Marketing

If you could sum up your agency's most important focus in three words, what would they be? That's exactly the question we asked several senior level digital marketers at the iMedia Agency Summit in May. Their answers might surprise you. Click here to subscribe to the iMedia YouTube channel for more exclusive content.view full article | Add a comment

More than 70 percent of the entire internet domain name system we use every day is currently hosted in the .com space, making it one of the most familiar generic top-level domains (gTLDs) for companies and consumers, along with .net, .org, and a few others. In the next few months, however, the internet will expand, introducing a host of changes that will transform what has been a relative status quo in the area of top-level domains (TLDs). The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an organization essentially made up of the folks who "run" the internet, has made it its mission to expand the spaces and places that can be explored and used as domain names. To date, ICANN has already accepted applications for almost 2,000 new top-level domain extensions for everything from common terms (.web, .love, .store, .blog, .surf, .sex, .ad, .books) to brand names and unique identities like .apple and .NYC. We'll probably see the first new gTLDs roll out sometime in July 2013 for U.S. domains, with more to roll out and expand geographically every month thereafter. The last to roll out will likely be the more common terms (like .hotel and .music) that are being disputed by multiple organizations. So what does this mean for brands and marketers? Well, many don't even know much about it. A report last month showed that more than 60 percent of all small to mid-sized businesses were unaware of the new gTLD launch. Consumers are also in the dark, meaning that even those marketers in the know might face an uphill battle. According to research commissioned by domain service provider Afilias, only 20 percent of all U.S. consumers are aware that the program even exists. With that said, the more savvy brands out there have been following closely from the start, and many have even spent months preparing and strategizing about how to leverage the new .anything world of domain names, including brands like Citibank, Canon, Apple, Prudential, State Farm, and Google. At a branding conference in New York last month, many leading marketing managers from around the globe came together to discuss how a .brand TLD might enhance the customer experience online. These companies are making plans to ensure their success in the new TLD world by focusing on five ways to enhance their respective brands. Simplify your digital footprint Many brands will be housing their various sub-brands and associated names under the commonly known "house" brand. For example, Citibank will be putting all of its web holdings into the .CITI TLD in order to create one space for all of its properties. This could be a big plus in terms of simplifying its footprint. In addition, New York City is launching .NYC to differentiate NYC-based businesses from services worldwide, decreasing consumer confusion. Create trusted space Having a .brand TLD could give consumers more confidence that they are on a trusted website, particularly because with the thousands of new TLDs set to come online, there is bound to be more confusion then ever over what sites can be trusted. A .brand site, only open to the trademark owner, will ensure an extra layer of security and help stave off phishing attempts. Simplify search Companies want to make sure that consumers are able to find and navigate to a website. Brands will be working hard to ensure that their content is searchable and that it maintains priority in search engine algorithms across various search engines. Further, some brands are exploring the concept of creating search functionality within their .brand space that mimics a Google-type search in order to create an ecosystem for consumers to stay in and find related products without having to leave their site. For brands like P&G, Citibank, or Johnson & Johnson, this could be a powerful way to engage new and existing customers. Mobile-first environment The internet is becoming more mobile, particularly as the penetration rates for internet users worldwide are inc

