3. Jeffrey K.Rohrs, “Punt, Pass, & Kick: Email, Mobile, & Social Misses at Super Bowl XLVII,” ExactTarget Blog, February 4, 2013, www.exacttarget.com/blog/punt-pass-kick-email-mobile-social-misses-at-super-bowl-xlvii/.
4. Jackie Kass, “Super Bowl Sponsor Papa John’s Forgoes Commercial for Free Pizza Coin Toss,” Examiner.com, January 30, 2013, www.examiner.com/article/super-bowl-sponsor-papa-john-s-forgoes-commercial-for-free-pizza-coin-toss.
5. Search for “Brooks Brothers” conducted on Sunday, May 27, 2013, via Google. Screen capture is of the first sponsored result from that search.
6. “Search Ads: Ad Extensions,” Google Ads, accessed August 5, 2013, www.google.com/ads/innovations/search#tab=extensions.
7. ExactTarget, “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS REPORT #16,” 6.
8. Joe Pulizzi, as quoted in Content Market Institute, “Getting Started,” accessed August 5, 2013, http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/gettingstarted/.
9. Ryan Boyko, “Referee Bias Contributes to Home Field Advantage in English Premiership Football,” Journal of Sports Sciences 25, no. 11 (2007), www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02640410601038576#.UbkGGZwmwdo.
10. C. E. Shannon, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” The Bell System Technical Journal, 27 (July & October 1948), 379–423, 623–56, http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf.
11. Nick Burcher, Paid, Owned, Earned: Maximizing Marketing Returns in a Socially Connected World (London: Kogan Page, 2012), 18.
12. Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang, The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned, and Earned Media (San Mateo, CA: Altimeter Group, July 19, 2012), www.altimetergroup.com/2012/07/the-converged-media-imperative.
13. Ibid., 20.
14. “Introducing Sponsored Stories,” Facebook Marketing video, 2:06, January 25, 2011, www.facebook.com/video/video?v=10100328087082670.
15. “Audiences,” Facebook, accessed August 5, 2013, www.facebook.com/help/459892990722543/.
16. “Twitter Ads Self Service,” Twitter Business, accessed August 5, 2013, https://business.twitter.com/products/twitter-ads-self-service.
Chapter 6
Increase What Matters: Size, Engagement & Value
Effective marketing now stands on your audience’s shoulders.1
—Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang
By now you know that marketers need audiences. All media—converged or otherwise—depends upon them as a destination for any message. In fact, marketer’s livelihoods now depend on who can build bigger and better proprietary audiences than the competition.
But what does “bigger and better” really mean? Are we talking size only or is there something more at work? Let’s revisit The Audience Imperative:
Use your Paid, Owned, and Earned Media not only to sell in the short term but also to increase the size, engagement, and value of your Proprietary Audiences over the long term.
As it turns out, “bigger and better” is comprised of three elements today:
1. Size
2. Engagement
3. Value
I view each of these attributes as a leg on a stool. Fail to build one well, and you don’t have a stool; you have kindling. To discover the reasons why, let’s explore each at greater length.
Size
“Size doesn’t matter.” It’s the most biting euphemism of all euphemisms to the chronically insecure. But the truth is that size does matter in three critical ways when building proprietary audiences:
1. Relative size: the size of your audiences compared to direct competitors
2. Database size: the volume and quality of the data you have gathered about your audiences to improve message relevance
3. Reach: the percentage of your audience that sees your message
Relative Size
This is the easiest to tackle because it’s often the “box score” of marketing. How many email SUBSCRIBERS do you have? Facebook FANS? Twitter FOLLOWERS? We keep track of such things because they are either a sign of growth or decay—and we certainly know which of the two we want.
Your audience size doesn’t convey much value, however, until you compare it with your head-to-head competitors. Take the case of two travel agents—a vocation under a ton of competitive pressures today if ever there was one. One travel agent—let’s call him Steve—relies on offline relationships, traditional advertising, and referrals to bring in new business. Another agent, Sally, has those things working for her—plus she maintains a monthly email newsletter, Facebook page, and Twitter account. These give her loyal customers multiple ways to learn about the latest sales and share them with friends and family.
Which travel agent has the competitive advantage today? No contest, right? It’s Sally because she’s built a variety of proprietary audiences that can amplify her vacation travel offers to broader audiences. By contrast, Steve has only built a Rolodex of clients that he must call with every new vacation deal. Steve may be the nicest guy in the world, but if he has zero email SUBSCRIBERS, Facebook FANS, and Twitter FOLLOWERS, Sally’s going beat him every quarter. She simply has more ways to reach her CUSTOMERS and generate new PROSPECTS.