Have you met Skip?  You know, Skip Intro, the guy who develops all those overdone flash intro’s for ad agency web sites?

Awhile back I answered the following very astute question on LinkedIn from Andrew Miller, who, according to his LinkedIn profile is now Founder and Managing Director at Capitalist, Inc.

“Why do most creative agencies’ web sites look eerily like? Should a creative shop treat itself like a client?”

My Answer:

“This is a great question. The answers are that (a) agencies are following each other instead of the market; and (b) agencies need to do a better job of looking at their businesses through the clients’ (and prospective clients’) eyes instead of indulging their creative/artistic fantasies. Ever notice how so many agencies’ sites start with a long/pointless flash intro? That is a good example of not recognizing that site visitors want to locate info not be shown a short film.”

Why am I posting this now?  Because, while the problem has gotten a bit better, I notice that all to often it still exists.  So next time you see a useless flash intro that is preventing you from getting to the content you want, contact the site’s owner, publisher, webmaster (whatever happened to that title anyway?) and make your feelings known!

Bob London is President of London, Ink, a B2B marketing and communications consulting firm based in the Washington, DC area.  He can be reached at bob (at) londonink (dot) com.

London, Ink isn’t a PR firm but in order to help clients prioritize marketing/comm initiatives it’s a necessity to be familiar with a wide range of marketing tools, services, agencies, etc.   I’m also always looking for creative ways to promote London, Ink in cost-effective, targeted ways.

For those reasons, last year I started using the Vocus Small Business Edition (aka SBE–a version of PRWeb), an online pr management tool that is a scaled down version of Vocus’ widely-used flagship platform.  My hypothesis was that, without much investment in time or money, sending out a series of releases on London, Ink news (client announcements, speaking engagements, new hires) would increase the number of quality mentions of “London, Ink” across the web and of course quality (in the eyes of Google’s algorithm) inbound links to my site.

(A side note: I don’t rely on SEO for inbound lead gen, but ever since Discovery launched the hit tattoo/reality program called “London Ink,” my links have been pushed way down.)

Each release took a few minutes to queue up–Vocus allowed me to target by geography, topic of the release, type of reporter and name of media outlet. I was also able to incorporate a video interview I participated in with Shashi Bellamkonda, Network Solutions’ Social Swami.  I was able to easily link the releases to my various online channels, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and, of course, my site.

My hypothesis turned out to be correct.  After my second Vocus release, the search engine rankings for London, Ink improved and they continued to do so as I sent out more releases.

Now for the over-deliver part.  As I mentioned, London, Ink doesn’t typically provide PR services, but I did support a significant announcement by one of my client’s by doing some basic outreach to my media contacts and distributing the release via my Vocus SBE account.

My expectation was that the media contacts I selected may or may not actually receive the release; may or may not see it among the blizzard of releases they get each day; and/or won’t respond to it. I’m pleased to report that the client received several great media inquiries, including one from the major daily paper in their market and another from a key vertical news outlet. Both of these inquiries resulted in excellent print coverage, which the client of course loved.

So for resource-strapped organizations that need a cost-effective news distribution platform, check out Vocus SBE.

By Barg Upender, CEO of Mobomo and Bob London, President of London, InkIt’s been more than four decades since Michigan State University Professor E. Jerome McCarthy theorized that marketing contains four basic elements: product, price, place (distribution) and promotion, also known as the “Four Ps of Marketing” or the marketing mix.

Amazingly, despite the unprecedented upheaval and transformation in marketing strategies, techniques, channels and tactics during the last forty years-not to mention marketers’ penchant for postulating all manner of new philosophies, methodologies, rules and acronyms–the Four Ps of Marketing have remained unchanged.

But perhaps now there is good reason to revisit and refresh marketing’s Four Ps: the emergence of “applications” or “apps” as a new means for organizations to acquire, retain or otherwise engage customers and prospects.

What are “Apps”?

