eMarketer: The Next Step in User-Generated Content

According to Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer:

With so much user-generated media populating the Web and mobile channels, content aggregation will become more important than ever in 2009. In the coming year, expect to see real-time aggregation tools that combine algorithmic approaches with human input—like a cross between Techmeme and FriendFeed.

Techmeme is an aggregation tool that uses algorithms to scan the Web for tech-related news stories. FriendFeed is also an aggregator, but it lets users set up custom feeds to pool content from other social sites.

These aggregation tools will develop from the ground up, much like the content itself. They could make it easier for consumers to find video and other content.

Furthermore, in a climate in which advertising is the main (some say the only) means of monetizing user-generated content, aggregators stand to earn more per visitor than the sites that actually carry the user-created content.

Source: eMarketer.com

Tool to Shrink PPT and DOC files

I just saw this tip from Techknowl.com, a German firm Balesio offers a software called PPTminimizer that can shrink PPT (Micosoft Power Point ) and DOC ( Microsoft word 2003 ) documents to about 98% of their original size in the native extension (not zipped or archived). The quality of the converted file is almost same as the original file.

This seems to be a handy tool to compress very large presentations for web viewing, and for downloading to mobile phones and USB drives. Techknowl.com readers can get a free download from the site, subscription to Techknowl.com is free, check it out!

Full article: http://www.techknowl.com/2008/12/shrink-ppt-and-doc-files-to-98-without.html
Free download for PC Advisor users: http://www.balesio.com/campaign/licensing/index.aspx?CID=pcadvisor

Top Online Purchase Categories During Financial Crisis

During the tough economic times, people tend to stay home more instead of going out, and naturally the Web use increase. According to comScore World Metrix, visits to financial news and research sites grew 10% to 8.8 million visitors in September, during the height of the financial crisis, from the previous month.

People wants to save money, get more for their dollars, so they would use the web to do more researches. So what are people buying online? According to Nielsen study released in November, top transaction sites are for Travel and Entertainment related sites are number 1 (Online travel), 6 (Hotel reservation), and 8 (Event tickets).

Credit card account management and home banking were the second- and third-most-popular transaction types for 2008.

Number 4 is clothing/shoes/accessories. Think Lipsticks. One of the top sellers at the Malls are Lipsticks during recessions, people need a pick-me-up, small purchases to make be happier.

Sources:
eMarketer: Online Banking During a Financial Crisis (12/8/2008)
New York Times: Hard Times, but Your Lips Look Great - Lipstick May Ben an Economy Indicator (5/1/2008)

Blogger Tip: How to add "Email Subscription Form"

Looking for a way to collect emails from blogger site visitors? Here are some good source I found:

• Feedblitz.com: This is a free (ad supported) service that enables publishers to collect subscribers and send emails for free.
  
• Feedburner.com (now part of Google): Primarily used to send new articles with a very light 'delivered by' footer, ability to export subscriber email addresses.
  

Here are a couple of nice posts on this subject: "how to add Email Subscription Form using Feedburner" and "Add RSS/Email subscription in Blogger".

Separately, Google added the "Subscribe to" feature which is different, it currently only supports 3 RSS readers: Google, Bloglinks, and Netvibes, and there is no email support.

eMarketer: 54% of Retailer still do not test email subject line

Personally, I am now getting about 2 emails a week from Amazon, more than one per week from Costco and Target. This is probably two to three times the normal frequency, it's probably the combination or final holiday push and desperation during tough economic condition. They are definitely trying harder, unfortunately, I don't think many of them are hitting the sweet spots yet, at least for me. What about for you?

Obviously, the sender's FROM address (both email and display name parts) is crucial in determining the open and response rates. Recipients needs to trust and feel they have a relationship to even consider opening the email.

After that, the subject line is the key. Much more important than time of day or day of week in most of the emails I have tried. Changing a couple of key words can have huge impact on open rate AND response rate. Subject lines set the expectation of what's inside the email. You can have a very provocative subject line to get people open the email, but if people feel they are cheated or if the email did not meet people's expectation, the click-to-open ratio could be much worse. This would hurt the long term relationship with the user.

Different subject lines can have huge swing in different age groups and achieve plus/minus 50% in overall response. Is it too much work for 54% of the retailers to do?

Sources:
eMarketer: E-Mail Marketers Get in the Spirit (11/26/2008)

eMarketer: Pitching Cars Online in Tough Times

The economic is getting tough very quickly and broadly. Everyone is cutting but and focus on efficiency. Email finally being recognized again as an effective and efficient channel. Even the dying Car makers/car dealers are still expecting grow their ad spending online.

Sources:
eMarketer: Pitching Cars Online in Tough Times (11/21/2008)

eMarketer: Top online markting channels

According to eMarketer, Online retailers worldwide surveyed in July and August 2008 by E-Consultancy and R.O.EYE said that e-mail was second only to paid search when it came to driving high volume. The sample size was relatively small, at 241 online retailers. However, the results are in line with similar surveys. Nearly four out of 10 search engine advertisers worldwide surveyed in January 2008 by Radar Research for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) said e-mail marketing yielded the best ROI of any tactic.


