Ex3 Café

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.

Instant Coffee - Revolutionary?

 

Yesterday, Starbucks formally launched a new product called Via™.  In short, the product is high-end, instant coffee (i.e. poor in "microground" coffee, add water, stir and voila).  What caught my eye is that Starbucks marketed this new product—in part—as "revolutionary."  I thought this was a bit of a stretch, since instant coffee has been around for over 100 years.  Now granted, the instant coffee of "the past" didn't taste all that great, but to market this new instant coffee as "revolutionary" I thought was a little over the top.  I even think to market this product as evolutionary is stretching it a bit, but that's just my opinion.

This product announcement made me stop and think about recent marketing innovations that may have been mischaracterized as "revolutionary" including:

• Inbound Marketing:  Per one of my earlier blog posts.  Inbound marketing focuses on creating and publishing content that "draws people in" to learn more about your company and its offerings.  The primary channels for inbound marketing include, blogs, SEO, social media...etc.  While the term inbound marketing and the communication channels are relatively new, the concept of inbound marketing has been known for years as "pull marketing" (i.e. in push versus pull marketing).
  
  
• Viral Marketing:  This is another marketing concept that has been in existence for years (previously known as referral-based or word of mouth marketing).  Remember the slogan, "You tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on...."  Like inbound marketing though, the communication channels have changed to distribute the message but the underlying concept remains pretty much the same.

• Data Analytics:  Previously referred to as data mining, machine learning, information discovery...etc. the terms and technologies have changed over the time but the underlying concepts and methods have remained virtually the same.

In short, the next time you hear about something marketed as "revolutionary," be suspicious, as it's likely an old idea—with a few minor tweaks—repackaged as something new.  Wait, that's what marketing is isn't it?

P.S.
I actually tried Starbucks Via™ and it was pretty good.  I still wouldn't characterize it as "revolutionary" though. :-)

Our Data Is All F'd Up...

I've heard this phrase, in one form or another, at virtually every company I've consulted for that has a centralized data warehouse.  After recently hearing this—yet again—I thought to myself, "why is the data always f'd up?" 

As I pondered this thought, I looked at the issue from both the IT and business sides of a company.  I've consulted in both areas so I have an unique view across both worlds.

IT Contributions to Messed Up Data

The following are observations I've made, while consulting on the IT side, which are likely key contributors to messed up data:

• Lack of Data Warehouse Modeling Experience:  More times than not, IT departments will put developers (i.e. C++, Java, PHP...etc.) in charge of developing the data model for the data warehouse.  The problem here is while one might be a good "coder," this doesn't mean that the same person has the proper skills and training to develop a robust data model for the data warehouse that's easy for a business/data oriented person to work with.  Some of the worst data models I've seen were developed by great programmers!
  
  
• Overwhelmed with New Data Requests:  Often times, if you manage a corporate data warehouse, you're constantly getting requests from marketers to add new data to the data warehouse.  If you don't have good processes and procedures in place to handle these requests or you're significantly under staffed, you will likely end up with an ineffective (or worse yet) inaccurate data warehouse resulting in a lot of unhappy business customers.
  
  
• Lack of Processes to Manage Source System Data Changes:  Unfortunately, mapping new source system data into a data warehouse is not a "set it and forget it" exercise.  This is because source system data can change overtime.  This can be a disaster on the marketing side, which can lead to inaccurate customer targeting or personalizing communications with the wrong content.  If there are no processes in place for the source system data administrators to alert the data warehouse administrators of data changes it's only a matter of time before a marketing crisis occurs.

Business Contributions to Messed up Data 

The following are observations I've made, while consulting on the Business side, which are also likely key contributors to messed up data:

• Lack of Basic Understanding About IT and Data:  It's vital that at least one business stakeholder have a solid understanding of basic database principles and working with IT departments.  Without this knowledge, business requirements and decisions tend to be driven by the IT side.  This can lead to systems being delivered that are substandard and have low user adoption.
  
  
• Haphazard, Last Minute Data Requests:  I see this all of the time.  Knee jerk requests from the business to add new data to the data warehouse.  Everything is a last minute fire drill.  This type of behavior leads to mistakes and it overwhelms IT business partners, thus causing friction between IT and business.  In some cases, it's unavoidable to make last minute requests.  In most cases though, a little advanced planning could help prevent such fire drills from happening.
  
  
• Not Educating IT on How Business Actually Uses the Data:  I've found that educating the IT department on how the business actually uses an application or database goes a long way.  Without providing this education, the IT department tends to operate in a vacuum and thus delivers substandard solutions to the business.

How to Fix The Problem

I'll leave this to my next blog post so stay tuned...

Facebook Not All Things For All Businesses?

