Once Again Another Great Option From Google

The marketer’s best friend brings us yet another metric-centric marketing option worth a good, long look.

Last week Google and Bloomberg announced a deal that delivers Google TV ads to Bloomberg TV. Ok, big deal you say. Yes, they’ve already done this with NBC and Dish Network. Yet the interesting thing to emphasize again is that it brings Google’s metric-centric reporting technology (and subsequent ROI expectations) to a new medium.

Google TV ad technology can tell advertisers which ads the audience is watching second by second. The technology uses data from millions of anonymized set-top boxes, Google said. And as with Google’s search ads, for which advertisers pay only when users click, TV ads incur costs based on impressions actually delivered.

TV ads based on actual impressions and not the sheer privilege of owning a spot on some network’s precious airwaves? Now there’s a concept.

Google continues to charge ahead and become more and more of a sensible budget option for marketers. You’d be wise to take note.

This Blog Is Like Search Marketing

No, no, not because it gets no respect compared to other flashier blogs that reach the masses.

It’s like search marketing in the sense that at times it builds on others’ efforts and capitalizes on them. As this post from Search Insider points out:

…how could we let things get to a point where competitors are free to swoop in and steal your best customers after you’ve invested so much in them? You can see why so many people hate search’s model and liken it more to hijacking and hostage-taking than good old-fashioned marketing.

Yeah, many of the topics here build on others comment,thoughts and ideas. Hell, much of marketing, as you know, is built on taking a good, long look at data, history and research and figuring out how to build a strategy that works better. And it’s important to have that perspective as you build your understanding and investment in search — know where your competitors position themselves, know what they say about themselves, know where their niches are. And then plant your Google (and other search engine) keywords and SEO efforts in those niches, and steal their customers at the last click when they’re searching for information and in the mood to buy.

So yes, SEM and SEO can complement your own spend in other channels nicely — yet when you’re making them charge ahead and work for you on the other guy’s dime, that’s an even better solution.

The Complicated World of SEO, Part 3

Still with me on this?

In addition to becoming familiar with the technical aspects of SEO (as described in my earlier two posts), you should hone up on building a basic framework on reporting and analysis of your SEO campaigns. You have to justify what you spend on some level, right?

Now, some of what’s discussed in that Search Insider post is complicated to make happen (translation = unlikely for many of us). Yet, on some level, you need to decide how you’re going to measure ROI of your search campaigns. You need some sort of measurement to justify, even if just for yourself (how unlikely is that?), what you’re spending. Triple the emphasis on it if you need to justify it to management or a boss (much more likely).

Kudos if you’re analyzing at the granular level. Get up to speed on the basic level if you’re not doing any analysis today.

Again Another Great Option From Google

Yes, you guessed it, this is a continual theme.

At first glance, the still-being-developed Google Moderator tool is a blend of social media and social management, as it uses Digg-like ratings to locate and highlight questions or issues most important to a particular crowd, event, segment, etc.

Yet you can take a good, long look and see the big potential this tool holds for marketers if it’s built out with a powerful and friendly UI and reporting aspect. Of course, software and vendors and solutions already exist that do this, yet combining the Google brand and resources with the social media, user-generated aspect of Moderator has huge credibility and interactivity potential with customers, along with the real-time nature of social media.

Measure consumer feedback on what they like or don’t like about a product or brand

Determine major customer service issues

Compile feedback that leads to product launches and/or extensions

Much, much more

I’ll bet we see the big brands be the first to charge ahead and harness the power of Moderator to aggregate brand and product questions. Or even the media brands. Certainly they already monitor customer opinions online and in the blogosphere, yet the functionality of Moderator lets people jump onto other peoples’ questions and create a snowball rolling downhill, a la Digg.

Pretty soon, anything we do will be covered under the auspices of the verb “Googled.” “Just Google it” will have a whole host of meanings to marketers.

The Complicated World of SEO, Part 2

After reading my last post, you still ask “How is technical knowledge of SEO relevant to me as a marketer? Aren’t things like CAN-SPAM, email best practices, and everything else we need to more important?”

Well, face the music, slick. It is important to hone up on at least some of the inner workings of SEO, if not some of the hardcore how-tos. And here’s why: it impacts all kinds of aspects of our online marketing programs. This MediaPost article summarizes some of the technical-side Google-related issues that impact our meat-and-potatoes marketing plans (the Google Webmaster Central Blog goes into far more elaborate detail).

Are you proposing a Flash-heavy site to a client for that big product launch, or lacing your new magazine site with Flash? Well, can you also tell your client or boss how friendly Flash is to search engines, recite whether or not Google can index non-textual Flash content, and explain how it is that a search enginge can index content in a Flash file? I hope so.

The same concept applies to other issues like ensuring you have a backend that spits out search-friendly URLs vs. finding a balance between dynamic URLs and rewrites. And you need to of course give heavy weight to Google, yet also factor in other search engines that play a role in your site’s existence. As today’s marketer, you need to be fluent in some of this language.

If not, it may be hard to save a great idea from getting shot down.

