Performance Controller

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results"...WC Print

 The Eyeblaster funnel analysis shows display advertising is still very important to influence behaviors and get people in the sales funnel. As they move to buy at the conversion and buy choice points “search and display” are  more and more important. A question you may ask on this may be, “Is there more to it?”

To try to answer that “Reach Beyond the Key Word” was a tag line that got my attention to read more. from “Eyeblaster”, a New York based media firm with offices world wide on all continents.

A review of the, Eyeblaster site shows credible content and research. Some fun stuff too plugs a need for better back-ends in advertising with a transparent view of the adverting business that is not always as slick and flashy as they would have us believe. It leaves the impressions that it takes work to be professional and get it right to bring out the value for a business to grow.

But why, you may ask, would I look at a US based model, when many of us work in Australasia where the markets are quite different. Firstly unlike Asia, they are willing to publish there research and be challenged. And second, no matter how different the cultures are that influence buying behaviors, the marketing fundamentals are still the same. It is all about the numbers and in the end without doubt, the US thinkers still have upwards of the best understanding and skill on how to interpret underlying marketing analytics in what is still the worlds most advanced market.

On a separate parallel, this week I had dinner in Bangkok with fashion designer and entrepreneur, Kate Wood.  Kate is my daughter ans she is travelling though as part of her twice yearly buying runs to Thailand, India and elsewhere. She is also one who takes no prisoners in a very tough market in her quest to develop her own stamp on the fashion design world.

She argues that mature marketers, like the US and the Japanese leaders in retail technology are becoming less relevant in wider Asia as local counterparts with local value are evolving fast. This is especially so in places like India where the brain power and credibility is high on creative marketing and where they are now pushing Europe as suppliers with 30+ % if the worlds’ higher end fashion. In the end we both agreed it is all about the numbers and the process of understanding to make them work.

Like Australia NZ,  Europe and Japan and in fact all developed nations with large economies, it seems what is now important is “search” which is used extensively by buyers in doing their research. Knowing how to leverage well with “search and display” is a conversation that is still incomplete. to helo this the Eyeblaster research shows the relative maturing of the search value and differing buyers approaches in a range of sectors.

So how true is the statement that while Display increases reach to get people in the funneln  Search is becoming more important as the buyer moves to intent stage.

Eyeblaster says, overall, for customers who used both search and display, 72% of conversions arrived as a direct result of the display channel.

Only 23% of the conversions were a direct result of the search channel. 5% were the result of display ads that were followed by a search.

Some verticals, such as B2B and Travel,try to focus on harvesting users who are already in the funnel and therefore have a larger portion of their conversions coming from search.

Everyday we are bombarded with material from Internet marketers who assert that Internet marketing is now king.  It seems the Eyeblaster findings show that Display may still  be the leading media format although they conclude that each channel plays a unique key role in the cycle.

While search harvests prospective customers that are already in the purchase funnel, it actually only reaches a limited number of people.

For all the sales people reading you may well ask. what is missing in this analysis?

It seems for many of us when we are supported by a good marketing campaign the job is easier, but the close on transactions is still mostly driven by face to face contact.

There seems little doubt that Display is still the sustaining factor that gets the funnels started. Ssearch and Display then helps with the education and conversion phase.

I wonder what the analysis would look like if live salespeople conversions were added to the channel mix.

To get Eyeblaster’s Search & Display: Reach Beyond the Keyword report, its is on their site.

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Be Disclosed or be closed is a theme we plan publish on later this week at Performance Controller.

This will talk about the new internet testimonial discloser changes in the US now being administered through the US Fair Trade Commission. This is law is designed to put out of business the dubious marketers who use false endorsements and testimonials to entice people to put their money in to rich quick schemes. 

Here is a 5 minute point of view video recorded today by Gordon Wood.

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Leaning social skills is something that is high on curriculums in baby schools. Nurturing to encourage kids to work together and to understand each other and how they fit is a critical part of early development.

