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Twitter verified accounts are used to denote the authenticity of certain pages on Twitter. The verified badge helps users identify that a legitimate source is authoring the account’s Tweets (or at least officially ghost-tweeting on behalf of a legitimate source).

Beginning primarily with the rise of celebrities’/politician’s use of Twitter, verified accounts then spread to other categories such as news outlets, companies and more. Confirmation that the account is being run by who it says it is.

Digital Trends recently reported (highlighted? exposed? uncovered?) that the verification process is tied to a monthly advertising fee. While this policy and the manner of its implementation are stirring up some debate, what does this mean for your brand?

I doubt that Twitter is going to make The White House account, or a celebrity like Kim Kardashian, pay $5,000/month…they create a draw for others to use Twitter. But for companies and brands on Twitter? That now seems to be another story.

A verified account may not be necessary for every business, but if your company feels it’s important to have verification, yet doesn’t have the budget for that monthly charge, the best things we recommend you can do is:

• Update your posts often
• Stay consistent with messaging
• Interact with your followers regularly
• Monitor your name and keywords, both in account names and in post messages (You should be doing this anyway, whether you run a Twitter page or not)

By making sure that your social media efforts are forging connections and conversationswith your audience, the verification will be inherent with or without a checkmark badge. Otherwise your brand is at risk of having someone literally take over how others perceive your Twitter presence.

That said, the demise of all other digital-based advertising at the emergence of this social channel is poppycock. I have often noticed that the digital experts in our space lack a historical view of advertising. The digital VC community—which has zero media and advertising expertise, but that invests heavily in digital companies—exacerbates this.

Dynamic new media and emerging communication channels often see meteoric growth. A leveling off always follows growth, as the channel finds its rightful place within the media mix of any advertisers’ plans. All you have to do is look back at the emergence of search marketing and you can see the parallel. It was not so long ago that it was proclaimed that display, at the hands of search, was dead. That proclamation was nullified, of course, when Google re-invested in display with the purchase of DoubleClick.

We can delve into history and find countless examples of new media coming of age, such as: broadcast television, cable television, etc. We can track their meteoric rises and their plateauing as they find their rightful place in the media mix. That’s not to say some media channels don’t suffer—changes in content distribution models do create disruptions beyond maturation, as we have seen with digital content vs. print and satellite radio vs. terrestrial.

In the case of social media, we are bound to see continued growth as marketers find new ways to leverage the channel. Does that mean the death of all other forms of digital advertising? Highly unlikely.

• How can you reach your target audience in such a narrow area?
• How can you ensure that your messaging is meaningful to each local audience?
• How can you reach 100 or more local communities across the country easily, efficiently and cost-effectively?

One strategy that consistently wins in the local marketing arena is the “Local Marketing Triangulation Strategy,” as described below. It combines the traditional with the new, the localized with the scalable, and the online with the offline. And it works.

Local Advertising

Advertising is the most efficient way to reach as many local audiences around the country as possible. For a franchise or chain, advertising is absolutely critical to achieve reach efficiently.

Even for a single restaurant, bank or yoga studio, though, advertising is efficient in reaching audiences. It’s the fastest way to reach the maximum number of prospects with your compelling message or offer.

There are various vehicles for local advertising. Paid search is a highly effective way to target the local market through geo-targeting. In addition, direct placements on relevant websites get you in front of qualified prospects. Retargeting can be effective, assuming your website has sufficient traffic. Mobile advertising works well for local businesses with foot traffic. Advertising in directories that perform well in the search engines is worth testing. And hyper local sites, such as the Patch network of sites, are one more option.

The key to making local advertising work and to averting wasted advertising spend, though, is to advertise for both 1) context and 2) proximity. If you spend all of your advertising on one and not the other, it’s difficult to maximize marketing results.

Localized Content

What national franchises and chains prefer not to hear is that localized content outperforms generic content. Various national outfits attempt to get over the localization hurdle through concatenation (e.g., “financial advisor in Boston,” “financial advisor in Chicago,” “financial advisor in Denver,” etc.). However, this type of generic messaging will lose every time to truly localized content that resonates with the local audience.

What’s more effective is localized content that ties into local news, weather, events, sports teams, economy, sentiment, etc. For example, a restaurant offering a 2-for-1 hot soup deal on a cold, rainy day. The restaurant chain Houlihan's has achieved success through this type of localized content, empowering each of its restaurants to leverage its homegrown "Foody Call" mobile club that alerts local diners to immediate offers, specials and promotions. A local furniture store could similarly offer discounts based on a sports team’s performance, as Warren Buffett-owned Jordan’s Furniture has done repeatedly and with great success in the Boston market.

For certain industries, proving expertise can be critical to closing more sales. For example, a property management company can leverage hyper local blogging in demonstrating its experience, knowledge and expertise in a certain area to claim geographic differentiation.

Online-Offline Integration

It’s wishful thinking on the part of digital marketers to believe that you can maximize your local revenue through only digital channels. For most businesses targeting local audiences, revenue will increase with the integration of online and offline marketing efforts.

Offline marketing can start with the ways you’ll help the local community get stronger. For example, a restaurant may help feed the hungry. A realtor may help the homeless. Identify the cause that fuels your emotions, and make it part of the DNA of your business. And then get involved in a big way. Partner with local groups, be vocal in the local media, and conduct local campaigns to make a real difference to those in the neighborhood. Your community WILL notice, and it will endear you to your neighbors like no advertising could.

Complementary to your cause marketing, integrate your message into the daily fabric of your towns. For example, a home remodeling business is going to get greater results by using yard signs, town-specific direct mail, and partnerships with real estate agencies than by relying exclusively on digital marketing vehicles. An ice-cream shop is going to attract more buzz by holding local ice-cream eating contests, offering samples of unique flavors on the sidewalk, and forging a partnership with the local movie theater.

