Although both of these commercials can be considered entertaining, one of them was effective and the other a failure. It’s easy to see why when you consider which one of them makes it easier for the viewer to incorporate the message into their lives.

In the first ad the viewer hears the name ‘Outpost.com’, and then see a pack of wolves attack a high school band. What is the viewer supposed to do with that? Apparently they weren’t sure, because Outpost.com is no longer in business.

The second ad gives the viewer a natural scenario (making a sandwich with peanut butter, and wanting milk with it) and then ends with the interrogative: got milk? Well, if the viewer doesn’t have milk, he or she needs to go get some. Easy and simple. And incidentally, the ‘Got Milk’ advertising campaign was one of the most successful in history.

In Malcolm Gladwells’ book, The Tipping Point(affiliate link), he cites an interesting case study. An experiment took place at Yale University trying to convince students to get a tetanus shot; two different packets of information were prepared with information about the benefits of getting the shot. One was purely informational, and one was aimed at instilling fear in the students by describing potential consequences if they didn’t get the shot. After the students were split up and each group was allowed to read one of the packets, they took a survey which would indicate which group was more motivated to get the shot. Predictably, it was the ones that received the packet aimed at instilling fear.

Only a very small percentage of students, however, went to get the shot. And totally unexpectedly, there was no difference in between the two different groups. The fact that one of the packets instilled fear, and that the students who read it seemed more motivated to get the shot, made no difference in their actual behavior.

The experiment was done again, and this time there was a small change made – in the packet was included a map of the university campus with the health center giving the shots circled, and a list of the times the center was open. This one small change resulted in a 28% increase in students getting tetanus shots.

Why did the percentage raise so dramatically? Because the map made the message fit into the students lives. It took the information from an abstraction to something practical and actionable. And that made all the difference.

Help your audience see how to apply your message. If they can picture themselves taking action, there are higher chances that they actually will.

How much time do people have to give you? How long is your message in relation to that time? If it’s too long, work it down and use clearer, more precise language. Forget the fluff, and get to the point.

(If you’re average, this post took you about 20 seconds to read. Reasonable?)

Three activities encompass today’s marketing: Listening, Community Building, and Content Creation & Promotion. Wrap all of those up with analytics for optimization, and you have a substantial and functional marketing analytics approach.

Listening

We understand by listening. But it must be active listening. It takes concentration and effort to be a good listener and really understand and take in what people tell you; the same is true of marketing listening strategies.

There are many tools and methods available for listening. Social media monitoring allows you to keep up on what people are saying about your brand and industry. Web analytics allow you to understand how people interact with your site. Online surveys (4-Q is one of the better ones) allow you to poll your customers directly. Alerts from sources such as Google Alerts and Backtype allow you to keep tabs on new content that is put up on the web according to keywords.

Community Building

An important aspect to remember about business and marketing is that they are about human relationships. No matter how many tools, analytics, and online channels that are available to us, these must always be used with the larger perspective that they exist to facilitate real human relationships.

Building a community means networking. It means finding areas of need and helping out where you can. It means responding, engaging, and interacting with other people. It means growing and nurturing mutually beneficial relationships. It means building trust. Taking the time to build a strong community not only has benefits for you, but it also helps everyone as a whole.

Again, there are numerous tools and methods for building a community. Social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow for high levels of interaction. Forums, blogs, and wiki’s allow you to participate with groups of people online. Business sites such as LinkedIn allow you to collaborate with other professionals. Sites such as meetup.com allow you to find people in your area to meet with in person. Being a genuine and helpful person allows you to build meaningful, real relationships.

Content Creation and Promotion

Your content, in many cases, determines who you are online. It is the substance of your web presence. If you have little content, people probably won’t find you. If you don’t have valuable content, people won’t want to come back once they do find you.

Content includes web pages, blog posts, videos, podcasts, photos, webinars, whitepapers, online polls and questionnaires, tweets, comments, etc. Produce content that is valuable, interesting, or funny to your market, and produce enough of it, and they will find you. Keep producing it, and they will keep coming back for more.

There are numerous ways to prime your content and spread it so that it can be found. These include article and directory submissions, social sharing sites, social media sites, best practices for search engine optimization, advertising, and so forth. Keeping in mind good design and promotional practices is also important in this arena.

Optimization

This is where the analytics enter the picture. The remarkable thing about all of the above marketing components is that they can be tracked, measured, and improved using analytical methods. By adding the analytics component, you can be sure you are allocating your time and money where it counts. The data analytics gives you the insight you need to fine-tune your marketing program.

The above was meant as an outline to a simple yet robust marketing plan. Throughout the coming days and weeks, the three aspects of marketing will be covered in depth, along with actionable methods of implementing and optimizing them.

As marketers we are all content creators, and Google Knol is a great new outlet with some nice features. And if the content you create is good enough, there’s a good chance of it showing up high in the search engines. You can even create multiple Knols and categorize them together.

Head over to Google Knol and try it out. Here is a link that will get you started, or this one will get you going on the advanced features. Taking the opportunity to add valuable content now could pay off big down the road.