MarketingSherpa Blog

When browsing the Web today, I came across a report of a mobile marketing campaign by a luxury auto brand—not unlike the mobile case study from BMW we published in our B2C newsletter today. Mobile Marketing Magazine covered the campaign well last year, and I want to pass along a few choice bits from their report.

Jaguar Cars created a WAP site in 2007 to promote its new luxury car, the Jaguar XF. The site included:
– Images of the car
– High- and low-res videos
– Downloadable wallpapers
– Jaguar dealer locator
– Email submission form to request a brochure
– Performance stats, innovation info
– Quotes from the press

The site was launched in November to coincide with the Los Angeles Motor show, and was promoted solely through mobile banner ads on sites such as MSN Mobile and Yahoo! Mobile. The ads generated:
– Over 15 million ad impressions
– Over 85,000 UVs to the WAP site
– About a .6% CTR

Results seen on the WAP site include:
– 12,000 video downloads
– 16,000 wallpaper downloads
– Users clicking beyond the homepage stayed for about 2 minutes, 12 seconds, on average
– 1.2% of users submitted their email address for a brochure
– 2.6% of users located their nearest dealer

BMW and Jaguar are not the only auto brands dabbling in the mobile space. A San Diego-based Cadillac dealership ran an SMS campaign in January, and Kia launched a mobile site last year to promote its car Soul. It looks as if high performance, luxury auto brands–brands consumers associate with cutting edge innovation–are delivering campaigns in one of the newest, fastest growing platforms.

About a month ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Tamara Adlin about best practices in improving users’ ecommerce experiences.

She was speaking at Etail West 2009 in Phoenix and I wanted get her insight since she’s been in the field for the past 18 years. She created the Customer Experience services team at Amazon.com.

Here were her Top 3 Tips for Enhancing Users’ Ecommerce Experiences:

Tip #1. Display differentiators and value propositions on the homepage

Adlin says 99% of the sites she sees fail to apply this simple rule. It’s as easy as constructing a simple statement, or bullet points, or a general voice that relays: Welcome. Here’s who we are. Here’s what we sell. Here’s how we’re different. Here’s why you should care. Here’s what you should do.

Tip #2. Look at the site from end-to-end

Companies should get into the habit of clicking through their site every day. Go to the site, click on the sale or promotion creative. Where does it take you? How can you make that process make more sense for the user? How can you give them exactly what they want?

Tip #3. Customer service is the key

Don’t slack on customer service efficiencies. If a customer says the product doesn’t work, invest in a proactive customer service department that offers to expedite a new product immediately. The positive word-of-mouth garnered from that simple gesture is worth thousands of marketing dollars.

When times are tight, every marketing campaign and employee’s performance is checked. And when you’re holding the budget axe, everything can look like a tree. But try to stifle your inner lumberjack. A few tweaks can turn a busted campaign into a boon, and a few suggestions can turn a struggling worker into a solid performer.

I talked with Kelley Quain Troia, Senior Director, Marketing Operations, Wal-Mart, earlier this month about accountability in marketing. She described a few of the challenges to setting up a smooth accountability system.

Later in the conversation, we touched on what marketers and managers should do when campaigns or people aren’t meeting expectations. The immediate reaction may be to swing the axe, but Troia says you should first look for something that could be holding back the under-performer.

For campaigns that aren’t meeting set KPIs, try a few tweaks in the copy. Or look for underlying infrastructure problems, such as poorly rendering emails or a dysfunctional landing page.

For struggling employees, sometimes a few suggestions or even peer pressure can help, Troia says.

“You can use the pressure of others to help raise the bar with folks that might not be meeting their KPIs. And it’s not always saying ‘why can’t you be more like this person?’ But it’s trying to gently push them. ‘Here’s what these guys are up to. You might want to leverage some of the ways that they’re working to help get yourself at their level.’”

You can also encourage collaboration between strong teams and weaker teams to help bring them up to speed, Troia says.

Confusion in the organization–such as a disjointed hierarchy or poor reporting methods–can also hold people back. Be sure to take a second look at a person or campaign’s situation before letting the axe fall.

