understanding how buyers behave and think.   Sales must become the enablers of buyers helping themselves.

The Stories of Buyers

The art of buying is represented through the stories of buyers.  For every industry, there are compelling stories about buyers, which can be told.  It is through these stories we can learn the motivations and goals of buyers, which open the door to understand the why of buying.  For marketing and sales, the key to future success will be in understanding what stories are unfolding, why these stories are important, and how to become part of stories. To mold this key, it will take more art than science to achieve.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Follow @tonyzambito

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• 4 Buyer Trends That Will Shake Marketing in 2013

• The Art of Buying (tonyzambito.com)

In the pre-digital days there really wasn’t a need for brands to produce more than the ads that went on traditional media. Now they need to produce an almost constant stream of fresh content to keep up with digital channels and social media. For most companies it’s a pretty tall order because making content is a completely different business from what they know. And it gets even harder when so much of the content that they now need is video.

Since cheap bandwidth has made high-quality video so easy to get, people want more and more of it. Projections have video representing over 85% of all Internet traffic in a couple of years. So brands need to make lots of videos. The problem, of course, is not just the quantity, but how does a brand make videos that are good enough to stand out? While cameras and equipment are cheap and easy to get, creativity and know-how are still in short supply. Of course, what makes a video good is in the eye of the beholder, but most of us know bad video when we see it, and the last thing any brand needs is to be spreading bad videos.

So the challenge is for companies to put in place the capability to produce lots of “good” videos, consistently over time. The problem is that because the budgets are much smaller, it’s not like producing TV commercials, which brands have a lot of experience with. According to the 4A’s, the average cost to make a TV spot is over $300,000 -- but for video content, that may be your entire budget for the year.

The big question is -- do you try and do it in-house or hire pros? While you may need a lot of videos, you may not need enough to justify the large expense of hiring a full-time team. So another approach is to hire an in-house video producer whose job it is to put together freelance teams for each production. This is not a creative person, but a video project manager, and you still need to be doing enough work to justify a full-time person.

For most brands the answer is to hire pros. The advantage, of course, is the wide range of talent and capabilities you can access. The problem is how to keep the costs down. Most agencies focus on developing the creative, and then hire a production company for the execution. As a result, the costs mount quickly. Some TV production companies do creative, but their focus is really on the production and they are rarely able to develop the creative or the strategy for the video, which is critical. So that leaves companies and agencies that specialize in video content for digital channels.

The ideal is to have digital content strategy, plus creative, plus production under one roof. A company that can do all of that -- and that is set up to produce a lot of video content over time, cost-effectively -- has found the perfect solution. Of course, the videos still have to be good in the eye of the beholder, which to start with would be you.

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Marketers have started to tackle their social media needs, similar to how they have historically approached every other marketing tactic - by isolating and siloing their strategic parameters, success metrics, and analytics. We’ve seen this time and time again. This is how marketers dealt with banner advertising in the ‘90s, SEM and email in the early ‘00s, and mobile and in-game advertising in the late ‘00s. Over a decade later and the same mistakes are being made. Next it will be real-time-bidding and then most likely video; especially as digital convergence really takes form and everything (i.e. TV, radio, print, etc.) is technically “digital”. Agencies and media providers are always ready to reposition themselves based on the flavor of the month. Social is the new black. Or is it the new pink? Most trends are just that – “trendy”.

Don’t get me wrong, social marketing is extremely important. In fact, it is too important to think you can just silo it out and hire a specialized social media agency to manage it on your company’s behalf. The most successful marketers are not experts in analog media, digital media, social media, search marketing, or real-time-bidding; they are efficient in communication and understanding how to serve people’s needs. Once you understand what your audience/customers’ needs are and their communication requirements, you can determine the most effective channels and tactics to satisfy those needs - just like establishing any human relationship.

I realize most marketing disciplines these days require specialists to deploy and manage specific tactics. However, we must not confuse strategy with execution. You must have an integrated communication strategy that puts your customers and target prospects at the core. Through the communication planning process you should determine how much social marketing support is required and how it should be managed. Additionally, we should stop referring to social as a tactic and think of it more as the fabric that weaves throughout your entire marketing program. There’s no such thing as a social media campaign. You don’t make friends with someone and then decide to abruptly end that friendship because he/she had plans on the same night you wanted to go out.

A strong relationship is cultivated over time and this means you need to be willing to allocate the necessary resources to building those high value relationships and plan on managing them indefinitely. The only way to assure this can be done is by centralizing your customer relationship management internally. Yes, social is a component of CRM. Only now, it is a multi-dimensional dialogue and your refer-a-friend programs have exponential potential. Those that are positioning themselves as “social media experts” are less concerned about the long term value of the relationships between you and your customers, and really trying to capitalize on the ignorance that exists in the marketplace to, once again, provide false value – kind of like that “friend” who is always there to console you during a really bad time. They appear to be genuine, but we all know there is an ulterior motive which is driven by taking advantage of your vulnerability.

Be less concerned about the new, bright, shiny objects and focus on better understanding your audience and customers. The more you learn about what people want, the better you can serve their needs. Marketing channels and tactics are just the delivery mechanisms to serving those needs. With all that being said, I do recommend partnering with those that are proficient at managing the execution of each tactic. Many tactics are extremely labor-intensive and require a deep understanding of the market and the various technology platforms used to effectively manage these programs. However, when it comes to building your strategy, focus on the communication needs of your audience, then determine the channels and tactics that will help facilitate how you address those needs.

Remember this, there is no such thing as a category called “social media”. All media is social. It always has been and always will be. Only now, you can actually see what people are saying behind your back. You just need to determine what value you can contribute to the conversation – more importantly, make sure it is a reciprocal dialogue. Leave your “push, push” mentality back in the 20th century. And if you plan on playing in the social sandbox, make sure you are welcoming, respectful, appreciative, and provide value. Treat those the way you would like to be treated.

Sometimes I think marketers forget what it means to be human. In the words of Robert Fulghum, “all you really need to know, you learned in kindergarten”. Play fair. Share everything. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Don’t hit people. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Clean up your own mess. Now, stop your wining and go make some friends!

We all know SEO has changed dramatically over the years and will continue to change. The way we market, sell, deliver and report on SEO services has not kept pace and needs to catch up. If you ask marketers today what SEO is about they will likely still say things like, "ranking #1 in Google" and unfortunately this is what they are looking for in the SEO sales and service delivery process. (Read: SEO Buying & Selling Tricks that Create Unachievable SEO Results & Expectations)

We know SEO is an on-going, long-term process. More specifically, it is the process of continually discovering highly converting, non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions. It’s about understanding search intent and how keywords used to describe your products and services evolve as a prospect progresses through the buying cycle. It is then about having insight into great data and taking action by including those optimized keywords in your content marketing plan.

This SEO process cannot begin and end in a particular project phase or be completed after just one month of keyword research. It is now a four-step process that requires an SEO culture change, which includes:

• Selling the concept of discovering and optimizing for highly converting keywords
• Discovering non-branded keywords driving traffic and conversions
• Delivering additional SEO services to capitalize on highly converting keywords
• Reporting on the evolution of highly converting keywords and content

Step #1: Sell the Concept

The first place to introduce the concept of discovering and optimizing for highly converting keywords is in your marketing and sales conversations. Many SEO prospects and clients still want to buy the promise of a #1 search position for their keywords. This goal is difficult to obtain and maintain and sets unachievable expectations for you and your client.

