Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Technology

Maximizing ROI: content as commerce

In my career working in the digital marketing space, I have worked on hundreds of projects for clients in practically any industry you can think of. In that time, I have had the pleasure of working on a number of e-commerce sites that provided me a fantastic perspective on designing with conversion in mind.

One of my key takeaways in doing business online is that no matter how you execute (basic website, social media engagement, search engine marketing, etc.) and no matter what industry you are in, you MUST treat your content as commerce.

I cannot tell you how many meetings I had been in where people say, "We are not an e-commerce site, how can we measure ROI?". That's a bad point of view to have and this post will hopefully work to change your mind.

So, what do I mean by content as commerce? There are a couple of steps in this process. First, you have to do the little things right from the start. Usability is, as in e-commerce, a key to making sure that users can find what they are looking for quickly.

Second, map out your site and weight content that is a priority, then compare it to your actual traffic. See a difference? Here is a good model that I have used before to help with this mapping. This is from a guest post that I did for Drew McLellan back in 2007.

	Draw a map of your current site. You can use Visio, Word, pen and paper or anything else you have at your disposal. Just treat each page/object/action as a block and show them in their hierarchy.
	Now, create a copy of the map and color code each page so that is aligns with your business goals. For this example we'll say red is a top tier page that generates revenue, orange is a second tier support page, yellow is a third tier information page and blue is non-essential.
	Now, create a copy of the color-coded map and roughly scale each section as it relates to your page view metrics so that pages with more views are larger and less views are smaller. Try to keep them in proportion. This is where people go on your site compared with your business goals. In our example, we need to create tactics that shift more views to the red blocks and less to the blue. (Note: you could also scale based on time spent on each page or other key metric)

Third, we need to assign values to content in order to get some more concrete numbers. For example, you could assign a value of $5/5 points when a consumer downloads a PDF or $25 when they sign up for your email newsletter or $30 when they become a fan on Facebook. The more you roll these numbers up across all of the channels you participate in the better. This is obviously behind the scenes, so you can try it in your own time.

Action Name	Value	#	Total
Download White Paper	$15.00	750	$11,250.00
Became a Fan on Facebook	$25.00	2,500	$62,500.00

How do you get those numbers? You can obviously make them up, but this has more impact when the numbers are real and when they have executive buy-in. Another way is to use some old school comparisons like impressions or cost-per-acquisition. Ideally you can get to a place where you start to see the metrics take shape and the more that shape is printed in dollars, the more successful you will be. (You wouldn't spend time and money promoting something useless would you?)

Keys to succeeding with content-driven sites:

• Create a clear interface for your users
  
• Rank content in the order it is valuable to the business, weigh that with the value to the consumer (these should ideally be aligned)
  
• Visualize your traffic to see where it is going and shift it to the content you value
  
• Adapt over time. You can A/B test content, tease it with advertising or promote it in email to see what works. This makes the rest of your marketing better as well.
  
• Assign values for specific actions and track it over time.
  

What are your thoughts? What would you add to this list?

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Technorati Tags: marketing, measurement, strategy, trends, Usability

Text to newsstand

I was flipping through the Economist the other day (because it exhausts me to try to actually read the whole thing) while I was on the plane and came across this insert in the magazine. I found it quite interesting and wanted to get your take.

 

The point of the service is to send a text message to receive alerts when the print publication is hitting newsstands. It's an interesting idea in the promotion of print with digital platforms. Obviously the content strategy is to release at the stands first and then online to keep print subs up.

What do you think of this? Would you sign up? Would you want this service for other printed materials? There are a number of magazines that I read but don't subscribe to for which this is an interesting idea.

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Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, Matt Dickman, mobile, SMS, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends

Launched: Papa John's Road Trip augmented reality

Launched is a series that highlights practitioners who are using social media in consumer and B2B campaigns. The goal is to cut out the theory and rhetoric and focus on real world examples of social media in action.

This example is for a Papa John's campaign created by Fleishman-Hillard (my employer) and includes physical events, social media hooks and includes a cool augmented reality example. The campaign is in support of Papa John's 25th anniversary and ties into the Road Trip program. This post looks at the augmented reality application and tie to the broader campaign.

Here is a quick video overview of the technology:

[Feed readers please click through to the post to see the video.]

Marketing takeaways:

• Good use of technology to tie physical customer interactions back to virtual elements and then through to transaction
  
• Measurement through unique coupon codes in the augmented reality environment
  

If you have a suggestion for a future episode of Launched, drop me an email.

For my complete library of my videos for marketers, click here.

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Technorati Tags: FleishmanHillard, PapaJohns, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, video, virtual worlds, web2.0, Augmented Reality

Tourism and social media

Earlier in the week I presented on the impact of social media in the tourism industry at the Idaho Conference on Recreation and Tourism in Sun Valley, Idaho. A fantastic crowd and place to visit. Here is the deck.

