As I was walking back to the table, I started thinking about how this is a lot like the online sales process: so many reps from all forms of online media trying to sell the inventory they have, but not necessarily the inventory that’s best for the client’s initiative. Not everything can be in black and white, and we need to be able to propose solutions that are in shades of gray. It’s our job as digital reps, especially multi-platform digital reps, to do more than sell. In many cases, we become the agency’s strategic partner. We know our solutions capabilities better than anyone and it’s our job deliver a well-conceived plan that can be justified through research and case studies. If it’s better shaken, why are so many reps pushing it stirred?

In a recent Media Post article, Woe The Digital Sale: Do You Know What You’re Selling?, Amy Auerbach wrote, “Agency buyers’ priorities are around client service, doing a good day’s work that ends earlier than 9 p.m., and having a life. Salespeople actually can contribute to all of those things… Help buyers manage their time by delivering RFP responses that are on-point and flawless. Over-communicate and provide extra research and rationale when you make recommendations.”  As digital reps, it is important to serve as an extension of the client’s team, and to not only create a partnership, but to be the “go-to” rep for ALL of their digital needs.

In today’s nearly over-saturated marketplace, buyers tend to stay with what they know works and people they trust. While building these relationships can take months, even years, losing them can be instant. One of the fastest ways to fall off of an RFP list or lose your preferred vendor status is to give the planner the “same ole, same ole” with each proposal. To be a successful AE, one must be part Brand Manager, part Media Planner and part Research Analyst. Those who can best embrace these roles will ultimately win the IO.

It is an extremely interesting and compelling presentation about Google’s fresh attempt to position itself as a one-stop shop for online display advertising. We know that they have been making inroads in all sorts of areas (Google Display Network, Google Ad Exchange, etc.) for some time, but this is the first time I have seen it packaged up so nicely and squarely targeted at advertisers, ad agencies, etc. Google does have the muscle to resolve a lot of the issues that plague our industry through integrating all of their solutions and makes a compelling case for using their platform.

What does this mean for all the rest of us? I think that remains to be seen, but it is clear that Google sees value in aggressively pursuing the dollars that are currently running through other ad networks. If they can do for display what they did for SEM by making it ultra-turnkey to flight display campaigns, it could change the way people are buying display advertising, even at the biggest shops.

That said, what Google has in technology, it lacks in customer service. We know this from the stories we hear from many of our clients. It is their ubiquity that makes it hard to provide a customer experience (not computer user experience) that many businesses and agencies need. Their hands are in almost every pot. Even some of their technologies acquisitions have been orphaned to focus on others (Doubleclick being the most relevant example here).

The other thing that Google doesn’t do is create brilliant advertising concepts. It’s one thing to own the network and develop tools to analyze success of online marketing campaigns from a metric perspective, but coming up with the idea that will affect consumers’ buying decisions is another. Admittedly that’s not Google’s business, but in the rapidly changing advertising marketplace, technological innovation is often confused with marketing insight. Good ad units, networks, and metrics do not a great marketing campaign make. They are simply the vehicles for the ideas that will turn heads and open pocketbooks.  What makes advertising work is the compelling, inspiring, revolutionary presentation of ideas that inform the way people see their own needs/wants/desires. This has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with creativity.

When they finally make their move as it seems they are now (look at the cover of Advertising Age), Google moves with such force that it seems like the entire playbook is being rewritten. We all know that it isn’t, but when a giant moves the ground definitely shakes. The best thing about giants for all of us little guys is that they can’t move or turn fast. That leaves lots of room for us to operate as the David to their Goliath (and we know who won that battle). We had best be ready to do what only we can do and do it better: serve our customers with excellence and help them cultivate the genius ideas that will help their businesses engage the marketplace. We can’t confuse what we do best with what the Googles of the world do best.

Then again, this could all just be a bunch of amazing advertising on Google’s part…

We’ve grown RMM from a five person shop in 2005 to a national company with fifty-seven employees in six states. I thought it would be valuable to share some of the keys that have propelled our growth over this time.

