Websites' New War of Attrition

Adobe reports traffic on 4 in 10 websites has decreased since 2013.

“Traffic increases due to Internet penetration have evaporated in North America," says analyst Becky Tasker. "Websites face a more competitive landscape, where you’re fighting to grow by taking share away from somebody else.”

Winning websites "aren’t resting on the strength of their brands alone to drive traffic,” Tasker says. 

“They have a 360-degree strategy, surrounding people in various channels and platforms to drive traffic to their sites.”

The channels driving the most traffic? Social, email and display.

Winning websites are also providing relevant, nonintrusive content, according to Tasker.

Copywriters' Coin of the Realm

I am a friend of neology. It is the only way to give a language copiousness and euphony.

—Thomas Jefferson 

While near the bottom of Madison Avenue's pecking order, copywriters do have one prerogative: to coin new words, or neologisms.

Just as everyday neologisms (for example, Spanglish, cattitude and entreporneur) empower conversation, copywriters' neologisms empower ads.

They can, in fact, be so forceful they're absorbed by English, and we forget they began life in an ad (for example, kleenex, astroturf and motel).

Neologisms come in handy because "they sound funny and weird, and have a catchy nature," says Ruta Kalmane in Advertising: Using Words as Tools for Selling.

They also arrive easily. (I'll coin one now: a cheesy telemarketing call is a Mumbuy.)

My favs include fabulashes, craisins and, last but not least, Corinthian leather.

Corinthian leather was coined by a copywriter to describe the upholstery in Chryslers of the 1970s. 

TV pitchman Ricardo Montalban made famous the line "richly-cushioned luxury seats made of fine Corinthian leather."

In reality, Chrysler's upholstery was vinyl and originated not in Corinth, Greece, but Newark, New Jersey.

The late Montalban admitted the neologism "means nothing."

Intel Outside

After midwifing the People's Republic in 1949, Chairman Mao set out to erase every trace of China's past.

So it's no wonder Chinese Millennials find their nation's history "remote, irrelevant, and uninteresting," as marketers at Intel recently discovered.

There's not much of it around.

To help right Mao's wrong, Intel tapped J. Walter Thompson to produce films depicting epic moments from China's past and project them on the city wall of Sian at an outdoor event.

Intel didn't stop there.

It used proprietary 3D facial-scanning technology to capture and insert the faces of Millennial event-goers into the films in real time. The Millennials became the starring leads of the film.

"History became personal; history came alive," says Intel's Louise Felton.

Rebel, Rebel

"Don Draper with a conscience," copywriter Howard Luck Gossage created ads in the 1960s for airlines, breweries and oil companies.

But his favorite and finest work was extracurricular.

Nicknamed "The Socrates of San Francisco," evenings Gossage turned his agency, headquartered in an abandoned Barbary Coast firehouse, into a salon where iconoclasts like Tom Wolfe, John Steinbeck, Marshall McLuhan and Bucky Fuller met regularly to booze it up and brainstorm.

Gossage was the first marketer to see advertising as a "conversation," coining the word "interactive" to describe the ads he created. Their goal, he said, was to get audiences to opt in, join communities and converse with brands. "Our first duty is not to the old sales curve, it is to the audience," he said.

Gossage also dreamed up "pay per view" (30 years before we could access the Web) and was the first marketer to integrate advertising and PR.

In 1966, Gossage took on the fledgling Sierra Club as a client, creating ads to protest the damming of the Grand Canyon. The ads galvanized activists everywhere, halted the government's project, made Gossage's client a household name, and spawned yet another group, Friends of the Earth, which was kickstarted in a rent-free back office in Gossage's agency. Friends of the Earth today is the largest grassroots environmental organization in the world.

David Ogilvy once called Gossage, "The most articulate rebel in the advertising business."

Rory Sutherland, vice chair of OgilvyOne, calls him a forgotten hero of advertising's Creative Revolution.

"Gossage is the Velvet Underground to Ogilvy’s Beatles and Bernbach’s Stones," Sutherland says. "Never a household name but, to the cognoscenti, a lot more inspirational and influential."

Buckshot's Back: P&G Bails on Ad Targeting

The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.

Howard Luck Gossage

In his blog {grow}, marketing maestro Mark Schaefer asks, "Has there ever been a question that targeted ads are going to perform better than shooting a bunch of buckshot ads out there?"

Schaefer asks the question in light of P&G's announcement that it will abandon Facebook ad targeting, due to the strategy's failure.

“We targeted too much, and we went too narrow,” P&G's CMO told The Wall Street Journal, “and now we’re looking at: What is the best way to get the most reach but also the right precision?”

