Every database marketing program begins with a rhetorical question that the marketer already knows the answer to: How good is the data?

The answer is usually, “Not good,” because many companies overlook the essential first step of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD):

Step 1 Data Cleansing  

Also known as data hygiene—this process perpetually cleans and updates the data as part of the sales and billing process. Companies that overlook data cleansing, give it a low priority or sweep it under the rug soon find themselves with dirty data on their hands. But organizations that keep their data squeaky clean have the best chance of mining their data successfully because they can check off Step 1, and head right to:

Step 2 Data Integration

Sometimes, it’s desirable to combine more than one set of data—such as customers and prospects or leads that are in various stages of the demand waterfall. You may also want to aggregate prospects from more than one source, including both purchased and rented lists. Although there are several steps involved in data integration, the most important is de-duplicating the records. This can eliminate a tremendous amount of waste. But you must establish rules that define which source is preferred when duplicates are found.

Step 3—Data Selection

The data selection team needs to determine thresholds, limitations and other selection criteria. For example, if firmographic attributes are the most important criteria, then only the data models that meet the minimum threshold for annual income or revenue would be selected. If psychographic data matter more, then records might be selected for specific interests such as camping, concerts or social causes.

Step 4 Data Transformation

Once the best data has been selected, it must be transformed into a uniform set and optimized for use in a marketing program or campaign. All the fields must be consolidated, merged and purged so that they will be easy to index and use for data mining. If you’re using personalization in your campaign—and you should—this step is essential to ensure accuracy.

Step 5 Data Mining

This process is exacting, but in a nutshell, it involves searching the various fields of the database for specific attributes. These are then used to identify trends that can be matched against the predictive models that represent the marketer’s ideal prospects. The process is complete when the mined data resembles the data models. The Predictive Model Mark-up Language (PMML) developed by the Data Mining Group enables uniform data mining processes and techniques across vendors.

Step 6 Pattern Evaluation

The patterns that emerge during the data mining process must be evaluated to determine which are relevant to the model and which aren’t. If one of the new patterns contradicts the original persona, revisiting the model is a good idea. If the two are consistent, the model is validated.  Pattern evaluation can lead to the discovery of trends that might not have been apparent to the team that created the original model. And using the knowledge that is revealed can have a very positive effect on the entire program.

Step 7 Knowledge Presentation

The proof is in the pudding. Once the final data are selected, a report that explains why the chosen data are the best for the program is delivered. Everything that was learned during the data mining process—including trends, patterns, and anomalies—is included in the knowledge presentation to the user. The key is to present the findings in a clear, easy-to-digest format.

While this has been a brief and simplified description of data mining, the entire process—which involves a number of different algorithms—is actually quite complex. Classification algorithms that predict one or more discrete variables, regression algorithms that predict one or more continuous variables, segmentation, association, and sequence algorithms are all used. When practiced correctly, database marketing, data mining, and predictive modeling can all yield maximum ROI.

via Part II: Data Mining For Hidden Treasures—7 Steps of Knowledge Discovery in Databases | The Kern Organization.

Marguerite Gardiner, the Countess of Blessington, wrote Conversations with Lord Byron in 1834.” In describing the poet, she said “Genius is the gold in the mine; talent is the miner who works and brings it out.” Today, if we substitute the word “data” for the word “gold,” the statement still rings true.Like a gold mine, a data mine contains valuable nuggets that need to be extracted from the dross that surrounds it. And techniques for excavating these treasures are  constantly evolving. What we now call data collection and database creation was made possible in the 1960s by computers the size of small buildings. During the 1970s and 1980s, database management systems led to hierarchical database systems, and later, to relational database systems.  With the ability to index databases, database technology increased geometrically, and new theories and practices quickly spread around the world. Query languages, user interfaces, pre-fabricated forms and reports, transaction management, data recovery, and online transactional processing (OLTP) all came into play.  And by the time the Internet emerged in the early 1990s, database technology was a booming industry. Web-based systems thrived, and data and web mining became sophisticated disciplines. Relational technology made efficient storage, retrieval and management of large amounts of data possible. And advanced data models—including  extended-relational, object-oriented, object-relational, and deductive—enabled spatial, temporal, multi-media, active, scientific, knowledge, and office information databases to flourish. In some ways, technology outpaced practical application, and in many cases “data rich, information poor” companies had no idea what to do with the reams of data they had collected. These massive repositories of dormant data became known as “data tombs.” Data mining—also known as Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) —is how smart marketers extract meaningful data from these tombs. In order to convert facts into knowledge, analysts look for patterns within the data, then identify and categorize them. Using this information, they create a predictive model that flags people who resemble current customers  in key ways.  This is a simplified explanation of what is actually a very complex process, but you get the gist. Several scientific organizations, most notably the Data Mining Group (DMG), have pooled resources in an effort to create a uniform method for data mining using the Predictive Model Markup Language, PMML.  IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, NCR, and most major computer and software companies are members of this group. Advanced data mining can reveal insights about customers, former customers, prospects, and leads.  When combined with purchasing patterns and behavior, the data can be used to drive sales, reduce churn, and support cross-sell and up-sell initiatives. There truly is gold in them there hills, if you know where and how to look.  In part two of this article, we’ll explore the seven steps in KDD:

