Ex3 Café

"Mr. CMO.... Tear Down This Wall!"

In this case, I’m referring to the departmental “wall” that divides inbound marketing (i.e. SEO, banner ads, social media, call center...etc.) and outbound marketing (i.e. e-mail, direct mail, SMS…etc.).  I suspect these departments are disconnected because:

• Skill sets tend to fall in the inbound domain OR the outbound domain.  As such, it’s hard to find people that bridge both domains.  This includes both marketing executives and marketing "worker bees."
• Technology and consulting vendors typically focus in one area versus another
• The value proposition of integrating both domains hasn't resonated enough with most senior executives to facilitate cross pollination between departments

Note:  For more information on the differences between inbound and outbound marketing, see my previous blog post: Is Outbound Marketing On The Decline?

So why even bother integrating these departments?  Here's the high level benefits (from my perspective):

• Ability to deliver intelligent, multi-step campaigns across channels.  Check out my previous blog post (integrating inbound and outbound marketing) for a good example of this. 
• Minimize duplication between departments
• Consistent customer experience, messaging and branding across all channels

How should Mr. or Ms. CMO go about integrating these departments?  Here's some ideas:

• Be head cheerleader and evangelist for inbound and outbound channel integration.  If this isn't "your thing," find someone else to wave the pompom's.
• Cross train marketing managers (and related IT counterparts) in areas they have limited experience with (i.e. teach the inbound folks about outbound and vice versa)
• Structure the organization in such a way that marketing managers manage campaigns across inbound and outbound channels

If all else fails, throw a "Tear Down This Wall" party complete with hard hats, sledge hammers and real walls to knock down.  Make sure the company's liability insurance is current and active though. :-)

Starbucks Card Mobile. Can I Throw Away My Plastic Card Yet?

Not quite yet.  I'll tell you why a little further down in the post.

Starbucks recently rolled out its Starbucks Card Mobile App to 6,800 U.S. company-operated Starbucks and all US Target stores.  This new app enables iPhone and Blackberry users to pay for purchases via their phone, check and reload their card balance as well as check their reward points.  Here's a short video on Starbucks website site that describes how the app works: 

The official app only runs on the iPhone and Blackberry platforms, but I found a couple of unofficial apps on the Android Marketplace. I tried one of the apps on my Android phone and it worked as expected: generate bar code on phone screen, have Starbucks cashier scan bar code with bar code reader, enjoy coffee.  I was especially impressed with the real time balance update (i.e. the POS transaction was updated on my phone immediately after the cashier scanned the bar code).

I was so excited with the new app I literally threw away the Starbucks card in my wallet.  In addition to this being an expression of my excitement, one could also also call this a symbolic gesture to welcome in the long awaited, full scale launch of mobile/POS payments in the US.  Symbolic or not, throwing away the physical card turned out to be a big mistake.

I realized this mistake when I accidentally deleted my Starbucks card number from my Android mobile app.  This, at fist, didn't seem to be a big deal.  Just re-enter the card number into the mobile app and we're back in business.  The problem was the card number could only be retrieved from the physical card (remember... the one I enthusiastically threw away).  

I tried logging into my Starbucks.com account to get my card number, but for security reasons the card number was only partially displayed.  One would think, if my Starbucks mobile app is also associated with my Starbucks.com account and my Starbucks.com account is linked to my physical Starbucks card that my Starbucks card info. would be retained in my Starbucks mobile app.  This was not the case.

In order to get my Starbucks card number, I had to log into my Starbucks.com account, report the card I threw away as lost or stolen, transfer the balance from my old card to the new replacement card and wait for the new card to arrive in the mail. Once the new card arrived in the mail, I had to activate the new card and finally enter the new card info. into my Starbucks mobile app.

In short, I love the convenience and functionality of the new Starbucks mobile app.  I'll wait to throw away my physical card though, until all of the kinks have been ironed out.

P.S.
In Starbucks defense, I'm not sure if the official iPhone or Blackberry Starbucks Card Mobile apps require this many hoops to jump through if the card info. is deleted from either of the apps.  If not, then it's probably safe to say that most of the kinks have been ironed out for the officially rolled out versions of the app.

