Acquisition

The 14 Questions All Marketers Should Have Answers To

October 12, 2015 by influexwp 2 Comments

A friend recently asked me for a list of questions that would help marketers make their business more efficient and optimized. These questions span a variety of areas within a business; while not all may be relevant to every business, the vast majority of them do (or should).

There is no right or wrong answer to any of these. What’s more important is being able to answer these questions yourself or knowing where and who to go to. None should take more than 5 minutes to answer; if so, then that means you aren’t giving them their due attention. (Hint: these are important points of leverage within most/all organizations.) And if these are entirely new questions, then this is your chance to address key areas of opportunity within your business.

1. What are your top 2 sources of traffic? Are they different than your top 2 sources of paying customers?

No one is good at everything. That goes for marketers as well. It’s a rare company that is actually good at more than 2 media channels. Folks great at TV are rarely just as exceptional online. Even within online media, it’s rare to find a company that is great at SEO, YouTube, Facebook and banner advertising. Which sorta makes sense. You test a bunch of stuff, find success in 1 or 2 areas, and then push hard there to grow. And then as a company grows, competence builds in these areas.

As it relates to the question(s) above, many people don’t actually know where their biggest volume of traffic comes from. And for a lot of folks, the list of traffic sources vs. list of converting customers isn’t always the same. Impressions, reach and visitors don’t always translate to paying customers. Understanding that breakdown and then managing accordingly is important to most efficiently use resources, dollars, etc.

2. What is the average lifetime value (“LTV”) of a customer?

The single most important question any marketer (not just a direct response marketer) can answer. How much is a customer worth? $100? $1,000? Are you including the first transaction or all future transactions as well? Do you actually have the tools, systems and people in place to measure and track this information? When you think of the value of a customer, are you talking revenues or profits? Do you know if customers from different channels vary in LTV?

I don’t know how you can manage your media or your business without knowing the answer to this question and the resulting questions that come out of it. How do you know if your media is working? Are the customers you acquired last week actually going to make you money? Do you have the cash position to tolerate losing money on the front-end with the knowledge (not hope) you will generate more revenue later? What steps are you taking every week to increase the value of a customer, either through increasing sales or decreasing costs?

Understanding the value of a customer is crucial for 2 reasons: 1) it helps to ensure the business model is actually intact; and 2) it helps to drive future actions.

3. What is the average amount you pay to acquire a customer?

A direct corollary to the prior question but it deserves its own question. Some call this a media allowable, CAC (customer acquisition cost), or SAC (subscriber acquisition cost). The name used doesn’t matter. Put simply, how much did you spend to get a new customer? For most folks that means media dollars divided by new customers – assuming you can match customers back to media. For others, you have to factor in PR, promotions/sponsorships, and other non-trackable media spend. Regardless, if you don’t know the value of your customer (#2 above), you won’t know whether your cost to acquire a customer works in your model. For example, while it might sound like a lot to pay $10,000 to acquire a customer, if you are a high-end divorce attorney, that might actually be cheap given the millions of dollars a client might generate for you. And while a typical Starbucks customers spends around $6 per visit (I’m making that number up but it feels about right), given just how many times they return over not just 1 year but numerous years, Starbucks may be able to spend hundreds of dollars to acquire a new customer and make it profitable.

4. What do your customer service reps say to customers who want a refund because they feel your product/service is too expensive?

My guess is that even the 99 Cent Store gets customers who say the product was too expensive (Note – I’m not trying to live in an ivory tower – I know there are a ton of people who can barely afford those stores, I’m just picking a low-priced establishment to make the point that every company selling something most likely has customers who think their products are too expensive.). The question is whether someone has provided guidance to the customer service reps on what to say. I’m not suggesting making life miserable for customers who want to return a product. But assuming the product is of value, then presumably it’s a positive for customers to have and use it.

The real issue is whether the product/service actually has value. Are the people who are buying it the ones it would benefit? Are customers clear on what they are purchasing? And then do customer service folks understand the value so that they can make sure that customers understand and capture the value.

5. When was the last time you personally ordered your own product / service?

Everyone is busy. I get it. And we get so caught up in managing the business, managing others, looking at analyses on the business, etc. that we forget one of the most valuable and simplest things of all – putting ourselves in the shoes of our customer. And that means going through the same process that an actual customer (or potential customer) goes through. Whether that means calling a phone number, visiting the website, going into an actual brick-and-mortar location, or even buying person-to-person, pretending like you are a first-time customer and playing that part in the buying process will likely make you appreciate the pros and cons of what you are taking others through.

A couple more thoughts – if you sell online (I know that sounds silly to actually say today), go through the process both on your desktop/laptop as well as your smartphone. Also, once you’ve bought the product/service, try to return it and see what that experience is like (see #4 above).

6. When was the last time you personally ordered your top 3 competitors’ product / service?

Here’s a shocker to some marketers – your competitors are better than you in at least one area. You actually aren’t the best at every single component of your business. Competitors are also a great source of ideas and inspiration, both because of the good and the bad things they do.

See what their experience is like. You’ll likely pick up a thing or two.

