Strategy

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Keywords vs. people in creating your marketing strategy

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Charlene Li was quoted in mediapost suggesting that marketers should seek to test the effects of their campaigns and understand the experience and reactions of people to those keywords, rather than only looking at the numbers. 

I agree in principle, and it remains true that if you are going to talk to a conference of search marketers, you have to temper your words a bit so you don't lose the attention of the people who spend their days in an Excel/SQL driven quest to "optimize" their keyword buys or ad targeting.

Finding out what keywords drive the most revenue for your business is an interesting challenge and one that many businesses need to do.  But at the end of the day, you'll find me building a relationship with a customer, not the keywords that he types into Google or Bing or ...Bing :). 

Those relationships are about more than keywords, they are about an experience and delivering value. As more businesses shape up to this reality, they are sure to reap the rewards.  As I have been chronicling in my Human Marketing series, I think creating a connection with a customer, even during short transactions, is what delivers long term value to the enterprise.

 

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Who have you hired and what have they done?

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Enjoyed reading the interview of Cisco CEO John Chambers in the NYT, and I'm glad to take away this point about hiring. I've been on my share of interviews, but I have not been asked this question, which Mr. Chambers says is one of his barometers for successful candidates:

Who are the best people you recruited and developed, and where are they today?

Most organizations expect leaders to recruit and retain high-performing employees,  and the question of "What do you look for in a new hire?" might seem to substitute for this.   Judgements about teambuilding style are important, but I think Mr. Chambers question gets at 2 critical issues:  Success at maintaining a professional network and generostiy of character.

Maintaining a Professional Network

In an age where workers change jobs more frequently, perhaps every 2-3 years, By the age of 40 most of my peers will have had a half-dozen or so jobs.  Some of them may have been self-employed for some of that time.  They'll very likely have left companies a few times.  I'd look to hire employees who left on a positive note and are able to grow and maintain professional relationships; these are the people who are feeding new information to your potential new hire, and who may be the key to new business opportuntiies or partners.  While sales professionals may be expected to "bring a rolodex" across jobs, we're all smarter for the people we know and connect with.

Generosity of Character

The ability to nurture someone else's career and to sustain a professional relationship over time, even across different firms, also speaks to a generosity of character that I think goes along with a successful employee.  If you've hired a young whippersnapper and helped them to become a stronger employee, I know exactly how you will approach junior tema memebers of my company, and that you will contribute to their success as well.  Clearly, you're focused on helping the orgainzation succeed, not just watching out for your bonus.  

A lesson for me

The best people I ever hired have gone on to great jobs in finance,  venture capital/private equity, IT consulting, academia, and marketing.  I can name many people I would be pleased to have define my role as manager over the years, and that's just off the top of my head.  I wish I kept better track of them, and I will make an effort to do so.

Who have you hired?  Did they make a difference for your organization? 

 

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Airlines bring human contact back to marketing

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NYT image of a Delta Red shirt assiating customers

Travel just stinks.  While airlines thought that we didn;t want to talk to a person, and set before us phone trees and incomprehensible kiosks.  This NYT story is about bringing the personal back to airline customer service, such as Delta's revival of the Red Shirt program which previously was b. 1969- d.2005

Cue mobile checkin, print at home boarding passes.  With merger after merger creating a mess of backend systems that won't talk to each other, and the overloaded ATC systemwe're stuck with.  Sometimes, automated customer service either can't keep us happyor can't keep up with the problem.  Or it IS the problem. 

Very exciting to see airlines realize that by focusing on the customer experience in total and attacking the morass of air travel with people and love rather than phone trees, something brilliant could be happening.

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Earned Media and the need for chatter

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AdAge asks, Is No Chatter Worse Than Negative Chatter? Good question- for many brands, the passion that drives affinity is just as desirable as the passion that drives hatred.  I'm reminded of this Scion ad, which really drives the point home: stand for something or go home.

Scionxbugly

Such is the challenge of Earned media- you have to attract attention while still being YOU.  If there's nothing worth saying about your brand, then you're beyond help in any advertising medium.  Stick with the paid stuff.

But when there's something or someone to love, to hate, to act as an ally or fight as an enemy, you've got your in. 

You can't force people to tweet your brand or your hashtag- you're going to have to do something to create the emotion behind those actions.  Are you talking to #BlameDrewsCancer? Are you finding what's funny about your product and getting that on video?

Look.  Listen.  Plan.  Blow it up big.  Measure.  Repeat.

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Cuil vs. Google and the DOJ

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My dad emailed me a link to  search upstart Cuil, which I had come across before but never adopted.  It got me thinking about the Obama administration's antitrust hounds barking at GOOG, and now maybe a credible competitor might be important.  But the standard- for being a credible competitor- is really high, I think.

