frankly speaking
Hey Google - this commercial doesn’t do anything to reduce your pretentiousness!
Clever marketing (on purpose or not) by the folks at Wiley Publishing..
Why SEO Still Matters
Chris Dixon recently wrote a post on why SEO is no longer a viable marketing strategy for start-ups. Chris went on to make a few great points, namely that not a lot of post 2008 start-ups have gained a lot of traction in SEO and that Google’s secret algorithm may be biased towards older companies who have gained a lot of in-bound links.
Here’s where I disagree - SEO is a long-term marketing strategy. It would be a mistake for any start-up to solely rely on getting significant traction through SEO. They would be better served focusing on mobile, paid media buying or even viral. Having said that, it would be a mistake for ANY start-up to completely ignore SEO. Having worked at two major ecommerce companies who have had to completely re-architect their websites for SEO purposes (because this was not done when the companies launched) it’s much more time efficient and less painful for all involved to correctly architect a site for SEO from the beginning.
Secondly, not focusing on SEO can hurt your overall customer acquisition costs. Most companies think of SEO as a ‘free source’ of traffic (hint: it’s not). That said, acquiring a new customer from an organic link in Google is significantly more cost effective than acquiring that customer from paid media. What’s more, the Lifetime Value of that customer is probably richer than from a paid media source.
A Marketer’s Response
Before I start this article, some fair disclosure - I’m an acquisition marketer by trade, so there might be a little bias in this post. That fact hopefully doesn’t dissuade from the argument below.
Yesterday, esteemed Venture Capitalist, Fred Wilson, wrote an epic post outlining his thoughts on how he believes most start-ups should market their product. Fred made several good points and everybody should take the time to read the blog post in its entirety.
Likewise, my buddy Bryce tweeted an interesting comment from Geek Squad Founder, Robert Stephens:
“Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable”
Both Fred and Bryce make their points explicitly clear - start-ups need to scrimp and save when it comes the cost of acquiring customers. I absolutely agree with this. The goal of every start-up should be to minimize the cost per acquisition of each new customer. Likewise, as Fred points out that start-ups need to at first focus on the product, that product decisions should at first be hunch driven, and later data driven. I agreed with this point in my post about building the better mousetrap.
Fred then goes on to make a number of points about ‘free’ customer acquisition methods and lists a number of examples of companies who have become hugely successful by ‘going viral’ and spending relatively little on paid marketing.
I think what both Fred and Bryce miss in their thoughts is their is often a third way into getting to critical mass without relying solely on paid traffic, nor having the employees of your start-up sitting around the office all day dreaming up the next big ’stunt’ to get 100,000 users at the cost of $1 a user.
There are plenty of examples of companies who have become wildly successful who spent plenty of money in customer acquisition, here are a few examples:
Netflix
Overstock.com
Lowermybills.com
eBay
Groupon
LivingSocial
(I know for a fact Groupon and LivingSocial are spending nearly $3 to $4 to acquire AN EMAIL ADDRESS OF A PERSON!)
While I absolutely agree with both Fred and Bryce that it’s important to minimize customer acquisition costs, part of the goal of every start-up is to gain traction and gain it quickly in order for VC’s to ultimately get their money back. How do you gain this traction? You turn to successful online (and offline) marketing professionals to get traffic to your site.
Come ‘on Gilt Groupe - get your retargeting together. #retargetingfail
Retail Reinvented
The Great Repression (as it will come to be known) of 2008 and 2009, will have inflicted a lot of damage when it is said and done. One of the the things that I believe it will be most known for is the way it will change consumers. Specifically, I think retail shopping is about to change in a big, big way.
Since the Web first started to hit critical mass circa 1995, prophets have been predicting the end of retail - alas companies have been more than competent in their ability to get people off of their pc and into their stores. However, with people now realizing that it’s probably a good idea to save rather than retail sales (including e-commerce) have dramatically slowed.
Am I saying the consumers will stop going to stores? Of course not, that’s ridiculous and naive. What I am saying is that retail stores should change the way the use their brick and mortar distribution points.