1) Data Cleaning 2) Data Integration 3) Data Selection 4) Data Transformation 5) Data Mining 6) Pattern Evaluation 7) Knowledge Presentation

via Data Mining for Hidden Treasures | The Kern Organization.

If Reaching Digital Gen-Xers and Millennials Has Been a Struggle, Imagine Planning for the iGen

We’ve come to accept that millennials adopt technology at a faster rate than other generations. And we’ve come to accept that millennial moms are uber-digital — not only the mommy-bloggers gathering in San Diego this week for the annual BlogHer conference. What we don’t often talk about is how that’s going to shape the generation coming up after the millennials — the iGen. Technology isn’t going to skip this generation, it’s being handed down right from mother to child.

The chart above is data provided exclusively to AdAgeStat from an annual survey from Parenting Group, the publisher of Parenting, Babytalk and Parenting.com, and the BlogHer network. The generational breakdown is striking. Across the board, younger moms are passing technology along to their kids at an early age. This might not seem too surprising, given the Gen-Y embrace of technology. But when you consider that many of the youngest Gen-X moms are still having their first kids, whereas many millennials are putting off having kids, the adoption rates of technology start to blur.

Digging deeper into the data we see that the percent of moms who haven’t let their children use a smartphone corresponds roughly to the percent of moms who don’t have a smartphone themselves. We suspect that moms who haven’t let their 2-year-olds use a smartphone likely got a smartphone when their kids were already older than that. Crazy, eh? Looking at stats for more-established technologies would seem to confirm that. The Gen-Xers and Boomer moms — who are more likely to have older kids — do show a higher overall rate of having passed the laptop or non-smartphone to their children of all ages.

The sweet spots for majority-usage looks like this: Mobile phone, age 11; smartphones, age 16; laptop/PC, age 4; digital camera, age 5.

Overall, the study found that nearly three-quarters of moms with internet access can’t go a day without it. One in four report letting their kids use a mobile phone by age 2. We wonder when the ability to hit the home button, swipe to unlock and find an app will become a recognized developmental milestone — maybe somewhere between walking and multi-word sentences.

Marketers have struggled with reaching the digital millennials and Gen-Xers since the dawning of the internet. The impact of the millennials — who have grown up in a digital world rather than graduating into it as Gen-Xers generally did — has perplexed planners. Imagine now the iGen, who have had an iPhone in hand and computer on their laps since they were old enough to sit up — and have never had to wait for a picture to develop.

The target just keeps shifting.

via Print – Stat of the Day: 25% of Toddlers Have Used a Smartphone – Advertising Age.

The following is an excerpt from DirectMarketingIQ’s new report “Cracking the QR Code: The ultimate guide for using QR Codes, including current trends, Best Practices for implementation, marketing strategy, creative and measurement, and QR Code campaign samples.”)

“While some people see QR codes as a gimmick, we’ve seen it become a lasting technology in Asia over the last fifteen years,” says Keegan St. Onge-May, marketing manager for Indros Group and Easypurl.com. In the past six months alone, he’s seen marketers embracing the versatility of QR Codes, whether the codes are used to view personalized mobile landing pages, watch videos, view social media profiles or download coupons.

