The Choice Seems Clear

Seems like a situation with easy logic: advertisers should spend their marketing dollars with the medium that offers the most audience engagement, right? Well, then someone tell me why Newspapers get 20% of the marketing dollars when they only deliver 8% of time spent between the media and their audience?

BusinessInsider.com shared 2008 research from JP Morgan via their Chart of the Day post:




The Internet tops the chart in disparity of attention vs. advertising investment by delivering 38% of time spent with the medium but receiving a mere 8% of total advertising dollars.

The other big missed opportunity is Radio, only receiving 9% share of advertising budgets, but delivering 19% of audience engagement -- a virtual mirror image of Newspaper!

Certainly something to talk to your clients and prospects about as you help them plan their strategies for 2010.

BusinessInsider.com notes the numbers are from 2008, so the ad spend on newspapers is lower today-- but go on to say "it's not low enough, considering how little we spend with them."

The Day The Media Died

Mad Avenue Blues

Did You Know 4.0

This is another official update to the original "Shift Happens" video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com/ and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/.

Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler. Design and development by XPLANE, http://www.xplane.com/.

Marketing to Inactive List Members

Some marketers feel that if a member of their email list has been inactive for a great length of time, that the list might be better served by deleting the name -- even if the list member themself has not requested to be unsubscribed. This has to do with the ego and expectations of the list owner more than the preference of the list member.

They say:

• Inactive list members create lower percentages of open rates
• Inactive list members lower the ratio of clicks
• Inactive members lower the percentage of return on investment

You know what else inactive list members can do?
Account for 10% of your total annual sales, or even generate over $115,000 in a single campaign!

The DMA Email Marketing Blog has an interesting post up redefining "inactives" as "emotionally unsubscribed." They cite several instances where a significant number inactive list members have been triggered to take action based on their personal 'itch cycle.'

In one case, over $115,000 dollars was generated by making a special offer (a really great offer) to those list members who'd not click on the previous 25-40 past offers. Another statistic showed that over 10% of the revenue generated in 2008 had been contributed to the bottom line by list members who had not opened or clicked a single message in the previous year.

The lesson is to not over-obsess about inactive members on your list. Just because not everyone feels compelled to read every single missive you send, doesn't mean they won't remember you when their needs match your offers.

How Does Your Marketing Measure Up?

Read a great article in the latest MarketingProfs "Get To The Point" newsletter on Marketing Analytics. They recap a post from the Email Experience Blog on measuring the success of email marketing campaigns. This specifically addresses email, but the principle applies to ALL marketing efforts and the importance of pre-establishing metrics for success.

The blog post says data gathered on email marketing campaigns might not be as useful as you think. "Real danger lurks in not measuring the right factors or not measuring accurately. You could suffer lost revenue. You might not know which messages are working. And your sales team won't know what to focus on."

There are just SO many different things you can measure in marketing (especially online marketing), that it's extremely difficult to agree upon industry benchmarks in order to make effective comparisons. People are focusing on impressions or clicks or only those clicks that lead to a single sale.

The purpose of any marketing is to trigger an ACTION. Actions could include:

• Forward to a friend
• Signing up for a mailing list or additional informaiton
• Visit to a physical store location
• Attend an event
• Buy a product

It's vital to have a clear view of your client's specific goal for the campaign's marketing message and for the results on which the campaign will be judged. In order to meet those goals, tools must be in effect to capture the correct data by which effectiveness can be judged. As they say in the article... "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it."

Secrets of the Male Shopper

Great article in the BWOnline archive on the topic of targeting males in your marketing.

Advertising to men falls into more than the two cliched columns of the Metrosexual (fashion and 'product' obsessed) and the Retrosexual (sports and beer obsessed) -- the cliches only account for about %5 of the male population on the extreme edges of the spectrum. Here's how you reach the rest.

The best ideas from the article?

• Appeal to their inner-geek
  Think Dyson vacuums and Bugaboo's new stroller
• Allow for Advertiser-Activism
  Today's males want to interact with their brands -- Just look at all the parody ads on YouTube
• Not just Quick-Buyers -- They are Browsers
  Men under 35 shop more like their sisters than their grandfathers
• Provide Content Camouflage
  Men's Health, Stuff, and Maxim -- all male mags, BUT -- two in every five pages pitch products. They are masks for men to shop without opening themselves to ridicule from their beer-buddies
• Make 'em Comfortable
  Most men might feel a bit out of place at salons and unisex spas -- but add alcohol and ESPN while they wait in queue for their pedicures and manicures, call it a "Grooming Lounge", and you just might have a $4-million dollar business like Washington DC's Michael Gilman and Pirooz Sarshar

Click to read the full article.

