Does it indicate that Facebook is maturing as a media?

Interesting though that according to this article, when the new initiative of Facebook to create a "Client Council," calling together senior advertising executives from 13 big brands and ad agencies, to find advertising approaches that will help measure the return on investment (as opposed to just rely on a leap of faith in the power of social),  Mr. Zuckerberg's response to a question from one of the attendees on how they will be able to measure the return on their investment in this initiative, was: "That's a great question and we should probably have an answer to that, shouldn't we?"...Well, that is a question that should have been asked a long time ago already but later is always better than never.

Do they really have the choice?

Not so much...They have to. Otherwise, Facebook will be a souvenir down the road...not a business model to look at for reference.

So are they maturing or not?

It always go back to the same concept where the key principles of effective marketing and advertising are applied:

A) It is always about The Right Product to the Right Target with the Right Message at the Right Time through the Right Channel

B) It has to be measurable like any investments

Where Facebook has to be careful is that not all marketing communications do or can have sale objectives attached to them and therefore are more ready for ROI analysis...Sometimes a message has the singular objective to make the audience aware or knowledgeable about a product or an offer...and then other communications after that will bring the target to the purchase stage. The 1st message can not have a direct revenue or sales objective attached to it.

Also, what could be the reaction of the consumers and the Facebook users if Facebook push "harder" on the advertising options that they propose to their clients and such users feel intrusion.

In fact, Facebook as a social tool does not need to do push harder...Now Facebook as a business has to. So the question is not if. The question is how.

If they can not make it work, unless they are able to be funded through donations, they will go away.

So are they maturing? Yes they are and like all of us, they have no choices...They might have to end up relatively smaller and profitable. The jury is out but they make the right moves!

So I am pursuing a Web-Digital Analytics certification program to complement and update my expertise in this domain and the more I go through the training (which is well done), I realize again that we just love to complicate things...to have the feeling that "we" know...and that "they" don't.

As one goes through a certification program on Digital Analytics with a strong focus on Google Analytics, it is highly probable that this person will be exposed to known terms...Metrics, segments, kpi, etc. and new ones like dimensions, traffic sources, goals, path, medium, outcomes, outcomes as goals, goals for KPIs, etc.

At first it is obvious one will be confused by so many terms and so many combinations of those terms...very confused. This is always the case when technology is put before business or marketing logic and a (brilliant) team of technologists use what they know, to give a business or marketing feel to what they propose.

Well, let me demistify Digital Analytics one step at a time:

Digital Marketing analytics (linked to tracking and analyizing SEM, SEO, emails, etc) is no more and no less than Database Marketing applied to online data...as simple as that! No 4th dimension world with new logics and new alien concepts.

• What is Database Marketing...This is what I came up with: The application of database and data analysis to marketing decisions!
• What are the marketing decisions that we are talking about? let me summarize the ultimate decisions that you want to make
  
  • What is the "best" target?
  • What are the "best" offering and offer?
  • What is the "best" time to contact?
  • What is the "best" channel?
• What is the point of improving marketing decisions? A higher return for your marketing investment!

When you look at Digital Marketing, this is the same purpose but online so the specific dimensions for you to try to find the "best" are not exactely the same than for the offline world but pretty close. They are not the same in the sense that they are linked to online but at the core, they relate to the same core focus: Observing and tracking consumer behaviors and understanding who they are so that a marketer can concentrate on the consumers or prospects who have the most or the most propensity to have the targeted behavior.

What are those online dimensions in line with the key marketing decisions?

• What is the "best" target?...Translate in Digital Marketing terms applied to digital data
  
  • What is the "best" traffic source?
  • What is the "best" visitor location?
  • What is the "best" keyword?
  • What is the "best" mobile device?
  • Etc.
• What are the "best" offering and offer?...Translate in Digital Marketing terms applied to digital data
  • What is the "best" AdWord Ad?
  • What is the "best" AdWord campaign?
  • What is the "best" message?
  • Etc.
• What is the "best" time?...Translate in Digital Marketing terms applied to digital data
  • What is the best traffic day?
  • What is the best traffic hour?
  • Etc.
• What is the "best" channel?...Translate in Digital Marketing terms applied to digital data
  • What is the "best" traffic source?
  • What is the "best" visit path?
  • What is the "best" landing page?
  • Etc.

Point made!

Digital Marketing is no more/no less than marketing commmunications...online/on digital devises:). So of course, it has its own content creation rules, technology requirements, interaction rules, etc....but in the end, this is still about a target going from point A ("I do not know you") to point Z ("I purchase your product") where the "online" path from A to Z, while not being linear, is still in the end in having as many people in the target going from A to Z.

So this means that Digital Marketing and therefore Digital Analytics are here to help build effective marketing communications to push or pull as many people in the target to the purchase stage.

It seems to me that once we simplify our understanding and once we go back to basics, things get clearer and manageable.

I am reading right now the book Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman and this makes me wonder the implications of his findings and conclusions for marketing.

Basically, his baseline approach is to state that our thinking process is in fact composed of 2 systems which he calls System 1 & System 2.