But teaching a group how to sell itself is another thing. In many cases these concepts are not formally engaged until university level or even  later when individuals  join the workforce. And then only when they have aptitude to fit as leader that qualifies them for management courses.

Read more…

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Former IBM head Thomas J. Watson Jr, is listed as one of Time Magazines 100 most influential people of the 20th century.He lead one of the worlds best selling machines.from 1952 to 1971, In this 30 second voice clip he says that service is something most companies forget. Listen  for yourself in this item recorded in 1993 the year he died. it says so much about what makes for success.

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Thomas Watson Sr, his father, joined IBM in 1915 the year after his first son was born. His regime began with a concept that the company would grow by THINKING as he said:

“We must study through reading, listening, discussing, observing and thinking. We must not neglect any one of those ways. The trouble with most of us is that we fall down on the latter – THINKING — because it’s hard work.

I found it quite interesting when I listen to the 1993 dated clip of his son who had headed up one of the worlds largest and most successful selling companies and his father who built it from less than 300 people  after he joined it from NCR in 1915.

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Finally, the joining of Yahoo and Microsoft seems done. Microsoft has invested $100 million on advertising Bing on just one theme: Searching must be as satisfying an experience as it could be. Their ads clearly direct criticism at Google, whose dominant brand name is synonymous with search. But the market share that Bing was winning was at the expense of Yahoo rather than Google. So now they are working together this will change.

Careers in advertising are now topping the lists. This straw poll clearly shows that. I just wonder what happened to the practical things like, being a policeman, a doctor, rocket scientist or a fireman or even making something. How things have changed! Or have they?  Of course we do know one thing for sure. As the advertising market battles of such giants continue, we will always see mega money being spent for market share. So it is little or no wonder this is a focus for jobs for our kids.

And “selling the sizzle not the sausage” has always been the bit that robots cannot do. This is even more important now with Information products becoming as important as physical products. That needs clever people to ensure the emotional and social value of the benefits, as well as the functional value, is understood and delivered in the buying experience. So it seems advertising is all the go now to get a share of the market or just get you to buy, whatever it may be.

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Travelling around the net and its inter-pipes as we do, we tend now to take it all for granted. Even the colloquia defines its omnipresence.

But recently when I emailed a link to a friend to subscribe to my blog, she replied.  “I need to research how to do that”

My thought was “Oh dear, how often we take so much for granted”

As we live in a busy business world it seems we are totally dominated by the digital presence not even a decade old. The truth is, for many “The Internet” is  barely understood and is used only in limited ways.

Certainly no one asks what the internet is anymore. But unlike the telephone and television that is all pervasive and taken for granted, it still has a long way to go.

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One way to survive is to milk the value till the cow is done. Another is when we have something of value is to just give it away.

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If you are trying to figure out twitter as a social network this is interesting

A man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman. contrary to typical online social networks. 

New Twitter Research also shows  10 % of Twitter Users Account for 90% of Tweets As Twitter is still in it’s infancy, it could be interesting to see who the early technology adopters?

Here is the May 2009 Harvard study by Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski

Study’s highlights include:

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As large companies continue to consolidate and look at ways to rationalize they inevitably focus to cut out the middle man. The falling out of Singapore International Airlines with one of their major agents, Flight Centre in Australia, tells the story of this type of change.

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 As social networking in business continues defining itself so rapidly we will see many large and small players circumvented if they ignore it.

 One thing I notice with many business peers, including CEO’s and business leaders alike, is they generally focus on what they understand well.

Social networks” as a relatively new phenomena is generally not one of them.

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Small business now has a sustainable edge and personal trust is a competitive advantage.

Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth.

Customers are now looking for people they can trust and for a CEO who picks up the phone when they ring.

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The rate of change is so incredible; it is hard to believe that China is becoming the world’s number one English speaking country. Mind blowing is the fact that for technical students starting a four year degree, half of what they lean will be out of date before their third year of study is completed. What about jobs? Did you know that the top 10 jobs in demand now did not exist in 2004?

