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Archives for 2010

Online Display Advertising is Growing but No Single Brand Dominates

internet__browserAccording to comScore, display advertising is making a big comeback since the economic downturn in 2009.  During the first quarter of 2010, the U.S. Internet audience received over 1 trillion display ads (up 15% from the same period in 2009).

Facebook and Yahoo! served the most display ads to the U.S. Internet audience during the first quarter of 2010 as shown below:

  • Facebook.com = 16.2%
  • Yahoo! Sites = 12.1%
  • Microsoft Sites = 5.5%
  • Fox Interactive Media = 4.9%
  • AOL LLC = 2.9%
  • Google Sites = 2.4%
  • Turner Network = 1.4%
  • Glam Media = 0.7%
  • eBay = 0.7%
  • Tagged.com = 0.6%

The story is a bit different, however, in terms of companies that pay for those display ads with no single company or brand leading the way.  According to comScore, the share of first quarter 2010 display advertising impressions was spread across a large number of companies and brands as you can see from the list of the top 10 display advertisers by number of impressions to the U.S. Internet audience during the first quarter of 2010 shown below:

  • AT&T = 2.4%
  • Verizon Communications – 2.1%
  • Scottrade, Inc. = 1.5%
  • Experian Interactive = 1.4%
  • Sprint Nextel Corporation = 0.9%
  • Netflix, Inc. = 0.9%
  • eBay, Inc. = 0.9%
  • Intuit Inc. = 0.8%
  • Privacy Matters 1-2-3 = 0.8%
  • IAC – InterActiveCorp = 0.8%
  • Everyone else = 87.5%

Online display advertising is fair game for any company or brand.  The fact that does stand out from comScore’s findings is that the mobile communications carrier category is represented three times in the top 10 list of display advertisers by brand impressions (AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Sprint Nextel Corporation).

Another finding that’s not particularly surprising is Intuit’s place on this list.  Given that the first quarter of the year in the United States also marks tax season, it’s not surprising that companies like Intuit (a tax software provider) is included in the top 10 list above.  The vast majority of Intuit’s advertising budget is probably spent during the first quarter of the year.

I’d love to see a trend chart using this data over the course of a year or longer.  What do you think?  Any surprises in this list?  Were you surprised to learn that there isn’t a dominant player (or players) when it comes to number of display ad impressions?

Image: stock.xchang

The Wizard Can’t See You Today

 

Oz Museum

In today’s story, the Wizard of Jobs rejects all comers by putting up this sign:

There are currently no openings.
Please check back again later.

I recently came across those exact words on the site of a mid-sized, modestly successful company.  The company is privately owned, and may typically hire only when there’s attrition.  So (one might ask) why bother to put a more elaborate message on the Careers page?

Come to that . . . why bother even to have a Careers page?  Which is the key question here.  In the case of this particular company’s website–otherwise very well done–it’s hard to see the sense in having a page where the only message is “Go away.”

That message, or some variant version, often shows up on the websites of small- to mid-sized companies where hiring is fairly rare.  Or where hiring may be cyclical, seasonal, or otherwise intermittent.  In those circumstances it’s not surprising that on any given day/week/month there are no jobs available.

And yet!  If a Careers page exists, there has to be something on it.

Obviously the page offers an opportunity to provide further information about working at the company.  But that option only has value if the company really expects to hire people in the future and wants to build a pool of potential applicants.  If not, no point.

Big corporations almost always have some jobs available, so there’s value in offering visitors useful information about employment, along with incentives to return if no current job openings are appropriate.  That’s part of building an employer brand.

But in reality, smaller companies that rarely employ don’t need an employer brand.  Therefore, the obligatory Careers or Jobs page becomes little more than a place to say “No.”

Which doesn’t seem like an asset to the website.

The point for smaller companies is: Either do something worthwhile with the Careers page or don’t have one.  Use that real estate to extol the virtues of your company culture.  Otherwise, take down the page.  And either issue a real invitation (“Please come back in March, when we expect to have new openings”) or skip the whole thing.  After all . . . how often are people supposed to “check back”?  And for how long?

The point for bigger companies is: Consider what your corporate Careers site would accomplish or offer if there were no job openings.  After all, most visitors won’t find a suitable opportunity on any given day.  But they should still leave the site with something of value.

 

(Thanks to JoshBerglund19 for snapping this Emerald City vignette at a wax museum.)

