Media Logic Blog » marketing strategy

From the Mouths of Babes … 11 Predictions for Retail Marketing in 2011

Ronald Ladouceur — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 23:37:17 +0000

Careening out of the canyon of confusion that was 2010 we come face-to-face with an alien marketing landscape of “owned media,” “geo-location” and “real-time.” What do these strange terms mean? What do they demand of marketers in retail? Are we facing another year of social media-driven craziness?

To calm everybody down, we enlisted a few of the youngest Media Logicians to help us with our predictions for retail marketing in 2011 (see our predictions in plain text below).

There’ll be no more social media strategies for you, missy
Anybody with a conversion fetish will be asked to leave
Big box retailers will make friends with phones
Media will stop costing money and start making money
Interactive promotions will escape the Facebook tab
Goodbye social media cowboy
AdweekMedia’s 2011 list of “Agencies of the Year” will not include a single traditional advertising agency
The headlines will read, “Facebook is Dead!”
We’ll ask paid media to come out and play too
I’m running away
Don’t worry, marketing will get fun again

Stop Thinking Social Media. Start Thinking Social Business.

Ronald Ladouceur — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:17:11 +0000

The social web is driving a revolution. But it is not the fact that we can now communicate with customers and prospects socially that defines this revolution. It is the fact that we can now collaborate with customers and prospects… as well as with business colleagues, marketing partners, and advocates socially.

In her excellent recent article for Advertising Age, Kunur Patel outlined the struggles big-name social media pioneers have faced trying to implement effective social media content creation and approval processes.

One of the companies, Ford, stumbled on something really remarkable.

What the automaker found lines up nicely with what we’ve discovered ourselves: that the act of collaboration between marketing, advertising, PR and product development necessary to meet the real-time demands of social media has turned out to be an end in itself.

In Ford’s case, in order to create good social strategies and promotions, the company had to pull together people from R&D, PR, merchandising and marketing. In doing so, Ford forged connections through Scott Monty, its head of social media. It found it could leverage these connections through the social web to collaborate and respond to all kinds of business challenges, whether product-related, politics-related or promotions-related.

In the process, Ford’s collaborative media, PR and creative collective (what the company has dubbed “Team Detroit”) found itself at the natural center of strategy; newly empowered as the social hub – the “conductor” as some have taken to describing the role – of a wide range of marketing, product, PR and policy discussions.

A great example of the power of social collaboration is the organic evolution of The Ford Story, a site that started its life as a political advocacy effort and then quickly evolved into Ford’s frontline face. This, folks, is the new company “homepage.”

Ford’s story comes as no surprise to us. At Media Logic, we have found that solving for the social media problem leads to rapid evolution and a new, more strategic role for marketers. All of this is driven by the demands of the social web. But what is perhaps underappreciated is that all of it is possible because of the communication tools necessitated by the social web.

A range of applications for managing Twitter, Facebook and blogs – like HootSuite, CoTweet, Vitrue’s Social Relationship Manager and our own Zeitgeist & Coffee – are evolving into full-fledged collaboration tools that not only meet the communication demands of social media, but unleash the potential of social business.

Learn how to integrate, manage and maximize your company’s total social marketing universe. Request your Zeitgeist & Coffee demo now.

The Price of Free: Framing the Cost of Content Strategies

Patrick Boegel — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:10:19 +0000

In early January, Jason Falls wrote a really interesting piece on his blog about the value of social media and its impact on search results. It was intriguing to me as I have the task of managing the paid search efforts on behalf of Media Logic for lead generation purposes. With Google and Microsoft making real-time search (social search) a part of their fruit salad, the effort to be found and its associated value is an ever elusive target. Creating inbound marketing leads via social media content strategies is high on the 2010 agenda. In order to open the doors more swiftly agencies, consultants and internal marketing departments need to assign real value for these efforts.

Why was I so intrigued by Jason’s post? The effort to demonstrate the value of his blog content was drastically sold short on its real value. This happened mainly because the value placed on the phrase “social media strategy” by keyword tool estimators is nothing short of wrong. The tools at Jason’s and everyone’s disposal are simply not able to accumulate and react quickly enough to the real-time value of key search terms, especially ones in which paid is only emerging around. To this day if you drop the aforementioned phrase into Google’s own Traffic Estimator tool, you will get a result that states we have too little data to estimate traffic, and the maximum cost per click on the word is estimated to be $0.05. So how do I know it is wrong? I am bidding on the phrase and have been for months in our paid search effort. The cost for the search phrase is skyrocketing and a bid of $0.05 would not even get you on the front page of results in Guam. Using another, slightly more real-time but still imperfect Google tool, Bid Simulator, currently the maximum cost per click bid on this keyword is $36.60. There still is no data on projected clicks and cost but it does get you closer to the real price people are willing to pay to be seen in the top tier of paid results.

