So I’ll wrap up with a few relevant links to what others have recently said about this model / requirements problem.

Facebook COO

Yesterday, Ad Age tells us that Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said this:

“Google and its competitors have made answering demands for information very profitable by selling ads attached to search requests, or demand fulfillment, Ms. Sandberg a former Google executive herself, noted.  “What no one’s figured out how to do is demand generation,” she said.  “We need to find a new model and new metrics,” she added.

It’s the Serendipity problem, right?  You can’t Search for what you don’t know about already?

You say Demand Generation and Demand Fulfillment, I say Awareness and Interest.  Same thing; Demand generation happens when people are made Aware of something, as opposed to having Interest already and Searching for it.  So we agree there.

I think where we might differ is I’m saying the web is simply too expensive for the Awareness it delivers because it’s intentionally decentralized.  I’m saying the very essence of the web, what makes the web the web, is a fundamentally poor structure for generating Awareness / Demand when compared with centralized media.

So while there may be a ”new model” for Awareness / Demand out there somewhere, it will be inefficient compared to current media alternatives.  To keep trying to build a general purpose Awareness / Demand generation model on the web is Repeating the Past.  Why don’t we just move on and create “Interest Platforms” instead of “Awareness Platforms”?

Just to be perfectly clear, I am not saying Display “doesn’t work”.  What I am saying is that it doesn’t work well enough for the cost when compared to other Awareness media to be used for the purpose of generating Awareness.

Search as Display, or Display as Search?

Google-Click, if they feel generous, may provide some much needed data on what actually goes on between Display and Search that will boost the value of Display.  After all, AdSense is really a (not very good) Interest platform, isn’t it?  But just to show I’m not a total wonk, some people are working on what might be a better Interest Platform. 

Jonathan Mendez in Display Becomes Us talks about Lookery and the idea that Search could become “display advertising’s operating principle”.  I’m not exactly sure what this technology is up to, but it sounds like an “implied Interest” approach with higher quality than AdSense.  Personally, I doubt a database of search referrers can be as universally relevant as Search but it probably could work for some categories, and it absolutely has the promise to be much better than Display or AdSense, which both suffer from the lean forward problem.  Ar least you can fix this problem with AdSense.

Facebook Search Ads

I’ve said for some time that if Social Media wants a monetization model that works (is relevant) they should try Search.  But the Socials have repeatedly resisted going that way for some reason.  Now we have Facebook announcing that Search-driven monetization is up and running with Microsoft.

I tried some searches and found not only relevant Facebook groups but also (shazzaam!) relevant ads.  It’s not Demand Generation, but it will probably make money, don’t you think?

Recursive Navel Gazing

Finally, I would simply like to make the point again that just because certain highly specialized online Display promotions can be forced to work does not mean they are “Marketing Breakthroughs”, it just means they are so highly targeted they can’t fail (um, like Search?), which also means they cannot be rolled out in any volume - that old “Awareness problem” for the web again.

Selling Facebook widgets on Facebook or HP Notebooks to people reading specific tech blogs is not Marketing Genius, it’s shooting fish in a barrel.  There’s no Reach, and these efforts don’t Scale - elements critical to generating tangible Awareness.

The fact this kind of promotion works is simply evidence that hyper-contextual targeting works on the web, which supports the general argument against an Awareness / Display platform on the web and for Search / Interest as the right model to be pursued.

Hey, at least some folks on the Tech side are moving forward!

Here’s the challenge: I don’t think there is a universal enough agreement on what online brings to the Marketing party.  Sure, it gets explained in tons of ways, but for the most part these explanations are all Tactical stuff - do this, get that.

That’s not good enough, that’s too small, and it’s not unique to online.  CEO’s and CMO’s are looking for the Strategy edge, and they are looking for ways Online is a “logical fit” into the Marketing Mix.  What is online “for”, and perhaps more importantly, what can it do better than what we already have?

This is important because if you can get to this place, then you have leverage, then you have the ability to draw more money into Online Marketing / Analysis - because it is different.

When everything we come up with replicates the Offline model but doesn’t work as well - take Display advertising, for example, the business model most every “new idea” uses - then how would you expect to get any respect?  Seriously, it looks ridiculous from outside the small world (Marketing budget-wise) of Online.  What other medium relentlessly pursues a failed business model so persistently, hoping something will change?  There are exceptions.  But most of these exceptions play in such a small sandbox or are so recursive (selling Facebook widgets on Facebook) they are irrelevant to the broad scope of Marketing (example).  They don’t scale.

