Be Human. Get Personal with your Customers

Take time to get close to your customer base, because in 2010 customers will continue to dictate your marketing efforts. Take care to polish up your company’s blog and social media channels, like facebook and twitter, and keep them healthy by posting regularly. If your communications are sparse, users won’t respect you as an authority. It is necessary to participate in conversation and contribute valuable content to be respected in your marketplace. Providing direct and timely responses to customer feedback is a powerful and effective marketing tool.

Follow the Search Funnel

In-depth conversion tracking and analysis can shed light onto the profitability of search campaigns. Just as some keywords or ads may provide a great number of clicks but low conversion levels, high-converting keywords and ads provide different levels of customer engagement and revenue over longer periods of time. These sorts of ‘deep dives’ into conversion tracking will provide more customization, optimization, and ROI in the long term.

Analyze and Synthesize

Research and invest in new tracking technologies and tools in the marketplace which will benefit your marketing campaigns. Social media tracking, for example, gives concrete insights into what your customers are saying about your brand. This newfound ability to listen to and adapt to customer trends in real-time is a valuable resource. Likewise, a comprehensive and properly configured analytics platform is probably the most important tool that a marketing team can have. If your marketing data isn’t interpretable and actionable, it isn’t useful.

Diversify and Integrate

Your many marketing channels should be working as one. Integrated campaigns consistently perform better than campaigns running separately. When insights are shared among functional marketing teams, a comprehensive strategy may then be developed which incorporates findings and best practices from each marketing channel.

Audit and Update

Everything has a ‘Best By’ date, and your website and marketing collateral are no exception. Consumer tastes change as quickly as the seasons, and the images and copy which will generate positive responses need to be refreshed frequently as well. Update your paid search ad copy – revamp your homepage! Optimization of imagery and messaging are often overlooked, but the results are valuable marketing assets.

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 By Peter Vaughan, Copywriter

On the eve of December 9^th VEVO took over New York City with a launch party that included celebrity musicians like Bono, Lady Gaga and John Mayer. At the same time, millions of internet users waited eagerly for the return of music videos, an art form that television networks like MTV and VH1 slowly started moving away from years ago. As the clock struck midnight and the site went live, VEVO’s traffic servers struggled to handle the flood of eyeballs that flocked to the music video revolution.

But make no mistake about it, this wasn’t some kind of happy accident. Red Bricks Media worked closely with VEVO to architect an effective social media strategy that included tactics on channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even eBay. At the heart of our campaign were viral videos featuring popular musicians in an act of defiance against obsolete media, a sentiment that would come to embody VEVO’s brand message.

To help seed these videos online, Red Bricks Media contacted influential bloggers in the music world offering exclusive video access and b-roll footage. The result was over 300,000 combined views in just three days. Additionally, these viewers were prompted to check out VEVO’s blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts to engage in pre-launch discussions, trivia contests and charity events like an eBay auction of 3 signed copies of Adam Lambert’s latest CD.

In the end, the best indicator of our success came from the mouths of consumers themselves. On the night of launch we became a trending topic on Twitter, sharing the conversation spotlight with keywords like “Christmas” and “Tiger Woods” (one week after he dropped his now famous ball). Using Techrigy’s buzz tracking capabilities we could also react to real-time conversation trends like usability feedback and brand shout-outs in order to keep engagement levels high throughout the night.

So what’s our best piece of advice for brands wishing to achieve the same success? Harnessing the power of social media isn’t just about creative thinking and intensive strategic planning – it’s about a willingness to have an engaging, transparent and collaborative conversation. Until marketers understand the fact that they can’t control everything that’s said about their brand, they will never be able to truly reap the rewards of platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Listening to what consumers are saying and encouraging them to become partners in shaping products and services will create the best possible result.

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Under the new Guides, advertisers may no longer use the phrase “results not typical” in their campaigns. Instead, advertisements must disclose the results that consumers may typically experience.

Paid or gifted endorsements must also be disclosed in advertisements, and this extends to bloggers and ‘word-of-mouth’ marketers as well.   This means that bloggers may no longer accept payment or free products in return for promotion without disclosing that fact. If your company is providing material or monetary compensation in exchange for promotion by bloggers or celebrities, this exchange must be communicated to the consumer.

Furthermore, if compensation is provided to a research organization which is cited in an advertisement, this fact must be made public within the advertisement as well.

Interestingly, the FTC Guide now holds endorsers more accountable for their statements. As of December 1^st, endorsers and advertisers may both be held liable for false, unsubstantiated or misleading product statements.

While the FTC Guides are not officially binding laws, they are part of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which is included in federal legislation. For more information, visit:

http://www.ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm.