7. Have you opened the emails your company sends to customers on your smartphone?

Because that’s where the vast majority of them are reading them. And do you know where they physically are when they are reading those emails? Especially if you send them overnight or early in the morning, they are reading them (and likely deleting them) while sitting on the toilet. Email, just like TV, is too often described as dead or at least no longer relevant. Yea, no. There are still plenty of companies that use only email (and TV) to build 9-figure businesses.

But it is getting harder to get through the clutter. So whether it’s evaluating the subject line, design, or content, experience your emails how most of your customers are.

And if you don’t feel like you are aggressively emailing your customers, you probably aren’t. (Btw, here is a great analysis of the email marketing campaign used by the Obama campaign in 2012 – https://blog.kissmetrics.com/email-marketing-lessons-obama/.)

8. If you have a physical product, are you selling on Amazon? How many images do you have on your listing?

News flash, Amazon is taking over. I’ve already written about this once before here, so I won’t revisit it in depth other than to say if you put your physical product up on Amazon, you’re going to make more money than you do today. It’s largely incremental, and there are a lot of folks out there (myself included) who try to make as many of our purchases on Amazon, even if we found your product on your website.

The question about the number of images is really about how optimized is your listing. You are allowed 7 images. Most people have 1-2. Not to mention, there are a host of additional areas to optimize your page – the bullets, description, and reviews.

If you don’t have your products up on Amazon, get them up there.

If you don’t have some who is accountable for maximizing Amazon, get that assigned – whether it’s their full-time job or a component of it. It needs an owner.

9. What happens to customers whose credit cards decline / default on a multi-pay or a subscription payment?

Another point I previously wrote about here, but these are really important points that I keep re-raising.

10. How often do customers get a call from someone in your organization checking in to see how things are going?

I was at a mastermind event last week where I heard the CEO of MemphisInvest describe how every month, their folks call each of their Company’s 1,200+ investors to see how they are doing. And yes, there are investors who tell them they get the point of calling and don’t need a call every month, but I was struck at the level of service. It also goes to show how much they think of their offer that they aren’t afraid to call customers. As silly as that may sound, many marketers don’t want to talk with their customers, whether that’s because they know their product isn’t good, they think it’s a headache to deal with customers, or they just don’t care to improve.

As with many of these questions, there are implications of the original question. Each reflects assumptions, attitudes, and philosophies of your business.

11. What is the 2nd item (product/service) you offer to a customer?

It’s amazing how many people don’t offer more to their customers. Some think it’s sneaky or beneath them. But there are countless examples in mainstream companies where it’s happening everyday:

-Do you want fries with that?

-For $0.25 more, you can get the large drink instead of the medium

And if you think it’s only at McDonald’s or the movie theater when this happens, go add an item to your Amazon cart. What shows up immediately below is the “customers who bought this product also bought these” section. That’s an upsell.

Depending on what the initial offer is, upsells can be orders of magnitude greater value than the original offer. But whether they add up to 10x or .25x more, adding them – I’ve seen up to 8 and still make sense – is a crucial way to add to your customer LTV.

12. What was the last test you ran on your thank you page?

Or let’s just start with, when was the last test you ran period? Too many people aren’t testing enough (or at all). There is just no way that what worked last year or what worked initially is the most optimized way of doing things. But it’s also not about just blindly switching things – your organization has to become a testing organization. It needs to be built into the culture. Testing means failing, and too many organizations are fearful of failure.

But testing is the only way to get better.

Please do it.

13. What tasks that you individually do are the highest value and which are the lowest value? What are you doing to delegate or eliminate the lowest value ones?

There is a value associated with everything we do. Hopefully it’s positive, sometimes it’s neutral, and the reality is that some of our actions have negative value. But when was the last time you looked at how and where you spend your time, and whether explicitly or otherwise, put a value on each of the things you do? What during your day is the greatest ROI thing you do? For some, it’s about writing copy, for others it’s about building technology, for other it’s about hiring for key roles. Too often people are doing a lot of the things they did when they were on their own or didn’t have a team. But those can be really really low-value time-sucks. Everything from managing your schedule, filling out expense forms, booking travel, etc. This is not to say that you necessarily need to hire someone. New tools like Expensify make the expense process tons easier. Or for $10/ month you can use travel app Native to help with booking, re-scheduling, etc. It’s time to start getting rid of those low-value tasks, especially those you detest, that you’ve been doing “just because.”

14. In 2 sentences, describe where you want your company to be in 18 months?

Depending on your role, you may have varying ability to affect your company’s strategic vision. Sounds obvious, but a lot of professionals feel that they are so busy that they don’t have time to plan. These are the same folks who are usually complaining about the same types of issues over and over.

As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, all roads lead there.”

For your sake and for that of your company, you need a written plan of where you want your company to be in 18 months. In your head or even spoken isn’t good enough. Something happens once you write something. It forces a different clarity of thought, allows people to react to it, and serves as a reference document that everyone can refer to.

Bonus Question:

15. In 2 sentences, describe where you personally want to be in 18 months?

And then there are folks for whom business planning is a no-brainer, but they forget that planning for themselves should also be such. Whether it’s around the New Year, halfway through, or a quarterly review, it’s the same idea as business planning. You certainly need to know where you are and then plan for how to get where you want to be.

