MarketingSherpa Blog

If you work for a Fortune 100 brand, accurate “what moved the needle” measurement is almost impossible.

If sales are up, how much is due to your nifty street team, versus the instant-win packaging campaign, versus a product placement shot on a hip TV show? Or maybe the bump is from dealer/distributor sales incentives.

Our Metrics Editor Stefan Tornquist sat down with the folks at Marketing Management Analytics (MMA), who’ve been building regression analysis models tracking ad impact for the Fortune 100 since 1989 to discover what they’ve learned from trying to integrate tracking.

First, they suggested three improvements:

Improvement #1. Gather ye spreadsheets as ye may

“CPGs don’t realize that data is the crown jewels of a company. They leave it sitting on Excel spreadsheets all around marketing,” said MMA’s Ed See. He also often finds data from PR and Internet campaigns stuck in separate silos. (One CPG’s marketers were mystified by a sales bump because they didn’t know another department had placed an ad dominating Yahoo’s home page for a few days.)

Improvement #2. Put data governance under marketing (not IT)

Marketing and IT departments tend to treat analytics like a hot potato. Marketers would rather concentrate on creative, strategy, and whiz bang tactics. IT people want nothing to do with marketing at all.

Best solution? Hire an analytics manager in the marketing department who loves technology and numbers. Don’t wait for IT to do it, because the end product — and the passion — must belong to marketing.

Improvement #3. Spend more online

MMA’s John Nardone noted the typical Fortune 100 isn’t spending enough on Internet and email ads to get enough data back for statistically significant results. If you don’t invest enough in your test campaign to generate reliable data to make a go/no-go decision on roll-outs, what’s the point? Next, although data guys hate to be caught mouthing generalities, Stefan was able to pin the MMA team down on five lessons learned from their years of analysis across hundreds of brands.

Lesson #1. Creative quality matters less than you think

80% of television creative falls within the “norm,” said Nardone. “Classically, we have clients who will say, we’re launching new creative and we’re going to bump up by 20%. We’re always the bucket of cold water that says, do you really think you’re going to buck the statistics?”

See adds, “but bad creative can drag you down.”

Betting the bank on what you consider great creative just isn’t smart. “People put more belief in their copy than it warrants,” Nardone says.

Lesson #2. Long-term impact requires short-term impact

Marketers who justify a campaign that isn’t performing by saying, “We’re not looking for short-term results, this is a long-term equity campaign,” are fooling themselves. “If there’s not a short-term lift, there probably won’t be a long-term lift,” said Nardone.

Lesson #3. Don’t spend before your seasonal curve

Ever wonder if you can jump the gun by marketing before the season? Don’t. “It doesn’t make sense to spend before your seasonal curve,” Nardone said. (Note: This advice bucks data we’ve seen from some cataloguers.)

Lesson #4. Budgeting for line extensions

The closer a line extension is to the base brand, the more of the base brand’s budget you can spend on the extension.

Example: if a company that makes chocolate cookies wants to launch a strawberry cookie — to the same consumer group — the company could spend a chunk of the base brand’s budget on marketing the new cookie: the “halo effect” of the line extension would extend back to the base brand.

However, if that company were to launch something very different — say, chocolate milk — “you would be unwise to take the budget for the chocolate milk line extension from the base brand,” said Nardone.

Lesson #5. Current customers equal best customers

Marketers seem to want to disprove this fact. They look at the people who aren’t buying and think, “Look at all that potential!” But Nardone and See find that a company’s best prospects are their best customers. “On a trend basis, that still seems to be true,” said Nardone.

Of course this is something that direct response marketers have known forever. I guess that means if more Fortune 100 marketing leaders had direct response backgrounds, the world would be a better place.

(At least far, far fewer ad dollars would be wasted.)

Sponsor: New! Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
MarketingSherpa’s new Search Benchmark helps you compare your results & budget to the norm. 210 charts include:

– Typical Cost Per Click & Click Rates – Conversion rates for B-to-B, B-to-C, & Ecommerce – What your competitors are budgeting for search – Do agencies get better results than in-house marketers? – SEO (Optimization) vs PPC campaign data

+ 3,271 marketers’ real-life 2005 search campaign data: http://SEMGuideWeekly.MarketingSherpa.com Or call 877-895-1717
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you work for a company where you have to send new copy past legal for approval?

Keene Benson over at GE Healthcare, whose email campaigns we detail in this week’s Case Study (see below), revealed the tactics he used to turn the legal department from an adversarial barrier into friends of marketing.

