The day started out like the first two.....rain, cold and longer lines.......then the SUN came out and it warmed up....YEAH!  People actually went outside and enjoyed the events like they are expected to do.

Actually 3 good sessions:
*  Started out w/ a CNN interview of Barry Diller.....he has a brand new technology and start up for watching local TV in your market
*  Good key note on the social interaction around Mobile and Location
*  Great session by Google on taking iconic  brand creative TV spots and recreating them in multi channel digital

Great BBQ yesterday.

Looking to Monday:
*  The exhibit hall opens, today....that's where you will find me.
*  A couple of good sessions
*  Expecting Sunny and warm weather.

This is my last day at SXSW.  Since Dell is here, I'll be in Round Rock Tuesday and Wednesdays.

I'll go deeper into some of the good sessions, later in the week

Rob

The day started out like the first two.....rain, cold and longer lines.......then the SUN came out and it warmed up....YEAH!  People actually went outside and enjoyed the events like they are expected to do.

Actually 3 good sessions:
*  Started out w/ a CNN interview of Barry Diller.....he has a brand new technology and start up for watching local TV in your market
*  Good key note on the social interaction around Mobile and Location
*  Great session by Google on taking iconic  brand creative TV spots and recreating them in multi channel digital

Great BBQ yesterday.

Looking to Monday:
*  The exhibit hall opens, today....that's where you will find me.
*  A couple of good sessions
*  Expecting Sunny and warm weather.

This is my last day at SXSW.  Since Dell is here, I'll be in Round Rock Tuesday and Wednesdays.

I'll go deeper into some of the good sessions, later in the week

Rob

I will be posting daily starting  Friday March 9th about SXSW

Many marketers wonder if email will remain relevant in a social media driven world.  A recent comScore, study, called "U.S. Digital Year in Review," looked at trends and rankings in U.S. Internet activity.  The bottom line is that email usage among teenagers age 12-17 declined 59 percent in 2010, and declined by 18 percent among the age group 18-25. The only increase was among users age 55 and older where email usage increase during 2010.

This has lead to three conclusions: 

While social media usage has been increasing, email remains an important tool for ecommerce marketers..

1. Social media uses email. For every Facebook wall post or new Twitter follower, an email is sent to notify the user of updates. The world of social media would not have the stickiness it does without these constant reminders flooding our inboxes, driving us back to those sites. Asking a consumer to log into several different sites on a daily basis to check updates is a large commitment. Many rely on their inbox as their one-stop notification center to help manage the clutter.
2. Business communications depend on email. Most online transactions require users to enter their email address, and users expect to receive timely notifications afterwards. Businesses and consumers use email to communicate, not only promotional offers and newsletters, but also electronic versions of bank statements and order confirmations.
3. Consumers react differently to social media. Social media is social. It's a vehicle to stay in contact with friends, family and professional colleagues. For consumers, it can be a vehicle to voice opinions and make requests. Many businesses that use social media have found that consumers request coupons or deals that will directly benefit them.

In conclusion, a large percentage of consumers depend on email. Most of them also use social media regularly. Marketers will continue to use email as a communication channel. By using both, social and e mail, marketers enhance their brand, effectively communicate across a message spectrum and grow their sales.

Attribution is the process of linking the desired marketing outcome or activity to a promotional effort or efforts.  For example, directly linking a customer’s purchase to a banner ad.  Or even more complexly, seeing the ad off line via a catalog or print ad, searching for the site on Google…seeing the paid advertising… then going to the site.   

In the world of multi-channel marketing, correctly understanding and attributing the real source driving the purchase is no easy task at best.  At worst, it can contribute to channel over or under performance and spend and may mask your true ROI. 

 There are many reasons this problem exists, they include:

•  Data tracked in different tools and stored in different places

• Integration of click and customer identified data (PII)

• Tracking across channels

• Budget restrictions

• Analytical tool and people limitations

The heart of solving the allocation issue is to create an integrated customer data resource.  This links together all of the data sources in both your on and off line customer engagement.  This creates a single way to track and understand customer behavior.  It allows you to develop multi-channel allocation models, instead of a more limited one channel to action model.

Next week I will discuss how to transform a integrated data resource into a customer intelligence capability. 

There are several skills and capabilities that any marketer needs to create successful multi-channel marketing programs.   The three most important are: 

•  Touch-point customer attribution –in off line channels, it’s easy since you most always have PII (personally identifying information) available from DM, 800, etc.  On line is another story.  For example, how does off line advertising drive search, banner and CSE’s.  The best definition of Attribution I have seen, a process of using business rules and models to allocate credit to any marketing communication, across all channels and touch-points, which leads to a desired action such as a sale or lead or engagement.

• Customer intelligence workbench –This is a resource that integrates all relevant data from all sources and channels that enables analysis that drives marketing decisions for multi-channel and cross-channel engagement.  The workbench is a complex resource that combines off and on-line data, off and on line performance and generates analysis that drives execution such as loyalty, acquisition, retention, engagement, etc.

• Customer Engagement Execution – is the process of executing marketing strategies that engage customers across all channels that you and the customer choose to engage.  There is a slippery slope here.  Most execution systems such as campaign management, e mail, social media, etc, do not interact and integrate.  The Holy Grail is to create one system which will do it all.

Over the next several weeks I am going to discuss each of the three areas in much greater detail.  I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

As we start to think about a time in the near future called “post-recession”, a good customer detective must also think about how the post-recession consumer will behave differently.  How will consumers prioritize spending and will different groups such as boomers behave differently. 

Some new patterns seem clear:

•  Consumers will do a better job of searching for information before they make decisions about products and services….the more a marketer can do to make it easily found the better.
• Marketers will need to get closer to consumers through multi and cross-channel engagement
• Marketers need to stress value and quality in addition to price
• In order to get a customer’s loyalty, marketers will have to engage better than the competition
• Consumers want positive content and communications

There is a lot of information available every day on how the US economy and consumers have been hurt by the recession and much speculation about the consumer mindset.  What are your thoughts?

A Customer Detective literally works for a marketer to track down and understand who their customers are.  A customer detective starts with DATA, lots and lots of data.  Not just any data, mind you….actionable data!  But we are not quite to actionable data yet.

I start by observing who buys their stuff…how frequently and for how much.  I observe by literally watching customers and by analyzing the data….who, why, how and when and how much.  I then enhance that data with third party data to create complex segmentations or clusters by customer value.  Then I can start to build a process of understanding how to engage and communicate with best customers and look alike prospects.  Now we are talking actionable data! 

In today’s marketing world, it is all about multi and cross-channel implementation of the right message and content with the goal of engaging the customer at the right time and getting her to l buy my clients products.  This is a customer detective in action.

For example, today I finished a project adding third party on and off-line media data to customer purchase behavior and created a segmentation by cluster and customer value.  The result is a fine tuned media plan implementing web and cable buys by real customer purchase data.  Gotta Love it!