Interactive Marketing

2012-01-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

Thorne Washington, a recent grad from Northern's IM program, and Brad Hawk, both from Leapfrog Online, came to class this week to share their experiences and tips on Paid Search as the students prepare for the Google Adwords Online Marketing Challenge.

What I really appreciated was their clear approach to the problem. They suggested a framework for the project that they use for their own work. They suggested that the best way to approach paid search is to Research, Build, Launch and then Analyze/Report.

I agree that planning is key to effective Search Engine Marketing (SEM). If you don't understand the customer and the keywords they are searching for it is not even useful to start a campaign. Google Adwords provides many useful analysis tools to modify the campaign once it has been launched. Some other helpful tips included bidding 1.5 or 2 times more than the suggested initial bid in Adwords to get a high ranking and improve your click through rate, setting the geographic area of the search, setting the devices used (mobile clicks are more expensive) and limiting the campaign to the hours of operation of the business. Thanks to both Brad and Thorne for coming out and sharing their expertise.

CAC Group presents "Segmentology" in Database Class

2012-01-27T06:10:00.001-08:00

Brad Rukstales, the CEO and President of CAC Group, spoke about his success in building databases and creating effective segmentation schemes for Morton's steakhouse. He gave valuable insight into how companies are using databases to engage their customers across channels to create meaningful customer experiences. He emphasized the importance of data analytics in marketing and the number of jobs there will be in the area. Conincidentally we are working on developing a data analytics track for the interactive marketing program.

I found the segmentology overview on the CAC web site a useful way to discuss marketing segmentation and show its value. The company takes lifestage, demographics and other information and compiles it in a proprietary database. Coupling that information with proprietary in-house data allowed Morton's steakhouse to identify its best customers and market to them accordingly. The group helps other customers in the same way.

Thanks, Brad for taking the time to visit us.

Direct marketing for database marketers

2012-01-27T05:57:00.001-08:00

Interactive Marketing Definition

2012-01-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

As I prepare to take over as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, I invite all interested in the field to look at the wikipedia definition which we posted several years ago and to make any appropriate edits. We based the definition on the work of John Deighton that interactive marketing is really a conversation. With so many community and collaboration based tools out there now and the rise of social media, it seems appropriate to take another look at the definition below. Marketers are not the only ones creating conversations now, are they?

•1) the ability to address an individual

•2) the ability to gather and remember a response of an individual

•3) the ability to address that individual once more in a way that takes into account his or her unique response (Marketing=conversation)

»Deighton, 1996

Database Marketing at NIU

2011-12-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

Accoriding to a recent ebook, the U.S. Educational system is failing in terms of the demand for skilled workers and there is predicted to be a 1.5 million shortfall in terms of the number of workers that can anlayze data and make effective decisions. Here at NIU we are working to bridge that gap and help our students be productive in the workforce.

As the semester ends I want to say how proud I am of each student in database marketing class at NIU this year. The students stepped up to the plate and learned a great deal in terms of how to prepare data for analysis and various statistical modelling techniques. Their final project was to find patterns in real-life company data and build a valid model around that data. They used regression, logistic regression, clustering and other techniques. More importantly, they learned how to recognize what technique to use and in what context. Whether they become modelers or not, and most won't, they have a rich understanding of how these techniques are used in the workplace and I have a real sense of pride in their accomplishments. Anyone looking for undergraduates to train in this area can look to our Interactive Program.

Using Screenr for class demonstrations

2011-12-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

I teach database marketing and marketing technology in the spring and plan to use http://screenr.com to create simple demonstrations of how to use statistical procedures and aspects of google adwords. I think this will help the students learn the material as they can easily look up the keystrokes after class. Here is a sample of my first effort. I am NIUIMPROF on screenr and a youtube channel is next!

http://screenr.com/4jfs

NIU's Interactive Marketing Program Career Panel

2011-10-26T03:44:00.000-07:00

We had a great career panel last night in Barsema Hall with three outstanding former students. We asked them how they found their job, how long it took, the process, did they have any advice for new grads and a number of other questions. They all took advantage of NIU resources to find their jobs and emphasized the projects from their classes in their job interviews. I was so proud of our recent grads and all they are accomplishing in their careers.

All of these companies are looking to hire recent college grads for entry level positions.

Kevin Cunningham, Marketing Solutions Consultant, 2011: works for Covalent Marketing a boutique consultancy working for the Fortune 500 and has done social media scans and database work. Kevin found his job through networking with a frat brother. From the ELC project where students act as junior consultants he learned he did not want to be pigeonholed and to be a liason between IT and business. The Interactive Marketing Technology course MKTG 470 and the Restaurant.com project were key to his obtaining his job and he wishes he had taken more coding, html or SQL.( COMS 359 is a good fit for learning HTML and the more technical aspects of web design). Kevin constantly learns and uses the netvibes.com dashboard site to organize his information.

Will Johnson, Advertising Specialist, 2010: works for Uline, a b2b shipping supply company in internet advertising, moving to catalogue area and a DM focus and is searching for a replacement so he can move up. Will found his job through 'Meet the Firm' night in a way because he had met the company at that event and when he applied they remembered him. Will delayed graduation to take a search internship at Zebra Technologies and then parlayed the experience into an offer at Uline. Will recommends the OMIS database applications course OMIS 352 for an understanding of how to put databases together from a technical view and how to learn SQL. He found the Google Adwords challenge classroom experience helped him in interviews as well as following up and getting some of the Google certifications. All the guests panelists stressed the importance of looking at data, knowing, how to understand, manipulate and speak intelligently about the company information.

Thorne Washington, Search Specialist, 2011: works for Leapfrog Online, an affiliate marketing, SEO firm that is moving toward agency model. Thorne is a Search engine specialist on the automotive side and writing ad content for Mazda and AutoNation, soon, Kia. He got his job through an Email through the IM Program listserv. Thorne got two offers this way and Leapfrog was a better fit. What really helped Thorne in interviews was stressing the projects he did in his classes; everyone who interviewed him was really interested in the Restaurant.com project and his having had a chance to apply marketing technology tools to a real business. The direct marketing project and its emphasis on Excel was also a help as Thorne manages very large, 8,000 plus rows, spreadsheets for keyword bidding. Thorne has done the Google Adwords certification and pursued that on his own, which impressed his future employer that he was the extra mile and had a passion for the field. Both Thorne and Will read the Google Analytics blog to stay up to date and Thorne has also pursued the Adwords certification on his own.

Zynga Direct means Direct is Social

2011-10-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

Social gaming company Zynga recently unveiled Zynga Direct as a way to distribute games directly to players on computers and mobile devices and not just on Facebook. "It’s a platform for a direct relationship with consumers whether on the web, or on mobile, to give you a whole sandbox and create socialness about the games and not just within the games,” Zynga chief executive Mark Pincus said this month at the company’s Unleashed event in San Francisco. This announcement shows that direct marketing is more relevant than ever. Social media applications are wonderful ways to monitor conversations but savvy marketers will use social media to reach out to a customer base. Zynga will learn who its customers are and be able to make more relevant offers to them develop relationships. We recently renamed our Direct Marketing Course Direct and Multichannel marketing to reflect this continued trend.

Tip of the Day: Collect information from your customers on your Facebook page. Make an offer and in exchange collect an email address.

What is modern marketing?

2011-10-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Here is the list of topics from Vivastream that were covered at DMA 2011 in Boston. Vivastream is aa neat application that let show attendees see what topics were covered and participate in conversations about them as well as get more information on the sessions and otehr atteendes, Direct and Digital are truly merged I think. I am studying the language of marketing for another project that is not limited to Direct and Digital. Is this what your marketing life is like?

Acquisition Advanced Advertising Affiliate Marketing Affiliate Programs Analytics Android App Applications Apps Attribution Augmented Reality B2b B2b Marketing Behavioral Behavioral Targeting Blackberry Blogging Blogs Bookmarking Brand Experience Brand Marketing Broadcast Media Buying Business Analytics Business Insights Call Centers Campaign Strategy Catalog Cognitive Advertising Compliance Consumption Content Content Marketing Copy Copywriting Coupons CPA Networks CPS Creative Creativity CRM Cross-Channel Culture Customer Acquisition Customer Data Customer Experience Customer Insights Customer Intelligence Customer Value Customer-Centricity Data Data Breach Data Governance Data Integration Data Management Data Mining Data Optimization Database Marketing Deliverability Design Development Device Id Devices Digital Direct Direct Mail Direct Marketing DRTV Dynamic Content Ecommerce Email Marketing Email Prospecting Facebook Free Content Fund Raising Gamification Gaming Green Highmark Human Behavior Triggers Inbox Influencer Information Overload Inserts Insights Integrated Marketing Interactive TV IPhone KPIs Lead Generation Lifecycle List Rental Local Search Location Location Based Services Location-Based Loyalty Mail Market Research Marketing Database Marketing Definition Marketing Mix Modeling Media Media Convergence Media Mix Message Recall Metrics Mobile Mobile Apps Mobile Commerce Mobile Coupons Mobile Loyalty Mobile Marketing Mobile Web Modeling Multi-Channel Multichannel Marketing Multivariable Testing New Media Offers Online Online Advertising Online Display Online Recognition Payment Processing Predictive Modeling Print Privacy Process Productivity Profiling Purchase Data QR Codes Real-Time Real-Time Execution Real-Time Marketing Recency-Frequency Recognition Regulation Renewals Retail Networks Retention Renewals Retail Networks Retention Revenue Growth Rewards ROI Scoring Search Search Engine Marketing Security Segmentation Sentiment SEO Share Of Wallet Site Visits Small Business SMS Social Social Business Social CRM Social Listening Social Marketing Social Media Social Media Data Social Metrics Social Networks Social. Mobile Spend Data Structured Data Structured Unstructured Data Tablets Targeting Television Testing The Marketing Funnel Trends Trigger Triggered Communications Twitter Unstructured Data Value Optimization Video Walled Gardens Website Usability Website Zero Moment Of Truth

Third Edition Internet Marketing Text by Roberts and Zahay

2011-10-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

I was flattered earlier in the year to be asked to co-author one of the leading texts in Internet Marketing. My co-author MaryLou Roberts and I learned that the ISBN for the 3rd edition of Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies, Roberts and Zahay, is available. ISBN 9781133625902.

There's a nice site for the new edition

The site contains a detailed Table of Contents that should help people plan courses. We cover the strategic use of internet and its direct marketing roots as well as a number of different acquisition and retention strategies such as search, social and email as well as measurement and future trends.

Shipment for the book is early/mid January. If that's a problem for any instructors, let me or MaryLou know and we will see what we can do for you to help you with your class.

NIU IM Student learns about social media firsthand

2011-10-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Tyler Miller, an Interactive Marketing senior student reports on his social media internship and says , "Over the summer I interned at an experiential marketing agency in downtown Chicago, Legacy Marketing Partners. They are currently on Event Marketer Magazine’s “Top 100 Agencies”. While there, I worked alongside their social media guru and aided her in developing projects for clients.

My work consisted partly of online research into what trends were and who the top influencers were on social media for particular interests and industries. The clients I worked on projects for were all major national and multi-national brands, ranging from alcohol brands to appliance brands to quick service restaurants. During my time there I helped develop ideas for how social media could be used to enhance real world events, as well as programs that would take place entirely online. I was afforded the opportunity to help with projects for current clients and for potential business.

I learned a lot about all the work that goes into a social media campaign and how social media campaigns tie in with those in other channels. I was well prepared for this experience through my classes at NIU where we had already had some exposure to social media marketing and had worked with a social media tool. However, in my internship I also learned a lot that can't be taught in the classroom, such as the dynamics of an agency, how agencies run, how they work with clients, and how they often work with other agencies."

NIU's Interactive Marketing Program Update

2011-10-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

At Northern Illinois University, we have had our Interactive Marketing area since the early 00's and graduated our first students with a certificate in Interactive Marketing in 2007. The program is both online and offline channels and includes direct (where we teach email as a direct channel), imc, database marketing, Internet marketing (search, social, web design, etc.), and marketing technology where they drive traffic to a live web site acting as affiliates for Restaurant.com with two channels of their choice (10% of traffic is then donated back to charity). This marketing technology course is also taught as part of the Google Adwords challenge.

Forty students a year receive our certificate on their transcript and work for a variety of companies. Marketing Majors get a traditional major and then take four out of five courses in this area. We teach the managerial and strategic side, but students learn ExactTarget, Alterian's SM2, SPSS/Modeler and a variety of other technologies.

Let me know if you are interested in hiring our graduates for internships or full time positions or in joining our advisory board and helping us chart our direction.

Students work to beat benchmark cluster

2011-10-04T13:37:00.001-07:00

This semester in Database Marketing we had the unique opportunity to work on some real-life data from Restaurant.com, a generous sponsor of our program. Here is a picture of my students working on a unique two-step cluster model to try to create a segmentation scheme better on some variable than the one that was presented by Restaurant.com. The students have a number of variables to choose from to create their clusters and I have a picture above of their hard work...is that steam I see coming from their heads or is it just the promise of extra credit?

I just came back from the DMEF/DMA conferences and a lot of other educators cannot believe what our students can do in analytics at an undergraduate level. After great preparation in our Marketing Research class, the students are able to analyze augmented customer databases and solve real-world problems using SPSS as a data analysis tool. Many of our students have gone to work at Nielson, Millward Brown and others and the analytical preparation they received has helped them on the job. Let us know if you need recent grads with these skills.

