Impatience is a Virtue

JULY 16, 2010

You’re told a lot of things when you’re young that you just sort of accept as true. Perhaps the most obvious of these falsehoods is that a magical fairy sneaks into your bedroom after you’ve fallen asleep and swaps out your baby teeth with money. Sure you have your doubts upon hearing this legend, but without knowing the black market value of children’s teeth or seeing the winged tooth peddler in person, you’re left to pretty much just trust that this is how you woke up with a buck under your pillow.

Another of these unquestioned life lessons is the notion that good things come to those who wait. You’re told this in many different ways (some that even rhyme), and as a quixotic young’n, you take it in stride. And so you wait. Patiently. Quietly. Holding on to your Pacman ghost-shaped ticket until your number is called and you can approach the counter and order your deli meats. This virtuous patience is not necessarily a bad thing either. It maintains order and keeps people calm and orderly when stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic or awaiting a 120 second ride on Splash Mountain. In fact, the only real drawback with telling people to be patient, is that it completely contradicts human nature. In our heart of hearts, we want things fast and now. We want same day delivery, instant rebates, and movies on demand. Everything needs to be at hand, easy and delivered at lightning speeds. More often than not, we repress this nagging desire when in public in the interest of playing well with others, but there are certain times when we just let the impatient tiger out of the cage.

One of these instances is when we’re sitting in front of our computers. Whether it be Googling recipes, ordering sneakers or watching a YouTube clip our tolerance for delays goes right out the browser window. The simple fact is that when people browse the Internet they are allowing their primal instincts to run wild and their consciousness to stream. Their searches come from the gut and are rooted in raw selfish desire to buy, play, engage and learn. They don’t want to be told to wait or that your awesome flash site is “Loading 45%.” They want what they want now, and if you cant offer that, then they’ll perform a search for someone else who can.

This is not to say that there is no room for flash or any other fanciful means of presenting information on the web. Rather it is to suggest that companies need to be selective with when they decide to offer their content in the indirect, pretty way vs. the straightforward, get ‘er done way. They need to take a good hard look at their target visitor and determine what content these people will wait for and what they want right away. It’s a deceivingly trying decision, but when you’re ready to take it on, it’s time for you to Meet Jane.

Don’t Sweat The Numbers

JUNE 9, 2010

Mark Twain, or maybe it was Mark McGwire, was once famously quoted as saying, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” This adage is of particular importance when referring to home run records during baseball’s infamous steroids era and social media. In both of these arenas, its easy to get distracted by the flashy numbers; the bold, beautiful, gaudy digits that when taken at face value are indicators of wild success. Yet, when the surface is scratched and the congressional hearings come to a close, these statistical facts are often revealed to be the damnedest of lies.

Allow us to explain: when evaluating a company’s relative success on Facebook or Twitter, the easiest thing to do is look at the big, busty numbers on the page and say they are doing a good job or a bad job. For instance, if Company A has 17 fans, and 8 of the 17 are employees and/or relatives of employees, it’s easy to assume they are doing a poor job with their social media. Similarly, if you look at the fan page of Company B and they need scientific notation just to fit all the digits of their fan count on one page, it’s rather easy to jump to the conclusion that they are doing a good job with their social media. These assumptions are the source of unbridled jealousy and raw envy felt in conference rooms around the world, and just like seeing 70 home runs hit in a season, can be extremely misleading indicators of aptitude.

The number of fans, followers, subscribers, friends, buddies, viewers, contacts, comrades, amigos and any others social network statistic that you may come across on the Internet are only as valuable as they are effective. Sure, Company B might have millions of fans on Facebook, but that doesn’t do much for them if all their fans are single, elderly men in Wisconsin and they are a manufacturer of silk kimonos. The point is that it’s not enough to just have a lot of fans; you need to have a lot of the right fans. This fact is something that can’t be determined by just looking at the big numbers on the screen. You need to go a bit deeper to know the truth.

