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I've never been accused of being a diva, but I may consider myself one after tonight. I'll be discussing blog analytics at 6:30 pm Eastern with two very smart people: Toby Bloomberg and Marianne Richmond.
The format is a live show on BlogTalkRadio. Listeners can join the conversation at 718.508.9924.
I had my first exposure to trayvertising on US Airways last weekend. I didn't find it as annoying as some people have complained - in fact, I think that with better creative, there's great opportunity here.
For example, the rectangular shape and two circles? Kind of like a Jeep's grill. Or have you ever wanted to do the crossword or sudoku in the in-flight magazine, but it was already filled out? Put some sponsored puzzles there on a washable material - consumers will thank you. It's also a natural fit for leisure destinations. "Where to today? Toledo? Wouldn't you rather be on your way to Aruba instead?"
Here we go with Round 2. Great reactions to the alpha version of the M20 list! The best part - new marketing voices are being highlighted in social media, getting beyond the "echo chamber" that exists in this space. (Another great aspect is the addition of many non-U.S. blogs to the list.)
This is also why I've tweaked the rankings. I believe that the rankings should be totally transparent, so anyone knows where they stand at any time. I also believe that rankings should reflect BOTH authority and influence. I'll explain more about this after the list, because talking about it is kind of like watching sausage being made.
In the past fortnight or so, an additional 18 blogs have come to my attention. I'm listing all 31 here as the beta version (download OPML file):
Technorati authority has been replaced by a composite score: 50% authority + 50% influence. This breaks down as:
The highest Technorati rank in the list is Todd And at 717; so any blog between 645 and 717 gets a 10, or 30 points. Google pagerank is used directly; the highest page rank in the list is Eric Kintz at 7 (i.e. 14 points). Bloglines subscribers are cut by decile as well. John Porcaro is highest at 372; so any blog with 335 to 372 subscribers gets a 10, or 50 points.
The number of links to a site measures authority. But authority can also be gamed through blog tag and other memes. Thus Google page rank completes the authority metric being a tool in use by the general population. I considered two other sources; Compete does not measure subdomains and Alexa comes up as spyware for many people.
But links along aren't enough. There's something to be said about the number of people subscribed to a blog's feed. Engaged? Maybe. Maybe not. But subscribers mean influence of ideas. I don't think that the number of Bloglines subscribers is a perfect metric by any means. For example, the number of Google-related subscribers to this blog is more than 2x Bloglines on any given day. However, Google numbers aren't publicly available, not everyone burns a feed through Feedburner (and has publicity turned on), and Bloglines is the only reader where you can see everyone's stats. Perfect? No. But it's the best of what's around.
As always, your suggestions on additional blogs, as well as better ways to measure authority and influence, are greatly appreciated.
Next update (gamma or live) in two weeks.
I have a lot of respect for Ad Age. Their reporters are smart, their data is valuable, and their features are interesting. Ad Age is an important and influential voice in our industry - and I just can't understand why they still have Al Ries writing columns. Yes, I still read them - to get a perspective on how traditional marketing can't deal with the changes taking place today.
In early 2006, something struck me as odd when Ries declared that Guatemala should rename itself in order to increase tourism. That idea is about as good as starting a war to lower oil prices.
The second was a blatant mistake that BMW had changed its tagline. Wrong.
More recently, Ries tells Ad Age readers why the iPhone will fail. I think generating $250 million in a weekend of sales is pretty much a success.
Now, Ries says that Playboy's move to digital is a bad idea, comparing it to failed product line extensions. Wrong. The world has changed. According to Pew, 47% of all U.S. adults have broadband at home, up from 30% in 2005. Moreover, this shift has been underway at the company for years and the company turned a profit in FY 2006. A quick look at the PLA 10-K shows that while revenue from the publishing business has declined for the past 3 years, while revenue from online subscriptions and e-commerce have grown 30%.
I guess the worst thing you can be is in the middle - it's refreshing to hear a voice that's consistently wrong.