“A year ago, most people were just trying to figure out how to scan QR Codes, let alone implement them in marketing campaigns. And until every single person in the U.S. owns a smartphone, QR Codes still have a lot of room for growth,” asserts Onge-May.

Some marketers see the fact that smartphones have migrated from the business to the home as the key reason for more QR Code usage and success. “Although smartphones first became popular among business people, today many new buyers select them for personal use. Many people don’t leave home without them and view their smartphones as very personal devices,” says David Henkel , president of Johnson and Quin, a leader in targeted full-service direct mail printing. “Additionally, faster mobile web connectivity is growing, and mobile web search is becoming one of the most common uses for these devices.”

Indeed, perhaps QR Codes are that new bridge for consumers for offers, as they can be more personalized and relevant through mobile devices. “Right now, these devices are smarter than we are,” says Susan Kelly , vice president of communciation management services for Xerox. “How do I use a QR Code to really connect [for prospects] when they really want to know something? How can I connect it with my product, my service, and be able to leverage that? It’s very compelling.”

She says that QR Codes offer the opportunity to engage and connect with the brand-aware consumer. And by providing additional content in a new way, the marketer is making progress toward their principal goals: providing awareness and driving a specific conversion or call to action.

Kelly refers to the “digital media invasion” that completely altered the marketing landscape. The first sector includes certain media channels (direct mail, radio, newspaper, magazines) that had used analog technology but now have gone interactive. She says you can see that many of these are natural channels for QR code, as they can transform a one-dimensional direct mail piece into multimedia, online content with only the scan of a barcode.

“The second sector was born interactive, including mobile services, online media, online games, social media, new sectors and distribution channels,” she continues. “But you talk to customers and they don’t want just one or the other. They want both!”

Therefore, you must have strategies in place to make them more interactive, and QR Codes can play a vital role in this evolving integration.

Speaking of that evolution, the tablet is likely to only further QR Code usage for marketers. The front-facing cameras in the second generation of tablets such as iPad 2, Xoom and Tab allow some users, who may be reluctant to browse with the smartphone, to interact with mobile barcodes for the first time. Like the smartphone, tablets, will be able to interact with printed campaigns via QR Codes but with a much larger screen.

In other words, for web-enabled tablets, this represents a huge opportunity for the integration of print and web. Some marketers believe that the larger screen in essence allows QR Codes to reach their full potential by connecting people to products and brands through an improved user experience.

Ethan Boldt  is the Chief Content Officer of DirectMarketingIQ, research division of Target Marketing Group, and co-authored the new special report, “Cracking the QR Code.”

via QR code best practices for direct mailers, plus smartphone trends : DirectMarketingIQ.

In this article, you’ll learn…

• Seven timeless direct marketing principles to use
• How classic direct marketing can boost sales today

The following article is based on an excerpt from the e-book titled “Getting Response in a Down Economy: 4 Key Principles to Boost Your Direct Mail Profits in Today’s Difficult Market.”

If you create or manage direct mail programs, the current economy probably has you pulling your hair out. Over the last couple of years, it’s been crazy out there.

Budgets have shrunk. Response has been unpredictable. Costs have risen. And yet you need to make sales. What can you do?

First, take a deep breath, because the economy is beginning to improve. Second, don’t do anything rash. Though closing down your direct mail programs would be an overreaction, taking huge risks wouldn’t be the answer either.

Now is the perfect time to get back to basics and remind yourself of the following seven core principles of direct marketing.

1. Sell things people want

In general, direct marketing is not about creating markets, but about locating existing markets. It is a business-to-buyer avenue of selling that is streamlined, efficient, and profitable—but only when a market wants what you are offering.

For example, a few decades ago, only hardcore geeks would buy a computer via mail. Computers were neither understood nor wanted by the general public, but such purchases are now common because a wide market exists.

2. Don’t sell mere products, sell solutions to problems

No one cares about your widgets. What people care about are their own needs and wants.

Bob doesn’t want a drill; he wants a hole. Mary doesn’t want a dress; she wants to look thin at Friday’s party. Alice doesn’t want an investment newsletter; she wants to find a great investment that will let her retire at 45. Ted doesn’t want a recipe book; he wants new ways to impress friends at dinner parties and generate the compliments he thrives on.