We’re big believers in process definition & continuous improvement. We’ve gone through almost everything we do as a company and have defined the process to ensure that we offer consistently high levels of customer service, including minimizing “dropped balls”. By clearly defining our procedures, everyone involved knows exactly what to expect from each other & we find that we can offer consistent excellence in running campaigns for customers. Defining procedures also helps us identify inefficiencies and continuously make changes to ensure maximum effectiveness. This has become critical as we run hundreds of client campaigns per month, and our growth is a testament to our teams’ ability to deliver excellence consistently.

Another key component of our process definition is employing the KISS principle.  I don’t mean dressing up like Gene Simmon’s band, but the adage “Keep It Simple, Stupid”. Online advertising involves lots of complexity; each of our display campaigns has over twenty steps from initiation to fulfillment across six different teams. There is a significant amount of work that goes into defining & refining procedures, but the bulk of the work really comes from keeping it simple: defining the mechanisms to simply handle the majority of cases, while allowing the flexibility or having exceptions for the edge cases. The hard work is to simplify a complex process.

We love automation. We use it not for the purpose of abstracting human contact & intelligence, but for mechanizing rote or routine tasks so our talented team members can focus their efforts on what they do best! We have found that investing in automation results in happier team members who are more productive and can offer more creative, “solution-oriented” responses to our advertising clients.

I’d love to hear more thoughts & ideas on how others are finding results by focusing on improving operations.

According to Nielsen’s Broadcast Season Universe Estimates, the number of television households in the US has grown from 111.4 million in 2007 to an estimated of $114.9 million by the end of 2010. The fact is that more people watching television than ever before.

Of course the growth of online video views has been explosive. According to July data from comScore, 178 million U.S. Internet users viewed online video content during the month and averaged 14.7 hours per viewer.

Content is still king when it comes to this convergence. The biggest difference is that much of what is being viewed is user generated content. YouTube has millions of channels, some with high production quality and with very low production quality. The millions of views generated by low budget content may surprise some. The one channel that comes to mind is Fred (aka Fred Figglehorn). This kid has been on YouTube for years. He gets millions of views for every video that he puts out and monetizes these views through the YouTube partnership program. I believe he’s now making a movie for Nickelodeon. We have already seen TV show start to increase distribution of content through sites like Hulu. You will start to a significant increase in web based user generated content being formatted and produced for TV.  Fred’s TV movie and shows TV shows like Web soup are just the beginning.

From a business perspective it just makes sense. If your self produced show/videos generate million of views online while drawing a certain demographic, then the TV folks already have an audience.

One of the advantages that web video has over TV is all of the real time metrics/interaction that can be tracked with advertisements.  There are several companies that are developing the same type of tracking capabilities for TV.

I’ m writing this blog entry while looking at my 32inch Apple monitor. I still prefer my 42 inch plasma for TV.  The biggest part of this E-volution will be when I’m writing my blog entry on the same screen that I watch the NFL.  In other words when TV/web surfers start using the same monitor for both that will be the biggest difference.

If you have any doubts about this convergence just think back the 1990′s. Remember dial up? Remember trying to watch a video using dial up? The very fastest modem at that time was 56kb. You often would have to wait at 20 to 30 minutes for a video to download. Things have changed at a rapid pace and unless of course the Mayan Calendar is correct, I have no doubt this convergence will happen in a big way.

This week marked another interesting milestone for Facebook. For the first time, they were included in the 2010 American Customer Survey Index E-Business Report. Facebook scored 64 out of 100. The reasons for this score, according to ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed, are “privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website, and commercialization and advertising.”  To be fair to Facebook, I think that a lot of these concerns are unwarranted. Facebook is a business, so commercialization and advertising are inevitable. As Facebook grows, so are changes to the website. Truthfully, today’s Facebook is a much better format than it was in 2004, especially considering how much more content is on each profile, though every change to the user interface rallies thousands of users rejecting the changes.  I think the problem most people have boils down to the fact that Facebook today isn’t Facebook circa 2004, and for a lot of people, not the Facebook they signed up for initially.

When I signed up, I was able to post anything I wanted for my friends old and new to see, but most importantly, I could do so (seemingly) without consequence. Great hook for college kids, right? Then, employers started checking Facebook profiles: strike 1. Facebook later became open to high school students: BIG strike two, and in my opinion, the first time Facebook did something “uncool”. Eventually, Facebook became open to anybody and everybody, including mothers and grandmothers everywhere: strike 3; I’m out. But not really – I can’t leave Facebook. Professionally and socially, Facebook provides a service I can’t find anywhere else online, so I’m stuck with a measly profile and a handful of appropriate pictures.  Facebook has become a chore, not enjoyment.

