AI Writers: Have we reached peak content?

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An AI post written mostly by AI. How meta!

I try to compose a blog post of roughly 700 to 1000 words every week. It takes me anywhere from half a day to almost two days to complete, depending on the complexity of the topic, as well as my personal level of familiarity. The article below was entirely generated in under four minutes using a service called AIWriter (ai-writer.net). The only human input I provided was the headline: “Using AI for marketing creative.” We have done some formatting, like making certain lines bold, so they could be used as a subhead, and taken out a few carriage returns to make the paragraphs look more normal. How did the AI do? Well, I’ll save my comments for the end. Let’s collectively take the red pill and see what the AI created for us.

Using Ai For Marketing Creative

#machine learning  #marketing world #time resources  #cognitive computing #new ways #digital literacy  #higher level

It follows that ai would find his way into the marketing world.

1. Marketing experts agree that AI will have a significant impact on the marketing world in the coming years. (1) At present, many organizations claim to be helping marketing professionals with their tasks, from capturing insights from dashboards to automating ad network spending. (13)

Ai attracts a lot of attention from many different industries, and marketing is no exception. There's a lot of talk about how AI can help companies make their marketing efforts more efficient. When it comes to AI in marketing, the focus is usually on how AI can effectively process big data to make predictions, save marketing professionals time on repetitive tasks, or draw conclusions from large amounts of data. (35)

Ai marketing tools are based on analyzing large amounts of historical records to determine which ads are best for which users. (28) Large datasets contain thousands of variables that have been collected over time so that a marketer can not draw conclusions in the same way that a machine learning model can. (28)

You can also use the artificial intelligence for ad targeting to identify the most effective stage of the customer buying process and apply your knowledge the next time you run a campaign. (28) Ai can analyze huge amounts of data through online advertising and then create ad copy and creative designs based on the best-performing predictions. (1) It can gather data about how consumers interact with advertising, and then use that insight to optimize your campaigns for better performance. (1) And AI can respond to data from consumers and other buyers of ads to significantly streamline and optimize your advertising spend and strategies. (1)

Read on to learn about some of the key AI use cases in advertising.

Machine learning lets you process the data from previous ads and perform predictive analytics on new creatives to determine which motives yield the best returns. (33) Even creating creatives becomes more efficient. (33) Creative remains an area of ​​marketing that can be supported, but not replaced by AI. (33) In addition, marketing professionals have now spent more time expanding the boundaries of creativity for their marketing campaigns. (29) They can use AI and machine learning to create new ideas, create new media platforms, find new ways to tell brand stories, and so on. The challenge for marketers will be to have a higher level of digital literacy and a clear understanding of AI and machine learning than is currently the case. (29) Finally, more time resources for marketing professionals can be spent on the creative side of marketing. (9)

In fact, digital literacy will continue to be in demand, and the future workforce (not just in marketing) needs a higher level of digital literacy than the current workforce. (9) The most interesting way for an AI to shape the future of marketing is to give us more time to focus on decisions that require human input, creative thinking, and building meaningful and deeper relationships with customers (9) It gives them the freedom to focus on content, creativity and strategy to enable these personalized customer interactions. (3)

AIM solutions provide the tools marketers need to deliver increasingly relevant and personalized content at the right time for higher conversion rates. Here are three ways in which marketers can use AI to deliver highly personalized experiences today. (3)

Ai tools are useful in analyzing mass data records to gain insight into potential and existing customers.

The technology helps personalize campaigns and content, taking the user experience to a whole new level. It automates many tasks from content research through competitive intelligence, SEO to paid campaigns. It takes a lot of effort to track competitors' content across a variety of social media platforms. Crayon uses artificial intelligence to analyze the competition across many online channels. The tool consolidates competitive data into a single dashboard and helps marketing professionals make quick strategic decisions. It includes daily e-mail summaries to keep marketers up to date with the latest industry updates. (12)

Predictivebid is a bidding software that claims to be able to market potential new leads on the Amazon and Google Networks. The more people click on a marketing creative, the more PredictiveBid learns which attributes of the creative are best for generating the click. PredictiveBid claims that its software determines the likely driving factor behind the click and then applies that knowledge to future ads to increase revenue. We could not find a demonstration video for the software, nor did we find explicit case studies demonstrating the software's success. (13)

Exceed.ai uses ai technology to simplify lead qualification and help marketing teams qualify leads and accelerate the sales process. The tool acts as a virtual sales assistant, helping to automate email communication and personalize the chat. It addresses potential customers and understands their product needs before a human sales representative can continue the conversation.Exceed.ai tries to replicate human conversations in order to give potential customers a natural experience. (12)

Ai and machine learning through complex systems, advanced analytics and cognitive computing.

Many service providers are already integrating AI components and cognitive computing into their turnkey solutions to help companies make faster and more accurate marketing decisions.  Many companies use AI beyond marketing to drive innovation and drive their industries forward. For example, CureMetrix, one of the startups, uses artificial intelligence algorithms to help hospitals care for their patients. (19)

Okay, back to me, the human.

I have to say, the writing was surprisingly coherent and informative, albeit, lacking personality or any real narrative point of view. Ironically, it also seems unsure when or how to capitalize “AI.” The site that generated the article, ai-writer.net, presents the amalgamated text in a dashboard that provides information on where they source their information (see “Cited Sources” below), plus a view highlighting bits of that text, which the system lifted verbatim from those sources.

ai-writer.net highlights parts of the finished article that have not been rewritten.

Is it good? It depends on your audience.

Subjectively, creatively, it’s not great. Would I use its output (after today) to serve as finished thought leadership? No. But it does in under four minutes the same type of research I would have to set aside a few hours to accomplish when beginning to investigate the consensus wisdom on a topic, such as AI or content marketing. And, in the end, it provides a fairly decent executive summary. That alone might save me a day’s work when diving deep into a complex topic. The more relevant question—one to which I have no answer today—is does the Google search algorithm think it’s good? If the purpose of your content is purely to improve your ranking for search terms, then it might be “good,” or at least “good enough.”

