Avinash Kaushik

One month and counting for this years MIMA Summit – hope you are as excited as we are!  This week we are featuring thoughts from our morning keynote Avinash Kaushik is the co-Founder of Market Motive Inc and the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google.  For those that have not had the pleasure of attending one of his presentations, get ready on October 12^th to become an analytics evangelist and much more.

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This year’s summit is focused on the embracing the digital decade, what would you say was the greatest achievement in the last ten years of marketing?

Our ability to have deeper, more meaningful, relationships with our current and potential customers.

In the past most companies were a few steps removed from the consumer. Partly due to a lack of connectivity platforms. Partly because of intermediaries. Partly because of, frankly, a lack of interest.

The web changes all that. I can be P&G and I can have an existence were I can have a direct relationship with consumers. Speak to them. Listen to them. Engage them in marketing / experimentation / everything. I can learn and react and grow so much faster, and be more relevant.

This brings about very disruptive change to our marketing, people, processes, everything. But all of it, I think, for good. And I’m excited about the possibilities.

Oh and I love that the digital decade’s brought with is tons of cool gadgets. I love ‘em all!

You’ve been blogging for over five years, do you have any inspirational words for the next generation of bloggers?

Do it. Put yourself out there. Forget your resume, do the work and show that you know what you are taking about.

I recently wrote a blog post on the impact of five years of blogging on me. You’ll find it here: An Incredible Analytics Experience: 5 Years of Occam’s Razor (link: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/incredible-analytics-experience-5-years-occams-razor/ ). It outlines my learnings and surprises.

The biggest surprise was the ability to manage one’s brand. Checkout the two tag clouds in that post.

A bit of practical advice I would share with any new blogger (or Social Media participant in a professional capacity) would be this: Quality wins over quantity. Every time. Never hit Submit (or Post or Tweet or +1) unless what you are about to share meets this simple rule: It is something incredible, relevant, of value?

You are the co-founder of Market Motive, how do you think traditional education will change in the next ten years?

The core reason for starting Market Motive was that at the moment the traditional education path does not prepare a student to be successful in the digital ecosystem. Be it in fields like Web Analytics and Search Engine Marketing or evolved fields such as Online PR and Social Media. We bring together the best of the best in the world and create a curriculum that can help jump start anyone’s digital career.

That is the problem our traditional education paths will have to solve. How to teach when books become stale as soon as they are published (not classical mathematical technique books – wonderful, still relevant, must learn stuff, rather for our digital eco system)? How to teach kids emerging programming techniques being requested in bleeding edge jobs – well before they become mainstream and “cool”? How to complement tenured faculty with Subject Matter Experts who have zero “teacher training” or credentials?  How to ensure that a student’s education delivers a balanced mix of traditional and bleeding edge skills?

Hard problems to solve. Universities and colleges are going to have to evolve, perhaps faster and more radically than they might be comfortable with.

In your consulting practice, what are the biggest analytic mistakes you see over and over?

Two.

First, believe that data collection will magically make companies data driven. Almost all of the resources in the filed of digital analytics currently are focused on javascript / website tagging magic, collecting ever more copious amounts of (usually irrelevant short lived) data, and subsequently puking it out. Very rarely do companies invest analysis of the data they already have and in people who are smart enough to know the difference between reporting analysis. [link: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/difference-web-reporting-web-analysis/]

Second, more painful mistake, a lack of any connection between data analysis and business strategy. I am a rabid advocate of using processes like the Web Analytics Measurement Model and having a crystal clear understanding of what one is solving for, before touching the data. If you know where you are going, it is much easier to get there and everybody is happy!

This week, I was at dinner with some top notch experienced digital marketers and the topic of attribution reporting came up; many want this nirvana of reporting but feel it is unattainable without a great resource investment.  With your ability to simplify complex analytics can you offer a line of hope?

We have an ever growing number of media channels to reach our consumers and bring success to our business. So the desire to understand which activity is productive, and which parts stink, is super important.

There are a number of ways to skin this cat.

One path people take is to try and look at the end of a transaction, figure out all the prior media touch points, and then use some logical reasoning to attach some value to each media touch point (a banner ad, a search query, a direct visit etc). The challenge with this path is that there is no right answer, and it is very hard to figure out when one is wrong (!).