Btw, one of the best books I’ve read recently about getting from Point A to Point B is Straight-Line Leadership by Dusan Djukich. My favorite line from the book is, “It’s been said that your life, when it’s over, will either be a warning or an example.” Powerful words.

Feel free to take this list and have a conversation with your partners or management team. Because these are some of the more important issues every business should not only be paying attention to but also be working to optimize.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The DR vs. Brand Conundrum No Longer – Modelling Income vs. Wealth

October 12, 2015 by influexwp Leave a Comment

If you asked a DR marketer or a brand marketer what they think of the other, you would most likely hear about a lack of understanding of the other model, possibly even a snide or cynical view of the other.

Most DR marketers are pretty proud, borderline arrogant, about how they approach marketing – and very few truly care about building a brand; I say this not because they avoid spending money on “brand” advertising, but rather because of their business practices. More on this point in a bit.

At the same time, many brand marketers either don’t really know what DR is or describe being a DR marketer themselves, but in a way that most hard-core DR marketers would scoff at. Managing to impressions or reach is not how a pure-bred DR marketer manages their media. But a brand marketer’s emphasis on the longer-term is usually superior to that of DR marketers.

So why such a difference? Why are direct response and brand often times so much at odds with one another?

Some of it is legacy. And some is just practicality.

From a historical perspective, many DR marketers had a churn-and-burn mentality, working to extract as much money from a customer as possible, knowing full well that that customer would rarely refer the product (rarely a service) to a friend once that relationship (read: billing) had ceased. Very few DR marketers – think infomercial guys from the 90s – were interested and working towards building a business. They behaved in a way that created the stereotype about infomercials – I remember hearing about a marketer that required a return be shipped in the original packaging, despite that the packaging was designed to essentially fall apart when originally opened. That kind of practice deserved a crappy reputation. And clearly reflected a lack of concern about impact on the brand.

What DR folks have done well, however, is being laser-focused on optimizing traffic and media, and maximizing revenues and customer LTV. Especially early on in a business’ life cycle, maximizing the return on money spent is crucial.

On the other hand, traditional advertising has been focused on branding and awareness. Once TV advertising was opened up, marketers realized they could dramatically increase their reach. The mentality was more about influencing public opinion, but the need to specifically track the effectiveness of individual media wasn’t as prevalent. It’s what spurned the comment, “50% of media doesn’t work, we just don’t know which 50%.” If a DR marketer said that, they be laughed at, fired, and/or out of business pretty quickly.

Where brand marketers have been particularly good, however, has been in, well, branding – crafting a story, persona and experience around a brand. More than that, they oftentimes have a greater attention towards true customer experience and satisfaction, and all the work that goes into increasing those measures.

So which is better? And which is more relevant in different phases in a business’ evolution?

The answer to both questions is “yes”…

The value of a DR sensibility is the attention towards optimization and increasing revenues/margin. For a startup with minimal funds, it’s almost a requirement to think this way. But for a business that wants to stay around for the longer-term, it’s nearly impossible to do so with a crappy brand (though the cable companies have done so in spite of themselves, but that’s a different conversation…). People want to associate with brands. A brand is what garners a premium vs. the generic option. A brand is what helps people to choose between multiple similarly-appearing offerings.

In some ways, DR can be likened to income, while brand can be likened to wealth. One helps you generate money, the other helps you to keep and grow it.

The reality is that both models need to be considered and used by all marketers. The idea that DR is a niche business model needs to end. DR folks understand the importance of tracking and measuring as much as possible and are obsessed with ROI of any spend. At the same time, unless an organization wants to continue to reinvent itself, sometimes weekly, and just wants to live in the acquisition world, they have to understand the value of a brand – and that understanding needs to be reflected in how the company treats its customers, how much they try to “extract” from their leads and customers, and frankly, how they realize that everyone customer interaction is both an opportunity as well as recipe for disaster if mis-handled.

These are not issues to address, especially when DR can be like a drug that a marketer wants to keep peddling, while being focused on brand can be really fun when it comes to creative advertising. But branding is so much more than media and advertising. Ultimately, the brand is your consumer’s experience and perception of your business. And anyone interested in building an enterprise that lasts any remotely-extended period of time, needs to pay attention to that experience.

Marketers traditionally immersed in one need to understand how to apply the relevant component’s of the other business model. Both have significant value and need to have attention placed towards them.

You don’t generate wealth without an income. And unless you pay attention to what you do with your income, you don’t build wealth.

And that is why it shouldn’t be a conundrum, but rather a matter of figuring out how both DR and brand fundamentals are relevant to your business.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The 13 Things DRTV Marketers Should Know about Digital Marketing

October 12, 2015 by influexwp 3 Comments

For the most part, the days of “do you factor in online sales when you run TV media” questions are generally over. And so most traditional DRTV marketers have a website that primarily receives traffic driven thru TV media. But what many DRTV marketers don’t do well is drive cold traffic online. Below is a smattering of what I’ve learned with my time with some of the top digital marketers out there.