An app is a small, self-contained computer program that provides value or engagement to a mass or targeted audience in a community, marketplace or platform.  Think of Scrabulous for Facebook; WeatherBug for the iPhone; NBC’s Saturday Night Live widgets; or the Wall Street Journal’s reader for the Blackberry.  Apps are commonly grouped via their method of distribution and/or platform:

• Mobile apps: Designed to leverage the unique characteristics of mobile audiences and smartphones, such as the need for location-based information or lightweight, portable versions of larger, more complex services such as Salesforce.com
• Community- or platform-based apps: Those that are developed exclusively for and can only be used on a particular site such as Facebook; and
• Widgets: Portable apps that can reside on multiple third party sites and blogs.

The App explosion

The proliferation in the use of apps by large and small businesses, as well as non-profit and government organizations is well-documented.  Apps have been developed by brands of all stripes as standalone marketing tools or to target fast-growing, communities such as Facebook (350,000 apps used by more than 70% of Facebook’s 250 million users¹) or the iPhone (65,000 apps available; 1 billion downloads in first 9 months²).

And due to their ability to achieve low-cost global or geographically-targeted distribution; their relatively inexpensive development; and rapid time to market-as well as their virtually unlimited potential for creating unique and valuable user experiences-apps have only begin to reach their potential as a new category of marketing tool.

Let’s examine the explosion of one type of app: mobile.  The transformation of the mobile web landscape is reminiscent of the original trajectory of the World Wide Web.  Very quickly, the consensus shifted from “Why does my company need a Web site?” to “Why don’t we have a Web site yet?”  That shift was caused by the reduced cost of developing sites, their practical and proven use in engaging customers, the increase in available bandwidth; and technological advances that helped organizations deliver more useful and relevant user experiences.

The same phenomenon is occurring today with mobile apps: A recent New York Times article reports that nearly half (48 percent) of phone users shop for apps more than once a week and about the same number (49 percent) report using apps on their phone for more than 30 minutes a day; the cost of developing mobile apps has dropped dramatically; and technological improvements are enabling more speed and a better user experience.

 

How do “apps” relate to Marketing’s Four Ps? 

Apps can deliver some portion of the product experience; promote the brand; place themselves wherever customers are; and/or be priced to stimulate trial or engagement.  But while “apps” combine elements of each of the Four Ps, they’re neither fish nor fowl–they don’t neatly fit into any one category.

In other words, apps are not products, promotions, channels or pricing strategies.  But an app can have some or all of these elements.  Apps are…well, they’re apps.  Simply put, apps have become a box you check in your marketing plan, right next to the other Four Ps.  It’s hard to imagine a new brand launch, Hollywood film, ad campaign or even a fundraising push occurring without the question being asked, “Should we develop a mobile or Facebook app for this?”

Let us know what you think: Do apps deserve their own slot in the marketing mix pantheon, right alongside the traditional Four Ps?  Please join the discussion in the ‘comments’ section at the bottom of the following page: http://www.mobomo.com/blog/is-it-time-to-add-apps-to-marketing-4 -P-s

¹   Source: Facebook

²   Source: Apple

About the Authors

Barg Upender, Founder and CEO of Mobomo, LLC

Barg is the CEO & co-founder of Mobomo, a leading mobile application development company focused on developing applications for smart phones in the consumer and enterprise markets. Mobomo has deep expertise in Apple iPhone, Google Andoroid, Palm Pre, RIM Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian OS. Barg is a serial entrepreneur and technologist with 20 years of experience in commercial software product development. Barg was founding partner of web development firm Intridea and he founded and sold Concentric Methods, a biomedical software development company.  In 2009 Barg was named by Washingtonian Magazine to its list of Washington, DC’s Top 100 Tech Titans.