So when it comes to social media, keep in mind that size doesn’t matter. It doesn’t hurt, but it also shouldn’t be the goal of your marketing efforts. Amassing fans or followers for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses or Coca-Colas, is a foolish pursuit and a waste of good competitive energy. If you really want to set an ambitious goal for your company, aspire to have a ton of the right fans. Make sure there is not one person who falls in your target demographic and who owns a computer, who isn’t a fan. Make your fan page something so cool, intriguing, interesting, rewarding and/or compelling that they’re willing to sign up for Facebook just to become a fan. This is clearly a challenging pursuit that should probably be left to the experts, so when you’re ready to get a whole lot more of the right fans for your business, go ahead and Meet Jane.

Email Marketing – A Dying Animal?

JANUARY 15, 2010

As we enter a new year, dare we say decade, it’s fun to look back on a simpler time. The year was 1999 and the Internet bubble was so large you could build an underwater city in it. We bought our dog food from Pets.com (God love that sock puppet) and downloaded our music (illegally?) from Napster. It was a glorious time and companies, huffing the fumes in the bubble, started realizing that this series of tubes, known as the Internet, may be more then a fad. So in a stroke of edgy genius, they instructed their cashiers to ask shoppers if they’d like to subscribe to their email list. Shoppers, just proud that they had an email address, which more likely than not ended in @aol.com, gladly forked over this piece of personal information, viewing their inbox as nothing more than a hub for receiving discounts and forwarding chain e-mails. As a result, these companies developed massive subscriber lists and a quick, effective and extremely cost-efficient way to communicate with their shoppers. Thus, the practice of email marketing was born.

3 years later, the bubble burst, taking that adorable sock puppet along with it, but in the process we all got a little bit smarter. We learned not only that you couldn’t just slap .com on the end of a bad business idea and make it a gold mine, but also that our email was more than just a way to send e-cards. As time passed, and boy bands went further and further out of style, email only became more important in our lives. Flash forward to today when email is the most important communication tool available. It is the way we send invoices and the way we hear about newborn babies. We email someone before we call them and our fax machines are just collecting dust in the back office.

Fact is, our email account is the communication nucleus of our lives. Yet, as the importance of email in our daily lives grows, our tolerance for emails that don’t directly affect our daily lives shrinks. The last thing many of us want to see when we’re waiting to see if a client has approved our latest (groundbreaking) proposal, is that we can save 15% on khakis. We, the consumer, have learned how valuable our email address is and as such, don’t wan’t to give it out to just anyone.

This being said, email marketing remains the most effective communication tool at the disposal of brands today. It is nearly a matter of fact that when a company sends out an email to their subscriber list that they will see a bump in sales on the day it is delivered. But, a closer look at the stats will also reveal that as much as 3% of those recipients reached their boiling point, and chose to unsubscribe from the mailing list, sending a message to the company that my email address is worth more than 2-for-1 tube socks. So the question is, will these 3% chunks eventually lead to a 100% whole? Will email addresses become more valuable than email marketing? Are Facebook and Twitter the future of brand communications, or is there something else out there that will make us all laugh like when we look back on 1999? These are the hard questions, but if you’d like a little help finding the answer, come Meet Jane.

Fight Night: Facebook Ads Vs. Google AdWords

DECEMBER 11, 2009

When it comes to strategizing online media campaigns, it’s easy to fall in love with Facebook. The blue-bordered behemoth not only gets more traffic than a Chinese super highway, it lets us, the lovable advertisers of the world, target our ads in ways previously thought impossible. By knowing the age, gender, location, school, work place, sexual preference and interests of all its 3 gagillion+ users, Facebook lets you craft ads that walk right into your demographic’s house and put their feet up on the dining room table. So that’s it, right? Facebook ads are the greatest ads ever and they can beat up your ads. Well, not exactly.

The defense calls to the stand Google AdWords. Google AdWords are another form of cost-per-click (CPC) ad unit only they operate a bit differently than Facebook. Rather than appearing to only select users who fit a mold, they are only shown when users Google, or search to the laymen, for select terms. This means that as a BBQ sauce company, I can choose to only show my ads to people who are looking for “delicious ribs” or “creepy ways to spend a Saturday night with your dog.” So how does this advertising model stack up against Facebook?