Instead, avoid the urge to agree upon a list of keywords with your client that your team is going to "optimize for" - that list of 10, 20, or 30 keywords that your team will go away and "do SEO for." We call this list of keywords the Keyword Gap. Every client will have a list of keywords they think they want to rank for when in reality there’s a more highly converting keyword list that will perform better. That’s what the second step, Discovery, is all about.

You can do some initial keyword discovery in the sales process to demonstrate the Keyword Gap. Show the prospect some data for two keywords, for example:

Which one is the better performing keyword:

• Keyword #1 (condominiums for sale in Richmond) in Position #4 for a particular page with 20 visits and 10 conversions?
• Keyword #2 (condos in Richmond) in Position #3 for a different page with 3 visits and 1 conversion?

Based on the topic of this article, the quick answer is, Keyword #1 in Position #4 (condominiums for sale in Richmond) is a better performing keyword. An alternative answer is: more keyword discovery is required to understand if there are opportunities to optimize the web page that Keyword #2 is positioned for. Or maybe Keyword #1 is one of those highly converting keywords that should be included in all content marketing efforts.

Take away: Build time into your sales proposal and SEO program for on-going discovery to uncover those highly converting keywords prospects are using at different stages of the buying cycle. Base decisions on great SEO data from a variety of sources including SERPs, organic traffic, and conversion data. Always be on the lookout for new opportunities to optimize.

Step #2: The Discovery Process

The discovery process for new non-branded keywords should be practiced as frequently as possible. Uncover the new, non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions and determine whether there is an opportunity to further optimize the web presence for these keywords. The success of this process depends on setting up goals and conversions in your analytics system. One of my favorite sayings about SEO is, "don’t bother even starting the SEO process unless you have website analytics goals and conversions configured."

Goals and conversions in your analytics system do not have to be complicated. Start with simple conversions and as you learn about your web presence increase the sophistication. Think about what you want your website visitors to do. What would you consider a successful visit? Here are a few examples of metrics to measure successful visits (conversions) from organic search:

Time spent on site - If a visitor has stayed on the site for a certain number of minutes (3+) and the bounce rate is low, then perhaps it can be concluded that the visitor read the content. The content was appealing to them.

Number of pages visited - If the visitor reviews two or more pages, then perhaps it can be concluded that they were intrigued with the content enough to read further.

Main product or services page to contact sales page - If the main purpose of the site is to promote the organization’s main product, did the visitor review the product page, then the pricing page then the contact sales page?

Take away: Below is the process for uncovering highly converting keywords.

1. Set up goals and conversions in analytics.
2. As frequently as possible, look for the top non-branded keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions.
3. Understand the rank position for the keyword and which page or pages are ranking.
4. Understand the search volume for the keyword (both broad match and exact match).
5. Analyze the ranking pages and look for opportunities to optimize for the keyword in question.
6. Implement changes and watch for changes in position, traffic from organic search, and most importantly conversions. If there are positive changes, create some additional content that includes the keyword and again watch for changes.
7. Report newly identified, non-branded keywords and progress to the client.

Step #3: Deliver Additional SEO Services to Capitalize on Highly Converting Keywords

Once a new non-branded keyword is discovered and reported to the client, discuss the keyword opportunity and the plan for capitalizing on it.

• What was the entry page for that keyword?
• Where in the buying cycle is that keyword likely to be used?
• What kind of content can be created and distributed to further support that keyword and the prospect as they demonstrate their intent to find content?
• Is it worth further investment in SEO?

At this point, there is an opportunity to upsell the client on additional service hours to optimize and create content for the newly discovered and agreed upon keywords. It is also the point where the keyword should be included in the full content marketing strategy and further planning done on the type of content prospects require at this particular stage in the buying cycle. Perhaps it’s a focused case study, with supporting blog content, video, whitepaper or a combination. Think about the distribution points for the content and the possible backlinks and social signals that can be created for the keyword.

Take away: Set aside time each month to discuss newly discovered keywords with the client.

Step #4: Report on the Evolution of Highly Converting Keywords & Content

The approach of identifying and focusing on highly converting keywords then incorporating those keywords into the full content marketing strategy requires a different level of reporting compared to the basic monthly SEO reporting of number of backlinks, number of keywords on Page 1, etc.

Including keyword visits and conversions data alongside position data is a great first step to getting the client thinking about the difference between ranking #1 for any keyword versus ranking for the keywords prospects actually value and associate with your organization.

Once the keyword is incorporated into the full content marketing strategy the reporting requirements should shift to be focused on the performance of the particular piece of content or the content marketing campaign. This is where the disciplines of SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing begin to completely collide. (Read: 10 Reasons Why You Need an Optimized Content Strategy Now)

Take away: With the right tracking and metrics technologies the impact of content on a web presence for the purpose of organic search optimization can be reported, including:

• How the position has been affected for a particular cluster of keywords
• How many backlinks and social signals have been created
• How many keyword visits and conversions are associated with the content campaign
• And most importantly, how many sales are attributed to the content

Conclusion

Google’s algorithm updates have changed the practice of SEO. Search marketing firms have an opportunity to evolve their sales, delivery and reporting practices to differentiate themselves. Focusing on the discovery of highly converting keywords beginning with the sales and marketing conversations through delivery and reporting will produce stronger SEO results over the long term and happier SEO clients.

Just for grins, I decided to see who else was enamored enough with this concept to say something in the vlogosphere. It doesn’t take long to see that the Taco Bell corporation has its own video channel on YouTube, which is garnering more than 11 million total views, much of it devoted to the trending taco product. However, I started wondering to what extent that represents real mind-share for the brand, Taco Bell, among potential consumers versus the plethora of other video apps or platforms out there. For example, Twitter’s Vine is the number one video app download (number two overall Free), and according to Apple’s app shop, that’s close to 25 million users.

The other problem I noticed about Taco Bell’s YouTube-centric video strategy is that the icon link off the main digital brand property, www.tacobell.com, takes the visitor out of its controlled brand experience and back to the Taco Bell channel that is a subdomain to www.youtube.com. Also, if you search Google for “Taco Bell video” with the Video search button, the first page of returns is almost all postings to YouTube or third party media sites like ABC or CBS, nothing owned by the main TB corporate domain.

So, you’re the digital media guru for Taco Bell, you’re driving cross-synergies between your fast food retail store and your snack food brands, and you have at least 11 million consumers loyal enough to check out your video content on YouTube. What, then, should your video strategy be? Vine is a video-based social network designed to drive more traffic for Twitter. YouTube is a broadcasting platform designed to aggregate eyeballs for Google’s ad-server business model. What should be Taco Bell’s objective with video content? Help Google and Twitter make more money? Entertain? Merely maintain a presence in the Twitterverse? How about treating its customers as a media audience?

What that means is creating a branded video interface that is multi-screen capable (web, smartphone, tablet, TV, telepresence) which not only aggregates video content that can be repurposed, i.e., TV commercials, but also takes a concerted approach to producing compelling, original content that’s integrated with the customer experience. For example, if I’m a loyal viewer of TacoBell.tv, a branded media player that lives within the main corporate domain, www.tacobell, why can’t that content follow me all the way through my customer experience?

