A French Piece of the Pie

About a year ago, I helped a small search engine company based here in Paris, Exalead, do some English-language beta-testing on their search engine. I guess I shouldn't even call it beta-testing, it was more like "I don't like this, I do like that, oooh that's really cool!" In return I got a few gift certificates to some nice Parisian shops. Not too shabby!

Fast-forward to my inbox yesterday, where I read a MediaPost article about Exalead being voted Alternative Search Engine of the Month for October. Yay! I knew I liked their engine and how they displayed results, but was fearful that they would never make it - with the giants and even with the plethora of small guys it's hard to make your mark. But this is a great first step!

I'll continue to watch their progress over the next year and see how much of the market share they can pick up. Allez Les Blues!

Speedy Feedback

I've been doing a lot of traveling this past month, both short weekend trips and also the typical long summer trip. So of course I've been staying in hotels (and hostels, how European of me). Some bookings were made as we stumbled into a hotel late at night, crossing our fingers they had one room left at that late hour, saving us from getting in the car and having to drive to the next city on our list.

However, we were smart and well-prepared on some of our bookings and booked through Hotels.com and Hostels.com. Both sites have a nifty little feature where they email you a few days after you check out and ask you to provide feedback about the hotel/hostel. They make it completely easy for you, so there's pretty much no reason not to do it. Plus, I'm definitely a person who has an opinion on everything and I love to share that opinion with everyone, so I was happy to add to their growing database of comments.

Particularly in two instances - the incredibly inexpensive yet totally perfect hotel in Vienna, and the totally crappy hostel in Ljubljana that was overpriced and didn't give us any towels (and then the reception was closed from 8pm - 8am so we never had a chance to get any towels before we checked out). It feels great knowing I was able to share both tidbits with future travelers - hopefully everyone will flock to that hotel in Vienna (City Deutschmeister) and will run from the one in Ljubljana (I'll spare mentioning their name here because I've already bashed them in enough places).

The point of all this rambling (hey, I'm still recovering from my vacations) - the internet is a great tool for getting people to talk, and email is a wonderful tool to drive people there.

Speaking of Online Video

As the World's Biggest Mayonnaise Lover, I was grinning ear to ear when I read this MediaPost article. Ogilvy and Yahoo have teamed up to provide branded video content in promotion of Hellman's Mayonnaise. My mouth is watering already.

Yahoo Food has created an "In Search of Real Food" hub, where users can watch the series, upload their own videos and recipes, and comment on celebrity chef Dave Lieberman's accompanying blog.

The 12-episode series follows Lieberman's weekly road trips in search of the people and recipes behind "real food" in America. Each episode is broken into four chapters, three to four minutes each, that viewers can watch as a whole or individually. The chapters include restaurant reviews, man-on-the-street interviews and full recipe demos.

This is a great way to interact with consumers online and to promote the brand while still providing useful content. I can imagine a lot of people watching the first episode and being drawn in for all 12. Though, this is coming from someone who eats fries with mayonnaise, usually with more mayonnaise than fries. Mmmmm.

Online Video - Content is King

As we are in the planning phase of a client project to create and distribute online video content, I thought this article was very timely. Here are a few particularly interesting snippets:

Consumer usage of online video increased more than 50% this year.

See, we KNEW it was getting popular.

What is "content as advertising"? It is the stuff that consumers want and like ... that not only entertains and engages consumers, but also creates significant commercial value for the distributor.

What a novel idea - provide content consumers actually want. Yet so many companies aren't doing it!

Scripps Networks' DIY.com and HGTV.com run pre-roll ads before short videos of do-it-yourself projects (and add an extra element by enabling visitors to push the shopping list for that project to their mobile devices so they will have it handy at the nearest Home Depot.) Those are examples of content consumers will want.

Brilliant. Provide content your audience wants and then make it easy for them to take the next step - purchasing your products.

Stay tuned for the results of our upcoming project ...

Saute with the left, mouse-click with the right

According to this recent New York Times article, people are flocking to the Internet in search of recipes. In fact, 50 million people visited food sites in May alone. Impressive.

The article also states two other interesting facts:

• These consumers are interested in not just recipes but in the community aspect of online recipe-searcing as well


• These consumers love to post their own recipes to these food sites

Good to know, since we implemented similar features for one of our consumer packaged goods clients over the past year:

• What's Your Secret? - an interactive feature peppered throughout the website that allows consumers to share their "secret to great tasting shrimp", from adding a pinch of curry while sauteing to tossing the cooked shrimp with sun-dried tomatoes before serving


• Shrimp Chef Challenge - a contest, promoted through an email campaign, that encourages consumers to submit their favorite shrimp recipe using the weekly special ingredient (rice, pasta, veggies, etc.)

Looking at the other sites the article mentions, it seems there are still many options we can implement. Stay tuned ...

YouKnowMe

The launch of YouTube in France, Brazil, the UK, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain is pretty cool, and is of particular interest to me seeing that I live in France. Though most of my browsing is done in English, it's always good to see companies get more global while localizing their content at the same time.

