Looking at web stats all day long can get old real fast, so there are a few things I do around here to keep myself on my toes. 

One of them is watching the top exit points for our sites.  Yeah I know, total geek move.  But it is interesting.  Basically it shows you, in a wide fasion, where your uber cool visitors are headed now that they have had their daily fill for your content.

So what can you, as the advertiser, learn about the people that make up say Rockclimbing.com?  Accroding to comScore, here is where they went after they visited the site:



2,912 907 BACKCOUNTRY.COM

2,673 846 DISPATCH.COM

2,516 1,068 REVOLUTIONHEALTH.COM

2,467 1,401 SHOPSTYLE.COM

2,409 1,208 JCREW.COM

2,333 1,111 TECHNORATI.COM

2,326 1,101 HOWTODOTHINGS.COM

2,226 1,000 SIERRATRADINGPOST.COM

1,967 843 MSU.EDU

1,757 1,295 BUZZFEED.COM


This kind of information changes each month, so staying in tune with the type of people who you plan on advertising with is a good plan of action for 2010.  I'm actually amazed that JCREW made the list ( and not prAna or Kuhl ), but you get the point.

Outdoor enthusiasts are a picky bunch.  Over the last year, with countless campaigns under our belt, the one common thread has been the notion that simpler is better.  This goes against the grain of technology and its use in online media, as most would think you need to run multiple rich media specs with slick flash integrations in order to meet your target audience.

In fact, the opposite is true.  While you still need a strong call to action in the ad, its the ones that paint this message in a simple format that get the results.  Serving up rich media against a standard .gif logo, we've found that engagement with the logo wins hands down....by a factor of 5:1.

Which is why I think for 2010, outdoor brands should take a hard look at how they are approaching the design of their ads.  All of the major research panels point to video being the best thing since sliced bread, and one company is leading the charge.

Enter the mind boggling intelligence of Innovid.  Based out of Tel Aviv, these genious programmers have figured out a way to insert your product inside streaming ads, and allow users to engage at will.  This is huge, because here at the Outdoor channel we already know that outdoor folks hate it when a brand inserts what is called a "pre-roll" before their favorite climbing or sufing video.  Heck, even I hate them and I sell them.

Pre-rolls aren't all that bad, but the signal you are sending to the outdoor consumer is that your message is more important than their time.  With Innovid, the opposite is true:

"Go beyond conventional advertising limits using existing videos as your canvas. Integrate images into movies or use existing objects in the video, hotspot them, or tie them in with any rich media solution you want."

In the case of our outdoor network, take climbing for example.  On a monthly basis, we serve over 18 hrs per day of video content to our 1.7 million outdoor enthusiasts.  The solution from Innovid would be to insert your backpack into all the episodes where a backpack is visible and then the user could choose to click on it to learn more about your company.

Very powerful and amazing stuff.  And like I said in the beginning.  Outdoor folks are picky, so if you let them choose when they want to engage you as opposed to forcing the engagement, I think you'll find quite a few more fans in 2010.

It is not too common where an outdoor client calls over and says they want to get a campaign running with us.....just because.  Like why climb mountains right?  Because they are there.

Maybe the marketing director read something showing the massive migration of print ad spend over to online, or maybe someone built some banners for them and they feel the need to move forward?

I've turned down more of these campaigns than accepted them. It is a simple fact that if a company has a budget, has the creative completed but doesn't know more than that, what will end up happening is the money vanishes and top brass is asking, "...well that was fun, why again did we do this?"

So here are some questions I would like everyone to consider when it comes to designing their online campaign.  Know some of these ahead of time and you are more than set to have a recurring and growing ROI with your campaign:

1. Who comes to your site?
2. Why are they there?
3. What are they doing on your site?
4. What do they find most valuable?
5. What do they want from your site that they don't currently have?
6. What programs are you offering to address this?
7. What creative resources can you offer your customers to engage them on your site?
8. How will you gauge user satisfaction with your engagement programs?
9. How will you show top brass that your efforts to reach outdoor consumers addresses your sales funnel goals ( awareness, engagement, sales impact, ROI)?
10. What can you learn to develop even more effective engagement programs?

Food for thought for 2010!

Sometimes I forget just how new online media is.  I guess if you live and breath it, day in and day out you assume that most are on the same page....or at least headed in the same direction.

