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digital pr General PR marketing online pr tech pr Technology PR

79 out of 100 top UK PR companies don’t offer online PR services: Bigmouthmedia

I’ve just come across a recent survey from Bigmouthmedia that claims that 79 out of the 100 top UK PR companies don’t offer online PR services.

They also say that only 14% of the operations that claimed to have new media covered published their own blogs. And that taken as a whole, only 11% of UK PR Consultancies use blogs to communicate with clients, colleagues and the wider marketplace.

I have to say I found these figures overly low. On the basis of the above analysis, there are only 11 agencies out of the top 100 that have a blog. Surely not.

Then again, I remain curious about the terms online PR, digital PR, etc. Most people I talk to seem to think there is no real semantic difference between them – they are simply different ways of describing the same thing.

However, in terms of their relative search popularity, there clearly are differences. Here are the figures for October 2008 in the UK:
Online PR 2,900
Online public relations 1,600
Web PR 880
Digital PR 590
Internet PR 260
Internet Public Relations 170

Digital public relations 73

Taking Google’s Insight for Search Tool, you can see that interest in the term “online PR” for example was at its highest back at the beginning of March 2008 – and has been bouncing around below this figure ever since. Google Insight also shows the regional breakdown for the term – and it would seem no one outside of London searches for “online PR”.

So what are the implications of all this for the UK online PR market?

This suggests that although interest is growing, it still remains a niche. For example, the term “fashion PR” was searched for 6,600 times last month. Indeed, the term social media scored 9,900 (though its variants such as social media PR, social media marketing, etc hardly registered).

Adam Parker, Chief Executive of online news distribution company webitpr commented on the Bigmouthmedia survey saying: “Despite finding that an increasing number of UK PR professionals are on the ball when it comes to online PR, this survey confirms our experience that a high proportion are still more focussed on traditional media. However, given that this is most probably a reflection of client budget and resource allocations, perhaps what we should be asking ourselves is what this says about UK business’ attitude towards online communications.”

Indeed. Though I’d argue that there is a difference between being aware of the need for online PR and being “on the ball”. Based on the above, it seems that interest in online PR (or whatever term you prefer) is largely confined both client and agency side to a hard core bunch of London-based converts. That surely has to change.

As Adam Parker added: “On a positive note, we feel that with steadily growing interest in the online world from both agencies and in house departments, the tide is beginning to turn. But if it is to properly address the challenges and opportunities that new media offers, the industry must invest in relevant services and training at all levels. Those failing to do so run the long-term risk of losing out in the inevitable battle for the online communications market.”

That I think nails it on the head. Agencies understandably are reluctant to offer services their clients aren’t going to pay for – but unless clients are given the option to actually try or buy a new service, then how can they invest in it? Those agencies that take the risk of developing new online services are clearly going to give themselves a better long term advantage.

Categories
Current Affairs digital pr General PR marketing online pr Web/Tech

185 million reasons for UK car dealers to be worried?

According to Google, UK internet users searched for the term “cars” on Google 185 million times in October. The historical 12 month average has been 226 million – so there has been an 18pc decline in search term usage.

And as we know, new car sales in the UK slumped 21pc in September.

Should we draw any connections between these statements? Before I have any Freakonomics fans on my case, the answer is – not necessarily.

For a start, I’m still trying to get my brain around the figure of 185 million. If we accept that the UK internet population is around 35.6 million, that would mean we online Britons searched on the term “cars” over 5 times each last month. Clearly not every UK internet user is interested in cars, so that suggests that there are some people who are searching on the same search term in an almost obsessive fashion. And why would you do that? Perhaps people check multiple times because they believe they will get different results – which will almost certainly be true in terms of ads served – and even natural rankings.

Then again, there may be other possible explanations:

1. Google’s numbers are rubbish

2. There are automated searches on the term “cars” which is hugely inflating numbers (though of course this contravenes Google’s Terms of Service).

3. The term “cars” is not just related to automobiles, but covers other things such as the Pixar film, etc.

Leaving this aside for the moment, if we drill down into some more specific terms such as “new cars” and “used cars”, we get something that seems a bit more realistic.

New cars 368,000 (Oct 08)

Used cars 1,500,000 (Oct 08)

(NB: Google Trends shows that people seem to search on term “used cars” most often on Sundays – which is worth knowing if you are looking to sell a used car).