3. Appeal to emotion first, reason second

Most direct marketers are number-crunching, logical people. It’s easy for us to fall into a cold, left-brain, bullet-pointed, 714-reasons-why type of sales pitch. However, people make decisions using right-brain thinking, based on emotion. Then they justify that decision with logic (i.e., rationalization).

To set up a sale, appeal to emotion first. To close and confirm a sale, use logic.

4. Use proven techniques

Although there is no set of universal techniques that applies to all circumstances, a few are nearly universal. According to Bob Stone, the guru of gurus in direct marketing…

A “yes/no” offer usually outpulls offers without a “no” option

A negative-option offer usually outpulls a positive-option offer

An offer with a time limit usually outpulls an offer with no time limit

An offer with a free gift usually outpulls discount offers (especially when the gift closely matches your prospect’s self-interest)

Sweepstakes usually increase order volume, especially for impulse items (though sweepstakes customers will not be loyal)

Benefits outpull features

The more involved you can get people, and the more they read, the greater your chance for success

Envelope packages usually outpull self-mailers

5. Value content over form

One of the primary reasons advertising fails is that ad creators too often get caught up in a creative vision but have nothing to say.

One agency has repeatedly sent me mockups of mailers and brochures with tiny blank spaces they want me to fill in with copy. When I ask about the purpose of the piece or point out that the design should be based on what needs to be communicated, I am gently told to just write something of the right length and everything will work out fine.

That is nonsense. Don’t start with a “look.” Start with content. Allow your design to develop naturally from your copy.

6. Make sure you’re doing direct marketing

Every direct marketing message includes three basic elements: an offer, enough information for immediate acceptance of the offer, and a mechanism for responding to the offer.

Without each of those elements, you are not doing direct marketing. You are merely using media associated with direct marketing.

7. Consider two-step sales

You have two basic ways to make a sale in direct marketing:

The single shot: You get an immediate order.

The two-step: You generate an inquiry, then attempt to convert that inquiry into sales.

If your product is expensive, complex, new, or hard to understand, or if it requires a major commitment of some kind, two-step sales may net you more profit in the long run.

* * *

I don’t know whether we’ll ever again see the glory of direct mail days gone by. But maybe that’s a good thing.

Maybe the market forces at work right now will encourage all of us to get back to direct mail basics, reminding us about how to be more effective and efficient.

Dean Rieck is a direct-mail copywriter and consultant, and publishes the popular Direct Creative Blog and ProCopyTips blog.

via Strategy – Seven Tips for More-Profitable Direct Mail in Today’s Economy : MarketingProfs Article.

A new report by Blackbaud’s Target Analytics, a global provider of software and services for nonprofit organizations, shows that direct mail remains the source of most charitable donations.

The 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report features research on nonprofit online giving in the context of an integrated direct marketing program.  This year’s analysis covers 15.6 million donors and more than $1.16 billion dollars in revenue. Select findings:

Although multichannel giving has become a popular objective of not-for-profits as a way to build constituent support, it is not widely practiced, the study finds. The majority of gifts are received through direct mail.

The typical organization receives more than three-quarters of its total gifts through direct mail and only 10% of its gifts online.

Direct mail acquisition is also responsible for three-quarters of all new donors. Over the past several years, the number of donors acquired online has increased though, the study notes.  In 2010, 16% of new donors in the benchmark groups studied donated online. The authors note that the non-profits in this study have larger online programs than similar nonprofits. Percentages of gifts and donors coming in online are smaller for the industry as a whole.

The report found that large numbers of new donors acquired online switch to direct mail giving in subsequent years (eventually, just under half of all online-acquired donors convert entirely to offline, primarily direct mail giving).  The reverse is not true, however; only a tiny percentage of mail-acquired donors give online in later years.

In aggregate, online-acquired donors have much higher cumulative value over the long term than traditional mail-acquired donors. However, long-term value varies depending on the donor’s origin gift level, and the substantially higher gift amounts given by online-acquired donors can mask issues with retention.

“The Internet is becoming an increasingly important acquisition channel but has not proven to be as effective for retention,” said Rob Harris, Target Analytics’ director of analytic products and a co-author of the study. “It is the ability of online-acquired donors to use another channel – that is, to start giving through direct mail – that significantly boosts the long-term value of this group of donors.”

