Email marketing: timeless classic or just horribly old-fashioned?

I recently chaired the Econsultancy Client Roundtable for email marketing specialists. Over an afternoon in London, we discussed email marketing - trends, challenges and best practice. Attendees were people who know; they do this stuff every day for major corporations and charities.

The discussion was very stimulating and wide-ranging.

The whole session was held under 'Chatham House Rules'; so I won’t associate specific comments with individuals.

For the expert practitioners who attended the Roundtable, the big issues in email marketing currently include:

Best Practice

·       Deliverability – still a problem: (ISP throttling, Sender Score, data quality etc.)

·       Email challenges with a range of email clients (e.g. MS Office)

·       Customer segmentation models (behavioural triggers and targeting)

·       E-mail as a customer acquisition tool is virtually dead, whereas for Abandoned Shopping Cart reactivation and customer retention, it’s thriving

·       Multi-channel marketing e.g. e-mail + direct mail, + call centres. Lots of evidence of 2=2=5

·       E-mail Video/ audio growing but still problematic

Research and Measurement

·        Open rates are not a great measure  (consider the rise of image-blocking software) but still widespread. Clickthrough rate is a better metric but not enough on its own

·       List, creative, timing make a difference: normally in that order

Budget and Resource allocation

* E-mail marketing still believed to be under-invested (money, time, people) given the revenue it generates. Attitude seems to be  “It’s not broken, so why fix it?” in some organizations

* Resourcing – What to outsource? Where to find people with the right skills? Generally an HR policy decision. Marketing needs to get more involved.

General Discussion

* Deliverability : do emails even reach the inbox? Still a challenge, with ISPs increasingly keen to protect their users from 'unwanted' commercial messages.

* Integration of email and social media – some suggest email is just ‘another social channel’?  Others consider Facebook and Twitter as eCRM channels. It was noted that you need an email address to sign up for Facebook…

* The rise of mobile email – becoming more important, and in some cases, more likely to be opened and read by a mobile user 'killing time'. But most email is still not optimised for mobile…  Few email senders seem to be treating mobile email recipents/ viewers as a separate segment (yet).

* Amazon's Simple Email Service – picture not clear, but may lead to big drop in deliverability prices?

* Gmail Priority Inbox: email marketers need to get their messages into the 'top part' of the inbox. Along with Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, email clients are increasingly providing webmail interfaces which make it easier for users to sort email and better integrate social media, videos, and photos. It’s all about protecting the user from 'less important' commercial messages, even if they’re not strictly spam…The challenge for email marketers is of course to get into the 'Important and Unread' section, preferably because the recipient actually wants to read the message.

* New Facebook Messages: can’t be ignored owing to Facebook’s scale, but consensus seems to be that the interface may confuse some users, that take-up of the new service will be patchy and that there is no guarantee that significant numbers of users will want to use the new @facebook.com addresses.

* There’s a general feeling that email has lost some status within digital marketing departments. It may not be as ‘sexy’ or fashionable as Social Media BUT: it’s still quietly making big money for those who know how to get the most out of it. CFOs like this, and they tend to come out on top…

Overall, email marketing appears to be alive and well. Perhaps we should bear in mind that in 1976 Punk Music didn’t kill The Rolling Stones, Elton John or Paul McCartney. (And indeed some might even suggest The Bay City Rollers weren’t such a big loss). In 2011, following the Social Media Revolution, email marketing is certainly changing, but looks to be here to stay.

Is SEO the new spin?

We all know digital has disrupted everything in marketing: Advertising, Direct, Promotions, Design and yes, even PR.

Of course journalists have always had space to fill and demanding editors to appease. In this digital age, they are, as ever, under constant pressure to come up with interesting content which people want to read and which sells magazines/ newspapers/ TV advertising. The 'Digital Revolution' hasn’t changed this.

But digital has, nevertheless, changed PR. Today, pretty much all journalism appears somewhere online. Not all appears in print. And people are reading the online stuff! PR agencies report that their clients are at last properly valuing online coverage. Some offline journalists actually prefer to receive 'pitches' via Twitter or LinkedIn; even the default is email. The days of the caricature PR man/ woman, immaculately dressed and spoken, who does most of his/ her business in wine bars, buying journalists lunch, kissing everyone on both cheeks (mwah, mwah) and then taking a taxi back to the office to craft and dispatch a press release printed on crisp white paper (swiftly followed by a hefty invoice, ditto) are behind us, along with yuppies, shoulder pads and other relics of the 20th Century.

On the other side of the fence, we now have a new breed of online journalist whose deathless prose just happens to appear on a screen (PC, Tablet, mobile device) rather than on something made out of a tree. But make no mistake: they’re under pressure to produce great content too. Bloggers face similar challenges; (tell me about it!) ie. constantly needing to come up with fresh and interesting things to blog about (except, of course, for the apparently effortlessly prolific Seth Godin).

So what exactly is ‘online PR’?

