I’ve been wondering about the future of marketing lately–what’s coming next, and what advertisers really have to pay attention to in the near term. Not crazy stuff like brain implants (imagine the malware) or shared consensual realities (though those are coming), but things we can use, like, right now.

One of the things I’ve been dismissing lately are virtual worlds like Second Life. There’s simply not a large enough audience to attract a typical mass marketer, nor is the audience segregated into a convenient industry vertical (like, say, audio enthusiasts, global travelers, or high-net-worth individuals.)

The problem with Second Life is simply that it’s too damn hard to get started–mainly due to the software download and installation process. Second Life doesn’t run in your web browser. It’s not instantly accessible, like, say, Amazon. Although many developers have tried to develop a browser-based version, none have gained much currency.

But–what if Second Life ran on the iPad? Here’s a forward-looking, high-income, self-selected audience that’s totally cool with downloading and installing apps, and waiting for them to launch. The iPad itself could simplify the clunky Second Life interface–touch to look around, swipe to zoom, tilt for motion. And the newer versions of the iPad most certainly have enough power to run Second Life.

I suspect that if Second Life was available for the iPad, we’d be seeing giant new interest from marketers. What other game can they place their own content and ads in, without bowing to iAds or another publisher’s platform? What other game guarantees the high-end audience they’d be getting? And what other game allows you to target the platform specifically with dead-simple Google Adwords? None.

So, Second Life on the iPad is key to marketing nirvana? Well, not so fast. I see two huge problems with this.

First, Apple’s policy on adult content. In Second Life, sure, you can stick to “PG-13″ areas, but there’s nothing to keep you from surfing across into adult areas, or to prevent other avatars from ruining your day. Apple’s legal team would probably have a heart attack just thinking about it. The solution is to create a walled garden within Second Life, but how secure would it be? And, in a world where people can create anything, how are there any real guarantees?

Second, resource use. Second Life is a notorious system pig, requiring serious processing power and graphics. It’s quite possible that it would shrink the iPad battery life from 10 hours to a small percentage of that. If that’s the case, we have a real no-go situation.

Still, it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?

Let’s look at just one new ecosystem: The New Retail.

This is arguably the most broad-ranging and significant new ecosystem. And yeah, we know you know about Amazon, and selling online, and all of that. But we’re astounded by the number of clients who come to us and say, “We’re launching a new product, and we are signing up retailers, and we may sell a few things on the website, but it’s really a dealer model.”

Oh really? So this is why online commerce absolutely decimated brick and mortar this last holiday season?

The reality is that buyers are now slipping their old habits. Going down to the local mall, scoping out what’s available, and making a retail purchase seems slow and wasteful in the age of “click to buy now.” Hearing about something on the radio and seeing if it’s in stock at the local dealer is getting bypassed by a quick online search. Let’s face it:

The old model: See something on TV/radio/newspaper –> Call a dealer to check stock –> Drive down to buy it.

The new model: See something on a blog –> Click to the site –> Buy it.

There are entire industries where specialist retailers are falling by the wayside, as e-commerce provides more stock, more selection, and more information than they ever could. There are entire new industry leaders being created who eschew retail sales entirely, for a total direct-sale model. And there will be more, as industry learns about the extreme price advantage conferred by cutting out the dealer margin. In some vertical industries, direct is already the de facto standard.

The lesson here? It’s easy to look around and think, “Nothing has really changed.” In fact, it has. And if you’re architecting your company to perform well in the old ecosystem, don’t be surprised if a new competitor comes up and threatens your dominance using the new ecosystem.

So what can you do:

Start with a brand that means something. The New Retail begins with a strong, differentiated brand. Online, there’s a lot more noise than in the traditional space. Take chances. Create controversy. Say what you really need to say.

Get good at all parts of the new ecosystem. Then, you absolutely need online PR and advertising, engaging the communities who are interested in your product. It continues with a slick online sales system that converts the prospects that come to your site. And it finishes with a more hands-on approach to customer service.