About:  The report data comes from the most recent transactional data available for the 28 organizations includes transactions for over 15 million donors and more than $1 billion in revenue.   The organizations participating are prominent national nonprofits covering a range of sectors, including animal welfare, the environment, health, human services, international relief, and societal benefit.

Source:  Blackbaud, 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report, accessed June 2, 2011 and AdvisorOne, Web Is Good at Acquiring Donors, Not Retaining Them, June 1, 2011.

via Print in the Mix: Fast Fact – Direct Mail Drives Charitable Donations and Retention.

As found on:  Ad Age.

1. “Social media accounts for one out of every six minutes spent online in US.” (Journalism.co.uk)

2. “Seventy-seven percent report that they use social media to share their love of a show; 65% use it as a platform to help save their favorite shows; and 35% use it to try to introduce new shows to their friends.” (TVGuide.com study via TVNewsCheck.com)

3. “Facebook users are overall more trusting than non-internet others. Pew reported, 43% of survey participants were more likely than other internet users to feel that most people can be trusted.” (Pew Internetvia Social Media Club)

4. “22% of all grandparents in the UK are using social networks, according to Mashable. The study, which collected results from 1,341 grandparents from the UK, showed that 71% of grandparents who use a social network use Facebook, 34% are on Twitter and 9% use the business social network LinkedIn.” (Mashable viaSocial Media Today)

5. “In the first four months after its January 2010 launch in Russia, Facebook use grew by 376%, and today more than 4.5 million people use the site regularly.” (comscore.com via Mashable)

6. “The ‘Weinergate’ scandal caused a significant drop in tweeting politicians. According to VentureBeat, after the scandal ‘the number of tweets by Republican members of Congress dropped by 27 percent, while those of Democrats dropped by 29 percent.’” (VentureBeat via Marketing Pilgrim)

7. Instagram “currently has a user base of 4.25 million in only seven months, with ten photos being posted a second.” (prsarahevans.com via TechCrunch)

8. “It only takes 20 people to bring an online community to a significant level of activity and connectivity.” (Ning via TheNextWeb)

9. “Nearly twice as many men (63%) as women (37%) use LinkedIn.” (Pew Internet via prsarahevans.com)

10. “In the last election Google was the largest player — the Obama campaign directed 45% of its online campaign dollars to the search site.” (Advertising Age)

11. “59% of adult Facebook users had “liked” a brand as of April, up from 47% the previous September. Uptake among the oldest users appears to have been a major factor in this rise.” (eMarketer)

12. “In 2010, 29.3 million readers read some 270 million pages of Post journalism each month, a record forThe Washington Post. Of that, 28.1 million did so online and, while [Washington Post] brought in 4.2 million new readers on average each month compared to the previous year, [they] also lost some 35,000 print subscribers in 2010 alone.” (Forbes)

13. “25% of hotels [are] still ignoring social media.” (TravelClick via Econsultancy)

14. “Businesses are paying Twitter $120,000 to sponsor a promoted trending topic for a day. [...] That’s up from $25,000 to $30,000 when the feature was launched in April 2010.” (via Poynter)

15. “AOL’s newsroom is now bigger than The New York Times’.” (Business Insider)

16. “Mobile is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the world. With 40% of U.S. mobile subscribers regularly browsing the internet on their phone and a projected 12.5% of all e-commerce transactions going mobile by the end of the year, it’s a channel that you need to be aware of. According to Google, mobile web traffic will surpass PC traffic by 2013.” (60 Second Marketer)

17. “Twitter is 6-7 times smaller than Facebook.” (via Social Media Today)

18. “There are now 54 million active Mac users around the world.” (AllThingsD)

19. “130 million books have been downloaded from iBooks.” (AllThingsD)

20. “Users say they’re more likely to buy if a business answers their questions on Twitter.” (NYTimes.com)

21. “Nearly half (42%) indicated that if they’ve already allocated a portion of their marketing spend to social media, they would increase this spend over the course of the year. Only 8% of those surveyed indicated that they would decrease social media spend.” (The Next Web)