An alternative path is to use the glorious path of controlled experiments. Media Mix Modeling, for example, does not require the almost futile quest to “attribute credit.” Rather it says regardless of the last touch point prior to a transaction, what’s the optimal mix of media that delivers the highest possible number of transactions at the lowest possible cost. I believe solutions like this are the best way to solve our problem.

It is a harder way to solve the problem (hence few will attempt it – all the more reason you should do it!), but it delivers delightfully yummy results.

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Learn more about Avinash Kaushik and analytics by visiting his blog Occam’s Razor.  Avinash will be kicking off  the MIMA summit with his morning keynote, if you want to see him register for this year’s event.

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A special thanks to Jill Gutterman, a MIMA board member, for hosting this interview. Jill, is a Director of Interactive Marketing at Rasmussen College and a MIMA Board Director. Jill Gutterman’s philosophy in life is simple: Have passion for what you do and keep learning. It’s this philosophy that has been a driving force behind Jill’s forward-thinking 12 year professional career in digital marketing. Jill graduated magna cum laude from Wright State University, in Dayton, OH with a degree in psychology.

At yesterday’s MIMA event, Julie Roth Novack, SVP of Mobile Solutions at Vibes, shared ways to integrate appropriate mobile experiences throughout the customer journey.

How to Weave Mobile into the Customer Journey with Julie Roth Novack from MIMA on Vimeo.

Some interesting Statistics:

• 42% of mobile devises are smart phones
• SMS text has 80% reach of mobile audience
• Mobile sites have 40% reach of mobile audience
• Mobile Apps have 20% reach of mobile audience
• QR codes has only 3% reach of audience, but growing very quickly

A few recommendations from Julie:

• Julie believes that mobile couponing is the fasted growing trend in relation to Mobile use.
• Mobile is unique because of the ability to have “Time sensitive” marketing capabilities. Find ways to leverage the fact that you can focus in on time and location of the consumer.
• Activate your existing marketing programs on the mobile platform. If you have something that’s already working for you, be sure to translate it to mobile!
• Make your Call to Action of QR code use very clear and offer exclusive content. Make sure where you’re sending your QR code is mobile optimized.
• Great use for QR codes is a “quick link” to your app! Locating your app in the store is half the battle. Make it simple.
• Consider using Mobile Opt ins for time sensitive offers. Gap had great success with this method.

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A special thanks to Abbey Tosic, a MIMA volunteer, for hosting this interview. Abbey, is the eHub Design & Usability Lead at 3M. She has worked in design and online marketing for over 7 years. Abbey graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, with a BFA degree in Graphic Design.  You can view Abbey’s recent work at www.abbeytosic.com or read her Interactive marketing blog at www.thedotcomgirls.com .

Although this question might not be top-of-mind when you’re starting a new project, it’s an important consideration in today’s content! content! content! marketing scene. Since legal isn’t really my thing, I sought out the expertise of someone who works in marketing at a local law firm. And since blogging isn’t really her thing, here’s a quick summary of the conversation.
The number one thing I took away from our discussion is that not considering legal implications for your online content can be very risky.

What you decide to protect and what you decide to share are critical factors in protecting and promoting your brand. How do you decide where to draw the line? Consider a proactive approach and attempt to answer these questions in order to determine the level of brand access to give to the user:

• Ideally, what role does the user play?
• What are the essential tools the user needs in  order to participate?
• How active is the user currently with the  brand?
• What is the motivation of the user in this  initiative? What gets the user interested?
• What is the expectation of the user? What  does the user hope to accomplish by participating?

At the most simplistic level, determining what to legally protect and what to share starts with audience analysis. As user-generated content becomes more effective in marketing initiatives, what to share / what to protect will become an essential part of brand strategy.

Is it more exciting to spend more time on how to get and use user-generated content? If you ask this marketer, the answer is yes. However, if you don’t devote time to building a strategy around what content is protected, you may find that your users will make that decision for you. Eek.

Q: As Senior Online Marketing Analyst with Medtronic, what are your responsibilities?

Ward: I like to think of myself as an online marketer that saves lives.

Medtronic produces state-of-the-art medical devices and Medtronic employees worldwide share a common goal – to “alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life”. Every 5 seconds, the life of someone somewhere in the world is improved by a Medtronic product or therapy. As a search marketer I help Medtronic strategically place our product and therapy information in front of people searching online for healthcare information.