I’ll admit that I’m skeptical of Facebook’s third-party applications (and privacy settings and open graph and Facebook for websites and…), so I’m not getting the full Facebook experience. But like I said earlier, that’s not the Facebook I signed up for. A lot of my peers share this sentiment and that score of 64 shows that it’s likely more than just my peers.  But, since there isn’t an alternative, we stay, unhappily, on Facebook. Scott Stratten of UnMarketing just wrote a great post about customer loyalty and how a company shouldn’t ignore loyal customers. Facebook has 500 million (unwillingly) loyal customers.  I think if a worthy alternative pops up on the web (here’s looking at you, Diaspora), Facebook would see how disloyal its users are when a mass exodus occurs. They can ask MySpace about that. Remember MySpace? They were a big deal in 2004…

Satisfaction isn’t low all over the web though. Google, Bing, and Yahoo received 80, 77 and 76 respectively in ForeSee Results survey. I think this shows customers still trust search. To most people, search hasn’t changed that drastically. From a search marketing perspective I can attest that search changes daily, sometimes so fast I work with my running shoes on. People love social media – I know I sure do – and it can offer a whole lot, but, at the end of the day, Search is an institution. There’s been great competition that has truly benefited users as search results are more fine-tuned for location, search history, etc. It will be a long time before Social Media can give me better, unbiased results for an inquiry than Search, and with Facebook’s current customer satisfaction, I don’t think they’ll be the powerhouse to take down Search.

Do you think Facebook will change the future of Search? Sound off in comments.

In the past five years, give or take, product placement has gone from carbonation to technology. We’ve had the Apple logo shoved down our throats so much so that every time I eat a granny smith, I think about how much I spent on my iMac – no regrets of course,  just high tech advertising at its best.

Before digital media, the sponsorship heavy hitters included Coca Cola, Budweiser and car dealerships. When Brad Pitt drinks it, we drink it. Now that search engines, subscription and social networking sites have become “products” in themselves, we are seeing more and more of their presence in commercials, feature films and on our favorite TV shows.  So, just how far away are we from hearing the words, “this broadcast is brought to you by Twitter?”

Living rooms across the country were astonished by this year’s Google ad during the Superbowl. Does Google.com really need a commercial to grow its profit margin? “How much did that air time cost?” an eager Saints fan asked me. I have a good guess, but I bet Ancestry.com could tell you, considering they’re running Sunday ads on NBC during “Who Do You Think You Are.”

And let’s take the recent blockbuster graphic novel turned movie, Kick Ass. If any film could’ve snuck in a subliminal Pepsi can, Doritos or pizza, targeted at teenagers, it was this one. On the contrary – in this day in age, it was comic books, iPhones and MySpace.com. MySpace you ask? Yes – that blast from the past networking site is the communication device used to call the title character into fighting crime. Okay, a little behind the times in my opinion but perfect if they are trying to drive traffic back to  their site, right?

Is this an example of product placement? Absolutely. Free advertising? That still remains a mystery. Corporate sponsorship deals are very hush, hush – especially in the film industry. So, whether consumers will be rushing to their computers to join MySpace.com (again) or buy a set of nun chucks after seeing Kick Ass – that remains to be seen.

Move aside Pepsi and Starbucks – I’ll be drinking the iPhone and Facebook from now on!

First, a quick introduction. Guy is a notable blogger, serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist as well as a recent author.

The title of the presentation was Using Twitter as a Marketing Weapon, a bullet list of his points is available. He covered eight major things about using Twitter for marketing, and used plenty of examples. Here we go.

Monitor – Guy gave a few examples of using Twitter search to keep up with conversations that are happening around companies, industries, product lines, and even all conversation through a specific account. Nothing fancy here, just recapping the possibilities. The main point here is that Twitter search provides powerful means to keep up with conversations about you, your competition, or anyone else.

Engage – Your company should have an account on Twitter. He didn’t spend much time here, so I won’t either.

