Small Is Beautiful: Data As If People Mattered
In the past, our industry has overwhelmingly focused on short term gain. We continue to do so. Instead of long term solvency, many companies in our sphere opt for immediate cash based on less-than-honest dealings and promises. Focusing on the long term is never an easy feat, but it is a sign of maturity. Our industry needs to take on that level of maturity if we are to survive the challenges we are facing from ISP’s, government, angry consumers and large corporations seeking to end competition in the online marketing space.
“Products created for short-term or one-time use are becoming more numerous and crucial to our way of life. We must develop a throw-away mentality to match our throw-away products.” Alvin Toffler, 1970
We have made email marketing and, for the most part, banner placements expendable parts of our consumers’ lives. By sending bulk email upon bulk email pitching throw-away offers, we’ve created a disastrous affect on the CPM metric. There is no conversation between our users and our businesses. Instead, we’ve inundated consumers with throw-away offers on our creatives that get them to our sites, we explode them with throw away offers on pop under interstitials and we follow them to the next site with post pops, all in a hope to gain a few more pennies. Maximizing the profit on traffic coming to our websites is natural and the way of business. However, doing so by offering throw-away merchandise and services ultimately hurts your business and our industry in the long term. The value quotient for consumers is seriously and considerably challenged by the attempts of email and banner marketers to maximize short term profit. There is a defined limit as to how much value can be extracted by these short term strategies. However, there is a gold mine of value still untapped within our industry – the long term value of the human quotient.
“And it remains true, no matter whom the idea displeases, that no merchant lives at ease. He has put his heart into such a state of war that he burns alive to acquire more, nor will he ever have acquired enough. He has undertaken a wondrous task: He aspires to drink up the whole Seine, but he will never be able to drink so much that there will not remain more. This is the distress, the fire, the anguish which lasts forever; it is the pain, the battle which tears his guts and torments him in his lack: The more he acquires, the more he needs!” Roman de la Rose, 13th century
In his seminal work, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, British economist E.F. Schumacher lays out a vision for economics that took into account the human aspect of existence. In a similar way, we need to take into account the human aspect of data. Schumacher’s basic point is that growth in economic systems is a positive movement; however there is a definite end to any such growth. There is a limit to how much GDP can grow, and balance must be restored to the system of economics in order to fully take advantage of the benefits that our modern economic theory offers. Similarly, we can act as if our data potential is unlimited, however we must face the fact that data and consumer activity is a limited resource. Short term, blasting out the latest and greatest high cpm yielding offer might provide profits. In the short term, amassing staggeringly large databases containing tens or hundreds of millions addresses and profiles can wow your contacts and drive the price for your service up. However, in the long term these tactics have placed legitimate email marketers in the same ranks as those “marketers” with less-than-best intentions according to public surveys. In other words, there is value in analyzing your data for its long term value, and taking into account your brand. There is something to the idea that “Less is More” when it comes to long term solvency.
If we have only trash and trivialities to sell, we must produce trashy and trivial personalities to serve as consumers. Lewis Mumford, 1944
So how do we take into account the long term potential of our data? How do we re-align our practices so that consumers might actually come to value our commercial messages? Whether you’re a website owner, email marketer or advertiser in the online DM world, these are serious questions that must be answered. Consumer personalities cannot be molded by us as the marketer. However, there is value in treating the customer with respect and not just as a piece of data in a spreadsheet. The difficult part is extracting that value as easily as we’ve been able to extract the short term value by large email blasts and tacky html creatives.
Scale back and look at the larger picture. Align your verticals according to consumer wants. Provide services relevant to a consumer’s interests. Perhaps include content, but be original in your newsletters or website placements. You may be surprised at you’re your increased CPM’s. Where will you and your company be in 5, 10 or 25 years? Think of the future and how much value can still be extracted when you take into account the human quotient of data.
Sam Harrelson is co-editor of the Digital Moses Confidential. Reach him at [email protected]
