Stemato.com - Stephen Tompkins’ Blog

Marketers are always talking about listening to the consumer because its the best source of information. I could not agree more and over the last year and change I have done just that. I left my job at Nielsen in marketing to get closer to the client and to learn as much as I could about them from daily interactions.

First, I want to say its been very humbling to sit on this side of the fence and to absorb all the positive and negatives of client service.

After just over a year, I think I am ready to impart some of my findings on you. My number one learning this year is:

Clients want information.

Good Information and Bad information it does not matter. They just want whatever you have and they want it as concise and detailed as you can give it to them. They do not have time to fumble through lots of rhetoric and information to find the solution. That is what we are there for.

Patience is a virtue

It is an old lesson but definitely one that is important when dealing with clients. Be patient - they don’t have as many insights as you. That is why they called/emailed you. You are the expert and being patient benefits both of you.

Listen, listen and listen more…

This is perhaps the most important. Listen to what clients say and then listen to what they don’t say. Because they don’t always use the same terms that we do. So its important that you listen carefully and address each concern they have separately. This way you are giving information and also showing that you are truly concerned with getting them a satisfactory outcome.

All in all, its been a huge learning curve this year and a great experience that I look forward to another year of learning! What client service lessons have you learned?

How do brands beat “scaling panis?” So many brands get so big that they begin to be diluted beyond anything that helps UE. Ask someone like GM, Wal-Mart or even Target, how do we perserve experience as we watch our brands enjoy such phenomenal success? It seems bigger might not always be better in all cases.

Perserving your brand as your market cap rises, falls on the shoulders of so many different departments these days it can be tough to get collaboration across all units. Social-media has empowered normal citizens with a power they didn’t have before and now you have to please more than just PR folks when it comes to putting your best foot forward. A dirty aisle at Target can get much more exposure than it would have 10 years ago, therefore its more important than ever to keep a mindful on all aspects of your brand.

Brands are like a sphere because they have so many sides that need to be defined yet remain nimble. Its an ultimate anomaly that marketers face everyday. When you set standards they need to be specific yet flexible and ready to grow.

Don’t get stuck in the now and forget to realize that things change fast and you need to be ready.

What would the internet look like without ads? No banners, no search and no rich media to interrupt your surfing experience just plain old experience. At first thought it sounds amazing but looking closer into at this proposition reveals some ugly truths.

1. Most people today go to the internet to research product information. Whether we admit it or not, many of the digital ads we see help us to determine the products we research later to buy. With better targeting think of the possibilities of products you never knew existed that could present themselves to you.
2. Online ads are much less intrusive than TV commercials. The so-called “banner blindness” factor has helped to make them just blend into a page seamlessly. In fact, I photoshopped all ads off a few page only to find there was no real difference in new content space available. In most cases, I felt more content would be even more distracting.
3. If the internet is about discovery then online ads have a spot at the table. What is more about discovery than advertisements? Product A is amazing but without promotion, where does it go?

Can anyone else think of other reasons I may have missed? I would love to hear ideas and feedback on the notion of an internet without ads. What is your scenario?

Yesterday, I read this article from Marketing Vox about online youth’s attitude towards medical information online. And its fascinating to me in light of my last blog post, about local medical search, that more doctors have not exploited this growing trend to establish themselves as local market leaders. With so many online tools available such as targeting and reach, it seems to be a no-brainer to be the first to plant a flag in the online world.

Do small companies innovate enough when it comes to online media and the wealth of new technologies available to them? I recently asked myself this question while talking to my Dad in Florida about my new job. We were talking about online advertising and the possibility of running a small search campaign to advertise a new less-evasive knee surgery that he recently learned. He was completely unaware of the fact that for very little investment on MSN (disclosure: I work for Microsoft), Yahoo or the Other Guy he could run a Zip Code targeted search-term campaign.

It comes as quite a surprise to me that most local physicians on the ground are not utilizing the natural democracy of the web to their favor and buying up more search terms. Every year more and more people search and find medical information online. In fact,  ”Harris Interactive, a national polling firm, found last month that 150 million people this year sought online health information.*”  That is a staggering number of people searching for solutions to their medical issues and certainly a great target-pool for new business.

As my Dad and I talked further about acquisitions and costs to him, we reasoned that with one patient a month coming from CPC and a medium sized budget of 10k he could essentially make a profit. This was really unscientific reasoning but when you sit down and really look at the numbers, I am positive they would still end up well in the black. We spoke further and he was not totally ready to make the dive but in a few months I imagine he will be back with his partners asking more questions.

I am still left to wonder, when will small businesses exploit local search for its natural strengths?

