Get to the Point

Blog Ads That Work

When an ad that appeared on her blog failed to impress, B.L. Ochman provided its purchaser, a television network, some pro bono feedback. "Please don't get me wrong," Ochman writes in an open letter at MarketingProfs Daily Fix. "I love you for advertising ... on my blog. But I want you to get results so you'll keep coming back, and this ad sucks."

Blunt talk, but Ochman speaks from experience: her blog ad campaigns for companies like American Greetings and Budget Car Rental have achieved click-through rates as high as 2.1 percent. And if you advertise at blogs—or have considered the idea—you might benefit from the advice she offers:

• Be intriguing, interesting, entertaining. Blog readers respond to a fresh approach, not the traditional advertising that they see everywhere else. So go ahead: Show your sense of humor. Get edgy and fun, topical and timely.


• Readers aren't interested in hearing your story; they want to know what you can do for them. Get right to the point and spell out the ROI. Tell readers how they benefit from your product or service. "We want you to tell us, in the headline, why we should care," says Ochman.


• White space is your friend. Ads compete with lots of other copy at a blog. If yours isn't easy to read at a glance, it might as well be invisible.
  

The Po!nt: Get the most out of your blog ad by tailoring your design and copy to the format and the audience.

Get to the Po!nt

Are Your Web Customers Engaged?

December 2007

Your Web site is an ideal venue for holding your customers' attention. But how do you measure the success of your efforts? Inspired by Eric Petersen's presentation on the subject at an eMetrics conference, Katie Paine, of KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog, decided to make a list of the basic information you'll need:

• The percentage of increase or decrease in unique visits


• The 10 most popular pages, and changes from the previous week


• The number and percentage of sessions that represent more than five page views


• The percentage of sessions that last more than five minutes


• The percentage of visitors who return for more than five sessions


• The percentage of sessions arriving from a Google search, a direct link at your Web site or another site related to your brand


• The percentage of visitors who become subscribers, download content or provide an email address

Paine says it isn't hard to find this data. Your webmaster should be able to compile a report on a regular basis using tools like Visual Sciences, Google Analytics and ClickTracks.

The Po!nt: Ask the right questions about your Web site's traffic, and you'll learn more than the number of people who visit—you'll gain insight into how effectively you engage your customers.

[Source: KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog.]

GET TO THE PO!NT

What Surveys Can Tell You—and Your Customers

December 2007.

What are you trying to accomplish with a survey? It's likely you're asking a series of questions designed to elicit valuable feedback for ongoing improvements of your product or service. But in a recent post at his blog, Seth Godin discusses the various ways a survey—and its results—can be used for much more.

One option is to use the survey question as a marketing tactic:

• "You can TEACH people with a survey," writes Godin, "simply by asking them questions that help them notice things they never noticed before." For instance, you might ask, "Do your prefer option A or option B?" when the real purpose of the question is to let the participant know that they have an option B.

Another twist uses survey results to influence behavior:

• Godin cites the marketing campaign for Trident, which claimed four out of five dentists recommended the sugarless gum to their patients. "Hardly scientific," he says, "but publishing the results made dentists feel better about recommending the gum and made people with teeth happier about chewing it."

The Po!nt: A survey's usefulness is not limited to gathering data—you might also find that it can be a useful marketing tool. So explore all the ways a survey can benefit your company.

Product Launches

New Products: The Real Challenge Is in Execution, Not Strategy
by Barry Curewitz
December 2007

Marketers love talking about products like the Swiffer or iPod, two colossal successes in terms of brilliance in innovation and new product development. In fact, rumor has it there are more consulting firms taking credit for Swiffer's development and success than can fit into the new Yankee Stadium.

The puzzling question remains: Why aren't there more examples of unabashed new product successes?

To gain insight, we recently implemented a research study exploring the factors that have an impact on a company's ability to succeed in the ever-important CPG growth domain.

Our survey, titled "Creativity in New Products, A Reality Check," queried 128 senior CPG marketers to gauge the challenges they face in growing their businesses as well as the strategies and thought processes they employ.

In planning the research, we theorized that new-product development efforts could be influenced by both strategic and tactical elements. Therefore, we developed a list of five strategic and five tactical pitfalls that could limit a company's ability to succeed.

Then, we asked participants to identify those issues that currently challenge them; those they addressed three years ago; those they expect to face three years from now; and which single factor occurs most frequently.

Based on our experience, we hypothesized that strategic issues would be the most relevant causes of new-product disappointment. We were way off base. We learned that, yes, there are strategic issues affecting the outcome of new product activity, but the more relevant issues focus on tactical elements—those things that can be addressed in the short term.

In fact, 63% of survey respondents identified tactical issues as the leading prohibitive factors in the development and launching of new products.

The need to satisfy stockholders (Wall Street) has had a profound effect on our ability to identify, develop, and launch new products as reflected in the lack of human capital, financial resources, and company competencies (another form of human capital). Strategically, we're confident we know where to "place our bets," it's just that financial limitations prevent us from doing it.

The following data illustrate that three of the strategic categories we identified have become less of an issue in the last three years and are expected to become even less relevant over the next three (or at least remain status quo). These include the identification of differentiated opportunities, identification of the key consumer insight, and development of a motivating consumer proposition.

Two issues that will become more relevant to marketers have to do with competitive challenges and the elasticity of brand equities. It appears our own tactical issues have caused a bit of paranoia that the competition is moving faster than we are. And, the research further suggests that brand equities (perhaps our most valuable asset) have reached their breaking point and can't go any further.

Tactically, while all but one factor (the lack of product technology) are expected to decline over time in the amount they can limit our success, several of them are working against higher levels of frustration today, as compared with three years ago.

For example, the lack of human capital and financial resources are more relevant today than they were three years ago, but they are projected to be less relevant in '10 than they were in '04. Why? Because new product development efforts are often disrupted or delayed in order to meet the immediate corporate financial obligation—we're responding to the financial needs of the current quarter.

What are we to do? Well, we're called "managers" for a reason. We need to manage the innovation process so that we can support the best, most promising initiatives, with the limited resources available to us.

And, when possible, convince our management that additional resources are prudent in order to realize the success that the Swiffer and iPod have enjoyed.

[Barry Curewitz is managing partner of Whole-Brain Brand Expansion (www.wbbe.biz); reach him at barry@wbbe.biz. ]