Schaefer wonders aloud whether every advertiser might close more sales with buckshot ads, for no increase in spend (targeted ads cost more than buckshot ones).

He's firmly undecided.

"On the one hand, the P&G revelation shakes long-held assumptions, but on the other hand, I don’t think we necessarily need to make wholesale changes to strategy," Schaefer says. 

"If you’re a wedding photographer, targeting couples who have changed their status to 'engaged' probably still makes sense, right?"

My direct marketing experience has taught me buckshot advertising's okay; and that frequency's the real key to closing more sales.

From what I've seen, precision-targeting works when a product-related life-event takes place in proximity to the arrival of your offer in the prospect's mailbox. Absent that life-event, your offer is simply more noise ("mailbox clutter").

Targeting based on demographics cuts waste; but it doesn't capture sales. Frequency does that.

A case in point. My client, an insurance company, noticed each time it mailed an offer for term life the bulk of policies were bought by 33-year-old men. Curious about the trend, I called a sample of the men to find out why they'd acted. The resounding answer: a newborn had recently arrived, and dad was interested in baby's wellbeing. So we took two steps: We narrowed the list from a wide range of men and women to men ages 33-35; and, with the money saved, increased the frequency of mailings. Policy purchases skyrocketed.

Frequency rules because you just never know when a prospect is interested. For all its fancy algorithms, even Facebook doesn't know that.

If you can believe sales growth strategist Chet Holmes' research, at any moment only 3% of any population represents interested buyers of your product. If your offer reaches that 3% with enough frequency, you increase your chances to close.

Wait, you shout, I'm wasting big bucks on the other 97%! Not so, Holmes claims:

• 7% of the population at any moment is at least open to your offer
• 30% at any moment isn't thinking about your offer
• 30% at any moment would say it's uninterested
• Only 30% is really, truly uninterested

The upshot of all this?

A little buckshot never hurt anyone.

Unless you hunt with Dick Cheney.

Storytelling: Born in a Bathtub

As a marketing strategy, storytelling was born in a bathtub.

The year was 1951. Stories couldn't move merchandise, the Madison Avenue experts agreed.

Then an obscure shirtmaker from Maine, Hathaway, approached an equally obscure ad man, David Ogilvy, with only $30,000 to spend.

To win him over, the company's president pledged never to fire Ogilvy or change one of his ads.

Ogilvy had been mulling the notion that "story appeal" could sell products, and decided to test the theory with his new client's ads. 

He was sitting in his bathtub when the image of the Hathaway Man came to him.

Ogilvy appeared in the office the next day and instructed his art director to find a model who resembled novelist William Faulkner, who'd recently won a Nobel Prize, for the photo shoot. 

En route to the shoot, Ogilvy bought a 50-cent eyepatch at a Manhattan drugstore. He handed the eyepatch to the photographer and said, "Humor me."

Ogilvy's copy assured readers Hathaway shirts—like the men who wore them—were "in a class by themselves." 

"You will get a great deal of quiet satisfaction out of wearing shirts which are in such impeccable taste."

Ogilvy's first ad in the series ran in The New Yorker. Within a week, every Hathaway shirt in Manhattan was sold. "We have never seen anything just like it," said the magazine's ad manager.

The Hathaway Man soon catapulted the company to the top-ranking shirtmaker in the world—and storytelling to the top drawer in every marketers' toolchest.

Marketing Myopia 2016

Our “measure everything” age has engendered a new form of marketing myopia, says Todd Ebert in Convince & Convert.

"While marketers once accepted as fact that they didn’t know which half of their ad budget was wasted, today they’ve done a 180 and believe that if it can’t be measured, it’s not worth doing," Ebert says.

Marketers' new myopia causes them to put all their money on one number, whether that's SEO, podcasts or white papers, and to walk away from proven, but less measurable, tactics like advertising, PR and exhibiting at trade shows.

A riskier bet you couldn't imagine.

Betting only on search, for example, ignores every buyer who hasn't started her product research; while betting only on podcasts or white papers ignores every buyer who thinks she's finished it.

In fact, betting it all on one number—no matter how measurable—undermines the marketer's tactic of choice, Ebert says.

"If you don’t do anything to drive brand familiarity and interest at the beginning of the journey, then it won’t matter how well you optimize at the end because you won’t be invited into the buyer’s consideration set."

Event Sponsorship: On the Trash Heap?

"Event sponsorship does not belong to the 2010s," says Julius Solaris on Event Manager Blog.

If you produce events and your notion of sponsorship amounts to little more than "brand exposure," your notion's due for a check-up.

