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    Twitch Point Planning

    Twitch Point Planning Examples.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I write about and consult on a new media marketing rigor called Twitch Point Planning — the ability to “understand, map and manipulate” media twitch points in ways that move consumers closer to a sale. A twitch point is a media experience where one twitches away from what they are currently consuming. Yesterday, I was looking in my blogger bookmarks and came across a link to Anil Dash, a tech entrepreneur. I visited his blog but did not read deeply, but did check out the About Me section.   Somehow I twitched over to a video presentation of his recorded at Mark Hurst’s 2011 Gel Conference, watched a couple of minutes then left.

    This morning, I was reading a New York Times paper paper article on how Apple’s iPhone 5 maps have replaced Google maps on the new iPhones (brand mistake) and guess who is quoted?  Anil Dash.  Typically, were I reading the Times and saw the name of an expert with whom I wasn’t familiar, I might Google him mid-sentence. (Twitch.) Or, write a blog post about him and the subject. (Another twitch.) Either way, I might not return to my original media moment – The New York Times article. 

    An example of Twitch Point Planning, in real time, would be for Mr. Dash to log on to Google AdWords and buy his name, the words Apple Maps, and make a penny a click ad. Or, he could change his website, based on his appearance in the article, and put an offer on the homepage, to build appropriate business.

    Twitch Point Planning is a new tactic that adds exponential measures of value to social media. It’s active, not reactive. Twitch Point Planning is strategic. Go forth and twitch. Peace. 

    A Twitch Point Planning Example.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Readers have heard me speak of a marketing convention called Twitch Point Planning, a rigor which helps planners “undertand, map and manipulate consumers closer to a sale.” Twitch Point Planning is an outgrowth of today’s, multi-channel, always on media devices.  Today I was reading the NYT and came across an article about George Orwell and the town Katha in Myanmar where he wrote his first novel “Burmese Days.”   Before I had finished the article, I’d powered up the Kindle, logged on the new office WIFI password, and downloaded the book for $2.99.  That’s a Twitch and the newspaper story was a Twitch Point.

    Now, had I only been half interested in George Orwell, or Burma, or Myanmar I may not have transacted business.  So what might sellers of this book put in my way, elsewhere, to move me closer to a sale?  That’s the $64,000 question.  Thinking about that, is thinking as a Twitch Point planner.

    moors google maps

    What will emerge from this model? Well, if the NYT shared it topics and content with the public in real time, or perhaps the day before publishing, Twitch Point Planners would know what searchable terms, pictures, Google maps, images might be worthy of content or advertising attachment.  When Fred Wilson (of  AVC.com) was reading the bio autobiography of Keith Richards on a device and fired up Google Earth to see what moors really looked like, that was a twitch (and possible place for a tourist ad). As more Twitch Point Planning exampled come up, I will share. Unless you beat me to it. Peace

    Retargeting Isn’t Selling.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There is a digital marketing practice called retargeting through which advertisers, thanks to a cookie or pixel tracker, serves you an ad message based upon your previous web shopping.  If you shop online for a Marmot tent at REI and don’t buy, you may see Marmot tent ads for a few weeks or months on various other sites. The “re” in retargeting, in this case, refers to repetitive targeting. Insofar as moving a prospect closer to a sale, this approach is not that great. It’s a frequency play – not that there’s anything wrong with frequency. (Okay, there is a little bit wrong with frequency.  It’s noise.) 

    Twitch Point Planning is a healthy evolution of the frequency model. It is intended solely to move consumers closer to a sale. The sales continuum is a fine thread that extends from not being aware to aware, then interested, desirous and finally purchaser. Retargeting efforts often attempt to hit consumers with a promotion but don’t spend a lot of time understanding the continuum.

    Twitch Point Planning focuses on “understanding, mapping, and manipulating” customers closer to a sale. Understanding is the behavioral part. Mapping the media part. Manipulating the creative and creation part. Digital agencies are best equipped to do this, but often fall short in one or two of the three pursuits. The Droga5s, Barbarians and Anomalies of the world get it but haven’t yet codified the model (and compensation).

    This is science people. Part chess, part art. It is the future of a fairly stagnant, though creative business.  Peace. 

     

    Reducing Lost Sales on the Web.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There’s a great business and brand planning question I often use during discovery: “Who will win the sale you lose?”  If talking to Coke, the lost sale might be to Pepsi (not likely), a store-brand cola, a couponed cola or maybe a tea or flavored water.  If speaking with Microsoft about Office 2010, the lost sale might be to Google Docs.  Conversely, it’s also nice to know who will lose the sale your brand is going to win.  Nice questions — all with actionable strategies. 

