I am writing on a new blog as part of joining Livemocha as the VP of Marketing & Product. Livemocha is now the world's leading online language learning community, with free online lessons and hundreds of thousands of members from over 200 countries that help each other learn a new language. You can:
learn english
learn spanish
learn french
learn mandarin and many more - for free!
I am posting now on our Livemocha community blog, which is now acting as my Clint Schmidt Internet Marketing blog as well.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Coupon Crack: how to avoid dependency on discounts to grow your business
Although I my expertise is strongest in Internet marketing, this little lesson is applicable even to businesses that have no Internet presence at all. It's the story of Coupon Crack, how you get hooked, and why you should avoid it.
Back in 1999, I was leading customer acquisition at Half.com, an e-commerce marketplace where users could buy and sell new and used books, movies, CDs, and video games at a fixed price. Our customer value proposition was driven by price and breadth of inventory, and our success rested on our appeal to price-sensitive users and the quality of our site, which removed friction from person-to-person transactions.
To attract new customers and keep existing customers active, we employed a wide variety of discounts, usually in the form of a code that was entered and redeemed at the Shopping Cart. As we continued to experiment with different offer configurations to optimize conversion and net revenue, we came to a startling conclusion.
We were addicted. To Coupon Crack.
It hit us suddenly, but developed gradually. As we fielded an array of tests, we came to know which special offers would generate the most clicks and highest conversion rate. In our quest for efficiency, we discarded those that delivered marginal conversion rate improvements. But the visit increases and conversion rate improvements were the "lure", and net revenue impact was the hook: the coupon offers that were most advantageous for customers generated the desired order volume and conversion rate, but yielded the lowest order sizes and smallest net revenue per order.
This led to a dizzying crush of analysis: acquisition cost vs. LTV, repeat order ratios for redeemers of various offers, efficacy of marketing spend with offers of each type, etc. etc. It was numbing, but the fact remained: when we needed to hit the numbers (for either new customer acquisition targets or retention revenue goals), we reached for the coupons.
And it had a terrible impact on the business.
Because it trained customers to respond to only to coupon stimulus, like capitalistic Pavlov gone wrong. And this training often began at very first stage of their relationship with the company. We reserved our most alluring coupons for new customers only (a lesson in customer coupon sensitivity we learned the hard way), and most of our online advertising depended on these offers. Then because the retention was a separate entity with their own numbers to hit, they would occasionally (and sometimes against their will) send coupons to our entire registered user base to hit an end-of-quarter number that might have otherwise been missed. This cemented the behavior pattern: if you were a Half.com customer, you started with coupons, and if you waited along enough, we'd send you another one. And you made sure to stockpile items on your wishlist so you were ready to buy when the next coupon arrived, but not likely until that event.
That's crack.
Now, bear in mind that I was only deeply familiar with the Customer LTV figures for the first 3 years of the company's existence, before the company really undertook any earnest effort to wean itself from the addiction. Eventually, the LTV might have supported such tactics as customers grew to view Half.com as the single source for all media purchase and stopped looking elsewhere (the Amazon Marketplace became a very compelling alternative as Half.com diverted focus to new categories). But weaning took time, as new customers who initiated their Half.com "relationship" with a coupon eventually came to find that that was the only coupon they'd get, and no additional coupons would be forthcoming in the company's effort to "pull revenue forward". Those customers could comfortably purchase at any time, at impulse, and be assured that they would not "miss out" on an coupon that they might have received if they'd delayed their purchase.
I could ramble on about this forever, and if there is interest in the topic, I'll be glad to go into some further detail, but I'll summarize the lesson as this: Marketing professionals MUST think like the customer, and dress themselves in customer behavior at all times. Go on record with your rationale as to why perpetual discounting is detrimental to the business, even if if helps you hits your numbers this month. You may not assuage the vibrations from the Finance wonks who are clamoring for a Money Button on the Marketing dashboard that will yield immediate revenue, but you'll spare the business a painful blood-letting of flat retention revenue until your customers' behavior is re-wired for more "organic" consumption.
Back in 1999, I was leading customer acquisition at Half.com, an e-commerce marketplace where users could buy and sell new and used books, movies, CDs, and video games at a fixed price. Our customer value proposition was driven by price and breadth of inventory, and our success rested on our appeal to price-sensitive users and the quality of our site, which removed friction from person-to-person transactions.
To attract new customers and keep existing customers active, we employed a wide variety of discounts, usually in the form of a code that was entered and redeemed at the Shopping Cart. As we continued to experiment with different offer configurations to optimize conversion and net revenue, we came to a startling conclusion.