[Matt, how long does that contract run? Have you all lined up someone more in touch, like Seth Godin?]
About five weeks ago, toy manufacturer RC2 announced a recall of Thomas and Friends parts - mostly painted red. It took me a couple of weeks to find and send our James #5 back; yesterday I got this email.
Pretty good customer service, especially for a B2B2C company that you'd never buy directly from. Not good"in the sense of "above and beyond," but rather from the sense of unexpected timely communication.
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: "recalls@rc2corp.com"
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 4:12:41 PM
Subject: Wooden Vehicle Recall
We wanted to let you know that we received the items you have returned to RC2 Corporation in response to our voluntary recall. Please be assured that we are working diligently to replace your product in a timely manner. In the meantime, if you need to contact us regarding your replacement, please use reference number xxxxxx.
The trust you have placed in the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway brand is very important to us. We want you to know that we fully understand and share your concerns and are dedicated to safeguarding that trust. Since our recall announcement a few weeks ago, we've focused on three primary objectives:
1. Recovery of products subject to the recall
2. Determination of what happened
3. Thorough review of our processes and procedures to prevent it from happening again and to assure consumers that our products are safe.
We are making progress on all three objectives, and we deeply appreciate your patience and loyalty during this time.
Regards,
Consumer Service
RC2 Corporation
---------------------------------------
Here's an idea from Sam Decker:
"The most important aspect to good relationships is open and frequent communication. This requires four things:
Now, are we describing how to make a marriage work? Because it sure sounds like it.
Sam is a M20 blogger and recently contributed to some new Forrester research called "Partnering for Success: The CIO - CMO Relationship." The advice given above is Sam's perspective on how CMOs and CIOs can build a more effective partnership.
Maybe that's a good analogy for how close IT and marketing need to be in today's business world driven by technology change.
Good timing - in my own work on the state of the marketing organization, I found that marketers have their most unproductive relationships with the IT department. This situation needs to be improved - now.
As you probably know, last week Nielsen//NetRatings added "total minutes" and "total sessions" to their site measurement. But reports of the page view's demise are greatly exaggerated. Or at least they should be. Here are two reasons why:
1. Critics claim that sites are designed to goose page views, adding extraneous clicks on the way to fulfilling user goals. Well, SEO has always been a grey hat discipline. This could be a huge setback for site usability: the more a site confuses visitors and obfuscates desired content, the "better" those sites perform.
2. Different sites have different purposes. It's like investing - two stocks may have the same price but totally different fundamentals; you might like one for the dividend and another for the growth potential. Total minutes and sessions make sense for content/media sites, e.g. AOL or YouTube. Page views still make sense for "utility" sites, e.g. Google Search. And for e-commerce sites, neither of these matter as sales metrics like conversion rate.
What's the purpose of engagement? To make money. Yes, we build brands to create favorable thoughts in consumer minds and make good on our promises through customer experience. And we hope that over time, people buy more stuff from us and tell their friends about how great we are. Thus in my opinion, the only reason for a new "engagement" metric is whether you convinced someone to buy something. Otherwise, we've got some good ideas out there already, like brand recall and recognition or click-through and conversion rate.
The lesson here is that advertisers need to have their act together when it comes to metrics. If you're selling ads on your own site - you should know what the optimum balance of page views and time spent are for each persona. If you're an advertiser, you should know the role that sites play in the customer experience (brand building? direct response?) and buy on the appropriate metrics.
From another perspective - if I'm on ur site, ignoring ur ads...then what? In the long run, cost per action and other performance-based metrics are the only ones that matter.
I've found some great new blogs through lists like Mack Collier's Top 25 Marketing Blogs, the Power 150, and the Z-list. However, it strikes me that most of the voices blogging about marketing today are ones that offer advisory services (mine included)...
