Over the last several years, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of greater personalization through most of the media I consume. Each morning when I turn on my computer iGoogle greets me with ‘Hello Kelsey’ and it takes only minutes to comb through the headlines of my favorite news sites and hand-selected blogs, local weather and my puppy of the day- all of which I’ve chosen as my content. As I crawl about the web, I am served only ads that matter to me. Those boots I’ve been cost-comparing are now glowing in a web banner with a 20% off coupon. Sold. During a recent visit to Las Vegas, I received a text message as I entered Caesar’s Palace asking if I’d like the restaurant deals and entertainment lineup for the evening. Why yes! Thanks Caesar. You know me so well.

Through these experiences, I’ve come to expect a high level of relevance in all the media I consume. And wherever irrelevant content impedes my life, it is not welcome. Which is why I am so fond of the fast forward button on my DVR. Traditional advertising—television commercials, newspaper ads, billboards—are just not speaking to me. These forms of media continue to reach the masses in a very impersonal way.

That is the challenge for brands who dare to venture into the traditional advertising space in 2010: just how personal can you get?

In a recent AdAge article which forecasts the year’s marketing challenge, the personalization standards set by the web will be tough to achieve for brands in all categories no matter what the media. Specifically regarding TV advertising, the author of the article suggests opting out of commercials and instead opt for “…propositions designed for a specific moment or for a distinct group of viewers. Maybe there’s a contest aimed at viewers of “Gossip Girl”; perhaps there’s a weekend-weather-themed promo sponsored by Home Depot aimed at viewers who may be considering weekend plans.”

This reminds me of the Subway, Carefree and Ziploc plugs peppered throughout episodes of the Biggest Loser.

Another fair attempt of this is shown in Becca’s recent blog post about Honda tailoring their commercial messaging to be more relevant both to the time period in which it aired (the holidays), and to the audience it was reaching (Southern California).

Or the Chase billboards along freeways throughout LA which play to the type of people who live there.

What other ways can advertisers keep up with people’s expectations and get more personal with their traditional media?

This week AdAge published a story announcing that CBS interactive is dumping ad networks. In the article, AdAge recaps the longstanding debate on whether or not Advertising networks are good for publishers.

What I’ve come to understand is that it’s a fair-weather situation. When publishers have large media buyers knocking down their doors, publishers don’t need ad networks to fill the rest of the space.

A good example of this from my recent experience has been with national military sites. Because the military receives full rate card for run of site from the Government, I can’t purchase ad space in just the San Diego market. In fact, on one phone call to a military site I won’t name, I spent half an hour describing what I wanted and when the rep finally understood, I heard a chuckle on the other end.

The same thing applies for large publishers. If big advertisers are buying out their space, why deal with the headache, and paperwork of ad networks who slice up their inventory into a million different pieces, all for less money?

So, now that the economy is turning the corner, CBS and other sites with the power of over 60 million unique visitors per month can go back to their old ways when things were simple and advertisers paid big money for the space.

As a boutique agency with smaller clients, we rely on ad networks on a number of levels. Using an ad network allows us to:

• Be very targeted by using the ad network’s established filters (i.e. I want to reach females over the age of 35 with annual household income > $100,000).
• Appear on large, credible sites, which allows our brands to appear larger by association.
• Deal with one contact, one contract and deliver one suite of creative to appear on thousands of sites in front of our target market.

In short, it’s incredibly smart and efficient for us.

So, if CBS has set a tone that will carry through to other large publishers, I’m worried about my ability to get my clients optimal exposure without spending profuse amounts of time (and money) strategizing, coordinating and adapting creative.

With that said, I see one positive result of publishers taking their interactive ad programs in house. This time around, they have mined their own site(s) for information on their users to offer more sophisticated ad programs. They act as their own mini-network. So for those advertisers who have the time and money, you can look forward to a more effective spend.

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.

Or, how I ended up here:

Instead of here:

Quite simply, it was word of mouth.