Like many businesses today, I too have a Facebook Page.  I must admit though, I primarily have the page to demonstrate that I’m "in the know" about the latest and greatest marketing tools.  I also have the page to distribute the latest posts from my blog to those who actively use Facebook.  In this case, whenever I publish a new blog post, the title, date and first paragraph are automatically posted to my Facebook fan page.  This publishing/syndication strategy enables me to reach the largest possible audience with the least amount of time and effort expended.

I never realized the true value of having a Facebook business account though until I helped some friends set up Facebook account for their new retail toy store in my local downtown.  The store focuses primarily on the art of performing and left brain type activities.  In addition to selling high quality toys, the store also has a stage where regular, live performances are made including:  music performances, magic, puppet shows, story telling..etc.

What struck me most about helping my friends set up their Facebook account was how relevant and integral many of the Facebook features were to their business.  Some of these features include:

• Event information, notification and registration
• Special offer alerts
  
• Discussion boards
• Photo and video sharing of key events
• Related groups (including associated downtown business groups, local community groups...etc.)
  

Now granted, I'm not currently sponsoring any marketing events nor am I facilitating any discussion topics on my Facebook page, but after setting up the Facebook site for my friends' business and seeing the success of their site (versus my site) I wonder if Facebook is simply more effective for some businesses versus others.  Thoughts/Comments?

Dying a Slow, Slow Death (or Not)?

This recent article from CNBC caught my eye.  In short, the article describes how replacing older technologies with newer technologies often takes longer than most innovators expect.  For example, according to the CNBC article “When Sony announced its Mavica electronic camera in 1981, headlines trumpeted that “Film Is Dead.” But it took 28 more years for Kodachrome, the film immortalized by Paul Simon, to finally die this past June."

This article made me stop and think about similar predictions I’ve heard, throughout the years, about new marketing technologies.  Below are just a few.

Stop The Printing Presses!

I remember in early 1995 the CEO at one of my previous companies made a prediction that the company would (in the very near future) no longer print marketing collateral but would instead create electronic versions of the collateral and distribute it via e-mail and the web.  Well to this day, most companies are producing the same (if not more) printed collateral.  The only difference is they are creating electronic versions of the same collateral as well.  In this case, one medium wasn't replaced by another but rather an additional medium was added.  Similarly, when the microwave oven was launched, many thought it would replace the traditional oven.  To this day, most households have both!

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Catalogs

When eBay and Dell launched their respective websites in the mid 1990's, many thought the catalog's days were numbered.  After all, who needs a printed catalog if everything about a product can be described on-line?  It turns out a lot of people sill like the experience of holding and flipping through a printed catalog.  In fact, my 10 year old (tween) daughter still gets ecstatic when the latest edition of The American Girl Catalog arrives in the mail.  And interestingly enough, both eBay and Dell produce thousands (if not millions) of printed catalogs and magazines to this day.

Throw Out Your House List Because Outbound Marketing is DOA

In one of my previous blog posts, I described how many marketers believed that traditional outbound marketing (i.e. phone, direct mail, e-mail...etc.) would soon be replaced by inbound marketing (i.e. search marketing, blogs, social networking...etc.).  It's my belief though that these two mediums address different marketing scenarios and thus one wouldn’t necessarily cannibalize the other.  In fact, I believe that the smartest marketers will figure out how to integrate both inbound and outbound marketing into their overall marketing strategy.

In writing this article, I'm most certainly not bagging on new marketing innovations.  I'd be the last person to do this!  Like the CNBC article though, I believe that new technologies take a lot longer that most people think to gain mass adoption (if at all).  That said, one shouldn't ignore new marketing innovations, but rather take a balanced, calculated and well thought out approach to phasing these new innovations into their overall marketing mix over time.

SMS + Campaign Mgmt. Demo. Check it out!

 

One of the more exciting aspects of my job is tinkering around with new technologies.  The latest technology that I've been experimenting with is text messaging and SMS short codes.  These are the codes that are increasingly being used for mobile direct response marketing (i.e. Text: "OFFER", To: 12345).  I recently blogged about SMS short codes.

In my experiment, I signed up with a service that can receive incoming short code text messages (from all of the primary US carriers) and convert these messages into web URL's.  I then pointed the URL's at a campaign management application I've been working with (Brick Street eMA) that accepts web URL's as input.  Brick Street Software recently acquired eMA from Kana Software and is currently upgrading eMA's platform and is adding a number of new features.

The beauty of this campaign management to SMS integration (bi directional by the way) is the cell phone can now be used as an input device into the campaign management system.  And because Brick Street eMA has an extremely robust work flow engine, along with a direct connection to the Internet, the possibilities of what can be done are almost limitless.  Below are a just a few examples of what's possible.  Please note, these are fully functional demos, so take out your cell phone and give them all a try!

