Winning the War on Spam

I may be showing my age a bit, but I remember the days where spam emails completely filled everyone's email box.  Although my inbox was never quite as bad as the picture below, I do remember that a majority of emails were of the 'un-wanted' variety.

I will admit that probably one of the reasons for the horrible percentage of spam was the fact that I was a hotmail user at the time.  Hotmail had a notoriously bad spam filter several years ago and it caused me to switch to Gmail.  Prior to our class this week, I never really thought much about spam emails as I do not see them as much anymore in my inbox.  But how as Gmail and the others been able to nearly eliminate the spam?  I had to do some research.

It turns out that with three different strategies, much of the spam can be eliminated.  The first is called 'Machine Learning'.  The idea here is that the computer is trained to figure out which messages are spam and which messages are not.  By recording various characteristics and the result of whether an email is spam, we can allow the computer to 'learn' which emails are spam.

Another way of identifying spam is by looking for trigger words in the subject or the body that are used by spammers.

Finally, as users, we can help the spam filters by clicking on the 'Spam' button on our web email.  As it turns out, all three of these approaches are being used by Google's Gmail email service.  As can be seen below, the spam filters have been working well to reduce the missed spam as well as the false positives despite the fact that the amount of spam email traffic is over 50% for the past 7 years.

Why is this important for internet marketing?  I would argue that the improvement in the spam filter means that the ethical and solicited emails that are requested by your customers are getting delivered and consumed at a higher rate.  The odds that an email is read when it is surrounded by unsolicited emails would tend to result in many missed opportunities.  Now, however, if your solicited email to a possible customer, it will more likely be read.  Thanks spam filters!

Hiding in Plain Sight

Before I begin this week's blog post, I want you to take a few minutes to watch the following video.  The goal is to count the number of times that the player's in white pass the basketball.

Did you see the gorilla?  Approximately 50% of the people are so focused on the task at hand that they completely miss the gorilla.  Is your advertising on webpages falling victim to the same fate.  Chances are, Yes!!!

One of the topics for this week's Marketing 595 class was this idea of 'Banner Blindness'.  People have a tendency to be so focused on the story that they are reading that they do not even see your ads.  The 'heat maps' of eye movement from many experiments show that people will not even look at anything that looks like an ad

 So how do advertisers get around this?  After all, advertising dollars is what makes a lot of the great content on the internet to be free for users.  Some websites have advertisements that popup and typically annoy the customers that you want to attract.  Other websites try to trick users into clicking on their advertisements.  Again, this can be seen as unethical.

What is the answer?  Unfortunately, the answer means more work up front and may even mean considering the advertisement during the design of the webpage.  That's right, make the advertisement content-rich and unique as Jonathan Gardner points out.  In his blog post, Mr. Gardner leads us to an example from Ikea where they put all of their products on one web banner ad.  Another example is from Jeep where they put the local weather forecast as part of the ad.  These types of advertisements provide a sales pitch along with delivering information to the users.  In a sense, being different is what will attract the most attention.  Although it is much more difficult to create these unique advertisements, the effort will be worth it in higher click through rates.

Internet Marketing - What is too 'creepy'?

Ah... Privacy.  It is one of those things that you really do not miss it until it is gone.  Marketers use information about you in order to show you the perfect targeted ad that you are most likely to click on and buy.  How they obtain this information is sometimes considered to be 'creepy'.  But what is the definition of 'creepy' in terms of your online presence?

Jeff Jarvis, author of Public Parts, is quoted as saying, "Define 'creepy.' It really means nothing. It's something unfamiliar that we are getting used to."  I find this definition to be on the money.  In fact, in a recent interview, Jeff states the fact that there were privacy concerns when Kodak instant cameras were introduced.  People felt that strangers would be waiting to take pictures and document your activities.  Now, a Google's Street View is convenient service but also documents some interesting moments. 

This article summed up the position well that certain services that were seen as creepy a few years ago (Google scanning Gmail's emails for key words and displaying targeted ads based on this) is now seen as common place.  If you are an online marketer, how do you be sure that your site is offering the conveniences of technology without being too creepy?

I believe this answer depends on how 'trusted' your website and brand is.  Sites like Amazon and Google may be seen as more trusted and can push the envelope.  The companies may have some push back in the media, but soon, all is forgiven.  Smaller brands and websites, however, do not have this luxury and their advanced technology to provide convenience could backfire.  In short, if you are confused on whether your small business's website is too creepy with the customization and your customer knowledge, it is best to refer to the 'Web Analysts Code of Ethics'.
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MOOCs: The Future of Education is Online

A recent post in our class's discussion forum and blog by Patrick Sugent really made me think a bit about how the internet is changing the face of advanced education.  Among the major players in the 'Massive Open Online Courses' or MOOC are Coursera, edX, and Udacity. 

Currently, there are 198 courses on Coursera from 33 universities including Princeton, Duke University, and my alma mater the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign.  These courses last between 3 weeks and 14 weeks long and cover many topics from Greek and Roman mythology to Quantum Mechanics.  edX has less courses but have premier universities such as MIT, Harvard and Berkeley.