I have always loved the Lean Back versus Lean Forward model - one of the earliest attempts at explaining why online is different.  The first time I heard this phrase, back in 1997 on the ClickZ discussion list (RIP), I knew exactly what it meant.  It’s visual and I could immediately write a page or two describing the “Online Difference” this idea implies.  But I’m a Behaviorist, I get all the implications of this idea.  Problem is:

1. The vast majority of Marketers are not Behaviorists, they are GRP-ists.  For these people, Marketing is about demographics and psychographics, not Behavior.

2.  Lean Back / Lean Forward is probably too abstract to be very directional for the Technologists, they can’t get to the Requirements from there.  And direction is what they need.

3.  I’m not a fan of “Either - Or” models in Marketing, just too cute.  I often talk about the concept of a “slider” on a continuum between ideas like Brand versus Direct (like a Low - High Volume control).  Marketing is always a mix, and the Optimal slider position between ideas like this varies by product, media, audience, etc.  Marketing is not an Either - Or concept, much as I’m sure some would like to think it is.  Would be more convenient for the Tech side!

I’m not going to try to convince you what the right model might be here.  I would much rather have a discussion about concepts, and build the model together.  But I will tell you something that keeps coming to my mind over and over as we watch all this play out, as the different business models succeed and fail.  I see a high-level commonality running though all the results to date.

As you probably know, I’m into Marketing Productivity - Online and Offline.  I want to generate the highest, most accountable return to the company I possibly can on Marketing spend.  This attitude does not mean I can turn every dollar spent into an ROI equation.  I look for probabilities, likelihoods, any signs I can find of Marketing impact.

When I look at the Marketing world through this lens, and holding true to the Psych model AIDAS (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action, Satisfaction) that describes how humans process Marketing information, here is where I land:

Media - offline or online - are in the business of aggregating audiences.  Marketers want to access those audiences to spread messages.  The fundamental “model” problem I see is a dimensional one, meaning how the audiences are “described” or segmented.

In offline media, all you have is demographics, maybe psychographics.  This is useful because you can quantify Reach and Frequency and talk about “Awareness” among a certain population, the first step in the AIDAS model.  Online, the very nature of the activity - the “Lean Forward” idea - is past Awareness in the AIDAS Path. 

Thinks about this: are Demographics and Psychographics relevant when you have Interest?  Do you care what the characterisitics of an audience are when they are already Interested?

Online, you are talking about audiences that have reached the Interest stage already.  This is why “Broadcast” or Display messaging is so irrelevant to these audiences unless it is hyper-contextually targeted.  They literally don’t care to be Aware of other things when they already have Interest in a specific thing.  Their minds tend to be shut to Awareness in this mode.

And this is what Online brings to the media party that is new, is different, is desirable.  Something very difficult to find Offline - the idea of Aggregated Interest - and a reason to invest in Online. 

In other words, Dollar for Dollar spent,

Offline is more efficient at aggregating Awareness than Online

Online is more efficient at aggregating Interest than Offline

If you have Marketing budget to waste, I’d agree this line of thinking is probably irrelevant.  But if you’re looking for the highest and best use of that budget, does this idea make sense to you?

Can we start building the new Online Marketing Model from here?  If the Tech side developed more ”Interest tech” and less “Awareness tech”, don’t you think Online Marketing would be better off?

But I was not satisfied with that conclusion either, still seemed not to be Root Cause - I still had to ask, why?

Why, with all the smart people around the industry, all the brilliant technology innovation, do we have the Wrong Model / Dumb Money problem?  Why does Online continue to mimic an inferior Offline model, instead of creating a new one, unique to itself?

Then it hits me.  No requirements doc.  So simple.

Marketing never told Tech what they needed to really get on board.

Not requirements for a platform or application mind you, but for the Industry.  The Requirements needed for major Marketing investment in Online Marketing / Analytics.  Requirements that would attract attention from people like these folks.

What is needed is an Intervention by Marketing on the Tech / VC side, or the Tech side to say, OK Marketing, what do you want?  A meeting in the middle.  Something like a translation of the ClueTrain Manifesto into tangible Requirements.  So that the brilliant technology innovators can start turning out products and systems Marketers can enthusiastically use.  As opposed to (for example) the tech folks hosting tons of conferences on social media to FUD Marketing into using products and platforms Marketing knows won’t deliver.