Measure and optimize. There’s no excuse to not know where your sales are coming from—you’ll be able to track the blogs, media sites, forums, and blogs that drive sales. You’ll know the messages that work. Heed these results, tweak the campaign, and make the results better.

Don’t be afraid to change. In The New Retail, you’ll know a lot more about what your customers actually want. They’re vocal. They talk to each other on forums. They chat with friends on Facebook. And they have no problem telling you what they think. Missed the mark? Change it. Because if you won’t, someone else will.

Scary? Not really. In fact, making it in The New Retail is a lot less chancy than getting your products in the right dealers and paying their margin to get them to pay attention to it.

And . . . don’t forget the future. As mobile commerce comes to the fore, be prepared for even more change.

We’re in a funny place right now.

Traditional advertising—television, print, and outdoor—seem to be holding on for most leading brands, and for specific industry verticals. Sure, newspapers are gutted, and radio is sliding, and many magazines are bleeding subscribers, but it’s not like companies aren’t doing Super Bowl ads anymore.

Websites, banners, and search marketing are so mainstream—and, in most cases, standardized—that they’re only remarkable by their absence. The online revolution, in that sense, is complete.

Social is even beginning to be relatively stable—Facebook is getting ready for their IPO, and Twitter continues to provide a megaphone for celebs, both the “traditional” Hollywood ones and the newer digerati. Both have plenty of ways for brands to engage through advertising, contests, and other venues. Sure, there are tons of startups, including some really interesting ones like Pintrest, but it’s not like brands are panicking about how to incorporate a whole new paradigm into their marketing.

Mobile is moving a lot faster, and more brands still need to catch up, but we know the general template here: target phones with specific mobile sites, and make sure your main site is tablet-friendly. QR codes, apps, location-based services are viable and known options.

Augmented reality remains niche, but it’s arguably moving towards much more general acceptance with applications like Google Goggles. It still takes a fairly hefty investment, and tolerance for “marketing on the edge” to engage with augmented reality, but it’s a real option for brands, especially toy and entertainment brands. As it becomes more mainstream, expect many more opportunities at all levels, from functional “this is how to change your printer cartridge” applications to broad-ranging, geolocated treasure hunts across real space.

Virtual worlds are quiet for now, mainly due to the small audience and large investment needed to really engage. This will change as virtuality moves into the browser and more people engage with it, but for the moment, it’s a small niche.

So why is this a strange space? Because, on the surface, marketing opportunities appear to be relatively stable. This is a fairly significant change from the panic of the first Web 1.0 days, or the upheaval centered around the first social marketing.

But under the surface, entirely new ecosystems are emerging—and, in many cases, brands aren’t taking complete advantage of them. We’ll look at some of these new ecosystems in upcoming posts.

So, if you’re not into the whole “2012 is the end of the world” schtick, you may be wondering, “Just what the hell do I do to enhance my marketing in this day and age? Holy moly, we’re living in the future. 2012 is, like, the future, isn’t it?”

In some ways, it is. You didn’t see people walking around talking to handheld assistants in 2010 (well, not expecting them to respond coherently, anyway.) You didn’t see people taking iPads to bed in 2009 to watch the latest TV shows they streamed on Netflix (of course, iPads didn’t exist then.) You didn’t expect to be able to access the world’s largest advertising network with nothing more than a login and a credit card a few years before that. And you didn’t have people asking seriously about how easy it is to ditch their cable/satellite TV connection and stream online.

So yeah, we’re living in the future. No jetpacks and flying cars, maybe, but Elon Musk is saying he’ll put millions of people on Mars in 10-20 years. Hey, think of the franchising opportunities for Burger King! Of course, you may have to get used to $1000 Whoppers.