With local, offline matters. A lot.

Leverage Your Newsletter for Blog Content

If you have a company newsletter, you have ready-made blog content. Take a few moments to review past newsletters. If you have access to analytics, pull content from your most popular articles and repurpose it. A skilled copywriter can create several blog entries from each article for a later publishing date. In the interest of efficiency, consider scheduling blogs to be published in advance.

More Blog Shortcuts for Content Updates

So you have the most engaging blog in the world and you want the masses to know it? That’s great. Blogging and social media are perfect together. By linking your blog to your Facebook or LinkedIn accounts, your social content will update automatically with every published post.

It’s All in the Application  

It is important to regularly update your social media profiles. Try simplifying your content strategy with applications. Are you constantly schlepping from tradeshow to conference? Then the Events application on Facebook or LinkedIn could be a win-win. Not only will you be updating your content, you’ll be keeping your contacts abreast of your whereabouts.

Applications can also make you seem more interesting on a personal level. The personal could impact the professional. For instance, the LinkedIn Reading List app allows you to recommend books to your connections. While it may be tempting to just list industry material, don’t be just another business wonk. Don’t be afraid to include The Hunger Games. Let connections know that you’re more than your job.

The creative, conversational, and relationship-building aspects of social media are what most of us consider to be the fun stuff. But in order for social users to see your creative, conversational, and relationship-building sides, they need to be reminded that you’re out there. That’s why updating and revising content, especially on your profile, is essential.

The sheer amount of data and digital noise can be overwhelming; however, the benefits for brands and marketers of harnessing and understanding these massive data stores include the potential for increased customer acquisition, reduced overhead, and smarter, faster, more targeted decisions.

Today, demand side platforms (DSPs) have become among the most powerful tools in the marketing arsenal of the digital age. They employ sophisticated algorithms to determine where a marketer should place adverts in order to convert customers and garner the best return on investment. In the old days, when a marketer wanted to buy advertising—TV, print, radio, even online—they would have lunch with the seller, talk about the rate, and fax over an insertion order. DSP platforms have replaced that with a machine-to-machine trading protocol that automates and elevates media buys.

DSPs have been shown in various studies to increase return on marketing investment by 20-50%, increase media efficiency up to 40%, and save 25% in overhead costs through ad-buying automation. But the real benefit of DSPs is the by-product—data. Which types of individuals are responding to ads, in what city, and at what times of day or days of the week? These questions can be answered with ease if the data captured by the DSP can be stored and analysed.

When DSPs were first introduced, there was little consideration of the value of the data they produced. Often the information was discarded and the opportunity to use the data for future decisions was missed. However, as demand and understanding grew, the sector continued to evolve and the next incarnation included full marketing management platforms that were integrated with the DSP.

To my knowledge, DataXu was the first to catch on to the enormous value of the data and introduce a consolidated digital marketing management (DMM) platform—DX3. In simple terms, the introduction of the DMM combines the programmatic buying of a DSP with data management, attribution-aware buying, insights, and reporting.

With DX3, the process is fairly straightforward: marketers start by entering objectives, and then they put measurement tags on assets: website, mobile app, videos, and ads distributed through any channel. When those tags are in place, data starts to flow into DataXu’s learning system. Say you’re Standard Chartered, and you are trying to get consumers to use your credit cards. The DataXu system correlates the Standard Chartered ads a consumer has seen and the content they’ve consumed, as well as whether they ever visited a particular digital channel.

Did Standard Chartered show the customer ads? Yes, the customer did a Google search for credit card reviews and went to The Daily Telegraph site where he or she saw a banner ad. DataXu uses that information to correlate the consumer journey from awareness to preference to conversion. Every time an ad is served, DataXu says: “We served this particular creative message, to this browser, at this time of day, in this particular semantic context, knowing these particular things about the consumer.” DataXu continually learns from those parameters to understand which are most likely to result in a conversion event, in order to inform future buying decisions.

Over the space of a week or two, a distinctive pattern emerges: People exposed to ads on Sunday nights in London are more likely to sign up for a credit card on Tuesday during the work day. DX3 ranks these patterns such as: The variable most predictive of conversion was location, second was watching a particular video, and third was a history of visiting financial sites. This forms a data model.

Traditionally, marketers would conduct a panel and ask people for their attitudes about Standard Chartered. DataXu is using the ad as a platform for behavioral research—did people engage or not—and creating a model that predicts behavior based on evidence gleaned from the digital lifestyle.

In an evolutionary sense, the DMM is the missing link that brands and marketers had been asking for. Through the DMM platform, the constant influx of data, those billions and trillions of terabytes, can be transformed into insight for brands and provide the means to make intelligent decisions and improve on marketing initiatives—literally in an instant.

A Good Profile

The whole Google Plus experience begins with the profile. If you spent more time and creativity in making your Facebook Page cover account, do the same with the profile as this is the key here. Start right and put your best foot forward. Check out some pictures on Google Plus now for more ideas. When you appear in the steams of people, what they see is a thumbnail. This is where you should make a great impression. Make a very engaging and entertaining introduction. Your introduction should make people want to add you to their circles. The good thing is Google Plus lets you add links in the introduction so take advantage of it. Add as much links as you can.
8. Add your industry or business name as a “Spark”. Google Plus has a new feature and it is called Sparks but this feature is not yet fully developed. I think this will tie up into search results soon but for now use it like a Google alert. Set up Sparks for the name of your company name, your name and the terms of the industry. Sparks can also be used to follow industry.