However, the thing about the launch that most attracted my attention is this snippet from a Media Post article about the launch:

"The local-language sites will not become the default for users from other countries, although users have the option to set a country-specific YouTube site as one ... The option to do so is an important departure for Google, which sets the local-language site as the default for IP addresses from a given country."

I have been meaning to find a relevant (read: positive) way to bring up my latest gripe. You would be surprised how many sites automatically decide for me how I want to view their content. MySpace? Nope, MonSpace. Want to order an online credit report because you recently found out your college's database was hacked into and you're at risk for identity theft? Sorry, you can't access that from outside the US. Better call your mom and have her order it for you and then read the report to you over the phone because you can't log in to view it.

The best, though, is Google search. Want to search for English-language sites from a French IP address? No problem! Google knows what you want - you want UK, Australia, and Canada-based businesses. Of course! How thoughtful of them to decide for you.

So, before my blood-pressure rises any further and my sarcasm flies off the charts, let me just end by saying, "Thank you, YouTube. You get it. I am one of 4 million Americans living abroad who wants my content in English and not based off my IP address. I am one of 50,000 Americans living in Paris who still wants to see the same videos show up in my top 5 that all my friends back home talk about. Thank you for recognizing that I know what I want and for not making a decision for me. Now, please pass this on to Google, they are your parent after all."

You say "online coopon", I say "online cuepon", everyone says "great idea"

This recent article caught my eye because we work with Boodle.com for some of our CPG clients.

Being immersed in the online world, we easily saw the benefits of offering coupons online. For one, it makes it easy for consumers - they are already on your website so why not give them a coupon instead of making them hunt through the enormous Sunday paper? There are a slew of other reasons (encourage consumers to take the next step after viewing your products online, keep up with competitors, provide value to your consumers, etc.).

So the point is, I'm not surprised that Coupons, Inc. would acquire Boodle.com because Boodle is doing a great thing. What really caught my eye was this stat that the article mentioned:

While the redemption rate from offline coupons is under 1% ... the rate for coupons that consumers choose to print from the Web is around 17%.

That is an amazing increase in the redemption rate when moving to the online space. And that shift ultimately amounts to better use of the marketing budget for the clients. Instead of spending x amount of dollars to distribute y amount of offline coupons, where only 1% of the recipients will use them and thus become familiar with the brand, the client can now spend less money on distribution (by just posting the coupons on their own website) and reallocate the extra funds to now cover the redemption costs. That means that a larger percent of the budget is being spent on actual consumers as opposed to potential consumers.

Just add it to the list of why we're happy to recommend this solution to our CPG clients.

The ePony Express

What does the approaching increase in postage from the USPS mean for marketers? Well, according to this article it means we should be pushing our clients more strongly into the online world. And I agree with that but just have a few comments about his article:

1 - Driving more business away from postal mailings is just going to cause the postage rate to increase even more. So unless you can completely eradicate all mailings, then you're not totally solving the problem by moving online.

2 - I believe in using an integrated marketing approach with clients. Sometimes that includes good old-fashioned snail mailings. I'm a big fan of online marketing, but if the situation calls for a direct mail piece, I don't think a 2 cent increase is going to be the deciding factor of whether or not to do it.

3 - On a more personal note, as an American living abroad I would like to point out that Americans have it pretty good as far as postage rates go. For example, the cheapest you can mail a letter within France for is $0.74. So $0.41 ain't lookin' too bad anymore (especially since the US is a lot larger than France). I'm just saying, there are bigger fish to fry.

I'm glad more marketers are encouraging and supporting email use, but you just have to remember to look at the whole picture.

Guts and Glory

We do a lot of email marketing for our clients. We have tons of fun coming up with the creative concept, are diligent in our implementation, and then fire off those bad boys to our carefully maintained opt-in lists.

Then it's time to track the results. Coming from a background in math, there is nothing I love more than generating reports about email stats and the corresponding web traffic. Seriously. I love gathering the data and I love analyzing it.

However, one aspect of this whole effort is seriously lacking. How do we know if our campaign was a success?

I have heard time and time again from e-newsletter after e-newsletter and marketing blog after marketing blog that it's not important to measure yourself against industry standards. Every campaign is different. Every client is different. The best way to see if you're doing well is to set your own goals and compare your results against that.

Well, I call BS. How do I come up with these goals in the first place? That's like eliminating speed limits and asking people to come up with the speed limit they feel best suits them. Sure, a lot of people will pick a decent speed limit, but some grannies will drive slow and some hot shots will drive fast, just to serve their own needs. Or what about GPAs in school? Should I just decide for myself what grade I think is sufficient? Because what would stop me from saying that getting a D on a test is good enough - I mean, at least I answered the majority of the questions correctly, right?

I feel that this popular stance of "we don't need to compare our stats to industry standards" is a big cop-out. It basically means you don't have to be held accountable. You could tell your client that 1% is a great open rate and 50% deliverability is awesome. If your client isn't very web savvy (and a lot of them aren't - that's why they hired you in the first place) they might believe you. And so every campaign you do is way above the mark. Well done. It's pretty easy to accomplish above average results when you set the bar on the floor.

