The content distribution strategy

Congratulations for the 2009!

3 years ago I was with a couple of brand managers and we were discussing about the right strategy for the Internet... I remembered that conversation during the past weeks and I like to share some thoughts.

First of all (I think) brands and companies should have a strategy and not an "Internet Strategy" and I am sure almost all companies and brands have their own annual or whatever strategy and they do not want to create a strategy for each channel (TV strategy, Radio strategy, etc) what they meant was that they were trying to understand how to participate, take advantage, use, implement and manage the Internet as a communication channel, because they did not know well at that time. 

After a strategy is designed (sales, marketing, etc...) it is important to identify which channels will be the ones which will maximize our efforts or the ones that we need to accomplish our tactics, etc. The Internet is nowadays one of the most powerful channels to start a conversation and/or deliver a message. There are a lot of tactics to bring  your audience to your message or to deliver your message to your audience (email Marketing, Search Marketing, Seeding, etc...) . All of this is not new to marketers today. All of the most common Internet tactics are helpful, but in today's environment are not enough. Some marketers believe that they can just create a website with their different messages and then implement tactics as Search or Display Banners to bring their audience to their content, but that is not enough... 

In today's environment we should  distribute our content and not just keep it in only in one place (our site). Social Media is increasing the content and perspectives from our audiences, but all of this is thanks to the different platforms which are offering an alternative to post or BROWSE content. Digg for example is an alternative to be updated from different content sources. It is not a blog or article search engine is a place in where the content from different sources is posted from different users who think that, that content is relevant now. Delicious is kind of the same, and there are everyday more and more different alternatives, inside the "famous" social network platforms (Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc) and new different alternatives. 

So... how to use these tools? there are a lot of practices, but the way I see it and what I recommended to those Brand Managers 3 years ago was to use it to "distribute" your content.

Is your content ready to be published in these alternatives? is it possible to "digg it" or post it at delicious? Are you posting your videos at Youtube and the different vertical video sharing platforms? Are you posting your new communications at the Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networks groups, forums or shared links? Are you uploading your pdf's or other different file formats at Docstoc or ScriBD? Are you posting your slide decks at SlideShare? Do you agree with the content about you, posted at Wikipedia, Mahalo, Yelp (not as comment, but as your official description)? Are you giving updates through Twitter to your community? if yes... how often are you doing it? if not... when are you going to start?

Obama did it, a lot of artists and more top brands are trying to do it... and it is because is effective. Your audience is looking for you in different platforms, don't you want to "deliver your message"?

You should identify which are the most important platforms for your audiences and in where categories are they looking for info related to you or your product / service. Then, publish your content, customizing the title and description in order to be aligned with the platform. It is different to post at Twitter, than Digg, than Facebook. There are tools to simplify the posting process; to identify the most relevant sources and to track results. Do not forget to track. 

And you need to train your agencies (PR or Digital) to do this in an effective way. They probably know, but in my experience they say they know, but they do not understand well how to do it, and that is fine, this is new, but they need to understand the purpose and create a method.

Google is a great starting point and the official news sources like Yahoo! News, CNN, etc are also great platforms used by the consumers, but they are also increasing day by day the usage of the different platforms which are offering them an alternative to browse in a different user experience, what they are looking for. The list of emerging platforms is longer every day and you should define how to approach to them, how often to manage your content posts at there and how to manage a "conversation"and not only a one way message. I agree that there are not to many professional services who can help you to manage your communities, but if you find one ask them to manage not only the community questions or requirements, but to distribute your messages also.

Agencies, we need more community management professionals. 

Brands, we need to hear from you in the different platforms. 

Platforms we need a better user experience every day and APIs to be able to manage the conversations in a better way.

This content distribution concept, plus the traffic management practice will become a day by day task for top performers in all categories of brands.

Thanks and remember that you can find more about me at my LinkedIN profile

In my next post, I will be talking about how to track conversations or what your audience is talking about you (and where) using platforms like Radian or JackBe

The sites and tools that I liked the most during 2008

Something that I really like about the web are not only the tons of info, but the great tools for different purposes and all of them with great results.