So, have we reached peak content?

In my humble opinion, if we haven’t reached peak content (I might also say “peak search noise”) yet, we can certainly see it coming over the horizon. We will be tracking the organic SEO strength of this post relative to our more bespoke content. So, stay tuned!

Cited Sources (from ai-writer.net)

0  |  1  |  2  |  3  |   4  |  5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10  |  11  |  12  |  13  |  14  |  15  |  16  |  17  |  18  |  19  |  20  |  21  |  22  |  23  |  24  |  25  |  26  |  27  |  28  |  29  |  30  |   31  |  32  |  33  |  34

How to Produce SEO Content

It’s about writing from the outside, in.

The content (or inbound) marketing movement has spawned vast quantities of keyword-stuffed blog posts across the world. The philosophy goes something like this: “If you can satisfy searchers’ thirst for knowledge, your customers beat a virtual path to your business.”

But satisfying that thirst requires more than simply penning the correct answer. You need to ensure how you’re saying what you’re saying aligns perfectly with how your customers are phrasing what they’re asking for. In other words, let the consumer frame the problem for you, then sit down to create. Thankfully, there are four fairly straightforward ways to get to that understanding.

Scour your analytics.

Assuming you use a modern analytics package(statistically speaking, probably Google Analytics), you can easily get an understanding of the search terms that are currently bringing organic traffic to your site. If you are using Google, in your Webmaster Tools account, navigate to referral data in your dashboard. If you have more than one domain attached to your account, click on the domain you want to review, then on  “Search Queries.” There, you can review the data for the top 1,000 queries for which Google returns pages of your website.You can monitor click-through rate, as well as impressions and average position for each query.

The downside to this approach is that it is only a rearview mirror. It points to the way people are getting to your site now and may offer insights into what phrases you may wish to amplify your relevance against. But it won’t tell you what all of the valuable customers who are ending up on your competitors’ sites are searching for. Luckily, we have the tools for that as well.

Get the 30,000-foot view.

To gain a better overview of what topics interest the market at large and, more importantly, what part of that market’s search behavior you’re not capitalizing on, you need to investigate outside of your analytics. Thankfully, there are a few easy-to-use tools that can give you just that kind of insight.

Google Ads Keyword Planner

You will have to sign up for Google Ads, but, assuming you’re trying to run a business based, in part at least, on driving web traffic to your site, you likely should already have an account. You can use this tool to quickly understand how many search queries are conducted against specific words and phrases and, more importantly, how they perform at generating click-throughs. Of course, you can begin to play with long-tail search phrases, but that is, in effect, kind of hit or miss. Again, there is a better way.

AnswerThePublic.com

AnswerThePublic.com is basically reverse engineering for SEO. You put in the keywords you want to optimize around, and the tool delivers the natural language search phrases people are using most against the topic. It also delivers related search information, as well as comparative searches, e.g., “SEO content vs. technical content.” And each of the main results are clickable, so you can see the results for those searches directly in a Google search results page. The best news about this tool is that it is, for most use cases, free. If you do more than 30 or so searches in a day, they will cut you off for a bit and ask you to pay for the pro license. But I assume the usage of most businesses will fall well below that limit.

The old-fashioned way—ask actual people.

And by old fashioned, we don’t mean “bad.” We mean primary market research. Whether you create online surveys (again, for more generalized markets, Google has a relatively affordable solution here), conduct individual interviews or conduct focus groups, these methodologies can help you get to a more nuanced understanding of your customers’ relationship with the subject matter than what their search terms can tell you. Further, if your market is composed of low-volume but high-value customers (an extreme case would be something like purchasers of control systems technology for nuclear plants), the most important search terms or phrases wouldn’t occur at high enough volume for generalized tools to surface them during your research.

Translate queries into titles.

If you have spent even a small amount of effort optimizing your site or content to be Google-friendly, you’ll know the importance of the title tag in letting Google (not to mention your readers)gain an immediate and clear understanding of the content to follow. An example would be, well, this article. How’s that for proof of concept?

Enhance your SEM planning, too.

At Magnani, we are fans of incorporating long-tail strategies into our SEM planning (see that post here). These tools and methods can just as easily be employed to give you insights into that market activity as well.

Go forth and create content.

The next time you’re sitting at your laptop, wondering what you’ll write about, blank page staring you in the face, just take a few minutes and use these tools to let your customers tell you what they want to read.

Is the iPhone Xr a sign of fundamental problems at Apple?

Product proliferation has a dark history at Apple.

Before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company lost $1 billion on $7 billion in revenue in fiscal 1996. A look at Apple’s product lineup at the time reveals a dizzying array of desktops, Powerbooks, Newtons, printers, servers, et al—not to mention some of the worst industrial design in the company’s history.

Apple industrial design in the mid 90’s—less Dieter Rams, more Robert Matthew Van Winkle.

1996 Apple Product Lineup

Power Macintosh 7215

Power Macintosh 8515

Performa 6290CD

Performa 6310CD

Apple Network Server 500

Apple Network Server 700/150

Power Macintosh 5400

Color StyleWriter 1500

Color StyleWriter 2500

Workgroup Server 7250

Workgroup Server 8550

Performa 5260 / 5300

Performa 5400

Power Macintosh 7600

Power Macintosh 5260

Performa 5260CD, 5270CD

Power Macintosh 7200/120 PC Compatible

Power Macintosh 8200

Performa 6320CD

Performa 5400CD, 5410CD, 5420CD

LaserWriter 12/640PS

Performa 6260CD

Power Macintosh 6300

Performa 5400/160, 5400/180 (DE)

Performa 6400/180, 6400/200, 6400/200 VEE

Power Macintosh 6400

Color LaserWriter 12/660 PS

Apple Network Server 700/200

Performa 6300CD

Performa 6360

Performa 6400

Performa 5280

Performa 6410, 6420

Performa 5430, 5440

Power Macintosh 4400

PowerBook 1400

Source Wikipedia

In the process of making a product for every niche, the companycreated a series of uninspired products that appealed to few, with theexception of a diminishing number of stalwart Apple customers. Further, thebewildering number of SKUs left consumers with little to no understanding ofwhat the company stood for, other than its “mac-ishness.”  In other words,it was a dire time to be an Apple fan.