1. The pace is totally different, and you’ll likely have to battle ingrained cultural norms to be successful

I combined 2 points which I think are actually the 2 most important and the 2 biggest challenges DRTV folks have when it comes to digital. Everything online is faster than in the TV world. That’s not an attack on the DRTV world – almost like criticizing an oil tanker for not having a smaller turning radius. That’s because the process of putting something up on TV just takes longer. It has to be higher quality, historically stations only aired tapes (it’s gradually getting better), and as a result the cost of switching tapes is not free like it is when you want to switch SEM copy. Plus, if you lived in a world where you sent paper materials to your customers, that just exaggerated how “just right” everything had to be.

This results in certain types of cultural norms and business processes, frankly that were necessary to save money, avoid mistakes, etc. But in the world of online marketing, very little has to be perfect. Far from it. Not to mention, newer companies have the advantage of new technologies. You can literally get an online store up and running in a couple hours with Shopify. Google Analytics provides free tracking and analytics tools. WhatRunsWhere allows you to see what banner ads your competitors are running – to the point that you can download them and build your own.

But more than anything, people starting in digital media today just expect to operate at a fast pace. And the cost for DRTV folks comes both in opportunity cost, not to mention in trying to attract partners and employees from the digital world who are not frustrated by the “normal” pace within these organizations.

I can’t overemphasize this point enough. Just as some larger traditional companies have established new offices in Silicon Valley, it might be worth a new space (or at least part of the office) to allow the digital folks to do their thing.

2. Remember that cold traffic to your site from online media is probably not nearly as qualified as it is from your TV marketing

One of the huge benefits of running media on TV, especially long-form, is that you get the opportunity to educate, inform and excite your potential customers before they get to the landing page. As such, traditional landing pages for DRTV marketers don’t have to do as much selling as providing some additional and supporting info, and then to get out of the way of allowing a customer to purchase.

Driving cold traffic from online media to a site is akin to getting someone to click on the program guide. That’s just the first step. Depending on where they’re coming from, the content on the page – whether written, images, a video, or something else – needs to then do the job that the infomercial did. That’s because the customer is in a total different state of awareness. You can’t just put a buy button at the top of the page. Just because a customer doesn’t click doesn’t mean they aren’t interested; it’s just that it’s the wrong sequencing. My friend Perry Belcher (one of the sharpest guys out there) really taught me this lesson.

3. Online video (especially YouTube) is different than TV video

TV viewers expect a certainly level of quality, and are accustomed to a certain pace. Same with online viewers. Except that those 2 are different for an online viewer than a TV viewer (even if it’s the same person). For example, using multiple cameras for TV is normal, but on YouTube, while there are certainly some exceptions, direct-to-camera is the norm. And whereas a TV viewer expects clean cuts from one scene to another, online, consumers have become accustomed to somewhat choppy edits – if the result means less dead air and getting to the point faster.

Not to mention the form factor of mobile – people just can’t read as much on their smartphone as they can when they watch on their 40-inch flatscreens. This sounds like an obvious point, but check out how many videos you watch on your phone that have copy that is unreadable. And to those that say they didn’t realize or intend for consumers to watch it on their phones, well, that’s partly the point – consumers are doing things on their terms now more than ever before.

4. You need to learn a new language, but just like a foreign language, don’t try to learn it all at once

The following is a list of some of the more commons terms in digital marketing today:

SEO, SEM, Email, Affiliates, display, Social (FB, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, I/G, Periscope, Snapchat), VSLs, long-form vs. short-form sales letters, retargeting, drip-campaigns, reputation management, auto-responder sequences, exit pops, webinars, content marketing

Hopefully, many of those are familiar to you. And while you don’t have to know and use every single one of those, it’s about learning what different types of strategies and tactics are out there and then deciding which one(s) are relevant for your business.

Note: If you don’t have the foundations of SEO, SEM (especially brand search), retargeting (both thru Google and Facebook), and basic email marketing in place, I’d get those squared away first before touching anything else. The reason I say that is your TV media is already affecting those buckets, so I’d get traffic from your TV media sorted out first before adding new media.

5. You need to go hang out with new people

Just like learning a foreign language, you need to start going to the places where the people who are speaking this new language are hanging out. The beauty (and at times overwhelming part) is that there are a ton of conferences and events. One thing to note is that most of the events are content-heavy – where you spend most of your time in educational sessions, as opposed to in suites simply meeting folks. Traffic & Conversion Summit is one of the best events out there. There are a ton of affiliate events such as Affiliate Summit East/West, LeadsCon, etc. And NewsCred just put on one of the better content marketing events recently – what was particularly great was that I couldn’t make the event in NYC but they live-streamed it for free.

6. Sharing of information happens in a different way, especially amongst marketers

This point extends from the one just above. One dynamic that I’ve been utterly blown away by in the digital marketing world is the extent to which people share information. And I’m not talking about general statements such as “we use SEM to drive our traffic.” But I’ve seen folks break down the exact ads they ran, the funnel they run people through, how they retarget non-converting leads, their metrics, and much more. And in rooms where direct competitors were present. It’s pretty amazing. That’s a big part of what makes the educational sessions so highly-attended. There is high-quality content being shared. You may need to learn this new language, and fortunately there are tons of resources and people out there willing to teach you – sometimes even for free (see my prior post on podcasts – http://goo.gl/PH18xE).