We were addicted. To Coupon Crack.
It hit us suddenly, but developed gradually. As we fielded an array of tests, we came to know which special offers would generate the most clicks and highest conversion rate. In our quest for efficiency, we discarded those that delivered marginal conversion rate improvements. But the visit increases and conversion rate improvements were the "lure", and net revenue impact was the hook: the coupon offers that were most advantageous for customers generated the desired order volume and conversion rate, but yielded the lowest order sizes and smallest net revenue per order.
This led to a dizzying crush of analysis: acquisition cost vs. LTV, repeat order ratios for redeemers of various offers, efficacy of marketing spend with offers of each type, etc. etc. It was numbing, but the fact remained: when we needed to hit the numbers (for either new customer acquisition targets or retention revenue goals), we reached for the coupons.
And it had a terrible impact on the business.
Because it trained customers to respond to only to coupon stimulus, like capitalistic Pavlov gone wrong. And this training often began at very first stage of their relationship with the company. We reserved our most alluring coupons for new customers only (a lesson in customer coupon sensitivity we learned the hard way), and most of our online advertising depended on these offers. Then because the retention was a separate entity with their own numbers to hit, they would occasionally (and sometimes against their will) send coupons to our entire registered user base to hit an end-of-quarter number that might have otherwise been missed. This cemented the behavior pattern: if you were a Half.com customer, you started with coupons, and if you waited along enough, we'd send you another one. And you made sure to stockpile items on your wishlist so you were ready to buy when the next coupon arrived, but not likely until that event.
That's crack.
Now, bear in mind that I was only deeply familiar with the Customer LTV figures for the first 3 years of the company's existence, before the company really undertook any earnest effort to wean itself from the addiction. Eventually, the LTV might have supported such tactics as customers grew to view Half.com as the single source for all media purchase and stopped looking elsewhere (the Amazon Marketplace became a very compelling alternative as Half.com diverted focus to new categories). But weaning took time, as new customers who initiated their Half.com "relationship" with a coupon eventually came to find that that was the only coupon they'd get, and no additional coupons would be forthcoming in the company's effort to "pull revenue forward". Those customers could comfortably purchase at any time, at impulse, and be assured that they would not "miss out" on an coupon that they might have received if they'd delayed their purchase.
I could ramble on about this forever, and if there is interest in the topic, I'll be glad to go into some further detail, but I'll summarize the lesson as this: Marketing professionals MUST think like the customer, and dress themselves in customer behavior at all times. Go on record with your rationale as to why perpetual discounting is detrimental to the business, even if if helps you hits your numbers this month. You may not assuage the vibrations from the Finance wonks who are clamoring for a Money Button on the Marketing dashboard that will yield immediate revenue, but you'll spare the business a painful blood-letting of flat retention revenue until your customers' behavior is re-wired for more "organic" consumption.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Top 5 tips for engaging with bloggers
Here are my top 5 tips for marketing professionals to productively engaging with bloggers in their industry:
1) Talk to them directly. It's easy... even hobbyist bloggers like to be treated like real media professionals, which they often are, in fact. Forge an earnest relationship based on real interest and relevance. Stay engaged with the dialog; drive-by one-time glad-handers are often treated roughly later on.
2) Be honest. Sometime reporters get lazy and won't dig enough to reveal a mistruth. Bloggers thrive on that. If you conceal something or tell anything less than the truth, they will find out. If you prove to be consistently honest, you're credible. If not, you're a target.
3) Do the homework for them. Whether it's market research, margin calculations, or supply-chain/channel dynamics, don't expect the blogger to do even basic background research, unless they are looking to disprove your claims or smack you down. Blogging is appealing in part because it's fast. If writing about your company or topic requires even a few minutes of homework, it might not happen at all.
4) Know the neighborhood. It helps if you're familiar with the blogger's work and the work of peers in the same blog community. And who knows, you might learn something relevant to your business.
5) Nothing is off the record. Embargoes don't exist. Deal with it.
6) Seed the discussion, don't advocate. If you want to see posts that cover a certain topic or address a particular issue, initiate the conversation with a thought-provoking observation or two, and solicit comment. Don't ramrod a new discussion with a dissertation, or cleverly worded questions cloaked in naivety. Act like a credible professional and you'll likely be treated like one. Act like a pitchman, expect to get ignored and disliked.