Really, when will Tech get over the answer to every innovation pushback from Marketing being “Oh, we don’t know what the future will bring, better get on board now?”  That’s ridiculous, from a Marketing perspective.

After all, we now have 10 years of Web Analytics we did not have access to in 1999.  Maybe the Web Analysts should do the requirements doc, since they have “both brains in the game” already!

What do you think?  Is this Online Marketing Requirements Doc idea too nuts?  How else would you explain each new technology wave repeating the Marketing failures of the past, instead of bringing  anything new or useful in terms of Marketing or Advertising?

I was one of those kids that built crystal radio sets and messed around with ham radio.  My favorite place to hang out was Radio Shack, back when they were an electronic parts house.  I built all kinds of circuit board stuff with a soldering iron, mostly bugs and telco hacks.  I was a geek when they were called nerds. 

In 1977 I learned the BASIC language and was writing simple programs for the mainframe at college.  In 1978, I was part of a small group of students who worked on the Synclavier, the first large scale truly digital music synthesizer.  I started working with PC’s in 1987, and had a home computer by 1991.  I was one of those people who dialed up to the CompuServe Forums at 300 baud, primarily talking about computers and music, figuring out how to rewrite .bat and .ini files to get the computer / keyboard interfaces working properly. 

And at the same time, making lots of  ”online friends” ;).

So I have to tell you, the following is not coming from someone who is against or afraid of technology or experimentation.  What I am against is the illogical squandering of resources, and people who are inflexible in their thinking.

I understand perfectly well why coders get excited about developing new ideas for new platforms, solving problems and providing new functionality.  Let’s build something for Facebook!  Get tired of that?  Let’s build something for iPhone!  Etc.  On and on, over and over.  Nothing wrong with that.

Here is what I don’t understand about this “innovation” on the web.  The magic bullet for monetizing all the free platforms and applications so pervasive on the web is Advertising.  But the platforms and applications are rarely developed, it seems, with a clear vision of creating value for the Advertiser.  Surprisingly, this part of the job is not well thought out and often bolted on later.

The problem with this approach should be obvious - ultimately, the application fails to pay for itself, the business model collapses, and that generation of work disappears with another “lesson learned”.   Except, this lesson is often the same lesson learned in the previous generation, from an Advertising perspective.

Here is something we have now learned about 20,000 times on the web:  Advertising lacking proper Context generates little value for Advertisers.  As is the case offline, by the way.

That’s what makes a prediction like MySpace will be Tripod all over again from an Advertising perspective so easy to make.  It doesn’t matter what the platform or application is.  If it lacks the key contextual elements to support successful Advertising, it will fail from an Advertising perspective.

Why care about this?

I will tell you why - Budget for Online Marketing / Analytics.

As long as online looks and acts like some kind of ongoing experiment, it’s going to get that kind of attention and budget.  Seriously.  And the ongoing, repeated failures of the same ideas over and over does not help with this issue very much, know what I mean?  I know, I know, you think each generation is a new idea because it’s new technology.

But these are not new ideas to Management, and they’re not ideas to Marketing.  They’re the same ideas with new technology, and each fails in the same way the others did.  So, why do we keep repeating these cycles?  What is wrong with the transition from brilliant software development to sustainable business models? 

There have been lots of good suggestions.  Defective analytical culture.  Incompetent industry analysts.  Short-sighted business goals (more on that one here).

But when I keep asking “why?” for a lot of these issues, I always come back two two ideas:  Wrong Model and Dumb Money

Wrong Model - Why, over and over, are new platforms and applications built that fail to provide proper context hooks for Display Advertising, and are not structured to take advantage of Search?  I’d guess it’s because developers simply have been fed a lot of crap about the true nature of Advertising and Marketing.  In case this concept is unclear, let me be specific: A random space with a random Display Ad in it creates very little, if any, Value for Marketers.  Context is king.

CEO’s and  CMO’s are looking for the Strategy edge, and they are looking for ways Online is a “logical fit” into the Marketing Mix.  What is online “for”, and perhaps more importantly, what can Online Advertising do better than Advertising we already have?

This concept is extremely important because if you can get to this place, then you have leverage, then you have the ability to draw more money into online Marketing / Analysis - because it is different. 

When everything you come up with replicates the offline model but doesn’t work as well - take Display Advertising, for example, which is the business model most every “new” idea uses - then how would you expect to get any Marketing respect / budget? 

Seriously, this approach looks ridiculous from outside the small world (budget-wise) of Online.  Think about it.  What other medium relentlessly pursues a failed business model so persistently, hoping something will change?