Bob London, President of London, Ink

Bob London is president and founder of London, Ink, a marketing and communications consulting firm that helps organizations define and prioritize their products and services based on what the market wants - or doesn’t want - to buy. In pioneering the Virtual VP of Marketing concept, Bob works with established and early-stage companies who aren’t ready for the cost and commitment of a full-time marketing executive to assess their market opportunity, determine the strategic options and develop a practical go-to-market plan.  Bob’s work and writing has been profiled or covered by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Miami Herald, USA Today and Marketing News, the AMA’s flagship magazine, and he recently spoke at Network Solutions’ Unintentional Entrepreneur series. For more information, please visit www.londonink.com.

Shockingly breathless coverage of Charlene Li’s “more social engagement = better financial results” report despite incomplete assessment of correlationships.

By Bob London, London, Ink, www.londonink.com

I’m amazed and disappointed at the breathless coverage and even more misguided buzz/spread regarding Charlene Li’s recent report correlating big brands’ “social engagement” with “financial results.”  I am not a research guru but here is my take from the perspective of a business owner and consumer of business media and social media.

At the heart of the issue is that so many readers/bloggers, eager to find proof that social media strategies have an actual return on investment (ROI), have circulated, shared, posted, tweeted about the study as though it proves a causal effect between more engagement and improved financial results.  It does not, IMHO.

But I can understand why people read (or scanned) the report this way, because while Ms. Li did include the disclaimer that there is no causal relationship between more engagement and improved financial results, she certainly positioned that point as an afterthought or aside.  Taken as a whole, the entire report is written and packaged in a way that I find very misleading.

The report states there is no causal relationship; you just have to read it carefully.

The word “causal” appears only three times throughout the original material, and in each case it is used as a disclaimer to indicate that there is not a causal relationship, meaning that more engagement leads to improved financial results.

• On the Altimeter (Ms. Li’s consulting firm) web site (http://www.altimetergroup.com/2009/07/engagementdb.html):

Note that we are not claiming a causal relationship…

• On page 7:

While these findings do not necessarily imply a causal relationship…

• And on page 15:

While (Senior VP of SAP Community Network Mark) Yolton can’t yet prove a measurable causal relationship between customer engagement and the company’s financial performance…

There is some major conclusion jumping going on here.

But looking at context of each excerpt above, Ms. Li jumps to a pretty big conclusion by saying there is a correlationship (ok, I’ll agree that there might be one), but that–and here’s where I take issue–what that correlationship is about.

Ms. Li’s correlationship examples:

Note that we are not claiming a causal relationship (rest of excerpt) but there is clearly a correlation and connection. For example, a company mindset that allows a company to be broadly engage with customers on the whole probably performs better because the company is more focused on companies than the competition.

While these findings do not necessarily imply a causal relationship, (rest of excerpt) they still hold powerful implications. Social media engagement and financial success work together to perpetuate a healthy business cycle: a customer oriented mindset stemming from deep social interaction allows a company to identify and meet customer needs in the marketplace, generating superior profits.

(rest of excerpt) One of the newest channels SAP is using is Twitter.com/saplistens, a channel where SAP invites consumers to “Talk with us. We want to learn.” (Senior VP of SAP Community Network Mark) Yolton emphasized that this reflects the overall culture of the company, one that values the ability to listen well. While Yolton can’t yet prove a measurable causal relationship between customer engagement and the company’s financial performance, (rest of excerpt) he believes there is a correlation. “It’s more like branding— our activities reflect an attitude of the company that is more engaged, a company that values the opinions and viewpoints of the many different voices of customers and suppliers.

This is a surprisingly incomplete consideration of all possible reasons behind any such correlation.  Ms. Li is way to quick to focus exclusively on highly speculative point: engagement indicates customer focus; customer focus is a characteristic of successful companies.  A good research report will examine as many such points as possible and make the case for the one they believe is most accurate.

Many other possible correlations/causes not examined in the report.