Chief Marketing Officers Admit Confusion and Concerns

graphChief Marketing Officers surveyed by Aprimo and Argyle Executive Forum at an Argyle event in New York City in April 2010 admitted to their current concerns and confusion, particularly related to calculating return on investment and integrating marketing efforts.

According to the survey, Chief Marketing Officers cited the following as elements that are “most broken in marketing”:

  • “Correlating marketing activities to revenues” = 39%
  • “Lack of marketing channel integration” = 27%
  • “Perceived lack of value from marketing” = 10%

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) were also asked to define “the CMO’s biggest challenges today” to which the top responses were as follows:

  • “Integrating and tracking multiple channels” = 37%
  • “Doing more with less” = 28%
  • “Accountability/measurement” = 18%
  • “Being able to control messages in light of social media” = 11%
  • “Keeping up with social media” = 6%

Furthermore, Chief Marketing Officer’s were asked “what is driving the highest degree of change to your marketing strategies” and provided the following responses:

  • “Increased requirement for ROI/accountability” = 27%
  • “Creating more compelling customer/prospect experiences” = 37%
  • “Drive to digital marketing” = 18%

Clearly the biggest problem for Chief Marketing Officers is accountability — without being able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that marketing initiatives directly drive profits, it’s nearly impossible to secure a future marketing budget, let alone keep your job.  However, so much of marketing these days cannot be accurately measured with hard metrics.  It’s not surprising that Chief Marketing Officers are typically the “fall guys” when companies aren’t making the numbers shareholders demand.

Additionally, the biggest area of confusion for Chief Marketing Officers is social media and digital marketing.  How else can one explain the low rankings in this survey for all things related to social media and digital marketing?  The reason those elements are ranked low is because Chief Marketing Officers don’t understand them enough to place value on them.  And since it’s very difficult to track social media marketing return on investment with hard metrics, it’s not surprising that social media is not considered a priority among this audience whose annual bonuses are directly tied to quantifiable results.

It seems marketers are living in a time where they’re set up for failure.  The marketing opportunities are there to leverage, but since they’re not easily quantifiable (similar to how brand value is not easily quantified but is inherently powerful), they’re ignored for easily trackable initiatives.  What’s a marketer to do?

Your thoughts?

Image: stock.xchang

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 17: Make the Individual Shareholder Feel Welcome

centrica-sm

Customer relations (and I use the term loosely) has undergone a number of iterations over the years as companies have sought to satisfy the ever increasing demands of customers for information in a cost efficient manner. During my lifetime I have seen a variety of solutions attempted, ranging from customer service teams onsite (expensive, and usually with long wait times), touch tone telephone service systems (usually with incomprehensible choices) to banks of operators standing by in some country you’ve never heard of.

Generally speaking, the economic solution has been to attempt to substitute the use of capital and technology for high cost labor. None of these have yielded optimal results.

It has been the same with shareholders. It can be very difficult and frustrating to get an answer about your stock. And yet most companies wish to have a large component of their shares owned by individual shareholders.

The advent of the internet has allowed companies to attempt to solve this problem by putting access to more information than ever in the hands of shareholders. This means that shareholders can look things up for themselves at the time of their choosing without being reliant on someone to look it up for them. Further, given the bandwidth of the web, web sites don’t have long waiting times during busy periods, such as tax filing time.

The challenge to companies is to design a page that clearly directs shareholders to the information they need to find. One site that does a good job of this is Centrica plc in their Shareholder centre page reproduced below. The page lays out the most common pieces of information sought by individual shareholders in a very easy to follow format. If a shareholder wants to find dividend information, it is clearly labeled. There are clear links to commonly requested pieces of information such as current and historic share prices. In short, the company has enabled the shareholder to easily find pertinent information.

In this series:
Previous post: Visibility
Next post: What’s Your Strategy?

More Brands Plan to Pay Bloggers, Tweeters and Online Publishers for Conversations

money_paid_blog_postsSponsored reviews, paid blog posts, sponsored tweets, and more are not new to the social Web, and whether you like them or not, they can be a cost effective way to generate an online buzz and word-of-mouth marketing about brands across the social Web.  This is particularly true when top bloggers and online influencers talk about a brand (whether or not they are paid to do so).

Despite the fact that in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ramped up regulations related to publishing paid reviews or endorsements (see the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 16, Section 255: 16 CRF 255), making it a requirement to disclose material relationships (no matter how immaterial they may be) and despite the fact that Google and other search engines have been known to penalize sites that publish sponsored reviews and paid posts, the tactic is expected to grow in the near future.