Lower Email Open Rates

MailerMailer said that some industries had higher open rates for their marketing e-mail, with banking/finance, religious/spiritual, government and telecommunications having more success than other verticals.

Tip: Shorter subject lines Perform Better

According to eMarketer, shorter subject lines performed better than longer ones. Subject lines of less than 35 characters yielded an average open rate of 19.6% and a 3.1% average click rate. E-mails with subject lines of 35 or more characters drew average open rates of 14.8% and average click rates of 1.9%.

Source: eMarketing: Consumers Opening Fewer E-Mails

Credit Crunch and Start ups

Times are tough right now for everyone, and it will be tough for a while. This time, the tech sector is not immuned, either. Here are some suggested articles from a start up CEO:

-- A presentation that Sequoia Capital provided to 100 of their CEO's, "Sequoia Capital’s 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom"

-- Similarly, an email to Benchmark's CEO's, "Benchmark Capital Advises Startups To Conserve Capital, Look For Opportunities"

-- Here's a piece in today's Journal, "Silicon Valley Finds It Isn't Immune From Credit Crisis"

Obama and DB Marketing

No matter what is your party affiliation, you have to give Obama and team the credit for the successful marketing efforts so far. The entire primary was very well executed.

One of the innovative marketing tactics the Obama team used was to make the vice-presidential candidate announcement via text message. This has some interesting impacts:

• increased buzz and anticipation
• provided a call to action and increased traffic to the BarackObama.com website
  
• created loyalty with participation and a sense of inner group with priority
  
• created a sense of cutting edge leadership and being closer in touch with the younger generation
• equally important, from the database marketing perspectives, he now has one of the biggest opt-in SMS list in America! Now he can continue the relationship building via one of the most sought after channel.
  

The actual text message was: “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee.” And, it went to 2.9 million people. Sure, there were some technical difficulties, but I am sure he would turn this into an opportunity. Also, I am not sure whether the team was savvy enough to negotiate a lucrative deal with the carriers, by my own estimate, this first blast should have made 30-100K for the campaign.

Sources: Nielsen Mobile, MocoNews

Mobile Ad Spending Expected Soar!

The global mobile advertising spending is expected to grow from $4.6 Billion in 2008 to $7.4 Billion in 2009. The bulk of the spending is still with Mobile Messaging, however, the Mobile Search Advertising and Mobile Display Advertising are expected to double and triple.
In the US, spending on mobile ads will reach $6.5 billion in 2012, up from $1.7 billion in 2008.



In addition, the global mobile video advertising spending is expected to triple from $427 Million in 2008 to $1.5 Billion in 2009.


Sources:
eMarketer: Mobile Ad Spending Set to Soar (8/20/2008)
eMarketer: The Big Picture on Small-Screen Advertising (8/12/2008)

When do People Check Email?

Well... looks like people check their emails all day long.

Source: eMarketing: When Do You Check Your E-Mail?

Tips: Calculate hours between two dates in Excel

Here is a handy function to calculate the difference between two dates:

• =DATEDIF(Date1, Date2, Interval) where:
  
• interval="m" for number of months
• interval="d" for number of days
• interval="y" for number of years
• For example:
• =(DATEDIF(today(),A1, "d")-1) *24 is approximately number of hours between today and the date value stored in cell A1.

Reference:

• check out more details and examples in cpearson.com
  
• check out a ton of excel date/time tips in exceltips.com
  

Tips: Add Outlook Mail Box

Add additional mail boxes for Outlook 2003
1) go to Start; Setting; Control Panel
2) Double click on the Mail icon
3) Choose Email accounts
4) view or Change email accounts
5) Click on Microsoft Exchange Server and choose Change
6) Click on More Setting..
7) Goto the Advanced tab and click the Add ... button
8) Enter "Robert.Demo" and click OK
9) Continue clicking OK buttons to close up the Mail control panel

The 6 Worst Domain Names EVER! by the E-Commerce Diva Jamila White

These are pretty intelligent and legitimate sounding web sites, right?

• "Who Represents?", a database of agencies for the rich and famous
• Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views
• Pen Island, a pen retailer
• Therapist Finder, a directory of counselors
• PowerGen Italia, a power utility company in Italy
• The Mole Station Native Nursery, an Australian plant nursery

Go to E-Commerce Diva Jamila White's site and check out what domain names they came up with!

eMarketer: 2/3 of adults prefer E-Mail as Preferred Mode of Communication

67% of Adults surveyed said they prefer Email as the preferred mode of communication when dealing with businesses, and more importantly, they expect this to remain to be their favorite 5 years from now. More than 88% of respondents said they would like more choices in e-mail content and frequency, including options on advertisements and special offers. The biggest expect drop is postal mail, from 35% to 23%. The biggest expected jumps are: text messaging or IM, and video conferencing or web meetings.