1) Talk to them directly. It's easy... even hobbyist bloggers like to be treated like real media professionals, which they often are, in fact. Forge an earnest relationship based on real interest and relevance. Stay engaged with the dialog; drive-by one-time glad-handers are often treated roughly later on.
2) Be honest. Sometime reporters get lazy and won't dig enough to reveal a mistruth. Bloggers thrive on that. If you conceal something or tell anything less than the truth, they will find out. If you prove to be consistently honest, you're credible. If not, you're a target.
3) Do the homework for them. Whether it's market research, margin calculations, or supply-chain/channel dynamics, don't expect the blogger to do even basic background research, unless they are looking to disprove your claims or smack you down. Blogging is appealing in part because it's fast. If writing about your company or topic requires even a few minutes of homework, it might not happen at all.
4) Know the neighborhood. It helps if you're familiar with the blogger's work and the work of peers in the same blog community. And who knows, you might learn something relevant to your business.
5) Nothing is off the record. Embargoes don't exist. Deal with it.
6) Seed the discussion, don't advocate. If you want to see posts that cover a certain topic or address a particular issue, initiate the conversation with a thought-provoking observation or two, and solicit comment. Don't ramrod a new discussion with a dissertation, or cleverly worded questions cloaked in naivety. Act like a credible professional and you'll likely be treated like one. Act like a pitchman, expect to get ignored and disliked.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Pre-launch build-up
Zoomin.com is the 5th new business I've been a part of (3 of my own smaller companies, and Half.com), and one dynamic has remained consistent throughout: the Roller Coaster.
The Roller Coaster, described very well here by Marc Andreesen, is the grind of emotional highs and lows that you experience on a day-to-day basis in a startup. Some days you feel as though your company is destined for greatness or riches or both, and other days the anxieties about cash flow, competitors, and timelines make you feel like you're holding a 1st-Class ticket to nowhere. Zoomin.com is no different, to be honest, but when you have a solid team and a clear goal, the good days out-number the bad days.
Right now, we're close to Launch, and we're sweating the small stuff. My own mental ball of yarn is wound a little tighter, and finding a reasonable stopping point each day (work/life balance, of course) is getting more and more difficult. The stress and anxiety are finding me on the pillow, in the shower, and on my dinner plate. My wife is taking some R&R time right now, and I am not in the frame of mind to join her, even when I do step away from the laptop.
But it's a thrill.
I can't wait to see how we're received by my knowledgeable colleagues, the blogosphere of influencers and early adopters, fellow execs of other startups, the media, and most importantly, our customers. I can anticipate many of our early challenges, but nothing is as momentous as your launch day, and I'm eager to get there. Hope the anxiety levels let me get there in one piece.
Like my friend Josh Kopelman says, "you only launch once.".
Friday, June 22, 2007
An insider's case for an eBay-Yahoo merger
As of this post, eBay is worth $43.4 billion dollars. Yahoo is worth $36.9 billion dollars.
As a former eBay employee, I can say with certainty that ego flows deep and wide in the executive ranks at eBay. My sources tell me that eBay has had near-miss M&A conversations with AOL, Yahoo, and Google in years past. I was not involved in any of those discussions personally, but the walls talk, and eBay senior execs were often well-apprised of such discussions. Such intel is hard to contain amongst type-A execs for whom such inside knowledge constitutes validation of their organizational importance.
Valuation disagreements barred an AOL merger, and those talks instead yielded a multi-year "strategic" marketing partnership which turned out to be a burden on both parties. AOL sold ads on eBay for cheap, when they sold them at all. And eBay chased AOL around for years trying to extract the promised value from the vaunted AOL network with remnant banner ads and do-nothing placements while AOL focused on more lucrative CPM rates as they chased quarterly earnings targets.
A potential Yahoo merger was killed by ego. Meg would not report to former CEO Tim Koogle.
A potential Google merger was killed by ego and hubris. Meg and Rajiv did not want to be seen as having paid too high a premium for the #3 or #4 search site in 2001. Google, understanding their position of strength, would accept nothing unless than $5 billion.
So, after all of this, here we are in 2007, with Yahoo occupying what looks like a permanent post in Google's rear view mirror, and eBay feeling the pubescent pains of decelerating growth rates in the US and Europe, slow-to-mature emerging markets, and outright failure in Japan and China. Both companies inched towards a merger with a deal that effectively replaced the AOL deal (albeit with some improvements): Yahoo selling ad space on eBay, eBay paying something closer to market value for a mix of premium and second-rate placements on Yahoo properties. Yahoo shuts down Yahoo Auctions, eBay commits massive long-term paid search advertising, and the proverbial drawing of lines in the sandbox is complete.
