I got some great feedback on my last blog post, “Why Advertising is Irrelevant.” It has spurred some great discussions with people I admire and who’s opinion I respect. I have to admit I wanted to be provocative because of the tired old approach of blanketing the earth with ad copy to get my attention, or worse, reading about work that puts gold statues on agency shelves but doesn’t help the client.

That said, I think I need to decamp for a moment. Everything in the marketing mix has it’s time and place. A TV ad still is probably the best choice for quickly gaining general awareness for some consumer audiences. My point is that we’ve got to start thinking differently.

Our goals as marketers should be to come up with great creative work, but it needs to be more driven by consumer input than ever before….and I don’t mean the kind of input that chooses the ending of Hollywood movies. I am talking using a measurement-driven marketing model to make the appropriate choices at the appropriate times by using input gathered from your customers.

This is easy to write about in a blog, but much more difficult to implement. This is hard stuff for most companies. Even most consultants who are talking about measurement-driven marketing, only get a piece of the puzzle (the left brain or the right) but can’t put the entire picture together in their own consulting company, let alone with the clients. You know as well as I do that internal silos, management structures and lack of clear directives are keeping measurement practices from gaining ground in most companies.

We’ve been thinking a lot about this problem and have been developing some alliances around this involving management consultant, analytics tools and design and development practices that are helping companies gain customer insight through metrics to improve marketing effectiveness. To steal a phrase from Mike Ackmann, one of our favorite consultants, the goal is “Data, not Drama.”

To meet this goal, we’ve crafted a different approach:

1) Strategy Integration
Develop integrated strategies involving key stakeholders across all disciplines in the company. Involving Marketing, Operations, HR, Finance, Technology and Sales.

2) Profitability Practice
Develop processes and practices to integrate customer interaction data into actionable business intelligence across the organization. We translate what is happening out there in the marketplace to what it means for your business.

3) Practical Application
Start simple. Measure what you can today and begin to develop a measurement/profitability practice within your organization. This applies to technology we choose as well. We look for the simplest, most cost-effective tools and technology to get the job done. Learn more about getting started ……

In a meeting this morning, someone shared a phrase his father used to tell him: “Give a lazy person a hard job and they will figure out an easy way to get it done. “It’s a great, and incredibly true, statement. We have to admit we’re all a bit lazy - or impatient or demanding or whatever term you prefer. However, our “laziness” has allowed for great leaps and bounds in new innovations and processes that enhance efficiency and productivity, making our lives easier - which is what we all really want. I know “lazy” may have its negative connotations, but in the web environment it is usually the smart way to go. Feeding into this “laziness” is part of a good web strategy - organizing website content so that users can get the information they need without having to think and businesses are able to run at maximum efficiency. Simple is good. Often hard to achieve, but good nonetheless. As a web strategist, I for one, have found a career amidst this “laziness” - finding ways to make lives and job easier. I love finding resources (online and off) that make my life more efficient. So, below are a few efficiencies that have allowed me to embrace my laziness, and I would love to hear about the tools you use as well. E-newsletters and RSS Feeds - A great way to get automatic reminders of bills, low bank statements, coupons, sales, concerts, breaking news, the stock market or anything else you may want to be reminded that you care about. Metro Transit GoTo Card - No more scrambling to find exact change for the bus or waiting in line for a ticket while watching the train go by. Just swipe and go with the prepaid card. Meebo.com - Consolidates all your instant messaging accounts in one place. Kayak.com - Gathers flight information from all the major carriers and travel search engines. It also provides trends in flight costs and other great tools. Web Bookmarks - In one click of a button I have access to all the website I visit on a regular basis. No need to type in the URL every time. Auto-bill pay and online banking - I haven’t had one late payment and receive my statement notices online, reducing the amount mail to sift through and overall paper waste.

Feedster rolled out a new look and new site features this week. The long-time RSS search engine and content aggregator has moved from a traditional search engine style service to one that’s a little more Web 2.0-ish, with a heavy focus on widgets, customization, and more buzz-style presentation of content.

:: continue reading this ocean post ::