Well a lot of people are writing stuff which appears on websites/ blogs etc. and in the main, they are receptive to press releases in whatever format: ie. interesting facts/ useful ideas to help them generate compelling content: after all, that’s their job, and who wouldn't welcome a helping hand?

Interestingly, we are also seeing the gradual emergence of new type of Press Release, actively promoted by 'Digital PR firms' who offer ‘a new PR for the digital age’. The promise is to “get your news straight to the search engines that everyone uses, like Google, Yahoo and Bing”.

The primary objective here is still to communicate with journalists and editors and help them to write a story. However there is also a secondary objective: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), ie. to get found (indexed) by Google/Yahoo/Bing, leading to appearances in Search results (including searches made by journalists writing stories: truly a ‘virtuous circle’ in which the story can ‘go viral’). The result is a persuasive and informative piece which will motivate journalists to write a story, but which also acts as a mini-website in its own right with a few skilfully-placed links back to the main site; the best of all worlds. SEO PR is a reality.

Check out firms like PRWeb, Pitch Engine and SEO-PR, all of which are experts at the SEO press release. In simple terms, this is a piece of content which is optimised for certain keywords; moreover once it’s up on the web, (preferably somewhere the Search Engines respect ie. with a high PageRank), the inbound links it contains will improve the Search Engine Results ranking of the author’s site.

As with any type of SEO, it doesn't pay to push your luck; if the targeted keyword appears in every sentence it can make the piece unreadable by humans, even if it impresses the Search Engines. In any case Google and Bing are wise to ‘keyword stuffing’ these days. So you need to know what you’re doing.

Econsultancy, in its Report Social Media and Online PR (September 2010) revealed that only 40% of client companies were currently doing any SEO PR; i.e. their press releases are written by people with little or knowledge of/ interest in SEO. This is a massive missed opportunity.

The report includes this quote:

“It amazed me in last year's results, it's amazed me again. Only 40% of companies use SEO press releases and only 56% use press release posting sites. With SEO celebrating its 17th birthday (at least), why are so few companies utilising the most basic form of link development techniques?”

David Hardy, Group Marketing Director, bigmouthmedia

Every SEO marketer knows the importance to Google and Bing of inbound links (= 'backlinks'). SEO PR can be a key tool for generating such links. For (much) more on routine but effective (and also more cunning) ways to get links, check this out from 'Linkbaiter Guru' Kelvin Newman, who has just written the (e)book on this subject: http://www.clockworkpirate.com .

As we have seen, SEO Press Releases serve a dual purpose: this requires a marriage of talents. The skills required here are a blend of SEO and PR; not many agencies currently have both the necessary media relations and SEO skills in-house. Indeed PR agencies are rapidly re-engineering their businesses for the changing media world. It appears some of the smaller agencies are further down the line with this change than the big PR firms. Check out thebluedoor and Red Dog who describe their mission as “creating buzz in a digital world”. For those agencies who ‘get it’, ‘The New Online PR’ is about much more than media relations/ just sending out (e)press releases.

We all know print journalism is shrinking but we also know that there will always be a demand for quality content, whether consumed on paper, mobile or tablet. If you’re not only trying to engage journalists and persuade them to run a story, but also trying to drive traffic to somewhere else on the web, you’d do well to know your SEO before you send out that Press Release.

Digital, and specifically SEO, hasn't killed PR; rather, the two disciplines will increasingly need to work closely together. Client PR Personnel and PR Agencies need to take this on board and evolve, or risk rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Integrated solutions need integrated knowledge

Seems like everyone's talking about integration of digital platforms at the moment. However in my experience, far fewer people are actually doing it. We still have Search specialists, Social Media specialists and Mobile specialists. They're not talking to each other enough. These silos exist both within client marketing departments and in the agency world.

But the winds of change are blowing; the big ad agencies 'got' digital some time ago and now they're busy developing their high-level strategic and creative relationships into total 360 communications partnerships. The big media agencies are doing the same. These guys are investing in training, hiring digital experts and building structures to deliver truly integrated solutions, driven, of course, by their clients' needs. One example: Search and Social Media have never been so closely tied together. SEO Press Releases, the benefits of which are still insufficiently understood, will rapidly become standard practice. Everything's moving onto Mobile. (Facebook Deals is already causing huge disruptive waves). Offline isn't going away either, although some spend is certainly being switched. And, as we know, all marketing communications drive searches...

In 2011, the various specialist agencies need to understand each other's roles better and clientside marketers, however many agencies they work with, need to know enough about each marketing 'instrument' to conduct the entire integrated orchestra. No matter how senior and experienced you are, there's never been a better time to learn, even (in fact especially) about something you don't currently do.
It's going to be an interesting year!

Smart(phone) marketing

Cell phone (US). Handy (Germany). Mobile phone (UK).  Mobile device? (Global).

Next time you leave your house, apartment, factory, college or office, take a look at the people on the street. Many of them will be talking. But not many to each other. They may also be reading. But not newspapers. Or typing. But not on giant PC keyboards. Aargh! Quick: better check your smartphone is safely in your inside pocket and, crucially, switched on. Breathe. Calm. It's OK: you're connected to the global cellular/mobile internet life support system. Phew.

