These lessons have taken some time to be adopted in the expanding world of digital marketing. From broadcast emails to placing banner ads to capture  eyeballs, the metrics have gravitated towards something new, including actions, conversion, click-throughs and even amount of purchase. Different companies, and even internal groups within companies, use different metrics to determine success. The metrics can be proactive based on strategy, or reactive based on other internal or external factors. Sometimes the approach is forced by competitive pressure, in other cases by the need  to track performance against broader objectives such as budgets or margins. As businesses become more used to the digital arena, segmentation and profiling play an increasingly important role in targeted campaigns.

Enter the new frontier of social marketing. Many questions arise for marketers, generating much discussion in industry groups and conferences: Which platform should I use? Which metrics should be tracked? What is the ROI? What does it drive? Also growing in complexity is the issue of revenue attribution in a multi-channel marketing world, and the role social media campaigns play in overall results. All valid questions, but a big challenge is that many seem to be forgetting a very fundamental question in marketing, regardless of channel, and that is: exactly who we are targeting? What is the difference between the 10 or 10,000 people who ”Like” your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter?

What is the difference between the 10 or 10,000 people who ”Like” your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter?

This is an important question because it raises the issue of relevancy. Look at the marketing efforts in other channels. Do we show the same ad on all channels? What about print ads in magazines? Is every customer or prospect sent the same piece of direct mail? The same offer? How about email? Even web pages are providing different experiences to different visitors based on what we know about them, including something as simple as a winter clothing offer that’s based on the IP address of the customer. It’s clear that marketing efforts are becoming more finely tuned and targeted.

One key strength of social media marketing is the ability to engage an audience, though this can be marginalized due to the one size fits all approach for social engagement efforts. The troubling question is: At what point does this approach become irrelevant noise or social spam? If I have one page for customers to like, in an attempt to speak to all of them I may not be speaking to any of them. The only case in which all messages are relevant to all the fans on Facebook or followers on Twitter is if they are essentially alike because I have a very narrow product offering. Let me describe the issue with social spam using a simple example. A national clothing retailer has customers who differ by age, gender and geographical regions. At the most basic level, the factors that segment the customers would be:

1. Gender: 2 groups – male and female
2. Region: 4 groups – West, East, Central and South
3. Age: 3 groups -18-25, 26-34, 35-44

Potentially there are 24 different segments of audience (2x4x3 = 24). It is late Fall and if the retailer is sharing updates once daily on its Facebook page, how often will it post something that is relevant to a 19 year old male living on the West Coast? Say the posting on Monday is for light Fall jackets targeted for teenage girls on the West Coast. Tuesday it is for heavier jackets targeted for 30-something males in the colder East Coast, Wednesday the message is for 35-44 age women in South for accessories, and so on.

At what point should that message targeted to a 19 year old male living in the West Coast show up? Until that message is delivered, the other messages might be seen as irrelevant noise or even be considered social spam. By attempting to engage fans and customers the retailer could be sending the wrong signals ¾ i.e., you are just a number. How long until this customer/target/fan stops paying attention due to irrelevant messaging day after day? It takes one simple click to stop seeing all or most of the retailer’s updates thereby losing the attention of someone who at one time was interested enough to like the retailer’s Facebook page.

So what is the answer? We have to go back to the basic principles of marketing. A social strategy has to be targeted and customized. We must be able to answer basic questions like: Who is our ideal customer? How much do we know about this person, and what is or is not of interest to them? This will help fine tune all aspects of our social channel efforts, segmentation and, eventually, drive strong results.

Profiling and segmentation are critical. We don’t send the same direct mailer or email, or offer the same landing page to all customers, so why force them to the same feed on a social media channel? The answer is to have more specific feeds, whether it’s pages, accounts or albums. The good news is that the right information is available to be able to segment. This includes all kinds of syndicated consumer information, as well as information available specifically in the social channel itself. There are many views and approaches to calculating the value of a “Like” on Facebook or a follower on Twitter, but regardless of how the value is calculated, the more specific your messaging is to the customer the higher the value will be. Remember the channel or tool may provide additional capabilities but the fundamentals have to be followed to make the best use of any channel.

Usually a new year means looking ahead – it’s a fresh start where marketers look forward to making the most of their business resolutions for the new year. This post is anything but that – we’re asking marketers – specifically retailers – to take a look back at the Holiday selling season because there are a few steps to take in order to finish out strong and THEN start the new year off right.

Kamal Tahir, director of product management at Experian Marketing Services, has outlined steps retailers can take to end the year – and start the new one strong. He outlines specific steps retailers can take to get ahead of their competition and keep the holiday sales momentum going strong into the new year.  For example, have you thought about how to address product returns? Giftcard redemption? Rewarding loyal customers? Read about the steps you should take to close out your 2011 Holiday season and improve your chances for an even stronger 2012 in his article on Retail Online Integration’s website at http://www.retailonlineintegration.com/article/happy-post-holidays-marketers-5-focus-areas-how-make-count/1.

Happy New Year!

For cross-channel retailers, maximizing returns from marketing investments demands incorporating fulfillment strategies as part of the overall effort. As products, offers and campaigns are increasingly linked across media, providing a good customer experience (while simultaneously facilitiating transactions), helps build customer loyalty.  Here are five simple steps to consider:

1. Don’t work against yourself by omitting details such as where to find your product. If your product is listed as being available “at fine stores,” identify which “fine stores” carry your product. Think about including a model number of the product being featured for ease of locating it. And at a minimum, include your website or a phone number. Forcing potential customers to search for where to purchase your product isn’t doing you any favors.
2. Add information tags to advertisements, product packaging and your website (like those similar to Microsoft’s Tag Reader ). These will automatically open a webpage when accessed by customers.
3. Closely monitor and engage in digital and social media interactions – this will provide site visitors with the ability to instantly find additional information about products (e.g., ratings and reviews) while allowing you to step in to take corrective action before something becomes a problem.
4. Video efforts can also benefit from using a noninvasive text-over that provides additional information about a product or purchase location.
5. Implement tailored landing pages and personal URLs (pURLs) for advertised products. This can be set up to provide shoppers with a list of stores within a given distance, and the information can also be emailed or sent to their mobile phone from this page.

The fulfillment channel is the last hurdle retailers encounter in a transaction, and it’s one that can have a big impact on future sales. Incorporating a few simple activities can improve the shopping experience while reducing friction. Investments have been made in all channels to reach a target audience; finishing strong in the last mile will provide substantial returns on your marketing campaign investments.

So if model effectiveness changes, what can be done about it? The answer is simple; review each model on an ongoing basis, including periodic checkups or more in-depth audits as needed. 

 Review each model on an ongoing basis, including periodic checkups or more in-depth audits as needed.

At minimum, the following 4 questions must be answered for each model:

1. How is the model holding up? 
2. Is the underlying data changing?
3. Is the objective / purpose of the model still a priority?
4. What other priorities are emerging?

These audits, checkups and general maintenance routines could be done in-house or by working with an external partner. Regardless of the approach chosen the effort requires focus, discipline and effort.

That addresses existing models, but what about creating new models so that they last longer? Building the right model is both a science and an art, and building for the long haul requires you to keep the long term view in mind. Doing so will extend the shelf life of the model and ensure freshness post-deployment.

Have questions about analytical models? Feel free to ask the author in the comments section below.