Industry Speak: Interview with Joe Wan, Head of Sales from Juzzweb

'Industry Speak' is a series of interviews where we speak with practitioners in the online industry on their thoughts, theories and anything else in between. Watch this space for more interviews coming your way.

Kicking off the first of our interview series 'Industry Speak' is Mr. Joe Wan, Head of Sales of Singapore based innovative digital marketing company Juzzweb.




Juzzweb designs, builds, and runs innovative marketing engines, translating clients’ visions into marketing programs that drive stronger relationships between brands and customers. Their team of established marketing and technology professionals has the expertise to provide you with comprehensive digital marketing solutions. Visit their website at www.juzzweb.com.

Q. Please tell us a little about yourself and the business you are in.

Graduated from NUS with a BSc majoring in Math & Comp Programming, I spent 4 yrs as a Financial & Business Analyst with IBM & 7 yrs as a Sales Mgr including 5 yrs in the field of Direct Marketing & Advertising. I have a special interest in Marketing and SEO. I’m currently running my own Digital Marketing business for about 4 years now and most of my clients are MNCs and Agencies.

Q. What projects are you currently working on?

Current active projects include work related to: Creative Development, Application & Web Development, Digital Advertising & Project Management.

Q. Online advertising and SEO usually go hand in hand and are currently on the rise. Which campaign do you think is the best you have seen so far?

I have a high expectation for my team in all the campaigns/projects that we manage for our clients. We’re doing a quite good job so far but there is always room for improvements. How I would gauge the campaign performance (whether is Bad, Good or Best) would be in terms of meeting the client’s set objectives ultimately. I’ve seen pretty cool online stuff done for SIA, Nokia, Gillette, HSBC, Beijing Olympics…

Q. With so much clutter in the market place, how would you advise your clients to differentiate their campaigns?

Personally I surf the Net and read a lot. I share my experience & get feedback from my team and clients. I don’t believe you can work in isolation. We pretty much engage clients actively in developing concepts.

Q. How is the mobile platform changing the way online ads and SEO campaigns are deployed?

I view this as an added avenue to expand the Advertisers’ reach. We’re equipped to exploit this channel should the opportunity arise.

Q. Social media is a hot topic in recent times. If a mobile phone companies wants to market a new phone for business executives and top management, which social media / network platforms should the business go for and how?

Social Media has been around for quite a while already. Maybe they weren’t that “obvious to the eye” and the demand for such initiatives from both the Buyer & Seller wasn’t that strong then. Marketers first need to establish their awareness, demand gen & pipeline acceleration goals. We’ll assist them with the effectiveness & cost-efficiency justifications for such tactics.

Q. With the ease of setting up online advertising and SEO campaigns by companies, these skills are fast becoming part of a marketers basic role. Do you think this is a threat to online media agencies in mid to long term time frame?

On the contrary, with the increasing interests, I see the “pie” growing in the mid-long term. That said, as an entrepreneur, I’m also constantly looking for gaps/spaces to value-add to my clients.

Q. A friend of mine is researching on social media for his PHD and he asked me this question: 'Would you hire a social media specialist?' What is your take?

You need both Art, Science & Commitment to make this successful.

Our personal thanks to Joe for taking time off his busy schedule for this interview!

Alexa page views for Facebook, Friendster and MySpace

It's good to know just how popular these sites are. The date of publish stands at 25th April 2008.

1st - MySpace
2nd - Facebook
3rd - Friendster



Graph from Alexa.com

Maintaining your online brand integrity

Branding is a big word. It takes years to master and even more to fully understand and execute.

Translating the brand value from the the point of brand position to customer service, culture, product and communications is vital to preserve the integrity of it all.

Some key considerations on maintaining your online brand integrity:

1. Online availability - Have a trusted internet service provider. Nothing is worse than visiting a site that is slow, constantly unavailable and unsecured.

2. Information Architecture & Copy Writing - Think how your users will think. Use the right labels, lingo and language consistent with the brand. Make sure it's scalable so it is neat and well thought out.

3. Usability vs Creative Usability - This depends on how your brand translates. I have been to sites which are slightly unconventional but yet I go away thinking how cool it was. Know the thresh-hold and don't create a masterpieces which no one understands. Test it out with users.

4. Design & Visuals - This goes without saying. Be consistent but if there is a need to create some online identity, the relevance needs to be tightly knitted.

5. Online and Offline relation - Be consistent with what goes out in the streets. Be It's a 'drive to web' strategy, be consistent throughout all marketing channels. If it's a radio ad, the tone and language should paint the audio picture of the brand.