According to a study by PQ Media reported by BrandWeek, sponsored reviews grew by 14% to $46 million in 2009, and those numbers are expected to grow by 26% in 2010 to $56.8 million.

Consumer packaged goods companies are the biggest users of paid posts and sponsored reviews (25%) with food and beverage, health and beauty, media and entertainment, and technology and telecommunications following in that order.

It’s important to note that most brands pay bloggers and online publishers in the form of sample products (78%) rather than cash, although cash payment did grow by 37% in 2009.  That’s because to get top bloggers and online influencers to talk about your brand, you often have to offer monetary compensation rather than just offering a free product, particularly if the product you’re offering is inexpensive.

Think of it this way, unless you’re offering a product sample to a top blogger or online influencer that they are really, really interested in trying and talking about with their online audiences, it’s unlikely that they’ll take time away from more lucrative online activities to test and write about your product.  Therefore, offering a sizable cash payment, equivalent to what that top blogger or online influencer is capable of making in those other activities for the same time investment, is the best way to get them to agree to try and write about your product.

Izea is one of the most popular companies for paid posts and sponsored review publishers and advertisers with SocialSpark and SponsoredTweets. Both require disclosure from publishers and attract many top bloggers and online influencers into participating.  Of course, companies can also approach bloggers and online publishers directly with paid post and sponsored review opportunities.  Just remember, top bloggers are very busy and are unlikely to respond to your offer unless it’s worth their while and directly ties to the topics of interest to their audiences.

Image: Flickr

Perils and Perks: Government Online


Hyperspiral

Two completely opposite experiences with “gov tech” led to this post.  The first was a catastrophe so vivid that it illustrates every mistake an entity could make in public.  And the second was a nice surprise.

Let’s start with the story of how an online system set up by an American state crashed and burned in less than a minute—in the process, outraging hundreds of thousands of citizens.  Seriously.  Here’s a quote from the most recent excuse letter sent out by the errant agency:  “The program experienced more than 38 million Web hits, and nearly 39,000 rebate reservations were made both through the Web site as well as the phone system. “

Do the math!!  Even assuming that half the reservations were made by 18,000 people who spent up to four hours to get through on the phone (1,000 calls a minute, says the letter), and assuming that every web visitor tried 20 times to hit the site . . . that would mean 900,000 people were trying to get through on the website to make one of 18,000 available reservations.  So two-tenths of one percent of the web applicants were successful.  (Even if everyone tried 100 times—well, you see the gist of it.)

So why is this worthy of a post?  I’ll content myself with proposing three takeaways:

  1. Realistic planning is vital to all online endeavors. In this case the problem was humongous numbers, but that shouldn’t have been a big surprise.  In fact, it turned out later that the program had been outsourced to a company that encountered exactly the same problems in other states.  So—how did these people (on both sides of the contract) end up so completely bumfuzzled?
  2. When something goes radically wrong, don’t make excuses. Do not talk about the problem in the abstract:  “X happened because Y.”  Go straight to “We failed and we are abjectly apologetic.”  How is it that no one ever learns this lesson?
  3. Do not tweet hysterically in a crisis. As the web mob became increasingly frustrated, they tried getting news from the program’s Twitterstream.  Here’s what the tweeter(s) were saying:  “We are experiencing unprecedented demand.  Please keep trying.” Which adds . . .

    4. Insult to injury.  In the first place, “trying” was irrelevant—the site wasn’t responding at all.  (No one can figure out, by the way, how any online people could have gotten reservations.)  And in the second place, encouraging people to keep hitting the site only made matters worse.

    If you are wondering why there was no queueing system, join the club.

    Meanwhile, for what it’s worth—just boil those three points down to Prevent, Repent, and Think Before You Tweet, and you can apply them to just about any situation, large or small.

    Now for the nice surprise.  I heard somewhere that the Health and Human Services (HHS) department of the U.S. government wanted to leverage “the wisdom of crowds.”  (In case you’ve forgotten already, that’s the notion—popularized by James Surowiecki’s 2004 book–that aggregating the opinions of many will often produce better decisions than following the careful thought of a few.)  Intrigued, I visited their website to see how this desire would be implemented.

    It isn’t, actually.  The site is mainly about how to use blogs and social media.  But the reward for visiting is a very nice set of “guidelines” for the business use of social media tools.  Free for the taking, so stop by!


    (Yes—that is a hyperbolic spiral.)