My co author on Understanding Digital Marketing, Damian Ryan, kicked off proceedings at the recent Simply Zesty Winter Camp in Dublin. In his presentation he discussed the current state of the digital market, trends, and where he sees things heading in the future.

Check out this video of Damian in action, and be sure to roll by the Simply Zesty blog for lots of social media insight from Ireland’s leading social media agency.

Interaction and engagement with online communities is fast becoming a fundamental element of online strategy for successful organisations today. Blogs, social networks, review sites and other web2.0 tools and services are changing the way businesses interact with communities around the globe.

But as Chris Pirillo points out at LeWeb 2009, the tools are NOT the community – the community is the people using the tools, the connections between them.

My favourite quote from Chris’s presentation:

If you believe a community is a tool, then you yourself are a tool.

Communities aren’t about tools and they’re not about technology – communities are about people, and understanding people is far more valuable than understanding the underlying platforms and technology when it comes to being a part of and harnessing the potential of online communities.

I’m working on a new book (a follow-up to Understanding Digital Marketing) that will be published by Kogan Page next year showcasing forty of the best digital marketing campaigns in the world.

We’re sourcing case studies from various places, and will feature a mixture of different online campaigns in the book, from award-winners to more obscure but successful campaigns from all sorts of businesses spanning a variety of industries.

We’re a bit short of time to truly crowdsource all the case studies for this edition – but we are looking for your nominations to help us identify truly exceptional examples of online marketing that we may miss through other channels.

You can use this form to submit your favourite campaign for consideration. We’ll let you know if it goes on to be featured in the book.

Thanks a million for your input.

Join me and Damian Ryan in Dublin on Thursday 05 November along with  a panel of award winning online marketing creatives to learn how creativity and innovation in your digital marketing campaigns can give your business a boost.

Understanding Digital: CREATIVE will take place at the National College of Ireland in the city centre from 4-7 pm, followed by a drinks reception and  an opportunity for informal networking.  We’re hosting the event in conjunction with the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD) as part of Design Week 2009.

For just €50 (€10 for current ICAD members) you get to share the expertise and insight of four leading digital creative minds.

Places are limited, and at that price they’re going fast so register now to secure yours.

Image by HubSpot via Flickr

Social media is the buzzword in online marketing today.

It’s still in its embryonic stages, and not nearly as critical to online success, or indeed as measurable, as some more established online marketing channels (search springs to mind as the online marketing granddaddy that dwarfs all others in terms of potential ROI and measurability), but it is gaining momentum fast.

People are flocking to social media sites around the globe, using them to connect more effectively with more of their peers, to share, entertain and communicate. And of course where the masses lead, the marketers are never far behind.

While Social Media may not be as fundamental as an effective search marketing strategy to your company’s online success (yet), there’s are some crucial differences. You can’t really compare the two directly, because they’re trying to achieve two very different objectives.

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

Time to breathe a bit of life back into this blog.

Between writing and promoting Understanding Digital Marketing, work with SOHO Solo, Career Moves and other editorial commitments things have been pretty hectic. Damian and I have also just signed publishing contracts with Kogan Page to do a follow up book. So, interesting times ahead.

Distilling the very best in online marketing for you

The new book, which is set for delivery to the publishers by 31 January 2010, and should hit the shelves the middle of next year, will focus on how organisations around the world are harnessing integrated online marketing to drive their business forward, improve their ROI and enrich their relationship with their customers.

We’re in the process of putting together an international panel of online marketing experts – acknowledged leaders in their respective fields – to help us select the very best examples of online marketing in the world today. Together we’ll deconstruct them and analyse the lessons that others can learn from these innovative campaigns.

Stay tuned for more updates, and regular online marketing content here and on the soon to be re-vamped “Understanding Digital” website.

Is Social Media killing E-Mail Marketing?

No, is the short answer!

I was reading the post I’ve linked to above over on Denise Cox’s e-mail marketing blog, and found myself nodding in agreement. Rumours of e-mail marketing’s imminent demise at the hands of social media are grossly exaggerated. There are problems, certainly, but E-Mail is still a crucial part of a constantly evolving marketing mix for large and small businesses.
In the first chapter of “Understanding Digital marketing” we point out that throughout history the emergence of new marketing channels never really supersedes the established ones. Rather they augment them, offering marketers and business owners more scope to connect with their customers… and those same customers more choice in how they engage with brands and businesses.

Here’s a short extract from the book:

Technological advances have punctuated the evolution of advertising throughout history, each fundamentally altering the way businesses could communicate with their customers. Interestingly, however, none of these ground-breaking developments superseded those that came before. Rather they served to augment them, offering marketers more diversity, allowing them to connect with a broader cross section of consumers. In today’s sophisticated age of paid search placement, keyword-targeted pay-per-click advertising and social networking, you’ll still find the earliest forms of advertising alive and well.

Stroll through any market, practically anywhere in the world – from the food markets of central London to the bazaars of North Africa, to the street markets of India – and you’ll be greeted by a cacophony of noise as vendors use their voices to vie for the attention of passing customers. The human voice, the first marketing medium in history, still going strong in the digital age.

From “Understanding Digital Marketing”, Chapter 1, Going digital — the evolution of marketing, p. 4

It’s getting more complicated out there, for sure, but with that complexity comes remarkable opportunity to develop enduring, mutually beneficial relationships that can deliver long-lasting results.