Daphne Koller's Powerful Ted Talk

The first question on my mind was why should Universities offer such quality content for free on the internet?  Jeffrey R. Young offers an interesting podcast where he discusses with George Siemens of Athabasca University the promise of these MOOCs to universities and society.  In this podcast, Mr. Siemens shares that universities are experimenting with MOOCs as part of a research project.  Universities are trying to understand what the model of higher education and questioning whether it is the best model for learning and for the institution in the future.  Understanding how people learn is amplified when thousands of people from around the world are taking the same class.

The second question on my mind is who is taking these courses.  As it turns out, there are approximately 60% of Coursera students come from places outside of the United States.  This is interesting that people that may not be able to attend a university in the US are getting the start of an education.  The picture at the top of the post shows the power of quality education being delivered to areas that were unable to receive it before.

In the end, however, what is the value of a free online education?  Will a prospective employer look at a resume that contains only certificates of completed classes the same as a degree?  My initial thoughts on this is that they will remain different for the near future.  Hiring managers who attended traditional universities will likely look down on free education even though the education may be comparable.  Therefore, the main role of MOOCs will likely be a great branding strategy for the universities that are participating in them.

I, as a life-long learner, hope this trend of free online education continues.

I was wrong about 'Paid Search'

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This week in my Marketing 595 class at DePaul University we discussed the prospects and benefits of paid search.  We have all seen paid search results in our Google results, however, I never realized that people actually clicked on these links.  I was under the impression that most people were like me in that they really do not even 'see' banner ads on web pages or the paid search items in their search engine's results.  In fact, I know that I have never intentionally clicked on a paid search ad and always wondered why company's were wasting their money on 'paid search'.  After reading many posts on the discussion board for our class and doing my own research, I can safely say that I was wrong!

A recent internet research survey indicates that roughly a fifth of retail respondents indicated that paid search generated between '26% and 50%' of their sites traffic.  In addition, Ryan Kawabata from my class shared a Nielsen survey where 36% of respondents indicated that they had 'trust in ads served in search engine results'.  Now I understand that this is not a large number, however, I believe for the cost and ease of setting up a paid search ad, these results can not be ignored and can bring revenue to your site.  The key for your business is to be sure that your ad leads to a successful 'landing page' to convert those clicks to dollars.  I now consider myself a changed man and now believe that those ads in search engines are not necessarily a waste of money.

Competing with Google

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This week in class, we discussed search engines and how to increase the page rank of your sites.  During the class, the professor talked about the way different companies are trying to change the game in order to compete with Google.  Google is the first choice for most people when using a Search Engine.  It is impossible to think that any search engine can come along that can defeat Google unless they incorporate new features.

One of the new features that was discussed in class is 'Real-Time' search.  The idea behind 'Real-Time' search is to find information that is happening now.  For example, earlier this year, I awoke at about 5am to a large commotion outside my apartment. There were police everywhere and a whole bunch of people in the street.  Curious as to what was going on, I went to Google.  However, I was unable to find anything of interest.  Luckily a quick search on EveryBlock found the reason for the unusual commotion on a normally quiet street.  Twitter is another example used in class that allows people to search for things happening in real time.

Another way to compete with Google is to incorporate your social network in your search.  Bing has recently offered users to sign into their Facebook account and take advantage of their friend's suggestions in their search.  Google is looking to launch something similar to compete with Bing in the near future.  However, Bing was the first to incorporate these new search ideas where Google has been weak in order to try and chip away from Google's dominance.

Forming a Model around a Marketing Idea

Merriam-Webster defines a 'paradigm' as a standard or typical example.  In a way, a paradigm is a mental model that one uses in order to understand and convey an idea.  When you experience something new, you look at the paradigms that you have formed in the past to see how it fits.

However, many times you do not have a paradigm or have a paradigm that is very nebulous in your mind.  You do not have a way to convey this idea to others nor remember it.  This is why this week's class in MKT 595 at DePaul University was interesting.  Social Media as it relates to a company's reaction to it is one of those things that you think you just know.  We have all seen many examples where a company's fumbled attempts at social media and the sometimes devastating consequences of it.  Recently Progressive had social media hiccup after Mr. Matt Fisher's Tumbler page complaining about the insurer went viral. (http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/08/21/progressives-fail-in-social-media-may-be-warning-to-insurers/)

But I never thought much about an acronym that could help company's maintain their social media presence and avoid problems.  In class this week, we learned about the 8 Central Concepts of marketing with respect to social media and a very nice mental model to remember them (FUN REACT).  These stand for facilitation, uniqueness, not selling, ROI, empathy, audit, crisis response, and timing/context.  The idea is to bring customers in to an environment to share a conversation that is unique but do not try and overtly sell the product.  Be sure there is a financial return, care about your customers and monitor the social media closely.  If something does go wrong, react appropriately and send the right message to the right person at the right time.  I agree with each one of these ideas and now I have a mental model to remember it!  FUN REACT --- Are you paying attention Progressive?