If Google is to be believed, then these search volumes are the same as the historical 12 month trend. Which might offer cheerier news for car dealers. Then again, they may want to keep monitoring Google Trends carefully to see whether this holds up.

So what does this all mean? As a nation of Internet users, are we attempting to ignore the credit crunch by searching for “cars” all day? (Then again, we apparently searched on the term “shoes” 101 million times last month as well).

I still stand by my view that SEO Keyword Tools can be very helpful in helping to formulate a PR or marketing content strategy. However, like any tool, you need to be aware of its limitations – and how to use it properly. And have some confidence in the underlying data.

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digital pr marketing online pr Web/Tech

Are only 36 people in the UK interested in retaining customers?

Marketing 101 tells us that keeping existing customers is more often better than trying to acquire new ones. And in the current economic conditions, making sure you retain what you’ve got seems not just sensible but essential.

In which case, you might think that people would be searching for information about how to keep customers. However, according to Google, the search term “how to retain customers” was searched for a paltry 36 times in the UK in October. And over the last 12 months, the average was around 58 – so the trend is declining.

So does this mean that there is a universal lack of interest in customer retention? No. It simply bears out what we’ve said before – the majority of search terms consist of only 2 or 3 words. And that people tend not to use Google in great numbers to ask specific questions.

Having said that, what about the phrase “customer retention“? According to Google, a mere 3,600 searches occurred on the term last month in the UK.

Conversely, the term “new business” came up 74,000 times – although the historical average has been 135,000.

Without getting carried away, Google’s Keyword tool (and similiar SEO tools) can provide a useful picture of what people are really interested in. And what kind of PR and marketing content they might best respond to.

Categories
digital pr marketing Media online pr tech pr Technology PR Web/Tech

What Google’s offline media services mean for the future of PR and advertising

Perhaps it isn’t surprising that Google’s offline TV. radio and print ad services don’t get much attention in Europe (they aren’t available here yet). However, it surely can’t be long before we do get them – and I don’t doubt that they will have the potential to further disrupt the media services landscape.

If you subscribe to Google’s Let’s Take It Offline blog (and only 833 people appear to) you’ll have seen the constant stream of new enhancements and case studies about Google’s services in the offline arena. Take the example of Event Triggers. In the US, it is possible to not only book your radio ad airtime via Google, but only have the ads run if specific environmental criteria are met. As Google says:

With event triggers, you can set up your Audio Ads campaigns to play only when specific environmental conditions are forecasted in your target market. This high-tech feature lets you deliver a relevant message to potential customers in the moment they need you most.
For example, you could set up your campaign to start playing only when the forecasted weather indicates “hazy” conditions or “rain showers,” or when the UV index is above 10. Currently, advertisers can set campaigns to trigger based on four types of environmental cues: apparent temperature, actual temperature, UV index and weather conditions.

How it works:

  • Build an audio campaign with your desired demographic, daypart, format and markets.
  • Indicate the environmental cues you’d like to target during campaign setup. (Tip: You should create a separate campaign for each set of unique conditions)
  • Upload specific ads with messages to match the event that triggers them to play.
  • When the conditions are met, based on the forecast for the next day, Google Audio Ads will trigger your campaign and serve the ad you specified.

The services in TV and print ad booking are no less innovative. For example, it is now possible to carry out the entire print ad process from creative design, media space booking and measurement all within Google. The Hotels.com case study is a good example.

Imagine if you could run PR campaigns like this? And what limit is there on the type of criteria you can use to target your content? Who knows. As William Gibson said, “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”

Categories
Books digital pr General PR marketing Media online pr tech pr Technology PR Web/Tech

Why you should read Antony Mayfield’s e-book Brands In Networks

First, my thanks to Mr Stephen Waddington for flagging Antony Mayfield’s e-book, Brands In Networks.

As Wadds says “publishers, journalists, PRs and marketing professionals that are looking for a pragmatic analysis of the fragmentation of the media industry should download the 50-page eBook immediately.”

I agree. The book covers a huge amount of ground – and I have to admire the time and effort that Antony has put into writing it. Given one of the key themes of the book is around the subject of attention markets, he has succeeded brilliantly in gaining much of mine this morning.