Event Registration

In this demo, there are 6 different event venues to sign up for at a fictitious conference.  These venues could be posted on signage (digital or non digital) throughout the conference.  The 6 event venue codes are PP1, PP2, PP3, BOS1, BOS2 and BOS3. 

For example, let's say you want to sign up for Product Presentation #2.  Here, you would simply TEXT: "EVENTREG PP2" TO: 41411.  In this case "EVENTREG" is the keyword that indicates that this text is for event registration and the "PP2" code tells the system that the registration is for Product Presentation #2.  41411 is the SMS short code. 
**NOTE: Make sure to leave out the double quotes ("") in the text message.

When you get the response back read the instructions, as there is more you can do.

Get Offers

This demo showcases a use case where users can register, via their cell phone, to receive offers from a company.

To try this demo out, TEXT: "GETOFFERS" TO: 41411.  When you get the text message, make sure to reply to the message with the word "GO".  This will send a second text message back to you with "today's offer."

Get Product Information and Buy

This demo leverages a product look up feature that enables a user to input a product code and get more information about a particular product.  Here I used eMA for the product look up and work flow and I pointed eMA to SkyMall's mobile e-commerce site for the e-commerce function. 

To try this demo out, TEXT: "PRODINFO P1" TO: 41411.  Possible product codes are P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5.

Get Song Information and Buy

This demo is very similar to the product information demo above, except instead of looking up a product code, the user looks up a song code.

To try this demo out, TEXT: "GETSONG S1" TO: 41411.  Possible song codes are S1, S2, S3, S4 and S5.
***NOTE: In this example, I pointed eMA at Amazon.com's music ecommerce site.

OptIn

This demo showcases the capability to opt users into an SMS alert notification list (i.e. for upcoming offer alerts) or an e-mail list.

To try this demo out, TEXT: "OPTIN" TO: 41411 (for SMS alerts) or TEXT: "OPTIN (plus your email address)" TO 41411 (for email list).

I could go on and on with the demos, but think you get the general idea.  The key take away here is SMS integrated with campaign management is a very powerful combination.  This combination extends campaign tracking and interactivity to off-line marketing channels (i.e. prints ads, digital signage, radio ads..etc) and remote locations (i.e. locations away from a PC) where direct tracking and interactivity were previously not possible.

I'll definitely have more to say on this topic so stay tuned.  In the mean time, have fun with the demos and let me know what you think.

P.S.
Feel free to share this blog post with anyone you feel would be interested.

An RFID Chip in Every Cell Phone by 2010?

   

This recent blog post from The RFID Weblog caught my eye.  Given that we are in the middle of 2009 and (to the best of my knowledge) none of the top cell phone manufactures currently have RFID chips embedded in their phones, the pace better pick up if we want to reach this prediction by next year.  Predictions aside though, I wanted to throw out a few marketing use cases that could be enabled with this marriage of cell phone and RFID.

I'm Here, Start Spoiling Me Now

In this use case, a customer could associate their RFID enabled cell phone with their loyalty/rewards account for a particular merchant or service business.  Then, when the customer enters a participating location (and their cell phone is picked up by an RFID reader at the entrance) a personal greeter/assistant could be alerted to greet the customer upon their arrival.  A good example of this use case could be a "high roller" at a Casino.  Upon entering the casino location, the high roller could be greeted by a personal assistant who could pro-actively attend to their every need.  "Hi Mr. High Roller!  Here's your favorite cigar and drink.  Your table is already for you."

Tell Me More...

In this use case, a customer could hold their cell phone next to a product (with an RFID tag on it) to get additional information about the product.  The information could include detailed product information that's not on the product label or surrounding signage.  Other information might include:

• Complementary products.  For example, cheeses in a store that go with a selected bottle of wine.
• Nutritional information for a food or beverage
• Product ratings.  For example crash test ratings for a particular car.
• Any related discounts, rebates or coupons associated with the selected product.

Please Don't Make Me Dig For My Rewards Card

This is a common occurrence at any check out line where a reward/loyalty card is "swiped."  Here the customer has to find their rewards card in their wallet or purse.  If they can't find their card, they instead need to enter their phone number or other identifying information into a keypad to pull up their loyalty/rewards account.  This can be a bit of a hassle for the customer.  If the customer has a cell phone with embedded RFID associated with their rewards account though, their rewards account can automatically be pulled up when they enter into the check out area.  This saves the customer time and increases the likelihood that the rewards card will be associated with the customer's transaction.

These are just a few use cases, at the top of my mind, that could be achieved by embedding RFID chips into cell phones.

I'm not sure if every new cell phone will have an RFID chip in it a year from now.  What I am certain of is the marketing use cases that will be enabled by this cell phone/RFID integration will be game changing.