After setting my list of things to do while in Seattle, I thought my vacation would include the the Experience Music Project. Instead, I ended up spending a whole day in Fremont, an artsy and inspired suburb with a troll under the bridge.

After several negative peer reviews of the EMP, I could not bring myself to spend the afternoon there. The opportunity cost was more than my PTO (precious time off) could handle.

I’m so glad I listened to what the mouths were saying.

Word on twitter is that Interbike’s attendance was up 8 percent this year. A clear triumph for an event that nearly everyone was concerned would fall flat. We attended the bicycling conference to meet with marketing directors at several different companies, all of whom seemed very optimistic for 2010. While it was clear that 2009 has been a challenging year, we were relieved to find that many bicycling businesses are examining their current programs and looking for new strategies to implement in the upcoming year.

Historically, bicycle enthusiast marketing has dominated the business. You can see this reflected in company websites that only run news releases on how their sponsored athletes are faring in competitions–cyclocross, tris, road racing, mountain bike downhill. You name it. But for consumers who think Zabriskie and Zirbel sound like sleeping aids, this specialized bicycling tech talk is scary. And that has played a part in keeping America a country full of spandex clad riders, rather than a country of two-wheeled lifestyle commuters.

But after many conversations at Interbike, we are beginning to see a desire to shift toward a more inclusive marketing program to build a relationship with the general consumer, which we believe will help many companies expand their customer base, and ultimately, boost their business.

Here are a few bicycling marketing trends that are beginning to unfold (and that we can’t wait to lead):

1) Online advertising – We couldn’t be happier to hear the bicycling industry talk about pursuing online advertising. Not only is this a cost-effective way to spend one’s marketing dollars, it’s measurable and targeted. We enjoyed watching marketing directors dream of the possibilities as we explained how far online advertising has come. We are no longer talking about pay-per-click campaigns, but rather strategic use of retargeting, behavioral and contextual advertising models that reach very defined audiences.

2) Online sales – Shopatron is the new secret weapon, that’s not-so-secret anymore. Companies are still experimenting with how to best service the customer using this online sales system, but the transition is in place. A perfect complement to an online advertising program and also a necessity in today’s world of Internet shoppers.

3) Social media marketing strategy – What a change from last year! In 2008, we sat in on a seminar about social media and watched hundreds of confused faces. This year, Twitter and Facebook swamped Interbike. And as we talked with marketing directors, the conversation is switching from “what is twitter?” to “How do I strategically implement a social media marketing campaign?” We love social media marketing, and we can’t wait to create smart campaigns for the cycling community.

4) Lifestyle products and marketing – It’s about time because I’m getting tired of wearing spandex to client meetings! Not only do these new products give a public relations firm that specializes in consumer products more to work with, but it also gives a bicycle commuter so many more options. As I convince my coworkers to take on the pedal-powered commute, I like to offer them products that make cycling, shall we say, more hip. And after Interbike, I’m full of new product recommendations to help make the bicycle commute a reality: A Dahon for those living in small beachfront condos. A Nutcase helmet for those needing a colorful brain saver. Add in Keen’s Springwater cycling shoe (and just because we love Keen, an Alameda 15 labtop messenger bag) and put on a Shebeest NY Capri. Commuter heaven!

Did you notice any other trends at Interbike?

It’s true. You should consider your pr firm a long-term partner. Public relations doesn’t happen overnight.

Sure, some exceptions do exist. You are Apple. You are the President of the U.S. You sell something related to Michael Jackson.

But think about it, even Apple and Obama have PR machines working for them on a continual basis.

For the rest of the business world, your public relations agency should lead you through monsoons (when you have something new or newsworthy of which media can’t get enough) and droughts (when it takes an extremely creative angle to make or tie into news). You need a publicity team working on your behalf to keep the coverage coming through all phases of your business.

Let me give you an example or two.

We do the public relations for the Del Mar Racetrack. One of the most popular tracks in the country, Del Mar receives massive coverage locally because it’s an institution. It’s our yearly Super Bowl party so to speak. Not every publication in San Diego–in this case, San Diego CityBeat– wants to jump on the bandwagon and cover Del Margaritas, Cougar Contests and Opening Day crowds. So what’s a PR agency to do?

