Tag Archive for 'Steve Latham'

Goal Setting for 2009

Published
by
Steve Latham
on January 4, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Since it’s a new year, it’s a great time to think about our goals, both business and personal.  Our professional success is impacted not only by what happens at work, but how we manage our personal lives are well.  The more organized and on track we are in our personal lives, the more effective we can be at work.

Most are aware that people who write down and review their goals are much more likely to be successful than those who do not. But if you’re like me, it’s probably been a while since you did it.

Last year I decided to write down my goals, review them regularly, and track my accomplishments.  While 2008 was a pretty tough year (thanks recession!), I feel it was one of my most productive and fulfilling years to date.  I achieved most of my goals for 2008, and the gratification that came from it helped me deal with many unexpected challenges.  I believe my focus on goals, combined with frequent review and assessment, made a big difference for me in 2008.

If you’d like to do the same, feel free to use my Goal Setting Template (click to download via google docs - select “choose other application” for .doc version).  The categories are organized based on what made sense to me.  But everyone is different so feel free to edit as you see fit.

In addition to defining your goals, you should also define the steps required to achieve each goal.  Goals are great but you need an action plan.  For each goal you can add the steps for achieving it.

Next, you’ll also see some activity logs you can use to track how often you review your goals as well as your progress in achieving them. Each time you review your goals record the date.  Each time you achieve a goal mark it down.  Track your progress against each goal throughout the year.

Print and keep your goals and activity logs and keep them handy. I keep mine by my bed so I can review them each morning.

Writing down your goals is an important first step.  Of equal importance is that you review them frequently. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day; if you review your goals at least once a week, you can rise above the daily hassles and keep your eye on the prize.

I hope this is helpful and that you see great results in 2009.  Feel free to share with others and let me know what you think!

Best wishes for 2009!

Digital Success in Troubling Times

Published
by
Steve Latham
on November 20, 2008
in General
. 0 Comments

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at a luncheon hosted by AAF Houston and the Houston Interactive Marketing Association.  The theme was “what you need to know NOW”. These are challenging times for all businesses and now, more than ever, we need to focus our marketing efforts (and dollars) on those initiatives that produce the best results.

My presentation is below for your viewing pleasure.  The main takeaways are as follows:

1. Media consumption and media fragmentation are making digital channels more and more important for all companies.

2. As marketers we have to create content that consumers WANT to consume, and allow them to engage us when and how they choose.

3. There are numerous examples of savvy brands using digital media to reach and engage customers in a cost-effective way.

4. Despite a complex and overwhelming set of digital media options, there are some tried and true tactics that will provide the foundation for online marketing success.

5. Social media is becoming increasingly important, but you should have a plan before you dive in.

View my presentation on slideshare:

Digital Success in Troubling Times - Steve Latham - Spur Interactive

Thanks again to AAF and HiMA for allowing me to share my thoughts. If you have thoughts, comments or questions, I’d love to hear from you! Also feel free to Join me on facebook or Follow me on Twitter.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Making sense of results from online campaigns - Part 1

Published
by
Steve Latham
on September 29, 2008
in Analytics and General
. 0 Comments

When I talk to marketers these days, one of the most frequently cited needs I hear about is the ability to measure (and make sense of) results from online campaigns. More specifically, the gap in most organizations is their ability to trace results (e.g. engagement, leads or sales) back to individual ads, email blasts or search phrases that drove the desired results. They have data but it often doesn’t make sense. While many have figured out how to use tools such as Google Analytics for measuring conversions and attributing those to the ad unit (e.g. display ad or search phrase) that preceded the conversion, the results often do not make sense, or are contradictory to what their media plan said should happen.

If you are in this category, don’t despair – you are in good company. My personal research indicates that 94.59% of marketers are struggling with the same issues. I believe the challenge of measuring results that make sense is two-fold: 1) shortcomings of cookie-based tracking, and 2) the fallacy of last-click analysis, which I refer to as the “Wingman effect”.

Crumbling Cookies

As consumers become smarter, savvier online users, they are becoming more deliberate and less impulsive in their decision process. With so many more options at their fingertips they can easily do research and comparison shopping before buying that new camera or requesting information on your services. For big purchases, they often confer with others, e.g. sending a link to that new road bike to their friend or spouse to get their input). Another issue is the growing trend of “surf at work, buy at home”, where they do research on one computer and take action on another. Since we rely on cookies to track actions for each individual, these issues impact our ability to measure results. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you are at work, and just as you are thinking about how much you need a vacation, you see a VacationsToGo ad for a Caribbean cruise on your MyYahoo home page.You click through and like what you see but you have a lot to do and cubicles don’t offer much privacy for vacation shopping. Later that day you tell your spouse about the trip and tell him to go to VacationsToGo.com to learn more. He Googles it and finds it through a paid search listing. Later that evening, in the safety and comfort of your home, you jump on your personal computer and navigate directly to VacationsToGo.com to book the trip. Five minutes later, you are thinking about where you’ll eat in Cozumel.