Anyway, back to reality. In the real world, here’s what you should be looking at in 2012:

Mobile-izing your website. Yeah. It’s time. You really need to consider how your website works on phones and mobile devices, now that they’re approaching double-digit traffic. What’s more, that traffic is more likely to be your target demographic, whether or not you’re selling B2B or B2C–business managers, owners, power users, people with disposable income. Your Flash site ain’t gonna show up on an iPad, so the power user’s son won’t be looking for your toys. Your site itself won’t display well on an iPhone, period–which could be the kiss of death when people are browsing in airports on the way to meetings, or in their few precious minutes at the Starbucks before work. Your site absolutely must have a phone-sized, mobile-friendly template for display on phones, and any Flash elements have to be reworked to HTML5. Welcome to the future

Taking a long hard look at Adwords. Yep, we covered this a couple of months ago, but it bears repeating. Google is the largest ad network in the world, with incredibly flexible tools for precisely targeting your audience and geography. If you’re not taking advantage of this, you’re probably losing out on potential business.

Putting down the broad social crack pipe. There are tons of companies on Facebook and Twitter that simply shouldn’t be there. B2B? Get out. Niche B2C? Take a long, hard look and compare the amount of money you’re spending managing your presences, doing contests, etc. to your more traditional marketing. If the numbers don’t add up, get out. Now, to be sure, there are plenty of companies who can benefit from social (especially entertainment) but the reality is that spending often doesn’t line up with results. This is a huge opportunity, because you can use the funds and personnel freed up from social for more effective marketing. Skeptical? Consider that Apple doesn’t engage with Facebook or Twitter at all.

At the same time, looking really hard at the niche social sites. For every Facebook, there’s a hundred thousand giant user communities, each focused on a specific niche. Jeeps. Headphones. Auto restoration. Offroading. Iron Man competitions. Cyclocross. Android rooting. You name it, it’s out there. If you’re determined to be in social, find out where the people talking about your stuff actually hang out—then wade in and introduce yourself. Sponsor a show or a contest. You’ll be surprised how niche social can be amazingly effective. Or maybe not, because they’re already predisposed to buying your stuff.

Putting print money into e-pubs or apps. Let’s face it. Print is smelling really bad. The days of feeling the expensive paper of a brochure to judge the worth of a product is over. People see something, they buy it online. The days of keeping racks of catalogs on your bookcases is also over. People look it up, and buy it online. If you’re in a niche that’s still using print, it’s time to move into the future–either through the development of an exceptional online catalog with great searching capabilities, e-pubs that people can keep on their desktop for quick reference, or even apps that help your customers choose and use your products. Add up your print costs–and you’ll be surprised what that’ll buy you on the electronic side.

Happy 2012! Hope you enjoy living in the future!

Remember the days when everyone wanted to build a billion-dollar website development agency, e-commerce site, or online service? We’re twelve years past the end of that debacle now. Or perhaps you remember the days when everyone wanted to build a social “web 2.0″ site with hundreds of millions of users, or a new widget platform, or a social contesting scheme, or social shopping to transform the retail experience. That debacle is just ending, so the pain may be more fresh in your mind.

“Debacle, what do you mean debacle?” you cry. “There were successful billion-dollar companies made from those debacles!”

Sure there were. And the successes did change the landscape of, like, well, *everything.* No denying that. And the landscape continues to change, as we begin to speak to mobile assistants that are as far removed from the beige box computer of yore as that computer was from, say, a washing machine.

But there were also an amazing amount of failures. And, worse, in our mind, is the mindset it generated. Tens of millions–or maybe hundreds of millions–of bright, college-educated people saw the few successes and thought, “Hell, that’s all I need to do–get a computer, some programmers, and some VC, and I’ll be one of them billionaires too!”

And when they set out to do it, they cast their net broad and wide. No, we don’t just want the geek audience–let’s go for everyone! Make it so grandma can use it too! No, we don’t just want to sell to videophiles, we want to hit everyone who wants to buy something. Bigger is better! Mass market is where it’s at. Go broad, go huge, be the next gorilla!

That’s when they found how hard it was to be all things to all people. And they forgot one of the key rules of business success: it’s better to be damn good in one thing, than kinda OK in a lot of different crap.

