It’s Evolution Baby. (Da, da, da, da dahn.)

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October 31, 2013

Raise your hand if you think this mobile computing, mobile communications thing is a fad. Exactly…tricorders are here to stay. Facebook just announced that 49% of its ad revenue is from mobile devices. It also reported that “users were clicking on them (ads) in their news feeds more frequently.” What does that tell you? Well, Tarik Sedky wrote in Digiday that the banner ad is just about dead, which tells me we are getting better at crafting ads offing value for people’s mobile feeds. Do I smell some Twitch Point Planning?

It stands to reason that anyone looking at their phone, say, while talking to a hottie, during a meeting, or at dinner, is someone looking for a diversion. Smarter ads, ads that understand context, ads that provide real value are getting clicked on. The ad business is evolving and mobile behavior is helping us. As we move from diversion clicks to clicks that move consumers closer to a sale, we’ll evolve even more.

Content marketing my ass. Social media marketing my ass. Untill Facebook , Google and Yahoo start charging subscription fees or transaction fees, this advertising thing is going to keep floating the boat. Evolve me droogies. Peace.

Reducing Lost Sales on the Web.

By

Steve Poppe

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July 26, 2011

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There’s a great business and brand planning question I often use during discovery: “Who will win the sale you lose?” If talking to Coke, the lost sale might be to Pepsi (not likely), a store-brand cola, a couponed cola or maybe a tea or flavored water. If speaking with Microsoft about Office 2010, the lost sale might be to Google Docs. Conversely, it’s also nice to know who will lose the sale your brand is going to win. Nice questions — all with actionable strategies.

With the growth of the Web and social media and the preponderant ad-supported model where many services are free (see Google Docs), there’s no sale to lose just a lost ad impression. Readers know I’ve been working on a marketing planning tool called Twitch Point Planning. A twitch point is a point in a media experience, where the visitor disconnects. So, if I’m reading a magazine article there is an Emily Dickenson poem cited, I might twitch over to Wikipedia for a quick side-bar. Or I might Google her and the verse. In this example I’ll likely return to the article, but in many cases I’m gone.

Why is Twitch Point Planning important? It’s important because as a publisher or marketer you want to minimize the loss of your audience. Or, you want to twitch them deeper into your site or sales process. Facebook is such a force because people don’t twitch away very much. And many marketers are even understanding the value of completing the sale on Facebook.

Marketers need to understand, map and manipulate Twitch Points in ways that provide branded value (not spam) at the most appropriate times. If they do so, they will be able to reduce the space between the consumer and a transaction. Peace.

Twitch Point vs. Engagement Planning

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Steve Poppe

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September 21, 2011

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There is an 8-slide presentation on Twitch Point Planning I’ve shared with a few people in the know and on one occasion, with Michael Stich, COO of Rockfish Interactive, I was challenged to blow it out a bit.

Twitch Point Planning is the process whereby one understands, maps and manipulates consumers closer to transacting a sale. It uses any and all of today’s media choices, but focuses on those that consumers are most comfortable using to learn more. A twitch point during a car shopping excursion might be a trip to JD Power site on one’s hand held.

Mr. Stich asked me to dwell on the suggestion in the presentation that companies need to “add brand value” at key consumer twitch points. He, like many who talk about engagement and liking and registration and click-through, know that nothing happens in marketing until someone buys something. And though soft metrics are the haps these days, sales and net revenue are what investors and corporations care about. Mr. Stich’s questions about “adding brand value” is one reason WPP purchased Rockfish and why he is a person of interest in the new evolving marketing landscape.

If strategic planners take the “understand” part of understand, map and manipulate to heart, they’ll get closer to finding ways to positively influence brand value. Twitch Point Planning, though akin to engagement planning, puts more emphasis on delivering brand value, not just customer touches along the journey. And twitch point planning cares about “closing.” Closing sales. Engagement planning metrics often get stuck in dashboards. A twitch is more of a collision. Hee hee. Peace!

PS. Go see Cameron Crowe’s movie Pearl Jam Twenty. Como se wow!

http://plannersphere.pbworks.com/w/page/17146367/Engagement%20Planning

Customer Journey…a Road Too Long?