VBR for Video

Inside Radio shares these Nielsen stats in regard to increased interaction with online video:
Nielsen released May video viewing data that shows 134 million Americans watched online video content last month. That's up 13% from a year ago. The number of minutes a typical online video user watched jumped 49% to 189 minutes.

If you have a client that you know is using using tv spots now or in the past, a video pre-roll opportunity on the radio site can take advantage of video that has already been produced, but perhaps not fully utilized due to the higher cost of television airtime.

If the client has a product or service that would benefit from visual expores to our audience in addition to the audio spots already being aired, a landing page featuring product demonstration, client testimonials, or an amusing video that drives home an important point of their service can greatly increase the likelyhood of response by your audience.

Some great examples of video used to promote products:
1. http://www.insurance-mitchell.com/
Take a look about halfway down the page to see this creative use of a simple YouTube video embedding to brand his services and point out some perfect reasons why you need great insurance coverage.

2. http://www.savingsanity.com/
Simple 'talking head' video that promotes the advertiser's product while providing real informational content to the audience via the free tips presented in the video.

3. https://www.getsnuggie.com/
And the classic -- Snuggie. Sales not only increased exponentially once this landing page was created to enhance their already successful television spot, but a cult following developed by simple virtue of the new internet audience being reached. It wasn't long before people took the brand and product and started using it for their own creative ends:
Snuggie Remix (over 300,000 views)
Snuggie Pubcrawls (video from Chicago - WGN Radio, NYC, and San Diego - complete with media coverage)
Snuggie Parody (warning: strong - but hilarious - language) (4 MILLION views and climbing!)

Encourage your clients and prospects to use video.
Who knows where it might lead?

The Silent Click

Interesting stats about the marketing value a banner delivers beyond just the "click." Take the information with a grain of salt -- after all, the study was commissioned by the OPA (Online Publishers Association) an organization whose best interest is to promote the sale of banner ads.

The OPA's position is that, just because a web visitor didn't click on your banner doesn't mean your money was wasted. Study findings include...

• One in five conduct related searches and one in three visit the brands’ sites
• Users spent over 50% more time than the average visitor to these sites and consumed more pages
• Users spent about 10% more money online overall, and significantly more on product categories related to the advertised brands
• Higher income audiences visited the advertisers sites

The study was conducted by comScore–and assessed 80 of the biggest branding campaigns across 200 of the most trafficked sites. Here's a link to the OPA press release about the study.

Social network ads are tough sell to Gen-Y

Seeking to grab the attention of Gen Y's on social networks? Better put away the old online display ads if you're seeking to grab the attention of Gen Y's on social networks. A new study by the Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University shows traditional banner ads to be ineffective to young adults aged 18-24.

Researchers asked a group of Gen Y's if they notice ads at all when navigating through a social community, and if they approve of them. While 84% said they notice ads on social networks, only 19% said they find them "relevant."

Researchers also found that 74% of the young consumers in the study click on social network ads "infrequently," and 36% don't click on the ads at all.

There were a few signs of hope in the results --
62% of the respondents said they have "visited a brand or fan page on a social network" and 48% said they have "become a fan or friend of the company or organization" showcased on a brand or fan page.

The top three reasons respondents cited for joining a brand or fan group were: get product updates ( 67%), view promotions (64%) and view or download music videos (41%).

Read full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=29703

Do Ads Work?

A great post to kick-off the new year for anyone buying (or selling!) advertising. Forward this post to your favorite media salesperson or buyer.

Do ads work?
by Seth Godin

If the local bank were offering a sale on dollar bills, ninety cents each, how many would you buy?
Most rational people would say, "I'll take them all please." Especially if you had thirty days to pay for them.

So, why, precisely, do you have an ad budget?
If your ads work, if you can measure them and they return more profit than they cost, why not keep buying them until they stop working?

And if they don't work, why are you running them?

The time-tested response is that you're not sure, that ads are risky, that you can't tell. And for some sorts of products and some sorts of ads, you'll get no argument from me.

Digital ads are different (or they should be). You should know cost per click and revenue per click and be able to make a smart guess about lifetime value of a click. And if that's positive, buy, buy, buy.

And if you don't know those things, why are you buying digital ads?

When Amazon was at its key growth peak, the mantra there was $33. They would buy unlimited ads, of any kind, as long as they generated new customers for $33 or less each. There was a risk that $33 was too high a number for the business to sustain, but the ads were no risk at all. As long as they came in under that number, there was unlimited money to buy them.
How often do year the marketing person say, "that's a neat idea, but we don't have the budget this year"?

