The Human Factor
I recently attended an Interactive Marketing Blowout; a day-long series of seminars featuring some of the industry’s best and brightest as presenters / speakers. Much of the focus was on technology and how it is transforming the marketing world. There was very little mention of the human factor.
Overheard during a break in the action, “One of my clients wanted a Pay-Per-Click campaign. If you’re using the right software, it’s no big deal. It only took me five minutes to set the whole thing up.”
One small step for the Adman, one giant loss for his client!
True, software programs facilitate building a keyword list, evaluating Advertiser competition, estimating search volume, and predicting Page Ranking while considering Cost-Per-Click. More data is available, but generally, that’s as far as it goes.
Here’s why The Human Factor matters.
In preparation for an upcoming PPC Campaign, my firm spent five days, not five minutes, performing due diligence. We spent the first 60 minutes with the software tools (Google; Yahoo! Search), and the rest conducting our own searches – word-by-word, site-by-site, link-by-link – on the web. We knew that there was keyword competition, but not who those competitors were. If we had stopped after an hour, we would not have discovered the following:
1) The names of our client’s competitors who were using PPC, what words or terms they were buying, and where. Valuable competitive intelligence.
2) An additional 60 high-performing, product-specific keywords being used on the web, which we used to build out our target list.
3) Bids on some of the most desirable, highly-contested Keywords had not been placed by our client’s competitors, but by vertical-specific associations, directories, and so forth. This insight was leveraged to beef up our Link Back Strategy.
4) Six (previously unknown) new competitors and one that had ceased operations.
5) Several online “Malls” offering competitors’ products and not our client’s. Obviously, this creates additional strategic / tactical opportunities.
6)One competitor is using our client’s brand as a Keyword. Very smart, and an actionable insight, which suggests tactical moves to remedy this.
7) Two Vertical Search opportunities – alternative engines with superior Keyword search volumes and no competition – promising in terms of driving traffic at a reduced CPC.
Two vertical-specific Forums, each with more than 15,000 active members, which allowed us to present our client with several more options: pursue Link Back; participate as a knowledge leader; advertise; or, all three?
I could go on and on (I usually do). Of course, we gathered a great deal more data, and we’ll use all of it going forward. Bottom line, we would not have such information if we had ignored The Human Factor in a technology-dominated equation.
The Lion and The Fox
Once upon a time, there lived a hungry Lion who found it tough to acquire new customers (to eat). Possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit, he decided to advertise. He spent tens of thousands of dollars on a direct mail campaign, sending coupons to his neighbors inviting them to take advantage of a Free Lunch.
A few animals responded to the offer (about one percent), and came to visit the Lion in his den. Upon their arrival, the King of Beasts promptly devoured them.
An observant Fox quickly discovered the Lion’s trick, but kept his distance.
“Come on in for a bite,” said Mr. Lion.
“No thank you,” replied Mr. Fox. “I see a few footprints entering your establishment, but I don’t see any coming out.”
The Fox liked the Lion’s idea, but thought it needed to be fleshed out a little. He hired an Interactive Marketing Agency, and the nice people there helped him develop a strategic approach for lead generation and presented him with some killer creative to make it work.
First, the Fox threw a Jungle Block Party, and used the event to warn other animals about the Lion’s ploy. Once he had the trust of his fellow animals, it was easy for Mr. Fox to amass a huge, permission-based list of Subscribers for his email Nutritional Guide.
Next, Mr. Fox segmented his new list and emailed relevant messages to his Subscribers: Rabbits received an offer for free carrots; Squirrels an offer for free acorns; and, the local Bullfrog population an offer for free flies.
The response was overwhelming, nearly four times the weighted animal industry average! Animals — including a number of cranes lured by an offer of free minnows — flocked to Mr. Fox’s den where they received their free goodies, and were then (post-fattening up) eaten by the sly marketing exec.
Mr. Fox soon had more food than he could handle.