Since the site sees that your home computer does not have its cookie, it assumes you have not visited before. Consequently, it views you as a 1st visit buyer, and does not know that you responded to the MyYahoo ad (or that your spouse found the site through a paid search ad). Both of the prior visits will appear to be a waste of ad spend. The poor analyst who has to measure performance of ad buys has no clue that the Yahoo ad started the engagement and that the paid listing contributed to the process. He will only see that at 7pm a 1st time visitor booked a cruise.

The example above illustrates how multiple visits and machines reduce the effectiveness of cookie-based tracking. The increasing use of cookie-cleaning tools adds to the dilemma. If, as widely reported, 40% of 3rd party cookies are either not accepted or deleted within 30 days, we’re blind to what impacts a significant portion of our results. Consequently, it’s difficult to take an accurate measure of which media buys are performing, and which are not.

So with that we conclude the first part of this subject. In my next post I will introduce the Wingman and give new hope to display media salespeople. But for the mean time, please tell me what you think! If you found this to be of value, please comment below.

Later!

Facebook Apps: Money Maker, Marketing Vehicle or Charitable Donation?

Published
by
Steve Latham
on August 26, 2008
in social media
. 2 Comments

So you want to make money from a Facebook App…

At the recent Barcamp Houston event, I attended a session titled “Facebook App Brainstorming Session”.  I had been thinking about how Facebook Apps could be used from a marketing standpoint, and was excited by the prospect of discussing it with others.  Unfortunately, the guy leading the session was mainly interested in telling the audience about the idea he had for an app.  Being a strong Type A personality, I interrupted the impromptu focus group and asked if anyone wanted to have a more general discussion about Facebook Apps.  Since most of the people in the room also thought that was the subject of the session we were in (kudos to the organizer for drawing a crowd!) a lot of hands were raised.  Convinced I could have a discussion w/ more than a mirror, I left the room and scheduled my own session [if you don't know how Barcamp works, the attendees decide what to discuss - you just find an open slot and put your subject and name on the board].

We had about 30 people show up for our brainstorming session. i kicked it off by posing 2 questions:

1. Can you actually make (real) money from a Facebook App?

2. Can a Facebook App be used for marketing purposes?

Unfortunately, no one in the room had actually developed a Facebook App. However, there were some smart people in the room and we had a great discussion.  Here are the takeaways:

Question 1: Can you make real $$$? While it’s theoretically possible to earn some income from cpm-based ad revenue sharing, we agreed it’s hard to make real money from an App.  Don’t get me wrong - Fun Space formerly known as Fun Wall is cool, but I use it mostly as a video viewer than an App.  Michael Dalesandro had the right app at the right time with Where I’ve Been, but those examples are rare.  Like the domain squatters of 1997, they showed that first movers can sometimes win.  Earlier this year I had dinner w/ the guys (nice kids from Austin) who created the Vampire and Zombie Apps.  They admitted they had just recently started to see some income from the millions of underworld fights they created, but recognized it wasn’t going to last long.  The nights of the Vampire were fading and that they needed to come up with something new, pronto.

This week Techcrunch reported that to date, a mere $8 million has been paid by Facebook to App developers around the world - not much considering the (hundreds of) billions of page views Facebook has had.  However, the article also reports there are some app developers who are making real money (six and seven figures each month) from their apps.  But these aren’t from the traditional cpm revenue shares - read the article to learn more.

Okay, so you CAN make money with a Facebook App.  And new members LOVE APPS! Who wouldn’t want to receive a cupcake???  Well, as much as virtual cupcakes enrich our lives, the novelty eventually wears off and they become a nuisance.  If you’re like me (and at least 499 others in the Facebook group “Stop Sending me damn application requests or I’ll go ape shit on your ass“), you’ve probably removed most of the apps you added when you joined Facebook.

The implications are twofold: 1) Apps have limited lives, and 2) you might want to shoot for the over 30 crowd, as that seems to be where the growth in Facebook members is occurring (ask a 22-year old which apps they are adding these days, but be careful!).

Question #2: Can Apps be used as a marketing vehicle? As above, the answer is “yes, but…” which means it’s possible, but becoming harder and harder.  First, as mentioned, the adoption of apps seems to be inversely correlated to time spent as a member (starts off high, goes down fast).  Second, more and more people are figuring out what all that privacy talk is all about.  I you know that a server knows who you are and is tracking how often you visit “Hot or Not” to see what others think of you, it may be a little settling.

But like all things, there are exceptions. The Causes App has been very successful for many… causes.  Another example is Dell, which jumped on the Green bandwagon (scoring a perfect landing before rumors surfaced of being too young to compete) with its Regeneration contest. The eco-centric campaign relied heavily (and benefited greatly) on the Facebook Graffiti application.  I saw the case study at Ad-Tech and was pretty impressed with how Dell whipped a bunch of environmentally-friendly propeller heads into a graffiti frenzy to promote its contest.  BTW - my entry “Dude you’re getting a Tree!” was not selected as a finalist.

The lesson: why create an app when you can leverage an existing app that is already being used by millions?  This was another one of the pearls that came from our Barcamp discussion.

