Blogging

When it comes to Digital Asset Management, most of the players are divided between low-end solutions and high-end solutions. According to the recent DAM report from CMS

Over the past three years, I’ve had the honor of interviewing many brilliant marketers, including Laura Ries, bestselling author, blogger and TV personality; Mike Schultz, president of the Wellesley Hiils Group; and Janine Popick, co-founder and CEO of hosted email marketing platform VerticalResponse.

But last week, I had the unique pleasure of corresponding with Anne Holland, founder of MarketingSherpa and legendary marketing guruess. Though Anne announced her retirement on November 10, she graciously agreed to share some of her collected wisdom and plans for what’s next. Here’s our discussion.

WebMarketCentral (WMC): Thanks so much for your time today, Anne. First off, why do think MarketingSherpa has been so successful, over a long and turbulent period, in a market where so many paid content providers have failed?

Anne Holland (AH): We were always obsessed with market research. We focused on a single primary market (marketing professionals in corporate America with $3 million + year department budgets) and researched what practical information those folks wanted day in and day out. Then we built it for them. In business, it’s all about solving a target market’s pain points. Sherpa’s in an incredibly competitive space, but I suspect we were one of perhaps only two publishers, targeting marketers, who did this kind of ongoing intensive research before developing products and before picking taxonomy for copywriting. We spent hours on the phone with customers and prospects every week in interviews; we conducted multiple surveys every year to different slices; we studied our site’s internal search stat data; etc.

A lot of what businesspeople want is actually good old fashioned reporting. It’s not easy. You’re not rewriting press releases or dashing off opinion columns. Instead we conducted new research projects continually to present the data to readers. We also went out and dug up people to interview for our Case Studies. Every one of our now 900+ Case Studies were exclusive, requiring about $2,000 of staff time just in research, interviews and crafting. Our research reports contained 200-400 charts and tables, compared to about 50 for many fancy research firms. We even spent hours with speakers before our Summits, helping them craft every aspect of their presentations; we didn’t just assume whatever they came up with would be ok. If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and really slog through that kind of hard work, you’ll please your audience. Very few people really want to work that hard I think though.

WMC: What are the two or three most important pieces of advice you would give to marketers today?

AH: In this economy, frankly your first concern has to be marketing to your boss and your boss’s boss. Few marketers are really comfortable with and savvy enough to market themselves internally in the corporation—I think sales pros are far better at it than we marketers are! Create personas of every person who has power over whether you get the budget you want and the power to execute campaigns the way you want; then figure out them as prospects and market to them. Do you know how to impress the CFO, the CIO and the CEO? Great, then make that happen.

Then focus on your marketplace. Don’t take anyone’s word for who your marketplace is or what they’re all about. Find out for yourself. Meet them in person. Survey them. Review recent demographic studies. Often you’ll find two or more unique demographics have been conflated into one by mistake (such as “the financial services industry” which is many separate demographics who must be targeted separately in campaigns). Or your company’s targeting is fuzzy. Or the taxonomy of your taglines, key benefit propositions, and/or headlines doesn’t match the wording your prospects would use.

The biggest question I get asked is about particular types of campaigns. “Does podcasting work?” “Should I be advertising on Facebook?” “Should I zero out my print ad budget?” Etc. This makes me nuts because marketing success is NOT about the tactic or the media channel, it’s about what will appeal to the prospect. What media do they like or use? What types of tactics do they respond to? Every prospect segment is different. Learn your prospect and they will lead you to the tactics and media channels you should use.

That said, sometimes what works is unexpected to everyone involved, prospect included. So you have to dedicate at least 10% of your budget (I’d prefer 20%) to an ongoing regular series of tests. Test media buys first, then test everything else about tactical execution. Set a schedule for testing—weekly, monthly, quarterly—whatever makes sense. But be sure to put it on the calendar or it won’t happen.

WMC: Anything you’d like to say about the future—either yours or MarketingSherpa’s?

AH: It’s been a great, amazing run for me; first 16 years in business media and then nine years founding and building MarketingSherpa. Everything I’ve been able to accomplish has been due to incredible support from the marketing and media communities. I’ve had so many mentors and friends, I’ve lost count. Now it’s time for me to redefine myself, to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

Marketing and publishing were very, very good to me. But, I have to look outside my comfort zone and try new things. I’ll probably wind up in some field related to gardening and plant nurseries, but who knows? I feel a lot like I’ve just graduated from college all over again with a new liberal arts degree and a blank slate for a career. It’s scary and very, very exciting. If you’d like to keep up (or you’re considering early retirement yourself) I’ll continue blogging at http://anne-holland.blogspot.com.

250,000 (or so) marketing professionals say…thanks Anne.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
WMC Interviews: Anne Holland

The best research tells you not only what’s happening, but why. Check out these posts, more of the best so far in 2008, on web marketing and Internet research to sate your curiosity, make better marketing decisions, and arm yourself with online trivia knowledge.

Which blogs do reporters read? What are the top uses of the Internet after email and search? What type of online advertising is growing while banners and PPC ads flatline? What’s the next big trend in blogging? Which information sources have the greatest influence on consumer purchasing decisions? Read on to learn all of this and more.

Top Blogs Used by Reporters & Journalists by Mequoda Daily

There are lots of “top” blog lists out there, but which blogs really have influence with traditional media? This article reports on a study of the blogs read by more than 450 reporters in technology, lifestyle, health care, travel, and politics. It would have been nice to see more than a handful of results in each category, but the results are interesting nevertheless.