It’s obvious that physical stores get tons of traffic and it’s easy to see why they do. Consumers can try on the jeans, play with the hardware, and take the car for a test drive before actually making a purchase decision. This method has worked for retailers for nearly hundreds of years and will continue to work because it makes a physical connection between the consumer and the retailer. What I suggest that retailers change is the type of inventory they distribute in their stores. While it’s great to have the latest and greatest of everything in your front window, there is a physical limit to how much inventory a store can carry. On the Web, inventory becomes less of a concern.
The Web is the place where a customer can customize ‘til their heart’s content. The same can’t be done in a retail store. It’s entirely possible that the store doesn’t have the right size, fabric, model, etc. However, on the web, there’s literally a limitless amount of customization that can go on until the consumer finds exactly what he wants. Best of all for the retailer, the more customization, the more you can charge.
What the retailer can do is store inventory in a warehouse as they currently do, with all the variety they can imagine their customers demanding. When the inventory is ‘fresh’ or ‘in-season’ the retailer makes it available only on their website. As the inventory ages, the retailer then moves the inventory to its physical stores, where it can begin to discount it and move it more quickly.
Why will this work? Simply because consumer’s in today’s economy are the most price conscious they’ve been in at least 25 years - with no sign of letting up. Today, stores are going to great lengths to attract customers, so far as to give customers 60% off retail. The problem with this is two-fold 1) Retailers can’t keep this up forever (especially if they need to please Wall Street) and 2) Consumers are coming to expect some kind of discount at the cash register.
Further, retailers can delay (if not altogether avoid) selling their inventory to discount stores and thrifts. These shops usually pay 30 to 60 cents on the dollar for inventory. Instead, retailers can apply a variation of this discount to their goods and still sell them in their physical stores. All the while, they can charge a premium on their customized web inventory.
Obviously, there are still many gaps to this process that need to vetted a little bit. But the fact remains that in order to more efficiently get consumers what they want and (perhaps most importantly) at the price they want, retailers are going to have to change the way they move their product.
How not to win at Social Media. This was the Skittles.com homepage on 03/02/09
Deconstructing Marissa
I think Google’s great. They’ve revolutionized a lot of things, from search to online advertising. They’ve made things a lot easier for everyone. Yesterday, the New York Times interviewed Marissa Mayer who is the VP of Marketing at Google.
Overall, I thought the interview was fine, even if it was on the fluffy side. One thing that bothered me was this:
“One candidate got a C in macroeconomics. “That’s troubling to me,” Ms. Mayer says. “Good students are good at all things.”Another candidate looked promising with a quarterly rating from a supervisor of 3.5, out of 4, which meant she had exceeded her manager’s expectations. Ms. Mayer is suspicious, however, because her rating hasn’t changed in several quarters.
“She is looking for a way out,” Ms. Mayer says.”
That more or less shocked me. I get that Marissa (who has a background in Engineering and was one of the first female engineers at Google) is a numbers driven person and that makes sense, especially when it comes to marketing. But when someone is applying for a job or a promotion, I don’t think hard numbers tell the whole story. Sure it’s great to be able to see how much a person increased sales, reduced costs, etc, but there’s a little bit of practcal intelligence that goes into hiring or promoting someone.
Mayer goes onto contradict her logic in the article by saying she wants to be known when she says:
“It hasn’t shown up anywhere that I am really physically active,” she says. “I ran the San Francisco half marathon this year. I did the Portland marathon. I went skiing just yesterday. I’m going to do the Birkebeiner, which is North America’s longest cross-country ski race. That just shows you how much there are gaps.”
But Valleywag is quick to identify the loophole in this “Ah yes, the Portland Marathon, in which Mayer placed 7,074th out of 7,862 contestants. Or the Birkebeiner ski race, in which she placed dead last in the women’s competition.”
Really, Marissa? Using your logic, I guess you aren’t a good at running or skiing. Why should we pay attention to the fact that you think you’re an athlete, when the results you’ve shown clearly show you are not one? Why should the general public hold you to a different standard than you hold to job candidates? If we cut you a break on this (that you are phsically active and good at it), shouldn’t you cut employees and prospective employees a break when they apply for jobs or promotions?
About
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Welcome to my blog. My name is Ben Wilkinson. I work in online marketing and advertising. I'm also a rabid Red Sox fan. This blog is dedicated to everything from sports and politics to business and pop-culture. Sit back, relax and enjoy!
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