For more information on booking me to speak at your event, click here.

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Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, presentation, social media, Techno//Marketer, trends, tourism

The future of marketing

Last week was a whirlwind week, hence the lack of posts on the blog. I gave three presentations in three days and traveled from Cleveland to Idaho to St. Louis back to Cleveland. Here is the Friday keynote that I gave at the 2009 eMarketing Techniques conference here in Cleveland. This deck is an evolution for me, I adapt it all the time and this is the latest version.

[UPDATE] Thanks to Dan Hanson (aka the Great Lakes Geek) for recording the following interview with me after this presentation.

For more information on booking me to speak at your event, click here.

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Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer, trends, future of marketing, presentation

Ball bearings, social media and you

About three years ago I spoke at an event in a town to the south of Cleveland. The audience was a more traditional marketing audience and they were very receptive to what I had to say...except for one guy at the side of the room. If you give presentations, you know this guy. He nodded a little, but shot an occasional contrarian scowl.

If there is room to become a social media leader in the ball bearing industry, there is room to become a leader in your industry.

After I was done I saw him hanging out toward the back of the room and as I wrapped up my obligatory mingling, I approached him. After introducing myself I asked if he had any questions that he wanted to address with me.

He started, "Matt, I know what you're saying, but this doesn't work for every company. People don't care about some of these products."

I had to wonder what the heck this guy did to have such a low image of his company. I probed a little further, "I think it does apply to every company to an extent and you need to be listening to know when the timing is right. What is your industry?"

Sheepishly the guy said, "We make ball bearings."

I do love a challenge. I mentioned that his company could take a leadership position with customers and in search engines by adopting social platforms now versus waiting to play catch up. He agreed to watch, but I am doubtful that he actually took my advice.

Tonight, I took a quick stroll through the social web. Here is what I found surrounding the ball bearing industry.

How bearings are made:

Bearing service center tour:

Advances in ball bearings using ceramic:

Photos of ball bearings on Flickr:

  

Wikipedia has a good overview of the industry.

Chinese ball bearing company uses a blog to post information about their products

Other companies syndicate their news via RSS to be listed among related blogs.

Bearing manufacturers have Facebook groups as well. On Facebook there are poeple who love ball bearings and people who hate bad ball bearings.

Ball bearing companies are on Twitter too as are fans of ball bearings and the media that covers the space and professional groups as well. There is actually a lot of conversation on Twitter about bearings.

So, what the heck does this mean for you? Ask yourself, who owns my space in the social sphere online? Do a search inside the top social networks. Who is already forming relationships with my customers/potential customers/influencers? What is the best entry point for my company? How can I get involved NOW in order to not lose more ground?

If there is room to become a social media leader in the ball bearing industry, there is room to become a leader in your industry.

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Technorati Tags: brands, conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, reputation management, sentiment, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, trends

The cohesion of conversations; brands taking a #(pound)ing

The hashtag (aka the pound sign, #) is a ubiquitous part of social networking at this point. The purpose of the hashtag is to be able to track and lump a strong of asynchronous messages together for later review and analysis.

For example, a group of people coordinate and use the same keyword at the end of every tweet. You probably saw this at SXSW this year when people were ending their messages with #sxsw. You can use third party sites to aggregate those messages into a single string that is ordered by date to see how events unfold.

However, the hashtag is also being used to track the community's brand engagement. Situations like #motrinmoms, #dominos and #amazonfail now have a public timeline that will remain in place forever. The massive volume of similarly tagged content will make it very easy for anyone to find what happened and see how the company responded across search engines and social platforms.

An argument that people have used to avoid engagement in this space is that it's a relatively small sampling of people who engage in these networks. Regarding the Motrin Moms controversy, an Advertising Age article quoted a Lightspeed research study that stated 90% of women had not seen the Motrin ad that spawned the backlash online. Of the 10% who did, 8% said it negatively impacted their brand impression. While that is a small number, you cannot underestimate the power of small, passionate groups of people who use turbocharged platforms to connect with and influence other like minded people. Wildfires can start with a single match, right?

Internal listening is paramount

I can partially understand when companies have some hesitation in listening to the broad community and engaging. It's time consuming and you have to have a corporate culture to make it work. However, I do not understand companies that do not listen in the social space for employee engagement issues, brand perception problems and platform breakdowns. These types of issues are having an impact on Dominos and Amazon right now.

#dominos: This one is picking up steam now. For more info on what happened, go here.

#amazonfail: This ramped up a couple of days ago when a "glitch" in the Amazon system starting delisting GLBT titles. People responded to the "glitch" with the hashtag #glitchmyass. It seems to be trending down at the moment.