Tell us what you think.

Getting started with Social Media for your business

UPDATE 30 April 08: You can find the latest report HERE.
Our thanks to Aaron Uhrmacher from text100.typepad.com for the highlight!

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I came across this excellent report by Universal McCann on TEXT100 PR on Social Media: "In a global view on social media - Asia rules"

It shows Asia as being a strong player in the social media platform. However, with this vast number of people, communities, information and networks, how do we start tapping them effectively?

It's important to START. Just like how important it was to get started online during the dot.com days. You just need to get started.

Social Media is fairly new and I dare not say there is a 'sure win' strategy.

However, as a marketer, it's only natural that we constantly find out how consumers are interacting these days. And I don't mean surfing patterns. We need to dig deeper into online communities, views, opinions and much more. It should be a passion and our instinct.

Here's how I would do it (with the assumption of product life-cycle, product knowledge, target audience, business objectives, budget, time frame and go-to-market plans):

1. Research: Google it. Ask friends. Surf competitor sites. Find out where the online 'passion' for the product/service is residing.

2. Identify: Fish out community groups, sites, social media platforms that have a high traffic, strong opinions (good and bad).

3. Understand: Understand their emotions. Think in their shoes. Discover how users share their information (Are most of them on Facebook or Twitter). What are their pains and joys in their life? How would you fit in? If I were them, what would I do in that situation?

4. Profile: With the information, profile the users based on the 'online research'. Age, Sex, Location, Do they drive? Kids? Holidays? Work? etc. Basically, study the information and profile them in tiers or segments that fits.

5. Get involved: You don't need much of a plan for this. Just get involved as YOURSELF. Don't pretend to be someone else. It's through this you will fully understand the community. Make friends.

6. Build your own network: Once you got it going, start interesting topics or groups, rally support for your ideas. Be YOURSELF. No one likes a poser. Be sincere.

7. Identify opinion and thought leaders: Not you, but in the social network. They have the power to give a 'stamp of authority'.

8. Be a good friend, be one of them, your users, your customer: It's simple, as time goes by, people will know you, find out more about you and accept you for who you are. Remember, you are YOU. Not the MD or Manager for a company trying to fish things out or sell a product.

In a nutshell, this could be a potential approach. It would take time, but if you run your own business or represent a company that you are passionate about, it's something you should do naturally.

It's not selling, spying or even being a 'corporate whore'. It's about understanding people, potential users, being a friend, finding some truth on thoughts and perception.

It's not an online survey where you stand to win a prize after completing it. Its raw, simple and all about people.

How would you do it? We'll love to hear from you.

Nokia's Get Out And Play

It has been out since early April but it's definitely worth a mention. Though heavy on the bandwidth, the wait is worth it. Heck, you get to kill time playing the flash game while waiting for the site to load. Be entertained. The relevance to Ngage is perfect.

Check out the website here.

Here's the commercial:



Can someone please send me the soundtrack?

Reasons why you should take online marketing seriously in Asia

Asia has 38.7% of the world's internet users. That's growing as Asia moves to build infrastructure and getting a PC in every home.

As a marketing practitioner, it's only normal that traditional marketing practices is fast becoming a 'staple' for all your marketing initiatives.

Being a 'staple', it simply means that it's something that you probably throw in the mix anyways (given the budget). Advertising (Radio, TV, Print), Direct Mailers, PR stunts, Contests, Promotions etc. Is it time to throw all the 'staple' mindsets aways and see how much of that budget will you put in online marketing initiatives?

Looking at the stats, if you are not looking substantially online, you probably need to re-look at your strategy.

Online marketing has been around for a while and with the evolution of social media and online communities, behaviour of consumers are constantly evolving as we speak.

Everyone is immune to online ad banners, blinking animated gifs and gimmicky catch phrases. Just like how we ignore TV and radio commercials most of the time (I'm the opposite, I love ads, but thats just because of what I enjoy researching). If this is something that you have been doing, I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just asking myself the same question: "Is there a better way? Is there a new way?"

Let's turn the tables around and you be that person looking at that ad. Questions come to my mind are:

1. How relevant is that ad to me?
2. Is it worth my time?
3. Who is behind that ad?
4. Why should I bother?

Even with those questions answered, do these 'traditional' online ads work anymore? What are the conversions as compared to a year back?

People know what they want and generating demand is something very challenging in this day. You just need to be part of the process of their (re)search and discovery. People read blogs, reviews, comments and personal recommendations when deciding and eventually buying online.

All this is done online. No where else will you get such a rich spread of information but on the web.