My primary responsibilities include ‘evangelizing’ the value of search marketing and web metrics/analytics to the marketers at Medtronic. I’m attached to a very talented group of people. We act as an internal interactive agency to the various Medtronic business units.

Q: How can a large company’s (such as Medtronic) approach to search be similar and different than a small mom and pop’s?

Ward: Small entrepreneurs can be quick and nimble in the online market place. Medtronic is a very large medical device manufacturer. So we develop systems and processes to help us react more quickly to online marketing opportunities. Medtronic operates in a highly regulated environment, so our content faces extra steps and much scrutiny before it is allowed to be published. This sometimes affects what we can and cannot do with regard to search marketing. It’s tough environment for SEO.

Q: You do a fair amount of speaking about search marketing at conferences and with private groups, are there any differences between preparing and speaking for a private group vs larger and more general audiences of a conference? What is your favorite part of speaking?

Ward: Yes. My professional speaking developed in just the last few years. It started out when Jimmy Poole invited me to speak to the James J. Hill Library staff on the topic of search marketing. That experience gave me the confidence to step up and do more. Since then I have been fortunate enough to be invited to speak at the MIMA Summit and several Search Engine Strategies Conferences among others.

I find that with the smaller niche audiences I can tailor my presentation to be more audience-focused. This is harder to do with a larger, more general audience.

I am very passionate about what I do so the favorite part of speaking for me is when someone gets to that “Aha!” moment – when they find insight into the paradigm shift that search marketing represents.

Q: What do you think of Google’s Universal Search and how do you think it will evolve? How can a search marketer take advantage of it?

Ward: Basically, Google is trying to read your mind, and they are getting better and better at it. Google’s Universal Search is a landmark step in that direction. Search marketers and savvy Web surfers know lots of techniques to get relevant results from the search engines.

However, your average searcher needs assistance making the most out of their queries without getting overwhelmed with the number of different search indexes available on Google.

At first glance it would seem that this new interface could potentially reduce traffic to the Web page index as other indexes get more real estate on the search engine results page. This isn’t necessarily bad for search marketers. Now, instead of having all their eggs in one basket, search marketers have a greater opportunity to extend their reach and relevancy into image, blog, video search, etc. The long-term value of well-written content in the vernacular of your target audience may very well increase.

Q: How long have you been a member of MIMA and what are the beneficial aspects of being a member for you?

Ward: I’ve been a member of MIMA for about five years I think. I remember earlier on, I was a bit of a wall flower at the social functions, but I soon got to know a few people and things warmed up quickly after that. Now networking at MIMA is a permanent part of my professional development. MIMA functions are now full of familiar faces. The speakers they get are usually dynamic and the venues MIMA selects are outstanding. I often encourage people to join.

Q: Music, sport or passion: What do you like to do, read or listen to when away from work?

Ward: My tastes in music are eclectic. I enjoy a good hard science fiction novel. I love Asia, especially Thailand. Like many others I share some of these topics on the social networking sites such as iLike, Flikr, Facebook, etc.

I also collect what I call “National Geographic moments”. Moments like my first glimpse of Edinburgh Castle, an early morning visit to the Tsukiji Fish market in Tokyo, a night dive with manta rays in Hawaii. Bertrand Piccard once said “Life is not governed by chance but by encounters.”

Most people are surprised to hear that I was also formerly a geologist. I still have an appreciation for unusual or rare rock and mineral specimens.

Q: Do you have a tip or a couple of your favorite search marketing resources you would like to share with the MIMA folks?

Ward: I highly recommend Rand Fishkin’s SEO Tools on SEOmoz.org. I use quite a few of the Firefox search tool extensions. Also, we have started to use the foreign language datasets in Keyword Discovery.

My tip – Leverage online web metrics to provide business insight to your clients. This will logically lead them to develop search marketing opportunities.

Thanks Ward!

I’m happy to introduce Ivan Nuñez of The Nancekivell Group for our next MIMA member interview. Ivan and the rest of the folks at The Nancekivell Group work with an exciting range of clients. I hope you enjoy “meeting” Ivan in this interview and leave a comment introducing yourself and saying hi!

Q: Tell us about The Nancekivell Group where you work. What type of businesses make up it’s client base and what services does The Nancekivell Group provide?

A: The Nancekivell Group specializes in strategic marketing communications. The company has 25 years of broad business experience providing services to clients of all sizes, from Fortune 500 corporations to non-profit organizations.

