[F]ocusing just on the ability of IT to support strategy and processes bears the risk of not utilizing the full potential of innovative technologies[.]

It’s clear there is a critical interdependence between both marketing and IT departments. As marketing seeks to “engage,” “relate with,” and “delight” customers in the continuous battle for share-of-mind and share-of-heart, relegating IT to the sidelines as bench support is not a good strategy. Rather, incorporating IT vision is a critical component in setting strategy. The complexity of consumer interactions with a firm’s brand, demands increasingly sophisticated infrastructure and data management tools to ensure that a firm can meet the needs of these consumers.

Similarly, firms ought to align financial management goals within this marketing-IT milieu. Financial concerns, in this context, center around setting proper marketing metrics to measure ROI and lifetime value of a customer. The paper points out that

[A] number of financial concepts (e.g. capital asset pricing model, portfolio theory, and real option approaches) have recently been transferred to customer portfolios…Such “marketing metrics”, based on these approaches and thus taking a future-oriented, long-term, cashflow oriented, and risk adjusted perspective, allow for an identification and measurement of the economic value contribution and the ROI of marketing[.]

To enable such penetrative insights, firms need to leverage data mining tools to create timely (i.e., near real-time) metrics to be shared across business to ensure uniform adherence to meeting clients’ expectations.

QR Kiosk Flyer

What I like is how the purveyor has conveniently arrayed the subject matter. As a tourist, I especially liked the choices put before me and the prospect of interacting in an interesting way with the “place” the QR took me. And it is on this latter point where I was let down. The “Arts” QR simply took me to a website, listing a series of events with more links to click. Understandably, having this list of links is definitely a convenience and I would not have visited the site but for the QR. However, I cannot help but think that an opportunity was missed that could have “rewarded” or “delighted” or “surprised” me with some experiential marketing. For example, the QR could have landed me on a page inviting me to play a video that has interviews with local artists and events organizers…let me feel their passion, let me understand their love for their community…grab my engagement by letting me know the impact of my participation. Then I’d be much more likely to click the links related to each event. Further, since these arts events are seasonal, this is a process one can repeat. In real estate one could use QR in a similar manner by showcasing a homeowner interview, interviews with shop owners, or a narrated neighborhood tour. How do you/would you use QR?

Wake up, the demographic shift is flattening us. Although targeted at catalog marketing executives, what Kevin Hillstrom has to say is relevant to the marketer in us all. Here’s the essential take-away:

Right now, “The Big Shift” is steamrolling us.  We are essentially addressing the 55+ audience, and wondering why our businesses are eroding?  We must begin investing in the 18-44 year old audience, if we want to remain relevant in 2020, while optimizing profitability from catalog mailings to the 55+ audience.

Very poignant observation, and very applicable concepts to the real estate industry.

Is Google building a stealth social network? Well-reasoned argument that Google is doing this, and that Google’s +1 initiative is part of a series of tactics Google has recently deployed to continue playing its ground game in the social sphere.

Rich media + display ads + social = advertising perfect CTR-engagement metric storm? “Rich media” (aka multimedia) has been around for some time. Similarly, rich media has had periodic bursts of hype and utilization for over a decade (anyone who was in the email marketing space around 1998/1999 will recall the covey of rich media vendors present at the variety of “internet conferences” that occurred during the same time period). Well, it seems rich media is back again (like a poltergeist?) and advertisers seem excited (according to the article). What’s interesting to me is whether there’s an opportunity for enhanced engagement via a rich media ad conduit that will support social CRM initiatives.

Data is the new plastics

The second article from the Los Angeles Times, He’s start-ups’ best friend, profiled angel investor Ron Conway and his theories about investing in start-ups. The most telling quote from this article:

His current focus is “real-time data” companies that help people share what they’re doing instantly – using text, photos and video. “This sector is going to be huge,” he said.

As real-time data begins to inundate firms more and more by virtue of their forays into the social web and mobile world, data analytics offers a way for firms to utilize this data in novel ways to deliver more engaging and relevant experiences to their customers. For example, a firm could use data analytics in a predictive manner to dynamically deliver more relevant web pages based on consumers’ behavior throughout a firm’s website. Similarly, firms can use a service like Flowtown in conjunction with a service like First American Core Logic’s lead qualification services to gain insight into a registrant by combining their social persona with their transactional persona and then deliver relevant data and content based on this combined persona. Firms that begin to leverage data analytics will have distinct advantages over their competition in the near and long-term future.

1) Strategically embrace Web 2.0 and facilitate consumer control over certain elements of an overall marketing plan

Supporters’ blogs and You Tube postings were also brought inside the campaign through the website, where the online team could help consolidate the energy and contacts generated by them.

2) Test, measure, refine, roll-out; keep what works, ditch what tanks; no “sacred cows”

[The new media team], meanwhile, was constantly testing different versions of its call-to-action pages, including requests for donations and voter registration. Did more people respond if it included video or text? Should the sign-up prompts be on the right column or in the center? Should they have a “learn more” button or direct sign-up? Once they discovered the most effective version, they replaced all the others with it. Among their lessons: Video can sometimes be a distraction rather than a help.