1997: Jobs Cleans House.

According to an anecdote in Walter Isaacson’s biography, Jobs basically lost it in a meeting with his product leads as they were trying to explain and/or justify their work. At one point, according to Isaacson, Jobs screamed something to the effect of, “This is crazy!” and walked to a nearby whiteboard and drew a simple 2 x 2 matrix, something like this:

I’ve mentioned Hick’s law a number of times in blog posts, and I think it certainly applies here as well. Hick’s law states that as the number of choices increases for a consumer, the time required to make a decision increases exponentially. That dynamic does not pair well with the emotionally driven experience of purchasing luxury items. And, yes, despite the great litany of rationales we create in our heads, for most of us, buying/upgrading an iPhone is an indulgence. What I think Jobs understood, is that the more clearly Apple could define the path to emotional satisfaction, the more likely a consumer is to travel that path to the nearest retail glass cube.

To that point, Jobs’ radical simplification of the product lineup in 1997 afforded Apple, and its customers, a number of benefits. First, it gaveApple’s industrial design team the ability to focus on making a small number of great designs. Second, it simplified inventory and supply chain management. And thirdly, it allowed Apple to simplify messaging and create more compelling advertising and promotions—a.k.a. more clearly defining the path between urge and indulgence. And throughout his tenure as CEO, Jobs maintained strict discipline in the Apple product lineup. In the year of Jobs’ death, 2011, theApple main product lineup looked like this.

2011 Lineup

MacBook Pro

Mac Pro

iMac

MacBook Air

Mac Mini

iPhone 4, 4s

iPod Shuffle, Nano, Classic & Touch

iPad 2

Apple TV

And, one should note, the fact that there are two iPhones in the lineup stems from the fact that the iPhone 4 and 4S were actually both launched in 2011, an uncharacteristic upgrade cycle for Apple.

Declining iPhone sales are a victim of Hick’s Law (and poor SKU rationalization).

If you look at the Apple product lineup today, there are almost as many distinct iPhone models as there were products in general at the time ofJobs death. When assessing the reason for each model to exist, it’s tough to rationalize the existence of the poster child for declining iPhone sales, the Xr. The model doesn’t satisfy those who seek the coveted, “best,” status that the flagship iPhone Xs or Xs Max models deliver. It’s priced too high for the deal-seeking emotional requirements needed to satisfy bargain hunters, like the iPhone 7 or 8 models can.

And, thanks to the insights of Mr. Hick, we can be confident that this SKU proliferation and complexity could be impeding impulse upgrading altogether. Speak to almost anyone selling luxury items in a retail environment(or a car salesman, for that matter) and they can tell you, the longer the decision process draws out, the more likely the consumer is to abandon the transaction. It’s why the car salesman never wants to let you leave the showroom. If you give yourself time to think rationally, you might talk yourself out of the purchase, or at least the upgraded leather interior.

And it seems Apple is not limiting its lineup extension fever to the iPhone. There is a confusing overlap among laptops, desktops and accessories as well. It’s a strategy (or lack thereof) that will cause Apple to leave money (not to mention the emotional satisfaction of its customers) on the table.

2019 Lineup

iPhone 7

iPhone 7 Plus

iPhone 8

iPhone 8 Plus

iPhone Xr

iPhone Xs

iPhone Xs Max

Macbook

Macbook Air

Macbook Pro (touchbar)

Macbook Pro (no touchbar)

Apple Watch series 3, series 4, Hermès, Nike +

iMac

iIMac Pro

Mac Mini

Mac Pro

iPad

iPad Mini

iPad Pro 10.7”

iPad Pro 12.9” & 11”

Apple TV

Apple TV 4K

A modest proposal.

Apple would be well served to thin the herd and, by proxy, shorten the path between consumers’ emotional impulses and a satisfying purchase. Are you listening Tim Cook?

Proposed 2019 Optimized Lineup

iPhone 8

iPhone Xs

iPhone Xs Max

Macbook Air

Macbook Pro

Apple Watch series 4

iMac

Mac Pro (modular/expandable)

iPad

iPad Pro 11”

Apple TV 4K

3 Counterintuitive Tips for a Successful Digital Transformation

3 counterintuitive tips for a successful digital transformation.

Digital transformation seems to be the catchphrase of the year. More and more, we receive requests from potential new clients asking for assistance with just that. But as it was with SEO in 2010, or apps in 2012, many of those requesters treat the idea of a digital transformation as something of a one-off effort. A box to be checked. Mostly a digital property purchased or redesigned. The truth, however, is that when done in a truly transformational way, the process of getting to real transformation is anything but box checking. If you’re tasked with leading your company’s digital transformation, following these three seemingly counterintuitive tips could dramatically improve your chances of success.

Stop using the word digital.

The phrase “digital transformation” implies something separate from the normal business of the company. It’s the kind of mental compartmentalization that we find leads to that check-box mentality. Try to substitute more meaningful words in place of “digital”—like, “business,” or “customer journey”, understanding, of course any truly transformative change will likely require a digital solution.A simple reframing like this increases lateral thinking and prompts more substantive conversations. In other words, you stop focusing on how you can improve systems within the business and start asking how you can improve the business itself.

