Stop “Marketing for the Sake of Marketing”
Online marketers, brand managers, and channel marketing managers: Why are we in business?
- To build our mailing list?
- To "get more traffic" to our site?
- To increase average time spent on our site?
- To increase average pageviews per visit on our site?
- To get more new users to visit our site (no matter how qualified)?
- To get more followers on twitter?
- To get more fans on Facebook?
None of the above.
These are by-products of a marketing campaign. In fact, these are not even indicators to suggest positive or negative performance of a campaign. Why? Because they are not relevant to a consumer/customer. If these are listed as goals of a campaign then this is "marketing for the sake of marketing."
What is relevant to a consumer/customer?
Growing your mailing list by 10% does nothing if that 10% never buys your products. Increasing time spent on your website does not suggest you've tapped a resource for new brand advocates, either (it may however suggest you've created additional roadblocks preventing site visitors from completing desired tasks in a short amount of time).
Meaningful messaging that triggers action leading to a conversion -- this is marketing and it's why we're in business. Anything else is just noise that makes your brand irrelevant to your target audience.
Guitar Hero & Rock Band driving digital sales
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With the pending release of The Beatles: Rock Band on September 9th, there are rumors of Apple finally striking a deal with The Beatles and releasing the band's music on iTunes the same day. These Beatles/iTunes rumors have been around for some time and if there was any time to release The Beatles on iTunes, now is a better time than ever. Why?
In December 2007, Nieselson SoundScan revealed that songs on the "set list" of Guitar Hero III and Rock Band saw an increase in digital purchases anywhere from 15% to 847%. In essence, Rock Band and Guitar Hero essentially become entertaining advertising vehicles for bands and recording labels.
It's no secret that the release of The Beatles on iTunes would do quite well just with the Apple PR machine powering it. However, Apple's efforts plus a release of The Beatles:Rock Band would certainly be a home run.
It's fascinating to see how a new product (Guitar Hero or Rock Band) can drive incremental sales in other channels of business (digital music).
Consistency is key with integrated, multi-channel marketing
Target is doing a nice job of creating consistent creative and messaging across channels (online and television). Here's a screen shot of an ad from the homepage of CNN.com advertising the upcoming 2-day sale for Thanksgiving weekend:
Click on it and you see this page:
Target ads still recognizable even when fast forwarding on DVR
And while fast-forwarding through DVR'd TV shows tonight, the familiar red background and white stick figure running with the shopping cart flew by on a few frames. How often do you recognize an ad and/or brand name in just a few frames of DVR fast forwarding? I've been paying more attention to this lately and it's difficult to recall anything...particularly in anticipation of getting back to your DVR'd show.
Here's a clip of similar animation which it looks like Target is recycling from this 2007 campaign (found on YouTube):
Consistency is key with integrated, multi-channel marketing
The consistency of the creative of these ads enabled me to recall the Target campaign with HIGHLY passive viewing (browsing for news on CNN.com -- which I do several times per day) and fast-forwarding through commercials on our DIRECTV DVR. I can't think of any other ways where I'm less engaged than quickly scanning for the latest news on a website or sitting on the couch watching TV.
As marketers grow to accept a world where consumers can easily ignore their ads, it's really interesting to see how Target is able to penetrate the barrier to recalling an ad. It begs the question: how does one test the "recall" and "effectiveness" of multi-channel marketing prior to executing the full media spend?
Traditionally, consumer panels are shown various ads and asked follow-up questions. The problem is this doesn't simulate a real-world environment of cross-channel entertainment & news consumption.
Think big, start small, deliver quickly
Incremental releases of ads combined with analysis of ad performance in each channel are really the only way to truly optimize a campaign -- especially across multiple channels. I'm still not quite sure if Target is at the level of being able to measure or test the effectiveness or recall of their ads if only a few frames of them are seen. In any case, this current campaign of theirs has worked on me to generate awareness. Now the question is: will I make it to Target for the sale and purchase something? 
Blog by Eric Long
I'm an experienced online marketer, information architect, digital strategist, and social media enthusiast. I'm passionate about providing outstanding cross-channel experiences for considered purchases (with a focus on mass customization).
About Eric Long
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