iMediaRants

Here is the PDF of my recent presentation at the Annual AMA Career Day. Thanks again for both your time and attention.
Enjoy!

AMA Career Day Presentation

When it comes to engagement planning I guess you could say (for most companies) that “Elvis has left the building”. Take a look at the below engagement methodology (outline) and let me know the next time you see ELVIS.

E - Engage, L – Listen + Learn, V – Visualize, I – Innovate, S – Socialize

Brandon Murphy @ 22squared related this (ELVIS) methodology in the following way…

Just as Elvis reinvented rock music with his swaying hips and rockin beats, the world of marketing is being reinvented too.  Let’s take Elvis’ lead…

Effort and Experimentation
Elvis didn’t reinvent music by accident.  Like many artists, he poured his heart and soul into it, perfecting his style and music along the way.  To better engage customers, we have to do the same thing.  It’s much more effort, because there are so many ways to engage customers.  Conducting measured experiments constantly is the only ways marketers can keep up.

Live and Learn
We should learn from everything we do, and we should live everything we learn.  That not only means acting on our successes and failures, but seeking to provide things to consumers that enable the life they want to live, learn what they want to learn, be who they want to be. Engagement isn’t communicating, it’s providing people with value through communication.

Vet and Vent
Invite customers into the development process.  The more they feel involved in designing something (product, communication, content…) the more they’ll propagate it with others.  Let them vent, add, adjust and carry on among each other.  Enlist your most loyal customers into your marketing R&D efforts.

Invent Interactions
Sometimes taking advantage of an existing medium or channel isn’t enough.  Sometimes we have to invent new ways to create meaningful interactions with and among people.  That could mean using a combination of channels in a new way, or inventing a new channel all on its own.

Socialize and Serve
After experimenting, living, learning, vetting and inventing, it’s time to let customers propagate your product, message or content. Giving people some type of social currency, valued content or helpful utility can be the best way to encourage them to share with others. Every launch should be socialized before it’s broadcasted.

As soon as your client mentions that one of the primary campaign goals is to generate leads (drive response) things get interesting fast! Wikipedia defines lead generation in the following way …

“Lead generation is a marketing term that refers to the creation or generation of prospective consumer interest or inquiry into a business’ products or services”.

That said the definition of a “lead” can vary by client (i.e. filling out a (newsletter) registration form, purchase a product or a service (hotel, airfare), download a white paper, view a podcast).

Q: What makes a lead generation campaign successful?
A: Math! (…and great media planners)

Math is the reason why CPM buys normally aren’t considered when your primary goal is to drive leads or conversions. $30 CPM @ 0.15% CTR = High cost, low traffic, lots of media Waste and few if any conversions. CPM may not be your first choice when planning a response driven campaign however CPM is still very effective when brand and category awareness are your objectives.

This question does have a short answer… NEITHER! Collaborative concepting is the key to online planning success. The earlier everyone can get in the same room and discuss campaign goals, objectives and brainstorm on all possible tactics you’ll find you end up with both bigger ideas and bigger budgets to work with.

For this question there is no short answer, there are many things that can affect your CTR. The following is in no specific order…
- Targeting: Generally the more targeted your campaign is the better the performance. If your campaign becomes too targeted across multiple geo/demo segments you risk advertising to a very limited audience. And remember to test different creative some ads may appeal to different audiences.

- Message and or Offer: Interactive ad copy is VERY different from traditional ad copy. Interactive copy is much more inline with a DM approach to writing copy, relevant, brief, and clear (specific or broad) call-to-action. Note: a broad call-to action will deliver more clicks but lower conversion rates.

- Placement + Ad Size: Ads served above the fold get higher CTR…most of the time. Ads that serve above the main navigation (low contextual placement) most often the 728×90 ad size is the victim of “banner blindness”. This is when users commonly skip over the ad as if they don’t even see it even though its positioned well above the fold in clear view. DoubleClick chart entitled “Larger Ad Units Generate Higher Click Rates”. The chart revels that the half page ad (300×600) delivers a 700% higher CTR than that of a full size (468×60) banner size. The next two notable ad unit sizes are the medium and large rectangle sizes (300×250 and 336×280).

- Day Parting + Frequency: Both are great ways to stretch a small-medium budget. Day parting allows you to maximize your reach by selecting certain time(s) of the day to serve your ad.