Kansas City SEO and SEM

by: Anne Haynes

Do you have an experience that speaks to Briggs, Stuart and my understanding? Post a comment and let me know!

While on my trip, I continued to read the book What Sticks When I was traveling during Thanksgiving, I sat next to a younger man who was reading the book “Joel on Software”. I was intrigued by the title of this book. While I watched this younger man take in two cocktails reading Joel, I added this book to my reading list. After I arrived home from my vacation, I read the introduction to Joel on Software at Amazon.com and knew instantly this was a book to buy. I headed to Borders Books in Mission Valley, ordered Joel and found “What Sticks”.

Chapter 1: Making It Stick

This chapter touches on the Marketers admitting their current approach to marketing leaves them powerless in the success of their campaigns. The lack of understanding in a fragmented online marketing world renders this experience. Briggs and Stuart give an example of this experience through a presentation Barbara Bacci-Mirque from the Association of National Advertisers gave at a conference. Barbara gives an analogy of the 12 steps program for alcoholics and the 12 steps program for marketers. But what Briggs and Stuart focus on is accountability within the campaign structure. They toss away the belief that praying works when planning and executing campaigns. They believe and promote “continuous tracking with design and experiments” eliminate the need for prayer. The authors continue on to state, “We think it’s problematic to have an advertising agency’s own performance.” Briggs and Stuart feel that an agency should not own the analytics of a campaign, in their opinion there is a conflict of interest. While I do see their point, I also work for an agency that uses, Google Analytics, WebSide Story and Urchin Enterprise for tracking success. Rex Briggs is the founder of Marketing Evolution (a third party analytics performance firm) and is referenced several times within this chapter and others, so I have to wonder if this book is designed to promote Brigg’s company.

Briggs and Stuart introduce the Communication Optimization Process (COP) to remove the, “I feel it in my gut” style of marketing and promote analytics and scientific measurement. What do a Rocket Scientist and a Marketer have in common? They have the same issues. Briggs and Stuart introduce parallels with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) space exploration project issues and media campaigns project issues. COP is the core fundamental discipline the author’s focus on; Process, Performance, Progress and Contingency plans are the summary areas of attention.

With a history in business process analysis, I understand these issues and truly see the first issue: “Process” being the most important aspect of a successful marketing campaign. When working in small and medium size organizations, it’s important to know who does what and if process is not defined, performance, progress and contingency plans will not be implemented. Accountability is a huge aspect when executing a successful marketing campaign. In some organizations there are no processes, so who does what tends to interfere with success.

The good news is I am still reading this book, so What Sticks cliff notes will continue to come.

Do you have an experience that speaks to Briggs, Stuart and my understanding? Post a comment and let me know!