I was recently giving an associate some advice on marketing his sons new website. It started off with “make sure you’re targeting your keyword phrases at the audience you want to attract”. It moved on to “chasing the long tail”, which was closely followed by “gaining links”, “consider ad-words” and installing Google Analytics. When I asked if the son had any marketing budget it became apparent the company was a single one-man band that was building up a new business and trying to make a name for itself. Nothing wrong with that, in-fact in my eyes this is to be admired. However one thing is for sure, very few one-man bands have a marketing budget and even fewer have time to spend on marketing even if they do.

Many will therefore decide to use an agency. Which is fine. But when using an agency it’s important you are giving them direction to make sure they are spending their time – which equals your money, on the most productive areas.

Many sole-traders however, will not consider an agency for online activity if they have a bit of knowledge of how things work online. They have used the Internet before, searched on google, have their own facebook page and even dabble with internet banking so how hard can marketing their website be?

Therefore I wasn’t surprised that after I had given some SEO and PPC advice which would keep a marketing team happy for a good few weeks, he asked the inevitable next question…

“OK, that’s good – What else could he do?”

Armed with the fact there was little budget, I took a deep breath and started talking social media marketing. Viral videos, Facebook business pages, Twitter profiles, status updates, Digg it, Like this, Buzz that, Tweet the other… It was all in there. I looked at his face and he didn’t have to say a word, “How the f*** are you suppose to do all that” was written all over it.

That’s when it struck me that an awful lot of companies, not just one man bands, will be trying to cover everything in a blind panic that if they don’t they are missing out. I’m not going to argue that the media multiplier effect works. But is it the best use of the marketing coffers to spread it over all forms of media?

The answer is of course simple. Yes… If it works! No… If it doesn’t.

Social media is just that – media, just the same as the telephone, carrier pigeon, postal service or smoke signals! And in turn needs to be measure and quantified in exactly the same way as any other marketing channel (although, good luck measuring the impact of smoke signals!). It may be new(ish) and exciting but it hasn’t necessarily made the revolutionary changes everyone seems to attribute to it.

It boils down to spending the time you have most productively. Which can only be understood through measurement of your activities.

Many people attribute social media with Barrack Obama being in power today. I don’t.
If the massively impressive PR train that was employed for Obama wasn’t using social media they would have been using other channels. Who knows which would have been most effective?
There are too many variables in this case to truly understand if social media had the impact many say it did.

If we look back to a time before social media there have been figures that have changed the world quite easily without one single tweet or status update.  I’m sure Martin Luther King would have had a Facebook page during the Civil Rights era if it had been around. That wouldn’t have meant Facebook caused social change.  It appears the founders of social networking sites would have us believe they have invented a media channel that is far superior to anything we have experienced before.  And this is the reason it is capable of such great things.  I believe it’s simply these now multi-millionaires are simply shouting louder than inventors of the past.  Just think how many important decisions have been made over the humble telephone.  Yet I don’t hear anyone attributing wars that have been won, disasters that have been averted and lives that have been saved to the humble dog-n-bone, do you?

Social media marketing is a worthwhile channel, but only by measuring its impact when compared to other forms of media can you know if this is the channel you should be investing your valuable time in.

This is why the single most important piece of advice I gave my associate was to install Google Analytics.  Unfortunately I suspect it is the one piece of advice he may act upon but never follow up.  To delve into Google analytics and use it to ensure you are choosing the best suited media to your campaign takes time and a lot of it.  Time that a single person battling to make a new company work just doesn’t have.

Inside Microsoft HQ:

Mich Matthews (VP of marketing) – Ok guys, we have a pretty impressive smartphone that we’ve worked pretty damn hard on and I reckon we should let people know it exists. What-da-ya-reckon?

Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) – Good catch Mich, that’s why I pay you $280k+ let’s get our best guys on this baby right away. We need our ducks in a row on this one, we need an xbox success, no repeat of vista… Ok!

Mich – Well, let’s fly some kites, get some serious blue sky going on in here. What made the xbox such a success and vista such a… Um… a…. Well not such a success?

Steve – We never make bad products, it must have been the marketing budgets. How much did we spend marketing xbox?

Mich – $100m

Steve – and vista?

Mich – $500m

Steve – Ah. Vista must have been bad. I hope windows phone 7’s better.

————-

Although Microsoft are reported to be spending $400m on the launch of windows phone 7, this doesn’t ensure it’s success. However, it does show you Microsoft are serious about its new smartphone and by spending serious marketing budget it’s guaranteed every man and his dog are going to hear about this one.

It’s also interesting how close the budgets are between the vista launch and that of windows phone 7. Although when you consider the desktop market is in such decline and the smartphone market is enjoying such growth, it does make sense. Smartphone sales are expected to outstrip those of the desktop by next year, so for me Microsoft have set their budget about right.

