The NY TIMES published an article today on the findings of a scientific study of the "viral-ness" of various content. Researchers used the paper's most-emailed article list, checking it every 15 minutes for more than six months. And the results were surprising:

But it turns out that readers have more exalted tastes, according to the Penn researchers, Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman. People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics. Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list. In general, they found, 20 percent of articles that appeared on the Times home page made the list, but the rate rose to 30 percent for science articles...

In regard to the "awesomeness" of a story:

The motivation for mailing these awe-inspiring articles is not as immediately obvious as with other kinds of articles, Dr. Berger said. Sharing recipes or financial tips or medical advice makes sense according to classic economic utility theory: I give you something of practical value in the hope that you’ll someday return the favor... They used two criteria for an awe-inspiring story: Its scale is large, and it requires “mental accommodation” by forcing the reader to view the world in a different way... “Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion,” [Berger] said. “If I’ve just read this story that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to others about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe..."

So what does that mean for the marketer? Perhaps this: make your content positive (avoid scare tactics), ensure that it provides insight that shakes a person's way of looking at the topic, and don't worry about the length needed to make your point. Then you too can be viral. And awesome.

-posted by Paul

Tags: nytimes, viral

A great post from Aaron Finn, chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at AdReady.

What will it take for display to be as big as—or bigger than—search?

I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Kelsey Group ILM 2009 Conference. During my presentation, I said that I thought online display advertising had the potential to eclipse search in the next five years.

Yes, you read that right. Sure, search advertising is a $10 billion industry, with nearly 1.5 million advertisers. Display advertising is only a $6 billion dollar industry, with about 50,000 advertisers.

But I didn't say that because the conference had an open bar.

I want to follow up on my assertion here, and outline for you why I see that potential—and I welcome any responses. Feel free to tell me if I'm in left field, or on the right track.

So how has search advertising (PPC) become a $10 billion industry anyway? It's simple: search offers predictable results, straight-forward targeting, and clear metrics that demonstrate return on advertising spend (ROAS). As a result, search ads have become an advertising mainstay. But thanks to advances in technology—like our platform here at AdReady—display can offer those exact same benefits. Even for small- and medium-sized business previously priced out of display advertising.

What's more, display can do things that search can't, like scale well and build a brand.

Most analyst firms believe that search will remain a marketing juggernaut for years to come. For example, Forrester says that U.S. interactive marketing spend is projected to reach $55 billion by 2014, making up 21 percent of all marketing spending. Search marketing will lead the growth, totaling $31.5 billion by 2014, followed by display advertising, which will total $16.9 billion.

So how could display advertising launch a coup d'état and overtake search? Four key areas pique my interest:

1. Cost/Scale: Search can get expensive. Especially if you want a hot keyword. And often, search lacks scale. Search marketing is getting saturated, driving up costs, and driving down overall effectiveness for the mass market. Most search marketers have unspent search budget. They simply can't spend everything they would like to. Display offers a great opportunity to spend that budget. And believe it or not, the best display advertisers are spending more on display than on search, to the tune of 2x to 10x.

2. Market Size: There are nearly 1.5 million search advertisers as compared to approximately 50,000 display advertisers, according to Google. Simply stated: what would the display market look like if it had 500,000 more advertisers?

3. Offline vs. Online: Offline advertising costs still dramatically eclipse both search and display, even as consumers spend more time online and less time with offline media. We're already seeing the transfer of marketing budgets from offline to online (some $144 billion offline according to Interpublic Group media agency Magna), and that will only increase. Search just doesn’t have the scale to accept those budgets.

4. Search/Display Combination: The Atlas Institute reports a 22 percent increase in click-through rate (CTR) when companies run search and display campaigns together. When search and display are combined, they provide a significant lift in onsite engagement, and an increase in online and offline purchasing by consumers exposed to integrated campaigns.

None of the above is a slam dunk for knocking search off its dominant position—but taken together, they highlight some serious potential for making display a much more formidable competitor. Even Eric Schmidt said recently that display and mobile are Google’s two key areas of growth.

No matter what else happens, the market is going to grow dramatically as platforms such as AdReady's continue to evolve—and demonstrate the ability to deliver successful ROAS. A couple years down the road, I believe that a lot of people will be surprised when they see how big a piece of the pie display ends up getting.

What do you think?

Tags: adready, displayadvertising

Sometimes it’s a bit alarming when you realize what a particular brand says about you. For instance, if you're a Yahoo or AOL email user, you're also likely a deadbeat. At least, that's the finding from a research report correlating email addresses to credit scores.

