Yesterday I had the opportunity to be a special guest for IBM Watson Analytics’ Citizen Analyst Tweetchat, answering 8 interesting questions about the role and power of the Citizen Analyst. I’ve expanded my original 140 character answers below. What is a Citizen Analyst? Like a citizen journalist, a Citizen Analyst is a person with analytical…
Glenn asked the great question: To calculate the value of an email subscriber, better to treat as 1-time (funnel math 101) or an annuity, since they get multiple emails w/multiple offers? This is a great question because it forces us to think about how we measure a single action with multiple consequences. The short answer…
We’re at the cusp now. The week before Labor Day tends to be quieter, due to many people squeezing last minute vacations in. Are you prepared? Do you know what’s to come? Let’s take a look. Here’s an abbreviated look at what happens once Labor Day comes and goes, a summary marketing calendar. We marketers…
A surprising number of people have asked me in the past day this question or variations thereof: “When should we use inbound vs. outbound marketing?” The answer to this question is simple: Stop asking this question. “Inbound” marketing is a meaningless distinction. So is “outbound” marketing. By drawing a distinction between passive and active marketing…
We live in a world that is sometimes described as post-factual, a world in which the average person ignores data and facts in favor of a belief. While politics, for example, has always had a questionable relationship with fact, recent times have transformed “spin” into egregious falsehoods. However, politics is not alone in the post-factual…
One of the simplest, yet most powerful ways to perform attribution analysis as a marketer is to ask people in an open-ended way how they heard of you. My friend and colleague Tom Webster recommends asking, “What made you contact us today?” as a variation. This creates a challenge for many marketers. What we receive…
I’m a self-professed nerd. I react with the same amount of excitement and vigor about a new software release that baseball fans react with about a new season or that Netflix fans react with about new episodes of their favorite show. When IBM Watson Analytics released its new version, I immediately jumped in with my…
One of my SHIFT Communications coworkers recently asked, “what’s the difference between whitepapers and eBooks?” This is a surprisingly common question among content marketers. What constitutes a whitepaper vs. an eBook? Is it length? Intended audience? Format? Noted marketing author and friend David Meerman Scott says, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that a whitepaper is any document printed…
Google recently announced that it was throttling results in its AdWords Keyword Planner for low-paying/free users of its software. Penalized users will now receive general logarithmic estimates of keyword volume, rather than more exact estimates. For those SEO and SEM marketers who are not conducting extensive AdWords campaigns and spending big bucks, what alternatives do…
Brain writing has come to the forefront again as a creative assistance tool. Companies are realizing brainstorming, as its currently handled, is deeply flawed, as I documented in Marketing Red Belt years ago. Why? Brainstorming suffers from group dynamics, most notably what I call the HIPPO problem: the Highest Individually Paid Person’s Opinion tends to…