• First, your team should read and understand the magazine. Do the research. In this case, our team understood that an insider’s perspective coming from a jockey’s agent just might be the hook.

• Second, your team needs to have a relationship or build a relationship with the editor to create an opening to pitch a story idea or two, get his feedback and see what really piques his interest. In this case, it required our team to host the editor to a day of racing followed by the Devo concert. Last year.

• Third, your team needs to follow up. Based on things out of our control, the story couldn’t run last year. Or even in this year’s summer beat issue. But with persistence and patience, a targeted story pitch with follow up correspondence will result in a two-page, three-photo PR placement. A year later.

We also handle the public relations for Electra Bicycles. Pretty, aren’t they? They ride even better. With product public relations, actual placement is dictated almost entirely by the magazine’s schedule. So while we are gearing up for Interbike and telling magazine editors now what’s new, we will most likely have to wait until Spring and Summer issues to see bicycle placements. Why? Because that’s when magazines cover bikes. So let’s reiterate–pitch products in September. See coverage in June.

So remember, in this time of immediate gratification, 140 character conversations, instant email letters, some art still takes time.

As the practice of public relations evolves, so does its tools.

I remember major national PR campaigns (years ago) during which I would spend an entire day posted at the fax machine to send a pitch and press release to sports desks across the nation. When I tell this story, our current junior executives and interns look at me, dazed with confusion. “A fax machine,” they say. “But why didn’t you just tweet them?”

I suppose I shared similar looks when my seniors would tell me stories about heading to the nearest university library to do that they called “reading the papers.” Imagine that, actually dedicating time each day to read a physical paper. This time before Vocus, Google  and twitter lists required a public relations practitioner to visit the largest source of printed daily and weekly regional, national and international papers. Often that was found at the university. “Ewwwww,” I would say. “Imagine how black the ink would make your hands.”

As my job continues to move online, I am curious what shape the conventional press release will take. As an agency, we push our clients towards social media press releases, yet many of our clients lack the information and resources to provide all the necessary pieces for a complete social media release. It’s an evolution of thinking and prioritization that will continue over the next months and years.

And I’m not fully convinced that it is the future of the press release.

As public relations moves further into community-based initiatives, it becomes more about interacting with information and making it as accessible as possible. It’s about sharing all the information up front and embarking on conversations about the topic. When a reporter asks me, “Can you send me more information on that?” I am not sure she is looking for a press release, but an information source.

The press release is old, like yesterday’s paper.

Here are a few of my predictions for the future of the press release:

1. Pretty quotes from the CEO will disappear. Please! While I love reading my ridiculously crafted quote for the CEO, reporters and bloggers don’t want it. It’s so fake, it’s appalling.
2. Your 15 minutes of fame will come on your blog. Or better yet vlog. If a client absolutely insists that a CEO have her name and quote in the announcement of the news, it should come in her blog. A post she writes specifically to share her insists on the matter. Even better if she gives those thoughts in a video blog post.
3. News will be announced on the company blog. When the reporter asks, “Can you email that info to me?” It will come in the form of a link–to a blog post with the news.
4. For more information, please contact Jamie at 619-295-8232 x106. Gone. Who has time for a phone call, when you can DM me at @jamieortiz, text me on my cell, comment on the news post, ichat me and more.
5. Catchy headlines don’t hook a reporter–SEO does. Reporters are inundated with pitches. Those they like get “filed away” in a folder. And when they want to recover that information they use the search function in their email. Did you write a headline that will make your information easy to find?
6. What’s a press release? If you want more information on that, why don’t you visit my the online community where you’ll find data, video, customer forums, links and blog posts. A press release won’t be needed in the onset of community news sites.

How else will the press release change?

Back in February, California passed a $10,000 new home tax credit.  This was a big deal for potential homebuyers, yet it’s rules were misunderstood. There were very few resources willing to put aside industry speak and break it down.

