Are you a big fan of AC/DC? 

Well, if you are then, you probably already know that their latest album debuted at #1 in the US despite only being sold in Walmart, Sam’s Club, and on the band’s website.  You probably also know that this album was their first album to ever debut at #1.  But, there is something that even the hardcore AC/DC fans may not know. 

Did you know that you can watch the video for “Rock N Roll Train” in Excel?  So, if you have a love for spreadsheets and AC/DC…then, you’re about to have your day made…or maybe even your week.

Check out the first music video made in an Excel Spreadsheet.

You can also download the Excel spreadsheet from the AC/DC website.

Last week, I attended the eMetrics conference in Alexandria, VA. Yes, for once a local conference…meaning no flying time. This one was a little bit different for me, as it was totally focused on Analytics and Metrics, rather than search, but was still very worthwhile.

Unfortunately, due to a busy schedule here, I was only able to attend a few sessions, but those that I did attend were enjoyable and informative. If you’d like to read my write-ups on these sessions that I did over on Li Evans of Key Relevance‘s blog, here are the links:

• eMetrics – Navigating a University Website
• eMetrics – The View from the CMOs office

…and, if you were interested in the answer to the question of how many adult conference attendees you can fit in the back of a standard taxi…

Jim Sterne, Mike Grehan, Simon Heseltine & Andrea

As fears of a deep recession increase, companies are beginning to tighten their belts in anticipation of the worst.  Many tech companies are among those realizing that cuts are necessary to stay afloat and survive the current economic situation.

In the past few weeks it has become increasingly apparent that executives at tech companies, many of whom lived through the bursting of the last tech bubble, are now heeding the advice of their funders and other advisers by shedding costs wherever possible.  Many of these cost cutting measures include layoffs.

Techcrunch recently began tracking the layoffs within the tech community and to date have tracked 3,689 employees being layed off from 22 companies.  To learn more check out the TechCrunch Layoff Tracker.

Here’s what not to do when sending an unsubscribe message: make up words. (The names have been blurred to protect the guilty.)

Although I’d already decided that their email messages were not for me (obviously because I “unjoined”), but any respect I had for their organization I’ve now lost because they couldn’t properly English speak.

An unsubscribe message should be seen as an opportunity.  Not an opportunity to force another message down their throats or to fail at language, but an attempt to end the relationship with class. Make them feel as if they wished the conversation wouldn’t end…as if they’ve lost something special that they can only get back if they re-subscribe.

No one likes a boyfriend/girlfriend who won’t let you break up with them (Wayne Campbell: A gun rack… a gun rack. I don’t even own *a* gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do… with a gun rack? Stacy: You don’t like it? Fine. You know Wayne, if you’re not careful, you’re going to lose me. Wayne Campbell: I lost you 2 months ago. We broke up. Are you mental? Get the net!)

So, end your relationships with poise, class, dignity, and words that are actually in the dictionary.

Part II – Marketers – Where is Your Bailout Plan?

In working with many companies over the years, it seems that marketers fall in to one of three categories:

Marketing Guru – You know your KPIs, your ROI and manage your campaigns to maximize ROI.  Your boss loves you.  Your budget is not in jeopardy.  In fact, by proving a positive ROI even in this economy your budget may have been increased.

Marketer – You feel that you are doing okay, but sense things could be going better.  You are currently sort of paying attention to analytics, but aren’t sure how to understand the data to make better decisions.  Beware, your budget may be on the chopping block.

Old School Marketer – You’ve ignored all of the hype about online marketing, choosing to continue to focus on tradtional channels since that has what has worked (you guess) until now.  Maybe you’ve even tried some banner ads or other ‘experimental marketing.’  You’ve seen some reports, but you’re not really sure what to make of them.  Danger, danger – say good-bye to that marketing budget.

Marketing gurus are the exception to the rule.  Don’t feel bad if you are not there yet.  It takes a bit of a mind-shift and some discipline, but you can get there.

Most marketers fall into one of the other two categories – somewhere between knowing that you could be doing a better job to feeling completely helpless, worrying that your budget, or even worse, your job is on the line.

The first step is to take action – embrace analytics.  There are tons of great resources; books, blogs or even companies you can hire.  Once you understand how to use analytics to take the pulse of your marketing efforts, you can benchmark how they are doing and improve them.

By accepting and understanding analytics, the move from ‘Old School Marketer’ with an evaporating budget to a ‘Marketing Guru’ with a growing budget is only a matter of discipline.  And by being able to prove that by spending some money, you are making more money (positive ROI), you will see your marketing budgets grow rather than disappear, even in a bad economy.

Last week for Toastmasters, I gave an interpretive reading of a section of Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book.”  As I was preparing for this, I started thinking about how this applies to the work that we do at Serengeti Communications.  I came to the realization that this is exactly what our Analytics team does on a daily basis.

Let me explain further: With interpretive reading, you have to get inside the author’s head, understand the motivations of the various characters, and how external factors have affected them and continue to affect them throughout the reading.  You work to understand the flow of the plot, and identify those parts of the reading that you need to highlight through your messaging (tone, pauses, speech pattern, etc.) - in order to really sell the plot.

With analytics, it’s exactly the same.  Our team gets inside your site (you can imagine a matrix-like scene at this point if you’d like), and through the data…understands how your users get to your site, what they do once they get there, and what motivates them to place an order? What part of the process has a leakage issue?  Where should the selling point be?  How are the users responding to the current messaging?

As you can see, quite a lot of similarities.  So, if you’d like an interpretive reading on your site, you know where to go.

Were you excited when Google AdWords released Conversion Optimizer only to be disappointed when you found out your campaigns did not meet the minimum number of conversions per month?  Well, you’re in luck.