Google's Near Field Communication (NFC) Technology

The following is an e-mail response I sent to a partner when discussing/comparing Google's recently announced Near Field Communication capability to other mobile direct response methods.  The "droplet", described below, is printed card stock with NFC chip technology embedded into it.

The droplet has a tiny "NFC" chip embedded in it which transmits a low power, encoded signal.   This signal is received/decoded by the mobile phone which has an NFC chip embedded in it as well.  

This is similar to a QR code where a URL, phone number or other data can be encoded/stored in the QR code image and received/decoded by a QR code enabled phone.  The main difference between QR codes and NFC is how the encoded data is "received" by each method.  With the QR code, the encoded data is received by scanning the QR code via the mobile phone camera.  The QR code image is then decoded via the QR code app. installed on the mobile phone.  With the NFC method, the encoded data (stored in the droplet) is received by the NFC chip/receiver and then decoded on the phone.

The NFC method gets us closer to what I coin as "Effortless Mobile Capture and Response" or EMCR, as this method only requires the mobile phone user to "wave" the phone a couple of inches away from the NFC transmitter to receive the encoded message.  With the QR code method, the user has to line up (correctly) and scan the QR code image to receive the encoded message.  

It makes logical sense that the easier it is to respond to a marketing message, the higher the response rate will be.  The down side of the NFC method is the mobile phone has to have an NFC chip in it to work.  With the QR code method, the mobile phone user simply downloads/installs a free app. to capture and decode the encoded message.  

SMS is even more universal, as it only requires that the mobile phone have SMS/text capabilities (which every mobile phone sold now has with exception to the Japanese market).

In short, SMS is most universal to-date, but it also takes the most amount of effort to respond to a marketing message.  Conversely, NFC is the least universal to-date, but it's also the least amount of effort to respond to a marketing message.  It will be interesting to see if NFC takes off beyond the Nexus S.  Something to keep our eyes on.

- mOlson

P.S.

I think I just wrote my next blog post. :-)

It will indeed be very interesting to see where this goes.  Rumors that the new iPhone 5 will have NFC increases the likelihood of success.

Top 10 Marketing & Tech. Articles for 2010

Every few days, I scan a select number of marketing and technology blogs and news sites for interesting articles.  These articles (I believe) highlight the latest-and-greatest in marketing news, technologies, insights and methodologies. 

When I come across an interesting article, I bookmark the article in Delicious (a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages).  Then --via the power of RSS-- I re-broadcast the recent articles I've selected on my blog, my website and various other social networking sites I have set up.

Here's the link to Ex3 Cafe Delicious site which contains all of the bookmarks I've saved to-date:

http://delicious.com/Ex3Cafe

To take things a step further, I've listed the articles from the Ex3 Cafe Delicious site most bookmarked by other Delicious users in 2010:

• #10:  Measuring Return on Social Investment
• #09:  Email Still Tops Facebook for Keeping in Touch
• #08:  Small Biz Lead Gen Surges with Social
• #07:  The Influence of Mobile on Social Marketing’s Future
• #06:  See That Funny 2D Barcode In The Store Window?
• #05:  Marketing Budgets Spiral Toward Social
• #04:  Small Biz Doubles Social Media Adoption
• #03:  The Continued Rise of Blogging
• #02:  Social Media Working Better for Retention Than Acquisition
• #01:  Mobile Users Prefer Browsers over Apps

Surprise, surprise.... social marketing still remained the hot marketing topic for 2010 (i.e. it was the hot topic in my 2009 top bookmarked articles as well).  Mobile also appears to be an increasingly popular topic in the marketing technology arena.  I suspect this topic will continue to heat up in 2011.

Now, let me be the first to say that this poll is in no way scientific.  I think it does give us a glimpse though into what the hot marketing topics were for 2010.  It will be interesting to see what the hot marketing topics are a year from now.

P.S.
Being that this will be my last blog post for 2010, I want to wish all of you a happy, healthy and effective/efficient marketing New Year.

Best Buy and The Risks of Personalization

As Marketer's, we all know the rewards that come with personalizing our messages.  Higher open rates, higher click-through rates, higher conversions...etc.  This recent e-mail from Best Buy though, reminded me of the risks that come with personalization as well:

As you can see from the e-mail above (if you can read the small print), the "As of 0" and the "will expire on 0" look a bit odd.  This is because my reward points already expired.  The point of the e-mail though was to remind me to use my points BEFORE they expired. 