I was prompted to search out this information and the video below after getting some feedback about Ralph Eastman’s question “Is reading replacing TV as a pastime” as he eluded to increasing internet readerships trends. I also noted a comment from subscribers. My research of course is so easy now isn’t it, with the internet which is now my constant tool of trade? And here are some of the facts I found in my digging. There are also some interesting tit bits to ponder.

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In sales situations the quality of the competitive product is not always the issue. Varied solutions options and quality of offerings all too often compete in the same race for the buyer’s prize money. 

In this complex marketplace, where snake oil salesmen are always about for the pickings, winning deals requires good fit and positioning, good timing,  and a highly informed understanding of the prospects performance requirements.

But regardless of approach a difficult responsibility of selling is to ensure prospects are fully informed about what they are buying. This is amplified as procurement processes look to fine print to transfer consequential risks to vendors. Even more telling on Vendors promises is linking them to KPI measures to give  Buyers very sharp fangs to strike back fiercely. Then beware any vendor whose product or service promises fall short of buyer’s supply chain expectations.

Vendor lined KPIs aside, due diligence in sales needs high attention for other reasons.

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As we morph more to a demand responsive services economy, products software and process fuse. This makes software ubiquitous and therefore of less Intrinsic value on its own.

As the market itself continues to change and reshape at a great rate this makes investment in ideas quickly redundant as it finds even smarter and more integrated ways to deliver product and services.

This post relates to a web discussion question, “What is the future of Intellectual Property rights in the New Economy?

With delivery and logistics capability now global and supply chains and services unrelenting in their goal to get flatter, the demand is for merged software innovation and knowledge products to be delivered as services.

As this occurs and products mature, brand sensitivity of the respective parts is diminishing with barriers to entry lowered. For example engines for web services are no longer visible and hence have a different value on their own with much more plug and play procurement choices. Open platform integration products and open source software projects to resolve business problems are also changing the value and positioning of intellectual property.

With services moving more into the mass market of business and consumer bases process itself, it cannot be protected by conventions, intellectual property rights patenting or related copy right laws.

And as knowledge products mature and become part of common practices relying on licensing and the law to guard them is less effective and less relevant. To protect its investments in innovation, business leaders, developers and inventors need to look to re-engineering other barriers.

Selling of Knowledge based products is now be seen to be moving akin to the way most omnipresent industry is. For example, the motor vehicle Industry now has shared reproduction, supplying to separately branded product. This in turn is delivered in an end to end service model replacing the “Acquire and Maintain” model. This shift sees much of the end product delivered as a cycle based operating product based on fully serviced rights of use rather than ownership. In large industries such transport and logistics it even goes a step further as these outsource service providers have and continue taking this to the next level.

In the end like market itself, which will continue to change at a great rate, natural mechanisms such as speed to market, process maturing and brand loyalty, comparative advantage and quickly achieving critical mass usage will become the only real mechanisms for protection of ideas.

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Most people believe simple is best practice . But I also believe we often get it wrong when we describe our product and services.

Software vendors by nature to survive must be leaders of best practice, but they often talk in riddles and high fluting assumptive terms about basic processes and activity. I was drawn to an article I read at Technology Evaluation.com by Sherry Fox This is good read about enigmatic terms used by the software vendors.  My contribution here adds my perspective to her opinions.

Like processes I believe simple is best to describe product and services.  A colleague once said to me, “I had looked your  web site and for the life of me, I could not figure out what that you guys do.”

I was thankful for the feedback but that bombshell sent me immediately to have it changed. And it was easy too, we just cut all the crap.

