As we round the corner into the home stretch of this year, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at which vaunted predictions of internet marketing’s up and coming trends came true in 2009, and which failed to materialize. Kudos to those who called it, and to those who didn’t, well, there’s always next year!

1.    “Social Media Advertising Will Come of Age” – eMarketer

A spot-on prediction, eMarketer! With the explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook, etc. making major headlines, advertisers were bound to take notice. Example: Facebook is on track to surpass a 70% increase in ad revenue over 2008. Anecdotally, I’ve never sat in so many meetings with so many different clients, where people are openly discussing advertising opportunities in social media – it makes my heart sing with joy!

2.    “Microsoft will change MSN/Live/or whatever it’s called to something else that nobody can remember” – Mediapost

Half-congrats to MediaPost on this 2009 prediction. While they nailed it on the name change, who could forget Bing’s first take on its launch campaign? Or Microsoft’s latest effort, “Bing: Vampire Decision Engine”?

3.    “Exclusivity trumps accessibility. Having thousands of friends becomes ’so 2008′ and defriending becomes the hot new trend, driven by overwhelming rivers of newsfeeds.” – Charlene Li, of Altimeter group

Nice one, Charlene! Some of you may ask how this predicted trend relates to internet marketing? Well, it seems Burger King was listening when Charlene dropped this gem, and responded with their infamous “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign. Facebook is unamused.

4.    “Mobile search will increase massively.” – Mark Johnson, Latitude

A tip of the hat to Mark Johnson at Latitude. While mobile search may not be on the tips of tongues right now, consider the reflex action that occurs whenever you ask an iPhone owner a question they can’t answer – “One sec, let me check Wikipedia”. With smartphones becoming increasingly common, can mobile search’s time in the spotlight be too far behind?

5.    “The Internet Assistant will be born. Think of this as your own personal technological concierge that can integrate all your disparate data and put it to work, probably via your phone.” – Mark Anderson, Strategic News Service

Last year, Mark scored a whopping 96% hit rate on his predictions, so we can probably give him a pass for this one. He might not be too far off, though, and as far as excitement factor, for me personally, this one’s off the charts.

What do you think? Did you make any marketing predictions that either came true or failed to materialize in 2009 (c’mon, be honest)? Let us know in the comments!

As winter approaches, people are starting to think about the upcoming holidays.  Here at Bailey Gardiner, though, our creative public relations team has had the holidays on our mind since May, when we first started strategizing our holiday gift guide pitching efforts for our client, Electra Bicycles.  For most consumer products, one of the holy grails of media coverage is the holiday gift guide. It is important that companies be top-of-mind when consumers stampede the malls and begin the holiday shopping frenzy. Because the holiday gift guide placements are so coveted, they are also very competitive.  Here are a few simple tips for pitching gift guides:

Start pitching gift guides earlier than you think.

Long-lead publications often start planning their gift guides as early as June.  Even dailies will often start planning in August. Think ahead and start your pitching early. Like I mentioned, we started pitching for Electra in May.

Offer editors something new.

Most editors are looking for new items for the gift guide.  Whether it’s a new product entirely, a new model, or a new color, your best bet to scoring gift guide ink is by offering something they have not seen before.

Find out how the gift guide will be divided and structured.

Often times the gift guide is divided into different sections, whether they are by recipient, trend, price or category.  Ask the editor what types of products they are looking for and see where your client fits.  For Electra, we pitched the bicycles for a wide range of gift guide categories like men’s, women’s, luxury, children’s, eco-friendly, celebrity favorites and more.

Be prepared to send samples and images.

Editors will often need samples and images months in advance. Make sure you are prepared and, more importantly, make sure your client is aware of the gift-guide pitching schedule so they have ample time to provide you with whatever you need.

Do you have any other tips to score holiday gift guide coverage?

The other day, I was having lunch with internet marketing consultant Jason Baer and as we were talking about possible banner advertising solutions for different clients, he sketched the following diagram on a napkin:

Well, we’ve re-created it in pretty colors, but this is essentially what he sketched for us. Over the last several weeks, I have referred to it again and again. It has become a handy tool for me to simply remember the banner advertising options and how each has a role in any brand’s overall strategy.

First of all, it’s shaped this way to represent 2 things: the size of the potential audience associated with each and how far along that audience lies in the sales process.

