One in a billion

 engagement marketing, market research, recession, targeting  No Responses »
Jan 302009
 

(from The Economist)

I saw some figures from Comscore today that put the global online audience at a little over one billion people – and showing China taking over from the US at the number 1 spot.

Seems a long time since we were arguing about whether online would ever make it to the position of being a significant part of the media mix for advertisers.

Sandlines is firmly of the view that 2009 will be a (comparatively) good year for digital marketers – in as much as everyone is hurting, we will hurt least, according to the latest Bellwether reports.

For me, the key to this is that marketers need to think in terms of the people they are marketing to: ie people not simply figures on a spreadsheet.

In other words:

  • audience not ‘impressions’;
  • individualised/targeted messaging (the right message to the right person at the right time);
  • conversations that listen, not just ‘spray and pray’ broadcast.

The technical capabilities to do this are increasingly there, in our hands. Let’s use them! There’s a billion reasons out there to get it right.

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3.2
 Posted by Sandlines at 15:45  Tagged with: , , , , ,

New year, new career

 engagement marketing, Manifesto, recession  No Responses »
Jan 092009
 

Welcome back to Sandlines for 2009.

As you may have noticed, since the last few days of 2008, I took a brief Christmas break from blogging, while reflecting on the year gone by, and the challenges of the year ahead.

At the same time, I’ve been considering options about what I’ll be doing for a living in 2009 and beyond. I’ll spill the beans next week, but the decision is made and I’m starting my new role on Monday.

Don’t expect any major changes in content here: Sandlines is still fully focused on the changes that technology is bringing to the marketing discipline – and how the current recession plays to that. And more than ever before, Sandlines believes that relevance is the key to unlocking return on investment.

To what extent will marketing expenditure online be positioned as a ‘cost of sale’ rather than a separate budgeting line?

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3.2
 Posted by Sandlines at 16:33  Tagged with: , , , ,

Digital marketing is the ark in 2008′s flood of doom

 email, engagement marketing, Manifesto, recession  1 Response »
Oct 092008
 

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:

Simply FAB Darling

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.

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2.5
 Posted by Sandlines at 15:26  Tagged with: , , ,

The Death of the Campaign

 engagement marketing, Manifesto, recession  1 Response »
Sep 252008
 

Sandlines has learnt that epitaphs are being drafted at Ad:Tech London for the traditional campaign timetable for marketing activity as we are urged to build direct and enduring relationships with consumers.

Wow. This is breaking news. I refer you to my ‘manifesto’ post a while back.

But in all seriousness, it’s great to hear a top flight agency – Brooklyn Brothers in this case – talking about unlocking the value of online relationships – a strapline I’ve been using for the last year or so in presentations for my company, Silverpop.

It’s the heart of why, in Sandlines’ view, Digital Marketing is in grave danger of ‘coming of age’ during the current recession. And looking at Brooklyn Brothers’ mission statement, I can’t help but think that they ‘get it’.

Digital marketing will thrive because:

  • it can be hugely (cost) effective
  • it’s fast
  • it can be optimised quickly to what works best
  • it allows you to really develop relationships, rather than a series of episodic broadcasts.

But to really get your money’s worth from the medium, you’ll need to break the ‘acquisition’ habit. Digital marketing works best when it’s a programme, not an event.

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2.5
 Posted by Sandlines at 16:21  Tagged with: , , ,

Digital shelter in the storm?

 engagement marketing, Manifesto, recession  3 Responses »
Sep 182008
 
Credit crunch

Credit crunch

It’s a scary world out there at the moment.

The impact on the rest of the UK economy of HBOS turning into the minority partner in the Lloyds Halifax megabank is yet to be felt, but there’s no shortage of doom-mongers around… and this is not the time or place to argue with them too vociferously. I do, however, remain guardedly optimistic that we’re not seeing the meltdown that the papers seem to be helping us talk ourselves into. But the alternative remains a fairly daunting one: a ‘bath-shaped’ recession (or at least downturn) that could last a while… the big question seems to be ‘how deep?’.

What impact does that have on the marketing industry?

Rainy days

In the last comparable recession, back in the early 1990s there was talk of ‘the end of western civilisation’. It was pretty torrid, but we survived. What was interesting, from a marketing perspective, was the surge in the use of direct marketing techniques/expenditure. The downturn then raised the perception of the Direct Marketing discipline – and with it budgets – to the level where, from being a small part of marketing expenditure, it has reached equal footing with the flashier, arguably sexier world of above the line marketing… i.e. advertising. I found an amusing recollection of that period over at adliterate, where the author recalls the hubristic dreams of DM agencies back in 1990 that DM would ‘kill off’ glossy advertising.

So here we are in 2008, and all the data points to this period being critical in the development of Digital Marketing. 81% of marketers are planning to increase their digital budgets… and 82% of them at the expense of other advertising media.

So is this digital’s ‘moment’?

Digital will win out in a recession (compared to other media) because:

  1. it’s fast – the results come in very quickly
  2. it’s effective
  3. you can measure it
  4. you can optimise to what works on the fly
  5. it remains comparatively inexpensive (no really!)
  6. … oh, and unlike the 2001/2 marketing recession, digital is now a firmly established part of mainstream marketing… not the experimental silo it was then.

But the real winner will be engagement marketing. Yes, talking to people you already know. Building on relationships – and keeping your promise with sharpened attention to value and service. Getting people who already buy from you to recommend you to their friends… all that wonderful stuff.

OK – so I have an interest in this – my company, Silverpop, is deep in this territory, providing solutions for engagement marketing, particularly email marketing. We also published a white paper this year on marketing in a recession, which you’re welcome to download.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 16:15  Tagged with: , , ,
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