The answer is simply a question of stated versus actual interest. Here’s an example: let’s say you are secretly obsessed with show tunes, but as the captain of the football team, you’d rather be beaten with a sack of rusty nickels than have that information get out. So you do everything in your power to keep this private infatuation on the low, which certainly includes not posting “Hello Dolly” as your Favorite Music on your Facebook profile. However, when it’s late and nobody is home, you may find yourself googling the lyrics to “Oklahoma.” As a distributor of show tune karaoke CD’s, we’d have no idea that you were an interested consumer if we advertised solely on Facebook. Google on the other hand would basically give us the keys to your car.

The point is that while Facebook presents companies with an unparalleled opportunity to target media, it doesn’t necessarily reach all of your brand’s potential consumers. However, the same can be said for Google AdWords. So ultimately it can be concluded that if you are planning on running a targeted and cost-efficient advertising campaign, the key is run both a SEM and social network campaign. Sound complex? It is. Which is exactly why if you want to do this you should Meet Jane first.

The Myth of Viral Marketing

DECEMBER 1, 2009

It’s hard to be sure when the first time someone used the term “viral” to describe a campaign that spread through online networks or word of mouth actually was, but all scientific estimates have it falling shortly after the Paleolithic era in a time known as the late 90’s. The internet was proving itself as more than just a passing fad and businesses, fat with surplus, were eager to find the next best thing. It was at this time when the business school buzz word worked its way into more board rooms than pitchers of water.

Goatee-sporting executives, mildly buzzing from their wheatgrass smoothie with immune boost, would quizzically challenge the room “Yes, I like the concept, but how do we make it viral?” Silence would inevitably follow. Thus, began the near decade long hunt for “virality.” Every brand didn’t just want a marketing campaign; they wanted a viral marketing campaign. Everything needed a share button and a way for it to be emailed to your friends. Virality had become the white whale of the marketing world.

Today, the question of how to make something viral still burns in boardrooms around the world with companies doing everything but kill their first born to answer it. The answer, in fact, is rather simple: make it awesome. Putting people in a place to share something and giving them an easy button to share it, doesn’t make them any more inclined to tell their friends about it. People will only share something they consider awesome. Plain and simple.

When someone shares something, they are staking their reputation on the content they’re sharing. The delivered media becomes more a reflection of the person who shared it than the brand who created it. Nobody wants to be the guy who shared this. They want to be the guy who showed you something so incredible, you can’t wait to forward it on to your other friends so that you can take full credit for “finding it.” True virality is achieved only with an unparalleled wow factor that makes pants wet and jaws drop. This can’t be achieved simply by putting something on Facebook or Twitter. It can only be reached by demonstrating a level of creativity, previously thought unattainable. When you eventually get to that level, you’ll Meet Jane.

Welcome to The World of Jane

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

The communications industry is changing. Goldfish-like attention spans and octopussian multitasking have done to the paid advertising world what video did to the radio star. Million dollar television commercials are being fast-forwarded through, full page print ads are collecting dust on the racks of newsstands and radio jingles, which were always annoying, are now irritating just the small fraction of the population without an iPod or satellite radio. Yes, it is a brave new world we live in. Today’s consumers don’t have time to know what they’re too busy doing and if you want to tell them something you better do it in under 140 characters.

As a company trying to reach these consumers, you have two options. The first is denial (our personal favorite). You can maintain false hope in the old guard of advertising, insisting that it’s the creative that is faltering and not the medium itself, and bounce from agency to agency trying to “fix the problem.”

The second is adapt. Realize that the world is changing and that if you are going to get noticed you need to develop innovative and compelling campaigns that resonate with today’s consumer. You need to figure out that people no longer just give their attention to a campaign and that if a campaign wants their attention it needs to go out and grab it with strategic placements, edgy creativity and genuine communications. These are your options, and when you realize that the only acceptable one is option #2, we’ll be waiting.