Can You Hear Me Now?

Do You Want Fries With That?

How do you want to get your news?
Specifically, from me?

I can author a book
I can pen an article
I can distribute a newsletter
I can publish a blog post
I can post a comment to a newsgroup
I can tweet
I can present a PowerPoint
I can shout my opinion to passersby

The tricky bit is figuring out when to do what.

I was going to create a strategy for myself based on
subject matter, number of words, frequency, urgency
and whether the wind is southerly when it occurred
to me that I was going about this bassackwards.

The real question is:
How do YOU want to receive info from me?

While it would be tough to ask this question and
expect an answer via a book, I will cross post this
to most of the above and ask that you write to me
directly at

b@emetrics.com

I can then bundle up your replies and author, pen,
distribute, publish, post, tweet, present and shout
the results back to you.

Digital Should Own the Brand

I wrote a recent MediaPost article about my belief that digital should own the brand. I wrapped with:

I can feel “Mad Men” everywhere now wanting my guts for garters.

I do not think marketing should run the company, but I do believe digital should own the brand. Digital is better able to compare, test, measure, segment, target, disseminate and adjust a brand identity than any other discipline in the company.

Kevin Horne, Strategy Director at i33 commented as follows:

You said “digital should own the brand. Digital is better able to compare, test, measure, segment, target, disseminate and adjust a brand identity than any other discipline in the company.”

Was CREATE left out intentionally? Did you mean to say digital should own the brand AFTER it is created?

Otherwise, the comment is indeed sacrilege. And foolish.

I replied:

Oh yes Kevin – I definitely left off CREATE intentionally.

Digital is the management/delivery mechanism. It is fast, agile and responsive, but has no magic ability to come up with a brilliant idea, a fabulous graphic or a completely resonant message. Those who have been trained in and done creative for many moons are skilled at their jobs and are central to marketing success regardless of how the message is managed and disseminated. My point is to hand the management over to the digital side and let them collaborate with the creative side so that there can be a brand conversation in the marketplace rather than a brand pronouncement from the company to the public.

I wanted to underscore the word collaborate here. Assuming that the Creative team is well versed in all things online, then Digital is indeed only the messenger. But in many cases Creative is so accustomed to one-way communication that collaboration is paramount to success.

What works in print and broadcast does not necessarily translate smoothly to the online world and where the public conversation gets hot and heavy, the Digital side of the team must have a seat at the creative table to ensure the public is well represented.

Sometimes the messenger should help with the message.

Avinash Garners ASA Award

Today, the American Statistical Association Chicago Chapter awarded their Statistical Advocate of Year Award to Avinash Kaushik. I agree wholeheartedly that this man, whose title is Analytics Evangelist, is the proper recipient.

There are three types of gifts involved here. First, there are the gifts that Avinash was given. He was given the gift of absorbing and retaining massive amounts of information. He was given the gift of synthesis – the ability to make sense out of that information and arrive at insights. And finally, Avinash was given the gift of communication which he exercises through his blog, his book and his presentations to the delight of his readers and audience.

Then, there are the gifts that Avinash has given us. In accordance with the book “Outliers”, Avinash is not only an expert by dint of his more than 10,000 hours of study and practice, but because he turns around and delivers the ensuing insights to us. He has given us his time, his attention and his passion. He has dedicated those thousands of hours for our benefit.

Finally, the resulting gift. Avinash’s devotion and passion for web analytics has given us more people who are more knowledgeable, more insightful and more passionate about statistics. That’s worthy of an award.

Golden Ticket to eMetrics Just Out of Reach

After spotting the Golden Ticket to the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, Kerry Breitenbach wrote:

Gosh, I am so excited at the thought of this deluxe conference experience that I can hardly contain myself. The spa day, the sweet ride… the oh so hard to get front row seats at all the conference sessions…..

I mean, I was so impressed with the Toronto conference that I’m coming back to San Jose and probably bringing a few coworkers, but now there is just going to be this incredible sense of emptiness if I am forced to experience things as a lowly regular conference goer when I know that this golden opportunity was available, and that there are other people snacking on my potential chocolates.

