Welcome to the Fathom Blog

News & analysis on digital marketing & analytics

B2B Manufacturing and Social Media: How To Begin

By Patricia Thibault | May 16, 2012

While many manufacturing businesses are using social media, many don’t know why they have a Facebook page/Twitter handle or why they are trying to get more followers. Others are contemplating social media and don’t know where to start.  Regardless of where your business falls, you should step back and think strategy.

A strategic approach to social media first involves knowing why you want to be involved and your goals for participation. Then, you need to determine who you want to connect with, where they gather and what topics are important to them.  Knowing the “who,” “where” and “what” starts with in-depth social media research:

Identify conversations: 

• Map the volume of conversations about your brands/products to events (marketing events) and determine which ones generate the most buzz
• Identify the top online channels and their demographics
• Determine the topic of conversations
• Understand the tone of the conversations
• Mark cyclical and seasonal trends and emerging topics

Understand your audience:

• Who are your target audiences online?
• Where are the audiences talking about your brand already?
• Is your company engaging in conversations with your audiences?

Gather intelligence:

• Define your audiences and where they gather
• Identify advocates and influencers
• Listen to the top conversation topics (what matters to your audience)
• Analyze your brand data
• Conduct a competitive analysis

Once you have conducted the research, it’s time to build a social media plan for B2B manufacturing:

• Develop a content strategy
• Determine how you will connect with your audiences
• Define your goals for social media and what/how you want to influence
• Develop a plan based on what makes sense for your brand, your interaction tolerance, and how other channels will be integrated
• Monitor, measure and optimize

Stay tuned for another blog post tomorrow on social media & manufacturing: “If You Build It, They Will Click.”

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Photo courtesy of Voka – Kamer van Koophandel Limburg via Flickr.

Get Real Problem-Solvers for Real Results from Your Big Data

By Chad Luckie | May 15, 2012

It can be very easy for a user to get lost in all the “Big Data” hype, but several things need to be in place to make sure your company finds the gold that lies within large data sets. It should be stated that you could have all the newest tools and experience in the world, but without the proper problem-solvers, your marketing intelligence could be misinterpreted. Big data for marketing is best applied with a combination of the latest software and skilled talent. By taking insights gained from a Big-Data analytics platform, you can make smart marketing adjustments grounded in science.

The ability to understand a problem/opportunity and what data is applicable to that problem/opportunity is what separates a great Big-Data capability from a good one. The ability to mine, process, and collect data has been around for a while, but the ability to analyze that data and quickly make revenue-generating recommendations for digital marketing campaigns is a game-changer. Simply put, with better insights, you can profit from careful segmentation of your target audiences.

Big Data can cost your company rather than benefit it if used incorrectly. The key ingredient to Big Data is finding a service done by a software platform or problem-solvers that has the capacity to make sense of your data. The act of taking the correlations your Big Data reveals and turning them into tactical marketing recommendations is the missing factor that companies need. That missing piece is usually filled by real-life problem-solvers who have experience in the field. If you consider outsourcing this process to a company that has experience applying predictive analytics and the ability to make sense of your large data sets, make sure the results are transparent in the form of increased ROI (in incremental revenue lift).

AdAge 25 Largest U.S. Search-Marketing Agencies (2012)

By Paul Richlovsky | May 11, 2012

Fathom is living large … again. For the 6th year in a row, the company has been named to the Advertising Age list of the 25 largest U.S. search-marketing agencies. Ranked by 2011 U.S. revenue, Fathom ended up at #21.

On behalf of the entire company, I’d like to thank the many clients of Fathom throughout the years for making both this milestone and my career (along with the careers of my colleagues) possible. I’d also like to thank AdAge for this public recognition of our growth and overall success. Though many more results are still to be delivered for current and future clients, making this list is an encouraging sign that we have at least gotten a good start on our quest to be the premier provider of profitable revenue from the digital world.

The “Other” Moneyball: Baseball Business Analytics

By Steve Kessen | May 11, 2012

With the Major League Baseball season only a month old, spring fever has hit the Fathom team as we reminisce about my favorite sport: Baseball. Incomparable to any other sport, statistics rule the game of baseball. Virtually every conversation about the game mentions a player’s batting average, home-run total, ERA (for pitchers) or one of a thousand other measured stats from the national pastime.

After the release of the best-selling book and award-winning movie Moneyball, there is more attention than ever on statistics in baseball. Though with less fanfare than the player side of the game, business analytics in Major League Baseball is what helps teams drive revenue and provide a better experience for their fans.