Dumb Money- either VC / Buyout money or stupid (unaccountable) money coming from Advertisers - is in many ways just the enabler of the Wrong Model problem.  It allows these innovators to stop thinking about what they are doing, to really create something different as far as Advertising / Marketing goes. 

It’s just too easy to say “make sure we leave space for Display Ads” and leave it at that, instead of building in the plumbing to give the advertising proper context.  I’m not going to go deeper into the fundamental problems of Display Advertising on the Web here as I covered these issues in the Online Brand-ing series.

Conclusion

I’ve spent a long time thinking about how to define the “correct model” for online Marketing comprehensively, and found it’s a deep hole I can’t travel down further than I already have at this time.  I think readers of this blog probably know which direction I am leaning on this model.  Perhaps we can do that together at a later date (feel free to leave your Comments on the correct model).  I do know what doesn’t work, though, and am surprised we keep repeating that model.

For now, here’s a prediction: The first social network to:

1.  Drive “vertical”, highly segmented participation, which drives context for Display Ads, and

2.  Becomes transparent to web-wide Search or uses Search really well internally to expose rich contextual spaces

will be the first social network to make money.  How do I know this?

Because the same thing has happened over and over again already with each new generation of technology.  If you’re on the Marketing / Analytics side of Online, you know this to be true, right?

I’m not a genius, I just remember history.

Can anyone give me a reason why the next generation of platforms and applications can’t be built with these two ideas embedded in them from the beginning?

Other comments on the above?

I think this is probably the last Learning and Teaching issue in Online Marketing (series starts here) before attempting to evaluate and summarize the challenge.  I would like to receive comments from you on the Sherlock Holmes Problem.

“There are two types of minds — the mathematical and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive.”

– Blaise Pascal

In his post How the Skills of a Night Auditor Translate into Web Analytics, Christopher Berry explores a notion we have wrestled with a lot while developing the WAA’s Certified Web Analyst Test - can you teach someone to be curious in a “business analytics” way?  Or are people just born with / socialized into this skill set?  How do you measure and test someone for “analytical curiosity”?

We have referred to these issues internally on the Education Committee as the “Sherlock Holmes” problem.  The issue is not the ability to read and interpret reports, or write up findings, or anything like that.  It’s the ability to see coincidences or oddities in the data, to conceptualize linkage or relationships others don’t see, to follow the data trail (or blaze it) right down to Root Cause.

From what I have seen over the years, in both web analytics and traditional BI, there are many technical masters of the analytical tools.  Relatively few of these folks, however, also have the “Sherlock Holmes ability”.  They can answer any question you have, but they don’t come up with the questions.  That’s the Holmes side - coming up with the breakthrough questions.  And figuring out how to answer them.  The analysis, well, that’s just the mechanics.

Our friend Pascal above speaks of the “mathematical” and ”intuitive” minds.  I often wonder if there is something about learning “Programming” and “Marketing” that creates a rigid way of learning on either side that is mutually exclusive with the other.  The intersection or ”cross” of these two mindsets, the corpus callosum if you will - is seemingly rare.  Can you train / learn to cross your brains?  I have referred to this idea as “being a little “less scientific” on the Technical side and a little “more specific” on the Marketing side“.

Having spent a good deal of time in the hospitality biz myself, I can tell you there are night auditors who just “run the reports” and night auditors who deliver great insights; these are the Holmes.  A common “fault” you hear about these folks is “they ask too many questions”.

My wife says I ask too many questions.  Why do you want to know?

I dunno, I just want to understand it.

But why do you need to understand it?

I dunno, I just do.  I like understanding things.

Can being a night auditor teach you to become a great analyst, if you work at it hard enough?  Or were you somehow born or socialized into being a great analyst, and night auditor is just one of those analyst jobs?  There are three related “Sherlock Holmes” Learning issues in my mind: Pattern Recognition, Empathy, and Hypothesis.

Pattern Recognition - the “math” brain?

I have always described my particular skill in analytics as “I see patterns” (I know, cue the music).  I’m not sure where this skill comes from, but it’s been a skill for as long as I can remember, from taking music lessons through working on case studies in school and on into my business career.  Perhaps more importantly, I know how to translate these patterns into Marketing programs that generate increased profits (but that’s the “other brain”, see below).