There are major industry forces in play that are changing the dynamics of how data gets generated, collected, and used for optimizing customer interactions across offline and digital touchpoints. Digital data expansion has accelerated the "big data revolution." In fact, 90 percent of the data that exists in the world has been created in the past two years and includes valuable anonymous data sources in addition to personal data. According to industry sources, digital media spend is expected to grow nearly 50 percent and overtake TV ad spend by 2016. Targeted display alone will grow more than two-fold by 2016 and surpass search as the No. 1 digital media category. Data-informed programmatic media buying continues to grow as a way to generate high performance from digital media. In today's fast-moving digital ecosystem, there is a lot of hype about digital data, but its value is not fully understood, and its accuracy not properly validated. Leading digital data players build impressive technology stacks and do a nice job of collecting and aggregating various digital data sources, but there continues to be a major gap in analytics. Existing audience selection practices for digital targeting are primarily driven by off-the-shelf, generic third-party segments that are not optimized to specific campaign objectives. Marketers are not making use of rich digital and transactional first-party data to create custom audiences and are not maximizing the value of data that is available to them. We see some digital marketers with limited analytics experience making data-buying decisions based on subjective factors such as relationships and market hype. Some digital marketers gave up on the idea of using third-party digital data completely and believe they are not getting enough benefit from the use of third-party data to justify the cost. On the other hand, data sellers arbitrarily set the price for their data assets without any consideration into the incremental lift it generates for digital campaigns and wonder why digital marketers don't leverage their data to make targeting decisions. Others, who make data-buying decisions based on subjective factors, get disappointed by the accuracy of the data when they realize that a big portion of the female audience segment they purchased in fact consists of male consumers. Transformation of the digital data landscape Digital data sourcing needs to undergo a major transformation. To put this transformation into context, we should take a look at the changes that have taken place in the data ecosystem over the last 10-plus years. In the early 2000s, content-based buying was used as a proxy to reach desired audiences. In the mid 2000s, we saw continued reliance on content as a proxy, but re-marketing provided a shift in targeting. In today's environment, spend shifted toward third-party data, and first-party audience targeting grabbed the interest of marketers. The future state is all about using custom predictive analytics driving media targeting decisions and integrating offline and digital data sources. Digital marketers who embrace this transformation will have a tremendous opportunity to generate high ROI through analytically led digital data solutions. What digital marketers need The transformation of digital data sourcing and targeting needs to be driven by several factors. Measuring the value of digital data sourcing requires advanced statistical techniques. Unbiased approach: Analytic evaluation and validation of all available digital data using an agnostic approach is key to determining the most valuable data sources. Big data capabilities: An internet scale, real-time big data platform is needed to process vast amounts of digital data and integrate with DSPs, ad exchanges, and other digital media partners in the ecosystem. Advanced analytics expertise: Predictive analytics and optimization will enable the mining of granular first-party data such as response, conversion, a

BloomReach released Continuous Quality Management (CQM) technology delivering ongoing web page quality visibility and management. Burstly announced its official corporate restructure, becoming the most comprehensive provider of tools to address developer and publisher needs across the entire lifecycle of an app. Consequently, Burstly became the parent company for a suite of services including TestFlight, FlightPath, and SkyRocket. Celtra released all five of the IAB Mobile Rising Stars into its award-winning AdCreator 3 platform. Comedy Central named Jason Shafton as VP, brand marketing. CoreMedia announced the appointment of Jochen Toppe as VP of product management. Critical Mass promoted Shaina Boone to the role of SVP, thus adding her to the executive team overseeing the agency's strategy and growth. DDB Worldwide announced that it has appointed John Minty as chief operating officer of DDB California. dot429 announced that Kevin Sessums has joined the team as editorial director to helm the new 429 print publication, launching in October of this year. Dreamstime announced its Stockfreeimages database to support today's digital advertisers and protect consumers. engajer announced that the engajer platform now integrates with LinkedIn, making it easier for salespeople to deliver their best interactive video pitch to the right audience at the right time. Fetch announced the appointment of John Durham, CEO of Catalyst S+F, to its board of directors. Gigya announced a major update to its NEXUS Partner Ecosystem with the addition of 21 social and marketing technology partners, including Marketo, Sailthru, Livefyre, and Disqus. The company also announced integration with Backplane Protocol, allowing Gigya's suite of social plugins to seamlessly communicate with other applications on websites. Hotwire announced its latest office opening in San Francisco, Calif. Interakt announced its expansion into the U.S. with the opening of offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago. Krux continued building out its go-to-market and management teams by adding two senior executives: Michael Moreau as VP of business development and David Ron as chief financial officer. Krux also appointed Colin McLean to sales director and Tousanna Durgan to director, advertiser products. KSC Kreate, a creative and production studio specializing in visual content, launched a new studio in Columbus, Ohio, to support the city's retailers and marketing teams. Lattice Engines announced the latest release of its big data analytics platform, Lattice salesPRISM. Lattice salesPRISM features new capabilities that turn social insights into laser-accurate leads for sales and marketing by combining social data with the predictive power of big data. MailOnline reported that a new survey of more than 600 online advertising and marketing executives reveals that about two-thirds of brands (66 percent) and agencies (65 percent) say that branded content marketing has become very important or most important to their marketing mix. Pandora announced that Tommy Page, a former record-company executive and, most recently, publisher at Billboard, has joined the company in the new position of VP, artist and brand partnerships, effective immediately. payvia announced its strategic acquisition of Mogreet. The full Mogreet team will join payvia, with Mogreet founder and CEO James Citron serving as payvia's chief marketing officer. Permission Data hired Christopher Ambrosio as chief revenue officer and Edward Shannon as VP of media. The company also promoted Stephanie Wyand to SVP of operations. SapientNitro announced that Tabitha Geary has joined as VP of SapientNitro's growing Washington, D.C., office, which serves as the base for the agency's Mid-Atlantic business. SapientNitro also announced the debut of Sapient CommerceNow, the latest addition to Sapient's EngagedNow suite of offerings. Silverpop announced the launch of Universal Behaviors, creating