2 highly-recommended resources I’d suggest:

-Digital Marketer – www.digitalmarketer.com – their blog is excellent and their DM Lab is unreal cheap ($39/month) for great content. At the very least, join their email list.

-Neil Patel – probably one of the best content marketing guys out there. If you go thru his posts, he will pretty much teach you content marketing to a level of detail that you didn’t expect – he posts in a couple places – http://neilpatel.com/blog/ and http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/ .

7. You need to buddy up with Google and Amazon

Two particular relationships that have to be built are with Google and Amazon (especially if you’re in the physical products world – see my prior post about Amazon – http://goo.gl/KFQBMG). Presumably you have been doing this anyways but it warrants repeating. Neither of them is going anywhere. They are big gorillas that are not afraid to push people around. But they are also HUGE drivers of traffic and revenues. And so a strong relationship there can make a big difference.

8. Facebook should probably be a 3^rd required relationship

I’m amazed that people still aren’t running ads on Facebook. At the very least, it should be used for retargeting. But I know people running 6-figure media dollars each week on Facebook. Profitably. Certainly, Facebook, just as Google has done, has started tightening up their compliance on what they do and don’t allow, but that just means being creative and adapting. And pretty much to be expected – each new property usually allows almost anything and everything to attract as many people as possible, and then once they’ve hit some sort of scale and feel like they can push back on advertisers (or just users in general), they start doing so. But re: Facebook, it’s essentially a monster database marketing tool. Not just for killing time…

9. Don’t stress about perfection in the way you do with TV (and print)

Already mentioned this above. But it bears mentioning a second time. Most everything can be pulled down and changed if you don’t like it. Find a way to get tests up as quickly as possible. Ad copy tests, images, landing page tests, back-end tests. Wherever you have traffic is where you should be looking to test. Just make sure you prioritize your higher points of leverage and that tests are kept apart, even if one is on the front end and the other is on the back end.

10. Your digital marketing employees and agencies aren’t nearly as focused on the phone channel as you are

It might feel like I’m being critical of DRTV folks. Far from it. Many have had a level of success that you have to appreciate. But this post is about an area where most DRTV marketers have fallen short and how to make improvements, not about talking about all the things that have been done well.

That being said, one area that deserves mention – because of implications on the digital side – is the phone channel. Most DRTV marketers show a toll-free number on the screen (BTW, at least on TV, you should be using 800 numbers – not as important on your site, but definitely on TV). As such, they (you) probably have a sense of the value of the phone channel. Most digital marketers don’t have that experience. So how and where you can add in the opportunity for people to respond via phone, even if it’s not primary, is where you’ll have to be mindful.

11. There are analogues to PI media

In the online world, they’re affiliates, who you pay per order, lead, or whatever is agreed upon. Just be aware that fraud is much much worse with online affiliates than PI agencies (where in my experience it was rare). If you’re going to work with affiliates, you have to have someone watching for fraud. And while in the DRTV world, PI is considered an add-on, there are plenty of online marketers who drive traffic almost entirely through affiliates (working with ClickBank, CJ, Share A Sale, and others).

12. Technology can make a big difference

And likely if you’ve been around for a while, yours is outdated. That doesn’t mean scrap everything and start from scratch. It doesn’t mean go spend $5MM. But it does mean that you should explore what’s out there (this article is 3 years old but it’s even more true today – http://goo.gl/EJz65h).

13. Your digital folks need to know what the rest of your business is doing

Whereas people only call an inbound telemarketing phone number after seeing your spot or show, pretty much anything can drive someone to your site, social properties, etc. A mention on a news program, an inadvertent Tweet, a user-generated video that goes viral. The company’s website and social properties need to be recognized as downstream of pretty much everything else. So while they might be in a different part of the building, they need to be kept in the loop. And they need to communicate effectively with the rest of the organization.

It’s been exciting to see how some DRTV marketers have embraced the digital world. My fear is that others continue to ignore it or simply choose to reject it. But just as companies are starting from scratch these days, it’s totally reasonable for traditional DRTV folks to build up their digital marketing capabilities, even if it feels like it’s from scratch.

There’s a lot of really cool stuff and opportunities out there. And it’s only growing.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The Top 19 (Yes, 19) Things Digital Marketers Should Know about TV

October 12, 2015 by influexwp Leave a Comment

Online and TV marketers remind me a bit of rocks stars and movies stars – many wish they were the other. Movie stars don’t get the immediate rush from a crowd screaming their names like rock stars do when they’re on-stage while rock stars often live a life on the road versus movie stars who are gone for specific periods of time (and TV stars who rarely have to travel). A few years ago, I would have said they were stuck, but that’s changing a bit – at least for rock stars trying their hands at movies (not sure I recollect too many movie stars going the other direction).

