I opened my copy of the Economist today and read yet another plea for Jerry Yang to step down as CEO of Yahoo!

I’ve rehearsed the arguments on this question before, but I’m more interested today in the subtext to this story: the extent to which Yahoo!’s reliance on display advertising is going to hurt them during the current economic difficulties.

It’s chastening to think how much of digital’s growth in revenue is purely from search - and yet that’s just the beginning of what the medium can deliver.

Search marketing words (both SEM and SEO) because it is by some distance the most effective way to introduce someone to what you are offering/saying… providing that they are already in the market for it. It’s all about steering someone toward your version of what they already know they want. Powerful, cost-effective and an essential weaon in the marketing arsenal. And almost totally transactional.

But what about the other side of the line?

For most businesses, it’s not just the first sale that matters - it’s the ongoing relationship that the first sale might lead to. This is very strongly the case with subscription-type businesses (e.g. utilities, mobile phones, satellite tv, magazines etc). It is also central to FMCG (or CPG as they call it in the US) marketing.

But it’s also the basis of what your local retail outlet hopes for. Or what your window cleaner relies on. In fact most businesses in the real world tend to prize the ongoing relationship past the first sale very highly.

So why has the digital economy been so hung up on the idea of paying Google (or their affiliate marketing partner) every time they want to conclude another transaction?

Of course, this is still very different from the display advertising model that Yahoo! and the like espouse. But it is, for me, crucial to digital marketing’s success in this recession - and to the rosier times that will sooner or later follow it.

If you haven’t already, start planning for it now! Google is NOT the only show in town.

Tags: affiliate marketing, aol, CPG, display advertising, FMCG, google, Jerry Yang, sem, seo, Yahoo!

I was once (several years ago) having a pint in a pub (I know, shocking news). A young lady approached me wearing a big black felt hat and asked me for my email address. Next thing I knew I was on the Guinness mailing list.

I then decided that I didn’t want to keep getting their emails. This happens, marketers, get over it.

What I saw is probably the worst opt-out in the world.

Who wants to fill THIS out to unsubscribe from an email blast?

It is a minefield of unnecessary information across a range of brands in the Diageo group. It is almost certainly against the rules set out in the UK under the wonderfully named PECR legislation (pronounced ‘pecker’). It is definitely against best practice.

Oh well. Yahoo! mail has a ‘This Is Spam’ button. Just got hit again.

Come on, Diageo, get a grip!

Tags: diageo, email, guinness, opt out

Curiously, the media this morning seems to have had a bit of a change of tone. I’m seeing positive (comparatively) comments in a number of places that have become more doom laden than a Joy Division sountrack to an Ingmar Bergman film.

The Times are telling us that markets are responding positively to yesterday’s government and central bank announcements. House prices are falling slower than (month on month) than any other time this year (!). Even the Daily Mail is getting in on the act, with a real tabloid lead of “Phew! Shares bounce back…” before dissolving into another attack on the government. Even so!

My favourite though is from The Sun - classic red-top reporting:

The Sun: Simply FAB Darling

It’s good to see the press recapturing a bit of a sense of fun. Maybe, just maybe, things are on the up and up.

I’ve spent the week at a couple of event - Silverpop’s customer conference and the launch of a new product, Vtrenz - talking to people in the digital business. I’ve been struck how the mood has been distinctly lacking in despondency about business and it’s prospects.

Some business types have been decidedly upbeat: a holiday company who are racing to keep up with demand; a high end bank who are seeing people having to put in desperately long hours to keep pace with the (profitable) trading they’re engaged in.

It’s true that growth is forecast to be somewhat slower than the heady days of the mid 2000s, but digital marketing spend is hot on the heels of Press and TV spending. And, according to Rebecca Jennings of Forrester when I spoke to her yesterday, there is every sign that it will continue to grow.

My instinct was to ask whether that was just Search marketing, but no, it turns out that her surveys said that spend would increase for Search, Display advertising, Email… even Web 2.0/Social Networking, which I might have thought susceptible to budget cuts as its ROI is still being proven. Only mobile appears to be showing a modest retraction.

To my delight she was championing the idea of measurement past the transactional level, on to the longer term customer value metrics I’ve long espoused.

Tags: digital marketing, engagement marketing, recession, web 2.0

In these days of pervasive internet, it’s increasingly easy for more and more people to email anywhere. Like on the train on the way home from the pub. Or in the office, a little worse for wear (check out this story on AdViking).

But Google have an answer to this - as it seems they do for everything nowadays. Mail Goggles. According to Wired Mag, their new service ‘prevents drunk emailing‘. Wow.

Nominate who you think should overcome this obstacle before emailing!

It works by requiring the user to solve a series of mathematics problems before the email can be sent. It only kicks in on weekend evenings.

Of course, it leaves me thinking that it should possibly be rolled out to larger audiences on corporate email exchanges… particularly at times of sensitive announcements. Or financial crises.

Tags: google, mail goggles; gmail; email

Andrex's 35% market share has put it at No 1 for 40 years

Over at MediaPost’s Email Insider, David Baker (a bit of a guru in the email industry across the pond) has written an interesting piece under the heading ‘Brand Connections’. One question he poses is whether digital marketing should be made to fit all client requirements. In doing so he recalls a colourful anecdote around a brainstorming session to create a digital strategy for toilet paper.

You’ll need to log on to read the story (which I recommend), but his point is that we shouldn’t try too hard to make things fit the medium, and he identifies four ‘values’ of email:

• functional value
• promotional value
• social value
• informational value

I’m not going to argue the toss on these: I broadly agree, particularly as far as email is concerned… while always reinforcing that the value is from the recipient’s perspective rather than the marketer’s.

However, I feel a crucial point has been omitted: in considering how ridiculously difficult it was to successfully brainstorm a digital agenda for toilet paper, the team’s response was to say “OK, let’s skip it.”

Fair enough: I’d rather that than some of the tenuous connections I have seen over the years.

But surely the creative team who came up with the sickeningly successful Andrex Puppies all those years ago (1972!) in old fashioned ad land faced the same problem - and the same tittering responses in their brainstorms. The puppies solved the brand problem at a sweep, leaving competitors with a really tough act to follow.

There are some compelling examples of similar creative genius online - but probably more offline. Not that surprising. But, if you’re interested in building brand connections, the medium you choose is certainly very important… but a big idea is far more the point.

Tags: advertising, andrex, creative, david baker, email

text goes ... er...

The more observant amongst Sandlines’ readership may have noticed that I’ve mentioned a band from Glasgow, called Glasvegas, a couple of times. You may not be amazed to learn, then, that I signed up for their email communications.

I think there must be something about music companies and their approach to email that just misses the point: this email is from Sony subsidiary, Columbia Records, but shows many of the same problems I saw a few years back from one of the other majors (who’ll remain nameless… for now).

In common with a lot of emails from this industry, there is a lot of reliance on images to convey the message of the email. This is fine until you realise that the default for so many email accounts to keep images turned off by default.

Never mind, I turned images on - after all, I want to see what they have to say.

Oh.

They’ve done the old black-text-on-a-black-background trick. I suspect they planned to do white text on black, but of course testing the outcome in the various email clients is just such a lot of work…

As Nate Elliott from JupiterResearch (before being swallowed by Forrester) said at my Advanced Email Strategies conference last year, “… (email marketers)… are Marketers without Images”. Seems Columbia went one better - marketers without images OR words.

Tags: email, glasvegas, images, music