Marketing Analytics Roadmap: The Art of Interpretation

Marketing analytics refers to the daily and monthly minutae of a never-ending ever-changing flow of human behavioral data. A brief analogy: If we place a can on the grocer’s third shelf in the canned foods aisle – third shelf being the average elbow height for most women – and we sell 50 more cans per week, that’s where I want my cans to be stocked and definitely do not want my competitor’s cans to be placed.

It is the same basic skill set: drive traffic to a location and convert sales. Marketing analytics, particularly digital marketing analytics, is the new big deal. Lots of new hires, consulting services, and so on in this field. There is a lot of money being spent on marketing analytics right now.

Marketing Analytics is easily tracked (for free in most cases) but not so easily interpreted. And interpretation depends on the end goal of the client, who often does not know what the optimal end goal should be (“My brother in law works in this stuff and he says we need a Tealeaf account. Do you know much about Tealeaf?”), which is not a slight on clients but the frustrating nature of the business.

My friend Chris Finlayson, a former Cornell Professor and Ocean Scientist (“and Mainer” he would add) has the same problem in his motorcycle shop – Chris owns the best vintage japanese motorcycle repair shop near Asheville, NC.

Before we get to the fun stuff, here are the main reasons most people want a marketing analytics professional:

1. They read the article in The New York Times
2. They believe they could be doing better, sales-wise
3. They want to spend their marketing dollars wisely

We are all hoping to be the proud owner of a well-oiled, fast-moving marketing machine that saves us money and also helps drive the topline (“More sales!”). First things first, of course, you have to get started with an expert or team of experts in the following fields: PPC, User Experience, Copywriting, Marketing Strategy (not the existentialist-MBA version but the entrepreneurial “sales funnel” variety), Split Testing, sprikle in some SEO, Keyword Research skills and basic programming knowledge, and finally comes the marketing analytics stuff.

The marketing analytics stuff

The marketing analytics stuff tracks traffic patterns (clicks) through to conversions (the goal: social media “Likes”, email sign-ups, sales). It is a very different skill to read a traffic flow chart than to plan one. You want somebody that can do both. Most companies would not trust a new mid-level hire, nevermind a consultant, to redesign their company homepage but that’s what we’re talking about here much of the time. My new client and I are well into an initial split-test, now three months into the client engagement, and we are seeing conclusive results (a large multiple-of-ten percentage point increase in conversions).

Nevermind the homepage for now, Aron. What else do you got in the way of marketing analytics?

Traffic, Conversions and Analytics

As soon as the marketing Gods created Traffic, they also created Conversions. Analytics data can come full circle and help inform your PPC results too. But right now, it’s time to optimize conversions. Well, where is the traffic going? Is it paid traffic from advertising or free traffic that comes in through search engines? Enter keyword research, which tells us what people are looking for. Enter content production which gives us a method of attracting those searchers with articles, audio, and video. And a method of keeping up with our prospects via email and social media. Assuming we’re driving some paid traffic, enter PPC and the art of building landing pages that convert.

This is a major inflection point (a tipping point if we must). In discussing search search engine traffic, we might initially focus heavily on tracking click-through and split test accordingly.

Marketing analytics is a lot to learn and a lot to put your trust in. It seems to always keep going and going and evolving and changing. But if you are not focusing a sizable portion of your marketing dollars on analyzing the success of your marketing using affordable digital marketing tools you are at a serious disadvantage.

The learning curve here is steep at best. You cannot learn this all in a year or two, let alone accomplish all this within that same timeframe.

And so, it’s not easy getting started. It’s not easy getting there (“ROI”). But it is so so worth it. Marketing analytics is a custom build scenario but it needn’t be overly complicated or high tech to be effective.

Don’t forget to check out Chris over at Existential Motorcycles near Asheville, NC. Or Urban Green Energy, a wind turbine and wind/solar hybrid solutions provider currently benefiting from the early stages of a properly tracked marketing funnel.

Related Article: No Marketing Technology on the Planet Will Make Your Business Profitable (By Itself)

Relate-ability: The Only Metric of Digital Marketing

If you’ve ever been responsible for defining and tracking the success of a digital marketing campaign, then you are clearly familiar with terms like average time on site, email capture rate, ad click-through rate, and so on.