Analytics has become an area of focus for most major-league teams over the past few years. Most teams have one or maybe two analysts on staff to help the organization make better data-driven decisions on the business side. Having previously worked in analytics for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I understand the many challenges that these analysts face:

“Big Data” Means Knowing Where to Find the Gold

By Janet Aldrich | May 10, 2012

Back during the American Gold Rush, most of the people who went out for gold were enthusiastic amateurs who had to search for it the hard way – they’d sit by a stream where gold had already been found, and run water through a shallow pan, hoping for paydirt.

Today, a lot of people using digital marketing – be it email, SEO, PPC or some other medium – are functioning about the same way those miners did; that is, hit and miss and hope for the best.  They’re missing out on leads and sales because they don’t have a clear idea of when, where or how to direct their efforts.

That’s where “big data” comes in.  To boil it down to one simple image, big data is knowing where to find “gold” in the form of leads and/or finished sales.  It means avoiding guesswork. It means taking your database and extending it with additional data, analyzing it and running it through models. The end result is data on your customers that lets you target them in the right way at the right time – thus achieving the results you need.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to be careless about your data. Data that’s not maintained and used correctly can waste money and damage your online reputation, particularly in the area of email marketing.  Bounces, invalid addresses and accounts left inactive (which could be spam traps) can mean that your message won’t get where you want it to go. Even in PPC or SEO efforts, you need to know the message you want to deliver and how to time it for maximum effect.  Big Data can help you make the right choices.

Is your enterprise a candidate for big data? If you want to expend your digital marketing dollar efficiently, you need to look at the data you use and how you use it.  More importantly, you need to know what do with the data once you’ve analyzed it and are ready to implement what you’ve learned.

Big Data is still, to some extent, in its infancy.  Now is the time to evaluate your company’s acquisition and use of data and how you can get ahead of the curve.

Fathom Core Value Stories: May Edition

By Paul Richlovsky | May 9, 2012

Every month at company meetings, a handful of Fathomers are recognized in front of the group for extraordinary manifestations of our four core values (“everyone a leader,” “be the consigliere,” “make order from chaos,” “reward sustainable results”). This space immortalizes their accomplishments for the world to see. I hereby present the 7th edition of Core Value Stories:

• Everyone a Leader, Cheryl VanJaarsveld (pictured) — For providing outstanding strategy to a client’s automated lead-generation campaign that incorporated what they were asking for without straying from our plan’s overall goals.
• Be the Consigliere, Clinton Dugan – For quickly jumping in with informed and enthusiastic social-media consultation to help close additional business for an existing client.
• Make Order from Chaos, Dusty Steinbrink – For being particularly helpful with two landing page projects on short deadlines, including the redesign of a microsite. Each of these projects helped increase the conversion rate and overall performance of the campaigns.
• Reward Sustainable Results, Caroline Bogart –For facilitating the writers’ persona training for Q1, part 2 of a writing course on conversion style. This has enabled the group to produce better customer-centric writing around their respective buying cycles.

To the victors go the spoils … huzzah!

 

Fathom’s Kurt Krejny Among Presenters at Digital Summit 2012 Atlanta

By Paul Richlovsky | May 8, 2012

The second annual Digital Summit takes place in Atlanta tomorrow and Thursday, May 9-10. Founded by entrepreneurs, its aims are to convene decision-makers in technology and finance to ”promote forward thinking and thought leadership on topics related to Internet technologies.”

Kurt Krejny, Director of Online Marketing, will be contributing to the discussion on social media by talking about using Twitter for acquisition and retention with targeted outreach.

Kurt has previously spoken at many industry conferences and relishes his role as a public voice of Web-oriented entrepreneurial activity and innovation. On the Digital Summit stage he joins other notable names such as Simon Heseltine, Director of SEO, AOL/Huffington Post; Michael Greer, Chief Product/Technology Officer, The Onion; John Trimble, Chief Revenue Officer, Pandora; and Frederick Townes, Sr. Technical Advisor, Mashable.

• Follow Digital Summit on Twitter @DigitalSummit_ (note the trailing underscore)
• Follow/communicate all the event action with the official hashtag:  #DSum12

And if you’re there, say “hello” to Kurt.

The Blogging Gospel According to Seth

By Daiv Whaley | May 8, 2012

One of the reasons we love blogs so much at Fathom is because they are such an excellent means to provide fresh content to your website on a regular (weekly? daily?) basis. That is, as long as your blog is on your domain and NOT on some massive blog-hosting platform. You want all that fresh content featuring your important keywords to be generated right where you live for search engine cumulative effect, and it does truly work over time.