They forgot that most of the gorillas started in a niche. Amazon was all about books, before it decided it wanted to take over all e-commerce. It was really focused on enabling e-commerce before it decided to take a stab at all media. Apple (in its rebirth) was all music players, before redefining the mobile space. Facebook was only open to Harvard students, then only people with .edu cred, before opening to everyone to try to redefine the way we communicate. Hell, Google was a niche search engine, used mainly by scientists and engineers, before it ventured out to take over the advertising space and mobile and SaaS and, well, pretty much everything else.

Successful businesses start in a niche–a niche they’re good at, and a niche where they have a real, defined advantage. They don’t immediately go out, media blazing, to hit the broadest audience possible. That’s a very, very costly proposition, and one that’s incredibly hard to define the messages for.

So, when you’re working on your next grand idea, ask yourself: What can I do better than anyone else, for what specific audience? There’s your niche. Put a stake in the ground with a site, develop compelling messages, and start getting the word out with proven tools like Adwords. Let the business grow and mature.

And then, if it suits you, maybe it’s time to go big. Or not. But that’s another story.

Hey all, just a quick note about Google Adwords. You know, the largest ad network in the world?

Wait a sec there. Hit the rewind button (remember those?), go back, and read that again. Google. The largest ad network in the world. Not ClearChannel. Not any single TV network. Not anyone you’d think to put together with that statement at all. It’s amazing how things have changed.

But let’s get to the meat of the matter. If you’ve looked at Adwords in the past and dismissed it as being “just a way to place text search ads,” you’re in for a huge surprise.

Consider these capabilities:

Rich media ads on specific websites and mobile apps in specific locations. Now, this isn’t a new capability, but it’s one that many Google Adwords users leave unexplored. Yes, you’ve all seen Adwords text search ads, and you’ve read ad nauseum about their efficacy. And you’ve seen tons of these same search ads reflected on virtually every site on the internet, from YouTube to Bob’s Audiophile Stuff Blog. This means you can deliver rich media banners to highly targeted audiences–including thousands of subsegments on YouTube, leading blogs like BoingBoing, and highly targeted industry vertical sites like AVSForum. You can also deliver text and banner ads into specific mobile apps on both iPhone and Android. This type of targeting, combined with intelligent, ongoing optimization, delivers the kind of results we could only dream about a year ago.

Targeting to a specific mobile device or OS. Let’s say you’ve just introduced your new, shiny iPad app, and need to get the word out. Sure, you could use standard Adwords placements on search, and hope that your audience is (a) using an iPad, and (b) willing to go to the App Store via the web. Or you could choose to deliver your ads ONLY to iPads. Best on iPad 2? No problem, you can segment down to that level. Same with Android. If your app doesn’t run on earlier versions of the OS, target only those that it works with. The result is a seamless connection to the exact audience you want, with a one-touch link to the App Store or Android market. And this doesn’t stop at apps–hardware devices that work with mobile phones and tablets are also the perfect candidate for this approach.

Targeting via metro area. Adwords has long since had some demographic control, but now you can actually see which metro areas are performing well—and those that are underperforming. It’s easy to reduce your exposure in metros that don’t work for you, and increase exposure in those that don’t. Coupled with ad scheduling, this is a powerful new tool to increase the effectiveness of an Adwords campaign.

If it’s time to look at Adwords again, we can help you decide which options are best for you, deploy an inexpensive test campaign, and report on the results. Don’t hesitate to talk to us about it!

“Media? What media? In this wonderful Web 2.0 era, I can get all the exposure I want in the social networks, for free!”

Yeah, and if that’s what you think, good luck. Here’s the door. Don’t let it hit ya where the dog shoulda bit ya, and all that. Come back when reality sets in. Because, like it or not, even in this Web 2.0/social/mobile era, media is a critical part of your marketing.

“You mean, like television and newspapers and outdoor and stuff?” you scream.

Yes and no. We also mean AdWords, and site sponsorships, and banners, and social media advertising, and magazines, and radio, and online video ads, and a whole lot more. The media landscape is vast–much larger than it has been in the past. And, believe it or not, even the most “antiquated” media have their place. The problem is finding their place. It seems that many clients come to us with one of two misconceptions:

1. I can do everything cheap/free online with social and SEO.
2. I have to go TV for broadest exposure, but I have to do it on the cheap.