Sell – Its possible to use Twitter directly to increase revenue. I’ve covered this before. Guy gave a couple of examples that are noteworthy. Dell Outlet has generated millions by announcing specials online. At this point Guy gave a shout out to Dell for their creativity here, and asked if anyone in the audience works for them. When someone stuck their hand up Guy jokingly asked if he gets a computer for plugging them, and the Dell person said, “First you have to learn to pronounce ‘Inspiron’ properly.” Ouch! Snarky! Guy didn’t skip a beat; he went right in to his next example. Kogi BBQ is a single truck that sells Korean Mexican tacos throughout Los Angeles. They use Twitter to announce where they’re headed a few hours before they move, and they’ve managed to build their Twitter following up to 60,000 people. They said when they pull up to a new spot there are usually about 50 people waiting for fresh tacos when they arrive. THAT’s pretty awesome.

Support – He talked about two companies that are using Twitter to provide support, Virgin America and Comcast. Apparently a passenger on a Virgin flight once tweeted that the flight attendant forgot to serve his meal. Someone at that account got in touch with the pilots, who then relayed the message back to the attendant and the man received his food after all. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but if it is its a pretty powerful example of the use of Twitter.

Prospecting – This is the point at which Guy’s message started to capture my attention. He presented some pretty creative methods of finding potential clients through Twitter advanced search and Google’s search operators. Did you know that Twitter allows you to do localized searches, such as pizza in Austin? Suppose you want to sell equipment to wedding photographers, you can use Google to search through Twitter names (note that this will search through both user names and real names). Would you rather search through Twitter bios to find the person you’re after? That’s no problem! I have to say, I’ve known about each of these features of Twitter & Google, but had never put this together. Brilliant!

Get More Followers: Focus on Content – Here Guy stresses the importance of saying something that’s worth being heard. We’ve all seen tweets that aren’t worth reading, most of us have probably even posted a few. Guy provides a few sources for quality content, Alltop (of course) is an aggregator of news from across the web, StumbleUpon is content that people have voted up, and SmartBrief categorizes news into industry specific feeds. He attributes his success on Twitter (more than 200k followers) to regularly providing links to interesting/useful/insightful stories. His content is re-tweeted hundreds of times each day, which confirms his hunch.

Get More Followers: Tweet! – Once you’re on top of great content, take advantage of some tools that help you manage the flow of tweets through your account. Guy spent quite a bit of time talking about Objective Marketer, which is a service that allows you to automatically resend tweets throughout the day. Get 90 days free with the promo code “wiseguy”! Guy does send each tweet more than once; he said that over time he’s seen that when he sends a tweet a 2nd, 3rd & 4th time, the number of clicks on his links go up accordingly. So sending a tweet out for times in one day generates approximately four times the number of clicks. Once again, brilliant. He also introduced TwitterFeed & TwitHawk. TwitterFeed is a service that automatically tweets the contents of an RSS feed such as your blog. TwitHawk continually searches for a specific set of criteria and then will allow you to either automate a reply, or you can manually reply.

Tools – He spoke briefly about Twitter clients, you’ll definitely want one. Guy uses TweetDeck, I’ve tried several and it’s my favorite also.

On the drive back to the office, Nikki & I agreed that this was one of the best marketing seminars that we’ve attended. All of the info that Guy gave was relevant and helpful. I’m encouraged to renew my commitment to social marketing. And if I ever had any doubt, I’m now even more convinced that Twitter is greater than Facebook. Its openness and flexibility, when combined with the right tools, make it a pretty valuable weapon to have in your marketing arsenal. In case you haven’t done it yet, go follow Guy Kawasaki and RMM Online. As a bonus, if you want to get links to his talking points, you can text “alltop” to 44133.

The funny looking box you see above is a not new technology; however the QR Code is pretty foreign to us in the U.S. QR stands for Quick Response. In the next decade, I believe QR codes will start popping up in U.S. media providing our culture with what we love best; content delivery that is easy and FAST.

The QR Code is a kind of 2D barcode that contains a plethora of personalized digital data. It is primarily used to send links to your mobile device. A simple snapshot with your camera phone and the QR Code sends the necessary information to open your web browser to a specific URL site or text message. 2D barcodes allow advertisers and publishers to push relevant digital content directly to consumers? mobile phones when they are most interested in a product or service. This technology bypasses the search engine stage, allowing advertisers and publishers to give people more information at the moment of awareness.