I'm feeling pretty good about my Gmail account right now.



-posted by Paul

Tags: creditscores

Just got done reading a pretty straightforward yet thought-provoking Advertising Age article on whether or not iPhone apps are really worth it. The premise of the article is that while apps may be catchy, they may not necessarily be directly contributing to the bottom line or serving as a strategic -marketing tool (aka tying back to the brand). In the article, AdAge came up with its list of the best and worst apps when it came to brand tie-back and here's an excerpt of some of them:

Cream of the crop

• KRAFT IFOOD -- Rich, engaging and travels easily from pantry to grocery store to kitchen stove, all while building and strengthening brand loyalty.
• DUNKIN' DONUTS DUNKIN' RUN -- Not just a coffee and doughnuts ordering tool, this app announces to friends/co-workers that you're on a run. Captures all orders and you, "the hero," pick them up. Clever combo of utility and social. Now if they'd just integrate a payment system so you don't get stuck footing the bill.
• BENJAMIN MOORE BEN COLOR CAPTURE -- Using the camera feature on the iPhone 3GS, it snaps a picture of anything and finds a Ben paint color match. Closing the loop, GPS points renovators to the nearest Ben store.

Not so much

• WARNER BROS. DARK KNIGHT -- The app adds dark circles and snarly red Batman decals and scars all over your own or friends' faces when you "Jokerize" them. Harmless fun, but did it sell any tix? Not available anymore.
• PEDIGREE SHAKE AND BARK -- Take your dog's picture, record its bark and you can ... shake to replay it? It's got a cute name, and dog lovers can take a piece of their pup to work, but the features feel a bit lame. Plus, doesn't it freak out the dog?

This article brings us to a bigger point, does there really have a to be a direct brand tie-in with these apps or does the mere placement of a logo on the app suffice? Food for thought if your company is looking to ride the iPhone app wave.



-posted by Andrew

Tags: iphone, branding

Andrew Dumont likes to live life on the edge, whether it's wakeboarding or searching for his next jolt of caffeine. So it's no real surprise that, at 21, he chose to join a startup. As the vice president of marketing and business development for Bellingham-based Tatango with its group text messaging product, he's constantly on the run -- and has successfully grown Tatango's user base from 7,000 to over 400,000, primarily through the use of social media. As part of VOXUS's continuing series of interviews with local entrepreneurs, VCs and marketers, we asked him to share his thoughts on public relations for startups and, more specifically, on how he successfully uses Facebook to promote the Tatango brand.

1) You've publicly stated that you didn't know a whole lot about public relations prior to founding Tatango, yet you've had some incredible success with Tatango's media outreach. What's one lesson learned that you could share with other entrepreneurs?

When working in a startup, you learn very quickly just how scarce cash is. At the early stage of our company, I couldn't justify allocating the resources needed to hire a professional pr agency, although I would've liked to. So, we did what every great startup does, we winged it. Having no prior training or experience in public relations, I had to learn the ropes of the industry very quickly in preparation for the launch of Tatango. Since that day of realizing that we couldn't afford an agency, we’ve earned ink in the Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times, CNN, PC World, TechCrunch and others.

That being said, I am far from a pr pro, but I did learn some very valuable lessons and tips during my crash course in public relations. I went ahead and noted two tips for entrepreneurs looking to get started in pr, as I think both are crucial to a successful campaign.

Ask Questions - This is the best piece of advice I can offer and it applies to every aspect of business, ask questions. Although public relations was completely new to me, there were thousands of professionals that live and breath public relations, all of which have massive amounts of experience in the field. They’ve most likely lived through any issues you’re facing, so pick their brain. When I first started with our pr efforts, I sent out emails to several of the top marketing/pr pros in the Seattle area, simply explaining my situation and asking if I could chat with them about some “best practices” of the industry. I received a response from nearly everyone I emailed and set up meetings with Scott Willoughby of SEOmoz, Eric Berto of Etelos, Jeff Precor of Yapta and Doug Alley of Jott, this was extremely helpful. There is no way I would've been as successful as I was with my efforts without their help (thanks again guys).

Be Real - Many editors get thousands of faceless pitches each day, so what can you do to stand out? It’s easy, just be real. It’s all about transparency. Connect with the people you’re pitching on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, you need to put a face behind your pitch. Personally, I like to connect with all of the editors that I’ll be contacting prior to pitching, this helps add familiarity when your name shows up in their inbox. Not only that, but connecting with the editors on these various networks allows you to really understand what type of person you're pitching. Pr is all about being genuine, find out what their interests are and relate to them.