In Jason’s post he uses a great term that marketers should add to their dictionary: “search traffic equivalency.” It is used to illustrate the results he achieved from organic traffic versus what one could anticipate spending to drive comparable paid traffic. The good news, his ROI is currently far more profound than he estimates. Don’t run, I am about to use a lot of numbers, but they are telling in the end. Right now Google Bid Simulator allows me to make a rough guess that I could buy 4,650 monthly impressions on the phrase “social media strategy” at the aforementioned $36.60. For sake of argument let’s assume all the monthly traffic Jason’s blog received from this term comes from Google search (my instincts and some anecdotal historical data say it is probably close to 97%). The traffic he generated then is roughly equivalent to 14% of the total clicks possible. At the very highest end someone bidding with the aim to achieve Jason’s results would need to spend $23,570 per month. That is a far cry from the $32.20 that crappy keyword estimate tools valued the phrase to be.

Now even if you wrote the greatest AdWords copy ever imagined I think we can all agree that achieving 14% click-thru is going to be a tall order. But achieving this type of traffic via a developed conversation marketing strategy is clearly achievable. Jason had a great and in my opinion very related post recently regarding inbound marketing. He maps out the time and effort he puts into a month for blogging and social network information sharing, which amounts to his equivalent marketing efforts. I am giving him the weekends off so what it amounts to on a Monday-Friday work week is about 8.75 hours per week, or about 35 hours per month. I have no idea what Jason makes per hour in his consulting work, but let’s assume again for the sake of argument his time is worth $100 per hour to develop his content (a price I am borrowing form Danny Brown’s very excellent piece The Real Cost of Social Media). Using this as the framework it would be a monthly cost of $3,500 or $42,000 annualized. Now I just told you above the paid search equivalent to the traffic Jason brings organically on “social media strategy” alone would cost $23,750 a month. The math is not very hard to follow; you can currently drive inbound traffic at just under 15% the cost of a paid search effort. That ratio of effort put into a content strategy in deference to paid marketing won’t necessarily last, but it is damn appealing and frames the value of the work. It is not perfectly apples to apples, but we are at least talking fruit.

One thing that cannot be overlooked in the paid versus organic search discussion (and frankly it is better to integrate and complement them – not duke it out) is the ability of paid campaigns to drive a clicking party exactly where you want them to be on your website. Consequently the conversions on paid clicks tend to be significantly higher than organic results. Well developed content strategies can achieve conversion but it takes additional effort which will only increase with the impact social media has had, and will continue to have, on search results.

I took a close look at a few of our better-performing keywords which do extremely well at driving traffic to our website. If I opened the faucet and was also able to ratchet up performance on CTR for both, I could spend $5,500 a month between the two. Being conservative on the estimates to develop a content-driven conversation strategy to replace the paid search efforts entirely, I could ballpark a number of roughly $4,375 a month. That number does not include the likely need to change directions slightly, revamp Meta tags for our website to align with a new blogging strategy as well as the extra time needed to begin creating an impact on the already established conversation. There is a savings not to be sneezed at, but in the end there is no small investment in a comparable content strategy.

One thing is certain; the cost to drive traffic via Google or another search engine is not insignificant, either organically or paid. As content creation in the social sphere ramps up the efforts to be found organically, increased time commitment will be required. The cost to do so via a content-driven social media marketing effort is not insignificant either, hopefully more folks like Danny Brown and the project Jason Falls referenced will be laying cost models out on the table. We are trying to ourselves. Right now if your competitor is asleep at the wheel and you are active with an entrenched lead position the tea leaves read well. As referenced by Jeff Molander’s comparative case study of Adagio vs. Bigelow in the world of tea. If you need to play the role of chaser, you can’t afford to put your head in the sand and feel sorry for your brand. You need to dig in and develop your social media marketing strategy. The longer you wait, the more it is going to cost to make up for lost time. Content strategies have a cost and they are just beginning to become understandable.