Current active accounts include Possis, St. Jude Medical, 3M, Best Buy, Cargill, Artic Cat, amongst others.

We provide services in:

• Corporate brand strategy and communications (Research and Competitive Analysis, Strategy and Positioning, Naming and Identity Systems Design, Brand Launch Programs, etc.)
• Marketing communications (Strategic planning, Message development and positioning statements, Employee communications and recruitment materials, Capabilities materials, etc.)
• Investor communications (Annual reports, online Annual reports, Investor presentations, Shareholder meeting materials, etc.)
• Interactive solutions (Web Site Strategy and Design, Intranets, Extranets, Web Applications, E-newsletters, etc.)

Q: In your bio your title is Director of Interactive. Explain for us what you do and whether you are working on client projects or interactive activities of The Nancekivell Group.

A: As Director of Interactive at The Nancekivell Group, I work directly with our clients to develop interactive strategies that would support their business objectives. My role includes participating in “pitches” to prospective clients to working with our seasoned group of designers and strategists to help our clients deliver positive brand experiences online. I also oversee and execute the development of the interactive solutions we propose. I am a seasoned designer and programmer with 13 years of experience. I came to the Nancekivell Group last November from another local agency where I held the same position for 6 years. I was impressed by The Nancekivell Group’s list of clients, experienced team and quality of print work. My goal is to raise the quality of their interactive media solutions.

Q: Does The Nancekivell Group provide, manage, or recommend internet marketing services such as media buying, analytics, social media, mobile technologies or search engine optimization/search engine marketing (SEO/SEM) to your clients?

A: We recommend interactive marketing strategies to our clients, but these are not at the center of our services. Many of our clients come to us looking to re-evaluate their online presence aiming to engage investors or to provide business to business corporate information. Most are ready to re-analyze and re-prioritize their sites, but few are ready to include an interactive marketing plan in their site overhaul budget. The benefits of some services, such as SEO are easy to promote; however, few clients understand the value of online marketing and perceive that traditional methods such as print ads are more measurable. My job as Interactive Media Director includes educating clients about new opportunities in internet marketing. Since I am learning about online marketing myself, I find my MIMA membership essential.

Q: What are the emerging and growing trends you are seeing in the interactive services you offer and recommend?

A: Many of our clients are still catching up to Flash interaction and video, so I see no new trends within the services our clients demand; however, I am personally interested in how brands can promote consumer trust by engaging them socially. Consumers want to learn about a product or service from people like themselves. This topic has been widely discussed at MIMA, particularly in relation to blogs and podcasts. I think as companies feel more comfortable relaxing their guard, they will open up to social media changing that space in interesting (good?, bad?) ways.

Q: What have you found to be the most challenging and rewarding aspects of working with the large clients of The Nancekivell Group?

A: Working with large clients usually means our work will be highly visible. It is also satisfying to work with clients whose product or services I have used or know. A small drawback to working with large organizations is how layered and cumbersome their approval process could be.

Q: How long have you been a member of MIMA and what are the beneficial aspects of being a member for you?

A: I think 4 years; 3 for sure. When I first joined MIMA, my goal was to learn a little more about the agencies doing interactive work in MN. What I found was a wealth of information on trends, best practices, new technologies, interesting strategies, and more. Being a MIMA member has helped me in my job. The annual Summit is a “not to miss” for me. In addition, meeting people in the business has been great.

Q: Music, sport or passion: What do you like to do, read or listen to when away from work?

A: Because I spend a lot of time on the computer daily, I like to do social or outdoor activities when away from work. I’ve been taking French classes for the last four years. I am fairly fluent now and go to a French discussion group at Cafe Royale every Saturday morning. I also like to go out with friends for dinner, a good martini and even dancing. Count me in for the MIMA socials! I have a canoe by Lake of the Isles and I go canoeing after work during the summer.

Q: Do you have a tip or a couple of your favorite resources you would like to share with the MIMA folks?

A: Blogs I visit:

• Micro Persuasion
• Seth Godin’s Blog

Thanks Ivan for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share a little about yourself and Nancekivell! I and many others look forward to meeting you in person at the next MIMA event!

I had been working steadily towards the goal of starting my own internet marketing agency for a number of years. As you move up the ladder, you become more removed from the work you love and more into employee management, or if you’re in an agency, you get pushed into sales. I like hands-on marketing and that’s my lifetime work.