But there are many other reasons behind such a correlation.  Here are just a few:

• Financially successful companies have more profits with which to experiment with social media investments.
• Because they are financially successful, these companies have the management latitude (i.e. permission) to make these experimental investments.
• Financially successful companies are more confident about their better balance sheets and income statements and, therefore, more confident putting themselves out into the social media for reactions/response.
• As pointed out by Ben Kunz in a comment on the Altimeter site, “9 of the 11 companies mentioned as mavens are technology-driven companies, prone to engaging with customers online.  To use them as exemplary case studies may bias the findings.”

There are many other possible types of correlationships, but the point is that when you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  The source of such a report and those who propagate its findings across the web need to be taken into account as they have reasons to believe the correlation between more social engagement and improved financial success.

Bob London, president of London, Ink, serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for organizations that need hands-on, interim leadership in marketing strategy, planning and execution.  London, Ink is a full-service, on-demand marketing and communications consulting firm based in the Washington, DC metro area, that develops and implements marketing and communications programs for mid-size and growing businesses and non-profit organizations.  For more on London, Ink please visit www.londonink.com or contact Bob London at 240 994 7644 or info@londonink.com.

Just a reminder about what promises to be an educational and fun event (where I happen to be speaking!) on August 5th.  The event is part of the Unintentional Entrepreneur program which was conceived and is being underwritten by Network Solutions and Outright.com–two companies at the forefront of helping entrepreneurs and small/growing businesses–and is being held at the Johns Hopkins University–Montgomery County Campus.

 

I have the honor of joining another speaker, Shashi Bellamkonda, who is an expert on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses use technology for marketing, communications and overall productivity.  Shashi was also recently named to Washingtonian Magazine’s list of Top 100 Tech Titans (http://www.washingtonian.com/print/articles/6/173/12164.html) and is a popular speaker on the tech/marketing/small biz circuit nationwide.

 

Please check out the Unintentional Entrepreneur site and register for the event at http://uedc.eventbrite.com.  Remember it’s on August 5th and space is limited!  Hope to see you there.

Later this week, I’m reprising my highly rated (by the audience) presentation, originally given at this summer’s National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) Strategic Growth conference.

The topic is social marketing but not from a “slam dunk,” “gotta have it,” “full speed ahead, damn the business case,” perspective.  Rather the presentation examines whether there is any “there” there yet regarding revenue (specifically for credit unions, member acquisition, retention and non-account revenue).

Here’s the abstract from the NAFCU Annual Conference site, and I will post the presentation on SlideShare in the next couple weeks.

Social Marketing is Free so it Must be Worthwhile… Right?   Well maybe, but BEWARE— don’t be drawn in by the ‘coolness’ of using Facebook, Twitter and interactive applications to market your credit union without some investigation. Before you launch a social media campaign that you’re sure will “go viral,” don’t forget these three simple letters: R.O.I. Even though setting up a Facebook or Twitter account, or even a blog, is free, there are hidden costs in terms of time, resources and budget. This presentation will explore how credit unions and other organizations are using social media and other Web 2.0 tools and to what degree they are successful.

Presented by Bob London, President and Founder of London, Ink, LLC 

See NAFCU Conference site at bit.ly/fdMyl

Is the Blog Replacing the Tombstone? 

(Why Would Investment Bankers Embrace Social Media During a Downturn?)

By Brad Fleisher, Managing Director, Focus Enterprises

The recession has hit nearly all industries across the economy and investment banking, leading the pack, has certainly not escaped the grief. What used to be the largest and most profitable group of investment banks on Wall Street, commonly referred to as the bulge bracket,  is now the busted bracket, consisting of just two bank holding companies - Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Although the consensus among mainstream economists is that we’re in the trough and will see positive growth in Q1-2009, albeit probably mild, M&A (a lagging indicator)  is still weak because of ongoing discrepancies in middle market valuations Buyers are fishing for distressed deals, and sellers still have the misconception that an offer should start at 8x EBITDA (and be increased for average performance) rather than 5x, which is the long-term, broad economy historical average.