I want to spell out a trend that has been taking shape in the industry for quite some time.  I think the fact that comScore has even now started to tackle this issue means we all may be ready to turn a corner.

The issue is this:  More and more ad spend is coming across our desks looking for the wrong thing.  CTR.  People call me and say, "...I want to place my branding in an area of your outdoor network that has strong engagement....something with a high CTR."  Most recently, it has gone one further where people are calling and saying, "...put me anywhere you want, as the long as the CTR is higher than X%."

Listen, if you want to pay someone to pump your ads and game the system, we're not it.  And here is why:

"...because a click is such a hard, tangible metric -- despite the fact that 8% of Internet users account for 85% of the clicks (and chances are, that other 92% is buying most of your products.)"

And not only this, but more data is coming out that says clicks skew towards the lower HHI.  So by optimizing the click, what you are forcing your publisher to do is focus your branding in areas of their sites that attract candidates who are not above average when it comes to income levels.

I am hoping that 2010 will be the year that both direct clients and agencies can get beyond the CTR and begin to recognize online media for what it is.  90% of your purchases are coming from people who saw your ad, remembered it and went to a store or purchased it online.  Kind of reminds you of print doesn't it?

I spend a lot of time during the day explaining the concept of social media ROI to both direct clients and traditional print agencies.  Socialnomics nailed it on the head with this video.  Enjoy and learn!

I'm not sure if anyone is tracking this, but I swear there is a new "micro-site" launched  in the outdoor space at least once per week.  Here is the most recent new from Brooks who recently went the Facebook route to help foster that "emotional connection" so many outdoor brands seek:

Brooks Launches Facebook Application for Runners

From the article, here is what Brooks is attempting to do:

As members of the Brooks Running Club, users can:

    * Share Running Progress: Post running goals, daily mileage, PRs, race results, and upcoming events to your Facebook profile page
    * Connect with Other Runners: Find running buddies in your local area, form running teams, host running-themed events
    * Inspire Others: Throw a water bottle, share a gel, present a trophy, and send fun Superpokes to help spread Brooks’ ‘Run Happy’ vibe!
    * Win Prizes: Members have access to periodic free drawings for Brooks shoes and running gear

And Meredith Han (Director of Online Marketing) notes:

"In creating the Brooks Running Club application, we wanted to give runners a way to come together, encourage each other and share their passion for the sport. What better platform to achieve that through than Facebook?”

So here is my take.  In my next post, I'm going to write down a list of all the outdoor brands who are attempting to do this.  Nike+ was there first, has seen a great amount of traction and now nearly every outdoor brand under the sun thinks that in order to foster sales growth, they need a place where their consumers can "hang out" and connect with the brand.

But is that really what they are doing?  Aren't they hanging out with fellow runners (as in this case?)  But what if your favorite runner buddy happens to wear Nike?  What if you are a hard core climber who loves Petzl, contributes photos to the Petzl site, but all of your buddies hang out say on Rockclimbing.com?

Although the outdoor industry is trying to grow its base where they can, in the long term I think the idea of having smaller and smaller communities of enthusiasts aligned with a single brand will do more harm than good.

And if in the case of Brooks what they are trying to do is just be cool and connect with consumers that is fine.  As long as they know upfront what the value of each new FaceBook  member is worth, and in total that the worth to the community is greater than the worth to the brand.  Because if it isn't, then it will not grow.

At this point, I can assure you there are more "stalled" outdoor communities than there are ones who are growing.  Brands need to pay much closer attention to this fact.

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.

Not sure how many of you out there are in the NYC area, but this is one worth checking out.  Outdoor brands need to start thinking about the relationship between sustainability and sales:


Article LINK>>Click Here

How Sustainability Can Help Your Brand Google Offices

November 10, 2009

Register Now


HOW SUSTAINABILITY CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS

Many advertisers are making sustainability work with clear, comprehensive strategies that focus on the triple bottom line—planet, people, and profits. Smart corporate leaders are leveraging it as a source of innovation to create better products and higher profits. To do it right, companies need a robust sustainability strategy and implementation plan.

This session focuses on the economic, environmental and social context in which brands will be launched and built in the coming years and the opportunity to address world problems through effective brand/consumer partnerships. Our panel of top executives will share their insights about balancing green messaging in relationship to traditional business decisions—what works, what doesn’t and what you should be thinking about.