How these shiny gadgets have come to dominate our lives. But do they liberate us or enslave us?  How do you feel when you lose yours? Or just leave it at home? Or drop it down the toilet? (sorry-horrible image). Even synchronisation problems are enough to induce a state of near-unbearable frustration and panic in many of us.

On the positive side, how long before your contract expires and you can get your hands on a nice new one? Or until you can afford to buy one? Which do you have your eye on? Have you looked online at the goodies that might be within your reach? Have you discussed with your friends? On Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Read any reviews yet?

Yet despite all this excitement and the strong, positive relationships we have with our 'phones', I would bet that virtually no one unboxes their new 'smartphone' (how long will that term last I wonder?) in anticipation of viewing ads on it.

But that, of course, is exactly what 'mobile marketers' are plotting and in many cases successfully doing. And increasingly, all marketers need to focus time and budget on the opportunities mobile offers. It's their job. Too many people are spending too much time looking at these little screens for mobile to be ignored. The challenge, of course, is to add value and enhance the user's life, creating positive experiences/ interactions around the brand.

Direct marketers used to claim they owned 'personal one-to-one marketing, allowing precise targeting and immediate, measurable response'. But they were talking about direct mail, direct response print ads and telephone marketing. If they only knew it, they just needed to equip each prospect/customer with an iPhone 4, a BlackBerry Torch, a Samsung Epic 4G or even a Motorola Droid X. I'm not saying it will be easy, but the opportunity is undeniable: these gadgets are individual, always on and, err... mobile. The smartphone is the most personal and powerful communication device mankind has yet invented.

American/Canadian author William Gibson allegedly said: "The future's already here. It's just not evenly distributed."  Some people have had cellular telephones since the '70s. But now it's really happening. For those who enjoy a good cliché: from now on, every year will be The Year of Mobile. As someone else once said:  We've only just begun...

2010: The Year Of The Tablet

What do you want for Christmas? Well apparently thousands of us will be hoping Santa brings us a tablet computer. Last year that wasn't really an option (btw how much am I bid for a 2009 netbook?). On January 27th 2010, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs proclaimed "Netbooks aren't better at anything!" (although to be fair, Steve, most are at least pretty good at multitasking and many even support Flash). He went on, as had been widely predicted, to introduce a 'magical and revolutionary product': the iPad (not iSlate, iTab or Maclet - OK I made that one up). And the rest already looks like history. What a difference a year makes. 

Other tablets are already here and more are in the pipeline: e.g. Samsung Galaxy Tab, Archos 101, Blackberry PlayBook, plus offerings from Dell and HP, among others.

Apple has shipped 10 million iPads since April. Apps are selling well at around $5 each. According to a survey of 5,000 tablet users by Nielsen, 91 percent of iPad owners have downloaded an app and over half have paid for content. Early days, but looking like a success by any measure.

The rise of tablets has even offered the prospect of a new lease of life for the beleaguered Newspaper and Magazine industry, whose tough times have continued during 2010. We recently got the first results for the traffic on The Times and Sunday Times new websites with their new paywall (for a great analysis read this by Ashley Friedlein of Econsultancy). If Mr Murdoch can persuade large numbers of us to pay for the news, whether on iPads, Macs or PCs, the entire newspaper industry, and many outside it, will breathe a sigh of relief. And I, for one, will be surprised.

New iPad apps are currently being announced every day from a range of content owners including Wired, Sports Illustrated and The Washington Post. News Corp and Apple have said they will launch an iPad-only publication entitled ‘The Daily’, while Richard Branson’s new ‘Project’ will also be launched for the iPad only. Meanwhile, The Independent’s new newspaper ‘i’ will not be published on the web at all, rather it will be launched as a paid-for iPad app. The new Guardian iPad app is expected shortly.

Crucially, we should remember tablets are mobile devices and we are prepared to pay for mobile apps whereas we seem to expect everything we access on the web via our PC/ laptop to be free (eg. telegraph.co.uk and guardian.co.uk). Don't ask me why this is; I blame the BBC and The Pirate Bay (unlikely bedfellows, admittedly). Interestingly, the new BBC iPlayer international service is launching exclusively as an iPad app...For what it's worth, my prediction is that tablets and laptops will in time merge to form one class of machines with a wide range of specs and form factors. Until then, I'm sure Apple is happy to sell both iPads and MacBook Airs (often 1 of each to the same person!).

So much for the shiny new boxes and their glossy new content. But what about 'ads on the pads'? Check out Apple's iAd mobile advertising platform, launching in Europe this month and offering ads within mobile apps on iPad,  iPhone and iPod touch; brands including Renault, L'Oreal and Unilever are among the first to book campaigns through the network. Allegedly and in typically bullish fashion, Apple won't talk to UK agencies about advertising via iAd, its first ad network, unless they're spending £600k+. Possibly too expensive for a new initiative of this kind in this market. But if consumers continue to consume increasing amounts of content on tablets, make no mistake, we WILL find ways to drive brand engagement on these nice new screens; especially the full 9.7 inchers (and even on Samsung's and BlackBerry's smaller 7-inch models of which Steve Jobs has been so publicly contemptuous).