So, what's holding up the consummation of the courtship? Ego.
Rumor has it that Semel's ego is even bigger than Meg's, and that Semel 's hand-picked lieutenants are full of "i'm smarter than you" syndrome, making them very hard to stomach in even casual conversation, let alone M&A discussions.
There's also the issue of vulnerability: neither side wants to suggest that they want the deal badly, even if it makes sense. These two companies go together so seamlessly, it's a layup, strategically speaking. But Meg will not go out as the subjugate, and will require the upper hand with regard to valuation, reporting structures, board seats, etc.
Yahoo Shopping + Shopping.com + del.icio.us = home run
eBay marketplace + Yahoo network = boost to global customer acquisition
Flickr + eBay sellers = home run
Skype + Yahoo Groups & Answers = home run
Paypal + almost anything Yahoo (IM, Flickr, Shopping, Groups, Answers, etc.) = home run
Rivals + StubHub & eBay Sports = home run (lame pun absolutely intended)
And with Terry Semel (and his ego) out of the picture, Yahoo can spin a merger as innovative, outside-the-box thinking instead of tail-between-the-legs acknowledgment that Google is kicking their ass.
This is one of those deals where the Gods of Smart Business need to strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those execs who refuse to discard their egos and do the right deal for customers and shareholders.
As a former eBay employee, I can say with certainty that ego flows deep and wide in the executive ranks at eBay. My sources tell me that eBay has had near-miss M&A conversations with AOL, Yahoo, and Google in years past. I was not involved in any of those discussions personally, but the walls talk, and eBay senior execs were often well-apprised of such discussions. Such intel is hard to contain amongst type-A execs for whom such inside knowledge constitutes validation of their organizational importance.
Valuation disagreements barred an AOL merger, and those talks instead yielded a multi-year "strategic" marketing partnership which turned out to be a burden on both parties. AOL sold ads on eBay for cheap, when they sold them at all. And eBay chased AOL around for years trying to extract the promised value from the vaunted AOL network with remnant banner ads and do-nothing placements while AOL focused on more lucrative CPM rates as they chased quarterly earnings targets.
A potential Yahoo merger was killed by ego. Meg would not report to former CEO Tim Koogle.
A potential Google merger was killed by ego and hubris. Meg and Rajiv did not want to be seen as having paid too high a premium for the #3 or #4 search site in 2001. Google, understanding their position of strength, would accept nothing unless than $5 billion.
So, after all of this, here we are in 2007, with Yahoo occupying what looks like a permanent post in Google's rear view mirror, and eBay feeling the pubescent pains of decelerating growth rates in the US and Europe, slow-to-mature emerging markets, and outright failure in Japan and China. Both companies inched towards a merger with a deal that effectively replaced the AOL deal (albeit with some improvements): Yahoo selling ad space on eBay, eBay paying something closer to market value for a mix of premium and second-rate placements on Yahoo properties. Yahoo shuts down Yahoo Auctions, eBay commits massive long-term paid search advertising, and the proverbial drawing of lines in the sandbox is complete.
So, what's holding up the consummation of the courtship? Ego.
Rumor has it that Semel's ego is even bigger than Meg's, and that Semel 's hand-picked lieutenants are full of "i'm smarter than you" syndrome, making them very hard to stomach in even casual conversation, let alone M&A discussions.
There's also the issue of vulnerability: neither side wants to suggest that they want the deal badly, even if it makes sense. These two companies go together so seamlessly, it's a layup, strategically speaking. But Meg will not go out as the subjugate, and will require the upper hand with regard to valuation, reporting structures, board seats, etc.
Yahoo Shopping + Shopping.com + del.icio.us = home run
eBay marketplace + Yahoo network = boost to global customer acquisition
Flickr + eBay sellers = home run
Skype + Yahoo Groups & Answers = home run
Paypal + almost anything Yahoo (IM, Flickr, Shopping, Groups, Answers, etc.) = home run
Rivals + StubHub & eBay Sports = home run (lame pun absolutely intended)
And with Terry Semel (and his ego) out of the picture, Yahoo can spin a merger as innovative, outside-the-box thinking instead of tail-between-the-legs acknowledgment that Google is kicking their ass.
