5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed 9-3-11

Too busy snacking on BBQ this Labor Day weekend to give a hoot about Marketing Technology? Enough of that! Here are 5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed.

1. Pound-for-pound, Pandora ads now worth more than radio

[link] On a phone call with investors and analysts after the stock market closed on Thursday afternoon, Pandora confirmed that pound for pound its ads are just as valuable as those broadcast on traditional radio. One analyst said that in reading the company’s quarterly report, he calculated that Pandora is now:

“generating more ad revenue per 1000 hours than traditional radio is, with a tenth of the user base.”

MY TAKE: It’s interesting to see online broadcast radio find a measure of equality with terrestrial radio.

2. How Younger Adults React to Brands on Social Networks

[link] Nearly one in four millennials (23.5%) interacted with content from a brand’s Facebook page at least once a daily, vs. 17% of older adults who did the same.  Brands have the opportunity not only to attract younger adults as fans of their brand, but also to interact with them frequently once they do.

MY TAKE: If you’re managing a brand online, recognize that the younger set is much more likely to follow and interact.

3.  B2B Marketers Yet to Connect Financial Metrics to Marketing Campaigns

[link] Though a third of B2B marketers track revenue metrics associated with marketing-generated opportunities, closed deals and percent of total sales, 35% said they do not report any financial-contribution metrics to executives. For now, it appears marketers are more likely to be held accountable for marketing-performance-related metrics. More than half (58%) report the number of marketing-qualified leads to senior management and 48% track the number of opportunities generated.

MY TAKE: When someone challenges you to defend the ROI, ask them how they calculate the ROI for traditional media.

4. Silverpop Unveils Two Mobile Applications for Marketers

[link] Pop-In, supports remote data collection via an iPad, allowing marketers to grow their contact databases while in the field. The other application is Silverpop Engage iPhone application that offers mobile access to Engage reporting.   With just a few taps on their iPhones, Engage users can review important metrics such as recipient count and deliverability statistics for either the most recent mailings or those within a specific date range.

MY TAKE: So many apps are being applied to Sales activities. It’s nice to see a focus in real-time Marketing

5 Blog Frog adds community to your site.

[link] Robert Scoble featured Blog Frog this week.  Blog Frog allows a blogger to create or interact with a community.  The problem Blog Frog solves is that blog conversation is between the author and the audience based on what the author wants to discuss and the community can’t engage with one another.  Not only can you take part in a community but you can embed that in your blog.

Love the saying quoted in the article:

building a community isn’t about connecting people to you – it’s about connecting them to each other.

MY TAKE: Check out and join the Marketing Technology at http://refford.com/community

Sept Poll: What blogging platform do you use?

There are many, many options available to those that want to share an opinion ranging from free and simple to….well, inexpensive and involved.  I’m tracking some of the most popular platforms. If I missed the one you use please add it in the comments.

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[poll id=”12″]

image credit Salvatore Vuono

What Makes A Community Successful?

Unfortunately I couldn’t join #IMChat, but I learned a lot from seasoned Community Managers.  Review this wrap up to hear what some of the best and brightest are doing.

Topics covered are outlined in Melissa Parrish’s blog post and cover:

  1. What is the main purpose of your community (customer support, product ideation, thought leadership, etc.)?
  2. What membership or activity goals did you set (or are you setting) to measure the initial success of your community?
  3. What factors contributed to whether or not you met those goals?
  4. How did you initially promote your community? What kinds of ongoing promotion do you use?
  5. How many employees are dedicated to your community and what are their responsibilities?

What is Marketing Technology?

So what is Marketing Technology?

I certainly talk about a lot it but frankly I’m hard pressed to define it. Let’s look at some of the groundwork that’s been laid.

Mr. Chief Marketing Technologist – Scott Brinker

Scott Brinker does yeomen work writing about the role of a marketing technologist.  As reported Scott says a Marketing Technologist is:

“… someone who has a hybrid between business and technology, a strong background in engineering and IT, is an early adopter of technology, but someone who also understands the pragmatic realities of scaling technology. But most importantly, someone who brings those skills and combines them with a deep love and passion for the marketing mix. This is a technologist that reports to the CMO, not the CIO.”

Marketing Technology Consultant – Douglass Karr

Douglas Karr’s Marketing Technology Blog provides insight into the role on posts daily on the topics below.  The list below provides insight to what Marketing Technology consists of.

Practitioner – John Refford

I myself have wrote on the roles and responsibilities of a Marketing Technologist focusing on:

  • Strategist – you will frequently be asked to analyze situations, evaluate options, and recommend strategy & tactics
  • Change Agent – you may find yourself playing the role of a change agent where you have the opportunity to introduce new marketing technology and techniques
  • Consultant – you may be asked advise ebusiness teams on how to integrate new “Web 2.0″ digital techniques to the traditional websites
  • Project Manager – given your unique position between IT & Marketing, you may be asked to manage several projects

The Social Crowd

In working to craft a definition I reached out to a few LinkedIn groups (here and here) and asked how practitioners define “Marketing Technology”.

Here are the definitions offered:

  • Nigel Cliffe: The action of combining technology with business processes to promote the selling of products or services.
  • Nazli Yuzak: A series of technologies that enables marketers to execute higher quality integrated marketing campaigns while optimizing resources and maximizing ROI.
  • Eric Schmidt: At the corner of IT and Marketing you find the Marketing Technologist. A marketer has a message, an IT developer has a system, the MT uses a specific system for a specific message.
  • @BrianMakas: Bi-lingual marketer/techie that often offers solutions well before need for tech even identified.


 Here’s my draft definition of Marketing Technology:

Applied information technology sciences to the benefit sales and marketing efforts associated with advancing organizational goals. Contrasted with traditional marketing consisting of print, display, tv advertising and public relations analog techniques.

I’m intrigued that the category continues to be defined by the people as much as by the content.  Because of this fluidity, I’m really intrigued to see if we can settle on a common definition.

How do you define Marketing Technology?

5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed

Beyond earthquakes, hurricanes and Jobs’ stepping down, here are 5 Marketing Technology stories you might have missed.

1. Twitter rolled out galleries

[link] Recently twitter added the post picture feature to twitter.com.  This week twitter users started seeing a image gallery show up as part of their profile.  Perhaps a little worrisome for some users is that their pictures posted in the heat of the moment are easily accessible to profile viewers.  In aggregate they provide a visual story about the person.  Make sure the gallery provides your brand image (and don’t post picture you don’t want on the internet).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Potential for iPhone to support 4G

[link] Reports and rumors are coming out about LTE being field tested in iPhone5.  Although 4G may be not be available until next year, app developers should be considering how they will take advantage of the additional bandwidth speed

3. Eloqua files for IPO

[link] Aprimo’s CMO, Lisa Arthur weighs in on what it calls Integrated Marketing Management (IMM).   Gartner is considers it a $5B industry and we should see continued consolidation and spending as the marketplace continues to shake-out.

4. The 9/11 Memorial App Will Be An iPad Exclusive

[link] The 9/11 Memorial app will be free from September 1st to the 12th and will jump up to $9.95 when this promotion is over. It has hundreds of photographs and hours of video that details the event itself and the creation of Michael Arad’s World Trade Center Memorial and 9/11 museum.

5. Interactive Marketing Spend Will Near $77 Billion By 2016

[link] In a blog post, Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk, reported that by 2016, the amount spent on interactive marketing will equal today’s spending on TV.  Shar reviews five impacts of this growth including the decrease of search as a percentage, increase in display advertising, and most shockingly that spending in mobile will eclipse both social media and email marketing this year.

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