Eric Anderson, VP of Emerging Media at White Horse,  made some interesting points about what social media metrics marketers should and should not be measuring based on what he sees going on in the marketplace.

Here are some pointers I gleaned from his webinar, “The Only 3 Social Media Metrics That Matter:”

1. Don’t over quantify

Tools that measure social media are taking a cue from the web analytics industry. The problem is a company’s true social media presence is far too nuanced to be captured by measurement software.

2. Don’t focus on direct response

Marketers shouldn’t be looking at direct response actions that can be driven from social media. It destroys the real potential of social media. The purpose should be engaging with people in places they like to be, not turning them off by trying to make them go somewhere else.

3. Don’t freak out about ROI

He doesn’t mean don’t measure ROI. Marketers need to acknowledge that the ROI is much more complicated than anything that can be measured, Anderson says.

It’s important to recognize that social media – when considered a component of marketing – is so relatively inexpensive that it does not require the ROI metric.

So, what does he think is the right kind of metric for social media? Impressions!

Pretend that each social media interaction is an impression.

If measured that way, it could tell you: Will this program extend my message to more people than if I didn’t engage? If I add a social media component to my campaign will it add more impressions than if I did not?

Whenever a new technology or channel emerges on the marketing landscape, debate inevitably follows over its impact on traditional tactics. Not surprisingly, the rise of social media marketing has sparked questions over whether these channels will diminish the importance of email as a means to reach customers and prospects.

I recently raised the topic with Sergio Balegno, one of MarketingSherpa’s senior analysts and the author of our 2009 Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide. Sergio also moderated a panel discussion on Tuesday, March 17, at Sherpa’s Email Marketing Summit, titled “Long Live Email: Enabling the Continued Success of Social Marketing.”

Here’s his take on the issue:

Read more…

Reworking your business and marketing to better fit your customers’ needs is generally wise–and it looks like Wal-Mart is testing how to better serve Hispanic customers in two markets.

The largest U.S. retailer plans to open two Hispanic-focused supermarkets this summer, dubbed Supermercados de Walmart. The stores will be in Hispanic neighborhoods in Phoenix and Houston. They will have different products, layouts and a bi-lingual staff.

The U.S. Hispanic population has grown by 20% over the last four years, according to a free report from Experian. Some other tidbits from the report:

Read more…

Dan Heimbrock, President and CEO, HyperDrive Interactive, had so many great examples to share about how word-of-mouth and email marketing can work together to create brand advocates that I couldn’t help sharing one.

Heimbrock is presenting a case study at MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Email Marketing Summit, March 15-17, and I had the opportunity to interview him last week about the topic.

He says often the only incentive that people need to become brand advocates is an opportunity to belong to something they care about.

Read more…

The database marketing agency Merkle released their 2009 ‘View from the Inbox’ email marketing report last week. The survey, conducted on behalf of Merkle by Harris Interactive, surveyed 2,505 U.S. adults who check or send email at least once a week.

Judging from the report’s highlights, it looks like consumers are more skeptical and demanding of messages hitting the in-box. However, they’re willing to receive email from a slightly greater number of companies. The report is free if you share your email address.

Here are a few findings:

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Is there a way to measure the ROI of social media?

I ask this question all the time and rarely get a concrete answer because it’s just one of those tactics that’s difficult to measure.

Research from MarketingSherpa’s new Social Media Marketing & PR Benchmark Guide suggests that 43% of marketers rank the inability to measure ROI the most significant barrier to social media adoption.

I still don’t have the answer, but here’s one example of a way social media can impact an Internet marketing campaign:

Read more…

Third-party shopping comparison sites such as Shopping.com and Shopzilla can get products to consumers who aren’t visiting brands’ sites directly. However, these sites pose challenges: they have different audiences, data requirements, bidding requirements, and capabilities.

Mercent, a Seattle-based company founded by former Amazon execs, has built a platform to help marketers sell across a range of third-party sites. I chatted last week with Mercent CEO Eric Best and several marketers from specialty retailer Brookstone.

Read more…