With the recent announcement of new video suite updates at the IAB Digital Video Marketplace, I'm reminded of the power standards have in digital advertising to make things "just work." The suite’s three specs, video ad-serving template (VAST), video player-ad interface definition (VPAID) and video multiple ad playlist (VMAP) are meant to work together to provide a complete video advertising offering. The beauty of having VAST, VPAID and VMAP for in-stream video advertising is that now agencies and marketers can more comfortably focus on what makes them great: getting the brand message out to consumers through engaging creative and targeted messaging at scale. They get to answer the what, when, where and why. Publishers and technology providers can reliably and consistently answer the "how" for them. Because let’s be honest, most marketers care little about or possibly don’t even know what VAST, VPAID and VMAP are. Marketers and agencies just need their campaign out there and for the ad experience to work, and measurably engage consumers.

Consider this. When you want to turn your car you need a steering wheel. Whether it's power steering, rack and pinion or active four-wheel steering that's executing the turn - that car better turn, right? That's the IAB’s V-Suite. The V-Suite is simply a standard for effectiveness at scale so everyone has an opportunity to advance in-stream video through amazing creative, relevant placement and effective measurement.

So far V-Suite has been instrumental in helping to advance in-stream experiences on PC, mobile, tablets and even some more emerging use cases like on connected TVs.  A few years back when Adobe announced AIR for TV, my team at PointRoll did an experiment around serving ads into a TV app and leveraged VPAID to have the creative communicate with it. And guess what? It worked. By pressing a key on a remote, the lower third expanded that paused the video content of the app. I could navigate around the ad with my arrow keys to select additional videos to watch, see 360 product views and even get a store locator based on my IP address. When I selected the close button, the ad closed and the video content resumed just as expected. Granted it wasn't the greatest user experience with the remote, but you get the point – the interactive ad worked on my TV using VPAID.  Check it out here: https://wiki.pointroll.com/display/PRRC/webTV.

For agencies and marketers, this is a pitch for embracing and continually evolving the standards created by the best of the best in the digital advertising community. We must continually upgrade the parts that make video advertising an effective vehicle (pun intended) for online brand engagement.

One such item is how organizations incorporate social elements into their e-mail marketing campaigns. This is relevant as organizations that leverage both e-mail marketing & social channels tend to receive better results for their campaigns according to a report from Vertical Response. This strong correlation can be further amplified by fine tuning the social enablement of the actual messaging.

If you review branded e-mail marketing campaigns you will see inconsistency in how social sharing is enabled. The goal should not be to drive awareness that the channel exists, but to create frictionless sharability of the content and in some cases to also provide relevantly targeted messaging based on the users social graph data.

There are multiple buckets that brands across multiple verticals fall into when representing social connectivity via e-mail.

1) The Social Chicklet - Many brands follow the rule of just adding a socially enabled chicklets to the top or bottom navigation of communication. While paying homage to the brands owned channels, the actual engagement on this style of placement is lower than other methods.

Playstation as well as a majority of brands that reference social channels in this manner go with the approach of simply providing visibility into the fact that their channels exist. There is however a missed opportunity to share the message itself or specific content segments that are worthy of sharing.

2) The Social Call Out - The second level of integration takes the social chicklet & applies a direct call to action that is specific to the desired channel. This at the very least calls out to the user that a certain action needs to be taken that may drive additional value to the user.

In the example below, Fandango provides specific calls to action on what they would like for the user to do with the referenced social channels. FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook

Here are other examples from Eddie Bauer which leverages the facebook share call to action, Macys & Red Envelope.

3) Socially Enabled Content - Xbox deploys a strategy that not only calls attention to their specific channels but also the ability to directly share the content of the e-mail, they also take special care to socially enable each individual content block for maximum sharability.

4) Socially Centric Communication - Some brands have invested efforts to provide communication that directly highlights their social channels and how users can benefit from engaging directly with their channels. The benefit to this approach is that individuals consume different types of information across different channels. By highlighting the benefits that their social channels provide, they are potentially driving the user to action to associate with the brands owned social channels. It is also possible to track the organic growth associated with the call to action to test the impact of the campaign as some brands e-mail databases triple their current fans/followers, etc...

Below is an example from CORT that highlights an individual receiving value and drives a targeted message about a potential value exchange from engaging via their social channel.

Pizza Hut dedicated an e-mail message touting the value of becoming a member by leveraging their current network size, teasing with potential exclusives.

5) Socially Relevant - One of the bigger opportunities for brands is associated with the adoption of social sign on & leveraging open graph data to drive highly targeted recommendations and communication. In my recent post I wrote about the benefits of social sign on and open graph.

From an e-mail standpoint, the ability to pull in relevant open graph elements to further drive socially enabled gifting, such as birthday reminders and socially optimized wish lists come to forefront. These principles can then be applied to driving socially relevant and targeted messaging to drive a user to take action on behalf of either themselves or their closest friends.

Example of how Old Navy could further socially enable a post purchase e-mail

By taking the time to consider how to truly socially optimize e-mail marketing, a brand can truly capitalize on the permissive nature of their users to share their content vs. vaguely eluding to the fact that the brand has social channels.

On a final note, socially enabled sharing when it comes to retail shopping experiences are key across the prime millennial & gen x targets when it comes to point #3 below.

Follow Tom Edwards @Blackfin360

Banishing Short-Term and Shiny: A Look at Vail Resorts

This is how everyone should be thinking about digital marketing.

Via @ClarkKokich

Your Company Has Social Media Nailed. Now What?

An excellent series of questions to ask after you’ve reach the first level.

Via @RichardLevick

Facebook to Brands: You’re Posting Stuff Wrong

The subjects brands post about is the key to engagement. That’s why text analysis is the key to knowing what works on Facebook.

Why CMO Tenure is so Short

This has long been a known problem for both clients and agencies, and it’s interesting reading what some of these industry leaders have to say about it.

Via @emarxe & @djgeoffe

Facebook Dominates Mobile Social Networking

Facebook’s big story to me has always been the amount of time and frequency with which people use the site. Now it looks like that same behavior is tracking over to mobile. And to think they bought Instagram to better succeed in mobile.