This is one of those deals where the Gods of Smart Business need to strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those execs who refuse to discard their egos and do the right deal for customers and shareholders.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
How to Make It in the Widget Business
There has been a lot of hand-wringing in the venture community about the future of web 2.0 startups that rely on a heavily-visited social networks to be welcoming (at best) or ambivalent (at worst) for the viability of their business.
I don't find this matter difficult to sort out. It's a question of leverage.
What do social networks need? Traffic, of course, but traffic comes and goes. Talk to AOL and Yahoo about how fickle traffic can be! It has become so easy to participate in a social network, requiring only a few minutes to create a page and link to a network of friends. Where the real time is spent, where the user really invests their effort, is to tweak out the page with ego and character. Pictures, videos, voice recorders, etc that tell your visitors something about you are what you really care about.
And that's the value: user assets. When users rely on a site to store their assets and use them creatively, that site has a created a critical switching cost. If your assets don't work in the MySpace eco-system, you will be much more likely to take your assets to a more hospitable eco-system, like Bebo or Virb.
Consider how painful it is to change to a new web mail provider, or bank account, or online bookstore. Your incumbent service will remain such so long as they don't:
A) get out-innovated (like Hotmail, Yahoo search), or;
B) fail to offer broad interoperability (Lotus Notes, AOL)
The only way that networks retain some leverage is by closely regulating the kind of services and utilities that can participate in their eco-system. Utilities like Google's search index, eBay's marketplace, or Facebook's austere network can keep things tidy because content is not their business.
If content is your business, as is the case with MySpace and the drift of Yahoo, you've got to own it or have exclusive deals to deliver it. MySpace has neither, Yahoo is working on the later.
Photobucket - you're safe. Stop crying in your beer and start telling your users all of the other social networks where they can use their creative assets. You've got a switching cost in place. Now use it.
I don't find this matter difficult to sort out. It's a question of leverage.
What do social networks need? Traffic, of course, but traffic comes and goes. Talk to AOL and Yahoo about how fickle traffic can be! It has become so easy to participate in a social network, requiring only a few minutes to create a page and link to a network of friends. Where the real time is spent, where the user really invests their effort, is to tweak out the page with ego and character. Pictures, videos, voice recorders, etc that tell your visitors something about you are what you really care about.
And that's the value: user assets. When users rely on a site to store their assets and use them creatively, that site has a created a critical switching cost. If your assets don't work in the MySpace eco-system, you will be much more likely to take your assets to a more hospitable eco-system, like Bebo or Virb.
Consider how painful it is to change to a new web mail provider, or bank account, or online bookstore. Your incumbent service will remain such so long as they don't:
A) get out-innovated (like Hotmail, Yahoo search), or;
B) fail to offer broad interoperability (Lotus Notes, AOL)
The only way that networks retain some leverage is by closely regulating the kind of services and utilities that can participate in their eco-system. Utilities like Google's search index, eBay's marketplace, or Facebook's austere network can keep things tidy because content is not their business.
If content is your business, as is the case with MySpace and the drift of Yahoo, you've got to own it or have exclusive deals to deliver it. MySpace has neither, Yahoo is working on the later.
Photobucket - you're safe. Stop crying in your beer and start telling your users all of the other social networks where they can use their creative assets. You've got a switching cost in place. Now use it.
Friday, February 23, 2007
New medium, new skills
In 1998, when I first dove into the new and rapidly evolving world of online marketing, the Internet was, from a marketing perspective, just another place to stick your ads and generate awareness. Banner ads were king, and CPM-based pricing prevailed.
In 1999, I started a unique (at the time) company to make branded adver-games that could be attached to email and distributed virally. The only way to make a sale was to find a progressive online ad agency willing to risk some of their credibility with their client and give it a shot.
Only 5 years later, so much has changed. Banners sold on CPM have joined by performance-based search and affiliate advertising, spyware, blogs, mobile, podcasts, and so on. But the direction this industry is moving has been driven by the same underlying motivations throughout: Advertisers want to use these new media to reach and motivate customers to buy, sell, call, download, test drive, or ask their doctor.
The availability of new media dictates that companies must engage customers in new ways or risk losing share or squandering growth opportunities. The conventional process of adjusting the marketing mix is not a new discipline. Experimentation with new concepts, messages, or media often follows a well-trod path: discovery, research, assessment, trial, measurement, optimization, repeat. But there are 3 critical factors that will challenge the prized conventional offline marketer:
1) Innovative developments are multiplying, and arrive much faster than ever before. Each week, there is a new marketing opportunity that your company probably ought to be aware of. It could be a new way to gather research, or a new avenue for reaching customers, or improved performance reporting. But there's always something new, and keeping up with rapid developments is a big challenge. Rolling prioritization of what's most relevant to your business is even tougher.