System 1 is "fact, intuitive & emotional". System 2 is "slower, more deliberative and more logical".

Both systems have extraordinary capabilities and as extraordinarily, some important limitations.

For example, system 1 will be the one linked to intuitive persuasion..which sometimes leads us to the right conclusions...and sometimes not. The core idea is to detect those limitations and use (trust) system 2 to correct those "wrong" impressions.

Now system 2 is incapable of quick reactions, while sometimes they are needed or it can lead to "wrong" conclusions if no use "properly".

To help the reader understand the difference between the 2 systems, the author uses several examples...One of them is the Muller Lyer example.

Look at the image below!

What do you see?

The upper horizontal line is shorter than the lower horizontal line? Right?...This is what your system 1 tells you.

Now you know maybe that in fact they have the same length or your "deliberate-slower" observation will bring you to that conclusion...That is your system 2 speaking here.

So easy!...we just need to follow system 2 constantly but this is not that easy as sometimes, we just can not control system 1 or in other times, system 2 is so "demotivated" that it is bringing you to the wrong conclusions.

The key is to know which system to rely on...when and to recognize when the limits of each system are reached.

This is a very interesting book that I recommend to all marketers as in fact, what we do (or are trying to do) as marketers, is to influence the decisions-making process of our targets...Therefore, to understand how decisions are made within the context of the 2 systems and how those 2 systems shape our judgments and decisions are critical.

When to solicit system 1?

When to solicit system 2?

When to combine the 2?

Once we know which system we have to solicit, to obtain the expected reaction from our target , how to build the marketing communication in such a way that this is the system that our communication will aim at and as it does that, it does it effectively?

In advertising creative tactics, we are talking about emotional and rational appeals which more often than not are combined in marketing communications but they remain 2 separated dimensions...What about is we were to use system 1 & system 2 where of course the 2 systems could be combined if need but furthermore, one will influence the other like the Yin and the Yang of a message...Pretty powerful!

Oh well...just some food for thoughts.

I have just read this article on 1to1 Media on Big Data, its huge implications for marketing and how we are short of talents ("McKinsey estimates that by 2018 this deficiency in deep analytical talent will rise to between 140,000 and 190,000 open positions in the United States") to make proper sense of all those data to help marketers make better decisions in a world that is more and more complex.

Some of the professionals interviewed or mentioned in the article indicated appropriately that Marketing Analytics is NOT and can NOT be an IT function. Some others indicated that the recruitment of those talents should be focused on data analysts who have proven their ability to make customer-centric decisions and/or who have experience in business/marketing decisions.

From my stand point, this is only one side of the equation...and actually maybe the wrong side. Let me explain.

Data analysis is here to help people make better decisions.

To do that, one needs to understand data analysis as well as the marketing decisions in question.

As such, a data analyst has to have some knowledge and experience in the type of decisions that a marketer needs to make and...a marketer needs to have some practical knowledge of data analysis to be able to communicate and interact properly and understandably with the data analysist.

In fact, between the 2, the biggest gap is with the Marketers for their knowledge of data analysis and that should be the focus on the gap closing effort. The fact is that those marketers know the decisions that they have to make....They just do not always know to ask properly the right question, to get to the proper insights...to help them find answers...to make those decisions.

Furthermore, it is only by democratizing the access to data and the practical understanding of data analysis, that the real power of marketing analytics will be unleached. This assessment is renforced by the emergence of online graphical marketing analytics interfaces that everyone and anyone can access.

As such, the key focus should be to educate Business Managers and Marketers (starting in College) to integrate "practical" math and data analysis into their skills set. That way, we will have no shortage.

Those multiple challenges are surely closely related the emergence of Digital Marketing like Internet, Mobile or Social Media...and the disturbance that those new channels mean in terms of sales funnel.

Well, let me throw some ideas to you:

* The purpose of Advertising (as a communication method) is singularly to create awareness. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still advertising.

* The purpose of Public Relations is singularly to generate goodwill from the business stakeholders. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still PR.

* The purpose of Sales Promotion is singularly to temporarily boost sales. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still Sales Promotion.

* The purpose of Direct Marketing is singularly to generate immediate response. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still Direct Marketing.

* The purpose of Word Of Mouth is singularly to make people recommend to people. Can you do it offline, online or mobile? You sure can but it is still Word Of Mouth.

So the point is simple. Behind all the smokes for the new tools, there is this core principle that one needs to use the right communication methods for the right purposes and that the media consumption of the target that you are aiming at, dictates if you should go offline, online and social media or any mix of those 3.

• Understand the needs and wants of the consumers in the market that you are aiming at
• Identify and understand the competitors on that market
• Based on this knowledge:
  • Identify your top target
  • For the top target, identify the top competitors to beat
  • Define the value (benefits for price) that you need to propose to your target, to beat those competitors
  • Define the positioning strategy that will support your value proposition for your top target
• You can then and then only define your optimum marketing mix (Product, Price, Placement-Distribution & Promotion)...including your promotional mix which includes...Digital Marketing

So before you get to the shinny objects of Digital Marketing...a lot has to be decided and this is effective marketing 101