Indeed, past due.

"Sponsorships featuring logos, eyeballs and impressions don’t carry the same value they once did," says Velvet Chainsaw's Wendy Holliday.

Sponsorships that don't pluck heartstrings, produce leads, and persist beyond the event belong on the trash heap. (Two sure signs your sponsorships are outdated, according to Velvet Chainsaw: 35% or more go unsold; 75% or more aren't renewed.)

The $64,000 question you must tackle: Why should any company buy your sponsorship, when it can stage its own event? How can you compete against that?

Solaris provides the answer: A proprietary event is inherently lopsided. No matter how you shake it, the private event is biased—and yours isn't.

If you have a genuine reputation for authority, you have an insurmountable advantage.

"Some events are born because they are the expression of a community," Solaris says. "They are a movement. 

"These events are built from the bottom up, their main objective is to get together, be entertained, network and learn. 

"Sponsors should fight with each other to sponsor such events."

The Ad Tech Monster

Ad tech is destroying the web, says a new report from Kalkis Research.

Media firms, desperate for readers, are turning to ad tech providers to deliver them.

But the providers' algorithms—unintentionally—are driving readers instead through a loop of shady websites.

The fraudsters who own these websites have one goal: to nab the ad dollars of big brands like Walmart and Nike.

The scheme is complex:

• First, the fraudsters run ads that drive readers to "shell" websites, stuffed with stale, stolen and stupid content.

• But readers of high value to ad tech providers—readers with the right demographics—are then redirected through a loop of other shell sites; redirected against their will via automatic pop-ups, pop-unders, and new browser tabs.

• The automatic looping improves the "audience quality" of the the shell sites. Once that quality has been established, the fraudsters sign lucrative contracts with big brands to display their ads on their shell sites.

"Traffic laundering is thriving," the researchers say. "Bad guys have become experts at gaming ad tech metrics and monetizing fake or unwilling visitors."

The fraud is fast turning the web into "a clickbait jungle."

The researchers blame ad agencies, which have so far failed to detect the scheme.

HAT TIP: Ann Ramsey pointed me to the new research.

Boldly Go

I need not follow the beaten path; I do not hunt for any path; I will go where there is no path, and leave a trail.

— Protestant hymn

Most executives don't know it, but business strategy and marketing strategy are on a collision course.

• A business strategy comprises proven rules.

• A marketing strategy comprises broken rules. At least, it should.

Marketers who win, Kirk-like, boldly go where there is no path.

Digital marketer Mitch Joel calls it "getting over the lazy."

Sadly, most marketers hope they can manage—or, more precisely, administer—their way to success by bossing around agencies and in-house teams, Joel says.

But that's just "the lazy."

"Maybe 'lazy' is a bad choice of words," he says in Cntl Alt Delete, "but a majority of marketers are simply doing everything that they have always done. The easy path. The road that was laid out by their predecessors."

The beaten path's lazy—and lazy's the reason CMOs survive only 26 months.

"There is no doubt certain strategies and tactics work, but it's the lazy mentality that will take you down."

A Shark in Sheep's Clothing

Sharklike companies scare clients off.

So it's heartening to see a venture capital firm so self-confident it's willing to empathize.

Rare for the breed, First Round telegraphs amity at every juncture.

The firm, for example, advertises on its website the 80 events it sponsors every year.

It doesn't push a calendar of dates and locations, but instead explains why events have value:

Starting a company is lonely, and founders have to make difficult decisions every day with imperfect information. In our experience, the best safety net is the advice and experience of fellow entrepreneurs.

The firm's gentle touch then assures sheepish clients participation will pay off:

Whenever we get members of our community in a room, magic happens. That’s why our Knowledge Program’s robust events—ranging from cozy dinners to major summits—are designed to get real, vulnerable conversations started. People leave with new ideas and actions they can apply immediately to keep growing and getting better. You won’t find any stick-on name tags here—we hate them.

How about you? Is your website all facts and mission talk? Or do you show clients you understand their fears?

When you evidence a bit of empathy, you boost your effectiveness. As direct marketer Hershell Gordon Lewis advises:

"If we can avoid becoming so wrapped up within the cocoon of our organization’s purpose, goals, and means of recruitment, effectiveness has to go up. So as best you can, you should apply this litmus test to any messages you’re considering sending: If I were receiving this message, not sending it, would it motivate me to respond? 

"See how easy? See how rare?"

Razor's Edge

Don't cut it on the job market? Now you can go back to school. Tuition free.

H'University, brainchild of razor manufacturer Harry's, gives students the chance to "learn real-world skills from world-class entrepreneurs, and apply to get hired at top companies."