Much of what Christopher talks about in his post is pattern recognition, or often more importantly, the deviation from the patterns you expect to see.  For example, (Hypothesis) closing the kitchen at 11 PM will increase total liquor sales across the dining room and bar.  Once you analyze and prove this, it’s easy for others to analyze and follow (and post on blogs and have conferences about!)

But how about the ability to even conceive this question in the first place?  Not to mention running through the possible outcomes - what if they drink less $100 a bottle wine in the dining room and instead have $5 drinks in the bar?  How many $5 drinks would they have to have?  Is my projection logical?

I know, depends on the audience…

But seriously, how do you teach people Pattern Recognition, or to Recognize Lack of Pattern?  How do you test people for this capability?  Rorschach Tests?

Empathy - the “marketing brain”

I’ve seen a lot of material on analytical thought - right brain versus left brain mix, deductive versus inductive thinker, etc.  Sometimes I think analytical ability has a lot to do with Empathy - can you understand and visualize the players, think about what they would do.  How many “boozers” are there in the dining room on a Saturday night, and what would they do if we closed the kitchen at 11 PM?

Perhaps this pull towards Empathy as a key component of being Sherlock Holmes is my Marketing background speaking, because it’s very common in Marketing to have to “step into the shoes” of the customer or audience.  Again, I can tell you from experience, it is difficult for many analysts to ”Pretend you are a woman over 50″.  Even more difficult - and often more critical - is to then answer the question “Given you are a woman over 50, what would you do or think?”  The concept of Personas is meant to address some of this problem, make the challenge more tangible for people.  But you still have the “what would the Persona do or think” issue.

How do you Teach or Learn this skill?  I think there is a concrete answer here - you simply have to read a lot of valid research (not this kind), and then take the time to think about it, connect it to experience.  I do see the tremendous amount of twisted and corrupt research that gets passed around the blogosphere as “truth” being a severe Teaching / Learning challenge though.  No wonder people are confused and always searching for “the truth”.

Hypothesis - the brains meet

Once you know using Landing Pages is a good idea, it’s not very hard to measure and report on that idea, replicate and copy it, spread it through conferences and blogs.  It’s an important idea, so important in fact we are still talking about it 10 years later. 

But somebody had to invent the concept of a Landing Pages in the first place.  And when that idea came out of seemingly thin air, also devise a way to prove it was a good idea.  Hypothesis and Test.  It seems to me Online Marketing / Web Analytics is absolutely chock full of Tests, many of them without a Hypothesis.  Instead, we have a lot of brute force Testing, and then a winner is chosen.

This could be why there is a glacially slow learning curve; in fact, all this testing is “one-off” activity and people really are not Learning the fundamentals, not connecting the dots, as it were.  So these folks just keep Repeating the Past.  Testing without a Hypothesis is a very robotic way to look at Online Marketing and Analysis, and at the very least wastes a lot of time.  This brain “Arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid”, as Pascal would say.

Do people really have to repeat the “Landing Page” test with every new piece of online media?  I guess you would have to, if you didn’t have the Hypothesis “message continuity in a sequence of online advertising pieces will result in a higher response rate”.  I can tell you it does.  I can tell you it always has offline as well.  It’s just a fundamental rule, especially in direct marketing, for example:

Outer Envelope > Teaser > Open Envelope > Johnson Box > P.S. > Letter > Reply Device

The better integrated these messages are - the stronger the “scent” - the higher the response.   There is not a need to keep testing this idea.  Think about it - does it make any sense to you, is it possible that a random series of disconnected messages would get a higher response rate?  Really?

Lack of  Hypothesis for each test may be the most crippling Learning problem out there, and perhaps the most difficult to crack because it requires both brains to be in gear at the same time.  In other words, creating a breakthrough Hypothesis probably requires both Pattern Recognition and Empathy.

In case the concept of Hypothesis is not quite clear, I don’t view an “educated guess” as a Hypothesis; you need to provide concrete reasons for the Hypothesis, fully explaining why the outcome should occur.  The good news underlying the Hypothesis approach is this: by being proved wrong or right every time - instead of just waiting for outcome - folks will start to Learn.  Just shrugging your shoulders and accepting the outcome of a test doesn’t create Learning. 

Write it down, what do you think the result of the test will be and why?  At some point, people will begin to say to themselves, “Hey, this test looks like these other ones.  My Hypothesis is…”

And more often that not, they will be correct.  Sometimes they will be spectacularly wrong, and that’s OK, because Failure is a Learning Experience.

Questions

So that’s the Sherlock Holmes Problem. 