Rather than a formal critique of the book, I have pulled out below some of the key points that struck me on first reading with my own initial comments.

Antony Mayfield: The numbers

1.4 billion (one-fifth of the world’s population) people online in the world today.

400 Million of them are members of social networks.

There are over a trillion web pages indexed by google.

There are 112.8 Million blogs being tracked by specialist search
engine Technorati.

10 Hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

In 2008, for the first time, the volume of internet traffic generated by consumers will overtake that created by corporations and other organisations.

Andrew Bruce Smith: And while we are on the numbers, let’s not forget the billions of e-mails and text messages sent every day.

AM: Any one of the 1.4 billion of us who is connected to the web can create content. from basic, written-word web pages, via interactive blogs and forums with podcasts, through to videos and pictures and endless commentary from us, and from anyone else in the network.

ABS: We can – but we don’t. As per the recent Rubicon Consulting report: “community experts have been aware of this phenomenon for years, calling it “participation inequality.” Jakob Nielsen wrote an influential article on the subject in 2006, describing the “90-9-1 rule”. It states:

• “90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
• “9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their
time.
• “1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem
as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever
event they’re commenting on occurs.”

The 10pc of “Most Frequent Contributors” are also the biggest influencers in these communities says Rubicon. The logical assumption is that PR might want to assume a role in becoming MFCs – however, frequency needs to be tempered with issues of trust and value.

AM: Prediction: expect to see the first major global brand appoint a digital agency as its agency of recordin the next year.

ABS: Agreed. The recent Sapient survey bears this out.

AM: Email: you can send content or alerts to people’s inboxes. email is already so
embedded in our lives that it doesn’t feel like a revolutionary medium, but it is.

ABS: Jason Baer recently shared the following in relation to e-mail:

1. 21% of email recipients report email as Spam, even if they know it isn’t

2. 43% of email recipients click the Spam button based on the email “from” name or email address

3. 69% of email recipients report email as Spam based solely on the subject line

4. 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone

5. IP addresses appearing on just one of the 12 major blacklists had email deliverability 25 points below those not listed on any blacklists

6. Email lists with 10% or more unknown users get only 44% of their email delivered by ISPs

7. 17% of Americans create a new email address every 6 months

8. 30% of subscribers change email addresses annually

9. If marketers optimized their emails for image blocking, ROI would increase 9+%

10. 84% of people 18-34 use an email preview pane

11. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people that do not receive email offers

12. 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email

13. Subscribers below age 25 prefer SMS to email

14. 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device

15. 80% of social network members have received unsolicited email or invites

Draw your own conclusions.

AM: RSS feeds allow people to subscribe to websites and have new
content sent to them via their inbox, a newsreader like google reader, or a widget
sitting on their computer desktop. RSS means that none of the people who enjoy
my fabulous Cat has to remember to check your website everyday to see if there is
new information: they wait for the RSS tool to bring your cat articles to them. This is
the same distribution method that powers audio and video podcasts.

ABS: Adam Parker of WebITPR recently argued that RSS subscribers now numbered around 100 million – hardly a niche any more.

AM: Anyone – brand, media owner or individual – looking to thrive online would do well to
understand how networks work, where their own are and how they fit into them.
for networks are how the online world works and they are the essence of the
revolution that we are living through. Crucially, to succeed in networks we sometimes need to move away from thinking about promotion or selling as the key activity. a selling message pushed uninvited into a social space is rarely useful, and rarely welcome. brands that do this are ignored if
they are lucky, and may find themselves on the sharp end of criticism from blogs and
forums if they aren’t. Once we have understood our networks we need to ask: “What is a valid role for us here?” and: “how can we add value?”

ABS: No doubt brand owners are also asking what (financial) value the network can give back to them in return for adding value. Cracking the transactional element of these relationships is going to be key.

Also, the Rubicon Consulting report had a very good analysis of the varying types of network and community:

“The survey showed that different types of online communities have very different user
bases and rates of usage. Although many observers speak of web community as if it’s
a single thing, in reality there is incredible diversity between communities.
Approaches that work well in one type of community may fail utterly in another. That
means companies looking to found community sites, or partner with them, need to
understand what kind of community they are engaging with.