1.  First, let’s talk about categories. Placing banner ads in a category, or ‘vertical,’ is serving your banners to a predetermined package of particular types of websites. For example, you’re selling perfume so you serve ads on major women’s websites that have a focus on beauty and shopping, such as a group including Elle.com, Vogue.com, makeupalley.com and Amazon.com. In this case you have a LOT of websites that fit into your category and the universe of possible impressions is huge. You pay less for these impressions because there are a lot of them and the people you reach may or may not have heard of your brand. However, you can be assured they are topically interested in what you have to offer. I recommend this type of banner advertising for brand awareness and for casting a really wide net to attract new audiences.
2. Contextual banner ads are served on pages where the context or the page matches the product you are selling. For example, an article on your local news site talks about about the growing mountain biking community and displays a banner ad for protective gear for bikers. I recommend this type of advertising as a complement to category advertising since the audiences are equally relevant and you’re still speaking to a broad audience.
3. Imagine you’re in the market for a new car, so you visit autotrader.com to compare pricing, you post your old hunk of junk on craigslist and then visit your car insurance website to see if you need to upgrade your coverage. Then, when you’re reading your yahoo email, you’re served an ad that reads ‘10% off a new car at Car Depot.’ This is behavioral targeting. Your web history shows that you’re in the market for a new car and you’re served a relevant ad. In this case, there are fewer people to target, but they are worth paying more for because they are further along in the sales process and more likely to buy your product. I recommend using behavioral advertising to remain in front of a highly targeted audience throughout their decision making process.
4. Retargeting banner ads are served to people who have already visited your website as they are going about their business somewhere else on the web. Below is a retargeting example from one of Brookfield Homes’ banner campaigns. This is the most important banner advertising to take advantage of because the audience is the most relevant. They are familiar with you and have already expressed interest by spending time on your website. This audience is the smallest and most expensive to reach. But completely worth it. I recommend retargeting for everyone who has something to sell.

All of these options are viable ways of reaching your audience, so be sure to consider each when trying to achieve the optimal program for your brand.

It is safe to say that when we saw the Google Wave Developer Preview last June, our jaws were on the floor. So when I received my invite on October 5th, there is no doubt that I was biting at the bit to start Waving with my internet marketing buddies. I do not have to tell you that Google Wave is in its most infantile of stages, but here is my first review, as it will be nice to look back with our grandkids and say, “Ahh young lad, I remember when Wave didn’t even have email federation!”

As an introduction, it might be beneficial to know what Google Wave actually is, if that is possible. If we look into the echo chamber blogosphere, we could gather that ‘Google Wave is the future of communication’ and that ‘It is real-time web fully realized.’ However, I think it would be best to point you to a definitive source, Google’s What is Wave page for the answers.

With that said, here’s my impressions on Google Wave and its effect on the future of internet marketing.

There is definitely a learning curve. It is not by chance that my first Wave was titled “Okay, how do we do this?”  It doesn’t seem to be a particularly intuitive program, especially in regards to search functionality. Users must type in cryptic notations to search through waves, such as “onlywith:name” or “is:unfiled.” Luckily, they have provided us with this cheat sheet of all the possible search terms.

Secondly, dependability seems to be a large issue. In the age of Twitter and MySpace, it is expected that our favorite web-apps will have peaks and valleys in terms of reliability. Google Wave is no exception. There were a number of times in which Wave seemed to fall off of a cliff with no warning or error message. I cannot imagine the load that real time chat puts on a server but if anyone can handle it, it has to be Google.

Despite it’s bugs, Google Wave is clearly a step towards the future in  real-time technology. This leads to the burning question on everyone’s mind, ‘How will this advance internet marketing?’ It may be too early to tell the full ramifications of Google Wave on social media, but at this point, I would say that it isn’t a game changer. Google Wave is advanced email and collaboration, not advanced social networking. It will make communicating with clients and co-workers easier but can still exist in parallel with Facebook and Twitter as they are all separate services with separate uses. In fact, I strongly believe that Wave is the biggest threat to the software collaboration company, 37signals. Google also seems to be in competition with themself, as Wave takes a direct aim at Gmail, Gchat and Gdocs all at once.

Whatever the future of Google Wave may be, it has to first grow (and scale, for that matter).  Key features that I hold out hope for are email integration, product integration, revision control and a more stable experience all around.  I also believe that we will see the same trend we saw with Twitter, in that many uses will come from third-party application developers, via the Google Wave Federation Protocol and the easily embeddable Google Wave plugins.

To judge Google Wave in it’s current state would be like judging a new Radiohead CD by it’s live recordings; it is just too young to be so critical.
What do you think of the future of Wave holds? How will it effect internet marketing? and more importantly, what would you like to see the future of Wave hold?

Oh and real time chat really is as cool as it sounds.

Everyone reading this marketing blog most likely agrees that Social Media is changing the way we all create and manage marketing programs.  When more than 80% of people are engaging in some form of social media (see my recent blog post on social media statistics for more info) and virtually every company is participating or planning to participate in some way, we know this is no longer the Next Big Thing.  It is simply The Thing.