To make things worse, when I clicked the "click here to download your certificates" link in the e-mail, this is what popped up on my web browser:

This unfortunate error should remind us as marketer's that we should always have logic/check points incorporated into our processes to help prevent these types of errors.  In this case, I'm guessing there was a "timing issue" between when my points expired and when the e-mail was sent (obviously, the e-mail should have been sent first).

OK.  Now let's get real.  Even with every conceivable logic/check point baked into your processes, there's bound to be the occasional "uh-oh" that slips through the cracks.  The point is, if you're going to be sending out automated/personalized communications, it's imperative that you have some logic/check points incorporated into your process to help minimize these types of errors.  If you don't want to spend the time and effort to include these processes, I suggest you don't personalize your messaging AT ALL because (in my opinion) it's worse to personalize incorrectly than not personalize at all.

P.S.
I don't mean to pick on Best Buy.  It just turned out that I received this e-mail shortly before writing this blog post.  It's likely that Best Buy does have logic/check points baked into their marketing processes and this e-mail was the unfortunate "uh-oh" that slipped through the cracks.

I'm Gettin' No Buzz from Google Buzz

Recently, I heard a lot of buzz (no pun intended) about Google Buzz.  Google Buzz is Google's new social networking site which enables users to "share updates, photos, videos, and more".  When I tried to access the site on my new Motorola Cliq Android phone though, I received the following error message:

buzz.google.com requires
Android OS version 2.0+
iPhone OS version 3.0+
Older OS versions may be able to access some features, but are not officially supported.

This error message was particularly irritating because I purchased the phone only three months ago and the operating system on the phone (Android 1.5) is developed by Google.  In short, Google's new site is incompatible with Google's own mobile operating system installed on the phone I purchased (brand new) only three months ago.  Interestingly, Google Buzz does work on Goggle's own cell phone (Nexus One) because Nexus One runs Google's Android 2.1 OS.

This brings up the following questions in my mind:

• Who's decision was it to install an obsolete OS on my new phone?  Was it Google, Motorola or T-Mobile (my cell phone carrier)?
• Why would Google develop a site that's only compatible with it's newest operating system(s)?  For a company that's new to the phone OS business, this sounds like a suicide mission.
• Why would Google develop and market its own phone (with its own Android OS installed on it) to compete with partner phones that also run the Google Android OS?  This doesn't seem like a good strategy to acquire new mobile phone manufactures and maintain good relations with existing mobile phone manufactures.

For a company who's slogan is "Do No Evil," Google's recent actions in the mobile phone market makes me scratch my head a bit.  Perhaps I'm missing something here...

P.S.
No, that's not me in the picture above. :-)

New Facebook E-Mail Reply Feature

The caption below is an example of a new feature recently added to Facebook:

New Feature: Reply to this email to comment on this photo.

To see the comment thread, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?photo.php&pid=73845693&id=1299573645&mid=4FDD234234GEADFGA

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

In short, this new feature enables the user to reply to a post via e-mail if the post was originally sent to the user via e-mail.  This is convenient if the user is on a cell phone and it's cumbersome --or not possible-- to launch a mobile web browser on the phone to reply to the post.

This seems to be just the "digital glue" that Greg Cangialosi speaks of in the presentation below:

View more presentations from Greg Cangialosi.

This begs the question.... Is e-mail dead or is it simply taking on a new role in the context of social media?

Top 10 Marketing & Tech. Articles for 2009

Every few days, I scan a select number of marketing and technology blogs and news sites for interesting articles.  These articles (I believe) highlight the latest-and-greatest in marketing news, technologies, insights and methodologies. 

When I come across an interesting article, I bookmark the article in Delicious (a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages).  Then --via the power of RSS-- I re-broadcast the recent articles I've selected on my blog, my website and various other social networking sites I have set up.