So, yet again, Apple has invented a new category of device. Tablets have changed the game: things will never be the same. Cue gratuitous link to my favourite TV ad of 2010, for Yeo Valley... over 1,267,000 YouTube hits and rising; 3,348 Facebook 'likers' (remember this is for YOGHURT!!!), narrowly beating (in my book at least) P&G's Old Spice Guy who started out on good old TV and then 'went social' (and indeed viral) at a much lower cost/000 (24,120,000+ YouTube hits, 1,166,000+ Facebook 'likers' and 120,000+ Twitter followers).

OK so maybe 2010 was the Year of iPad. And as for next year? Take your pick. Social Media. Location. HTML5. Mobile internet. Even faster Search. Windows Phone 7 (yes really). Android. Chrome OS. Facebook Places and Deals. Oh...and iPad 2 (new shell, camera, USB port but definitely no Flash).

Happy Holidays!

Learning AND Doing

After being asked for some advice, I've recently been reading various forums/ online discussions about Digital Marketing training and education. There is much heat vented about the merits of formal qualifications versus professional short courses and 'on-the-job training' (famously favoured by employers who don't want to fund professional input!). Then there's the old dilemma: external 'public' courses or bespoke 'in-company' training? And maybe your next (potential) employer won't believe you really know your stuff without a suitable piece of paper from the right Professional Institution/ Trade Body?

There are certainly passionate Fanbois and Fangurlz enthusing/moaning about particular awarding bodies and, as one would expect in this 2.0 world, plenty of intense debate, involving current students, alumni and even grizzled old educators. Many have strong feelings and entrenched positions. Some maintain that 'academic' education about Digital Marketing has limited value, since it's inherently a practical discipline, while others say it pays to learn the theory as well as to benefit from the hard-earned knowledge of experienced practitioners; why make your own mistakes when plenty of others have gone before you?

I may be missing something here but this situation appears to cry out for that old cliché and refuge of every trainer/ teacher/ lecturer facing a tricky question in real time: "Well, it all depends...".

Are you a marketing manager aged 28, who's so far worked alongside rather than in the online team? Or are you a 22-year-old Business Studies graduate looking to start a career in marketing? Then again, maybe you're a 40-year-old entrepreneur trying to make your PPC ads work better and cost less?

There's room (and indeed a need) for lots of different types of Digital Marketing training and education out there; so: decide which segment of the market you (or your people) fall into and then shop around carefully. Solicit and study peer recommendations (after all, it's digital!). If you don't get exactly what you were hoping for, don't worry. It's (almost) all changing all the time anyway and provided you go to a reputable provider, engage and ask questions, (almost) any training is better than no training. You'll come out with some new ideas, a better understanding of concepts previously incompletely grasped and in many cases an extended network. Then, when you do get (back) 'on-the-job', it should all make a bit more sense.

Good luck!

Happy Old Year

So that was the Northern Hemisphere Summer, huh? September already. Back to school. Brrr. A chill in the air. Colder misty mornings. Leaves turning brown. The year’s rushing by. Soon be time to start planning Christmas. OK: exaggeration. (?)

I sometimes wish I were a futurist; it sounds like fun to be able to make some predictions about the future and then run away (on to the next conference in a different continent) before anyone can hold me accountable. But let’s be fair. Just for a moment let’s pause and look back to January. What did we predict was going to happen in digital marketing this year? And has it?

I was recently re-reading my Blog post dated Jan 10 2010. Predictions for 2010 included:

The Androids are coming

Google's mobile platform is gaining ground fast. The first Android phones have sold well and more are on their way. HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and yes, even good old Motorola (who invented the category so long ago) are all getting in on the act. Meanwhile iPhone 4, after a few embarrassing birth pains, is selling well and it currently looks like RIM/Blackberry which is in danger of getting left behind in the smartphone race. The Android invasion is gathering momentum.

Location-based services/ augmented reality
Well this one was a no-brainer. Check out (or check-in?) Foursquare, Gowalla and yes, the new Facebook Places (damn - missed that one). Watch out for privacy issues though.

Rupert Murdoch to pull all his content off Google.
Well the Paywall is up for the Times/ Sunday Times and the UK ‘red-top’ The News Of The World is next. As to how many online readers have been lost, estimates average at about 50% but some suggest many more.  Are these few paying online readers a sufficiently engaged, high-quality audience for which advertisers will willingly pay a premium?  The Jury’s still out.

HTML5
If anything, Steve Jobs of Apple appears to hate Adobe’s Flash even more than at the start of the year. The iPad and iPhone don't support Flash. No apologies for this from Apple. All the Flash designers I know are learning HTML5 and quickly...