I want to set high goals for my clients' email campaigns. I want to shoot big. But I also want to be in a somewhat realistic ball park. As it stands now, though, I hardly know where to set my expectations.

I did manage to find a few websites who would own up and post industry standards and goals (here, here, and here). Props to them. But what about everyone else? What about the writers of the e-newsletters from the so-called email marketing pros? Can they say with a straight face that they do not have access to data regarding the average performance of email marketing campaigns? I highly suspect that this data exists somewhere, someone just needs the cajones to post it, and then work hard to make their campaigns match it.

Speaking as a former teacher's pet, I'm up for the challenge. I'm not afraid to set high standards and motivate my team to reach them. Who's with me?

I must also note that if I am somehow just not able to find all this research and it is in fact posted right in front of my face - please send me a link! I don't mind being wrong; in fact, I'd rather be wrong if it means there are answers and cold hard stats out there.

I hear that edgy young dude got a new car

Toyota's latest marketing plan for the Scion is a great example of word-of-mouth marketing. They are purposely only targeting "edgy young dudes". In doing so, they're counting on them setting the trend and also talking about how cool their car is to their friends. Much more innovative than placing a full page ad in Newsweek or the like. I'd be interested to see how many Scions you see around town in about a year, and also if Toyota sticks with this subculture marketing or if they change directions and go mainstream.

Famous St. Louis

I couldn't resist posting this BMW ad since it has a little shout-out to St. Louis in it. However, apparently the director of this ad is the son of the architect of the Arch, so that's likely why St. Louis got a little face time right up there with the Taj Mahal. Still, not bad. Plus, I really like the music in this ad.

Will Surf For Food

According to a recent eMarketer article, online advertising spending by CPG marketers is estimated to increase 36.6% from last year.

Considering several of our clients sell consumer packaged goods that's great news! It means that online advertising is working for that industry segment. It means that there will be more content available for us to learn from. And it means we were right when we said this Internet thing would be important for our clients. And we love being right.

Mo' Money, Mo' Marketing

An interesting excerpt from a Brandweek survey appears on the Online Spin blog at Media Post:

* Email is the least able vehicle for presenting a luxury brand image.

* Marketers should come up with invitation-only events when advertising to the affluent.

These results pertain to a study conducted to learn about the behaviors of the affluent in regards to marketing.

The first statistic is a bit surprising to me. I would think a large percentage of affluent consumers are online and that no matter how wealthy they are, would still respond to email marketing. However, I guess this statistic shows that while affluent consumers may respond to such efforts, it's not necessarily the best way to reach them.

The second point, though, definitely hits home. In fact, ashamed as I am to admit it, I was watching Run's House this weekend and when Run-DMC received a postcard in the mail for an invitation-only viewing of the new Lamborghini, he not only went to the viewing, he bought the Lamborghini. Well done, marketers.

Duh!

In today's Email Insider from MediaPost, Email Diva (aka Melinda Krueger) points us to a purty darn good blog post about email subject lines.

Use the terms your customers are searching on to inspire your subject lines? Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that? What better way to attract a reader's interest than by using words you know they associate with your product?

Stay tuned ... I'm going to put this to the test on our next email campaign.

Web Lingo, or shall I say "Blingo"

Business Week had an interesting article about how editors select which new web-related words should make it into the dictionary. There were some words I hadn’t even heard of, which makes this internet-savvy, 20-something girl feel a little out-dated. Am I the only one who hasn’t heard of any of these?

Astroturfing - the marketing practice of feigning an online grassroots movement to generate positive, seemingly-from-the-people publicity

Vlog – video blog

Crog – a mash-up of “carefully researched” and “blog”

At least I’ve heard of wiki and [the] Google.

State and Lame

David Mamet is now directing commercials for Ford. Apparently Ford likes Mamet’s trademark “sparse, choppy dialogue.” I personally prefer to watch paint dry than watch anything David Mamet has touched. I’ve never understood why “Glengarry Glen Ross” is so often quoted and “State and Main” was the most mind-numbing movie I watched in 2000.

However, I do like the idea of famous directors dabbling in the commercial space. Perhaps we can get Quentin Tarantino to do a little Cutco knife advertising.

Crackberries

I found the recent Blackberry service outage and resulting chaos quite hilarious, but perhaps that's because I don't own/use/live off a Blackberry. It seemed funny that people could be so addicted to such a seemingly trivial thing. However, karma quickly wiped the smug smile off my face when it knocked out my internet for all of Wednesday and part of Thursday. How could I get any work done (I work from home)? How would I check my email (my friends might say something important)? How would I download Lost (what in the HECK is Juliet up to)? It was a rough day and a half, to say the least.

However, as someone who earns her baguettes and butter from guiding clients through the online world, it was somewhat reassuring to realize how important the internet has truly become. We can't live without internet access because we use it for work and play for a large percentage of the day. We need to look up the number for the pizza place and see their menu online before ordering. We want to look up what movie Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin were in in the UB40 music video because it is just on the tip of our tongue but we can't quite remember. Or maybe that's just me. But when I look around, I definitely see and feel the internet everywhere. And I like it.