Tactic #1. Avoid grief-making offers and triple check claims

Benson keeps a list of offers that make lawyers fret by his side so he can avoid them. “I’m not going to fight that same battle again.” He’s found if he consistently sticks to safer ground, the legal department relaxes and begins to trust him. “They basically rubber-stamp them now that they’re comfortable I’m going to stay in the framework.”

He also never submit copy containing claims about a product that he hasn’t researched and substantiated just in case there are questions.

Note: you can’t always rely on product managers to do this. They can get carried away with enthusiasm and forget about the letter of the law. “When I talk to the marketing product managers and they make a claim about a product, I say ‘How can we prove it?’ I ask the questions I know legal will want to ask.”

If the claim is a bit tenuous or hard-to-prove, Keene focuses his copy on another benefit or offer instead, if possible. Why invite trouble?

Tactic #2. Never argue with legal

“Never argue with legal — they live to argue,” advises Keene. Lawyers will get drawn into an argument for the sake of arguing alone, thrilled to working out why they are right and you are wrong.

You need to stop their brains from racing down that rabbit hole when they talk to you. Instead of discussing right and wrong, discuss options and/or ask them for a percentage of worry.

(A percentage of worry is what’s the reality-based likelihood this will be a problem? Often lawyers will spot potential problems but not define how worrisome the problem is. They want to shield you from *everything*.)

Tactic #3. Don’t rely on email alone — talk to legal in person

“Lawyers love to write. They’re trained to be argumentative when they write, that’s their job. They love to send emails back and forth. I avoid getting into long email discussions,” says Keene.

“If I get an email indicating there’s an issue, I walk up and sit down in their offices and talk it out. It’s so funny — lawyers can get so aggressive by email but if I pick up the phone and say ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ they can be easy as pie to get along with.”

One final tip: Although Keene is proud to get along fairly well with GE Healthcare’s legal department, he notes, “I don’t let them give me marketing advice.”

Rah tiger!

Sponsor: New! Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
MarketingSherpa’s new Search Benchmark helps you compare your results & budget to the norm. 210 charts include:

– Typical Cost Per Click & Click Rates – Conversion rates for B-to-B, B-to-C, & Ecommerce – What your competitors are budgeting for search – Do agencies get better results than in-house marketers? – SEO (Optimization) vs PPC campaign data

+ 3,271 marketers’ real-life 2005 search campaign data: http://SEMGuideWeekly.MarketingSherpa.com Or call 877-895-1717
~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Congratulations,” I told June Holaday our marketing projects manager. “You’re now our official Keeper of the Words.”

She replied, “Ok great. What the heck does that mean?”

Internet marketing has begun to make me incredibly aware of the importance of *exact verbiage*. As a former copywriter, I always knew words were important — but when you see big response variances from seemingly tiny copy changes in email subject lines, search keyword choices, landing page headlines … it shakes you.

As one marketer told me recently, “I learned ‘Bike’ and ‘Bicycle’ are not interchangeable words, even though they mean the same thing. One works a lot better than the other in copy depending on the situation.”

Which precise words work best for your market is a moving target. The staff at iVillage have held a meeting every week for three years now to dissect which words are working for them. They track:

— Words frequently used by visitors on message boards — Phrasing of unusually high and low-clicked text-links — Copy tests in sponsors ads — Subject lines for emails — Internal site search terms most used — Search engine terms used to reach iVillage

However, in the normal course of our own marketing department’s day, there’s no time to thoughtfully review wording. We’ve got newsletters, ads, flyers, on-site site promos, search campaigns, SEO meta tagging, email, postcards, and a whole bunch of other campaigns to get out the door … quickly before deadline!

It’s remarkably (sadly) easy to slam some copy up based on what you’re pretty sure is working and keep moving. That’s why I gave June her new formal assignment, Keeper of the Words. And yes, I’m taking some other work off her plate so she has the time to really do it properly. Every month from now on she’ll present an iVillage-style report to all of us here who write anything seen by the public.

We’ll discover what exact words are working for SEO, paid search ads, email subject lines, etc., etc. We’ll also learn what words you guys use when you answer open-ended items in editorial questionnaires, talk to customer service, or email us feedback.

I’d like to suggest you start a similar position in your own marketing department. The key is, unlike traditional brand marketers who set strict rules and regs about wording to reflect the brand’s persona, now you’re tracking words from the customer’s point of view.

That’s a profound difference. How you marry the two — stable brand messaging versus consumer-driven wording — is the next challenge.

I’m looking forward to it!

Sponsor: New! Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
MarketingSherpa’s new Search Benchmark helps you compare your results & budget to the norm. 210 charts include:

– Typical Cost Per Click & Click Rates – Conversion rates for B-to-B, B-to-C, & Ecommerce – What your competitors are budgeting for search – Do agencies get better results than in-house marketers? – SEO (Optimization) vs PPC campaign data

+ 3,271 marketers’ real-life 2005 search campaign data: http://SEMGuideWeekly.MarketingSherpa.com Or call 877-895-1717
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whoa — you know people are passionate about an award when they start sending in their nominations even before we’ve made the announcement.

