Good Read: Drake Morton

The ‘Cadillac’ of Online Video Advertising

by Alex Rowland , Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Most online video advertising today sucks. It essentially comes in two main flavors: annoying (pre-rolls) and distracting (auto-play banners and overlays). And if you look at where money is being spent in online video advertising today, it is weighted heavily toward the annoying end of the spectrum.

The good news is that brands are evolving their approach to online video and experimenting more aggressively with longer-form videos that can stand on their own. In response, a new standard is taking shape that prescribes best practices to both the creation and distribution of these videos. You could call this standard the “Cadillac” of online video advertising.

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Need to Understand: Drake Morton

Digital to Account for 24% of

Marketing Spend 2010: Econsultancy

A new report by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, Marketing Budgets 2010: Effectiveness, Measurement and Allocation, finds that digital marketing will account for 24% of overall marketing spend this year. (more…)

The closing paragraph

really puts this article in perspective.

These three drivers are the forces that are changing marketing. When I look at them for commonalities, one comes to mind: in each, we have to get better at knowing the people on the other side of the transaction. We have to spend more time understanding what influences our prospects’ buying decisions, how we can participate effectively in the process and how we can help satisfy their intent. All of this depends on us getting to know our prospects better. It’s not a “market”; it’s dozens — or hundreds, thousands or millions — of individuals. And we have to learn to have conversations with each of them.

The emotional bound of marketing: Drake Morton

The Shape of Marketing: 2010 & Beyond

by Gord Hotchkiss , Thursday, December 24, 2009 (more…)

A Must Read and Understand: Drake Morton

 Apple Succeeds Because Of Its Contrarian Ways

Wall Street Journal, The Big Money, Reuters
When Apple acquired music-streaming service La La Media for $85 million last week, it had nothing short of a new business model for iTunes in mind, write Ethan Smith and Yukari Iwatani Kane. Lala.com lets users buy and listen to music through a Web browser, and the new model would allow Apple to sell music through Web sites and search engines and not just at the online Apple store. But the plans are in the early stages, caution people familiar with them, and could change.

If thinking about altering a wildly successful business sounds a bit contrary to you, in “We Should All Get It Wrong Like Apple,” Jonathan Weber points out that Apple does none of the things that pundits always say you should do to succeed in the Internet economy. No blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, free samples, asking for feedback or engaging with the customer base for the sages from Cupertino. Why, they even do a heck of a lot of advertising in the dead-tree mediums, as well as broadcast TV and billboards.

What lessons are to be learned? 1. It’s all about good product. 2. Brand marketing still matters. 3. Real-time engagement with customers is not a required course of action.

Meanwhile, Reuters says that an Oppenheimer research note claims Apple will launch its long-rumored tablet personal computer in late March or April, with it manufacturers preparing to roll out as many as 1 million units per month.

(c) 2009 MediaPost Communications, 1140 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001

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Get it right: Drake Morton

It’s Holiday Season.

What If Your Emails Don’t Care?

by Mike May , Wednesday, November 18, 2009

If you thought inboxes were already cluttered, just wait until this year’s holiday season ramps up to full speed. Retail business are struggling to recover, while at the same time cutting ad and direct mail spending, and focusing more resources on ROI-heavy programs like email. It’s a perfect storm headed straight towards inboxes. (more…)

Good Information: Drake Morton

E-Tailers Investing Ahead of Recovery

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Getting ready for consumers to open their wallets

Recovery from the recession is not yet in reach, but online retailers are ready to start spending all the same.

E-tailers know online consumers demand a top-notch shopping experience, and that difficulties navigating e_commerce Websites can lose them sales. Internet Retailer and Vovici Corp. found that more than seven in 10 Web merchants planned to spend more on advanced e-commerce applications and services this year.

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You need to know: Drake Morton

New Chart: Email Spending Sped Up

As the Economy Slowed

SUMMARY: Email has not only been spared the ax that fell heavily on most marketing budget line items, it seems to have actually benefited from the down economy. This boon wasn’t skewed by a few email-reliant sectors, it occurred in every industry participating in our benchmark survey.

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Good Information: Drake Morton

More On: Everything I Need to Know About Business

I Learned From Google

by Aaron Goldman , Wednesday, November 4, 2009

OK, kids. Class is back in session. Once again, we’re studying business lessons learned from Google. As you’ll recall, last time we covered these five Google-isms:

       1. Innovate or die.

      2. Automate or die.

      3. Tap the long tail.

      4. Keep your head in the cloud.

      5. Don’t scare users. (more…)

Very Important Read: Drake Morton

Using Personality To Help Drive Engagement

by Loren McDonald , Thursday, October 22, 2009

My previous column, where I shared personal experiences about assumptions others have made about my wife and me without knowing us, turned out to be the second most popular column I’ve written for Email Insider, as measured by the number of readers’ comments.

I intended the column to caution against assuming too much about your subscribers and customers. However, reader reaction confirmed my view that showing a human, personal side in email, blogs and other communications content will lead to greater engagement with your customers and subscribers.

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Very Good Read: Drake Morton

Everything I Need to Know

About Business I Learned From Google

by Aaron Goldman , Wednesday, October 21, 2009

And the beat goes on. What started off as 10 simple marketing lessons learned from Google blossomed into 15 and then 20 before seeding a full-fledged book (in-progress). From there, I dove into lessons from Google about product development. Today, I’d like to bring it up a level to what Google can teach us about general business practices. For my next topic, I think I’ll lighten the mood with we can learn from Google about dating — so start tweeting your suggestions now!

1.     Innovate or die. Google fosters a culture of innovation by allowing employees to spend 20% of their time working on non-core projects. And, for core projects, it puts a relentless focus on continuous improvement. Heck, in the past year alone, Google made 359 changes to its Web search product. I guess when it’s as easy as a click to switch from Google’s bread-and-butter product to a competitor, it had better keep innovating. Netflix is a great example of a company devoted to innovation. It runs a contest awarding $1 million to anyone that can improve its recommendation algorithm by 10%.

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