The right amount of spend is so important, let’s take the $100m budget of Verizon and Motorola on the original Droid smartphone compared to the non-existent marketing budget for Google’s Nexus One. The Nexus One was a better handset with better software, but was outsold by the Droid – marketing made the Droid a success, simple.

It shows you can have a slightly inferior product, but through marketing tell people repeatedly that it’s good and they will believe you! Apple have been doing it for years… It works! Of course I jest a little, Apples products are damn good, but in all honesty are they the best out there? Or are we blinded slightly by the Apple razzmatazz of it’s marketing campaigns?

Windows phone 7 now has every chance of success. The marketing $’s behind this device plus the fact it isn’t going to be a poor (vista) product is why this could really shake up the smartphone market. This smartphone will support Office, Windows Live services and have the Zune music store. This smartphone will have an innovative UI not a clunky Windows Mobile platform UI. We’re sure to see a Microsoft app store, multitasking and notifications. We’re also going to experience Microsoft making the most of the Xbox Live brand within the handheld for gaming.
The final aspect will be the community. Developers have jumped at the chance to unleash their talents on both the iPhone and Android platforms. If they do the same with vigour for the Windows phone 7, there may be no stopping this new kid on the smartphone block taking the lead.

Microsoft have been quiet recently and has almost slipped into the underdog style status when compared to Apple and Google. Something a decade ago we would never have imagined. We also would never have imagined feeling slightly sorry for Microsoft, but I think there is a new public perception towards them, after all, we love the underdog.

I’m predicting the Windows Phone 7 will be a huge success and with the troubles Apple have had with the iPhone 4, it’s going to make for a very interesting battle!
Most of all though, I’m looking forward to Microsofts marketing campaign for the new phone, I hope they really do fly those kites and make it one to remember!

Sometimes you happen across a marketing campaign that really makes you sit up and think… now that was genius. This is such a time. Old Spice have launched an online campaign that has taken the Internet by storm in the last few days and will surely be used as a case study in how to create a major buzz online.

As always with this type of campaign, the simplicity is astounding, there must be marketing agencies around the world saying “how the hell have we not thought of that!”.

The campaign

Old spice had their celebrity actor Isaiah Mustafa film several commercials and asked viewers online to tweet questions. The filming of the initial commercials would have took several weeks but the genius was in the follow-up.

When questions were tweeted they filmed responses from Isaiah in a bathroom with just a towel and bottle of old spice shower gel responding to the question. This was posted within an hour of it being asked. Now that’s no mean feat. Especially as they also injected some humour into the responses.

The impact was, as could be expected, huge. They have had over 4m YouTube hits, 70,000 Twitter followers and countless video responses and web bloggers like me responding to this campaign. Proctor and Gamble are laughing all the way to the brand awareness bank!

The fact they responded so quickly was the key to this success. Even Demi Moore asked for a response via her tweets!

It’s an example of how agencies are really pulling out all the stops to create the next best campaign and using online media to do it. Online enables such a quick response and has done for a few years now, so it’s a wonder something like this hasn’t been tried before. You can bet your bottom dollar it will be again now!

Old spice YouTube video

Well here I am waiting for a train at London st.pancras because I was trying to be the model employee and not pay too much for my train ticket home, instead opting for a super off peak ticket that means I can only hit the tracks after 7pm! Annoying as this is, it has meant I now have the time to test out this wordpress app on my iPhone for the first time.

It’s also timely, as I feel, for about the fifth time since I started ever blogging, that I should increase the frequency of my online efforts. This time it is the course I am attending that has poked at my blogging brain to once again spark it into life.

I’ve just completed the second week of a direct and interactive marketing course which is hosted by the idm in teddington. I started with an open mind, not quite sure how I would adapt to being in the classroom again after a good ten year stint out of any form of education. But it has proved quite enjoyable and I’ve certainly learned a lot (I’ve not just put that in to please who I work for either!).

One of the best aspects of the course is the fact they have guest speakers who vary in quality admittadly, but in the main are excellent.

This week we were given the pleasure of listening to one Drayton BIrd who quite literally lit the place up with examples of his quality copy-writing and his extremely colourful language. He was most certainly an inspiring character who had been there, done that and bought the flat cap.

He is most certainly the reason why I’ve decided to have another flirt with blogging although Im sure if he read this there would be a comment on the bottom saying don’t fu*cking bother!

I would certaiy recommend the course to anyone interested in improving their marketing skills. It covers all areas and does it bloody well. But beware, it is an intensive course… Very tiring, so be prepared for some stressful times and sleepless nights.

Anyway, i’ve been at this station now for 2 hours and the train (that I can legally catch) has come into sight… So I’m off.

Oh, and blogging on this wordpress app. Yeah, pretty good!