Via @JackMarshall

Ad Account Guy Gets Man Lessons

I like this because a lot of people want to publish content, but aren’t sure what to write about. This guy found a way to get over that hump.

It’s obvious, but sometimes it takes a mother to show us that the well-worn path is not always the right path. And this is why your mother can actually buy media better than you.

Some Historical Perspective

See, here’s what she knew that can help online marketers right now. All online ad tracking systems used today are legacy systems built 15 years ago.  They erroneously give all credit for a conversion to the very last ad in line.  So if 10 ads were involved from the top of the conversion funnel to the bottom, the bottom one gets all credit.  You’ve heard of line cutters (folks who cut in line), these are funnel cutters—stealing all the credit by jumping in at the end. Why do we still measure everything this way?  Because that’s the way it was done, and we’re following everyone right off the media cliff.

We Are To Believe What?
Today, all those tracking systems have just one slot for which an online ad is credited with success (display/search social media/affiliate, etc).  Just one?  Are we to believe that college-educated media buyers pouring many hours over optimization should accept there’s only one ad responsible for a conversion?  Only one?  Even though the advertiser may be investing in five channels…there’s only one ad responsible for a conversion?  There are never two, three, or perhaps 17?

Are we to believe that even though the purchase funnel was created in 1898 by E. Lewis there’s no purchase funnel online…beginning with Awareness, Intent, Desire, and Action.  None?

Committing Media Suicide
Of course, anyone who looked at this situation with some perspective (like your mom) would  draw some parallels.  Your mom knows it takes many dates before you get married in the real world--and in the online world, it takes many impressions and clicks to convert.  Not just one.

What would your mom say?  In a slightly surprised and slightly irritated tone, she’d say, “What are you doing?  Just because everyone else is doing it that way, why would you do that!!  If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?  Of course not; you’re smarter than that!”

Your mom is or was smarter than every online advertiser who’s not using an attribution model.  And if your mom can see it, your client and your boss are going to see it very soon.

Now What?
What moms do is take a very complex problem and make it simple.  Same thing with attribution. It involves millions of views and clicks and thousands of transactions and attribution when used with a two-way communication platform, makes it easy enough that even your mom could buy media better than you (if you continue using legacy ad tracking systems).

Here’s how.  In a fractional attribution model, 100% of revenue, say from a Zappos transaction, is split and attributed among Originators, Assists, Converters plus what we call a Roster.  This can be done so that all four pieces of the pie equal 100%, and each of these four has a very different pie percentage--by industry, and by client.

Each ad player deemed worthy of attribution credit is tied to purchase funnel chronology with algorithms, like skipping brand term search credit when in last position and skipping credit for non-viewable impressions.  The fractional revenue is apportioned to the ad players on the team, which become the numerator of a fraction--and the cost of the ad player becomes the denominator of the fraction.  Divide them, and you have a trademark number called attributed value-to-spend-ratio.  A ratio of 2.0 means:  for every $1 you spent on a certain ad you get $2 in attributed revenue back.

With this one number, attribution modeling takes complex, big data and simplifies it.  You just gave birth to a new way of measurement:  an accurate way of measurement.

Growing Up
But as your fractional attribution baby grows up, its capabilities grow, too.  You might want to run sensitivity analyses or even conjoint analyses in C3 Metrics’ attribution sandbox as your data set gets more robust--or have our team of award-winning marketing scientists and Ph.D.s validate and adjust weights at finer levels with transaction-stream detail.  But for now, by not jumping off the media cliff with everyone else, your mom can buy media better than most.

You’re smarter than that.  Your mom knows it, too.

Mark Hughes is CEO of C3 Metrics

With apps such as Pandora, Slacker, TuneIn, Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeartRadio available at your finger tips, internet radio has become a popular way to access audio stream. Through the eyes of the advertiser, this phenomenon provides the opportunity to get what they really want: active consumers willing to engage in their brand.

Unlike traditional radio, many of these on-demand apps offer customized playlists, allowing the consumer to design the type of content they want. With registration data often including zip codes, this allows the advertiser to place relevant and compelling ads based on the consumers personalized music selection and their location. Internet radio can provide national reach or local market targeting and allows consumers to interact and engage with the advertisers website or Facebook page.

So what do these Internet stations offer and how do they differ in both a consumer and advertising perspective? Here is a brief summary of just a few of the popular stations being used today:

One of the main stations, and arguably the most well-known one is Pandora. According to a study released from Nielsen in June 2010, Pandora is one of the top three most downloaded apps from the Apple app store and consistently ranks in the top five most used apps in the BlackBerry and Android stores.

Like Pandora, iHeartRadio allows users to listen to stations based on artist, song or album. The difference with iHeartRadio is its vast majority of song selections. iHeartRadio listeners can choose from a massive catalog of more than 11 million songs and 400,000 artists- more than 10 times the number of songs offered by Pandora.

Another popular consumer choice is Slacker Radio. What sets Slacker apart from its competitors is that it has professional DJ’s that customize the song selections and stations. This offers more personalized content than the other technology run sites.

Stitcher is the leader in internet radio for the “world beyond music.” This online site “stitches” together news, sports or talk shows from stations like Fox News, CNN and ABC.

TuneIn allows you to listen to live local and global radio from wherever you are. Whether you want to listen to sports, news, music or current events, TuneIn offers over 50,000 stations and 120,000 shows. It gives you the effect that you “right there with the people and places that are important to you.”

Spotify allows branded apps and channels that allows an advertiser to provide an added value to their target audience. Louisiana Tourism recently used this to their advantage. When the campaign is no longer live…the channel lives on as a wonderful reminder. Spotify utilizes the king of social networks; Facebook. You can share your playlist with your friends. They have taken this one step further with the “life sound tracker.” Using the tracker, consumers can select friends on Facebook and Spotify will generate a playlist containing music from upcoming concerts in your area based on a mash-up of your friends’ music. Users can then have the option to generate a Facebook invite and send it to their friends.