By

Steve Poppe

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January 23, 2014

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Do you know your product’s top 5 twitch points? You should. Customer journey is a new age marketing tool used by comms planners to find better ways to intersect with and influence customers. The journey maps out awareness, activities, research, purchase and out-of-box experience. (Chart courtesy of Frog Design.) Some use the old school taxon AIDA (awareness, interest, desire and action), a dumbed down version. It’s truly good stuff and a lot more valuable than a simple DILO (day in the life of) media planning approach, but if you follow the Frog Design rigor (chart) you may also end up a little dizzy.

Twitch Points are moments when a person twitches way from one media or device in favor of another in search of clarification. Kindle to Google Earth. Newspaper to Wikipedia. Car dealership to JD Power. Best Buy to Amazon. Car radio to Shazam.

Twitch Point Planning is simpler than the above Frog Design learning scheme. Less complex. Understanding, mapping and manipulating customers closer to a sale is its goal. It needn’t be overthought. Don’t get me wrong, it needs to be thought, just not overthought. If you find your top 5 twitch points, your five most commerce producing twitches, you don’t need a road map, journey, or KPIs. You need a good accountant…to count da monies.

Peace be upon you.

Twitch Point Planning Examples.

By

Steve Poppe

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September 20, 2012

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I write about and consult on a new media marketing rigor called Twitch Point Planning — the ability to “understand, map and manipulate” media twitch points in ways that move consumers closer to a sale. A twitch point is a media experience where one twitches away from what they are currently consuming. Yesterday, I was looking in my blogger bookmarks and came across a link to Anil Dash, a tech entrepreneur. I visited his blog but did not read deeply, but did check out the About Me section. Somehow I twitched over to a video presentation of his recorded at Mark Hurst’s 2011 Gel Conference, watched a couple of minutes then left.

This morning, I was reading a New York Times paper paper article on how Apple’s iPhone 5 maps have replaced Google maps on the new iPhones (brand mistake) and guess who is quoted? Anil Dash. Typically, were I reading the Times and saw the name of an expert with whom I wasn’t familiar, I might Google him mid-sentence. (Twitch.) Or, write a blog post about him and the subject. (Another twitch.) Either way, I might not return to my original media moment – The New York Times article.

An example of Twitch Point Planning, in real time, would be for Mr. Dash to log on to Google AdWords and buy his name, the words Apple Maps, and make a penny a click ad. Or, he could change his website, based on his appearance in the article, and put an offer on the homepage, to build appropriate business.

Twitch Point Planning is a new tactic that adds exponential measures of value to social media. It’s active, not reactive. Twitch Point Planning is strategic. Go forth and twitch. Peace.

Go Forth and Twitch.

By

Steve Poppe

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June 24, 2011

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Fast Twitch Media is exactly what it sounds like: media that is reactive, quick and available in bite-size chunks. The problem with Fast Twitch Media (and the opportunity) is with the twitch. A twitch often results in a transfer from one media moment or type to another. When I’m reading an article on All Things D about Shazam, and click on the link in the middle of the article it takes me to a demo on YouTube, drawing me away from the article itself. A twitch. As the publisher of All Things D, I may have lost the reader because the YouTube demo might twitch me elsewhere.

A key goal in marketing and advertising is reducing the space between consumer and a transaction. Temporally, spatially, emotionally. Not soft metric stuff, hard metric stuff. Take the air out of the space between the consumer and the purchase and you win.

What’s exciting about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web. What’s scary about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web. Enter Twitch Point Planning — the ability to map and manipulate fast twitch media and behavior to your product’s advantage. Many are already doing it, but not by design.

Shazam, the app that lets your phone listen to an unknown song and identify it for you, is very cool. And useful. The ability then for Shazam to sell you that song in a click or two is an example of reducing the space between consumer and transaction. A Twitch Point gone right.

Go forth and Twitch my people. Peace.

PS. Thanks to Chris Kramer and Netx for the Shazam article.

A Twitch Point Planning Example.

By

Steve Poppe

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May 24, 2013

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Readers have heard me speak of a marketing convention called Twitch Point Planning, a rigor which helps planners “undertand, map and manipulate consumers closer to a sale.” Twitch Point Planning is an outgrowth of today’s, multi-channel, always on media devices. Today I was reading the NYT and came across an article about George Orwell and the town Katha in Myanmar where he wrote his first novel “Burmese Days.” Before I had finished the article, I’d powered up the Kindle, logged on the new office WIFI password, and downloaded the book for $2.99. That’s a Twitch and the newspaper story was a Twitch Point.

