Re: [projectvrm] Is MeCommerce Economically Viable for Marketers?

[Geddup < >]

HI Graham,

Agree with Doc. VRM is not about marketing - defined as a company advertising 
its wares. It’s about engaging with customers - entering into a dialogue at 
the invitation of the customer. 

What motivation is there for a company to interact with customers? Two 
examples:

1. Companies save money and improve data integrity by pushing responsibility 
for keeping their CRM current to their customers. The customer is more likely 
to engage in this exchange, the easier it is to do so. VRM platforms in 
various shapes and sizes make this dialogue easier.

2. Companies get better signals of an intention to buy if the customer 
initiates the dialogue. It’s the evolution of classified advertising. Once a 
company listed its services in the yellow pages where they were indexed by 
product so customers might find them. Then customers could search online 
using aggregators of industry specific products and services. The next step 
is to enable the customer to undertake this search from their personal cloud, 
anonymously.

Both these approaches provide the basis for viable business models.

Best Regards,
Rohan
 




On 9 Jun 2014, at 5:37 pm, Doc Searls 
<
 >
 wrote:

> On Jun 9, 2014, at 2:22 AM, Graham Reginald Hill 
> <
 >
>  wrote:
> 
>> Hi Doc
>> 
>> Another day and another vote by a mega-Co for more use of contextual 
>> marketing. This time it is American Express that has decided to move 100% 
>> of its digital marketing to a programatic, real-time bidding model; where 
>> algorithms in effect use data about customers to bid for the right to 
>> serve a single ad, to a single customer, looking at a single website, at a 
>> single moment in time.
>> <http://wallblog.co.uk/2014/06/06/the-implications-of-american-express-going-100-programmatic/#ixzz347NkMSmh>
> 
> That's a very buzzy article that sounds like a business talking to itself:
> 
> "From a quality perspective, much time and investment been made – and 
> subsequent innovation achieved – in creating an incredibly diverse (if 
> fragmented) digital ecosystem.
> 
> "Sexy ad formats, sponsorships, native executions and so many other 
> imaginative applications of digital can’t and frankly won’t always fit into 
> the RTB ecosystem. I think that’s ok, after all, the constant innovation 
> that’s achieved relies on agencies and brands’ willingness to explore new 
> exciting offerings. If RTB is to become the sole source of digital media 
> across the board then there’s a very real prospect of stunting that 
> innovation in the industry.
> 
> "However, does our inability to actually execute certain kinds of media 
> in-house mean we can’t reduce the friction that exists in the buying and 
> reporting process for 3rd party solutions? Absolutely not, and that’s why 
> programmatic direct is an equally important area of innovation that we’re 
> only beginning to scratch the surface of now. Programmatic direct aims to 
> connect publishers direct system with buyer’s tools to improve the process 
> of buying reserved or packaged inventory."
> 
> I know what programmatic is, and that RTB is Real Time Bidding.  Beyond 
> that it's all jive.
> 
> It ends,
> 
> "Efficiency should benefit everyone. Buyers spend less time consolidating, 
> sellers spend less time administrating. Thus, the industry can continue to 
> focus on building innovative products that allows brands to better engage 
> and connect with their audiences. The key here is allowing programmatic 
> innovation to run its course and resist trying to push square pegs into 
> round holes. There’s really no need to push all media through the existing 
> technology that we have, give it time and before too long we’ll see the 
> right type of programmatic solution emerge."
> 
> I'm lost, but I'm not sure I want to be found.
> 
>> As mega-Cos evolve from traditional advertising through direct marketing 
>> and digital display towards contextual marketing, their insights about 
>> customer behaviour and their ability to serve marketing micro-interactions 
>> to them increases hugely. The more contextual information a mega-Co has 
>> about its customers the more they can accurately imply what the customer 
>> is trying to do at that moment in time. If they can more accurately 
>> predict the customer's behaviour over the next few seconds or minutes they 
>> can target just those customers with micro-interactions that make sense 
>> for the customers as well as for marketers.
> 
> Do you want this, Graham? I mean, as a human being. Are you that know-able? 
> And do you want to be micro-targeted in real time, by machines that think 
> they know you, selling you stuff? 
> 
> Does any customer want it? And does it actually work?
> 
> Hell, I'm an American Express customer (meaning I have one of their cards), 
> and I can't think of a damn thing I want to hear from them. If one day on 
> my phone they tell me I'm about to pass a store that has some bit of 
> merchandise I might want, and it's clear that their guess about that is 
> based on micro-knowing me, I'm more likely to be creeped out and pissed off 
> than appreciative — especially since I'm not buying stuff all the time.
> 
> FWIW (and I think it's a lot), I know successful people in the RTB business 
> who have told me, point blank, that it mostly doesn't. They don't want to 
> talk about this publicly because they're making too much money at it, and 
> they don't want to show their hand as they plan to move beyond it toward 
> innovations that don't waste time and money on constant guesswork that 
> customers mostly don't want.
> 
>> Contrary to popular opinion, no marketer wants to market to customers who 
>> are not interested in their wares.
> 
> Then how do you explain the Niagara of marketing messages under which we 
> are all drenched, pretty much constantly? Or why that opinion is popular?
> 
>> As contextual marketing's accuracy improves and its cost decreases, the 
>> incentive for mega-Cos to think about MeCommerce with all its built-in 
>> inefficiencies quickly falls to zero.
> 
> It's pretty much at zero anyway. What's the loss?
> 
>> Why would a marketer plump for a MeCommerce model
> 
> Who's asking them to?
> 
>> where they mighht give-up the right to interact with any customer they 
>> thought might be a good fit for their wares,
> 
> And who's asking them to do that?
> 
>> where the number of potential customers would likely be much smaller and 
>> where there is no guarantee the customers would even be profitable. It 
>> would be commercial suicide! 
> 
> I'm lost with that one.
> 
> VRM, by whatever name, is also not aimed only at marketers.
> 
>> I have yet to see a general, viable, economic model for MeCommerce that a 
>> marketer couldn't pick apart in a few minutes.
> 
> Let them pick. It's not for them anyway.
> 
>> Isn't it time that one was laid out in this forum?
> 
> Tell us what you think a "viable economic model" is. Meanwhile, I encourage 
> others engaging in VRM businesses to explain, if they like, how they'll 
> help customers and make money. 
> 
>> Best regards fron Edinburgh, Graham
> 
> Likewise from New York at 3:35am.
> 
> Doc
> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Dr. Graham Hill
>> 
 
>> UK +44 7564 122 633
>> DE +49 170 487 6192
>> http://twitter.com/GrahamHill
>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamhill
>> http://www.customerthink.com/graham_hill
>> 
>> Partner
>> Optima Partners
>> http://www.optimapartners.co.uk
>> 
>> Senior Associate
>> Nyras Capital
>> http://www.nyras.co.uk
>