Why not equip Taco Bell retail stores with an iPad at every table, so that I can log into my video profile, which has the last 5 orders I made so it’s easy for me to reorder, or a full customizable item-by-item order-entry menu with original video content from the chefs who cooked up the recipe, along with other user reviews, adjacent to those menu orders? Once the order is taken, the interface would allow me to immediately upload a video comment that could either be for the benefit of internal Taco Bell customer advocacy, or if appropriate, posted to the Live User Comment channel on TacoBell.tv. Here’s an even crazier idea: how about a Secret Menu channel of celebrity favorites (ode to In/Out).

Another version of TacoBell.tv would be available as a smartphone app.  My TacoBell profile, using GPS and sensor-presence techniques, knows the exact store I’m entering, the last 5 meals I ordered, and can authenticate my profile, complete with my favorite video content, to the iPad embedded in the table I choose for dining.  I can also in real time open a Google hangout session with my cousin in Florida to see if he shares my same tastes in Taco Bell food and video content!  While you’re at it, why not reward me with a video coupon for a free desert or combo meal on my next visit?  Also, I probably wouldn’t mind if TacoBell.tv asked my permission to opt-in to other video offers personalized to my consumer persona. (The current TB app in the Apple app store gets only a two and one-half star rating, so it could benefit from a few more bells and whistles.)

Short message:  powerful consumer brands like Taco Bell must start thinking and acting like media companies – controlling their own brand experience with entertaining, pervasive video content and a compelling user experience across any consumption format or platform – and by so doing, converting their physical assets, like capital-intensive brick-and-mortar storefronts, into working digital capital!

In steps 1-3 of this series I discussed Creating a Plan, Content and Execution, and Analysis. Now, let’s focus on optimization. By definition, optimization is the process of making a design or system perfect. What is perfect? Well, perfection in terms of digital strategy is maximum effectiveness based on your key performance indicators, or KPIs. I suppose “maximum” and “perfection” are hard to quantify and may never be truly reachable, but the point is that you are continually striving to improve ROI. To throw out the jargon: you want to create better ads and content to achieve the most conversions for the smallest budget.

It’s important to remember that optimization is not a one time event. This process is ongoing and evolves with the successes and direction of your company. Successful optimization requires patience, constant attention and experimentation. It’s also necessary to stay in touch with trends and changes in your industry.

In a recent Legolas Media blog, they state that, “click performance isn’t always the best way to measure digital campaign success.” It’s easy to look at a growing number of clicks or impressions and feel victorious, but these may not only be the wrong metric, they could be hurting your brand. Remember, you are optimizing your campaigns to achieve your digital goals by tracking KPIs. If you feel like you’ve lost sight of them, maybe you should take a step back.

Optimizing Your Campaigns

Although I could break down each type of content, or different ad network, I will try to speak in a broader sense. Here are some questions to ask yourself when optimizing your campaigns and content:

Are your ads organized properly?

Most online ad platforms allow you to separate your ads into different ad groups based on topic, product, or service offering. If multiple topics, whether keywords or ads, are combined within a single ad group, your performance can suffer. Separate your ad groups by purpose or topic, and make sure to remove keywords or ads that are not performing well, which can hurt the overall ad group performance. You want to rank higher for a lower bid, so break experimental ads or new ideas out into new ad groups. It’s great to experiment, but don’t damage an ad group that has been performing well.

Are you engineering your content for better performance?

There are two parts to developing engaging content. The content must be informative, helpful and/or entertaining to your customers. You also need to make sure your content is engineered to reach the right audience. This begins with analyzing your title and keyword use and making sure it matches popular, low competition search queries. Tweaking a word or phrase can make a big difference when search optimizing your blog or video content.

Are you learning from past successes?

Once you find that a bit of content or an ad is successful, figure out why and use it as a template approach for the future. It’s simple, I know, but make sure you do it. Match high performing text/taglines with the strongest images and keywords. Eliminate tactics that don’t bring success in terms of your KPIs.

Are you looking at analytics and defining conversions?

To decide what campaigns and ads are performing the best, its not as simple as comparing dollars out to dollars in. There are many steps in between for a prospect before they are ready to buy. Knowing this, you’ll need to define conversions. Conversions are metrics you use to measure the value of a visitor and are often organized into a series of actions, or a conversion funnel. The difference between a visitor that looks at three pages and one that looks at four (and fulfills a conversion) could be the indicator that they are seriously interested and aren’t just browsing. If you work backwards from your conversions to the source, you’ll be able to see what ads and keywords are generating leads and which ones are attracting window shoppers that never become customers.

Are your landing pages working for you?

Improve messaging and targeting of your ads, and when visitors arrive on your landing pages, make sure the content and personality fits your ad. If your landing page doesn’t provide the correct information, or leaves customers with questions, your bounce rate is most likely high as well. Make sure your ad keywords match your landing page keywords, and keep the pages as streamlined as possible. Clutter loses conversions. Here is a helpful list of reasons why customers don’t convert on your website.

Are you improving PPC ad ROI?

We’re striving to get the most out of the smallest budget, no matter our specific goals. Maximizing investment is a universal goal for any business. To pay less for your PPC and display ads, you need to:

1) improve your relevance by making your ad and landing page more cohesive

2) remove keywords or ads with poor performance

3) keep up with trends and be willing to make changes often

Are you still focusing on KPIs?

Make sure you are still moving towards your original digital goals and basing your decisions on your KPIs. If you start tweaking and experimenting without a method to your madness, or without a control in your experiments, you probably need to get re-acquainted with your digital plan.

So now you are ready- courageous, confident and excited to launch your own digital strategy. Just remember to stay focused on your digital goals. Good luck!

I try to maintain day-to-day contact with my clients and encourage two-way interaction in terms of ideas, strategies and tactics. Keeping my clients up-to-date with the latest developments in the digital world, together with showing them what our strategies have achieved to date and how we intend to grow their businesses further, is a key part of my client relationship-building.

However, managing relationships with clients, usually marketing managers, communications managers and the like, is just part of what a good agency should be doing for its clients.

I recently wrote a post on the Coast Digital Blog, about how marketing teams can achieve greater buy-in and understanding from others within their business about what digital means to them.

If you’re a marketing manager/director within a large company and you work with a digital agency, why not get your agency to showcase your activity, results and innovations to key stakeholders within your organisation?

Giving others in your company the opportunity to ask questions, see the results for themselves and understand why digital is important can benefit you as a marketer by inspiring your business to take an active role in your marketing plans and to see exactly what it means to them.

If you’re one of the many marketers that have difficulties in answering the question ‘what does this all mean to me?’, then why not take a look at my 3 valuable tips that will help change the perception of digital marketing within your business and have a clearer understanding of why your digital strategy is important to the business as a whole.

I’d appreciate your feedback on my post and any other ideas you may have on how to convince non-marketers that digital is important to them.

1 year? 6 months? 3 months?  How low can you go?

Join us as a top HR Director, Recruiter, VP of Sales and Agency Group Director debate just how short a job stint can be before it affects your career in Digital Media.

The Dos and Don’ts of Entertaining

Take a walk on the wild side with some of the best-known sales professionals on the digital party circuit as they give their “rules of the game.” Sellers of both sexes give their tried and true mantras for thriving and surviving during a long night out entertaining. Do flirt, don’t sleep; Do sip, don’t gulp; talk shop only if “shop” means late night karaoke. This panel could get crazy! We certainly hope so...

Entitlement is a God Given Right!

Sure to be an eye-opening conversation with four Millennials in their first job out of school.  See what a day in the life of the industry’s future is like first-hand as they navigate lunch and learns, pivot tables, CPMs and beer pong.  Is life like a Girls episode?  We will see.