Now, a growing conversation is taking place across a number of marketing blogs and discussion forums about who should be in charge of this effort, the broad spectrum of marketing tools and strategies which has come to be known as social media. This is not an easy question to answer.

Up until recently, our team at Bailey Gardiner would have stated unequivocably that the public relations department should be in charge of social media.  After all, the public relations experts are the communicators, the wordsmiths, the strategists for how information should be shared with various audiences (both online and off). They’ve spent their careers honing skills that are perfectly suited for the distribution of info through online social networks. Yet in the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of online marketing, social media marketing is now part of something bigger — something even more impactful — as online marketing platforms converge and begin overlapping and intertwining.

As always, the strategy for digital marketing is paramount.  And at interactive agencies like ours that offer services in social media, digital marketing, public relations, advertising, design and more, we’re experiencing far greater success when all these disciplines are involved in the process from the beginning.  We have found that the creative department has fantastic ideas about cool, strategic online programs that, when coupled with public relations’ talents for understanding audience engagement, can help provide the buzz any campaign needs.  And we need the digital team to tell us if it can be done (of course they tell us ANYTHING can be done, it’s just a matter of time and budget).

Here’s how it plays out during a typical planning meeting for Client X:

• Client X agrees to hear our ideas for a new digital program
• Our staff researches what is being done already by Client X, the competition set’s successes and failures, the category’s opportunities in the online space, etc.
• We listen to what is being said about Client X online – lovers and haters both
• Public Relations, Creative, Digital and Advertising experts all meet internally to brainstorm strategic ideas and possibilities
• Public Relations team outlines how Social Media will engage with target audiences and what tools will make sense for Client X
• Advertising team strategizes about how online ads, rich media, email marketing and other mechanisms will integrate into the program to ensure consistency and congruency across platforms and touchpoints
• Creatives illustrate how ideas might look and feel on and off line
• Digital leaders talk about cool widgets and programming highlights that will bring the ideas to life online
• Entire team compares ideas and talks about how all the pieces will fit together – strategically as well as creatively – as the cross-promote and cross-pollinate each other over various networks and platforms
• A strategic plan is formed for presentation to Client X

In this collaborative effort, who is in charge is less important that making sure the strategy is shared across all participants.  Perhaps at agencies that do not have all these capabilities in-house, there is more fighting for control with other agencies that have to share the turf.  Or even without corporate entities, departmental factions may need to scramble for budget dominance and relevance with the C-level executives.

Luckily we can sidestep this power struggle, and define each program strategy within a client’s own needs and specifications.  And isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

Today is a bittersweet day for BG. Today Jamie Ortiz, our PR Account Supervisor, leaves us to take on the position of Director of Marketing and Communications at San Diego Coastkeeper. I like to think BG was Jamie’s dream job for the past five years and SD Coast Keepers is her current and future dream job. She is following her passion and they are lucky to have her.

Jamie has been a tremendous asset to the company, our clients and our employees. Her presence and wit will be missed at BG, but we aren’t saying good-bye to her. Between Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, email, text and good ol fashion in-person communication, we’re sure to stay in constant contact with her.

So to toast Jamie, I thought I’d share some pictures through the years. And what better place than the BG blog she helped build.

Our long-term advertising client, Brookfield Homes, came to Bailey Gardiner with an advertising problem. Their high end community, Calabria, was close to being sold-out—but traffic to the sales office had slowed down.

They needed to attract fresh blood to boost sales, and they needed to do it fast. We came back with three creative advertising campaigns that capitalized on the unique attributes of the property:

1. Calabria is one of the last, new home communities left in San Diego that’s just a short drive from beaches, downtown, wineries, the airport, fine dining, golf courses and great parks—to name a few.
2. Although it’s location is central, Calabria is entirely surrounded by canyons which makes it feel secluded. Here, there is more wildlife, less noise and even the stars are brighter due to the light pollution.
3. These homes are top of the line. From quieter sinks, stairs and cabinets to floor plans that take advantage of every square inch, these houses are the creme-de-la-creme.
4. At the start of the campaign there were only 9 homes left. Urgency was a key component to our message.

This campaign had to be up and running fast. We presented three concepts that included ideas for behaviorally targeted web banners, eblasts, radio and print ads for publications catering to niche markets (business newsletters, relocators, etc.). Samples of the print for each campaign are below:

Campaign 1: The right combination

Campaign 2: Live far away from it all.. but still close

Campaign 3: Last chance

Brookfield radio spot
And the winner is… campaign #3! And we are proud to announce that since the start of the campaign, Brookfield has sold $5 million worth of homes at Calabria… and counting.