In her article Sherry Fox talks about software vendors who call their product “Solutions”. That drives me crazy too and I sell and recommend their software for them in my consulting practice. They really make their life hard and puts buyers and consultants offside as we  have to sort out for ourselves the confusing product names and acronyms, badly positioned sales mumbo jumbo and filter out the meaningless non-information, to try to see what they really have to offer. Of course it is all part of the game to look impressive while also keeping the competitor confused.

I like Sherry carpenter’s tool example of the hammer, to drive a nail. It is clearly a tool not a solution. In another spectrum to resolve a war conflict a government  can use the army and that is are not a solution either. It is a tool of war or defence. Equally to negotiate for the same end uses a diplomatic tool.

Software is software, no-more no-less, so why not just call it that. Of course we all agree it is not just technology but includes people with skills to set it up and train us how to use it. And to put it into a process requires consulting for implementation and change management, which can add to the effort. But in the end what we finish with is still just a software tool.

A spreadsheet is an office tool and no one calls it a solution. Operational, accounting, work-flow, client, project budgeting, collaboration, presentation, communication asset and human management reporting and so on you can go, they are all software tools to do a job. Analytical, mathematical, scientific, educational, etc in every walk of life and function of business you will find software. As I rattle them off I can see synergy to combine some or all into enterprise level tools that provide structure rules and a place of work for many elements of business and operational process.

Like any invention or idea software is invented and used to solve problems of many origins. But there is no way it can presume to be a solution. It is still just a tool. When enterprise software vendors talk about solutions I think of problems and I turn off. If I have something to do I use a tool to do it. If I have a problem I figure what to do to fix it. Then I use a tool.

Even the end game, the result, may depend on my approach. and the tool, the solution used or for the outcome I want to deliver the benefit I want may vary. (Sorry Ms Jane Ordinary, I still need the business case.)

And I don’t always just have a problem. I many just have something to do like a strategic change or tactical move for an opportunity. For that I plan an approach then we get the tools and resources I need, to get outcome I seek. In the process we look at choices and choose. This could have many solutions as we proceed.

So the real test of what software is shows up when I ask the question. “If I need to get a result would I asked the software company get it for me”. Of course not. I would ask an expert to look at the choices. Then set up a team to go and see if there is a software tool (not a solution) that can fit our culture and we can learn to use it to get what we seek.

What Software Vendors have is one piece of the process. So they confuse me too talking about all of these aspects in the same terms of as a “Solution”.

Like Ms Jane Ordinary I am just your average  Jo C who likes to use the best tools to get the best result. And assembling solutions is just a step in the process to get there.

By the way if my business colleagues, knew I was a Solutions Salesman they may figure I had an important job but would would be unlikely to call me. On the other hand if they knew I sold business performance management software they would know what I had to offer and may suggest it as a choice to their bosses to create a solution for a business problem.

My advice to Software Vendors is drop all the bull. As much as I say this to  my fellow software salesmen I am going to take it my own advice myself too to make it easy on everyone and just call a spade a spade.

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“Stepping outside of your comfort zone can trigger the pump. The natural response to being on unfamiliar ground is to expect the worst. However, consider data you have to hand to help you determine just how much you need to be concerned.

If it is disaster you anticipate, just imagine the event as one that simply challenges this concern and as something your cautious side tells you to consider?

Weighing up the evidence will either support conservative steps you really should take, or it give you a view that shows the usual dips and flows you might reasonably expect”.

This is an excerpt from a contribution by Nada Mills, a notable Australian organizational behavior management specialist and clinical psychologist, living in Perth. Recently retired from full time practice and devoting time to writing, she says “gathering evidence is vital to keeping your eye on the prize’

We are facing a world where the traditional organisation structures and boundaries of control, as we know them  are light speeding to new paradigms. Unprecedented business intelligence power and band width means it is inevitable we will see a multilevel approach. With economics pressures so high, the concept to reality time compression crunch may be sooner rather than later. In Gary Cokins insights in his What is the Best Organization Chart for Performance Management? it is clear already business leaders see systems able to allow the customer to become the “Boss.” And ultimately being accountable for performance decisions that threatens traditional supply chain management processes as the very concept of today’s middle management evaporates.