During 2008, the tools that I used and liked the most were:

1.- Animoto (http://www.animoto.com)
Great platform to create videos. If you need to create a great quality video at a low budget or without budget, then Animoto is a great solution. You can automatically create videos (in minutes) and the outcome is even better than some "professional" produced. I really like Animoto

2.- Get Satisfaction (http://www.getsatisfaction.com)
This is a free tool to implement a suggestion in-box to your site. It helps not only to manage the feedback for the site, but it does it also by page or category as well.

3.- ScreenToaster (http://www.screentoaster.com)
If you have a site and you have a FAQ section, then a video (walk through) would be the best answer illustration. Now you can do it for free with Screen Toaster. I like it a lot for my sites help sections

4.- SlideRocket (http://www.sliderocket.com)
I did not use slide rocket as often as I wanted to, but it doesn't mean it's not a great tool, because it is. PowerPoint can not deliver final presentations like the Apple Keynote ones, but with Slide Rocket, you will be able to upload your ppt and make it as nice as an Apple's Keynote presentation (or even better)

5.- Google Insights for Search (http://google.com/insights/search/)
I see it as the evolution of Google Trends. It is just great. Try it, you will see great insights from the search terms that you are interested into. From Google I also strongly used the Webmaster tools, Analytics, Maps, Documents. When I was at Yahoo! I tried to look for similar things from Y!, but Google is far away with this kind of tools. you must try a lot of these tools

6.- Scribd and Issuu (http://www.scribd.com and http://www.issuu.com)
These are not just sites in where we are able to search for different kind of documents (like SlideShare or DocStoc also) but the thing that I like about these two, is the capability to use their document browsers at your site, so you can provide now a better user experience in your own site and it will be powered by Issuu or SricBD. You do not need to invest in code or wait for the development.

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The other links that I will post are related to the sites (not tools) which I consider interesting to me. The design, experience, innovation, etc are the things that made me went there more than 10 times, just to see the site, read it or use it.

7.- Pandora (http://www.pandora.com)
I do not need to explain Pandora, for me... the best on line radio experience, with an awesome user experience in terms of the GUI and how do they post the ads inside the site, that is something that I admire also

8.- Razorlight (http://www.razorlight.co.uk/)
What???? yes this is a band web site, and... WOW!!!! what a great way to use video in a site. just go there and see what I mean. I hope they still have the full screen video experience... reduce the browser window (do not minimize it, only make it smaller) and you will see how the video goes smaller also, with out loosing the streaming delivery. The GUI, the music, etc... what a great site. I used to design a lot (more than 8 years ago). If you are a designer, then try it. The full experience is the music, image, video, font, etc... that is design, the hole package

9.- TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/)
My number one source for new things, news and for my own daily entertainment is TechCrunch. My proffered blog. I strongly recommend it

10.- Revision 3 (http://www.revision3.com) and other through Apple TV
Diggnation, Tekzilla and GreekBrief.TV (http://www.geekbrief.tv/) are my top video resources through my Apple TV, also the CNet content and much more. Try the video blogs through this video streaming boxes (like the apple tv) It is truly something better than TV

Thanks for 2008 and I hope we can have a better 2009. Let's not just hope it, but fight for it. It has to be a better year.

Regards
Jorge A. Herrera Rojas

The marketing effectiveness analysis future

We have been looking for better ways to reach our customers and to deliver effective messages to them.

Behavioural Targeting gives us the opportunity to deliver messages to our audience, during its related to us decision process and through segmentation we can reach our potential consumers. These practices are evolving better day by day and their purpose is to give to marketing the ability to be more effective with the marketing investments. If we can deliver the right message to our potential consumers and/or if we reach them when they are planning to buy something from our category, then the marketing investment would be more product ivy, right? well, that is correct "in theory", but to have the information to analyze the segments and behaviours demands a lot of data and that process is not standardized (until today) between all the targeting and behavioural targeting vendors and consultants. There is now a new association looking for the standardization of the concepts and methods. Today some of them offers the same information, but they develop this knowledge based in different data and the outputs are different. Some of them are correct and some of them are not accurate, the risk in the future will be the lost of trust from the advertisers in these practices.

