I keep telling you: Drake Morton

Viva Los Internets!

by Josh Chasin , Tuesday, July 21, 2009

As we’re about to put our first wise Latina on the U.S. Supreme Court, it is somewhat serendipitous that I’d been planning for some time to write about the U.S. Hispanic online marketplace.  It is an interesting and fast-growing space, distinctly different from the general market, and too, distinctly different from offline U.S. Hispanic media marketplaces.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were about 43.7 million U.S. Hispanics aged 2+ as of 2008.  In May 2009 comScore reported that about 21 million of them were online, representing about 10.7% of all US persons online.  And the U.S. online Hispanic population is growing about three times as fast as the overall online population.
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You Should Know: Drake Morton

Why People Go Online

JULY 17, 2009
Learning and fun top the list. If idle hands are the devil’s workshop, the Internet is a pretty hot place.

According to Ruder Finn, 100% of US Internet users surveyed in Q2 2009 went online to pass the time.

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Good Read: Drake Morton

Be Your Subscribers’ Best Friend:

Design for Dynamic Content

by Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon , Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Imagine how strong your brand’s relationship with subscribers could be if you knew each one intimately and could send personal emails to all of them. So far, the closest you can get to this email inbox utopia is to construct dynamic messages based on your subscribers’ unique interests.
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Brand Mentions Preferred over Ads

APRIL 20, 2009

Young people especially receptive.

Want to get Internet users to visit your Website or follow your brand?

The best way to accomplish those tasks, according to ARAnet, based on polling by Opinion Research Corporation, may not be advertising.

Compared with banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers and sponsored links, articles that include brand information were most likely to lead US Internet users to read—and act.

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Excellent Read From Jill Konrath

What am I learning at the Sales 2.0 Conference?

Definition of Sales 2.0, as per David Thompson, CEO of Genius: Sales 2.0 combines customer-focused processes with Web 2.0 productivity technologies to enhance the art and science of selling while creating customer value.

It’s all about driving more revenue, more quickly, through the pipeline.

According to Thompson, it’s all about Marketing & Sales:

• Being in alignment with the customer throughout the buying and lead life cycle.
• Working collaboratively to approach buyers when they’re ready, extracting timely and relevant insights and sharing customer intelligence.
• Accelerating and optimizing every phase of the sales funnel by connecting with the right prospects at the right time.
• Measuring and improving the lead-to-opportunity conversion equation and sales performance.

Thoughts from Scott Santucci, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.
Santucci covered the entire lead generation & sales process - what’s broken & what needs to be done. Key points include:

• The salesperson IS your company to prospective customers. Most companies are asking their sellers to learn so much! What’s broken right now is the conversation between the buyer and seller.

• Both buyers and sellers are suffering from complexity problem. Customers are suffering from too much info, vendor fatigue, more stakeholders involved & longer decisions. Sellers also have complex portfolios, random acts of enablement and changes in their company.

• Need to flip the focus of Marketing/Sales: Model it around customer problems/decision process; Map it around the problem portfolio. Then, Match sales tools to this process to support customer conversations.

Key take-aways from Jim Dickie, CSO Insights:

• Lead generation #1 sales effectiveness initiative this year. Recent study: qualified leads that turn into discussion now at 39%; down from 55% .

• Need to recognize Buying 2.0 too! Customer now get all sorts of information about your products, services, capabilities - way before they talk to a seller.

• Recommended customer engagement objectives for 2009: 1) Optimize prospect intelligence; 2) Develop enhanced messaging; 3) Create enhanced sales/prospect engagement tools; 4) Nurture sales leads and 5) Integrate lead management/CR analytics.

• Companies must make existing lead follow-up more effective. They don’t have big enough marketing budgets to keep generating more leads.

A Must Read: Drake Morton

Personalize Ads For Frequent Online Shoppers and

Bigger Spenders

According to the 2008 Personalization Survey from ChoiceStream, 39% of consumers overall are more likely to click on an ad if it is personalized, while that number rises to 58% among those who shop online at least several times a month. The survey finds that the bigger the spender, the greater the interest in personalized ads. Half of those spending more than $250 online over the past six months indicate that they are more willing to click on ads that are personalized. This compares with only 32% of the smallest spenders.

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Excellent Read, A Must Do: Drake Morton

Now Is The Time To Build Relationships

With Your Customers

by Jere Doyle , Friday, October 31, 2008

CONSUMERS AND BUSINESSES ARE TIGHTENING their belts and their budgets, but brand marketers need to look at today’s recession economy as an opportunity. Now is the ideal time to ramp up your marketing efforts and build stronger relationships with your customers. (more…)

Excellent: Drake Morton

 Expanding Email Reach Via Social Networks

by Loren McDonald , Thursday, September 25, 2008

SOME EMAIL MARKETERS SAY THAT the growth of social media directly challenges email’s supremacy for communication. To me, now is a prime opportunity to expand the subscriber relationship to incorporate community, content sharing, feedback and user-generated content. (more…)

Good to Know: Drake Morton

BluKai Says Transparency for Everyone

by Steve Smith , Friday, September 19, 2008

THE NEW DATA EXCHANGE BLUEKAI launched publicly this week with an unusual value-add for consumers. Anyone can go to the site and check in detail exactly what any BlueKai cookie on your system is tracking about your online travels. In my quick check, a visit to Autobytel.com added a cookie segmenting me as shopper for a car, a sub-compact or sports car — and specifically a Mini. BlueKai’s “Registry” also lets me remove any of those segment indicators from my cookie. And so, as CEO Omar Tawakol tells us here, the company is trying to be all about transparency throughout the value chain. BlueKai launches with veterans of Revenue Science (including Tawakol), Yahoo, and RightMedia at the helm. (more…)

For Immediate Release

Drake Morton
DRAKE MORTON & ASSOC INC
(310) 734-6239
(818) 991-2538
drake@drakemorton.com
http://www.drakemorton.com

Tough Times Call For Immediate Actions

Westlake Village, CA - August, 27 2008 - Number One Rule for Business Owners, “Communicating with your customers should be at the top of your To Do List.” “In order to compete in today’s marketplace, it’s absolutely essential that businesses know their customers.” You must be Smarter, Faster and Sharper then your competitors.
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