Personifying value, the microsite proves again content marketing isn't branding.

Content marketers like Harry's realize customers want brands to help them become better citizens, not just better shoppers.

That realization puts content marketers a cut above competitors.

How to Inveigle More Visitors with Video

Video is every storyteller's super weapon.

In no other industry does this hold truer than in travel.

By immersing viewers in sights and sounds—people, places, foods and comforts—video grabs the emotions and sparks the imagination.

Well-made and placed videos, in fact, speed would-be visitors from consideration to booking, according to Expedia.

But what makes a video effective?

The video must cut through the clutter.  To be noticed in a crowded space, your video must focus on epic—and iconic—experiences.

The video must be first person. The more immersive, the more inspiring. Storytelling that's first person produces a "you are here" effect.

The video must be integrated.  Breathtaking content only gets you so far. Bookings result from strategic messaging, placement and integration.

Expedia points to Visit Denmark as producers of effective videos.

The DMO's award-winning productions not only tell intriguing first-person stories, but encourage viewers to learn more about destinations like Copenhagen and Aarhus.

How Publishers Will Survive

Antiquated mindsets bar publishers' way to monetizing digital content, Rob Ristagno says in Niche Media.

"Publishers often cite a 10% rule of thumb, meaning only one out of ten print subscribers pays for a digital replica," he says.

But exceptions to the rule abound (for example, with over one million subscribers, the digital edition of The New York Times).

Publishers' time-honored business model—amass an audience and sell ads based on CPMs—no longer works. 

Why not? Because, while print CPMs sell for $17, digital CPMs sell for $2. And the bargain-basement price of digital CPMs only promises to drop, as more publishers abandon print.

Publishers need a new model, Ristagno says. They need to:

Corner a niche market. "Instead of worrying about CPMs, find the most enthusiastic sub-group of your audience and help them solve a specific problem." Once you succeed in one niche, extend to another and another and another.

Sell more than ads. Sell memberships, online courses, research reports and events. "Your business model should survive without advertising. Otherwise, you’re not providing enough value to the consumer."

Publish only great content. "You can’t fool smart people (or Google) with low-quality digital content."

Adopt new technology—now. Off-the-shelf technology is easier and cheaper to deploy than ever. So move quickly. You can tackle fancy integrations another day.

Which Restroom Would Your Brand Use?

"Brands identify as many things—cute, quirky, rugged, industrial—but they are rarely male, female or other," says researcher Andreas Voniatis in Brand Quarterly.

"They may appear to be more masculine or feminine by design, but it’s rare for brands to speak in a gendered voice."

But shouldn't every brand man up to gender?

They short answer: Yes.

Voniatis cites a study by his own firm that asked how customers react to content when blind to its author.

Researchers presented 1,000 adults content grabbed from popular Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. They found that content which typically produces negative reactions produced positive ones when anonymized.

"But the most interesting revelation was how responsive we are to content written by members of the opposite sex," Voniatis says. "We found that women responded more positively to content authored by men and vice versa."

According to the study, women are 2% more likely than men to react positively to content authored by a man; and men, 5% more likely to react positively to content authored by a woman.

The findings suggest brands would strengthen the appeal of their "personalities" by speaking in a gendered voice.

"By attempting to appeal to the opposite sex when writing or gendering the brand voice as the opposite of the majority of our customers, we could find new and interesting ways of engaging with our audience," Voniatis says.

The Art of Art is Simplicity

The art of art, the glory of expression, is simplicity.

—Walt Whitman

Simplicity's cool... so cool, brand researchers now index it.

But before it was cool, two artists preached simplicity every week on popular TV shows.

The beatnik, Jon Gnagy

Beatnik Jon Gnagy premiered in 1946 on NBC's first regularly scheduled TV program, the hour-long variety show Radio City Matinee. 

In the opening segment of the first episode, Gnagy stood at an easel and demonstrated, in a few simple steps, how to draw a tree. 

The show's producer called those 10 minutes of airtime "pure television," and within four months gave Gnagy his own 15-minute show, You are an Artist—TV's very first spin-off.

Gnagy used his weekly show to teach viewers how to draw the barns, haystacks and water mills that symbolized bygone America. He sketched his subjects using four basic forms—the ball, cone, cube and cylinder—with shadows cast from a single light source. When he finished each drawing, he matted and framed it, so—voila—the piece was ready to hang on the wall.

During each broadcast, Gnagy also pitched his branded art kit, complete with pencils, paper and a book of drawing lessons.