Every community is unique, but they can be grouped into five broad categories, based
on the motivations of the people who participate in them. The five major types of
communities are:
• Proximity, where users share a geographic location (Craigslist is an example);
• Purpose, where they share a common task (eBay, Wikipedia);
• Passion, where they share a common interest (YouTube, Dogster);
• Practice, where they share a common career or field of business (many online
professional groups fall in this category); and
• Providence, where they discover connections with others (Facebook).

AM: We sometimes like to think that in digital marketing we have developed a new
discipline, but coming to this sector from the outside two years ago it looked to me
like an awful lot of agencies had taken ad agency models and simply transplanted
them to the web. Many laugh at the “brochure-ware” websites of the late 90s – where
people had literally taken the marketing literature formats of the print age and put
them online – but in many ways we have only progressed a small distance in terms of
understanding the way the web works. I
t is my contention that marketing needs to be rethought in almost every aspect. Even if there are things worth keeping, nothing should be exempt from the challenge:

ABS: Totally agree. We have barely scratched the surface.

AM: Our language gives us away. Think of the way we talk about the people we are marketing to, and what we want to do in a channel media context. People, individuals, are masked and herded into demographics that gloss over the complexity of the situation. We talk about consumers, audiences; passive terms. We talk about message penetration, or buying eyeballs. When you start to think about things from the perspective of networks, this language jars. People don’t consume content: they read it or watch it, and then often do things with it such as remixing, forwarding, or linking to it. These aren’t audiences or eyeballs. These are individuals. A lot of the language of channel media marketing sounds militaristic. We monitor (from on high) consumer behaviours. We penetrate markets. We dominate mindshare. We execute campaigns. These aren’t social words. They come from the mass; the industrial level – whereas in the networks we must operate (as we do in our personal lives) at a human level.

ABS: As an Orwellist, I completely subscribe to the view that language shapes our view of the world. Part of the challenge is being able to articulate the value of these new approaches to an audience that is still steeped in the language (and ideas) of an older era.

AM: When we think about attention markets, we should ask; who are our competitors?
They may be different from the people we compete with in our primary commercial
marketplaces – they may include media, social media, or other brands.
Taking full account of the market means properly understanding our brands’
networks, how they operate as markets, and how we can be effective in them. That
means not just having a handful of insights and a great one-at-a-time creative idea. it
means being able to listen closely and respond. it means having several competing
strategies and waiting for one to stand out, then having the resource to back it
up quickly.

ABS: Agreed. Parallel marketing will trump linear marketing.

AM: (In relation to Ted Rheingold’s Dogster site): Suddenly, it seemed, the failure rate for projects began to increase. When a review of projects that were failing was conducted, a common factor was quickly spotted:
almost all of the failing projects had taken six months or more from idea to public release.
They were failing because the community had moved on; was interested in other things. Their needs had shifted. Ted calls this effect: the impact horizon. ever since, he has been working on bringing down the development time for new features to as close to a month as possible.

ABS: Speed rules everywhere. In marketing and PR, developing a test and learn mindset is key. In other words, lots of rapidly implemented small scale projects versus big bang campaigns. Implications for agency structure and resourcing.

AM: At iCrossing we talk about “designed-in measurement” for creative and content.
Thinking about measurement begins at the discovery phase, and it should be
implemented and remain live throughout a given project. measurement gives us
insight and evidence for refining every aspect of a programme – from search terms to
page design – almost from day one. This is a departure from the ‘build it and leave it’
approach that online marketers often take to building beautiful microsites, and then
tacking on some weak analytics measurement at the end.

ABS: Agreed. PR still hasn’t quite grasped the measurement nettle yet.

Categories
digital pr marketing Web/Tech

Fake viral (buzz) marketing in UK will be illegal from May 26th

Almost. According to Revolution magazine, the worthies at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising are warning that: “commercial communications via the internet will become more strictly regulated and in some cases illegal when new rulings come into force from late May.”

I checked the date of the news story – April 2nd – so no apparent April fool joke here.

The nub of the IPA claim is that within the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, there is a clause which makes the following criminal offences:

  1. Seeding positive messages about a brand in a blog without making it clear that the message has been created by, or on behalf of, the brand.
  2. Using “buzz marketing” specialists to communicate with potential consumers in social situations without disclosing that they are acting as brand ambassadors.
  3. Seeding viral ads on the internet in a manner that implies you are a simple member of the public.