Email still a powerhouse in internet marketing

2011-07-20T11:27:00.001-07:00

Email as promotional activity has exploded in recent years, and most forecasters believe that its growth is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. A recent survey by Strongmail showed that email marketing was the top area of business budget growth for marketers, with 65% of marketers surveyed planning to increase their spending on dmail marketing. Why this continued growth from what has been termed the ‘granddaddy’ of internet mediums? After all, email started many years ago and focus tends to be on new media like social and mobile.

Email offers marketers a fast, flexible and highly controllable format. Email is essentially direct mail on steroids because the customer is contacted directly and different offers and methods of engagement can be tested to find the most effective means of communication.

Interestingly, email has proven to be a more powerful retention tool than an acquisition too and according to the same StrongMail 2011 marketing Trends Report mentioned above, increasing subscriber engagement tops the list of important email marketing initiatives. The Direct Marketing Association reports that about 73% of businesses are focused on Customer Retention with their email program, versus, 27% who are focused on customer acquisition. However, as the Pew 2009 Spam report notes, many users are having less problems with email and are becoming more sophisticated in dealing with spam; 71% use filters offered by their email service or employers to block spam.

So don't rule out email as a powerful retention and engagement tool; email will be around for a long time to come.

Social Media Value

2011-06-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, May 18th, Dr. Lauren Labrecque spoke to a group at NIU’s day-long Interactive Marketing conference about the value of social media. Social Media continues to be a “hot topic” in interactive marketing and it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon.

Lauren writes "As echoed in the CADMEF’s IMC Roundtable discussions, oftentimes marketers want to jump straight into tactics instead of focusing on developing strategy. This is especially true for social media, as companies act quickly to keep up with its rapid evolution. Before racing onto the next trend, marketers should sit back and ask themselves, “What am I trying to accomplish?” and “What value am I offering to my customers?” The “build it and they will come” mentality doesn’t cut it in social media. Companies need to offer something of value to consumers– create unique experiences that make them want to connect with you again, across different channels.

A strong social media campaign should consist of three steps- (1) listening, (2) planning, and (3) engaging.

Social Media Planning Stages
For the listening stage, marketers should conduct a “brand audit” in order to gain insights into consumers’ perceptions of the brand.

I highlighted a number of paid and free tools that can help marketers achieve this goal. Popular paid tools include Alterian SM2 (which I’ve used in my Internet Marketing Class), Radian6, and Meltwater Buzz. These tools offer a historical look at the brand– for example Alterian’s SM program has a historical database storing around 4 years of social media data.

Marketers can monitor peaks in brand mentions and attribute these events such as advertising, new product launches, etc. Sentiment analysis offers marketers the ability to see what words are frequently used in conjunction with the brand. I gave the example comparing the sentiment and themes around Skechers Tone-ups versus Reebok Easy Tones. When looking at the word cloud for Skechers, negative words such as “pain,” “discomfort,” and “ugly” appear, while these words are noticeably absent from Reebok’s word cloud. Reports can also provide information to help identify heavy brand influencers, along with demographic and geographic profiles.

Much of the same information can be glistened by using free tools; however, the marketer faces a challenge in bringing all of this data together since none of these free tools offer all of the features available with the paid tools. Therefore, marketers will have to conduct several analyses with different tools. Also, the majority of these tools lack the ability to view historic data.

Some free tools I discussed include:
Brandtags http://www.brandtags.net/
Google Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts
Social Mention http://socialmention.com/
Tweetfeel http://www.tweetfeel.com/
Backtype http://www.backtype.com/
TweetPsych http://tweetpsych.com
Twitter Advanced Search http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Social Mention http://www.socialmention.com/
Blog Pulse http://www.blogpulse.com/

Information from the listening stage can provide insights for planning and ultimately engaging with consumers.

Consumer Motivations for Using Social Media
For the planning stage, marketers should focus on understanding consumer motivations for engaging in social media. I identified the 4 C’s of consumer motivations– create, connect, control, and compete– and gave examples of successful social media campaigns that tap these motivations. Again, the key is to make a reason for people to engage with your brand on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, or one of the many other social media channels. One classic example that speaks to all of these motivations is the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign. In this example consumers are able to create their own Doritos ad, which allows them to connect with the brand and other fans and compete for votes from other fans. The online community, not the brand, controls the selection process and the lucky winners see their ad on the Super Bowl (and may even win prize money). Other examples I discussed include the Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, Mt. Dew Democracy, and the BlendTec “Will it Blend?” series.

Although I discussed each of the steps (listening, planning, and engaging) in a linear process, each stage should be revisited throughout the campaign. Don’t execute your strategy and stop listening, instead keep your eyes and ears open for more feedback to improve your relationship with your customers.

Lastly, use social media in synergy with other channels. For examples, include incentives for customers to opt-in to receiving email communications or provide coupons for discounts at your ecommerce site. Try to continue the relationship through these different channels by informing customers of new products, specials, and news."

Thanks Lauren. For more from Dr. Labrecque, follow her blog.

Dr. Zahay-Blatz on Web Site Strategy

2011-05-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share with you some of my comments on web site strategy from last week's "Hot Topics in Internet Marketing" seminar at NIU Naperville. There I am above having a great time telling it like it is!

My Ph.D. was in both marketing and strategy and it was a pleasure when I went back to school in 1996 after so many years of industry experience to study strategic concepts and understand how they can be used to explain and predict what is going on in business, even in what appears to be a turbulent time of discontinuous change, like ours.

We first looked at basic concepts like core competencies and the positioning map (sometimes called a perceptual map), where you take two dimensions and put them on a simple grid formed by two perpendicular lines. We used the web portal business and looked at the dimensions of providing general information and being a trusted news source. Both Yahoo and AOL have been struggling with their identities lately and AOL recently merged with the Huffington Post and has been developing the local news site 'patch' to become a trusted news source.

However, more people actually get their news from Yahoo than any other source, including CNN! AOL aspires to Yahoo's actual competitive position but is acting confused as to its role right now. I think Yahoo needs to pull out the tried and true positioning map and take a look at its true competitive edge. I suggested that Microsoft buy AOL to get a uniqueness in the marketplace (which I forgot to mention it actually tried to do a few years ago..think that AOL would be more open to acquisition now?) Here's the link to the ebizmba listing of the top web news sites for May 2011.

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/news-websites

We then looked at the generic positionings such as low-cost, differentiation, both and stuck-in-the-middle and mapped these positions to Walmart, Target, Kmart and Nordstrom and looked at their web sites to see if the basic positioning was being conveyed. Why don't you take a look at let me know what you think? I think too often the web site gets taken over by the technologists and not the marketers and doesn't convey the company's strategy. Branding is becoming so important on the web because of the transparency of the internet in terms of pricing and product features. These generic positionings, reinforced on the web, can help the customer remember what our product is all about.

Joel Book on Interactive Engagement

2011-05-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at "Hot Topics in Internet Marketing" at NIU's Naperville campus yesterday. We spent a full day with some great guest speakers that I will be highlighting in my blog (hopefully a few of the participants will help out as guest bloggers for the sessions that I missed). Food and facilities were great also so Thanks to our support teams at NIU Naperville and NIU Outreach. Keep following us on the hashtag #niunet on twitter.

Folks really enjoyed Joel Book (@joelbook, http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelbook) from Exact Target's presentation on innovative brands and how they are using interactive marketing to attract and retain customers. That's Joel in the picture above 'engaging' with two of my colleagues from NIU Outreach. Joel said that successful brand are using a triangle offense of email, social and mobile to engage customers once they have come on board. He said that 58% of consumers begin the day with email, which aids the buying process, improves service and maximizes retention for customers. Those who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than non-readers of email.

Best Buy stays connected with its customers via email after the sale and so does Scott's Turf Builder. Johnston & Murphy personalizes its offers based on customer information. Multi-channel interaction is a must and the true challenge is to manage the customer conversation in both inbound and outbound channels. Exact Target is working to become an Interactive Marketing Hub where the audience and content can be managed and reported on centrally. Campaign management certainly needs some help as our students learned managing just two channels in their live project for Restaurant.com this semester.

Some other Joel Book gems include "Serving has become the new selling" and "Think it through, not just think it up." I am sure that we will all be quoting Joel on these and many more gems from his talk. I am so glad that we have a relationship with thought leader Exact Target and have been using the tool in the classroom since 2004. More on the conference to come!

Mixing, Matching and Messing With the Push and Pull Marketplace: Don Schultz tells it like it is in IMC on May 18th

2011-05-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

Don Schultz, internationally known consultant and emeritus professor at Northwestern University will speak at our 'Hot Topics in Internet Marketing' conference on Wednesday May 18th at NIU Naperville on "Mixing, Matching and Messing With the Push and Pull Marketplace." Don is one of the leading experts on IMC and essentially created the field a few years back. We are excited to have him at the conference. I have had a chance to get a sneak peak at Don's slides and I think you will really enjoy the message he has to present.

Don will talk about how the traditional marketer's toolkit, the 4 p's and mass communication, has become obsolete and what we need to do as marketers to operate successfully in the new world of integrated marketing communications. Don always has provocative comments and I just heard him speak to an academic audience on Friday about what we can do to cope in this time of discontinuous change. I don't want to give away the whole store but I do want to invite you once again to attend our "Hot Topics in Internet Marketing Conference" on Wed. May 18th at NIU Naperville. There is still time to register and to get 33% off the full price of $399. Thanks so much for your attention and I hope to see you there. TO REGISTER: http://www.internetmarketing.niu.edu.

Jennifer Veesenmeyer from Stratigent to talk on 'web analytics sins"

2011-05-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

Jennifer reports that she will speak at our "Hot Topics in Internet Marketing Event" May 18th at NIU Naperville on the following topic.

"7 Deadly Sins of Web Analytics

Web analytics can be a powerful tool for driving your organization forward, but for many organizations, the reality falls far short of the promise. Instead of using data to improve websites and campaigns, those organizations are drowning in useless data. Jennifer will identify the seven deadly sins that prevent organizations from achieving the promise of web analytics. Then she will share her best tips for extracting actionable insight, designing dashboards, establishing a data driven culture, and incorporating multichannel metrics (such as social and mobile). Learn practical ways to overcome common obstacles so you can unleash the full power of web analytics."

I agree with Jennifer from my years in database marketing and my research in the area...most organizations don't fully understand how to mine their data and that is particularly true of web data. Do you agree?

There is still time to register for the event at http://www.internetmarketing.niu.edu.

Projects drive success of Interactive Marketing Program

2011-05-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

We just completed a successful project with Restaurant.com in which our students in the advanced course Marketing 470 (Interactive Marketing Technology) worked in groups and acted as affiliates to Restaurant.com and used two marketing channels to drive traffic to their own landing pages. The students chose their own channels and measured and reported the results.

The channels chosen included email, google adwords, facebook advertising, twitter campaigns, facebook fan pages and contests and some offline channels such as campus-wide flyers and ads in our campus newspaper. Overall, we drove almost $8,000 worth of traffic to the site in the form of new Restaurant.com certificates in a four week period, 10% of which will be donated to a charity of the students' choice.

Students in this project got to compare channels and see the synergies in both. It was a great opportunity as a professor to coach them through the challenges and rewards of a real-life marketing campaign. This project is unprecedented in terms of interactive marketing education in its design and scope and in the level of involvement of the project company. Students had to work with Restaurant.com to get their plans approved and implemented and learned about project management and how to get things done in a company as well as about channel strategies and channel synergy.

Students learned about the legal aspects of marketing as one group had planned a campaign around "March Madness." When they learned it was a trademarked term, the group switched to "Buzzer Beater" as the tag line for its offers. This integrated campaign using emails and adwords advertisements around certain themed events and holidays performed well.

We used Omniture reports and Google Analytics to report the results and also some of the analysis tools from Facebook and other sources as appropriate.

Another advisory board member, Alterian, donated the use of its SM2 software in our classroom, which is a social media monitoring package. This tool was also invaluable in our project as we used the tool in conjunction with the keyword tool in google adwords to find out how people talk about Restaurant.com so we could refine our marketing campaigns. One group used twitter and facebook exclusively to drive traffic to the site and also blogged on influential sites as identified by SM2.

We also used Alterian's SM2 product in the Marketing 370 (Internet Marketing) course taught by Dr. Lauren Lacbrecque. Students chose a particular company and monitored the social media buzz and made recommendations for improving the company's social media buzz.

I am reminded of other successful student projects over the years in our program for Marketing 370:

2009-2010: Students participated in the Google Adwords challenge on a national basis and helped drive traffic to ten web sites that had not used Adwords in the past.

2009: A viral video campaign helped our interactive and sales programs and a startup firm rise high in the google search rankings. We were noted for our success improving our search rankings for our program through this this campaign in Aaron Goldman's book, "Everything I know about Marketing I learned from Google." I love talking to people who read the book and find out about our program that way.

2006-2008: Students also did live campaigns comparing two media channels and most of the groups helped raise money for charity. We raised over $10,000 for charity over three years, primarily for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (supporting my, Dr. Zahay-Blatz's, triathlons for that effort. Students were required to use email (Exact Target, which is also provided for use in our classroom by board member Exact Target) and one other channel and got to also got purchase lists and send out mailings or use social media, viral techniques and point of purchase and compare channel results.

2004-2005: Students worked on a variety of projects for industry including web site redesign efforts for major firms such as Careerbuilder, Teradata, Restaurant.com and Smurfit-Stone.

In our database and data mining course, Marketing 455, students have since the year 2005 been using data provided by the Direct Marketing Association based on real-life company datasets to analyzed marketing problems using statistical software and make suggestions based on the results.