Fortunately, Mr. Fox’s advisors had helped him develop a post-send strategy to monetize the results of his campaign, which included the creation of a Diner’s Club for other Foxes. Membership fees alone more than covered the expense of his email initiative.
And the Lion? Mr. Fox’s warning, and the cost of his Direct Mail campaign, soon left Mr. Lion with no cash and no carrion. Word on the savannahs is that Mr. Lion was forced to accept a gig with an American Zoo to make ends meet.
The moral of our story? It takes a solid strategy to outfox your competition.
Sherlock Holmes: The Case for Web Analytics
Virtually everyone has a website these days, but to many, how to maintain a healthy site that generates growing returns remains a mystery. Why? Let’s face it – it’s a crime how many businesses still do not employ analytics to measure program performance, influence website enhancements, or drive profitability.
You may have a cool site, but if you’re failing to turn traffic into conversions, you need to do some real detective work.
Want to improve your website’s ROI? Consider hiring an online detective (web analytics expert). Someone who can uncover the clues behind your lack of conversions; someone who understands how to solve your problems by turning enigmatic information into real solutions. Consider hiring someone like … Sherlock Holmes.
Had Holmes been created today, instead of 1881, he would have been a web analytics guy and not a Deductive Detective. I offer the following quotes as proof positive:
Web Analytics is the Ultimate Brain Game
Holmes: “I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?”
Holmes: “What is the use of powers, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace … “
If Holmes considered crime commonplace, no other field today would offer him the continuous challenge afforded by web analytics. Talk about brain-work! And heck, the constant, daily demands of this discipline would even curb his desire for cocaine as an alternative to boredom!
Web Analytics Play a Critical Role in Strategic Planning
Holmes: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
Holmes: “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay.”
Holmes clearly recognized that real insights in the strategic planning process derive from Analytics. Value is created when the right information gets to the right people at the right time so they can make the right decisions to create the right outcomes.
Some Practice Web Analytics Better Than Others
Holmes: “Watson, you see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. “
Holmes: “There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”
In other words, lots of people can run reports, but there are too few analysts who know what to make of the metrics. It takes talent, imagination, and creativity to read between the lines and decipher where the actionable insights lie hidden within the stats. Holmes would be singular; that one in fifty.
You Can Analyze Too Many Things
Holmes: “It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise, your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.”
Web Analytics is difficult: too much data; too many reports; not enough deep knowledge; too few real experts; and, not enough time. True, there are dozens of stats that one can analyze, but Holmes would only consider those metrics of vital, not incidental, importance. The result would be real improvements in ROI for his clients.
Holmes Was a Master Communicator
Holmes: “I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one ‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos’. In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash.”
A monograph on tobacco would be ill-advised in this day and age, but what if Holmes were to focus on SEO and Pay-Per-Click? Imagine the White Papers he could write or the PowerPoint presentations he could create (all with nifty graphs, charts, and illustrations).
The Big Finish
Being a Web Analyst is like being a detective: it is hard, painstaking work that requires real commitment (recommend daily); those who practice it must be able to look at the same facts as others, but often arrive at different conclusions (insight); and, they must be able to recognize, and focus on, only the most critical, relevant information (what often appears trivial to the uninitiated) in order to provide solutions to problems that often seem impossible to overcome (measurable results; ROI). Sherlock Holmes would have been perfect for the job!
Al Ries is Wrong, Part 2
In my last post – on a dare to evaluate an Al Ries video – I launched into a rather lengthy rant about why the internet would lead to the eventual obsolescence of traditional TV. Leave it to one of my colleagues (thank you, Justin) to make my point much clearer: “It’s not about the convergence of technologies, but the convergence of mediums.”
The main thrust of the Ries Report video was not really about TV-PC convergence, but used it as an example of convergence hype gone awry. He mainly employed the concept of convergence to predict the failure of Apple’s iPhone. “All hype, all hot air, no sales in the long run.”
Let me explain. No, there’s no time. Let me sum up. Al Ries believes that divergence is good; convergence is bad.
