Opinion leaders, trendsetters . . . communities of practice.

All but the last phrase are probably very familiar to eOEM marketers. An interesting research finding reported by c|net ties them all together. HP did the research, so it’s particularly relevant to high tech and EEs.

By mapping email flow inside HP Labs, researchers identified power centers that weren’t on the organization chart – and also identified the leaders. The really interesting tidbit is that it’s pretty easy to do – under the right circumstances.

The methodology involved studying emails sent between any two of the 485 workers at Hewlett-Packard Labs over a two-month period. More than 185,000 emails were examined and analyzed. The results - that informal communities existed and had leaders - were later confirmed by person-to-person interviews.

There isn’t much practical value for marketers in the research right now. So don’t expect a magic bullet when you click through to the article. But engineering communities of practice are out there for sure. So knowing how to identify them without much effort and at low cost is valuable information.

http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/communities.html

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In brief, this Atlas Institute study concludes that there is not a significant overlap of reader/users among multiple sites used in an advertising campaign. The study found that advertisers with a monthly reach of 1 to 10 million unique users could expect that 96% viewed the ad on only one site.

The study focused on larger populations that eOEM marketers try to reach but the results are likely to hold. Why? People tend to get most of their information from a relatively small number of “favorite” sites – and because the Web really is fundamentally different from other media with respect to duplication.

The vast majority of advertisers buy very small percentages of any given site’s inventory. As a result, the probability of being exposed to the ad in a 10-minute visit is not high.

So unlike broadcast television or popular print media, it is a safe strategy to increase the number of sites to advertise on without fear of excess duplication.

http://www.e-contentworks.com/Apr03/reach.html

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As regular users know, Google and its Adwords program have received quite a bit of coverage in this newsletter. And the news just keeps breaking. A couple of months ago, Google was named Brand of the Year (by an online branding site), which is not bad for a company that does virtually no advertising.

Earlier this week, Google and Amazon formally teamed up to extend Google’s targeted ad technology well beyond the company’s search results pages. Besides extending the reach of Google’s Adwords program, the multi-year agreement also gets Amazon some advertising revenue.

Google sponsored links will appear on Amazon product pages. If a user clicks on a product page for a book on high-speed digital design, for example, Google will accompany the page with one or more highly relevant ads - if some eOEM decided to buy the space.

http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/google.html

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In these days of anemic budgets, any investment that saves money in the short term is welcomed with open arms.

So have you given any thought to creating an intranet portal for your company with all the good things that make existing customers buy more and more often? First off, the expenditure can be made palatable to the CFO by showing a track record of cost saving through employee productivity gains – a cool $15 million for Sprint in the first year.

According to Jakob Neilsen’s Alertbox usability newsletter, most corporate intranets are unwieldy and offer a highly fragmented and confusing user experience. Portals aim to correct this problem by presenting a single gateway to all corporate information and services.

To learn more, click the link below.

http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/portals.html

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Doing business in a global economy means you need to keep up with events that affect marketers around the world, especially in an unrelentingly global medium such as the Internet.

In the United Kingdom, it looks like privacy concerns will spawn legislation that will require businesses to obtain explicit opt-in permission before initiating electronic communication, except when there is an existing customer relationship.

Under the proposed rules, businesses must clearly indicate when they're using "cookies" or other tracking devices, and allow users to reject them.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, DC, the Senate is considering legislation to require unsolicited e-mail marketing messages have a valid return address and gives more legal ammunition for ISPs to take spammers to court among other things.

United Kingdom: http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/anti-spam-UK.html
U.S. Senate: http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/anti-spam-Senate.html

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If your email marketing program isn’t showing the results you hoped for, try juicing it up with a newsletter. According to this ClickZ article, a newsletter creates familiarity, trust, and credibility, morphing over time into loyalty and revenue.

Building subscriber relationships is easier because subscription offers can be positioned on Web sites to attract targeted visitors. Newsletter subscribers are self-selecting as interested in your product or service.

The caveat is, of course, that newsletters can’t be product pitches in disguise. Content has to be of good editorial quality and readers must find something they value.

http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/newsletters.html

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After reporting mostly rosy news of quarter-to-quarter Web advertising revenue figures over the past 12 months, it’s our duty to provide the more somber – but not too surprising – results for all of 2002. Internet ad revenue in the United States was $5.95 billion in 2002, a 17% decrease from 2001.

Among the inevitable bright spots: Internet ad revenue rose 2.3% in the fourth quarter from the third.

http://e-contentworks.com/Apr03/ad-revenue.html

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In this issue:

• Power centers aren't always on the corporate org chart.
• Dispelling the myth of audience overlap for Web advertising.
• Google and Amazon team up on targeted advertising.
• Turn your intranet into a portal and see revenue jump and costs fall.
• UK and U.S. move forward on permission marketing legislation.
• Powerful medicine for ailing email marketing campaigns.
• Footnote: 2002 was a down year for Web ad revenues.

Writing with the knowledge gained over nine years as chief editor of two major eOEM publications, Jack Shandle knows how to give great marketing concepts media impact.

Hassle-free white papers, tech articles, email newsletters, op ed pieces, and custom-publishing magazines.

jshandle@earthlink.net

Daniel Menzies
Flash Designer

A creative multimedia designer with a passion for technical detail, Daniel Menzies offers a lower-cost alternative to big-agency pricing without sacrificing quality.

Quick turnaround on technical topics in multimedia and Web formats.

dantmen@pacbell.net

(510) 886-8370

Clio Festival 2003

The 44th Annual Clio Awards Festival will be held at the Eden Roc Hotel, Miami Beach, Fla., May 18 - 21.

Although focused mostly on print and TV, the Clio Festival is still be place to learn about the creative leading edge.

Web and Internet ads will be honored during the awards, ceremony, however, and for those interested in branding, a presentation on cult brands by Merkley Newman Harty's
Chief Strategy Officer, Doug Atkin, should be interesting.

To learn more about the program, click the link below.

Clio Festival Awards

Marketing on the Internet Conference

If you don't have the time, inclination or budget to attend the Clio Festival, maybe the topic of "multichannel marketing" is a better bet.

Sponsored by the American Marketing Association, the conference will be held May 15 - 16 in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Chicago.

Marketing on the Internet