Top Research Priorities in Interactive Marketing?

I recently became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for Research in Interactive Marketing. Our mission is, according to the web site, " to address substantive issues in interactive, relationship, electronic, direct and multi-channel marketing and marketing management. With its origins in the discipline and practice of direct marketing, the journal aims to publish progressive, innovative and rigorous scholarly research for marketing academics and practitioners."

I recently created a word cloud of the topics covered in the last two years and wonder if we are hitting the mark? I see little research in search optimization, email marketing, multi-channel management, video marketing, b2b lead generation, online branding or other issues relating to that are of relevance to marketers according to my discussion with practitioners and other analyses that I have done of leading issues in Interactive Marketing by analyzing email subject lines. Notably absent are the measurement issues which seem to plague all marketers.

Help me develop the best journal possible by providing insight to the issues in practice that you would like to see researched in a rigorous manner by marketing academics. Provide comments to the blog or email me at zahay@niu.edu. Thanks in advance for your help.

Andrea Mulbrandt's IM Career

Andrea (Andi) Mulbrandt recently wrote me about her experiences in IM. "My first job out of college was selling radio advertisement. I learned a lot in three months at the radio station. I wasn't happy selling just radio to clients. I was always an advocate of an integrated marketing plan that pulled from all types of medias. I was limited in radio to truly advise my clients accurately. I met Kim, the Imagin8 Maketing sales rep, while I was at the station.

Kim approached me in October about an assistant position at a rapidly growing marketing firm. I was thrilled once I found out more information on Imagin8 Marketing. Imagin8 Marketing was created to help companies, organizations and even individuals to help promote themselves by using integrated marketing strategies such as blogging, email marketing, networking, reputation management, social sharing as well as traditional medias. The firm also specializes in website design and SEO. My position was to be an assistant and social media coordinator... It quickly turned into office manager, project coordinator, social media coordinator, and much much more. Imagin8 Marketing has grown rapidly since I started in October of 2011.

Jim Tome, the owner, had been running this firm in his basement since 2008. He was very comfortable with his small, one man business. He brought Kim on as a his first partner. Kim was so great at bringing in business, that they quickly needed more staff. Which led to me being hired. In less than a month after I started, we had an office space in downtown Sycamore and four more employees. We hired two designers, a blogger writer and a programmer.

Imagin8 Marketing is continuing to grow rapidly. We are expanding into all types of industries; medical, home builders, flooring, collegiate sports, etc.

Now, you asked me for my job title; each employee/partner of Imagin8 Marketing has a unique title. This is just another avenue to demonstrate our creativity. The owner, Jim Tome is "The Man Behind the Curtain." The sales rep, Kim Lamansky is the "Social Butterfly." The designers, Meagan Schoenrock is the "Creative Pantoner" and Laura Smoltich is the "Design Hipster." The blog writer, Joeye Davidson is the "Ghost Writer." My official job title is "Trusty Sidekick."

This is a very busy and exciting time for us at Imagin8 Marketing. We have our ribbon cutting tomorrow and open house next week! I appreciate your help in finding quality interns."

Social Media from the Trenches

We are using a lot more social media marketing to promote our Internet Marketing Conference this year on April 19 at NIU Naperville. Social media helped us get the word out last year but this year we have subscribed to Hootsuite and are able to sent the same information out to multiple locations, including all the groups I am a member of in linked in (without posting to each separately and are able to schedule posts in advance).

We have created a fan page in Facebook for our IM program and created an event under that page an also have a Linkedin event and a separate Twitter account for the event. Heather Baker, Contract Recruiter, and my grad assistant Alex Eddy have been helping us out, with guidance from board member Jen Brady, President and CEO of Fred and Associates.

We are also using direct communications and have 23 registered from an initial email sent out from me personally to past attendees and board members, so we are well on our way to our goal of 100 attendees. (Twenty six of our students will attend also as guests of our program to enhance their personal learning).

One person from social media (Linkedin) has said they will register and one firm from Facebook said they were interested in sponsoring. So while for an event like this there is no substitute for a personal, direct appeal I expect a lot of interest from social media. We are expecting that our partners econsultancy.com, PMA, CIMA, the BMA and CADM will also promote on social media.

We are using our own internal social media network, Vivastream, to promote interaction among the conference speakers and attendees.

We are just getting started. I tend to look at social media as a bit more like advertising and PR than direct marketing, so the consequences cannot always be measured. I will keep monitoring and keep you updated.

CAC Group presents "Segmentology" in Database Class

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

Interactive Marketing Definition

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

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

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

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

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.