What are QR codes and what are they already doing?
Currently, QR codes are being used as a tool to get more information. You see a code in a magazine, snap a pic, and it directs you to the product site on your mobile phone. Japan and some European countries have taken this technology to a new level. They do use it for informational purposes; however it has opened the door to deeper consumer engagement and interactivity. QR codes are proving that they have the potential to do even more for advertisers and consumers alike.

Some innovative ideas:

• URLs/Coupons – Dick’s Sporting Goods announced its new mobile site with QR coding at the new Cowboys Stadium during the University of Oklahoma vs. Brigham Young University bowl game. This was the first marketing campaign to place a QR code on a jumbo-tron during a sporting event. University of Oklahoma vs. Brigham Young University fans were encouraged to take a picture of the QR code and were directed to a coupon for the store. If your phone didn’t have QR technology, no problem. The website URL and an email address were clearly displayed as other ways to acquire the coveted coupon. A deeper explanation of the campaign and the results can be found online.
• E-tickets – Imagine not having to wait in line for your Austin City Limits Music Festival wristband a week before the show starts or the three hour line on the day of. QR codes can completely eliminate the need for wristbands and tickets. After purchasing your ticket online you receive a QR codes to your mobile phone. A simple scan of your phone will show that you have purchased a three-day or one-day only pass. Once you have checked in, your ticket is marked as used. Also, imagine after you have checked in, your phone directs you to the ACL site, where you are able to view weather, time changes, band line-up, vendor maps, and more. QR codes could even eventually tell you exactly what song your favorite band is playing on what stage in real time. Most importantly, no lost ACL tickets and no need to be worried they won’t scan.
• Business cards & Resumes – An awesome way to set you apart from the crowd. Why not include your LinkedIn QR code on your resume? Or your company’s website on your business cards?
• Tattoos – I would grab some temporary ones for the office party. Or, if you want to go permanent that’s cool too. Just make sure it’s something to last a lifetime!
• Billboards – Disney in Tokyo has Mickey Mouse QR codes that send you to the Disneyland website. Billboards in subway stations allow for easy point and shoot.
• Branded QR codes- include a picture within the code and in color – These QR codes from BeQRious can have color or pictures imbeded in the code! Why not include your face on that resume? Or, put your company logo inside the QR code on that business card?
• Swag and self-branding – Additional information is gained by using QR codes. Therefore, the potential use for them is limitless. The code can contain anything from your information, to your likes and dislikes, to what you like in a guy, to what your plans are for that night. Why not create a coffee mug, a hat, a scarf, even a baby bib. You can create your own patches. Instead of bumping on your iPhone, why not scan someone’s QR code to learn more about them? Hosting a charity event? Raise funds on location with QR coding.
• Geography based tours and reviews – City Search and Antenna Audio launched a test run of geography based QR coding in the spring of 2008. QR codes were distributed around San Francisco in restaurants and at popular destinations. The codes included restaurant reviews, as well as audio tours and historical facts allowing tourists access to distinct decision making information.
• Loyalty points system – In Japan, Coca Cola uses QR codes to reward loyal customers. Vending machines have QR codes imprinted on them, and consumers are invited to earn as many as they can, ultimately redeeming them to get prizes.
• Secrets and acts of defiance – The Pet Shop Boys released a single in 2007 on which they denounced the idea of a British national identity card. On the CD cover, there was a QR code that directed to their attack on the system. Also, the entire music video sports different QR codes that link to civil liberties websites. Pretty cool that QR coding is being used to spawn political debate and protesting!
• Alternative paintballing – No more immediate bruising from the paintballs flying at you at speeds approximately 60mph (at least that’s what it feels like). Players wear t-shirts with their own individualized QR code. A player snaps your QR code from afar and a text message is sent to you informing you of your demise, allowing for a high quality game sans the pain!
• Intelligent advertising – changing the site location to match the weather. Dynamic QR codes are special codes can be updated in real time for businesses that sell products that might potentially have a need to change advertising in response to say, the weather. What if Gap had a billboard in the NYC subway station and the QR code directed the consumer to the GAP mobile homepage featuring a new line of flip-flops? Well, on Tuesday New York has a forecast of heavy rain. No, problem. Just switch out that QR code to direct consumers to the part of the website that highlights Gap’s new swanky umbrellas!
• A great idea by DDB Brazil for Editoras Online – DDB Brazil in a campaign for Online, a Brazilian online bookstore, incorporated almost every valuable player in the media arena. QR codes are the single piece that molded the dynamic parts of the campaign together. This YouTube video explains the intricacies of the campaign far better than I could here. By far my favorite in terms of innovation and success! 33 Interactions has a great post by Jenine Wong that gives an extensive description of the campaign as well.
• Tim Burton’s film “9″ used QR codes that allowed fans to view sneak peaks and hear commentary from the director.
• Green Day‘s album, 21st Century Breakdown featured QR codes in posters, promo items, and ads directing you to a site with exclusive downloads and images of the band.
• L.A. Candy, the newest book by Lauren Conrad sports a QR code on the back cover.