While Gnagy's prime-time show lasted only two years, it continued in weekend syndication for another 12, inspiring thousands of Boomers to learn how to draw chestnut trees, horse corrals and covered bridges.

The hippie, Bob Ross

Hippie Bob Ross preached simplicity for 11 years through his half-hour PBS show, The Joy of Painting.

Remembered for his fuzzy Afro and fuzzier aphorisms—"Happy little trees" being the most famous—Ross popularized the 16th century oil painting technique known as “wet on wet."

He also marketed a branded line of paints.

Throughout the 1980s, Ross' weekly show (which his business partner called “liquid tranquilizer”) inspired thousands of pre-Internet kids, if not to pick up a paintbrush, at least to contemplate das Künstlerleben.

Ross himself finished over 30,000 paintings in his lifetime, many of which he donated to PBS fundraisers.

5 Big Tips for Better Mobile Marketing

Sophorn Chhay contributed today's post. He is the inbound marketer at Trumpia, a mobile content delivery service that lets users customize their one-to-one marketing.

Sure, you might have a mobile marketing plan. But is it innovative?

In 2016, run-of-the-mill approaches won't take you very far; and, although most mobile marketers follow year-long plans, the fact is effective mobile marketing requires constant innovation.

If you want to stay ahead, check out the following tips, guaranteed to boost your results.

Tip One: Get Tight with Video Ads

Today, 80 percent of Internet users carry smartphones, and buyers are responding to video ads at alarming rates. You can benefit massively from video advertising.

Tip Two: Get Automated with SMS

Did you know you can automate your own SMS campaigns? Better yet, you can segment your audience and shoot out customized text messages. To get automated with SMS, contact a trustworthy provider. Textpedite, among others, streamlines the process.

Tip Three: Distribute an App

Americans currently spend more time using mobile apps than they do watching television. By incorporating an app into your plans, you'll give your brand greater meaning. Marketers are already reworking their entire strategies around apps (airlines, for example, are offering “nearby eatery” apps to frequent flyers). But make your app count, if you want to see it used.

Tip Four: Gain Data from SMS Surveys

Feedback means a lot to customers, and it's easy to conduct business when you know your customers' wants, needs and buying habits. SMS surveys procure a wealth of data and can garner otherwise unobtainable feedback.

Tip Five: Create a Social Campaign

In today’s mobile world, antisocial companies drop like flies, while companies like Starbucks win big. The brand’s “Race Together” and “Create Jobs for the USA” campaigns proved that promoting altruistic causes works. Sure, goodwill is a byproduct of powerful business practices; but it’s also a byproduct of social outreach.

Kathy, I'm Lost, I Said

Anheuser-Busch InBev has asked federal regulators for approval to replace the name "Budweiser" on cans and bottles this summer with the name "America," AdAge reports.

"You have this wave of patriotism that is going to go up and down throughout the summertime," Marketing VP Jorn Socquet said. "And we found with Budweiser such a beautiful angle to play on that sentiment."

If approved, the brand's labels would also include song lyrics like "from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters this land was made for you and me."

Marketers Using More Agencies Less

Today's marketer farms out projects, not accounts, according to a survey by RSW/US.

RSW/US found that 74% use more than two agencies; and 17%, more than five.

They're also keeping project-work in house, hiring specialists galore.

And 40% of marketers expect project-work to increase this year.

While agencies may cringe, RSW/US sees an upside.

Marketers can no longer brush them off with "We already have an agency."

"With more marketers potentially using multiple agencies in the coming year, that objection becomes less of a hurdle, even potentially advantageous," says Lee McKnight, vice president of sales.

Marketers say they're wearied by agencies that claim they're full-service, but aren't, the survey reveals.

Marketers also say they're troubled by agencies "defaulting to digital." Too many have abandoned creativity, customer insight, and expertise in traditional media.

With more opportunities before them, agencies can win business by pitching novel projects, deep category knowledge, or know-how in a particular channel.

Beware Spectral Evidence

Before a judge ruled against its admission in 1693, spectral evidence was used to condemn Salem's witches to death.

A defendant could be convicted solely on the testimony of a witness who claimed the defendant appeared to him or her in a dream.

Inadmissible in a court of law, spectral evidence is a red herring that still holds sway in today's court of public opinion.

We're engulfed by everyday examples:

• Every social media user has the attention span of a goldfish (although NIH never issued that finding).

• Every business must innovate or die (although only 3% of new consumer products enjoy first-year sales above $50 million—the benchmark of a successful launch).

• Every Planned Parenthood clinic profits from fetal tissue sales (although the activist behind the claim has admitted to faking his documentary).

Before your next witch hunt, please, check your facts.