The ex-Facebook executive and TV producer explains her plan to shake up the content business--and make her own mark on the Web.The name Randi Zuckerberg might conjure visions of nepotism, but the Facebook founder's sister is doing her best to carve out her own space on the Web--and elsewhere.Speaking with The Financial Times' Emily Steel Wednesday during the Internet Week conference, Zuckerberg spoke about everything from from curated content and distribution to what she playfully dubbed "tech-life balance." When asked what compelled her to launch Zuckerberg Media, her latest foray into the online video space, Zuckerberg replied, "When I looked around at the landscape, I saw you have all these companies investing more in original content, but there were very few places for makers, for content creators."The company, which she called her second start-up after newborn son Asher, is meant to function as a Hollywood studio for Web-produced films. "The Bay Area has a great content history--Pixar, Lucas Film," she noted, but "getting data and insights is becoming more important to creating great content, and you have to know your audience."It's a perspective that Zuckerberg surely picked up at Facebook, where she created and ran the social network's marketing campaigns. Specifically, she says, she got a good idea of "what a TV network built on social media might look like" when she "commandeered a broom closet" and started interviewing engineers right on the spot. The Web series took off, and "the next day, Katy Perry called asking if she could announce her tour on Facebook Live," said Zuckerberg. Soon she was getting calls from other celebs--including President Barack Obama, who asked to host a town hall on Facebook. "That was the moment I thought, 'Someone else is going to do this. Why shouldn't it be me?'"Flash forward three years, and Zuckerberg is busy trying to make her mark on the content business. She's been nominated for an Emmy for her 2010 coverage of the mid-term elections on Facebook Live. She produced a Bravo show called "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley," though it was panned by critics and cancelled after one season due to low viewership. Now, she says, she's on a mission to serve up quality, curated content that people will actually want to watch online. "There is so much noise, there's so much content," she said. "You need to give someone that curator's stamp of approval," especially when it comes to TV. That medium "is still the main cultural driver of influence in this country and that stamp is important." Recalling her experience producing "Start-Ups" she added, "You can't really just walk into a room in Hollywood and say, 'I make videos for the Web, pay attention to me!' Hollywood wants to see credibility."

Follow the three Ts to launch better products, says Ryan Ferrier, co-founder of the 60 Day MBA program.Launching an imperfect product is an entrepreneur's worst nightmare. But by taking the time to perfect it prior to launch, entrepreneurs might be missing out on valuable feedback from customers, says Ryan Ferrier, co-founder of the program 60 Day MBA. Ferrier and his partner Dave Llorens created 60 Day MBA to help aspiring entrepreneurs learn by doing. For students, that doesn't mean writing a step-by-step plan or designing a flawless product but coming up with an idea and taking it right to the consumer. "Don’t plan forever and build the perfect machine," Ferrier said in a recent interview with Smart Planet. "Listen to customers, all good comes from that." At the core of his curriculum are the three Ts:Talk to the customer.Translate what you’ve learned into an offering.Try it out.By incorporating customers' feedback into product development and their business model, entrepreneurs can launch a successful business.