2) Many entrepreneurs are struggling with the best way to use Facebook because the lines between personal and business information are blurred. On the one hand, it can be a really good marketing tool; it's also a social networking site where people share recipes, photos, etc. You seem to straddle both worlds quite successfully with your Facebook page -- can you share any tips on how others might do the same?

Facebook is one of the best marketing tools available. We've built our business with a zero dollar advertising budget, and I can safely say that without social networks, we wouldn't be here today. For me, the line between my personal and professional life isn't blurry at all, there is no line. This is how it needs to be to utilize Facebook effectively. As with my last point on the pr tips, it's all about being real. Your personal life is a huge asset to the core of your personal and professional brand. If you’re passionate about gardening, cooking, sports, juggling, beer or anything else, it’s likely that there’s someone out there that shares the same interests. With personal attributes or hobbies displayed to the public, a brand becomes more than just an image but an actual living object. By exposing these personalities, you’re opening your brand to a new demographic that may not have been connected prior.

Think about it like a television show, you fall in love with a show because of the characters in it. For me, I’m addicted to the show Entourage because I’ve connected with the character Ari Gold. His outrageous antics and lavish lifestyle has made me envious of him, his character traits have been so well developed to the point where I feel like I actually know him, as if he was a buddy of mine. Because of this connection, when I’m asked about my favorite TV show, Entourage comes to mind without hesitation. The same concept applies to a personal or professional brand. By using these pre-established characters (yourself and your employees), you’re expanding your company's relevance beyond just the functionality of your product, you’re creating an atmosphere that fosters connections on both a personal and professional level. With these types of connections established, your brand will come to mind as the “favorite” and we all know, nothing is more powerful in the world of marketing than word of mouth. I am a firm believer in transparency for businesses, so if you'd like to chat more about it, feel free to message me on Facebook. : )

3) Where do you hope to take Tatango between now and the end of the year?

I've got very high hopes for Tatango in the upcoming months. We've been extremely busy with the construction and implementation of the new version of the site, Tatango 2.0, which was recently pushed live. In the next couple of months I hope to continue growing the Tatango user base, flesh out our revenue model and cement the Tatango brand as the top name in group text messaging.

Blog: http://andrewjdumont.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/andrewdumont
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/andrewdumont

-posted by Rachel

Tags: tatango, facebook

It's no secret that the economy is causing many companies to rethink their marketing budgets. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since tighter budgets can force companies to take a more creative approach to their communications strategies. Here are just a couple ideas to help boost your company's visibility -- all of them are easy to do and can positively impact the bottom line.

1) Create a company page on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). You're probably already a member of LinkedIn (and if you're not, it's easy and free to join). But you might not know that the site recently added a "Companies" section to its offerings. If you're a member, you can follow this link.

And if you want to see what a company profile is, you can follow this link (whether or not you're a member) to look at the one for VOXUS.

The site is still in beta, but it looks promising and would be especially useful for recruiting purposes or, since there is a companies search function, it might even be used by potential customers looking for vendors.


2) Create a company profile on Businesswire. If you're using Businesswire to distribute your press releases, did you know that you can issue a company profile for free as a membership benefit? This profile is sent across the wires to media, investors and consumers with basic facts about your organization. It's also stored in a databank for quick retrieval by reporters on deadline. You can learn more about it and find the link for submitting a profile here.

3) Do a customer survey -- and publish the results. There are any number of free websites that are easy to use to create a survey (we like Survey Monkey http://www.surveymonkey.com/). If you ask your customers a few controversial questions, so much the better! You can put the results on your website or, for even more impact, write a short article and submit it to a trade journal or your local business publication.


4) Are you using the back of your business card? If not, you're missing an opportunity. At VOXUS, we use it to reinforce our brand and image, but there are any number of other things you could do. You could place a special offer or a product description there, or even repeat the information on the front of the card so that it's always face-up for the recipient.


5) Take another look at radio. Most companies think print or online publications are their best venue for publicity, but sometimes the stories lend themselves well to radio. One you might try is "Into Tomorrow, with Dave Graveline." This is a nationally-syndicated radio show covering consumer electronics and technology. The show airs a daily "Into Tomorrow" feature that you can write and submit yourself on any topic that would be of interest to the general audience. It's a simple 55-second script (about 140 words). Details can be found here.