Some people refer to these as your KPIs (key performance indicators). That kind of acronym makes me giggle a little like, ok Joe marketing consultant… But if you’re doing your job as a marketer, these are your metrics. And they all point to one thing: relate-ability. If you’re struggling to understand why specific KPIs are weak, you’re probably struggling to relate to your audience. The two questions that we must ask here, “What are we saying? And who are we saying it to?” It might seem simple but it’s not, like writing a good pop song or cooking a good pizza.

Of course, the alternative is that you are struggling with the tools. I did that for a while too, that’s actually a symptom of learning. You want to pass through this stage as quickly as possible. But I will assume for the sake of argument that this is not the case.

Nobody wants to be a type but we all are. Do you consider yourself short, tall, or in between? Old, young, or in between? A child of the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s? Simplistic examples but you get the point. For a good methodology to understand and relate to your target market, I recommend my PPC mentor Howie Jacobson’s Who? What? Why? and How? Method. While PPC is a great testing ground, the real value comes in applying that PPC knowledge in other digital mediums like email, viral video, PR, social media, blogging, et cetera.

If you already understand Who? What? Why? and How? about your target market (not as concepts but you’ve actually tested these questions to conclusive sales conversion results) then you need not read any farther because you’re already running a successful (read profitable) campaign. Start asking some new questions now. It might be easier said than done but that’s the job.

If you or your company are still failing to relate, meaning that you are still failing to find your audience or gain traction with your target market, maybe you’re in need of some help. Nobody can know everything about this digital marketing business after all. If you’re not the marketing director, manager, VP, et cetera but the President or CEO of a small-to-midsize business, maybe you still need to restructure a bit for the digital age. Better late than never. If you’re struggling with relate-ability (I know, I know, easy marketing consulting guy), don’t hesitate to reach out for help either.

What I Pay For by Outsourcing PPC Advertising

I am a marketing consultant. I have worked in some form of ecommerce since 2003. I have been deeply entrenched in the digital marketing world since 2007. I have sold everything from bicycles to wind turbines, books to television shows – I have a good handle on what works online, offline and in between. My digital marketing philosophy is very simple with regard to PPC:

1. Go where your customers already are.
2. Test all marketing to an ROI. (Start small and grow what works, disregard what doesn’t, learn from it and move on.)
3. Measure everything that can be measured. (There are an endless array of tools that help quantify marketing these days. Using the right tool toward the right goal can save you money and months of struggle.)
4. Limit human error in the measuring and analysis phases. (Your IT person should not be in charge of your digital marketing because it’s a “computer thing.” While we’re at it, a YellowPages.com listing does not constitute a digital marketing campaign any more than a Facebook page constitutes a social media campaign.)
5. Maximize relate-ability in the messaging, copy, images, et cetera. (Your goal is not to be crowned “most creative”; your goal is to grow revenue. Relate-ability and creativity will get you there faster.)
6. Leverage your PPC findings in other marketing channels. (This is where the magic happens.)

More than anything, marketing has become an exercise in empathy. Empathy in marketing means: Do I understand my target audience to the point that I can deliver the right message at the right time to a carefully targeted prospect? If yes, I win. If not, I lose. The most fertile testing ground is Pay Per Click advertising (PPC).

The New Role of PPC

PPC is an invaluable tool but it is still just one tool in the digital marketing toolbox. There are many other tools in that box: SEO, PR, UI/UX, copy and design to name some of the others. They are all important in different ways. PPC is the best testing platform because you get real market data (unlike a focus group – personal note: focus groups can be good for product development, not so much for predicting the success of a marketing campaign) and you can control your costs down to the penny.

The trick is to start by casting a wide net and then start digging deeper in the spots that show promise. Dig carefully and dig often. Hint: Digging means testing in this inelegant metaphor. Digging is the means by which the PPC tool earns its keep in the toolbox. Do customers respond better to “Free Shipping” or “$10 off your first order”? Do they want “Free 24hr customer service.” or “Exciting New Feature!”? Maybe “Free Shipping” gets me a higher click-thru rate but a lower sales conversion rate, meaning I would be paying more for less sales – we test to eradicate such flaws.

I can sit down with the person who currently manages your PPC campaigns and stealthily determine if that person has a sophisticated understanding of PPC advertising. It doesn’t take long. If you’re accurately measuring ROI, you’re off to a good start. If you can tell what traffic is responding to what offers, you’re doing pretty good. If not, well… there is work to be done.