Shouldn't she say, "We have an unlimited budget for ads that work"...

Traditional Media Drives Interactive Usage

Survey Uncovers Drivers of Digital Influence and Reveals How Information is Shared Online
A new research study gleaned from a field of nearly 1,000 digital influencers demonstrates traditional and online media are both important sources when it comes to sharing news. The study by IM MS&L finds that traditional media play a vital role in igniting the process that leads influencers to share information online and via word of mouth.

Eight in ten influencers often go online to find out more after:

• Reading something in a magazine or newspaper (84%)
• Hearing something on TV or the Radio (84%)

"This research supports the need for influencer marketing campaigns to leverage both traditional and online tools to connect with consumers."
~ Renee Wilson
Deputy MD of MS&L New York
Director of the agency's IM MS&L practice.


Source: MSL News Release, 11/16/08.
Full release:
http://www.mslworldwide.com/in-the-news/press-releases/traditional-media-sparks-word-of-mouth

Newspapers (Try To) Think Locally for Online Ads

Nice coverage in WSJ about challenges facing "The Dead Tree Society" as they seek to increase their share of local Web dollars.

Though the article focuses on Newspapers, one need only review the Borrell Associates chart to the left in order to realize Radio has the great potential for growth in Online Advertising.

Some of the article highlights...

Scrambling Cannibals

In an effort to make up for their plunging print-ad revenues, newspaper companies have been scrambling to train their sales teams in the intricacies of selling online ads to local marketers.
But in many cases they aren't selling a lot of ads and at least some of the new ads they are managing to sell are cannibalizing their print-ad revenues, industry analysts say. A common scenario is that a trusty local print advertiser -- a car dealership, say -- that used to spend $20,000 a year on advertising might now spend a quarter of that with the newspaper online and nothing in the print product. Thus, the newspaper company is now selling more digital ads, but the new sale is taking away from its bottom line.

Losing Their Edge

Whatever edge Newspaper may have had in capturing web revenue appears to have evaporated. Newspapers now control only 27.4% of the local online ad market, down from a 35.9% share in 2006, according to Borrell.

Cracks and Gaps

There are several reasons why newspapers so far have failed to crack this market.

• Online ads are far less expensive than print ads and thus offer lower commissions, making it difficult to get salespeople to focus on selling the digital products
• Newspaper is typically selling banner ads which don't meet the needs of local businesses
• Most local online revenue growth comes from small and medium-size local businesses -- a market segment that Newspapers have typically ignored

Read the entire article here.

How/Why Consumers Share Info

ShareThis.com has just completed an extensive study on sharing with Forrester Research. Forrester and ShareThis, teamed up to find out what and how people are sharing information online with one another. The study, which will be released next week, provides some interesting statistics around how people share online information --

• 69% of adults cite email as the primary source of sharing information
• Less than 1/3 of online adults said they learned about the new content from shared content sources such as YouTube, a wiki, or social networking sites
• 84% of people still use the traditional cut and paste method to share a URL or information
• 81% of adults claim that they share to help others -- believing a person will benefit from the information they share
• Sharing increases site traffic 2x, thus increasing ad dollars or revenue for publishers
• Men are more likely to share recommendations and videos than women; 77% of adult males and 74% of younger males shared news and web links
• Women are more likely to share products or ideas they like via easy or direct sharing methods (ie texting.)

You can read the full press release here.

Goodbye Yellow Pages?

Borrell Research predicts 39% of yellow page revenues will vanish as local advertisers shift spending to the internet.

This doesn't mean one less competitor for your Radio dollars!

Other Borrell findings report there are now more than 34,000 local sales reps peddling online products -- more than for any other medium. The chart at right shows that 84% of these reps are being fielded by newspaper and yellow pages companies, all cross-training sales reps to rush toward their most-promising growth opportunity. To date, and in the foreseeable future, directory companies have fared better than any other legacy media at this strategy, garnering about 14% of their total gross revenues from online sales.

Their report also details how online video commercials have emerged as the fastest-growing online ad format for small businesses. By 2012, they expect streaming video advertising to surpass all other formats, including banners and paid search. The report includes local online spending estimates for search advertising and streaming video for 210 markets.

Download a free executive summary of the report by clicking here.

My advice is to continue focusing on the task of finding a real customer need -- the one that goes beyond driving traffic, selling more ('whatevers'), and branding/awareness. Find the customer's pain and create a custom marketing strategy that integrates Radio and Web to provide both audience reach and message trackability in order to take their pain away. Solve the real problem and you'll have a customer for life.