On the other hand, the expected online spending for Email marketing is expected to increase relatively modestly comparing to other channels like search marketing, rich media, and lead generation.

Source: eMarketer: What Is the Future of E-Mail?

The Scale of the American Ecomomy [Digg/Flickr]

Saw this interesting piece got 322 Diggs today at digg.com, featured on iGoogle.









Sources:
Flickr: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2359/2205172655_5860304720_b.jpg
Diggs: http://digg.com/business_finance/The_Scale_of_the_American_Ecomomy_img?OTC-ig

Web 2.0 Expo 2008 SF - Key Take Aways

Some key take away's from the Web 2.0 from week of 4/21/08 in SF.

• I went to a Facebook Platform Eco session, they ask how much total money is in the FB eco system to a panel of 3 experts, one venture capitalist said over $300MM/year, one successful FB app develop company said less than $10MM, the third said somewhere in-between but closer to $10MM. Most people are primarily talking about ad revenue.

Buzz.

• Windows Live Mesh - finally Microsoft recognize the cloud. they made a very touching video, showing a mother capturing video of her boy diving into the pool, at the same time, the video shows up at dad's portable computer, grand parent's digital picture frame, and cousin's X-box. Basically all connected devices to the data.
  
• Enterprise Web 2.0 - there is a lot of interests in this area but nobody seems to know what it means and how to do it yet. Our company does have an unique niche and approach.
• Mobile (iPhone, Nokia, Tellme, etc) has lots of interest but as Andreessen pointed out, there are no defining standards/players at this time, and we need a monopoly like what Microsoft did to the PC.
• Location based services. Lots of maps and location based services showing interesting ideas (twitter to show where are friends, crime map showing where to buy drugs, geo-coded wiki pages, sensors) but no killer apps yet.

Mood.

• Generally upbeat, we are still at the 'early days' for Web 2.0 and lots to be done.
  
• Marc Andreessen was quoted to be "happy to get a round of funding before the upcoming nuclear winter".

DB Marketing focus - I was looking for the following two things in particular:

1. Viral.

• I was looking hard for platforms for viral that we can use as our next wave of adoption tactic, I did not really find anything. most of them are either email referrals (like some FB apps) or built in to the social network.
  
• Tipping point Myth. New research indicates that centralized ripple-like distribution depending on a few 'Influentials' are not reliable, these influentials are mostly hindsight biased and generally not repeatable for future. The more reliable approach is to use a distributed social network approach with lots of interconnections. (check out a picture of Twitter "Social Graph")
  

2. Targeting

• behavior targeting is the buzz (since most apps don't have profile, they only know what people do), I did not see anything concrete yet, but most people are looking at it from targeted ad perspectives, "people who like to throw sheep and vote this way tends to respond to this kind of ad."
  

Email Marketing Open Rates by Industry

Industries with over 20% average open rates: Banking/Finance (28.84%), Religious/Spiritual (26.76%), Transportation/travel (25.69%), Telecommunications (24.91%)

Source: eMarketing.com article: E-Mail Works for Banks and Card Issuers

Online Entertainment Activities of US Internet Users by age group

As expected the amount of online entertainment activity is inverse proportional to the age, with most of the Millenials already involved in producing & consuming content online.

Source: eMarketer.com article: The Growing Influence of Online Social Shoppers

eMarketer: B2B Checks Out Marketing 2.0

Similarities between B2B and B2C: both focus on own website, Email marketing, and SEO.
B2C focuses more on: on-line advertising, wiki, viral video, and social networking.
B2B focuses more on: webinars, podcasts, and blogs.



2007 B2B tactics in the US. It's odd that 20% used Mobile and I have not really seen much.

MarketingSherpa: When's the Best Time to Send Email to Target Consumers at Work? Test Results

MarketingSherpa had a recent article testing when is the best time to send email. I think the result is 'interesting' but I don't think it is really universal.

Offer: ipod, promotion date: 8/30/2007

RESULTS
Test returns produced a clear winner -- 9 a.m. The clickthrough rates for each:
o 9 a.m. performed 15.63% better than 4 p.m.
o 9 a.m. performed 9.4% better than 12 p.m.
o 12 p.m. performed 6.9% better than 4 p.m.

Based on my personal tests, different offer performs differently on different Day of the Week. For time of the day, unless you know and specifically targeting the receivers' time zone, it is pretty random. Personally, this result just shows that you send it earlier in the day on a Thursday is better than later in the day on a Thursday. This is actually relatively consistent to my observation. In my 2007 Summer Email test (6/1-8/31) Thursdays evenings have the worst average Open Rates while Wednesday evening gets the best open rates. However, what I found was the day of the week overall has relatively small (11%) variance.

The more significant factor for day of the week is Age Group. There is a much wider difference in day of week behavior for 35+. where there is 41% between best days (Wed/Tue night sends) comparing to worst days (Thu/Fri night sends). Offer response is also quite different among age groups, where each age group has different hot items in their 'barometer'.

In my humble opinion, it's MUCH more important to figure out offering what to offer to whom than to worry about day of the week and time of the day.