22. “13% of online adults use the status update service Twitter, which represents a significant increase from the 8% of online adults who identified themselves as Twitter users in November 2010. 95% of Twitter users own a mobile phone, and half of these users access the service on their handheld device.” (Pew Internet)

23. “According to HubSpot, small businesses plan to spend 19 percent of budgets on social media vs. only 6 percent in larger businesses. A similar gap is shown for blogging with 10 percent of budgets for small business vs. just 3 percent for large.” (Hubspot via ClickZ)

24. “33 percent of its worldwide traffic is inside the United States.” (Problogger)

25. “Facebook has three times as many accounts as Twitter, and 20 percent of Twitter’s users produce at least 80 percent of the site’s content.” (Problogger)

26. “In early March, Google removed from its Android Market more than 60 applications carrying malicious software. Some of the malware was designed to reveal the user’s private information to a third party, replicate itself on other devices, destroy user data or even impersonate the device owner.” (Network World)

27. “Groupon is on track to bring in between $3 billion and $4 billion in revenue this year alone. Facebook’s 2010 sales were reported to be only around $2 billion in its sixth year of existence.” (Knowledge@Wharton viaMSNBC)

28. “A study of 24,000 consumers across the 16 largest countries found that those who are most connected, living on the cutting edge of social media tend to be more ‘prosocial’ than average, being more likely to do volunteer work, offer their seats in crowded places, lend possessions to others and give directions.” (TheNextWeb)

29. “99 percent of Android devices are vulnerable to password theft.” (MobileCrunch)

30. “Recent estimates put less than 10% of the population using Twitter, far less than other social sites.” (Advertising Age)

31. “More than 3.34 million mentions were recorded over a one-month period of people making social asks.” (PRsarahevans.com)

32. “David Poltrack, CBS Corp., announced that, based on a new research study, ‘age and sex don’t matter when it comes to increasing TV ad effectiveness.’” (Forbes)

33. “An average of 40 percent of the traffic to the top 25 news sites comes from outside referrals, the study found, with Google Search and, to a lesser extent, Google News the single biggest traffic driver.” (via AFP)

34. “Almost one-in-four South Africans use social media as a tool to look for work, but are concerned about the potential career fallout from personal content on social networking sites.” (Kelly Group viaBusinessReport)

35. “The percentage of US parents who allow their children between ages 10 and 12 to use Facebook or MySpace more than doubled from 8 percent a year ago to 17 percent now.” (via NY Post)

36. “33% of Facebook posting is mobile.” (Dan Zarella)

37. “Fully 69% of visitors to news.google.com ended up 3 places: nytimes.com (14.6%), cnn.com (14.4%) and abcnews.go.com (14.0%).” (Journalism.org)

38. “85% of media websites now use online video to cover news.” (SocialTimes.com)

39. “”Social media advertising spending will increase from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion by 2015.” (BIA/Kelsey via Direct Marketing News)

40. “Facebook is approaching 700 million users and Google handles over 11 billion queries per month. World-wide there are over 5 billion mobile subscribers (9 out of 10 in the U.S.) and every two days there is more information created than between the dawn of civilization and 2003.” (via Lee Odden, TopRank)

41. “Twitter reported that the network saw more than 4,000 tweets per second (TPS) at the beginning and end of Obama’s speech [re: death of Osama Bin Laden]” (AllTwitter)

42. “65% of all social media related to the royal wedding has come from the U.S. in the past month [April]. The U.K. has been responsible for just 20%.” (USA Today)

43. Re: the Royal Wedding: “911,000 wedding-related tweets were tracked in the past 30 days. That’s about 30,000 per day and accounts for 71% of all social media.” (USA Today)

44. “According to NPR’s internal usage data covering January 1 through mid-April, users who request audio — maybe a station stream, a national newscast, or NPR Music content — view twice as many pages as those who only read the apps’ content. On average, audio streamers rack up 4.2 pageviews per visit versus 2.4 for the text-only crowd.” (Nieman Journalism Lab)

45. “Twitter penetration rates in Canada are among the highest in the world, according to new data from online tracking firm comScore Inc., which suggests that nearly one in five Canadian Internet users over the age of 15 regularly visit Twitter.” (via Financial Post)