Although Internet radio offers advertising opportunities across both online and mobile platforms, users can also pay a fee in order have an ad-free experience, which could be dismaying to a media partner.

But in an article written about Pandora, media and marketing specialist Kathryn Koegel, states:

“Typical radio stations play nine minutes of ads per hour according to a 2006 study and in a study of clutter on radio, it was reported to be as high as 20 minutes per hour on some stations*. A service like Pandora currently runs a maximum of three audio ads or less per hour and banner ads only appear on a device when a phone is not locked or dimmed thus only when the consumer is interacting with the device.”

The research shows that only 9% of Pandora subscribers pay to use the product. It is also shows extreme growth in the amount of users listening to Pandora on their mobile device versus the web. It allows optimization as we saw with a recent client. By paying attention to ongoing measurement, we saw that mobile’s click-thru rate was much higher than the web; therefore we switched impressions to only mobile.

As marketers, we can conclude that the majority of consumers do not mind advertising, especially if it is targeted to the listener. However, we must stay ahead of the curve in terms of unique and targeted advertising. With mobile technology rapidly advancing, the way consumers listen to radio will continue down this ever-changing path.

I think about this message a lot as I consider how digital sellers spend their time, energy and capital as they pursue business at agencies. We talk about marginal improvements to performance, brand "safe" environments, effective CPMs and a lot of other minutiae tied to successful stewardship of the latest plan. We prattle on about our latest reporting dashboard, the premium publishers or content we represent, how we're more "transparent" than the other guys. I wonder if at a certain point of this litany the agency folks just see our lips moving and only hear "blah...blah...blah...."

We stay locked onto the marginal, temporary issues of media planning (insuring that all we'll ever have is marginal, temporary success) while ignoring the big economic issues that could give our relationship with the agency some much needed urgency and power.

It's the Agency Economy, Stupid!

My hypothesis is pretty straightforward. We are living at a time of consolidation, in which clients and agencies are going to be dealing with fewer companies, not more. (This trend is masked by the insignificant "testing" that goes on around the margins of planning.) The winning media companies, aggregators and tech vendors will be those who frame their benefits and align their value with the core economic issues confronting agencies. There are four:

Account Security: Senior agency executives live in perpetual anxiety over a major account going into review. That's a seismic event. But the more subtle, persistent agida comes from the soft erosion of clients inviting other shops in on a "project" basis. If you're not talking about how your services and capabilities can help the agency drive interest and loyalty with the client, you are missing a big opportunity.

Budget Growth: The dirty secret is that margins on digital media buying are thin to non-existent. The only way the agency stays healthy and profitable is to get its current clients to increase budgets. Too many of us only stay focused on getting our share of existing budgets, instead of on how we can help the agency access and grow the dollars they get from clients.

Workforce Extension: It's no secret that agencies are severely understaffed. Most don't have the FTEs (Full Time Equivalents -- agency-speak for "people") to do more than keep up with process. How can your organization serve as an extension of the agency's own workforce and provide core services -- creative, aggregation, marketing, promotion -- that allow the agency to drive more profit without more bodies?

Commoditization: And here we sellers thought this was our issue! The agency -- and most especially the planning teams -- are swimming against the same currents of commoditization and automation that many of us do. How can you effectively bundle your services into programs and add value to them so that they can't be commoditized or automated? How can you help the daughter agency or the planning team hold onto the spending and influence they so desperately fear losing to the trading desks?

Are these conversations you'll have with the media planner at the 11th hour of the RFP process? Hardly. But if you're not engaging in them at an organizational level and allowing them to drive your strategic planning, then don't be surprised when the RFPs stop coming and you find yourself frozen out of the agency entirely.

Read more from Doug at The Drift.

I, like most of us, am subscribed to numerous newsletters for a wide variety of reasons. Some for aggregated news purposes, business tips, daily deals or retail companies that offer value. I think we all know our favorites by the excitement we get seeing the new email freshly unopened in our inbox. This for marketers is a dream come true; these loyal subscribers are the pulse of the messages they create and move the needle for what’s to come.

A company recently caught my attention and now goes into a short list of brands that I not only enjoy watching, but admire their email campaigns and overall integrated marketing.

One night, killing some time before dinner I walked around downtown San Diego and went into the Goorin Bros. hat shop. The store pulled us in and almost back in time as we tried on hats reminiscent of the 1960s, old derby days that radiated class. It was so fun spending time in the store that on my way out I wrote my name in a book to be added to their newsletter list.

A few days later I received my first email from the Goorin Bros. and I was able to open it on my phone without a hitch. I thought the email looked very clean, sharp and with closer notice to this and emails to come, I was continually impressed with the beautiful, thoughtful design, clear messaging and access to information.

Here are a few of many things that the Goorin Bros. have clearly mastered:

1. Short, accurate subject lines. They tell you what to expect and deliver.

2. An aesthetically pleasing design. All emails are consistently focused, highlighting one product. Rich in image but light in content makes this easy on the eye and on-the-go. Familiarity is also nice for consumers receiving hundreds of messages a day.

3. Access to information. Simple layout with light and light hearted copy gives you direction and not too much data at once. This allows men and women to know quickly where to click to see selected styles. They also offer quick links to the “Goorin Bros. Story,” Blog and Customer Service. These tabs allow subscribers to easily choose to learn or view more, and for the Goorin Bros. these links are trackable and offer consumer insights.

4. Transparency and accessibility. The Goorin Bros. provides a real email address. Not a “Do Not Reply” email, giving off the stigma that they do not want to hear from you.

5. No falloff when directed to the main site. When you do click to see more gorgeous hats, the main web site is compatible with a laptop or mobile device and stays as clean and simple as the original message. This almost ensures a lower bounce rate and keeps customers digging on their own and not overwhelmed with selections.