Crowd-sourcing the Next Company.ly

Ever wonder where the witty and uniquely spelled digital company names come from?  So do we! In a Digital Media Conference first we’re going to use the crowd to come up with a name for a new Social Analytics / Entertainment company being started by three ex-Googlers and Facebookers. Bring your puns and feel free to use the following ideas to prime the pump:  Uber-likes -- “Order more likes than your competition.” SoVidMo (MoVidSo?) – “What’s next in Social Mobile Video.”

Buzzword Bingo

Shhhhhh – Keep this one to yourself as we get three of the industry’s biggest gadflies to pontificate on “What’s Next for Digital Media” while everyone in attendance gets a bingo card with the buzzwords du jour, unbeknownst to the panelists. The first person who gets “BINGO” will win an iPhone 6 (preordered, of course). Transparency? Big Data? Ninja? Freemium?  Bring it.

Of course these are a little over the top, but every good satire starts with a kernel of truth (or something to that effect).  If this does nothing but get a programming director to drop something a little out of the ordinary into their next conference then it’s a win in my book.

Recently, I sat down with Paul Pellman, CEO of Adometry, and he shared some insights around this discussion. 

What is your take on how the data science revolution in advertising changes the role of intuition?

To start, creatives don’t have any reason to worry about their jobs. Quite the opposite, to be honest. At the end of the day, getting the right message to the right audience at the right time is still a bit like riding a bicycle with your hands tied behind your back. It’s possible, but it takes a ton of practice and no matter how many times you’re successful the next time is still going to be an adventure.

Like many innovations, the foremost impact of data science in the advertising industry is one of efficiency and economies of scale. The number of marketing channels keeps increasing, placing a growing burden on advertisers to understand where they can get the biggest impact for their finite resources (budgets and talent). To an extent, data — and more importantly, the insight derived from that data — allows advertisers to quantify intuition, either confirming hunches so that companies can feel more confident “doubling down” on marketing strategies or highlighting new opportunities.

Keep in mind these nascent technologies are just now reaching the mainstream, so there surely will be growing pains as advertisers learn to harness analytics and data-driven optimization recommendations as part of ongoing planning.

What are the key considerations for advertisers as they consider how to integrate data science into their strategies and campaigns for reaching target audiences?

Advertisers shouldn’t be afraid of the data or what it says. In our business, this typically manifests itself in the form of analysis paralysis, which I define as ‘inactivity due to fear of work required.’ Our attribution platform uses a number of variables and data sources to provide marketers with insights and observations about which of their media is most effectively driving conversions. Talented marketers play a critical role ensuring campaigns are appropriately targeted, but without good measurement data they are tackling only one part of the equation.

My advice to any organization serious about understanding the impact of all marketing efforts is to first do an honest assessment of what they can measure. Identifying the holes, or where the data is lacking depth, typically will lead you to the areas where investing in data science will have the greatest impact.

What’s on your data science and advertising reading list?

• Nate Silver’s book, “The Signal and the Noise”
• Harvard Business Review, “Advertising Analytics 2.0”
• McKinsey, “Measuring Marketing’s Worth”
• “On Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins
• “The Face of Big Data” by Rick Smolan
• Occam’s Razor column by Avinash Kaushik
• “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis
• “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott

To learn more about how data science is changing the role of intuition, watch presentations from the recent Advertising + Data Science Congress (ADS-CON).

In fact, the two have so much in common that there are many ways in which content marketers can take inspiration from this much-loved board game. Here are five to get you started...

1. It’s all about balance

Balance is vital in Scrabble. Experienced players will tell you that having a balanced rack of letters (ideally with four consonants and three vowels) is really important if they’re to land that all-elusive quadruple-word score.

It’s key in content marketing, too. Brands need to strike a balance between all sorts of things – stock and flow content, word-based and visual pieces, serious and light-hearted topics... In fact, it’s key to creating content that appeals to people at all stages of the buying cycle.

2. Strategy is a must

Serious Scrabble players often start forming a strategy in their minds as soon as their first word hits the board. They must consider three main things: space (across the board), distribution (how to use their letters) and content (the words that’ll gain them a high score).

Building a strong strategy is important for content marketers too; whose space comprises their publishing channels (social media, guest blogs, their own site etc.). Distributing the right content across the right platforms must also be considered, as should the quality/variety of the content itself. For example where an infographic might produce a return from one part of the target audience, an insightful whitepaper might work well for another part. In either case, the quality must be top notch.

3. Planning ahead can be beneficial

In content marketing, planning ahead can be highly beneficial – but allowing a little contingency is vital. Knowing what, when and where you’re going to publish content is really useful, as marketers can support their wider activities with thoughtful, valuable content. In Scrabble, planning ahead can help players make the best use of the space and their rack.

Leaving room to react to any unforeseen events (like a breaking news story, which can be news-jacked) is crucial too, as with Scrabble players – who have to learn how to react to their opponent filling a space they wanted to use, or receiving a difficult letter.

4. Having courage pays off

In in the worlds of both Scrabble and content marketing, courage is a priceless attribute. If a Scrabble player receives an X or a Q, for example, only the courageous will make it into an opportunity to bag a really high score –rather than a chance to panic.

If a content marketer receives a really controversial idea from the wider marketing or advertising team, one that could really pay off, courage will be vital in making them simply go for it. Not all risks are worth taking, admittedly, but some are and it’s down to bold content marketers to identify those which fall into the latter category.

5. Innovative thinking is key

Being able to out-smart competitors with innovative, unexpected moves is critical for both content marketers and Scrabble players – especially if they have been dealt something they didn't expect themselves. Being landed with a rack full of vowels is tough for any Scrabble enthusiast, but it’s all about thinking outside the box – or, in this case, the cookie tin (one of the few words that uses four vowels!)

Their content marketing counterparts must constantly produce innovative content that stands out from the rest, too; tackling areas others haven’t in the past. Otherwise, they’re just reinventing the wheel – and the world already has enough of those!

As another way of reducing inbox clutter, the email providers also try to filter out “unwanted email” from the person’s inbox. This can be quite subjective, and a perfect solution is yet to be devised, so the junk folder can be seen as where the email provider puts email is not entirely sure about. It’s got to be remembered that the email provider is trying to improve the user’s experience, even if it is at the cost of marketing emails not getting through.

So, how do they do it?

In a nutshell, it depends upon the email provider, but the following metrics are monitored when deciding on where to put the email.

Reputation

This is a combination of data from third parties and data that the email provider collects (all or some of the metrics below). This data is used to determine if a sender is more or less likely to be sending spam, either linked to the IP address of the sender, the domain, or both.

Volume

The higher the sent volume, the more you are likely to look like a spammer. Usually thresholds of volume are linked to Reputation, so a sender with good sending reputation can send a higher volume before going into junk than a sender with a poor reputation.

Speed of send

This is similar to the volume metric, in that good reputation allows you to send faster than a poor reputation. With some email providers, once the threshold is reached, the email is deferred for a time period (between 12 and 72 hours) and when the block is lifted, the threshold is further reduced.

Bounce rate

Good mailers have good list hygiene and will remove email addresses that permanently bounce, or who have not responded to an email in a long time period (usually between 12 to 24 months). Spammers don’t do that, the more bad data you send, the more like a spammer you look.

Complaint rate.

A sender that many people complain about, is more likely to go into the junk folder, than one that has few complaints.

Response rate.

Looks at how often people open and click your emails, emails that are actively opened and clicked by recipients, are more likely to go into the inbox.