Google's dominance stops when it's not useful, or as fast, as competitors. I think it's doubtful they will lose on speed, but utility is a maybe. Whether the Wolfram Alpha product solves the same problems, or solves some other ones may also affect this determination. 

In the long run, I think Google knows that it's don't be Evil motto really translates into "Don't be useless." 

  • it wouldn't be useful to force users to download Chrome in order to search Google or check their gmail
  • it wouldn't be useful to prevent people from embedding Vimeo videos in their blogspot blogs
  • Google Docs kills Microsoft Office by being Useful for group collaboration
  • Even if Google buys twitter, if they make it less useful, they'll have a problem
 


If they stick to that, they're probably in good shape.  The DOJ may wonder: is Google's ubiquity anticompetitive?  I think for the bulk of its interaction with the world, Google is just a bunch of nice guys who offer a free utility, or maybe a phone.  For those few (relatively speaking) individuals on this Earth who do some form of business with Google, it can seem like a monolithic, and scary, creature.  It's the latter group who want antitrust scrutiny of Google, not the former.

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Freelancing opportunity and the future of the labor force

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I did a lot of work at Columbia on the mobile workforce, seeing labor in firms as units dividing their time between mutliple employers on an engagement basis.  The endgame there seemed to be the end of the traditional labor force.  I even suggested ata  conference last month that it would be interesting to create a real-time job index- jobs that need to be done in the next X hours or Y minutes.  Not sure we're there yet.

Reading a post on Please Feed The Animals, the post title speculates that perhaps there are Fewer Advertising Jobs, But Greater Opportunity.  The post links to a great WSJ article on freelance employment in the downturn.

I think the data are interesting to think about there. The ultra-mobile (where mobility is also lateral between firms) workforce is a chaotic place to be, and strategically, I think this robs many firms of the opportunity to differentiate through talent acquisition. Perhaps this really doesn't matter as much as it once did, and a firm having access to a network of talented freelancers is the talent differentiator these days.

I wonder: is this is a long term spike that will re-make the firm, or perhaps just an example of how firms cut way past the fat in their layoffs, and are burdened with cost structures that don't make sense anymore?  Could agencies have fixed that instead of laying people off?

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A new beginning in 2009

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And you may find yourself....  

In 2009, I'm sure I will.  After I was laid off from Razorfish at the end of 2008, I had the opportunity to do a jump-started job search, and a lot of the leads I turned up were very promising.  The economic outlook went from grim to super-grim in the interim, and I'm bracing for the worst, hoping for the best. 

In the interim, I have a fantastic opportunity to think about some of my longer-term goals.  2008 was a terrific ride in terms of pursuing my writing and performance ambitions.  I became stronger in body and in my sense of my own self- a very successful year.  A year of reinvention, even, as I harnessed a certain power and confidence from within.  Did I ever think I would run nearly 9 miles straight?

And yet I wondered,  describing my situation to friends and family over the course of my trip to California for the holidays, whether this isn't the time to reverse the balance of time and effort invested in my two lives, my technology/business career and my work as a writer and performer.  In particular childhood friend KS, who landed in "the biz" by accident was highly influential about this. 

I have often said that sustenance aside, I'd probably do both.  I enjoy making links between business ideas, helping businesses to be their innovative selves and presenting that to their customers; I enjoy making people laugh.  It happens to be true that the business of comedy at my level means giving away the product to as many people as possible, as a down payment on future returns- I will continue to pursue these opportunities as a secondary activity.

What I appreciate now is how much I am looking for the right fit with a new employer.  The culture and people of Razorfish were important to and supportive of, my professional and personal development.  Doing some personality and values exercises the past few weeks to drive resume development and interviewing, I have gotten a bit better understanding of myself.  I find that the more I describe myself, the more I think I describe my ideal work environment.  So what does that look like?  

What do I know about that company?  

  • Passionate people from diverse backgrounds
  • A focus on strategy across businesses 
  • Always looking for new ideas and reading from a wide variety of sources, connecting ideas and trends together. 
  • Not maniacally focused on quantitative solutions but loving the elegance of making a model work and making good judgments. 
  • High standards of quality about data and creativity about finding sources of it. 
  • Looking for long term success opportunities for the business very likely "shaper" firms rather than "adapter" firms.  
  • Experimenting with new ideas and applications and talking about them with the public.  Creating a community and recruiting passionate followers. 
  • People invested in developing themselves and a company interested in developing its staff.
  • A place where I'll find some other people with performance in their blood, writers or artists or musicians.

I'm going to be compiling a list of companies I think are on this list, and I'm absolutely open to suggestions.