Comments on any of the above?  Are great Analysts born, socialized, taught?  Have I completely missed the core issue, and something else - lack of proper analytical culture, for example - is really the root cause of a slow learning curve?  HIPPOS don’t know how to form a Hypothesis, and resent one being formed for them?

Anyone know of resources (preferably focused on education) dissecting these issues / providing learning solutions?

Will you help me?

Here’s a Premise:

The Online Marketing world seems to repeat the same mistakes over and over; it’s almost like every new generation of technology is a clean slate and somehow people expect an approach that was flawed in a previous generation won’t be flawed this time.

Sure, technology changes, but the fundamentals of human behavior are much more difficult to change.  So you would expect there to be some constants, right?

For example, putting a high value on “quantity” of activity (remember Hits?) when every past generation has found that “quality” ends up as a more important metric.

When people talk about MySpace, they talk about how many millions of accounts there are.  People forget the many companies that have fallen on the sword of the “total accounts” number in the past.

What you really want to know is how many accounts are active (say, any activity past 3 months), and whether the percent active is rising or falling.  This one simple metric is a fabulous predictor of the health of an online business - from the very earliest days of interactivity right up until now (example).

The quantity of accounts doesn’t drive revenue generating activity - it’s the quality of the accounts.  Quantity just drives costs.

So, why does every source from the media to bloggers to conferences ignore this?  Why doesn’t anybody challenge the value of “we have this many accounts” every time it comes out of the mouth of a company spokesperson?

In other words, despite the “testing” mentality online, people seem to continually ignore the results of the past, like it’s different this time - and every time.

Question: Why does this happen?  Is it because:

1. The Teaching is failing - books, conferences, courses, blogs, newsletters, etc. just are not conveying the correct principles.  “Group Think” in the blogosphere might be making this condition worse.

2. The Learning is failing - people simply don’t want to rely on the lessons of the past and want to experience every new platform as a blank space with no constraints.

3. Other - Your reasons?  Or problems with the Premise?

Please help me sort this out!

Answers to that question might have been helpful, but…

What I’m really questioning is this: How do people in the web space learn what they learn?  Associated questions are:

1.  Has quantity eclipsed quality as a yardstick for the success?

2.  Implications for Teachers / Course Developers of the answer to #1

There are also some serious implications for “Web Marketing” adoption (in all forms) by the broader Marketing community buried in the above.  To me, this is not unlike the “CRM Problem”, where for years (and still) people confused the Technology solution with the Marketing potential, which set CRM back a decade.

In particular, what interests me the most is what seems like a glacially slow learning curve among practitioners of Online Marketing.

Example: Given all the technology we have, given the immediacy of knowledge distribution and the number of voices, and given the absolute boatload of mistakes and learning that have taken place since the early 90’s, why are we (in the case of SES) still talking about landing pages and title tags like they are some kind of secret sauce? 

These two topics have to be the most covered topics on the web, info on them is everywhere.  So why would senior people talk about them at the leading conference on Search Marketing?  Why wouldn’t these topics be confined to sessions for newbies?

I can only think of two macro reasons:

1.  Something must be broken about the Learning approach we’re using.  Perhaps involving Trust of the content or Authority of the Teachers, which causes people to simply not embrace the material.

2.  Something must be unique about the Learners themselves.  Perhaps they don’t accept any Learning as “solidified” or have a constant need for confirmation that what they know is “correct”.

Perhaps the “Wisdom of Crowds” has a natural downside.  The Consensus has to constantly be questioned and evaluated, over and over, because the Consensus lacks Trust and Authority. 

Or, perhaps the Consensus Crowd can be fickle, and like a school of fish, suddenly turn and veer off in another direction.  So there’s a fear of missing these turns, creating a need for constant confirmation.

The above analysis is from an Education perspective, but I’m not sure it addresses Root Cause; these could be the symptoms of a larger problem, which is a confusion of Tactics and Strategy.  In other words, the Tactical tail wagging the Strategic dog.

Instead of the other way ’round.

Perhaps slow learning is just a symptom of what is portrayed as (but is not really, from a Marketing perspective) an endless learning curve for various reasons that probably have to do with the technology heritage of the space.  In particular, the use of a FUD approach when pushing new technology ideas which is wholly inappropriate when pushing new Marketing ideas.

Technology is Tactical, Marketing is Strategic.  You can use FUD to sell new Tactical approaches based on new technology, but when you use FUD to push Strategic ideas like Marketing, what you’re doing is proving your idea is not worth spending any time on.