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By Elliott Easterling, CEO

Many marketers are missing the point with Facebook and social networks. The complexity of managing company profiles, the risks of user-generated content, and the lack of control keep many marketers away from creating a robust social network presence.

Social media represents a sea change in the way that brands project and broadcast themselves. Traditional models of web advertising start from a website that is broadcast out to the public. Historically, advertising was placed to bring people back to this channel.

With the advent of social networks, blogs, and micro-blogging (Twitter), brands have had a whole new spectrum to broadcast their brands through, and in most cases, these are not contained within the safe and controlled confines of their site. These new advancements have required that marketers reinvent their digital marketing efforts to consider the nuances of these new media. Creating and managing a presence on Facebook involves a unique set of considerations that are not native to traditional web publishing.

One of the most interesting considerations is that marketers must not just “project” their brand through their website, but rather must make their brands “converse” through these new forms of media. The way that brands are now fragmented through these new channels and must now become animated and have a voice is completely changing the ground rules for digital marketing. Silent films now have sound, and the brands that do not have a voice in this new media will not reap its vast rewards.

I wrote last month on the opportunities that exist for acquisition marketing in Facebook. Now I’ll address retention marketing on Facebook, which warrants its own discussion (and a lot more beyond this).

The benefits to building a fan base in Facebook are akin to developing an electronic direct mail (EDM) list. Unlike EDM lists, on Facebook you can not only market to your customers but they can interact among themselves and do the marketing for you.

Marketers need to start to treat their social network fan bases as marketing assets and need to measure their effect on their sales. So when a promotion is dropped to an EDM list, a similar message should be dropped to Facebook fans. Ultimately the revenue generated from a Facebook fan base should be uniquely tracked within web analytics systems and reported back to senior marketing management just like every other key marketing channel.

What is amazing about Facebook is that it is an incredible value for the associated costs. Marketers spend significant amounts managing their EDM campaigns, and get much of the similar messaging capabilities and the benefits of an integrated social network “free” from Facebook. Facebook is in essence a Hosted Social Network for corporations, with very low marginal cost to touch consumers. Eventually Facebook may find new ways to charge corporations, and the risk of having your fan base hijacked with high marketing fees are very valid and need to be considered as you make your investments.

Let’s take a quick look at Starbucks. At last check they have over 5MM fans on Facebook. That base of evangelists can be activated through promotion and coupons to drive retail sales, which is likely having a very healthy effect on Starbucks’ bottom line.  Starbucks has a concerted and active paid Facebook fan recruiting program. It has yielded a base of fans that has nearly doubled in the last 4 months.

So when our clients ask us whether they should be advertising on Facebook to build up a fan base or to drive traffic to their site, my answer is usually “try both.” To successfully manage a Facebook fan base and a social media profile, you do need to have a concerted investment of resources within your organization — so that is a prerequisite to a fan building program. Facebook is not for all brands, but it is for more than have given it a real chance to play an integrated role in their digital communications.

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by Elliott Easterling, CEO

I recall the first day I opened up AdWords almost 6 years ago to test out the self service functions. That feeling of bliss came to me again when I explored Facebook’s self service tool for the first time last December.

Joy came to me with AdWords because I encountered the tool as a data driven marketer. I spent 3.5 years at Digital Impact (now Axciom Digital) learning the ins and outs of database marketing before I started Red Bricks Media. At the time, we were working with algorithms to process large amounts of user behavior and self-profile data to predict the best products to put into individual emails. This behavioral targeting experience is what got me excited about AdWords. I quickly realized that search queries were in fact behaviors that could be used to present targeted ads to potential consumers. I was amazed that I could tap directly into the flow of demand. The combination of powerful targeting and scale is what made Google such a useful tool for marketers.

Excitement came to me with Facebook because I recognized the same opportunity to build marketing programs with amazing targeting capabilities supported by significant scale. Facebook allows marketers to target users based on the content of their profiles. Rather than being fueled by behavioral data, Facebook campaigns are fueled by profile data. This data is incredibly clean and accurate because, in general, people do not lie about their interests on Facebook. They might exaggerate but they won’t likely lie because peer pressure from Facebook friends creates a system of accountability. The profile data in Facebook is especially powerful because it represents the brand of Facebook users. The things you put in your profile represent the things that are most important to you and also the way you see yourself and want to represent yourself to the world. Facebook profiles are the sum of passions, interests, and make up the brand of one. Facebook also provides a separate targeting axis - one that surrounds demographic data. Where you live, where you went to school, and every piece of data collected in the registration process is targetable on Facebook. This matrix of interest data and demographic data make for great user segmentation and targeting. See chart below.