Taking a page from Rahm Emanuel’s book, and not wanting to waste a good crisis, a few partners and I took advantage of the slow down to re-think and execute a new business strategy. We’re seeking to capitalize on three long term trends in the economy.

Social Media Marketing v. Traditional Media Marketing. While there is still no more effective way to reach 90 million potential customers in 30 seconds than through a Super Bowl advertisement, there is no better way to communicate an esoteric point on intellectual property valuation to 140 professionals who are seeking this information than through LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.  You don’t have to “tweet” every hour to take advantage of social networks. And the trend has just begun. Social networks are becoming platforms to distribute customized services to highly fragmented communities rather than just a vehicle for information exchange.

Applying these trends to investment banking, the hypothesis for our practice group at Focus is that we can build our brand and grow our business quicker by leveraging the Internet and social media than through placing traditional tombstone advertisements in industry magazines and attending industry and networking meetings.

That’s why, earlier this year we launched Intangible Insights (www.intangibleinsights.com), which is our online Community of Practice where we blog, podcast, conduct surveys, publish research, and otherwise communicate with and expand our target market.  We’re even discussing strategies for streaming video to micro-niche audiences through a branded Internet TV channel, which may be a number of years out, but is certainly on its way.

Intangible v. Tangible Assets. There currently is an enthusiastic debate within the Intangible Asset professional community whether intangible assets compose “upwards of 80% of listed companies’ values” (according to a Brookings Institute report), or just under 50%.  For us, the point is this: Intangible property accounts for a significant amount of a company’s valuation.

This is a long term trend, if not a permanent change,that will accelerate in the post-recession economy as developing countries use labor advantages and decreasing communication costs to offshore commoditized tasks, both manufacturing and informational.  In order to compete, the U.S. will have to enhance its intangible asset capabilities through R&D, workforce productivity, distribution networks, and stretch its tangible resources, which will further diminish the reliance and value of hard assets

Intangible assets compose the largest share of value, by far, in Internet-reliant companies. Of course, there is significant value in the intellectual property assets of the knowledge economy company — the patents, copyrights trademarks, and trade secrets — but the real value resides at the next layer, in the methodologies that convert the intangible assets into revenue — culturally-ingrained process to attract and retain talent, strategic measurement and execution processes, brands, databases, social networks. Our group is working on a valuation rating system for these intangible assets so our clients can better understand the intrinsic value of their company and their acquisition targets. Just identifying and analyzing these assets, not to mention exploiting them, will help our clients with post-transaction integration plans or accelerated growth, which is the arbiter of a successful corporate transaction.

Generalist vs. Specialist.  Since its inception in 1982, FOCUS Bankers has been a middle market, generalist investment bank and has long debated the generalist v. specialist strategy. There are benefits and drawbacks to each, but it’s difficult to toe the middle line.  During my five year tenure at the firm, I’ve worked on deals in industries ranging from highly-engineered manufactured products, transportation and logistics, and electronic parts distribution to the information industries, including software, Internet, IT, and digital media, which is where most of my career experience has been.

The recession gave us the opportunity to transition into one carefully defined market: the Internet-Reliant Industry with a focus on intangible assets, and start a practice group within the firm. The key was to define the space large enough to have an active and growing marketplace, but small enough to have end-to-end domain expertise. That it’s highly dynamic, indispensable to information industries, full of cutting-edge growth opportunities, and just a lot of fun, doesn’t hurt our commitment.

The silver lining in this recession for us is that we took the opportunity for introspection and execution. Our strategy is fluid, but our practice group has staked its future on these trends, which we believe will shape future markets and US competitiveness.

About Brad Fleisher

Brad Fleisher is a Managing Director at FOCUS Investment Banking in Washington, DC and publisher of Intangible Insights. Brad is an experienced investment banker, entrepreneur and attorney with over 15 years M&A, corporate finance, and business development and advisory experience in the Internet, software & information technology, media, and education industries. Contact Brad at Brad.Fleisher@focusbankers.com.