Try writing the first draft of your plan without mentioning specific technology.

Technology is, in and of itself, a means to an end, not the end itself. And transformation, in and of itself, holds no inherent value for the business. Writing your plan—objectives, strategies, goals, KPIs, timing, expected returns, customer experience benefits, et al—without listing specific technology implementations forces you to examine and evaluate the business implications on their own merits.

At Magnani, this is part of our narrative-drive design thinking methodology. We explore and document the expected qualitative and quantitative outcomes of a successful transformation. We create a story about motivations and expectations, not hardware or software. We have found that once you build consensus around what that experience should feel like and deliver, the story can serve, throughout the process, as a touchstone for evaluating and prioritizing proposed technology implementations. Will this technology deliver the experience we outlined in our story as optimal for the business and its customers? How might it compromise that vision. Is any potential tradeoff worth it?

Try to disrupt your own business.

A few posts back, we outlined three proven paths to disruptive innovation. The point of that post applies here. Disruption is imminent. Technology is lowering barriers to entry in every industry. Emerging generations have little tolerance for adapting to cumbersome experiences. They expect and demand better.

If you can envision the most desirable customer experience, technology always finds a way.

If you’re charged with plotting your business’ path through the digital transformation process, you’d be well served to look beyond the traditional limits of an IT or Marketing department project. Start by creating a vision for an unsurpassed customer experience, then back your way into the technology. And ultimately you should presume succeeding in the challenge might boil down to two main choices: disrupt, or be disrupted. We advocate, unreservedly, for the former.

Who Owns Your Company’s Website—Marketing or IT?

Most web governance structures place marketing and IT at odds.

In many organizations we work with, IT has full control of the website—everything from the user experience, tech stack specification and implementation, and digital road map to the data that feeds it all. And Marketing is relegated to the role of being allowed to “paint” what IT provides. In these organizations, we often hear complaints that IT, “doesn’t understand,” and that Marketing is always saying, “no.”And just as often, Marketing owns the website. Driven by wanting to launch timely promotions or content or engage their audience segments in new and interesting ways, Marketing can sometimes, even with the best of intentions, leave IT in the unfortunate position of trying to build a user experience that either the available data or tech stack doesn’t support. In these organizations, we often hear complaints that Marketing, “doesn’t understand,” and that IT is always saying, “no.”

Neither of these scenarios is ideal and each leaves frustration on all sides.

As an experience design and strategy firm with expertise on both sides of the issue, we have more often than not found ourselves being the bridge or conduit between IT and Marketing. We become the great arbitrator—helping marketing understand what experiences are possible within limitations of the company’s current tech infrastructure, and helping IT understand the competitive value of pushing technology to deliver exceptional user experiences. While we’re happy to fill this role—and have made a great number of clients happy by doing so— we believe there is a better way.

Start by asking the right questions.

Stop asking who owns your company’s website and start asking what impact can improving your company’s digital presence have on the business. Imagine building and presenting a business case around what impact your company’s digital presence can have on the bottom line. And really, it’s the business that owns the website, not IT or Marketing. It’s time to push beyond a traditional IT vs. Marketing mentality in order to thrive in this ever-evolving digital environment.

It’s time for a dedicated innovation team to “own” the digital experience.

Whether it’s beginning to sound like a cliché or not, digital disruption is radically impacting every industry. This disruption is being fueled by digital transformation. It just might change the goal from getting it done, to making it better.Often innovation/R&D teams own the future-facing product or service development, but it’s not a stretch to have this group, or a similar group structure, own the future-facing customer experience. We believe this would not only solve the “age-old question” of ownership, but also better position your company to be prepared for the future.

So how do you make this switch?

It starts with building a business case and showing examples of how digital disruption can better position the company and provide a tangible ROI. The ultimate “ask” should be for a business charter—and funding—to lead a dedicated multi-disciplined team with success measures around deepening the relationship between your company and your customers and driving business metrics.   Finally, here’s one stat to help you get started: according to Harvard Business School1, leading digital companies generate better gross margins (55%), better earnings and better net income than organizations in the bottom quarter of digital adopters (37% gross margins). How’s that for ROI?1 https://www.cio.com/article/3149977/digital-transformation/8-top-digital-transformation-stories-of-2016.html

Why Your Brand is Only a Guest in the House of Reddit: A Lesson on the Sanctity of the Upvote

The house that diversity built.

Around since 2005, Reddit is a social platform most marketers have heard of, but many tell us they’re not exactly sure what it is and how it should fit into their overall communications program. So, what is it? Reddit is a social content aggregator that allows anonymous users to post content—photos, links, thoughts—to relevant “subreddits” where other users can “upvote” or “downvote” the content, and the subsequent conversation thread contained within.Currently, Reddit has over 540 million monthly visitors, ranking as the #4 most visited website in U.S. and #6 in the world. It’s had a storied evolution from science and programming content (along with the expected content that has been the foundation of the social internet) to a broader range of content that has gone on to help drive the tastemakers and content curators of this generation—it’s likely if you shared something on Facebook and Twitter, it was originally posted on Reddit. The evolutionary spark that ultimately drove the emergence of the Reddit we see today was failure of Digg.com. In 2009, the popular content aggregator Digg launched a major UI update that incited a user rebellion. And those users ultimately flocked to Reddit—forever altering and diversifying  the type and the quality of the content on the site. The spike in users, and the subsequent influx of mainstream content subreddits, also delivered an impressive “hive mind” of like-minded users. Collectively, by sheer scale, they brought the site into the mainstream but not necessarily the limelight. They were the center of a diaspora of content and ideas, even if most people ultimately consumed those ideas and content on outside social platforms, like Facebook or Twitter.

The temptation for brands was inevitable.

