ZimmComm – New Media, LLC

Does web analytics give you a headache? Do you have anyone on your staff who has training in how to understand web analytics? If you don’t then you’re not unusual. A story today on eMarketer provides some survey results about what marketers are thinking on this subject.

To prove the success of their campaigns, marketers need analytics. But many report frustration with understanding and using the Web analytics tools necessary to prove their success to management, according to “The Web Analytics War Reader Survey” by Unica.

The biggest challenge for marketers was integrating Web analytics with other marketing solutions, cited by 46% of respondents. Verifying the accuracy of data was a problem for 41% of marketers, while 32% reported trouble with analytics that were not comprehensive and 29% complained of budgets that were too small.

I take exception to the statement above about analytics proving success. If by analytics they mean just web analytics. By this I mean that just because I can deliver a ton of impressions (visits, visitors, clicks, click throughs, etc.) it doesn’t mean the company sold anything. But how often does an agency or marcomm staff member justify an investment by providing a report that says, “We spent X$’s and got a story that aired on 200 radio stations, a feature in a publication with 100,000 “subscribers” and a web banner or post that had 10,000 visitors.” Wow. Sounds good. But what was the result? Did they sell more? Did that story actually air on those stations? Who listened? Did every subscriber read the feature in that magazine? Did every web visitor see and/or click through on the banner or post? How often do you get that much detail? Ever?

I want to find out how you agrimarketers are tackling this issue. What metrics do you want from the web? What is meaningful? What form do you want it in? Are there certain services or software you prefer? If you place a banner ad, what do you want reported to you? How often do you need to see information? What do you consider reasonable?

This is a very important issue in today’s new media world and one that I have spent countless hours researching and discussing. As ZimmComm has developed online communities that revolve around a blog I don’t think reporting unique website visitors is very helpful for you in evaluating an investment in an advertising order. Why? Because there are over 12 other measurements that have nothing to do with website visitors that need to be considered. Here’s an example:

Let’s look at one day’s traffic on our AgWired site. It can be as high as 1,000 unique visitors. If I post your story does that mean that only 1,000 people saw it? No way!!!!! Consider that there are almost 1,000 subscribers to the AgWired RSS feed. They may not visit the site. That’s part of the value of the RSS feed. Consider that every post goes to my Twitter account with almost 1,600 followers and that every time one of my tweets is re-tweeted, it is seen by their followers. Consider that Twitter feeds my Facebook profile where I have 350 friends. Consider that this also updates my FriendFeed. Consider that the images or video I’m using in the story may be included in my Flickr or YouTube account. Consider that there are over 40 other websites that have installed the AgWired widget which displays homepage posts on their website. I’m not even counting the other less used social networking mechanisms I’m utilizing like Posterous, MySpace, etc.

But even beyond the above, what about the search engine aspect of all those places on the web that I have posted/distributed content that are now showing up in key word search results or key word news alerts? What about all the people who are re-publishing my information or sending it to their friends, neighbors and colleagues? Of course now you’ll ask the question, “Who are these visitors?” That’s a topic for another post.

Yeah. It adds up and all the sudden the total number of impressions for that one post could grow from the initial 1,000 unique visitor impressions to as many as 5,000 impressions. In fact, this number may only be good for just that one day or point in time. All our stories are archived. We never delete them. How much higher will that number grow within the next week, month and year?

This is what I’m talking about. This is what we do and excel at. This is what we preach and this is what can help grow your brand.

My main man, Steve Mays, the Obamanator, is on the ground in Washington, DC to attend today’s inauguration. He’s blogging it and tweeting it, using Flickr and even some video. I’d rather watch his coverage than any of the network blather. We may be miles apart politically but he does a good job and gets the new media thing better than most.

I’m not sure where I’ll be at actual inauguration time. Heck, I’ve got to look up what time it is. I haven’t really been that interested. However, I did download the new Ustream.tv app to my iPhone and it works great here at KCI Airport wifi. It requires a wifi connection but allows you to watch live streaming video like Agwired Live TV! They’re supposed to have a live feed from the event. You can already watch some live webcam video from the area.

Just think of the possibilities for events of your own!

High speed internet access is growing in America and according to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project the overall growth was 17 percent in the last year. It was 12 percent the year before. It also looks like rural America is getting connected. Here’s some interesting tidbits:

Some 55% of all adult Americans now have a high-speed internet connection at home, according to a May 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The percentage of Americans with broadband at home has grown from 47% in early 2007 and 42% in early 2005. Among individuals who use the internet at home, 79% have a high-speed connection while 15% use dialup.

Rural Americans: 38% of those living in rural American now have broadband at home, compared with 31% who said this in 2007, or a growth rate of 23% from 2007 to 2008.

Multitasking media is up according to a new SIMM study from BIGresearch.

“Technology is creating new media options faster than most people can assimilate and is causing more multitasking,” said Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch. “Unfortunately for marketers faced with the challenges of an uncertain economy and the need to increase marketing ROI, new media options are impacting how consumers use traditional media. Specifically, TV’s influence on consumers to purchase products declined, whereas new media options such as web radio, satellite radio, instant messaging and blogging all increased. Consumers seem to be seeking information from digital platforms while TV has traditionally been viewed as a brand building medium, which isn’t providing the requisite information,” said Drenik.

This does not mean all traditional media are declining in influence. Media that can target, be timely, and deliver value to consumers, such as coupons/direct mail, radio, yellow pages, newspapers and newspaper inserts all increased in influence to purchase as consumers are looking to stretch budgets in a slowing economy.