Some of my co-workers were not even born when I first picked up an exacto knife and started doing pasteup on my Junior High year book in 8th grade. I have a boat load of traditional, old school, graphic design experience which comes in handy, even in this era of computer/internet everything.

Here, at Bailey Gardiner, a San Diego advertising agency, it seems we are focused primarily on everything internet, however, not all of the work we do is about cutting edge social media and advertising on the web. There are creative projects we produce for clients that are more traditional in nature. The technology to produce them has changed, but it still takes time and experience. One of these projects is the Membership Magazine for The San Diego Museum of Art. Here’s the process I used for designing the magazine:

The magazine is 22 pages plus a 4 to 8 page Program Guide insert. The content is written, edited and provided by the Museum. I take the copy and images and design each page. I have a certain amount of graphic content and room to arrange it on each page. This part of the process is like working on a very large jigsaw puzzle and takes about 30 hours to complete. I also make design suggestions for the background colors of each issue. As I am creating the design, I set up the magazine mechanicals to be printer ready. This includes:

• Working within short- and long-term deadlines
• Building mechanicals in InDesign to correct size with bleeds
• Formatting the type to follow the design format
• Eliminating True Type fonts
• Sizing, cropping, color correcting and retouching photographs
• Formatting all content from RGB to CMYK
• Deleting all extraneous colors
• Proofreading. (The magazine mechanicals go back to the Museum for at least 4 rounds of proofreading by over 20 people)
• Making revisions which sometimes includes redesigning pages
• Making print outs and actual dummies of the magazine to check design consistency
• And, finally, after a sign-off from the client, I output the job by doing final proofreading checks, pre-flight checks, gathering files and delivering to the printer

The entire production process takes about 10 weeks from start of writing to the mail house delivering the final pieces to the 12,000 members of The San Diego Museum of Art.

I use a computer instead of an exacto knife these days and it still takes skill and dedication to produce a traditional graphic design print project.

Many of you may have read the post I did on Friday about the #Beatcancer social media experiment that was aiming to set the world record for most widespread social network message. For all of you who read, and then tweeted, updated your facebook status, or sent information to friends – thank you. You were part of the 209,771 mentions of #beatcancer in a 24 hour period – setting a new world record.

The over 200,000 mentions originated from just a small number of blog world attendees who then shared with their networks and watched as the message spread. In the end, it is estimated that the phrase #beatcancer had over 100 million impressions, especially after being tweeted by celebrities including:  P. Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, MC Hammer, Kim Kardashian, Alyssa Milano, and Alicia Keyes.

The best part is that the social experiment raised more than $70,000 for cancer charities. On behalf of Bailey Gardiner, I’d like to thank all our readers for getting involved and being a part of proving, once and for all, the power of social media for social good.

Last week I had the good fortune to attend Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, where many of the top blog/social media/digital experts met to share best practices and introduce new tools. I sat in dozens of discussions about social media, blogging, video sharing and monetization and throughout the conference there was a reoccurring theme: managing the balance between personal, professional and private through your social media profiles.

Many people in social media struggle with this concept. On one hand, you’ll often hear the buzzwords “authentic” and “transparent” and you’ll hear experts constantly tell you to just be yourself. On the other hand, every tweet, status update or blog post you do, will live on the internet forever and has the potential of tarnishing your personal brand, or even worse, your company.

Mari Smith – a social media expert with her 50,000 + followers on Twitter and her 6,000 Facebook fans – spoke on this topic during a Facebook and Twitter session. She spoke about the importance of being professional across these mediums in order to position yourself as a leader. But she also pointed that professionalism needs to be balanced with personality. A large part of Twitter and Facebook are about connecting with people, something that is challenging to do if all you are doing is sharing links and talking about work. It’s important to infuse a little of yourself in there so people get to know you, like you and trust the links you are sharing.

Additionally, Mari stressed the importance of distinguishing personal from private. It helps to draw a line somewhere with what you feel comfortable sharing. For some, they draw the line at their children, for others, it is their relationships. Wherever your line may be, establish those parameters to what you will be keeping private, prior to jumping into the social media world.

Some companies, attempt to avoid “over-share” problems by creating a persona to manage across all social media profiles. Many of you have probably seen the commercials for TGIF, featuring Woody. The Woody persona was created to drive people to be fans of TGIF on Facebook by making the campaign seem personal, and yet allowing the company to carefully manage the personality.

So what’s your philosophy for managing your social media personality? Are you all business in order to ensure nothing inappropriate slips in? Do you think anything is fair game to share because that’s true transparency? Do you believe in privacy in social media? Have you created a persona for yourself or your company? Are you trying to balance personal/professional and if so, have you made rules for yourself as to what is private? I’d love to hear what you are doing and what you think works best.