Thinking about what info could be the one that I as an advertiser would need or the one that would help me to analyze my segments, its behaviour and my marketing / channels effectiveness, I developed a simple ideal scenario, which I hope to see in the future (maybe by 2015)

It would be great to have a tag to follow all my customers cycles:

1.- The channel delivers a "tag" to its audience.
It will be great if the TV screen, newspaper, pc, radio or other channel could deliver a piece of data to its audience. Today almost all these channels can have a data delivery component and it can deliver it to other component in a wireless environment. The TV and laptop can deliver a piece of data to those consumers who are watching a TV ad or banner (any kind of internet ad). There is now also "ePaper" and we know that the future of paper is not in jeopardy, but it will evolve to dynamic paper, with electronic components, so it will be ready also to deliver data to its readers.

2.- The audience collect and host data from different channels
The channels are ready or almost ready to start delivering data to its audiences, but how the audience can receive it and host it? are we going to host a chip inside of our body? more or less... yes. Today the credit cards can host data and this data can interact with different channels. The chip in the cards would be able to host info from different channels and related to the ads and info that we saw. This info could be managed based on different business and gov rules, for privacy and also for data analysis, etc... the info could be also hosted in other different personal and portable receptors like music players, watches and mobile phones, so the data wont be only hosted in 01 (one) device, but in all our personal devices (to ensure be accurate)

3.- The transactions, buyers, ads, channels, demographics, etc are all together now.
When the consumer makes a purchase through any channel (life, telephone, internet or other) the ads info, frequency, channel and other could be delivered on regular bases and integrated with all the purchasing information at the point of purchase and with all of this info I can analyze what was the last ad, the frequency, my competence effectiveness, etc and obviously evolve from one consumer to all consumers and redefine, find or manage my current and future segments and their behaviours

If we can have all of this data, in an open environment, the advertisers will be more effective, but the most interesting thing for the consumers will be that this will increase the competence level between business and the winner always is the consumer. Better marketing, products, distribution etc its always the result of better competence. Today we keep hearing incredible sentences or superlative adjectives in almost all ads and we should be hearing only the true, so if we have an open environment the consumers can analyze also what is the best product for similar segments.

I am assuming that we will be able to deliver TV, radio and paper ads also based on targeting rules and behavioural strategies. The ads could be based on the watcher(s) id from phones, credit cards or other devices, if we can do this we will be able to deliver ads based on consumer(s) info, content and context. family wathcing a movie on starudary night, will be different to couple watching the same movie or a alone 40 year guy. so we will be able to deliver all the ads personalized

Well, maybe this is a dream, but that is why I will be looking forward to see in the future

This is a simple diagram to illustrate my idea

Do not copy these examples, make them your benchmark, your food for something new and good, but do not copy them

We have been talking about how to deliver a message or drive users to our message. Social Advertising, Traffic Management Marketing, Rich-Media, Behavioural Targeting, Mobile, etc... and what about the content of the message? the landing page? the site? the game? the beef of our message? many times great campaigns increase your expectation and the final destination is a total disappointment. Last MIXX finale, is a "Gala Award Night"where they award the best efforts in many categories: Brand Awareness, Product Lunch, Search Marketing Campaign, Mobile, Widget Marketing, etc... you can see all the winners at http://www.mixx-expo.com/2.8/awards_gallery_2008.aspx

What interested me the most was the ability of almost all of them to impress me. I consider my self some one who browse, surf, analyze, research and search a lot in the Internet world and I love to be in this kind of events, because its like a 2 hours (or 3) of creativity. Like a guided ride through the best places of the Internet, its like seen the future but you know is the past for them. Many times you want to be ahead but there are others who are really ahead.

