A long journey has ended tonight. I filed my last project in my last class as a graduate student in West Virginia University’s Digital Marketing Communications Program. As the last class – Digital Production and Interactive Video—comes to an end, I feel like I’ve come full circle. You see, I began my communications career as a TV journalist 20 years ago – shooting video.
When I think back nearly one year ago when I started this journey over the digital divide, I didn’t think I would be sitting at my home tonight recording my thoughts on a small Flip video camera no bigger than a deck of cards. I still consider myself a digital immigrant, a member of the generation who grew up BEFORE personal computers, cell phones and other technology gadgets were part of our everyday lives. I didn’t like being a digital immigrant because I think change is good. That’s why I’m glad a set out on this journey. I’ve learned a lot and can now hold my own, at least, in social media circles.
For my last project, I chose to do a video feature on how boat owners come up with names for their boats. You can view the video on YouTube or here:
I don’t know if it has what it takes to go viral. I do know it was fun to shoot and much easier to do carrying around a small Flip camera than those monster cameras of yesteryear. Going viral then usually meant you needed to see the doctor. Here’s hoping the only doctor you’ll need after seeing this video is Dr. Pepper! Thanks for watching and visiting my site. If you want to hear about my project and the process instead of reading about it, check this out:
Tens of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube each day. Some barely attract more than a handful of viewers while others go viral, attracting millions of viewers as they are passed from friend to friend. The difference between a successful video and one that falls flat takes more than creativity. Dan Ackerman Greenberg, co-founder of the viral video marketing company The Comotion Group, said in a 2007 article in TechCrunch that viral videos require more than just good content. Effective ones are short, don’t seem like advertisements, contain a shock value and when all else fails appeal on a sexual level.
Short and shocking is exactly what you get in BlenTec’s “Will It Blend?” videos featuring BlendTec CEO Tom Dickson blending up non-food items in the company break room. They have been featured on major mainstream media, including The Today Show, The Tonight Show, The History Channel, The Wall Street Journal and others. This one, featuring the iPhone, is one of the more popular, having been viewed more than 8 million times. Anyone who views is left saying, “I can’t believe he did that to an iPhone!” Take a look.
What makes this video and others in the series move beyond entertainment to truly effective is that it has helped drive sales of blenders without the use of traditional advertising. BlendTec saw its sales increase 700 percent from 2006 when the first video was introduced to 2009 (Briggs, 2009). As BlendTec Vice President George Wright said, "We're not creating advertising. We're creating something people want to watch," (Angwin, 2009).
Anyone whose ever tried to make milkshakes or frozen margaritas knows how a poor quality blender can leave lumps of ice in such drinks. The BlendTec videos leave the viewer wanting to know where they can buy such a machine. If it can do that to an iPhone, just imagine what it can do to ice.
The series has prompted numerous copycats, including the latest “Will It Burn?” announced in May (O'Neill, 2010). Within a week, “Will It Burn?” attracted 24,000 subscribers, even though a single video had yet to be uploaded to YouTube. Imitation is, as they say, the sincerest form of flattery. Still , it will take time to see if “Will It Burn?” is as effective at “Will It Blend?”
Nine weeks ago when I logged into the first session of my graduate class, Web Metrics and SEO, I was more than intimidated. And I am not a person who is easily intimidated. I have been in the communications business for more than 20 years. Fourteen of those years were spent as a reporter for The Associated Press, where I interviewed presidents and celebrities, common people and policymakers.
But SEO? I had to Google it to discover I would be learning more about search engine optimization. Now as a public relations professional, I know that is important. And I am happy to say I know more today about analytics and SEO than I did nine weeks ago. Sadly, though, I would need much more information to be able to actually use some of the information I read about.
Much of the lessons and reading material was written in technical jargon that students like me who have no technical background find difficult to comprehend. Sometimes I felt like I was reading a foreign language. No doubt in today’s Internet-based society, knowing about analytics is important. For me, however, I found the execution required a much more intricate and detailed approach than the information I had available to me provided.
Those who excel at the business of web metrics and search engine optimization can rest assured that writers like me will not be lining up anytime soon for their jobs. It certainly is a specialized field. Now if they’re looking for someone to help them craft just the right sentence for a Web site, now we’re talking my language!
Wal-mart, with sales of $405 billion in fiscal year 2010, is the world’s largest retailer. Founded in 1962 as a discount store, today Wal-mart operates more than 8,416 retail units under 53 different banners in 15 countries and features more than 1 million products online (Wal-mart.com, 2010).
Wal-mart made the bold decision in 2004 to add Omniture’s SiteCatalyst hosted Web analytics service to study the relationship of merchandising to sales on its retail Web site (Internet Retailer.com, 2004). Set up to echo the physical organization of Wal-Mart stores, Walmart.com presents the same products in several different areas of the Web site, with some appearing in as many as a dozen categories. By collecting customer data, Wal-mart will have information it can use to position itself to better respond to customers and its direct competitors.
SiteCatalyst helps Wal-mart mine data in real time to quantify and visually reflect the effectiveness of its Web site and its marketing objectives. Wal-mart also uses SiteCatalyst to track data points such as historical site activity -- what happened on the site -- as well as actionable information -- what is happening on the site. Other custom features allow Wal-mart to identify site visitor behaviors and generate customized reports on such online activity, (Khan, 2004). SiteCatalyst also allows Wal-mart to pull data on the response to product placements on different areas of a page, for example, or view the effects of greater or lesser product exposure on the site (Internet Retailer.com, 2004).