Older gentleman sues Facebook and LinkedIn for age discrimination, calling them “too confusing for some of us older folk.”

Broomville, CO–A 58-year old accounting manager has filed suit against two of the most popular networking sites, accusing Facebook and LinkedIn of discriminating against him and millions of older people who find social networking sites and technologies too intimidating and complicated to use.

“It’s tough enough getting older every single day, but its downright degrading when you run into a zillion people a day asking if you’re using LinkedIn or Facebook, as though they’re some sort of panacea,” said the complainant, Frank Sawyer. “I’ve tried to use those newfangled things and have spoken to a lot of my peers who’ve tried also. It just isn’t in our genetics, and it isn’t fair.”

Added Sawyer’s attorney, Barney Simonton, “You can’t teach an old dog new technologies. We’ve tried to contact both LinkedIn and Facebook to make the case that older folk need a simpler process for signing up and using these sites–and it took us literally a month to find a phone number where we could reach a live person. Ultimately, our complaints have fallen on deaf ears, which has forced us to take legal action.”

“I had one older friend who actually figured out how to start using Facebook,” said Jennette Porteax, a 61-year old home maker. “Just when he got comfortable using it they changed the whole darn site around–the way it looks, the way it works, everything. He just couldn’t keep up–he pitched the whole social networking thing and took up woodworking.”

Marketing expert and self-proclaimed ‘thought leading social media demi-guru,’ Bob London of marketing firm London, Ink predicted the social networking trend may in fact leave the older generation behind. “Age is a state of mind–on the Internet no one knows you’re old, unless you forget to suppress your year of birth on Facebook,” said the forty-something London.

“Old people just need to take a deep breath and try harder. It ain’t rocket science, and if you need proof of that, just check out some of the younger crowd’s atrocious profiles. They’re full of bad grammar, misspellings and illiterate-sounding corporate jargon.”

Both LinkedIn and Facebook declined to comment for this story.

© 2009, Bob London

London, Ink is proud to sponsor an exciting event on March 27 - 28: Government 2.0 Camp (http://gov20camp.eventbrite.com/).  Here’s a brief description of the event and the “camp” concept:

What is Government 2.0 Camp?

Government 2.0 Camp is the unconference about using social technologies (aka web 2.0/social media tools) to create a more effective, efficient and collaborative U.S. government on all levels (local, state and federal).

Government 2.0 Camp will bring together the leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and collaborate about Government 2.0 ideas that are currently just visions.

There is also a wiki for the event where attendees and other can discuss topics and other themes: http://www.barcamp.org/Government20Camp

Why is London, Ink sponsoring this event?

1. I’m very dissatisfied–to the point of taking action–with the lack of efficiency and abundance of waste in government and am a big believer that new Web technologies, Web 2.0 applications and social media/networking applications can help.  Trimming the Federal budget by a quarter of one percent over the next five years could pay for a lot of fixes (long-term) to our educational system or seed the nascent but promising field of alternative energy.
2. I fully support transparency in government, particularly government spending–it’s our money after all–and again believe that Web 2.0 technologies and social media/networking apps can enable this.
3. I believe the Gov 2.0 arena will yield good business opportunities for London, Ink, long-term.
4. Sounds like a great event!  (I like the participatory BarCamp approach.)

Hope to see you there.

Great info from destinationCRM.com and supports why companies should consider solutions like e.SSENTIALS from London, Ink, a fixed-price bundle of online/social marketing programs.  See e.ssentials.net for more info.

Given the state of the economy, Lamba writes that social networking is a relatively low cost solution that could help in fostering, “steady communication with existing partners, and clients as well as incubating new relationships” — a function both desired by consumers networking with friends and with employees in the workplace. The aforementioned IDC social networking survey, in fact, indicates that the majority of social networking users list communication as their number one reason for usage of such sites.

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=51944