-posted by Rachel

Social media continues to be quite the buzzword throughout marketing departments, even in the hardcore tech markets that traditionally show less interest. Not surprisingly, we're seeing more and more clients request advice on how to approach this medium. Many simply want us to monitor the space to ensure they're not missing out on any opportunities or chatter (good and bad), while others need us to actually post for them or build profiles, giving a proactive presence. In this post, I'd like to focus on the monitoring element -- what, how and a little advice.

Most of our clients want basic social media monitoring. What we call, "Social Media Tablestakes!" We're talking blogs, Twitter, Facebook... you get the drill. As most know, this is basically intelligent research. Research takes time. Time adds up quickly and costs money. Therefore, there's a point when agency research ceases to be a compelling option for social media monitoring. For example, while our team at VOXUS is fully capable of monitoring all outlets for our clients, regardless of size, we usually won't exceed 15 before suggesting a client automate with a tool. This doesn't require any additional work on the client end and allows the PR team to streamline efforts associated with a time-intense task. YES, it costs money. This leads to my next point -- what service and how much?

Our team likes Radian6's Social Media Monitoring Solution. This tool costs $100 for one user (the agency rep) and then $500 a month for a client. While that may seem expensive at first glance, if you truly want to monitor all social media and it's vital to your marketing efforts, it's a small price to pay (especially when you add up agency bill rates + research time). Not only does the dashboard allow you to monitor and compare (with all the charts, graphs, etc., you'd expect in a tool like this; we're thinking board meetings and measurement), it gives you a forum to instantly respond and interact with those posting about you or your business.

Not sure if you need this tool? While we always believe in taking the advice from your PR professional (you are after all paying them for it), Radian6 offers a great 7 day trial that allows you to use all the bells and whistles and see for yourself. Remember, social media can get expensive. Some agencies intentionally keep all research internal so they can drive revenue. If you're paying more than $600 a month just for social media monitoring, you may want to revaluate your agency or the methodology.




To remain objective, there's also another company Visible Technologies that offers a good service and they're local to Seattle. The technology appears to be solid. However, internal sales channels seem to be a bit undisciplined and flaky.

-posted by Justin

Tags: socialmediameasurement, radian6, visibletechnologies

It’s no secret that we run Macs around here, and one of the popular (and controversial) retail programs is something called MacHeist – basically a collection of multiple software titles sold for one rock bottom price. I’ve avoided participating in this (as a customer) in past years due in no small part to that controversy, which circled around the question of whether the group that puts on MacHeist screws the participating vendors.

I’m an ardent proponent of independent software vendors, and I like to support the creation of good software, which I define as both useful and elegant. As such, I thought it best to steer clear of MacHeist on general principles.

On the other hand, it’s unarguably one hell of a deal. And with this latest go-round, it appears that they’ve largely addressed the equitability in regard to the participating vendors, at least according to a number of those vendors themselves. Moreover, MacHeist donates a percentage of proceeds to charity, which is of course a plus.

So, I jumped in with both feet. Now the interesting thing about how MacHeist works is that there is an initial group of applications, and if they sell enough bundles, then additional apps are “unlocked” for everyone that has purchased. Which obviously generates not only the mob mentality that fuels any auction, but also adds to the word-of-mouth marketing of the whole bundle.

And here’s where things get interesting, and either brilliant or diabolical, depending on your point of view. After making the initial purchase, I receive periodic status updates on how they are progressing toward unlocking additional applications. Then I receive a “special Twitter offer” for two bonus applications that have been thrown into the mix, “all you have to do is click this link.” Said link takes you to a MacHeist page where you have to verify that you have a Twitter account (so now they have my user name and account) and then takes you to MacHeist’s Twitter page, where you must follow them. Of course you can always un-follow at a later date, but my guess is that many customers won’t do that.

Thus far, MacHeist has gathered additional customer data for later marketing purposes, and gotten customers to follow the Twitter version of the company’s promotional newsletter. Not bad. But it gets better (or worse).

After you follow MacHeist on Twitter, but before you receive the additional software, you have to post a promotional tweet to your account:

I bought the @MacHeist 3 Bundle. 12 Top Mac apps worth $900+ for just $39 AND I just got Delicious Library 2 FREE!

Once you’ve gone this far in the process, it’s extremely likely that you’ll follow through regardless of whether you find this distasteful or not. I did. And I have to admit to being torn: is this a brilliant social marketing program, or an abuse of social media?

-posted by Paul

Tags: twitter, macheist