Another strong point about blogs is that they can establish oneself as an expert in an area. Seth Godin, for example, is a really respected guy in the online marketing world, and his blog is rated by many to be the best in the industry. He blogs about all things marketing-related, but in a syncretistic manner using all sorts of subject matter to make his point, which makes for entertaining reading. And reading should be entertaining!

I came across this interesting article on Neil Patel’s website QUICKSPROUT, illuminating 10 things any blogger can learn about blogging from Seth, and although the whole “list” aesthetic of many online articles is getting old, some of the points mentioned are quite empowering. A few I found encouraging were: blog every day; write like you talk; avoid time-sucking meetings and television and blog instead; edit, edit, edit!

None of these points offers any new revelation, and they’re all pretty much common sense. But as C.S.Lewis once wrote, “good teachers don’t teach you anything new, they simply remind you of what you’ve forgotten.”

So bloggers, start your engines. You CAN use blogging as an effective content marketing strategy to increase your content, site rankings, and expertise quotient in your industry—no matter what business you happen to be in.  Go for it, just like Seth.

“Big Data” Facts and Statistics That Will Shock You

By Chad Luckie | May 8, 2012

Did you know in 2011 humans created 1.8 zettabytes of data? That would be equivalent to 200 billion high-definition movies that are at least 120 minutes long. It would take one person 47 million years to watch all those movies. All of this data that humans create doubles every two years. If properly used, data can help you make better decisions and have a positive effect on your business’ bottom line. The problem lies when businesses do not know how to use the data or collect poor-quality data.

How Bad Data Can Hurt Your Company

Check out these facts and statistics about how poor-quality or misunderstood data can cost your business millions:

• Bad data or poor data quality costs US businesses $600 billion annually.

• Poor data or “lack of understanding the data” are cited as the #1 reasons for overrunning project costs.

• Poor data can cost businesses 20%–35% of their operating revenue.

So, what is the solution to this problem? Hiring a team of big-data experts to sort through and make sense of the data can significantly help your business earn more money.

How Data Can Benefit Your Company

Check out the two cool facts below about how good data and best practices can have a significant impact on your business:

• Performing data-quality best practices can boost a company’s revenue by 66%

• If an average Fortune 1000 company can increase the usability of its data by just 10%, the company could expect an increase of over 2 billion dollars. (Source: InsightSquared infographic)

As you can see, Big Data, if used correctly, can have a dramatic impact on your  bottom line.

Social Media for Education

By Brittany Amato | May 7, 2012

 In a world where technology is becoming more prevalent in classrooms and the education system, I would like to focus today on a social networking platform that I recently stumbled upon. Figment.com is an online community focused on the creation, discovery, and sharing of works of writing. It is a superb example of how the power of social media can affect change and inspiration.

In December 2010, co-founders Jacob Lewis and Dana Goodyear launched Figment expecting the site to be like a Facebook for teenagers interested in young-adult fiction. Shortly after, they observed the traditional social media mindset of ‘liking’ and gathering friends was not what the users were interested in. Instead of simply sharing or rating books and documents, users themselves wanted to be the writers, thus opening up a new way for teens to write content, explore peers’ work, and provide and receive feedback.

The company’s tagline, “Write Youself In,” challenges users to write. Yes, to simply write about anything and everything they can imagine. As long as you are over the age of 13, you can sign up for a free account and start writing and connecting. Figment also provides free publications by professional authors and has a library of more than 350,000 pieces. While this could eventually lead to authors using the popular online community for marketing advantages, publishing is not the main point of the site.

  One of the biggest advantages of the site is how educators can use it as a teaching tool; teachers can create a private group and include their students. This allows for collaboration and review by the teacher and other students as well as the ability to monitor students’ writing. After their assignment is complete they can make their works public where all users—as well as published authors— can comment, which can challenge the writer to expand the content or take the ideas to the next level. “Figs,” as users like to be called, are not just data-dumping on the site, but are a highly engaged audience.

While the marketing potential is certainly there, it is more important to focus on how this is transforming the idea of social media as well as providing a new way to interact with schoolwork and education. Instead of merely sharing ideas that are already out there with people you already know, this community is creating a huge collection of  original content with the entire user base. It allows students to feel empowered that their teachers are viewing and commenting on their writing, and their peers and even professionals are getting involved.  Figment gives them a safe environment to express themselves, the exhilaration of knowing their voice and ideas are not going unheard, and the motivation to keep writing themselves in.