The Complicated World of SEO

Now, I’m not any kind of authority on the technical side of SEO. I know what needs to be done from a marketing perspective, and work with technical experts who manage the actual keystrokes and code-building needed to make SEO work (God bless them, those techno-experts).

Yet much of the time, the technical aspects of SEO and the implications for marketers are worth a good, long look for marketers. Why? Well, for example, you may conjur up a great SEO strategy (like a blog, online video, etc.) that’s too complicated or time-consuming on the backend for your technical team to pull off. And even if it’s not, the technical aspects of SEO are so intertwined with its overall success that, as a marketer, you need to stay aware of at least the basics, and at best become familiar with alot of the backend things that need to happen to make SEO sing.

So, on that note, Google announced a pretty major change in it’s SEO best practices when it said you should not use rewrites to change dynamic URLs to static-looking ones. Now, it’s up to you to figure out how that impacts you (here’s a hint: are you doing redirects for dynamic URLs?). For example, if your website spits out ugly dynamic URLs, and your tech team rewrites them into clean vanity URLs you can put on your printed materials to easily get customers where they need to be, your world may have just changed. How much? You tell me.

And if you don’t know, ask you technical team and start to get familiar with the world of SEO more intricately. As this medium becomes of greater and greater importance to marketers, it’s key for you to understand how to charge ahead and leverage it to your advantage — and understand what needs to be done to make it happen.

Still Another Great Option From Google

Was just a matter of time…oops, I meant days…wasn’t it?

Well, the future owner of the entire world launched yet another breakthrough product today, this time partnering with T-Mobile. As the article mentions, the G1 is a total mobile-Web play by an as-of-today-pure-Web player. This surely holds tons of promise for marketers who have a good, long look at mobile marketing as a key to uber-personalization and closer relationships with customers. It could also welcome traditional Google advertisers to charge ahead into the mobile space.

Android is one of several efforts by Google to extend its dominance from the PC-Web to the mobile Web. The software is its effort to ensure that its consumer services — as well as its advertising systems — are widely available on mobile phones.

Is there a better friend to marketers right now than Google? If you think so, make your suggestions known.

Can They Make Life for Marketers Any More Complicated?

Yeah, it’s a rhetorical question, I know. Of course they can, and they will. And by they, I mean spammers, legislators and lawyers. And let’s not forget lawyers. Oh, and did I also mention lawyers?

Ok, so we know spammers have pretty much ruined the pristine landscape of email for legitimate marketers. Now we all play by the CAN-SPAM rules…except, of course, the same spammers that led to the legislation. And the amount of spam only continues to make life hard for legitimate email marketers.

We know legislators like good, long looks at marketing activities. They pass laws like CAN-SPAM, Sarbanes-Oxley and other laws that impact businesses and marketers. Legislation impacts how we send email and faxes, what we say in them, and who we can send them to. It impacts how we manage customer and prospect data, how we interact with customers and prospects, and what information and actions we must provide to them and when. That’s a given to only get more complicated as new media and technology emerges.

And now, we get to the headliner: lawyers. In this particular case, a group of lawyers wants to make life for marketers a whole lot more complicated. To make a long story short, if this law firm wins their suit then simple Internet links would become a permission-based process. Are you kidding me?

Can you imagine having the time to get permission before linking to another website? I recognize the importance of dealing with privacy issues and legislation that dictates how we interacte with customer information. Yet marketers (and actually bloggers too) would be potentially cursed if the ill-meaning folks at Jones Day win this suit. As the article mentions, the logic behind the argument seems to be laced with holes that would seem to indicate it won’t charge ahead and succeed. Keep your fingers crossed.

And if it does, this article will be amended to include a new category: judges.

Blogs as a Marketing Tool, Part 2

Not too long ago, I pointed out the obvious that if you’re a marketer, you’re considering how to charge ahead and use a blog.

As a follow-up to that, in addition to taking a good, long look at the post from Mario Sundar on corporate blogging, take a look at this great post from Chris Brogan on blogging.

We’re getting farther into a marketing reality that merges Web 2.0 with marketing to more and more people who use Web 2.0. Yet don’t just throw up a blog, call it Web 2.0, and call it a day. The strategy has to be right, the traffic building has to be right…everything has to be right, or it just isn’t effective. It’s like buying media or buying a list that offers only 50% of the audience is your target. If you don’t put the right effort into your blogs and other social media initiatives, you’re missing out just the same.

What’s Web 2.0?

How many times has that been uttered by some financial type in a B2B media company?

Well, probably alot more than at B2B marketers in general. Some really interesting posts in this Forrester article on how B2B marketers use social media. Less than 35% of all B2B marketers use blogs, online video, user-generated content and other tactics commonly labeled as 2.0. Yet, I wonder what the percentage is among B2B media companies — I’m guessing if someone takes a good, long look it’s alot lower.

Sure, sure, I know — you use webcasts, you have some sites with forums, your editors post blogs. Yet how many of you really use them as marketing tactics? That’s the real opportunity here. If you’re a marketer in a B2B media company, you need to think about how to charge ahead and leverage 2.0 tactics to help you get closer to customers. Will a blog that hits on industry hot buttons give your event a year-round presence (and your customers a year-round voice)? Will podcasts or online video create some buzz and differentiate your properties?