Panelists:
Claudia Malley, Vice President Global Media/U.S. Publisher, National Geographic Magazine

Laura Gimpel, Facility Manager, Google

Michael McHale. Director of Corporate Communications, Subaru of America 

Michael Sadowski, Director of Client Services, SustainAbility  Moderator:
Jacquelyn Ottman, President, J. Ottman Consulting
Event Chair: Stephen Murray, Playboy

I'm trying to think back in my marketing days when the whole idea behind capturing consumer emails and then creating an uber cool template to mail them out was all the rage.  It still is, but the consumer has kept pace and it now takes a lot more effort to keep those open rates where they need to be.

Interesting read from MediaPost on the trend of email open rates notes that for the last quarter it was 5.9% on average. 

One of our clients in the outdoor space has done an amazing amount of business with us this year.  And a by-product of their ad spend has been 1,000's of emails  captured from our user base via an opt-in trigger.  We capture the emails and then at the end of the month we email the file to the client.

Just this week I asked how things were going, and they were clear in that they really had little frame of reference for what a "good" open rate would be.  I told them anywhere north of 8% was outstanding.  Their reply? 

.8% opt outs
27.2% opens
33.2% clicks

Almost 4x the average open rate.  Amazing as well to me since they manage this program in house and do not use an agency.  So what is the deal?

While I would like to take credit for all of this I'll only take half.....I must say that the marketing team with this outdoor brand is one of the most passionate I have come across.  They have a clear idea of who their customer is, what message is appropriate and most importantly, they do not put any "fluff" in their marketing communications.

The key part of their email list is that it was generated from our outdoor network.  Passionate consumers, in this case from climbers, who knew the brand and had good experiences with it.  I would say "trust" would be a good word to describe the relationship. 

Our members spend on average 2x more on outdoor gear than any Joe Public you can buy from a list broker off the street.  And they probably cost less as well.

By targeting the email communications with enthusiasts in the climbing space, this company is just killing it when it comes to stealing market share from the big players.  It amazes me that up and coming brands can still do this in such a saturated market.

I'll try to dig up some more stats on what this open rate is doing for their paid search and brand awareness as well.  It doesn't end with the email open rate.  The company will now start to rank higher on Google as more consumers try to engage the brand, search for the brand products and also search for the items in their brand category. 

I have to admit on this one, its actually a little bit scary how much a web publisher knows about its audience.  When I came on board a year ago, I thought a lot of the "science" behind finding the right advertiser with the right message for our members would be in my control.

It is...but not to the large extent I thought it was.  This all stems from the tiny little fact that hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on advertising and the companies behind these campaigns can get pretty detailed on exactly "who" they want to target.

So just like the old wizard behind the velvet curtain in Wizard of Oz, enter Comscore.  This is the team with the method with the money with the mojo hitting the streets and finding out who it is that visits web sites and what makes them tick.

The main blogger over there, Andrew Lipsman (great first name on this chap),  has this to say about the process:

"Media Metrix 360 brings together the two primary datasets in online metrics - panel measurement, which provides a 360 degree view of the behavior of a sample of persons; and, site-centric server data, which provides a “census” view of activity for a given web entity. The panel data provides person-level insights like demographics, time spent, engagement, and cross-site duplication (which are necessary for buyers and sellers of advertising to disentangle total ad impressions into reach versus frequency.) The server data provides a census of all activity occurring at the website’s servers - every server call"

Given the tremendous amount of effort Comscore put into building this data, I thought it would be fun to run a complete demo profile through their service on the "Outdoor Enthusiast"   Some of this is common sense....some is pretty cool....some is just down right odd and scary:

 

• While we reach a worldwide audience, there is an insane amount of outdoor enthusiasts trapped in Chicago, Ashville SC, Seattle and the East South central.
  
• Outdoor types are 1.4x more likely than not to have children, most having less than 3.
  
• When they do have kids, for some reason having baby girls over baby boys is 5x more likely.  Go figure since our audience is 80% male.  Payback time guys!
  
• Lots of our members chose to take Spanish in school as opposed to French.  I think there is better hiking in France myself. 
  
• According to our users, trade school is awesome...with a 5-1 lead in our audience.  A close second is college, but the trades win.  Smart.
  
• Most outdoor enthusiasts are not self employed, and work for someone else in a company that is usually less than 500 employees
   
• Favorite careers ?  Advertising, repairs, IT, writing computer code, Forestry (an astronomical amount) and Firemen.
  