Through the use of analytics, Wal-mart learned that roughly 130 million customers visit one of its stores or its Web site every week and it said 75 percent of those customers are active online (Reuters, 2007). Analytics also showed that users of Walmart.com’s free site-to-store shipping, often spend as much as $60 additional dollars once they go to the retail store to pick up the item ordered online (Reuters, 2007).
Despite such an obviously sales growth feature, the free shipping service is limited. Wal-mart’s online products top 1 million; however, the free shipping service is available only on some of those products. Products that are perishable, contain hazardous material, weigh 350 pounds or more, or are sold by a Wal-mart Marketplace Retailer, are never eligible for free site-to-store shipping (Wal-mart.com, 2010).
Wal-mart would not be the largest retailer in the world if it didn’t listen to some of what its customers said. However, I believe the company could further increase both its online and retail sales by expanding the site-to-store shipping program. I suspect many customers, like me, often abandon full shopping carts once they learn how high the shipping costs will be on some items. The site-to-store program is a feature that customers repeatedly say they want, a feature they use and a feature that analytics shows will lead to more spending. Isn’t that ultimately what any business wants?
Knowing your customers is important to any successful business. But even the good ones can make improvements. Data gathered through testing, such as A/B testing, can be key. A/B testing allows a business to compare two versions of the same element side by side. One version of the tested element is seen by a percentage of visitors while the other version is seen by an equal percentage. The test is designed to give businesses an idea of which version more effective in getting the desired result.
Let’s look at L.L. Bean, which launched its Web site in 1995 and has been named No. 1 in the National Retail Federation/American Express Customer Service Survey for three years in a row -- 2007, 2008 and 2009, largely because of its customer service (Grannis, 2010). L.L. Bean’s Web site is often recognized for the speed of response and the ability to find a product quickly. The site makes shopping easy. In addition to displaying the toll free number for placing phone orders, the Web site also offers live chat and responds to e-mails within an hour, much faster than the industry average.
L.L. Bean has been effective in moving its business from mainly a catalog-based endeavor to and Internet-based one. In doing so, the retailer has remained authentic to its brand and traditions while adapting to an ever-changing world. Yet there are glitches.
For example, a visitor to the Web site shopping for women’s apparel moved to the clearance area, instead of seeing women’s apparel, they are greeted with men’s items, forcing the customer shopping for women’s apparel to search through multiple pages of sale items. Using A/B testing different versions of the Web site could see how shoppers respond and see if sales increase as a result.
Nick Stamoulis with Pay Per Click Journal said (2009) that “A/B testing is almost always preferable even on your landing pages. Multivariate testing should be reserved for picking the best of the best of your elements AFTER you have run your initial A/B tests.”
L.L. Bean and other businesses can use such results to improve the shopping experience of their customers.
Facebook has become one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. It offers businesses and bloggers alike the opportunity to reach millions of people. This week in our Web Metrics and SEO, I was faced with the task of using social networking sites to promote my blog at http://www.whenamousewentsqueaknotclick.blogspot.com/.
As a long-time Facebook fan, that was the social networking method I choose to use. It is a good choice to reach many different demographics and is a good source for monitoring sentiments and directions. eMarketer estimates in its report Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook that companies will spend more than $2.2 billion on social media marketing efforts this year, with more than half of that amount coming from the United States. In 2010, Facebook will account for nearly one-quarter of all social network ad spending worldwide, up from 20 percent in 2009 (eMarketer, 2010).
Armed with this information, I logged onto my Facebook account and created a separate page to promote my blog. I then imported my blog onto the Facebook page by going to the notes section on the page. Now visitors to my Facebook page can easily see postings made to my blog. While I have yet to receive any comments, I believe it will be an effective means to expand my audience as I continue my journey towards completing the graduate Digital Marketing Communications certificate program at West Virginia University.
Steve Rubel, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, said in a Mashable posting (2009), that blogs likely will remain the primary social hub for many on the web, and I hope mine will be one of them.
I have grown to both love and hate Google Analytics. As a public relations practitioner and marketer, I understand the valuable information such a tool can provide. On the other hand, I hate how Google has infiltrated everything I do on my blog. I like sharing insights and my experiences in my Digital Marketing Communications graduate program at West Virginia University. At this point in the program I can honestly say I’m no longer a novice, and I’m proud of that. Still, I’m far from an expert, and I continue to struggle with installing the tools that Google Analytics promises will benefit me, my blog and others.
I understand all too well how important data is for businesses and government agencies alike. Understanding why visitors to a commercial Web site leave before making a purchase, especially when they leave items in a shopping cart, and making the appropriate adjustments can make the difference between those businesses that succeed and those that fail in an Internet-driven economy. What I don’t understand is how this same Google Analytics tool can be used to improve government Web sites and other non-e-commerce sites that only provide information.
No doubt such sites want good visitor experiences as much as commercial entities do so it is important to track visits. That tool is a given. The use of keywords and filtering also could prove useful. Tracking sales, not so much. I am happy to say that I successfully installed mega tags and keywords on my blog as well as filters to better understand those who visit my site so that they may benefit from my experiences, both good and bad. Although I have not yet seen any results from these latests additions, I hope that I will so soon. And when I do, know that those who visit this blog will be the beneficiaries.