Now, had I only been half interested in George Orwell, or Burma, or Myanmar I may not have transacted business. So what might sellers of this book put in my way, elsewhere, to move me closer to a sale? That’s the $64,000 question. Thinking about that, is thinking as a Twitch Point planner.

What will emerge from this model? Well, if the NYT shared it topics and content with the public in real time, or perhaps the day before publishing, Twitch Point Planners would know what searchable terms, pictures, Google maps, images might be worthy of content or advertising attachment. When Fred Wilson (of AVC.com) was reading the bio autobiography of Keith Richards on a device and fired up Google Earth to see what moors really looked like, that was a twitch (and possible place for a tourist ad). As more Twitch Point Planning exampled come up, I will share. Unless you beat me to it. Peace

Twitchable Moments.

By

Steve Poppe

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January 2, 2014

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I wrote earlier in the week about ad tracking application iSpot and how it will help marketers with Twitch Point Planning. Twitch Point Planning being a new transmedia planning tool that takes advantage of the twitchy behaviors consumers exhibit in today’s device-friendly, social media world.

Here’s an example of a twitch the Geico Insurance and The Martin Agency may or may not have designed into the famous Hump Day TV spots. Lots of people like the Hump Day spots — the boisterous, roaming camel asking “Guess what day it is?” This spot from the campaign has over 19M views on YouTube. Do you know what day these spots are shared the most? Wednesday.

Do consumers buy more Geico insurance on Wednesday? Maybe a bit more because the brand is top-of-mind, but my guess is this effort was not that strategic. Not strategic like Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day or BOGO (buy one get one) on a restaurant’s slowest day of the week.

The metrics, however, do show twitching behavior can be manipulated. And that’s the key learning. Find an on-brand idea that gets shared on a particular day of the week, and you have a new tool in the social arsenal. There are lots of twitchable opportunities for brands – they just have to have a goal and think like consumers. Peace!

Retargeting Isn’t Selling.

By

Steve Poppe

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September 6, 2013

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There is a digital marketing practice called retargeting through which advertisers, thanks to a cookie or pixel tracker, serves you an ad message based upon your previous web shopping. If you shop online for a Marmot tent at REI and don’t buy, you may see Marmot tent ads for a few weeks or months on various other sites. The “re” in retargeting, in this case, refers to repetitive targeting. Insofar as moving a prospect closer to a sale, this approach is not that great. It’s a frequency play – not that there’s anything wrong with frequency. (Okay, there is a little bit wrong with frequency. It’s noise.)

Twitch Point Planning is a healthy evolution of the frequency model. It is intended solely to move consumers closer to a sale. The sales continuum is a fine thread that extends from not being aware to aware, then interested, desirous and finally purchaser. Retargeting efforts often attempt to hit consumers with a promotion but don’t spend a lot of time understanding the continuum.

Twitch Point Planning focuses on “understanding, mapping, and manipulating” customers closer to a sale. Understanding is the behavioral part. Mapping the media part. Manipulating the creative and creation part. Digital agencies are best equipped to do this, but often fall short in one or two of the three pursuits. The Droga5s, Barbarians and Anomalies of the world get it but haven’t yet codified the model (and compensation).

This is science people. Part chess, part art. It is the future of a fairly stagnant, though creative business. Peace.

Second Screen Twitch.

By

Steve Poppe

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August 13, 2013

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The second screen is a fundie of Twitch Point Planning and driver of moving a consumer closer to a sale. The ability to stall or hold the first screen, while pursuing the second, is part of Twitch Point Planning’s “understand” modus. So if one is reading a Kindle and twitches to a Mac or PC for a deeper dive into a topic, that person will likely return to the Kindle after sating their curiosity. Expected behavior. But marketers want a twitch or twitches to end in a purchase or transaction (read: sale, appointment, sign-up), not a quick return to the first screen.

Sometimes a twitch might not be to another device, it might result in a car or bike ride to the store. “Damn, I’m going to buy Europe ’72, by the Dead or a Cuban sandwich at Lenny’s.” But for the most part, the richest non-retail selling that will occur will happen on a company website. The last mile, as it were. The product or service website should provide a contextual, informational, aspirational multimedia expression of a product’s use and value. This is less likely to happen on a smartie than a tablet or computer.

As a rule (and rules have many exceptions) a good twitch point plan seeks to close that first screen and commit to the second. Or third. Bookmarking or Digging a site, while watching TV is not as good as clicking on the shopping cart.

It’s all about the pathways and how one uses them. Peace.