I do not mean that I saw new technologies, but different and effective ways to support a commercial purpose through technology and really admire that and that is why I was so impressed. I respect the work of this guys and agencies. And I do not mean only that this are great graphical executions or awesome code, but all of that attached to a unique concept, which supports a commercial strategy.

I will talk about some examples:

1.- Layer Tennis.
what!!!!! yes... Adobe lunched a site http://layertennis.com/
Adobe looked for a different way to advertise and lunch the CS3 (now Adobe is in its #4 Creative Suite, so this was lunched at least one year ago). Layer Tennis is a great concept, where every Friday there are design matches. The participants have 15 minutes to create something and posting (that is a volley or the length of a turn), then they post the result and the other competitor have other 15 minutes to add, change, edit or evolve the piece of art. Both competitors have 5 turns and at the end a panel of judges selects a winner. The viewers in the mean time can comment about each posted piece. WOW!!! right? the site is an archive of all the produced pieces and you can see past matches. ...Well all should be produced using CS3 and its the best advertising. Great and incredible pieces of art, produced in 15 minutes. The best part (for the business readers) is that through this tactic / channel, Adobe achieved more than 60% of its annual CS3 sales, and they did not spent a penny in other media advertising channels (off line).

The result is amazing and showed us the benefit of the digital marketing, through viral and social tactics and an open platform for the designers community.

2.- American Express Open Forum
Amex is looking to be a partner for business owners, and that is why it brings the platform and the content base for this site / community. It is a great site with guides, training information and blogs about finance, marketing, innovation, leadership and management. Do you want to know how can you have a B2B relationship using the social media, networking and web 2.0 new tactics? well Amex did it great and their goal was NOT to use the tech trendy tools, but they saw an opportunity to develop a better relationship with their client community in where they can provide something that their client community can consumer, maximize, growth and value.
http://www.openforum.com/

These are only 2 examples of great strategies on the digital marketing arena. more than video, webinars, web 2.0, wikis, mobile, etc. these brands were taking risks and now they are receiving the benefits and showing to the rest of the industries how to take advantage of the on-line marketing

Is very frustrating to see how other brands copy the concepts. if could work for you, then do it, I do not agree but do it. Many times the brands copy with out an impact or benefit analysis, without trying to develop something tailor made for its own brand, some times brands just follow other brands and that is why I ask for the "Do not copy these examples, make them your benchmark, but do not copy them. I am sure that all can do something that fits their needs, that will helps the consumer, to the brand, to the media, etc... lets build and do not copy something as it is. You can take and apply best practices, that is different, but copycats are just wrong

Android,The Google's mobile platform is ready and I do not why I am angry....

First of all I am happy to see that they accomplished what they promised, even though many analysts envisioned that Google would fail on the Android Project delivery for this year.

Here you have a fast demo of the phone and the platform:



Ok... why this makes me angry?

Apple launched Macintosh in 1984, Microsoft was part of the application developers and had access to the Macintosh platform and information months before its launch. Months after the first Mac launch, Microsoft lunched Windows.
Mac only for Apple Computers and Windows for any other personal computer.

why is this relevant? I will copy and paste the paragraph above and I will replace only the name of the brands and the year.

Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, Google was part of the application developers and had access to the iPhone platform and information months before its launch. Months after the first iPhone launch, Google lunched Android. The iPhone software is only for Apple telehphones (so far) and Android for any other phone.

We know how the story evolves. Windows developed a not very good system (until now) but they own the pc market. Microsoft was able to bundle MS Office and they are the market leaders of the productivity applications and finally they were able to take Netscape out of the business, because they bundled Internet Explorer and they forced to their partners to take out Netscape from the pre-sold pcs. Microsoft has a monopoly thanks to windows and they did it based on a stole idea / creation.

Are we going to experience the same with Google? Apple will never learn? Why Google complains about Microsoft if they are doing the same in other arenas like mobile, display advertising, browsers, productivity apps, etc...?

