MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

So when Daniel Burstein proposed this oh-so-witty blog debate about Foursquare, the first question I asked him was, “What’s in your pants?” Sure enough he whips out his keys and there is a flimsy plastic reward keychain (complete with barcode) for Native Sun, an organic foods market here in Jacksonville.

Carrying around a Native Sun loyalty card while questioning the wisdom of Foursquare is a prime example of how the duality of man is witnessed through marketing. “Your idea is stupid, while mine is smart (yet they are both the same).” Read more…

Whenever anyone says to you, “He reminded me of a used car salesman,” we all have the same image in our head. High pressure, no class, just wanted to get you “to sign on the line which is dotted” (as Alec Baldwin said in Glengarry Glen Ross).

We’ve probably all heard the famous sentence, “So, what will it take to get you in this car today?” and shuddered. And because of this, many of us are adverse to the entire idea of selling. But in reality, we are all selling things all the time, right?

We sell the idea of a particular vacation spot to our families. We sell our experience and expertise in job interviews. We sell our teams on our genius marketing plans. In today’s free MarketingExperiments web clinic, we’re going to talk about how to pull off the last vague sell you’ll ever have to do – because every idea you will pitch after you sell enterprise-level use of the testing-optimization cycle will have black and white numbers to back it up. Read more…

It’s the time of year when I’m preparing the annual sojourn to Salt Lake City to gather with my fellow digital marketers at the Omniture Summit, and it makes me a bit nostalgic. No, not because I grew up in Utah, or because I miss the cold mountain air (as a former Montana-resident-turned-Florida resident, nothing could be further from my mind), but for my navy days. Years ago, when I was just out of high school, I joined the navy and the first boat I served on was USS SALT LAKE CITY (SSN-716). It’s tough to make a visit to SLC without thinking about these days.

I remember being a scrawny high school kid, band geek, 97 lbs, and hearing over and over that I would never make it through boot camp. By the time I got there, I actually started to believe it myself. But, nine weeks later, I had finished all the trials, gained 25 lbs, and was marching with the rest of my class in the pass-in-review ceremony. I had done it, and (to borrow a popular phrase from that year) thought I was the king of the world.

What does being in boot camp have to do with online marketing?

Well, let me say that when you first get to boot camp, your mind does wander to thoughts of quitting and getting back home to a comfortable life where all you really had to worry about was next Friday’s math test. However, you can’t just quit when you get to boot camp; no, they make you persevere. And by the time it’s done, you’re very glad you stuck through the tough times and accomplished something remarkable.

I think that my experience at boot camp can be a lot like the experience we marketers go through when starting to test online, except it’s MUCH easier to quit testing than it is boot camp. There is a large temptation to think that it will just be too much work – first figuring out what to test, designing alternative creative, selecting a testing tool, getting your boss to sign off, then moving mountains to get the IT work prioritized. It’s easy for a marketer to just stick to the status quo and quit the fight before it’s even begun. Read more…

Like millions of other NFL fans, I lamented the elimination of my favorite team from playoff contention last weekend. Yes, my beloved Jacksonville Jaguars ended their season at 7-9 and pro football for me will not carry as much passion over the next four weeks as it did for the last 17.

But, like my fellow fans of the 20 teams that didn’t make the cut, I’ll find someone to cheer for during the playoffs and will ultimately enjoy watching a Cinderella make some magic happen in the Super Bowl. And of course, I will enjoy this annual celebration of advertising as millions watch every Super Bowl commercial almost as intently (and sometimes more so) than the game itself.

Watching Super Bowl commercials is fun, but as a marketing researcher I have to ask the question – what is the return on this investment? Are you filling the stadium for your brand or playing to empty seats?

Every day I talk to marketers from all over the world. Companies like Royal Bank of Canada, Johnson & Johnson, and 1-800-Flowers who are asking the same question about their advertising budgets.

MarketingExperiments conducts research to not only help marketers answer this question, but find the most effective use of their marketing budget.

If you never ask, you’ll never know

Sometimes marketers are afraid to question the status quo, but in a time when every dollar counts we must ask the hard questions and find answers with real data rather than just intuition.

So, to my friends in the marketing departments of the national network Super Bowl advertisers, I offer you this: Share your objectives, metrics, and results from your Super Bowl campaign with us and we will help you determine the actual ROI from this media spend by constructing a model, analyzing the data (our specialty), providing short- and long-term ROI projection modeling, and measuring the financial impact to brand value.

All of this we will do FREE of charge and present the results to you and your team in a manner that is both powerful and easily understood. If your Super Bowl campaign was a winner, we’ll make that win easier to socialize. If you didn’t get the value you expected, we’ll help you understand why so you’re more informed next year.

Maybe your favorite NFL team won’t win the Super Bowl. That doesn’t mean that YOU are eliminated. Win the marketing Super Bowl this year by being the hero that brought in the experts (for FREE) to show how big your win really was. Email or call me at (904) 339-0068 and we’ll talk about the details.