Pew/Internet Search Engine Use Report by MIT Technology Review

A high-level overview of a recent study of search engine use conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Search engines are now used on daily basis by half of all Internet users. Search is the second-most common use of the Internet after email. More than twice as many people said they checked the weather on the Internet daily as reported visiting a social networking site (weird). There’s lots more here for data junkies.

18 Ways to Power Search Google by The Inquisitr

Blogging evangelist Duncan Riley provides an excellent list of tricks for searching out specific types of information on Google, such as specific types of documents, backlinks, phone listings, movie times and metric conversions. Highly bookmarkable.

Is online advertising losing its luster? by iMedia Connection

Neal Leavitt reports on a recent study by market research firm Borrell Associates which contends that while spending on online display ads and search advertising will soon peak then begin falling, expenditures on online promotions (e.g., contests, giveaways, coupons, sales of half-price gift certificates) will triple over the next five years to become the biggest category in online marketing. Others (such as Rob Enderle) aren’t so sure; promotions may be easy to measure, but without advertising support, they can lose a lot of effectiveness.

Porn passed over as Web users become social: author by Reuters

Reporter Belinda Goldsmith summarizes a few of the key findings revealed by author Bill Tancer in his new book Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters. Among the findings: ceiling fans are on the list of people’s top fears alongside social intimacy and rejection; there’s an annual spike in searches for anti-depression drugs around Thanksgiving time in the United States; and surfing for porn has dropped in teh last decade from 20% of searches to about 10%. The hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites, and the biggest drop in porn interest is among 18-24 year olds.

What’s Next In Blogging? by Search For Blogging

Über blogger Mert Erkal reports some interesting stats on the continued growth and evolution of the Internet, and predicts that mobile blogging will be one of the hot new trends.

What causes webinar attendees to bail? by B2B Lead Generation Blog

In this concise but helpful post, b2b lead gen guru Brian Carroll summarizes the findings of a MarketingSherpa report on the top reasons that attendees bail out of webinars, including such common presentation faux pas as reading directly from the slides and starting the webinar with a sales pitch.

State of the Blogosphere 2008 by Technorati

Fascinating details about blogging, advertising and income. Driving home the point that blogging is a great hobby but a tough way to make a living, the median annual advertising income for all bloggers is about $200. The average annual revenue for the top 10% of bloggers is just $19,000.

Why do some companies choose to ignore social media? by Britopian

85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media universe, yet only 74 of the Fortune 500 companies maintain active blogs. Michael Brito examines why this yawning disconnect persists between corporations and their customers.

Word of Mouth, Online Reviews Most Influential in Purchase Decisions by Marketing Pilgrim

Jordan McCollum summarizes a recent study by Rubicon Consulting which explores the biggest influences on purchasing decisions and consumer perceptions of various websites. Reading this post, you’ll discover that Yahoo is the second-most valued website by consumers, Second Life and Twitter still reach only a few percent of Internet users, and lots of other interesting web trivia.

Search Engine Marketing Trumps Yellow Pages by NewSunSEO Blog

A study conducted in July of this year by TMP Directional Marketing revealed that in 2008, for the first time ever, consumers reported that they were more likely to use the Internet than the yellow pages to find information on local businesses. As someone who hasn’t touched a yellow pages directory in years, other than to start a campfire or toss the old one into the recycling bin, the biggest surprise in this study is that it took until 2008 to reach this point.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Search Engine Marketing, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Social Media Optimization, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Web Marketing Research, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Website Design, Part 1
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Link Building
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Search Engine Marketing, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Social Media Optimization, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - SEO Guidance, Part 3
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Cool Web Tools, Part 2
Best of 2008 (So Far) - Blogging for Business, Part 2

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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Best of 2008 (So Far) - Web Marketing Research, Part 2

Search engine marketing is one of the key strategies for online marketing. But doing it well still remains elusive to many organizations. The Aberdeen Group interviewed over 200 organizations to find out what it takes to create “best-in-class” search engine marketing.

Originally posted here:
Creating Quality Search Engine Marketing

LinkedIn yesterday announced a new service that enables market researchers and investors to conduct market intelligence research using LinkedIn’s network of over 30 million professionals worldwide, approximately half of whom are IT and business decision makers.The news was quickly picked up by numerous bloggers including Doug Caverly, Bill Holmes and Layne Salter (an indication of how adept the PR folks at LinkedIn are with interactive PR).

Essentially, companys that want to conduct market research among difficult-to-reach B2B and IT decision makers will now be able to slice and dice profiles of LinkedIn’s large member base to reach groups with very specific attributes. From the participant side, “LinkedIn members who participate in a survey can choose from a variety of rewards including gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Best Buy, or make a donation to charities.”

This is all good—vendors can get valuable feedback from the right sample groups based on accurate LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn gets another revenue stream, and participants get token rewards. But it seems to me there may be an opportunity missed here.

People join social networks for lots of reasons, but I’ve never of anyone joining for the purpose of collecting $10 gift cards or Starbucks coffee coupons. Among the top reasons people join are to get recognition and to form new relationships. Bloggers often join, for example, in order to both drive more traffic to their blogs and to connect with like-minded readers and other bloggers.

So…any company can spend some money on gift cards and use the new LinkedIn offering to collect market research data. But the really smart ones will find a way to tap the motivations of LinkedIn members and create a mutually benefical social experience that provides not just data, but understanding.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

The rest is here:
LinkedIn B2B Surveys - Will They be Social?