Example: the concept of “Message Continuity” or “Scent” can be embraced as a core philosopy of Marketing Communications, regardless of how it is expressed - Landing Page, Title Tag, Subject Line, whatever.  Just because the technology changes doesn’t mean the core idea of “Scent” changes - unless it is faulty to being with.  To say a new techology “changes everything” and requires new Learning only feeds the fire of doubt and provides reasons for “mainstream” Marketing people to doubt an idea is even worth considering.

FUD works against you, not for you, in the the world of Marketing Strategy, which is where the big dollars are locked up.

Am I wrong, am I misdirected, is there something I don’t understand? 

Questions like these are very important to get a grip on for those of us in the “Education Space”, so comments are most welcome.  And (I think) there are broader implications buried in here for the  “speed of adoption” issue many online marketing spaces are facing.

Thoughts on any of the above?

And I mean the question literally.  Not did you have a good time, see lots of friends, do a lot of beneficial networking, talk to customers, build your reputation, create content for your blog, etc.

Did you Learn anything?

Looking at the stream of blog posts, video, Tweets and so forth - much of it incredibly repetitive by the way, which is a whole other issue for this type of Journalism - I have to wonder if anybody except those new to Search actually learned anything.  You know, walked away with new knowledge they could use to improve their efforts.

I have more than a passing curiosity about this issue from a macro perspective.  As you might know, I am a Co-Chair on the Web Analytics Association’s Education Committee, responsible for creating the WAA’s Core Curriculum and upcoming Certification Testing.  So I think a lot about Learning and Education, especially as it relates to the web.  And that thinking includes different “delivery models” like Conferences.

I can remember the first time I spoke at SES, it was the very early days of PPC and SES was mostly about SEO (Organic).  My presentation outlined how you could often generate higher quality traffic with PPC than with Organic Search, this traffic would convert at a much higher rate if you used an idea called “Landing Pages”, and you could prove all this with something called Web Analytics.

People were generally pretty stunned, like I was slaying the sacred cow of “free” SEO.  Then the questions:

Why should we care about “traffic quality”?
What is the point of measuring conversion?
Can you prove Navigation, Copy, and Usability are important?

I guess a lot of what I was saying was not “conventional widom” for this audience.  What I was saying they should really pay attention to was at odds with what they had heard from all their peers.

That was almost 7 years ago.  And I had been writing this stuff on my web site for 2 years before the first SES presentation.

So what’s in all this Content streaming out of SES?

You should be concerned about “traffic quality”.
Here’s how to create a Landing Page.
Ideas like Navigation, Copy, and Usability are important.

Plus, the usual SEO stuff on title text, good copy, linking etc. that has been around in one form or another for 10 years.  Same content that was presented last year, and the year before, and the year before.

Except now the word “Social” is in the presentation titles.  My experience, SEO is really not any different for Social.  After all, Social is content, right?  Search engines find the content, index it, and people Search it.  Same basic rules apply, barring some of the more arcane technical FUD stuff.

And most of that arcane stuff, if you really think it matters, is already posted online in the search forums or on blogs.  If you want to know this material, you can just Search for it.

Again, I’m not saying it isn’t fun to go to SES, or the presenters just repeat each other, or anything like that.  I’m just asking a very simple question.  If you’re not new to Search, did you add to your knowledge base while you were at SES San Jose?

Did you Learn anything at SES?

Do you think it’s possible the “conventional wisdom” Learning model that many web conferences are built on just might be broken?  For example, by the time a “community” agrees on what the “best practices” are enough to pick experts to speak at conferences, the knowledge dispensed at the conference is already widely known?

And as a result, most people (other than newbies) go to these conferences for reasons other than Learning anything new?

Very interested in hearing your thoughts on this!

The term Business Analyst has been around for a while, usually referring to a person who is a translator of sorts between Business Units and IT.  These people try to make sure “requirements” from the business side are implemented as desired on the IT side.

Sometimes there are Operational Analysts, who are typically IT folks or Engineers, depending on the business.  This is the world of Six Sigma and process, where the business is trying to improve throughput or cut down on waste.  But we know that just because Operations is Operating Just Fine, we don’t always get the result we would like from a Marketing perspective.

A similar Analyst might be present in Marketing Operations Management.  This is really about the process of Marketing execution though, not Acquisition / Retention / Customer Value.