As for online and TV marketers, it’s not a simple task, but growing into the other’s domain is possible and seemingly an aspiration for the other. As it’s gotten cheaper and cheaper to get a business going online, there are an increasing number of online-only companies that are exploring TV media.

Below is a list of some of what I’d tell them:

1. The scale and exposure of TV is still pretty remarkable

Sure, videos, memes and post go viral online, but there is still this sense that you can get to a different sort of scale on TV than online. And TV still provides a different sense of fame and exposure that is pretty impressive.

2. The Demise of TV has been grossly overstated

Everyone keeps talking about TV going away, people unplugging, Hulu/Netflix/Amazon taking over. But here’s the thing, there are still a ton of people watching TV. The satellite and cable subscriber numbers are still pretty health: DirecTV – 20MM; Dish – 14MM; Comcast – 22MM; Time Warner – 11M. TV isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. There’s still just way too much you can push thru satellite and cable than you can’t on an Internet connection, let alone wifi.

3. TV media is not as expensive as you think

I once spoke to a group of digital marketers and mentioned that we can test a new show for $25,000 of media. I was immediately asked if that was per airing and then how many airings we ran. When in actuality that was the total test. I never realized just how much confusion there was on TV media – yes, some airings are $70K, but those are by far the exceptions. Airings can vary from $25 to several thousand dollars, and so for $25K, you can get a good read assuming you pick the right media.

4. TV Video is different than online video

This may or may not be obvious, but it bears mentioning. For starters, TV viewers expect a certain type of quality while online viewers, especially those on YouTube, have come to tolerate and almost expect lower quality video. Not to mention the pace of content has to be different. Online, if someone doesn’t like your content, something else is a quick click away. Yes, you can easily click the remote on your TV, but I think we have all experienced much less patience with poor online content than with TV. At the same time, digital marketers with experience using online video are used to telling people a story in a certain way; importantly, everyone watching starts at the same place. Contrast that with TV where viewers may switch to a channel at entirely different times. So tactics such as pattern-interrupts are almost non-existent on TV (with the exception of this brilliant one this year, but that was only because Chevy knew most everyone was watching – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVmHxm_hFLY ). Bottom line, make sure the content matches the media.

5. The pace of testing is different

By far one of the biggest differences between TV and online is just how much quicker you can test (pretty much anything) online while TV takes much more time – getting a master finalized, tapes made (more short-form is finally going digital), waiting for the airing, etc. As opposed to digital where you can literally get ads up within an hour or two of making the decision to do so.

6. You’re likely not a TV creative director so don’t behave like you are one

Many internet marketers are used to figuring things out themselves. It’s really quite impressive. But TV production is a different ballgame. And because of the implications on timing mentioned above, you have to take slightly better shots than you might ordinarily get away with online. Find good people to help you out.

7. Production is really hard

If you can’t drive response, the rest doesn’t matter. For reasons that I still don’t fully understand, the number of really good producers isn’t that big. These last 2 points may sound like you should then avoid TV. That’s not necessarily the case. But it all comes down to driving response. Just like if you can’t get someone to click on an ad, conversion rate doesn’t matter. The point here is while you can get away with something ugly and bare bones online, it’s a lot harder to do on TV. So you’re very likely going to end up needing a partner. Don’t expect that you can do it all on your own.

8. Understand the difference between short-form versus long-form

Not surprisingly, long-form (everyone says 30 minutes but in reality it’s 28:30) is more often used for products and offers that require more explanation and/or are higher-priced. Versus short-form (15 seconds to 5 mins) which has been better for lead-gen, trial offers, etc. And typically better for retail, though some of the housewares folks have used long-form to drive retail as well.

9. Be aware of how TV media is bought and managed

Both absolutely have a relationship component to how they are managed but short-form is more bought in a more fluid and liquid environment – you essentially put in a bid and if you have the highest price, you’ll air. It feels much more like a market economy. Long-form on the other hand is typically bought monthly and while you can pre-empt someone in a slot, it’s a lot harder and not nearly as real-time relative to short-form. Both are typically bought through agencies – on the long-form side, that’s more related to those monthly buys. Not too many marketers are willing to take that risk. And though not 100% necessarily on the short-form side, agencies can help with understanding the market environment, rates, etc. Plus, it’s important to know that there are essentially no self-service platforms, no analogues to a DSP/DMP, etc., so it’s just a lot to try to manage internally. Suffice to say that the TV industry hasn’t been nearly as fast-paced from a technology perspective as the digital world.

10. You can optimize yourself to $0 of spend if you manage it exactly the same way as you do online

Online is much more of a game of constant tweaking, moving, adjusting, trying new creative, new landing pages, etc. Not to say that you should stay in TV media when it’s not working, but a Tuesday 3am airing on ABC Family will likely behave differently than a Wednesday 3am airing on the same network – so while one might not work, the other may. And so you can’t be as knee-jerk to pulling media, not to mention you also can’t scale at the flip of a switch. But you absolutely can scale – again, these distinctions are about pace more than anything else.

11. You likely are not 1-and-done with your online tests, so don’t be that way with your TV testing

I’ve come across way too many digital marketers that say that they tried TV once, it didn’t work, and so they didn’t go back. I just don’t get this mentality because many thing onlines don’t work the first time around – testing and tweaking is just what the direct-response business is about.