    With the growth of the Web and social media and the preponderant ad-supported model where many services are free (see Google Docs), there’s no sale to lose just a lost ad impression.  Readers know I’ve been working on a marketing planning tool called Twitch Point Planning. A twitch point is a point in a media experience, where the visitor disconnects. So, if I’m reading a magazine article there is an Emily Dickenson poem cited, I might twitch over to Wikipedia for a quick side-bar. Or I might Google her and the verse. In this example I’ll likely return to the article, but in many cases I’m gone.

    Why is Twitch Point Planning important?  It’s important because as a publisher or marketer you want to minimize the loss of your audience. Or, you want to twitch them deeper into your site or sales process.  Facebook is such a force because people don’t twitch away very much.  And many marketers are even understanding the value of completing the sale on Facebook.  

    Marketers need to understand, map and manipulate Twitch Points in ways that provide branded value (not spam) at the most appropriate times.  If they do so, they will be able to reduce the space between the consumer and a transaction.  Peace.

    Go Forth and Twitch.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Fast Twitch Media is exactly what it sounds like: media that is reactive, quick and available in bite-size chunks.  The problem with Fast Twitch Media (and the opportunity) is with the twitch. A twitch often results in a transfer from one media moment or type to another. When I’m reading an article on All Things D about Shazam, and click on the link in the middle of the article it takes me to a demo on YouTube, drawing me away from the article itself.  A twitch.  As the publisher of All Things D, I may have lost the reader because the YouTube demo might twitch me elsewhere.

    A key goal in marketing and advertising is reducing the space between consumer and a transaction. Temporally, spatially, emotionally. Not soft metric stuff, hard metric stuff.  Take the air out of the space between the consumer and the purchase and you win. 

    What’s exciting about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web.  What’s scary about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web.  Enter Twitch Point Planning — the ability to map and manipulate fast twitch media and behavior to your product’s advantage. Many are already doing it, but not by design. 

    Shazam, the app that lets your phone listen to an unknown song and identify it for you, is very cool. And useful.  The ability then for Shazam to sell you that song in a click or two is an example of reducing the space between consumer and transaction. A Twitch Point gone right. 

    Go forth and Twitch my people.  Peace. 

    PS. Thanks to Chris Kramer and Netx for the Shazam article.

     

    Twitch Point vs. Engagement Planning

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There is an 8-slide presentation on Twitch Point Planning I’ve shared with a few people in the know and on one occasion, with Michael Stich, COO of Rockfish Interactive, I was challenged to blow it out a bit.

    Twitch Point Planning is the process whereby one understands, maps and manipulates consumers closer to transacting a sale.  It uses any and all of today’s media choices, but focuses on those that consumers are most comfortable using to learn more. A twitch point during a car shopping excursion might be a trip to JD Power site on one’s hand held.

    Mr. Stich asked me to dwell on the suggestion in the presentation that companies need to “add brand value” at key consumer twitch points.  He, like many who talk about engagement and liking and registration and click-through, know that nothing happens in marketing until someone buys something. And though soft metrics are the haps these days, sales and net revenue are what investors and corporations care about. Mr. Stich’s questions about “adding brand value” is one reason WPP purchased Rockfish and why he is a person of interest in the new evolving marketing landscape.

    If strategic planners take the “understand” part of understand, map and manipulate to heart, they’ll get closer to finding ways to positively influence brand value. Twitch Point Planning, though akin to engagement planning, puts more emphasis on delivering brand value, not just customer touches along the journey. And twitch point planning cares about “closing.”  Closing sales. Engagement planning metrics often get stuck in dashboards. A twitch is more of a collision.  Hee hee.  Peace!

    PS. Go see Cameron Crowe’s movie Pearl Jam Twenty. Como se wow!

     

    http://plannersphere.pbworks.com/w/page/17146367/Engagement%20Planning

    Last Touch.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve been learning a lot lately about marketing technology.  It’s fascinating and scary. I recently had a lesson on the digital metric “last touch” before a sale. The lead attributed to the platform where a “conversion” (sale) was made. The cool thing about this metric is it acknowledges there is a continuum of touches leading up to a sale.