This lack of information in the general marketplace provided an opportunity for Brookfield to brand itself as a leader by providing the information people were seeking out.

Steve Doyle, President of Brookfield Homes San Diego, followed the news carefully and immediately upon the official word, wrote a blogpost clearly defining the details of the tax credit. Now pay attention because this is where we take full advantage of the opportunity: the same day, we purchased a set of keywords (i.e. CA new home tax credit, 10,000 tax credit) and developed relevant ad text which clicked through to his post. With the traffic from organic search and the complimentary paid search campaign, we were able to achieve outstanding results:

In a two week time span, the ad group achieved an average of a 6.2% clickthrough rate, and blog traffic increased by 250%, 80% of which were new visitors.  And our average cost per click was well under $1. These are truly outstanding results.

Here are some key takeaways:

• If you are an expert in your field, share your knowledge, especially in times of confusion.
• There is remarkable synergy in providing information (which is already good for organic search) and then paying to drive people to it through paid search.
• Don’t be afraid to spend money on a branding campaign.  You might not convert the visitor today, but you have made an invaluable impression in their minds about who you are in the marketplace.
• The more quickly you react, the less search competition you will have (both organic and paid).
• Be available to this new audience to answer questions and continue the dialogue.

Although the campaign was short-lived, we were able to successfully position Brookfield Homes as the expert and gain exposure as a leader in the industry.

Two weeks ago I attended Interactive Day San Diego put on by the San Diego Ad Club.  One presentation I found particularly useful was given by Heather Blank from Responsys about email marketing best practices.  Although I’ve been involved in several email programs and fellow digital team member Becca has written several posts about the latest and greatest, I still found myself jotting down notes as quickly as I could write.  Take a look at this list of tips- there’s something new for everyone:

1. Get in front of the customer at the right time.  This is the #1 seducable moment.  Ex: for Petco, it’s sending an email coupon to a customer on their pet’s birthday.

2. Track list growth.  One year loses 30% if you don’t replenish.  Unsubscribes cause 1-3% loss per month, complaint rates cause 1% loss per month.

3. Your email list growth goal should be ~14% annually.  About 3.5% of your unique monthly site visitors should be signing up.  A few ways to help achieve this:

• Place a ‘Quick Sign Up’ button on EVERY page of your website.  It should only require the customer to click once.  And, tell them why to sign up.  What’s the benefit?
• Be sure to have a link to the Privacy Policy.  Studies show that people don’t read it, but are more apt to sign up if one exists.
• Deploy a qualified sweepstakes.  Run a sweepstakes that awards a prize that is in line with your brand.  Ex: for Jer’s Chocolates, sign up to win a free box of chocolate every month for a year.  This is cheap to fulfill and drives sign-ups!
• View social media as an acquisition resource.  Customers are already expressing interest by interacting with your brand, so make it easy for them to sign up for correspondence.  It’s as simple as placing a newsletter sign-up link on your facebook fan page.

4. When working on your creative, design for grandma.  Simple.  Text.  In this order, your priorities are for them to: read it, open it, click on it. Then, put the creative stuff on your website.

5. You have 5-8 seconds to get someone to act.  They need to know: who’s it from? What’s in it for me? How do I take action?  ALL IN TEXT.

6. Links at the bottom of the email (rescue links) should be links to what’s clicked on most on your website.

7. Instead of opt-out, give a customer the option to opt-down.  Wouldn’t you rather they receive fewer emails from you than none at all?

8. If you have images in your email, point them toward the call to action.  It increases the uptake.

9. Strengthen your welcome message.  This is the triggered email that goes out immediately upon someone signing up.  Make sure it accurately represents you and gets them excited to receive more.  Consider adding an offer.  Ex: Philosophy, a body products brand, takes 3 weeks to condition their new customer with a series of welcome emails before placing them in the general email pool.  The added benefit here is that Philosophy can learn about their new customer- what did they click on, what did they delete?

10. Don’t ignore the text version of your email.  More and more, people are viewing from mobile devices so make sure you get to the point and label all your links.