So, will QR codes be the “URL Killer“, as Garrick Schmitt and others have described it? In his article Schmitt says, “QR codes will become the primary bridge connecting real and virtual worlds.” As you can see from the aforementioned examples, these codes are one step in the direction of the inevitable merging and graying of media. One builds on the other builds on the next. The mobile revolution and the saturation of the online space have created a need for simpler URLs and innovative connections. And of course, as I mentioned in one of my previous blog entries, Mobile Marketing Prowess, the mobile consumer wants conversation. QR codes have opened the door to a broader and deeper range of personal targeting and communication, and they have the potential to become a value exchange of relevant, individualized, useful, and interesting information.

Don’t be fooled. Yes, the snake oil hucksters that schlep keyword stuffing and link spamming are doomed, but their future was never very bright to begin with. If this is your strategy you’ll get nowhere, and if you’re paying for this then you’re wasting your money. If you’re charging someone for this, shame on you.

The core aspects of SEO, however, are needed more than ever. Google alone averages more than 200 million searches per day. With that much daily traffic, their view of your website matters. Do you really want to completely ignore the potential to earn traffic from them? Or worse, leave it entirely to chance? If you get one ten-thousandth of one percent of that (that’s 0.0001%), 200 people per day will see your site. Do that many people cross your doorstep each day? Does your phone ring that many times each day? Clearly there is an upside to paying attention to Google.

The traffic that your website receives can provide keen insight into what your target market thinks about your company. Whatever the goals of your company, your website can help you get there. Increasing sales, improving customer retention, reaching a new customer base, improving the return that you get on your AdWords spend… these are all achievable. As long as you are measuring your website’s traffic and can recognize trends, you can reach your goals.

Don’t misread the data. Yes search is changing, it has been since it started. It would be a mistake to infer that this makes SEO irrelevant. Quite the contrary, the changes that Google is making strengthen their search results, which gives people greater confidence in the answers they find through Google, which means that more people will be searching.

Optimizing your website for search is more important now than ever. Frankly, it’s irresponsible to think otherwise.

SMS-based marketing is an emerging tool that is delivering strong results; our clients are already building an active mobile database that’s driving sales, increasing their brand awareness, and promoting customer loyalty. Clients can use mobile marketing for many purposes including coupons, sweepstakes, text-to-buy or text-to-give. In addition, our Bluetooth systems can target customers within close proximity to send full motion video, audio/ring tones, coupons and more directly to the phone in your target area.

“We are very excited to introduce mobile marketing to our clients as part of our overall strategy to offer clients an integrated, multi-media advertising campaign that reaches the consumer at the right time with the right medium,” said RM Media’s President Jon Flatt. “Our Mobile Marketing Solution’s targeting capabilities maximizes our clients’ marketing dollars by directing offers to the most valuable customers and our real-time reporting provides complete transparency and ensures results.”

We offer a 24/7 content management system with a client’s mobile campaign that gives easy access to the client’s database which makes it simple to change their offers to distribute to their subscribers. Clients also receive a user-friendly reporting dashboard that tabulates the opt-in and opt-out process and is presented in real-time with measureable results. Mobile advertising is a great lead generation tool because, like surveys, it captures consumers in the moment and allows them to quickly and easily request more information.

RM Media’s Mobile Marketing Solutions is part of a robust suite of products that provide clients new and improved ways to track, report and optimize search marketing, display advertising on its premium network, mobile and email marketing, and custom channel building.

Have more questions about our Mobile Marketing Solutions? Contact us for more information or call us at 512.380.4400.