It has been quite a journey from our first projects to this latest, most sophisticated real-world experiences that we provide our students. I know they are well prepared to begin their careers in interactive marketing.

If you want to get a taste of what we do in the classroom, come to our May 18th "Hot Topics in Internet Marketing Conference" http://www.internetmarketing.niu.edu. It's a lot like our classes except no grades or exams!!!

Joel Book from Exact Target to speak on May 18th

2011-05-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

If you have not heard Joel Book of Exact Target speak, you really should! He always has wonderful examples about how companies can use email marketing alone or in conjunction with other media to boost reponse rate and foster relationships over time.

On May 18th at our NIU Internet Marketing Conference, "Hot Topics in Internet Marketing" http://www.internetmarketing.niu.edu. Joel will talk about
"The New Dynamics of Customer Engagement"

To engage today’s empowered and influential consumer, smart marketers are effectively leveraging digital media to generate leads, aid the customer’s buying
process, and develop powerful communities of brand evangelists.

In this session, Joel will show several of the country’s top brands and companies are using Email, Mobile, and Social Media as the “Triangle Offense” otheir multi-channel strategy to accelerate marketing and sales performance.

What Attendees Will Learn

•Why Email is not dead or dying, and why it has become the most effective channel
for “business getting” and “business keeping.”

• How top companies are using Email + CRM to nurture leads, aid the customer’s
buying process, and improve sales force productivity

• How to use Social Media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to attract new
customers and expand your database of email subscribers

• Why mobile has become vitally important for selling and serving customers, and
what you need to know to effectively leverage smart phones and tablet PCs

Examples of Digital Marketing Innovation Will Include

BtoC
• Scotts Miracle-Gro
• Papa John’s
• Belk Stores
• Crocs
• Baxter Pharmaceutical

BtoB
• Volvo Construction Equipment
• Hitachi Data Systems
• Milwaukee Electric Tool
• Genworth Financial
• Microsoft

Use the code mktg33 to receive 33% off early bird pricing by May 6th.

Google shares management insights with students

2011-04-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

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."

Students rock ROI; Razorfish helps to explain why

2011-04-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

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!

NIU grad is walking testimony for 'networking'

2011-04-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

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!!

Brad Kleinman from OMI shares Facebook Marketing tips with NIU Students

2011-03-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Brad Kleinman Director of Education from OMI (Online Marketing Institute/Online Marketing Connect) spoke to an overflowing room of over seventy students last night on the nuts and bolts Facebook marketing.

One of the things that I think is relevant to our class project in driving traffic to the Restaurant.com site is the concept that you can't 'set it and forget it' in Facebook (or any online marketing). In a three week project like this one, we need to check the progress of our campaigns every day. In terms of Facebook marketing, post and update frequently.

I also thought that Brad did a good job of articulating the benefits of a fan page versus a group in Facebook. In talking about the advantages of ability to customize, add in applications, have a vanity URL(if you have over 25 fans) and access Facebook Insights capability which will tell you page metrics, Brad really made the case for using the fan page.

Brad also talked about measuring both fan size and interactions and quality and quantity of posts to develop an intelligent understanding of how the fan page is benefiting your organization. Brad also suggested a variety of ways to keep your page fresh and update frequently. These suggestions included:

•Publish informative pieces of content such as interesting articles and videos

•Post and tag photos of customers, business associates, co-workers, and customers

•Upload and tag video clips of your organization in action or a program in session

•List an event for an open house or a social event for your prospects

•Write a note about upcoming programs or success of a recent event

•Ask a question through a poll or survey about how you can help

•Reward your fans with giveaways, sweepstakes, or coupons

•Keep your Facebook page up to date with RSS

There was a lot more in the talk so if you attended the event, check out the slides I just sent.

If you are just interested in learning more from Brad, contact him at: Brad@OnlineMarketingConnect.com

to posts from fans

Restaurant.com project in full swing at NIU

2011-03-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

This semester in Marketing 470 we are doing something quite unique. The students are learning campaign management 'on the job' by acting as affiliates and driving traffic to the Restaurant.com (the company that sponsors my professorship) website. The students have picked two media channels, such as email, adwords, twitter, social media and blogs and have planned their campaigns and are now implementing. They will track the progress of their campaigns through landing pages and promotion codes that can be linked to their groups and get an idea of what it is like to run a campaign first hand.

This week I shared some of my project management tips with the class. Follow through, follow through, follow through is the main thing that my father always taught me and this principle really applies to project management. The students need to get information from personnel at R.com and are learning to follow up to make sure they meet their project goals. I emphasized that they need to complete the project in three weeks and although I put some 'slack time' in the schedule, another project management concept, they need to make sure they begin this week and then can measure the results of week one and make changes for week two, etc.

I also emphasized the importance of proofreading and checking the facts of every campaign. We had a guest speaker earlier in the semester that told us some 'war stories' about when things are not correct in marketing campaigns and the problems created by mistakes and how costly these mistakes can be. I encouraged each group to check their landing pages and make sure they look correct. Looks like the teams are up and running to a good start. Any other advice for our grads?

Okner Symposium highlights IM grad's success

2011-03-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

I talked a few months ago about Will Johnson, who is an Internet Marketing Specialist at Uline, managing several major search campaigns. Dr Labrecque and I attended CADMEF's Okner Symposium at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater last Friday with our Internet and Marketing Technology classes and were delighted that Will was featured on the career panel for recent graduates.

Upon reflection, I think what distinguished Will in his job search was that he was focused and directed and that he explored all possibilities. Will did not just look online. He attended job fairs and networking events and contact targeted companies he thought would be a good fit.

Will delayed his graduation by a semester to take an internship at Zebra Technologies which led right to a job a Uline. Will knew that he wanted search as an initial career and at the end of his internship targeted companies that he thought would be a good fit. Will also remembered meeting Uline at a Meet the Firm night last year and, upon investigating further, saw there were some search jobs open. He was honest and said he had some experience at Zebra and then some experience from our Google Adwords Challenge last year but did not exaggerate. His focus, perseverance and integrity won out and Will is started on an excellent career. Not bad for someone who graduated two months ago. Congratulations, Will and stay in touch!

Alterian's SM2 hits the NIU campus!

2011-02-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

This past week and a half we have had Alterian in our classroom twice in Marketing Technology to learn about how to analyze social media data. We learned some general background on social media and then learned the SM2 tool for use in the class project. What I learned is that it is important to look at not only frequency of mention as well as sentiment. Those companies that were ranked highest in mentions for the Super Bowl were not necessarily those that ranked highest in terms of sentiment.

Using SM2 I also realized how much of an art as well as a science these tools are. Looking through the social media postings for a particular topic I got a good feeling for the company I was researching in terms of their major competitors and how people think about the brand. As a quantitative researcher I was worried about how representative the sample was and how to really quantify some of this 'squishy' data. Still, SM2 is helpful in understanding how people think about your brand and we have emphasized the importance of technology for brand building in our class.

Is social media monitoring 'squishy' or valuable?

Interview Tips from Meet the Firm Night at NIU

2011-02-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

I heard the following panel speak on career advice for new graduates on Monday, February 7 at NIU's Meet the Firm Night:

Drew Butts, Enterprise Holdings, Matt McClusky, Aerotek, Erin Quinlan, McKesson Pharmaceutical Group, Jerry Keyes, White Lodging

The panel gave some good advice for new graduates and said some things I have noticed myself. One, they said that students on their resumes need to indicate how they can help the company, not what the company can do for them. The panel also said to be careful asking about time off, salary and vacation until the company brings these things up. Asking these questions too soon makes it seem like you are only interested in benefits and not benefiting the company. Finally, I noticed that the panel did not appreciate job candidates that do not do research before the interview. It is great to go in with a problem and possible solution to show that you know what you are talking about and understand the company. Lynn Hazan is coming this week to talk to our students so we hope that she will give us some other great ideas. Feel free to post other interview tips.

Yahoo and AOL jockey for brand positions

2011-02-10T19:50:00.001-08:00

We have been talking in class about the large web portals. Yahoo and AOL are struggling to create a unique, differentiating brand positioning and losing users compared to Google and Facebook. In class, we suggested that Yahoo could beef up its emphasis on media but it looks like AOL is planning take that brand positioning with the recent purchase of the Huffington Post. I heard in a podcast by The Economist today that AOL hired more new journalists that any other media outlet this past year, about 700. So what's left for Yahoo?

Yahoo's number of unique users rose last year but the amount of time spent dropped by 10 percent. Facebook's time spent increased by 79 percent and Facebook also boasts some of the most loyal users in the business.

In class we talked about another possible positioning for Yahoo being extending the 'My Yahoo' concept and this week the Wall Street Journal this week (February 7th) reports that Yahoo is seeking to beef up the site's personalized content, particularly for mobile iPhone and Android applications, creating online mobile magazines unique to each user. Will this approach work?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704858404576129161854139964.html

Students learn Google Adwords this week

2011-02-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

We are moving into a phase of the course where we will be preparing our project plan for the Restuarant.com project and some students may choose to run a google adwords campaign. So we delved into adwords as a program in a bit more detail this week, I thought the most interesting aspect of the adwords videos we looked at was the notion of having ads that are specific and include what we would call in 'direct marketing' a 'call to action.' For example, for a Valentine's Day ad include specific information on the ad, like free shipping on roses if you click now, rather than just posting an ad for a florist shop.

Keywords selected that are tightly tied to the ad are also likely to improve quality score. It always amazes me how many advertisers still don't adhere to these good principles, particularly using a destination URL or landing page to track their campaign. Here is a link to one of the videos with some good tips for adwords.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djjN9zZNkYI&feature=channel

Defining Direct Marketing in an Interactive Age

2011-02-08T13:06:00.000-08:00

Ron Jacobs of Jacks & Clevenger asks us to define Direct Marketing for our new world of multichannel, interactive media in the latest copy of CADM's ADMARKS. I like the DMA definition because it includes multiple media, a database and our old DM friend, measurability. Any Comments?

•An organized and planned system of contacts

•Using a variety of media

•Seeking to produce a lead or an order

•Developing and maintaining a database

•Measurable in cost and results

•Expandable with confidence (DMA)

I think that this definition does not include some of the aspects of interactive marketing such as collaborative social media tools that are not in total control of the marketer.

Marketing Automation is the next phase of internet marketing

2011-02-02T09:17:00.000-08:00

Tuesday in class we talked about maketing automation. We looked at an example from Allstate where they are using marketing technology to improve their lead capture and demand generation process.

I said that I had watched internet marketing evolve from static banner ads, to email marketing, to search engine marketing, to interactive and well-placed contextual advertising, to social media marketing and now to the point where marketers want to track and measure the results of all their efforts on an integrated media 'dashboard.' We will have Acton software demonstrate their solution and have also looked at some material from Marketo. We analyzed Exact Target's stated positioning statement from their web site and see that that company also wants to be an integrated marketing solution.

I then asked a discussion question for next Thursday: What would a dashboard for your Restaurant.com project look like? Do you agree that marketing automation is the next phase in the evolution of the internet marketing?

Mktg Tech Class learns salesforce and salesgenie interfaces

2011-02-02T09:11:00.000-08:00

This week I reviewed the class sales genie assignment. The assignment was to search salesgenie and download not more than 100 leads of companies that might be of interest for a career search.

Although some had trouble with the search interface to begin with, students were favorably impressed with the amount of information that could be downloaded in a short period of time. Almost everyone said the biggest challenge was figuring out what they wanted to do, what kind of company they wanted to target, not the tool itself.

We have been talking about strategy in class regarding marketing technology and I would ask you to think about yourselves in this context as you enter the job market. That is to say, what makes you unique and what can you offer?

There will be some more sales genie sign up times as we work on the project. Let me know if you want to do some more searches. You have a unique opportunity to use your salesforce.com login to manage your job search this semester. We loaded the salesgenie leads into salesforce and you can add others manually or through the uploading process.

So what makes you unique?

Restaurant.com project

2011-01-27T14:59:00.002-08:00

Restaurant.com is a web-based ecommerce site that sells discounted gift certificates to local restaurants and we are doing a project with them. We will act as affiliates and drive traffic to their site. A portion of the proceeds will be then donated to charity. Restaurant.com uses most of the media channels we have talked about in class in driving traffic to its site.

In the project we ask you to plan, implement and measure the results of two media channels. What types of media channels are most effective today? We will see next week that companies are working to integrate information across channels so marketers can measure more effectively.

Salesgenie.com and salesforce.com

2011-01-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

This week we used both salesgenie.com and salesforce.com to pull down leads (salesgenie) and upload them into a contact management software (salesforce). Leads can be purchased or just acquired through natural interaction. I meet a lot of people and save their business cards so I can contact them later. I talked about how in my program I then transfer information into Exact Target, send emails and track back to salesforce.

These types of marketing automation programs often require transferring files in CSV (comma separated values) and we showed how to create those files in excel and work with them. This process may seem like a thankless task but is often how we get set up to do the marketing programs that we need to implement. Is there a better way?

Demand Generation

2011-01-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

Marketing has evolved from just a few media channels to many and the customer is the focus as marketers move from push to pull. Demand generation refers to getting high quality leads into the top of the sales funnel. Leads may come from search, social, trade shows, in other words, a variety of marketing channels. Effective demand generation fuels growth.

In B2C, Dreamfield's Pasta uses SEO, PPC and WOM to attract customers and then uses email and social to continue involvement. The result has been growth in what might be considered a commodity product line, pasta.