VBR: Staycations

With the already established MixFunGuide.com and TheFanGuide.com websites, the trend toward families cutting costs by reducing the travel and expense of their family vacation is a prime marketing challenge for our advertisers and real revenue opportunity for the creative account executive.

The latest buzzword for the trend mentioned above is "Staycation" and here is some information that can help you craft a compelling VBR that gains the attention of your prospects...

Let's start with Weber, the grill-maker, which released some survey results last month that say this is the summer of staycations and grilling. They surveyed over 1,000 people and received some interesting results:

• Among grill owners planning staycations, a whopping 80% plan to grill weekly
  
• 41% plan to grill at least several times each week
  
• Once having the term explained to them, 51% of the respondents said they plan to take one or more staycations this summer
  
• 24% who are changing their traditional summer vacations to include a staycation this year
  
• 40% say they plan to try new grilled foods or grilling recipes
  
• 13% plan to purchase a new outdoor grill this summer
  
• 7% plan to update or improve their current grill
  
• Others plan on buying grilling accessories (11%) or a grilling cookbook (8%)

What about state tourism organizations as a target?

• In Pennsylvania The Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia is pushing its staycation not only as inexpensive and educational, but as a green-friendly trip.
  
• Connecticut created a web site that highlights staycation destinations in the Constitution State and offers discounts to many of those places.
  
• The Arlington (Texas) Convention & Visitors Bureau has a local and regional campaign designed to get the locals to go to Six Flags Over Arlington and spend the night with the family in a hotel.

Retailers can be Staycation destinations, too!
Wal-Mart is making things interesting for consumers, with its subsite makeyourdollarstretch.com and a downloadable desktop Widget called 101 Days of Summer Staycations.

The Staycation trend may have been created the need to cut spending on the rising cost of gasoline (and everything else!) but it may also have been created to help the innovative marketing professionals earn additional profits this summer!

Knowledge is Power... and Profit

The Radio Audience Has Changed -- Has Your Marketing Strategy?
The two articles below paint a pretty clear picture of the evolution of the traditional Radio listener. Do your client proposals reflect these changes by incorporating effective Internet strategies to better reach your audience?

New ratings have been released, and a lot of stations have taken a hit. It's likely that analytics from your station website do not reflect the same data you're receiving from traditional ratings-by-sample-diary reports. Perhaps you've even seen a significant increase in Internet traffic. Do you know why? Do your clients? Are you educating them on the way today's Radio audience uses your broadcast and your website? Probably not.

The articles linked below provide valuable advice about your audience, but it's up to you to learn it and share it with your advertisers. Educating yourself on the new ways your audience uses media is the only way to continue creating more effective solutions to your client's marketing problems.

What's The Digital Application?
Interesting insights about how radio listeners -- in this case, members of station databases -- use other media and technologies, along with other revelations about how radio listeners' time is being sliced and diced by new media options.

Highlights...

• Nearly three in ten report they listen to AM/FM radio less or a lot less at home.
  
• More than 95% have access to a high-speed Internet connection.
  
• About 95% have a cell phone -- seven in ten text regularly.
  
• Nearly six in ten now own an iPod or a similar device.
  
• Four in ten have a TiVo or DVR.
  
• Over half regularly visit social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Classmates.com.
  
• More than four in ten have played Guitar Hero or Rock Band in the past year.
  
• Nearly one-fourth have participated in a fantasy league in the past year or so.
  
• More than two-thirds download/stream videos from sites like YouTube frequently/occasionally.
  
• Nearly half shop online each month.

Podcast Consumer Information
The Podcast Consumer Revealed 2008 is the third study in this annual series on podcast consumption, and contains data derived from the 2008 Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet and Multimedia study. Highlights of this study were originally presented on April 16th at ad:tech SF.

Highlights:

• The audience for both audio and video podcasts has grown tremendously since last year.
  
• Podcast listeners enjoy additional listening opportunities.
  
• Podcast consumers are extremely attractive advertising targets, though difficult to reach via traditional interruption models.
  
• Podcast consumers are heavily involved with social networking.
  
• Podcasting is a viable alternative means to target attractive consumers who are otherwise proving difficult to reach with traditional advertising.
  
• Podcasters should consider lifestyles, context and even potential 'dayparting' for their audiences.

Valuable Resource

I wanted to share this website with you -- it's dedicated to marketing stats:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/

They've got some great original charts (excellent for use in PPT proposals) , along with being a reliable news clipping/link resource for info in just about every industry.