User reclassification

As well as emails being sent to junk being a bad vote for your email campaigns, if your recipients start to move your emails from Junk into the inbox, this is seen as a positive vote by some email providers.

Black list

If you send old, inactive data, you will inevitably end up on a blacklist. This is because many of these blacklists, monitor old and inactive email addresses, that no longer solicit emails (Trap addresses). The more of these you hit, the more likely to go into junk you are.

Content filters

email providers have developed sophisticated pattern matching technology that scores your emails for either looking more or less like a spam email. For emails that look very much like spam templates, the email provider can build a “spam signature” which will allow them to pattern match and junk any template that matches the signature.

Why is the junking so inconsistent?

Depending on the email provider, these metrics either work on an individual’s mailbox, or act as a default for everyone’s mailbox that there is no firm setting for. So if an individual has added you to their safe senders list, they should generally get the email into the inbox (unless you are blocked). If the recipient has marked your emails as junk, they will go into the junk folder (if they get them at all). It is also possible for the default mailbox placement to change while the campaign is being sent, so it might start off in Junk, and then move to the inbox as the response data is processed by the email provider.

Generally an email will stay in whatever folder it is classified to initially, although some email providers are now able to change the folder classification, effectively moving emails from one folder to another based on the data they are monitoring.

How do I fix it?

As you might have noticed, most of these metrics are designed to identify mailers who don’t care what they send out, and don’t care who they send it to. The more wanted and welcome your emails are to your recipients, the more the data will reflect that.

Defining how to segment your data to achieve this is a large subject, but the overriding strategy should always to base your customer communication program on the customers themselves. Sending emails with content that people will find relevant , at a time when they will welcome them, should be the focus for any email marketing campaign. Only then will your email go where you want it to.

If you haven’t read Digital Strategy Step 1: Create A Plan, or Step 2: Content & Execution, you might want to start there. If analysis is your thing, keep reading.

The great thing about digital marketing is that you can track and analyze everything, even with a small budget. You can watch your impressions and clicks grow- you can even watch customers navigate your website in real time. As digital marketing tools, ad networks and web technologies develop, we’re seeing more effective and reliable metrics pop up. Cost per engagement (CPE), for example, only charges you when a web user interacts with your ad content. That’s actual interaction, where the user hovers or clicks to expand a rich media ad, say. CPE can be more cost-effective than cost per thousand impressions (CPM), because you know your customer is noticing and responding to your ad. Cost per click (CPC), also known as (PPC), is a highly popular action for charging the advertiser and is easy to track and analyze. There’s cost per action (CPA) and cost per lead (CPL) as well, but let’s stick to what’s popular for our discussions.

Before analyzing anything, you’re going to need to make sure to set up analytics so you’ll be able to track your campaigns and KPIs against your original digital goals. The most well known (and it’s free) analytics platform out there is Google Analytics, but there are other providers that offer deeper insights for ecommerce, cooler dashboards, and more info about your customers. Most of the major social networks have analytics built into their self-serve ad platforms, so this is a good place to start.

A mistake many marketers make is they get distracted by data and metrics that don’t apply to their true goals. It’s easy to spend a couple hundred (or thousand) of dollars a month increasing your fans with Facebook and Twitter ads, and that’s exciting, but is it satisfying your KPIs (key performance indicators)? Was increasing your fan base an initial goal, or are you just content to see your popularity rise? Also, it’s not always best to increase your spending. Instead, analyze and re-allocate to achieve your goals with the greatest impact, without wasting money on the ads and campaigns that aren’t performing well. We’ll talk more about this in Step 4: Optimizing.

Let’s create a scenario...Your primary goal is brand engagement on social networks, and secondly, converting more ecommerce sales on your website, you need to analyze data in terms of those goals.

Goal #1: Increase brand engagement on social networks

Let’s assume the channel you chose is Facebook, based on your customer demographics. You may be focusing on metrics such as “overall views” or “shares,” but that only tells you so much. Facebook also breaks out analytics by “organic,” “viral,” and “paid,” so you know what the source of the engagement is. If you are concentrating on maximum organic growth, you’ll want to focus on "organic" and "viral" views only. Facebook will allow you to pay for thousands of views when you promote a post, but are those paid views achieving the type of engagement you set out to accomplish with your original plan? This is for you to decide. I’m just laying out the many options you have. The point is, you need to pinpoint one or a few specific KPIs. If you are too general with your goals and metrics, you’ll never be able to measure precisely or optimize substantially. This separates the digital dabblers and the real pros. Let’s look at two promoted posts on Facebook.

Which one would you prefer? The second promoted post had 25,341 paid “views.” Looks pretty good right? But wait a minute. Your goal is brand engagement, and more specifically, organic and viral views. The paid views are not as valuable to you, and the second post was a much more expensive promotion to run. The first post was more cost effective, and was aligned with your digital goals. Even though the first post had a much lower overall reach, the organic and viral views (which we assume are more valuable because they are from trusted people closer to your network) were a much higher percentage of total reach. Viral views for the first post were actually much higher than the second ad. This means people saw your post through your friends- and that’s a trusted source.

Ok, maybe this is too much detail for a single case, but it’s important to realize the extensive data you have at your fingertips. It’s even more integral to sift through all of this data to decide what matters to you. Volume is wasteful if you’re not getting any true engagement out of that volume.

Goal #2: Converting more ecommerce sales on your website

Are you focused on increasing gross online sales, achieving more overall transactions or increasing the dollar amount per checkout? Is it more important to convert unique visitors into customers, or return visitors into return customers? Let’s decide on a specific digital goal, and the KPI that makes sense for measuring success.

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s say you are struggling to turn visitors into paid customers. Customers are reaching your site, clicking around and leaving without buying anything. We need to fix this. You want your KPI to be total sales volume per page view.

So now we know the problem we want to fix: visitors are coming to the site, browsing, but not shopping.

We know the overarching digital goal: converting more ecommerce sales on your website.

And we know our KPI: total sales volume per page view.

Now we need to analyze your methods for reaching this goal. In the campaign execution phase, let’s say you decided to run targeted, Google Listing Ads to reach customers searching for a specific product. You are paying Google for every click from your product ad to your ecommerce store. What we are hoping is that directing your customer to a detailed product page (based on their specific search) will result in a higher conversion rate per page view. This should guide the customer to the product they want in a direct fashion, while improving the overall shopping experience.

Now, your giraffe lamp is promoted on the first page of Google results when a potential customer searches for “giraffe lamps” in Google. He or she might shop around, but let’s say this person needs this lamp pronto for a niece's upcoming birthday, and if they like what they see, they’re not interested in shopping around.

Now you’ve acquired a customer after viewing only one product page. You are on your way to achieving your goal based on a specific KPI, total sales volume per page view.

But how do you know this campaign is working in the real world?
Analytics. We need to look at total sales volume per page view, broken out by channel (or referral site). Using the proper analytics platform, you are able to see reporting related to your KPI. Based on a month of advertising individual products on Google, you can see that your dollar sold per page viewed is now just under $2. Looking back at this metric before your campaign, you were sitting at $1.25. You’ve increased your sales volume 62.5% per page view. Good work.

You should realize now that your digital strategy is integrated and evolving.
It’s hard to talk about analytics without mentioning goals, KPIs and optimization. Although I’ve broken digital strategy into 4 steps, all 4 steps need to work together, sometimes concurrently. There is no beginning and end to your digital strategy, and you should always be striving to improve your campaigns and effectiveness. This takes structured analytics and a focus on the right metrics. Beyond all else, it only works with discipline and constant attention. This means optimization. Analytics are only valuable if you use the data to improve your ads and content on an ongoing basis.