So, for everyone’s who’s been bugging us via email and phone, as well as the rest of you who either read or write an outstanding Blog on marketing, ads, or PR, we’ve opened up the nominations form for MarketingSherpa’s Best Blog Awards:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=83271011576

Quick notes to answer your questions:

o Nominations are complimentary & anyone can nominate a Blog

o Blogs must:
– Be on the topic of marketing, ads, and/or PR
– Been around prior to Dec 31st 2004
– Be regularly updated (weekly at min.)

o Prizes include hotlinks, traffic, fame, glory, and a coffee mug

Want to see who won last year? Here’s the list:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2729
(Open access)

Also, here’s that 2005 nominations form link again… yes, you can share it with anyone who you think might be interested:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=83271011576

In online marketing it’s the little dinky details that can make or break your campaign’s incremental success.

You work hard on offer, creative, media buys, etc…. and then a tiny tech detail can depress results. Example: do you specify all your campaign hotlinks open a New Window?

Unless specified, most hotlinks will just take over an existing window your recipient has open. As MarketingSherpa reader Steve Hardman of SeniorMag.com notes, this can be so annoying for the recipient that it hurts your relationship.

Steve wrote me to say, “I wanted to thank you for one incredibly decent thing you guys do that many other newsletters do not. Your newsletter links open to a _blank target.

“It probably doesn’t seem like much, and offering a thanks might seem silly. But when you have multiple windows open as I always do, it is aggravating when a newsletter link takes over an open window that I didn’t intend it to. I may be in the process of updating content or posting through that window, so when a newsletter link takes over, it is annoying to be taken away from that. As a result, I often wait until later to click on a link and ultimately end up not doing so. I know I can always trust your newsletters.”

Admission — until I got Steve’s note, I had no idea we were doing this thoughtful thing. Turns out Holly Hicks on our email production team came up with the idea. (Go Holly!)

You may want to check with your email team to make sure this is how they are coding your newsletters and campaigns too.

In online marketing it’s the little dinky details that can make or break your campaign’s incremental success.

You work hard on offer, creative, media buys, etc. and then a tiny tech detail can depress results. Example: do you specify all your campaign hotlinks open a New Window?

Unless specified, most hotlinks will just take over an existing window your recipient has open. As MarketingSherpa reader Steve Hardman of SeniorMag.com notes, this can be so annoying for the recipient that it hurts your relationship.

Steve wrote me to say, “I wanted to thank you for one incredibly decent thing you guys do that many other newsletters do not. Your newsletter links open to a blank target.

“It probably doesn’t seem like much, and offering a thanks might seem silly. But when you have multiple windows open as I always do, it is aggravating when a newsletter link takes over an open window that I didn’t intend it to. I may be in the process of updating content or posting through that window, so when a newsletter link takes over, it is annoying to be taken away from that. As a result, I often wait until later to click on a link and ultimately end up not doing so. I know I can always trust your newsletters.”

Admission: Until I got Steve’s note, I had no idea we were doing this thoughtful thing. Turns out Holly Hicks on our email production team came up with the idea. (Go Holly!)

You may want to check with your email team to make sure this is how they are coding your newsletters and campaigns, too.

Sponsor: New! Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
MarketingSherpa’s new Search Benchmark helps you compare your results & budget to the norm. 210 charts include:

– Typical Cost Per Click & Click Rates – Conversion rates for B-to-B, B-to-C, & Ecommerce – What your competitors are budgeting for search – Do agencies get better results than in-house marketers? – SEO (Optimization) vs PPC campaign data

+ 3,271 marketers’ real-life 2005 search campaign data: http://SEMGuideWeekly.MarketingSherpa.com Or call 877-895-1717
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think you’ve got a tough job? I’d like to introduce you to a personal hero of mine — Carl Hutzler.

For almost eight years he’s been director of AntiSpam Operations for AOL. He’s been unfailingly pleasant and helpful to the hordes of upset and demanding people constantly barraging his department with questions.

— AOL users who want less junk email
— Other ISPs who want zero junk sent “from” AOL users
— ISPs seeking to copy AOL’s anti-junk practices
— Permission-based emailers fretting about filters
— Reporters covering all of the above

Last Friday (April 1st) Carl moved to a new job in AOL’s Host Mail Development team. He explains, “This is the side of the house that does the design and engineering of our email system and includes the developers who make the magic happen (on the server side).”