...and the Apple tablet
OK so we didn’t get the name quite right (iSlate? iTab? Could easily have been.).

But Apple certainly launched the iPad on January 26th and at a stroke defined the new tablet category, selling 3 million units in the first 80 days. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has just been announced and we await tablet offerings from HP, RIM (the "BlackPad") and even Toshiba. Game on.

Meanwhile downloads from the Apple App Store hit 6.5 billion. Apple also announced the iBooks app (for the iPad naturally) while iAds promises to disrupt (or should that be kick-start?) mobile advertising in a big way. In May Apple overtook Microsoft to become the world's biggest technology company. No wonder Steve Jobs seems to be enjoying every new announcement even more than the last these days, despite the odd glitch along the way.

Admittedly we also predicted a Facebook IPO (2012 apparently), that Twitter’s growth would stall and that Steve Ballmer would step down at Microsoft. But some of these weren’t really serious. And could still come true anyway. It certainly seems that Windows 7 is a better product than the bizarre launch promotional activity had led us to expect. Oh and News International has not YET done a content deal with Bing (but watch this space). At least we didn't predict 2010 would be 'The Year Of Mobile’ (as everyone knows, that will be 2011)...

Overall, then, not too shabby. We’ll try to do better for next year. With apologies to our Southern Hemisphere readers, (btw, anyone need a speaker in Cape Town?) let’s enjoy our digital Autumn...

Bumbling politicians serve up digital dog's dinner

"The Law is an Ass" says Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Yes, even here in Good Old Blighty, the oldest democracy in the world (err...sorry Iceland, Greece, Isle of Man, America, NZ +++), we sometimes get it badly wrong: the upshot being that we end up with laws that are ridiculous, unenforceable, dangerous or all of these. One such is the new UK Digital Economy Act (DEA). The Act was rushed through by the last UK Government without proper scrutiny or discussion, in the pre-election 'wash-up' period.

I recently took part in a debate at Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park in London about the Act, organised by Digital Lounge and Digital Marketing London LinkedIn Groups (I always suspected these guys were real). I met some very interesting digital people and heard some great arguments (against) the Act but unfortunately(?) none of us is currently a Member of Parliament.

The DEA was voted through on its third reading in the House of Commons on April 7 this year by just 189 votes for, to 47 against. (there were 646 constituencies, meaning that approximately 37% of MPs bothered to turn up to vote and only some of these even attended the debate: democracy in action?).

Despite a massive '(Twitter) storm 'of opposition and over 20,000 people writing to their MPs in opposition to the bill, all that ultimately matters in these cases is what the MPs actually do on the day and the Digital Economy Bill duly went through; it received the Royal Assent on April 8 and became law on June 12 2010.

The Bill was largely the work of former Business Secretary Lord Mandelson (aka 'The Prince of Darkness' -his words, not mine). What was its inspiration? It was apparently intended to protect the intellectual property of creative people, specifically movie-makers, musicians, authors and their publishers, the thinking presumably being: "Without ownership there is no incentive to innovate"...

But maybe this view of copyright and its enforcement has been overtaken by technology. Perhaps it is outmoded and might actually stifle creativity. A friend of mine drew my attention to this excellent TEDTalks video about the lack of copyright in the Fashion Industry.

At Speakers' Corner, I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Killock, Executive Director of The Open Rights Group who is a  passionate and articulate opponent of the Act and defender of civil liberties, both online and offline. He is currently locked in talks with Ofcom (the UK regulator) about the Act. Now that it's the law, the inertia inherent in the system means the legislation tends to trundle inexorably into our lives...Jim deserves our support.

As we know, the music industry is in turmoil. At the same time, newspapers are fighting a desperate battle against 'the desire of their online content to be free' (and the unwillingness of readers to pay for it). The movie industry is focused on protecting its intellectual property and revenue streams. This Act, in a significant content market, where people spend a lot of money on the arts and are also relatively digitally savvy, will be seen by the big studios as an important pillar in their global defensive edifice against illegal file downloaders and they may even seek test cases 'pour encourager les autres'.

Another friend of mine is a photographer who has shot many classic music album covers; however he regularly sees his work in places where he wasn't paid for usage. He doesn't think the new Act will help him recover a penny in unpaid royalties (Copyright Lawyers For You anyone?). Rather, he believes the DEA is by the big content owners for the big content owners and that it does nothing to protect the little guy who has created something using his/her imagination and skill. So another Fail.

The penalties for suspected infringement of the DEA would appear to be draconian and the monitoring necessary for enforcement would potentially go against EU privacy law. Moreover the scope under the Act  for miscarriages of justice is massive. What happens if your wireless router gets hacked? What about 'Pirate Bay teenagers' or indeed 'LimeWire grannies'? Will poor old 'Bill Payer' be clobbered for the sins of others? How will guilt be established? Innocent parties might have their internet connections restricted (aka 'throttled') or even suspended. Legitimate websites may be blocked. Owners of internet cafes, university libraries and other public spaces will be too scared to provide Wi-Fi zones, for fear of prosecution under the Act. And in the Digital Age, is it fundamentally reasonable to deprive individuals and businesses of internet connectivity? So much for 'Digital Britain'!