Charitable Donation?
While there are a few Facebook apps that make money, and others that serve as effective marketing vehicles, those are few and far between.  I’m hopeful that all other apps were conceived, built and distributed with an altruistic, “share-the-fun” objective.  If on the other hand they were built for a commercial purpose, hopefully the owners are business-savvy enough to deduct the cost of building them as a charitable donation to society.

Comments?  Questions?  Let’s hear from you!

BarCamp and Video Blogging

Published
by
Steve Latham
on August 15, 2008
in Conferences
. 4 Comments

Last weekend I attended BarCamp Houston 3, which had more than 150 attendees including enterpreneurs, web developers, marketers and a few media folks.  All in all, it was a great experience with some interesting discussions around social media, Facebook apps, web design, marketing, a new visual search engine, and even biofuels.  One of the most interesting aspects was the Twittering that was taking place along the way.  At least half of the attendees were twittering, often making comments that were better left unsaid.  Yes, you can add “making fun of jerks” to the list of twitter uses.

At the event I was interviewed by local new media guy Mike McGuff who has a video blog site MikeMcGuff.com. Mike interviewed me on the topics of Social Media, our new brand and Lemonade Day.  Mike’s a pretty good video blogger and quite handy with his flip camera.  I didn’t have much notice but thought it turned out okay.  You can view the interview below. Yes, I know, it’s a very flattering title pic… (no worries Mike, I know YouTube doesn’t give you much of a choice).

I’m now wondering if I should add some video to my blog entries.  The answer is probably yes, but I don’t know what I’d shoot or how to edit it.  So I’ll stick w/ text for now, and take advantage of stuff I can find on youtube.

Local Search: Yellow Pages vs. Google?

Published
by
Steve Latham
on August 7, 2008
in General
. 5 Comments

This week I was asked by one of our (prospective) clients for assistance in building a business case to shift ad dollars from the Yellow Pages to Google and the also rans (aka Yahoo and MSN).  After putting the word out that a $10 Starbucks gift card awaited the first Spur employee to find some good data, I put the question out on LinkedIn Answers (often a great venue for connecting with gurus who can answer tough questions).

I realize I’m a bit spoiled by the immediate gratification I often find online; so after 15 minutes passed without a single no LinkedIn answer, I decided to do some research myself.  What I found should be of interest to all marketers who rely on Yellow Pages for local advertising.

According to Search Engine Watch: This year, local advertisers are expected to shift $13.1 billion of their budgeted funds to the Internet, according to Borrell Associates. The number is up 50% over last year. In 2009, local online ad spending is projected to grow another 40% to $18.2 billion in 2009″… “Online advertising is cheaper than traditional methods of marketing and is thought to be the reason for the change. According to Borrell, internet CPMs average $3.65, the lowest of any media, while an offline Yellow Pages ad carries an average CPM of $9.29.”

My take: In addition to lower CPMs, search is much more targeted, actionable and measurable.   And it’s increasingly becoming a preferred way to find local vendors quickly and easily by people of all ages.

I also found some interesting info at RBR.com that compared the fate of Yellow Pages to that of newspapers in recent years: “…the recession is forcing small-business advertisers to be more careful with their ad budgets. Over the next five years, Borrell is predicting 39% of the ad spending on print yellow pages revenues will vanish as small businesses shift marketing budgets online… The key drivers of these changes are broadband penetration and the growing sophistication of search engines and interactive directories. Between 2005 and 2007, 10.4 million adults stopped using the yellow pages “during the past month.” Assuming Borrell knows what they are talking about, those are some compelling stats!

Since I started writing this blog, I have received a good response from LinkedIn!  Chris Reyes from Chicago cited an article that are worth a look.  According to Merchant Circle those that don’t find YP effective allocate 45% of their ad budget to online.  While this isn’t surprising, I thought the next finding was: even the most satisfied YP customers allocate 30% of their budget to online.
So it’s clear that dollars are shifting away from YP to the Web.  What I’d REALLY like to know is how they compare in terms of ROI.  If you have info on the comparative performance of each channel, the same Starbucks gift card offer holds - if you have good data please share it!
If you’ve read this far, I’d like to pose the question to you: where do you spend your dollars for local advertising?   And what would you need to know in order to convince your CEO it was time to adjust your media mix to meet the needs of today’s consumers?

“Blogging for Business” Recap and Slides

Published
by
Steve Latham
on July 26, 2008
in General
. 0 Comments

Yesterday I had the pleasure of participating on a social media panel at the Houston Technology Center along with Katie Laird and Kelsey Ruger. I didn’t see any glowsticks, cell phones or lighters swaying in the audience, but I heard good things and thought you might be interested in learning more.

After Kelsey spoke about social media from a sociological perspective, I presented the business case for Social Media and discussed why brands have to embrace it, and how they can measure the impact on their business. To learn more, you can view my presentation below or on slideshare. Katie then spoke about how to implement a social media program. You can view their presentations via the links above.

If you have thoughts, comments or questions regarding social media, I’d love to hear from you! Also feel free to Join me on facebook or Follow me on Twitter.

Business Case For Social Media Steve Latham 20080725nc