Red or Yellow? AB Testing can answer that question.

Want an effective social media campaign?  Why not test it?  AB testing is where the majority of digital campaigns are decided.  Working in the digital space for a number of years provides me with a unique view of AB Testing.

So what is AB testing and when did it start?  AB testing is not a new concept; it has been around since 1908 but it has a new name.  In the medical field we have the control and experimental groups.  This same logic now applies to you in your everyday web surfing.   You are either in the control group, having normal content displayed to you.  Or you are in the experimental side and the content is different. The message is different.  The color is different.  Something is different.

The reason companies use AB testing are endless. The main reason is they want to test a hypothesis.  For example, do you like yellow or blue as your background color on the page?  Do you respond better to multiple colors of the same product or just one product? What is the number of products to displaying to customers: 32, 64, 128?  What media campaign has the best ROI? All of these examples are just a small fraction of the reasons why companies perform AB testing.

Performing AB testing seems normal for any marketer.  It provides the quickest feedback on the best marketing campaign?  This option is low cost as only affects .001 percent of the digital traffic.  You can start and end AB testing whenever you wish, and finally it’s all within your control.  If the data generated is acceptable within the first day, campaign A is performing better than campaign B.  Guess which one we are using for the next 30 days.

The problem with AB testing for people like me, is which side of the fence do I reside in when I surf the web?  Am I on the control or experimental side?  If I’m am always in the experimental side do, I live in a warped world where nothing is true.  Which side of the AB testing equation do you reside in?  By the way, you can’t tell which side of the AB testing equation you reside in.  Only the marketing folks do.  Just food for thought.

 

Your 15 minutes awaits you!

Using social media to create a brand is exactly what GoPro did.  GoPro took a simple idea of a small camera and made it a household name.  Here’s how they did it.  We all have phones with cameras so why would we purchase a GoPro?  GoPro understood that their market segmentation were active people who wanted to record their hobbies.  They followed standard marketing techniques, but at the end they created a new way to build a brand.

As with any company that wants to create a name for themselves, GoPro hired  actors, sports player.  Well that model didn’t work well enough for GoPro. Their products didn’t move quickly enough.  So plan B was created, they created a simple channel on YouTube. They let people upload their own films using GoPro camera’s. 

So what is the results of this experiment?  Did they reach their target audience?

GoPro’s customers are so engaged that anyone would be envious of their work:

• At least 6,000 GoPro-tagged videos are uploaded to YouTube every day.
• “GoProing” is now a noun (and a hashtag on Twitter) used to describe the phenomenon.
• With more than 3.2 million subscribers, GoPro is one of the leading brands on YouTube.
• 388 videos from the athletes sponsored by GoPro have garnered more than 50 million views each on YouTube.

GoPro, maker of the high-quality, easy-to-use handheld video camera, is one the best brands at user-generated content (UGC).

The content that is being generated is amazing, from snowboarders, bikers, golfers, skydivers and race car drivers. However there has been some unintended captures like loins stealing the goPro camera or and eagle an getting their hands on a goPro.  With these realistic applications,GoPro shows durability and reliability.  You can then say when will they go to space, it’s done.  GoPro went to space. 

GoPro Space walk#1 – The slow way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAifzh7_-cg

GoPro Space walk#2 – The fast way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDoh8zQDT38

With this perpetual customer base that upload their videos up to YouTube, GoPro is learning about their products from their customers.

And that’s how you build a brand, forget customer surveys and Net present Scores the proof is in your customer’s engagement.

And for some customer uploaded content:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYQK7TZ7KXw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQHC0fYFlYQ

You too can GoProing and get your 15 minutes!

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/09/brand-learn-from-gopro/

One of the best choices I’ve ever made.

In 1993, I had to make a choice to support PC or Mac Users. With a 85.7% market share PC devices dominated the market.  My choice should have been simple.  Follow the standard of the market, people would say, however it didn’t feel right. For a contemplative analytical like me, where all decisions are made through reasoning and weeding out the illogical options.  Feelings should not guide me to a conclusion, however that’s exactly what I didn’t.  I chose Mac OS instead; one of the best choices I’ve ever made.

So why is selecting the type of people I want to surround myself everyday of the week important?  I wanted to surround myself with happy people. Maybe it was the attention
they gave me, maybe they were more knowledgeable about a topic. Maybe Mac Users were happy to have a support person arrive at their desk, compared to expecting someone 5 minutes ago. Whatever the reason, my choice was made by emotion followed with contemplative tendencies.

My contemplative analytical mind juggled supporting a GM or a BM (Amir).  Just based on price alone the Macs were more expensive than PCs.  Today, it is still a premium product for it’s price.  For me working with friendlier and happier people was the obvious choice.  However, what does this choice say about me and about the people I want to surround myself with?

Let’s take a look at the Core demographics image about Mac vs PC people.  The PC people are on the left and Mac user on the right.  Yes, at the time of my selection the people I interacted with were younger.  As for living in the city, well I was already in NYC, check.