Since the great Digg migration of 2009, advertisers have coveted and courted the Reddit user base, repeatedly trying to break into the platform. The best of them authentically joining the conversation. The most doomed of them trying to manipulate the community.Brands that have succeeded don’t push the brand, they react honestly to community sentiment, solve problems and respond to issues.See: here, here and here.Brands that have failed try to game the system, create fake supporters, tell users they are “wrong,” or generally treat community members as pawns in their marketing schemes.See: here, here and most impressively here.

And the bots are why we can’t have nice things.

What fuels Reddit is the upvote. What gets voted up is supposed to be the real result of natural confirming clicks of the community. But a number of brands and marketers, along with an army of bots, has been trying to change what “real” means. Joining the community, manipulating the process and creating a critical mass of votes to try and push something front and center.Vote buying startups, astroturfing, and, of course, the Russians are beginning to erode confidence in the veracity and authenticity of the vote and, by proxy, the community itself.

Strategies for approaching the platform.

If brands want to interact in this space, a proper strategy might be first, to watch, listen and explore. You could start here. Look around and ask if there is already a stage where your brand or service might resonate or already is resonating.For example if you provide a service, listen in subreddits for complaints, and resolve those complaints publically and transparently—much like how Twitter has become for a more reliable customer service experience.Posting funny images of your brand, product or service rarely resonates and will more likely seen as pandering. A more reactive and helpful approach to the platform garners more positive sentiment and provides more value to the users.And, always, before entering the house, remember, you’re only a guest.

Math for Marketers: How to Evaluate Growth Opportunities

In the more than 30 years this agency has existed, we’ve never had a client come to us and reveal that they had unlimited time and unlimited funds to apply to their growth challenges. When developing a strategic roadmap, each and every one had to weigh the opportunities and opportunity costs of every decision and prioritize those efforts and investments that will yield the greatest net returns to the business.As one undergoes the strategic planning process, understanding what potential opportunity may result from any strategic priority will undoubtedly require a mix of assumption and intuition, and, more importantly, basic quantitative analysis. In this post, we wanted to outline a couple of basic but powerful formulas and processes to assist in some of the most common areas of inquiry: market sizing and budget prioritization. In other words, “how big is the opportunity, overall?” and, “How should budget dollars be allocated to ensure maximum average returns?”

Part 1—How to calculate potential market size.

Estimating the size of any new market is a mixture of art (the assumptions are you are making) and science (the hard evidence you have to quantify the validity of each assumption). Now, there are plenty of folks willing to stake their reputations and their businesses on a purely art-based approach—you could say relying on emotional confidence versus statistical confidence—but the following formulas deliver far more reliable results if you backup your input variables with actual research data. So, what are the variables that go into your formula?

Total population (P): This simply corresponds to the total population in your trading area. That could be local, regional, national or global.N = Total Geographical Population

Percentage of Target Customers (PTC): The percentage of the total population that fits the target segments most likely to be an active customer.

Average Transaction Quantity (Q): The average quantity purchased by a single user at a time.

Frequency of purchase (F): How many times the product or service is purchased in the most relevant period of time (annually/quarterly, etc.).

Price of Product (P): What the expected revenue generated is per transaction.

Market Size (MS) Formula = (get ready, this is the math part) MS = P * PTC * F * P

An example: Since the advent of bike share programs around the country, articles keep popping up about the need for single-use or limited-use helmets. So, let’s say you’ve just invented a new recyclable engineered paper bicycle helmet for bike share usage. And you want to launch it in a test market, like Chicago. In 2017, Divvy claimed more than 37,000 members, so in this example, we can use that for P.

P=37,000

But all 37,000 will not be in the market for our new helmet. How many will be? This is where it would behoove you do some actual quantitative research (the science) among Divvy members to determine levels of need and interest. Let's say we conducted a quantitative online survey with a representative sample (300) Divvy members that indicated 50% of them already own their own traditional bike helmets. Of the remaining 50%, half again of those will never wear a helmet. So, we are left with 25% of the original population that do not own a helmet and are not opposed to it. But only half of those (the remaining 12.5%) said they would be interested in purchasing your helmet. So, in the end:

PTC=.125 (or 12.5%)

Each consumer would generally only purchase one helmet at a time, so:

Q=1

But the helmets only last about 4 weeks before the paper breaks down and most Divvy members only bike 3.5 months out of the year. Discounting for the fact that most people will not be diligent about replacing the helmets in a timely fashion, let's put the frequency of purchase at 2.5 per year.

F=2.5

And, finally, you've designed the helmet to sell for about $10, so:

P=10

So, let’s plug those into the formula!MS = P * PTC * F * P

Market size (MS) = 37,000 * .125 * 1 * 2.5 * 10

Or…

MS= $115,625

After going through those calculations, you realize there’s a reason the idea of single-use helmets comes up every year, yet no one is developing single-use helmets.

Part 2— How to prioritize marketing budgets for growth.

Every marketer faces similar challenges when it comes to budget prioritization. It always comes down to determining against which products or services do you spend what portion of the budget. And always, the calculus centers on ultimately realizing the greatest returns for every dollar spent. Surprisingly, even though this is an ongoing concern, many marketers rely more on gut intuition than quantitative reasoning.To add a little more quantitative reasoning into the mix, we’ll introduce you to another simple calculation (courtesy of McKinsey & Co), called the customer growth index (CGI). It’s an interesting way to understand the correlation between initial consideration and growth potential.

Simply put, to arrive at the CGI, you take the percent of time your brand is a member of your customers’ initial consideration set, then divide that by that your brand’s current market share, and finally, multiply that result by 100 to create an index. The closer to 100, the greater the brand’s ability to keep up with the pace of growth in the market as a whole.