B2B buyers are increasingly using search and word-of-mouth to make their purchasing decisions and involving the sales force at the end of the sales process. In this type of scenario, it becomes Marketing's responsibility to nurture the leads via multiple interactions and get the 'ripe' lead to the sales person at the right time. Sales and Marketing must work closer together than ever. How can companies overcome the traditional rivalry between the two groups?

Branding and positioning to create value

2011-01-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

Marketing has evolved from mass to direct to interactive communication. However, the future is definitely in collaborative interaction with customers. Customers are interacting with us in many new and different media channels, which makes the issue of branding even more important to marketers. Customers search first, interact and then purchase and are more likely to work with a brand that they know or hear about from frineds. Companies that are going out of business today are those that most likely have not been able to demonstrate a clear point of difference. Think Circuit City vs. Best Buy or Kmart/Sears vs. Walmart.

The best way to make money is stil to offer new/existing benefits by which we are differentiated fromt he competition and offer benefits that are valued by the consumer. Branding positioning is the specific, intended meaning of your brand in the mind of the customer and we looked at a specific format for the brand psoitioning statement: To the Target Customer, our brand is the Category that Point-of-Difference. Although both low-cost and differentiation are ways to position a brand, low-cost is hard to sustain and even Wal-Mart appears to be moving away from that strict low-cost positioning.

We looked at four retail web sites, Wal-Mart, KMart, Nordstrom and Target and analyzed if the web site was consistent with their brand positioning. Do you have any other examples of web sites where the brand positioning and the web site are in synch?

Dr. Zahay-Blatz to be co-author of Internet Marketing Text

2010-11-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

http://diy-marketing.blogspot.com/2010/11/announcing-internet-marketing-3rd.html

Event highlighted successful IM grads!

2010-11-10T11:53:00.001-08:00

November 2, 2010 Interactive Marketing Student Advisory Board Inaugural Event Summary

Thanks to Will Johnson for this great event summary!

On November 2nd, 2010, the Interactive Marketing program played host to a packed house of aspiring interactive marketers. Four successful interactive marketing program students shared their stories on how they found their first positions outside of college and shared the skills that they had learned from the program.

Tara Vanderheyden Invitations By Design (Class of '05):
Tara found her first position from networking with the professionals who frequently enter Barsema Hall to guest lecture for interactive marketing students. During her time at Restaurant.com, she was able to use her professional communication skills and knowledge of online marketing to develop a stronger relationship with Restaurant.com partners.

From there Tara founded her own company, Invitations By Design. She admits that without her college of business training, she would not have been able to even fathom the idea of starting her own business. She is a strong proponent of networking with not only businesspeople, but with friends and family, as anyone can lead to a new opportunity.

Courtney Danner ARS Interactive (Class of '06):

Courtney, armed with her knowledge of Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search, entered into a small agency right out of school. As the agency grew, so did her responsibilities and she quickly took up an account executive position. She now works with her clients to meet their business objectives using online channels. Courtney's work-life in an agency has been the most appealing for her and she encouraged the students to not rule out small companies and to instead, feel if a position is right for them and decide based on whether they could enjoy going to work everyday.

Ryan Eugene IT Supplies Class of '09):

Ryan graduated on a Saturday and started his job on the very next Monday. His overnight success was really a culmination of his studies in interactive marketing and then receiving a graduate degree in OM & IS from NIU as well. Ryan sought out a greater understanding of how data flows and is a strong proponent of life-long learning as he continues to improve his knowledge of technology. He found his position through the interactive marketing advisory board and has continued to take on responsibilities as he tacks on paid search campaigns and managing additional websites as a e-commerce webmaster for a mid-sized IT Supplies company.

Will Johnson Uline (Class of '10, degree expected in December)

Will found his position before he graduated. He received an SEO internship at Zebra Technologies through the interactive marketing program and then found a position at Uline, a large shipping supply company, performing paid search management. Will discovered Uline first through the many companies that students are exposed to in the program. His well-rounded knowledge of online marketing made him an ideal candidate even though he could only work part-time while completing his degree.

The career night gave students an idea of what to expect when entering the marketing world and allowed them to network with already successful alumni. After the event, amidst pizza and conversation, the current students shared their career hopes and the alumni gave a great deal of encouragement to these bright, future marketers.

This event was the first in a series of guest speaker events being held by the Interactive Marketing Student Advisory Board. Students on the advisory board meet with professionals who support the interactive marketing program and attend networking events from several marketing organizations.

Mary Aurich gets full-time job from internship at Lever Interactive

2010-10-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

Mary Aurich writes, "The internship at Lever Interactive went great! I am still there, and they offered me a full-time position upon graduation. I learned and am still currently learning a lot. I am currently working on my Google certification for the company and learning such tools as Google Ad Words and Analytics. I have learned so much and have used my knowledge from the Interactive Marketing Program! I am enhancing my understanding and skills in Microsoft Access (used for database analysis), SEO, Paid Search as well as enhancing my knowledge in programs such as Google Adwords and Analytics and other software such as Miva (ecommerce), and Merchant advantage.

I use these programs on a daily basis for pulling and creating customized reports for different clients. These reports all differ and consist of analysis on the performance from all the search engines, shopping comparisons, keywords, and adgroups the client uses for paid search as well as CPA, CPC and much much more! The solid foundation from the IM program gave me something to build upon at my job.

Depending on what client I am assisting, my roles and duties change.I have also assisted in some email marketing campaigns, new ad launches in new regions/markets, and assisted in the creation of new ad copy for some clients.I am also learning more about html and the backend of things. These are just the basics but the environment at Lever is constantly changing (depending on the clients needs), and this has helped me to stay up-to-date in an ever-changing world."

Learn more at http://www.leverinteractive.com/

Amy Obert uses her IM skills at Dex One!

2010-10-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

Amy Obert reports that she works for Dex One and the says the company focus is to simplify the complex task of local search marketing for businesses. Dex One publishes the AT&T Yellow Pages and offers businesses advice and internet SEM/SEO solutions, direct mail, websites, and mobile solutions as well, both B2B and B2C.

Amy focuses on working with firms as a marketing consultant to their business. By learning about the business and its focus, their customers, their needs, and most importantly the volume they can handle over the coming year, she builds them a message and program that best fits their business needs, including websites, profiles, and print.

Amy says "Dex One is able to track activity on almost all key areas of their advertising solutions so we know where people are looking most frequently for the business. Based on budget and growth needs, we place the customers message accurately and try to ensure their ROI will be a positive.

I am regularly looking at what works best in the market, staying up to date on building brand recognition, awareness, and where people are searching locally. Facebook, twitter, & YouTube, are great ways for small business to network and promote themselves and improve their customer touch points. (without extending a large amount of time) Plus, these tools extend the reach of their paid advertising programs. "

Amy provided a link that tells more about Dex: http://www.dexknows.com/info/index.asp
and says that the firm offers business seminars to help in learning good ways to stay ahead of competitors. http://kmcontent.quris.com/dex/?xL4V.HPc.HXrNUUfqkoEYLoM0s70Rho2x

Thanks Amy for all the good info. Glad to see you are doing so well.

Wen Long used her database skills and visited China this summer!

2010-09-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

Wen Long reports that she was a Digital Solutions Summer Intern, ADP Dealer Services, Hoffman Estates, IL this summer. She used her database marketing projects to help her get the job by showing she could do quantitative analysis.

She then performed qualitative analysis on marketing efforts for the Customer Touch Team, rebuilt and formatted collected data to concise meaningful campaign reports, analyzed dealer campaign reports to determine overall effectiveness and the ROI for clients and identified the effectiveness of Dealer Direct Mail Campaigns vs. Email Campaigns through a rebuilt and redesigned report.

Wen also said that she was exposed to numerous digital advertising platforms and worked with Customer Touch Team and Management to develop statistics to prove program trends and benchmarks. She also fit in some volunteer work for Chicago Care this summer and some international experience, by visiting the ADP office in Shanghai, China. What a great summer internship!

Social media challenges for educators

2010-08-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

This past week I was on a panel on social media at the PrepMe College Readiness Institute. The audience was educators and counselors at the high school level and also on the panel were Linda Tuncay Zayer from Loyola and David Koehler from UIC. The Chicago Public School system has banned educators from communicating with students in any other forum than the CPS email. I assume the CPS wants to keep a handle on communication and protect everyone involved. Here is the problem: The younger generations don't like email, preferring social media and texting for communication. We have trouble at NIU getting students to read email even when money is involved, like scholarships.

I suggested that the CPS start its own social network, perhaps on Ning, to engage students and share information. We use social networking extensively in our Interactive Marketing program. We have a special group under my page to share job information and other updates and do the same in Linkedin. We are also going to be starting a Facebook fan page for the IM program because the program has become so big that we need a little bit more formal way to communicate. I don't know how I would let students know about jobs when they are five years out without Facebook. I have been a member since 2005 and it is a great way to stay in touch.

We also talked about the negatives of social media, including fostering a short attention span and poor communication skills. We wonder what the next generation will be like? Will they be able to or even need to write a business memo. Any comments?

'06 IM grad Courtney Danner still using program skills for interactive campaigns

2010-08-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

Courtney Danner, an'06 IM grad writes, "After gradation I took a position as a client manager/SEO specialist at a very small Web Design & Internet Marketing agency. The company was small - only 4 people, so there was not much training. Thanks to the NIU Interactive Marketing program I was able to hit the ground running with ease. Some of my everyday tasks involved editing basic html in order to make SEO changes, executing email marketing campaigns, and managing my client's PPC campaigns - all skills that I learned from the IM program.

After 3 years of experience it wasn't difficult to land my current position at a larger Interactive agency. At a larger agency I am now less hands on, but having a strong background helps me work with my team and communicate with my clients more effectively. I am also now a go-to person for SEO, SEM and social media questions. I am now executing larger integrated campaigns which involve media buying, social media, SEM and SEO, I am enjoying my new learning adventures and the principles from IM are still helping me along the way."

SEO intern Will Johnson Uses IM Program Skills

2010-07-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Will Johnson, a current IM student writes, "As a search marketing intern at Zebra Technologies in Vernon Hills, I work with the global web team to optimize the Zebra website for search engines. During the two months I have been here, I have researched hundreds of keywords, optimized dozens of web pages, measured change in search engine rankings and organic click-through-rate, and changed the strategy based on the results.

Zebra has given me the opportunity to expand more on my Search Engine Optimization (SEO) knowledge by encouraging me to keep on current events through blogs and examining past paid search reports from search marketing agencies. Also in this internship, I have been the resident SEO expert and taught several of my co-workers the basics of SEO.

While SEO has been my primary focus, my time never seems to stay focused on one task. Projects from other areas of marketing seem to pull me in as I act as an online marketing guru. Early on in my internship, I was involved in helping to expose web analytics to a database marketer and explaining how to use the application as well as showing what revelations can be discovered through website data. Using Google Analytics and WebTrends, I showed insight into prospect behavior on the website to this seasoned database marketer. It’s a great experience to be able to help someone who has over ten years of experience in marketing to learn something new.

The information I learned from NIU’s Interactive Marketing program on Social Media and SEO helped me become a resource for the PR team as they developed a new blog focusing on the various industries that Zebra products service. I explained SEO best practices for blogging (e.g. keywords in the title, headers and body text, focusing on only a few core keywords, using semantic keywords) to the team and analyzed their past blog entries for an SEO update.
Overall I have had an amazing experience at Zebra and I’m incredibly thankful for the Interactive Marketing program’s curriculum as well as the support from the professors. Without them, I would not have even heard of this opportunity."

NIU IM Grad Veronica Weinberger uses skills in auto industry

2010-07-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

A recent grad, Veronica Weinberger, writes the following...thanks to today's guest blogger!

"It's incredible how much I apply the things is learned from my Interactive Marketing classes at NIU. Being the marketing coordinator at Continental Honda and Continental Nissan, I have had to control and monitor PPC campaigns, go through media buying procedures and create and maintain social media strategies and cross-channel marketing strategies on a regular basis.

Some other things that are emerging for the company are viral video and blogging, all of which I have been introduced to before starting my job, which puts me at an incredible advantage over many marketers, especially in the automotive field which tends to lag and put a lot of faith in old media.

Many of my colleagues do not have anywhere near the knowledge that an average NIU IM grad would have, as some are still asking for the full meaning of PPC and are wondering if social media is actually worth the time. Although my boss is also my father, he is amazed on a regular basis because of the advanced knowledge I possess, largely because of NIU’s Interactive Marketing Program and the IM faculty, Mrs. Domagalski and Dr. Zahay.

I can’t thank Mrs. D. enough for drilling into my head that marketers have to beg for every penny they would like to spend for a company, as I live it to the fullest. I cannot count for many times managers ask me if there is any way that I can get people in the door ready to buy cars… for FREE. A marketer’s job is never easy, but I have to say that I love every minute of doing exactly what I went to school for, something that I have such a passion for. I was a born Interactive Marketer."

Thanks Veronica and continued good luck!

Diane Dietz from Safeway, NIU grad, is media marketer!

2010-07-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the Online Marketing Summit where the talk was all about content creation and curation. Now an NIU grad, Diane Dietz, CMO at Safeway, says even the grocery chain is seen as a media company today.
http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=144515

IM grad takes social media intership at Tilbury Corp via Linkedin!

2010-07-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Katrina Jefferson from my Interactive Marketing class of May 2009 writes, "This is Katrina Jefferson. I would like to take the time to personally thank you for the job posting for Tilbury Corp. After communicating with Tilbury via Linkedin, I was scheduled for an interview to discuss the position and later was offered an internship! I am excited to learn more about social media in this internship position and expect to make the most of this great opportunity!"