Um. No.

Cheap and free are a non-starter for any product. There are marketing tactics that have no media spend, yes: social and SEO. However, management of both of those types of programs either requires an in-house team, or an agency. Both cost money. You’re just not spending it on media.

And, cheap TV is an oxymoron. If you’re talking a national campaign, you’re talking a whole helluva lot of money. Period. No excuses. Sure, you can piece together remnant space through online buys, or hit a locality with a more targeted campaign for semi-reasonable amounts, but the reality is simple: TV isn’t cheap.

So what do you do? As before in this series, it depends entirely on the product or service you’re trying to sell, how you sell it, and how you stack up to the competition (take a look at #1 and #2 to see what we’re talking about.)

An Example: High-End iPod Dock
For this exercise, let’s use the hypothetical $500 high-end iPod dock we’ve been talking about in the previous posts. Let’s also assume that we’re selling it primarily online and direct, through the company’s own ecommerce site.

This means:

1. Since this is a niche product, you should be looking at targeted media, rather than mass media. Yes, we know Bose does commercials. Bose is also a multibillion dollar company with significant distribution. They want people to be aware of them when they go in the store. You want them to come and buy your stuff now.

2. The name of the game here is keeping the cost per sale much less than the profit on the sale. If you’re making $250 on a sale, you’d be thrilled with a $50 cost per sale.

3. You also need to choose media to maximize the total number of sales. If your media is only driving a single sale a month, it doesn’t matter if the cost per sale is $1 or $150.

Media we’d consider:

1. PR/Reviews. Yes, we’ll recommend you take money away from us, because we don’t do PR. But good reviews and press on sites like Gizmodo, Engadget, CNet, Stereophile, and more are going to be the most effective way to get sales. And you can track referrals from their site through to sale and calculate ROI based on your PR spend.
2. Google AdWords. This is the easiest media to measure and optimize, and can be extremely effective. It allows us to target people searching for iPod docks, as well as a broad palette of specific sites where audiophiles congregate. And it provides direct cost per sale metrics when coupled with Google Analytics.
3. Site Sponsorships. There are fan sites devoted to everything from $5000 headphones to iPod docks. We’d sponsor some of the most likely candidates and again measure cost per sale.
4. Direct Email. Yes, we said it. Those same sites sometimes have email and newsletters, which is an effective way to get sales.

Media we’d avoid:

1. Broadcast. This isn’t a broad play, and our iPod dock manufacturer probably doesn’t have 7-8 figures to invest in an ongoing campaign. It’s also difficult to measure.
2. Print. Although there are some targeted opportunities in the magazine space here, they’re shrinking—losing to the likes of Engadget and Gizmodo. They’re pricey, hard to measure, and hit the trailing edge adopters.
3. Billboards. This isn’t a local play, and this iPod dock manufacturer isn’t Apple, able to do a significant buy in most major metros.
4. Social. Unless this is a worldchanging iPod dock, one that runs for a year on a day’s worth of solar charging, or is able to end world hunger, we’d stay away from social. Is Apple on Facebook? No. There you go.

Now, if this was a different product, or if it was sold in stores, or if the ad budget was larger, all of this might change. So how do you go about choosing the right media for any product?

How to Choose the Right Media
First, know your goal. Are you looking to get someone to buy immediately online, or are you looking for broader awareness to influence purchasers in stores? Is this an impulse buy, or a long-term commitment? This will affect the media significantly.

