Behavioural targeting

I was watching a BBC documentary called Virtual Revolution and they talked about how we have all sold ourselves voluntarily to internet giants like Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, etc and are perfectly happy about that. It was disturbing, even though I knew about it, it still felt uncomfortable to think of it again. I wonder when we all one day move away from them?

As Douglas Rushkoff in the documentary says that "the product online is not an advert, the product online is YOU". You are sold to companies who advertise you their product based on your activities online.

Behavioural targeting is the weapon we're hooked on. Our online behaviour is constantly monitored. A powerful profile of US is created by ourselves. And this profile is sold to third parties who target their product to those who really have taken interest in it. No harm done then? A good overview of behavioural targeting can be found on Mashable by Lauren Drell.

Google is able to predict your future actions based on your search history with their magic algorithm. Recommendation engines decide what you LIKE for you. Netflix is doing the same as Google: they suggest movies that customers are likely to enjoy in the future. That means we're constantly sold the same stuff. People tend to buy products that they know. We're deliberately manipulated with that. We leave behind patterns that are picked up and used. Rushkoff says that "recommendation engines help ME to become ME, prototypical and demographical ME, not an individual with individual decisions". The question rises: what is privacy in the 21st century?

A counter-strike was tried to be given by Attention Trust Attention Trust =  set of principles to govern the Attention Economy based on the self-ownership of the data we create, and specialised software to regulate their use. The Attention Economy is one in which people spend their personal time attracting others' attention, whether by designing creative avatars, posting comments, or accumulating "likes" for their cat photos. Read more about Attention Economy here. So Seth Goldstein created this tool for people to use, but somehow people were not interested and it died. According to Goldstein "people seem to be dumb and happy about sharing their personal info to everyone". Can't agree more :)

On Facebook and MySpace we are categorized rigidly and strictly based on the format THEY provide (e.g. what music we like, are we married/single/searching, etc). Everything is structured and boxed, and you play by their rules, act how they've set everything and they know very well what you want, they play with you like a puppet. Most of us have created a digital profile of themselves, but do we want everyone to know what we thought this morning...also 40 years from now? We're economic pawns on the commercial front-line. Our life is always public. It is always possible to see, analyse and share our information. There is no privacy anymore in the 21st century.

Internet Marketing

When talking about marketing, then no one can ignore the 4 P's:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

But in addition to the traditional 4 P's there are 3+3 more for service industry marketing:

• People
• Process 
• Physical evidence

• Partners
• Perception
• Performance

Here are some keywords and notes about the 4 first P's mentioned + 3 for service industry:
PRODUCT
DIY & customization is a current trend (IKEA). A customer saves money and seems like they don't mind wasting their time finding details in a warehouse and then mounting furniture at home.
PRICE
It is not a smart idea to compete over the price :) Find some other USP's, unless you sell for volume. Selling for less is eventually not sustainable -- how low can you drop the price?
PLACE
Make use of affiliate marketing (e.g. hotel + opera ticket, hotel + restaurant, etc)
There are many internet channels for finding your product/service. Google has come up with many useful search engines, like Google Hotel Finder and Google Trends to name some, to facilitate search on the Internet.
There are many sites that offer booking possibilities, and they all take booking fees. Nowadays quite many hotels and airlines have dropped using their services, instead they have set up their own online ticket/room sales.
PROMOTION
Every marketer's goal is to get their customers' profile and Facebook is a channel companies use more and more (making FB users like the networking channel less and less).

Affiliate marketing is also widely used in promotion: I market you, you market me, we're a happy family (sing it with Barney tune :)) This kind of cross-marketing eases the pressure for finding target groups and joint marketing gives a possibility to create a positive synergy because it creates more USP's concentrated together. Here is a good example of cross-marketing of companies all sponsoring a non-profit film festival in Estonia:

Viral marketing is another trend used nowadays more and more. Young customers step in and do the marketing for you :) Here is an example of a viral video created for a horror film festival in Estonia:

Google Analytics helps you analyse who, when and how much visit your web page. A handy tool for assessing how visible you are.

PEOPLE
Customer service on the web is very important, as people use less phones and more internet. If you give an option to contact you on the Internet, then answer your customers' questions ASAP :)

PROCESS

Up-selling is a method used very widely because it is easy to do and easy to get more money from customers: you add a little more and get a lot more. The same goes for cross-selling your products/services with other companies. For example, travel companies and airlines sell insurance, hotels and events. Post-selling is also a nice way to earn more money. For example budget airlines offer you an option to choose your own seat on the plane, but for some extra money (if you want to travel comfortably, then pay extra for leg space on a plane).

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
Quite many companies have besides a physical store also a web store, the latter supporting the first (and vice versa).

Here are some examples of long-tail marketing techniques:

• new media marketing (e.g. through blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts)
• buzz marketing (word-of-mouth online or real world)
• viral marketing (e.g. through YouTube videos, viral e-mails, standalone  microsites)
• pay per click & search engine optimization (the marketing of websites on search engines such as Google, Yahoo & Bing by focusing on long-tail keywords which have less competition)

PS: When 90% of the world's population just reads the content on the Internet, then just 9% share and just 1% create the content.

PS: People don't buy propaganda anymore. Instead, they value authenticity and honesty. Therefore, grassroots information creation is popular (blogs :)). Moreover, quite many people trust information written by unknown people and their reviews. Emotions sell!