Since users are not actively seeking out information on Facebook as they are doing on search engines, the click-through rates (CTR) tend to be lower. This limitation can be overcome using the sheer scale of available inventory on Facebook, which can yield great click volume even with low CTRs. From our experience, Facebook campaigns can realize good conversion rates because our campaigns heavily segment users into tight interest groups and then present compelling messages to those users. Our background in database marketing has given us an edge in developing and designing successful Facebook campaigns.

Is Facebook right for your business? It is, to the degree to which interests in Facebook correlate to an interest in your product or services. If, for example, you are in the business of selling tissues online, you may not get much out of Facebook’s targeting capabilities. No one is likely to wax poetic on the virtues on a clean nose on their profile. Alternately, if you sell tours of India, you will have access to the more than 2.8MM 18 and older Americans that that show “travel” as an interest in Facebook. Matched with demographic data, a campaign could even target users in San Francisco with customized messaging – “Explore our tours to majestic India, flights leaving from San Francisco daily.”

As performance marketers, we tend to focus more on media that drives conversions. Facebook also has the amazing ability to drive great branding, so let’s not rule out the campaign for the tissue company quite yet. Facebook branding and fan development warrant a separate discussion, which is forthcoming next month.

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Red Bricks Media has been selected to speak about Social Media tactics at the Annual Conference for Catalog and Multi-channel Merchants, given by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

The performance marketing agency’s CEO, Ed Kim, will discuss how to build effective multi-channel marketing campaigns leveraging the latest Social Media Strategies.  For those who want to engage with social media forms such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, Kim will provide best practices and dispel common myths.  From case studies of Red Bricks Media’s clients, such as THQ and a major fashion publication, Kim will demonstrate the opportunities provided by social media including specific targeting, outreach, and measurement tactics that drive measurable ROI.

Discussing his session, Kim said, “I’m very excited to speak at ACCM. Social media should be approached with the same marketing goals and objectives required for all performance-driven channels. I’ll discuss strategic ways to integrate social media with existing campaigns to drive far greater results.”

Kim has previously presented at Ad Tech, Search Engine Strategies, Webmaster World PubCon, Digital Hollywood, and the Vodafone Ventures Summit.  His session takes place on Wednesday May 6th from 8:30 to 9:30 am.

Additionally, Kim will be offering expert advice on Email Creative from 3:45 to 4:45 pm Tuesday May 5th.  Kim spent five years at Acxiom Digital, helping develop email programs for some of the world’s most recognized brands, including HP, Apple, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo and more.  Conference attendees can schedule a session or sit in on a critique to learn how best to achieve results through email campaigns. On May 6th, Kim will also be moderating a table during the conference’s “Lunch With The Experts” daily sessions, where he will be presenting Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing 101.

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by Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist, and Ed Kim, CEO

The senior thought leaders at Red Bricks Media gathered in the beginning of the year to hold a round-table discussion about 2009 digital marketing and online trends.

There are some very common predictions made by search marketers for 2009, most notably advertising budgets taking a hit as a result of the economy.  Our list of predictions explores the nuances of some of the blanket statements made about 2009.

1.    Online ad spending gainers and losers: There has been a lot of talk about the impact of the economy on online ad budgets, the theme typically being that traditional marketing budgets will be cut if not re-appropriated to measurable online campaigns. We made the following predictions by channel, based on our observations of the industry and hands-on experience managing client campaigns:
a.    Paid search advertising spending will increase from $10B in 2008 to $12B in 2009.
b.    Display ad spending will barely increase: from $4.6B in 2008 to $5B in 2009.  As ad rates decrease, publishers will increasingly offer more performance based buys.
c.    Video will experience the most explosive growth, from $587M in 2008 to $850M in 2009.
d.    Classifieds will take a hit, from $3.1B in 2008 to $2.9B in 2009.
e.    Lead generation spending will be about the same ($1.6B)
f.    Sponsorships will decrease from $590M (2008) to $510M (2009)

2.    More attention to SEO: SEO will become more competitive as companies (finally!) begin adequately investing in organic search.  Previously perceived as a long-term investment, SEO will become necessary for companies facing slashed marketing budgets and the challenge of accountability.

3.    Data portability will become a movement: What is data portability?  Simply put, as users traverse the web, they often have numerous user accounts, passwords, and profiles.  According to Dave Morin, a senior platform manager at Facebook, “[data portability] is about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”  It’s also about being able to cross-leverage tools.  For example, a Skype user on Craigslist might be able to click a telephone number and have Skype begin dialing that number.  The possibilities are both seemingly endless and very realistic.