• For those outdoor members out there who call the shots and get to control company budgets, they are often buying mainframes, wood, insurance, hosting accounts or auto parts.
   
• Google is cool, but for some reason Bellsouth.net is a favorite with our group for conducting search.  Crazy.
  
• Our members spend A LOT of time searching the internet for stuff.  Top things?  Try: podcasts, fantasy sports, outdoor gear, local news and streaming video.
  
• How many cars are in thier households ?  Usually 3, close second is four.  What kind?  Suzuki tops the list with Acura as a close second.  Insane.  Last place goes to GMC.
  
• Type of car they drive?  Staion wagon or luxury sports utility.
  
• When did they get their cars?  A: either in 2008, 2005 or 1997.
   
• A lot of these cars were in fact leased for the outdoor enthusiast by their company.  A good 12x more likely to see this.  Cool for ya'll out there living off the man.
  
• Type of  TV in house?  Argh.  Rear projection!  The overwhelming winner 12-1.  Come on folks, Best Buy is just down the street.
  
• Hikers and campers  may be stuck in the stone ages for tv, but the outdoor enthusiast is 12x more likely to have satellite radio.  This is a good point.  You can bring your radio camping, but the TV is simply to akward to carry.
  
• Too funny.  I'm going through this list on another screen as I type.  Turns out our same members are searching like manics, online, for the best deal they can get on an HD flat screen LCD tv.  Now that's what I'm talking about!
  
• When looking at the budget, for extra cash laying around the house most of it goes to music and electronics.
  
• What's in their wallet?  Try American Express Blue and Master Card gold.
  
• Lots of members are moving around the country, leading the way with on average a 10o mile move from their last location in last six months.
  
• How about investing?  Outdoor types  buy zero coupon bonds, educational loans, trade at Schwab and go 50/50 with owning a 401(k).
   
• Food budget looks like baby food, organic ( of course ), smokes, bake mixes, cat litter ( 15-1...huge), cheese, crackers, slim-fast, dog food ( another biggie), frozen pizza, frozen meats, lots and lots of gum and a good sampling of soup.

Ok...you get the point. I think I got carried away there.  But I'm only 1/4 of the way through the list, so there are tons and tons of other bits of info in there.

So this is what the world thinks about the outdoor enthusiast.  What would be cool would be to take this info over to Leisure Trends and see how it compares with their data.

With all the environmental spin going on these days in the outdoor market, I'm still amazed at how much print marketing I get in the mail from major outdoor retailers.

Maybe it's just a matter of repeating the past and sticking to what has traditionally worked ?  Or maybe these marketers are targeting an older demographic that is not online?

Case in point was a well done postcard sent to me from EMS.  Co-Op ad deal with Smartwool as well.  But here is the intereting thing : EMS is sending me, an outdoor enthusiast, a print offline postcard in the mail and then asking me to go online to get a "buy thee get one free" deal.  What?

As any good marketing manager should know, outdoor enthusiasts are moving....in droves....to online mediums and spending upwards of 12 - 15 minutes a day researching outdoor events, products and news.  Postcards in the mail?  Maybe 10 seconds tops before it goes into the recycling bin.  

So where is the buying behavior best targeted? Here are some interesting things to note on the Outdoor Audience from NameMedia.  Data provided by Comscore Plan Metrix:

Sports equipment (searched for info/online/last 6 mo)
Composition Index : 146
Target Lift : 660

Sports equipment (bought/offline/last 6 mo)
Composition Index : 152
Target Lift : 831

Sports equipment (bought/online/last 6 mo)
Composition Index : 304
Target Lift : 1605

Getting past the quant speak here, what the above is saying is quite clear.  Outdoor consumers are 1.5x more likely to search for sports equipment online and 1.5x more likely to then purchase that equipment offline ( at the local retail store).  But the major thing to note here is that these same folks are 3x more likely to purchase online in the first place. 

So why would you target them at home when you have double the chance of making that sale online?

Another number up there is the "Target Lift"  What this unit measures is the engagement factor with that medium.  A low number means the person is where you need them, but but not very engaged as to where they are.  A high number ( like 1,605) means they are engaged and ready to act.

Lesson from all of this is that you can reach your consumer with more efficiency and less cost by simply pitching them online and then bringing them somewhere nice and pretty to purchase online.  When you mix the message ( a post card with an online coupon code) you are spending more than you need on print to only achieve half the results.