WordStream Report on Google's 2011 Revenues

WordStream just published a must read report on Google's revenue for 2011.

As we suspected here at OptiMine Software the biggest spenders are in financial services, travel, and retail.

That's no surprise but it was a surprise to learn that Lowe's leads the pack investing $59.1 million with AdWords in 2011. That tops Amazon's $55.2m by $3.9m. It's good to learn that home improvement consumer spend is back on track. Doubtful that Lowe's chased a declining market.

However according to the report home sales did not recover. That's easily confirmed by my recent real estate appraisal as I once again refinance to take advantage of low rates.

Now having said all that we had a conversation about these numbers. It's clear that published information is not always in alignment with what people are really spending.

March 13 invite only digital marketing event at Bin36

Here is our agenda for the upcoming marketing event. This is invite only but please feel free to contact me if you want to attend or have any questions.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Bin 36, Chicago

5:30-6:30pm Heavy hors d'oeuvres, cocktails and networking
6:30 – 8:00 Panel Discussion

Josh Dreller, VP Media Technology and Analytics, Fuor Digital

Matt Miller, SVP Strategy & Analytics, Performics
Rich Stokes, CEO & Founder, Adgooroo
Robert Cooley PhD., CTO & Founder, OptiMine Software

First the Trees, then the Forest

Digital Marketing in a Multi-Channel Ecosystem

Senior marketers want to use data to inform investment decisions and achieve the
holy grail of integrated marketing across communications channels. There is another
approach to consider. Optimize financial performance within each channel for maximum financial results before achieving Nirvana in the multi-channel ecosystem.

The panel for this event will discuss the following topics:

• Build a digital foundation
• First the trees, then the forest
• Optimize individual channels
• Optimize spend across multiple channels
• Cross-channel effects
• How does spend increase/decrease in Channel A affect performance in Channel B
• Attribution - Does it matter and is it possible
• Data driven financial decision making in marketing
• Use analytics to achieve business goals and optimize spend
• Align marketing investment to attain the financial goals that matter in the C Suite
• Ideas to achieve financial optimization within and across channels

IBM Social Media Monitoring and CADM Event

I attended the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing January lunch event at Bin36.

Graham Mackintosh from IBM spoke about how IBM Cognos social media monitoring software helps companies understand their customer better. The implications of this are significant for any direct to consumer business.

Companies have to understand what is happening on the internet related to their brand, competition, and industry to make intelligent business decisions. Software tools like Cognos pull together in a usable format millions of pieces of consumer data.

I asked Graham how industry currently uses the software and what will happen in 2012. Most current clients are monitoring internet conversations and in some cases using analytic insights to inform better marketing programs.

However Graham believes this is not enough. Future leaders will integrate intelligence into their business processes. The ability to know in real time what consumers are doing makes it possible to be smarter about business strategy, marketing decision making, product development, and customer service engagement.

In my opinion this new best practice will be table stakes in any industry sooner rather than later.

Another article about consultative selling

Tony Zambito describes from his blog The Digital Buying Persona how much B to B sales has changed. His description of the importance of having a salesperson in the process is something very obvious to me. However as stated in an earlier post buyers have different expectations of what that salesperson needs to bring to the table.

It's not really possible given the complexity of any technology or service offering today for a buying organization to know how to connect an outside solution back to their business challenges. It's just too complicated and there are too many options.

Salespeople today must operate as consultants rather than just describing the features and benefits of their product. That's now marketing's job using online content strategies. Given this situation it makes sense that companies hire subject matter experts and an inside sales team to drive them leads.

Anybody who has worked in sales for more than a few months knows this will not work. Great salespeople add another component. It takes a fearless determination to probe for the critical information that will drive success, navigate complex politics and emotions, and never give up in the face of continuous rejection and obstacles.

The typical subject matter expert does not possess that skill set.

The missing social media void for business

I personally like Facebook for finding old friends and sharing pictures of our new baby. Business usage is not something that interests me very much.

LinkedIn is such a major part of my daily activity that it is impossible to imagine doing business without it. When Google+ launched it appeared to bridge the gap for me between LinkedIn and Facebook. Or at least that was my wishful thinking.

What I want is LinkedIn to create a truly social community including something like Google+ circles to allow me to keep in touch with segmented groups of people.

I never use Google+ anymore. All of my important business connections are on LinkedIn but their social features are not very useful. Somebody who fills this void in the market will certainly get my attention.

Type of salesperson that succeeds

This research presented on Jill Konrath's blog is interesting to me. Clients today expect that anybody in sales needs to add value to the conversation. Relationship building is not dead as described but needs to be part of something bigger. Connecting with people is more about building trust that then allows the salesperson to present often controversial ideas that solve problems. It's clear to me that like consultants salespeople need to be experts and able to present best practices to companies that are at first resistant to new ideas. It's not good enough to bring in the sales engineer as the resident expert and think the only duty is to own the relationship.