6. Social. In the email viewers are invited to an event with an RSVP on Facebook. While this did eliminate some subscribers as the event was in select cities, it added value letting everyone know they are present in the social world. Another way to stay engaged and connected with an audience, and turns out they are doing well in that arena too.

So a great email campaign should definitely strive to possess as many of the above characteristics as possible, but more importantly your communication needs to be consistent and cohesive among all platforms; representing more than a product or service. It was immediately clear to me that the Goorin Bros. is a company tuned into their identity who is doing a lot right in the realm of email and branding, marketing a nostalgic essence and modern appeal. Hats off to ‘em.

If you’re looking to partner with an agency who understands branding and email marketing, we may just be the right fit. Feel free to give me a call to chat. After all, a conversation will cost you nothing: 858-255-0027.

Amy

Now that we live in a virtual world, I want to weigh in on some key issues for MBA graduates.  I don’t have to appear on a podium in a nice gown in front of 5,000 grads.  I don’t need to be a former president of the US.  But having graduated from an Ivy League, top ten business school, and experiencing the economic ups and the downs first hand, I’m here to tell you that what you learn in school doesn’t have much to do with life.

I helped start a company in the heat of the Internet’s first moments and made money in the $300 million sale of our company to eBay.  Penguin published my book on marketing, which was translated across the globe in 15 different languages.  I had a drive for business profit, and it wasn’t always healthy.

It’s what I didn’t learn at Business School that helped me the most.  It took more than a decade to figure that out.  The most valuable thing the university experience won’t teach you is reckoning.

As in:  R.e.c.k.o.n.

Resourcefulness

Escape

Cooperation

Kindness

Over apology

Nesting

Resourcefulness
If there’s one characteristic of anyone I hire that’s most important, it’s resourcefulness.  Business isn’t easy.  That’s why they call it work.  To complete a project, you will encounter obstacles.  Those obstacles will be:  people, committees, regulations, and established behavior.  But the people who overcome obstacles with better results or fewer resources have one skill in common:  resourcefulness.  When I was charged with launching a brand (half.com) at the peak of the Internet craze, it seemed like every ad was for a dot com.  The marketplace was too cluttered.  I couldn’t advertise.  Something different was required.  So amidst the snickers of my ad agency, I trudged to Halfway, Oregon (population 350) to see if I could convince them to rename the town to half.com, Oregon…literally putting the brand on the map.

There’s no top ten (or even bottom ten) business school that teaches you how to do that.  You simply have to be resourceful and bring that game every minute of every day.  We landed on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and every major news organization covered us from Taiwan to Texas.  Time magazine called it one of the most memorable coups in history.  It was resourcefulness that got the job done, capturing the attention of eBay, who took notice and bought our company for $300 million.  Resourcefulness pays.

Escape
In order to do a job well, to innovate and to solve problems of the workplace, you need to escape.  If you have a boss who thinks that work happens 9-5, don’t work there.  Modern work happens at many times of day and night.  In order to out-think and grow, you need to detach from the static of business.  Allow yourself to not be chained to a desk.  Work can happen while you’re climbing a mountain, breathing through yoga, and while you’re kayaking.  Steve Jobs was famous for his long walks of escape.  The mind needs to detach, rest, recharge, and experience different navigational stimuli--in order to be stimulated.  9-5 makes Jack & Jane dull boys and girls.  Escape creates new ways of thinking.

Cooperation
Although we did countless group projects in business school designed to foster cooperation in the workplace, the workplace doesn’t consist of cozy 3-4 person groups that self select each other to accommodate idiosyncrasies where like people work with like people.  We are not all alike.  The workplace is filled with groups of 15 people, 7 people, or any number of people, who, unfortunately, are not always marching in same direction or for the same bosses.  Cooperation of this sort isn’t a skill that’s taught.  Business school often fosters a sense of “what’s in it for me?” and perhaps that never goes away.  But the better questions asked first should be:  “Why are we doing this?” and “What would be in it for you if we cooperate.”  “What is the greater purpose of why we should cooperate?”  Ironically we need to think less like leaders and more like servant leaders.  How will this serve our customers, how will this serve our community, how will this make tomorrow a better day?  Cooperation begins with a servant-like perspective.

Kindness
Days will suck.  Life will suck.  But life is a mirror:  when a baby smiles, you can’t help but smile back.  Imagine that!  When someone else brings a smile, it can make you smile.  But many days, our coworkers or clients are dealing with sucky situations:  divorce, physical ailments, depression, oppression, death of a friend or family member.  This chaos of life will throw wrenches into your workplace.  But kindness is not just a disposition, it is a choice.  A choice that requires energy and effort.  Effort to overcome the gravity of negative comments and negative people.  Kindness is antigravity, and it is a choice that can be brought to email, to the meeting, and to the conference call.  In mathematics, sensitivity analysis means numeric outcomes of multiple scenarios, but perhaps we should re-think sensitivity analysis.  Corporate America needs more kindness--more antigravity.

Over apology
I have a friend, who is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.  He’s a former mafia associate who found faith and spirituality, and he used to dine with the Gambinos (heading the New York mob) every month.  He lived to escape that world, and he told me something I’ll never forget.  He said to me, “You know what the secret to a great marriage is?”

Of course I wanted to know.

“Always tell your wife you’re sorry.”

I thought, if I’m right, why would I ever say I’m sorry?  I thought it was the dumbest thing my friend ever said.  But after a day of reflection, I decided it was the smartest piece of advice I’ve ever gotten.  Because it’s not about who’s right or who’s wrong.  It’s about the relationship.

I remember one client meeting where the VP made a royal mistake and had it coming.  It was the first item on the agenda.  She said, “This is my fault.  I dropped the ball, and it’s entirely my responsibility.”  It defused the situation instantly, and everyone including me was amazed that no sparks flew.  Sometimes it’s hard to apologize, and what we need to do is put ourselves in a state of humility, ready to admit failure quickly and wholly.