4.    Social networking will see several transformations:
a.    Facebook Connect – This is Facebook’s foray into data portability, which launched with partners Amiando, CBS.com, CNET, CollegeHumor, Disney-ABC Television Group, Evite, Flock, Hulu, Kongregate, Loopt, Plaxo, Radar, Red Bull, Seesmic, Socialthing!, StumbleUpon, The Insider, Twitter, Uber, Vimeo and Xobni.
b.    Enhanced self-service advertising platforms will be developed to increase revenue and lower overhead.

5.    Google will make significant enhancements to its tools:
a.    Google AdPlanner will offer display buyers more tools (whereas before, the tools catered mostly to PPC marketers)
b.    AdWords editor (currently at version 7.0) will have many more features developed (watch for geo-targeting enhancements)
c.    Google Analytics will continue to expand and minimize the differentiators between itself and its fee-based competitors

6.    Print will continue its Titanic sink into digital:

a.    In October 2008, the Christian Science Monitor became the first national newspaper to announce a move to a Web-only daily distribution strategy.   More publishers will go this route or reduce their publishing frequency.

b.    Amazon’s digital reader, the Kindle, sold out in December 2008 and is currently unavailable until late April 2009. It represents the first giant step forward in a migration towards digital reading. We predict that electronic readers will be one of the top selling items in the 2009 holiday season, consequently setting up 2010 as the “iPod” year for digital readers.

7.    Startups in survival mode: The lack of capital, as evidenced by Sequoia Capital’s alarming message to its investment strategists, will place an emphasis on survival strategies rather than startups with innovate ideas.  2009 will be a “lock down” year with far fewer startups introducing new ideas into the market.

8.    We will see a convergence between the internet and TV:
a.    The FCC has mandated that all TV signals must switch to digital by February 2009, a move which coincides with the increasing interplay between the television screen and the internet. Heavy TV users are also heavy internet users, often using both mediums at the same time. According to a recent Nielsen study, “early trends seem to indicate that online usage is complementing, not substituting for, traditional television viewing.”
b.    There is an opportunity for communication across these channels which before seemed so separate and siloed. Consumers are hooking their TVs up to their computers to enjoy a movie or TV show streamed from the internet. They are also going online to vote on TV shows that they are watching in real time. In the not-too-distant future, we may see shows like reality TV further harnessing the convergence between the two mediums by offering polls on a website that update in real time on TV, or vice versa. One device that is bridging the gap is the Roku, which allows users to download movies from Netflix to the Roku device and upload that content to the TV.
c.    The live video streams of Obama’s inauguration prove that audiences are turning to the internet for high-quality, up-to-the minute news. It also shows that video content providers have not yet figured out how to scale for a large volume of viewers; in 2009, they will need to find a solution.

9.    Video will continue on a path of explosive growth:
a.    As high-speed internet connections become the norm (broadband penetration is currently at 91.54 % in the U.S.), the demand for video content will grow. In 2008, the iPhone also paved the way for consumers to enjoy video content while on mobile phones. In 2009, consumers will continue enjoying video content both at home and on the go.
b.    We also predict that 2009 will be the year that video content distribution sites figure out a successful advertising and revenue model. Whether it’s a pre-roll, post-roll, or pop-up ads during the video, this is the year that video advertising will finally start to make sense.

10.    Agency consolidation will accelerate:
a.    With the recession, companies will move marketing dollars towards proven performance channels, demanding accountability on their marketing campaigns. Often, digital and performance-focused agencies provide the results that companies are looking for. Large holding companies and traditional advertising agencies will scramble to acquire digital shops to meet client demand and gain subject matter expertise.

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by Peter Vaughan, Copywriter

Both Yahoo Buzz and Digg allow users to submit news and vote on articles, with the most popular rising to the top. But according to a recent study by comScore, Yahoo’s user-generated news site, Yahoo Buzz, is vastly outperforming the incumbent, Digg. Is this for real?

Well, the data doesn’t lie. During the month of April, Yahoo Buzz outperformed Digg with 7 Million unique visitors who spent an average of about 14 minutes on site. More importantly, 51% of Yahoo Buzz users are women, compared to Digg’s 39%.

While I’m a loyal Digg fan, I’ll be the first to admit that this is a long time coming. Digg’s site has long been criticized for being overly male, childish and, for lack of a better word, geeky. If you’re into video games, politics (if you count Ron Paul), gadget news and the occasional LOLcat image, Digg is the place for you. If you like sports, music, movies, celebrities and “reliable” news from “trusted” media, Yahoo Buzz might be your new home.

