Off to Vancouver in 3 short days

By 7:30am this Sunday morning, I’ll be up in the air, headed to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

23 Days.  That’s how long it’ll be til I set foot back in the states.  With any luck, I’ll find enough time to blog and post photos.

Online Privacy Restrictions May Open Ad Targeting Doors

FEBRUARY 1, 2010 (eMarketer)

Industry responses to government could boost behavioral targeting spending

With the effective mixing and mining of audience data becoming increasingly important to online advertisers, the role of behavioral targeting has grown more central.

eMarketer estimates online advertisers in the US will spend more than $1.1 billion on behaviorally targeted advertising. By 2014, spending will hit $2.6 billion. The estimate represents steady growth rates of about 20% from 2009 through 2014.

The figures include spending on online ads displayed to a select audience whose interests or intentions are revealed by Website or ISP tracking data, audience segmentation or predictive analysis.

Behaviorally targeted ad dollars will rise as a proportion of online display spending from 14.2% in 2010 to nearly 20% by 2014!  

However, with ad targeting and privacy issues in the public eye, marketers face the possibility of regulation or legislation that sets boundaries on how they can use audience data.

While that warning might imply lesser spending growth than estimated, it could also make for a more stable market with clarified rules.

“A more open deal between the two sides, the ad industry and consumers, could help draw more ad dollars to behavioral targeting,” said eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman.  For more information, see the upcoming eMarketer report, “Audience Ad Targeting: Data and Privacy Issues.”

What Social Media Followers Want

JANUARY 22, 2010

Deals aren’t the only thing

Brand marketers want consumers to follow them to build buzz and engagement, but social media users often desire something in return. What they’ve come to expect is a good deal, but many consumers—including the most active users of social sites—are also interested in deeper engagement.

A December 2009 MarketingSherpa survey indicated that learning about specials and sales was the top motivation of those who friended or followed a brand online, supporting the results of earlier surveys. But looking for savings was followed closely by learning about new products, features or services.  

Users described as “max connectors”—those with at least 500 social connections—were less interested than average in getting deals. Instead, they cared about new products and company culture, demonstrating the deeper engagement expected by social media power users.

An earlier study, by Razorfish, also found that exclusive deals and offers were the primary motivation of US Internet users following brands on Twitter.

Respondents who friended a brand on Facebook or MySpace responded similarly, though they were more likely to become a fan because they were a current customer (32.9%) than were users of Twitter.

Sharing interesting content that users care about, along with the deals and discounts they have come to expect, will both keep them engaged and spur them to pass along marketing messages.

Using Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Using Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Does your business have a Facebook profile? Facebook is a social tool that not only connects individuals, but it can also facilitate connections between people and businesses. One of the best reasons to have a Facebook profile is that it can be indexed by search engines. Since Facebook is one of the most highly trafficked sites on the web, you’re wasting a valuable marketing opportunity if you haven’t created a profile yet.

Here are a few tips on how to use Facebook as a strategic marketing tool:

• By inserting keyword-rich text throughout your fan page and updating it regularly, you can create tremendous search engine optimization.
• In addition to sending regular updates to fans, you can also use Facebook Events to promote upcoming events and activities. Because activities that members engage in are reported on a news feed, word about events spreads very quickly without being intrusive.
• Select an easily recognizable graphic or photo that is familiar for visitors, and write an appealing About Us/Bio to summarize what you do. Or include a call to action, click-able hyperlink for more information.
• Encourage fans and visitors to add content on your “wall” to become part of your online community. Also, their content goes out into news feeds, creating more visibility for your site.
• Actively respond to your fans’ comments, questions, suggestions, etc. to show that you are listening and want to be involved with your online community.
• Try Facebook’s Social Ads to drive targeted traffic from the entire Facebook site directly to your fan page. Just remember that many people don’t visit social networking sites to view advertisements; they visit to be social.
• Secure a unique user name (or vanity URL) that is short and memorable by using your brand name, company name, etc.

For additional ideas on how to increase brand awareness and share information with your customers and prospects, give us a call today!

Is Mobile Couponing Catching On?