To demonstrate divergence, Mr. Ries uses several examples, including telephones: first there were regular phones, then cordless phones, walkie-talkies, and cell phones. He forgot two cans with string stretched out between them …
Convergence? “Well, with all the hype, everyone in the world is running around trying to put two things together that don’t belong together.”
As examples of the dangers inherent in the urge to converge, Mr. Ries – and this was hilarious – runs down a list of convergence failures: a Refrigerator-TV, Radio-Binoculars, Radio-Toaster, Camera-Printer, a Hamburger Hotel (a personal favorite), and MP3 Sunglasses.
Mr. Ries compares Apple’s iPod (divergence) with the iPhone (convergence). The iPod is a divergence device because it was the first high-capacity MP3 player unlike the original, low-capacity, versions. He implies that the iPhone is just another cell phone, and is thus doomed to fail. And here is where – if we use his own thesis – he is wrong.
With the iPhone, Apple has created an interactive user experience that surpasses other smart (cell) phones. Its large, touch screen user interface and internet browsing feature represents true innovation (divergence). Every iPhone feature is a simple touch away, and its screen does not offer a menu bar or other confusing buttons.
If Apple’s iPhone fails – as Mr. Ries suggests – it will not be because it is a “convergence device,” but because of flaws in 1-3 of the 4 Ps (no one can argue with how Promotion has been handled):
- The Product does not live up to its hype, or it is not substantially different than other Smart Phones.
- The Price is too steep (Up to $599 is a little pricey for a unique fixer-upper).
- Placement becomes an issue due to the exclusivity deal with AT&T.
Despite all of its recent marketing coups, don’t forget some Apple blunders: the Apple Lisa (1983), or the more relevant point, their refusal to share the Apple operating system with generic (or other) PC manufacturers, which opened the door for Windows and the explosive Microsoft growth that nearly buried them! The AT&T deal could prove to be equally limiting to the product’s success.
In my opinion, the easy to use, interactive experience with fewer features make the iPhone a divergence device not, as Mr. Ries insists, a convergence one. Look for it to be a big hit.
The Battle of Perception
Al Ries and Jack Trout once wrote that “Marketing is not a battle of products; it’s a battle of perceptions.”
A client or prospect’s perception is your reality. Thus, you must sometimes find creative ways to alter their view of the world in order to help them realize their desired goals (and your own). To demonstrate how effective this technique can prove to be, I offer the following:
During his march through the near east, Alexander the Great came upon a mountain stronghold known as the Soghdian Rock.
The rock itself was sheer-faced and – so its defenders believed – impregnable.
At a prelim parley, Alexander offered the occupants safe conduct if they would surrender their fortress.
The negotiators laughed rudely, and asked whether Alexander’s men could fly, adding that they would surrender to winged soldiers, “as no other sort of person could cause us the least anxiety.”
Alexander at once combed through his entire army for experienced mountaineers and found some 300. He called for volunteers to scale the sheer rock face (the defenders only guarded the one direct route to the fortress). He offered vast rewards for the first 12 men up.
Every man volunteered for the perilous operation. They made the ascent by night, an extra hazard, and 30 of them plummeted to their deaths.
At dawn, a flutter of white flags broke out from the summit above the fortress. Alexander sent a herald to tell the defenders that if they looked up, they would see that he had found his winged men.
The Soghdians were so taken aback by this theatrical rearrangement of reality that they surrendered instantly, even though they outnumbered the mountaineers by 30,000 to less than 300 and the rest of Alexander’s men still had no path to the summit.
What’s this story have to do with marketing? Plenty. It is not about a battle of products (Army vs. Army); it is about a battle of perceptions (My Army is better than your Army). Alexander sealed the deal because he was able to create the perception that his men could accomplish the impossible (fly to the mountaintop), and not the reality (no one saw them do it) that led to victory.
Listen to your customers and prospects. Understand what it will take from their point of view to win them over. It may mean altering your own path, but in some cases, they are simply waiting for you to show them your winged men to convince them that it’s time to close the deal.