When It Comes to Social Media, Best Practice Is Practice

David Schultz — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:25:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a blog post on “Best Practices in Social Media,” a topic on which there is no shortage of opinions. (A Google search will return nearly 2.9 million results, which is about 400,000 more than last month.) As I was reading it, I was struck by how confidently the author threw around the term “best practices” to describe what he was doing. While I think it’s great that people share their experiences – the good, the bad and the ugly – I think it’s premature to start engraving anything in stone.

As I was sharing my thoughts with our Executive Vice President/Executive Creative Director, he summed it up very nicely. “When it comes to social media,” he said, “best practice is practice.”

Now I’m sure there are many consultants and “experts” out there who might shudder at the notion of admitting that they don’t have all the answers. But, realistically, no one can and no one does. There are just too many variables and too many unknowns. Moreover, the ways in which social media might be used as part of an overall marketing strategy can be dramatically different from one organization to the next. Getting to the right place will take some time.

So what’s a marketer to do?

Explore. Experiment. Practice.

To be clear, this process is not akin to throwing darts while blindfolded. You need to start with a hypothesis or two about how you might be able to use social media to help your business. It also makes sense to establish clear goals. Then you should do some digging to see what’s being done – find some analogs. As I said earlier, people seem very willing to share their experiences. Just be careful not to assume that what worked (or didn’t) for them will give you the same result.

Next step? Refine your hypotheses as needed and put them into action. Be sure to monitor closely against your goals, but remain open-minded to learning something that you never expected. This happens all of the time and can be critical in helping you find your rhythm. Then apply everything you learn – the good, the bad and the ugly – to your next effort and continue to move the ball forward.

It will take time and resources and, frankly, lots of hard work. But along the way you can rest assured that you’re on the right track since when it comes to social media, best practice is practice.

Want to learn how you can manage social media without the social anxiety?

Request your Zeitgeist & Coffee demo today.

Social Media: It’s Not Defense. It’s Not Offense. It’s Interaction!

Ronald Ladouceur — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:18:51 +0000

In his recent interview with Media Logic, social media consultant Jason Falls noted the very cool and too often undervalued role social media tools like Zeitgeist & Coffee play in charging up client-side, client/agency and client/world creative interaction.

Jason latched onto our product as an easy way to step clients into social media.

And in true social media fashion, his feedback helped us refine our pitch.

Media Logic’s Zeitgeist & Coffee opens a fat pipe of information that flows without resistance between client, agency, influencer and customer. But raw information is not where the value lies. It’s the social interaction surrounding its contextualization and use – particularly when managed with a real live human at the hub – that modifies creative thinking, leading to more rapid development of innovative strategies, refined brand positionings and even new products.

——————————————–

Z&C Poll: Charmin Promotion – Over the Line or Smart and Fun?

Ronald Ladouceur — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:44:32 +0000

Vote in our latest Z&C Poll!

We’ve seen brands respond to the challenge of conversation-centric marketing in vastly different ways. Some have reacted by becoming even more cloistered; others are testing the outer boundaries of taboo. Charmin’s latest promotion shows that CPG, at least relative to this brand, has chosen the latter path.

John Jordan, a member of Media Logic’s xTeam, came across a CNET.com article this morning about Charmin’s promotion. It generated quite the conversation at Media Logic:

From: John Jordan
Odd story, but should be interesting: Charmin to pay 5 people $10k to blog, and share experience in a makeshift bathroom.

From: Patrick Boegel
It might be insane, but the methodology from P&G is likely spot on. This campaign will generate attention and receive coverage from bloggers and the media. Regardless of the tenor of the coverage, good or bad, people will be writing about this promotion for awhile.

From: Ron Ladouceur
Maybe it’s because I came of age in the earthier 70s, but to me this sounds like a fantastic Social Juice Promotion (though, in this case, “juice” might be an ugly word). Can you imagine how great a sell it took to get a bunch of P&G execs to sign off on “enjoy the go?” Hats off! Frankly, I think the author of this review sounds a bit constipated. She could use a Charmin break.

Time will tell if Charmin’s latest promotion will be a success or failure. But, at least around here, it’s got people talking.

What do you think? Does the latest Charmin Times Square bathroom campaign push past the boundaries of good taste or is it an effective exploitation of a taboo subject?