12. And so, you should expect to fail the first time around

The implications are to plan both from a time and budget standpoint.

13. You need to hang out with new people

Just as online media has gotten more and more specialized – so much so that you almost need partners (or employees) for each media form, the same can be said for TV – whether it’s production folks, media agencies, networks, and call centers (we’ll get to the importance of the phone channel in a sec). Events like the ones the ERA (www.retailing.org) and the DRMA (http://www.responsemagazine.com/) put on are places to make those connections. (Full disclosure – I’m a Board member of the ERA.) And not surprisingly, the DRTV folks have a culture of their own. You’ll need to spend some time learning the lay of the land.

14. The phone channel as a response mechanism is really important

It’s good to see that more and more online marketers are adding phone numbers to their websites, not just for customer care, but for driving sales. (And let’s be very clear, a customer care agent is very different than a sales one.) Very few TV marketers are 100% drive-to-web. Part is a historical data one – you can have unique numbers per airing and so can know how each airing worked (at Beachbody, we managed roughly 20,000 toll-free numbers). It’s also the case that if you’re doing it right, the phone can be much more effective than online. 70% qualified lead conversion rate vs. 5% conversion rate. And upsell take-rates up to 50% higher. Not to mention some folks, particularly non-millennials, still like to speak to someone when ordering. Even when you factor in the cost of management and the agent’s time, you will almost always generate higher revenues from a call than an online visitor.

15. Claims

The good about TV is that it gives you exposure. The bad, at least for those pushing the limits, is the same thing. While the FTC is getting better at cracking down on sketchy claims online, they still acknowledge it’s a huge challenge and that online marketers can get away with claims that would never fly on TV. So you need to make sure to get some legal advice when it comes to your claims for TV spots. Not to mention, many networks have their own review processes to approve ads before they run.

16. Your offline and online teams need to be aligned and coordinated

We live in an age where everything affects everything. There are no silos. This point goes well beyond your offline and online media teams in your organizations and as they extend to external partners, agencies, etc.

17. Attribution

By far the biggest challenge in the DRTV world is understanding attribution – what TV spot drove which orders online. There are a few companies trying to help address this issue – mostly from an analytical perspective. As for myself, I think there is no 100% solution but some combination of analytics and a Shazam-type technology that will improve the murkiness. Unfortunately, promo codes and “/tvoffer” urls only work so well. Not to mention promo codes can have a detrimental effect to the extent the consumer forgets the code and thinks they truly need the code for the special offer; they may just move on to the next thing. All this to say that there are some ways to manage through this – for example, looking at a recent historical baseline pre and post a TV flight. And running enough media that a change in results would be more than just noise. Not perfect, but getting TV to work is worth it.

18. Just like everything else, there are not absolute truths

You kinda just have to pick smart partners, start with best practices, and then expect to test.

19. The fundamentals are the same

Having a good product makes things easier (and frankly, I can’t stand when people are knowingly and continually selling a crappy product), but certainly without good marketing, most of the time, it won’t matter. So just as with online, it’s about creating demand then driving traffic and closing the sale. As for the back-end after that initial lead capture or transaction, well, that’s an entirely different topic….

This list may look long and complex. But if you think about how many components there are to digital marketing, you’ll acknowledge that each media has to be learned and has its own nuances. TV is not like print advertising (no offense…) – it’s still huge and can be a huge source of traffic. You just need to know that there is more to it, as there is to everything.

In the next blog post, what the DRTV folks should think about when it comes to digital marketing

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

Why You Need to be Selling on Amazon

October 12, 2015 by influexwp 4 Comments

Let me sum up as quickly as possible.

If you sell a physical product and are not selling on Amazon, you are losing money. Plain and simple.

Sure, there are implications and things to manage through, but if you want to make more money with your physical product business, then getting it up on Amazon is as close to a guaranteed way to do so as anything else. Particularly, if you are already selling direct-to-consumer.

The reason is not complicated but is multi-fold. For starters, there are a ton of people out there (myself included) who are Amazon buyers. What that means is that I’ve been known to see a product on another site, then I’ll check to see if it’s available on Amazon – if the pricing is even pretty close, I’ll buy it on Amazon rather than the other site (even if it’s a brand like Nordstrom which touts phenomenal customer service). My credit card is already in the system, I’m Prime so at worst I get 2-day shipping (and many times it’s same-day). How do you compete against that? You kinda don’t. You acknowledge and accept it and figure out how to benefit from it. Consumers are going there, and the forces are way bigger than any of us.

I’ve seen both first-hand and from countless marketers how Amazon is incremental to your business. Sure, maybe 2% of the business is cannibalized from your website, but I’ll give that up for the other 98%. And it is correct that you don’t own the customer – you get the customer info but you are not allowed to use that info to market to those customers. So, you can get more revenues and not own the customer? Ordinarily there is more nuance to it, but when it can add 10%-20% more revenues, those are not numbers to scoff at.

