TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Middle America butters your bread.

Well, it turns out that the advertising-driven internet industry is supported principally by the Middle-American be-slippered homemaker, according to MediaPost. Does this come as a surprise to anyone? As Mathew Ingram points out, anyone with a level of technological sophistication differentiates between ads and content and clicks appropriately.

The implication identified by MediaPost is that clicks should not drive campaign design:

Focusing campaigns to optimize on clicks means skewing campaigns to optimize on middle-aged women from the Midwest. If these folks are not your target, then you should be ignoring the click-rate and looking deeper… [from MediaPost]

Fair point - but seems like a generalization. If you’re a snowboard manufacturer, advertising snowboards on a snowboarding website, would click-throughs still not be one valid metric of ad design? I think the message isn’t necessarily that click-throughs are useless as a performance metric, but that campaigns need to be designed with a clear action/response goal in mind.

Danah Boyd continues the discussion, adding some ethical hand-wringing to the equation, asking:

If my hypothesis were true, what would it mean if marketing is profiting primarily off of those who are economically and socially struggling? How do we feel about this philosophically, ethically, and professionally? Would we feel proud of living off of a business model that targets the poor? [from danah boyd]

Well - marketing to the poor and uneducated is far from a novel strategy, and web-moguls are far from the first to get rich on that basis. Consider fast food, the snack industry, etc. etc. Who eats Hostess Twinkies anyway?

To me the implication of the research is nothing more than a reaffirmation of the importance of marketing strategy - segment your market, pick your target segments, and design campaigns for them.

marketing

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4 Product Strategies for Success

I’m working on putting together one or more entrepreneurial ventures to keep me entertained in 2008. To both evaluate & generate ideas, I’ve put together a rough framework - below - of what I consider to be successful strategies. Any idea I’ve had needs to fit into one of these; if it doesn’t, there’s no business case to it. If I’m short on ideas on any given day, I can pick a strategy and apply it to any given product or market to kick start some thinking.

It certainly hasn’t made me wealthy yet (hooray for dayjobs!), but I’m still at it, and in the meantime you’re welcome to join me. YMMV!

1. Better Mousetrap: Modified product or proposition, same market (i.e.: price or feature competition)
   Ex: Google: simpler search, better results in an already crowded market
2. Re-purpose: Existing product, sold to new market segment
   Ex: Camelback hydration packs sold to the military for solidiers
3. Niche: New product aimed at a previously untargeted market segment
   Ex: Pugspot identifies pug owners as a monetizeable segment
4. Need: Identify an un-addressed, or unrecognized consumer need
   Ex: The banana guard (transporting a common, fragile food), or Overstock.com (liquidating old inventory)

EDIT: Note that I’m not including a definition of success here. Booth Google and the Banana Guard can be considered “successful” products - though the scales are obviously different.

business, design, marketing success

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Seth Godin’s Got Sweet Spot Marketing Wrong

I’m a contrarian jerk sometimes. So when I read Seth Godin’s (who I’m a long time fan of, btw) article about Sweet Spot Marketing tonite, my hackles were raised. In it, Seth opines:

“Bloggers around the world are discovering that it’s cheaper and faster and more effective to build their own media channel than it is to waste time arguing with the old ones. So I guess my advice would be to either build your product and network along the way to align with exactly what the middlemen want… or reject them and live/thrive without them.” [from Seth Godin]

Seth’s point is that we shouldn’t bother trying to find the “sweet spot” to get traditional media channel coverage (i.e.: tailoring your subject matter and publisher selection to get in the NYT book review, on Oprah, or whathaveyou).

IMHO: The concept of sweet spot marketing hasn’t changed, just the sweet spots. Yup, its true - if you’re seeking controlled growth (i.e.: a sustainable living, as opposed to accidental success or a flash in the pan), you’re still going to be looking for the sweet spot. 15 years ago, you tried to get your product/article/whatever in your local paper on on the radio morning show; now you’re tailoring your headlines to be Diggable, or writing tub thumping info-war missives to get on Boing Boing. Same difference.

The arbiters of popularity and success may be changing, but success and popularity will always (to a degree) have arbiters. Few and far between are those who can truly refuse to play the game and enjoy success.

godin, marketing seth

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Corrected: DNHour.com - Digg for Domain Name News

DNHour.com is a community driven news site for the SEO domain name industry. IMHO this is a great vertical to target - the domain industry (and somewhat-related SEO industry) has a very high noise-to-signal ratio, and a good community (and algorithm) would go a long way to sorting some of the wheat from the chaff. Though its currently a little sparse on the community interaction side, its brand new, and I’m willing to give it a chance. I’m adding the DNHour feed to my reader. [found via Press Release]

From the press release:

DNHour.com is founded by a Malaysian-based domainer and serial entrepreneur, Koay Al Vin. After missing out on some big domain name purchases, he decided to keep in the know by tediously scouring domain forums and listing sites for what is available. He founded DNHour.com to ease the process and today, all domainers can help each other by sharing those important news and events at DNHour.com.

Other Coverage:

Net Monetization says get into DNHour early.