Nesting
At the end of the day, we owe it to ourselves to put forth our very best game at work.  No question.  I have a friend who sold his company for $140 million.  Faith began to come into his life in a genuine way, and he sought out a recognized spiritual leader.  He said, “I want to change the world…what can I do to change the world?”

The answer was this:

“If you want to change the world…be a better spouse.  If you want to change the world…be a better parent to your children.  This is how you change the world.”

We have our nest, our home, our family.  To change the world, focus on your nest.  Better spouse.  Better parent.  It is not easy, but it will change the way you think.

Change:  isn’t this what life is about?  Desire to change…to master whatever transition you face.

When you enter your new role, reckon.

R.e.c.k.o.n.

@amykauffman

As a child of the 90s, one of the most lauded and influential films of that era for me was undoubtedly Pulp Fiction, thanks to its mix of dark humor, action, irony, and a unique tempo of scenes. It wasn’t a conventional movie when it came out, and even then I remember it sparking a lot of debate and discussion on topics like “is it too violent” or “what’s in the briefcase” or “should you ever take out your boss’ wife under any circumstances.”

Rather than trying to peel through the layers of the movie itself though, let’s take a look at what brand marketers can learn from Pulp Fiction. Here are seven of the best marketing lessons that Vincent Vega, Jules Winnfield and friends have for us. NOTE: Spoiler warning for those who have yet to watch the movie.

1. Be smart about working relationships – Choose your business partners and your colleagues carefully. Vince Vega and Jules…great team. They know how to work together to tackle a project and seem to have a good time doing it. Vince and Mia Wallace? Not the best match-up. Each has a different goal for the night and they are not aligned on strategy. Even the rollercoaster relationship between Butch Coolidge and Marsellus Wallace shows how two opposing agendas can sometimes work together with the right intervening scenario (Zed and the Gimp’s agendas aside).
2. It’s all about content – Everyone in the movie who comes in contact with the briefcase is transfixed by what’s inside. Is it gold? Marsellus’ soul? Diamonds? Tarantino claims it was simply a MacGuffin to keep the plot moving. What it actually was doesn’t matter…it grabbed people’s attention and motivated them. That’s exactly what good content does for marketers and the audience we are trying to reach. Keep in mind what you’re going to put in your proverbial briefcase before you focus on how you’re going to deliver it…
3. Choose the right tools – Hammer, baseball bat, chainsaw, katana! Butch knows the result he’s looking for, and chooses the most efficient way to reach it.
4. Don't lose focus – Vincent Vega was on his game for most of the movie…he handles the situations with Jules, he handles Mia Wallace…but he drops the ball while staking out Butch’s apartment. By leaving his weapon on the kitchen counter while he uses the facilities, Vince shows us the importance of always being on the ball. Sure, maybe that’s why marketing is such a high-stress career, but we’re a group of motivated professionals and juggling updates, knowledge and responsibility is what we do.
5. Word of mouth – Big Kahuna Burger…that’s that Hawaiian burger joint…This IS a TASTY burger! There’s no substitute for word of mouth and a recommendation from our friends. That’s why social media carries such weight, because ultimately we trust the opinion of people we know. If you are setting up tactics for a social campaign, first go back to see lesson #2 above, and then be sure that there is a conversational connection in order to get your audience talking, recommending and supporting.
6. Have a plan, but be flexible – “Pumpkin” and “Honey Bunny” work out their strategy of how they’re going to rob the restaurant by citing third party research, industry trends, their own past experience, and divvying of responsibility. If it weren't for Vince and Jules, it likely would have been a flawless robbery. The lesson to take from this scene is that when Pumpkin and Honey Bunny do encounter that unexpected roadblock, they re-assess and adapt to the situation. As much as we can plan and prepare…PR interviews, events, media buys, etc., there is always the likelihood that something will need to change and we will need to roll with it.
7. Drink good coffee – Jimmie buys the gourmet expensive stuff because when he drinks it he wants to taste it. This is more of a personal takeaway that I adhere to. Life’s too short to waste on crap coffee.

© All Rights Reserved I-5 Design and Manufacturer

This is part 4 of a series on the challenge of targeting SMB markets and how the use of buyer-based modeling and buyer-based marketing help organizations to grow their SMB customer base.

When it comes to the SMB segment and the multiple sub-markets, it is just a plain fact that you cannot be everywhere. We addressed the segmentation thought process crucial for buyer-based marketing to the SMB segment in the previous article, Grow SMB Revenues With Buyer-Based Marketing, as a means to know where to have a presence. Therein lays the new buyer realities of today. Having a presence that creates a gravitational pull of SMB buyers towards your organization is the new realty of mastering the SMB challenge.

SMB marketing and sales began to become more than just an afterthought in the early ‘90’s through the early 2000's. Considerable investments were made in establishing inside sales organizations and in outbound marketing activities specifically to reach the SMB base of customers and prospective buyers. Newly created inside sales organizations endured the trials and tribulations of field sales entrenched infrastructure as well as the ownership battle of the mid-size customer gray area. Marketing discovered that outbound tools for inside sales and for marketing to the SMB segment varied greatly from that of a focus on large field accounts.

In a span of 5-7 years we find ourselves in a drastically different world. The notion of reaching buyers is becoming a huge hurdle to climb for those wedded to predominantly outbound activities related to inside sales. As mentioned, establishing an inside sales function can be a sizable investment. The Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 today find themselves with inside sales units loaded with personnel, technology, software, and etc. that were installed and aimed at outbound efforts. What we now have is the challenge of turning on a dime to repurpose inside sales and marketing support to at least gain balance in inbound marketing while succeeding at a level of outbound demand generation as well.