Huge redemption increases to come

2009 has seen consumers not quite ready for the full possibilities of mobile commerce. Deloitte found that this holiday season, just 19% of Internet users plan to use their mobile device for shopping, and only one-quarter of that group will actually make a mobile purchase.

But mobile research—and saving money—is more popular. Yankee Group found that in 2009 more than 90% of US consumers were at least somewhat interested in scanning images or bar codes with their mobile phone to get more information or coupons for a product.

Getting coupons via SMS or MMS was nearly as popular, although only 7% of respondents had received mobile coupons in the past three months.  Yankee Group expects involvement with mobile coupons to increase dramatically over the coming years, however. The number of mobile coupons redeemed in North America is set to increase more than tenfold in 2010. Triple-digit increases will follow in 2011 and 2012.

The value of mobile coupon transactions will climb commensurately. Yankee Group forecasts nearly $2.37 billion in North American mobile coupon transactions in 2013, up from just $5 million this year.

Hurdles remain for mobile coupons, which require infrastructure at the point of sale to deal with SMS codes or bar codes readable from mobile devices, but Yankee Group expects these challenges to be confronted successfully in the next few years. And since mobile coupons have been available for some time already, the research firm doesn’t predict consumer education will be a limiting factor

Ad Market Recovery Won’t Lift All Media

Published: December 03, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Most people in the media business are excited to put 2009 behind them, but a stabilizing or even recovering ad market won’t help everyone equally, according to a new forecast by Fitch Ratings.

First national broadcast TV, and then cable networks and large-market broadcast TV are likely to participate in any recovery, but some media will fall short of even their depressed 2009 levels, Fitch said.

“Fitch expects print mediums, namely newspapers, yellow pages and consumer magazines, to be down again off very easy comparable periods due to permanent shifts in advertiser sentiment and excess ad inventory that will plague the industry for years to come,” it wrote in the forecast.

The New York Times Regional Media Group seemed to be anticipating continued difficulties when it announced Wednesday that this year’s 2.5% pay cuts will remain in place next year. Ad revenue declines are expected to slow but continue, Chief Operating Officer Michael Golden in a memo to staff. Many magazine publishers, on the other hand, have said they expect to improve on their 2009 showings next year even if ad pages across the industry don’t reclaim their old heights.

Radio ad revenue next year will likely come in flat compared with 2009 or down slightly, Fitch said, while outdoor advertising should begin a “slow recovery” later in the year.

The forecast also predicted:

• Media companies with print products will erect and then dismantle online pay walls next year. With exceptions like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, small local papers with limited competition and business-to-business magazines, Fitch said, most publishers face too much competition to get consumers to pay on the web.

Some publishers have already decided not to focus on pay walls, despite a crescendo of attention to the idea this year, but many others remain committed to trying some form of pay scheme.

• Audience fragmentation will continue but the pace of “legitimate” new media entrants will slow. “Fitch believes the field of legitimate online platforms is possibly set in video and music,” the forecast said. New cable network arrivals should slow as well.
• Consumers aren’t likely to cancel cable subscriptions to watch shows entirely online. “While viewers want 100% on-demand optionality,” the forecast said, “Fitch continues to believe they also want a backbone of live TV channel lineups.”

The four major broadcast networks, including the NBC network that GE is selling to Comcast, will remain in 2010. But at least one could explore becoming a cable network as early as 2011, according to Fitch, which called NBC and ABC the most logical candidates.

Customer Acquisition & Retention

Customer Acquisition and Retention Top Priorities
SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
Social media big winner in marketing mix
Marketers’ top priorities for 2010 will be customer acquisition and retention, followed by thought leadership, according to a survey by virtual events provider Unisfair.
Six in 10 marketers polled said acquiring new customers would be critical in 2010, while 48% would focus on retaining current customers—a particularly important effort in the recession.

Unisfair suggested that virtual communities to engage both current and future customers would help accomplish both these major goals. Some 48% of marketers seem to agree—that’s the number of respondents who said virtual events were among the top three activities they planned to increase next year. The most common response was social media, selected by three-quarters of marketers polled, followed by search (51%) and e-mail (49%).

Unisfair also quizzed marketers on which social networks provided the most value. Professional network LinkedIn was on top, at 26%. Slightly fewer respondents thought Facebook had the greatest value-add, at 23%, while 17% named Twitter.