46. “Traffic from social media has highest bounce rate. [...] If you’re looking for ‘hyper-engaged’ readers, those that click through five or more pages on your site, forget the guy who came from Twitter. A link from another content site is three times more likely to be engaged, and someone coming in from search, is also above average.” (Marketing Pilgrim)

47. “”Digital services accounted for an estimated $8.5 billion (28%) of the $30.4 billion in 2010 U.S. revenue generated by the 900-plus advertising and marketing-services agencies that Ad Age analyzed.” (Advertising Age)

48. “Total Facebook spent on lobbying, Q1 2010: $41,390. Total Facebook spent on lobbying, Q1 2011: $230,000″ (Huffington Post)

49. “Nearly seven in 10 tablet owners reported spending at least 1 hour per day using the device, including 38% who spent over 2 hours on it. And while just 28% consider it their primary computer, 77% are spending less time on desktop or laptop PCs since they got a tablet.” (eMarketer)

50. “According to a Network Solutions survey, the use of social media among SMBs has grown over the years, rising from 12 percent in 2009, to 24 percent in 2010 to 31 percent currently.” (Search Engine Watch)

———–

On her social media and PR blog, Commentz, Sarah Evans and her staff compile a lot of stats. She cherry-picked the most relevant for marketers to share with Ad Age.

Nielsen: Shoppers Prefer Paper

July 5, 2011 — New research from Nielsen examining the benefits of print and digital inserts and other forms of retail advertising were presented at the Nielsens U.S. Consumer 360 Conference.

Research findings shared:

Shoppers prefer paper. Close to 70% percent of shoppers from a recent Nielsen survey say they look at printed paper material either mailed to the home 67% or in newspapers 69% at least once per week in their quest for sales and promotions.The only digital tactic that matches printed paper’s weekly reach is email 67%. Far fewer people are looking to sales and product information from digital methods like social media sites 45% or from smart or mobile phones 39%.  Nielsen states that while consumers prefer print, the weekly usage conversion rates from digital are strong.Shoppers Want Print and Digital In the FutureNearly 90% of consumers say they want their print advertising in the future, more than 70% want email and traditional websites, and about one-third are interested in social and smartphone advertising applications.

Source:  Nielsen, Consumer 360 presentation Print and Digital Challenges Facing the RetailerNielsen goes on to say this about the challenges facing print and digital advertising, “Today, printed circular response promotion lifts are less effective than five years ago, delivering about a 20 percent return on investment in 2010, compared to a 28 percent boost in 2005,” and, “For many brick and mortar retailers, figuring out how to effectively draw people to online offerings and then determining what contribution online efforts are having to offline sales is a challenge.  In fact, few of these retailers get more than 20 percent of store shoppers to visit their site, despite the fact that the majority of shoppers spend 25+ hours per week online.”  View Nielsens recommendations for optimizing the marketing mix.Source:  NielsenWire, Browse All About It! The Evolution of the Circular, July 5, 2011.

via Print in the Mix: Fast Fact – Nielsen: Shoppers Prefer Paper.

I found this great article this morning, well worth the read:

From Mashable:

Marketers have built a temple that needs to be torn down. Demographics have defined the target consumer for more than half a century — poorly. Now, with emerging interest graphs from social networks, behavioral data from search outlets and lifecycle forecasting, we have much better ways of targeting potential customers.

The rise of mass-produced consumer goods also brought the rise of mass-market advertising. In the 1950s and 1960s, the goal of television was to aggregate the most possible eyeballs for advertisers. In order to convince consumers that an advertising message was relevant to them, consumers had to buy the idea that they were just like everyone else.

Marketers created that buy-in by bucketing people into generations. When you lump 78 million people into one group called “Baby Boomers,” it’s much easier to sell them stuff, especially when consumers accepted their generational classification.

But now, that entire system has broken down. The year that someone was born will not tell you how likely he is to buy your product.

Fragmentation is now the norm because the pace of change is accelerating. Generations have been getting smaller because there are fewer unifying characteristics of young people today than ever before:

With the recent rise of the social web, people self-select into groups so small, so fragmented, and so temporal, that no overarching top-down approach could be successful at driving marketing performance.

Marketers have responded by adding more demographic information to the mix, but even that is a losing battle. I worked with one client who was introducing a technology product, and had identified a target market of “connected consumers.” Connected consumers were 34-55, had a household income over $120k, and read technology publications regularly. This target market represented 14 million consumers.