There's something different about the voices that come from the client-side of the table. While many of us might have been there and done that in some fashion, these are marketers who are *doing it* right now. If you've ever been on the client side, you know the joy and pain of building a brand that an outsider may never know. For me, it was working for a brand that was once sold in fishnets in grocery store checkout aisles and seeing it rise to become the logo of choice for actors, musicians, and trendsetters worldwide.
So I'm starting a list to highlight the most popular blogs written by client-side marketing professionals. These are people who are doing their brands a favor by engaging customers and prospects in conversation. If you know of others who should be included, please comment below!
Here's the draft list; let's call it the alpha version:
Here are the ground rules:
Analysis: It's interesting that only the top blog has enough authority to make Mack's list. There is certainly some long tail popularity in play here. And also the fact that the era of the rockstar CMO is fading. These are marketers with many different titles - level doesn't matter nearly as much as the passion.
My advice - subscribe to all of these for now and try them out for a week or two; you'll be a better marketer and/or advisor with the insight. The easiest way to do it is by downloading this OPML file and importing into your feed reader.
Again - any suggestions for adds would be greatly appreciated, as long as they fit the ground rules!
It's time for Forrester to update its online marketing forecast. A graphic from the old 2005 - 2010 forecast is at right. There are a lot of forecasts out there and I think the consensus opinion goes something like this:
"Traditional media flat to slightly declining. Online channels up, big time. Unmeasured media...?"
Forrester's last forecast included four areas: email, online classifieds, search and online display ads. Not sure how this new forecast is similar/different (it's not my research) but if these areas are important to your business, you can participate here and receive a copy of the research once it's complete.
I caught the Transformers movie last night; it's the first time I can recall wishing a movie had an "R" rating instead of "PG-13"...maybe because the previews for "I Am Legend" and the untitled 1/18/08 movie looked pretty good. Still, it was definitely better than the robots we grew up with.
For a blockbuster summer film like this, I was curious to see what brands had stepped up to be incorporated into the story. Here's a quick run-down and my take; if you've seen the movie, I'd be interested in hearing what you thought.
- GM: I heard about this first via :30 TV spots and dealership signage. This is the best and most natural placement for the movie, given that it's all about cars after all. The only one that seemed forced was the Pontiac Solstice in a showroom - nice car but kind of underpowered vs. the others.
- eBay: The first couple of times it made sense, but by the 3rd or 4th mention, it was over the top.
- Apple: I don't know if this was paid, but there was a clear shot at one point of the hero using a MacBook
- Burger King: The shot of the female lead with her friends at this QSR just didn't seem right. Not saying it couldn't happen, but in LA? They should've been eating at Pinkberry instead.
- Mountain Dew: Machine transforms into Decepticon. Gratuitous.
- Vespa: The worst placement of the movie. When all the other motorized stuff transforms into a cool robot, why not the scooter that you paid to place in the movie?
Hoping we can buy a Duff Beer and and pay $5 to catch the Simpsons Movie on JetBlue this summer...
I bought two new pieces of consumer technology this weekend. One, I returned. The other is now on display in the middle of my living room.
I bought an iPhone from the Apple store on Friday night right after 9 pm. I cancelled the next morning given that it would take 2 - 4 weeks to ship and they're readily available at all six Apple stores near me. Plus as predicted all is not going smoothly with activations.
On the other hand, I decided it was time for a Wii. The last console I owned was an Atari 2600 (not counting my PSP). I thought that enough time had passed since the Holiday 2006 shortage and I could just walk in to any big box retailer and buy one. Wrong.
How can you get one? I think your best bet is to call your local electronics retailer and find out what day they usually get stock. You can call the night before, usually after 6 pm, to find out if they actually have any to sell the next day. If so, show up early and queue; the numbers I hears were typically 4 - 7 units per store. BTW we found a Best Buy that's newly opened - it's on the bestbuy.com site but not listed in general searches like Google Maps - that helps too.
Kind of backwards...but makes me wonder. Maybe Apple/AT&T should have staggered the release of iPhone supply in order to stretch out demand, increase desirability, and better handle system loads...