So, if you are in Asia and have not re-looked at your online strategy seriously as part of your marketing plans and strategy, it's time you did before it's too late.

Being 'too late' is risky because the online world moves too quickly and when you decide to do something online, the learning curve may just be too steep.

Too little too late perhaps?

Music now belongs to the people!

Unlike years ago when music labels rule and demos were sent to radio stations in desperate hope of getting noticed and airplay.

The table have turned. I discussed this in my earlier post and with MySpace's recent interview on Wired News, things are certainly now going to be even better for music lovers all over cyberspace. Heck, it's going to be free according to MySpace's CEO Chris DeWolfe in that interview.

Ultimately, MySpace is the perfect music ecosystem. Community, Content and a 'Music Store'. While I'm at it, here's some props to some my friend's online music profile on MySpace (or linked to MySpace):

> ClashTheDiskoKids
> DJ Aldrin
> Akien

What about quality?

As a music lover, you may ask: "What about quality?"
I won't be too worried. The community will sort that out for you. Ultimately, if you like it, you download it. If you hate it, just click 'Next'.

What about iTunes and other online stores?
As a DJ, I buy my tunes mainly from dedicated DJ stores like Beatport. But, this question is a tough one. What I feel is this new business model MySpace has planned is going to shake things up. They could well potentially be the 'Google' of music.

Ultimately, lots of these online successful online social communities were formed at the right time the right place with the right people and right content. All those that follow will have to put up one heck of a fight.

Whatever it is, I'm loving it. What about you?

Managing social networking

UPDATE (29 Apr 08):

After much sourcing and looking around, I decided that Mahalo works best for me.

Mahalo Share Firefox Add-on service is a great 'one-click' service to share links on the social sites I currently use. Digg, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Facebook and Google Bookmarks. I don't really use any other sites so this works perfect. It saves time from visiting and logging in to these different sites. Just click and the link gets posted.



Mahalo also allows me to manage my social profile sites through the 'framing' method. However, as compared to MyLifeBrand.com, the selection is limited for this as not all the social sites are listed. MyLifeBrand.com allows you to just add any site.

---------------------------------------------------

With numerous social networking sites to manage, it has been daunting to click through different tabs on Firefox and logging in to Facebook,Digg, Technorati, Friendster, Twitter, Feedburner and many others.

I spent the whole night pondering what works best. Eventually, I signed up to MyLifeBrand.com only to be still left unconvinced.

It's been disappointing.

I want one seamless experience.

For messenging, Meebo has them all except Skype.

For email, Hotmail doesn't have POP access (such a defensive move),
preventing me to use Gmail as my primary email interface.

Singapore now has mobile portability with one mobile number for the rest of your life. Certainly want one platform for all my online
social networking tools.

The quest continues.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Social Media for PR

Before I start, here is a definition of Social Media.

So, I met up with two friends in and I asked for their thoughts on PR and Social Media.

They gave great insight on how Social Media could fit into the PR scope with very valid considerations. Here are some points of our interesting discussion:

> PR is focused on the message. Depending on the product or service and it's lifecycle, Social Media initiatives need to be well positioned and well targeted to get the message across correctly and effectively. (I personally find PR as an important marketing channel to get messages out.)

> Social Media platforms may lack credibility as information is non-official.

> The objective if the Social Media campaign is important. If it's awareness and generic to create hype, Social Media would be perfect.

> Social Media initiatives may not be suitable for all companies.

> You can't avoid Social Media, it's becoming a touch point for many individuals. However, using Social Media as an effective tool is vital. Developing a strategy is key and that 'strategy' is something new and often uncontrolled. Unlike traditional PR, many things are well prepared and crafted.

> The scope and reach of PR is changing and Social Media could play a key role in PR.

In a nut shell, I am a firm believer Social Media is going to be an important factor for Marketing and understanding consumer behaviour. The consumer is evolving, and so should traditional mindsets.

Here's a good article by Chris Brogan. Do check it out.

How does a Social Media Strategist fit with marketing

UPDATE:
"Would you hire a social media strategist?" updates are out on Kevin's blog. Check it out!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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My friend Kevin who runs theory.isthereason.com posted an interesting question through LinkedIn recently:

So… would you hire a social media strategist?

It really got me thinking and being a marketing person, here are some of my humble pointers I submitted:

> A Social Media Strategist could be part of the marketing eco-system that will drive activities to meet the business objectives together with the rest of the team.

> A Social Media Strategist needs to understand the marketing lifecycle.