I love working with clients, and learning their marketing and product challenges. I absolutely love it when I can come in and change some behaviors that have an immediate impact in revenue or cost reduction (who wouldn’t?!). The most challenging part is working with the constant issues of time restraints, which often is harder to overcome than the financial constraints. Everyone is so overloaded these days, it’s always hard for clients to be able to have the time to focus on everything they need/want to do.

I love long-term client relationships, but my goal is always to get to a point of proving enough of an ROI and growth in the business for the client to hire internally. People get a surprise when I say my goal is for them to fire me.

You have to get to the real metrics of which online channels are delivering revenue, not traffic. It can be very discomfiting to pull away from a channel that outwardly seems to be a great source of leads. But you have to follow it all the way down to final revenue and make your decisions based upon that, and that’s often hard to track.

I also find that one of the most common issues is determining which tactics are right for a client. Marketing is not a cookie-cutter business, and everyone’s business is unique, even within industries. While some tactics, like search or email are in almost all plans, there are also times when you want to exhaust all other channels before turning to SEO or PPC. For example, products with latent demand – customers would love it, but don’t search for it directly, so if you do use search, you have to develop it around the category, not the product.

The most rewarding part is when we develop a tight strategy and stick to it. When you do that, then you can be very rigorous on qualifying new tactics and staying focused.

This is a fascinating idea, and I’m studying it seriously for some clients. This is another great form of disintermediation that Google is getting into, but also supports their goal of building their user base by providing successful web experiences, because they will rank good converters higher.

Aggregators like Lending Tree, Search for Colleges, etc., have made enormous amounts of money in this space and I love the idea of putting some of that power back into client’s hands. Of course, the aggregators will also love it! I think it will be most successful overall in fragmented industries.

I have a few clients where SMO is a big part of our brand and loyalty efforts, and it supports the popular idea of having your audience build the brand for you. SMO isn’t right for everyone, but can be very powerful for some. Like many online strategies, you have to see it as a split objective – many started it to build link strength for SEO, but all SEO efforts should be based upon spreading your brand to the right audience and providing a good web experience for people.

Generally I feel you have to answer the big issues first – is your site converting visitors? Do you have a strong relationship email program? Can people find you on a search engine? But certainly there are pockets who don’t use email anymore, and we know that people often trust unknown individual’s recommendations above marketing efforts.

Never underestimate the power of having some quiet time with your numbers in an excel file; most of my ‘ah-ha’ moments have come from quality time with excel.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a great free resource. There are a huge amount of free or inexpensive webinars out there. I actively subscribe to ClickZ, eMarketer, Marketing Profs, Marketing Sherpa, and a host of others I read less frequently. Google Analytics is an amazing free analytics program that can take you a good way before you invest in more advanced analytics. Unless you have someone who can dedicate a lot of time to analytics, you should seriously consider whether to spend the money on expensive tools.

My biggest recommendation is always to try to think like the customer – who is she, what does she want, how does she communicate, and what matters to her?

MiMA is a fantastic networking group, and brings in great speakers. It is vital for anyone who is serious about internet marketing in the Twin Cities to belong to MiMA. Their summit last year was brilliant and cost a fraction of huge and sometimes wretched conferences.

My husband, Dylan Hicks, is a former musician and a professional music critic and writer. My new employee, Keith Patterson, is a professional musician and well-known mod encyclopedia. Music is a big part of my life. At work, I often listen to international music so the lyrics don’t distract me, right now I’m on an African music kick. I am also on the board of the Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center.

I am an avid reader, don’t watch TV, and have a serous interest in obscenely expensive shoes. I ride a clunky old cruiser bicycle, a gorgeous Ducati motorcycle and will be getting a gorgeous Royal Enfield motorcycle next month. But the best thing in the world is playing board games with my 6-year old son and husband. People sometimes don’t believe it when I say I am a shy workaholic nerd, but that’s the real me.

Thanks Nina!

My first interview was with Paul Jahn of LocalMN.com and his LocalMN Blog. You can read the interview with Paul Jahn at the MIMA Search Marketing blog which is a blog that we started for a group of MIMA members that are interested in SEO and search marketing.

Today I’m happy to bring you our next interview, a feature with Nina Hale of NINA Hale Consulting, Inc. Nina shares some great info, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading and I encourage you to leave comments to create some interaction.