The new role of PPC as a multi-platform testing ground makes PPC one of the most valuable tools in the box. Failure to utilize this tool means lost sales and less profit earned per ad dollar spent.

Why I Outsource PPC

Outsourcing paid advertising does not have to be expensive. But it does require a dedicated professional. The most common cause of PPC failure that I find at surprisingly high levels of the marketing world: Marketers do not know what they do not know. Yes, still. Do not feel bad – nobody can know everything in the digital marketing world.

Most common knowledge gaps that I find: Either the practitioner does not know what’s possible with regard to measuring, testing, and where to find quality traffic, or they don’t know how to use the tools to maximum effect. Poking holes in PPC campaigns is not difficult, but patching them up and doing things correctly can be.

Rest assured, there is a better way. I can help you and your staff correct most PPC missteps but building a sophisticated marketing funnel with PPC often requires outsourcing, outsourcing with diligence and vigilance of course. Outsourcing PPC is a minefield. Outsourcing PPC correctly is a minefield that warrants the risk. PPC used to be easy, then it was difficult, now it is nearly impossible to win over any competitive market without a full-time, dedicated PPC expert. Here is a quick list of questions to ask your in-house team or outsourced agency:

1. Average monthly ad spend? Percentage spent in the content network?
2. What are the top performing keywords with regard to sales? What are the top performing keywords with regard to data capture?
3. What are the top performing traffic sources?
4. CPA? CPC? ROI?
5. What emotional “hot buttons” are we testing in our ads? Are we split testing ad content? Text? Images?
6. What messages are we testing on our landing pages? Are we split testing landing pages?

The End Game

Done correctly, all of this performance data adds up to some highly targeted and tested marketing knowledge. Hopefully, this is the kernel of a profitable internet marketing funnel.

As hinted at above (see “6. Leverage your PPC findings in other marketing channels.”), the biggest benefit of PPC often comes from leveraging your PPC findings in other marketing channels. Perhaps the best case study to date comes from Vitruvian Way’s The Hidden Power of PPC white paper that explains Joel McDonald’s work with candy giant Mars, Inc:

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“In 2009 Vitruvian’s Joel McDonald was hired to manage a $1000/month AdWords account for a division of Mars, Incorporated that sells health supplements. Keep in mind that Mars’ advertising budget for 2009 was estimated by Advertising Age at $1.6 billion dollars. Using AdWords to boost sales was like having Google co-founder Larry Page make a few extra bucks by tutoring math on the side. But the investment paid off handsomely once Joel harvested their AdWords data and had them apply it to their advertising in “unmeasurable” media.

Joel ran keyword tests to discover the most searched-for ingredients in this product line. He also tested various offers they were considering. Among other discoveries, Joel found through simple testing that, for example, the words “free shipping” generated nearly twice the sales of the original “30% off” offer (we’ve changed the specifics to protect the client’s confidentiality, but you get the idea.)

Within about a month of reporting his AdWords tests, Joel saw a virtually identical product description, price, and offer on Mars’ national TV commercials. Now a miniscule AdWords investment was paying huge dividends in other media. Mars no longer had to roll the dice on the creative impulses of expensive Madison Avenue ad writers. They just applied common sense to AdWords data and cloned tiny successes on a massive scale.“

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It used to be considered insider knowledge that many entrepreneurs were using PPC advertising to test the viability of new products before those products had been developed, produced, prototyped, or even named. This was done to gauge market demand. Now, the smartest marketers are using PPC to measure aspects of marketing campaigns that were previously unmeasurable. Now it costs the price of a few thousand clicks to find the pricing, positioning, and emotional levers that really move the needle.

PPC is officially the best market research tool known to man, and it’s still a pretty good sales tool too, depending on the market. As with any tool, the benefit comes from knowing how and when to use it. Outsourcing the technical piece of the equation gets you up and running in a matter of days, the right way. Don’t waste months trying to maybe get it right. Directing the creative content that makes up those ads and understanding the data that comes back in the form of traffic figures and conversion rates is where you’ll find the most fertile ground. The magic is in the human element behind the tool.