Read Digital Strategy Step 4: Optimization.

The news will probably lead many brands to re-assess any slightly controversial advertising they have lined up, but that isn't the only thing they should consider - they also need to take into account any content marketing they have planned. After all, this really is a form of advertising; albeit subtle. Really, the question is this: is there a place for controversy in content marketing?

Talk about a grey area...

Really, it depends on a) the controversial topic in question and b) how it is handled. Yes, sex sells, but taking a controversial stance over anything - especially within branded content - is risky, so brands need to know how to take advantage of slightly dangerous topics without negatively impacting their reputation.

You should only be controversial if you're really sure that the risk will pay off. For example, if you fancy capitalising on a recent news story by writing a blog that reflects your brand's (perhaps scandalous) opinion on the matter, compare the potential benefits with the risks.

Yes, newsjacking could help you boost traffic, take advantage of Google's Query Deserves Freshness algorithm and heighten awareness of your brand. However if, in your haste to capitalise on the news, you get the facts wrong - or really rub your prospects up the wrong way - it could have a really negative impact on your reputation.

Make A/B testing your friend

If you aren't sure if the potential benefits outweigh the chance of disaster, embrace A/B testing before making any content public. For example, if you've made some great visual content that uses adult themes or language, set up a focus group for said testing. Split the group in two; present one half with the controversial content and the other with a less controversial prototype. You should be able to get a better grasp on the potential value of publishing your original idea from the responses.

Plus, take the time to learn from mistakes made by other brands or publishers. By taking these into account, you can - to a certain extent - judge what your brand can and cannot get away with.

Don't be scared of a little controversy

The important thing is not to rule out being a bit dangerous altogether. Taking a chance can get people talking about your brand (even more pertinent in this age of social media) and can elevate your traffic/rankings. Just be careful that you're handling any controversial content and its promotion with care. If you do the appropriate testing and steer clear of being scandalous for the sake of it, you should find your brand reaping all the benefits and none of the risk. Good luck!

2012 could be dubbed the ‘Year of the Recall’ for the auto industry with various automakers calling back more than 14 million cars in 12 months for inspections and repairs involving safety issues.  For perspective, nearly 14.5 million cars and light trucks were sold last year.  The number of cars sold versus those recalled was a near wash by year’s end.

And it was recently announced that Toyota plans to settle an estimated $1.3 billion in class action claims involving sudden, unintended acceleration first reported in 2009 in certain Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles.  The anticipated settlement would be the largest payout by any auto company, ever.

What’s interesting about 2012 is that in spite of widespread safety issues, auto shopper interest saw negligible impact.  In fact, year-end sales were 13 percent better than 2011 and the best we’ve seen in the past five years.

So, what’s going on here?

Maybe it’s a recovering economy or a testament to the loyalty of certain car shoppers who, despite all odds, remain steadfastly devoted to a particular brand. Or, perhaps it’s consumer indifference, which has adapted over time to safety issues that, in recent years, have become the norm rather than the exception.

More than any other factors, I believe the reasons automakers have fared well in the midst of seemingly insurmountable obstacles are twofold.  First, there have been drastic improvements in the way auto recalls are handled. In tandem, auto marketers have optimized digital to successfully speak to—and listen to—their customers in times of crisis.

Toyota in Crisis

In 2009, on the heels of a crash reportedly caused by sudden, unintended acceleration that claimed the lives of four people, additional reports began emerging of sudden acceleration problems in a number of Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

The automaker’s top-down management style was cited as the culprit for the fundamental curtness in which an ever-growing wave of consumer complaints was addressed.  Amid accusations of ignoring hundreds of complaints for almost 10 years prior and being rebuked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for “misleading” comments in a press release, Toyota was criticized for sitting on its hands by failing to effectively communicate with its customers along the way that there was indeed a problem it was making every effort to fix.

In a February 2010 Jumpstart Automotive Group Survey, 80 percent of respondents indicated they’d buy American on the heels of the Toyota crisis and 51 percent indicated the automaker’s safety issues had changed their perception of the brand, leading them to eliminate it as a consideration for their next vehicle purchase.

Turning to Social to Calm Concerns

That same month, Toyota realized the need for open lines of communication with its customers in the wake of public backlash and turned to Digg (with roughly 40 million monthly unique visitors at the time)  to offer up Jim Lentz, Toyota Motor Sales USA president, to answer questions voted on by fans in a video Digg Dialogg.

Around the time of the first Digg campaign, the automaker also launched “Toyota Conversations” on TweetMeme to aggregate top stories being tweeted about Toyota.  It took to YouTube to post an apology by Lentz explaining the sticking accelerator pedal situation in recalled Toyota vehicles while assuring customers its dealers had already begun repairs on floor mat issues from an earlier recall.

Toyota’s better late than never PR and social media campaign proved effective, bottoming out negative consumer opinions about the brand.  Industry analysts praised Toyota’s proactive social media approach, crediting it in part to helping lessen the recall blow.

Toyota in Fast Forward: A New Approach

This past October, the automaker announced a recall of 7.4 million vehicles worldwide—the largest number of units in Toyota’s 75-year history as well as the auto industry’s single largest recall since 1996—due to a faulty power window switch that could melt and potentially catch fire.  One month later, it announced another recall involving 2.8 million vehicles due to a steering glitch.

Not only were the latest Toyota call backs mass and swift, digital communications efforts were candid and clear.  Malfunctioning components and potential hazards were outlined, and the repair process was described in detail.

Recently, Jumpstart gauged the behaviors of approximately 19 million monthly car shoppers across our network of 14 automotive websites in the weeks following the October and November recalls.  Our analysis revealed that interest in Toyota cars and trucks was virtually unaffected.

During the four-week period following news of the 7.4 million vehicle recall (from October 10 to November 10), shopper interest in Toyota cars and trucks across Jumpstart's suite of websites remained relatively strong with a meager 0.4 percent decline in share at an average of 9.0 percent compared to the first 10 months of 2012.

Following November 14, when it was announced that 2.8 million vehicles were being recalled, Toyota's shopper interest held relatively steady at a tiny 0.1 percent decline over the prior two weeks.

Sales data indicates consumers are embracing the brand in record numbers, with 9.7 million Toyota vehicles sold in 2012—its biggest sales year ever. Granted, Toyota customers are fiercely loyal in general, but the manner in which Toyota handled its latest mass recalls proved much more effective in mitigating negative opinions.

Digital marketers have access to the most powerful communications channels available today.  Never before have we had the capability of real-time, two-way dialogue—an immediate and reciprocal communications stream enabling us to allay concerns, answer questions, address problems and tap into the opinions of the people who matter most—our customers.

Using these channels to 1) acknowledge problems clearly and quickly 2) explain solutions to problems and distribute messages broadly and 3) address consumer concerns in real time is always the best approach when mitigating a crisis.

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group, an innovative marketing solutions provider for automotive advertisers.

Now that you have read Digital Strategy Step 1: Create A Plan, it’s time for some action. You have identified your digital goals, key performance indicators (KPIs) and hopefully have a sense of what tools and platforms you will be using to reach your target customers.