Marina Palomba, the IPA’s legal director, is quoted as saying: “If advertisers and their agencies ignore the ethics of responsible advertising, the damage to the advertising and marketing industry generally will be considerable, undermining all commercial messages, their effectiveness and the self regulatory systems.”

She advises that agencies and marketing teams should assess their activities and whether they comply with the new regulations to avoid potential fines or even prison sentences. (My emphasis).

Let’s examine those points further:

1. What exactly is “seeding” a positive message in a blog anyway? (And does that mean seeding in a newsgroup or other form of digital communication is OK?). Overt comment puffery is easy to spot – the perpetrators will surely damage their brand on their own without any need for regulation. Or do they mean paying bloggers to say nice things about a product? Again, if we’ve learnt anything over the last few years, it’s that nothing stays secret long on the Interweb. If anyone was foolish enough to take the vendor’s shilling without declaring their interest (and get caught), then the approbrium heaped upon them would surely be punishment enough.

2. This presumably refers to stunts like British Airways hiring actors to pretend to be happy (and loudly talking) BA customers in public places like the Heathrow Express. Again, is anyone really taken in by this? And given the utter PR disaster that is Terminal 5, would anyone seriously believe anyone who made a highly positive comment about BA in public (or private)?

3. The phrase “simple member of the public” really annoyed me. It suggests that seeding a viral by implying I’m an intelligent member of the public is perfectly acceptable. More irritating is the underlying message that Joe Public is a poor dumb ass who needs protecting from these clever, evil viral marketeers.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t in any way condone people who fail to make appropriate vested interest disclosures. At the same time, I don’t believe legislation on this matter (or scaremongering by the IPA) is the answer either.

The new regulations come into effect on 26 May 2008.

I’m off to write some disclaimers.

Categories
Business Performance Management marketing Web/Tech

Intelligent versus brainless marketing

Gerry Brown, a Senior Analyst with Bloor Research, has just posted his ‘view from the floor’ at the recent Technology For Marketing & Advertising show at London’s Earls Court.

Ironies abound. A show devoted to cutting edge marketing developments was undermined in some quarters by silly attitudes:

The behaviour of some exhibition stand personnel was unexpected. Mentioning no names, some stands were manned by sales people who preferred to talk to each other rather than to customers. A product demonstration was mostly hard to get. To be fair, some stands were excellently managed, but many were not.

And do some people have ears?

Finally, the sales follow up. As an analyst, I am not buying. I really am “just looking”. One vendor’s follow up was: a sales email, a tele-sales call, and then 2 resellers rang me. Conversely, some vendors promised to send information and never did. Strangely the show’s organizers followed the former track — bombarding me with email messages “your last chance to register!” when I had done so months before. I got so paranoid I dug out my ticket to reassure myself I was not going mad!

These behaviors are disappointing as the show was about marketing, and marketing is about (amongst other things):

  1. crafting marketing messages that communicate competitive differentiation and uniqueness.
  2. engaging customers and stakeholders (which I was) in a positive, helpful, and congenial manner.
  3. listening to customer requirements and responding in a correct and appropriate manner.

Also curious that for all the current talk of building conversation and relationships:

The main focus at the show was Campaign Management, Email Marketing, CRM, and Digital / e-marketing. These can be perceived as “push” technologies i.e. more campaigns, more marketing messages to more desktops with more sales propositions. This is how the show’s organizers targeted me (see above). Luckily, most suppliers have now clearly recognized that the customer requirements are changing from volume marketing towards intelligent marketing.

And hard to argue with Gerry’s plea for more “intelligent marketing”

Intelligent marketing means using technology to be smarter and slicker at marketing processes. To be better at customer segmentation and targeting, better at marketing messaging delivered via the right mix of media and channels; better at engaging and tracking customers’ decision making processes, and better at delivering products and services via operationally excellent and seamless sales execution.

The Technology for Marketing industry has been too focused on customer acquisition, with too little focus on customer care. The balance is changing. However, marketing technology vendors themselves need to represent ‘best practice’ in marketing behaviors to be credible to potential ‘technology for marketing’ customers. The cobbler needs to ensure his children are well shod with good shoes to send the right message to potential customers. For those vendors that achieve this, there lies a rich vein of opportunity in the marketing marketplace.