If you are interested in preparing to leverage PPC in this way, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

No Digital Marketing Technology on the Planet Will Make Your Business Profitable (By Itself)

Attention digital marketing professionals: Ultimately, there is no technological solution for a human process. Good marketing is much more than the sum of a company’s technology solutions. You have to have a good offer, a unique proposition, et cetera.

Seemingly random anecdote that introduces a headier topic: Chef, author, and television host slash reformed raconteur Anthony Bourdain pointed out in the San Francisco episode of his new show The Layover that the relationship between barman and patron is not only time-honored and sacred but also a very intimate one.

So, I would argue, is the relationship between seller and buyer in many other transactions exchanging money for goods and services. No offense to Bourdain of course but I would argue that the relationship between entertainer and viewer should be of similar quality. And I tend to believe Bourdain would agree, he seems ever-conscious of the fact that he is entering our lives and our homes with his books, shows, and Tweets. That might sound idealistic but it might also be true.

No matter how many marketing bells and whistles you have coded into your site or API, you still have to interpret the data and write copy that drives desire.

Broad marketing point to get you nodding in agreement: Most entrepreneurs I meet are selling products of their own design, development, and former need. These are personally important products to the people who sell them. These are often the types of people who have risen to the top of their local and regional marketplaces in order to expand their business nationally, and in many cases internationally – growth that was made possible by the technology solutions of internet commerce. These are often people who have successfully transitioned out of corporate America and are building their own fates. These are the people who go it alone and reach greater success and satisfaction than they ever would have in most other available career options. Read: These are not dummies.

Yet so many of them think they will find success in the technology, in the tools. Very few will succeed that way. Because the tools alone will rarely ever get you where you want to go. This world is more complex than any litany of marketing technology solutions that measure and quantify behavior. If this is among the most advanced applications of marketing technology, clearly we are walking some fine, if not downright delicate, lines in this business. Those are human lines not technological ones.

Disclaimer: Anybody who believes that there is a technological solution that will get you all the traffic and sales you ever wanted is a fool for forsaking the obvious. The same people who walk into a brick-and-mortar retail outlet are sitting on the other end of every digital transaction whether you are selling wind turbines, t-shirts, information, or guided tours of Cuba (direct from the US).

A little reverse psychology about technology solutions: Yes, there are tools that help us measure what people want and how many people search for those things daily/monthly online. There are email and survey tools that help us stay in touch with prospective buyers and find out what they want in even greater detail. There is a tool to measure nearly every performance indicator online. But without the human element, most marketing professionals are unable to move forward, to find success, and I would venture a guess that most who will try the entrepreneurial route will never reach a sustained level of profitability no matter how much technology they have access to.

There is no shortage of marketing tools, there is a shortage of skilled practitioners.

It is for this reason that I continually ask my clients if they are profitable or not. If the business unit or product line we are shaping up is not profitable yet, it’s time for a change. Until a business is able to turn $X into [$X + $1] or more, it is not really a business – it is an idea at best and an expensive hobby at worst. All businesses start as ideas – not all ideas become businesses.

The Moral: No amount of technology will turn an idea into a business without some inherent human quality making it so. Similarly, I would argue that in today’s competitive environment, no company can expect to succeed without utilizing the best available technology solutions. You should see how people are using Pay-per-Click advertising now.

The Plea: Please stop looking for a technological solution to a human interaction (marketing has become a social science).

Direct Response Marketing vs. Branding is a False Argument

I was sitting at a hotel lobby bar in Washington, DC last week discussing some business with a colleague. Three weeks earlier I was doing the same thing in Austin, TX. There was a conference going on each time but the real conversations were happening at tables in the lobby, top floor suites, and private sections of nearby lounges.

One friend sitting nearby is a VP at a very successful credit card processing company. Many of his best accounts are direct response marketers. Many of them are in attendace – some sell information products, some sell dietary supplements, subscription services, specialty physical products, et cetera. Needless to say, Kevin knows some very intimate knowledge about the men and women in the room because he knows their numbers. He knows the revenue from their recent launch, their previous year’s worth of business, even their personal credit score in many cases. Read: Kevin looks around the room and he knows who’s selling what and how much.

Particularly amongst online/digital marketers, there is a long-standing grudge match between those who self-identify as direct response marketers and those who fancy themselves branding experts.