Online Marketing Institute Partnership

2010-06-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

PRESS RELEASE: APRIL 30, 2010

The Interactive Marketing Program at Northern Illinois University is proud to announce a partnership arrangement with the Online Marketing Institute. The Institute is part of Online Marketing Connect, which operates the educational programs at the Online Marketing Summit and also provides certification in Online Marketing through the Online Marketing institute.

NIU’s Interactive Marketing Area of Study graduates about thirty undergraduate students every year versed in the areas of Social Media, Search, Email, Web Analytics, Design and Usability, Database Marketing and Integrated and Direct Marketing Principles. The program has been in existence since 2003, when Debra Zahay Blatz was recruited to develop and teach the coursework.

NIU students in the Interactive Marketing Program will now be able to take the advanced courses in the Institute’s certification program for a reduce fee to obtain a specialization in Search Marketing, Demand Generation or any of the topics provided by the Institute. Local executives seeking online marketing knowledge will also get discounted access to Online Marketing Summit programs and the Online Marketing Institute’s certification program.

Debra Zahay Blatz, Associate Professor of Interactive Marketing and head of the Interactive Marketing program at NIU is delighted with the association. “I evaluated a lot of programs out there and the Online Marketing Institute and Online Marketing Summit provides their attendees the opportunity to learn without the distractions of vendor sales pitches. It is a true learning environment, which is consistent with our mission here at NIU. The topics covered are nearly identical to our curriculum. I get a lot of inquiries from working professionals for our type of education but an undergraduate daytime program does not meet their needs. Now, however, we will be able to help our students gain an online specialty which will increase their chances of gaining employment after graduation and also provide executives access to material similar to that covered in our courses but in a real-time, online environment best-suited to their schedules.”

Aaron Kahlow, CEO, Online Marketing Institute, Online Marketing Summit and Online Marketing Connect, Inc. echoes Debra Zahay Blatz’s sentiments. “We value our University Partnership arrangements and were pleased to develop an association with NIU’s program. What NIU is doing at the undergraduate level is ahead of the curve in terms of giving marketing students knowledge of current online marketing practices. Now we can provide students with access to even more material from leading practitioners through the online certification modules. NIU’s network of contacts will also help us get our material out to a broader audience that is looking to receive this kind of education online.”

Take advantage of the partnership. Find out how to measure social media and buzz and much more at #OMSCHI on June 30 http://bit.ly/NIUOMS. Use code NIU20 for twenty percent off!

NIU IM Grad uses PPC, social media skills on the job

2010-06-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Eric Castellucci, who graduated in Spring 09', writes, "I have been doing Online Marketing for a company called Wrigleyville Sports; we sell merchandise for all the Chicago Sports teams. The job dabbles in everything from PPC, to Blogging, to Social Media. Pretty much, any online channel that has the potential to bring in sales. Much of what I learned in the IM Program at NIU helped me get this job, especially PPC.

Wrigleyville Sports was previously outsourcing their PPC to a third party in California, but they were not pleased with the results they were receiving. When they discovered I had experience with PPC through school, they hired me on full time. It has been a good match for both of us.

From what I've seen in the IM industry, the knowledge IM Graudates possess is GOLD to companies. I believe that at this moment, the demand for individuals with an IM background is much greater than the supply of knowledgeable graduates. Plenty of companies are learning the immense value from Social Media, and they are more willing to hire someone straight out of college who uses these Social Media tools on a daily basis."

NIU IM Grad contributes as search intern at iProspect

2010-06-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

It is always great to hear from former students. James Kelley graduated in May (2010) and worked hard to get a position as a Search Marketing Intern with iProspect. James writes, "I had little time to get aclimated as on my first day the company landed a big client and had to launch the campaign ASAP. The atmosphere is pretty laid back...I STILL GET TO WEAR JEANS! WOOT! I haven't been on the job for too long but have already been involved in some big projects.

I have written ad copy for the PPC Ads on Google, and am excited to think about how mwny people will see them. I have also been given a spreadsheet of over 7,000 keywords and links to check to see if the link to the landing page is relevant to the keyword. That task took a while and was repetitive but quite important. How chaotic would a search be if the landing pages had nothing to do with the ad/keywords in the search?!!

I have also been through the Adwords Editor and recorded the ad groups/campaigns and their ad variance. Overall I am very happy with my decision to pursue SEM and very happy with iProspect, keep your fingers crossed for me that this turns into a full time hire! Good Luck at NIU! Thanks again. James"

Web site for search engine marketing jobs

2010-06-17T06:12:00.001-07:00

Heather Priest, a May 2010 IM grad, found the website below the other day. The website tracks and posts job openings in SEO accross the country. There are a couple jobs here in Illinois that some recent grads might find of interest. A person must be a member of the site in order to receive e-mail updates (kind of expensive), but not to see the jobs and get the information on the them. Enjoy and Good luck to those on the job search! Website for Search Engine Marketing Jobs http://www.sempo.org/jobs/

Final database marketing class

2010-04-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

Good job Marketing 455 students! The students presented the final case, a Harvard one, entitled, "Pilgrim Bank" which is a study in how to determine the most profitable customers for a mythical bank. Students analyze the data in stages and at first it looks like online banking does not make a customer profitable but then we need to take age and income factors into account and when doing so, online banking is a factor in profitability. Students run various regression models and come up with the solution with the most explantory power. The students did well and were able to understand and analyze this advanced case. Their SPSS skills have improved and they were able to get to the heart of the case with some legwork. We also discussed what other types of data Pilgrim Bank might want to use to better understand its customers, both internal and external and how the Bank can manage customer relationshps for maximized lifetime value. Database Marketer extraordinary, Rob Jackson, an interactive marketing advisory board member, came to class and helped provide insight to our discussion. Thanks, Rob!

Database class update

2010-04-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

I am so proud of my database marketing class. We have spent the last several weeks working on some non-statistical techniques of data analysis such as RFM, neural networking, decision trees and cluster techniques. We have also introduced the class to data mining as a discipline and the SPSS Clementine data mining software. The students were so familiar with SPSS that it took a while to get used to Clementine. Although Clementine has an 'easier to use' graphical interface, the students liked the control offered through the traditional SPSS interface. Clementine is more of a 'black box' environment, although it makes certain functions easier than in traditional SPSS. Some of the functions that are easier include neural networking, creating lifts and gains charts and comparting multiple models. Clementine also includes advanced graphics capabilities. I like being able to get a graphic representation of how large a cluster grouping is and the relative importance of different variables in creating the clusters. The students handed in their data mining assignment today. It was great seeing them play with the program and the data and get a real life taste of data mining.

Database marketing used to support sales efforts

2010-03-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

I haven't had much time since returning from the Online Marketing Summit to blog about my experiences. There was a lot of information relating to interactive marketing. From a database perspective, on e of the most interesting presentations was from Adam Needles at Silverpop. Adam talked about something that is called 'demand generation' which really is using database and web technology to manage the lead generation process for the sales force. I know when I was in B2B sales we always complained about the quality of leads from marketing. Just a few years ago, leads for sales from marketing were confined to purchased lists and trade show leads, many of which were unqualified. Telemarketing to pre-qualify helped improve the quality of the lead. The problem is that companies want that experienced sales rep to be given an actionable lead. Research shows that only about 5% of the sales process today really involves direct contact with the salesperson. Most of the sales process occurs before the sales rep gets involved, as is reflected in changes in B2B spending. There was a 19% decrease in spending for B2B marketing spend in tradeshow, print and digital but an uptick in content marketing through digital channels. B2B buyers now spend most of their time researching products online and leveraging the groundswell of social media to make their decisions. The successful B2B marketer today seeks to capture the B2B buyer's attention during this phase by drawing the buyer into the web site and once, there, keeping the buyer with meaningful content on products and industry issues and concerns. Everyone wants content today, ways to do things better and more effectively. Once a lead is captured at the web site, the B2B marketer's job it to nurture that lead. Now, through the internet and database technology, we can tell if a prospect that has registered at the site has downloaded a whitepaper, email a follow up to see if there are questions, send related content and nurture that relationship to the point where it is worth the salesperson's time to contact and try to develop a sale. The B2B marketer needs to make sure that the company is providing thoughtful content through twitter, blogs and other social media sites so the B2B buyer will want to visit the web site. Search engine optimization plays a critical role also in attracting that buyer during the evluation phase, before a sales rep is involved. From a database perspective, marketing can track leads and report the success of its program in a way that until recently was difficult to do. Leads can be segmented. Some can be discarded, some sent to the sales force right away and others nurtured through the process and marketing can report on its demand generation process just as sales has for years reported on its sales process. There are software tools to help automate this process. So although the power has shifted and the B2B buyer is more in charge of the process, the B2B marketer has more data to work with to try to nurture and report on customer relationships. Look for more and better automation technologies in the future, to integrate marketing and sales.

Segmentation and buliding the database

2010-02-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

The last week and a half we have been talking about putting the marketing database together. We take internal information, external information and modelled data and create a database that really works for marketing applications. Internal information is transaction oriented, typically and includes information about what the customber has purchased and when. But transaction information only tells part of the story. We might not even have the customer's name if the product was shipped to a different person than a purchaser (b2b) or not have information about the household if just one person in the house buys our product (b2c). We need to enhance the database to get value and we talked about buying data from an outside data source to supplement our internal data. Typically, we send our raw data files to an outside source and they do a merge/purge and cleanse our data and append to our data records. We can then begin the process of modelling our data to identify our best customers. We talked about RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value) as a way of segmentation but that the RFM approach is only a starting point. Marriott uses a CAP model which includes capacity and propensity to purchase. The different types of segmentation that are discussed in the book are a good starting point for data anlysis but more sophisticated companies eventually develop their own proprietary segementation schemes.

Database Marketing Gets Serious!

2010-02-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

The students successfully completed the first assignment with descriptive statistics, cross tabs and chi squared analyes. They learned that categorical data puts data in groups (think cross tabs) and that metric or continuous data is more suited to other types of statistical analysis such as t-tests, correlation and regression. In marketing, we like variation and the null hypothesis is usually what we don't want to have happen, no difference in counts for the chi square, no difference in means for a t-test and no linear relationship for correlation and regression. We are looking for a p value of under .05 for significance level. We had fun looking at live data and used the President's approval rating as a dependent variable in a simple regression. There was a regression relationship (F stat is <.05), 83% of the variance (Adjusted R sqared) in approval rating is explained by ONE significant variable (p < .05), unemployment rate. Interpreting the regression, the President's approval rating drops by about 6.6% for every one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate. The class is working now on creating a model to predict performance in our IM classes. They are looking to create a parsimonious model, that means as few variables with the most explanatory power, to explain an particular hypothesis.

Database Marketing: A New Semester

2010-01-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

I am going to blog here about database marketing and on our NING social network for Marketing Technology. We began with a simple exercise called PC's unlmited to familiarize or refamiliarize the class with descriptive statistics in SPSS, how to create a new variable, perform cross tabs and other basic tools. Smart students will go back to this handout throughout the course of the semester for looking up tasks like how to create deciles and quintiles, etc. Students were asked to recreate the information listed and then to provide a marketing interpretation of the graph or table. For example, if most of the company's customers are men does it mean the firm should focus on men as customers or branch out to serving more females? We then had a review of direct marekting and linked direct marketing to database marketing through the use of customer information. It is the database that underlies most direct marketing campaigns that allows DM practitioners to measure, adjust and re-launch their campaigns. Finally, we concluded the two week period with a brief statistics review, focusing on mean, standard deviation, correlation and other descriptive tools like histograms and bar charts. An important concept here is categorical versus continuous data. Categorical data cannot be used to calculate means but can be used in a cross tabs. With continuous data and two groups, a t-test can be conducted.

Some final thoughts on customer service and Internet Marketing

2009-12-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of class in Internet Marketing 370 at Northern Illinois. We said goodbye to our graduating seniors and three students recieved the certificate in Interactive Marketing. Good luck to them and to all those graduation this semester. It occurred to me that talking about customer service at the end of class as we did could either give the impression the topic was important or that it was not important enough to cover early in the semester. For the record, customber service can make or break an internet company, or any company seeking to use technology for better, differentiated, customer service. The Rogers and Peppers marketing model of IDIC (Identify, Differentiate, Interact and Customize/Personalize) is, I believe, replacing older persuasion models such as AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). Older models are meant for the mass marketing world. In the interactive and direct marketing world, it is important to differentiate individual customers or groups of customers and treat different customers differently. Differentiation is meaningful for targeting and attracting the right customers but becomes critical with customer service. In class we looked at the British grocery chain Tesco's and how the company uses segmentation to send out multiple versions of its coupon offers depending upon customer needs in implementing the Tesco' loyalty program. Retention is important because of the cost of acquisition, the potential negative word-of-mouth from an unhappy customer and also because of long-term customer profitability. This discussion on customer service is a nice transition to database marketing next semester, where we will begin to see how databases can be used for targeted, segmented acquisition, service and retention. Stay tuned after a short break. Class begins again on January 12 for the Interactive Program at NIU's DeKalb campus. We will be teaching database marketing, marketing technology, IMC and direct marketing.