This has more to do with transformation shifts in buyer behaviors with new technologies being the driving force behind these changes. What is profound is that this is more than the labels of the elusive, invisible, or buyer 2.0. No, they didn’t go anywhere and they are not hiding. Nor, should we be of the mind that buyers are now just empowered – as if sellers gave them the empowerment. Buyers today - with SMB buyers a significant part of this picture - are creating new ways of working and conducting business. Here’s the smell the coffee moment for sellers: SMB buyers, in addition to larger accounts, are creating a new world of buyer-driven economies whereby as sellers - if you do not fit or adapt – it is a world in which you will not be participating within.

While I may be seemingly digressing here, I do so to make a very salient point. SMB buyers are adapting new technologies in the entrepreneurial fashion they have started their business with in the first place. Unburdened by large scale infrastructures, they can see how to make new uses of technologies nimbly and drive new ways of conducting business as well as expand their own customer bases. SMB businesses, not so surprisingly, may be surpassing larger enterprises in their adoption of new technologies for interacting with buyers.

What Does This All Mean?

If you are part of a larger enterprise marketing to SMB buyers, what this all points to is a higher stakes challenge. Expectations on buyer experience are being renewed at a constant rate for the reasons mentioned above. Many of today’s new technologies, which for the most part had their original invention in non-business pursuits, have balanced the equation. While larger enterprises enjoyed an advantage in acquiring newer technologies over that of SMB businesses, this may no longer be true. In fact, the opposite in many cases may be true with SMB businesses able to leap frog into newer technologies as cost factors continue to be driven lower.

With this being the case, larger enterprises need to focus on creating seamless buyer-based experiences that allow SMB businesses to act quickly, make choices, and do so in the channels they prefer. This applies to both inbound and outbound efforts. A key focus for inbound efforts is that of enriching the buyer experience. Darren Pleasance, a Principal with McKinsey & Company, recently covered this topic in an excellent article entitled, Serious about SMB experience? Focus on your web site, on McKinsey's Chief Marketing & Sales Officer Forum site. Darren mentions the importance of the web site experience, providing the ability to buy seamlessly through multiple channels, and investing in post-purchase experiences as keys to success in the SMB segment. All of these contributing to enriched buyer experiences. The core of SMB buyer-based marketing and selling will not only be the web site as Darren articulates, but I believe the totality of the buyer experience now becoming the driving force behind how SMB buyers choose.

This brings us back to outbound. Does this mean inside sales and other outbound activities will simply go away? Far from it I believe. A fundamental shift however needs to take place in how organizations view and orient their outbound efforts such as inside sales. This shift relates to transforming from a tools-based approach to a buyer-based experience approach. Here’s the voice of one SMB business executive articulating this point:

“The thing that kills you is that you get what you need from the web site but contacting them directly is a whole different matter. It’s as if they are clueless that I may have visited their site and got information to review. On top of that, I get calls from their people saying they are my account manager. Really? Then how come they don’t know that I talked to someone in their company already?”

This exemplifies what happens when organizations fail to connect their inbound activities with outbound activities in SMB buyer-based marketing and selling. On the other hand, connecting the two tightly enriches the experience as this SMB business owner says:

“I was really impressed to be honest. I went on the site and found a few items I wanted to read so downloaded them. I got a call from the company; his name was Steve, first acknowledging that I had downloaded the papers and then asking if I had questions. We wound up having a discussion on some of things we’ve been working on. Wasn’t pushy or anything like that.”

To create impressive buyer experiences, this integration of inbound and outbound cannot be ignored. While the shiny object these days is inbound and the incessant promotion of content marketing, for some products and services, the ultimate deciding factor will continue to come down to the buyer conversation taking place. One thing we can count on is that more and more SMB buyers today come to table ready for a conversation – are you?

Next Up: Closing the deal in SMB with Buyer-Based Selling

Follow @TonyZambito

Related articles

• Grow SMB Revenues With Buyer-Based Marketing (buyerology.com)
• How To Get To Know The New SMB Buyer (buyerology.com)
• Your Top Priority Is Growing The SMB Revenue Base - Now What? (buyerology.com)
• Channeling Buyer-Based Experiences in SMB (buyerology.com)

Custom Fan Page Milestone posts are automatically posted in the expanded view of your Timeline wall. The posts are visible to everyone by default. Site admins have the option to “Hide From News Feed” in case there is new milestones to be added.
The image that you wish to upload together with your milestone, the image should have the following dimensions: 843 pixels wide x 403 pixels tall space.
The new fan page timeline has a more detailed facet but can be time consuming because it is more detailed. This is the milestone feature. Big boxes have shown interest in using the milestone feature and it looks like local businesses will benefit greatly from it.
Here are a few ways a small local business can utilize the Milestone Feature:
• When the business or organization started
• When or if new branches were opened
• Employees and new staff
• When new products were distributed in the market
• When a particular number of orders/customers/revenue was attained
• When valuable vendor relationships are established
• When special recognition or awards are awarded
• Local Chamber and Non-Profit
• Local Sponsorships / High School etc.
• Logo changes, TV, radio, print ads
• Present a correlation between changes in your area and your business
• When you opened your website or social media presence
• When new product partnerships are created
Fan Page Milestones gives small local business excellent benefits. Using a little imagination, it is able to tell a local story which is not possible on your old Facebook page. It can serve more like a website, give more opportunities and make a pleasant brand.
Begin by adding important events in your brand’s background and other important details. Some relevant moments worth sharing on Timeline are new product launches, expansions, awards, important hires and major updates.
Your history is preserved on Facebook as gaps are filled in and the biggest moments of your brand are outlined.

A quick alternative to Fan Page Milestones
Should you want to add something on your Timeline but do not prefer it to be as prominent as the Milestone, simply add a status update to an earlier date. Write your status the way you normally do then choose the option below the “box” with the word “year” and start putting the date. It is best to hide it from the News Feed to avoid confusion among people.
Your can also tell your story on a custom fan page cover through the use of creative images.