Polarity

I bring up my friend Kevin because he has been successful, an emergent player, in the direct response marketing space for some time now, though he himself is not a pure practitioner in the field. I think of Kevin more as a purveyor of pails, picks and shovels during the gold rush – he’s not a miner but he’s getting rich from the color just the same.

Most of the people at this event would put me in the branding camp. Until a few years ago, they would be correct. Now I do both. After years spent in each, I propose that the direct response vs. branding argument is over. You can no longer survive on one or the other.

Last time I saw Kevin was in Austin, he was mapping out a direct response marketing campaign in the credit card processing space with a mutual friend of ours. I waited until they were done and I added a few branding suggestions, nothing that opposed their plans now in place, but a few tricks of the branding trade that I believe will add a layer of uniqueness, trust, and recall to their promotional efforts. Credit card processing is seen to be a commodity though Kevin and company do provide an exceptional service in my experience. He listened intently as he is a polite guy, then his expression turned to surprise. I think he was genuinely surprised that he liked what I had to say… maybe there was something to this branding stuff after all.

When to Favor One Over the Other

Most young entrepreneurs, especially those emerging from MBA programs, are inclined to focus on their brand when they would be better served focusing on sales – direct response marketing will get you sales much faster than branding ever will. You do not have a business until you know how to spend ninety-nine cents in return for more than a dollar. The quicker you have success with sales, the quicker your branding will begin to matter.

Similarly, if you are a marketer at a well-established brand, you should be studying the most current successful business models and best practices of direct response marketing. Because your success over your competition is contingent upon the efficiency of your marketing funnel: If you spend $1 in marketing to make $2 in revenue while your competitors spend $1.50 in marketing for that same $2 in revenue, it is only a matter of time until you are dominating your competition in that particular market. Believe that.

In either case, that does not relegate branding to the fluff atop the marketing sundae. Branding has hard value in most markets, especially those commodity markets like my friend Kevin’s credit card processing service. Branding can make or break you just as quickly as the sudden glitch in your marketing funnel. Branding is the heart of desirability which far outweighs reason or logic in most purchasing decisions. Silicon Valley is still brand-centric for a reason. So are the VCs of the world.

So… Stop the Insanity!

The debate is over and here’s why:

Consumers are accustomed to good branding now, which means that you can’t succeed without it, not in a market of any size or longevity. Gone are the days when expert copywriting and direct marketing sales tactics were enough to sell a product without a brand behind it because most direct response sales copy that is not supported by a well-considered brand reads formulaic or worse.

Equally so, gone are the days when you could design a brand and grow it into a successful business without doing everything else well. Most markets are far too competitive for mediocre marketing execution and wasted marketing dollars.

So it’s always a mix. That being said, if your marketing department is not steeped in both, you need to remedy that.

Attention Multi-Channel Retailers Who Are Less Than Thrilled With Their Performance Online

Any medium-sized (or aspiring medium-sized) multi-channel retailer that does not utilize some basic form of live customer service on its website will not be able to compete on any factor besides price in the near future, whether that fits their intended business model or not. Unless your products are so obviously definitively superior to your competition or you are the only player in your niche, you’re still working from the mindset that your online sales will never amount to much and never compete in importance to any one of your individual brick-and-mortar locations.

To be clear, you don’t need to invest full-boar in a comprehensive live customer care package with custom graphical interface and yadda yadda. But if you haven’t tested a basic version of such a service, you ought to.

Start minimal, go into your web analytics and get a sense of how many people exit your website after, say, 3-5 minutes. If that seems like a reasonable amount of time, hire the appropriate number of dedicated sales people to handle that traffic remotely. If those numbers are too big, figure out how many visitors per month leave your site off of a product page – like, they’ve clicked through to a page with a “Buy Now” button on it. Those are the most likely people to become buyers on your site by virtue of live customer service. Imagine your staff being trained to say things like, “Yes, we can rush it to you for the weekend. Would you like me to set that up for you in your shopping cart?”

Or, “Actually, we do make that in another size. Would you like me to check the availability in our stock?” To further simplify the process – minimize risk, cost, etc. – move over some good sales people from the sales floor of one of your brick-and-mortar retail locations. Somebody wants those extra hours and commissions.