CGI= %consideration * %marketshare * 100

McKinsey uses this for looking at overall brand, but we think it can be a useful tool if you know that same inputs with in each of your product categories. Let’s say Nike was evaluating marketing budget allocations for shoes, apparel and tech wearables. By calculating the Nike CGI for each product category, they would have a better indication of the brand health in each, and which are more or less likely to experience growth for each marketing dollar applied. It’s not the end all determination of which categories should get what budgets, but it’s a strong signal of momentum that should be taken into consideration.

Lasting success is calculated.

Marketing is always a blend of art and science. No matter what the size the market opportunity or propensity for growth, we all need to deliver memorable, motivational experiences for our customers. In the end, these formulas can help simply provide an additional objective sense of perspective in the planning process.

Marketing’s VR Problem

There’s virtually no reason for most marketers to care about VR.

If it quacks like a bubble…Full disclosure—historically, Magnani has been as guilty as any about touting the potential of VR. We have VR officially listed in our capabilities and we have trained our creators and developers to produce amazing experiences, deliverable on a number of platforms. But, as of today, VR is not delivering on that potential in any way that is compelling from a marketing or advertising perspective. So what’s happening?A close inspection of the market over the past year shows an industry where investment curves dwarf actual consumer adoption curves.

In most industries, that would portend the imminent bursting of a (virtual) bubble. In their 2017 Hype Cycle, Gartner Research places VR as emerging out of the “trough of disillusionment” and into the “slope of enlightenment.” That scale assumes the tech will plateau in adoption in 2 to 5 years. If we believe that, and we follow the adoption rates, then VR will never really scale to be important. It will be the next LaserDisc. 

Lack of a killer app

VR has the ability to take the user to any place, time, or alternate universe content creators can imagine. The problem appears to be that the creators are not imaging very much yet. When consumers purchase the hardware and make their first excited trip to the Oculus store, they are met with a limited hodgepodge of content. Some interesting ideas. An occasional compelling technology demo. Collections of poorly implemented low-resolution 360-degree video. But no real reason to invest much time with the technology.

Our experience demonstrating the technology for clients and employees alike has been fairly consistent in both the initial surprise and delight that the technology works as well as it does followed by questioning for what purpose one would actually use it for any extended period of time. Compound that feeling with the fact that a computer-based VR system with an Oculus Rift or an HTC Vive costs upwards of $1,200 US and it’s clear why the dearth of compelling content is hobbling VR out of the gate.

VR supporters will cry, “What about the Playstation VR?” While it’s true, more than a million units have sold as add-ons to the game console, it still represents less than a 2% attach rate to its overall console sales. Hardly a compelling business case for game developers.

The same goes for marketers. Creating a compelling VR experience is costly. While there are obviously a few specific use cases where that investment make sense, there is no general audience of any scale to think of the technology as a universal marketing medium.

Blame evolutionary biology

They say that the reason most of us are restless the first night in a strange place is that we’ve been programmed by evolutionary biology to not enter a deep sleep. We need to keep our wits about us until the environment has been proven to be safe. Similarly, for every visual delight VR technology can deliver, there is, at least for me, always a nagging feeling that I am blindfolded, vulnerable. It begs a question in my mind whether we are also biologically programmed to be somewhat uncomfortable by cutting off our senses to the surrounding environment.

RIP VR. Long live AR.

The good news is that all of the technology and content development investments made in the VR space need not be relegated to sunk costs. As slow as the uptake in VR has been over the past few years, the adoption of high quality augmented reality (AR) capable devices eclipsed the totality of VR units in a single day when Apple released iOS 11. Every mobile handset from the iPhone 6s up can run software based on Apple’s ARKit. That is already billions of active, waiting users, worldwide. Even prior to the official iOS 11 release, developers started to make compelling demos. And just days after the official rollout, Swedish furniture giant, Ikea delivered on the promise of ARKit.

AR, unlike VR, relies on a tangible connection to the users’ physical space. AR removes the barrier most customers have in trying to visualize how a product would actually fit into their environment or their lives in general. AR on a mobile handset finally gives consumers a low-cost, low-risk way to try out virtual technology and marketers a way to let a large group of consumers instantly try out, try on, and imagine owning their products. In other words, AR gives marketers an augmented (pun intended) version of what they have already been doing in every other medium for decades. Seems like the smarter way forward, for now.

Apple vs. The Mad Men: Can marketing and privacy co-exist?

Apple is drawing a line in the sand around privacy.

Digital media networks are claiming that the release of iOS 11 will introduce the greatest threat to the Web as we know it. That’s because Apple is introducing strict new privacy protection in its mobile Safari browser on the iPhone. The update to Apple’s Safari browser prevents ad networks from effectively tracking your browsing history through the use of cross site tracking. According to this blog post by John Wilander on the WebKit.org (author’s note: WebKit is the open source code foundation for Apple’s Safari browser), the new intelligent tracking prevention features stops third-party sources (e.g.: major ad networks) from effectively creating a copy of your browsing history via tracking cookies stored on your device.Here’s how John describes the process in his post: “Imagine a user who first browses example-products.com for a new gadget and later browses example-recipies.com for dinner ideas. If both these sites load resources from example-tracker.com and example-tracker.com has a cookie stored in the user’s browser, the owner of example-tracker.com has the ability to know that the user visited both the product website and the recipe website, what they did on those sites, what kind of web browser was used, et cetera. This is what’s called cross-site tracking and the cookie used by example-tracker.com is called a third-party cookie. In our testing we found popular websites with over 70 such trackers, all silently collecting data on users.”While advertisers claim the process is benign, Apple deems the process overly intrusive, offering a data cache rich enough for any interested party to effectively reconstruct your complete browsing history. In the hands of a malicious entity, that information could surely be used to nefarious ends.

And the ad industry is living up to the term, “Mad Men.”