Here's the link to Ex3 Cafe Delicious site which contains all of the bookmarks I've saved to-date:  http://delicious.com/Ex3Cafe.  To take things a step further, I've listed the articles from the Ex3 Cafe Delicious site most bookmarked by other Delicious users:

• #10:  Social Media Marketers Declare Success

• #09:  Executives and Social Media

• #08:  Marketers Embrace Twitter over Facebook

• #07:  US Twitter Usage Surpasses Earlier Estimates

• #06:  Banner Ads: Beyond the Click

• #05:  How People Share Online Video

• #04:  Who Uses Social Networks?

• #03:  Using Social Media Strategically

• #02:  The Social Data Revolution(s)

• #01:  Social Network Marketing Expands Sphere

Surprise, surprise.... social networking is in all but one of the articles above.

Now, let me be the first to say that this poll is in no way scientific.  I think it does give us a glimpse though into what the hot marketing topic was for 2009.  It will be interesting to see what the hot marketing topic is a year from now.

P.S.
Being that this will be my last blog post for 2009, I want to wish all of you a happy, healthy and effective/efficient marketing New Year.

A Big Group Hug with the IT Department

Over the last few years, the Marketing department has grown steadily dependent on the IT department.  This has occurred because Marketing is increasingly leveraging systems (managed by the IT department) to streamline marketing effectiveness and increase marketing efficiencies. 

As a result of this dependency on the IT department, Marketing (more than ever) needs to maintain strong ties with its IT counterpart.  This can be achieved by:

• Taking your IT team out for a group lunch or other group outing (formal or informal) to strengthen the relationship between the two groups.
  
  
• Educating your IT team on the business impact of their efforts.  This could be accomplished by scheduling educational meetings with the IT department to demonstrate how their efforts translate into business value.  In this instance a little bit of time spent, on the part of the business, can go a long way.

• Rewarding your IT department for a job well done.  Free tee-shirts, marketing trinkets, special outings all fit the bill for a job well done.  The point is that you consciously reward your IT team for a job well done.

Marketing's reliance on the IT department will only increase with time.  So the sooner you engage the IT department in a positive and constructive way, the better.

Our Data Is All F'd Up (Part II)

Last month I wrote a blog post which proposed some reasons why the data always seems to be "f'd up" at companies with centralized data warehouses.  The reasons I cited were equally divided between the business and IT sides of a company.  In this blog post, I will propose some solutions to these issues.

IT Contributions to Messed Up Data

• Lack of Data Warehouse Modeling Experience:  Easy solution.... get developers that have data warehouse modeling experience (theoretical and practical).  If you have existing developers who don't have data warehouse modeling experience, either move them to a different (non data modeling) role or provide them with proper training.  If they don't want to do either, as Alec Baldwin said in Glengarry Glen Ross, tell them to "hit the bricks", as they will be a detriment to you, and your organization, in the long run.
  
  
• Overwhelmed with New Data Requests:  Implement processes and procedures to handle new data requests.  This could also include implementing new technologies to aid in this process.  And if necessary, lobby to get more money and hire more resources.

• Lack of Processes to Manage Source System Data Changes:  Implement processes and procedures, with source system database administrators (DBA's), to alert the data warehouse DBA's that changes have been made on the source system(s) that will effect the data warehouse.  Like above, there may be technologies that could be acquired or built that could aid in this process.

Business Contributions to Messed Up Data

• Lack of Basic Understanding About IT and Data:  Similar point #1 in the IT section above, get business people that have a basic understanding of database principles and have worked with IT people on data previous warehouse projects.  If you have existing business people who don't have this experience, either move them to a different role or provide them with proper training.  If they don't want to do either, get rid of them, as they will be a detriment to you, and your organization, in the long run.

• Haphazard, Last Minute Data Requests:  l know in many cases that this is unavoidable (due to current business conditions) but in some instances this behavior is unnecessary and can be avoided by a little proper prior planning.
  

• Not Educating IT on How Business Actually Uses the Data:  In this instance a little bit of time spent, on the part of the business, can go a long way.  This could include scheduling educational meetings with the IT department to demonstrate how their efforts translate into business value.  Or it could be little efforts on the part of the business.  I remember one time when I was talking on the phone to a DBA in India about a problem I was having with the database.  To better demonstrate what I was doing with the data, I set up a web conference with the DBA to show him exactly how I was using the data (on on front end).  Suffice-it-to-say,  I made a friend for life!

I know most of these solutions are lacking in details, but this (at least) gets the juices flowing.