The psychology behind how we spend our money is a wondrous thing. I’ll gladly throw down $1 a day for a Diet Coke, but I’m reluctant to spend $1.50 on a box of pasta that would feed my whole family when I can get it for less than that on another day. I’m also reluctant to pay for additional levels on my iPad games. I’ve done it once or twice, but it’s not an easy button push. For whatever reason, mobile users will do almost anything to keep from paying for an upgrade – including engage with ads. The data comes from a new study by the Yankee Group called “Redefining Virtual Currency.” It’s an informative read and it’s free, so you should check out the whole report if you’re in the app biz. Disclaimer time: the survey was paid for by Tapjoy, a company that is in the mobile advertising biz. Not saying the data is biased, I just want to be clear. The report says that 1 in 3 mobile owners are downloading 2 to 3 apps per month. 1 in 5 are downloading 4 to 6 apps a month. Almost all smartphone owners and more than 85% of tablet owners have at least one free app on their device. When it comes to paid apps, the numbers drop. 63% of smartphone owners and 64% of tablet owners have paid for an app. Smaller, but still, very good numbers. It gets better. 54% of smartphone owners and 41% of tablet owners have paid for an upgrade to an app. So, we know they’ll pay – but the flipside is, they’d rather not. Free is better, of course. Even if it means watching an ad in order to get a reward. What kind of reward is worth the effort? This is my favorite chart from the study: 71% would watch an ad in return for a free coffee! LOL. Make that a Diet Coke and I’m in. I also find it fascinating that “paperback book” was the second most popular choice. Who says people don’t read? At the top of the list is the tablet app, coming in 7% higher and a smartphone app. Why? It’s not that tablets are more popular, it’s probably because tablet apps cost more. I haven’t seen a study but that’s been my experience. Mobile users are already warming up to the idea of exchanging time and information for digital goods. 53% of tablet owners in the survey said they already viewed commercials in exchange for a free app download. I don’t think I have but I probably would if the opportunity presented itself. Which brings me to the point – this is an opportunity for marketers that hasn’t been fully explored. Pretend you like to hike. You get a free hiker’s guide app but to get more hiking trails in your area you must pay an additional .99. Or you can submit your email address to a company that sells hiking gear and get the upgrade for free.  It’s a three-way win. The customer gets a personalized upgrade. The retailer gets a targeted email to add to his mailing list. The app developer gets a kick-back for every email he collects. According to the study, The virtual currency market is currently sitting at $47.5 billion in the US. By 2017, it’s expected to rise to $55.4 billion. Who doesn’t want a piece of that? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Email can leave people feeling overwhelmed, even harassed. Do you know when to stop?When I was running my first technology company, I found it hard to sleep: too many thoughts and ideas buzzing in my head. So I used to get out of bed, do email for about an hour, and then go back to bed. On one occasion, I was dismayed to get an instant reply: I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.I realized that I had become an email bully: that employees saw the time stamp and felt, in some way, chastised. That hadn't been my intention but one of the first lessons of leadership is to appreciate that what you mean and what is heard are two separate things.Everyone I know feels harassed by email which has invaded their waking and sleeping hours. The combination of fear (I don't want to be caught napping) and efficiency (I want to keep the backlog manageable) erodes peace of mind. Executives email all day, much of the night, during meals, during meetings. And everyone agrees: it's awful.At eBay, management did something about it: they banned weekend emails. If you had to write an email, you could draft it--but not send it. The reform cost nothing. Productivity didn't fall. Innovation didn't cease. People said that it felt as good as a 50 percent pay rise--because it gave them back their weekends.In the U.K., supermarket CEO Justin King introduced email-free Fridays. You could communicate by phone or face but no emails could go out on a Friday. The goal was to encourage face-to-face communication, build rapport, remind people that they had relationships at work, not just addresses.Do you dare try it?