1. Define a Goal. First, know your goal. Are you looking to get someone to buy immediately online, or are you looking for broader awareness to influence purchasers in stores? Is this an impulse buy, or a long-term commitment? This is the most important part of your marketing.
2. Determine Your Breadth. Based on the goal, are you looking at rifle-targeting a niche audience, or do you need the broadest awareness amongst the largest number of people? Highly targeted campaigns are typically online and direct. Broad campaigns are usually broadcast, print, and social.
3. Set a Budget. Based on the goal and breadth, what’s a logical budget? How does that compare with what you can afford? You may have to scale back plans. But remember—the first question an agency will ask is, “What’s your media budget?”
4. Choose and Deploy. Choose your media and deploy the campaign, making sure to maximize measurability of all tactics.
5. Monitor and Optimize. You—or your agency—should be employing 24/7 software optimization, weekly human review, and monthly reporting. And they should be ruthless about eliminating underperforming tactics, venues, and keywords. It may be really cool to see your banner at the top of CNet, or have your iPod dock show up first whenever anyone is searching for “ipod,” but if the cost per sale is too high, they have to be eliminated—and new tactics rolled in.

And—believe me—I wish there was an easier way to do it. It would be great if you could get all the exposure you wanted for free. But we simply aren’t there yet, and it’s likely we’ll never be.

Continuing our series about marketing mistakes, here’s another we run into all the time: missing the message. Arguably, this is even more common than #1: Forgetting the Goal, but it’s a lot more sneaky—it comes in later in the process, usually when legal gets involved.

Kidding. Or not.

“Wait a minute,” you’re probably saying. “We come to you for messaging! If you miss the message, it’s your fault! We’ll fire you and move on to another agency. Done.”

Well, yes, that’s true. A lot of our clients come to us for messaging. Some have a platform that’s handed down by the All-Seeing and All-Powerful Product Marketing Gods. In that case, there isn’t much latitude. But let’s take you at your word, and say that you’ve come to us with your really super-cool, best-iPod-dock-in-the-world product (the fictional example we used in #1) and want us to take charge of the messaging. In this case, you’ll hear something like this from us:

“A great message stands out. It actually says something. Great messages use absolute words like, ‘first, only, and best.’ They can ruffle feathers and generate controversy. Can your product support these kinds of messages in its inherent design?”

This sometimes generates a lot of blank looks, but more often than not, it gets us talking about this product and its competition. Sometimes things become very black and white at this point. Let’s say this best-iPod-dock-in-the-world is the only one that has an integrated subwoofer that goes down to 20 Hz. Now, let’s realize that most people don’t have any idea of what 20 Hz is. But if it does have a subwoofer with a ton of bass, it can create a club-like sound in your house. And there’s your message. The only iPod dock that turns your house into a club—don’t be surprised if you knock some pictures off the walls!

Sometimes things remain shades of gray. Yeah, it’s a $500 dock, and it sounds great, and it looks great, but there are a half-dozen other $500 docks that are competing in the same market. Some are a little better at one thing, some are a little better at another. The good news is that this isn’t the end of the world. In this case, you can create unique differentiators.

“Wait a minute!” You cry. “Isn’t that dishonest? You can’t just create stuff out of thin air!”

No, you can’t, and we’re not advocating you do so. However, there’s almost always some kind of unique differentiator available, if you dig deep enough. Oh hey, your iPod dock was created using the same circuits as used in high-end amplifiers? Well, guess what: you have the only iPod Dock with high-end reference amplifier design for superior sound—the same as you’d find in $10K speaker amps!” Or, let’s say a ton of recording studios have picked up on this dock for casual meetings with clients. Congrats. You have the first iPod dock chosen by professional recording engineers! Or, let’s say you’ve done listening tests with professional musicians, and 9 out of 10 of them chose your dock. Now you have the best iPod dock, period, chosen by professional musicians 9 out of 10 times.

You see where we’re going with this. If you can’t claim a first, only, or best, you can usually find a relevant conditional claim that is almost as powerful.

Now, all you have to do is make sure the message is supportable (if you have a powerful claim, have the proof points to back it up—you may be challenged!), make sure it is congruent with your brand personality, and segment the message so it’s appropriate to the media. Yes, lots of work. Yes, we know, marketing should be about trips to Costa Azul and schmoozing at the awards shows. Or not.

In review:

A great message is:

1. Able to claim one or more true, unique differentiators
2. Supportable by multiple proof points
3. Simple, direct, and understandable to the audience
4. In-line with the image, personality, and tone of the brand
5. Appropriate to the media.