Now that you’ve run a basic test you’ll have to ask, “Was it worth it?” And set some estimates for the value of the service which will be used to guide build-out decisions. I recommend testing for a minimum of 90 days to acquire accurate benchmarks for email capture, sales conversion rates, usage rates, average sales, et cetera.

If you got the thing up and running with only the aid of your existing team and the tech team at your service provider, congratulate yourself momentarily, then confirm that you are indeed tracking sales and attempting to collect customer contact information (email would be a worthwhile minimum conversion goal, “Would you like me to notify you if this product goes on sale at the end of the season? I can notify you by email or text.”). You need to figure out if the program is worth it and to what degree you need to carry the buildout beyond the branded level (read it matches the aesthetic) of your website. This is not all necessary for testing but it’s a good idea to build out the best possible solution that reasonably fits your budget and your needs.

If you need director-level marketing assistance on a project basis, I thank you in advance for reading about me and saving my contact information.

The One Month Intensive – Getting Started Quickly with Minimal Risk

More than one prospective client has asked me to add a written report to my proposal. I understand the need to see a summation of the work done and the progress made, even though I don’t want to believe that I’m in the business of writing reports. I’m in the business of delivering results (enhancing your brand positioning and growing revenue).

I also understand that the person making the decision to hire me might need to justify that decision at some point down the road. So in a sense, I am also in the business of writing reports.

One recent prospective client asked me to write a report upfront. I told this prospective client that I will gladly write a report as we progress but this did not satisfy the client’s needs and we quickly found ourselves in a stalemate. I explained to the client that I had already laid out our goals for the duration of our six month engagement based on a series of meetings with her and her staff: We all agreed on the course of action and the deliverables. She still wanted a report upfront.

I wasn’t objecting on principle (maybe a little), I simply had no idea what would go into a report that was not already stated in the Goals section of the proposal which included their current marketing performance metrics.

I waited a week and called the prospective client back, reiterated that we had already set up some lofty goals to work towards, designed initiatives that would serve those goals and clearly defined the metrics that would measure our progress and feed the bottom line. The client agreed and then said something that I will never forget, “We’ve never hired a consultant before.”

This client provides complex, technical solutions within their industry, they have traditionally found business based on their reputation and referrals. When they service their clients, there is always a report written upfront. I was being asked to help them expand their business and their brand, activities that are foreign concepts within the four walls of their offices. I said, “Let me think about that and I’ll call you back tomorrow.” She agreed reluctantly, “I’ll speak to you tomorrow, Aron.”

As any good marketer would, I tried to empathize with my prospect, to see the situation from her perspective. I called her the next day and proposed the following: Pay me an increased rate for one month instead of the previously proposed six months. I will work with your team to condense our efforts down to one month. Two weeks later (after six weeks) you will receive the report and I’ll come in and present it to the team. Half of the money upfront and half of the money upon delivery of the report.

So began the One Month Intensive… technically, it’s a six week process but that doesn’t have the same ring to it… I now offer this service as a starting point. I get to know my clients better and they get to know me better too, so there is minimal risk on both sides. I can suss out the heart of their issues in a month. I can assess their capabilities and where they are lacking. And I can still get a good a sense of what their improved marketing costs will be.

After the first One Month Intensive, I started to offer Three Month Intensives as well. So far so good. Here’s what I don’t like: It can be more difficult to get the process started than to execute a number of worthwhile marketing initiatives, that’s just the way it is. What I do like: This takes care of that.

What is new media?

New media is a broad term that describes the breadth of digital platforms which make up today’s best marketing strategies, communications initiatives and advertising campaigns. New media also includes mobile and social media platforms. Marketing via new media is still heavily rooted in direct marketing, including pay-per-click advertising and email marketing; however, new media also includes the production of high quality original content such as blogs and video as well as PR.

What is your new media strategy? Are your new media efforts generating revenue?

You already have a new media presence, whether you’ve planned for it or not.

New Media Monetization works with two types of clients: Content producers with an existing audience who are looking to improve their advertising revenue, data capture, and marketing funnel. And companies who prefer to have a new media specialist design their new media strategy: pulling together all of the elements of customer acquisition, direct marketing, content production, and PR in the interest of monetizing new media channels more effectively.

Attention content producers

If you already have an audience, you already know what content production is about. Your site’s traffic flow, design/layout, or SEO strategy might also need some shaping. But if you already see 10,000+ unique monthly visits to your content pages, you are well on your way to monetization.