Moreover, who is going to enforce this Act? Are we to have an even keener surveillance society? Will the Police be sent round with wirecutters? Unlikely. Instead the ISPs will be required to be the bad guys. But TalkTalk and BT have already challenged the Act, the former stating that it is not prepared to comply with any instruction to disconnect their customers. So the Act is looking unworkable even as it hits the statute book...

However: as Edmund Burke apparently didn't say(!?), "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing". Already, the big content owners and various Government spokespeople are talking about "making the Act work" and "getting on with implementation". So we can't rely on this Act to implode and reform itself.

This is the most important piece of legislation about the internet EVER in the UK. It's too important to be left to politicians. Web access is a basic human right. Like food, water, shelter and political and religious freedom. (OK, we're still working on some of these too).  We didn't get the right Law. So sign the petition against sections 11-18 of the Digital Economy Act 2010. And if you're not a UK citizen, please pray that the 'Mother Of All Parliaments' gets it right next time.

Changing Times. But will we pay?

© 1979 Pink Floyd Music Ltd

Today, we find a place to rent or a house to buy, we book a holiday and stay in touch with our friends using different technologies from those our parents relied on 25 years ago. We all know the internet has changed the world, both economically and sociologically. We call it 'The Internet Revolution', but this wasn't just an event which occurred in 1998 (say) and then stopped. It's an ongoing process. This is the Revolution. We're in it. And big changes will keep on happening.

In the near future, two websites will no longer be free to access. You'll need to pay £1 for a day, or £2 for a week's complete access. The two sites are thetimes.co.uk and thesundaytimes.co.uk. (quick: have a look for free now, before the 'paywall' goes up!) It's not much money really. So what's all the fuss about?

The significance of this move is that these are big serious 'newspaper websites' and that this 'experiment' could go either way. We are used to getting our online news for free. But soon the c.21 million (unique users per month) readers of www.timesonline.co.uk are going to be told: "We have 2 great new sites now, but you must pay or we won't let you see them." (No fee, no view). How will readers react?

The world is watching. This is being seen as a test case. If anyone has the 'cojones' to try this move, it is Rupert Murdoch, Proprietor of the (London) Times and the Sunday Times. Indeed it could be argued that he has little choice. The Times and The Sunday Times lost £87million in 2009. But was this due to: i) not charging enough for its content or ii) paying too much to too many journalists or iii) not attracting enough advertising revenue? (or indeed all of the above?)

We are talking about the most extreme form of 'paywall'. Google and Bing won't be able to 'crawl' the content or show it to us. Searches will no longer turn up stories from either website.  If I subscribe and you don't, when I send you a link you'll have to stop at the entry barrier until you lay down your dollar (must remember that for future posts...) This is certainly a bold initiative, and the advertising and media world is divided as to whether a) it's a good thing and b) it will work.

The Times and The Sunday Times are part of Times Newspapers Ltd which is part of News International Ltd which is itself part of News Corporation (still with me?) which also owns 38% of Sky TV and of which the founder, chairman and chief executive officer is Rupert Murdoch. The CEO Europe and Asia and heir-apparent is his son, James Murdoch. The Times itself is one of the oldest newspapers in the world. Founded in 1785, the newspaper (nicknamed The Thunderer) invented the Times New Roman typeface (=font)  in 1932. It was bought by Murdoch in 1981, and in the late 1980s, after a fierce struggle against the trade unions, based its operations at 'Fortress Wapping' in East London. Murdoch himself is not a Luddite; far from it; News Corp. owns MySpace (another brand currently engaged in a bitter fight). He has introduced much new technology into newspaper creation and production. This could, however, be his biggest battle of all; persuading us to pay for our news (+ comment + opinion); in other words, proving that people will pay for quality news journalism even when it's accessed online.

The new sites are currently available on a free trial. No expense appears to have been spared in their content, design and build. There are cool features like a culture planner (from which you can plan your week's entertainment and even set your Sky+ TV recorder) and loads of embedded video and audio. They look great (especially on an iPad). Suddenly Harry Potter's The Daily Prophet doesn't seem like Science Fantasy. Perhaps this is what James Murdoch meant when he recently predicted "a revolution in reading". Maybe, just maybe, this is what the next generation of newspapers (and magazines) looks like. And we will have to pay.

If the model works, it offers the prospect of a viable future for news journalism. (Success would also raise questions about the validity of a Google search for news in a situation where the' best' analysis and comment is hidden away behind the various paywalls). If this initiative fails, who will choose a career as a trained writer-journalist in the years to come? If the paid-for printed newspaper is becoming a 'status symbol' carried by the few as an accessory (à la FT), will the online news site subscription be its digital equivalent? (So we can send those links out to impress our friends/ Twitter followers who can click them but can't see the content? I think not.) Will sufficient advertisers enthusiastically welcome the thinned-out VIP group in the rarefied atmosphere behind the paywall, deeming this to be an attentive, engaged (paying) audience worth paying a big premium to reach? That's the gamble. We're at a crossroads.