We talk a lot about how it’s going to take a meteor to disrupt the way we watch television, so tightly bound are the legal arrangements that impede innovation. But maybe that meteor is already here and we don’t know it yet.Maybe that meteor looks a lot like a Roku box.Roku is far and away the most successful of the streaming devices, both from a sales perspective and from a usability perspective (I test them out both in the office and at home and Roku is the winner hands down - more content, easier to use and cheaper.)And now, in addition to all the network apps, there are MVPD apps: Time Warner introduced an app a few months back that has over 300 channels - including all the good ones - housed in a far more user friendly interface than we’ve ever seen from an MVPD. Which raises the issue of network apps versus MVPD apps.To date, most of the activity around second screen apps has come from the networks, HBO GO and Watch ESPN being two of the more prominent examples. But there’s a limit to how many apps we can open - imagine if your TV experience consisted of 150 apps, each for a different network with a different navigation and different experience. Which is where the MVPD can come in. Live viewing aside, there needs to be some sort of organizational framework for the various network experiences, a common discovery engine and a way to personalize each user’s experience on a macro level, not just network by network.So here’s where the MVPD can come in. Imagine Time Warner didn’t just have an app but that the Roku OS was their app. They would handle discovery, wish lists, recommendations and the like, and they’d enforce standardized ad units and ways to measure the success of both ads and programming.But once you crossed that line, once you moved from the home screen to the show of your choice, you’d move into the world the network created.That would, in turn, give the networks a renewed raison d’etre. The loss of brand identity is perhaps the number one thing keeping network executives up at night. (They’ve fallen rapidly since the days of “must see TV.”) A unique second (and/or first) screen network experience would help each network to maintain its identity and connect with the user, while the MVPD would still be able to create a framework with the program guide, controlling things like discovery and channel flipping along with any DVR functionality (which is likely to take the form of catch-up TV.)Is it the system you’d design if you were designing TV from scratch? Probably not. But then again you probably wouldn’t design networks or production companies into the picture either. We work with what we’ve got, and this seems like it could be a very good solution. It doesn’t require Roku-- you could create it on any streaming device, and the only caveat is that you’d need a decent sized pipe to ensure that picture quality was the same as it is on broadcast TV. But that’s it. The pieces are all there. Someone’s just got to put them together. And start killing off the dinosaurs.

Blogger and marketing strategist John Jantsch explains why learning to write for an audience made him better at selling and doing business.They say the pen is mightier than the sword--but what business does an entrepreneur have picking up either? More than you might think, says marketing consultant and blogger John Jantsch. On his blog, Duct Tape Marketing, Jantsch explains why mastering writing skills is a must for business owners, and how becoming a blogger has made him a better business communicator and salesman.Writing keeps your message short and sweet.Forcing yourself to create succinct content limited by a certain number of pages or words can help you organize your thoughts in a simple and understandable way, writes Jantsch in a blog post. By breaking complex issues into digestible chunks on the page, you can simplify problem areas--perhaps even hitting upon a simple solution, he explains. This is a skill that can apply across disciplines--and be particularly helpful to a problem-solving founder or entrepreneur.Writing motivates your ears.Being a better writer makes you a better listener, according to Jantsch. He writes, "When I engage in conversations or listen to radio interviews. I listen with a writer's ear and often find my head filling up with ideas for blog posts by simply listening to others discuss sometimes unrelated subjects." This ability to identify key topics and string together extraneous data and commentary to structure your own story can help you to read between the lines.Writing teaches you to look for the gaps in conversation.Listening to the discussion is one thing--but training yourself to think about what you can add to it is quite another. "The discipline required to create even somewhat interesting content... requires that I study what's new, what's being said, and what's not being said in order to find ways to apply it to the world of small business," writes Jantsch. If innovation occurs in the gaps that no one else has thought to occupy, paying close attention to what has been said--and what has yet to be said--seems like a valuable entrepreneurial asset.Writing helps you refine your pitch.There's a reason that your grade-school teachers suggested writing notecards to accompany a class presentation: Writing your speaking points down helps you to organize and pare down your thoughts."I write like I speak and often I write to sell an idea or even a specific tactic," writes Jantsch. "But I find that clearly stating idea pitches in writing has improved my ability to quickly articulate them in a selling or interview setting. It's like you build up this reserve bank of pre-tested discussion points."Writing allows your ideas to evolve.One of the toughest things to observe can be the trajectory of complex ideas over time. But when you're writing your ideas down, Jantsch explains, simply collecting those ideas and looking for connections can help you speed up the "Eureka!" process."The habit of producing content over time affords you the opportunity to create larger editorial ideas that can be reshaped and repurposed for other settings. I've taken a collection of blog posts on a specific topic and turned them into an ebook more than once," Jantsch writes. In other words, writing--and examining reoccurring themes in that writing--can help you to pick out those overarching connections you may be missing and help you arrive at that "Aha!" moment even faster.