iTunes Genius’s Possible Impact on New Media

With the release of iTunes Genius in iTunes 8 (which I’ve been playing with for a day or so now), I realized that there is a metric that they’re not capturing that they could capture that would revolutionize podcast reporting (for good or bad, I’m not sure).

The number one question corporate types ask me about podcasting is if they can track how many plays their podcast has on devices, because with DRM’d (Digital Rights Management, or protected files) files you can do such things (which is one of the big reasons so many people like DRM - p.s., I loathe it) if the device plays along.  I’ve always bristled against such things, especially the level of tracking that’s available on email newsletters (tracking exactly who read what and clicked on what, and tying it to personal information).  I’ve always bristled against such non-anonymous targeting and don’t allow my company to participate in it (and I’ve lost accounts because I won’t do it).

However, I was thinking about it, and realizing that iTunes Genius could be the bridge that those customers want who want specific tracking - and Apple could make a pretty penny licensing the information in aggregate if they tied it to podcasts.  Sure, it’d be an aggregate number, but good enough for our purposes and more information that we had before.  And no nasty DRM software.  Everyone wins, except again, it’s only a snapshot because you still need the opt-in of iTunes Genius.  But better than what we have.

After all, once the podcast is on the iPod, except for little bursts found on sites like Last.FM you don’t know a layer of statistics (time played, number of plays, if it was just marked “played” but never played).

Your thoughts?  Or is this more data you don’t want captured, even if it’s “anonymous?”  Are downloads and methods enough for advertisers to make decisions?

Interview on Internet and Online Marketing

Thanks Rob McNealy (@RobMcNealy on Twitter) and the folks at StartupStoryRadio.com for interviewing me on internet marketing and how to find a good firm for your business.

Take a listen and enjoy!

Bad Adidas Ad Network Placement

It’s important to be very careful when working with any sort of ad network that your brand get placed with something that meets your brand standards.

Frankly, when it comes to ad networks, even the mighty Google gets it wrong - and a lot. Of course, with this sort of automated bid system, it’s almost unavoidable to have mistakes. However, the image below is a little bit of a doozy - I wonder if the Adidas folks are OK with this one…

The reaction I hear time and time again from advertisers and publishers is that brands want safe places to be - content that isn’t too controversial or offensive. And going with an ad network means that anything could happen unless you’re very vigilant and/or your ad network pre-screens the sites so you know what you’re getting.

How To Give Away an Article To Get Value

There is a lot of debate in the “give to get” community about how to give away something but also get something - like a lead - from it.

Some have eschewed the idea altogether - saying that giving away a white paper or article or something is a waste of time.

And I think not. I think it can have tons of value to you, if you understand that the online business world is not about scarcity, it’s about quality.

Let’s cover what not to do.

Don’t stick up your potential visitors. What do I mean by stick up? No, you’re not robbing them of money but you’re trying to grab their identity - and when you provide nothing for it except the hint that you might get a whitepaper or something interesting - you’re going to get a lot of Elmer Fudds and abandonments (and no, they’re not going to tell you they left).

Don’t make me contact you directly to get it by phone or otherwise. I won’t, and most people won’t.

Show your value by putting the first third or quarter of your valuable genius on your web site as HTML. Search engines will love it, and you will have captured the reader wanting more (again, this goes back to quality - it has to be good or it won’t work. And you can create good. You can create great).

You then insert your low-friction (as small as it possibly can be while getting the information you need to contact them) information form there.

You’ll get much better responses as they - your audience - will be engaged. If you’re really slick, have your programmer give them the rest of the document after form acceptance, right in-line with what they’re reading, as well as give them the option to keep a well-laid out, branded PDF version with your logo inserted with class.

That means once per page, at a reasonably small (yet readable) size. Put your contact and copyright information on each page as well - since they love what you have to say and find it valuable, you should let them talk to you!

Don’t be so concerned if your competition reads it - they will. And you should be reading theirs. Your potential customers are going to have them side-by-side anyway. Again, win with quality - and win the business.

Technorati Tags:
Web Design, how to give away stuff, give to get value, how to give away content

Podcasting helps NPR ad revenue go up 2.5x and Rises as Growing Business

A quicky but goodie, sent to me from my good friend Shawn (get a blog, a Twitter, or something already!!!)

It highlights a few things - first, that NPR has leveraged podcasting to increase their ad revenue from $18m in 2002 to $46m in 2007.

Not to mention, there is room for independents, too. Wizzard says their network of 30+ podcasts is work $100m - and $300m if you include the streaming content.

In short, no one can say this is a record-in-your basement game anymore. It’s serious business. Multi-million dollar business, with access open to smaller publishers.

This AdAge piece brings up great points - that there is a large market for podcast advertising, and that in fact, podcasting your content can increase it’s audience.

As the TV networks have seen with video on demand and streaming video, they risk decreasing the size of a live audience that can be sold to an advertiser at a higher premium for the sake of making content available to consumers whenever they want it.