Let’s start with keyword research. If you haven’t done so already, use a tool like Wordtracker to look at some of your top industry keywords. These tools will show you estimates of search volume for these popular keywords and suggestions for other useful keywords and phrases to consider that you probably hadn’t thought of. You’d be surprised what your customers actually search for when looking for your products or services. Keep in mind, they aren’t as experienced as you are in the terminology of your particular business, so it’s often not what you’d expect. When you engineer your content and advertising to match these popular search terms, in essence, you’re just thinking like your customer. You are placing yourself where they will find you, on their terms (literally).

Before we go any further, I need to tell you something important. If you are doubting your website in terms of usability, call to action, design hierarchy and overall content quality, you might want to consider optimizing it first. You can spend a lot of time and money designing pretty ads and developing strategic content, but if the final destination frustrates or scares visitors away, what’s the point of all the work?

The next step is deciding exactly what your content and campaigns will look like. This will be a mix between content strategy and advertising campaign creative. Your campaign copy, text-based ads, banners, blog content, and even the selection and placement of your ads and content must be driven by your target customer(s). Ask yourself, what will grab their attention? What will they respond to? What advice do they need? Remember, your content and ads should be built around them, not you. Start jotting down some simple, common sense themes. Think about recurring questions you get from customers and answer them.

Your content should not only grab their attention, but it should inform, persuade, entertain, or be a combination. A successful digital strategy keeps an open dialogue and a connection to your customers after the first interaction, and doesn’t end in a click through and a bounce from your website. There is no value in a new website visitor if they never come back.

Now is your opportunity to get creative and try new things. When you build out your online ad campaigns, make sure to create many variations of your ads. It’s important to test your ideas. You never know when a single word variation can dramatically increase the performance of an ad. So do it! Design an ad that is edgy, one that is more conservative, one that is short and sweet, another that is primarily visual, one that is abstract, etc. Start with as many different techniques as possible, without straying away from your brand guidelines. Test a different call to action in each variation of an ad, swap out images, or switch the order or hierarchy of your wording. You will be able to add, delete, and optimize later, so don’t worry if you think some ads don’t perform well. This is expected. Some platforms will even automate this process by pausing ads that perform poorly, while keeping the successful ads running.

Ready to start brainstorming? Here are some good tips for copywriting from Apple, one of the best over the last 10 years at being persuasive and simple at the same time with their ads. Or, if you want to start with creating some content, use some of your top keywords to develop concepts around them. Keep in mind, these concepts are not what you want. These are the topics that will teach, engage and resonate with your customers. Don’t forget to focus your content around the KPIs you’ve established. Keep your original digital goals and KPIs top of mind at all times to ensure that you stay disciplined.

Now that you have chosen platforms and initiatives, it’s time to execute. Start with a video on YouTube, post a blog or white paper to your website, or create an infographic and share it through social networks. Then, it’s all about analyzing and optimizing your budget and performance to reach your goals. Read Digital Strategy Step 3: Analysis

As the name implies, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined network of people via an open call. To be effective, the network must be large. While a business can outsource the final result to the crowd, it’s important to remember that crowdsourcing isn’t the same as outsourcing. There are still significant resources that must be applied to produce the open call, generate interest, evaluate submissions, and announce winners.

Predictions for this year’s crowdsourced campaigns: The Old G in Super Bowl crowdsourcing, Doritos, is back again, and the brand is joined by Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Lincoln, Audi, and newbie, Dunder Mifflin.

Doritos: this crowdsourcing pioneer is revisiting its “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign for the sixth year in a row. It’s become a familiar favorite, but the audience’s appetite for a repeat next year will hinge on the quality of the winning submission. In this case, Doritos has thoroughly handed its brand over to its consumers, and the Super Bowl ad is the ultimate trust fall.

Pepsi: The use of user-submitted images during the half-time show with Beyonce teeters on the line of user-submitted content and true crowdsourcing. It’s an easy campaign to participate in, and the timing of its release is predictable enough that audience members will stay tuned in. It doesn’t exactly break any new ground, but it’s simple and fun.

Coca-Cola: The “Mirage” spots follow three different teams as they pursue a mirage of a Coke bottle in a hot desert. Coca-Cola has a massive social following, so even “weak” response will deliver enough content to make the spots effective. The drama of the race may be overshadowed by the excitement of the game.

Pizza Hut: The call to action for this campaign is simple: Submit videos that use the phrase, “hut hut hut” – it’s a terrific tie in to the game, and easy to participate in. Pizza Hut will show 18 clips as part of a campaign to take maximum advantage of “the big game.”

Lincoln: This brand is shaking up their stodgy image by airing humorous dramatizations of tweets regarding wacky road trips taken in a Lincoln. There will be enough elements of surprise that we expect viewers to stay tuned. This could be an important step in Lincoln’s efforts to reenergize their brand.

Audi: Audi kept the campaign simple and the risk low by allowing fans to vote on three different ads, with the ultimate choice being aired during the game. The stakes are so much lower than even the Doritos campaign, that it will be tough for the crowdsourcing gamble to pay off in any measurable way.

Dunder Mifflin: This paper company, named after the fictional paper company on “The Office” is going to garner curiosity simply by the odd nature of their brand. Dunder Mifflin has actually partnered with a crowdsourcing platform, Tongal, to create the spot, which will air in Scranton. This one is weird enough that people will likely be talking about it on Monday.

It’s critical to consider the complexity of your brand positioning if you are going to hand your brand message over to the public. Doritos fans simply need to articulate, “Doritos taste good.” Will Audi have the same success with a more complex message? Crowdsourcing is most effective for brands with well-established social channels. Brands should not use crowdsourcing to establish a social community; it’s best to build momentum within an existing and engaged community.

Some of the largest global brands struggle with their digital strategy, so it’s okay if you don’t have one in place. Digital strategy is different for every company, because it is based on varying goals and conversions which can be reached using a wide range of tactics. If you haven’t created a digital strategy for your business, you are probably not achieving the results you want out of your online marketing and advertising. Without a digital strategy you are blindly wasting energy and money on campaigns hoping to catch a break. Stop doing this. It doesn’t feel good, I know. Instead, let’s step back and think about why you are choosing the campaigns, placements and platforms you are. Let’s base it on something tangible and set goals to improve your business. You’ll feel invigorated. You may want to start by Asking The Right Questions About Your Digital Strategy. This should give you a better sense of what digital strategy is and what it means to your organization.

Digital strategy is an ongoing process that has four major phases: planning, execution, analysis and optimization. The first step is coming up with a plan for your digital efforts. Keep in mind, however, that all of the strategy in the world is worthless if you aren’t analyzing and optimizing your campaigns to get the most return on your investment. Most digital strategy blogs I’ve read try to include every possible facet of the topic in one article, leaving the reader with an general overview but no direction. I will do the opposite. I promise to keep this article simple and only focus on the steps to get started, as I believe this is the most productive approach.

The most important bit of advice I can give you is: start now. Seriously, get out a piece of paper, Google Doc, a text editor, or whatever you use, and brainstorm as you read along. The hardest part of breaking into any new project is often finding a way to overcome the initial fear of entering an unfamiliar space with a blank slate in front of you. But, it’s also very exciting! You’re courageously stepping into the digital space, with all of its platforms and networks, and you’re going to come out victorious. Besides, how else are you going to grow your business online and keep up with the competition? You won’t increase web traffic and sales without a little elbow grease and persistence.