Getting a job in Interactive Marketing

2009-12-03T11:37:00.001-08:00

Kelli Hanson talked about places to look for a job in interactive marketing. She and I strongly believe in networking through professional associations, such as CADM, BMA, AMA and CIMA. Joining the groups these organizations have on linkedin is usually free and an easy way to start getting involved. Since 80% of jobs are not posted or advertised, it is important to network as well as look on these job sites. Still, there are hundreds of jobs posted online in this field. It is up to the student seeking a job to figure out what type of job he or she wants and then to target that position and demonstrate his or her value to potential employers. Develop specialized skills that might be needed to get that job. There is no substitution for networking and hard work. Be prepared to send out at least 200 resumes and to be focused but also flexible.Dates to watch out for: February 18: Lynn Hazan, recruiter, 5pm, February 26, Okner Symposium, 9-4. Both events are required for 455 and 470 and will take place in Barsema Hall.

Legal and ethical issues in marketing

2009-12-02T17:57:00.000-08:00

We learned this week that there are a number of laws that regulate internet and interactive marketing. I asked the students to consider a scenario where a company obtained a list of mobile phone numbers in its target market and whether the company could use the list for text messages or phone calls promoting its services. We identified a number of laws that related to this issue. CAN-SPAM, requires express prior permission before sending the message and applies not only to email but to text messages that reference a domain name (3122222455@wirelesscarrier.com) and consumers cannot be required to incur any costs for the authorization. The TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) also prohibits the use of automated equipment to place calls to a mobile number without prior consent. In addition, the Mobile Marketing Association as published Guidelines which do not have the force of law, but also suggest that the consumer should have prior notice and consent that the text message is coming. The Do-Not-Call List would also likely apply if the company chose to call these numbers. If the phone number were obtained from children under 13, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) would apply. This simple scenario indicates that internet marketing law is complex and evolving. From an ethical point of view, both guidelines and laws point to the simple principle of permission. Getting permission is an easy way to know that dealings with the customer are both ethically and legally correct. In addition to protecting children, we also protect consumer healthcare (HIPPA) and financial (GLBA) information. However, there is no general right to privacy of personal data in the United States as is required by the European Union, for example. We also discussed copyright law and the fact that peer-to-peer sharing of music is illegal, even though facilitated by technology. We will have to see how the music industry evolves and adapts to these technology challenges.

Dreamweaver and web design

2009-11-30T07:56:00.000-08:00

We looked at the Dreamweaver program over the past few sessions. Dreamweaver creates cleaner HTML code as opposed to word and has a number of other advanced features. The ability to create a separate Dreamweaver 'site' has the advantage of making sure everything needed for the web site is in one place: Cascading Style Sheets knowns as CSS (preformatting for your web page), photos, images and HTML pages. In lab, we recommend putting that site on the network drive and/or backing it up on a portable drive as well. I have been able to solve some problems with website displays by reminding students to put everything in their www folder that the web site needs, including CSS's and images. Also, make sure in Dreamweaver you just have the image name and not a specific location on the desktop or network drive, otherwise the image will not display. Remember to use tables and not frames for your web page for good web design. Enjoy your web site design!

The power of viral video

2009-11-25T12:22:00.001-08:00

We have been having so much fun with our YouTube campaign that I have almost forgotten to blog about it. We really had some wonderful results for gimmepleez.com, our Professional Sales Program and the Interactive Program. I have included the results to find the four videos for our program below. Students found that facebook, particularly creating an event, was the most successful way to get the viral effect. We jumped to the first page on google when searching for the term Interactive Marketing and are currently number two. We could never have paid for that type of search ranking in PPC! Web site traffic is also up by over 75% and enrollment in our advanced classes is up over 30%. Great job everyone and a great lesson in viral marketing. We learned that a specific landing page or micro site would have made it easier to track campaign results and that tracking results of viral campaigns is in general a challenge, particularly unique views. Students got a chance to actually report on and analyze the analytics information provided in YouTube. Overall, we are pleased with our results, learned a lot and had some fun. Students said in their papers that the learning by doing experience of running a real campaign helped them understand what Interactive Marketing was all about and what they might do in their future careers.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone. Check out our videos below.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=interactive+marketing+niu&search_type=&aq=f

Website analytics

2009-11-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

We looked today at website analytics. I showed my google adwords account and google analytics account as well as the insight section of my YouTube account and we looked at the types of information available and the types of insights that might be made from that information. We also looked at some of the recent trends in online advertising. Online ad spending is smaller than last year but growing overall. Sponsorship and mobile marketing are on the upswing and most results can be attributed to search and older media rather than social media and some of the new media....analytics are lagging changes in technology. Traditional ways of looking at web analytics include number os unique visits, pages of visits and traffic source. A landing page is a good way to tie a campaign to a particiular web page to track the results. Some analytics, such as page views and time on the site, can be misleading, as people might just spend time on the site but not really be engaged on the web site. "Bounce rate" with a web site means when the user leaves the site. There are so many metrics and so many possibilities. Some good rules include, always test, look at trends, track key metrics and set goals. We also talked about the difference between data, information and knowledge and how markters want to create databases that can be used to gain customer knowledge for better offers and relationships with customers.

Web site design

2009-10-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Web site design is a complex subject because there are so many different approaches to an effective web site. As always in marketing, think about the target audience and corporate objectives first. We looked in class at some ecommerce sites that seemed busy but yet were successful because that layout is what the audience wanted to see. In general, it is useful to have the purpose of the website and any relevant offer in the upper left hand 'golden triangle' area of the site. Often this area is a good place to put a search function as well as the reader's eye will go to the upper left first. We get this information from tracking eyeball movements for many subjects and displaying them on a 'heat map.' The heat map shows where people click on the site, that cearly 'above the fold' is where eyes are resting and how eye movements also form an "F" shape inside the Golden Triangle. The heat map of a Google web search shows why people want to be in the top three or four searches. http://www.ahfx.net/weblog/79 We looked at ideas on web design from Mary Lou Roberts, Jan Zimmerman, Amy Africa and finally, Dr. Zahay! Some independent sources for good web design and customer service are Forrester.com and Bizrate.com. Dr. Zahay likes sites that load easily, use breadcrumbs, are easy to naviagate, use 2-3, clicks, and have easily available contact information. Trust is an important part of web site design because the user must trust the site to exchange information or do business with the site. Even so, the students said they do not look at Truste or other trust seals on the web in deciding to do business with the site. Again, for marketing, web site design and usability are strategic and not technical issues. Web site development is often iterative as companies find out what works and what doesn't in web site design and make changes accordingly.

SEO and SEM

2009-10-30T12:55:00.001-07:00

We learned about Search Engine Optimization, the process of optimizing a site for Organic or Natural Search and about Search Engine Marketing, the process of using piad search. Both processes are designed to drive traffic to a web site. Many people are amazed that by a few adjustments to a web page can bring dramatic results in terms of natural or organic search rankings. Making use of the blue title, linking in and out to relevant pages, making page content relevant to the title and subject of the page are all great ways to improve ranking. I shared the story that when I came to NIU the Interactive Marketing web site did not rank that highly and that I followed basic SEO principles to get the page ranked highly with natural search. Often we recommend that companies use a PPC, pay per click campaign thru google adwords or yahoo to understand which search terms are most relevant. It is easy to see by how much it costs to be listed under a PPC program which terms are going to get the most exposure for the company. A combination of natural and paid search usually works well in driving traffic to the site. The students enjoyed watching Cary Pearlman set up a live Google adwords campaign for them and I will go thru my Google Analytics next week.

Email Marketing/Mobile

2009-10-24T04:54:00.001-07:00

We had a good discussion on email marketing before I left for DMA and then learned the Email Marketing tool Exact Target. We learned the reason to use a tool like ET is the ability to get emails past potential spam filters that ISP's might set up and to manage many different emails effectively. The ability to include dynamic content for personalized offers is also a big plus of this type of system. A company such as Careerbuilder.com might send millions of emails per month and needs to effectively manage and track campaigns. Even though email marketing is a small percentage of total online advertising, its ability to target customers and be integrated within an overall multiple channel marketing campaign makes email an important and influential medium. Good emails have an effective and descriptive subject line and a clear offer or purpose. While email open rates remain higher than those of direct mail, we learned that same week at the CADM monthly luncheon program on mobile marketing that mobile emails can have an over 70% response rate! It seems as each new type of way to reach the customer comes on the scene response rates are high and then level off, but I am thinking mobile rates might remain high. People read their text messages within seconds typically instead of days or hours for email. We also learned how to identify "phishing" emails that want to get personal information for fraudulent purposes and about the CAN-SPAM act and how to remain compliant. Good email marketers want to follow the guidelines of that act and comply by having a subject line that clearly states the advertising purpose of the email and is consistent with the body of the email, a valid reply to address, a physical address and an unsubscribe provision.

Search engine marketing & Guests

2009-10-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

We had two guest speakers in the past week and a half. One was Gimmepleez.com, relating to our project to produce a YouTube video. The other speaker was restaurant.com CEO and President Cary Chessick. Students enjoy hearing Cary's story of how restaurant.com started and how it had changed its business model over time and has evolved to the brokerage model it uses today. I refer students in the class to links to the video on these speakers. Students wishing to work on the Professional Sales Program who did not hear Dr. Weilbaker speak in class can feel free to set up a meeting with him or talk to either of us about the project.

We started SEM, Search Engine Marketing this week and will continue with the topic on the 20th and 22nd. On the 20th Cary Pearlman will teach our class in PPC (Pay Per Click) and we will have a lab on the 23rd. I introduced the area of SEM and we looked at a sample google search and pointed out the paid ads versus the natural search results. We talked about Gooogle having 70% of the search engine market and that almost fifty percent of internet advertising is in search engine advertising spending. For this reason even though online advertising spending has dropped this year Q1 09 versus Q2 09 by about ten percent, search engine spending continues to rise. We talked about SEO being the process of optimizing organic or natural search. There is a lot companies can do to optimize their organic search efforts and get high page rankings without spending money. these tactics include a descriptive title bar, text that matches the title bar and is descriptive of the subject matter, links to and from related, relevant sites and appropriate keywords (although the latter is less important now). Search engine spiders or crawlers use complicated algorithms as they search through pages to determine if a page is a good fit with a particular search term. Images need to be tagged and spiders have a hard time with flash intro pages as well. I always enjoy teaching this topic and look forward to the rest of the time we will spend on SEO and Paid Search.

Internet Advertising

2009-10-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

We talked last week about internet advertising and the fact that much of internet advertising is concentrated on search engine marketing, which is why we will focus on search engine marketing in class. The advertising business model is difficult to sustain because most internet advertising is focused on the top ten portal sites and it is hard to attract advertisers to a specialized, smaller, web site. The focus of marketers is on push versus pull marketing and there are more and different media forms each day such as blogging, podcasts, RSS, social media, etc. The marketing job is more complicated. These tools are used even in B2B marketing, with information-based tools such as e-zines being effective in B2B. We talked about the evolution from contextual to behavioral advertising, and then ended with an overview of viral video marketing. Short, quirky, engaging, funny and shocking works! This type of advertising is in its infancy so we will all be learning together for our class project. Don't forget to check out the tips in the links I provided in the class notes.

Business Models and Social Networking

2009-09-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

We had a discussion on business models this week. We discussed popular models such as brokerage, merchant, manufacturing, advertising, affiliate, community, utility and subscription models. A business model is nothing more than a way to make money online and if a company is not profitable offline going online is probably not going to help. We identified that companies can be Click Only or Bricks and Clicks by having a store presence. The emphasis on multichannel marketing means that Bricks and Clicks is a more popular option than Click only. Most companies want to do business with their customers across multiple channels because multi-channel customers are more profitable. Our guest speaker Dana Van Den Heuvel from Marketing Savant gave us an update on social networking applications in industry. We have talked about how marketing is becoming a conversation and social media is defined as people having conversations online, although other technology such as pictures and videos are involved as well. There is a new standard of expectations that companies will be hanging out where their customers are. Some key social media platforms are blogging, photo sharing, podcasts, RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and social media sites. Marketers should focus on what their business objectives are before engaging in a social media strategy. Many companies have a social media presence because these firms wish to have a passionate and loyal customer base. Most consumers are not creators of online content but rather consumers and most successful companies in social media target their efforts toward the majority. Some examples of successful companies in social media include P&G. By 'crowdsourcing' their new product development efforts, about half of their new product ideas are coming from customers now. Comcast provides customer support via Twitter and Dell not only engages customers but provides product promotions online. Coca Cola spreads conversations through its fans on facebook. It is important to have a good story to tell and have a sound company before engaging in a social media strategy. Micro metrics for social media include number of customer comments, referrals, issues addressed and implemented ideas. Some recent research indicates that companies that use social media well are growing at a faster rate than those who are not employing social media as part of their marketing strategies. Marketers can't ignore these media and students were encouraged to join linkedin and twitter and use these tools to participate in the conversation on marketing. By demonstrating their expertise and what they can contribute, students can become attractive to potential job seekers. Social media sites are also a great way to meet people that can help in the job search process.

Who is on the net?

2009-09-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

We looked at social media sites in our course lab and then this week have been exploring the question of who is on the internet? The internet consumer is in general older, more college-educated and increasingly female. Seventy-five percent of adults now use the internet, with 53 percent using some form of cloud communication. Although mobile applications are increasing in the United States, especially among African-Americans, over half the population, according to the Pew Report, can be classified as more tied to stationary than mobile media. In Europe, mobile applications are more widespread. Some of our class will be attending a presentation on mobile media at a CADM meeting in October so we will learn more about it then. We looked at various models of consumer behavior, such as AIDA, Attention, Interest, Desire and Action to explain how we as marketers want to involve consumers on our web site. Attention, Acquisition, Assessment and Action explains involvement from the marketer's point of view. Once the person is on board as a customer, we want to assess their needs so we can answer them most effectively through interactive communications and offers. We also talked about new ways of finding out what the consumer is thinking, as opposed to traditinal marketing research surveys. Blog posts, customer reviews, etc. all provide insight for the marketer but are harder to control. Anyone can be responding rather than a random sample of a known population. Companies like bizrate.com use panels of consumers to solicit input and control for this problem.