> Will a company hire a full time Social Media Strategist? It depends on the business and the percentage of the strategy deployed on this initiative.

> A Social Media Strategist would probably fit in the Public Relations, Marketing Comms or Market Research domain rather than working for a company itself. At least for the moment. For now, it's a very important skill set.

> The theory is like how Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) works. Understanding the search patterns and key trigger/top of mind words that made Google ever so successful. A good Social Media Specialist will help me understand where to channel my campaigns, how to implement, what approach and eventually when to do it.

> If I hired a Social Media Specialist, I would probably need the following expertise (please feel free to add on!):

- Online social behavioural trends and patterns.
- Understanding my marketing needs and objectives (creating demand, viral marketing initiatives, brand awareness).
- A realistic strategy and implementation plan on achieve the marketing objectives stated out.

> Till the industry is mature enough or when the role is very clearly defined with measurable results, then will this new role be accepted as a fully specialist position dedicated to the company

Thats it for now. I can't wait to see what Kevin's study will reveal. It's gonna be GOOD!

Keep a lookout for that on theory.isthereason.com.

What is next for Microsoft on the internet?

UPDATE 15/4/08: Someone commented on my article on Digg which was directly related to what I wrote below. Check out the article.

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I wrote yesterday that in the article "Google and Yahoo! vs Microsoft" that Yahoo! may be losing market share and position but their recent linkup with Google for the Ad test could be a sign that they are on the right business step. And as I was discussing this with some friends, I mentioned that Microsoft will soon be some sort of trouble if they don't look further downstream.

I woke up this morning and came across this article on www.techcrunch.com - "Gartner Says Vista Will Collapse. And That’s Why The Yahoo Deal Must Happen".

Having always been providing the 'interface' for all to connect with the internet (Windows), they need to make their 'buck' stop further downstream.

Today, all Windows users log on to their PCs, and off they go, straight to Google and every other website's doorstep. And occasionally to a Microsoft related website. This just means a shrinking market for Microsoft online.

Why would I need Microsoft word if I have Google Docs online or Open Office?

With the exception of Hotmail and MSN in Singapore, I don't see much hype anywhere else. Including their 'Popfly' website, which is pretty interesting.

Microsoft desperately needs to work on the internet strategy. How to get that market share back from Google and Yahoo! would be their main challenge.

If they don't do so soon enough, well, Microsoft will be a thing of a past. Just another shop round the corner.

What do you think?

Google and Yahoo! vs Microsoft

I'll be frank. Yahoo! is technically 'dead' to me. They are past their time without looking further beyond their own backyard.

All new innovations thrown out by them recently, it's really nothing to shout about.

Having videos sharing on Flickr? Geez... errmmm... Wow... Why didn't I think of that.

It's a strong sentiment but by the recent Google-Yahoo Ad test, it simply shows they realise that if they don't join in with the internet giant of today, they'll soon be sent packing. If this collaboration takes place, 90% of online ads will be dominated by this partnership. Microsoft would be left scrambling for the crumbs that remain.

Well, why didn't Yahoo! sell themselves to Microsoft then? If I were Yahoo!, I wouldn't too. Microsoft has a sad internet presence (other than MSN in Asia). In the internet equation, Microsoft is hardly in it. As far as I'm concerned, their buck stops at the PC, laptop and device with Windows.

So, smart move Yahoo! Let's see if Liam can become a star again one day.

Marketing is a ball of fluff...

Here we go. I've taken two months of soul searching and mind digging to eventually find time to write something and let's just say I'm back in business.

It's been safe, fail-proof and boring.

With companies cutting down on marketing budgets, marketers and advertising firms are probably facing crunch time. It's a welcomed move.

With the many different campaigns that have been rolling out in Singapore, the effort has been dismal. I've yet to see anything bold, daring and well, just different.

"It's all down to creating the biggest bang with the smallest buck. This simply equates to CREATIVITY."

Let's Go Online...
"Let's go online. It's cheap (sort of), measurable and reactive."

Easy, buy keywords on Google, advertise on Facebook, do a video and post it on You-Tube. Now, we'll wait and watch the sales and boom and traffic soar.

The Missing Equation
I'll keep it short. It's not about WHAT you are going to do. It's HOW. Before knowing HOW, you need to answer this question...

WHY?
> Why would I click on that banner?
> Why would I want your product?
> Why would I download that mobile application?
> Why should I want your service?
> ETC ETC...

Answer the above and your almost have your answer. If you can't, re-think your approach, refine your marketing mix and think again.

Marketing is a ball of fluff. Yes indeed. A fluff of common sense.