However, I wouldn’t raise the victory flag just yet. Digg’s fans are a special breed – they spend hours upon hours on the web, are very tech savvy, and obviously as the aforementioned criticisms state, stick to cult subject matters. To them, Yahoo represents an evil corporate machine (you need to register a yahoo email address to participate on Yahoo Buzz) – what Digg has going for it is anti-culture and mob rule, even in major site development decisions.

In recent town hall meetings conducted via web cam, Digg founder Kevin Rose listened quietly to hundreds of complaints about “super-user” scandals, poor commenting features and gaming (making an article popular via artificial, black hat means). However, the monthly public ranting sessions seem to work – Digg made its algorithm smarter by rewarding “experts,” blocking the ISPs of Public Relations companies, and updating its comment system two weeks ago.

More importantly, the statistics presented by comScore are a little misleading given the fact that the most popular Yahoo Buzz stories are featured on the search engine’s homepage. Each click on Yahoo is a click for Yahoo Buzz, greatly increasing the stats – this is a very intelligent business move, but doesn’t necessarily mean anyone is actually using and interacting with Yahoo Buzz.

Oh, and did I mention that right now Yahoo Buzz only allows people to post stories from partner and affiliate sites? This drastically reduces content options from bloggers and third-party sites. Once this ban is lifted, I imagine Yahoo Buzz will find itself with the same problem as Digg – dominant techies, or in the case of Yahoo, payola reps, gaining a monopoly on popular content.

In the end, there is no doubt a buzz blood bath will occur. Perhaps, Yahoo will ultimately gain the upper hand due to its mainstream dominance and a little bit of a budget increase from our friends at Microsoft. As a marketer, I recommend common sense – if your content is more techy go with Digg. If you’re more mainstream go with Yahoo Buzz. Or if you’re a real rebel, use both – it’ll take you all of fifteen minutes.

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We’re thrilled to announce that our CEO, Ed Kim, will be a speaker at the upcoming Building Blocks/Digital Hollywood 2008 conference in San Jose. In his panel, entitled Social Networks & User Generated Media as a Technology Challenge: The Platform, the Content & the Network, Ed will share industry insights and advise best practices around one of 2008’s hottest buzzwords: social media.

“I’m honored to be selected to speak at Building Blocks 2008,” Ed commented. Elaborating on his panel topic, he explained, “social media and user-generated content offer new ways for marketers to connect with their audiences. The challenge that marketers face is how to understand and use it. Many want to get into the game but don’t know where to start. I hope that after attending this panel, audience members will come away with actionable items they can implement on their own campaigns.”

The Building Blocks 2008 conference brings together the top minds in consumer electronics, entertainment, and media, for a two-day extravaganza featuring a host of informative sessions, hundreds of speakers, and a convergence of industry luminaries. It is the “premier event for transforming the consumer electronics, entertainment, social media & web application technologies & the global communications network.” The conference focuses on seven key strategic tracks, including Television 2.0, The Advertising and Commerce Platform, Technology Innovation Redefining the Future, and the Broadband and Social Media platform.

This year, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) joined Digital Hollywood in the sponsorship and production of the conference. Digital Hollywood’s other conferences include Advertising 2.0 and the multiple Digital Hollywood conferences. Speakers from past events include representatives from Microsoft, Comcast, Fox Interactive Media and CNN. For more information about Building Blocks 2008, visit http://www.digitalhollywood.com/BuildingBlocks.html.

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We may never be in the rock and roll hall of fame, but we’ll settle for the next best thing – the viral marketing hall of fame. Each year Marketing Sherpa honors the year’s top ten viral marketing campaigns, and Red Bricks Media’s campaign for client THQ joined the ranks of the top ten for 2008. Other winners this year include General Mills and Columbia Sportswear.

According to Marketing Sherpa’s article on the competition, “these top 10 campaigns leveraged peer-to-peer pass-along to achieve amazing results in a range of demographics and audiences – hip-hop music fans, hardcore gamers, breast cancer survivors and activists, philanthropists, Portuguese soccer fans and more. Some campaigns mixed big budgets, great strategy and wide exposure. Others created entertaining content and watched it sail.”

This competition, which is free to enter, awards winners with a write-up in Marketing Sherpa and the eyes of thousands of marketing professionals who read this publication on a weekly basis.

“The rise of social networking and user-generated content is feeding and enhancing viral marketing. Many marketers want to take advantage of these new trends but aren’t sure how,” said our CEO Ed Kim. “At Red Bricks Media, our approach is to have a solid strategy in place and really understand your target audience before you try to launch a viral campaign.”

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