CORRECTION: Koay Al Vin contacted me to indicate that the site is focused specifically on Domain Name news & finds - not SEO as I assumed. Thanks for the correction!

digg, dnhour, domain+names, domaining, domains, marketing, optimization, search, sem seo

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Digg the Real World: Bookstores and more

After writing about how grocery stores could embrace Web 2.0 and getting some interesting comments on social networking around creamed corn, I got to thinking about other opportunities that 2.0 principles have to come to the offline world.

Applying the Digg Algorithm to Bookshelves

Consider the example of a common book store, for instance. Items are up on shelves, arranged alphabetically by author, or in special sections ordered by release date, or a national best-seller list. The special sections are the equivalent of the Digg frontpage - the key difference, however, is that in the case of a bookstore, the contents of that front page are driven by factors that have little to do with the actual users of the bookstore - i.e.: the shoppers. At best, they are a product of national-level, week or month old, aggregated sales data.

So - why not create an algorithm to populate those shelves? National bestseller status and release dates would be factors in the algorithm; but so would local store level sales. So - when a local newspaper review drives a surge in sales of an author’s old book, the algorithm would push that book onto the store’s “frontpage” and capitalize on the opportunity. Or when Kurt Vonnegut’s passes away, the algorithm reacts to spur sales, and the store doesn’t miss a spike because the marketing department missed the significance of the headlines that day.

Anyway, many retail venues seem to be stuck with relatively static approaches to in-store promotions. I don’t think this needs to be the case.

algorithm, digg, marketing, promotions retail

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Grocery Stores, the Purchase-Stream, and Web 2.0

Online, we have a clickstream that charts our actions and attention. In a grocery store we have a purchase-stream - the exhaustive record of everything we’ve ever purchased, tracked by any major chain. Personally, I prefer shopping at Safeway - and I don’t doubt for a second that my “Safeway Club Card” is a GUID for me in Safeway’s customer purchases database, linking me to my buying history - and great savings (grin).

Unfortunately, “great savings” are where the party stops. Safeway does little to surface the value in that data to consumers (who knows what they’re doing with it for their own purposes). This is where the lessons and business models of Web 2.0 come into play. Consider these three ideas, all predicated on the existence of a Safeway.com website that I could log into with my club card:

1. Recipe Recommendations: Safeway knows what’s in my cupboard. AllRecipes knows what to do with it. Bring the two together and have a “Suggested Recipes based on your purchases” page. Recommend additional purchases to tweak sales too.
2. Social Networking: Grocery shopping has long been a nascent social activity. Stores in our funky bar district have an informal “singles” night for instance. Given the number of startups that want you to social network off of your clickstream (cluztr, me.dium), why not experiment with networking off your grocery shopping? Its no more or less bizarre.
3. Discovery: This is my favorite. Just like StumbleUpon analyzes clickstreams and correlates with groups to make suggestions, Safeway could be analyzing my purchases in comparison to others to suggest new things I should try.

Business Model

Membership and traffic drive the model - good olde fashioned “stickiness.” Assuming the Safeway.com socialnetworking/discovery/recipe portal got some traction, it would be a natural venue for advertisers - a whole big whopping supply of ad inventory to complement in-store and flyer campaigns - a natural upsell for Safeway. Its also a good way to distribute incentives (coupons), run contests, etc.

Ridiculous?

Is this sort of thinking ridiculous? Personally, I’d be pumped to have access to a fully automated recipe recommender like that described above. Why don’t more of these staid bricks-and-mortar institutions experiment? They seem to be at best stuck on in the mid-nineties data-mining revolution, using data to create internal value corporately; IMHO great customer-facing opportunities are passing them by.

clickstream, discovery, groceries, marketing, purchases, safeway social networking

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Gaboogie & the truth about Web 2.0 names

Gaboogie sounds like a great service. Web centric conference call organizing, mobile features, etc. I’d love to recommend its use here in my blue chip day job world.

Unfortunately, many of my peers and superiors are even further out-of-the-valley than I am, and I just can’t see the service being taken seriously with a name like “Gaboogie.” Cute names do not convey enterprise-strength credibility, reliability, etc. to a group that deals with IBM, EDS, Microsoft, and Sun on a daily basis.

Call it ridiculous or superficial if you want, but names communicate. Given that the conference calling target market is principally businesses, why not have a brand that speaks to them? Gaboogie sounds like something for kids. In the case of Yuuguu, which suffers from a similar naming problem, I suggested a brand split - a professional version with a professional sounding name, and a tweens version with the cute/funky name. Same thing could apply to Gaboogie - split it in two with proper branding around each, and I bet you’ll get better adoption of each. The marginal cost of creating a second branded version of your creation is (generally) extremely low as well, especially when taken relative to the potential benefits.