Here are some favorites...
‘Online at Work’ Audience a Prime Target for Advertisers
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/online-at-work-audience-a-prime-target-for-advertisers-2921/

Big Shift to Online Ad Spend in $40B Global Auto Ad Market by 2011
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/big-shift-to-online-ad-spend-in-40b-global-auto-ad-market-by-2011-2743/

Vertical Search an Advertising, Revenue Opportunity for Online Publishers
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/vertical-search-an-advertising-revenue-opportunity-for-online-publishers-2627/

Ad Spend to Grow 6.7% in ‘08, Internet to Overtake Radio in ‘08 & Mags in ‘10
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/ad-spend-to-grow-67-in-08-internet-to-overtake-radio-in-08-mags-in-10-2596/

Top 5 Auto Brands by Share of Market Interest Online
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-5-auto-brands-by-share-of-market-interest-online-november-2007-2851/

Top 10 Online Retail Categories by Order Size
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/top-10-online-retail-categories-by-order-size-october-2007-2812/

Top 10 Financial Services Online Ad Spenders
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-10-financial-services-online-ad-spenders-november-2007-2791/

You can also subscribe to to a daily digest of the latest updates. Just visit http://www.marketingcharts.com/ and enter your email address in the top/right corner.

CBS Radio Eyes Web Revenue Growth

Good article on CBS Radio and their emerging web strategy.

From the article...
Two months ago, when wildfires scorched hundreds of square miles in Southern California, forcing the evacuation of a half-million people, listenership spiked on KNX Radio, the CBS-owned outlet in Los Angeles. But the uptick wasn't for the station's on-air signal; listeners had instead tuned into the station on the Internet.

The average daily listenership for the newscasts on the KNX audio stream soared tenfold over the weeklong period that the fire dominated the headlines.

The online listenership spike experienced by KNX during the fires, and the real-time metrics available to quantify such digital audiences, reinforce the radio industry's need to expand its Web content. All 140 CBS Radio stations (in addition to 10 Internet-only outlets) are now streamed online to tap into today's fast-growing digital ad platform. And plans call for the development of much more Web content.

"Our digital revenue is growing significantly every year," said Mason. Those dollars are also helping radio counter a drain on the broadcast side, where spending has been flat at just over $21 billion (according to the Radio Advertising Bureau) for the last three years, as advertisers have sought better measured and more accountable media. Over-the-air radio ratings routinely have a three-month lag time, much to the dismay of clients and ad buyers.

Mason declined to say how much the digital revenues contributed to the division's coffers, but a media analyst at BMO Capital Markets estimates that 3 to 5 percent of the industry's revenue, (or roughly $640 million to $1 billion) are generated by online ad sales. Westerfield says the radio industry will continue to develop its online presence.

"The growth in media use is clearly growing on the Internet, and growth of advertising dollars is also migrating to the Web, so it makes sense for the radio companies to develop attractive commercial audio entertainment brands on the Internet."

Click here to read the entire article.

Best Way to Reach Business Decision Makers

The Internet is the best way for advertisers to market to business decision-makers, according to a poll. A survey of nearly 1,000 people by Minnesota Opinion Research found 60% agreeing the Web was persuasive. Fifty percent said it influenced them to make a purchase.

"Business decision-makers have told us that the Web is the best place to reach them," said Chris Schroeder, CEO of Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive. "Most importantly, they've made it clear that what they're seeing on the Web is leading directly to purchases."

Online Advertising To Top Radio In ‘08 & Magazines By 2010

Worldwide internet ad spending will jump to $44.6 billion in 2008, from about $36 billion, increasing its share of the market to 9.4% from 8.1%, according to ZenithOptimedia.

“We predict internet advertising to pass three milestones over the next three years,” according to ZenithOptimedia’s forecast, released December 3rd. “We expect it to overtake radio advertising in 2008; to attain a double-digit share of global advertising in 2009; and to overtake magazine advertising in 2010, with 11.5% of total ad spend.”

Advertising Now International
In addition to noting the growing importance of new media, ZenithOptimedia also notes a trends toward international ad spends.

“North America used to be half of advertising expenditures,” said Tim Jones, CEO of ZenithOptimedia Americas. “We’re seeing its share drop a full point every year at this point. That’s being made up for everywhere east of Eastern Europe. Look at the multinationals and where their investments are focused: the Russias, Chinas and Indias of the world. That’s true of our business and media vendor companies as well.”

Between now and 2010, according to the forecast, the 10 fastest-growing ad markets will be Kazakhstan in the pole position followed by Belarus, Serbia, Egypt, Russia, Moldova, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and what the agency refers to as “Pan Arab.”