I don’t think I have ever seen a decent-sized business without Financial Analysts.  These folks look for variances or unusual activity in Financial Reporting and seek to explain why.  Sometimes they actually get involved with Marketing analysis, though usually not for something like “Campaigns”.  Instead, they look for structural problems that manifest as a “problem with Marketing” in the Financial systems.

As a Marketing person, these are the analysts you have to be aware of and build relationships with, because they can really cause you a lot of pain if you’re not paying attention.

For example, let’s say you are spending money to generate subscriptions and these subs have a very high cancel rate.  You may not see these cancels but they are easy to spot in the Financial systems.  A Financial analyst is simply going to ask, why?  Maybe you have a reason to do what on the surface looks like a complete waste of money.  But the question will be asked.

Or, let’s say a Financial analyst finds a product with a very high return rate, and questions why the product should even be offered.  From the buyer the analyst learns this product is often featured in Marketing promotions, because “the response rate is so high”.  Hmm.  Again, maybe you have a reason to be reckless with demand generation.  But the question will be asked.

Another example is Service Load.  Let’s say on average, the company experiences 1 customer service interaction for every 5 monetary transactions processed.  Now comes your campaign, and the Service load generated is 1 customer service interactions for every 2.5 monetary transactions processed - double the average rate.  A stat like that is a classic bell-ringer for a Financial Analyst, and the question will be asked - why?

At some point, as the level of attention a company pays to analysis continues to grow, these kinds of issues will start to pop up a lot.  Management starts to question the value of all the “front end” analysis coming from Marketing out of web sites and other demand systems, because “response” is only half (or maybe a third) of the Financial story.

And they can prove it.

It ends up the real story is often in the back end.  What is the result ”Net Net”, after all the dust has settled?  ”Net Net” is typically about 90 days out from the initial transaction (unless you run a 6 month trial or similar idea), to allow for the various types of slippage that can occur in the final results - posting delays, credit card cycles, returns processing, and so forth.

Here’s an old direct marketing truism: for any two similar campaigns, the one with the higher response rate likely generates the lower quality customer.  “Low quality” in this case means (relative to the other campaign) high return rates, high cancel rates, high levels of Service Load, etc.

So if you are Optimizing purely against response, you may be shooting your company (and yourself) in the foot.

A Marketing Productivity Analyst, who likely would be a former Financial Analyst, could be an investment that would really be worth your time and effort, on several different levels.

Here is the fundamental issue.

All of the above “Low Quality Customer” issues - high return rates, high cancel rates, high levels of Service Load - are typically not really ”Customer” problems.  Low Quality Customers are the end result, not the Root Cause.  The Root Cause usually lies somewhere in Marketing, Product, or Service.

And nobody is responsible for addressing these problems proactively, before they become large enough to cause Financial pain or even Social pain.  So how about you, Marketer or Marketing Analyst?

Is there any other silo where these issues potentially have a greater negative impact on true Net Financial performance?  Think about it.

Customer Service is reactive, they respond.  It’s not their job to be proactive, they take care of problems after occurence.  Further, does it make sense to continue generating problems they have to respond to?

Financial Analysts are also reactive, and typically work on much longer time frames.  In other words, by the time a Financial Analyst discovers a problem in Marketing, Product, or Service it’s probably a big problem.  And a big problem in Marketing, Product, or Service is a problem that undoubtedly has been released already to the Social / PR world.

Which in the end, just makes the Marketing job much more difficult, doesn’t it?  Doing battle with negative buzz in every campaign?

What is needed is a cross-silo analyst (like Financial Analysts typically are) with a shoter-term, more focused perspective (like Web Analysts typically have).  A cross-breed, bridging this open gap in the system.

If you’re not going to take this proactive stance, who will?

If you’re not familiar with the Liu Xiang and his injury, see here.

In a brilliant, and stunningly swift move for a large org, Nike has managed to get full page “Just Do It” print ads into this morning’s China papers supporting Liu Xiang.  The “Love” treatment, which you can see more on here, has this copy (translated from the Mandarin):

——————

Love competition.
Love risking your pride.
Love winning it back.
Love giving it everything you’ve got.
Love the glory. Love the pain.
Love sport even when it breaks your heart.

Just Do It.

——————–

Given some of the cultural issues surrounding China’s hosting of the Olympics, this is just a fantastic local response by the Brand.  Otherwise, razor sharp with the Brand ID, and certainly Social link bait.

Wonder if the campaign will go worldwide?

Any downside to this approach for Nike?