Google has announced that your campaigns now only need to have received 50 conversions in the past month to be eligible to use Conversion Optimizer.  This will allow many additional advertisers to use the service who previously were not allowed to use it because their campaigns did not have enough volume.

What can Conversion Optimizer do for you?  It can save you time while increasing your return on advertising spend.  It can save you time by freeing you from constantly adjusting CPC bids based on how your keywords are performing. 

Instead, Conversion Optimizer will automatically adjust bids based on factors such as where the searcher is located, the keyword’s broad match query, the conversion rates in search, and the content network.  This in turn will help you meet your goals for PPC and hopefully, begin to increase your return on advertising spend.

So, if you had previously wanted to try Converion Optimizer, but were not eligible or think it could help benefit your camapigns…then, checkout how to setup Conversion Optimizer.

As the financial crisis in this country and abroad begins to dip its shifty fingers into our wallets, I wondered what you were doing both personally and professionally to cut costs in this economic downturn?

Cutting out (or down on) Starbucks?

Walking or taking public transportation to work?

Cutting marketing budgets?

Cutting other budgets?

Is there anything you’ve changed?

Anything that you won’t change?

Maybe you plan to buy fewer gifts for the holidays?

Or skimp on eating out at restaurants?

Let’s help each other get through this time –  which I believe can only be adequately described as “sucky”.  Leave your pennywise answers in the comments.

Part I of II – The Problem with the ‘Numbers Game’

Coming Next Tuesday – Part II – Your Found Money

In case you’ve somehow missed the news, on October 3 the ‘bailout bill’ was signed into law, creating a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase failing bank assets.  Essentially, what the plan provided was ‘found money’ for investment banks who made bad choices that eventually resulted in massive ‘distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities.’

All other opinions aside, my big beef with this whole situation is that anyone is surprised that the situation came to this.  Things like interest-only-mortgages and high-risk credit approvals have been around for years.

How scary is this (some highlights from):
Beware Interest-Only; Liz Moyer, 12.07.05

“For years, it was a perk for the rich, but 2005 saw an explosion of sales to ordinary folks of a product known as interest-only mortgage loans. And now, the lenders themselves are starting to get worried while mortgage brokers continue to push these products for all they’re worth…Lenders piled into interest-only product, eager to keep underwriting volume alive.”

“Some consultants say aggressive sales tactics by mortgage brokers eager to get commissions by encouraging people to switch from their 30-year loans to interest-only products could be the next great focus for aggressive regulators.”

“Ruth Hayden, a financial planner in St. Paul, Minn., calls the phenomenon “Yuppie Money,” and warns against the temptation. “It’s pretending you have more than you have,” she says. “It’s over-leveraging.”

The bottom line is that it is no surprise.  Many mortgage brokers were driven by numbers, the wrong numbers.  They were told to write ‘x’ number of interest-only mortgages regardless of whether the borrower would be able to pay when the term changes and the full monthly payment is due.  No one did the the long-term math to see what would happen.

On a less dramatic, but somewhat as dangerous scale, many marketers still operate in that same type of non-sensible unrealistic bubble – by focusing on numbers that are less meaningful, but easily achievable, like focusing on visitors and not paying attention to ROI.

Companies operating with these types of marketing departments are creating the same scenario as the mortgage brokers who pushed interest only loans to those who ultimately could not afford them.  They are painting a rosy picture with no substance.  Without metrics for success for every dollar that is being spent in the marketing budget, metrics that factor in sales, lifetime value, and return on ad spend; many companies are setting themselves up to need their own bailout plan.

Coming next week – how to fix this; before it is too late, where to find your ‘found money.’

Actually I don’t, heck I don’t even drink coffee (a fact which has caused a few heads to be shaken in disbelief around the office), but someone does hate Starbucks enough create an “I Hate Starbucks” site and get it ranked 8th for the term “Starbucks”. To be honest, it’s not a very engaging site, and owner has some links on there that I’d say are not too relevant (unless you believe that Mesothelioma has something to do with coffee, in which case I’m even more thrilled that I don’t touch the stuff), which strikes me as being a little shady, but maybe that’s the only way the owner can fund the hosting fees for the site.

So why was I taking a look at Starbucks in the first place? Well, I read in a UK newspaper an expose about the Starbucks corporate wide practice of leaving a tap running all day long for ‘hygiene reasons’. Worldwide this meant that 23 million liters (or over 6 million gallons) of water were being wasted every day. That’s a staggering amount of wastage, especially for a company that has sells a product that’s supposed to work towards getting clean water for children around the world (as a side-note, Flash? Really, a site comprised solely of Flash, and slow loading Flash at that? Ugh).

So what happened? Well, by the next morning Starbucks had issued a statement that they were looking into alternatives, but they had yet to remove the edict (individual stores in the UK took it upon themselves to do so).

The fact that this issue was raised in the top selling newspaper in the UK meant that Starbucks were very quickly made aware of this issue (in fact, I’ve no doubt that a reporter from the Sun was on the phone to Starbucks UK looking for the follow up story before that issue hit the stands. But what if this issue had been raised on a small site such as “I Hate Starbucks”? Would anyone from Starbucks have noticed? Maybe they would have, since it is ranking for their name, but even so, it’s doubtful that there would have been a statement sent out the next morning. But what if a forum or three picked up the story, or maybe someone from TreeHugger.com saw it, and wrote about it, spreading the word near and far? Would they know then? Would they know when to act? Where to respond? Who to talk to?

If you have to think about these issues, it means that you likely don’t have a robust Buzz Monitoring solution in place. That’s something we can help you with, whether it’s doing an initial, historical scan, or whether it’s continual monitoring, we can show you what’s being said about your company, your brands, your products, your industry, and your people. Not everything said about you will be in a major newspaper, and you’ll need to know about any issues, good or bad, before you know how and where to respond.