Maybe your content presentation needs help. Maybe your audience is failing to understand the depth of your brand. Or maybe you’re just failing to turn a profit. That is the focus of our work.

Effective communication through new media

Companies who try to utilize new media to garner sales for their product or service have very different new media challenges than content producers. Maybe you are failing to communicate effectively through new media? Failing to gain traction with your audience? Or failing to track those efforts through to monetization?

Do you know exactly what you want to say? And who you want to say it to?

Perhaps you are trying to translate your offline successes into new media successes. Are you failing to garner good press? Or failing to capitalize on the press that you have already received? If so, you are missing some essential element of your new media strategy.

New media monetization

If you have a strong brand and an identifiable core audience, you are ready to start thinking about a new media monetization plan. When everything lines up, new media produces results. When new media produces results, everything starts to pick up.

Are you ready to acquire customers more aggressively, build the size and responsiveness of your audience, and refine your marketing funnel?

What does a new media strategist do, exactly?

In short, a new media strategist is put in place to convert your digital presence into revenue. New media often seems overly abstract but taking a focused and comprehensive look at it is often the difference between viewing new media as an expense versus an effective revenue generator with a trackable return on investment.

Your new media strategy will wrap customer acquisition, direct marketing, content production, PR and publishing into one comprehensive monetization plan – every day that you are not capitalizing on these business models is another day that you are increasingly vulnerable to your competition. When you have this all together, running smoothly and profitably, you are leaps and bounds ahead of your competition.

If you are are ready to acquire customers more aggressively, build the size and responsiveness of your audience, and refine your marketing funnel, please continue reading About New Media Monetization.

The Niche: A Suitcase Without a Handle

I’m well aware of the fact that businesses have a lot of options for the types of services that I consult on: Businesses can hire an advertising firm, a brand consultant, a PR firm, a social media consultant, a digital ad firm, pay-per-click admins, an email marketing manager, an ecommerce director, digital producer, et cetera. All of these people will promise you that they are the very thing that you and your business have been missing. With unlimited time and money, of course, each of them might be right. But I doubt it. My niche: I speak all of those languages fluently.

A friend of mine does all the video production for a number of topflight fashion designers – names we all know – and for months my friend tried to understand what it is I do exactly. Regrettably, I was of little help to him in this endeavor. He’d call me and ask, “How do I figure out what’s working?” or “How do I know who’s watching my videos?” He knew his clients needed help prioritizing and implementing their new media initiatives. He also knew that I could be trusted because I regularly answered these digital marketing questions. He even invited me to speak in front of his students (he also teaches a course at Parsons, as if he wasn’t cool enough already). His clients were already spending big bucks with him in addition to a handful of digital agencies on everything from content placement to viewer metrics. He didn’t trust the reports they were receiving, that’s why he was asking my advice. But nobody was asking the essential question: Are our efforts promoting sales?

It wasn’t necessarily in my friend’s best interest to raise such questions; however, if he could convince these fashion/media giants of the ever-increasing value of their video campaigns he could prove his value to them. That is to say, they would reward him with more business if they agreed his videos were effective. Plus, he’s a good guy and he wants to see his clients thrive. Plus, he’s a good friend and he wanted to help me find some great clients and see me succeed. It had been a year of this answering questions and still no runway models or ad execs were beating a path to my door. It seemed I was destined to answer marketing questions on everybody else’s behalf. I was the proverbial suitcase without a handle. And we all know it’s difficult to pick up a suitcase without a handle.

So what is my niche? What is my handle? My niche is executive level consulting on new media that is aimed at monetization. This means testing and measuring and prioritizing to the greatest extent possible. If digital marketing were real estate, I would be a cross between the architect and the general contractor. I plan and I do. Things get done on budget. The frames get hung before the windows and doors are delivered. And I know some very experienced digital plumbers, welders, paint suppliers, et cetera. I also know how to work with your existing development teams, sales teams, and marketing teams without stepping on toes.

It’s easy to romanticize digital marketing but I’d rather settle for excellent results – that means working with the right service providers, knowing what things cost and how long they should take, and making sure everything is done in the interest of clear, measurable goals. That’s an easier niche to grasp, I hope.