But the experience of ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” may change some minds. Traug Keller, senior VP, ESPN Radio, said the popular talk duo’s ratings on the 350 ESPN Radio stations actually increased after their show was made available on iTunes, XM and Sirius satellite radio.

Technorati Tags:
Advertising, Monetization Strategy, Wizzard, NPR, AdAge, Podcasting

Advertisers Move Away From The TV

With the TV writers’ strike looking like it won’t end any time soon, the big content networks are moving their focuses to “out of home media” as a separate market with an example being the “NBC Everywhere” division.

Their current focus is screens in supermarkets, retailers, and other point of purchase areas. Their thought is to lure shoppers with quality, known content - and then up-sell.

Many advertisers are hesitant on this - due to the lack of metrics (more another day on the obsession with metrics) and the fact that it isn’t a fit for every type of business.

But, of course, not every media has been a great fit for every advertiser. Even though things like TV ads are sexy, or doing a radio show on some station with a tiny market share (a trend that boggles my mind due to it’s limited reach and lack of time-shifting), these mainstream routes of delivery effectiveness is questionable for many applications.

It does amaze me - so many advertisers and agencies are hesitant on this POS marketing because of lack of metrics, yet, they’re hesitant on things like new media and the web, even though it has metrics upon metrics.

Methinks it goes back to the old saying - agencies in general do the dance Jim Cramer described on his “Mad Money” show… TV, Print, Radio, Billboards - and don’t innovate as much as they need to.

Hat tip to Marketplace on American Public Media for story inspiration.

Technorati Tags:
ad agency, Advertising, Smart marketing, NBC Everywhere, Out of Home Marketing, POS Marketing

Some Companies Eliminate Print Marketing Completely

So I’ll share the story of Cheetah Learning (sourced from WebWorkerDaily) to illustrate an interesting change.

As someone who usually believes interactive is part of a complete solution, not the whole solution, this shift perked my ears up.

Cheetah has eliminated printed marketing materials totally. That philosophy was confirmed recently in a decision about how to thank its 2007 customers for their business. “A couple of years ago, we sent out cards to 9,000 students,” says LaBrosse. “That cost me $18,000 — ridiculous.” Along with the card was an invitation to take a free course, which 900 people took advantage of. This year, LaBrosse decided to send out an email holiday greeting — and included free access to video cooking lessons online.” That emailer had a 25% open rate — higher than the cards, as far as LaBrosse calculates it. “I didn’t print out any materials. They got a better product.” Total cost: $5,000 to sponsor the site providing the cooking lessons.

I wonder - is print losing efficacy, or is online just plain more effective than print and few want to talk about it? After all, the high costs of printing (good design, as well as writing to entice will be a wash or a little less with a good email) vs. the cheap if not free of distribution make it a lot less expensive as a communication medium. This, however, takes money out of agency pockets, which usually make a percentage above the costs.

One of the reasons many marketing people may not want to talk about online is that it’s not as lucrative to recommend an online campaign for $5,000 vs. $18,000. Using standard percentage rates (and no, not a perfect price comparison) that would reduce the cut to a marketing professional on the “buy” portion of the bill from $3150 to $875.

No wonder so many traditional ad houses are worried about this stuff.

Technorati Tags:
Advertising, Lessons to be learned, Smart marketing, Web, Email marketing, print marketing, ad agency

Writing Your Own Content is More Valuable Than Relying On Mash-Ups

Was over at Techcrunch looking at their coverage of the demise of Netscape Navigator - the formerly dominant browser which in February will be discontinued, and found in the “Deadpool” the demise of Teqlo.

It reminded me of something that I have always mentioned to people when they’re rolling out new sites - you can use third party content to spice things up, but you need to have unique, compelling content to make money.  That costs, but so does developing integration and everything else.  There really isn’t the thought put into creating the content with some many folks, as they want the site they do once and then let it be to make them money.
I’ve covered this a little bit in the past - but Teqlo is great proof that in order to stand out, you need to be the content originator or value provider with your site in some way.

Excellent WoW! Ads

Another ad bit - this one is just funny and goes with a set of three commercials featuring Mr. T, Verne Troyer and William Shatner.I just love it when someone creates memorable stuff.

Excellent Apple Flash Ad - “Don’t Give Up On Vista”

Sometimes, you look at an ad, and go, “Cool.”

Double-buy ads have plagued sites for years, because so often it’s the same copy or creative just in a horizontal or vertical format - and are just plain ugly.

However, Apple has set the standard again for creatives, migrating their Mac vs. PC commercial to a web page near you (here’s a link the New York Times, but I don’t think it’s going to be up forever, so no guarantees of quality. To give you an idea, I put a screen shot of the ad up there) with a great coordinated ad that takes the usual Mac vs. PC skit on the side and puts it in a leaderboard on the top of the page.

Great work, again. This is the kind of stuff that makes for fun work and innovates to get people to click.

Technorati Tags:
Praise, Apple Computer, Advertising, Mac vs. PC, New York Times, Flash

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