Given that Google’s Gmail just upped the ante in the fierce competition for masses of email accounts by doubling account storage space, Carl’s new job will be anything but a vacation on easy street.

Please join me in wishing him best. His hard work over the past eight years has touched all our lives even though you probably never heard of him. Carl deserves a round of applause.

MarketingSherpa reader Britt Hult of EF Education wrote me from her office in Hong Kong in response to the Case Study we just published on VistaPrint (see below).

Turns out her company also tests VistaPrint’s idea of using a translated version of their standard template for each country versus very different Web design for each country.

She said, “We manage a Web site that has a standard template for worldwide use and about 40 different localized country versions.

One of the most time consuming conversations in the company is the extent to which the look & feel of this template is appropriate for each local market, with country managers always claiming that the site needs to have a more local look & feel.

This is despite the fact that we have standardized our offline brochure design worldwide for years. The only country we have tested this on is Korea, where we implemented a ‘Korean’ looking homepage to appease the country manager, and found it had no impact on conversion.”

Britt is going to share the VistaPrint results with her team to see if it helps build internal consensus. In the meantime, she asked that we write more Case Studies on international marketing.

So, if you’re marketing outside the US and have fascinating test results to share, please do let me know! Maybe you’ll appear in a MarketingSherpa feature story….

P.S. Here’s that VistaPrint story mentioned above:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2943

MarketingSherpa reader Britt Hult of EF Education wrote me from her office in Hong Kong in response to the Case Study we published on VistaPrint (see below).

Turns out her company also tests VistaPrint’s idea of using a translated version of their standard template for each country versus very different Web design for each country.

She said, “We manage a Web site that has a standard template for worldwide use and about 40 different localized country versions.

“One of the most time-consuming conversations in the company is the extent to which the look and feel of this template is appropriate for each local market, with country managers always claiming that the site needs to have a more local look and feel.

This is despite the fact that we have standardized our offline brochure design worldwide for years. The only country we have tested this on is Korea, where we implemented a ‘Korean’-looking homepage to appease the country manager and found it had no impact on conversion.”

Britt is going to share the VistaPrint results with her team to see if it helps build internal consensus. In the meantime, she asked that we write more Case Studies on international marketing.

So, if you’re marketing outside the US and have fascinating test results to share, please do let me know! Maybe you’ll appear in a MarketingSherpa feature story.

P.S. Here’s that VistaPrint story mentioned above: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2943

Next Sunday at 6pm ET, The Biography Channel will be airing their special on Google. Ray Allen, CEO American Meadows, who is the officially profiled AdWords client on Google’s site, told me Biography sent a video crew out to interview him for the show.

I asked him what made his campaigns so successful beyond the fact that he relentlessly measures conversion rates and ROI.

“Copywriting is my big thing. I’ve been doing it since the beginning of time,” he said. “Everybody talks about ad rank. They don’t talk about the words. If your ad is at #1 or #2 and it says ‘Wildflower Seeds’, I’m going to kill you by saying ‘Wildflower Seeds on Sale’. It doesn’t matter if you’re #1, if the guy at #3 is a copywriter, he’s killing you.”

His advice for hiring creatives to conduct search campaigns for you — get a copywriter with an old fashioned mail order background. Someone who has years of writing high-impact copy that grabs the sale in 10-12 words.

Another note….

You may have noticed that normally I never recommend any agency, vendor or consultant because I don’t think it’s fair to everyone else. But a friend of Sherpa just got laid off, and I think he’s so wonderful that I can’t help but give him a quick mention.

His name is Thom Pharmakis and we profiled his work in our past Case Study on Land’s End’s exceptional email newsletter copywriting. Now, he’s one of hundreds let go since Sears acquired Land’s End.

Thom loves Wisconsin (and often rhapsodized about the area in the Land’s End newsletter) but he figures the chances of landing a new full-time newsletter job there are fairly slim. So he’s decided to become a copywriter-for-hire and is hoping to land a few clients looking for great newsletters.

If you’re interested, Thom can send you a link to some clips:
thompharmakis@yahoo.com

Sponsor: New! Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2006
~~~~~~~~~~~~
MarketingSherpa’s new Search Benchmark helps you compare your
results & budget to the norm. 210 charts include:

– Typical Cost Per Click & Click Rates
– Conversion rates for B-to-B, B-to-C, & Ecommerce
– What your competitors are budgeting for search
– Do agencies get better results than in-house marketers?
– SEO (Optimization) vs PPC campaign data

+ 3,271 marketers’ real-life 2005 search campaign data:
http://SEMGuideWeekly.MarketingSherpa.com
Or call 877-895-1717
~~~~~~~~~~~~