Internet Marketing

2009-09-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

We are off to a good start in Internet Marketing. We distinguished between Internet Marketing, which is using the internet to facilitate the marketing process, and true interactivity, addressing the customer, remembering what they said, and addressing them in a way that is relevant to them. We discussed the relationship between direct and interactive marketing, particularly the use of databases and the ability to measure response. We also looked at the objectives of direct marketing versus interactive marketing and added to acquisition, conversion and retention the creation of value. The idea is to use information about the customer to create relevant offers and bind the customer to the brand. We gave the example of amazon.com and the way the website remembers prior purchases and makes offers that might be of relevance. The internet marketer can use the Internet "I's" to maximize use of this powerful medium (Interactivity, Immediacy, Involvement and Information-Intensiveness). If marketers keep these unique characteristics in mind, as well as the internet's roots in direct marketing, they will be able to leverage the medium to its best advantage.

We also talked about the history of the internet and the three trends that enable interactive marketing: Communication, technology and distribution. The internet originally was developed for government, particularly defense, applications. Since the creation of early commercial web browsers, such as MOSAIC, the opening up of the internet to commerical applications. Since then, the web as a marketing medium has exploded. Internet technology has been adapted faster than any other type of technology, taking just 7-8 years to be adopted by 30% of households.

I said that I have been teaching about the evolution from mass to direct to interactive communications for ten years, but this year I added another form of communication, collaborative communication. Web 2.0 means the many-to-many versus one-to-many communications that involve customers sharing information and opinion about brands and creating their own products and applications for products. We also discussed Moore's Law about computer power increasing and the cost decreasing, Metcalf's Law about the power of networks and the concept of the "Long Tail" in marketing, selling many products to the same person and not focusing on making money through mass marketing.

We will finish up this week talking about the value chain and positioning web sites.

Multichannel Marketing Class June 11: Final Case and Wrap Up

2009-06-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

We had a great last class with several guest evalulators from industry and Dr. Geoff Gordon from NIU. Students presented the final case which was to put together a multichannel media strategy for an insurance company. The additional challenge was to work through the agent network. The students did a fabulous job. They recognized the importance of the database as a central respository of information across channels. Several groups suggested interesting segmentation strategies. I was impressed with their creative suggestions for using social media, although with the age of the insurance agents it might be difficult to get them on board. Also, Rob Jackson pointed out with all the regulation in the insurance industry and privacy regulation and concerns it might be difficult for agents to really participate in such an open media. We learned in four weeks about all the major media channels, direct mail, email, search, internet, etc., and about databases, analytics and measurement related to multichannel marketing. I think media channels will become more and more fragmented and marketers will face more challenges in the future. Thanks again to NIU's Marketing 660 CE1 MBA Class, Special Topic: Multichannel Marketing, for a great four weeks!

Multichannel Marketing Class June 10: Measuring across channels and PPC

2009-06-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

We talked about a number of different ways to measure responses across channels. I likened the search for the ability to measure across channels and attribute response to specific media actions to the search for the Holy Grail. There are so many new media and it is difficult to know if the response came from the last sales contact, banner ad, or search stream. Approaches vary from surveying consumers to field experiments (treating one group differently from the control to see if there is a change in sales or response rates) to building sophisticated models to simulate and measure response. I shared some research from Don Schultz at Northwestern where he has used survey data from an online panel to then determine media influence. In the example Don gave us, Auto Makers were spending too much money on television advertising and not enough on the internet, in terms of perceived influence. Industry data is useful as a starting point but many marketers want to see what the effect is on response in their particular company situation. The search will continue for the best models.

We also looked at Pay Per Click in Google and saw how expensive some keywords can be and discussed bidding strategies. It can be a good strategy to go for the third or fourth spot to save money and still be 'above the fold.'

Multichannel Marketing Class June 8: Trends in Multichannel and SEO

2009-06-09T04:39:00.001-07:00

Bob Arkema from Johnson & Quin led us in a lively discussion of how the direct and interactive industry is changing in a post financial-meltdown world. For the first time since data has been kept, direct mail spending decreased last year. Search and social media spending are predicted to grow but most other media are flat or declining. Companies are taking a good, hard look at what they mail and how much they mail. Mail is seen increasingly as a companion to other channels, such as online or email, which is consistent with the multichannel theme of our class. I have heard similar comments from other direct mail providers. Specialty houses that can do smaller print runs using variable digital printing for highly personalized communication so far seem to be holding their own, although there has been a lot of industry consolidation. It is my impression that we are living through an unprecedented change in the industry. Much of this change was driven by the collapse of our financial institutions, many of whom were heavy direct mailers.

The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) in New York itself has gone through several rounds of layoffs. I recently was nominated for a position on the board of CADM (Chicago Association of Direct Marketing) so I will get to help guide this organization through these troubled waters. In times of downturn, it always seems to me that basic marketing principles are key. Best Buy survives because it has a clear differentiation strategy and by the way makes great use of its customer data. Circuit City tried to play catch up but just could not distinguish itself in the marketplace.

Catching up from last week, we also talked about SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Search is divided into paid versus organic search. Keywords are the terms users employ when searching for something. Organic search is free. Search engines use algorithms to determine page rank. Web spiders or 'crawlers' search the web and analyze pages to determine page rank. In natural search, these programs are looking to see that the blue title onthe top matches web site content, that the content of the web site matches the keywords used in search and to some extent the keywords in the HTML code, and that there are sites linked to the site and that the site links to others. These crawlers cannot read pictures so it is important to 'tag' pictures with descriptions that match the keywords the company wishes to identify with the site.

We also talked about the importance of good writing in business communication. I will spot each group three and only three poorly constructed sentences, typos and/or grammar mistakes in deference to our short-class format. After that, it is a point taken for each problem noted by me. We talked about the proper use of demonstrative pronouns. Except in rare cases, pronouns such as this and they in formal writing need to be substituted for a proper noun or have some kind of additional noun used with them. Instead of saying "This is important in multichannel marketing,' for example, substitute "This trend" or "This concern." Avoid addressing the audience as 'you' except in persuasive communication.

Multichannel Marketing Class June 2: The Multichannel Database Continued

2009-06-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

Joe Stanhope from Alterian built upon what Joe Decosmo from Allant said last night about the importance and also the difficulty of developing a database that incorporates data across functional areas and across customer touchpoints. Joe talked a little bit about Alterian, which leverages its partner relationships to help companies put all the data together and then run analytical software, campaign management software, email marketing software and web content software all using the same customer database. Joe gave an amusing example of his customer contact experiences with American Airlines. In spite of the fact that Joe is an Elite status flier and American knows a lot about him, the company still fails to make relevant offers to him using his personalized information. He has received thirty emails from the company in the last few months but offers are to where he does not fly or for benefits he does not wish to receive.

I completed our database marketing module by talking about how databases are put together. Companies typically take internal information such as customer transaction data and name and address and purchase external information, a process known as data enhancement. From this information, companies create modelled data such as RFM scores (Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value) which are usually computed in the form of deciles (ten groups), or quintiles (five groups). Customers are placed into one of the groups and marketed to accordingly. There are other ways to create modelled data and assign group scores. We talked about an alternative to RFM used by Marriott Vacation Clubs called CAP, but companies also engage in more sophisticated modelling techniques. Thus, the three types of data, modelled, internal and external, make up the basic parts of all customer databases. Types of external data might be lifestyle or psychographic data such as Claritas, PRIZM (You are where you live) which we examined in class. We also talked about how companies like Acxiom, Experian and others take data from different sources and then append that data to outside customer records to add value. These firms also use these different data sources to create their own clustering and segmentation models. Typically, a company will give an outside vendor their file to be cleaned (merge/purge, de-dup) and then records will be matched using a match code and data appended accordingly. There is a great deal of work to be done internally also to keep data clean, such as getting rid of bad records, including change of addresses, and general quality maintenance. Good data quality is a constant process. I talked a little about my research on data quality and the presentation I will make at the Marketing Science INFORMS conference on the relationship between organizational factors like a stated strategy and good teamwork and vision around customer data quality and ultimate data quality. Marketers are worried today about social media and other new marketing tools and using all channels that will be effective should be a priority for markters. However, data quality is a discipline that can reap many benefits as customer data is used across all channels.

Multichannel Marketing Class June 1: Database Marketing and the Multichannel Challenge

2009-06-02T00:16:00.000-07:00

Joe DeCosmo, EVP from The Allant Group in Naperville, addressed us on the difficulties of developing and maintaining customer databases to support multichannel marketing. Companies want to address the customer individually with an offer that is relevant and timely, but often don't have the data structure to support that effort. Ryan underlined these problems in his presentation, where he said that his own company has a customer database but does not really use the information to market across channels or just to mine the exisitng data in stand-alone marketing campaigns. Joe outlined a mapping process that we have talked about in class whereby customers are increasingly using a multiple channel approach to purchasing and how companies can get started developing databases that integrates across all customer interactions. Joe suggested that we use the term interactions instead of classical CRM. This terminology would be consistent with our approach in this class, where we have emphasized the importance of interactive marketing from the first day. Joe also stated that the ROI on multichannel marketing is anywhere from $4-8 for every dollar spent.

We talked in my portion of the class about The Loyalty Effect and the Net Promoter score as developed by Frederick Reichheld and the eighty/twenty rule and moving customers up a value pyramid as outlined by Arthur Hughes. We then had a discussion on data privacy and security. Privacy law has been evolving in this country and the internet has made everyone more concerned about data privacy in particular. The European Union has a stricter policy and an explicit right to data privacy. In the U.S., we focus on self-regulation and guidelines, such as the FTC Guidelines, but we still have legislation in the area, such as CAN-SPAM and the Do-Not-Call legislation. Privacy is an emotional issue. Consumers are concerned about privacy but don't really want to go through the effort to select the exact offers they would receive from all their vendors. We talked about a privacy policy as a way to help consumers feel more comfortable about doing business with a company, as well as using privacy seals from a trusted organization on the web site. We also looked into what the future might hold as technology allows marketers to target ads during our private conversations and as we are entering stores and shopping malls.

Multichannel Marketing Class May 27th: Social Media

2009-06-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

We had a great introduction to social media from expert Dana VanDen Heuvel. Dana spoke of the crisis in mass marketing as people lose trust in mass advertising and are interested in blocking advertising. He also said that advertising impact is difficult to measure but the same could be said for social media at this stage of the game. Nonetheless, the internet and digital marketing has put the customer in charge and marketers need to monitor what is going on with blogs, social networking sites, customer reviews and the like. Dana said some companies are now using these types of digital media to supplement or even replace traditional marketing research, although I think marketing research will always have a role to play. The problem with monitoring what is being said on the web is that a marketer can't know the demographics of those that are participating and only one percent of those on the web contribute to blogs, reviews, etc. The results of only monitoring web buzz can be biased.

However, there are great benefits and marketers cannot ignore what is going on in blogs and social media. Comcast Cable has a mechanism to track what is going on in Twitter for example and to respond to and fix customer problems before things get out of hand (they responded after a famous YouTube video in which a technician was photographed having fallen asleep waiting for his own company to respond to a customer service call).

The bottom line is that marketers can't afford to ignore these new forms of media. Dana also emphasized the importance of collecting and analyzing data regarding conversations about a particular brand on the web and about particular customers. We talked about using data contextually in advertising to deliver more relevant messages so the material was a nice tie-in to what we will be discussing this week: Creating databases to implement multichannel campaigns and to analyzes the responses.

Multichannel Marketing Class May 26th: Multichannel Retailing

2009-05-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

We covered multichannel retailing using a webinar case study from Exact Target on Johnston and Murphy. Johnston and Murphy is an upscale shoe retailer, primarily men's shoes, with three fullfillment channels, store, catalog and internet (I am assuming that they also have a dial-in call center for fulfillment but it was not mentioned). J&M contacts its customers via direct mail and email, in-store promotions and its web site. It did not seem that the company used brand advertising. I would think that the economics of its business is such that direct communication is more cost effective.

The company has 700,000 customers on its database and knows who they are and can contact them directly so direct and interactive marketing make sense. J&M started by segmenting its current business into eight key buying segments with different characteristics. By capturing 60% of customer email addresses at point of purchase it can then use purchase data to determine which segment a customer belongs in and tailor offers to them. All interaction is captured in the customer database; the company uses match back on address, phone number, email, etc. to put all possible information in one place. Three emails are sent to new customers within 40 days and current customers also get a three email cycle, offer, discount 1, discount 2. "Lost" customers are those who have not ordered in two years and they also receive email treatment.

The program has been successful for J&M. The email program is set up and then adjusted every six months or so so the communiation is automated. Data collected from transactions is modelled to determine the best combination of communications to elicit the maximum response. Students in class presentations talked about other retailers doing the same type of marketing effort by building a database, capturing transactions, segmenting and targeting. Student also reinforced the research mentioned in class that multichannel shoppers are typically more profitable shoppers.

This webinar is a good transition to the next two sections of our class. Email and Direct Mail are channels that are 'push' channels and are acquisition oriented. We use military language like 'target' and 'capture' to describe our efforts and the marketer is still somewhat in control. As we began to disucss last night, with the internet as a channel, control shifts to the consumer and we will hear more about that next week with our discussions on internet and social media. Next week we will also learn more about data analytics, which will aid understanding of the modelling efforts J&Q mentioned.