Planning Your Digital Strategy - It’s All About Knowing Your Customer and Establishing Goals

Let’s start by identifying your target customer(s) based on demographics. You may have two or three different customer types who all have dramatically different interests and behaviors (you can even draw it out if you’re a visual thinker). You need to think about how you are going to reach all of them. Once you’ve identified your target customers, answer the following questions for each:

Which products/services match customer needs?
What are they searching for, and how are they searching?
How will they find you?
What tools, platforms or networks are they using most in the digital space?

Answering these questions is the first step in choosing the right content and channels for your digital marketing.

Next in planning your digital strategy, you’ll want to write down your top level goals relating to digital. Examples:

“I want to increase my ecommerce sales.”
“I want more quality leads coming through my website.”
“I want more people to know and talk about my brand.”
“I want to increase my email newsletter opt-ins.”

You can also list needs or problems that you have that can be solved with digital solutions. Examples:

“People are browsing, but not buying.”
“Visitors are bouncing from the home page.”
“The wrong leads are contacting us.”
“My customers are confused about what we do.”
“My customers need expert advice before they decide to buy.”

Now you should prioritize. Choose a few that are most important to you. You should now have a breakdown of your customer(s) and your digital strategy goals. It’s time to think about the best channels to reach and engage your customers and achieve the goals you’ve established.

Channels, Platforms, and Initiatives

Now that you’ve analyzed your customer(s) and established goals, it’s time to form a list of possible ways to reach them. There are new social networks and web-based platforms popping up every day, and each one promises new fans and followers if you invest the time to set up an account and learn how to use it. The truth is, just because Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest are popular right now, it doesn’t mean your customers are using them. Even if some of your customers are, that doesn’t mean it’s the right channel for you to connect with them. Remember, the channels you choose must help you accomplish the specific goals you’ve established. For example, if your top priority is brand awareness and conversation, Twitter might deserve some serious consideration (but only if your customers use it). Pretty common sense stuff, right? So, at this point you might be asking, “what are my options”? Sorry- I’m not here to list them all, but the following links may be useful when developing your strategy.

Social - Top 15 social sites right now and 7 hot social networks for 2013
Video - Top 10 Video Ad Platforms
Linkbuilding - Top 15 Linkbuilding Tools
Email Marketing - 5 Best Tools for Email Marketing
Analytics - 10 Smartest Web Analytics Tools

As a final step in the planning process, attach a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to each initiative that relates back to your original goals. For example, if your primary goal is brand engagement and your channel is Twitter, a KPI might be the average number of follower retweets for every one of your tweets. This will tell you if your followers are interested in the content you are putting out, and as you grow your following, it will ensure that you are still connecting with your followers and not just increasing your numbers without substance.

The next step in developing your digital strategy is planning your content and executing your campaigns. Continue reading... Digital Strategy Step 2: Content and Execution.

Our industry’s lifeblood is the midsize sedan category, representing approximately one quarter of the total auto and light truck market in sales volume.  Across Jumpstart Automotive Group’s channel of third-party automotive websites, the sedan segment is the largest vehicle category, representing 36 percent of total shopping activity.

In this highly competitive segment where even a fraction of a percent in loss of share can be catastrophic, the marketing stakes are higher than most.

Jumpstart recently analyzed messaging, creative, rollout strategies and the social and mobile efforts of three chief contenders vying to overtake Toyota for the number one sedan sales spot—the Nissan Altima, the Honda Accord and the Ford Fusion—to gauge how marketers duke it out in heated brand battles like this.  Campaign highlights follow.

Nissan Altima

The Download:  Nissan marketers are clever, creative and funny.  Knocking Toyota Camry off its pedestal will take a lot more than a great sense of humor, but they’re on the right track.

In the meantime, they sure make the competition fun to watch!

Nissan’s “Innovation that Excites” campaign used the concept of invention to help the automaker stand out from the competitive pack, hilariously communicating the company’s latest innovations, including an easy-fill tire alert, in its “Breakup” and “Enough” broadcast spots.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Particularly noteworthy was its sneak peek campaign featuring a glimpse of an Altima headlight here, a rear bumper there.  In all, the campaign covered virtually all media bases with a mix of broadcast, digital and print and out-of-home.

Its social/mobile efforts “Innovation Garage” and “Altima Experience” were as inventive as the brand itself, including this feel-good moment “Proposal.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although OEMs typically look at third-party automotive websites as a medium for lower-funnel and retail messaging, Altima successfully extended the “Innovation that Excites” campaign and utilized high-impact homepage units across Jumpstart’s automotive websites to reach consumers actively researching and shopping for vehicles.

Honda Accord

The Download:  Way to speak to (and relate to) your customers, Honda!  While we’d love to see you take a page out of Nissan’s book when it comes to innovation in creative and mobile strategies, we appreciate your polished and reliable approach to marketing…much like we appreciate your cars.

Honda’s “It Starts with You” campaign did a great job of conveying the automaker’s uncanny ability to build cars based on what Accord customers want and need…because it actually understands what its customers want and need.

Its broadcast spot “We Know You”and print, outdoor and online ads in that same vein, were nicely done, painting a relatable picture of people in real-world driving situations and how the Accord’s advanced safety and technology features help them overcome driving dilemmas.  If you’ve ever been visited by a bumblebee behind the wheel, you can relate too.

Honda’s integrated media buy was extensive, including a mix of print, home page takeovers on major portals, broadcast spots across high-profile TV shows and sports events (including the World series) and in-theater and outdoor in nearly 30 markets.

Finally, Accord content was integrated into Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends and in the popular news aggregator Pulse.

An interesting side note:  Honda Accord was Jumpstart’s midsize sedan segment leader midway through last year, representing a seven percent average monthly share of sedan shoppers, ahead of Toyota at six percent and Nissan at five percent.

Ford Fusion

The Download:  While we applaud Ford’s fearless imagination and digital marketing prowess, it may have taken itself a little too seriously last year.  From social media sagas to vanishing cars, we struggled to follow along.  Unfortunately, it seems car buyers did too.

Ford’s “Random Acts of Fusion” campaign relied on Ryan Seacrest and celebrity personalities Joel McHale and Kate Micucci for comic relief, playing on the concept of life’s big and small acts involving real-world customers who unlocked a story over time while participating in driving and entertainment experiences.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chinese contemporary artist Liu Bolin—dubbed “the invisible man”—hand painted innovative print ads to make other cars seemingly disappear when the Ford Fusion was around, merging art and auto to create some really incredible tableaus.

The cornerstone strategies of Ford Fusion’s “transmedia marketing initiative” were digital and experiential and included a heavy blend of social media coupled with radio and video, along with American Idol-style finale events at various Ford dealerships and print ads in national auto and lifestyle magazines.

Similar to “Fiesta Movement” and “Escape Routes,” the campaign created brand ambassadors in real world social media users to talk about the Fusion with their peers.  As of last October, the campaign had generated more than 12 million consumer engagements.

Who Won in 2012?

Once again, Toyota reigned supreme in 2012, with the highest midsize sedan sales volume (up nearly 24 percent from 2011).  Honda Accord made great strides in closing the second place gap with a 29 percent growth in sales over 2011.  Nissan Altima showed up for the party too, with a solid 11 percent growth compared to the prior year.

(WardsAuto, January 2013)

It will be interesting to see how the midsize sedan Battle of the Brands shakes out as 2013 campaigns extend into the coming months and after the much-anticipated launch of 2014 model year marketing initiatives!

Nick Matarazzo is CEO of Jumpstart Automotive Group, an innovative marketing solutions provider for automotive advertisers.