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He also thinks our approach to ROI needs to be broader than measuring sales – that it should consider things like brand awareness and perception.
Here’s our conversation with him:
Q. Hi Simon, thanks for joining us this month. Let’s get started, how did you make your entrance into digital?
A. I got into digital in 2003. I started a digital & design agency providing technical solutions to marketing problems. I realised pretty quickly that it was marketing that solved clients’ problems, not technology!
This year I started at VJs. I’m tasked with reporting, analysis and planning, as well as introducing social media to the agency and clients. I’m currently working with Holden, Tourism Vic, Defence Recruiting and National Foods.
Simon Small,
Digital Strategist,
Visual Jazz, Melbourne
Q. What are you currently most passionate about in this space?
A. I’m passionate about having clear goals so we can develop smart plans that deliver ROI. It doesn’t need to be based on sales and leads, but other measures like brand awareness and perception. Too often I see good work put down as a failure and bad work hailed as a success for the wrong reasons.
Our industry can have an addiction to clicks and not put enough value on the reach of a banner ad, or social media discussions about a brand.
Q. So what else should brands be measuring?
A. Assuming conversions are the campaign objective, a conversion is when the customer reaches a point on the website showing they’ve moved down the purchase funnel. This is usually simply measured by an online sale or an enquiry.
But visiting ‘contact us’, downloading technical information or even returning to the website two weeks later, are all positive signs that the customer is closer to a sale – all too often these behaviours are not measured as success.
It can also come down to asking the right questions. A campaign’s data might show that TV beat all other media in terms of reach, but if the dollars spent on TV were 10 times that spent on online, you’re not comparing like-for-like. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves to dig below the first level of results.
Q. Where does your passion for ROI come from – isn’t digital the place for ROI?
A. Often the digital world is a new place for many marketers, or they’re trying something new within this space. I believe that too often technology & excitement get in the way of a good idea & outcome.
Q. How so?
A. QR codes, augmented reality & Twitter are all examples that create enormous buzz and marketers/agencies develop ideas that use these technologies. Not because it makes sense but because it’s new and exciting. I feel marketers sometimes don’t know what they’re measuring and planners don’t ask, so ROI doesn’t even come into it.
Q. So what comes first - ROI or effective planning?
A. The first step is setting goals. These form a foundation for carrying out insightful research, to develop a smart plan and creative to connect with your consumer. With clear goals you can then measure the ROI of various elements or the entire activity.
Q. What would you say is effective planning?
A. Good plans have research to back them up, clear articulation of goals, consumer insight, full channel media consideration, good creative idea and performance measures (based on previous campaigns) to track if it’s working or not. Where I see planning fall down often is in the last 20% - the detail. So many plans are theoretical rhetoric that don’t actually say anything.
Q. Any pointers to pass on?
A. Two key points:
1. Consider multiple channels within digital media
There are so many powerful channels, technologies and tactics - search, banners, email marketing, smart websites, games, social, mobile apps, mobile sites and SMS marketing to name a few.
Some of these channels are not yet cluttered and great media deals can be cut because you’re not competing for the space.
2. If you build it they won’t automatically come
The whole funnel matters - a good banner ad that points to a bad website is a wasted banner. A great website or game won’t get traffic unless you point people there. Email marketing is a massively under-utilised channel.
You could build on a standard banner campaign by building a targeted landing page for that banner, encourage email signups, and then send people targeted, relevant emails and send them to targeted landing pages, then deliver targeted banners ads.
More simply, look at how many people are dropping out of the shopping cart or enquiry form, or where they’re bouncing from on your website – a 10% reduction on people leaving could equate to thousands of enquiries and sales.
Q. What does ROI mean to clients today? What does it mean to VJs?
A. ROI is not well understood by many clients and it’s not always relevant. Digital is a great medium because it is instantly measurable so you can fix problems & see opportunities early, resulting in better outcomes. It’s critical to VJs as we are very transparent with our clients and if something’s not working we’ll tell them so we can improve it.
Q. Thanks Simon, valuable discussion. Outside of ROI what do you see happening in 2010 in the digital space?
A. Thanks to Android and the iPhone, mobile’s year is finally upon us. With such a massive uptake in the iPhone it’s becoming more viable for marketers to invest in mobile activity. Moving forward, we’ll also continue to see brands stepping into the social media space, with more examples of it being done well and less of it being done badly.
The Retail/FMCG sector will start to embrace digital media and I think it will shake up the way a few businesses work.
Finally, internet spend will move closer to eclipsing TV spend as it did in the UK this year. It’ll happen for us in late 2010 or early 2011.
In his spare time Simon is an avid blogger on all things digital. from.simontsmall.com
Thanks to: Simon Small, Digital Strategist, Visual Jazz
Posted by: Carmen Campbell