Multichannel Marketing Class May 20th: Multiple and Electronic Media

2009-05-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

There were a number of alternative ways that Newport News could use to obtain information about customers who had recieved a catalog but then not put in a key code when they entered their order or those who had just come in through the internet. We discussed asking a brief survey after the order (making sure that the survey did not increase shopping card abandonment) as well as using a 'matchback' process. Matchback involves sending purchase transaction history and catalog mailing data to a company that can essentially do a mail/merge and identify orders that came from those who had recently received a catalog; the firm sends the file back flagging potential matches and Newport News could use this file then to calculate ROI on its catalog mailings.

We had a presentation from Mike Malley from Con Agra on the multichannel media launch that was used to introduce the new Healthy Choice shelf stable meals. We could see the integration between the internet and more traditional media such as PR, Advertising and in-store promotion. Mike talked about using an email blast to loyal, opt-in healthy choice users, which was a good tie-in with out discussions on email marketing. We discussed that the CAN-SPAM act requires a valid reply to address, an opt-out provision, a street address and that the subject line be clearly labelled as promotional. Companies like Exact Target make it easy to be CAN-SPAM compliant. We evaluated some email offers to see if they were CAN-SPAM compliant and also evaluated the offer and the design based on the principles we had learned the prior evening.

We also talked about other electronic media channels, such as television and radio, which still have a place in today's media mix. Radio listeners don't switch channels as much but it is hard to use radio for direct response because people are often driving and can't always write down a number or dial the phone. Television advertising reinforces the brand message and Direct TV is a less expensive way of eliciting response, and is trackable and measurable, which we direct and interactive marketers really like. Health and fitness and products to make people look good are good targets for infomercials. Telphone is interesting because it can be both a media or promotional channel as well as a response channel. Inbound calling and B2B outbound are currently popular uses of the telephone by marketers because of the restrictions of the Do-Not-Call legislation.

Multichannel Marketing Class May 19: Direct Mail and Print

2009-05-20T05:19:00.000-07:00

This class on direct mail offers is always one of my favorites to teach. It is intriguing to go over different direct mail offers and see why and how they were constructed the way they were. An offer should always ask for a specific action, have a specific deadline and tell me what I am going to get if I respond by that deadline. As direct marketers we are direct RESPONSE markters. We use a database to identify and track our customers, communicate with them in a way that asks for a specific action and we measure the results so we can expand the communications program if it is successful. We looked at two direct mailers that I had received, one from Travellers insurance which made an offer to lower my costs for auto insurance. We thought the package was reasonable (it had a letter with an offer restated several times, a P.S., a lift slip and a response card) but maybe not personalized enough because it did not express how much I could personally save. Our guest Cyndi Greenglass from Diamond Marketing Solutions reinforced that we use "you" language in persuasive communication because it does involve the readers and get them closer to taking the desired action. The mailing from Mazda was attractive but the offer was buried and we were given a choice, which can be a death knell for offers. People start thinking and then they stop buying. Both our guests talked about the importance of mathematics in modelling. Michelle from Abbott Labs demonstrated how Abbott isolates the results of various media through response modelling. Cyndi Greenglass from Diamond talked about testing principles for direct mailings, including establishing a control and testing one variable at a time to improve on the results of the control. She gave an example from Pitney Bowes where they kept testing to try to improve the control package. I asked students at the end to think about the problem in the Newport News case in the text. With 40% of orders coming from the web, Newport News was having a hard time isolating the effects of their marketing because they could not use the 'keycodes' associated with catalogues to track response. What should Newport News do to handle this problem?

Multichannel Marketing Class May 18 Intro

2009-05-20T05:08:00.000-07:00

The first night we covered what it means to be a direct versus interactive marketer and all the different channels that marketers are faced with managing today. We made the distinction between a media channel and a fulfillment or distribution channel. There are many media channels today and some of them are quite new, such as social media, facebook, linkedin, twitter, etc. One trend is that consumers are in charge and want to define the brand, such as the web site created by consumers that revolves around Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Who knew consumers were so passionate about the brands they use? Marketers are dealing with how to integrate these new media channels into their plans. At the same time it is becoming more difficult to isolate the effects of one media channel veruss another on purchase behavior. Online influenced retail sales are growing rapidly and consumers will go online to hear more about informaion they have received in print or in a radio or TV commercial. Our guest speaker Michelle Blechman from Abbott Labs said how difficult it is to isolate the effects of various media in the pharmeceutical industry and that top executives have to be educated; even if the highest ROI is from the web, eliminating TV advertising won't necessarily increase ROI because without the TV spend, the brand awareness dips and people stop going to the web. Michelle really stressed the importance of integrated marketing communications. She also reinforced what I said about the pressure on marketers to measure and report ROI and justify their existence. I was recently interviewed on social media usage in marketing. Here is a link to that article.
http://www.cob.niu.edu/highlights/NIU_CHI_0509.pdf

Experienced Online Job Seekers are Available!

2009-04-02T09:50:00.001-07:00

We have a great group of graduating seniors this year, versed in Search Engine and Email Marketing, Web Site Design and knowlegeable about trends in Social Media. These talented students learn Exact Target as an email marketing tool, are currently running live Google Adwords Campaigns, understand SPSS and how to analyze web traffic, are running a wiki and blogging daily. How many marketers with multiple years of experience have the same skill set that we are teaching in our courses here at Northern Illinois University? So how come we see employers asking for several years of experience in this area when we look at job descriptions? I would challenge employers that few marketers today have as much real world experience in interactive and new media as the graduates from our Interactive Marketing Area of Study. If you do get a resume from one of our graduates, at least take a few minutes to interview them and find out the skils and the talents that they do have. In the last recession, companies cut back in hiring new grads and then were surprised several years later that people with three to five years of experience were not available. I know that times are tough, but the companies who take a chance on a new grad with updated skills will not only invest in their future but reap current benefits. We have grads that have taken jobs in SEO, for example, and are able to contribute on day one. Check us out at http://www.interactivemarketing.niu.edu!

Exploding networks

2009-03-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

We are really started to exploit the power of networks for connections, learning, staying in contact. I wonder how much the down economy has contributed to this activity? I notice that Twitter is now in the top three of social networks, up from twenty-three just a few short months ago. It seems when times are tough people band together, particularly to find jobs or new sales opportunities. We will be creating a group on linkedin for our grads in the interactive program to touch base with folks in the greater Chicago Community. The guest speakers in my classes keep emphasizing the power of networking, as well as knowing your strengths and being able to describe the value you can add to a company in a thirty second/sixty second format. I always tell students to follow their passion; we had good news that a former student found a job working in radio, where it turns out they are using a lot of interactive applications so that customers interaface with the station online through a loyalty program which increases the amount of time spent listening (http://www.enticent.com/.) I encouraged this student to follow his passion and that if he wanted to work in radio he should go for it. It is better to be passionate about something when you have to go to work everyday. There is a new group on linkedin for job seekers and Melissa Giovagnoli invites job seekers to share the following: 1)your top three strengths, 2) your top four values, 3) the type of position you are looking for 4) the types of companies or a list of the top three companies you are looking to get into and 5) connections with two companies you have relationships with. http://www.networldingblog.com/ is the link to this blog.

Recent Symposium Highlights Job Search Advice for Undergrads

2009-03-02T08:35:00.001-08:00

I attended on Friday the Okner Symposium with my students which is an update on direct and interactive marketing and also hints on the job search. Dr. Zahay has been trying to work with the students so that they know how to find a job in a tough market and it was great to see that the speakers reinterated a lot of this advice. The most important thing, whether the market for new grads is up or down, is to find out what you are interested in and can be passionate about and go for it. Make sure that you can talk about yourself in a 30 second or 60 second promotional if someone asks you what you are all about. Make statements in the promotional and on job interviews benefits-oriented. In other words, show the company what you can do for them. In this kind of market, you need to be aggressive, so start creating a list of companies for whom you would like to work. Join networking groups and try to find out who you know is at these companies. Get a contact first and call and then ask if you can send a resume. Students today rely too much online but the good jobs are not even hitting the online boards because there are so many applicants. If you are persistent and have something to contribute, as well as good underlying skills in math, writing, and presentations, you will find a job.

Google Online Marketing Challenge

2009-02-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

My students and I are starting the Google Adwords online marketing challenge next week. We will spend a month preparing and then three weeks running our campaign. We will compete internationally and hope to come up withe the winning team. First prize is a trip to California for the team and the professor! SEO continues to be an important part of the marketing mix and I am thrilled that my students will have hands on experience in the area. We are looking for small companies that have not previously used PAID search (as opposed to natural or organic search). The project is to optimize a paid search campaign for the company using a $200 budget from Google. Wish us luck!

Here is one student's experience in internet marketing

2008-12-04T13:21:00.001-08:00

I am going to share with you a student's blog so that you can understand what students learn in our internet course, Marketing 370, here at NIU.

http://blondeambition2009.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=22

B2B Online lead generation/Offline follow up

2008-11-13T13:25:00.001-08:00

I attended a presentation yesterday with ten of my undergraduate internet marketing students on B2B online lead generation with the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing. One of the presenters was Robert Lesser, the President of Direct Impact Marketing in Toronto. I found it interesting that Chicago is in the top tier of the "Blog Belt," and not surprising that Chicago is central to an expanding network of those interesting in internet marketing. Much of Chicago's business community is focusing on direct and internet marketing. The top sources of online leads are search and email, with blogs and webinars next. One of the most interesting things Lesser mentioned was the use of telequalification of online leads. Salespeople always complain that leads are not qualified and marketing, by using a telemarketing force to contact leads that come online, can 'nurture' that lead until it becomes a true prospect (according to this presentatino it takes 18 touches to nurture a lead to create a prospect) to turn over to the sales force. In my internet marketing class I teach online/offline integration and this presentation just demonstrated the continued importance of that principle. Good news for those in the call center business!

Online and offline

2008-11-05T12:37:00.000-08:00

In my classes I preach the importance of integrating online and offline strategies. In working to increase the profile of our interactive marketing area of study here at Northern Illinois University. I see continued evidence that the internet is not enough in all cases. We recently launched a new web site at http://www.interactivemarketing.niu.edu/. In the process we again search engine optimized the site to see how we could get employers to the site to look for grads and post resumes. Our analysis indicated that it seems job and intership seekers were searching for us, but not employers. We are tracking some keywords that we think will help drive employers to our site to learn about our talented grads that are trained in web design, SEO, internet marketing and direct marketing. However, one of the main ways I still get the word out about the program is by attending meetings of our local direct and interactive marketing associations like CADM, AMA, BMA and CIMA. I take the contacts I meet there and put them in a database and contact them via Exact Target and regular emails to build the relationship. We are currently in the midst of a permission-based email campaign to fill some openings on the advisory board. Response has been good with the online media but without that personal touch and connection beforehand, the program would not work as well. Internet and new media are important but face-to-face and other traditional media are not going away. The challenge of the internet is going to be for the forseeable future figuring out how to make all channels work together effectively. This result reminds me that the more things change the more they stay the same. I was involved at MCI with developing programs that integrated the sales force with direct programs that had a great deal of success. It's not just one channel, never has been, and everything needs to be integrated.

The real multichannel marketing challenge

2008-10-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

I attended the Direct Marketing Association Conference and presented at the associated Direct Marketing Educator's Research Summit in early October. It seems that marketing practitioners are struggling with the entire multichannel concept. The fact is, analyzing customer responses across channels to figure out the best way to communicate with them (how many touches, over what time frame and over what channel) to drive response is not an easy task. In the first place, most firms still don't have their data from various marketing programs in one place. In the second place, the level of sophistication of data analysis needed to solve these problems is considerable. Although there are software firms out solving this problem, to a large extent the marketer must rely on response models and statistical techniques unique to the firm and requiring a comfort level with statistics that most marketers do not possess. I think this trend just reinforces the fact that marketing is becoming a more technical discipline. In terms of the educational field, I think the recent students from University programs, particularly those who have taken courses like the database course I teach, will be better prepared to meet the multichannel marketing challenge.

What's going on in retail

2007-02-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my new blog. I am Debra Zahay, the Acxiom Corporation Professor of Interactive Marketing at Northern Illinois University. We train hundreds of marketing majors each year in principles of direct and interactive marketing, including SEO and SEM, e-business principles, web design and the like. We have the largest undergraduate marketing program in the State of Illinois and over 400 marketing majors. Each week I will share with you some of the information that I am passing along in my classes and my comments on internet and direct marekting trends. If you have any questions about the program, contact me at 815-753-6215 or email me at zahay@niu.edu.

This week:

According to a Nielson Net ratings webinar yesterday, there was over a 20% increase in retail Christmas traffic on the internet over last year, with the growth rate in the prime Thanksgiving holiday week of over 100%! Contrast this growth rate with a mere 4.4% growth in Holiday Spending as reported by the National Retail Federation and we can start to see how important the internet will continue to be as a marketing channel. Most of the growth in holiday spending was in multichannel retailing, so integrating online and offline strategies, like we do in my internet marketing course at NIU, continues to be paramount.

Also, I was recently quoted in Info Week on search engine and branding and mentioned that some brands, like Wal-Mart, continue to pull traffic even if they might not be search engine optimized. Indeed, this year Wal-Mart eclipsed Amazon.com for holiday traffic spending. The point is not to ignore SEO but to also work on traditional marketing concepts such as differentiation and branding.