2) There is more performance data more readily available now than ever before. This is not headline news; it's been a reality since the advent of online advertising. But the sheer quantity of data, from a variety of sources (web logs, web analytics software, ad tracking, page views, conversion rates, return on ad spend, cost per page view, and so on) is staggering. The ability to identify and analyze the most relevant performance metrics is at a premium. Analysis paralysis is the likely alternative.
3) Achieving success requires a previously unnecessary depth of understanding about how customers interact with the new marketing channels. The days of simply throwing some ads out there to "see how it works" are over. High opportunity costs preclude under-informed experimentation, and often leads to wasted money. And I don't mean letting the CMO tinker with YouTube for a half-hour or showing her where to spot the dynamic ads on your racing game on Xbox. You need to understand these new media and the behaviors resident in those microcosyms. This truism holds for even the most basic marketing tactics. Did anyone see Tassimo's meaningless banner on the log-in page of Citysearch? Neither did any Citysearch users. Old-school marketers had to understand their product or service very well, and certainly they needed to understand their target customers, but never has there been such a strong imperative to know the media through which the marketing messages will be delivered.
I've gotta cut this post short... it's turning into a novella.
The best marketers will possess the ability to identify, assess, test, measure and exploit or sometimes discard the bevy of innovative marketing opportunities presented by new media. Often this means bringing on an experienced online/new media marketing pro, but old dogs can learn these tricks, too. If your marketing squadron feels intimidated by the plethora of new marketing media or methods, they can check their fears at the door and call me for help with Internet marketing. Because 1998 ain't coming back.
In 1999, I started a unique (at the time) company to make branded adver-games that could be attached to email and distributed virally. The only way to make a sale was to find a progressive online ad agency willing to risk some of their credibility with their client and give it a shot.
Only 5 years later, so much has changed. Banners sold on CPM have joined by performance-based search and affiliate advertising, spyware, blogs, mobile, podcasts, and so on. But the direction this industry is moving has been driven by the same underlying motivations throughout: Advertisers want to use these new media to reach and motivate customers to buy, sell, call, download, test drive, or ask their doctor.
The availability of new media dictates that companies must engage customers in new ways or risk losing share or squandering growth opportunities. The conventional process of adjusting the marketing mix is not a new discipline. Experimentation with new concepts, messages, or media often follows a well-trod path: discovery, research, assessment, trial, measurement, optimization, repeat. But there are 3 critical factors that will challenge the prized conventional offline marketer:
1) Innovative developments are multiplying, and arrive much faster than ever before. Each week, there is a new marketing opportunity that your company probably ought to be aware of. It could be a new way to gather research, or a new avenue for reaching customers, or improved performance reporting. But there's always something new, and keeping up with rapid developments is a big challenge. Rolling prioritization of what's most relevant to your business is even tougher.
2) There is more performance data more readily available now than ever before. This is not headline news; it's been a reality since the advent of online advertising. But the sheer quantity of data, from a variety of sources (web logs, web analytics software, ad tracking, page views, conversion rates, return on ad spend, cost per page view, and so on) is staggering. The ability to identify and analyze the most relevant performance metrics is at a premium. Analysis paralysis is the likely alternative.
3) Achieving success requires a previously unnecessary depth of understanding about how customers interact with the new marketing channels. The days of simply throwing some ads out there to "see how it works" are over. High opportunity costs preclude under-informed experimentation, and often leads to wasted money. And I don't mean letting the CMO tinker with YouTube for a half-hour or showing her where to spot the dynamic ads on your racing game on Xbox. You need to understand these new media and the behaviors resident in those microcosyms. This truism holds for even the most basic marketing tactics. Did anyone see Tassimo's meaningless banner on the log-in page of Citysearch? Neither did any Citysearch users. Old-school marketers had to understand their product or service very well, and certainly they needed to understand their target customers, but never has there been such a strong imperative to know the media through which the marketing messages will be delivered.
I've gotta cut this post short... it's turning into a novella.
The best marketers will possess the ability to identify, assess, test, measure and exploit or sometimes discard the bevy of innovative marketing opportunities presented by new media. Often this means bringing on an experienced online/new media marketing pro, but old dogs can learn these tricks, too. If your marketing squadron feels intimidated by the plethora of new marketing media or methods, they can check their fears at the door and call me for help with Internet marketing. Because 1998 ain't coming back.
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