Same concept, PC people on the left and mac users on the right.  Fashion, Taste and Aesthetics.

Food & Drink, these are interesting: At least I do like my fava beans.

Media: Yes, I’m part of the 69% of Mac Users.

Personality: I do throw a mean party

Salary: And yes, I do get paid more than you.

Technology:  I don’t need to comment on this one.

Well, now that you went through that gauntlet of images and Herbie commentary.  What does this all mean for our class.  Segmentation, it’s all around us and the choices we make is information for someone else.  Example, Orbitz noticed that hotel booking behaviors for Mac users was 30% higher in cost than PC user. So they are now sending Mac Users pricer hotel bookings as a standard practice.  Don’t worry, you can always filter by price.  The choices we now make are being used to optimize some algorithm to sell you more products. Think of what your bank or credit card company is doing with your data?

So what type of person are you, PC or Mac?

 

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304458604577488822667325882

http://mashable.com/2011/04/23/mac-vs-pc-infographic/#OYp0QxWwtPql

 

OOPS

OOPS we did it again!  Our website was down for 3 hours. We could not offer you that great shirt last time so here is a coupon to buy it now.  Another OOPS email campaign is a mistake in an already existing campaign, sorry about that error here is free shipping with your order.

Apologizing for Information Technology mistakes is the new norm. We all know that technology problems arise when we use our own computers.  So, it is easy to see why companies would apologize for technology shortcomings. However, what happens when technology problems are a guise to increase click through and conversion rates?  For these errors, non-errors and typos are a hit with consumers. Understanding customer behaviors can generate different click rates on your website.  See picture below for the different campaigns and their success rates.  Can you identify the OOPS campaign?   

Organizations are under pressure to increase eyeballs on their website to entice prospective buyers. Marketing is key to attracting these customers. Marketers now have the morning sale, the afternoon and evening sales.  They have every holiday to market additional products.  They bombard you with targeted ads based on your keyword searches.  However, what happens when you receive the OOPS email from them?  What feeling does this generate?  Do you feel sorry for the company that admitted their mistakes?  I am here to tell you not to believe them.

“You may be saying, “I should apologize all the time!” Well, some marketers have started to purposefully include mistakes and apology emails in their communication plan.”  I received them and was perplex by their honesty.  Why would a company admit to anything without a team of lawyer on the payroll.  Well, after working at a company that would send their OOPS campaigns and I had to spend time sifting through terabytes of data.  I can actually say don’t believe them.

So bringing this topic back from the mistrust of some marketers.  What demographics segmentation does OOP’s email fall under?  These OOPS emails are normally targeting repeat customers who are loyal.  This segment of the population already TRUSTS the company.  The company is just trying to do a small uptick in conversions or drive more traffic to the site.  “We open an “OOPS” email for the same reason cars slow down to see an accident on the highway, the desire to know what it going on. In a crowded Inbox the “OOPS” immediately captures our interest. Once that interest is captured, we have to know what they did wrong. OK, that may explain the open rate but why then buy what is being sold? Obviously, the prospect has to be interested in what we’re offering that gets them 85% of the way there; the desire to help out the person who made the mistake and who they imagine must have gotten into trouble for it is the remaining 15%.”  For a small company a 1% difference in the conversion funnel can pay an employee’s pay, however for a big company that could be a year salary. 

I am not saying that ALL companies do the bait and switch with OOPS emails, some might be true.  However, when you know that this campaign is bogus, then they are all bogus.

Here are some links to make you and your company a better OOP’s marketer:

http://myemma.com/blog/article/6-clever-examples-of-oops-emails

http://blog.wishpond.com/post/115675436127/how-we-increased-pricing-page-conversion-using-email

http://www.lifelearn.com/2015/07/17/the-art-of-the-oops-email-mistakes-and-what-to-do-about-them/

http://blog.bronto.com/commercemarketing/oops-it-happened-again-how-send-apology-email/

http://www.nextstepsmarketing.com/blog/bid/323451/The-Power-of-an-OOPS-Email

http://unbounce.com/email-marketing/subject-line-strategie-that-increase-your-open-rates/

BTW: That table above has nothing to do with OOP’s emails. 

I’m just the IT Guy?

What do I know about marketing, I’m just the IT Guy?  I worked supporting marketing initiatives my whole life.  From my first job to my last, marketing has sustained me indirectly. As the IT Guy, I came around and fixed your computer problems.  These computer issues could be as simple as a marketing presentation in PowerPoint or as complex as a full design system using graphic software and printing to a Heidelberg.

Axiom Design system was my first job where I was professionally exposed to Marketing.  At Axiom, we received electronic files from companies that couldn’t afford the industrial equipment to print finished work. Some of these printers were big negative developers, that could handle things like film negatives. They came in two sizes 36” and 18”.  These machines printed as a negative or a positive for black and white, pantone or Hex Color printing. Magazines, newspapers, or any printing company could use these negatives to print their advertising.  They could send their material to a printing press and soon their ad would be displayed to their target audience.