Understandably the media (on- and offline) is buzzing right now. These are just some of the views currently being expressed:

"I want my employer to be paid for my intellectual property."
Danny Finkelstein, chief leader writer and political columnist, The Times

"They must understand the fundamental dynamics of online advertising. It is unlikely that advertisers will pay a premium for ads on The Times because the ad unit is bigger, looks nicer or indeed, is being shown to a paying subscriber.... The real opportunity is to monetise the comment, analysis, features and interactivity that are a key part of the Times offering."
Rob Horler, MD, Carat (via Campaign)

"We estimate that the (online) audience ...will drop by more than 80 per cent. They're not going to be able to charge 20 times what everyone else charges (for advertising space). But... I would never bet against News International...I think everyone should applaud what they're trying to do."
Claudine Collins, joint head of investment, MediaCom (via Campaign)

"We're going to stop people like Google, or Microsoft or whoever, from taking our stories for nothing."
Rupert Murdoch

Speaking personally, I buy the Sunday Times Newspaper every week as I have for years. It's an overwhelming tome in 9 sections and generally it's interesting, well-written and free of typos. One of the stresses in my life is how little of it I have time to read before it goes into the recycling bin. But I don't resent the cover price of £2. I believe it's more than worth it. However, online, I feel and act differently and I know I'm not alone in this. The BBC gives me almost as much news as I want - for free. When I feel I need more, there are other (free) sites which help me to keep up with the latest developments in digital marketing and, equally importantly, the various activities of Wayne Rooney, Cheryl Cole and Justin Bieber.

It isn't much money but neither is it free. Every consumer will make their own 'purchase' decision. Will enough people pay the subscription to the new Times sites and will enough advertisers be prepared to pay enough to target these few subscribers so that the whole business model works? That is what they used to call the $64,000 question.

No-one can accuse Rupert Murdoch of walking away from difficult battles. And with an estimated net worth of $6.3billion, he can afford to take some risks. But has he taken on too much this time? Writers, both professional and amateur, crave credibility, authority and INFLUENCE. That is helped (albeit not guaranteed) by building a big audience. Will The Times's world-class journalists, who have grown accustomed to building their personal brands by accumulating large (unmonetised) online audiences, find themselves ignored, lonely and irrelevant behind the paywall, like the late night DJ on local radio, talking to only a few people (which might also mean only a few advertisers)?

Will this move by The Times turn out to be the salvation of paid-for news journalism, or just another brick in the wall of its mausoleum? No-one knows for sure: not even Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG, himself. But it's going to be interesting to watch.

Digital? Direct? Or just Marketing?

(This post first appeared on the UK Institute of Direct Marketing Blog: http://www.theidm.com/blog/ .) 


Maggie. Dallas. Durannies. Lunch may have been for wimps, but there were plenty tucking in.

The 1980s. It was an exciting time. A combination of factors meant that Direct Marketing (a term which was coined around this time to include ‘direct mail marketing’ and ‘direct response advertising’) became ‘respectable’ and was even acknowledged for its creativity. In the UK, The Royal Mail sponsored awards and there was an annual beano in Montreux to celebrate ‘the best of direct’. Of course, the Ad agencies still tended to look down on these ‘snake-oil salesmen’; their clients, however, were attracted by the promise of accountability and measurability. Since you could count responses, it followed that you could determine with certainty whether it was working: "accountable advertising". Hmmmm.

By the late 1980s, Sales Promotion too could lay claim to having become an industry (nay even a 'profession') in its own right. Indeed as proof of this, ‘pure sales promotion’ agencies sprang up. Moreover, increasing numbers of the exponents of DM and SP did not wear ‘shiny suits’ (unless they were silk) and indeed many of them wore something Italian like their above-the-line brethren. Suddenly, below-the-line was cool, a valid career choice and in those days of Maggie Thatcher, the Pet Shop Boys and Wall Street (1), brands like Triangle, FKB, KLP, WWAV, MSW, HLY and THB&W were launched and thrived. Red yuppie braces were twanged amidst an intoxicating atmospheric mix of creativity, excitement and avarice; “let’s make lots of money”, indeed.

As the ’90s dawned, Sir Tim Berners-Lee was doing clever things at CERN which exploited the US Military/ Academic network of computers called the Internet and would contribute to the launch of the ‘world wide web’. Bill Gates was busy putting a (beige) Windows PC on every desk (with Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office helpfully and intimately bundled) and Steve Jobs at Apple was doing something similar but including design. Suddenly there was a branch of marketing called ‘Interactive’ which embraced the ‘new media’. Most marketers expected it to remain the province of ‘geeks and losers’ and never to amount to much, but it did attract some attention. It was even mentioned in Campaign Magazine (albeit in the sarcastic tone of voice then normally reserved for sniggering about a list management error in a piece of Direct Mail mistakenly sent to the Diary Editor).

