Subject: The marketing team as investment advisor

From: Chief Marketer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:34:54 UT

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January 16, 2007 | A Prism Business Media Publication

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Marketing as the Investment Advisor to the Business
Responding to CPC Inflation
Happy New Year -- Though Not for Toys 'R' Us
Using the Web to Launch a Product
Time Is Running Out to Enter the MCM Awards
Chiger Chooses: Special iPhone Edition

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This Week's Stories

Marketing as the Investment Advisor to the Business
A company's marketing department must serve as its investment advisor as well: That's the premise of this exclusive chapter from the upcoming book "The Performance Manager," to be published by business intelligence software provider Cognos.

"As that investment advisor, marketing must define 1) the overall investment strategy -- what is sold, where, and to whom; 2) the strategic path for maximizing return on the company's assets; and 3) the cost justification for the operational path required to get there (in other words, support of return on investment numbers for scarce marketing dollars)."

Doing so entails overcoming a few key barriers (such as a lack of integrated data) and focusing on five core areas (among them competitive positioning and product lifecycle management). But the task is a doable one--and according to the authors, one that cannot be ignored. Click here to read the chapter in its entirety.

Responding to CPC Inflation
Word in the Webosphere is that cost-per-click search ads are becoming ever more expensive and ever less effective. But as Performics' Cam Balzer reports, the truth is more complicated than that. In his latest column for CHIEF MARKETER, Balzer looks at keyword supply and demand, more-sophisticated metrics for determining search ROI, and ways to lower your overall CPC spend.

Happy New Year -- Though Not for Toys 'R' Us
By now you've no doubt heard about the controversy surrounding the Toys 'R' Us First Baby of the Year Sweepstakes: The retailer awarded a $25,000 savings bond to a Chinese American baby, then withdrew the prize because the baby's mother wasn't a legal U.S. resident as per the contest's fine print, only to re-award the baby the prize.

Len Stein, president of Visibility Public Relations, contends that Toys 'R' Us could have avoided the bad press generated by the snafu if only it had taken several key issues into consideration. What sort of issues? Click here to find out.

Using the Web to Launch a Product
"Throwing a banner ad up, buying keywords on a search engine, and posting a press release to your Website may be your first thoughts when harnessing the Internet for product launches," writes Julie Mason of Kellysearch.com. "But there is far more that you can do."

At www.ChiefMarketer.com, Mason discusses traditional and nontraditional ways to use the Web to spread the word about new products and drive traffic to your site. And she even includes links to some helpful--and free--tools.

Time Is Running Out to Enter the MCM Awards
"Multichannel Merchant" (a sister publication of CHIEF MARKETER) is now accepting entries for the 22nd annual MCM Awards, the most prestigious awards program for catalog, Internet, and multichannel marketers. But hurry: The deadline is Jan. 23. For more information about the awards or to enter online, go to www.MultichannelMerchant.com/toolbox/awards/ or contact Heather Retzlaff at [email-masked] or 203-358-4233.

Choice Links of the Week

Chiger Chooses: Special iPhone Edition
Whether Apple's iPhone is this year's iPod or this year's Segway remains to be seen. Direct Traffic, for one, thinks the iPhone "could initiate a mobile marketing revolution."

The Big Three automakers, meanwhile, are trying to learn from Apple's impressive turnaround of the past 10 years, according to the Associated Press.

Sure, much of Apple's renaissance is due to its product development. But much is also due to its marketing acumen. As ad exec Donny Deutsch told the New York Daily News, "You couldn't spend enough on advertising to get the kind of editorial and word of mouth [Apple chief Steve Jobs] got" in unveiling the iPhone at last week's Macworld convention.

Indeed, Twist Image president Mitch Joel declares in his blog that with Jobs's introduction of the iPhone, "your whole marketing world just changed and you did not realize it."

Less hyperbolic but still impressed was Robert Millis of the video podcast American Microphone. On his blog, Millis notes that "it may be true that Apple often reinvents the wheel, and they don't always make the wheel better. But the fact remains that Apple has the only team that can make the wheel sexy."

Finally, this has nothing to do with the iPhone, but so what: CNN reports that the Transportation Security Administration is going to sell ads on the insides of the trays in which travelers put their shoes, wallets, and other carry-on items as they go through security. Because what advertiser doesn't want his products seen by consumers when they're at their most aggravated and frustrated?

For more information
contact Amy Bonner at 508.370.0826 or [email-masked]

Learn about Muzak's sound investment by reading Oneupweb Success Stories.

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