[Update] Here is page one of the Google search result for Dominos as of 10:30am on April 15, 2009. Notice entry #3 from YouTube, the top news story as well as the next three stories after the new results.

The bottom line is that these companies should have been listening and engaging all along, should have been prepared earlier with real, honest, personal responses and taken proactive steps to make things right with their community. Waiting a day to respond is WAY too long, waiting hours may even be too long.

Some things to think about:

• Listening is more important than ever
  
• Active listening can pick up issues before they become crises
  
• Community building is key (in advance of an issue)
  
• Events are being linked together by consumers for all to see
  
• The content of those interactions will live on forever
  
• The content also appears in search
  
• A few, passionate individuals can dramatically hurt or help a brand in its interactions online
  

Do you go back through hashtags to see conversations over time? Have you come across them in search results?

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Technorati Tags: listening, marketing, Matt Dickman, measurement, reputation, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends, hashtags

Great technology is transparent

Do you remember what the web looked like in 1995? Do you remember the pain it took to dial up and wait for the page to load? Do you remember early email systems like Pine? If you do, you know what highly visible technology feels like. You basically had to write code to make some of the things work and the experience was clunky and hard to manage.

Contrast your experience in 1995 to today. Your network is likely always on, surfing happens in seconds and your mail is a natural extension of your body (well, almost). You don't think about the technology behind Twitter, you just use it. You don't think about the hosting infrastructure behind Facebook, it's just there for you.

If you look at the Web2.0 movement and the development of social technologies, it's all about making the technology disappear. The less we think about our interactions the better the experience.

Ways to spot unnecessary technology:

• If your site was designed by a developer, chances are this is abundant
  
• If you have to think about options before you click, you need to simplify
  
• If you have to do any type of calculation in your head, you need to clarify
  
• If your site is 100% in Flash, you're probably dead on mobile platforms
  

What other ways can you spot unnecessary technology?

Take a look at the experience you create for your customers. Look at it across platforms (mobile, web, applications, widget, etc.) and ask yourself if you have to think about the technology. If you do notice it, you need to look at alternatives to improve. Can you make the process shorter, more simple or just generally more enjoyable?

How would you rate the experience with technology at the following sites? Does the technology get out of your way or do you have to think about it?

• Amazon.com
  
• Apple.com
  
• Moo.com
  
• GetSatisfaction.com
  
• Twitter.com
  
• MySpace.com
  
• Facebook.com
  
• Your local newspaper site
  
• Your website
  

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Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, trends, web2.0, Experience , Usability

Visualizing the growth of Facebook around the world

Today at some point, Facebook passed the 200 million user mark. If you've been keeping up with my Face of Facebook global updates you know the details of this growth. If not, what are you waiting for?

As part of the momentous occasion, Facebook released a very cool heat map of the site's global growth from zero users through today. Below are the major milestones. Note the early US and european growth and how quickly it's moving throughout APAC, India, South America and parts of Africa.

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Technorati Tags:
Facebook, marketing, Matt Dickman, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends

First//Look: Augmented reality

What do you get when you take a webcam, a piece of paper and some cool 3D animation? You get augmented reality (AR). This is relatively new though it's been experimented with for a couple of years at least. In short, AR is the combination of objects in the real world being combined with virtual objects using a webcam and some programming.

Sounds pretty cool eh? You have to see it to know what I'm talking about.

[Feed readers please click through to the post for the video]

Examples you can try yourself right now:

• Toyota iQ
  
• Volvo Ocean Race
  
• GE Smart Grid
  

Potential uses:

• The symbols that it uses can be printed on anything; paper, t-shirts, ads, etc.
  
• Any time you want to make a physical connection with virtual objects
  
• Allows interaction and engagement with printed pieces
  
• People are working on using mobile device cameras to do this while you're on the go
  
• It's just plain cool. Give it a try!
  

BMW looks at using AR to diagnose issues and help mechanics be more efficient

Turn the real world into a huge video game

Really bring Second Life into first life

This is pretty cutting edge, so not every company is going to be comfortable with it. The hardware barrier is pretty low (webcam) so this can hit a mass audience. It's great for presenting things when in conceptual mode (architecture, cars, etc.) as well as adding interactivity to existing items.

My advice is try one of the models above and think about the possibilities in your business. The hardest part may be to stop thinking of them.

[Hat tip to the Fleishman-Hillard digital team in St. Louis for putting this back on my radar screen.]

For my complete library of my videos for marketers, click here.

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To help you stay on top of what is happening in digital marketing and social media subscribe to the Techno//Marketer podcast on iTunes. Stay informed and get access to new videos first.

 If you use another podcatcher you can grab my podcast RSS feed here.

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Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, video, virtual worlds, web2.0, Augmented Reality