Thursday, April 21, 2011

Google shares management insights with students

One of the groups in Maketing 470 reported on the Okner symposium they attended this semester: "As part of the group that attended the Okner Symposium at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, we had a thoroughly enjoyable time. The keynote speaker from Google, Kristin MacGreogor, provided great insight into what makes a strong company. For example, she referenced how Google allows its engineers to use 20% of their time—roughly one day each week—to work on any project they want. Many great Google products, such as, Gmail and Google Earth, were borne of this free time. She also spoke of how Google doesn’t wait until a product is perfect to release it. They simply do it well and then continue to tweak it once it’s gone to market.

In addition to the keynote speaker from Google, we had a great time at the roundtable discussions. We had the chance to sit in on the roundtable with Warren C. Lillund, the Vice President of Consulting with Hunter Business Group, LLC. He discussed the ways that students can leverage social media sites like LinkedIn to get jobs. We also had a chance to sit with Chris Remington of Trivera Interactive. At his roundtable, we learned about where interactive is going and how it’s being currently used in industry.

We also enjoyed the interview with NIU alum Will Johnson. Getting to hear firsthand accounts of a recent graduate of NIU was great. From that we learned some things to do and not do in a job search. The most beneficial takeaway was simply not to settle. Find something you love to do and do it.

Overall, the Okner was a great day and we were glad to have been a part of it."

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Students rock ROI; Razorfish helps to explain why

We went over this week how to calculate Return on Marketing Investment, ROMI, in the simplest sense. For our project each group got $200 to drive traffic to the Restaurant.com web site. Most groups have made back their money, for a positive ROMI of dollars made/dollars spent of 100%, with some groups making over a 600% ROMI. I told them to put this all on their resume as employers would like these numbers.

Of course these calculations are also just marketing acquisition numbers and don't tell the story in terms of customer lifetime value. I heard a presentation yesterday at the CADM luncheon from Razorfish (Chad Maxwell and Teresa Caro presenting) on their work on marketing segmentation by communications preference and the engagement expectations by channel (http://liminal.razorfish.com/).

In our class, our Students have to pick two communications channels for their project Our groups in class using email have done quite well and individual email and the company web site are still the most valued communications channels in terms of customer's engagement expectations, according to this research.

The goal once the customer has been acquired is to keep them around and keep them engaged. Razorfish, working with Virgin Airlines developed four customer segments based on engagement preference. In spite of the fact the company is quite a savvy online marketer, not all of its customers were socially savvy (only 22%) and those who were traditionally engaged and like email newsletters for example (11%) of the sample, were also among the most profitable for the company.

I will talk to the students next week about engagement now that we have spent a semester on customer acquisition, and had some fun to boot!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

NIU grad is walking testimony for 'networking'

Kevin Cunningham, who graduates in May of 2011 with our Interactive Marketing Certificate and an undergraduate marketing degree reports:

"I came in contact with an alumnus of the fraternity that I am a part of as I knew that he was in the marketing field. As I became more and more familiar with what he did, I became more and more intrigued with the position available at Covalent Marketing.

Since that Covalent Marketing is such a small company, my first interview was with one of the two partners who is also the CTO. After that, I moved onto interviews with the CSO and the CEO. I was soon offered a position as a Solutions Consultant; things move so quickly and dynamically in a smaller company! The primary clients of Covalent Marketing are Fortune 500 companies and higher.

Covalent Marketing consults in the areas of the interactive marketing department taught here at Northern Illinois University: SEO, SEM, social media, web analytics, and email marketing are all "hot topics" that I will have the chance to learn more about and ultimately impact clients with immediately in the business world. Covalent Marketing also uses many business intelligence (BI) programs and marketing resource management (MRM) tools to help solve client needs.

Established in 2007, Covalent Marketing began when its founders started talking about the state of database marketing in today's CRM (Customer Relationship Management) world. Very quickly, they agreed there was a major void in how many organizations conduct their long-term marketing strategies. In today's marketplace, where the ‘marketing awareness' of the individual has progressed, so have the ways in which organizations can communicate with customers. The founders deeply believe that the next evolution of database marketing resides in building better, stronger relationships with your customers. Needless to say, I am extremely excited."

Congratulations on your new position Kevin!!