I think this list of key findings is fascinating:

• Regular simultaneous media consumption for online, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and direct mail is up from 1% to 35%, depending on the medium.
• Channel surfing remains the #1 regular activity engaged in during TV commercials with 41.2% doing so followed by:
  33.5% talk with others in the room or by phone
  30.2% mentally tune out
  5.5% regularly fully attend to commercials
• In SIMM 11, eating continues to be the #1 activity people engage in while using media followed by doing housework, doing laundry, cooking and talking on phone.
• Top simultaneous media used when reading a newspaper are: watch TV, listen to the radio and go online.
• For people listening to radio, other media simultaneously used are (top 3): engage in other activities, go online and read the newspaper.
  Web radio usage is up in all dayparts.
• Cable is where most TV viewing takes place.
• Dayparts which had highest number of media types increase usage over SIMM 10 – 1:00 am to 6:00 am, Noon to 4:30 pm, 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm, 7:30 pm to 11:00 pm and 10:00 am to Noon.
• Top 3 In-Store Promotions for influence of purchasing a product: Product Samples, Shelf Coupons and Special Displays.
• Top 3 Media for triggering an online search: Magazines, Reading an article on the product and TV.
• Blogging increases in all dayparts.

After a week of blogging in Japan it’s nice to be back in the USA. Between Cindy and myself we’ve blogged from 4 different countries in the last 2 weeks. One of the things that I would encourage conference organizers everywhere to keep in mind when planning events is good internet access and some time built into the schedule to use it.

This certainly goes for today’s media representatives who need that access and time to post their stories but I think it also applies to anyone who’s on the road at an event. We’re beginning to see more attention paid to this element of planning for events but there’s a ways to go.

I’ll be attending the Podcast and New Media Expo later this week. I would certainly hope we’ve got good open access there! Look for some posts from that event here and on AgWired.

It looks like DSL is helping pave the way for a big growth in the number of households with broadband internet access according to a story on eMarketer.

The number of broadband subscribers will reach 567 million worldwide by 2011, up from the current 285 million, according to In-Stat’s “Broadband Gets Big: Global Broadband Subs Hit 285 Million” report. New subscribers totaled 65 million in the 12 months prior to May 2007.

I look at that as justification to fuel the growth of the use of new media by companies wishing to connect to their customers and members.

Don’t think I didn’t hear the announcement yesterday of the iPhone. MacWorld Expo is going on and Steve Jobs made the announcement. If you think this is just a neat looking new cell phone then think again. It’s a widescreen iPod, phone and internet communications device. It’s almost enough to make me want to switch from Sprint to Cingular since you’ll only be able to use one with just the one carrier (bummer). Watch the keynote address and iphone introduction.

Now why is this important to you and me? Jobs describes the iPhone as a revolutionary device. After seeing the introduction and demonstration I agree. This thing is a lot more than just a cool gadget. It’s also a great functional tool that we’re going to literally see “out in the field.” It’s an example of where things are going in the mobile delivered content arena. In fact you might want to check out this story on eMarketer.com, “The Hottest New Media Platform of 2007 Is Right in Your Hand.”

I guess the question would be, Are you preparing to communicate with your members and customers wherever they are?

I spent an hour in an Apple store yesterday getting a very detailed demonstration of a MacBook Pro. If you think I should make the conversion please email me.

For those of you who might have thought it would never happen, well . . . it has. You are familiar with mobile broadband cards for your computer that allow you to connect to the internet where you have mobile phone service but now you can turn your vehicle into a rolling broadband wi-fi hotspot!

AutoNet says that it’s going to unveil this new product/service this coming Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show. They expect to begin shipping them by the spring. It’s expected that the AutoNet Mobile Router will retail at $399 with a monthly service charge of $49. For those of you who spend a lot of time on the road like I do it’s certainly an option.

How much do you want to bet that this will be built into cars and trucks within the next year or so and come as standard equipment? Yee-Haw.

In designing our service we also knew it was important to enable a wide array of wireless electronics devices to get connected. Since most electronics devices use Wi-Fi, we decided to turn the car into a Wi-Fi hotspot, just like at the local Starbucks. By doing this we can connect devices ranging from laptop computers to mobile media players like the Fujitsu P1610, from Wi-Fi cameras to Wi-Fi phones like the VoIP Skype Phone, and from stationary videogame consoles to handheld gaming units like the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS.

How many of you remember when most households didn’t have a television set or even a radio? It wasn’t that long ago. A new estimate by the folks at eMarketer shows that when it comes to broadband internet access we’re fast approaching a saturation level. Are you making sure your communications strategy is geared up for this?

According to eMarketer’s estimates, an important milestone will be reached over the next 12 months — high-speed Internet penetration will surpass 50% of US households, equating to over 60 million residential broadband subscribers.

They also state in this article that “an increasing number of broadband households are utilizing their high-speed connections for value-added services such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), Internet protocol TV (IPTV), paid audio and video content and more.” How are you fitting into these new value-added services?

Here’s a new tool in the road warrior kit. A mobile broadband connection card. I’m a Sprint guy and I finally got one of their new Connection Card for my notebook. Sprint now has their EV-DO broadband working in most major cities and to get that high speed internet connection you need a card like this. My old one just won’t cut it. However, with a 2 year agreement these are cheap. Then I’ve got an unlimited data account for $59.00/mo. I am usually in Sprint service just about everywhere so I’m hoping this will save on those $5 to $11/day connections you get hit with everywhere (airports, hotels, etc.). I’ll bet I’ve spent twice this monthly fee in the last month for example. So . . . we’ll see how it works. They promise great high speed connections and I’ve heard good things about it.