    This is great for ecommerce plays but gets a little hinky for retail. A decade or so ago, I came up with a customer journey-esque rigor I called Twitch Point Planning.  A Twitch being a media move from one platform or device to another. An example would be a Twitch from an Inc. Magazine story on the tech scene in Asheville, to a Google search for “Asheville Technology Companies.” This Twitch could happen all on an iPhone or if could take place while listening to NPR in the car, followed by a Twitch to a mobile phone search. Twitches are serial touches. And hopefully trackable.

    The goal of Twitch Point Planning is to move a customer closer to a sale.  In other words, we are not just focusing on the last touch, but on all touches in the queue. We are good with last touch but not so much the serial bread crumb trail. Modeling the rest of the funnel is what martech (marketing technology) is all about.

    The fact that we are talking about it is exciting. The fact that some companies are investing 90% of their marketing budgets on the last touch (Google/Facebook), though, is startlingly shortsighted.

    Peace.

     

     

    The New Yorker and Twitch Point Planning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Twitch Point Planning is a communications planning technique I discuss with clients to get them to “understand, map and manipulate” media consumption in a way that moves viewers closer to a sale.  Twitch Points are called such because today’s tools make it way too easy to multitask and twitch away from one media form to another.  Un-planned, this can be a bad thing.  Planned, it is a good thing.

    I was reading about Conde Naste’s biggest iPad success today, with The New Yorker magazine. 75,000 paid magazine subscribers have downloaded the iPad app and 20,000 people are subscribing via the app alone. As one looks at the behavior of The New Yorker readers (the first part of understand, map and manipulate) it is clear that these readers are there to read. They don’t want to twitch away to Wikipedia to look up authors, or watch YouTube videos of punk bands inspired by the authors.  Readers of The New Yorker want to read and don’t care to be spammed away. So, here’s an iPad app for New Yorker readers:  automatically send incoming calls to voicemail.  Hee hee. Peace!

     

     

    Customer Journey…a Road Too Long?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Do you know your product’s top 5 twitch points? You should.  Customer journey is a new age marketing tool used by comms planners to find better ways to intersect with and influence customers. The journey maps out awareness, activities, research, purchase and out-of-box experience. (Chart courtesy of Frog Design.) Some use the old school taxon AIDA (awareness, interest, desire and action), a dumbed down version.  It’s truly good stuff and a lot more valuable than a simple DILO (day in the life of) media planning approach, but if you follow the Frog Design rigor (chart) you may also end up a little dizzy.customer journey

    Twitch Points are moments when a person twitches way from one media or device in favor of another in search of clarification. Kindle to Google Earth. Newspaper to Wikipedia. Car dealership to JD Power. Best Buy to Amazon. Car radio to Shazam.

    Twitch Point Planning is simpler than the above Frog Design learning scheme. Less complex. Understanding, mapping and manipulating customers closer to a sale is its goal. It needn’t be overthought.  Don’t get me wrong, it needs to be thought, just not overthought. If you find your top 5 twitch points, your five most commerce producing twitches, you don’t need a road map, journey, or KPIs.  You need a good accountant…to count da monies.

    Peace be upon you.

    Twitch Point Planning Explained

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Go Forth and Twitch is the title of a post on something I call Twitch Point Planning. It’s been getting some search traction online. Twitch Point Planning is a communications planning tool ,the goal of which is to move prospects closer to a sale. I define a twitch as a media action when a prospect moves from one medium to another in search of more product information or sales information. For example, if you were reading a novel about a whitewater rafting trip and wanted to search similar vacations, you might pick up your phone and search “whitewater rafting trips.” That’s a twitch. A move from book to phone. That’s how people shop. Across media.

    Most twitches resolve to a Google search. But not all.

    In Twitch Point Planning you have to “understand, map and manipulate” customers to your sales content or point-of-sale.  Rather than looking at customer journey, we manipulate the media and learning journey. Twitch Point Planning is more behavior-based and predictive than is a normal media buy.

    Using he aforementioned whitewater rafting trip, the twitch point planner might attempt to remove obstacles to a sale along the way, e.g., kids too young, skin cancer, water snakes, by placing content along the way – more twitches — intended to remove obstacle. Perhaps under the guise of a “field guide to whitewater rafting for first timers.” Of “first timers discussion board.” YouTube, Wikipedia, Pinterest, the local library — all can be integrated into your Twitch Point Plan.

    Selling is about learning. Let’s evolve our learning tools.

    Peace.

     

     

     

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