For direct-to-consumer marketers, the best way to get up and going is thru Amazon’s FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) program, which essentially means you get your inventory to Amazon, which makes you eligible for Amazon Prime (again, do not underestimate how big a deal this is – many consumers only buy from Prime sellers). You can set up the listing, you control pricing, etc., and when someone orders, Amazon ships the product directly to the consumer. And for the most part, Amazon manages customer service issues, though you absolutely need to monitor reviews and feedback – it is your brand so that part you have to own.

For wholesale marketers who have their products sold in retail, it’s not as clean – and I’ve heard plenty of complaints – but again, it’s worth the effort. Amazon wants parity with other sellers, so if you’re available in Nordstrom or Dick’s Sporting Goods, for example, just as those folks get to set pricing, etc., Amazon wants to do the same. As such, you’ll likely, though not always, be managed through Amazon Retail – which means that Amazon will buy your inventory wholesale – and then they will manage most everything else from that point on.

How can you tell the difference as a consumer? See the 2 screenshots below:

In the first, “Fulfilled by Amazon” means it’s FBA. The “sold by” is the actual business selling the product. That is different than the brand of the product, which is just below the title. (Also notice that this product is available for same-day delivery if I order it before noon.)

In this second screenshot, the product “ships form and is sold by Amazon.” This is Amazon Retail. You’ll also notice that with Amazon Retail listings (other than a limited number of exceptions for FBA), the description field is a lot more elegantly designed with html, and there can be videos alongside the images at the top. There are benefits that Amazon Retail has over FBA.

Now, whether the items is FBA or Retail, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other sellers. Owning the Buy Box – essentially being the first seller to show up – takes work. Conversion rate, price, customer service, etc. are some of the factors that affect who shows up first. And if you’re a Retail partner who also sells as big name brick-and-mortar retail locations, it’s likely you’re going to see those same sellers on Amazon (or 3^rd parties that took product off the hands of your wholesale partners). As such, I’ve known plenty of people who have complained about pricing issues (lower than preferred) on Amazon. There isn’t a perfect answer here, but if you have a reasonable amount of sales, you’ll likely get an Amazon rep who I would suggest building as strong a relationship with as possible – just know that people move around at Amazon every couple years, so this is a moving relationship…

Couple other items of note. Amazon’s internal boundaries as well as their technologies have set up a bit of a wall between FBA and Retail. It’s the same company and it looks like it’s happening in the same place, but this is just one of the legacy things happening there. Next, when it comes to reporting, Seller Central (for FBA) is significantly better than Vendor Central (for Retail). Again, just a legacy thing.

Bottom line, Amazon is only getting bigger and stronger. Better to embrace that fact and the relationship sooner.

Not to mention it’s very very likely going to make you more money.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The most valuable free education available

October 12, 2015 by influexwp Leave a Comment

In a world dominated by social media and video, it seems incredible to me that, separate from direct interactions with people, my greatest daily educational source is recorded audio. Or more affectionately termed, “Podcasts.” Think, on-demand radio programming.

Podcasting has been around for years, and in the last year, it became more mainstream with a single podcast called “Serial,” but I’m amazed at how few people know about podcasts and certainly how few people realize how much amazing content is available. For free. And for those who don’t know, podcasts are essentially recorded audio files (video in rare cases), that you can download thru iTunes or your smartphone – typically there’s a show host, and the formats can be everything from interviews to stories, the same person speaking to a new speaker each week, business-focused to entertainment. Even to get going, it requires pretty minimal resources, cost and time.

Especially in a town like LA, where the average commute length is 30 minutes, there is a good amount of downtime that can be better utilized for folks who want to learn something – as opposed to texting while driving, for example. And of course commuting isn’t exclusive to LA. Even if you have a 15 minute commute (which I do), that is still plenty of time to get great listening in, and even if a podcast is longer, I just resume on the way home or the next day.

In the business category, many folks I know use podcasting the same way they use their professional Facebook page – it’s just another source of attracting an audience. The plus for their listeners is that they have to produce really good content to build and maintain their audience. Because the audience has to listen to a podcast from anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, the content has to be good to keep people’s attention, as opposed to a social post, where it takes 5 milliseconds to scan a post, but even if it’s no good, there’s another opportunity right afterwards. Not so with recorded audio.

As for what I listen to, these days I’m heavy on business and marketing-related podcasts. My favorites include:

Russell Brunson’s Marketing in your Car – he literally records these 10-12 minute episodes driving to and from work
Ryan Daniel Moran’s Freedom Fastlane – particularly good for Amazon sellers, but he has expanded well beyond Amazon for broader entrepreneurial content
Startup – a podcast following a startup trying to build, of all things, a podcasting network
The Tim Ferris – focused on top achievers
Brad Costanzo’s Bacon Wrapped Business – another solid one, typically of successful business owners

Bottom line, especially if you’ve got your own business, this is the best and cheapest way to get access to some amazing people and to hear their secrets, lessons, etc. And if you “only” want to listen to comedy, sports or science content, there’s very likely a podcast for you.

One trick I should pass along – just as I do with some online videos, I rarely listen to podcasts at normal speed. There’s an option to listen at 1.5x to 2.0x. Which means you can get thru even more than you thought.

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