An acceptable message is:

1. Able to create one or more unique differentiators based on lifestyle, audience, or preference.
2. Supportable by conditional usage
3. Simple, direct, and understandable to the audience
4. In-line with the image, personality, and tone of the brand
5. Appropriate to the media.

Bottom line: don’t blend in. If your product or service doesn’t have any true, unique differentiators, you need to create some. If you can create controversy, do it. The message is the most important part of any campaign—don’t miss it!

It’s funny. For all the marketing we do—online, offline, B2B, B2C, traditional, cutting-edge, whatever—the biggest mistake we see is simply this: forgetting about your goal.

In fact, I think we irritate a lot of clients when they first come to us and say, “Wow, we have this great new product or service and we need to get the word out and I’ve heard there’s all these cool things you can do on Facebook and on Twitter and virally and maybe even some online ads and a microsite and all that stuff!” And all we do is sit back and say, “That’s great. What’s your goal?”

A lot of times, we get a blank look, and a reiteration of the above.

Luckily, a lot more times, we get a hard stop, followed by an “aha!” moment, where our client realizes that we are really looking out for their best interests.

Sure, we can do pretty pictures and snappy copy as well as the next agency out there (or better—hey, I’m biased) but if those pretty pictures and snappy copy don’t get you the sales results a client wants, what good are they? Yeah, they may get you some shiny pieces of chrome and plastic to put on a mantle and wow the punters, but we don’t go in for awards. At all. Every award we’ve won has been for client-entered work, not stuff we’ve submitted. We don’t have time for it, and we don’t think they matter.

“That’s fine,” you might be saying by now, “But what’s so hard about a goal? We want to sell our stuff, that’s the goal, it never changes, there you go!”

Well, you’d be surprised how many marketers forget even that. Sometimes, in the excitement of a new product/service/brand, the bottom line goes out the door. But a good goal is more than a bottom line.

We’d define it as:

Goal = Action + Audience + Metrics + References

Here’s how that could break down, for a hypothetical consumer electronics product (let’s say, it’s a high-end iPod dock that costs $500) that is being sold exclusively through stores, both physical and online.

Action = Get people to buy products at the stores.
Audience = People who are interested in iPod docks, excellent sound, and have incomes that support a $500 accessory buy.
Metrics = Move 1000+ of these products per month on a sustaining basis
References = The product needs to outsell two other competing $500 docks so the stores will continue to carry it, and our previous cost per sale when driving to online stores has been $150.

Note how none of the above can be done with a genericized product. We need to know what it is, what it costs, and what the competition is like.

Also note how all of the above lead to more details which will need to be addressed for a successful marketing program:

For the Action, getting people to buy products at the stores means getting them physically into a store, or it means getting them to an online store where they can purchase it. This means we have to use tactics that are congruent with those sub-goals. Getting people physically into a store may mean mobile tactics, or, for an older audience, it may mean direct mail. Getting them to online stores may mean Adwords, or sponsorship on sites where iPod fanatics hang out.

For the Audience, what else do we know about them? What’s their demographics? Male/Female split? Age? Incomes? Do they really value standout sound or standout design? The more we know, the better.

For the Metrics, where did these numbers come from? Are they based on competitive information, or previous product launches, or are they arbitrary? Do they line up with what we can expect from this kind of product, based on history?

For the References, are the two other docks all that matter, or are there $400 docks we need to know about? Do the stores have a number they need to sell in order to continue carrying the product? Is it possible to get real metrics on the cost per sale from external stores? If so, what kind of analytics do we have to set up?

Now, you’re thinking, “Hell, this is too hard! I got into marketing because I wanted to do cool commercials, and I thought I’d get a chance to travel around with the director when they shot in St. Lucia!”

Well, that’s entirely fine, and good luck with that!

For the rest of us, we’ll continue putting in the long hours to create targeted and effective campaigns that hit the bottom line.

We had an interesting conversation with a client recently that went something like this:

“You know, we went to a trade show recently, with all our cool new catalogs printed up. But the funny thing was, nobody wanted them!”