According to a sternly worded press release, penned jointly by a coalition of industry associations which includes the 4A's—American Advertising Federation, Association of National Advertisers, Data & Marketing Association, Interactive Advertising Bureau, and Network Advertising Alliance (hereafter referred to as the Industry)—the Apple update will effectively break the commercial Web. Or, at least, make it prohibitively difficult to monetize. In the joint press release, these industry groups assert they are “deeply concerned about the Safari 11 browser update that Apple plans to release, as it overrides and replaces existing user-controlled cookie preferences with Apple's own set of opaque and arbitrary standards for cookie handling.” Ultimately, they claim “Put simply, machine-driven cookie choices do not represent user choice; they represent browser-manufacturer choice.”

Did consumers ever really choose?

Running a company that makes its bread and butter crafting digital experiences, I can wholeheartedly and unquestionably agree there that browser cookie technology is fundamental to ensuring users have a seamless and personalized experience on the Web. But it is tough to agree with the industry’s position that the highly aggressive tracking and consumption of users’ effectively unfiltered browsing history was in any way a user choice that Apple is now violating.I guarantee that if I was ever presented with any detailed terms of service outlining how, and what detail, my browsing history would be collected and reported back to third-party ad networks, I cannot remember the moment I accepted them. I would assume most users’ experience around that issue is similarly clouded by the fog of our myriad collective browsing experiences.

Is Apple overstepping their authority?

Put simply, I don’t think so. The company is, at its core, a purveyor of hardware and user experiences. If they deem the best user experience on their platform to be founded in a more conscientious protection of their users’ privacy, it’s difficult to see how their approach isn’t the smartest means to that end.So, what is apple proposing? Again, the WebKit.org post describes it thus: “If the user has not interacted with example.com in the last 30 days, example.com website data and cookies are immediately purged and continue to be purged if new data is added.”And, further, they simplified it into this easy-to-follow chart:

Ad-infinitum?

It seems the Industry would prefer that in the long run, with enough data-sharing and partnership agreements, everyone would be, by virtue of any number of unread terms of service, opted into everything, in perpetuity. It’s a convenient position in the short term, but one that ultimately, I believe, will lead to consumer backlash far less manageable in the long run than their current Apple problem.

Can’t we all just get along?

It may be tough to remember at this point, but we used to have a political system in the US where two conflicting parties would discuss an issue over which they differed and come to a compromise that was workable, even if both parties were slightly unsatisfied with the outcome. Ultimately this is where I think this issue should and will end up, in a compromise.A day may be too short a time to allow tracking cookies to work their personalization magic in a way that satisfies the commerce needs of content providers and the ad networks that drive their revenue streams, but it’s hard to imagine a world where unlimited access to browsing histories doesn’t constitute a massive violation of privacy. In the end, it’s a question that needs to be resolved. Publicly. With open debate and full transparency for consumers. And when no interested party is fully satisfied with the outcome—Apple, the industry or consumers—we’ve probably derived the right solution.

The Marketer’s Unorthodox Summer Reading List

As summer rolls around and we collectively look longingly at our patios, replete with the chaise nestled perfectly beneath the umbrella, it becomes quickly evident that the only things missing from this backyard paradise are a refreshing cocktail and a good page-turner. Frequently, for marketers, that means a book about marketing, advertising or branding. It has been my experience, however, that the books most influential to the way I view marketing weren’t written by, or for, marketers, nor were they written about marketing, per se. They do, however, offer critical universal insights into the human condition from which every marketer can benefit. More importantly, they don’t simply teach us new skills or facts, they affect the way we think. 

1. Zero to One (Notes on startups and how to build the future), Peter Thiel

   Few characters out of Silicon Valley are as reviled and revered as Peter Thiel. One of the founders and former CEO of PayPal, and currently founder of Mithril Capital and CEO of data analytics firm, Palantir, Thiel is best known for spouting radical notions of the coming technology “singularity” and suggesting to collegiate entrepreneurs that they would be best served by quitting school and using their tuition funds as seed capital. He’s also, of late, been advising President Trump on technology issues.

   In Zero to One, however, we find Thiel at the top of his game, creating a blueprint for how any startup should approach building a business that enjoys a relative monopoly in the marketplace. The funny thing, is that if you imagine the word “company” replaced with the word “brand” in most of Thiel’s arguments, what you’ll discover is one of the greatest expositions of how to construct a truly differentiated and highly competitive brand.

2. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny, William Strauss and Neil Howe

   We have blogged a number of times about how to approach marketing to Millennials. Foundational to that advice is an understanding of the social and cultural factors that shaped the thinking and behaviors of that generation. And as we watch the first members of Generation Z coming of age, we will surely require new marketing approaches and strategies once again.

   What Strauss and Howe offer in The Fourth Turning is not simply a history of how generations developed differing attitudes and associations with the culture surrounding them, but a fascinating framework for predicting what may be coming next. Based on the idea that history can be viewed in terms of repeating saeculum, 80-year cycles of four generations each, and a theory of how generational psychographic archetypes can shape our culture and history.Will it provide a clear roadmap for marketing to Millennials and Gen Z? Not really. But it can give marketers valuable perspective to draw from when trying to divine how impending generational shifts might require commensurate shifts in brand positioning, product mix and general operations.

3. Daemon and Freedom (two books), Daniel Suarez

   Good news! These are novels. Really entertaining novels at that. And really only one novel that was split into two volumes by the publisher for reasons unbeknownst to me. Without divulging even the smallest of spoilers, what Suarez can offer marketers is not a typical science fiction fantasy, but a prediction of where technology might lead in the next five to ten years, wrapped in a compelling narrative.Artificial intelligence, automation, genetic engineering, commercial agriculture, 3D printing/additive manufacturing, augmented reality and maker culture all make an appearance and get mashed into a singular vision for what’s next in the cultural and media landscape of the not-too-distant future.

4. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull

   Few authors in any field have the creative credentials of Ed Catmull. A pioneer of computer animation, to be sure, but also one of the great storytellers, or at least leader of great storytellers, of our time. It’s really a book about how to build and nurture a creative culture and, more importantly, how to evaluate and promote great ideas while systematically evaluating and discarding mediocre ideas. A few examples of Catmull’s rules of engagement include:

   • Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better.

   • If you don’t strive to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead

   • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.

   • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.

   • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.

   It’s a great reference for any marketer charged with elevating their team’s level of creative output. And, in the end, aren’t we all?

One of the mantras written in 12-inch tall letters on the walls of the Magnani office reads, “A great idea can come from anywhere.” And as these books prove, that applies even more so to ideas about improving the connections we make with customers.

5 ways smart marketing can go too far.

Too much of a good thing?

There is a phrase in medicine: “the poison is in the dose,” meaning, that no substance is inherently beneficial or dangerous, you just need watch the amount. Humans need vitamin A and water, but ingest too much and they can make you ill or worse yet, dead. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the same can be said of today’s technology-driven marketing practices. Here are five things really smart marketers do to remain successful, that if overdone, can actually impede the success of your plans.

1. Increasing the level of detail in your analytics.

As marketers, we have an unprecedented level of analytics available to us. So, when given the option, why not increase your effectiveness by enhancing the level of analytical detail you collect, right? Before you answer, “yes,” first ask yourself the following questions:Are you really only substituting increased volume for insight?

Most marketers are not taking full advantage of the data they already have.

Have you fully detailed and examined the story your current data and analytics are telling you? Collecting data is one thing; but the actual implications of the data are where many marketers fall short. What insights does your current metrics provide?

What will you do with additional measurement and how will it impact or change your current marketing strategies and behaviors? Is the cost of the additional analytics offset by the potential gains it will provide in sales or other KPIs?So, what should you do? The truth, for most resource-constrained marketers, is that it’s better to narrow the data points you review to only those that are most important to driving business KPIs. Then prioritize your time and resources optimizing your user experience around those conversion behaviors that drive KPIs.

2. Focusing on your best customers

There has never been a marketer with unlimited time and unlimited money. Resources are always constrained (Geico’s seemingly unlimited television commercial budget notwithstanding). That’s why, as preached in every marketing or business school, the sound strategy is to focus your efforts on maintaining and maximizing relationships with your best customers. It’s the lowest risk way to see a positive return on your investment. That is still true. But often focus turns into exclusivity. What many marketers forget is that when they manage risk down to zero, they will also be managing potential opportunities to zero.What should you do? The best way to catalyze new opportunities may be allocating a percentage of your marketing budget for experimentation. Test your hunches. Take creative risks. Look for untapped new audiences. But only if you’re committed to systematically measuring and analyzing the results!

3. Going all-in on a mobile first strategy.

While more than 50% of B2B and B2C transactions begin or involve mobile experiences, despite what most marketing publications may be preaching, for most B2B (and some B2C) marketers, it is too soon to abandon or give short shrift to the desktop.What should you do? Well, the simple answer is support both platforms. Ensure your web experience is fully responsive and offers equal ability to facilitate any and all conversions. The more complex approach is to scour your analytics to fully understand the differences in user behavior across and between platforms.

Break down your user flows on each device type into micro-transactions (making sure you implement corresponding hooks in your analytics) to better understand what UX/UI features/moments in the mobile or desktop experiences are enhancing or depressing your overall conversion rates.

Then continue to optimize those micro-transactions by platform against your conversion goals. And, of course, continue to monitor ongoing changes in share of user sessions by platform and allocate future development budgets and resources based on your users’ rate of mobile adoption.

4. Maximizing engagement with customers on social media

Where once most marketers used the number of followers as the preeminent measure of a successful social strategy, lately there has been more emphasis on engagement numbers. While both are decent enough measures of activity, they are not proven, in and of themselves, to be drivers of ROI. Further, raw engagement numbers don’t necessarily convey sentiment. And finally, focusing on quantity of engagements versus quality can impart noise into your channels as well as muddy the intended message within each channel.

What should you do? Like most points made here, we suggest thinking first about optimizing or maximizing conversions or behaviors that drive business KPIs. Spend most of your time engaging in conversations that support those goals and metrics. Make all posts and conversations actionable—always try to provide links to conversion points, etc. Perhaps base success not on how many people saw or “liked” your posts, but rather on how many became actively engaged in a behavior you want to drive.

5. Expanding your content library

It seems the majority of B2B marketers have all jumped onto the content train. The idea was that white papers, blog posts and articles are more trusted mediums (versus banner ads or direct marketing) so they would more easily capture attention and pull in more interested customers while they are at their most engaged—researching a given topic. While there is certainly an SEO benefit to adding a greater volume of relevant content to your site, most B2B content is never experienced by the intended audience. Creating good, useful content is time and resource intensive to create. And unless that content is actively engaged with by users, it will not provide the desired lift in online engagement or conversions. In other words, generating content for content’s sake is time and resources wasted.

What should you do? First, understand that more is not better. Better is better. What does that mean? Well, when creating your next piece of content, evaluate if what you are saying is uniquely valuable to your audience. Ask yourself:

• Are you providing insights, ideas or factual information that aren’t available already in multiple places?

• Is there an audience waiting for content on the topic? Is it really thought leadership, or simply “me too” SEO fodder?

• Does the new content present a previously unknown opportunity for action?

• Will the content you are creating actively support your strategic business goals?

• And, most importantly, what target segments, specifically, will benefit from engaging with the content?

If you can answer all of those questions and still think that producing the content is worth your limited time and resources (as well as the time and resources your customers will expend consuming it), then create it, push it out and promote it like mad.

The short version: do everything, in the right amount, for the right reason!