They were targeting 14 million consumers to sell 50,000 units — that means they were hoping for 3.5 sales for every 1,000 people with whom they connected through their marketing.

What if, instead, you could get 500 sales from every 1,000 people you marketed to?

It’s possible through psychographic profiling. Psychographics look at the mental model of the consumer in the context of a customer lifecycle. Amazon.com has long been a leader in this space, through innovations like “recommended products” and “users like me also bought.” Its algorithms have learned to predict its users, and what they are interested in. And now, there are a number of tools that any business can use to leverage psychographics.

Here’s how a psychographic profile might look different from a traditional marketing profile target for a childcare provider:

Psychographics provide much more useful information about users. There are multiple data sources making this possible today. Social profile data, behavioral data and customer lifecycle data can now finally be leveraged to contact people who are ready to buy.

Social Profile Data

Profile data from social networks consist of all the fields users grant permission for brands to use on their behalf. Most things that users track on social networks can be leveraged to create a closer relationship with a customer. Fields like relationship status, alma mater, interests and occupation can all be managed through social profile data management tools.

Social profile data is the critical cornerstone of psychographic insights. The level of nuance and insight provided by social data, when compared to standard demographics, is the difference between performing surgery with a scalpel or a butter knife. Previously unimaginable questions are now routine:

• Are customers who kayak more likely to buy water shoes than those who canoe?
• Who is more likely to spend over $100 on an order: Seattle Seahawks fans or Seattle Mariners fans?
• Are your customers more likely to purchase when they move across the state or across the country?

In addition, companies such as GraphEffect are measuring purchase intent by doing semantic analysis on Facebook status updates. This type of qualitative analysis can move users into specific marketing funnels from their very first online experience with your brand.

Behavioral Data

Retargeting advertising messages is gaining popularity among marketers, but its very success has jeopardized its effectiveness. Ads that follow users around the web have been implemented — usually poorly. Every ad network quickly incorporated the ability to place cookies in users’ browsers, and display specific ads to them any time they visit a site that’s part of their networks.

The next generation of ad targeting will focus more on telling the customer a story over time, based on specific behavior triggers. That means ad networks and clickstream data aggregators will work together to trigger when a customer moves forward in a mental model toward a purchase event.

Site content and product recommendations will also be informed by clickstream analysis. Companies such asRichRelevance, Certona, Baynote and Monetate all offer the ability to personalize information to specific visitors based on their behavior. Leveraging those alongside a payload of social profile data can turbocharge those services from the first moment a new user visits a site.

Customer Lifecycle Data

Social profile data can also be used to predict customer lifecycle. Imagine knowing not only if a customer has children, but the exact ages of those children. In addition, key indicator purchases, like buying diapers for the first time, indicate a customer entering a new lifecycle. Other key indicators, like shipping address changes, first purchases of furniture, or first purchases of substantially higher-value goods can all indicate the start of a new customer mentality and behavior pattern.

These patterns are predictable, so you know the future behavior of high school seniors by looking at the current behavior of college freshmen. By using demographics alone, all high school graduates would be marketed to identically. Using psychographics, we know who is likely to be interested in specific product or content recommendations at a specific time — such as when they actually start their first day of college.

This vision is starting to gain traction among serious marketers. At the 2009 Internet Strategy Forum, Xerox’s VP of Interactive Marketing, Duane Schulz, said that a 1% clickthrough rate was a huge failure — even though it is 10 times the industry average. In his mind, a successful campaign would never waste 99% of its impressions. Using psychographic data, you don’t have to waste any impressions.

We have seen a similar upheaval in marketing before. In the 1960s, marketers who embraced the power of television, broad-based insights into psychology and demographic data created world-class brands and billions of dollars in value. At that time, if you didn’t advertise on TV, you lost. Today’s new tools offer a similar choice: Build a deep understanding of your customer, or risk irrelevance.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, porcorex

Jamie Beckland is a Digital and Social Media Strategist atJanrain where he helps Fortune 1000 companies integrate social media technologies into their websites to improve user acquisition and engagement. He has built online communities since 2004. He tweets as @Beckland.