Forrester’s Social Technographics research is without doubt the most well-known classification of social media activities worldwide. Even if you’ve never heard of Forrester, you might have seen these terms before (in the image above) – Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives.

Last week Forrester released their Australia-specific Technographics report. It’s an interesting read, and I’ll post my thoughts about it here on the blog very soon. For the moment, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to take a sample of dubious statistical merit – BCM staff (sample size: the 16 attendees of my lunchtime training session) – and compare it to the Technographics figures.

So without further ado – are BCMers more or less social online than the average Australian online adult?

Phew… that’s a relief! Thankfully we also have an ‘inactive’ in the office to round it out (and it’s a Gen Y too!)

More to come on the Forrester report soon.

Freeview is just around the corner. Reading the assorted press releases and news about its imminent launch, you might wonder what all the fuss is about. But having lived somewhere that Freeview was omnipresent – the UK – and visited countries where bucketloads of free content is taken for granted – like Germany – I think it’s high time Australia got excited about digital TV.

Freeview will allow anyone with a digital set-top box (or an integrated digital TV receiver) to receive the digital offerings from our major stations – ABC, SBS, 9, 10 and 7. Very soon, this will mean at least two channels per station. At it’s base level, this will mean Freeview box owners will receive more content, and an Electronic Program Guide (EPG).

But it’s when you start ‘upsizing’ the Freeview offer a little that it starts to come into its own. Adding a PVR will allow you to save all that great content that’s on too late at night, or you simply forget to watch. Adding a HD-capable box will increase quality markedly. Remember, of course, that this won’t cost you a cent after your initial investment.

There were a couple of things I noticed about Freeview in the UK that are worth getting excited about, because they’ll no doubt be reflected here. Firstly, once the ball starts rolling, the channel offerings expand rapidly and so does the content. Film4 – a 24 hour film channel – was changed from a subscription channel on Sky to a free channel – no doubt when they realised they could make more money from ads on the channel than from subscriptions. And the movies were very good! Freeview UK now boasts 85 channels.

Secondly, Freeview essentially drags everyone into this millenium by offering a simple and easy to use digital service – and then switching off the analogue. We may be lagging a long way behind Europe when it comes to free TV, but we’re about to join them very quickly.

One of the best things about my role as interactive strategist is learning about the interesting relationship between offline media and traffic to online sites. Put simply, some offline media drives traffic very effectively, some has no discernible impact at all.

TV, perhaps unsurprisingly, can work magnificently. We have seen first-hand at BCM the impact a TVC with a prominent URL can have on site traffic seconds after it has been on air – testament to how many households have PCs or laptops on the living room these days.

Which is why I was so interested to read about this development today – a new remote control technology being tested in the USA which allows you to save on-screen URLs to a central online repository for later browsing. The article mentions a current conversion rate in the USA (from viewing a URL on TV to browsing it online) of 0.2% – and rightly predicts huge bonuses for advertisers if this kind of technology can even increase that percentage to just 1%.

While this technology seems fantastic in itself, imagine the possibilities – instead of storing the URL, how about visiting the URL straight away via picture-in-picture, or throwing it via wireless to your mobile device?

This is just one more example of the clever ways the world of advertising is bridging online and offline media – like the classic ‘Google Pontiac‘ before it. If you’re interested in finding many more – check Trendwatching’s fantastic OFF=ON feature from a couple of months ago.

In tough economic times marketers face many challenges. It’s never been more important to ensure the communication being developed is creative and engaging. It’s also never been more important to ensure our marketing efforts are measurable and accountable. Fortunately interactive has the potential to deliver against these challenges in spades.

Today Joanne Stone (Head of Channel Planning) and Peter Luetjens (Interactive Strategist) presented to friends of the agency at our twice yearly ‘What Next’ briefing. They touched on the challenges ahead in view of the tough times we find ourselves in. In particular they talked about some communication strategies and media which were likely to perform better during these times.

For those who were able to make it, many thanks. For those who couldn’t I’ve included a copy of the presentation below. I hope you find it valuable.

We’ve recently had a great experience with our longest-standing client, Wallace Bishop, helping them gain major exposure for their Christmas catalogue. In addition to their tried and tested mailbox drops, we proposed an interactive solution, utilising Lasoo, an online catalogue service. Without getting into specifics, the results have been quite amazing – a five-fold increase in traffic to the Wallace Bishop website.

This is despite the fact that Lasoo does not even require you to visit the WB website. The only reason you need to visit the WB site is to sign up for their Gold Card offer – which is also obviously proving a big success.

The point of this post is really to emphasise that there are many new and great ways you can drive traffic to your website, and ultimately drive conversions and sales. You just have to think outside the square a little! Providing the consumer what they want (pre-Christmas shopping ideas), combined with an innovative new way of attracting eyeballs (Lasoo) and topped off with a lucrative offer (a Gold Card discount) has met with great success. Kudos to Wallace Bishop for testing the waters and reaping the rewards.