Nada Mills now plans a series of discussion papers on Decision Making in the un-relenting high risky change of these new paradigms. The decisions and changes ahead are far reaching and may be way beyond the vision or capability of many who will sadly be caught in the fall out of the change this heralds. The obligation as advisors, is to move to cover that gap.

These will be published in this forum and will focus on the decision environment where supply and demand and business processes are reincarnating in ever shorter and shorter cycles. Aimed at understanding the likely fall out of major shifts in behaviors they will frame discussion and thought around best practice approaches on understanding the problem and effective handling of the constant of change itself.

To downloaded her papers ongoing I recommend you subscribe to the RSS feed at www.PerformanceController.com If you would like to contribute, please submit/register or make request via the comments on this section in this web page.

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Google power links bank crisis impact using “User Reaction Litmus”

When reading the article “Google reveals lost confidence in banks” in Director-Of-Finance Online you quickly see the power of using Google search engines information to gauge and understand the pulse of consumer behavior.

If you are a big brother watching adversary you may be concerned, but the fact is Google now knows with some certainty what we are all thinking.  How you may well ask?  Simple, they keep all the history of what we search and have developed tools to analyze it.

Yes every URL search is kept; including who made it, where, and when it came from; what is searched for and the search trail, are all kept. With this information they simple do intelligent search patterns analysis to see behavior changes using their linked analytics tools to see what is on our minds.

The value then is deploying it to organisations for their marker research. That in turn allows Google to sell things like their simple Pay-Per-Click advertising to grow their now massive advertising business, that has made them the rich company they are today.

Linked analytics to provide ability to track events and build consumer profiles is not new, But the velocity and quality of timing is. So much so it is now a phenomenon that is changing the very substance of our lives and commerce. Google now have the power to get instant feedback on all our thinking patterns and changes in them, before we even begin to show up in street and act on our research.

Knowing what people plan to do before they do it, means there is a financial killing being made regardless of financial crisis. Well organized alert marketing thinkers who are equally deft to react to changes in consumer behavior patterns are now moving in on this capably.  This new breed of entrepreneur is using linked analytics as their tool to clean up. Today if you searched “Personal safes” you will find 281,000 entries. From there you can b=narrow it and research your potential purchases while comparing vendors product information for free and without even talking to a vendor until you are ready to trust them. But now with the information so organized and quickly available they can know you are shopping and can plan accordingly. Incidentally talking about the present financial crisis according to the dofonline article “Searches for home safes are also up 150% over October 2007, with searches for safe savings are up 900%.”

So let’s examine some basics. A norm in ordered markets is “safe-branded-habit-form-buying” programs to drive buyer behaviors. Routine, life-style, entertainment, choice, peer pressure, curiosity, boredom, to name a few are all drivers in that paradigm. But when a shift occurs in the fundamentals that cause even the routine to become a paradox, then all these drivers go out the window. What replaces them generally is a market that becomes driven by panic, fear uncertainly and of course opportunity, each with its own for set of behaviors that in turn trigger solution and other reactive types of survival behaviour buying.

For the most part when people are under threat, after the immediate escape to preserve the status-quo, is then to protecting the money as the most critical refuge point to safeguard it at all costs And many unfortunately do just that. Hence the abnormal lift in buying inquires for personal safes is obvious even to blind Freddy, as people not lose confidence in spending their money on assets of no certain value and then lose faith in the institutions that house the money itself .

So using intelligent linked analysis of changes in URL activity is at the heart of understanding how people react and think. Being able to simply analyse URL activity is now a massively powerful market research tool. I guess the URL could be aptly named from its current technical derivative “Unique Resource Locator” to “User Reaction Litmus”

This makes me very excited about the future, as we can learn quickly to rectify issues, even fundamental ones, like world economies, that now have all 6.8 million of us joined at the hip.

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