I am a Google user but a monopoly decelerate innovation and we are not ready yet to slow down. The Internet opened again the technology race, but the years before it were the worst in software innovation .

This is another Android video, this is from Google. you will see why I am so angry


By the way... and related to the new Microsoft ad



I am a forced pc at work but I am a Mac at home, an Apple TV, an iPod touch and an iPhone. And I also ware glasses

A mobile up-date from Yahoo! at MiXX

One of the mobile presentations that I saw, was from Yahoo!. I like to go to their presentations not only because I consider them a great platform but also because I used to work there.

well... the presentation was about Mobile Marketing and how this is growing, there are not new numbers as far as I saw. Every day more people are using their phone for web browsing which is nice, but these still are 20% of them. I did not see effectiveness studies about it and there is some doubts (from my side) regarding the future of the mobile display platform. The screen is short and if we add ads this could be very intrusive for the users, I do not know if the CTRs are less, but maybe the engagement is bigger. I see also in the near future a very big fight between the big players (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Yahoo! Go) and other platforms, trying to win in this arena. The benefit for the users is that they will be competing to get us (better users experience, apps, content, etc). So based on that I do not see standards in the near future.

What I do saw was a new Yahoo! application. One Connect http://mobile.yahoo.com/oneconnect/iphone is ready for the iPhone. This Y! application lets you integrate your contacts from different social networks, track all their status and also update from one source all your social status. I already tested it and works fine. I remember that the idea of this app was to be lunched early this year and with other phones, not only the iPhone (that is the bad thing). any way... the application is nice because lets you manage your contacts for the phone in your current contacts base (social sites), integrates SMS (only in the US) and its future could be very good if they evolve fast adding friends localization maps, voice messages to my firends and posted on their walls / emails. The ads could be something between viral and collaboration marketing, more than display (from my point of view)

well I will give more info in the future

The afternoon at MIXX (Engagement Mapping and Behavioural Targeting)

Engagement Mapping

On February of this year Microsoft announced their proposal of the Engagement Mapping as a new standard to measure the impact of digital campaigns.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-25EngagementMappingPR.mspx

And yesterday the talked to us about a compression that they did versus the last ad theory. They also published a communication about it at
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/sep08/09-22EngagementROIPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

The engagement mapping really liked me. I do not see it as a standard to start using now, but we are soon to that measure methods. The advertisers look for this info, but the agencies and the publishers are not ready yet. It is not that difficult to start doing this, but you need some one helping you to set up the tag pixel (to track the ad effectiveness) and also some one to interpret it in the right way.

You can find more info at http://www.atlassolutions.com/institute_engagementmapping.aspx

The things that I like the most:

To measure our ad campaigns, we need to have conversion metrics, and Microsoft propose the following conversion attribution:

Conversion Attribution = Frequency / Recency / Ad Size / Rich Media (Day part, order, targeted, interactions

Other thing that I liked is that we can see the benefit or the integration of Atlas into Microsoft, after they bought them you can see the real benefit of this synergy. The Atlas knowledge and the Microsoft power. that is nice and we are still expecting something more impressive from Google and Double Click and Yahoo! with Right Media and BL (maybe this week we will hear more about APEX, which is one of the integrations of Right Media with Yahoo!)

BT

Later... I participated on a behavioural targeting session and I can not say to much about it. I can see that Behavioural Targeting, Mobile and Metrics are the top topics, but regarding BT, I can read from the speakers that this is on the future, "you can start now"but there is not enough data to move forward for the behaviour that you are targeting... so... if you are selling mid-prize cars BT is ready for you... but the benefits are not clear either...

WOW!!!! really... I think this will be big (not very, very big) and will be part of all the advertising, but right now is more an experiment for the brands than the thing to do. My conclusion is: if you have money and you can experiment do it now, help the industry to evolve about this, but if you are not ready for digital marketing yet, start but do not use BT as part of your strategy (only if you sell cars)