LinkedIn only has a tiny market share of all social network visits—0.25% in the first week of September 2009 according to Experian Hitwise. But Unisfair’s results are less surprising in light of its attractive user demographics. Members are significantly more likely than users of other networks to be affluent, well-educated and employed full-time, based on data from Anderson Analytics. LinkedIn users also report making more purchases online in almost every product category.

Traditional Media Still Tops for News

Traditional Takes Top Spot for News
OCTOBER 6, 2009
TV and newspapers hold on despite declines
Television remains Americans’ primary source of news, according to September 2009 studies by ARAnet and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Although fewer ARAnet respondents selected TV as their biggest news source compared with the prior year, it remained well ahead of daily newspapers, radio and the Internet. Almost 15% of respondents’ time spent on news was online, up from 12.7% in 2008.

When asked to rate the credibility of media sources, US adults ranked them in nearly the same order as their preferences, with TV coming out on top, followed by newspapers and radio tied for second place. Online was third, rated 5.7 on a 10-point scale, with 10 being “extremely credible”; only the positions of magazines and free shopper newspapers were reversed.
“A trend to watch is the increased use of online sources for news and information among the college educated, Hispanics and people making more than $100,000 per year, compared to the general population,” according to ARAnet’s study. “And, of course, the younger the respondent, the more likely they are to rely on online sources.”
Pew likewise found an overall preference for television news. While respondents favored newspapers and radio over the Internet for local news, however, they rated online higher for learning about national and international events.

Unsurprisingly, young adults generally favored the Web more than older boomers and seniors, though adults ages 30 to 49 were most likely to prefer the Internet for local news. Newspapers and television generally increased in popularity with the age of the respondents.

Time Spent with the Internet

While there are myriad reasons why people’s time spent with internet media stayed flat over the past year — chief among them is faster broadband speeds and more experience with the web allows people to be more efficient consumers — the trend has implications for media companies and marketers.

Originally the internet was a great “unknown.” We saw marked increases in the time spent online as people began to try out this new medium and become acquainted with it. The amount of time people were dedicating to the internet grew significantly because it took people time to sit down and figure out how to use it and where they should be going. These were the days of “hard-core surfing”; people just floating through the internet, not really sure what they were looking for, but just spending time looking around.

Now people’s use is more defined. People who have been online awhile understand how to use the internet sufficiently and can maximize the time they have to spend on it. They generally know which sites they are going to when they log in. For new people starting out, the proliferation of website advertising (i.e., websites listed in commercials, affiliated with brands, etc.) helps direct people to where they want to go. Similarly, Google and other search engines have become staples of internet use so instead of surfing around to find what you’re looking for you can simply go to Google, type in your search terms, and all the hard work is done. The icing on top of all this is faster connection speeds. With broadband there is no waiting for pages to load and connections to happen.

(Source:  Advertising Age July 2009)

Small/Medium Businesses to use more online

SMBs More Likely to Use Digital than Traditional Media
SEPTEMBER 4, 2009
Online ad penetration keeps climbing
As of August 2009, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the US are more likely to advertise online than via traditional media.
Based on the “Local Commerce Monitor Wave XIII,” from The Kelsey Group and ConStat, 77% of US SMBs used online for advertising in August 2009, compared with just 69% that used traditional media. This is the first time penetration of online advertising surpassed traditional. In an earlier survey from August 2008, 73% advertised online while 74% used traditional media.

“We have been tracking the trend of digital/online media replacing traditional media over four waves of the Local Commerce Monitor study,” said Steve Marshall, director of research at The Kelsey Group. “The milestone of digital/online surpassing traditional media among SMBs is an indicator of the broad shift to online platforms.”
Note, however, that spending does not necessarily track penetration. Though more SMBs used digital advertising, the majority of their budgets still went to traditional channels. In August 2009, The Kelsey Group found 36.8% of SMBs’ advertising budgets went toward online. That was up more than 14 percentage points over the prior year.

Total annual ad spending among SMBs was down, from an average of $2,734 in August 2008 to $2,092 in August 2009. Spending on Websites and online profile pages, however, was up more than 26% to $769.