The ultimate form of this kind of high tech marketing for companies is the use of something like QuadGraphic. This company allows you to design your work on your laptop or computer and then upload your files to QuadGraphic. QuadGraphics has multiple plants to print your marketing materials, books or magazines and you can have them delivered to your customers. They will take care of all the work. They have a full in-house service that will enhance any marketing strategy. By the way, there is a plant in Saratoga Springs, NY.

After Axiom I worked for YAR Communications. YAR specialized in Brand Marketing in every language except English.  At YAR Communications, I supported 136 different languages. I built computers that supported these languages. We had a complete language department a creative department and a print department.  At this point in my career I switched from printing to computer support. I worked supporting the company’s marketing strategies by using technology. You need a specific font in Japanese, Korean, or Hindu. I bought it, installed it and ensured it printed to our printers. You need software to work in Arabic or Hebrew; sure I did that. You need to find out why the character for “help” in Traditional Chinese is not correct and it displays as “fool” instead. Yes, I fixed that too. After some time, I travelled with the owner of the company and the sales staff as they pitched their marketing strategies to prospective clients. Yes, I supported that too. Apple, Gillette, Citibank, GM, Ford, Hanover Bank, these were our target companies and we pitched Brand marketing for the US market all except English.  Multi-language marketing launches, fun stuff.  I remember supporting L.L.Bean’s expansion to the Japanese’s market. L.L.Bean would send over a copy of their catalog and images and we did the rest. I learned a tremendous amount about marketing during this time.

After YAR Communications, I went to work for a media company. I worked at Viacom, Inc. I basically did the same work as my previous jobs however this time English was the language. The target market were all markets and the target audience was 2 to 65 years old.  Viacom owns and manages: MTV, VH1, Spike, BET, CMT, TV Land, Nickelodeon, Logo, Comedy Central and many more. I supported all of these channels. If you created content on an Apple computer, I bought it and supported it – all levels of support, from a simple phone call, to a desk-side visit. I had around 4 million USD operating/capital budget to address Viacom’s needs. I had over 6000 customers that needed a working computer and my team fielded your concerns.  All Apple computers in the United States were under my direction, if you worked at Viacom.

And finally, RedCats USA, (which would become OSP Group, and later FullBeauty brands) I managed their eCommerence operations. I supported 16 different fashion websites. My biggest brands were LaRedoute.Fr, WomanWithin, Romans, KingSizeDirect, BrylaneHome and JessicaLondon to name a few.  LaRedoute.Fr was the largest. We processed over a 1000 orders per hour with no physical stores. You can compare LaRedoute to Sears. The other websites were plus size fashion websites. I worked with companies like Certona, Merchant and PowerReviews to enhance the websites. Certona specializes in product recommendation on the product detail pages.  We recommend these product based on your personalization and what we wanted to push to you. While there we worked with Merchant, which is a vendor that specializes in distributing products to third party vendors, such as Google, Bing, and online newspapers or anyone else. You will see our product on their webpages as a teaser. Additionally we used PowerReviews, which specializes in product ratings. They receive all the ratings from our websites and we display their content.

 

As you can see my whole life has been in support of marketing strategies, but what do I know – I’m just the IT GUY.

The unPlugged

As I begin my quest to unplug from TV, I find that I am not up to speed with the latest and greatest shows or commercials.  Looking for a topic to satisfy my Marketing assignment just became that much harder.  However, not having a way for Marketers to reach me through conventional channels is a dilemma I will explore.

As the dwindling audience for live TV accelerated from it’s peak in 2010, Marketing strategies were rewritten. “The data underlying the report shows that among 18 to 34-year-olds, the use of smartphones, tablets, and TV-connected devices such as streaming boxes or game consoles increased by more than 25% in May compared with the same period a year earlier, to about 8.5 million people per minute. In that same category, TV viewing fell by 10% to 8.4 million people per minute.” [1]  With less people to communicate with, Marketers have pulled back their spending dollars on TV commercials.

The lost of TV revenue was gain by internet advertising and will reach a critical point in the coming years as seen in Fig 1.  Where more AD dollars will shift from away from TV.  Having access to the internet will be the new norm for advertiser reaching their target audience.  Segmentation advertising will be the new norm.   From Geography, Demography, Phychographics & Lifestyles can be reached through this medium called the Internet.

The new marketing strategies will not be limited to TV, radio or print, however are now called Display Advertising, Affiliate marketing, Social Network Advertising, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Mobile Advertising.

The dominate provider of search results at the moment is Google.  Google supplies 71.02% of searches today, see Fig 2.  Having such a large amount of people using their services, makes them be the benefactor the biggest slice of ad dollars.

Display advertising is the most common form of advertising on the internet and is commonly used by marketers.  Having around 40% of the advertising revenue, display advertising is the key to reaching target customers.  The other forms of internet advertising are important but they don’t have the market penetration, see Fig3.

Overall, marketing strategies will find a way to reach their target audience even when they unplug from their TV’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Ingram, M. (2015). The Smartphone Is Eating the Television, Nielsen Admits. Fortune.Com, N.PAG.