This discussion also calls into question the whole concept of market segmentation. I know that in the era of $12,000 throw-it-at-the-wall and see-what-sticks projects “segmentation” isn’t really cool - but its useful. Even if you’re doing a Kawasaki-esque “no business plan” launch, at least take the time to decide who you want your target demographic to be, and let that knowledge inform your design & brand decisions - and avoid the perceived disconnect between brand and product that Gaboogie has.

branding, communications, gaboogie, kawasaki, marketing, names, segmentation, strategy yuuguu

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ArkALMIGHTY: Religious-themed, Movie-promotional, John Goodman-starring, Good Deeds Social Network

The title sums it. “Evan Almighty” - the new comedic take on the Noah-and-his-Ark story - is spawing all manner of… “unique” marketing efforts in a bid by the movie studios to appeal to the American religious population - which, if you count people going to church once a month or more, is 66% of the country.

That statistic, and a very interesting read, come to you courtesey of the New York Times movies section (”Makers of Comedy Film Aim for Religious Audience“) which has a great discussion on the fallout from Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” - namely that there’s a lot of cash to be made from religion.

Anyway, ArkALMIGHTY aims to be a broker of “acts of random kindness” - “Got a Need? Post It!” the site opines; “Can you fulfill a need? Get to it!” In fact, John Goodman himself ambles across the screen (powered by hdmedia.ca) the first time you land to share the message. The site appears to be targeted principally at teenagers - all of the stock-ish photography at least is centred firmly on attractive, young, predominantly-white & latino people. There’s plenty of “Evan Almighty” ads scattered across the site as well.

Visitors to the site are encouraged to join and either find their church community, or register their church - “launching their ark” - which once launched, creates a community bulletin board-like landing page:

ArkALMIGHTY begins with registering your church on our site. As with everything associated with ArkALMIGHTY, registration is FREE. When registration is complete, your church will have its own, personalized ArkALMIGHTY web page where members can post, browse and fulfill the needs of your congregation. Once your ArkALMIGHTY page is up and running, visitors will be able to read about the success stories within your own church and receive regular reminders of how they can do good on a daily basis. [From: How to Launch Your Ark]

ArkALMIGHTY also works hard to extend their reach off of the web and into your physical community, sending the first person to register a church a whopping crate of ArkALMIGHTY branded material in the mail…

Wait by the mailbox. Because you’re about to receive a FREE Ark Kit, valued at $125, with everything you need to launch ArkALMIGHTY in your church. Inside you’ll find t-shirts, hats, curriculum, an ArkALMIGHTY banner, outreach materials, instructions, and so much other good stuff you’ll think it’s Christmas! [From: How to Launch Your Ark]

In Summary…

The advertising & language across the site makes the whole affair a not-very-subtle ploy to increase top-of-mind awareness of the “Bruce/Evan Almighty” movie franchise. Whether promoting good deeds or not, I personally consider spirituality off-limits as a branding venue. ArkALMIGHTY has a weird effect in that sense: I feel compelled to reject it on the basis of its exploitative nature, yet find it difficult to do so given that there is “good” functionality coming out of. I compare it to the whole furor over selling naming rights to stadiums - is it better to have a branded statium, or no stadium at all?

Fundamentally, however, the web is different. If there is a need or want for a site like this, the barriers to entry are essentially none. Anyone, anywhere could run a site like this on a standalone basis. I know a church appeal in my neighborhood would find pleny of volunteer coders, designers, and webhosts capable of putting it all together for free, and creating a site focused on good deeds, as opposed to “these good deeds bought to you by…”

For those interested, there are authentic faith-based networking opportunities out there - see HolyPal, 5loaves, and Xianz (which has ArkALMIGHTY adverts on it) for examples.

As a social networking phenomenon, I have no idea how well the site will do, or whether its success will outlast the movie. When “Evan Almighty” is off the new release list, will ArkALMIGHTY persist as a standalone ad-driven social network? Or will it be shut down?

Whatever the case, it has been successful in driving discussion about the site and the movie, if nothing else. See: GetReligion, Bob’s Blog n’ Blather, MovieMarketingMadness, ChangeYourWorld, Paleoevangelical, Camy’s Loft, Lake Neuron, and The Blog that Ties for examples.

DISCLAIMER - I personally am not religious; Agnostic at best, I frequently consider questions of sprituality but have yet to stumble upon the definitive answers to the questions about god and the meaning of life. If I do, I’ll post here.

5loaves, arkalmighty, branding, catholic, christianity, evanalmighty, faith, holypal, jesus, marketing movies

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The Power of Blogging - one artist’s tale

Blogging offers an unprecendented opportunity for engagement, and through that, growth. Here’s a perfect example - Jonathan Coulton, amateur musician, has built a fan community around himself through his blog. Here’s the key quote from the NYT article:

Along the way, he discovered a fact that many small-scale recording artists are coming to terms with these days: his fans do not want merely to buy his music. They want to be his friend. And that means they want to interact with him all day long online.

Question: why don’t more artists maintain a level of engagement? Why don’t more businesses? I know the benefits have been documented and debated, but their seems to be a gap between perceived value and actual implementation.

In cases like this, I often wonder if there’s an element of media distortion to these stories - pumping up the blog-o-sphere has replaced 1999’s teenage CEO as the msm-loves-the-Internet meme. Could someone like Jon Coulton have achieved the same level of success as quickly before the advent of the Internet or blogging by putting up posters and playing cafe gigs?

blogging, community marketing

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