It was great to have the opportunity to discuss two things I’m passionate about recently at the Email Marketing Summit Australia (EMSA): email marketing and US politics.  I’m sure I was just one of many US expats glued to their computers that Wednesday watching the final presidential election results come in.  Given the way that the Barack Obama campaign has revolutionised the way campaigning is done in the US, I focused on this as my case study for ‘Writing Effective Emails’ presentation.  Of course there are some solid tips included as well, and my take on where email fits as a channel in the broader online communication space. I hope you enjoy it!

I’m an eternal optimist about the Web 2.0 revolution.

Wikipedia biased and unreliable? I don’t believe you, nor care.

Blogging only for narcissistic bedroom-dwellers and wannabe-journos? OK, you keep telling yourself that, and enjoy living in the past.

Myspace bloated and irrelevant? Well, they’re still kicking on hard regardless (it helps having Rupert at your back sometimes).

Facebook unprofitable?

Well, yes – they are. And there are no signs of it becoming profitable any time soon either. Keeping 120m members happy doesn’t come cheap. And finding the right way to monetise all those eyeballs is no easy task.

But putting my optimism hat on, I think they will get there.

Why? At BCM we can only speak from experience, and we have recently had great success utilising Facebook social ads. Provided they are relevant to a finely targeted audience and contain a good reason to click (free stuff and competitions help) – you can indeed achieve click-throughs comparable or better than search, to a much more focused audience. To top it off, I can’t help but feel a huge majority of advertisers have no idea about the viability of advertising on Facebook, so those of us who’ve taken the plunge are getting a good deal more attention (but that’s between you and me!). There is much room for growth.

For these reasons – ability to finely target, massive audience, and simplicity – I think Facebook will be just fine in the end. New products like Engagement Ads are driving increased ad relevance. They are going to great lengths to keep advertising on Facebook subtle, and I think they’ll keep it that way. And innovations like Facebook Connect point to much smarter ways of making money.

Don’t write Facebook off just yet. The party is just getting started.

No doubt about it, Search Engine Marketing is a great tool. And the great thing about its CPC model is marketers only pay for qualified leads. It’s no wonder the growth and outlook for search is so rosy. It’s important to remember though, whilst search is a brilliant lead generator, it’s only the start of things.  Think of it as the girl agreeing to the first date. What happens ‘next’ may determine whether she agrees to ‘coffee back at your place’ or completely writes you off as a dud. Too many marketers spend big on the chase, but not enough on the main event. And the main event, when it comes to search, is where you take ‘the date’ after they click. We’ve all experienced it. We click on the search ad, so full of promise, only to be taken to the home page of a big website, left to haplessly navigate and fend for ourselves. After a few clicks we’re disappointed and no closer to finding what was promised. In the real world when the date screams ‘Stop! Where are you taking me!’, it’s a fair bet another date is unlikely.

The answer of course is to plan search more holistically; plan it thinking specifically about where the clicks will lead to. Ask yourself, is there a high correlation between what is written in my search ads and where we land people? And remember a well developed strategy may mean we have multiple landing pages. What this means too, is that it’s critical that the people planning your search are collaborating closely and seamlessly with the people responsible for building your digital assets. If they’re not, then its costing you lost opportunities. On the other hand if you get it right, you’ll be one step closer to the start of many long and wonderful relationships.

I was very pleased to present at the 2008 Email Marketing Summit on the Gold Coast last Friday. The topic of my presentation was ‘using email to enhance your brand’ – I have embedded the slides below.

In putting the presentation together, I tried to avoid being too technical (I presented at 3pm on a Friday, after all, and I didn’t want anyone falling asleep). Instead I talked generally about the role of email amongst other channels, gave some practical tips on enhancing your brand through delighting the recipient, and discussed the future role of email amongst emergent competing technologies.

The best way to view the presentation is probably to link through to Slideshare and view it in conjunction with the speaker’s notes, as I left most of the content OFF the slides to try and increase attention

Enjoy!

Yeah, yeah there’s a technology fuelled revolution going on in the world of marketing and communication. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know all about it. The trade press headlines all scream similar themes, ‘The consumer is Control’, ‘Impending Death of traditional Media’ etc. Even the most conservative marketer is responding by insisting that their communication partners are up to speed with the implications and opportunities on offer. And so they should.

But this is only part of the equation.

You see interactive media is well, interactive. And to effectively play in this space means you have to have an appropriate organisational structure to deal with it. Ask yourself this… who in my marketing department is responsible for monitoring and participating in my brand’s facebook fan page? Do I even have a facebook fan page? Who’s job is it to look out for and follow-up on blog commentary? Do I (or someone in my Department) know the top SEM terms generating clicks to my website right now and how they have changed over the last quarter?

I guess the real questions are:

1. Who is dedicated to keeping an eye on how people are responding to our digital activities?

2. Who is dedicated to listening and responding to UGC about my brand?

It seems to me if marketers really want to engage in the social web, as they say they do, then some restructuring is in order. You see whilst many elements of the interactive communications mix can be out-sourced, the actual interactive dialogue consumers want with you can not. As the old saying goes ‘I want to talk to the butcher not his block’. In the future successful marketing departments must define roles and responsibilities for having meaningful interactivity (there’s that word again) with their customers.

It’s all very well to say interactive media is accountable, measurable etc. but it doesn’t amount to much if no-one’s ‘watching the interactive store’.