Gradually at first then rapidly the ‘world wide web’ took off and soon the ad industry took a lively interest- in taking the dotcoms’ money. Since these companies were intent on burning through as much VC dosh as humanly possible, the old-media New Biz Directors welcomed them with open arms and for a while it was a very happy marriage. Soon we had ad breaks stuffed with dotcoms and everything was lowercase, with THAT suffix. (aol.com, boo.com, lastminute.com, yahoo.com and err… CompuServe). The ad agencies smirked a little when these ‘new media’ guys used good old TV and posters to build their ‘online communities’ (although mainly they weren’t actually selling anything to those people or indeed building any revenue at all) but not too obviously since they really liked their VC money. They also watched the Nasdaq rising like a rocket and sometimes even accepted stock instead of cash for services rendered. After all, they observed how those rock-solid, long-established Wall Street and City of London investment banks were funding these new enterprises; they surely knew what they were doing. Then in 2000, the bubble burst.

But of course the internet itself wasn’t discredited; just unsound business practices and the rash investors who were seduced by those heady times. Sure, the emperor’s new clothes fell down like house of cards (or something) but the web kept growing, powering thorough Cyberspace on the Information Superhighway. By the mid-nineties, “Shall we have a website?” became a non-question. As broadband took off, consumers started spending more and more time online and the web became worthy of consideration not just as somewhere to sell, but as somewhere to advertise; as a medium where Target Audiences hung out. ‘New Media’ gave way to e-marketing, ‘Online’ and finally ‘Digital’. Agencies like AKQA, Dare, Glue London, Profero and LBi become the new hot shops. Suddenly it became apparent that the world had changed. Direct Marketing looked increasingly middle-aged and untrendy. In the 21st Century, nobody launches a ‘pure’ DM agency any more; it’s direct and digital or pure(play) digital. And as for Sales Promotion, that’s a term that belongs firmly in the era of free plastic daffodils, Green Shield Stamps and petrol station free glasses promotions; soooo last century.

Times change. Precision Marketing magazine has gone.Promotions and Incentives and Marketing Direct first went online, and were then ‘eaten’ by Brand Republic. The ISP is busy rebranding itself as The Institute of Promotional Marketing. The big ad agencies have done what they always do; restructure to meet changing client demands (as far as they can divine what these actually are); the latest trend is to fire the Head of Digital (“that position perpetuates unhelpful silos”) and instead to “put digital at the heart of everything they do”.

So where does that leave Direct Marketing? When I studied for the IDM Diploma in Direct Marketing, I learned that DM was an interactive system of marketing generating a measurable response/transaction at any location and dependent on data. That would certainly include some digital marketing (email marketing, affiliate marketing). Other digital marketing could be deemed to be awareness/ attitude changing (eg display, publisher websites) ie part of advertising. Social Media strategy might be viewed as a subset of PR (Online Reputation management, anybody?) and Mobile might just be a way of doing all of this while walking down the street (or on the Underground with an ‘always-on’ signal of course).

Today I find it amazing to recall that as a young account director I had numerous fights with art directors when I asked them to put coupons on press ads and 0800 phone numbers on posters. “NO- I won’t let you spoil the design- it’s an AWARENESS ad.” Times have certainly changed. Today all advertising is “brand response” (‘like’).

A few years ago I wrote a book in which I dared to predict that, one day soon, “Marketing communications will at last be viewed holistically, as a planned system of activities establishing, developing and controlling a set of relationships with consumers…all marketing will be direct marketing.”

I suggest that day is here. Moreover, nothing is new forever, even DIGITAL. And of course, TV didn’t kill Radio or Cinema; and neither of these killed Press and Posters. As has always been the case, the new media are talking their places alongside the old. Meanwhile, communications and entertainment technology continues to advance at a bewildering pace. I found Avatar in 3D a memorable cinematic experience but apparently we ‘ain’t seen nothing yet’. Someone called me yesterday to sell me on the need to ‘get ready for 3DTV’. A mate of mine is really excited about the next generation iPads. The prospect of Super-Fast Broadband is my excuse for avoiding thinking about Blu-Ray. Now that all my music is on MP3, is it time to get rid of those CDs? Actually, now I have Spotify Premium, do I even need the MP3s? We are living in interesting times.

So when ‘Digital’ starts to sound a bit mainstream and ‘noughties’, what will be the next new kid on the block? Mobile? Virtual? Augmented? Something we haven’t heard of yet? The web (via desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile) offers marketing tools which ‘Direct’ practitioners have been craving since the great Drayton Bird himself was a whippersnapper. Masses of behavioural and purchase data, ample targeting and testing opportunities, instant response, instant results.

These days, we’re all in Direct Marketing. Yes: even, and indeed especially, the digerati. Tell that to the trendy Flash Designers in Shoreditch. (And by the way, Steve Jobs really hates Flash and HTML5 is on the way so they’d better get themselves on a training course: super-fast!).