And more importantly, how will you digest and act on the dialogue? Only then are you leveraging the true value of 2.0 to build valuable customer relationships.

Election ’08 Marketing

Interested in what kind of spin Obama and McCain are using in their latest ads? Interested in some sassy commentary on the spin, the ads and the candidates? Then take a good, long look at the CampaignFreak site from MediaPost.

If nothing else, they have some bondage photos of Jessica Alba (no lie).

SEM — Eager Young Partner to Reluctant Old Advertising

One is shiny and new and all the kids love it. One is shiny and old and all the kids hate it. Yet they both make kids and their parents buy stuff and feel certain ways about certain brands.

Seach Insider posted a great article about the dynamic between SEM and advertising. Much like the direct marketing execs, event experts and promotion pros, today’s all-new SEM whizzes are typically shunned by the Madison Avenue elite. You know you’ve made it in the marketing world when the big old bully starts picking on you, right? Actually, what it means is after a good, long look you’ve made it to their radar — you’re another effective, metric-centric tactic that threatens to chip away at the client’s ad budget.

Yes indeed, SEM has a good story to tell right now — although, many marketers remain caught up in the traditional, tried-and-true (and tired) ways of marketing to charge ahead and utilize the various SEM tactics to their advantage. As a marketer, you owe it to yourself to figure out, right now, where SEM can help your brand or company. Is it tapping into all-new prospects via paid search? Is it catching up with a competitor’s site in organic rankings? Can SEM support a new product, a creative campaign theme or URL, or new website? Are your best search prospects on Google or Yahoo? Or another search engine you haven’t tested? Are your competitors beating you to the punch on SEM?

Don’t put it off — smarten up on at least the basics of SEM right now. Start at Search Insider and go from there.

Your Brand’s Face on Facebook

Make sure you give it the right makeup, or you won’t have a date to the dance.

Surely Facebook is still one of the hottest topics among marketers, as brands strive to engage the Facebook masses. Take a good, long look at this helpful article from Forrester on Facebook marketing options. It lays out some basics you need to know before you charge ahead and build a message for your brand on the site.

Definitely put careful thought into your message before throwing up a Facebook page or buying ads on the site. How is your brand relevant, what’s your value proposition? Think of how to deliver your ultimate message to this skeptical, ad-abhoring community — where will it be interactive, how will you reward interaction, where can you use 2.0 to enhance the interaction/discussion.

Yet Another Great Option From Google

You’ll likely see that headline alot in this blog.  I mean, we all agree Google will eventually own everything and employ everyone in the workforce, right?

The latest, greatest feature from Google is (no, NOT Chrome…at least not yet) aggregated, digitized historial newspaper content from some of the most reputable newspapers. How is this cooler than a flashy new browser, you ask? Well, at least as it pertains to marketers, it’s cool because it adds a ton of targetable new content to the hallowed terabytes of the Internet.

Ok, so maybe Google isn’t super-monetizing it right now. Yet, when it does, it’s sure to offer marketers a great opportunity (put that in newsprint). It could add an all-new dimension to campaigns. At the start of football season, forget targeting fans just on NFL.com and ESPN.com — you could include your message next to football-related content indexed from top publishers all the way back to 1967 (year of Super Bowl I) and beyond. That’s a pretty powerful impact. Any time a football fan did the things football fans do online to get ready for the start of a season — look at a team roster, search for local media interviews with the coach, see what a player did in college, find out the last year your team had a winning record (if you’re a 49ers fan, anyway), locate photos of what Lambeau Field looked like when Vince Lombardi coached there — your company’s message could be right there via Google. Online, in metrics, with ROI spelled out.

Copy that concept to any topic for any company in any market. It’s typical Google targetability, yet it’s enhanced because the Google search results are top-tier publishers and top-tier content. Boeing could target against all content indexed about airplanes. Wharton could target against all content about business schools. When Google’s typical targeting functionality is included, the local Ford dealer in Milford, CT could target against any search on auto-related content from the Connecticut area.

Hell, an ISP, hardware maker or software company could put a message among every story ever written about the Internet. They’re campaign tagline could be something like “We weren’t there when it all started — until right now.”

Makes sense. Just ask Google.

More on Michael Phelps…

“Attention marketers, it is quarter to 12, the seats on this bandwagon are closing in 15 minutes. If you’d like to hitch your ride, please contact your nearest Octagon representative immediately.”

Check out this Yahoo article on all the endorsements Michael Phelps has lined up. If you’re a marketer on a big brand, are you ponying up to become one of the many sponsors, or are you steering clear to avoid getting lost in the fray?

Carlisle does limit the number of Phelps’ corporate endorsements, which include Visa, Speedo, AT&T, Omega, Kellogg’s, Pure Sport, Rosetta Stone and three to five more coming in six months.
Phelps already has plenty of exposure. After Athens, he landed on a dozen magazine covers and six national TV spots. Octagon created behind-the-scenes videos of swimmers, including one featuring the friendly rivalry between Phelps and Ian Crocker, another U.S. Olympic swimmer.