“Huh,” we said. “They didn’t want them at the show, or they didn’t want them to send it to you later?”

“Both! They didn’t want to take them back with them, because they were heavy. And a lot of them said they didn’t want us to send it at all, they might lose it, or they don’t use catalogs anymore.”

Welcome to the end of the catalog age. The days of pulling out the phone-book-sized reference and riffling through its pages are over. Even if it’s only a smaller, trade paperback-sized book, many people simply don’t want to deal with paper anymore. They’re getting more used to information being available at their fingertips via Google search and online parametric search. They’re finding what they need on their iPhone and Android handsets. And, as that takes hold, print starts to look, well, pretty antiquated. Anything that’s based on shipping around slabs of processed cellulose seems very quaint and nineteenth-century in the screen age.

(And yeah, before you comment about how easy it is to use catalogs, we agree–the user interface still has some real benefits. Unfortunately, the information may be out of date. And you have to put it somewhere. And that somewhere may be under a pile of other papers, or stuck on a shelf between other look-alike books.)

The death of catalogs isn’t confined to the consumer space. The customer we were talking to was a tech firm selling very, very specialized products to an extremely select customer base.

So what do you do? Well, the logical answer is to put everything you have–or as much as possible–online. But what if you don’t have control of your corporate website? This client has a parent company that controls the site, and they are not (yet) interested in moving reams of data, tables, drawings, and descriptions to their web interface. Neat challenge, huh?

But let’s address that a little later, in point 5 below. For now, let’s take what you can do, in order.

1. Put the data online and invest in the best site search and data sorting you can get. This is the obvious solution–put everything online, drive people to the site, and let them find the information they’re looking for there. This is where the best site search and data sorting comes in. Let’s say you have products that can be referred to in six different ways, and your customers can be looking for them based on any of a dozen different specs. You need to have great search–cross-referenced, natural language, category sorted. You also need a way for them to find the exact product they want once they get to the “big list.” Parametric search, where you can set ranges for one or more specs, and sort by any particular specification (in both ascending and descending order) is a lifesaver in this case.

2. Move the catalog to print on demand for the people who want it or need it. There will still be customers who want paper. But maybe the days of running 20,000 perfect-bound copies is gone. Move it to print on demand, for digital printing and ring-binding or perfect-binding, on any number of in-house or outsourced presses that can do 1-100 copies at a time.

3. Make sure they can get your data on their phone with a mobile-friendly site. Like it or not, the phone interface is increasingly important. Can you see your product diagrams and photos clearly on a phone? Are the data tables usable? Do all the buttons work? Can they see the linked video? Is all the functionality usable? At the least, your site should be tested on the two most popular mobile devices–iPhone and Android–and the site made to be “mobile friendly.”

4. Better yet, create a mobile-specific site. Let’s face it: data tables that display well at 1280 x 800 and 13″ wide aren’t ideal for a 4″ screen. Nor are the big photos your using best for a slow mobile connection. Consider developing a separate , mobile-specific site template that presents your products in a much more mobile-friendly manner, with big text, big buttons, and a stepwise interface. This can usually be done with your existing data and a different set of stylesheets. It’s more work, but if your audience is moving mobile (and most of them are), this is the most universal way to deliver your information on a handset. It can easily accommodate both Android and iPhone devices, as well as RIM and Windows Mobile.

5. If you really don’t control your site, and can’t get your product information on it, consider developing an app. Yes. There. We said it. Develop an iPhone/Android app to deliver your rich content directly to your audience. There are a number of interesting, XML-based interfaces that allow the easy update and management of complex information via your desktop–just like a website content management system. So if you’re like our client above, you can still deliver your catalog directly to your audience’s phone, and bypass the website entirely. No, it won’t be the most popular app in the universe, but if you’re selling high-dollar components and equipment, it could easily pay for itself with only a handful of customers.

So, don’t fear the end of the catalog age–adapt to it, and deliver your information exactly how your customers want it. You may even be able to earn a permanent bookmark, or a place in their app drawer, on their phone.

And just think what else you might be able to do with the app.