If only I hadn’t wasted my Jeopardy winnings on home repairs and bail money. (sigh)

I’m torn. If I just tried to expense the golden ticket, I could probably get it past my boss (he’s a big picture kind of guy) but then the total dollar amount would take it another step up the expense approval food chain. That guy might actually decide that as much as they value my services, I may not actually be bathrobe-worthy. It’s a dilemma. Maybe if the dinners and bar experiences can all be with people who are hiring ?

Probably too risky. Damn my cautious analytical nature.

Most of all, I really wanted that haiku.

Regretfully yours,

Kerry Breitenbach
Marketing Analyst

I had no choice but to ask if I could post this and replied:

Hope of Spring sunshine
Unobtainable desire
eMetrics rain falls

To which she replied:

Thanks for the haiku.
I’ll see you in San Jose!
Sure, blog my email.

To which I had no choice but to respond:

Blogging this weekend!
The haku are my pleasure.
Next stop – San Jose

Two Great, New, Crowd-Sourced, Bonus Sessions added to the very end of eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

At the end of the official eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit
comes the unofficial birds-of-a-feather flocking. Two sessions are
planned at the moment for Thursday, May 7 at 3:30pm.

1. Bettcha Didn’t Know Google Analytics Could do THIS
2. MindMeld

Bonus Session #1
Bettcha Didn’t Know Google Analytics Could do THIS

Caleb Whitmore from AnalyticsPros emailed me with an entry to the eMetrics Poetry Contest and a great idea. His poem?

Autumn eMetrics
World Changes Before Eyes Bright
Squirrel to Ninja

His great idea:

I most like to present about all things Google Analytics and in particular, doing things with GA that the Google people don’t even know you can do with GA, both on the advanced implementation technique side of things as well as the reporting side. Things like viewing any dimension (campaign, source, landing page, etc…) performance by DMA rather than city or state, setting up a local data warehouse for your GA data so you can archive and re-process using Urchin software but have data that still matches to your GA data, and more. The new advanced segments and custom reports add some great new capability as well and could fill an hour easily.

I wrote back and said something like:

I’m thinking of something that doesn’t really fit in the official Agenda.
I’m thinking we could put it at the very end of the Summit after my wrap up session.
I’m thinking you could present 15 minutes to kick off a group discussion called
…..Bettcha Didn’t Know Google Analytics Could do THIS…

and Caleb said:

I love it! Sounds like an easy addition and I think it would create an interesting add-on and provide a smorgasbord of GA knowledge.

So join Caleb in this un-conference session at the end of the day for the last dollop of technical insight, wisdom and enlightenment.

If you are less technically oriented and more the management type, the Second Ever MindMeld is happening at the same time.

Bonus Session #2
Second Ever MindMeld
Moving the Industry Forward

The First Ever MindMeld was held at the Omniture Summit 2009. Matt Langie, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Omniture asked John Lovett of Forrester Research and me to help coordinate. We formed into roundtable groups to discuss hot topics of the day which included measuring the impact of social media on brands, identifying best practices for measuring mobile and video and how to get the message of the power of analytics up the corporate power ladder. And discuss we did!

Matt’s team was kind enough to shoot some video of a couple of the “final reports”.

And Tony Bradshaw posted a few thoughts.

In a press release at that time, Matt said, “MindMeld will certainly ignite discussion and generate new ideas, which will carry forward to eMetrics and other industry events in partnership with the MindMeld attendees throughout the year.”

But that was only the beginning. Now, it’s time to take action.

This non-denominational, vendor inclusive, practitioner filled MindMeld meeting is designed to accelerate the conversation in order to answer the critical question:
What needs to happen to move the industry forward?

We have a strong Association in the WAA. We have a burgeoning collection of consultants, bloggers and tweeters. We have companies that are dedicated to providing software and services to this industry. All of these together can move mountains. MindMeld was created to meet face to face wherever discerning analysts gather in order to identify what those natural might be tasked with doing to help us all.

Come join the conversation. After a week of eMetrics, you’ll have a head full of idea – this is the place to share them.

If you know of others who should be on my list,
please pass this along.
Please RSVP to me at jsterne@targeting.com