January 11, 2001
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Dozens of Internet marketing professionals answered
MarketingSherpa.co.uk's Year End Reader
Survey. In general we learned many of you are tightening
belts this year, most people hated breathe's adverts, and the
word for 2001 will most assuredly be "viral."
We picked out the best of your quotes (chosen for either wit
and/or keen, penetrating marketing insight) below. Enjoy!
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1. Best Marketing Campaign of 2000
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Interestingly, this was the only question for which absolutely
none of your answers overlapped. (By the way: to the marketer
for golfinthailand.com, your thinly veiled attempt to get your
site name mentioned in this newsletter by nominating it as a
best campaign didn't work. You can't fool us!)
"Fabulous Bakin Boys (www.muffinthemail.co.uk) Fun exciting
Tasty and not very serious, you had to buy, never have I
wanted to get my card number out so quickly."
"Maxpower.co.uk's viral campaign, that reported there was a
security loophole in the new Police Central vehicle
information intranet, telling you how to access records on
your car. You went to this site, logged in and found that a
speed camera had zapped you a week or so earlier- damn! You
could then click on a link to see a photo of the offence ...
only for a bevvie of "MaxBabes" to appear on your screen
telling you you'd been had by Maxpower.co.uk. It was creative,
simple, amuzing and abolutely spot on for the target audience
of "boys who arse about in cars".
"When I sat down to think about this none sprang to mind and
then I remembered the campaign for Ask Jeeves. I don't think
creatively it was the best campaign, but in terms of the
awareness I experienced from people talking about it, it
scored very highly."
"How Direct Lines' jamjar.com became one of the top three
sites in 3 months. I found this fascinating because having
watched the TV adverts and been intensely irritated by them it
was amazing to find that this was a carefully thought out plan
and by being irritated by them made me remember the advert and
the content. Seeing the case study and how the adverts fitted
into the overall plan made sense of it all. Very useful."
***
2. Stupidest Marketing Campaign of 2000
***
One respondent very politely said, "Let's not be negative. No
marketer tries to do a stupid campaign." A view which we
entirely agree with and respect. Now, on to the abuse....
"There have been so many this year. I guess it'd have to be
Boo.com closely followed by the re-launch of Boo.com."
"breathe _fish. it had a 14% click through rate which is
fantastic unfortunatly 86% thought they caught a virus."
"The Nationwide Building society DHTML "coin" overts, that
followed the user's mouse movements, obscuring links and
content they were trying to view. They didn't dissolve and
couldn't be closed. The only option was to leave the site they
ran on. They were an expensive way to really piss off
potential customers. A shame really, because they have a much
better customer offering than most of the big banks."
"Although I really enjoyed that "whack a PR person" game that
floated around for a bit, I cannot recall the company that is
responsible. Creative, yes, but if your brand or name is lost,
then what was the point in the first place?"
***
3. #1 Thing You Learned in 2000
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On one hand many of you said you'd learned that the classic
marketing basics you already knew, really were true, online or
off. On the other hand, lots of you told us how annoyed, or
even scared, you were to learn how many dot-com leaders (and
some marketing consultancies) apparently knew nothing about
those basics.
"There's so much I've learned this year . . . I think
remembering the customer's viewpoint and reading *everything*
as they would is most critical."
"Keep a careful eye on expenditure... Make sure you have the
income before spending money that is promised but not yet
received. Market well within your budget."
"That the UK digital marketing market is much younger than I
had expected and that most online marketing managers/directors
have no clue what they're doing; it's no wonder why dot-coms
are failing."
"You have to use common sense in all your planning and not get
carried away by the next great thing e.g. iTV ads, WAP
advertising, etc."
"The complete failure to understand even the basic principles
of marketing among senior online execs is more widespread than
I feared. If any of you are reading this, marketing is NOT a
different word for advertising and it is possible to think
about brands beyond a 3 month timescale....look at the most
successful UK sites...spot any themes???"
***
4. How You'll Spend Your Budget Differently in 2001
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A surprisingly high number of you said you wouldn't change a
thing from the way you spent your budget last year. Everybody
else mentioned viral, viral, viral -- because they hoped it
would be cheaper.
"Won't. Pinpoint targeted marketing works. We are growing at
about 20% a month. Think I'll stick with that."
"More viral and guerilla stuff - it's cheaper."
"More dosh for customer retention initiatives."
"What Budget! We even have to buy are own tea and coffee from
Tesco."
***
5. Your Top Marketing Tips for 2001
***
This was our most answered question -- proving everyone
secretly wants to be a guru at heart.
"Forget about offline."
"Email, email, email. Building quality lists of subscribers,
marketing to them effectively and produce great, well managed
and honest direct email campaigns."
"Don't buy expensive desks, buy an extra banner ad. Measure.
Get real today, not next month."
"Personalise, Personalise, Personalise. But first understand
who is visiting your site. Then you can accurately target your
visitors. Once accurately targeted transactions will rise and
loyalty will increase."
"Wap is crap but kids are gonna love it!"
"Forget about CTR. Sales, Registrations, software downloads
are what matter! It's all about real-time measurement of ROI
now!"
"Match your media mix to your objectives, not your
prejudices."
"OPT-IN, permissions-based "e" newsletters are the way to go,
as long as you are providing value to the audience."
"Think about where you want to be in 2005 - long term strategy
is much neglected."