For the vast majority of businesses maintaining those relationships depends on the most established online communications medium of them all: e-mail. While it’s dominance might wane gradually as relience on e-mail is diluted by the steady adoption of other communications technologies, it’s stell set to play a pivotal role in the marketing mix for many years to come.

E-mail marketing delivery tips for successful e-mail marketing campaigns from the CEO of AWeber Email Marketing Tom Kulzer. Make sure your customers get the message by following Tom’s advice:

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com
• http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Image by hongxing128 via Flickr

I’ve just been reading a post over on Damien Mulley’s blog on some of the things that make him trust an online business more, and others that make him trust them less.

I’m going to commit a cardinal sin here and block-quote Damien’s lists (one of the “Trust Less” items) in the interest of clarity. Hopefully I’ll get away with it by adding more than one line of commentary .

First Damien’s “Trust More” list:

• Companies that have personalities and a team that adds humanity to their business both online and offline.
• Companies who care enough to monitor what blogs are saying and react, even when people have negative issues.
• Companies who contribute to online discussions and mailing lists without pimping their solutions and help even when the topic matter isn’t in-synch with their business area.
• Companies that ask for help, contributions, feedback

I wholeheartedly agree with all of the above… it’s about adding real value and contributing to the discussion. As with all human connections (and that’s what online marketing is all about today) the more you give, the more you get back in return. It’s just unfortunate that so few businesses actually “get” this… it’s a dialogue, a conversation, and if you want to engage with your audience you have to do at least as much “listening” as you do “talking”. Stop preaching… start connecting!

Now for Damien’s “Trust Less” list:

• Businesses that use domain names to describe what they do instead of using a company name.
• Business people that leave comments on blog posts with their keywordladen website name and not their name and surname.
• Businesses that write blog posts and internally link to their services in every blog post, again laden with keywords.
• Businesses that write blog posts that are neither interesting nor useful but instead are dressed up brochures.
• Businesses that write blog posts that do nothing more than block quote someone else’s blog post and then add one line of commentary.
• Businesses that use Adwords on their business blogs.
• Businesses that don’t name who they are on their About page.

I agree with most of these, but can also see the motivation behind them… however misconceived. Businesses simply don’t understand, and are often acting on poor advice.

First, I actually don’t have a problem with businesses using keyword-related domain names that describe what their sites do rather than their company name — as long as it makes it clear to users what to expect. For example, as a web-surfer I’d probably find something like www.officeapps.com a lot more useful than, say, www.ZOHO.com in terms of knowing what a site is about before visiting. But then of course you lose some of the branding potential. It all depends what you want to achieve – but it should be driven by usability rather than search-engine rankings.

And there’s the rub. Most of the items in the “Trust Less” list are motivated purely by SEO. They’re strategies aimed at one thing, and one thing only: getting higher Search Engine Rankings for particular keyword phrases. Often these decisions stem from poor SEO advice (and God knows there’s plenty of that around), and a lack of appreciation that traffic, without effective content/conversion, does nothing but consume valuable bandwidth.

Neglecting users in an attempt to impress/fool the search engines is always a bad idea. But most businesses are sold on the concept that driving traffic is the primary objective, over and above the quality of the user experience. Which is of course complete tosh!

Effective SEO is about looking after your users first, and then aligning that with what the search engines are looking for. Search engines want to deliver the very best, most relevant results to their users. It’s what their reputation, their audience, and ultimately their revenue model, is built on. The way they analyse that relevance and quality at the moment means that they sometimes get it wrong… but they’re getting better at it all the time.

So you need to make sure your site delivers for users first, but that it’s also structured /optimised to make it easy for search engines to understand what your content is all about. Aligning those two things can be tricky… and the real problem is that many businesses are persuaded, erroneously, to skew the balance in favour of search engines for short term traffic results.

For businesses looking to build a solid online reputation, sustainable search engine rankings and long-term online relationships that’s a huge mistake.

Kogan Page couldn’t squeeze our full author biographies onto the cover of “Understanding Digital Marketing”. Since we spent so long pondering what to put into them I thought I’d post the full, uncut versions here for everyone to read ….

DAMIAN RYAN is regional partner for Results International Group, the world’s leading specialist M&A firm for the marketing, communications and digital media sectors. Here he helps business leaders grow and realise the value of their organisations.

He was previously chief executive officer and founder of ICAN, Ireland’s most successful online advertising agency and the creator of several other media businesses. His achievements include:

• The launch of over 50 magazine titles in a publishing career spanning 21 years
• The development of several award programmes for the emerging digital media sector
• Learning to play guitar to a “reasonably annoying” standard!

CALVIN JONES is a freelance writer, journalist, blogger, online marketer and author who helps organisations of all sizes to communicate more effectively both on- and off-line. With a broad foundation of experience with large public utilities, SMEs and technology start-ups, over the years Calvin has refined his talent for taking complex ideas and making them accessible to a mainstream audience.

Some of the highlights of Calvin’s chequered career include:

* Working as a marine biologist on Sherkin Island, West Cork, Ireland.

* Running a taco-vending business on the streets of San Luis Potosi, Mexico with Irish and Californian partners.

* Walking away from a promising corporate management career to travel the world.

* Listening to the morning traffic report while contemplating his 20 second commute (10 seconds flat-out) to the office.

* Giving his children the gift of time, while they still want it.

You can contact Calvin through his blog.