Interesting reads pertaining to this posts found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/fashion/10Skin.html?ex=1208491200&en=867d0d88185b59b0&ei=5070&emc=eta1

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_tumor10.129bd70.html

With all these words of war between Mac and PC, where do us Bi-users fit-in? I have Windows products that I love and Mac products that I love.

Microsoft’s (disclosure: my employeer) launch of the ”I’m a PC” ads stoked my fire for Bi-user unity. So all us Bi-C’s unite!

This week has been really interesting for me. I started a new job and left an old one behind. I made some great friends and really enjoyed my time at Nielsen. It was a lifetime of learning in a year. Thanks to all my Nielsen friends.

I guess the last few lines has you wondering where my career has taken me. The answer is to Atlas Solutions as a TAM. I am super excited and have been there three days but learned so much its amazing. I am looking forward to this path and all the challenges it has to offer it.

But, I digress. This post is about Twitter and the recent influx of followers I have recently received. As Twitter gains in popularity, I expect to see more notifications from people with backwards followers ratios but this week has seen a influx of dotcoms following me.

Is there something in the water that is making these folks think intruding into my lifestream will make me follow them back?

Some data from my company, the latest information on social networks. Enjoy.

NIELSEN ONLINE PROVIDES TOP U.S. SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AND BLOGS FOR APRIL 2008

Nielsen Online provides April’s top U.S. social networking sites and blogs for your reference. They are ranked by unique audience and rounded to the nearest thousand, so LinkedIn had 8.7 million unique visitors in April 2008, growing 361 percent over April 2007.

Please note that these are custom lists compiled by the Nielsen Online PR team with the help of our media analysts. While these lists are not meant to be exhaustive, they provide a good idea of the significant players in each space.

We periodically review the lists and add new sites, so the results may change accordingly. Please source data to Nielsen Online.

I just read this interesting story from the NY Times about online ad spending and the economy. It basically says that display advertisement is down across the board and search remains strong. Its not super surprising to think that in a time of economic slowdown that search with its increased ability to track is weathering this storm well. But I am slightly caught off guard that display has had such significant declines in recent months.

The NY Times reported 16% growth this April compared to 20% last year making the slow down about 4% year-over-year. Not a major slowdown but still enough to be alarmed especially in a weakening market. Although its too early to declare an end to online advertisement’s growth, the companies that can better attribute steps in the online sales funnel to display, stand to gain a great competitive edge.

Keyword research can be a daunting task. Relationships between consumers and brands can be like the difference between Japanese and English. Finding an appropriate starting point for setting up your first search campaign can be the biggest roadblock. After determining what product or products to build your campaign around putting together a great set of keywords is the next step.

Keywords form the spine of the your search campaign; getting these relationships right is important to your success. Where do you begin? Corporate websites, brochures and other marketing materials can be a good starting point for relevant terms being used to discuss your brand but they sometimes lack closeness to the consumer. Don’t be alarmed though because consumers have left a virtual digital treasure chest of keywords waiting be discovered in blogs, message boards and forums.

Here is my 5 step process to begin to gain insight in the blogosphere to what is being said and using it for keyword research:

1. Compile a list of blogs that talk about your brand - Perhaps the most important step is to explore the blogosphere and see who is talking about you. Del.icio.us, Google Blog Search and Technorati are a great place to search your brand and see who is talking about you. Then put together a list of the ones you find to be have the most scope and activity. Look for plenty of comments and large readership. Check for hints including RSS subscribers and comments counts.
2. Read and look for patterns of conversation - Pay particularly close attention to the comments and specific language being used to talk about your features, models and brands in them. Do they use model numbers or branded terms* to discuss products? Comments are insights straight from consumers about the language that is being developed around you. Tag clouds also hold interesting patterns.
3. Make a list of terms - Compile a list of terms that you see in multiple places. Segment the list and make sure you don’t forget the long tail.
4. Rank terms on list - Once you have a master list of all your consumer-driven keywords# put them in order of importance. Focus on consumer talk and how they might search for you not how you would search for your product.
5. Decide how much to bid on terms - Should you bid more on terms that are from consumers or same? Should they be contextually driven or keyword? For instance, Chevy is used more in conversation than Chevrolet according to BlogPulse. Does this chart mean you should invest much more into contextual advertising for the term “chevy”? One thing is certain you would get more placement due to its increased term use.

These 5-steps are starting points for introducing consumer-driven keywords into your paid search campaign. You can not only increase your paid clicks but gain valuable CRM insights into your brand by adding them into your web strategy. The only question left is. When do we start?

* I remember when I worked at a satellite radio manufacturer we had one radio that was called: XTR1, Jimi and Stream | Jockey. Combing through forums, blogs and message boards would have yielded consumer preference for its name.

# Keywords that originate from consumers of a brand and are not necessarily brand driven.